Tag: manga adaptation

Karneval

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Fabulous characters fighting a demonic conspiracy in a victorian-style setting.

Characters

Nai, our “protagonist”, if you can call that a character who starts the episode in bondage and barely gets any more agency over the course of the episode. He’s a wimp, desperately looking for his seme protective friend Karoku (last seen as just some drops of blood and his precious bracelet). He’s not completely useless, though, as he seems to be able to hear electronics or something.

Gareki, a thief who was infiltrating this rich-looking mansion on the city’s outskirts, and ended up finding (1) a tied-up Nai in the master bedroom and (2) the mistress of the place transforming into an unholy abomination to fight him. The shit having hit the fan, but Nai’s bracelet looking very interesting indeed, Gareki takes him with himself in his escape. To escape the authorities, they jump onto a passing train…

… which happens to have been taken hostage by a bunch of workers dissatisfied with their boss (who was on a trip with his innocent granddaughter). It doesn’t help that everyone mistakes Nai’s bracelet as the sign of him being a member of Circus, the elite magical cop force.

Hirato & Tsukumo, actual members of who came to the mansion too late (its mistress having been disposed of by her boss) and arrive to defuse the train hostage crisis because they have nothing better to do, I guess. They curbstomp the hostage-takers without breaking a sweat, although Nai’s superhearing and Gareki’s bomb defusing skills do come handy too.

Production Values

A white-haired pretty boy who spends a good chunk of the episode in handcuffs ? Elaborate, classy outfits for everyone ? Well, I guess there’s nothing wrong with aiming for the female audience, I guess. And the show as a whole does look very pretty indeed.

What did I think of it ?

What a novelty : an anime that features some actual ambitious storytelling ! (It’s not really non-linear, as all the scenes are in chronological order ; it’s just that we swiftly cut back and from without warning to the various subplots before learning how they mesh with the core story.) This has to be commended, especially as the pacing is pitch-perfect and manages to stay coherent and tie all its subplots niftly together despite having tons of stuff happen.

Let me be clear : this isn’t heady stuff. It’s a straight action piece in a setting that appears to value flash over substance. It’s just that it’s very cleverly put together, and seems to be having a lot of fun in the process. And it looks great.

This one is definitely a keeper.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2013 – Page 4.

The Severing Crime Edge (Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Cutting hair is sexy ! And serious business.

Characters

Kiri, our generic perverted male protagonist. His very peculiar turn-on : cutting people’s hair. He’s also the proud owner of a family heirloom, the titular Severing Crime Edge. It’s just a pair of hair-cutting scissors, although rumour has it was a crime weapon long ago.

Iwai, a cute girl with cursed, uncuttable hair. She’s like Kiri’s dream come true. He stumbles on her house at random, and it’s definite attraction at first sight.

Houko & Yamane, two girls who antagonistically take care of Iwai’s needs (since she stays at home and has no family). Iwai claims they’re murderers (or at least owner of Murder Tools like Kiri), but they don’t actually do much besides acting like creepy antagonists.

Just to make sure we know all of this is tremendously important, at the end of the episode there’s a mysterious dude in shadow who ominously declares that “the games have begun”. Of course they have.

Production Values

The show is sure keen on making us feel that cutting hair is the sexiest thing since Mysterious Girlfriend X‘s saliva. There’s no real fanservice at such, but lots of longing shots of our two leads being aroused by each other.

What did I think of it ?

Wut.

Not the premise as such ; I’ve been around the block too much to be weirded out by it. No, it’s just that I was expecting something besides the the hair-cutting fetish. Like, either a plot or some chemistry in the romance. But this first episode feels empty of substance, and the perfunctory mumblings about the Murder Tools don’t inspire me much confidence.

By the way, I hope the romance is meant to look creepy as heck, because otherwise this is giving completely the wrong impression.

I’m giving it another episode to give me a better idea of where it’s going, but I’m not optimistic.

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

Winter 2013 capsules

First, let’s get a couple of shorts out of the way…

My Little Sister talks like an Osakan Mom (Boku no Imouto wa “Oosaka Okan”) surprisingly isn’t incest-bait, unlike the immense majority of series with “Imouto” in the (long-winded) title. Instead, it’s terrible in a completely different way : it features horrible cheap Flash animation and revolves around a “wow, the Kansai dialect as spoken by this girl is weird and kinda nonsensical” joke that’s mostly impenetrable to Western ears and doesn’t sound that funny to start with. Apparently it’s adapted from a language guidebook, which really shows (with “helpful” translation recaps explaining the jokes slowly all the time).

