Kids on the Slope Episode 7 Review

Music makes the world go ‘round, or so they said. In Kaoru and Sentaro’s world, it’s the school festival in 1967 and tech problems have caused the amps to stop working. Kaoru steps in and plays the piano with Sentaro’s drums and we turn fully around to “Moanin’” from way back in episode one.

Last episode, Kaoru ran away because he thought that his new friends, Sentaro and Ritsuko, were just using him as a temporary piano player or whatever (they’re 17 or something, they don’t really think straight and every other friend Kaoru has ever had has basically used him as a temp). Further, Yurika longs for Jun, but Jun’s kind of washed up now and Sentaro makes his big move on Yurika. Problem: Jun sees it and flashes of Kaoru’s big kiss on Ritsuko a few episodes back pop into our collective minds.

The entire episode, then, focuses around the big gap that’s developing between Kaoru-Ritsuko, Kaoru-Sentaro, Sentaro-Yurika, and Jun-Yurika. Which culminates in Sentaro actually using (not really using, but doing a favor for) this Beatles fan’s band for the school festival. The amps are down, Kaoru’s behind the curtain trying to fix it, and Sentaro says that he’s using the Beatles fan’s band as a favor to them, and to help him practice while he waits for Kaoru to return. This leads to Kaoru stepping in and playing the piano with Sentaro. Word of mouth spreads the impromptu concert around and Kaoru and Sentaro are the school’s big hits.

This episode further showed me that the show is about these kids’ lives in music, not the music in these kids’ lives. It reminds me of all the good memories I had in high school of learning the guitar (and kind of not doing well at it, but whatever) and the companionship and camaraderie that a few good friends can bring you.

I’ll admit that Kids on the Slope isn’t as good of a show, in terms of both plot and characters, as Space Brothers. But I enjoy, week to week, Kids on the Slope more than Space Brothers. It’s not just the music, because Space Brothers has some good music, and it’s not just that it’s directed and composed by Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno respectively. It’s some intangible thing that makes me like Kaoru and Ritsuko and Sentaro more than Mutta and Hibito and Serika and Kenji.

Toonami

April 1. Playing Dungeons and Dragons, of course. Because it was that Saturday night/Sunday morning. I was reading tweets when I saw something very interesting trending: Toonami. The thing that brought me into anime was trending on Twitter for some reason. I found out a few seconds later that it was because adult swim, instead of airing The Room again, aired Toonami. With Steve Blum. And Tom. And new vignettes featuring Tom.

A few days later, Steve Blum himself launched a massive (in the scope of anime at least) Twitter campaign asking fans to bombard adult swim and Cartoon Network to #BringBackToonami. Guess what? May 16, adult swim announced that it was bringing back Toonami starting May 26. In their words, #ToonamisBackBitches.

Toonami, along with Cartoon Network and Fox Kids, is what got me into anime. Shows like Dragonball Z, Digimon, YuYu Hakusho, and Pokémon drew me in more than any American show I’ve seen before. Of course, I didn’t know that it was any different than, say, Johnny Bravo or Rocket Power at the time. I just thought they were cool cartoons. They’re still cool cartoons, but what’s most important about Toonami coming back isn’t the rush of nostalgia that comes to every 20-something Joe Shmoe tweeting about it. What’s important is what this means for anime.

An entirely new generation of early teens will now be exposed to new shows like Casshern Sins and Deadman Wonderland and old classics like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell. Bebop and GitS were on the block for god knows how long, and are still running now on adult swim. What’s big is that anime dubs are going to be first seen on TV instead of streaming through Funimation or Viz or whoever. This is probably the first a new anime dub is being featured outside adult swim since Naruto Shippuden. The last new dubs featured on TV first might have been Durarara!! and Fullmetal Alchemsit: Brotherhood, but I’m fairly sure those got a DVD release either simultaneous with the first episode airing or before the first episode aired (as in, the first set of Durarara!! was out when the first episode was airing, and same with Brotherhood).

