Manga Review: Moyashimon (volume one)

*facepalm* Yep, next week's break will be good for me so I can finally get re-used to my blogging schedule. And I had even planned this one out, I talked about the first Moyashimon anime series early enough so that if anyone was interested they had time to try it out before the second season aired, talked about the second season on Wednesday, and then I was going to finish up with the first volume of the manga (which I stumbled across at a used bookstore and thought "why not?") so that the show would be even more present in people's minds and (hopefully) they would be more likely to try it out. So let's see if that plan still works, abet a day behind schedule.....

Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture by Masayuki Ishikawa

 
Summary: Tadayasu Sawaki and Kei Yuuki are freshman at an unnamed agricultural university near Tokyo and somehow end up as lab assistants to an eccentric professor who has a passion for all things fermented. One might think that he would be more interested in Kei, the son of a sake brewer, but instead Professor Itsuki is more interested in Sawaki and his curious ability to see microbes and talk with them. 

The Good: So far the anime seems to have been a rather good adaption of the story and all the strengths (and failings) of the manga transferred over well. The pacing is roughly similar, there's only one short chapter in here that wasn't animated and I can see why it was cut, overall everything just flows rather well. It sets a good tone for the rest of series and I now feel bad for holding off reading this series for so long now.

The Bad: Again, the manga has the same strength's and failings as the anime so some of the problems I had in the anime (such as the fact that an agricultural university doesn't seem eco-friendly, which seemed like a rather large research failing) are present here as well. I'll also admit that I preferred Professor Itsuki's long explanations of microbes in the anime to the manga since it was much easier to tune out after a few seconds in the anime than to try and skim in the manga, and even if you do try to read everything that panels are so packed that it's hard to make out the words as well (I don't know if the Japanese panels were as packed or if this is partially a problem that came because of translating it into a language which generally uses more space letter/character wise).

The Art: First off, I love how the US cover was done (the original Japanese covers, from what I've seen, were a plain green cover with yellow text on it, this one is quirkly eye-catching) and it looks like the trend of recreating countries' flags with microbes would have continued if the series had (in the US). As for the actual manga, the art doesn't use many screentones and the pen and ink style gives the series a surprisingly gritty look (which stands out even more compared to the anime, especially with the art shift for the second season). It's also much more detailed than I expected and the characters look much more distinctive, it's not what I was expecting at all but I rather liked it.



So, there was one more volume of the manga released in the US, which was partially why I hadn't tried it before (there didn't seem much point in trying out a dropped, two volume series) but now I'll keep an eye out for it. I don't plan on making an effort to go out and look for it but if the series popped up on say JManga or if it got re-licensed then sure, I'll go and support the series, otherwise I'll just follow the anime and that'll be it.

Summer 2012 Anime Write-up

Following up last week's continuing spring shows I'm enjoying post it's time for me to talk about all of the new shows I've tried out in the past four days (yes, I've seen all of this in four days, fear for my sanity). As usual there were one or two shows that sounded like they might have been kinda interesting that I didn't get around to watch but might pick up later. I'm trying to be picker with what I watch so I have more time to catch up with older series and, since summer is one of the "weaker" anime seasons, I might actually have some luck with that this time around! So I'm just going to go and make one post for all the shows, sorry to anyone whose using an RSS reader since I probably just killed your feed.

Arcana Famigila (La Storia della Arcana Famigila)
The Premise: On a small island ruled by the local mafia, the head of the family is retiring and has ordered all members who have made a contract with the tarot (as in tarot cards) to participate in a fighting tournament to determine the next head and marry his daughter. His daughter is not happy about this and decides to fight as well.

Another anime adaptation of an otome game and I was looking forward to this one based on the original artwork, which was of course made rather generic looking for the anime (I know I know, it's easier to animate, still doesn't make me less sad about it). As for the rest of the show, that wasn't a very good opening episode, I'm hard pressed to think of a single well-done part of the episode. Everything felt clunky and wooden, all the characters felt like walking stereotypes (yes they haven't had character development yet but plenty of other shows manage better than this in their first episode), and the info dumps seemed rather pointless. Between all of that and news that the show is probably going for a romantic route I wouldn't like* I've dropped this show and am starting to lose faith that good, interesting reverse harems show exist.

