Kids on the Slope Episode 3 Review

Kids on the Slope continues to move at the beat of its own drum. Personally, I would prefer that it move at a slightly faster pace in terms of music (or maybe I just want to listen to more Yoko Kanno jazz), but the pacing it has now is by no means bad.

We get our first substantial conflict in this episode. A new challenger appears for Ritsuko when Yurika, the girl they met in episode 2, shows up and joins their band of misfits. So in terms of relationships, Kaoru likes Ritsuko, but he’s an idiotic teenager, so he’s using all the wrong moves. Ritsuko seems confused about who she likes, but is leaning toward Sentaro right now. Meanwhile, Sentaro is acting like arguably more of an idiot than Kaoru and has a crush on new girl Yurika. Yurika, however, is just along for the ride for now.

I’d like to see something out of these relationships by the end of the series. School Rumble entertains and BECK plays its own good music, but both of them fell flat in terms of relationship resolution (School Rumble moreso than BECK, I think). But we’ll see.

Again, the show is light on its music and focusing more on the characters and what’s going on in their lives. I think the gradual reveal of each character’s life is good the way they’re doing it, but I do enjoy their once-per-episode jam session. But overall, I continue to enjoy the show as a whole. I just wonder where it’s going with itself at this point.

Winter 2012 Anime Review - Part I: Concluded Series

People, it’s been weeks and my busy schedule of working on my own creative works, school, and work has kept me away from this. I’ve been meaning to post more briefs, but it didn’t really work out that way. I’ll try to put more up (I totally won’t).

Anyway, the Winter 2012 anime season is winding down and I’m not ready to write a comparison of X-Men and Fairy Tail and/or One Piece. So this time around, it’s a review of the shows that are ending. I’ll exclude the on-going Fairy Tail and Hunter x Hunter and something is showing up here that I never really thought would. At least not this soon.

As per always, plot summaries are stolen from Anime News Network, with the exception of Milky Holmes, which was stolen from Wikipedia.

Ano Natsu de Matteru (Waiting in the Summer)

Plot Summary: While testing his 8mm camera at night, Kaito Kirishima is caught amid a mysterious explosion in his small town. Strangely, Kaito wakes up the next day perfectly fine, but with no recollection of what exactly happened the day before. Unfazed by what seems to have been just a dream, he heads to school not giving much thought to the incident. Discussing with his friends about the camera, they decide to make a movie during summer break. They invite two upperclass students to participate in the project: recently arrived Ichika Takatsuki and the odd Remon Yamano. In a strange twist of fate, Ichika starts living with Kaito as his sister has to work overseas. Summer days are about to get exciting for the small film crew.

Unlike some of my contemporaries at Anime News Network, I enjoyed the alien aspect of Ano Natsu up until the last two or three episodes. Then I started to agree with them. This show would work just as well (maybe even better) if Yoko — er, Ichika was being…I don’t know, controlled by her overbearing family or something. The Japanese do that, right?

I don’t know how to improve the story to not include alien elements, but the whole, “Oh no aliens. Thank god my best friend’s sister’s husband is literally in the Men in Black. Oh, and so is my other, shorter, less attractive, senpai.”

The fault here is that anime oftentimes wants to do something grand and big and selling when you just don’t have to. A good show can be made without the flashing lights and boobs. Ano Natsu did not fail to entertain, but I found it hard to suspend my disbelief to the point that Ano Natsu was taking it.

Overall, I liked the love stories with Kaito, Ichika, Kanna, Tetsuro, and Mio. Kanna definitely was the most likable character in the series. But I enjoyed Tetsuro’s mischievous, yet helpful, …er, advice? The point is that there are high points and low points and, while the low points are pretty low, I think the high points make up for those lows sufficiently enough for me to want to recommend this show on a case-by-case basis.

Brave 10

Plot Summary: A year before the battle of Sekigahara that ended the Sengoku Period, the ninja Saizou Kirigakure meets the miko Isanami as she's attacked by assassins. Her shrine was destroyed by Tokugawa Ieyasu for siding with Yukimura Sanada. Meanwhile, Sanada has been gathering ten warriors known as Sanada's Brave 10, who have the power to change history. As they gather one by one, Nami's own mysterious power awakens.

This is based on the Sanada Ten Braves of the Sengoku period in Japan; a book published in the Edo period written by Sanada Sandaiki.

