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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – How to Keep a Mummy

When high school student Sora Kashiwagi finds himself staring down a mysterious over-sized package sent to him by his self-proclaimed “adventurer” father, the last thing he expects is for it to be opened from the inside by a little mummy so small it can fit in the palm of his hand. – ANN

Copyright (c) 2018 – 8-bit

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: Manga

Episodes: 12

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

One of my favorite anime series is Natsume’s Book of Friends, which I think is an uncommonly good blend of supernatural fantasy and very sensitive human storytelling. As a fan of Japanese folklore, it’s also an excellent overview of traditional ghosts, spirits, and creatures that are inherently Japanese. But as much as I like Natsume, even I can admit that I’m not always in the mood to process its sometimes heavy story beats dealing with bullying, abusive family situations, and various forms of loss. That’s one of the primary reasons why I found How to Keep a Mummy to be such a pleasant romp. The series takes some of the components that make Natsume compelling and lightens it up to be a more comedic, fluffy distraction. It might not have as much emotional staying power, but it certainly is cute.

One aspect that makes this series a winner is its likeable lead character. From the instant that Mii-kun the mummy’s coffin shows up on his doorstep to the moments when Mii-kun and friends encounter some sort of peril, Sora proves himself to be not only a competent protector, but also a kind and caring friend and parental figure (or pet owner, I suppose?). In an age when many of us – women, men, and non-binary folks alike – are wrestling with the concept and consequences of toxic masculinity in our culture and media, it’s heartening to encounter a character like Sora who’s a teenage boy, caretaker, and friend with a special sensitivity to the world around himself.

Sora and Tazuki are close friends.

Likewise, this isn’t an anime series which banks on stories about characters working out their social hierarchy through brawling, nor is it one where characters spend each episode cutting each-other down with insults. It’s a series that revolves around its main character and his friends opening up to one-another and developing relationships, while confronting personal elements of their lives that have caused them trouble or pain. All three of the side characters have hurdles to overcome, whether it’s Motegi’s relatively benign fear of lizards that’s confronted when a tiny dragon arrives at her home, Daichi’s damaged relationships with his classmates that are the result of nightmares (cured by a friendly Baku), or Tazuki’s traumatic past encounter a mythical creature and the men trying to poach it. Part of me believes that the addition of cute supernatural creatures is somewhat redundant; while all of the character’s troubles are at least partly due to some supernatural element, they’re also real human emotions and interactions that could have mundane causes in a series without a fantasy element. I’m the type of viewer that’s satisfied watching a slice-of-life story in which the main hook is that nice people are nice to one-another and work through their interpersonal conflicts constructively, so don’t necessarily need the cuteness on top.  But as a closet(?) connoisseur of cute, it’s a welcome addition that adds a little extra appeal for those viewers who are less willing to put up with low-conflict fluff entertainment.

Though I enjoyed the series, there were some bits and pieces that left me a bit cold. Sora, being that his father is out of the country, lives with his aunt Kaede. Kaede is clothing model and seems to have some amount of local fame, as other characters find her vaguely recognizable throughout the series. She’s beautiful, but also kind and supportive to Sora and friends… until she takes off her glasses, at which point she turns into a lusty sexpot with designs on her nephew. This “gag” only occurs once with a few additional references to it throughout the series, but it takes a show that I’d otherwise love to recommend to younger viewers or people who are less interested in anime’s overall penchant for goofy sexuality and complicates that recommendation. The trope of women becoming more sexual after they take off their glasses (think “sexy librarian” or “sexy teacher”) is tired and sexist, and in an anime series with really no other adult inclinations it stands out as a particularly poor choice.

Mii-kun just wants to be loved!

There’s also a push in the final two episodes of the series to make it more plot-forward, which felt unnecessary to me. There’s a recurring threat from poachers throughout the series who are on the prowl to collect monster specimens, which comes to a head when Sora and crew are attending a festival. While the provides a climax to the series, it’s also ill-fitting as the poachers never received any development and their actual threat level was questionable. I get that not everyone is satisfied when “nothing really happens,” but emotional climaxes can be just as cathartic as major plot movements, and I think that would have been a more suitable direction to take such a low-stakes show.

I watch anime from a very wide swath of different genres, some of which tend to be intense and/or depressing, so it’s nice to be able to unwind with a pleasant “healing anime” every once-in-a-while. How to Keep a Mummy was one of Winter Season’s great surprises on the front for me; cute, funny, and seemingly arriving out of nowhere to let us revel in an oddball relationship between a boy and his Mummy. I really enjoyed this anime, and if you too appreciate entertainment that, in spite of its flaws, is fundamentally kind, I think you will as well.

Pros: The main character is a good example of a male allowed to have feelings and just be nice to others. The character relationships are very satisfying. Everything is so cute!

Cons: There’s some plot conflict shoehorned into the final few episodes. There’s some sexist humor surrounding Kaede’s character that feels out-of-place.

Grade: B-

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Mary and the Witch’s Flower

It is Tib the black cat who leads Mary to the strange flower in the woods. When she discovers a little broomstick shortly afterwards, she is astonished to feel it jump in to action. Before she can gather her wits, it is whisking her over the treetops, above the clouds, and in to the grounds of Endor College, where: ‘All Examinations Coached for by A Competent Staff of Fully-Qualified Witches.’ – ANN

Copyright 2017 – Studio Ponoc/GKIDS

Streaming: N/A.  Disc release forthcoming (May 1st, 2018)

Source: Novel

Episodes: 1 (film)

Summary: Young Mary Smith moves to the countryside to live with her great aunt Charlotte while her parents are away. Mary wants more than anything to be useful, but she’s a clumsy person and often causes more problems than she solves. While lamenting her situation one day, she encounters two cats – Tib and Gib – who lead her to a forest glade where a cluster of spectacular blue flowers are growing. Mary takes the blossoms back to her room to admire them, but soon discovers that they’re more than just attractive blooms – the flowers, called “fly-by-night” by magic users, bloom but once in seven years and have the power to grant magical abilities to even the most mundane of user.

Mary stumbles into these mystic powers and finds herself a magic broom, which takes her to Endor College, a witch school above the clouds. She’s mistaken for a magical prodigy and the headmistress goes so far as to approach her about joining the honors classes, but it isn’t long until her secret is discovered and the faculty of the school chases Mary down in search of the fly-by-night blossoms. Mary must them protect herself, rescue her friend Peter and his cats, and make sure that the flowers don’t fall into the hands of those who would try to use them for horrifying experiments.

Review: This review contains mild plot spoilers for the film.

It’s cliche at this point for one to speculate on what Japanese animation studio will turn out to be the “next Ghibli.” It’s difficult to define exactly what that’s supposed to mean – Ghibli’s output has encompassed films aimed squarely at very young children (Ponyo or My Neighbor Totoro, for example), to more intense adventures that families can enjoy (Nausicaa, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away), to films that I’d argue take more maturity to appreciate (Porco Rosso, Only Yesterday, Grave of the Fireflies). Does Ghibli mean “animation quality?” “Story craft?” “Character and background design?” I’ve seen all of these traits thrown around as potential components of the Ghibli magic that’s captivated animation fans all over the world, and even somehow managed to gain credo with the incredibly insular, inscrutable, and in my opinion, sometimes downright infuriating Academy Award voters (seriously, Boss Baby over Your Name? You’ve got to be kidding me). Whether or not there’s a definitive way to identify the Ghibli style is a question that I’ll leave to others who are more invested in it. As for myself, I’m just enjoying the fact that, as animators and directors graduate from Ghibli, we’re able to enjoy the new perspectives they bring to this classic film making form.

