Library War (Toshokan Sensou) (spring 2008 anime)
April 30, 2008 at 7:56 am | In adventure, anime, comedy, guilty pleasure, ridiculous premise, spring 2008 | 2 CommentsSummary: dumbest premise ever, but I love the execution
Based on: 6 episodes
Series Info: at Anime News Network
This just has me in the grips of despair. Zetsubou! Zetsubou daaaaaa!
It’s very similar to Planetes, which I liked a lot, and I find the clean, heavily edged art style and character designs very appealing. It’s also in the ’short haired tomboy leading character’ genre like Planetes and Patlabor. So far the plot is thin, but dialogue and characterization are excellent.
However – it has possibly the dumbest premise I’ve ever seen in an anime that’s obviously aimed at adults. A Media Cleansing Act is passed which causes the formation of a bunch of elite book censorship Nazis (they even have the snappy uniforms). In response, a freedom of information act is passed which causes libraries to become more or less their own country with their own elite military force. They battle it out in bookstores and alternate heavy weapons training with Dewey decimal system filing. I am not making this up. How could I?
Okay, close your eyes, breathe deep, let it wash over you. Ignore the requisite Japanese sexism (‘Wow, you guys made it here in only one day even with a woman in the group!’). This is still pretty enjoyable.
Macross Frontier (spring 2008 anime)
April 30, 2008 at 7:00 am | In adventure, anime, macross, school syndrome, spring 2008 | 1 CommentSummary: It’s Macross. Not bad if you want music and robots and dogfights.
Based on: 12 episodes
Series info: at Anime News Network
This is Macross, so you get all the Macross cliches in full force. Now with that said, it’s not too badly done.
On the plus side, the music is by Yoko Kanno with vocals by Maaya Sakamoto, the production values are fairly high, the premise isn’t nearly as ridiculous as Macross 7, and there’s a lot of action. On the minus side you’ll have to endure gratuitous music ‘videos’, high school fighter pilots, and so far a razor thin plot. This all culminates in episode 7 with a full-episode 24 minute orgy of non-stop space combat and music concert.
If you want to check out Macross for the first time, I recommend Macross Plus instead, but you could do worse. Though I have the sinking feeling that this is all going to end with Ranka singing the evil alien badguys (the vajira) into submission.
Update: Ugh, ugh, ugh, I guess it was to be expected after they blew the budget on ep 7, but ep 8 is an insanely bad ‘Ranka and Sheryl transfer to Alto’s school’ thing that gets even worse since the main plotline is a panty-chase. If ep 9 is this bad, I’m giving up on it.
define: macross
April 30, 2008 at 6:49 am | In definition, macross | 2 CommentsThe Macross series pretty much deserves its own category. Any given Macross series will not necessarily be in the same universe as the others, but will involve most of the following:
- gratuitous music and music videos
- annoying female singing idol(s)
- frantic aerial and/or space combat with heat-seeking missiles going everywhere
- ’ships’ (Valkyries) that transform between aerodynamic and robot forms
- high production values
The pinnacle of these is probably Macross Plus.
Macross fans are ‘protoculture addicts’, sort of like Jimmy Buffet:parrotheads or evangelicals: various armageddon death cults.
Himitsu: The Revelation (spring 2008 anime)
April 30, 2008 at 6:38 am | In anime, ridiculous premise, spring 2008 | 2 CommentsSummary: technogibberish for dumb adults
Based on: 1 episode
Series info: at Anime News Network
This is really the epitome of ‘grownup anime is not a panacea‘. It’s based on the ridiculous premise that 50 years from now people who have no idea about how the brain works will be able to run MRIs on the brain up to 48 hours after brain death. That will somehow boost up the brain’s function to exactly ‘120%’ and extract perfect video of the deceased’s last moments. Video which can be infinitely zoomed, yet has no audio track – which is where the new guy, our hero, comes in: he can read lips. Also the hippocampus stores several minutes of perfect video which can be rewound and forwarded as well. I swear to you this is even dumber than it sounds.
Follow this up with several astounding coincidences and leaps of logic and you have an utter trainwreck of a series that for some reason even tosses in some yaoibait between the new guy and his ooooo so mysterious boss.
define: grownup is not a panacea
April 30, 2008 at 6:20 am | In definition, grownup is not a panacea | Leave a CommentI make a big deal here about ‘grownup’ anime, but this is obviously not a panacea. Just look at American TV – there are plenty of shows aimed at adults who just happen to be dumb adults. Similarly, there are many anime series that are intended for worldweary but not very bright adults.
