Densuke's Anime Review

Spice and Wolf

2008-07-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

Furries of the World Unite. I'm not really much of a Fur-person... other than the catgirls in Dominion Tank Police the closest thing to cat ears that ever did it for me was Makoto in Kanon - and she wasn't really being a fox at the time. This one is pretty odd. Lovestory... middle-ages young grain merchant travels city to city teaching wolf-spirit-girl (who has conned him into tagging along) the complexities of a pseudo-japanese middle-age mercantile system. Plot points range from cost of transport affecting sales to supply and demand crashes related to extenuating externality market adjustments to specie fluctuation in metals based monetary policies.

Needless to say, Horo the wolf gets confused a lot... and is really only interested in the man, the cart full of apples, and keeping away from shepherds. Hard to fault her there - as the long droll economics lesson gets pretty old. The Japanese choose some really screwy shit to build plots around. This one, I think, plays as some strange outgrowth of a complex game mechanic. It feels like someone built an anime out of a weird Nintendo DS game user manual (which, considering there is a game, might well be true). That said - there IS a really good dynamic to the relationship between these two - and yes it's certainly not 'new' territory - but that doesnt mean that a lovestory told slowly through struggle is necessarily a bad thing. Horo is wily and devious (as one might expect from a wolf) but with just enough of a sense of lonely fragility that she seems vulnerable (and enough of a dirty trick gleam in her eye that you're seldom sure how much is an act) - and watching her work Lawrence over the course of the series is classic tsundere anime fun. The atmosphere of this one is good... the art, the music, the expressions, the pacing - it all folds together very well. With only 13 episodes and no real compelling arc to the story it's only the boy/girl relationship that makes this worth watching - but that also means this is dialog-heavy for an adventure story. They do a great job flushing out this relationship - and it ends up being a bit more captivating than most. This one snuck up on me - and I found I kept watching it.

+++
clean art, Horo will make you appreciate tails

---
economics + furries = high barrier to entry
6/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: January 9, 2008 – March 26, 2008

Shion No Ou

2008-07-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

This is a show where the primary focus is shogi - a japanese board game that's a very complex version of chess (imagine chess where you can redeploy captured pieces). The main character is a teenager named Shion who, as a young girl, witnesses the brutal murder of her parents by a shogi-playing assailant (with whom she is forced to play a game at the scene). The shock of the murder leaves her unable to speak and she only communicates by writing. A neighboring family (where the husband is a shogi master) adopt the girl and, invariably, teach her shogi. So this is a story of a girl who plays shogi because it's all she knows - but also because there's a thread here that she can follow to maybe discover who killed her parents.

Crossdressing, detailed chess match conversations, adolescent love, dying family members and plot twists galore. This one may not be as complicated as the game itself but it's not rock paper scissors either. The art is clean - there are a LOT of red herrings thrown in to really muddy the plot (I swear at different points i had 4 different people i was convinced were guilty of the deed) and the shogi itself is actually portrayed in a way that makes the game interesting. Because it involves a game where there's a great deal of thinking - there needs to be a lot of internal dialog - so folding in the 'girl who doesnt speak' makes a perfect mesh.

Well drawn interesting characters with strong flat colors and a plot that really diverges from the typical fare make this one a good one - even though by the very nature of it being so different I'm sure it fell through a lot of cracks in terms of anyone paying any attention to it. The animation itself is rather simple as there really isnt a lot of movement in this show (afterall - it's not a martial arts action drama - it's much more the 'manga brought to screen' feel). Instead it's lots of zooming/panning facial expressions and simple clean lines. As for the plot, I do almost wish there'd been a different guilty party - because it left the ending a little anti-climactic - but it still holds up. There are no deep complex meaningful explorations of anything in here - most of that on what it means to be family - but they fall so far from Clannad on that front that it's hard to make the comparison. There are some good subtle bits in there on that one though if you're paying attention - so there's certainly some subtext to the show that makes it more than a simple crime drama.

+++
Interesting Story

---
Not the best use of medium
6/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: October 13, 2007 – March 22, 2008

Ghost Hound

2008-07-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

Scene: boy dreaming, reliving his abduction and the death of his sister in an abandoned building... giant ghost-like figures... unintelligible speech... it gets weirder from there... (no - really). This one is wild. A series about children who've been through traumatic experiences - and as a result (and a result of some local specific circumstances) have the ability to leave their bodies and travel the spirit world. Why and what's going on is the ride - and it's a complicated and menacing one. The pacing is deliberately slow - the direction is aimless at points (to create a sense of confusion) - and this is a WEIRD show - so altogether, of course, I liked it.

Plus - it's beautiful... the characters are complex and dont telegraph what's going on (you're dropped into the middle - and just have to figure it out as it goes). The mystical crap is bizarre in a 'wtf just happened' sort of way that keeps you paying attention... it's like a good japanese ghost story - and they keep the tension ratcheted up enough that there's always the risk of serious violence. This show is truly surreal - intentionally so - with a slow ponderous pace that thrives off the lack of action. It's terrorism 101.

In the end, the payoff isnt as solid as the buildup - which was a bit disappointing (but isnt that how it always turns out - eg that horrible smell coming from the chimney was dad dressed in a santa suit) - but it's not a gainax ending by any stretch. Also - they feel the need to have extremely complex psychological discussions out loud for most of the damned show - which leaves the show so caught up in the educational explaination for various events that you feel you've been watching Moyashimon's Microbe Theater. When they go pedantic - they go all out. Yet - it has just the right air of creepy visuals and music and just the right amount of complex tension between characters whose motivations come off as more complex than you'll grasp in the time you have before events unfold... it's a very adult storytelling method focused on kids (which is well explored territory for anime) and it works.

The theme music is creepy, the way they recap is creepy, the long pauses and thoughtful expressions are creepy, and the beautiful mountain village is doubly creepy. Production IG did well (Ghost in the Shell, Serei no Moribito) - it's good - not great - but better than most.

+++
beautiful and creepy

---
doesnt quite deliver
6/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: October 18, 2007 – April 2, 2008

Shakugan no Shana II

2008-07-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

The first Shana was great (even the dub version in R1 isnt bad - though i didnt care for the movie as much) - all the things Bleach wanted to be but failed at for 150 odd episodes. It was fast and furious and had interesting characters and a real sense of 'how is this going to end'. Shana II felt like the middle part of a book - the part where you've had your initial action fix to get you settled into your seat - and now you have to deal with the part of the action movie where they dont DO anything but sit around discussing how they FEEL about things and maybe what they should DO next. For that reason, a lot of those that loved Shana didnt care for Shana II.

