Tag: high school

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.

Ten yori mo Hoshi yori mo manga review

A classic shoujo romance manga by Akaishi Michiyo. Ten yori mo Hoshi yori mo is at least 35 years old at this point, but a good romance is a good romance. About the only thing “off” is the lack of mobile phones, which made me go “Why don’t you just call him! Oh wait…” many times.

The story is about three high school kids who find themselves with superpowers, the love triangle that develops between them and their quest to find out who they truly are and where those powers came from.

Since it’s that old, I don’t mind spoiling: The girl Mio, and her beloved Sou/Rei turn out to have been Shizuka Gozen and Minamoto Yoshitsune from ancient Japan, finally reunited in the present. The bad guy Tadaomi is Oda Nobunaga reincarnated, meaning he has nothing to do with those two lovers and is just an interloper. He most likely mistook Mio for someone else, but this is never gone into.

The series ends with all three getting shot by policemen who mistake them for monsters. Tadaomi jumps into a fire, and that’s the end of him. Mio and Sou walk into the ocean, where presumably they are finally together in death. It’s possible that Mio used her powers to shield them from the water until they got further away, but not only has she exhausted her powers stopping a tsunami right before, but they have also both been, you know, shot, so it’s unlikely. So yeah, it’s not a very happy ending.

As far as romances go it was good, though. There’s no waffling between lovers, no silly misunderstandings, no petty squabbles between the lovers and lots of love and mutual respect. Mio and Sou find each other early and stay true to each other in the face of adversity. The cast is also kept reasonably small, allowing the story to be focused and fast-paced. I like that. If all shoujo romance series were like Ten Yori Mo, Hoshi Yori Mo, I wouldn’t have a problem with them at all. Except for, you know, the whole miserable ending thing. I still recommend it as a very enjoyable read with memorable characters.

Hayate no Gotoku manga review

Hayate no Gotoku! a.k.a. Hayate the Combat Butler is an anime based on a manga series by Kenjirou Hata about a debt-ridden butler and the rich young girl who saves him. The story is pretty straightforward: Ayasaki Hayate’s parents rack up a debt of 159 million yen to the yakuza and take off, leaving Hayate to handle it. After a failed attempt to kidnap Sanzenin Nagi (the rich girl) for money, he ends up working for her as her butler and owing his debt to her instead.

I started out by watching an episode sometime in November and really liked it, but didn’t have time to really dig in until earlier this year. I spent a couple of weeks blasting through both seasons of the anime and then read the manga from chapter 148 onwards. I’d like to go back and read it from volume 1, but I’ll save it for another time.

I tend to prefer character-driven manga to story-driven manga anyway, unless the story is really good. HnG has a number of interesting and likeable characters (Hayate, Maria, Nagi, Tama, Hinagiku, Isumi) and not so interesting and not so likeable characters (Sakuya, Wataru, Saki, Klaus), but even the less interesting ones still make for a few good laughs.

I enjoyed the constant spoofs of and references to other anime and manga as well. I actually got a lot of them, which shows I’ve been watching too much anime… That said, I thought the quality of episodes in Season One was really iffy. Some were good, some were not so good. Later on I discovered that most of the ones I thought were bad were actually filler, which just goes to show that Hata’s unique touch isn’t so easily imitated.

Anyway, after putting the anime behind me, I’ve finally caught up to the current manga chapter, chapter 309. That was a whirlwind ride, especially the Mykonos arc where Hayate ran into his old flame Athena. I like Athena a lot. This is may sound like blasphemy to Hinagiku fans (of which I was one until Athena showed up), but I think Athena fits Hayate better in a lot of ways. She understands that he has feelings, that he’s often in pain, that sometimes that smile is just a mask. Hinagiku still doesn’t really know Hayate, deep down inside. To be honest I think the main frontrunners for Hayate’s affection right now are Maria and Athena, with Hina in third place. Athena x Hayate forever!

That being the case, I’m rather pissed off at this whole Alice arc, wiping out Athena’s memory and turning her into a kid again for 3 months. That puts a halt on any romantic development for the next 200 chapters or so. Boo! Hiss! Hata’s also added another girl called Luca/Ruka to the mix, we’ll have to see what she can bring to the party. It might be time to drop this for a while and see how things work out.