Tag: manga adaptation

Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Demon summoning is totally real. Even in Victorian England.

Characters

William Twining, our protagonist. He’s one of the most promising youth of his generation, bright and coming from a rich family… wait, scratch that, his uncle (and legal guardian) has just gone bankrupt and disappeared, leaving our hero unable to pay for his tuition. Farewell to his dream of being part of the elite… But maybe he could search the family house (the only thing not repossessed yet) for something worth money. And in a hidden basement, he stumbles on a magic circle, with which he accidentally summons…

Dantalion, one of the leading contenders to Hell’s throne during the interim period where Lucifer is busy sleeping. It turns out that William is the descendant of the guy who can decide such things (mostly by beating everyone else up back in the day), so Dantalion tries his best convince him to do so. The problem is that Willian is a staunch rationalist and won’t believe in demons whatever happens. Could you annoying cosplayer get off his lawn already ?

Obviously, everyone in Hell is bound to want a piece of William once they learn how much he matters.

The supporting cast is rounded up by William’s butler (who’s sticked around because he still believes Willian will get rich and powerful eventually), and the very annoying young Isaac Newton, who believes in tons of supernatural stuff.

Also, Dantalion transfers into William’s school (and it looks a lot like he’s the one who paid for his tuition somehow), which can only lead to crazy hijinks.

Production Values

Perfectly alright.

Overall Impression

I was kinda on board with this until William’s repeated denial of the occult (despite everything that happens around him) got very annoying. After a while, his rationalism just stops making any sense and becomes bloody aggravating. Which is a shame, since there are some decent jokes in this… But if it gets tiring now already, I doubt I can withstand 12 episodes of it. Especially as I get the nagging suspicion there’s going to be a tournament of some sort.

Nice try, but no thanks.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 5.

Blood Lad

(10 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Comedy about vampires that don’t bite anyone.

Characters

Staz, the vampire ruler of a section of Hell. Except he has no interest in sucking the blood of humans, as he’s very grateful for them creating all this delightful pop-culture. Basically a gaijin otaku stereotype.

Deku, his beleaguered second-in-command, who’s baffled by this boss who barely ever gets out of his room and shows no interest in vampiring or conquering more territory. But still beats any other boss wannabe, especially this asshole who’s just showed up with his stupid people-eating plants.

Yanagi, an ordinary Japanese high school girl who’s stumbled into Hell (without any clue how) and should consider herself very lucky to be in Staz’s territory, all things considered. Well, except she gets eaten by one of those darn plants halfway through the episode, so she’s a ghost now. But Staz is totally going to restore her to life ! (Given how he takes his inspiration in Dra-Gunbol manga, I wouldn’t keep my hopes up…)

Other members of the supporting cast include a mysterious traveller whose dimensional door is probably responsible for this mess ; a three-eyed bar owner (and her humanoid symbiote or whatever) who’s not much help with figuring what can be done ; and a meek shapeshifter who joins Staz just at the time he needs a decoy while going off in the human world to buy more popculture stuff escort Yanagi back.

Production Values

This looks quite cheap indeed ; there’s some nice effects where the camera shakes around a bit to make the storytelling feel more hip, but that’s not enough to hide the lackluster budget.

Also, the camera never lets you forget that Yanagi has big boobs.

Overall Impression

It’s decent, I guess ? There are some good jokes (and a good deal that fall flat), I like some of the deadpan snark being thrown around, and the various hell creatures are fun.

But let’s be honest : the only reason I haven’t dropped it yet is that it’s only 10 episodes, and thus there’s a reduced risk of it running out of ideas and stopping being mildly funny in such a short runtime. I don’t trust it to go anywhere anyway (especially with a still-ongoing manga), but hopefully the joke won’t get stale too quickly.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 5.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya

(10 episodes)

What’s it about ?

A comedy spin-off of Fate/stay night with Illya as a magical girl.

Characters

Illya, our prepubescent heroine, who lives in a weird parallel universe where the von Einzberg family is all happy, and especially her mother is stated not to be dead (although she’s on a business trip or something). She’s also got a random older sister, as well as Taiga acting as housekeeper and “cousin” Shirou living with them. Er, sure.

It turns out it was Rin who was originally given the magical girl powers, but since she kept using them to feud with her new rival Luvia (a haughty noble cliché) instead of their nominal goal of hunting “Class cards”, bother their power artifacts got fed up with them and left. (While they were battling in the sky. Ouch.)

