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Tonari no Seki-kun anime review

Tonari no Seki-kun is an episodic 24-episode anime about a girl named Yokoi and the inventive boy named Seki who sits by her in class and constantly distracts her with his games. And I don’t mean Nintendo games either, this is far more interesting than that. In episode one he builds an intricate domino setup using more erasers than any schoolboy should normally possess. In several other episodes he plays his own unique versions of chess, shogi and go.

In the early episodes Yokoi always trying to stay aloof from his games and focus on her lessons, only to find herself drawn in against herself. By the end of the show she is an active participant more often than not and seems to get into the games more than Seki himself does. It’s a convincing little bit of character development, where Yokoi learns to be a little less uptight and more playful and imaginative. Or you could look at it negatively and say she has been infected with Seki’s lack of seriousness and has lost sight of what she really goes to school for etc etc but I’m going to look at the bright side for once.

Because the games Seki plays vary with the episode, episode quality tends to go up and down as well. Some of them, like the robot family and the shogi pieces, show up a couple of times so they stick in the mind easily. Others are pretty forgettable and are a yawn to sit through even though each episode is only about 13 minutes long. I’d list some examples, but I’ve forgotten them. The funny episodes are funny, the heartwarming episodes are heartwarming and the boring ones are just meh. At least they’re over soon.

The ending theme is funky, the opening theme is catchy and the background music doesn’t get in the way. The art is rather simplistic compared to other contemporary shows and there isn’t much animation to speak of, but it’s not a very ‘action’ kind of show so it isn’t that noticeable. There’s almost no objectionable content in this show except in the feverish imaginings of one side character who only shows up once or twice. It never made me laugh or cry, but it was an above-average show in general. The endless inventiveness of Seki always kept me on my toes, at least.

I recommend you do like I did and watch just an episode or two a day to keep things fresh. Otherwise Yokoi can get a bit annoying as she just keeps panicking and won’t shut up. A good but not great show.

Little Witch Academia anime movie review

Another short anime movie from the Young Animator Training Program I mentioned in my last post. For various reasons I’m too lazy to analyze (the Western-cartoonish designs, the Harry Potter-inspired plot, the Disney-like plot), Little Witch Academia was a smash hit with Western fans while making only minor waves at best in Japan. Western anime fans liked it so much that they contributed a boatload of cash towards the making of a sequel, due out whenever it’s ready, though it seems to be coming along quite well. Still, just because it’s popular doesn’t mean I’ll like it. But to get the question out of the way early, yeah it wasn’t half bad.

Honestly, as a non-Potter non-Disney fan I don’t entirely see what all the fuss was about, but it’s a nice little (predictable) but fun show. The stubborn, lazy “I want to be a witch because witches are cool, but I don’t actually want to work at it” main character Akko takes a bit of getting used to, but the rest of the cast is reasonably down-to-earth and everyone can see her for the idiot that she is, so that helps. Besides, the cast spends half the movie running from a hungry dragon. It’s easy to overlook the small stuff when you have bigger fish to fry – or be fried by, as the case may be.

However I did have a little problem with the moral of the show, which seems to be that if you keep your head in the clouds and keep idolizing your heroes instead of actually working hard, fate will someday favor you with just the tools you need to shoot to success ahead of your more disciplined peers. It’s the kind of message self-improvement seminars are made of. Oh sure, they dress it up all nicely as “Believe in magic/yourself/whatever”, but in practice Akko whined and slept in class and acted recklessly half the time and basically just got lucky to stumble on a magic staff which worked through her ‘power of belief’ to destroy the dragon. How convenient, but hardly the kind of thing a young witch can bank on, is it?

But, as I said, it wasn’t bad at all. Short, cute, brightly-drawn, action-packed, happy ending, we’re all friends tra-la-la. I don’t think I’d watch it again, but I will watch Little Witch Academia 2 when it comes out to see how Akko grows and develops, if at all. And if the sequel does really well and they make a TV series? Yeah, I’d watch that too. But I’m not holding my breath.

