The goal of my blog is to share the joy and love I have for unknown comics, unknown animation and underground artists.
Today we are looking at an animated movie called "Ancien and the Magic Tablet" created by Signal.MD and published in the United States by Gkids. The dvd that we are looking at has two names. It was published around the world as "Ancien and the Magic Tablet" but is known in the United States as "Napping Princess." The movie was directed by Kenji Kamiyama who is famous for his directing of the series Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and Eden of the East. He is also credited for working on legendary series and movies like Patlabor, Burn Up!, Hakkenden Legend of the Dog Warriors, Jin Roh, and Blood the Last Vampire. With that in mind, Kamiyama-san is an extremely impressive guy who comes with the resume of one of the legends.
The story of Ancien and the Magic tablet revolves around a teenage girl who has constant dreams about the same magical world. She dreams so much about this world that it starts to blend into reality. It is an action movie and it follows the theme of Millennium Actress (by Satoshi Kon) in that it constantly bleeds in and out of one subject to another. The only difference is mechs and magic. It has a good sound track that makes you want to see more action as the story goes along. The villains in the show are hilariously odd and this girl needs to stop sleeping. She sleeps so much that I think she has a mental condition that needs to be looked into...
The story focuses on a tablet that can change reality and has a sub setting of prior to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The movie switches between the magical world and the real world. Some critics have stated that they felt that the story revolved to much about those two and it took away from the story but these silly people do not know anime or how it works. This was a pretty decent movie. The Tokyo Olympics is mentioned but the theme is a race against time and they have to accomplish their goals before that time hits. The musical score gives you a thrill feeling for a good potion and it is nice to see someone do the time split concept that Satoshi Kon was famous for. It was confusing but adorable at the same time so you felt compelled to see how the story turned out.
Now the story had its moments but none of us watch anime for the perfect movie. We already have that in the 80s / 90s movies like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Patlabor and Blood the Last Vampire. This movie was a challenge of theme, thrill and story. It blends computer animation and 2D animation but luckily it did this for only for backgrounds and mechanical elements. It left the 3D away from the characters as much as it could. The animation style is the late 2000s but it gives off a Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex and Eden of the East feel so it is nice to see similar animation in completely different contexts. I recommend this movie to anyone that wants a thrill movie that is fun for the whole family. It is family driven and will be confusingly fun for children. The acting in it is great for Japanese but the English is livable.
Score time:
Art: 6/ 10
Story: 7 / 10
Flow of movie: 6 / 10
Impression after reading: confusingly fun
Reviewed and shared by Harry Kohles of Metairie, Louisiana. Former art student with a fetish for corny realism. Helping to share comics and mangas you never knew existed~
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