Arcana Famigila is streaming on Crunchyroll and has been licensed by Section 23.


Campione!
The Premise: Japanese tourist Goudo goes to Japan to return an artifact owned by his grandfather, kills a god and receives the title (and powers) of Godslayer.

Honestly I tried out this show just because the idea of  a "Godslayer" amused me and I certainly enjoy flashy action shows, provided that they have a plot that holds together. At this point it's a bit hard to tell if Campione has that however, the first episode was paced much to fast (according to fans of the original novel they compressed an entire light novel, which run about 200-ish pages in my experience, into one episode) and instead of starting out in media res (as the first novel does, I read some of that and it worked alright there) they also chose to adapt the third novel, which was a flashback to how Godou got his powers. I can understand why they did this part first and fast but the episode could have been much sleeker and really makes me worried how the rest of the series will be paced. For the moment I'm giving it another few episodes but I'm much less optimistic about it now.

Campione! is also streaming on Crunchyroll and has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks (another name for Section 23).  


Humanity Has Declined (Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita)
 The Premise: In the far off future the world may look bright and cheery but the human population has dropped precariously and many places struggle with things such as food shortages. Our protagonist, let's called her Mediator, is from the UN and her job is to mediate between humans and faeries, tiny, perpetually smiling creatures who now have a larger population and more advanced technology than humans.

Oh where to begin with this show, if you want weird, black comedy this is the show of the season, I'm torn between thinking the show is too strange and over the top and laughing at the worst of the jokes. All of the comedy involves some form of absurdism, dead-panning on the part of at least one character, and for good measure some of them involve puns as well (oh kami....). At this point I'm kinda torn about continuing the show or not, at times I find it too strange but I am enjoying it and it's only one cour so for the time being I'll continue following it.

HhD is streaming on Crunchyroll and has also been licensed by Sentai/23.


Lagrange- The Flower of Rin-ne (season two)
 The Premise: Continuing about a year from where the first part ended, Madoka has never quite recovered from making the closest friends she's ever had, Lan and Muginami, to have them leave her, go to fight in opposite sides in a war, and her own abilities to pilot the mysterious Vox Aura have vanished as well. But all of a sudden Lan comes back into her life with Muginami in hot pursuit, although it seems like both of them want Madoka for their side's own, manipulative purposes, all the while Madoka's cousin attempts to puzzle out just what happened all those thousands of years ago to spark the legend surrounding the Flower of Rin-ne.

I am quite happy this show is back since it developed into a great show last winter that took a number of old, mostly mech, tropes and just slightly subverted or played with them. By now Madoka is broken for sure (she probably wasn't in the best mental state when the whole show started but by now she really doesn't seem to be in a good place), the politics seem to have gotten a bit more complicated, and Earth is in serious trouble this time when two of it's three Voxes, the only hope they have in case either of the "alien" sides decide to fight, are now possibly against them and the last is out of commission. While I don't like the new ED and miss the old OP the rest of the show is firing on all cylinders so far and, while I don't expect the show to end in tragedy, I am curious to see how much of a happy ending it can produce and what the characters have to do to work for it.

Lagrange is licensed by Viz media and can be found streaming for US audiences on Hulu.   


Moyashimon Returns
The Premise: Not more than a month after the first season ended in-universe, the gang returns for more hijinks involving fermentation, college life, and microbes with microbe seeing Sawaki as the main character.

Well, if you've seen the first season you know what to expect and if you'll enjoy it, if you haven't you really need to start at the beginning of the show. Actually, the most note-worthy thing about this first episode (which, like many other shows, had weak pacing which I'm hoping will get better) was that the character designer was different this time around which resulted in some of the characters looking radically different, stolen from RandomC (here's the comparison for Sawaki as well, ultimately all the characters look much less detailed this time around). Between those two things it didn't make for the strongest first episode but I do like the series so I'll obviously be sticking around.

Moyashimon Returns has not been licensed/simulcast by anyone so fansubs are the way to go for this show (unless you know enough Japanese to keep up with a discussion on microbiology and fermentation that is).  


Natsuyuki Rendezous
The Premise: Hazuki, a man in his 20s, has a crush on the owner of a local flower shop and gets hired on as part time help after several months of stopping by nearly every night to buy flowers. He's trying to grow closer to her when he discovers that not only is she a widower but he is the only person who can see the ghost of her husband who is constantly nearby.

