Movie Review: Hugo

I only heard a bit about Hugo when it first came out but during movie award season (which I don't care about but can't seem to avoid hearing about on twitter) I heard a lot of buzz about the movie and it sounded like the movie was a really good one. I'd already been planning on catching it at school but tried to get too hyped for it, after all it's unusual for me to enjoy movie on the same level that I love my favorite book and anime series, what were the odds of that happening here?

Hugo

Summary: Based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brain Selznick, Hugo is a young boy who after the death of his father and being taken in by his uncle takes care of all the clocks in Paris' Gare Montparnasse train station. Whenever he has a moment however he is tinkering with an automaton that his father discovered in a museum and was unable to fix before his death. To find the parts for it Hugo has stolen a few toys from a toy store owned by the bitter old Papa Georges who one day catches him and takes his father's notebook in retaliation claiming it couldn't be his anyway. Hugo enlists the help of Papa Georges' young ward Isabelle to get his notebook back and in the process they discover that Papa Georges' is far more than he seems.

The Good: This is a very strongly plotted story that starts off with a small idea, Hugo trying to repair the automaton, and expands to a very grand scope by the end. The story does not rely on action or romance or over the top explosions to move the story along and distract the viewers but instead carefully paces itself and builds up parallels and metaphors along the way to make the story deeper. Part of this might be because it was based on a book, perhaps I'm biased but I often find richer writing in books than I do in screenplays, but the movie never feels like it's compressing the plot/adding in details to fill out time so it feels like a very smooth adaptation. Hugo and Isabelle come off as realistic kids, Isabelle in particular with her large vocabulary that could easily be explained by her reading and how she enjoys adventure but isn't too reckless*, although it did seem like Hugo was able to repair the automaton a little too easily for someone with his experience. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this film turned out to be a movie about making movies and even more so when I did some research later and discovered that many of the characters were real people and that all of the films they showed were real ones from the period. While it still doesn't justify some of the actions by Papa Georges his back story made him much more sympathetic and I found myself completely empathizing with what was really a tragic story. 

The Bad: As I was glancing on tvtropes I was reminded of a few subplots that the movie failed to fully explain by the end (such as the fate of Hugo's notebook) and it sounds like some of those details were resolved by the book but not the movie so that would be the fault of the adaptation (and in it's defense the movie did wrap up quite a few other subplots successfully, it had a lot on it's plate by the end). There are some other small inconsistencies in the movie (if Hugo's uncle was gone who was getting paid/how was Hugo eating) but I don't see those problems bothering anyone but the most detail oriented.  

The Audio: I didn't pay quite as much attention to the music as I did the visuals but the music was rather sweet and matched the film well. The music sounds a little whimsical and old-fashioned, I swear it sounds like there is a hand-cranked organ in some of the pieces, and the music helps the movie from becoming too dark overall. It doesn't attempt anything too grand or over the top and that's just fine for this movie and works wonderfully.

The Visuals: I'm a little sad that I didn't have a chance to see this movie in the 3D version since I've heard some surprisingly good things about that but I also didn't feel like I was missing out with anything in the 2D version. It may sound odd to say this about a movie that wasn't overly arty or made copious use of CGI and other grand effects but this movie looked really good. The details in the props, clothing, and locations really add to the setting and manage to establish both the time and the location** without the story explicitly needing to state them. The physical setting of the movie looked gorgeous and the costumes looked like authentic clothing, like someone spent some time researching clothes and didn't raid a costume store and make all the female cast wear flapper dresses.  




So in short, I adored this movie and when I was home recently and came across my family watching this film I was unable to sit down and focus at my computer and instead just watched about half of the movie again with them. This is hands down the strongest plotted movie I have seen in years and I'm going to try and read the book this summer to see how similar and different they are (it sounds like the author really liked the adaption so I'm hopeful, also when looking up a few things for this review I came across the book and facepalmed quite hard when I saw the cover since I have seen that book a dozen times yet never made the connection).



*I will admit that I was partially biased to her character from the start since I always love the bookworm characters and it's been a bit of a while since I saw one. Isabelle's balance between obviously loving stories and wanting to have adventures of her own with the carefulness she shows because she knows that her life isn't one of those stories is refreshing since so many people take shortcuts and write bookworms as characters who can't tell reality from fiction which in my experience isn't true at all.
**the location actually wasn't that hard, all you need is a shot of the Eiffel Tower and everyone knows it's Paris but I digress. 

Continuing shows for Winter 2012

I should have a post up about the new winter anime I've been checking out next week (since I'm always one of the last people to post anyway) but today I've got a quick rundown of the two cour fall shows I'm continuing with and what they're doing right now. I've seen the latest episode for each of them (which means anything from episode 11 to 14) and I'll try to keep the spoilers down since that's never fun for anyone.

Chihayafuru: I still love this series but I’m loving Chihaya herself a little less now, I just wish she would train and get better already instead of having a freak out in nearly every match! For a josei show there are an awful lot of shonen tournament tropes in here and I’m really hoping the series moves away from them in order to let the story flow more naturally and to let the characters have more development.

Future Diary: It's odd but I am enjoying the show despite the fact that almost none of the characters are likable (I'm actually like Akise the most now and I was pretty sure I'd hate him when he first appeared). In a weird way the show has been fun, a little twisty, and I am really curious to see where it goes in the end (although I don't see myself buying the DVD/BRs of it).