The big downfall of this series is that it was so short. It would have served much better as a 24–26 episode anime. Probably 24. But the point was that Sanada Yukimura was gathering his 10 brave warriors to serve as his guardians. And you have 12 episodes to do it in. He’s already gathered I think three braves at the beginning, and the two main-er characters are introduced in the first episode. So you’ve left yourself with 11 episodes to introduce five other braves. It leaves very little in the way of plot, and the story overall suffered for it.

Despite that, it was a pretty good series that didn’t fail to entertain, at the very least. Though the big reveal of the Brave 10’s was left for quite a while into the series, which is a move that I’ll disagree with. But the appeal of this show was seeing some cool fights with the braves and a recruiting mission that no one really knows is a recruiting mission.

Overall, I enjoyed the series, but it drug on in the middle (despite me asking for more episodes). There needed to be more story revealed throughout the series rather than just a big reveal near the end with basically no build up to that point throughout the rest of it. So if you want some action, check out Brave 10.

Chihayafuru

Plot Summary: Chihaya Ayase is a frank and ebullient girl who becomes fascinated by the obscure world of competitive karuta, a card game based on Japanese poetry. Introduced to the aggressive style of the game by a quiet and thoughtful elementary school classmate named Arata Wataya, the two quickly become close friends. They start playing as a group with Taichi Mashima, Chihaya's smart and athletic childhood friend, until they have to part ways during their middle school years due to several circumstances. As their high school life begins, they meet once again.

[Note: I realized by the end of fumbling through this that I can’t put into words why I like this series so much. It’s probably because I just don’t know enough about review to know why I like it. But what I can’t do, ANN surely has. So if you want to read a review that does this show, let’s say “justice,” read this. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/chihayafuru/episodes-1]

The last anime that wowed me like Chihayafuru was Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress. The last series that wowed me like Chihayafuru was either Wandering Son or Clannad After Story.

Chihayafuru does what a lot of anime do, in that it had a crap ton of expository dialogue explaining everything possible. But for an ignorant American like myself, it worked. Because the exposition was about karuta, a Japanese card game that really has no parallel in the U.S. So I got to learn a lot about the game of karuta and I loved every second of it.

At its core, Chihayafuru is a sports anime. It just doesn’t follow the same exciting sports things as tennis or soccer or basketball. But that doesn’t mean it’s not exciting. What drives karuta isn’t the desire to defeat a certain opponent, like it can be in sports anime. What drives Chihayafuru is the characters and their desire to learn and get better. We see Chihaya as an A-class player who seemingly can’t be beaten. But she’s destroyed by the Queen halfway through the season. She realizes that, even though she can beat her friends and peers at the karuta society to which she belongs, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of others out there that are better than her.

Sure, pretty lame summary. That happens in every anime. But Chihayafuru has that something extra. It makes you want to care about these people through dozens of complex character stuff.

Ok, I can’t quite put into words what makes Chihayafuru so special, but there’s something there and it’s great and I love it. It delves into the main characters (Chihaya, Taichi, Kana, Nishida, and Komano) like series have rarely done before. One of ANN’s reviewers said she was jumping up and cheering for the characters as if she was actually there and, while I’m not that animated, I certainly was jumping in my head and I could hardly sit still while watching it.

Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father!

Plot Summary: College student Yūta Segawa is suddenly given custody of his older sister's three daughters, aged 14, 10, and 3. They're now stuck living together in a 10 square meter apartment. Meanwhile Raika, the object of his affection, has a fondness of cuteness, and his unexpected arrivals may finally offer an opportunity for them to get together.

If this show took 12, 22-minute long episodes of serious material, it would be really, really good. Usagi Drop levels of good. But no. It degraded itself into fanservice and outright creepiness.

This show has at least five minutes of legitimately good and heart wrenching material in its first episode. But the rest of it is just…gah. Bad. Very bad. I kept watching because I wanted to know if they would make me feel like they did in the first episode. It had a few more moments throughout the series, but it was overall a flop.

