Reviews - Animefangirl!

More quick drops – Nanatsu no Taizai, Houkago no Pleiaiides and Akagami no Shirayukihime

No need to waste time on stuff I know I won’t like. I gave Nanatsu no Taizai two whole episodes to redeem itself because I’d heard so much about it. The other two shows I just flipped through quite quickly. Not my thing, not my thing, *delete* and we’re done.

Nanatsu no Taizai – It seems to be one of the top shounen anime out right now, and I was all set to like it because of the fantasy setting, but ultimately it was undone by the main character’s sheer vulgarity. Perhaps it’s supposed to be funny, having a baby-faced protagonist constantly sexually harassing the hapless female under his protection, but I just found it creepy and disgusting to watch. Also granted I only gave it to two episodes, but the story didn’t really draw me in. Of course the Seven Deadly Sins are going to be found innocent and there’s some plotting afoot and in the end the princess will be on the throne, but it looked like something that would take a hundred episodes or more to happen, and I’m not ready for another Naruto. Done and dusted.

Houkago no Pleiades – Silly, childish schoolgirl romance kind of series. I have yet to encounter a magical girl show I enjoyed and this didn’t look set to be the one. And instead of embracing their magical girl-ness they tried to go all philosophical with gazing on the stars tonight, mingling with this or that *yaaaawn* Next.

Akagami no Shirayukihime – Lazy animation, lazy writing, infuriating show. I don’t like those shoujos where everything works out for the heroine despite her stupidity and her poor decision-making. If your red hair is attracting the wrong kind of attention, DYE IT YOU FOOL. And if you’re fleeing the prince of a kingdom, don’t get to the border and stop, LEAVE THE COUNTRY. And don’t randomly trust strange guys you meet in a forest. And don’t injure yourself trying to get random strangers to trust you. AAARGH. The first episode alone had me tearing my hair out, so I thought I’d quit while my blood pressure was still at normal levels.

Sore ga Seiyuu! anime review (I liked it)

Hey all, it’s been a while. I’ve been a bit busy here and there with this and that so I thought I’d use the Easter break to catch up on my blogging. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed.

Sore ga Seiyuu/Seiyu’s Life is an anime series centered on three friends who are all rookie voice actresses (seiyuu): Futaba Ichinose, Ichigo Moesaki and Rin Kohana. As the girls go through their individual troubles of working in voice acting, they end up hosting a web radio show together and form the unit, Earphones, according to Wikipedia. It’s based on a 4-koma comedy manga by voice actress Masumi Asano (if you went “Who?” you’re not alone, but her list of credits are pretty decent) with art by Kenjiro Hata of Hayate the Combat Butler fame.

The Sore ga Seiyuu anime is short and sweet with no violence, no fanservice, no nudity, no bad language, in short nothing objectionable to get in the way of my enjoyment. I thought it presented a rather idealized view of the voice acting world where almost everyone was nice and supportive of everyone else and even if your friend got the part you wanted you got over it in a day, that sort of thing. It also made it look too easy for a nondescript, insecure, not all that talented rookie like the main character to succeed in the industry. At least they showed how much nagging and lobbying it took for her to land certain parts.

It’s bad of me I know, but I’m always looking for drama when I watch a “behind the scenes” special on any industry, and this was just bland. But of course I can’t expect a show like this which actually features cameos from famous VAs like Nozawa of Dragonball to show all the warts and all. What’s that they say about not biting the hand that feeds you? Plus maybe Masumi Asano likes her job just that much and doesn’t have any horror stories to share (yeah right). Okay, we’ll go with that.

I still enjoyed Sore ga Seiyuu a whole lot, though, and its relative lack of ambition was probably part of it. At least you knew there were no ugly surprises coming up, just three hardworking girls in a saccharine-sweet friendship, best friends forever, yay, and so on and so forth. I’ve watched one or two features on seiyuu on Japanese TV so I knew some things like how VAs have to wear rubber-soled shoes and non-rustling clothing and how they have to audition for parts and stuff. A lot of other things were new to me though, like how nice everyone is (riiight) and how idol units are formed (totally randomly) and how often the art isn’t finished yet so the VAs work from rough sketches (that’s hardcore).

