Category: Reviews

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.

Futari no Kimochi volume 1

The official English title of Futari no Kimochi (ふたりの気持ち) is “Feeling of Lovers.” It’s an 8-volume romance manga by Takami Mako, who appears to specialize in relationships between younger men and older women.

Kan (18) is in love with his brother’s ex-wife Fuyumi (23). In order to be together they’ll have to overcome their age difference and the inevitable opposition from their families.

Like most romantic series, the conclusion was a given from the start. Of course they’re going to end up together, it’s just a matter of how. What I wanted to see was the romance would develop and how the author would handle this unusual premise. I didn’t bank on the plot crawling along at a snail’s pace or the characters being childish, petty and completely unlikeable. Kan gets a pass for being 18, but Fuyumi is even more spoiled, naive and empty-headed. They make a good (idiotic) couple, but not one worth reading about.

Nothing much happens in volume 1. Fuyumi and Kan reconnect 3 years after the former’s divorce. They start dating pretty much right away (Kan first kisses her in chapter 1!) and then they spend the rest of the book having silly misunderstandings and petty little fights. “OMG he’s talking to another girl/she’s talking to another guy, s/he doesn’t like me after all!” Clear up one problem and another one arises, just as childish and petty as the last. If that’s what I wanted I’d just read a regular shoujo manga.

I skipped the rest of the books and read the blurb for volume 8 to find out how it ended. Predictably enough Kan’s parents have a fit when they find out the two are dating, so Kan and Fuyumi run off and shack up together and eventually have a baby. In the end the two families kind of make up and the two lovers and their baby attend Kan’s brother’s second wedding. So happy I saved myself several hours worth of reading teenage-level excrement in manga form.

What annoys me the most is that the romance could have been very easily derailed if Kan’s parents had just accepted the relationship in the first place. It’s pretty clear the two of them were getting off on the secrecy and sneaking around, so adding more drama and creating an “Us against the World” situation was a surefire way to make sure they ended up together. Especially since her mother-in-law was the main reason why Fuyumi divorced Kan’s brother in the first place. A pointed “It’s so nice to have you back in the family!” would have gone a long way towards cooling her ardor.

…You know a romance manga has gone all wrong when you’re rooting for the evil mother-in-law…

Fushigi no Kuni no Sen’ichiya manga review

Also known as A Thousand and One Nights in Wonderland, Fushigi no Kuni no Sen’ichiya is Sone Masako’s ancient shoujo classic about a princess who is brought up as a prince to save her life… who later turns into a real prince and lives happily ever after with the help of his magical horse Hendek Atlatan.

That’s the cliff-notes version. It’s hard to get across in so few words just how fun and silly and heartwarming this manga is. A lot of the fun comes from the “Thousand and One Nights” part, where the author plays around with all kinds of fairy-tales and concocts new ones as she goes along. For example Snow White is actually every bit as bitchy and competitive as her stepmother, and Sleeping Beauty is actually a hideous hambeast who is convinced she’s the hottest creature on the planet (and who never gets round to falling asleep). It’s a colorful, magical world full of ghosts, fairies, dragons, immortals, magical earthworms and more.

At the center of all this is our star, Seblan. Probably the first manga character ever with full-blown Gender Dissociative Disorder. In fact, calling him a man in a woman’s body is an understatement, because he’s even more manly than his uncles he grows up with. When a ridiculously convenient dragon’s curse turns him into a man for real, he hardly skips a beat.

Throughout the series, it’s Seblan’s job to roam the world getting into one scrape or another so that his horse Hendek can rescue him with his supernatural knowledge of just about everything. There’s pretty much nothing Hendek does not know and he always manages to save the day somehow. Equus ex Machina, shall we say?

And yet they make such a great team that they’re impossible to dislike. Honest, headstrong, foolish Seblan charges into adventure with wise, longsuffering Hendek backing him up. Together they manage to pull off feat after feat of derring-do across the land. And the best part is, almost no one ever dies. I can probably count on one hand the number of bad guys who were killed off for real in the series, Seblan and Hendek usually managing to trick or trap them somehow and get their way. That’s what contributes to making it such a happy, feelgood series when it’s all said and done.

The one fly in the ointment? The characters of Milty, Seblan’s wife. Ditsy blonde with the IQ of a dead sparrow. Far too much of the series is spent on matters concerning her. First Seblan has to win her hand in marriage. Then he has to save her when she gets kidnapped. Then about 50% of the series consists of Seblan trying to convince her that babies don’t come from a stork (I could feel his blue balls from here). Eventually she gets a clue and settles down a bit, but she still managed to almost get him killed by moving his body when she was expressly told not to. What an idiot.

A fun, happy series all around though. The art is lovely too, for such an old series. I’ll be paying more attention to Sone Masako’s other stuff from now on.

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.