This is a classic case of the Japanese trying to sell a product by sugar-coating it with fanservice. Well, get with the times, Japan, Listen to Me, Girls. I am Your Father! doesn’t need sugar-coated fanservice. It needs A. A better title and B. Less fanservice and more of the stuff that made me feel. I mean, this is a show about a college kid who takes in his sister’s children because no one else wants to take care of three girls by themselves (and I don’t blame them, that’s a large task to bring upon yourself so suddenly). That’s really goddamn touching. But then little-miss 14-year-old starts getting touchy-feely with her early-20-something uncle by marriage and it’s just weird.

Point being, you had an amazing story here, Japan. But it’s a drama, not a comedy. So make it a drama, and not a comedy. Then I’d watch the whole thing again.

Mirai Nikki (The Future Diary)

Plot Summary: Yukiteru Amano is a loner who never really interacts with people and prefers writing a diary on his cell phone with his only companion being an imaginary friend named Deus Ex Machina, the God of Time and Space. However, Yuki soon learns that Deus is not a figment of his imagination but real when Deus makes him a participant in a battle royale with eleven others. Within this "Diary Game", the contestants are given special diaries that can predict the future with each diary having unique features that gives them both advantages and disadvantages.

The show starts off with the God of Time and Space, named Deus Ex Machina, giving our protagonist, Yukiteru Amano, a diary that tells him the future. Shenanigans ensue, as you might imagine.

Watching the final episode wrapped up the series nicely and, really, gave everyone a happy ending. You learn that the show was really a story of growth, through a very unique and interesting way. The growth of Yuki, Yuno, and Uryu Minene, the terrorist also known as Ninth (you see, each of the diary users are given numbers, Yuki is First and Yuno is Second, and it goes through Eleventh).

The biggest flaw of this series is that there’s not really a likable character through a big middle portion of Future Diary. I didn’t have much of a problem with this, as the concept and plot of the series kept me in enough suspense to keep watching. But the antics of Uryu Minene and her growth into an anti-hero rather than crazed terrorist by way of a policeman named Nishijima was pretty brilliant.

Through you have to expect, with a character named Deus Ex Machina, that deus ex machina will play a part in the series as a whole. And it does in a multitude of ways. I’ll decide not to spoil it, but if you are not a fan of deus ex machina, then maybe this show isn’t your show.

The best part of this series happens at its end between Yuki and Yuno. You grow to love them, then get a little weirded out at them, then kind of hate them through the progression of the series. But in the end, you really do like both Yuki and Yuno and you know that both characters, with a little push in the other direction, would have gone off the deep end (and Yuno did go off the deep end for a time).

Overall, this is one of the most interesting concepts in an anime I’ve ever seen, but the emphasis on so much death and killing for these junior high kids is very out there. I went with it, since it’s anime, but I would have much preferred if the diary users remained adults. Despite that, it was an entertaining show with a lot to offer in terms of plot and concept.

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Dai-Ni-Maku (Detective Opera Milky Holmes: Act 2)

Plot Summary: The four girls, Sherlock, Nero, Hercule and Cordelia, lose the ability to use their Toys during an encounter with the phantom thieves. Taken away from their rich lifestyle and thrown into an attic, the girls must try and regain use of their Toys or else face expulsion from Holmes Detective Academy.

This show’s first season started off with some promise and ended with some promise. This season had a pretty good second to last episode, which ended with a lot of promise. But at this show’s core, it’s a fanservice show. And that’s really sad, because this could be a great detective story.

The main reason I started watching the first season of this show was the detective premise. I’m a sucker for detective stories. I started Un-Go because it was a detective story and I’m starting Hyoka in this season for the same reason (plus Hyoka is by KyoAni). And while it started off with some setting-up-y detective stories, it ended up just falling into fanservice with no detective stories. I guess I kept watching by fooling myself into thinking that there might be detective stories coming up. Spoilers, there’s not.

I can’t in good conscious suggest for someone to watch this show if they want to enjoy their time. It appeals week to week, but I more dreaded watching these episodes as they came along rather than anticipated them. Especially when Funimation released the early episodes two at a time. I can handle one episode a week of this, but not two.

Kids on the Slope Episode 2 Review

The second episode of Kids on the Slope continues its usage of quite a few trope-y things in anime. Nerdy kid (Kaoru) gets strongarmed into going along with these roughians and is saved by Sentaro, who, of course, dropkicks their leader from a flight of stairs. A fight begins and we get some interestingly light piano music with a light drum accompaniment.

