Tag: humour

The Truth Is I Am… (Jitsu wa Watashi wa…)

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a romantic comedy manga.

Characters

Asahi, our high-school protagonist, has a recurring problem : he’s a terrible liar and can’t keep a secret. Can’t bluff for his life. So hey, since it’s obvious he’s got a crush on one of his classmates, his “friends” tell him to go and confess to ; at least he’ll have gotten it out of his system and be less awkward when ogling her. (And hey, one of them caught her glancing back at Asahi too, so maybe he’s got a chance ?)

Youko, though, is one of the most unapproachable students on campus : never talks much (and always very formally), stays out of outdoors activities, first come and last left at the school… Frankly, he just wanted to leave a love letter on her desk when he caught her stretching.

… her wings. For you see, the truth is that she is a vampire. Hence why she avoids the sun. (Er, wait, no, that’s just because she tans easily.) She doesn’t speak much in public (especially not in her natural Kansai dialect) because otherwise her fangs would be showing. And so on. Oh, well, now that the gig is up, she’ll just have to stop going to school.

Not so, objects Asahi ! He’ll be her friend, and keep her secret ! (Good luck on that, kiddo.) And then he notices he forgot to confess ; that’d just be too awkward now.

The OP & ED sequences make it clear that Youko is not the only weirdo around ; not only is the class rep obviously a robot, but there are also at least a succubus and a demon-girl with horns who should show up later on. But most terrifying is Mikan from the Journalist Club, who’s already smelling something going on.

Production Values

The manga is reputed for its quirky artstyle that makes for some great funny faces from most of the cast. Here, the character designs are much blander, but we still get a decent amount of funny faces.

Overall Impression

This is a mildly funny harem romance setup. It has some decent jokes, but a worrying tendency to stretch them for a bit too long. And the first episode hasn’t really got past the point that was in all the advertising material, so it feels a bit empty.

I’m giving it a second episode, but it’d better shape up a bit and find its groove now that the premise has been established.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 4

Ushio & Tora

(26 episodes, + another season already scheduled for Spring 2016 after a break)

What’s it about ?

Calvin & Hobbes, shonen style ! Well, kinda.

Adaptation of a manga series from the early 90s that already got a few OVAs at the time. I have no clue why the franchise is seeing new life now, nearly 20 years after it ceased publication.

Characters

Ushio, our protagonist, is the young heir of a temple that supposedly hosts an enchanted lance that can drive out demons and other mystical nasties. Not that he cares ; he’s mostly concerned with playing around and leading a normal life. Your typical jock kid, really : good at sports and athletics, terrible in other school subjects.

Daddy, the current priest, isn’t the best role model anyway. He keeps droning on and on about the temple’s legacy, but never actually explained it properly to Ushio. Also, his sudden island vacation this morning (“the third time this month, Dad ?”) means that he’s not around to provide any exposition when the plot actually kicks in.

Today Ushio discovers that Sacred Spear is indeed hidden in one of the temple buildings’ basement ; it’s trapping there an ancient, powerful demon who would really like him to remove the spear and free him. He would me more convincing without the mwahahah-ing and his promises to kill the kid afterwards. So Ushio just leaves him there and goes to school.

Asako (standard issue tsundere, and maybe as strong as Ushio himself) and Mayuko (more open about liking him) are the two of his classmates we get to know a bit. And they happen to be visiting just as a number of small-fry demons, attracted by Ushio unearthing the trapped monster, start roaming around. Well, crap.

So Ushio frees him to get his help… and promptly gets backstabbed for his trouble. Fortunately, he’s still got the lance, which makes it clear who’s in charge here. He nicknames his new familiar “Tora” (because it vaguely looks like a tiger) and has it dispatch most of the small demons, finishing them off with the lance. (Which somehow gives him super-long hair while wielding it. I have no clue why.)

Ushio forces Tora to stick around, as more minor demons are bound to show up for a while ; they’re both obviously planning to backstab each other. (Ushio sealing Tora back for good, and Tora killing Ushio somehow for the humiliation.) And of course, since only Ushio can see Tora, it looks to the likes of Asako & Mayuko that their friend is talking to his imaginary pet. Eh.

