Roving Thoughts archives

Two things on Psycho-Pass: The Movie

(There are some spoilers here.)

Here's two more or less unrelated natterings on the Psycho-Pass movie, untethered from any larger framework. In general the movie reruns a fair number of familiar themes from the first TV series, although this time it's somewhat more pointed about them; the question of whether Sybil is attractive to people is addressed directly, for example.

(Non-spoiler: the bargain Sybil offers people is pretty darn attractive when they're coming from a civil-war-torn environment. People will put up with a lot simply to get some of the benefits, because it beats the alternatives.)

One of the interesting questions the movie makes me ask is whether combat soldiers and former combat soldiers can ever have clean enough psycho-passes to live in a Sybil-controlled society. Based on things from both the TV series and the movie, my suspicion is that they can't, which leaves SEAUn with kind of a problem. How did Japan get away with it? The answer from the series seems to be that Japan mostly uses automated attack drones, and they probably forced their limited number of combat soldiers into roles as Enforcers.

(Now there are real spoilers, although things won't make sense unless you've seen the movie.)

The movie opens with some SEAUn terrorists showing up in Japan, equipped with the technology and knowledge necessary to get past the Sybil System (at least for a while); how the terrorists got the specialized gear and knowledge is never explained. Also, near the end of the movie, Mika shows up to snark at Akane about how Akane's expedition to SEAUn was basically pointless. It is my view that Mika is dead wrong here, as usual, and also that these two things are not unrelated.

The simple and obvious explanation is that Sybil engineered the whole terrorist situation as the trigger to get Akane to Shamballa Float, where it knew she would bring the corrupt system down more or less on the schedule that Sybil wanted. This is why Sybil went behind Akane's back in interrogating one terrorist; it needed to turn up the image of Kougami in order to push Akane into going to SEAUn. Mika's role in all of this was to be an ignorant tool for Sybil, which she is very good at.

('Smugly wrong and completely unaware of it' appears to be Mika's default state in life, or at least in the Bureau.)

This is probably pretty clear when watching the movie since Sybil is one of the very few parties with the necessary knowledge and gear, especially once you rule out Kougami. But I feel like writing it down for various reasons.

(As a side note, I suspect that Akane is smart enough to have worked this out for herself by the end of the movie.)

Checking in on the Winter 2016 anime season part way through

Once again it's time for a 'midway' (or much of the way through) update on my early impressions of the season. This one is kind of delayed, which is convenient because in the past week or so I've gotten more to talk about. Sadly it's in a bad way, as a couple of shows actively fumbled things and got me to drop them.

Great:

• ERASED aka Boku Dake ga Inai Machi: This has been somewhat erratic, with some unfortunate dips in the middle as the show returned to the modern age and dropped into cliched thriller territory, but it's back to the past and its strengths. This has led me to the straightforward realization that where the show's strength and power is in its depiction of Satoru in the past; in retrospect, even the first episode's modern era work was not all that compelling. I hope that we stay in the past from now onward to the end of the show.

• Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: I did not expect this at all, but the show has turned into a great character piece; rather than being a fantasy adventure, it's become a drama. Our protagonists feel like fallible real people existing under fraught circumstances that put them under terrible pressure. It's not always pleasant to watch but it's often powerful, and while Grimgar has stumbled periodically its successes more than make up for that.

• Akagami no Shirayukihime: The show has recently done some things that I didn't like but it came through in the end and has now returned to form. I continue to enjoy it a lot in a low key but affecting way. The show doesn't do high-key, capital D drama, but it does excellent low key drama that works very well, where we simply see people having quiet conversations with each other that show real feelings.

Good:

• BBK/BRNK aka Bubuki Buranki: This has turned out to be better than I expected (there's a theme here). The plot remains relatively straightforward but the execution has been raising it up, and the show is doing some interesting things with its 3D CG (the characters are quite expressive, for example). We are probably not going to get anything deep in the end but it's solidly exciting and solidly well done in its genre.

