Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

REVIEW: ROBOCOP / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: JOSE PADHILA / SCREENPLAY: JOSHUA ZETURNER / STARRING: JOEL KINNAMAN, GARY OLDMAN, MICHAEL KEATON, SAMUEL L. JACKSON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The only audience likely to take a real shine to Jose Padhila’s achingly unnecessary remake of RoboCop is one that hasn’t seen a single frame of Paul Verhoeven‘s still-awesome 1987 original. Those who saw RoboCop first time round or have since caught up with it, won’t be able to resist shrugging their shoulders, furrowing their brows and muttering, “Yes, but why…?” all the way through this serviceable, slick but soulless and pointless trip back to a well drained dry by poor sequels, cartoons and umpteen cheap TV movies.

Verhoeven’s movie (from a script by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner) was a tough and unrelentingly visceral experience laced through with tart, biting social commentary. Padhila’s version is content to briefly flirt with its social conscience by presenting Samuel L. Jackson as a futuristic TV presenter who Shouts A Lot (Jackson’s default setting these days) about how great it would be if America had the same robot enforcement technology employed by the US Army overseas. Happy to oblige, Sam. When cop Alex Murphy (Kinnaman) is blown up by a car bomb (with none of the stomach-curdling slo-mo relish of Peter Weller’s original Murphy) robotics conglomerate OmniCorp steps in to convert his remains – essentially his head, some innards and his right hand – into a revolutionary robot police officer. A RoboCop, if you will. Now more machine than man, Alex struggles to come to terms with his new situation unaware that the powers which created him – Omincorp’s head honcho Raymond Sellars (Keaton) and chief scientist Dennett Norton (Oldman) – have very different plans for his future.

Superficially RoboCop is enjoyable enough, but tearing out the heart and, some might say, the purpose of the original just leaves this hollow shell of a film, an action movie whose action sequences are distinctly underpowered and which, with no subtext to support it, is really little better than some straight-to-DVD sci-fi movie, albeit one with an untypically distinguished cast. Kinnaman passes virtually unnoticed as Murphy and both Keaton and Oldman do their best to make an impact in the clichéd bad CEO/well-meaning scientist roles they’re lumbered with. The visual CGI make-over is as efficient as we might expect – Robo’s climactic battle with a bunch of robot drones may generate a flicker of interest – but no amount of 21st century movie magic can make RoboCop 2014 anything other than a tepid, bland and entirely unnecessary husk of a film. Newbies might be impressed but us oldies have seen it all before, and seen it done a damn sight better.

Extras: Featurettes / Deleted scenes

REVIEW: FOR ELISA / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JUANRA FERNANDEZ / SCREENPLAY: JUANRA FERNANDEZ / STARRING: ANA TURPIN, ONA CASAMIQUELA, LUISA GASAVA / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 30TH

Named after the Beethoven composition Für Elise, Para Elisa is a Spanish horror film with a simple enough premise. Ona Casamiquela is Ana, a fine arts student (in a role that you could imagine starring a younger Jennifer Connolly) who takes a babysitting job that quickly turns sinister. While the sum of its parts are innocuous and trite, together it makes for a surprisingly compelling film.

Dolls are innately creepy and a staple of the horror genre, from Dolly Dearest, to Child’s Play and Jigsaw’s tricycle-riding mascot in the Saw series, but they’ve lost a lot of cultural prevalence and potency as a trope. The unsettling elements of Para Elisa aren’t related to the idea of dolls, per se, but more a fear of adolescence, and Elisa’s dependence on her mother is rather unnerving.

Ana Turpin is chilling as the titular Elisa, reminiscent of Kathy Bates in Misery, but it’s her mother Diamantina, played by Luisa Gavasa, who steals the film, decked out like a demented Maude from Hal Ashby’s cult classic.

There’s some pretty spooky stuff here too, made spookier off camera, relying only on the sound. Just because you can show something doesn’t mean you should; cinema, at its best, functions on trickery and illusion.

At only 75 minutes long, Para Elisa manages to create tense and claustrophobic interactions between Elise and Ana alongside the sleuth element of Ana’s off-again-on-again boyfriend Alex (played by Jesús Caba) attempting to find her.

Whether or not Para Elisa is supposed to be a comment on the frivolous and fickle fashion industry or the preservation of youth is unclear. In many ways the narrative would have worked very well as a short story, intertwining Gothic aspects with adolescence as in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber.

