It’s always a bit of a struggle trying to decide whether to review sequel series or not. Typically I don’t; either I didn’t watch the original series and don’t know enough about it to say much, or it feels pointless to talk about something I’ve already written about. That said, if there’s a compelling reason to go against that inclination I’ll usually take that into account. I heard elsewhere that the new Show By Rock!! anime series features new characters and is a completely different story, so I added it back into the mix this time around.
After this there’ll only be a couple of shows left to write about (aside from Netflix series… which I’m still torn over how to handle despite my desire to support legal streaming here). It’s amazing to me how many new series there are each anime season, and how quickly the rush of new episodes flies by.
Show by Rock!! Mashumairesh!!
Streaming: Funimation
Episodes: 12
Source: Original (Spinoff of Show By Rock!!)
Episode Summary: Howan has passed the first round of auditions for a recording contract, and the next round requires her to travel from her rural hometown into the wild urban landscape of Midi City. With her supportive family cheering for her, she takes the early train down from the mountains into the metropolis below. Of course, she’s not used to the bright lights and population density she encounters, and in the course of trying to get her bearings she loses the slip of people she needs in order to attend her next audition.
Meanwhile, in a rented practice space below the street, Himeko and her band are wrapping up a jam session. Himeko doesn’t know how she feels about being in a band, but at her uncle’s behest she decides to tough it out. It’s not like her band mates Delmin or Ruhuyu are lacking in talent, at least. As they leave the venue, Himeko finds a lost slip of paper for an upcoming audition and realizes that its owner is going to need it. They decide to put on a street performance because surely their music will attract the right person. The plan works, and Howan joins the group in making amazing music. Perhaps she might be the missing piece that the band needed all along.
Impressions: Sanrio may be a huge company toting consumer goods that nobody actually needs (though I certainly want a lot of them…), but when it comes right down to it it seems like they manage to end up with fairly decent product-related anime series to go along with their characters and toys. The Show by Rock!! franchise, if anything else, has always been a good vehicle for the company’s exceedingly cute character design sensibilities. This incarnation, which follows a completely new group of animal-eared musicians, continues in that vein.
As much as I enjoy cute stuff and fluffy, inconsequential stories, though, I find myself without much to say about this episode. This has been my experience with this franchise in the past, too. While it’s always a happy day to be able to watch a kemonomimi series that doesn’t make me feel like a completely gross creeper, when it comes to character-based entertainment, the series that I keep returning to always seem to have some kind of “X factor” that keeps me engaged. This might be a certain character relationship or story arc (even a minor one), some comedy element, or even just an aesthetic component that cuts through the fluff and provides something meaty to grasp onto. I’m wracking my brain for something that I found compelling, interesting, or notable, and I’m coming up empty.
I love the character designs of the musician characters and the music they play is fun and poppy. But I think because the protagonists are human-height, towering over the Hello Kitty-sized populace, there’s a lack of mystery as to who’s important and meaningful and who’s just background filler. Maybe I’m looking for the characters to distinguish themselves through their own merits instead of through visual shortcuts. I also think there’s simply a lack of tension throughout the episode. While I’m not looking for something deeply nerve-wracking from this kind of anime, the entire episode lacks the proper sense of the passage of time for Howan’s audition debacle to feel like anything other than a minor diversion. Her family tells her that the early train will get her into Midi City just in time to make her appointment, and yet she spends the entire second half of the episode running around town and getting distracted. I found the lack of urgency to be in conflict with what the characters were actually saying too often to be very invested in what was happening.
In any case, that complaint is extremely specific to me; stepping back I think this episode is entertaining and fun, with very simple conflicts that provide a good break from darker, more serious entertainment. If I had more time to keep up with fluff series in between all the other anime I think I want to watch this season, this one would certainly be a good choice. The unfortunate thing for me is that cuteness by itself is no longer a big enough reason on its own for me to spend precious, limited time watching an anime I’m not otherwise enthusiastic about.
Pros: Cute character designs. Light-hearted story.
