Top 10 Anime Shows - #10-6

Read the introduction first?

Let’s jump right into #10.

The only also-ran I have for the #10 spot is Fullmetal Alchemist and Brotherhood. I don’t call these two one series, nor should anyone because of how wildly different they are. Both of these series definitely have a great amount of wide appeal, evident in just how popular they both are in Japan and in the US. But it just doesn’t eclipse what my actual #10 is, and that is One Piece.

I really, really hesitated to put One Piece on here because it is, I think, objectively worse than Fullmetal Alchemist, and it’s a lot less accessible to a large fanbase because of its length and its sillier moments.

But One Piece is well into its 600s of chapters and almost in the 600s of episodes, and it’s still going strong for me. Some of the most recent arcs, just before the time skip, were some of the most emotionally charged stories in anything, in my opinion. That, by and large, is why I think One Piece is so great. Its ability to tell stories at this high of a level for this long is extremely impressive to me.

One Piece does have a really simple way of telling a story, which is basically powerful person is trying to take over place and Straw Hat Pirates defeat them in the end. Interlaced in this storytelling is flashbacks that inform on a major character of the arc (whether that be Luffy, Zoro, Nami, or whoever). But each of the stories that they’re telling are just so good and hit you in ways that you don’t expect. I did not expect to be shedding tears over the destruction of a ship, but I certainly was watching One Piece.

I think what One Piece does the best is that it doesn’t kill characters just to give finality to the story. It’s something that anime does frequently in these long-running shonen shows, and even Fullmetal Alchemist is guilty of this (but it doesn’t detract from the story). The first major death in the present time doesn’t occur until well into the 500s of chapters, I believe. That, I think, is a testament to just how good Eiichiro Oda’s storytelling is.

It’s a really daunting task to just step into almost 600 episodes of just one show, but I’ll tell you right now that it’s definitely worth it. If you skip over filler and OP/ED, you can power through the show pretty easily in two weeks (that is if you have nothing else, or very little else, to do).

No time to dwell on One Piece, though, which is definitely the longest thing I have on this list. Moving on to #9.

I have a crap ton of also-rans for the #9 spot, and it’s really because they’re similar to my #9. They’re all love stories in a regular-ish setting. First of the also-rans is Fruits Basket. Fruits Basket didn’t quite make the list because some of the anime stories are really meandering in the scope of a 26-episode series. The manga would almost certainly make a top 10 list for me, but the anime just falls short because it’s missing that true ending instead of the anime ending. Also-ran number two is Ouran High School Host Club, for the same reasons that Fruits Basket didn’t make it. Ouran is a brilliant not-really-deconstruction-but-more-parody of the over-the-top shojo tropes, and it’s just so funny. But it leaves every love story open for reading the manga by the end of the series, which had its own (very similar to the manga’s) ending.

The rest of the also-rans are: Clannad and After Story, but the first half drags on for maybe too long. However, it’s necessary for to inform the second half, I think. And the second half is really where the show is at its strongest. It just doesn’t have that complete greatness that the rest of the shows on this list do. Next is Nana, which suffers from the same things that Fruits Basket and Ouran do, and now it looks like we fans may never get an ending to even the manga. Which is really too bad because Nana is among the best shojo out there, ever. Next is Honey and Clover, which I really have to and want to revisit because I think it’s a show that really grows on you more the more you revisit it. It’s completely dependent on you liking the characters to like the show, which isn’t a bad thing, but it doesn’t get into who they are and why you should like them fast enough and the first half of the first season suffers for it, unfortunately. Next is Kimi ni Todoke, which is a show that I really liked. But it’s a really subtle show, and thus doesn’t leave a huge impression on you. I was left with, “That was really, really good. I’ll revisit that down the line, but not anytime soon.” Which is why it has to be left off the list. Last, but not least, of the also-rans is Toradora. Toradora is a show that I immensely enjoyed, but it just doesn’t have that final push to make me love it completely. The ending also feels rushed and wrapped up nicely, when they could have done something like Oreimo and done a few extra ONAs and served themselves a much nicer ending. But they’re might have been something in production that prevented that.

Anyway! My ramblings aside, my #9 is, without any regrets, K-ON! and all related material. First season, second season, and movie. Loved it all. I can watch these girls just hang out for 40+ episodes and a movie and still want more. If any show has completely captured the art of meandering and telling that in standalone stories, it’s K-ON! This is a show that I will revisit probably at least every year, just for that nostalgic feeling you get watching these girls.

But really…this show completely captures that high school life of hanging out with your friends and that feeling of loss you have after you move on. It ends on a high note though, of course, because all the girls are going to the same college (and there’s a continuation manga!). If you didn’t have that really close relationship to people back in high school, or even in college, this might not resonate as strongly with you. Or if you can’t stand just meandering stories, and K-ON! is very meandering, then it might not be your cup of tea. But K-ON!’s kind of meandering is a good kind of meandering; a kind of meandering that informs the characters in ways that some of the also-rans couldn’t do as well.

The dub cast for K-ON! is suitable, but kind of hit-and-miss overall. The actress for Yui strains at several parts and it’s not until you watch a few episodes that you even start to get over it. Mio seems to be perfectly voice matched, but I have to wonder what she’s bringing to the table that the Japanese seiyuu wasn’t. Meanwhile, Mugi is portrayed middle-of-the-road in terms of the performance, but the overall tonality of Mugi was definitely maintained, and I have to give the actress a few more points for that. Azusa was lacking compared to the Japanese seiyuu, but I feel that the dub performance brought something different, albeit subtle, to the table compared to the original. Ritsu, however, is by far the best performance in this dub as a whole. I didn’t really like Ritsu overall based on the Japanese, but the dub really tips it for me. I found myself falling more and more for Ritsu because of how good it was.

So overall, the show really does a lot of things well. But it’s also a very divisive show, with the detractors saying that it’s just moe pandering (which is kind of is). I’m not sure it’s worth putting at #9, but it’s definitely better than One Piece and, on a personal level, I wanted both One Piece and K-ON! to be included because of how much I like these two series. Unfortunately, that means a few other shows get the shaft. Sorry, those shows.

Moving on to #8.

I don’t have any also-rans for the #8 spot, so I’ll just jump right it. The #8 is Hellsing Ultimate, which is not to include the sometimes great, usually spotty TV series.

Hellsing Ultimate, to me, is, well, the ultimate form of anime entertainment. It’s not for the light at heart because, just like the Trust and Betrayal OVAs, there’s a crap ton of blood that pours from places you didn’t think had that much blood to pour from. But the draw to this series will always be Alucard ripping the ever living shit out of people. Sure, there’s some interesting takes and/or deconstructions of vampire tropes as well as a slave-master duality between Seras-Alucard and Alucard-Integra. But what this boils down to is I want to watch Alucard rip things apart in a gruesome manner.

If I watch any show just for the pure, high-octane entertainment value, it is Hellsing. I marathoned through Hellsing I-VIII, the only ones that are in English, and I have absolutely no regrets about that decision. That was eight hours of pure entertainment.

I think what really makes me love this series so much is the rivalry between Alucard and Anderson. Alucard constantly says that no one is immortal, and that seems to be a running theme through the series. But Anderson, the once mortal who Alucard wanted to be killed by, becomes a monster himself and Alucard loses all respect for the man Anderson once was. That says a lot about the character of Alucard and Kouta Hirano does that absolutely brilliantly.

So, yeah. For me, there’s not much more to be said about Hellsing Ultimate. The draw is, and always will be, entertainment. Pure and simple.

Ok, #7.

I had a lot of trouble putting the #7 on the list, just because, aside from One Piece, it’s the only show that’s still airing. And, for all I know, it could have a really bad ending. But it’s just a testament to how good this show has been up to this point that it got on the list.

Before that, though, a few also-rans for #7. These are also relatively new series. The first one is Chihayafuru, which took the fall 2011 season by storm. It was by and far the best show out of that season and I am super excited for the second season coming out in the winter 2012 season. But Chihayafuru kind of had it all for me. It had great characters, with Chihaya, Taichi, Nishida, Komano, and Oe, and a great driving plot for all of them, in the karuta card game. Beyond that, it’s a fairly conventional sports anime, which says a lot about its characters. The relation between these five, and the additional past history with Arata, Chiahya, and Taichi, makes this show absolutely amazing. I’d love to put it on the list, but pandering to my own desires and putting K-ON! and One Piece beat this show out.

The other also-ran is Madoka Magica. It is an absolutely brilliant piece of work from Gen Urobuchi (the writer for Fate/Zero’s original light novels and second season as well as the fall 2012 season’s sci-fi Psycho-Pass) that should be a required viewing for anyone who calls themselves a fan of the magical girl genre. Shows like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura paved the way for this to be created and it almost certainly wouldn’t be the same without their own deconstructions of the genre. But Madoka Magica takes deconstructing a genre to the level that hasn’t been done in 16 years when Neon Genesis Evangelion premiered in Japan. It starts off as a pretty typical magical girl fare…and then episode three hits you like a ton of bricks. And it just gets darker and darker and darker from there. These are middle school girls dealing with all of this and it is played absolutely brilliantly. I can say with certainty that the magical girl genre won’t have another great show like this in a good five years at least.