Aki no Kanade anime movie review

Aki no Kanade is a short 25-minute anime that was produced in 2015 as part of Japan’s Young Animator Training Project program. It’s a government-sponsored program that does exactly what it says on the tin, but I can’t help feeling that the anime industry wouldn’t need to resort to such programs if they only paid animators a living wage and let them keep reasonable work hours. Make it like a regular job, in other words. But instead of doing that, they’re doing quick patches like this project either. Well we got a nice anime short out of it, so that’s good enough.

Summary: Aki Miyagawa moved to Tokyo to pursue her dream to be a taiko drummer, but had a hard time balancing her strict training regimen with her part-time job. Now, after 15 years, she’s returning to coach others for a taiko festival.

It’s a good little show. The good thing about short-shorts is that they don’t waste too much time setting things up characters and stories, they just jump into things straight away. So it starts off with Aki unlucky in life and in love, quickly takes her back to her hometown, quickly covers her backstory and how she came to love taiko drums so much, then poof, on with the show!

The music was good, especially the drum performances. The animation was nothing remarkable. Not QUALITY, but not “Wooow so fluid!” either. The background art and buildings and environments were all very nicely done. Those young animators are pretty talented.

Aki’s passion for the drums came through very clearly, as did the fun the entire club had working together to make music. It made me wish I’d joined some student orchestra or amateur music group or something in my youth. Her frustration with her life and her strained relationship with her father also come through quite well in what little time is given. Other characters besides Aki don’t get much attention and are mainly generic anime cliches (girly friends, boring mother, guy who has a crush on her that she totally doesn’t notice, etc) but the title says it’s Aki no Kanade, so what do you expect?

For better or worse, Aki no Kanade tells a complete story in only 25 minutes, so I’m willing to let everything else slide. Someone I spoke to was unhappy because we don’t find out what happens to Aki next – does she success as a pro? Does she give up? Does she date Yoshioka-sensei (I didn’t see no ring), Naoto or the Civil Engineer guy in the beginning? Does she ever reconcile with her father? It’s open ended enough to give you room to imagine the future, but not so much so that I was unhappy with the ended. I thought it was a great little show. Highly recommended to anyone with 25 minutes to spare.

No Game No Life anime review

File this one under “Stuff I watched and now I’m sorry I did.” In theory No Game No Life contains a lot of elements I like in an anime, including a fantasy world, invincible protagonists, and the whole “thrown into another world” trope.

The problem is, this time it comes mixed with main characters I don’t like and can’t root for, plus a whole lot of over the top fanservice, plus an inconclusive final ending because the light novel series is still going. This is why I normally stay away from light novel adaptations. It’s just getting harder and harder to do so because there’s just so many of them these days.

The story according to Wikipedia:

Sora and Shiro are two hikikomori step-siblings who are known in the online gaming world as Blank, an undefeated group of gamers. One day, they are challenged to a game of chess by Tet, a god from another reality. The two are victorious and are offered to live in a world called Disboard that centers around games. There, a spell known as the Ten Pledges prevents violence and enforces the rules and outcomes of games. The two travel to Elkia, the nation inhabited by humans. They participate in a tournament to determine the next ruler; after winning the crown, their next goal is to conquer all sixteen species in order to challenge Tet to a game.

But by the time the anime ends, they’ve only conquered one other species in addition to the humans. It was okay when they were fighting to help the people of Elkia, but the whole “beat everyone so we can play with Tet” thing is kind of hard to get behind. Okay you’re bored with life, we get that. Okay you think you’re smarter than everyone, we get that too. But that doesn’t mean we have to like you.

Apart from the sketchy motivations of the protagonists, No Game No Life also suffers from the problem that tends to plague most Overpowered Protagonist anime shows – a complete lack of competent opponents. Sure the show states right away that Blank never loses, but no one even gives them a hard time – except maybe the living chess game, but even that was very brief and possibly feigned.