You can usually distinguish these from the teen anime by the lack of teen cliches (offices replace schools), the fact that the characters are adults, and a slight emphasis on dialogue over action. But bad adult anime have their own series of cliches:
- the humble protagonist is gifted with godlike powers in at least one specialty.
- heavy reliance on technogibberish.
- there’s usually some gimmicky premise that’s taken to ridiculous extremes.
- extreme use of deus ex machina or unbelievable coincidence to keep the plot moving.
- episodic nature (self-contained stories that don’t require you to watch every week).
- over-reliance on trick/twist endings.
Horrible examples of this include Moonlight MIle, Himitsu: The Revelation, and Real Drive.
So what I’m saying by ‘anime for grownups’ is something that won’t insult your experience as an adult but also something that won’t insult your intelligence
define: padding
April 28, 2008 at 9:40 pm | In definition, padding | 1 CommentUnfortunately, shows tend to round up to a full ’season’ of 13 episodes, generally 13, 26, or 52 eps. Even if they don’t have enough content to sustain that. So you end up with a great opening, great ending, then a middle in which you can tell that several episodes were placed there just to fill things out. Noein: To Your Other Self is a prime example of an otherwise decent anime that suffers from this.
Some series know they don’t have enough content right up front, so they pad things out from the start. Prime examples are Revolutionary Girl Utena and Fushigi Yuugi, both of which are twice as long as they should have been. No big loss for Fushigi Yuugi, but imagine how much better Utena could have been.
define: shoujo cliche
April 28, 2008 at 5:24 am | In definition, shoujo cliche | Leave a CommentI know I’m going to take some crap for this, but after watching hundreds of anime (and reading hundreds of manga), I’m going to assert the following: anime/manga for females is far more cliche and forumlaic than anime/manga for males.
Now I’m not sure why this should be. Generally series for males (’shounen’) fall victim to the fight fight fight cliche and the harem cliche. Put crudely, all guys are interested in are beating things up and screwing. And females are generally viewed as being more interested in dialogue and relationships than males, so you’d expect female anime or manga to be more varied: yet it’s not.
Series for young girls tends to fall into the endlessly recycled magical girl category while anime for teen girls tends to fall into the cliche bishounen (beautiful dangerous guys) category. Characters are little more than a small set of quirks to be exploited for humorous effect, some hidden tragedy in their past to give them a veneer of depth, and emotions limited to self pity, unfulfilled longing, unfocused rage, vague protectiveness, and ‘being cool’. I know the last isn’t really an emotion, exactly, but it seems to qualify as a primary state of mind for the characters.
Since cliches are the main detriment to my enjoyment of new series (been there, done that, dozens of times) you’ll see that I recommend very few shoujo (‘girls’) anime. I freely admit that as a man I don’t understand it completely: is this some Japanese paternalism? But then I think of romance series like Harlequin here in the west – basically all the same five plots with the names changed. So my guesses are that a) by reducing the plot and setup to formula they allow the reader/viewer to concentrate on the dialogue and b) the unchanging framework provides a sense of security.
Whatever the reason, there are far fewer shoujo series than shounen series that won’t insult a reasonably intelligent adult.
Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni
April 28, 2008 at 4:26 am | In anime, comedy, harem, one episode rule, school syndrome | 3 CommentsSummary: alternately super-cute and hideously disturbing, deep plot
Based on: 51 episodes
Series info: at Anime News Network
This refers to Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai (season 2). A third season is on the way. It consists of a series of arcs, all of which center on the same time period (June 1983) but act out differently.
Higurashi manages to violate the game anime sucks rule. It’s based on a series of games, manga, and light novels whose story is much deeper than any anime usually manages, so it doesn’t suffer because of it. It also violates the one episode rule and harem rules: based on the first episode you would think this was just a low budget school harem anime. But it slowly starts undermining your certainty, and by episode 8 this was the most intense and disturbing anime I’ve ever seen.
The first three arcs basically leave you hanging, asking questions about what’s going on. What’s with the Groundhog Day thing, and why are these cute school kids going violently insane? After that you start getting some answers. Higurashi Kai gets a significant animation upgrade but is significantly less disturbing and intense as (almost) all your questions are answered.
