#13 : Platinumhugen Ordian (Ginsoukikou Ordian)

(24 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Mecha.

Characters

Yuu, our protagonist, is a highschool dropout who’s involved in… gangs ? low-grade terrorist groups ? Between the obtuse exposition and the crap subtitles on my version, it’s hard to tell. (It’s mostly offscreen.) Anyway, he’s aimless and wondering what those strange flashbacks about piloting mecha mean.

Ryo, his “best friend”, has noticed this and invited him into INO, the big military organization around (and the only one to have those top-grade mecha). He’s a squad leader there, but a complete maverick who regularly gets disciplined. To say nothing of hanging around with terrorists on his paid leave, or putting his civilian pal into his mecha’s cockpit for a training exercise. I mean, sure, Yuu does have the skills (somehow), but…

Nanna, a random bridge bunny in INO who happens to be a childhood friend of Yuu’s, and on whom he stumbles as Ryo gives him the tour.

A white-haired dude who ticks all the “rival” checkboxes, including the opening flashforward where he’s in an intense mecha battle against Yuu.

Production Values

Decent enough, but the art director really likes his darkness and chiaroscuro. Good for mood, bad for storytelling clarity.

There are occasional bursts of fanservice, including booth babes for a mecha expo (briefly mentioned on the news) and the all-naked ED sequence.

Overall Impression

I have no clue what is going on here.

I’m serious. This is an atrocious failure at world-building. INO seems to exist into a bubble detached from the world surrounding it… which itself isn’t even sketched out. What are the other powers at play ? Who is INO fighting against, to have so much weaponry on hand ? How’s “normal” society outside it going ? What’s that group Yuu & Ryo were involved in ? Does anyone have any family ? Fuck if I know. And that’s before going into the show’s official mysteries, such as Yuu’s mecha proficiency and white-hair’s agenda.

Show, you have to give me something to get invested in you. Your characters are too busy talking in riddles to get a good handle on, and the stakes remain thoroughly obscure. Even if there’s a big surprise shake-up down the line, you needed to establish some ground rules much faster than this to carry the show in the meantime. It really feels like you learned all the wrong lessons out of Eva.

This is way too frustrating for me to keep watching, even without accounting for my desire to punch the fansubbers for getting every third sentence wrong.

Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 3

A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepherd (Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a dating sim visual novel (which spawned a small franchise with five different manga adaptations, some light novels, and now this).

Characters

Kakei, our male lead, has the power of being super-boring. And, as an aside, to have random prescient flashes, but mostly being really, really boring. He’s got this monotone narration that would put anyone to sleep. He’s the only regular member of the library club, which means his main hobby is reading books alone.

Takamine, his mandatory lecherous best friend. And only friend, by the look of it. Since Kakei is inexplicably a chick magnet (thanks to genre conventions), he tags along and goes for the leftovers.

Shirasaki is a shy big-busted girl that Kakei saves from a traffic accident… and of course he ends up with his hand grabbing her chest. She spends half the episode chasing him… to thank him. And she wants him for her “make life fun” project. She doesn’t have anything but the name, but please help her ? At least until Golden Week ?

Sakuraba is one of the many irrate people who hunt Kakei down after pictures of the incident get passed around. But since she’s a pretty girl, she gets to mellow quickly and join the cast as the token tsundere.

Mochizuki, the Student Council President, cuts in to mention that she already has views on Kakei… er, strictly as a potential Student Council member, of course. Yeah, right.

As for the Shepherd, it’s a mysterious person sending emails with either some gossip (such as the aforementioned pictures), or cryptic garbage. A scene at the end implies they may actually be a group, with eyes on headhunting Kakei as their next leader.

Production Values

Decent enough for this kind of thing. The direction tries livening up the proceedings, but it can’t overcome the boringness of it all.

Overall Impression

Zzzzzzzz…

You may have inferred I found this a bit boring. The protagonist has no charisma whatsoever, the plot is sluggish, the hijinks beyond stale, and the Shepherd thing feels bizarrely underused despite being the one point that makes the show somewhat distinctive. Also, I’m a bit nonplussed by the setting. (50,000 students in the academy ? 650 per class ?)

My interest in this is close to nil.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 5.

Laughing under the Clouds (Donten ni Warau)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a shoujo manga series. Several sources claim it belongs to the “supernatural” category, but that’s not really apparent from the first episode.

