Anime Review: Active Raid

I've noticed an odd trend in my anime reviews lately, namely that the series with the best first episode premiere of the season usually isn't anywhere near my favorite show of the season. I don't know why this is, you would think that a strong first episode would mean a strong show in general and I just wouldn't use that generic word "strong" for this show.

Active Raid

Anime Review: Psycho-Pass 2

There's no reason to make this introduction overly long, I put this show on my ANIME I DISLIKED: 2014 EDITION list before it had fully finished airing and now that I've had a chance to finish the show I can say that it fully deserved being on that list. Since I am discussing a sequel, there will be quite a few references and spoilers to the first season of the show; this is not a review to read if you're considering starting the series, this is a review to convince you not to watch this season and to explain the many many things that went wrong in it. And on that note, there will be some rather large spoilers for this season as well, I just don't feel like I can adequately explain the sheer stupidity here without laying it out exactly as it happens.

Psycho-Pass 2

Movie Review: Hot Fuzz

Back during the summer I became a bit curious about seeing the film The World's End and realized that while I'd seen Shaun of the Dead I hadn't actually seen Hot Fuzz, writer-director Edgar Wright's other really well known film (my mother has no idea how she let that happen). To be clear, yes I know that these films have nothing to do with each other and you can enjoy one without having seen the others, however I knew it was going to be a while before I had a chance to see The World's End so why not watch this one first? I know this would all make a lot more sense if I had gotten to it a few months earlier but I honestly did forget until I caught sight of the DVD at one of the local libraries, probably why I hadn't thought to watch it earlier in the first place.

Hot Fuzz

TV Series Review: Ashes to Ashes (season two)

There's not much to say here that I didn't say in my review for the first season, if you haven't seen the first season of Ashes to Ashes don't start here, you'll be lost, and at this point if you haven't already seen Life on Mars you can still follow it but I still recommend watching LoM first.


Ashes to Ashes (season two)

Summary: It's now 1982 and Alex Drake is still stuck in London a police officer more than 20 years before she should be on the force. But she's not the only one with problems, it's become apparent to her and Gene Hunt that the force is practically rotting from the inside out with corruption and the more they try to just find the root of the problem the larger the problems become.

The Good: I'm not sure if the show found it's pace or if I did but I liked this more than the first season and about as much as I liked Life on Mars which is what I was hoping for. It helped that Alex isn't constantly chomping at the bit to get home, she's started settling in which is pointed out repeatedly to the viewer, and some of the elements in this season change even more what Alex and the viewers knew about this strange alternate (or past) world from LoM. That's interesting, the mere existence of A2A shows that not everything was revealed in LoM and I suspect that's why I've seen some places say that it's hard to understand the last season if you haven't seen both, bring it on is all I have to say!

The Bad: I can only hope the story has a good explanation for what was going on at the very end since otherwise that last scene could completely wreck the setting, although I think it's hinted at what's going on a bit with one of the new characters in this season. And I was a bit frustrated by the betrayal by another, long running character this season, since we've now seen them for multiple seasons it just felt completely out of character (even taking into account that there has been a several year time difference between LoM and A2A). That detail I think I'll just have to accept and move on but hopefully the show will be able to wrap up all it's other details satisfactorily.

The Production Values: It only took me a full season but I started recognizing some of the music, wahoo! Other than that, like before I don't have much to say, I barely know anything about the 80s so I can't comment on how accurate or no the settings, props, and clothing is, although in this show I'm always surprised at just how many songs they manage to find that are both apparently period accurate and reflect what is going on in the show.


So for this season I don't have much to say, it's the middle of a trilogy and often it's hard to find something to say about those stories no matter what medium they're in. But I'm giving this season a 3.5 out of 5 and can only hope that the ending doesn't let me down!

