Japanese Animation Makes Another Run at the Mainstream; Girls Against Boys Makes Another Run at Indie Cred; Gravity Kills Makes Most Girls Run Away; Reactions Presents 9/11 Art; Charles "Hungry" Hardy Prepares to Eat Matzoh Balls

The Japanese crossover experiments always fail. Princess Mononoke (1999), a challenging film with voice work by Billy Bob Thornton, lost a truckload of cash for Disney. Titan A.E. (2000) was so bad that it tanked an entire studio, Fox Animation. The American public just isn't interested in long shots of big-eyed cartoon scientists looking conflicted; they want to hear Robin Williams sing.

This is fine for anime itself. It remains uncompromising and occasionally thrilling, with "Ghost in the Shell," "Sailor Moon" and "Ranma 1/2" all sporting, and deserving, loyal fan followings. The Hollywood producers remain interested, too, probably because the cost of Japanese animated films is about 1/10th that of their American counterparts. (Some Japanese animators will forgo their salaries to work with a particular director.) This week a fine movie called Metropolis rolls into New York in search of that elusive anime dollar. (See Matt Seitz's review in this issue.)

Metropolis debuted in Japan last year; it was written by Katsuhiro Otomo, the man behind Akira (1988), anime's best-known feature. (If you haven't seen it, I can give you a quick plot synopsis: People yell "Akira!" "Kenada!" "Tetsuo!" and then buildings blow up.) Metropolis heavily references the 1927 Fritz Lang film of the same name, with its retro-future urban setting, but it owes most of its plot points to a 1940s Japanese manga (comic book) also called Metropolis. As with much anime, the story, a conflict between humans and robots, takes a backseat to the inspired visuals.

Director Rintaro (no first name) uses Metropolis to present endless sewers, apocalyptic fires and a giant sunspot cannon. He employs the music you would least expect?classic jazz?to anchor his film. He has a robot that's cuter than R2D2, a gumshoe who looks like the Belgian comic book hero Tintin and a beautiful young girl; unfortunately, he omits the extreme sex favored by some anime. Metropolis has subtitles but it's a rocking movie; catch it this Friday at the huge theater in Times Square, AMC Theaters Empire 25 (234 W. 42nd St., betw. 7th & 8th Aves., 398-3939) and see if it doesn't catch on.

...Meanwhile, it's like revenge of the 90s at New York music spots this week. Girls Against Boys, who like to go by "GVSB" as if they were CSNY, have finally recovered from being dumped by Geffen and are trying to reclaim their status as respected indie band. Thus they have re-signed to Jade Tree records (huh? I've never heard of them either?they have the Promise Ring and Alkaline Trio) and their latest, as-of-yet untitled album hits stores in May.

To support the record, Girls Against Boys is touring throughout the spring, starting at Bowery Ballroom on Saturday. This will be an interesting show because the band could do anything: they haven't released new material in four years, they haven't played live since last year's CMJ festival and they haven't been photographed looking sexy in Spin since...wow, '98, probably. It remains to be seen whether their fan base of college girls who like abusive men from afar has grown up and bought Santana's Supernatural yet.

Girls Against Boys plays growling, simple, riff-based songs with keyboards on top. They never had a hit, but if you can remember Filter's "(Can't You) Trip Like I Do" you'll dig their music. They go on at midnight this Saturday; their show costs $12. At Bowery Ballroom (6 Delancey St., betw. Chrystie St. & Bowery, 533-2111).

...Gravity Kills, who got popular when Amazon.com started to take off, releases its comeback album Superstarved in March. Thing is, while these guys (hard-rock veterans from St. Louis) seemed like a third-rate Nine Inch Nails when their first single, "Guilty," broke in 1995, they now sound like the godfathers of Disturbed, Orgy and Marilyn Manson. Of course, with industrial rock it's tough to tell what's an influence, what's a ripoff and what's a sample?one of the songs on Gravity Kills' new record cribs the "Get your boogie on!" clip from a Korn remix. Superstarved is punishing, though, and catchy as hell.

Gravity Kills is on tour with Sevendust and Flaw; that smorgasbord comes to Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center (311 W. 34th St., betw. 8th & 9th Aves., 564-4882) this Tuesday. Expect annoying, fat, shaven-headed fratboys, but also expect the best kind of mosh pit?the kind you can get into and flail around in without worrying about having your neck trampled. As a rule, you only get really hurt at mosh pits for hardcore bands. Industrial pits are more polite, with less punching.

...Artistic responses to 9/11 keep piling up, with one of the largest and most democratic debuting this weekend. "Reactions" at Exit Art is the result of sending out 10,000 e-mails and 8000 real mails asking regular people for their responses to Sept. 11. The submissions could be anything, as long as they fit on an 8-1/2-by-11-inch piece of paper; 900 of them came in from four continents and one of them came in from me.

The poetry, musical scores, collages, photographs, texts, etc., go on display at Exit Art this Saturday. They are accompanied by 200 original drawings from yet another 9/11 comic book?September 11, a DC/Dark Horse project. "Reactions" has its opening reception at 6 p.m.; $5 admission is suggested by Exit Art (548 B'way, betw. Prince & Spring Sts., 996-7745).

...Finally, in the world of competitive eating (detailed at www.ifoce.com), one New Yorker towers above the rest?Charles "Hungry" Hardy. The 325-pound corrections officer began eating professionally five years ago; since then he has won Nathan's World Hot Dog Eating Championship (although he is no longer the title-holder) and captured the world record for sushi. This Tuesday he will defend a lesser-known title, that of champion matzoh-ball eater, at the Ben's Deli Matzo Ball Eating Contest. (For more on that, see Tricia Vita's piece in this week's "New York City.")

"Competition size for the finals, they're 8 ounces," Hardy says of the matzoh balls he will consume, "half-pounders." Hardy ate 15.5 of these last year to defeat rival Ed Jarvis.

"They're by themselves in a light broth. There's a lot of technique involved. I'll tell you this much, it's one of the hardest competitions I've been in?half-pound matzoh balls, it's like swallowing cement."

Matzoh balls may be the hardest, but one of the more bizarre competitions Charles has attended (and won) was last year's sushi-eating battle in Japan.

"It was onstage, in a show. It was a Japanese tv show and it was a 30-foot roll of sushi, the whole idea being for me to eat the whole thing in 30 minutes, but I ended up eating 15.5 feet of it. I had to cut it myself. Every three feet they changed the fish so I never knew what was coming next, so there was some surprises in it."

Charles competes this Tuesday at Ben's Kosher Deli (209 W. 38th St., betw. 7th & 8th Aves., 398-2367). Curiously, or maybe not, since you're hungriest in the morning, the matzoh-ball contest starts promptly at 10 a.m. Here's hoping that "Hungry" Hardy, soft-spoken world traveler (he gets an interpreter whenever he goes to Japan), can add another notch to his belt. Admission is free.