Characters

We’re in the early Meiji period, and it’s now illegal to carry a sword. Lawbreakers are sent to an infamous lake prison, with a trio of brothers manning the ferry (and troubleshooting any escapees) :
– Tenka, the eldest, is the one who actually deals with the escapees. Very good in a fight, and obnoxiously so.
– Soramaru, his junior, heavily resents this, and often rushes in foolishly to “help out”. Except he’s quite sloppy (tie those bastards up, darn it !) and not good enough.
– Chutaro, the youngest, is annoyingly enthusiastic all the time.

Now, there’s obviously something screwy with the setup. Chutato’s schoolteacher hides secrets behind her nice surface. The keystone kops escorting the prisoners and always letting them escape can’t really be THAT incompetent. And there’s whatever happens behind the prison’s closed doors.

Production Values

Bright and shiny (you can tell it’s based on a shoujo series thanks to the distinctively pretty character designs for the brothers), which kinda works against the atmosphere : shouldn’t the weather be more cloudy than this, after all ?

Overall Impression

On the one hand, it’s quite good at setting up the mystery and making the creepy elements pile up… On the other hand, the three brothers are all very annoying indeed. To the points that I stop wondering what the heck is really going on, and just lose interest.

Maybe they get better rounded later on, but I just don’t have time for them.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 4.

Le Fruit de Grisaia (Grisaia no Kajitsu)

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a generic dating sim visual novel… OR IS IT ?

Characters

Kazami isn’t exactly your generic dating sim protagonist. An orphan in unspecified circumstances, he’s in the employ of some secret governmental agency, in what looks very much like hitman-style jobs. He’s asked to be able to live a “normal school life” in his downtime, so his bosses send him to this elite academy… with only five other students.

Much of the humour comes from his deadpan bafflement at this bunch of girls acting out the classic dating sim archetypes :
– Sachi, the doormat who’s been tricked into wearing a maid uniform ;
– Makina, the foreign-looking kid ;
– Michiru, the tsundere who struggles under his heavy trolling ;
– Amane, who has no qualms about him walking in on her as she’s half-naked (hey, that’s his room !), and is vying to become a big-sister figure ;
– and Yumiko, the aloof girl that will totally cut you if you get too close.

Frankly, it’s a bit embarrassing how they try to act so stereotypically, and he’s not above making a bit of fun out of them (especially Michiru). But this is a thoroughly weird setup, and his paranoid constant vigilance looks more and more appropriate as time goes by.

Like, how exactly did Amane enter his room ? Did she pick the lock ? Why are several of them mumbling about having identifying him ? Are those bombs Sachi is making in her room ? And in that light, Yumiko’s “I will cut you” antics take a more sinister look…

Is it still paranoia if they’re really out to get you ?

Production Values

For some reason, the whole thing is shot in a widescreen aspect ratio. Well, whatever. Anyway, this seems to be drowning in budget, as the camera keeps moving around in fancy ways to stray from the cliché visual novel shot (you know the one), although it still shows up a lot anyway. (Amusingly, the girls often act out cliché “quirks” as though the camera was stuck to Kazami’s viewpoint.) There’s quite some scenery porn, too.

And, well, the camera also finds a way to show off repeatedly the panties of each and every girl, because dating sim adaptation. And there’s Amane’s half-naked scene, of course. (Ah, convenient bulbs of light…)

Overall Impression

Usually, it’s a bad sign for a harem romance show if I find every possible option creepy and/or unlikeable. This show achieves the remarkable feat of turning that around and morphing into a thriller where the protagonist will need to fight for his dear life. It helps that Kazami (the always impeccable Takahiro Sakurai) does have charisma and a personality, which is more than 95% of dating sim protagonist. We do root for him, despite his being a paranoid jerk with much blood on his hand.

I have to admit I was fooled : this really looked like a generic dating sim adaptationwith crappy cliché girls who can barely read their script. I was entertaining the thought that the whole thing was a prank on him, but as a joke, not as the actual premise. Have a cookie, show, you were clever enough to get my attention.

Don’t waste it, though ; you’re still on a thin line for those gratuitous panty shots. So get to the point and don’t try to have your cake too much while eating it.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 3.

Terror in Resonance (Zankyou no Terror)

(11 episodes)

What’s it about ?

It’s the grand reunion of director Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) and composer Yoko Kanno ! Okay, it’s the third time in two years, but he’s barely directing any of Space Dandy himself, and let’s just politely forget about Kids on the Slope. This is much more like it : a more personal original anime series that he’s apparently been trying to produce for years. Given the subject matter, I believe him.

