Shelf Life

Paradise Found

Freezing is the kind of show that you buy online, not at Best Buy, because no one wants to walk up to the counter with a boxset featuring a girl with her clothes exploding off her tits. It doesn't matter how nonchalant you look, or if you're dressed in your Sunday finest, the cashier will probably think you're a weirdo. Which is a shame, because despite the oodles and oodles of gratuitous fanservice in Freezing, it's actually kind of fun. Assuming, of course, you can accept the fact that the story isn't that well thought out, and there are many aspects of the premise that are hand-waved off with lines like, “Scientists are still trying to figure this out!” and “We're not quite sure how this works yet.”

Although you might assume the title is in reference to the temperature at West Genetics Academy, since everyone's nipples are always especially pert, it actually refers to one of the techniques that males with bonded with special females can perform. In the future, weird alien creatures called Nova have started invading Earth. Nobody quite knows why they're there or where they're from, but they're bad news. Luckily, females with special powers called Pandoras have the ability to fight against them. Genetically modified to use “Stigmatas,” they can call forth unique weapons from thin air, and they can bond with male partners called Limiters, who can then carry out “Freezing” attacks, which immobilize opponents. In order to form that partnership, though, the pair has to go through a “Baptism” which is alluded to so vaguely that it may as well be a euphemism for banging.

Our two main characters are unique in that the guy, Kazuya, can Freeze all by himself, and the girl, Satellizer, a) has a sweet name like Satellizer, b) is insanely powerful and good at fighting, c) refuses to let anyone touch her except Kazuya, and d) is grafted with Stigmatas from Kazuya's dead sister. Inevitably, Kazuya finds himself wanted by two ladies, but he only has eyes for Satellizer. She doesn't get along with a ton of people, though, so the vast majority of the series is taken up by scenes of her fighting with upper classmen. As one might interpolate from the boxset cover, this involves a lot of battles where clothes get blasted off by various weapons and special attacks.

It may not come as a giant shock that some of the Ikki Tousen folk were also involved in Freezing, including director Takashi Watanabe, but aside from the girls-getting-their-clothes-blasted-off-during-battle similarities, the two can't really be compared. Sure, both series use ridiculous premises that allow these gals to even be in these battle scenarios, but to give Freezing partial credit, at least their clothes regenerate once they get blasted off. Not that that stops the girls from bouncing around most of the time.

Despite its over-the-top fanservice, though, Freezing is oddly compelling. Sure, the whole Pandora/Limiter/Nova/Stigmata thing is a little needlessly convoluted and absurd, but the series is also really dark at times. In several instances, we see girls' limbs get brutally torn off, and there's a very Go Nagai-esque scene where girls who've previously been fused into an alien get ejected again, oozing out like nightmares exploding out of a soft melon. But for every episode of dark, grotesque action, there are just as many senseless fillers—there's a pointless episode where all the lead girls are battling for prom queen by posing in revealing outfits. Unlike real proms, though, nobody spent the rest of the night crying in a bathroom stall.

While I was mostly accepting of the fanservice in Freezing, there were a few scenes that I thought really could have tried harder. Yes, I get that fanservice has a pretty low bar to clear when its goals are amusement and titillation, but I'm tired of the cliché where there's some evil girl who licks her lips when she thinks about domination and does the “Oh ho ho!!” laugh. On the upside, for those who think that Freezing has just Too Much Plot and not enough boobies, there are six whole bite-sized OVAs who are almost entirely devoted to naked girls and titties.

Ultimately, I had a good time with Freezing. It's definitely not a series that I'd ever feel the need to watch again, but I didn't mind watching it once. For those who are really into fanservice, Freezing is kind of fun. It's packed with action and it's surprisingly dark at times, and by the time the final conflict was swelling, I found myself needing to know where it would go. [TOP]

Lumping a film like Mass Effect: Paragon Lost into a catch-all category like “shelf worthy” or “rental shelf” is difficult. Obviously, if you've never played a minute of Mass Effect in your life, your enjoyment of Paragon Lost will likely be very much dampened. Sure, it kind of works as a stand-alone action blockbuster, but it really only works at its full potential as part of the franchise. And in fact, if one were to try to watch it without prior knowledge of the video game series, there'd be a zillion questions, like “Who are these talking alien dudes?” and “Who the Hell is Commander Shepard?” and “Why do we care about some guy named Vega?”

The last question, actually, is kind of valid. Before I started watching the movie, I even thought to myself, “Vega? Really? They made a movie about Vega?” If you dig deep into your memories of Mass Effect 3, you'll remember that at one point, when he's talking to Shepard, he mentions how most of his old crew was obliterated while they were protecting a civilian colony against a Collector attack. Paragon Lost tells that story. I guess it's a little surprising that's the side story that the creators decided to tell, but as part of the greater Mass Effect compendium, it's mildly interesting and it works.

A collaborative effort between EA Games, BioWare, Funimation, and T.O Entertainment, this movie is fairly engaging and it embraces the original vibes of the video games. With slick animation by Production I.G, watching the movie feels very much like playing the games, from the rugged landscapes to the fluid mech animation. There were times when I caught myself thinking, “Man, if only I could get to the top of that rig, that'd be the perfect spot to snipe somebody.” The writing should be commended, too. Even though a lot of the banter between the soldiers feels like it was lifted out of every single war movie ever (like the cheesy quasi-pickup lines thrown at the tough female soldier, and her sarcastic rebuttals, or the ever-present uber-macho one-liners like, “Why don't you grow a pair?” and “Okay, ladies, are you gonna kiss next?”), it works in the context of this movie. I laughed a lot, and it helped to make the movie not feel so serious and drab. One expects video game-level dialogue from a video game-inspired movie, and Paragon Lost delivers exactly that. It's a video game anime, not Malick.

The dub is effective as well. As much as it still makes me laugh to see Freddie Prinze Jr. doing voice work nowadays, he performs well as Vega. In fact, all the actors have an easy rapport with one another, and if I didn't know any better, I'd think they all recorded their lines in a pub somewhere. The only thing I couldn't really take seriously were the Collectors, who've always given me a Saturday morning cartoon villain vibe.

So, the question is, should you buy it? If you're a big Mass Effect fan, yes. That almost goes without saying. I enjoyed this movie, but I really can't imagine why anyone would blind-purchase this if they weren't already fans of the games. The movie is fun, but it's not fun enough that someone would watch it first and be convinced to rush out and start playing all the games. But as far as video game-inspired titles go, Paragon Lost works. I didn't think I'd really ever care about Vega's past, but it's a clever way to work something into the overall canon and still have enough creative rein to design a movie.[TOP]