Much like Hosoda Mamoru, Hiromasa Yonebayashi worked for Studio Ghibli as an animator and director before venturing off on his own to join the newly-established Studio Ponoc. Mary and the Witch’s Flower, the studio’s first feature-length animation, captures a lot of the classic family-friendly charm that typifies the bulk of Ghibli’s output, while providing a enough freshness to distinguish itself and its creative staff from their predecessors.

I commented on social media that one thing that charmed me about the film was that it seemed to speak to me as a little girl who always wanted to grow up to become a witch. Similar to the Harry Potter series, Mary and the Witch’s Flower suggests that there might be an entire secret world out there, where magic is real and those with a talent for it might be able to distinguish themselves and make impossible things happen. It helps that film eschews the tendency to make its heroine a strong but unattainable fantasy version of feminine purity, seen in such characters as Nausicaa or Kiki. It’s not that those characters are inherently terrible for women (and to be honest they’re much better role-models than a lot of “strong female characters (TM)”), but they also feel like an outsider’s perspective on what girlhood should be, when in reality it can be messier, more painful, and more awkward than it is often portrayed. I’m definitely not saying that Yonebayashi and friends have insider knowledge in pre-adolescent girlhood, but Mary feels closer to the type of person someone could meet in real life. She’s fundamentally kind and not overly-rebellious (which tends to be another direction writers take these kinds of characters), but she’s not particularly talented, gets bored easily, and goes against orders sometimes. She also lies by omission in order to feel better about herself, which ultimately gets her into trouble but is so understandable from the perspective of someone who often feels unworthy of praise. The idea that there could be a world out there somewhere in which the differences that one dislikes about oneself are seen as beneficial can become intoxicating.

The film also makes some attempt at real-world commentary, its most discernible issue-of-choice being animal (and human!) experimentation, as an offshoot of the typical environmentalism that crops up in similar films. Whether this is entirely successful is up in the air; my attitude was something akin to “I see what you did there” but more from the perspective of being repulsed by the mild body-horror aspect than buying into what I thought the creators were trying to say.

Visually the film doesn’t disappoint, and manages to combine traditional character animation, lush, vivid background art, and even some CG effects into a very appealing package. It straddles the line between traditional and modern very well, making an argument for utilizing new animation techniques even while trying to maintain a mostly hand-drawn look. After watching Shirobako multiple times, it’s interesting the kind of things I tend to notice when watching animation. In this case it was the animal movement- one of the film’s climactic moments involves a herd of animals escaping from captivity, and the horde of different creatures moving across the landscape feels very natural, chaotic, and whimsical as well. The depiction of the English countryside that serves as the setting for the more mundane parts of the story recalls some of the background art from The Secret World of Arietty; the lushness of the plant life and the misty hillsides are almost a character all their own.

One aspect of the film that I really liked was the revelation that Mary’s aunt Charlotte played an important part in the story when she was a youngster, and that Mary as a descendant of that family line is in prime position to draw things to a close. Even when young women have central roles in a narrative, it’s often the case that they’re the only female in a sea of men. In this case there are important connections between Mary and Charlotte, as well as the Endor headmistress. Additionally, Mary comes to the rescue of Peter, her male companion, multiple times throughout the film, which was a refreshing surprise.

The one thing that detracts from this story, and I suspect that others may agree with me, is that the whole package feels a bit rote. Stripping away the visual trappings and the spunky main character reveals a story that’s competently formulaic but not otherwise special in any way. It’s a fairly typical “heroine’s journey” in which a young girl is forced to look inside herself and make personal improvements, all in the guise of going on a grand adventure that, once completed, brings her back again to her mundane normal life. That said, it’s the type of movie that I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable watching with a child and which demonstrates an example of how to be heroic and fight for something ethical. It’s certainly more tolerable than your typical CG talking animal movie, and it doesn’t talk down to its intended audience.

The more creators there are making great movies, the better, and having graduated from Studio Ghibli I think Yonebayashi has a bright future ahead of him bringing to screen the type of anime films that have wide appeal. Mary and the Witch’s Flower is an above-average interpretation of a Western-style fairy tale that centralizes a somewhat-atypical female heroine and brings to life a magical world that might make some viewers long for the opportunity to attend a witch school. Check it out at a local film festival, or grab the disc when it’s released in May.

Pros: Mary is a spunky heroine with some realistic pre-teen flaws. The female relationships provide a good through-line to the film. The artistry is excellent.

Cons: The story is pretty average and can feel like a re-hash of old concepts.

Grade: B

Categories
Anime Reviews Reviews

Short Takes – Mob Psycho 100: Reigen the Miraculous Unknown Psychic

Mob’s master Reigen gets the idea to write an autobiography. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 1

Source:  Manga

Summary: Kagayama Shigeo, aka “Mob,” is one of the most powerful psychic forces in the world. However, Mob is employed by local spiritualist (and thinly-veiled con-man) Arataka Reigen, whose newest money-making scheme involves a novelization of their adventures from his clouded point-of-view.

Review: Fans hoping for a genuine bonus OVA or sequel to the wildly-popular Mob Psycho 100 will likely be disappointed by this special event episode, as it’s mostly a clip show summarizing the events of the anime’s first season. However, with a first-cour as strong as Mob‘s, there’s something to be said for the experience of reliving its best moments distilled into an action-packed and humorous hype-fest for the show’s upcoming second season.

Reigen the Miraculous Unknown Psychic is a retelling of Mob’s adventures through the eyes of Arataka Reigen, who in actuality played a small (but deceptively important) role in the original story. True-to-form, Reigen sees himself as the hero of this tale, and as he dictates his autobiography to Shigeo the recollections are embellished with his presence in situations where he didn’t, in actuality, have an active role. Most of the humor is derived from the absurd visuals of Reigen’s head pasted on Mob’s or Hanazawa’s body, as well as nagging feeling for those of us who are familiar enough with the original series to know that Reigen’s version isn’t quite right.

What’s interesting to note is that, despite Reigen’s puffery, he’s actually the storytelling conduit for the main theme of the series – having a talent doesn’t make one superhuman or above common-sense or responsibility – and this is evident even when he’s stretching the truth about his involvement in defeating the Claw group or mentoring Mob. It’s amusing that we the audience can immediately see the value in his words and mentorship, but Reigen himself seems to place more value on what makes him look good and how he deceives those around him.

I think perhaps the major draw of this event episode is the “big reveal” at the end that a second anime season is currently in production, but those who pay attention to anime news were probably already aware of that since the information had already been posted on the various news outlets. Still, despite the fact that this episode is mostly extraneous, it’s an amusing rehash of a series that could have been just another shounen action joint, but which happily coupled its awesome action animation with a perceptive story about giftedness and bullying. If you haven’t watched Mob lately, it might be worthwhile to check out this abridged (and slightly-altered) version of the show, if only as a pleasant reminder that it manages to hold-up to multiple viewings.

Grade: B-

 

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Previews Reviews

Autumn 2017 Preview

The air is cool, the leaves are changing, and the most wonderful time of the year (apple season) is upon us! And with all that comes a new harvest of anime to look forward to. Every season is a chance to have one’s expectations confirmed or subverted – it’s something that makes watching anime fun! Below are some of the series that I’ve been looking forward to (a special thanks to the twenty or thirty people who’ve asked me what new Autumn shows I’m looking forward to – I’ve been drawing a blank in person, but now I’ll have this handy-dandy list to link to).

