It's that time of year again folks, time for me to talk about the sudden onslaught of new anime and I'm starting off this season with almost a blank slate since just about all my shows have ended, as is usually the case since winter shows tend to be one-cour and it's rare to have a show run for more than two-cour so all my fall shows have ended as well. The one exception (well, Space Dandy is split cour but it's currently off the air) is the latest Pretty Cure series, Happiness Charge (nicknamed Hacha! by fans because that's just fun to say). In case people are trying to remember, no I didn't finish Doki Doki Precure since, well, it turns out that wasn't one of the better series. This I'm still a little cautious about, once burned twice shy after all, but I already like how they're fleshing out the character better and the fights are rather fun and silly, just what I want from a children's show!
Not included here are Break Blade and Knights of Sidonia since I already saw the BB movie's years ago and this is just a re-edit of those (possibly with a few new scenes and a new opening but nothing can compare to the movie's wonderful opening song) and Sidonia is actually getting broadcast, dubbed, on Netflix in the summer so I'm waiting for that. Well, that and Sidona's CGI is making me nervous, I hope it looks fine in the series but those trailers do not fill me with hope.
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Anime Review: Taisho Baseball Girls
Sorry this is delayed again folks, just got hit with a headcold that's left me a bit out of it for the past two days, should be fine by the weekend's reviews!
For some reason or another, there are just more genres of anime than there are of American television. Mecha, cute girls doing cute things, sports, these just tend to pop up more in movies than tv shows (well, cute girls making guys realize the beauty and value of life but whatever). I try to keep my viewing schedule as balanced as I can make it, especially as I work my way through my backlog where I have more freedom to pick and choose whatever has caught my fancy and, since it's been a little while since I last talked about a sports series, I decided to watch "cute girls do baseball which is sort-of-kind-of a cute thing". I'd heard a little bit about this series when it first came out on DVD but not much so I settled in expecting an okay series, one that wasn't terrible but nothing I would spend a lot of time recommending, and I was surprised by it.
Taisho Baseball Girls
For some reason or another, there are just more genres of anime than there are of American television. Mecha, cute girls doing cute things, sports, these just tend to pop up more in movies than tv shows (well, cute girls making guys realize the beauty and value of life but whatever). I try to keep my viewing schedule as balanced as I can make it, especially as I work my way through my backlog where I have more freedom to pick and choose whatever has caught my fancy and, since it's been a little while since I last talked about a sports series, I decided to watch "cute girls do baseball which is sort-of-kind-of a cute thing". I'd heard a little bit about this series when it first came out on DVD but not much so I settled in expecting an okay series, one that wasn't terrible but nothing I would spend a lot of time recommending, and I was surprised by it.
Taisho Baseball Girls
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Anime Review: Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
In case people didn't see the message yesterday, due to trying to get everything watched in time for the anime round-up (nearly 10 shows in three days wohoo) I got a bit off schedule and I'm switching around the anime and the tv series reviews for this week. Since I alternate between shorter tv shows and longer ones this shouldn't be a problem again, especially since Manga November is coming up.
So, this was the show that got everyone's preferred form of underwear in a bunch back in January when a PV was released incensed the dudebros of the internet when it was announced as a real show for the summer. I was amused by it for sure but didn't think that I'd stick around much beyond the first episode or two. But yet, I tried a lot of shows over the summer and very few held my interest yet this was one of the ones I ended up truly liking....
Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
Summary: When they were kids, Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rin were members of their swim club's swimming relay team but went their seperate ways during middle school. Now they're all in high school and fate seems to be conspiring to bring them back to swimming again, but can things go back to the way things were back then?
The Good: Kyoto Animation took their standard "cute girls do cute things" show set-up, replaced it with a guy and it turns out that it worked pretty well, hurray! Well, by worked well I mean "these guys don't feel like real highschoolers half the time because of the tropes involved but it was still fun to watch, hurray!" but that's fine, it's a rare anime that has a realistic depiction of middle/high schoolers anyway. And it's a rare example of a show that has quite a bit of fanservice but it's never creepy. Yes this is a show aimed at people who like guys and has them running around shirtless in close fitting swim trunks a lot of the time. HOWEVER, with the exception of one or two weird cuts (that were close ups of one guys crotch that no one seemed to like) the guys were never put into any compromising positions or made to feel like they were stripping just because of the camera, they felt like characters, not cut-outs just for the audience to stare at. And that's an important distinction, if you can do fanservice without fetishizing the character involved then you actually know how to write and make something that appeals to a much larger audience. I really do think that's why this one has attracted as large an audience as it has (I believe the preorders for the first DVD/BR were between 25-29k), even if cute guys aren't your thing but sports anime is you can truly enjoy it and not feel skeeved out every other scene.
The Bad: I found a lot of the elements of the last episode to be overly melodramatic. Yes this is a goofy, silly, campy-dramatic show, all sport shows are to a degree, but I felt like they started exaggerating one character's traits to an extreme to create more tension when none was needed. And then the other characters rewarded that drama-llama-ing, I felt like they could have reached the same conclusion without having to mess with the tone of the story so much and it did mean that I was grumpy at the finale which is the exact opposite of how you should feel about the end of a show. Other than that, I felt like there were one or two things the show didn't fully address but, since they've practically promised another season next summer, for the moment I won't be as harsh on it and just hope the next installment changes that.
The Production Values: I'm not sure I want to know how many hours of swimming footage the animators must have watched to make this show, I've seen a couple of blogs out there with actual swimmers (or friends of actuals swimmers who showed them the footage) who said it all looked rather spot on too which was pretty crazy. Yes some episodes look better than others, it's clear that they did spread the budget around a bit so that the big events got more money but through and through the show looks pretty great (there's also a lot of visual continuity in the details that I liked, like the character's shirts and setting changing in unison). Both the opening and ending songs grew on me (even the endings ridiculous graphics), although the voice actors for the boys did sound a little too old at times which was a bit jarring.
So for being fun I give this show 3 out of 5 stars and a recommendation if you like sports anime or if you just like staring at well-drawn men in anime, I'm not going to judge. The show is streaming on crunchyroll but somehow has not yet been picked up for a North American release, I'm betting there's an intense battle going on behind the scenes between the remaining American anime companies since, even though I doubt it'll be a huge huge hit (unlike Attack on Titan), I do think it will do well and it would be strange if none of those companies were even interested.
So, this was the show that got everyone's preferred form of underwear in a bunch back in January when a PV was released incensed the dudebros of the internet when it was announced as a real show for the summer. I was amused by it for sure but didn't think that I'd stick around much beyond the first episode or two. But yet, I tried a lot of shows over the summer and very few held my interest yet this was one of the ones I ended up truly liking....
Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
Summary: When they were kids, Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rin were members of their swim club's swimming relay team but went their seperate ways during middle school. Now they're all in high school and fate seems to be conspiring to bring them back to swimming again, but can things go back to the way things were back then?
The Good: Kyoto Animation took their standard "cute girls do cute things" show set-up, replaced it with a guy and it turns out that it worked pretty well, hurray! Well, by worked well I mean "these guys don't feel like real highschoolers half the time because of the tropes involved but it was still fun to watch, hurray!" but that's fine, it's a rare anime that has a realistic depiction of middle/high schoolers anyway. And it's a rare example of a show that has quite a bit of fanservice but it's never creepy. Yes this is a show aimed at people who like guys and has them running around shirtless in close fitting swim trunks a lot of the time. HOWEVER, with the exception of one or two weird cuts (that were close ups of one guys crotch that no one seemed to like) the guys were never put into any compromising positions or made to feel like they were stripping just because of the camera, they felt like characters, not cut-outs just for the audience to stare at. And that's an important distinction, if you can do fanservice without fetishizing the character involved then you actually know how to write and make something that appeals to a much larger audience. I really do think that's why this one has attracted as large an audience as it has (I believe the preorders for the first DVD/BR were between 25-29k), even if cute guys aren't your thing but sports anime is you can truly enjoy it and not feel skeeved out every other scene.
The Bad: I found a lot of the elements of the last episode to be overly melodramatic. Yes this is a goofy, silly, campy-dramatic show, all sport shows are to a degree, but I felt like they started exaggerating one character's traits to an extreme to create more tension when none was needed. And then the other characters rewarded that drama-llama-ing, I felt like they could have reached the same conclusion without having to mess with the tone of the story so much and it did mean that I was grumpy at the finale which is the exact opposite of how you should feel about the end of a show. Other than that, I felt like there were one or two things the show didn't fully address but, since they've practically promised another season next summer, for the moment I won't be as harsh on it and just hope the next installment changes that.
