Jhiday – Page 51 – Blog@Jhiday.net

Tamayura ~hitotose~

What’s it about ?

Slice of life adventures about a group of high school girls in a backwater little country town. One of them’s really into photography.

We already got a short series of OVAs about this last December ; this is a full-scale series that starts way back at the beginning.

Characters

Yuu, our protagonist. She spent her childhood in the little town until her parents moved to the big city ; now they’re coming back just as Yuu enters high school. Mom has just quit her former job to go and assister Grandma at her bakery ; Dad is dead, but manages to convey his love for photography to Yuu. There’s also a younger brother who doesn’t do much yet.

Chihiro, Yuu’s BFF in the big city, who has a thing for plush toys.

Yuu barely gets to the little town by the episode’s end, so the only other member of the main cast we really see yet is the hyper, twin-tailed one.

(If you’re wondering, “tamayura” is the name for some sort of snow-like artifacts that show up on photographs in that place. At, least, that’s what I gathered from the OAVs, the word is used without explanation here.)

Production Values

Of course the premise is an excuse for scenery porn… except we don’t get to see much of the little town and the country around it yet. Oops.

What did I think of it ?

I watched the OAVs last December (it’s only 1 hour), and was bored silly by them. So imagine my trepidation when I realized that this would be exactly the same… except much, much slower. And don’t think any depth was added : the characters remain as depressingly flat as ever, and there’s nary a joke in sight.

To be honest, I started doing other stuff 5 minutes before the end. It’s that boring. Avoid, unless you really need something to put you to sleep.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 3.

You & Me (Kimi to Boku)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Four (soon five) high school boys’ slice of life adventures.

Characters

Kaname, the straight man of the group. Serious, and a bit annoyed by the others’ laid-back attitude.

Shun, the emotive, slightly childish dude.

Yuki, the younger of the two twins. Sullen and utterly apathetic. Feels the need to distinguish himself by not wearing the school blazer.

Yuta, the older of the two twins. mostly non-descript.

Production Values

Pastels. Also, lots of budget-mandated shortcuts, such as the characters often annoyingly facing away from the camera when they’re talking.

What did I think of it ?

This episode’s whole plot : Kaname tries to get Yuki to join a club, any club (+ a few flashbacks to elementary school). This complete absence of anything happening could work if the characters were fun to watch or had interesting chemistry, but they spend the whole episode bitching at each other or sulking. There’s no charm whatsoever, and the character don’t show any depth that’d make me care about them.

I just don’t care about these guys. Next show, please.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 3.

Phi Brain – Puzzle of God

(25 episodes)

What’s it about ?

X-TREME puzzles !

Characters

Kaito “Einstein” Daimon, our spiky-haired protagonist. He’s a genius puzzle solver (to the point of seeing his high-school’s puzzle club as beneath him). He stumbles on a hidden giant puzzle/death trap combo just behind the school (how the heck did nobody notice this thing before ? Yeah, it’s underground, but still…), and he’s quite offended by the death traps sullying the purity of the puzzles.

Nonoha, his childhood friend/sidekick/whatever. She’s not very good at puzzle-solving, but her observation/memory skills do come handy. She’s mostly there so that Kaito has someone to show off how brilliant he is to.

“Genius Okudera”, a famous adult puzzle-solver who’s this series’ “Mr. Satan” figure. You know, the gloryhound who’s way less competent than he claims.

Souji Jikukawa, president of the puzzle club and member of the student council. He thoroughly tries to recruit Kaito, ultimately giving him (in flashback) a mini-computer with advanced puzzle games.

Minotaur, a dude in a ridiculous disguise who starts soliciting Kaito through the mini-computer and is eventually revealed to be in charge of the puzzle-deathtrap-thingie behind the school. He really should invest in a better voice scrambler, because it’s blindingly obvious he’s Jikukawa (Akira Ishida’s voice is clearly recognizable).

Production Values

Pretty good ; the directing has enough energy to make the puzzles look cool. I also quite like the soundtrack, which helps sell the high-octane puzzle action. And the OP & ED take full advantage of the visual possibilities of the “sliding puzzles” motif.

What did I think of it ?

