New Anime Series – Page 33

Danganronpa – the Animation

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

15 of the most promising (and eccentric) of this generation’s high school students, each with their own speciality, have been scouted by this new super-shiny academy… but they learn just after stepping inside that it’s all a trap and they can’t leave unless they kill one of the others.

Adapted from a visual novel that I’ve seen described as “Battle Royale meets Phoenix Wright”, and that sounds about accurate.

Characters

THE GAMEMASTER is “Monobear”, an impressively obnoxious bear puppet. You can’t even strangle it for stress relief, as it can self-destruct and it’s got spare bodies.

Makoto, our protagonist, is THE LUCKY GUY. (Or maybe THE UNLUCKY GUY, given the circumstances.) He’s utterly ordinary on every respect and got his place via random lottery. Really, he’s just there for audience projection, and has no personality whatsoever.

Sayaka, THE IDOL, is the one familiar face among the crowd : they attended the same middle school, and for some reason she remembers this complete nobody.

Also of note : Celestia, THE GAMBLER, who’s already trying to game the system ; Mondo, THE ~~THUG~~ BIKER, who easily goes into other people’s faces ; and Kyouko, who’s only describes as THE ??? and is thus immediately mightily suspect.

(Other participants include THE HALL MONITOR, a guy whose chief talent seems to be obeying rules ; THE FIGHTER, a 8-feet-tall mountain of muscles ; THE SWIMMER, who’s very cheerful ; THE BOOKWORM, always anxious and paranoid ; THE MODEL, a gyaru stereotype ; THE HACKER, who’s adorably cute ; THE FORTUNE TELLER, who, er, yeah ; THE BASEBALL PLAYER ; THE SCION, whose talent seems to lord over everyone ; and the FANZINE PUBLISHER, your token overweight otaku.)

Production Values

The least you can say is that it’s got a very distinctive style : cooler-than-thou character designs, surrealist colorful backgrounds, and weird shot transitions. On the other hand, it wears its status as a visual novel adaptation on its sleeve, down to the exact camera angles and the characters having stock idle animations. Most of the time, the aesthetic succeeds ; but there are times when it gets a bit awkward.

Overall Impression

Look, it’s another “let’s play” of a popular visual novel by the director of Persona 4 ! Not that there’s anything wrong with that ; indeed, this one seems better suited to his strengths, as the jerky pacing suits the darkly comedic tone. And this story sounds like a fun ride : the characters aside from the PC are the right sort of quirky, and I’m intrigued to see where it goes.

Okay, I’m game. Bring it on.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 3.

Rozen Maiden (2013)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Magical dolls fighting each other.

(In case you’re wondering, this is a complete reboot of the franchise ; not having watched any other version, I’m treating this as a new show.)

Characters

Jun, our male lead. He may be a recluse, but the breakneck pace doesn’t have room for much elaboration. He receives a box with a living winding-doll out of nowhere one day, and stays in perpetual bewilderment of all the craziness that ensues.

Shinku, said winding-doll. She’s part of a lot of seven that are part of the “Alice” competition, where they all battle against each other. I gather that the idea is that each one has a portion of the soul of someone important, and the goal is for the winner to collect all seven bits, by absorbing their opponents’.

Suigintou is clearly the baddie amongst the seven : she’s got black wings, which is never a good sign, engineers confrontations between the other, and kill-steals on at least one occasion.

Suiseiseki is at least on friendly terms with Shinku, and doesn’t look like much of a threat anyway -desu. She’s come to ask some help against her twin Souseiseki -desu.

We actually see all of the dolls this episode, including the one who doesn’t have a proper body anymore.

Production Values

This looks much nicer than I’m used to from Studio DEEN, with tons of CG elements that sometimes look a bit like overkill (the ballpoint-pen, really ?). There’s no denying this has got tons of budget, at least for the first episode.

The OP is the ALI project doing the same song they always do. The ED is a much more atmospheric piece.

Overall Impression

Hey, who’s got their finger stuck on the fast-forward button ? There’s just so much stuff happening in this episode that it becomes a bit overwhelming, and doesn’t allow much depth for any of the characters. As a result, there’s very little incentive to care about anything that happens. There doesn’t seem to be much substance beyond the battle royale plot involving dolls with pretty clothes.

The main problem seems to be that it needs to slow the hell down and give the characters room to breathe ; as I don’t expect it to do that with such a short running time, I won’t be bothering with it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 3.

Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3 (Stella Jogakuin Koutou-ka C³-bu)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Slice-of-life comedy about an (all-female) airsoft high school club.

Characters

Yura, our point-of-view character. She’s a very shy and introverted freshman who’s just entered the Stella Academy, which seems to have more budget than small African nations. She’s trying to change herself and get some friends, but it’s an uphill struggle.

