Lesbian Space Princess - Film Review

 

Queer media, depending on where you get your media news from, is either woefully underrepresented, or it's everywhere 'taking over normal TV' (the second one is usually the kind of complaint you hear from a boomer who sees one queer couple for three seconds of an advert and makes being angry about it their personality for the next six weeks). I definitely think that whilst there's more representation happening now than there ever has been it's still not at all even considering the size of the queer community, and the range of experiences that we have. It's also important that queer stories from queer creators get given attention over less personal depictions and throwaway representation from cisgender and heterosexual creators.

Lesbian Space Princess is a new queer led animation project from Australia, featuring first time writer/directors Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese. It also has the honour of being the first animated feature film made in South Australia. With queer creators, a queer (mostly) main cast, and it's weirdly Australian sense of humour, Lesbian Space Princess is a fun animated adventure that will appeal to younger adults, as well as those who want a queer story focused on queer joy.

The film centres on Princess Saira (Shabana Azeez) from the planet of Clitopolis, the main planet for lesbians in sector of the galaxy known as Safe Space; even if it can sometimes be hard to find Clitopolis. The daughters of two beloved queens, Saira has had a difficult time finding herself, and being accepted by the citizens of Clitopolis, in part due to her shy and fearful nature, her love of up-close magic tricks, and her inability to find or keep a girlfriend. As Saira's 22nd birthday looms she's sure that this is going to be her year thanks to her new girlfriend, the sexy space adventurer Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel). Unfortunately, Kiki breaks off the relationship, leaving Saira alone on her birthday once again, where she's publicly humiliated by Kiki dumping her, and her continued inability to summon her magical lesbian princess weapon, her cosmic labrys. 

Saira thinks that her world has fallen down around her, and that she'll never be able to win Kiki back thanks to her personal demons and self doubt. However, when she receives a message from the Straight White Malians (voiced by Mark Bonanno, Zachary Ruane, and Broden Kelly), who have taken Kiki hostage in exchange for Saira's labrys, she becomes determined to save her ex; and hopefully win her back in the process. Stealing an old, impounded spaceship from the royal hanger, Saira sets off into the universe. Along her journey she'll meet new allies and enemies, including non-binary singer/songwriter Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran), drag performer/club owner Blade (Kween Kong), and her ships slightly misogynistic AI (Richard Roxburgh).

The plot for Lesbian Space Princess is pretty simple, a girl gets dumped, doubts herself, goes off to save her ex to try and win her back, but learns about herself and gets the chance to grow along the way. At it's most boiled down aspect it's a coming of age story, one where the lead character is forced to deal with life-long trauma and self doubt, and must step out of the shadows to become the person she's always meant to be. This is a fairly common kind of arc for queer fiction, as a lot of queer stories feature characters discovering their queerness and coming out. But Lesbian Space Princess gets to play with this dynamic by having it be a queer story where the character's queerness isn't the driving force, isn't the thing they have to learn to deal with and figure out. Instead, it's feelings of inadequacy and self doubt that anyone can experience; and because of this I think that the film has a big change to connect with a wider audience than just the queer community.

Thanks to the film's bright and weird animation style, akin to things such as Rick and Morty or Adventure Time, and the often absurd nature of the humour used, Lesbian Space Princess is less likely to appeal to a more conservative, stuffy audience, but with younger generations, especially those around the same age as Saira, I think that it'll find a strong audience who love the weirdness. Whilst not every joke landed with me, it was still a great deal of fun, and had some laugh out loud moments. My favourite part of the film, however, wasn't the humorous bits, but a sequence in which Saira had to confront her inner fears and the darkness that had been looming over her the whole film. These moments really stood out against the rest of the film, and helped to connect me with the character in a way that was really missing before.

Lesbian Space Princess is sure to find an audience with younger queer folks, especially those who are into popularised queer media and culture. With a cast that includes queer comedians and performers from Drag Race, it at times does feel like the movie is both trying to appeal to a very queer focused audience (the kind of younger queer people who make queerness a big part of their personality) whilst at other times it feels like it's poking fun at that same audience and the stereotypes around them. As a middle-aged, stay at home disabled queer person who was unable to be openly queer most of my life the film is at times a little too over-the-top to really win me over, but the love that's been poured into it, and the fact that it's putting a queer spin on a genre where it's not usually found ended up getting me on it's side. 

Lesbian Space Princess is out in UK cinema's now.

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Aoashi by Yugo Kobayashi (3-in-1 Edition) Volume 1 - Manga Blog Tour

 

'Volume 1 of the Aoashi Omnibus from Titan Manga collects and translates Volumes 1-3 of the original award-winning Japanese manga series.

'To the world stage! Glory and ambition lie ahead of young Ashito Aoi as he takes the first steps to becoming a pro soccer player. But after being catapulted into a new harsh environment, can he hold onto his spider’s thread and climb his way to the top? A fateful encounter on Futami Beach in Ehime, Japan leads to the meeting between Fukuda Tatsuya; once a rising star and a player on the cusp of greatness whose career ended all too soon, and Aoi Ashito; a brash and hot-headed striker who loves soccer despite his selfish tendencies. 

