Jhiday – Page 19 – Blog@Jhiday.net

#04 : Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran (Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

This is an action-comedy series set in the Edo period, following two drifters who fight their way through hijinks.

Characters

Ran, our lead, is someone everyone mistakes for a masterless samurai. She can walk the walk if needed (and WILL win any fight she’s involved in), but her chief concern is to find nice places to rest, and maybe some food despite being perpetually broke.

Meow, her soon-to-be sidekick, is a martial artist from China who randomly stumbles into the same town as Ran this episode. She’s much more bumbling and naive, but no slouch in a fight either. And she’s impressed enough by Ran to stick around with her.

The plot of the week involves a crime group terrorizing a town, with the previous head family haphazardly trying to hire the two heroines to oust them. Very basic stuff that’s enough to showcase the different ways our two leads react to the situation.

Production Values

Quite good : the action setpieces are quite fluid indeed, and sell both women as badasses.

Also, this is the type of series where you can’t go wrong with an enka opening song.

Overall Impression

I’ve said my piece about this show a couple years ago, when I watched it at OM’s recommendation. In short, I didn’t care much for it : it’s a repetitive joke that got on my nerves after a while. It doesn’t help that I feel Samurai Champloo got much more mileage out of a similar setup.

Still, it’s a decent first episode ; the running gags are still fresh, the main characters haven’t annoyed me too much yet, and it looks great for its time. I could see myself put it onto my to-watch list if I hadn’t already seen it. (And then I see the next-episode trailer for the underground sake brewery episode, and urgh. Drunk Ran episodes were the worst.)

Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 2

#02 : Candidate for Goddess (Megami Kouhosei)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Unfortunately, the protagonist isn’t actually a candidate to become a deity ; that would just be too interesting. This is is instead a run-of-the-mill space opera show, where the mecha are called “Goddesses”.

Adapted from a manga series. In typical fashion, I’m told the anime ends on a cliffhanger and never resolves the plot.

Characters

In the Star Year 4084, the only thing preventing the annihilation of humanity at the hands (?) of the Victim (sic) is a 5-strong team of mecha defending our last planet. Unfortunately, while the current pilots are quite good at it, it’s acknowledged that they won’t last long due to the toll the task entails on their bodies, and so the system needs a constant input of fresh bodies.

Said five current pilots don’t get the occasion to rise above their archetypes : the casanova hounding the one girl of the team (who’s said to be by far the best of them), the nearly-mute one, the philosopher, and the jerkass. They’re all teenagers despite being veteran fighters, because of course.

Zero, our protagonist, is one of the candidates to replace them eventually. He’s lucky one of the main requirements is some genetic predisposition, as it’s certainly not his brains that qualified him. Nor his personality, as he’s more than a bit of an obnoxious twat. As these things happens, he immediately gets lost in the training facility and stumbles into the mecha hold… and then into the first cockpit on sight. Totally an accident, seriously, he’s just THAT clumsy. (Also, sick in zero-gravity.)

There is some suggestion that the Goddesses are somewhat sentient, with this one explicitly leading him to itself (and allowing him to bypass security). The process of synchronisation doesn’t look too pleasant, even accounting for the fact he’s not the official pilot.

Also seen early on are a few other teenagers who are obviously other Candidates : the sullen dude who takes every word as a personal insult, and the guy in glasses who speaks only in exposition. But then, that seems to be a plague affecting everyone in this world, from the jaded instructor who’s seen too many youngsters put to the grinder, or the mysterious figures in shadow running the show.

The OP/ED sequences showcase a much larger supporting cast, with the suggestion that each pilot gets a thematically-appropriate technician partner.

Production Values

The mecha and spaceship scenes might have been the cutting edge of CG work at the time (I have my doubts), but they certainly look clunky and dated by now. And they jar quite a bit with the pedestrian character designs and animation that make up the bulk of the show.

Overall Impression

This was a dreadfully unpromising first episode. (Technically “Curriculum 00”, but seriously now.) It accumulates the mecha & S-F clichés at… well, not great speed, as the constant exposition makes it look even more uneventful than it actually is. None of the characters shown so far are much likeable, and certainly not our protagonist.

There’s literally nothing here that’d make me come back for a second episode : it just feels uninspired through and through.

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

#01 : Boogiepop Phantom

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Sanity slippage, the anime. (Adapted from a light novel series.)

