Roving Thoughts: Recent Entries

About Darker Than Black - Gemini of the Meteor

I quite enjoyed the original Darker Than Black, ending and all, but I'm still not sure what I think about the second DTB series because I still haven't made up my mind about the ending. I'm pretty sure that the creators intend for the ending to be considered a good one, but I can't decide whether it's a good ending or actually a disturbing and creepy one.

Apart from that, I liked it and it's a good series. It's more straightforward and less wandering than the first one, but that's because the first one was longer and was taking an indirect way to introduce us to all of the characters and their world. The second series just threw us into the main plot right away.

(I have avoided looking silly about several things in Gemini through the simple means of not writing them down here at the time, unlike what I did with Kampfer. Possibly this spoils the fun.)

Understanding Bakemonogatari

Here is something that I did not see and understand until the last (aired) episode of Bakemonogatari smacked me in the nose with it: Bakemonogatari is really a love story. A romance, like Toradora.

And like Toradora, I think that it is a good one. It does not have a love triangle, because that's not the kind of story it is telling; it is more telling the story of how two peculiar people come to fit together and to more or less understand each other.

I don't want to say that the supernatural elements of Bakemonogatari are just trappings, because they're a lot more than that, but ultimately they're the means to an end and not an end to themselves. Right from the beginning, the important things that wind up happening are all about the characters, not about the monsters.

Sidebar: on Bakemonogatari's art style

Bakemonogatari has a somewhat peculiar and often minimalistic animation style ('cheap' is the uncharitable label). While I didn't mind it, I can understand why other people dislike it and feel that the studio was being lazy. However, it strikes me that an advantage of the art style is that it leaves you without distractions for the dialog, which is important as Bakemonogatari often has very dense dialog that you really want to pay attention to.

Quick things about Kampfer 07

(Warning: mild spoilers.)

From Author:

Why did Kaede (Sakura) lose consciousness?

I concur that we don't have enough information. However, there seems to be a striking pattern that Kaede drops out of the action just when her nose would otherwise be rubbed in the existence of Kampfers, and I doubt that this is a coincidence.

I continue to think that Akane was not shooting seriously for whatever reason. Otherwise, she is an embarrassingly bad shot; has she hit anything meaningful?

(Since Kampfer seems to be mostly a comedy anime, we could be overthinking all of this. Convenience coincidences and comically bad shots are a stock in trade of ordinary comedy.)

From another Author entry and what it points to:

Natsuru has not yet taken showers/baths as a girl. And this is supposed to be a real full-blooded hetero adolescent?? What gives??

He wasn't able to keep the transformation or transform at will previously, so showering was out of question.

Natsuru seems to have gotten much better at transformations as of the start of episode 7; it looks like he can transform at will and hold the transformation at will, but he actually needs to be able to muster the will (which was his problem at night).

My take on his lack of showering et al is two-fold. Minorly, it's likely to be hard on his will. Majorly, it's not as if Natsuru is on his own, and we know that his entrails animal likes both making sarcastic comments and cheering Natsuru's development on, and imagine the potential for either or both if Natsuru deliberately goes off to shower as a girl on his own, no matter what actually happens or doesn't happen. There is much less utter embarrassment in avoiding the whole situation.

(We, and Natsuru, have no idea if entrails animals are aware of it when their person transforms.)

(On a side note, I'm (still) working on getting my followup to Author's reaction to my last entry on Kampfer to say what I want it to say. This writing clearly stuff is harder than it looks. I'm aware that this is somewhat against the spirit of quick reactions and rapidly jotted notes.)

The (lack of) fighting in Kampfer (as of episode 4)

In the Author style of brief notes on things that I ran into elsewhere (via Author, of course): I actually find the current lack of fighting in Kampfer to be pretty realistic.

All of the Kampfers are theoretically ordinary highschool kids who basically got drafted against their will. It feels entirely right that they are generally unenthusiastic about actually beating each other up, or even theoretically killing each other, regardless of what the Moderators may want them to do, and that they would much rather hang out and talk with each other (and, in the case of Shizuku, yank everyone's chains). If anything, they now have more in common with each other than with their classmates.