Inferno Cop is a weird little short series coming from Studio Trigger, aka the people behind Gurren Lagann, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt and Redline. Alas, despite the pedigree this is objectively mindless garbage, with no budget whatsoever. Obviously this is part of the joke, but it’s not that funny. (Even P&Sw/G at its most poop-joke-obsessed lows had more depth and looked way better than this crap.)

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

Anime shorts are hard to review. In some lucky cases, they’re so terrible it’s easy to dismiss them immediately (see above ; although Inferno Cop‘s second episode had such gonzo charm that I’m starting to reconsider it). But in some case, there’s so little content it’s hard to judge how they’ll end up going.

Case in point : Encouragement of Climb (Yama no Susume). It’s about a high school girl who used to love mountain climbing but has been traumatized by a bad fall ; one of her elementary school friends tries to take her back to her old hobby… and won’t take no for an answer. It’s actually quite a promising start : it’s got some decent animation (including a slightly jarring CG-background shot at the beginning that isn’t half-bad), the plot progresses at a good clip, and it’s got more than one joke. Nothing earth-shattering, but good enough to be worth watching.

I’m more wary about Mangirl. It’s a comedy about young women setting up a new manga magazine. The problem is that it’s not really funny ; the basic joke is that they’re terrible at it, but the show features random bursts of offscreen competence so that they can be in business for more than one episode. And if you’re interested in the behind-the-scenes of manga publishing, this looks much more superficial than, say, Bakuman (which is, you know, still airing).

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

Ai Mai Mi is yet another series of shorts adapting some comedy 4-panel manga. It’s notionally about a high school manga club, but really the three title characters spend most of their time or acting out terrible jokes. At least Mangirl had a plot ; this is just unfunny, horrible-looking crap. Avoid.

 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Nekomogatari (Black) somewhere, now that I’ve watched the whole of it (the four episodes aired just before the New Year, but took a bit to get translated).

For those who aren’t aware of it, this is a prequel to 2009’s Bakemonogatari, a very peculiar mix of harem romance, supernatural horror, self-indulgent dialogue and Akiyuki Shinbo being weird for the hell of it. That was a very good show indeed (if only for being a visual masterpiece), but it’s not for everybody. Nisemonogatari, its sequel last year, was basically more of the same, with even better technical quality but also even more self-indulgent.

The question with Nekomonogatari (Black), like any prequel, is whether there’s any point to watching it, considering how the events of “the Cat incident in Golden Week” have already amply been described in the main series in its “Tsubasa cat” arc. I’ve actually rewatched those four episodes to make sure, and yes indeed Nekomonogatari (Black) does cover a lot of (until now) relatively unexplored territory. It helps that this is a lean narrative (by -monogatari standards), making its point very efficiently at a pace that never feels idle. And the visuals are as striking as they’ve ever been.

This obviously whets my appetite for Kizumonogatari (the prequel people are actually looking for, describing “the Vampire incident on Spring Break” we’ve only very briefly flashbacked to until now), whenever that comes out ; and the “second season”, apparently slated for later this year.

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

Chihayafuru 2 was off to a good start, with the start of a new school year and the introduction of new club members feeling like a strong enough move forward to avoid repetition of what the first season did, and update the formula somewhat. (To say nothing of complicating the love dodecahedron a bit more.)

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

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Senyuu, a series of shorts parodying heroic-fantasy RPG games. Hilariously mean-spirited, and served by some impressive voice work from Yuuichi Nakamura. It’s got a shoe-string budget, but that doesn’t prevent it from being lots of fun.

via [In which I review] New anime, Winter 2013 – Page 9.

I won’t bother with a full review for Straight Title Robot Anime (Chokkyuu Hyoudai Robot Anime). Notionally it’s supposed to be the first anime series fully animated with Vocaloid-type software, but that just makes it look cheap and generic. As for the story, it’s basically three “girl” androids failing to grasp the concept of humour for 12 minutes. I don’t just mean it’s tedious and unfunny (although it certainly is) : that’s really the plot. (They’re trying to recreate human humour long after humanity has vanished.)