What I experienced for the first time in a VERY LONG time when Toonami was on for April Fool’s was watching a new anime on TV. It was Blue Submarine No. 6, which I had of course never seen before, and it stunned me to see how interested I was in it at 4 in the morning. Any other time, I would have just said, “eh,” and moved on to watch it later. TV, now, can be a big outlet for people who have never seen anime before to watch new anime. Newer than GitS and Bebop. Something shiny like Deadman Wonderland or Casshern Sins.

The key here, for adult swim, is marketing. They can’t just do their normal bullcrap of airing commercials for their shows. They have to give Tom the right to satirize their shows to promote them, AND to advertise other anime and air advertisements for those (the ones that aren’t airing anywhere). This, of course, is going to be a lot of logistics between adult swim, Funimation, Viz, Sentai Filmworks, and any other company that wants their ads on Toonami. But it’ll be worth it because it will expose a whole generation of teens to anime.

There is, of course, another side to this. The Twitter storm was noticed because people are already at their computers or even phones and can tweet at adult swim when they’re nowhere near a computer. If everyone who sent a tweet were to watch adult swim, I believe that Toonami’s expectations would go above and beyond. But this is Saturday night/Sunday morning we’re talking about here. Their biggest audience is, let’s face it, us late teens and 20-somethings that watched Toonami when it was on back in 2008 and before. But we’re late teens and 20-somethings. In all likelihood, we’re out partying somewhere, getting drunk before we’re supposed to, age wise, or holding down a full time job, possibly with kids. We don’t have the time or energy to stay up past 11 at night on any given day.

For this to succeed, it’ll have to get ratings. They don’t have to be Lost finale or Super Bowl ratings. But they have to be equal to what adult swim typically gets in that time slot. But we’re, of course, shooting for what adult swim got that April Fool’s Day.

I’m frequently pessimistic in these kinds of situations, but I really don’t know whether this experiment will be a success for adult swim. I hope to dear god that it will be because, as I’ve said, it’ll expose a whole generation to new anime. But I’m honestly leaning toward “it’ll fail.”

I guess we’ll see. Until then, stay golden, I guess.

Kids on the Slope Episode 6 Review

Kaoru has had one tough life. Not parents dying or abandoning like Sentaro. No. His is a little different kind of tough. And we delve into that a little bit in this particular episode. In both life and love, Kaoru seems far behind his time (reminds me on someone). For a normal college student, he might not seem very relatable. But we’ve all been there. We’ve had selfish outbursts that make us older folk seem like we’re still five years old. And we can sympathize with Kaoru here. He’s realized that his first real love, Ritsuko, is actually in love with her childhood friend, Sentaro. And Sentaro is in love with Yurika. Who likes Jun. It’s like School Rumble, but you can actually follow the love story.

It’s easy to realize, now, that the show is not going to be about becoming jazz musicians or, really, anything to do with music in terms of the plot beyond that these characters play jazz. What the music does is provide a metaphor for each episode representing what these characters are feeling at the time. Other shows do it too, of course. But those shows aren’t composed by Yoko Kanno (except the ones that are). My point, though, is that this is about high schoolers trying to live their life as normal high schoolers and not trying to be jazz musicians or stars like BECK or K-ON! or Nerima Daikon Brothers or something.

No what’s going on here is your high school drama story. What makes it so interesting is that A. it’s directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and composed by Yoko Kanno (at least, for us anime fans, that’s a selling point), B. it’s set in the ‘60s Japan, and C. it’s very realistic and down to earth. It realizes that the interesting part isn’t the music (and the music certainly wouldn’t be the interesting part in manga format), it’s the dynamics between Kaoru, Sentaro, and Ritsuko and how new players in their trifecta interrupt that dynamic (like Yurika, Seiji, and Jun via Yurika).

The show has finally settled into its own groove after last week or two weeks ago and I’m excited to see where it goes from here. I except good things. It’s only got 11 episodes to do so after all.

