Maire is a baker who lives in a nice little fantasy town. She doesn’t remember who she is or where she’s come from, however, she just knows her name. She also knows that she has a special power that allows her to infuse magic of things like luck, love, or other emotions/characteristics into what she bakes. Her life is turned upside down when bandits attack her village and she is taken away with others to be sold as slaves. The person who buys her is eccentric but seems to know about her powers. What does that mean for her and will she be able to get away from her owner?

The story seems pretty interesting, and I think that it’s okay. Now, what I think the author gets wrong is that she wants this to be an adult fiction book, so tries to toss in some heavier stuff, but this is really a YA book with a little bit off the screen sex and a few intense situations. But beyond that, I think with the plot, it just wanders at time without really feeling like you have much of a purpose when reading it. The writing itself is well done, but the plot if just kind of there. The person who buys Maire is intentionally not fleshed out that well, but is supposed to be a very interesting character and just ends up feeling pretty dull and you don’t get them. Which is some of the point, but it’s not handled in what I would call a good way, instead it just feels like they aren’t driving the plot forward like they should.

The characters, besides Maire and her owner and one other character aren’t really fleshed out. They feel more like your standard fantasy villagers, which they are, but they don’t have much of anything that stands out about them. There are also only three of them that you really get to know. Even Maire and her owner don’t feel like they have a ton of depth. Again, I think this is done somewhat intentionally, but it doesn’t make for the best book, even if it makes sense within the book.

There are a few more confusing bits to this book that I don’t want to get into too much. Let me say that it has some heavy laying on a fairy tale themes in the book. However, there is no reason for that. In the world that Charlie Holmberg has created, she’s done nothing to set-up more fairy tale themes. it’s just a standard fantasy world that she then brings in a few mentions to fairy tales and lays it on fairly heavily in the middle, and then ignores it again at the end. The end is the other big thing that doesn’t make a ton of sense. I won’t spoil it, but let’s say that it tries to get deep, and it feels a bit like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy mixed with an anime that has been about giant mechs fighting and the last episodes are an existential crisis, I’m looking at you Gurren Lagann and Neon Genesis Evangelion. I think it could have been done in a way that would have worked, but you are told bits and pieces of what is going to happen in the end, but you never feel like you have a real chance of discovering it with the character, versus just having her told what is going on.

Now, I have been pretty hard on this book. I do want to come back and say, I think that the writing style is pulled off well. You get this sense of whimsy that ties nicely into the fairy tale aspect and the cake baking. And I was able to read through it quickly and didn’t feel like it was a slog, because there are hints of interesting that you can keep on finding. I would say that this book is like rice. By that, I mean that the rice is good and helps make up a meal, but it’s nothing amazing just by itself and just kind of plain. That’s what this book is, it’s good but in the end, for a fantastical idea like it has, it just ends up being a little bit plain. Not bad and reading it I had my fill of the rice, there’s just nothing that makes me want to come back and have more of this book or things by this author, even though I am slightly interested in her Paper Magician series, but after one book, I don’t feel like I need to fill up on rice.

Have you read the Paper Magician Series or Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet? Did you like them? What are some books that you think a “rice”?

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This is the far flung future after humanity has blown itself up and screwed up the world. There are mobile houses that people travel around in where they can mine, and make a living. There are also bigger predator cities that chew up these smaller buildings for fuel. We meet our main character, Hester Shaw as the small vehicles that is getting chased down by a predator city. On the city we have Tom who is a researcher who has noticed that things on the city are going missing, things that could be used for a weapon.

In some way the story just sounds too predictable YA Dystopia. And I think that is some of the issue. The story leans into tropes, but leans into them too much, you want the familiar, but you also don’t want it to feel like it hits upon every trope. The movie packs in too many tropes this way and also because it tries to hit on so many things, you end up with a very disjointed story. You get a predictable bad guy with an anticlimactic end. We get a few other deaths that are supposed to feel like they mean something to the audience, but we’re not connected with the characters. It feels rushed, but also feels like it doesn’t have the action that it should. And when it does have action sequences, they aren’t anything all that interesting, and the main character who is fighting is just a poorly done character.

The characters are also an issue in this movie. Hester has an interesting backstory, and I think that Hera Hilmar does a solid job, but she isn’t given much to work with. We really don’t get to see her shine as a character either, and there is some with her look if you think about it doesn’t make a ton of sense. With Tom, played by Robert Sheehan, he’s a pretty flat character, where he was great as Klaus in Umbrella Academy and playing an eccentric character, here he is a pretty thin character. Then you have Anna Fang. Talk about a great looking character but a very disappointing character. Kristen put it this way, she’s kind of supposed to be a Han Solo type character, but they don’t give her great lines to work with, and she does less than anything with them. She looks cool, maybe a little bit out of place, but that could be set-up with some better character development and story development, but that wasn’t there, and Jihae does nothing with it.

