April 2011 – Page 3 – Blog@Jhiday.net

Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera (“Bamf It’s Enma ! Crickle Crackle”)

What’s it about ?

The wacky adventures of Enma and his Demon Brigade, in charge of hunting down demons who’re wreaking havoc on Earth’s surface.

Characters

Harumi, our point of view character. A young girl whose friends get attacked by a face-stealing demon and calls on Enma & co for help. Very snarky indeed (to the point that she snarks at her own tendency to snark on inappropriate occasions), and quite bemused by Enma’s antics.

Enma, our idiot hero (and that’s quite an understatement). A fire demon. Wears a talking hat.

Yuki, his purported love interest (although it’s obvious they’ve known each other for so long that they’re getting on each other’s nerves). An ice demon. Maybe the most sensible of the bunch, although by a fairly narrow margin.

Kapaeru, a kappa. Mostly there to deliver exposition and horribly dated impersonations, although he does get to save Harumi from drowning at one point. He might be the most heroic of the bunch, which of course makes him a target for abuse.

Production Values

All over the place. There are some gorgeous pieces of animation, especially in the hell house with its wonderfully gorgeous backgrounds… and then there are a few shots drawn with crayons. WTF ?

Let’s be clear, this is an aggressively retro series, especially with the character designs ; but then, what do you expect of a remake of a 70s Go Nagai series ?

Overall impression

WHY ?

Why did someone greenlight a remake of a random 70s series, without updating much besides the animation ? (It’s even set in the 70s.) It’s not bad or anything (it’s standard inoffensive shounen fare), but it’s so obviously a nostalgia piece that I can’t bring myself to care. Especially as its tone doesn’t do much for me (this kind of constant hyperness tires me out very quickly).

I’m bemused. This show obviously has quite some money behind it ; is the market for it really that big ?

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 7.

Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi – World’s Greatest First Love

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Yaoi romance comedy in a shoujo manga publishing house. Oh, the irony !

Characters

Onodera, who fled the Onodera publishing house because his co-workers suspected him of only getting his job out of nepotism. He’s trying a new job elsewhere to get acknowledged on his own merits. He thought he’d be working as a literature editor, but somehow ended up assigned to the shoujo manga department. He’s a bitter and cynical narrator who’s bemused by the bizarre quirks of his new co-workers… but at the core he’s still a hard worker who loves books.

Takano, his new boss. He’s quite rough and brutal indeed (sexual harassment on the first day for the new guy !), but also a genius who revitalized the shoujo department since he got the job.

Neither of them really recognize each other, but they had a hot and steamy fling, way back in high school. It’s been 10 years since…

Oh, and we briefly see the three other (male) editors in the department, but they don’t show too much personality yet.

Production Values

Barely adequate. Ah, Deen…

Overall Impression

You know, I was all set to hate this : yaoi doesn’t tickle my fancy, and the prequel OAV really rubbed me the wrong way (it’s 20 minutes of really cliché high school yaoi romance). But this actually ain’t half bad… at least as far as the office comedy is concerned.

I have my reservations about the yaoi romance subplot, but as long as it stays in the background it doesn’t bother me too much. When it takes center stage, though, I’m out.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 6.

A Channel

(12-ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Slice of life about four high school girls, with a heavy lesbian subtext. Wait, it’s pretty much text, actually.

Characters

Run, the ditzy central character. She can barely walk without tripping over her thoughts ; don’t let her lean over a window !

Tooru, Run’s self-appointed bodyguard. She’s one year younger than the rest of the cast, and very worried that Run may be moving on from her. In consequence, she’s (i]very[/i] possessive of Run and tries to prevent anyone from getting too close to her (with her baseball bat, if needed).

Let’s be honest : there’s no way to interpret her behaviour without yuri glasses. (Run’s mostly oblivious… or is she ?)

Mika, the sarcastic glasses girl with a bit of a mean streak.

Yuuko, who got off the wrong foot with Tooru by being a bit too close to Run when they met, and desperately tries to make friends with the runt (to no avail, alas). Mostly there to be the butt of jokes.

Production Values

That’s some very impressive animation, especially for a 4koma adaptation that doesn’t really warrant it. What’s with the trend this season of slice of life series with bizarrely high budgets ?