Sonora, her roommate, barely appears onscreen at all ; as a senior, she’s still off visiting her family before school starts. Yura finds tons of guns and military attire in the room & starts getting a bit suspicious…

Besides Sonora, there are four members to the “C3” club : the strategic-minded one, the tea-and-cake-providing one, the hyperactive small one, and the way-too-much-into-this one. They’re definitely looking for more members, and would be delighted to add the weirdo they found play-acting Rambo with Sonora’s gear to their group.

Production Values

Hey, since when does Gainax have budget again ? This looks quite nice indeed, with beautiful backgrounds and a very well-designed mock-battle scene at the end. (I especially love the jazzy soundtrack that starts playing there, making it very intense indeed.)

Overall Impression

Hey, this was surprisingly fun ! It’s not a particularly innovative concept (“cute girls doing cute things… with guns !”), but the characters are charming and the jokes work. It’s just very-well executed overall.

This looks like a keeper to me.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 3.

Servant x Service

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Work-com about civil servants at the welfare office.

(Adapted from a manga by the creator of Working!!.)

Characters

Yamagami, our protagonist. She has just joined the welfare office for one purpose only : finding and exacting revenge on the person who authorized her parents to name her

Lucy Kimiko Akie Airi Shiori Rinne Yoshiho Ayano Tomika Chitose Sanae Mikiko Ichika […]

. For very understandable reasons, this is a bit of a berserk button for her, and she’s got a general grudge against public servants.

Hasebe, another new hire, is the epitome of everything she hates public servants : he’s lazy, takes every opportunity to slack off, and uses his job to try and pick up girls. He’s also surprisingly competent and reliable on the very rare occasions he takes his job seriously and helps the other newbies out.

Miyoshi, the third newbie, is very awkward, but absolutely loved by the customers. Maybe it’s because she looks like the ideal daughter.

Ichimiya, their supervisor, has eight years of experience… and absolutely no clue how to handle them. He seems to spend half his time running ragged trying to prevent Hasebe from slacking off.

Chihaya, Yamagami’s senior at her desk, is very efficient at her job but sounds terminally world-weary. Yeah, this job can do this to you after a while.

Production Values

Quite nice ; a lot of the jokes are sold by the attention given to body language in this. Also, I quite enjoyed the gimmick for the OP sequence (which is only slightly less catchy than “Someone! one! one!”).

Overall Impression

Even better than I expected. This is a very funny series, made all the more hilarious because all of it sounds so true. It strikes exactly the right balance between mocking and empathizing with its characters. It’s also quite well-paced, letting the mystery of why the heck Yamagami is always hesitating before omitting to say her given name when introducing herself build up nicely. And it’s got more than one joke, which is always welcome in a gag show.

Definitely a must-see for me this season.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 2.

Chronicles of the Going-Home Club (Kitakubu Katsudou Kiroku)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The “Going-Home Club” is an euphemism for the students who don’t join any club and just go home after class. (In the Japanese school system, there’s a lot of pressure to join a club, any club for social purposes ; the students who don’t are usually a minority.) Here, the joke is that there’s an actual official Going-Home Club, with clubroom and everything.

Adapted from a 4-panel gag manga, obviously.

Characters

Natsuki, our point-of-view character ; as a high school freshman, she joins the Going-Home Club on a Wacky Misunderstanding and spends the whole episode (and probably the whole series) complaining on how this club makes no sense.

Karin, the other new recruit of the club. The naive one, who pushed Natsuki into joining despite having herself no clue what the club’s about.

Before that, the club had three members : the very enthusiastic president Sakura, and two high-class girls whose social standing demands that they belong to a club but presumably didn’t want the hassle of join a real club.

Production Values

Not much good. There are some decent backgrounds, but the animation is very limited and the character designs leave something to be desired.

Overall Impression

Not very good. It’s got some decent jokes (I loved the “premature cliffhangers” where the ED music starts playing despite the show not being over), but they get fewer and farther between as the episode goes, and the premise is already wearing thin by the end of it. I just can’t see the joke supporting a full series.

Just not funny enough for me to bother with.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 2.

FREE! – Iwatobi Swim Club

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Sports show about FREESTYLE SWIMMING ! Well, whenever they actually get around to restarting the swimming club, presumably.

Characters

Haruka, our lead character. Utterly obsessed with swimming, to the point of wearing a swimsuit (and often not much else) at all times. Unfortunately, his current high school doesn’t have a functional pool, let alone a swimming club. And it’s too cold to dive into the ocean yet. Not that he’s got much competition drive at this point, anyway. If only he got some spark…

Makoto, his best friend from way back. The kind of childhood friend that’s totally comfortable with entering his house, finding him in his bath, and gently scolding him for being late. It’s pretty obvious that Haruka is mostly ignoring him, but Makoto can’t take the hint. He’s the guy who acts as a straight man in all conversations.

