The Irresponsible Captain Tylor: #1 The Rightstuf 175 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 03/14/2000

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It's kind of like pre-Trigun week around here, what with all the characters who act all dumb and goofy one moment and suave the next. What compelled me to give Tylor a five, I would not be able to describe to you, but there's something about this show that draws me in a way others can not. I mean, sure, we've all seen humor in anime attempted scores of times. Hell, out of the three reviews I've written this week they've all had scads of it. But something about Tylor makes things different, almost as if there were some sort of inside joke in there that we, the viewers, are not privy to. From my perspective, maybe we shouldn't be either. I mean, when you consider how good this show is you could probably safely stop reading the review here and go spend your $80 somewhere in the vastness of internet space on this wonderful four disc series. This isn't to say that my reviews are necessarily informative. I honestly can't say I even have a fifty percent success rate with them. But that's not the issue here, the point is that when the good people over at The Rightstuf bless you with a show like Tylor you're not supposed to ask why, you should go out and buy it without wasting a single moment.

Maybe it's the infamous "laser heart", but I doubt it. For a show so good, Tylor certainly has one hell of a shitty opening. I don't know, but I'm not down with the way anime from the early nineties had to have opening songs about truth and love and justice and whatever else. Naked animated dudes running down a hallway aren't exactly my cup of tea either, I thought I'd just throw that in there so you knew. I don't need anyone coming up to me and saying I'm attracted to the sausage just because I like a show that peripherally includes it. But don't let that throw you, because if you do you'll be doing yourself a great disservice. From the sexy saxophone tunes of Kenji Kawai (Blue Seed and Patlabor) to the ultra cool portrayal of the main character by my personal hero Crispin Freeman (Tabool from Now and Then, just to name one of his many roles). I don't know what you could possibly find wrong with this show, Tylor has a lot of things that shows today with their overhyped gore and overhyped coolness don't understand, it's got heart.

I think what draws me most, though, is the character of Yamamoto, given an excellent voice by Sho Hayami (Wolfwood of Trigun and Max from way back in the day). I hate when shows make me want to watch the original language version, because I am totally not down with that. I like my entertainment to come in a form that is readily understandable to me, but something about the ultra-prim, ultra-proper Yamamoto just makes you think Japanese all over. That's what's so key about Tylor. In a reverse-Bubblegum Crisis way Tylor is very specifically the lead character and gets very little play.The perfect straight man, Yamamoto's incredulous faces and stunned guffaws really make the show what it is. It also makes me want to forget about how much I want to hurt Lisa Ortiz. Now, this isn't a comment about her as a person, or even anything specific about how she lives her life. I bet she's a saint, I bet the woman takes in stray cats from the streets and nurses them back to health. She's probably got a little stretcher and tiny doctor's tools with which to set their broken cat bones. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't like her style of acting and I doubt I ever will. Let me tell you, there was more than ONE reason I started watching Slayers in Japanese.

And it's better this way. I can't like everyone in a show or people would think Rightstuf was paying me off to sell their merchandise or something. It's not that I'm above whoring myself out on a daily basis, but this doesn't ring true here. I like Tylor solely on it's merits and not because some bigwig in Faloola, Kentucky is busy stuffing giant dollar signs emblazoned canvas bags with money. If they would, I certainly wouldn't complain, but I also wouldn't tell any of you about it for fear of people thinking me a sellout, which I probably would do at a moment's notice. For those of you mad at your current web culture icon for asking for donations or putting up advertisements, shut up. None of you know the allure of having money dangled in front of your face. I staunchly refuse to complain about anyone who makes a little off the side from their not for profit web endevours. Except for Brian Clevinger. I mean, when you're making $1200 a month from donations stop bitching about how it takes you ten hours every other day to make a comic and people shouldn't bitch because you miss a comic once in awhile. Hey, guess what buddy, $1200 is twice as much as you'd make working full time at McDonalds so stop crying about your 24 hour a week "cartoon funtime playland". If you were flipping Happy Meals I'd fucking fire your ass, then I'd KILL you. Uh...what was I talking about again? Just buy Tylor. It's good!