The second noitaminA show of the season and I enjoyed the first episode much more than I expected it to. It was a paced quickly but perfectly, no scene felt too short or too long and, considering that the original manga is only four volumes long (and completed!), I think this show might fit perfectly into the 11/12 episode constraint of the timeslot. I'll need another episode or two to really like the characters but already they've started being fleshed out and I also really like the look of this show (I know everyone is talking about HhD and SAO but I really liked the use of color here and the character designs were nice and distinctive). The show is a slice of life romance, not my favorite combination of genres, but hopefully with older characters I'll enjoy it.

The show is both streaming on crunchyroll and has been nabbed by Sentai (proving that they don't really care what a show is as long as it stays still long enough for them to grab it).


Sword Art Online
The Premise: The year is 2022 and full immersion virtual reality video games have finally arrived and the creator of the technology (a helmet like apparatus) has created his own game called Sword Art Online and limited the sales to just 10,000 volumes. But after the beta has ended and all the new players have logged in they discover that there is absolutely no way to get out of the game, unless as a collective group they beat all 100 levels of the game without dying since death in the game means death in the real world too. 

Probably the most hyped and anticipated anime of the summer season, written by the same author who wrote the Accel World light novels^ I seem to be in the minority here by finding the pacing a bit rough. Funny enough it's similar to the problems I had with Campione!'s first episode, I can see why they had so much happen in one episode but felt like a few things could've been cut down (do we really need to know so much about how the mechanics of a game that we can never play work?). Also unlike most people it seems (well, unlike most non-light novel readers anyway) I actually didn't have any problems with the "there is no way out of SAO except my way" part, I'll admit that I've read so much background on the show that I've forgotten exactly what was outlined in the episode (and hopefully the parts that were left out of the first episode will be addressed soon) but they went to such extremes to show how there really is no way to get out of the game internally or externally^^ that I have no problems with the set-up. So with all of that out of the way hopefully the pacing will smooth itself out a bit and make for an interesting ride.

While not licensed, people are speculating that Aniplex plans to release this series themselves (oh god those prices) the show is legally streaming on crunchyroll.  


Tari Tari
The Premise: After screwing up in her club's musical performance last year, Konatsu isn't allowed to sing this year. To get around this she finds four other classmates to join her club so that she can sing as part of her new club.

I feel so odd for saying this but I do like slice-of-life, there just happens to be more than one kind of sol and this isn't the kind I like. The characters, even the Austrian exchange student (do the Japanese really think the travel guides are written so poorly?), are just too mundane to be interesting and sadly the characters look just enough alike that I started confusing some of the female characters, something that I do rarely. The show looks pretty, really pretty and makes me wish that I liked the show more, but it just bored me and I see no reason to continue further with it.

Tari Tari is streaming on crunchyroll and has been added to Section 23's ever-growing horde of anime titles. 


UtaKoi (Choyaku Hyakunin Isshu: Uta Koi)
 The Premise: A "liberal interpretation" of the hundred poems used in games such as karuta, each episode focuses on one or two of the poems, all of which are love poems, and speculates on how they came to be.

I'll admit it, I wouldn't have looked twice at this series if it wasn't for Chihayafuru and I imagine most wouldn't have either (which makes this either great planning or the luckiest coincidence ever for the show). Love stories on their own generally aren't my cup of tea but, due to their short nature and the visuals of the show (which indulges in the non-moving plaid technique and adds a thick line around all of the character which produces an effect I rather like) I'm hooked. I'll admit the animation isn't very high quality (and considering I normally can't tell that's a bad sign) and the ending song is the strangest pairing I've ever found for an anime (the opening song is hit or miss it seems, the singer certainly could be less nasally but the song has charmed me) but so far I've had fun with this show and at one season I can spare the time to watch some more. 

UtaKoi is streaming on crunchyroll.


There's an interesting bit of variety for me this time around, including my continuing shows I'm watching two mech shows, one or two more with strong sci-fi elements, three action heavy shows, two romance heavy shows, a few that are half slice of life half something else, a mystery show, and two shows where one of their genres is "just plain weird." It's a nice mix, and I'm watching some high fantasy on the side to balance out the sci-fi, so here's to a summer with a few unexpected gems and hopes that none of these shows crashes and burns!   



