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An American Anime: Homage or Oxymoron? Date: 2/26/2006 |
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In the second episode of "Kappa Mikey," which appears tomorrow night as part of a doubleheader with the premiere, a hard-driving Japanese studio boss, Ozu, delivers his workplace philosophy: "Be in bed by never." At least that's what I thought he said. And I thought it was a good line, like the old Disney credo, "If you don't show up for work on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday." But Ozu is voiced with an exaggerated Japanese accent, and the dialogue here is so speedy that when I played the sequence back to check the quotation ? fully seven times ? I realized I was wrong. Ozu had actually said, "Be in bed by 9 o'clock." Which was less funny. That sums up my encounter with "Kappa Mikey," a bright, strange comedy that Nicktoons Network is advertising as the first anime series ever created and produced entirely in the United States. It's promising around the edges, a little culty and hard to make out. It gets you wondering what anime even is, and whether it can ever delight American audiences as it does Japanese. "Kappa Mikey" tells of the exploits of Mikey Simon, an American child actor from Cleveland who is drafted to star on an anime action show in Japan called "LilyMu." The audience of "LilyMu" loves Mikey, and he's suddenly a huge star in Japan. His real-life problems are celebrity problems: landing a glamorous apartment, dodging paparazzi, squabbling with his co-stars. At one point, Mikey ruins Ozu's precious bonsai tree and panics about how to replace it. A strange blobby creature suitably named Guano has an idea: "I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a botanist who knows a wizard who knows a magical princess who knows a ? " Another character looks up from a computer. "I just ordered one on TreeTrade," she says. This joke hits: e-commerce has thwarted the old drama and self-importance that used to come from getting things through back channels. Dancing animated sushi and maki rolls appear between scenes here, and they're cute and hilarious. The Web site of the show's production company, Animation Collective, refers to "Kappa Mikey" as "TV's first raw fish out of water comedy." Mikey is created entirely with Flash technology; he stands out among the other protean figures here as the one who looks most consistent frame by frame. The rest of the gang ? the boss Ozu; Ozu's sidekick, Yes Man; and Mikey's co-stars ? physically transform depending on their moods: they grow enormous, or their features pop out, or their faces become deformed with fury or love. The show is, in fact, so relentlessly in motion that you may want it to slow down so you can get at least one good look at all the characters and settings. But as a sendup and reworking of anime ? and it still remains to be seen whether animation produced outside of Asia can actually merit the name ? "Kappa Mikey" is worth a look, however disorienting it is at times. It features the ultrabright colors, stark graphics, Japanese settings and signs, and eclectic drawing styles that are the hallmarks of anime, as well as an excellent pop theme song by Beat Crusaders. Moreover, in the scenes from "LilyMu," there are hints of anime's subgenre, mecha, which involves giant robots and war machines. As My First Anime for the budding fanboy in your house ? or as an anime primer for curious adults ? "Kappa Mikey" does the trick. |
| Source: New York Times |