Guilty Crown: Yes I’m still watching this and no I’m not entirely sure why. I almost wish I was blogging this show weekly because each episode does do one or two things right which makes me happy (characters freaking out after they kill people! Characters who don’t immediately want to team up with what amount to terrorists! Shuu’s mom appears to be a capable and smart lady!) but then they do so many things wrong or just plain odd (people in the Funeral Parlor: can someone PLEASE explain why you’re following Gai? No seriously Shuu’s right, your blind devotion to him is creepy!) that the overall review of this thing is going to be hard. It isn’t great and isn’t always even good but it does do enough things right that I want to see just what the heck they pull out of this series in the end.

Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing: The art is up and down (generally it’s the characters that look less detailed while the backgrounds are still nice, hoping that Gonzo has enough time/money to retouch bits for the DVDs) and some of the characters need more development (I swear that Fam is a shonen hero who got genderbent and put in here, her general confidence with small moments of self-doubt that she tries to hide from everyone else) but I still love this show. The world building is well done, the latest flashback episode shows that they put a lot of thought into the politics of the various countries and the characters have developed enough for me to be satisfied. I am a little worried about how this show is going to end, it’s almost half way done and no matter what the character’s end goal is they still have a long way to go, but I’m going to keep crossing my fingers and hope for the best.

Persona 4: Much like Guilty Crown I’m not entirely sure why I’m watching this show. I haven’t played the game (although I am watching the Let’s Play of it that Giant Bomb did, I prefer to listen to stuff in English when sewing so this was the perfect thing to watch recently) and it’s clear that the pacing is not the best here but, well, somehow I’m enjoying this. Mostly it’s the unintentional comedy in it (or sometimes the intentional bits) that keep me giggling but I am enjoying this for some reason or another. Enough to want to say buy fanart of the series, as well as continue watching the series and the LP, but not enough to buy DVDs/BRs down the road.

Again, next Wednesday I should have some quick blurbs up about the new shows this season I've tried out and at the top of yesterday's post I posted my new schedule that goes into effect next Sunday.

 

Anime Review: Mawaru Penguindrum

Quick note, I'm going to be at a con later this week so the plan is that Thursday's post will go up extra early and that Saturday and Sunday's posts will go up on Sunday together (and I'll make sure both of those are already written before I leave so I don't have to try and write them during post-con-lag). To make up for that next Wednesday I'll have my "continuing anime I'm still following" post and then next week I'll explain what my blogging schedule is going to look like from mid-January until sometime in May or later.

Back when information about this show first started surfacing I heard somewhere that it was going to be a kids show about penguins which didn't interest me terribly, even if Ikuhara of Revolutionary Girl Utena fame was directing it. And then Psgels of the Star-Crossed Anime Blog pointed out something interesting, the show was going to be taking over a late night slot so it certainly wasn't going to be for kids and posted some of the trailers which were filled with the characters darkly wondering about fate which did seem rather interesting. It's not Utena in any way shape or form, let's get that out of the way first, which isn't a bad thing, it's simply it's own story with some similar themes but really doesn't make for a good comparison.

Mawaru Penguindrum

Summary: Kanba, Shouma, and Himari are three siblings who all live together by themselves but Himari doesn’t have long to live. After she dies she is brought back to life by a mysterious penguin hat and the entity who resides in it tells Kanba and Shouma that this is only temporary, to bring Himari back to life permanently they must find the penguindrum, whatever that might end up being.

The Good: Mawaru Penguindrum is a strange, twist and symbolism heavy show which made for rather gripping storytelling and gave fans much to discuss every week. Nearly every character underwent significant character development (to the point where it's surprising who is the most crazy and who is the sanest by the end) and the story knew exactly when to show a flashback and when to keep the audience in suspense. I adored the show for all it's craziness and know I'll re-watch it in the future to see what details I missed the first time around.

The Bad: Not quite everything about the show is explained in the end and at times it's hard to tell when the location/actions on screen or symbolic or real which does bug some people. Sanetoshi wasn't the most gripping villain the end but that didn't bother me as much since the show didn't actually need a villain most of the time. It would have been nice to get a little more explanation on some parts of the show, or a view from a character unconnected to everything since it becomes clear that everyone remembers the past differently, but I'm not sure how well that could have been worked in. Shouma also takes a bit too long to do anything important and Ringo becomes a much more minor character in the second half but those were my only major complaints with the series.

The Audio: This is the first time I’ve seen a show where both openings were sung by the same singer but I really liked the effect. Normally it’s a little jarring when the opening or closing song changes but the visuals in both of the openings were incredibly similar and the endings also felt very connected through their imagery. There were actually ten different ending songs (and four insert songs) which bothered some people but I liked, no matter how great a song is it won’t fit the mood on every occasion so I liked how the songs got switched out*. As for the actual voice actors, this is the first major role for Ringo, Kanba, and Sanetoshi’s voice actors and the very first role for Himari’s which I find amazing, they were all great and I really hope to hear Himari’s VA in particular in more works.

The Visuals: The show had some absolutely great looking episodes (special mention goes to episode 18 which featured a lot of people who worked on Casshern Sins and it showed) and some bad looking ones (those didn’t bother me as much as they bothered some people but many people loathed how episode 10 looked). Hopefully the DVD/BR releases will clean up some of those episodes since when the art was good it was great, lots and lots of eye candy with interesting details and lovely color schemes.