Magical Ruby, Rin’s wand, has a LOT of personality (the same for Magical Sapphire, Luvia’s, but it gets less screentime). Unfortunately, when it stumbles onto Illya while looking for a replacement for Rin, that makes it sounds fishier than Kyubey having just binged on salmon. Ruby is a very nasty bugger who isn’t above tricking Illya if that suits its purposes.

The OP sequence makes it look like there’s going to be an age-appropriate rival for Illya (presumably powered by Sapphire), but that’s for future episodes.

Production Values

Well, it’s a bit hard to tell since the streamed pre-air had a lot of nasty blocking whenever there’s a little action, but this looks quite good indeed.

Overall Impression

Well, I’ll give it that : it’s funny, and you really don’t need to know anything about the Fate/ series to understand it. Let’s be honest : those are very shallow versions of the characters, put into new roles for comedic effect. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Well, except that I don’t see the joke carrying 10 episodes ; and the genre-parody at work here is a bit too bad-natured for me to tolerate too long. It’s nasty for the sake of being nasty, and I can only laugh at that for so long.

If you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise, you’ll probably get more out of this than I do ; there are tons of easter eggs and it’s as good as such a comedy spin-off can be. But I already have a lot on my plate this season, and I can do without this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2013 – Page 5.

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.

Arata Kangatari

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Fantasy show with a protagonist displaced from our world.

Characters

Arata is the last heir of his clan, which is a bit of a problem since they were supposed to produce a female heir to replace the current Queen, who’s been reigning for 60 years (the clan already missed the original deadline 30 years ago). Their zany plan is to send him in drag to buy time for a few days while they find a suitable replacement. The problem is that the Queen’s 12 super-bodyguards murder her right in front of him as they stage a coup. He barely escapes alive, but he’s now a wanted “murderer”, as the bodyguards use him as a fall guy.

Arata is a random high-schooler who suffers from a particularly bad case of bullying. His middle school nemesis is carrying on as always, the one friend he thought he’d made is quick to deny any actual friendship, and he just wants to be gone from this world.

He gets his wish, as the two Aratas get switched up somehow. (It seems this kind of thing routinely happens in the cursed forest fantasy!Arata had taken refuge in.) Despite modern!Arata still being depicted in his school uniform, everyone seems to see him as fantasy!Arata, and just think he’s gone mad and/or lost his memory. While he’s not particularly thrilled about this development, he clearly sees the bodyguards attacking the clan for the bullies they are, and stands up against them. Fortunately for what would otherwise be a very short story, he can use the ancestral clan weapon that’s lying around…

Production Values

Sharp contrast between the colourful fantasy world (even the Queen’s blood looks shiny !) and the brown-ish modern world. Which works very well. It helps that the animation’s quite nice and does some good work on the details and facial expressions.

Overall Impression

This is actually quite fun. There are some gaping holes in the plot (what were the clan hoping to accomplish in three days that they couldn’t do in the last 30 years ?), and the transitions between the two worlds are far from smooth ; but once the switch happens it all makes sense : the potentially annoying bullied Arata is actually quite more interesting when his issues get imported into the (much more fun) fantasy setting.

I’m actually interested in watching a second episode of this to see where it’s going, which is more than what I thought at the start of the episode. Mission accomplished ?

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 10.

Insect Magistrate (Mushibugyou)

(25ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Shounen heroic-fantasy show, set in a vaguely Edo-ish Japan.

Characters

Jinbee, our protagonist. His father, a renowned samurai, was summoned to work for the Insect Magistrate’s office ; but since he got disgraced and maimed in an infamous incident, the son has come in his place. He’s eager to prove himself, although he’s not exactly too competent.

A pair of boobs, who may be attached to an inn waitress called Oharu who helps Jinbee out before becoming a damsel in distress.

The Insect Magistrate’s office is made of a stern-looking guy who’s in charge, and a variety of elite fighters with various specialties (the bomb expert, the berserker…). Their job : fight the giant monstrous bugs that are randomly attacking and eating people all over the place. The implication is that a good chunk of the population died before the authorities set this squad up. (Apparently at the people’s suggestion, because there was no obvious need for it… /facepalm)

Production Values

Bright and shiny, which stands in sharp contrast to the grittiness of the scenes involving the bugs. I’m not really sure the juxtaposition works, though. It just looks like a bit of a mess.

Overall Impression

A textbook example of how you can make elite samurai warriors fighting bugs utterly boring. The complete lack of depth of the characters makes this a very shallow watch indeed, and it’s really hard to care when they get caught up in danger. It’s a parade of annoying clichés, and it just doesn’t work.

Don’t bother with this one.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 10.