This is where Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack begins to shine. The college kid, Junichi from next door, who Sentaro and Ritsuko have known for a while, comes home from college and Ritsuko’s dad breaks out his standing bass while Junichi takes out the trumpet and the four (Ritsuko’s dad, Junichi, Sentaro, and Kaoru) jam together, which is the first showcase of Kanno’s soundtrack. And it is brilliant. It’s subdued, since the musicians in the show don’t really know each other’s playing styles or methods yet, but I can tell Kanno is just itching to get more jazz out.

I was a little turned off by the beginning of the episode, since it was the trope-y things I mentioned in the first paragraph. But, all faith in Shinichiro Watanabe, I will keep with it even if it kills me. And I know it will pay off. And it did. The last 15 minutes of the show really showcased where this show can go and what it can be. The answer: It can be amazing. The little added touch of Ritsuko and Sentaro being Christian seemed superfluous at the time, but I’m sure it will come into play later.

All in all, this is still only the second episode, so it’s hard to judge if the series as a whole is going to live up to expectations (spoilers, it probably will). But, so far, it has certainly lived up to its potential. Like a good jazz song, it needs to get its proverbial wheels turning to really get to the good stuff.

Space Brothers, tsuritama, Kids on the Slope, and Lupin III

This spring 2012 anime season has been the best since I’ve been really paying attention. Which, granted, has been about a year, so I hardly have the experience that the folks over at Anime News Network have. But I’ve been blown away by three out of these four shows and the fourth (tsuritama) has a crap ton of potential (which is not taking away from the quality of that show; the visuals are absolutely beautiful in tsuritama, possibly the best of the season).

But let’s look at the other shows I’ve chosen to pick up in this new season: Folktales from Japan, Recorder and Randsell, Saki Episode of Side A, Upotte!!, You and Me. Season 2, and the second season of Phi Brain. Out of those, Folktales from Japan is the standout and it doesn’t come anywhere close to the quality of Space Brothers, tsuritama, Kids on the Slope, and Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

First, Space Brothers. While reading Bamboo Dong’s review of the show, she pointed out something that I would never have noticed, at least not to the degree she did. And my trying to summarize it just wouldn’t do, so I’ll quote it:

“In a pivotal scene, Mutta trudges from firm to firm, getting rejected from every job interview for his headbutting incident. Suddenly, he stops and looks forlornly at a McDonald's, but instead of the series taking the turn one would expect, viewers find him wolfing down his problems via a Big Mac. And because he still has a shard of pride left, he darts his eyes around the room to make sure no one notices as he snatches up a stray fry crumb in a corner of his tray. That scene alone might have easily been my favorite scene from the entire episode, because it encompasses so much of what Mutta is going through and feeling, all in one furtive fry snatch.”

I, of course, can’t notice these subtleties, but I read the review before I watched the show and, when the scene came up, I absolutely felt Mutta’s struggles. I mean, I’m a senior in college, I’ve never had an internship to cushion my resume, and I graduate in the winter with no job prospects in sight. While this guy is in his 30s and, instead of recent college grad, he’s recently fired former company ace. But I sympathize with that, and I think most people in the world can sympathize with it. That kind of scene hits you hard, no matter what position you find yourself in currently. It’s the kind of scene that makes a good show a great show.

The scene itself doesn’t make the show, though. These characters, Mutta and his little brother, Hibito, are absolutely relatable. The elder wants to stay one step ahead of his little brother, but he finds himself fired and moving back home while his brother is about to be the first Japanese man to step on the moon. And that, again, is something extremely relatable to most anyone. We always want to be on top or get the good job or whatever. We want to be successful and, really, that’s all Mutta wants.

And to keep the show interesting, Mutta wants to go to Mars. This is a relatable, slice-of-life story about a man who wants to go to Mars. But, if this show is to remain good, it won’t let him go to Mars for a long time (and I believe it will do that, given the acceptance process to the program to train Mutta to go to Mars isn’t over yet as of the second episode). I have lots of confidence in this show and I quickly shot to the top of my list of the spring 2012 anime season shows. Until…

tsuritama came out. It was the next show that I picked up after Space Brothers after reading the high regard that a few of the ANN folks gave tsuritama. I had nothing to lose and I felt that I didn’t have enough shows under my belt anyway (I’m currently watching 16 shows that are currently airing; 14 before I picked up tsuritama and Lupin III).