I'm not really one of them. Shana II was expertly done. The only real problem here is that they had some serious pacing problems. The primary story arc they had could have been done in 13 rather than 24 episodes - easily - and even with all the subplot pacing problems people whined about with the first half of the season feeling slow, the latter half ultimately felt rushed. There are always going to be problems shoehorning slice of life sequences into what is, at heart, an action-tsundere showcase anime. Sure, seeing Shana ask 'how do you make babies' is funny, but was the 20 minutes of buildup to that joke worth it? We're here to see her kick ass and take names - not struggle with baking and dress up for the school festival (even if she is a cute dorothy).

Now maybe i liked it much better because i sat and watched it all at once. The pacing issues were less problematic because i knew i'd get to something interesting in an hour or so. The art is still fantastic, the voice acting still top notch, and the music was perfect. This is the best ongoing action franchise in the market right now - and it really is well done. I find I'm looking forward to the next installment - whether they resolve anything in that one or not... It doesnt ask hard questions (unless 'where do babies come from' counts) and i liked the way the interaction between players works itself out. Oh sure - it needed more fight sequences... but the lack didnt break the show - just made it a bit more complex - which wasnt a bad thing.

+++
tsundere lurve

---
pacing problems
8/10
Unlicensed in North America (might've been Geneon - not sure)

Original Run: October 5, 2007 – March 28, 2008

Rosairo + Vampire

2008-07-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

School harem comedy with an obsession with upskirt shots and risque innuendo. This one has maladjusted teen boy fantasy written all over it - no, really... Still - it's harmless as far as things go (and honestly mainstream anime has been really pushing the boundaries with shows like Kanokon and Kodomo no Jikan the last couple seasons - so a show as simple and goofy as this isnt really lowering the standards).

Basic fanservice plot - idiot human boy accidentally enrolled in school for monsters - hot vampire chick falls in love with him (along with hot 'insert-female-nonhuman-here' in successive episodes). Hilarity ensues (or so the theory goes). This one is right up there in the 'why are you bothering to watch this' category - and honestly i asked myself that on several occasions. I think it's more of a 'once you start you sort of have to see how it ends - even if insipid is a great word to describe the plot' - besides which, you have to torture yourself with one of these every so often just to see if the genre has gotten any more absurd. Verdict: it's no worse than Negima or any of the other harem comedies on that front - and there's nothing more than PG here when it comes to content - it's just another disturbing example of the japanese hikikomori fetish for short skirted schoolgirls and big breasts.

The art is clean - the fight sequences arent terrible - the characters are plastic (in more ways than one)... in the end it's no better or worse than what you'd expect from a show like this. You aren't getting complex character development or interesting animation in a standard harem comedy - that would defeat the purpose... so I guess it is what it is. Yeah, so the emo blue haired girl is hot... that happens more often than not. I've noticed a trend...

+++
The character art

---
The premise

4/10 -- only because you cant downrate a show like this for being what it is...

Unlicensed in North America
Original Run: January 3, 2008 – March 27, 2008

Clannad

2008-05-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

I dont know what to say. When Key decided to make a visual novel utterly devoid of adult situations or fan service - especially one focused on an exploration of the meaning of family - it was probably a risk. When you consider they built a monster of a visual novel - with over 62000 lines of text... and followed this up with drama cds and manga and serialized books and, well, yeah - lets make it simple - Clannad is an industry unto itself.

So Kyoto Animation wasnt going to be allowed to screw it up (not that there was really any risk of that - afterall they're really getting good at these). As with most visual novel adaptations, they take a lot of the elements from the various stories and tie them into a coherent whole. Sure, they leave lots of stuff out, but they have to - and for the purpose of reviewing any of these monsters you really have to look at what they actually bring as a complete coherent story rather than fold in the other bits.

First off - in my opinion it's not as good as Kanon. Now - that doesnt mean it isnt absolutely top notch - just that if I had to pick ONE as my favorite of the genre Clannad comes in a close second (and if you start counting superdelegates and florida in that voting you might end up with a different result). The way they meld the different arcs is top notch - they're a little heavy handed with the Fuko arc early, but hell, it's the heaviest of the stories - and the way they manage to bring her back throughout at the utterly inappropriate moments is comedy gold. This show is a comedy at heart - and they never forget to keep events light and fun while they're busy laying the drama on thick. In fact - this series is like genesplicing the funnier sarcastic comedy of Suzumiya with the dramatic sadness of Air - but what the animation scriptwriters accomplished here was, ultimately, a really well considered exploration of what it means to be family. Every relationship tells a story - every one - and it's a complex and deep one that feeds into the other stories (rewatch the series - you'll see what i mean).

I'll use an example to demonstrate the attention to detail and depth of character development... the twin sisters, where one is working diligently to see the other follow through on her love interest is all about sisters looking out for each other and doing things for each other that they'd never do for themselves. The only way I can describe it is that the characters ACT in this story - with a simple expression or a look - they say so much more than the script, and the script is nuanced. Film never asks this of actors, and when a film DOES have an actor pull a complex performance like this people talk Oscars.

Once again - because of the medium - just as you're ability to choreograph complex fight sequences or camera movements, anime allows a director to get exactly the right posture and lighting and tone - it's just that THESE are the guys who are showing how good it can be. I've seen it before - but once again here's an example of animation that should put real life actors to shame.

The art - what can you say. It's beautiful - exactly what you might expect from Kyoto. The music is perfect (except for one inset song in ep 9 which had me laughing inappropriately for the engrish). The voice talent hits all the right emotional buttons. And the script is really really well conceived - a run that isnt too long and isnt too short - and never wastes an ounce of time on garbage. In my mind the weakest point in the whole series is the Kotomi arc - and that's still well done (if a little on the fantastic).

+++
Perfectly told, Beautiful art, Great Soundtrack, actually funny

---
sometimes theres too much humor adjacent to dramatic situations
9/10
unlicensed in North America
Original Run: October 4, 2007 (TBS) – March 27, 2008

Gundam 00

2008-05-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big mecha fan - but pointedly i really never liked Gundam. It was always a toy in search of a story - like voltron for teens - with an absurd world government arc and too much focus on elitist crap that feels derivative of japanese imperial government - as such it never really captured my attention. So the latest incarnation was something i grabbed on a lark.

Damn. It's pretty. I mean... it's really pretty. Now - I'm writing this after the latest season of Macross started - for which i could have started with similar commentary and it's even prettier... so it seems that with the HD broadcasting the anime houses have decided they're going to pull out the stops and make some spectacular visuals.

But that gets us back to Gundam. Gundam is, well, it's a story about terrorists who're trying to make the world a better place. Now - over on THAT Crusader did a masterful job blogging this series - and a lot of my thoughts mesh with his fairly well on this subject. Making terrorists into heroes is not good - even if they are... and even if they're conflicted about being terrorists - and struggle with the questions of 'whats acceptable in terms of collateral damage'. Honestly - when you're the one determining what a viable target is to achieve your political goals, it's pretty easy to slip into some pretty ugly scenarios - and these guys do. Still - with them as the heroes of the story - its interesting - because the writers dont go to the 'all violence is bad' angle that you see so often in post wwII japanese thinking. There's a good discussion to be had on Gundam as it might apply to power and rights and violence for political ends... but lets not go there today (besides - Crusader really did nail it).