The Production Values: I'm not sure I want to know how many hours of swimming footage the animators must have watched to make this show, I've seen a couple of blogs out there with actual swimmers (or friends of actuals swimmers who showed them the footage) who said it all looked rather spot on too which was pretty crazy. Yes some episodes look better than others, it's clear that they did spread the budget around a bit so that the big events got more money but through and through the show looks pretty great (there's also a lot of visual continuity in the details that I liked, like the character's shirts and setting changing in unison). Both the opening and ending songs grew on me (even the endings ridiculous graphics), although the voice actors for the boys did sound a little too old at times which was a bit jarring.
So for being fun I give this show 3 out of 5 stars and a recommendation if you like sports anime or if you just like staring at well-drawn men in anime, I'm not going to judge. The show is streaming on crunchyroll but somehow has not yet been picked up for a North American release, I'm betting there's an intense battle going on behind the scenes between the remaining American anime companies since, even though I doubt it'll be a huge huge hit (unlike Attack on Titan), I do think it will do well and it would be strange if none of those companies were even interested.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Anime Review: IGPX
Back when Toonami was on tv (no not as the Adult Swim-esque midnight slot, when it was actually on tv at the time it's target audience was supposed to be watching tv) I remember seeing some ads for it on tv but dismissed it since I thought it would just be weird racing every episode without any changes. I know I've said similar things about other shows before which should really tell you what my general opinion of American cartoons from my childhood was. In any case, the revived Toonami was able to obtain the rights to broadcast the show again (probably because even though the show was put on DVD by Bandai it's actually a co-production between Cartoon Network and Production IG, weirdly enough this happened two years after the initial idea was rejected and they had Bee Train make a series of 5 minute pilots which apparently are more than a bit different) which got me excited until I realized the broadcast time was at 2am. Thankfully I have some friends who liked the show and were able to loan me their DVDs, silly people who think they'll get good ratings for shows aired at 2am. Although, that's what killed the show actually, half the show was broadcast in the Toonami slot mid-afternoon and the second half was broadcast around midnight where it did poorly and was canceled, sadly this kind of weird scheduling isn't that uncommon in American shows either.
IGPX
Summary: In the future a new sport has captured the world's attention, speed skating mechs that go hundreds of miles an hour and compete in three person teams. Each year some of the best teams move up in the division and this year Team Satomi has just moved into the pro league. But as it's members, Takeshi, Liz, Amy and Luca, quickly see for themselves it won't be as easy to become champions and they've got their work cut out for them.
The Good: Let me just say that even though the show was technically canceled from what I've heard it actually ends in a really good place, I suspect (and only suspect, I don't actually know) the show was planned to be either 13 or 26 episodes from the start and it just wasn't renewed considering how it ties up a lot of things rather neatly (although it's still sad since the pacing was perfect for those last four or six episodes, I couldn't finish the series fast enough!). As for what was produced it's got a lot more heart than I expected, by the end all of the major cast and a lot of the supporting cast has had some development/insight given and Takeshi really is a better leader halfway through the show than he was at the beginning, even with his fluctuations (although I then have a hard time buying how they even got to the top racing group with such dysfunction in the first place). And by the end I got the impression that everyone was really having fun with the dialogue, there was just a liveliness and banter to it that not every show has. It was a fun show, not exactly a sports show and not really a character driven show either but I had fun watching it and I think I probably would have enjoyed it back in high school too.
The Bad: As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of a hard time buying that Takeshi could have ever been the leader of Team Satomi given where he starts and I'm also always torn about characters who yo-yo in character development during a series, realistic portrayal of teenagers or lazy way of reintroducing conflict into the series? Also, this show left a few details unexplained that bothered me, such as if the pilots of the mechs can hear the other teams while racing or not. I assume not but the dialogue made it unclear, heck it's not until the very last episode that it's made explicitly clear that the rest of the team couldn't hear Luca, Amy's co-pilot cat which again I wasn't sure about since the characters seemed to talk and react like they could (actually, they didn't explain that idea immediately either so for the first few episodes I thought Amy was nuts for bringing her cat along and that people were just humoring her). Those could have been problems that came about from the dub presumably having to rewrite the script a bit to match lip flaps or that could have been a problem in both languages. This is a bit of a minor quibble considering this is just a detail, but considering how often the show has races and how much that changes the interactions in them it's a detail that came up to bother me quite often.
The Production Values: This show looks exactly what I expect a show from the mid-aughts to look like, letter-boxed, color scheme slightly muted (I think that shows become at least 5% more colorful with each passing year), completely obvious CGI (which they don't show with traditional animation in the same cut which makes it better), and simply nothing stunning. It all works, although I thin I'm actually more forgiving of CGI at this point than some so when I say it doesn't bother me it still undoubtedly bothers some people. What's really interesting about the show is the English dub cast, it's a mixture of people who never work in anime for the main three and a combination of anime regulars and people who voice American cartoons but again not anime for the supporting cast, it's a really strange mix. Actually, the DVDs I borrowed were a combination of the first box set and four singles for the second half, the set didn't have an option for the Japanese dub and doesn't have the Japanese opener and closer on it (it was only when those appeared in the second half that I realized there was in fact a Japanese dub). I have no idea if all of the singles had the dual audio option and both of the sets didn't or if they only added that on to all of the later episode DVDs but it's certainly odd, especially since you can't tell me there were fears of reverse importation for this show.
So I'm giving this show a 3.5 out of 5 for being fun and possibly worth a rewatch although I know of quite a few shows that used various elements of it better.
IGPX
Summary: In the future a new sport has captured the world's attention, speed skating mechs that go hundreds of miles an hour and compete in three person teams. Each year some of the best teams move up in the division and this year Team Satomi has just moved into the pro league. But as it's members, Takeshi, Liz, Amy and Luca, quickly see for themselves it won't be as easy to become champions and they've got their work cut out for them.
The Good: Let me just say that even though the show was technically canceled from what I've heard it actually ends in a really good place, I suspect (and only suspect, I don't actually know) the show was planned to be either 13 or 26 episodes from the start and it just wasn't renewed considering how it ties up a lot of things rather neatly (although it's still sad since the pacing was perfect for those last four or six episodes, I couldn't finish the series fast enough!). As for what was produced it's got a lot more heart than I expected, by the end all of the major cast and a lot of the supporting cast has had some development/insight given and Takeshi really is a better leader halfway through the show than he was at the beginning, even with his fluctuations (although I then have a hard time buying how they even got to the top racing group with such dysfunction in the first place). And by the end I got the impression that everyone was really having fun with the dialogue, there was just a liveliness and banter to it that not every show has. It was a fun show, not exactly a sports show and not really a character driven show either but I had fun watching it and I think I probably would have enjoyed it back in high school too.
The Bad: As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of a hard time buying that Takeshi could have ever been the leader of Team Satomi given where he starts and I'm also always torn about characters who yo-yo in character development during a series, realistic portrayal of teenagers or lazy way of reintroducing conflict into the series? Also, this show left a few details unexplained that bothered me, such as if the pilots of the mechs can hear the other teams while racing or not. I assume not but the dialogue made it unclear, heck it's not until the very last episode that it's made explicitly clear that the rest of the team couldn't hear Luca, Amy's co-pilot cat which again I wasn't sure about since the characters seemed to talk and react like they could (actually, they didn't explain that idea immediately either so for the first few episodes I thought Amy was nuts for bringing her cat along and that people were just humoring her). Those could have been problems that came about from the dub presumably having to rewrite the script a bit to match lip flaps or that could have been a problem in both languages. This is a bit of a minor quibble considering this is just a detail, but considering how often the show has races and how much that changes the interactions in them it's a detail that came up to bother me quite often.
The Production Values: This show looks exactly what I expect a show from the mid-aughts to look like, letter-boxed, color scheme slightly muted (I think that shows become at least 5% more colorful with each passing year), completely obvious CGI (which they don't show with traditional animation in the same cut which makes it better), and simply nothing stunning. It all works, although I thin I'm actually more forgiving of CGI at this point than some so when I say it doesn't bother me it still undoubtedly bothers some people. What's really interesting about the show is the English dub cast, it's a mixture of people who never work in anime for the main three and a combination of anime regulars and people who voice American cartoons but again not anime for the supporting cast, it's a really strange mix. Actually, the DVDs I borrowed were a combination of the first box set and four singles for the second half, the set didn't have an option for the Japanese dub and doesn't have the Japanese opener and closer on it (it was only when those appeared in the second half that I realized there was in fact a Japanese dub). I have no idea if all of the singles had the dual audio option and both of the sets didn't or if they only added that on to all of the later episode DVDs but it's certainly odd, especially since you can't tell me there were fears of reverse importation for this show.
So I'm giving this show a 3.5 out of 5 for being fun and possibly worth a rewatch although I know of quite a few shows that used various elements of it better.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Anime Review: Chihayafuru 2
After the first Chihayafuru anime series ended I held off a bit on reading the manga since I had a feeling, no real reason but a feeling, that if we were going to get a second anime series that it would happen soon and I didn't want to spoil it if that was the case. And I turned out to be right and went in totally blind for this new season, although the fact that the manga still isn't fully translated means that there are less spoilers to try and avoid to start with.