But my #7 show is Space Brothers. It’s just such a great show and by far the best season from a spectacular spring 2012 season that also included Kids on the Slope, Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and tsuritama.

Space Brothers is a show that takes its time with telling its own story. Once we were 30 episodes in, our protagonist, Mutta, still hadn’t become an astronaut—which is what he’s been trying to accomplish since probably episode two or three.

What makes this show great, or what took it over the edge from just really, really good for me, was around episode 25 when Mutta and four other characters were placed inside an isolated pod tube apartment-ish place as part of JAXA’s astronaut exam. The characters themselves were there for two weeks and it felt like I was watching them in real time. Yet I was constantly at the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened next. Then there’s always one or two episodes of just build up to the point where we find out Mutta has moved further on in the astronaut exam. Each and every time, I don’t know whether he’s going to succeed…But dammit, I’m cheering him on, on the edge of my seat, to succeed.

This just explores characters, both Mutta and the myriad of side characters, in such an amazing and deep way that I don’t frequently see in anime, or even American TV. I don’t think I’d see five minutes of a 20 minute episode dedicated to a character we’ve seen on screen for maybe 20 minutes prior to this. But Space Brothers does just that. It takes the time to give some of the seemingly less important background characters their time in the spotlight. And it could very easily feel like wrapping up the storyline with a nice bow (the character I’m referring to previously had several quarrels with Kenji, who quickly became friends with Mutta at the beginning of the exam), but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like you learned about the character instead of, “Ok, their story is over now. Moving on.” And I really appreciate that out of this show.

Once this gets a dub, and by god it had better, this is definitely going right alongside suggestions like Cowboy Bebop and all the Ghibli movies as great ways of introducing someone to anime. That’s just how good it is. It doesn’t feel like I’m watching an anime, but it being in animation really brings it to life.

Moving right along to #6.

The also-rans here are simply the works of Makoto Shinkai, simply for lack of a better place to put them. I haven’t seen Children Who Chase Lost Voices, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. I also have very little recollection of Place Promised in Our Early Days, but I remember liking that a lot. However, his two works that really represent what he can do as an animator, director, and writer are his debut Voices of a Distant Star and the feature length 5 Centimeters per Second. Voices really hits me every time I watch it. I remember getting it in the mail, watching the dub, watching the sub, watching the sub that Shinkai acted in himself, then watching the dub again. It really is that good. 5 Centimeters per Second is something that I’ve really been meaning to revisit, but I’ve seen it twice and really liked it both times. I’ve only seen the ADV dub of the film, but I thought it was outstanding. David Matranga always seems out of place at first (given my introduction to him was Sanzo in Saiyuki, it’s understandable), but he outshines as always. While Voices emphasizes trying to be together, even though you’re so far away, 5 cm emphasizes the tragedy of simply drifting away from those you love. Both stories are just told fantastically and if you want to check out Shinkai as a whole, do Voices. If you dislike it, stop. If you like it, watch the rest of his stuff. At the very least, you’ll really appreciate the animation in it, because it is top notch.

My #6 best anime I’ve ever seen is Spice and Wolf. The stories that Isuna Hasekura are trying to tell are absolutely stunning in their detail and the dynamic between Lawrence and Holo is among the best dynamics between two characters in anything.

I think what really drew me to the series is that both Lawrence and Holo are exactly the type of character that I love to watch do things. They’re both extremely intelligent, yet sometimes just as naïve, and they both always seem to have a plan—even if that plan isn’t panning out exactly as they planned.

The series as a whole tells four complete stories, or four of Hasekura’s now 17 light novels, and each and every story is unique and creative. From the silver coin fiasco to smuggling gold to selling pyrite to fur trading again, they are all amazing works of creative brilliance in economics. I remember the pyrite, which involves simply watching the time go by with Lawrence, and it is one of the most tense moments that I ever remember watching. And it’s just so mundane, it’s great.

What this really boils down to is whether you like Lawrence and Holo and like their dynamic. Because that will be make or break in the series. If you love them, you love the series. If you hate them, you probably hate the series.

Alright, that was a lot of also-rans. I got most of them out of the way, but the rest deserve the wait. Now, that was #10-6. Next up, #5-1. Which you can read here.

Top 10 Anime Shows - Introduction

I recently listened though ANNcast’s top 10 anime of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. That got me thinking that my own top anime list was extremely outdated, because I wrote that about a year and a half or two years ago. And a lot can be watched in that time period. And, trust me, I have watched a lot in that time period. I have several also-rans for each number, either because they were similar to that particular show or because they deserve to be mentioned in tandem with that particular number.

First, I want to explain a bit on how I ranked each of these. First and foremost, on a personal level, is rewatchability. For example, things like Buffy and Breaking Bad are really good. They’re really, really good. But do I really have a desire to watch them again? Buffy, yeah, way down the line. Breaking Bad? Probably not ever again. So the top shows on this list I’ll want to watch over and over again and I’ll never get sick of them; or they’re shows that I finished and I immediately wanted to start back over again, just to have that same feeling again.

Next in how I ranked these shows was, of course, simply how much I enjoyed them on a personal level. This works in tandem with how objectively good I think these shows are at their peak. And that last part is extremely important, because some of these shows can really drag at parts (*cough* One Piece *cough*).

Before I start listing off all these series, I want to mention a few shows that just didn’t make the cut. They were ruled out before I even considered the rest of the list.

First off is Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal. I watched this back in high school, when I was going through that huge nostalgia phase where I watched everything I did back when Toonami was on weekday afternoons (which included Rurouni Kenshin). At the time, I didn’t really like it that much. Now, when I watched it again, I was really impressed. This show really captured a lot of what I liked about the franchise as a whole, yet put it in a much more serious manner. It’s also tragic to see Kenshin grow up like he did. The title gives away what’s going to happen (spoilers: it’s betrayal). But it’s executed in a way that you don’t 100 percent expect. But it just missed the cut because it didn’t quite resonate with me. I loved Kenshin when I was a kid because it had that ridiculous shonen-y feel to it. This was definitely much more adult storytelling, but it wasn’t the Kenshin I knew. Perhaps if I watch the Kyoto arc of the TV show, I’ll like it more. But pure personal preference threw this off the list. Though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t really great, it was. If this were a top 15 list, perhaps it would make it. Alas, I have no reservations about leaving it off.

Next is Mushishi. Mushishi is a show that really took me a while to finish, or even want to finish. Travis Willingham’s acting really put it over for me, because it was a bore for me the first time around. That said, this show has some really great singular stories that cannot be ignored. “The Light of the Eyelid,” “Raindrops and Rainbows,” and “The Sound of Rust” are among a few of my favorites. But the fact remains that I didn’t want to finish this series at all when I first watched it. It’s only watching it a second time, remembering with nostalgia the great stories that lay within this series, that I began to truly appreciate it. It was around episode 17 or so that I said to myself, “Ok, just power through the rest. Doesn’t matter how bored you are.” Now, I still can probably only take these episodes in in moderation, and that’s what puts it over the edge and out of top 10 territory. Again, if this were a top 15 list, this would almost certainly make it. But alas.

Last, but not least, is Gurren Lagann. I immensely enjoyed this show, and still do to this day. Kamina crying out in episode eight still gives me chills whenever I think about it (but that’s about all I can say without spoiling anything further for the few who haven’t seen this series). Out of these three also-rans, I’d call Gurren Lagann my favorite by a fairly wide margin. I’ve only heard snippets of the sub, but the dub is definitely top notch, up there with Cowboy Bebop and Baccano! as best dubs out there. This one isn’t missing anything in particular…but it’s lacking in one compartment compared to every other show on the list. I can’t justify placing it higher than anything that’s already on my list and, thus, its regrettably relegated to the also-rans.

Ok, that is the introduction. Next up, my #10-6 and the also-rans for those. Read it here.

Releasing a DVD

I haven’t written words here in a while, and it’s mostly because I couldn’t really think of anything worthwhile to write about. But now I’ve finally thought of something. What is the process of releasing a DVD/BD state side?

First, your typical turnaround from the airing of the final episode to DVD/BD release date in the US is about a year and a half, give or take six months or so (sometimes more, rarely less). Funimation’s products, as far as I can tell, usually have a year and a half turnaround. There are some outliers (Like A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun) and things like Hellsing and the other Geneon/ADV stuff that Funimation hauled in after Geneon/ADV’s respective demises won’t use this same turnaround.

There are several reasons as to why this takes so long. The first and foremost reason is materials. The Japanese licensor just can’t get the music, the video, the scripts, or the whatever elses to the US licensee fast enough. This, I suspect, is what delayed Hellsing and A Certain Magical Index for so long. However, the license itself can take forever to complete as well, and that can stall a release faster than anything. The most recent, or perhaps most notable, example I can think of is Evangelion 2.0. The problem with that was that Gainax (the production company behind Evangelion) thinks the product is worth its weight in gold. And if you combine all the merchandise that Eva has released over the years, that’s a lot of gold. Anyway, Gainax wanted way too much for the license and Funimation had to either talk them down or concede to a higher price than they wanted to (probably a combination thereof).