Basically this is a giant mess where everyone is a bad guy - except for the odd civilian who invariably gets in the way and gets limbs blown off or gets taken to an isolated parking lot (some guys are terribly unlucky it seems). How can they afford to kill off their characters - easy - Gundam is so chock full of characters it takes them almost 3 episodes of battling at the end to kill any proportion of them off (and leave enough loose ends they can easily burn down the leftovers at the going rate and still manage a full second season of celestial being fueled mayhem). There's so much going on - and so many people to keep track of - you never really care about any of them - and every sideplot arc fails laughably for the hamhanded stupidity in which it's assembled.

But it's still very pretty - the work on the mechs and the fight sequences is much better than the garbage from 10 years ago - and that counts for a lot in a show like this. Afterall - the characters are only really there to give you an excuse to let the gundams cut loose. Will it improve in season 2 - probably... there are fewer people, and now we have some serious mental instability in several of the side characters so we could see some much better subplots.

+++
good animation, did i mention it was pretty?

---
idiot characters - idiot plot - too much of both
6/10
Licensed by Bandai in North America

Original Run: October 6, 2007 – March 29, 2008

True Tears

2008-03-30T02:54:00.000-07:00

So, for the most part these romantic animes just suck. In fact - if they have anything to do with an eroge or games in general they generally REALLY suck because they're stuck with the lame assed plot devices that support all the alternate endings. Still, I usually give one or two a look each season just to see whether they've managed to do something interesting.

True Tears was one for the spring as a short series that grabbed me right off with the art and the characters. This may be the best drawn romantic comedy i think i've seen. Yes, it lacks the flair of EF, but it's so damned clean and bright - and they capture so much of the emotion in the eyes and facial expressions that they really showcase how well the medium is suited to a story like this - for all that it fails at it so very often. PA Works use a consistent series of watercolors at emotional breaks for emphasis - much the same way EF used strong color and to similar effect. You could break this show down, scene by scene, and use it to TEACH good anime storytelling -- rare doesnt begin to describe that.

Now, it's a sappy story - overly sappy at points in that way only Japanese anime and ABC Daytime can be... but they invariably rein it back in with a laugh before the sugar-induced seizures start. The plot isnt complicated - a trio of guys, a trio of girls, a serious mess re who's dating who... nothing you wouldnt see on The OC... except the girls keep their clothes on (almost NO fan service at all - thank god) and are fairly well conceived. The music in the show is a big plus as well - they use it better to set the mood and advance the emotional plot than anything in the last year.

Is this a girl story? yes. Did I like it? yes. Would they beat me up in mexico for that? probably. But it's well put together, the characters dont fall into the 'predictable' beyond the common stereotypical problems of being a teenager... and Noe is such a great love interest she puts exactly the right amount of chaos into an otherwise traditional story that the result is both unpredictable and refreshing. She's like coriander in a well reduced port braised tenderloin - it makes all the difference in the world. Then again, Noe is my favorite femme lead in a long time. She's got the pixie of NHK's Misaki, the 'a little broken' of EF's Chihiro, and the energetic but desperate love of life of Suzumiya... she's 2d Trouble with a capital T. This one's for the closet romantics - but without the 'i'm going to shred you' assault of the Fuko Clannad arc (or the, god forbid, Makoto arc in Kanon).

I'm not giving the plot away - but as it's one of those stories where, in the post Nice Boat era, you fear it's all going to end catastrophically in some sick pool of artificially black liquid... and not for any reason other than the Japanese seem to love to pull that stunt on you for no reason - i'll let you know it doesnt. Ep 12 does have a little Arkansas in it and I love the cliffhanger there (really pissed me off at the time though) - and they actually manage an ending where you feel like they didnt just deus ex machina the loose threads. Let's just say that no matter what sort of decision you're hoping for - the resolution of the series concludes the threads with an emotional masterstroke combo that would dislocate my thumb trying to reproduce on a PS2 controller - and no, that doesnt mean someone gets to scream 'fatality'

I'm glad they dont make more than one or two shows like this a year - I dont have time to watch much television and I'd really rather not start.

+++
beautiful story, beautiful art

---
nigh impossible for a school drama to be better than this
8/10
Licensed by Bandai in North America

Original Run: January 6, 2008 – March 22, 2008

Shigofumi

2008-03-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

'When you die - you're allowed to send a single piece of mail to one person to tell someone something you weren't able to say while you were alive. This is the story of one of the mailcarriers and the people affected by her deliveries'

Ok really cool premise but what will they - oh holy crap did that just happen? This show is serious - serious in a way that more than one of the episodes was delayed for broadcast on TV as having material that was considered objectionable for content. It pulls NO punches - and there were times when I was compelled to pause and walk away (and i'm a pretty cynical bastard). Some of this is really hard to watch... and it will surprise you.

I loved this show. It does run down a bit in the primary arc resolution - but so what... it's so strong right upto that point that if the end fails to capture an appropriate emotional climax i cant really complain. The minor arcs feed the major arc so well, there's nothing here that isnt top notch. There's a bit of Mushishi's feel to it as each episode stands powerfully on its own - but in these the main character is slowly dragged down into the plot.

The animation is well done - a lot of nice perspective work with a general high production value. The story is crisp and quick, without any of the hamfisted garbage we're used to seeing whenever highschool kids hit the screen. The absurd characters, like the father, dont lose their menace from being absurd - rather the opposite. The voice acting is appropriate - from the flat monotones of Fumika to the frustrated energy of Natsuka - it's well performed. This is a tight production - with everything coming off really well.

+++
brilliant and shocking

---
the animation was only above avg - and the end couldve been stronger
8/10
Licensed in North America by Bandai

Original Run: January 6, 2008 – March 2008

H2O - Footprints in the Sand

2008-03-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Contrary to advertising, this did not rock my soul.

No - instead we have another in a long long long line of 'Yet Another Idiot Harem' stories. It's saddled with the same copy and paste H-Game 'I have no memory' crap, the bevy of paper thin love interests, an episode at the beach, the hot spring, fireworks in Yakutas, the embarassing 'didnt know you were in the shower' sequence, etc etc... Now - with some other shows of this ilk - the art actually holds up, or they storyboard an inventive way to bring about said sequence - and with the first couple of episodes I thought that might be the case here.

Sometimes when they decide to make 'dramatic' anime - they really go whole hog - and do something that puts One Life to Live to shame. The only reason I bothered to give this one a chance was that with a blind main character I figured they'd have to be inventive and do something differently - but he regains his eyesight by the end of the first episode - and from there on out it's just flat and when it isnt it's absurd. The art is probably a little better than most of the stuff that fails to get subbed - but that isnt saying much. The fan service angle to the show evaporates quickly too - leaving us instead with a series of whiny tragic figures who are incapable of dealing with their own ridiculous problems and nothing else. It's not Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na - but it's right up there... and that's pretty rough.

