Hello folks, and welcome the heck back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am riding high on the success of our new campaign’s first session, wherein I took on the guise of Tilly The Goblin With Anxiety, and became fast… well, acquaintances at least with my party of a swashbuckler, mad scientist, and Dandelion From The Witcher. Having already completed two campaigns with this group, our confidence in executing in-character drama has never been higher; compared to actually serving as dungeon master, simply staying in character during the session feels totally effortless, and I’m thus looking forward to more directly party-driven drama in the sessions to come. And alongside that, I have of course continued with our regularly scheduled film and anime screenings, munching through some light One Piece adventures while also completing Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory. I’m frankly not quite sure where to go at this point in our Gundam journey; I suppose Gundam Unicorn would be the next natural step? Anyway, I’ll figure that out myself, while you all enjoy my latest week in films!

First up this week was Noah, Darren Aronofsky’s biblical epic starring Russell Crowe as our titular ship-builder. Drawing on a variety of ancient sources to fill out the admittedly brief Genesis telling, Noah presents a vision that is austere and wondrous, cold and awe-inspiring, and altogether precisely the sort of fable you’d expect from the ever-grim Aronofsky.

Noah doesn’t pull its punches; the story of the arc’s builder is one of vague portent and unimaginable sacrifice, with its protagonist frequently coming across as distant and monstrous, a slave to a cruel god rather than an exemplar of mankind’s virtue. Ray Winstone’s antagonistic Tubal-cain is actually far more sympathetic; though he is determined to destroy Noah, his alliance of men, employment of metal tools, and bravery in the face of supernatural opposition all paint him as a genuine hero. He embodies mankind’s ability to solve their own problems, rather than wait for whatever signs may come.

Aronofsky is obviously well aware of this moral ambiguity; the bible is quite frankly a terrible resource for divining anything approaching a defensible morality, far more concerned with demanding fealty and exacting punishment than conveying a decent way to live. The fact that honestly portraying biblical history would result in such a gruesome character study is clearly what Aronofsky was intending; like all of Aronofsky’s heroes, Noah is driven by something dark and inexorable, an urge as senseless and destructive as the obsessions driving Requiem, Black Swan, and mother! Framing a biblical fantasy epic around a lunatic who sucks is a bold choice; the film can at times be too ponderous for its own good, but it also offers an array of staggering images and a vividly ambiguous character study, fitting with unexpected snugness into Aronofsky’s oeuvre.

We then completed our journey through the Gundam Universal Century classics with a screening of Char’s Counterattack, the capstone of Tomino’s original drama. Set several years after ZZ Gundam, the film sees Char once again taking up the reins of Neo-Zeon, at this point having given up hope of ever convincing humanity to leave earth. Well, if humanity’s not going to evolve willingly, Char will have to take things into his own hands – this time by making the earth entirely uninhabitable by human life, just so long as Amuro and Bright aren’t able to stop him.

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Char’s Counterattack. For one thing, Char’s character here is barely recognizable from his earlier appearances – he essentially acts much like Haman Khan, exploiting child soldiers without a second thought, and lacking all the heroic, hopeful qualities that previously made him such a compelling antihero. Though Tomino wrote the film, the returning characters feel less like natural continuations than alternate takes, while the film’s new characters fall into Zeta and ZZ’s unfortunate tendency towards child-brained Newtypes driving the drama in random, unserious circles.

Char’s Counterattack’s Quess is actually somehow more of an irritant than ZZ’s Ple, and drags down the film’s attempts at fated majesty every time she appears. Fortunately we’ve still got Bright and Amuro to remind us of better days, and the film’s ample fight scenes offer plenty of the beautifully animated mech-on-mech drama that the preceding series could only gesture towards. As a conclusion to the rivalry between Char and Amuro, Char’s Counterattack feels too distant from their prior characterization to satisfy; as a film in general, it feels rushed and oddly unfocused, lacking the thematic precision and grandeur of something like Tomino’s previous Be Invoked. A somewhat awkward conclusion to one of anime’s greatest sagas.

We then began a cataloging of our remaining unwatched One Piece ephemera, beginning with the original 2000-vintage One Piece: The Movie. This film actually takes place before Sanji even joins the crew, charting the original four Straw Hats’ adventures on the allegedly treasure-rich Woonan Island.

Released as a double bill with Hosoda’s Our War Game, the first One Piece film is essentially just an East Blue-era filler arc condensed into one fifty minute sequence, with both the charms and limitations that implies. It’s frankly reward enough just seeing more vintage One Piece adventures; the show’s early arcs possessed a freewheeling energy and rough-scribbled aesthetic that at this point feels inherently nostalgic. I obviously love what One Piece has evolved into, but there’s also nothing quite like its lackadaisical early era, where it truly felt like the sea was an open canvas for any style of adventure, and our crew were led by simple concerns like food and mountains of treasure. Though threadbare in its art design and animation, One Piece: The Movie still serves as a warm reminder of simpler times.

Nostalgia’s good enough for one fifty-minute feature, but fortunately, Toei brought out the big guns for Clockwork Island Adventure, the second One Piece film. Director-storyboarder Junji Shimizu is a legend of One Piece and Pretty Cure alike; though he also directed the first film, it is here that he actually gets to go wild, bringing the same dynamic boarding and whimsical comedy that he’d later apply to the excellent Episode of Chopper film. And art director Mitsuo Oshino is even more accomplished, having painted background art for the films of Miyazaki and Hosoda, alongside a little show known as Ojamajo Doremi.

With those impressive headliners matched by a ridiculous lineup of key animators, Clockwork Island Adventure offers a vision of the East Blue that’s more aesthetically accomplished than anything in the show proper, while still maintaining the shading and intricate linework of early One Piece. Character-rich gag sequences, beautiful island vistas, impressive cuts of action and camerawork that show off early One Piece’s loose, angular aesthetic – the film feels almost like the East Blue as it is remembered, with all the accomplished visual embellishments you’d hope for from the origins of such a venerable franchise. An essential entry in the One Piece film canon.