Mahoutsukai no Yome/The Ancient Magus’ Bride

Begins: October 8th, 2017

Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation

Synopsis: Chise is a young girl shunned for her ability to perceive the magical world and her lack of family. At her lowest point, she encounters a Magus, a sorcerer with the head of a beast and a weilder of great magical power. He purchases Chise and frees her from the bonds of slavery; in exchange, he asks that she become his apprentice, and his bride.

Impressions: Having already seen the OVA episodes that preceded it, I can safely say that this is my most anticipated anime of the season. Aside from the fact that the show looks to be visually stunning as compared to many TV anime, it also combines some of my favorite things together in one package – dark magic, Eastern/Western fantasy, and complicated character relationships. It bugs me that labeling anime as “shoujo” conjures an image of something frothy and immature in many viewers’ minds – glob only knows that trying to get the anime I attend to vote to watch anything with that label is a challenge, especially as of late. This looks to be an example of something that successfully bucks the expectations of its demographic label, and I hope that many people will give it a look.

 

Kekkai Sensen & Beyond/Blood Blockade Battlefront and Beyond

Begins: October 8th, 2017

Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation

Synopsis: One day, New York City was consumed by a mysterious fog, and a break between dimensions occurred. Now the city maintains a tenuous balance between our world and the netherworld, its combined existence now known as “Hellsalem’s Lot.” A group of superhuman protectors known as “Libra” helps maintain the balance between worlds, and the hapless Leo is recruited into their organization by chance.

Impressions: I watched the first four episodes of the original season back when it was broadcasting and had a serious case of the “I-don’t-get-it-itis” for some reason. I felt as though I was consistently missing something that would serve to pull the plot together. Luckily I got a second chance when our local anime club chose to watch the series – I had purchased the discs to support the show, since it was directed by a woman, but my second impression was also much more positive than my first and I was glad to have watched it. So it stands to reason that I’d be excited about the sequel. I’m slightly apprehensive because season 2 has a different director, and has been advertising itself as being “closer to the manga.” My hope is that director Matsumoto didn’t somehow get blacklisted for following an anime-original plotline, and that the second season won’t be too slavishly-devoted to adapting its source material that it loses all of the charm the first season had. I’m hopeful but wary.

 

Inuyashiki

Begins: October 13th, 2017

Streaming: Amazon Anime Strike

Synopsis: Ichiro Inuyashiki is a man who looks old beyond his years. He’s a kind soul with an ungrateful family who steps all over him. One day as he’s standing in a park, a meteor crashes down from the sky and obliterates him. Or, at least that’s what it seems like until Inuyashiki awakens and finds that his body has gained several new abilities. He looks at this development as his life’s new purpose, and puts his powers to good use helping others. But there was another man in the park with him that night, and he has more sinister ideas about how best to utilize his violent new abilities.

Impressions: I read a good chunk of the Inuyashiki manga about a year-and-a-half ago, and despite it being a bit out of my comfort zone in terms of violence and the cynical motivations of its antagonist, I was impressed by the use of a non-standard (meaning, not a teenage boy) main character and the fact that it ultimately seemed to speak against cynicism and lack of hope. I’m hoping that the anime interpretation will carry that through and not focus too much on brutality and violence. noitaminA has been really hit-or-miss for a while, but I think the source material has enough potential to bring this adaptation to an interesting place.

 

Kino no Tabi/Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World

Begins: October 6th, 2017

Streaming: Crunchyroll and Funimation

Synopsis: Kino is a traveler who crosses the world astride her talking motorcycle, Hermes. She spends no more than three days in each of the countries she visits; any longer, and she may feel compelled to settle down in one place. Throughout these travels, Kino encounters the best and worst that humanity has to offer and learns that the world is beautiful due to its imperfections.

Impressions: I’m a fan of the original Kino’s Journey anime series and its related OVA episodes, but I was caught completely by surprise when I first heard the announcement that a new anime adaptation was being created for the story. I’m not entirely certain whether this adaptation contains entirely new material or is re-adapting some of the older stories, but I suspect it may be a mixture of the two. Either way, I love how the setting, despite being kind of reductive in some situations, still does a lot to show how and why humans behave how they do. The story vignettes are always very fascinating, and Kino is a truly unique protagonist. I would not have expected this to get another adaptation, but I’m certainly not going to argue!

 

3-Gatsu no Lion 2nd/March Comes in Like a Lion 2nd Season

Begins: October 14th, 2017

Streaming: TBA

Synopsis: Rei is a teenage shogi prodigy, rising in the ranks as he wins out over players more than twice his age. But Rei also struggles with depression and a complicated family life, and spends much of his time alone. His one solace is the time he spends with the Kawamoto family, three sisters who provide Rei with a glimpse of the loving family life he never had. As Rei tries to make an attempt at finishing high school, eventually has to learn to reach out and seek help from others in his life.

Impressions: While the first season of the show ended on a note that wasn’t necessarily final, but presented a feeling of optimism, and I wouldn’t have been disappointed in a lack of continuation, I’m definitely happy that we’ll get another 22 episodes to see Rei progress in his professional and family life. While there were some complaints that the first season got a little overly-involved in the shogi plotline and strayed from the more emotional elements of the story, I found the overall balance to be pretty good. My one hope is maybe that the second season will look slightly more Shaft-y than the first, but season 1 played the visuals pretty straight, so that might be too high an expectation.

 

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou/Girls’ Last Tour

Begins: October 6th, 2017

Streaming: Amazon Anime Strike

Synopsis: Chito and Yuri are two girls left living in a world that is nearly dead. Rather than despair, the two load up their motorbike and set off across the desolate world, devoid of civilization, and spend their days enjoying life to its fullest for as long as it’s possible.

Impressions: I’ve mentioned previously that I really enjoy post-apocalypse stories, especially those that aren’t necessarily focused on how the disaster happened, but which are more about living on in a changed world. Summer’s Made in Abyss did a great job of presenting a world that was clearly an after-image of something, but focused more around the humanity of the people desiring exploration of the mysterious world at their fingertips. Whenever some new information appears to fill in the gap, it’s like a treasure, but the real joy is just the journey and experience. I’m hoping that this series revels in the experience of living, rather than trying to outright answer too many questions. The first volume of the manga is currently available, so I might check that out, too.

 

Just Because!

Begins: October 5th, 2017

Streaming: TBA

Synopsis: As a group of students approach their high school graduation, a mutual friend of theirs, who left in middle school, transfers back into town. This group of friends is suddenly revitalized; while they were all just standing around, waiting to graduate, now their relationships seem to have a renewed sense of vigor.

Impressions: This show is definitely an unknown quantity for me; as an anime-original series with its claim to fame being that it’s written by the creator of The Pet Girl of Sakurasou (a show that people continue to tell me is good but which had a first episode that squicked me the hell out), all I really have to go on is a short synopsis and a trailer. Something about it, though, reminds me of Orange, a series that I enjoyed in both manga and anime form. Perhaps it’s the focus on character relationships, and the fact that people are crying a lot. In any case, I’m definitely curious about it. As someone who doesn’t believe that emotional melodrama is necessarily a bad thing, it might be worth a look.

 

Two Car

Begins: October 8th, 2017

Streaming: TBA

Synopsis: Yuri and Megumi are high school students who enter into the world of competitive motorcycle sidecar racing. Though they have opposing personalities, they learn to work together as a team. And they’re not alone; it seems as though most of the teams they race are similarly complimentary.

