Reaction & Review | Read Or Die

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering an OVA from 2001. That OVA is "Read Or Die".

Now, I don't really know a whole lot about this OVA. From what little information that I was able to gather regarding the plot to this thing, apparently, someone is trying to find some lost manuscript by Beethoven. And according to what I read on the back of this DVD, our heroes are trying to find it first while doing battle against people who are based off real-life people from history such as Hiraga Gennai, Otto Lilienthal, and Jean-Henri Fabre, in order to save the world. Now admittedly, I don't know why someone would want to find a lost manuscript, and how it would eventually lead into the destruction of the world if it's fallen into the wrong hands. But nonetheless, I am very intrigued by this premise, and I want to see if this OVA can do anything good with it.

The only other thing that I can mention is that this OVA is technically a sequel to it's manga series, in which it takes place a few years after what happened in the manga. Now I don't know if that's gonna impact this OVA at all, however, if it does turn out to be any good, I may have to check out the manga at some point to see what I'm missing. But still, I want to see if this thing will be worth watching on it's own merits. So the only way I'm gonna really find out whether or not this OVA is any good, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Read Or Die".

2 minutes later

Well, guys, I can say that we are off to an explosive start where some guy just destroyed a good portion of the White House before asking the President if the place he destroyed was the library. Not sure if he was intentionally planning to destroy the library or not, so I'm a little confused on that part. But I will say, you guys can't hear this for obvious reasons, that this opening song here is pretty good. I'm actually really liking it. So, hoping that's a good sign of things to come.

11 minutes later

So let me see if I understand this. A year ago, DNA samples of certain famous people from history were stolen, Gennai being one of them. And according to Mr. Joker, those people have been re-cloned and have been given super-human abilities. That sounds really fucking cool! And it kinda makes sense, given the insect guy we saw earlier that Yomiko defeated was also based off a famous entomologist. Granted, I'm not sure how it took a year for someone to discover that their DNA was missing, but I'm not going to worry about that for right now.

6 minutes later

So, Miss Deep has the power to pass through solid objects. OK...that certainly was a rather interesting way to display her powers to Yomiko there. It seemed a little bit odd that her hair also flew off after she disappeared like that. But still, it was certainly really cool.

3 minutes later

Well, guys, it is official: Yomiko Readman is a fucking bookworm to a tee! So, the clone of Otto Lilienthal stole her book before he flew to New York while being pursued by the Air Force. And while Drake and Miss Deep are concerned about what's currently going on, the first thing Yomiko is worried about is her fucking book. It's nice to see that Yomiko certainly has her priorities straight, you know what I mean?

8 minutes later

Well, guys, that was the first episode. Um...well, it's definitely really interesting so far. I'm kinda hoping that it will continue as this OVA goes along.

20 minutes later

So...that monk guy had a metal heart, and, apparently, his blood was made out of oil...interesting. So, I guess he was an android of some sorts...I think. Well, whatever the case may be, that entire fight sequence leading up to that point was fucking awesome. So, that's certainly a plus.

11 minutes later

All right, well, that's the end of episode 2. And I gotta say, that was certainly an interesting twist to end an episode on. I'm curious now to see how things are going end on the last episode. I'm hoping it's gonna be as good, because, so far, I'm really enjoying this OVA, guys.

11 minutes later

So the reason why they were after Beethoven's manuscript was so that they could recreate a symphony that Beethoven had done in which everyone would commit suicide as some sort of judgement against mankind. That's...kinda frightening in hindsight. It's a really cool plan, but still, the implications for it are still rather fucked up.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Read Or Die". Let me go ahead and shut this thing off here...OK. Um...I'm trying to figure out where to start with this thing? Well, I guess I could start with something I just noticed. I have often complained in the past about how some movies go past their official runtime, and that's something that normally kinda irritates the shit out of me. Because if a movie is advertising themselves to be like, say, 90 minutes, then it should end at around 90 minutes, and not something more than that. This OVA kinda does that here, because each episode is advertised to be around 30 minutes long. The first two episodes are indeed just that. But the third episode kinda pushes that by going at about 5-6 minutes longer than usual. And normally, I would have an issue with that. Well, this time, I'm not going to complain about it. Why? Because this OVA was just good enough to where I wanted to see how it was going to end. And for the most part, I really liked how it ended. Granted, the ending is a little bit ambiguous, but I'm not going to spoil that here for this review.

