Category: Anime

Okami-san and her Seven Companions anime review

An anime with 12 episodes but that can be summed up thus: “No matter how tough a girl is, she is useless without a guy to protect her.” And so we are introduced to Ryoko Okami, a girl with years of boxing experience who nevertheless frequently finds herself captured or beaten up and in need of a rescue from her weak inexperienced love interest Ryoshi. His battle cry – “I’ll protect Ryoko!” – carries the implicit declaration: “Because she can’t protect herself!”

I’m sure fans will try to argue that the real moral of Okami-san and Her Seven Companions is that it’s not good to try to do things on your own and that you should depend on the people around you, but that doesn’t explain why the other girls on Ryoko’s team who stay in their place (the kitchen or the office) rarely run into trouble or why it is always her love interest who comes to Ryoko’s aid and not say, any other character, or why the guys who take to the frontlines are invariably successful where Ryoko has failed.

There’s a story in there about the “Otogi Bank” club that Ryoko belongs to that helps people out with requests and the rest of the members of the team (the seven companions) and how they get involved in all kinds of funny scrapes and adventures. There’s also some would-be rapist guy from another school who turns up from time to time to kidnap Ryoko so she can be saved.

It’s a fun show, when you ignore the highly misogynistic message. Lots of silly situations and memorable characters and a ton of references to various fairy tales. I quite enjoyed myself. But having the “Women can’t protect themselves, they need a man!” message shoved relentlessly down my throat every episode has left me a little nauseous. I can’t believe they still make shows like that in this day and age.

Ah well, it’s entertainment. I’m not going to think too deeply about it. I got some laughs out of it, and at least it was better than most other tsundere-and-wimp series. If they make a season 2 I probably won’t watch it but still, good show.

Heroic Age anime review

Gundam meets Evangelion meets Dragonball meets Fail. Just goes to show it’s not about the ingredients, it’s about how you cook them.

The raised-in-the-wild savior protagonist has been done before, the ship on the run from enemy forces thing has been done before (in at least two Gundams), the pure, all-knowing, everybody-loves-her princess has been done before… There’s nothing new to see here, so enjoying Heroic Age boils down to whether you like the characters or not. I didn’t, so I didn’t enjoy the show and gave up after 10 episodes.

The main character(?) Age is basically perfect. He’s a little wild because he was raised by super-powered aliens, but he starts out knowing all about his powers and all about his mission, is clearly far stronger than anyone else in the universe and knows exactly what to do and when. No doubt, no anger, no passion, no confusion. It’s impossible to relate to him. The second main character(?) Dhianelia, is also basically perfect. Psychic powers, good looks, princess, everyone loves and worships and obeys her and she, too, knows where to go and what to do 90% of the time and her few moments of doubt come across as insincere and put-upon. The supporting cast exists only to fawn upon or unsuccessfully attempt to oppose these two. The ending was a foregone conclusion from episode 1.

It would be have been okay if the action at least was good, but that wasn’t anything noteworthy either. The first 10 episodes had the humans fighting the same bugs over and over again even when it was clear that the humans were useless against them and Age was the only one who stood a chance. Bugs, bugs, bugs, more bugs. Age also fights enemies with similar powers, but since we can never get into his head, it’s hard to root for him when you can’t tell how well he’s doing or how he’s feeling. Maybe it picks up after episode 11+, but I’m not sticking around to find out.

Howl’s Moving Castle anime review

Howl’s Moving Castle was not quite as nonsensical as Tales from Earthsea, but it was just as boring. No, even more so.

What’s so good about Howl except his good looks?

And why did the movie have to drag on so long? It just meanders aimlessly from one event to another, then the climax scene where Sophie goes back into the past comes out of nowhere, then bam, happy ending.

Long. Boring. Annoying. Massive waste of time. Full of pointless characters and events. Seems it was based on a book, so Miyazaki felt the need to force things in where they didn’t belong, e.g. Sophie’s sister Lettie, Sophie’s mom barging her way in to see them and crap like that which could have been done away with for tighter storytelling.

The moral of the story: every problem can be solved by a kiss from a cute girl. Also girls don’t want to be hatters, they want to be housewives. And old ladies are useless, which is why even when a girl is under a spell that turns her old, when it’s time to do anything worthwhile, she’ll magically transform back into a younger stronger form without any explanation.

The war parts really don’t make any sense. And seriously, how does Howl and Sophie falling in love prompt Madame Sullivan to call off the war? Why were they fighting in the first place? What’s Howl doing up there all the time anyway? It feels like Miyazaki shoe-horned some anti-war propaganda into a story that originally had nothing to do with war, but I wouldn’t know without reading the original. Anyway, love conquers all, including stuff it has nothing to do with. Medetashi medetashi.

