Again, sorry for no full anime review on Monday, I've been swamped again and having terrible luck finding some things I really want to review free, legally online without going through a hassle like I don't know, verifying whoever the heck is my cable provider these days.
So I'm a bit late getting around to this movie but when it did come out I saw reviews from reviewers I liked and realized that if most of them were negative about this movie that I was unlikely to love it either, possibly not even like it. But I'm hardly going to turn down seeing a movie for free so why not, I was sure it wasn't going to be absolutely terrible!
In case people didn't see Monday's review, between my library woes getting this silly DVD unlocked and the fact that I spent half of last week helping out at a con I was just too bush-wacked to both watch this movie and come up with a review for it, even if it's rather short. So without further ado, a short little review for a short film!
Sometimes I'm really really hyped for a sequel, or a brand new movie, to come out and it's practically all I can think about during the more mundane moments of my day. But the more time that goes by between installments the less this happens, I'm still happy about it but it's been so long that I can never quite remember how much I enjoyed it and why I should be so excited. Which was the case here, this was absolutely on my list of "movies that I need to see in theaters" and even though I had surprised myself by adoring the first film I just wasn't as hyped for it. So with that I can very clearly say that I think this movie was even better than the first, and when I saw the first film I wasn't crammed into a front row seat getting a crick in my neck the entire time!
How To Train Your Dragon 2
This has been a bit of an odd year for the noitaminA timeslot. In the winter we had two continuing shows, Psycho-Pass and Robotics;Notes and in the spring the entire timeslot was taken up by a rerun of Katanagatari (which baffles me since the only thing new were the credits and I don't believe it was getting a rerelease). The summer had another rerun, AnoHana (which did originally air in the timeslot and was promoting it's new movie, it still felt like a bit of a slap to have reruns two seasons in a row however) which was accompanied by Silver Spoon (which will be back in just a couple of weeks) and then the fall had two anime original stories, Samurai Flamenco (which is also continuing on in the winter) and this entry. I was fairly excited about it since the art looked nice and the summary made it sound like a family coming back together to go on a quest (which means adult characters, wohoo!), sadly only one of those things turned out to be true.
Galilei Donna
I might be jumping the gun here a little bit since technically the last episode, 10.5 which is supposed to be a commentary, hasn't aired yet but if anything really major happens in that episode I'll be sure to add it in (at this point I'm just so excited to talk about this show that I want to do it NOW).
So, two years ago I watched the original Kyousougiga OVA and was totally charmed by it's insane, fast-paced antics. I had to watch it twice to figure out what happened, and realized that almost nothing in the preview (PV) had actually made it to the OVA but I loved it anyway and wanted more. About a year later a series of short ONAs came out, five new ones, all under 10 minutes long which served as prequels, fleshing out different aspects of the setting and characters and while I enjoyed it I was a bit sad since I wanted to see where the story went next, not how it got there. So when a full tv series was announced this year I was happy and excited but not overly excited, although that was partially because of the format. The show has one special (which I suppose is 5.5), two recaps (0 and 10.5) and then 10 regular episodes which were all split into three parts which I took to mean it would be in the same vein as the ONAs, short, semi-interconnected stories (and probably reworking those original ONAs into it) but no real connecting plot.
And it turned out that the first episode was the first recap of sorts, that original OVA being aired as episode 0 so I skipped it, I've seen it enough times that I was able to help establish the tvtropes page for the show and just didn't need to see it again. At the time the summer shows had just finished and I was coming off my Gatchaman Crowds high and was thinking that was going to be my favorite show of the year for show, nothing could even challenge it (well, in the back of my mind I admitted that if anything did it would be my love of this franchise). Yet when I sat down to watch the first full episode of this show I was blown away and realized that a challenger for that crown had arrived and started to realize just how carefully planned out those earlier incarnations of the story had been.
