There was once a legendary party named Subaru in the globally popular MMORPG Union. The group was made of elementary school friends. They earned fame in the blink of an eye for their unparalleled abilities in the Sense system at the core of the game. However, there was an incident where a player passed away inside the game. As a result of the death, Union ended service. Six years pass. Haruto Amō, who was a key member of Subaru, has become a hopeless high school student. His personality has changed, and he has no friends or ambition. A classmate gets him to log in to the new Re’Union game, and he ends up having a “reunion” that is hard to believe. He meets his former in-game partner and real-world childhood friend Asahi Kuga. The girl who was supposed to have died six years ago was there. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: “Union” is one of the world’s most popular MMORPGs, and the Subaru guild is known as one of the best groups of players within its world. Each member has their own special skill set that meshes well with the other team members strengths. They all also happen to know each-other in the real world and share a tight bond of friendship with each other. The group catches wind of a new, intense challenge in the game, one which has destroyed several other players. The consequences of losing to the final boss include perma-death – a permanent “game-over” for their characters. Though the stakes are high Haruto, a brash fighter and the de-facto guild leader, urges everyone to take on the challenge and they’re all excited to attempt the quest. Their attempt seems like it might be successful because they all reach the final boss room with ease. Very soon, though, the group is overwhelmed by the power of their opponent; even Asahi, a group member with foresight, is unable to anticipate the laser beam that fells her. Her game-over is bad enough, but there are also real-life consequences to her in-game death; soon after the rest of the group logs out, they find out that Asahi has died of heart failure in her home. Haruto receives much of the blame, as it was his idea to attempt the quest in the first place.
Several years later, Haruto catches wind of the fact that Union has been rebooted as “Re’Union” and the new game is highly exclusive. There are incredible rewards for those who reach the upper echelons of game play, and not everyone is even allowed to log in. Though in the ensuing six years Haruto has become a pained and sullen teenager, he’s talked into playing again by some acquaintances who want to use him to gain access to a special area. It’s all child’s play to Haruto, and he doesn’t expect much to come of it when they reach the treasure at the end, but inside the chest is something highly unexpected – Asahi’s player avatar, awaking from a very long slumber.
Nature made Ash Lynx beautiful; nurture made him a cold ruthless killer. A runaway brought up as the adopted heir and sex toy of “Papa” Dino Golzine, Ash, now at the rebellious age of seventeen, forsakes the kingdom held out by the devil who raised him. But the hideous secret that drove Ash’s older brother mad in Vietnam has suddenly fallen into Papa’s insatiably ambitious hands–and it’s exactly the wrong time for Eiji Okamura, a pure-hearted young photographer from Japan, to make Ash Lynx’s acquaintance… – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Ash Lynx has made a life for himself among the gangs of New York City. A runaway plucked off the streets by Papa Dino, a ruthless mob boss, he’s now beginning to rebel against the man who raised him. After Ash witnesses the death of a man who hands him a vial of white powder and whispers “Banana Fish” with his dying breath, he begins to suspect that it might have something to do with his older brother’s break with reality in Vietnam years earlier. Cue the appearance of Eiji, a photographer’s assistant from Japan who’s helping with a story about Ash and how he brought together New York’s various gang factions. Eiji is pure and innocent, but manages to make a connection with Ash almost immediately – just in time to end up in the middle of a fight between Ash and Papa Dino’s thugs. Eiji and Ash’s young friend Skip are shoved into a car, and it’s all Ash can do to give chase.
