Summer Anime: Winners and Losers

There's nothing more subjective than talking about which anime you like and which you hate, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to do anyway. Just keep in mind my opinions are worth about what the electrons they're printed on cost, and that when I'm talking about a series being a 'loser' that's only in my book and your mileage will vary.

Winner - Sora no Manimani

The character designs somehow screamed "aimed at little kids" to me, but that's not true - this has turned out to be my favorite series of the summer, although I didn't expect it to be. A story about a high school astronomy club may not sound interesting on paper, but I give them a lot of credit - there's a solid cast and this always manages to put a smile on my face. The basic storyline is our hero, Saku, returns to a town he lived in as a child after moving all over the place, and is reunited with his hyper-genki, star-loving childhood friend Mihoshi - throw in a couple other bishoujo and supporting characters, add the cast growing up and starting to fall in love for the first time, stir, and you've got a surprisingly funny series. Hime especially cracks me up, her reactions to other girls getting close to Saku are priceless.

Loser - Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu

I never in a million years thought I would drop Haruhi - after waiting so long for a second season, and having loved the first season, this should have been an easy winner, but I honestly can't bring myself to watch Sighs. It doesn't help that Sighs was the novel I enjoyed the least, and obviously Endless Eight is Endless didn't help. I dropped this after the third Endless Eight iteration, picked it back up when Sighs started, then dropped it again. Sighs just really doesn't make Haruhi very likeable, and I think she's at her best when she does show a bit of humanity under the tsun-tsun exterior. Not to mention pathetic-mode Mikuru just makes me want to smack her and tell her to stop whining and grow some balls, being afraid Haruhi will make the world end if you stand up to her is no excuse for not having a spine.

Winner - Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou

I know, the first episode had as much nopan as Saki, so how can anyone take this seriously? I've never believed that fanservice = bad series - I've loved series that have no service at all, and I've loved series that have tons of it. To me, what matters most is a good cast, and the cast of Gendai Mahou keeps me watching. Yes, Yumiko is an ojou-sama stereotype, and Koyomi has more in common with Fuuko than her voice actress, but they make a good team, and I think when they're on screen together is really when this is the most fun to watch. The plot makes very little sense, the animation's uneven, but the story of Yumiko making a good friend and Koyomi gaining more confidence just makes it impossible for me not to root for them both. And no, I don't mean in the yuri sense, although if they went there I wouldn't complain.

Loser - Princess Lover

Bishoujo series, even though some fans look down on them, to me can be really good - Kanon, Da Capo, Lamune, there are plenty of examples of the genre that I really enjoyed. Princess Lover isn't one of them. First, I admit it's a shallow reason, but the character designs just kill me, specifically the fact the whole female cast is like an X-cup. I know anime dimensions don't correspond to reality, but there's a fine like between big breasts and grotesquely oversized breasts, and Charlotte's J-cup knockers fall in the latter category for me. In real life, her spine would snap from the weight of those gazoombas. Add to that the fact it can't seem to decide what the hell it is - is this a comedy like the onsen episode? Action series like the car chase in the first episode? Some series can do everything well, but this can't. The onsen episode was mildly amusing, but honestly Fumoffu did it much better. Dropped after it started turning into a Die Hard sequel, with Charlotte trapped in the building.

Winner - Taishou Yakyuu Musume

Honestly, the background music for this series sounds like it's out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon half the time, but aside from that, it's got me hooked with a great cast and a fun, laid-back story. I wrote about it earlier, and since then it's kept my interest well - some episodes are stronger than others, but it's fun to watch, and honestly that's the main thing I look for in anime. I'm also impressed that it's taken a pretty realistic approach - the girls don't suddenly level up and beat all the guys' teams to a pulp the next day, they're still practicing, struggling to beat elementary school kids, and learning what it's like to play as a team.

Loser - Kanamemo

It has Hocchan in it, it has good character designs, moe aplenty, and a slice-of-life feel to it - Kanamemo is the story of a group of girls who deliver newspapers, with their boss improbably being a loli in elementary school. It also sucks in my book not because it has a lot of fanservice (censored in the TV and Crunchyroll broadcast) but because the characters just don't do a lot for me and the 'comedy' always fails to make me laugh. Hocchan's character just grabs Kana's non-existent boobs all the time. The 'Chief' is an elementary school girl. Kana herself is so naive she must have been locked in a back room in her grandmother's house for the last ten years. There are lesbians and some other characters, but honestly none of them really makes me want to watch this. Mika is a typical Kugimiya Rie character, which is fine since although they get a lot of hate tsunderes are still entertaining for me, but she's a loli too and doesn't get that much screentime. Worst of all, though, is the swimsuit episode where everyone bursts into song, like they're gunning for Best Musical suddenly - if I could forget one episode of anime this season, just completely wipe it out of my memory for all eternity, that episode would be it.