Characters

The titular Boogiepop is an urban legend bogey(wo)man ; everyone has vaguely heard spooky stories, and many of the strange happenings in the city are rumoured to be linked to her. In true horror anthology fashion, she barely shows up for a couple of minutes at the end of this first episode, killing off the monster and quickly explaining the plot. If you want to push it, she could just be a “normal” high school girl with advanced knowledge of the occult and wearing a fancy coat and hat over her uniform… but what are the odds of THAT ?

Moto, our actual point of view character for this episode is an angsty, self-conscious high school girl. She’s got issues over her best friend Yasuko becoming more socially proficient (and sexually active), and regrets not pursuing her crush on Yasuko’s former middle-school boyfriend further.

Saotome, said ex-boyfriend, has recently disappeared, and only shows up in flashbacks. Whatever happened to him (Boogiepop claims to have killed him), the thing that Moto stumbles on and has taken his form definitely isn’t him. She’s very lucky Boogiepop was in the vicinity to take out that man-eating monster.

I’m pretty sure that’s the end of Moto’s story, with each subsequent episode focusing on a different character that intersects briefly with the others’ path. As Moto’s narration says, what happened to her was just a ripple effect of a bigger story.

The credits prominently feature (and name) three characters :
– Touka is the only one who gets any actual screentime here ; she’s an ordinary student at Saotome’s highschool who crosses paths briefly with Moto and tries being helpful, despite Moto not wanting any help.
– Nagi is another student at that highschool, although she spends most of the OP looking grim in leather and riding a motorcycle. She doesn’t even show up at all here, although it’s said Saotome had a crush on her. Everyone knows her to be bad news.
– And then there’s some older guy in a trenchcoat, who doesn’t appear at all either.

Production Values

Atmosphere ! This show is all dull greys and browns, which is great at setting up the mood, but not so much at making the characters easily distinguishable (especially as the non-supernatural characters have naturalistic designs). Still, it’s very good at selling the alienation and the anything-could-happen nature of the setting.

Aside from the rocking OP/ED sequences, the soundtrack has very little actual music, instead playing up sound effects for maximum otherworldliness. What little music there is in the action sequences, is disrupted and fragmented. (In a good way.)

Overall Impression

As it happens, the first show on the list is the one I’ve already seen twice, and one of my all-time favourites. The shifting-POV, non-linear storytelling at play here is a thing of beauty, as each subsequent tale builds into a cohesive bigger picture. It’s relentless, it’s creepy, but it still leaves a ray of hope at the end of the day, thanks to Boogiepop herself.

I love this show, and I’m really tempted to rewatch it right now. That’s going to be a tough act to follow.

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

Best anime of 2014

Well, this is a bit of a conundrum. Last year felt like it had more standout series, to the point that I could just plug in everything I rated 8 or more on MAL and get just the right amount of nominees. Not this year, where I’ll have to go a bit deeper into my lists, and make some hard choices between the 7s.
(It doesn’t help that I refuse to choose anything that was already on my 2013 list, to avoid ridiculousness such as KILL la KILL charting two years in a row. Which is why I’m also disregarding the likes of Samurai Flamenco and Silver Spoon.)

So, without further ado, the list…

[1] Mushishi’s second run
I mentioned a while ago that I found marathoning through the original run of Mushishi harrowing, given the amount of shit (usually) decent people go through in there. I also speculated I’d probably enjoy it more on a more relaxed schedule. Come this year, and it turns out true : once a week is exactly the right pace. It lets each story sink in properly. The storytelling is just as good as ever, if not even better ; and those new tales feel anything but superfluous. They genuinely explore some new ideas about human nature that were yet to be covered.

[2] Barakamon
Exactly the right mix of coming-of-age story (with an adult protagonist !), “kids being kids are adorable” warmth, and very well-paced gags. I knew from the first episode I would love this, and I was never disappointed.

[3] Rage of Bahamut – Genesis
Cue the usual surprise at a pay-to-win smartphone game adaptation being so friggin’ good. But hey, there’s some mileage to be gotten from taking just the generic background setting, as well as enough money to make some jaw-dropping setpieces, and then build a fun original from scratch. Every character oozes charisma, and it’s just way more fun than it has any right being. Now, the actual plot with the angel/demon war wasn’t as interesting, but it was still a good framework for the entertaining stuff.

