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.

define: fightfightfight

April 25, 2008 at 11:55 pm | In definition, fightfightfight | 1 Comment

There’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 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.

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