Category: Reviews

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2018 First Impressions – Asobi Asobase: Workshop of Fun

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

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

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.

Grade: B

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2018 First Impressions – Island

Urashima is an island far from the mainland. The people who live there lead carefree lives. But five years ago, the island’s three great families suffered a series of misfortunes, and succumbed to suspicion. The people of the island cut off all contact with the mainland, and began a slow decline. One day, a young man named Setsuna washes ashore claiming to be a time-traveler and suffering from amnesia. He meets three local girls: Sara, Rinne, and Karen. Their meeting will change the course of the island’s fate. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Visual Novel

Episode 1 Summary: One day, a young man washes up on the shore of an island without clothing or a handle on his own memories. He can’t remember who he is or why he’s there, except for the fact that he’s a time traveler who’s traveled to the past for some reason. Urashima island doesn’t take well to interlopers, so the mayor makes a quick show of putting the man on a ship to send him somewhere else. He manages to escape, discovers the mayor’s daughter in her hiding place, and has some broken flashbacks of having met her in some other time or place. Left again to his own devices, he spends a night out on the beach and encounters a girl whose name, Rinne, comes to him without trouble. He then remembers that his name is Setsuna. Both he and Rinne are time travelers (she arrived five years prior), and Rinne invites Setsuna to live with her. Setsuna believes that he’s traveled to Urashima for some purpose, and there are others there who appear to know who he is and want him out of the picture. Is this mystery one that can be solved before Setsuna becomes a victim?

Impressions: Back when I started writing reviews in the mid-to-late 2000’s it felt as though there were a lot of harem romance stories being adapted into anime form. While there were some that I remember just based on how up front they were with their sexism and lewd over-the-top fanservice, there were quite a few more that were mostly-harmless and homogeneous to the untrained eye. The genre hasn’t disappeared, not by a long shot, but it does feel like harem series nowadays almost require some additional defining factor. The monster girl trend has been pretty big recently, as has the male self-insert isekai fantasy harem series. It’s rarer to see something that simply feels like the “typical” anime adaptation of a harem visual novel that I remember being very common in those earlier days.

Setsuna is not shy about his time-travel.

Enter Island, which establishes itself pretty quickly as a back-to-basics harem style series with a sprinkling of sci-fi (or supernatural?) elements to give it a little bit of flavor. The first episode hits all the beats that one would expect, including the introduction of three potential love interests with whom our protagonist might end up . It’s been a while since I’ve seen Amnesia(TM) relied-upon as so blatant a storytelling device, but I have to say that, coupled with Setsuna’s goofy and uncommonly outgoing personality, it made me chuckle a little bit. It feels almost as if the series and its creators are daring us to so much as make a peep complaining about these tropes; considering that the visual novel was released only a few years ago, it seems that its look, feel, and structure were likely very purposeful decisions on the parts of the creative staff.

All of this feels a little quaint and because of that I actually have some generally-positive feelings towards the surface aspects of this episode, but there are a couple of very brief moments that I found somewhat questionable in terms of both taste and implication. In one of the episode’s first scenes, Karen (the mayor’s daughter and one of the assumed love interests), trips on the sandy beach and falls face-first onto Setsuna’s naked groin. It’s played up for comedy, but it’s one of those things that only seems like bawdy slapstick until you really start thinking about the details. I find the thought of getting an accidental face-full of a stranger’s penis to be pretty upsetting, to be honest. As it is with a lot of these types of anime, the humor often seems to be predicated on the characters’ embarrassment, specifically sex-related mortification. Unfortunately, though it’s meant to lighten the mood, it honestly just makes me squirm in my seat. There’s also the hint of a scene that seems to be a flashback (or flash-forward? Time travel is hard!) where a nude Rinne (who’s looking to be especially pre-pubescent) appears to be in a sexual situation with Setsuna. It’s there and gone in a matter of seconds, so it didn’t register with me right away, but the coupling of the young character design with the nudity and atmosphere felt creepy and gross. And of course there are the “small boob” jokes involving the shrine maiden character and the non-consensual near-kiss with Karen. These moments are brief and might be easy to overlook for some, but they’re good reminders of some of the fundamental problems many similar series tend to have in that the women are there for entertainment and primarily at the expense of their dignity.

A fated meeting on the beach.

There was one thing that I absolutely loved about this episode, though: the school uniforms. Goofy school uniform designs tend to be a pet peeve of mine, usually because they’re created for looks rather than practicality or functionality. No one would actually wear something like that unless they were actively cosplaying. The school uniforms in Island, however, are some of the most practical that I’ve ever seen, and that’s because instead of teeny short skirts that seem too short to be worth anything, the bottoms of the uniforms are shorts. This is awesome! It fits the warm island aesthetic very well and avoids the temptation to have constant up-skirt shots peppered throughout the episode. This is one anime trend I that I hope catches on.

This episode is surprisingly watchable, and I’m admittedly just a teensy bit interested in learning about what Setsuna’s deal is, despite the fact that he’s still a little bit of a “nothing” character. I get a weird sense of nostalgia from this opening chapter which is overriding my normal taste-related instincts to drop it and walk away. Perhaps this is just the consequence of being an anime fan for so long; even tropes that you don’t like become familiar echoes of a time when watching anime was a little fresher and writing about it was less restrained.

Pros: Someone put some thought into the uniform designs. The mystery surrounding Setsuna’s situation is mildly intriguing. The show feels nostalgic.

Cons: Each of the three young women is put into a questionable and compromising position, whether in “real life” or in flashback form.

Grade: C+

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2018 First Impressions – Hanebado!

Kentarō Tachibana is the coach of Kitakomachi High School’s badminton team. He is worried because the team has so few members that it cannot even enter competitions, but then he spots a student named Ayano Hanesaki easily climbing a large tree on the school grounds, expertly demonstrating excellent motor skills. Tachibana tries to get Ayano to join the badminton team, but finds out that Ayano hates badminton. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Nagisa Aragaki tries her hardest to improve her badminton game and she’s very skillful, but not quite good enough to survive a match with Ayano Hanesaki, someone who seems to have boundless natural talent. After being shut-out against Hanesaki, Nagisa returns to her high school badminton club and begins to take the loss out on others. As people are driven away from the team one-by-one (including the upperclassmen), Nagisa comes to the painful realization that she’s begun to take her own insecurities out on the people around her, blaming them for her inability to achieve the things she wishes to. To add insult to injury, Hanesaki attends the same high school, and the badminton team’s new coach, Kentaro Tachibana (a former olympian), is convinced that Hanesaki is what their team needs to become competitive. But Hanesaki has no interest in playing badminton again, and Nagisa is still struggling with those painful losses.

