Season 1 Episode 1 Anime Reviews

Anime Review – Space Patrol Luluco

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 17, 2016
No Comments on Anime Review – Space Patrol Luluco

Ogikubo is the name of the specially designated area in space in the Milky Way where Earthlings and aliens can live together. Luluco is a female middle school student who lives with her father, and no matter where she is, Luluco is a common, “super normal” girl. As she is living her normal life, one day the mysterious transfer student ΑΩ Nova abruptly appears before her. That meeting will change Luluco’s fate. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 13

Source: Original

Review: This review contains spoilers for events that occur throughout the series.

There’s a large sub-set of anime series that seem to trade primarily on their perceived “wackiness.” “Oh, those cartoons from Japan, they’re so weird,” people sometimes say, confused by somewhat by anime’s blending of cultural call-backs they’re not familiar with, referential comedy based on other media that will likely never be available in the West, and characters that don’t seem to reflect any real human attributes. Add to that the fact that so many shows nowadays, comedy series especially, arrive in such short, punctuated doses, here and gone in the blink of an eye, and it’s no wonder that many of these silly, colorful, and over-the-top anime are incredibly difficult to relate to (especially if you’re getting on in “fandom years” like me).

Short form anime seem to only be increasing in popularity and ubiquity, but until recently I just couldn’t fine many that I actually liked. It’s only been in the past couple of years or so that several short series have started to make decent use of their format and branch out from comedy into other realms, like Yamishibai‘s horror tales or She and her Cat‘s delicate look at life through a feline’s eyes. Still, comedy has primarily the format’s bread and butter over the years, and there have been several good ones lately. While many people have been trying to get me to watch Please Tell Me! Galko-chan (I’ll get around to it… someday), which I’ve heard called “Feminist” and “like Broad City, the anime,” I haven’t found myself in the correct frame of mind to tackle it yet. Those are both really large claims to make, and I’m afraid of ultimately being disappointed if/when it misses the mark. On the other hand, I had no trouble keeping up with Space Patrol Luluco from week-to-week, I think primarily because there’s some inherent part of me that just clicks with Hiroyuki Imaishi‘s body of work.

The anime that Imaishi has had a strong hand in tend toward the silly and perverse, with a lot of over-the-top movement and fiery, uncomplicated emotion. They can be both barely-animated in the same vein as many Western made-for-adults animation series tend to be, and jam-packed with cinematic, bombastic movement, within the same episode. Their subject matter could be silly, perverse, or grotesque, but with the ability to turn serious when needed or at least provide lip service towards exploring more complex topics. It’s like he walks into a project with a big old bag full of contradictory nonsense, and somehow has the ability to smash it all together into something visually appealing and entertaining to watch. I find that pretty fascinating.

Luluco is a sci-fi comedy anime that has Imaishi’s storytelling and directorial fingerprints all over it. It’s about a self-professed normal girl who wants to live an average teenage life. She worries about “teenage girl stuff” like finding her first love, getting along with others in school, and dealing with her dad. The twist is that she lives in an area called Ogikubo that’s a hotbed for alien activity where creatures from all across the local corner of the universe interact with one-another and occasionally cause trouble. Luluco’s dad is a member of the Space Patrol, an agency that sniffs out unlawful alien activity and “deals with it.” It’s when Dad “accidentally” eats some contraband material with his breakfast and freezes his body solid that Luluco is thrust into taking his place until he’s better. Goodbye, normal life! All is not lost, however, since with her is Alpha-Omega Nova, a very attractive boy her age that Luluco instantly starts crushing on. Chasing down criminal aliens and embarrassingly transforming into a giant gun aren’t so bad when you get to spend all your time allowing your first love to bud and flourish!

Luluco06 — Lalaco Godspeed arrives to steal Ogikubo.

Eventually Luluco’s mom shows up (she’s a space pirate with a real rag-tag crew), steals Ogikubo itself and takes it to the far corners of the universe, and Luluco and company are sent on a mad chase to retrieve it, all the while discovering just how many truly goofy planets there are out there. Eventually Luluco’s very love for Nova-kun becomes a major plot point and the fate of Ogikubo and all its characters rests in what the big-bag refers to as a teenage girl’s “shitty, worthless first love.”

Imaishi seems to have a way with female anime characters and their stories. I wouldn’t necessarily call it feminist (those of you who have seen me in person at conventions lately know that there are reasons for that), but I do think that he and those who work with him seem to have more of a vested interest in presenting girls and women in a different light than you see in many anime. In Panty and Stocking (a series that generally seemed to confound a lot of fans), we get two main characters who are basically unapologetic about their “vices.” Panty has a lot of unattached sexual encounters, and Stocking eats sugary sweet food all day. Ultimately, I interpreted the series as a whole as being critical of these mostly unexamined prejudices that are held against women, both in the anime and in real life. In Kill la Kill, in the correct light, you can tease out messages about body shaming against women and the constant pressure we face to be dressed a certain way, as well as the value of female camaraderie and friendship. There are major issues with these anime series, too, which is partly why I’m hesitant about lifting them up as paragons of female-focused entertainment. They contain plenty of leering and fanservicey stuff to round out their run time (though I maintain that late-era “good” Gainax and Trigger material has a way with fanservice that I personally find less gross than the norm), so that’s something to consider.

Luluco02 — Luluco close to death (from embarrassment?)

Luluco as a whole skews a bit younger with its characters. Its atmosphere, while appropriately zany and wacky, is a lot more tame in terms of the visual sexualization, so its handling of female-focused plot points comes across more purely than some of its predecessors. Ignoring the sci-fi element all together, the story is focused on the value of a young girl’s first love. This might not seem like particularly groundbreaking material, but consider that anime most often tackles this subject in the context of school drama where a young woman ends up becoming consumed with her feelings for the object of her affections to the exclusion of (most) everything else. The crush acts as both the focus of the plot, as well as an aspect of it which is used by outsiders and naysayers to trivialize the type of anime made for a young female audience. I knew someone at one time who called shoujo anime something like “those pointy-chin shows” referring to the types of character designs that tend to show up in those series. Getting beyond the fact that it’s kind of a funny term and there are a lot of mediocre shoujo anime (like any other type of anime) out there that kind of deserve it, I find that there are a lot of viewers who generally just trivialize anime series that have too strong a focus on feelings and emotions, and especially uncomplicated-yet-overwhelming pubescent romantic feelings, ostensibly because they find themselves unable or unwilling to try to relate to those emotions of the teenage girls who serve as protagonists.

There’s a lot to unpack there, but what amuses me about Luluco is that it does so without hesitation and without looking back… you just have to be paying attention to notice it. Luluco lays its aesthetics on thick with its bright colors, cutesy characters, madcap comedy, and constant parody humor, not to mention its lightning-fast pacing and Inferno Cop style plot progression. Luluco’s girlish crush on Nova-kun seems like a side note for most of the series, a gag that keeps cropping up that serves to re-emphasize just how bland of a personality he has. It’s only near the end of the show when the big baddie is revealed that we find out how central Luluco’s feelings were the entire time. The Blackholeians, who make their living stealing valuable items throughout the universe, have decided that it would be more interesting to start seeking out things that are considered utterly worthless. They’ve now come to the conclusion that the first love of a teenage girl is probably the most utterly worthless, most bland and most insignificant thing out there, so they steal it (visually represented by a clear heart-shaped jewel) from Luluco, killing her. Luluco then has to journey back from Hell itself to then prove the true value of her feelings.

I was incredibly impressed by this final story arc because within the microcosm of an otherwise very silly show, the creators were able to express a frustration that I’ve had with almost every kind of fandom I’ve ever been in – “this thing you care about isn’t important to me, so therefore it doesn’t matter.” Doubly-so when said by male fans when referring to entertainment targeted towards girls and women. Thinking back, I don’t think there are many people who would look at their first crush or even their early relationships, and think to themselves “this was substantial and it was made to last.” There are so many factors, including physiological ones and those relating to experience and emotional maturity, that generally doom these early relationships to be nothing more than learning experiences on the road to adulthood. But they were real and they were important, and at the time they felt all-consuming. They had value in they way they helped form my adult self; thinking back to those memories, I can tell which relationships helped me learn to appreciate others’ hobbies (even if they weren’t my hobbies) and which ones caused me to let my personal boundaries deteriorate, setting me up for a long road towards learning to respect myself again. There were happy times and challenging experiences. Sometimes there was more bad than good, but even if the emotions themselves were fleeting and over dramatic, they were always real and they were always important. Some of the same things could be said for the books, movies, television, blogs, or games that drew our attention as younger people. Some of them might have less objective “value,” and looking at them now we can tell that they were pretty terrible (I used to be in love with so much terrible anime, you guys), but people don’t attach themselves to fandoms and media for no reason; there’s always something there that speaks to us when we need to hear it.

When Luluco comes back from Hell and takes full ownership of her feelings for Nova, it’s then that she proves her power. Because there is nothing more emotionally powerful than being able to fully value one’s self and one’s emotions, at least as far as defeating black hole aliens is concerned. I like to interpret Luluco’s powerful return as a giant middle finger towards those who under-value entertainment made for women, especially since the message was stealthed into a show that from the outside seems to be nothing more than a cracked-out (and possibly a little bit self-congratulatory) comedy romp from Studio Trigger and company.

Luluco01 — Luluco gets advice from a friend.

All that aside, there are some fun references to other Trigger properties throughout the series – Little Witch Academia, Kill la Kill, and Sex & Violence with Machspeed being the really obvious ones; Inferno Cop shows up in an awesome cameo later on and there are some strong aesthetic references towards Gurren Lagann, too. I would also be remiss if I went without mentioning the third member of the Space Patrol team, Midori, an alien gyaru who starts as sort of a love-rival to Luluco but ends up becoming supportive (though no less sassy) by the end. She’s used more as comic relief and provides a good foil for the pure-hearted Luluco, but unfortunately doesn’t spend much time front-and-center. Luluco’s mother, Lalaco Godspeed, is also a hoot (with prominent hooters, eheheh). The only downside is that the short format means that these fun side characters don’t really receive as much attention as I would have liked, but maybe there’ll be a sequel someday.

