Tag: from RPG.net

Polar Bear Cafe (Shirokuma Cafe)

What’s it about ?

Gag series set in a world where animals live like (and coexist with) normal people.

Characters

Panda, our protagonist. Your typical teenage boy who spends his time loafing around (eating bamboo). He gets pestered by his mother into getting a part-time job, so off he goes, with little enthusiasm. No, scratch that, the main problem is that he’s too honest. (“Are you actually going to do any work once you’re hired ?” “Probably not.”)

Mr Polar Bear, owner of the next-door café. He’s looking for a part-time waiter ; believe it or not, Panda is the best of the five applicants he gets. He’s got a running gag where he’ll mishear an order and bring something ridiculous to fit a pun ; it just doesn’t work outside of Japanese, and the CR translator appear to have just given up on making sense of it.

Mr Penguin, a regular patron of the Polar Bear Cafe. He’s mostly there to be the straight man penguin in the jokes.

Production Values

Not very high, but it’s got a distinctive artstyle, with all the animals depicted realistically.

Overall Impression

Wait, this is actually quite funny ! It helps that it’s got an incredibly star-heavy cast (Jun Fukuyama, Takahiro Sakurai, Hiroshi Kamiya…) who can pull off deadpan insanity without breaking a sweat. Okay, I could do without the “mistaken order” running gag (which doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the series anyway), but the general setup is a great joke that is executed very well.

Now, the question is “how long can this sustain itself ?” This is a daytime show, so there’s always the possibility it’ll continue going way past its sell-by date. On the other hand, I doubt this kind of humour has more than a niche appeal, so I wouldn’t expect it to last too long before being cancelled.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.

Sankarea

(12ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Romantic comedy. With zombies.

Characters

Chihiro, our protagonist. Completely obsessed with zombies : he’s got an impressive DVD collection and tons of related toys and props. And yes, he has a zombie-girl fetish. His pet cat just died, so over the last few days he’s been scurrying off to a condemned building and trying experiments from some random book he found somewhere so as to raise it from the dead. Because (1) he was very fond of it, and (2) hey, zombie-cat ! He’s perfectly aware it probably won’t work, but one never knows…

Rea, the title character, a girl who coincidentally screams into a well nearby the same condemned building in order to vent her frustrations. She comes from the very rich Sanka family (they own the local girls’ high school), and finds herself crushed by the weight of expectations. After the two of them meet and become quick friends, she makes it clear she’s willing to run away from her life with him. He turns her down ; he’s only interested in zombie girls. Well, if that’s the only problem…

Rounding up the cast are Chihiro’s family (busy priest father, dead mother, deadpan little sister, friend-zoned cousin), and his few friends at school (including the token perverted best friend, who doesn’t stand out much next to the guy with a zombie-girl fetish). The OP hints we’re also going to see Rea’s family at some point.

Production Values

Wait, did Deen hire someone from SHAFT, or is this director even ANN has never heard of just a Shinbo fanboy ? Okay, this is nowhere near the craziness of the -monogatari series, but it does copiously pick from SHAFT’s usual bag of tricks : long shots, shots from above, close shots on body parts, editing used in a way that punctuates the dialogue, a good use of shading and shot framing to build atmosphere…

Well, whatever, I’m all for techniques that make the most of the medium to improve storytelling becoming more mainstream.

Overall Impression

Hey, this is actually quite good ! I like Chihiro and his sense of humour (Ryohei Kimura’s charisma strikes again), the two leads have chemistry, and the artful direction doesn’t hurt. The setup is intriguing, with a killer cliffhanger (What did Rea actually do ?) that makes you want to come back for more.

Did someone say that out of the four “My Girlfriend is a X” adaptation, one of them should be good ? Well, this seems to be the one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.

Sengoku Collection

What’s it about ?

Gender-swapped Sengoku warlords thrown into the modern world.

Adapted from a cardgame app, because that’s a thing now.

Characters

Nobunaga Oda, the only girl who really shows up this episode. She’s shangaied away from her parallel world because… er, it’s not quite clear… and drops from the sky into current Tokyo. She eventually learns she’s not the only one and she’s gonna have to battle others like her to get back to her world, but most of the episode is spent on the culture shock.

She quickly shacks up with a poor random wage-slave dude, who’s somewhat bemused by this weird girl who won’t take no for an answer.

And that’s basically it for the cast this episode.