Impressions: I was looking forward to this series a lot based primarily on some of the preview footage. I like to tell people that there’s an anime out there about anything, and that’s especially true for various sports. Badminton might bring to mind images of garden parties and women in Victorian bustle dresses, but I was impressed by how convincing the trailer was at portraying badminton as an intense sport where players actually expend a great deal of energy. As it turns out, the trailer footage is primarily taken from the opening scenes of this introductory episode, and the expression of Nagisa’s intense concentration and drive to continue a lost battle against the talented Hanesaki through her dripping sweat and tense muscles is powerful and gripping. This scene represents the most intense action in the episode, and it remains a memorable focal point throughout.

Nagisa struggles with her own behavior.

That isn’t to say that the rest of the episode is boring; while the sports action is eye-catching, there’s also a sense of tension that’s cultivated around Nagisa’s emotional journey. I was surprised by how effective this was considering that the characters are brand new at this point and their stories are only portrayed in the most basic of terms. One thing that I found helped contribute to this was Nagisa’s internal narration in the opening scene as she struggled to return each shot and yet failed to win her match. I realized that I felt a lot of sympathy towards her situation – as she asks a couple times throughout the episode, what can you possibly do when you put forth your best effort and it just isn’t good enough? How can you win against someone who has loads of natural talent when it takes you three times as much effort to get to the same level? It’s a question that I’ve asked myself a lot throughout my life, because I’ve had the joy and pain to know a lot of incredibly talented people, many of whom can best me easily in the things that I like to do but don’t have much natural talent for. With the added stress of being called “gifted” at some early point in my life and thinking I was just naturally smart, and then being confronted later on with the fact that I needed to try just as hard as anyone else at things and not having good tools to do so, you can probably guess why this part of the story resonated with me so clearly.

Hanesaki prevents a disaster.

Because the primary conflict, rivalry, and relationship in this series seems to be between two girls, at least judging by the bulk of this episode, I’m feeling a little bit less enthusiastic about the fact that not only is the male coach given a lot of air time in the descriptions I’ve been reading about the show, but he comes across as a perverted jackass from the moment he makes his on screen debut. I’d had the sinking feeling that his presence might take something away from the parts of the story that interested me, and it’s already been the case. In this Larry Nassar-tainted world that we live in, I have very little tolerance for men in positions of authority (in sports and elsewhere) being creepy towards, well, pretty much anyone, but especially teenage girls. It was the reason why I dropped Uma Musume: Pretty Derby like a hot potato almost immediately; the male coach assaulted the female main character multiple times (grabbing her body – specifically her thighs – without her consent) in the first episode and it was played for comedy. A lot of people seemed to brush it off and I gather that the show was a fun watch beyond that, but the imagery still gives me a knot in my stomach. Tachibana’s arrival is heralded by him eyeballing female tennis players from the other side of a fence, and one of the first things he does is to run to Hanesaki and start grabbing at her wrists without any sort of introduction or consent. Again, this is played for comedy, or at least is meant to imply that the coach is so focused on his sports-related goals that his possibly dubious grasp of social norms gets thrown out the window. What it is is gross, and I wish that better decisions had been made at some point along the line (possibly in the original manga, assuming this adaptation is faithful).

Hanesaki is done with badminton.

I’m not against having male authority figures in anime about girls’ sports, but I found that the story was unfolding just fine without that particular contrivance and was really enjoying the episode more when the girls were working through things in their own way, using their own voices. Perhaps I’m just overlooking some really obvious example, but I feel like sports anime starring girls tends to lack some of the seriousness that you get from much of the sports anime starring boys, and this series looks a lot like it could buck that trend. It will just have to get over the inclination towards creeper “comedy” and show a little more confidence in its characterization of the coach.

I’m finding more and more that my strongest negative reactions towards anime are not because a show is just outright terrible, but more because it managed to do so many things well and then managed to biff it in a way that bothers me personally and fundamentally. I certainly don’t think that this show is irredeemable; If subsequent episodes are anything like this one they’ll be both visually interesting and emotionally compelling. I loved the use of color throughout and though the animation was really well done. It got me interested in watching badminton! I would just hope that the coach character is given the chance to behave like a normal human being and that the show lets go of this “young adult males love to creep on teenage girls” thing it’s got going on.

Pros: The action is well-animated. Much of the episode is visually rendered very well. Nagisa’s emotions are portrayed very truthfully in a short amount of time.

Cons: There’s some ill-timed perverted “comedy” that undercuts the tone of the rest of the episode.

Grade: C+

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2018 First Impressions – The Thousand Musketeers

The whole world was devastated by the nuclear war. Under the strong rule of the World Empire, people are all suppressed and deprived of their own lives. A resistance team secretly keeps fighting to break the suppression while everyone is forbidden to possess any force of arms. The team arms themselves with “antique guns” that were left as works of art, and the incarnations of those antique guns are called “Musketeers” appear and join the team, as if they responded to the soul of the resistance. In their battles with the incarnations of contemporary guns who represent and are dispatched from the Empire, the “Musketeers” turn their “Absolute Noble” mode to give a powerful boost to themselves, and bring hope to the world. – ANN

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: 12

Source: Smartphone Game

Episode 1 Summary: Dreams of world peace were shattered when, after years of nuclear war and an alteration of the world’s climate, the World Empire took over and subdued the populace by force. Their rule is harsh and tramples over the very dignity of the people. But a resistance has formed in the underground, supplemented by the talents of a group of weapons-turned-human. These individuals have the power and personality of the antique weapons from which they were formed as well as a certain “x-factor” of absolute nobility in the face of danger. Many of the new recruits are forced to attempt a dangerous mission to save a resistance politician being transported to the capital. When the situation seems dire, one of them expresses their nobility and is given enough power to shoot down the Empire’s soldiers. But then he collapses on the battlefield – is this a doomed mission after all?

Impressions: The various Touken Ranbu anime incarnations made their marks by featuring a cast of characters based on personifications of various famous weapons (mostly melee weapons) that appeared throughout history. The Thousand Musketeers attempts to do the same by focusing solely on firearms and attempting to draw forth some kind of identifiable character personality from each classic, historical, or antique weapon. Thus far the end product is a very mixed bag of simple-yet-confusing plot elements and a cast that’s jam-packed with characters that are often difficult to distinguish from one-another.

Napoleon – a fancy gun with a fancy hat.

The opening scenes of the anime present several characters back-to-back in quick succession, each with a title card and a short description of their origin as a famous gun. This is, of course, while they’re all having conversations related to their general duties as agents of the rebellion, their “master” (who is unnamed and has not been shown on screen as of the end of the episode), and other info-dump-type material that might be important to take in, but is difficult to pay enough attention to as one is trying to read everything on the screen. I eventually started pausing the video after a while to make sure that I could read all the character info (not a favorite thing to do; I prefer to take in episodes in real-time), only to find that it was all too easy to forget about everything immediately afterward. Could I tell you who most of the characters’ names were? Absolutely not. Though I do remember Napoleon, whose ridiculously boisterous and snooty personality arrives immediately like a fart and is the one character who manages to leave an impression. There’s also an American one whose visual motif includes stars, stripes (pink instead of red), and pigtails, and while he’s definitely one-of-a-kind in terms of character design his name completely escapes me.

