Tag: Crunchyroll

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Gabriel DropOut

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date January 16, 2017
No Comments on Winter 2017 First Impressions – Gabriel DropOut

Gabriel White graduated at the top of the class at angel school and attends a human school on earth in pursuit of knowledge, but then gets engrossed in a web game and decides its too much trouble to go anywhere. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Gabriel is the embodiment of angelic behavior. She graduates at the top of her class in angel school, then descends to earth in order to observe humans close up and make their lives better. It’s a lofty task, but her inherent kindness and helpfulness keeps her on the straight-and-narrow, as one would expect of such a divine being. It’s this trait of helpfulness that turns out to be her eventual downfall, however; while playing an MMO, Gabriel becomes tempted by a weapon that she can use to heal other characters, and soon gets sucked into a life of gaming and skipping school. She’d play hooky every day if not for her friend Vigne, an unusually straight-laced demon with a strong sense of responsibility. Gabriel also shares her school days with Satanichia, another demon who fancies herself the future Queen of Hell (but who’s afraid of dogs and can’t even manage to get away with not turning in her homework) and Raphiel, another angel with a vile personality.

Impressions: In the continuing saga of no one being able to predict what I’m going to find funny, I went into this show with zero expectations and actually laughed out loud a couple of times by the time the credits rolled. I guess I’m just not as self-aware as I think I am.

The show itself is deceptively simple, and seems to revolve around one particular concept – angels and demons behaving in ways that are generally thought of as being contrary to their very nature. Gabriel and Raphi are both blessed with various shades of shitty attitude, while Vigne and Satanichia are either overly-kind or ineffectual, depending on the moment. It’s a gag that ought to run out of steam really quickly (and it very well could after a couple more episodes; I don’t really know what to expect at this point), but it definitely just works. By the time Satanichia was ranting about not doing her homework, I was definitely laughing to myself.

Part of what I think really gets me going is that Gabriel’s situation is pretty relateable. I played an MMO for a period of about three months many years ago, and never quite got into it much until I was asked by some other characters to join a raid. I got sucked into the experience completely, and spent an entire Sunday’s worth of daylight playing the stupid thing. After it was over and we all went our separate ways, I looked to see that more than six hours had passed since I’d started; probably not that impressive to many of you, but it was a huge amount of time to me. Whereas I made the choice then and there to stop completely, though, Gabriel lets herself fall further and further down the rabbit hole, essentially screwing up her life in the process. I think seeing her flaws laid out and knowing full well that I could have become something similar, given the chance and the inclination, makes her story amusing to watch on some level.

I read some other anime blogs, of course, and in poking around I learned a new term for Gabriel’s character type -she’s a trash character (side note: Anime Feminist is a great blog – whereas I tend to be more broad and incorporate my own feminism into my anime examinations, they are very focused on the subject and are good at pointing out some of the things that I might overlook. Check them out!). Trash characters are those characters who, for whatever reason, have stopped caring about social propriety and let their real, harsh opinions and bad habits fly free for all to see. The iconic ones tend to be young women who stop caring about putting up appearances – one example that I can think of is Yukino from His and Her Circumstances, who appears to be very put-together at school, but who becomes a lazy slob at home. There are of course some questions as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing as far as women’s representation; to summarize some of the good points, these characters seem to reject traditional femininity but at the same time it’s usually in service of some moé appeal. In short: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As usual, interpretations are in the eye of the beholder.

As for myself, I’m aware that this story was likely written to appeal to males on some level (the story originally appeared in a shounen magazine, after all), but I’m the type of fan who tends to overlook the hard demographic markers and take things for myself, since there isn’t nearly as much material created specifically for my particular demographic (anime made for mid-thirties women is in short supply, sadly). This has been a very roundabout way of saying that I identify with what Gabriel is going through in that its so, so easy to fall off the productivity wagon, lose hope, and become cynical about life and towards others. Most of the time I find it easier to stay inside and screw around on the computer than to leave the house and go do something more “productive,” so despite her specific situation being more extreme, I find that it makes sense to me.

I think if Gabriel were a lone lead, though, the show would get irritating quickly. It’s the ensemble cast and its members’ variable personality quirks that really make the episode entertaining. I mentioned Satanichia’s inflated perception of herself as being memorable (just look at that accompanying image to the left – I think it’s pretty representative of her personality), and it rings true for almost every scene she’s in. I think a lot of other reviewers have found her to be outright grating, but I tend to like noisy, clueless characters (think Yukko from Nichijou) so I think that’s why she hit me the right way. Vigne just tries so hard to be a demon and yet can’t seem to help but be a goody two-shoes sweetheart. And Raphiel… when I say “bad personality” I don’t think that properly encapsulates how rotten she is. She’s truly a bully, but in a manipulative way that worms its way around your conscious perception and catches you by surprise. She’s the type of character I would despise in a more serious setting, but as a foil for Satanichia I think she works well.

Overall I’m reminded a bit of Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, which has a similar story premise (but a more adult, vulgar outlook). In that series, there’s a constant questioning of what acts are actually “good” or “bad,” to the point that it actually becomes fairly serious and broad-reaching inquiry regarding morality and being judgmental about women’s behavior. Right now the characters in this anime are maintaining a solid, humorous balance and I suspect the show won’t really be asking those big, serious questions at any point. As I mentioned before, though, I worry that something more will have to happen in order to keep up the level of interest, because a one-gag show is rarely funny for twelve episodes.

As with most comedies, there are a couple of questionable gags. One in particular (that I admittedly laughed at anyway – sorry for being a flawed feminist and human being) involves Gabriel attempting a divine teleportation to make it to school on time. Ultimately, the only thing that transports is the pair of panties she’s wearing (it’s implied that the rest of her is so corrupted that the spell just doesn’t work), and they appear over her desk in class. A group of teenage boys sees this as a divine miracle. Despite the scene being about a minute long, I feel like there are a lot of things I could pick apart – teenagers are not always the smartest, but I think the assumption that teenage boys are so goofy and sex-starved that the act of seeing a pair of a girl’s underwear is a miracle makes me roll my eyes. I feel like the rest of the show is funny enough on its own merits that it doesn’t have to stoop to this level, so it’s a little bit frustrating to me. But again, I still chuckled at it.

I truly have no idea whether this anime series can remain funny beyond the first episode (I recall my experience with Himouto Umaru-chan where I found the introductory episode chuckle-worthy but the subsequent couple of episodes so profoundly flat that I dropped it like a turd), but I liked the introductory episode quite a bit. As of this writing, the second episode is available, so I might just go check it out. In any case, if you have a taste for somewhat low-brow comedic antics, I would definitely give this one a look.

Pros: Its simple premise provides more humor than might be apparent from first glance. The characters’ personalities are over-the-top but meld well into a comedic unit. Gabriel is relateable.

Cons: Some of the gags are maybe too low-brow and/or cynical. There’s the potential for one-note gags as the show progresses (or doesn’t, as might be the case).

Grade: B

Tags Comedy, Crunchyroll, Fantasy, First Impression, Winter 2017

First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date January 15, 2017
3 Comments on Winter 2017 First Impressions – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Miss Kobayashi is your average office worker who lives a boring life, alone in her small apartment–until she saves the life of a female dragon in distress. The dragon, named Tohru, has the ability to magically transform into an adorable human girl (albeit with horns and a long tail), who will do anything to pay off her debt of gratitude, whether Miss Kobayashi likes it or not. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: After a barely-remembered evening of drunken debauchery, Kobayashi-san finds herself in the strange situation of opening her front door and finding a dragon waiting for her. The dragon, named Tohru, takes the form of a lovely young woman, and has become hopelessly infatuated with Kobayashi, for reasons that are not immediately apparent. Tohru also claims that Kobayashi offered to share her home with her; though Kobayashi doesn’t really remember much about what she may or may not have said or done that night, she eventually breaks down and lets Tohru stay, especially since she promises to make herself useful around the house. The problem is, however, that Tohru doesn’t know a whole lot about what being human entails, and her ideas of being a house maid are often way off the mark. It may be more work than it’s worth to keep Tohru around, but Kobayashi-san finds herself warming up to her unwanted house guest bit-by-bit.

Impressions: Content warning for what could be interpreted as non-consensual removal of one character’s clothing by another character.

Continuing with my unintentional theme today is another series focused on monster girls, in this case dragons and other mythological beasts. At first glance, this anime appears to be much more straightforward in its comedic intentions, but there’s enough going on that I feel like there might be much more worth talking about than may be immediately apparent.

What I think is worth mentioning first of all is that, while this episode is definitely “funny” and I can see the humor in it, it’s not really what I would call “funny ha-ha.” I’m admittedly very particular when it comes to anime-style humor and I tend to disagree with the majority about what works and what doesn’t, so my saying that I didn’t really laugh much throughout this first episode isn’t necessarily an indictment of the series’ success in that regard. I do think that that the show works to subvert expectations in such a way that it’s entertaining even if it isn’t exactly laugh-out-loud entertaining. I think one of my favorite sequences (and one that’s pretty easy to find if you go looking) occurs when Kobayashi-san tries to outline for Tohru just exactly what a maid’s duties are, and Tohru’s dragon nature takes over and twists them to fit within her inherent skill set as a mythological beast. For example, a house maid does the laundry for her master – luckily Tohru’s saliva is perfect for removing stains from clothing. Other examples are similarly gross and vaguely horrifying, keeping the episode from devolving into complete saccharine mayhem, which is a nice surprise.