Kyousougiga
Initially I had no intention of seeing this movie and my list of reasons why was pretty long. From the fact that, in retrospect, the marketing was terrible (someone has to reassure me, and I had to do it in turn afterwards, that the snowman actually wasn't this terrible character who ruined the movie), compared to the original story (a girl saves a boy and goes on an adventure to do it!) the summary for it (a girl must save her sister from becoming evil and a guy helps her do it!) sounded rather, uninspired. The character designs also rubbed me a bit the wrong way, both the fact that Anna and Elsa looked like they were Rapunzel's sisters (especially once again compared to the original designs, plus there was a comment from one of the staff about having to constantly make the girls look pretty which didn't sit well with many) and the reminder of how many stories we get about cute, young white characters and so few about non-white ones (the This Could Have Been Frozen tumblr both has some really cool art and for me was a reminder of how rarely you see non-white characters as leads in traditional American media). So why did I try it after all? Because at the heart it's a, non-romantic, story about a relationship between two sisters and that's a kind of story I want to see and I was hoping that the story was strong enough to make up for all of the things I just listed.
Frozen
Summary: Anna and Elsa are sisters in the kingdom of Arendelle and while Anna is a happy, outgoing child Elsa is a bit more withdrawn and quiet, terrified that she'll hurt someone with her strange ice creating powers. When she ascends to the throne her secret slips out and she accidentally turns their sunny, summer land into a winter wonderland and Anna has to set out to apologize to her sister and bring her back so that everything can be set right again.
The Good: That was a way better story than I was expecting, hurray! Unlike what I predicted Elsa has not turned evil and it's up to Anna to use the power of love to restore her heart, nope Elsa is just a combination of scared and embracing the new freedom of not being where she can harm people (and as many people have pointed out, this is one of the rare times where a Disney film has shown that the parents, while well-meaning, were certainly wrong). The movie questions the idea of love at first sight, makes it clear that familial love is just as important and great as romantic love, and actually has a plot twist that caught my theater by surprise (I figured it out once the movie started but Disney waited just late enough that I had started doubting myself so kudos to them). I liked Anna and Elsa's character arcs and felt like the story stayed true to itself by the end, this wasn't supposed to be some very very silly comedic story, it's a fun story with plenty of funny moments but at it's heart it's about two sisters and it remembers this all the way to the end.
The Bad: Really, whoever was in charge of the marketing (in the US anyway) did a terrible job at getting across the real mood of the film, if I hadn't looked up reviews and heard some good word of mouth I never would have seen it this soon. As for the movie itself, I felt like it dragged on in one or two points in the last third/half (especially since this was when there was a time-specific plot point) and there were times when Anna/Kristoff felt like a little too anachronistic compared to the rest of the cast (as much as I like Anna and I'm sure tons of little girls feel like she's just like them she feels a bit like they were trying really hard to inject bits of a "modern teen/pre-teen" into her).
The Production Values: I heard the song "Let It Go" before the movie and wasn't sold on it but somehow when it played in the movie it just worked. That was easily my favorite song of the film but I thought that everything sounded fine. I know some people on tumblr have been up in arms about some moments of shoddy animation but even when I stared at the cam-rif-gifs of the scene in question I still couldn't spot it so I feel like I can say that the movie looked pretty good too. Still not thrilled that Anna and Elsa have easily the most boring faces in the entire film (as I mentioned earlier that just felt like, well, a cop out considering what's previously been done in animation) but the rest of the designs (character, clothing, and setting wise) were rather pretty.
For being actually a really good movie and having the kind of plot I've wanted in a story for years I'm giving this film a 4 out of 5 and just hope that Disney A) Actually changes the faces for the female characters in their next film and B) Realizes that just because you have one black/Middle Eastern/Asian female lead of a film doesn't mean you should wait another five, eight, or more years to make the next film (and for god's sake you can put them in the backgrounds too, non-white people appeared in the background in just ONE scene!)
And now for the last summer anime review (well, sort of, I'll explain next week) I tackle one of the blogosphere's darlings, an anime based on a book written by Tomihiko Morimi (the author of the The Tatami Galaxy as well) which gave it an odd sort of nerd-cred in the circles I run in. This was one of the shows I was most excited for when the summer started and even though it didn't end up being my absolute favorite show I was pretty happy with it by the end.