Comic Heroes v. Manga Heroes Part II: X-Men v. Fairy Tail

[Editor’s note: Spoilers ahead for both Fairy Tail and X-Men. So be wary of that. Again, for the sake of brevity, my laziness, and ease of comparison, I will only be comparing X-Men with Fairy Tail as opposed to adding, I don’t know, One Piece or some other stuff. I’ll only be working off the X-Men comic (which includes “Golgotha,” “Bizarre Love Triangle,” “Decimation,” and “Blood of Apocalypse.”) and the Fairy Tail manga.]
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Fairy Tail (even though this is an anime blog), it’s a story about the guild of Fairy Tail. The stories themselves are arc-y with no overarching goal besides becoming stronger (which is a common theme in shonen anime) and defeating the enemy at the time. The theme of the anime, though, is of friendship and companionship between your guild members. These folks want to become stronger and defeat the enemy not for themselves, but for the betterment of their guild.

This is my first introduction into the X-Men world beyond X-Men: Evolution, some comics I vaguely remember from ninth grade, and the Hollywood X-Men movies with Patrick Stewart and that guy who played Cyclops (I prefer Kirby Morrow, personally). I have to say that it was overwhelming. I jumped into the story in the middle, which didn’t help the whelming, and there were a lot of the characters I was unfamiliar with given my limited past with the series. But the point of this comparison is between X-Men and Fairy Tail, both of which feature teams (the Japanese sentai and the Fairy Tail guild in Fairy Tail and the X-Men in X-Men). The interesting part to me is the approach that the Japanese take to the team mentality and storytelling compared to the American take. Nevertheless, let’s dive in.

The biggest difference I continue to see between American works and Japanese works is that the Americans focus heavily on the individual, even in something like X-Men. It’s about Gambit and Rogue working through their stuff, the conflict between Havok and Iceman over Lorna, the relationship between Cyclops and Emma Frost. The relationships themselves are not individual, but the way they structure the story makes it very individualistic. It’s based in how Rogue feels and how Gambit feels and how Havok feels, etc. Meanwhile, the Japanese have this deeply rooted history in the sentai when, even in something like Naruto where it’s heavily rooted in the character of Naruto, it emphasized teamwork in a way that I don’t see as much of in American works. Both Fairy Tail and One Piece provide perfect examples of the sentai and teamwork, especially in One Piece (but I shall restrain myself to just Fairy Tail).

In Fairy Tail, we immediately meet the newcomer Lucy Heartfilia, a celestial spirit mage that wants to join the Fairy Tail guild. She meets a fake Salamander who’s wooing women to enslave them. Fake Salamander is fortunately stopped by the real Salamander and Lucy’s combined efforts. The real Salamander is the other series protagonist (there are actually five main protagonists with a plethora of supporting characters) whose real name is Natsu Dragneel and he’s the fire dragon slayer. We’re quickly introduced to Natsu’s rival Gray, their sort of mother/authority figure Erza, and, later, the wind dragon slayer, Wendy. And thus rounds out the group of Team Natsu in Fairy Tail. Very, very typical Japanese sentai team of three men and two women with a male leader (who happens to have a red color scheme with his fire magic).

Of course, Fairy Tail isn’t all team fighting against team. In fact, both Fairy Tail and One Piece have very few battles that aren’t one-on-one. But the execution of those fights is what matters and what’s interesting. Most fights in Fairy Tail are for the group, especially in this latest arc. But what empowers the characters in Fairy Tail is the connections to their friends and guildmates rather than to defeat the foe in front of them.

Let’s delve into the characters of Gambit and Elfman.
Gambit turns into the embodiment of Death as one of Apocalypse’s Four Horsemen. He chose to do this to protect the X-Men. But what’s focused on here is his individuality from the persona of Death. He even states that he is both Death and Gambit. And in Fairy Tail, Elfman’s sole motivation is the betterment of the guild. But, while he fights a losing battle against Rustyrose, he continues against all odds because he wants to see his guild succeed. It’s less about Elfman continuing to try to become an S-Class mage (which Natsu is still focused on amidst Grimoire Heart’s invasion) and more about him overcoming the injuries, that a little while ago he was unable to move because of, and being empowered by the arrival of Freed and Bickslow.