I think the point where it really loses the plot (which is a terrifying comment for this show) would be episode 8 - where we run into magical girl Otoha - and the show suddenly stops trying to take itself seriously. Not that the show was doing well as serious drama mind you. It's just... god... just dont watch it...

Anime is a continuum - and the stuff I dont watch is usually much worse than the stuff i muddle through - but this one is about as bad as the formulaic entries in this genre gets. It's too bad - it was not a time of translucent clearness nor a solid juvenile renaissance... it was more like a bad asparagus fart in a small elevator.

+++
It's only 12 episodes long...

---
Everything else...

2.5/10 -- Beastmaster 2 in quality...

Unlicensed in North America
Original Run: January 4, 2008 – March 21, 2008

Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula

2008-03-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a film... a seminal work... and the plot went something like: In a post apocalyptic world War has been outlawed. In its place, are matches between large Robots called Robot Jox.

Gigantic Formula has taken the idea, combined it with a crappy cardgame concept, and shat a huge diahretic load onto the small screen. So - before I go off - let me talk about what i liked about this. I LOVED the artistic style of the characters... the giant almost creepy eyes, the use of cell shading shadow to give them depth and amplify movement, the artists drawing in subtle facial expression changes (which arent easy to do) - the reasonably good care taken to get the people of various nationalities drawn to look as if they came from said countries... and i love that the Americans are the bad guys and only Japan can save the world from the evil capitalist cheating warmongering Americans - and their govt is complicit in the cheating having been bought off. Yeah I'm burning up plot points here - but i dont care - there's so little good with this thing i gotta use what i can. It's overly dramatic... every episode or two focuses on the pilots of one of the other mechs as they struggle to feed the homeless or find love - and are ultimately obliterated by some other pair of equally deserving struggling people (see - war is bad...) The mech sequences are done in 3d - and folded into the flat backgrounds. Comparing that to, say, Gundam 00 gives you a feel for just how important it is to avoid doing this. Either draw it or dont. 3d rendering is for games... or for EVERYTHING (and when it's for Everything, like that crappy assed Beowulf or Jane the Dragon shite at least we can all avoid it like the horrible putrid puss-spewing sore that it is... mixing them together because you cant afford to draw all the frames leaves you with cheesy flat explosions that look like something they'd project up onto the wall with the enterprise when it's circling a planet. And forgiving the 3d animation, the fight sequences may be ok but when you know someone's going to die every episode you never really get terribly caught up in the characters.

Ok - it does have a happy ending... very much in line with

Achilles: You can live.
Alexander: Yes, if I kill you with this!
Achilles: We can both live!
Alexander: We are already dead. We are Robot Jox!

which shouldnt really surprise anyone. This felt like a big ad for bad toys - like Transformers only a lot prettier and better put together (it coulda been worse - i coulda said Voltron). The music isnt really interesting, the majority of the animation is subpar, the story is both too long and far too cliche... everyting they need to encourage them to make a live action version in Hollywood!!! oh wait... it's been done...

+++
The character art

---
Everything else...

3/10 -- to get below 3 you have to try...

Unlicensed in North America
Original Run: April 4, 2007 – September 26, 2007

Welcome to the NHK

2008-03-07T21:30:00.001-08:00

It's been my habit to review shows that are just ending before they've gotten to be licensed and distributed over here. Part of that is that most of the stuff from 4 or 5 years back is just so much total crap... and part of that is that if it's licensed there's likely a long review over at ANN or 7000 people who've rated the subbed release on Netflix... but this is an exception.

I'm not going to try to explain this one without giving up some of the plot - so here goes. Main character Sato is an unemployed college dropout who's afraid of life, crowds, people in general, and being remotely social. He's a NEET - think fark basement-dweller writ large - and he's gotten to the point that, somehow, it's all a conspiracy. Enter female lead Misaki who tries to save him...

This is your story.

It's complicated... he gets wrapped up in the things that keep him locked in his little apartment, from porn to Hgames to MMORPGs etc... he's a total complete mess - and she just keeps coming back trying to help him - until she cracks. When he looks like he might strike her at one point - she flinches in terror... there's depth and pain to these 2 characters - and they've got very different coping mechanisms.

People want to see what an adult-oriented anime can look like? this is it. The art isnt what you'd get in the mech-oriented titles - which is typical of the more thought-provoking titles, but there are no toys at stake here (though a Puru Puru Pururin ringtone would be *unforgiveably* annoying)... this takes on the dark edge of otakudom - we feel sorry for Sato but we cannot understand his paranoia. We root for Misaki but we dont understand how broken she is and the fear for her builds slowly but inexorably as Sato continues blissfully unaware...

It's a broken lovestory... one that's run full tilt into a complex hyperfast world that these two people just cant seem to find a way to find purchase in. It's dark - asks hard questions - and runs around the edges with comedic absurdity. There are hooks in this story - watch at your own risk.

+++
A hard subject to do as a comedy - but they pull it off

---
I would have ended it a little differently

7/10 -- was an 8, brought it down because it settles over time

Licensed by ADV for North America
Original Run: July 9, 2006 – December 17, 2006

Sketchbook Full Color S

2008-03-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

Sketchbook Full Color S is a slice of life story oriented about the actions of a shy art club student - focused primarily on her somewhat strange perception of the world, and all the while wrapped about her calm, quiet, artistic sensibilites. This is a guilty pleasure to watch... it would be great fare for the 7 yr old girl crowd (Kodomo - yes - though there's a shojo element here too) - as it never approaches hard lessons, just curiosity and wonder. It's sugary sweet without the sacharine manufactured feel of most slice of life stories, or any of the absurd magical girl ones that usually target this market segment.

Now - you ask - why the hell did I watch it. I grabbed an episode because I was bored - and it looked pretty and some people who liked Sola and EF thought it had merit... I have to agree. This show has something going for it - the art. It's a show about art - so the backgrounds are always these broad watercolor pieces offset by a simple piano melody... movement is through scenes that look like architect sketches... and there's never anything sudden. The underlying message - that the world is what it is and you move through it obliviously and full of wonder - well, that's pretty much my life. At the end of the day, it's very Pooh - and that's as high a compliment I can give.

The arc is simple... the characters clearly defined but fuzzy around the edges... nothing there for a 7 yr old to get lost with. It's short... there's no real plot... it just meanders - like a lazy stream on a sunny summer afternoon... and that's as it should be. There's no crisis... now - if, in the last episode, Sora had been hit by a truck crossing the street - it might have been the best anime of the year... but that's only because it would've gone from a simple tale of wonderment to one of harsh nihilism. Then again, I'm kind of an asshole - and that would've put untold numbers of little kids into therapy or, god forbid, encouraged them to Philosophy degrees - and we just Kant have that.

