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VENUS WARS

            Distributor: US Manga Corps.

Running time: Approximately 90 minutes

Rated: PG-13

(USA dubbed version only)

Welcome to Venus in the late 21^st century.  The Earth has migrated large colonies to the planet (which due to odd astrological events has become suitable for human beings), and now there’s a corrupt government, a huge military conflict and a grungy, gross society to show for it.  On Venus the politicians are corrupt, the people are disadvantaged and the teens risk their lives in stupid sports stunts.  Yeah, I know, “what’s new?” you say.

Well, eventually this military force from the Istari nation on Venus invades Io, the centerpiece of our story.  Their lead by some white-haired maggot named Donner, and he takes over the city with little effort.  Thus his militaristic rule is enacted, and the freedom of the citizens of Io is reduced to practically nothing, frustrating the heck out of the teens!

Hiro is our hero (heh heh), a snot nosed green punk who likes to bike and hangs out with a girl named Maggie who is sweeter than Little Debbie snack treats.  They show no romantic angle to their friendship for a while, and since Hiro is the least emotional character in this movie he convincingly leads you to believe he has no interest in the girl other than being good friends.  All the emotion young Hiro has in this tale is the angry ticked off kind, and all of that is geared at the Istari military for taking over his city, and at his government for screwing over his family in the past.  He’s young, he’s angry, and boy you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry!

Hiro and his extremely annoying teenage friends decide that they’re going to fight back against the Istari forces, and loaded with their rocket launchers and guns they obtain from a crusty garage repair man they ride their bikes and take on a heavily armored tank all by themselves.  With Hiro’s guts and creative strategies they manage to take out the tank, but another comes and they’re nearly wasted.  However, a group of freedom fighters with some advanced fighter bikes come and wipe out the war machine, and then take the teens captive more or less and force them to either serve them to fight the Istari or die so they don’t reveal secrets to the enemy.

Left with little choice, Hiro, his friends and an Earth reporter named Sue Summers tag along with the freedom fighters and begin to train, even though they hate their captors and would rather be anywhere else than risking their lives for the cause. Which sounds strange considering they were so eager and willing to play with the tank, no? 

Eventually Hiro is offered a choice for the sake of his friends; he can join the resistance movement and promise never to leave them and fight willingly, and his friends will be let go.  Even though he hates the guts out of his commanding officer, Hiro accepts and his friends are released from service.  He then becomes the top shot in the resistance, and his destiny leads him to the final battle against the Istari which pits him against Donner himself…

This anime had more potential than a Star Wars movie in some ways, but unfortunately it failed to deliver something really special and became in my humble opinion no more than a long boring war movie.  The animation is truly good, beautifully done and detailed, though in one or two scene there was animation added to live backgrounds and it looked jarringly incongruous.   The character designs were nice as well, but the problem was being very quickly thrown into a story about the Venus planet and then becoming thrust into war before we fully realized just what the heck was going on.  Also the battles dragged a lot, sometimes becoming yawners.  Not that long battles are a bad thing.  I like long fights, but in this case it just felt too long, like they opted to show as much of the battle sequences as they could and ditched the history and some of the character development.

The thing that appealed to me about this title was its gritty realism.  It still had some funny moments, one or two charming things, but overall it was a dark brooder of a story, paralleled by the action and the death that war entails.  Unfortunately the ending was a waste after all the build up it created, and it left off feeling very incomplete.

That’s the story side of it, but there’s a lot more to say about the characters.  Hiro and company are good characters for a movie like this, and some characters are downright great.  The earth reporter Sue Summers is a nut, and she’s kind of fun to follow.  She’s the “get your story no matter how close to death you come” type, and Maggie the girlfriend love interest for Hiro is a true cutie in an unspoiled non sexual kind of way.  She and Hiro do have a make out scene, but thankfully she’s presented as innocent as an older teen girl can be and I like that.

Unfortunately this movie’s two greatest points of lousiness comes not from its boring story and violence.  Instead it’s the language and sexual angles.  In the beginning Susan Summers is forced to strip for “inspectors” before she comes to Venus, and though you see nothing you see her outline and cut arounds of her clothes coming off, along with some comments from the men.  There’s also a scene where a female member of Hiro’s gang strips to get in a flight suit, and again you don’t see her in the buff, but you get her in underwear and then a brief glimpse of her boobies as she zips up her suit.  There are posters on walls throughout the movie of naked women and some crude sexual remarks from some of the stupider characters, including, “If he gets too close, (gun noises), right in the balls!”

By far though the worst sexual angle in this film is a completely flaming homosexual man on Hiro’s transport when he joins the rebellion.  The guy (who we shall lovingly call The Queen to tame down a nickname given him by Hiro) makes passes on Hiro and speaks at length about his joyful “coming out” experience, with all the hand gestures and lisping you could hope for! Oy.  Then for no reason at all later in the film we get to see some footage of The Queen talking about what makes “men fly” and how much he loves power and yadda yadda yadda.  It’s stupid, wastes film, and is disturbing.  I’m not too saddened by the fact that he gets cooked by an explosion near the film’s end.  Annoying and WRONG character!

Finally there’s the language.  I’ve not seen the original Japanese version of this film, so I don’t know how the language was in that but as far as the American version is concerned it’s got everything but an F-bomb.  More colorful expressions and coarse words than you could hope for in your normal PG-13 flick, and then some.  Add that to the fact that this film has the longest pan out ending of a scene that I’ve ever seen in a movie in my life makes this title one that I don’t particularly want to watch too much.  It’s a fine drag of an anime war movie, but like I said before I felt disappointment with its final conclusion.  It could have gone places, but it sold itself a little short.