Impressions: This is a case of “this is dumb enough that it might be totally awesome.” I actually have fairly low expectations for a show about something as specific as motorcycle sidecar racing, but as a fan of anime based around obscure themes and activities, I had to give a shout-out to this one. My fear is one of forced comedy and the potential for fanservice, considering the gender makeup of the cast and what appears to be a propensity for silly character designs (judging by the trailer), but I’m game to give it a try. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d watched a show about girls doing goofy crap.

 

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau/Children of the Whales

Begins: October 8th, 2017

Streaming: Netflix

Synopsis: Chakuro is the 14-year-old archivist of the Mud Whale, a ship/floating island that sails across the sand dunes. He and his companions have never seen anyone from the outside world, but they yearn to someday explore it. One day they find a ruined ship, and the girl they recover from the wreck will change their lives forever.

Impressions: Ignoring the fact that the plot hinges on a “mysterious girl” arrives to “change the life” of the male protagonist (I’m cynical, please forgive me, I have low expectations), there’s something kind of haunting and fascinating about the setting of this series. Again, I think it kind of falls into that “mysterious post-apocalypse” sort of situation; it’s the bleakness of the world and the mystery of the characters’ isolation that becomes so fascinating as the basis for an interesting story. The first PV is also really beautiful – while I have suspicions that some of the visuals were animated specifically for the PV and probably won’t appear in the same form in the show, it definitely made an impression on me.

So that’s a pretty good run-down of what’s got me interested this season. As usual, some of these will ultimately pan-out while others will falter, and I’m positive that there’ll be some interesting surprises buried in there too. What’s got you fired up this season?

 

 

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Battle Girl High School

In the year 2045, the world has been contaminated by Irōsu (mysterious invaders who suddenly appeared), and humans find themselves restricted and contained. Standing boldly against these invaders are ordinary girls everywhere, without a powerful army or even weapons. The Shinjugamine Girls Academy is a school for these “Hoshimori” (Star Guardians) destined to fight the Irōsu. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

Streaming: HIDIVE

Episodes: TBA

Source: Mobile Game

Episode 1 Summary: Miki and her classmates at Shinjugamine Academy are trainees in the fight against the Irosu, alien invaders who arrived mysteriously, appear randomly (signaled only by a miasma that precedes their arrival) and who keep humanity contained and frightened. The girls lead typical lives, but are called up on when needed to invoke the powers given to them to fight and win against the Irosu. Unfortunately as of late, the classmates have been having trouble working harmoniously and seem to be phoning it in a bit. Not knowing just where or when an attack might occur, this makes the individuals running the program a bit nervous. The girls are ordered to undergo another round of training; it’s here that they’re surprised by an injection of new blood – a new member named Misaki.

Impressions: There was a time when I’d be immediately wary of an anime with a cast larger than about four or five main characters, but I’ve been proven wrong too many times to default to that position. Shirobako introduced an entire company full of animators, producers, and staff members while they sat around a table eating; by the end of that episode I definitely didn’t know many of their names, but the show never really suffered for its truthfulness about how much manpower goes into creating an anime. The Lost Village‘s internet-influenced bus full of misfits worked around its large cast size by giving each character a chance to prove how distinctly misanthropic or mentally-ill they all were, to (in my opinion) successful ends. So I’m no longer immediately put off by a cast of thousands, as even shorter anime series have proven themselves capable of using large groups for productive means.

The second round of training begins. Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

This show introduces a number of characters during a chaotic battle in the first half of this episode. Each character gets a snappy line of dialog and the nature of voice-acting being what it is, that’s generally enough to leave a small impression on the viewer of the person’s basic personality. Whereas other series have counteracted the disorientation of these sorts of madcap intros by providing something else to grab onto, say an unusual plot element or interesting variation in tone, this one ends having not left much of an impression.

There are some vague references within the character dialog to the forever-looming threat of the Irosu, this anime’s malevolent foreign invader antagonists. Though not particularly creative, the idea itself is perfectly serviceable as something to challenge our heroes and serve as an ultimate goal. The issue is that throughout the first episode, several references are made to how poorly the characters are working together and how their power as a group is unfocused and lacking, and yet there’s not any situation where the beasts with which they’re engaged are shown to pose any kind of mortal threat to the characters. There’s not element of danger or any indication that any of the characters might lose out or become injured, and so it’s really difficult to stay engaged. I found my mind wandering over and over again as I resisted the urge to check Facebook or get up for a snack, and this was all while characters were in battle – ostensibly the most dynamic parts of the episode. it’s a bit maddening just how dull the experience is.

f*f – Idols and heroines. Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

This show also seems to be an awkward genre mashup, as at least a few of the heroines appear to moonlight as idol singers, and the franchise’s Wikipedia entry seems to make reference to several different (internal?) idol groups and songs. This isn’t bad in itself, but I have to confess I’ve never really been a fan of idols or idol culture so the fact that that aspect seems shoehorned into this action series doesn’t really appeal to me personally. It also has the distinct air of trying too hard to appeal to too many different demographics at once which is almost always a poor choice; of many of the anime series I like the best, one commonality between them seems to be that the creators aimed to appeal to a certain fan group, made a product that has high quality attributes (story, animation, characterization, theme, etc.), and ultimately broadened the appeal in that way. From Yuri!!! On Ice to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, to Haikyu!, this has proven to be true. So I can’t really buy when a series seems to haphazardly take shots in several directions without hitting a target.

There’s an odd bit of pandering in this episode that I feel is worth mentioning as it didn’t land very well with me. For whatever reason, I’ve noticed over the last five or so years that the amount of low-grade yuri content in otaku anime seems to have seen an uptick. Shows like Sakura Trick and Yuruyuri make very mild plays at same-sex female relationships, not really to advocate for those relationships, but to provide them as another option for fetishization in shows aimed primarily towards male otaku viewers. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the shows are without other merit, or might not also have appeal to people who identify with those relationships, but I don’t think their use is meant to be enlightened or representative of ally-ship. The two overt idol characters, Kanon and Shiho, are introduced as kind of an “are they or aren’t they…?” couple in this episode, and some romantic aspect to their relationship is implied over the phone. Not only does this feel forced in a show that’s already got too much going on, there’s literally no other reason one would care about the characters at this point so it feels as though someone, somewhere is just checking off of a list.

Friends, companions, or… lovers? Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

Needless to say, this isn’t really a standout entry in the season, and there’s not much reason to recommend it over other, better-produced game-based anime like Touken Ranbu or some past examples like the Rage of Bahamut series. It’s probably more interesting if you’re a fan of idols or have some interest in the voice actors providing the dialog (of which there are many, considering the size of the cast). Add to that the fact that this is a HIDIVE exclusive, which makes it prohibitive to check out if your budget only affords one or two of the big streaming services, and this makes Battle Girls High School pretty skippable.

Pros: It’s a mostly inoffensive first episode.

Cons: Attempts to flesh-out characters feel forced, the antagonists don’t seem to pose a real threat, and the mix of genres is scattershot.

Grade: D+

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Princess Principal

Five girls live in 19th century London, a city within the Albion Kingdom divided into east and west by a large wall. The girls serve as undercover spies enrolled as students at the prestigious Queen’s Mayfair school. The girls make use of their individual abilities to remain active in the underground world of disguise, espionage, infiltration, and car chases. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Actas/Studio 3Hz

Streaming: Amazon Anime Strike

Episodes: TBA

Source: Original

Episode 1 Summary: A new path for history was set in motion when the strange element “cavorite” was discovered. Cavorite allowed the kingdom of Albion to create an air fleet that was unmatched in the world, but this imbalance of power tore Europe apart. Albion was split into East and West by a huge wall encircling London, and now, as in any divided country, spy networks crisscross from one side to the other trying to get the upper hand for their side.