Be warned: there is intense gore and brutal slayings, and even torture of young children. For this reason it’s often compared to Elfen Lied, another anime with excessive gore and killing, but they’re only the same if you’re a kid who can’t tell the difference in purpose – they are in service of different goals. Still, if you have a weak stomach you may not be able to get through this. Or maybe the bad animation in season one will turn you off.
There are three things that cause this series to exceed the usual anime tropes:
First, the characters and the series itself are unreliable narrators. This alone makes it a different animal. You have no idea how much confusion this causes on anime message boards, since kids used to being spoon-fed plot don’t even have the concept of not being able to trust the anime. The furthest anime usually goes is hiding secrets from you then suddenly revealing them, or the ’surprise’ revelation that The Church of Foobar which everyone reveres is really an evil organization. This series will outright lie to you. In particular, the ending of season one reveals a ’secret’ that is so stupid that some people give up watching. Rather you should think about it yourself. And the first arc… well I can’t say more without spoiling it to much. Draw your own conclusions.
Second, it will lull you into complacency with your own complicit knowledge of the anime tropes. These exist as a useful shorthand between the author and viewer but are also by definition cliche. This series knows that can be subverted – these cliches go right to your brain, bypassing your defenses. It will tug at your heartstrings and instill sympathy for a character, then slowly ramp up the heinous acts the character commits, all in a somewhat reasonable progression, and ask you if you still sympathize. After a while the impact is lessened because you know this is coming, so the second season is unfortunately much more direct.
Third, it lets you do a lot of the detective work yourself if you want to. There are hints planted from the beginning andyou can figure out yourself what’s going in in a lot of cases before it’s revealed in later arcs, but only if you want to do the work. If you can’t, then eventually it will tell you (which I actually found disappointing).
Yes, there are flaws: the first season animation is shoddy, there is a lot of fanservice and resort to cliches during the ‘cute’ phases, sometimes the ‘power of friendship’ thing is too pat, it eventually tells you too much that should have remained implied, and the penultimate episode of Higurashi Kai exceeds even my believability threshold for the ‘elite military squad’. But this still remains the most disturbing, intense anime I’ve ever seen.
Kure-nai (Spring 2008 anime)
April 28, 2008 at 3:46 am | In adventure, anime, nothing happens (and that's ok), one episode rule, school syndrome, spring 2008 | 1 CommentSummary: modern adventure, deeper than it appears, recommended
Based on: 12 (all) episodes
Series info: at Anime News Network
This one is about a high schooler (Shinkurō Kurenai) who hires himself out for odd jobs. A young spoiled rich girl who’s never been outside the family home (Murasaki Kuhōin) is kidnapped (or liberated, your choice) and Kurenai is given the job of being her bodyguard.
There’s a lot going on here – the kid is cute, but annoying as you’d expect a very young sheltered rich girl to be, so you’re alternately annoyed with her and sorry for her since it’s obvious not really her fault, and she does feel bad when Kurenai finally gets a basic concept through her thick skull.
The series has school syndrome, but it’s nuanced. Generally what I object to is the tropes that ’school anime’ lets the authors fall back on, but Kure-nai mostly, though not totally, avoids them. In particular the relationships are far beyond the usual subtle as a nuclear bomb triangles you expect from anime aimed at teens (because they don’t know any better). There’s a brilliant theme going on in episode 3 where one of the ‘lecherous women’ who lives at Kurenai’s apartment complex is teaching Murasaki about how to get yourself a ‘reliable man’ (which she can’t seem to find herself). She notes how all you have to do to keep a man happy is compliment him now and then (which is sadly mostly true). Meanwhile Kurenai himeself has a reliable woman, a fellow classmate, Ginko. She obviously likes him, but it’s more nuanced than the usual high school romance: she knows it but hates herself for it, he knows it (and even acknowledges it to her face) but still uses her anyhow, carelessly.
There’s another scene in episode 3 with three rude high school boys bullying an old woman on a train that in almost any other anime would have ended with Kurenai going medieval on their asses (he’s a skilled martial artist), but it confounds that and then rubs it in your face.
Ep 6 is a regrettable bit of padding, but with Ep 7 the plot starts to pick up again. And as of Ep 10 the series starts heading into a climax that is satisfying and yet not quite too cliche. This was a good series.
define: game anime sucks
April 27, 2008 at 9:06 pm | In definition, game anime sucks | 1 CommentHere’s an easy one – if it’s an anime based on a video game, it almost certainly sucks. Excuse my lack of finesse in the terminology here, but nothing summarized things quite as well as ’suck’.