(This makes me unconvinced that Akane actually is as terrible a shot as she seems to be. It doesn't even have to be deliberate and conscious on her part. Really, humans are startlingly kind when you get down to it; outside of cliched shounen action series, you usually have to work quite hard to get them to hurt and kill each other.)

As for Akane: I think she's just manic (okay, very enthusiastic). Shizuku is just an excuse to let off some energy, as Natsuru was at the start of the show.

(I believe that Akane even more or less admitted that the reason she stopped fighting Natsuru wasn't that they were on the same side but that she didn't have the heart for it after he saved her.)

Mahjong in Saki

One of the things that strikes me about Saki is how unimportant the actual mahjong games are. While it matters who wins (and sometimes how powerful their win was), the show pays almost no attention to the actual process of playing and winning. This is especially striking in the past two episodes (6 and 7), where the show has been focusing on a tournament.

(Sometimes we get a little bit of dialog about strategy issues.)

This is rather unusual for a nominal sports anime, but does mean that you can follow pretty much all of Saki without knowing more than a tiny bit about mahjong. You won't miss much in being unable to follow the games, because there's usually nothing there to follow in the first place.

(While episode 7 does show some gameplay, my impression is that it is just illustrative; it's there to show Nodoka's dominance, not for anything important about the play itself.)

One reason I like Nodame Cantabile's Chiaki

One of reasons that I like Chiaki is that he is that rarity in anime, a competent protagonist who understands his own competence. The usual pattern is that the protagonist is either unskilled (and learns through the course of the anime) or is basically an idiot savant, ferociously skilled but without understanding.

(Nodame herself is an example of the latter category, and one of the themes throughout Nodame Cantabile is people trying to get her to harness and direct that ferocious skill, to think about and understand what she is doing.)

One particularly blunt way to put the attraction of this is that it means that Chiaki has clues. He comes to realizations; he sees problems; he fixes things. In short, he gets to act intelligently, not blindly. He gets to be smart in his field, which is refreshing to see.

(This is unfortunately kind of a rarity in anime protagonists; being smart this way is usually reserved for the secondary characters.)

My feelings on Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo episode 11

(Spoiler warning, and in fact this is probably going to be incomprehensible if you haven't seen the episode or read a summary, such as here.)

[More available: SoraKake11]

Short reactions to spring 2009

Here are some quick (or at least short) reactions to all of the new shows of spring 2009 that I've watched some of, written down for various fuzzy reasons. I am not going to try to summarize or review these, just give some brief comments.

Rather than agonize over quality ratings, I've decided to rate shows based purely on how eagerly I'm looking forward to the next episode, from +3 ('want more right now') to -3 ('I should admit that I've dropped this'), because that's at least easy for me to figure out. Since I am a pretty undiscriminating watcher of anime this may have nothing to do with good or bad a show is, especially as I am happy to watch shows that are entertaining but unoriginal.

There are some moderate spoilers here for the first few episodes of things.

• Eden of the East aka Higurashi no Eden (1): +3

  This has an interesting premise and a nice low key start, with characters that made me smile. And after Honey & Clover I am a sucker for the character design.

  (This is foolish, because character design has nothing to do with the rest of the show. But I can't help but feel well towards something that sort of looks like H&C.)

• Basquash! (1): +3

  The first episode was great; fast-paced, fresh and full of fun and amusing elements. However, this could just be the setup for what turns into yet another ordinary sports anime. But if it sustains the feel and the style of the first episode, I think it will be one of the standouts of the season.

  So I'm cautiously optimistic and very hopeful. If it falls I expect it to be a very fast descent, so the next few episodes should tell us one way or another.

• Shangri-La (1-2): +3

  It sure is pretty, or at least stylish. Time will tell if it's doing anything interesting. The fact that I would not be sad if several of the major characters got run over by cars may or may not be a bad sign, since I'm not sure that they're supposed to be likeable.