So with all that said, let's finally get into the review proper, shall we? I'm gonna start with writing. Now earlier, I mentioned that this OVA was suppose to serve as a sequel to what happened in it's manga a few years prior. Which leads into a question that I know some people might ask: Do you have to read the manga in order to understand what's going on in this OVA? And the answer to that question is no. It's not really necessary for you to read the manga in order for you to get into this OVA. You can go into this thing with almost no problems and still be able to understand most of everything that goes on in this OVA. And I've mentioned this before many times in the past where if you're adapting something, whether's it's from a comic book, a video game, or whatever into a movie, you still have to make it stand out on it's own without having to lean too heavily into the source material from where it's based on. I've run into several movies in the past that tried to be as close to the source material as they can, and they kinda faltered a bit because they didn't try to stand out as it's own thing. One example I can think of is "You're Under Arrest: The Movie". A film that I covered last year where I could see that it had an original story, but the movie really didn't feel like it tried to separate itself from it's anime counterpart, because it felt like you had to have seen the anime in order to understand the characters and everything else. I would also include Rob Zombie's "The Munsters" as another example. Where that movie tried to stay true to what it was from way back when, but also didn't really have much of any story to fall back on. Mind you, I quite enjoyed Rob Zombie's "The Munsters", but then again, I also had experience with the source material. But I could see others having an issue with it because they may have never had any experience with the original source material.

Now this thing, like I said, is easy to stand out on it's own, because it doesn't really feel like a sequel to it's manga counterpart. It's telling an original story without having to try and make any callbacks or references to what happened in the manga. Granted, I have never read it, so I could be easily mistaken there. But I will say that after watching this, I'm more than interested in checking out the books, because this OVA was really solid. The plot, as I mentioned earlier, is about this group of villains known as the I-Jin, who are out to steal a rare manuscript created by Beethoven. And in case I didn't spoil it already, they're going to use it to create a suicide symphony to the world in which everybody around the world commits suicide as per some judgement on humanity. How do they do this? Well, they created a rocket that's going to launch into space. And inside the rocket, they have the body of Beethoven orchestrating the symphony to the world through some kind of machinery that's hooked up to him. Now I don't know if they actually used Beethoven's real body, or if they just cloned him like they did with almost every other villain who has the DNA of some famous person from history. It's probably the latter option, considering Beethoven's been dead for many years, so I imagine his body must've been long since decomposed by then. But anyway, I'm getting off track here. Anyway, this leads into our main characters, who are part of this British Library special operations division, where they are tasked to locate the book and retrieve it from the I-Jin before it's used for the wrong reasons.

And since we're on this subject, let's get right into the characters. Most of them are developed really well. Our main character, Yomiko Readman AKA "Agent Paper", is OBSESSED with books. She is, like I mentioned earlier, a 100% bookworm. And she will do anything just to make sure that she gets her rare book back just so that she can read it. Admittedly, this part got a little bit annoying for me, the way that she really only cares about her books. But thankfully, that's only for the first episode where we mostly get that kind of interaction from her. The other two episodes afterwards is a little bit more reserved for her character development with Nancy AKA "Miss Deep". She's definitely one of the more interesting characters. She forms some kind of friendship with Yomiko, and is also the one who is able to pass through solid objects at will. I'll briefly mention the powers again a little later. Drake Anderson is honestly the only character who really doesn't have a whole lot of depth. He's a U.S. soldier who mentions a couple of times that he's only on this mission just so that he can get some money to buy a gift for his daughter. Whether it's for her birthday or simply because he's a thoughtful father isn't entirely explained. Our villains, like I mentioned earlier, are based off real historical people. A couple of examples are both in the first episode, where we get to see this guy on a giant grasshopper who was also able to control an army of bees. I said he was based off a well-known entomologist, who turned out to be Jean-Henri Fabre. Or later on during that episode, we get to see the clone version of Otto Lilienthal, who was an actual German aviator. Or at the beginning of the OVA, where we saw Gennai Hiraga destroy the White House. Their depth isn't really that important, because they're basically just super-powered versions of famous historical people.

