The End of the World

[Anime Reviews]

Black Lagoon 5-8: take that, neo-Nazi scum!

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Black Lagoon]

Black Lagoon is shaping up to be both a gritty and satisfying action show and also a fascinating character-driven piece that’s placing plenty of emphasis on the contrasting personalities of tough-gal Revy and new recruit Rock. While there’s enough gunplay and double crosses to keep adrenaline junkies entertained the importance of the characters’ motives and actions aren’t lost on the show either: merely listing the adversaries as neo-Nazis with a penchant for objets d’art, arms-dealing nuns and a hardcore housemaid with hidden talents would be selling Black Lagoon short because it’s proving to be far more than flying bullets and amusing gimmicks.

I’d be lying if I didn’t find these things entertaining of course; it’s interesting to see Revy’s disregard for human life challenged by an increasingly more self-assured Rock, and following the change in their attitudes to one another that results. I won’t be too hasty is predicting some sort of romantic entanglement between the two – I doubt Black Lagoon is sentimental enough for that sort of business – but the way in which mutual respect and a professional-type relationship develops was rewarding enough and heart-warming in a brash gar kind of way.

[2 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Clannad’s Tomoyo chapter: I liked it. No, really

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Clannad]

Times shared at school lead to a gradual love blossoming as rumours spread among their classmates. Cut to…a lonely guy stands at the railway crossing, contemplating good times gone as the sakura petals fall. Cut to…a passionate embrace in the snow as the background song reaches a crescendo. Warm fuzzy feeling ensues. Wait a minute…bugger, wrong review*. Ah, so it’s more Clannad. In all seriousness though I really liked this bonus exploration of a Tomoya/Tomoyo pairing, especially given that the latter had been given so little attention during the series itself; being an alternate universe thingy it’s also distinct from the criticisms I levelled at the show as a whole. I can sit back and watch this sort of thing any time - the after-story will no doubt go back to following the Nagisa thread but aside from doing a what-if scenario I just enjoyed it as a romantic short standing on its own.

Whether it’s a manga adaptation, dating sim adaptation or something scrawled on the back of the director’s napkin while having lunch with his accountant, I couldn’t care less if it takes a story and tells it well. The relationship between the two feels natural and convincing - no small feat when we’ve been led down a Nagisa End path for twenty-three episodes! They are both quite stubborn and stoic in their own ways I suppose and not the most prone to outpourings of emotion; this, for me at least, made their romance more rewarding rather than improbable - I was able to come round to the idea Tomoya x Tomoyo with minimal effort actually.

[4 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

The Daughter of Twenty Faces halfway thoughts: going solo

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Daughter of Twenty Faces]

Whut? Another Nijuu Mensou no Musume post when I’ve yet to even finish Library Wars? Yep, The Daughter of Twenty Faces takes priority over even that and the new summer season for me right now. For a show that slipped onto the aggregators with barely a murmur, it’s strange to see it right next to Frontier at the top of my watchlist. Well, something had to replace Kurenai I suppose.

What can you possibly say at a time like this?

[7 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Itazura na Kiss and the rationale of droppage

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Itazura na Kiss, Random thoughts, Rants]

My current watchlist looks like this. I think you’ll agree that longlist is looong - there are one or two that I’m following on DVD, or would be if finances permitted, but overall I’m balancing my time between a lot of unlicenced shows simultaneously in addition to full time employment (and the so-far fruitless search for better full time employment). This has led to a feeling that I’m sure many of you are familiar with - my personal standards have crept up to the point at which I’m actually looking for excuses to stop watching them in order to ease the pressure. To put it another way, “why watch series x when y is more entertaining?”. The weird thing is, I’ve never experienced this before but recently I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in terms of how much I’m watching. Sadly, unless you can give a good argument to the contrary, I think that Itazura na Kiss has to go.

When taking on too much becomes a burden: ironically this show has slipped into On-Hold purgatory too

When I say I’m looking for an excuse, I mean I want to give good reasons for dropping it; the last thing I want to do is be another Maddox wannabe who fails to see that logical and articulate arguments are what allows him to get away with being so bitchy and scathing. “This show sucks!” without a good argument to back it up will just make me sound like a troll or a retard; mindful that even after reading my last review for the show I still can’t remember why I enjoyed it in the first place, I feel that I need to outline in detail why InK seems to be failing.

[9 Comments]

[First Impressions and Retrospectives]

Make time for The Daughter of Twenty Faces…seriously

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Daughter of Twenty Faces]

I can understand part of the reason why Nijuu Mensou no Musume, a.k.a. The Daughter of Twenty Faces, has been a sleeper title this season. I know anime show writers have a knack of coming up with weird titles (untranslated or otherwise) but it’s a bit of a mouthful and sounds odd as opposed to exciting. Furtheremore, the first couple of episodes have a decidedly un-Japanese 1900s-1940s European setting and lack the sci-fi or high school themes of most other shows at the moment. I’m always one to accept the occasional recommendation of something A Little Bit Different however, so this made me all the more curious to start my belated introduction to the show. It really is a sleeper title, but a fascinating one into the bargain.

The story seems to be set in a post-war period, but whether this is post-WWI, post-WWII, or even something completely unique to the NMNM universe, I’m still unsure. It is almost steampunk in some ways because of this alternate historical timeline (in a similar way to Allison to Lillia actually, only without that clumsy narrative and those annoying plot holes) and has some great old-school technology like vintage submarines, double-envelope airships, and ruins of giant tanks and planes; the latter reminded me of those hulking aircraft from Nausicäa actually. Can you tell I’m liking it already?