Production Values

Surprisingly good for this sort of thing. There’s a care to the animation that’s entirely wasted on such a project. (I guess Brains Base had to pay the bills and couldn’t find anything better to do…)

Overall Impression

Gender-swapped Sengoku warlords ? It’s been done already. Girl from a magical world who falls on some guy’s lap and experiences some “hilarious” culture shock ? Done to death too. This series is proof that bringing the two concepts together creates absolutely nothing of worth.

Of course, this show could have been saved through superior execution. But we don’t get that here : the characters are the same boring archetypes as usual, and there’s no spark whatsoever to this. The animation’s good, but that’s not enough to overcome the tediousness of the whole affair.

Pass along, nothing to see here.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 6.

Medaka Box

What’s it about ?

A super-ultra-awesome new student council president goes around “helping” people all over campus.

Characters

Medaka, the new student council president. She’s hyper-competent at everything. Since she wants to go around helping everyone, she’s set up a suggestion box. Hence the title.

Zenkichi, our point-of-view character, and Medaka’s childhood friend. He spends the whole episode ranting incoherently about her behaviour while she leads him around. You’ve guessed it, they’re a couple of tsundere in the now classic Kyon/Haruhi mold… except Kyon had charisma and a point.

Shiranui, a bizarre small girl who knows everything about everyone and is just plain weird. She’s the only character who’s actually fun to watch.

Production Values

You might have been interested in this show because GAINAX did it. But the Nadia/Evangelion/FLCL people are long gone. And the TTGL/Panty&Stocking crew just left too. So that leaves us… the director of He Is My Master.

And no budget whatsoever, from the look of it : this looks like crap.

Overall Impression

Oh, dear. This just doesn’t work. The dialogue is clunky (did NisiOisiN really contribute to the original manga ? Was he phoning it in, or is this adaptation just terrible ?), the jokes tired, and the lead characters annoying.

I’m giving it a second episode on the hope that some new supporting cast might improve matters (or at least make Zenkichi shut up a bit), but I’m not hopeful.

A big problem is that, despite her awesomeness, Medaka somehow manages to be bland. Her “I don’t care about being awesome, I just want to help everybody” philosophy isn’t particularly enthralling either, mostly because the show wants it to be a grand reveal despite being perfectly obvious from the start. (And the flower thing is just silly in its clumsiness. Or maybe it’s just the clunky dialogue bringing the whole scene down.)

But the most problematic part of the show is Zenkichi, the Kyon wannabe. Yes, Medaka is completely unlike Haruhi because she doesn’t abuse him and is perfectly open about why she keeps him around. She’s no tsundere, whatever he claims. THAT’s what makes his attitude so annoying. It feels to me that the only reason he’s so hostile in this first episode is to provide artificial conflict, which is just poor writing all around. He’s been around her since childhood, he shouldn’t need a grand reveal about her outlook in life at this point.

Also, the show spends far too much time on him telling us how awesome she is, instead of, you know, showing us her being awesome (which are the moments that do work).

I’ve heard that the manga gets way better down the line, after a genre change or two. Then, they really should have skipped those terrible first few dozen chapters (or skipped through them, only including the actually relevant parts for the future). Because at this rate, it’s hard to imagine this anime adaptation even getting to the good parts…

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 5.

Lupin the IIIrd – The Woman called Fujiko Mine

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The Lupin the IIIrd franchise has been around for decades (that’s where Miyazaki himself got his start), cranking out at least a new TV-movie a year ; this is the first new TV series in quite a while though.

Don’t let that history intimidate you, though ; not only is the franchise continuity-light to begin with, but this series goes back to basics, with the first meeting of Lupin the IIIrd & Fujiko.

Characters

Lupin the IIIrd, grandson of the original gentleman-thief. A thief himself, and so good at it that he’s getting a bit bored, to be honest. He’s now at the point where he’s warning the cops beforehand, because that’s more fun.

Fujiko Mine, Lupin’s sexy new rival. They collide on the same score, and it’s slightly irritated fascination at first sight.

Inspector Zenigata, the tireless policeman always on Lupin’s tail. This series makes a noble try at giving him some credibility, mostly by giving him a whiny sidekick (voiced by Yuki Kaji, of course ! Though he’s less annoying than usual, at least…) so that he’ll look better.

The score of the week involves a depraved cult leader trafficking rare narcotics on their private island… Oh, who cares, it’s just a backdrop for the Lupin/Fujiko interplay and an excuse for elaborate set pieces anyway.