The most exciting and transgressive horror cinema is coming out of Europe, and Spain, in particular, has really been delivering the goods over the last twenty years or so: The Devil’s Backbone, The Orphanage and Tesis are all great examples. While Para Elisa doesn’t quite step up to the plate, it’s a notch above a lot of twaddle getting churned out.

Extras: None

REVIEW: AFTER / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: RYAN SMITH / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: STEVEN STRAIT, KAROLINA WYDRA, MADISON LINTZ / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

When two awkward people, Freddie and Ana, meet on an otherwise empty bus and discover that they grew up on the same street, they make awful small talk until the moment something crashes into their bus and everything goes dark.

Forget sundials, watches, mobile phones or calendars. Armpit hair is where it’s at for measuring time, and Ana uses just such an ingenious method to alert her, and us, to the fact that TIME HAS PASSED. Much as in 28 Days Later, Ana awakes in bed to find that her hometown is empty. It’s like the bus crash never happened, but then she inspects her armpit hair in the mirror – realising to her horror that many days have passed. 4 Inches of Armpit Later (or ‘After’) and she really has cause for that perplexed frown, one of a wide range of two facial expressions used in the film. We won’t tell you the other, as we’d hate to spoil it for you. She even dons a hospital gown, much like the guy in 28 Days Later, but that’s because she thinks she’s just late for her shift as a nurse.

Ana roams around for a while until finding Freddie in his home four doors up from her house. They drive out in Freddie’s car in search of others, heading into a gigantic wall of black swirling smoke, accompanied by cymbal clanging and spoo-ooo-oooky music. Deciding that the smoky hell doesn’t look like a good plan they drive back to town, where a diner from the past has reappeared, complete with customers and staff who can’t see the displaced pair. It turns out it’s a flashback. Ana watches herself (curiously as a child she was blonde, fair, and had a perfect American accent. In the present she’s dark-haired, olive-skinned and has a European accent. But who needs continuity!) and her aunt in the diner talking about a play little Ana has written.

Shortly after this, Freddie reveals that his beard growth was what alerted him to the fact that time had passed. Despite the fact he saw several displays that had the date on them. It’s like fate drew these two magical hairy time-tellers together. As if that wasn’t enough to showcase their epic skills, a montage scene involving a tape measure, a stopwatch (wait, I thought they just needed body hair?), a map, and a Biro lets the viewer know that the black smoke of doom is creeping in to engulf the town.

Some more things happen, like the ‘revelation’ that Freddie and Ana are probably in a coma, and a hilarious trip to a fantasy land door which has thousands of keys strewn around it. After a bit more investigation it turns out all the events have occurred in a comic Freddie drew as a kid and the play little Ana wrote. Then a strangely cute monster appears that looks like a really, really ugly Mutant Turtle crossed with the worm from Tremors.

OR IS IT ALL A DREAM? Urgh, too clever for me, but perhaps when I’m a little older, wiser, and hairier, I’ll be able to understand this mind-bendingly awful B-movie. Watch it just to say ‘awww’ when the cute monster appears.

Extras: None

REVIEW: THE COMPLETE DR PHIBES / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ROBERT FUEST / SCREENPLAY: JAMES WHITON, WILLIAM GOLDSTEIN, ROBERT BLEES, ROBERT FUEST / STARRING: VINCENT PRICE, JOSEPH COTTEN, PETER JEFFREY, ROBERT QUARRY, PETER CUSHING / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Since his death in 1993, Vincent Price’s contribution to the horror film genre has been, if not forgotten, then certainly cruelly underappreciated. Fortunately Arrow Video are making commendable strides in rectifying that situation with the recent Blu-ray release of his classic The Pit and the Pendulum and now this lavish and impressive two-disc set which brings together the two outrageous Dr Phibes movies Price made in the UK in 1971 and 1972.