Now, not all the characters are bad. Hugo Weaving as the villain is amazing. His motivations aren’t fully developed, nor is his character, but he does a very good job with what he’s given. The real shame with his character is it’s death. It’s a cheap and not impactful death. I think you could argue that the point of it is to keep blood off of the main characters hands, but we already know that really isn’t something she’s worried about. So it feels weak and more like they hoped they could do another movie, but didn’t think that they’d be able to get Hugo Weaving again. Leila George has a smaller role in the film, but her part was interesting and she portrayed it well. I wish that we’d see more of her Katherine Valentine and Ronan Raftery who plays Bevis Pod with her. They were interesting characters that have the distinction of being the secondary characters who are more interesting than the main characters, which is too common is YA.

I’ve bashed this movie pretty hard. I think even with the characters who have some good development or are better acted, they aren’t given what they should have to work with in this film. I do want to knock one more thing, and that’s the weapon that is used in the movie. There are certain angles where that thing feels like a horrible mid 90’s green screen effect, not nearly as cool and polished as the rest of the world. That’s all I’m going to say about it, because I do want to jump into the visuals of the rest of the world which are amazing. The different vehicles all make sense as something that would be in the world. And while the Shanara Chronicles also do the future earth after something has happened, I think that the world of Mortal Engines is a whole lot cooler. The flying ships, the wall, and the general aesthetic of the world are cool, but the predator city is amazing, and the smaller vehicles are all slightly unique and you can see how they fit into the world. There’s are a level of dinginess in the world as well that works really well, and while you do get some Hunger Games vibes in the movie, they don’t lean into it too much.

There’s so much to explore visually and storywise in this world if someone were to do a good job of creating something cool, that it’s a shame this is the movie we got. And the movie did poorly in theaters, so we’re not going to get another one. Maybe fifteen years from now if the books have done well for Mortal Engines, we’ll get another crack at a move which will do better. There’s so much potential of the world that I want to see more of it. I don’t care that it seems to borrow from Shanara Chronicles, Hunger Games, Gurren Lagann, and Howl’s Moving Castle, and a lot more. There’s a chance for it to be unique, and I’d even read the books after having seen the movie in hopes that they are better and that I’ll get the story that I really want.

Overall Grade: C-
Critical Grade: B+ (Visuals), D (Story)
Fan Grade: C

Have you seen Mortal Engines, if so, what are your thoughts on it? Is it a movie you want to see if you haven’t seen it?

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Gurren Lagann is a pretty typical mecha anime. Something horrible has happened to the world and there are monsters of some sort who are trying to take it over or kill all humans or something along those lines. It’s only those who can control these mech armor suits that have a chance at saving humanity and defeating the big bad guy. This covers a wide swath of anime, including the one that I’m watching now, Code Geass.

More specifically for Gurren Lagann, the world and humanity have been forced to live underground because it’s too dangerous to live above ground, though not everyone knows why. There are underground villages, and in one of these villages we find a digger, who drills through the ground looking for things and expanding the village, whose name is Simon. Simon is an excellent digger and one day he finds the head of a mech. The same day, the roof/earth crust collapses in on their village and while people survive a giant mech crashes through. Followed by a girl who is trying to destroy it. Simon, the girl, Yoko, and Simon’s Bro, Kamina end up in the mech head that Simon had found and are able to destroy the mech that has fallen into their village. This is Kamina and Simon’s chance to get to the surface and they take it. Up there they find a world where humans aren’t allowed to live and the Spiral King is using beastmen in mechs to kill any humans who come to the surface, and the show continues from there as Simon, Yoko, and Kamina take on mechs as they try and reach the Spiral King.

My initial thoughts are are that is a pretty typical anime. There’s a fair amount of fan service, and the plot is pretty simple at the start of it. I will say that it grows into more of a plot and does an odd anime thing where half way through the show pivots hard. The more that I think about how it pivots, the more I think it does a decent job with it. Gurren Lagann doesn’t end up having a ton of depth, but does touch on a few interesting topics to think about. I won’t go into them as it will give away how some of the story ends up going. It reminds me of how it changes of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is another anime I should watch again.

Gurren Lagann is also an anime that I feel like leans into it’s tropes as well. The fan service, the mechs, everything is done in a pretty typical anime manner. Even the bravado of Kamina is very typical. For that reason I can’t recommend it all that highly, though for a standard anime, it doesn’t seem to miss that many beats with what it does. The pivot in the middle is probably the point where it is the most rough as everything just pivots a little bit too hard and overall it isn’t the easiest to follow. As compared to Kill la Kill, Gurren Lagann isn’t as self aware about the tropes that it is leaning into. I don’t think that is a bad thing, as it does make it more accessible to newer anime watchers, I feel like it’s just okay because of that. However, as compared to Kill la Kill again, it isn’t nearly as over the top. Kill la Kill is an anime that I wouldn’t recommend to a newer anime watcher because it is so over the top and leans into tropes in a way that will be confusing or will be harder to read and understand what they getting at and how they are subverting things and playing against tropes as well as into them at the same time.

Overall, Gurren Lagann is just an okay anime. It isn’t long as if you want to watching something that is pretty traditional mecha anime, you won’t go wrong watching Gurren Lagann. If you’re a more seasoned anime watcher and know more of the tropes and standards for mecha anime, I’d definitely recommend Neon Genesis Evangelion over it as a more classic anime and a better done anime.

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