Fake
Reviewer: Zandra [email]Overall Rating: A
Media Reviewed: DVD
Creator: Sanami Matoh
U.S. Licensed: Yes
Released by: Media Blasters
Run time: 60 minutes
BL Content: Soft (touching, kissing)
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Other media: English-licensed manga [review]
OVERVIEW
FAKE is a DVD no shonen-ai fan should be without. It's a short OVA of
the 7 tankoubans of the manga written by Sanami Matoh (published in
Japan by BeXBoy and in America by TOKYOPOP). While not nearly long
enough to develop the characters like the manga, it does a decent job of
being smart, romantic, funny and most importantly, entertaining. The
basic premise for this story is that two New York City cops, Dee Laytner
and Randy (Ryo) McLane get involved with a murder while on vacation in
England. Dee also has the hots for Randy. Randy is half-Japanese, and
his Japanese name is Ryo. Generally, only people close to him refer to
him as Ryo. The story is often compared to having the feel of an episode
of "Scooby-Doo," which I'd say is pretty accurate.
STORY
Overall, this OVA is fairly easy to understand. We begin with a
"widescreen" scene of a young woman being murdered and falling into
water. Next we see that Dee and Ryo have arrived at a beautiful hotel in
England. They check in, and are greeted by Leonard Henry, the owner of
the hotel. While going to their rooms, Ryo wonders why Bikky decided not
to come with them. Turns out Dee had bribed him with $100 to not go to
England! Of course he doesn't tell Ryo this. They arrive at their
(seperate) rooms and Dee looks dissapointed. Ryo walks onto his balcony
and notices a blonde-haired man below who stares at him and then
continues on his way. Meanwhile Dee had entered the room. He gives Ryo a
scare, and they go on a boat on the lake. Along the way, Dee starts
confessing his feelings for Ryo when suddenly Ryo spots something
floating in the lake (causing Dee to fall in). It's a dead body of
a girl! To tell more would be spoiling a lot of the fun, but basically
Ryo and Dee are determined to find the murderer, and along the way Dee intends to get
with Ryo. There is also some supernatural elements introduced to the
story by the half-way point.
CHARACTERS
The two main characters are Dee Laytner, a taller man with dark brown
hair, and Randy "Ryo" McLane, who has lighter brown hair. Dee is loud
and sarcastic but always truthful with his feelings. Randy is calm and
thinks things through, but is confused about Dee's advances. JJ is a
fellow cop who has a big crush on Dee. He's loud and flamey and is
hilarious to watch. There's Ryo's two "adopted" kids, Bikky and Carol
(also called Cal). Bikky is a little brat that likes to argue with Dee.
Carol is pretty sweet but it seems like she doesn't trust Dee either.
Berkeley Rose is a New York State Policeman who's come on a special
assignment to investigate the murder undercover. Leonard Henry is the
owner of the hotel.
ANIMATION
The animation for FAKE is excellent considering its age. It was
produced in 1997 and has a rather nice budget. Of course, it is only
about an hour long, but still the character animation is consistant and
the backgrounds are quite beautiful. This is a cel animated show and
while not as clean looking as digital animated shows like Yami no
Matsuei or Gravitation it is just as nice. The character designs are
different than most anime but very faithful to the original manga
designs. While you might find yourself staring at the odd shaped eyes at
first, they will grow on you and you won't even notice anymore. Also the
shoulders of the men in this show look rather wide, similar to CLAMP's
design of men.
MUSIC
Who doesn't love the opening song to FAKE, entitled "Everybody! Shake
it Buddy!"? It's goofy and energetic and has great animation to go with
it. The song is preformed by a group called "The Kix.S" and has a strong
female singer. The background music to the show is pretty forgetful, but
it's not really used much anyways. The ending song is a slow ballad,
entitled "Starlight Heaven" and performed by Rika Matsumoto, the seiyuu
for Bikky. She does a nice job, and the song sounds good.
SEIYUU
Tomokazu Seki, my favorite seiyuu, is Dee Laytner and he hams it up for
all its worth! He does a great job with both the serious parts and the
more energetic goofy parts. He has been Shuichi from Gravitation, Ken
Hidaka from Weiss Kreuz and Touya Kinomoto from Card Captor Sakura.
Nobuo Tobita is the seiyuu for Ryo and is not as well known. He has also
been Tomo from Fushigi Yugi and Hosino from Earthian. Rika Matsumoto
is Bikky, she is well known as having played Satoshi (a.k.a Ash) from
Pocket Monsters. Typically her roles are young boy roles.
DUB
I cannot say enough good things about this dub. It's VERY well done in
my opinion. In fact my only complaint would be Berkeley Rose's kind of
scratchy voice. But the dub actors for Dee and Ryo put a lot of feeling
into their roles. They also don't sound stereotypically gay, although
some of their fellow policemen do (which got a chuckle out of me.) Dee's
voice is very nice and fairly deep. Ryo's is nervous at the beginning
and a bit stale, but he gets into the role pretty quickly. This is a
disc I can watch both the dub and sub and come away laughing. It's also
more natural to watch it dubbed since the cops are from New York City
and the story takes place in England.
DVD PRODUCTION
The FAKE DVD is produced by AnimeWorks, a.k.a. Media-Blasters in 2000.
It's pretty bare-bones, but I can't imagine there are many extras they
could've used. Perhaps a clean opening and closing, but I guess there
weren't any in Japan. Another nice extra could've been introduction to
the manga but what's done is done. The transfer is nice, no weird lines
or colors or anything like that. There is NO insert, which was standard
for Media-Blasters when this disc was produced. You get a basic menu,
scene selections, languages and trailers. There are hard-subs for the
opening and ending song.
SUMMARY
FAKE is well known for being a great shonen-ai show, even if you don't
like that kind of thing. It IS short, but very well done, and you can
get the disc rather cheap. I have many male friends that don't like yaoi
and yet thought this OVA was hilarious just for the characters and
expressions. The mystery is pretty decent too. Since this show is
licensed in America, please do NOT buy bootlegs or VCDs, as they are
inferior and do not support the companies that bring yaoi to America.