SHIN HIKARI SHINWA: PALUTENA NO KAGAMI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

REVIEWS

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  TheRealKyuubey

  60/100
  Have I Flown Too Close to the Sun With This One?

  So, I’m going to rip this bandaid off right now, I’ve never played a Kid Icarus game. I’m not even 100% sure what a Kid Icarus game even looks like.

  I was a Nintendo kid growing up. That wasn’t necessarily a choice I made for myself, Nintendo consoles were just a part of my family, and I never questioned it. My parents had an original NES as far back as my earliest memories, and the Super Nintendo was the first major Christmas present that I can remember opening up and getting excited about. Ever since then, I’ve owned basically every console that Nintendo has released, including all of the handhelds, except for the Switch 2... And at some point I’m probably going to have to bite the bullet and buy that one to play the next Pokemon generation.

  Having said all of this, I didn’t make any attempt to venture too far out of the bubble my parents kept me in. I really only got into the Mario, Donkey Kong and Pokemon games, only playing one or two Legend of Zelda games, and there were several other Nintendo IPs... Starfox, Metroid, Earthbound, F-Zero, Fire Emblem... That I didn’t even know existed until they showed up in Smash Brothers. Kid Icarus, however, I learned about through a far darker and less reputable source, that being the cartoon and comics of Captain N the Game Master, although most of you reading this are probably too young to know what Captain N even is.

  For the record, Captain N was not a good thing. The way Captain N represented various Nintendo properties makes both Dragonball Evolution and Death Note 2017 look faithful by comparison.

  Anyway, most of my knowledge of Kid Icarus comes from two sources. First is the Death Battle episode of Sora vs. Pit, through which I have been exposed to some of the lore and backstory of the series and its characters. The second is Super Smash Brothers, where Palutena was never one of my mains, but I have used her quite a bit. I’m also just going to say it, she’s beautiful. This is kind of a weird thing to say about a character from a series of games I’ve never played, I am very aware of that, but damn, they call her a Goddess for a reason. I may have owned her Amiibo at one point.

  The reason I ran down all of that is because while I am a virgin to the games themselves, I do have some degree of familiarity with the material, or at least enough that I can watch this anime ONA without being lost, and I don’t know, I just kind of felt like reviewing it. From what I’m aware of, this three episode ONA... Well, it’s more of a six episode ONA, seeing how two of the episodes are longer and split up into multiple parts... Was released to promote the game Kid Icarus Uprising, and each segment was animated by a different studio, and some of the names attached do intrigue me.

  So, if you don’t mind a poser like me throwing my hat in the ring, I’d like to review each segment on its own, from the perspective of an outsider who is bringing no bias whatsoever into the equation. Will my inexperience leave me cold and unable to relate to the material? Will I wind up liking it specifically because I’m too unfamiliar to understand how much of a betrayal it is to the source material? Am I flying too close to the sun with this one? Let’s find out!

  Segment one: Thanatos Rising

  The first segment is also the longest segment. It’s about nine minutes long, thus taking up around half of the ONA’s runtime, and it’s basically one continuous action set piece. It’s also the only segment of the three to be animated entirely in 3D, and as such, I’m just going to assume that it’s the closest representation of what the actual Uprising game is supposed to look like. In this segment, Pit is going after one of his lesser boss enemies, named Thanatos, while battling hordes of floating eyeballs. He has these giant trojan horses walking on stilts on his side, but Thanatos pulls a fast one, using his minions to take control of one of these wooden ATATs and divert its course to a populated human city.

  With help from Palutena, Pit takes a shortcut through the mountains to cut him off, boards the ship himself, and battles Thanatos to try and save the day! Now, storywise, this is really good. When you’re writing an action scene, it doesn’t need to be deep or complex as long as it’s fun and fast paced and is able to hold the viewer’s attention. One of my favorite Teen Titans episodes is X, which appeals to me for the same basic reason... Action, suspense, high stakes, a race against the clock, and a little humor thrown in for levity, like when Palutena teases Pit for being gullible.

  There are two issues I have with this segment, though. The first is Thanatos’s voice, which I find really annoying, which I think might have been the whole point? He has a very particular voice performance that I’ve heard countless times before, which I think could best be described as a helium clown voice, or like a really foppish person who has had a stroke. I’m tempted to believe that it must be some really old celebrity impression that different actors have been doing for generations, like how you keep running into spooky Peter Lorre inspired cartoon characters, but I can’t for the life of me figure out who this one is based on.

  My other issue is the animation, which shouldn’t be an issue, because this segment was produced by Studio IG, who have been putting out way more hits than misses for decades. Now, to be clear, I don’t think this segment looks that bad overall... I grew up in the nineties, I know what terrible CGI looks like, I've seen a lot worse than this... But when it comes to anime analogue projects based on video games, considering how good FF7 Advent Children looked in 2007, this Nintendo property from 2012 should not look like an early 2000s PS1 cutscene.

  I’m not saying it never looks cool... Pitt has some really fun flying scenes, and I liked how all the CGI gears looked while drenched in shadows, especially during the climactic duel, but it also looks really awkward sometimes... There’s a real uncanny valley feeling when Pit and Palutena are exchanging dialogue, and my god Thanatos just never looks good no matter what he’s doing. With all due respect to Studio IG, I expect better from them than this.

