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.

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.

define: nothing happens (and that’s ok)

May 22, 2008 at 6:50 am | In definition, nothing happens (and that's ok) | 1 Comment

Occasionally you get a show where nothing happens… and that’s okay. Well maybe something happens. Maybe the main character visits a park. Or meets a ghost.  Or time travels.  But it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is the characters and the setting and the fuwa fuwa (warm fluffy).  If you’re a fan of Jane Austen or Patrick O’ Brien novels you know this – it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

Non-comedy anime series that try this often end up being too precious or cute for their own good (especially falling prey to buffet of girls, but those that can pull it off are some of the best. I’m going to exclude comedy series, since most of them fall into the ‘nothing happens’ category – it’s the serious or whimsical that are much harder to pull off.

A prime example of this is Haibane Renmei (one of the best anime ever), where anything that actually happens is just incidental. One of the best manga ever, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikkou (Yokohama Shopping Trip), is perhaps the epitome of it – if there were more than just a measly 4 episodes of it it would be on the best anime list. Another fine example is Aria.

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.

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