Chihayafuru 2
Summary: Chihaya and the rest of the Misuzawa karuta team are back and another school year has begun which means it's time to recruit new members and to train up everyone for the upcoming high school championships. And this year Chihaya is greedy, she wants the team to win both the team tournament and each of the class tournaments as well, is that even possible with such strong players challenging them at every turn?!
The Good: I was a bit hesitant about the two new characters (actually they're the reason why I thought we might get a second season, they were pictured on the box set of the first season's DVDs) but they actually worked rather well. Tsukuba already liked karuta so it was easy to integrate him and the story went out of their way to build up Sumire and make her into a more likable character (and oddly enough into a bit of an audience surrogate at times), although then the story didn't end up using them as much as I expected for their character development. This is also one of the few sports shows where even the viewers can see how much better the characters have gotten at the game. I feel like it’s sometimes hard to convey that easily through story-telling, in real life the actors obviously just act and special effects may help (like the Doctor from Doctor Who playing soccer a few seasons back and they simply added in the ball later with CGI) and for sports shows, well, it’s hard to animate anything to look perfectly the way it does in real life especially with less than awesome players. But here we can see how the characters remain calmer, how Chihaya is taking more multi-syalbell cards, how the characters begin to move faster, and for once I can really believe that they’ve all improved.
The Bad: In the first season the show had a really fantastic pace, nicely balancing the matches and the character development outside of them but here that pace slowed to a crawl. From what I can tell this is the result of the manga slowing it's pacing, not from the new series composition staff, and having seen where the manga ended and knowing how little there is left beyond it I'm not sure what the staff should have done instead. It would have been great if the individual matches themselves had been sped up so the story could focus on more people. Chihaya and Taichi obviously got a lot of screen time and Arata got much more this season, Nishida and Tsutomu got some time devoted to their feelings but not much, those two, Kana, and the newbies seemed to vanish at times during the Omi Jingui matches and that did make me a bit sad.
The Production Values: I don't know if they started doing this this season or just did it more frequently than in the first season but I loved how they would often have a small line of words, a character's aside or inner thoughts, alongside them, unvoiced in a lot of scenes. It reminded me a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood actually and the trouble that series had in adapting the humor and snarking that often came in the middle of serious scenes that worked perfectly well in print but not so well in anime. Here it worked well, breaking the tension or providing a tiny insight but without completely breaking the flow or the mood of the scene. Aside from that, I liked the new additions to the soundtrack (need to track that down soon actually) and again I adore that soundtrack, it knows how to use it's uplifting, dramatic, and inspirational tracks so well that I find it impossible to not get excited whenever it plays. I did feel like the art looked a little cheaper this time around though, I know it's common practice on the internet to take screenshots of far off background characters, blow them up, and laugh at how silly and crappily drawn then look but some of the foreground characters here looked a bit off as well which was more than a bit frustrating.
I'm still frustrated by that slow pacing but in the end this season covered just as much as the previous one did, another 45-ish chapters which means the story ended at chapter 92 or 93 out of about 119 chapters. Clearly this means it'll be a long time before we get more anime, if ever, so once those manga scanlations get up to date (yup, still not there even with two teams working from different places!) I'll probably start following it. In the meantime however I give this season a 3 out of 5 and even with these problems I'm still crossing my fingers for an American home release (if not, well, there's always Australia to import from!).
Chihayafuru 2
Summary: Chihaya and the rest of the Misuzawa karuta team are back and another school year has begun which means it's time to recruit new members and to train up everyone for the upcoming high school championships. And this year Chihaya is greedy, she wants the team to win both the team tournament and each of the class tournaments as well, is that even possible with such strong players challenging them at every turn?!
The Good: I was a bit hesitant about the two new characters (actually they're the reason why I thought we might get a second season, they were pictured on the box set of the first season's DVDs) but they actually worked rather well. Tsukuba already liked karuta so it was easy to integrate him and the story went out of their way to build up Sumire and make her into a more likable character (and oddly enough into a bit of an audience surrogate at times), although then the story didn't end up using them as much as I expected for their character development. This is also one of the few sports shows where even the viewers can see how much better the characters have gotten at the game. I feel like it’s sometimes hard to convey that easily through story-telling, in real life the actors obviously just act and special effects may help (like the Doctor from Doctor Who playing soccer a few seasons back and they simply added in the ball later with CGI) and for sports shows, well, it’s hard to animate anything to look perfectly the way it does in real life especially with less than awesome players. But here we can see how the characters remain calmer, how Chihaya is taking more multi-syalbell cards, how the characters begin to move faster, and for once I can really believe that they’ve all improved.
The Bad: In the first season the show had a really fantastic pace, nicely balancing the matches and the character development outside of them but here that pace slowed to a crawl. From what I can tell this is the result of the manga slowing it's pacing, not from the new series composition staff, and having seen where the manga ended and knowing how little there is left beyond it I'm not sure what the staff should have done instead. It would have been great if the individual matches themselves had been sped up so the story could focus on more people. Chihaya and Taichi obviously got a lot of screen time and Arata got much more this season, Nishida and Tsutomu got some time devoted to their feelings but not much, those two, Kana, and the newbies seemed to vanish at times during the Omi Jingui matches and that did make me a bit sad.
The Production Values: I don't know if they started doing this this season or just did it more frequently than in the first season but I loved how they would often have a small line of words, a character's aside or inner thoughts, alongside them, unvoiced in a lot of scenes. It reminded me a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood actually and the trouble that series had in adapting the humor and snarking that often came in the middle of serious scenes that worked perfectly well in print but not so well in anime. Here it worked well, breaking the tension or providing a tiny insight but without completely breaking the flow or the mood of the scene. Aside from that, I liked the new additions to the soundtrack (need to track that down soon actually) and again I adore that soundtrack, it knows how to use it's uplifting, dramatic, and inspirational tracks so well that I find it impossible to not get excited whenever it plays. I did feel like the art looked a little cheaper this time around though, I know it's common practice on the internet to take screenshots of far off background characters, blow them up, and laugh at how silly and crappily drawn then look but some of the foreground characters here looked a bit off as well which was more than a bit frustrating.
I'm still frustrated by that slow pacing but in the end this season covered just as much as the previous one did, another 45-ish chapters which means the story ended at chapter 92 or 93 out of about 119 chapters. Clearly this means it'll be a long time before we get more anime, if ever, so once those manga scanlations get up to date (yup, still not there even with two teams working from different places!) I'll probably start following it. In the meantime however I give this season a 3 out of 5 and even with these problems I'm still crossing my fingers for an American home release (if not, well, there's always Australia to import from!).
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Summer 2013 Anime Round-Up
First things first, Gatchaman Crowds doesn't air until tomorrow so I'll be updating this post for that tomorrow, heck I would have had this up earlier except apparently crunchyroll doesn't let you use multiple guest passes in a one week period which threw a wrench into my plans. Second, normally I talk about the shows that carried over for me from last season but I actually wrote a rather rambly write-up of the spring season over on my tumblr which covered those shows. TL;DR, still following Space Bros and Doki Doki Precure but other than that I'm starting with a clean slate, let's get started then! oh one more thing, each of these impression is made after seeing just one episode of the show, some of these shows do have a second episode out by now but I just didn't have time to get to them.
Blood Lad
Vampire boy is obsessed with Japanese stuff.
This is an aggressively shonen show from the way the visuals are designed (lots of sound effects on screen, word bubbles at times, things you usually see only in either a 4-koma or shonen based adaptation, I'm trying to figure out why Brains Base has pushed this show back by an entire year since it certainly wasn't because of the art!) to the humor (look at this girl! she has boobs! and not much else on!). Heck even the character designs are a bit more shonen-y than usual now that I think about it and it's been so long since I've watched a show like this I had forgotten, this isn't really my type of show (and yes, this is technically based off of a senien manga, knowing that doesn't make it feel any less shonen plus sometimes you do get weird overlaps with those categories). I'm going to give it a couple more episodes to see if I warm up to it, the entire Manga Bookshelf seems to really like the manga and their tastes often line up with mine and it's certainly a a different take on vampires (but let's face it, by now almost every story with vampires is "a different take!") but at this point I don't see myself following it's entire 10 episode run.
Blood Lad has been licensed by Viz Media and is streaming on their site and on hulu so Canadian viewers are sadly out of luck this time.
Danganronpa the Animation
Super highschoolers trapped in murderous school.