I’ve been a little bit snarky in person with some folks this past season, calling this “Studio Trigger’s good Spring 2016 anime series.” I’m only partly joking when I say that, though, since as much as I thought Kiznaiver was a decent accomplishment with a lot of good ideas to share, I felt a stronger emotional connection with this series. Luluco just always seemed more focused on the story it wanted to tell and on the character it decided to feature in the telling. Its entire run time only constitutes about 1/3rd of your average anime series, and yet I think it was more successful in arguing for its central conceits than a lot of other series out there. I may even have shed a tear once or twice (whether from laughing or crying, I’ll never tell). I have a tendency to dig deep into shows that I really enjoy, drawing conclusions that others might not agree with, and I gather that’s the case with this show, too. But they’re my feelings, and those feelings have power for me. And isn’t that really what’s important?

Pros: The show has a definite sense of style to it, with cute character designs, and a good balance of stills and more animated portions. I thought most of the gags were pretty funny and enjoyed the references to other anime throughout the show. There’s a good message to be found about the value of formative (and especially romantic) experiences, especially those that women have which are often belittled by the mainstream.

Cons: If you choose to seek out some of the anime referenced in the show, be warned that Sex & Violence with Machspeed is incredibly racy and grotesque, something that’s more hinted at in the episode of Luluco that references it. The short runtime leaves little time to flesh out some of the side characters, like Lalaco and Midori. Please make a sequel!

Grade: B+

Tags Comedy, Crunchyroll, Science Fiction, Short Form, Spring 2016, Trigger

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Sweetness and Lightning

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 17, 2016
6 Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – Sweetness and Lightning

Math teacher Kōhei Inuzuka is a widower with a young daughter named Tsumugi. Inuzuka isn’t adept in the kitchen but with the help of his student Kotori Iida and his daughter, he embarks on a culinary adventure. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Kyouhei Inuzuka is a high school teacher, but he’s also a single father to his young daughter, Tsumugi. It’s been six months since his wife died, and he’s just trying to take each day one day at a time and make sure he can take care of Tsumugi. Unfortunately, he’s often out late and more often than not resorts to grabbing convenience store bento for dinner. While out in the park flower-viewing, they happen upon a young lady weeping over her rice balls. She’s not sad, just moved to tears over the delicious food that her busy mother prepared. It just so happens that her mother owns a restaurant, and she passes along a business card. A couple of days later, Tsumugi is really feeling sad over the lack of home-cooked meals at their house, so Kyouhei does something impulsive – he races to the restaurant, daughter in tow, in order to provide something warm and nourishing. One problem – the owner is out and the restaurant is technically closed for the day, but Kotori, the owner’s daughter and coincidentally one of Kyouhei’s students, offers to cook up something simple. That night, they enjoy hot rice together, and Kotori asks that they join forces and learn to cook with one-another.

SweetnessLightning01 — Kyouhei pieces together Tsumugi’s lunch using store-bought pre-prepped side dishes.

Impressions: I have a major soft spot for stories that involve parenting and genuinely cute kids. Not because I have any of my own, but likely because it’s such a unique occurrence in anime. I remain a big fan of Bunny Drop (hey, it was a really excellent 11-episode anime and an equally good 4 volume manga!), enjoyed Kotetsu’s relationship with his daughter in Tiger & Bunny, and in general am impressed when the parental relationship is depicted as being substantial rather than as some afterthought in an anime full of teenagers (I don’t really have time to get into the related issue of dead moms in anime, but that’s certainly something to note). In any case, anime series that consider the parents’ point of view and depict that trials of trying to bring up a young person in an environment which makes that difficult are some of the anime I find appealing.

So far this show has a lot going for it in that regard. Kyouhei is depicted as a genuinely good person who has his daughter’s best interests at heart. It’s the specifics of their situation, as well as perhaps some residual depression following the death of his wife, that creates a lot of challenges for him to try to overcome. For the most part, Kyouhei seems fairly on top of everyday life; he makes plans to do the laundry with Tsumugi that weekend, they get out of the house to spend time together, he gets her dressed and out the door in the morning and generally arrives in time to pick her up from daycare. In short, he’s loving and competent, and while obviously any single parent situation is difficult to manage, there’s a decent amount of realism in his ability to juggle all these things and it’s clear that Tsumugi is grateful.

SweetnessLightning02 — A cell phone shot of Tsumugi during her first (and only) experience with dad’s cooking.

What left an impression on me after the first episode, though, is its (and by extension, the show’s) focus on food and meals as they relate to family life. In flashback, we learn that Kyouhei’s late wife Tae was quite the experimental chef, and her meals were beloved in the household. Because of the food lifestyle I (mostly) adhere to, I’m used to hearing the refrain that “food is fuel” and that we should strive to remove the emotional aspect from it (as in, try to stop emotional eating and listen to your body’s hunger signals instead). That’s fine on a logical level, but for me in particular food and meals have always served the purpose of showing love to those I care about and bringing together friends and family around a shared table. Tsumugi is a generally happy, bubbly youngster, but her sadness at eating convenience store bento boxes while her dad catches up on his classroom work is obvious. To her, meals are something that she wants to share with family, and a home-cooked meal trumps anything from the microwave (though her dad’s early attempts at home cooking so far have left a little to be desired, judging by her reported reaction).

I think this episode does a good job of explaining (without explicitly doing so) why Kyouhei hasn’t taken up cooking, and in fact has outright avoided the task. Aside from the fact that he doesn’t have much cooking experience and his first attempt was a major bomb (seriously, that photo of Tsumugi making a disgusted face is hilarious), it becomes clear that the subject of cooking is too strong a reminder of what’s missing now that his wife is gone. Trying to do something that was so closely associated with someone who’s now gone has got to be incredibly painful; each dish, whether successful or a failure, is just another way of pointing out the empty space left behind. It wouldn’t be unusual for Kyouhei to avoid cooking out of respect for his wife’s memory and a desire to keep from feeling as though he were trying to replace her. All of this is interpreted from what’s written between the lines; unlike a lot of anime, this one so far is a little bit more “show” and a little less “tell,” which in itself is nice.

SweetnessLightning03 — Kotori crying while eating in the park.

Lest everyone think this is a show all about doom and gloom and death, let me mention that I found the first episode to be incredibly cute and also pretty funny. Tsumugi is at that particular age where emotions are still shared right out in the open, and social norms don’t necessarily play a large factor in everyday interactions. She says what’s on her mind and expresses her feelings without worrying what others might think, and that’s one of the things I find cutest about little kids (well, until their emotions go into overdrive and devolve into tantrums; then I’m quick to leave the area). I enjoyed how she declares her love for her dad, and also how she had no qualms about approaching Kotori (at that time a total stranger) in the park to comfort her and ask why she was crying. There’s just something really heartwarming about the earnestness of children that gives me that warmhearted feeling.

I’m guessing that any “concerns” about the direction of this show that one might have would be due to the fact that one of the three main characters is a high school student of Kyouhei’s. Maybe it’s my cynicism talking, or maybe it’s just anime’s propensity for being willing to go in distasteful directions, but I’m wary of the fact that Kotori is likely going to be spending a lot of time with Kyouhei and possibly filling part of the role that Kyouhei’s wife used to and of the fact that the Wikipedia entry references Kotori’s possible crush on her teacher. The anime seems fairly cute and innocent so far, and Kotori’s attitude seems innocent enough, but I’ve been burned in the past and just don’t want such a cute series to go down that dark road.

I’ve been feeling kind of crappy the last few days (bad allergies are keeping me medicated-up and I’m having a hard time staying awake and focusing on anything), so it was nice to take a moment to sit down with something that’s very cute and heartwarming while trying to unwind. For now, rather than worry about what direction it will take, I’m going to accept the show at face value and just appreciate the fact that anime is a medium with so much variety in story and character and that there are still series that are made to appeal to people my age. I was impressed with the first episode’s ability to demonstrate its cuteness without being overly saccharine, as well as how well I gained a window into the protagonist’s feelings. I’m calling it – “feel-good anime of the season.”

Pros: Kyouhei’s life and choices are explained well through the narrative. The episode is genuinely cute and heartwarming.

Cons: Kotori’s “crush” on Kyouhei, though mostly unexplored thus far, has me feeling wary.

Grade: B+

Tags Crunchyroll, First Impression, New Anime, Slice-of-Life, Summer 2016

Gaming Personal Special Features

Pokémon GO… Take a Walk Outside!

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 11, 2016
No Comments on Pokémon GO… Take a Walk Outside!

Screenshot_2016-07-11-21-25-22 — You’ll get used to this screen after the thirteenth time you’ve restarted the game.

I’m by no means a hard core gamer, so it should come as no surprise that I had no idea “Pokémon GO” even existed until the day it was released upon the face of the country as a free app for Android and iOS last week. As with most fandoms, I expect to perpetually be playing catch-up with this one. In fact, a lot of my friends are already forming gym alliances and evolving their pokémon, and I’ve just barely cracked level 4 and only have some very basic pokémon to work with. I unfortunately can’t play all day because of where I work, and I have a lot of other stuff going on (like this website!) so I can’t really go all-in except for a couple of hours on the weekend. I suppose my point is, there are definitely people out there much more well equipped than I am to write thoughtful, weighty think pieces about this gaming phenomenon. But I wanted to throw in my two cents anyway, because the very existence of this game and its almost instantaneous popularity have inspired me to do a lot of thinking.