*the only reason I'm squicked out is because it appears they are going to pair up Felicitá with either her cousin or her nephew, which I do recall noticing in the preview material but ignored. Actually, I agree with this poster on what the best route would be since that would totally be the route I'd go for in the game (well, if there wasn't an option for dating everyone, if it's a dating game I demand the option to date as many people as I want!)

^all the author has given a no-comment comment on whether or not the two series are related thus far (from what I can tell there is an extra story somewhere where the leads from the two series have a duel, somehow) although I'm inclined to think that they are alternate universes. Honestly I just can't believe that the NerveGear technology from SAO had progressed so far in just eight years (it's only about six or nine month's old at the start of SAO) that people were putting the internet connectors onto babies (which is one of the rules for brain burst in Accel World and the oldest brain bursters would have been born around 2030). Someone could probably make a very good argument to convince me otherwise but for the moment I'm sticking to my position.

^^unplug them? Has a battery. Battery is unconnected too long? Explodes. Try to disconnect battery? Same idea. Hack the servers? Government tries, fails, can only monitor from the outside. Take helmet off? Explodes. People die of starvation? Creator left a two hour window and info for all players for the government to move everyone to hospitals. Shouldn't safety concerns have been raised? Dude created SAO AND Nervegear and was the first to completely take advantage of all of it. Plus, see that this platform is less than a year old and has a battery that likes to explode when people mess with it, might not have been reverse engineered yet (I will also say that the original web novels for this were in 2002, before everyone and their mom started jailbreaking iPhones and the like, it was written in a slightly different culture). I'm also betting on the theory that he did almost everything on his own and that the company doesn't really exist so there was no one to stop him.  

Anime Review: Aquarion Evol

Ack, my schedule yesterday was a bit thrown off so it wasn't until long after I went to bed that I realized I had completely forgotten to write this post. I've been in a bit of a blogging slump lately so I've decided that I'm going to take next week off to see if that helps (since this is hardly the first post I've forgotten to write recently). 
In any case, Aquarion Evol! I started watching this with a friend to cheer them up one day without having seen the first show but after a bit I decided to watch the first show as well to understand the back story better which I decided not to review since I have complicated feelings on it. In short, the ending was strong and I liked the premise (darker than I was expecting), but it had too many comedy episodes which made it seem like they had forgotten the premise which ultimately didn't mess well and made the series feel awkward. However, Evol does a very good job summarizing the important parts of the original series so you don't have to watch it to watch Evol (if you do so desire however, Funimation has licensed it for Region 1 and it can be found on Hulu). So, how does it's sequel, because that's what it is (the original series even has To Be Continued after the last episode), fare in comparison? Well, again it's a bit complicated.

Aquarion Evol

 

Summary: 12,000 years after the events of Genesis of Aquarion (and 24,000 years after the war between angels and humans that started everything) Earth is facing a very different kind of threat, people from another world in another dimension who have come to try and steal away women in hopes of finding their "true eve." Not that this concerns Amata, a boy with the odd power of being able to fly whenever he has strong emotions (via wings on his feet), and Mikono, the untalented sister of Neo-Deva's most talented aquarion pilots. But fate has brought these two together and to Neo-Deva to fight and perhaps fate has even more in store for them.

The Good: Quite honestly I started watching the show because the premise of "teens ride in mechs that combine in a three-way orgasm" sounded utterly amusing (hell, I always giggled when the characters in Star Driver started yelling about how libido affected their piloting abilities) and no that's not an exaggeration or simplification of the show, that is literally what happens. Unexpectedly, with a show that has almost-sex as a major part, there's a lot of romance and I ended up liking a lot of the side characters and their romances more than I expected. It's a fun show most of the time for it's over the top and regular random moments (and believe me, Fudo is never as strange as he was in the original here) never failed to have me laughing, although I don't think all of those moments were meant to be funny.