So while both Gambit and Elfman are working for the safety of their respective guilds, their motivations behind that are quite different. And this isn’t an isolated incident. Lorna leaves the X-Men completely, along with Havok, because Lorna has lost her powers and Havok wants to make sure she’s safe without her powers or the protection of the X-Men. This is a completely selfish move, albeit a brilliant character move. Lorna is trying to find herself now that she doesn’t have powers and Havok is trying to rekindle her love with Lorna following Lorna’s relationship with Iceman. Fairy Tail’s best parallel of that would be Laxus being excommunicated from the guild. He’s just gone through this elaborate coup d'état to become the next guild master, usurping his grandfather, and is thrust out of the guild in grand fashion.

The difference here is that Laxus was trying to usurp guild master Makarov and Lorna was just trying to find herself. But these kind of excommunications are always implied to be final in anime and manga (which is contradictory to everything else). But the Japanese have a very strong sense of pride and, I believe, that links to the excommunication. You would never see a samurai begging to return to his daimyo and you would never see the daimyo welcome back the samurai with open arms, if the samurai was excommunicated. Anime and manga take from this cultural tradition of honor and pride and put it into their writing. Meanwhile, we Americans have a very tender feeling toward nostalgia and friends, so, while Lorna and Havok leave, the door is left wide open for their return; this is something we rarely see in anime and manga in the kind of excommunication like Laxus’s.

In terms of the team’s motivations as a whole (and I’ll go off my knowledge of the X-Men in general rather than any particular source) are quite different. In X-Men, the motivation is, in general, to get humankind to accept mutantkind. Right off the bat, they’re segregated by a class or race system. It’s humankind and mutantkind, just like it’s upper class and lower class and black and white. And that’s a big theme of X-Men even into the “Blood of Apocalypse” arc with Apocalypse wanting to even the populace of humankind to that of mutantkind (at least even it in proportion). This is a big theme in a lot of American works. We want to see the underdog (the mutants, as weird as that may seem given their powers) succeed. We want to cheer for the underdog. We want to see the underdog hit rock bottom and we want to see him crawl his way up and back, earning himself redemption. But in Fairy Tail, it isn’t about Fairy Tail being the underdog. It’s quite the opposite in terms of strength. After the Oracion Seis, Fairy Tail is considered one of the strongest, if not the strongest, guild in Magnolia. What Fairy Tail has to battle against is the politics of them destroying everything, albeit while getting the job done. As you might imagine, the Magic Council doesn’t appreciate the destruction of things. So what Fairy Tail has to go through is climbing through a jungle gym of political nonsense that, as comedic effect, the master often just disregards. Because, as they say, “We are Fairy Tail!”

This contrasts with the individual characters in the story quite a bit. Throughout X-Men, the individual X-Men are seen to be physically equal to a good portion of their opponents. This is contradictory with their political standing as a whole, which is very much underneath that of humankind. But the Fairy Tail guild stands on its two feet very strongly. But the individual members oftentimes find themselves in uphill battles against nigh on unbeatable characters. The very first major opponent Natsu faces (Erigor of Eisenwald) is their guild master. But knowing what would happen if Natsu didn’t defeat Erigor and knowing that his friends were behind him and supported him gave him the strength to fight and defeat this unbeatable opponent. Time after time this happens with Cobra and Zero of the Oracion Seis; Gildarts, Zancrow, and Master Hades of Grimoire Heart; and, eventually, someone in the Grand Magic Tournament. This individual hardship that the characters face in Fairy Tail is a very common theme in anime and manga. The type of fighting where you face a strong opponent, then a stronger one, and a stronger one, and so on. It happens very commonly in tournament battles and battles that involve a large organization of some kind (Bruce Lee used it as a method of storytelling in The Game of Death). However, in Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima is using it on a much larger scale where the entire series is this tiered fighting instead of just arc by arc (theoretically, all fighting shows have to do this if they’re extended over a long period of time because, logically, the fighters would get stronger. It’s just much more noticeable in anime and manga where they have to get stronger to a certain point to defeat a certain enemy).

So while the Japanese and American styles of storytelling differ in some places, both major and minor, they often swap those based on the culture. Essentially, the Japanese and the Americans are telling the same story, just in a different format. The Japanese focus on the trials of the group while the Americans focus on the trials of the individual. The Japanese like to see their individual characters overcome physical strife while the Americans like to see their individuals overcome mental strife. So I believe that it’s just the culture and approach to storytelling that differentiates the Japanese from the Americans, but, again, the Japanese and Americans are telling the same story.

