Three Excellent Examples of Horror Anime: Another, Moryo no Hako, and Shiki

The face of madness revealed in Moryo no Hako.

As someone who lives in a country where animation is overwhelmingly aimed at children and general audiences, I'm fascinated by the amount of freedom that animation has over in Japan. In particular, I'm still amazed at how anime is used as a means of telling serious horror stories, something that you'll never find here in the U.S. In this post, I will look at three horror anime series--each of which are based on a novel--that are great examples of how hand-drawn monsters, murders and mysteries can chill the soul of even the most jaded horror fan. Read on ...

Title: Another

Year of Release: 2012

Number of Episodes: 12

Plot Summary: In 1998, teenager Koichi Sakakibara moves into a new town while his father is away teaching a college in India. When his fellow students begin to die under unusual and shocking circumstances, Koichi learns that his class at Yomiyama Middle School has fallen under a bizarre curse that has haunted the school since 1972. With the help of his friend Mei Misaki, he sets out to uncover the secret behind the curse before his entire class dies.

Comments: Another is kind of like a slasher story in the sense that almost all of the potential victims are teenagers. However, unlike most American slasher stories that characterize teenagers as sex-crazed, booze-binging jerks, the teenagers in Another are likable, hard-working and normal (for the most part). Even in cases where the teenagers are abusive towards each other, they are often doing it out of fear of the curse; understanding that the kids are just trying to make the best of a bad situation, trying to survive a curse that's as inexplicable as it is deadly, makes it easier to sympathize with them and thus adds to the shock every time the body count goes up--and boy howdy, does it go way, way up.

Some horror fans might be frustrated with the amorphous, elusive nature of the curse. While there are some inconsistencies in the curse's mechanics (i.e., who dies and how, who goes insane and who doesn't, etc.), I thought that curse's unpredictability made it so much more intimidating and added to Another's vivid, Gothic atmosphere of dread and disorientation.

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Title: Moryo no Hako (a.k.a. Box of Goblins)

Year of Release: 2008

Number of Episodes: 13

Plot Summary: In post World War II Japan, a failed attack against teenage girl at a train station serves as a prelude to a series of grisly murders involving severed body parts placed around the countryside in boxes.

Comments: Moryo no Hako is a brilliant mashup of pulp mystery, sci-fi and occult horror. Both stylish and well-written, it travels through a wide variety of subjects--extortion, demonic possession, transhumanism, religion, ancient folklore and so on--as it tells a story about killer's obsession with perfection and immortality. Curiously, Moryo no Hako approaches the familiar plot device of "mad science" from a unique perspective. Usually, the term "mad science" is shorthand for destructive scientific research that has run amuck or has originated from a mind of questionable sanity; in Moryo no Hako, we see a science that is so ghastly and morally bankrupt that it has the capability of pushing people to madness--even people who appear outwardly rational.

Of the anime series listed in this post, Moryo no Hako is most demanding of its viewers. Some segments are shown out of sequential order, so you'll see many things in the early episodes that won't makes sense until you get closer to the end. Furthermore, for as grotesque and depraved as this series can get, many of the episodes are thick in dialog exchanges, something that may bore some horror fans. However, this is neither pointless discussion nor exposition-heavy posturing; the dialog is loaded with crucial detail and each segment contributes something interesting and essential to the mystery. Between the out-of-sequence snippets and well-scripted dialog, watching the numerous threads of Moryo no Hako coalescing into a final revelation is like watching a flower slowly unfolding, petal by petal, into a disturbed, perverse blossom.

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Title: Shiki

Year of Release: 2010

Number of Episodes: 24 (22 in the original broadcast, with an additional 2 as part of a subsequent video release)

Plot Summary: During a hot summer in the '90s, a small town in a remote part of Japan named Sotoba comes under attack by a family of vampires.

Comments: Based on the plot summary, Shiki sounds like anime's answer to Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. While that's not an entirely inaccurate assumption, there's more to Shiki than that--much, much more.

