Reviews

In the 50's there were two common kind of war movies in Japan about WW2: the truly anti-war, humanist films and the "anti-war" flicks that would still hold a bit of patriotic spice, focusing more in military aspects and in the spectacle. This movie is neither of them.

Desperado Outpost, written and directed by famed director Kihachi Okamoto - who would go to make many other memorable war films during his career - is basically the result of mixing a western with a detective story and with WW2 set as backdrop. The very first scene of the movie shows it: our protagonist is resting in the grass, with his saddle as pillow. Suddenly, he gets up and jumps to the back of his horse, riding it into the wild Chinese steppes.

Sergeant Okubo - masterly played by a cheeky Makoto Satô - is our Lone Ranger. After hearing about his older brother apparent suicide in a remote Japanese frontline outpost, he rides his horse across the vastness of Northern China to uncover the true of it. He first stops at the frontier town of Shogunbyo, which is like any frontier town on a cowboy movie, with brothel and jail, and which serves as frontline headquarters. There, Okubo meets many colorful characters, as you might expect. The responsible for the place, a sadist lieutenant who took over command after the former commander gone mad, tells Okubo about the so called "Desperado Outpost". The outpost is the most dangerous sector, isolated in the middle of enemy territory, and is guarded by Company 90, a unit made up with the army's troublemakers and other problematic types. Okubo proceeds to the infamous outpost to continue his investigation, and there he meets even more colorful characters. Aside from that, we will also have a drama with an old love, Chinese bandits roaming around, the Chinese communist army to play the part of the indians and even a gun duel. So, again, basically your classic western film package.

Don't come expecting criticism about Japan's role in the War or what they did or didn't done in Chinese territory, or even the drama of people catch by the war. This is an adventure movie, packed with black humor and cynicism. And it's pretty good and entertaining exactly because of that.

An animated short with sleek animation is nothing new when considering Studio Colorido. But the problem here is that Typhoon Noruda plot was not made to be developed in only twenty and something minutes. It's like you took any of director Mamoru Hosoda films and compressed it to one quarter of its original runtime. The initial ruse between the two boys is never really explored beyond its immediate consequences, even if it hints deeper personal reasons, the sobrenatural threat is never explained beyond the "your world is in danger" to have any impact or sense of urgency, and the characters don't have enough time to broke out from the spectrum of anime cliches. If I said that Azuma is the sad boy with long, brown hair, Saijo is the angry boy with short, dark hair, and Noruda the mysterious "out-of-this-world" girl, I have given you all their characterization in this film. Not that this short is bad. Its animation is good and some of its shots are pretty noteworthy. But it falls short of any bigger impact it seemingly wanted to have. Neither a typhoon or a wind, this short is simply a brief breeze, that will pass thought you without lefting any lasting impression. So, why Sentai Films decided to release it in Blu-ray and even give it its own dub, its beyond me. Funnily enough, when production of Typhoon Noruda was first revealed, it was originally announced as a feature-length film. To fill in time when shown in Japanese theaters, Typhoon Noruda was presented as a double feature together with other short of the studio, "Hinata no Aoshigure". Incredibly, said short-film manages to better developed its unpretentious story and have more exuberant animation in its few 17 minutes, than Typhoon Noruda.

Just as the title says. The 80's are full of those forgettable, unmemorable OVAs, which are not flashy enough in animation to at least receive a small honorable mention in some blog, or trashy enough to be infamously remembered in the same kind of blog.

Story follows middle school girl Hanegi Manami who, of course, is late to school. Before she can leave to school, her gramps show up in front of the house with his new power armor. Paying no mind to such trivialities, Manami gets a ride with her senior schoolmate, love ensues, but forgets her lunch-box. Gramps sets up in his power armor to deliver the lunch- box, while being chased by his old rival, also in a power armor of his own. To shorten things up, Manani ends being challenged to duel gramps rival bodyguard, Nick Jagger, in the most school bully manner. The power armor duel ends becoming a wrestling match, with right to last minute surprise challengers and German suplex.

OK, so the story is "that" and the animation is nothing special, but it is funny? Well, kinda. Personally I thought it to be more silly than funny, but it still stole a laugh or two from me. But hey, we have Koorogi '73 performing the opening song and Banjo Ginga doing the voice of Nick Jagger. The few lines, at least. We also have the cameos of some other anime characters of the time in the school background, like Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, Max from Macross or Sayla from Gundam, for example. So, in the end is just another silly little OVA of the golden ages, in which the staff was probably just having some dumb fun in doing it. Another one of those excuses to draw mechas and cute school girls in embarrassing situations. If you like to dig this kind of stuff, go for it. If not, I would suggest that yours 40 or so minutes would be better invested in other place.

As matter of interest, it seems that Izubuchi and Nagano worked as characters designers for this OVA. Another interesting curiosity is that Nick Jagger was the name of a character from a never made series, proposed in 1985 to Sunrise by Masami Yuuki and Izubuchi.