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Suisei no Gargantia anime review (spoilers)

Don’t worry, I didn’t drop this one. Unless you count skipping the OVAs and playing Candy Crush while ‘watching’ the last episode. Suisei no Gargantia was a pretty good show, which could have been great but couldn’t quite get its act together all the way till the end.

Pros

Gorgeous art and character designs. It’s almost Ghibli-like in the beauty of the ocean and the level of detail of the ships, etc in the early episodes. Things fell apart visually in the second half, but it’s still one of the most beautiful anime series I’ve seen.

The Earth of the future seems like a lovely place to explore. If they made a second season I’d like them to go all around the world meeting all kinds of new ships.

An interesting clash of world views, the super-cynical side and the super-idealistic side, though eventually it turns out the idealists aren’t quite so empty-headed after all.

I like “guy/girl in another world” and “fish out of water” stories. I also like slice of life shows, especially when the “life” being described is a little unusual.

Apart from the embarrassing “bellydancing” sequence and some vulgar statements by an idiotic character named Pinion, the show is fairly free of fanservice and innuendo. Apart from said dancing episode, I could see myself watching Suisei no Gargantia with a younger crowd like my nephews. Whether they would find such a slow show interesting or not is another matter altogether.

Cons

Exoticization of the Other – Oh look at the primitive natives and how wonderfully they all live in harmony with nature as opposed to us modern and sophisticated, we should definitely learn from their backwards ways, except when it comes to actually getting anything of note done, then “Mighty Whitey” must do the deed because they’re hopelessly dumb and inefficient when it comes to anything practical. It’s enjoyable because the new world is so interesting, and it’s not as offensive as some other examples are (the natives do get some good hits in in the final battle), but it’s pretty glaring nonetheless.

The show also wasn’t as dark as I’d thought it would be at first glance. Nothing wrong with bright, cheery series, but I’m a little disappointed we’ll never get to find out how the final battle with the Hideauze went. I bet the humans lose, though. They seemed pretty done for in episode 1.

Speaking of which, the whole plotline about the Hideauze being former humans was just dropped without making much impact on the show. Ledo finds out, Ledo has a meltdown, then a new enemy shows up and it’s bye-bye Hideauze. Uncool.

The final enemies also felt kind of tacked on. I see what they tried to do there, showing that Ledo has changed so much that he can’t accept the things he used to see as normal before, but there was no build up or foreshadowing. The series just went in one direction for 8 episodes then suddenly did an about-turn at the end, like the writers suddenly realized they needed some Big Bad to make the series exciting. It didn’t seem very well-planned at all.

In all the positives and negatives basically balanced each other out, so you get a show that is more or less average despite the promises held by the premise. I do recommend Suisei no Gargantia simply because it’s so inoffensive and easy to watch, and because it’s absolutely lovely to look at, especially on DVD. Just don’t expect too much based on the hype and the excitement of the earlier episodes and you’ll be fine.

Million Doll and Jitsu wa Watashi wa – Decent but still dropped

The last post featured anime I didn’t like enough to even finish an episode of. This post features two shows I fairly enjoyed the first episode of but didn’t see the need to watch the rest of. Once you watch enough anime, you’re able to get a general sense for what a show is going to like just from the introductory episode. Million Doll and Jitsu wa Watashi wa are both shows I would probably enjoy moderately if I’d continued, but they weren’t gripping enough to justify the time and effort so I’m saying goodbye to them on a positive note.

Million Doll – Each episode is short, which is always a good thing. The music is extremely forgettable, which is only natural for idol music. Although it’s a show about cute young girls, they did show some of the darker elements of idol life, including the fickle fandom and the poor amenities (playing to small crowds, having to walk home from the airport) as well as some of the rewards, mainly having people support and cheer you on.

Good for them, but they’d either have to make the music a lot better or the show a lot more realistic or at least introduce some direct competition before they could interest me enough to watch the whole show.

Jitsu wa Watashi wa – I don’t mind romances where you already know who’s going to end up with who from the start – if anything, that’s my preference. So I thought I would like Jitsu wa, but the main guy is just too awkward with too many weird expressions to enjoy. I know it’s his gimmick, but it’s uncomfortable to watch.

The show is also extremely slow because half the ‘action’ takes place in the mind of the main character. He spends too much time thinking and thinking about things before saying or doing anything, it’s annoying.

Since his relationship with the vampire girl is all but established in episode 1 and since I’ve seen enough of this kind of show to know how things are going to go (slowly growing closer, opposition from girl’s family, reporter girl trying to expose her secret, etc) and since the lengths he’ll have to go to to keep her secret will lead to all kinds of embarrassing situations, which I really hate, so I’m gonna bail out now. It was a cute show, but one episode was enough.

Neeext!