Of course, there can be several other reasons as to why production is stalled. The video could be flawed in some way or the English dub audio could be flawed in some way or they could have to recast someone based on the Japanese input or whatever. It really depends on the title itself and the bumps in the road that particular title runs into.

[Note: The Japanese have the final say in everything, including scripts, casts, DVD/BD menus…As far as I know, every part of the US release has to be approved by someone on the Japanese side of things. I’m sure that sometimes, they’ll just sign off on stuff willy-nilly. But for something like Evangelion, I would bet some Gainax intern has to look through everything that a higher up executive or production member doesn’t want to.]

Moving right along, the licenses themselves are split into several parts. So when you license a series from Japan, you have to get the license for the music, for the DVD release, for the BD release, for the streaming release, and so many others that I don’t even know. Sometimes, however, you get a license that just says “home video release license” (or the actual technical title). But what that means is that the licensee gets to release that show on DVD, on BD, and on any future home video thing that we invent for the duration of the license. That’s why you’d see so many, “Sentai formally announces license for X show” or “Funimation announces home video release for Y show.” Because, nowadays, these companies will just license the streaming first to see how it does and then license the actual show for home video. Sentai’s just been announcing that it will stream X show, but never formally says it has a license for anything (but you can bet that it does have a license for X show if Sentai is streaming it).

Finally, there’s the dub production. That’s a whole separate article that I’ll just save for later because that goes through producers, line producers, directors, script writers, actors, and a whole plethora of other important people (those are the folks during the ending that you skip over). But the US licensee goes through dub production, gets it signed off by the Japanese, and finally releases that title in the US. A formal announcement of release date, I would imagine, comes pretty near the end of production. But dub actors usually records shows about four to six months prior to release. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I believe it hovers around that.

When it finally gets released, the typical thing to do now is 13-episode sets. Very rarely do you see sets with fewer episodes than that (unless the complete series is fewer episodes than 13). The most recent ones that I can think of are Madoka Magica and K-ON!’s first season, both of which were release in four-episode sets. Funimation has, on at least three occasions, released the complete series at one time in two 13-episode sets. But very rarely do you see sets that are released with more than 13-episode in a first run, unless it’s a reprint or an old title (shows that Discotek and Nozomi have been licensing are among these exceptions).

This release schedule is much easier on the wallet than how it used to be. Now, you can get 13 episodes for about $45, usually less, sometimes more. Before, you would spend $20-30 on four episodes. Oh how the times have changed.

Well, that’s a quick and dirty version of the process, with I’m sure a good bunch of holes missing in what I’m saying. But this is the gist of it all, I believe.

On Animation

This is all about animation. I’ll be the first to say that I don’t know much about how much films cost, aside from on a general level. What I do know is that an animated films (or anythings) can and do cost more than a live-action film that’s doing the exact same thing. At least that can be the case on a general basis.

I just read that Wreck-It Ralph, that new hip movie the youngin’s are talking about, cost $165 million to make. Comparatively, Skyfall cost $200 million to make, Avengers cost $220 million, and Dark Knight Rises cost upwards of $300 million to make. That’s a lot of dough to dish out just to make a film. But those latter three films are huge blockbusters with huge followings behind them. So far (as of Nov. 9, 2012), those latter three films have made $323.2 million, $1.511 billion, and $1.078 billion [all numbers according to Wikipedia]. Comparatively, Wreck-It Ralph has thus far garnered Disney $72.634 million. Compare that with the last three Best Animated Features: Rango (2011) cost $135 million and earned $245.375 million, Toy Story 3 (2010) cost $200 million and earned $1.063 billion, and Up (2009) cost $175 million and earned $731.342 million.

That’s a lot of numbers to throw at you. But let’s throw more numbers at you by looking at the last three films to win Best Picture, just to make it a little fairer in comparison to big blockbuster movies. The Artist (2011) cost a meager $15 million to make and earned $133.432 million, The King’s Speech (2010) cost, again, around $15 million and earned $414.211 million, and The Hurt Locker (2009) cost $15 million and earned $49.230 million. But those were all the artsy fartsy movies that don’t get a whole bunch of exposure or audience compared to, say, No Country For Old Men (which won Best Picture in 2007, cost $25 million, and earned $171.627 million) or The Departed (which won in 2006, cost $90 million, and earned $289.847 million).

To put that into perspective, Best Animated Features have net earned (and this is all according to Wikipedia and not at all meant to be an accurate depiction of the actual net earnings of these movies): $110 million for Rango, $800 million for Toy Story 3, and $656 million for Up. Best Picture’s have net earned: $118 million for The Artist, $399 million for The King’s Speech, and $34 million for The Hurt Locker. Then $146 million for No Country for Old Men and $199 million for The Departed.

So as far as Best Picture compared to Best Animated Feature goes, the Best Picture’s seem to cost a lot less than both blockbusters (because anything costs less than those) and the Best Animated Features. But, with the exception of The Artist, which seems to have done pretty well for itself, it seems that animated features are making more money (and, of course, this is on a large scale and by no means always the case).

So why not always make animated films instead of live-action films? It seems Japan has taken to this and largely produced animated works instead of live action. That’s, of course, not to say that they don’t make live-action things. Akira Kurosawa and Mamoru Oshii are names that I know that make live-action things in Japan (or did in the past in the case of Kurosawa).

But animation takes a LONG time to make. By what I’ve read, my impression is that live-action films, optimistically, take about nine months to make. Again, from what I’ve read, my impression is that animation can have a year or year and a half turnaround from conception to screen. I know that production on an anime series starts about a year before it ever airs on Japanese TV.

So you can make some typically shitty action or comedy movie for half (or even less) than a blockbuster, have half the turnaround, and make twice as much (or, at least, enough to keep making movies). This is the same with anime. Anime production studios will typically be working on around nine new shows at the same time (exceptions that I can immediately think of are Kyoto Animation and Ghibli).

Out of those 9 shows, ½ (that’s ½ of one show, not ½ of the nine) is going to be as good as Space Brothers or as successful as Fairy Tail or Hunter x Hunter—and that’s if they’re lucky. 3 are going to be about the quality of the Princess Tutu’s and xxxHolic’s. And the rest are going to be pandering to the latest fad in anime so they can keep the roof over their heads. I’m hard-pressed to say it would be different for Hollywood or anywhere else. [This whole paragraph is only my own speculation based on what I’ve seen in the past few years.]

So what’s the point of all this? I don’t know. I’m trying to sort out my thoughts as to why animation is considered this lower class of media and I thought that earnings might be a part of it. I know that time must be a part of it. It is fun to speculate though!

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Final Part Kokoro Connect

Kokoro Connect

Plot Summary: Kokoro Connect revolves around the daily, not so normal lives of Taichi, Iori, Himeko, Yoshifumi and Yui and their encounters in the Cultural Research Club. Up until recently they thought that they and their friends lived normal happy lives, but now the Heartseed is pulling their lives apart and exposing their inner secrets through body switching, urges and age regression.

The love and teen pentagonal comedy follows the strange phenomena at the Yamahoshi Academy's Culture Club, starting with the five male and female club members switching bodies with each other.

Kokoro Connect struggled in the early going, but it never wasn’t at the very least entertaining to me. I can’t say the same for everyone else as it was getting pretty mixed reviews during its debut.

But the show found its ground and strengthened to something great. It wasn’t the greatest thing ever and it wasn’t at the level of, say, Space Brothers, but it was good. It had interesting and compelling characters and the concept was weird and innovative enough to be very entertaining while watching it.

But the concept was the driving point of this story. Without it, we wouldn’t, I believe, go this deep into the characters. It spurred everything and was the result of everything, so it couldn’t survive as a show about these five characters. It would struggle to find its ground among the dozens of other run-in-the-mill slice of life shows.

However, the result was the compelling plot device and compelling characters. Each and every one of them seems to have a sad past dwelling inside of them (don’t we all?) that they don’t want to reveal immediately to anyone. And once we got to these, it gets really good. But it starts relatively weak and ends on a maybe too open ended note.

Rating: 8.5/10

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Part 6 Phi Brain and Knight in the Area

Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle

Plot Summary: Not too long after the events of Daimon Kaito's last battle with the POG organization, he must now face the Orpheus Order, a group that views the Armband of Orpheus as a necessary step for human evolution. Since Kaito ended up discarding his armband, he is targeted as a primary enemy of the mysterious faction.

The first season was entertaining because it was something new and puzzle-y and fun. This season used that exact same formula all over again, except with the addition of the typical shonen fights (like naming attacks, which translated to naming puzzle start phrases, overdramatizing everything, and other such bullshit).

This season tried to do too much with what they had. What they had was pretty one dimensional characters, some interesting backstories, and a seeming unwillingness to do anything exceptional with any of it.

The few high points of the season were really just last season. And there’s apparently going to be a third season. God knows that they’re going to do with it, but I suspect it’ll be largely be the same affairs with a new just as one dimensional cast.