Production Values

Wow, early ’90s character designs ! But hey, they’re decently animated, so no complaints from me.

Overall Impression

Well, this is kinda fun, in a very dumb way. The retro style works. And it’s amusing how everyone is terrible as hiding how little they think of others.

But I think I’m done. It’s a rather generic shonen show all told, and I’m not in the market for those, really. Especially as it’s going to be running for a while.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 3

A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist (Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a light novel series going for political satire.

Characters

This is set in an impossibly sanitized Japan where have been outlawed dirty words and any public display of obscenity ; every citizen wears a collar detecting forbidden words and calling the Public Morals shock-troops on them. It goes without saying that it’s a very oppressive dystopia.

Okuma, our protagonist, is mostly trying to lay low (what with his father being an indecent terrorist), wishing to lead a normal life and attend the purest high-school in the country. Okay, his motives may not be entirely pure ; he’s very admirative of…

Anna, the student council president of said school, who makes big speeches about upholding morals and stuff. She’s a charismatic figurehead, I’ll give her that. And she does invite him to help out ; since he comes from a low-morals background, he could be better at identifying terrorist acts. Because yeah, she’s so sheltered that she has little clue what obscenity actually looks like. Which makes it hard to fight the likes of…

Blue Snow, a major indecent woman, who wanders around half-naked while giving out tons of naughty pictures and spouting out dirty jokes. Also, she’s obviously Ayame, the quiet vice-president, avenging her falsely-accused father with the help of a device jamming the cuss-word-detectors for three minutes a day that he gave her.

She outs herself to Okuma, thinking he infiltrated the student council like her. When he refuses to help, she just blackmails him to do it anyway. (And hey, it’d be a massive scandal that could damage Anna’s reputation if the truth became known, eh ?)

Blue Rose’s point, beside the free speech argument, is that education (and entertainment) has become so sanitized that the current generation of teenagers (who’ve lived their whole life under the law) have no clue how sex and reproduction even work anymore. They still think and gossip madly about it ; they’ve just lost the vocabulary and practical knowledge. And that’s how she wants to help them, despite lacking actual picture references herself.

Other characters include Fuwa, a very obsessed biology student who searches madly for any clue of how reproduction works (even Ayame finds her creepy), and Gouriki, the treasurer, whom Okuma saves from being falsely accused as a train molester (and is heavily hinted to be gay).

Production Values

Decent enough. And given the subject matter, the fanservice level is quite moderate.

Overall Impression

Wow, someone has a bone to pick with the Tokyo Youth Ordinance. And, well, there are less deserving targets of ridicule, so why not.

The big question if whether the writer has managed to channel his outrage and contempt into satire that’s actually funny. And, er, I’m not sure it works. It’s got some interesting ideas and clearly something to say, but the hit-or-miss ratio of the jokes is lower than I’d like. (It doesn’t help that most of the dirty jokes don’t carry well from Japanese, however valiantly the translators are trying to convey them.)

Still, it’s not often you see actual political satire in anime, so I’m willing to give it some rope to find its legs.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 2

Charlotte

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Oh, it’s our old pal Jun Maeda of Key, once again collaborating with studio PA Works to produce something that’s not an adaptation of his visual novels ! And we’re clearly closer to Angel Beats territory than the likes of Clannad, as it’s all about the madcap comedy and looks very unlikely to go too much into melodramatic tragedy.

Characters

Yuu, our protagonist, has got a limited but surprisingly useful superpower : he can possess the body of anyone in his line of sight (with his own body slunking down in the meantime) for a maximum of 5 minutes seconds. He takes advantage of it to cheat at exams, get into the best high school of the country, and woo the prettiest girl there. He barely has the self-control to avoid mwahahah-ing all over the place. He’s a despicable sleazeball, but quite an entertaining one.

Nao is the student council president from another school altogether who gathers enough evidence to blackmail him into transfering there. (Her own “invisible to one person” power makes it rather easy.) She’s made a personal mission to gather all the super-powered teenagers causing mischief, and enrols Yuu into her crusade. His power should make it quite useful indeed.

