This week in Netflix

September 2, 2008 on 3:10 pm | In Insanity, Movies, Netflix |

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?

Silent Mobius

As Tokyo faces an onslaught by Lucifer Hawk, a demon determined to wipe out mankind, Officer Katsumi recalls what led her to join the Attacked Mystification Police, an elite unit of supernaturally powered women charged with protecting the planet. A postapocalyptic cyberpunk adventure that blends elements of action, science fiction and horror, this anime film features stunningly detailed visuals.

Dear Japan,
Please, please stop. Stop with your little girl heroes, your obsession with police and detectives, and your desire to see Tokyo destroyed by demons or robots or whatever crap your self-loathing creative team comes up with this week. Stop. You, as a people and a country, are better than this.

For instance, there was a time when people associated Japanese cinema with the master Akira Kurasowa (we share a birthday, by the way). Seven Samurai was considered the best foreign film ever made at one point. People fawned over you guys. Now, where’s the love? One-third of the films you produce involve some sort of elite unit of supernaturally powered women charged with protecting the planet, one-third are overly-bloody gangster films, and the final third are horror movies. How did you fall so far?

The part that gets me is obsessions. You constantly depict Tokyo being destroyed by something, in this case a “demon”. When Americans did that in Independence Day, people were shocked. It was a big deal. Sure, you get some property damage in American action films, but usually it’s fairly limited in scope - think Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard. But you Japanese just love seeing Godzilla or Mothra or whomever beat the crud out of your capital city, killing your populace, film after film. Why?

And the cop thing. There used to be a rule that every anime had to have a fat cop as a comedic device. Now if there isn’t a fat cop, there’s a competent cop as the main character. Or detective. Or bounty hunter. Some sort of law enforcement. American films have cops in them too, but half the time they’re corrupt and the other half of the time they’re forced to play outside of the rules (again, think Die Hard). In fact, American films like seeing average Joes take on the bad guys instead of cops. So why do you insist on shoe-horning the police into all your movies?

I’m not even going to go into the tentacle thing. You guys have lived on an island, surviving off squid for too long.

In short, stop. Please stop this downward, yet circular trend you’ve fallen into. Stop the futuristic techno-crap. Stop with your post-apocalyptic obsessions and screaming desire to be ravaged by demons or robots or monsters. Stop naming your characters the Attacked Mystification Police, that’s just stupid. You need a 5-year moratorium on film/animation and you need to spend that time thinking about what you’ve produced as a nation for the last 20 years and how you’re going to make up for that.

Start by hosting a World’s Fair.

7 Comments »

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1. Fucking brilliant, E. You should introduce yourself as E and then say, “Like the drug. One taste of me gets you all horny.” They’ll love that in Japan.

   Now I’m going to forward this to my girlfriend because we’ve been talking about the unique perverseties of the Japanese people of late.

   Comment by Hardtravelinghero — September 3, 2008 #

2. I have often maintained that the Japanese, as a society not individuals, are insane. Every week
   I read another netflix description that is as loony as this one is. And every week I say to myself, “No, it’s not bad enough to say something”.

   Comment by Ethan Kaye — September 3, 2008 #

3. Yeah, I totally see what you mean about Japan’s preoccupation with destroying Tokyo in any number of ways, and fascination with monsters (guys in rubber suits) and/or giant household insects running amok.

   Much of that annihilation anxiety/fascination came about after World War 2. Remember: Japan still holds the record as the ONLY country in the world that has ever had a nuclear weapon used against them. That has psychologically affected (or some could argue, damaged) that nation forever.

   Artistic expression has always commonly been an outlet in response to traumatic events. Shortly after the bombs were dropped, many artists/writers obviously became obsessed with this world-changing chapter in history.

   Watching Tokyo getting blown up/melted/eaten in a fictional setting, such as a movie or cartoon, are ways to process that event from a “safe” distance. Even though it happened way back in 1945, the effects of an atomic bomb last for a VERY LONG time. But even if modern anime and sick horror movies aren’t directly related to the bombing, they’re inspired by earlier successful works or major events that were.

   So until Nagasaki and Hiroshima stop glowing in the dark, we’re likely to see more tentacle monsters and giant robots at a store near you.

   Comment by Joe - Foreign Film Reviewer — September 3, 2008 #

4. You know, I was going to mention the link between WWII and the current state of Japanese film, but I felt the article was going a little long so I didn’t. That cataclysm has been echoing through the national consciousness pretty steadily since the end of the war. I think what has been produced, strangely enough, is a reflection of what actually ended up happening with Japanese culture: it went all techno-crazy. In real-life, the Japanese became an highly industrious, gadget-heavy, country of the future after the war, while in anime the Japanese have become police-heavy, militaristic, and, again, techno-crazy. Plus demons everywhere, which is a tiny link to the past. But using the same ideas over and over again and just rearranging them in a new sense isn’t progress. It’s photocopying (as you can tell by the art), which is why a lot of stylized art is dull after a short while (think ancient Egypt). I think that the real triumphs in Japanese culture are the pieces that transcend the prevailing genres because, really, there’s just so much out there that it’s white noise at this point.

   Comment by Ethan Kaye — September 3, 2008 #

5. Really, how DOES the bomb explain hentai penis demons?

   Is it because the nation was atomically raped? What? WHAT the F***?!

   PS: Anime has gotten repetitive and boring for me as well. I haven’t liked anything since… probably Cowboy Bebop and FLCL. The last movie I liked was probably Princess Mononoke. There were a few I watched such as Paprika and Steamboy for the visual style, but they just sort of let me down. I’m not sure why. I’m sticking with the few shows I like, and Berserk, though I may be forgetting one or two series I liked, and Vampire Hunter D (80s), Akira, The Animatrix, and Ghost in the Shell for movies. Again, there may be one or two I liked that I am forgetting. I haven’t seen Spriggan in a long time. That might go up there. Batman: Gotham Knight didn’t do much for me, but that may be the writing more than the style. Mostly written by American and maybe a few Brit writers from what I recall of the credits.

   Comment by Hardtravelinghero — September 4, 2008 #

6. Gotham Knight was Japanese animation but US writers (maybe British, I’m not 100% who though). I felt kind of ripped-off by it, considering I spent full price on it at Circuit City. I just didn’t like it and that the segments should have been longer.

   Comment by Ethan Kaye — September 5, 2008 #

7. That’s actually an old movie–it’s just being released on DVD for the first time in the U.S. It originally came out in 1991.

   Comment by Summer — September 5, 2008 #

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