Alternate Title: 天使のたまご | Tenshi no Tamago | Mystical Egg of the Angels
Genre: Artistic | Psychological | Religious
Companies: Tokuma Shoten
American Liscensing Company: Anchor Bay
Format: 1 movie
Dates: 1985
Original Creator: ??? Mamoru Oshii: director | Yoshitaka Amano: character design
Age Rating: 15-18 and up

Synopsis: In a desolate and dark world, full of shadows, is one little girl who does nothing but collect water in jars and protects a large egg she carries everywhere with herself. A mysterious man enters her life...and they discuss the world around them.

SCORE: 90%

A highly artistic piece, simply meant for the wondering discussion of the audience.

Plot: What is the plot? Is there a plot? Does all this imagery just some elaborate symbolism? Who knows? Clearly this film was made for an audience interpetation. The characters didn't even have names, and didn't need them. I could come up with many theories on the film. It may had been a big discussion about how Christianity can apply to different realities. There are more realities out there, bigger and smaller, than we know. The fear of the unknown is man's biggest downfall. On and on. What exactly is the place in this film, and who are these people and the shadows around them? We just don't know. Does this film make any sense...? As I said, that's up to your own interpetation.

I did find this movie to be thought provoking and entertaining. Gladly, it didn't fall into a state of arrogance and become grossly, overly artistic. It had a good amount of artistic creativity to entertain, but not bore. However, even for artistic reasons, this film's pace could be incredibly slow. It was meant to be, and this is not an action movie, but sometimes pausing too long can be silly. I was not bored, but most audiences would be.

Visual: The animation, especially for 1985, was superior. Most people watch this film and are just amazed at the care taken to animate is such detail the slightest of movements, such as facial expressions or showing how a child would eat jam.

Character design is very interesting and should be, since they are by Yoshitaka Amano, the man who designed the characters of Vampire Hunter D, as well as for several other anime and video games.

This film utilized the ablitiy to make extraordinary animation, which they could do so since so many long scenes where almost freeze images. That's a bit of a downfall for the film, but when the animation is going, it's good!

Sound: For what little sound there was...it was good. That, and the lack of sound made for interesting atmosphere.

Good voices for the girl and man. They truly fit well and were interesting.

The music was very, very good, but probably not epic. Some interesting sounds of the classical music type.

The Dub: Is there one?

Extra Rants and Bitching: Strange little film. I still wonder about this one all the time. Enjoyable, though weird.

Score Comments: This film was artistic but almost too artistic. It almost makes you think the film gets cheap in places, but then again, that was probably just the animators creative way of utilizing what they had. Long pauses and thus just may have been a little, little bit too much. For that, the film falls a bit short. Strange, strange little film.

Websites:

Have a website about this series, or do you know of a good one? Want me to link to it on this review? Well, the feel free to email the sucker to me! Just make sure to put "Review Link" in the subject.