Between its large cast of distinct characters, a well-paced narrative, and soulful commentary on the nature life and death--as well as what it means to be forsaken and what it means to be free--Shiki is a top-notch terror yarn that most vampire fans will enjoy. Even though some of the story is told from the vampires' perspective, these vampires are monsters, both deliberate and unintentional, with no attempt to romanticize them (Twilight this isn’t). Furthermore, killing the Shiki vampires is not a quick, simple task where the undead suddenly turn to ash; no, the staking, beheading and sun exposure of these vamps involves plenty of effort and buckets upon buckets of blood.

Getting it Right with Getter Robo Toys

Because I live in the U.S. and not Japan, my first introduction to combiner robots came through Japanese toy lines that were imported into the U.S. during the '80s: Gobots, Transformers and Voltron. Since each of these toy lines had its own cartoon series, it was generally assumed that if you saw a group of vehicles or robots combining together to form a gigantic robot in the cartoon, there was also a toy available that could do the same thing. After all, who would taunt potential toy buyers with a cartoon that showed vehicles and robots doing something that their toy versions couldn't do, right?

What I didn't know at the time and only found out recently was that the concept of a combiner robot actually began in the '70 with a manga and anime series called Getter Robo. In Getter Robo, three combat jets would combine together to form a giant robot; depending on the sequence of the jets' combination, a different giant robot would be formed. Getter Robo was very popular and it spawned plenty of merchandise and numerous anime and manga sequels; in fact, these toys were also included in Mattel's Shogun Warriors line.

However, there's a drawback to the first Getter Robo that's peculiar for a Japanese combiner robot: For as ground-breaking as the combiner robot idea was at the time, no one seemed to know exactly how the combat jets could come together to form anything, let alone a giant robot. As you can see from the video clip below, even the animators behind the original anime series had to take significant shortcuts during the jet combination sequences.

From what I can gather, the dominant attitude towards the first Getter Robo toys and model kits is that companies would produce the jets and the giant robots, but they wouldn't produce jets that could combine to form a giant robot. Apparently, this approach worked, but it seems very strange when compared to the countless combiner robots toys that Getter Robo influenced. Subsequent jet and robot designs for most of the sequels were much more detailed and provided clear views of how the jets combine, but the early designs for Getter Robo are astonishingly vague in their combination mechanics.

Of course, if you really, really want to collect toy replicas of the original Getter Robo jets that can combine into various robot configurations, you can--but it will cost you. The Perfect Change Getter Robo set, the most detailed and scale-accurate combining toy based on the original Getter Robo design, costs hundreds of dollars. The cheapest set, Dynamic Change Getter Robo, is a chibi-scale interpretation of the original design and it costs over $100.

The Perfect Change Getter Robo set.

The Dynamic Change Getter Robo set.

The problem with Getter Robo toys sort of reminds me of the Transformers Masterpiece collection. The animators who worked on the first Transformers cartoon took many liberties with the toy robot designs in order to create robot characters, all of the purpose of selling the toys. Now, decades later, Transformers fans can by transforming toy robots that look exactly like they did from the original cartoon from the '80s, but each Masterpiece figure costs several times the amount of a regular transforming toy robot.

Figures from the Transformers Masterpiece collection.

The Mighty Miniature Robots of Machine Robo

Sometimes, I don't know what I would do without the Internet, particularly when I look up things that were well-known at one time but have since faded into obscurity. In the ancient times when print media ruled the information landscape, it could take up to days, weeks, and even months to track down publications that mention trends or products that are no longer considered popular by mainstream culture. With the Internet, the same kind of search can only take a few hours or even minutes, especially because amateur writers can publish whatever they want online without being solely driven or restricted by profit.

This intro brings me to the topic of this post, Bandai's Machine Robo toy line. Machine Robo started in 1982 and it was one of the earliest toy lines based on robots that can transform into vehicles. Bandai started exporting these toys to other countries in 1983, and Tonka distributed them in the United States under its Gobots line. As anyone who grew up in the '80s knows, Tonka's Gobots quickly faded when they competed against Hasbro's more popular Transformers line, another group of transforming robot toys imported from Japan. Yet while the Gobots vanished from American pop culture during 80s, I discovered via the Internet that Bandai's original Machine Robo line kept going in Japan throughout the following decades. Read on for more thoughts on Machine Robo and what makes it so resilient in the face of other more popular toy robot lines.

