Anime Week: Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms

Hello folks and welcome to Day 5 of Anime Week.  I thought perhaps we would stem away from direct Japanimation and show how it has influenced stateside the modern cartoon.  This practice was found heavily in the early 80's with English dubbed versions of Transformers, Thundercats, Silverhawks, G.I. Joe and even Jem.   The method to introduce the theme into modern characters of superheroes and cartoon characters is of course Batman: The Animated Series.  Stemming along those lines it was decided to widen the audience of a popular comic book character that hunts down monsters and squashes them with his red right hand.  This is Hellboy: Sword of Storms.

Well Abe, this is another fine mess you gotten us into.

Abe Sapien: You just made the spoiler face.
Hellboy: Oh, crap.









Our flick open right in the middle of a mission with Mayan ruins, filled with mummies and even a giant  zombie-like bat as Abe Sapien (Doug Jones from Men in Black 2, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Legion) and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair of Cruel Intentions, Down to You, Legally Blonde, A Guy Thing, Hellboy, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and Anger Management) lend their voices rather than physical form in the animation.  With the crashing, booming and guns blazing it isn't far too long that Hellboy (Ron Perlman of Beauty and the Beast, Sleepwalkers, Romeo Is Bleeding, Chronos, Animaniacs, Alien: Resurrection, Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game, Hellboy, Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and I Sell the Dead) comes smashing in riding the great big beastie and beating it into submission and possibly oblivion.

Just another day at the office.

Liz torches the room with her pyrokinesis and roasts almost everything except Abe and Hellboy and they are off to BRPD (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) HQ to debrief, shower, change goo ridden clothes and probably sack out miles away in Japan a Professor Sakai, Japanese folklore expert reads aloud an ancient scroll of prophecy and unleashes two brother demons Thunder and Lightning as they possess his body and force him to find the sacred Sword of Storms, the lone weapon that can defeat them.  The sword's current owner greets Sakai with open arms when lightning and thunder cascade from his body blasting artifacts and trinkets about the study.

 The weird crap'ometer goes off and BPRD send both Hellboy, Professor Kate Morrigan (Peri Gilpin of Flesh 'n' Blood, Hercules, The Lionhearts, Fraiser, King of the Hill and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), a specialist in worldwide folklore, occult and liason to the enhanced talented agents and a psychic Agent Russel Thorne to ferret out the reason for the paranormal activities around the sword collector.
Hellboy picks up the Sword of Storms and is transported to a spirit/dream realm that resides next to the real world where he must protect this blade from those who would use it for evil.

Now just a few comments on the film itself.  I found the artwork to be vibrant, similar to the creator of Hellboy Mike Mignola's work and the voice cast was bang on.  The story was intriguing but the action of the monsters was fairly predictable.  They attempted seduction, slight of hand and trickery to get Hellboy to cough up the blade and it seemed a little cliche for me but then again I am a fan of this particular comic book and japanimation; so it could be said I have seen it before if you will.

Setting the story in Japan with ancient times showing they did their homework on the Oni (Troll), the Rokurokubi (demons whose heads come off or necks extend), the Gashadokuro (Giant Skeleton creature) and the evil Yotmotsu-hisame (ugly woman of the underworld commonly a hag or spider creature) so it did give the almost anime feel of a noble warrior on a quest.

Yup the crap is just building up.

Not a bad story but I found Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron to be a bit more interesting