Kids on the Slope Episode 5 Review

I believe Kids on the Slope has really caught its rhythm with this episode. We have a carryover from the last episode with Kaoru kissing Ritsuko and both of them dealing with the blossoming love and teenage emotions. It’s always fun to deal with that and their representation of their emotions shows that, while they’re still inexperienced and don’t really know what to do when it comes to love, they’re really good friends that can get past the little things (or big things depending on your point of view).

But the substance of what’s going on is that Kaoru travels to Tokyo (with Sentaro in tow, against Kaoru’s wishes) to meet his long lost mother after his father—who is often absent on military duty—gives Kaoru the address, which his father got from their old maid (a little convoluted, I know). This is a big character moment for Kaoru as he both gets to meet his mother for the first time since adolescence and he is helped by his mother to get over his broken heart.

To further complicate things, and prove that Sentaro is pretty dense when it comes to love matters, Ritsuko is talking to Kaoru through those cup-and-string phones, telling him that she likes someone else. The whole situation is set up through Sentaro’s little sister, who is having a similar problem in the wiles of love, and talks to Kaoru about it through her “game” (kids those days were sneaky). I loved the moment itself because it was very cute and displays both Ritsuko’s and Kaoru’s childishness when it comes to matters of the heart through the cup-and-string phones that we probably played with when we were kids.

This is actually one of the strongest episodes of this series and it was very light on the actual jazz. I’m looking forward to where the relationships between Jun and Yurika and Kaoru, Ritsuko, and Sentaro go from here. It’s clear that, while Kaoru and Sentaro both have similar love interests, it won’t conflict with their friendship, which has grown deep.

Madoka Magica Volumes 1 and 2 Review

I watched Madoka Magica back when it was airing and I recall not being very impressed with it back then, but I was blasting through it in Japanese and there was a long hiatus due to earthquake. I don’t know why I was so underwhelmed with the series. I didn’t hate it outright, but I wasn’t spazzing over it like everyone else seemed to be.

For those of you who don’t know, Madoka Magica (full title is Puella Magi Madoka Magica) is as follows: After experiencing a bizarre dream, Madoka Kaname, a kind 14-year-old girl, encounters a magical creature named Kyubey. Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki are offered the opportunity of gaining magical powers if they agree to make a contract with the strange little being. He will also grant them one wish, but in exchange they shall risk their lives by accepting the responsibility of fighting witches. Invisible to human eyes, witches are catalysts of despair in the areas they inhabit. An ally of Kyubey, a magical girl named Mami Tomoe, befriends and encourages the two girls to accept the contract. For an unknown reason, another magical girl named Homura Akemi is determined to prevent Madoka from accepting the deal.

At first glance, the series doesn’t seem like anything special. It’s just doing some of the same old anime things and the same old magical girl tropes. The opening sequence, for example, displays a very typical magical girl transformation from Madoka, the protagonist. But the show soon separates itself from the rest of the bunch in episode three.

But the first two episodes are a lot of world building and the character and architecture designers showing off their stuff. We get a view of their “world of tomorrow” world they’re in, which includes some high tech stuff, some tech that equals our own, and building designs right out of the future magazines us nerds like to drool over occasionally.

What really impressed me, and continues to impress me, is the character designs and the architecture designs in the series. Each of the dresses for the magical girls are extremely outlandish and (I’m probably citing the wrong era here, but whatever) very Victorian-era in the details. And each girl has their own color scheme (Mami-yellow, Homura-black/white, Kyoko-red, Sayaka-blue, Madoka-pink), which sets them apart from each other very well (they look kind of like this: http://tinyurl.com/7qwoulq). But it’s not just the character designs, which look stunning and set the characters apart from any other series I’ve seen. It’s the architecture. I’m not big on architecture, but I was stunned by the amount of detail and thought they must have put into the designs here. If we isolate it to just Madoka’s house, it is two stories with a glass décor and the inside isn’t half bad either with weaving polygons of structure and glasswork that makes you want to live there because of how cool it looks.

