Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san

(13 12-minute episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga featuring mermaids.

Characters

Muromi, the titular mermaid. She comes to the surface after falling for a fisherman’s bait. Annoying, prideful, more than a bit perverted… and not really charmingly so.

“Takkun”, said fisherman, probably a high-schooler. The straight man of the show.

The credits promise more mermaids in the supporting cast, but for now the only other characters with lines are random starfishes and jellyfishes.

Production Values

This looks terrible. But it’s a gag series, so who cares ?

Also, lots of fanservice, although it’s often played for laughs.

Overall Impression

Oh, dear. A comedy show that’s nearly funny. Some of the jokes do work, but there are a lot of them that fall flat or are crassingly exploitative. It doesn’t have quite the charm and innocence of the inevitable comparison point (Squid Girl), alas.

It actually does improve a bit over the course of the episode, so I’m probably going to give it a second one. But this really isn’t the best gag show of the season.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 7.

Winter 2013 capsules

First, let’s get a couple of shorts out of the way…

My Little Sister talks like an Osakan Mom (Boku no Imouto wa “Oosaka Okan”) surprisingly isn’t incest-bait, unlike the immense majority of series with “Imouto” in the (long-winded) title. Instead, it’s terrible in a completely different way : it features horrible cheap Flash animation and revolves around a “wow, the Kansai dialect as spoken by this girl is weird and kinda nonsensical” joke that’s mostly impenetrable to Western ears and doesn’t sound that funny to start with. Apparently it’s adapted from a language guidebook, which really shows (with “helpful” translation recaps explaining the jokes slowly all the time).

Inferno Cop is a weird little short series coming from Studio Trigger, aka the people behind Gurren Lagann, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Redline. Alas, despite the pedigree this is objectively mindless garbage, with no budget whatsoever. Obviously this is part of the joke, but it’s not that funny. (Even P&Sw/G at its most poop-joke-obsessed lows had more depth and looked way better than this crap.)

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013.

Anime shorts are hard to review. In some lucky cases, they’re so terrible it’s easy to dismiss them immediately (see above ; although Inferno Cop‘s second episode had such gonzo charm that I’m starting to reconsider it). But in some case, there’s so little content it’s hard to judge how they’ll end up going.

Case in point : Encouragement of Climb (Yama no Susume). It’s about a high school girl who used to love mountain climbing but has been traumatized by a bad fall ; one of her elementary school friends tries to take her back to her old hobby… and won’t take no for an answer. It’s actually quite a promising start : it’s got some decent animation (including a slightly jarring CG-background shot at the beginning that isn’t half-bad), the plot progresses at a good clip, and it’s got more than one joke. Nothing earth-shattering, but good enough to be worth watching.

I’m more wary about Mangirl. It’s a comedy about young women setting up a new manga magazine. The problem is that it’s not really funny ; the basic joke is that they’re terrible at it, but the show features random bursts of offscreen competence so that they can be in business for more than one episode. And if you’re interested in the behind-the-scenes of manga publishing, this looks much more superficial than, say, Bakuman (which is, you know, still airing).

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013.

Ai Mai Mi is yet another series of shorts adapting some comedy 4-panel manga. It’s notionally about a high school manga club, but really the three title characters spend most of their time or acting out terrible jokes. At least Mangirl had a plot ; this is just unfunny, horrible-looking crap. Avoid.

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Nekomogatari (Black) somewhere, now that I’ve watched the whole of it (the four episodes aired just before the New Year, but took a bit to get translated).

For those who aren’t aware of it, this is a prequel to 2009’s Bakemonogatari, a very peculiar mix of harem romance, supernatural horror, self-indulgent dialogue and Akiyuki Shinbo being weird for the hell of it. That was a very good show indeed (if only for being a visual masterpiece), but it’s not for everybody. Nisemonogatari, its sequel last year, was basically more of the same, with even better technical quality but also even more self-indulgent.

The question with Nekomonogatari (Black), like any prequel, is whether there’s any point to watching it, considering how the events of “the Cat incident in Golden Week” have already amply been described in the main series in its “Tsubasa cat” arc. I’ve actually rewatched those four episodes to make sure, and yes indeed Nekomonogatari (Black) does cover a lot of (until now) relatively unexplored territory. It helps that this is a lean narrative (by -monogatari standards), making its point very efficiently at a pace that never feels idle. And the visuals are as striking as they’ve ever been.