Rating: 5/10

Knight in the Area

Plot Summary: Believing himself to be useless at soccer, Aizawa Kakeru instead becomes the manager of his school's soccer team, while his brother Suguru is its ace, and is even good enough to represent Japan in the championships. However, Kakeru may have a yet unknown strong talent within himself that only his brother Suguru can see, and they often get into arguments over Kakeru's denial of his skills. Things are made more complicated with the return of Nana, an old friend of theirs that Kakeru has a crush on.

The show went through a lot to get where it got to. Awkward music cues, unnecessary drama, and outright stupid filler episodes abound, the show was still entertaining, to say the least.

Knight in the Area falls into a pretty formulaic shonen sports show format with the girl, the ace, and the struggling protagonist with potential. Having not seen many sports shows (Bamboo Blade probably being my favorite, at least that I can think of having seen at the moment and I know that isn’t the best the genre has to offer), this was welcoming to me. But also having known the formula, it was redone at the same time.

It definitely has the potential to be something better, but we get caught up a lot in the matches and not what they’re doing for the characters. We get a bit of reveal at what the matches do to the characters after the fact (like Araki’s miss in the shoot-out), but it should be evident sooner. More so than Kakeru is trying to get to the world cup to discover the dream of the brothers.

My knowledge of the manga is that it’s going and the anime hasn’t caught up to it yet (based solely on episode and chapter count). Alas, the show has ended. It’s something that I enjoyed watching every week, but not something I looked forward to. It’s fun, albeit sometimes awkward and stupidly humorous, but not really thought provoking. And the cast seemed to try to focus on too many things at once when they should make Kakeru, Seven, Araki, and a few other characters the focus. Instead, all the characters were left relatively bland and forgettable.

Rating: 6/10

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Part 5 Hakuoki Reimeiroku

Hakuoki Reimeiroku

Plot Summary: The beginning of Hakuouki Series. Foretells the story Ryunosuke Ibuki, a boy who is a son of a samurai, yet hates a samurai. He was pick up by Roshigumi (later Shinsengumi) other leader Kamo Serizawa, when he was robbed and left to die on his way to the Capital (Kyoto). After being rescued, he was forced to become Serizawa's dog, and slowly, the mystery of "Water of Life" is starting to unfold.

I had no idea this was part of a franchise. It probably isn’t any better than its predecessors, but I suppose that’s an unfair assumption to make. Anyway, this was an overall mediocre affair that I thought had promise because it was placed in 1850s Japan, and I love me some period pieces.

There were far too many characters for 12 episodes (though since a lot of them are historical caricatures and the others are part of the franchise, it now makes sense), so you don’t get any clear focus on any of them beyond Ryunosuke. Otherwise, they were tropes of the characteristics of themselves.

What kept me through was the only slightly interesting furies aspect (though it was quickly thrown on the backburner for, I suspect, the more franchise relevant Serizawa plot) and so I could see Hajime Saito be amazing (he’s amazing by the way). Don’t watch it unless you like the Hakuoki franchise, and I can’t say I would want to check that out based on this series alone.

Rating: 5/10

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Part 4 Utakoi and Tari Tari

Utakoi

Plot Summary: The "Hyakunin Isshu" are an anthology of one hundred poems found in a trational Japanese card game called Karuta. The show is introduced by the person who selected the writings, Fujiwara no Teika. This is a glimpse into the origin of some of them. Since the majority of them are love compositions, the focus remains on romance in ancient Japan.

First, I picked up Utakoi because of Chihayafuru, which is another anime based on the game of karuta. I didn’t quite know what to expect out of Utakoi, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The show itself works in arcs and I believe it has three major arcs. The first one I remember being interesting, but it kept my interest week-to-week and didn’t really do anything else for me (though if that story of Munesada visiting Yoshiko 100 nights in a row was good). That lasted five episodes and it was interesting enough to a history buff like me, especially one so interested in Japanese history, which I am. The best part about this was the first episode, which explained the history behind the “Chihaya card” from Chihayafuru.

[For those of you who don’t know what this is, here’s several translations. “千早ぶる神代もきかず龍田川 からくれなゐに水くくるとは” “Chihayaburu/Kamiyo mo kikazu/Tatsuta-gawa/Kara-kurenai ni/Mizu kukuru towa” “Impassionate gods have never seen the red that is the Tatsuta River.” The impact from the poem itself comes from watching Chihayafuru.]

The second arc was preceded by a pointless filler episode and then it really got into it. Again, it was episodic with no real connecting factor until a few episodes in. It kept me interested through because Japanese history and the 100 Poems. Fellow literary contemporaries may recognize the Pillow Book the Sei Shonagon, which was mentioned and even had its own episode. It’s not until later when you start to get to know everyone that it has real impact.

The third arc is Fujiwara no Teika’s own arc and lasted the final episode. Since this one was about the guy who collected the 100 Poems (and has been pointlessly narrating the show throughout), it had more immediate impact and it was a nice wrap up to the entire show.

Though the show was of very episodic nature, it kept me hooked through its history of Japanese culture, especially the juxtaposition now of how women were treated and were expected to act then and how much that’s changed since…well around the 10^th century.

Rating: 6.5/10

Tari Tari

Plot Summary: Konatsu Miyamoto was rejected to sing with the other members of her chorus club by the teacher because she was missing "something special". Being her last year in high school, she felt like doing something crazy: She quit. In the place of her former club, Konatsu comes up with the idea to make a new chorus club, inviting the people around her to join. With dreams in each of the member's hearts, they live out their high school lives.

This was a show that took a while to find its footing. But if you stuck with it, it’d be a lot greater than it started out as. It kept me hooked with music and I’m a sucker for shows with lots of music.

But you get some superficial backgrounds to the five main characters and the Vice Principal, who only seems to be the antagonist to be the antagonist. You get further and further into their lives and find out that they actually do have more to them and it isn’t just cute girls singing for the pleasure of the fanboys.

Particularly striking are the stories of Wakana and Sawa, who both have not extremely troubled, but certainly very sad pasts. Once these stories were told, I was hooked to the show like a fish to water (or some better simile).

This is just one of those shows where you get hooked to the characters and just want to watch more of them and see them succeed in whatever they’re trying to succeed in. It struggled in the early going, but it got its footing and never looked back. It’s a simplistic show where Konatsu (the main character) is driving everyone toward her endgoal (just to sing and have people enjoy it) and by way of that, pushing everyone else toward their own endgoals. And you have to love it for that, or probably not at all.

Rating: 8.5/10

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Part 3 YuruYuri

YuruYuri

Plot Summary: Right after starting middle school, Akari Akaza joins the Amusement Club which is composed solely of her two childhood friends, Kyouko Toshinou and Yui Funami. Chinatsu Yoshikawa, Akaza's classmate, becomes a member after finding out about the dissolution of the Tea Club. The Amusement Club, situated at the tea room facility since the Tea Club disbanded, has no clear purpose, being free for the girls to do whatever they want.

That’s right. It’s a show called YuruYuri and it’s about…well, we’ll get to that.

No, I’m kidding. It’s a completely innocent show that’s basically K-ON! without music and less good animation (I didn’t want to say worse, since YuruYuri’s animation isn’t bad, it’s just…well…KyoAni).

It’s a show that I went in not expecting much and got 30 minutes of quality entertainment out of every Monday. With the exception of one really good episode, it doesn’t provoke any thoughts like Natsuyuki Rendezvous, Kokoro Connect, or Tari Tari might, but it’s good, clean fun. If you’re looking for a comedy to relax yourself with, check it out.

Rating: 6/10

If only because it was purely entertainment.

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Part 2 Humanity Has Declined

Humanity Has Declined

Plot Summary: It has been several centuries since human population has declined. Food has become harder to find and what little sources the humans have are considered highly valuable. The most prosperous species on the Earth are "Fairies", 10 cm tall creatures with high intelligence and a great love for sweets. A nameless girl, the main character, became a UN arbitrator between the humans and the fairies and had returned to her hometown to help her grandfather. One day, the village is sent some strange products made by a company called FairyCo. Since the villagers are wary of using the products, the girl, her grandfather, and a nameless boy decide to go to the factory to find out about the mysterious products and who is behind making them.

This is a weird combination of dystopia, utopia, science fiction, fantasy, and reality. I wouldn’t call it bad, but it’s very interesting to call it good. Very easy to call it good, but very interesting to do so as well. Since that’s ridiculously vague, let me explain.

It starts off with a sentient robot piece of bread killing itself so that it can be eaten. And that’s just the first episode. It was a ridiculous moment of dystopia in a seemingly utopia, but it’s also a dystopia.

This is a hard show to explain.

But I suppose a big flaw in this show is that it’s kind of just a cool story and there are no big character revelations (until the very end, which is a flashback of telling how the Mediator went through school and met Y).

Those cool stories, though, are absolutely brilliant. In one, you get that piece of bread. In another, you get sentient uncooked chickens trying to take over the world. In another, you get thrown into a manga world. In another, you get a time loop. I’ve seen these stories done before, and I’ve seen them done better, but damn if there isn’t something unique and cynical about these stories that you just have to love. I mean, the fairies constant smile that creeps you out more than anything else in the show and at the same time they represent the cutest thing the show has to offer is just brilliant.

