As if I needed even more series on my "to-buy" list, I actually did catch the first few episodes of the anime adaptation about a year ago (both the anime and the manga are adapted from a series of light novels, interestingly enough the manga-ka here is apparently the same person who illustrates said light novels) and it caught my interest but at that point the anime was long out of print and way out of my price range. So, with that and no legal streaming option, I haven't gone back to it but I had heard good things about the manga, tried out some of it in a bookstore and when I cam across the first volume in a used bookstore a few days later it seemed like the universe was egging me on to read it.
The Story of Saiunkoku (volume one) original story by Sai Yukino, art by Kairi Yura
Summary: While Shurei Hong may hail from one of the highest noble families in the country of Saiunkoku her family has fallen on hard times and she is constantly running around taking various jobs to make ends meet. So when she is offered a high-paying job from one of her father's associates at the royal palace she jumps at the chance, only to discover that the job is to become a consort to the young emperor and try to teach him and make him fit to rule. Although, as hard-headed as Shurie is, none of that will even matter if she can't find the man himself.
The Good: Politics+attractive looking characters is enough to make me look into a series (I'm sorry for being shallow) and thankfully all of the characters here are quite shrewd and the machinations of the court are quite interesting to watch. Shurie is headstrong and clever which makes her quite a likable lead; I'm sure some will complain she is too perfect but her own small flaws were presented quite well in this volume as well. None of the male characters stood out to me quite as much as she did but I'm sure that even more page time they'll have a chance for character development as well.
The Bad: I dare potential readers to look up the character list on wikipedia, it's quite impressive and, even though I'm experienced with keeping dozens of characters in any given work straight, given that many of the characters have similar sounding (to my western ears) names and the character designs aren't as distinct as they could be this does become a bit of a problem. I can only imagine that for future volumes I will need to keep that list open to keep everyone straight which isn't a great sign. And speaking of future volumes, the story is paced a bit slowly and I've heard that the manga series (in Japan) still hasn't progressed beyond where the first anime season (which was 39 episodes) left off which does make me a bit worried considering the series has been running for six years now. That was the reason I had held off on reading the manga for so long, while I am fine with a long running series I do like ones that plan to end before a decade is up.
The Art: As mentioned earlier, it appears that Yura did the art for the light novels as well (ie, the original designs that would have been used as the basis for the anime designs as well) so there are no jarring differences and the character designs are quite detailed. It's often light on the backgrounds, preferring to have some toning or objects behind the characters (well, behind their talking heads) but that's rather common in manga so I didn't even notice it until I looked through the manga a second time. All in all it's a very good looking series and makes me wonder if there's an artbook or two for the franchise.
It's not my top priority but I will try to remember to purchase more volumes of this in the future and it has reminded me that I really want to hunt down more of the anime, perhaps later this summer if I don't have a lot of shows to watch.
In what has become a bit of a tradition here, I've got a number of shows that started this past spring carrying over into the summer season and I thought I'd touch base on them and see how they're doing (especially for people who haven't tried them out yet but were thinking of doing so, summer is usually a quieter season so there's also more time to catch up on older shows). To go along with this, I'm hoping to get one big post about all the new shows I'm trying out up next Wednesday although I'm not 100% certain it's going to happen yet but that is the goal. Regardless of that, onto the shows!
Accel World
I will be checking out Sword Art Online this summer (they share a creator but it sounds like they actually aren't in the same 'verse, I've seen conflicting reports on that) and in addition I'm still keeping up with Accel World. By now I'm watching it more as a fluff show (an action-packed, good looking fluff) since it is a show about a fighting game and the plot is a bit light. All of the characters except the lead Haruyuki and not-quite-a-lead Kuroyukihime have a tendency to fade into the background when the show isn't focused on them (also one of the few times I've seen a character act flatter after they had character development) and, since I believe the novel series isn't finished, I know that the characters aren't going to accomplish their goal of reaching level 10 in the game and discovering the secret behind Brain Burst. But like I said, it still looks great, progresses at a good pace, and I'm hoping that the characters will feel less flat as the series goes on.