What’s helpful in creating the atmosphere is Tohru’s characterization, which is incredibly earnest. She’s someone who’s not really familiar with human cultural conventions and doesn’t really care to follow them, so she wears her heart on her sleeve and tries to emphasize doing what she thinks is right. She shows up on Kobayashi’s doorstep because Kobayashi (albeit while drunk) invited her to stay over, and this act of kindness so struck her heart that she fell in love with the human woman (she claims that it’s “sexual love” but I think that might be an oversimplification). She wants to do right by her host, it’s just that she doesn’t always know how to keep her natural inclinations under control. There’s also a sense that she’s fairly lonely and just needs a little company. I find that overbearing and willfully obtuse characters normally tend to push my buttons a little bit, but Tohru tends to skirt the line humorously without crossing it. It’s a balance that not many anime are able to strike.

Likewise, Kobayashi is pretty unique as far as protagonists are concerned. What struck me as unusual right off the bat is that Kobayashi-san isn’t exactly a typical “working woman” type character. She’s not depicted as an “OL” (an “Office Lady” – a woman employed at a company in a low-grade position making copies and bringing people tea, the assumption being that she’ll likely leave as soon as she gets married), and appears to have actual job responsibilities as some sort of software engineer. She also dresses in a masculine manner, which is not exactly unusual where I’m from, but seems to be less common when it comes to anime, which is based so strongly on visual symbols and shorthand. He work acquaintance, Makoto, describes Kobayashi as “one of the guys” which is a concept that I have a lot of problems with, the main one being the assumption that some men have trouble being friends with a woman unless the woman in question sheds every bit of their femininity. However, I think the intention was to demonstrate how Kobayashi isn’t focused on presenting herself as typically feminine (and instead admires it from outside via her interest in Victorian era maids), and I do find it heartening that there is an anime airing that features a less-common gender presentation and doesn’t make a big joke of it. There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong in that sense, so it’s nice to see it mostly done right.

This does kind of beg the question, though – how are we as the audience supposed to interpret the relationship between Tohru and Kobayashi? I could pretty easily see it as a romantic one, since Tohru has essentially confessed her true feelings already. Kobayashi seems mostly uninterested thus far, though. I’m at one time kind of bummed out that in episode 1 we are already kind of dancing around the issue, having the character share a bed, showing a little bit of nudity, essentially planting the seed of something that could easily blossom into a romantic or even just sexual entanglement between two women, but I’m also wary of most “Yuri” series since so many are primarily fetish fodder for straight cisgender males. It’s not that I think that audience shouldn’t be catered-to, but there’s already plenty out there, and I’d love to see a cute same-sex romance that exists without those particular caveats.

It bears mentioning that there was an iffy moment in this episode involving nudity and consent. There’s a scene where Kobayashi and Makoto are getting drunk at a restaurant, and in her inebriated state Kobayashi starts to get angry that Tohru isn’t behaving much like an actual maid (obviously problematic, since Kobayashi is a maid otaku after all). There’s a lengthy sidebar about maid cosplay versus lolita fashion (I actually enjoyed this part, for reasons that should be obvious to those who know of my side hobbies) and how Tohru’s chosen form is closer to otaku cosplay than to the uniforms of actual Victorian maids, which are what Kobayashi is more interested in. Kobayashi forcefully removes Tohru’s clothes at this point. There are arguments to be made about what’s really happening here, I suppose (didn’t Tohru say that her “clothing” was really her scales, magically shape-shifted?) and Tohru doesn’t seem to be particularly perturbed by the nudity (moreso by potentially making Kobayashi angry with her), but the scene felt mean-spirited and out-of-place in a show that’s otherwise pretty cute and upbeat. It wasn’t a deal-breaker for me, but I think it could be for others, so beware if that description is off-putting. It remains to be seen whether there is more of that type of material to come.

On the upside, I do appreciate that there’s a little bit of variety in the character designs – Tohru in particular is slightly more plump than a typical anime protagonist (probably not “real life” plump, but I’ll take even slight variety when I can find it). I also like how Kyoto Animation went a bit more Nichijou with the character designs and general visual presentation for this series. Believe me, I love the light blooms and perennial sunset lighting of series like Hyouka and Sound! Euphonium, but I also appreciate bright colors and simplified roundness, too. I think it fits the more comedic atmosphere really well. Speaking of Kyoto Animation, I think it bears mentioning that, while this series doesn’t look like it’ll end up being some crazy animation powerhouse like some of their other series, it still looks very nice, with a lot of fine details that might not be flashy, but add to the overall richness. I’ll be excited when more characters show up so I can get a chance to see how they move and what their color palettes are like.

It’s a good time to be a fan of cute monster girls, since there are plenty to go around this season. Even if this series never goes on to strike me as laugh-out-loud funny, I still think it has potential as a vehicle for a quirky relationship between a couple of mismatched characters. Tohru is a likable and earnest lead, and Kobayashi-san has her charms as well. I’ll remain hopeful that it keeps its less savory elements in check.

Pros: Kind of a fun twist on the core relationship, being between two women. The character designs are varied and cute. There’s a lot of quirky humor.

Cons: Kobayashi’s drunken non-consensual removal of Tohru’s clothes was gross and out-of-place.

Grade: B

Tags Comedy, Crunchyroll, Fantasy, Winter 2017

First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Interviews With Monster Girls

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date January 15, 2017
1 Comment on Winter 2017 First Impressions – Interviews With Monster Girls

Tetsuo Takahashi is a teacher working at Shibasaki High School and specializing in the physiological studies of demi-humans. His students include Akira Takanashi, a vampire and lover of tomato juice; Kyōko Machi, a dullahan; and Yuki Kusakabe, a yuki-onna. The school also employs math teacher Sakie Satō, a succubus. – ANN

Streaming At: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: The new school year is starting, and biology teacher Takahashi-sensei is starting to think about doing some work on his graduate thesis. He’s nurtured an interest in Demi-humans for a while now, and though they’re no longer a persecuted sub-section of humanity, they can be a little hard to find. Takahashi is resigned to the fact that he’ll have to do some legwork to find Demi-humans willing to sit with him and be interviewed. At least, that’s what he thinks until realizing in short order that he’s literally surrounded Demi-humans in school. The school’s new math teacher, Satou-sensei, is a succubus who doesn’t exhibit many of the stereotypical traits one might expect of such a sexually-focused being. There is also a vampire, a dullahan (an individual whose head is separate from their body), and a snow woman (a Japanese yokai) among the student body, and none of them keep completely hidden. After opening up a line of communication with outgoing Hikari, a goofy vampire with a taste for tomato juice, Takanashi-sensei starts to gain some insight into these people he has thus far only been observing from afar.

Impressions: Monster girls seem to be anime fandom’s current fetish-du-jour, and while I do somewhat share that affinity, I haven’t really been impressed by why anime has had to offer so far related to the topic. Specifically, I found Monster Musume, the de facto flagship monster girl title, to be uncomfortably weird and sexual without actually being sexy. It gave an in-universe reason why the main characters weren’t supposed to have sex, but then pushed it anyway, making everything feel very discordant and uncomfortable in the process. Interviews With Monster Girls takes a different angle and removes the vast majority of the sexual content in favor of focusing more on the day-to-day culture of monster girls in the process. For me, at least, this makes the resulting product a lot more pleasant and endearing.

I think it was the correct choice to focus on a character like Hikari first. I love how her straightforward and outgoing nature serves to lay everything out right away. There’s a deceptively simple scene partway through the episode where Machi, the dullahan, is talking with some friends in class, and they conspicuously avoid the topic of her detached head. I think this is something that many people are inclined to do, especially when they exist within the majority (racially, sexually, able-bodied, size-wise, etc.) – they feel safer and as if they’re being more polite if they just don’t call attention to the differences expressed by the people around them. “I don’t see color” is one of the phrases that comes to my mind, and represents the inability for the majority to acknowledge how differences affect those around them (especially negatively). Hikari comes back later on and blasts straight on through that veil of propriety, talking with Machi about keeping track of her head on the bus while also carrying her school bag, and other things that would likely affect someone with disconnected body parts. It’s not just an ice-breaking moment, it also seems to prompt at least one of Machi’s classmates to “get over it” and stop treating her with kid gloves.

Hikari’s first one-on-one with Takahashi-sensei is entertaining as well; when he suggests that her latent blood-sucking fascination that’s focused on Kusakabe (the snow woman – vampires get hot easily and a snow-woman’s body is nice and cold) could be interpreted as erotic, she reacts like many teenagers would when it’s suggested that they actually have some sort of budding sexual feeling – namely with embarrassed indignation. While I think that anime often goes in the wrong direction when specifically portraying women’s sexuality, depicting is as being comprised primarily of shame and humiliation (gross), I think this scene has the right combination of innocence, humor, and respect for Hikari as a character to steer it away from that particular cliff side. She seems to me very genuinely like a teenager just beginning to confront some of those complicated emotions while still being unable to truly define what they are; the fact that the scene comes across as humorous rather than disgusting gives me hope that the show will continue in the right direction.

