Month: January 2017

Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Winter 2017 – Follow-up

Despite the title of this website, I rarely stop after watching intro episodes of anime (unless the show is so terrible or offensive that it doesn’t deserve a second look; there have been many of those over the years). Here are some collected thoughts on some of the second and third episodes I’ve watched of selected series. This post will be updated as I conduct more follow-up viewings, so stay tuned.

 

Saga of Tanya the Evil – Episodes 2 and 3

Read my first impression Here.

I was fairly unimpressed with the first episode of the series, since it seemed to glorify violence and to specifically fetishize the fact that some of the most violent acts of war were being committed by a character in the body of a pre-pubescent girl. “Young girls in horrific situations” could be a sub-genre unto itself in anime, considering all of the series whose main point of interest involves thrusting youngsters into roles way above their emotional pay grade in order to look edgy or wring some sort of unearned emotional response out of the audience. In this case, I’m totally baffled why the first episode begins where it does, because Tanya’s origin story is much more compelling, and puts a totally different slant on what’s actually happening.

We learn that Tanya was originally a (male) Japanese middle manager who was known for being ruthlessly devoted to the health of his company. This meant taking a very uncaring attitude towards other employees, especially when firing them. A disgruntled former employee of the company pushes our protagonist(?) in front of a train early in the second episode. Time stops, and he has a lengthy conversation with God(?) regarding the existence of any deities (I have to hand it to the main character – his ability to maintain skepticism in the existence of God while speaking directly to him requires guts). Refusing to soften up, God (or “Being X” as the main character dubs him) causes him to be reborn in another world, but with all his memories intact. He scrapes by, does what he can to survive, and then joins the military, eventually reaching the point at which we joined the tale in the first episode.

What stood out to me was the fact that the story was less focused on the actual war than it appeared at first. Instead, my main take away from these follow-up episodes is more related to the main character’s conflicts with Being X regarding the need for faith, and Being X’s incredibly manipulative ways of forcing the main character to acknowledge the miraculousness of “God” and the situation God has forced him into. Tanya is compelled by Being X to pray each time the calculation jewel (which hones her magic powers) is used, otherwise it remains unstable and could kill her through its malfunction. This is supposed to eventually instill in her (and in the mentality of the man who still exists within her mind) a sense of humility and faith. On one hand I can see that the character truly needs to learn this lesson, because he’s a total jerk who caused a lot of upset in the lives he supervised. On the other hand, this manipulative deity who pulls strings to get humans to “believe” is pretty abhorrent. I gained a lot more sympathy for Tanya over the course of these episodes, simply for trying to hold onto a worldview while essentially being forced to let it go (or die in the process). This is certainly a lot more complexity than I would have expected originally.

With the way I watch anime, there’s always the danger of being so put off by something right away that I miss out on an anime’s better side by not wanting to bother with it anymore. Personally I think that there are some things that are beyond forgiveness, but there are also cases like this where I feel like maybe whoever was handling the series composition just didn’t do a good job of putting the story’s best foot forward. It’s not as if there aren’t still problems (I’m curious whether reviewers, including myself, can really speak to the genuine nature of the female-female professional relationship between Tanya and her subordinate when Tanya still houses the mostly-unaltered mentality of the Japanese salaryman she once was), but I think I might be up to following this through now.

 

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department – Episode 2

Read my first impression Here.

Watching the second episode of ACCA helped to reinforce some of the general feelings I had about the particular construction this show seems to have. While, again, not a whole lot actually “happens” as far as action-y plot-related stuff, there are a lot of subtleties that seem to be leading in a particular direction.

Jean is still ostensibly the focal character, but there are many scenes throughout the episode where he is present but the POV appears to be held by someone else. This time we’re introduced to “photojournalist” friend of his named Nino, actually an undercover agent hired by Jean’s superiors to follow him around. There are several scenes here and there of Nino reporting on Jean’s whereabouts when normally we the audience would be privy to a firsthand what Jean was doing instead. There were a lot of scenes where I thought to myself that it would have been nice to know about Jean’s activities after going inside his home or turning the lights off in his hotel room; being on the outside and not knowing exactly what’s going on is disorienting, but I also suspect that we’re meant to develop a healthy suspicion of Jean in preparation for some bombshell later on. I’ve been trying to stay away from any plot spoilers to ready myself for this eventual surprise, so I hope that my interpretation is correct. There are several references to his possible involvement in a coup d’etat; whether that’s actually what’s going on or not is the question here.

This episode has similar pacing to the first, so viewers who found themselves frustrated with the slow-moving story in episode 1 will probably not be especially compelled to keep up with the series any further. I feel as though I’ve made my case as to why I find this type of anime series compelling already; the fact is, I haven’t found it boring at all, and I can feel the makings of a good thriller bubbling under the surface of what I’ve seen so far.

 

Gabriel DropOut – Episode 2

Read my first impression Here.

I had the feeling that the unique humor element of this show might wear down pretty quickly, and that was confirmed for me after watching the second episode. The show is reliant on one central gag, that being the opposing (and typically unexpected) personalities of the angels and demons in the main cast. This in itself admittedly remains pretty chuckle-worthy when I think about it, but the second episode falls into a rut that so many anime comedies do, in that it relies too much on its central gag and dances around it without doing much to expand or escalate any of the humor.

In this episode, Satania continues to be haunted by the bread-stealing dog, and thinks she knows more than she actually does about eating lunch in the school lunch room. Raphiel picks on Satania some more. Vigne and Gabriel bicker about Gabriel’s lack of motivation. The girls have an adventure trying to prepare a meal in their cooking class (using some… unusual ingredients). It’s all fairly standard sitcom stuff, with the flavor being the characters’ particular personalities. The issue I’m having at this point is that their personalities could really exist in any similar ensemble comedy, regardless of the characters being heavenly or hellish beings. Remove the horns, wings, halos, and upside-down crosses from the mix, and this is just another typical anime comedy without much worth recommending it above other similar anime series.

I probably won’t watch more of the show at this point, but I’ll try to keep an ear to the ground to see if anything actually ramps-up over the next few weeks.

 

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid – Episode 2

Read my first impression Here.

The second episode of Dragon Maid continues in the same vein of being mostly cute, humorous, and primarily harmless. We meet a second dragon, a juvenile named Kanna, who’s been nursing a crush on Tohru and who wants to punish Kobayashi for monopolizing her time. Jealousy can be a dangerous motivator, but Kanna’s feelings are pretty simplistic and she gives up the pursuit once Kobayashi-san makes her feel welcome (and feeds her some chocolate). The dragons take miss Kobayashi out to play (dragons playing together can be a little dangerous, as we find out). Tohru also uses her dragon strength to capture a thief while out shopping (it’s also very evident that she’s well-liked by all the merchants, though she doesn’t really understand why).

I was really glad that there wasn’t a repeat of the uncomfortable, non consensual nudity from the first episode. It was a stain on what was otherwise a pretty enjoyable first outing for the show. The second episode continues to be fairly cute, manages to feature some really great animation during Tohru’s and Kanna’s play date, as well as during Tohru’s confrontation with the thief in the shopping arcade, and demonstrates a certain charm that makes it fun to watch despite the fact that it doesn’t really get me laughing all that much.

The one aspect that I don’t really like actually forms the basis for the show, which is a little problematic, I suppose. I’m not a big fan of characters who immediately proclaim their love for another character, especially against all logic and their target character’s wishes. Tohru is very forthcoming with her desires and there’s clearly some reason why she’s become fixated on Kobayashi (little bits and pieces of Tohru’s backstory have been peeking through already, so I’m guessing there’s something going on), but her fervent love and overwhelming jealousy is tough to handle without having some of that background to grasp onto. I’m hoping that a little more nuance develops as the show moves on. I’m not familiar with the manga, so I don’t know how realistic I’m being.

I will likely continue along with this show since I’m a fan of the KyoAni aesthetic and animation.

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – ACCA: 13 Territory Inspection Department

In a world separated into 13 wards, with each ward having an observation division controlled by the organization known as “ACCA.” Jean is known as the craftiest member of ACCA. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: The Dowa kingdom has been experiencing a period of unprecedented peace for many years. The king is celebrating his ninety-ninth birthday and there are no signs of political unrest. This makes the government’s observational division, known as “ACCA” obsolete, or so say those in charge; without a need to utilize the employees of ACCA to help maintain political control, why not just trim the budget and get rid of them? Jean Otus is one of ACCA’s most recognizable members, known as the “cigarette peddler” for indulging in a smoke here and there while on the job. ACCA’s imminent closure doesn’t come as a surprise to Jean, and he has the family business to fall back on. But after being sent out on an audit and discovering some hints of low-level corruption within his organization, he learns that ACCA is to remain open. Jean also begins to notice that he himself is under observation. What could possibly be churning behind the scenes to prompt the change?