TV Series Review: Ashes to Ashes (season one)

Some people might remember that I used to alternate between British and American tv shows fairly regularly and might have noticed that the only British television on this blog as of late is Doctor Who related so what happened? A few things actually, one is that I did try out Being Human (the UK version) in early January and after a couple of episodes realized that I had no motivation to continue watching and that this was probably a good reason to drop the show. Right after that my semester became so busy that I didn't have time to add anything else to my watching roster so even though I've wanted to check out this show ever since I finished Life on Mars I just didn't really have the time too. What's this connection to Life on Mars (again, British version) you might ask? Well, it's a campion series basically, some of the cast, same premise, although it does have a different setting and a different main character. You don't need to have seen LoM to enjoy Ashes to Ashes, although the first five minutes here spoil what eventually happened there, for the moment anyway, I'm told that the third season of AtA finally explains all of the details for these shows and that's what I'm here for so let's get started!

Ashes to Ashes (season one)

Summary: Alex Drake was the psychiatrist who treated Sam Tyler and when she's shot on the job she's pretty sure he left an even larger impression on her than she thought since she's ended up in a situation much like he described. She's in 1981, still working as a police officer and has no clue how to get home just like Sam but something doesn't seem right. Even if she is basing this world she's in off of what he told her how would she know all the characters Sam knew down to their last personality quirks?

The Good: While I wasn't sure how well I was going to like Alex as the main character (it turns out that watching a character embarrass themselves over and over no matter the situation just feels awkward to me) but I did end up liking the relationship she and Gene had more than the relationship he and Sam had had, after two seasons of watching him slug the main character it was nice to see him thrown off his game and have to take a bit of a different approach. And, while like I said it was awkward to watch Alex go "hey I'm in a dream, I'm going to do something that I would never do in real life because it doesn't matter!" it was fun to see her genre-savyiness come through and say things like "this is important!" "why?" "because it's in my dream and therefore it must be!"

The Bad: Much like Life on Mars I did find my mind wandering a bit during the episodes and since I still don't know any contemporary British history I was a bit lost at the beginning of some of the crimes since I simply didn't have a frame of reference. I fear that's probably the series biggest barrier to entry, for an older viewer (someone whose in their late twenties or older) this probably wouldn't be a problem, they would at least realize that the creepy clown following Alex around is from the David Bowie's music video for the song "Ashes to Ashes" which I didn't find out about until I was almost done with the first season.

The Production Values: Before I watched this show I thought that I knew a little more about the 1980s than the 1970s but it turns out I know nothing so once again I'm useless if you want to know how screen accurate this show is*. Everything seemed technically sound both setting/prop wise and sound wise but honestly it shouldn't be an accomplishment if a show manages to achieve just that much.


In the end I don't have a lot to say about the show so far, I like some parts of it more than LoM and some less, overall I think I like LoM a bit better at this point but there are still two more seasons for me to watch so that could easily change. For the moment I give this a 3 out of 5 and probably won't buy it since, well, it was actually never released on DVD in the US (as far as I can tell it was broadcast once on BBCAmerica and that was it) so I would have to import it from Australia or Great Britain and I'm only going to go through that hassle for something I really adore.


*although I may have embarrassed my mother by showing her Alex Drake's perm and going "did yours look like this?" Although I only thought that since I remembered a few perms from the early 90s...

Anime Review: Psycho Pass

And now to start the first of many anime review covering shows from the fall and winter which just wrapped up, as a heads up I'm going to try and get my post out about all of the new shows either tomorrow or the day after (Wednesday or Thursday), trying to get better about not being super late on that post but all of these delayed simulcasts are not helping me out there. This show however was not delayed at all so I finished it a few weeks back and I have to say, when the fall season started I was expecting to like Robotics;Notes (the other noitaminA title) more than Pyscho-Pass, since that one was based on an existing property and I had liked Steins;Gate (although it's true that I had also liked Fate/Zero, ie I had enjoyed the writing by the same people in both cases) but in the end I really liked Psycho-Pass better and I'm going to have to remember it when I talk about my favorite shows of 2013 since it has a really good shot at being on that list.