Well, that was fun. It’s obviously a very stupid show, but it accomplishes what it needed to : making puzzles look cool. That’s half the battle, and as decent a hook as any. It also has enough bits of cleverness (such as the solution to the maze, which is ridiculously outside-the-box but somehow works) not be boring.

I think I’ve found my Sunday night popcorn action show. Unpretentious, but quite enjoyable.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 2.

Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!

What’s it about ?

Darned if I know. The story focuses on a school where quarrels between classes are solved through massive martial art battles – this episode’s campaign between classes S and F involves more than 500 combatants on each side. But somehow, despite this episode being an extended fight scene, it looks like we’re heading for a harem setup. Sigh.

Characters

The cast is absolutely massive : discounting the red shirts, there’s at least 10 apparently important characters on each side. Very few of them get any depth, obviously.

Yamato, our de-facto protagonist, is the tactical coordinator for class F. He’s quite good at it (with assistance from the geek squad), but completely crap in an actual fight. He’s been harbouring for years a love for…

Momoyo, whom supplementary material assure me is NOT his sister, despite him addressing her as such throughout. But they’ve been childhood friends for so long that she simply cannot see him that way. She’s a superb martial artist, one of the “Great Four” (whatever that means), and decided to side with class S just because. Frankly, they do need her.

Hideo is the leader of class S, and as such the main target. He’s an arrogant moron, and you won’t be surprised when he’s defeated because of terrible tactical choices made through overconfidence. (There’s a limit to how much his underlings can cover for).

Class F’s top fighters include a set of four elite female champions who all seem to pine for Yamato ; as well as Hideo’s sister, for some reason. Their “leader” is a completely inept girl who needs permanent care.

Class S also has a set of sub-commanders who do all the work… and an entire squad of girls dressed as maids, for some reason.

There are two weird women (one of them covered in bandages) hovering on the sides of the fight and apparently looking for Momoyo. They’re our only clue of a wider plot being around.

Production Values

Mostly okay. I’ve never been been fond of the “still shot after a martial art move” cost-cutting device, but it’s not used too much as to be grating.

This is surprisingly low on fanservice, despite most females wearing bloomers and some clothing damage being implied half-way through. Indeed, the only character who spends most of the episode half-naked is Hideo.

What did I think of it ?

What. The. Heck ?

I’m really not sure what to make of this. The school battles are decently executed, but don’t feel like they can sustain a whole series (cf. also BakaTest). The sheer number of named characters makes it hard to care about most of them. The romance stuff makes me roll my eyes. And I have no clue what the deal with the two women is.

I’m tentatively giving it one more episode to see whether a coherent direction emerges, but this seems like a mess.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

C³ (Cube x Cursed x Curious)

What’s it about ?

Generic harem show where the male lead receives a big box with a weird girl in it.

Characters

Haruaki, said male lead. As generic as you could expect. His (offscreen) father is a collector of weird stuff and apparently built the house so that it’d be flooded with positive vibes. I’m not quite seeing it.

Fear, the girl in the box. Completely unfamiliar with modern civilization, she claims to be the personification of negative emotions or whatever. In practice, think the destructive potential of Squid-Girl, but without any of the charm. She’s really, really annoying, and the corny ending to the episode where Haruaki learns she’s not that bad rings horribly false to me.

Konoha, Haruaki’s childhood friend who happens to live in another part of the house (it’s more than hinted that she used to be somewhat like Fear way back when they first met). She fits the archetype perfectly.

The ED (or the OP played at the end, who knows) suggests that there’s a third girl involved (of course !), but she’s yet to show up.

Production Values

This is a Silver Link production, aka the people who did BakaTest. It certainly shows, with tons of little showy effects to liven things up visually in a SHAFT-lite style. It doesn’t help, especially given how much they focus on Fear’s panties (to say nothing of her way too long nude scene).

What did I think of it ?

This is rubbish. I’m not entirely averse to harem shows, but they live and die on their charm (see Asobi ni Iku yo! for a good example). This has no charm whatsoever, and is just painful to watch (especially any scene with Fear… which is about 90% of the episode).

Avoid like the plague.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

Hunter x Hunter

(at least 45 episodes… welcome to endless shounen hell !)