Production Values

This clearly makes a bid for the best-looking show of the season. It’s got an impressive budget for the action set pieces, and a rough, artsy style that makes nearly every shot interesting to look at.

A word of warning : this is a sexy series, and Fujiko regularly gets topless and/or nearly naked over the course of the episode.

I really hope that ain’t the regular OP, because that pretentious voiceover sounds like it’s going to get annoying very quickly.

Overall Impression

Pretty !

But there’s something more beyond the mere dazzle. This is a series with a point to make : Fujiko uses her body as a weapon on every possible occasion, however degrading that may be ; and the OP monologue unsubtly points out she may well be a masochist, addicted to that thrill. I’m not quite sure whether this show is arguing it makes her inferior to Lupin (he outclasses her nearly every step on the way, mostly thanks to his “I can do offscreen whatever the plot needs me to” powers).

Still, they’ve got chemistry, the show is gorgeous, and heist anime are rare enough for me not to be picky. I’m in.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 5.

ZETMAN

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

An underground fighting ring featuring mindless beasts went horribly wrong the day the 13 of them became sentient, killed everyone in the audience and escaped. Oops. Ten years later, they’re still at large, with at least one of them operating as a serial killer. Double-oops. Carnage and ultraviolence ensues.

Characters

Mr Kanzaki used to be a scientist or something at the fighting ring ; he managed to escape with a baby who’s obviously related to the monsters. Ten years later, he’s now a hobo trying to raise the kid as best as he can. Yeah, he was always doomed not to survive the first episode.

Jin, the kid, has a bit of trouble understanding some concepts such as other people not healing almost instantly ; but then it’s obvious “Gramps” dodged a lot of issues. He’s inhumanely strong and fast, and after a moment of intense stress he can transform into ZET, something which looks more like a sentai superhero than the other monsters.

Jin has a couple of friends from a rich family (their daddy disapproves, obviously). He also befriends a “nightclub dancer” after saving her from a mugging, and she’s impressed enough to become his mother figure after “Gramps” bites the dust.

Besides the serial killer (whose body count this episode reaches at least a dozen before Jin puts him down), we see a couple other of the monsters. There’s the mandatory slick dude who works for a conspiracy, but more intriguingly there’s another who seems to work as police (although he doesn’t seem too good at it).

Oh, and there’s a grizzled police detective running around trying to understand what the heck is going on. Good luck, chap.

It seems there’s gonna be a timeskip, with next episode featuring Jin as a teenager.

Production Values

Oh, look, it’s shaky-cam animation, where the editing makes it almost impossible to follow the action sequences around !

Also, the soundtrack’s a bit crap, and that’s even without going into the ludicrously upbeat OP played at the end.

Overall Impression

Urgh. There’s such a thing at taking grim’n’gritty too far, especially when there’s no nuance whatsoever in its depiction of society. (Hobos & night club workers ? Good. Businessmen, and the rich in general ? Bad.) Every single character here is completely one-dimensional, which makes it hard to care about any of them. The plot has no originality whatsoever to it, either.

It’s crap. Not a kind of crap I’ve seen much of recently in anime, but still crap.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 4.

Accel World

(24 episodes)

What’s it about ?

In the future, augmented reality is going to be wicked awesome… Oh, wait, it’s a shounen fighting series.

Characters

Haru, our protagonist. Nothing says “punchable loser” like being voiced by Yuki Kaji, but the character designer went out of their way to portray him as a very short fat dude who looks utterly out of place among the other characters. He spends most of his middle school life being harassed by bullies and retreating into virtual reality games, until he meets…

Er, well, I really doubt Kuroyukihime (“Black Snow Princess”) is her real name, so let’s call her Black Lotus, her virtual reality screen name. She’s the beautiful idol of the school, although that’s just a front for her actual personality of a complete troll. She goes out of her way to introduce Haru to the underground community of Burst Linkers, which are basically people who use a program to hack the omnipresent augmented-reality/internet/network to get super-speed. This sounds awesome and addictive until you learn you must play a special game to get more doses of it. The big mystery here is obviously what’s Black Lotus’ angle in getting Haru under her wing.

Haru has what looks like a successful big brother to feel inferior to, and a clingy childhood friend who’s all set for the mandatory love triangle by the end of episode 2. Hopefully they won’t get too much screen time wasted on them.