Most girls waking up without any memory and meeting a serial killer would panic, but not Ray. In fact, far from being her biggest problem, killer Zack might just prove a convenient resource when it comes to finding a way out of the building in which they’re both trapped. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Rachel Gardner wakes up in an unfamiliar hospital room. She vaguely recalls meeting with a psychiatrist to help her talk through her trauma of witnessing a murder, but beyond that she has no idea where she is or why. Things about her surroundings feel unreal and there are strange cryptic words written on the walls. All Rachel wants is to leave the hospital and return to her parents, but it quickly becomes obvious that she’s in some way trapped in this scenario against her will. She takes an elevator to what appears to be a city street, and is quickly face-to-face with a terrifying man with a scythe. It’s all she can do to hide from him and keep quiet until he loses her trail. The problem is that he’s great at sniffing out victims, and comes for her just as she’s escaping back into the elevator. Rachel takes it to the next floor up and there she encounters Danny, the psychiatrist she was seeing prior to this ordeal. He makes a show of looking out for their shared interest, but quickly reveals that he has designs on Rachel’s eyes. He has a false eye, you see, and wants a replacement, and hers remind him of his dead mother’s eyes. Though she makes multiple escape attempts, Danny outsmarts her and she loses her will to keep fighting. Rachel is saved by an unlikely source – the scythe-wielding killer from the previous floor stabs Danny to death and is about to finish Rachel off, when an announcement comes over a loudspeaker. Mr. scythe broke the rules by killing another denizen of the building, and now he and Rachel have the same goal – to escape without losing their lives in the process.
Good afternoon, all. This post feels like a bit of a break for me, since as soon as CONvergence was over I went right to writing first episode impressions for the Summer anime season as per this blog’s mission statement from the distant past. I’m trying to keep a good pace while understanding that I’m just one person and shouldn’t expect to match websites with paid writers or blogs with multiple bloggers working simultaneously; comparison is the thief of joy and I started writing just to share my opinions for fun. I think for right now I’m just happy to be giving my writing muscles a good stretch and a workout with a couple thousand words a day or so. I’m also trying not to worry too much about quality, though that’s more difficult for an anxious perfectionist like me; I feel embarrassed when I miss spelling errors or forget to delete or edit things before I post. But that’s just how I am.
We’re now into the second half of Kino’s Journey, and I’ve loved reading people’s thoughts so far. I’ve been pretty poor at responding, so apologies, but that’s more because I tend to see comment emails arrive while I’m at work and then forget to log back in after I get home. I’ll be trying to remember to stay more involved going forward.
Previous week’s posts and discussions are linked below; as usual, feel free to keep discussing and sharing as you feel able and willing to do so.
Haruka is a girl who has a complex about how she is very tall, and Kanata is about to give up beach volleyball because she is too short. With Haruka’s height and Kanata’s experience, the two girls form a pair to play beach volleyball in Okinawa. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Because her mother is leaving the country on business, Haruka gets to spend her Summer vacation in beautiful, sunny Okinawa with her grandmother and cousin. She’s absolutely looking forward to it, down to wearing her swimsuit underneath her clothes so she can get into the water as soon as humanly possible when she arrives. At the airport, it takes a while for Haruka to recognize her cousin, Kanata; after puberty hit, Haruka gained a lot of height and Kanata really didn’t. They both feel that the grass is greener in that regard. After taking a dip in the ocean near grandma’s house, Haruka meets a couple of girls her age playing volleyball on the beach. When Kanata arrives to join her it becomes clear that there’s some history between them. A fun pickup volleyball match becomes intense when the relationship between Kanata and Narumi (one of the other girls) starts to reflect some past strain. When Haruka and Kanata suffer an unsurprising loss, Haruka begs for a rematch. Narumi decides to grant one on one condition – Haruka should spend the next week practicing and learning the rules of the game.
High school student Chio Miyamo has adventures commuting to school every day. Chio runs in to problems both big and small, such as construction, a biker gang, a sudden urge to use the bathroom, and more. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Chio Miyamo is a pretty typical girl, with an atypically-obsessive video game habit. Because she was up until all hours playing a video game the night before, she managed to sleep through her alarms and leave her house with barely enough time to get to school. To make matters worse, she encounters some unexpected construction which makes her normal route impossible. It’s then that she decides to take some inspiration directly from her video games and get creative, taking to the rooftops to bypass closed roads (and prying eyes). On a different day Chio happens to meet up with Hosokawa, one of the popular girls from her class. Though she tries to make an escape a couple of times, as it turns out Hosokawa is actually pretty nice and Chio might actually want to be her friend.