Initially I thought "oh I'll give this a shot since I'd rather watch this than read the summaries/translations and don't have a PSP to download the game/patch (plus, these games never get licensed in the US)" and then NISA licensed the game (and someone else got Steins;Gate in the same day which had previously been my basis for "these games that super popular anime are based on don't get licensed"). Well then, don't have much reason to check out the show then (even if I don't have a PSP Vita to play the actual game on) and I'm a bit relieved, this just didn't flow well for me. It's odd but I dislike books and tv shows with this kind of setting, murder-mystery with the player character having warped morals by the end, but I do like games with it (I adored 9 hours 9 persons 9 doors which is a bit similar, I joked to friends that the setting and some of the characters kept giving me flashbacks). There it's fun to play as an asshole-ish character and see how much you can screw everything up, it's less fun to watch other people do it (although I know that mountains of Let's Play videos out there contradict me on this point). So with all of that in mind, I wasn't able to take anything seriously enough to enjoy it, and you're clearly not supposed to take a lot of this story seriously to start with, and hopefully someday I'll be able to give the game a try and enjoy it much more.
Danganronpa the Animation has been licensed for streaming by Funimation but the first episode won't be up until this Friday the 12th.
Eccentric Family (Uchoten Kazoku)
Humans, Tanuki, and Tengu live in Kyoto.
Based on a novel written by the same man who wrote the original The Tatami Galaxy novel this first episode didn't grab me as much as it seemed to grab some other people which was actually what I expected, Tatami didn't grab me until I tried watching it again about two years later after all. Although I suspect it won't take me nearly as long to get around to the second episode, while this first episode might not have grabbed me and taken me for a ride like other shows have done it was still interesting enough to make me curious about the rest of it. This was an introductory episode, we see a lot of the main cast, get a sense of the different factions in Kyoto, possible conflicts and mysteries are mentioned but nothing super exciting has happened yet, it's all set-up. But I am curious what this show is setting up and I like Kyoto quite a bit so I'm not going to turn down a chance to see it as a setting. So, unless the next few episodes are deadly boring I'm going to stick with this one and see just what it develops into.
Eccentric Family is streaming on crunchyroll.
Gatchaman Crowds
Super-powered humans fight rubix cube aliens.
While it didn't start out that way this ended up being my most anticipated summer show and it's not perfect but so far it's pretty fun. Well, fun if you consider being on a rainbow colored roller coaster for 30 minute fun (although strangely enough the episode was just 22 minutes long, not 25) and it's already clear that this series is a shorter one since the pacing is frenzied and feels even faster with how bouncy lead character Hajime is. I really do hope the next few episodes slow down a bit since there was a lot to take in here, it's the complete opposite of tsuritama (which shares a good chunk of it's important staff) and I can easily see how the fast pace and Hajime are putting people off, although it seems to have no connection to the original Gatchaman so newcomers like myself don't have that to worry about. Regardless, I'm in this one for the long run since I'm just in the mood for a super-colorful, fighting aliens show with a female lead, fingers crossed that it ends well!
Crowds is streaming on crunchyroll and currently unlicensed, however considering that Sentai recently licensed the original series many suspect they'll license this series as well.
Kinmoza! (Kin-iro Mozaic)
Cute girls have intercontinental friendship
Not initially on my to watch list but after hearing so many people call it adorable I had to check it out and yep, that was a pretty adorable show. I liked it so far, this first episode is a flashback to how the main characters (a Japanese girl and a British one) met and became friends (in a rather romanticized Great Britain) and yep, not much happened but it was adorable none the less. I want to give the second episode a try but I have to ask, what is it going to do now? Are these girls with their friends going to form a club about Great Britain things? (since forming a club is all the rage now in anime-schools) Just do slice of life daily cute things with some culture shock? I'm okay with either of them but would like to know what they're going to do since I am worried about getting bored quickly, this isn't my normal type of show for a reason after all.
Kinmoza! has been licensed by Sentai and is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
Boys strip and swim.
I almost feel like this series needs no introduction considering how much the PV for it was being bandied about across the internet with various cries of "YES!" and "OMG IT'S OBJECTIFYING US [men]!" being thrown around. So to make things clear, no this anime was NOT made because tumblr wanted it (guys just look at it, you think that you can animate something with that much detail in the amount of time that passed between tumblr flipping out and the premiere? Hell no) and it doesn't really objectify men either, Zac of ANN articulates quite well why not so I'm just going to link to his review (it was his first so scroll of the bottom if you don't see it immediately). So, my thoughts? Well, fanservice in general isn't my thing (neither is swimming, I like the gymnastics part of the summer olympics much better) but I'm glad that they made the show so campy since that made it pretty fun to watch regardless. I doubt I'll continue it since there's so much else out there I want to watch right now but if I want to watch a mindless, well-animated show with a sense of humor then this one is at the top of my list.
Free! has not been licensed yet however it is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist
William doesn't believe in demons, oh-well.
So a few months back when this anime was announced I went off, read the manga, and started worrying. I've seen a lot of people compare this one to Black Butler and Pandora Hearts for thematic reasons (they both have the Victorian England inspired setting with gothic elements) but structurally they're the similar as well, they're all shows whose manga took a heck of a time to get to the meat of the plot (I gave up on Black Butler before finding out if it ever got there actually). So, judging from what I know, the pacing of this episode, and what was shown in the OP and ED (which by the way has a heck of a spoiler for one of the characters) this one is probably going to have a fast pace and either an original ending or an inconclusive one (which I think is more likely) since I can't really think of a place to end it as the manga currently stands AND the story is bland enough that I doubt it's going to sell well enough for a sequel. Which is rather sad since I tried out since I liked the premise, demons trying to become the new king of hell by bothering a British kid, and while the manga did grow on me it really wasn't because the characters or the plot turned out to be super interesting, the style just got a bit better and I liked the eye-candy. At this point I'm willing to give the show another episode or two for the eye candy reason (even though I'm not that happy with some of the voices in here, it's been a while since the voices have been the complete opposite of what I've imagined), the character designs really do look great in full color I'm most likely going to end up dropping it by the end of July.
Devils and Realist is unlicensed but streaming on crunchyroll. Seven Seas manga also picked up the manga recently and plans to release the first volume in early 2014.
Servant x Service
Civil workers work.
Hmm, this series didn't grab me as much as I had hoped a series about working adults would which makes me a little sad. Of course, one of the most common comments I've seen on this show is "Working!! but less zany" so perhaps that's what I should be watching instead, heck I have much more experience with weird food-industry work than weird office/government work (the libraries I've worked at have been fairly tame comparatively speaking). In any case, this looks to be a straight-forward, slice of life (in the really literal sense) story of a few different civil workers and for the moment I'm going to give it a few more episodes to see if the characters click with me but I feel that if the characters don't click with me then there's going to be no point in watching the show.
Servant x Service is streaming on crunchyroll and unlicensed.
Silver Spoon (Gin no Saji)
Boy enrolls in agricultural school, hijinks.
The lone noitaminA show of the season (since now it's AnoHana's time to do reruns) and a bit more anticipated than most noitaminA shows since it's based off of a manga by the creator of FullMetal Alchemist. I read a bit of the manga a few years back and while it wasn't bad I just wasn't really grabbed by it either which was the same reaction I had here. We've only had one episode to meet the characters and see the setting so not much has actually happened, although the egg gag got old really fast (guys, I'm a girl, I know EXACTLY where eggs come from), although that did end in some really excellently animated food which really makes me wish there was a food anime with that kind of animation out there. However, since it's not bad by a long shot, noitaminA, and could certainly get more interesting once the characters start developing and such I plan on following this one for the long run (literally, it's split cour so 11 episodes now and another 11 next January) and I'm really hoping that the show ends up growing on me (it is set at a farming school after all....).
Silver Spoon remains unlicensed but it is streaming on crunchyroll.
Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3
Cute girls form war games club.
Wow I have seen mixed reactions on it, I honestly tried out the show because I at first saw some people saying it was fun and then others saying that, as a result of the gun culture in the US, it made them uncomfortable and I wanted to form an opinion on my own. And I have to say, even though I'm not a big fan of guns I can easily see the appeal of running around shooting each other with fake guns (probably because a lot of my friends in high school did just that) but this show still came off as a bit odd. It's trying too hard to emphasize the juxtaposition of "they're cute girls! And they like imitating Rambo movies!", honestly it wouldn't have felt as weird if it hadn't done that. Which puts me in an odd position of being interested in watching another episode but probably not sticking with the show for the long run, this is just turning out to be an odd season for me.
