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Spriggan
ADV Films // R // April 23, 2002
List Price: $29.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie
Directed by first-time director Hirotsugu Kawasaki and supervised by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Spriggan shares quite a bit with Otomo's masterpiece, but leans more toward action than plot. Based on the popular Japanese comic Striker by Chu Takasige and Ryoji Minagawa, this license had quite the bidding war for it. Eventually Kawasaki and Otomo won out and you can see some of the parallels between Akira and this movie, especially in one key character. In order to enjoy this movie you really need to leave your brain behind and treat it as a non-plot filled action film.
At the very beginning we see some archaeologists in Turkey. One of them falls down a deep cavern and falls upon Noah's Ark directly from the Bible. The Ark awakens and lets out some sort of sonic boom that goes so far as to destroy an orbiting satellite in space. We then flip to a school where Yu Ominae goes. He is having a bad dream in class and then notices that one of his classmates seems a bit odd. He finds the classmate at the top of the school and he seems to be controlled by something. The classmate rips off his jacket to reveal bombs strapped to him with the words "Noah will kill you all" on his shirt. He blows himself up and Yu seems a bit pissed.
We then find out that Yu is actually a highly trained agent for a group called ARCAM and that he is called a Spriggan. ARCAM is dedicated to acquiring biblical and ancient artifacts that are too dangerous for the world at large. There is another group that is backed by the US Military that are very intent on getting hold of the Ark itself. The group sends out Fat Man and Little Boy, a reference to the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Fat Man is huge and has a cyborg body. He also employs a gatling gun on one hand. Little Boy is a quick man who uses sharp wire and speed to kill his prey. Fat Man and Little Boy are controlled by the character that most resembles the children from Akira, MacDougall. He in turn is controlled by the US Military, but eventually he has no problem in overtaking his puppeteers. MacDougall has telekinetic powers and seems to share a lot of the characteristics and powers of the aforementioned children. He is bluish in color and he also has one ice blue eye and one greenish eye. When he uses his powers one of the eyes turns red.
Another Spriggan is also after securing the Ark who helps Yu, his name is Jean-Jacques Mondo. I will say the accent they try to put on him in the English track does not suit a supposed Frenchman very well. He and Yu take out most of MacDougall's army. MacDougall then enters the Ark and Yu follows him a bit after. It is obvious that there will be a big battle in the end between MacDougall and Yu, but MacDougall seems to easily be more powerful than Yu.
The key to this movie is not so much the plot, but the amount of action contained in the 90 minutes. There is a LOT of blood, which is why it is rated R. It has been a while since I have seen an anime movie with this much blood in it. If you are looking for a great plot, this is not the anime movie to watch. If you are looking for straight action in the vein of Ninja Scroll, this would be a great movie to watch. I did not find this movie all that great because of little to no plot, but the action scenes were certainly enjoyable. There are certainly a lot of action scenes contained in this movie with little to no character dialogue.
The DVD
Video: This film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The visuals remind me a lot of Akira with the animation strides of a decade later. This movie definitely has a film quality to it instead of a straight digital transfer. I think a lot of anime companies are going toward this to make it look more like a Hollywood film. What is given here is a very good presentation, although I have heard that there is some progressive-scan problems with this disc in certain spots. I do not have a progressive-scan player yet to test this on.
Sound: Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 in both Japanese and English. I listened to the English version and some bits and pieces of the Japanese version. Both seem to have had good directionality in them. In the commentary they talk about how they went about with doing the sound. If a character stands far away from the front of the screen you would hear them very softly and if they were closer to the front they would be loud. Sadly there is no DTS Japanese option like there was in Region 2. Many anime companies are trying to get those licenses for the movies if they exist, ADV must not have gotten the license
Menus: The menu is neat. There is an opening animation of a computer loading a program. We then get to the main screen and different pieces of moving clips go by the screen with the options in the lower right. Each menu you go through has a different musical theme to them.
Extras:
Audio Commentary: Done by Matt Greenfield, who did the English translation and oversaw the voice work, and Christopher Bourque, who engineered the translation and voice work. This goes into the history of Spriggan and the steps it went through to be translated to English by Greenfield. You can tell this was a labor of love by ADV and this is a common extra on most mainstream movies. It is great to have a commentary on this disc and it certainly helps you understand the movie better from a background point of view.
3 short Production Sketches: One for Character Designs, one for Vehicles/Equipment and one for Key Backgrounds. Each one runs about 2 minutes in length. It is a nice extra, but not one that will make someone buy this disc in my opinion.
ADV Previews: Tekken, Gasaraki, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ninja Resurrection, Sin: The Movie and Samurai X. The only thing I dislike about the previews are they are not showing anything that has not been totally released by them yet. How about an Excel Saga preview or something?
Final Thoughts: Spriggan is a hard movie to recommend. It is a straight action movie with little to no plot. There is a lot of violence and lots of blood. If you are into that, this movie is great. The big bonus in this DVD release is the Audio Commentary and I recommend this release for this one fact. The commentary does a better job of explaining the movie to me than the movie itself does. This was a labor of love for ADV and I certainly hope they do more of this with their future movies. Rent this if you dislike commentaries (this movie is available at Blockbuster), but buy it if you are at all interested in the movie or the commentary. Recommended for the commentary alone.
