Dead Leaves

I thought I had seen it all, then I saw Dead Leaves.

Preface:

From the mind of Hiroyuki Imaishi (director of FLCL and Gurren Lagann) comes this cracktastic adventure of the bizarre and insane. Get ready for a 45m long wild ride on ludicrous speed. It goes full plaid.

Story: 8

Retro- a guy with a TV for a head, and Pandy- a woman with an enormous red eye wake up in the middle of nowhere with no recollection as to how they got there, or what the heck they were doing in the first place. Their inhibitions flung to the wind, they take up arms and go buck wild on the city, only to be rounded up and sent to the prison Dead Leaves, which is located on the half munched-off remainder of the moon. Hilarity, violence, and madness ensue.

Art: 10

Everything about this OVA screams Hiroyuki Imaishi. I loved seeing his unique art style on display- Everything in this looked like the bumper slides from Gurren Lagann for reference, and I thought it was awesome. Crisply animated, and so so so many quick cuts, flashing lights, and fast, fluidly moving action pieces. Vibrant colors, and those glorious stars.

Sound: 8

I watched this in sub, and the voice acting was appropriately outrageous and manic. The energetic music pumped along to the explosions, gunfire, and general mayhem going on screen. Great stuff.

Characters: 8

Okay, so, Pandy the Red-eyed leading lady, and Retro, the deranged TV head team up to figure out just exactly what the heck is going on, along with a skeevy doctor that looks like Zoidberg, but swap the tentacles for bad teeth, some dudes with some not-so-subtle reproductive organ parts for heads, and Mr. Chinko Drill, who has an enormous golden drill for a penis. That's right, a drill, and he's not afraid to use it.

They all play their parts with equal bits psychosis and thirst for violence, and it couldn't be much more entertaining to watch.

Enjoyment: 9

What a rush. Nonstop, quick cut, over the top, sheer craziness from start to finish. It never lets up. Blink, and you might as well be watching something else- it goes FAST. Story on hyperdrive, action on lightspeed- I had to rewind several times after trying to find my jaw to put it back on. The absurd situations, the crude jokes, loved all of it. Couldn't stop laughing the whole time.

Overall: 8.8 (rounding this one up, because it was too much fun) - 9

In typical, addictive Imaishi style, it is extremely irreverent, edgy, and a bit crass, but when combined with his incredible art, a tasty soundtrack, and more gonzo than you've seen since Inferno Cop, and we have a formula for success.

Note: I see this as a sort of spiritual predecessor to Gurren Lagann. The art style definitely was inspired by this, and no-one can deny the introduction of the awesomeness of Spiral Power that we have Dead Leaves to thank for

Normally I ask for a plot in my movies, but when this was movie was finished I realize that you can still have a great movie with practically no plot. This movie gets this score for its amazing animation style, its no bars held style of action, its tongue in cheek humor, and style dripping out of every poor. Some of the humor was a bit low (I'm look at you Drill!) and the story was really confusing, but overall I thought that this movie was one of the most memorable pieces of work I have ever seen. If you come into this movie expecting a deep tapestry, you will be shocked and appalled, but if you liked Kill Bill and movies that are as fast as an fighter jet, rent or buy this movie now!

As the above reviews imply this flick is utter insanity, but brilliant insanity! Thoughtful, creative and brutally raw Dead Leaves is essentially a Japanese acid trip in prison. Full pointless filthy creations that can quite literally only work and defecate! The creators are not surprisingly complete lunatics (But just the sort of guys you would love to have a drink with). The directors commentary is hilarious, opening with the pair discussing how long they have been in the bar drinking before even mentioning the film itself.

Involving the producers of Ghost in the Shell, three drunken Japanese legends claimed to have blown nearly the entire budget in the first ten minutes of the picture. A Dramatic but classic car chase between our protagonists' (one with a TV on his head, the other a strange clown looking woman.) Who set out on a ten-minute trail of destruction through an urban futuristic city, until their exploits dump them into the highest security prison on the moon.

The budget constrictions become so obvious throughout the rest of the picture but rather than holding back, these constraints actually add to films aesthetic affect. It's a comedy more than anything and these financial problems heighten the comedic factor to a great extent. Also the animation is inventive and affective, a simplistic style of animation that would in fact require enormous artistic talent on the part of the animators. Very typical of the best new styles of animation whereby extreme complexity creates a beautifully simplistic image. (Cartoon Networks Samurai Jack being a great example of such an animative style.) Dead Leaves is great fun, a new experience and not for faint-hearted or over conservative. As I say it's raw, brutal and blunt; the writers have held back in no respects whatsoever, putting the true dark extremities of the human consciousness into a comic script. So for fans of the genre or newbie's who want to see something crazy, off world and unimaginable – Dead Leaves is well worth a watch. You may feel slightly offended but will certainly not miss 55 minutes of your life! Enjoy.

Let me preface this by saying I don't watch a lot of anime, and when I do it's Howl's Moving Castle, or something along those lines. I think I came across Dead Leaves by googling for abstract or surreal movies or something like that, and the synopsis intrigued me so...why not?

The good: inventively insane visuals, unusual but effective animation style

The bad: everything else. Terrible, repetitive music. The plot is somewhere between flimsy and nonexistent. The characters are just vehicles for crude humor and gruesome violence, with no merit of their own.

I watched with interest for about 20 minutes as things just got progressively weirder and weirder, but it eventually became clear that the movie was going to just be an endless stream of pointless violence and crude humor and that's all, so I turned it off. If you already know and are familiar with this type of anime then maybe it will work for you. If you're looking for any degree of substance, then keep looking.

I'm not an anime fan. I started to go in to why, but deleted it and decided to write about why I like Dead Leaves. How I am going to do that is by saying that even though I am not a fan of the genre, FLCL is one of my all time favorite viewing experiences. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it, and have owned various DVD releases of it and watched them many times, each viewing finding something new. Until tonight, I was disconsolate that no other anime would ever make me sit up and take notice.

Now, Dead Leaves is not quite to FLCL's level, IMO; however, they are kindred spirits. First of all, it's a short, just over 3/4 of an hour, so it didn't have the time to develop its characters or plot as well, neither does it have the bittersweet, weird love story of FLCL, nor the coming of age subtext rife with adolescent realizations that makes FLCL so special, but then again, it doesn't want or need any of these. What it does have are tons of LOL, WTF and "AWESOME!" moments, packed in so tightly, this is something that will need to be watched again and again. It also shares FLCL's humor, twisted sensibility and style.

Another comment indicates that the director of Dead Leaves also worked on FLCL, but I can't find confirmation of that here on IMDb; however, I would not be surprised in the slightest that that was the case.

This short has given me hope that Japan hasn't only made one anime that I can appreciate. It is confirmed that it has now made at least two.