C3 has been licensed by Sentai and is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Watamote
High school girl has delusions of popularity
Yet another show that wasn't initially on my to-watch list but decided to give it a shot after seeing a number of other people mention it. And, ehhhhh, I don't think I'll be continuing with it after all. As many other people have commented, so far this is a dark comedy with only one joke, oh look how Tomoke has no friends/no social skills/doesn't even know it! Sure I've seen people like that in my years of high school and college, although usually the painfully socially awkward nerds I saw instead of not talking at all had no idea when was a good time to talk or that they weren't actually funny (and most started getting better at it after a few years!) and I was never like that, so I'm not getting that much kick out of the "oh ha-ha, it's like someone you know!" humor which I think I should be feeling just a bit. However I did think it got one point especially spot on, when Tomoke is mocking all the girls in her class who hang out with guys and look cute, calling them bimbos and sluts, and yet you get the feeling that she really wants that in her own life. That I think a lot of people of all genders go through, I know that on some parts of the internet there's a lot of "oh I'm better than other girls because I am/do_____ instead!" (my first thought actually was of this meme but apparently this was actually a parody of the situation, still gets across what I meant however) which also feeds into a lot of other assumptions about what's feminine, what's not, stereotypes (both as a result of media and as a reaction to said media) and all kinds of nasty stuff. I have no doubt that giving Tomoke that viewpoint was quite deliberate but that's not enough to keep me interested in what happens next sadly.
Watamote has both it's anime and manga licensed in the US, by Sentai and Yen Press respectively, and the anime is currently streaming on crunchyroll.
Blood Lad
Vampire boy is obsessed with Japanese stuff.
This is an aggressively shonen show from the way the visuals are designed (lots of sound effects on screen, word bubbles at times, things you usually see only in either a 4-koma or shonen based adaptation, I'm trying to figure out why Brains Base has pushed this show back by an entire year since it certainly wasn't because of the art!) to the humor (look at this girl! she has boobs! and not much else on!). Heck even the character designs are a bit more shonen-y than usual now that I think about it and it's been so long since I've watched a show like this I had forgotten, this isn't really my type of show (and yes, this is technically based off of a senien manga, knowing that doesn't make it feel any less shonen plus sometimes you do get weird overlaps with those categories). I'm going to give it a couple more episodes to see if I warm up to it, the entire Manga Bookshelf seems to really like the manga and their tastes often line up with mine and it's certainly a a different take on vampires (but let's face it, by now almost every story with vampires is "a different take!") but at this point I don't see myself following it's entire 10 episode run.
Blood Lad has been licensed by Viz Media and is streaming on their site and on hulu so Canadian viewers are sadly out of luck this time.
Danganronpa the Animation
Super highschoolers trapped in murderous school.
Initially I thought "oh I'll give this a shot since I'd rather watch this than read the summaries/translations and don't have a PSP to download the game/patch (plus, these games never get licensed in the US)" and then NISA licensed the game (and someone else got Steins;Gate in the same day which had previously been my basis for "these games that super popular anime are based on don't get licensed"). Well then, don't have much reason to check out the show then (even if I don't have a PSP Vita to play the actual game on) and I'm a bit relieved, this just didn't flow well for me. It's odd but I dislike books and tv shows with this kind of setting, murder-mystery with the player character having warped morals by the end, but I do like games with it (I adored 9 hours 9 persons 9 doors which is a bit similar, I joked to friends that the setting and some of the characters kept giving me flashbacks). There it's fun to play as an asshole-ish character and see how much you can screw everything up, it's less fun to watch other people do it (although I know that mountains of Let's Play videos out there contradict me on this point). So with all of that in mind, I wasn't able to take anything seriously enough to enjoy it, and you're clearly not supposed to take a lot of this story seriously to start with, and hopefully someday I'll be able to give the game a try and enjoy it much more.
Danganronpa the Animation has been licensed for streaming by Funimation but the first episode won't be up until this Friday the 12th.
Eccentric Family (Uchoten Kazoku)
Humans, Tanuki, and Tengu live in Kyoto.
Based on a novel written by the same man who wrote the original The Tatami Galaxy novel this first episode didn't grab me as much as it seemed to grab some other people which was actually what I expected, Tatami didn't grab me until I tried watching it again about two years later after all. Although I suspect it won't take me nearly as long to get around to the second episode, while this first episode might not have grabbed me and taken me for a ride like other shows have done it was still interesting enough to make me curious about the rest of it. This was an introductory episode, we see a lot of the main cast, get a sense of the different factions in Kyoto, possible conflicts and mysteries are mentioned but nothing super exciting has happened yet, it's all set-up. But I am curious what this show is setting up and I like Kyoto quite a bit so I'm not going to turn down a chance to see it as a setting. So, unless the next few episodes are deadly boring I'm going to stick with this one and see just what it develops into.
Eccentric Family is streaming on crunchyroll.
Gatchaman Crowds
Super-powered humans fight rubix cube aliens.
While it didn't start out that way this ended up being my most anticipated summer show and it's not perfect but so far it's pretty fun. Well, fun if you consider being on a rainbow colored roller coaster for 30 minute fun (although strangely enough the episode was just 22 minutes long, not 25) and it's already clear that this series is a shorter one since the pacing is frenzied and feels even faster with how bouncy lead character Hajime is. I really do hope the next few episodes slow down a bit since there was a lot to take in here, it's the complete opposite of tsuritama (which shares a good chunk of it's important staff) and I can easily see how the fast pace and Hajime are putting people off, although it seems to have no connection to the original Gatchaman so newcomers like myself don't have that to worry about. Regardless, I'm in this one for the long run since I'm just in the mood for a super-colorful, fighting aliens show with a female lead, fingers crossed that it ends well!
Crowds is streaming on crunchyroll and currently unlicensed, however considering that Sentai recently licensed the original series many suspect they'll license this series as well.
Kinmoza! (Kin-iro Mozaic)
Cute girls have intercontinental friendship
Not initially on my to watch list but after hearing so many people call it adorable I had to check it out and yep, that was a pretty adorable show. I liked it so far, this first episode is a flashback to how the main characters (a Japanese girl and a British one) met and became friends (in a rather romanticized Great Britain) and yep, not much happened but it was adorable none the less. I want to give the second episode a try but I have to ask, what is it going to do now? Are these girls with their friends going to form a club about Great Britain things? (since forming a club is all the rage now in anime-schools) Just do slice of life daily cute things with some culture shock? I'm okay with either of them but would like to know what they're going to do since I am worried about getting bored quickly, this isn't my normal type of show for a reason after all.
Kinmoza! has been licensed by Sentai and is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Free! Iwatobi Swim Club
Boys strip and swim.
I almost feel like this series needs no introduction considering how much the PV for it was being bandied about across the internet with various cries of "YES!" and "OMG IT'S OBJECTIFYING US [men]!" being thrown around. So to make things clear, no this anime was NOT made because tumblr wanted it (guys just look at it, you think that you can animate something with that much detail in the amount of time that passed between tumblr flipping out and the premiere? Hell no) and it doesn't really objectify men either, Zac of ANN articulates quite well why not so I'm just going to link to his review (it was his first so scroll of the bottom if you don't see it immediately). So, my thoughts? Well, fanservice in general isn't my thing (neither is swimming, I like the gymnastics part of the summer olympics much better) but I'm glad that they made the show so campy since that made it pretty fun to watch regardless. I doubt I'll continue it since there's so much else out there I want to watch right now but if I want to watch a mindless, well-animated show with a sense of humor then this one is at the top of my list.
Free! has not been licensed yet however it is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Makai Ouji: Devils and Realist
William doesn't believe in demons, oh-well.
So a few months back when this anime was announced I went off, read the manga, and started worrying. I've seen a lot of people compare this one to Black Butler and Pandora Hearts for thematic reasons (they both have the Victorian England inspired setting with gothic elements) but structurally they're the similar as well, they're all shows whose manga took a heck of a time to get to the meat of the plot (I gave up on Black Butler before finding out if it ever got there actually). So, judging from what I know, the pacing of this episode, and what was shown in the OP and ED (which by the way has a heck of a spoiler for one of the characters) this one is probably going to have a fast pace and either an original ending or an inconclusive one (which I think is more likely) since I can't really think of a place to end it as the manga currently stands AND the story is bland enough that I doubt it's going to sell well enough for a sequel. Which is rather sad since I tried out since I liked the premise, demons trying to become the new king of hell by bothering a British kid, and while the manga did grow on me it really wasn't because the characters or the plot turned out to be super interesting, the style just got a bit better and I liked the eye-candy. At this point I'm willing to give the show another episode or two for the eye candy reason (even though I'm not that happy with some of the voices in here, it's been a while since the voices have been the complete opposite of what I've imagined), the character designs really do look great in full color I'm most likely going to end up dropping it by the end of July.
Devils and Realist is unlicensed but streaming on crunchyroll. Seven Seas manga also picked up the manga recently and plans to release the first volume in early 2014.
Servant x Service
Civil workers work.