It’s worth mentioning as well that, despite being a token male surrounded by young women, Takahashi-sensei doesn’t seem to be serving the role of harem lead, which is refreshing. His interests in Demi-Human culture seem to be without ulterior motive; even when prodding Hikari about her bloodlust I didn’t interpret him as behaving inappropriately. This is, of course, up to every viewer to construe in their own way and I suspect that, as usual, life experience and comfort level with the general topic will play a large role here. But speaking for myself, I felt that his character and interactions stayed well within the realm of appropriateness and scientific inquiry, which left me feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

I’m a bit less sure of this when it comes to Satou-sensei, the succubus. Succubi are beings explicitly defined by their sexual nature, so Satou’s avoidance of the subject all together via her choices to dress in shapeless clothing and avoid direct contact with other adults gives me the feeling that there actually is some sort of shame involved in how she feels about herself. It’s clear that this is all intended as a joke based around subverting expectations, and that Satou means to avoid the trouble of any misunderstandings or sticky situations (pun not intended) related to who she is, but I’m wary that this quest for a one-note gag will serve to define her character. I would much rather hear her talk about what it’s like to be a succubus than see her continually running out of the room to avoid conflict.

Aside from the other characters, who thus far haven’t received a lot of screen time or focus, the charm of this episode comes from the little bits and pieces we get to hear about how Demi-Humans or “Demis” exist within human society. I think this is more the type of material that I really wanted from Monster Musume, but which was hidden beneath all of the goofy sex stuff. I like to hear about the fictional cultural aspects of the different monsters, as well as some of the more boring bureaucratic drudgery that comes along with being a community within a broader culture, examined in such a way as to not be directly related to any real culture (hey, anime isn’t subtle entertainment; for various I don’t usually trust it to handle racism, sexism, or any other “ism” properly). For example, I’m by no means a vampire “fan,” but the logistics of vampirism are always a question that I have when vampires are part of the equation. Sometimes the logistics are resoundingly hopeless, as with the anime Shiki – the existence of vampires is ultimately unsustainable because humans are consumed and more vampires are created at a pace that outpaces human reproduction and replacement. In short, everyone ends up sad. In the case of this show’s universe, vampires are provided a blood stipend by the government each month (assumed to be sourced from donations) and can also exist on regular food. Hikari in particular likes tomato juice since drinking it roughly replicates the “feel” of ingesting blood. It’s little fact snippets like that which I think will maintain my interest even if the show sticks mainly to regular slice-of-life stuff.

I wasn’t expecting much from this, so color me pleasantly surprised that Interviews with Monster Girls was so charming and cute in its introductory moments. I’m happy that monster girls have become popular enough at this point that there are shows revolving around them that don’t rely directly on fanservice and misguided in-your-face sexualization. I’m hopeful that this show will continue to be a fun slice-of-life outing with some creative cultural inventions and endearing characters (that just happen to live a slightly different existence than you or me).

Pros: The show nudges up to the topic of budding sexuality without being gross. There’s a moment that portrays the dominant culture’s discomfort with racial otherness in a surprisingly subtle and nuanced way. The characters are very cute and charming.

Cons: I question the portrayal of the succubus character, who seems to be afraid or ashamed of her sexuality (or others’ perception of it).

Grade: B

Tags Crunchyroll, Fantasy, First Impression, Monster Girls, Slice-of-Life, Winter 2017

First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Saga of Tanya the Evil

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date January 7, 2017
2 Comments on Winter 2017 First Impressions – Saga of Tanya the Evil

Tanya Degurechov used to be one of Japan’s elite office workers, but because of a wrathful god, was reborn as a little girl. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and nearly transparent white skin, and she flies through the air and mercilessly strikes down her opponents. She speaks with a young girl’s lisp and commands the army. Tanya prioritizes optimization and career advancement above all, and she will become the most dangerous entity among the Imperial Army’s sorcerers. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Light Novel/Manga

Episode 1 Summary: In a pseudo-European world under siege, young mage Tanya Degurechov is the weapon that the Empire needs to fight off the various entities that would trample on her fatherland’s borders. Tanya appears to be a young girl of ten years old, but her ruthlessness and ability to dole out orders (and reprimands) to other officers speaks to someone much older, cunning, and world-weary. She has little patience for weakness and especially looks down on possible desertion, so when two mages under her command begin to show a pattern of disobedience, she sends them to rot far from the front lines. After using her intense, powerful magic to utterly obliterate a platoon of enemy magic-users, we learn that the insubordinate officers were killed by enemy fire. It’s almost as if Tanya knew that they were at risk, and purposely sent them to their deaths.

Impressions: Even though there are a good number of anime this season that I’m at least a bit interested in, I decided to go off script a bit and watch something that I knew had aspects I probably was not going to like. Military fiction (and especially thinly-veiled attempts to rewrite World War I/II era military history) always make me a little bit uncomfortable, especially since Japan seems to maintain a kind of weird romanticism focused around Germany or the German-esque. There are many examples of modern attempts to recreate the aesthetics of that era (for example, some lolita fashion lines that incorporate recognizable Nazi motifs, or cosplayers who don replica Third Reich uniforms for fun) while sugar-coating or tiptoeing around the bulk of the bad things that happened and crimes that were committed during the time period. It skeeves me out and I very much question the motivation behind it.

Likewise, one trope of anime in particular that leaves me cold is the one in which very cutesy characters are contrasted with the unthinkably horrible acts they are made to commit. It didn’t work for me in Gunslinger Girls, nor with the Higurashi series, and similarly I think it’s mostly used to cheap effect here. While Tanya isn’t necessarily what I’d call cute, in that her main facial expression seems to be “utter disdain” and her angular features make her look like something other than an actual kid, she still has the stature of a child and she’s referred to as such more than once by other characters (though only in fearful whispers behind her back, of course). And look, she spends most of the episode barking orders, threatening others with bodily harm, literally tearing people apart and burning them to ash, and not demonstrating any actual emotions about it. Whoa, edgy! I find that portion of the premise to be very lacking, to be honest.

The bulk of the episode is seen from the point of view of a subordinate mage named Visha (Viktoriya) Serebryakov, who is the type of character one sees and thinks “how did this person happen to stumble into the military, make it through basic training, and not get kicked out immediately afterward?” She’s the typical kind of audience helper-character who seems to not be very good at her job for the purposes of prompting exposition, and she’s altogether pretty innocent-seeming and naive. She doesn’t display a wacky, comedic kind of incompetence, she’s primarily just mildly clumsy, timid, and in awe of Tanya’s murderous actions, because shouldn’t we all be dumbstruck by gratuitous mass-murder perpetuated by a ten-year-old? (Actually, yeah, we probably should). She and Tanya are also the only women thus far in the show who are named and not background nurses or other sorts of crowd-fillers. That’s not necessarily bad in the sense that they’re the most focal characters thus far and an anime featuring two women in important roles (where they aren’t featured in constant up-skirt shots) is generally a victory (though considering the supernatural element suggested by the general plot summary and Tanya’s reference to herself as a “salaryman,” it’s not clear whether she considers herself a woman or not, but this is making things more complicated than it needs to be to make a point). The problem is more that their character designs are both wildly out-of-place compared to the military men that surround them. The guys get to be young and brash, old and grizzled, sharp-chinned, weary-looking, wrinkled, hairy… in one word, varied. The women look like, for lack of a more descriptive term, anime characters. Dewy eyes, soft features, and long eyelashes. It’s not a complaint that’s specific to this anime in particular, but it’s part of a continually frustrating trend. They all seem to exist in the same harsh, unforgiving environment, so why don’t they look like it?

There is something to be said for the portrayal of the environments and the general art direction in the episode, though. The background artwork is, in its bleakness, striking and gorgeous. What I really loved lingering on when I was taking screen shots were the gray-blue of the clouds above the battlefield, rimmed by hints of yellow in perpetual evening light. I began to recall bits of Shirobako, which I had the chance to re-watch recently. Though the shows that the Musashino team bring to life in the anime are not really what I’d call “high art,” a lot of work goes into making them look their best, with art directors and background artists contributing to an overall visual appearance that ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. This episode of Saga of Tanya the Evil comes across as slightly better than typical to me; while the story isn’t appealing and feels almost cynical at times, it’s easy to see the care that went into the art design, cinematography (by which I mean, the joining of animation, effects, and lighting), and getting the CG to look at least tolerable (which, in my opinion, is still about as good as you can expect). It helps to slightly obscure the otaku sheen and highlights the large amount of work that likely went into visually developing the adaptation. It makes it difficult for me to dislike it too much.

I’m mildly curious about the direction this show will take, if only to learn more about Tanya and her past life as a hard-ass Japanese business person (which I’m not treating as a spoiler since it appears to be in every publicly-available synopsis of the plot), but at the same time I also find her pretty intolerable as a human being and I’m kind of repulsed by all the violence and destruction served up in this episode. War is terrible and I hear enough about it in real life; I’m rarely in the mood to see it fictionalized and glorified in a cartoon, especially so by a character who seems to be some sort of sociopath. I understand that alternate history scenarios may be interesting to some, but I lack that interest myself, especially when particularly controversial time periods are involved. I have a difficult time condemning this first episode fully taking into account its merits, but I do find the subject matter pretty distasteful and doubt I’ll watch any more of it.