This obviously whets my appetite for Kizumonogatari (the prequel people are actually looking for, describing “the Vampire incident on Spring Break” we’ve only very briefly flashbacked to until now), whenever that comes out ; and the “second season”, apparently slated for later this year.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013 – Page 2.

Chihayafuru 2 was off to a good start, with the start of a new school year and the introduction of new club members feeling like a strong enough move forward to avoid repetition of what the first season did, and update the formula somewhat. (To say nothing of complicating the love dodecahedron a bit more.)

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013 – Page 8.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Senyuu, a series of shorts parodying heroic-fantasy RPG games. Hilariously mean-spirited, and served by some impressive voice work from Yuuichi Nakamura. It’s got a shoe-string budget, but that doesn’t prevent it from being lots of fun.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013 – Page 9.

I won’t bother with a full review for Straight Title Robot Anime (Chokkyuu Hyoudai Robot Anime). Notionally it’s supposed to be the first anime series fully animated with Vocaloid-type software, but that just makes it look cheap and generic. As for the story, it’s basically three “girl” androids failing to grasp the concept of humour for 12 minutes. I don’t just mean it’s tedious and unfunny (although it certainly is) : that’s really the plot. (They’re trying to recreate human humour long after humanity has vanished.)

I wouldn’t recommand watching this crap to anyone.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013 – Page 11.

Kotoura-san

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Being a young telepath with soul-crushing angst is apparently no obstacle to starring in a high school comedy show.

Characters

Haruka Kotoura, the title character. She’s been able to read the thoughts of people around her ever since her early childhood. As a result, she’s considered a creepy monster. (The show makes a convincing case about how her innocently blurting out secret thoughts would make the lives of everyone around her a living hell.) By the time she transfers to yet another high school, she lives alone and purposely aleniates herself from anyone else (as it’s less painful than people she’s grown to care for eventually leaving her). That’s until she meets…

Manabe, the guy sitting next to her in class. He’s not creeped out at all by Haruka’s mindreading, barely taking notice to try and have a bit less erotic daydreams around her. While he’s a bit of a weirdo, he legitimely wants to be her friend (or more), and promises never to leave her.

The OP/ED indicates that she’s going to make more friends. That’s going to be a tall order indeed. Also, her mother is apparently going to stay as part of the supporting cast, which is a bit surprising given the way she abandoned her daughter.

Production Values

This doesn’t have a high budget, but it knows how to make do with it. In particular, there’s a nice effect with the colours progressively becoming greyer and more monochrome as Haruka’s life spirals into hell, until bright colours smash back in when she meets Manabe.

There’s also quite some creativity with Manabe’s mindscape.

What did I think of it ?

This really should be a hideous style clash, abruptly switching from borderline-manipulative melodrama to “traditional” high-school hijinks. But it’s fiendishly effective, setting up the show’s gimmick and the main couple’s relationship with a poignancy that a pure gag show couldn’t hope for. It helps that the narrative doesn’t cheat : other people’s reactions to Haruka are often unkind, but feel entirely human.

I’m not quite sure how the series can maintain this balance in the long run, but I’m hooked.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013 – Page 6.

Fall 2012 capsules

I have no clue what all the fuss about Hayate the Combat Butler! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You “not being a sequel” was about, because it’s totally the same series continuing. No reboot, just more adventures in about the same setup. I don’t know where this falls chronologically, but it’s not like Hayate ever cared much about continuity before. Anyway, it’s still a perfectly okay gag series, without the self-indulgence of the recent movie (which nearly made me lose all interest in the franchise).

I’m not sure what to make of the Lytchee Light Club shorts. It’s about a sadistic high school secret society, the joke being that they kinda suck at being sadistic. Okay so far, but can it carry 26ish episodes, however short they are ?

I’m also torn on the Wooser’s Hand-to-Mouth Life shorts. On the one hand, it’s barely mildly funny. On the other hand, I always have time for Mamoru Miyano as a “cute” animal making pompous monologues.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2012 – Page 2.

Some quick other notes :

The second season of Bakuman had a great opening episode, which was immediately mitigated by the second one jumping back to the tepid and sexist romance the series occasionally features. Well, you’ll be glad to see that the third season skips right past to the sexist bits. Hopefully it’ll go away quickly, as it always does, but that’s not an auspicious start.