Presented with no further comment.

There’s an attempt to lay out some character relationships throughout the episode, the most memorable of which are between a couple of weapons that were on opposing sides during the American Revolutionary war. The extent of the bickering (especially when the American one busts out an American flag and threatens to hang it up where they’re all bunking together) adds a little levity to what is otherwise pretty bland and frothy entertainment. To be honest, considering how things have been going lately in the US, anything that can make fun of how ridiculous we are here in a way that gets me to chuckle even mildly has earned a point in my book. One thing that wasn’t made especially clear and which may not matter that much (unless you’re a gun collector or historian) is whether or not the boys-who-are-guns are actually using the rifles in battle which they themselves represent. Since all the firearms, as little as they’re actually on screen, seemed different from one-another, I would speculate that the answer is yes (and perhaps that’s something appealing about the game on which this is based). I think it would have made an interesting aside or a cool illustration for the commercial break screens to provide some more information about that.

The rescue operation begins.

Because most anime is based at least partly on some sort of fantasy premise or at least asks the audience to accept things that differ from reality in various ways, one measure of a “good” anime in my book is its ability to suspend the viewer’s disbelief. I’m a little more liberal of an anime consumer than a lot of folks and tend to get really rankled when others start complaining about minor deviations from reality, especially when the series in question is full of supernatural nonsense, magical powers, or fantasy worlds. But occasionally I’ll get caught on a detail and I can’t let it go. In the case of this episode, we’re to believe that the characters are part of a rebel underground where they’re in hiding from the government and living in fear of being discovered. That’s fine and dandy, but there’s a goofy scene partway through where one character offers to make the others “honey crepes.” There’s an entire montage at the beginning of the episode that talks about nuclear devastation, and a lot of the other imagery implies that the quality of life in general has gone way downhill after the literal collapse of society. So where are these resistance fighters, who are, I remind you, living in a deteriorated bunker of some sort, getting things like honey, processed flour, eggs, or milk? Sweet stuff is typically a luxury item in times of scarcity, so I wonder just who their supplier is (though considering that their “master” can take guns and turn them into hot guys, perhaps it’s not that hard to believe they might have some way to produce it). I’d also love to know where they’re getting their clothing, considering that everyone else is practically dressed in rags. Also, how rifles where the user has to arm them with gunpowder and pellets by hand every time can take out soldiers that look like cyborg police. But that might be asking for too much realism.

Speaking of montages, there’s a comically-unconvincing training montage where the newer recruits prepare themselves to carry out the rescue mission. They’re show running through the forest with their guns in had (probably holding them in a manner which would irritate actual gun owners, I’d wager). I was actually taken aback by the fact that, half an episode in, we were already treated to such a goofy and cliche presentation device, but the more I think about it the more it seems appropriate for such a goofy show.

Despite my obvious eye-rolling towards this episode, I can’t say that I wasn’t entertained. Even if the entertainment value was mostly unintentional and based on the fundamental weirdness of the premise, I still don’t feel like my time was wasted. And if I had to choose between The Thousand Musketeers and Upotte!!, the female expression of a similar idea, you’d better believe I’d choose silliness over sexualization. If your tolerance level is higher than mine (or if you’re thirstier for a variety of bishounen characters, I suppose), this might provide some entertainment.

Pros: The premise is mildly educational in a silly sort of way. The episode uses its resources wisely, saving some of the nicer-looking animation for the action in the second half.

Cons: This episode is a confusing character dump of epic proportions. I have a hard time believing that an underground resistance movement could afford such luxuries as honey crepes and fancy outfits.

Grade: C

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2018 First Impressions – Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues

Teiai Group is one of Japan’s largest firms. Yukio Tonegawa, a man with a larger-than-life presence and sharp intellect, works as the right-hand man of Chairman Kazutaka Hyodo. One day, the chairman commands Tonegawa to spearhead “Game of Death,” an evil project that employs debtors. He rallies his direct reports and scrambles to form Team Tonegawa, only to encounter a barrage of challenges from the erratic chairman and his disloyal employees, ultimately leading to his demotion. – ANN

Copyright 2018 Madhouse

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 24

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Long before Yukio Tonegawa met Kaiji Itou in a card game that changed both of their lives, he was simply a middle manager for the Teiai group, a finance and loan outfit providing monetary loans at unreasonable interest rates. Tonegawa and his underlings collect on their debts regardless of the circumstances, and Tonegawa himself is especially good at shaking-down those who become delinquent with their debts. His position at the company puts him in the path of the company chairman Hyodo, whose boredom has brought him to seek unconventional pleasure in the suffering of others. Hyodo puts Tonegawa in charge of setting up a “death game” wherein debtors will fight for their own lives in a series of death-defying challenges. But Tonegawa has to get over the first hurdle of telling his underlings apart before he can possibly ask them to help come up with deadly gambles.

Impressions: I’m not really sure how many viewers out there are familiar with Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji; it was a weird, offbeat sausage-fest of a thriller from about ten years ago wherein a hapless debtor goes on a last-chance trip to erase his debts once and for all through extreme gambling. The show appealed to me quite a bit and I have fond memories of it; I think we all can enjoy a good underdog story, and Kaiji is the epitome of underdogs. It also contains one of the more horrific scenes I can recall from any anime, where Tonegawa is forced to bow his head to the surface of a grill after losing the final card game against Kaiji. If it sounds as though a lot happened over the course of that series, you’d be correct (and that’s only in the first season!). Helpfully, though, the first few minutes of this episode manages to provide a decent recap of twenty-six episodes of material, so while I think Kaiji is worth a watch no matter if you want to watch this series or not, it’s not a requirement to understand what’s happening here.

A couple of Tonegawa’s lackeys.

On its surface, Mr. Tonegawa has some traits that would normally be very appealing to me. Most anime stars younger characters and tends to be aimed at teenage viewers, something which doesn’t prevent me from watching a ton of anime but it does serve to make it less-than-relateable for me as an adult viewer at times. So far this series exists fully in the realm of adults, starring a middle-aged protagonist who supervises other men in their mid-thirties. The debtors, though they clearly haven’t lived up to their adult monetary responsibilities, all seem to be attempting to live real, typical lives – buying houses, owning businesses, blowing their money at the race track (well, that last situation isn’t so universal, I hope…). It’s good to see an anime acknowledge the reality of these kinds of things once-in-a-while, because paying bills and budgeting for my lifestyle are responsibilities that are often on my mind as someone who’s been a member of the workforce for a while now (and I know there are a lot of other people around who are just as boring and typical as I am). The issue I have with how this form of adulthood is portrayed in this episode, though, is that all the people Tonegawa’s employees are hassling throughout the first half are extremely irresponsible with money to the point of spending it gambling, drinking, and shopping while still owing on their loans. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone might take out a loan for something serious and specific and end up mismanaging it, but all of the people squandering their funds seem as though the thought of these loan sharks collecting on their debt has never crossed their mind and they’re portrayed as silly and irresponsible. Perhaps this was a way to try to build some sympathy for Tonegawa and the job he’s doing, because his character traits certainly don’t lend themselves to sympathy on their own. In any case, I didn’t feel that it was successful in cultivating positive feelings towards the character or his job.

