Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

(13 episodes, at least the first one of which is 46-minute-long)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of an award-winning josei manga set in the late Showa era (the 1970s) about rakugo performers. In case you’re not aware, rakugo is an old and codified form of Japanese theater that involves a lone actor sitting down and acting out all the characters of his chosen routine.

Characters

“Yotaro” (a nickname for a good-for-nothing in rakugo slang) used to be a lowlife and is just now getting out of jail, with nowhere to go. But he’s vowed to go straight, as he’s been touched and inspired by a rakugo act performed during his time in prison. Rakugo is now going to be he way of life, and thus to learn the trade he throws himself before…

Master Yakumo, the unrivalled 18th master of the art. He’s famous and respected enough to have thousand-place venues sell out, and his records are regularly played over the radio. At first he seems like a haughty jerk who only takes on Yotaro as an apprentice as a joke (never bothering to teach him anything), but there’s clearly more to him than that. He certainly can’t have been performing in prisons for the money. Also, he’s acutely aware that he’s not getting any younger, and the artform may die out with him. And then there’s the whole case of…

Konatsu, his ward, and the daughter of his former rival, who died in a mysterious “accident”. While the then young girl jumped to conclusions after seeing a bloodied Yakumo cradling the corpse of her father, there can be more charitable readings of that brief flashbacks. Especially as he took the young orphan in and lets a lot of her provocations go. It’s never explicitly stated, but the obvious reason why he never took an apprentice until now is because he wants HER (despite women rakugo performers not being a thing in this age), but she’s too proud to ask. Heck, taking in Yotaro can be seen as another provocation in that direction, as he won’t explicitly ask her either.

The elephant in the room is obviously Konatsu’s father. A big point here is that he had a completely different style from Yakumo’s, joyful and hilarious when the current master is colder in its precision and awesomeness. Konatsu has trained in that style in secret, and Yotaro is picking up on it thanks to her being the only one willing to help his training so far. (It may also be better suited to his natural talent, however much he admires Yakumo’s style.)

The next episode preview promises a flashback to Konatsu’s father & Yakumo training under the former master, which should both be instructive, entertaining (since it’s Yakumo narrating), and clear the air so that everyone’s character arc can progress further.

Production Values

Studio Deen has become a bit of a running joke over the last decade, with terrible adaptations marred by poor quality control. The good news is that not only do they have some proper budget for this project, but they’re also using their one good director they poached off SHAFT to do Sankarea. Now, unlike his previous show there’s nearly nothing SHAFT-like here ; it just wouldn’t fit the material.

Rakugo is a very stylised artform ; the performer can’t move too much, and is limited to a few standard props for sound effects. The whole piece must be conveyed through body language, facial expression, and masterful voice-acting as they keep switching between characters. This show manages to reproduce all of this perfectly through exactly the same means. Also, it would be all to easy to depict all the character switches through jump cuts, Smeagol/Gollum style ; that device is used with restraint, and only after the animation has taken the time to actually depict the performers switching characters.

It should also be mentioned that we’ve got veteran voice-actors at the top of their art. Akira Ishida turns one of his best performances in ages Giving the appropriate maturity and gravitas to Yakumo. Tomokazu Seki is well within his usual niche as Yotaro, but performs splendidly. And I just can’t wait to hear Yuu Kobayashi perform some actual rakugo, as she’s one of the finest comedy voice-actresses of her generation.

Overall Impression

I expected this to be very good, as a premise so off the beaten path (adult characters, in the 1970s, and all about the beauty and joy of acting) doesn’t get adapted to anime without strong source material and a will to convey it properly. I didn’t expect it to be THIS good and enthralling, to the point that it took me a while to notice how long the first episode was.

By the way, this length was the right choice to start off the adaptation. Not only does it carry the story towards a stronger catharsis, but it also gives ample room to have the characters actually perform rakugo, and show off how awesome a spectacle it can be. Yotaro gets to perform a full “Burglar Goes Straight” routine, and it’s never boring. Ditto for Yakumo’s “Vengeful Woman” skit. (And if the choice of those pieces feels a bit on-the-nose… Well, that’s obviously on purpose from the characters themselves, who put a lot of themselves into their performances and often have a point to make. Ditto for Yakumo’s offscreen performance of a “scare ’em straight” piece in prison, of course.)