As I've probably made abundantly clear, I loved this series so even the flaws it has doesn't bother me as much as they have bothered some people, possibly because I wasn't expecting certain things to get resolved/answered in the first place. I really hope someone licenses this show and brings it over so I rewatch it again and try to introduce more of my friends to it as well.

       

*actually, in one episode, I forget which had an ending that was really different from the previous episodes and I was thinking “man, when the song kicks in we’re in for some major mood whiplash” but then the song was different and it worked, that’s what the songs are supposed to do.

Book Review: Mastiff

I remember starting to read this trilogy back in high school, almost five years ago, so I'm both happy and sad to come to the end of it. Happy because, well, who doesn't like getting all the way through a good story, sad because I think that Beka is my favorite or tied for my favorite Tamore Pierce heroine and, since her story is set 200 years before all her other stories in this 'verse, there won't be any more stories about her except for maybe a short story or two in the future. But at least this story has a strong ending and one that's satisfying enough that I don't mind the series is now over.

Mastiff by Tamora Pierce

  Sadly this cover has some of the worst looking photoshop I've seen all year on it which baffles me since the other two covers look just fine. It's easier to see if you have a copy of the book in front of you but the hands show that the arm on the left is facing the viewer and the arm on the right is facing the mountains, ie one of those arms is backwards, and the way her head is twisted back doesn't look like a natural pose. I noticed something was off the first time I found the book in a bookstore so this isn't a problem you only notice if you're looking at it, this is a cover where the quality control missed a major problem and it makes me wince every time I look at it.

Summary: It's been a couple of years since Beka became a full-fledged Dog (cop) and has dealt with many other cases but none so big as the ones in the previous two books. That is about to change however, the heir to the kingdom has been kidnapped and a curse has been placed on him that is slowly killing his parents as well. Beka, her scent hound Achoo and her partner Turnstall are put on the case and it's going to take all the talent and luck they have to bring him home.

The Good: I often complain about settings in stories but here we have a magnificent setting, one that is more realistic than the kind you would find in most realistic fiction stories. The setting, a country that has had a few rough years for the lower classes and an upper class that is resisting higher taxes to help cover these costs (hmmmm, I wonder what that sounds like), ultimately affects everything in the plot (every character's motivation, it instigates the plot, ect) and the story would not work nearly so well without it. The setting is also an evolving one, there were a few ideas introduced in the previous book (such as this cult for the "Gentle Mother" interpretation of the main goddess) that comes back here and it becomes clear why the setting has changed by the next chronological set of books in this 'verse (where women aren't allowed to become knights which sets up the plot of those books). I also knew there was likely to be some romance in this book, since one of the set-ups for the trilogy is that this is the ancestor to one of the characters 200 years down the line, and I surprised at how well I liked the ensuing romance. Part of the reason I enjoy fantasy so much is that romance is rarely the main theme of the book so it can be much more subtle and exist as a side plot which is exactly what this story did and it's been a while since I was so genuinely pleased at the outcome of the romance.  

The Bad: I was spoiled about a twist when I was still early on in the book (it occurs less than a hundred pages to the end so I won't even mention what kind of twist it was) but that was rather frustrating*. To be vague about the twist, even knowing it was coming it still felt a bit too sudden and I really feel like I need to reread the other books since the moment also felt out of place (again, I plan on rereading sometime to see if it really was as out of place as it felt or if there was some foreshadowing I missed but this is how that plot point felt).


It's no secret that I love Tamora Pierce's books and this book was no different. I'm not sure which verse her next book is going to be set in (she has two, this one "The Tortall Verse" and another "The Circle of Magic Verse" and I enjoy both) but I can't wait to see whatever it is.



*and hardly the first time that tor.com has had an unmarked large spoiler like that, I thought that the post was a brief blurb about the book or I would've been more wary (especially after their Summer Wars review gave away a major event with no spoiler warnings at all). 

Manga Shorts: Pandora Hearts

Like many of the other manga mentioned so far, I started reading Pandora Hearts after I saw a summary of the show, pre-airing, and thought it looked interesting and I was hooked in pretty quickly. There weren't many chapters scanlated by the time the anime started which actually made it even more exciting, there were even scenes in the opening sequence that the scanlations hadn't gotten to yet and I remember that the scanlators were cranking out chapters at an amazing pace to stay ahead (these days the releases are often several days after other GFantasy stories have been released and it's also been licensed by Yen Press). So this review is going to cover up to where the scanlations are now (just vaugely, currently there are 15 or 16 volumes out in Japan and seven in the US) so, even though I don't plan on giving away any huge spoilers, just be careful if you're a spoilerphobe.