Now I could also mention a few other minor quibbles such as how exactly did Yomiko get the abilities to fight with paper, or how Nancy gained the ability to pass through solid objects at will? Those kind of things aren't really explained. But honestly, it's something that you just have to roll with. Because if you go into it thinking about those kinds of details for too long, then it might end up ruining your enjoyment of this OVA. For me, personally, I really didn't care about that kind of detail, because this OVA was really damn good. The story here moves at a fast pace, which, given that it's an OVA, it would make sense to have faster pacing. And overall, the writing here is really solid, and I enjoyed just about every minute of it. And as for the acting, well, I did watch it with the English dub, so I have to judge it by the dub's standards. And for the most part, the dub is pretty good. It does have a couple of moments where a couple of the actors were hamming up their lines, such as whoever they got to voice Otto in the first episode. The guy sounded like he was REALLY trying to hard to hold onto his German accent, and it sounded almost hilarious to listen to. However, I totally understand that some people might not care for that kind of thing, especially if you're not into English dubs for whatever reason. And thankfully, you're in luck, because the DVD that I own does come with an option to where you can watch it either the English dub or with the Japanese audio with English subtitles. So, there's room for both sides here. But as for the English dub itself, like I said, it's a pretty solid dub, and just about every actor here gave it their all. Granted, there were a couple of accents that sounded rather fake, but it's not something you're really going to notice too much, unless if you're a real stickler for dubs. So yeah, without sounding too much like a broken record, the dub here is solid.

Animation here is mostly really good. The characters all have a unique design, and they're also digitally painted as well. And for 2001 standards, the color pallets still look really good, even to this day. The animation is mostly fluid, though there are a couple of moments where it felt like, to me anyway, some animation frames may have been skipped. It mostly happens whenever a character might be moving, and in some rare cases, they would be moving faster than usual. It's very minor to notice these sorts of details, but it was something that sorta caught my attention. But again, it's something that you would have to really notice like I did. Otherwise, the 2D animation here is really good. The CG, however, is kinda shit. And it's mostly prevalent in the first and 3rd episodes. The first episode involves the bees that I mentioned earlier. Most of those were rendered in CG, and they kinda look terrible. Granted, it's not as bad as in the third episode. Where in that one, the CG is mostly used for clockwork gears. And all of the scenes involving the CG gears look terrible. And I mean they look terrible by the standards of 2001. So on the CG side of the things, it's aged pretty poorly. The 2D side of the animation, however, still looks great, minus a couple of hiccups in animation frames that only sad bastards like myself would notice.

Sound-mix here is mixed perfectly fine. The music here is fantastic. I mentioned it earlier, but the opening theme that plays at the beginning of all three 3 episodes is great. It sounds like a mixture of the James Bond theme, along with a little bit of the "Cowboy Bebop" opening. It sounds great, and I do think it sets the tone for what kind of OVA you're going to be watching. Which is pretty much a sci-fi action movie that is going to keep you entertained for all 3 episodes.

And on that note, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Read Or Die"? Oh definitely, yes, guys. This OVA is fucking great! It has a really solid story with characters that are mostly well developed. The animation is great, aside from a few of moments of kinda shit-looking CG. I am surprised myself about how good this OVA really was. Which is saying something, because most OVA's I've seen for this series have mostly been hit or miss. Mostly misses, but this one was definitely a hit. And if you can find this OVA on DVD or Blu-ray, go ahead and check it out for yourself. It definitely is worth your time. And I'm thankful that I was able to find this thing at a convention that I bought it from several years ago. So this thing is definitely going to have a spot on my DVD shelf, next to a bunch of other anime movies that I already own. And as for myself, I think I'm gonna go and re-watch one of my older 007 movies. I think I'll watch..."The World Is Not Enough". Haven't seen that one in ages. So, I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done putting this review together.

And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.