The Abominable Dr Phibes and its hasty sequel Dr Phibes Rises Again are both fabulously dated, sitting as they are on the cusp on an era when the gloves were slowly coming off in the horror movie world, the tame bloody thrills of Hammer’s 1960s output giving way to more graphic gore and violence. But the Dr Phibes movies, whilst still capable of causing the odd shudder, are still mild fare compared to what was to come when the floodgates truly opened as the age of the video nasty arrived. Predating the better-known Theatre of Blood (another Price vehicle) by a couple of years, The Abominable Dr Phibes is set in London in 1925 and sees Price playing Anton Phibes, horribly disfigured in a car crash, exacting a terrible vengeance on the medical team whose incompetence, he believes, led to the death of his beloved wife Victoria. With his fantastically named nubile assistant Vulnavia he sets about bumping off his victims in an elaborate fashion loosely based on the ten Egyptian Plagues of the New Testament. Good gruesome stuff – and some of it is quite unsettling, especially poor Dr Longstreet (Terry-Thomas) whose blood is drained and displayed in jam jars, Dr Dunwoody (Edward Burnham) who is savaged by bats and Nurse Allen (Susan Travers) who is eaten alive by locusts. Price, who cuts a Phantom of the Opera-style figure sitting at his organ and lurking in his subterranean lair, strides through it all with typical eye-rolling, tongue-in-cheek gusto. Phibes speaks only with the aid of a special voice box which means we hear only Price’s pre-recorded dialogue, allowing the actor to gurn and twitch and ham the whole thing up with visible relish. Peter Jeffrey and Norman Jones are a great comic double act as the bumbling police team lukewarm on Phibes’ heels and the whole script has a raffish charm and knowingness missing in so much of Hammer’s output.

1972’s sequel, Dr Phibes Rises Again is sadly much less accomplished. Phibes… ummm… rises again in 1928 and finds that his home has been demolished and the priceless papyrus scrolls he requires to lead him to the Pharaoh’s tomb in Egypt and the ‘River of Life’ which will resurrect Victoria, have been stolen. Beiderbecke (Quarry), already centuries old, seeks out the River of Life so he and his lover Fiona can live forever. Phibes and Vulnavia follow Beiderbecke and his entourage to Egypt where the killing games begin again…

Sadly Rises Again just isn’t as much fun as its predecessor. Its story structure is messy, the deaths are much less inventive and far more bloodless and whilst the script has its moments, it’s generally heavier on its feet than Abominable and even copious amounts of location filming (Spain stands in for Egypt), a return for Jeffreys’ Inspector Trout and one-scene cameos from Peter Cushing, Beryl Reid and Terry-Thomas again (playing an entirely different character) can’t lift the film out of its doldrums and by the last reel it seems to be going through the motions without really getting anywhere.

It seems that contemporary audiences agreed and plans for further Phibes films were quietly shelved. Today they’re fascinating curios from a tamer age, worth visiting to savour the spectacularly extravagant Art Deco production design, Price’s glorious scenery-chewing performances and for the grisly bravado of the deaths in the first film. Arrow’s Blu-ray transfers are crisp, vibrant and colourful and the set boasts a collection of special features which do justice not only to a short-lived 1970s movie series but also to the unique and fabulous talent of Mr Vincent Price himself.

Extras: Collector’s booklet / Trailers / Commentaries / The League of Gentlemen discuss the Phibes films / Interview with Price’s daughter Victoria / Discussion with historian and Price expert David del Valle

 

REVIEW: WITHER / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: SONNY LAGUNA, TOMMY WIKLUND / SCREENPLAY: SONNY LAGUNA, DAVID LILJEBLAD, TOMMY WIKLUND / STARRING: PATRIK ALMKVIST, LISA HENNI, PATRICK SAXE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund’s Wither (Vittra) is a cabin-in-the-woods horror marketed as the next Evil Dead, chalking up another title to the burgeoning zombie scene in Sweden. There’s plenty of similarities to Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic, including a trap door which the Vittra lurks beneath. Like Cheryl, troubled Marie is also the first of the gang afflicted.

What Wither does best is mix the traditional trappings of the zombie subgenre with Scandinavian folklore. The Vitter is a mythological creature that, while not necessarily malignant, has been given an unsettling and contemporary reimagining. The cabin, culturally speaking, has more validity in Sweden, making it a more viable and, frankly, believable getaway destination.

Laguna and Wiklund made the most of a modest 300,000 SEK/£27,000 (approx) budget with enough grizzly goings on to keep gorehounds sated. The digital effects, however, just aren’t up to scratch; the CG dust and rain makes it feel as though you’re watching a 3D film without the specks on. There’s an overuse of filter effects, giving Instagram-style cinematography in what appears to be an attempt to capture a classic horror vibe. Instead it gives the impression of an over-copied VHS. A video nasty it isn’t.

