Mikakunin de Shinkoukei / Engaged to the Unidentified

Mikakunin de Shinkoukei: C

The plot's not that good but there's several good gifs to be had from it.

So I stumbled on this show by finding a modified video of the closing with characters from the creepy otaku game I've been spending all my time on lately and that made me curious enough to watch the series.  I wasn't really disappointed, but it certainly wasn't much to write home about.

A mildly romantic, mildly comedic, mildly slice-of-life story about a girl who meets her prearranged fiance on her sixteenth birthday... and later finds out he and his precocious little sister aren't quite human.  Exactly what they are is never explained, and the cast felt fairly recycled: a single male, big, quiet and protective, only rarely taking part in scenes, the secretly perverted student council president older sister, the extremely attractive, domestic heroine and the precocious little sister all felt like I'd seen them before.  The hint of mystery of the brother and sister not being human is the only original part of the series, and it's not explored deeply.

Animation is fine, execution is competent but there's just not a whole lot here.  I say it's mildly romantic: but it's definitely not a romcom.  It's mildly comedic: cute and occasionally giggle-worth but never actually funny.  It's mildly slice of life: but there is the vaguest thread of a plot to hold things together and advance... without changing or resolving much.

It's not a bad show, the characters have a few charming moments: once you know the very vaguely explained basis for what the male character's 'not-human' nature is he actually becomes fairly charming in his stoic way, and the kind of slow slumping in love the heroine does does is cute, and watching the littlest sister run in terror from the eldest sister trying to make her adorable gets a snerk out of me. But there's no substance to it, it is exactly what it looks like, no deeper readings or secondary interpretations or much to hold your attention.  It's not good watching anime, but it's probably fine background anime.

I wouldn't really recommend Engaged to the Unidentified to anyone who was looking for anything more than something to fill the time.  I wouldn't actively recommend against watching it, either, though, so if it sounds or looks like your thing, by all means, enjoy.

Girls und Panzer

Girls und Panzer: D+

So it's about pretty much exactly what you'd expect from the title.

In a parallel world where Japan has entire girls' schools on floating aircraft-carrier-like cities for no adequately explained reason, there is some sort of martial art or practice called "sensha-do" literally "the way of the tank" that young women engage in which basically means they drive WW2-era tanks into battles with each other.  Despite the fact that they use live rounds and take place in real terrain and sometimes real urban areas, these battles are considered completely safe and nobody ever gets hurt.  Nishizumi Miho transfers to a school without a sensha-do club to get away from her attachment to the sport but is promptly convinced that she should take it up despite her direct desire not to because her only friends thus far think it sounds fun and because the student council says she should.

Really, I can't help but draw parallels to Saki, in that the entire thing is haphazardly thrown together to create a world in which high school girls are totally obsessed with the same thing that the manga author is totally obsessed with.  And, while I'm not a big fan of historical tanks (though I do like to read WW2 history on wikipedia sometimes), y'know, the show kind of makes me want to go download World of Tanks and give it a whirl.  So I guess that's a point in its favor.  Tanks are cool, girls piloting tanks is cute and cool.  Right?

The real problem is that G und P is badly written and poorly executed.  The characters are flat, the story is transparent, the pacing is a mess.  There is no verisimilitude, the cast is too big for anyone to really have an arc or a personality, and the major plot twist is the most blatant, weak attempt to raise stakes I've ever seen.  The real tragedy is that in the action sequences, the visual tension of just sharing the girls point of view as they look down the barrel of a tank gun while speeding through empty cities is tense enough that we don't need the arbitrary stake-raising.

There's also some bizarre cultural stereotyping where the other schools that we spend the majority of the story fighting against in the tournament are all inexplicably themed after foreign nations, despite being Japanese, so we have the British school, the Russian school, the German schol and the American school... even though the main characters aren't particularly Japanese-flavored, they're just regular girls.