What’s it about ?

In a world with various big monsters roaming around and hidden treasures, the big thing to be is a Hunter, whose job is to deal with those. But there are lots of hopefuls and not many who actually manage to pass the tests…

This manga already got an anime adaptation 10 years ago, but from what I gather it never got to the end (the manga is still ongoing). This is a full-blown remake ; hopefully they’ll manage to make a proper ending this time around.

Characters

Gon, our spiky-haired protagonist. His father abandoned him at birth because of his Hunter’s job, so he’s convinced being a Hunter must be AWESOME! for Daddy to do that (/facepalm).

Mito, his aunt (although that’s never actually stated anywhere in the episode), was quite opposed to him leaving the nest, but he’s talented and wilful enough to overcome her objection before the mid-episode mark. Presumably we’ll barely ever see her again.

On the boat to the test center, Gon meets two other characters of note who are obviously going to tag along : Kurapika, the sullen last member of the Kurta tribe, who wants to become a Hunter to track down the culprits (I lay at least 50/50 odds that’s actually a girl) ; and Leorio, a tall lecherous dude who’s in it for the money.

A fourth team member is shown in the credits, but hasn’t appeared yet.

Production Values

Perfectly okay for an action shounen show. For comparison purposes, I checked out the first episode of the original series ; the new version is much brighter and slightly more stylised, at the cost of some atmosphere ; also, it seems to move quite a bit quicker than the original (which barely had Gon leaving the nest by the end of the first episode, but made it much clearer what the family situation was).

What did I think of it ?

Hello, generic shounen action show ! There’s nothing particularly original here, so it falls down to the worldbuilding (nothing much of interest yet) and the character dynamic to make it watcheable. And, well, while I’m all for Miyuki Sawashiro and Keiji Fujiwara deliciously snarking at each other, I’m not sure I want to sign up for 45+ episodes of it.

I’m not dropping it yet, but it’s definitely a candidate for the chopping block if too many other shows I want to keep watching are released on Sundays (which is a very probable scenario).

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

Fate/Zero

(25 episodes ; 1st episode is double-length)

What’s it about ?

It’s a prequel to Fate/stay night, but hopefully you don’t need to know anything about that one to follow it. Actually, previous knowledge of the franchise might kill the suspense a bit, given how it made it quite clear how things are supposed to end here.

Anyway : every few decades there’s a big fight between 7 champions (representing the major Mage families) around the Holy Grail, which can supposedly grant any one wish. Each “Master”, besides his own magical abilities, can summon a Servant (basically a ghost of a mythical figure) to help them out.

Characters

Kiritsugu Emiya, an elite anti-Mage assassin. Nobody’s quite sure why he’s in the game (his résumé makes him look quite suicidal), but he certainly sounds like a major contender. He’s quietly supported by his wife, who frankly looks like a dead woman walking. He summons a Saber Servant who’s supposed to be King Arthur… despite being quite obviously a woman.

Tokiomi Tohsaka, heir of one of the major Mage family, who decided to cheat by allying himself with (1) the Church (who are supposed to be neutral referees), and (2) Kirei Kotomine, a promising mage/priest who he got into the game somehow.

Kariya Matou was the black sheep of his family, but he stepped in to become one of the player to avoid that fate for his new adopted sister (who happens to be Tohsaka’s second daughter, in a bizarre bit of political play). His grandfather’s sadistical training (bugs under his skin ? Eww…) have left him drained, but hey, he only has to last until the end of the game…

Kayneth Archibald El-Me… oh, who cares about this dude and his improbably long name. He comes from one of England’s most prominent Mage families and holds tenure in the London Magical University, but he barely gets two minutes of insufferably smug screentime. Instead, we follow…

Waver Velvet, one upstart student of his who stumbles into his Holy Grail-related documentation and artefacts and decides to have a go at it. The little shit is obviously going to fail spectacularly given the heavyweights around, but I can’t entirely fault him for trying.

That’s (at most) six Masters ; the 7th one stays conspicuously absent throughout the episode (although I do have my suspicions).