Pandora Hearts by Jun Mochizuki

 Oz Vessalius wasn't planning on having an exiting coming-of-age ceremony but it took a turn for the unexpected when a group of people called the Baskervilles, believed to be responsible for when the capital city Sablier vanished off the face of the planet a century earlier, intervene and cast Oz into the Abyss, a broken toybox of nightmares he didn't even believe was real. When there he comes across a chain, the monsters that inhabit the Abyss and who are forever trying to break out into the real world, who looks like a young girl named Alice and forms a contract with her to escape. Once back in the real world he discovers that apparently he, and Alice, are at the center of many people's attention because of their connection to the Tragedy of Sablier and set out to find Alice's missing memories and find out what really happened that day 100 years ago.
Whew, that's the basic set-up for the series, which takes about three or four chapters, and it's gotten slightly more complex since then, it turns out that two-thirds of the cast also has a connection to the tragedy and the characters now know exactly what happened that day, or so we thought until a recent chapter brought up a huge plot twist. I've seen the series compared, never in any great depth though, to Tsubasa: Resevior Chronicles for the number of twists in the story which isn't the most comforting comparison to make but I really do feel like the manga-ka knows what she's doing and has a solid ending for the series in mind. She's willing to kill off characters (there's been on major character death so far and I'm expecting more), the plot is advancing and the mysteries are being explained so, even though I feel like the story will continue for at least another two years, I'm not too worried about the ending yet. I wish the anime would continue but unfortuantly it ended in such a way that a continuation would be impossible*, although given some of the stupid decisions made about the DVDs** maybe that's all for the best.



*in both versions the characters went to Sablier to look for some answers, in the anime they ended up destroying the ruins, in the manga it was the first of the big answer revealing arcs so the city really needs to be around for that. 
**someone in Japan decided to add in grain to the DVD release to make it "more artsy," even though that would completely defeat the purpose of using film vs digital imaging, and then someone in the US decided to lighten up the images which made the grain even more visible and quite ugly.

Fall Anime 2011 Reviews: Part one!

Well then, Funimation is actually not doing a same day simulcast for Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing and since the show isn't airing until Monday I'm just going to leave a blank for it here and fill it in later on, I just won't have the time to do both of these posts later in the week and I've seen everything else I'm interested in. I also don't have a mid-season retrospective for what I'm still following this time around since the only show I'm following that halfway done is Mawaru Penguindrum (I ended up dropping Nura since it wasn't doing anything for me and I don't regret it) and I didn't want to make a post about a single show. I'm still loving the series to pieces for it's strangeness and strong plotline and between this and Star Driver earlier in the year it's really obvious now what parts of Utena were from Enokido and what parts were from Ikuhara, I might need to do a big post comparing all three when this one finishes up.

As for the new shows I'm doing this in the same style as before, I've seen at least one episode of each new show (more in some cases, it just depends on when the series aired) and I will try out the first series via fansub if I'm really curious about it. However, since I try to watch one (if that many) series fansubbed each season and I'm still following Penguindrum I won't be watching any new series that don't have a simulcast no matter how promising they seem.

 Chihaya Furu
Originally I wasn't interested in this series when the charts started coming out (I've enjoyed sports anime before and I've even read a large part of the Hikaru no Go manga) but I normally don't find the shows that interesting. Then I heard that this was a josei series so I decided to give it a shot and at least try to show that there is a small demand for more well done shojo/josei series, plus it was being simulcast over on crunchyroll and I still have a membership there. The first two episodes have been mostly flashbacks explaining how Chihaya became interested in the Japanese card game furata and those two episodes just blew me away. While Chihaya is oblivious and naieve she also has some remarkably perceptive moments, is stubborn and has a strong sense of what's right and wrong, what else can you want in a heroine? I'm curious to see how much of her personality, if any, has changed once all the flashbacks are over but I can see myself really enjoying this show (especially since it has 2-cour to try and pace everything right, too bad the manga it's based on isn't finished yet).

Future Diary
If I had posted this even one day earlier I would have said that this seemed like a cool series but since it wasn't being simulcast I wouldn't continue watching it but lo and behold it got a simulcast earlier today with the Funico agreement so I can watch it after all (a similar thing happened with Croisee in the summer season actually, makes me glad I wait a little bit to post these reviews). I read the first volume of the manga years ago and thought it was interesting so I was curious to see if it was as cool (but kinda disturbing) as I remembered and it appears that yes, this is a story with an insane yet cool premise (god of time and space gets bored so he gives 12 people future diaries to kill each other with and the victor takes his place, doesn't help that this god seems to like chaos) and characters who are just plain nuts (because sane people wouldn't take this as an opportunity to go murder each other). This show is also two-cour and the manga is finished at 12 volumes so I hope that's enough to tell the whole story.

Guilty Crown
The first of the two noitaminA shows, Guilty Crown is a curious show since it follows in noitaminA's recent trend of anime original stories and is only the fourth show in this timeslot to be two-cour, hopefully this means that the story will end up being better than the timeslot's other recent anime original stories (Fractal, [C]). All of that said, this is not a traditional noitaminA show and really shows how the timeslot it now trying to appeal to 2channer's/anime fans with deep pockets instead of it's older/more fringe audience from even a year ago. The premise is similar to Code Geass (with whom it shares some key staff) or any other show that has an apathetic/weak male lead who is given a mysterious power by a beautiful, out of the ordinary girl with connections to a group of rebels in Japan's dystopian, ruled by a foreign power future. It's not original but so far it's really pretty, the first few minutes before the title rolled were beautiful and would have dragged me into the show even if I hadn't already been interested in it. Funimation has the simulcast for this series and I hope it does well for them, also hope that the plot does well since I'm tired of being disappointed by noitaminA shows in the final act.

Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing
Not counting the flash anime they put out the summer season, this is Studio Gonzo's first anime in a few years and it's a good thing that such a controversial studio (they've produced some good work and some awful work over the years, their last series Shangri-La was sadly one of the later) is starting off with a sequel to one of their best known titles. Starting a few years after the first series ended, Last Exile: Fam is set on Earth where the Ades Federation is slowly conquering all the lands and has now turned their eyes to the Turan Empire. This doesn't concern Fam and her copilot Giselle as much, they're sky pirates and beholden to no one, but after seeing the Ades turn against Turan in the peace talks Fam offers to save the two princesses of Turan if the sky-pirates get their ship later on. In some ways it's a lot like the first two episodes of the original Last Exile (ordinary pilots getting caught between two warring countries and might possibly have a way to end the war) and while the art worked has been slightly "moe-fied" compared to the original show the characters already feel like real people and not cardboard cut-outs. Finally, a great thing about this show is that people are finally posting links to all the backstory about the original story and I'd encourage everyone whose seen the original series to read it (this timeline is a great place to start), partially to refresh your memories and also because it really clears up the ending of the original and helps explain the background of this series. 


Phi Brain
I saw a few other reviewers say good things about this show so I decided to give it a whirl, although it took me a few minutes since I was sure I had seen crunchyroll pick it up for a simulcast but it appears that I was mistaken and this show is unlicensed thus far. However, while the premise of the series sounded interesting (a puzzle obsessed world and the main character is really good at solving them), the presentation just didn't work for me since the show took itself way too seriously and in doing so felt too illogical. Supposedly hard puzzles that the rest of the cast couldn't solve seemed quite simple to the audience and a secret underground (literally) society that, erm, does something with life-threatening puzzles just felt too silly to me. Maybe if this was simulcast I would give it another episode (although it seems as if the second episode was worse than the first) but for the moment I've dropped it.

And here is part two!

Anime Review: Tiger and Bunny

Eeek, I still have seven more anime series to blog after this one and this is my fourth review of the summer anime already, really wish I had the time to post more here but I really do have too much school to make that work, lovely. Also, on this tangent, I'm hoping to get the first half of the fall short reviews up on Friday (just waiting on those noitaminA shows and Last Exile: Fam) and the second half up next Wednesday (not tomorrow but the one after that) which is also a bit late but I always put those posts up later than everyone else anyway. Onto the review!

As I believe I've said multiple times now, this show wasn't even on my radar during the spring preview because come on, an anime about Western style superheros that's trying to market itself to the 14-22, male Western comic book fan audiences? That's almost the exact opposite of my tastes but it was one of the first shows to air back in the spring, got some good reviews, was streaming on Hulu so I tried it out, found the first episode to be much better than I expected and as the show went on it turned out to be centered around a central plot instead of the episodic, villain-of-the-week kind of show I was expecting. I really found myself loving the show more and more as it went on and I know I wasn't the only one, it's one of the best selling shows of the past season to the surprise of just about everyone.


Tiger & Bunny

Summary: In an alternate Manhattan (here called Sternbild) there are people with special powers, called NEXT, and some of them act as a kind of corporate mascot by becoming superheroes and taking down crime, all while wearing logos all over their outfits. Kotetsu T. Kaburagi is the superhero Wild Tiger who isn't rated very high, doesn't have a lot of popularity and has a habit of causing property damage chasing criminals and costing his sponsor company money. The company folds and he's brought into another company to be part of the first superhero team with newcomer Baranaby Brooks Jr (Bunny), too bad neither of them really want to be partners.

The Good: As I pointed out in my second Diversity post, this show has quite possibly the most diverse cast of characters I've seen in any story, any medium (barring webcomics which are a bit special) recently. None of the characters come off as stereotypes and many of the side characters get their own focus episode to develop more which is great, the show is focused around a central plot but it's incredibly character focused. All of the major and minor characters have been fleshed out well enough that if you were to put two of them in a room together the viewer would know exactly how they would react, no matter the situation. The plotlines, while no the craftiest bits of writing ever conceived, were good and interesting to watch.

The Bad: Sadly some of the heroes didn't get their own focus episodes and the second league of heroes only appeared once after they were first introduced, hopefully if there is a second series both of those groups will get more attention. Sometimes the plot twists, especially towards the climax in the second half, were painfully obvious or the characters were being a bit dumber than normal which could get frustrating at points, the show does have it's cheesy moments. And if there isn't a second season after the stinger thrown in at the very end then Sunrise might have an angry mob on their hands which is never a good thing.

The Audio: It's been a while since I was surprised by a change in an anime's OP/ED but that happened here which was a pleasant surprise. The first OP/ED weren't bad per say but I found the second set (especially the ending theme) to be much more catchy and generally liked them more. I don't really have anything to say about the voice actors aside from saying that all of the acting seemed well-done without any odd moments and I'm sure there are many other reviewers out there who can talk more about the details.

The Visuals: Another reason I was so hesitant to watch this show was because it was obvious from the promo art (like this piece) that a lot of the heroes would be done in CGI on traditionally animated backgrounds which I always find to be really jarring. It is jarring for the first couple of episodes but you really do get used to it quickly and at least this way the heroes are never off model. And, while the rest of the show looks fine it is interesting to see all of the TV series/Blu-Ray comparisons, Sunrise has been doing a lot of touch-up on characters facial expressions so they look more natural and, in one case, adding in the elusive background character "scarf-tan" whom fans had fun finding in all of the later episodes.

