In the distant future global warming has advanced to a point that carbon emissions have become limited by heavy taxes leading to a globally carbonbased economy that has drastically altered the GDP of every nation. If that werent bad enough Japan has also been hit with a massive earthquake around two decades ago which hindered their ability to deal with the vegetation thats been growing and rapidly evolving out of control around them. There are adults still around who remember what the world was like before everything changed but the spunky young Kuniko is not one of them. Born after the quake and heir to the freedom fighting group Metal Age she has only ever known a world where the impoverished masses live in dilapidated cities on the ground dealing with all sorts of flora and fauna that want them dead while the rich live above the clouds in a paradise called Atlas. They vow to one day bring the masses up to their level and Kuniko vows to expose their lies once and for all and lead her downtrodden people to paradise. ShangriLa was produced by Studio Gonzo and its actually kind of a special title for them... It was one of the only titles they released in 2009 and one of the last two titles alongside Shika that they released before succumbing to their financial issues and disappearing off the face of the industry for nearly two years. Coming out at the very end of Gonzos precrash era it should come as no surprise that it looks pretty damn good. It exists in sort of a productionrelated quandry where the budget doesnt exactly look cheap but the project itself was a bit too ambitious for the more or less decent budget they had. Thankfully this wasnt Gonzos first rodeo and they knew how to direct and animate it in a way that highlighted its strengths and largely concealed its weaknesses. There are some awkward moments here and there... Faces going offmodel in distant shots some derpy looking action and running animations... But all things considered theyre few and far between and for a show like this it would be weird if it didnt have any noticeable flaws. The voice acting is also really good but theres little thats worth commenting on as everyone involved pretty much did the best job that youd usually expect from them. The only two who I think deserve special mention are Apphia Yu and Anastasia Munoz as they play characters who are introduced as being terrifying and overthetop evil in their own ways and even after they have arcs that are supposed to make you feel a lot more sympathetic for them theyre still terrifying and overthetop evil. This wouldnt work without the power of their performances as Munoz is perfectly able to convey both sadistic insanity and heartbreaking turmoil in the same character and Yu slips right into the role of a child whos been raised to believe killing people is acceptable under certain circumstances... Which she does with a perfectly coldhearted and unaffected tone while speaking in Elizabethan dialect. The rest of the actors do the best that they can with the dialogue theyre given which... Yeah lets talk about that dialogue. Youve probably heard of J Michael Tatum right? You probably know him as an amazing voice actor with a charming soothing voice that can support a wide range of characters. You may know him in person and while I personally dont Ive heard nothing but good things like that hes a genuinely sweet man with an infectious sense of humor. You also might know him as the absolute worst script writer in the anime dubbing industry and I say that with two huge caveats One yes Stephen Foster was way worse but he retired in a butthurt saltstorm several years ago and his image has only gone further downhill in the last year. Two youve probably heard Jamie Marchi is the worst and while there are certainly qualities of her writing that I dont like at least she has the ability to keep those quirks under wraps and stay consistent to a time period where they wont work. Compare her dub of Spice and Wolf to Tatums dub of Romeo X Juliet if you want proof of this. But hey a lot of people have political issues with Marchi and as we all know you just HAVE to call someone you disagree with politically the worst person ever at everything they do. Anyway Tatum took a fucking sledgehammer to the dialogue of ShangriLa. He likes to rewrite dubs in his own image and while he doesnt make them hateful or edgy like Foster did but he does like to crowbar in memes and internet references and he likes to punch up lines by using more colorful prose phrases and idioms or just by overdramatizing them. Thankfully this particular title is light on the memes... Theres one instance of someone saying nom instead of eat and its as cringey as you can imagine... But he changes just about every line of dialogue in this show even when it means ignoring the original intention of the line. The first real line in the show Kumikos being released from prison she announces to the other inmates that shes free. Tatums version she says The world is my oyster While being let go a guard thanks her for keeping the other girls in line. Tatums version he says If I never see you again itll be too soon And sure Ill be the first to admit that the dialogue might have been a little bland in the sub and some creative license would have spiced things up but when you have every single character making quips and comments that feel like they took five minutes to think of even in moments of stress and terror where their wits should probably be otherwise occupied everybody just sounds like theyre the same person. Im a little at odds with this dub because as I