The Eccentric Family (Uchoten Kazoku)
Summary: In the city of Kyoto there are many different kinds of people who live there. Humans of course but the city has also been populated by tengu and tanuki since ancient times and the three of them maintain an odd balance, even if the humans are barely aware of it. Yasaburo is a young tanuki from a tanuki family with a foot in each world it seems, masquerading as a human for fun, his teacher is a tengu (and quite possibly his crush, his master's former student), and he has deep ties to his tanuki family. But as with all families there are stresses there are stresses and problems with it and it seems like some of their problems have their roots far outside his family in the rest of Kyoto.
The Good: I'm finding it a bit hard to articulate why I enjoyed this series since I didn't like it for the usual reasons. There's no grand sweeping plot, a setting that is a character in it's own right, or characters who undergo deep, transformative journeys, although I'm sure people will argue with me on the last two points, Eccentric Family is in some ways a simpler series than that but to call it simple would be a gross misrepresentation. Unsurprisingly it's largely centered around the theme of family, both within Yasaburo's immediate family and the feud with his uncle and cousins, and watching his family change and begin to grow again, frozen as they were after his father's tragic death, is where I feel the show's true strength and heart lies. It's true that I enjoyed a lot of the whimsy in the show as well but since nearly every example I can think of involves Yasaburo and other members of his family I think that only serves to reinforce just how central the family is and if you don't like those characters or their dynamics then you're not going to enjoy the show.
The Bad: My only real complaint about the series is that I wish it had explained a bit more just what Benten is. We know she was born human, stolen by a tengu and able to use tengu powers but it's never quite explained how and, since the characters are a tad confused by it as well (ie, this isn't something we're supposed to simply accept is part of their world and move on), I was a bit surprised that the story didn't have a small reveal about how this happened towards the end. My personal theory on all of this was that she stole the teacher's powers (making him a human and her a tengu instead) but that's a wild guess on my part, not backed up by anything and I haven't seen anyone else out there with the same theory. I was also a bit sad that the titular family wasn't more, eccentric and filled with whacky hi-jinks as I expected, although I'll note that regardless the title is perfect, I merely expected something a tad bit different.
The Production Values: It was rather amusing to watch this show right after PA Works' spring show Red Data Girl and right before their fall show Nagi no Asukara because the art style is so different from what they normally do. There are no big eyed moe characters here with stunning landscape shots that have the same liquid feeling as a Ghibli film, everything here feels much flatter with less detail but you know what that's not a bad thing at all. To make it clear, this does not feel like a cheap show nor does it feel like the studio was trying to conserve resources after working on several shows in a row, in fact I can't really imagine this show being done in their usual style. I'm sure it would have worked yet I feel like the fact that they weren't going for a semi-photo-realistic style made the all important supernatural elements (which were more central to the plot than even those in either RDG or NnA) fit in better with the story, there was no obvious break where the mundane ended and the fantastical began because it all looked a bit mundane yet oh so slightly strange. As for the audio, I really wish I could have found a good subbed version of the opening to check the lyrics (since the song either starts off with "the world is interesting" or "the world isn't interesting" which is a rather large difference) but I liked the opening and ending regardless. All the voice acting seemed spot on too, the actors hit just the right high and low points for the characters and even though some of the situations were a bit absurd if you were to step back and think about them it was never the voice acting that drew you out of the situations.
For this show I'm going to give it 3.5 out of 5 stars and I'm also going to say that even though I'm probably in the minority, when comparing the two I do think that The Tatami Galaxy was a bit stronger. Of course, TG takes a favorite trope of mine, following a pattern to the point where it becomes mundane and then breaking/elevating it to the point where it becomes symbolic of something greater, which also means it was a bit more heavily plot driven by the end (as weird as that sounds) so of course that's going to give it the edge for me. However, this was still a good show and by far a more accessible one too which is certainly a good thing. There hasn't been an official license announcement for the show here in the US but, considering all but one of the episodes suddenly popped up on hulu with NIS America's logo splashed quite prominently on the page, it seems there will be one soon. In the meantime however interested parties can check out the show both on hulu and crunchyroll (which does have all the episodes still).