Takajou, the stern vice-president, has harnessed his own limited teleportation powers to become quite good in a fight, so it’s not like Yuu can escape.

To complete the humiliation, Yumi, the pretty girl he had wooed, makes it pretty clear she has no wish to pursue him halfway through the country if he can’t give an explanation, and dumps him.

The one person who is happy about the sudden transfer is Ayu, Yuu’s younger sister, who’s excited about getting into a new school too. To his great displeasure, she hits it off immediately with Nao.

Production Values

Very nice indeed ; you can always rely on studio PA Works to provide scenery porn and an impressive attention to detail with body language. Given Yuu’s power, the latter is key to selling the jokes.

Overall Impression

I always approach Maeda’s works with trepidation, as his penchant towards contrived melodrama can be a bit tiring. So I was quite glad to see this seems to be nearly entirely drama-free, instead focusing on his other strength : very well-timed absurdist comedy. This is filled with laugh-out-loud moments, and I’ve enjoyed it from start to finish.

If it can sustain this level of energy for the whole season, then this could be one of the funniest shows of Summer.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 2

Blue Spring x Machine Gun (Aoharu x Kikanjuu)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a manga series about survival games (although it takes some detours before getting to that point)… wait, it was published in a shonen magazine ? Odd, as this is clearly targetting a female audience.

Characters

Hotaru Tachibana, our highschool protagonist. The student council president, and a flamboyant Hero of Justice ! The kind who jumps down three stories to beat up a bunch of bullies. Now, Tachibana is quite short an unimposing at first sight, but more than makes up for it with ridiculous athletic and fighting skills. As well as getting into the face of anyone that remotely looks like an Ennemy of Justice !

The twist being that Tachibana is a girl, and identifies as such, despite coming to school in a male uniform. Very few people are aware of this, and you get the sense there’s an intriguing story behind her attitude. But we’re not getting into that yet.

Kanae is, for the lack of a better word, her best friend, and one of the few people in the know. She’s a bit too eager to try and get Tachibana to put on a skirt for my tastes. Anyway, she kickstarts the plot by telling her friend she’s broke after that humiliating time at this male hostel club… and Tachibana is already off to avenge her before she can add that it was because they turned her away (for being a minor, obviously), and she spent all her money on comfort food. But hey, Tachibana never misses an opportunity to go half-cocked to fight imaginary villains.

Masamune is the MVP of this host club : not only one of the most popular hosts, but also having a good eye to please the customers and avoid faux-pas from his colleagues. He was the one who turned Kanae away, and as such the object of Tachibana’s misguided wrath. It helps that he’s also her new neighbour, and they got off to a very bad start earlier in the day.

If you’re wondering what any of this has to do with survival games… Well, that’s Masamune’s hobby, and he insists on his duel with Tachibana being with toy guns. Yes, in the middle of the host club. (Cue all the hosts & customers cheerfully putting on safety glasses. Clearly this isn’t the first time.) While he takes on a handicap and Tachibana shows off some nice althletic and tactical skills, she makes the rookie mistake of not counting her ammo. Oops. Now she’s his.

So of course he wants her to join his Survival Game team, as a way to repay for all the needless damage she caused while jumping around in the club. He still hasn’t picked up on her being a girl, by the way.

(The third member of this team makes a cameo at the end.)

Production Values

Very good indeed. The action sequences are entertainingly over the top and get ridiculously fluid animation. There’s also a lot to like in the soundtrack.

Overall Impression

You know what they say : you can make any premise more interesting by dropping in a crossdressing girl as a protagonist. (Okay, I have no clue if anyone ever said that, but it’s true.) It helps that the show turns out to be way more entertaining than it has any right to. The sense of fun is pervasive, and Tachibana’s dumb antics are more amusing than irritating once you get to know her better.

Sure, there’s a bit of the characteristic rapey subtext of shojo romances (seriously, how is this manga shonen ?), but that stays as a low enough level to avoid being more than slightly annoying.