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyoujin)

(25ish episodes)

What’s it about ?

Dark heroic-fantasy.

Characters

Eren, our kid protagonist. He really wants to join the Recon Corps and explore the world beyond the gigantic walls humanity is confined in, but most people think this is a very stupid dream. (Well, Daddy, who’s somebody Important, acknowledges that’s it’s pointless to try and dissuade him.)

Coincidentally, the Recon Corps have just come back from their latest expedition, and they’re far fewer than when they left, those who did come back are in a sorry state, and their commander openly recognizes that they’ve accomplished nothing of value, ever. No wonder most people think they’re a stupid idea.

Mikasa, Eren’s childhood friend. She too thinks that joining the Recon corps is a stupid idea, and I get the impression she’s sabotaging his efforts for his own sake. She’s always looking out for him when he gets in trouble ; bullies run away when they see her, and considering she can lift and carry Eren without breaking a sweat, I can see their point.

Armin, their friend. He holds the not-very-popular opinion that humanity pretty much has to go outside the walls anyway, and that people are just kidding themselves when they think they’ll be protected forever.

He’s instantly proved right when the wall is breached by what everyone’s so afraid of : the Titans, gigantic humanoid monsters that prey on humanity. For a hundred years the 50-meter-high walls have been enough to keep them out so that everyone can live in “peace”, but now there’s one that’s taller than the outer wall. Crap. The city near the wall immediately falls.

Hanneth, a city guard, who was liking it better when he was a glorified wall repairer and drunk “parasite on society” ; but fuck it, this is his job, so he’s going to attack the nearest Titan. Then he realizes that he’s facing alone a 5-meter-tall monstruosity, reconsiders, and starts enacting Eren’s mother’s dying wish : get him and Mikasa the hell away from the slaughter.

Production Values

Holy shit, budget ! The soldiers in this setting use grappling hooks to scour the cities and the forests like they’re Spider-Men, and boy do the few snippets we get of this kind of action look impressive. This is a show with gorgeous animation and attention to detail… except in those few jarring scenes where they’ve ran out of money and it’s just still images.

Overall Impression

Was someone asking for non-generic, non-terrible heroic-fantasy ? Well, the jury’s still out on whether this is actually good, but at least it builds a distinctive atmosphere and avoids most of the old tired clichés. And it does pull off the visuals needed to back its ambitions, as the Titans are depicted with a sense of scale and weight that sells them as a monstrous, unstoppable threat, despite just being tall dudes who advance slowly.

Now, if there’s one thing I’m a bit wary about, it’s that this is a dead-serious show whose high-strung melodrama sometimes devolves into bathos ; most of the time the atmosphere works, but there are times when it gets a bit too overdone and silly. Hopefully it’s going to find the right balance soon ; probably once humanity start striking back.

This is clearly one of the few shows with ambition this season, and I’m looking forward to see where it goes from this kick-in-the-gut start.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 8.

The Flowers of Evil (Aku no Hana)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

I’m not quite sure yet, but it’s certainly very creepy.

Characters

Kasuga, our protagonist. He’s an average high school student who’s completely unremarkable in every way aside from his hobby of writing bad poetry and totally digging Baudelaire.

Saeki, the beautiful top student of the class whom Kasuga (and most of the other boys) has a crush on. She gets maybe two lines in the whole episode ; her chief role is clearly to be an object of desire.

Nakamura, the weird creepy girl who makes a point of handing out blank papers and insulting the teacher to his face. She only has about two minutes of screentime, but she’s clearly the most memorable part of the episode.

Production Values

This has got a very distinctive artstyle, nearly photorealistic ; it looks quite weird animated, deep into the uncanny valley. Which may well be the point. The soundtrack goes out of its way to build an atmosphere of creeping unease. Too bad about the peppy OP song, which doesn’t fit at all the mood that’d been set up pre-credits ; the weird robotic-sounding ED song is much more fitting.

Overall Impression

Well, this certainly commits to its aesthetic, devoting the whole episode to creating this sense of mundane creepiness. The problem is that most of it is very boring indeed, as litterally nothing happens aside from the Nakamura incident. It doesn’t help that I’m not really into Beaudelaire’s poetry, and thus don’t have a clue whether to take Kasuga’s interest in it seriously.

Still, the progressively rising tension is intriguing, especially after the Nakamura incident exacerbates it ; I’m also quite curious whether the awesomely creepy visual of a flower’s shadow with an eye bulging out of it has any relevance beyond symbolism.

Also, the mangaka insultingly told me to watch the next episode. I guess I’ll do it, then.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 5.