Winner - Gintama

Gintama's one of those series I go back and forth on - some episodes are pure toilet humor and I stop watching halfway through, but then the next episode will have me laughing my ass off. I re-watched episode 88 the other day, and no matter how many times I see Zura rapping, or the 'filthy Tower of Babel' it just cracks me up. I'm not sure how funny it would be if you don't know the characters from watching it all along, but episode 88 is probably one of the top 10 anime episodes of all time for me, when it comes to pure comedy.

Loser - Umi Monogatari

Great character designs, scores high on the bishoujo scale, decent animation - but I still couldn't keep my eyes open four episodes in. Relaxing gondola-rowing type music during fight scenes is just not a good idea, and the plot is pretty mediocre. I know, I watch Gendai Mahou so I shouldn't complain about plot, but I think again it's the cast of Umimono that lost me the most - Marin is ultra-optimistic but just comes across to me as an airhead, while other hyper-genki characters this season like Mihoshi at least promise to show some depth too. And Urin...worst name for an anime character of all time.

First Impressions: Taishou Yakyuu Musume

Summer season is looking pretty strong so far, especially now that I've seen the first episode of Taishou Yakyuu Musume, based on a light novel about a girls' baseball team, set between the world wars in 1925 Japan (during the reign of the Taishou emperor). JC Staff is at the helm so at least I won't have to look forward to the same episode four times in a row, although there is a Broadway musical number in the first couple minutes of episode 1 that's it's probably better just to pretend never happened.

If you've seen Princess Nine you're not unfamiliar with the premise of Taisho Yakyuu Musume. A wealthy girl named Akiko decides to put a girls' baseball team together and play against guys, after a guy who plays baseball tells her at a party he basically thinks women should just get their asses back in the kitchen already. Akiko first recruits her best friend Koume, who's more or less the heroine of the story, and tries to build a team from there, although the obvious obstacles are getting permission from the school and the girls' families, learning to play the game, and then somehow beating a guys' team that's likely to have a lot more practice and experience under their belts. Koume's parents run a "Western-style" restaurant, but her father is pretty much a traditionalist and won't let her wear serafuku to school. It's funny how in every generation you have the struggle between parents pushing tradition and kids pushing the envelope, and I'm sure that'll play a big part in the story as well.

It's an interesting premise with a lot of potential, and baseball can be pretty entertaining to watch (for me, anyway - and after Saki I'm dying to watch an anime series with a game in it that I actually understand). Maybe I'm shallow, but I'm also a sucker for good character designs and this has them in spades - brilliantly following the Asakura Otome Rule (pink ribbon = instant moe level up) Akiko is especially easy on the eyes. If you're looking for fanservice you'll likely be disappointed, but the setting is interesting too - the 20s were a tumultuous decade, with Japan's modernization continuing at a brisk pace, and the mix of old and new is easy to see just in the mix of serafuku and kimono in Akiko and Koume's classroom (although I wonder, what kind of school gives students a choice of uniforms)?

The rest of the cast we haven't seen too much of yet, but there's some potential there too. One of the girls in kimono gives me a Yakumo vibe for some reason, and the rest of the cast looks interesting too. Usually the portrayal of foreigners in anime makes me cringe (I'm thinking Weiner-kun or whatever his name was in Karin) and there is a teacher with the requisite blue eyes, blond hair, and D-cup - but mercifully her accent isn't too bad, and I'm sure she'll end up their club's adviser down the road, probably since no one else at the school likely knows how to play baseball anyway.

There doesn't seem to be an obvious romance element to the story yet, and there may not be - but I've got to think that Akiko likes the guy who told her women belonged in the kitchen, and that's why Akiko was so upset by what he said and now is trying so hard to prove him wrong. And something's up with the cook at Koume's house, so wouldn't surprise me if it turns out that he likes her too. But we'll see - even if the theme of the series is just friendship and overcoming the odds, I'll enjoy watching this. Definitely looking forward to next week, only complaint is that we're getting it in 4:3 (hoping this is like K-On and Clannad and the 16:9 will follow in a couple weeks on a different station). It does looks like it won't be as heavy on the drama as Princess Nine, which is probably a good thing (for me anyway).

