Month: January 2012

Mushishi

(26 episodes, 2005-2006)

My previous exposure

Suggested in this very thread. Also, wasn’t this in JesuOtaku’s top anime list ?

What’s it about ?

Ginko is a Mushishi, a nomad wise man who wanders around the countryside helping people with their problems with Mushi (mostly invisible, barely alive supernatural creatures who can have a huge impact on one’s life if one’s not careful).

Each episode is a standalone tale ; a few of them deal with Ginko’s past or the general ecosystem of Mushishi, but most just center on a particular case of Mushi happening to people and how Ginko tries to better the situation a bit.

What did I think of it ?

On the one hand, this show does everything right : a charismatic protagonist, gorgeous landscapes, effective storytelling that sketches up a new cast of characters each episode well enough for the watcher to care about them, a genuine sense of wonder about the beauty of Mushi…

But dear gods, this is a depressing series to marathon through. Most of the tales have truly horrific stuff happening to basically decent people because of one moment of carelessness or pride (or just plain bad luck). Very few of these people deserve such fates, and there’s a limit to what Ginko can do to help them (especially as he often arrives when it’s too late). What makes it worse is that you can’t really blame the Mushi either, because they’re not really sentient (with a few exceptions, such as the horrifyingly effective changeling tale) and just do what’s in their nature. The overall impression is that it just sucks to live in this world.

This has been a harrowing watch, and probably worked better on a weekly format, with enough time to rest between each episode. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good show, but it’s a bit too good at telling its stories for me to really love it.

via [LTTP/WIW] Various anime from the 00s and beyond – Page 8.

Winter 2012 capsules

Some quick notes :

Amagami SS Plus basically resumes where it left off : each of the 6 main girls gets 2 more episodes set after their original arcs. We start off with Ayatsuji (the verbally-abusive class president). Frankly, at first it’s more than a bit self-indulgent (a perverted bath scene that turns out to be the MC’s erotic dream ? Seriously ?), but it does pick up after that, and the new plot is actually a lot of fun. Got me worried for a while, though.

I’d gotten the impression that Nisemonogatari would star the Araragi sisters, but that’s only in the loosest sense of the term ; this is really a straight sequel to Bakemonogatari, with new arcs focusing on said sisters. Well, “focusing” may be too strong a word ; the arc is titled after Karen, and she doesn’t even show up this episode (while Tsukihi gets less than 5 minutes). The bulk of the episode is devoted to an extended prologue that I fail to see what it’s got to do with anything, and a long talk between Araragi and Mayoi that often makes me uncomfortable whenever he’s making a joking pass at molesting her.

Don’t get me wrong : the direction is still as impressive as ever, and the dialogue is on fire ; but this isn’t quite gelling together yet. (But then, I’ve never been that impressed by Bakemonogatari ; it’s good, but there are huge chunks that leave me cold.)

And maybe I should say a few words about Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki, a series of 3-minute shorts where a round cat gets adopted by a family. I’m getting the impression those shorts aren’t for me, because there’s barely any meat there ; although this one gets point for being faster-paced than most and managing to get in quite a few jokes. But that’s a few chuckles at best, and I’m not going to bother with any more of it.

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

THERMÆ ROMÆ

(6 13-minute episodes, aired two at a time to fill Black Rock Shooter‘s noitaminA timeslot until February)

What’s it about ?

A 2nd-century Roman architect marvelling about Japanese public baths.

Characters

Lucius, our protagonist, is a traditionalist architect who has a bit of a crisis of faith after falling out of favour, somehow ends up in modern Japan (or maybe is it a dream ?), and brings back some revolutionary ideas to design better public baths.

He gets a token friend as a soundboard for exposition, but mostly he monologues endlessly.

Production Values

This seems to have no budget whatsoever. The animation is beyond crude, frankly ; most web-broadcasted shorts I’ve watched over the last couple of years look better than this.

There are random oddities at times (non-standard character designs, including a cyborg dude in ancient Rome for some reason) that are probably just there for effect, although I’m not sure what the expected effect is (“funny” anachronisms ?).

Overall Impression

Uh. I’ve watched the first episode twice, just to be sure I hadn’t missed something. But no, I just can’t find the joke funny. I think I can see what they were going for, (and commend its makers for doing something so different from usual anime fare) but it just doesn’t work for me.

It doesn’t help that we basically get an (inexplicably blonde) foreigner who’s rude, racist and backwards-minded (ahah, Romans had slaves) discovering the awesomeness of Japan. Er…

Yeah, I think I’ll give this timeslot a pass until February.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2012 – Page 8.