This is one of the strongest starts for a show this season, with a depth, a heart and sheer quality of execution that’s to a whole other level compared to nearly everything else. I want to see more of these fascinating, pluridimensional characters and their struggle against the impeding death of their chosen artform, so I will definitely watch this to the end.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 2

Ultra Super Anime Time Block (Winter 2016)

Ultra Super Anime Time Block is an interesting timeslot broadcast by TokyoMX for the last few seasons. Basically, rather than a normal 24-minute-long anime series, it’s a collection of three completely unrelated shorts, each 8-minute-long. I’m all for this kind of thing, as there’s room for shows that can’t sustain a whole 24-minute episode, without falling into the other extreme of 2/3-minute episodes that end up being rather unsatisfying (but are very common because that’s easy to fit somewhere into the schedule). Of course, that depends on the actual shows proposed being any good. So how’s this season’s selection ?

 

Please Tell Me! Galko-chan adapts a gag web-manga where the gimmick is that the narrator goes out of her way to ask (rather crude) questions to the cast. The joke is that while main character Galko looks the part of the classic truant “gal” girl, she’s actually mostly normal and there are mundane explanations for her gal-like outbursts. Oh, and everyone has puns for their names. (Otako is the otaku-like girl, and so on.) As a whole, it’s mildly funny, if a bit overreliant on gross hygiene gags. There are worse ways to spend 8 minutes.

 

Sculpture Boys (Sekkou Boys) is an original concept about a bunch of male idols… Well, the first episode is mostly focused on their new manager, just fresh out of art college. With not much artistic talent, and completely burned out of painting sculpture after sculpture after sculpture, she moved on to a field where she would only deal with actual people. Or so she thinks, as her new charges are… a quatuor of classical busts. Talking (and presumably singing) busts. (After all, as the agency’s president says, there’s no danger of them sleeping around, so that’s one less headache to deal with compared to “normal” idols.)

The premise is patently absurd, but the show manage to sell it by ignoring the actual title characters for most of the episode, and instead building to the manager’s inevitable freakout. Even if you’re aware of what the series is about beforehand, the joke is so well-paced that it still works. I’m not sure there’s 12 (even short) episodes of material here, but I’m willing to give it a try.

 

Tabi Machi Late Show is about professional cooking or something ? It’s deathly dull and barely animated at all. The only good news is that it’s only 4 episodes, so its slot will be taken over by something different in February (a new iteration of the Kono Danshi franchise) and March (a remake/extension of Makoto Shinkai’s 1999 short She & Her Cat, of all things ?).

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 2

ERASED – The Town Where Only I am Missing (Boku dake ga Inai Machi)

(12 episodes, noitaminA)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a manga mystery series with a supernatural twist.

Interestingly, while the manga is still ongoing publication, the anime’s staff have made it clear they’re including its planned ending into their adaptation.

Characters

Satoru, our protagonist, is failed manga author in his late 20s who’s making do as a pizza delivery driver. At first he sounds like a highly cynical failure who doesn’t give a crap anymore, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. See, he’s somehow got the bizarre superpower to rewind time a bit after getting a flash that something terrible is about to happen. Nothing specific, but he’ll try his darndest to pay attention to his surroundings and notice anything going awry. Such as this truck driver having a heart attack and rushing towards an unsuspecting kid. Going out of his way to prevent that lands him into the hospital for a bit, but the guy is truly a hero. Dropping everything to act upon those not-quite-precognitive flashes… It quickly becomes obvious that an incident two decades ago where a girl was kidnapped and killed and maybe he could have prevented it by accompanying her home is still eating at him and informing his current behaviour (both the introverted cynicism and the hero complex).

Sachiko, his mother, comes to visit from Hokkaido after he gets released. While he doesn’t quite welcome her imposing on him without notice, she’s clearly worried about him. She’s now paying attention to his flashes… wait, did a dude just try kidnapping that girl in the supermarket parking lot, and only stopped when he saw her looking at him and taking a picture of his van’s plate ? Doesn’t this look a LOT like the kidnapping case two decades ago ? Maybe the slightly creepy older guy that always hung out with her son and got arrested wasn’t the true culprit… Okay, until now she may have tried to make Satoru forget about this, but it’s time she came clean with him about it and they figure this out together.