Hyodo is bored, which means danger is in the air.

The first episode seems to have an issue with maintaining a specific tone as well. I’m not a fan of series that try to blend humor and drama in awkward ways, and I feel like there are only a few creators that can do so really well (for example, watch any series by Kunihiko Ikuhara). This show and its creators seem to recognize that there’s a fundamental ridiculousness to the story they’re trying to tell; the premise is already far afield of realism and the cast of characters are anything but down-to-earth. That’s all well and good, but rather than embrace how silly and unrealistic the story is required to be, the final product gives off the impression that it’s taking itself too seriously. When a character is introduced literally laying atop the backs of his employees as Hyodo is partway through this episode, the aspects of his personality which are truly frightening – his casual disregard for human life and his willingness to play games with it – are overshadowed by the visual goofiness. There’s also a scene which I feel is actually meant to be funny, but which comes across poorly due to some poor choices made in narrating the scene. Tonegawa organizes a group of several men to help him with the task of developing the death games, and all the men are dressed the same, look the same, and have confusing names and the same hobby. Even Tonegawa who is said to have special managerial skill and mental cunning, gets confused and finally gives up on trying to learn which man is which. This could have been really funny but for the overbearing narration that carries throughout the entire episode and provides an unneeded play-by-play for every action. I don’t recall whether this was a trait that also got out of hand in Kaiji, but if so perhaps I was more patient with it back then.

Tonegawa always gets his money.

I really want to mention the visuals, because the character designs in particular are what originally drew me to this franchise way back when. Anime character designs are really not as homogeneous as people think, but they do tend to blend together after a while especially if you’re watching a lot of shows per season. I don’t think it’s possible to confuse Mr. Tonegawa with anything else airing this season; with all the sharp angles and extreme facial features littered throughout, there’s just no mistaking this show. I kind of love that; even though the animation itself is more functional than striking, its characters are clearly not beholden to any visual trends.

I’m slightly disappointed that I didn’t have anything better to say about this first episode, though despite looking forward to it prior to the season I was well aware of the fact that my sunny memories might have been more nostalgia than anything else. As I am now, it’s also very questionable to me when the gender make-up of a property is so profoundly one-sided in the male direction; it was the same with Kaiji even more so, but as I continue to consume media I find that my tolerance for male-heavy casts diminishes with each passing year. At least with Kaiji I felt something for the protagonist and wanted to see him succeed, whereas Tonegawa is a little more difficult to love. I think there’s potential here and I have to celebrate non-standard anime protagonists when I can get them, but this series definitely hasn’t found its footing yet.

Pros: Extremely unique compared to almost every other anime in recent memory. The cast is comprised of adults. The opening theme is great!

Cons: The constant narration is intrusive and distracting. The episode strikes an awkward balance between humor and seriousness that’s ill-fitting.

Grade: C-

Categories
Previews Reviews

Summer 2018 Anime – What I’m Looking Forward To

Another season, another batch of new anime to watch! I always say that there’s really no way to truly anticipate what each new season will bring; upcoming series that look great on paper or which have a well-produced trailer might turn out to be less interesting than anticipated, while series that don’t immediately speak to me might turn out to be new favorites. But that doesn’t stop me from getting excited over unknown quantities every three months. Below is a list of upcoming anime that’s caught my eye for one reason or another; I’m using this anime chart as a resource for anime that’s coming out this season. Let me know what you’re looking forward to watching as this fresh season gets underway!

 

Banana Fish

ANN Encyclopedia

24 episodes

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

I was only vaguely aware of the Banana Fish manga when I was really coming into my fandom self in the late nineties and early aughts, and I mostly got the impression that it was BL-flavored and dramatic (I’m not entirely sure how accurate that impression was, but at this point I doubt it matters all that much). In any case, this “bad-boy meets good-guy” tale sounds like just the thing that would have set my heart aflutter in my younger days. As a fangirl grown, however, what has me more interested in this adaptation is the fact that it’s not only a full adaptation of the manga (thank goodness for closure!), but also directed by a woman – Hiroko Utsumi, who directed the first two seasons of Free! Talent, of course, is neither limited nor bolstered by gender, but I do appreciate the fact that a property targeted towards women originally is often served well in its adaptation being in the hands of another woman. And I’m happy to support women in visible positions in the anime industry!

 

Cells at Work!

ANN Encyclopedia

Episodes TBA

Streaming at Crunchyroll

Every human is just a meat sack full of fluids and blood, but perhaps you didn’t realize that your blood is made up of different types of cells that all have different jobs they do in order to keep you healthy and functioning. This anime, based on a manga of the same name, takes those cells and personifies them for our viewing pleasure. As someone who thoroughly enjoyed both seasons of Moyashimon, I have the feeling that I’ll likely enjoy this very loose interpretation of what occurs inside my guts and tubes. Human bodies are both miraculous and ridiculous, and I think giving all of our little bits and pieces personalities and letting them play against one-another as if they were themselves sentient is quirky and hilarious in a way that I have some difficulty explaining. I’m hoping for a fun series that has more than just one joke.

 

Free! Dive to the Future

ANN Encyclopedia

Episodes TBA

Streaming TBA (though I have to believe it’ll be a Crunchyroll/Funimation shared stream like the other seasons)

I’m still a fan of this original breakout manservice/sports franchise, though I have to say it’s a little bittersweet that this season will have a different director (as I’ve mentioned already, however, Utsumi is busy directing this season’s Banana Fish so I’m happy she’s still working on something pretty high-profile!). It remains to be seen whether someone else can so adeptly capture the appeal of muscles and moisture that this series is known for. Ultimately, though, Free! is much more than six-packs and Speedos; I love the series for its great characters (Makoto 5-evar!), excellent animation, and spirited sports action, all traits that help bolster its story of young men giving their all and building relationships and friendships.

…deltoids and diving okay I’m done sorry!

 

Attack on Titan 3

ANN Encyclopedia

Episodes TBA

Streaming at Crunchyroll and Funimation

I am unapologetically still a fan of Attack on Titan. I didn’t get bored waiting for season 2. I don’t mind the fact that it’s basically “Cliffhanger: The Anime.” I like that the second season was a huge departure from the first. While I consider myself pretty opposed to depictions of ultra-violence, as well as emotional manipulation of the type that AoT is known for (by which I mean its ability to reveal enough to string you along while also not answering many of the questions it dangles in front of your face), for some reason it’s never really bothered me when it comes to this series. For season 2 it was my tradition to watch the week’s new episode as close as possible to the time it was released for streaming; I think there’s something really fun about that (and it prevents inadvertent spoilage). In any case, I’m really looking forward to the characters maaaaaaybe inching just a little bit closer to Eren’s basement (but I’m not going to keep my hopes up too high).

