In the distant future, global warming has advanced to a point that carbon emissions have become limited by heavy taxes, leading to a globally carbon-based economy that has drastically altered the GDP of every nation. If that weren’t bad enough, Japan has also been hit with a massive earthquake around two decades ago, which hindered their ability to deal with the vegetation that’s 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 down-trodden people to paradise.

Shangri-La was produced by Studio Gonzo, and it’s 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 Gonzo’s pre-crash era, it should come as no surprise that it looks pretty damn good. It exists in sort of a production-related quandry where the budget doesn’t exactly look cheap, but the project itself was a bit too ambitious for the more or less decent budget they had. Thankfully, this wasn’t Gonzo’s first rodeo, and they knew how to direct and animate it in a way that highlighted it’s strengths and largely concealed it’s weaknesses. There are some awkward moments here and there... Faces going off-model in distant shots, some derpy looking action and running animations... But all things considered, they’re few and far between, and for a show like this, it would be weird if it didn’t have any noticeable flaws.

The voice acting is also really good, but there’s little that’s worth commenting on, as everyone involved pretty much did the best job that you’d 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 over-the-top evil in their own ways, and even after they have arcs that are supposed to make you feel a lot more sympathetic for them, they’re still terrifying and over-the-top evil. This wouldn’t work without the power of their performances, as Munoz is perfectly able to convey both sadistic insanity and heart-breaking turmoil in the same character, and Yu slips right into the role of a child who’s been raised to believe killing people is acceptable under certain circumstances... Which she does with a perfectly cold-hearted and unaffected tone while speaking in Elizabethan dialect. The rest of the actors do the best that they can with the dialogue they’re given, which... Yeah, let’s talk about that dialogue.

You’ve 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 don’t, I’ve heard nothing but good things, like that he’s 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 salt-storm several years ago, and his image has only gone further downhill in the last year. Two, you’ve probably heard Jamie Marchi is the worst, and while there are certainly qualities of her writing that I don’t like, at least she has the ability to keep those quirks under wraps and stay consistent to a time period where they won’t work. Compare her dub of Spice and Wolf to Tatum’s 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 Shangri-La. He likes to rewrite dubs in his own image, and while he doesn’t 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 over-dramatizing them. Thankfully this particular title is light on the memes... There’s one instance of someone saying ‘nom’ instead of ‘eat,’ and it’s 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, Kumiko’s being released from prison, she announces to the other inmates that she’s free. Tatum’s version, she says “The world is my oyster!” While being let go, a guard thanks her for keeping the other girls in line. Tatum’s version, he says “If I never see you again it’ll be too soon” And sure, I’ll 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 they’re the same person.

I’m 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 over-written to just plain dirty. There’s a line where someone says “I apologize for my actions, but I had no choice,” and Tatum changes it to “I won’t apologize for my actions. I had no choice!” Which is just baffling, and there are a million little changes like that, where it’s just... Why? What was he hoping to accomplish? Sure I didn’t notice a single moment where anybody fumbled their lip flaps, and that is important, but these changes happen even when a character who’s talking is doing so off-screen. As for which version I’d recommend... I don’t know, there aren’t too many lines that would come off as lame or offensive if you didn’t have prior knowledge of the original script, so it might not be too bad if you’re watching it blind, but if you’re not a fan of Joss Whedon’s writing style, that overly-quippy style where characters are exchanging sassy banter even when the situation really doesn’t call for it, this is not the dub for you.

While the dystopian genre may have been a blip on everyone’s radar in the early 2010’s on the western side of the world, it’s 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 Shangri-La 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 you’re 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, let’s 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 isn’t anywhere near as popular or well known? Well, to answer that, I’d like to take a look at the structure of the story for a moment. Shangri-La 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. It’s 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 I’ve 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.

I’ve read every single Stephen King book aside from his latest one(I’ll get around to Billy Summers at some point) and there are four titles I can think of that follow the same structure as Shangri-La... 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 they’re 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 here’s the problem... They’re 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 you’re fed the details through bits and pieces of experience that come together over time. There is a main antagonist in The Stand, sure, but he’s not the focus of the story, the sickness is.

Shangri-La has way too conventional of a plot to make that structure work, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it just doesn’t work for the dystopian genre in general. In a dystopian story, you need to keep a tight focus on the main character, and while you’re 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 don’t feel anything because I’ve 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 I’ve also been kind of conditioned to view her cruelty as kind of a joke.

Speaking of which, there’s 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, it’s actually kind of terrifying. Afterwards, she has this entire arc where she’s supposed to become endeared to us, she becomes more sympathetic and we realize she’s not truly evil... But then she does it again, this time to an innocent woman who didn’t know any better and was hired to serve her, and it’s played off like THIS time it’s supposed to be funny. It’s not. It’s fucking confused. This whole story is fucking confused. I’m not going to pretend like there aren’t any good action scenes, or that the ideas that went into it weren’t 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 she’s 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. That’s not to say they’re predictable, oh hell no, there are reveals in this show you will definitely not see coming, but just because you couldn’t possibly guess them, that doesn’t 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 I’m glad I know what it is now. I’ve been wondering how this world became the way it is... Oh, that’s how? Cool. Nothing ever feels like a game changer. Nothing ever feels as shocking or chilling as it’s supposed to. The only thing that’s 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, we’ve been waiting long enough,” to “I’ll make you pay for so-and-so” and it’s just as start-and-stop and hot-and-cold as the story itself is. I guess it’s a spoiler to say she’s a chosen one who has to save the world, but this information isn’t revealed until literally the final episode, so there is absolutely NO mounting tension to get you invested.

It also doesn’t help that there’s a huge side plot involving the economics of this world, which... I don’t know, I didn’t follow any of it. Maybe I’m stupid? Maybe I just had a hard time paying attention to it due to my ADHD? And it’s heavily interwoven into the story, so it’ not something you can just ignore to enjoy the more interesting story beats. It’s hard to decide whether or not to condemn a side of the story I didn’t understand, but you know what? I can think of a few titles that wasn’t an issue for. Log Horizon had an economic side plot, but unlike Shangri-La, they weren’t shy about explaining it to the audience in a way that made it easy to follow and understand. For another example, I’m currently reading this light novel series called I’m In Love With the Villainess, and there’s 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 doesn’t 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 she’s been isekai’d into to woo and protect her love interest whose life is very much at stake. I don’t think I’ve been this invested in a light novel series since Haruhi Suzumiya was still in print. So if it’s possible to explain an economic side plot in a way I understand, and it’s just as possible to keep me invested despite my idiocy, why couldn’t Shangri-La do either? Again, is it just my fault?

I should also mention that there’s 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 I’m 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 it’s not impossible to use stereotypes to your advantage when writing minority characters, it’s 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 wasn’t constantly sexually assaulting people. This includes kissing another character literally while he’s 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? That’s not a coincidence.

The main issues with this show all seem to be that it’s executed poorly. It has some really fun moments and some really creative ideas, good action and likeable characters, but the over-all experience is bogged down by a story structure that just doesn’t work, too many characters spouting too many plot points, and an English dub that only made the experience feel even more bland. Shangri-La 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 miss-print 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.” They’ve 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 miss-print is still visible in the DVD’s Amazon listing. And that, sadly, is the only thing that’s really worth remembering about this title.

I give Shangri-La a 5/10.