The zombies are especially effective and more than a little creepy, however. It’s amazing what a few buckets of blood and milky contact lenses can do. The Vittra itself looks like something that limped off of a Fulchi set and, as with Perseus fighting the Medusa, it can only cause you harm if you look directly into its eyes.

It’s difficult enough to root for attractive twenty-somethings with fabulous haircuts, but in Wither it’s an art. All the characters are impractically dressed for a woodland retreat and favour running upstairs for safety instead of out the door and to their cars. Like most folks in zombie films, none of them appear to have any prior knowledge of the living dead.

The most stomach churning violence is directed against the female characters, with the men dispatching them in a variety of unsettling ways, including beheading, head smashing, a flurry of stabbings and several accounts of repeated punching. Still, there’s no gratuitous sex or nudity and that really is a rare bonus.

The ending undermines what little merit the rest of the film possesses, leaving it as flat and lifeless like so many undead. The moral of the story, as ever, is to decline any and all offers of woodland cabin retreats.

REVIEW: STRANGE HILL HIGH / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: CHRIS TICHBORNE, GEOFF WALKER / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: RICHARD AYOADE, CAROLINE AHERNE / RELEASE DATE: JULY 21ST

Written by Josh Weinstein, of The Simpsons and Futurama fame, Strange Hill High combines puppets, stop-mo and digital effects to create a pleasing, if barmy, show that harks back to Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds and Stingray whilst maintaining a contemporary edge. Imagine if Aardman made The Mighty Boosh. The show follows the mischievous exploits of three pre-teens: Templeton, Becky Butters and new kid Mitchell in their totalitarian inner city school. Their adventures include dabbling in time-travel, the paranormal and journalism. Yes, it is rather strange.

Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace) is cast as yet another bespectacled nerd in Templeton, a paranoid neurotic with maniacal tendencies. Becky, voiced by comedy stalwart Emma Kennedy (who penned the eighth episode, Health and Safety) is bookish, kooky and whimsical, while Mitchell is a slacker in the Philip J. Fry vein, voiced by rapper, actor and screenwriter Ben ‘Doc Brown’ Smith. The supporting characters are all grotesque in their own entertaining way, from the wonderfully decrepit librarian, to Murdock, a cyborg pirate caretaker and headmaster Mr Abercrombie, a teacher many will be able to recognise.

The humour, while wry and effective, does go after the usual suspects, whether it’s school dinners or algebra. But what’s a kid’s show without at least one scatological reference? As in the case of the first episode, King Mitchell, which puts a rather filthy spin on the Arthurian legend. Some jokes even feel like they were written by Ben Elton in full Blackadder swing. And yes, silly voices are still immensely funny. Try watching Bigmouth Strikes Again and not cracking up.

There’s plenty of knowing nods to pop culture, from Marvel superheroes to DC villains, to Star Wars and many more besides. But it’s not all lewd humour and pop references, far from it. There’s education to be had, if subtle, whether that’s shining a light on Malcolm X or Orwell’s 1984. Kids’ TV has a responsibility to gear young’uns up for the future, and Strange Hill High tackles anxiety issues, among others, with fervour.

Despite Weinstein’s overarching involvement, the show is distinctly British with jokes about Luton and routinely sending up chav culture, helped in no small part by its team of writers.

With its tongue-in-cheek take on Freddy Krueger, Skoozical is far and away the best episode of the series. There’s even a nod to blaxploitation. There’s plenty on offer for kids and parents alike in a show that’s funny, often smart and filled to the brim with references. With its quirky characters, endearing plots and hip hop theme tune (performed by Doc Brown), you can’t help but warm to it.

Extras: None

REVIEW: FATE/ZERO – PART 2 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: MATT MERCER, KARI WAHLGREN, BRIDGET HOFFMAN, CRISPIN FREEMAN, MARC DIRAISON, JAMIESON PRICE, GRANT GEORGE, DAVID EARNEST, DAN WOREN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Alliances have been made, broken and destroyed. Master and Servant alike battle with enemies old and new, struggles within and without, and demons figurative and literal. The fight for the Grail rages on, but, to borrow a phrase, there can be only one.

As expected, the first episode launches directly where part one left off, with Saber, Rider and Lancer attempting to destroy the eldritch abomination that Caster has transformed into, while Berserker interrupts things by swooping in astride a commandeered fighter jet and engaging in an aerial battle with Archer in his golden skyship.

