Naruto: the Duel of the Caged Birds

Last time I said I would talk about bad movies made from popular franchises, but I am not ready to go into that dark negative territory and dedicate an entire post to it just yet, so instead I will go in the other direction with Naruto. Naruto impresses me for a number of reasons. First of all, it falls into my favorite kind of anime story, which is most of them, the story of a misfit who becomes a hero. I find these stories inspiring because goofballs like me and Naruto need this more than anybody. It'shard when you feel like nobody wants you, but hearing a story like this can give you hope when you feel hopeless. I also appreciate Naruto because unlike other anime it has managed to stay on track instead of growing out of control. Dragon Ball kept escalating it's villains until it had to end because there wasn't anywhere left to escalate to and the dragon balls themselves became largely irrelevant for the last half of the series run. Bleach started out as being Soul Reapers vs Hollows, but after a dozen episodes seemed to abandon Hollows as the primary antagonists. And can anyone tell me how the Straw Hat Pirates are getting any closer to finding the legendary One Piece? Oh yeah, that's right, they haven't even been looking for One Piece since before Arlong. Don't get me wrong, I do love all those stories, but I have to give props to Naruto for always being about Jinchuriki vs Uchiha. The entire series starts with Naruto's rivalry with Sasuke, and by the time Sasuke steps out, who's the new antagonist but his brother Itachi. Itachi is part of the Akatsuki who are looking for Jinchuriki like Naruto, and then it turns out the Akatsuki are actually led by Obito Uchiha who is actually just a subordinate to Madara Uchiha, who as it turns out only started the Akatsuki to get the power of the tailed beasts that the ancestor of the Uchiha Clan sealed away in the first place. This means that ultimately the central conflict of the Naruto universe started with the Uchiha Clan and the tailed beasts and was destined to be settled by the last of each line which brings it back to Naruto and Sasuke. Considering how easy it is for some writers to lose sight of the original idea and stray off, I have to give a lot of credit to Naruto that it always ties back to where it started, it's nothing if not focused.

For those who may be a little lost, Naruto is the story of an eponymous ninja who carries within him the spirit of the nine-tailed fox. There are nine such spirits, each sealed in a person known as a Jinchuriki. Jinchuki are powerful because the spirit gives them extra energy and special powers otherwise beyond human ability even by ninja standards. In this world the ninja are capable of mystical ninjutsu and some clans have special powers called Genki Kekkai which are inherited and usually involve some unique anatomical trait. The most significant of the Genki Kekkai are the Dojutsu, the Three Great Eye Arts. All three of the Dojutsu are believed to have come from one ninja sage who split the ancient ten-tailed spirit into nine spirits to limit it's power. Few know this truth and are only aware that there clans of ninja with special eyes and a few ninja who have demon spirits sealed in them. Naruto has the misfortune of being one of the misunderstood Jinchuriki and forms a rivalry with Sasuke Uchiha who happens to be the last of the clan that carries the legacy of the Sharingan, a Dojutsu that allows one to have heightened attention to detail in battle allowing for quicker reflexes and learning ninjutsu by simply watching them be used. The Sharingan actually has a lot more power including Genjutsu, or ninjutsu of illusions, but more importantly Sharingan, as Dojutsu allows for the potential to control the tailed beasts since it is tied to the abilities of the sage who split and defeated the ten-tailed beast in the first place. In the beginning neither Naruto nor Sasuke is aware of just how much their destinies are tied together, only that they are both outcasts and are forced together on one team. It seems the secrets of their destinies are so little known nobody realizes what a bad idea it may actually be to force them to be friends. Sasuke is the last of his clan after his brother kills the rest of the family and leaves Sasuke all alone and this gives him both a large ego and major trust issues. Naruto on the other hand is also an orphan, but without the ego attached because he doesn't know his own legacy, he is desperate to be liked. From my own experiences I know that this desperation can make one even more awkward and creates a vicious cycle where it's not clear if nobody likes you because you're a hot mess or if you're such a mess because nobody likes you. Eventually Naruto's life turns around when he finally finds people who actually seem to genuinely like him and when he realizes he needs to protect these people his true strength comes out. Sasuke goes in the other direction, trying to be more independent and find his own strength and tries to isolate himself in the process. The story mainly follows how these two follow their own paths from a common starting point as orphans with greater power than they realize becoming ninja in the Village Hidden in the Leaves and going off to find their destinies in opposite directions only to find they reach the same end.