Ahahah, nope. Everything goes FUBAR that night. But when Satoru wakes up, he’s back in Hokkaido, two decades younger…

(Another prominent character this episode is Airi, a teenage coworker of Satoru’s who starts paying attention to him after witnessing his heroics. He isn’t amused by his mom’s attempts to set them up together, because seriously she’s at least ten years younger and still in high school. I have no clue how she’ll keep appearing in this show given we’ve now shifted to a time before she is even born…)

Production Values

Very good. Great attention to the body language, impressive staging for the “Rewind” set pieces… Even Sachiko looking weirdly young for a woman in her 50s is actually called out. Also, it features a great atmospheric score by Yuki Kajiura, without getting overpowered by it.

Overall Impression

Well, that’s our obvious candidate for Anime of the Season, right there. Perfectly paced, great characters, a cool gimmick, an intriguing mystery and driving question (“Can Satoru prevent those original kidnappings ? What happens if he does ?”)… This is just an enthralling start.

There’s tons of promise here, and a good chance it’ll actually deliver on a proper ending. Go for it.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Winter 2016 – Page 2

Fall 2015 capsules

Also deserving a mention is Lupin III: L’avventura Italiana, the first new proper Lupin III TV series in ages. As it turns out, the franchise has been very popular in the Italian market, so why not make a new series that’s actually set there for maximum pandering ? (It’s already been airing over there for the last couple of months.)

This is actually better than it sounds, since Lupin III’s shtick involves globe-trotting as a matter of course anyway. I thus have no issue whatsoever for his gang to show up in Italy for a random caper, and then stick around there for a while. The token new Italian semi-regular character does bring some added spice into the well-worn character dynamics, too.

This is the point where I have to admit I haven’t watched much Lupin III at all ; it got big well before my time and I’ve always found the franchise’s sheer size a bit intimidating. I do plan on checking out the highlights such as Castle of Cagliostro in due time, but so far my exposure is mostly limited to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, which was very atypical indeed.

This series is a much more conventional entry point, with pleasant kid-friendly adventures that have enough of an edge to entertain adults too. And heck, I’m a sucker for heist shows anyway, so I have every reason to watch this. (Miyuki Sawashiro voicing a very delicious Fujiko is the cherry on the cake.)

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015

 

Hacka Doll the Animation is a series of shorts adapting… a news phone app ? Seriously ? It’s certainly not a ringing endorsement, as it stars a trio of bumbling AIs who completely fail to be of any use to their hapless owner. Which is actually mildly funny, all told, as they’ve got good comedic timing together. Very dumb, but entertaining enough for me to give it another episode. (After all, it’s only 8 minutes a week.)

 

Oh, and Noragami is back ! It’s still as stylish as ever (that god-tier Taku Iwasaki score !), although this episode spends a lot of time recapping the premise, the main characters, and the basics of the Hato/Bishamon feud which is apparently going to take center stage. But so far, so good.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015

 

Lovely Muco (Itoshi no Muco) are 12-minute shorts about the daily life of the titular dog, Muco. There were actually two previous anime series adapting this manga, but only as 2-minute shorts padding the schedule ; this is a back-to-basics reboot that requires no previous knowledge. And in any case, the OP sequence displays just about everything you’d want to know about the character dynamics (including from the cast who have yet to show up).

It’s a very simplistic, family-friendly show about Muco being a cute dog, and the communication failures with her laid-back master. It’s mildly entertaining, but I keep having the nagging feeling I’m at least two decades older than the target audience. The animation is very limited, but sells the jokes well enough for a gag show. And it certainly knows how to make a dog look expressive.

 

Kagewani are 8-minute horror shorts about a crypto-zoologist investigating monster sightings instead of, you know, actually teaching his college classes. But most of the episode is devoted to one of those “celebrity” monster hunters who’s busy faking one such sighting until things go very badly when his team encounter the real thing.

What makes this show stand out is the rotoscoped animation ; together with the overbearing colour filters and the nervous shakycam often at awkward angles, it gives off a strong “found footage” flavour. Unfortunately, it also looks like crap. (Which, I guess, completes the “found footage” look.) And frankly, it’s not particularly compelling, funny or scary ; it just doesn’t work for me at all.