Souya Kuroi has dreams of people with superpowers fighting a massive dragon in the sky, but his real life is almost as weird. He’s had amnesia for about two weeks and been taken in by a maid and an anthropomorphic cat. When a UFO in the shape of a stuffed bear approaches Sorimasaka City and other metros around the world, he’s startled to see seven rainbow-sparkling heroes zoom out to confront it – just like in his dream. Even weirder, the maid wants him to leave his shelter to confront these heroes and take the source of their power. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Souya Kuroi is living with amnesia, but seems relatively unaffected by it. Though his family might be dead (maybe?) and he doesn’t really know who he is, he doesn’t have enough of a memory to realize that he should be upset. He was taken in by a maid (“Ginko”) and a giant cat (“Sensei”) after his accident, so he’s got a place to stay and food to eat (though he’d prefer if there were more meat). School is fine, too, though he still has some trouble remembering his class rep’s name, and she seems to be pretty invested in his life so that creates lots of opportunity for embarrassment on his part. One day while Souya is just sitting around in math class, there’s an announcement about a UFO approaching the mainland; it turns out that it’s one of many horrifying bear-shaped aircraft that have appeared all over the planet. The world watches as a troupe of seven “superheroes” arrive out of nowhere to dispatch the “enemy” but Souya is given specific instructions from Ginko to leave the school building and, eventually, fight against those heroes. When he finally confronts one of the seven individuals, he joins with Sensei to become a powerful and strange fighting unit that’s bigger and stronger than either of them. When he obtains a pendant from the defeated “hero,” Souya’s memories begin to come back to him and they suggest some horrifying things.
Hanako Yamadaki encounters the obscure, low-selling 11-member “C-list” idol unit Ongaku Shōjo. Their producer Ikehashi thinks the unit needs a new member. Together, Ongaku Shōjo and Hanako strive for the top of the music world. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Hanako travels to Japan with her family, visions of idols on the brain. She arrives in japan just in time to accidentally wander into a contest to find a new member for a languishing idol group, Ongaku Shoujo. Hanako’s idea of what an idol is differs somewhat from the group of singing and dancing girls she’s just met, but once they put on a performance Hanako quickly falls in love. Hanako seems to have the skills needed to be a great idol, which she proves by copying a complicated dance routine having only seen it once. She’s also very kind and enthusiastic, complimenting the others on their performance skills. The girls and their producer beg her to enter their contest, which she finally does. But for all her good looks and great dance moves, Hanako is missing one very important piece of the idol puzzle – she can’t sing!
The world is a dangerous place for a red blood cell just trying to get her deliveries finished. Fortunately, she’s not alone… she’s got a whole human body’s worth of cells ready to help out. The mysterious white blood cell, the buff and brash killer T cell, the nerdy neuron, even the cute little platelets — everyone’s got to come together if they want to keep you healthy. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: It’s Red Blood Cell’s first day on the job, and like most of her brethren she’s tasked with delivering oxygen and nutrients to the rest of the body. All she has to do is find her way to the lungs and she can finally drop off her cargo. Unfortunately the human body is confusing and full of roads, tunnels, and rooms. It’s also subject to the invasion of hostile bacteria, which Red Cell discovers as she’s trying to make her way through a crowd; a gang of ne’er-do-well pneumococcal bacteria try to make things miserable for everyone by bursting through the ground and threatening the crowd with obliteration. Enter White Blood Cell: he and his group of foot soldiers defend the body against such interlopers, and most of the bacteria are dispatched quickly as expected. But one escapes, and it’s up to White Cell and Red Cell to catch it before it becomes something terrible, like pneumonia or, even worse, meningitis. They manage to track the scourge to the bronchial zone. Just as things look dire for the cells, the body’s automatic defenses bubble the bacterium up and eject it with a rocket-powered sneeze. Having done their duty, Red Cell and White Cell lament the fact that they may never see one-another again. But as part of the same body, there’s always the possibility they could meet again.
Impressions: As I always say, there’s an anime about everything. Cells at Work! occupies a very strange space where its only neighbors are shows like Moyashimon and, well… I honestly can’t think of anything else comparable at the moment. It’s an odd balance of educational entertainment and science humor, bundled up in a form that revels in taking a bland (or at least relatively serious or dry) subject and finding an exciting and funny way to present it. Honestly, the human body is a miraculous thing, full of so many different interconnected systems that hold our guts together, transport our various juices around, and keep our brains from becoming mush. It really should be celebrated in a way that respects how smart, weird, and kick-ass it can be.
