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Read or Die |
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Date: March 7, 2004 09:20 AM
By: Mac G |
Ah, Anime. As part of my yearly renewal for GNAT (Geek and Nerd Activists and Technologists), I get to sit through about seventy-two solid hours of Anime every six months. This time around, the small group of Leprechauns, people who speak mostly in Klingon, and I popped Read or Die into the DVD player, had a couple soothing cups of Raktajino and watched the magic unfold...
Read or Die is a three episode series that was produced for the direct-to-video market in Japan. Unlike the US, where direct-to-video usually means a bad movie and/or Andrew McCarthy, Japan has a wonderful OAV market, where you'll find a lot of the best Anime. Read or Die is about Yomiko Readman, a bookish bibliophile who is also known as "The Paper" and employed by the British Museum. The story tells of her quest to stop the theft of a rare book.
As the story unfolds (no pun intended), we learn that Yomiko has some unique super powers: she can control paper. At first you might think this is a silly super power, but the story tellers in Read or Die handle the power with such skill and grace that it makes perfect sense. In her quest to rescue the stolen rare books from the evil madman (every super hero series has one, right?) Yomiko is joined by Ms. Deep, a super spy with phase powers (she can phase through things like a ghost). During the course of series, Yomiko and Ms. Deep come up against several members of an assembled villain team (i-jin), including such historic notables as Jean-Henri Fabre, Otto Lilienthal, Genjo Sanzo, and Hiraga Gennai, all lead by Ikkyu, a 15th century Zen master (look 'em up and learn a little something).
Read or Die is what League of Extraordinary Gentlemen should have been--a super-powered romp through historical and literary figure land--but with a compelling plot and fully (albeit briefly) rendered characters. I won't even get into what recent developments with copyright protection is doing to writer's and artist's ability to build (and improve) on characters of recent history, but if Read or Die is any indication of the level of story telling that can come from using historical figures, I think it's about time we let the mouse out of the bag, so to speak.
As a DVD, there is little extra here. Viewers can choose between subtitled or dubbed versions of the episodes and access character bios, which is handy to keep the historical figures straight. Where this DVD shines is in story and character design. It's nice to see a refreshing take on the standard super hero/spy plot, and with gorgeous animation and outrageous action scenes, I strongly recommend picking this up. Or, as Doug "K'narck Do'Urden" Pritchart might say, "lojmIt yIpoSmoH!"
Those crazy Klingons....
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