+++
pretty

---
i'm too old for this...
7/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: October 2, 2007 – December 25, 2007

Moyashimon

2008-03-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

Premise: a college freshman can see and communicate with bacteria spends his freshman year, umm, drinking sake and talking to fermentation bacteria - usually associated with some ungodly vile new foodstuff taken from the far reaches of the world's dietary basement. This stuff is so disturbing not even Simon would admit to eating it... and generally Simon's willingness to enjoy food seems to be directly related to how disgusting it is.

The art's crisp and clean - the anime coming out in 720p is just so strong and the general skill of the artists is so much improved everything you see is just that much better than stuff from 3 or 4 years back. There were moments when the art trancended the silly story... a pensive look... a bartenders smile... but it was always the unbelievably foul fermented food that brings it back down into the silliness - which is ultimately the real problem here. There's no real arc... the subplots involve, well, lets see... really - it just never goes anywhere. It just sort of happens - like cheese going bad...

There was an interesting look at Japanese college life - which is rather a different animal from that here in the west - a much more social experience (as is their high school time to be honest). But still - there's not much here that actually goes anywhere. That said - i gotta say - i liked it. Why? hmmm... crossdressing gothic lolis where you least expect them, implied drunken lesbic frenzy, sadist microbiologist TAs described as 'extreme-s' (though, to be honest, i think i'd risk it - hell who am i kidding... i KNOW i'd risk it)... i think there's some subtle 'what are we doing with ourselves' to this that they failed to capture from the manga - it needed another 2 episodes to flush that out and it might have ended up with an arc... but instead it's just, well, goofy - and just goofy enough to keep me watching.

Also - no review of this can go without lauding 'microbe theater' - the brilliant capstone to this series that goes into more detail about foot fungus and rotting flesh and influeza than you ever really needed to know. It's just brilliant.

+++
clean art, extremely hot TA, intelligent

---
too short to say anything
6/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: October 12, 2007 – December 21, 2007

EF - A Tale of Memories

2007-12-31T22:21:00.000-08:00

More japanese melancholy... more first love angst... more unbearably emo spew on the meaning of life - shows like this will turn the stomach of the Gurren Lagann crowd.

Still - this one is a mixed bag. Like many others of its kind - it came from an eroge. There are 2 primary story arcs matching the 2 different primary game arcs - and ultimately each of them needed more time than they got. One story is a simple lovestory that, when compared to the second, is really a waste because it doesnt get enough time to flush out. I would have loved to have seen it drawn out over 10 episodes or so - like the Shana/Kazumi arc in Shakugan no Shana. The fact is I really liked the characters in that arc, there was a LOT under the surface that they couldnt get to for time, and some of the sequences - like the one with the phone card ticking down - are just effing brilliant... The other arc - well - it's 50 first dates done with a LOT more depth and intelligence and caring - and a much much much more satisfactory conclusion. Both arcs use another storytelling medium to bring a different lens onto the tale - in one the eye of the videographer, in the other the slowly written fairy tale... Also - in stories like these - they have to stick to the original game script fairly closely (or incur the wrath of the 40k people who bought the games - and are the primary market for the CDs when they ship) - which i'm afraid might be a mistake here (though i cant really say since i never played the game).

What makes this show work - and it really DOES work - is the art. The artists really took chances here to tell the 2 primary stories as powerfully as possible - yes, some of the script is philosophically heavy, but the art will take color and in 2 seconds change the tone of the piece. It's a show you have to watch twice - and you have to watch it all at once.

Now - the subject matter. The idea of fluid memory as defining onesself is a subject i'm all too familiar with - the whole 'i married a borderline' thing comes in handy for something like this. Maybe that gave the Chihiro story more edge in my world - i dont know - but in that second viewing of even just the first episode there are nuances and little metaphorical flashes that round out the depth like the a good smoky mole or a bold pinot noir redsauce on a beef tenderloin.

What we have is a trend... a trend to tell these complex bishojo love stories (like Kanon or Shuffle!) as origami... but you need enough time to SHOW THE FOLDS or they dont work. In this case, if it werent for the art condensing the story, it would be unbearable. Instead - it's better than that - but unlike Kanon the story needed more fill to give one a proper sense of plot development. Still, Chihiro's story will haunt me for a while I think - and to me that's pretty high praise.

+++
beautifully drawn, intelligent

---
pretty damned emo
7/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: April 3, 2007 – September 25, 2007

Dennou Coil

2007-12-29T22:57:00.000-08:00

One of my biggest complaints about film is that as a medium - it is capable of much more than what it consistently fails to bring to fruition. When we see a Chekhov play and it all takes place in a single room - it works - it isnt boring, it doesnt try to be something it shouldnt... when cinema tries to stretch, like the climactic naval battle in Pirates of the Carribean III - we marvel at the spectacle and are thrilled by the visuals - but in some ways they're empty calories. For decades, Japanese animation was a medium that we tended to imagine filled with giant robots, epic and ultimately shallow space opera, or scantily clad for no good reason buxom girls causing blood to spurt from the nose of ultimately clueless male leads... that was then. Oh sure, we still have mindless space opera (hell, Macross is back after 25 years) and hollywood is busy mining anime of old for story ideas - but SF isnt all Gibson and Stross - it has plenty of pulp crap too - ready to fill the shelves and minds of its readers.

In the last decade we've seen the visionaries reaching into the medium to play at the boundaries... Lain is a good example - a story that begins very much in the real and moves to the overly fantastic in unexpected ways - though just as the magical 'black box translator' of 50s sci-fi days - fantastic taken to such degrees makes bridging the chasm to human condition too difficult for too many to cross. I cannot detail the remarkable use of the fantastic in the arc without giving away something precious - so i'll simply say that it takes remarkable storytelling to USE the predjudices of the observers to imply the tale. This brings us to Dennou Coil. If I had to pick ONE anime to showcase the medium - and how it can be used to tell a meaningful tale - this would be it. If someone wanted to understand why someone with the education and critical thinking skills that I posess would sit around watching cartoons - this is a good example.

Dennou Coil starts with children - using the child's view of a technological future to allow us to come to grips with it through their eyes. In our current theory of life the universe and everything - there are critical points in time in human development - points where decisions are required so quickly that there is no time left to reflect... or where technology grows faster than our ability to tie ourselves to it... In Dennou Coil - the world feels somewhere near one of these singularities - and we all know that when you get close to singularities things get weird. So here you have children - living on the verge of a Strossian 'our online personas as an extension of ourselves have become components of our being' (sure Stross dives into that one a bit more meatily in his short stories but this IS a cartoon...) - and we have the classically japanese existential ghost story in the machine - all brought to screen THROUGH protagonists who are and never seem to be more than children.