Besides this, the show turns out to be quite fun, so I’m strongly considering keeping with it.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 2

Anime from 2000 : The Leftovers

Over the course of this project, there were a number of show I decided not to cover, or just couldn’t. Those were :

  • Sequels to earlier shows (and thus not NEW shows). There’s a few spin-offs I still chose to try and cover for significance reasons, but overall I skipped most of them.
  • A good number of kids’ shows that just weren’t available in any form (even in massacred English dubs). Those I had no option but to skip entirely.
  • Also, I didn’t do OVAs and movies. Sorry, FLCL.

So, here follows a list of everything I didn’t review :

#03 on the list is something called Mon Colle Knights, adapting some collectible cardgame. It’s the first of the many kids’ shows I just couldn’t get any hold of for this project. Not that I’m really heartbroken about it.

#05 is OH! Super Milk-Chan, a sequel to a 1998 comedy kids’ show.

#08 is Ojamajo Doremi #, the second season (out of four) of the magical girl franchise that eventually left way for Precure.

#10 is Digimon Adventure 02, which feels enough like a straight sequel of the original (unlike, say, Tamers) that I am not covering it.

#14 is Hidamari no Ki, an adaptation of a late Osamu Tezuka manga about the friendship between a samurai and a doctor in the Edo period. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a copy of even the first episode of it. A shame, as it sounds quite interesting.

#15 is Doki Doki Densetsu Mahoujin Guru Guru, a sequel to a 1994 kids’ show adapting a manga lampooning Dragon Quest-style RPGs. It actually sounds quite fun, but it’s outside the scope of this project.

#21 is Inspector Fabre (Fabre Sensei wa Meitantei), another kids’ show I couldn’t lay my hands on.

A few words on #22, Banner of the Stars. It’s basically part two of a trilogy of anime adaptations of a light novel series, so it’s outside the scope of this project. But I should note that it’s the weakest chunk of this S-F saga. Crest kept things close and personal to its lead couple ; Banner II also had a tight focus as they dealt with a prison planet. Banner, on the other hand, throws them in the middle of a massive military campaign, depriving them of agency and relevance in their own series. It’s got its moments, but I found it distinctly less enjoyable.

#23 is yet another unavailable kids’ show, Taro the Space Alien, adapting a children’s manga.

#28 is something called DinoZaurs: The Series, which is apparently a sequel to a few OVAs that were bundled with a toyline that’s also known as “DinoZone”. Anyway, I couldn’t find it, and I had no inclination to dig too much.

#29 is Medarot Damashii, the second season of the adaptation of the Medabots RPG videogame franchise.

#35 is Mr. Digital Tokoro, a full-CG-animated series of shorts (130 3-minute-long episodes) based on comedian Tokoro George. (A guy famous enough to lend his name to half a dozen Mahjong videogames ; he also dubs Homer Simpson.)
Frankly, this sounds dreadful, but I couldn’t find even one of them.

#43 is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children, an adaptation of that RPG franchise’s attempt at emulating the success of Pokémon, with simpler gameplay more accessible to kids. It got a sequel in 2002, adapting a further game (and apparently having a troubled production). Anyway, I couldn’t find it.

#44 would be Baby Felix, a spin-off from the old Felix the Cat cartoons (which were apparently popular enough in Japan). Again, I couldn’t find it.

I thought I had gotten my hands on #50, Dotto Koni-chan, but my copy has no subtitles. It’s a comedy kids’ show about kids messing around and getting into hijinks. It’s mostly notable for being animated by studio Shaft before they became SHAFT, and directed by Excel Saga‘s Nabeshin himself. It does look kinda fun.

#51 should be Pipopapo Patrol-kun, a kids’ show featuring a friendly neighbourhood cop that might have been educational if I could have laid hands on it.

Our final and 52nd entry would have been Suteki! Sakura Mama, a series of shorts I could find nearly no information about. A bit anticlimactic, eh ?