Impressions: Though my interest in anime and manga tends to be pretty broad, I do have a small stable of creators whose work I follow more closely. Most of these are the more auteur-style anime directors, such as Masaaki Yuasa, or Akiyuki Shinbo (though his actual directorial involvement is questionable – I just really like the Shaft aesthetic so take that how you will). Natsume Ono is one of the few manga-ka whose body of work has really resonated with me, though unlike Yuasa her particular style is a bit harder to define. Aside from her character designs, which most people can identify by their general lankiness and round, almost protruding eyes, the settings for her stories run the gamut from Asia (modern and historical), to Europe, to the fictionalized nation depicted in ACCA. The unifying trait between her many disparate works is difficult to point out from the surface, but it’s definitely there in the pacing and feel of her stories – they all tend to depict adult characters involved in often mundane, slow-burn drama (romantic or otherwise). This type of character-based drama is something I seek out, and it appears that ACCA will likely demonstrate that sort of structure. In short, ACCA, with its lackadaisical pacing and (currently) low-stakes drama is (maybe counter intuitively) just the kind of thing that gets me going. That said, this is also the type of opening episode that’s likely to turn away a large portion of the anime-viewing audience, because it doesn’t have a lot to offer upfront.

Very little happens in this episode, plot-wise. We’re introduced to the setting via a fairly standard “as you know…” info-dump, presented to a sub-set of characters who would likely not need to hear the basic breakdown of how their society works. I’m always a little bit amused when this happens, as the Japanese language is based so much around inferences and indirect, implied meaning; it’s always seemed odd to me that the plots of so many anime are blurted-out awkwardly rather than revealed organically. In any case, we’re introduced to Jean Otus, a protagonist with a cool demeanor who leads a relatively unassuming life. He shares an apartment with his sister; their family serve as landlords for their luxury apartment building, which they’d otherwise be unable to afford. Jean is good at his job as an ACCA observer, and he’s also known for his smoking habit (tobacco is an expensive luxury in their society).

The primary bit of drama in this episode comes as the result of one of Jean’s audits, during which he discovers some low-level illegal activity cropping up from within the organization. The resulting kerfluffle isn’t huge – even the highers-up don’t appear to be all that concerned about it – but during the fallout it’s revealed that Jean is actually surrounded by an air of suspicion and that there are some people in positions of power that suspect him of some sort of wrongdoing. He remarks that he feels as though he’s being watched, and while it’s not quite obvious whether or not anyone is yet, it’s at this point that the show establishes an unsettled feeling in the viewer. Is this setting really so peaceful and bland? Will the entire series be just a serialized account of Jean’s travels with bureaucratic commentary thrown in? I doubt it. There’s also an odd sort of separation between the audience and Jean right from the get-go. While he’s ostensibly the focal character, it feels as if we’re looking at him from the outside, seeing him from the POV of the other characters around him. It’s a bit disorienting, but I can’t help feel like it’s intentional.

This seems to me like the type of anime where the viewer really has to be willing to read between the lines to gain a sense of what the story might involve. I’ve seen quite a few complaints aimed at ACCA about how “nothing happens in the first episode,” and yet to me the entire set up seems inherently intriguing and I feel like the groundwork is solidly in place. I also admittedly enjoyed watching Jean perform his mundane job duties, since my day job sometimes involves auditing and performing tasks in line with strict procedural outlines, so there’s a certain familiarity there that I’m guessing maybe a lot of anime fans might not connect with as well. This isn’t to say that I think I have every detail of the show nailed down simply because I’m an adult with a compliance-focused job – I’m definitely left with a lot of questions on my mind, too, and I feel like there are still a lot of hidden details that haven’t come to light. But rather than being frustrated about that or feeling as though the show hasn’t provided me something to which I’m entitled, I feel drawn in by the mystery and even just the sheer openness of the various directions the series could take. I’ve never been shy about saying that I find very few anime series directly relateable, since most anime just isn’t made to directly appeal to adult audiences. When something like this comes along that seems to be aiming for more mature appeal, I just don’t feel bad about it.

If I had to point out something that I did find frustrating, it would probably be the occasional tonal shifts throughout the episode. The bulk of the episode reads as tonally serious to me, not in the sense that major things of gravity are happening all the time, but this definitely isn’t meant to be a funny series. There are a couple of scenes, though, that read more like an office ensemble slice-of-life comedy, since several of Jean’s coworkers are very focused on their ten o’ clock break time and eating cakes from the local patisserie. These scenes do a good job of establishing how mundane things currently are, but I find that it’s rare when comedy and drama in anime truly mesh, so while it wasn’t a complete turn off, it was a little eye-rolling.

If I haven’t made it clear by now, I’ve pretty much already bought into what this anime series is selling. That’s a confidence that only really comes as a result of having meshed with the author’s style many times in the past and appreciating being in the target demographic for once. I will say, though, if I were trying to trick an apprehensive fan into giving this show a try, I’d definitely mention that the series director also directed the (also quite excellent) One Punch Man. It’s a bit tricksy, since the shows otherwise have nothing to do with one-another and are profoundly different in plot and style, but I’m admittedly kind of hoping that we might get some moments of very neat, more subdued character animation out of the deal. From what I understand, people like working with Shingo Yamamoto, so we’ll see.

There are times where I get kind of bummed that other fans don’t seem to get much out of certain anime series as I do (*cough* The Lost Village *cough*), but there are also times where I completely understand, and I’m not too torn up about it. This is one of those times. I really appreciate the slow pace and the little mysterious bits floating beneath the surface, but a lot of people likely won’t. I’m looking forward to seeing the story unfold.

Pros: It has a unique look and setting. There are inklings of unrest beneath the calm exterior. There’s a level of separation between the viewer and the main character that feels somewhat intentional.

Cons: There are a few tonal shifts that seem unnatural. There’s some “as you know…” info-dumping. The episode is slow-paced and not very much “plot-y” stuff happens to draw people in.

Grade: B

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – The Dumping Ground

I’ve been an anime fan for a long time, and I can say with some authority that there are times when it’s just not worthwhile to spend a lot of time talking about a particular series. I used to go into fine detail about every ounce of fanservice, sexism, or other element of ugliness in a show. I also used to devote a lot of time to first episodes that were just devoid of anything worth talking about. You don’t know difficulty until you’ve tried to write a thousand-ish words about something that’s essentially a clone of several other very average things! It’s also hard to stay silent, though, when you’ve devoted time to watching something. So here’s the very special space I’ve developed to give stuff a mention when it otherwise doesn’t have a lot about it worth analyzing. This post will be updated as I watch more first episodes. As usual – these impressions are based off of first episodes only (unless specified otherwise). These shows may completely turn around in subsequent episodes… but I doubt it! I’ve also given many of them joke ratings, but it should be fairly obvious from context what my feelings are.

 

Hand Shakers

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode 1 Summary: Tazuna is a typical teen with a not-so-typical interest in fixing things. He can become so distracted helping people fix their mechanical items that he makes himself late for appointments. One day he’s asked by a certain Dr. Makihara to stop by the local university. After arriving he discovers a girl, Koyori, sleeping in a hospital bed. Reminded of his dead sister, Tazuna grasps her hand and is awakened to powers beyond his imagining. Of course, there’s a catch – if he ever lets go of Koyori’s hand, she’ll die.

Impressions: I think there are a lot of choices to be made when producing an anime. It’s not often that I find one where the wrong choice appears to have been made in every single situation possible.

Visually this is an example of modern production techniques gone completely bonkers. The backgrounds are completely created using 3DCG techniques, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but they truly do not mesh well with the 2D character animation, which is animated at a different frame rate and causes the characters to look like paper dolls pasted on top of a backdrop. The background frame rate is too high and moves too smoothly – watching it reminds me of watching a modern television set with the refresh rate set too high. I start to get dizzy, because it feels like I’m looking through a window rather than at a screen. The effect is reminiscent of some anime-style video game openings and cut scenes I’ve run across over the years – an attempt was made to blend cutting-edge graphics from both sides of the equation, but technology and visual sense needed to join them seamlessly just didn’t exist. There are anime that are able to do it much better nowadays, but this doesn’t appear to be one of them.

And let’s talk about the women in this episode. We have one character, the class president, who’s defined by her huge chest that bounces unrealistically with the slightest movement of her body. Then there’s “Bind,” the female half of the duo that Tazuna battles this episode, who apparently exists to writhe on the ground in sexual agony, have her crotch stomped on violently, and make orgasm noises in the place of actual dialog. And there’s Koyomi, who’s a personality-less white-haired loli who seems to be there to get dragged around by the hand (but it’s okay, it’s part of the plot! /s). There’s so much male-gaze camera leering and sexualized violence in this episode that I was getting pretty uncomfortable. It’s actually been quite a while since I’ve seen something that’s trying so hard to be vile; most of the fanservice-focused series I’ve been aware of lately are goofier (which doesn’t necessarily make it better, just marginally less heartbreaking to watch as a woman and an anime fan).