mentioned before the acting is really good but the adaptive script ranges from lame pretentious and overwritten to just plain dirty. Theres a line where someone says I apologize for my actions but I had no choice and Tatum changes it to I wont apologize for my actions. I had no choice Which is just baffling and there are a million little changes like that where its just... Why? What was he hoping to accomplish? Sure I didnt notice a single moment where anybody fumbled their lip flaps and that is important but these changes happen even when a character whos talking is doing so offscreen. As for which version Id recommend... I dont know there arent too many lines that would come off as lame or offensive if you didnt have prior knowledge of the original script so it might not be too bad if youre watching it blind but if youre not a fan of Joss Whedons writing style that overlyquippy style where characters are exchanging sassy banter even when the situation really doesnt call for it this is not the dub for you. While the dystopian genre may have been a blip on everyones radar in the early 2010s on the western side of the world its pretty much always been a thing in the anime medium. As long as stories have been told in Japan there have been stories of oppressed masses being led to revolution against shady governments and exploitative social structures and ShangriLa is firmly a part of that trend. Coming out in 2009 just before The Hunger Games took the world by storm it borrows heavily from the dystopian anime titles that came before it and you may notice these influences if youre paying attention. You may have noticed some strong similarities to Akira and Ergo Proxy and some damn near uncanny similarities to Battle Angel Alita... Because lets be honest it stole a lot from Battle Angel Alita. The main characters live on the impoverished ground floor of society flourishing despite cramped conditions and dreaming of one day ascending to the upper levels only to find out that actually moving up there would mean being exploited in horrible ways that at best would change your life forever. So if it borrowed heavily from these titles why isnt anywhere near as popular or well known? Well to answer that Id like to take a look at the structure of the story for a moment. ShangriLa is the kind of story that is told from several different perspectives all of whom are living vastly different lives and dealing with the plot in different ways. Its immediately clear who the main characters are as well as who the support characters and villains are but you spend a more or less the same amount of time with all of them making the narrative feel a bit murky before things start to simplify. The story becomes streamlined as characters either die or otherwise leave it paths converge people clarify their intentions and finally the story gets moving around halfway through. This is the kind of story Ive enjoyed in the past but not as an anime... As a Stephen King novel. Well a specific kind of Stephen King novel at any rate. Ive read every single Stephen King book aside from his latest oneIll get around to Billy Summers at some point and there are four titles I can think of that follow the same structure as ShangriLa... The Stand Tommyknockers Under the Dome and Sleeping beauties. These books have received wildly different reactions from both critics and fans but me? I really like all of them and theyre all somewhere in my top 20 yes even Tommyknockers. I personally love these insane unpredictable stories where anything can happen to anyone at any time but heres the problem... Theyre not dystopian. Yes some of them deal with apocalyptic scenarios but dystopian stories usually take place AFTER such an event has changed the world. This structure works because in those books you have a large number of people dealing with one specific supernatural upheaval to their way of life and youre fed the details through bits and pieces of experience that come together over time. There is a main antagonist in The Stand sure but hes not the focus of the story the sickness is. ShangriLa has way too conventional of a plot to make that structure work and if that wasnt bad enough it just doesnt work for the dystopian genre in general. In a dystopian story you need to keep a tight focus on the main character and while youre certainly allowed to explore other characters... Including the villains... Most of their screen time should involve direct interactions with the protagonist so we can have an easier time relating to her first impression of these characters even if we had bits and pieces of them to go off of beforehand. When Kuniko meets the main villain for the first time and she experiences how cruel and sadistic said villain is I dont feel anything because Ive already seen the kind of person she is with other characters none of whom I actually cared about. And hell her assistant is a masochist who loves her abuse so Ive also been kind of conditioned to view her cruelty as kind of a joke. Speaking of which theres another character on the antagonist side of things who has the ability to telekinetically kill people who lie to her and the first time she does it its actually kind of terrifying. Afterwards she has this entire arc where shes supposed to become endeared to us she becomes more sympathetic and we realize shes not truly evil... But then she does it again this time to an innocent woman who didnt know any better and was hired to serve her and its played off like THIS time its supposed to be funny. Its not. Its fucking confused. This whole story is fucking confused. Im not