Okay:

• Dimension W: In the end this just doesn't have the writing quality that it needs in order to really stand out. It's a decent implementation of its genre (and it's a genre we don't get too much of any more), so I'm enjoying it for that, but it's not much more than that and I've lowered my expectations as a result. I also believe that the show made a strategic mistake when it let coils basically cause anything. If the show did not have a collection of adults as its major characters, I might not still be watching it.

• Active Raid: The show is pretty erratic. At its lows it's kind of boring; at its highs it's genuinely affecting with things to say about its underlying themes of adult life, getting the job done, and so on. I continue to feel that the presence of Logos and their plotting mostly brings the show down, and that it would be better if the show fully committed to its Patlabor style 'slice of police life with Willwears' take on things.

It's hard to score AR against DW. AR's high points are much better than DW, but on the other hand I feel that DW is more consistent and doesn't feature anything quite as irritating and jarring as Logos. If I had to pick only one to still watch, I would probably stay with AR after debating about it a lot.

I'm still watching:

• Luck & Logic: The show is a perfectly competent execution of its fundamental genre, which is more or less 'LN teen action show' (yes, I know, it's not actually based on a LN). It doesn't have anything particularly spectacular there and it undershoots, say, Asterisk, but on the other hand it mostly doesn't fumble anything and the execution is competent. This leaves it as watchable but not particularly thrilling. To put it only somewhat unkindly, it passes the time while I have a cup of coffee.

• Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!: Some of the comedy works for me but often a lot of it doesn't really. The show has had only one episode that fully held my attention while I watched it, which is okay because it's generally split up into a bunch of little sections. Darkness is and continues to be the worst character; she does very little besides bring things down when the show bangs on its one-note jokes with her.

  On the other hand, sometimes the show is great. I'm not going to forget shell-shocked Aqua refusing to come out of her shark cage any time soon, for example. And the cabbages. And so on and so forth. The show can be funny and fun, sometimes very much so. I guess that's what keeps me watching.

Dropped:

• Utawarerumono - Itsuwari no Kamen: The show recently took a plot turn that was already questionable but could have led to affecting drama and turned it into an action show plot about characters that I have little interest in. Also, it's apparently time for the show to start killing people off for drama. The show was always on the edge, kept watchable by charming derping around, but that charming derping is mostly gone and I find that I have no interest in following along for the rest of the ride.

  (When the only reason I can think of to watch more is 'but I'm so close to the end', I need to stuff my completist nature in a closet and drop the show.)

• Myriad Colors Phantom World aka Musaigen no Phantom World: This kind of fumbled along as a watchable and kind of entertaining show, and then episode 8 happened. Dropped.

  (Commentary I've seen on subsequent episodes suggests that I'm not missing anything. Even people who are fans seem down on it lately.)

• Koukaku no Pandora: As I put it on Twitter, this show has neither enough animation nor enough energy. The first episode turned out to be an anomaly in an otherwise relatively flat and plain show.

Not for me:

• Maho Girls Precure!: I gave this three episodes and while it's a perfectly good show with solid writing for its genre, there's basically nothing in it that hooks me and too much that quietly turns me off. The story beats are well crafted and perfectly competent, but you can also kind of see them coming from a mile off. This is (quite well) written for its target audience, and it shows. It's also a real magical girls show, complete with a basic enemy of the week, fight of the week, extended stock footage transformation scenes, and so on. It's charming, though; just not enough so to charm me.

  On a side note, I've periodically read praise of the whole Precure series as featuring good fights. All I can say to that is that in the first three episodes I was not particularly taken with the fights. This is probably not surprising, but it did come as kind of a letdown. Call it me coming into this with elevated expectations.

  (I may watch an episode or two more just because, but probably not.)

This is a pretty solid season for me. There's shows that are thrilling, shows that I actively look forwards to, and plenty of stuff to keep me entertained. I've been disappointed in a few shows, but that happens basically every season, and most of the letdown has been in shows that didn't start out strong in any case.

