Month: April 2015

Mikagura School Suite (Mikagura Gakuen Kumikyoku)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a comedy light novel series, itself based on a series of vocaloid songs. Is this starting to become a thing ?

Characters

Eruna, our protagonist, does her best to be as irritating as possible. She’s lazy (to the point of playing around instead of choosing a high school to attend after her graduation), shallow (she picks the school her cousin suggests because it’s got nice-looking uniforms and dorms), and more than a bit of a pervert. Also, she’s clearly attracted to girls, if her dating sims and the way she slobbers over any pretty girl in sight are any indication.

Fortunately for her, the entrance exam is a joke. She gets a ridiculously easy special test (“1+5 = ?”), and a nonsensical interview that she passes just for seeing the magical mascot interviewing her. (There’s noise in the background that she got fast-tracked because of her bloodline or something like that.)

The school’s gimmick is that there are a number of cultural clubs competing in battles, and the standing of your club determines the quality of your accommodations ; as someone in no club yet, Eruna gets barely any food, 5 minutes of water in the shower, and a sleeping bag in a corridor. This gives her strong incentives to join a club, any club. She just has to find one that’ll accept her. Given her obnoxious personality, that’s no easy feat.

Each representative of a club we see lugs around a giant symbol of their club, for some reason. So far, we have :
– the enthusiastic head of the calligraphy girl (giant paintbrush)
– the super-shy and apologetic member of the astronomy club (decent-sized telescope)
– the member of the painting club with the face of a thug (and merely some paint on his face)
– …I’m not sure I want to know what the club of the guy hanging around in the background with a big scythe is about.

Seisa, the headmistress’s granddaughter, heads the “going home club” (of which she is the only member), which is apparently a polite excuse for her to stay in her room most of the time. She goes out of her way to offer Eruna potential membership in her club. Eruna is delighted (she’d been drooling over the beauty posing in the school’s leaflet for a while), although she’s slightly more worried when Seisa asks her to take her place in the club battle… next week.

I have no clue what’s going on in the prologue.

Production Values

Quite good. It can sell the school as a place of wonder and weirdness, and it’s got decent comedic timing.

Overall Impression

Well, that was certainly baffling. Still, I’m a bit intrigued ; and while Eruna is a terrible excuse for a human being, she’s at least entertainingly so. I’m as curious as her as what the heck is going on with this school ; provided some answers come at a decent pace, this could prove to be fun. On the other hand, if it keeps on being gratuitously random and goes nowhere, it’ll wear on my patience very quickly.

This could turn out either way ; still, I’m willing to give it a second episode. Don’t waste it and please get to the point.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

My Love Story!! (Ore Monogatari!!)

(24 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a shoujo romantic comedy manga series.

Characters

Takeo, our protagonist, is a hulk of a kid. Despite just graduating middle school, he’s about twice as tall as his classmates. He’s brusque, not good at schoolwork and a bit dumb, but he’s a good kid at heart.

Makoto, his best friend, has nothing in common with him ; he’s a handsome kid all the girls around fawn over. Including just about every girl Takeo liked ; they all tend to confess to Makoto before Takeo can make a move. Makoto rejected every single one of them, and Takeo didn’t have the heart to push things any further.

If you’re wondering why they’re friends… well, they’re neighbours and have known each other forever. Takeo is the only person who makes Makoto laugh through his bumbling ; and somehow, it doesn’t feel mean-spirited. They just feel like they’re comfortable with each other.

Yamato is a girl Takeo saves from a groper in the train. The joke is that while she seems genuinely attracted to him, he assumes she’s just interested in Makoto standing just behind him, like all the other girls. Cue long series of misunderstandings. (By the way, while Makoto does find her nice – apparently the first time he said that of a girl ever – he’s also eager to get out of the way so that Takeo can romance her without obstacle. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite manage to.)

Production Values

Well, shojo adaptation, so expect bright shiny colours and tons of sparkles. The contrast with Takeo’s frightening appearance is the whole point, of course.

On the other hand, there are often some gag asides that are just written in the background ; that must have worked better in the original medium.

Overall Impression

Well, that was fun. It’s a simple setup, but with charming enough characters and a slightly unusual protagonist that its feel fresher. Hopefully the 2-season length of the show means that they’ve planned it so that it can have a decent conclusion (although you never know, as the manga is still ongoing).