Cons: Tries to create tension but undermines it.
Content Warnings: None
Grade: B-
In/Spectre
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: As a young child, Kotoko was kidnapped by a group of yokai who implored her to become their goddess of wisdom. In exchange, they took from her one eye and one leg before depositing her back on a park bench for the authorities to find. Some years later, while getting checked-up at the local hospital, Kotoko (literally) ran into Kuro, a college student whose cousin was hospitalized long-term there. Kotoko developed a crush on Kuro right then and there, though it wasn’t until a couple of years later, after Kuro had broken up with his long term girlfriend, that Kotoko decided to approach him.
Generally convincing a non-believer in the existence of yokai is a chore, but once Kotoko starts recounting her unique situation she learns that Kuro has a history with the entities; when he and his former girlfriend visited Kyoto, they encountered a Kappa near a river bank. This encounter spelled the end of the relationship, though not for the expected reasons; rather than Kuro having a cowardly response to the encounter, the kappa seemed legitimately scared of him. As it turns out, there are reasons that yokai seem to find Kuro uniquely terrifying. When Kotoko drags Kuro to the local library to get rid of a violent yokai who’s haunting the building, she sees firsthand the terrifying power he holds within his body. A power born from a dark meal of yokai flesh.
Impressions: Japanese ghosts and demons make great fodder for spooky stories. From the traditional yokai who appear in the Kitaro series, to the complex emotion-based creatures from Mononoke, to the sensitive, melancholy monsters from Natsume’s Book of Friends, the basic mythological framework of these creatures provides a great jumping-off point to tell various human stories. In/Spectre is only the latest in this tradition, pulling from local folklore to tell the story of two individuals brought together by the hands of fate to mediate the conflicts of the yokai world.
The first episode of In/Spectre starts off slowly and dialog-heavy. Coincidentally I’ve started to re-watch Bakemonogatari with the local anime club, and while it would take a lot to top the verbosity of that series, the banter between the two leads in this series feels vaguely reminiscent of that one. There’s a slight adversarial tone between the two characters – Kotoko’s worldliness that belies her young age, and Kuro’s initial cluelessness (which Kotoko calls goat-like and which might also be an act) that marks him as a bit of a doofus, makes for a fun dynamic. That said, this also introduces a few issues, as theirs is a bit of an age-gap relationship. Kotoko is 17 years old and in high school (and underage), while Kuro is (I believe, based on dialog) in his third or fourth year of college. It’s not a huge number of years between the two, but as I think back on the person I was at those two ages I know that my older self would have felt very uncomfortable dating someone with the mentality of my younger self. But that’s a very specific issue I tend to have with fiction, so your mileage may vary. In any case, the romantic relationship seems to be more a fantasy of Kotoko’s making rather than a reality, so it might be a moot point.
This is overall a really nice-looking episode. While the creature designs aren’t exactly my favorite, the character animation is really solid and consistent. I especially liked the grotesque details when Kuro-san grew his severed arm back late in the episode. One “bonus” for me was Kotoko’s wardrobe, which not only represents EGL fashion better than a lot of anime manages to do, but seems to have a lot of more clothing variability than many anime characters are allowed to have. I know it must be a lot of trouble for animators to handle so many different outfit designs (Kotoko had four or five throughout the episode), but as someone with a love of Japanese fashion, it was a little something extra that I appreciated.
One other item of note is that Kotoko is a disabled character (she has a prosthetic leg and a glass eye, and walks with a cane). With that knowledge comes some additional questions related to how this series represents disability. This is something I feel unqualified to make any major proclamations about, but I think it’s definitely worth noting and I would be interested to hear from someone with more expertise on the experience of disability share their take.
Despite the fact that this series was hyped quite a bit before its release this season, I managed to miss the fact that it was focused on yokai-related mysteries. If I’d realized that I probably would have had it on my list of anticipated series. That said, having now had the chance to watch it I’m definitely interested in watching more. Listening to characters jab and parry one-another with their words with spooky stuff as a backdrop is right up my alley.