Accel World is licensed by Viz Media and in the US can be watched on Hulu.
Eureka 7 AO (AO stands for Astral Ocean)
It appears (curse you Funimation and your one week delayed streams or I could confirm this!) that yes, AO is indeed a sequel to the original show, even though it takes place on an alternate Earth, so anyone who is curious about checking this one out should probably first go ahead and watch the original series first (yes it's 50 episodes and yes it takes a while to get going, that's it's biggest flaw but again, why watch if a sequel if you're unfamiliar with the first installment?). The show has a mix of old and new staff on it and I was able to tell almost immediately that it shared some staff from last fall's Un-Go since they both have political undertones almost all the time and a general feeling that, while some of the adults might be good people with good intentions they are certainly not making them all known to Ao and the other kids. I recall there being a lot of that in the original show as well (not as much and more in the first half when no one would tell Renton, and therefore the audience, anything) but there is certainly a bit of a different tone here but I'm enjoying it. The show is also starting to work in the weird episode/trippy experience moments from the original show (although not to the same degree because again, it was hard at times to figure out what was going on in the first half of E7 and those episodes, see Acperience) and it's easy to see how Ao is obviously Eureka and Renton's child and that's a good metaphor for the series itself, it's parentage is clear but it is it's own show with it's own ideas so it'll be interesting to see how those two continue to blend.
Eureka 7 Astral Ocean is licensed by Funimation and can be viewed on their website (word of warning though, they've converted a lot of the streams into hulu ones so that cuts out the Canadian viewers).
Hyouka
I didn't review this one back in the spring (there seems to always be one show I pick up later) so a quick rundown, Oreki is a long energy kind of guy who is pressured into joining the Classics Club at his school by alumni sister since it's in danger of being shut down for having no members. He thinks it'll be a chance for him to doze off more but lo and behold it's gotten a couple of other new members and Oreki is stuck with them and solving the odd little mysteries the club runs into. I've seen a lot of mystery anime in the past year and in comparison to some of the big mysteries, big stakes ones (which feel like a cup of soda, fizzy and full of energy but will go stale if dragged out too long) this one feels more like a glass of lightly flavored lemonade, it leaves a bit of a taste on the tongue but doesn't overwhelm you. The show has also been fairly clever in the way it manages to have bigger mysteries in it (one thing I've found hard to believe in many shows is just how many murders the characters come across and this show neatly averts that), although I'm curious for how long they can keep that up. Regardless, it's my one fansub of the season (unless Moyashimon Returns doesn't get picked up, then we have a problem) and I do hope it gets licensed soon by somebody.
Space Brothers (Uchuu Kyodia)
Finally we have what is rumored to be a four cour (or full year) show, Space Bros! I've been listening around on forums trying to figure out just who this show is aimed at, I can obviously tell it's main audience is adults but it also has a charm to it, the charm that gets kids interested in space to start with, and it sounds like it's being aimed at families in Japan as well and I can easily see this show working well with families. I'd be impressed if kids under the age of 10 were able to sit through the show completely on their own for a full year, it's still a bit slow and deliberately paced with adult characters, but for those reasons I'm happy to sit back and take in the show. Actually, the show has re-kindled by own interest in space and the various technologies in it (I blame the US's fading space program for my waning interest ;-; ) and if a show is making me excited about something other than just the show then it's doing a pretty damn good job at being entertainment.
Space Bros is streaming on crunchyroll for a number of countries and was just picked up the other day by Sentai Filmworks/Section 23 for a DVD release sometime down the line.
Hopefully there's not much I need to say to introduce this series, I think the title says it all, it's the second half of a series in a franchise. I was thinking about making a little graphic called "How to understand what's going on in Fate/Zero if you haven't seen Fate/Stay Night" but since I still haven't seen (read?) F/SN I wouldn't be able to tell if I was even putting down accurate/relevant backstory. I will say this however, this show should be watched as one whole, complete show, not as two halves to the whole, partially because if you don't have a three month break between the episodes then you don't have time to ruminate on all kinds of unanswered details, look them up, and spoil yourself silly. I will say that it is perfectly possible to enjoy this series without having seen/read any of the other installments of the Fate franchise but those details I spoiled myself on from the Type-Moon wiki did give the show more of an emotional payoff for me in the end.