Honestly, you could write a master's level thesis paper on how badly Tonka handled the import and marketing of Machine Robo toys. From its poor coordination with Bandai to its partnership with Hanna-Barbera in creating a lackluster cartoon to help sell the toys, Tonka's Gobots line was inevitably doomed against Hasbro, which partnered with Toei Animation and Marvel Comics (which had previous experience with Japanese robot toys through Mattel's Shogun Warriors line) in creating the marketing campaign for the Transformers line. In the end, many American toy buyers from that time remember Gobots as the simpler, inferior version of the Transformers. While that may be true to some extent (Tonka's incompetent marketing certainly didn't help), that's not a completely fair assessment of Machine Robo toys. While the Transformers had a better marketing campaign and more sophisticated designs, I think that Machine Robo/Gobots were the superior toys for three important reasons: price, durability and scale.

Price: Because the Gobots were sold at cheaper prices than Transformers, many concluded that a cheaper price must have meant a lower-quality product. Yet by selling most of the Gobot figures at $3.00, kids could quickly build an army of transforming robots for the same price it would cost to get a handful of the main characters from the Transformers line. It's like comparing Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy line to generic army men toys: The army men might not have marketing support of Hasbro or the G.I. Joe brand name, but their cheaper price makes it easier to build huge armies and wage epic, imaginary battles.

Fun trivia fact: The original line of small Machine Robo figures were 

called the "600 Series", because each figure cost 600 yen.

Durability: Most of the robot figures in the Gobots line were simple in their design and had a significant portion of die-cast metal in them, which made them perfect for rigorous play. Much like the die-cast Matchbox and Hot Wheels vehicle toys, kids could "wreck" the Gobots in all sorts of ways and they'd still remain viable as play items. In contrast, the Transformers toys relied more on plastic than die-cast metal; while the high usage of plastic probably kept their production costs down, it also made them much more fragile. I owned one of the more complicated Autobot car toys when I was a kid and for as cool as it looked, all it took was one unfortunate tumble off of a table to break one of its weaker yet transformation-essential parts. This kind of problem didn't happen with the handful of Gobot figures that I had, since they were just as durable as the die-cast metal toy cars I collected.

Scale: Of all their advantages, scale was the most important for Machine Robo/Gobots. Their small size kept their prices low and added to their durability, and keeping them at a fairly uniform scale presented more opportunities for play. Some larger-sized Machine Robo/Gobots were released as part of the line, but most of the figures were between three to four inches tall. Not only did their small size make them easier to store and transport, but it also allowed for cool playsets. Furthermore, because the smaller figures were roughly the same scale as Matchbox and Hot Wheels toys, kids could use the playsets, track sets and vehicle launchers from those lines for their Gobots figures--say, imagining the robots battling each other near a multi-level parking garage or on an aircraft carrier.

A vintage Machine Robo playset.

Tonka's failed Gobots line is part of Machine Robo's history, but that's hardly the end of it. Even as Tonka was desperately trying to keep space on toy store shelves for it Gobots, Bandai released new kinds of Machine Robo toys and launched the 47 episode anime series, Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos. Chronos gave Bandai the opportunity to rerelease older figures and significantly redesign previous figures.

The MR-03 Jet Robo from the Machine Robo 600 series ...

... and its Chronos-inspired redesign.

The Chronos anime series also introduced new Machine Robo figures, such as an evil transforming combiner robot called Devil Satan 6. (Yes, a robot with a name that includes the words "devil" and "Satan"--how cool is that?).

Devil Satan 6--six evil robots in one!

Chronos was followed by other anime series based on the Machine Robo line--including Machine Robo: Battle Hackers and Machine Robo Rescue--each with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, the anime series kept Machine Robo going in Japan, even though it had disappeared everywhere else. In particular, Machine Robo Rescue added some interesting new combiner designs to the Machine Robo line.

Left to right: TMR-01WL Wing Liner and TMR-02SG Siren Garry,

two deluxe transport/combiner robots from Machine Robo Rescue.

One of the key selling points for the Machine Robo Rescue line was its series of five-robot combiner sets. These sets featured one transforming robot and four look-alike transforming drones that combined into a single larger robot; however, the components from each of the five-robot combiner sets could be connected to each other, which allowed kids to assemble the robots into a wide variety of larger machines.

