Category: Anime

Ocean Waves anime review

Originally known as Umi ga Kikoeru, Ocean Waves is a Studio Ghibli made-for-TV movie from 1993.  It’s fairly mediocre, as love triangle shows are wont to be.

 A girl named Rikako moves from Tokyo to Kochi because her parents gets divorced, but she has difficulties adjusting to her new life. The story is told through the eyes of one of her new classmates, whose name I have totally forgotten. Let’s call him Billy Bob.
Anyway, Billy Bob’s best friend Yutaka likes Rikako, but somehow Billy Bob is the one who ends up hanging out with her, until Billy Bob and Rikako have a bitter argument and stop talking. And then Billy Bob has a fight with Yutaka as well.
Fast forward to a year after graduation. Billy Bob meets Yutaka again and they make up. And there it is suddenly revealed that Billy Bob liked Rikako too! Except I totally didn’t see that at all in their interactions right until the end. You might say it’s subtle, but this is way beyond subtle and well into virtually-nonexistent territory. They basically just bitched at each other for 1 hour and that meant they were in love?
Well anyway, the ending has Billy Bob and Rikako meeting again at a train station. It’s stated that Rikako has finally gotten the stick out of her *** and stopped being a giant *****, so maybe things will work out between them. I didn’t know what to feel about all that because I just didn’t see the mutual attraction, but whatever. Good luck with that, guys.

Ganbarist Shun anime review

Another cheerful series, about a boy named Fujisaki Shun who wants to win a gold medal in Olympics. That’s it. That’s literally the story behind Ganbarist Shun (ガンバリスト!駿). He just shows up at his middle school gymnastics club, blurts this out and the story is underway.

 Things get interesting after that though, when it turns out Shun can’t even turn a simple cartwheel. And he has to perform in the regional tournament the very next day. This leads to one of the funniest first episodes I’ve watched in a long, looong time.
After that the humor content goes down a lot, in favor of Shun and the rest of his club members slowly but surely improving under the guidance of various coaches. Some of the performances are seriously impressive, especially Shun’s two turns on the horizontal bar (the manga co-author Morisue was an Olympic gold medalist in the same event). It’s spoiled a bit by the lengthy flashbacks, sideline comments and internal thought processes that punctuate every single move, but it’s still gripping to watch anyway. But, you never do get to find out why Shun wants to be a medalist anyway. He just does.
The series is only 30 episodes long (yes, 30 is “only” for a series as fun as this), and it’s never been officially released, so it’s not very well-known in the west. Even in Japan it never got a DVD release so you’d have to get VHS (what’s that mommy?) tapes if you wanted to own it. The only subs available are some seriously atrocious “Engrish” subs that I quickly ignored in favor of just watching it for myself. If you’re lucky enough to find it in a language you understand, I highly, highly recommend it.

Dog Days anime review

Official story: In the land of Fronaldo, the Republic of Biscotti has been aggressively attacked by the Lion Kingdom of Galette. Facing potential defeat, Princess Millhiore summons a hero who can save the country. What she gets is Izumi Shinku, a middle-school boy from Japan. Awaiting him in Fronaldo is the task of becoming hero enough to defeat his enemies while learning the peculiar rules of battle in this strange new world.

Cheerful, upbeat series about a boy who gets pulled into another world where he becomes their hero. He then helps them in a “war” against a rival kingdom. A war where nobody dies or even gets seriously hurt, and where everyone celebrates with a concert at the end. Apart from one encounter with a monster the series is light-hearted to the point of absurdity, and at only 13 episodes it’s over long before it has a change to grate on you.

There seems to be room for a sequel, but I don’t need one. They’ll only mess it up somehow anyway. At the end of Dog Days the world of Fronaldo has been saved, Shinku (the protagonist) has gotten lots of experience, and in theory he can go back again within 3 months. That’s enough for me.

I need more series like this. Stuff that makes me feel good inside and leaves a good taste when it’s all over.

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! anime review

After watching what I could stomach of Darker than Black, I wanted to try something a little more lighthearted. I often download stuff at random, but this time I read the description and it sounded funny: Italian hitman who looks like baby trains Japanese high schooler to become Mafia leader. What could possibly go wrong?

I watched 10 episodes of Katekyo Hitman Reborn! before giving up, but I won’t say anything went “wrong” with it. More like something was right, so they took that something and reused it over and over again, thereby flogging it to death.

Basically each episode was like the one before it. The same things happened, the characters had the same reactions to it, it ended the same way, on to the next. Tsuna acts like a flabbergasted moron, Reborn is all-wise and all-knowing, Lambo is cute but annoying, Haru is also cute and also annoying, Kyoko is cute and clueless, Yamaguchi is an idiot who thinks everything is a game, etc, etc. You can tell what’s going to come out of everyone’s mouth before they even open it.

I found the first episode or two pretty funny, seeing all the crazy things Tsuna would get up to after being shot with the Dying Will bullet. But after that it was just “Bullet of the Day” ad nauseam, and Tsuna didn’t seem to be getting any brighter or more likable. Also I hate manipulative know-it-alls like Reborn. That smug bastard just pissed me off, episode after episode. If the two main characters suck so hard, there’s very little a series can do to redeem itself.

I hear eventually there’ll be some tournament-style fighting and some time travelling, and nothing could be less appealing to me, so I figured I’d quit while I was ahead. At least I laughed my head off at the Organ Block, so that’s worth something.

Darker than Black anime review

I watched a few episodes of Darker than Black just now, but it’s really not my thing. Firstly I’m not into series that take themselves very seriously, especially when they’re so slow and take forever to build up. Secondly the main character’s dullard act is a little too convincing. Just watching him bored the crap out of me. Thirdly the two arcs I watched weren’t very interesting, simply because there was no reason for me to care. Certainly it’s all building up to some grand storyline that will help figure out what Hell’s Gate is, etc etc, but at this point in time it’s just a bunch of whiners and vicious psychopaths beating the crap out of each other.

I asked myself “Give me one good reason why I’m watching this crap” and came up with zilch, so th.at’s was the end of Darker than Black for me. I won’t go so far as to call it completely horrible, though, since a lot of people enjoyed it. If you like conspiracies and mysteries and that sort of thing, you’ll probably get something out of this.

I think I need something either more light-hearted or more straightforward next time