In the Wake of the Week

Random thoughts from this week's anime watching (spoilers everywhere):

- Poor Imo-chan...it's too bad navis can't *remote* control ships,
then she could keep eating all the maruyaki she wants.
- Why the hell is Nerval making pasta? As much as Sorakake can be
kind of thought-provoking at times, other times it's 100% WTF. At
least he didn't order Pizza Hut.
- It's good to see with Tsutsuji, Lum's fashion sense lives on 25+ years later.
- Yumina looks like an idiot with a bird sitting on her head, but two
birds is even worse. Am I the only one whose first thought was what
happens when they have to poop?
- Is it just me or is the arrival of the second season of Haruhi kind
of anticlimatic? After all the false starts, for it to show up almost
out of nowhere just...lacks impact, I guess.
- Haruhi's personality didn't seem to change at all from junior high
to high school - but I guess you could say she hasn't changed all that
much over the course of the series in high school either.
- In its first year of existence the light music club gave exactly one
concert? At this rate I'm not thinking the Budokan thing is going to
happen...
- Bummed we didn't get a Valentine's Day episode in K-On!, I know it's
all girls but can't you just picture Mugi giving Sawako chocolate?
- Megane guy in Hatsukoi Limited is a character we've seen about a
million times before, but I still liked episode 7 more than I thought
I would.
- Kei and Kusuda are still my favorite characters though...they could
put Kei's picture on the Wikipedia entry for tsundere.
- Good to see Hinagiku getting lots of screentime.
- Could Kiss x Sis get any closer to the line without crossing it?
- Riko >> impassable wall >> Ako.
- Silfa...meh. Need another Ikuno or Sasara episode.
- At the rate they keep adding new characters, Takaaki's going to have
the largest harem in anime history.

The Hard to Believe, Yes Way, Reappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi

Wow. Just....wow. Another season of Haruhi - strangely enough,
looking outside, I don't see mushroom clouds or burning pitch falling
from the sky on the Damned, but I've got to think it's coming. Yes,
there have been enough false starts that I was convinced the world
would end before we'd see a second season of Haruhi, but apparently
I'm wrong - as every anime blog on Earth is reporting, they slipped a
new episode, "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody", in with a re-airing of the first
season, with more new episodes to come. It's been so long that maybe
they felt they needed a stunt like this to try to rekindle what's left
of the fanbase, but airing more Haruhi without much advance warning is
an interesting marketing move - I'd expected they would announce the
date for the new season a year in advance and build mad crazy hype all
along the way. Since I loved the first season, I'll definitely be
watching this - I think I can hear the roar of a thousand fansub
groups starting their engines in unison now...

(Late) Spring Impressions: K-on!

It's hard to believe that the winter season is over, and the second
week of the spring season is here already - I haven't posted in a
while but since it's a slow Friday before Easter at work, might as
well Swiffer off this blog and throw two cents into the ether.

K-on! is the series that's probably getting the most press right now,
and while not everyone's enjoying it (Hinano and JP gave it the kind
of review you'd give cancer), I was impressed by the first two
episodes. To me, the characters are likeable and entertaining, the
animation is fluid, the character designs good - I doubt at the end
I'll look back and say it was as good as, say, Toradora, but so far
I'm still hooked. Someone compared this to Manabi Straight, and laid
back, slice-of-life, moe series are usually just what I'm looking for
to relax at the end of the workday.

The other popular comparison is to Lucky Star, and while I can see the
parallels between the four main characters I think K-on! flows a lot
better - Lucky Star (as much as I love the series) does have that
derived from a 4-panel manga "feel" to it as it jumps from moment to
moment, while K-on! seems to have a more coherent, linear storyline.
Getting good character development in an anime derived from a 4-panel
comic seems unlikely, but I'm hoping K-on! will deliver. Having said
that, I think it'll be hard for K-on! to top Lucky Star in my book,
since I love Lucky Star's characters - but they had 26 episodes to
grow on me, while K-on!'s only had two, so you never know.

It looks like Mio's getting the most love from fans so far, and I can
see why based on episode 2 - hell, even Yui was almost moegasming over
her. I think Yui has the most potential for development though,
starting out as fairly unmotivated and not knowing anything about
music, will she end up rivaling Nagato on the guitar? Probably not,
but I'm hoping for a Live Alive-like performance by the end of the
series, even if it's not in a stadium.

So far my biggest complaint is the 4:3 aspect ratio just looks off to
me since I'm so used to 16:9, hopefully it'll air in widescreen in a
couple weeks. Mugi's eyebrows were vaguely disturbing at first, but I
guess I'm getting used to them even though apparently I don't have
thick eyebrow moe.

I was looking forward to the second episode enough that I watched it
raw on YouTube (let's just say their definition of "high quality" is
very 2005) and as usual with my sorry Japanese skillz I got maybe 10%
of the dialogue. The subs are so fast there's really no need to watch
the raw though - this morning Coalguys had it subbed already. On this
kind of trajectory by the time my daughter's old enough to watch
anime, subs will be out before shows even air, if anyone still sends
signals over the air by then.