I wouldn’t recommand watching this crap to anyone.

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

Cuticle Detective Inaba (Cuticle Tantei Inaba)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

The wacky adventures of a werewolf private detective.

Characters

Inaba, the title detective werewolf. Complete immature goofball. Aside from his (wildly inconsistent) tracking abilities, he can also “power up” and extract ridiculous power from strands of hair. His single point of angst is regarding his missing younger brother, and even that is played for laugh.

The less said about Yuuta, his scarily violent cross-dressing assistant, the better.

Kei, his other assistant, gets the “only sane man” role. Alas, I can’t see his sanity surviving more than a couple episodes of this.

Ogino, an actual police detective who knew Inaba before the latter left the force, and brings him new cases too tough (or too bizarre) for the police to solve. His pained attempts to desperately keep the plot on track aren’t too successful.

Our villain this episode (and apparently the long-term nemesis) is Don Valentino, a counterfeiting goat. His minions include a devoted dude with a paper bag over his head, and a dominatrix assassin.

Production Values

Not very good. The animation is basic, and the whole thing looks cheap on every level.

Overall Impression

Let’s not beat around the bush : this is a completely insane and surreal show, throwing more and more weirdness in as it goes. It’s never afraid to be stupid or mind-bendingly bizarre for the sake of a joke.

The problem is that it’s not really funny. Most of the jokes don’t work, either because they’re oversold or because they’re just plain bad. There are some that do raise a smile occasionally, but the majority are tediously unfunny.

I was ready to cry uncle after five minutes of this. The rest of the episode didn’t change my mind, so I’m not recommending watching this. It’s just too painful.

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

Fall 2012 capsules

I have no clue what all the fuss about Hayate the Combat Butler! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You “not being a sequel” was about, because it’s totally the same series continuing. No reboot, just more adventures in about the same setup. I don’t know where this falls chronologically, but it’s not like Hayate ever cared much about continuity before. Anyway, it’s still a perfectly okay gag series, without the self-indulgence of the recent movie (which nearly made me lose all interest in the franchise).

I’m not sure what to make of the Lytchee Light Club shorts. It’s about a sadistic high school secret society, the joke being that they kinda suck at being sadistic. Okay so far, but can it carry 26ish episodes, however short they are ?

I’m also torn on the Wooser’s Hand-to-Mouth Life shorts. On the one hand, it’s barely mildly funny. On the other hand, I always have time for Mamoru Miyano as a “cute” animal making pompous monologues.

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

Some quick other notes :

The second season of Bakuman had a great opening episode, which was immediately mitigated by the second one jumping back to the tepid and sexist romance the series occasionally features. Well, you’ll be glad to see that the third season skips right past to the sexist bits. Hopefully it’ll go away quickly, as it always does, but that’s not an auspicious start.

I refuse to give a full review for the Teekyuu shorts. It has terrible-looking Flash animation (that seems to go out of its way to make my eyes bleed), and none of the “jokes” work. Avoid with prejudice.

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

I’m not going to bother with a full writeup for Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de. In theory, it’s a fantasy fighting show where the characters are based on classic console franchises (with the main factions being the kingdoms of Sega & Nintendo). In practice, the gimmick stops at some characters’ names, and I couldn’t discern any jokes related to the premise. Or any jokes period : it’s a straight fantasy fighting show that takes itself dreadfully seriously and ends up being utterly boring. It’s obvious the producers have welded the high-concept onto a completely unrelated show just to give it a selling point. If you’ve been planning to check it out for the novelty value, don’t bother.

(Also, the schedule seems to be “one episode every few months”, so you’ll probably have completely forgotten about it by the time episode #2 airs.)

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2012 – Page 10.

Say “I Love You” (Sukitte ii na yo)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Our third shoujo romance show of the season ; this one is introvert chick X unbelievably-nice guy.

Characters

Tachibana, our protagonist. She’s very distrustful of people, and her gloomy disposition certainly doesn’t help matters. (There’s a rumour among her classmates that somebody may have heard her speak recently, but that isn’t confirmed.) Her widowed Mom tries to be supportive, to little avail.

Kurosawa, the guy everyone admires. Nice, good-looking, and impossibly perfect in every way. He starts taking a liking to our female lead after she kicks him down the stairs (she was aiming at his mandatory perverted best friend, who was taking a peek under her skirt).