Psycho Pass

Summary: Roughly one hundred years in the future Japan is once again a closed nation and enjoys relative peace and not as much large crime as it used to thanks to the Sybil System, a seemingly all-knowing computer program that helps weed out the good people from those who might commit a crime. Sybil helps people make most of the important decisions in their lives so young college graduate Akane Tsunemori is overwhelmed when she realizes that she scored high enough and has a good enough rating from the system to do anything she wants. When she realizes that she was the only person in her class to be recommended to the police however she decides that's what she'll do, she'll enforce the system along with some of those people Sybil has already declared irredeemable possible criminals and in the process ends up seeing what a dark system it can be. 

The Good: I was thrown when I realized it was the girl with the bad haircut in the promo pieces  who was the point of view character in the first episode (I didn't use one of those pictures for this review because it really is that hard to tell) and wasn’t sure how I felt about it, after all we've all seen the "naive newcomer learns the job on the go and presents a way to give the audience exposition as well" done to death. But I made up my mind on how I felt about Akane after she tazed a coworker to prevent them from killing a victim due to a fault in a system, something she even wrote a large paper about. Honestly that sentence sums up Akane, she’s determined, becomes rather badass, and ultimately goes through a character arc which I don’t see happening to female characters that often. Essentially, we have a woman in a position of power challenging the system she’s a part of with her power, normally when you see a woman challenging a system in a story she will have no power in it, she’s a rebel on the outside rather than a plotter on the inside and I rather liked that difference. She and Kogami, the guy with the spiky hair that I had thought was the main character from the promo pieces, carry the show, both become very well fleshed out and it’s interesting to watch characters who know they are flawed go about their work and the contrast between the two of them; Kogami knowing he’s flawed but not knowing a better way to do things and Akane fighting to find that better way. The other characters get varying amounts of character development but at least some and even the main villain, Makishima, has some not-quite-sympathetic-moments but points at which it’s very easy to understand his logic even if his methods are hideously wrong. And in the end I think that's what will determine if you like the show or not, the show has no bones about showing what a messed up world Japan has created in it's effort to have peace from the first episode so you have to root for one of the characters/one of the methods for trying to protect or change this system and if you don't end up agreeing or sympathizing with any of them then the entire story will have been a waste of time.

The Bad: The ending did a remarkable job of both wrapping up and feeling like an ending and leaving plot threads dangling which bothers me a bit. Since this does involve spoilers for the end of the series I’ll talk more about this in a footnote but, after ruminating on the ending a bit, I think I’ll be unhappy in the long run if they never give the story the last bit I think it needs*. Apparently at Sakura Con some of the staff present indicated that if the show sold well (I think they meant both in the US and Japan) then they would be able to produce more and it sounds like there are more stories they want to tell (some side stories but I don't know if they also meant a direct continuation). In any case, other than that, I had some major issues with the setting which can be summed up with me yelling “TECHNOLOGY DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!” Thankfully I had an idea what the Sybil System would be early on and in most cases the technology works well enough with the plot to keep this from being a large problem but there were so many nonsensical background details that I truly wondered if all the creators were neo-luddites and had no idea how things like holograms or mass worked. Oddly enough, the criminal scanning technology, the one that seemed really far out there, is starting to be developed and perhaps it was because I was suddenly paying attention but I saw a number articles like this one from Wired pop up during or right after the shows run which certainly made me a bit worried for the future.

The Audio: I greatly prefer the first opening and ending songs to the second set although I'll admit the second opening grew on me (never became fond of the second ending song though, probably didn't help that it felt like the designers ran out of ideas for what to show along with the song and threw in whatever they had lying around). Actually, since Egoist did both ending songs you can actually purchase both of those on itunes (or at least the US one) which was rather nice considering that I really liked that first ending theme. The voice acting was also pretty strong, a quick browse through the cast list reveals no newbies but a lot of people who I've heard in other works and didn't recognize which is good. Although I did hear a rumor that the voice actress who did the voice of the dominator (the guns the police use) also has done a lot of voice work for GPSes in Japan which, if it's true, I refuse to believe wasn't done on purpose.