Five young women attending Queen’s Mayfair school moonlight as spies, their current job involving helping a scientist defect so that he can get the money to help his younger sister, who is suffering from cavorite poisoning. But the scientist’s goals are muddied by who he’s actually working for, and it isn’t long before the girls discover that the ultimate goal is to draw them out from their hiding place.

Impressions: Anime is a medium that’s tackled a lot of genres and sub-genres over the years, but despite the popularity of steampunk within geek culture over the last decade or so, there haven’t been very many anime that have taken advantage of that. Steamboy is probably the most obvious one, and perhaps Last Exile as well, though that one has a slightly different feel. But for the most part it’s kind of an untapped market for anime. That’s why I was pleased to see a series like this that seems to be all-in as far as the steampunk aesthetic goes. Princess Principal seems to not only be concerned with what type of technological achievements might have been made had the world made a giant leap in discovery around the late 1800’s, but also the effects on class in society as a result.

‘Tis a very fancy school. Copyright 2017 (c) Actas/Studio 3Hz

The first episode takes place in the city of London an its surroundings some years after its eponymous battle that’s referenced several times throughout the episode (and which seems to play a large part in at least one of the main characters’ backstories). Many of the scenes occur within the elite private school the girls attend which serves as a cover for their nightly activities, and portrays the kind of upper-class Victorianesque setting one might expect in a steampunk-focused piece. With its emphasis on aesthetics, we get the expected steam-powered inventions, English gentility, and costume-like variations upon period clothing that make the genre fun to play around in. What we also see, though, are the bits and pieces of London buried beneath the thick smog, in the gutters of the city where the lower classes dwell. There are scenes of the poor clustered in an infirmary waiting room, and homeless people lining the streets. The discovery of cavorite, and likely the war that went along with it, definitely made some people wealthy, but there are clearly many who weren’t lucky enough to share in that prosperity.

The first episode doesn’t really take a stance on any of this beyond allowing the audience to see how things are; it’s clearly used as a means to demonstrate how stratified the world is. It does give us some perspective in that at least one of the girls now working as a spy was lucky enough to escape this kind of poverty (having been orphaned) and find a way to some kind of financial means (even if the work she and her compatriots are hired to do isn’t particularly savory). Anime has a tendency to “tell” rather than to “show,” so despite the fact that these visual interjections were pretty obvious, it’s nice to get a little bit of background on the world without an “as you know…” info-dump up front.

Ange keeps watch on their target from on high. Copyright 2017 (c) Actas/Studio 3Hz

In addition to its portrayal of the people populating its alternate-history milieu, the show’s background art is striking and detailed, providing a lovely backdrop for the well-executed action in this episode. There’s an incredible amount of care in the depiction of the lush plants in the Queen’s Mayfair gardens, as well as in the brownish grit and grime of the city streets below the all-encompassing fog. There’s just enough of a sepia-tone to give the whole thing a classic feel to go along with its old-timey vehicles and other less tangible period style. It’s definitely not a universal constant, but I find that, often, when different pieces of the whole are given a lot of attention and care separately, the final product tends to reflect that extra energy and planning in its overall quality. Obviously nothing is certain from one episode, but I was truly impressed by how this show made its visual impression.

I did a panel at an anime convention a year or two ago that was a discussion of moé tropes and how employing them in character creation isn’t necessarily a mark of laziness on the part of a creator, but instead can be a shortcut to get the audience up to speed quickly, with character detail and development to follow as required by the story. Some examples of this technique used well are Puella Magi Madoka Magica, or perhaps a slightly better comparison to this show, Sound of the Sky. In both of these shows, we’re fooled into thinking that the characters, being who they are and marked by their moé characteristics, will have a particular, predictable story arc. In both cases the characters have much more depth than might be obvious at first glance, and as details are added to their personas, we learn more about the world they inhabit. I think many of us are still wary when the cast of an anime looks like “a bunch of girls each with her unique one-note personality,” and that was my knee-jerk reaction to this show. Ange, who we spend some time with in this episode, feels like a typical “emotionless girl with a tragic past” that is meant to appeal to a certain type of fan, and there are a couple of other obvious character types within the group of characters we don’t know very well yet. But I get the impression that we’ll learn more about these characters as we go, and I’m interested to see that happen. And hey, if we don’t end up with richer portraits of our protagonists as we go, perhaps at the very least we might end up with something like Joker Game, which oozed style despite not sharing any pertinent details about the cast; I can dig a show about cool people doing cool things.

It’s not surprising to me that this show, which wasn’t really on my radar, seems much more promising than I would have thought; that’s something that happens every season. Though I might have some slight misgivings about the show’s ability to keep up the standard of this opening episode, I’m impressed enough by the type of story it told and the environment it portrayed that I think it’s definitely worth a second look.

Pros: Lots of visual style and a cool alternate history premise. Depicts class differences in a steampunk setting.

Cons: Difficult to tell if the somewhat-generic characters will develop as we go. The visuals may not be able to maintain quality going forward.

Grade: B+

 

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Dive!!

Since he was a young boy, Tomoki Sakai has been in love with the sport of diving. After years of practice and stalwart determination, there’s no place where he feels more at home than in those brief seconds of flight before he’s submerged into the water. Unfortunately, he and the other boys of the Muzuki Diving Club (MDC) aren’t doing enough to please their sponsors, and the club is on the verge of being disbanded. Enter coach Kayoko Asaki, a fiery woman who is determined to pull the boys of the MDC back from the brink. Her mission: get the MDC to the Tokyo Olympics in one year’s time. Tomoki and his friends have a long road ahead of them as they begin their fight to fulfill their dreams. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Zero-G

Streaming: Amazon Anime Strike

Episodes: 11

Source: Novel

Episode 1 Summary: As a youngster, Tomoki Sakai had a chance meeting that changed his life forever. He caught a glimpse of Yoichi Fujitani flying through the air as he dove into a pool below. It was then that Tomoki fell in love with diving. Tomoki’s road to being a competent diver was fraught with challenges, including his fear of opening his eyes before hitting the water, but having Yoichi as an inspiration (and occasional teacher and mentor) has helped give him the confidence to keep going. Tomoki’s personal life, however, isn’t quite so successful; though he accepted a request to go out from a girl named Miyu, he’s unenthusiastic about the relationship and would rather spend his time worrying about his sport. When rumors start going around about the closing of the Mizuki Diving Club, Tomoki’s place of training and home-away-from-home, all the members of the club are understandably stressed. In reality, the arrival of new coach Kayoko Asaki marks the beginning of a new, ambitious goal for MDC; get the club members to the Tokyo Olympics in one year’s time. But is this a goal that’s within the team’s grasp?

Impressions: Amazon seems to have a pretty firm grasp on many of the anime that piqued my interest this season, and Dive!! is no exception. As a part of Fuji TV’s long-running noitaminA anime programming block, it’s also part of Amazon’s current exclusivity deal. Years ago I was quite the noitaminA devotee, having been attracted to its penchant for broadcasting anime aimed at an older (and often female) audience. In more recent years its reputation has become more spotty, but at the very least I can still say that most of noitaminA’s programming is somewhat off the beaten path.