 

Hanebado!

ANN Encyclopedia

Episodes TBA

Streaming at Crunchyroll

There’s usually at least one series a season that I’m interested in despite some apprehensions, and for Summer season 2018, it’s Hanebado. I’m almost always interested when anime tackles an unusual subject; even if the structure is similar to series that have come before, at least the subject matter is unique. And I can say with certainty that I’ve never seen an anime about badminton before, so I’ve had my eye on this series for a while. Unfortunately what’s giving me reason to question myself is also the aspect of the series that in other circumstances might be worth celebrating – its mostly-female cast. I’m glad for more action-oriented stories about young women, but even glancing at trailers for the show I’ve seen some focus on the girls’ chests in a way that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m hoping for more sports and interpersonal drama, and less boob-staring. Especially since the trailer looks really cool!

 

Mr. Tonegawa Middle Management Blues

ANN Encyclopedia

24 Episodes

Streaming at Crunchyroll

It tickles me to no end that the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise has gotten so popular, especially with women. I’m hoping that the same sort of fandom attraction to the combination of weird artwork and masculine energy will someday happen to the manga/anime of Nobuyuki Fukumoto. Fukumoto’s stories portray the ups and downs of men embroiled in the seedy underbelly of society, usually through life-or-death gambling of some sort. Tonegawa, the titular character of this series, was originally an adversary in Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, which I highly recommend if you like seeing a hapless guy suffer and just barely survive some of the most ridiculous betting games ever created. As far as what Tonegawa might have in store for us as a protagonist (anti-hero? Bad guy?), I’m not sure. But I’m curious to find out, especially since the title reeks of office politics and drudgery.

Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Sanrio Boys

Kōta Hasegawa is a high school boy who loves the yellow Pom Pom Purin dog. By mere coincidence, he ends up attending the same school as Yū Mizuno, a boy who likes the bunny My Melody. Yū tells Kōta that there’s nothing to be ashamed of for liking Sanrio’s cute characters. Together, Kōta, Yū, Shunsuke Yoshino, Ryō Nishimiya, and Seiichiro Minamoto learn to accept their love of the characters instead of feeling embarrassed. – ANN

Copyright 2018 Sanrio/Pierrot

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: Original

Episodes: 12

Review: This review may contain spoilers for the series.

When was the first time you felt ashamed for liking something? When I was in elementary school, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was huge. I loved the cartoon series and the video games more than almost anything else. I really wanted to own some of the toys, but as a fourth-grader without a steady source of income, it was up to me to try to get my parents to buy them for me. Looking back as an adult, I can logically say that there’s nothing wrong with a girl wanting to own action figures, but all the toy commercials had boys in them and even at my young age I was afraid of being judged or laughed-at for wanting to play with toys made for boys. The happy ending to my story was that my mother never once judged me or made fun of me for my preference, and I went on to build a large collection of action figures, Star Trek figures, and other miscellaneous fandom toys that eventually led to the overgrown collection of anime figurines I have today.

That, of course, was just my experience, but not everyone has the luxury of crossing society’s arbitrary gender boundaries with their likes and dislikes, especially boys and men who enjoy things typically aimed at girls and women (because believe it or not being a girl or woman is valued as lesser by our society, even by people who might not necessarily think so consciously). I know my husband has gotten some flak for his enjoyment of My Little Pony and preference for pinks and purples, and in an even broader sense, there are people who are harassed and harmed because their gender expression doesn’t fit into a certain narrow binary. Sanrio Boys isn’t a heavy hitter when it comes to discussing the latter; in fact, the series doesn’t really touch on gender itself very deeply. But it does spend a lot of time looking at the former – boys who express themselves through their enjoyment of characters and products typically aimed at women.

Kouta was picked on for his love of Pom Pom Purin.

Each of the five main characters in this series exemplifies the different ways that people experience liking things outside the mainstream. Kota, the everyman protagonist, was picked on by his peers as a child because he carried around a Pom Pom Purin stuffed animal. Yu loves My Melody without shame, but his younger sister finds his hobby disgusting. Ryou is the youngest sibling in a family of older sisters, and fears being pigeonholed into the role of an effeminate younger brother. There’s nothing particularly complicated about any of the guys’ circumstances, but the simple injustices of their situations are laid bare for the audience in a way that I find very relateable. I like to think that most viewers would tend to realize how hurtful bullying someone for their hobbies is (and I imagine there are a lot of anime fans out there who have gotten picked on for being into “weird cartoons”), but the straightforward, sometimes ham-handed way the series insists upon the fact that young men can and do like cutesy characters and merchandise is something some fans may not have thought much about, even considering their own circumstances.

Beyond its central message, the show is pretty light on narrative and hits a lot of trope-y beats that would be at home in any high-school-based anime series. There’s a strong emphasis on friendship and relationship-building between the boys, a sprinkling of dramatic interpersonal conflict, a whole boatload of earnestness (and some dramatic overwork-to-the-point-of-self-destruction) from our main-man Kota, and a school culture festival to tie the entire thing up with a sparkly bow at the end. It also spends some time paying attention to its assumed viewer base (young women, the same individuals who tend to be major consumers of Sanrio products) by not only featuring cute guys being cute together on a regular basis, but also getting those same characters into situations where they hang out together buying merchandise or take on princely personas for the sake of a school theater production. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this; as far as fanservice goes it’s easily some of the more innocuous I’ve seen lately. It does distract a bit from what I see as an atypically good toy commercial disguised as an average anime series.

It’s a fun day at Sanrio Puroland.

The commercialized bits of the series are admittedly pretty entertaining and mostly forgivable. The boys go shopping for Sanrio toys and merchandise on a regular basis (naturally) and those bits made me long for the days when there was still a Sanrio store at the Mall of America (I’m probably showing my age by saying that). They also make a big mid-series trip to Sanrio Puroland, the Sanrio theme park in Tokyo with costumed characters and themed areas and performances. There’s a particularly ridiculous montage in the episode where the boys wander through all the areas and big attractions, dressing up in costumes and interacting with their favorite characters. It’s pure fanservice in more ways than one, but it’s indulgent rather than trashy – I’ll give it a pass (and be jealous that I’m not in their place). Having seen many more shameless toy commercials disguised as anime in my time, the fact that this series blends the fluff with some fairly substantial character moments is pretty good by me.

Ultimately whether viewers are likely to glean anything from Sanrio Boys’ lessons in subverting gender essentialism will be based on how much they can also tolerate being advertised to and whether they enjoy cute-guy pandering. I happen to be a Sanrio fan who likes shows starring cute guys, but it’s obviously not everyone’s specific cup of tea. I’d argue, though, that those who go in with an open mind will likely come away with something worth more than the price of admission (and some stickers and key chains).