[4] Hanamonogatari
This year’s token contribution from the -monogatari franchise wasn’t exactly the most outstanding the series’ ever been, but it was still very good indeed, with some neat insights into Suruga. Still as good-looking as ever, of course.

[5] Shirobako
I love me a good work-com, and this is one of the most promising we’ve seen in ages. Likeable characters, with each new episode offering insight into their life struggles ; an uncompromising but not mean-spirited look at the anime industry ; and some genuinely imaginative design ideas to liven up the proceedings.

[6] Parasyte – the Maxim
Speaking of good design ideas, this horror series gets tons of mileage out of its concept, and it’s always entertaining to watch thanks to its well-paced black humour. And I say this despite not being a fan of the genre (having a weak stomach for gore).

[7] Tonari no Seki-kun
One simple idea. Tons of variations. Perfect execution. ‘Nuff said.

[8] World Conquest Zvezda Plot
This series has issues, and the first episode is a mess. But once you’ve grokked that this is a sentai show from the point of view of the Quirky Miniboss Squad (and happen to share the writer’s conviction that smoking is Evil), it’s a fun romp that never takes itself seriously and is bursting with cute ideas.

[9] Nobunaga Concerto
You either love or hate the stilted CG artstyle ; I found it fit the “history book” aesthetics and even the constant dull surprise enhanced the script’s dry wit. And that’s where the strength of the show lies : writing so charming it transcends the tired old cliché of a premise (modern kid thrown into the past and takes Oda Nobunaga’s place !) and turns it into a wonderfully cute series.

[10] Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun
2014 was a great year for comedy shows, and this was one of the best of the lot. Consistently funny, with great characters, and having tons of fun gently teasing the excesses and clichés of shoujo romance manga. (Or comicbooking in general, really.)

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
– Aldnoah.Zero followed the Code Geass school of storytelling : start big and never stop running. It was often dumb and the villains didn’t make that much sense, but it had enough momentum to keep itself going. I’m dreading the second half a bit, what with the crazy cliffhanger it’s going to have to follow upon, but at least it’ll be interesting to watch.
– Amagi Brilliant Park is yet another very funny workcom, with impeccable comedic timing and lavish attention to detail.
– Black Butler – Book of Circus : I’m surprised how I keep liking each new season of this better than the last. It helped that the most annoying characters were kept out of focus, and the ending was wonderfully dark after playing the audience’s hopes up.
– Gundam Build Fighters Try… wait, why wasn’t the first series even in my honorable mentions last year ? Was it just starting to ramp up ? Because this was definitely near-top10 material. Anyway, this is slightly less good, but it does recapture the spirit of it : fun fights, fun characters, fun worldbuilding.
– JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure – Stardust Crusaders isn’t exactly my biggest disappointment this year (*cough* Irregular at Magic High School *cough*), but it’s a noticeable step down from the awesomeness of Battle Tendency. Still a lot of fun, but very padded out with its “Stand of the week” format.
– Knights of Sidonia was more than often a bit odd, and its artstyle making it difficult to differentiate between characters who weren’t even clones sometimes hindered it, but there’s a lot to love here once you get the joke of how it takes the piss out of generic harem routines. More than that, it’s a genuinely fascinating piece of worlbuilding with a proper story attached. I’m looking forward to the second season.
– This is the second year in a row Log Horizon gets an honorable mention, bypassing the “no charting twice” rule thanks to its second season. It did run afoul of the “narcolepsy rule”, though. (No series I’ve fallen half-asleep while watching an episode can get in to the top 10.) It’s a show that can get a bit too sedate and cute at times (and that’s why I love how ridiculously hyper DATABASE is), but when it’s on, it’s golden.
– I enjoyed the first season of Love Live! tremendously, and the second one was at least as good. Losing its “save the school” plotline turned out to be a blessing, as it allowed to give more focus to what the heroines really wanted all along.
– Mekakucity Actors was this year’s token impenetrable SHAFT show : outstanding direction and artistic design, obtuse non-linear storytelling that rewards those viewers who’ve sticked with it to the end, and some genuinely creepy episodes all along the way. It’s not for everyone, but I’m glad they keep making these.
– No Game No Life was lovely in many respects, with some genuinely clever ways to build setpieces around simple games (including the most epic game of shiritori ever)… It’s just a shame about the rampant fanservice. While it’s overall playful, that slightly nasty undercurrent makes it hard to recommend outside its natural audience.
– I’ll probably have forgotten all about Noragami in a couple of years’ time (aside from its soundtrack joining my Iwasaki playlist), but it was a nice enough urban fantasy romp with impressive comedic timing and cool ideas.
– Ping Pong is worth watching for the breathtaking direction alone, but there’s also a lot to be said for a sports show that doesn’t follow the usual plot beats of the genre and lets its heroes lose at unexpected times.
– It’s clear by now that Psycho-Pass 2 is nowhere as good as the first series, but it’s still plenty enjoyable if you can overlook how stupid the plot has become. It’s got plenty of “clever” ideas to cover over the fact that it doesn’t have that much new to say, and that’s good enough for me.
– Space Dandy was the platonic ideal of unevenness, and I’m sure that was part of the idea. Some of the variations on the concept missed the mark by being a bit dull or just too bizarre, but there were enough good episodes to make it worth watching. And it actually did land its ending properly, which was a downright miracle.
– Still, the World is Beautiful : wow, a fantasy romance where royals actually running the country is the core of the show ! It having what’s probably the best female lead of the season helps a lot, too.
– Terror in Resonance had flaws, including a civilian viewpoint character who barely witnessed anything and a botched denouement. But the cop show/conspiracy part of it was a lot of fun, and the direction made the most out of the setpieces.
– Witch Craft Works managed to edge into the list at the last minute thanks to a timely marathon. It’s much more entertaining than I initially gave it credit for, with pitch-perfect comedic timing that never fails to have antagonists crushed in five seconds if it can be funny. And it looks incredible, too. Shame about the very boring male lead, but you can’t have it all.