This is a show about terrorism. And it’s not pulling any punches.

Characters

The story focuses on a team of two teenage terrorists, Nine & Twelve. (They’ve got proper names they use at school, but those are most probably aliases.) Nine is the tall guy with glasses and scary eyes ; Twelve is a cheerful ball of energy whose playful attitude and smile are no less scary. Together, they commit acts of terror. Stealing plutonium from a secure recycling facility, setting off bombs that destroy most of a skyscraper, posting cryptic videos on YouTube, the works.

Their motives remain nebulous. Their very codenames suggest there’s somebody else pulling the strings. They feel righteous in their attacks against modern civilization, but the short flashbacks/dreams about their childhood only raise more questions over how they got there. What’s clear is that they are ready to kill.

Lisa is another student attending their new high school. Withdrawn and a frequent target of bullies until Twelve rescued her, mostly for the lulz. Later on, she randomly bumps into him in the middle of placing bombs, and Nine offers her a choice : dying or becoming their accomplice.

Before the skyscraper attack, the police aren’t really paying attention to some random videos on the web (the uranium theft six months ago is top secret, of course) ; that’s obviously going to change. The script gives plenty of screentime to a bored police inspector who spends his time solving crosswords while his partner surfs around the Net ; presumably he’s going to be important in the investigation.

Production Values

Very good. The direction makes the terrorism sequences look like clockwork : while it’s not immediately obvious what the end objective is, the various steps are perfectly clear to follow.

Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack is ace, of course. Maybe one of her best scores in a while.

Overall Impression

Well, this was impressive. This is basically filmed like a heist movie, except we have no clue whatsoever about what drives the protagonists, to say nothing of their endgame. What helps considerably is how plausible most of their attacks are ; whoever designed them did their research well. (The second episode opens with a scene of the police piecing out what they did exactly, and it turns out to have needed very little resources, merely impeccable planning and timing. Also, tons of refuge in audacity.)

I’m slightly less confident on how Lisa is going to fit into all this ; I presume it’s going to be more interesting than introducing some tepid romantic tension. Still, I’m willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt on this, as everything else is very intriguing indeed.

A good thriller by masters of the form. Definitely one of the highlights of the season.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 4.

Aldnoah.Zero

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Gen Urobuchi writing more mecha anime !

And wow, this is a convoluted premise. It’s an alternate universe where the Appolo program went on to attempts to colonize Mars… Except they found “the Vers Empire” already there, remains of an old civilization with advanced technology ; they did not take kindly to the intruders. 15 years ago the conflict escalated to the Moon being partly destroyed (wreaking havoc on the surface), with Vers breaking their Hyper Gate (which allowed fast space travel) in exchange. It’s been a ceasefire by default since then.

Characters

Asseylum, the Vers princess, is an young idealist. Despite the objections of nearly everyone else in power in the empire, she’s decided to go on a diplomatic visit to Earth to try and broker peace. There are a lot of people in Vers who want her to fail, and for some Earth extremists to try something against her.

Slaine is an Earth-born orphan whom Asseylum rescued a few years ago and made her servant/friend/confident. Everyone else hates him, and she didn’t have enough pull to bring him with her. Basically, his life sucks.

Most of the episode is from the point of view of Inaho, an ordinary Japanese highschool student, and his circle of friends. While he’s about as blasé as them about the world’s terrible situation, at least he still pays attention to his surroundings. Also, “ordinary” highschool students now have to participate in drills, piloting mecha in preparation for the rebuilding of Earth’s armies after it got crippled.

Yuki (Inaho’s older sister) and Lt Marito are the soldiers supervising their training. Marito has turned to booze because of their task’s pointlessness. Not because it’s peacetime, but because he has no doubt Vers outclass anything Earth could drum up. He was on the frontlines back then, he knows the score.

There’s a bunch of Mysterious Terrorists who fire tons of missiles at Asseylum’s limo just as she’s passing by Inaho and his friends. And if you believe she’s truly dead, I have a bridge I can sell you.

Vers take the bait, though, and start attacking Earth, doing things like obliterating Manhattan. They don’t even have a cohesive plan of attack : the many houses of the Empire are competing for who gets to “win” first. It looks like they’re going to have more trouble with infighting than with Earth’s pitiful defenses.

Production Values

Fairly nice.

Overall Impression

Wow, exposition overload ! Sure, the premise’s not exactly simple, but boy is there a lot of information to pay attention to on display here. We get every infodump cliché in the book, from TV and radio broadcasts to the students studying their history course. I hope this was just a hurdle the first episode had to pass, and that we’re going to get more time for the characters from now on ; they had very little room to breathe here.

