Tag: Seinen

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Made in Abyss

An enormous pit and cave system called the “Abyss” is the only unexplored place in the world. Strange and wonderful creatures reside in its depths, and it is full of precious relics that current humans are unable to make. The mysteries of the Abyss fascinate humans, and they head down to explore. The adventurers who venture into pit are known as “Cave Raiders.” A little orphan girl named Rico lives in the town of Ōsu on the edge of the Abyss. Her dream is to become a Cave Raider like her mother and solve the mysteries of the cave system. One day, Rico starts exploring the caves and discovers a robot who resembles a human boy. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Kinema Citrus

Streaming: Amazon Anime Strike

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: 1900 years ago, a remote island surrounding a seemingly bottomless pit was discovered. As the world’s last truly unexplored phenomenon, the “Abyss” as it came to be known beckoned explorers and relic hunters alike into its depths. Some unlucky travelers entered, never to be heard from again. Riko is the daughter of one such adventurer, and she and her friends Nat and Shiggy live at an orphanage where they and their ilk are trained in the dangerous art of cave raiding for various relics in the Abyss. Their lives are harsh and occasionally frightening, as their lot is exploited as cheap labor. One day on their first excursion without adult guidance, Riko and Nat are attacked by one of the Abyss’s many terrifying creatures. Riko is saved by a mysterious and powerful shot from the hand of an unconscious robot boy. Riko is ecstatic to have found such a treasure, and drags the boy back to the orphanage. The robot can’t remember his name or where he came from, so Riko assumes that he must be from deep within the Abyss, a place where incomprehensible relics are said to be ubiquitous. Though this excites her imagination, for right now all she wants to do is keep Reg (her name for her robot friend) a secret from the authorities.

Impressions: I’ve actually been delaying watching this episode – not because I suspected that it might be bad, but that I’ve been looking forward to it so much and I wanted to give myself a chance to cool down and take it in properly. As with almost anything I’ve ever watched, I do have a few misgivings, but besides that this has absolutely one of the most impressive first episodes I’ve watched so far this season.

Riko goes looking for valuable artifacts. Copyright 2017 (c) Kinema Citrus

Looks certainly aren’t everything, but in this case they’re one of the first things one notices once the episode starts to play. The anime wastes no time in establishing a strong sense of place. The idea of a bottomless pit is intriguing and horrifying and everything in between; As Riko and her companions descend a mere(!) 100 meters down at the outset, we’re given an appropriate taste of both aspects via the background environment and the strange creatures flying through the air. The cliffsides are lush with strange flora, the sun penetrating enough to give us a look at the various plants and rock formations. As Riko uncovers an old cave system there’s a palpable sense of age and mustiness as she breaks through rock walls and discovers strange objects and even old human remains dressed in unfamiliar clothing. The visuals tell a story on their own, about ancient peoples who may have lived in this strange environment and the tools that they used to survive. It also begins to raise question thus far unspoken – why did they die out, and is this an ongoing threat?

As Riko and Nat haul Reg’s unconscious body up from the area that they were exploring, the visual montage of the various parts of town, precariously balanced around the empty blackness of the Abyss, is fascinating. It feels like something out of a film with a much higher budget, and there was clearly a lot of purposeful design and framing in creating the first impressions of this environment. I’m reminded a bit of Xam’d: Lost Memories, an anime with a similar kind of cinematic style and extremely distinct visual presentation and feel to it. Xam’d had a lot of very strong fantasy elements, as well as a profound undercurrent of body-horror that made for a very intriguing watch; I’m already getting the impression that this series might tend towards the same direction.