Nope, no, nuh-uh, no thanks, dame, batsu, no.

Here’s an article on Sakuga Blog that explains some more about the poor visual decisions in this anime.

Grade: DD-

  

 

Kemono Friends

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Game

Episode 1 Summary: A very strange animal arrives in Japari Park. She can’t fly, she doesn’t have sharp claws, and can’t really swim. What she does have is endurance and intelligence, and this intrigues the Serval cat who pounces on her. Serval-san names the new arrival “Bag-chan” since her main defining feature is the large backpack she wears. They decide to head to the Library, where Bag-chan can hopefully find out what kind of animal she is. Along the way, Serval-san and Bag-chan fight a Cerulean, an antagonistic blue blob, and stop at a watering hole to talk to a hippopotamus. Hippo warns them both about a very large Cerulean guarding the gate between the Savanna, where they are currently, and the Jungle, where Bag-chan is headed. Her warning pans-out, and Bag-chan’s smarts are needed to help defeat the enemy. As she wanders into the Jungle, Serval-san decides to tag along out of curiosity.

Impressions: I was hanging out with some friends of mine yesterday and one of them was talking about having seen this show and how awful it was, so I know right then which first episode I had to look at next. While it didn’t quite send me into convulsions, it is a pretty good example of how not to make a an anime adapted from a game.

Funny story: the game on which this anime is based apparently shut down shortly before the anime broadcast began, so the way in which Serval’s narration (which clearly alludes to game mechanics) instructs the nameless protagonist on how the world works is not only clunky, but amusingly tragic in a way as well. A lot of the expository dialog is really obvious in its intentions, which made it really difficult for me to pay much attention. Serval describes the different skills that the animal friends have like a gamer might describe character stats and abilities, so I found myself starting to tune out. Japari Park is mapped like a game, with barriers between regions. Different animals have their own territories. There are enemy creatures and boss creatures sprinkled throughout the land, and it takes different skill sets to defeat them. Honestly (and no insult to anyone I know in real life), if one of my friends were describing this to me as a game they were playing, I might just ask them to stop.

I’ve spoken here before about CG animation and why I’m not a fan, but I can recognize when it’s done well, at least. In this case, I feel like there are some points where the characters just weren’t really animated properly – during the opening scene, Serval-san chases Bag-chan across the savanna, and while Serval skids to change direction, her body just stops and slides for a couple of seconds. I also happened to notice a couple of times where characters were talking, but their mouths just didn’t open. Creating animation is always a challenge, and no matter what method you use, there will always be difficulties. These examples, which I don’t want to call “laziness” or “sloppiness” but don’t really have a better descriptor to use, are just embarrassing, though.

I will say, though, that I think the character designs are pretty cute – all of the animals are human girls with animal ears and outfits. I am a little weirded-out by the lack of male animals, though.

Grade: D… for Dingo?

  

 

Spiritpact

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA (likely too many)

Source: Chinese Web Manhua (comic)

Episode 1 Summary: You Keika is the last of his family line, a famous lineage of exorcists. Since his parents died when he was young, he never received the proper training and support, so his spiritual skills are untrained. He spends his days reading fortunes and his night scavenging for computer parts for his side business. One night, after witnessing a battle between a real exorcist and an evil spirit, Keika is hit by a truck and dies. His spirit, being more powerful than average due to his latent spiritual abilities, is still hanging around earth, though. The exorcist who he saw earlier, Tanmoku Ki, invites Keika to become his personal spirit helper, so that Keika doesn’t either disappear or transform into an evil spirit after seven days. He initially resists, but after being captured by an evil spirit, eventually joins Ki in a Spirit Pact.

Impressions: Sometimes entertainment is like a time machine, bringing you back to the days when you were an itty-bitty little anime fan just starting to spread your wings and fly. It was the late 1990’s/early 2000’s when I feel like I really came into my own as an anime fan, and I’m pretty sure someone produced this anime series around that time, locked it in a time capsule, labeled it “open after fifteen years” and dutifully forgot about it until now. This isn’t a dig on anime from that time period; though anime was going through a very awkward “how do we imitate cel shading on this computer and make it look okay on this background when all we have are rudimentary visual filters?” phase, a lot of really excellent, memorable anime series came into being back then.

This one, however, has none of the charms of, say, Descendants of Darkness (with which it shares some basic story elements) or even some of the dumpier episodes of GetBackers, which for some reason sprung to mind multiple times while I was watching the episode (now those are some weird memories). Mostly it just feels like a toothless pseudo-BL supernatural series made on the cheap. Not only is it unremarkable, it’s also incredibly awkward, with extremely over-acted character dialog that tries for comedy (but fails), and kooky chibi-style slapstick and character deformation that really isn’t flattering to the production (or humorous, even).

What might be of mild interest to some is that the show is primarily a Chinese-produced animated series that has a few Japanese staff working in partnership in the production. What we’re seeing on Crunchyroll is a Japanese dub of the series that’s apparently been broadcasting in China for a while (I did a short search for more details, such as broadcast dates, but couldn’t find much). There’s been some controversy already, with some people complaining about Crunchyroll streaming it when it “isn’t actually anime” – though they seem to have forgotten that Crunchyroll also streams RWBY (Western CG animation), Thunderbolt Fantasy (made with puppets), and live-action Asian dramas… but who am I to judge other fans and their complaints? I’m personally a bit more relaxed nowadays on what I think should bear the “anime” label – this looks like anime, and in this incarnation the characters are speaking Japanese. There are so many other things worth criticizing with this show, why waste time boo-hooing over its national origin?

There have been worse things this season, definitely. But there’s just something especially grating about an anime that recalls one of the happiest times in my fandom life and yet still makes me angry.

Grade: One half-rate supernatural bishie.

  

 

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Gabriel DropOut

Gabriel White graduated at the top of the class at angel school and attends a human school on earth in pursuit of knowledge, but then gets engrossed in a web game and decides its too much trouble to go anywhere. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Gabriel is the embodiment of angelic behavior. She graduates at the top of her class in angel school, then descends to earth in order to observe humans close up and make their lives better. It’s a lofty task, but her inherent kindness and helpfulness keeps her on the straight-and-narrow, as one would expect of such a divine being. It’s this trait of helpfulness that turns out to be her eventual downfall, however; while playing an MMO, Gabriel becomes tempted by a weapon that she can use to heal other characters, and soon gets sucked into a life of gaming and skipping school. She’d play hooky every day if not for her friend Vigne, an unusually straight-laced demon with a strong sense of responsibility. Gabriel also shares her school days with Satanichia, another demon who fancies herself the future Queen of Hell (but who’s afraid of dogs and can’t even manage to get away with not turning in her homework) and Raphiel, another angel with a vile personality.

Impressions: In the continuing saga of no one being able to predict what I’m going to find funny, I went into this show with zero expectations and actually laughed out loud a couple of times by the time the credits rolled. I guess I’m just not as self-aware as I think I am.

The show itself is deceptively simple, and seems to revolve around one particular concept – angels and demons behaving in ways that are generally thought of as being contrary to their very nature. Gabriel and Raphi are both blessed with various shades of shitty attitude, while Vigne and Satanichia are either overly-kind or ineffectual, depending on the moment. It’s a gag that ought to run out of steam really quickly (and it very well could after a couple more episodes; I don’t really know what to expect at this point), but it definitely just works. By the time Satanichia was ranting about not doing her homework, I was definitely laughing to myself.

Part of what I think really gets me going is that Gabriel’s situation is pretty relateable. I played an MMO for a period of about three months many years ago, and never quite got into it much until I was asked by some other characters to join a raid. I got sucked into the experience completely, and spent an entire Sunday’s worth of daylight playing the stupid thing. After it was over and we all went our separate ways, I looked to see that more than six hours had passed since I’d started; probably not that impressive to many of you, but it was a huge amount of time to me. Whereas I made the choice then and there to stop completely, though, Gabriel lets herself fall further and further down the rabbit hole, essentially screwing up her life in the process. I think seeing her flaws laid out and knowing full well that I could have become something similar, given the chance and the inclination, makes her story amusing to watch on some level.

I read some other anime blogs, of course, and in poking around I learned a new term for Gabriel’s character type -she’s a trash character (side note: Anime Feminist is a great blog – whereas I tend to be more broad and incorporate my own feminism into my anime examinations, they are very focused on the subject and are good at pointing out some of the things that I might overlook. Check them out!). Trash characters are those characters who, for whatever reason, have stopped caring about social propriety and let their real, harsh opinions and bad habits fly free for all to see. The iconic ones tend to be young women who stop caring about putting up appearances – one example that I can think of is Yukino from His and Her Circumstances, who appears to be very put-together at school, but who becomes a lazy slob at home. There are of course some questions as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing as far as women’s representation; to summarize some of the good points, these characters seem to reject traditional femininity but at the same time it’s usually in service of some moé appeal. In short:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As usual, interpretations are in the eye of the beholder.