Some of you might be aware of this, but my favorite anime, Dennou Coil, is finally available on disc in the United States (at least, the first part is; the second isn’t due to be released until late September of this year). If you’re not familiar with the show, a lot of people have jokingly called it “Google Glass: the Anime” because of its central sci-fi tech element – augmented reality glasses. The anime isn’t so much about the glasses as technology as it is about the elements of human nature that the use of the glasses eventually reveals in the characters, but I wouldn’t expect first-timers with the show to know that yet (a lot of emotional truth-bombs don’t get dropped until the second half of the series, via the expansion and then resolution of several story lines). To summarize without spoiling the finer details, the way the juvenile characters utilize their glasses is somewhat off-label, and through their explorations they come face-to-face with certain elements of human nature that seem obvious in retrospect, but revelatory at the time. When they form emotional connections towards simulated beings that only exist as part of the AR world around them, to the point that they grieve when those entities no longer exist, we suddenly realize that our own tendency as geek consumers to form deep connections to fictional characters and worlds and to then experience a sense of loss when those things come to an end is eerily similar and indicates the same thing – reality doesn’t necessarily correlate with tangibility, nor emotional verisimilitude with weight or mass.

I got a little bit flowery there (it’s difficult not to when you’re talking about your most favorite thing in the world!), so thanks for bearing with me. What I’m leading towards is that this anime series came out almost ten years ago (next May will mark its tenth anniversary), and was set in an undefined but clearly near-future setting which has still not entirely come into being. Yet, it has coincidentally made its US debut at a time when I can finally say I feel that we might be right on the cusp of taking steps to make the world of the anime into some sort of reality. This new Pokemon iteration is probably the first signal to me that we are making the approach.

Screenshot_2016-07-11-21-26-56 — The map view provides a good overview of the local area.

Virtual reality and its sister technologies seem to be all the rage these days. After beginning as a Kickstarter project in 2012, the Oculus Rift VR headset was released to the public earlier this year, and they’ve partnered with Samsung to create add-on technology for the current series of Samsung Galaxy devices. Whereas earlier attempts at VR were strictly for stationary use, now you can literally carry a VR device around town in your pocket (well… the headset maybe not so much, but at least the phone/tablet portion!). The Oculus and its related devices are set to be used for specially-developed films, TV series, and games, among other applications which are probably not even out of the idea stage just yet.

To me, though, VR is still a mysterious and, frankly, intimidating form of technology that feels very unapproachable. It requires a huge commitment – proprietary add-ons or standalone VR units, for example – and of course assumes that, once you start using it, you won’t get migraines or end up with motion-sickness (likely consequences for neurologically-sensitive folks like me). You’re also basically chained to your location – if you went walking around the neighborhood wearing your Oculus, you’d end up tripping over your own feet or wandering out into traffic (and I’m only half-joking), since what you’re seeing has nothing to do with the real world around you. Augmented-reality technology, though, is more of a step up than a giant leap forward, as far as simulated action goes. What you’re seeing is the real world, enhanced with additional imagery that’s helpful or playful or serves some other functional purpose. There’s something inherently more friendly and inviting about it, since it takes something familiar and embellishes it a little bit.

“Pokémon GO” definitely is not the first video game or gaming experience to take advantage of advancing AR technology – several previous games for both common mobile devices and hand-held game consoles have incorporated the technology (whether via trading cards or similar collectible objects, or in other ways) to enhance a core gaming experience. The game that keeps coming up in conversation is “Ingress” (which I had only really heard about in the past week, but which is a few years old) which is considered sort of an AR MMO type experience with large teams that triangulate sections of territory. As is often the case, though, the early-adopters of the mechanic paved the way for an iteration that utilizes the same core gaming mechanic, but touches on particular nerve in such a way that it becomes extremely popular and turns into the face of the technology itself.

I don’t really need to say this aloud, but I think it bears mentioning anyway; people freaking love Pokémon. It’s been that way since my friends and I were playing Pokémon Red and Blue in high school, and with each new generation it seems like the fandom continues to grow and expand. The Pokémon series has always invited players to join forces in one way or another, since one of the primary attributes of the game is that neither version will give you access to all the pokémon of that generation. Sure, you could be a shut-in, buy two handheld consoles, both versions of the game, and trade pokémon with yourself, but the spirit of the mechanic essentially requires you to find a friend (or friends) and bargain with one-other to complete your pokédexes. This mechanic invites players to go outside themselves and interact with others, but there’s definitely a limit; if your friends are playing the game, it’s not really necessary to reach outside your core social group and meet others to get your money’s worth. What’s interesting about “Pokémon GO” is that the essence of the game is intact but the mechanics thoroughly encourage a different way of playing.

On Saturday my boyfriend and I decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood at dusk. It was my first opportunity to really give “Pokémon GO” a fair play through, since until then I’d either been busy or in a location that made playing the game impossible (it can’t be played effectively while riding in a car, for example). I noticed that a local strip mall had a couple of Poké-stops and so we walked a couple of blocks to get there. One stop led to another stop, and suddenly we were headed down a winding path into a large local park. We’d lived in the neighborhood two months already, and yet this was the first time we’d taken the time to wander over and enjoy walking along the small lake there. There was something particularly magical about this evening; the warm, musky summer air, the light fading from the clear sky, the sparkling lights reflecting on the water’s surface… and the groups of two or three people that we began to notice, their faces glowing with the light from their smartphones, chatting, and laughing, and interacting with their environment. Aside from a few individuals here and there, it appeared that the majority of the people out that night were there to enjoy some of their first experiences with “Pokémon GO” A few people yelled out “gotta catch ’em all!” as we walked by, and we all shared a good laugh about it. It was amazing to me to look around and just be able to sense that almost everyone around me was there for the same reason; as someone who doesn’t leave the house all that often, it felt brand new and fresh, like I was a part of an experience much bigger than what was displayed on my smart phone screen.

I think it’s worth mentioning that, aside from the gaming aspect of the experience, there are some tangible real-world benefits to logging in. Like I mentioned, I’ve lived in my apartment for two months already, and Saturday was really the first time I’d gotten out to walk around and explore our new neighborhood (well, the first time while not in a moving vehicle, anyway). Sure, I was drawn onward by the promise of gaining some extra items (and I was amused to find that the Starbucks near me is considered important enough to serve as a Pokéstop!) but I didn’t set out with any particular goal in mind and wasn’t taking a walk in order to “burn calories” or anything like that. Instead, it was carried back to my childhood, staying up late during Summer vacation and meeting up with kids in the neighborhood to play capture the flag in the fog of night. There’s something incredibly nostalgic about taking advantage of that freedom we have as adults, something we may or may not have had as children, and walking just to see what’s over the next hill or across the next bridge. Meeting up with random people is something that seems so difficult now that we have homes to manage and jobs to do, and yet this became effortless while we were walking around for that hour or so. The experience is like being able to share a secret with a million other people at once, to be part of a group that isn’t based on many of the things that keep us separated from one-another in other contexts.

Screenshot_2016-07-08-18-30-58 — Shellder enjoys watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

What brings me back to Dennou Coil is that the anime and this game both demonstrate our ability as human beings to indulge in that shared magical act of transforming something that’s nothing more than a straightforward game or tool into something that furthers our connections with one another. The world of the show may be overlaid with imagery that doesn’t exist without the aid of the show’s technology, but to the characters, that upper layer may as well be part of the real thing. Dennou Coil teaches us that the realities forged in our hearts, the feelings we have towards people and things both solid and in the worlds of our imaginations, are real and worthwhile. They matter.

I’ve seen a lot of pooh-pooing on Facebook by people who aren’t interested in Pokémon, and while I respect their right to be non-participants in this fandom (just as I would hope anyone else would respect my fandom choices), it also makes me kind of sad that they’re missing out on that feeling of participation that I’ve experienced. Looking around and just knowing that the group of teenage boys walking down my parents’ street, or the two young women in front of Penzey’s in Uptown, were all participating in an activity I’ve quickly grown to really enjoy is a terrific feeling. I believe that technology should serve to enhance our lives, and while games are often said to waste time rather than contribute to anything of import, something that provides the opportunity to high-five a fellow pokémon trainer and heck, even just get out of the house and enjoy the real world for a little while, is providing a wonderful service.

Tags Augmented Reality, Pokemon, Social Media

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – The Morose Mononokean

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 9, 2016
No Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – The Morose Mononokean

In a certain tea shop there lives a man called the Mononokean. This morose looking man gained his name for his ability to work with yōkai, guiding the ones that wander in our world into the next. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Ashiya Hanae is the son of an overly-enthusiastic flower-shop owner. He’s really looking forward to starting high school. The evening before his first day in class, he encounters what he believes to be a stuffed animal laying on the ground. It is, however, a very-much-alive ball of fluff that only Ashiya can see and which takes an instant liking to him. And then starts to suck out his life force, bit-by-bit. Soon his school days are spent recuperating in the nurse’s office, and it’s only by extreme chance and desperation that Ashiya notices an advertisement for someone looking for part-time help and who seems like he might possibly know how to exorcise this very fluffy demon. Ashiya meets Abeno, a curmudgeonly young man dressed in vintage style clothing, in a very shady tea room that appears to exist outside of normal time and space. Abeno can help him, absolutely… but only for a very steep price. And of course, circumstances play out which indebt Ashiya to Abeno. There’s no chance of escaping, either, since Abeno shows up in Ashiya’s class the next day.

Mononokean01 — Ashiya gains a new… friend?

First Impressions: As an anime fan and also someone with an interest in Japan in general, Japanese myth and folklore has always intrigued me. Anime and manga are rich with tales that draw upon these sources, from the library of late, great yokai-master Shigeru Mizuki himself to more contemporary titles like Natsume’s Book of Friends and Mononoke. Even sci-fi series like the recently-released-on-disc Dennou Coil incorporate elements of this kind of mythology to establish a particular kind of Japan-centric supernatural undercurrent to excellent effect. So you could say that I’m on the look out for this sort of thing when I’m browsing around in anticipation of a new anime season. The trailers for this show had me pretty excited – Cute creatures, attractive male characters, bright colors… not necessarily masterpiece material, but definitely a lot of things that scratch my itch if you know what I mean. And, of course, there was the promise of Japanese mythological references and the inclusion of familiar yokai. On paper it definitely seems like a winner. My feelings about the first episode are very mixed, however. There are a lot of elements that I enjoyed about the first episode, including the general tone and the look of the less-human mononoke (primarily suggested by imagery in the opening and closing animation and the preview), but there’s something about the way it all falls into place that ends up feeling sort of flat.

