Martian Successor Nadesico

Martial Successor Nadesico (Including "Prince of Darkness"):  B

This was actually a really hard series to grade, because it's a very up and down series that I have a history with.  I first watched it when it was just hitting the states, back in 99 or 2000, long before I had seen enough anime to understand what it was referencing, only that it was an anime about anime, and that alone was amazing and hilarious to me.  I very much enjoyed it, though I understood then that it wasn't genius.

Nadesico has aged well, but it bears the scars of its time.  It first aired Winter 1996, six months after Neon Genesis Evangelion finished, and before the full effects of the revolution that particular series sparked had come to fruition.  The single greatest problem with Nadesico is that it is both a parody and a drama, and being that it is both of these, it requires that the viewer give it the credit it is asking for.  This will be a challenge, as the series is too silly to be taken seriously, but too serious to be treated completely light-heartedly.

If you can get into its wavelength, though, it's actually a remarkably well-thought out story that resolves its main plots (though fails to resolve many others), discusses a number of complex topics in a very intelligent way (mature relationships vs childlike relationships, the difficulty of being friends with people you love, the conflict of idealism vs interpreted idealism) and ultimately is about coming to accept things you dislike about things you love, especially through the lens of children's perspectives vs adults perspectives.  The line between Children and Adults, and the time of life when they blur, is another major theme, mated as it is within Nadesico with Super Robots vs Real Robots.

The movie, Prince of Darkness, adds to the story, and becomes somewhat darker and more serious, to the story's overall benefit, though I didn't find the ending as satisfying as the series'.

Nadesico is an old series that is often overlooked.  It requires a lot of patience and to be given credit, and a lot of people won't be able to muster the investment in the series to appreciate it for what it really has to offer, which is a lot of discussion of being human.  It lacks the depth and genius of a work of true brilliance, but you could do a hell of a lot worse than Martian Successor Nadesico.

What I'm Up To

So after a break from anime during which I was playing League of Legends for several months, I'm back to watching.

Partially the reason for the lack of updates is that practically nothing that aired during Spring was worth watching or reviewing in my mind.  I've been keeping up with Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S, but it's so far been a different-perspective retelling of one of the arcs of first-season Index, and keeps with that series' general sense of 'if you don't look closely, it's pretty fun.'  I also watch Nyaruko-san W, which doesn't deserve it's own review, it's more of the same.  I reviewed Oreimo 2 (though it's not completely over, it's got 2 more episodes to air) and Red Data Girl, and that's pretty much everything I was actually watching.

None of my favorite studios, Shaft, Gainax and Kyoto Animation did anything last season, is really what I'm saying here.  So it was pretty slow.

This season, though, is looking up, especially with Monogatari Series second season, which is 4 episodes in and already shaping up to be amazingly well-written and crafted, as I've come to expect.  I haven't gotten into Kyoto Animation's new series 'Free' (which looks to be very man-servicey), but I'm also keeping up on the new Rozen Maiden, which I'm enjoying despite its slow build up in the first few episodes and the weirdness of the whole alternate universe plotline, which is being handled much better than I was originally expecting.  I watched the first two episodes of WataMote, but I found them profoundly depressing, so I haven't kept going with it.  Maybe I'll be in the mood later.

There's a second season of Symphogear airing, and I'm not yet willing to say it's a worthy successor to a diamond in the rough first season.  I'm also watching Tamayura season 2, but that's really just slice of life fluffiness.  I think that's everything that I'm actively watching that's airing currently.

Finally, I'm rewatching Martian Successor Nadesico, as an experiment in how well it holds up, I last watched it about fifteen years ago.  First impressions are ambivalent, it's got some great moments and characters, but it's trying very hard to be a serious parody, and it's not quite working out for it.

I'll have some real reviews for you all soon.

Vividred Operation (And a rant about Fan Service)

Vividred Operation: D+

This is official art, by the way

So this series is ostensibly kind of about techno-magical girls, but in truth is really about underaged girl's asses.  And to a lesser extent their breasts.

So there are these girls and for reasons which aren't entirely well explained they wind up wearing jet suits and fighting invading aliens.  The Jet suits are powered by this cool new reactor that we built that runs on extradimensional magic.  Why we didn't give the jet suits to trained military professionals isn't well explained but probably is due to one of the girls' grandfather, who would be creepier if he didn't get brain-swapped with a stuffed animal in the first episode.  Naturally there's hijinks as the full team of four gets together and the mysterious girl who appears to be working with the aliens, and starts out cold and not wanting to be friends but warms up eventually because she's lonely and the main characters are the only ones who have ever tried just being friends with her.

