Winter 2020 First Impressions – Number24, Plunderer, and Nekopara

We’re finally into a batch of new anime series about which I didn’t have any prior expectations. In a way, those can be the most fun to watch, because aside from how I might feel about the subject matter in general, I’m not forced to navigate around the baggage that expectations provide. That said, reading a blurbs and plot summaries in the process of preparing to watch something can sometimes create their own sort of expectations. Most genres have their own strengths and weaknesses (depending on how much one personally aligns with their tropes). Is there really any way to go into a viewing completely unmuddied by prior knowledge? It’s possible that by attempting to keep up with anime news I can’t ever go into a viewing without having some kind of reaction already waiting in the wings… but that doesn’t mean that watching the actual material can’t still provide its own surprises.

number24

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Original

Episode Summary: During his first year of college, Natsusa was in a terrible motorcycle accident that put him out of commission for half a year. Though he eventually recovered he was forced to repeat his first year of school and the event left him with residual injuries that meant he could no longer play rugby. Because his love for the sport is still so strong, he volunteers to become team manager, though Sei, his closest friend, is having trouble dealing with Natsu’s changed responsibilities as part of the team.

When Yuu, another new member of the team, begins to show signs of illness and isolates himself from the other players, Natsu uses his senpai powers of influence to get him to go to the hospital. As Natsu soon learns, Yuu also loves rugby quite a bit but it appears that his physical constitution might rule him out as a player. Natsu asks him if, despite his various challenges, he still loves the sport, and it’s more than apparent that he does. It’s then that Natsu invites Yuu to share in the team management responsibilities, keeping him near the sport he loves in a capacity that he can handle.

Impressions: Rugby is a sport that seems to have gotten more popular as a subject of anime/manga lately, but it’s a sport I’m not that familiar with. When I picture it in my mind, I mostly see huge guys bashing into one-another while not wearing enough padding, although I’m sure it’s plenty more nuanced than that. This episode spends very little time actually talking about the sport itself, however; it’s very focused on establishing character relationships and the ways in which their shared interest in this sport (which could honestly be the case if it were any other sport) influence and inform those relationships. As someone who’s not much of an athlete to begin with, this is always my preferred approach to sports anime.

The characters in the show are all college students which is a nice change even though it doesn’t functionally affect much of what can and does actually occur. I enjoy the acknowledgement that life doesn’t end after high school even though most of the Japanese animated entertainment that I consume is aimed at those who are still high school students (yes, I realize the irony). For the most part, though, the characters’ ages free them from some of the supplementary issues that characters might otherwise experience, including entrance exam pressures and overbearing parents. Much of this episode is focused on Natsusa’s choice to step back from the physical aspects of a sport that he still loves and the emotional fallout from that. That he’s given an opportunity to mentor another character through a similarly tough decision really seems to demonstrate the intended focus of the series; while it would be cool to get around to some sports action eventually (the episode preview actually jokes about the second episode’s similar lack of rugby) I think this approach is a good acknowledgement of what sports (or other club activities or hobbies) can mean in the broader context of someone’s life.

Natsu and his friend Sei have a close relationship which is framed a couple of times during the episode (and especially during the ED theme) in a BL context. For me as a viewer, it begs the question of whether they’re close friends, are actually in a relationship (or might end up in one) or if the creative staff is just toying around with the idea for the purpose of fanservice. It bothers me that I feel like I have to ask the question to begin with, but media in general has gotten a lot of mileage out of playing at same-sex relationships only to pull back at the last moment (for whatever reason, be it perceived marketability or whatever) that I’m wary when series use certain tools of the trade (scene framing, character proximity, misleading situations) to set something up that may not play out. On a surface level, however, I think portraying young men in close relationships with one-another, romantic or not, is important in and of itself, so I’m happy to see the characters’ camaraderie emphasized.

I still can’t say I’m interested in rugby, but I do enjoy sports anime focused on relationship-building and this one seems solid thus far.

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Pros: Deals well with relationships and emotional hurdles in the characters’ lives. Focuses on making the best of the hand you’re dealt and participating in what you love.

Cons: It’s unclear whether the two focal characters are close friends or in a relationship, and how the series will handle it.

Content Warnings: Depiction of a motorcycle accident and aftermath. Mild nudity (shirtless men). One moment of female fanservice (censored).

