Jhiday – Page 29 – Blog@Jhiday.net

Hamatora the Animation

What’s it about ?

A back-alley team of Private Investigators. Who happen to have super-powers, and occasionally fight super-powered crime.

(There’s a manga version being published concurrently.)

Characters

Nice is nominally the PI agency’s leader, but it’s like herding cats, and his occasional stubborness doesn’t help. A running joke is that he’s terrible at managing his finances. His case this episode : investigating the disappearance of several college girls. (He also effortlessly foils a bank robbery while making a withdrawal.) His power : listening to music makes him super-fast, I think.

Murasaki is his purple-themed partner. He’s much more suave and sophisticated, but just as stubborn. He takes the case that will actually provide them some decent money : protecting the safe of a rich family, whose patriarch has died without explaining how to open it. His power : either super-strength or super-resiliency, I can’t quite tell.

Also working with them : laid-back Birthday (electrical powers) and Dr Ratio (x-ray vision that lets him see weak points in enemies), who both take a bodyguarding job.

Rounding up the agency’s cast : Koneko, who acts as their secretary, and Hajime, a gluttonous girl that even the opening titles have no clue what she brings to the table. Also : the owner of the restaurant they operate out of.

Art is a police detective who’s old friends with Nice. He seems delighted to have the team’s help for what the police don’t have time to deal with. (He’s the one footing the bill for the first case.) There are hints he’s got a hidden agenda, though.

As it happens, all three jobs are actually different angles on the same case ; they solve it together by the episode’s end.

Production Values

Very stylish indeed. The wild colour shift for the slo-mo power activation sequences are especially pretty.

Overall Impression

Hey, that’s actually quite good ! The mystery story is well-constructed, the characters produce some lively banter, there are some decent jokes, and the fight scenes are fun to watch. That it’s not actually an adaptation of anything even gives me hope that it’ll be able to properly pace its story out (an issue that has plagued many recent shows also directed by Seiji Kishi).

So far, so good. Let’s see how it develops.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 4.

D-Fragments!

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a comedy manga about one of those high school clubs that don’t do much of anything.

Characters

Kazama, our male lead, is a Delinquent. He’s even got a posse named after him (with an ugly short fat dude, and a tanned hunk who may be partially foreign). On the other hand, they’re way more talk than actual action, and it’s even joked later on that there are far more prominent delinquent group in this school anyway. Really, Kazama is more the straight man than anything here.

Roka is a small girl who’s the head of the Game-Making-Club. Who don’t actually create any games (they just play around), and don’t even have the required number of members for the club to survive. So obviously she’s desperate to find new members, by any means necessary. The joke here is that each of the members patterns themselves after an element ; Roka wields “fire” (read : moe) as a weapon. And when that doesn’t work, she can fall back on her alternate type : Darkness.

Other members : Sakura, who’s Water (read : waterboarding) ; Minami, who uses Thunder (with a taser) ; and Chitose, who’s Earth mostly by virtue of having her hands dirty when she punches people. They’ve actually got a bit more depth beyond that ; I won’t spoil the joke with Minami, but Chitose managed to get elected Student Council President, apparently by beating up everyone else to submission. Why this devious mastermind is slumming it with such a club remains to be elaborated.

Ataru used to be part of Kazama’s group of friends, except he stayed a straight arrow and is now the Student Council Vice-President. Er, the “straight arrow” part shouldn’t be taken at face value : he looks to be as much of a pervert as the lot of them, if not bigger. At the very least, he’s very attracted to Chitose, and it’s obvious what their rivalry is really about.

Production Values

Quite good ; the action sequences are animated fluidly, and the director knows how to set up atmosphere for a throwaway gag.

Overall Impression

Well, crap : I found this hilarious. It’s got some impressive comedic timing indeed, and more than one joke. It helps that it’s got characters with actual personalities, served by some great voice-acting. (In particular, Hana Kanazawa as Roka is a riot.) And it’s just very funny. I have no clue whether it can sustain itself for three months, but I’m game for it.

This is the very reason why I try out everything : it’s a kind of unassuming gem I could have let pass by otherwise.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 4.

Super Sonico The Animation

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

A whole anime series about Nitroplus’s mascot virtual character, because YOU demanded it !

(I certainly didn’t.)

Characters

Super Sonico is our focus character, so this is all about her. Sonico being late in the morning ! Sonico being nice to kids ! Sonico at college, where she’s brilliant but as terrible attendance ! Sonico at her job as a gravure idol, where pervert clients try to take advantage of her ! Sonico helping out at her Grandma’s restaurant ! Sonico with her underground band !

