Tag: manga adaptation

Everyday Life with Monster Girls (Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a harem romantic comedy manga series. Warning : this is often borderline softcore porn.

Characters

Kurusu, our protagonist, is an ordinary dude whose life got upended when he became a “Host” for the Semihuman Cultural Exchange program : basically, the monster-people who had remained hidden by the governments until a few years ago are now mingling with humans so as to achieve peaceful coexistence.

Miia, his charge, is a lamia (half-snake) girl. She appreciates him not recoiling in horror at her sight and is very affectionate… maybe a bit too much, as her affections and attempts to snuggle often end up with her strangling him.

Ms Smith is the government agent in charge of supervising Miia’s stay. She’s very obnoxious on monitoring them, although this is presumably partly to cover up her own mistake (as Kurusu didn’t volunteer, and Miia got to him by error). She’s very keen on enforcing the “no sex” rule, too.

The OP and promotional material promise that more monster girls will show up soon and join the regular cast.

Production Values

Very, very fanservicey indeed, with next to no censorship. You’ll get to see nearly every inch of Miia’s body.

Overall Impression

You know a show has its priorities straight when it starts off with a three-minute-long “snuggling in bed” scene, continues with a bath scene, and only after that bothers to explain the plot in a few quick flashbacks. The episode also manages to visit a lingerie store and a love hotel.

I’m sure this appeals to people with certain fetishes, but I found it rather boring. The “racism is bad, m’kay” subtext feels rather perfunctory, and the contrived reason for the constant cock-blocking makes the numerous foreplay scenes more frustrating than arousing. It certainly stopped being funny very early on.

Let’s be frank : I nearly fell asleep watching this. I just don’t care, and won’t be pursuing it any further.

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

Himouto! Umaru-chan

(12ish episodes ?)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a comedy manga series.

Characters

The title has a pun between “little sister” and a slur against women who offer a perfect image in their public/work life, but are slobs back home. Which is awful when it’s women doing it, right ? [/sarcasm]

Anyway, that’s an apt description for Umaru, aside from her being a high school student. Perfect grades, great at sports, loved from her schoolmates and the neighbours… but as soon as she comes home, she turns into a super-deformed caricature of herself who only looks up from her manga and games to munch on snacks.

Our actual point of view character is Taihei, her older brother, with whom she’s come to live. He’s quite annoyed by her antics, but succumbs way too often to her puppy-dog eyes. When he’s not just caving from social pressure not to look like he’s bullying this “innocent-looking” girl.

And that’s basically it ; some classmates of Umaru’s look like they may become regular supporting cast, but none of them are more than one-note so far.

Production Values

Okay enough for a gag show, I guess.

Overall Impression

Well, aside from the whole premise making me feel a bit uncomfortable, the core point here is that the joke isn’t that funny, and quickly becomes repetitive over the course of an episode ; I can’t imagine how you can string along a whole series from it.

I’m pretty much done with this one.

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

Seiyu’s Life! (Sore ga Seiyuu!)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a semi-autobiographical 4-panel gag manga about voice-acting. (The writer, Masumi Asano, has been in the business for more than a decade and is currently voicing Cure Mermaid in the latest Precure series.) And wait, it was illustrated by Hayate the Combat Butler‘s author ?

Characters

Futaba, our heroine, is a newbie voice-actress who gets a minor role as a mascot character in a mecha show. And of course she makes minor blunders one after the other, as this is a gag show. She got into this career because, well, the economy’s tough and jobs are hard to get anyway, so why not go for the dream job ?

Ringo Ichigo, another newbie who got the “Classmate A” role. I have no clue how Futaba can keep messing up her name, as she’s clearly putting on a strawberry-themed persona. She totally didn’t get into this field because she was an anime fangirl, honest !

Rin, a junior high school student, isn’t lost in the building. She’s actually three years their senior, and indeed quite good at it ; it’s impressive how she doesn’t mess up any of the technobabble her bridge bunny character spouts out.

Masako Nozawa is guest-starring as herself, i.e. the respected and admired veteran who turns out to be kind to the newbies despite how intimidated they are. They still expect her to break out a Kamehameha during recording sessions, though.

Production Values

Wait, studio Gonzo are still alive ? That would explain why they got a series where they can get away with leaving all the action shots unfinished.

Overall Impression

Exactly what I expected : a pleasant and modestly entertaining, if a bit slight, look how voice-acting actually works in practice. It’s full of little details that are clearly drawn from experience.

Sure, it’s nowhere as good as SHIROBAKO, but that would be a high bar to clear. But hey, it’s entertaining and instructive enough about the behind-the-scenes of the industry that I’m sure to keep watching.

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

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

Snow-White with the Red Hair (Akagami no Shirayukihime)

(12 episodes, with another season already planned for 2016)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a shojo manga series with a medieval setting.