Riko is suddenly under attack. Copyright 2017 (c) Kinema Citrus

While it would be easy to be fooled (and maybe even put-off) by the cutesy character designs, there are enough clues in this first episode to indicate that this show has the potential to skew really dark. There are several offhand references to forms of punishment in which offenders are “strung-up naked” for their offenses. It’s actually sort of easy to miss this since they’re offhand comments spoken by Riko in a comedically frantic way when it appears as if she’s about to get into trouble. I’ve heard online from readers of the manga that the source material has the tendency to be dark and horrifying; while my search for specifics around the web came up mostly fruitless, I don’t doubt that these comments in the anime are without basis. This might be enough to give a lot of people misgivings, especially since most of the characters introduced so far are really young, and bad things happening to young people makes them seem doubly-terrible in most cases. To be blunt, I have zero desire to see any character, especially a kid get strung up naked in the town square, and if that’s where this is all going it would probably be enough for me to drop it no matter how great the rest of the show might be.

What I’m hoping, though, is that the darkness of the narrative is more reliant on the terrifying unknown of what lives down the rabbit hole. It’s easy to see why the Abyss would be such a tempting mystery; I think there’s something romantic about an unexplored piece of the world, and it’s just so easy to identify with the characters because as a viewer I’m just so curious to know what’s waiting down there. It goes far beyond wanting to conquer nature or claim more land for this or that nation; knowing that there were people there once, and that they made and built and created things that still survive in some form, is almost magical in a way. The fact that one episode of the anime has the ability to create and cultivate that sense of wonder is truly an accomplishment.

Reg hides out so Riko can get in less trouble. Copyright 2017 (c) Kinema Citrus

Animation-wise, there are some great moments in this episode. I’ll leave the specific technical commentary to the pros at Sakuga Blog, but to my untrained eye this episode is propped up both by its expressive character movement and the otherworldly-horrifying creature designs, of which the most interesting is probably the giant flying worm that nearly eats Nat and Riko during their excursion. There’s something especially terrifying about it, which is effectively conveyed through the very different animation style used to bring it to life; the splotchy ill-defined nature of the beast gives the impression that it’s almost too terrifying to look at and see clearly, which is fitting given the circumstances. I’m interested to see what other horrors of nature show up to give our characters trouble later on.

I haven’t spoken about it yet, but I thought I might mention a little bit about the Amazon Prime/Anime Strike viewing experience, since I’ve read some other comments online about it. I’ve heard tell of some issues people have been having with ill-timed subtitles, and that hasn’t been the case in my experience (it might have something to do with individual computer set ups, but that’s not my area of specialty). What is kind of quirky, though, is that I had to actually turn the English subtitles on manually. I think in the case of other video services I’ve used, living in a primarily English-speaking region while watching material in a language other than English has meant that the subtitles would appear automatically but could be turned off. I did have a bit of an issue with video quality, which has been my experience with Amazon Video even outside their Anime Strike channel. When the video starts, the stream is initially in kind of a low quality standard-def size, which is pretty pixelated. It then takes a while (probably less than a minute, truthfully) for it to adjust to HD quality. I have pretty fast cable internet service and live close to a major city, so the reason why some services are still struggling with this (I’ve had this happen with Netflix as well) is somewhat irritating. Otherwise the experience isn’t nearly as bad as some would make it out to be, but it’s still irritating to have to pay extra to add the Anime Strike channel when I already pay for Amazon Prime in the first place.

Video service issues aside, I’m digging this series a lot based on the first episode. I love the air of mystery it’s cultivated so far, and I’m anxious to find out what sort of path the story might take going forward. While I have some misgivings about just how far the violence or other horrific material might go based on the related internet chatter, for now I think I’ll just hope that the anime can maintain the tone while maybe leaving some things to the imagination. I think this is going to be a really striking, unique, and satisfying ride.

Pros: The episode quickly establishes a great sense of place. There are some great visuals, from the background artwork to the character and creature animation. The setting is mysterious and intriguing.

Cons: Signs indicate dark skies ahead – including content that might be objectionable to some, especially since the characters are young.