Hmm, this series didn't grab me as much as I had hoped a series about working adults would which makes me a little sad. Of course, one of the most common comments I've seen on this show is "Working!! but less zany" so perhaps that's what I should be watching instead, heck I have much more experience with weird food-industry work than weird office/government work (the libraries I've worked at have been fairly tame comparatively speaking). In any case, this looks to be a straight-forward, slice of life (in the really literal sense) story of a few different civil workers and for the moment I'm going to give it a few more episodes to see if the characters click with me but I feel that if the characters don't click with me then there's going to be no point in watching the show.
Servant x Service is streaming on crunchyroll and unlicensed.
Silver Spoon (Gin no Saji)
Boy enrolls in agricultural school, hijinks.
The lone noitaminA show of the season (since now it's AnoHana's time to do reruns) and a bit more anticipated than most noitaminA shows since it's based off of a manga by the creator of FullMetal Alchemist. I read a bit of the manga a few years back and while it wasn't bad I just wasn't really grabbed by it either which was the same reaction I had here. We've only had one episode to meet the characters and see the setting so not much has actually happened, although the egg gag got old really fast (guys, I'm a girl, I know EXACTLY where eggs come from), although that did end in some really excellently animated food which really makes me wish there was a food anime with that kind of animation out there. However, since it's not bad by a long shot, noitaminA, and could certainly get more interesting once the characters start developing and such I plan on following this one for the long run (literally, it's split cour so 11 episodes now and another 11 next January) and I'm really hoping that the show ends up growing on me (it is set at a farming school after all....).
Silver Spoon remains unlicensed but it is streaming on crunchyroll.
Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C3
Cute girls form war games club.
Wow I have seen mixed reactions on it, I honestly tried out the show because I at first saw some people saying it was fun and then others saying that, as a result of the gun culture in the US, it made them uncomfortable and I wanted to form an opinion on my own. And I have to say, even though I'm not a big fan of guns I can easily see the appeal of running around shooting each other with fake guns (probably because a lot of my friends in high school did just that) but this show still came off as a bit odd. It's trying too hard to emphasize the juxtaposition of "they're cute girls! And they like imitating Rambo movies!", honestly it wouldn't have felt as weird if it hadn't done that. Which puts me in an odd position of being interested in watching another episode but probably not sticking with the show for the long run, this is just turning out to be an odd season for me.
C3 has been licensed by Sentai and is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Watamote
High school girl has delusions of popularity
Yet another show that wasn't initially on my to-watch list but decided to give it a shot after seeing a number of other people mention it. And, ehhhhh, I don't think I'll be continuing with it after all. As many other people have commented, so far this is a dark comedy with only one joke, oh look how Tomoke has no friends/no social skills/doesn't even know it! Sure I've seen people like that in my years of high school and college, although usually the painfully socially awkward nerds I saw instead of not talking at all had no idea when was a good time to talk or that they weren't actually funny (and most started getting better at it after a few years!) and I was never like that, so I'm not getting that much kick out of the "oh ha-ha, it's like someone you know!" humor which I think I should be feeling just a bit. However I did think it got one point especially spot on, when Tomoke is mocking all the girls in her class who hang out with guys and look cute, calling them bimbos and sluts, and yet you get the feeling that she really wants that in her own life. That I think a lot of people of all genders go through, I know that on some parts of the internet there's a lot of "oh I'm better than other girls because I am/do_____ instead!" (my first thought actually was of this meme but apparently this was actually a parody of the situation, still gets across what I meant however) which also feeds into a lot of other assumptions about what's feminine, what's not, stereotypes (both as a result of media and as a reaction to said media) and all kinds of nasty stuff. I have no doubt that giving Tomoke that viewpoint was quite deliberate but that's not enough to keep me interested in what happens next sadly.
Watamote has both it's anime and manga licensed in the US, by Sentai and Yen Press respectively, and the anime is currently streaming on crunchyroll.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Anime Review: Chihayafuru
Again, apologies that my updates got a bit thrown off here, exam week is always a rather strange week (funny enough due to the way mine ended up being scheduled I actually have slightly more time than normal to watch anime). I feel especially bad for slighting what was one of the best anime to come out of last year, Chihayafuru, although it feels ironically appropriate since I wasn't even interested in it at first. It was only when some people mentioned it was a josei title, and by this point I had figured out that neither of the noitaminA titles were josei (which is normally what dominates the timeslot), so I figured that if this was the one title that season aimed directly at me, an 18-40 year old female, I had better well check it out. And boy am I glad, I've seen some people complain that this show has been over-hyped and all I can say there that this review is entirely my own views on the show and, even if I hadn't found a number of other people who also eagerly awaited Chihayafuru Tuesday/Taichi Tuesday, I still would have fallen in love with this show.
Chihayafuru
Summary: As a kid Chihaya was introduced to the card game karuta (a game where players memorize one hundred poems and then try to match phrases read out loud by a reader with playing cards on the field) by her classmate Arata and even after he moved she spent years playing and slowly moving up the ranks to achieve her goal of becoming the Queen (the highest ranked female karuta player in Japan). So when she gets to high school it's natural that she wants to start her own karuta club and tries to recruit her other childhood friend Taichi to be her first member. But it takes more than two people to become a club and despite it's lack of popularity the other competitors are fierce, will Chihaya ever get closer to her dream?
The Good: The story starts in the current day before engaging in a multi-episode flashback to Chihaya, Arata, and Taichi as kids and I was honestly worried that the story wouldn't be nearly as interesting once the story go back to the current day. Thankfully this wasn't the case and, while I was correct that some of Chihaya's traits weren't quite as adorable once she got older, all of the cast developed over the course of the story so much that this wasn't a real problem. I was also impressed that the other club members, who while important characters weren't The Main Characters, also got some development as the story went on. At first this sounds like a no-brainer, like all over sports anime Chihayafuru is heavily character-driven but this story is so much Chihaya/Taichi/to some extent Arata's story that I was surprised the story devoted as much time as it did to the other character's dreams and struggles with karuta. I was also surprised that the story found a good place to end and where exactly it ended. I wasn't completely thrilled with the minor cliffhanger it had but the events right before it were an interesting choice to end the series on yet in a sense summed it up perfectly, that our characters are forever chasing after a hard to achieve dream with gigantic obstacles in it's path yet they aren't going to let that stop them or even get them down along the way.
The Bad: While Taichi receives some character development early on it takes an annoyingly long time for Chihaya to realize that some of her traits are grating on others and to figure out what her weakness in karuta is and how to improve on it. I suspect the manga will be a long-running title and therefore paced like a long-running story (ie, you're not going to have your characters develop in the first five chapters if the story is going to be around for 100+, you hit a point where you can't develop them anymore and everything stagnates) but I think that Chihaya could have started developing a bit earlier and then just gone more slowly than it played out here. I also wonder how much longer the "love-triangle" will be dragged out, since, well, to keep spoilers to a minimum one character believes there is a love triangle, something the other two aren't aware of, and that's the only reason they haven't done anything which has just dragged on a bit too well. This too is a carry over from the original manga (and probably has a similar reason to Chihaya's character development) and, while it was nice to see a love-triangle play out a bit differently than normal I'd much rather have it done with and let the characters move on.
The Audio: Sporting lovely opening and closing songs (the closing song is one of my favorite closing songs from last year) I've heard some people remark that the background themes sounded a bit Disney-ish (I asked some friends unfamiliar with the show to listen and they agreed with that statement as well) which might sound like it would be out of place for an anime but they actually worked very well. The show overall is a very upbeat, hopeful one and all of the club members triumphs wouldn't have felt nearly as satisfying without the music backing them up.
The Visuals: Produced by Studio Madhouse Chihayarfuru looks very nice overall. I have seen some people complain over the CGI used in some of the card tournaments but, even though I myself could see that CGI was being used for some of the shots, never found it distracting and thought that those shots did add to the tension in those scenes and therefore served their purpose well. Nothing else about the art in Chihayafuru was different enough from the norm for me to comment on and all in all it was a lovely show to look at.
As mentioned earlier, the anime is based off of a currently running manga, neither of which have been licensed in the US (pst, NIS America, this is TOTALLY your kind of show!). However, there are a couple of bilingual editions of the manga avaliable in Japan which I plan to order sometime (the shipping prices and time has been what has kept me from doing it so far, geeze people, it's only coming from another continent, not the moon!). In the meantime the show can be streaming on Crunchyroll and I highly recommend everyone give it a shot sometime.
Chihayafuru
Summary: As a kid Chihaya was introduced to the card game karuta (a game where players memorize one hundred poems and then try to match phrases read out loud by a reader with playing cards on the field) by her classmate Arata and even after he moved she spent years playing and slowly moving up the ranks to achieve her goal of becoming the Queen (the highest ranked female karuta player in Japan). So when she gets to high school it's natural that she wants to start her own karuta club and tries to recruit her other childhood friend Taichi to be her first member. But it takes more than two people to become a club and despite it's lack of popularity the other competitors are fierce, will Chihaya ever get closer to her dream?