Yoichi demonstrates his skill. Copyright 2017 (c) Zero-G

This series will obviously invite many comparisons with Free! due to its similar title stylization and penchant for portraying young men in Speedo swimsuits. It’s also a sports series that seems to deal more in character dynamics and emotions, which was one of Free!’s strengths as an anime. Whereas KyoAni’s famous outing made a name for itself by combining sports action, character development, and great animation, not to mention fanservice aimed at individuals attracted to the male body, this series is, thus far, much more subdued in tone and execution. Whereas the episode ends with the introduction of a huge goal – get to the world stage by qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics – it spends much of the rest of the run time telling a much quieter, more contained tale of one young man’s internal conflict between what he feels he should like – having a girlfriend and spending time with his friends at school – and what he feels compelled to do – achieving even greater heights (literally!) in the sport he’s come to love. This fits in well with noitaminA’s catalog, which contains a lot of anime series that speak to the realities of human existence in ways both large and small within almost every sort of genre context. Despite Tomoki’s status as “yet another teenage male anime protagonist,” I actually felt like his struggles were relateable, because they’re also much bigger than high school. Many of us find ourselves pulled in multiple directions, and part of life is learning to balance our wants and needs in order to create a satisfying existence.

One moment that really pierced through some of my misgivings was the flashback to Tomoki’s one-on-one mentorship with Yoichi, the one time Yoichi seemed to find the time and inspiration to give direct instruction. Tomoki is told that he needs to keep his eyes open, to see where he’s going and orient himself to the water (this is after failing several times to enter the water cleanly from his dives and looking like a doofus). There’s an element of technical instruction to this advice, of course, but there’s also a broader message within it about facing challenges head-on with open eyes. One thing I was always told as a child when playing catch or tossing a Frisbee, was that I needed to keep my eyes open and not shy away from the object flying quickly and painfully towards my face. Practically, there’s a better chance you’ll catch the ball (or enter the water better) if you’re watching what you’re doing. There’s also a much higher chance of achieving success in life if you handle challenges head-on with as much knowledge as you’re able to gather. As someone with anxiety, this is a challenge that I have to face every day, and sometimes what essentially amounts to large-scale self-imposed exposure therapy is a terrifying proposition (and not one that works for me all the time or would work for anyone/everyone else regularly, either), but I find myself better able to cope now that I’ve at least made an attempt to face my fears. I was surprised to find myself relating to the show on this level so quickly.

Tomoki isn’t sure about his feelings for Miyu. Copyright 2017 (c) Zero-G

The unfortunate thing is that this isn’t a great looking show. This tends to be the case with a lot of noitaminA series, at least in my experience. They’re caught in a space where they’re meant to appeal to a more mainstream audience, but that means that there’s not really a built-in guarantee of financial success like there might be for a show related to a big-selling game, book, or manga property. I suspect that makes it less attractive to animators in some way, or there’s not as much energy and time devoted to scheduling and planning something that’s slick and produced in a way that’s meant to “wow” people. While the promo art might give the impression of shiny male abs and sports action, there’s ultimately not a lot of focus on that element. There aren’t high detail shots of abs or bodies in motion (there we go, comparing it to Free! again), but again I feel like that’s not really the point here. I do think that viewers might expect that kind of thing from this series, though, and if that’s the case there’s bound to be some disappointment.

There’s also a little bit of juvenile humor in this episode that feels really out of place considering how subdued the tone is. One of Tomoki’s friends at the MDC can’t seem to get over the fact that a beautiful woman has come to visit their coach, and there’s a much-longer-than-necessary scene in which this character melts down over the fact of the woman’s curvaceous body and his default assumption that their coach must be having an affair with her. It’s the episode’s one real attempt at being silly or funny, and beyond being generally out of place it’s also pretty crass and doesn’t add anything to the episode. I maintain that teenage boys aren’t nearly as stupid as anime makes them out to be.

Though there are a few missteps, I’m actually, surprisingly still interested in this series despite how it went against a lot of my initial expectations (or possibly because of it). I think it runs the possibility of being a little generic, and with only 11 episodes it doesn’t have much time to bring all the characters where they need to go, but I like that it seems very self-contained and doesn’t seem concerned with being bombastic and intense like a lot of other sports anime. This might be a show worth spending a little time with.

Pros: Seems to have a pretty deep message about facing anxiety and balancing the various elements of one’s life. The tone is pretty subdued.

Cons: The production values are lacking somewhat. There’s some juvenile humor that falls flat.

Grade: B-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Gamers!

 Keita Amano is a lonely young man who loves video games; Karen Tendō is the beautiful president of the video game club; Chiaki Hoshinomori constantly fights with Keita; and Tasuku Uehara puts on a facade of being satisfied with his life in the real world, but he in truth loves video games. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) PINE JAM

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode 1 Summary: Keita Amano’s high school life is lacking in the things that make fun – he’s got no friends and he doesn’t belong to any clubs. He goes home everyday and spends his evenings playing video games. While perusing new titles in the game shop he’s approached by Karen Tendou, his schools’ most beautiful, smart, and popular student. She invites him to join the newly-reestablished game club she’s put together at their school, and she’s extremely passionate about it. All the current members are experts at the various types of games that they play, and they all seem to have much larger reasons for playing them than “they’re just fun to play.” Keita starts to feel like the odd one out, since he just likes to play video games for his own enjoyment. When Karen asks him to join the club officially, he declines in spite of multiple reasons why he knows the experience will be good for him. Though, to Karen, this feels like the ultimate rejection, it’s likely that this isn’t the last word in the matter.

Impressions: Most people have hobbies, and I think for many, their hobbies are a type of escapism. I don’t sit down and knit a scarf because I need another scarf to wear; I knit the scarf because I like the experience of choosing the right yarn, of feeling it running through my fingers with each stitch, and of watching the rhythmic loops upon loops of fiber expand into a finished project. I can knit while watching television or just enjoying the quiet somewhere, and it helps me relax. If I were to start an Etsy shop to sell my finished projects, suddenly a hobby that I enjoy would morph into an obligation, losing all of its power to take me out of my daily life. It’s the same reason why I don’t really do art commissions or write articles for money; when there’s a transaction involved, it just isn’t that fun anymore. When there’s a hard deadline, it’s much easier to stress about it.

Keita gets pummeled in a first person shooter game. Copyright 2017 (c) PINE JAM

I can understand Keita’s reluctance to join Karen’s video game club, in spite of all the potential positives. He likes to game in his room, alone; it’s a form of relaxation after spending all day at school feeling mediocre and isolated from his classmates. Why would he want to place himself among people who play video games for a broader purpose? It would only invite comparisons in which he comes out looking like an aimless doofus.

These are thoughts I never expected to have while watching yet another anime about some hapless high school kid with a crush on a girl who joins a club full of misfits on some grand time-wasting adventure in slice-of-life territory. There are a lot of pieces in this show that seem to defy expectations, and I find that kind of fascinating. In my defense, the promotional image for the series is misleading – it makes it seem as though the protagonist, through some form of dumb luck (or “protagonist syndrome”), gets thrust into a group of girls, creating the potential for a romantic entanglement while the obnoxious male sidekick cracks jokes and acts as wing man throughout. Just in this episode I think we were introduced to at least four total male characters and roughly an equivalent number of young women, taking the ratio pretty far out of harem territory (two of the characters are even already a couple). The assumed romantic relationship between Keita and Karen is already in a very different place; rather than dancing around an awkward attraction, things are already on the rocks and Keita’s denial of her club invitation is even framed as a romantic rejection. Whether this is a setup to turn things back around in twelve episodes is a mystery, but it definitely went against my own expectations.