As for myself, I’m aware that this story was likely written to appeal to males on some level (the story originally appeared in a shounen magazine, after all), but I’m the type of fan who tends to overlook the hard demographic markers and take things for myself, since there isn’t nearly as much material created specifically for my particular demographic (anime made for mid-thirties women is in short supply, sadly). This has been a very roundabout way of saying that I identify with what Gabriel is going through in that its so, so easy to fall off the productivity wagon, lose hope, and become cynical about life and towards others. Most of the time I find it easier to stay inside and screw around on the computer than to leave the house and go do something more “productive,” so despite her specific situation being more extreme, I find that it makes sense to me.

I think if Gabriel were a lone lead, though, the show would get irritating quickly. It’s the ensemble cast and its members’ variable personality quirks that really make the episode entertaining. I mentioned Satanichia’s inflated perception of herself as being memorable (just look at that accompanying image to the left – I think it’s pretty representative of her personality), and it rings true for almost every scene she’s in. I think a lot of other reviewers have found her to be outright grating, but I tend to like noisy, clueless characters (think Yukko from Nichijou) so I think that’s why she hit me the right way. Vigne just tries so hard to be a demon and yet can’t seem to help but be a goody two-shoes sweetheart. And Raphiel… when I say “bad personality” I don’t think that properly encapsulates how rotten she is. She’s truly a bully, but in a manipulative way that worms its way around your conscious perception and catches you by surprise. She’s the type of character I would despise in a more serious setting, but as a foil for Satanichia I think she works well.

Overall I’m reminded a bit of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, which has a similar story premise (but a more adult, vulgar outlook). In that series, there’s a constant questioning of what acts are actually “good” or “bad,” to the point that it actually becomes fairly serious and broad-reaching inquiry regarding morality and being judgmental about women’s behavior. Right now the characters in this anime are maintaining a solid, humorous balance and I suspect the show won’t really be asking those big, serious questions at any point. As I mentioned before, though, I worry that something more will have to happen in order to keep up the level of interest, because a one-gag show is rarely funny for twelve episodes.

As with most comedies, there are a couple of questionable gags. One in particular (that I admittedly laughed at anyway – sorry for being a flawed feminist and human being) involves Gabriel attempting a divine teleportation to make it to school on time. Ultimately, the only thing that transports is the pair of panties she’s wearing (it’s implied that the rest of her is so corrupted that the spell just doesn’t work), and they appear over her desk in class. A group of teenage boys sees this as a divine miracle. Despite the scene being about a minute long, I feel like there are a lot of things I could pick apart – teenagers are not always the smartest, but I think the assumption that teenage boys are so goofy and sex-starved that the act of seeing a pair of a girl’s underwear is a miracle makes me roll my eyes. I feel like the rest of the show is funny enough on its own merits that it doesn’t have to stoop to this level, so it’s a little bit frustrating to me. But again, I still chuckled at it.

I truly have no idea whether this anime series can remain funny beyond the first episode (I recall my experience with Himouto Umaru-chan where I found the introductory episode chuckle-worthy but the subsequent couple of episodes so profoundly flat that I dropped it like a turd), but I liked the introductory episode quite a bit. As of this writing, the second episode is available, so I might just go check it out. In any case, if you have a taste for somewhat low-brow comedic antics, I would definitely give this one a look.

Pros: Its simple premise provides more humor than might be apparent from first glance. The characters’ personalities are over-the-top but meld well into a comedic unit. Gabriel is relateable.

Cons: Some of the gags are maybe too low-brow and/or cynical. There’s the potential for one-note gags as the show progresses (or doesn’t, as might be the case).

Grade: B

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Onihei

In the late Edo Period of Tokugawa Shogunate, hatamoto samurai and law enforcement officer Hasegawa Heizō Nobutame (1745-1795) supervised crackdown on arsonists and organized robbers. He was both highly skilled and merciless against criminals, who called him “Oni no Heizō” (“Demonic Heizō”) a.k.a. “Onihei.” – ANN

Streaming at: Amazon Video (with an “Anime Strike” channel membership)

Number of Episodes: 13

Source: Novels/Historical Dramas

Summary of Episode 1: The thief Tanbei of Chigashira has been assumed responsible for a rash of violent robberies around Edo as of late. Law enforcement officer Hasegawa Heizo employs the help of recently-apprehended thief Kumehachi to infiltrate the thieves, as Kumehachi is certain that an impostor must be behind the crimes. The “real” Tanbei, he claims, kept to a very strict thieving code prohibiting murder, rape, and stealing from the poor. Thus, the string of dead bodies in his wake must be the fault of someone more sinister. It is to Kumehachi’s horror to learn that Tanbei, now older, fatter, and looser with his morals, gladly takes responsibility and even welcomes Kumehachi back into the fold. All Kumehachi can do is help to bring his fallen master to justice.

Impressions: Content Warning for images of sword violence, blood, dead bodies, and the suggestion of rape happening mostly off screen/obscured.

I was looking for a bit of a departure from some of the cuter, lighter stuff I’d been watching thus far, and boy did this satisfy that itch. Onihei is unapologetically dark, humorless, and presented with an adult air that I suspect most people would find off-putting. I myself am actually at a bit of a loss as watching this dredges up some memories for me that I’m not quite sure how to think about.

This intro episode reminds me of the type of anime fan that I was eight or nine years ago. I was very much anti-moe and anything that walked the line of being too cutesy or cloying was likely to find itself in the garbage bin before too long. I considered myself to have very “grown-up,” serious tastes and sought out anime that distinctly seemed to be aimed at adult viewers. I surrounded myself with like-minded people, too, which kept me in the safety of an echo chamber. It was probably around the time of Madoka Magica (six years ago now, wow!) that I started to open up a bit more to the ways in which cute visuals and concepts are often used in creative ways. And heck, I now fully believe that sometimes cute is fine just for cute’s sake. I’m no longer that infatuated with anime series that stake their claim on being grim and gritty, and while I ended up having sort of a falling-out with some members of that previous group for various reasons (differences of opinion regarding media being but a small factor) I’m pretty happy with the type of fan that I’ve become in the meantime. One can be critical and discerning while still enjoying things that exist just to be fun, after all.

I wanted to spend the time providing that context, because I admittedly had some immediate negative feelings towards this show that were influenced by my own fandom experiences. The tone of this show is immediately darker and more serious than the majority of anime that’s produced nowadays, which makes it very unique; to me, though, it is also singular in how it reminds me of my relationships of a certain time and place, and of certain people who I know would enjoy the show for its atmosphere and combination of noir and samurai storytelling styles. Having said that, though, I’ll try to move past it and focus on the episode’s actual merits.

In the past few years, for reasons unknown, I’ve gotten really queasy about seeing acts of violence depicted on screen, whether in live-action programming or in animation. It’s funny, because years and years ago I would seek out gore and play a lot of overly-violent video games. Now I can barely keep my eyes on the screen when characters are getting hacked apart, especially so if there’s a lot of suggestive lead-in. This episode isn’t quite as bad as some for all the violence in it, because to be honest the gore isn’t really all that realistic. There are a couple of scenes that depict the aftermath of a robbery with dead bodies strewn about in pools of blood, and there’s also a sword fight featured in the second half of the episode that depicts some stylized violent sword-slashing action, but for a lot of the episode the most objectionable parts are obscured through darkness or come across as too over-the-top for me to be affected by them. There’s the benefit to me of being able to keep watching, but for a series that seems to be banking on its grittiness and basis in history, I think that might be a net loss.

Also worth mentioning, for those who prefer to be forewarned about it, is that there’s a flashback scene partway through the episode during which there’s either an attempted rape, or the aftermath of a completed one (it’s difficult to tell from the short time it’s on screen whether the attacker was successful or not). Shown in the scene is a visibly distressed woman with the front of her clothing torn open, though her nude chest is obscured by other characters and the darkness of the scene. As with most of these types of depictions, it’s only purpose is to add “flavor” to the scene using it as shorthand for depravity and departure from expected cultural norms. In short, lazy and unnecessary given even a slight modicum of creativity.