But I can't hate Girls und Panzer, it's just so derpy and utterly lacking in anything worth praising that it's almost cute.  (Also it has Kana Ueda in it, <3.)  And it's not offensively bad like Sekirei or Infinite Stratos 2, and there's no single glaring error like Utawarerumono, Alter Memory or Mondaiji, it's just overall a weak show with weak characters and a weak, predictable plot and... actually pretty competent animation.

If you want to watch some animated tank battles interspersed with girls, sure, go ahead, I guess.  I won't make fun of you for watching Girls und Panzer unless you try to tell me that it was objectively good.

Hataraku Maou-sama!

Hataraku Maou-sama!:  B+

The title is a little hard to translate due to Japanese constructions, the official translation is "The Devil is a Part-Timer!" which I think pretty bad, but whatever.  This is the story of the Dark Lord Satan (not the actual biblical Adversary, just a demon lord that shares his name) losing the ultimate battle between good and evil on his home plane and like any good villain fleeing to another dimension so that the brave Hero has to pursue him for all eternity.

He comes out on Earth, finds out that his evil sorcery works a little different here and has to work at McDonalds to pay his rent.  The Hero follows him and she winds up working in a call center.  Since she's constantly keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't try anything really evil, everyone keeps mistaking her for his ex.  Neither of them is amused, nor is the cute high school girl who works the same shift as the Dark Lord, now going by "Maou Sadao".

The show does an excellent job of balancing the humor of the premise with genuine drama when people from the Dark Lord and the Hero's home plane come to try to finish things.  The characters are flavorful and engaging, the pacing is good and the series does a good job of maintaining a proper level of tension.  I particularly love the Hero, Emi, as a character, she really does give a sense of genuine heroism, while also being an interesting character in her own right.  She's even well-contrasted with the Inquisitor who has made so many sacrifices in the name of "good" that she doesn't really know what's right any more.  While I wouldn't say that the show is a brilliant discussion of 'real' good and evil, it certainly brings the arbitrariness of the words into question.

If I have to criticize it: the ending could be better.  The final battle is a little anticlimactic and comes at the end of the 12th, not 13th, episode, so Ep 13 is just kind of... there.  Hopefully it's setting itself up for a second season, which I feel like it could use to really make some statements, but it loses some points for that.

It's not deep, it's not brilliant, but it's fun and it's funny and it's good.  I actually can pretty broad-strokes recommend it to anyone who the premise appeals to, though if you're looking for depth you won't really get it here.

Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko

Henneko: C+

The Pervert Prince and the Stony Cat (the word 'Warawanai' literally translates as 'unlaughing' but the official translation is 'Stony') was a show that grabbed me in the first episode, I watched two episodes and I was stunned at how good the core concept was.  A fairly standard 16 year old boy with only slightly less control over his libido than is healthy realizes that he's made a habit of lying, putting on a facade ("tatemae" is the Japanese word, a complex term that is usually read "face" but doesn't translate well).  A friend of his informs him that there's a cat statue that, if you offer something you don't need, will grant you a wish.  So the boy goes to ask the statue help him be more honest.  When he gets there, he meets a young girl who has also come to make a wish, to help her act more grown-up.  Wishes being what they are in every form of fiction ever, things don't quite go as planned: the boy loses his ability lie or even internal monologue, and the girl becomes unable to express emotions.  To add further confusion: another girl gains the boy's facade, but becomes incapable of telling the truth, much like he had been.

This set up is a) very funny, and b) absolutely ripe for a fascinating discussion of the concept of deliberate deception for the sake of social graces, the idea of privacy, the benefits of being unable to lie and the difficulty of living when you are completely unable to show expressions with your face.  The main character comments during the second episode, "We're all broken... none of us are really able to be ourselves."  I thought that was a genius place to start a story, there was a lot of room to work there.  The first two episodes really got my hopes up.

Tragically, the flaws don't remain throughout the series, some of them get fixed, and so the series goes on to have the cat statue (and the god that grants its power) basically rain havoc on the characters' lives whenever they so much as dare to make a wish.  Later, we even bring in another character to make wishes to confuse the issue further.  The execution and animation are functional but the real damning factor is the noncommittal writing.