In most cases I prefer not to jump right to criticizing animation quality, because I genuinely don’t believe that even in a storytelling medium that’s just a style of animation, the quality of animation is the be-all-end-all defining aspect. This puts me in opposition to a lot of anime fans, and I’ve made peace with that; many of you out there feel (for good reason) that something animated should look good and appear to have some base level of quality, and I respect that. I’ve just seen too many series that fall outside the accepted aesthetic (I love you, Masaaki Yuasa!) and which have affected me strongly enough that I don’t consider weirdness, off-model animation, or a high level of still frames or talking heads to remove a series from the discussion by default (if I were a “Chopped” judge I’d probably be pretty forgiving anytime a contestant forgot a basket ingredient, too). I do, however, think that the first episode of an anime should be an example of the staff putting their best foot forward in order to captivate and impress the audience, and this first episode just doesn’t demonstrate a lot of finesse that’s often evident even when you can tell a show doesn’t have a lot of budget to work with.

Mononokean03 — Ashiya begs Abeno-san for help.

The yokai in this series (at least from what I can tell) are brought to life utilizing CG imagery. You all know by now that this isn’t my favorite thing by any stretch of the imagination, but I think “Fluffy” as he’s affectionately named by the protagonist, doesn’t demonstrate a lot of the weird qualities that make CG clash with traditional 2D animation. I think the issue I have is that the hand-drawn animation feels very flat and lifeless in comparison and just in general. The lines are a little too thick, the character coloration feels thickly-applied and lacking in detail, and there are character facial inconsistencies that make this feel like an episode 6 or 7 (past a mid-cour climax but not quite into the final rising action) rather than a striking opening entry. The background art is very lacking in texture and richness. Abeno’s tea room feels flat and lifeless, not like a place that exists outside the real world. It’s definitely not a deal breaker, but also not the strong sort of fantasy aesthetic I was hoping for based on the promotional images. As this episode takes place primarily on the mortal plane, there’s obviously still time for the underworld to make its debut. But I wish it had made its appearance sooner, to give things more of a “Dorothy entering OZ” effect.

There are things about the episode that hit me more positively, though. While I think a lot of the humor is too much along the lines of the “incredulous characters yelling in exasperation” variety, it’s actually some of the cornier, cliche moments that triggered me more positively. The montage of Ashiya’s daily belabored walk to school (and his eventual collapse closer and closer to the door) was pretty funny in the sense that it escalated well. I also liked the fact that Abeno is revealed to be Ashiya’s classmate. That “twist” was 100% predictable as soon as Ashiya started his introduction to the class at the end, but I definitely chuckled. And considering the fact that Ashiya’s indebtedness situation is drawn directly from xxxHolic, it still manages to be kind of funny (even if a bit mean-spirited). I do also think a lot of the characters that show up in the opening and will likely feature in future episodes are pretty cute. It’s obviously not the main criteria for a good show, but it’s definitely a contributor.

Mononokean04 — Ultimately, all Fluffy wants is someone to play with.

I think ultimately what spoiled me here was that I just really have a strong hankering for another season of Natsume’s Book of Friends (I can’t wait until the Autumn season!) and was hoping for something to keep me going until then. This series seems like it will be fun enough, but so far it’s really lacking in the lovable charm and humanity that makes Natsume so appealing. I’m thankful for the opportunity to get a glimpse of the world of Japanese yokai again, and I’ll probably check in with this series from time to time just for that reason. But I’m still wary of adding it to my already lengthy watch list based just on episode 1.

Pros: The element of humor comes across well enough to provide some entertaining moments. The yokai featured in this episode is also quite cute.

Cons: The first episode has an overall feeling of being made on the cheap, with kind of dull aesthetics and some uninspired background artwork.

Grade: C+

Tags Crunchyroll, Fantasy, First Impression, Summer 2016, Supernatural

Conventions Personal Special Features

An Untitled Treatise on The Fallout from Convention Drama

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 6, 2016
No Comments on An Untitled Treatise on The Fallout from Convention Drama

I try not to get very personal here since I don’t intend this blog to be a “diary,” but in this case I feel like this situation might resonate with others in some way, since it’s related to things a lot of us go out of our way to experience – fandom conventions and interpersonal relationships. I also thought it might be good for my own well-being to talk through it and work it out a little bit before I bring it to a formal therapy session. So feel free to skip this one if you’re just here for the anime and lolita fashion. I promise I’m not insulted <3

This past weekend was CONvergence in Minneapolis, a large local fandom and media convention that lasts for four days around Independence Day every year. I started attending this convention around ten years ago when some friends of mine wanted to enter the masquerade and needed some warm bodies for the rather huge (and funny) production (I hesitate to say “skit” since there was singing and items planted in the audience… and it was quite involved). I had so much fun that year that I came back for the next, then the next… I’ve always been a fan of quality over quantity, and thus only attend a few conventions a year. CONvergence has always been on my list.

Some things happened last year at the convention that spoiled what was otherwise a really awesome weekend. I’ll spare everyone the fine details, because that’s not the point (and it’s easy enough to search out what happened, there was some internet press about it). The short answer is that someone made a joke, it wasn’t funny, it hurt some people, there was a big blow-up online about it, and suddenly I (and, several others, from what I gathered) ceased to feel safe around my fellow CON attendees. The feeling descended like a black cloud and spoiled what was otherwise a fun weekend where I had a lot of other positive experiences. I (and others) felt that the response from the convention wasn’t swift or decisive enough, the people associated with the “event” weren’t apologetic even after several people had voiced their hurt (note: if your comedy is hurting sexual assault survivors or otherwise “punching downward,” you’re doing it wrong), and the whole ordeal left a really bad taste in my mouth. I decided it was time for a break and didn’t register for the 2016 convention, and there were a few other close friends who made the same decision.

The subject would come up again every couple of months; one friend of mine had put a lot of hard work into getting people to fill out feedback surveys and get the concerns heard by the convention committee in an attempt to either get a substantive response or to have them beef up their staff training and response to future issues of the same nature (which it sounds like they eventually did – kudos to the con on that point and in general I’m complimentary towards steps they’ve taken since even if it wasn’t as quick as I would have liked). I voiced my opinion online a couple of times, primarily on Facebook though I did fill out a very extensive feedback survey as well. Some people were supportive, some people tried to CON-splain to me about why I was being “unreasonable” (and I utilize quotes because there’s always someone who pops in to tell me that my legitimate feelings that I’m feeling for reasons that I explain pretty completely aren’t legitimate for this, that, and the other reason because they didn’t feel the same way and also I don’t understand the full situation or how conventions work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Even though I have staffed another similarly-sized local convention for ten years. But whatever!). The point is that I felt pretty secure in taking a year off and letting things fall where they were going to fall. It was nice to feel a little bit of solidarity from my friends since I always worry that I’m overly-sensitive. I’d never ask anyone outright to give up their convention experience just for my sake, but I was glad to know I wasn’t the only one feeling my feelings.

Last week (a couple of days before the convention), I attended an event with several friends and learned that, sometime within the last couple of months, they had decided to attend the con. I’m not going to pick apart who originally said they were or weren’t going and who had planned to go all along because it’s not important and I’m honestly not sure. I’m also not criticizing anyone’s choice to go and have a great time, because that’s not something that I would want anyone to feel bad about. But after trying to hide my surprise and voicing an admittedly kind of pathetic offer of free “limo service” to any off-site restaurants so that people wouldn’t need give up their parking spots (the food options immediately around the con hotel are kind of crappy and my sweetie and I live in an apartment very close by), I kind of spent the rest of the evening off in my own brain somewhere. The next couple of days found me very angry, then for about a day-and-a-half I became profoundly depressed (the type of depression where about all I did for a day was lay on the couch in a daze and not do anything of use besides drop the occasional tear out of my eyes). It wasn’t really that I wanted to go (and in fact I still didn’t and truthfully couldn’t – I couldn’t afford or justify the $120 at-the-door price of admission for the weekend, and I didn’t have the ability to take any time off from work). It was more that, in that moment I was reminded of what it feels like to be excluded and forgotten. To not be part of the “in” crowd.

I think as geeks we can get so insular that we forget that people are people, no matter what group they’re in. I’m very introverted and (though I risk retribution for even alluding to this) I spent quite a while having my friendships and activity choices subtly policed, manipulated, and controlled. Eventually I sort of lost the drive to leave the house and spend time with people, even to maintain friendships. And it’s really unreasonable to expect people to remember, let alone go out of their way to contact, someone who hasn’t done a very good job of making themselves present or upholding their end of a friendship. I literally don’t know how to friend, sometimes.

I was also reminded that my problems are just that – my problems. Whatever problem I had with the convention is mine to deal with, and it would be silly to expect others to react as dramatically to something that is based so much around my own feelings and history.

In any case, I realized after a while that it wasn’t jealousy or a desire to be at that hotel for that convention that was getting me down so much (though I did read through the programming guide and there were a lot of things I’m sad I missed, and I really lived vicariously through all the photographs that were and still are being posted online), it was more just knowing that I was outside looking in all along, and I should have known better. It’s kind of the same way with my friends from high school – I see them visiting one-another and interacting and I know a lot of them keep up their relationships and friendships with one-another, and all I feel like I can do is ask “how in the world do people achieve that?” It’s such a huge mystery to me, because I always just feel like I’m creeping on other people, looking through the window at them as they live their lives. I think I’m a nice person and I can kind of bribe people with food, but I’m sort of confounded by that next level and how to get there.