The Visuals: Aside from one episode in the second half where quite frankly the production values were in the toilet (you know it's had when the director apologizes on twitter beforehand for how it looks, oddly enough after seeing the rest of the show I still can't figure out why they ran out of time for that one particular episode), which will be fixed for the physical releases, the show looks pretty solid. The technology looks slick, even if it makes no sense, the backgrounds are detailed, and it uses color and color schemes pretty effectively. I'll admit that I'm not crazy about the character designs, they did grow on me some but I keep wanting to give Akane just a few more inches of hair, but I think I'm in the minority there.


All in all this ended up being a really solid, good show for me that I enjoyed and would like to see more of, provided that it tells the kind of story that I hope it does anyway (I've just been burned by too many sequel series in the past couple of years that seem to have forgotten what the show was about). So I'm giving this show a four out of five and I'm happy that Funimation plans to put it out sometime next spring. In the meantime people in the US/Canada can catch the show streaming on their site or on hulu.






*to get detail specific, so SPOILERS the story ends similar to how it begins with Akane now in charge of Division 1 and we’re shown how she’s both grown and yet hasn’t become jaded by the system. That’s all fine but there are a number of scenes shown during the ED that suggest that there is something more going on and earlier in the episode Akane makes a speech about how society needs Sibiyl now but someday they’ll be able to pull the plug on it once and for all. To me that sounds like the story declaring that we’ll see it happen, especially given how Akane’s personal philosophy has been shown throughout the show. However, someone on twitter pointed out how this could be social commentary about how Japan needs to change but ultimately isn’t doing so and, if I take that point of view, it doesn't seem likely that there will be a second season. I really do want one though since I think it would be poetic to see Kogami become something similar to Makishima and to see Akane finish her growth.

TV Series Review: Grimm

As I mentioned two weeks ago with Once Upon A Time, when the fall crop of American tv shows premired it seemed like everyone was expecting one or both shows to kill each other, taking sides, and that's not what happened. I've been watching a bit of Supernatural recently and that seems more Grimm's "rival" than Once and frankly Hulu had the right idea of trying to promote each show to viewers of the other and they've both gotten renewed for a second season so it seems like it all worked out. However, while both of them ended on a cliffhanger for the second season, one of them did it better than the other....

Grimm

Summary: Nick Burkhardt is a police on the homicide beat in the Portland Police Department and is more than a little surprised when his aunt, the one who raised him after his parent's deaths, shows up on his doorstep and tells him that he is the latest in a line of "grimms" people who can see the supernatural as it walks among us. Soon enough Nick is seeing strange creatures everywhere he goes and his life has taken a dangerous turn.

The Good: While Grimm certainly borrowed themes from dozens of classic fairy tales, such as Cinderella and Rapunzel, it had interesting takes on them and many times it didn't even use a fairy tale as a basis for the story and instead introduced just a legendary creature instead. Since the vast majority of fairy-tale inspired stories I've seen lately have been merely retellings this was nice and I especially enjoyed the aforementioned two stories for their creativeness. On the more human side of things, I've joked that if Once had all the female leads that Grimm was lacking that Grimm seemed to make an effort to have multiple People of Color characters with large roles that weren't stereotypes. Actually, Hank (Nick's police partner) and Monroe (a "blutbad" that Nick ends up becoming friends with) were much more likable characters and Monroe at least seemed like a more well-rounded character as well (although considering how uneven Nick's character "growth" was and how even his actor wishes that he would be a bit more active next season that's not necessarily saying much).

The Bad: Once also ended on a cliffhanger but where that one gave some closure to that season's "arc" this one provided a completely out of the blue twist with no foreshadowing, one so sudden I was convinced that this show was going to have a 23 episode season instead of 22*. Also, in the end this show didn't have an over-arching arc/theme to tie together all the episodes together (which shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer regularly employed to create a sense of cohesion) and since this is a story ideally every episode included should have fleshed out the characters, a plot, the setting (or been a red herring about one of these) and I could point to each episode and say "that is the reason why this story was included." It's true that television isn't always that tightly scripted but thinking back I really can't tell why a lot of these episodes were included since they did nothing overall and I didn't get that nice pay-off in the last episode of seeing a story through to the end. The show has created a good sized cast of major and minor characters so I can see why those characters all got so much screen time but again, in the end there wasn't even a reason tying together the whole season so I still feel like all that time carefully building up that side cast was all for naught.