Inu x Boku SS

What’s it about ?

A building for the filthy rich where all the tenants each get a devoted “Secret Service” servant. Well, that’s the cover story ; the big twist is that all of them are actually (traditional Japanese) monsters. (Well, descendants of monsters, but since they can change form at will it’s basically the same thing.)

Characters

Ririchiyo, our female lead, the “Boku” from the title. She is just moving into the place, and doesn’t like the idea of having a butler/bodyguard/whatever looking after her. Actually a yuki-onna, which might explain the “ice queen” persona she often affects.

Miketsukami, her bodyguard, the “Inu” from the title. And literally too, as he’s a “dog with several tails” monster. His behaviour is very dog-like indeed, frequently embarassing her.

Renshou, Ririchiyo’s childhood friend/big brother figure. He’s got a big tattoo that gives him a bad boy look. Mostly there so she has another person to talk to on a rational level. (He’s really a scroll-like monster.)

A couple of other master-servant pairs, including a deathly-timid (and actual death spirit) girl who’s very convenient to get rid of burglars.

Production Values

About average. The show has a tendency to shift into super-deformed mode for each punchline, which might have worked if the jokes were actually funny. (Also, the narration at the beginning randomly showing up on the screen just looks pretentious.)

Overall Impression

Oh, dear. This show has exactly one joke (Ririchiyo finds her servant embarassing), and I was already losing patience when we got to the twist. Which is mildly interesting in itself, but not enough to redeem the annoying lead characters and the gratuitous master/servant fetishism.

One episode was enough, thank you.

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

Daily Lives of High School Boys (Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Absurdist comedy starring high school boys trolling each other. (Basically, imagine a gentler Cromartie High School.)

Characters

Tadakuni, the “normal” guy who gets trolled by his friends. (Although he does gives half as much as he receives.) The butt of many jokes, when he’s not just protesting how stupid his pals are.

Hidenori, the troll in glasses. He loves taking the piss with a completely straight face. Some parts also have him in rambling monologues obsessing about ridiculously trivial stuff ; which is obviously why they hired Tomokazu Sugita. (And hey, he can do funny voices too !)

Yoshitake, the other troll. His trolling is slightly more outlandish, but really there’s little to distinguish him from Hidenori.

Supporting characters showing up so far include Tadakuni’s sister (sic), who’s way less disturbed by those dudes trying on her underwear than you’d guess ; the Literature Girl (sic, again), whose joke I won’t spoil ; and Motoharu, the badass delinquant of the class who’s more talk than walk.

Production Values

Well, the mechas are quite well done…

Wait, what ?

Oh, that was just a joke about how this is a Sunrise-Squaresoft collaboration (also included : random RPG sequence, with Tadakuni as the Healer Girl). Anyway, this looks a bit better than most comedy shows where the graphics aren’t the selling point anyway.

This episode is made of 5 sketches (plus a pre-OP prologue), 3 of which were aired on the web over the past few weeks as a preview ; it’s nice to see them in non-eyebleed-o-vision.

The OP song sounds completely wrong for the show, like some epic shounen show it absolutely isn’t. Given that the OP is filled with shots cribed from the shounen-opening cliché list, I assume that’s the joke. (The ED song is clearly taking the piss of the conclusion of the 5th sketch.)

Overall Impression

At last, a comedy show that’s actually laugh-out-loud funny ! This belongs to the “dialogue grows more and more ridiculous as the sketch goes, until the final punchline” school of comedy, and it’s got good enough voice-actors to pull it off. Heck, even the sketches I’ve already seen were still funny.

The previews had wetted my appetite, and this definitely looks to be as good as I hoped. Definitely a keeper for me.

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

Listen to me, Girls, I’m your father ! (Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!)

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A guy in college has to watch after his elder sister’s daughters while she’s away.

Characters

Yuuta, our male lead. Doesn’t show much personality beyond being baffled by how about everyone he knows seems to be trolling him.

Yuki, his sister. She married a man way older, who came with two daughters in tow ; they’ve had another daughter together who’s 3 now. (The dude has no authority whatsoever, as exemplified by the series’ title.) She dumps all three of them onto Yuuta for an undisclosed period of time, without even warning him beforehand. Let’s just say I don’t like her much.

The three nieces are Sora (middle school), who’s got a crush on Yuuta ; Miu (elementary school), who’s a bit of a smartass ; and Hina, the aforementioned 3-year-old.