Directed by first-time director Hirotsugu Kawasaki and supervised by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Spriggan shares quite a bit with Otomo's masterpiece, but leans more toward action than plot. Based on the popular Japanese comic Striker by Chu Takasige and Ryoji Minagawa, this license had quite the bidding war for it. Eventually Kawasaki and Otomo won out and you can see some of the parallels between Akira and this movie, especially in one key character. In order to enjoy this movie you really need to leave your brain behind and treat it as a non-plot filled action film.
At the very beginning we see some archaeologists in Turkey. One of them falls down a deep cavern and falls upon Noah's Ark directly from the Bible. The Ark awakens and lets out some sort of sonic boom that goes so far as to destroy an orbiting satellite in space. We then flip to a school where Yu Ominae goes. He is having a bad dream in class and then notices that one of his classmates seems a bit odd. He finds the classmate at the top of the school and he seems to be controlled by something. The classmate rips off his jacket to reveal bombs strapped to him with the words "Noah will kill you all" on his shirt. He blows himself up and Yu seems a bit pissed.
We then find out that Yu is actually a highly trained agent for a group called ARCAM and that he is called a Spriggan. ARCAM is dedicated to acquiring biblical and ancient artifacts that are too dangerous for the world at large. There is another group that is backed by the US Military that are very intent on getting hold of the Ark itself. The group sends out Fat Man and Little Boy, a reference to the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Fat Man is huge and has a cyborg body. He also employs a gatling gun on one hand. Little Boy is a quick man who uses sharp wire and speed to kill his prey. Fat Man and Little Boy are controlled by the character that most resembles the children from Akira, MacDougall. He in turn is controlled by the US Military, but eventually he has no problem in overtaking his puppeteers. MacDougall has telekinetic powers and seems to share a lot of the characteristics and powers of the aforementioned children. He is bluish in color and he also has one ice blue eye and one greenish eye. When he uses his powers one of the eyes turns red.
Another Spriggan is also after securing the Ark who helps Yu, his name is Jean-Jacques Mondo. I will say the accent they try to put on him in the English track does not suit a supposed Frenchman very well. He and Yu take out most of MacDougall's army. MacDougall then enters the Ark and Yu follows him a bit after. It is obvious that there will be a big battle in the end between MacDougall and Yu, but MacDougall seems to easily be more powerful than Yu.
The key to this movie is not so much the plot, but the amount of action contained in the 90 minutes. There is a LOT of blood, which is why it is rated R. It has been a while since I have seen an anime movie with this much blood in it. If you are looking for a great plot, this is not the anime movie to watch. If you are looking for straight action in the vein of Ninja Scroll, this would be a great movie to watch. I did not find this movie all that great because of little to no plot, but the action scenes were certainly enjoyable. There are certainly a lot of action scenes contained in this movie with little to no character dialogue.
The DVD
Video: This film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The visuals remind me a lot of Akira with the animation strides of a decade later. This movie definitely has a film quality to it instead of a straight digital transfer. I think a lot of anime companies are going toward this to make it look more like a Hollywood film. What is given here is a very good presentation, although I have heard that there is some progressive-scan problems with this disc in certain spots. I do not have a progressive-scan player yet to test this on.
Sound: Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 in both Japanese and English. I listened to the English version and some bits and pieces of the Japanese version. Both seem to have had good directionality in them. In the commentary they talk about how they went about with doing the sound. If a character stands far away from the front of the screen you would hear them very softly and if they were closer to the front they would be loud. Sadly there is no DTS Japanese option like there was in Region 2. Many anime companies are trying to get those licenses for the movies if they exist, ADV must not have gotten the license
Menus: The menu is neat. There is an opening animation of a computer loading a program. We then get to the main screen and different pieces of moving clips go by the screen with the options in the lower right. Each menu you go through has a different musical theme to them.
Extras:
Audio Commentary: Done by Matt Greenfield, who did the English translation and oversaw the voice work, and Christopher Bourque, who engineered the translation and voice work. This goes into the history of Spriggan and the steps it went through to be translated to English by Greenfield. You can tell this was a labor of love by ADV and this is a common extra on most mainstream movies. It is great to have a commentary on this disc and it certainly helps you understand the movie better from a background point of view.
3 short Production Sketches: One for Character Designs, one for Vehicles/Equipment and one for Key Backgrounds. Each one runs about 2 minutes in length. It is a nice extra, but not one that will make someone buy this disc in my opinion.
ADV Previews: Tekken, Gasaraki, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ninja Resurrection, Sin: The Movie and Samurai X. The only thing I dislike about the previews are they are not showing anything that has not been totally released by them yet. How about an Excel Saga preview or something?
Final Thoughts: Spriggan is a hard movie to recommend. It is a straight action movie with little to no plot. There is a lot of violence and lots of blood. If you are into that, this movie is great. The big bonus in this DVD release is the Audio Commentary and I recommend this release for this one fact. The commentary does a better job of explaining the movie to me than the movie itself does. This was a labor of love for ADV and I certainly hope they do more of this with their future movies. Rent this if you dislike commentaries (this movie is available at Blockbuster), but buy it if you are at all interested in the movie or the commentary. Recommended for the commentary alone.
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