As Assassin, the only Servant to die in the first part, was the least interesting and most underdeveloped of the Holy Spirits, his annihilation was not much of an event, while any significance was overshadowed by the manner in which it occurred. As things begin to draw to a conclusion, the inevitable death tally racks up higher with each passing episode, including the early and ignominious checkout of one character you’d expect to have survived longer.

The identity of the psychotic juggernaut Berserker is eventually revealed, and turns out to be a figure you’ll be familiar with but wouldn’t expect to be assigned such a designation. In retrospect, there were small clues to who he was, but far more significant are the implications of what happened to him to affect such a drastic change in personality and the repercussions these have for another character’s development.

Further exploration into characters’ motives are explored, most prominently with an episode devoted to Kiritsugu’s backstory, detailing the origin of his hatred of magic, his training as a mercenary and the true depths to which he is willing to sink in order to maintain the greater good of saving as many people as possible from the forces he fights against. Through the voicing of what he desires from the Grail, the limitations of its wish-granting abilities are revealed, and by extension the true worth of all the people sacrificed to attain it.

The moral stance of the more heroic of the Servants, who try to conduct the duels they have been summoned for with a modicum of honour, soon clashes with the scheming of their Masters who desire victory whatever the cost and will resort to any tactics to attain it. The combat remains as spectacular and inventive as the violence is brutal and uncompromising (including a slightly uncomfortable recurrence of women being strangled), and the colossal, almost apocalyptic extent of the powers some Servants have at their disposal comes into play.

The finale might seem somewhat muddled and more than a little metaphysical, but the series was slightly constrained by the requirement to maintain continuity with Fate/Stay Night, and in any case, the resolution ends things in such a way that the stories of both series combine into a single narrative. 

Extras: Trailers

REVIEW: VISTORS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: GODFREY REGGIO / SCREENPLAY: GODFREY REGGIO / STARRING: SOME PEOPLE, AN APE / RELEASE DATE: JULY 21ST

We’re betting that Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass’s previous cinematic works, The Oatsi Trilogy (comprising the films Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi), won’t be featuring too prominently on many people’s DVD shelves, jostling for position with the Back to the Future trilogy and The Inbetweeners Movie. To call Reggio’s work an acquired taste is to entirely fail to convey exactly what’s in store here; Reggio sets out to explore the nature and impermanence of the human condition and our relationship with our technology, our world and our environment. This he does in Visitors in some eighty minutes (just 74 separate shots) of black-and-white, occasionally moving images of random faces – men, women, children, the elderly – alongside abstract views of buildings, towers of rubbish, extraordinary landscapes and the surface of the moon. Oh, and a big gorilla which stares lugubriously out from the screen now and again…

Even compared to Reggio’s previous works, there’s apparently nothing going on here – there’s absolutely no narrative – but that seems to be the point. The stark, vivid imagery demands that the viewer does all the work and take away from the movie whatever individual interpretation he or she may be minded to ascribe to the film. But that alone raises some problems and inevitable cries of ‘pretentious twaddle’ and, in some respects, it’s a tough charge to resist. For those not accustomed to watching this kind of movie (and this reviewer is not ashamed to admit that this is an entirely new experience for him), Visitors is as much of a shock as it is a challenge and, as the array of smiling, laughing faces, followed by a flock of birds in flight, a derelict amusement park, an unfamiliar landscape all roll by, it’s almost impossible to resist the feeling that this is eighty minutes of your life you’re just not going to get back again. Yet despite it all, there’s something weirdly hypnotic about Visitors, underpinned as it is by Philip Glass’s compelling and atmospheric ambient score. The photography, pin-sharp in monochrome, is bold, striking and vibrant and is itself enough to keep you watching when you can’t help thinking your time might be better spent de-fleaing the cat or cleaning out the fridge.

Visitors is an interesting experience but undoubtedly one best appreciated by the arty crowd it’s aimed at rather than simple souls who just want to watch a decent movie with a beginning, middle and end. Visitors has none of these; it’s just there…

Extras: Interviews / Behind-the-scenes / Trailer

REVIEW: GIRLS UND PANZER OVA / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: MAI FUCHIGAMI, AI KAYANO, MAMI OZAKI, IKUMI NAKAGAMI, YKA IGUCHI / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 16TH

Put simply, Girls und Panzer is a 12-episode anime series about teenage schoolgirls driving World War II-era tanks. Learning the art of Panzerfahren (the maintenance and operation of tanks that is very much designated a woman’s activity), its phalanx of protagonists enter a tank battling competition against schools of varying international stereotypes. Once you get past the bonkers premise, the show is actually quite endearing, if a little light on conflict and lacking true consequences for characters’ mistakes.