Anyway, I don’t need much incentive to watch a shojo romantic comedy, a genre I always find at least decently entertaining ; and since this seems to be the only such offering this season, I’m not going to be picky. Especially as it’s certainly good enough.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

Triage X

(10 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a very fanservicey manga series about hospital-themed vigilantes.

Characters

Arashi, our brooding protagonist, and pointman of the vigilante team. Also a high-schooler, because fuck plausibility. His tragic backstory : both him and his best friend Ryu were caught in a terrorist attack, and the only reason he’s the lone survivor of that is that the surgeon used parts of Ryu’s body to piece him back together. So now he’s regularly having visions of kid!Ryu, acting as a sort of moral compass.

By the way, the surgeon was Ryu’s father, and is the one who founded and directs the vigilante team Black Label. (They need to excise the cancers of society ! he exposits with a completely straight face to a team that must have heard that speech dozens of times already.) Other members include :
– Mikoto, Arashi’s direct partner, who drives him around on a motorbike, if possible with crazy stunts. Such as erupting into a room from a window… on the fourth floor. (How she managed that is left refreshingly unexplored.)
– Oriha, the bomb maniac, who also does stuff like an impromptu musical idol number in front of utterly bemused goons. The camera does its best to ensure we know she wears panties.
– Yuuko, a spotter who shows up sunbathing in a bikini during the opening mission. Her boobs are the first thing the episode opens with.
– And several more boring members. All of them in some kind of nurse/doctor-themed outfit.

Together, they fight crime ! Their initial target was the corrupt head of a construction company ; the other half of the episode is devoted to his son, who is intent on inheriting the family business, and kidnapped an accountant about to talk to the cops, as well as his daughter. Why his daughter ? Because he needed someone to gratuitously torture, and the accountant just wouldn’t do !

Tatara is a grizzled cowboy cop who showed up slightly before the heroes in that second case, and without the backup needed to handle the dozens of goons in the building. Frankly I have no clue how he hoped to arrest the son on sheer bravado… which really doesn’t work here. I think we’re supposed to believe his interference fucked everything up, with the accountant getting shot and the right-hand-man managing to escape, but frankly I’d rather blame our “heroes” for being more showy than effective and bungling this on their own.

Hinako is a schoolmate of Arashi’s who’s got a crush on him, but clearly her flat D-cup has no chance against the likes of Mikoto (who also attends the same high school). Poor girl.

There’s a stinger with a bunch of other villains (most of them female) plotting something in some room where they forgot to put on the lights. Since they’ve got distinctive character designs and some behaviour quirks, I presume they’re gonna be important ; but it’s left to future episodes to give us a clue as to what they’re actually up to.

Production Values

This is the kind of show where the adverts promise that the DVDs & BluRays won’t have any of that pesky steam or random white light. On the other hand, the gratuitous shower scene is the only point where that comes into play ; and it’s only the tip of the iceberg for the fanservice here, with most of that uncensored.

Overall Impression

What makes me roll my eyes here isn’t the obnoxious fanservice. It’s how drab and serious this tries to look despite how ridiculously exploitative everything is. Arashi is drowning in angst, Ryu’s father seems to actually believe in his rants, and I’m apparently supposed to take Tatara’s feelings of impotence somewhat seriously. Ahah, no. Alas, there is such a thing as being too deadpan, and the show crossed the line. I really hope the manga author had his tongue firmly planted in cheek ; unfortunately, that nuance is lost in adaptation.

One episode of this trainwreck was enough, thank you.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

#46 : Android Kikaider – The Animation (Jinzou Ningen Kikaider – The Animation)

(13 episodes + a few OVAs)

What’s it about ?

Remake of a manga/tokutatsu show by the creator of Kamen Rider. 70s nostagia ahoy !

Characters

Dr Komyoji is the kind of robotics engineer who has a laboratory in the middle of woodlands and lives estranged from the scientific community. Admittedly, the main representative of those is an obviously evil rival who try badgering him into selling his research. Cue totally not suspicious fire in said laboratory leading to the death of the old professor.

Mitsuko, his adult daughter, is trying to uncover why her father died. (Also, taking care of her little brother.) The hidden blueprints she’s discovered (and is savvy enough to interpret) hint that he was working on an android far more advanced than anything else currently available… Did he actually build the thing ?

