Shelf Life

Kuri Runnings

Our humble protagonist Hajime attends junior high in Tenmo, a town he moved to when he was 10. One day a mysterious transfer student, Muryou, arrives, wearing a school uniform that hasn't been popular for generations. Hajime sees something he shouldn't and he suddenly finds himself in the midst of a conspiracy perpetrated by certain Tenmo residents. At the center of this plot is the Shingu, a giant, god-like, robot-thing that sometimes appears to defend Tenmo from alien spacecraft.

Apart from Hajime, Muryou, and their friends, the adults of Tenmo get a surprising amount of screen time. Jiltosh is a local eccentric collector of Hawaiian shirts who also happens to be an alien dignitary who has learned the local customs. He subjects new alien visitors to "welcome parties" and generally gets every adult character in the show drunk every third episode or so. Shingu would be more aptly titled “Secret of the Nomikai Wars”.

This show should be awesome and exciting, but it has absolutely no interest in being that kind of show. Instead it plods lackadaisically forward through Hajime's final exams, summer vacation, and the school sports and cultural festivals. Don't get me wrong, Shingu does a good job of making Hajime's slightly-futuristic school feel unique, and even the festival episodes don't feel tired compared to newer series. The same is true for many of the supporting characters – even though student counsel vice president Nayuta is a strong-willed hot-cold type who wants to do everything by herself (and thus has to inevitably learn that true strength comes from her friends working together), she feels like a real person and not just an archetype.

It makes me feel self-consciously bloodthirsty to say that I was disappointed the series has a low body count. I don't expect all alien invasion stories to be as testosterone-driven as Independence Day, but it seriously tried my patience when attacking alien soldiers were talked down by school teachers over tea…more than once.

The dub is adequate, but unmemorable. Billy Regan sounds too old to be believable as Hajime. He has the character's attitude right, but he sounds vaguely miscast. A few incidental festival songs the characters sing have been given new lyrics in the dub, but in the subtitles, the lyrics are directly given as “Wasshoi! Wasshoi!” Student counsel president Hachiyou sounded so odd singing in English that I continually switched back to the Japanese track.

As I mentioned above, the show came out in 2000, but the cel-based animation (or perhaps early digital paint?) made me think this was much older. The thinpak collection from Right Stuf re-packages a series they've been releasing since 2005. I'd never watched it before because the trailers looked generic and forgettable. The box comes with a color booklet that includes some cute 4-koma comics, an interview with the director, production commentary, and extensive cultural notes. This is absolutely necessary, since Shingu is one of the most "Japanese" shows I've ever seen. I would have never picked up on the significance of all the jizo-like statues, gohei streamers, and autumn moon viewing if I wasn't obsessed with Japanese culture already.[TOP]

Fortunately, well before Part Two, things start to look up. I was drawn into the rambling wuxia tale of Taito and his Divine Warrior friends as they face off against Keiro, an evil (or evil-ish) general aiming for the throne. Is the fate of the characters tied to the stars they represent, or are they free to make their own destiny? It's all very Back to the Future III.

The series gets bonus points in my book for having Taito experience a deep and realistic depression at the beginning of Part Two. He sleeps for days, loses his appetite, and he even tries to scratch off his divine star mark in anger. Taito has plenty of reasons to be upset; he thinks his best friend died to save him, he curses his heavy fate, etc. Taito's friends try to snap him out of his depression in thoughtful ways.

After seeing both Hero Tales and Fushigi Yûgi, I'm assuming that the legend of the Divine Warriors (or the Celestial Warriors) is some standard Chinese folktale, but I'm having trouble finding more information about it (in English, anyway). I don't think it coincidental that a lot of the extras in this show look like throw-away characters from The Twelve Kingdoms, drawn more simplistically. Also, like Twelve Kingdoms (of which I am fond), at the center of Hero Tales is the concept of the divine right of kings (you don't vote for kings!). When an emperor loses the mandate of heaven, earthquakes and famine cause strife for the people until such a time as a heaven-approved ruler is found and once again takes the throne. Hero Tales seems to put forward that you can make your own fate, but it disappointingly (and suddenly) backs off of that angle at the last moment (what the heck?!).

Although the characters all have at least two sides to their personalities, the character design is incredibly poor. Taito has the exact same bangs as the archer Hosei, making them sometimes look weirdly like identical twins (ironically there are actual long lost family members involved, but I won't spoil it). At least some thought has gone into Taito's coat, which looks vaguely like an oendan outfit. But if you're into anime for the "art style," Hero Tales is going to be a huge disappointment.

The dub is OK, (I especially like the manly Jonathan Brooks as Koyo, the ship's captain), but the translation goes off the rails at times. Although the subtitles seem reasonable, some of the courtly speech in the dub starts to get slap happy with lines like "Whither the real sword?"

This would be a fine show for a syndicated Sunday afternoon timeslot (do those still exist?) and I think 10-year-old boys (and me) would enjoy watching it as such, if it weren't for the buckets of blood in this series (especially near the end). The high number of arrows to the chest would never pass muster at any network's S&P department. The final episode in particular is suddenly much better animated (complete with three-point shading), but it could never, ever be aired before midnight in America. That's too bad, really, because I think kids could really get into this show (important note: I am not a parent). Even if they couldn't follow the political plot, the show is careful to include at least one fight scene per episode.[TOP]