Of all of the events in Naruto, the most moving for me was something I call the Duel of the Caged Birds. It's four episodes long to get from the beginning of the set up to the big payoff, but honestly it is the most worthwhile of all anime. There are three ranks of ninja, four if you count the Kage leaders, but since there can only be one of those for each village it's hard to count it, and to move between those ranks a ninja must take an exam. The final part of the first exam is a fighting tournament between the top ninja who remain after the eliminations of the first few rounds. Naruto's first fight-only fight because the exam is cut short by unfortunate circumstances-is against Neji Hyuga. The Hyuga Clan has the Byakugan, the weakest of the three Dojutsu, but bear in mind that when I say weakest I mean the weakest of one of the three strongest powers, and as a relative measure it's still pretty badass. Byakugan allows for one to see all around in 360 degrees and even through objects, and since you can see inside your opponent, this allows for a special fighting style called the Gentle Fist because it relies on precision rather than force and even a gentle tap can be debilitating or even lethal. Neji has already mastered the Gentle Fist and knows the village idiot doesn't stand a chance against him. In an act of sheer hubris he tries to get Naruto to give up by explaining the futility of the fight, Neji will win. To make his point he explains the Mark of the Caged Bird. Every member of the Hyuga Clan has the mark except the leader and his heir, all those with the mark are subordinate. Neji is older and stronger than the current heir Hinata, but because his father was born only minutes after Hinata's father, his twin and current leader of the clan, Neji can never be the leader of his clan. He is caged by this fate as Naruto is caged by the fate of losing to Neji. Of course Naruto doesn't care and fights anyway, pulling out win against all odds and surprising everyone, possibly even himself. As Neji lies on his back defeated, he looks up into the sky at a bird flying free. "Even a caged bird will pick the lock to it's cage, never giving up the dream to fly free again." The clip below cuts off just before the pay off, but trust me, the line happens, and this sequence is still awesome.

Final Fantasy, presenting the great Nobuo Uematsu

This time I would like to talk about my favorite video game series, Final Fantasy, and the great composer behind it, Nobuo Uematsu. First of all, I need to sing the praises of Nobuo Uematsu. In my first post I praised Akira Toriyama who did Dragon Quest, and what Toriyama did for the visual part of gaming, Nobuo Uematsu did for the background music. It is not at all lost on him, at one point he formed a band named the Black Mages for an iconic character in Final Fantasy, and they performed rock versions of the songs he made for Final Fantasy. The soundtracks have been released as albums and became best sellers and they have been performed by professional philharmonic orchestras. Whoever thinks there is no culture in video games needs to hear the work of Nobuo Uematsu. He had a very limited sound palette to work with but worked miracles. In FF6 alone, with only a digital synthesizer to generate unnatural sounds, he managed to create the drum and flute sounds of a tribal band, the guitar strumming of a wandering minstrel, two distinct regal horn fanfares for different kingdoms, the signature march of the archvillain which sounded like it used all four instrument types, and even attempted digitized vocals for four different songs including two that were part of an opera. Yes, this bears repeating, Nobuo Uematsu actually composed a mini opera with lyrics in time with a tune and melody for one particularly significant scene for music aficionados.

This deserves it's own paragraph, so I'm going to take a moment aside to talk about the opera. To those who don't know how an opera fits into a video game I will go in depth on this particular part of the game(since it's my favorite game of all time, I will tell you the rest later, but right now, just the opera). One trick Final Fantasy uses to keep players where they belong in the story is to create roadblocks to prevent you from going anywhere else, and then conveniently providing just the right form of transportation to get where you need to go, the most iconic of all being the Airship, featured in every game. In FF6, it belongs to Setzer Gabianni, the wandering gambler, who happens to be obsessed with an opera singer who bears a striking resemblance to one of the members of your party. The brilliant plan is to have your girl stand in for the singer on the night Setzer is going to abduct her in the middle of the show, which conveniently occurs right after you find out you need to go to the southern continent and due to your war with the Empire you are banned from all other forms of transportation. The only thing more ridiculous than this plot twist is that it works exactly as planned. Anyway, to make this work, the player actually has to sit through the first two songs of the opera and participate in the second one since your girl is singing and you need to remember lyrics and stay in time with the music. This is not a sidequest, you are actually required to join in an opera in order for the story to move forward. Nobuo Uematsu actually wrote the songs which appear in full within the game as much as technology allowed and since then the songs have actually been performed live. I just want to make this point clear to anyone who does not believe that video games have culture.