All that's pretty formulaic, but I am not going to say that something that is formulaic is inherently bad.  It can be well-executed, and the fact is that I do kind of like several of the characters and the execution in places.  The show has enjoyable moments and is fun to watch and listen to, but it's flat.  There is no spark, no risks taken.  No great lessons learned, no moving moments of understanding or betrayal.  Even that would still earn it the C, that were all I had to say.

What ruins it for me, and rarely will I say this, is the fan service.  Now, I want to go on record with saying that I enjoy the lovingly animated female form as much as the next creepy nerd on the internet.  Fan service is not inherently bad for me, and can be used to enhance storytelling while ALSO providing titillating content for viewers.  To this end, I categorize fan service occurs into three varieties:
1) Integrated Fan Service.  This is the fan service where we're shown cleavage, jiggling boobs or panty shots for a good reason within the story.  Often it's because it's what a male character present in the scene is focusing on, and it's shown to help us sympathize with his horniness, and the awkwardness that ensues from that.  It might be deliberately sexual to showcase a character's depravity or innocence, based on their reaction.  It's also meant to titillate, but it serves a significant purpose: the fan service is fully integrated and justified by the story and setting.  Bakemonogatari and Haganai are full of this, and Speed Grapher had its fair share as well.
2)  Tongue-in-Cheek Fan Service.  These are the humorous panty shots, the fourth-wall breaking moments where other characters block the camera, or where circumstances contrive to cause the characters to get into situations that result in clothing being lost or undergarments being shown off far too often for it to be taken seriously.  Koihime Musou is full of this, as is Dog Days.  The fan service is not integrated into the story necessarily, and probably could be left out, but it is given a nod from the characters themselves, and so is contextualized, usually as humorous.
3)  Straight-faced Fan Service.  In this form, we get acontextual shots that showcase a character's body purely for the sake of titillation.  Its use has no impact on the story, and nothing to do with any character's portrayal or perception of others, and nobody in the story seems to notice or care, much less comment.  It often seems as though the cameraman just happens to be putting himself somewhere where we get a shot of a girl's magnificent ass, or rack, or whatever.  This type is present only for the audience's benefit.  The lack of integration causes mood whiplash, desensitization to further uses of it and an overall weakening of the audience's ability to engage with the story.

Type 3 is the kind in Vividred, and it's the kind that offends me.  It marks a story as being weak, because if you feel the need to have lovingly animated ass jiggle for no reason other than to show it off, it makes me as a viewer feel like that's all the show has to offer.  And that's why Vividred is probably not worth your time: because pretty much all it has to offer is several barely-teenage girls' butts in short shorts; nothing original or creative, or even particularly noteworthy.

Tamayura ~hitotose~

Tamayura ~hitotose~:  B

I heard about this show because the second season is airing now and I was curious.

Uh, it's a slice of life show, and so, by tradition, it's about four girls, with some extra hangers on.  And by tradition, it's hard to talk about.  The main character, Sawatari Fuu (above), is an amateur photographer, and the show makes use of the camera and photographs as both a symbol and a pursuit.  "Tamayura" means "a fleeting moment," the title is probably plural.  "Hitotose" means "one year," and, indeed, the series takes place over the course of the girls' first year of high school.  So, "A year of fleeting moments."

Compared to the other slice of life series I've reviewed (Hidamari Sketch and K-On) I would say that Tamayura has more heart, but less humor.  It made me tear up in a couple places, but it never really made me laugh.

The cast are unique and characterful and all have their issues (some more than others), and the series is pretty much completely fan-service-less, for you people who can't stand that. However, while it does have some very heartwarming moments, it lacks action, and much in the way of genuine plot or conflict.  But I did say it was slice of life, so that shouldn't be a surprise.

If you're looking for a good calm smiling ride to make you feel like you're among friends, as well as possibly make you want to pick up a camera, Tamayura is cute and completely non-impactful.  If you need action, shock value or development from your anime, this won't quite cut it.

Oreimo Season 2

Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga nai Season 2:  B

For those of you with short memories or who haven't read the entirety of my reviews, the series' title translates to "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute," and I gave the first season a B.  It was better than I'd been expecting.

A good second season, deepens and adds complexity to the relationships between the characters and give us a greater sense of depth and development.  And in that sense, Oreimo's second season succeeds.  For the most part, we learn the motivations and desires of each of the characters, and not too many new characters are introduced to dilute the action.

You may notice I'm not praising it particularly strongly.

Oreimo, both seasons, are not bad.  They are in fact, good, and there are a number of situations and scenes that I really, really liked.