 

K – Return of Kings if off to a rather mixed bag for its second season. It’s even more visually impressive than ever (how much budget do they spend on those super-kinetic fight scenes ?), although I’m getting tired of the camera switching to pervert mode whenever Awashima’s on screen. But the script seems intent on being as confusing as possible, starting off with an overly-long gratuitous fight scene that’s set before the first series, for some reason (as evidenced by the presence of the dude who got killed in the first episode), and then it switches without warning to the post-movie status quo. (Which, admittedly, isn’t very complicated ; “the gothloli is the new Red King, and the Greens are now attacking everyone and being jerks for some reason”.) Hopefully it’ll find its footing back soon enough.

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

 

Young Kindaichi’s Casefile Returns Again has been off to a good start. Actually, I’m slightly weirded out that we start immediately on the trail of the recurring villain introduced at the end of last season (Kindaichi’s usually more about one-off mysteries than ongoing storylines), but it’s a good way to keep the stakes high, especially as the supporting cast are all there and have something to do. And, well, I have a sweet tooth for mysteries, so I’m all for this.

 

Speaking of which, Owarimonogatari opens with a double-length episode that’s basically a lovely done-in-one closed-room mystery. It’s awesome. And despite how much Ararararagi has become the weak link in this show over time, he’s actually quite fun here, as Ougi leaves him absolutely no room to fall back on his usual excesses. This was a very good opener indeed, and setting a high bar for the season.

 

Attack on Titan – Junior High is very, very stupid. It probably doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve watched the main series. (Or, heck, read the manga, if the Ymir/Krista material is any indication.) What it does right, though, is being at least mildly funny most of the time ; and it’s having a lot of funny playing with Sawano’s bombastic score and the original anime’s direction for maximum comedic effect. At least for one episode, the joke works.

 

Onsen Yousei Hakone-chan is a gag manga adaptation about a childlike hotsprings fairy meddling with teenagers’ love life. In three minutes it makes its point, namely that it’s the same romantic comedy beats I’ve already seen hundreds of time, without any particular spark. Pass.

 

Miss Komori Can’t Decline! (Komori-san wa Kotowarenai!), on the other hand, does manage to spin a few decent laughs out of its premise. Unfortunately, it looks like crap and barely lasts 2 minutes. Oh, well.

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

Osomatsu-san

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Osomatsu-kun was a 60s family-friendly gag manga which got an anime adaptation at the time, then another one in the 80s. This year would have marked the 80th anniversary of its creator, so here’s another go at it. But freshening it up for a modern audience is by all measures an uphill challenge, for reason I’ll get into just below.

You can just hear the producers behind this revival loudly shouting : CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Characters

So, the gimmick here is that Osomatsu is the eldest of sextuplet teenagers. And the gag was that they’re indeed all identical, with only their voices and personalities barely helping the audience to call them apart. Well, that and their really dated 60s-pop-culture-derivative catchphrases. Let’s even politely not talk about the supporting cast, a bunch of ridiculous-looking stereotypes. There’s no way modern audiences will want to watch this, right ?

But then, what are you going to do ? Stunt-cast A-rank voice-actors, the likes of Takahiro Sakurai, Hiroshi Kamiya, Jun Fukuyama & Daisuke Ono, to play the sextuplets ? Turn them into a colour-coded boys’ band attending (*snicker*) “BL Academy” ? Have them act out awful cliché personas that are wildly out of character for them ? Have the supporting cast turned into more “cool” clichés, such as the delinquents or the Awesome Rival who’s totally not the French caricature from the original show ?

This naked commercial grab is a complete disaster, as the characters end up being completely exhausted and direly long for the commercial break to come. Even the most gratuitous Attack on Titan parody ever, or downright blatantly copying famous shonen shows, can’t stop this from falling apart. It’s just… not what them, you see ?

And so the show ends with the sextuplets still grasping for an answer to their conundrum. And they’ve been at it for so long that they’re now all in their mid-20s ; which is a new status quo that should give the writers enough rope to tell new stories.

At least, they really hope so.

Production Values

Studio Pierrot have outdone themselves here. The fake-retro opener, in a B&W 4/3 format with tons of artefacts, feels true to the original show. The parody section that constitutes much of this first episode both feels true enough to work, while still having enough weirdness in the background to sell that this is all a sham. And the final designs it settles on are decent modern upgrades that feel true to the source.