GATE and Hello Kiniro Mosaic dropped

It would be nice if I’d had something cheerier and more meaningful for my 300th post, but I’m so lazy these days it’s surprising enough that I actually posted anything. I’m still working my way through my massive ever-growing anime backlog. I’ve found some pretty good stuff lately, which I’ll talk about once I finish them. Since there’s still good stuff out there, that only makes me all the more merciless when I come across shows I don’t really like. Most recent victims:

Hello Kiniro Mosaic – I’ve already mentioned it before, I forget where, but since “cute girls doing cute stuff” series are a dime a dozen these days, a show has to really stand out to get my attention these days. Hello Kiniro Mosaic is so boring I dropped it about 10 minutes in. Every skit is slow and pointless, the ‘jokes’ aren’t funny at all, the schoolgirls obsessing over each other (and the teachers obsessing over them) is a little creepy and while the character designs are cute, they aren’t especially unique or memorable. There’s bound to be better stuff out there. Dropped.

GATE: Two strikes against this, first the realistic armor and weapons. I don’t like anything resembling realistic war in books, anime, manga, you name it. I can watch 100 episodes of space-fighting Gundam beam spam or magical sparks going flying through the air, but you ground it in reality and my interest fades faster than you can say “Self-Defence Force.”

The second strike was the protagonist. Honestly he’s just gross. 33, otaku, ugly as sin, nothing on his mind except games and anime. He’s just yucky. People talk about how it would be interesting to have more anime protagonists who aren’t wide-eyed teenagers, and to an extent I agree, but someone who hasn’t made anything of their life at 33 is just too disgusting to watch. Did I already mention he’s really ugly? He’s ugly. I don’t feel like rooting for him throughout whatever adventures he has beyond the gate, so I didn’t even make it to the end of episode 1. GATE is dropped, good riddance.

Kyousougiga episodes 1-2, dropped

Too weird and disjointed for me, I guess. I was following along with the weirdness in the early parts of episode 1 of Kyousougiga, or so I thought, then they lost me in Kyoto when the kid turned into an adult and started fooling around with some random floozy in an apartment etc etc.

Still I thought I’d try one more episode to see if they would at least explain what’s going on. Okay, I get that there are several worlds out there and there’s an organization that takes care of those worlds and the girl Koto that showed up is part of that group and is looking for her sensei at the same time. But. I don’t like Koto at all, especially at her bratty kid stage, which is all episode two focuses on.

I watched up to the part where she was brawling with some kid at a shrine and then dropped it, though I did skip forward a bit to see that some mysterious people think she’s special somehow and want to get their hands on her, I think. Which means there’s going to be even more focus on Koto for the rest of the series, which means I’m better off dropping it while I’m ahead.

Annoying main character, adult situations that don’t fit the rest of the show, lots of weirdness that isn’t explained in a straightforward fashion (I hate weird series), all equals a recipe for a series I’m going to hate. I’m not even interested enough in what Kyousougiga is about to read summaries online. The whole thing just left me feeling frustrated and mildly irritated. Pass, on to the next show!

Dropped Danchigai, Kuusen Madoushi and Madan no Ou to Vanadis

Danchigai – I usually like anime with short episodes but in this case 3 minutes felt like 3 hours. Nothing significant happened – guy woke up, bickered with siblings, went to school, but they still had to throw in unnecessary tsundereness and suggestive content. There were no compelling situations, no story or even background (who are these people and why are they all living together?) so nothing made me want to watch any more after an episode.

Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei No Kyoukan – Started out somewhat interesting with all those bug monsters. The little combat I saw didn’t look too interesting, but I figured it would get better as stuff was explained later. Unfortunately before that we had to deal with the usual “funny” misunderstandings with the main character walking around with jam on his crotch and walking into the women’s bathroom and all those other situations I haven’t found funny in about 10 years.

The idea of an elite fighter taking charge of a bunch of weaklings and whipping them into shape is a good one, but it was clear from episode 1 that the show is going to be more about perverted incidents and harem-type occurrences instead of just normal fighting and training like I was hoping for. Not my cup of tea. Next.

Madan no Ou to Vanadis – I was looking for more shows with overpowered MCs after finishing Mahouka, and someone recommended this. Well, the hero isn’t quite as overpowered as Tatsuya. He’s just really, really good with a bow and then he gets a super magic bow and well, you can take it from there.

I watched about 3 or 4 episodes, up to the point where he kills the dragon with the magic bow. I dropped it because it was boring. The skimpily-dressed ladies falling all over the main guy didn’t help the show’s case, but if the political intrigue and the battles had been any good there could have been hope. But really, there’s only so much you can do with a bow and an arrow. Point, and shoot. Point, and shoot. Booorriiing. After watching a long, supposedly strategic battle I couldn’t bring myself to root for any of the sides and didn’t see the point of continuing.

Yay, my backlog is shrinking! I’ll post about another reject next time – the only reason I didn’t add it today is because it comes highly recommended so I want to give it one more episode to get its act together. See you next time!