There seem to have been a few other somewhat bizarre visual choices made in the production of this series. Most people will immediately recognize the extensive use of CG for the background setting and many of the crowd scenes. I’ve softened on my opinion on the use of CG in otherwise 2D anime (thanks, Shirobako!) but that opinion rides on the fact that, when used well, CG generally melds well-enough with traditionally-drawn elements to remain unobtrusive and supportive to the important elements of the scene. This series seems to have taken a different approach, and I’m not entirely sure whether it was a purposeful choice or not. The background elements are conspicuously lacking in the kind of fine detail (texturing, colorization, etc.) that would help them to blend in well. The crowd characters in particular stand out like several hands’ worth of sore thumbs, especially when there are something like twenty CG characters in a scene with two or three hand-drawn main characters. Again, the realities of anime production are what they are, and I suspect a show like this which is now considerably outside the mainstream just doesn’t have the resources to devote to top-tier CG work. But dang would I much rather have looked at static background characters and dull settings than the strange type of poly-chromatic tomfoolery they went with.

That leads me to another of the series’ strange visual choices – the use of color. There’s heavy color filtering going on in many of the scenes, giving each of them a distinct look. Scenes in the jail have a dark blue hue, while those that take place in the town are tinted pink or red. It’s not exactly a bad thing in and of itself, and I’ve seen this kind of mood coloration work well in other stylized contexts. Again, though, the accompanying story of crime is not only gritty, but straightforward and classic; dressing it up with modern-day visual sensibilities would have to be done very well in order to project a sense of style without being overly-conspicuous, and I feel like the techniques cross the line into gaudiness more often than not.

I will say, though, that the very classic sort of story presented in this episode (and likely throughout the series), appeals to me on a certain level. I haven’t had much exposure to jidaigeki serials aside from having learned that they’re a thing that exists in the world, so to get a taste of that style of characterization and episodic historical storytelling via a medium that I can follow is an opportunity that I kind of would like to stay on top of.

That said, there’s but one legal method of watching this series in the United States, and it’s kind of irritating me right now. Amazon has been licensing a couple of anime each season for streaming, though last season they kind of dropped the ball with The Great Passage, a very excellent series about a dictionary editor (what? of course I would love an anime series about something goofy like that!). That and a couple of other anime are available now, though it appears that Amazon has posted them under some new anime-specific streaming service called “Anime Strike” which is a channel that you must pay for in addition to your existing Amazon Prime membership. I already pay for several different streaming services, so you can imagine that I’m a little bit salty about the prospect of paying even more money to keep up with the shows I want to watch (even if it’s only $4.99 a month… I already pay for Amazon Prime, darn it!). It remains to be seen whether this will turn out to be a successful venture for them. As long as they have exclusive rights to the noitaminA stuff, I’ll probably just have to bite the bullet.

I may have to stew over this one a little bit, since I’m extremely torn. I like to see a broad variety of tones and tastes represented each anime season, and this type of show is pretty rare nowadays (especially in animated form). I have to give a few kudos for going against the grain and giving us something that’s not cutesy in any way shape or form, and the idea of a historical police procedural type series is definitely intriguing. But it’s a near-complete sausage festival where the majority of the women are either dead bodies, background characters, or rape victims, so it’s difficult for me to connect with it on more than a very shallow level. It’s also quite violent in addition to that, which can be hard for me to take, depending on the day. Sometimes the media we love is just complicated, don’t you think?

Pros: The tone differs quite a bit from what’s popular nowadays. The “history” plus “police procedural” is a genre combo that we don’t get very often in anime.

Cons: There’s violence and rape. Some of the visual choices are questionable.

Grade: C

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Miss Kobayashi is your average office worker who lives a boring life, alone in her small apartment–until she saves the life of a female dragon in distress. The dragon, named Tohru, has the ability to magically transform into an adorable human girl (albeit with horns and a long tail), who will do anything to pay off her debt of gratitude, whether Miss Kobayashi likes it or not. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: After a barely-remembered evening of drunken debauchery, Kobayashi-san finds herself in the strange situation of opening her front door and finding a dragon waiting for her. The dragon, named Tohru, takes the form of a lovely young woman, and has become hopelessly infatuated with Kobayashi, for reasons that are not immediately apparent. Tohru also claims that Kobayashi offered to share her home with her; though Kobayashi doesn’t really remember much about what she may or may not have said or done that night, she eventually breaks down and lets Tohru stay, especially since she promises to make herself useful around the house. The problem is, however, that Tohru doesn’t know a whole lot about what being human entails, and her ideas of being a house maid are often way off the mark. It may be more work than it’s worth to keep Tohru around, but Kobayashi-san finds herself warming up to her unwanted house guest bit-by-bit.

Impressions: Content warning for what could be interpreted as non-consensual removal of one character’s clothing by another character.

Continuing with my unintentional theme today is another series focused on monster girls, in this case dragons and other mythological beasts. At first glance, this anime appears to be much more straightforward in its comedic intentions, but there’s enough going on that I feel like there might be much more worth talking about than may be immediately apparent.

What I think is worth mentioning first of all is that, while this episode is definitely “funny” and I can see the humor in it, it’s not really what I would call “funny ha-ha.” I’m admittedly very particular when it comes to anime-style humor and I tend to disagree with the majority about what works and what doesn’t, so my saying that I didn’t really laugh much throughout this first episode isn’t necessarily an indictment of the series’ success in that regard. I do think that that the show works to subvert expectations in such a way that it’s entertaining even if it isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud entertaining. I think one of my favorite sequences (and one that’s pretty easy to find if you go looking) occurs when Kobayashi-san tries to outline for Tohru just exactly what a maid’s duties are, and Tohru’s dragon nature takes over and twists them to fit within her inherent skill set as a mythological beast. For example, a house maid does the laundry for her master – luckily Tohru’s saliva is perfect for removing stains from clothing. Other examples are similarly gross and vaguely horrifying, keeping the episode from devolving into complete saccharine mayhem, which is a nice surprise.

What’s helpful in creating the atmosphere is Tohru’s characterization, which is incredibly earnest. She’s someone who’s not really familiar with human cultural conventions and doesn’t really care to follow them, so she wears her heart on her sleeve and tries to emphasize doing what she thinks is right. She shows up on Kobayashi’s doorstep because Kobayashi (albeit while drunk) invited her to stay over, and this act of kindness so struck her heart that she fell in love with the human woman (she claims that it’s “sexual love” but I think that might be an oversimplification). She wants to do right by her host, it’s just that she doesn’t always know how to keep her natural inclinations under control. There’s also a sense that she’s fairly lonely and just needs a little company. I find that overbearing and willfully obtuse characters normally tend to push my buttons a little bit, but Tohru tends to skirt the line humorously without crossing it. It’s a balance that not many anime are able to strike.

Likewise, Kobayashi is pretty unique as far as protagonists are concerned. What struck me as unusual right off the bat is that Kobayashi-san isn’t exactly a typical “working woman” type character. She’s not depicted as an “OL” (an “Office Lady” – a woman employed at a company in a low-grade position making copies and bringing people tea, the assumption being that she’ll likely leave as soon as she gets married), and appears to have actual job responsibilities as some sort of software engineer. She also dresses in a masculine manner, which is not exactly unusual where I’m from, but seems to be less common when it comes to anime, which is based so strongly on visual symbols and shorthand. He work acquaintance, Makoto, describes Kobayashi as “one of the guys” which is a concept that I have a lot of problems with, the main one being the assumption that some men have trouble being friends with a woman unless the woman in question sheds every bit of their femininity. However, I think the intention was to demonstrate how Kobayashi isn’t focused on presenting herself as typically feminine (and instead admires it from outside via her interest in Victorian era maids), and I do find it heartening that there is an anime airing that features a less-common gender presentation and doesn’t make a big joke of it. There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong in that sense, so it’s nice to see it mostly done right.

This does kind of beg the question, though – how are we as the audience supposed to interpret the relationship between Tohru and Kobayashi? I could pretty easily see it as a romantic one, since Tohru has essentially confessed her true feelings already. Kobayashi seems mostly uninterested thus far, though. I’m at one time kind of bummed out that in episode 1 we are already kind of dancing around the issue, having the character share a bed, showing a little bit of nudity, essentially planting the seed of something that could easily blossom into a romantic or even just sexual entanglement between two women, but I’m also wary of most “Yuri” series since so many are primarily fetish fodder for straight cisgender males. It’s not that I think that audience shouldn’t be catered-to, but there’s already plenty out there, and I’d love to see a cute same-sex romance that exists without those particular caveats.