The one other thing that hurts my heart, which is one hundred percent my own fault, is that in choosing not to attend the convention in the manner that I did, I made my boyfriend feel obligated to sit it out with me. Last year was his first CONvergence, and he had an awesome time. And then I took that away. I’m the type who would have told him to go without me if I were more aware, but I just assumed that he felt the same way I did without asking and that was wrong to do. I feel profoundly guilty because of that.

I think ultimately the shock of feeling totally justified in what I was doing and then suddenly being faced with a huge pile of conflicting evidence just shook me down to my center, and I no longer know where I stand. I have no idea what I’m going to do for next year. My heart aches for what I’ve missed but I think in all my outspokenness I may have simply just made myself unwelcome. I still have fears about the type of people who would say the types of things that were said in the big Facebook blow-up of 2015 (it boiled down to a strong lack of empathy towards survivors and those triggered by slut-shaming and sexual assault references). I don’t trust the people around me that I don’t know, because they could very easily belittle me and my experiences, or at least that’s the conclusion I came to. I don’t know. I’m feeling very lost and I don’t know what to do about it.

I do want to mention (and end on more positive note) that a couple of people did reach out to me directly over the weekend; that in itself made me feel a little bit warmer and less isolated. I am always very thankful and amazed that there are people who are still willing to make the first move; it kept me from wallowing any deeper, at least.

I don’t think there’s a conclusion here; I don’t know that any person other than myself can say anything to help this. I don’t know if it’s an apology I’m looking for, because I don’t think I’m really owed one, exactly. I’ve always said that the best con drama is the con drama you’re not involved in, and those words are echoing for me right now. I wish the comedian who did the thing at the con last year had just not done the thing, because then none of this would have happened. I wish she’d taken more responsibility after the fact; that would have gone a long way to help, too. I wish people in general were more sensitive to those who have had rough experiences. But I also really wish that I could convey my feelings a bit better, so that maybe more people could understand the kind of emotional hell that I put myself through when these things happen. I try to keep that kind of stuff off the internet because it’s always so personal and it’s easier to let people assume that there’s nothing wrong than to try and explain why something is wrong in a way that they would care about. I feel like talking about it too frequently or at too much length makes it easier for people to just ignore. I don’t know what prompted me to come out and say anything this time, except that maybe the wound is still fresh (and honestly… every mention of how this year’s CON was BEST CON EVER reopens the wound every time I see it. Not that I would have gone! But it feels like rubbing salt in the wound).

Anyway, I thank anyone who at least tried to read some of this, I’m sure it makes very little sense and ended up being kind of a chore, but it feels sort of good to air it out. I don’t know that I’m looking for any advice either; I’ve had people on Facebook say some stuff they thought was helpful (“I’m not going to CON either because of [insert other mundane reason]” or “I didn’t think there was a big enough issue to keep from going” which is all fine but doesn’t amount to much when your heart is hurting) and I think I’d rather just come to my own conclusion and maybe work up towards trying to approach some other people about it. Thanks again.

Tags Conventions, Fandom

Fashion Personal Product Reviews Reviews Special Features

Review – Bodyline S532 Violin Boots

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 5, 2016
1 Comment on Review – Bodyline S532 Violin Boots

Obligatory disclaimer – this is a review of items I purchased with my own hard-earned money. I did not receive incentive or compensation from the company to write this review (not that anyone would honestly consider that a possibility, but still…)

I’ve somehow amassed quite a few violin-related Lolita Fashion items over the last couple of years. Two Innocent World violin dresses, a couple of violin-themed bags… one would probably think that I have some experience playing the violin. The joke’s on you all, I’ve never even touched a violin. I would have no idea what to even do with it. But I find violin motifs strangely appealing for some reason. At some point in the past, I noticed that Bodyline was planning to release a pair of boots with a violin-inspired design (it was the winner in one of their clothing design contests). I thought that sounded pretty awesome, but as the days went by and the boots didn’t show up on their website, I kind of forgot about it.

Because I often get a lot of my basics from Bodyline (especially shoes… I have large feet and just can’t cram them into brand shoes no matter how hard I might wish to do so), I generally poke around the website every couple of months to see if anything new has been added. Lo and behold… violin boots! And they weren’t expensive! I tossed them into my cart and a couple of days later, they arrived at my doorstep.

The boots come in several different colorways, the majority of which seem to skew more towards classic lolita styling. I purchased the “brw-dbrw” (or “Brown and Dark Brown” as translated from Bodyline’s color language) since I thought those would be most likely to match with other items in my wardrobe. I do also like the wine colorway, though, and if I had more items to match I might have gone for that one instead.

They’re available in sizes up to 260, which is what Bodyline calls 26cm (which is more standard that mm in Japan, at least judging by what I’ve seen while online shopping) and which roughly equates to a US women’s size 10 and a UK size 42. Some shoes on Bodyline’s site go up to size 270, but not these, unfortunately.

The price listed for these boots is $39.99, which doesn’t include shipping, so keep that in mind – EMS Shipping cost $13.80 at the time I purchased the boots. If you prefer to utilize Bodyline’s airmail option it will likely be cheaper, but then you’ll be poised to wait at least a month and I didn’t feel like doing that, partly because I’m wary of the postal system as it is (a dress of mine got lost in the mail one time, it was a huge bummer). As it stood, I got the boots in less than a week, not taking into account the amount of time it took me to be able to make it to my apartment’s office hours to pick it up (I understand why they’d want to be open regular business hours like any other regular business, but since I work those same hours and also have a bus commute it doesn’t work out very well for me a lot of the time.

The package arrived inside of the standard gray shipping plastic. The boots were shipped in their shoebox, which had gotten a little bit mooshed up in transit (not unexpected, it had a long way to travel). Sometimes Taobao shopping services will offer to ship your shoes sans the shoe box to save a little bit on shipping costs, but Bodyline doesn’t have this option, so just be aware that you’ll end up with a shoe box that’s probably going to be pretty useless by the time it gets to you. The boots arrived with plenty of packaging inside the foot portion to keep from getting mangled. They were in good condition when I opened them up, with no wrinkles, smudges, scuffs, scrapes or flaws.

The color in the stock photograph seems to be pretty accurate for these boots; the primary portion of the details are a nice warm tan color, while the accent color is a deeper coffee brown. The violin details are printed on the body of the boot, and there are few visible printing flaws (at least until you get up very, very close, and I think they fall within the realm of acceptability). The material is a faux-leather like Bodyline’s other shoes, and definitely has a distinctly plastic-y feeling and smell to it. It’s also not particularly thick, but this gives leg portion some needed flexibility. There are some very cute scallop details along the length of the laces and around the toe of the boot, as well as along the top. The lace holes have eyelets/grommets and the boot laces included are long enough to allow for some loosening if the wearer has thicker calves. There is a size zipper for easy on/off.

One thing to note (and this is true of all Bodyline shoes that I own), is that the sole of the shoe has about zero cushioning or support, so if you’re like me with feet that tend to get sore pretty quickly and which need some arch support, you’ll have to invest in some decent insoles. Aside from that, the heel is at a really nice height and feels sturdy. I don’t wear heeled shoes very often, so I prefer the type of wider heels that these boots have – they keep me from feeling like I could topple over at any moment.

The toe box is roomy like a lot of Bodyline shoes (and lolita shoes in general). I own a pair of their heeled oxfords (model number S272, they don’t appear to sell them anymore) and those have kind of a pinch-y toe (they’ve gained the nickname “those stupid shoes” because I wore them to a con where I ended up having to walk a whole lot and my feet were in bad shape in short order), but these strike a good balance between the elegance of a less-boxy toe area and keeping enough room in there so my toes don’t get mangled.

I put these boots on straight out of the box without making any adjustments to the tightness of the lacing, but there are a few centimeters of give if you’re larger than I am. In the photos below I’m wearing crew socks but nothing that goes too far past my ankle. If I were wearing tights or some of the OTK’s that I have, I might have to play around with the fit a little bit. Oh, and I totally didn’t just put on some frilly Innocent World shorts for the pictures, there’s totally a full coord going on up above my waist (spoiler: I was wearing an old T-shirt. Fight me). Also, we’ll pretend that those are patterns in the carpet, and not little fuzzy gifts from my very shedding long haired cat that haven’t yet been vacuumed.

The Verdict: I really like these boots, and definitely think they’re worth the very nominal price they’re charging. I’d been looking around for a pair of taller lolita boots, and these I think will make a really great addition to my wardrobe.

Edited to Add: Attitude Lolita has a video unboxing/review of these up at her channel. Check it out for some more information on the boots (she ordered the gray ones).

Tags Bodyline, Lolita Fashion, Unboxing

Fashion Special Features

Huge Innocent World Haul – Sale Items and Summer 2016 Happy Pack

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 3, 2016
No Comments on Huge Innocent World Haul – Sale Items and Summer 2016 Happy Pack

I have to admit, I’ve been really depressed lately. Over the past several months things have actually been really good as far as my mental health is concerned, but with a recent move, some stressful situations at work, and some very recent and wholly vexing interpersonal drama, things have been a little bit rough. Which is why the timing of these packages’ arrivals was so fortuitous! It’s always fun to open a present; even more so when it’s a present from yourself to yourself, comprised of something that cost a lot of money and makes you feel sort of prestigious.

This will likely be my last big lolita fashion “haul” for a while. Since I’m now paying monthly rent and have spent a lot of cash recently on new furniture, a new computer, and a vacation up North, my safety cushion is close to being depleted. So what better to do than go out with a “bang” and make my last hurrah worthwhile?

Recently I was lucky enough to get randomly selected via email for early online shopping for the Innocent World Summer Sale. I was sent a special link and a password to reach the sale page prior to it being visible publicly. I wouldn’t say I’m a high-dollar shopper there, nor do I usually make frequent purchases, so I really do think the selection was pretty random. Lucky for me! I wasn’t necessarily in the market for anything big, but I was hoping I’d be able to get my hands on a few more basic accessories to help fill out my wardrobe a bit and match with some of the bigger pieces that I already own. I was able to find a few things that I think will work out really well!

