Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind anime review

I watched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind shortly before watching Ocean Waves. I’ve been going on a Ghibli kick lately, ever since I woke up and realized I’d only ever watched two Ghibili movies: Spirited Away and Ponyo on a Cliff. Both were pretty good, so I’ve always meant to watch more stuff from the same studio, so I’m watching them all in order.

I started with Lupin the 3rd: The Castle of Cagliostro, but I’m not going to write about it because it didn’t make much of an impression on me. Nausicaa though, Nausicaa was good. It started out a bit slow, but once it took off it just never stopped. Air battles, land battles, plane crashes, random acts of violence, all sorts of crazy monsters, etc. I’m also watching Chrome-Shelled Regios right now, and I can tell it was inspired by Nausicaa. Just look at those crawling bugs and tell me they aren’t Ohmus.

Great soundtrack, fluid action, tons of twists and turns in the story, a lead character who is a borderline Mary Sue yet somehow manages not to be annoying, memorable side characters, a happy ending…what more do you want? This is a real classic.

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.

Chou (Super) Virgin manga review

A seven-volume romantic/cross-dressing comedy by Uchida Fujimaru. The protagonist is Hanazono Ippei, a middle-school student who suffers from the interestingly-named “Cherry Boy” Syndrome, which means he freaks out completely whenever he even goes near a girl. Thanks to that he fails an exam for a co-ed high school, which means he loses a bet he had with his dad and has to dress up like a girl and work in their restaurant.

However, Ippei finds out that as a girl he has no problem at all talking to girls and gets a crush on one of the customers on the same day. This is good news for him… right?

Uhh, not quite. It’s never that simple. Dressed as Ichiko, Ippei manages to win Rika (his crush’s) trust while simultaneously sort-of dating her as Ippei. And then there’s the fact that Rika is a pro-wrestler whose her arch-rival falls in love with Ippei, which means you’ve got the beginnings of a far-from-ordinary romantic comedy.

Chou (Super) Virgin! was pretty good, since it had a good balance of romance, action and comedy. Ippei gets involved in pro-wrestling, has to save Rika from the clutches of a rival (who then falls in love with Ichiko), has to navigate his way through several tiffs with Rika, and has to keep his secret from coming out while slowly getting over his Cherry Boy Syndrome issues.

The ending was happy, but left a bit to be desired. SPOILERS: Rika finds out about the deception and is rightfully mad, but then Ippei goes “I love you! I only did this because I love you!” and then everything is somehow okay again and they’re a couple. The ending shows he explained his problem to her and that she forgave him, but it really is sudden. And they haven’t shown how they’re going to resolve the issue of her being 19 and on her own and he being 16 and in school. 10 years from now it won’t even matter, but right now they’re at very different places in life.

But well, all’s well that ends well. It was a fun series, not too many wacky hijinks, an interesting cast, and a happy ending. Can’t ask for much more than that.