  Segment 2: Medusa’s Revenge

  Surprisingly, this segment is the exact opposite. It’s rather light on story, being the shortest episode of the lot, but it’s also probably the best looking. In this segment, Palutena gives a small lore drop about her hs\istory with Pit, before launching us into a conflict between Heaven and her former fellow Goddess, Medusa. Palutena and Medusa exchange banter while Pit does battle against her in the air, and then the segment just ends mid-fight.

  Disappointing story aside, this segment is breathtaking. It’s animated by Studio 4C, whose output over the years has been a tad inconsistent... They produced Magnetic Rose, the best segment of the film Memories, but they also produced the Berserk Golden Age movies, which I still say are worse in every way than Berserk 2016. The 2D and 3D animation are blended flawlessly in this short, the characters look gorgeous, and some of the effects were so stunning I had to watch them on repeat a few times, like when Medusa’s snakes morph into giant hands.

  Medusa also, like, actually starts killing people… It’s PG-13 level murder, to be sure, she turns people into statues that crumble to pieces, so there’s no blood, but PG-13 bloodless murder can still be shocking and disturbing, especially since it’s subtly reminiscent of the way people died in the Pompeii disaster. It is at least unexpected enough to add to the intensity of the piece.

  Another point in its favor is that the character of Medusa is voiced by Cree Summer, and I’m sorry, but if you don’t like Cree Summer, you don’t like animation, period. She is voice acting royalty right up there alongside Daws Butler, Mel Blanc and Tara Strong on my voice acting Mount Rushmore.

  Segment 3: Palutena’s Revolting Dinner

  Out of all three segments, this might be the most memorable one... It does really stand out, after all. That might be the reason why I remembered it so strongly before this most recent rewatch, or it might be the fact that this is the comedy sketch of the ONA.

  I would love to hear where the idea of this came from, especially if it’s actually canon to something that happens in the game. In this two part segment, Palutena is making a vegetarian dinner for herself and Pit(who is whining about how he’d rather eat a burger or sweets) when she adds too much of one of her potions to the carrots, and they come alive and rebel against her! See that pun there? Revolting dinner because it’s vegan, revolting dinner because it’s literally staging a revolt against her!

  The situation continues to escalate from there to a comical degree, and it just goes further and further over the top until you can’t even see the top anymore. The comedy works not just because of how the conflict continuously escalates, but because of the prim and proper Goddess Palutena having to deal with it, going from an embarrassing faux-pas she has to hide from Pitt all the way to an all-out war that he and her troops are also stuck fighting, and in spite of that, she’s still stuck dealing with the bulk of it herself.

  Animation-wise, while it doesn’t look quite as good as the previous short, this is NOT a bad look for a Kid Icarus anime, not at all. Studio Shaft’s art style fits the material perfectly, and while I’ve had less than flattering opinions about Akiyuki Shinbou in some of my past reviews, I have always believed his comedic work was his best work, and this segment definitely fit that bill. I wouldn't call it a laugh riot or anything, but I do laugh a decent amount through this short’s eight minute runtime. The vegetable monsters look really funny, and I especially love the silly, dainty way that Palutena runs in this short.

  I should also mention, though, there is some fanservice in this short, as it includes multiple shots of Palutena bathing in an onsen, each from a different angle. It’s not explicit or anything... Akiyuki Shinbou might love to showcase his female characters in the nude, but he does not like giving them nipples, unless they’re an immortal loli vampire... Yet it still feels kind of surreal to see a female Nintendo character in any state of undress. Sure, from what I’ve heard, there are the occasional onsen scenes in the Xenoblade and Fire Emblem games, and lord knows they let Bayonetta get away with a lot, but correct me if I’m wrong, don’t those properties cater to an older audience that Kid Icarus?

  Of course, I’m not complaining about this... If there’s any Nintendo character I’d want to see relaxing in an onsen, it’s definitely Palutena, and based on the comments from this segment’s various youtube uploads, I’m not the only one... But it still feels kind of out of place. Hell, she even gives the studio’s famous “Over the shoulder” look at one point.

  Between these three segments, they all definitely have their ups and downs, and I would personally recommend checking out all three for completely different reasons, but Palutena’s Revolting Dinner is still my favorite. Again, I’ve never played any of the games, so I don't know for certain if it’s based on anything from them, but just from my perspective as an outsider, it feels like both the strangest and most striking of the three.

  And yet, honestly, this whole ONA feels really strange and striking. I’ve seen anime OVA and ONA tie-ins to popular video games before, but I think this might be the only one from Nintendo. Other Nintendo IPs like Mario, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Kirby have all had various American cartoons based on them... Okay, Mario Animal Crossing had their own anime movies, but those were kind of their own thing, I don’t think they were promoting anything. It is still legitimately strange that this ONA exists, and I am of the opinion that weird novelty anime like this deserve to be remembered, not forgotten... Especially when they’re genuinely good, and damn it, this is actually pretty cool.

  Is it great? I wouldn’t go that far, but if you’ve got eighteen minutes to spare, there’s a lot worse out there that you could spend them on. Check these out if you’ve got a chance, they’re all over the place on youtube, and while you’re at it, maybe give the games a chance too.

  I give Kid Icarus Uprising a 6/10

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