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.

Yozakura Quartet

October 10, 2008 at 5:39 am | In Weekly Showing, adventure, anime, fall 2008, fightfightfight | Leave a Comment

Summary: shojo Bleach
Based on: 1 episode
Series Info: at Anime News Network (pic shamelessly stolen too)

For some reason this starts out with a hugely boring chunk of exposition about how the half-human half-demon town came into existence, which wouldn’t even need to be explained if you thought your viewers had two brain cells to rub together. The basic plot is about a town where humans and youkai (demons) co-exist, and the quartet is a group that hunts down bad guys. Think Geobreeders, Phantom Quest Corp, or Ghost Sweeper Mikami. The setup is pretty standard.

But once you get past that, I rather like this. It continues the trend of merging of shojo (girls’) and shounen (boys’) genres, and reminds me of nothing so much as a slightly more girly Bleach before Bleach jumped the shark. I absolutely love the character designs, especially Kotoha.

This could easily end up in the crapper if it just milks the premise as stated and turns into harem anime, but for now I’m absolutely grabbing the second ep.

Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (Ryoko’s Case Files)

July 31, 2008 at 9:23 pm | In adventure, anime, grownup is not a panacea, plot crystalization, summer 2008 | Leave a Comment

Summary: Adult action office romance adventure with some supernatural. Yes, it’s (too?) busy.
Based on: 13 episodes
Series info: at Anime News Network (pic shamelessly lifted from there too)

This one’s a bit strange. It’s obviously written for adults, not teens or kids, which is a good start. Ryoko’s an apparently brilliant police investigor who spends all her time slacking off. Her assistant Junichiro is basically her babysitter. But when the weird stuff starts happening, she’s suddenly in the thick of things to fix it, which is apparently why they still keep her employed. You’ll sometimes hear this one referred to as Ryoko’s Supernatural Case Files, but it’s more Science Gone Mad thing than vengeful ghosts. The Kaiki just means bizarre/strange.

All the women in this show are strong and dominant and all the men are semi-closeted submissives, which is hardly unique in adult anime, but a nice change from the usual teen stuff.  Presumably this appeals to Japanese salarymen, but then they have to undermine it by constantly non-subtly hinting that Ryoko’s fallen for Junichiro, though she’d never admit it. So she’s allowed to be strong, but still weak enough she doesn’t totally emasculate the viewers. In fact, the 3rd episode is pretty much a total waste based on this ‘plot’.

Usually you’ll hear me bemoaning shows for too much action and not enough plot or character building, but honestly in this show the action is much more interesting than the relationship building, which I find fairly awkward and stunted.  But Ep 2 has giant man-eating snakes destroying buildings in downtown Tokyo and a very amusing interrogation scene. I thoroughly enjoyed the Doc Savage vibe in that one, so I’m going to keep watching for a while longer to see what comes up.

Update: I’ve watched it all now. I particularly like how the plot crystalized in the last 5 eps or so for a big dramatic finish that pulled in a bunch of seemingly throwaway plot points from early episodes.  The ending was a little facile, but respectable.

I don’t usually mention specific sub groups, but big thanks to AonE and AnY for following through one of the few respectable anime that’s actually for adults out to completion.

Slayers Revolution

July 8, 2008 at 1:31 am | In adventure, anime, comedy, summer 2008 | 2 Comments

Summary: Comedy adventure. If you’ve seen any Slayers you’ve seen this.
Based on: 1 episode
Series info: at Anime News Network (pic shamelessly lifted from there too)

I’m actually more interested in comparing this to Birdy the Mighty Decode, which is another revival of an ancient show this season. Whereas Birdy embraces the new visuals of the 2000s (oughts?), Slayers Revolution remains proudly 90s retro. The character designs have hardly been updated, the songs are the same, and most tellingly I don’t think there was any CG anywhere in the episode. Unless it was integrated really well, everything, even the bits that you would normally expect to be CG these days like fleets of ships, was hand animated.

All the normal cast of TV characters are back. The overall plot, such as it is, is that Gourry lost the Sword of Light in Slayers Try so they’re looking for a replacement. The plot for the first ep is ‘Lina gets mad and she blows things up as usual’. There are some slight changeups – instead of exploding bandits she’s exploding pirates and though the expected Dragon Slave goes off in the first ep it’s not Lina who does it.

If you’ve never seen Slayers before you might be pretty lost, since this is effectively the 4th season of an ongoing plot. But it’s fairly fluffy harmless comedy adventure series which usually sprouts some Drama half-way in.

Birdy the Mighty Decode

July 8, 2008 at 1:31 am | In adventure, anime, summer 2008 | Leave a Comment

Summary: Curvy alien supercop hunts down criminals on Earth.  Action/Romance. So old it feels new.
Based on: 1 episode (and the original series)
Summary at: Anime News Network (pic shamelessly lifted from there too)

This one is interesting to compare to Slayers Revolution. That show wallows happily in its retro 90-ness, while this one is a retelling of the old Birdy the Mighty series which yanks it visually into the 2000s.

‘Birdy’ is a space inspector tasked with hunting down alien criminals (who for some reason like to hide on Earth) though in practice she acts more like a bounty hunter. Throw in some school romance (due to a silly plot twist that ends the first episode but which is one of the series core conceits) and lots of fighting and action and you have something that’s not really all that adult, but is entertaining.

Graphically this is hugely updated – lots of CG and even the hand-animation is very attractive.  The aliens here are fabulously ugly, even when disguised as human.  But this is still 90s at the core – in fact it’s sort of sad that the idea of a Bubblegum Crisis type ass-kicking female, which were a dime a dozen, actually feels somewhat fresh compared to the submissive big-breasted bubbleheads (or lolis) that tend to populate shows now.  But fighting in high heels still isn’t.

P.S.: I’m not sure if it’s a nod or because he was just perfect to begin with, but badman Gomez looks exactly the same.

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.

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 Comments

Summary: 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 Comment

Summary: 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.

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 Comment

Summary: 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.

Soul Eater (spring 2008 anime)

April 25, 2008 at 11:48 pm | In adventure, anime, fightfightfight, spring 2008 | Leave a Comment

summary: 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 Comment

Summary: 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.

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