Click through below on our coverage of the festival.
In addition, check out our festival pad for full reviews and links.
Check the Reel Anime site for session times, locations and dates across Australia.
Evangelion 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
The crowning achievement of Reel Anime is the third component of the rebooted franchise.
Evangelion: 3.0, is the third feature-length film in creator Hideaki Anno's rebuild of the ground-breaking 1995-1996 anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Following on from the cataclysmic finale of Reel Anime 2012 hit, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, the third film takes the Evangelion storyline in a startling new direction. With its heady mix of cutting-edge animation spectacular giant robot action, heightened emotion and deep philosophy.
009 Re: Cyborg
Selected sessions of this sci-fi mecha classic reboot will actually be in 3D, this is an awesome chance to see your favourite medium in another dimension!
Our resident anime expert Ard Vijn reviewed the film stating it is...
...a stunning-looking 3D anime which merges intricate drawings with CGI. The 3D is nothing short of awesome, both in its design and in its use. A slow-motion fight with water splashing around, a crowd in a busy street, a cyborg flying through the landscape; these visuals are much enhanced by the 3D. The action is riveting, the environments gorgeous. This is probably studio Production I.G.'s best work since Ghost in the Shell: Innocence.
There are of course some caveats. Ard admits that while the visual array is worthy of ticket entry alone the film stumbles in other places.
Instead of just being over-the-top (story-wise), this film throws itself over the moon! Everything is fine in the first half, when the attacks happen and the team is re-assembled, but next a religious element is introduced, and the film spectacularly... I don't know how to describe it. Derails? Shoots itself in the foot? Things certainly get very Evangelion all of a sudden. That can be interesting in itself, but I wouldn't want to pull such a stunt while trying to reboot what can be seen as an old kiddie-series.
I will be catching the film in-season and look forward to this brave and convoluted plot direction, although I can understand how it would turn people off. It also sounds like the film benefits from not seeing the original as they are polar opposites. Ard concludes...
As odd and flawed as it is, it sure is one hell of a ride, and any single part of it is gorgeous. If only it all came together a bit more coherently...
Check out Ard's full review right here.
A Letter To Momo
A Letter To Momo is an utterly gorgeous film. It is clean and crisp with beautiful pastel and summer tones and it tells a story that essentially divided a few of us at ScreenAnarchy.
Some of us think it relies too much on Ghibli tropes and comes across as a pale imitator, while others forgo this crutch and believe it to be an altogether individual and heartrendingly emotional story with minimal use of the supernatural. I certainly fall into the latter camp and wept like a baby when I caught the film at Melbourne International Film Festival last year.
The last time Momo saw her father, they had a fight. Now he's gone and all she has left to remember him by is an incomplete letter with the words "Dear Momo" written on it and nothing more. Moving with her mother from bustling Tokyo to the remote Japanese island of Shio, Momo discovers three goblins living in her attic, a trio of mischievous spirit creatures who have been assigned to watch over her and only she can see. These funny monsters also have a serious side, and may hold the key to helping Momo understand what her father had been trying to tell her.
We have covered the film a few times on ScreenAnarchy, check out Ard Vijn's review here and our previous Sitges review here.
Ghost In The Shell Arise
This one is a no-brainer for the diehard cult of GitS loyalists but for everyone else? Not so much.
In Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Motoko Kusanagi - cyborg and hacker extraordinaire from the military's 501st Secret Unit - finds herself wrapped up in the investigation of a devastating bombing. It is the year 2027, one year after the events of World War IV. A bomb has gone off in Newport City, killing a major arms dealer who may have ties with the mysterious 501 Organization. Public Security official Daisuke Aramaki hires full-body cyber prosthesis user and expert hacker, Motoko Kusanagi, to investigate. On the case with her are agent 'Sleepless Eye' Batou and Lieutenant Colonel Kurtz of the 501 Organization – who both harbour a distrust of Kusanagi – along with Niihama Prefecture Detective Togusa, who is investigating a series of prostitute murders he believes are related to the incident.
Check out Hugo Ozman's review on why this Ghost entry is not as appealing here.
The Garden Of Words
Makoto Shinkai is becoming a staple in the feature film world of anime. Madman have been championing his unique and touching efforts and have so far released them all. The Garden Of Words is his latest effort, a more restrained but equally as touching and extremely beautiful drama.
When young student Takao decides to skip school in favour of sketching shoe designs in a rainy garden, he has no idea how much his life will change when he encounters Yukino. Older, but perhaps not much wiser, Yukino seems adrift in the world. Despite the difference in their ages, they strike up an unusual and unexpected relationship, which continues to blossom, without planning, and always in the same garden on a rainy day, but the rainy season is coming to a close, and there are so many things still left unsaid and undone between them. Will there be time left for Takao to put his feelings into actions and words?
Shinkai makes the most humanistic anime and The Garden of words is probably his most realistic yet.
Check out Trung Rwo's in-depth review of the film, constructing the purpose of it and the deeper meaning behind relationships and love in Japan here.