But a lot of it is uninspired.  What started out as an interesting story about otakuism, coming out, and trying to make things work with your family evolves into a harem series.  A harem series with minimal fan service, well-written situations and high production values, but ultimately feeling weak due to the series' need to give every girl her own shot at the main character.  Several gain leads, and the interactions of the girls are humorous, characterful and interesting by turns, but the series vacillates a little too hard between comedic violence and serious characterization for my tastes.

If you liked the first season, you'll like the second.  The characterization continues, there are a number of truly excellent situations (the Kuroneko arc in the middle of the series is one of the most brilliant I've seen anywhere), and frankly, you'll probably have a difficult time criticizing it unless you're just not into otaku jokes or have been spoiled by truly amazing character development and writing.  If you were on the fence about the first season, the second will push you into liking it if you fixate on the high points and hating it if you fixate on the low points.  If you didn't like the first season, the second definitely won't fix everything for you.

Speed Grapher

Speed Grapher: B

An older series (2005) that I watched on an acquaintence's recommendation.  It was recommended glowingly, and I understand why, it has interesting characters, a lot of intrigue, some delightfully grotesque moments and a lot of mature content.

In short, an ex-war photographer gets involved investigating some strange exclusive club for the exceptionally rich, and winds up getting kissed by their 'goddess,' which gives him the power to blow things up with his camera.  Rather than going 'this shit is awesome,' he instead tries to find a cure, and along the way agrees to try to give the goddess her first taste of real freedom, trying to save her from her abusive mother and the criminals who run the club.  We soon learn that her kiss can bestow superpowers, and the club calls in debts to various empowered sybarites to try to hunt the pair down.

The plot thickens and thins in several places, and while it slows down a few times it keeps rolling and reaches a quite satisfactory conclusion.  It's certainly entertaining.

On the negative side I'd the mature content is used to an extent that is probably unnecessary.  The personalities of and relationship between the hero and heroine is rather dry and they both receive no development outside of their relationship.

The series reminded me a lot of Blood+, for taking a somewhat supernatural idea, playing with it, applying pseudoscience to vaguely explain it, and taking a little bit longer than it needed to tell its entire story.  The animation style and the long-term development of secondary characters also resemble Blood+, on the more positive side.

If you're interested in some fairly graphic violence and a well told action anime (and age differences don't squick you too badly), Speed Grapher is a pretty good story.  If cranial explosions, humans distending and worlds where the majority of people are just awful bother you, it's probably not for you.

Red Data Girl

Red Data Girl: B+

Wow, I haven't written in here since April?  Sorry about that, guess I better dust the old blog off.  Despite that, it's really just because we were mid-season, and so now that the spring anime are finishing I can review them, starting with this series.

Yet another modern-setting series with strong ties to Japanese mythology, spirituality and mysticism, Red Data Girl is about a girl, Suzuhara Izumiko, who, in addition to wanting to change and grow up as she enters high school, also very clearly has some powerful but uncontrolled connection to the supernatural.  Exactly the nature of her abilities is a mystery for most of the series, which follows her casting away the both physical and spiritual trappings of her childhood (which are often the same thing) and experiencing friendship, love, betrayal and growth.

It's a good show, intelligently written with a cast just small enough to get to know everyone, mostly drama but with some dashes of humor and a good mysterious subtext.  Despite the strong presence of the supernatural, magic is strange and mysterious throughout the story.

It doesn't get an A because it's a little predictable in its main arc and because it doesn't feel like it has the depth that it really could have.  It is intelligent and engaging, though, if a little dialogue-heavy.  Don't watch this if you're not intending to deliberately follow what's going on, you'll get lost.

About the only people I wouldn't recommend RDG to are people who are tired of stories about Japanese kids in high school.  Other than that, it's actually a pretty fresh and interesting story.

Kamen no Maid Guy

Kamen no Maid Guy:  C

MM! inspired me to watch more series that I love but don't think are very good.  Also I've been playing League of Legends again and working on a major project, so I apologize for the two week hiatus.

Kamen no Maid Guy (Mask of the Maid Guy) is a show that is basically about boobs.  Not in a sexy, turn-you-on kind of way, more in a 'man, these things sure get a lot of attention from both genders, and isn't that weird?' sort of way.

Kamen no Maid Guy is also about a monster of a man named Kogarashi who is a Maid Guy (the dude with the shark teeth and the mask above), and has all the superpowers and wears the most terrifying maid outfit in the history of ever.  Fujiwara Naeka, the 17-year old 'normal girl heiress' whose grandfather paid some exorbitant but unmentioned sum for Kogarashi's serving and protecting his granddaughter is technically our protagonist, but really, the Maid Guy is who we're here to see.  Naeka is most often in her underwear, and usually inflicting some sort of illogically violent revenge for that.