One thing I will say about tsuritama is that it is, and will probably remain, the only thing in the world that will make me want to go fishing. At least it will be while I’m still on the south side of 50 or so. To me, fishing is an extremely boring activity where you sit around for long periods of time and do nothing. I’d rather be watching an anime about fishing. Like tsuritama. Which is actually a bit of a stretch. tsuritama is disctinctively not about fishing, but there are a lot of fishing things going on. Example one: Haru, the self-proclaimed alien that has some magical squirt gun and carries around a fishing pole. He makes friends with Yuki, the series protagonist, that is pretty anti-social and moves around a lot because of his grandmother’s work. Well, Haru doesn’t make friends as much as he invites himself to live in their house. Which Yuki’s grandmother is totally ok with. But getting past that!

This show’s visuals are absolutely stunning. It reminds me of Ponyo with the water elements and Paprika with the colors and psychedelic-y stuff that’s going on. I want to keep watching based solely on just how visually stunning this show is. I want to see more of how these animators envision the world and fantasy that these characters find themselves in.

But the visuals aren’t the only thing that make this show have so much potential. Yuki is going through a rough and tumble however many years he’s been alive and Haru literally shows up on his doorstep and seems to help him through at least some of it. I’m exciting to see more of Haru’s antics and more of Yuki’s growth as the series moves along.

Plus I want Haru’s fantasy elements explained.

Comparatively, Kids on the Slope is as down to earth as you can get. It’s set in 1966 (which you only can know through reading the plot summary or paying really close attention to the setting of the series, which gives it away in amazingly subtle ways) and it’s about the new kid in town, Kaoru Nishimi. He quickly finds friends with class rep and nice girl, Ritsuko, and school punk and Ritsuko’s childhood friend, Sentaro. I’ve gone into the trope-y elements of those relationships, so I’ll spare myself having to repeat that here by skipping over them.

What’s great about this show is that it’s Shinichiro Watanabe’s latest work. What makes it even more great is Yoko Kanno’s involvement in the making of the soundtrack. The last time they teamed up, I believe it was called Samurai Champloo.

But really, I am a sucker for music anime. And a Yoko Kanno soundtrack makes the music all that much more exciting. I’m exciting to see Kaoru’s growth into a jazz pianist. I’m exciting to hear Sentaro drum more. I’m exciting to see what role Ritsuko will play in the show (here’s to hoping she’s more than “girl next door”). I go into more detail in my review of the show and I’m trying not to repeat myself here. But I am excited about this show.

What’s surprisingly exciting it the new Lupin III show. The last Lupin series I saw was the second one; the one that aired on Cartoon Network way back when. And I don’t remember much from that show except that it was absolutely entertaining. So coming into this new Lupin series is something very new for me, which I assume is the exact opposite for most American fans of the Lupin series, who have likely been watching it since it was coming out state-side.

What I love about this series is the first two episodes, while relatively similar in a lot of respects, still managed to stand out completely in my mind. The first one is about our heroine, Fujiko Mine, infiltrating a cult leader to steal his drug. The second episode is about Fujiko infiltrating a mob to steal Jigen’s gun.

By the title, I guess I naively expected the series to feature Arsene Lupin III more frequently. But I suppose I glazed over the subtitle of “The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.” From these episodes, I can only surmise that Fujiko, not Lupin, will be the protagonist of this series, with Lupin serving more as a Fujiko in terms of role in the series. Which is very interesting.

The second episode doesn’t even feature the master thief, Lupin, at all. It focuses on Fujiko doing her usual thing and Jigen going from cold-hearted, bodyguard that kills people to thief that might have some reservations to killing people. I can, again, only surmise that the third episode will focus on Goemon, the series’ fifth major character (after Fujiko, Lupin, Zenigata, and Jigen, who have been introduced by the second episode).

This show has done a lot in two episodes, though. It has delved into the introductions in the first episode, so newcomers to the Lupin franchise are beyond having to know who Lupin, Fujiko, Zenigata, and Jigen are in the second episode. And, given that Fujiko, Lupin, and Zenigata were already introduced, and that Lupin and Zenigata didn’t even make an appearance in the second episode, we were able to delve right into a study of Jigen and his motives. All the while, we got an exciting story of thievery, deceit, and betrayal.

All in all, I’m very exciting, perhaps the most about a show this season, to watch more Lupin. I’m especially exciting how it’s going to work once Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon are all together and their dynamic between Fujiko.