On a completely different note, Nobuo Uematsu's most famous composition is probably "One-Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VII. Inspired somewhat by Carmina Burana, and yes for the record I know what Carmina Burana is primarily because of this song, this heavy metal mix is the theme for the final battle against Sephiroth. For those who don't know, final boss music is generally intense. You are almost finished with the game and for your final moments before victory, you are supposed to be totally immersed in the experience that you are saving the world, and the background music better damn well do it's part to double your heart rate with the belief that the fate of the world is in your hands at this very moment and everyone you love will in fact be killed by this guy if you do not kill him first. In FF7, Sephiroth has gone insane and believes that if he can magically call up a meteor to descend on the planet and  blow a crater clear into the core of the planet and then sits in the center of that crater he can absorb the energy of the planet and become a god. Now you may be thinking that will instantly kill half of the planet's population and leave the other half to die a slow painful death. Sephiroth does not care. In fact he actually kind of enjoys it as a perk of his evil plan. This is what you are fighting against in this final battle, not just Sephiroth, the madman with the big sword and one black wing who flies despite the fact that you really can't do that, 'cause f**k the laws of physics along with everything else, he's about to be a god, on top of this you are fighting to stop him from dropping a meteor on the planet. Not only is this the height of tense final battles, but Nobuo Uematsu set the bar for what kind of music you should expect to accompany the apocalypse. FF7 fans have a giant sword and a stock of materia knowing that if they ever hear this song just playing, it is a choir of fallen angels ushering in the end of the world and we are going to go down swinging. I personally do expect that should Lucifer ever return to complete the prophecy of Armageddon, this is the music that will be playing and the chanting will be done by the angels and demons as they clash in the skies.