Transforming robots and drones from three Machine Robo Rescue combiner sets ...

... and one of their many possible forms of combination.

Taking a cue from its previous Rescue series, Bandai's most recent success was with the Machine Robo Mugenbine line, a line that placed a heavier emphasis on combination than transformation. As described on the Machine Robo Mugenbine Wikipedia page, "The majority of the series consists of figures called Mugenroids, basic block-proportioned figures that can contort and fold into various shapes, most notably a perfect cube, to form the core of its various modes. ... Rather than the traditional shape changing method of previous figures, Mugenbine uses numerous interlocking pegs and sockets to attach and remove components and relocate them in order to form different modes. While all figures have at least two official alternate modes and most have official combinations with one to three other figures, the concept of the line is to allow you to assemble your own animal and machine creations and build your own robots of various size and numbers of sets, an activity encouraged by Bandai to the point where figures with no official combiner modes come with larger head parts to help create your own."

A Machine Robo Mugenbine set of combiner robots.

Think of a robot-centric system of Lego bricks, and that's the Machine Robo Mugenbine line in a nutshell. The first Mugenbine toys appeared in 2003 and they were such a hit for Bandai that it released several additional Mugenbine series in the years since. The flexibility of the Mugenbine toys has encouraged fans to build increasingly ambitious super combiner robots, as seen in the pictures below.

The Counter-X site features a very comprehensive section devoted to Machine Robo/Gobots, including a historical review of the toys, robot figure reviews, and scans from catalog pages. Additional Machine Robo/Gobots toy reviews can be found at Collection DX, Random Toy Reviews, and Hisparobot.

Great Moments in Toy Robot History: Shogun Warriors

The origins of popular and recurring trends in pop culture can sometimes be difficult to pinpoint, especially trends that have gone on for so long that they become an accepted fixture of everyday life. For this post, I'm talking about Japanese robot toys that are imported and sold in the U.S. I'm sure robot fans who are around my age will remember how Japanese robot toys dominated the shelves of toy stores during the 80s, but the trend of U.S. toy companies securing the rights to sell Japanese robot toys in North America actually began in the 70s with Mattel's Shogun Warriors. While the Shogun Warriors line didn't last long, its influence would impact the toy industry for decades to come. Read on for my retrospective of this trend-setting toy line.

The idea of importing toys from one country and then selling them in another is not a new idea unto itself. However, what made the Shogun Warriors different was that included merchandise from many different points of origin but was sold under a single brand name. Mattel marketed the robot toys as if they all inhabited the same shared universe but they actually originated from over a dozen different Japanese "Super Robot" anime series, series such as Brave Raideen, Gaiking and Voltes V.

To encourage the perception of a unified product line, Mattel gave the licensing rights to Marvel Comics to create a Shogun Warriors comic book series, where the robots coexisted as a single force for good against an evil alien force. There was also a syndicated cartoon series called Force Five that was set up to show five of the anime series upon which the Shogun Warrior toys were based. Unfortunately, the Shogun Warriors line was winding down by the time Force Five made it to the air and only a handful of TV markets carried the series for the brief time that it ran.

Not to limit itself to Super Robot anime, Mattel also secured the rights to Godzilla and Rodan, two monsters from famous Japanese Atomic Age kaiju movies, so that they could be added to the Shogun Warriors line as monsters for the giant robots to fight. As far as I know, Shogun Warriors is the only toy line that has combined Super Robot anime with live-action kaiju films; from that perspective, Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim (2013) could also have been named Shogun Warriors: The Movie.

A Godzilla figure from the Shogun Warriors line, complete with 

launching spring-loaded claw and extendable tongue of fire.

Shogun Warrior robots came in three different sizes: 24 inches, 5 inches, and 3.5 inches. Even though the 24-inch robots are what most people remember about the Shogun Warriors line, you could see some items from the robot toys' original anime series in the Shogun Warriors' "Action Vehicle" toys. For example, the Rydoto Action Vehicle was actually from the Brave Raideen anime series and the Kargosaur Action Vehicle was from Gaiking.