The Good: The story starts in the current day before engaging in a multi-episode flashback to Chihaya, Arata, and Taichi as kids and I was honestly worried that the story wouldn't be nearly as interesting once the story go back to the current day. Thankfully this wasn't the case and, while I was correct that some of Chihaya's traits weren't quite as adorable once she got older, all of the cast developed over the course of the story so much that this wasn't a real problem. I was also impressed that the other club members, who while important characters weren't The Main Characters, also got some development as the story went on. At first this sounds like a no-brainer, like all over sports anime Chihayafuru is heavily character-driven but this story is so much Chihaya/Taichi/to some extent Arata's story that I was surprised the story devoted as much time as it did to the other character's dreams and struggles with karuta. I was also surprised that the story found a good place to end and where exactly it ended. I wasn't completely thrilled with the minor cliffhanger it had but the events right before it were an interesting choice to end the series on yet in a sense summed it up perfectly, that our characters are forever chasing after a hard to achieve dream with gigantic obstacles in it's path yet they aren't going to let that stop them or even get them down along the way.
The Bad: While Taichi receives some character development early on it takes an annoyingly long time for Chihaya to realize that some of her traits are grating on others and to figure out what her weakness in karuta is and how to improve on it. I suspect the manga will be a long-running title and therefore paced like a long-running story (ie, you're not going to have your characters develop in the first five chapters if the story is going to be around for 100+, you hit a point where you can't develop them anymore and everything stagnates) but I think that Chihaya could have started developing a bit earlier and then just gone more slowly than it played out here. I also wonder how much longer the "love-triangle" will be dragged out, since, well, to keep spoilers to a minimum one character believes there is a love triangle, something the other two aren't aware of, and that's the only reason they haven't done anything which has just dragged on a bit too well. This too is a carry over from the original manga (and probably has a similar reason to Chihaya's character development) and, while it was nice to see a love-triangle play out a bit differently than normal I'd much rather have it done with and let the characters move on.
The Audio: Sporting lovely opening and closing songs (the closing song is one of my favorite closing songs from last year) I've heard some people remark that the background themes sounded a bit Disney-ish (I asked some friends unfamiliar with the show to listen and they agreed with that statement as well) which might sound like it would be out of place for an anime but they actually worked very well. The show overall is a very upbeat, hopeful one and all of the club members triumphs wouldn't have felt nearly as satisfying without the music backing them up.
The Visuals: Produced by Studio Madhouse Chihayarfuru looks very nice overall. I have seen some people complain over the CGI used in some of the card tournaments but, even though I myself could see that CGI was being used for some of the shots, never found it distracting and thought that those shots did add to the tension in those scenes and therefore served their purpose well. Nothing else about the art in Chihayafuru was different enough from the norm for me to comment on and all in all it was a lovely show to look at.
As mentioned earlier, the anime is based off of a currently running manga, neither of which have been licensed in the US (pst, NIS America, this is TOTALLY your kind of show!). However, there are a couple of bilingual editions of the manga avaliable in Japan which I plan to order sometime (the shipping prices and time has been what has kept me from doing it so far, geeze people, it's only coming from another continent, not the moon!). In the meantime the show can be streaming on Crunchyroll and I highly recommend everyone give it a shot sometime.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Manga Review: Cross Game (Omnibus volume 1)
I never saw the anime version of Cross Game, it simply never caught my interest, but I have heard all of the heaps and heaps of praise that people gave it. I've also seen several people, who I don't believe have seen the anime, praise the manga quite a bit so when I came across the first volume at the local library there wasn't any reason not to check it out. Viz has made the (wise IMO) choice to publish this series in a set of omnibus editions that each combine three volumes from the original Japanese release so it's a hefty book but I feel like it gave me a really good feeling for the series.
Cross Game by Mitsuru Adachi
Summary: Fifth-grader Ko Kitamura is more of a salesman than a baseball player but he enjoys hitting a few balls at the batting range owned by Tsukihima family. Of course he could be going over there to see his classmate and sorta-kinda girlfriend Wakaba, it's certainly what her sister Aoba suspects, but for the moment he's just taking life easy. Fast-forward four years and Ko still isn't really a baseball player but he finds himself playing the game more and more, and getting better and better than his peers, and finds the game becoming a bigger and bigger part of his life.
The Good: For fans of the slice of life or sports genres Cross Game is something you should really check out, either the manga or the anime, since it works really well for both of those. While it's more than a tad unbelievable how good at baseball some of the characters are, given that they're all under 18, it's done well enough that it's not going to really bother anyone. The story is already spending a lot of time developing it's characters so it's clear that it's setting up for a long haul so again, most slice of life or sports fans are going to see a lot of things they really like about the genres in here done well and will enjoy it.
The Bad: This is a slow series and, as someone who generally enjoys a slow series, this was almost too slow for me. A lot of anime viewers will say "AND THEN THE END OF THE FIRST EPISODE HAPPENS!" but here the manga readers have to say "AND THEN THERE'S THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME," there is actually little enough plot-wise going on that nine or 10 short chapters were able to be adapted into one anime episode. Other than that, after the time-skip the characters are starting to enter high school and the characters suddenly start having deep discussions about baseball and how unfair it is that the secondary team are treated more as staff than players. They think and speak more like old men than 15/16 year olds and I found that really jarring, enough that it kept taking me out of the story and the characters ceased to feel real.
The Art: The story takes care to introduce every character which is a good thing, while the characters look kinda distinctive from each other they looked close enough that I had trouble telling a lot of the side characters apart. Also, there's a four year time skip yet the characters don't seem to age at all, I was surprised to find out that the characters are supposed to be in the ninth/tenth grades, they still look like they're 11. The designs are consistent however and the backgrounds are well drawn so there's no problems with the art, I just normally don't have much trouble telling minor characters apart from each other and had some trouble here.
In the end, I was disappointed by this. It was too slow, the characters felt like fiction characters instead of people and I just couldn't empathize with their problems at all. I'll admit that the "twist" is one I'm exceptionally snarky about so it made me roll my eyes instead of having the normal emotional response and I just don't see myself checking out the next volume. My library does have it if I get the urge but for the moment I think I'll leave it for someone else to check out.
Cross Game by Mitsuru Adachi
Summary: Fifth-grader Ko Kitamura is more of a salesman than a baseball player but he enjoys hitting a few balls at the batting range owned by Tsukihima family. Of course he could be going over there to see his classmate and sorta-kinda girlfriend Wakaba, it's certainly what her sister Aoba suspects, but for the moment he's just taking life easy. Fast-forward four years and Ko still isn't really a baseball player but he finds himself playing the game more and more, and getting better and better than his peers, and finds the game becoming a bigger and bigger part of his life.
The Good: For fans of the slice of life or sports genres Cross Game is something you should really check out, either the manga or the anime, since it works really well for both of those. While it's more than a tad unbelievable how good at baseball some of the characters are, given that they're all under 18, it's done well enough that it's not going to really bother anyone. The story is already spending a lot of time developing it's characters so it's clear that it's setting up for a long haul so again, most slice of life or sports fans are going to see a lot of things they really like about the genres in here done well and will enjoy it.
The Bad: This is a slow series and, as someone who generally enjoys a slow series, this was almost too slow for me. A lot of anime viewers will say "AND THEN THE END OF THE FIRST EPISODE HAPPENS!" but here the manga readers have to say "AND THEN THERE'S THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME," there is actually little enough plot-wise going on that nine or 10 short chapters were able to be adapted into one anime episode. Other than that, after the time-skip the characters are starting to enter high school and the characters suddenly start having deep discussions about baseball and how unfair it is that the secondary team are treated more as staff than players. They think and speak more like old men than 15/16 year olds and I found that really jarring, enough that it kept taking me out of the story and the characters ceased to feel real.
The Art: The story takes care to introduce every character which is a good thing, while the characters look kinda distinctive from each other they looked close enough that I had trouble telling a lot of the side characters apart. Also, there's a four year time skip yet the characters don't seem to age at all, I was surprised to find out that the characters are supposed to be in the ninth/tenth grades, they still look like they're 11. The designs are consistent however and the backgrounds are well drawn so there's no problems with the art, I just normally don't have much trouble telling minor characters apart from each other and had some trouble here.
In the end, I was disappointed by this. It was too slow, the characters felt like fiction characters instead of people and I just couldn't empathize with their problems at all. I'll admit that the "twist" is one I'm exceptionally snarky about so it made me roll my eyes instead of having the normal emotional response and I just don't see myself checking out the next volume. My library does have it if I get the urge but for the moment I think I'll leave it for someone else to check out.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
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.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
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!