Okay, so now that I have sung the praises of Nobuo Uematsu, let me tell you about Final Fantasy VI, the greatest game ever made in the history of video games-and let me stress, I'm even talking about games yet to be made, this is the best in the Akhashic Record of video games. FF6 was the best and everyone just needs to stop trying and bow down to the king. The game starts out talking about how a great war of magic a thousand years ago almost destroyed the world and in order to stop the war, the magi who created magic took the espers, the beings they gave magic to, into another world effectively removing magic altogether. Those who survived rebuilt a world without magic, but now someone has figured out a way to bring magic back and lord it over those who do not have magic and rule the world. The story then begins focusing on three soldiers pursuing a frozen esper that has been found in the mines of Narshe. They make short work of the villagers only to be blown away by the esper itself, which by the way remains frozen because it's that powerful it can take down three soldiers without even breaking free. To our knowledge only one of the three soldiers survives, and she has amnesia, remembering only that her name is Terra. A young man named Locke sneaks her out of town to the Kingdom of Figaro where it happens he is friends with King Edgar. Enter Kefka, the Emperor's lackey who makes his grand entrance asking his guards to dust off his boots while he walks through the desert, no he doesn't really care that it is redundant because they will just get more sand on them, he just doesn't want anyone to forget for a second what a dick he is. Kefka asks Edgar about Terra, and Edgar denies he knows anything about her, even though they did in fact just meet, but Edgar knows that if Kefka's looking for her, it would not be good for him to find her. So Kefka sets the castle on fire, because, again, if you forgot, he's a dick. Edgar makes an epic escape on a chocobo with Terra and Locke while the castle sinks under the sand and an angry Kefka sends his guards after our heroes. To keep them away, Terra uses magic, which is brand new and the boys realize why the Empire wants Terra. They decide to take her to headquarters for the Returners, their rebel group, and pick up Edgar's twin brother Sabin along the way. Circumstances cause the party to be split up, Locke goes back to South Figaro to spy on the Imperial Occupation and meets a rogue general named Celes who he recruits to their cause since she's apparently burned her bridges with the enemy, meanwhile the rest try to go back to Narshe and Sabin gets separated and takes a detour through Doma, a distant kingdom having their own war with the Empire. Sabin meets Cyan who is the sole survivor of Doma after Kefka poisons the entire kingdom including his own men who were captured and are currently prisoners of war and laughs while he watches them all drop dead because he wanted to make sure Cyan knows he's a dick too. Sabin calms Cyan and recruits him and a wild boy named Gau who is a cool addition to the party but irrelevant to the story beyond helping them back to Narshe. Once everyone reunites Kefka attacks and they succeed in fending him off, but then Terra reacts to the esper again, this time glowing pink and flying off. The party goes looking for Terra and when they find her she's under the care of an old man who says he's an esper named Ramuh. Ramuh tells them they need to go get his friends from the Imperial Capital of Vector on the Southern Continent, cue the opera interlude I mentioned earlier. The party returns with a dying esper named Maduin who reveals the truth, he is Terra's father and when the empire came looking for her mother twenty years ago, they found the lost esper realm and took everyone prisoner and the current magitek is drawn from their life force. Now they believe Terra can contact the espers who escaped capture and are still in the esper realm, but when they get her to the entrance, Kefka shows up to be a dick again and the espers go crazy and burn Vector. The Emperor asks the Returners for a truce while they get the espers under control. This involves a trip to Crescent Island where they meet Strago and Relm, who along with everyone else in town are the descendants of ancient Mage Knights. It seems there is another way to get magic from espers which the Mage Knights used and participated in the war, but when the Magi took the espers, the Mage Knights were left behind and became oddities and were persecuted for their part in the war, driving them to seclusion on the island. Their magic is what drew the espers and they find the espers then try to straighten everything out. It seems the espers lost control and really didn't mean to cause so much damage, to which General Leo of the Empire pleas mea culpa to abducting the espers to begin with. So everything seems to end peacefully and then Kefka shows up to be a dick again, Leo is outraged and fights Kefka who kills Leo and leaves everyone because...well he doesn't have a goo reason, he's clearly reaching a new level of dick. Now the Emperor pursues the magi directly and gets the continent that the esper realm used to be located on to float in the sky where he intends to lord over everyone as God. The Returners attack and intend for a final showdown with the Emperor, but then Kefka ascends to the ultimate level of dick by stabbing the Emperor, throwing him off the edge of the continent and taking center stage as the main villain of the game. Kefka then proceeds to use his new found power to rearrange the planet. Celes wakes up a year later to find the sky is dark, the sea is polluted, and the land has been rearranged so parts could be used to build a tower where Kefka now looks down on the world and smites towns for his amusement. I'm not even exaggerating, the first town you reach has people wearing rags huddled around trashcan fires and when you talk to them they say they are trying to avoid Kefka's wrath lest he smite them like so many others. At this point the story kind of breaks down, but you are driven by hatred for Kefka to wipe that smug look off his face and stop that laughing. The laughing, I still hear it in my nightmares.

Okay, now for the bad news, the one black mark on the history of Final Fantasy, Spirits Within. This film is so bad I will not torture you with even one frame. I frequently hear about fans getting their childhood ruined by a bad movie based on their favorite properties, but most are Oscar worthy compared to this load of chocobo droppings. One huge problem is the fact that the only thing about this that relates to Final Fantasy besides the title is a character named Dr. Sid. Cid is a recurring character in the Final Fantasy series and Dr. Sid is arguably a good member of the legacy, but they spelled his name wrong. The worst part is that this movie was made in house. Whereas most projects can blame Hollywood for screwing it up, Square actually made this one themselves. The most recent game at the time was Final Fantasy 8 which marked the worst era in the history of Square, when graphics were all that mattered, and sadly we are still in this era. Super-deformed midget sprites are hard to work with, but God bless Square they did more in six games, heck, more in just FF6, than many companies could ever hope to do. Then came Play Station and their fancy graphics and Square figured out they could do all kinds of cool crap and people loved FF7 even though it was just FF6 with better graphics. For FF8 they came up with photorealistic imagery, a term I believe was invented to describe the graphics of FF8 and Spirits Within. The upside is this technology led to Avatar and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the downside is Square clearly shifted the lion's share of the budget to the graphics department at the expense of story, gameplay, and everything else they had being doing well up to that point. Spirits Within was so bad, I'm not even going to bother with the synopsis, I just want to say Advent Children(seen above) was a way better effort. The critics at the time commented on the graphics as a polite way of saying there wasn't anything else worth talking about. If I could afford it, I would reimburse anyone who paid to see that movie, as well as the people who may have covered the critics expenses and the theaters who had to invest in the film reel to show it. I love Final Fantasy, but this movie, which could have been awesome was the worst ever. At least I wish I could say it was, in a future installment I will be covering other disasters and why Last Airbender and Dragon Ball Evolution don't even make the list(Super Mario Bros:the movie:DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! IF YOU SEE THE DVD, THROW HOLY WATER AT IT, HOLD UP A CROSS AND RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!).