What the show does well, though, are the big action sequences, from the attack against the limo to the Vers attacking. That’s some very impactful massive damage, indeed. On the spectacle front, this doesn’t disappoint. I just hope there’s going to be enough substance to justify it.

Still, I’m hooked, unless the second episode turns out to be a massive disaster.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2014 – Page 3.

Brynhildr in the Darkness (Gokukoku no Brynhildr)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a seinen manga series where an ordinary dude’s life is turned upside down by the apparition of a mysterious girl with superpowers.

Characters

Ryota, our protagonist. He’s still deeply shaken by the death 10ish years ago of his childhood friend “Kuroneko” (real name unknown), after they both fell from a dam while she was trying to lead him to the place she’d seen aliens at. In her memory, he comes every evening to local telescope to try and find aliens, as the lone member of the school’s astronomy club.

“Neko Kuroha” (LOL at the obvious pseudonym), a sudden transfer student who totally looks like Kuroneko would by now. She denies any knowledge of Ryota, though. She’s very mysterious indeed : she’s in contact with some people with prophecy abilities, and she herself seems to be a high-level telekinetic. (She calls herself a “witch”, but then explains to Ryota that her abilities come from surgery and drugs. Hmmm…) There are also tons of holes in her background. (How could she even transfer in without knowing multiplication tables ?)

The plot here is purposefully muddled : Neko has been notified that two students in this school are to die from very improbable accidents, and she tries to “subtly” prevent their deaths. The second one’s Ryota, of course, and he goes out of his way to force her to use a more hands-on approach. Because he wants to know what’s going on, of course.

He stops listening halfway through her explanation, though, when he notices that Neko doesn’t have Kuroneko’s highly-distinctive birthmark. So they’re really two different people after all ? (You know, she’s just mentioned surgery…)

Production Values

This series is the demonstration of the power of a great OP sequence. Yes, it’s got some nice music (if you enjoy dubstep), but the key here are the well-designed visuals implying that Neko and her friends are reanimated corpses. It’s by far the best OP sequence this season, although admittedly half the shows that have aired skip it to fit more story, so there’s not much competition. Anyway, it’s done a great job of selling me on the premise.

The actual show can’t really match up, but it does have some good animation for the action sequences, and it’s got way less fanservice than you’d usually expect from studio ARMS.

Overall Impression

As stated above, the OP sequence sold me. It helps that the flashbacks are nicely paced, and some of the final twists are intriguing. The two leads have some decent chemistry, too, and the writing has got an appreciable attention to detail.

I’m cautiously optimistic about this one.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2014 – Page 3.

Riddle Story of Devil (Akuma no Riddle)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a manga about a high-school class full of assassin girls. With heavy lesbian subtext that could become text anytime soon.

Characters

Tokaku, our protagonist. An elite teenage assassin with a dark past… wait, that describes most of the cast. Her distinctive features is that she’s very taciturn, has no sense of humour, and we spend most of the episode inside her head. It’s not a pretty place.

Mr “Dice” Kaiba, her handler, has had her transferred to this Academy’s “Black Classroom” so that she can kill the one student there who isn’t also an assassin. This dude is a complete dick, played with obvious glee by Tomokazu Sugita. I love the way he chews scenery.

Haru is so much the odd girl out in the class that everyone immediately pegs her as the target. She’s nice, wants to be friends with everyone, has no reflexes whatsoever, and just doesn’t smell like a killer. She’s even played by Hisato Kanemoto at her most sugary. Yeah, there’s of course going to be a twist at some point. Tokaku’s immediately smitten, although she’d be the last one to acknowledge it. Good thing they’re going to be roommates !

For some reason only three other girls are present for the first homeroom class (only the transfer students, I guess ?), and all of them are credible psychopaths, given the way they keep snarling all the time. This includes the one with MPD, of course. A few others show up later at the dorms, and they’re pretty much of the same cloth.

Whoever the mysterious mastermind behind all this is, she’s set up cameras everywhere. And that’s taking into account Tokaku disabling a good number of them as soon as she enters her room. It’s hinted that there have been other Black Classrooms organized before, too.

Production Values

Well, this clearly belongs to the Death Note school of directing : lots of darkness, dynamic camera angles and overpowering music to mask the fact that not so much is happening, and the animation is nothing special.

There’s less fanservice than you’d expect, despite the episode including several shower scenes.