Grade: A-

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First Impressions Reviews

Winter 2017 First Impressions – Onihei

In the late Edo Period of Tokugawa Shogunate, hatamoto samurai and law enforcement officer Hasegawa Heizō Nobutame (1745-1795) supervised crackdown on arsonists and organized robbers. He was both highly skilled and merciless against criminals, who called him “Oni no Heizō” (“Demonic Heizō”) a.k.a. “Onihei.” – ANN

Streaming at: Amazon Video (with an “Anime Strike” channel membership)

Number of Episodes: 13

Source: Novels/Historical Dramas

Summary of Episode 1: The thief Tanbei of Chigashira has been assumed responsible for a rash of violent robberies around Edo as of late. Law enforcement officer Hasegawa Heizo employs the help of recently-apprehended thief Kumehachi to infiltrate the thieves, as Kumehachi is certain that an impostor must be behind the crimes. The “real” Tanbei, he claims, kept to a very strict thieving code prohibiting murder, rape, and stealing from the poor. Thus, the string of dead bodies in his wake must be the fault of someone more sinister. It is to Kumehachi’s horror to learn that Tanbei, now older, fatter, and looser with his morals, gladly takes responsibility and even welcomes Kumehachi back into the fold. All Kumehachi can do is help to bring his fallen master to justice.

Impressions: Content Warning for images of sword violence, blood, dead bodies, and the suggestion of rape happening mostly off screen/obscured.

I was looking for a bit of a departure from some of the cuter, lighter stuff I’d been watching thus far, and boy did this satisfy that itch. Onihei is unapologetically dark, humorless, and presented with an adult air that I suspect most people would find off-putting. I myself am actually at a bit of a loss as watching this dredges up some memories for me that I’m not quite sure how to think about.

This intro episode reminds me of the type of anime fan that I was eight or nine years ago. I was very much anti-moe and anything that walked the line of being too cutesy or cloying was likely to find itself in the garbage bin before too long. I considered myself to have very “grown-up,” serious tastes and sought out anime that distinctly seemed to be aimed at adult viewers. I surrounded myself with like-minded people, too, which kept me in the safety of an echo chamber. It was probably around the time of Madoka Magica (six years ago now, wow!) that I started to open up a bit more to the ways in which cute visuals and concepts are often used in creative ways. And heck, I now fully believe that sometimes cute is fine just for cute’s sake. I’m no longer that infatuated with anime series that stake their claim on being grim and gritty, and while I ended up having sort of a falling-out with some members of that previous group for various reasons (differences of opinion regarding media being but a small factor) I’m pretty happy with the type of fan that I’ve become in the meantime. One can be critical and discerning while still enjoying things that exist just to be fun, after all.

I wanted to spend the time providing that context, because I admittedly had some immediate negative feelings towards this show that were influenced by my own fandom experiences. The tone of this show is immediately darker and more serious than the majority of anime that’s produced nowadays, which makes it very unique; to me, though, it is also singular in how it reminds me of my relationships of a certain time and place, and of certain people who I know would enjoy the show for its atmosphere and combination of noir and samurai storytelling styles. Having said that, though, I’ll try to move past it and focus on the episode’s actual merits.

In the past few years, for reasons unknown, I’ve gotten really queasy about seeing acts of violence depicted on screen, whether in live-action programming or in animation. It’s funny, because years and years ago I would seek out gore and play a lot of overly-violent video games. Now I can barely keep my eyes on the screen when characters are getting hacked apart, especially so if there’s a lot of suggestive lead-in. This episode isn’t quite as bad as some for all the violence in it, because to be honest the gore isn’t really all that realistic. There are a couple of scenes that depict the aftermath of a robbery with dead bodies strewn about in pools of blood, and there’s also a sword fight featured in the second half of the episode that depicts some stylized violent sword-slashing action, but for a lot of the episode the most objectionable parts are obscured through darkness or come across as too over-the-top for me to be affected by them. There’s the benefit to me of being able to keep watching, but for a series that seems to be banking on its grittiness and basis in history, I think that might be a net loss.

Also worth mentioning, for those who prefer to be forewarned about it, is that there’s a flashback scene partway through the episode during which there’s either an attempted rape, or the aftermath of a completed one (it’s difficult to tell from the short time it’s on screen whether the attacker was successful or not). Shown in the scene is a visibly distressed woman with the front of her clothing torn open, though her nude chest is obscured by other characters and the darkness of the scene. As with most of these types of depictions, it’s only purpose is to add “flavor” to the scene using it as shorthand for depravity and departure from expected cultural norms. In short, lazy and unnecessary given even a slight modicum of creativity.