Jiro, a guy who wakes up as a amnesiac nearby with a guitar on his back… oh, come on, this is totally the title android. Which is confirmed soon after when he transforms to face the baddies hunting him down.

Production Values

Wow, retro character designs ! Most of those people wouldn’t feel out of place in the Star System. Fortunately, we’ve got modern animation quality ; this looks quite good and has some decent atmosphere.

Overall Impression

Nice ! We’re dealing with well-worn archetypes here, with actual explicit references to Pinocchio just to drive the point home… but it’s actually quite fun ; both Jiro and Mitsuko turn out to be pleasant characters to follow. It’s clearly a nostalgia piece, but with enough heart to be watchable by people without much knowledge of the original.

I’m strongly considering coming back to it at a later point.

Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 12

RIN-NE (Kyoukai no Rinne)

(25 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of the latest manga series by Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha). Okay, it started publication in 2009, but you know what I mean.

Characters

Sakura, our heroine, is an ordinary high school girl with the one quirk : she can see ghosts and spirits. (Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to bring her to the spirit world when she was young.) She’d rather not have that gift and live a normal life, though, so she’s trying to ignore and avoid eye contact with the various ghosts she crosses paths with daily.

Rinne is supposed to be the guy sitting next to her in class, but there’s clearly something off with him. There’s the bright red hair. There’s the fact he didn’t show up at all for a month, making everyone wonder whether he even existed. He’s also apparently so poor he can’t afford a proper school uniform… or so he claims, since he also got his hands on an expensive-looking robe that makes him invisible to everyone but Sakura. (It also works the reverse way : people can see ghosts wearing it inside out.) Also, he’s set up a donation box so that people can ask him to solve their supernatural problems ; this mostly involves him guiding ghosts to the next step of the Circle of Reincarnation so that they stop harassing humans.

Two small cases this week, mostly as a way to introduce the premise : a prank caller, and that ghost dude who was stuck in the middle of Sakura’s way to school.

Production Values

Remember when studio Brain’s Base used to produce some of the most interesting series in any given season ? Well, it seems their star has fallen a bit, as they’re not involved anymore with the new seasons of Durarara!, or even Teenage Romcom SNAFU. Instead, they’re doing this… which I don’t think is going to put them back on the map either.

This show looks decent, but there’s something in the transition to modern animation and coloring techniques that seems to smother Takahashi’s original style a bit.

Overall Impression

Well, this is perfectly watchable, there’s some decent comedic timing… but why does this feel so generic and rote ? This is drowning in stock elements (half of them pilfered from Takahashi’s other, better series), and lacking any kind of personality. That it’s a daytime show not even getting a full year doesn’t feel like the producers have that much confidence in it. (And it’s not like like anyone expects a Takahashi series to have a satisfying conclusion within only 25 episodes.)

This is mildly entertaining, as even Takahashi on autopilot still has a perfect control of the basics, but I’m afraid that won’t cut it in a season with much more distinctive shows available. I’m giving it a second episode to see how the supporting cast is introduced, but I don’t expect to stick with it.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 3.

Sound! Euphonium (Hibike! Euphonium)

(12ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

No, this isn’t KyoAni revisiting their past glory of K-On!. After all, instead of a slapstick 4-panel manga, it adapts a novel featuring what looks like a “save our club” dramatic storyline.

Characters

Kumiko, our heroine, used to play the euphonium (a sort of smaller tuba) in her middle-school’s brass band club, but she’s more ambivalent about it right now. For one, she’s clearly trying a bit too hard to reinvent herself for her high-school debut. For two, this school’s band club sucks. And for three, she kinda wants to avoid the likes of…

Reina (trumpet), one of the most serious members of her middle school’s brass band club, and the one most broken up by the club narrowly failing to qualify for the national gold prize. Things got a bit awkward between her and Kumiko after the latter blurted out the wrong thing while trying to console the former. Anyway, for some reason she’s in this mediocre high school too (despite Kumiko thinking she could have aimed for better), and she joined the band club in a heartbeat.

That Shuuichi (trombone), Kumiko’s childhood friend with whom she just had a nasty break-up (despite him trying to play it like nothing happened), also joined the club doesn’t help. She really doesn’t want to revisit that drama.