Spring 2015 capsules

A few words on Vampire Holmes, first. It’s an adaptation of a… smartphone game app (!) as a series of barely-animated shorts ; the premise is that this Holmes completely sucks at using reason… not that it stops him from solving the crimes. It’s supposed to be funny, but this one joke is way too slight to support even a 3-minute short, let alone a whole season of it. Don’t bother with this one.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015.

 

Oh, frack it, I’m not doing a full review of Wish Upon the Pleiades (Houkago no Pleiades). For one thing, I already reviewed the pilot web-thingy 4 years ago, and this first episode is a slightly abbreviated version of the same story. I think Gainax reanimated the whole thing thanks to that sweet Subaru money, but I can’t be arsed to track the original version down to compare.

Anyway, it’s still as boring and utterly bizarre as a use of a sponsor’s money (the magical girls’ brooms roar like motorbikes ! The main character is named Subaru ! And, er, that’s it for product placement…) ; I can only fathom that the few people left at Gainax needed the money, no questions asked.

 

On Sunday aired a short called Rainy Cocoa (Ame-iro Cocoa), about a bunch of handsome dudes running a café. It’s a string of mediocre jokes and stereotypical characterization that just abruptly stops because we’ve hit the 2-minute mark. (There’s technically a cliffhanger with a dude suddenly showing up, but come on now.) Nothing to see there.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

 

A few words on a couple of shorts, first.

BAR Kiraware Yasai features a bunch of vegetables having a drink and complaining about how nobody likes them. It’s mildly cute as a concept, and at least it’s a joke that fits the “series of shorts” format, but there’s nothing particularly compelling in the execution to make me come back next week.

Urawa no Usagi-chan is *COME TO URAWA CITY* a series of shorts featuring a girl called Usagi *PLEASE COME, WE’RE DESPERATE ENOUGH TO COMMISSION THIS* who has utterly normal fri- *NO SERIOUSLY, WE NEED YOUNG PEOPLE TO COMPENSATE OUR POPULATION’S AGING* -ends *TOURISTS ARE FINE TOO*…

Excuse me, please wait a second.

/Shoots the representative from Urawa City’s tourism board.

Now, that’s better. Unfortunately, while there’s enough budget to make this look decent, the producers forgot to include anything like a plot, characters doing anything, or even the glimmer of a single joke. It’s just a scene that lasts for more that three minutes and accomplishes nothing in that duration.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.

 

No full review for Saint Seiya : Soul of Gold. I’m not sure whether this is a proper sequel or just a side-story ; the premise is that a good chunk of the supprting cast sacrificed themselves in the Hades arc (which I haven’t watched), and now at least some of them find themselves surprisingly not dead (or maybe undead), in Asgard of all places. And of course there’s something nasty going on there.

This is a perfectly alright on all levels : it looks alright, it quickly establishes the premise and the first miniboss, and even takes the time to allude to the Lion Gold Saint’s origin story as a stab to make him engaging as a protagonist. There’s even a weird cliffhanger to make the viewer question what’s really going on. Quite competent all around… It’s just that unlike the Latin-American market who demands the franchise to be revived every few years, I have no particular nostalgia for Saint Seiya (easy “endless stair-climbing” jokes aside), so I don’t particularly care about this project. Not for me, I guess.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 5.

 

Now for the final straggler… and there’s no way in hell I’m doing a full review of Ninja Slayer From Animation.

The signs should have been obvious. It’s adapted from an elaborate prank (an alleged “traduction” of an American novel, serialized on Twitter). Episodes are barely 12-minute-long, and broadcast only on NicoNico over in Japan. (They’re in a goddarn 4/3 format !) They got the Inferno Cop guy to direct it. Of course it was going to turn out to be a no-budget, no-plot “gonzo parody”.

The thing is, this is actually much worse than Inferno Cop. I may not have liked it, but that show had personality and embraced its own lunacy. It wasn’t boring like this crap, and its shorter episode length made for much better pacing. Ninja Slayer, on the other hand, has an even thinner premise (“dude who hates ninjas gets reborn as a ninja who kills ninjas”), characters with no depth whatsoever, and just piles on cliché after cliché without ever doing anything interesting with them. It doesn’t even have the guts of going all paperdoll-style like Inferno Cop, instead having random bursts of semi-decent animation that make it look even more boring.

