Dead Leaves

Publisher
Manga
Director
Hiroyuki Imaishi
Production
Manga Entertainment, Production IG
Country of origin
Japan
Format
OVA
Running time
50 minutes
Year
2004

Dead Leaves

By Trey Washington
20th Apr 06

Seeing as this is one of the most unorthadox anime ova titles I've seen, I'm gonna get a lil unorthadox on this here review( bear with me people ).

Plot:
-The story starts of with Pandy and Retro waking up naked in the middle of nowhere. They realize they need food and clothes so they do what any upstanding citizen would do...go on a trigger happy rampage. A few deaths later they end up in the maximum security prison called Dead Leaves. The prison is quite huge and guarded by giant robots, crazy experiments, and police. Most of the prisoners are forced to wear strait jacket type uniforms that have holes on the bottom; I’ll let you figure out what it’s for. 666 and 777 are the head honchos who murder, torture, and work the prisoners to a pulp. Pandy and Retro end up escaping their cell and freeing the other prisoners, starting a revolt and moving the action in motion. I’ll be honest with you, you’ll either love it or hate it and it’ll have to do with the plot. Quite frankly the plot is pretty abstract and isn’t that great. The prisoners are quite unique and add to the blend of this cartoon. While I want you to find out most of the “surprises” your self it is very hard to explain. Like I said the plot is abstract and Production I.G. wanted to have fun with the animation, not make an elaborate story.

Crappy plot won’t make sense the first time through. The action will keep you hooked despite some plot holes. If you like story then look else where cause you will either love this or hate it and it will more than likely be because of story.

Characters:

Retro: Named for the old television he uses for a head. The more comical character with really funny dialogue wakes up naked with no memory of his past.

Pandy: Named for the red oval over one of her eyes. More serious and plot driven character (if there is a plot) has a more hidden past then Retro. Has a strabge connection with the Dead Leaves warren. Becomes pregnant with Retro’s baby and is said to be the mother or sister (not explained well) of Galactica, the prison warren. Ex-spy put in freeze-sleep with Retro

Galatica: Prison warren of Dead Leaves. In charge of the cloning experiments taken place in the prison who's related to Pandy but relation isn’t explained

666/777: The ultimate weapons produced from Dead Leaves. Conduct tortures of the inmates in Dead Leaves, super powerful bad guys.

Dick Drill: The character that steals the show. Pure comical goodness comes from his hilarious phallus. Main weapon is...you’ll guess it.

Prisoners: The results and rejects of the experiments in Dead Leaves. They are frequently tortured and made to do heavy labor in the high security facilty and eventually are lead into revolt by Pandy and Retro.

Audio:

Music - The music is very dead on with every scene that it accompanies. Now it isn’t anything catchy or memorable like the sound of Cowboy Bebop or FLCL but it does set the perfect mood for every scene be it a bloody shoot out, a fast paced mecha scene, or some raunchy sex scene. Yes, there is a sex scene, no it isn’t graphic. The music ranges from funky techno music to opera to fasted paced beats. It fits with every scene perfectly and I find that to be a hard thing to do with an anime that’s as fast and random as this.

Subtitles vs. Dubbed Voices - The English voices for this cartoon are dead on for the each character they do. Retro sounds like he is suppose to: crazy, wacky, TV thingy. Most of the funniest dialogue comes straight out of his mouth and quite frankly it sounds much better in English then it does reading the subtitle. Yes sweaty otaku fanboy... you can watch this in English. Even the minor roles have the perfect voices and nothing sounds out of place.

Sound FXs / Dolby 5.1 goodness - No one really pays attention to the bang and booms but it’s a noticeable mention in here. Remember the original Batman shows and how it showed each sound (BAM!!! WHAP!! ZING!!) well it happens here to but in comic book style. That is the best way I can explain the FXs and the Animation. It looks good and is like watching a comic book instead of a Japanese cartoon. I had my system on for this and it sounds great in Japanese audio and English in 5.1. Put up the bass because the fast action will be great to accompany the sound and all. Overall the sound is excellent in this DVD.
Audio more than exceeded my expectation of crappy voices and has some earth trembling audio in good ole’ 5.1 surround sound. The music sets the perfect mood for every single frame of animation.

Animation:
-This is where I.G. Production shines. There is so much action and killing in every scene that I had to pause to see what I thought I saw, it’s that fast. The action scenes are some of the wildest I’ve seen in a while. The art style is very great as it reminds me of an American Comic style instead of an anime style. Everything is really original here and surprised me every step of the way. The colors the placement and the characters are all great, I’ve had but one problem. The animation is fast...sometimes too fast for the naked eye. Like I said you sometimes have to pause to see what you think you saw. In one shooting scene I thought I saw a dick go into some guy’s mouth after he died. Turns out I was right, the commentary even notes it. It happens for exactly 3 or 4 frames, which can tell you that the animation studio must of put some subtle things in each scene. It’s great and fast but sometimes gets tiresome on the eyes.

Extra Features:

We have several extras which include.

DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY - This is a standard in all DVDs now a days, the commentary is spoken in Japanese and put in subtitles like most of the other features. Most of the speakers are drunk and some funny facts about the anime are tossed around like “someone told me this motorcycle looks like a marijuana joint”. The commentary is average but it does have it’s funny parts.

CLUB ASIA - Reactions and interviews of some of the people that worked on Dead Leaves. They show it at some place and throw in some facts. It’s pretty interesting what they say. Quote “You need to be at least drunk while watching this”

FILM PREMIERE Q&A - Almost the same as above except different location and some more of the cast get grilled. It’s much better then the Club Asia feature.

TRUTH OR DOUBT - Hilarious little drinking game the crew play. This is really awkward and funny at the same time and we find out more then we needed to know in this one.

FILM FESTIVAL INTERVIEW - Self explanatory, it’s an interview. It’s all right and we find out a few fun facts.

RECORDING SESSION - It’s great to see some of the voices come alive in this one. It’s a pretty good feature.

ORIGINAL JAPANESE TRAILER - Self explanatory

MANGA EXTRAS - The trailers to other Manga titles.
The extra features are a good addition and more than make up for 50 minutes of animation. The most enjoyable one is probably Truth or Doubt.

Story - B-
Animation - A
Audio - A+
Extras - B+

Overall Package - A+

I'd only say you should get this if only you toss out all your morals before watching and you're not the casual anime watcher who thinks DBZ is the best ever

-- Trey Washington 20th Apr 06

Dead Leaves Images