Production Values

NicoNico’s tiny broadcast doesn’t help to judge, but this looks quite good indeed. There’s no action sequence whatsoever yet, though, so we’ll have to wait a bit to see what the series can do there. (The OP – shown at the end – does display some nice animation, but that never means anything.)

What did I think of it ?

Do you like exposition ? I hope so, because this is 45 whole minutes of it. This is a series of flashbacks fleshing out all the main players, while explaining the premise ; there’s even a ridiculous scene that has Emiya & Kotomine thumbing through each other’s résumés at the same time. It isn’t too clunky, but it does mean that not a lot happens besides talking heads. As said above, there isn’t a single action sequence in sight, and we barely get through to the first few summons (in consequence, we don’t really get a sense of the Servants’ personalities, if they have any).

What we see of the characters, though, is somewhat interesting ; I especially like Waver’s scenes, as he looks like he’ll be fun to follow. Most of the other players are adults who seem quite adept at scheming, so there’s potential for compelling intrigues there. Which is needed, given how the ending is a foregone conclusion ; fortunately, it looks like the show isn’t even pretending to hide this will lead to a Emiya/Kotomine final showdown.

Overall, this wasn’t a dazzling start, but there’s some potential. Hopefully it won’t have the same problems as the original work… well, at least got rid of the supremely annoying protagonist, which is a step into the right direction.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

Busou Shinki Moon Angel ONA

(5-minute episodes)

What’s it about ?

10-centimeter-tall mecha-musume fighting each other.

Characters

This series doesn’t even bother naming its main characters. I know screentime’s at a premium, but come on !

Anyway, our protagonist is a white-clad living action figure who escapes from a lab (and from the pursuit of a black-clad counterpart). Wounded, she’s eventually discovered by a loner grade-school kid.

Production Values

I was pleasantly surprised. Those 5-minute web-thingies are usually on the lower end of budget ranges, but this actually looks quite good. The fight scenes are very well animated, and much lower on fanservice than you’d expect.

What did I think of it ?

Well, it’s the first 5-minute webseries from the last couple of years that I’m considering watching on the strength of its first episode. (Fireball Charming doesn’t count.) I’m especially impressed by the pacing : none of it feels rushed, in many ways this feels like a proper anime series… but it’s still a complete chunk of story despite its short length.

It’s not particularly original, but it seems to have the potential to be fun, without outstaying its welcome. I’m cautiously optimistic about this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

Fantastic Children

(26 episodes, 2004-2005)

My previous exposure

Suggested in this thread.

What’s it about ?

Random young children all of the same age have pulled a disappearing act, suddenly turning albino and deciding to wear creepy dark cloaks. And it’s not the first time this happened, as similar disappearances happened every few decades for several centuries… and the children always look the same. Detective Cooks, officially in charge of investigating one of them (but really following up on his journalist grandfather’s investigations a century ago), follows their trace and discovers a mysterious government conspiracy that has figured out the kids are periodically reincarnating themselves, and is now trying to reproduce their death-defying technology. Said conspiracy is of course headed by yet another albino young man…

Meanwhile, the purported protagonist of the series, an athletic boy called Thoma, helps a young girl named Helga escape from her orphanage, and they loiter around on an island for a while. The link between this and the main plot is that the “fantastic children” are looking for Helga (actually another reincarnating-through-the-ages person), but they do such a crap job of it that it takes half the series for both threads to rejoin together.

And then we get the actual explanation for all this : all the reincarnating people are actually aliens, with the “fantastic children” being a team of scientists who sent the princess into Earth’s afterlife in a bid to save her after an assassination attempt, and are now trying to get her back to their princess. The albino dude masterminding the government conspiracy really works with the alien king’s evil brother. And so on.

What did I think of it ?

Oh, dear. How did this series manage to go so horribly wrong ?

Actually, no, I don’t think it went wrong. The problems are so deeply ingrained into the plot that it must have been planned that way from the start. Which boggles the mind, but it happens.

Let’s start with the positive : it’s a gorgeous series, with some spectacular work on the settings and very fluid animation. There are also nuggets of fascinating characterization for the “fantastic children”, struggling between the memories of their century-long mission and their latest upbringing as normal children. (Although having them fight actual monsters from the afterlife whenever their resolution falters is a bit too heavy-handed a metaphor.)