It may not come out in my writing, but the soundtrack to Final Fantasy VI ran through my head as I wrote 7th Moon and I recommend you listen to it while you read.

Inuyasha: A better love story than Twilight

Happy Valentine's Day everybody. Wow, I just realized this is the first major holiday since I started my blog and today is a good one. Today I will be talking about Inuyasha, it did the whole love triangle between an ordinary teenage girl, a werewolf and a vampire before Twilight and did it better. Way better.

First of all, I may need to clarify the werewolf and vampire thing since they are both referred to as demons in the English dub. "Demon" as used in Inuyasha, is actually a loose translation of the Japanese word yokai which may better translate as "monster" than as demon. True, some of the demons are the western version, but there are actually four categories of yokai, hegeyokai or shapeshifting animals, tsukomogami, inanimate objects come to life, humans turned yokai or undead, and "other" for lack of a better term for all the rest. Hegeyokai are very important in Inuyasha, particularly because the title character is one. Hegeyokai are generally the eastern equivalent of werewolves except that instead of being humans that turn into animals, they are animals that figure out how to turn into humans. In Inuyasha they seem to diverge into two more groups, bad ass werewolf types, and cute little comic relief fairy types like Shippo. This is an unusual distinction unique to Inuyasha, though they feature the two most common hegeyokai, Kitsune foxes and Tanooki raccoons, in the forms of Shippo and Hachi respectively, both falling into the latter grouping. The bad ass types are represented by Inuyasha himself and his brother Sesshomaru, and they are actually dogs. Actually, Inuyasha is a hanyo or half-demon because his mother was a human and that means he doesn't really belong in either world. Funny thing, Inuyasha actually comes from the Japanese words inu meaning dog and yasha meaning demon, although yasha is the feminine form so that actually makes Inuyasha "female dog demon" which the English speaker can then translate to "demon bitch" which is actually appropriate every time Kagome yells "Sit!" Poor Inuyasha! As for the vampire, technically Kikyo is not a vampire, but she does actually suck the life out of people to sustain her own life so she is the closest thing in Asian mythology to a vampire. So yeah, that would make Inuyasha Twilight for anime fans, only ours is better. Isn't it always?