What changes her mind are her new friends : Sapphire Midori (contrabass), who hates her embarrassing name, and Hazuki (an enthusiastic newbie who’s apparently going to take up playing the tuba). Both of them manage to remind her enough of her initial enthusiasm at playing an instrument to convince her to give the band club a try.

There’s a dude wandering awkwardly while listening to music in a few scenes that have no connection with anything else (aside from him having the same taste in music as Kumiko) ; I presume he’s going to be the club’s new advisor or something.

Production Values

It’s KyoAni ; of course it looks gorgeous, with impressive attention to detail. No shortcuts while showing people playing music here. And hey, brass band music is awesome.

Overall Impression

Well, it’s the tried and true “Save Our Club” formula, mixed with a strong narrative focus on Kumiko herself. There’s nothing wrong with that, and she does come off as having some hidden depths, but it’s not exactly earth-shaking either. It’s perfectly okay and watchable, but that’s it.

On the other hand, I like this kind of music, and it’s not like there’s anything else to watch on Tuesdays, so I’m probably going to stick with it.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 3.

#45 : Invincible King Tri-Zenon (Muteki Ou Tri-Zenon)

(22 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Yet more mecha ! But not by Sunrise, and boy does it show.

Characters

Akira, our kid protagonist, has had it enough with his father being hounded by his creditors, so he takes all the family’s few possessions (including his little sister Ai) and goes in search of the legendary treasure their ancestors supposedly left them a map for.

Dad and Akira’s not-girlfriend Kana eventually converge to the spot in their pursuit.

Also converging to the same spot : an old couple who turn out to be from another branch of the family, and also want to lay claim to the treasure. They apparently have a deed for half-ownership of the spot. (Which is basically a wasteland in the country.)

Also coming there : a serious-looking dude with green hair who actually seems to have a clue of what’s hidden down there, and has enough money on hand to try and buy the spot.

Of course it’s Akira, Ai and Kana who fall head-first into the titular “Tri-Zenon” mecha as they dig it out. (Apparently it fell from the sky centuries ago.) Maybe they’re going to help against the alien-looking mecha that are wreaking havoc nearby, as the army seem to have trouble even containing them. (As they always do in this kind of series, of course.)

Production Values

Not very good. The character designs for the main characters are particularly garish.

Overall Impression

That’s an impressive collection of annoying characters you’ve got there, show. It doesn’t help that the plot is kept wafer-thin as an effort to build to a joke that’s really not funny enough to deserve so much screentime.

What makes the show actively painful to watch are the terrible subtitles in the only copy I could find, apparently translated from the Chinese (they don’t even get Akira’s name right !). Not that there was anything of interest there, really.

Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 12

The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan

Again, no full review for the Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan ; it’s a show that makes no sense if you’re not familiar with the parent franchise.

If you are familiar with it, then you’ll be even more baffled, as it completely misses the point.

A running thread in the Haruhi franchise is how protagonist Kyon is in complete denial over Haruhi being his type, as his narration instead keeps lusting over super-submissive moeblob Mikuru. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is all about Yuki misunderstanding his feelings by creating an alternate reality that keeps Haruhi out of the picture and turns herself into a moeblob. And the whole point of that story is that it was a mistake, a horrific perversion of reality that Kyon couldn’t decently let stand.

And yet, here we are, in a version of this perverted universe with the added wrinkle that Kyon seems none the wiser, and is thus having a generic romantic comedy with Yuki as the main love interest, and Ryoko as the pushy friend who nudges the two of them together. I find it rather telling that Kyon’s character design is horribly off-model in this, making him look way more generic than the KyoAni version. (Yet, Tomokazu Sugita still somehow voices the same Kyon as always.)

The problem here is that while Yuki’s wet dream originally had a narrative purpose, it’s completely boring once stripped of that context. The links to the original franchise only underline by contrast how empty and dull the characters have become. You’ve basically removed everything that made the original story interesting.

I can’t imagine what the effect of actually bringing back Haruhi into this will be (she only gets a cameo in this first episode, but it looks like she’s going to actually feature in the future), but I’m not masochistic enough to stick around until it happens. I’m done, thank you.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 2.

Blood Blockade Battlefront (Kekkai Sensen)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a shonen manga series by the author of Trigun.