  This has by far my favorite OP of the season.

  (It's also this season's winner of the RideBack 'say WHAT?' award for implausible setting elements.)

• Natsu no Arashi (1): +2

  I really liked the first episode, and I totally support just throwing us into the middle of things happening without explicitly introducing the characters and the situation. But the downside of a first episode like this is that it probably doesn't say anything about what the rest of the series will be like, although it does leave me wanting to see more.

  I liked the art style, although it is a bit different and unconventional.

• Asura Cryin' (1-2): +2

  I quite liked the first episode and thought it had a lot of promise for entertainment (if not necessarily originality). The second episode initially struck me as a bizarre letdown but it's grown on me since then and I have a more charitable view of it now, which leaves me actively looking forward to more.

  (The first episode ends at a dramatic moment in a significant cliffhanger. The second episode starts the next morning and no one says anything about how things got resolved, although clearly something did happen.)

• Pandora Hearts (1): +1

  Spooky supernatural stuff with ominous developments? Sign me up, at least for now. As usual with anything that starts this way, it could go horribly (or just boringly) wrong in future episodes.

• Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - Brotherhood (1-2): +1

  I was all set to write a grumpy note about how I'd already seen most of this story once and I wasn't sure if it needed a do-over or if the do-over would be interesting. But then I watched the second episode, and it turned out that the first episode just kind of sucked and I'm feeling much happier now. The show may still turn out to have too many repeated things to keep me watching, but at least it's interesting now.

  (And the second episode makes it clear that some things are significantly different.)

• Valkyria Chronicles (1-2): 0

  Here is what I wrote after watching only the first episode:

  I would be more interested if the lead protagonist was more competent, or perhaps if the whole thing was more clearly comedic. As it is, the hijinks of a mostly untrained group of militia that somehow manage to stand off a trained army are probably not going to be entertaining, just implausible.

  (I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb in predicting that the motley band of protagonists are going to win against the invading army, although it would be much more interesting if they actually lost.)

  In the second episode, they lost. I was pleasantly surprised.

  It turns out that the entire first two episodes are a great big 'how we came to join the army' introduction. This is still probably going to be an ordinary 'life in the military' show, but at least it now looks entertaining.

  (On a side note, I find its use of subtle patterned fills for things like hair textures to be surprisingly distracting. They make things look like drawings when my mind knows that this is animated.)

• Tears to Tiara (1-2): 0

  The first episode was ordinary and slow, but the second episode made up for it, especially in the interplay between the three major protagonists. Also, I have a weak spot for spunky heroines and Riannon demonstrated plenty of spunk in the second episode; I have rarely seen a foot put down so hard.

• Saki (1): -1

  I expect that I'll get bored with barely comprehensible mahjong action relatively soon, but in the mean time there is something oddly attractive and entertaining about this show and its over the top enthusiasm. And Crunchyroll means that it doesn't take much effort or energy to watch more.

• Shinkyoku Soukai Polyphonica Crimson S (1): -1

  I saw most of the first version of this, and it was a much better introduction to the characters and setting; the only thing this version possibly has over it is some hints of an actual plot. I find myself grumpy and only my affection for the characters sustains my interest.

• Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~ (1): -2

  This has all the ingredients necessary for a predictable trainwreck (Bee Train doing yet another show about mysterious amnesiac killers in their usual style). The first episode did not really impress me, but it could just be a slow start and necessary background.

  (Desperate optimism detected.)

• K-ON! (1): -3

  Now I understand what people mean when they talk about moeblobs. The protagonist character at least has brutal honesty going for her.

  Slow moving moeblob shows are generally not my thing, although I keep wanting to like them for some reason. Absent surprising acclaim, I doubt I'll go further with this unless I'm bored.

Pretty much not watching any more of:

• 07 Ghost (1-2)

  I probably would not have stuck around for the second episode if the first episode had not had crazy people fighting each other with magic. The second episode delivered only exposition and angst.