What was so great about the show was its stories and its utopian cynicism about, literally, the decline of humanity. The show has its dull moments, but it also had its brilliant ones. The great thing about it is that you can skip the two episode arcs you don’t like and get straight to the ones you do, because nothing is lost in between.

Rating: 8/10

Summer 2012 Anime Review - Part 1 Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Plot Summary: Ryosuke works part-time as a florist. He has bad eyesight, a pure heart, and a secret crush on the store manager, Rokka. Unfortunately for him, Rokka swore off love 8 years ago. But when Ryosuke goes up to her apartment on the second floor, he runs into a good-looking half-naked man. At first upset, he learns that this isn't Rokka's live-in boyfriend; he's the ghost of her late husband, Atsushi. She can't see him, and Ryosuke decides not to give up on her, even with a dead husband standing in the way.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous was the show that convinced me the summer season wasn’t going to be a waste. At the time, I hadn’t started Sword Art Online yet and both standouts this season, arguably Kokoro Connect and Tari Tari, hadn’t yet hit their peak. But then this came rolling along from Noitamina and I fell in love.

The character relation between Hazuki and Rokka was timid, but great at the beginning. And this isn’t a high school drama anime where you piddle around for episode upon episode waiting for someone to confess. No, Hazuki came right out and said it on day one. The comedy aspect of waiting around episode after episode can work sometimes (but not all time time), but it definitely would not have worked here and I’m glad that it got out of the way quickly.

Besides that, the realism of a woman who’s lost her husband and still mourning over him eight years later is a little out there, but I’m willing to suspect disbelief and give it a chance. I honestly didn’t realize this wasn’t very believable until after the fact (though I suppose it isn’t out of the question; it’s just that Rokka is 30 now).

I also enjoyed Hazuki’s gall in going after the much older Rokka. It’s a nice change of pace from the timid, unsure, and often scared high school love stories. Hazuki is an absolutely believable character that’s only flaw is the woman he fell in love with. Ok, he’s a little timid as well in that he’s been buying things from this shop for quite a while. But we don’t have to watch that and by the beginning of the series, he’s sick of his own timidity.

That’s saying nothing of the ghost of Rokka’s husband is watching over her to make sure she’s happy. But more on that later. What really bugged me about the series was the extended dream sequence of Hazuki’s after he lent Shimao (Rokka’s husband) his body. Shimao went from loving husband to almost crazed lunatic after this and it wasn’t a character change that I very much appreciated. On top of that, Hazuki was left in some weird storybook land where nothing really interesting was happening. For me, it was alright for two or three episodes, but became nigh on unbearable after that. I only kept watching because the interrelation between Rokka and Shimao, now in Hazuki’s body but Rokka doesn’t know, was very interesting.

I wouldn’t immediately call this show great as a result. It’s really good, but not much more than that. If you’re looking for a cute love story with a storybook ending, check it out.

Rating: 7.5/10

A Rise of Fanservice?

Something that’s happened recently (and by recently, I’m referring to about the last ten years or so) in anime fandom is the rise of fanservice shows and the relative drop off of high concept shows. Out of the shows I only picked up nine new shows this season and out of those nine, five have shades of fanservice (two moreso than the others).

In spring 2012, I watched seven new shows (one of which I picked up after it aired). Two were high concept and four had shades of fanservice (three moreso than the other). In winter 2012, I picked up seven new shows. All seven had shades of fanservice (one was way worse than the others and the rest varied from cutesy moe to general character design of the girls). In fall 2011, I had perhaps my busiest season where I watched 14 new shows (one of which I picked up after it aired). 10 of those had shades of fanservice (three of which were particularly bad).

That’s as far back as my records go back of labels for season, but the ratio has been 9:5, 7:4, 7:7, and 14:10. Those aren’t great odds for the good shows like Chihayafuru, Fate/Zero, Bodacious Space Pirates, Kids on the Slope, tsuritama, Space Brothers, Kokoro Connect, and Humanity Has Declined. The connecting trend between all those series? They don’t rely on fanservice. Nope. Not even the unfortunately titled Bodacious Space Pirates (though I suppose it’s better than the light novel counterpart of Miniskirt Pirates).

I’m not going to try to justify fanservice. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn’t. I guess everything does follow Sturgeon’s Law. K-ON! is probably the big example where fanservice can produce a show that people love for the cute characters and not because the characters are cute (if that makes sense; though the divide in K-ON! fans and non-K-ON! fans is very, very large).

What fanservice does mean, at least for Japanese production companies, is that they can make figures with their cute characters and sell them for $80 a pop. The production company gets some royalties (or maybe one lump sum that allows the toy company to produce the likeness of the character, I’m honestly not sure which) and the toy company makes money. Lots of money. Because anime figurines are all the rage. I know my nedroid-ish but maybe not really nedroid Rei and Asuka are adorable. And at home. Note to sell, get those.

But it’s just what’s popular right now. I’ve been told that in the late 80’s and early 90’s, science fiction shows were all the rage and shitty science fiction show after shitty science fiction show premiered in Japan (with their own action figure and model tie-ins). Now, it’s fanservice. Making a fanservice show to stay afloat (like making a science fiction show for the same reason) doesn’t make it any better. The market has changed and hopefully it’ll change out of this into something better.

My guess? It won’t and the fan community will continue to remember one or two shows each season and throw all the rest into the “forgettable” pile.

Brief V

So I’ve been busy with other writing projects recently and haven’t had much time to think of ideas for this column, much less write them. I think I’m going away from weekly Thursday columns and moving more into about twice a month when I have an idea. Possibly more if there are more ideas.

Anyway, today in the Anime Dropbox is Humanity Has Declined. It’s a brilliant blend of comedy, utopia, and dystopia. You read that right. It’s a weird show where humanity has been taken over by a race of creepy and cute fairies and neither side really interferes with the other. The main character is known only as “Watashi” or “Mediator” and, while it has some poorer episodes, the good ones say to me that this really is a show to check out, especially in a sparse summer season.

In Defense of Anime: Part III

When I set out to write a review of a show that would be suitable for both children and adult audiences, the first thing that came to mind was Ghibli. Unfortunately, my Ghibli collection is sparse, though I have seen most of the movies through other outlets like video rental places and Netflix and even VHS tapes. In fact, I still have the VHS for My Neighbor Totoro, which I’m pretty sure is the dub before Disney did theirs. I also remember being disappointed when I got the VHS for Princess Mononoke for my birthday. Imagine that! Disappointed in received a Ghibli movie. Now, I treasure each Ghibli movie I have (my collection thus far only includes Nausicaa, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Whisper of the Heart). And that’s where we are right now. I’m watching Kiki’s Delivery Service as preparing my brain for reviewing it as if I was a child and as if I was me, a child in an adult body.

The first things that appeal to children is going to be the age of Kiki and her call to action. [Side note, fans of the Sam Raimi Spiderman films will recognize Kiki as Kirsten Dunst.] Also there’s a talking cat. But Kiki is a 13-year-old witch who is setting out on her own for a year to hone her witch-y powers. Kiki isn’t perfect, though; she’s a normal teenager who’s way too sure of her own powers and gets to get out of the family life that we 13-year-olds hated sometimes. Kids will love seeing an adolescent around their age able to set out on their own, much like Ash in Pokémon. And in her character, kids will relate to her fun, easy-going, and often naïve ways and adults will appreciate the accurate, albeit sometimes too childish, portrayal of a 13-year-old girl.

It’s something that I love in Miyazaki’s work, and really Studio Ghibli’s work in general, that they have strong, young, female leads. This does two things for me: A. It’s very interesting to see a female in this kind of lead position, especially in an anime and B. It makes a character that nearly anyone of any age will be able to relate to. It’s something in our psychology that makes it easier for us to relate to females as opposed to males. I mean, how different a movie would it be if Kiki was a male?

But Miyazaki initially portrays Kiki’s adventure as something that will be seemingly easy. Everyone accepts witches as a part of this world and would, of course, love to have a witch stay with them. Us adults realize that hardships are yet to come, but kids love the free-spirited-ness of the first 20 minutes. But she starts to lose control of her broom, almost causes a traffic accident, almost gets arrested, and eventually fails to find immediate lodging at a hotel. Because who would give a hotel room to a minor? Realism hits the kids like a ton of bricks, reminding them that this fantasy is indeed steeped in realism.

It isn’t all horrible real-world realism though. Soon, Kiki starts her delivery service, from which the film derives its name. She begins to stay at a bakery with some really nice people. [Another side note, Simpsons fans will recognize the pregnant woman as tons of voices from The Simpsons.] Soon, the beautifully childish music that children will love to dance to and we adults will love what it adds to the already child-like ambiance. This delivery portion is really just a segway for more to come.

It eventually leads to her and the boy, Tombo, becoming closer. Tombo is the boy that the male children can relate to. Just having the female with more female leads could work, but the addition of characters like Tombo and Sosuke and Howl into Ghibli’s movies makes it so much more relatable to the younger male audience, who might find more difficulty relating to Kiki than the older audiences and females might. We’ve all been in that situation where the girl we like doesn’t really want to talk to us or hang out with us or associate with us and the dynamic between Kiki and Tombo brings back nostalgic memories for the adults and puts kids in a very relatable right now situation.