via [Anime] The 2014 RPG.net Best Anime Vote – Page 7.

Fall 2014 capsules

Hmm. For some reason Karen Senki wasn’t even on my checklist. I can’t even find any hint it’s actually airing in Japan. But hey, it’s at the very least a Japanese co-production by the creators of Sakura Wars, and Crunchyroll is streaming it, so close enough for a token mention in this thread.

This is quite an odd series. For one, it’s 12 half-length episodes. For two, it’s full-CG. And for three, I can’t tell whether the plot being so disjointed and making no sense whatsoever is intentional.

It follows the adventures of Karen, who wages an essentially single-woman war against robots, who have taken over society and killed her cute young sister. (Or so she claims ; the flashbacks show nothing of the sort.) But the robots’ rule doesn’t seem that drastic, as everyone else seems to be carrying on normally, aside from whenever they have to deal with the collateral damage of Karen’s battles. Her being randomly attacked by killer-bots seems to be the exception, not the rule. One of her associates seems perfectly fine having a robot lover. And frankly, Karen just doesn’t sound entirely sane.

Or this may just be because the series as a whole is an excuse to string along elaborate action sequences. Now, they’re quite well-directed ; the problem isn’t so much that they’re hard to follow, but that they don’t fit with their context. But the real issue here is that the actual character animation is goddarn awful. People don’t move that way ! They can emote decently, but just about anything else about them is awkward. This is massively distracting, and doesn’t help the series’ case.

I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt, and a second episode. But I dread it’s going to test my patience quickly.

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

Anyway, let’s say a few words on I Can’t Understand What My Husband Is Saying (Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken). It’s a series of shorts adapting a 4-panel gag manga series. Basically, it’s about a wife being flummoxed by her husband’s ultra-otaku ways. It’s mildly funny, but most of these jokes have already been done to death, and you often wonder why those two even got married in the first place. (That’s actually addressed immediately, but her reasoning is more than a little evasive.) This is a perfectly inoffensive show, but I doubt it’ll hold my attention for long unless it gets significantly better soon.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 2.

As it turns out, I just can’t make a proper review of Fate/stay Night – Unlimited Blade Works. Too much of my viewing experience was influenced by my foreknowledge from the DEEN series & movie, as well as Fate/Zero. It’s not like I can remember exactly who’s a Master (and of which Servant), especially as we’re in a different route and things might change around a bit, but I still know more than a few incoming twists that make it impossible to offer a “virgin” preview. (And I do have doubts on whether the series is aimed at anyone but people who’ve already seen either or both of these previous shows.)