Keita is too normal for this weird club. Copyright 2017 (c) PINE JAM

There are also several humorous interjections via the on-screen text throughout the episode. They’re kind of self-aware, from the POV of some omniscient narrator, and give some snappy perspective on future developments for the characters. It’s reminiscent of, say, Ouran High School Host Club, with its blinking pointer-finger indicator of the doomed vase in episode 1, or even some live-action films like Scott Pilgrim (which, coincidentally, also deals in video game culture for its aesthetics) that are self-aware and call blatant attention to it via blending of referential special effects. Stuff like this always runs the risk of making media feel too “know-it-all” about its own tropes through overuse, but it’s used sparingly enough here that it doesn’t wear out its welcome.

The episode does fall in line with some expectations, however, especially in regards to the character relationships between boys and girls. There’s still kind of a disappointing lack of sexual awareness that Keita displays towards Karen; there are a few shots of her legs and body from Keita’s point-of-view that follow with him blushing and being unable to get words out of his mouth properly. Attraction turns some of us into disasters, but I have yet to meet a teenage kid who is made into such a mess from seeing an attractive person that their eyes wander around their crush’s body like the cameras in these anime series seem to think they do. Shots like that are one of those tools of the trade that are used as a shortcut, but which could be eliminated with just a minor amount of finesse (and a big dose of respect towards women and their bodies – this is probably the bigger hurdle).

Aside from that, though, I found myself amused by some of the game parodies already featured in the first episode (will there be more? I hope so). Karen’s polite conversation with King Koopa as a result of her delirium from lack of sleep, was surprisingly funny for a show where I didn’t expect there to be a decent comedic element. Video games are part of our shared culture, and as a Gen-X/Millennial cusp baby, I’ve experienced most of the big, important moments as games have grown into their own as an art form. In part, this show (and likely the light novel on which it was based) seems to have some of that same perspective. Even if it never takes on any of that broader cultural analysis (which it definitely doesn’t have to), it’s still fun to see the things that I’m familiar with featured fondly in an entertaining way.

In any case, sometimes hobbies are just distractions, and that’s okay. But even if a beloved hobby never provides the potential for financial compensation and couldn’t necessarily morph into a day job, there could also be a happy medium (like, say, watching anime and having an opinion on it…). Keita might not have a broader purpose to his gaming, and competitiveness might not be something he wants to inject into his hobby. But perhaps there’s a happy medium somewhere, and I’m actually kind of surprised at how interested I am to see how the show handles this proposition.

Pros: The show seems somewhat self-aware about its own tropes, and can be pretty funny about it. The cast is large enough that, while there could be love triangles or whatever, it doesn’t feel like a harem.

Cons: The show is still pessimistic about teenage male sexuality.

Grade: B-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Angel’s 3Piece!/Tenshi no 3P!

Kyō Nukui is a high school student who tends to skip school due to a trauma in his past. Kyō secretly creates songs using vocal song synthesis software as his hobby. Three girls who just entered fifth grade — the crybaby Jun “Jun-tan” Gotō, the strong-willed Nozomi “Zomi” Momijidani, and the somewhat sleepy Sora “Kū” Kaneshiro who takes life at her own pace — email Kyō. These three girls, who were raised together like sisters since childhood, want Kyō to help them break into music. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Barnum Studio/Project No. 9

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode 1 Summary: Kyo Nukui is a hikkikomori who, in the spare time he has being home-bound, creates electronic music and posts it online. One day he posts something in a completely different style, posts it under a different pseudonym, and wonders if anyone will know the difference. Later, he receives an incredibly formal email from someone who made the connection between his new work and his older, more well-known stuff, and this person wants to set up a meeting. Mustering all of the sociability he can, Kyo walks to the specified meeting place in a local park. He’s expecting to see someone older, based on the language in the messages, but the author is really an elementary school girl named Jun, who’s incredibly shy. She’s there with her two friends, Zomi and Ku, who were all raised at the same orphanage together. It’s their dream to put on a concert, and the girls certainly have the equipment to do so; the church basement has some great vintage guitars and the gear to go with it. It also turns out that they can sing and play the intruments pretty darned well – and they want Kyo to help them live out their dream of bringing people together through music.

Thoughts: I was driving to work recently, and was stuck in pretty heavy traffic. Someone a few cars in front of me stopped suddenly, causing a chain reaction where all subsequent vehicles, including myself, had to react in seconds. I braked hard, and hoped beyond all hope that the person behind me would notice in time to stop before ramming my tiny Mazda and turning it into scrap metal. Time seemed to slow down as I watched the (much larger) SUV pull up behind me way too quickly, as I pumped my brakes in hopes of signaling them somehow. Luckily, they were able to stop; I could hear the honking and engine noises once again and I was drawn out of my panic, and we were soon on our way down the entrance ramp towards the city.

Kyo is sad and isolated. Copyright 2017 (c) Barnum/Project No. 9

My story had a happy ending; oftentimes, however, you can see a car wreck about to happen, and there’s literally nothing you can do about it.

This episode starts of by fooling you into thinking that perhaps the underage girls in the promo images aren’t a huge part of the show. The opening scenes are focused on the main character’s anxiety and depression and the outlet that he has in making music. Anime doesn’t have a great track record in portraying mental illness, but these first few moments didn’t raise a lot of red flags to me in that regard, and I was willing to entertain the possibility that it could be better-than-mediocre somehow. With the introduction of the three fifth-graders, I was starting to see distant brake lights, as if something terrible had happened just over the next hill. I was concerned by their blushing cheeks, the weird shots of their too-shiny knees and ankles, and their infantile voice, not to mention their glistening, pouty lips. Maybe the colorists just wanted to go all-out and add in a bunch of details?

Then Toonces just drove the damn car straight off the cliff.

One of the last lines of the episode is Nozomi (the dark-haired girl), in exchange for Kyo helping the three orphans put on their concert, offering to let him touch her – just a little bit. I was actually just thinking to myself that it had been kind of a long time since I’d seen anything in anime that was truly vile and reprehensible; It seemed like, back when I was writing more consistently, that there were several anime series every single season that banked on pushing boundaries in regards to good taste. I actually blame the existence of those series for my current feelings about fanservice – I’m continually annoyed, but also find myself saying “well, at least it’s not as bad as [fill in the blank]” and I’ve ended up giving a pass to things that I may not have in a different time or place in my life. In any case, that’s one of the consequences of becoming hardened and complacent as a fan of a medium that can be highly problematic – suddenly you’re blindsided by someone’s bad idea that’s so completely out of line that you wonder how it could have gotten produced.

Yay, I feel horrible for having watched this! Copyright 2017 (c) Barnum/Project No. 9

This show is based on a light novel, that some people ostensibly read at some point. Some people read this novel and thought “hey, this concept seems entertaining. I bet a lot of people would like to see an anime adaptation about this high school guy that hangs out with little girls, and then they’ll surely laugh about their precocious sexuality.” I bet a production committee was gathered, and some music executive was slavering at the mouth, thinking about which voice actresses or idols on their roster would be a good fit to sing the band’s songs and portray the little elementary school girls that people would be inclined to have the hots for. An art designer, a character designer, several animators, and all sorts of staff were hired, and worked long, grueling hours for very little pay to bring to fruition an anime where a little girl implores a high school guy to feel her up.