Yuuta shares his college flat with Nimura, the mandatory perverted best “friend”… Wait, he’s just crashing there on a permanent basis because he wants to keep his actual flat pristine for when he brings back girls ?

Raika, a weird classmate of Yuuta, and his apparent love interest. Even Nimura knows better than trying to approach her. I like her sense of humour, though.

Production Values

About okay.

Overall Impression

This is an anime of two halves. There’s the college parts with Nimura & Raika that are quite fun, if not ground-breaking. And then there’s the scenes with the daughters, which I don’t trust to be handled in a any tasteful way (this is the half with the most panty-shots and fanservice, somehow). The two halves don’t really intersect much until the end of the episode, so I have no clue how this is supposed to work out on a regular basis (the college is in a completely different city from Yuki’s home !).

I’ll give it one more episode to check whether the college parts are as marginalized as I fear, but I’m not hopeful.

(How the heck did this get greenlit for 26 episodes ?)

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

Waiting in the Summer (Ano Natsu de Matteru)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Basically a remake of Please Teacher without the squicky bits, reuniting the same creative team. For those who don’t know it : this is a romantic comedy set in a little Japanese town in the summer. A human-looking alien lands there in secret and tries to blend in.

Characters

Kaito, our bland male lead. He’s got a camera and has let his high school friends talk him into directing an actual movie. While he was filming random landscapes, he got caught into the crash/landing hand got heavily injured. (From the look of it, she mostly cured his injuries while he was unconscious.) His parents are dead, he lives alone with his older sister (who’s about to go abroad for the summer).

Ichika, the alien. She’s trying to pass herself as a transfering high school student, but it’s quite obvious from her lack of understanding of social cues (not to mention her bright red hair) that she’s not from around here. Also, she’s homeless, and somehow manipulates Kaito into housing her (in a well-executed and quite creepy scene).

Kanna, the tomboy tsundere who’s gonna have to step her game up if she doesn’t want the alien to push her into Kaito’s friend zone. (NOBODY is fooled by Kanna’s behaviour, and various people try and push her towards making an actual move.)

Tetsurou is Kaito’s token perverted best friend… although, as a nice departure from the norm, he’s actually handsome and quite the charmer.

Remon is basically Yukari Tamura reprising her role from Please Teacher with the number filed off : the sarcastic and perceptive sempai who’s quite older than she looks.

Production Values

Perfectly okay. So there’s where the budget saved from Kill Me Baby and Bakuman 2 went !

Overall Impression

My main objection to Please Teacher was from the squicky bits (where the alien became a teacher and they used a bizarre loophole to make the male lead legal), so I’m quite pleased to see a nearly-remake without those elements. As a result, this is a fun little romantic comedy that’s pleasant enough, while never coming off as “essential watching”.

Perfectly fine for what it is.

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

Another

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Horror series set in a little town. 26 years ago, a middle school student from class 9-3 called Misaki died. Her class acted as though she was still attending up to the graduation. And the urban legend would be only mildly creepy if it had stopped there…

Characters

Kouichi, our protagonist. He came to live with his grandparents in the town because his father is busy teaching in India (Mommy is dead). He’s of weak health ; a lung collapse makes him miss his first few months of school. And of course he’s now attending class 9-3. There’s a lot his classmates aren’t telling him yet, although the implication seems to be that his name is somehow associated to tragic circumstances (despite him only having been around for a few months long ago and not remembering much of it).

Mei Misaki, a mysterious 9-3 student with an eyepatch. Kouichi crosses her path in the hospital as she goes to the morgue to “offer a gift to the other her”… Er, yeah. Given how she later claims not to recognize him at school, I’m guessing twins or something.

I’m not getting much of a handle yet on the other classmates. Sure, they’re obviously hiding something, but I’m not sure who’s actually important there. (And what’s a “Countermeasures officer”, anyway ?)

Production Values

This is a PA Works production, so of course there’s lots of scenery porn and cautious attention to body language (the latter of which is key to such a series). This is their first attempt at horror that I know of, and boy does it show : there are lots of random shots creepy dolls or awkward closeups that feel a bit clumsy ; unlike, say, SHAFT, they’re obviously not used to doing this. Similarly, the soundtrack may be laying the atmosphere a bit too thick.

It’s also a pity that the careful buildup in the prologue is marred by a terrible OP song by ALI Project.

