Ultramarine Magmell on Netflix is the Japanese anime for our ecosystem-trashing times
- An adaptation of a Chinese comic strip, the show is a fable about our inherent appetite for environmental exploitation
- Plus, an Indian spy drama from Amazon Prime Video in the form of The Family Man
What would humans do if those pesky tectonic plates began having a party and in the process presented the world with a new continent?
Why, try to exploit it, of course, which is what happens in Ultramarine Magmell, now streaming on Netflix. The only wonder is that, as the 13 episodes of series one make clear, it has taken 35 years to make inroads into the hinterland, to capitalise on its natural resources and exterminate all the animals. But then again, it is filled with marauding monsters, forest freaks and supernatural hazards that don’t bow down to anything but superpowers. And every year, hundreds of thousands of people vanish into its inhospitable innards.
A fable for our ecosystem-trashing times, Ultramarine Magmell, a Japanese adaptation of a Chinese comic strip, is high on action and fairly low on characterisation, but never mind that, because there isn’t much time from episode to episode, each featuring a new villain, to root for anybody other than the two odd-couple stars.
Grumpy, taciturn Inyo is known as an Angler, but not because he resembles an unkempt Marine Boy. That’s how the search and rescue specialists are known, although this one also has detective genes. With the help of devoted female sidekick Zero he pulls from danger all manner of explorers and exploiters. But why bother saving the avaricious, the militaristic and the ignorant? Well, somebody has to teach some harsh truths to the likes of those dropping “dragon breath-piercing shell bombs”.
An action-fantasy strip in which the major characters all have big, shiny eyes straight out of anime central casting, Ultramarine Magmell is the most moral of cartoon capers: essential life lessons courtesy of ocularly arresting computer graphics.
The Family Man – Amazon Prime Video’s new Indian spy drama
It’s a thankless task, working as a spy for the Indian Government’s secret TASC force. Just ask senior analyst Srikant Tiwari, whose quarrelsome wife thinks he’s merely an overgrown office pen-pusher who can’t be bothered with his share of domestic duties, especially when it comes to raising their children. In Tiwari, Jason Bourne meets Johnny English doing a high-pressure, low-paid job poorly rewarded enough to make his offspring embarrassed about the family car.
Said children are full of attitude and both expert at talking back to him; even his daughter’s head teacher – admittedly a no-nonsense nun – berates Tiwari for having to consult his mobile phone when he’s been summoned to school on the case of his ill-disciplined daughter’s imminent suspension. The trouble is, the case he’s had to run from involves the apprehension of terrorists, who subsequently escape, disappear into labyrinthine slums and eventually, when he returns to the scene, put him (and his unsympathetic colleagues) in mortal danger.
Say hello to The Family Man (Amazon Prime Video), with a title role carried off to perfection by luminary of Indian cinema Manoj Bajpayee.
The show’s creators waste no opportunity to invest their 10-part debut series with deadpan or ironic humour, while at the same time managing to keep the serious nature of the overall topic in sight. This is a tricky business, not least when scenes of domestic discord must jostle with those of hijacked dhows on the Arabian Sea, as well as the show’s big-picture plot to realise a jihadi’s despicable dream of forcing India and Pakistan into a war.
Keeping India safe means full immersion in the Stygian depths of blanket surveillance, because as Tiwari’s partner puts it, “Privacy is a myth. Just like democracy.”