The only kind thing I can say here is that it’s got good colour design, and an okayish soundtrack. Everything else about it is pure, unadultered crap. Congratulations, Ninja Slayer ! You’re easily the worst show this season, and by far.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 6.

Yamada & the Seven Witches (Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a comedy manga series, the first episode of which features a conspicuous lack of witches. Hm.
Apparently it also got a short-lived live-action TV adaptation back in 2013.

Characters

Yamada, our protagonist, is nearly the platonic ideal of the “delinquant” high-schooler : a barely-contained ball of anger who’s rude, violent, and terrible in his studies. Fortunately, before he can get onto my nerves, he suddenly swaps bodies with…

Shiraishi, the best student in his class. Who doesn’t have much of a clue how this happened either, but wants him to wait until after school for them to sort this out, as she can’t afford to miss any more classes. So Yamada spends the rest of the day as her… and learns that she has more depth than the “boring honor student” he’s always dismissed her as : he now sees the creepy harassment from some of the boys, the intense bullying by some of her female classmates, and the fact she has no friends whatsoever. And you can clearly see his own personal growth that comes with this nascent understanding. Also, he has to deal with the fact that Shiraishi refuses him to resort to his go-to answer to everything (i.e. violence), especially as he’s still in her body.

Miyamura, the student council vice-president, who quickly guesses what’s going on and seizes this opportunity to revive the Supernatural Studies Club (of which he was the only member left). Yamada & Shiraishi had already figured out they switched bodies whenever they kissed ; Miyamura is the one leading the experiments that led to the discovery that Yamada could apparently do it with anyone. (One guess how. Shiraishi was surprisingly enthusiastic at the prospect.) Anyway, this lets everyone have a room where they can discreetly swap bodies, provided they occasionally help the student council out.

As I wrote earlier, no witches in sight. The OP sequence goes out of its way to try and frame Shiraishi, the head bully, a tentative applicant to the club who shows up at the end, and four other girls as the titular seven witches, but that feels more symbolic than implying any actual witchcraft at play here. (And if they do turn out to be real witches, that’d be a really surprising twist.)

Production Values

Quite good. It’s a show that relies on comedic timing and a good understanding of body language to sell its central concept, and it handles that well. The exaggerated way Yamada walks may be a bit too much, though.

Overall Impression

This is way better than I expected it to be. The core reason is that it spends very little time dwelling on the obvious jokes, and instead focuses on building everyone into stronger characters and finding fun ways for them to abuse the strange premise. That’s quite refreshing, really.

It’s also an impressive performence showcase. Admittedly, not really from Ryota Osaka ; his Shiraishi-as-Yamada is just kinda flat. But Saori Hayami really gets to stretch herself here ; her Yamada-as-Shiraishi is hilarious, either as a hoarse default-mode or as a parody of feminimity ; and even her normally flat Yamada can turn out to be surprisingly playful and fun. Between this and the 2:15-minute rant, I’m getting more and more appreciately of her range.

This show had me laughing non-stop nearly throughout its first episode. It must be doing something right. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll keep watching it to the end. (And probably catch on that OVA episode that got released a few months ago.)

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 5.

#48 : Ghost Stories (Gakkou no Kaidan)

(20 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A horror show that’s not adapted from anything. Apparently the English dub took vast liberties with the script to make it into more of a black comedy, but that’s not what I’m watching.

Characters

Satsuki, our fifth-grader heroine. Her dad moved the family back into their mother’s hometown after she died, apparently because the in-laws could provide them with affordable housing. Anyway, that means Satsuki (and her younger brother Keiichirou) are going to a new school from now on. While it looks perfectly decent, they get sidetracked when their cat goes into the creepy abandoned older building…

Hajime, the bratty neighbour kid who tries to prank them (with his bespectacled best pal Reo), only to get a lot less confident once the lot of them get stuck inside.