It’s hard for any side characters to make an impression when the camera remains laser-targeted at the main character, so the one who does steal the show is her manager at the idol company, mostly because he wears a scary mask for no fathomable reason.

Production Values

You might expect this to feature the 3DCG animation that’s all the rage these days (and was a feature of past Super Sonico clips), but only the ED sequence is like that ; the rest of the series is traditional animation. With quite a bit of fanservice, obviously.

Overall Impression

This is the epitome of vacuity. There’s no escaping it : Super Sonico is a very boring character who leads a very boring life. She’s generically cute, and that’s it. A full episode was already tedious ; I just can’t fathom how anyone could withstand a full series of it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

The Pilot’s Love Song (Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a very successful light novel series. Before you start running away, I should mention it’s the “ambitious steampunk” type of light novels, not the generic incest/harem/etc. ones that have plagued recent years.

Characters

Kal-el, our teenage male lead. (Who the heck though this was an appropriate name for a character in a pseudo-European steampunk setting ?) He’s a new recruit for an airship piloting school that is set on a flying island. I can’t quite get a bead on him, personality-wise : most of the time he’s your generic protagonist, but at times he’ll have fits of unexplained anger, or impenetrable flashbacks involving some sort of priestress.

Ariel, his “sister”. (I get the nagging feeling he’s been adopted, and some spoilers I’ve encountered pretty much confirm it.) They have typical siblings relationships : often quarrelling over insignificant nonsense, but still there for each other. They’ve actually got two other sisters, but Ariel is the one who also enlisted and is the copilot for his plane.

There’s some mysterious new student whose main distinguishing feature is that he scowls angrily at people. (I don’t think he even utters a single word this episode.) Everyone else wonders what’s the deal with this angry loner bozo.

Claire, a cute shy girl Kal-el meets in the countryside. Ten minutes later, they’re already touching intimately. Well, that was quick. They reluctantly part ways late in the evening : she lives in the “noble” section of the island, which he can’t access because he’s a commoner.

The narration is all doom and gloom. This can’t bode well.

Production Values

Scenery porn !

Overall Impression

Hmm. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this : it does some good (if not particularly innovative) world-building, establishes the characters quite well, looks quite good overall…

But the core problem here is Kal-el : it’s obvious there’s some sort of twist about him incoming soon, but in the meantime the character is left in an awkward place where he keeps shifting personalities randomly. And let’s be blunt : his default “nice ordinary guy” personality is quite boring indeed. (Not that the “angry” one is any better, especially given the lack of context for his outbursts.) Which removes a lot of charm his romance with Claire might have.

Frankly, I just don’t have the patience to wait for the twist ; the story is just too bland so far. I won’t be bothering with this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

Nobunagun

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of an action manga series that defies any kind of one-line summary.

Characters

Shio, our protagonist, is a quirky high-school girl with hints of chuunibyou. At the very least, she’s a military nerd, and has no friends whatsoever. Also, she gets weird dreams where she’s Oda Nobunaga (as a middle-aged dude with a mustache), which she’s completely nonplussed about.

Kaoru is the one girl in her class that makes repeated attempts at befriending the weird loner during the class trip to Taiwan. (Why do I get the nagging feeling there’s more to her than can be taken at face value ?)

A giant monster invader from space, who suddenly interrupts all this riveting high school drama by landing close by and killing tons of people.

“Jack the Ripper”, or at least one of his distant descendants who’s part of Earth’s first response team, and somehow can channel the bloodline of his ancestor to summon a super-weapon. Unfortunately, he’s underestimated the Invader (what do you mean there were hundreds of smaller ones inside ?), and his backup are still on their way. Oops.

Fortunately, it turns out that Shio is a descendant of Nobunaga, and can use Jack’s macguffin to summon her own weapon : the Nobuna-Gun. Witness her glee as she coins that so-terrible-it’s-awesome pun ! She’s going to enjoy this.

Production Values

Very fun to look at ; the first half has scores of random annotations that quickly set the scene and are funny on their own right, and the second half makes some great use of colour to enhance the atmosphere and underline the action.

Overall Impression

Well, this is definitely a series that knows how to build up its rampant insanity. It knows what it’s doing, and how to make it as impactful as possible.

… On the other hand, I have a hard time caring ; I can’t connect with anyone but Shio, and even then that’s not enough for me to stick with the series. I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s me.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

My Neighbour Seki (Tonari no Seki-kun)

(12ish 8-minute episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a gag manga.

Characters

Seki is a high-school boy who does anything but pay attention in class ; this episode, he builds an impressive chain of dominoes with dozens of erasers, and other various stationery.