The Bad: Ultimately the stakes never felt as high here as they did in the first show, even when the story was at it's climax it felt forced and silly. And speaking of the first series, the "twist" regarding this round of reincarnations (since there was a twist in the first series that meant there had to be one here as well) makes very little sense considering the first series and produced some weird continuity problems*. Finally, while Mikono and Zessica (another female character) both had their good moments neither of them were as well fleshed out as they could be which bothered me. It's true that the guys weren't much better but both of the girls had a lot more potential to be deeper, more interesting characters so this was rather unfortunate (as was the choice in Zessica's outfit, I try not to get too annoyed by what female characters wear, otherwise I would be annoyed all day long, but her second outfit was facepalm worthy dumb).

The Audio: Yoko Kanno returns to work on the music (and either one or both of the openings, at a glance it seems like ANN doesn't specify which) and the music is quite fun. It's big, often over the top, and blood-pumping which fits with the show very well. Both of the ending songs are a bit sadder but tragedy is part of the story as well so in the end they both fit well (although it took me some time to get used to the second ed). The music was some of the most fun parts of the show and, while I don't feel the need to buy the show on DVD, I would happily buy the soundtrack regardless.

The Visuals: Evol has different character designers from the original series (which is immediately obvious during the flashback scenes) and overall I liked how this series looked more than the original. Sadly this show isn't very visually distinctive, there's no stylistic flair in the designs, coloring, backgrounds, etc. and even the mechas don't look so distinctive that someone unfamiliar with the genre would be able to recognize them (compare to say the mechs from Gundam or Neon Genesis Evangelion which are immediately recognized by most anime fans). So, while the show is pretty, it's not something that will stick in most people's minds a few years after the fact.

In the end it was a fun show but not an especially good one. I was entertained, I had fun watching this is with my friend, and in that way the show served it's purpose, but considering some of the problems it had I just can't call it a good show despite those reasons. The show is not licensed in any way, shape, or form in the US but has been solicited for an Australian DVD release if people really want to buy it and don't want to pay Japanese DVD prices. 

*since I need to get specific here, spoilers for Genesis and Evol: in the first series it's implied that Fudo Gen is 12,000 years old and that he was the third pilot of the original Aquarion which I thought was a neat idea (the OVA/movie version of Genesis introduced a new character for that but that's an alternate continuity). In Evol however it's revealed that he is Apollonius, the angel who fell in love with a woman and jilted his lover (Tohma/Mikage) and started the whole mess which wasn't implied at all in either series and something like that NEEDS foreshadowing. Also, that means that Apollo (and by dint his reincarnation in Evol) was not the reincarnation of Apollonius but in fact a dog which had about three minutes of screen time in the original (which I only noticed because I saw fan theories that Rena, who either is Crea or reincarnated into her for Evol, was that dog reincarnated 12,000 years later). The only thing it does is explain why Touma is still angry and reincarnated (since at the end of the original series he seems to have accepted his fate and not be mad at Apollonius anymore) but I'm pretty sure the story could have figured out a way to work without him.  

 

Movie Review: Cowboy Bebop the Movie: Knockin' On Heaven's Door

It took me much longer to get a hold of this movie than I would have liked so believe me, the almost year wide gap between me talking about this movie and the tv series was not intentional. I don't think it matters if you watch the movie after the show or when it's chronologically set within the show (which I believe is around episode 24), and while the story is self-contained enough that a newcomer could probably follow the movie it does provide some foreshadowing for the end of the series which makes it a more enjoyable movie for someone who has already seen all or part of the series. We did show part of the movie at my school's anime club and it seemed like everyone, fan and newcomer alike, enjoyed it but I do think a fan is going to get more out of it.

Cowboy Bebop The Movie: Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Summary: It's almost Halloween night and there's a criminal on the loose who wants to play a "trick" on the capital city of Mars, releasing a deadly virus that's almost impossible to detect and cure. So when the government puts out the largest bounty ever for his arrest the crew of the Bebop all get to work tracking him down in their various ways but will they be able to find him in time?

The Good: The story feels exactly like an episode from the later part of the story, the characters have been mostly fleshed out, they each track down Vincent exactly how you would expect them to, and there is some foreshadowing about Spike's past and future thrown in as well. The setting feels just right, from the looks to how everything interacts with each other, and all in all the movie felt cohesive and rather fun as a fan of the series. It was exactly what I expected to get from the movie, was entertaining, and made me want to re-watch the original show again which is the best thing a movie like this can do.