Pros: The background visuals are bleak but beautiful. The show features two non-sexualized women(?) in main roles.

Cons: There’s a boat load of violence to slog through, which may not appeal to some. The character designs are inconsistent along gender lines. The titular character is defined by a cheap trope (young child does horrifying things).

Grade: C-

Tags Action, Crunchyroll, Fantasy, Military, Winter 2017

Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Space Patrol Luluco

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 17, 2016
No Comments on Anime Review – Space Patrol Luluco

Ogikubo is the name of the specially designated area in space in the Milky Way where Earthlings and aliens can live together. Luluco is a female middle school student who lives with her father, and no matter where she is, Luluco is a common, “super normal” girl. As she is living her normal life, one day the mysterious transfer student ΑΩ Nova abruptly appears before her. That meeting will change Luluco’s fate. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 13

Source: Original

Review: This review contains spoilers for events that occur throughout the series.

There’s a large sub-set of anime series that seem to trade primarily on their perceived “wackiness.” “Oh, those cartoons from Japan, they’re so weird,” people sometimes say, confused by somewhat by anime’s blending of cultural call-backs they’re not familiar with, referential comedy based on other media that will likely never be available in the West, and characters that don’t seem to reflect any real human attributes. Add to that the fact that so many shows nowadays, comedy series especially, arrive in such short, punctuated doses, here and gone in the blink of an eye, and it’s no wonder that many of these silly, colorful, and over-the-top anime are incredibly difficult to relate to (especially if you’re getting on in “fandom years” like me).

Short form anime seem to only be increasing in popularity and ubiquity, but until recently I just couldn’t fine many that I actually liked. It’s only been in the past couple of years or so that several short series have started to make decent use of their format and branch out from comedy into other realms, like Yamishibai‘s horror tales or She and her Cat‘s delicate look at life through a feline’s eyes. Still, comedy has primarily the format’s bread and butter over the years, and there have been several good ones lately. While many people have been trying to get me to watch Please Tell Me! Galko-chan (I’ll get around to it… someday), which I’ve heard called “Feminist” and “like Broad City, the anime,” I haven’t found myself in the correct frame of mind to tackle it yet. Those are both really large claims to make, and I’m afraid of ultimately being disappointed if/when it misses the mark. On the other hand, I had no trouble keeping up with Space Patrol Luluco from week-to-week, I think primarily because there’s some inherent part of me that just clicks with Hiroyuki Imaishi‘s body of work.

The anime that Imaishi has had a strong hand in tend toward the silly and perverse, with a lot of over-the-top movement and fiery, uncomplicated emotion. They can be both barely-animated in the same vein as many Western made-for-adults animation series tend to be, and jam-packed with cinematic, bombastic movement, within the same episode. Their subject matter could be silly, perverse, or grotesque, but with the ability to turn serious when needed or at least provide lip service towards exploring more complex topics. It’s like he walks into a project with a big old bag full of contradictory nonsense, and somehow has the ability to smash it all together into something visually appealing and entertaining to watch. I find that pretty fascinating.

Luluco is a sci-fi comedy anime that has Imaishi’s storytelling and directorial fingerprints all over it. It’s about a self-professed normal girl who wants to live an average teenage life. She worries about “teenage girl stuff” like finding her first love, getting along with others in school, and dealing with her dad. The twist is that she lives in an area called Ogikubo that’s a hotbed for alien activity where creatures from all across the local corner of the universe interact with one-another and occasionally cause trouble. Luluco’s dad is a member of the Space Patrol, an agency that sniffs out unlawful alien activity and “deals with it.” It’s when Dad “accidentally” eats some contraband material with his breakfast and freezes his body solid that Luluco is thrust into taking his place until he’s better. Goodbye, normal life! All is not lost, however, since with her is Alpha-Omega Nova, a very attractive boy her age that Luluco instantly starts crushing on. Chasing down criminal aliens and embarrassingly transforming into a giant gun aren’t so bad when you get to spend all your time allowing your first love to bud and flourish!

Luluco06 — Lalaco Godspeed arrives to steal Ogikubo.

Eventually Luluco’s mom shows up (she’s a space pirate with a real rag-tag crew), steals Ogikubo itself and takes it to the far corners of the universe, and Luluco and company are sent on a mad chase to retrieve it, all the while discovering just how many truly goofy planets there are out there. Eventually Luluco’s very love for Nova-kun becomes a major plot point and the fate of Ogikubo and all its characters rests in what the big-bag refers to as a teenage girl’s “shitty, worthless first love.”

Imaishi seems to have a way with female anime characters and their stories. I wouldn’t necessarily call it feminist (those of you who have seen me in person at conventions lately know that there are reasons for that), but I do think that he and those who work with him seem to have more of a vested interest in presenting girls and women in a different light than you see in many anime. In Panty and Stocking (a series that generally seemed to confound a lot of fans), we get two main characters who are basically unapologetic about their “vices.” Panty has a lot of unattached sexual encounters, and Stocking eats sugary sweet food all day. Ultimately, I interpreted the series as a whole as being critical of these mostly unexamined prejudices that are held against women, both in the anime and in real life. In Kill la Kill, in the correct light, you can tease out messages about body shaming against women and the constant pressure we face to be dressed a certain way, as well as the value of female camaraderie and friendship. There are major issues with these anime series, too, which is partly why I’m hesitant about lifting them up as paragons of female-focused entertainment. They contain plenty of leering and fanservicey stuff to round out their run time (though I maintain that late-era “good” Gainax and Trigger material has a way with fanservice that I personally find less gross than the norm), so that’s something to consider.

Luluco02 — Luluco close to death (from embarrassment?)

Luluco as a whole skews a bit younger with its characters. Its atmosphere, while appropriately zany and wacky, is a lot more tame in terms of the visual sexualization, so its handling of female-focused plot points comes across more purely than some of its predecessors. Ignoring the sci-fi element all together, the story is focused on the value of a young girl’s first love. This might not seem like particularly groundbreaking material, but consider that anime most often tackles this subject in the context of school drama where a young woman ends up becoming consumed with her feelings for the object of her affections to the exclusion of (most) everything else. The crush acts as both the focus of the plot, as well as an aspect of it which is used by outsiders and naysayers to trivialize the type of anime made for a young female audience. I knew someone at one time who called shoujo anime something like “those pointy-chin shows” referring to the types of character designs that tend to show up in those series. Getting beyond the fact that it’s kind of a funny term and there are a lot of mediocre shoujo anime (like any other type of anime) out there that kind of deserve it, I find that there are a lot of viewers who generally just trivialize anime series that have too strong a focus on feelings and emotions, and especially uncomplicated-yet-overwhelming pubescent romantic feelings, ostensibly because they find themselves unable or unwilling to try to relate to those emotions of the teenage girls who serve as protagonists.

There’s a lot to unpack there, but what amuses me about Luluco is that it does so without hesitation and without looking back… you just have to be paying attention to notice it. Luluco lays its aesthetics on thick with its bright colors, cutesy characters, madcap comedy, and constant parody humor, not to mention its lightning-fast pacing and Inferno Cop style plot progression. Luluco’s girlish crush on Nova-kun seems like a side note for most of the series, a gag that keeps cropping up that serves to re-emphasize just how bland of a personality he has. It’s only near the end of the show when the big baddie is revealed that we find out how central Luluco’s feelings were the entire time. The Blackholeians, who make their living stealing valuable items throughout the universe, have decided that it would be more interesting to start seeking out things that are considered utterly worthless. They’ve now come to the conclusion that the first love of a teenage girl is probably the most utterly worthless, most bland and most insignificant thing out there, so they steal it (visually represented by a clear heart-shaped jewel) from Luluco, killing her. Luluco then has to journey back from Hell itself to then prove the true value of her feelings.

I was incredibly impressed by this final story arc because within the microcosm of an otherwise very silly show, the creators were able to express a frustration that I’ve had with almost every kind of fandom I’ve ever been in – “this thing you care about isn’t important to me, so therefore it doesn’t matter.” Doubly-so when said by male fans when referring to entertainment targeted towards girls and women. Thinking back, I don’t think there are many people who would look at their first crush or even their early relationships, and think to themselves “this was substantial and it was made to last.” There are so many factors, including physiological ones and those relating to experience and emotional maturity, that generally doom these early relationships to be nothing more than learning experiences on the road to adulthood. But they were real and they were important, and at the time they felt all-consuming. They had value in they way they helped form my adult self; thinking back to those memories, I can tell which relationships helped me learn to appreciate others’ hobbies (even if they weren’t my hobbies) and which ones caused me to let my personal boundaries deteriorate, setting me up for a long road towards learning to respect myself again. There were happy times and challenging experiences. Sometimes there was more bad than good, but even if the emotions themselves were fleeting and over dramatic, they were always real and they were always important. Some of the same things could be said for the books, movies, television, blogs, or games that drew our attention as younger people. Some of them might have less objective “value,” and looking at them now we can tell that they were pretty terrible (I used to be in love with so much terrible anime, you guys), but people don’t attach themselves to fandoms and media for no reason; there’s always something there that speaks to us when we need to hear it.