Henneko is not bad.  The first three episodes are pure genius and I will watch them several times, very likely, and the ending is actually heartful and sweet.  The entire middle section, like 7 episodes, is a mess.  If you want to see a half-hearted twist on the Emotionless Girl, or just want to watch a cute romantic comedy with a couple handfuls of substance, go ahead, Henneko is pretty fun.  But it doesn't live up to the genius of its initial arc, nor does it really have much to offer the diligent viewer.

Yuyushiki

Yuyushiki:  C+

It happens a lot, right?  One show comes out about something and six months later the world is aflame in copies.  In this case, Yuyushiki is copying another show that starts with Y-U and is as slice of life show about middle school girls.

And really, I don't have a problem with the copying, if you're going to copy something copy something good, and Yuru Yuri was good.  Yuyushiki (literally 'yu yu style', or maybe 'yu yu ceremony'; all three main characters' names start with 'Yu' and the 'shiki' character has a lot of definitions) is also good, but less brilliant.  Like most slice of life series, I don't have a lot to say about the plot, though the fact that the girls are the computer research club (seriously the Japanese can have whatever clubs they want) means that occasionally you get to listen to them do wiki walks, which is pretty entertaining as someone who is kind of addicted to them every so often.

The yuri elements are present as well, though are not the focus of this series the way they were Yuru Yuri, and they are couched more in the 'vaguely romantic friendship/skinship' style, which has always felt a little noncommittal to me.  The characters are believable, though, and there is definitely humor and d'awws to be had.

I actually first watched this during that four-month break and I still just don't have anything to say about it, really.  It's an example of why imitations aren't inherently bad, but it also shows the problem with them: it's actually very hard to be better than an idea which was new and fresh and well-executed.

If you need more slice of life to fill your time with cuteness, go ahead and pick up Yuyushiki... after you've seen Yuru Yuri, Working, Hidamari Sketch, Minami-ke, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou and Lucky Star.

Several Sequels

Symphogear G:  C+
Toaru Railgun S:  C
Infinite Stratos 2:  F

So I gave Chuunibyou Ren a full post, though it's very relevant to what I'm talking about, as is Haganai Next.  The three shows I'm actually reviewing all came out last year but none of them were good or bad enough to justify their own posts (though I did make a funny gif about Railgun S), and all of them are different kinds of bad sequels.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and 2nd GiG: A

It's kind of absurd that I would even consider posting this review; like Evangelion, Ghost in the Shell as a franchise is so thoroughly embedded in the collective anime-viewers' consciousness that praising it is less preaching to the choir as it is reading a pre-written sermon to people who not only have already heard it, but have gone on to write their Master's theses on the original sermon.

I first encountered Ghost in the Shell in the 90s, as the first movie, which, notably, started out with a naked robot woman being constructed, an extremely memorable scene for a 12-year-old.  Some years later, in college, I watched the first season of Stand Alone Complex and felt it was kind of impenetrable but had a really engaging combination of action, science fiction and mystery.

I come back to it after over ten years and realize that while the technological direction that the series took was highly inaccurate (nobody predicted wireless, seriously), the thoughtful transhumanist undercurrent is much more readable and due to my greater patience and focus and the plot is more comprehensible as well, though the extra layer of 'do machines have something identifiable as a soul?' remains unanswered and the final episode of the first season was a little unsatisfying after the blazing action of the rest of the series.

I hadn't watched 2nd GiG, the second season of Stand Alone Complex before, but it loyally continues the story of Public Safety Section 9, providing more insight into the characters and what life in the wired and chromed up 21st century of Masamune Shirow's imagination looks like, a place of politics, violence, corruption and techno-evolution.

The plots themselves are well-crafted and engaging, though you cannot get away with half-watching them, too much happens in heavy dialogue and obscure political institutions.  If you do pay attention though it's not particularly hard to follow: the villains and heroes both are recognizable, almost iconic.  Despite now being over a decade old, the animation quality holds up very well, looking smooth and crisp even by modern standards.