Pros: The show is strongly in favor of people enjoying what they enjoy, gender roles be damned. If you like Sanrio, that’s an added bonus.

Cons: The second half of the series is especially filled with common tropes that stray away from some of the positive messaging in the first half.

Grade: B-

Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Laid-Back Camp (Yuru Camp)

Rin enjoys camping by the lakeshore, Mt. Fuji in view. Nadeshiko rides her bike to see Mt. Fuji, too. As the two eat cup noodles together, they behold the beautiful scenery around them. – ANN

Copyright 2018 – C-Station

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: Manga

Episodes: 12

Review: This review may contain mild spoilers for the series.

If you’re like me, you’ve long since accepted the fact that “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” is a perfectly legitimate anime genre. I’ve even seen it abbreviated “CGDCT,” so it’s time to acknowledge that this slice-of-life sub-set is now firmly its own thing and has been for years. As with other genres, it comes with its share of identifiable tropes; these series sometimes have a tendency towards Seinfeldian “nothing actually happens” stories, and many give off an impression of being frothy and insubstantial (if not downright insulting to the intelligence of the audience). This is probably true for a portion of them, but what I find appealing about these shows is the emphasis on friendship and relationship-building between girls, which is often in short supply elsewhere. This isn’t to say that the genre isn’t without its problems, voyeuristic focus on girls’ interactions for the benefit of straight male otaku being the big one, but I think the best of these series do a good job of making it so I can push these concerns to the side for a half hour and appreciate what’s there to enjoy.

Rin sets up her campsite along the lake.

Laid-Back Camp is one of the better examples of this sort of entertainment due to its emphasis on developing the friendship between two characters who are very different from one-another. The story begins as Rin arrives at her campsite alone, and raises her tent in view of the lovely autumn lakeside environment. Her solo camping serenity is interrupted by Nadeshiko, a bubbly girl Rin’s age who accidentally oversleeps on a nearby bench until after sunset. When Rin shows Nadeshiko some hospitality and compassion, Nadeshiko immediately becomes enamored with the camping life. Back at school, she joins an outdoors club and she and the other members start to enjoy group camping. Though Rin goes to their school as well, she prefers not to join the group; while she maintains a friendship with Nadeshiko and occasionally camps with her, she prefers to enjoy the outdoors alone, on her own terms.

Rin and Nadeshiko do a little duo-camping.

What I appreciate about this set up is that it eschews the expected story arc that would likely focus on Rin opening up, becoming friends with the other girls, and learning to favor group dynamics instead of honoring her inherent loner-ism – i.e. fundamentally changing herself to please others. Instead, the series seems much more focused on exploring the positive aspects of both Nadeshiko’s group-oriented style and Rin’s solo-camp adventures while vilifying neither of them or obligating them to alter their personalities for the sake of storytelling. Rin and Nadeshiko fall into a comfortable rhythm of texting one-another photos of their excursions while the series follows them (mostly) individually from place-to-place. This gives off the message that there isn’t just one “right way” to enjoy camping or, by extension, many of life’s other wonderful hobbies. Just like there isn’t just one way to enjoy watching anime (and no one is going to convince me to change my stubborn fandom ways).

I also got a more basic level of enjoyment from the fact that this anime is not just focused on the act of going out camping, but also on the cool equipment available to make camping more comfortable and, more importantly, all of the delicious foods one can prepare while “roughing it” outside. Many years ago, a friend of mine who had spent some time in Japan had me try to guess what the most popular food is for Japanese campers. In the US it tends to be easy things like hot-dogs, granola bars, beans, and other items you can heat up easily with minimal equipment (or eat cold). I was surprised to learn that in Japan curry is popular, with rice cooked in special cookers over the campfire. It seemed counter-intuitive to me, what with the messiness and need for special utensils, but there you go. Laid-Back Camp features curry and more, including meats, fried rice, stews, soups… one of the characters even busts out a camping-specific cook book at one point. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of food-related anime and manga, so this aspect of the show was a welcome surprise (though as far as iyashikei (“healing”) anime go, it’s something that seems to show up in one form or another fairly often, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised!). I’m not sure that I’d actually take any of these recipes on the road, but it is interesting to learn that, yes, cooking and eating fun, somewhat labor-intensive foods outside is something that people do.

 

Through Nadeshiko and the club’s camping adventures, we also get a look at the different types (and price points) of camping gear available, which is fun – watching other people shop for things fulfills a vicarious need in me, and I suspect others might feel the same. I also enjoyed watching the characters learn new skills and techniques through study and experience. Since much of the series takes place during the colder months, there are special considerations as far as sleeping bags, blankets, and ground coverings are concerned, so it was interesting to learn about those things while also getting a realistic look at how much those items cost. The girls all get part-time jobs to help support their hobby, which I thought was a nice touch.

Club members learn how to build a different type of fire.

What I think is the real success of this show, though, was that it was able to get me interested in something I was formerly averse to ever doing – camping. Call me soft, but I have never been a fan of the outdoors. I don’t like mosquitoes, heat/humidity, going days without bathing, smoky campfires… I’m a big wimp who spends most of my time connected to the internet and has an adversarial relationship with the sunlight. Strangely enough, though, watching Rin’s adventures in particular really taught me to recognize the appeal in spending some time disconnected from daily life, enjoying nature. It’s worth noting that camping alone as a woman is probably something more easily-done in Japan than the US; I’d feel fundamentally safer in a place with lower crime, especially if it were overnight in an unsecured sleeping situation. But if I ever make it over there, I might consider it as an option, assuming equipment rental is easy. And again, since the series takes place over the colder months, there are few heat concerns and no insects; it wasn’t until watching this series that I even thought about off-season camping as an option, so it’s encouraging to know that it’s something people can actually do.

Beyond that, this show is just a really pleasant, offbeat pseudo-travelogue that benefits from a naturally gorgeous setting (most of the camping takes place within view of Mount Fuji). The character relationships are healthy and low-pressure, the excursions are varied and soothing, and there’s even some light humor thrown in to keep things upbeat. I think it’s worth noting that viewers who are looking for something high-stakes and exciting are not likely to get past the first couple of episodes; by design this isn’t a high-energy piece with a lot going on. But set opposite something with a lot of action it might serve as a nice way to break up a more “serious” viewing experience. Or, if you’re like me, this is just the type of series that you might prefer when the rest of the world is stressful enough. And heck, if you’re driven to take a break from society for a bit, this might give you some basic skills to do so.

Pros: The show is exceedingly chill. There’s some fun focus on tools and eats. The relationship between the two main characters is positive and encouraging.

Cons: Some viewers may find the show fundamentally boring.