 

Curiously, some of the Shogun Warrior Action Vehicle toys had nothing to do with any Super Robot anime series; they were just toys that Mattel apparently decided to include in the line anyway because they looked similar enough to the robots. After all, none of the anime series upon which the Shogun Warriors toy line was based aired on U.S. television during most of the line's release, so it wasn't as if the kids who were buying the toys would know the difference.

The Shogun Warriors' Heli-Capter Action Vehicle 

(Japanese TV show of origin unknown).

The Shogun Warriors line didn't last long and completely disappeared from toy stores within a few years of its launch. Regardless, its approach to licensing Japanese robot toys in bulk was also used by other toy and model kit lines that were released in the U.S. during the 80s:

* Hasbro's Transformers line was a combination of Takara Tomy's Diaclone and Microman lines, and the Transformers marketing campaign depicted the robots and sentient beings from another planet.

* Matchbox's Voltron line was a combination of robot toys from three anime series: Beast King GoLion, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV and Lightspeed Electroid Albegas. However, when the Voltron cartoon series was assembled to help promote the toy line, footage from Albegas was not included.

* Revell's line of Robotech model kits combined robot kits from three anime series as well: Fang of the Sun Dougram, Super Dimension Fortress Macross and Super Dimension Century Orguss. Yet when the Robotech cartoon was assembled, footage from Dougram and Orguss were not used and Macross was edited together with footage from Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.

One of Revell's Robotech model kits that's originally from 

the Fang of the Sun Dougram anime series.

Over time, the concept of mashing together Super Robot anime series into a single line of merchandise eventually made it back Japan itself with the arrival of Super Robot Wars in 1991. Super Robot Wars is a series of tactical role-playing video games where players can choose from a selection of Super Robots from various anime and manga series. This selection also includes the titular robots from Mazinger Z and Getter Robo, two of the robots that were also featured in the Shogun Warriors toy line. The Super Robot Wars game series continues to this day, and has since expanded to include anime and manga series of its own.

To learn more about the Shogun Warriors, check out the following fan sites:

* Wildtoy's Shogun Warriors Page

* Weird Science-Fantasy's Shogun Warriors Page

* Ted Terranova's Robot Page.

A Shogun Warriors Halloween Costume.

Big 'Bots and Belligerent Behemoths Clash in Pacific Rim (2013)

Since I'm planning to wrap up 2013 with a look back at a few examples of Japanese robot toys--one of my favorite kind of toys--I thought I would kick off this year-end series of posts with a review of Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim, one of the big-budget releases from last summer that I missed when it was playing in the theaters.

Summer blockbusters have never been held in high regard by the film critic community, and such critics have been particularly displeased with Hollywood's over-usage of CGI effects to produce increasingly bigger and louder blockbuster movies. To be sure, such criticism is not entirely inaccurate: CGI does permit the creation of larger-scale environments and set pieces in ways that miniatures, matte paintings and other practical effect techniques could never allow. As such, CGI has enabled the production of many, many summer blockbusters that are enormous in terms of spectacle but conspicuously short in terms of creative ideas and conceptual depth. Pacific Rim is not one of those movies, because del Toro eagerly packs every frame of his film with enough details and ideas that fans who know what they're looking at will be reviewing this movie for years to come. Pacific Rim is a "big" in every sense of the term--big CGI, big landscapes, big battles, big ideas, and big ambition. In fact, I can't think of how any other special effects technique other than CGI could have accommodated del Toro's story.

In a nutshell, Pacific Rim is about a group of pilots, military leaders, scientists and technicians who build and operate giant robots called "Jaegers" that are designed to fight a seemingly endless series of giant monsters called "Kaiju" that have been emerging out of the Pacific Ocean for years to regularly trash the nearest city. The movie takes places during the closing days of the Kaiju war, when the Jaeger team is planning its final offensive that promises to put an end to the Kaiju menace.

Pacific Rim is a well-made film in every aspect: a well-written script, a well-cast ensemble of actors, and a well-directed approach to the material. Yet to really appreciate this movie, one has to understand that it is a tribute to Japan's "Super Robot" fantasy-science fiction genre and its "Real Robot" spin-off subgenre. Super Robot and Real Robot anime and manga usually involve giant robots that are piloted by human beings to fight giant monsters, other giant robots, or both. The Super Robot genre began in the mid-50s with the manga series Tetsujin 28, and it has continued with popular titles such as Mazinger Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Patlabor and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

One of Pacific Rim's Super Robots, complete with "Rocket Punch" action.