Overall Impression

Wow, this show doesn’t believe in subtlety, does it ? But frankly, the premise is so contrived that it wouldn’t work any other way. It needs that frantic energy and the constant overacting to avoid collapsing into a mess.

So far, it works. But there’s the question of whether it’ll be allowed to go anywhere, given that it’s based on an ongoing (and recent) manga series. That’s the problem with these high-concept stories : they rarely allow for partial resolutions that an anime adaptation can satisfyingly end on. I’ve been burned enough in the past to be skeptical over this series’ chances to buck the trend.

Still, it’s an entertaining start. With my expectations adjusted, I’m open to keeping it on my watching list.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2014.

Wizard Barristers : Benmashi Cecil

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Magician Lawyers, duh.

Characters

Cecile Sudo, our plucky teenage protagonist, because of course you can’t have anyone over 17 starring in such a series. She’s a “genius”, well-versed in magic law, with a lot of the usual flaws that are supposed to make her endearing : clusmy, later for her first day at work, overenthusiastic… I just want to throttle her. Very late in the episode, we get a glimpse of a second dimension : her mother is incarcerated for some undisclosed magic crime. Too little, too late.

She has a frog familiar, voiced by Norio Wakamoto. Of course she does.

The law partnership she joins if full of one-note clichés : the hardass middle manager, the comprehensive senior partner, the old guy who spouts random “wisdom”, the other newbie who’s very annoyed by everyone else geeking out over the “genius” and giving her special treatment… Anyway, they all specialize in defending cases of magical crimes, despite the law being very strict against magicians.

The Prosecutor’s Office are hardasses, but seem genuinely sincere : magical crimes can escalate horribly (in both casualties and property damage), so there’s a really need to nip it in the bud. Less justified, but understandable : the casual prejudice and harrassment against magicians (even when they don’t actually do anything) from both the population and the police.

This week’s case involves a “customer” killing a bank robber, apparently in self-defense. Cecile has barely started building her case, though, when she gets arrested for using magic against hoodlums attacking her (and they’ve conveniently disappeared by the time the cops show up).

Production Values

Wow, incredible budget ! This is by far the most lavishly animated series of the season, hands down. Everything from the numerous action sequences to the body language to even the hair gets tons of attention, and always moves fluidly.

Overall Impression

How can you screw you up this premise so badly ? Well, just have it star the most irritating protagonist possible. She sucks off any goodwill the awesome visuals and the fun premise could generate. I loathe Cecile, and I refuse to spend one more minute watching her bumble towards success she doesn’t deserve.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 6.

World Conquest – Zvezda’s Plot (Sekai Seifuku ~Bouryaku no Zvezda~)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A weird sci-fi-ish and conspirationist tale that features half-naked girls on their way to taking over the world. Words fail me to describe the plot’s sheer mentalness.

“An anime-original project by the director of Wolf’s Rain and Darker than Black” doesn’t help, as it’s completely unlike those shows.

Characters

Asuta, our point-of-view character. He immediately earns brownie points for non-genericness by telling his father to get lost through a phone call, and running away from home. Unfortunately, before he can even get any food there’s a big city alarm : terrorists are attacking !

Kate is a young girl on a bike he meets in those empty streets. Despite looking (and sometimes behaving) like a grade-schooler, she claims to be the leader of the Zvezda organization, and on her way to conquering the world. No, seriously. There’s even a ridiculous flash-forward showing she’ll eventually succeed somehow. After a while she starts wearing a “combat” suit that barely covers anything.

She’s got a bunch of followers : what looks like a dude in full armour ; a woman who can slice a tank in half with her sword ; and another remote-controlling a robot. Also, for some reason, Asuta’s dad as a low-ranking (and completely incompetent) footsoldier.

The authorities seem at a loss on how to deal with Zvezda, as sending a bunch of tanks against them has completely failed. There’s also a couple of mysterious girls uttering some ominous dialogue hinting that they may have a clue what’s going on. Good for them.

Production Values

Well, it looks good, and the action sequences work. Shame about the stripperific outfit for the 8-year-old, though.

Overall Impression

What. The. Hell ?

I’ll give it that : it’s certainly bizarre enough for my curiosity to be needled, and me to try out another episode. It feels like a bizarre satire of… something, but I’m not entirely sure what. It does have some good comedic timing, at least. But unlike, say, KILL la KILL, I can’t see any method to the madness. For now, it feels like a random collection of elements that’s just kind of a mess.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 5.