Review By Stephen Longbottom (SALmations)
Resident Evil: Degeneration
Directed by Makoto Kamiya
When I watched this animation, I watched the animation firstly just so I could refresh my memory of it again, because it had been a while since I had watched it. Now that I have watched I can say that it is a good animation. I would say that there are a couple of differences from the animation to the actual zombie movies that are out. Now with the animation, it is only really on for 1hr 32mins approx., so really you can’t produce a long plot to cover the full minutes it is on. So with that this animation gets into the really action really quickly. Now with films, they do it so it takes a while for the main plot of it all to start up, but with animation, due to the process of making it, they rarely making animation that are longer than an hour and a half. So with that I would have to say that the plot line of Resident Evil: Degeneration worked out really well. It starts off with Claire Redfield at the airport waiting for her aunt. Now during the time in the airport, you can see news reporters and people outside still talking about the effect of what happened at Racoon City 7 years ago (Claire should know about it, she was there). So with the whole of this happening, they wouldn’t suspect that the virus has started up again and is making it way by plane with an infected passenger. Now not only that, but there is an infected person in the airport also. Now this is where it all starts to get interesting. The virus is starting up again and it was about to get worse. Seen as there was an aeroplane hurdling towards the airport itself. Now with the zombie side of it all, you can still see the effect of them turning into zombies but you don’t get the feel of reality to them, like you would in like “Dawn of the Dead”. I know it is an animation and all, but you would have thought that they would of added a little extra to the zombies to give them that realization sort of feel. Now with the additional of the zombies, there is also an added addition of the G-virus monster with the big eyeball on his shoulder. Now when I saw that mutation of it, I thought that that felt more realistic and believable then the actual zombies themselves. Now I know that sounds abit strange “how can the monster that mutated from the G-virus look better than the zombies mutated from the T-virus” Well to me that is what I believe. Now after watching the animation itself, I then went into watching the making of the animation; The Generation of Degeneration. Now with this the director and the producers created this animation in an entirely new concept, I mean they did take aspects from Resident evil 2 like involving Claire Redfield and Leon S.Kennedy. They did say that they tried to keep their personalities from the games and thought of how they would look after so many years from the game and kept similar characterisation of them. The whole of the animation was created in CGI and they did each of the scenes using live action, with having the people in motion capture suits that would be captured on screen and would be able to animate the character around them. They creating most of the animation using the software Maya and was able to use the rigging and capturing actions to create the best movement and flow of the characters. I would overall put this as a great zombie animation and would say that you should watch it. The only thing for me was if the zombies looked abit more horrifying. If felt to me also like the cut scenes from a game of Resident Evil and I was expecting a mission to show up or something. But I would say it is a cracking animation and I would watch over and over again.