One thing I wanted to mention before getting started is that there was actually an item that I’d originally wanted to order, but wasn’t able to get. This has happened a few times and I mostly blame the time difference between Minnesota and Japan and the delay in Innocent World being able to update their webshop with out-of-stock information. In this case, though, the situation got a little complicated and I went back-and-forth a bit with the store representative to get things worked out. This time, there was a specific pair of socks I’d wanted to order, but by the time the order was processed they were sold out. That was fine, and I emailed back with a different pair that I would like to buy instead. After several days I got another email back: they’d gotten a returned pair on the socks that I had originally wanted, and could now sell them to me. Awesome! On the other hand, the pair of wrist cuffs I had ordered only had one set in stock and that set was damaged and they didn’t want to sell them to me. Boo! In the end, I kept the original socks, the replacement socks, and the other two items I’d wanted to order in the first place. I want to commend Innocent World on their willingness to look around for the items and communicate the situation. It was just kind of a silly situation to begin with.

Anyway, my sale items came to me in the smaller of the two boxes that I received recently:

20160629_224939 — You can see part of the other box; that should give you a sense of scale.

Inside were the four items that I ordered – Three pairs of socks, and a set of hair clips.

I ordered the socks to help fluff out my basic wardrobe and make coordinating with certain pieces a little bit easier. The specific socks I ordered were the “Fairy Tale Print Overknee Socks” in beige, the “Annette Embossed Overknee Socks” in Black, and the “Embossed Cross and Fleur-de-lis Overknee Socks” in Navy. The hair clips are the “Braid Twin Clips” in Red x Cafe-au-Lait (I have some similar items that are more of a wine/burgundy color, but none that are really a true red and I’ve got some red in my wardrobe that I need to match!). Here are the various items close-up:

The ribbon clips are fairly simple, made from a smooth single-colored ribbon and accented with a braid that’s a light beige color. They fasten to your hair with alligator clips, which makes them easy to mess around with and re-position to your liking as you fiddle around with your coordinate. Sometimes I like to use items like these to add some more detail to my actual clothing, by clipping them onto my collar or the straps of a JSK, so there’s some versatility in how these can be used. Having things like this around lets me be more creative when I’m putting a look together. the clips were ¥1,960 on sale (at the moment I was charged for these items, the exchange rate was approximately $1 = ¥102, so that’s fairly easy mental math).

I don’t like to make a habit of doing this, but I actually bought the Fairy Tale OTK’s to match specifically with another Innocent World dress that I own (it’s the Marine Rose re-release I got in my Innocent World Winter Happy Pack). It’s good advice for participants in lolita fashion to stick to general-purpose items unless you’re purchasing a full set, but screw logic! I wanted them. I wore the dress in question to a recent local meetup, but unfortunately the items didn’t arrive in time (I’m pretty sure that’s just a constant problem for us lolitas). It’s difficult to tell from the photos, but the socks are a light cream color rather than a true beige, so they’re pretty easy to match. The rose pattern has both true red and a deeper wine in it, and the leaves are a nice deep green. The IW logo on the back of the socks just above the heel is made with golden yellow and brown threads. The socks cost ¥1,750 during the sale. I took a photo of them with the dress I plan to wear them with. I think it’s a fairly decent match, and obviously the pattern is general enough that I can wear them with other items, too.

The other two pairs of socks are very similar – they’re dark-colored and their patterns are only really visible when worn since they are more of a lace pattern rather than a woven, multi-colored pattern:

Hopefully the patterns are visible enough in the photographs; they’re quite lovely in real life. The Annette Embossed OTK’s were ones I bought just to have since I don’t really own a lot of nice black socks (I generally end up using lace tights which are nice, but get a little bit boring after a while). The Cross/Fleur-de-lis ones are actually navy and I got them since I’ve ended up owning quite a few items with navy as a main color or as an accent. I also thought they’d go nicely with my Ecailles de Lune Forest of Pipe Organ JSK, which I own in the blue colorway. The JSK has kind of a gradient between royal blue and a much darker blue, so I thought the color and the pattern would be a good match. I’ll have to find an opportunity to try it out!

As the title of this post would suggest, I also purchased Innocent World’s Summer Happy Pack in the Large size (this time they offered the pack in Large and Medium sizes). I feel pretty safe purchasing the large size since my measurements have been pretty constant over the past six months and I’m familiar with the brand’s sizing. The only thing I might worry about are blouses, but I own several Large Innocent World blouses at this point and they all fit well (especially if I wear a minimizing bra).

This is the third Innocent World lucky pack that I’ve purchased, and I think I’ve had pretty good luck with them. I feel obligated to mention, though, that the things they include generally are pretty random, comprised of items that likely didn’t sell well or items in strange colors that might be difficult to match. I’ve watched some YouTube videos from other lolitas who end up disappointed by what they receive since it’s not a fully-coordinated outfit like you might get from an Angelic Pretty special set or something of that nature. I kind of enjoy getting stuff like that because I consider it kind of a coordination challenge for myself, and it’s allowed me to branch out into areas of the fashion that I might otherwise not. When I was starting out in lolita fashion, I was convinced that I should stick to muted colors like brown and beige and keep my wardrobe very same-same so that I could use the same kind of blouses and accessories. While I think that can be good advice (and it would definitely have saved me some money), I think ultimately I’m happy that I have a lot of different things going on in my closet. It’s a little more fun for me to have all sorts of different things to choose from, and I’m starting to be able to dress more seasonally or appropriate to the location where I’m going, so it’s nice.

To the left is the sample image provided for what “might” be in the happy pack (I bought the smallest one, the ¥30,000 version). I’ve never been lucky enough in the past to end up with any bags, which is kind of a bummer since I really like the look of brand bags. I have some Taobao design replica ones which are functional and look cute, but just as a lot of people I know are are really into Fossil or Coach or Michael Kors designer bags, so too do I long to own genuine lolita brand purses (I do have a Metamorphose pochette that I use quite a bit, but that’s the only one).

…Until now!!!

What amuses me actually is that, aside from a couple of very minor differences, I received almost exactly the items pictures in the sample image. I didn’t receive the crew socks or that particular head bow, and the dress I got is a different color, but besides that it’s all there. I did a little happy dance since my brand bag dreams have now come true, and both the bags are in colors that will be pretty easy to match. I’m still on the lookout for a bag in red, and also one in black (why I don’t own a single black bag is beyond me, it’s just worked out that way).

I was a bit worried at first since this lucky pack came in a huge freaking box, but the box itself wasn’t heavy at all. As it turned out, the bags were packaged without smooshing them, so they needed a lot of travel room.

As you can see, there was some room to breathe in there.

The pink plastic shopping bag on the right contained the smaller items (by the way, as long as they’re in good condition, I usually keep these shopping bags and have amassed quite the little collection in my lolita closet – they’re nice and sturdy for carrying stuff around, especially if your in a place where you wouldn’t want an actual bag/purse to get dirty or wet!). One of the items was a postcard set with illustrations from the brand’s Ellen Clapsaddle series. Ellen Clapsaddle was a prolific illustrator from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s, and was famous for her greeting cards. I’d say her style definitely fits with Innocent World’s general aesthetic. These postcards feature cherubic youngsters (I was tempted to write “creepy babies,” but they’re not that creepy, haha) in cute costumes and situations. I’m not much of a postcard person, so I might see if there’s some way I can frame these and hang them on the wall.

The package also contained an “Innocent World Charm Clip” in a wine color:

It’s a grosgrain ribbon with a small braided accent. It has a tiny Innocent World logo ornament sewn onto one side, and has an alligator clip on the back. I was pretty stoked to get this because I have another one that’s literally exactly like it, and it’s nice to be able to wear two of something if you want some symmetry. Buuuut… the color is actually ever-so-slightly more purple-y than my other one. It’s actually so subtle that I think it might be the fault of different dye lots, but I notice it. So I’m still undecided as to whether I can get away with wearing them both together. Not a big deal, though!

Next is a pair of the “Torchon Lace Knee Socks” in black and white:

I actually own another pair of these in the same colorway, so I wasn’t super excited about having another one. They are a nice basic thing to have, though, and they’re so inexpensive (I think they’re like ¥300 on sale right now) that it wouldn’t bother me to give them away to a happy home at some point. If I’m ever cool and famous enough to do a giveaway, maybe I can throw it in there.

The last item in the accessories bag was a very cute little “Ribbon Biscuit Short Wallet“:

I actually just transferred all of my stuff to a new wallet, but the fabric on the outside stains if you look at it funny so I wouldn’t be opposed to switching again. Especially since this one is so cute! It’s a little difficult to tell because of the lighting, but the wallet is a light dusty pink color with a light brown biscuit-shaped accent with the brand logo printed on it. There are tiny little bow cut-out accents along the bottom, and there’s a nice scallop motif. It’s made from a synthetic faux-leather material with cloth on the inside. There’s room for banknotes and there’s a small coin purse, as well as slots for cards and other small items. The only thing I don’t like is that I like to have a clear pocket for my driver’s license (because otherwise I have trouble finding it, lol) and this doesn’t have that. But besides that I like it a lot!

So next is the awesome part. I received not one, but two purses! And they’re full sized ones, not the smaller pochette style. The First one I received (well, the one that was closer to the top of the box, anyway) was the “Scallop Pocket Bag” in pink:

The bag is very roomy. Like the wallet, it’s a dusty light pink color. It’s constructed from a faux leather material. On the front there are two bows and an outside pocket that would be a good place to put a small smart phone, MP3 player, or bus pass for easy access. The zipper pulls have little hearts on them (there are two, making it easy to zip open and closed from multiple angles). The inside lining of the bag is black, and there are pockets inside that seem sized to fit a cell phone and some pens, and there’s also a zipper pocket inside. The size of the bag itself is such that I’m pretty sure you could fit a netbook or tablet inside if that’s what you needed to carry around. There are no shoulder straps, which for me is a bit of a bummer since I usually like to carry my bags cross-body for security reasons, but the handles are large enough that I was able to slide the bag up to my shoulder, which is almost as good (and it makes it a bit easier to switch from side-to-side which is honestly better for my back).