[11 Comments]

[OAVs, Movies and Full Series]

Casshan the Robot Hunter OAV: no-nonsense robot-bashing

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Strictly Old-School]

The Casshan franchise is an odd thing for me. Apparently it started in the 1970s as a TV series (which I have yet to see) but its cult status earned it the live-action treatment as Casshern (which I’m still in two minds about in terms of quality, but at least Shiro Sagisu’s musical score was good) and this, a four-part OAV, which was also edited by Harmony Gold (stop that booing and hissing in the back row, guys!) as a feature film. It seems that Japan can’t get enough of its angsty hunter of robots either since there’s a new TV series planned for later this year. As much as it sounds like cash-in, it’ll be produced by Madhouse so I’m not complaining or anything.

So then, this Casshan fellow seems to be quite an enduring icon that has a deep-rooted domestic following, possibly because those in positions of influence in the industry remember the original 70s TV show from when they were kids. The OAV certainly seems like a fond nostalgia-fest since it has such a retro feel and makes no visible effort in certain areas to distance itself from the 70s aesthetic.

[No Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Kurenai end: to hell with realism, this ruled

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Kurenai]

Hands up who hated the ending? Thought as much. If the series as a whole wasn’t of such high quality I’m not sure whether I would have looked up the way it played out as kindly either, but on reflection it was fitting, clever and was probably the nearest the writers could get to a happy ending for all concerned. Kurenai was a series that repeatedly threatened to fall off the Tightrope of Win and land in the Pit of Fail beneath, only to pull itself together and deliver more than most of the other recent offering would ever hope to: moments such as a profound monologue discussing the nature of free will left me impressed with its insight and intelligence…only to mentally jump back a step when I stopped forgetting it was being spoken by a character who was supposed to be seven years old.

I have a rule of thumb that states: when I want reality on my TV, I watch the news. Believable is a good thing but staying within the confines of Real Life to the point at which it impedes on the effectiveness of the storytelling is a cost that’s too high. Even when we’re in an everyday setting it sometimes helps the story along when ‘realistic’ environs look better than the photographs that the background artists are working from, for instance. Rewatching 5cm on the big screen reminded me of this, but Kurenai is another example of why we really ought to give writers artistic licence in order to give their narratives and characters enough room to move; because they are, after all, stories. Is Murasaki a realistic portrayal of a child her age? Not really. Is her character compelling, entertaining and thought-provoking? Definitely. Enough so in fact to overlook the minor flaws and appreciate the significant things it got right.

[11 Comments]

[Specials]

The BFI presents…5cm Per Second plus its director

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Live events, Makoto Shinkai, Unashamed fanboying]

In case you’re wondering why things have been quiet in recent days, I’ve been out of town. Given the time and expense involved I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing in getting the train all the way to London just to see a movie (admittedly I also met up with one of my closest friends who lives in London now, but still…I actually booked an afternoon off work for this) but as it turns out the hassle was worth it: 5cm Per Second looks great on the big screen. Fantastic actually. Shinkai is also really modest and down-to-earth when talking about his own work, which is evident in recorded interviews but all the more noticeable when you meet him in person - I made handwritten notes of the hour-long interview that followed too, which I’ve posted on the Nakama Britannica blog for those interested.

[2 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Eureka Seven 46-50: final thoughts

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Eureka Seven]

And so we reach the end of the road for Renton, Eureka, the Gekkostate and the others as the final confrontation with the true nature of the Coralians looms: Dewey swings his plan into action while our heroes make a desperate final attempt to find a peaceful solution. Of all the expectations I had of the series’ conclusion, at least one turned out to be right on the money: it’s heartfelt and suitably epic.

That’s epic in the sense that nobody we’ve met along the way is left untouched by the events that transpire in the last five episodes. The show introduced recurring demonstrations of the importance of harmony and understanding, which plays out both on personal and literally universal levels. For a story that featured such a numerous cast as this, it’s testament to the writing that I remembered, and cared about, every one of them; in the same way that the overall aesthetic is bold and bright, each significant character will linger long in my memory.

[9 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Toshokan Sensou halfway thoughts: fight for your right to…read?!

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Toshokan Sensou]

Toshokan Sensou, or to go by its neat translated title of Library Wars, is simultaneously lightweight fun, and thought provoking and serious. As I outlined in my last post regarding the Macross franchise, you don’t have to forgo brightness and humour to make a serious point; get the balance right and you can have it both ways. TS is doing what Macross often does, albeit on a smaller scale: it deals with heavy-going issues but presents enough laughs to make them easier to swallow. Actually, Eureka Seven takes the same approach but more on that later on this week.

When the setting for an armed confrontation is as incongruous as this, it has to be good

So, TS is either Serious Business or simple fun, depending on how you want to take it. I don’t think either aspect gets in the way of the other either - I’ve yet to see any humour that’s misplaced or experience the social commentary bogging down the entertainment value. All in all then it does what it sets out to do very effectively, even if it doesn’t stand out as an A-list title. In many ways it borrows much of its appeal from Full Metal Panic! in terms of military action and educational hijinks, and that ever-present Geek Chic (I’d copyright that term if it weren’t already well-known enough to be listed on Wikipedia) stemming from the library setting, which reminds me very strongly of the R.O.D. OAV and TV series. Good stuff all round then.

[8 Comments]