The Bad: Technically the movie doesn't add anything to the story so some would consider it a cash-in attempt where the creators made it just for the sake of making money. If you feel that way about franchise movies then avoid this since you'll just be grumpy about it, but with a story like Cowboy Bebop's (which was held together more thematically than with an overarching plot) I think it works fine. Vincent, the criminal's, backstory is a bit confusing at points, I still don't know if he fought in a war as a modified solider or if there was no war, just scientific testing, but in the end it's not a detail that really matters so even with some confusing parts like that the story still manages to stand strong. 

The Audio: I of course watched with the English dub and the cast all sounds pitch perfect, like there wasn't a break between dubbing the show and dubbing the movie (I don't know if there was or not but point made). The new characters also sound rather solid, I was a bit confused why one character had an Australian accent (I can only guess they had an accent in the Japanese version), but other than that everything was spot on. It was nice to hear the Cowboy Bebop music as well, there weren't any new tracks that stood out to me but overall everything fit very well.

The Visuals: As is the case with many movie properties of anime series, the movie looks a bit better than the series with crisper lines, richer colors, and doesn't skimp on the fight scenes which all looked really good. There wasn't any really noticeable CGI in the film, and while I have nothing against CGI it just feels more impressive to see everything really well cel-animated, and I was overall impressed at how good a ten year old movie looked.

So I'm adding this to my to-buy list as well (and it reminds me how I need to get a move on on these Bandai titles, ugh) and really there's not much to say. If you like the show you'll like the movie and you already know what to expect, there's just not much to say beyond that.  

Book Review: The Book of Blood and Shadow

I won this book in a twitter contest hosted by Random Buzzers (one of your standard, retweet this tweet and we'll choose winners from that pool) which was rather nice since I've read Robin Wasserman's Skinned trilogy and, since one of my big problems was that it went on too long, I was curious to see how she would do with a one book story instead. With that in mind, onto the review!

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

  I actually didn't have this cover on my copy, it was an ARC with a plain black cover with the title in a red script, and while this cover isn't exactly to my taste it's certainly a good and very interesting cover. I love the detail in her eye and it's rather eye-catching.

Summary: When Nora is assigned to translate some old letters instead of the rare book her classmates are working on she's initially rather unhappy, although any chance to be away from her parents who aren't stay together "for the sake of the children" but for the memory of her dead brother is welcomed. And then she discovers that while the book talks about a mysterious, mystical device called the Lumen Dei, her writer actually dealt with the machine and are much more valuable. So valuable in fact that centuries later there are still groups of people out there willing to do anything to get their hands on them and while some of them view Nora to just be in the way others want to capture her as well.

The Good: This is a very tightly plotted book and pulls off the remarkable task of making it not only believable that Nora is able to find and translate all of the letters, most of which have been hidden for at least four centuries, but also that the letters have remained hidden for so long. It's very hard to make that set-up look natural, and considering the story rests upon that it's critical to the story at large, and it's pulled off perfectly at here and never once did one of those revelations jolt me out of the story. And, despite my nitpicks later, the story felt well paced with no revelation coming too quickly or taking too long. Nora wasn't the most memorable lead I've seen but she was strong and well-fleshed out so I certainly liked her, I just don't know how much I'll remember about her (as opposed to the story itself) in a few years time.

The Bad: As I had been afraid, this book still felt too long by the end, my copy clocks in at 430 pages, but again I'm not really sure where to cut it down. It's both long and dense, I felt rather exhausted by the end of the story and feeling like I would have liked it to be a little shorter. Other than that there weren't many problems with it and certainly no major problems that stood out to me. It was a little exasperating at times that Nora had no idea she was about to be betrayed, which was clearly obvious to me as a reader, and likewise it was also frustrating to see that none of the characters seem to realize they were being manipulated at certain points, especially since none of them were portrayed as dumb. I felt like Adriane's characterization was a little flat compared to some of the other side characters but again that wasn't a major issue in the end.


I really liked this story a lot more than I was expecting to and I plan on buying a copy of the book for myself in the future (I'll donate the ARC to the free basket at my library's bookstore, since book has already been out for over six months I don't feel like that'll be a problem and since you can't sell an ARC there's not much else I can do with it). A very strong story and one of my favorite books of 2012 so far (mind you I haven't read many but that doesn't stop it from being a favorite within the category).