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| From http://cdn03.animenewsnetwork.com/images/cms/buried-treasure/21262/humanoid5.jpg |
Dir. Shin’ichi Masaki
Japan
Work #19 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema
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| From http://static.minitokyo.net/downloads/16/00/230016.jpg |
[Note – The version watched for
this review was English dub only. Since anime dubbing can affect an anime’s
nature itself and one’s opinion on it, bare it in mind while reading this
review and if you want to see it afterwards.]
Considering this is the third
shot form anime I’ve reviewed for this season, it both shows that there are a
disarming amount of begotten anime like this in existence, even if I admit I
enjoy The Humanoid greatly, and that
I am biased with picking this sort of thing to cover even if it sadly doesn’t
have as much release here in Britain as it did in the USA. This sort of OVA or
short length anime are small, full bursts of colour, ideas and optimistic
promise, that of successes remembered today, the sadly forgotten, or the
misguided folly. It’s beautiful, both sincerely and perversely, to look at
stuff like this where they were being churned out for the Japanese video market
and anything could get through. If you can get past the large eyes and the
sexualisation of schoolgirls, anime, especially the older works of the eighties
and the nineties, is just as much a smorgasbord of intellectual concepts to rival
art cinema, and psychotronica to rival cult and exploitation cinema. It is able
to have analysis of the human existence and man’s place in the world on the
same shelf as sex ninjas and, in an example I would love to review one day, God
as a space grub who somehow requires a spaceship to travel around space.
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| From http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l115/Skellor/BT/BT2/humanoid4.png |
Is something like The Humanoid of artistic merit though? To
be honest, to only view cinema through an intellectual’s mindset of ‘serious’
films is as likely to be as clichéd, strained and potentially kitsch as these
lesser known animations fostered upon Western distributors. To accept this
gaudy material exists allows one to admit how gaudy and tacky real life can be
as well and to be able to appreciate great art even more as well as things like
this anime. The Humanoid is viewed
by most anime fans as worthless junk. I like it though. It’s not an ugly mess
like Roots Search (1986), or utterly
clunky like Psychic Wars (1991). It is
completely unoriginal to the extreme, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying
it.
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| From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJdZWH7T8IVwYYhQOPUOCjz5my99sR-sv1RlP0ECFuBgDeRiHyteY_JiUVNlHtyMYRwRvUG2dCKjwRogzBhUwmf581Fdg1tI_zEYqD91E04fmiI9ocFe4pOh_hxqC7-ZnYOI9jAS3KIY/s1600/the-humanoid-4.png |
On a harmonious planet, Governor
Proud – called so for his selflessness and modesty – plans to awaken a giant
spaceship to take his people back to their home world, despite the warnings of
his peers of how it nearly destroyed large parts of the lush, green planet when
last activated. His desire to have both keys to activate the ship will cause
him to cross two Earthmen, Dr. Watson and his daughter, and his creation Antoinette,
a robotic woman who slowly learns what the human emotion of ‘love’ means. At forty
five minutes it trundles along and never reaches anything spectacular, pretty
coloured and yet very badly animated in places. Why do I enjoy this anime
despite its glaring flaws? Beyond personal taste, it’s that it is so innocent
in its content – not offensive, not stupid, not mind numbingly dull – and such
a product of the eighties. It’s only real contribution to anime’s history is
that Antoinette’s design was by Hajime
Sorayama, famous for his art involving female robots, including the album
cover for Aerosmith’s Just Push Play (2001). The idea of this
titular humanoid and the story of the whole anime is meat-and-potatoes sci-fi,
a story of good versus evil, and the folly of one’s ego, going back to the
beginnings of mankind in ancient myths, continually returned to and made into
this anime. The robot learns to be human and the heroes include two space
jockeys - one of which, to paraphrase the Anime
World Order podcast and a quote from their review of this anime, has the
hair and moustache of a black Burt
Reynolds – who must go against the deluded Governor Proud and his robot
soldiers. Its slightly muddled in its plotting and generic, but with its
eighties synth theme about dancing in the rain, its delighting for me to watch
something that came from a period, not just from Japan, where animation like
this was cranked out continually. I can enjoy its one dimensional plotting,
despite it being silly and one dimensional, because it never insults my
intelligence or makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Its fun even if I’m one of
the only people who can enjoy it. It did elicit laughter quite a few times out
of me, but that caused me to embrace it even more.
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| From http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KXcN2cpTlmM/0.jpg |
Then there is the obsession with
coffee through the film. It’s not as if the English voice actors just lost
their minds from tiredness and decided to worship the thing that was keeping
them going, but in scenes of the anime itself characters are continually
drinking coffee. Not a particular brand, but as propaganda for the caffeinated bean
in general. It’s always hilarious when the dialogue goes into talking about the
black gold, although one worries about the safety of this natural Eden of a
planet when its populous, judging from this anime, is either between a chemical
induced A.D.D. or a depressive caffeine crash. It’s always wonderful when an
anime, no matter how lacking it may be everywhere else within it, can have a
quirk this amusing to it, adding to The
Humanoid’s charm. It is another work I’ve reviewed that is for a very
acquired taste only, but I have to admire something this cheerfully empty despite
the fact I shouldn’t.
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| From http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l115/Skellor/BT/BT2/humanoid1.png |
Now if you excuse me, I have my
coffee to finish. And if you don’t believe me, here is a montage of coffee
related quotes from The Humanoid
someone has spliced together and has appeared on YouTube. Who knew subliminal advertising about hot liquids of a refreshing
taste could be so barefaced and better for it?
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