I refuse to give a full review for the Teekyuu shorts. It has terrible-looking Flash animation (that seems to go out of its way to make my eyes bleed), and none of the “jokes” work. Avoid with prejudice.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2012 – Page 5.

I’m not going to bother with a full writeup for Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de. In theory, it’s a fantasy fighting show where the characters are based on classic console franchises (with the main factions being the kingdoms of Sega & Nintendo). In practice, the gimmick stops at some characters’ names, and I couldn’t discern any jokes related to the premise. Or any jokes period : it’s a straight fantasy fighting show that takes itself dreadfully seriously and ends up being utterly boring. It’s obvious the producers have welded the high-concept onto a completely unrelated show just to give it a selling point. If you’ve been planning to check it out for the novelty value, don’t bother.

(Also, the schedule seems to be “one episode every few months”, so you’ll probably have completely forgotten about it by the time episode #2 airs.)

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2012 – Page 10.

Summer 2012 capsules

Because I didn’t have anything better to do while waiting for the big premieres tomorrow, I checked out some of the OVA that surfaced over the last couple of weeks. This might have been a mistake.

Most perplexing is probably Ai Mai! Moe Can Change!. It’s an adaptation of a “moe-girl raising” game, where the key gimmick is that the player can change their clothes ad nauseam. None of this here… well, except that the girls keep changing clothes. Seriously, they rarely keep the same ones for more than a minute, thanks to a magical phone app (although its inventor later shows she can produce the the same effect with cakes !). There’s barely any plot in sight here, just sadistic barely-developed characters tormenting each other. Who the heck enjoys this kind of brainless drivel ?

Mahou Tsukai Nara Miso o Kue! (“Eat Miso if you’re a sorcerer !”) is barely any better. It’s basically a 12-minute trailer for an award-winning light novel… which is so painfully generic one wonders who thought it’d deserve any awards. The plot is a cliché-storm (down to the opening scene having a short bratty girl crashing into generic male lead’s flat), the characters have no personality beyond their archetypes, and the jokes are well-worn indeed. It’s the kind of stuff you’d expect to be parodied in Genshiken, except without any indication the writers know that. And did I mention it’s padded out with facepalm-inducing lingering candid shots of the main female characters ?

Don’t bother with either of those.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 4.

A few words about Chitose Get You!, yet another series of shorts adapted from 4-panel manga. And well, whatever you think about its one joke (an 11-year-old girl with a crush on some random adult dude), at least it’s got some decent direction to sell it and make it somewhat watchable. Which is better than I expected.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2012 – Page 7.

Acchi Kocchi

(12ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Idiot hair, the anime.

Okay, not really, but it’s hard to find any actual premise here. It’s a gag series set in high school, adapted from a 4-panel manga.

Characters

Tsumiki, our central character. She’s short and very shy. Also, utterly improbable hair. She randomly sprouts cat ears whenever the show wants to make her cuter, which just looks a bit weird.

Io, her kinda boyfriend. He’s a boy of few words, and it’s hard to say at this point whether he’s deadpan or just bland.

Mayoi, their insane troll friend. She likes pranks, and the labcoat she’s always wearing makes her a technical genius, which is a dangerous combination.

Hime, their perverted fangirl friend. The kind who always gets nosebleeds when they do something cute. A bit ditzy and clueless.

Sakaki, the mandatory perverted best friend dude. Well, at least he’s more subdued and has more charisma than the norm.

Ms. Sakuragawa, their clumsy teacher with no authority whatsoever.

Production Values

Pretty scene transitions ! It’s almost a shame that these nifty geometric gimmicks don’t bleed more into the actual sketches, because they give the show most of its identity.

Overall Impression

Your token generic 4-panel gag series. Perfectly inoffensive, and most gags do trigger a smile, but the only distinctive thing about it (besides the scene transitions) is that it’s somewhat gender-balanced and centers on a romance subplot (that probably won’t go anywhere).

Eh, it looks like there’s nothing else on Fridays anyway, so I may well stick with it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.

Shibainuko-san

(?? 2-minute episodes)

What’s it about ?

A middle-schooler who looks like a dog. Adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga (if you couldn’t tell by the one-joke premise).

Characters

Shibainuko-san, the middle-schooler who looks like a dog. She’s a bit clumsy.

Chako, our straight-(wo)man narrator girl. She’s there to explain the jokes and be befuddled by the whole situation.

