Bakemonogatari

October 18, 2009 at 12:48 am | In anime, best, comedy, harem, nothing happens (and that's ok), tsundere, winter 2009 | Leave a Comment

Summary: Supernatural Waiting for Godot
Based on: 5 eps
Series Info: at Anime News Network

Everyone in Bakemonogatari is damaged and some kind of supernatural being (hence the name of the show, which you could translate as Monster Stories), but this is not as glamorous as you might expect from recent fiction and anime. This is the best writing I’ve seen in an anime for years and the best visuals since Mononoke. The Blu-ray sales for the first collection are through the roof, and I’m not surprised at all.

It is also very tricksy – it puts up a front of the usual cliches then subverts them. This is technically a harem anime with a nebbish male and plenty of fanservice. In addition, the guy is a (ex-)vampire, which is the most glamorous of all supernatural beings, right? Let’s take a look at these.

This is in some sense a harem anime; everyone but the lead nebbish male (Koyomi Araragi) and the detached  sensei-figure are cute girls with the usual buffet selection (princess, loli, tomboy, class rep, exotic blonde…).  But they’re all so damaged it’s hard to feel there’s the usual shallow competition for the hapless doof.  The beautiful princess-like lead girl, Senjougahara, confesses  soon enough, but she’s so emotionally damaged and scary that this makes poor Araragi-kun more wary than happy even as he lusts after her. She’s beyond tsundere and into yandere, so ‘I Love You’ is more a declaration of war.

There is plenty of fanservice – the series starts out with a panty shot in the first five seconds. But it seems to be smirking at you – here you go, how do you like this, you shallow bastard? Happy now? Here’s the beautiful girl naked, but what she’s saying is making your manhood wither.

The lead nebbish (Araragi-kun) is a vampire, which is the most glamorous of all monsters, right? Well no, he’s an ex-vampire. And his single talent is wanting to rescue other monsters. But he’s not a pushover, even though he’s not too bright – he’s perfectly willing to punch a schoolgirl in the guts and knock her out. He lusts after Senjougahara, but it’s not the mere idea of sex that frightens him unbelievably as it usually does with the emasculated lead, but the fact that she really is a very scary girl.

Finally, this series isn’t afraid to spend an entire episode in a (visually arresting) park with two and three characters just talking.  This is where I can’t recommend it to just everyone – if you need action you are going to be disappointed. It plays with various visual effects and angles you won’t see in other anime, but it may still be too boring for some people just because it really is just people talking, like Waiting for Godot.

That’s why I’m currently a little torn about including this in the weekly showing, because while it’s visually stunning and has plenty of fanservice and uses various tricks to cover up the lack of action I wonder how much it still bores some of the other people – but I love it. You owe it to yourself to at least try a few episodes.

Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture

May 14, 2008 at 12:22 am | In anime, best, comedy, one episode rule, ridiculous premise | Leave a Comment

Summary: Boy can see microbes, mild comedy, must watch
Based on: 11 Episodes (all of them so far)
Series Info: on Anime News Network

(This great pic is taken from randomc where you can see more pics and more plot.)

This show falls firmly into the ‘ridiculous premise yet still managing to be awesome’ category.  Tadeyasu, seen above, can see microbes like E. Coli, brewer’s yeast, mold spores, as little cartoony characters. But this is really used mostly as a gimmick – the real action is in the relationships of people around him. He himself is just a big hapless straightman who gets swept up in the various dramas and people plotting to use his talent. Since it’s based at a college and not a high school or middle school it’s technically a school anime but completely escapes school syndrome.

It reminds me of Nodame Cantabile more than anything else, so I guess it’s not surprising that there are some small Moyashimon/Nodame crossovers in the manga.

There’s also plenty of fascinating information about the various microbes (especially yeast in the context of fermentation) – make sure you watch the Microbe Theater after the credits at the very end of every episode.

The big downer here is that the anime is only 11 episodes, which covers a small fraction of the story that’s gone by in the manga.  It also severely cuts back the manga microbe scenes.  I’ve resorted to buying and reading the manga even though it’s intensely text-heavy and my kanji skills are weak. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way, since the manga has been winning awards left and right, including the prestigious Kodansha Manga and Tezuka Cultural awards.  So maybe they’ll make some more anime (please?).

The only negative thing I can say about it is that it resorts to more cheesecake than it really needs to.  Nothing like the constant panty flashes of your teen anime, but it’s a bit gratuitous and out of context here.

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