It bears mentioning that there was an iffy moment in this episode involving nudity and consent. There’s a scene where Kobayashi and Makoto are getting drunk at a restaurant, and in her inebriated state Kobayashi starts to get angry that Tohru isn’t behaving much like an actual maid (obviously problematic, since Kobayashi is a maid otaku after all). There’s a lengthy sidebar about maid cosplay versus lolita fashion (I actually enjoyed this part, for reasons that should be obvious to those who know of my side hobbies) and how Tohru’s chosen form is closer to otaku cosplay than to the uniforms of actual Victorian maids, which are what Kobayashi is more interested in. Kobayashi forcefully removes Tohru’s clothes at this point. There are arguments to be made about what’s really happening here, I suppose (didn’t Tohru say that her “clothing” was really her scales, magically shape-shifted?) and Tohru doesn’t seem to be particularly perturbed by the nudity (moreso by potentially making Kobayashi angry with her), but the scene felt mean-spirited and out-of-place in a show that’s otherwise pretty cute and upbeat. It wasn’t a deal-breaker for me, but I think it could be for others, so beware if that description is off-putting. It remains to be seen whether there is more of that type of material to come.

On the upside, I do appreciate that there’s a little bit of variety in the character designs – Tohru in particular is slightly more plump than a typical anime protagonist (probably not “real life” plump, but I’ll take even slight variety when I can find it). I also like how Kyoto Animation went a bit more Nichijou with the character designs and general visual presentation for this series. Believe me, I love the light blooms and perennial sunset lighting of series like Hyouka and Sound! Euphonium, but I also appreciate bright colors and simplified roundness, too. I think it fits the more comedic atmosphere really well. Speaking of Kyoto Animation, I think it bears mentioning that, while this series doesn’t look like it’ll end up being some crazy animation powerhouse like some of their other series, it still looks very nice, with a lot of fine details that might not be flashy, but add to the overall richness. I’ll be excited when more characters show up so I can get a chance to see how they move and what their color palettes are like.

It’s a good time to be a fan of cute monster girls, since there are plenty to go around this season. Even if this series never goes on to strike me as laugh-out-loud funny, I still think it has potential as a vehicle for a quirky relationship between a couple of mismatched characters. Tohru is a likable and earnest lead, and Kobayashi-san has her charms as well. I’ll remain hopeful that it keeps its less savory elements in check.

Pros: Kind of a fun twist on the core relationship, being between two women. The character designs are varied and cute. There’s a lot of quirky humor.

Cons: Kobayashi’s drunken non-consensual removal of Tohru’s clothes was gross and out-of-place.

Grade: B

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Interviews With Monster Girls

Tetsuo Takahashi is a teacher working at Shibasaki High School and specializing in the physiological studies of demi-humans. His students include Akira Takanashi, a vampire and lover of tomato juice; Kyōko Machi, a dullahan; and Yuki Kusakabe, a yuki-onna. The school also employs math teacher Sakie Satō, a succubus. – ANN

Streaming At: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: The new school year is starting, and biology teacher Takahashi-sensei is starting to think about doing some work on his graduate thesis. He’s nurtured an interest in Demi-humans for a while now, and though they’re no longer a persecuted sub-section of humanity, they can be a little hard to find. Takahashi is resigned to the fact that he’ll have to do some legwork to find Demi-humans willing to sit with him and be interviewed. At least, that’s what he thinks until realizing in short order that he’s literally surrounded Demi-humans in school. The school’s new math teacher, Satou-sensei, is a succubus who doesn’t exhibit many of the stereotypical traits one might expect of such a sexually-focused being. There is also a vampire, a dullahan (an individual whose head is separate from their body), and a snow woman (a Japanese yokai) among the student body, and none of them keep completely hidden. After opening up a line of communication with outgoing Hikari, a goofy vampire with a taste for tomato juice, Takanashi-sensei starts to gain some insight into these people he has thus far only been observing from afar.

Impressions: Monster girls seem to be anime fandom’s current fetish-du-jour, and while I do somewhat share that affinity, I haven’t really been impressed by why anime has had to offer so far related to the topic. Specifically, I found Monster Musume, the de facto flagship monster girl title, to be uncomfortably weird and sexual without actually being sexy. It gave an in-universe reason why the main characters weren’t supposed to have sex, but then pushed it anyway, making everything feel very discordant and uncomfortable in the process. Interviews With Monster Girls takes a different angle and removes the vast majority of the sexual content in favor of focusing more on the day-to-day culture of monster girls in the process. For me, at least, this makes the resulting product a lot more pleasant and endearing.

I think it was the correct choice to focus on a character like Hikari first. I love how her straightforward and outgoing nature serves to lay everything out right away. There’s a deceptively simple scene partway through the episode where Machi, the dullahan, is talking with some friends in class, and they conspicuously avoid the topic of her detached head. I think this is something that many people are inclined to do, especially when they exist within the majority (racially, sexually, able-bodied, size-wise, etc.) – they feel safer and as if they’re being more polite if they just don’t call attention to the differences expressed by the people around them. “I don’t see color” is one of the phrases that comes to my mind, and represents the inability for the majority to acknowledge how differences affect those around them (especially negatively). Hikari comes back later on and blasts straight on through that veil of propriety, talking with Machi about keeping track of her head on the bus while also carrying her school bag, and other things that would likely affect someone with disconnected body parts. It’s not just an ice-breaking moment, it also seems to prompt at least one of Machi’s classmates to “get over it” and stop treating her with kid gloves.

Hikari’s first one-on-one with Takahashi-sensei is entertaining as well; when he suggests that her latent blood-sucking fascination that’s focused on Kusakabe (the snow woman – vampires get hot easily and a snow-woman’s body is nice and cold) could be interpreted as erotic, she reacts like many teenagers would when it’s suggested that they actually have some sort of budding sexual feeling – namely with embarrassed indignation. While I think that anime often goes in the wrong direction when specifically portraying women’s sexuality, depicting is as being comprised primarily of shame and humiliation (gross), I think this scene has the right combination of innocence, humor, and respect for Hikari as a character to steer it away from that particular cliff side. She seems to me very genuinely like a teenager just beginning to confront some of those complicated emotions while still being unable to truly define what they are; the fact that the scene comes across as humorous rather than disgusting gives me hope that the show will continue in the right direction.

It’s worth mentioning as well that, despite being a token male surrounded by young women, Takahashi-sensei doesn’t seem to be serving the role of harem lead, which is refreshing. His interests in Demi-Human culture seem to be without ulterior motive; even when prodding Hikari about her bloodlust I didn’t interpret him as behaving inappropriately. This is, of course, up to every viewer to construe in their own way and I suspect that, as usual, life experience and comfort level with the general topic will play a large role here. But speaking for myself, I felt that his character and interactions stayed well within the realm of appropriateness and scientific inquiry, which left me feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

I’m a bit less sure of this when it comes to Satou-sensei, the succubus. Succubi are beings explicitly defined by their sexual nature, so Satou’s avoidance of the subject all together via her choices to dress in shapeless clothing and avoid direct contact with other adults gives me the feeling that there actually is some sort of shame involved in how she feels about herself. It’s clear that this is all intended as a joke based around subverting expectations, and that Satou means to avoid the trouble of any misunderstandings or sticky situations (pun not intended) related to who she is, but I’m wary that this quest for a one-note gag will serve to define her character. I would much rather hear her talk about what it’s like to be a succubus than see her continually running out of the room to avoid conflict.

Aside from the other characters, who thus far haven’t received a lot of screen time or focus, the charm of this episode comes from the little bits and pieces we get to hear about how Demi-Humans or “Demis” exist within human society. I think this is more the type of material that I really wanted from Monster Musume, but which was hidden beneath all of the goofy sex stuff. I like to hear about the fictional cultural aspects of the different monsters, as well as some of the more boring bureaucratic drudgery that comes along with being a community within a broader culture, examined in such a way as to not be directly related to any real culture (hey, anime isn’t subtle entertainment; for various I don’t usually trust it to handle racism, sexism, or any other “ism” properly). For example, I’m by no means a vampire “fan,” but the logistics of vampirism are always a question that I have when vampires are part of the equation. Sometimes the logistics are resoundingly hopeless, as with the anime Shiki – the existence of vampires is ultimately unsustainable because humans are consumed and more vampires are created at a pace that outpaces human reproduction and replacement. In short, everyone ends up sad. In the case of this show’s universe, vampires are provided a blood stipend by the government each month (assumed to be sourced from donations) and can also exist on regular food. Hikari in particular likes tomato juice since drinking it roughly replicates the “feel” of ingesting blood. It’s little fact snippets like that which I think will maintain my interest even if the show sticks mainly to regular slice-of-life stuff.

I wasn’t expecting much from this, so color me pleasantly surprised that Interviews with Monster Girls was so charming and cute in its introductory moments. I’m happy that monster girls have become popular enough at this point that there are  shows revolving around them that don’t rely directly on fanservice and misguided in-your-face sexualization. I’m hopeful that this show will continue to be a fun slice-of-life outing with some creative cultural inventions and endearing characters (that just happen to live a slightly different existence than you or me).

Pros: The show nudges up to the topic of budding sexuality without being gross. There’s a moment that portrays the dominant culture’s discomfort with racial otherness in a surprisingly subtle and nuanced way. The characters are very cute and charming.