The other bag I received was the “Starry Keynote Embroidered Bag” in chocolate:

I’m glad that I got this in the chocolate color rather than the gold color, since I already have a gold-colored star-shaped handbag and don’t need another one, lol. As you can see from the photograph, the bag part is sandwiched between two larger star-shaped panels. There is a G-clef with musical notes and staff embroidered in gold thread on one of the panels (the other side is blank). This bag also has two heart-shaped zipper pulls, and the inside pockets of the bag are the same. This bag has two handles which are adjustable (they are like belt buckles and can be lengthened). The shape of this bag makes it less-conducive to holding really large items, but there’s still a ton of room inside and it’s definitely a functional purse.

In lucky packs past I’ve usually gotten more apparel-type items. This time there were only two, but they’re both very nice and quite versatile!

First I received a short-sleeved white blouse. I’m guessing that this was made specifically for the Happy Packs, because I can’t find an exact match. But it’s very similar (minus a few details) to this “Flat Collar Antique Rose” blouse.

It’s constructed from a very light, almost sheer cotton material, making it really breathable and great for Summer. The buttons are rose-shaped with an antiqued look to them. There is lace around the collar and at the sleeve openings, and there are pintuck details along the front. The blouse is very comfortable and I’m so glad I now have a short-sleeved white blouse with this type of collar, since I’ll be able to wear it with a lot of different things this summer.

The other item I received was a very simple wine-colored chiffon JSK. Again, I think this was likely made specifically for the Happy Packs since I couldn’t find any other info on it:

The design may be simple, but I really like this piece. The dress constructed of materials in a matching deep red color. The top of the bodice features some cute rose lace detailing and a small satin ribbon at the center. There are detachable waist ties made of the same sort of chiffon material as the dress. There is full back shirring which fits nice and snugly and should be comfortable for a wide range of sizes. The bodice itself isn’t lined in the back, but the front of the bodice is lined and the skirt portion is lined as well. The skirt has two tiersThere is no zipper on the dress, so in order to fit you have to be able to get the waist portion over your head (or over your butt, depending on how you try to put it on I guess. I tend to go up from the bottom). I would informally equate the amount of stretch to what Innocent World tends to have on their shirred OPs, but please don’t quote me on that. If I can get a helper to help me get a flat measurement at some point, I’ll post an update. In any case, I have a bust of around 90cm and a waist of around 70cm, and I have room to spare and could get in and out of the dress fairly easily by myself.

I decided to put a couple of the items on and try them out. Sorry for my un-styled hair, this was after 11pm and I should have been in bed already (oops!).

I’m wearing the Fairy Tale OTK’s, the short-sleeved blouse, the scallop purse, and the logo charm hair clip. Not the best, but the best I could come up with at the time without pulling extra stuff out of the closet!

Have you made any big purchases lately? Anyone else out there order this Happy Pack? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!

Tags Innocent World, Lolita Fashion, Lucky Pack, Unboxing

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Orange

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 2, 2016
No Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – Orange

Naho Takamiya is a timid 16-year-old girl. One day, she receives a letter from her future self detailing actions she must take to prevent Kakeru Naruse, the new transfer student, from sinking into depression and taking his own life. – ANN

Streaming at: Crunchyroll

Number of Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Naho is a sweet, quiet girl who aims to be the type of person who doesn’t cause trouble for those around her. That usually means allowing others to have what they want while keeping her desires and discomforts private. This begins to change one day when Naho receives a mysterious letter in the mail; the writer claims to be Naho herself, only 10 years in the future. In the letter are written instructions for how to approach the events of the coming days, especially as they relate to a new transfer student. Naho doesn’t know whether to believe the letter or not until the events of her school day line up exactly with what is written. The Naho of 10 years from now seems to harbor several regrets about things that happened during high school. As the next several weeks unfold, Naho begins to strengthen her resolve. Is it only coincidence that her feelings for Kakeru, the new transfer student, begin to blossom into romantic feelings?

First Impressions: I’m admittedly not going into this anime with zero knowledge or expectations. A few months ago I overheard a friend of mine talking about the Orange manga, and since it’s available in full on Crunchyroll (if you’re a subscriber), I decided to give it a look. The fact that I read the entire series in one go over the period of a couple hours should do enough to express how compelling I thought the story was. Needless to say, when I found out that an anime adaptation was in the works, I was pretty jazzed. I’ve been excitedly anticipating this premiere since then.

Orange02 — Kakeru, the new transfer student, is conveniently assigned to sit next to Naho.

So what is it that makes this series more interesting than the glut of melodramatic shoujo manga adaptations that are floating around out in anime land? Speaking from the perspective of a manga reader (though hopefully without spoiling anything), I think there are quite a few interesting things at play in this story. For one thing, this isn’t really just a shoujo-style romance played straight. It’s got some unique cross-demographic origins that were a little bit surprising to me when I learned of them – the story was serialized in both a shojo (girls’) magazine, then later in a seinen (adult men’s) one. There’s also a very subtle sci-fi mechanic as far as Naho’s “letter from the future” is concerned, and the story is able to maintain its own internal logic well enough to keep that bit from being too goofy (time travel is rarely done well in fiction and I’m personally fine with that, but this series does well by not getting overly explanatory with the concept). What I think is most important, though, and very evident already from this episode of the anime, is that, even though the story ends up becoming an ensemble piece, a very large part of the story is Naho’s growth as a human being. That to me is way more engrossing than a bunch of dry sci-fi concepts with some characters pasted over the top.

The way Naho behaves in this episode, especially her inner monologue while she and her friends are deciding which kind of bread they want (Naho likes curry bread the best, but she defers to others when asked which kind she’d like to have), and also the way she tends to deny herself the experience of doing things she’d really like to do (because it might make her friends uncomfortable or draw too much attention to herself), cuts like a knife. Those types of feelings and emotions are so familiar to me that it immediately imbues this series with a type of realism that would otherwise be difficult to establish in so short a time. It’s fairly common practice to give shoujo manga heroines some sort of quirky trait in order to try and humanize them a bit – while I think the concept of a “Mary Sue” is terribly sexist since male characters often aren’t examined through the same critical lens, it’s also admittedly not very interesting to watch a character who is already powerful and completely capable with no flaws whatsoever (I’ve never been one for hero worship). So a heroine who is attractive and smart but also has some personality flaw or dirty little secret is pretty common. It also serves as an easy source of comic relief – think Yukino Miyazawa and her secretly-slobbish nature, or Haruhi Fujioka‘s plot-convenient gender fluidity. But Naho’s character flaw, her self-denial, is expressed with a lot of care and doesn’t manifest itself in an over-the-top way. It’s not a source of comedy, but instead serves to underscore the exact situation that the Naho-of-the-future hopes to avoid – the regretful experiences of her high-school life. It feels very genuine to me.

Orange03 — Kakeru trades his curry bread for Naho’s melon bread.

Knowing that this is a story that relies a lot on its emotional content, I was really hoping that the first episode would start off on the right foot in that respect. For the most part I would say that it hits the right beats from the first few chapters of the manga, although there are a couple of aesthetic choices that I personally wouldn’t have made. The episode leans heavily on its use of visual montage to tell certain parts of the story, and while it gets done what it needs to do (showing a lot of action that takes place over a long period of time in a very short period of screen time, obviously), it adds an element of “wackiness” that seems a bit out of place. Knowing what I do about the general plot arc, this could be a ploy on the director’s part to throw off the audience, but it’s difficult for me to tell at this point. Likewise, the soundtrack tends to be a a bit goofy and overbearing in some scenes, which I think provides the wrong impression. While there are lighthearted moments, the most prominent mood I think should be conveyed is bitter-sweetness; uptempo, noisy music in the background takes away from my ability to feel that. On the other hand, there are a couple points in the episode where there are some really interesting visual filters in use (there’s a scene near the beginning where young Naho and adult Naho symbolically cross paths, and the image is given a hazy, over-saturated and otherworldly quality), and there’s some good use of framing that’s utilized to keep the focus on what’s important (namely, Naho herself). The visual composition of the series is clearly very competent and manages to use some flashy tricks in a more subtle and refined way. I like it.

It’s pretty rare for me to have read a manga before its anime adaptation is available (normally it’s the other way around since I’m primarily an anime fan with manga as a side interest), so to have so many concrete expectations for this adaptation is somewhat foreign. I can get a little disparaging towards manga fans when they get upset over anime adaptations that stray from their source material. It’s experiences like this which provide me with some much-needed perspective. People become critical of adaptations, not generally out of a need to complain or poo-poo on others’ parades, but out of love for the source material itself. When a story grabs hold of your heart and remains rooted within you long after you’re finished experiencing it, an adaptation which falls far short of its source material can almost feel like a personal insult. But an adaptation is also someone else’s interpretation of a story, and it can really pay off to balance one’s own desires for how that story should play out with the requirements of a different medium and the strengths, weaknesses, and varying tastes and interpretations of the person doing the adapting. It’s definitely something that I’ll have to keep in mind as this story plays out. Luckily, the first episode gives the strong impression that this story is in good hands.

Pros: The story is one that should resonate with multiple demographics pretty easily, as its themes and multi-generational cast have mass appeal. The visuals are high-quality and there is good use of scene framing and modern animation effects.

Cons: Some of the music gets a little overbearing at times. There is a heavy use of montage in this episode which comes across as cheesy.

