Distributed by VIZ Pictures
54 minutes (12 music videos)

Viz Pictures really ought to have the subtitle: Stuff Erin Likes. It’s uncanny. I should meet the guy who’s picking these titles and shake his hand – I should buy him a beer at SDCC. I just hope that my personal taste in film is commercial enough to last!

Last fall I was randomly thinking, “I should listen to some Gackt!” and suddenly, like magic, Viz releases a filmography of his music videos! Unfortunately Carlos didn’t like the Blue volume, and I didn’t either, because I don’t like slow love songs. The Red volume is definitely the way to go, (even Carlos admitted it). Red contains much peppier rock and pop songs.

The strongest music video in this 12 video compellation is “Metamorphoze,” wherein Gackt plays a (dead) Gundam pilot singing to his lost love. Live-action footage of Gackt floating through space in a Gundam cockpit is inter-cut with scenes from Gundam anime series, including mech battle scenes. Although it is a little cheesy, and I’m not a fan of Gundam, I watched this video three times in a row as soon as I got the shrink wrap of the DVD case.

It’s significant that Gackt is singing from the point of view of a dead pilot, as he plays a dead guy in over half of the music videos on Red. These aren’t murder ballads, per say, but if you are interested in murder ballads, I recommend the 1996 album “Murder Ballads” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, wherein each song is sung from a murder victim’s point of view.

Gackt’s death is less obvious in some of the videos. In the upbeat song “Another World” Gackt is shot off-camera in a heist gone wrong. As he drives away (looking gorgeous) in a red VW bug at the end we see a brief shot of his bloody shirt. He’s probably not going to live, but it was a fun video, even if the details of the plot were hard to follow.

“Oasis” takes place in a post-apocolyptic desert. It seems like the blonde chick and little boy in the video may already be dead – Gackt’s cyber-armed character is pretty depressed about that. Maybe he won’t last much longer either.

In “Secret Garden” Gackt’s character disappears in a mysterious flash of light at the end after spending some time in a bus station filled with racial stereotypes. Was he dead before the video started? Was he a guardian angel?

“Redemption” features more fantastic visual-kei outfits with a lot of leather straps, shoulder guards, and feathers. The microphone is inside a huge ornate dragon staff. Gakct (looking hot) plays a dead character, although the reason for the death is not obvious (on first viewing) and the character stands up at the end. Perhaps he recovered?

In “Seki-Ray” Gackt (looking cute) dies of exposure in the snow. In “Never Forget You” Gackt apparently dies by drowning after riding his motorcycle a lot and also leaning against it in an airplane hanger. (Gackt is hotness in leather.)

“Dreams You Pursued” reminded me of Cibo Matto’s video to “Sugar Water”. Gackt (I didn’t like his jacket in this one) is going to meet his date at European café near a fountain. He can’t get the waiters’ attention and his watch is inexplicably smashed. It turns out Gackt’s character is already dead, hit by a car on the way to meet his date! The girl in the video is really cute, and the song is surprisingly cheerful.

Gackt does not die in “Mizerable,” wherein he’s carried around in a palanquin and the devil plays violin in a glam-rock version of medieval Europe. It’s hard to take the song seriously, as part of the chorus is sung in English, “I am ‘Les Miserables’!” Nevertheless, Gackt wears the most David Bowie like outfits in this video, and I mean Bowie from the “Spiders from Mars” era.

“Black Stone” and “Mirror” rock out (in a pop way). In “Black Stone” Gackt is accompanied by several dreadlocked guitarist in the back of a moving semi-truck. In “Mirror” the accompanying band and Gackt wear matching (and totally hot) red leather jackets and gold pants. This song is the most angry, with a couple of swear words thrown in. The guitar riff reminded me favorably of the riff in the Stone Temple Pilots’ song “Vaseline”.

“Vanilla” is the weakest video on the DVD, despite the upbeat, ska-like song and interesting futuristic outfits. Strange white-hooded nurses run up and down a hallway, occasionally carrying the type of ribbons used in rhythmic gymnastics and/or a pilates ball. Unfortunately, there are only three or four camera set-ups in this video, and the editing is random. The song never builds to much of anything and the future nurses aren’t great dancers. (Gackt wasn’t as attractive either.)

I really enjoyed almost every single song on this compilation, even if I found some of the videos a little too weird (or not weird enough). Gackt’s singing reminds me a little of Billy Corgan’s on the album “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”. Fortunately for me, Gackt’s catalog was made available in the iTunes store around the time these DVDs were released.

This a great DVD to squeal over at your junior high slumber party. I would show it back to back with Death Note the Last Name if I was turning 13 or 14 again.

The only way Red could have been improved would be by providing some kind of DVD extras – perhaps a “making of” featurette or an interview with Gackt. The DVD booklet does not contain any information besides basic facts – a Gackt biography included somewhere would have been fun. The lyrics are available on the disc in both Japanese and English. I would have liked romanji lyrics so I could practice for karaoke, but I guess I could buckle down and learn the kanji if I was that serious about it.

I’m totally stoked that Viz is importing Japanese music videos. What’s next? M-Flo? The Pillows? Shiina Ringo? Shojo Beat magazine seems to cover more and more J-rock and J-pop. What is Viz secretly planning?