Characters

Leonard, our protagonist, has the most boring voice ever ; I’m pretty sure his narration put me to sleep at least once. Anyway, he’s come to New York City Jerusalem’s Lot, the City of Miracles, where half the population are aliens because of something weird that happened a few years ago. (By now, everybody’s gotten used to it.) He wants to make a living as a cub reporter, but that’s not really working out.

He stumbles into the secret organization Libra, who briefly confuse him with their latest recruit. They are :
– Mr Klaus, the guy in charge, who looks half-gorilla and may well be. Cool dude, though, and impressive in a fight.
– Zap, an abrasive asshole who of course gets partnered with Leo for half the episode. He uses a smaller version of Mr Klaus’s blood weapons.
– Chain, our token woman, who seems to have super-agility powers that allow her to exit the scene quickly and have nearly no screentime whatsoever.
They’re basically an underground vigilante force working against the likes of…

Femt, a cackling madman who looks more like an opportunity for Akira Ishida to chew scenery than somewhat with a coherent agenda. He takes over the airwaves and warns the city that he’s planted a “gate” that’s about to wreak havoc ; those gates are what made JL so weird in the first place, so that sounds bad.

Fortunately, a previous encounter with a gate (I’m not sure if it’s the big original one or a smaller, later one) has embued Leo with super-sight powers, allowing him to find the real gate (as opposed to the decoy planted by Femt that everybody was running after).

There’s a framing sequence set six months later with Leo’s sister reading a letter narrating all this… Which makes no sense whatsoever since the aforementioned event made her blind. WTF ?

Production Values

This is a show that puts a lot of work into making this altered version of NYC feel real and lived-in, with all the weird aliens looking completely at home. I’m less enthused by the color design, which is drowning in greys and browns until the super-powered action brings in flashes of bright colours ; I can see what the art directors were going for, but that makes most of the show look rather drab.

Overall Impression

Why the heck can’t I enjoy this more ?

On paper, I should love it. It’s got a great concept for a setting, colourful action, some decent comedic timing, and it even tries to do something clever with non-linear storytelling.

But there’s something that just doesn’t quite work. Maybe I’m just a bit tired, but the plotting felt like an impenetrable mess. (I had to watch it twice to get a better sense of what was going on, and Femt’s plan still makes no sense whatsoever.)

I’m giving it another episode to turn me around, but it had better shape up quickly.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 2.

SHOW BY ROCK!!

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a smartphone rhythm videogame (with some raising sim elements).

Characters

Cyan, our highschool protagonist, spends the first five minutes of the show thinking she’s in a K-ON! clone : so shy she agonizes for ages over joining the light-music club, and moping over her guitar every evening that she couldn’t find her nerve. Sorry, girl, that’s the wrong show : so witness your phone suddenly crapping out and suddenly transporting you into a psychedelic digital world. As a gothic lolita catgirl, of course.

She lands in the middle of a concert by super-star band Trichronika, who were completely rocking it out until some monster showed up and shifted them to a parallel combat world. Apparently that’s a thing that often happens ; at least bystanders are safe, since only people with musical ability are affected… How, wait, Cyan was also standing there, right ?

… And that’s a good thing, as Trichronika were completely overpowered and she totally saved their bacon.

Amazingly, Cyan is then recruited not by Trichronika (who are grateful), but by the far less successful band Plasmagica, who nabbed her first after the battle. They’ve got a bunny girl, a dog girl and a sheep girl. Their manager is an egg.

So Cyan’s lost in bizarre world she has no clue about… but hey, she’s in a band now ! Score !

(There’s also a stinger another rival band showing up, and another with a mastermind plotting evilly and cryptically.)

Production Values

It should be pointed out that for the battle sequences, the musician characters are shrunk in size and rendered in CG ; it looks all the more weird as they have no mouths. They return to more humanoid designs for the more mundane scenes… well, aside from the egg with a moustache.

Overall Impression

What is this I don’t even…

Well, I have to give it to this show : it fooled me completely over what genre it was going to be, and it’s a well-executed swerve. It’s also bursting at the seams with weird ideas and designs. That Cyan’s character arc doesn’t get lost in the shuffle is a near miracle.

… But there’s only so far energy and sheer weirdness can carry it ; I fear it’s going to collapse into a unholy mess very quickly. I’m pretty sure I won’t stick with it, but I suppose I’ll at least give it a second episode just to be sure. It’s at least earned that.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 2.