Fate/Zero
Summary: Continuing immediately from where the first half left off, the Fourth Holy Grail War wages on and seven participants still stand and, along with their servants, are fighting for the chance to use the wish-granting Holy Grail. Some of them have clear plans, some plan on using it for another purpose, and still others have no plan at all yet still fight for the entertainment this war brings them. But in a set-up like this where there can be only one pair left at the end not many characters have happy fates waiting for them.
The Good: I rather unexpectedly became quite attached to some of the characters in this show, mostly side characters admittedly, and every character who either survived the show or came close underwent a good deal of character development in this half. I was sad to see that Saber didn't get as much as I had hoped (which I suspect is because it all originally happened in Fate/Stay Night, the one problem with prologues is that they are bound by things such as that and F/Z had a few other odd character moments arise from that) but other than that I was satisfied. I do wish they had touched more on the history of the Grail War itself (which I read up some online which both explained a lot of things and was just plain interesting) but I suspect that's another thing that was covered in F/SN so couldn't really be dealt with here.
The Bad: To agree with quite a few other people on the internet, the two episode Kiritsugu flashback was much to long but my even greater problem was that I actually didn't know that he WAS the main character until I went "geeze, he's in the opening A LOT, like, more than anyone else." The first half of the show had made me think the story was going to focus more-or-less equally on all seven pairs, not that it's very much Kiritsugu's story, and that's a rather large narrative failing, I believe it is made clearer in the novel where he has internal narration, which also appears to make him more sympathetic earlier on. That lack of internal narration also made it much harder to, well, not be bored whenever Kirei was on screen. To explain why his character bored me would be dangerously close to spoilers but he's of an archetype I'm not particularly fond of so, while he did make some great looking fight scenes possible, in the end I just didn't care about his character at all.
The Audio: There were new opening and closing themes but no new major characters (and obviously the same music composer) so not much changed. I didn't like the opening and closing themes as much as I liked the original ones and several of the actors really had a chance to prove that they had range but other than that there's not much else to say that I haven't already said.
The Visuals: As expected, the second half of the show looks just as good as the first half and all of the fight scenes are stunning to look at. While I still liked the fight in The Legend of Korra a bit more for their choreography the fights here were a close second for their fluidity and just plain old visual interest. There were also quite a lot of them (I'd ask where UFOtable got the money and then I remember how many sets of the first half they sold) and many of them incorporated CGI very well (which sounds like a no-brainer for American animation but a lot of series in Japan are still hand-drawn and I've seen a bit of hostility to companies using CGI in these circumstances). Actually, in addition to making me more curious about the rest of the Fate franchise, all of the art here has made me more and more interested in UFOtable's other well-known series, Garden of Sinners, and it's always impressive when a studio leaves such an impression on a viewer that they want to see other, completely unconnected* productions they have made.
So, I'm not getting the second box set since I don't have $400 to spend, honestly I probably wouldn't even if I did, but I do hope Aniplex puts out a Region 1 priced set in the future (and I've heard rumors that some of the extras on the original set weren't subtitled so if any of those were included I hope that's fixed).
*okay, semi-connected in the sense that they're apparently in alternate universes but in the Type-Moon mega-verse overall, or something like that
Whew, I'm cutting it close this time. I always get behind in my viewing schedule when I travel and, even if this season was only 7 episodes long, this was actually a bit longer than your standard, 13 episode anime series. Actually, I watched this on Netflix which had the first and the last episodes listed as 66 minutes long but the other five only 48 minutes long, is that how long the show was in Great Britian or did PBS cut the episodes down again? I remember they made cuts to Sherlock, even the online streaming version (which I still think is silly) and I wouldn't put it past them to have done that here as well with such an odd set-up. In any case, thankfully I didn't feel like anything was missing here (like I felt might have been the case with Sherlock), well, except for the fact that Netflix doesn't have the second season streaming yet.