Still, this is a good start. Way less infodumpy than Fate/Zero, and with some actual impressive battles right off the bat in this opening double-length episode. It helps a lot that it features Rin as a protagonist ; as someone who actually has a clue what’s going on, but not the details of who she’s fighting, she offers a more interesting and proactive perspective than Shirou did the first time around.

So far, so good. I was wondering whether I had lost interest in the franchise, but this looks fun enough to be worth watching.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 2.

Mysterious Joker (Kaitou Joker) might be at least partially to blame for my sleepiness. It’s a kids’ show about a quirky Gentleman Thief… and if you’re wondering what’s the difference with Magic Kaitou, it’s the targeted age group : this show aims much lower. All the characters are highly annoying and SHOUTING all the time, the jokes fall flat, and I literally couldn’t follow the plot because I was falling asleep every couple of minutes. Something about the protagonist recruiting a “ninja” fanboy kid ? I don’t care at all, and it really doesn’t help that another show with similar themes which is superior in every way is airing concurrently. Pass.

Also falling flat : The Circumstances in My Home’s Bathtub (Orenchi no Furo Jijo). Now, this type of series of shorts based on 4-panel gag manga often have the problem of only delivering the same joke over and over, never really amounting to anything. Here, the issue is that I can’t even see the joke. Dude brings a merman to his bathtub by mistake, and that’s pretty much it. They don’t even have much banter. I just don’t get it.

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

Sometimes I’m baffled by weird gimmicky series of shorts. Such as Hi☆sCoool! SeHa Girls, where anthropomorphic personalizations of Sega’s consoles enter a bizarre dedicated school ; it’s mostly an excuse to string along “nostalgic” allusions that most often fly completely other my head (as I was more of a Nintendo fan). It’s a better use of full CG animation than we usually get for these, but it’s still a niche gag series where I’m not part of the audience.

Oh, and since I’m pressed for time, I’m going to quickly skip over Gundam Build Fighters TRY : long story short, it’s very promising, doesn’t require any knowledge of the first season thanks to a time jump and a different cast (although Mr Ral still makes a cameo), and I’m pleased to see it has the girl as a true fighter and the leader of the team.

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

No full review for Ronja the the Robber’s Daughter, as as I fell asleep watching the first episode and don’t care to give it another try. This Ghibli adaptation of a Swedish fantasy book is just very, very dull, and the uninspiring full-CG animation doesn’t help. (Those characters emote way too exaggeratedly for my tastes.) Don’t care, won’t watch any more.

Bonjour Sweet Love Pâtisserie has a completely different problem : it’s a generic shoujo “male harem” romance show that barely gets to breathe in the 5 minutes or so of screentime per week it gets. As a result, all the characters are walking clichés, and the “glamourous baking academy” setup feels completely artificial. Not really worth your time, this one.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 6.

Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero (Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru)

(12 episodes, first two aired at once)

What’s it about ?

While this looks at first like yet another “cute girls doing cute things” slice-of-life series, this is really a magical girl show.

Characters

The series revolves around a middle-school Hero Club, whose seeming purpose is to be communicatively cheerful and lift everyone’s spirits up. Puppet shows for elementary schoolkids, finding new owners for abandoned kittens, the like.
– Yuuna, the titular main character, is the one with the most enthusiasm. Good at improvising, too.
– Togo, her new neighbour and “best friend”, lost the use of her legs in a traffic accident. Nobody says anything about her being confined to a wheelchair, and certainly not Yuuna, who takes care of her a lot, but she’s obviously frustrated by everyone being so nice to her and her own impotence. (Also, good with computers.)
– Fu, senior and club president, seems quite genial, but it quickly becomes apparent she’s keeping secrets from the others. (This includes her cute little sister Itsuki.)

The twist is that the four of them have been selected to deal with attacks from abstract otherworldly creatures called “Vertexes”. But Fu never told them, so they get to learn the job in the middle of an incursion. Itsuki deals as best as she can with her sister’s instructions, and Yuuna is a gifted natural, but Togo is such a bundle of insecurities that she just freezes and stays behind.

Fu eventually explains that they’re part of an official program (with heavy religious overtones), and there are a bunch of other teams all over the countries (so it’s entirely random who gets to deal with incursions), but frankly it’s still a bit vague.

Production Values

Decent enough. The “battle scenery” backgrounds are a sharp contrast from “reality” ; not exactly Madoka-levels of weird, but still quite strange. The fight sequences are fine if a bit confused, and the transformation sequences have a bit more fanservice than I’d like.