When Luluco comes back from Hell and takes full ownership of her feelings for Nova, it’s then that she proves her power. Because there is nothing more emotionally powerful than being able to fully value one’s self and one’s emotions, at least as far as defeating black hole aliens is concerned. I like to interpret Luluco’s powerful return as a giant middle finger towards those who under-value entertainment made for women, especially since the message was stealthed into a show that from the outside seems to be nothing more than a cracked-out (and possibly a little bit self-congratulatory) comedy romp from Studio Trigger and company.

Luluco01 — Luluco gets advice from a friend.

All that aside, there are some fun references to other Trigger properties throughout the series – Little Witch Academia, Kill la Kill, and Sex & Violence with Machspeed being the really obvious ones; Inferno Cop shows up in an awesome cameo later on and there are some strong aesthetic references towards Gurren Lagann, too. I would also be remiss if I went without mentioning the third member of the Space Patrol team, Midori, an alien gyaru who starts as sort of a love-rival to Luluco but ends up becoming supportive (though no less sassy) by the end. She’s used more as comic relief and provides a good foil for the pure-hearted Luluco, but unfortunately doesn’t spend much time front-and-center. Luluco’s mother, Lalaco Godspeed, is also a hoot (with prominent hooters, eheheh). The only downside is that the short format means that these fun side characters don’t really receive as much attention as I would have liked, but maybe there’ll be a sequel someday.

I’ve been a little bit snarky in person with some folks this past season, calling this “Studio Trigger’s good Spring 2016 anime series.” I’m only partly joking when I say that, though, since as much as I thought Kiznaiver was a decent accomplishment with a lot of good ideas to share, I felt a stronger emotional connection with this series. Luluco just always seemed more focused on the story it wanted to tell and on the character it decided to feature in the telling. Its entire run time only constitutes about 1/3rd of your average anime series, and yet I think it was more successful in arguing for its central conceits than a lot of other series out there. I may even have shed a tear once or twice (whether from laughing or crying, I’ll never tell). I have a tendency to dig deep into shows that I really enjoy, drawing conclusions that others might not agree with, and I gather that’s the case with this show, too. But they’re my feelings, and those feelings have power for me. And isn’t that really what’s important?

Pros: The show has a definite sense of style to it, with cute character designs, and a good balance of stills and more animated portions. I thought most of the gags were pretty funny and enjoyed the references to other anime throughout the show. There’s a good message to be found about the value of formative (and especially romantic) experiences, especially those that women have which are often belittled by the mainstream.

Cons: If you choose to seek out some of the anime referenced in the show, be warned that Sex & Violence with Machspeed is incredibly racy and grotesque, something that’s more hinted at in the episode of Luluco that references it. The short runtime leaves little time to flesh out some of the side characters, like Lalaco and Midori. Please make a sequel!

Grade: B+

Tags Comedy, Crunchyroll, Science Fiction, Short Form, Spring 2016, Trigger

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Sweetness and Lightning

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 17, 2016
6 Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – Sweetness and Lightning

Math teacher Kōhei Inuzuka is a widower with a young daughter named Tsumugi. Inuzuka isn’t adept in the kitchen but with the help of his student Kotori Iida and his daughter, he embarks on a culinary adventure. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Kyouhei Inuzuka is a high school teacher, but he’s also a single father to his young daughter, Tsumugi. It’s been six months since his wife died, and he’s just trying to take each day one day at a time and make sure he can take care of Tsumugi. Unfortunately, he’s often out late and more often than not resorts to grabbing convenience store bento for dinner. While out in the park flower-viewing, they happen upon a young lady weeping over her rice balls. She’s not sad, just moved to tears over the delicious food that her busy mother prepared. It just so happens that her mother owns a restaurant, and she passes along a business card. A couple of days later, Tsumugi is really feeling sad over the lack of home-cooked meals at their house, so Kyouhei does something impulsive – he races to the restaurant, daughter in tow, in order to provide something warm and nourishing. One problem – the owner is out and the restaurant is technically closed for the day, but Kotori, the owner’s daughter and coincidentally one of Kyouhei’s students, offers to cook up something simple. That night, they enjoy hot rice together, and Kotori asks that they join forces and learn to cook with one-another.

SweetnessLightning01 — Kyouhei pieces together Tsumugi’s lunch using store-bought pre-prepped side dishes.

Impressions: I have a major soft spot for stories that involve parenting and genuinely cute kids. Not because I have any of my own, but likely because it’s such a unique occurrence in anime. I remain a big fan of Bunny Drop (hey, it was a really excellent 11-episode anime and an equally good 4 volume manga!), enjoyed Kotetsu’s relationship with his daughter in Tiger & Bunny, and in general am impressed when the parental relationship is depicted as being substantial rather than as some afterthought in an anime full of teenagers (I don’t really have time to get into the related issue of dead moms in anime, but that’s certainly something to note). In any case, anime series that consider the parents’ point of view and depict that trials of trying to bring up a young person in an environment which makes that difficult are some of the anime I find appealing.

So far this show has a lot going for it in that regard. Kyouhei is depicted as a genuinely good person who has his daughter’s best interests at heart. It’s the specifics of their situation, as well as perhaps some residual depression following the death of his wife, that creates a lot of challenges for him to try to overcome. For the most part, Kyouhei seems fairly on top of everyday life; he makes plans to do the laundry with Tsumugi that weekend, they get out of the house to spend time together, he gets her dressed and out the door in the morning and generally arrives in time to pick her up from daycare. In short, he’s loving and competent, and while obviously any single parent situation is difficult to manage, there’s a decent amount of realism in his ability to juggle all these things and it’s clear that Tsumugi is grateful.

SweetnessLightning02 — A cell phone shot of Tsumugi during her first (and only) experience with dad’s cooking.

What left an impression on me after the first episode, though, is its (and by extension, the show’s) focus on food and meals as they relate to family life. In flashback, we learn that Kyouhei’s late wife Tae was quite the experimental chef, and her meals were beloved in the household. Because of the food lifestyle I (mostly) adhere to, I’m used to hearing the refrain that “food is fuel” and that we should strive to remove the emotional aspect from it (as in, try to stop emotional eating and listen to your body’s hunger signals instead). That’s fine on a logical level, but for me in particular food and meals have always served the purpose of showing love to those I care about and bringing together friends and family around a shared table. Tsumugi is a generally happy, bubbly youngster, but her sadness at eating convenience store bento boxes while her dad catches up on his classroom work is obvious. To her, meals are something that she wants to share with family, and a home-cooked meal trumps anything from the microwave (though her dad’s early attempts at home cooking so far have left a little to be desired, judging by her reported reaction).

I think this episode does a good job of explaining (without explicitly doing so) why Kyouhei hasn’t taken up cooking, and in fact has outright avoided the task. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t have much cooking experience and his first attempt was a major bomb (seriously, that photo of Tsumugi making a disgusted face is hilarious), it becomes clear that the subject of cooking is too strong a reminder of what’s missing now that his wife is gone. Trying to do something that was so closely associated with someone who’s now gone has got to be incredibly painful; each dish, whether successful or a failure, is just another way of pointing out the empty space left behind. It wouldn’t be unusual for Kyouhei to avoid cooking out of respect for his wife’s memory and a desire to keep from feeling as though he were trying to replace her. All of this is interpreted from what’s written between the lines; unlike a lot of anime, this one so far is a little bit more “show” and a little less “tell,” which in itself is nice.

SweetnessLightning03 — Kotori crying while eating in the park.

Lest everyone think this is a show all about doom and gloom and death, let me mention that I found the first episode to be incredibly cute and also pretty funny. Tsumugi is at that particular age where emotions are still shared right out in the open, and social norms don’t necessarily play a large factor in everyday interactions. She says what’s on her mind and expresses her feelings without worrying what others might think, and that’s one of the things I find cutest about little kids (well, until their emotions go into overdrive and devolve into tantrums; then I’m quick to leave the area). I enjoyed how she declares her love for her dad, and also how she had no qualms about approaching Kotori (at that time a total stranger) in the park to comfort her and ask why she was crying. There’s just something really heartwarming about the earnestness of children that gives me that warmhearted feeling.

I’m guessing that any “concerns” about the direction of this show that one might have would be due to the fact that one of the three main characters is a high school student of Kyouhei’s. Maybe it’s my cynicism talking, or maybe it’s just anime’s propensity for being willing to go in distasteful directions, but I’m wary of the fact that Kotori is likely going to be spending a lot of time with Kyouhei and possibly filling part of the role that Kyouhei’s wife used to and of the fact that the Wikipedia entry references Kotori’s possible crush on her teacher. The anime seems fairly cute and innocent so far, and Kotori’s attitude seems innocent enough, but I’ve been burned in the past and just don’t want such a cute series to go down that dark road.