Okay, so now that I have the culture lesson out of the way, time for the synopsis for those who missed the neglected middle child between DBZ and the current big three(Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece). Inuyasha starts out with a girl named Kagome who lives in modern day Tokyo and goes looking for her cat in an old well that nobody has used in years. She falls in and when she tries to get out suddenly there is a forest where her house used to be and she's being chased by a giant centipede. As she runs away she finds a boy pinned to a tree with an arrow through his heart, looking surprisingly healthy despite said arrow. He has long white hair, pointy dog-like ears(which Kagome finds adorable), fangs and golden eyes. He suddenly regains conciousness  and asks Kagome to pull out the arrow. The centipede catches up and pulls something out of Kagome and she pulls the arrow out of the boy so he can help her. He promptly kills the centipede and then prepares to turn on Kagome. Suddenly a string of beads appears around his neck and an old woman tells Kagome to subdue him. She thinks of how he looks like a dog and desperately cries "Sit!" and the beaded necklace drags him to the ground. The old woman, who identifies herself as Kaede, then gathers them back at her house to explain what has happened. The dog boy is Inuyasha the former lover of her sister Kikyo who protected the sacred Jewel of Four Souls. The jewel had the power to increase a demon's power and turn a mortal into a mighty sorceror, and Inuyasha believed it could make him a full demon. However, he fell in love with Kikyo and with her love he decided he didn't need the jewel. But then one night something went wrong, the two had a fight, and Inuyasha ran off with the jewel, Kikyo shot him with the arrow sealing him to the tree and she died, requesting the jewel be burned with her body so she could take it into the next world and prevent it from being misused in this world. Kagome is the reincarnation of Kikyo from the future and she has returned to the feudal era through the well and the object the centipede pulled from her body was the jewel that reincarnated with her. Kaede is willing to take the jewel off of Kagome's hands and let her go back to her own time, but before that can happen, the jewel is stolen by a crow demon and she tries to shoot it down with an arrow, shattering the jewel and scattering it to the winds. The shards still have enough power to be dangerous, but only the whole jewel will do what Inuyasha wants. Kagome can sense the jewel shards and act as Inuyasha's guide while he protects her, and they have to cooperate or the demons will destroy Kagome's future. That's all just the first two episodes people. As they go looking for the jewel shards they meet Shippo a cute tiny fox demon child who has recently been orphaned by demons using the shards. Inuyasha defeats the demons and they bring Shippo along with them. The next big event is the resurrection of Kikyo as a vampire by a demon named Urusuei, who Kikyo promptly kills. Kikyo is now saddled with serpentine soul collectors who sustain her by killing everyone who comes near her and bring her the souls. Inuyasha is now torn between the original and the reincarnation, but Kikyo is unsettled and runs away, leaving Inuyasha and Kagome to continue their quest. Next they meet Miroku a monk who works as an exorcist, although he has a bit of a racket going on with a Tanuki named Hachi who haunts people until Miroku is hired to get rid of him. Miroku isn't totally a con-man though, he has actual power, he's just lazy an prefers to take the easy way out. However we find out he has a dark backstory; a demon tried to enter his granfather's house a long time ago and tricked him by taking the form a beautiful woman, and when the lecherous man groped the demon he was cursed with a hole in his hand that would grow to swallow him up, and now Miroku has inherited this hole and he must destroy this demon to break the curse before it swallows him too. Soon they meet the demon, his name is Naraku, and he leads them to a a demon hunter named Sango and her Nekomata Kilala. Naraku killed Sango's family so she shares Miroku's goal of vengance. The really strange twist is that Naraku turns out to actually have been a patient in the care of Kikyo and fell in love with her. When she chose Inuyasha instead he was filled with such hatred that he became a demon as well and orchestrated the fight that tore them apart fifty years ago. So now the core cast is assembled and united against Naraku.

I owe this series for inspiring me to include demons in 7th Moon, even if it was sort of an afterthought. Get them both at Amazon, an Happy Valentine's Day!

Akira: Motorcycles and Espers

A couple of months ago, Toonami showed what was arguably the ultimate greatest anime of all time, Akira, and now I give my take on it. First off, I have to admit it did have a significant influence on 7th Moon specifically, as today's title suggests, the motorcycle and the espers. There is a motorcycle in 7th Moon and I must admit, it's really there just as an homage to Akira. In fact, although I don't do a great job of describing it, it IS the motorcycle from Akira. The motorcycle practically is the star of Akira. From most of the promotional materials, you'd think the movie was about the bike, and it almost is. But really, Akira isn't about the bike or Akira, or the espers, it's about Kaneda and Tetsuo.