Ranging from four to sixteen minutes long, the six OVA episodes collected here are supplemental to the main storyline of the series, and while meaningless if watched without having first seen the anime, neither do they add very much to it. Only the final two have any direct connection and as a result are far and away the most interesting of the collection. One is an expansion of part of episode 9 where the girls are engaged in a campaign of strategic manoeuvring in the snow when battling a Russian school, while the other takes place directly after the series ends and sees the teams engaging in a talent contest. The others are a lengthy sequence of swimsuit shopping; a disastrous barbecue on a camping trip; exploration of the warship the school community is built on and the girls performing the Anglerfish Dance (don’t ask) in various locations around the city.

Not being the target audience of the anime, I’m not completely qualified to comment on its quality. If I were a pubescent girly girl rather than a 30-year-old male geek, I may well have found the girls’ antics more entertaining and their megahertz voices less headache-inducing. However, I can say that like the series that precedes it, the episodes here are bright, charming and disposable. 

Extras: Trailers

REVIEW: AESTHETICA OF A ROGUE HERO – THE COMPLETE SERIES / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: RION KUJO / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: YOKO HISADA, NOBUHIKO OKAMOTO / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 16TH

A lot of stories tend to mimic Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing (look at Star Wars), it’s become old hat. Good may very well overcome evil, but that’s often where the story ends. Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero, on the other hand, begins after the panty-snatching ‘hero’ Akatusi vanquishes a dark lord in the sword-and-sorcery land of Alayzard. Having promised to take care of the fallen lord’s daughter, Akatusi takes Mui to another world, posing as brother and sister. The two attend Babel, a high school for Alayzard kids.

The 12-part anime (based on the manga by Tetsuto Uesu) may have an interesting enough premise, but very quickly descends into little more than exploitation; Mei is introduced literally as luggage, stored naked in a knapsack. The entire run routinely objectifies, demeans and humiliates its female characters, whether that’s with the regular up-skirt and crotch-shots during combat sequences, or Akatusi forcing three of the main characters to piss themselves.

While Akatusi fancies himself a rogue and has been lauded with the title of hero, he’s a vile sex-pest. His favourite pastime does seem to be stealing women’s underwear while they’re wearing it, watching them showering and molesting them. Everyday sexism indeed.

When it comes down to it, the show is little better than hentai with a few interesting concepts thrown in for good measure, making Nude Nuns with Big Guns look positively wholesome. While busty schoolgirls are a staple of anime, you’d be better off sticking to Sailor Moon which at least stopped short of being offensive.

Aesthetica is filled with trite character clichés, especially the two-dimensional Chikage Izumi, a stereotypical sports-loving, short-haired and deep-voiced lesbian. The character, when introduced, is made out to be a sexual predator, forcing herself onto another girl. It genuinely feels as though the manga was written, at best, with a distrust of women and, at worst, loathing.

The show routinely belittles sexual violence, somehow making Akatuki’s antics out to be an endearing foible. The fifth episode (A Day We Spend in the Weekend) is all but exclusively dedicated to bra-shopping, which amounts to little more than Miu getting groped and humiliated to the point of tears.

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the show is the blasé attitude to child abuse. In the third episode (To Become An Adult…) Akatsuki takes Kuzaha, a grade school girl, into a couples room. What follows is a deeply unsettling scene where the ‘hero’ all but forces himself on her.

Schoolkids fighting one another is nothing you haven’t seen before, hell Battle Royale takes the crown and then some, but there’s no denying that the fight sequences are enjoyable enough, complete with oversized weaponry and dazzling magic. Faylan’s “Realization” is a fun opening theme (think Mindless Self Indulgence covering Bonnie Tyler) and the music is one of the best parts of the show. But even in moments of apparent tenderness, sexual violence creeps in, tainting what could have been something sweet into something sinister.

If you’re a 14-year-old boy who wants something to entertain your friends, then an anime where the focal point is tits, big weapons and loud fights is really going to butter your crumpet. If not, it’s probably best to stick to Naruto or Kill la Kill.

Extras: US trailer / Promo videos / Opening and closing songs