In short, while I don't believe Ghost in the Shell is mind-blowingly deep, it is extremely intelligent, and completely deserving of its status as one of the big names in anime.

For you fans who didn't know: there is an in-progress OVA series called Ghost in the Shell: Arise, though it uses completely new character designs and voice actors, being a reimagining instead of a sequel.

Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens

Kannagi:  B

Yeah, I said I'd work on my backlog, but while I was going through it I came across Kannazuki no Miko, and the title of that sounds a bit like Kannagi and Kannagi has 'shrine maidens' in the subtitle (which is what Miko means in Kannazuki no Miko) and so it reminded me of this series that I'd heard the name of but knew nothing else about.

And so I got to watching it and it's actually pretty good. It's a sitcom about a girl who happens to be a goddess and incarnates after her sacred tree is cut down.  She lives with the boy who carved an image of her (who he'd met when he was younger) out of the tree and generally is as sloppy and lazy as you'd expect a teenage girl who thinks she's a goddess to be.

Note I said sitcom not romcom: while there isn't much to speak of in the plot and there are two girls who are kind of interested in our boy, Nagi, the goddess, isn't one of them, in fact, she shows no romantic interest in Jin whatsoever.  There's also a nice colorful background cast: the childhood friend with the crush, the otaku mangaka artist friend, the mischievous senpai who are constantly trying to make things more 'entertaining', the extremely talented but misunderstood gentle giant and our goddess' exorbitantly catty little sister (also a goddess).  The show also has more than it's share of otaku culture references and a couple of hilarious fourth-wall breaks.

Note 'Goddess' here is a translation of 'kami' which is non-gendered, and further note that in Japan 'divinity' is much more broadly defined, something the series brings up occasionally.  Really, this is yet another show (like Sasami-san after it, which I believe took a few tips) about how Japan's gods must really not be very dignified people, if those who they receive worship from are anything to go by.

It doesn't really come to a conclusion, though there is a climax, and a number of plot threads are left hanging, so if you need your stories to all fit nicely into the box, be warned that Kannagi's don't.  There's a couple of weirdly-paced episodes and not a lot of real substance.

But hey, it's funny and cute and clever and it doesn't fall into harem stagnation or try to be anything it's not.  If you're looking for a fun little show that's very Japanese but still pretty comprehensible to westerners, you could do a heck of a lot worse than Kannagi.

So, this Season...

I'm gonna try to work through my like 20-series backlog  (since Narutaru was SUCH a success), but while I pick what to watch next I'll write a quick post about stuff that's presently airing.

First is a series that I was worried about but watched an episode and am presently giving a chance to: Soul Eater Not.  I recently did a post on Soul Eater itself, which is a fine show, but when I read the blurb on Soul Eater Not I at first thought they were in no way related, since Soul Eater was a shonen action series about beating up witches and demons and Not is a seinen slice of life series about going to school.  But it turns out it's a slice of life series taking place in the Soul Eater world, at the Soul Eater school, about three girls who are kohai (underclassmen) to the main cast, and seems to be doing a lot of filling in backgrounds on minor characters that didn't get enough screen time in the main anime.  I was somewhat daunted by the 'ecchi' tag, but in three episodes we've seen cleavage like three times and panties like once, so I guess that got left out, though the animation style is dramatically different and much more 'pretty' compared to the original's sharp lines.  Don't think SEN is going to be genius, but I'll finish it  unless it just completely jumps off a cliff.

Next is Nisekoi, which a couple of different sub groups I follow are doing, so I picked it up, despite everything I could tell saying it was yet another romcom.  And it is, but it's executed really well, I got through the twelve episodes my favorite fansubbers had finished and am actually quite happy with how it's going, relationships had reached points of no return, characters have confessed their affection for each other and progress is being made.  A couple days deciding I liked it, I found out that it's made by Studio Shaft, who also did Madoka, Bakemonogatari, Sasami-san and several other things I like, and in fact has made nothing I haven't at least enjoyed.  It was nice to find myself liking something of theirs not knowing it was theirs, though.