Overall Impression

For the record, I don’t believe this episode is really indicative of what’ll come next ; it’s here to make a point about how anime has changed over the decades (and not always for the better), while acknowledging that just slavishly copying either what was done in the 60s or what’s popular now just wouldn’t work. It’s the writers clearly stating that nostalgia alone can’t carry the show.

It’s also absolutely hilarious from start to finish, with impeccable comedic timing, even when they have to deliver bad jokes on purpose. This is metafiction on steroids, but done really well. And since it’s a gag show, they can totally get away with it.

Now, there are worrying signs. The joke may have gotten a bit overextended to fill the whole episode ; not all of the gags land. I still can’t tell too many of the sextuplets apart. (There’s Osomatsu, the “leader” ; Choromatsu, the straight man to most of their ramblings ; and maybe Todomatsu, who’s the “youngest” one ? The others are still a bit of a blur.) And most importantly, there’s no evidence yet that the writers have solved their central quandary, i.e. how to tell modern stories with these characters without losing their soul in the process. Can this premise actually support a full season ?

But hey, this first episode was fun enough that I’m willing to give them a bit of rope to see them try.

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

Young Black Jack

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a recent manga series spinning out of Osamu Tezuka’s famous 70s opus. It’s basically a prequel set in the hero’s college years.

Characters

Our point-of-view character (and obvious audience identification point) is Maiko Okamoto, a medical intern. She’s a bit clumsy and mostly does paperwork at this point, but she takes her vocation seriously. So when the world’s stupidest transit accident happens and all the regular doctors are too busy to deal with this one kid who’s in danger of losing half his limbs, she’s desperately looking for anyone else who’ll step in and achieve a miracle.

Hazama, the man who would later become known as Black Jack, guerilla surgeon with a patchwork face. For now he’s just a mere medical college student, and has yet to operate on anyone. But he’s clearly been preparing mentally for it, and he’s willing to help out, so off they go. It helps that he happens to own a favour from a washed-up surgeon nearby, who’ll lend his his operation theater.

As apparently always happens in Black Jack stories, the patient’s father is an asshole : even after our hero miraculously patches up the kid’s limbs, he refuses to pay the previously-agreed amount. Screw you too, jerk Dad.

Production Values

The OP sequence wastes no time in pandering to the target audience, as it immediately show the hero shirtless and in bondage.

The ED sequence, on the other hand, makes a terrible mistake : it shows side by side Tezuka’s original character designs, and the “updated” versions this show is going with. Which only demonstrates how badly the redesigns have gone : either they’re much blander and less expressive, or they’ve barely different from the Tezuka blueprint and then they look horribly out of placed next to everything else.

Also looking awful : the surgeonning sequences. Most of the screentime is spent on Hazama playing with scalpels and strings at random in a very abstract way ; what we’re actually shown of the actual operation looks ludicrous. It’s like the storyboarders noticed halfway through that this should be a very bloody mess, and then endeavoured to show as little of it as possible.

Overall Impression

Urgh. Nevermind how terrible it looks : the script is much, much worse. Because it relies on nearly everyone but our two main characters to be either a moron or an asshole. (And even then, Maiko’s mostly there to fawn over Young Black Jack being so awesome.) The accident is beyond stupid, the circumstances that lead to him taking the case only happen because people are being jerks, and the ending just comes out of nowhere to make the point that the people he helps are jerks too. Heck, even Hazama is a bit of an entitled git, too.

And then there’s the politics of it. The reason the hospital is short-handed is because the interns and the medical students have gone on strike and are organizing protests. This is set in 1968 (which was a hotbed of unrest in Japan too), and they do have legitimate grievances (such as internships being unpaid). But the show thinks this is all frivolous, and depicts the lot of them as utter assholes, with not a single on willing to help out in an emergency. Now, the late-60s student movements were far from sainthood, but this reactionary and revisionist take on them sits very badly with me.

Forget about the franchise’s prestigious pedigree ; it only makes this look worse in comparison. And it was already so annoying that I refuse to watch any more of it.

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

One Punch Man

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Offbeat superheroing, adapted from a very popular shonen manga series.

