Turning Girls is the latest web-thingie from Studio Trigger. Now, you may remember this studio was founded with much fanfare by the mad minds behind TTGL & Panty & Stocking w/ Garterbelt ; they also produced the wonderfully-animated Little Witch Academia one-shot for the Anime Mirai project earlier this year. But they’ve yet to produce an actual full series, and won’t until this Fall. In the meantime, all they’ve given us are shoe-string-budget shorts like Inferno Cop and now this.
Inferno Cop had some zany charm, but I quickly got tired of it. This is noticeably worse : an attempt at satire that’s not really funny, and has nothing more to say than “[female stereotype of the week] are annoying and terrible people, dur dur”. Also, it looks absolutely horrible, like something that was quickly thrown together between proper projects (which it probably was).
Don’t watch this crap. Especially when there are non-terrible takes on similar themes (such as the all-fujoshi new season of Genshiken) due out this very summer.
via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013.
And now for something completely different : a few words about the first instalment of Ghost in the Shell : Arise.
This is a series of four one-hour OVAs, the first of which was released on DVD/BluRay AND debuted in theaters about a week ago. The pitch is that it’s a prequel about how the Section 9 team got together, so you don’t really need to know anything about the previous movies & series in the franchise.
The good news is that it’s very good indeed. The plot for this opening chapter may be a bit too convoluted for its own good, and it certainly deserves a rewatch to make sure all the pieces fall together, but then the same could be said about many SAC episodes. And it’s certainly got a clever twist that puts everything under a new light… and makes the Major look even more awesome in retrospect. It’s also great-looking, with impressively-animated action sequences that contribute a lot to conveying the stakes.
In many respects this is a fanservice project (“so this is how the Major met Aramaki…”), but it’s well done enough not to feel too contrived. (And it refrains from having the whole of the team coincidentally investigating the same initial event.)
I should probably mention that all the roles have been recast with different voice-actors. It doesn’t jar too much ; sure, Maaya Sakamoto is easily recognizable, but she recaptures a lot of Atsuko Tanaka’s original performance (and there’s precedent for her to play a younger Major anyway). Also, Miyuki Sawashiro seems to have a lot of fun playing a Tachikoma Logicoma, which is delightful.
The next episode is due in November ; it’s going to be a long wait…
via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013.
I give up : I can’t muster the will of giving Gifuu Doudou!!: Kanetsugu to Keiji (“Dazzling Sengoku Period Story: Kanetsugu & Keiji”) a full review. It’s going to be hard to beat as the most mind-numbingly dull show of the season. It may be a cultural thing, but those “legendary” men spending their time monologuing in poetry about the beauty of the world, and patting each other in the back on how awesome they are, just bore me to tears. And this ain’t helped by the retro-ish artstyle that makes all those 6-feet-tall forces of nature look the same to me.
via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 2.
A few words on Yami Shibai first : it’s a series of horror shorts with peculiar collage-like artstyle… and it doesn’t really work for me. Maybe because the first tale is so deliberately obtuse. (I think I get what the twist is supposed to be, but would it have killed the creators to spell it out ?) It’s not like it’s doing anything particularly original, anyway. But nice artstyle, still.