Momoko, the nice sixth-grader whose hat got lost inside. Totally not a ghost. By an amazing coincidence, she spent some time in the same hospital where Satsuki’s mom spent her last days. And it’s looking less and less like a coincidence when it turns out that (1) Satsuki’s grandmother was a former headmistress of the school and (2) Mom left behind a manual of how to handle ghosts.

That thing comes in really handy, as the old school building is truly haunted. One could have ascribed the sudden opening and closing of the front door to the wind ; the chain repositioning itself, less so. And the various ectoplasm manifestations soon destroy any possible doubt.

Production Values

Quite good, actually. There are lots of slow panning CG shots of the corridors that must have been expensive at the time, and still look quite good while establishing quite the creepy atmosphere. So this is a rare 00s Pierrot show that looks good. I’m as surprised as you are.

Overall Impression

Hey, this is quite fun ! The kids are a good mix of personalities, the plot moves along at a decent pace, and the closing punchline is hilarious. There’s a good chance it’s got a proper ending, too.

I could definitely see myself watching this in full down the line.

Source: [In Which I Review] Anime series from 2000 – Page 13

Punch Line

(11 episodes)

What’s it about ?

“Once he sees underwear, humanity is destroyed!?” is the tagline for this project. It’s as good a description as any of the plot of a series that also features sentai super-heroes, ghosts, and time-travel. And panties, of course.

Characters

Yuuta, our protagonist, is in a bit of a pickle. He had a near-death experience in the course of his bus being taken hostage, and unfortunately something has taken over his body. So he’s stuck as a ghost, looking for a way to retake his body.

Chiranosuke is a friendly neighbouring cat-ghost who gives him a lengthy explanation about this, and gives him some pointers about a book that could help him. (Nope, I don’t trust him either.) Also, he informs Yuuta that while seeing underwear and getting excited will super-power him, doing it twice in quick succession will doom humanity immediately. Like, meteor falls and everyone dies. Fortunately, as a ghost Yuuta can tell causality to take a hike, and go back in time to retry a better path as many times as he needs. Since that involves navigating through an apartment complex with a number of female tenants, that’s going to take more than a few tries.

Mikatan is one of his neighbours. He’s been introduced to her a few months ago as just a semi-famous singer, but secretly she’s Strange Juice (sic), defender of justice ! And she doesn’t do that bad a job of it in that bus hostage crisis the series opens with.

Meika, who seems to run the building, also helps her out as mission control. Which might explain why Mikatan’s got a secret entrance to an underground base in her flat.

There’s also Lovera, the dodgy medium (who by a suspect coincidence was also on that bus), and Ito, the NEET.

And then there’s this cocky dude who seems to have orchestrated the bus hostage-taking, and is already at it again that night. I wonder how he fits into all this.

Production Values

WOW. Studio MAPPA have become known for drowning their latest projects in budget and producing impressive animation, but they’ve outdone themselves here. The bus hostage crisis is by far the most gorgeous and well-paced action sequence of the season so far. And then there’s the camera loving to move around in any shot to convey Yuuta’s disorientation, an effect that can’t be cheap to animate.

Also, kick-ass soundtrack. Apparently that’s from the most successful music producer in Japan.

Of course, there’s no going around the fact that much underwear is on display here. At least it’s varied and never boring.

Overall Impression

Well, that was weird. But it’s utterly manic in a way that agrees with my sensibilities : it knows how to use each and every second of screentime to display something awesome, funny, or both. And it’s got great comedic timing. (Best joke of the episode : Chiranosuke turning to his laptop to complete his exposition, and having to shut down a window with cat porn before resuming without missing a beat. Second best joke : Mikatan doing an elaborate transforming dance, only to finally put on her Strange Juice costume the old-fashioned way, while Meika just rolls her eyes.)

After a while, the underwear fanservice even becomes a portent of DOOM rather than actually titillating… Which is of course the central joke of the series. It a show that wants to eat his cake and still have it, while having the audience cheer it on. For me, it works.

This is just as good as I was expecting. No way I’m skipping it.

via [In Which I Review] New anime, Spring 2015 – Page 4.