I’ve been feeling kind of crappy the last few days (bad allergies are keeping me medicated-up and I’m having a hard time staying awake and focusing on anything), so it was nice to take a moment to sit down with something that’s very cute and heartwarming while trying to unwind. For now, rather than worry about what direction it will take, I’m going to accept the show at face value and just appreciate the fact that anime is a medium with so much variety in story and character and that there are still series that are made to appeal to people my age. I was impressed with the first episode’s ability to demonstrate its cuteness without being overly saccharine, as well as how well I gained a window into the protagonist’s feelings. I’m calling it – “feel-good anime of the season.”

Pros: Kyouhei’s life and choices are explained well through the narrative. The episode is genuinely cute and heartwarming.

Cons: Kotori’s “crush” on Kyouhei, though mostly unexplored thus far, has me feeling wary.

Grade: B+

Tags Crunchyroll, First Impression, New Anime, Slice-of-Life, Summer 2016

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – The Morose Mononokean

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 9, 2016
No Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – The Morose Mononokean

In a certain tea shop there lives a man called the Mononokean. This morose looking man gained his name for his ability to work with yōkai, guiding the ones that wander in our world into the next. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Ashiya Hanae is the son of an overly-enthusiastic flower-shop owner. He’s really looking forward to starting high school. The evening before his first day in class, he encounters what he believes to be a stuffed animal laying on the ground. It is, however, a very-much-alive ball of fluff that only Ashiya can see and which takes an instant liking to him. And then starts to suck out his life force, bit-by-bit. Soon his school days are spent recuperating in the nurse’s office, and it’s only by extreme chance and desperation that Ashiya notices an advertisement for someone looking for part-time help and who seems like he might possibly know how to exorcise this very fluffy demon. Ashiya meets Abeno, a curmudgeonly young man dressed in vintage style clothing, in a very shady tea room that appears to exist outside of normal time and space. Abeno can help him, absolutely… but only for a very steep price. And of course, circumstances play out which indebt Ashiya to Abeno. There’s no chance of escaping, either, since Abeno shows up in Ashiya’s class the next day.

Mononokean01 — Ashiya gains a new… friend?

First Impressions: As an anime fan and also someone with an interest in Japan in general, Japanese myth and folklore has always intrigued me. Anime and manga are rich with tales that draw upon these sources, from the library of late, great yokai-master Shigeru Mizuki himself to more contemporary titles like Natsume’s Book of Friends and Mononoke. Even sci-fi series like the recently-released-on-disc Dennou Coil incorporate elements of this kind of mythology to establish a particular kind of Japan-centric supernatural undercurrent to excellent effect. So you could say that I’m on the look out for this sort of thing when I’m browsing around in anticipation of a new anime season. The trailers for this show had me pretty excited – Cute creatures, attractive male characters, bright colors… not necessarily masterpiece material, but definitely a lot of things that scratch my itch if you know what I mean. And, of course, there was the promise of Japanese mythological references and the inclusion of familiar yokai. On paper it definitely seems like a winner. My feelings about the first episode are very mixed, however. There are a lot of elements that I enjoyed about the first episode, including the general tone and the look of the less-human mononoke (primarily suggested by imagery in the opening and closing animation and the preview), but there’s something about the way it all falls into place that ends up feeling sort of flat.

In most cases I prefer not to jump right to criticizing animation quality, because I genuinely don’t believe that even in a storytelling medium that’s just a style of animation, the quality of animation is the be-all-end-all defining aspect. This puts me in opposition to a lot of anime fans, and I’ve made peace with that; many of you out there feel (for good reason) that something animated should look good and appear to have some base level of quality, and I respect that. I’ve just seen too many series that fall outside the accepted aesthetic (I love you, Masaaki Yuasa!) and which have affected me strongly enough that I don’t consider weirdness, off-model animation, or a high level of still frames or talking heads to remove a series from the discussion by default (if I were a “Chopped” judge I’d probably be pretty forgiving anytime a contestant forgot a basket ingredient, too). I do, however, think that the first episode of an anime should be an example of the staff putting their best foot forward in order to captivate and impress the audience, and this first episode just doesn’t demonstrate a lot of finesse that’s often evident even when you can tell a show doesn’t have a lot of budget to work with.

Mononokean03 — Ashiya begs Abeno-san for help.

The yokai in this series (at least from what I can tell) are brought to life utilizing CG imagery. You all know by now that this isn’t my favorite thing by any stretch of the imagination, but I think “Fluffy” as he’s affectionately named by the protagonist, doesn’t demonstrate a lot of the weird qualities that make CG clash with traditional 2D animation. I think the issue I have is that the hand-drawn animation feels very flat and lifeless in comparison and just in general. The lines are a little too thick, the character coloration feels thickly-applied and lacking in detail, and there are character facial inconsistencies that make this feel like an episode 6 or 7 (past a mid-cour climax but not quite into the final rising action) rather than a striking opening entry. The background art is very lacking in texture and richness. Abeno’s tea room feels flat and lifeless, not like a place that exists outside the real world. It’s definitely not a deal breaker, but also not the strong sort of fantasy aesthetic I was hoping for based on the promotional images. As this episode takes place primarily on the mortal plane, there’s obviously still time for the underworld to make its debut. But I wish it had made its appearance sooner, to give things more of a “Dorothy entering OZ” effect.

There are things about the episode that hit me more positively, though. While I think a lot of the humor is too much along the lines of the “incredulous characters yelling in exasperation” variety, it’s actually some of the cornier, cliche moments that triggered me more positively. The montage of Ashiya’s daily belabored walk to school (and his eventual collapse closer and closer to the door) was pretty funny in the sense that it escalated well. I also liked the fact that Abeno is revealed to be Ashiya’s classmate. That “twist” was 100% predictable as soon as Ashiya started his introduction to the class at the end, but I definitely chuckled. And considering the fact that Ashiya’s indebtedness situation is drawn directly from xxxHolic, it still manages to be kind of funny (even if a bit mean-spirited). I do also think a lot of the characters that show up in the opening and will likely feature in future episodes are pretty cute. It’s obviously not the main criteria for a good show, but it’s definitely a contributor.

Mononokean04 — Ultimately, all Fluffy wants is someone to play with.

I think ultimately what spoiled me here was that I just really have a strong hankering for another season of Natsume’s Book of Friends (I can’t wait until the Autumn season!) and was hoping for something to keep me going until then. This series seems like it will be fun enough, but so far it’s really lacking in the lovable charm and humanity that makes Natsume so appealing. I’m thankful for the opportunity to get a glimpse of the world of Japanese yokai again, and I’ll probably check in with this series from time to time just for that reason. But I’m still wary of adding it to my already lengthy watch list based just on episode 1.

Pros: The element of humor comes across well enough to provide some entertaining moments. The yokai featured in this episode is also quite cute.

Cons: The first episode has an overall feeling of being made on the cheap, with kind of dull aesthetics and some uninspired background artwork.

Grade: C+

Tags Crunchyroll, Fantasy, First Impression, Summer 2016, Supernatural

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Orange

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 2, 2016
No Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – Orange

Naho Takamiya is a timid 16-year-old girl. One day, she receives a letter from her future self detailing actions she must take to prevent Kakeru Naruse, the new transfer student, from sinking into depression and taking his own life. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Naho is a sweet, quiet girl who aims to be the type of person who doesn’t cause trouble for those around her. That usually means allowing others to have what they want while keeping her desires and discomforts private. This begins to change one day when Naho receives a mysterious letter in the mail; the writer claims to be Naho herself, only 10 years in the future. In the letter are written instructions for how to approach the events of the coming days, especially as they relate to a new transfer student. Naho doesn’t know whether to believe the letter or not until the events of her school day line up exactly with what is written. The Naho of 10 years from now seems to harbor several regrets about things that happened during high school. As the next several weeks unfold, Naho begins to strengthen her resolve. Is it only coincidence that her feelings for Kakeru, the new transfer student, begin to blossom into romantic feelings?

First Impressions: I’m admittedly not going into this anime with zero knowledge or expectations. A few months ago I overheard a friend of mine talking about the Orange manga, and since it’s available in full on Crunchyroll (if you’re a subscriber), I decided to give it a look. The fact that I read the entire series in one go over the period of a couple hours should do enough to express how compelling I thought the story was. Needless to say, when I found out that an anime adaptation was in the works, I was pretty jazzed. I’ve been excitedly anticipating this premiere since then.

Orange02 — Kakeru, the new transfer student, is conveniently assigned to sit next to Naho.

So what is it that makes this series more interesting than the glut of melodramatic shoujo manga adaptations that are floating around out in anime land? Speaking from the perspective of a manga reader (though hopefully without spoiling anything), I think there are quite a few interesting things at play in this story. For one thing, this isn’t really just a shoujo-style romance played straight. It’s got some unique cross-demographic origins that were a little bit surprising to me when I learned of them – the story was serialized in both a shojo (girls’) magazine, then later in a seinen (adult men’s) one. There’s also a very subtle sci-fi mechanic as far as Naho’s “letter from the future” is concerned, and the story is able to maintain its own internal logic well enough to keep that bit from being too goofy (time travel is rarely done well in fiction and I’m personally fine with that, but this series does well by not getting overly explanatory with the concept). What I think is most important, though, and very evident already from this episode of the anime, is that, even though the story ends up becoming an ensemble piece, a very large part of the story is Naho’s growth as a human being. That to me is way more engrossing than a bunch of dry sci-fi concepts with some characters pasted over the top.