Grade: B+

Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Aggressive Retsuko (Aggretsuko)

Retsuko is a 25-year old red panda who works in her dream company’s accounting department. But it turns out that she is forced to keep doing more and more impossible tasks by her superiors and co-workers. She doesn’t talk back to them, but she still has to let off steam, so she ends up going to karaoke by herself and singing death metal. – ANN

Copyright 2018 – Sanrio/Netflix

Streaming: Netflix

Source: Original

Episodes: 10 (15 minutes apiece)

Review: About two years ago I caught wind of Aggressive Retsuko, a new Sanrio property debuting in two minute chunks on YouTube. The concept really tickled me – a twenty-something OL who puts up with typical office politics during her day job, lets out her many frustrations in the evening by growling death metal into a microphone at her local Karaoke parlor. A bit of a one-note joke to be sure, but one that hit me the right way and provided some decent belly laughs. I never watched much of it because it wasn’t that easily available, but I definitely indulged in some of the merchandise when it started popping up in my local Hot Topic and other Asian pop-culture shops. When this sequel appeared it actually took my by surprise; I only caught wind of it after reading Jacob Chapman’s preview of the first couple of episodes the most recent Spring Preview Guide over at ANN, and initially questioned the choice to make the episodes longer than their original two minute format. I doubted that one gag, even a pretty good one, could sustain a longer episode, much less make it entertaining.

As they say, boy was I wrong. While Aggretsuko is still primarily what I would call a comedy, it’s also a fairly robust critique of some Japan-specific (but still widely-relatable) office issues, especially as they affect women in a workplace setting.

One of the series’s many successes is how Retsuko is presented as a character, because despite her cutesy, merch-ready appearance her situation feels so genuine. She’s a cute, earnest person who feels lucky to be working at one of her dream companies, but her accounting job is anything but satisfying and her situation is greatly complicated by the fact that she doesn’t interact well with some of her coworkers and doesn’t have the personality that helps her to play games and suck up to the right people. She tries to lay low and get through the day, but this only turns her into a dumping ground for others’ work and, unsurprisingly, she’s unwilling to tell anyone “no” and spoil the office harmony. While my work situation is leaps and bounds better than depicted in this series, I’m fully sympathetic to the idea that it’s just easier to become a “yes man” and take on more and more work than to speak up and potentially make someone else’s life more difficult. Maybe it’s due to my problems with social anxiety or my poor handle on how to maintain human relationships, but I can see how the idea of “harmony over all else” can be desirable while also ultimately harmful.

Mr. Ton is a literal chauvinist pig.

Retsuko is also exposed to some of the most blatantly awful chauvinism I’ve seen depicted in media in a long, long time. Every interaction with her boss, Mr. Ton, is a tension-filled exercise in suffering through off-color comments about women’s place in the office and what jobs they’re meant to perform. Each time Retsuko got caught in the cross-hairs I could feel myself welling up with frustration. I’ve luckily never been in her exact position or had a boss so profoundly terrible, but I have been made to feel like an outsider and I’ve heard my share of casual sexism, so subtle and insidious that it doesn’t register even with people who otherwise have a handle on those sorts of things. It’s exhausting and defeating, and even several days later I have to marvel at the ability of this series to capture that and bottle it for consumption. I’m reminded a bit of Hataraki Man, another workplace series that follows the trials of several women working for a magazine publisher and examines their specific hurdles and ways of coping with unjust and unequal treatment and expectations. In that case, the protagonist is hyper-competent and admired for her ability to “work like a man,” when the men around her don’t put in half the amount of work that she does. Both series are very telling about what we expect of men and women in the same setting, and those concerned with workplace equality will likely be similarly frustrated by both.

This is supposed to be a comedy anime, right?

Gori and Washimi help to mentor Retsuko.

If the series were nothing more than a string of upsetting circumstances for Retsuko to deal with via death metal therapy, it’s likely that it wouldn’t be upbeat enough to maintain its own sense of humor. What helps immensely is that the show allows Retsuko to get by with a little help from her friends, as well as with some personal mentorship from a couple of high-powered working women in her company who have seen it all and lived to tell the tale. Retsuko is by no means a loner and often gets support in one form or another from Fenneko, a snarky fennec fox who survives each workday through pure cynicism, and Haida, a hyena who’s an everyday normal guy nursing a crush on our heroine. There’s a good sense that these three have been in the trenches together for a while and the others do a decent, if flawed, job of talking Retsuko out of some situations. Fenneko in particular was a real source of entertainment for me just because of her deadpan delivery and ability to see right through the world’s fakery. She’s not a character who would work well as a protagonist, but in small doses she was hilarious. As Retsuko connects with Washimi and Gori, two women who she has only admired from afar prior to their meeting in a yoga class, she learns that there are opportunities to get things done even when the system seems rigged and unfair. There is a lot of depth in these interactions, especially when Washimi and Gori attempt to help Retsuko directly with her management or try to guide her towards making good life decisions, and I think they really elevate the show.

My one complaint, and it’s a relatively minor one, is that the series attempts to insert a sub-plot of sorts near the end and isn’t able to devote enough time to it for it to fully mature. In her desperation, Retsuko starts to believe that her only “out” from her job is to find a partner and get married so that she can live as a housewife. She ends up falling for a guy with zero personality whose only real distinguishing quality is his low-key lack of consideration for her. She grins and bears it for a while until she’s forced to face reality. The lesson, of course, is that we tend to tolerate so many things when we feel that our lives are hopeless, and in doing so give up our chance at happiness and dignity. I really loved that message, and only wish that the show had been a couple more episodes long to allow it to unfold more gradually. As a sentiment, it was absolutely right on the money and just another way in which the series surprised me.

In the couple of weeks that the series has been available I’ve seen the amount of fanwork for it blow up completely, so I doubt that my giving it a glowing review is somehow going to inform anyone who isn’t already aware and interested. But in case someone does randomly stumble across this anime blog (or, more likely, discover the show while adding dozens of things to their Netflix queue), I hope maybe my words or their own curiosity will give them the push that they need to give it a try. And then, maybe we can continue to try to dispel the myth that cutesy-looking cartoons are only for kids.

Pros: The protagonist is very sympathetic. Portrays Retsuko’s tough situations in a way that feels real and relatable. The character relationships and interactions add a lot of depth.

Cons: The late-game romantic subplot could have used a couple more episodes of exploration.

Grade: A-

Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Violet Evergarden

A certain point in time, in the continent of Telesis. The great war which divided the continent into North and South has ended after four years, and the people are welcoming a new generation. Violet Evergarden, a young girl formerly known as “the weapon”, has left the battlefield to start a new life at CH Postal Service. There, she is deeply moved by the work of “Auto Memories Dolls”, who carry people’s thoughts and convert them into words. Violet begins her journey as an Auto Memories Doll, and comes face to face with various people’s emotions and differing shapes of love. There are words Violet heard on the battlefield, which she cannot forget. These words were given to her by someone she holds dear, more than anyone else. She does not yet know their meaning but she searches to find it. – ANN

Copyright 2018 – Netflix/Kyoto Animation

Streaming: Netflix

Source: Light Novel

Episodes: 13

Review: This review contains minor plot spoilers for the TV Series.