  (Yes, yes, I'm vastly optimistic; the series premise was not all that promising to start with.)

• Tayutama (1)

  I am not particularly interested in harem anime, so I watched this in the hopes that the supernatural elements would be interesting and entertaining enough on their own. After one episode, they're not.

• Hanasakeru Seishounen (1)

  I was optimistically hoping for something like Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge but with exciting high finance instead of amusing makeover attempts. I did not get anything close to it.

  (Necessary note: I liked YNSH.)

(I am a creature of inertia, so writing this and assigning ratings has had the useful effect of making me decide to actively drop a few things.)

This isn't all of the summer 2009 shows; I'm not that masochistic. I've skipped entirely a number of shows with premises that sounded even less interesting to me than the ones listed here, and I may have overlooked some shows entirely. As someone I know says periodically, 'so much anime, so little time'.

My view of RideBack

(Warning: non-specific spoilers.)

I'll begin by saying that RideBack is one of those interesting animes that I think is good but that I'm not sure is enjoyable.

RideBack starts out as a goofy but promising sports anime with some implausible things lurking in the background, such as the conquest of Japan by some new trans-national military organization. But after a couple of episodes it becomes evident that its real focus is not the sports plot (that was just to introduce us to the characters), but those background things.

The show's strength is in its unflinching and sometimes brutal depictions of what happens to real people who get in the way of power structures and authorities, which is what most of the show is about. It did not pull many punches, and so this was not necessarily a very pleasant experience. During this, the core characters feel like painfully real people; they make mistakes (sometimes terrible ones) and have complex real reactions to what happens, reactions without easy pat answers. All of this is necessarily weakened by the last episode, which delivers the inevitable yet implausible happy ending instead of crushing everyone into paste.

(Mentioning this aspect of the ending should not spoil anyone who is awake; 'rocks fall, everyone dies' is, shall we say, not a popular choice in anime endings. RideBack's happy ending does stay true to the characters, which is most of what I could ask for.)

Apart from its genre, RideBack's major weakness is the huge amount of implausible things that you are required to swallow. But once you've done that, I think that it's a quite well executed show, and it avoids predictable cliches; I expected any number of obvious things, none of which happened. The show also consistently surprised me with its choices, including at the ending.

(And I certainly found that it was one of the shows that I compulsively had to watch this season.)

All of this leaves me feeling ambivalent. I think that I would have preferred to watch the goofy sports anime that RideBack seemed to be at the start, the story of an injured ballerina who discovers that her skills can be applied to RideBack races and blossoms as a result. But it would have been an ordinary show, one that was ultimately less interesting than the RideBack that we actually got.

In the Author style:

Liked: probably. I certainly don't regret watching it.
Rewatch: are you kidding? No.

My overall view of Toradora! (and some thoughts)

I've been mulling over this for long enough, so it's time to actually write something (warning, some spoilers):

Ultimately, I think Toradora! is a good series overall but not an exceptional one. In hindsight (and after Author spurred me into rewatching the first two episodes), I feel that it had a strong beginning, a good but relatively ordinary middle, and ended very strong with a powerful ending, partly because it was willing to have its characters grow and change and partly because it is willing to be decisive. In this it managed to be that rarity, an anime show that gets much better in its final stretch (I would say the last three episodes).

One of the interesting things about Toradora! is how atypical and oddly structured it is. There are no romantic complications that show up (Ami does not count, because everyone else is oblivious), and part of its strong and fast start is how it decisively disposes of the Taiga/Yuusaku issue in the second episode. In an ordinary romcom, I would have expected at least one romantic rival and for it to take ages before Taiga approached Yuusaku.

Another thing I noticed (due to rewatching episode 1) is the difference between the narration that opens the first episode and the narration that closes the last one. Based on the final line, it seems that over the course of the show Taiga and Ryuuji have gone from thinking of love as something that is found to thinking of it as something that is created.

(This fits well with their overall growing up and especially their decisions in the final episode.)