Kiki then hits her big road block in life with her powers starting to wane. She’s hitting an age where all people, males and females, are confused about what they want in life because of the changes their bodies would be going through. We adults recognize that her magic difficulties are representing these changes but the kids relate to the general hardship of overcoming that one big road block (for kids, probably just parents and their seemingly unfair rules) to reach a higher pinnacle.

Even the characters represented in the story provide great relation for both kids and adults. First, the kids see Kiki’s mother and father as, of course, the parents they always wanted who would let them roam free. Then there’s the bakery shop owners who are like an aunt and uncle to both Kiki and the view. Then there’s Ursula, the woman in the woods, who is like an older sister/older woman figure for Kiki. We adults recognize the roles that these characters are playing and love how they’re portrayed in the series at the times when Kiki needs them the most (the aunt and uncle take Kiki in when she feels like she’s at her lowest; Ursula is the fun woman who provides sometimes childish wisdom for the even more childish Kiki; and the mother and father simply provide a place where Kiki knows she’s always welcome, which allows her to be so free-spirited in her journey away from home). The roles that these characters play in Kiki’s life can be represented so simple, so a child could recognize them even on a subconscious level, yet can be analyzed in a much more complex way so we as adults can see them and love them for that deeper meaning. Even the old woman who gives Kiki the pot pie delivery and her cake represents the kind, old, grandmotherly figure in Kiki’s life. But she’s the voice of reason for Kiki, who finally gets the push she needs to overcome her hardships involving her magic and allows Kiki to be able to fly easily again.

The cross appeal in anime, and in anything, really comes with having a simple enough story that children can understand it (in this case, the story of Kiki learning to be a witch and overcoming not having full control over her magic), but complex enough that we adults can see something further underneath the childish surface. In this case, the characters Miyazaki has woven into his adaptation represent something simple, but can go so much deeper than that.

Children can appreciate Avatar for its humor with Aang and Sokka. But adults can recognize the complexities and nuances of each character and how they’re more than just the cool Avatar and the cool waterbender and the cool blind earthbender. It’s the same with Kiki’s Delivery Service. Kiki is more than just a witch who has cool witch powers. Kiki is the little girl we can remember being or we can remember hanging out with who’s a little naïve, but a lot of fun. But she’s also the relatable character that so many kids can see themselves in because of her naïveté and childishness, whether those kids be male or female.

Brief IV

Utakoi’s delving into the 100 poems of Japan is done with an extremely interesting blend of modern popular culture references and traditional Japanese roles (in terms of both gender and class, which is extremely important for the poems themselves). Not only that, but the animation style—with thick black lines outlining everything and simply the way they animate rain—is some of the most interesting animation I’ve seen from anime. Most importantly, it doesn’t really alienate those who are unfamiliar with Japanese culture to a huge extent (it does alienate us some, however). You just have to remember the time period in which these poems were written; a time period where it was not only ok but expected of the women to stay at home and protect the house while the man earned their keep.

In Defense of Anime Part II

I gave my quick thoughts on a few shows that demonstrated, one way or another, that the target audience for anime is kids (or so they say). Pokémon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Hellsing all hold a separate but equal place in my heart in terms of anime. I still watch Pokémon as it comes out. I like to go back to Evangelion at least once a year. Hellsing still keeps my interest even after watching the so-so (compared to the OVA) TV series, watching the OVAs, and reading the manga. You’d think that after so many iterations of the same thing, you’d just get sick of every adaptation. But you just can’t get sick of Alucard ripping people to ribbons.

Before I go into an extended analysis of the appeal to adults and children in one series or movie (it’s likely going to be a movie), I’d like to give some history of children’s anime from my perspective and knowledge. This is for two reasons. 1. I want more time to pick something and 2. Knowing the background is nearly as important as the analysis itself.

First, a few points brought up to me. 4kids has tons and tons of merits (as much as they did to One Piece, they still have merits). They brought anime to a huge audience with Pokémon and they knew they hit gold at just the right moment. Yu-Gi-Oh came two years later and that was, arguably, the second biggest thing to happen to children’s anime (after Pokémon). But, to target kids, what do you have to do? You have to put the anime in the right time slot and you have to make that anime as accessible to kids as possible. Take out any reference to Japanese culture (“No! My donut!” screams Brock as his rice ball is caught by a Pokéball) and, most importantly, air it alongside the other Saturday morning cartoons or just morning cartoons in general.

This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing back in the early stages of the anime boom. Pokémon actually preceded the big anime boom of the early 2000s by two or so years. Yu-Gi-Oh just barely by a year or two at most. But they provided a great stepping stone for anime to get itself into the spotlight.

But it wasn’t all great. 4kids was Americanizing these shows to a dreadful extent and its time placement put it where misconceptions were the only thing that could grow from it. Both of these were necessary to properly market the shows, but it led to a drastic change in perception about anime. Prior to this, arguably the most know form of anime was hentai. Because you only heard of it if you were older and older males (anime’s target audience) typically like pornography. And that will, of course, lead to hentai. So in that case, this new misconception is a good thing. Because I’d rather not have to write a piece about how anime isn’t all hentai (though shows like Kissxsis and Oniichan no koto don’t make that case very easy).

But something happened around 1996 that changed that landscape a bit. Anime was no longer clearly a kids show to some people. Dragonball Z changed it into a hit teen show, akin to the superhero shows and other things that were airing in the afternoon on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. That’s not to say that kids didn’t watch it. I remember coming home from third or fourth grade (1998 or so) to watch Dragonball Z on Toonami. But DBZ was the perfect testosterone fest for budding teenagers as well.

What Toonami and 4kids has done to the anime industry and for us as fans has been great an unquantifiable. I can say with almost 100 percent certainty that I wouldn’t be an anime fan without 4kids’s adaptations and the Toonami block on weekday afternoons.

So here’s how these misconceptions started. Or at least how they probably started. So what does appeal to us as adults in anime? And what appealed to us as kids in anime? Certainly the visuals compelled us to like it when we were kids and the complex mythology compel us to like it now. But more on that next time.

In Defense of Anime Part I

I know there are those people out there that immediately think of Dragonball Z or Sailor Moon or, even worse, hentai when they think of anime (I mean, who doesn’t think of tentacle rape!). The typical reaction to anime from those that don’t really know it except from what their kids watched or what their peers watched is that it’s just for kids. Which is utterly ridiculous. You don’t need to look further than Avatar to see a contemporary American example where a “show for kids” has transcended that label and reached out to a much larger audience.

Moving back into anime, you don’t really have to look further than Pokémon, arguably the most popular anime to come to the States. But it’s unfair and unwise to make the comparison that Pokémon has transcended the same label and reached out to kids over a certain age. I mean, it’s made by Pokémon USA with children in mind.

But this is about misconceptions. They’ll see a giant robot, like one in Neon Genesis Evangelion and immediately assume that it’s going to be for kids. I mean, what kid doesn’t love giant robots fighting each other? But Evangelion is about so much more than that. Sure, it can entertain kids with its visuals and robots and characters like Misato and Asuka and Rei, who were clearly created with the teenage male viewer in mind. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a show that you can watch and be entertained or it’s a show that you can watch and realize how troubled a boy Shinji is at just 14.

Look further, though. What about something like Hellsing? This is clearly not something you want to show a child but if we see one screenshot of Seras when she first meets Schrodinger, you’d believe it might be for children. It’s silly and there’s a cat-boy. But then Alucard shoots him in the face, completely obliterating any semblance of a face he had.

Now, I’ve just provided examples thus far. Next time (when I have more time to prepare and don’t just start writing about something on a whim), I’ll go in depth about one show (to be determined) that has appeal to kids and appeal to adults and why it appeals to us as kids and us as adults.

Comic Heroes v. Manga Heroes Part III: X-Men, One Piece, and Fairy Tail

I recently read some X-Men comics and rewatched X-Men: First Class. What I was able to notice in the second watching (that I realized after watching it before, but not really again when discussing it with my friends) was the way in which an inherent difference manifested itself between the two main parties: humans and mutants. This inherent difference produces itself much, much differently in the world of anime. Going back to my examples of shonen, in both One Piece and Fairy Tail, the inherent difference is in how you treat your friends, crewmates, and, as the Japanese say, “nakama.” The word nakama in Japanese is translated to “friends” in the English dub of One Piece and probably to friends in the dub of Fairy Tail as well. I haven’t seen the dub of Fairy Tail, so I can’t say for sure. Anyway, the translation itself is good enough, but it doesn’t quite capture the meaning of the word. It’s like translating the blue of the sky as just being “blue” to a blind person. It takes more than one word to convey just the color blue, let alone the blue of the sky. My personal translation would probably be “comrade,” but it’s much too formal for both One Piece and Fairy Tail, the Funimation script writers probably thinking the same thing.