The best N anime that I saw in 2015

This is much like last year's best N, namely what I consider to be the best or most enjoyable things that I saw in calendar 2015 (regardless of when they were made or released). As is now standard, my general rule is that only shows that have actually ended count because you never know what eye-rolling things a show may finish up with. This specifically affects Concrete Revolutio, which would otherwise rate quite highly. Overall I feel that 2015 has been quite uneven; to put it one way, it has some superstars but its bench is not very deep.

(See also the winter, spring, summer, and fall retrospectives, and for that matter my year end APR vote.)

In order:

• Shirobako: This stands clearly above almost everything that finished in 2015. I've already written plenty in my winter retrospective and I really don't have more to add. I'm really glad both that we got a show like this and that it was about anime, because through it I both enjoyed and learned, and I think the passion of everyone involved in its creation shone through.

  (As odd as it sounds, I don't think we need a sequel although I sure wouldn't turn one down.)

• Sound! Euphonium: The only real competitor for Shirobako, this show is ultimately a tight observation of characters going through stresses and being themselves. It is grounded by KyoAni's grasp of small moments and small gestures and given flight by some excellent writing. I wrote more in my spring retrospective.

  (As a character drama where cruel things happen to some people, it will not be to everyone's tastes.)

• Gatchaman Crowds Insight: This took the easy answers that the original series gave us and turned them back on themselves to show us the flaws and weak points. This time around there was no clear evil, just good intentions going in various ways, and that made it all worse. Which was the show's point, really.

• Symphogear as a whole: I'll be honest; I'm cheating here. While I liked Symphogear GX, I'm not sure it was good enough on its own to rate this high in my list. As a collective whole (which is how I watched them), the three series do definitely qualify. I enjoyed them quite a lot, goofy cheese and all, and they were one of the best things I watched all year.

Things that I consider good but not necessarily memorable over the long term:

• Mushishi Zoku Shou - Suzu no Shizuku: This final bit of Mushishi was in many ways a classical story for the show, great but bittersweet, and it was executed with the show's typical excellence. There is no more to look forward to, but Mushishi went out on a high note. I meandered more on Twitter.

  (I rank this as 'not memorable over the long term' because in the large scale of things it is not the kind of Mushishi story that sticks in my mind. The really affecting stories involve something important about Ginko, and in this one he played his usual observer role.)

• Psycho-Pass: The Movie: This was an excellent distillation of the show at its best, simultaneously cynical and optimistic. Akane got to be awesome, Sybil got to be sleazy, and so on. Fortunately you don't need to know very much about the terrible second season in order to watch this. I suspect that some people feel that it has some plot holes by the end, although I disagree with them.

• One-Punch Man: This landed the comedy (for me) and the spectacular animated fights (although they sometimes lacked weight and impact). It mostly missed being any deeper than that, which is a pity because it did manage to have moments where it managed more. Still, what I watched was a fair amount of fun and wow, a lot of it was spectacular.

• Little Witch Academia The Enchanted Parade: Much like the original, this was straightforward fun. We don't get a lot of that, so I'm giving it recognition just as I did the original back in 2013.

Honorable mentions:

• Yurikuma Arashi: It was very Ikuhara. This matters, as does its various messages and sub-messages, but I cannot say that the show made its way into my heart. I am glad that it got made and got watched, so it earns a place here.

• Punchline: This had its goofy and less than successful parts, but on the whole I find myself looking back on it with increasing fondness. In retrospect it aimed fairly high and achieved a surprisingly large amount of what it aimed for, with some genuine twists and surprises. If you're not moved by the song from the end of the last episode (spoilers), you have a heart stonier than mine.

• Yozakura Quartet - Tsuki ni Naku: This little OVA delivered the whole Yozakura Quartet experience in a compact bundle of animation firepower. My overall fondness for Yozakura Quartet has only grown since Hana no Uta, so I'm giving this installment a place here for being plain solid fun.