Grade: B-

Plunderer

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 24

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: Just before she was dragged down into the Abyss, a terrible place reserved for those whose “count” (a number on one’s body that everyone has) reaches zero, Hina’s mother sent her on a quest to locate the Legendary Ace, a heroic man with the ability to help her. After arriving in a town reputed to be the home of this Ace, all Hina seems to find are perverts and hooligans, including one in particular named Licht who’s a known trouble-maker. Hina is warned by other citizens that the Ace is nothing but a legend, but it’s the one truth from her mother that she has left to hold onto and she’s unwilling to give it up.

As she’s about to leave town and continue her quest, a local general arrives and displays some of the Ace’s legendary traits (a white star on his body next to his count being the obvious one). He takes Hina aside to talk, but his motivations are anything but heroic. Just as Hina is cornered, Licht arrives and offers to represent her in a “Star duel,” in which combatants wager their counts against one-another. Licht’s attitude has clearly changed from that of the pervert who had so recently harassed Hina into someone with a very powerful sort of determination and sense of duty. As it turns out, Licht may be more closely connected to the Legendary Ace than what may have seemed probable only moments earlier.

Impressions: What if your life and fortune were ruled by increasing and decreasing numbers that, at least in some cases, you may not have much control over? That’s the premise introduced by Plunderer, a new fantasy series that poses this question and frames it within a discussion of class, then squanders the idea completely by focusing its first episode on the sexual harassment of its female protagonist.

There are certain things that anime has frequently attempted to define as universal truths – that sexual harassment is okay if the perpetrator is beat up by the victim (or some proxy) in the aftermath, that sexual harassment can be a source of comedy, or that sexual harassment perpetrated by a “bad guy” is fundamentally different than the same actions perpetrated by a “good guy.” Unfortunately for anime creators (and, truly, for all of us), the desire for something to be true doesn’t make it so. For all this episode’s attempts at constructing a reality in which its lecherous hero can be forgiven for peeping up women’s skirts or forcing the heroine’s legs apart while the antagonist’s additional sins of deceptiveness are somehow a step too far over the line, the only thing it really succeeds at is being gross and creepy.

This establishing episode also commits to something that continues to bother me more and more as the years go by, which is that it uses character appearance and subsequent transformation to help define the point at which a creep becomes a hero. Ugliness is often used as physical short-hand for evilness or other kinds of negative traits, and when Licht first appears its as a ragged Noh-masked weirdo. The twisted countenance of the mask and its weird, dead eyes coupled with Licht’s torn and ragged clothing make his appearance reminiscent of a clown, which whether intentional or not seems to be a play at downgrading his perversion into the realm of comedy. When he enters into battle, however, his attitude and carriage change significantly, and as the antagonist tears away at him that mask (both literal and figurative) crumbles away to reveal him as significantly attractive. While the episode certainly attempts to subvert this trope in certain ways by making Major General Baddie-McBad into a physically attractive character as well (the message being that of course Hina would believe that he was a hero, because just look at him), Licht’s duality of ugly:bad vs. hottie:hero is so basic and obvious that it’s a special kind of irritating.

I’m very bummed that so often the anime series that receive the greatest amount of advertising from local streaming companies are those which are so full of problems and so insulting to audience members. While I don’t necessarily think these companies ought to be the arbiters of taste (that’s up to each person themselves; we writers are just around to help in the decision-making) I wonder what makes them unable or unwilling to see sexual harassment for what it is or to overlook it in pursuit of $$$, in a world that is so obviously struggling with how to deal with the existence of the problem as it manifests in society. Either way, there are much better (or at the very least, much kinder) fantasy series out there to watch.

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Pros: It’s nice that Hina’s motivation is due to her mother (though I wish this weren’t yet another “dead mom” anime).

Cons: Sexual harassment acts as a catch-all for both slapstick comedy and a “short-cut” expression of evil intent. More “ugly/weird-as-evil” character design elements.

Contents Warnings: Significant sexual harassment (unwanted pursuit, groping, peeping, forcing a woman’s legs open, isolation for the purpose of nonconsensual sexual contact). Miscellaneous mild fanservice (framing of women’s bodies). Slapstick violence. Physical violence.

Grade: D

Nekopara

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Visual Novel

Episode Summary: At Cafe La Soliel delicious cakes and treats are served up by a staff of fluffy maid-uniformed felines. This may not have necessarily been head chef Kasho’s ideal arrangement, but his younger sister Shigure’s love of cats seems to have rubbed off on him over time. Ever since Chocola and Vanilla arrived at the cafe having hidden themselves in delivery boxes, he’s had the (admittedly enjoyable) task of teaching them to be good employees.