My point in all this ranting is how this is reflective on our own cultures. X-Men draws us humans as xenophobic crazy people when faced with something new and unknown. We would act with aggression first and science next to wipe out the mutant threat. After that, we study what the hell is going on with their bodies. This is reflective and criticizing the United States’ general perception and stereotypes against those who the US perceive as threats. In One Piece and Fairy Tail, the philosophical difference is the treatment of your nakama, your crewmates and guildmates. In One Piece and Fairy Tail, Luffy and Natsu on multiple occasions act rashly in defense of people they barely know because they don’t think the person they barely know is being treated correctly or justly. The reflection on the Japanese culture is that of honor above almost all else. They’ll sacrifice anything for their honor, the honor of their friends, and to guarantee the safety of the people they know. Compare that to the US, which often seems to me that it would be willing to sacrifice few for the sake of the many—at least according to fiction.

Of course, multiple times through X-Men and multiple times through One Piece does this happen. Otherwise I wouldn’t be talking about it. In X-Men, they talk about “curing” the mutant gene. Relieving them of their “curse.” In Japanese works, any type of curse like that of mutants is infrequently referred to as such. The one I can think of off the top of my head is Watanuki in xxxHolic, who hates that demons are attracted to him. The Japanese, rather, think of curses as a physical manifestation of what they have to overcome as people. Often, they don’t even get rid of their curses, they learn that it is a part of them. And this is from a third person perspective. Someone aside from Watanuki would view his curse as something he has to overcome in order to grow as a human while the populace of the X-Men world views the mutant gene as something to be cured. I’m not saying that X-Men doesn’t view their mutations as something to overcome like the Japanese do, they do. But it’s in a much larger light in X-Men because of the gravity of some of the mutations of the people, which isn’t very often something that’ll come up in anime (for example, Beast in X-Men has the blue fur but most anime curses or mutations don’t manifest in a physical form).

Compare that to what One Piece and Fairy Tail’s themes are—which is to protect your friends, crewmates, and guildmates. Luffy and Natsu would literally sacrifice everything and anything for the safety of their nakama. Luffy breaks into the One Piece equivalent of Alcatraz to save his brother, they break into a marine headquarters by themselves to save Robin, who they had just met at that point, and Natsu is always going above and beyond to defeat the enemy and save his friends from danger. This is highly contrasting with basically every action movie ever where the needs of the many very, very often outweigh the needs of the few. But this is especially true with X-Men. They work to protect the whole world, both mutants and non-mutants, and sometimes at the sacrifice of the few (for example, Colossus’s own self-sacrifice, which I believe would never be allowed to happen in an anime, especially a shonen anime). Again, this goes back to the Japanese’s sense of honor over all else. They will protect the honor of the few, possibly at the sacrifice of the many. Of course, the Japanese are not willing to just sacrifice thousands of lives to save one on a whole, but they will often hold the life of one person above what we Americans would in our fiction. Think to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight: He created a situation where one person could kill thousands of others to save an equivalent amount. But one of the boats was filled with prisoners and another with innocent citizens. In an anime, I believe it would never be a question as to which boat you would sacrifice, it would move to how will you be able to save both, as Batman thinks. But anime would have the inhabitants of at least one of the boats try to figure out how to save both and persist.

The overall theme, of course, is reflective in the cultures in which they manifested. I believe that we in the US have placed huge value on the safety of the many while the Japanese have placed huge value on the safety of the few as long as we can protect the many. This will, of course, reflect in their fiction.

Spring 2012 Anime Review - Part 2

Recorder and Randsell

Plot Summary: The series is mainly about the Miyagawa siblings: Atsushi—an elementary student whose build and appearance is the same as a typical adult man; and Atsumi—his sister and a high school girl whose appearance is like an elementary student. They live everyday encountering misunderstandings and misadventures, most to be blamed to their ironic age/looks.

The series ran for 26 3-minute shorts. And I don’t think it could have worked any other way (unlike Poyopoyo, which I believe might have been able to work as 13 10-minute shorts or something). The show was fun and lighthearted, but didn’t really get farther than that. It’s the kind of show where you understand exactly what it’s doing in the first episode and you know that it’s not going to go out of that comfort zone. I don’t think this show is necessarily bad, it’s just not anything special or even anything that I would want to watch again.

The high point in the series isn’t Atsumi and it isn’t Atsushi. In fact, they’re fairly forgettable and cliché driven characters. What was pretty good here was Atsumi’s friend Sayo (voiced by Aya Hirano). Her child-like naivety when it came to Atsushi was actually pretty funny and captivating at times but her misunderstanding drug on for way too long. Overall, it was probably Aya Hirano herself that made the character interesting rather than Sayo as a character.

Basically, if you want 68 minutes of random crap happening to these characters with no real memorable moments, go ahead and watch it. I used it as an introduction into a marathon of anime that was to come (Thursdays were high release days or catch-up days) and that worked out really well for me. But I can’t say I’d want to marathon through the series myself…

Saki: Episode of Side A

Plot Summary: Nodoka Haramura’s appearance on television playing in a high school mahjong tournament inspires her old Jr. high school friends to reform their schools club so they can meet and play her in the National High School Mahjong Tournament.

Saki clearly has more to go (given that it ended in the middle of a match and ANN confirmed that it was given three more episodes) and I’m glad that it’s finally taking the time to go through something like the original Saki did. Up until this point, it’s been blasting through story after story just to get to this point faster and the show itself really suffered for it. Like, the first episode jumped forward several months and then three years just to get to high school. It was unbalancing as a viewer because I was missing all this information that could potentially be important (as it turns out, it wasn’t very important, but it could have been handled a lot better).

What it does do well, just like its predecessor, is show mahjong in enough detail that someone who has no idea about anything in mahjong can potentially follow it and not dwell on it so much that its bogged down by expository dialogue. But it’s also clearly a continuation of the original Saki story rather than a spin-off of it, like it claims to be. Fans of the original will be glad to see old characters pop up and love the new characters that are appearing, but those who haven’t watched the original may be turned off by the influx of information that it gives you just to recap what happened in the original.

I’m not sure when those last three episodes will air, but I am waiting with anticipation for them. The show didn’t look like much from the outside, but I picked up and finished the original Saki to understand everything (and I’m super glad I did) and it quickly jumped over shows like Lupin in my Sunday catch up days solely because of the excitement value of the show. It is by no means better than Lupin or tsuritama or even You and Me, but it provided with fun mahjong (that I could barely follow, if at all) week after week. It’s not something to pick up if you get lost easily, but it is fun for fans of sports anime.

tsuritama

Plot Summary: In Enoshima, Yuki is a high school student who’s never been good at making real friends thanks to his abnormally poor communication skills. Haru is the self-styled alien who decides to teach Yuki to fish. Natsuki is an irritable born-and-raised local. Akira is the mysterious Indian who watches them all from a distance. These four meet, fish, and find big adventures on their little island.

tsuritama did one thing better than every other series on this list: visuals. Kids on the Slope certainly had the best looking visuals, but the color palette is bland in comparison with tsuritama (as well it should be considering the content of both shows). Kids on the Slope impressed, but tsuritama stunned.

But aside from that, the show fell flat compared to its first episode. The first episode showed promise to be one of the best of the season, but the continuation of the alien sub-plot (much like Ano Natsu of last season) didn’t really fit in with the rest of the story, in my opinion. It was a lot better than the way Ano Natsu handled the alien sub-plot, but I was still turned off by it in the end.

The most interesting part was watching Yuki grow and watching Natsuki’s relationship with his family unravel and eventually reconcile. While I felt these stories played themselves out to my satisfaction, I felt they could have been included more into the actual plot of “catch the giant alien-fish that’s making people do that hilarious dance” main plot.

Overall, I felt it was a strong series with definite rewatch value. But it’s not something I’d pick up immediately after it comes out (like I would with Space Brothers or Bunny Drop). I’ll wait until Sentai finally releases a Funimation-like sale (which I haven’t seen yet, by the way).

Upotte!!

Plot Summary: For those of you out there that remember the OS-tan manga and anime mini-series, this is a bit along the same lines. In this case the characters are not representing computer operating systems, but firearms from around the world. The general storyline is quite funny, and a bit “ecchi” in nature but is well written and not overy silly.

The first victim of the spring 2012 anime season. It ended first but you probably aren’t reading this review first (if at all). Overall it was probably the biggest disappointment in terms of shows I watched this season. But I kind of expected it out of a show like this, where the premise is girls are guns. Literally.

I think the most disappointing part of this series was that it was very informative (often overly so) but it did not need the amount of fanservice it got. It’s like the Japanese got together and found the one show that could serve only for promoting the subsequent merchandise. It’s disappointing when it gets to that point, but it has for a while. I’m just sad to see it continuing down that road.

What I did like about this show was…was…There wasn’t really anything redeemable about this show. I kind of kept watching it because it wasn’t a complete waste of my time and the final episode almost (almost) made it all worth it. If the entire show was like the last episode, I would’ve enjoyed this show a lot more. But there’s this very creepy scene in one of the episodes where SAKO Rk 95 Tp is…yeah…Not that, but if you’ve seen the show…yeah…

I wouldn’t suggest anyone to watch this show unless you really want to learn about guns, you really don’t care about mindless fanservices, and you really want mindless fanservice. But I allow myself one stupid fanservice-y episode per season. I guess I should have gone with Mysterious Girlfriend X.

