Genius Party is my favourite movie –
LIKE, EVER!!! It's a stunningly-beautiful anthology film collecting several short pieces from the most popular anime directors of the 2000s, like Masaki Yuasa (
) and Cowboy Bebop's Shinichiro Watanabe (who's final segment of the film is one of the most touching pieces of kino I've ever seen in my life). Every short is utterly unique in plot, structure, animation, and style, but all are colourful, intelligent, crazy, and just an awful lot of fun.
I was going to say which of these shorts was my favourite, but I realized that's impossible – they're
all excellent, and, despite being completely separate from one another, all contribute to the overall tone and flair of the movie. This is what I love about anime, and why my preferred material from the medium was made at this time. Phenomenal ending song, too! None of this applies to sequel, though, because it SUCKS!!!
Malice@Doll is a bizarre, disgusting, fucked-up film from Chiaki J. Konaka (Serial Experiments Lain), but I like it a lot. It's about a half-dead, broken-down sex android living in a filthy post-apocalyptic society with several other rusty, crumbling robots, endlessly playing out their duties for an audience of nobody. One day, when a gross alien creature arrives on her world, the protagonist is infected with a disease that turns her mechanical parts into flesh, and starts spreading it to her friends.
AND THE FUN ONLY STARTS THERE!
This movie was made right at the point when Japanese animators were getting hold of longform CGI technology, and a lot of shortcuts and cheats are used (pre-rendered images instead of models, etc.). I find the animation fascinating, though, and the story is very cerebral and quite scary. For budgetary reasons, it was originally released as a three-episode OVA series, but was repackaged as a movie, and that's the best way to watch it. Recommended, but... don't eat first.
), I'd totally give it a go. Just be warned: it isn't for the faint of heart.