There seem to have been a few other somewhat bizarre visual choices made in the production of this series. Most people will immediately recognize the extensive use of CG for the background setting and many of the crowd scenes. I’ve softened on my opinion on the use of CG in otherwise 2D anime (thanks, Shirobako!) but that opinion rides on the fact that, when used well, CG generally melds well-enough with traditionally-drawn elements to remain unobtrusive and supportive to the important elements of the scene. This series seems to have taken a different approach, and I’m not entirely sure whether it was a purposeful choice or not. The background elements are conspicuously lacking in the kind of fine detail (texturing, colorization, etc.) that would help them to blend in well. The crowd characters in particular stand out like several hands’ worth of sore thumbs, especially when there are something like twenty CG characters in a scene with two or three hand-drawn main characters. Again, the realities of anime production are what they are, and I suspect a show like this which is now considerably outside the mainstream just doesn’t have the resources to devote to top-tier CG work. But dang would I much rather have looked at static background characters and dull settings than the strange type of poly-chromatic tomfoolery they went with.

That leads me to another of the series’ strange visual choices – the use of color. There’s heavy color filtering going on in many of the scenes, giving each of them a distinct look. Scenes in the jail have a dark blue hue, while those that take place in the town are tinted pink or red. It’s not exactly a bad thing in and of itself, and I’ve seen this kind of mood coloration work well in other stylized contexts. Again, though, the accompanying story of crime is not only gritty, but straightforward and classic; dressing it up with modern-day visual sensibilities would have to be done very well in order to project a sense of style without being overly-conspicuous, and I feel like the techniques cross the line into gaudiness more often than not.

I will say, though, that the very classic sort of story presented in this episode (and likely throughout the series), appeals to me on a certain level. I haven’t had much exposure to jidaigeki serials aside from having learned that they’re a thing that exists in the world, so to get a taste of that style of characterization and episodic historical storytelling via a medium that I can follow is an opportunity that I kind of would like to stay on top of.

That said, there’s but one legal method of watching this series in the United States, and it’s kind of irritating me right now. Amazon has been licensing a couple of anime each season for streaming, though last season they kind of dropped the ball with The Great Passage, a very excellent series about a dictionary editor (what? of course I would love an anime series about something goofy like that!). That and a couple of other anime are available now, though it appears that Amazon has posted them under some new anime-specific streaming service called “Anime Strike” which is a channel that you must pay for in addition to your existing Amazon Prime membership. I already pay for several different streaming services, so you can imagine that I’m a little bit salty about the prospect of paying even more money to keep up with the shows I want to watch (even if it’s only $4.99 a month… I already pay for Amazon Prime, darn it!). It remains to be seen whether this will turn out to be a successful venture for them. As long as they have exclusive rights to the noitaminA stuff, I’ll probably just have to bite the bullet.

I may have to stew over this one a little bit, since I’m extremely torn. I like to see a broad variety of tones and tastes represented each anime season, and this type of show is pretty rare nowadays (especially in animated form). I have to give a few kudos for going against the grain and giving us something that’s not cutesy in any way shape or form, and the idea of a historical police procedural type series is definitely intriguing. But it’s a near-complete sausage festival where the majority of the women are either dead bodies, background characters, or rape victims, so it’s difficult for me to connect with it on more than a very shallow level. It’s also quite violent in addition to that, which can be hard for me to take, depending on the day. Sometimes the media we love is just complicated, don’t you think?

Pros: The tone differs quite a bit from what’s popular nowadays. The “history” plus “police procedural” is a genre combo that we don’t get very often in anime.

Cons: There’s violence and rape. Some of the visual choices are questionable.

Grade: C

Categories
Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Orange

OrangeCoverNaho 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+

Orange05 Orange04