I like that the OP sequence (shown at the end) doesn’t show a powered form for Togo, keeping it ambiguous whether she’ll ever get to fully participate.

Overall Impression

Oh, look, a Madoka clone ! (Complete with the deliberately vague promotion, I see.) Now, that’s probably an unfair comparison, as this looks like a much more straightforward magical girl show, with much blander designs… and hey, there’s nothing wrong with taking a few cues from one of the best shows of the decade.

Taken on its own merits, this is a perfectly decent series. It’s got some good sequences (such as the scene where everything just stops in mid-air as the incursion starts), and the melodrama isn’t too overwrought yet. (I wouldn’t usually trust Seiji Kishi on a dramatic series, as he’s more of a comedy director and often inserts inappropriate mood whiplash, but he’s doing fine so far.)

Okay, I’m intrigued. Show me what you’ve got.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 6.

Girlfriend BETA (Girlfriend – Kari)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a mobile dating sim videogame.

Characters

The game boasts OVER 100 GIRLS YOU CAN DATE, and this first episode makes a point of introducing several dozens of them. Of course, since they get about 30 seconds of screentime each, they’re pretty much all one-dimensional entities ; most of them can be summed up as “the quiet one on the library committee”, “the way-too-promiscuous photographer” or “the ditzy student council president”.

What’s conspicuously absent, though, is any kind of male lead. There ARE boys in this highschool, but they’re all background extras. (I think we can hear ONE line of random chatter out of them throughout the whole episode.) All the attention is over the girls.

Our de facto protagonist is Kokomi, from the rhythmic gymnastics club. Not that she has much of a personality ; she’s nice and the straight guy in most conversations, and that’s pretty much it. She’s a plot device on legs whose purpose is to meet with tons of other girls over the course of the day.

Chloé Lemaire, the French exchange student, is the pretext for what little of a plot there is here : she left a macguffin in Kokomi’s clubroom, who proceeds to spend the rest of the day looking for her so that she can give it back. Thrilling stuff. Chloé may be the most developed character here, and she’s still a walking stereotype : the Foreigner who speaks Weird, has trouble with proverbs, and loves all things Japanese.

Production Values

Decent enough, although you kinda get the impression that the game designers ran out of ideas and ended up making some girls looking a bit too similar. While this wouldn’t matter too much in the original context, it’s a bit distracting when they have to be in the same scene like here.

Overall Impression

I can sort of get the reasoning behind this series. The source game is relatively popular, so an adaptation got greenlighted ; but since the game has no canonical depiction of the player character and any path he might chose might be rife with disappointment and fandom flamewars, why not just do away with him entirely ?

The problem is that now that you’ve taken all potential “dating” out of a dating sim adaptation, you’re left with pretty much nothing. A generic “cute girls doing cute things” show, except the characters have paper-thin personalities and were never design to interact together.

This isn’t a complete disaster. It’s still watchable, and mostly inoffensive. But it’s the epitome of content-free comfort food, and I have way more interesting shows to spend my time with.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2014 – Page 6.

Your Lie in April (Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso)

(22 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a shonen romance manga.
(Since the manga is due to end simultaneously, there’s a good chance for the whole story to be adapted.)

Characters

Kousei, our 14-year-old male lead. Throughout his childhood, his ill mother forced him to play the piano, training him to public-performance level through much duress. And then he cracked, and she died soon after. That was a couple of years ago ; now he’s done with it. But he still clings to the music world a bit, charting music sheets as a part-time job.

Tsubaki, his childhood friend, will totally deny she’s into him. And maybe they’re really just friends… but come on, this is a romance series. She’s quite fun, though.

Ryouta, one of their friends, is the typical jock : MVP of the football team and serial charmer. Not a bad guy, though.

Kaori, the girl Tsubaki set up a date with Ryouta for. (That meant inviting Kousei as a fourth.) She puts on airs as a charmingly demure girl, but really she’s more mischevious and aggressive than that. Also, she plays the violin.

Production Values

It’s a bit weird how we alternate between super-fluid music-playing set pieces, and much rougher comedic shorthand. It mostly works, but it takes a bit to get used to it.

Overall Impression

On first viewing, I found this a bit dull and unmemorable. After a second watch… well, it deserves a better reception than that. It’s a perfectly okay romance show, with fun female characters (I reserve my judgement on the boys). Kousei’s past trauma is a bit overdone compared to the otherwise light tone, though it’s not too jarring.