The show is finished now and feels complete but there are still tons of things a second season could be about, most fans would love to see it deal more with the crime syndicate Oroborus and it seems the most likely direction a new season would take. Viz is streaming this in the US using Hulu (so Candian viewers can't see it, sorry guys!) although they haven't formally announced if they have the DVD/BR rights everyone wants them to get on it, dub it, and then put in on TV since it would probably be a hit there as well. It's really funny to compare this oddball show from Japan who no one thought would succeed to the recent reboot of DC Comics, the creators of Tiger and Bunny seemed to effortlessly make a great reconstruction of the superhero genre with fun, diverse characters (even the apparently "obligatory girl superhero in sexy outfit" Blue Rose is a well-rounded and interesting character and is barely used for fanservice, compare that to any of DC's female characters) and it has tons of fans. 750,000 people wanted tickets to the Tiger & Bunny live event in November, I don't know if any single volume of DC comics released in the US cracks 100,000. Over the past few weeks I've realized that I actually do like stories with superheros in them and that there are a lot of fun ones out there, it's just that none of them happen to be done in the style of traditional American superhero comics, how strange is it that it took a show from Japan and a few webcomics for me to come to that conclusion? 

Anime Review: Steins;Gate

And here we go, the first of the spring/summer anime reviews! Got a lot of series finishing up at once, had four finish up last week, one later this week and then I believe five next week, needless to say it's going to take me quite a while to get through all of them. But let's start with a good one, one whom I only tried because (my exact thought process) "well, I watch Doctor Who which involves time-traveling in a blue box, clearly this means that I need to watch a show that involves an even more ridiculous method of time travel, ie, sending text messages through a microwave through time."  The first few episodes didn't grab me though, it wasn't until I was behind on my anime and asked my friend to choose what I should watch next (they choose "the anime with the gel bananas") that I really got into the groove and then halfway through the show I realized that I was watching one of the most plot-heavy shows of the season which was exactly what I wanted to watch, so glad I stuck with it.

Steins;Gate

Summary: "Mad Scientist Houuin Kyouma" (Okarin "Okabe" Rintaro) enjoys his life of inventing weird, useless objects with his friend Hasida "Daru" Itaru while his friend Shiina "Mayushii" Mayuri hangs out in the apartment he calls their lab. But one day at a lecture discussing the theory of time travel a series of events unfolds and Okabe realizes that one of their inventions, the phone microwave (name subject to change) really does work and he's the only one who can see that it's changed the past. At first this seems like the perfect way to grant wishes and goof off but soon they realize that all of their actions have created some very big consequences. 

The Good: Unlike the aforementioned Doctor Who, time-travel is at the heart of Steins;Gate and the careful attention to it and that helps make it a very plot-heavy show, possibly the best show in that regard this year. And even though it's plot heavy it still manages to focus on it's characters much of the time, especially in the down periods between big events, and because of all the character interaction it's an insanely quotable show. Funny enough, it's one of the more "realistic" depictions of time travel in fiction and shows very clearly the butterfly effect and discusses a few different theories of time travel and parallel worlds as well, hardly scientific but after seeing so many shows use time-travel as a means to an end, not exploring what could really happen as a result of their actions, it's a nice change. 

The Bad: If you don't like the characters then you're going to have a hard time liking this show, it's the kind of show where the plot is started and constantly affected by the characters actions and feelings. Not all the characters get an equal amount of character development either (Daru is the most underdeveloped of the bunch, all of the girls and Ruka get their own arcs which helps) which is more going to bother fans of those particular characters than anyone else (also, since the anime follows the "true route" of the game there are other game routes people can look up to find out more about some of the characters).

The Audio: There may be only one opening and one ending theme for Steins;Gate but this show knows how to use it to maximum effect. They use the old trick of "playing the credits and music over the final scene for extra impact" at one point but they also do a few more unusual themes. At one point it seems like the show is completely wrapped up but an attentive viewer will hear that the ending theme is different and, if that tips them off, they'll notice the animation is subtlety different as well, something I've never done before. Likewise, for those final few episodes afterwords the second verse of the opening song is used instead of the first (again with a few differences in the opening animation) and they also play the game's opening song (for the Xbox 360 version, the name of the song is "Sky-Clad Observer" for the ending song instead. Technically no new music is used there but that makes it all even more clever and I wish more anime would mix up their tracks like that as well (the lyrics themselves also work brilliantly, even though all of them have female singers it's clear that the songs are about Okabe and his struggles through the show). As for the voice acting, there is some incredibly emotional acting in the last few arcs and it's among the best I've ever heard in an anime. 

The Visuals: While Steins;Gate might not be as visually interesting as one of Studio White Fox's other work Katanagari* but mostly it has solid artwork and a few really neat scenes. However, towards the end of the anime some of the voice actors are giving really emotional performances but the characters faces look very flat and don't match the intensity of the scenes at all. This happened a few times in the later episodes, not just once, and it bugged me to hear the voice actors trying so hard yet it didn't match the characters facial expressions at all.

 I went in not expecting much at all and ended up watching one of my favorite shows of the year, not bad! Funimation licensed this a few months ago in a bit of a new anime licensing spree so I'm hoping that the DVD/BRs come out sometime late next year and I fully intend to buy and rewatch the show, I'm sure there are some details I missed on the first go through and some that will make so much more sense now that I've seen the whole show.