Pros: Fun dialog between the main characters. Nice animation and character designs. Fun, spooky subject matter.
Cons: Some lackluster creature designs. Take a bit to get going.
Content Warnings: Violence (including blood). Body horror. Hints at a relationship between an adult and a child.
Grade: B
22/7
Streaming: Funimation and Crunchyroll (Crunchyroll stream begins on February 10th)
Episodes: 13
Source: Original (tie-in with real-life idol project)
Episode Summary: Miu is a loner and extremely shy, so she’s startled to receive a card in the mail inviting her to audition for a new idol group. Though she finds the concept of idols almost as odious as she does the general attitude of the adults around her, she arrives at the designated meeting spot (an area of the local zoo) along with seven other hopefuls. They’re met by a man with an imposing stature, who takes them to a compound deep underground. This is not, in fact, an audition; the girls have already been chosen, and this vast, hidden world has been created to support them.
Miu finds this too much to bear, and leaves; she has responsibilities to her family and detests being dragged into yet another scheme by adults to take advantage of her time and energy. Unfortunately, the “real world” does its best to tear her down even more; she loses her job and has to sell her beloved old keyboard for the money to keep her family afloat. On the designated day, she returns to the compound – not out of some sense of duty, but from a desire to face impending adulthood head-on through her choices. It’s then that the “wall,” the enigmatic entity whose commands must be obeyed, issues its first decree.
Impressions: What would you do if you received a letter telling you that you’d been accepted into a new idol group? Well, I’m creeping up on 40 years old so I’d probably assume it was some phishing scheme and throw it in the trash, but for those people in the correct place to accept such an offer, what would you do? I think this is the kind of fantasy, like winning the lottery, that has the sort of life-changing implications that most people might not consider at first. Fame and fortune are wonderful, but what about the people and responsibilities that get put on hold while you follow your dreams? “Destiny” doesn’t mean much when there are mundane matters and unintended consequences to be dealt with. I’m not sure if this is exactly what the creators of 22/7 were intending to focus on when the series was in its planning stages, but as someone with many previously-stated issues with the idol system, I’m intrigued by the possibilities of addressing some of these questions.
I think that focusing on a character like Miu is an interesting choice. She’s not the typical idol “type,” right down to her odd voice and anti-social behavior. It seems she has some musical talent, but beyond that her duties are to her family and her personality isn’t such that she’d willingly go out of her way to become a cog in the idol machine. There’s some sense that she’s been backed into a corner by her circumstances; while it’s never stated specifically, she seems to be the breadwinner for her family and the loss of her job makes an already tight financial situation even tighter. That said, I’m not sure “idol,” even if it were an actual opportunity being presented to me, would be my first choice to tackle such an immediate issue. I’m a bit curious to know whether or not any of the other characters are struggling with a similar sort of desperation, and how those aspects of the story will play into the bigger tale.
This episode unfortunately struggles from a lot of the same things that other idol anime series, and really other series with ensemble casts, deal with. The animation is clunky and switches back-and-forth between traditional animation (for most of the character action) and CG animation for performances (at least judging by the brief performance that opens the episode; this may not pan-out throughout the series). This technique still never looks good to me, though it’s clear that CG motion capture helps to portray the dancing so I can see why it’s a popular choice. The entire cast is also all introduced at one time; aside from Miu, who gets much more focus during the episode, the other characters might just as well be anyone because I can’t keep them straight (even with their obvious personality quirks). I’d really prefer if the introductions were spaced-out more and came about more organically, but I suppose in this situation ensuring that everyone was in one place at the right time was more paramount.
This episode had just a little bit of danger to it that I found interesting. Creating an idol squad based on the direction of some unseen entity is a concept just creepy enough to distinguish this series from other idol anime, although it remains to be seen whether it will remain as unique or settle into a more comfortable, familiar scenario as the story unfolds.
Pros: Interesting set-up and focal character for an idol-based anime.
Cons: Mediocre CG animation. Introduces too many characters at a time.
Content Warnings: None.
Grade: C+