No I didn't run out of movies/tv shows to review again, I decided the circumstances were right to break with my normal schedule for today. Starting Thursday the 1st I'm going to keep my normal Sunday, Monday, Friday, Saturday update schedule but, like last March, I'm going to spend the entire month reviewing webcomics instead and initially this comic was going to be talked about then. Then I found out this was less of a webcomic and more of a graphic novel that was being put online in it's entirety as a preview and that all but the first 16 pages were going to be taken down in a week and a half so I really couldn't wait until April to actually review this. So in light of all of that, plus my next tv review was going to be the first season of Life on Mars and really didn't want a month plus gap in the reviews between seasons, I'm just going to be different today and talk about Friends with Boys.
As mentioned above, the comic is actually a graphic novel that has just been put up online as a preview of sorts for the physical copy (which comes out any day now) and was done by Faith Erin Hicks whose works I've reviewed a few times before here. Unlike the last one I talked about, Brain Camp, she not only did all the artwork but also came up with the story much like her other work I've seen, The War at Ellsmere, and I was curious how that would work. I was a bit cautious about trying this one out because of the hype surrounding it (sadly I just don't seem to like a lot of webcomics that have a lot of hype surrounding them, not sure why but it just seems to be the case) but now I would like to add to the hype and say yes, this was really pretty good.
Friends With Boys by Faith Erin Hicks
Summary: Maggie, like her three older brothers, has been home-schooled all her life and is now starting her freshman year in high school in the local public school system which makes it even more terrifying than high school normally is. But while it was her parent's and her brothers' decision to go to a public high school instead of continuing with home-schooling Maggie doesn't have that choice, her mother has recently left (it's implied that it's partially the stress of having to home-school four kids) which has left an understandably big gap in her life. So Maggie must deal with all of this, make friends with the people whom her family doesn't like and figure out what the deal is with a local ghost that likes to haunt her.
The Good: Ever since my parents separated when I was 16 I've been keeping a close eye out for books that deal well with that wonderful situation and Friends with Boys does a better job than most stories I've seen. My situation and Maggie's are really different but that raw feeling of unhappiness that sometimes seems like it's consuming your entire life is pretty accurate and I wasn't surprised to see that Hicks based quite a few things in the story off of her own life. Some of the high school bits seemed a bit off to me but since I went to a small, private high school and I didn't see anyone else complaining about that I think that's just me and that the setting also holds up well. Maggie was a fun main character, her brothers felt like brothers, and the story also felt like it was paced just right.
The Bad: I was hoping for a slightly more substantial ending but, since life sometimes doesn't exactly resolve itself but rather simply continues, it works (and it helps that Hicks herself said she was expecting a different resolution as well and was surprised that this was what fit the best). It was rather frustrating that Maggie's father, who seemed like a sane, reasonable parent in his initial appearances, seems to be suddenly grasping the idiot ball at the climax where he refuses to listen her and judges others on their looks, especially since in his initial scene he was having to change his appearance because of how other would judge the new sheriff if he had long hair. That little bit ended up bothering me a lot more than the entire climax (since I can at least sympathize that when your world is that that confusing that you are going to do stupid stuff, although Maggie's actions were pushing that a bit).
The Art: It's interesting to compare the art here to the art in her currently on-going webcomic, The Adventures of Superhero Girl, since it's clear from the character designs that this is the same artist but there's a lot more detail work, the backgrounds are more complex and there's a lot more shading. I like how her style looks here*, the character designs are distinctive and a little quirky looking, as I said there's a lot of nice details everywhere you look, and in general I prefer pen and ink shading to using a lot of screen tones**. It looks cartoony but in a very natural-ish way, not as if Hicks set out to draw things in a "cartoon style" but that this is her normal style which is simply cartoon influenced. I do think the drawing of Maggie on the cover looks a bit odd, probably because an upward looking angle on most people simply isn't flattering, but other than that I didn't have any problems with the art at all.