Characters

This episode is wholly devoted to selling the concept of One Punch Man, our protagonist. He lives in a world where supervillains (and subterranean species, and the Earth’s immune system, and…) keep sprouting up and wrecking shit up. There are a number of superheroes in activity to stand up to all of those, and our hero is one of the latest.

We’re shown a flashback to his “origin story” three years ago, and it’s (purposefully) less than impressive. Random nobody stands up to a crab supervillain to save a kid, discovers he’d actually like to pursue his childhood dreams of fighting evil, goes and trains offscreen so hard he loses his hair, the end. That’s it, and it drives the point home that the story doesn’t care about the how and why One Punch Man exists.

His gimmick, as the name indicates, is that he can beat any kind of opponent in one punch. (He also has enough resilience to withstand being thrown around a bit before getting a good shot.) And if you think that’d make for boring fight scenes… Well, so does he. It’s all about his existential crisis as he mows down no less than five different baddies over the course of the episode. The only time that looks like he’s breaking a sweat (because there are several baddies to punch), it’s actually a dream sequence articulating his anxieties.

The only other regular-looking character shows up wordlessly, looking at some dead cattle, in the last 30 seconds. Presumably he’s going to actually do something next episode.

Production Values

A preview of this first episode aired on NicoNico a bit ago, so I saw this in eyebleed-o-vision and no OP/ED sequences. It looks okay enough ; the direction has good comedic timing and sells the scale of the threats (or the absence thereof) very well. It’s also got a good grasp of body language… or the absence thereof, in the case of One Punch Man himself.

Overall Impression

Well, it’s a decent joke that’s well-executed. The big question is whether it has legs ; won’t the “One Punch” thing get old really quickly ? This is a show in a dire need of a regular supporting cast to add some depth to the premise. I presume that’s what the second episode’s going to tackle,n of course ; and the manga has been going on for long enough that I presume the author knows what he’s doing. (I certainly hope he never runs out of really silly supervillains.)

Still, this is a bit of a “wait and see” show ; it’s going to need to be funnier than this pilot for me to stick with it.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015

Summer 2015 capsules

Out first show of the season is My Wife is the Student Council President (Okusama ga Seitokaichou!), a series of 8-minute shorts adapted from an erotic comedy manga series. I have to say I feared the worst from the title. An underage wife ?

The good news is that the premise doesn’t involve any actual marriage yet and merely involves the student council president being, er, very “sex-liberated” (condoms for everyone !), and aggressively pursuing her vice-president. So far, he’s not receptive at all to her stalker ways ; which anyone would be even without the huge stick in his ass.

The bad news is that it isn’t really funny. I just can’t laugh with the show, as I find the title character more horrific than cute. And the boring, by-the-numbers point-of-view character doesn’t help matters.

Don’t bother with looking this one up.

 

Wakaba Girl is a typical adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga as a series of 8-minute-long shorts (extended OP sequence included). It’s basically a “cute girls being cute” affair, with the central gimmick of its heroine Wakaba coming from a very high-class family and being delighted to attend a normal high school where she can make normal friends. Cue many jokes from her being more than a bit sheltered.

It’s cute, reasonably well-paced and funny, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. That’s plenty enough reasons for me to keep watching.

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

 

Wakako-zake is a series of 2-minute (OP included) shorts about a woman who eats out at restaurants, with the constant in her menu being alcohol. And, er, that’s it. Not much in the way of jokes or story (aside from a couple of dudes trying to pick her up), just some food porn. Pass along, nothing to see here.

 

Sequel Watch !
Dragonball Super picks up a few months after the Majin Buu arc, which means we’re ignoring Z’s epilogue with Uub and its timeskip. (To say nothing of GT.) The good news is that no knowledge from the recent movies seems to be required ; the new antagonists are introduced properly and seem to be heading towards their first meetings with the heroes. The bad news is that it’s a very slow start, reintroducing the dozens of members of the supporting cast and what they’re up to now. Even then, I think we missed Krillin & family, as well as most of the minor useless members of the Z-fighters ; we’re mostly focused on the extended Son/Briefs/Satan households for now. There’s little in the way of actual plot right now, aside from the Supreme Kais worrying about new villains showing up anytime now. But then they always do. Since I actually like the more slice-of-life comedy segments of Dragonball, I’m not complaining. (Although less Goten/Trunks screentime would be a relief.)

