To Aru Majutsu no Index

October 14, 2008 at 8:15 am | In adventure, anime, could be worse, fall 2008, fightfightfight, guilty pleasure, ridiculous premise | Leave a Comment

Summary: Action magic/drama in Young King Ours/Square-Enix style.
Based on: 2 episodes
Series Summary: at Anime News Network (picture stolen as well)

Okay, so this one has me conflicted after 2 eps. I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t like it, then why you should.

First, it’s utterly typical of a style you find in Young King Ours magazine, which I subscribe to, and anything Square-Enix sponsors. An adolescent male appeal with violence, sexual undercurrents, and an emphasis on fighting and sheer coolness over plot. Of course there’s always magic/psychic powers involved, lots of fighting and explosions, and a young guy who’s sort of helpless (but not a totally weak despicable dork, thank god) but turns out to be the only way the world can be saved once his powers can be trained up. World Embryo is the epitome of this. So when I see it my reaction is to go ‘meh’.

On the other hand, given the formula setup, the characters in this are relatively well done, likeable, and believable (minus the loli teacher). It certainly delivers the action. I can’t fault the character design or animation or music. The heroine (?) out-Rei’s Rei for being white-haired autistic savant, but since the hero’s not even slightly romantically attracted to her (so far) that’s tolerable. The most eye-rolling thing here is that everyone believes in psychic powers but not magic, though they have a Justification for this.

So what am I saying? I’m not sure yet, but if Yozakura Quartet drops the ball this could be my action show for the season.

Kannagi

October 8, 2008 at 7:18 am | In anime, could be worse, fall 2008, miko | Leave a Comment

Summary: Divine love comedy
Based on: 1 episode
Series info: at Anime News Network (picture shamelessly stolen from there too)

It’s hard to tell from only one episode, but given the horrible premise and opening animation this was actually better than I expected. We’ll see. Generally miko are just a rape-bunny fetish, so I’m skeptical, but I’ll be watching the second episode.

Schoolboy Jin (an interesting name in this context that can mean ‘person’ or ‘god’ depending on the character) carves a figurine out of wood from a sacred tree (nageia, a type of conifer). The local land-god, displaced from her habitat, animates the figure and suddenly Jin has a hot divine chick living with him. I’m giving this a chance since even with the obvious harem setup coming, the first ep resisted the obvious panty shot and other cheesecake opportunities.

This could could go straight in the dumper from here, and I suspect it will since it reminds me most of  Ai Yori Aoshi or Seto no Hanayome, but damn it I have some faint hope.

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu

May 24, 2008 at 7:18 am | In anime, comedy, could be worse, harem, nothing happens (and that's ok), school syndrome, you kids get off my lawn | 2 Comments

Summary: not as great as advertised, but interesting once over the hump
Based on: 14 episodes (first season)
Series info: at Anime News Network

I probably don’t really need to review this one since you’ve likely already heard of it and seen some of it, but it would be silly to just ignore it since it was such a huge phenomenon and reviewers generally seem to be unable to articulate what makes this show stand out (besides the media oversaturation).

It suffers a bit from school syndrome and harem, but not awfully. The school setting gets less and less important, and there are only three main girls.  It’s also a show where nothing really happens yet contains more plot twists than most shows do in 26 episodes.  It’s fairly formulaic on the surface and overly marketed, but it does three things I found interesting that raise it above the genre:

First, it says that it’s okay not to like the main (female) character. The male lead is your normal unremarkable harem anime nebbish, but Haruhi herself is selfish, rude, and generally unlike normal anime girls who are there to cater to the audience (most ‘bad’ girls are appealingly so). And, calculatedly, this in itself is appealing. In contrast the other two girls are basically complaisant dolls there to receive your deflected affections: so you didn’t like a real girl – how about… this (Mikuru’s breasts here)?

Second, it dares you to not like the show.  The episodes are shown out of chronological order, and it starts with the most (purposely) awkward, stupid, and badly acted and voiced episode of the series. Are you lookin’ at me? Are you lookin’ at me? C’mon, I dare you, turn it off. Then the next eps set up your generic school romance/harem formula. You have to sit through quite a bit to get to any payoff at all. It’s playing hard to get where most anime is pathetically eager to please.

Third, it’s unafraid to lull you into complacency then sucker punch you. I can’t say too much without spoiling it, but it’s willing to take the most base of plot cliches, mix them into that totally vanilla school romance/harem formula, then embrace the outre consequences. This in itself isn’t quite so abnormal (most series are ‘generic setting plus something weird’), but the breadth is unusual.

So yes, this is overhyped and overmarketed, but it’s worth watching if only as an exercise in deconstruction and hating the viewer as a useful tool.  And you might even enjoy it once you get past the first few episodes.

Vampire Knight

May 14, 2008 at 12:51 am | In adventure, anime, could be worse, one episode rule, ridiculous premise, school syndrome, shoujo cliche, spring 2008, yaoibait | Leave a Comment

Summary: slightly better than average vampire bishounen
Based on: 4 eps
Series Info: at Anime News Network

(Image taken from FuanBLOG where you can see ep by ep summaries)

At this school there is the Day Class and the Night Class. The Night Class are all secretly(!) vampires, and all the girls of the Day Class are wildly enamored with them because they are of course all gorgeous and moody and aloof.  Two prefects from the Day Class are adopted children of the headmaster and are the only ones who know the secret, but of course they have mysterious secrets of their own.

Everything about this screams typical – it’s got all your bishounen vampire cliches, it’s at a fabulously stylish high school, and moody sullen pretty boys abound. But I think in this case it actually manages to transcend the cliches with some very nice art, some decent action sequences, passable plot and dialogue considering the setup, and a slowly growing sense of discomfort. The only place where it really falls down is where the headmaster is involved – when he’s in the scene it’s a painful reminder of everything wrong with shows like Trinity Blood and Saiyuki.

So this isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement, but if you need your shoujo fix this season this is probably your best choice.

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