• Garo - The Crimson Moon: As time has passed since the show ended, it's become easier to remember just the high parts (which could be very good) and gloss over the less successful parts. Call this a special merit award for aiming high, trying hard, and doing surprisingly well.

• Ghost in the Shell The New Movie: I would like to love this more than I do, but in the end I can't. We got more of all of the various things ARISE has been giving us through its run, it was reasonably spectacular, and it did end up giving us a reasonable amount of overall answers. But it did not cohere in the way it really needed to in order to have real impact.

• Rakuen Tsuihou - Expelled from Paradise: This is a perfectly solid action movie that wears its themes on its sleeve. It gains extra notability for having entirely 3D CG that I felt worked fairly well; consider it a glimpse of part of the future of anime.

• Strike the Blood: I watched this during one of my periods of boredom with currently airing shows. It was reasonably entertaining and decent for its genre, but it gets a special merit honorable mention for having that rarity in shows like this, namely a collection of strong and effective female characters.

  (StB is not as objectively good as some of the things that did not make even this section, but it was more enjoyable overall.)

Specifically excluded because they are continuing shows are Concrete Revolutio, Akagami no Shirayukihime, and Gakusen Toshi Asterisk. Evaluated only on what has aired so far, CR would be a top show (ahead of at least Symphogear), AnS a good show, and Asterisk at least an honorable mention (yes, really).

(I'm also not going to try to put forward opinions on the Animator Expo series of shorts. Some of them were very impressive, but they don't really fit on the same scale as actual shows; being so short, their merits and drawbacks are completely different. Anyways, I don't think they're watchable any more.)

Notable things that don't make my list for various reasons:

• Perfect Insider: This had some great aspects (ie, Moe), but in the end it's dragged down by how it ended and by how it took various annoying bits of character philosophy seriously. If I end the show rolling my eyes, it does not make the list.

• Blood Blockade Battlefront: On an episode to episode level this was well directed and often compelling. Where it fell down is on anything beyond that; it was essentially a series of stories from an ongoing manga, and so there was no overall story and nothing went anywhere. The attempt to add an overall original storyline unfortunately went down in flames in the end in a long-delayed last episode, ultimately for structural reasons.

• Maria the Virgin Witch: The show aimed high and was periodically great, but in the end I can't overlook its flaws (including its ending). For me, the root cause of the problems is that the show wanted to have its cake and eat it too; it wanted a setting where God was real without really thinking about the implications of this. The resulting rough edges rubbed me the wrong way all through the show. See also.

• Knights of Sidonia S2 - The Ninth Planet Crusade: I wish I could love this wholeheartedly, because the high points were just as good as the first season. Unfortunately as a whole it's dragged down by turning into an interminable harem show for the middle of the season. It started well, finished quite well, and was periodically good in the middle, but the harem hijinks just give the whole thing a sour taste that I can't get past.

I did get around to seeing Madoka: Rebellion this year but it does not otherwise make this entry for reasons covered here. The short version is that it in no way strikes me as an important thing to see either in terms of Madoka or simple overall quality.

My notes say that I finished 42 series, OVAs, and movies in 2015, which is way up from previous years. I have no idea how I managed it. I did watch a number of movies and short OVA series, which is a quick way to increase the count, but even with that I watched more than I thought. However, as you can tell from how short my lists here are, many of them were not that memorable, not that impressive, or simply not that good. I watched a lot of stuff out of inertia and because it was just good enough to keep me tuned in on a week to week basis.

Compared to last year, the highs from this year are amazing (I'm pretty convinced that Shirobako is a show for the ages), but there's not very much in the solid middle of the road. A number of things stumbled, some of them fairly badly. This was a very divided year.

(It's interesting how well this entry lines up with my year end APR votes (bearing in mind that APR is restricted to TV shows), even though I wrote them separately. Last year I flip-flopped, but not this time around. I have some theories about that, but they're for another entry.)