Overall Impression

I really wanted to like this : sure, horror shows in little towns with a dark secret are a cliché, but this looks like a decent attempt to go back to basics. Unfortunately, it’s trying a bit too much, and the atmosphere doesn’t fully gel.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot I like here ; I’m probably going to watch it through. But it could be better executed.

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

Aquarion Evol

(1st episode is a 42-minute special)

What’s it about ?

In the future, Earth (?) is under assault from interdimensional kidnappers in giant mecha. In response, the authorities have set up their own mecha response forces, segregated by gender. Also, a good number of people seem to possess random superpowers.

Characters

Amata, our protagonist, projectionist at the local theater. (Business isn’t great, what with people staying at home to avoid the random mass kidnappings.) He’s a fanboy of a very cheesy 10-year-old movie he keeps projecting… and he sounds like he knows the main actress personnally. His superpower is that he starts flying whenever he gets excited (he weighs his shoes down with lead to avoid the embarrassment).

Mikono, our female lead. Amata finds her crying during his favourite movie’s projection, and it’s tepid romance at first sight. She spends most of her screentime either panicked or crying.

Cayenne (prophetic visions of DOOM) and Zessica (some sort of force attacks ?) are regular pilot of the mecha defense forces trying to fend off yet another attack… until Amata suddenly flies himself and Mikono into another mecha, and forces all of them to unite into a giant flying combining mecha ; despite the confusion they all manage to stall the attackers enough to send them retreating.

Nobody seems to have much of a clue why this happened, aside from the top general of the defense forces (who repeatedly refuses to provide any exposition for the benefit of his colleagues), and a dude with an eyepatch who gets to spout vague nonsense in random locations without any indication of who the heck he is.

Production Values

This episode screams “we have BUDGET !”, and may be slightly too much in love with its CG animation. Still, it’s impressive stuff.

The soundtrack comes courtesy of Yoko Kanno, although I’m not sure whether this is one of her lesser efforts or the bizarre editing just does it a disservice.

Overall Impression

This is a complete mess. It completely lost me 7 minutes in, when it became clear that piloting mecha was a blatant metaphor for sex (“it feels so good !” “Us pure maidens uniting with a man ? Ew !”). The incessant tone shifts, haphazard pacing and bland characters don’t help one bit. And once you get past the shock and awe of the production values, you’re left with a very pedestrian story that piles on the clichés without bringing anything new to the table.

Also, the protagonist is yet again played by Yuki Kaji, whose whiny voice is a sure means to make any action lead sound like an annoying loser. Yeah, no thanks.

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

Brave 10

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Yet another Sengoku-era anime…

Characters

Isanami, the only surviving priestess of a temple that got burned down by ninja mooks. She’s really, really annoying ; the kind of useless, needy, rude and emotionally manipulative damsel-in-distress I hate on sight. To the show’s credit, this does seem to be intentional. Also, she’s got a magical jewel on her head that starts killing everything in a ten-feet radius when she’s under too much duress (but she doesn’t seem to be aware of it).

Saizou, our protagonist, a ronin that Isanami stumbles onto while fleeing more ninja mooks. He tries (and fails) to get rid of her for the whole episode, but those pesky mooks keep attacking and dooming themselves by announcing they don’t want witnesses. Since he’s a badass with magical attacks, that’s obviously a terrible idea. Anyway, he’s painfully aware that Isanami is trying to take advantage of him.

Yukimura, the local lord. Isanami was advised to run to him, but he doesn’t think she’s worth the trouble and throws her away. He changes his mind after seeing the effects of the life-sucking jewel : this looks like something worth controlling, although he’ll need more muscle to keep hold of it. Hence his decision to assemble 10 warriors for that task. (Yeah, I don’t really trust this dude either.)

It looks like the show is going to spend some time gathering the 10 ; so far, we only have Yukimura’s right hand man and a reluctant Saizou. I’m pleasantly surprised to see there’ll be some women amongst the others.

Production Values

Perfectly okay.

Overall Impression

Hey, this was a lot more entertaining than I expected. A good deal of the show’s charm resides on Daisuke Ono’s charisma, who’s perfect for world-weary badassitude and injects tons of personality into our protagonist. You can hear the facepalming at getting dragged into this nonsense.

… Because, let’s be honest, there’s not a shred of originality in the plot itself or the way it unfolds. This is rife with clichés, and only the tongue-in-cheek sense of fun makes it watchable. It’s a show that knows it’s stupid and invites us to join the ride anyway. I think they had me at “Daisuke Ono” anyway ; I’m a sucker for mediocre shows starring him.

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