So, my favorite work by Faith Erin Hicks and I'll be sure to grab a physical copy sometime. Like I said, for the next week and a half it's still up online and I would really encourage everyone to check it out and see how you like it. Oh and if you do check it out make sure to look at the author's comments under the pages, Hicks has a lot of great blog posts about working in comics, why Fullmetal Alchemist is an awesome manga, and on homeschooling. I believe those blog posts will stay up after the rest of the comic goes down and I really encourage people to look at those as well.
*and in ASG but that's for later in the week
** I blame reading too much shojo for that one, I've just seen so many series that abuse the screentones that it often comes out looking cheap to me.
A few weeks ago I went to a small, local con and by the time Sunday rolled around I had spent barely any of my money in either the Artists Alley or the Dealers Room, there just wasn't much to interest me. Sunday made up for that however, there was an event called the Otaku Flea Market where anyone could bring in old (anime) stuff they wanted to sell and there was plenty of stuff to browse. I snagged the second omnibus for Jyu-Oh-Sei and volumes 4 and 12 I think of Please Save My Earth at one table for $15 (so to everyone who says that PSME is good y'all had better be right, that was a total blind buy) and from another table I got all seven volumes of this series for $25. I've read the series before years ago, I think it was mostly volume by volume whenever I was in the local Barnes & Noble, and it is my favorite Yuu Watase series so even though I wasn't sure how much I'd still like it I thought it was worth a buy.
Alice 19th by Yuu Watase
Summary: Alice Seno is a painfully shy high school girl who is secretly envious of her older sister, Mayura, and wishes she had the courage to do more things. She finds her courage one day when she rescues a rabbit from the middle of traffic, with the help of her sister's crush (Kyo, also her crush), and discovers that she has the power to use the Lotis Words, magical words that posses great power. Alice was hesitant to start training her powers but after she accidentally banishes Mayura to a realm of darkness she and Kyo begin frantically training before Mayura unleashes the end of the world.
The Good: I'm rather impressed with how Mayura comes across especially early on in the manga. She's a very realistic sister, she and Alice do love each other despite their little fights and the event that causes Alice to accidentally banish her could happen in real life as well, they just had the bad luck to have magic involved. Early on Mayura feels like the most realistic character out of all of them, although her descent into darkness makes her become more stereotypical, and I was really impressed at all of that. Alice and Kyo also have a ton of character development, have reasonable fears, and both of them admit early on (to themselves and other characters) that they love each other, it's nice not to see romance dragged out. The plot also flowed well and at a good pace so it's clear why I like this work the best.
The Bad: The characters introduced later in the series sadly don't get much backstory which, compared to the characters who appeared early on, is a bit jarring and the motivation for the mini-bosses falls rather flat. Mayura after her face heel turn also feels much less interesting. The story certainly still works at that point, I just wish that it had been structured a bit differently so there was more time to give some of the characters more depth and not make the pace feel quite as frenzied.
The Art: I'm a fan of Watase's art if nothing else and reading through the manga again reminded me why I've wanted to cosplay as Alice, she draws nice outfits that are simple enough to stay consistent yet detailed enough to be visually interesting. The character's faces, especially the guys, do look a bit similar and there's nothing super special about how the backgrounds are drawn but the series is still fun to look at and I think it's an improvement on some of her earlier series.
After reading this again yep, still want to cosplay Alice sometime and I was reminded of how much I want to sew a plushie of Nyozeka, the rabbit, as well which I think speaks for how much I enjoyed it. It's fluffy shojo, nothing super amazing, but I enjoyed reading it and would certainly recommend it to other shojo lovers so the series certainly succeeds in being non-mind numbing entertainment.