Slightly higher-res than the featured image

Even when they seem to be in trouble like in the last game, they’ve actually thought 200 steps ahead. “Haha! I went behind you going behind me going behind you!” It was pretty obvious too, since butt monkey Steph had completely disappeared even though we knew she was going to play a part in how things worked out, etc. That’s a bad thing, because the fun of Overpowered Protagonist shows is figuring out how they’re going to win, so when the enemies are far below their level and you know how things are going to play out then, welp, what are you watching for? Thank goodness it was only 12 episodes, that’s all I’ve got to say.

So to recap my opinion of No Game No Life, I liked the setting and the premise, disliked the protagonists, was disappointed by the low level of the opponents faced and absolutely abhorred the over-the-top fanservice. I’m sorry I pushed through the vulgarity in the hopes of getting a good show and ended up with just an average one. At this point I don’t even care how it ends, I’m just glad to be done with it. Next time I’ll note the early warning signs and avoid, avoid, avoid.

Appleseed (2004) anime movie review

Well, well, what do we have here? A love story disguised as an action movie, eh? We’ll just see about tha– hmm… It’s not so bad… I guess. My Google-fu tells me there are at least 5 Appleseed movies or anime series out there, all loosely based on Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed manga wot I haven’t read and don’t plan to. This particular one I watched came out in 2004. I quite like the art style, which blends regular anime art with CG. It’s not a flawless mix, but it’s a very interesting effect that works well for a faux-gritty movie like Appleseed.

Story blurb: Plucked from the last battlefields of the final war, mercenary Deunan Knute finds herself pressed into duty with the ESWAT, defenders of the Utopian city of Olympus. But serpents beneath the peaceful surface of this apparent Garden of Eden, and new seeds of destruction have already been planted! Now it s up to Deunan and her former lover, the now-cyborg Briareos, to unravel a deadly web of plots that threaten to bring down Olympus from within!

Pros

– I was worried when they started off with all the technobabble and stuff, but the story is very easy to follow. It could honestly have been set in any kind of world, not necessarily this one.

– Everyone gets a happy ending and the bad guys get what they deserve.

– Apart from Hitomi, all the other voices in the English dub were very well done, so much so that I forgot I was watching a dub after a while, only to be smacked back into reality every time Hitomi opened her little mouth.

– As I said, I liked the art style. The music was good too.

Cons

– At almost 2 hours long, it’s a little on the lengthy side. It’s still very interesting, but some parts could have been shortened – like the ultimately pointless war scenes at the very beginning.

– Part of the story seems kinda stupid, like why would humans have a giant tank full of a killer virus just floating above the city? You’d think it would at least occur to someone that hey, maybe we should develop an antidote to this thing just in case, you know?

– Appleseed is a story of love lost and regained and the hope that humanity carries within them, etc etc that sort of thing, so honestly the action felt out of place much of the time. It almost felt like the writers/director had one story they wanted to tell, but then every 15 minutes it would be like “Quick! The audience is falling asleep!” and they would throw in some lengthy action sequence out of desperation.

– Speaking of action scenes, the last one was entirely too long. Once the bad guys had been rumbled and it was obvious that Appleseed is an idealistic kind of movie, the fortresses obviously had no chance of taking down humanity while Deunan was around, so why spend 15 minutes pretending they do? IMO they should have had Deunan face off against the giant robots first, THEN had the showdown with the bad guys, but that’s just me.

Final thoughts

Appleseed will probably disappoint anyone looking for a gritty, futuristic, hardcore kind of action movie. It only pretends to be one, but inside it’s a mushy-wushy I Love You, You Love Me, We’re a Happy Family kind of movie. I liked it, myself, even though the story is rather below-average and contains a number of unexplained points (like if Deunan was there when Dr. Gilliam was killed, why didn’t the killers take her into custody and confiscate everything she possessed, etc). Did I like it enough to watch the sequel (Ex Machina)? Not really, no. But still, it’s a decent enough movie and worth at least a watch if you like romantic action movies.