going to pretend like there arent any good action scenes or that the ideas that went into it werent creative and inspired and hell I really like the main character but there is no fucking drive to this story. Considering how important the main character is she should be evolving and changing throughout the story but the highs and lows of her journey are spaced apart so weirdly that every time some devastating twist happens... Sure she gives the appropriate reaction and she deals with the emotional effect they have on her but shes back to being the same character she always was less than an episode later. And speaking of those twists none of them are really that surprising. Thats not to say theyre predictable oh hell no there are reveals in this show you will definitely not see coming but just because you couldnt possibly guess them that doesnt stop them from falling flat because all they do is reaffirm knowledge you already had. Yes I know the government is corrupt and evil why should this new bit of information shock me? Yes I knew there was something special about that character guess Im glad I know what it is now. Ive been wondering how this world became the way it is... Oh thats how? Cool. Nothing ever feels like a game changer. Nothing ever feels as shocking or chilling as its supposed to. The only thing thats really kept from your knowledge until the very end is... And this is probably the biggest mistake they made... The stakes. Throughout the story the protagonist is motivated by anger and frustration a combination of Hey weve been waiting long enough to Ill make you pay for soandso and its just as startandstop and hotandcold as the story itself is. I guess its a spoiler to say shes a chosen one who has to save the world but this information isnt revealed until literally the final episode so there is absolutely NO mounting tension to get you invested. It also doesnt help that theres a huge side plot involving the economics of this world which... I dont know I didnt follow any of it. Maybe Im stupid? Maybe I just had a hard time paying attention to it due to my ADHD? And its heavily interwoven into the story so it not something you can just ignore to enjoy the more interesting story beats. Its hard to decide whether or not to condemn a side of the story I didnt understand but you know what? I can think of a few titles that wasnt an issue for. Log Horizon had an economic side plot but unlike ShangriLa they werent shy about explaining it to the audience in a way that made it easy to follow and understand. For another example Im currently reading this light novel series called Im In Love With the Villainess and theres a lot of political intrigue going on that I explicitly do not follow... I maybe half understood it at the best of times... But it doesnt matter because the way this subplot gets approached is as an extension of the main plot which is the main character using her knowledge of the game shes been isekaid into to woo and protect her love interest whose life is very much at stake. I dont think Ive been this invested in a light novel series since Haruhi Suzumiya was still in print. So if its possible to explain an economic side plot in a way I understand and its just as possible to keep me invested despite my idiocy why couldnt ShangriLa do either? Again is it just my fault? I should also mention that theres a couple of transgendered characters in the cast which... Well by 2009 Japanese standards I guess their portrayal was probably well intentioned? Miko is fine but the really divisive character is her counterpart Momoko who Im pretty sure was intended to be really likeable and she does have some likeable qualities... I really did like her maternal relationship to Kuniko... And she does have some moments of badassery but her portrayal is largely reliant on stereotypes and while its not impossible to use stereotypes to your advantage when writing minority characters its also a really thin line you have to walk and these writers were walking drunk. 90 of her dialogue relates to sex or sexuality in some way which I could ignore if she wasnt constantly sexually assaulting people. This includes kissing another character literally while hes saying no and forcibly locking lips with armed guards... Who are armed... And wielding guns... Chasing them with her arms in the air like the trans boogeyman. Remember how everyone loves Hana from Tokyo Godfathers and she never assaulted anyone? Thats not a coincidence. The main issues with this show all seem to be that its executed poorly. It has some really fun moments and some really creative ideas good action and likeable characters but the overall experience is bogged down by a story structure that just doesnt work too many characters spouting too many plot points and an English dub that only made the experience feel even more bland. ShangriLa had all the necessary ingredients to be a hit but the way it was all laid out... Well the most interesting thing about it by far is a missprint on the DVD. The only thing about this show that stood out in my mind after all these years and the reason I felt compelled to revisit it for a review is because when Funimation originally released it for their SAVE collection the spine of the DVD said... And I quote... Property title goes here. Theyve obviously fixed this mistake in the years since if you buy a copy now it will say the actual property title on the spine but funnily enough the missprint is still visible in the DVDs Amazon listing. And that sadly is the only thing thats really worth remembering about this title. I give ShangriLa a 5/10.