The San Diego Union-Tribune 

April 8, 2000, Saturday 

SECTION: LIFESTYLE;Pg. E-8 

LENGTH: 458 words 

HEADLINE: 'X' an animated comic book with little between the covers 

BYLINE: David Elliott; MOVIE CRITIC 

BODY: 
The animated film "X" starts with the boy hero being approached by a nude beauty 
whom he calls "mother." She then shoves her hand into her guts, and pulls out a 
huge sword for him -- maybe this is the maternal endowment of male power. 

With that sword scene, we are not in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." No, this 
is much less lyrical. It's the world of Japanese anime rooted in manga (comic 
book series), a world with a cult following that extends far beyond Japan. 

It helps to be a cult member, because we seem to be coming in on the middle of 
something. Recognizing that, the director Rintaro and his writers provide snap 
backgrounds on the main figures, though minimally. The characters are minimal, 
too: types in costumes (there isn't much nudity), their faces barely animated, 
their dubbed voices disembodied. 

It's another End Time epic, about the recruiting of the hero to fight off the 
bad dragon/demon who seems to be the spirit of avenging nature (a few trees are 
about all that nature has left). Yes, "the final battle to decide the fate of 
earth is about to begin" -- but isn't it always, in these fantasies? 

Tokyo is a living hell that must be saved from becoming a dead hell. Computer 
animation of buildings is by far the best thing in the movie, but this choking 
nightmare of urban sprawl hardly seems worth heroic rescue. Well, maybe it does 
for the 10 or 12 million hardly seen residents, and for Jan Vermeer's "Head of a 
Young Girl," which shows up on a Tokyo wall. 

Invoking Vermeer, that master of poised purity and Dutch detailing, is an odd 
stroke. The movie is about streamlined hunky people making bold statements about 
their manifest destinies, then killing one another in titanic eruptions of fire, 
wind, water and blood. 

All the key characters look Occidental, their Japanese roots mainly visible in 
their hair. And there is a vapid overlay of religion, not Buddhist (for "God is 
not an abstract force") but generically Christian (for "only a human can save 
mankind" -- one with divine powers). 

The exported anime craze and manga mania may be in danger of joining those fads 
that leave people thinking, later, "What was all that noise about?" Maybe you 
remember others, just a bit guiltily: the routine spaghetti westerns of the 
'60s, the hysteria-prone Lina Wertmuller movies of the '70s, the worst Brat Pack 
comedies of the '80s. 

Even at its most extravagant and breathless, "X" is re-pulping old pulp. 

[] A Manga Entertainment release. Director: Rintaro. Writers: Asami Watanabe, 
Rintaro, Nanase Okawa. Cinematographer: Jin Yamaguchi. Composer: Harumitsu 
Shimizu. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes. 

MOVIE REVIEW 

"X" 

Rated: R. Runs through Thursday. Ken Cinema, Kensington. 

* 1/2 


GRAPHIC: 1 PIC; MANGA ENTERTAINMENT INC.; Little guy, big sword: His mom gave 
him the weapon, so Kamui must rise to heroic duty in the Japanese animation film 
"X."