Speaking of Shaft, I also stumbled across another show (the one that actually made me go 'Huh, this feels like Shaft style, I wonder if they made it...' when I also found they were doing Nisekoi) called Mekaku City Actors, which I liked the first episode of but I'm not really clear on anything else about.  So I think I'll be watching that too, it's gotten a couple more episodes out of me, and it's Shaft so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

In downloading a bunch of first episodes to poke through I found a series called Black Bullet, which as titles go is pretty awful.  The animation was good and the execution was competent and it has Horie Yui (<3) in it, though, so I'm willing to give it a couple more episodes.  It's basically directly ripping off Attack on Titan, though, just set in a recognizable near future and with giant insects with some kind of virus rather than horrific man-eating humanoids, and instead of <SPOILERS>, we have little girls with superstrength and healing factor.

I also came across the first episode of the most recent installment of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, which definitely lived up to its reputation.  I kind of want to watch it but I'd have to find the original animated versions to really feel justified in doing so.  I really did like the humor of juxtaposition of the super-macho manga-style drawn main cast onto more standard backgrounds and characters, and I can easily see how the series manages to straddle absurdity and seriousness together.

I'm sitting on another first episodes I haven't watched yet, the one that I'm kind of curious about is "Nobunaga the Fool," which, while I can't be certain looks awfully similar to Oda Nobuna no Yabou, at least in the 'history + boobs' conceit, though I have to admit that Nobuna and Koihime Musou are different enough, so I really can't judge.  We'll see if it's any good.

Anyway, I'll probably have another series in a couple of days; I have a lot of work I'm procrastinating on and should be doing instead of rambling here.

Narutaru

Narutaru:  C+

I was going to put a picture with some of the happy lies of the opening

but this one is much more honest.

Sometimes called Shadow Star, Narutaru is kind of a 'what if' on Pokemon: what if kids had these massively dangerous little monsters that obeyed them?  Narutaru then goes "But what if they lived in the real world, where people want things they can't have, and threaten and hurt people who are weaker than them, and are cruel to one another?  What would happen then?"

Narutaru is another series in the same category as Mirai Nikki and Bokurano: a show about humanity at its worst, about cycles of suffering and how evil perpetuates itself.  For the first eight or nine episodes, the series is 'relatively tame,' with only a few deaths, threats of enslavement and awful people.  Then around episode 10, it decides that it isn't horrible enough yet and starts digging deep into the collective horrors of childhood, the final two episodes reaching the darkest examples of children being cruel I've ever seen.

And really tragically, it does a bunch of truly heinous things to elementary school kids and then ends.  We don't get to see what the characters have learned, how the suffering has made them grow, what choices it has caused them to make.  It's just suffering for suffering's sake.

And that's really too bad: suffering this well-orchestrated doesn't come along every day.  The writing's good and well-thought out, this is a very deliberate setup.  There's some really apocalyptic potential to the plot that they've got here, but they don't actually include any of it in the anime.

I actually stole a few glances at the characters' wikipedia entries, looking for voice actors, and learned a bunch of things that are spelld out in the manga that are clearly present in the anime if you know about them, (in particular one girl has been sexually abused by her father and EVERYTHING that happens with her makes more sense knowing that), but the show never gets around to explaining the vast majority of it.  Even the very end makes much more sense if you know what the main character's relationship to her little star-monster is, and the growth that I really wanted to see from the suffering IS present in the manga, but the anime doesn't get any points for that.

I can't honestly recommend Narutaru to anyone.  I watched it because I heard it was nightmarish and it was.  I love me some horrific shit (I've seen a number of series that individually deserve the title of 'Most Truly Soul-Flayingly Horrific': Elfen Lied, Bokurano, Mirai Nikki, Perfect Blue, the Fate/Stay Night Visual Novel, even Hell Girl) but I seriously need to curl into a ball and try to gouge my eyes out after this.  If you want to watch a show that pierces deep into the horrors that we are capable of, then I guess go ahead, but I would recommend Mirai Nikki over Narutaru in a heartbeat, and probably Bokurano too.