Napolin, their dumb classmate. She’s dumb.

Production Values

This also comes courtesy of eyebleed-o-vision, but it’s obvious there’s no real budget here. Heck, I said it was 2-minute-long, but if you remove the opening song, the advertisement for the Recorder & Randsell DVD, and the announcement about the producers filling time with random internet fanart, there’s less than a minute of actual content here.

Overall Impression

Oh, look, it’s another of those unfunny one-joke no-budget shorts. Disregard with prejudice.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 2.

Kill Me Baby

(12-ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga about a hitgirl’s high school life.

Characters

Sonya, the Russian hitgirl. Extremely skilled in various ways of hurting people. She tries to mask it as “normal” paranoia, but she’s a bit of a scaredy cat.

Yasuna, Sonya’s too-dumb-to-live best friend. More accurately, she’s obviously playing up her stupidity to troll Sonya, though she really should have learned by now not to tap her on the shoulder.

Agiri, Sonya’s ninja rival. Has a tendancy to call anything a ninja technique (e.g., the “my hair’s not falling down despite my standing upside down on the ceiling (and neither is my skirt)” ninja technique). She’s a very effective troll. Also, while Sonya’s abilities are mostly plausible in a “waif fu” way, what Agiri can do just staggers disbelief.

There are other supernatural elements teased – mostly some saucer-type aliens prominently shown in the OP.

Production Values

Well, it plainly shows that JC Staff is animating 5 others shows this season, as this one is obviously operating on a shoe-string budget. The character designs are crude, and the whole thing is barely animated.

The OP is a strong contender for the most irritating of the season. The tune just doesn’t work. (The ED’s more to my tastes.)

Overall Impression

Well, the good news is that this show does seem to have more than one joke, which is essential for a regular-length comedy show. And the main characters do seem to have a little depth behind the façade (well, aside from Agiri, but that’s the joke). This goes a long way towards making the show watchable.

Is it actually funny ? Er, let’s not get carried away. I did get some chuckles out of it, but as not consistently enough as I’d like. As it stands, I’m considering dropping it soon if it doesn’t improve and better shows air this season.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2012 – Page 2.

Recorder & Randsell

(3-minute episodes)

What’s it about ?

The brother is 11 but looks 17. The sister is 17 but looks 11. “Comedy” ensues !

Characters

There’s really nothing to add to the high concept above. We get a glimpse at supporting characters, but none of them are worth noting.

Production Values

This looks decent enough… well, until the script call for a car to roll down a street, and we’re subjected to horrible CG. It’s obvious this barely has any budget. (It’s by the same studio as last year’s Miss Morita is Silent.)

The OP at the end eats a sixth of the running time, by the way. It’s mostly inoffensive, aside from a character who’s really going to hurt herself if she keeps running like that.

Overall Impression

Do you find “mistaken for a molester” jokes funny ? Well, I hope so, because that’s all you get this episode. This is obviously a series that’d live or die depending on whether it can extract actually funny jokes out of its bizarre high concept premise… and nope, sorry, there’s not a shred of anything but stale humour here.

Don’t bother with this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2012.

High Score

(8 3-minute episodes, airing from late November to January)

What’s it about ?

Cheap-looking adaptation of a 4-koma gag manga about assholes in high school.

Characters

Megumi, our “heroine”, an alpha bitch who tramples over everyone else at her school, sometimes literally.

Masamune, her self-centered boyfriend, who devotes his whole screentime mentioning how handsome he is.

Endless scores of one-note victims complete the cast.

Production Values

Over the course of these review threads I’ve seen my share of shoddily-animated shorts, but this one takes the cake. Ugly character designs, barely any animation at all, this just looks awful.

Overall Impression

It is possible for this kind of shorts to be decently entertaining despite the shoe-string budget (Nyaruani was nearly okay on average, for example). There have been a few decent series about utterly unlikeable leads. And I usually like Eri Kitamura quite a bit.

But this is just dire. There’s absolutely nothing to like here ; presumably the lead couple’s antics are supposed to be funny, but there’s just no actual jokes there to be found. There’s jerks for three minutes, and that’s it.

This is not the Worst Anime Ever, because I’ve witnessed stuff where the very premise was loathable. This is just a terribly-looking comedy that utterly fails to be funny. But you shouldn’t really bother with it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 19.