Cons: I question the portrayal of the succubus character, who seems to be afraid or ashamed of her sexuality (or others’ perception of it).

Grade: B

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Minami Kamakura High School Girls Cycling Club

Hiromi Maiharu moved from Nagasaki to Kamakura. She begins her new life in Kamakura and her first day in high school by bicycling to her school, but she has not ridden a bicycle since she was young. On the way to the ceremony for the first day, she meets Tomoe Akitsuki, and Tomoe helps her train to be better at bicycling. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Hiromi is starting her first day at a new high school, and against her mother’s protests decides to ride her bike to school. She hasn’t ridden a bike since she was small, but is pretty sure that she’ll pick it back up in no time. After a terrifying downhill descent, Hiromi realizes she doesn’t really remember as much as she thought she did, but luckily she crashes into a new classmate, Tomoe. Tomoe does her best to keep Hiromi upright on her bicycle, but it seems like a lost cause. The two decide to hoof it instead, so at least they’ll arrive in time for the opening ceremony. On their way to the school building they meet one of the teachers, and Hiromi discovers that her food isn’t safe from the sea birds flying near the shore. After getting situated in class and listening to an inspiring speech from her homeroom teacher, Hiromi heads home and sees a group of cyclists whiz by on fancy road bikes, and she’s instantly hooked on the concept. But she’ll have to learn to keep her balance first!

Impressions: Oh good grief. I queued this up because I thought it would be cute and harmless. After struggling through Saga of Tanya the Evil, I just wanted something nice and pleasant to enjoy. I was unfortunately not prepared to experience such an intense and immediate dislike of the main character. It has often been a trope of sports anime to introduce the sport or other activity in question through the eyes of a character who doesn’t know much about it, or has only done it casually in the past. Hiromi serves that role here, but her ignorance of cycling is almost beyond comprehension. I don’t blame people for not knowing how to ride a bicycle. I grew up doing it, but not everyone had that luxury. But generally even people who aren’t familiar with bikes know something about how the vehicle functions, even in just the most basic sense. Hiromi mounts her bike and it starts to roll downhill… and it takes her a few beats to realize that she’s supposed to propel it by using the pedals. She nearly crashes into Tomoe before she figures out how the brakes work (and then gets tossed over the handlebars after clasping them too hard too quickly). Hiromi comes across not as someone new to a sport, but as someone who is clueless to basic aspects of life, and that doesn’t make for an engrossing experience.

Beyond that, though, there’s not really anything substantive to think or talk about. The episode sets up the premise competently, but I don’t really feel like I needed twenty minutes of goofy biking antics to learn that Hiromi is kind of directionless and that cycling might be her ticket towards some greater character-building purpose. There is a very tame element of humor throughout the episode that provides a little something to grasp onto (I did chuckle a little bit when a bird stole Hiromi’s sandwich… and she revealed another backup sandwich soon afterward) and the rest of it is harmless enough, but “harmless” doesn’t generally get me pumped to watch much more. I love iyashi-kei or “healing” shows, but often those have endearing characters and some sort of emotional hook; this series is less a contented sigh and more a non-committal shrug.

I’m also getting the sneaking suspicion that perhaps the local Kamakura tourism board had some hand in this anime adaptation, because boy does it read like a thinly-veiled advertisement at times. Did you know that Mount Fuji, which can be seen from the seashore in Kamakura, is about seventy kilometers away? Oh, and the area is in close proximity to Enoshima? This is what I learned today while watching this episode. This is nice information to know, but it feels a bit like Tomoe is providing this exposition/info-dump in a very unnatural manner and it feels extremely obvious. I certainly wouldn’t fault them for wanting an anime tie-in, because anime tourism has become big business in recent years, but my opinion is that the focus should be on telling a good story; the benefits will follow.

There is an upside to the strong focus on Kamakura as a setting, though – the background artwork is consistently vibrant, detailed, and gorgeous. The artwork appears to be referenced from life as the Hiromi’s neighborhood really looks very lived-in and lush with plants. There’s also good use of CG to provide more three dimensional first person point-of-view shots from Hiromi’s perspective as she travels through town. If the rest of the show were slightly more tolerable in other aspects, I think this could definitely be worthwhile watching for the scenery porn.

The last two minutes of the episode are a live action segment featuring two voice actors learning about the sport of bicycling; in episode one, they learn about the merits of bicycle frames constructed of different materials, and deciding how they plan to use their bikes before purchasing the one which will work best. It’s useful information, but I don’t find seiyuu culture all that interesting, personally, so the additional appeal from that aspect was a little lost on me.

There’s a difference between being low-impact and being frustratingly boring, and unfortunately my first impressions of this series is that it crosses the line into the latter. I wish I liked any of the characters a little better, or thought that the bicycle plot had more potential, but it’s difficult to see that from where I’m standing. I’ve seen slice-of-life and sports done so much better, so I can’t really recommend this one.

Pros: The background artwork is beautiful and the CG is well integrated.

Cons: The main character’s incompetence is grating. Some of the episode feels like a thinly-veiled ad for the region in which the anime is set.

Grade: C

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Saga of Tanya the Evil

Tanya Degurechov used to be one of Japan’s elite office workers, but because of a wrathful god, was reborn as a little girl. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and nearly transparent white skin, and she flies through the air and mercilessly strikes down her opponents. She speaks with a young girl’s lisp and commands the army. Tanya prioritizes optimization and career advancement above all, and she will become the most dangerous entity among the Imperial Army’s sorcerers. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Light Novel/Manga

Episode 1 Summary: In a pseudo-European world under siege, young mage Tanya Degurechov is the weapon that the Empire needs to fight off the various entities that would trample on her fatherland’s borders. Tanya appears to be a young girl of ten years old, but her ruthlessness and ability to dole out orders (and reprimands) to other officers speaks to someone much older, cunning, and world-weary. She has little patience for weakness and especially looks down on possible desertion, so when two mages under her command begin to show a pattern of disobedience, she sends them to rot far from the front lines. After using her intense, powerful magic to utterly obliterate a platoon of enemy magic-users, we learn that the insubordinate officers were killed by enemy fire. It’s almost as if Tanya knew that they were at risk, and purposely sent them to their deaths.

Impressions: Even though there are a good number of anime this season that I’m at least a bit interested in, I decided to go off script a bit and watch something that I knew had aspects I probably was not going to like. Military fiction (and especially thinly-veiled attempts to rewrite World War I/II era military history) always make me a little bit uncomfortable, especially since Japan seems to maintain a kind of weird romanticism focused around Germany or the German-esque. There are many examples of modern attempts to recreate the aesthetics of that era (for example, some lolita fashion lines that incorporate recognizable Nazi motifs, or cosplayers who don replica Third Reich uniforms for fun) while sugar-coating or tiptoeing around the bulk of the bad things that happened and crimes that were committed during the time period. It skeeves me out and I very much question the motivation behind it.

Likewise, one trope of anime in particular that leaves me cold is the one in which very cutesy characters are contrasted with the unthinkably horrible acts they are made to commit. It didn’t work for me in Gunslinger Girls, nor with the Higurashi series, and similarly I think it’s mostly used to cheap effect here. While Tanya isn’t necessarily what I’d call cute, in that her main facial expression seems to be “utter disdain” and her angular features make her look like something other than an actual kid, she still has the stature of a child and she’s referred to as such more than once by other characters (though only in fearful whispers behind her back, of course). And look, she spends most of the episode barking orders, threatening others with bodily harm, literally tearing people apart and burning them to ash, and not demonstrating any actual emotions about it. Whoa, edgy! I find that portion of the premise to be very lacking, to be honest.

The bulk of the episode is seen from the point of view of a subordinate mage named Visha (Viktoriya) Serebryakov, who is the type of character one sees and thinks “how did this person happen to stumble into the military, make it through basic training, and not get kicked out immediately afterward?” She’s the typical kind of audience helper-character who seems to not be very good at her job for the purposes of prompting exposition, and she’s altogether pretty innocent-seeming and naive. She doesn’t display a wacky, comedic kind of incompetence, she’s primarily just mildly clumsy, timid, and in awe of Tanya’s murderous actions, because shouldn’t we all be dumbstruck by gratuitous mass-murder perpetuated by a ten-year-old? (Actually, yeah, we probably should). She and Tanya are also the only women thus far in the show who are named and not background nurses or other sorts of crowd-fillers. That’s not necessarily bad in the sense that they’re the most focal characters thus far and an anime featuring two women in important roles (where they aren’t featured in constant up-skirt shots) is generally a victory (though considering the supernatural element suggested by the general plot summary and Tanya’s reference to herself as a “salaryman,” it’s not clear whether she considers herself a woman or not, but this is making things more complicated than it needs to be to make a point). The problem is more that their character designs are both wildly out-of-place compared to the military men that surround them. The guys get to be young and brash, old and grizzled, sharp-chinned, weary-looking, wrinkled, hairy… in one word, varied. The women look like, for lack of a more descriptive term, anime characters. Dewy eyes, soft features, and long eyelashes. It’s not a complaint that’s specific to this anime in particular, but it’s part of a continually frustrating trend. They all seem to exist in the same harsh, unforgiving environment, so why don’t they look like it?