There were a few boring episodes where nothing happened, but apart from that it was a smooth show from start to finish, it did end on a fairly realistic note (i.e. the writers acknowledged the main character kinda sucked as a voice actress) the characters were likeable in a bland, inoffensive way and at only 13 episodes long it didn’t outstay its welcome. Recommended for any anime fan who is interested in voice acting. The only downside is now I sometimes picture the VAs in the studio when I’m watching an anime, which does tend to ruin immersion a bit. I’ll get over it. In the meantime, watch it if you get the chance!

Yowamushi Pedal episodes 1-4 (dropped)

Happy New Year! Now the Christmas season is well and truly over, I can get back to posting about anime and manga. I didn’t try as many new series as I thought I would over the holiday season, but a few is better than none. First up, Yowamushi Pedal, a series I liked a lot after episode 1 then liked less and less with each subsequent episode until I dropped it after episode 4.

What I liked about the first episode is the slight twist on the staple “naive character doesn’t know he’s talented in a sport” trope many sports anime have. Sure Sakamichi is naive and doesn’t know he’s a cycling prodigy, but he’s wholly devoted to another interest (anime) and is determined to pursue it in high school. I wanted to find out how he would reconcile the two interests or whether he would end up dropping anime together because 3D friends and physical exercise are so much better.

I also rather liked the snobby rival character who was shown up so easily (sort of) by an oblivious Sakamachi. That interest stayed with me in episode 2 during the race, but then the technical terms started flowing. Cadence. The height of the seat blah blah. Rotations. Pedaling this, pedaling that. It was too much technicality too soon for me. Plus the gallery and their commentary were seriously annoying, especially the stalker manager girl with the huge eyes. Ick.

Then episodes 3 and 4 just lost me completely with the introduction of the Osakan character with the bad voice-acting. I can’t even remember his name now, but the whole episode was just so boring. Some guy threw a cigarette butt at a bike so they pedal and pedal and pedal and pedal (repeat for 15 minutes) and that’s supposed to be interesting? That’s when I realized a show about cycling just wasn’t for me. The better kind of sports show at least makes an effort to show you what’s so exciting about that sport in particular, but Yowamushi Pedal just takes it for granted that everybody likes cycling already. If you don’t, well, it’s got nothing to offer you.

So having realized I wouldn’t be able to sit through any of the other races/matches the show had to offer because cycling is just too boring, I decided to call it a day and quit while I was ahead. I still like sports anime (I think?) and Yowamushi Pedal probably isn’t bad if you like cycling or racing shows. It’s just too boring for me so I’m out.

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.

Otouto Catcher Ore Pitcher de! volume 3 manga review

On on we go. Otouto Catcher Ore Pitcher de! volume 3 concludes the first match of Hirataka High School’s attempts to qualify for the Koshien summer tournament. They’ve been down by 3 runs since the first inning, and while Touma is pitching well, the Hirataka batters just can’t get a good hit off their opponent’s excellent defense. What’s more, the opponents are deliberately doing their best to burn through Touma’s stamina to make him easier to hit – and it’s working! Is Hirataka’s campaign doomed to fail right at the very outset?

While it would be awesome if that happened, you and I have both seen enough sports anime/read enough manga to know that something that anti-climatic would never happen. That’s why it’s a little irritating how writer Shinji Tonaka spends so much time pretending the other team actually has a chance. It would be one thing if he’d gone the usual route of having Hirataka face last year’s champions or some elite team, but the opponents are just some low-ranked team without much of a background. No purpose would be served by having them win, so of course they don’t.

What is achieved in this volume, then, is to show some bonding between the Touma brothers, to expose the flaws in Touma Ichiya’s pitching, namely his lack of stamina and his easy distractability, to show Yoshi’s intelligence and prove that he’s softening up a bit and, most importantly, to set up the inevitable showdown between Hirataka and their soon-to-be rivals, a showdown that Hirataka will inevitably lose.

Why am I still reading Otouto Catcher Ore Pitcher de? Mainly because there’s no reason for me to stop. It’s one of those things you continue out of inertia unless something better shows up or they mess up royally. Things won’t get interesting until Hirataka High is dropped from the tournament. A lot of mangaka lose focus once there’s no Koshien to keep things interesting (see: Ookiku Furikabutte) so I want to see how Shinji Tonaka handles the team’s future development. Of course I can’t guarantee I’ll read the manga long enough to find that out, but I’m still here for now.