I’m very much in awe of how creative this interpretation of our body systems is. Rather than portraying the various organs, ducts, and connective tissues literally, this series draws from the basic information presented within biological science and interprets its pieces as different facets and zones of a giant city. The capillaries are represented by the endless cramped hallways and similar-looking doorways in what appears to be an old bureaucratic government building. The are a power station, humming as air flows through giant fans and ventilation shafts. The bronchial tubes are a Rube-Goldberg style marble run, transporting foreign material out of the body in a playful and dramatic way. Each place has its own personality, and this episode runs through several of them in very quick succession – I hope that future episodes might slow down a bit and give us a taste of these different interconnected parts.
The show’s real claim to fame is its personification of the various cells that exist within human bodies. While some of these are relatively predictable, they’re still entertaining when used to express the ways in which blood, lymphatic, and immune cells behave in the real world. The red blood cells are functional, dutiful workers making deliveries throughout the bloodstream. The white blood cells are focused killers, waiting for the next notification that danger is nearby. The killer T cells are like a special forces combat unit ready to fall into formation and take out hard-to-handle invaders. The platelets are cute little builders, sealing up holes and cuts so the pathways stay intact. Each cell has its job and all the jobs coordinate to create a fine-tuned system.
This message brought to you by helper T cells.
I like how the premise implies that the bodily systems and the different cells don’t just exist harmoniously by some lucky accident; the title Cells at Work suggests a purposeful, task-oriented movement towards a shared goal that can only be reached when everyone is doing their part. It doesn’t surprise me that this microcosm feels more than a little bit like a mirror of society, specifically an idealized Japanese society, where functionality within a group and loyalty to one’s job are important common goals. That said, the uniqueness of each group is integral to the survival of the system, too; without people willing to perform a certain job, the entire body would collapse. It’s almost like diversity is a requirement for success, or each job is equally valuable… what a crazy notion! You can probably tell that I’m a little bit exhausted with the way the world has been lately; there’s lots of rhetoric out there that aims to devalue different people and the different jobs that they do. It’s just nice to watch something that in some ways states the opposite and also manages to be entertaining.
I want to make note of the fact that for how cute and funny it is, this episode has some violence that crops up suddenly. I’m not going to try to speculate much about the process by which cells, bacteria, and such will bleed when stabbed; I think to search for reason in a situation where blood cells can talk and interact with one-another is a doomed quest. But should you be sensitive to violence and bleeding, well, when faced with invading bacteria, white blood cells get the job done, and violently (I mean, even the “real life” version is pretty hard core) and that’s how the show has chosen to represent that.
I really like weird anime, and it looks like this series is going to scratch that itch for me. It’s got a lot of things to like, including cute characters, overblown theatrics, a creative re-imagining of reality along with some good-quality visuals, backgrounds, and animation. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about how your body works, but were bored by biology class, this might be the ticket to enjoying your learning experience.
Pros: The premise is entertaining. I like how the different characters and groups work together. It makes your guts and tubes seem interesting.
Cons: There are some sudden moments of very bloody violence that might catch some people off guard.
Three classmates play simple hand games. One of the girls is good at games, but hates them as she always lost to her older sister and forced to do chores while growing up. Another girl is of American descent, but raised in Japan, and who only pretends to be bad at Japanese. Another girl usually observes their games, and loses to the other girls. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: Kasumi hasn’t liked games since she was a little kid; they were just a tool of her older sister to trick her into doing chores. So when class goofballs Olivia (an “American” who was actually raised in Japan) and Hanako (just a generic girl who’s less-than-sharp) start trying to get Kasumi to join in their game time, she wants nothing to do with them. It’s only after Olivia is forced to trade English lessons for insight into Japanese pastimes from Kasumi that the three come up with the idea to start their own club. Within the walls of the “Pastimers Club,” the three unlikely friends spend their afternoons goofing around.
Impressions: Here’s where I’d normally open with a paragraph about how comedy is so subjective that it’s difficult to rate, and anime comedies have the added difficulty of conveying humor through culturally-specific preferences and tropes. The reason that I tend to review comedies by qualifying them this way is because my personal comedic tastes are very peculiar and specific; this tends to manifest itself when I catch wind of “the funniest anime comedy of the season” and it doesn’t even make me crack a smile once I watch it. I’m also not a huge fan of material that’s mean-spirited, whether that’s from tension that occurs between various characters or between a creator and their characters (some creators just seem to want to make characters suffer, and I have issues with that). There are always exceptions, but this is how I tend to be.