As children, they fashion mythologies for what they see and do not understand - and slowly, oh so slowly, do the realities come to shine on their mystical imaginings. As time progresses - the truths are uncovered - and the nature of the particular problems and philosophical questions of this distributed unreal reality become much more adult and far more frightening. The lack of a grand gob of hubris - that the actions of the heroes are never more complex than saving loved ones - never ratchets down the tension in this series - quite the opposite. This thing builds and builds and, like the fog, gets creepier and more compelling as you come to see that this story is just much more complicated than the children ever imagined.

The art is very Miyazaki in style. Its full of soft pastels - with clean lines and a very nicely stylized vision of a mixed cyber/real world. The score plays perfectly with the story - playing your emotions subtly as things get more chaotic. The voice acting is top notch. The humor feels genuine rather than sitcom. And the primary arc is a freaking masterpiece.

This is the Snow Crash of Anime. It will change the genre.

This is what Japanese educational television shows its children. We show ours Barney.

+++
In many ways - the best of the 2007 series

---
Some minor arcs should have tied to the main more
10/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: 2007-05-12 to 2007-12-01

Goshūshō-sama Ninomiya-kun

2007-12-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

Fall season is drawing to a close, and as such some quality series are coming to and end. This isnt one of them. No, this is - in fact - the other thing... one of the most random harem comedies i've seen - there was never any telling WHERE this thing was going, the characters weren't consistent from week to week, hell - i didnt know what was going on pretty much most of the time. What did I know? well... Mayu - the one of 2 main character succubi - has a fear of men (which kinda sucks for someone who has to absorb their lifeforce or die) and loves the male lead (along with the other girls in the show... it being a harem comedy). There is hot succubus-on-succubus action, ninjas, paramilitary organizations for no reason whatsoever, and absurd degrees of fanservice in pretty much every episode. This is pretty much everything that's wrong with anime... only talking animals and transformation sequences would have made this monstrosity worse.

Yes - I watched it - the way one watches a trainwreck. I wondered 'where are they going to take this...' - and though i nearly dropped it several times - eventually i just wanted to see it through. The music was cute... the fanservice was, well, inventive (for all that fanservice can be inventive).

I cant suggest anyone waste their time on this... it's not *bad* for what it is - hell - the fact that they dont bother with even TRYING for a plot is actually a positive. The 'lost memories -> flashbacks' crap isnt just used in this one - it's ABUSED. Hell, half the damned show happened 10 years ago... and most of that was an axe-grinding exercise that was beyond rational thought. The sad thing is - there really were worse shows this season - a lot of them - and there's the possiblity they'll decide to have a second season.

+++
silly and harmless

---
as brainless as Mayu
4/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: October 4, 2007 – December 20, 2007

Seirei no Moribito

2007-10-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Though this wasnt my favorite of the spring series, it was by far the best.

Generally, I dont like action anime. They're usually silly or boring or built around some idiotic story arc that just flat out blows goats. I'm supposed to care about Inuyasha's girlfriend? give me a freakin break - maybe if i was 8... they're built for the least common denominator of the my balls just dropped crowd and i swear i'd rather watch Maury (and no, i am NOT the father).

Now, most times when you're looking at someone trying to do adult martial-arts anime - say a samurai/martial arts series - you're looking at yet another retelling of the old Yagyu Jubei tales - and its either overly artsy (and thus they use red ink the way Bill Sienkiewicz used black when drawing Warlock) or they're stylized with some pseudo-western gangsta attitude or they're flat and adolescent and just arent very interesting. Well - this one breaks all those stereotypes - this is fantasy-bushido anime done right... the story is solid with complex and internally vibrant backgrounds, the animation is so much better than anything else this season it's not in the same league... the action sequences are state of the art in a way that i just havent seen anyone ever deliver on - the choreographed action sequences are just that good. The color, the shadows, the lack of side-sliding backgrounds, the animated extras, the open by L'Arc en Ciel, the absolutely stellar voice acting, the perspective shifts on drawn characters... this series represents a massive amount of work and a real love for the content. This is as adult in a 'non-fanservice way' an anime as i've ever seen and it's a great example of what CAN be done with animation that those formula-tards at Pixar dont get.

Not only that - but this is based on the FIRST novel in the 10 volume Guardian series of japanese fantasy by Nahoko Uehashi - so there's the possibility they'll continue it.

There's nothing 'deep and complex' about this... it's a coming of age story with some good 'life lessons for young people to learn and live by'... but there are no lurking Liliths... no RahXephon existentialism... but there is a lot of 'black and white isnt always black and white'and though it may have started out as a fantasy series for children (like Potter), there's enough meat to it to make it really entertaining for an adult audience.

What's wrong with it? Well, it was licensed before it aired... so you're going to have to wait for some sad R1 licensor to let some full of herself american voice actress to maul Balsa's character before you'll get your hands on it - and since that licensor is Geneon who freaking knows when there'll be a domestic release. The story is NOT fast and furious - it takes its time to build and isnt filled with lots of side-plots that give you any real breakpoints. It watches like a novel - one you dont really want to put down.

+++
Perfectly told, Beautiful art, Great Brute Force Arc

---
Lacked the subtlety of Kanon
9/10
Licensed in North America by Geneon.
Original Run: April 7, 2007 – September 29, 2007

SOLA

2007-10-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

This is a soft story - a seinen series with a slightly more female bent... sorta. It's fairly complicated (for a short run) - which means there's no wasted effort and it stays tight and clean. It's also very different. Yes, there's some action - and it comes at you from a direction you really dont anticipate - and I wont give it away.

So you know - this is one of those stories with mysterious strangers, girls with magical powers, unrequieted love by a long-time-friend of the main etc... lots of cheesy elements that the story didnt need. It could have cut most of that stuff out - in fact should have done so - and given us more depth between the principals. However, the relationships are well done (albeit somewhat archetypical). The ending is also... well... it's another one of those endings that is just perfect. They really should make Gainax watch stuff like this.

The focus on the sky - through the photography - ties straight back throught he storyline. It's not just a hook for some pretty pictures - it's integral. The main femme - Matsuri - has the prettiest voice in anime (Mamiko Noto) - and she puts an element of softness and detachment into it that really sets the character (and yes - it's a very different tone than that of Else in Gunslinger Girl or Yuka in Elfin Lied (other roles). It's her voice that i remember the most... in the same way you remember the vampire pale blue eyes with the black ring around the iris - not to let real life interfere with my review... The art is pretty - the animation good but not spectacular.

The pacing is great. The story never stalls - and every event leaves you just getting settled when it shifts. The deneoument is critical to the story - doesnt feel forced - and in a way sells the ending.

For what this one is - it's great.

+++
pretty, nice surprises, great story

---
not enough depth to the art, too many characters
7/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: April 7, 2007 – June 30, 2007

Lucky Star

2007-10-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

I didnt expect this one. A comically drawn series about 4 high-school senior girls and their lives is really NOT my thing... or it shouldnt be... Originally based on 4-panel comic content, the angles and jokes are are a little hit and miss vs the translation at first - but the style of humor grows on you. It is subtle = a soft humor that isnt funny so much as amusing... they'll run a gag MUCH longer than they should - and drop punchlines that arent funny ha ha but funny smile - which of course makes it absolutely priceless.