If I had to suggest one show to anyone, it would most definitely be Kids on the Slope. But if you like thieve-y, heist-y shows, check out Lupin. If you like slice-of-life, going to space shows, check out Space Brothers. If you like dazzling and amazing visuals with a very good story on the side, check out tsuritama. And if you liked Cowboy Bebop and/or Samurai Champloo at all, or enjoy Yoko Kanno’s music, check out Kids on the Slope. They’re all great, though. So, really, watch all of them.

Kids on the Slope Episode 1 Review

Kids on the Slope is the latest, likely, soon-to-be masterpiece from the minds of Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno, who have previously teamed up for a few shows you might know of as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. It is also the first collaboration between the two that’s based on a manga.

If you know me, you’ll know that I have a weakness for anime based around music. I love Nerima Daikon Brothers, BECK, K-ON!, and all the other music-based shows that I’ve seen. This one is no exception and the fact that it’s helmed by Watanabe and Kanno makes me have that much more confidence in it.

But there are a few setbacks to this series; there are a few trope-y things that are typical of all the, well, typical anime. For example, the childhood friends routine between Sentaro, the jazz drummer, and Ritsuko, the nice girl, is pretty cliché. Ritsuko being the nice girl is pretty cliché too, but given that the Japanese appear to hand off showing the new kid around to the nice girl (based on my anime experience), I’ll let that slide for now. I’ll also let slide the “new kid in town” routine since that is, of course, one of the two possible ways to begin a story (not that I remember what the other way to begin a story was).

Despite these trope-y things (which really are evident in all shows), this series has a lot of potential. The music was, of course, great with shades of Cowboy Bebop in them. I believe that, once we really get into the music, the soul, of this show, it’ll be great.

Patience is a Virtue: A Comparison of Japanese and American TV

I recently had a discussion (instead of the usual argument) with my friend and writing partner. We were discussing the differences in pacing of shows; I was paying close attention to Supernatural v. Darker Than Black because they both are pretty episodic in the early going and get to the big, overarching plot as they move along in the series. For those of you who don't know, both Darker Than Black and Supernatural's first season overarching plot episodes happen throughout the series.


My biggest qualm with American TV, I've now found, is not with length, but with pacing. I thought, for the longest time, that it was length. But I've gotten into One Piece, Naruto, BLEACH, and Fairy Tail, all of which are really, really long. And I watched the entirety of American shows like Lost and House and The Office, albiet at a week-to-week basis after, at most, four seasons being complete. What keeps me from starting a show is the length because I have to commit myself to that. I know that it's going to be good, but it's a big time investment. With anime, I can (usually) just watch 11-14 or 24-26 episodes and be done with the series. It's a big thing for me to be able to finish a series in some sort of reasonable time table. Of course, sometimes school and work and my life take over my anime watching, but I try to finish most anime series within a month. If I don't, then it's something like One Piece.

But the pacing of a show like Supernatural just bores me, from a storytelling perspective. In the first four episodes of the series, all that had happened was everything in the pilot and some guy, in episode four, that had been in contact with Dean and Sam's father. But, the thing is, Darker Than Black's first four stories, technically the first eight episodes, there are arguably fewer hints of the overarching plot of the series compared to Supernatural, but I like it more. Neither of us could definitively explain this phenomenon. Now, we both hypothosize that it's because anime focuses more on the plot elements than does American TV. In episode two and episode three of Supernatural, we learned nothing about the characters, nothing about the world, and nothing about the overarching plot. But in Darker Than Black, we learn about the world, we learn about contractors, about moratoriums, about the characters themselves; the point is that we're learning something. I think that's really it.

But he argues that we need these episodic, one-off, fun episodes in order to build up to the main plot. He said, "If I get to keep seeing those characters every week, I'm okay with sitting through mediocre stories until the writers break out their big guns. American TV is like an investment. I watched Lost since it first started airing. When it hit its 3rd season, it started to really, really suck. I was so ready to give up on the show altogether. And then when the fourth season came along, the feeling I got, knowing that all my patience and faith in the show finally paid off, it was indescribable. It's utterly amazing to see a good show become great." But for me, I have to wade through those crappy episodes. It's like watching filler of BLEACH, but instead of starting at episode 64, it starts at episode two. And that's just ridiculous. To make your fans wade through something that's just not very good is bad writing and I don't know why I should keep watching these filler episodes, even if it gets better, if that's all they are: filler.