Downton Abbey
Summary: The show begins in April 1912 with the news of the sinking of the Titantic and the news that the heir to Downton Abbey, a cousin since the estate is entailed and none of the three daughters can inherit, has perished. And thus life at Downton is going through a state of upheaval as the family decides what to do next and new people filter into all parts of their lives.
The Good: The season may be a short one but wow does it pack a lot in. Spanning about two years in-universe, there are at least a dozen subplots and nearly every one of them is neatly and satisfying wrapped up (and those which aren't still come to a satisfying stop and I would have been annoyed if they had instead been rushed). The show makes great use of the time-period (I especially the liked the subplot involving the youngest daughter starting to become interested in suffrage and politics) and they characters all felt like they came from the time period (as opposed to the writer coming up with characters that inadvertently reflect more modern views and trying to squeeze them in anyway). All of the characters, likeable or not, were interesting and almost all of them grew and progressed as well, my hat is off to the writers for being able to do that with so many characters.
The Bad: This show should be watched without long gaps between episodes (you don't have to marathon it but don't wait weeks and weeks between episodes) since with nearly every named character having their own subplot that's well over a dozen plots to keep in mind. The show does a good job balancing them but it does dictate that the viewer should either planning on taking a few days to watch the whole show or taking some notes so they don't forget. I am a bit incredulous that some characters in the service stuck around as long as they did with their personalities, although that certainly happens in real life as well, and it does seem a bit strange that the family knows so many of the servants by name and does truly seem to care for all of them. There are some subplots that I would like to see continued in the next season, and I'm a bit worried they won't be given where this season ended, but I found this to be a rather strong show with few flaws to speak of overall.
The Audio: The show has one main theme that is played over the opening and ending credits that I quite liked, it managed to convey both the more relaxed life of countryside gentry and the more frantic life of their servants, and the music in the rest of the show worked well also. No other pieces really stood out to me but they worked well within their scenes.
The Visuals: This is one of the cases where I really prefer a live action show to a cartoon, the amount of detail in the setting and the costuming simply can't be replicated with anything but a huge budget in the animation world. The setting looks authentic and the costuming was gorgeous, normally I'm not a fan of Edwardian(ish) Era clothing but I'll have to give the period another look.
Fully intend to continue the show, although Netflix does not have it for streaming which does put a damper on my plans. However, it appears that Hulu will have it on Hulu+ soon and they offer one week free trials for it, I might be able to make that work out.....
Another book from the Enchanted Inkpot giveaway, although I'll confess that I kept reading the title as Two Moon Princesses and was rather confused for a while why there seemed to be only one princess in the story (well, only one who can be called a main character in any case). But enough of my silly mis-readings of words, onto the review!
Two Moon Princess by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban
Summary: Andrea is the youngest princess of the country of Zeltia and would rather be a knight than a princess much to the disapproval of her traditional father and even more traditional mother. But her fate begins to look up when she discovers a mysterious passage between her world and California, the birthplace of her mother, although she may have created a terrible problem in the process.
The Good: While the setting is still Western-European-Medieval it's much more heavily inspired by Medieval Spain than say Medieval England which was a nice change of pace and I can't remember the last time I read a story that didn't have a 12 month/365 day calender. Actually, the setting feels a bit more Renaissance than strictly medieval which is also a nice change of pace, although I wish it had a chance to talk more about the ancient civilization that they keep giving tantalizing hints about.
The Bad: Overall the book was just a bit, well, bland and I could never get into the story even though it had a lot of things that should have endeared me to it such as politics and a bit of a different setting (I will admit that as much as I like that it's set in a world that doesn't have a 365 year day it made figuring out character equivalent ages rather difficult and frustrating). Andrea's story is nothing new, her mother is complicated for reasons that never seem to be fully (or even partially) explained, it's painfully obvious that Andrea's friend from California is an idiot, and the romance towards the end felt a bit awkward.
I know it's a bit of a quick review but it's true that it's much easier to write a review about something you love or hate and this book was just so bland that there's not a lot to talk about. It did have a solid ending but it's another book I'm going to pass along to the library and hope that others enjoy it more than I did.