Generally this is because games are just not that deep, so when you try to translate that to a 13 (or even worse 26) episode series you don’t have much to work with. If it’s an anime based on a porn game, then this is (almost) a dead certainty. For one thing, since porn games are almost all harem games, and (almost) all harem anime suck then it follows that the anime will suck.
Great examples are all Fatal Fury anime, romance harem like To Heart and Kimi ga Nozomu Ein, and especially porn games to anime like Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica.
There are only two counter-examples I can think of: people can argue about whether Tsukihime and Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni are good, but I can’t just dismiss them outright. The Tsukihime source story is actually much deeper than what made it into the anime, and the usual complaint about the anime is that it’s too grossly simplified.
define: one episode rule
April 27, 2008 at 8:48 pm | In definition, one episode rule | 2 CommentsThis is probably the most important thing you can know about sorting through the morass of anime that arrives every season. When you’re a kid everything is fresh and new – I can remember with some shame now watching and liking everything, including awful crud like Genocyber. The only thing that was so bad that even as a teen I knew it was awful was M.D. Geist.
Well now it’s ‘been there done that’ – how do you know what to watch? Well you could read my Spring 2008 Anime summary and hope my tastes or like yours. Or you could grab the first episode of each series and give it a quick runthrough.
So, the rules:
- You can often tell if an anime is awful in the first five minutes. Harem, porn game to anime, kiddy pokemon type shows, are all almost immediately identifiable. If it looks like that, then just fast forward through the show looking at short bits.
- 99% of the time if the first ep is bad (or unpromising) then the rest of the series is downhill from that and you can just write it off. Though see below for some exceptions.
- To make it easier, anything based on a video game is (almost) guaranteed to suck.
- If the first ep is good, then you need to watch the second ep, because 80% of the time the series just goes right down the tube after that. The first ep is usually where the interesting setup comes in, if any, but once they’ve got that out of the way then it just turns into high school and/or formula domestic comedy.
There are some counter-examples to the one episode rule. In particular, Higurashi no Naku Koru Ni’s first ep is deceptively bland, formulaic, and harem-setup. This is a trap. It slowly unravels the normality till by episode 8 it’s the most intense (and bloody) anime I’ve ever seen. Now that still may not be your cup of tea, but the first episode is not representative of the rest of the series.
define: technogibberish
April 26, 2008 at 12:25 am | In definition, technogibberish | 3 CommentsThis is also known as Shirow Syndrome, or Star Trek: The Next Generation Syndrome. Nothing sums this up better than solving a problem by ‘inverting the polarity of the phase capacitor’.
Basically you get someone who thinks Science is Cool (and it is) and wants to do a series with Neat Science, or gets overly obsessed with it like Shirow, but they really don’t have any education in it or they want to justify pseudoscientific garbage with science. So they end up producing something that may look cool if you don’t know anything about the subject, but if you do it’s just embarrassing.
In fact, total gibberish is often better than pseudo-science because at least it’s not even wrong.
Real Drive Sennou Chosashitsu (spring 2008 anime)
April 26, 2008 at 12:15 am | In anime, one episode rule, spring 2008, technogibberish | 2 CommentsSummary: pandering technogibberish
Based on: 1 ep
Series Info: on Anime News Network
This is what happens when someone tries to write an adult(ish) series about science and doesn’t know much about it. You get tons of gibberish thrown at you to make things sound impressive, ala Star Trek: The Next Generation, badly forced expositions, and a mixture of hugely futuristic technology with anachronistically primitive tech where it’s convenient for the plot.
Then of course we have the obligatory cyber-matrix second life and pseudomystical hoo-hah.
I think the opening scene pretty much sums it up, where after you have a diver and his boss expositioning at you for a while the diver dives, then the boss goes into the boat where there’s a Death Star command center where apparently they’re monitoring the brain waves of the diver. You can tell this because there’s a big monitor with brain wavey things on it the boss says things like ‘Enable language decoding!’ and the henchman says ‘Enabling language decoding!’ and suddenly you can hear what the diver is thinking, so they’re beaming his brainwaves (and not just brainwaves, but ‘cyberbrainwaves’) up. But they can’t get a working radio or camera and for some reason wouldn’t want the language decoding on all the time.
So to counteract that the characters are mostly middle aged and old men, the Secretary General (of what, the UN?) is a busty ho who dresses to expose flesh and takes her video conference calls from her four poster bed, and they haul in a bevy of young teen girls (with panty shots of course) to take care of the old guys.
