Movie Review - Lily C.A.T. (1987)

I stopped by my local used book store in Miami, called Paperback Book X-Change.  It was a subdued affair, picking up books to read on my trip to work, and I decided to get some VHS tapes to transfer to DVD.  I picked up two VHS tapes: Sword and the Dragon, and an anime I had always seen advertisements for but never actually watched, Lily C.A.T.

For some reason, it didn't look as interesting as Clash of the Bionoids (AKA Macross: Do You Remember Love?), Ninja Scroll, or AKIRA.  So I skipped it, until a few days ago.  I gave it a chance and I understand why I might have avoided it for so long.

Lily C.A.T. is the story of a bunch of astronauts aboard the deep space vessel Saldes on the way to planet LA-003 on orders from the Syncam Company.  Luckily, the daughter of the president, the very blonde Nancy, is on the trip with her cat Lily.  A motley crew of redshirts are also on hand to do their jobs for the company, but they are in cryo-sleep for most of the trip.  Over the 20 years in cryo-sleep, an incident takes place and allows an extraterrestrial pathogen into the ship's air supply.  When the crew wakes up...uh, this is usually where I say "hijinks ensue", but I can't bring myself to do so in a positive way...because this anime sucks in a bad way.

Lily C.A.T.: the story of a girl and her pussy...OR IS IT?

This anime has all the elements of an homage to Ridley Scott's ALIEN and the ALIEN franchise, as well as to John Carpenter's The Thing.  The problem is that it's NOT an homage of those films, just a ripoff.  From the duct taped weapons to the almost rotoscoped hallways of the Saldes, Lily C.A.T. is not worthy of being called a homage.  It does, however, create a suspenseful atmosphere and present some of the most screwed up images anime had yet to present to an audience.  Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy fame) was responsible for character designs (evident in the female costumes and character hairstyles) and monster design.  If only the entire anime was based on his style of art, then this would be a better anime not only for the art in general, but for the sheer fucked-upness of the monster design.

WAT

The alien monster in Lily C.A.T. is a consummate hunter, waltzing up on its prey and absorbing it into its form.  It does not have much to do except have its kills be cut away from.  If it was actually allowed to kill the humans onboard the Saldes, then it would be wholly like the ALIEN franchise.  There's another element to this anime that put me on edge: if the alien's not killing everyone, who else is killing the crew?  While the anime makes a big hullabaloo about stowaways called "time-jumpers" -- criminals who fake credentials to stow away on long-haul space trips to escape the statute of limitations on their crimes -- and who they are, the real mystery is in who is trying to kill the crew.  Other than the alien, of course.  If you wish to find out, I'm sorry to suggest that you'll have to watch Lily C.A.T. for yourself.

RATING: 5/10

A CONUNDRUM: HOW TO RELAX

This is my first post in 2013, and it's a doozy.  I couldn't sleep tonight because I find myself in a interesting conundrum: the idea of relaxation, how to relax, and stress.

How does one relax? I've found it odd that I have never been able to relax around others. My problem stems from the perception of relaxation.

When I was a child, I had a lot of pressure on me to succeed and I wanted to relax.  I could only do it when I was alone.  If I was seen doing what I thought was relaxing (i.e., sleeping, reading, playing video games, etc.), I was called "lazy" and that I should go relax outside. Going outside meant that I had to go do stuff--stuff that I already hate to do over the course of a busy week.
When I was with others and I was supposed to relax, I had to do all this stuff I was supposed to already know from...somewhere...and that was supposed to be relaxing.  If I could not do that, there would be a problem: questions why, peer pressure to conform, etc.  Oddly enough the solution to the first problem (answers to questions why) can elicit a negative response.  Now a new problem comes up: how to relax outside of other people  ('cuz you're not gonna stick around people you can't talk to).  The easy answer is to be alone, but how should one relax when alone?  Another easy answer; whatever you feel like.  This leads to the interesting conundrum at the start of this post and how it relates to the contemporary ideal form of relaxation.

If you find yourself in a group of people and begin to make small talk, the question comes up, "So, what do you do to relax?" or some permutation. To tell people what you do to relax supposedly says a lot about a person--and that's not a fair assessment.
Our world spends a ridiculous amount of money and time on crafting the ideal form of relaxation, from concerts (be they loud, bass-filled Spring Breaks or quiet opera nights) to vacations (preferably to picturesque lands or designed and designated travel destinations), even down to the desired physical effects of the trip (tan lines, souvenirs, photos, etc.).  Yet no one ever asks what people want to do to relax.  There are offers on what to do on the trip, and more often that not they're telling folks what to do and how to do it.  For argument's sake, let's say these instructions are for the safety of the vacationer.  Now comes the hard part: when you want to relax, you have a great deal of societal norms to follow, even in situations where the behavior is frowned upon (i.e., doing drugs).

So back to the idea of what people think about you when you answer the questions on how you relax.  Imagine someone making all kinds of assumptions and extrapolations based on the idea that you went to Paris on vacation this year.  They could assume the following in a positive light, by virtue of your destination:

• you speak French
• you have money to travel across the Atlantic
• you have connections in Europe
• you are important

Oddly enough, some would say the same of drug kingpins, computer hackers, and Moroccan terrorists. These assumptions listed by bullets above are but a few that make many people who take vacations in the BO-RING lower 48 to think they must somehow get to these artificially elevated places. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I want everyone who reads this to evaluate how you relax and why you relax the way you do. Is it because you want to relax this way or because someone told you this is the way you are to relax or should relax? Have your ideas on relaxation been shaped by outside influences (TV, internet, etc.) or are they internally formulated?  It's a bit deep to think about relaxation, and you wanna say to what you're reading now, "Dude, just chill out and relax" but get this: I have heard the word "relax" so much in my life without support on what people who tell me that want to see or hear or know in reference to that word, that every time I hear it I tense up and I CANNOT RELAX.

It's so weird, but it happens every time. Same thing happens when people ask me to "loosen up" or "be more flexible".  Usually when I am asked this from people I know or have met, I find this precedes a change in attitude: one minute it's "loosen up" and the next it's "get serious".  I know there's a time and place for all these things, but sometimes things just ain't funny. And sometimes they're hilarious.  I'm not some sort of sociopath, but I swear this kind of activity is driving me insane--and you'd go insane too if someone was playing yo-yo with their scale of seriousness every other week.  So I lock up and cannot relax.  In my experiences, there's just too much expectations on what is and isn't relaxing or relaxation.

I need to find a way to relax with people, or I'm going to be locking a lot of doors behind me.  Does anyone have any suggestions that does not involve illicit or illegal drugs?  I'd like to hear from you; please reply in the comment box below.

TL;DR: How can one relax around people without being self-conscious and getting fucked up first?