Yokoi, our point-of-view character, sits right next to him ; she’s both bemused and fascinated by her neighbour’s antics. And of course it’s always her who gets chastised for not paying attention.

Production Values

Not very good, but it’s well-directed enough to sell the jokes.

Overall Impression

From what I understand, the manga features endless variations of the same basic joke. But it’s a good joke, and 8 minutes is the right duration to give each iteration the room to breathe, without outliving its welcome.

It made me laugh, and I’m up for more of the same.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

Nobunaga the Fool

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Arghlsidfssqe.

Wait, let me try this again. This is a bizarre multimedia project ; the other media being stage plays. (With animated sequences.)
The setting involves two twin planets ; the “East world” is vaguely modelled on the Warring Kingdoms, while the “West world” features random European historical figures from centuries apart.

Also, mecha. And tarot.

Characters

Nobunaga “the Fool” is obviously our protagonist. He’s the cocky teenage son of the Oda family who has adventures with his sidekicks Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi. He’s supposedly a cunning strategist, but so far his only display of that is “tell everyone to run like hell from the bigass army that’s vastly superior”, so yeah. Not that he’s taken seriously, given his reputation for mischief. Thus plenty of people die, and he vows to “change the world”.

Jeanne Kaguya d’Arc (/facepalm) is a teenage girl from the West world whose propensity to hear voices has labelled her a witch. The mysterious dreams she’s been having of being burned at the stake (in “Paris”, /double-facepalm) aren’t helping. Since those dreams also prominently feature Nobunaga, she vows to head for the East world.

Leonardo da Vinci agrees. Wait, were you stalking her to appear just right at this moment ? And what’s with the megaphone ? Anyway, he works for King Arthur, and together they board Magellan’s spaceship. From which they drop onto the East world, with a mecha in tow. And they crash-land right next to Nobunaga, who immediately hijacks the mecha to fight the incoming enemy armies.

Production Values

Perfectly alright. The character designs have the same clean genericness as most other Satelight productions, but they’re the least of the show’s problem.

Overall Impression

Where do I even start with this ? It’s pointless to deride the laughably inept use of historical figures, although they sure are distracting. I presume it’s supposed to be a fun romp, but the result is just a terrible mess that fails to bring its disparate elements into a coherent whole. It just feels completely creatively bankrupt, and desperate in its attempt to coopt everything into itself. That none of the characters are interesting (aside from maybe da Vinci, who’s just weird) doesn’t help.

No way I’m watching one more episode of this.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

Space Dandy

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo) makes his grand directing return (let’s all politely ignore Kids on the Slope) with a comedy S-F series he’s described as “26 episodes of Mushroom Samba”.

This isn’t false advertising.

Characters

Space Dandy, our protagonist, makes a living exploring the universe to catalogue exotic alien species. (From what I understand, he’s a freelancer working for some governmental office.) If these travels coincidentally happen to make him visit every single space restaurant of the aptly-name “Boobies” franchise, well that can’t be helped, can it ? If you haven’t twigged by now, he’s a lecherous lout, and not exactly the sharpest bulb in the mixed metaphor ; but he’s got the charisma to kinda get away with it. Well, just barely.

QT is his long-suffering robot assistant. The poor thing is so obsolete it has to read books to keep up to date. Still, by default it has the highest IQ in the spaceship, and so it’s stuck being the straight ~~man~~ robot to Space Dandy. And complaining about the crappy unhelpful narration.

“Meow” (real name unpronounceable) is a cat-alien that Space Dandy initially mistakes as a rare species. He’s not ; he’s a completely ordinary Betelgeusean. But he vaguely remembers a place with exotic aliens, so our heroes take him for a ride. After a trippy journey that involved accidentally unravelling the fabric of spacetime, it turns out that this is a very dangerous place indeed.

Dr Gel is an agent of the Gogol Empire (*snicker*) who’s tracking our hero because he’s the Key to the Universe or somesuch nonsense. Now, I hope he survives being summarily executed by his boss for losing track of his target (during the spacetime havoc previously mentioned), as the design for his ship is so amazing (the Statue of Liberty’s head in bondage !) that I want to see more of it.

Production Values

Very impressive indeed ; it’s bursting at the seams with creativity and style, and the wild action sequences have to be seen to be believed.

It helps that Yoko Kanno turns out one of her best scores in ages.

Overall Impression

Warning : this is a very dumb show that starts with Space Dandy monologuing about how butts are better than boobies. It sets the mood : every character in this is a moron, and haphazardly bumbles from mishap to disaster. You’ve been forewarned ; the stupid is deep in this one.

