Ookiku Furikabutte animation error

From Season 2 (Natsu no taikai-hen) episode 1. When Tajima, Mihashi, Hamada and Izumi are having lunch in the classroom, we first see Tajima holding his chopsticks in his left hand.

This is, of course, because he injured his right fingers in the last inning of the Tosei game. A few seconds later he gets up to talk to Shinooka, then gets back to eating. But this time his chopsticks have shifted to his right hand:
Either someone on the animation team wasn’t paying attention to the story continuity or the mistake come from the manga. …It wouldn’t take long to check… Nope, it’s not from the manga. Just an animator that didn’t pay attention to story continuity, happens all the time.

Ookiku Furikabutte Volume 19 cover + anime review

I knew I’d seen that pose somewhere before! Not that it’s a secret that sports mangaka use real life athlete photos as source material, but I just wanted to post this somewhere ‘cos I’m feeling rather clever. Ookiku Furikabutte Vol.19 comes out in Japan on June 22nd, but I’m not buying it because it’s just more Musashino Daiichi and Haruna, and that’s not who I read Ookiku Furikabutte for.

As for the series itself, it’s one of my favorite manga. Currently my favorite sports series now that Hajime no Ippo has been stagnating for goodness knows how long. I haven’t mentioned it here before because first I wouldn’t know where to start and secondly I only got into it recently. I watched Big Windup twice on Funimation’s youtube channel and liked it so much that I bought the S.A.V.E. DVD set as well.

What I like about it is, of course, the characters. Every sports manga lives and dies by its characters, which is only obvious because if it’s the sports the fans want to see, that’s what ESPN is there for. Ookiku Furikabutte has Mihashi Ren, a wimpy, crybaby pitcher consumed with guilt (as well he should be) for making his middle school team lose for 3 years in a row because he wouldn’t let anyone else pitch.

In high school he meets up with “genius” catcher Abe who latches on to Mihashi’s potential and easy controllability and together with 8 others member of the Nishiura High School baseball team and their big-boobed coach, they aim to make it to Koshien.

Normally I dislike whiny types like Mihashi and bossy types like Abe, but something about these guys makes them not just easy to bear but actually easy to like. It helps that the author Higuchi doesn’t try too hard to make them sympathetic. Yes, Mihashi had a hard time at Mihoshi, but it was 90% his own fault. Yes, Abe went through a lot with Haruna, but he shouldn’t take it out on other pitchers. They’re not perfect – and they’re not even that great as a battery – but that makes it all the easier to root for them.

So far there are 2 anime seasons and 90 chapters of the manga out. I’m suffering from the usual “Caught up to the manga and now waiting is a pain” disease. I dropped Hayate no Gotoku because waiting for releases got too tedious and the manga wasn’t going anywhere (gimme back my A-tan!), and it might only be a matter of time before I drop Oofuri too. For now, though, I’m just having fun.

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.

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…