Pacific Rim also draws inspiration from Japan's kaiju movies (ergo the collective name of the giant monsters in Rim), and the monster designs in the movie demonstrate how much del Toro and his production crew love and understand kaiju films such as Godzilla and Mothra. Nevertheless, most of the film's other details--the characters, their technology, the situations they face and the world they inhabit--are clearly modeled after Super Robot and Real Robot narratives. To put it another way, Pacific Rim is to Super Robot and Real Robot stories as Star Wars is to pulpy sci-fi space operas such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

With so many details spread throughout the movie, some aspects feel somewhat lacking. In particular, so much detail is applied to movie's fictitious world (a world where there's even a black market for dead Kaiju parts) that the characters feel more like broad personality types than fully-developed individuals. We see bits and pieces of who they are and their roles within the beleaguered, monster-pummeled society they represent but not much more than that; at times, it almost feels like watching Top Gun with giant robots instead of fighter jets. Yet del Toro's enthusiasm for the material permeates every aspect of the film, so I enjoyed geeking out with him just to see what kind of unique interpretations he could put on machines and monsters that are so closely associated with Japanese pop culture. To say that del Toro went above and beyond what he set out to do is an understatement, making this one of his best films to date.

If you don't understand why anyone would want to make a big-budget, live-action film based on anime and manga stories about giant robots, then Pacific Rim probably isn't for you. Otherwise, if you love big brawling 'bots and are looking for an example of CGI done right, then go grab some popcorn and treat yourself to del Toro's magnum mecha opus.

Painting Giant Robot Model Kits Anime Style

I love detailed miniature replicas of monsters, robots and spaceships from my favorite horror and sci-fi franchises, but the ability to competently assemble model kits of such replicas has always eluded me. I particularly admire those who can paint kits of robots, spaceships and other machines in a way that makes them look used (exposed to the elements, battle damage, etc.). In fact, I frequently regarded this kind of modeling skill as a remarkable achievement ... and then I saw this:

Yes, this really is a photo of a plastic model kit.

From what I read on Kotaku, a talented model builder in Japan has painted a Valkyrie kit from the Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime series (which is known to some as Robotech) in a cel shading style that makes the model appear as if it was pulled directly out of the Macross cartoon.

This makes sense, actually--since the Valkyrie design was originally intended for animation, why not paint a Valkyrie model kit like it was part of a cartoon? The picture below provides an overview of how each piece of the kit was painted to achieve the comprehensive anime look.

Click here to see the article about this kit on Kotaku. Click here to see the original Japanese post of this kit, which features many more pictures of the finished product.

Mental Health Care Runs Amuck in Psycho-Pass Anime Series

One of the best things about Japanese anime is that as a means of storytelling, it is not limited to specific areas of subject matter. Whereas most American animation is usually limited to kid-friendly material, anime can be applied to just about any genre (drama, romance, horror, etc.). Thus, when I heard about the anime Psycho-Pass, a hard-boiled cyberpunk crime thriller series that spans 22 half-hour episodes, I just had to see it for myself. I'm glad I did--it's one of the smartest sci-fi shows I've ever seen.

The overall plot of Psycho-Pass will sound familiar to anyone who frequents the crime thriller genre: a group of law enforcement officers who are in search of an elusive suspect who is connected to a series of brutal, gruesome crimes. Yet where Psycho-Pass differs greatly from other crime thrillers is in its setting, a futuristic Japan that is constantly monitored by an omnipresent computer network called the Sybil System. Such a setting puts a unique spin on standard crime thriller character types and conventions, resulting in a challenging and engaging narrative that sci-fi fans will relish.

It is difficult to describe Psycho-Pass without explaining the rules of the world in which it takes place:

* Each Japanese citizen has a "Psycho-Pass", a psychological profile that is routinely read by the Sibyl System. If a citizen's "Crime Coefficient" (a particular value within a Psycho-Pass) rises to a certain level, the Sibyl System will require that citizen to get state-approved psychiatric counseling to lower the Crime Coefficient. If the citizen refuses counseling and/or his Crime Coefficient stays at a high level, he will be identified as a "Latent Criminal" and face a life sentence of institutionalization.