Production Values

Wow. The real world sequences and characters aren’t much to speak of, but as soon as the augmented reality kicks in it looks awesome. (The virtual worlds don’t look too bad, either.) I really, really want to live in this future world where you have the internet hardwired into your neck. Sure, the Big-Brother-cameras everywhere feel a bit dystopian, but it feels worth it.

Overall impression

Dull characters, including yet another Yuki-Kaji-voiced loser protagonist ? Check. Already starting to degenerate into a fighting tournament series ? Check. Oh, dear, those aren’t good signs. But on the other hand, it’s a series with a killer concept at its core (and the visuals to back it up), and that may be enough for me to keep watching it.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 3.

Saint Seiya Omega

(?? episodes)

What’s it about ?

Because someone demanded it : a new iteration of the decades-old Saint Seiya franchise. (Basically : Greek-mythology-inspired fighting shonen.) This is supposed to be newbie- (and kid-)friendly material, starring a new generation of protagonists.

Characters

Kouga, our brand new protagonist, and the new Pegasus Saint. He’s a bit of a whiny brat so far, but then he’s got a point : nobody really explains anything to him, and especially why they’re training him to fight mythical stuff for Athena’s sake.

Saori, his mother figure, is especially guilty of this. I mean, not telling him you’re Athena ? (But then, what little I remember from the original series rarely showed her as the brains of the outfit either…)

Seiya, the original Pegagus Saint (and protagonist of the original series), dies in a flashback to protect Saori and infant!Kouga from an attack by new Big Bad Mars. (Wait, a Roman god ?) Well, the flashback itself didn’t look that conclusive to me, but everyone in the present says he sacrificied himself to help seal Mars away. Anyway, being “dead” doesn’t prevent his astral voice from giving some guidance to Kouga now that Mars has resurfaced.

Shaina, the masked Amazon, also stayed around as Kouga’s trainer. And that’s it as far as characters from the original series are concerned. (What, did everyone else die in Hades or something ? No, don’t answer that, it’s not relevant anyway.)

Presumably Kouga is going to gather a new band of other Saints ; the next episode preview makes it looks like the new Cygnus is next.

Production Values

Well, you can see that the Heartcatch Precure crew is at the helm : stylised and colourful character designs, super-fluid animation, a good sense of lighting and colouring for dramatic effect… Frankly, if you’re going to reinvent such a franchise, you can hardly go wrong with them.

It’s been ages since I’ve seen any of the original series, but this strikes me as decidedly less bloody and violent.

Overall Impression

Well, this is definitely a competent, kid-friendly Saint Seiya revival. There’s nothing wrong with it : it looks quite good, this is a logical direction for the story to go for such a project…

But do I really want to watch such a thing ? I don’t have any nostalgia for the franchise, and I find it hard to summon any enthusiasm for this new series. I’ll give it a couple other episodes to see whether Kouga stops being such a wanker and the supporting cast is any fun, but I’m not holding my breath.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 3.

Shibainuko-san

(?? 2-minute episodes)

What’s it about ?

A middle-schooler who looks like a dog. Adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga (if you couldn’t tell by the one-joke premise).

Characters

Shibainuko-san, the middle-schooler who looks like a dog. She’s a bit clumsy.

Chako, our straight-(wo)man narrator girl. She’s there to explain the jokes and be befuddled by the whole situation.

Napolin, their dumb classmate. She’s dumb.

Production Values

This also comes courtesy of eyebleed-o-vision, but it’s obvious there’s no real budget here. Heck, I said it was 2-minute-long, but if you remove the opening song, the advertisement for the Recorder & Randsell DVD, and the announcement about the producers filling time with random internet fanart, there’s less than a minute of actual content here.

Overall Impression

Oh, look, it’s another of those unfunny one-joke no-budget shorts. Disregard with prejudice.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 2.

Folktales from Japan (Furusato Saisei Nippon no Mukashi Banashi)

(?? episodes)

What’s it about ?

Exactly what it says on the tin. Each episode is comprised of three different (and unrelated) folktales.

Production Values

Very low ; the artsyle is deliberately naive, and the animation takes every possible shortcut.

Overall Impression

Well, this is definitely a collection of Japanese folktales. Perfectly alright for what it is, but I’m clearly 20 years to old to have any interest in this beyond the novelty of the first episode. I’ll pass.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2012 – Page 2.