Chocola, like most cats, has a taste for fish, and when the promise of good tuna tickles her senses she runs off to purchase some ponzu to serve with it. On her way she encounters a kitten who doesn’t wear a bell (meaning she shouldn’t be out on her own) but also doesn’t seem to be with her master. Chocola leaves a treat for her and when she returns finds that the kitten has eaten it. Happy to have done a good deed, Chocola returns home with her purchases only to discover that that the kitten has tailed her all the way home.

Impressions: As someone with an affinity toward anthropomorphic and animal-eared characters (I’ve sometimes described myself as furry-adjacent… don’t @ me), I’m always on the lookout for anime series that feature those types of characters without venturing into personally-disagreeable realms of grossness (or just being terribly made). Sure, not every kemonomimi series can be the next Spice and Wolf, but it’s such a common design element that one would think the numbers would work out more favorably more often than they do. As a cat-owner (some might even say “cat enthusiast”), I’m well aware of the quirkiness those animals possess and generally enjoy every ounce of it. Nekopara presents cats as if they were humanoid cat-eared entities, which lays bare all of the weirdness that cats have to offer in a way that also greatly emphasizes it for the purposes of humor (and occasionally lewdness). It’s an odd balance of elements and I’m not sure how I feel about it at this point.

This episode actually gave me a few flashbacks to an older series called Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto, which is an anime from the early 2000’s that featured a similar character gimmick (I was surprised to find that you can actually watch it for free, legally, on Tubi TV). At the time I found the show creepy; it really emphasizes the size difference between humans and cats, and while not sexual in nature this appeared near the beginning of the so-called moé boom which I was militantly opposed to at the time for reasons that have become muddied and indistinct with age. Nowadays I picture myself as being a little more pragmatic, and frankly I’m more willing to admit that I just like cute stuff for its own sake, sometimes in spite of some problematic elements (which I’m also more than willing to discuss as part of the larger conversation). This is all a roundabout way of saying that I thought there were many elements of this episode of Nekopara that were very cute, as well as a few things I couldn’t help but question in terms of appropriateness.

The characters are all quite adorable; whether wearing their work uniforms (maid outfits) or their street clothes (sometimes just as frilly, depending on the character), the emphasis is on how kawaii they are. There’s also a lot of good humor in the way that the characters behave like cats, whether it’s through kneading things for comfort (my cat has an affinity for blankets that she kneads while purring and drooling on them, haha), chasing after insects and other moving objects, or traveling effortlessly over narrow railings and atop roofs in search of “prey.” The disconnect for me comes from how the characters are depicted, which unfortunately is also probably the series’ central appeal – the characters look like human girls, and it’s this that causes me to feel ambivalent about certain elements and how they’re expressed.

The characters are all of indeterminate, youthful age, although there are some references to how quickly cats mature sprinkled throughout the first episode. Obviously cats reach adulthood faster than humans, but for characters who appear as human beings in most respects it’s difficult for me personally to uncouple my expectations of human age-related propriety from characters who are only stated to not be human. Perhaps this falls under the “she’s really an 800-year-old-vampire” line of reasoning that also doesn’t jive with me; if someone wants a character to be perceived as “mature,” they’d be designed that way. The big takeaway (and relief) for me is that there don’t appear to be any inter-species lewd situations (I really do not want to see Chef-san, an adult human man, involved with any cats, thanks); instead, there’s a bit of mild yuri content between a few of the cats and they certainly don’t pussyfoot around it (please don’t hurt me). It’s not clear whether any of this is in service of future character relationships, or whether it might just be a bit of catnip for fans of the series (no seriously, I’ll stop). Either way, it seems very much on the tame side (okay, now I’m stopping).

I’m sure the people I know IRL who enjoy this visual novel, if they’re reading this post, are likely rolling their eyes at how ludicrously I’ve talked myself into a tizzy over what is meant to be a cute, saccharine show about some cats in maid outfits. Certainly after being recently traumatized by the Cats film adaptation I can confidently speak to the fact that this is ten times better made and 95% less horrifying a piece of media. As an anime fan with a desire for “guiltless pleasures,” though, cuteness and intent may just not be enough to quell my own hand-wringing and emotional discomforts.

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Pros: Cuteness overload! I like how the characters expressed the quirkiness of cat behavior.

Cons: The standards of propriety are muddied when cats look like humans.

Content Warnings: Mild fanservice (no nudity). Mild sexual situations.

Grade: C+