They come together after he chases off an adult dude who was stalking her at her part-time-job.

Production Values

Average.

What did I think of it ?

I’ve got to give it credit : the show managed to make me like its male lead despite his obvious wish-fulfilment status. The guy is so nice it’s hard to resent him. I also like that the situation isn’t entirely black-and-white : however serious the bullying and the stalker incident Tachibana suffers from are, her asocial behaviour isn’t helping. I’m not used to shoujo heroines being so unlikeable on purpose, and it being played for drama, and I’m kinda interested in seeing where it goes from here.

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

CØDE:BREAKER

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Magic-wielding teenage vigilantes.

Characters

Sakura, out point-of-view character. She’s the perfect idol of her high school (good-looking, great at studying, beats dudes twice her size in the Aikado dojo, etc.), cares for the homeless, and has enough charisma to pull off not being annoying.

Rei, the new transfer student. The bad news is that Sakura is pretty sure she saw him burning five people to death the night before in a park. She’s initially very distrustful of him, although he behaves so nicely throughout the episode that she’s starting to doubt whether she had hallucinations. This is despite the multiple warning signs, such as him never actually denying he killed those guys, and stating that he has a part-time job as a sanitation worker (is the phrase “taking out the trash” ever used straight ?).

Our baddies are the Falcon Gang, a big gang who are in cahoots with the police and doing random evil such as killing the homeless. Rei’s first set of victims were members, and he sets even more of them on blue fire at the end of the episode.

… just before doing the same thing to Sakura, because who needs loose ends ?

The OP/ED feature prominently four other magic-wielding teenagers who obviously share some connection with Rei, and have a cameo at the end to comment on how “it’s begun” after Rei’s outburst is visible from several blocks away.

Production Values

Not very good.

Overall Impression

I’m usually not one for hardcore vigilante shows, but this one isn’t without its charms. There’s some nice comedy in Sakura & Rei’s interactions, especially when their initial confrontation is mistaken by everyone else as a rejected love confession. It’s exactly the right kind of levity to avoid the series being too grim and gritty to be watchable.

Also, I don’t believe for a second that Sakura really dies at the end, but that’s one heck of a cliffhanger and I’m watching at least the next episode just to see how she gets out of this pickle. (If she does die… well, way to lose my interest, show. But I hope it’s better than that.)

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

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure (JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken)

(26 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Ridiculously hot-blooded family feuds in late 19th-century Britain.

Characters

Jonathan Joestar, aka the titular “JoJo”. The teenage heir to a rich family, he’s mostly a nice guy, but a bit of an entitled brat (and has his fair share of “what the hell, hero ?” moments).

Dio Brando, son of a man who “saved” (i.e. “was about to steal the gold teeth of”) Mr Joestar Sr’s life more than a decade ago, and thus is welcomed like a second son after Daddy dies. He’s much more liked than JoJo, in part because he does outwardly behave better than the true son, but mostly because he’s an EEEE-VIL conniving bastard who does everything he can to undermine JoJo’s reputation. This includes alienating his friends, stealing his kinda-girlfriend, and burning his dog down. Just in case you had missed that he’s supposed to be EVIL.

Production Values

Wow, old school ! The original manga got published in 1987, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was already looking retro by then. The quality is kinda crap, but since it’s a parody anyway it doesn’t matter.

Overall Impression

It’s hard to explain exactly why this show is so mesmerizing. It’s not subtle, and very stupid indeed, but the joke works. Can it support 26 episodes ? Maybe if it lives up to the “bizarre” of the title, and gets to be weirder than the very pedestrian plot we get this episode ; which is fine for a setup episode, but I was kinda expecting more, you know ?

Still, I’m giving it a couple more episodes to find its feet.

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

BTOOOM!

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Battle Royale with bombs.

Characters

Sakamoto is one of the world’s top players of BTOOOM!, an online FPS whose distinguishing feature is that your only weapons are bombs (of various types : contact-triggered, timed, etc.). The downside to his virtual fame is that, well, he’s a bit of a complete loser : unemployed for two years and spending all his time in front of his computer. Bonus points for verbally abusing his poor mother, who has the audacity to keep trying to find him a job, any job. (He’s got his eye on an opening at the game company producing BTOOOM!, but if he really believes he has a chance, he’s deluding himself.)