The way Naho behaves in this episode, especially her inner monologue while she and her friends are deciding which kind of bread they want (Naho likes curry bread the best, but she defers to others when asked which kind she’d like to have), and also the way she tends to deny herself the experience of doing things she’d really like to do (because it might make her friends uncomfortable or draw too much attention to herself), cuts like a knife. Those types of feelings and emotions are so familiar to me that it immediately imbues this series with a type of realism that would otherwise be difficult to establish in so short a time. It’s fairly common practice to give shoujo manga heroines some sort of quirky trait in order to try and humanize them a bit – while I think the concept of a “Mary Sue” is terribly sexist since male characters often aren’t examined through the same critical lens, it’s also admittedly not very interesting to watch a character who is already powerful and completely capable with no flaws whatsoever (I’ve never been one for hero worship). So a heroine who is attractive and smart but also has some personality flaw or dirty little secret is pretty common. It also serves as an easy source of comic relief – think Yukino Miyazawa and her secretly-slobbish nature, or Haruhi Fujioka‘s plot-convenient gender fluidity. But Naho’s character flaw, her self-denial, is expressed with a lot of care and doesn’t manifest itself in an over-the-top way. It’s not a source of comedy, but instead serves to underscore the exact situation that the Naho-of-the-future hopes to avoid – the regretful experiences of her high-school life. It feels very genuine to me.

Orange03 — Kakeru trades his curry bread for Naho’s melon bread.

Knowing that this is a story that relies a lot on its emotional content, I was really hoping that the first episode would start off on the right foot in that respect. For the most part I would say that it hits the right beats from the first few chapters of the manga, although there are a couple of aesthetic choices that I personally wouldn’t have made. The episode leans heavily on its use of visual montage to tell certain parts of the story, and while it gets done what it needs to do (showing a lot of action that takes place over a long period of time in a very short period of screen time, obviously), it adds an element of “wackiness” that seems a bit out of place. Knowing what I do about the general plot arc, this could be a ploy on the director’s part to throw off the audience, but it’s difficult for me to tell at this point. Likewise, the soundtrack tends to be a a bit goofy and overbearing in some scenes, which I think provides the wrong impression. While there are lighthearted moments, the most prominent mood I think should be conveyed is bitter-sweetness; uptempo, noisy music in the background takes away from my ability to feel that. On the other hand, there are a couple points in the episode where there are some really interesting visual filters in use (there’s a scene near the beginning where young Naho and adult Naho symbolically cross paths, and the image is given a hazy, over-saturated and otherworldly quality), and there’s some good use of framing that’s utilized to keep the focus on what’s important (namely, Naho herself). The visual composition of the series is clearly very competent and manages to use some flashy tricks in a more subtle and refined way. I like it.

It’s pretty rare for me to have read a manga before its anime adaptation is available (normally it’s the other way around since I’m primarily an anime fan with manga as a side interest), so to have so many concrete expectations for this adaptation is somewhat foreign. I can get a little disparaging towards manga fans when they get upset over anime adaptations that stray from their source material. It’s experiences like this which provide me with some much-needed perspective. People become critical of adaptations, not generally out of a need to complain or poo-poo on others’ parades, but out of love for the source material itself. When a story grabs hold of your heart and remains rooted within you long after you’re finished experiencing it, an adaptation which falls far short of its source material can almost feel like a personal insult. But an adaptation is also someone else’s interpretation of a story, and it can really pay off to balance one’s own desires for how that story should play out with the requirements of a different medium and the strengths, weaknesses, and varying tastes and interpretations of the person doing the adapting. It’s definitely something that I’ll have to keep in mind as this story plays out. Luckily, the first episode gives the strong impression that this story is in good hands.

Pros: The story is one that should resonate with multiple demographics pretty easily, as its themes and multi-generational cast have mass appeal. The visuals are high-quality and there is good use of scene framing and modern animation effects.

Cons: Some of the music gets a little overbearing at times. There is a heavy use of montage in this episode which comes across as cheesy.

Grade: B+

Tags Crunchyroll, First Impression, Romance, Science Fiction, Seinen, Shoujo, Summer 2016

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Berserk

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 2, 2016
No Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – Berserk

Guts, a man who calls himself “The Black Swordsman” looks upon his days serving as a member of a group of mercenaries, the Band of the Hawk, nicknamed “the Grim Reaper of the Battlefield.” Led by an ambitious, ruthless, and intelligent man named Griffith, together they battle their way into the royal court, and are forced into a fate that may change their entire lives. – ANN

Streaming At Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Following Griffith’s initiation of the Eclipse and transformation into the demonic God Hand Femto, Guts finds himself on the run from the evil forces that have been unleashed on the world. He’s a branded man – the insignia burned into his neck draws wicked spirits and the restless dead to him in unending waves, and it is with his gigantic sword, really just a crude, gigantic slab of metal, that he fights them off one-by-one. After a bar brawl, a young elf named Puck begins to follow Guts. He becomes a first-hand witness to the horrors that now define Guts’ life as a kindly monk and the young girl accompanying him become victims of the risen dead.

First Impressions: I want to start off by mentioning that the Berserk series in general needs a big giant content warning for violence, gore, war crimes, and rape. This series is the very definition of grim-and-gritty and bad things happen to both good and evil characters.

Berserk02 — The scars from Guts’ past are evident.

It might come as some surprise to those of you who only know me via the internet that I actually really, really enjoy Berserk. I count the original anime series among my favorites, and though I haven’t in any sense of the word caught up on the manga, I really like what I’ve read (part of that is Kentaro Miura’s incredible artwork, obviously). The story is certainly incredibly violent (not something I normally like) and the three main characters of the initial story arc are essentially defined by how non-consensual sexual situations have affected them (and these things are shown rather than suggested in most cases), but the story as a whole just holds a certain appeal to me. Perhaps its unflinching darkness hit me at the right time in my anime fandom to leave a mark. In any case, anyone who’s seen the original anime series knows that it leaves off on what’s basically a cliffhanger. The Eclipse happens, we see Guts obtain his sword, and that’s about it. The show is actually sort of circular – if you watch the first episode directly after the final one, you’ll see what I mean. But there’s so much more story to tell, and fans of the show, myself included, have been waiting a long, long time for more of it to be animated. When the trilogy of new films that reanimated the “Golden Age” story arc (the one covered by the TV series) were released recently, I think many of us began to suspect that something might be in the works. Soon enough the speculation became reality, and here we are.

I’ll say, I definitely have some mixed feelings about this, and I think those of you who’ve watched the episode already will probably have some idea where I’m going. I really, really am not a fan of the way CG is used to animate the majority of this show. On the one hand, it allows more consistency and detail in the characters and backgrounds, and that in and of itself isn’t bad. One hallmark of Miura’s art is that it’s hopelessly detailed (there’s some speculation that one of the reasons that it takes so long for a new chapter of the manga to get finished is due to the detail in the artwork and the fact that he might not be utilizing the services of any assistants to keep things on pace). The original anime series just didn’t even try to animate to the artwork, and used a lot of still-frames and pans to tell the tale of Guts and company. It got the atmosphere down very well and really captured the grittiness of the story, but there just wasn’t a lot of actual animation to speak of. This episode is fully-animated, and we get a lot of cool camera angles and body parts flying, but the characters look like puppets because of the way their limbs move – it’s both too smooth and overly-clunky at the same time. Anime-style animation is all about dynamic character posing and bursts of energy in between static shots; Even though Guts is doing some cool stuff with his swords, the overall movement is too smooth and restrained. Puck’s chibi form is also so disastrously out-of-place when animated this way… yikes.

Berserk04 — The Black Swordsman lives up to his name.

There are a few moments that are clearly hand-drawn, mostly close-ups of faces and some scenes from the opening theme (especially those that hearken back to the previous series), and those scenes are like reaching an oasis in a desert. It’s in those instances where the fine details really seem to come alive. I realize that hand-animating a series like this would require a lot of person-power and that using CG models allows the animators to maintain a consistent quality level without going overboard on labor, but considering how famous this series is, how much merchandise there is for it (it keeps being produced!), and the fact that it’s pretty much earned a place in the pantheon of anime classics, you’d think that perhaps some more resources and care would have been allotted to make this into a prestige piece. It’s like Sailor Moon Crystal all over again (except with more demons, decapitations and flying human entrails).

That being said, there will always be a certain amount of BS I’m willing to deal with in order to see a great story make its way to one of my favorite forms of media. Despite feeling a tad disappointed in some of the visual choices made, watching the first episode of this new chapter of the story feels a little bit like returning to the person I was in the early 2000’s when I first saw the original Berserk series. That is to say, very in awe of the sheer number of anime available in the world, most of which were still out there for me to discover. There really are not a lot of anime around today that really go all in with violence, gore, horror, or the darkness of human nature they way TV series and OVAs did in the 1990’s. I think part of that is just that tastes have changed and we as anime fans have become more accustomed to embracing life’s cuteness and not giving a damn about what non-weebs think of us for it. It also seems like, since the early 2000’s, the world’s real-life horrors have become so much more pronounced, and our escapism is more aimed at contrasting that with happiness and simplicity. Of course, this is also the age of Game of Thrones, where some of the worst aspects of human nature are put on display from week to week to the delight of millions of viewers (and yes, I’m one of those viewers, too). I suspect there is something in many of us that gets lit up when we feel powerless to help ourselves or to make real change in the world. Sometimes it’s just satisfying to see someone in a bad situation bust out and make heads roll, literally. It’s stories like Berserk that put a voice to that urge for me.