The sightgags are a riot... the observations re nerd-culture are spot on... the fact that they revisit established jokes gives it a 'hare krishna muppet movie' continuity you dont expect - and you slowly begin to really like these girls. Tsukasa is probably the cutest underage blue-haired girl since Ayaname Rei - and might well be the most Moe character ever conceived. Kaganami is a perfect foil for Konota - and Konota plays the jerry seinfeld observant humor card in a japanese 17 yr old female otaku style that would make Larry David weep - if he werent too old to be watching this...

Yes - to really get a lot of the humor you have to have watched some of the original material... i mean, if you havent seen Haruhi then you wont understand why Konota doing the Haruhi dance at the maid cafe is so spot on... or the Kanon plot 'late excuse' in ep 5... or Tsukasa in the Air parody in ep 6 on the beach... etc etc... but it's still funny (just not AS funny)

This show is comedy done right (unlike Scrubs). The end credits are a riot - whether its the first half of the season with the girls in a kareoke bar - or the second half with the voice actors doing live performances... the 'lucky channel' spots are a cynical take on the underbelly of voice-acting anime that's great to watch (Akira being one of *my* favorites on the show, whether anyone else appreciates her or not). Oh sure, if you dont like anime you wont like this... the cutesy art will give some people type 2 diabetes for sure... and it could have done with a very little tightening up re the fill rate in some of the stories... so it was rolling along as 'damned good'... but there's a point towards the end where the writers know they have you nibbling on the bait and they set the hook and it crosses the line.

There were other series i liked this summer... but it turns out that this one was my favorite - and i'm really going to miss it.

+++
Piled high with inside jokes - but not snooty about it

---
Sometimes they miss and its not on purpose

8/10 -- which means watch it (cause not much gets a score that high)

Unlicensed in North America
Original Run: April 8, 2007 – September 16, 2007

School Days

2007-10-09T02:56:00.001-07:00

It's a lot easier to review shows I like - because I stick through the whole damned run without feeling tortured. I've seen a lot of crap - and abandoned it... stuff that *should* have been good - with great artists and great ideas - but bored me senseless. I suppose the humor fails to translate sometimes... or the story just isnt good... or the damned thing looks a bit too much like Yamato...

Straight off - this anime is a giant intentional trainwreck. They create a situation with about as much tension and stress as they could come up with - and then they resolve it... (imagine Lost with an NC-17 rating and Dennis Hopper as the lead) So in this review i'm absolutely going to give shit away - so get the fuck out if you're going to watch this one.

Still here? Ok. This one goes stabby stabby poke poke... you watch this, you'll root for one character, then another, and have such a rolling series of people you absolutely hate by the end of it you'll be happy with how it plays. This anime is freaking disturbed. It starts with a famously violent Eroge and damn if it doesnt abso-smurfly deliver on the premise - so much so that a random act of violence by some moron kid who attacked his parents with an axe caused the broadcasters to delay the finale a day (resulting in 22 minutes of travel photos shown instead).

The art is ok... it's a little 'standard faire' but it doesnt detract (even after the severe edits the final episode underwent there at the very end). There's no music of note. The dark elements get telegraphed - it foreshadows well - with lots of creepiness in the corners if you're looking for it (which makes it either better or worse depending on your angle) - in fact its that sense of 'oh my god - this is such a freaking trainwreck' that kept everyone watching. The characters aren't believable - they change motivation and direction way too much - but that's the whole idea... make it worse and worse and worse until everything explodes. Sekai starts out as this fairly shy bumbling kid but manages to make absolute prick in about 4 episodes... he might be the most hated anime character in a loooong time... he's an anti-hero that, perhaps, makes a statement about the mysogynistic sexual-predator attitudes found in many of the for some odd reason accepted sexual predelictions of the japanese male culture... but only if you want to read something profound into it. Maybe that was the intent - but instead it feels more like and exploration of chaotic anti-social behavior (i certainly didnt get a 'and the moral of the story is' feel at the end...) There's better twisted stuff out there. Dont waste your time on this one.

+++
ok art

---
just wrong
3/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: 2007-07-03 to 2007-09-27

Claymore

2007-10-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

Gory and violent - but not in the psychologically disturbing way of Elfin Lied... and maybe that's one of the reasons it's not as good. Still - it's girls with swords cutting up demons - how cool is that!? The art style is distinctive too - flat colors, lots of matte and desaturated color (no, it's not the xvid compression - that's really how it is). For an action drama - this just flat out works.

It's a simple concept... good girls with superhuman powers fighting man-eating shapechanging demons... and they do it with no fanservice at all (unless you like the whole steel breastplate look). They spend a bit too much time worrying over their rankings - which can be a little annoying (esp when it distracts them from tearing into the bad guys) - but there's plenty of complex choreography to the fight sequences

The main is rock solid... the story arcs tie up well - no corner cutting - and they actually manage a couple of GOOD 'holy shit did that just happen' surprises. The only thing I didnt like about this one was the tendency for them to tell stories over 3 or 4 episodes (which is great for depth and complexity - and they really do tend to animate a LOT of action in the fights - but in a story like this you really want to follow the action immediately rather than have it extended over a long period). So if you're going to watch it - just plan to watch it all.

I dont like the girls constantly testing each other - and the aspect of the story where powers and skills seem to be related to some sort of 'class' system is a result of people who play games thinking they can script storylines... but i've always been a sucker for girls who kick ass and take names. There's nothing subtle here - so it's really never going to crack into the 8+ range - but for what it is, it's well done.

It needed more closure, suffered from the 'this is drawn out because we've run out of ideas' problem, and had a few too many bouts of sequences that probably worked in storyboard or in manga but when brought to animation were too long. This is a good example of a comic book brought to animation - for good and bad - and so long as you're willing to just suffer through the parts you'd read through quickly (but cant) then it's damned good.

+++
well drawn, nice surprises, decent story

---
repetitive, unoriginal
7.5/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: April 3, 2007 – September 25, 2007

Kaze no Stigma

2007-10-03T23:35:00.000-07:00

It's not Shana... but you do have a redhead (well, more hot pink) tsundere with a flaming sword running around killing bad guys - so you'll forgive me for the comparison. It's not bad to be honest - there's a snarky humor to it. In the manga, the main character Kazuma is a bit of a 'Punisher' type - he tends to leave a trail of bodies whenever he's solving a problem, and though the anime tones that down a lot - if you know that you can see it. This one is almost a prototypical 2007 anime... all the girls have wildly different colored hair, there are many 1 sentence background rationales for people acting the way they do, there's loss and suffering, and it all ends fairly well. The 'magical' attacks feel like they were made for a TCG. It's one of the series that tries to be all things... and as a result it never gets beyond doing them adequately. The art is fine - though at times skimpy when not focused on environmental effects... the tendency to show upskirt shots of the heroine as she's fighting are comically inappropriate but there's nothing sexual. The side characters are actually interesting in this show - though they do tend to get thrown away and the story goes downhill a lot in the climatic story arc.