Again, we differ in the opinion of endings. For me, an anime allows me to get invested in these characters and love them over the course of their short-lived series. Granted, some of the most emotional moments in anime have been from Clannad (47 episodes), One Piece (662 chapters and counting), and Fairy Tail (124 episodes and counting). Those are long series and I got invested in those characters. But even for something like Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo or BECK or even Usagi Drop, I felt for those characters and I loved them so much. But he said, "I'm not ready to say goodbye to those characters, and all of a sudden they're just whisked away in a rush ending." See, from my perspective, as long as an attachment is grown for characters, whether the series be 11 episodes or 100+ episodes, the ending will only depend on the writing. I can be just as emotionally invested in characters in an 11 episodes series as I can be in a 100+ episode series and, if they theoretically had the same ending, they would have the same impact with me.

Let's look specifically at the Buffy ending, both the season five ending and the series ending. Joss Whedon has this thing where he kills of, like, every character when a series is ending. So at the end of season five, Buffy dies. And at the end of the series, multiple people die including Anya and Spike, among others who I don't remember. But I knew that the series was going to continue, so I didn't feel anything for Buffy's death. I know that the people viewing it as it was airing didn't know whether it was going to keep going or not, but I did. And Spike's death didn't hit me because I knew he was going to be in later seasons of Angel. So these deaths aren't hitting me hard. But in One Piece, watching the Going Merry be sunk by the Straw Hats hit me. It hit me really hard. The ship of these pirates made me care more about it than Whedon did either with his main character's death or her love interest's death. Thanks Eiichiro Oda.

But back to pacing for a moment. Buffy's pacing in season four and season five was, frankly, bad. They had finally hit a stride in what they were doing with the latter half of season three (or so I'm told; I skipped over seasons one and two and skipped through season three WITHOUT DISTINCTION!). But for the next two seasons, they did the exact same thing they did in season three. Which was putting some fun, episodic things in the early going while advancing the overarching season story through the latter half (it's funny because I just did that with my prose on a much smaller scale. I'm not going to make you sit through almost 11 hours of TV to get to the beef after all. Only two sentences). In season six and season seven, they finally got into a groove and did interesting things throughout the season, mixing fun, episodic episodes and overarching plot episodes. But the early going of seasons three and four was not...It was just boring. I basically forced myself to watch that because I knew it was going to get better. But I digress.

What I really want out of an ending is not something that I can write about. It's some intangible, indescribable feeling you get where you don't know what your next move is going to be. For him, it was Lost. For me, several things in recent memory: Gurren Lagann, Clannad, and Chihayafuru come to mind immediately. I remember after I finished Gurren Lagann, I got up, walked to the bathroom, and had no idea what I was doing there since I didn't have to go to the bathroom. After Clannad, I just laid in bed mindlessly watching ESPN. After Chihayafuru, I think I actually had something I had to do. But, if I was given time for reflection, I would have reflected the hell out of that show.

But those endings are built up from something. For me, it's a constant reminder of the overarching plot. It can't just be a one-off line of "Hey we're looking for our dad." like in Supernatural. It has to be something substantial happening. For him, those episodic or one-off episodes build up to the overarching plot perfectly because it gives him time to invest in those characters and learn to love him. But those episodic episodes just don't do it for me. They're filler. I'm learning nothing about these characters, which doesn't make me love them more, and I learn nothing about the plot, which just makes me dislike it more.

Neither of us are right or wrong (but he's more wrong and I'm more right). It boils down to what we've grown up on, and I've grown up on anime. And in anime, they oftentimes get right to the beef of the story (unless you're called Dragonball Z). But American TV like to sit on their hands and wait until the audience really, really wants some beef before revealing it. Sometimes it works (Lost, Fringe) and sometimes it doesn't (Buffy, Supernatural). And, granted, anime isn't perfect either. They have their fair share of bad or rushed endings (Soul Eater, BECK). It's a matter of personal opinion.