One day, he wakes up stranded on a tropical island, without any clue as to how he got there. (An eventual flashback shows that MIB seem to be involved, always a bad sign). His starting inventory : his grocery shopping from just before he got abducted, a starting set of 8 timer bombs, and a jewel incrusted into his hand that seems to work a bit like the sonar feature in BTOOOM! (except a lot less accurate).

The first dude he meets on the island’s beach never bothers to introduce himself, and point blank refuses to explain what’s happening to the n00b. Instead, he just attacks our protagonist with impact-triggered bombs.

Later on, our hero stumbles on another participant, a girl washing herself in a small lake. I suspect she’s his briefly-mentioned in-game wife, although if this show has any sense of humour that was probably the earlier dude. Anyway, she doesn’t even get a line of dialogue yet ; the next-episode preview suggests it’s entirely devoted to her backstory. (Are we having rotating point-of-view characters ?)

Production Values

Perfectly alright, although the girl’s character design is very fanservice-y indeed. Let’s hope she doesn’t poke anyone’s eye out.

What did I think of it ?

How can you hate a show so refreshingly honest about its nature that it’s called “BTOOOM!” ? This is a thoroughly dumb premise that’s fodder for nicely tactical action sequences and lots of explosions. The unsubtle bits of social satire aren’t unwelcome, either.

Ontological mysteries can often get a bit silly, and with only 12 episodes for an still-ongoing manga I doubt we’ll be getting many answers, but so far I’m tentatively enjoying the ride.

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

Blast of the Tempest (Zetsuen no Tempest – The Civilization Blaster)

What’s it about ?

Conspiracy action thriller, with a dash of magic.

Characters

Yoshino, our viewpoint character. He seems to be a very ordinary high school student, leading a perfectly normal life (beaten up by the local bullies, etc.). He spends most of the episode being baffled by the increasingly crazier stuff happening around him. Which includes being held at gunpoint by…

“Evangeline Yamamoto, single, 28 year-old and currently unemployed” (one of her actual first lines of dialogue). Whoever she actually works for (she claims she’s just a concerned citizen acting independantly, but if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you), she’s looking for…

Mahiro, Yoshino’s BFF, who disappeared a month ago. He got more and more agitated after his sister Aika got killed some months ago, especially as the police investigation is going nowhere. Which led him to become an apprentice to…

Hakaze, “one of the most talented mages in the world, even in [her] underwear” (actual monologue). One of the heirs of a powerful magic-using family, she was left stranded on a small desert island so she wouldn’t interfere with their plans. (So why not just kill her, especially as you expect her to starve to death anyway ?) She made contact with Mahiro through that old standard plot device, the message in a bottle.

I have no clue what the baddies are trying to achieve, but this somehow involves unleashing a plague upon the city that turns people into metal. (Fortunately, as a magic user Mahiro is immune, Yoshino and Evangeline were close enough to him to be protected too, and everyone Yoshino cares about – his parents and girlfriend – were conveniently out of town.) They also have a giant rock thingie emerge from the sea and float in the air, which somehow sprouts a huge eye.

Production Values

The visuals are quite good, as can be expected from Studio Bones. I’m not fond of the character designs, but they work.

I can’t decide whether the score is horribly misused or just crap ; it tries to be Dramatic! All! The! Time!, which really doesn’t work and makes the narrative’s sudden mood changes even more jarring.

What did I think of it ?

Wow, this is a complete mess. The dialogue is chronically terrible, as nearly everyone talks in exposition all the time. The pacing of the episode is horribly jumbled, with sudden timeline jumps and a general ordering of events which is plain bad storytelling (why have Hakaze narrate her contact with Mahiro instead of just showing it in a quick montage ?). The mood shifts don’t quite work either, with some of the slapstick material with Hakaze on her island not fitting well with the thousands of dead people in the city (not that the show seems to care about them).

And still… there are some intriguing ideas in there, not the least of which being the very well-executed twist at the end, putting a lot of what happened into question. I’m actually kinda interested in seeing where this is going.

Oh, fuck it. It’s got Miyuki Sawashiro (the only reason Hakaze still has any dignity after that underwear line) AND Hana Kanazawa (in full-on bitchy mode as Aika in the flashbacks). Of course I’m going to keep watching this, and complain all the time on how stupid and badly-plotted it is. Let’s this be my token trainwreck show of the season…

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