'After being selected to try out for the Tokyo City Esperion Youth club, Ashito Aoi stakes his future on the chance to create a better life for his single mother and older brother, all while realizing his own shortcomings and dealing with the highly competitive world of J-Youth Soccer. With a mix of competitive high school soccer and a true-to-life representation of soccer and youth academies, Aoashi volume 1 starts the journey of the award-winning manga series.'

I'm not big into sports. Even before the option of being physically able to play sports was taken off the table for me it was never something that really interested me. I was drawn towards the world of fiction and art, preferring to lose myself to the unpredictability of a TV show or book over that of watching or playing a sports game that would give the same kind of thrill. As such, I've never really given much attention to stories about sports, other than the occasional film like Cool Runnings, or Blitzball segments in Final Fantasy X. When I was offered a copy of Aoshi's new 3-in-1 edition I felt like I was taking something of a gamble, having no real world interest in football; however, after spending some time reading through this hefty 600 page volume I'm happy that I took that chance and got to discover a really lovely new series.

Aoashi tells the story of Ashito Aoi, a teenager from the small prefecture of Ehime, where he's the star player on the local school soccer team. He's something of a hot-head, believing he's the best player the team has; a view that the other players tend to support as their main tactic tends to be 'get the ball to Ashito and let him score'. Despite his talent, he loses the opportunity to be picked by a high school scout watching from the stands thanks to his short temper. However, it does grab the attention of Fukuda Tatsuya, the manger of the Tokyo City Esperion youth team, who spends the night teaching Ashito a complex technique to gauge his abilities. 

Fukuda invites Ashito to come to try outs in Tokyo to see if he has what it takes to join the best youth team in the country. This sets Ashito on a path that will test his abilities, his dedication, and his drive to achieve his dreams to the very limit.

One of the things that immediately struck me about Aoashi is that whilst the series is about sports, the focus on football felt somewhat secondary to that of the lead character. After looking into the series a little I learned that Yugo Kobayashi was approached to create the series, and originally didn't want to because he had no interest in making a sports manga. I think that this is perhaps one of the main reasons why Aoashi reads in such a way that someone like myself, who has no interest in sports manga, can come away really enjoying it.

In a lot of ways the sport feels like the element that was needed to justify the events of the book, whilst the main focus is Ashito. The early chapters where we're seeing this young hothead who thinks he's the best find out he's far from perfect give us a fantastic grounding for a character that has a ton of room to grow, and who desperately needs to. Despite this need, Ashito never feels like a jerk, and you can see the decent kid inside him shining through even then. However, as the story progresses and we see him travel to Tokyo and he realises there are people more skilled, and more dedicated than him, he's forced to grow-up somewhat, realising that if he doesn't change he's not going to make it as a football player.

Part of this journey heavily involves the people he meets along the way, whether that's the coaches at Tokyo City Esperion FC, the other kids on the tryout, or the players on the other teams already there, they all either push him to go further than he has before, or give him a valuable lesson such as the importance of making friends and trying to find new ways to express himself. Football might be the reason for all of this, but the story is about this young teen discovering the kind of person he wants to grow up to be, and the struggles he faces along the way; and because of that, I think that it's going to appeal to a much wider audience. 

One of the things that I really appreciated about this first volume is that it's also incredibly grounded. This isn't a series where the characters unlock superhuman abilities, they don't kick the ball and send it flying at high speed wreathed in flames, and there's no ridiculous high stakes and drama such as players trying to kill each other mid-game. It's just teenagers playing football. Whilst I don't know a huge amount about football there's nothing I saw in the book that looked beyond the abilities of a real person, and nothing that happens on pitch that would end up with you getting arrested. This realism really helped to keep the focus on the characters and their very real experiences.

The art on the book is really impressive too, and the moments where we have action and drama on the pitch look fantastic. Kobayashi manages to convey movement and energy incredibly well, and some of the panels where characters pull off a particularly impressive or difficult move stand out as some of the best in the book. It also seems like a lot of care and attention are put into the times when a lot of characters are on the page together, whether running around the pitch or standing in a big group, and you can clearly see who everyone is and pick the important characters out from background characters without any issue. Considering how some big name manga series can sometimes cut corners in these moments, rushing the art and giving readers something of a disappointing experience, Aoashi never failed to impress in its visuals.

Character designs are pretty decent, and whilst none of the characters are too outlandish or unusual, each of them has something that sets them apart from others, whether than be hairstyles or facial structure, that you're never left wondering who's on the page, and can instantly recognise the important people. The only criticism I have with the art is on the pages between the chapters where Kobayashi will sometimes do pin-up style pieces with the books lead female character, Hana. There's one where she's posing in a small bikini with most of her body on display, and another where she's posing in nothing but a football shirt on top of the goal, and the picture is angles in a way to look up the shirt. She's never exploited or treated weirdly in the main book itself, but these pages come away as somewhat creepy and exploitative; especially as she's supposed to be around the same age as Ashito, making her about 15.