There is something to be said for the portrayal of the environments and the general art direction in the episode, though. The background artwork is, in its bleakness, striking and gorgeous. What I really loved lingering on when I was taking screen shots were the gray-blue of the clouds above the battlefield, rimmed by hints of yellow in perpetual evening light. I began to recall bits of Shirobako, which I had the chance to re-watch recently. Though the shows that the Musashino team bring to life in the anime are not really what I’d call “high art,” a lot of work goes into making them look their best, with art directors and background artists contributing to an overall visual appearance that ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. This episode of Saga of Tanya the Evil comes across as slightly better than typical to me; while the story isn’t appealing and feels almost cynical at times, it’s easy to see the care that went into the art design, cinematography (by which I mean, the joining of animation, effects, and lighting), and getting the CG to look at least tolerable (which, in my opinion, is still about as good as you can expect). It helps to slightly obscure the otaku sheen and highlights the large amount of work that likely went into visually developing the adaptation. It makes it difficult for me to dislike it too much.

I’m mildly curious about the direction this show will take, if only to learn more about Tanya and her past life as a hard-ass Japanese business person (which I’m not treating as a spoiler since it appears to be in every publicly-available synopsis of the plot), but at the same time I also find her pretty intolerable as a human being and I’m kind of repulsed by all the violence and destruction served up in this episode. War is terrible and I hear enough about it in real life; I’m rarely in the mood to see it fictionalized and glorified in a cartoon, especially so by a character who seems to be some sort of sociopath. I understand that alternate history scenarios may be interesting to some, but I lack that interest myself, especially when particularly controversial time periods are involved. I have a difficult time condemning this first episode fully taking into account its merits, but I do find the subject matter pretty distasteful and doubt I’ll watch any more of it.

Pros: The background visuals are bleak but beautiful. The show features two non-sexualized women(?) in main roles.

Cons: There’s a boat load of violence to slog through, which may not appeal to some. The character designs are inconsistent along gender lines. The titular character is defined by a cheap trope (young child does horrifying things).

Grade: C-

 

Categories
Previews Reviews

Winter 2017 – What I’m Looking Forward To

A new year, a new quarter, a new anime season. I like to tell people that there are always great anime worth anticipating, some of which we might not even be aware of. I’ve been around long enough to know what I like and follow some creators whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past. Here are a few things I’m anticipating this season!

accaACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department

The unique, complicated political climate that serves as a backdrop here would be enough to get me interested, but I’m also an enthusiastic follower of Natsume Ono’s other works – I own all of her manga that’s been published in English, and I’m a very big fan of both the Ristorante Paradiso and House of Five Leaves anime adaptations. I like her focus on more mature, adult-focused stories, and her somewhat European aesthetics, which is unusual for anime. Her character designs are also very unique and identifiable, eschewing overall cuteness for sharper angles and lankiness.

The series’ director, Shingo Natsume, has a lot of Key animation work under his belt, so one would hope that those sensibilities would translate to a pretty end-product (it worked for his One Punch Man adaptation, obviously). I would love to watch the PV, but for some reason YouTube is not loading well at the moment, so I will have to go on faith. In any case, this is definitely one of my top picks for this season, sight-unseen.

 

showa-genrokuShowa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu S2

Did I have any idea before watching the first season that Rakugo is a very funny, engrossing theatrical art form? Not really, though being a student of Japanese Culture I had certainly been exposed to it before in a more academic sense. Sometimes it takes that pop culture media connection to fan the flames of interest, though.

The first season of this series was definitely an emotional ride that I voluntarily took multiple times (sometimes you just have to sit your friends down with you and force them to watch an anime about an unfamiliar storytelling art that they probably don’t know or care about otherwise). Perhaps the only thing I felt it was missing was further exploration of Konatsu’s character as an adult, which I expected to appear in the first season based on pre-broadcast summaries of the story. I certainly wasn’t dissatisfied in learning about the history of Sukeroku and Yakumo’s relationship, which was rich and complicated and emotional. But obviously women’s stories are of interest to me, so I’m hoping that Konatsu will get her due this season, even if the focus is more on Yotaro.

 

little-witch-academiaLittle Witch Academia TV

Ever since the original LWA OVA, I’ve been hoping for a TV series adaptation. The second OVA was great in its own right, but the world in which the story takes place has always seemed so much richer than what could be crammed into a mere forty-five minute chunk. I’m so glad that Trigger decided to go forward with this project, especially since I haven’t been quite as pleased with their output as of late (though Space Patrol Luluco was definitely very fun).

My one major worry is that director Yoh Yoshinari’s perfectionism will get the best of him and cause delays and perhaps less-good initial animation quality (I’m not sure what kind of development schedule Trigger was on for this, so it might not be as much of an issue as I’m thinking). My other sort-of worry revolves more around characterization – the one big downside of LWA: The Enchanted Parade was the fat character whose defining characteristic was that she ate constantly and spoke in a stereotypical deep/dumb-sounding voice. I was left feeling glad for the body-type diversity, but sad about the choices made in her character portrayal. I’m hoping that will be minimized this time around (but the hope isn’t strong, I know how Japanese creators can be).

 

scums-wishScum’s Wish

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m looking forward to this series, but I’m cautiously interested to see how it handles the kind of emotionally-fraught and weird relationship between two teenagers who are kind of using one-another to fill their emotional emptiness. I’ve heard the story compared to Inio Asano’s The Girl on the Shore, which is a tough book to read; explicit, sad, and filled to the brim with characters who are truly lacking in self-esteem. It’s not a fun read, but I did find it to be an compelling window back into that depressed and directionless teen mentality, and it was one of the few manga I’ve read where the visual explicitness was actually used to proper effect (I anticipate that there are people who would disagree with me on that, and I totally understand it). I think many adults might brush off this kind of stuff as overly melodramatic, but as someone who had kind of a tough go of it as a teen it tends to resonate with me a bit more.

In looking towards Scum’s Wish I think I might be hoping for something akin to The Flowers of Evil, which I enjoyed despite the fact that it tore my guts out and stomped on them; emotional rawness and, even beyond that, truthfulness about the badness and goodness of people. Life is hard, we all put up fronts to guard our position in society, and this is especially true in high school when we’re still concerned about fitting in and holding up appearances.

 

miss-kobayashis-drago-maidMiss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

I like monster girls, okay? I keep hoping there will be an anime series focused on those types of characters without being overly sexualized (at least in the creepy, uncomfortable manner that most anime tends to be). This one sounds lighter and goofier, and features a woman as the main character, rather than Loser Anime Dude #437 who doesn’t know how sex works, so in that sense it’s at least slightly fresher. I’m anticipating it in a “probably-bad-but-might-be-funny” sort of way. The nice KyoAni animation can’t hurt, either.

I should mention, as always, that I tend to be pretty cold on most anime comedies. I’m not into humor that involves a lot of yelling back-and-forth; instead, I prefer really sharp visual comedy, and comedy that escalates well. I have a small hope that this series might replicate a little bit of that Nichijou magic that seems so difficult to capture, so here’s to hoping, I guess.

 

Onihei

I forgot to add this initially, but thought it deserved an edit.

I’m definitely a fan of serious historical drama. I’m not as big a fan of the part-fantasy, pseudo-romance stuff like Hakuouki and its ilk (not that they’re bad); I’m truly kind of a nerd and love to see different time periods brought to life, so I generally stick to fare that’s closer to reality. As far as this series in particular is concerned, I’m still not entirely sure what to expect – plot synopses are vague and don’t give a strong sense of the actual tone. But I’m kind of hoping for a historical police drama, as the main character is purported to be trying to crack down on arsonists and other criminals in Edo-era Japan.

Another curiosity about this show in particular is that it’s being animated by a newer studio (M2), which can be good or bad. I tend to think good, usually; generally newer studios seem to be less concerned with the financials at the moment of their inception and can pour their effort into whatever their first project is before realizing that they’re not making enough money and deciding to take on some adaptation that’s bound to sell copies but might be more lacking in the creativity department. It’s maybe not a great thing in the long run… but the end product has some freshness and ambitiousness, so it’s nice for the anime viewing audience in that sense.

 

So how about you? Is there anything you’re looking forward to? Winter season tends to be smaller and more subdued, with fewer “big-name” series, but I tend to think there’s always at least a couple of things worth making time for. Let me know if you have any potential favorites!