Calcifer was cute though.

Tales from Earthsea anime review

I’d heard Tales From Earthsea was bad, but I had no idea it was terribly boring as well.

They tried to shovel too much of the Earthsea mythos into one movie and ended up with a junky senseless patchwork. It’s been a while since I read the originals anyway, so I tried to watch it from the point of view of a complete newcomer to the series. Even then it didn’t make much sense.

Was there any real reason for Therru to be a dragon? And they go on and on about Arren’s fear (of death?) driving him crazy, but why should a 17-year old be that scared of dying? What’s gone on in his life so far that made him that way? And why steal the sword? Why kill his father in the process? And the Shadow, it arose from his fear? That’s not how it works in Earthsea! Whoops, newcomer perspective shot to pieces.

And Tenar just played a decorative role throughout. It would have been just as well if she hadn’t been there. Same with Therru, come to think of it. Heck, same with Ged/Sparrowhawk. None of them were needed in this movie, which is just about one boy learning to face his fears. You could have set it in any other world and given him some random old mentor and things would have worked out exactly the same way, or better. No wonder Ursula Le Guin commented, “It’s your movie, it’s not my book.”

The pacing was kinda odd too. Things never got really heated or exciting. There was always a dampener somewhere. Ooh, he’s getting attacked by wolves…wait no, they were run off easily. Ooh, he got kidnapped…wait no, Ged rescued him easily. Ooh, a showdown between Ged and a mind-controlled Arren…wait no, that was over in 5 seconds, followed by a sermon. Then the showdown on the rooftop stretched on so long and in so many fits and starts that it never got good. In the end, Dragonus Ex Machina, bad wizard gets fried, everyone lives happily ever after.

We don’t even get to see Arren go back and pay for his crimes like he said he would. Sure he says he’ll go, but the next time we see him he’s working on the farm like always and giggling like a schoolgirl at Ged’s stories. Uhh, are you the same prince who just murdered his dad and fled the country or was that someone else? It’s kind of ironic that a movie about the importance of life and living it ends with an unrepentant murderer laughing his ass off like there’s no tomorrow.

Last question: Therru is a dragon. What’s that got to do with the dragons that were fighting at the beginning of the series? And what about Tenar’s story about Therru’s parents burning and abandoning her, was that a lie? If yes, why? If no, huh? Why would her dragon-parents burn and leave her?

tl;dr: Tales from Earthsea is a massive mess. The art is as gorgeous as ever and I liked the soundtrack, but everything else about it was severely below average. If it hadn’t been from Studio Ghibli, something like this would never have been released in theaters.

Now for Howl’s Moving Castle.

The Cat Returns anime review

I watched Princess Mononoke (good, but seriously violent), Pom Poko (bleh) and My Neighbors the Yamadas (okay, but dull) and skipped over Spirited Away because I’d already seen it. I didn’t feel like writing reviews about them, though. Sorry.

Happily enough The Cat Returns was great! Fun, and mercifully short. Very much like a fairy tale, and the cheesy “believe in yourself” message was there from the start so it didn’t come out of nowhere. Nice simple story, funny characters, especially Muta and the King and that smarmy servant, great animation as always, decent voice acting that got the job done, everything ends very happily ever after.

It is by far the “kiddiest” of the Ghibli movies I’ve seen so far, including My Neighbor Totoro, but I love it! I was a little worried about that Machida-sempai romantic stuff in the beginning, but happily enough it came to nothing. I like romance to be at a minimum in my Ghibli series.

Ah, that was fun. Now since I’ve already watched Ponyo, I only have Earthsea, Howl’s Moving Castle and The Borrower Arriety to go. Arriety hasn’t come out on DVD in English yet, I think, so it’s just Earthsea and Howl. The Earthsea books were some of my favorite fantasy books growing up and I hear they made a mess out of that, so first I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way, and then I’ll be able to enjoy Howl as my “final taste” of Studio Ghibli. Good plan.

Update: since I wrote this review, I’ve shown this anime to several of my young nephews and nieces and their friends, at least 20 young children aged between 5 and 15, and they all love it. It’s their most-watched anime movie over all the other Ghibli stuff. Not to say that The Cat Returns is necessarily better than other Ghibli movies (though I liked it more, to be honest), but it’s certainly the most kid-friendly. It has funny animals, wacky hijinks aplently, constant action, a clear point and a happy ending. It’s easy to follow and easy to enjoy. If you’re looking to buy something for yourself, you might go with one of the other shows, but if you’re looking for something children will enjoy, definitely get The Cat Returns first.