But the key issue here is that there’s not much of a hook. It sets up a few budding relationships, but there’s no firm sense of where this is headed. It’s pleasant enough to watch, but I’m not entirely sold yet.

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

Gonna be the Twin-Tails!! (Ore, Twintails ni Narimasu.)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a series of comedy light novels.

Characters

Souji, our protagonist, is a high-school student with a very strong twintails fetish. That’s all he ever thinks about. He evaluates each every girl around him according to their twintails quality (or potential, if they don’t wear their hair that way). He tries to stay quiet about it as much as possible, as he knows it’s not exactly socially-acceptable, but he doesn’t always succeed.

Aika, his childhood friend, does happen to have magnificent twintails, which I’m sure has no link to her obvious crush on him… but she’s so tsundere and, well, familiar that she’s been effectively friend-zoned. He just seems to used to her being around to really care about her twintails. (Also, she’s highly trained in martial arts, because of course she is.)

Twoearle, a mysterious woman (without twintails !) who shows up out of the blue and starts stalking Souji clumsily. Absolutely unable to speak in without double entendres. She eventually gives him a magic bracelet and explains : he’s the only hope against the Elemerians, invaders from a parallel dimension who have started a war against twintails. (They feed off “twintail energy”, or something like that.) Only him can beat them !

Lizardgildy, the captain of the invasion force, is a true sentai villain. He’s even got hordes of identical small-fry footsoldiers ! And a machine that captures twintailed girls and then extracts energy out of them, undoing their hair in the process…

But then, this is really a sentai show : when Souji activates the bracelet, he transforms into TAIL RED, a warrior who can use twintail energy to beat the baddies up… and happens to be a petite twintailed girl.

(The ED sequence suggests he’s going to be joined in by Aika and the Student Council President, who’s one of the victims of the week.)

Production Values

Rather less fanservice than you’d expect, really ; the camera is a bit perverted at times, but most of the time it tries to sell this as a SERIOUS and TOTALLY NORMAL sentai show. So does the bombastic music.

Overall Impression

Well, this was ever going to be dumb fun, or an unwatchable trainwreck. The good news : the joke works. It’s a very stupid premise, but the direction plays it entirely straight (well, as straight as a sentai show can be), and the contrast between the deadpan exposition and the plot’s complete insanity is hilarious.

I’m not sure it’s a joke that can carry a full series, but I’m willing to give it a try.

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

SHIROBAKO

(24-ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Work-com about the animation industry.
(A manga adaptation is also being released concurrently.)

Characters

Aoi, our protagonist, is a production assistant at an animation studio. Basically, this means a lot of running around (and driving very unsafely) to make materials go from a pair of hands to another in something that vaguely resembles the original schedule, all the while managing the egos and the good health of the people involved. Now, while she does have some bouts of clumsiness and uneasiness, she is actually quite good at it (and at least better than her screw-up of a senior colleague, the messes of whom she then has to clean up). And it’s obviously an entry-level position before she moves on to a more gratifying job higher up… or so she tells herself.

The episode opens with a scene set in her high school days, where she and her fellow club members produce an amateur animated film ; they vow to meet back and work together after they end their studies. Which, er, didn’t happen ; Aoi has clearly lost track of most of them. But hey, that’s what further episodes are for ! Hopefully they’ll be reintroduced properly later on, as here they’re all kind of a bit lost in a blur.

The studio’s main members are better defined, despite there being a ton of them. Sure, I sometimes lost track of who’s doing what exactly, but overall their personalities are easy to grasp and they work well one against another.

Production Values

As pretty as you’d expect from studio PA Works. They went to town on the gratuitous crazy driving scenes, but there are worse places to spend budget on.

Overall Impression

This first episode really takes its sweet time to come together. The high-school opener doesn’t really work as an introduction to the characters, and the introduction to Aoi’s job feels a bit off. (The long and gratuitous chase scene doesn’t help.) It’s only when the crisis comes in that it all falls together : suddenly the characters come alive as they stress under pressure, and the domino nature of anime production schedules becomes clearer. The stakes get higher, and it’s better at showing how these people interact that when things go smoothly.

I was quite worried for a while that this could be very boring and filled with flat characters, but the show recovered nicely. If it can keep that up, I’m on board.

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