Nagisa, who used to be in the same swimming club back in elementary school, and only just came back in town, joining the same high school. He’s kinda miffed that his old friends aren’t doing any competition swimming anymore, but as the enthusiastic one he doesn’t let that stop him from convincing the two others to break into their old (abandoned) elementary school at night so that they can retrieve the trophy they had left in a time capsule.

Rin, formerly the fourth member of their relay team and Haruka’s rival ; he’s just come back from Australia, but has enrolled into the super-elite school nearby with the top-class swimming club. His mere reappearance (checking in on the buried trophy too) is enough to start reigniting Haruka’s competitive drive.

Gou, Rin’s sister, is in the three others’ high school too. She doesn’t seem to be very close to her brother, and I highly suspect she’s going to be their inevitable swimming club’s manager or something. (Also, in keeping with the running joke that all the boys have girl-ish names, she has a boy-ish one.)

Their new homeroom teacher is presumably going to be important too (club advisor, most probably), as a point is made to mention that teaching was her second-choice career. Three guesses what she tried to do before that, and the first two don’t count.

Production Values

This features KyoAni’s usual attention to detail regarding backgrounds and animation of body language… which in this case means much focus on those young muscled, supple half-naked bodies. But hey, it’s not that much different from your usual testosterone-ladden sports show.

Speaking of testosterone, I love the ridiculously gung-ho rap tunes that start playing whenever Haruka & Rin are in the same room.

Overall Impression

The question was on everyone’s mind after those trailers : is this just trolling, or is there a proper show in there beyond the homoerotic subtext ? Well, the good news is that this does have a perfectly serviceable premise… but it doesn’t rise much above the sea of clichés inherent to the genre. It also has no subtlety whatsoever. (The naming joke mentioned above is spelt out explicitly, for example.)

But hey, I have a weakness for sports shows, and I have no problem watching one that’s in about the same league as, say, Kuroko’s Basketball. (Well, a bit prettier, maybe.) I’m probably going to keep with it, although I really don’t expect it to be great.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 2.

Brothers Conflict

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Look, the official abbreviation for this series is “BroCon”. Do I really need to spell it out ?
(Adapted from a series of shojo novels, which of course got otome game adaptations.)

Characters

“Chi”, our female main character… wait, her real name’s never actually uttered at any point in the whole episode ? Wow. Way to make her even more generic. Anyway, her father has just remarried, and so she moves in with her new family, i.e. 13 brothers. (Daddy and new-Mommy actually live elsewhere because work.)

Juli, her pet squirrel. For some reason she can talk with it. It’s very overprotective of her, what with her now living with 13 men. Very annoying indeed.

The various brothers don’t really get to show off more than one personality trait each, and they’re all generically handsome.

Production Values

Perfectly okay for this sort of thing.

Overall Impression

Let’s be frank : this is an incest-bait show. I’m not sure how seriously the more proactive brothers are supposed to pursue things, but at the very least there’s some insistant teasing. (And just to round things up, the two twin actors also act out a gay scene, because “fun” misunderstandings.) It doesn’t help that the –ing squirrel keeps issuing warnings to the MC even when everyone’s acting perfectly innocent.

There might be a very narrow audience that finds this kind of show riveting. I’m not part of it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 2.

Sunday Without God (Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Remember the parable about God creating the world in six days, and resting on Sunday ? Well, here he finished the job in five days, rested on Saturday, and just left on Sunday. As a result, people don’t really die anymore, unless those special people called Gravediggers bury them and give them eternal rest.

Characters

Ai, our protagonist, is the cutest little Gravedigger ever : loved by her whole village and her adoptive parents. Sure, she had to bury her own mother and her father is a mystery, but she’s happy, right ? And nobody’d ever lie to her about being a Gravedigger, right ?

“Humpnie Humbert”, who readily admits this is a bullshit pseudonym (taken from some fairy tale). Unfortunately, this is also the name Ai’s mother gave as the father’s (which should ring alarm bells to anyone with a lick of sense), which causes a lot of confusion. But not among the villagers, as he’s already killed them all. Well, shot them until they became zombies, given how the world is now. Why ? He doesn’t say. He much prefers deriding the cruel joke the townfolk inflicted on Ai : Gravediggers don’t have parents, they come from nowhere when they’re needed. Ai’s mother must just have been deluded.

The sad thing is that I can’t tell whether this asshole is right ; there are some hints that Ai does have Gravedigger powers… or maybe not.