– Speaking of reintroducing dozens of supporting characters, Durarara!!x2 (Middle Part) feels it was the time to introduce more new characters. And hey, it does makes who comes to try and finish Izaya off in his hospital room a genuine surprise. A nice callback to his introduction, but still unexpected. Aside from that, it’s mostly a matter of positioning all the pieces back in place.

Symphogear GX – Determination to Fist has a positively metal opening action sequence that’s going to be hard to top. It does unfortunately show again that Aoi Yuuki is miles behind Nana Mizuki & Ayahi Takagaki in singing talent, but them’s the breaks. At least we get another Nana Mizuki/Yoko Hikasa duet. Not feeling the new antagonists yet, but I’ll give them time.

Gatchaman CROWDS Insight… I have no clue where they’re going with this new team member and the alien. But it’s certainly very energetic and colourful as usual, and Hajime is still very fun. (“Berg, shut up-su!”)

– As for Working!!!, I’m fearing the ship may have sailed. I quite enjoyed the first two seasons, but this reintroduction episode left me quite cold. Maybe it’ll pick up steam later on, but this wasn’t a good start.

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

 

I’m sure that, like me, you rolled your eyes when Bikini Warriors showed up on the schedule, especially as an adaptation of a line of “sexy” figurines. The good news is that this series of comedy shorts makes its tired cliché of a premise the central joke. Yes, those bikini-style armours are ridiculous and can’t protect much ; let’s have fun with that ! And frankly, the few chuckles it raises are enough to overcome the rudimentary animation and the obnoxious fanservice. It just about gets away with it, and that’s the best it could have ever hoped for.

Million Doll is an adaptation of a web manga series as 8-minute shorts. It’s an exploration of idol fandom culture that just rubs me the wrong way. I think that’s because it seems to lionize its shut-in protagonist and agree with her contempt of the more dilettante fans who are quick to move on from an idol group to the next… never mind that she’s already much creepier and unhealthy than all of them combined. It’s a show that requires you to adhere unconditionally to the glamour of the idol subculture (and dismisses its unpleasantness as coming from a few icky fans), and that’s not something I can get into. It doesn’t help that it’s barely animated, and suffers from a downright ugly CG-animated dancing opening sequence. Avoid like the plague.
SuzakiNishi the Animation is a weird beast. It’s notionally an adaptation of voice-actresses Aya Suzaki & Asuka Nishi’s radio program, where they discuss business models. In practive, this is a series of “comedy” shorts depicting them as new transfer students in high school. The gags are trite and there’s just nothing here that builds upon its name characters or the original premise. Really don’t bother with this.
Kurayami Santa is a bizarre oddity : a series of horror shorts set in the 60s that’s half animation looking like it came from that period, and half actual vintage live-action footage from then. It features a demon looking like a creepy child who punishes evidoers, but in cruel and circuitous ways that make you shudder more than applaud. While I’m intrigued at how this came into being, there’s a gap between that and actually finding it entertaining ; it’s just too weird for me.
Danchigai is an adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga about five siblings rough-housing each other. (Well, they mostly all gang up against the one boy, second oldest of the lot.) It’s very mildly funny, but nothing to go out of your way for.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5

Prison School (Kangoku Gakuen)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a cringe comedy manga series.

Characters

Kiyoshi, our protagonist, has enrolled into yet another of those high schools that used to be female-only but are now opening up to boys. That’s less awesome than it sounded at first to him, since it’s hard to mingle into the massive numbers of girls.

So he soon finds himself into the small social circle of the few other boys who joined up : Takehito the history-obsessed nerd, Shingo the handsome guy who’s got relations, “Joe” who’s always sick and spits blood when stressed, and “Andre” the fat guy. It doesn’t help that they’re all horny dudes, and soon embark in a massively ill-conceived attempt to peep on the girls’ baths. Kiyoshi himself has misgivings about this, because of…

Chiyo, the one girl in his class with whom he’s managed to strike a conversation, thanks to their mutual love of sumo wrestling. (Well, technically Kiyoshi is just parroting what he remembers of his mom’s passion, but close enough.) You can be sure their relationship is going to crash and burn horribly.