*for those wondering, this is White Fox's third work that they have produced instead of helping out on

Anime Review: Gosick

The one anime that carried over from the winter season for me and one where I was really curious about the setting, 1920s Europe with mysteries? Mmmm, sounds like fun, although I was rather annoyed when there wasn't a single bit of 1920s fashion or architecture in the entire show, and this show reminded me that there aren't that many mystery anime actually. Quite a few horror anime have a mystery element to them (such as Ghost Hunt) but normally this genre only shows up once every two or three seasons and normally it's mystery plus another genre. Gosick isn't just a mystery show itself, if anything I would call it a drama with a lot of mystery cases in it and an odd genre shift in the end. Also, I do mention events relating to the final arc of the story but I try to refrain from actual spoilers so any huge spoilerphobes might not want to check out the footnotes this time.

Gosick

Summary: Set in 1924, Saubure (a fictional country located next to France), Kujo is a student from Japan who is having a hard time making friends since the superstitious locals are convinced that he looks like "the reaper who comes in the spring" from legend. One day when browsing in the library he comes across Victorique, a doll-like girl who seems to live in the library and he slowly becomes friends with this young, genius detective who is seen as even more of an outsider than he is.

The Good: Towards the middle of the series the story finds it's feet, the mysteries become a little more complex, the characters begin to work really well with each other and the overall plot of the story is revealed. In short, once the series hit its stride it becomes a really interesting story that manages to balance a number of different subplots without becoming too confusing. Victorique, and to a lesser extent Kujo, goes through a huge amount of character development and their relationship, which is the real heart of the story, also goes through a tremendous amount of change which is a real joy to see.

The Bad: There appears to be just one reason why the story was set in the 1920s and that was to reference both of the World Wars and make WWII an important plot point. The viewers are well aware that WWII started in 1939 but the original author, well, might not have. If it's an alternate history it's dumb and if it's real history then it's doubly stupid and not just because of the historical inaccuracies* but because the characters never give any reason for why they're starting this war in the first place. There's nothing to be gained, no one to fight, it's hard to tell if the people even support the idea (some do but I honestly thought they were brain-washed at points) and considering that this war is sorta-kinda supposed to be the culmination of the entire show these are all really big problems. The beginning had problems too (such as mysteries that could be solved before the witness was even half-way done explaining the mystery and some pacing issues^) but that part of the story got better, the beginning of the final arc works very well but then logic, common sense and a basic knowledge of history fly out the window and leave a mess in a completely different genre than the story started in.

The Audio: The series has one opening song and two closing ones and the first closing song is the strongest out of the three of them. There is simply something about the beginning of the song (quiet vocals and instrumental and then the instruments rise up before falling back to the same level as the vocals again) that makes it such a dramatic song. An instrumental version of the song was used at one point during the show and, IMO, should have been used more often. The opening was alright but there was a rather amusing discovery that if you swap the opening with the opening of Gurren Laggan the images still match up with the pace of the song well. As for the voices, Cordelia had the same kind of slightly husky quality to her voice that Victorique has, a nice touch, and Victorique thankfully has a bit of a deep voice, not the ultra cute moe moe one you would expect from her size/appearance. In the books she is described as having the voice of an older woman and, while that isn't quite accurate here, her voice still seemed like a very good match.

The Visuals: As mentioned in the opening paragraph, there is very little in this series to visually suggest that it's even set in the 1920s instead of the Edwardian or Victorian eras (which makes me even more suspicious that this setting was chosen soley because it was situated between the two world wars). Someone at Bones however had the brilliant idea of doing all the visuals in the era-appropriate Art Deco style (which I adore) and it makes for one of the more distinctive openings of the year. Other than there, all of the visuals were consistently good but it simply doesn't have the kind of action and fluidity one normally expects out of a Bones work, which is odd since this was done by the same team that did Heroman a year earlier. It's true that the series doesn't have a lot of action but the show still feels like an odd choice for Bones.


Once the story really got going, and the mysteries got better, I really did like this series but the last two episodes just left a terrible taste in my mouth. It's strange, I like how that final arc started out but then it just went bonkers and, with the final light novel coming out soon, I hope someone posts spoilers to compare the two. At this point I honestly don't know if I want to buy it, this just feels like the kind of show that would get licensed over here, since I did like so much of it and I can pretend that the last two episodes don't exist but I just don't know. For the moment however it is streaming on crunchyroll if anyone wants to check it out, no harm in trying the series out at least!  

*now, if this is an alternate history, I've never been a big fan of the "oh a couple of things did go differently in history but when the story starts everything is the exact same as it is in our world. Once the main characters get involved however THEN stuff goes crazy" trope, it's just illogical (one of my bigger complaints about the Temaire series). But if Gosick IS set in our world, hooooo boy. In 1925, the start of World War II in this version, it was apparently one of the most stable interwar periods and a full 15 years before events culimated in the invasion of Poland. It's mentioned in the show that Saubure is allied with Germany, which certainly wouldn't have had the resources at the time (Hitler hadn't even written Mein Kampf yet, and they never explain who or what they're fighting, there's no explanation for how Japan apparently gets bombed or where the scenes involving Kujo were (I've seen people speculate Manchuria, which was my first thought, or somewhere in Russia which would match the weather better).