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!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Anime Review: Rideback
Earlier in the summer I had caught up with all my simulcast shows but still had a little bit of free time to watch something so I randomly asked one of my friends what I should watch, my options were I think "K-ON but art school or politics with motorcycles", and my friend actually recognized that I was talking about Rideback and told me to go ahead and watch it. I had been meaning to get to the series a little earlier actually (Funimation just released it and I was wondering if I would like it enough to get the LE set, even though that's a bit pricey) and was happy to see that they were still streaming it on their youtube account.
Rideback
Summary: Rin Ogata is a former ballerina who quit after a career ending injury and isn't quite sure what to do with herself as she enters college. But, one runaway motorcycle-mecha ride later, it becomes clear to everyone around her that she has a talent for riding ridebacks, a talent that could get her in trouble with the global military regime who are starting to tighten their grip on Japan.
The Good: The show starts off with an interesting premise, both in terms of setting and in the ridebacks themselves, and it's quick to grab your interest. The series also neatly averts having a complete newbie be a great rideback rider from the start, Rin's dance background gives her the balance and reflexes needed to ride and there is some technobabble later on about ridebacks choosing their riders (which also works surprisingly well in context). The show has a nice sized cast that covers all the various factions (the rideback club at the college, the police, the reporters, the rebels, the government) and manages to flesh out all of the good guys. The reporter and police characters in particular become more and more interesting as the show goes on and the larger plot they're part of starts to eclipse Rin's part in the story.
The Bad: While this story understands just how important the setting is to the shaping of a story, this setting makes no sense. The story takes place in the 2020s, before which the world had been taken over by a terrorist organization and, from what I gathered, they did it by taking over the American government which had already taken over the world. None of that seems particularly logical or doable and it's insane that there haven't been any large scale revolution attempts before this story*. Another big problem that happens later in the story is that Rin becomes less likable than she first was. She actually doesn't have much influence on all the events going on around her, the rebels would have started acting up against the government no matter what, yet she becomes very emo and spends several episodes not sure of what she can do or convinced it's all her fault. It's frustrating to watch one episode like this let alone several, thank goodness the anime focuses on the rest of the cast as well at this time or it would have been even harder to get through.
The Audio: For some odd reason Funimation has left the opening song untranslated even though it's only partially in English, I'm rather curious why they made that decision. The ending song is fully translated but the lyrics don't make much sense in relation to the rest of the story (it seems to be a love song of sorts but Rin is never interested in anyone romantically, unless the song was actually about the Fuego....). Other than that, nothing seemed out of place and the voice acting (the Japanese voices) went well, the visuals on the other hand were more hit or miss.
The Visuals: This is a show from studio Madhouse who are well-known for doing good looking shows (including the recent movie Redline). Not surprisingly all of the ridebacks are done in CGI but the CGI works fairly well with all of the traditionally drawn items. The CGI is far from perfect but anime studios have made a lot of progress in just a few years at making it look better. The characters designs however didn't look as nice. Rin has permanent helmet hair, Shouko's hair simply looks awkward (and there is no way her hair ribbons would have stayed on like that) and none of the characters look attractive in the slightest. The art isn't exactly unattractive, although one or two designs are downright ugly, but aside from the racing or ballet scenes I didn't find this show to be ascetically pleasing which is a bad thing since this is a visual medium.
For me, the show started off really strong and interesting and slowly made me lose interest as it went on, I don't know how many times I ranted about the setting but it was a lot. What frustrates me about the show however is that it could have worked so much better if it was different. If the story was more about the rideback club pushing to make ridebacks street legal while dealing with an increasingly military government (of Japan) and having to win over the general public that these aren't just weapons of war. I saw someone comment on youtube that this show is about America's military occupation of Japan which would make a lot of sense, i just have no idea if that was the original manga-ka's intention or not. I am curious with how this holds up to the original manga, which was 10 volumes long compared to the show's 12 episodes, especially since it seems that the anime started right when the manga was ending. Sadly it appears that the manga has been neither licensed nor scanlated so I haven't been able to compare the two yet, if anyone knows of any detailed summaries for the manga (or scanlatiosn I overlooked) please comment and tell me!
*it doesn't seem like there have been any small-scale attempts either which is even stranger. There appear to be no restrictions on twitter/facebook/social media that is so great for organizing get t0gethers at all (although the original manga was published from 2003-2009 when this was less common) and it's simply a fact that humans in general really don't like being taken over. Heck, some don't like their legitimate governments so I'm supposed to go along with the idea that these people just went along with BOTH take overs? As of writing this, Libya is currently trying to overthrow it's dictator and since the year started there have been attempts in other countries as well (and possibly a successful one in Egypt, time will tell there) so I just could not take this part seriously at all.
Rideback
Summary: Rin Ogata is a former ballerina who quit after a career ending injury and isn't quite sure what to do with herself as she enters college. But, one runaway motorcycle-mecha ride later, it becomes clear to everyone around her that she has a talent for riding ridebacks, a talent that could get her in trouble with the global military regime who are starting to tighten their grip on Japan.
The Good: The show starts off with an interesting premise, both in terms of setting and in the ridebacks themselves, and it's quick to grab your interest. The series also neatly averts having a complete newbie be a great rideback rider from the start, Rin's dance background gives her the balance and reflexes needed to ride and there is some technobabble later on about ridebacks choosing their riders (which also works surprisingly well in context). The show has a nice sized cast that covers all the various factions (the rideback club at the college, the police, the reporters, the rebels, the government) and manages to flesh out all of the good guys. The reporter and police characters in particular become more and more interesting as the show goes on and the larger plot they're part of starts to eclipse Rin's part in the story.
The Bad: While this story understands just how important the setting is to the shaping of a story, this setting makes no sense. The story takes place in the 2020s, before which the world had been taken over by a terrorist organization and, from what I gathered, they did it by taking over the American government which had already taken over the world. None of that seems particularly logical or doable and it's insane that there haven't been any large scale revolution attempts before this story*. Another big problem that happens later in the story is that Rin becomes less likable than she first was. She actually doesn't have much influence on all the events going on around her, the rebels would have started acting up against the government no matter what, yet she becomes very emo and spends several episodes not sure of what she can do or convinced it's all her fault. It's frustrating to watch one episode like this let alone several, thank goodness the anime focuses on the rest of the cast as well at this time or it would have been even harder to get through.
The Audio: For some odd reason Funimation has left the opening song untranslated even though it's only partially in English, I'm rather curious why they made that decision. The ending song is fully translated but the lyrics don't make much sense in relation to the rest of the story (it seems to be a love song of sorts but Rin is never interested in anyone romantically, unless the song was actually about the Fuego....). Other than that, nothing seemed out of place and the voice acting (the Japanese voices) went well, the visuals on the other hand were more hit or miss.
The Visuals: This is a show from studio Madhouse who are well-known for doing good looking shows (including the recent movie Redline). Not surprisingly all of the ridebacks are done in CGI but the CGI works fairly well with all of the traditionally drawn items. The CGI is far from perfect but anime studios have made a lot of progress in just a few years at making it look better. The characters designs however didn't look as nice. Rin has permanent helmet hair, Shouko's hair simply looks awkward (and there is no way her hair ribbons would have stayed on like that) and none of the characters look attractive in the slightest. The art isn't exactly unattractive, although one or two designs are downright ugly, but aside from the racing or ballet scenes I didn't find this show to be ascetically pleasing which is a bad thing since this is a visual medium.
For me, the show started off really strong and interesting and slowly made me lose interest as it went on, I don't know how many times I ranted about the setting but it was a lot. What frustrates me about the show however is that it could have worked so much better if it was different. If the story was more about the rideback club pushing to make ridebacks street legal while dealing with an increasingly military government (of Japan) and having to win over the general public that these aren't just weapons of war. I saw someone comment on youtube that this show is about America's military occupation of Japan which would make a lot of sense, i just have no idea if that was the original manga-ka's intention or not. I am curious with how this holds up to the original manga, which was 10 volumes long compared to the show's 12 episodes, especially since it seems that the anime started right when the manga was ending. Sadly it appears that the manga has been neither licensed nor scanlated so I haven't been able to compare the two yet, if anyone knows of any detailed summaries for the manga (or scanlatiosn I overlooked) please comment and tell me!
*it doesn't seem like there have been any small-scale attempts either which is even stranger. There appear to be no restrictions on twitter/facebook/social media that is so great for organizing get t0gethers at all (although the original manga was published from 2003-2009 when this was less common) and it's simply a fact that humans in general really don't like being taken over. Heck, some don't like their legitimate governments so I'm supposed to go along with the idea that these people just went along with BOTH take overs? As of writing this, Libya is currently trying to overthrow it's dictator and since the year started there have been attempts in other countries as well (and possibly a successful one in Egypt, time will tell there) so I just could not take this part seriously at all.
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