Overall Impression

It’s okay, I guess. It’s a middle-of-the-road high school slice-of-life series… with one selling point : Tooru. Most of the other characters are kinda bland, but the little gal’s got a striking emotional hook and is by far the most memorable aspect of the series. (Aoi Yuuki’s superb voice-acting doesn’t hurt, either.)

I’m probably going to give it a couple more episodes to see where it goes.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 6.

Hanaukyo Maids (Hanaukyo Maid-tai)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A boy receives a sudden inheritance from his grandfather : a ridiculously huged mansion, staffed by hundreds of maids. (Also, tons of money.)

Characters

Taro, our protagonist. Completely baffled by the whole thing. In the grand tradition of stupid harem comedies, he’s got an allergy to girls, which makes it all very awkward.

We don’t actually see his grandfather, but he sounds like a gigantic pervert : his video will to Taro only has footage of maids sunbathing on a private island, there are nude statues everywhere, and then there’s all the training of the maids to be very intimate to their master. Now, I can somewhat understand why a squad of them would help him pee and bathe, but there’s little excuse for the “final service” after lights out.

Mariel seems to be the head maid or something (although it’s not actually acknowledged onscreen). Taro seems to like her, and she’s the only maid who does not set off his girl allergy (which of course raises all sorts of alarms in my brain – hopefully they’re not going that route, are they ?).

There are literally hundreds of other maids, although the only other notable ones are a set of triplets who seem the most sexually aggressive of the bunch.

Production Values

Terrible. This is barely animated at all. Also : boobies ! There’s LOTS of nudity here.

The ED sequence has live-action footage of what looks like the voice-actresses cosplaying as their characters, which is frankly embarassing. At least they’re properly clothed…

Overall Impression

Dear gods this was horrible and sanity-destroying. This obviously tries to be a raunchy sex comedy, but this is neither funny nor titillating.

This somehow got a remake in 2004. I can’t see how that’d improve things.

I had trouble retrieving the only SFW scene of assault in this episode.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2001 – Page 7.

Sket Dance

(?? episodes)

What’s it about ?

A high school club who specialize in helping people… although they’re quite bumbling indeed, and mostly do odd jobs. But they take it very seriously.

Characters

Teppei, our point of view character. A transfer student, and thus direly in need of exposition. The SKET club tries to recruit him aggressively, and when it fails they do help him with his troubles. To tell the truth, he’s a horrible wimp, and I was delighted when it turned out he’d fade in the background by the next episode. Pfew.

“Bossun”, the idiot in charge of the SKET club. (By the way, this is both a pun on the Japanese phrase for “helper group”, and a terrible backronym – “Support, Kindness, Encouragement, Troubleshoot”.) He’s very enthusiastic… but his trains of thought are quite bizarre, to say the least.

Himeko, the vice-president, would really want to be thought of as kind and feminine… but when the chips come down, she’s a violent thug. She’s the muscle of the team.

“Switch”, the third and last member, is a geek who’s never seen without his laptop strapped on. He absolutely refuses to talk, instead using voice-generating that sounds like Tomokazu Sugita (who’s impeccably deadpan here). He’s got very precise and intimate information on everyone in the school, and knows how to use it ruthlessly.

We also see quite a few other characters : a couple of bullies, the casanova kid, several members from the student council that will presumably become important later on…

Production Values

The animation is very limited, despite me not being one to overly notice this kind of thing.

The soundtrack is overloaded with guitar riffs, to the point that it becomes a bit distracting.

Overall Impression

Hey, a shounen series that I actually like quite a bit ! What has the world come to ?

Now, it isn’t without problems. I don’t really care for the club president, and I loathed Teppei. The production values are quite cheap indeed. And I could quickly grow tired of the amped up histrionics.

Still, it succeeds where it really needs to : it’s quite funny indeed. Switch has an awesome gimmick, Himeko’s fun, and most of the jokes work.

I’m cautiously optimistic about this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 6.

Zone of the Enders – Dolores, I

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A space trucker finds out that the dodgy shipment he’s carrying back to Earth is a hotly sought-after experimental mecha.