Now, I hesitate to give a synopsis of Akira because if you haven't seen it, you are not an anime fan, it's required watching. I personally am not a huge fan of this particular movie but the Otaku Yakuza will kill me if I don't say Akira is the greatest ever. Anyway, for those living under a rock, the movie opens with what appears to be a nuclear bomb being dropped on Japan. Then suddenly we flash forward a few decades and see the city rebuilt and focus on a biker gang led by Kaneda. Tetsuo is sort of Kaneda's little brother and hates living in Kaneda's shadow, but there's nothing he can  do about it because that's just the way it is, there is a pecking order, Kaneda is on top, Tetsuo is on bottom and this will never change. One night, Tetsuo nearly crashes into a kid on his bike but then a strange thing happens, his bike explodes and the military pick up Tetsuo and the kid he almost hit. Kaneda in his possessive big brother way, tries to find Tetsuo, assuming the fool got himself into trouble and needs Kaneda's help to get out of it. Kaneda has no idea how right he is and gets himself mixed up with the cult of Akira. He ahs no idea who these people are or what they are doing, but he has the hots for this one girl and believes they will help him find Tetsuo. Meanwhile Tetsuo wakes up in a hospital and appears to have hallucinations, but the truth is even stranger, the weird things he sees are actually the psychically controlled puppets of the espers. For those who do not know, an esper is one who uses ESP or extrasensory perception. I don't know what lazy linguist came up with this term, but it's definitely a word now. Anyway, there are three espers, four if you count Tetsuo because he now has his own psychic abilities. This is a big problem because the last thing you want is a disgruntled, angst-ridden teenager with an inferiority complex to suddenly have the power to do ANYTHING with his mind. First he breaks out of the military facility then he goes on a rampage across the city looking for Kaneda as if to say "Who's the little brother now? I'M GOD!" As everybody freaks out and panics, Kaneda never seems to get past the idea that Tetsuo is his little bro and no matter how much of the city he rearranges with his mind he just needs a good smack upside the head. So Kaneda badasses his way after Tetsuo on his bike leading to the big showdown where we discover the horrible truth, that wasn't a bomb at the beginning of the movie, that was Akira, another esper who, like Tetsuo lost control, and if they don't stop Tetsuo, the city will go nuclear again.

Speaking of espers, they are definitely indeed a part of 7th Moon. For once I am actually going to go over an aspect of 7th Moon, namely power levels, and give a preview of content yet to come. Power levels are very important in anime, every major franchise build up their heroes, Super Saiyans in Dragon Ball Z, Jinchuriki and Sharingan in Naruto, Zanpakuto releases in Bleach. 7th Moon is no exception. As with any series, humans are the base level, and then we step things up.

Level 1-Superhuman 7th Moon created a generation of superhuman individuals using genetic engineering and cybernetics to push them to break the Physical Limit of human abilities. There are three individuals who actually have both genetic engineering and cybernetics, Hidariude, Baz, and Aka, but this does not make them more powerful than those who only have one or the other because each cybernetic component comes at the expense of an organic component and therefore the advantage is balanced. Still, the superhumans are far beyond anything any normal human is capable of, each in their own unique way.

Level 2-Esper Once one has surpassed the physical limit, the next step is the Mental Limit and develop the power of extrasensory perception, which in the context of this story includes precognitive abilities and telepathy. The espers also demonstrate electrokinesis, pyrokinesis, and geokinesis. I have to be honest, it may seem like these powers are just put on as deus ex machina to make them invincible and provide plot armor, but I actually went to great lengths to limit their abilities to only what was practical for story purposes. Douji is the only one that is truly godlike. Hidariude, Keisei and Kichiku are the only other espers and Hime seems like one too, but she lacks extrasensory perception and therefore she is not a true esper, just a psychokinetic maniac with superhuman level abilities she has no way of controlling, making her very dangerous.

Level 3-Shintai Once one has surpassed both the physical and mental limits, the final step is the Spiritual Limit which involves possession by a spirit. Because it requires synchronised cooperation between two beings it is very hard to control and therefore unlike the previous two stages it can only be maintained temporarily. Hidarude, Douji, and Hime are the only people who can do this and only with ghosts and dragon spirits. Hime skips a step of course and this is like Gotenks going Super Saiyan 3 or Vegeta going Super Saiyan 4. Of course, Hime is extremely volatile because she is incapable of controlling this power in any way.

Now the previews...

Level 4-Zen 1(Arhat) This an ability unique to Hidariude, the ability to connect to Keisei, Kichiku, Douji, Shinryuu and all of their past lives back to Kyutsume, Bakeneko and Nyudo. The total number of souls involved is 108 and that is the factor by which his power is increased. His aura flares visible and bright from the immense amount of energy overflowing from his body, his strength, speed and senses all increase, he can use all three psychokinetic abilities, even in tandem and he can levitate. However, this puts an extreme strain on his mind and body, so he can not maintain it for very long.

Level 5-Zen 2(Buddha no Yang) This is Hidariude's ultimate form, a form so powerful it will only happen once. For this, he goes beyond his personal circle and draws energy from everybody in the world, increasing his power by an estimated factor of-wait for it-OVER 9,000! Even higher, three billion! Of course there is no way to hold this for longer than a final attack, but it will be awesome!

So, you wanna read my book now?