The series is extremely screwball and very weird, and watching it will make you feel bad for watching it fairly regularly.  It will also make you laugh if you enjoy childish humor.  It's not a good series, but it is a funny series.

If you want to watch something truly absurd and ridiculous and have a strong tolerance for borderline sexism (whether it crosses that line depends on the episode and the viewer), you will laugh and ask 'what the hell' a lot at Kamen no Maid Guy.  If you want... really anything 'good' besides gags, this show is not for you.

MM

MM!: C+

Oh, hey, a C+.  I give those out more than I give C's.  It really is a problem, but unfortunately, I feel like I have to say it's about as good as all the other C+'s, even though really, they've all kind of standardized into the overall 'C' category, but I'd feel weird going back and editing all my previous reviews to make my C+'s into C's.  Anyway, the show.

MM! is a romcom with harem elements built around comedic masochism: our main character, Sado Tarou, goes into a state of perverse ecstasy when he is hurt by pretty girls.  Naturally, this plays well with traditional Tsundere tendencies (represented here in Isurugi Mio, the blonde), who, out of the goodness of her heart, offers to cure him, but can't really think of any better ways to do it other than coming up with more and more extreme tortures, which Tarou of course enjoys.  She is assisted by Tarou's classmate Yuuno Arashiko (purple hair), who has violent androphobia (very similar to Mahiru from Working!!), who at least feels bad about hitting Tarou... though he enjoys that too.  These two both develop romantic attractions to the main character, the real eye-rolling harem-y bits come from the supporting cast.

And really that's all there is to the series.  Here's these girls, they're cute, here's this boy, he's a sweet guy despite his perversion, they're gonna beat him up and he's gonna enjoy it.  If it sounds like a giggle (and it's good for giggles), you'll probably like it.  If you want an intelligent discussion of being a member of The Lifestyle, joining it or an honest look at what living life thinking you're fucked up, MM! has very, very little for you.  If you're looking for outstandingly well-written characters or storylines, MM! has nothing for you.  At a couple points, though, I found myself thinking "That's nice, a reminder that even freaks just want to be happy."  The series doesn't come to any sort of real conclusion, but manages a satisfying enough ending anyway.

Overall, MM! is a predictable romcom with a slightly off-beat premise that handles itself adequately.  If you're curious what Japanese dominatrixes sound like, you might get a kick out of it, and if you want something to put on in the background at a party; it's not particularly fan servicey (except for the 'specials', but if you don't know that 'special' means 'excuse for us to show these girls inappropriately' you're behind the anime times).  If you're looking for series that are genuinely 'good' though, this is not where you want to spend your time.

Sasami-san@gambaranai

Sasami-san@gambaranai: B+

Our seasonal offering from Studio Shaft and Akiyuki Shimbo, who, as you will recall, I have an Akiyuki Shimboner for.  Despite that, grading this show was difficult because it's SO WEIRD.  Like, makes Bakemonogatari seem coherent in comparison.  "Sasami-san is a character, the @ is never adequately explained and 'gambaranai' is a word which literally is a negative form of the verb 'to do your best', probably best translated as 'lazy, slacking' or sometimes 'not trying'.

It's... well, let's start with this:  In the first episode, clearly for a reason, but without explanation, the entire world turns into chocolate, and three sisters, whose names are very clearly references to the Three Treasures of Imperial Japan (the sword, the mirror and the jewel) have to fight a giant demon dragon thing made of chocolate.

I mentioned Bakemonogatari, and another reason that's a valid comparison is because if Sasami-san@gambaranai is about anything, it's about Japanese mythology, in a very interesting way: the idea of generations of gods, and transitional periods between old gods and new gods, and holding on to the past.  That's a very poetic way of talking about the series, which is also a lot about being a shut-in and never going outside, and also is a lot about the Japanese as a people and how weird they are (and by extension, how weird their gods probably are).

At the very least, it's solid evidence that the Japanese don't just treat Christianity as being fun to twist into knots for the mythology, they'll do it to themselves as well.

If you'd like a very odd look at Japanese mythology which manages to be, by turns, very light and meaningless and also very deep, dark and thoughtful, Sasami-san is a strange but fun watch.  Really the only reason I would think people couldn't get into it is because it's just so weird and out there, and because to really fully understand what's going on you'll need to do a bit of reading up on wikipedia about some of the more obscure shinto mythology.