The Audio: Much like Once (and apologies I've had so many comparisons to it, this should be the last one), while Grimm did have some distinct themes, both for the opening/ending credits and in the background, I can barely recall any of them only about two weeks after the show ended and that's not a good sign. I don't recall any specific instances where the music didn't fit the mood reasonably well (and I would have recalled that) but perhaps I've just been spoiled by all of the anime and movie soundtracks I've heard which are much more memorable.

The Visuals: The story was filmed as well as set in the green city of Portland and loves to show off it's scenery with many scenes shot in the woods and it does look rather pretty. But the big thing about this series is the copious amount of CGI is used to morph the actors into the various creatures which by and large seemed to work well. It helps that the characters generally look monstrous for only a few seconds at a time, both for the fact that there's less time for the audience to think it's weird and so they can spread out the budget overall, and again I would say that overall the effects were well done (except the part where Monroe sometimes looked more like a deranged ape than a were-wolf but oh well).


So, I will not be catching the second season of this show when it airs (I believe the trailers said late summer, August perhaps?) since in the end the first season didn't go anywhere and that cliffhanger reaaally ticked me off. Plus, I have multiple seasons of Supernatural on Netflix plus friends to discuss it with so if I want normal-ish people hunting down supernatural baddies I'm all set!


*the best comparison I have is that it's almost the exact same twist as the ending of the first season of Tegami Bachi/Letter Bee which only worked because I had read past that part in the manga so I knew what was coming next.

TV Series Review: Life on Mars (season two UK version)

Unlike the previous season it was incredibly simple for me to get a copy of Life on Mars season 2 (walking into my school's library, go to the basement, grab the DVDs and go). I love it when it's this simple to watch something legally, then again I have no idea why it's so much harder to find illegal streams of a British tv show from a few years ago versus a subtitled stream of a 10+ year old foreign cartoon. In any case, onto the review!

Life on Mars (season 2, original UK version)

Summary: Following where the first season left off, Sam Tyler is a DC in Manchester 1973 but he's really from 2007 where, as far as he can tell, he's in a coma following a car accident. He continues to obsess over what has happened to his life while solving cases and dealing with his coworkers in 1973 but doesn't seem to be making much progress as his 1973 life gets even more complicated as it goes on.

The Good: It's fun to compare this show to Grimm, which is another cop-show-with-a-twist that I've been following lately, since with Grimm I can play it in the background and still basically follow along, here the show really demands your full attention if you want to really get something out of it and it's interesting enough to hold your attention for a full episode. Each story was interesting, it never felt like the writers were taking the same plot from an earlier episode and just mixing different details in, and while the solutions weren't so simple they could be solved within the first five minutes there were enough hints for the viewer to put together the case and it's solution by the end. The characters were also fun, I was glad to see that Annie had an even more central role in this season, and overall I thoroughly enjoyed this show from beginning to end.

The Bad: I have, mixed, feelings however on the ending of this series, even despite the fact that I had accidentally found out how the show ended before I even started it. The ending wasn't bad and certainly made sense with the themes the show had set up, I just have some mixed feelings on it. Part of the reason for the mixed feelings is that there is a lot left unexplained, Sam Tyler's story does seem well wrapped up by the mechanics of how the setting worked were barely touched upon and I do want to check out Ashes to Ashes to see it explained. That was my main gripe with the show, which is more because I'm a little more obsessed with settings than most people, overall it was a very strong show.

The Audio: I think the show used even more period insert songs this season than the previous and all of the choices seemed to fit in really well. I wasn't familiar with many of the songs but when looking at the lyrics it was very clear why they had been chosen and they usually provided a bit of foreshadowing as well. The rest of the music didn't stand out quite a much but the bits I do recall that it all seemed to flow well.

The Visuals: There's no change in the visual styling from the previous season, everything still has a slight sephia tone and overall the styling seemed spot on. I've seen some comments on wikipedia that there were some background details that appeared in the show that weren't period appropriate but nothing in there ever stuck out so much that it drew me out of the show.