There's some good material here that's unexplored... it could have been darker if they'd spent more time dealing with more of Kazuma's past but they waste too much time on filler episodes and the crappy end arc. I dont understand how the japanese screw up their anime arc construction so many times... it's beyond me. The fact is there's a LOT more depth to the on-paper material... i wish they'd taken the chance to cut/carve/retell it here in a way that might have exposed more of it.

Still - Kazuma and Ayano are funny (sarcastic leads go a long way with me)... and i liked the Ren/Ayumi arc (and the show's willingness to flush out the mains through flushing out the side characters)... what's there is well acted and well done... there's a spirit to this one that kept it off my trashheap - and that's not an easy thing to do.

+++
funny, well drawn with several decent arcs

---
some silly stories, average in too many ways
6.5/10
Unlicensed in North America

Original Run: April 11, 2007 – September 20 2007

Kanon (2006)

2007-10-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

How, pray tell, does one contrive a compassionate morality play from an x-rated video game... ask Kyoto Animation, the makers of Kanon.

I'm not sure how I'm going to review this. The fact is I loved this story - loved it in a way that I haven't loved an anime since Haibane Renmei... and in ways I loved this more. I think I'll go with the negatives first to get them out of the way. Some dont like the artistic style - the eyes wide as saucers look should be reserved for trolls who eat Gruff billygoats... but who are they kidding - this is an anime... eyes are always going to be bigger, more reflective, and more expressive than they are in real life. It's kind of a requirement - and so long as they're not freakish and nightmare invoking like Keane or Franca then let em roll with it. Another downside - the game aspect of the story. It's based on an Eroge - so we're dealing with a harem - one guy, many girls, classically lost memories... and thus you have the extremely common problem of 'how do you tell all the girls stories in a linear manner' without making a real mess of things. There's no question there's a problem there... but having seen several of the other attempts to do so I think they do an adequate job of keeping things on the right track. I think the harshest criticism comes from those that think Inuyasha and Naruto are great storytelling - people who would say something like 'Kanon is a boring moe fest for pedos'... well, all i can say is this one might be over your heads (not that i'm ridiculing anyone for their tastes... but... yeah... i guess i am).

So let's talk about what makes it work so well. This story is meta... you have several major overlapping stories (built atop Pachabel's Canon in D of course) oh and Kanon, coincidentally, is the japanese name for the Bodhisattva of Compassion(Quan Yin is a very complex character, and there are so many soft ways i can see evidence of influence in the making of this it cant be coincidental)... So you have a series of slowly building miracle/compassion stories - that add to each other as they are played out and cycle on their common themes. The artists went deep into the storyboards too - making sure there were little hints, foreshadows here and there, background events moving across the primary action that tighten the story and the round as you watch it a second time -- every movement, every nuance, is intentional.... people in backgrounds, comments that are made that might be taken in multiple manners, all intended specifically to build on the math -- and i'm watching it in translation... There are any number of tiny little vignettes... a bell tied to a key... a girl leaving a hospital... a large fox in a forest... there are layers of turtles to this one - but at no point does one need to be aware of them all to be struck by the point.

Somebody loved this story - loved it enough to tell it right...

The complexities aren't as in your face as, say, RahXephon - but they can't be (it's just not built to be that philosophical) - and the story is in no way less poignant.

Yes - it's cheesy and campy and it makes me sad and i dont fucking care.

+++
Perfectly told, Beautiful art, Great Soundtrack, no Gainax ending here - this thing ends the way it must.

---
VERY minor story collision issues
9/10
Licensed in North America by ADV.
Original Run: October 5, 2006 – March 15, 2007

El Cazador de la Bruja

2007-09-30T23:51:00.001-07:00

What do you get when you take a Female Bounty Hunter, a girl with magical powers, a lot of el mariachi scenery and redshirts, and a mysterious nefarious organization that wants to, umm, follow her around? Well - you have El Cazador de la Bruja - not your run of the mill anime. First off - it's pretty - and generally I like pretty (no ex-wife comments please - i'm well aware of my penchant for pretty things no matter how much trouble then tend to cause me)... Pretty works for me. Most TV anime try to cut down on animation frames as much as possible, and scrimp as best they can on things like turning heads and 3/4 angles. Well - this is very much a 'made for tv' anime - but they do such a great job with the beautiful backgrounds that, well, it makes up for the budgetary constraints. The artists still fail regularly with perpective and distance shots - and there's very little movement where the action is so well drawn as to suspend the 'cartoon' aspect of the show. It's cute - but it's certainly lacking in something more complex. They shade well... flip from crisp to soft focus very well... and some of the choreography is well conceived... but it still has too much of the 'storyboard' feel that you get reading manga.

From a plot standpoint, well, there are too many animes out there where the sidekick female has some sort of mental problem (again, please refrain from the ex-wife commentary... my radar is pretty well tuned to that particular truth as well). It's as if part of the formula is #2 girl must lack the ability to understand complex issues - thus allowing for humorous interactions. Ellis is just too dumb - now maybe there's a reason she's so dumb - but we're well into the endgame of the series before Ellis begins to assert herself at all. In general - the characters are fairly copy and paste... not much to them. The weird alien stalker child who seems to be of the same ilk as Ellis is a freak - in that classically 'gory for the sake of being gory' style that is so very japanese... - and his whole monomolecular bracelet weapon thingy is a bit out of context for the show. He's like a crazy young Desslok with a William Gibson toy - yet another mishmash of character components. I think a lot of anime are like this - take all the components from last year, put them into a meat grinder, and spit out a result that really doesnt inspire the artists. This is why in the west it's the comic artists that tend to end up being the ones who grow into writing books - because to them its about expressing their art within the confines of a storyline.

Now - put it all together and you'd think you'd have a bit of a waste on your hands - but in this case you'd be wrong. For all those negatives - i still didnt mind watching this one - and i stuck through it all season. The music is very well done... the pacing is perfect for the storyline - and you never feel like you're not moving. Way too many times you get to the 'filler' part of a season and they lose the audience... here the plot pacing is never quick, and the episodic nature of the stories as they travel along the road slowly but surely build the characters.

+++
Light fanservice, great soundtrack, beautiful colors, above average art

---
Below average use of animation, a story that's a bit too simple and a bit too regurgitated

7/10 -- which means watch it (cause not much gets a score that high)

Unlicensed in North America, and Subbed by Starlight Fansubs
Made by BeeTrain
Original Run: 2007-04-02 – 2007-09-24