Characters

Shirayuki, our protagonist. Why her parents named her “Snow-White” when she’s got the reddest hair ever is a mystery for the ages. They’re not around anymore, though. She makes a living with her herbalist’s shop, although you easily get the impression that she cares more about helping people out than really making money. But then she catches the attention of…

Raji, the local prince, and a complete twat. He sends out soldiers to inform our heroine that she’ll be his concubine, starting tomorrow. Her reaction is of course “fuck no” ; she prepares some last bits of medicine for her regular customers, cuts her hair out in a grand gesture, and quickly leaves the city (and the country just to be sure) before the day is up. She ends up sleeping next to a half-deserted isolated mansion in a forest when she’s woken up by…

Zen, a brash young man who regularly hangs out their with his two companions. He somehow manages to hurt himself when he notices her, and she nurses him back to health after she gets him to trust her. They quickly hit it off, although she’s anxious to leave once he starts probing her a bit too much about what she’s running from exactly.

Someone left out a bunch of red apples by the door, and it’s very obviously coming from Raji. Zen, being a moron, bites into one of them. And promptly gets poisoned for his trouble. Shirayuki feels she has not choice but follow the soldiers back to Raji. While she clearly tells him how little she thinks of him, she feels obligated to obey the asshole in order to get an antidote for Zen. Who promptly shows up looking none for the worse (claiming he’s been building poison immunity) and announces that this won’t be necessary. After all, Raji doesn’t want it to be known that he just poisoned a prince from the much more powerful neighbouring kingdom, right ? So he’d better forget about Shirayuki. Capishe ?

Production Values

Quite good ; studio Bones can always provide with a baseline of quality animation and scenery porn.

Overall Impression

Well, this is a perfectly entertaining shojo romance show. It’s got the benefit of a heroine with an actual backbone and agency, and a male lead who’s quite likeable and offers no rape overtones, which is always welcome. It’s got decent comedic timing, and some fun dialogue when Jun Fukuyama has a hoot playing the villain. (“Mirror, mirror, tell me who is the fairest in the land ?” “Sir, there is no mirror, this is one of your informants.”)

If there’s one flaw here, it’s that it’s a bit bland, even as it plays around with the Snow-White tale. And there’s the question of what happens next once Shirayuki starts leaving at Zen’s castle ; how will the story proceed ? Presumably something more dramatic than mere slice-of-life romance ?

But hey, this is likeable enough for me to give it at least a second episode to gauge its direction, if not more.

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

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

GANGSTA.

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a crime manga series featuring sex, drugs and ultraviolence.

Characters

The show follows the “Handymen”, a two-man team of hit-men/middlemen/whatever-you-pay-them-for-men, operating in the wretched hive of scum and villainy of Ergastulum. They take jobs that the big gangs would rather have a “neutral” party handle, although they also help out the local population on occasion. While they’re violent thugs, the idea seems to be that the city would be even worse off without them “regulating” the doldrums of its criminal underground.

Nick is the muscle of the pair ; an Asian-looking dude who wields a sword and does moves out right this side of wire-fu. He’s impressively lethal, although he can also leave people alive if he doesn’t like them. Also, the big gimmick of the show is that he’s deaf, overcompensating with heightened sight. He communicates mostly through grunts and sign language, although he can talk (in the very slurred way deaf people often do) if he gets angry enough. It’s certainly quite intimidating.

Worick, his partner, understandably handles most of the talking. And boy does he keep babbling. Fortunately, he’s got enough charisma not to be too annoying. He mostly uses guns, and holds his own enough to run a playful kill tally against Nick.

Our plot this episode involves a small gang of upstarts thinking they’re all that and making a move into “forbidden” zones against their superiors’ orders. Clearly they’ve bitten up way more than they can chew, as the mafia lords commission the Handymen (through the intermediary of an unsurprisingly corrupt police officer) to get rid of them. Which they do without breaking a sweat.

Alex is a prostitute often hanging in the back-alley behind the Handymen’s office. Her abusive pimp was part of the upstart gang, so in theory she should have been wiped out with the whole of them ; however, the pair obviously grew sweet on her, and spared her. She’s back in the alley by the end of the episode, but Worick does ask her to mind the phone whenever he’s away (since obviously Nick can’t answer it). Clearly she’s under their protection now, and there are worse positions to be in within this hellhole of a city.

Production Values

Quite nice indeed. The fight scenes are decently animated, and there’s some good direction to keep the action fluid. It does good work at selling Nick’s deafness. It’s also mercifully way less brown than you’d expect of such a premise, although only the OP & ED sequences really get wild with colour.

Amazingly, it’s way less exploitative than you’d expect, given that one of the three main characters is a prostitute we often see on the job. Those short scenes are rather tastefully done.

Overall Impression

Hello, Black Lagoon clone ! And hey, there are worse shows to emulate, especially when it’s actually rather well executed. The characters are fun, the city has lots of atmosphere (I like that the Handymen spend some time helping out random “citizens”), and I’m already getting interested in the struggles of influence between the major gangs. (Which includes the police, presumably.)

The “deaf” gimmick is a bit weird, but at least the show makes enough effort to sell it without feeling too contrived. As a pilot episode, this works very well.

I’m sold.

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

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 ?

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.