So, not much else to say except that I need to figure out where I can find a copy of Ashes to Ashes to keep on going before I completely forget about the details here!  

TV Series Review: Life on Mars season 1 (British version)

Well I had a fun time getting a hold of this series and I'm still not even sure how it happened. Back in early January I was browsing the school library's catalog and found that both seasons of the British version of the show were listed but that the first season was lost. So I thought, I'm able to find cartoons from other countries online and subtitled so how hard can it be to find a show that doesn't even need subtitles? Really hard it turns out, I found around the first five episodes before giving up and deciding I would just have to wait for spring break and check out the DVDs from my local home library (I had put in an interlibrary loan request but it had fallen through). But then I got an email saying it was on hold for me at the library, after I had gotten an email saying the interlibrary loan had fallen through, and I went to pick up a copy of the series with my library's sticker on it. I'm wondering if my request triggered something in the system so they ordered a new copy or what but decided not to complain and simply enjoy the show.

Life on Mars Season One:

Summary: DCI Sam Tyler (roughly a Chief of Detectives in the US) is on the case one day when he’s hit by a car and wakes up in Manchester (a city in England) in 1973 as the new DC transfer to the local police department. Police work is conducted rather differently in 1973, no version of the Miranda Rights, the Gene HuntInterrogation technique, and all the coopers carry guns and will shoot if provoke. So Sam must learn how to maneuver in this alien, new world all the while he keeps hearing snippets from 2006 where his body apparently lies in an unresponsive coma.  

The Good: One of the big draws to the show is that Sam Tyler has a vague idea of what is going on around him in 2006 and I liked those bits (which doesn't mean the rest of the show was bad, I just really liked that detail). As the audience you already know that he’s telling the truth, he really isn’t from 1973, but it’s also very easy to see why he appears crazy to everyone around him, especially Annie (who is part of the women's department which makes her a little bit of an outcast as well). I also liked how Sam Tyler’s own past was worked into the plot and thought it was a clever move, he knows that some odd things happened in his past right around this time so why not investigate? All of the crimes seemed relevant to the time as well and none of them were obviously easy to figure out and were interesting to watch. Also, props to John Simm for some really good acting, the only show I had seen him in before was as The Master in Doctor Who and in there I was seriously doubting he could actually act since he was so hammy. Here however he did a completely different character and it actually took me some time to realize it was the same actor*.

The Bad: My main complaint is that this season doesn’t stand on it’s own very well since the ending just doesn’t do much. Sam does have character growth but has only partially accepted his fate and it’s clear that this show is going to have/really needs its second season. Since there is a second season this is a bit less of a problem and it was easily my biggest problem with the show but writing a multi-part show where the individual parts can't stand on their own does mean that the writing went wrong at one point or another.

The Audio: The show has several period pieces of music playing in the background and a few of them reference themes in the show (such as the titular “Life on Mars” song by David Bowie, part of the song seems to literally describe the show and the idea is that 1973 is so alien to Sam Tyler that he might as well be on Mars). Normally I wouldn’t have been a fan of a lot of the songs used in the show, they’re simply not my style, but I really liked how the music was integrated and found myself enjoying the music and that’s probably the ultimate sign that the music was used well.

The Visuals: The show is set in 1973 and does a nice job recreating the setting with the clothes, color schemes, and cars used. One touch I liked was how the 1973 police station is always filled with cigarette smoke, something absent from the shots of it in the 2000s. I’m not that fond of 1970s style but I thought that the designers managed to make it all look natural on the characters, not like people from the current day at a costume party.

Thankfully I have not had nearly as hard a time getting a hold of the second season of Life on Mars, my school library already had a copy of that, so I'm making my way through that right now and enjoying it as well. I know there was a deliberate decision to stop the show after two seasons (with Ashes to Ashes being made a bit later as a spiritual successor of sorts) so hopefully that resolves my problems with the show. 

*and that’s not because I’m bad at faces since he looks identical in both shows, although it has been a while since I saw John Simm in Doctor Who.