Characters

James, our protagonist. A war veteran (or so he claims) stuck into a dead-end space-trucker job, he’s at least well into his forties and got a not-so-loving family waiting for him back on Earth (at the very least, his teenage daughter wants nothing to do with him, and his son doesn’t even return his calls). The series goes out of its way to depict him as a washed-out loser, miserably failing at flirting with girls half his age, and drowning himself in booze. He does get some sort of epiphany halfway through the first episode, although given that his idea of reconnecting with his family involves purchasing an overpriced cat for his daughter and burying himself into self-help books (with his cabin increasingly looking like a pigsty as he does so), I’m not too optimistic on his chances of success.

Laia, James’s up-to-no-good contact who sets him up with his shipment. It’s hard to look more shifty than this dude, and James has enough history with him to know better than taking the gig. But overpriced cats cost money, so he eventually relents. (It helps that Laia’s backup trucker wound up mysteriously shot dead mere hours after taking the job – although Laia’s not telling this to James, of course…)

Dolores, the cargo. A fifty-foot-tall mecha that behaves and speaks like a teenage girl. No, seriously, she’s even shy about having a man “down there” (into the cockpit).

There are of course some shady people looking into taking hold of Dolores, with enough connections to infiltrate the UN space patrols.

Production Values

Perfectly watchable, and there’s been a lot of care put into background details to make the setup feel grounded in reality. The score is a bit dated and MIDI-ish, but it does the job.

Overall Impression

Wow, that was fun. I don’t know if it’s the novelty of having a “mature” dude as a protagonist, but I really enjoyed this. It’s not exactly deep or subtle, but this looks like a madcap romp in a relatively grounded space sci-fi setting. Despite being a loser, James is a compelling protagonist, and he’s already got lots of chemistry with Dolores.

Google tells me this is a sequel to an OVA that itself spun off a videogame franchise, but it seems to stand perfectly well on its own.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2001 – Page 7.

Project ARMS

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A high school student is stalked by both a creepy transfer student and a team of men in black. Maybe this is linked to his weird right arm (which hasn’t been the same since a mysterious incident years ago)…

Characters

Ryo, our protagonist. Kind-hearted, a bit of a slacker… and owner of incredibly 80s sideburns. His right arm is definitely not normal, what with healing ridiculously fast and transforming into something else at the end of the episode.

Katsumi, totally not his girlfriend, and typical bossy tsundere material. Spends most of the episode either in distress… or with Ryo thinking she’s in distress (while his opponents couldn’t care less about her). She’s actually less annoying than this sounds.

Hayato, the creepy transfer student with his left arm bandaged. The kind who single-handedly defeats a dozen bullies offscreen. His left arm is actually a weird claw-with-blades thing, and he’s somehow able to make Ryo’s arm vibrate by “resonance”.

There are quite a few men in black circling around Ryo and Hayato while delivering cryptic exposition. They want to capture the two ARMS subjects, but there’s probably more to it.

Production Values

Not a lot of budget, but enough directing tricks to somewhat disguise it as artistically-motivated. Good use of colour to build the atmosphere, too.

Overall impression

This is actually quite decent : the characters have a lot of chemistry, the atmosphere is well set, and it moves at a decent clip. The character design’s a bit retro, but you get used to it quickly.

The problem is that I don’t care about the story. At all. It’s a bit of a cliché, and despite the quality of the execution I can’t see this series going anywhere interesting.

That's quite a skin condition Hayato has got there... — That’s quite a skin condition Hayato has got there…

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2001 – Page 7.

Galaxy Angel

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A squad of women can perform any mission if you pay the price… This episode : finding a lost cat. No, really.

Characters

Ranpha, the hot-tempered blonde who complains about everything. Only Yukari Tamura’s charisma can keep her from being too annoying.

Forte, her tall and snarky partner, whom I mistook for a dude until I saw the frankly embarrassing cleavage hole in her clothes. Urgh.

Milfeulle, a girl they encounter during their mission and who just happens to have found the precise cat they’re looking for. She’s got insane amounts of luck, although it seems to mostly be the ironic kind. Presumably she’s joining the team soon.

There are a couple of other women on the team, plus their elderly boss, but they don’t contribute much to this episode.