I don’t like to get too hyped-up about upcoming anime because it’s so exhausting to be disappointed when the final production doesn’t live up to what was promised. I like to let anime happen on its own terms rather than measured against my often incorrect expectations. But I ask you, as one anime fan to another, what am I to do when Kyoto Animation releases a teaser trailer that’s such an incredible fever dream of flawless animation and the interplay of light and color? There was no possible way for me to ignore what I had seen and start with a completely blank slate once the series was finally posted to Netflix. Rather than try to fool myself into believing that it was possible for me to be impartial, I decided to embrace impartiality and read other reviews of the show, both episodic ones and those focused on the series as a whole. I prepared myself for possible disappointment by arming myself with information.

Was this the right tactic? I’m not entirely certain, but what I can say is that going into the experience expecting to be frustrated by certain aspects of the story left me feeling pleasantly surprised by how the series was not nearly as flawed as I had been led to believe. This sounds like faint praise, but I really did enjoy the show more than I had expected to and I’m left wondering why others were more disappointed.

The series is comprised of two concurrent story arcs – one about a country at war which has at this point reached an unsteady truce, and one about Violet Evergarden, the titular character, who comes from a place of darkness and must reacquaint herself with the subtlety and full range of human emotion. The former story is the weaker one of the two; it works well as a backdrop and helps to establish who Violet is and where she’s come from, but when it comes further into focus as part of the primary conflict it feels forced and uninteresting (one might even describe it as kind of “tryhard” if one wanted to be a little snarky). The latter is where the more meaningful and satisfying developments happen, and while Violet’s story occasionally gets a bit melodramatic, viewers like me who have a tendency to get emotionally-invested will likely eat this right up.

Violet’s scars from the war are both internal and, to the surprise of others, also external.

It does take a few episodes for Violet’s story to get moving, and as I commented to some friends after I’d watched the first three or so episodes I was concerned that the series felt overly-manipulative in its storytelling. Several of the early episodes feel like one-offs that serve to build the setting and put Violet where she needs to be, but don’t quite achieve the emotional highs they try to wring from the viewer using beautiful music and imagery. As a veteran of war remembered both for her youth and her emotionless brutality, Violet is clearly out of her element as an Auto Memory Doll. The Dolls are women who compose eloquent letters for paying clients by interpreting those clients’ feelings into written language. Violet, as an orphan who has seen (and committed) countless horrors as a child soldier, is more adept at reporting facts and taking people’s words at pure, functional face value. She may have emotions, but they’ve been so blunted by her tragic experiences that it creates a wall between her and others. Likewise, the first few episodes of the show where Violet stumbles through an ill-fitting civilian existence, feel like attempts at forced emotionality that are unsubtle and unnerving. I can’t say whether this was intentional or not, but looking back it’s interesting to me how much the structure and feel of the show mirrors Violet’s evolution.

As Violet becomes more accustomed to her work and begins to allow herself to feel and empathize with others, the show capitalizes on this to tell some of its most memorable stories. My two favorites were one in which Violet helped facilitate more genuine communication between a couple of soon-to-be-wed nobles (ignoring the squicky age difference between the two), and one in which she composed a large volume of letters from a mother to her daughter. Though both stories are still what I would qualify as one-offs, they also provided great snap-shots into Violet’s progression towards not only understanding others, but also understanding herself and the relationships that she values.

Violet returns to remember a painful moment.

I’m what I would call an empathetic viewer and I generally pay less attention to plot and continuity than many others, since I find little value in picking that stuff apart. I find more value in thinking about broad themes and considering how I was made to feel. This is the perfect example of a series that I think was made for that mode of viewing, since I recognize that there are some issues with the structure of the show and feel like it could have benefited from some reshuffling of priorities. As I mentioned earlier, possibly the weakest aspect of the show is its sub-plot revolving around the tenuous peace between its setting’s warring factions. Violet herself obtains a kind of personal emotional climax a few episodes from the end of the series, and much of the remainder of the show is devoted to a sort of shoehorned-in plot about a rebellion hell-bent on mucking up the signing of the peace treaty. The last two or three episodes of the series feature some great action pieces – an attempted bridge bombing, Violet parachuting into a war zone, a fist fight atop a moving train… all things that are cool to look at, but which feel as though they come from a completely different series (though they also provide a poignant resolution to the loss of Violet’s father figure that plagues her throughout the series, so it’s not all fluff). They’re ostensibly there to prove that Violet is no longer a cold-hearted killing machine (as she eschews using her strength and speed to actually murder anyone despite the fact that it would more easily resolve the situation), but we’ve already been shown so much evidence of her evolution that the reminder is unnecessary. The series as a whole easily made it into my good graces on its other merits and I could look at these last couple of episodes as mostly-extraneous, but I can see how many people would find this much more irritating.

The way in which Violet reaches a resolution in her troubled relationship with the Bougainvillea family is one of the high points of last few, weaker episodes.

As emotionally moving as many episodes are, they’re matched or exceeded by Kyoto Animation’s cinematic visuals and animation. If I’m being truthful, being able to watch characters move in front of gorgeous backgrounds is one of the bonuses of watching almost any Kyoto Animation series (and the main reason why I’ve pushed on through more episodes than I’d like of shows like Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid and Amagi Brilliant Park) and this series is perhaps their most striking, detailed effort to date. It was the original commercial for the show that captured my attention, and while the series doesn’t quite sustain that exact look throughout, it still maintains a visual lushness that’s so far above and beyond what I’m used to as a TV anime viewer that I can’t rightly complain. I can only really fangirl in a basic way over how the show looks, but if you’re interested in some more educated commentary, check out Sakuga Blog’s series of production notes on the series.

I’m not a huge fan of Netflix’s delays when it comes to streaming anime series that I’m really anticipating, but I do appreciate the fact that I can watch an entire show (or cour, at least) in one or two sittings, so I suppose it’s kind of a wash in that sense. In this case, I got a chance to listen to lucky folks in other regions post their reactions, and despite the fact that my expectations were high they were also tempered and honed by what I was hearing. As someone with an (apparently) offbeat point of view on how stories are told it seems like I didn’t have much to worry about, as a lot of the complaints aren’t necessarily my complaints, and I truly enjoyed the show as a whole for its primary focus on feelings and human interactions and not as much on its weaker political plot. It’s gorgeous testament to KyoAni’s draftsmanship skills, as well as Netflix’s apparently pretty decent skills at picking anime series to partner with. It also gets a “5” on the Jessi Silver Cry Scale (TM) (I cried/held back tears at least 5 times while watching). If you’re someone who’s more into emotional through-lines in your entertainment, you might have a very good time with this series.

Pros: Visually beautiful. The feel of the story seems to mirror its protagonist’s development in many ways.

Cons: Political plot feels unnecessary. The real character climax arrives around episode 9 and parts of the last couple of episodes don’t fit in with those themes very well.

Grade: B+