Berserk03 — Guts endures a flashback while asleep.

Content-wise, I don’t feel like there’s much for me to worry about. I don’t really question the strength of Berserk‘s underlying story, though I’m interested to see how well the anime adapts it and what sort of pace it will take (I’m unclear on how many episodes there are supposed to be and how much of the manga storyline they’re planning to tackle in this segment, so I’m not willing to start making any big predictions). One thing that might be frustrating for some people, though, is that this series pretty much picks up where the previous one left off. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll either have to watch the trilogy of recent films (pretty easy to do, but they’re not streaming anywhere that I know of so you’ll have to get a hold of the DVDs or Blu-Rays somehow) or dig up an old dusty copy of the original anime series (it’s waaay out of print at this point, though I hope maybe the remaster will get re-released someday or that Crunchyroll might add it to their back library now that the new show is coming out). It’s certainly worth your time to do so if you can handled the content. As a side note, I was interested in how they were going to account for Puck since he was cut out of the original series, but this episode did a pretty good job of plopping him right on in!

I really like Berserk and I’m still looking forward to watching this show despite the visual missteps. I think the first episode “feels” mostly correct to me, even if I still find it weird that a story that is so much of a certain time and place has dramatically succumbed to the realities of the modern anime industry. I’m looking forward to continuing the story this season.

Pros: I’ve been waiting a LONG time for more of this story to get animated! It’s quite different in tone than a lot of what’s popular in anime right now, which makes it feel fresh (even though it’s a story that’s been in the process of unfolding for a good 25 years at this point, in manga form).

Cons: Ugh, that CG. Someday we’ll get to a point where it looks almost as good as hand-drawn animation. We have not reached that point, yet. The content will also be too intense for some viewers, as it delves into some pretty violent and explicit territory.

Grade: B

Tags Crunchyroll, Fantasy, First Impression, Horror, New Anime, Summer 2016

Anime Reviews Reviews

Spring 2016: What I’ve Been Watching – Shorts

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date May 29, 2016
No Comments on Spring 2016: What I’ve Been Watching – Shorts

I moved into an apartment this past month, and while that’s been a pretty awesome change for me, my “office” area is still in a shambles and it’s made it really difficult for me to write anything (no desk, laptop is mainly used for video streaming to the TV, my desktop computer still doesn’t exist… I’m so very full of excuses right now). I wanted to try and squeeze in some time to talk about the stuff from this most recent season that I’ve been watching. Spoiler alert – it’s been a lot! One great thing about moving is that I’ve been able to commute by bus again, so that’s about 90 minutes per day that I can stream anime on my phone while going to and from work. It’s given me the freedom to devote time not just to the shows I truly love, but to some that I might not make time for otherwise – the goofy, dumpy, highly-flawed stuff that serves as a good reminder of how great the awesome stuff actually is. And heck – sometimes watching series with a lot of major issues helps develop critical thinking skills. Or so I will continue to believe as I fill my days with anime of varying quality levels.

In any case, I’ve noticed that the quality of short-form series has increased by quite a bit over the past year or so. In fact, here are some thoughts on the ones I’m watching right now!

Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 7 released (as of this writing), total TBD

Source: Manga

Thoughts So Far: Agetarou is a young man who works at his family’s tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet – it’s delicious) restaurant. He doesn’t have a lot of passion for his job, but doesn’t really have any other direction in life. On a fateful night, he’s asked to deliver tonkatsu to an employee at a local dance club, and as thanks he’s granted free admission. It’s at the club that he experiences his first taste of dancing to a famous DJ’s beats, and he’s enthralled. It’s then that Agetarou starts walking the path of becoming a famous DJ.

Aesthetically, this series represents some of the things I don’t really like about the short-form “boom” in anime. It’s a stretch to call it “animated” at all most of the time, since the movement is extremely minimal. It’s more of a moving comic than an animated series, in my opinion. On the other hand, the show is extremely music-oriented, and though it uses a lot of the same tracks over and over again, they’re all very poppy, catchy, and fun to listen to. As goofy as the tale of Agetarou’s rise to fame can be at certain points, the music itself seems to have been taken seriously, and in that sense I think the resource expenditure was well-managed.

One criticism I have of the show is a beef I have with a lot of comedic anime series – a lot of the humor is based around the main character reacting incredulously to some situation and protesting loudly about it. I’ve never found that to be particularly humorous unless it’s done very well (Nichijou is probably the best example I can think of, and a lot of that is the accompanying animation and the great handle on escalation humor that that series has). I think the visual gags, namely the comparisons between DJ skills and tonkatsu-making, are much more successful. It’s silly enough to garner some genuine laughs while also upholding the main premise well.

One item worth noting is the weird, stereotypical language quirks applied to the series’ Black character, DJ Big Master Fry. In the first episode of the show, DJ Big Master Fry gives a monologue that’s audible in Japanese and visually-represented in some kind of heavily-accented written pidgin English on screen. I’m guessing the creators were trying to represent slang dialect, but it comes across as sounding like dialog from Huckleberry Finn. The Crunchyroll translation does a good job of smoothing this out, but there’s really no avoiding it and it comes across as ignorant on the part of the show’s (or the manga’s?) creators. It’s a weirdly uncomfortable moment in a show that’s otherwise very lighthearted and fun.

Space Patrol Luluco

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: Original

Thoughts So Far: Luluco is a middle school student who just wants to live an ordinary life in an exceedingly extraordinary place – Ogikubo, a city where Earthlings and Aliens live alongside one-another. When her father, a member of the Space Patrol, gets into a pickle, Luluco is forced to take over his job and thus her life strays further and further from the ordinary.

When I think “Studio Trigger” what I’m really thinking of is animator/director Hiroyuki Imaishi, a creative voice who specializes in visual stylization and wacky vulgarity. After Trigger’s Kill la Kill, I found myself waiting around for something similarly accomplished to come from the studio. And while we did finally get a hold of Little Witch Academia 2 in the meantime, both When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace and Ninja Slayer From Animation were decidedly mediocre. My original enthusiasm for the company began to flag. Luckily, this season has been pretty good for Trigger, and while I’m still mostly undecided on how I feel about Kiznaiver about 5 episodes into it, I can already safely say that Luluco is living up to that Imaishi spirit.

The series is what I imagine the lovechild of Kill la Kill and Inferno Cop to be. It’s an apt comparison, too, since the show is pretty clearly drawing influence from both in its visual style and sense of humor. The show is not well-animated in the traditional sense, and this is a complaint that a lot of people have with Trigger’s productions. I think there’s something to be said, though, of being able to take one of Japanese animation’s common shortcomings – few frames and choppy animation – and morphing that into something stylistic in its own way. Luluco incorporates elements of Flash and web animation and puts a lot of emphasis on dynamic character poses rather than smooth in-between animation. It’s one of those things that bothers people and would cause a lot of them to call the show “cheap,” but I really like it as a style choice. I think it takes a lot of talent and an eye for composition to be successful with something like this. I love the character designs, too, which are cute, round, and drawn with thick, bold lines. I hope that they sell figures of the characters at some point!

The current story arc is an extended homage to some of Trigger’s other works, and that really tickles me. What some might see as blatant self-advertising, I see as having fun with some great properties. Of the short series I’m watching this season, this is probably my favorite.

Pan de Peace

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: 4-koma manga

Thoughts So Far: With episodes this short, it’s difficult to create something that’s too complicated. In this case, it’s simply about a group of four high school girls who are brought together by their love of bread. All of their (decidedly mundane) adventures revolve around bread (making it or obtaining it).

This is one of those shows that’s best described as “mostly inoffensive.” I say mostly, because it occupies a weird slice-of-life sub-genre that I’m still not sure what to do with. There are a lot of shows, both normal and short-form, that feature groups of girls doing this or that. It’s been popular in the last few years to go further, and suggest that the characters might or might not be gunning for some sort of lesbian romantic tension with one-another. Yuru-Yuri made it famous, but there have been several copycats. There’s something that makes me uncomfortable about fetishizing sexual orientation, and then not even being brave enough to follow-through with it.

For a show ostensibly involving bread, there’s unfortunately not a lot of focus on the bread. I kind of live for the last two or three seconds of each episode where there’s a luscious photograph of the type of bread in that episode (as someone who no longer eats bread on a regular basis, looking at pretty pictures of it is one way I continue to go on living without it). As a general rule, I’m congratulatory towards a series that focuses on its characters rather than its gimmick, but these episode are three minutes long and there’s not enough time to develop these characters beyond their stereotypes, so give me my damn food porn!

If you can’t tell, I’m very picky about my food-related anime.

Have you been enjoying any of this season’s short-form series? Let me know!

Tags Action, Comedy, Crunchyroll, Science Fiction, Short Form, Spring 2016