But whatever ambiguity the series had managed to build up in its first few episodes is destroyed by the reveal of the very simplistic backstory (to say nothing of the suspension-of-disbelief-killing decision to make Helga a bomb for the main bad guy to fight over). This is a very black-and-white series (in the sense that it has irredeemable bad guys, and good guys making obviously-wrong decisions that come back to bite their ass later). You’d think the taboo scientific field of exploring the afterlife would provide interesting conflict, but it quickly becomes an afterthought, a plot device for people to fight over (or whine that they should never have become involved in it).

The confused structure of the first half of the series exemplifies what’s wrong with it. Thoma, our supposed protagonist, gets into wacky hijinks with the orphanage escape that seem transplanted from a much more carefree story, and are frankly quite boring. The “fantastic children” do nothing besides running around ineffectively (and it quickly becomes obvious that they’ve been doing so for centuries). Detective Cooks’s thread is by far the more interesting, but it’s mostly a vehicle for exposition and just stops abruptly at the mid-series mark (his few token scenes after it just emphasize how irrelevant he’s become).

Darn, the premise sounded really interesting, but this show clearly had a completely different (and much more boring) story to tell. Too bad.

via [LTTP/WIW] Various anime from the 00s and beyond – Page 6.

Shion’s King (Shion no Ou)

(22 episodes, 2007-2008)

My previous exposure

None, besides having heard of the basic premise.

What’s it about ?

Eight years ago, the parents of Shion got brutally murdered in front of her eyes, leaving the poor little girl traumatized and mute. One of the only clues is a “King” shougi piece (apparently the murderer somehow decided to then play a game with the six-year-old). Now, Shion (who was adopted by her loving uncle, himself a pro shougi player) is a middle-schooler on the verge of entering the pro shougi circuit. She’d obviously rather forget all about her traumatic past, but the high-stakes tournament organized by the current champion’s brother is about to dredge all kinds of bad stuff back up to the surface…

Also quite important to the plot is Ayumi, a high-school dropout who crossdresses because he thinks it easier to make money fast on the female shougi circuit (since his mother is tremendously ill and the hospital bills need getting paid). Not at all important to the plot (despite being featured prominently in the OP) is Saori, another up-and-coming young female shougi player.

What did I think of it ?

First things first : the OP sequence is absolutely ridiculous, with every single cast member desperately trying to look badass or menacing. It’s completely different in tone from the actual show, which is way more sedate and less gritty (count all the sequences where Shion has hilariously exaggerated reactions !). I really wonder what the producers were thinking… although I did find it perversely entertaining enough not to fast-forward through it, so mission accomplished, I guess.

Also very misleading is that scene in the first episode where Saori looks like she’s actually a ruthless mafia daughter and orders minions to investigate her opponents’ backgrounds… but everything after that shows that she’s actually just a mostly nice girl (and her minions must be shit, because Ayumi hasn’t really thought his deception through). I wonder whether earlier drafts of the plot had Saori actually mattering to the plot…

Now, on any other series I wouldn’t be able to get past such bullshit plotting, but this one manages to strike a perfect balance between standard “tournament show” sequences and the convoluted mystery hovering on the edges of the plot. Separately, they wouldn’t be of much interest : the shougi matches are drowning in exposition, and the mystery is pretty crap (there aren’t many suspects, and the murderer’s motive only makes sense if you’re insane). But the prominence of the shougi competition allows the mystery to stay in the background so that its flaws aren’t too noticeable, while the mystery gives a lot of edge and suspense to the shougi matches.

There’s even some quite clever plotting, especially around the “sponsor” dude who has a vested interest in making the match-ups as dramatic as possible to generate maximum publicity. (And since he’s a complete neophyte to shougi, he’s helpful as someone to be exposited to.) I’ve grown quite fond of him ; Hiroshi Kamiya is very good at striking the right note between slight sliminess and just pure cluelessness. (Nice touch of having him voice the advert announcements !)

Overall, this is a fun, if heavily flawed, little series.

via [LTTP/WIW] Various anime from the 00s and beyond – Page 6.