The Bleach Saga has Ended

Plot Summary: Ichigo Kurosaki is a 15-year-old-boy who has an ability to see ghosts/spirits. Because of his ability, he is able to meet a female soul reaper named Rukia Kuchiki. To save his family and friends from unwanted soul-eating spirits (Hollows), Rukia transfers her soul reaper powers to Ichigo. As Rukia takes on a human shell, together they solve mysteries involving spirits and Hollows until from the spirit world come two other soul reapers, who explain that it is illegal to transfer Shinigami powers to humans and that Rukia exceeded the time limit to stay in the human world. After they sentence her death for breaking the law, Ichigo snaps and swears to everyone he will retrieve Rukia by breaking into the spirit world.

Back on October 5, 2004, when I was 14-years-old and didn’t really know what anime was, the BLEACH anime first aired in Japan. Eight years later, and the BLEACH anime saga has concluded. The manga’s still going, but its ending is in sight as well.

I remember starting to watch this at the behest of one of my friends after I had picked up YuYu Hakusho and Naruto, among a few other typical shonen or “starter” shows. I was pretty stunned at it initially. I mean, up until this point, I had never seen a show so completely mix English and Japanese into their dialogue, which BLEACH does with the names of their zanpakutou. That gives you a little indication of how early on in my anime fandom that I began watching BLEACH. In fact, the Bount arc in English was not yet complete when I started watching BLEACH, which was back in late 2008, early 2009. So, I, in my then-18-year-old wisdom, illegally downloaded the Japanese remainder of BLEACH, which at the time was around Szayel Aporro’s introduction, I think. When I caught up with the Japanese anime, I turned to the scanlations, which was when One Manga was still a thing.

I’ve changed since then, though. I watched the final episode (which puts the total count of BLEACH episodes to 366) through my subscription to Crunchyroll.

Oh, but where to start with a review of a 366-episode series? First, oh god filler. I watched up to the point where Aizen was defeated and just stopped there. I continue to read the manga though (through questionable means). But when I heard that the series was ending, I had to pick it back up. So I did.

What I have no choice but to commend BLEACH on is the music. The music, throughout BLEACH, was always well done. It gave Spanish guitar-themed music to the arrancar since those characters were based off of Spanish things and terms. The point being, each protagonist group and antagonist group was given its own special music which worked really well. The high point through the filler episodes were the beginning (where the concept was still new and the writers didn’t ruin it yet) and the music.

But BLEACH, of course, has its flaws. Its first main conflict is that Rukia needs to be saved from the Soul Society. Its next main conflict is that Orihime needs to be saved from Hueco Mundo. Its next main conflict (which will now only be present in the manga, unless they animate the final arc of the manga into anime form at some point) is that Dondochakka needs to be saved from Hueco Mundo. Tite Kubo seems to only know how to write kidnapping stories when it comes to BLEACH. Kubo isn’t the only shonen manga writer that suffers this drawback, though, as Eiichiro Oda wrote a lot of corrupt leader needs to be defeated stories in One Piece (Axe-Hand Morgan, Arlong, Wapol, Crocodile, Eneru, the entire World Government).

The story itself is pretty meh after Rukia’s initial arc, and even then it’s not the greatest. It has a lot of faults, the most noticeable one being that Ichigo powers up to the point of being able to go toe-to-toe with a Captain-class Soul Reaper after, like, three days. And Kubo clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing with this most recent arc, which saw a very strong character being defeated. This character knew bankai and Ichigo defeated him (along with two other Lieutenant-class Soul Reapers) during his reintroduction after learning his own bankai. That kind of gives it away. It was Chojiro Sasakibe. Spoilers, he learned his bankai before Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake. Yes, he learned his bankai before two out of the four longest tenured Soul Reapers in the 13 Court Guard Squad, one of the four being the Captain-Commander.

The highlight of the story is the continuing cool abilities of the Soul Reapers throughout the series. Their powers are clearly there just to serve Kubo’s interests at the time (as I’m sure that he had no plans for the people’s powers beyond the first arc, and I’m not sure if he even had that planned out completely). Ichigo’s powers are overall meh, but powers like those of Izuru Kira, Shinji Hirako, and Momo Hinamori fascinate me. I would love for someone to explore the history and mythology behind each of the zanpakutou.

Overall, the series provided typical shonen entertainment, though not on the level of One Piece or Fairy Tail. Reading the manga, I switch between whether I’m more entertained by Naruto or BLEACH at that particular moment in time. They’re equally fascinating, but their stories often leave something to be desired.