Production Values

I watched a preview streamed from NicoNico (the show is set to have proper airings starting Saturday), so this means no OP/ED sequences, and eyebleed-o-vision quality. It’s still very distinctive artistically, with oversaturated colours all the time (making it seem like all the scenes are shot at dawn or dusk) and a love for Dutch angles. It certainly contributes to the surreality of the whole piece.

Overall Impression

Well, the least I can say is that this is a show that makes an impression. There’s a contrast between the bleak premise and Ai’s cheerfulness (Aki Toyosaki in full squeaky mode) that makes it way more depressing than if it was just played straight. It’s not just yet another zombie show, as it quickly builds up a very distinctive atmosphere.

It doesn’t entirely work, though. There are bits where the banter between Ai and the mysterious stranger goes a bit too much comedic to really mesh with the oppressive mood, making the tone of the episode vary quite a bit more than it needs to be really effective. It’s a bit too much all over the place.

There are some bits that do work, though. The progressive reveal of that one villager’s head wound, that’s somehow always out of sight from the camera until he pulls on his hood and you can plainly see that his skull’s shape is just horribly wrong, is a very nicely paced sequence. As is the scene where Ai has cheerfully dug up graves for the whole village in advance, and wonders out loud what she’s going to do now. Great moments, but the show doesn’t quite find its groove yet.

But I’m intrigued enough to give it at least another episode to see where this is going.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 2.

Dog & Scissors (Inu to Hasami wa Tsukaiyou)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The adventures of a deeply eccentric novel author and her biggest fanboy… who’s a dog.
(Adapted from a light novel series, if you hadn’t guessed.)

Characters

Kazuhito Harumi, used to be a normal high school boy… well, as normal as a guy who spends all his money on books can be. One day, he’s killed in a diner robbery gone horribly wrong. He wakes up as a dog, for some unknown reason.

Kirihime Natsuno (nom de plume : Shinobu Akiyama), his favourite author. She hears his thoughts non-stop after his transformation, and tracks him down in order to get some peace. She refrains from killing him once she figures out he’s the same boy who saved her life during the robbery ; she’s obviously grateful and offers him to stay at her place. She remains very cold and borderline sadistic throughout the episode, though. Also, she carries a pair of scissors at her thigh at all times, hence the series’ title.

There are lots of other characters shown in the OP/ED sequences and making cameos at various point (including an idol who seems to be in every commercial), but their significance has yet to become apparent.

Production Values

Quite nice, actually. There’s some decent atmosphere, and it’s good enough to sell the jokes. The OP sequence is fun and catchy, which is quite an achievement since it starts with Marina Inoue rapping.

Overall Impression

Well, I’ll give it that : it’s better than I expected from the title and outline. There are some decent jokes, and the story happens to be way less stupidly than you’d have thought.

But it’s still not very good. Way too much time is spent on stale unfunny bust size jokes, and the S&M subtext is so blunt and generic that it becomes unsavoury. Moreover, there’s no sense that the story is going anywhere : sure, Natsuno is already going after the killer, and there’s the mystery of how Harumi became a dog in the first place, but none of these directions seem particularly promising ; this doesn’t feel like a premise that can support a 12-episode series.

In another season I might have given it more of a chance, as there were a few good laughs here, but I can’t justify keeping watching it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013.

Spring 2013 capsules

It’s Tuesday, and for some reason this means we get a deluge of shorts. (Okay, the first one actually airs on Sundays, but it took a bit to get fansubbed).

Bloodtype-kun (Kitsuekigata-kun) is built around the stereotyped personalities that are associated with the various bloodtypes. I might get more out of it if I actually was familiar with them, but it’s actually somewhat fun even for the uninitiated, in part thanks to a very strong cast who could make the phonebook entertaining. (Jun Fukuyama, Akira Ishida AND Yuuichi Nakamura ? For THIS ?)

AIURA illustrates the perils of doing a very relaxed, well-animated slice-of-life show taking a lot of time to enjoy the little things of life… because in three minutes, it doesn’t even get close to any kind of point. The characters are reasonably fun to follow, but this is completely the wrong format for this. It’s just intensely frustrating.

Sparrow Hotel is the complete opposite, packing tons of jokes in its short running time… except barely any of them are actually funny. And this looks like complete crap, with a horrible character design for its lead character, and barely deserved to be called “animated” at all.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 11.

I’m not going to bother doing a full review for Yuyushiki, a 4-panel gag manga adaptation following three high-school girls whose name start with “Yu…” (yes, that’s the entire premise). It’s very vaguely funny if you squint, the animation budget is more than spartan, and it’s so generic and unremarkable on every level that I just can’t muster the will to write any more about it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 12.