With this edition being a 3-in-1 the book is quite big, and covers a really decent amount of set-up for the series that I think makes it a lot easier to get into. The book does show you where each of the three individual three volumes would have ended, and whilst I would have enjoyed reading the smaller editions I don't think that I would have enjoyed it as much because I needed a bit longer to get into the story than other manga I've read. This is likely down to not being a sports fan, but I also think that readers wouldn't get enough insight into the characters in the smaller volumes to really become invested in Ashito and his journey. As it is, by the time this volume came to a close I was wanting to read more, and would have happily jumped into the next book.

Despite not being a sports fan Yugo Kobayashi manages to get me into Aoashi in relatively short time, getting me invested in the central character, his family life, his dreams, and the journey that he was starting. With some great art and a ton of heart, Aoashi will appeal to a ton of readers, whether you're a football fan or not.

Aoashi 3-in-1 Edition Volume 1 is available now from Titan Manga.

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Slither - Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD Review

 

Slither is regarded as something of a cult classic. Horror was in something of a rough patch when Slither was first released, and if we're looking at all time great horror films there aren't a huge number of them coming from the early 2000's, especially in comparison to the 1980s, or even the resurgence in truly well crafted horror that we've seen in the last several years. However, Slither managed to make a mark for itself despite a first-time director, one lead best known for a cancelled TV series and another who was still on the rise, and being a commercial failure. Now, 20 years later it's become a beloved horror film, and is receiving a new Limited Edition 4K UHD release.

Slither tells the story of Wheelsy, a small South Carolina town where residents live quite lives, where the chief of police naps in his car and helps school kids cross the road outside of school. This peace is shattered, however, when a meteorite crashes in the forest outside of town, bringing with it a malevolent parasitic alien lifeform. The parasite soon infects wealthy local resident Grant (Michael Rooker), who begins a terrifying metamorphosis, devouring raw meat as his body changes from the inside out. 

When Grant abducts a woman in town it launches a manhunt for him that sees his wife, Starla (Elizabeth Banks) helping police chief Bill (Nathan Fillion) to track down her mutated husband. However, when Grant unleashes hundreds of parasitic slugs upon the town that infect the residents, turning them into monstrous zombie-like creatures, Bill and Starla must find a way of stopping the infection before it leaves Wheelsy and takes over the entire world.

I haven't watched Slither since it first came out, but always remembers it fondly, liking the way the film combined the horror genre with comedy, and managing to deliver a film that felt somewhat original and interesting at a time when the genre was failing to do so. Re-watching Slither for this release, I realised that whilst I remembered the core story and the flavour of the film I'd forgotten a great deal of it, and it was almost like watching it for the first time all over again. 

I was somewhat surprised with how short the film is, and it's a movie that uses it's runtime well, moving from plot point to plot point with little waste. The downside to this, however, is that the film felt like it came to a conclusion pretty fast, and I'd have been happy with another half hour of runtime if it meant a slightly slower pace, more chance to get to know the characters, and a few more set pieces once the alien slugs entered the story.

Despite the brevity of the film it managed to still be very entertaining, and I feel that it's aged pretty well for a film of the era. The effects work is mostly practical, and the CGI that's used is done so in a way that it doesn't stand out at particularly bad; I've seen much more recent films that have worse effects work than this. I also don't remember it including any particularly awful early 2000's 'humour' that would be considered badly aged by todays standards, such as including ableist or homophobic slurs. This might seem like a strange detail to mention, but going back and watching older film and television today does on occasion end up with particularly awful moments like that.

When I first watched Slither I was only really aware of the work of Nathan Fillion out of the main cast, and whilst I was a fan of his work my appreciation of his acting has definitely increased over the years, and it was lovely to go back and see an earlier starring role of his. Since first seeing the film I've also come to enjoy Elizabeth Banks' work, really like Michael Rooker, and now recognise Jenna Fischer from her time on The Office and got excited to see her in a small role here.

Unfortunately, I wasn't given access to the full release version, and was only able to watch the new HD version of the film, and as such cannot speak to the quality of the extra features that are included. The new release comes with brand new interviews with Director of Photography Gregory Middleton, Editor John Axelrad, Special Make-up Effects Designer Todd Masters, and Composer Tyler. There's also an older interview with Director James Gunn, some behind the scenes featurettes, a blooper reel, a set tour with Nathan Fillion, and deleted scenes. 

Despite my hazy memory of Slither it was fun to get the chance to see it again. I found it to be a pretty short but sweet movie, one that manages to combine body horror and comedy in such a way that you never know what's coming next, and whether you should laugh or be frightened. Having followed the careers of the cast and director over the years and coming to like their work it does feel strange to go back and see an early project with them, but you can definitely see how they would go on to become hugely popular names. Whether you're rediscovering Slither like me, have been a long time fan, or are experiencing it for the first time, this new release is a great watch.

Slither 20th Anniversary Limited Edition 4K UHD Steelbook is available now.

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