There were probably dozens of people who had to sign off on something to get this made, and dozens more that poured their energies into its creation. If there’s one thing that Shirobako taught me it’s that really good, talented people sometimes make their money producing things that don’t have much artistic merit. Heck, the music scenes in the show are actually animated pretty well and might be fun to watch if the camera weren’t lingering on the girls’ legs, thighs, and mouths. I don’t want to dishonor the hard work that was put into the show by blaming the staff for the sins of the creators. And, to be honest, this isn’t nearly the most objectionable thing I’ve ever watched in my life. But I will say this – certain things just really rub me the wrong way, and making childlike characters into potential sex objects is one of them. Whether or not the episode’s final line was a misunderstood joke, something that will be explained away in episode 2, or something that will never come up again, it’s colored the experience for me in an irreparable way. I imagine that many of my readers might have the same experience. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do this, but I’ve dusted this old thing off for the occasion:

Now I can put this to rest and hopefully move on to something I’ll feel better about.

Pros: I wish I could think of something snarky to put here, but I’ve run dry.

Cons: Oh, I don’t know, it sexualizes little girls?

Grade: NO

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Vatican Miracle Examiner

To detect lies, refuse fakes, and reach the miracle of God – that is their mission as Vatican Miracle Examiners. Hiraga, a scientific genius and Roberto, an expert on the decryption of cryptography and ancient documents are not only good partners but also “Miracle Examiners” working for the Vatican. They are secret examiners, who are requested to examine and identify the authenticity of miracles from all over the world. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) J.C. Staff

Streaming: Amazon Anime Strike

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode 1 Summary: Hiraga and Roberto are Vatican priests with a very important job – when claims of miraculous events are reported, they travel around the world to investigate their veracity. Having just received word of a virgin impregnation, the two hop a plane to Mexico in order to examine all the evidence. Before they leave, though, they’re warned that they may meet with the Devil himself once they’ve arrived. The two enter the grounds of Saint Rosario church, which has an attached boys’ boarding school and a hospital that seems strangely well-equipped. They speak with the pregnant nun in question, who doesn’t seem to be lying and who greets them sporting stigmata, but Hiraga (the more scientific of the two) seems unconvinced. There’s also kind of an odd, unsettling atmosphere hanging over the estate, and as night falls the two suspect that word of the Devil’s presence might have been more than just a faint warning. Late at night a security guard comes upon the body of one of the priests, bloodied and sprawled across a pentagram on the ground. Murmurs of students playing at devil worship begin to rumble a little bit harder, just as a statue of the Virgin Mary in the chapel begins to shed tears.

Impressions: Oh anime, forever attempting to combine religious iconography with animated entertainment. I’m kind of kidding on that point, as this series seems to at least make a play at portraying some aspects of Catholicism in a way more accurate than many others (see Hellsing or Crono Crusade for some great examples of ham-fisted pasted-on Western religion). As the setup for a horror-mystery series, well, there are worse out there. But there’s something about this episode and the overall feeling it establishes that seems a little bit “off” to me.

The examiners pray in the chapel at Saint Rosario Church. Copyright 2017 (c) J.C. Staff

Though you’d be hard-pressed to find a whole lot of concrete evidence in this first episode, it has a very odd, pervasive sense of violent sexuality to it that rubs me the wrong way. This is possibly my mistake, but I’d sort of assumed before watching the show that the two male leads were supposed to be some kind of low-key yaoi bait; there’s obvious potential to frame up something that’s taboo and exciting between two attractive male priests. The first episode makes kind of a weak play at this sort of thing, with a shower scene in which Hiraga goes over his personal internal struggle while nude under the running water, and Roberto does domestic duties in the sitting room, ironing his companions clothing before they both go to meet their head priest for their assignment. There’s a lot of relationship coding, but absolutely zero chemistry between the two characters. I was left feeling kind of puzzled. It’s certainly not a requirement to feed shippers, and in fact I felt a little bit guilty going in with that kind of assumption. But on the other hand, why the weird fanservice? It left me feeling disoriented, like I couldn’t quite nail down the tone.

There are some other offhand comments and some actions that occur briefly that speak to kind of an unsettling view of sexuality. I was really getting uncomfortable when the protagonists and the related side characters started to get into the nitty-gritty regarding the nun’s pregnancy. The reference to her hymen (which isn’t examined on screen, but was apparently looked-at by someone at some point to verify her physical virginity) and the kind of faint suggestion of how she may have become impregnated (there’s literally no direct evidence, but I interpreted a few cues to mean that there may have been student involvement) made me really uncomfortable, and I would venture a guess that some people might even find themselves triggered by the entire situation. It should be news to no one that the religious view of women’s sexuality isn’t that great, but to dive right into it with episode 1 was something I wasn’t really prepared for.

Oh, and there’s also a bizarre and completely incongruous split-second scene of a nun suggestively and violently biting into a juicy sausage at the dinner table. I rewound the video a couple of times to try to see if there was some context for it, and other than just the overall creepy atmosphere, it doesn’t seem to be related to much of anything. She’s briefly introduced earlier in the episode and immediately reads as “sexy” and “probably not actually a nun,” but beyond that prepare yourself for a laugh and a great opportunity for a screen capture.

Dial “1-800-SATAN-66” to speak to the dark lord. Copyright 2017 (c) J.C. Staff

There are also some situations that came across as being (probably unintentionally) funny. For example, the episode begins with a group of cloaked figures performing a ritual around something that looks similar to any off-brand Ouija board you might find at a game shop. For a show that honestly seems a little bit in love with itself with its richly-depicted scenes of Vatican City and such, to represent occultism and Satan worship in such a cartoonish way just made me laugh. Next time they’ll be trying to find the name of Carlos’ crush or how many kids Steven will have, right after they bloody up another priest as sacrifice to Satan’s will.

One thing I did really like about this episode is the music that was chosen. The use of choral songs for many of the scenes that take place in religious houses of worship or similar environments is overbearing but very pretty in its own way, and gives a good feel for the looming presence of God wherever seems appropriate. As the priests arrive in Mexico, there’s also some pleasant Central/South American flute music to accompany them to their destination. Like the rest of the show itself, it’s sort of corny, sort of cheesy, and sort of try-hard, but I thought it worked well against how over-the-top some of the other content was.

Ah yes, I can see so much more with my monocle. Copyright 2017 (c) J.C. Staff

If I had to choose a word to describe how the first episode presents itself, I’d have to choose something like “goofy.” The characters are so serious that I can’t take them seriously, if that makes sense. Hiraga’s sad situation, as a scientist and a man of God who just knows there’s a way to save his younger brother from whatever kind of horrible bone cancer is plaguing him, is just over-the-top; it doesn’t really build sympathy so much as it paints him as kind of a madman with a penchant for playing made-up games with himself. Roberto seems like kind of a nothing person, serious and more fatherly but without even a strong backstory to distinguish him from others. Other than that, the flying rose petals that accompany the characters’ stigmata, as well as the over-the-top acting and really obvious use of color, shadow, light, and darkness, paints this as campy rather than serious. Not necessarily a bad thing so much as something I wasn’t really looking for.

With so few series starring adult characters, I had some hopes that this show might provide a more mature supernatural series to compliment all those that are focused on teens. I should probably know better that, just because an anime stars grown-ups, doesn’t mean that it’s made for grown-ups. This one might just be a little too weird for me to enjoy.

Pros: The soundtrack does a lot to create the proper atmosphere, at least in some situations.

Cons: The overall atmosphere seems in conflict with itself. There’s some weird-but-not-surprising treatment of women’s sexuality.

Grade: C-