Kanokon is probably the worst show this season, but it wasn’t even trying. This is more disappointing because you can tell they wanted to make an adult anime, and they did, but only if you’re a dumb adult.
define: fightfightfight
April 25, 2008 at 11:55 pm | In definition, fightfightfight | 1 CommentThere’s a rule of magazines for young boys like Weekly Sunday and especially Weekly Jump - every manga series eventually turns into a fighting tournament, even if it’s ridiculous in the context of the series. Basically, fights generally raise the ratings a series lives and dies on its weekly ratings, so if they start to dip too much you just have a big fight off. There are several alternate forms of this – for instance, there’s the classic ‘good guy team has to fight their way to the top of the tower against progressively harder bad guys’, but it all comes down to the same thing.
You can pretty much summarize it as ‘Dragonball Syndrome’.
Many series like Naruto or Bleach just embrace this from the start, so at least you know what you’re getting. Probably the series that does the best of job not insulting you with it is Hikaru no Go.
Soul Eater (spring 2008 anime)
April 25, 2008 at 11:48 pm | In adventure, anime, fightfightfight, spring 2008 | Leave a Commentsummary: Bleach Lite, but gorgeous
Based on: 7 episodes
Series Info: on Anime News Network
Soul Eater is a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting more from it based on the official website, but what we ended up with is pretty much Bleach for younger kids, or if you prefer Bleach done more like One Piece or Rave. It’s all fighting and posing and there’s not much plot or depth. So I can’t recommend you watch it based on the content – you’ve seen this all before.
On the other hand, I’m going to keep watching for a few more episodes just because the animation is so stunningly gorgeous. Bones has done a fantastic job of rendering it in bold lines and bright colors with lots of fluidity, and in HD it’s amazing eye candy. Sad, but as with Hellsing sometimes style over substance works.
The first three eps are just prologue, introducing the three main sets of characters, so we’ll see if it gets any better from here.
Update: Well, the story really never got any better (or worse), but I’m still watching this for the art.
Daughter of Twenty Faces (spring 2008 anime)
April 25, 2008 at 1:31 am | In adventure, anime, phantom thief, spring 2008 | Leave a CommentSummary: pulp adventure, promising, slow builder
Based on: 10 episodes
Series Info: at Anime News Network
Also known as: Nijuu Mensou no Musume
Twenty Faces (Nijuu Menou) is a famous phantom thief – for as yet undisclosed reasons he ‘kidnaps’ Chiko from her unhappy home and takes her off into a whirlwind and dashing life of crime, which of course involves plenty of car chases.
After three episodes this is still obviously in the prologue stage – the real story is going to start once Chiko stops being a hinderance, picks up all Twenty Faces’ skills, and starts her own career. But for now I think this one is definitely worth watching if you like Lupin-style adventure. Just be warned it’s a very slow builder.
Update: Oh yeah, in ep 6 all hell breaks loose. I think the extended prologue is over.
define: phantom thief
April 25, 2008 at 1:21 am | In definition, phantom thief | Leave a CommentThere’s a long history of the phantom thief (kaitou) in anime and manga. You usually know exactly what you’re getting in this genre – a brilliant thief with near magical (or even magical) powers who uses his/her power for mostly good (like Robin Hood) and politely announces the crimes before they take place. Cue the bumbling cops who swear that ‘this time, I’ll arrest you!’ but of course the kaitou makes his escape, often with the help of his lovable bumbling henchmen.
A common subtheme is the thief and the head detective falling for each other.
You’ve seen this with Kaitou Kid, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, and of course Lupin the Third.
Kamen no Maid Guy (spring 2008 anime)
April 25, 2008 at 1:10 am | In anime, comedy, guilty pleasure, spring 2008 | 2 CommentsTags: anime spring 2008
Summary: over the top pervy action comedy
Based on: 7 episodes
Series info: on Anime News Network
This one conflicts me. A high school kendo champ and her brother are given combat maids by their rich grandfather to keep them safe. It’s utterly dumb with plenty of gratuitous nudity and can’t in any way be considered anime for grownups. When Kogarashi (the maid guy, seen above) isn’t present the series is completely formula, and the art style makes the fanservice pretty yawn. But his scenes are so over the top they still crack me up. So I can’t really recommend you watch this, but I am for now as a guilty pleasure.
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