You and Me. 2

Plot Summary: (From season 1) About 4 friends, twins Yuta and Yuki Asaba, the cute and girly Shun Matsuoka, and the class head Kaname Tsukahara, who have known each other since kindergarden. When a half-Japanese transfer student named Chizuru Tachibana joins their group, he brings a new dynamic to their friendship.

I didn’t expect much out of You and Me because, honestly, the first season wasn’t all that impressive. There were a few episodes out of this season that were mediocre and are easily glanced over, but it quickly became the dark horse of this season, but easily outshined by Space Brothers, Kids on the Slope, and tsuritama.

Despite its downsides, You and Me has some of my favorite moments of the season and I think I can confidently say that some of the character interactions between Shun, Yuki, Yuta, Kaname, and Chizuru were more genuine and all around better than some of the interactions between Kaoru, Ritsuko, and Sentaro in Kids on the Slope. I loved the love triangle between Shun, Chizuru, and Masaki was funny, touching, and simply fun all at the same time. And even Kaname’s little love stint in episode 12 was one of the most loveable moments of this season, in my opinion.

You and Me’s only downside, I think, is that it isn’t really about anything. It’s just about these five friends going through high school. And while I do love stories like that, it’s a big reason why a lot of people are turned off from slice of life. And this isn’t even the best slice of life show I’ve seen, and certainly not the best of this season. Even Honey and Clover and Usagi Drop had more in the way of plot compared to You and Me. But seeing the growth of these characters over now 25 episodes was a fun experience, but not one I’m sure I’d like to see again, or at least any time soon. It was fun while it lasted, and I’d definitely watch a new season if it were to come out, but the show leaves a lot to be desired in a lot of ways. It’s one of those shows were you don’t look forward to it every week, but you’re also pleasantly surprised by its arrival every week.

Spring 2012 Anime Review - Part 1

Bodacious Space Pirates

Plot Summary: Marika is a first year high school student living on a planet known as Uminoakeboshi. One day she finds out that her recently deceased father was once the captain of the space pirate ship called the “Bentenmaru”. More importantly, the only one to inherit the captain’s title has to be a direct descendant—meaning that Marika is next in line to become the captain of the ship.

The show started off as one of the standouts of the winter 2012 anime season, right behind the continuing Chihayafuru. But it was outshined right off the bat by some amazing shows in this spring 2012 season (namely Kids on the Slope, tsuritama, Lupin III, and Space Brothers).

The initial concept would turn off a lot of people (I mean, really, a high school girl becomes the captain of a space pirate ship? Really?). But it takes off from there to pace itself rather well compared to every other show that does this. It isn’t until about episode 5 or 6 that she decides to become the captain, and even longer than that to actually start doing piracy. But piracy is some showcase where they’re hired to entertain, something that’s finally brought up in the final couple episodes.

The thing that this show did well compared to other shows then is its pacing. It let Marika decide and settle in to the role of the pirate captain rather than just have her immediately join the crew and be the prodigy that she so rightly deserves to be (she doesn’t deserve that). Instead, Marika mulls on becoming a captain and doesn’t do so well in her first few outings as a captain, having only done anything related to space in her school’s yacht club. It’s only when Kana Hanazawa shows up (aka Chiaki) that she really starts to get a grip on how to do this pirate thing.

The character moments in this show were definitely its strong point, as it lacked much in the way of plot beyond “Let’s do some piracy!” Marika’s growth and the friendship between her and Chiaki and her fellow yacht club members are what drive this show to be good. Its “plot” leaves a lot to be desired as the royal princess running to the pirate captain and the pirate/bounty hunter/what the hell was she trying to destroy pirate ships for not really being pirates left me wanting this to be more like Cowboy Bebop with episodic things throughout the series rather than trying to do arcs like it’s some sort of shonen manga.

But there isn’t really one big thing that I have wrong with this series. It’s just a series of little things that are really more nitpicking at how it could have been better rather than any glaring errors in the show itself (like in Kids on the Slope or Upotte!!). It just didn’t live up to the potential that it had and, while I enjoyed watching it week after week, I didn’t look forward to it like I do Space Brothers or Hunter x Hunter.

Overall, it’s a show that’s definitely good for the modest anime fan, but not really great for a newcomer to be shown. It doesn’t live up to the potential that shows like Cowboy Bebop and Space Brothers have, and they’re both relatively similar in basic, basic plot (aka, they’re both about space things). I’d give it a solid 7/10, but it’s pushing it to go much higher. Although I could make a good argument for an 8/10.

Kids on the Slope

Plot Summary: Summer 1966: Kaoru Nishimi has moved to live with relatives in Kyūshū. He’s been an aloof honor student his whole life, but that starts changing when he meets Sentarō Kawabuchi, the school’s notorious bad boy. Through him, he learns the appeal of jazz and forms his first real friendships.

Kids on the Slope went out in true Watanabe fashion: With an ambiguous ending leaving it open for a whole bunch of possibilities for these characters and what the future holds for them. At the end of Cowboy Bebop, Spike’s own life is left in the air and Ed is god knows where. At the end of Samurai Champloo, Mugen, Jin, and Fuu head their separate ways after helping Fuu find the samurai who smells of sunflowers. And now, Kids on the Slope ends with Kaoru, Ritsuko, and Sentaro back together again after eight years apart. Yurika even makes an appearance, now six months pregnant with Jun’s child.

This show had a lot of ups and downs (more ups than downs in my opinion, but still not the show it’s touted as by everyone on the internet), but in the end, it did not disappoint. I’ll maintain that Space Brothers is the superior of the two, but Kids on the Slope does not fall far behind. It’s a touching coming of age tale about Kaoru and moving through life, love, and music.

If this show had one major downfall, it was that it was only 12 episodes. It would have served this show the justice it properly deserves to be 24 or 26 episodes so it doesn’t have the awkward time skips with the constrained episode count. But if the show had any strong suit, it was, of course, the music beautifully composed by Yoko Kanno. The soundtrack could easily outshine Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo’s ambient music.

I believe that this show could have easily been just as strong (and maybe more interesting) if it wove in flashbacks of the previous 11 ½ episodes and have a 12 episode series of everything that happens after they meet at the end of the episode—something like what Space Brothers is doing now. But alas, it skipped through time willy nilly and had a lot of downfalls because it just hit the plot points and skipped over some important stuff.

I haven’t read the manga of this, so I can’t compare, but this could very well be Shinichiro Watanabe’s weakest work yet. It’s most definitely the weakest I’ve seen, but I’ve only seen Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.

Overall, I would suggest this to someone new to anime, but unfamiliar with slice-of-life anime. There are other shows that are on the list above it, but we’d certainly get there.

Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine

Plot Summary: Many people are falling prey to a suspicious new religion. Lupin III infiltrates this group, hoping to steal the treasure their leader keeps hidden. There he lays eyes on the beautiful, bewitching woman who has the leader enthralled. This is the story of how fashionable female thief Fujiko Mine first met Lupin III, the greatest thief of his generation.

I can’t say I’ve seen a whole bunch of Lupin III stuff. Basically, it’s just been what was on TV back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. But I have heard that the franchise kind of dropped itself into a hole after years and years of mediocre movies that wasn’t really true to what Lupin really is. And, again from what I’ve heard, this series has come back to what Lupin really is.

The series began with Lupin and company all separated and, of course, it focuses on the seductress Fujiko Mine. Lupin headlines the first episode while Jigen and Goemon headline the second and third episodes respectively. From here on out, it’s little of Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon compared to Fujiko. Another twist compared to recent films and series is that Zenigata is back to a competent detective that’s just outwitted by Lupin rather than being an idiot himself.

That said, I really enjoyed this series. In the early going, I thought it was a lot stronger with its one-off stories rather than the overarching plot of Fujiko having a screwed up childhood with owls. And that’s really saying something, considering I usually hate one-off episodes of TV. I think I would have a lot of fun with the franchise if it was at all available to buy, but alas. From just this series, I’m really interested in watching more of it, which I think is a testament to how good this is.

The strongest point was the character building that it had to do. Fans of the old series got to revisit these old characters in a new light with fresh beginnings. Newcomers to the franchise didn’t have to have any previous knowledge of the characters and could enjoy this as a stand-alone series. And it wasn’t like it was bad, it’s what kept me interested in those early going episodes that were very episodic compared to the rest of the series. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to set up a show in general if it’s formatted like this (with the main characters being more recurring and with Fujiko headlining it).

The worst, or maybe most awkward part, was that Fujiko was…well, she was Fujiko. She wasn’t afraid to show off her body (all her body) and that can immediately turn off some fans. But in this series, it’s really in her character not to care and if that’s all you’re complaining about in a series, I’ll take it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series. By the end, it easily outshined tsuritama (they were pretty even in my mind based on the first few episodes) and may very well outshine Kids on the Slope in my mind. It showed how it could be amazing in the first few episodes and did fall off quite a bit from that potential, but it still didn’t disappoint. Could it have been better? Yes. Was it still worth of an 8 or even 9 out of 10? Yes.