Production values

Not very good, to tell the truth. It’s got decent comedic timing, and that’s all I can really say for it. Forte’s costume aside, the fanservice ain’t too obnoxious, but it’s still quite present.

Overall Impression

That… wasn’t very good, was it ? While the characters have some decent chemistry, there’s no plot in sight, and even the characters complain about the inanity of the premise in the very first scene of the episode. The comedy is decent, but nothing you haven’t seen done better elsewhere.

This got three sequel seasons ? Really ?

Now, which cat's the right one ? — Now, which cat’s the right one ?

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2001 – Page 6.

Health and Physical Eduction for 30-year-olds (30-sai no Hoken Taiiku)

(13-minute-long episodes)

What’s it about ?

A thirty-year-old virgin gets visited by an annoying sex god who’ll educate him so that he can finally pop his cherry.

Characters

Imagawa, our male lead, exactly as pathetic as you’d expect (and voiced by Hiro Shimono, of course). The kind who borrows the 600,000-yen blow-up doll from one of his co-workers. Very annoyed by the sex god’s intrusion : he’d like to take his time, thanks (but then that’s his whole problem…).

Daigorou, the sex god. Very, very annoying, and impossible to get rid of. He can only go away when his mission’s accomplished ; to his credit, he does offer Imagawa the easy way out to get done with it (but Imagawa doesn’t want to even think about it).

Andou, the female lead, barely makes an appearance in this first episode, but the OP & ED suggest she’s getting a pair of sex gods too.

Production Values

Dire. It doesn’t help that there’s some very heavy censorship that hides anything vaguely risqué (we don’t even see one bit of the blow-up doll) and blips through half of the dialogue.

Overall Impression

I didn’t think it was possible : this is making me long for B Gata H Kei. There’s an art to the raunchy, ecchi comedy with protagonists raring to get it on, and this series completely fails at it. It’s not funny, and the heavy censorship kinda defeats the point.

Since this reportedly adapts a PhysEd book, it does sneak in some helpful tips (Wash it appropriately to get rid of bacteria ! Don’t squeeze too much on them !), but they’re drowned by the tedious attempts at whimsical humour by walking clichés calling themselves characters.

Avoid.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 6.

Noir

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A top-flight assassin meets an amnesiac high-school girl who’s even better than her at killing people. After a fashion, they decide to team up to investigate the mysterious links between the two of them.

Characters

Mireille Bouquet, elite French assassin. Very intrigued by the whole thing, although she’s clearly the type not to accept bullshit as an answer. She’d have shot Kirika five minutes into the episode if the latter hadn’t produced a watch playing a lullaby that triggers random flashbacks to Mireille’s (presumably traumatic) childhood.

Kirika Yumura, Japanese high-school girl, although it’s immediately made clear that both her name and background are fake. She woke up amnesiac a few days ago, got hunted by mysterious men in black for whatever reason (she quickly disposed of them), and then got in contact with Mireille because that’s one of the few hints about her past she’s got. She’s a true killing machine, instinctively making some very impressive acrobatics.

Production Values

Very impressive. The OP has a wonderfully fluid sequence of Kirika kicking ass in silhouette, and this standard is maintained for the few fight scenes she’s involved in during this episode. There’s mercifully barely any fanservice, and it manages to avoid showing any panty shots despite Mireille’s tight miniskirt and Kirika somersaulting around.

There are long dialogue-less sequences, letting the animation and the music do the storytelling. And the score is absolutely glorious, injecting tons of atmosphere into the series. Sometimes it goes a bit overboard (do we really need a blaring Italian choir when Kirika is just leaving school ?), and there are some false notes like a terrible eye-catch jingle that seems straight out of the 80s, but overall the music is an absolute joy to listen to.

Overall Impression

Well, that’s an impressive beginning, I’ll say. Tons of style and a good starting point for a story.

But this is not the first time I watch this series, and I regret to say that it becomes lost into a dull mystical conspiracy plot that takes ages to go anywhere, interspersed with “hit of the week” episodes that quickly become repetitive. I gave up after 10 episodes, and I’m in no hurry to retry.

Which is too bad, because I can admire what it was trying to do.

Kirika strangling a dude by his tie. Hardcore.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2001 – Page 6.