Where the designers are really showing their stuff is in the witches world. The one I’m thinking of in particular doesn’t appear until episode three (I believe), but it is more cartoon-y than any other creature I’ve seen prior to this series. And it brings out your deepest psychological fears about clowns that you didn’t even know you had (hyperbole, but go along with it). I was even more stunned about the visuals in these worlds than I was with the previous two episodes combined. They really are straight out of a child’s nightmares and the witches that the magical girls fight against are very much the same; scary, cartoonish, and often grotesque in ways I didn’t realize were grotesque.

The progression of the series itself is done at a brilliant pace and character developments are done before we even know they’re going on. Having not remembered the series very well, I found myself asking why certain characters were acting the way they were acting. But they get to the end of their sentence and reveal this huge character backstory that explains their initial hostility and the eventual resolve between the two characters.

The gradual reveal of both the world and of the character’s motives is very in pace with the show’s own antagonist. So if you’re watching the show and you find yourself unable to grasp what exactly is going on, it’s because they want it to be that way. Everything will reveal itself as it moves along in the story.

The acting in the series from the English dub actors is above par, which is interesting considering they used unknowns and relative unknowns to the voice acting community. Christine Marie Cabanos as Madoka Kaname is excellent, on par with what I remember from Aoi Yuki’s Japanese performance. And I can say with utmost certainty that Cassandra Lee eclipses Emri Kato’s performance of Kyubey in my mind. I think my favorite actor thus far has been Carrie Keranen as Mami Tomoe, but the entire vocal cast and dub script has been absolutely amazing. I’ve seen bad scripts and I’ve heard bad voice acting, but Madoka Magica contains neither of those. I am continuously stunned at how these adults can sound like junior high kids, yet still sound so mentally mature.

Thus far, the series has been absolutely amazing. I cannot for the life of me determine why I didn’t enjoy the series this much when I was watching it in Japanese. Maybe my subconscious was making me feel bad for pirating it and thus making me enjoy it less. Well, now I own the limited editions with the DVD, the blu-ray, and the soundtrack. So take that past me for pirating things.

If you are a fan of fantastical magical worlds, most definitely pick this show up. If you dislike magical girl shows, give the show three episodes and I almost guarantee that you will enjoy yourself. This show has every facet, to me: characters, plot, pacing, world building, character building, designs of both the worlds and the characters, and a brilliant dub cast.

Kids on the Slope Episode 4 Review

It’s been a while since I watched Kids on the Slope as I’ve been busy between moving and living life and finals. But I’m back on track now, sort of. Anyway, let’s get right down to it.

A big trope in anime is to express one’s self through abstract means. Usually, it’s through a much more abstract medium than music, but Kids on the Slope really put itself out there through the music Kaoru, Sentaro, Jun, and Ritsuko’s father played at their gig.

This particular episode begins around six months after Kaoru moved in and learned what jazz was. Jun comes in and brings up the gig that I previously mentioned and how they’re going to play at it. Everyone is pumped at being able to play jazz in front of a live audience.

But Kaoru makes a move on Ritsuko, which she doesn’t appreciate. Everyone seems to sweep everything under the rug and, at the same time, is oddly open about things. There’s a great backstory moment when Sentaro opens up to Kaoru about what’s happened to him in his past and how Ritsuko helped him get over it (or, at least, that’s what it sounds like). Thinking back on it, it seems a little odd for Sentaro to open up like that, but I guess they’ve known each other for about six months and you earn a sort of chemistry between the people you play music with.

Later, Kaoru makes one of the boldest moves he’s ever made in his life and kisses Ritsuko. This is another strange character move on the part of Kaoru but, given his love confession in the previous episode. However, Ritsuko sweeping both of these issues under the rug is clearly leading up to some defining moment in the relationship between Kaoru, Ritsuko, Sentaro, and Yuriko (and possibly Jun).

As this is the fourth episode, this series has clearly fallen into its own pace, which is decidedly slower than I’d prefer. Though I suppose they just skipped about five months of time. Overall, Kids on the Slope is clearly building up to something and I am greatly looking forward to whatever that may be.