This being said, it’s every bit as good as you’d expect from its pedigree : there’s nothing wrong with plain dumb fun, and Watanabe is a master of the form who knows how to produce a damn entertaining show. He somehow manages the tour de force of making Space Dandy somewhat bearable as a character, despite all the boneheaded actions he does during the course of this episode. (QT and even Meow savagely mocking him helps.)

Everything it’s been hyped up to be, and then some. Definitely one of the best shows of the season already.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

Noragami

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Urban fantasy action-comedy, adapted from a manga series.

Characters

Yato, our protagonist, is a god. Admittedly, not one of the big leagues : he’s a vagrant god with no dedicated shrine and barely any followers. But he’s ambitious, so he’s eager to answer the prayers of the rare people calling to him to try and build his fanbase. His “missions” include anything from purging the nefarious ghosts haunting various place, to finding a lost cat.

Tomone, his partner, is a magical blade who’s very efficient at dispatching ghosts. Unfortunately, she’s about had it with her master’s hobo lifestyle, and leaves him without even a month’s notice. How rude.

Hiyori used to be an ordinary high school girl before crossing Yato’s path… no, wait, scratch that, she was already a bit weird even before that. Still, her life completely changes when she’s hit by a truck while trying to push Yato out of the way (not that he even needed the help), and she’s now half-dead. Basically, her soul randomly leaves her body from time to time. Obviously she doesn’t enjoy the situation, but it’s not like Hato has any clue whether she can even be made “normal” again. Still, if she makes the token 5-yen offering, he’ll be happy to look into it…

Production Values

Pretty good, as you’d expect from Studio Bones. The ghosts are creepy as heck, and the action sequences are well-directed.

Overall Impression

This was perfectly okay. It’s got a decent premise, with some fun world-building, and some very good comedic timing. A lot depends on how much you can bear with Yato, who’s a bit of a cocky brat ; but Hiyori is a good foil for him, and they play well together.

I’m probably going to give it a couple more episodes to see where it goes ; but I’m not sure I’ll stick with it, as this is a busy season for me… Oh, wait, Taku Iwasaki is doing the score. Well, that settles it : I’m in.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 3.

Recently, my sister is unusual. (ImoCho – Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okashiinda ga.)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

It’s a ~~light novel~~ manga adaptation with an absurdly long title with the word “imouto” in it : you know what to expect.

Actually, no, you don’t. Brace yourselves.

Characters

Yuuya, the male lead. His father has just remarried, and new!Mom comes with a stepsister in tow. Oh, and both parents bugger off to India the next day for work reasons, so the two new siblings will be left alone together in the house. Yuuya’s not thrilled about this, to put it mildly. But since he’s a boring generic guy, he mostly takes it in stride. Forget about him, he’s not really the protagonist anyway.

Mitsuki, said new stepsister, whose behaviour looks very erratic until you start seeing her perspective. No, she’s not randomly assaulting her brother and then immediately backing the hell off due to regret or whatever : those incestuous “episodes” actually happen whenever she’s possessed by a ghost fairy. No, seriously.

Hiyori, said fairy, is hugely attracted to Yuuya, whom she calls “big brother” for some unexplained reason. She comes in tow with a magical chastity belt which is now permanently affixed to Mitsuki, to her great displeasure. (And to her distress, as she wastes her “three-minute-open-per-hour” window just before having to go to the toilet. Cue five minutes of embarrassment “comedy” until the episode mercifully ends.)

There are various other side characters making appearances, presumably to be fleshed out later. You know a series commits to a theme when even the token teacher drones a lesson about the etymology of the world “imouto” and how it relates to incest.

Production Values

Considering how many shots focus on Mitsuki wearing the chastity belt, you won’t be surprised for there to be some heavy (if playful) censorship. Still, there’s no mistaking what happens in the scene where Hiyori sexually assaults Mitsuki (and masturbates while possessing her body), so this is definitely a NSFW softcore porn show.

Besides that, it doesn’t look half bad. I’m not sure what’s going on in the ED sequence, though, as it looks like a completely different show. (Hiyori fantasizing about Yuuya, maybe ?)

Overall Impression

Well, this is quite a rollercoaster. Whatever you may thing about it, this is certainly one of the most creative incest-bait show I’ve ever watched. Not only is the premise completely bonkers, but it tackles it headlong and runs with its lunacy. It’s never boring, I’ll grant it that.

I’m almost tempted to keep watching just for the trainwreck factor, but then I remember that I’m already watching too many shows, and there’s plenty actually promising stuff upcoming in the next few days.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2014 – Page 2.