Review: Blister is a surprise in two ways. First of all, I have never heard mention of this movie in any way whatsoever. Not until it appeared in my mailbox had I ever even heard the name. So it was nice to go into a film without any prior knowledge, seeing as how doing so has become near impossible. Second, once I saw that it was a Japanese movie based on obsessed collectors, my interest was immediately piqued.

From the beginning, Blister kept reminding me faintly of the Gainax movie Otaku No Video, which is a classic example of a “movie about dorks for dorks”, if you know what I mean. This is mostly because the main character meets a few other collectors that each specialize in their own area of nerdiness. Aside from the main guy Yuji’s fetish for all toys from the U.S. of A., there is the essential sci-fi specialist, Terada. His life revolves around Star Trek and expensive special effects. He even spends a cool 3 million Yen on a Delorean, representin’ Back to the Future. Next on the roster is the Robot and Anime otaku, Hasamoto. He spends all of his time perfecting his model building and attempting to create his own perfect mech to win a contest. He believes that toys and anime are the perfect examples of the human body, and therefore the perfect females, valuing them well above the real thing. They both help Yuji equally in his attempts to find the Hellbanker toy, but there are also a few obstacles in his way.

That brings us to the third collector, who is far from a friend. He’s one of those guys that collects anything considered incredibly rare, even though 90% of his collection is questionably the real thing. Crap like the gun used to kill John Lennon, or the socks of someone else famous. So, of course, he wants to get his hands on Hellbanker as well. Yuji is also presented with the problem of his girlfriend Mami. Although she more or less lets him carry on with his hobby, she grows more and more disgusted with him as he delves deeper in the habit, spending all their money and even pawning things off.

If anything kept my eyes glued to the screen, it was the undeniable style that the movie had. I really haven’t seen anything like it. I mean, don’t expect anything crazy, but just the way it flowed was really interesting and it had some techniques that really added flavor to the whole mix. The history of the made-up-for-the-movie comic book Hellbanker is presented to the viewer through English narration over motionless comic panels. Motionless sounds boring, but it all looks pretty authentic, and gives some background to the rare item Yuji is so desperately seeking.

But the real kicker is the bizarre side-story that unconventionally links everything into a cohesive story that ends up spanning hundreds of years. In between segments of present day toy collecting, the film flashes forward to a bleak and desolate future. In this age, the Earth has stopped rotating due to a gravity bomb dropped many years prior. As a result, half of the Earth is covered in perpetual sunlight, and nothing has grown in ages, leaving the whole area as a desert. The other side is always shrouded in the darkness of night, leaving it almost too cold to survive. There is also a small area inbetween, where a fortunate few live in comfort. These scenes chronicle a man who is trying to make his way to the Earths core to start up a machine created to artificially rotate the Earth. The key to it’s ignition...the Hellbanker toy.

As cheesy as that all may sound, it doesn’t act as a basis for the whole story, but serves as more of an interesting aside that wraps it all together. The story could survive without this twist, but the way that the present intertwines with the future is what really makes the movie unique.

Blister doesn’t chronicle exagerrated nerds that drool over plastic boobs and have nosebleeds every five seconds. And while it may not necessarily portray collectors in the way they may prefer to be, there is a decent amount of realism within the story. Near the end, I started to see a message about obsession, particularly in the way that Yuji would be willing to throw everything away to fuel his desires. There are also a few moments where the characters vent their frustrations over the way that they are looked down upon as people. Their hobbies being considered worthless, the character this bothers the most is the Robot otaku Hasamoto.

All the actors were convincing, with the exception of a few English speaking actors. Hideaki Ito played the main character perfectly, and the other actor that stood out was Yuuta Yamazaki as Terada. I kind of had to crank up the volume when the old Japanese man was speaking English, he was near impossible to understand, but I can let it slide. One of the greatest parts happens during the credits, though. It shows tons of shots of real collectors talking about why they like collecting.