Olivia, living a lie.
Occasionally an episode comes along that manages to toe a delicate line with several of my likes, dislikes, and preferences, while being more eye-catching and interesting than anticipated. Asobi Asobase wasn’t originally on my “anticipated anime” list, though I was admittedly curious about it because one of the more frequent comments I started to see other reviewers make about it was that the basic description of the premise didn’t really reflect the tone of the actual show. The impression that I got from the description and the key artwork was that of a fun, light-hearted series about three girls playing games. I expected something low-key and slice-of-life-ish, like so many other anime series about teens in clubs who don’t actually do much of anything beyond bonding with one-another. The actual anime is much funnier and has quite a bit more bite to it than your typical show about cute girls experiencing regular life.
Much of the humor is based on the fact that the characters don’t seem to care much for one-another, and are somehow thrust into the same situation just due to unfortunate chance (or their own poor decisions). Kasumi doesn’t have the patience or the interest to deal with Olivia’s and Hanako’s goofy antics or games, but she’s got terrible grades in English class and decides that Olivia, being “American” and all, is the person to give her pointers. Olivia’s actually grown up in Japan and despite her blonde, blue-eyed looks doesn’t really speak English at all, but because she made the poor decision to start off her first day in class pretending not to know much Japanese and speaking in a goofy accent, she’s got to uphold the lie. Now that Kasumi has bought into Olivia’s deception and also has something that she wants – insight into and the opportunity to play games – she’s stuck suffering for it. Hanako is just a ding-dong who’s along for the ride. Normally watching people suffer isn’t my jam, but when the suffering and hostility is so low-grade it’s almost a bit of a charm point, it turns the corner from being unfortunate to being genuinely worthy of a laugh.
Thumb wars are intense!
I’m a big fan of the facial feature manipulation that happens in this series, and find that it makes a good basis for most of the visual humor that resonated with me. There’s something very refreshing about an anime that lets its girl characters look ugly. Attractive character designs are almost a requirement for anime series nowadays, especially when it comes to the female characters. Shows can be made or broken on how well they deliver on that appeal. It’s disheartening. Much like Kakegurui a few seasons ago, this series sees its characters transform from cute and demure to twisted, sarcastic, and devilish as the mood requires. The effect in this series is more cartoon-y, but coupled with the snide inner monologues of the characters these transformations give the show a unique visual language that helps to supplement the rest of the gags.
I have mostly positive opinions about the series so far, but I think there are a couple of items worth mentioning which bothered me a bit and will likely come across as crass to others. First of all, there’s a greater-than-zero amount of boob-related humor. How the tone strikes you will really depend on how you interpret those jokes in particular; in one scene, one character slaps the other in the face so hard that the shock wave sends the loser’s chest into a ripple. There’s another scene where all three are discussing how a person could grow or acquire a larger chest. There seems to be some weird belief that teenage girls all want to talk about and to critique each-other’s chest sizes. I suppose it could have been true for some people back in high school but I’ve never really felt the need. It comes across as a weird preoccupation of anime and manga authors rather than something based in the truth of girls’ interactions. There’s also a joke sequence that implies that one of the male teachers is a creepy pervert, since he hangs around too long outside the closed door of the classroom (where the girls are dressed in swimsuits, playing in a kiddie pool… it makes sense in context!). I don’t know if this will be a running gag or a one-off in poor taste, but that’s the kind of joke I don’t find funny at all (and I wish the universe would finally forgive me from laughing at it in Azumanga Daioh).
I get the impression that this show is one where your mileage may vary based heavily on your tolerance for people acting both stupid and jerk-ish to one-another. Personally, I suspect I’ll continue to find it entertaining as long as the level of mean behavior doesn’t get out of hand and the show maintains its penchant for funny faces and unique animation. This episode is definitely atypical of other comedy series I’ve seen lately, and that alone is probably worth at least a watch.
Pros: The facial expressions on the characters are comedic on their own. The anime has a strong sense of visual style. It’s actually funny!
Cons: It tends to be a bit mean-spirited. There are the requisite annoying boob jokes and a male teacher implied to be a pervert.
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video