* A person's Crime Coefficient can rise due to stress, anger and trauma, so citizens are strongly encouraged by the state to avoid situations where such emotions can be triggered. For example, artists (musicians, writers, sculptors, etc.) are required to get a state license to prove that their work does not cause the Crime Coefficients of their spectators to increase. Unfortunately, even though the Crime Coefficient is a measurement value that was devised to predict and deter criminal activity, victims of violent crime can also become identified as Latent Criminals due to the trauma they experienced at the hands of criminals.

* Law enforcement duties are divided between two classes of officer: Inspectors and Enforcers. Enforcers are Latent Criminals who show an aptitude for law enforcement work and are tasked with the violent and stressful aspects of law enforcement. Enforcers have more freedom than other Latent Criminals (such as their own living quarters and permission to visit the outside world with the accompaniment of an Inspector) but they are still held in low regard by the general populace; characters frequently refer to Enforcers as nothing more than "hunting dogs" for the Inspectors. It is also not uncommon for an occasional Inspector to be downgraded to an Enforcer.

Psycho-Pass reminds me of other sci-fi TV shows such as Dollhouse and Orphan Black in that it centers on an advanced form of technology and then uses a series of episodes to examine the daily lives of the people who are most immediately impacted by it. As such, Psycho-Pass poses many thought-provoking questions about the relationship between society, law and technology. In particular, it frequently ponders whether it is more important to have a society that is truly just or a society that is successful at convincing its citizenry that it is just. If this is your kind of science fiction, then I can't recommend Psycho-Pass highly enough.

Robotech Double Shot: Love, Live, Alive DVD Arrives this Week, Robotech/Voltron Comic Book Crossover in the Development

Some franchises can be very, very difficult to love. Take Robotech, for example. For an anime series from 1985 that many fans love, it can't seem to catch a break. The sequel series The Sentinels never got off the ground, and Robotech: The Movie wound up being a forgettable mess. The last major entry in the series' canon was Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which was released on home video back in 2006. That particular release arrived with a bit of fanfare: It was preceded by a series of Robotech comic book miniseries by Wildstorm (a publishing imprint of DC Comics) that retconned a few key points in the saga to prepare for the new Shadow Chronicles addition. Adding to the hype was Toynami's release of a few expensive Shadow Chronicles vehicle and robot collectibles.

Shadow Chronicles finally arrived in the midst of the hype, promising a new series of adventures in the Robotech universe, and then ... nothing. No new animation, no new comic books, nothing. There were some releases for the Robotech role-playing game since 2006, but that meant nothing for fans who don't play RPGs. Now, after seven years, more Robotech stuff is on its way, although not all of it can be considered 'new'. Read on for a rundown on Robotech items that are scheduled for release for this week and beyond.

Robotech: Love, Live, Alive is going to be released this week on DVD. Love, Live, Alive will involve the New Generation cast of characters from the series, and it will focus mostly on Lancer Belmont (a.k.a. Yellow Dancer) and his memories of the Invid invasion of Earth, from the Invid's arrival to their later departure. Early reports about this release also hinted that the Southern Cross character Dana Sterling will appear in Love, Live, Alive; I'm assuming that, based on what was seen of Sterling in Wildstorm's Robotech: Love and War comic book miniseries, her departure from Earth will coincide with the early days of the Invid invasion.

I have mixed feelings about Love, Live, Alive. Even though it's billed as a new release, only one-third of the animation is actually new. The remaining two-thirds consist of recycled animation from the original Robotech series and animation from the 1985 Genesis Climber Mospeada home video release that was also titled Love, Live, Alive. I can only speculate how the animation from 1985 will match the more recent animation, but I doubt it will look good. Furthermore, Love, Live, Alive will not be available in the Blu-ray format, nor is it being released as its own feature. It's only being released on DVD as part of a two-movie set that includes a re-release of Shadow Chronicles. Thus, Robotech fans who already bought Shadow Chronicles will have to buy it again to see Love, Live, Alive. Ugh.