Of course, the five peepers quickly get caught, thanks to the vigilance of “the Underground Student Council”, a trio of sadists who sentence them to build their own prison on schoolgrounds, and spend a month there. Unless they want to be expelled outright for their shameful behaviour ?

Production Values

The animation feels a bit stilted, especially for dialogue scenes ; you get the impression the animators had trouble bringing the manga’s quirky artstyle to life.

The fanservice levels are quite high, and there’s some degree of censorship going on here (especially in the bath scene), but nothing too obnoxious.

Overall Impression

Do you love seeing dudes getting repeatedly beaten up by castrating dominatrices ? (A fate they kinda deserved, honestly.) Well, then you’re in luck. Heck, even the boys themselves seem to enjoy it somewhat.

There’s a lot of buzz about the manga being the funniest thing ever, despite the dodgy premise. I’m not quite seeing it, at this point. There are some really good gags, and the show certainly knows how to ratchet up the absurdity quickly. It’s got awesome sight gags such as the five boys getting spy catsuits out of nowhere for their night expedition.

But there’s the huge problem of just about every character being despairingly one-note caricatures (including the protagonist), and the jokes quickly becoming quite repetitive.

The one thing that makes me want to watch another episode is the impression that the anime is rushing through these early stages of the plot, presumably so that it can quickly get to the good bits. But I only have so much patience.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5

School-Live ! (Gakkou Gurashi!)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of yet another slice-of-life manga series… Er, wait, not quite.

Characters

Yuki, our protagonist, loves attending her high-school. She’s even a member of the “School Living Club”, who stay the night in an empty classroom on campus instead of going home. She’s a bit airheaded, to put it mildly, and you can quickly sense that her friends are a bit worried about her.

She has basically two sets of friends. Her classmates, of course ; the go from the completely forgettable to the bad girl who comes to school wearing a collar. And the School Living Club :
– Yuuri, the motherly club president, who spends most of her time cooking or gardening on the roof ;
– Kurumi, the one who gets most angry at Yuki’s antics and is never seen without her trusty showel ;
– and Miki, who’s technically more junior than Yuki but seems to have a better head on her shoulders.
(They also have a dog whose running around causes much hijinks.)

After a while, you get the feeling that something’s not quite right. Aside of Yuki, none of the School Living Club members seem to go to class. Whole areas of the building are cordoned off, and nobody ever sets foot outside. And there’s the worrying fact that, Yuki aside, the two sets of characters never really interact (although the show does its darnedest to camouflage it).

The twist, which comes to light at the end of the episode, is that the school is in the middle of a zombie apocalypse ; Yuki has snapped and is entirely delusional. None of her classmates or teachers are alive (there’s the striking visual of a half-torn collar on a desk in her classroom), and the other members of the School Living Club are merely indulging her, hoping she doesn’t do anything dangerous in between attending empty classes and talking with non-existent people.

Production Values

Quite good ; there’s certainly a lot of effort put into foreshadowing the twist with background details, before finally pulling the rug and showing the actual state of disrepair for the school.

Points for the misleadingly cheerful OP sequence that does go out of its way to only never actually show other people onscreen with the main four characters, except in Yuki’s solo spots.

Overall Impression

Hmm. I had seen enough promotional material about the show to be mostly spoiled on the premise ; watching the episode was mostly an exercise on spotting the hints and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Even with that additional layer, there’s no escaping that this first episode is rather boring, all told. With the rest of the School Living Club staying mostly in the background (or entirely deadpan, in Miki’s case), it’s up to Yuki to carry the show, and she doesn’t quite have the shoulders for it. It doesn’t help that the twist that makes her at least somewhat interesting is relegated to the last couple of minutes. It’s an entire episode of slow build while nothing really happens (so as to preserve the surprise), and that’s not really thrilling to watch.

Of course, there’s no way the show can keep going like this ; but I have no clue where the balance will fall between brainless slice-of-life (i.e. Yuki’s perspective) and an actual examination of the consequences of the setting, and its emotional baggage. Surely Yuki is going to snap back to reality at some point ? (On the other hand, the manga is still ongoing, so…)

I’m giving it a second episode to see where the chips fall, but there’s a lot of work yet to do in order to transform it into an actual watchable show.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5