^the pacing issue seems to come from the anime combining the novels and the short stories and not doing them in the correct order. From what I've heard (so this could be wrong, anyone who knows more feel free to speak up), Kujo has already met Avril, Victorique and Grevil by the time the first volume starts and then the Queen Berry arc, the first anime arc, happens. Chronologically however the short story that introduces Avril came first and one major problem for Kujo hinges on whether or not he believes that Victorique is a real person (instead of being "the golden fairy in the library," another local supersition). In the anime this is the second arc and, after seeing Victorique run all around the ship with Kujo and the other characters (plus interacting with them) it's hard to believe even for a second that she's not real and the whole arc feels pointless. A shame since otherwise it would have been nice and, for people debating whether or not to continue the series, it doesn't make a good case for doing so.  

TV Series Review: Torchwood Children of Earth (season 3)

So, I know I said I was going to watch Angel next but I tried a few episodes and decided that, since I wasn't in love with the show, that I might as well watch something else that I was more likely to enjoy. Which is a bit odd for me, I've noticed I tend to drop shows more often if it's currently airing, but unless someone else can convince me otherwise I just don't feel the urge to try Angel again. Speaking of dropping shows, I wonder if I would have dropped Torchwood if I had been watching it when it aired since this show has just never managed to grab me the way that Doctor Who has. I think I liked this mini-series (just five episodes long with one, continuous plot) more than I would have liked Angel but I'm not sure, I did want to yell at my computer screen every ten minutes or so...

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Summary: While Torchwood 3 is smaller than ever it's remaining employees are still dedicated to keeping Cardiff, and the rest of the world, safe from alien threats. But this time the threat may be bigger than they can handle, between worldwide reports of mind-controlled children and the government trying to kill them it's certainly not going to be easy to save the day.

The Good: The characters have finally found their stride on the show and they are amazing. Gwen is likable, badass and caring all at once, Ianto is more active than he was in previous seasons and proves that he's just as capable as Gwen is in the field and Jack has already proved himself to be all of those things. A number of side characters all get a chance to shine as well, Louis's actions (a stand in for Martha, they even look a bit alike) are vital to Torchwood, Ianto's sister Rhianno and her husband Johnny are the most capable civilians in all three of the seasons (aside from Rhys who practically is a member of Torchwood at this point, the actor is even given equal billing) and it's always nice to see civilians clue in and figure out what's going on. Even more characters have a chance to shine later on (saying who would be spoilers) so anyone who watches Torchwood for the characters (which would be a lot, if not most of, it's fans) will really enjoy watching the characters take action and do something.  

The Bad: As strong and interesting as many of the individual characters were this season the government (of the United Kingdom), the reason the plot progresses the way it does, is thoroughly unsatisfying as a psuedo-antagonist or even for what's supposed to be a group of intelligent people. The first few minutes of the first episode reveal that over 40 years ago 12 children were taken by aliens (presumably for nefarious purposes) and strongly hints that the government had a hand in it. Combine that with the fact that the government is desperately trying to keep both alien fighting organizations (UNIT and Torchwood) from doing their jobs, even though both groups are very good at keeping Earth safe from alien threats, and there is no reason to sympathize with the government at all. The series spends a great deal of time trying to make the government sympathetic (too much time, the series could have been four or possibly even just three episodes long if some of those conversations were cut down) and portraying in a realistic fashion how the leaders of the UK would respond to the fact that they have mere days to gather up huge numbers of children or risk planet wide extinction. However, this is not a realistic show, this is a show where there have been shown to be at least one, if not multiple, weapons that can take down alien spaceships from orbit and that makes it even harder to sympathize with the people who got the whole world into this mess. 

The Music: On Wikipedia it says that there was a second soundtrack for the series released which consisted of 40 tracks used in these five episodes but the music didn't feel that new. A lot of the pieces played at various points felt familiar and the series iconic opening is cut down to about ten or fifteen seconds and the credits were shortened as well so there's barely any music there. So, as before, the music worked well as background noise, so well in fact it's hard to tell that it's new at all.

The Visuals: As said above, the shows opening sequence is incredibly short this time but the white background with red text (as opposed to black background with red text) accompanied by the "duuun" in the background with the date (Day One, Day Two, ect) makes it seem even more dramatic. There's no problem with video quality or shots that are over or underexposed, not surprising since this was shot very recently, so it all looks rather good. True the aliens aren't as convincing as they would have been on a full movie budget but if you aren't used to that yet then you probably never will be. 

I apologize if I got too rant-y in the bad section, I honestly tried to keep it down but I really have so many complaints with this season. One I didn't even bring up, given all the events involving aliens in both Torchwood and Doctor Who, events that are common knowledge at least in Great Britain, how did the government even think they could keep the truth about this quiet? Does this world not have Wikileaks or something? It's mentioned in the episode that the government hacked Torchwood years ago even (hell, didn't Mickey hack it at least partially back in season two of Doctor Who?), I will admit that this series was made before Wikileaks got big and it's hard to write about something that doesn't exist yet. I will probably make a big blog post about this over on my livejournal (not this week, too busy preparing for a con, I'll try to get it up in about two weeks) with even more complaints on this because frankly, for a plot-centric and plot-heavy mini-series, the reason the plot became what it was was a really stupid reason that seemed more unbelievable than a group of aliens mind-controlling every prepubescent child on Earth, at least that part was in character for the series.