Nevertheless, I'll still give Love, Live, Alive a go because its producers went to the trouble of reuniting the original voice cast for the New Generation to record dialogue for the new release. It should also be noted that this American version of Love, Live, Alive was directed by Gregory Snegoff, who provided the voice of New Generation character Scott Bernard. In real life, Snegoff was married to Lisa Michelson, the actress who provided the voice of Dana Sterling; Michelson died in a car accident in 1991, so it feels fitting for Snegoff to be directing Sterling's swan song in the Robotech series.

While Love, Live, Alive isn't getting the same hype as Shadow Chronicles, a news release from last week indicated that new Robotech comics will be on their way sometime in the future. Dynamite Entertainment has picked up the Robotech license and it plans to begin releasing new Robotech comics soon. (I'm guessing the new comics will appear in 2014, since no publication date was provided in the news release I saw.) Dynamite's Robotech comics will launch with a crossover miniseries involving Voltron, another hit anime franchise from the mid-'80s. Click here to read MTV's exclusive interview with Tommy Yune, the current creative director for all things Robotech, about the crossover.

I don't have much of an opinion about the Robotech/Voltron crossover. I realize that this is probably Dynamite's way to stir interest in its readership about Robotech through Voltron, since Voltron comics are selling quite well for Dynamite. However, what I'm really concerned about is where Robotech will go once it gets its own comic book series again. Will the comic give fans interesting new chapters in the saga (which is what happened when Eternity Comics had the license from 1988 to 1994), or will we be getting more retcons that go nowhere, like the Robotech comics from Wildstorm?

Mazinger Z Gets a Major Upgrade in Bandai's DX Soul of Chogokin Line

From what little I know of Japanese culture, I can tell you two things: Japan really loves robots and it really, really loves miniatures. Therefore, it only stands to reason that many of Japan's robot toys and model kits will have insane amounts of detail. For example, there's the upcoming DX Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z set by Bandai, which was released in December 2012.

I'm not very familiar with Mazinger Z as an anime series, but this collectible toy that's based on its titular robot is sure to impress both anime and non-anime fans alike. Sure, the price tag of this toy is jaw-dropping--it costs around $400--but with its jaw-dropping price comes equally jaw-dropping amounts of features and detail. Read on for more information about this robot toy collectible.

From what I understand, Bandai has been using the Soul of Chogokin line to release a series of collector's toys based on Japanese robots from various anime series from the 70s through the 90s. These are expensive, high-quality toys made of plastic and die-cast metal parts, and some of the toys also have accessory items that are sold separately--weapons, display bases, etc.--to add more details to the toys. For interested collectors with smaller budgets, Bandai has also released the Super Robot Chogokin line, which features smaller and cheaper toys based on a similar selection of robot anime titles.

The DX Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z set comes with a 12 inch tall replica of the Mazinger Z robot. The robot's armor can be removed to reveal its internal parts, and it also includes sound effects and light-up LED eyes and chest plates. Its display base is modeled to appear like a storage hangar for the giant robot: it features cranes, display lights, and places to hang the removable armor pieces. Click here for more details about the set, and see the pictures below for a closer look at this amazing anime robot replica.

In keeping with the "Soul of Chogokin" title, the Mazinger Z's removable armor plates are a nod to another Japanese robot toy from the '80s. In 1981, Bandai subsidiary Popy released a "Chokinzoku" ("Super Metal") toy based on the Tetsujin 28 anime series (a series known in the U.S. as Gigantor) that featured removable, magnetic panels that exposed the robot's internal parts. However, because the toy's panels were made from sheet metal and not die-cast metal--hence the toy's designation as "super metal"--its production costs quickly overshadowed its profits and it soon disappeared from toy stores. The Chokinzoku Tetsujin 28 toy remains a thing of legend among Japanese robot toy collectors in spite of its short shelf life, so it's fitting for the DX Soul of Chogokin Mazinger Z set to reflect its conceptual predecessor in terms of design and features.

Popy's Chokinzoku Tetsujin 28 toy

(photo courtesy of Collection DX)

Click here to read a review of the Chokinzoku Tetsujin 28 toy at the Collection DX site, a review that also features a link to an English-translated excerpt from the book Chogokin Chronicle that details the history behind this rare toy.