Grade: B+

Tags Crunchyroll, First Impression, Romance, Science Fiction, Seinen, Shoujo, Summer 2016

Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2016 First Impressions – Berserk

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date July 2, 2016
No Comments on Summer 2016 First Impressions – Berserk

Guts, a man who calls himself “The Black Swordsman” looks upon his days serving as a member of a group of mercenaries, the Band of the Hawk, nicknamed “the Grim Reaper of the Battlefield.” Led by an ambitious, ruthless, and intelligent man named Griffith, together they battle their way into the royal court, and are forced into a fate that may change their entire lives. – ANN

Streaming At Crunchyroll

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Summary of Episode 1: Following Griffith’s initiation of the Eclipse and transformation into the demonic God Hand Femto, Guts finds himself on the run from the evil forces that have been unleashed on the world. He’s a branded man – the insignia burned into his neck draws wicked spirits and the restless dead to him in unending waves, and it is with his gigantic sword, really just a crude, gigantic slab of metal, that he fights them off one-by-one. After a bar brawl, a young elf named Puck begins to follow Guts. He becomes a first-hand witness to the horrors that now define Guts’ life as a kindly monk and the young girl accompanying him become victims of the risen dead.

First Impressions: I want to start off by mentioning that the Berserk series in general needs a big giant content warning for violence, gore, war crimes, and rape. This series is the very definition of grim-and-gritty and bad things happen to both good and evil characters.

Berserk02 — The scars from Guts’ past are evident.

It might come as some surprise to those of you who only know me via the internet that I actually really, really enjoy Berserk. I count the original anime series among my favorites, and though I haven’t in any sense of the word caught up on the manga, I really like what I’ve read (part of that is Kentaro Miura’s incredible artwork, obviously). The story is certainly incredibly violent (not something I normally like) and the three main characters of the initial story arc are essentially defined by how non-consensual sexual situations have affected them (and these things are shown rather than suggested in most cases), but the story as a whole just holds a certain appeal to me. Perhaps its unflinching darkness hit me at the right time in my anime fandom to leave a mark. In any case, anyone who’s seen the original anime series knows that it leaves off on what’s basically a cliffhanger. The Eclipse happens, we see Guts obtain his sword, and that’s about it. The show is actually sort of circular – if you watch the first episode directly after the final one, you’ll see what I mean. But there’s so much more story to tell, and fans of the show, myself included, have been waiting a long, long time for more of it to be animated. When the trilogy of new films that reanimated the “Golden Age” story arc (the one covered by the TV series) were released recently, I think many of us began to suspect that something might be in the works. Soon enough the speculation became reality, and here we are.

I’ll say, I definitely have some mixed feelings about this, and I think those of you who’ve watched the episode already will probably have some idea where I’m going. I really, really am not a fan of the way CG is used to animate the majority of this show. On the one hand, it allows more consistency and detail in the characters and backgrounds, and that in and of itself isn’t bad. One hallmark of Miura’s art is that it’s hopelessly detailed (there’s some speculation that one of the reasons that it takes so long for a new chapter of the manga to get finished is due to the detail in the artwork and the fact that he might not be utilizing the services of any assistants to keep things on pace). The original anime series just didn’t even try to animate to the artwork, and used a lot of still-frames and pans to tell the tale of Guts and company. It got the atmosphere down very well and really captured the grittiness of the story, but there just wasn’t a lot of actual animation to speak of. This episode is fully-animated, and we get a lot of cool camera angles and body parts flying, but the characters look like puppets because of the way their limbs move – it’s both too smooth and overly-clunky at the same time. Anime-style animation is all about dynamic character posing and bursts of energy in between static shots; Even though Guts is doing some cool stuff with his swords, the overall movement is too smooth and restrained. Puck’s chibi form is also so disastrously out-of-place when animated this way… yikes.

Berserk04 — The Black Swordsman lives up to his name.

There are a few moments that are clearly hand-drawn, mostly close-ups of faces and some scenes from the opening theme (especially those that hearken back to the previous series), and those scenes are like reaching an oasis in a desert. It’s in those instances where the fine details really seem to come alive. I realize that hand-animating a series like this would require a lot of person-power and that using CG models allows the animators to maintain a consistent quality level without going overboard on labor, but considering how famous this series is, how much merchandise there is for it (it keeps being produced!), and the fact that it’s pretty much earned a place in the pantheon of anime classics, you’d think that perhaps some more resources and care would have been allotted to make this into a prestige piece. It’s like Sailor Moon Crystal all over again (except with more demons, decapitations and flying human entrails).

That being said, there will always be a certain amount of BS I’m willing to deal with in order to see a great story make its way to one of my favorite forms of media. Despite feeling a tad disappointed in some of the visual choices made, watching the first episode of this new chapter of the story feels a little bit like returning to the person I was in the early 2000’s when I first saw the original Berserk series. That is to say, very in awe of the sheer number of anime available in the world, most of which were still out there for me to discover. There really are not a lot of anime around today that really go all in with violence, gore, horror, or the darkness of human nature they way TV series and OVAs did in the 1990’s. I think part of that is just that tastes have changed and we as anime fans have become more accustomed to embracing life’s cuteness and not giving a damn about what non-weebs think of us for it. It also seems like, since the early 2000’s, the world’s real-life horrors have become so much more pronounced, and our escapism is more aimed at contrasting that with happiness and simplicity. Of course, this is also the age of Game of Thrones, where some of the worst aspects of human nature are put on display from week to week to the delight of millions of viewers (and yes, I’m one of those viewers, too). I suspect there is something in many of us that gets lit up when we feel powerless to help ourselves or to make real change in the world. Sometimes it’s just satisfying to see someone in a bad situation bust out and make heads roll, literally. It’s stories like Berserk that put a voice to that urge for me.

Berserk03 — Guts endures a flashback while asleep.

Content-wise, I don’t feel like there’s much for me to worry about. I don’t really question the strength of Berserk‘s underlying story, though I’m interested to see how well the anime adapts it and what sort of pace it will take (I’m unclear on how many episodes there are supposed to be and how much of the manga storyline they’re planning to tackle in this segment, so I’m not willing to start making any big predictions). One thing that might be frustrating for some people, though, is that this series pretty much picks up where the previous one left off. If you haven’t seen it, you’ll either have to watch the trilogy of recent films (pretty easy to do, but they’re not streaming anywhere that I know of so you’ll have to get a hold of the DVDs or Blu-Rays somehow) or dig up an old dusty copy of the original anime series (it’s waaay out of print at this point, though I hope maybe the remaster will get re-released someday or that Crunchyroll might add it to their back library now that the new show is coming out). It’s certainly worth your time to do so if you can handled the content. As a side note, I was interested in how they were going to account for Puck since he was cut out of the original series, but this episode did a pretty good job of plopping him right on in!

I really like Berserk and I’m still looking forward to watching this show despite the visual missteps. I think the first episode “feels” mostly correct to me, even if I still find it weird that a story that is so much of a certain time and place has dramatically succumbed to the realities of the modern anime industry. I’m looking forward to continuing the story this season.

Pros: I’ve been waiting a LONG time for more of this story to get animated! It’s quite different in tone than a lot of what’s popular in anime right now, which makes it feel fresh (even though it’s a story that’s been in the process of unfolding for a good 25 years at this point, in manga form).

Cons: Ugh, that CG. Someday we’ll get to a point where it looks almost as good as hand-drawn animation. We have not reached that point, yet. The content will also be too intense for some viewers, as it delves into some pretty violent and explicit territory.

Grade: B

Tags Crunchyroll, Fantasy, First Impression, Horror, New Anime, Summer 2016

Anime Reviews Reviews

Spring 2016: What I’ve Been Watching – Shorts

Post author By Jessi Silver
Post date May 29, 2016
No Comments on Spring 2016: What I’ve Been Watching – Shorts

I moved into an apartment this past month, and while that’s been a pretty awesome change for me, my “office” area is still in a shambles and it’s made it really difficult for me to write anything (no desk, laptop is mainly used for video streaming to the TV, my desktop computer still doesn’t exist… I’m so very full of excuses right now). I wanted to try and squeeze in some time to talk about the stuff from this most recent season that I’ve been watching. Spoiler alert – it’s been a lot! One great thing about moving is that I’ve been able to commute by bus again, so that’s about 90 minutes per day that I can stream anime on my phone while going to and from work. It’s given me the freedom to devote time not just to the shows I truly love, but to some that I might not make time for otherwise – the goofy, dumpy, highly-flawed stuff that serves as a good reminder of how great the awesome stuff actually is. And heck – sometimes watching series with a lot of major issues helps develop critical thinking skills. Or so I will continue to believe as I fill my days with anime of varying quality levels.

In any case, I’ve noticed that the quality of short-form series has increased by quite a bit over the past year or so. In fact, here are some thoughts on the ones I’m watching right now!

Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 7 released (as of this writing), total TBD

Source: Manga

Thoughts So Far: Agetarou is a young man who works at his family’s tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet – it’s delicious) restaurant. He doesn’t have a lot of passion for his job, but doesn’t really have any other direction in life. On a fateful night, he’s asked to deliver tonkatsu to an employee at a local dance club, and as thanks he’s granted free admission. It’s at the club that he experiences his first taste of dancing to a famous DJ’s beats, and he’s enthralled. It’s then that Agetarou starts walking the path of becoming a famous DJ.

Aesthetically, this series represents some of the things I don’t really like about the short-form “boom” in anime. It’s a stretch to call it “animated” at all most of the time, since the movement is extremely minimal. It’s more of a moving comic than an animated series, in my opinion. On the other hand, the show is extremely music-oriented, and though it uses a lot of the same tracks over and over again, they’re all very poppy, catchy, and fun to listen to. As goofy as the tale of Agetarou’s rise to fame can be at certain points, the music itself seems to have been taken seriously, and in that sense I think the resource expenditure was well-managed.

One criticism I have of the show is a beef I have with a lot of comedic anime series – a lot of the humor is based around the main character reacting incredulously to some situation and protesting loudly about it. I’ve never found that to be particularly humorous unless it’s done very well (Nichijou is probably the best example I can think of, and a lot of that is the accompanying animation and the great handle on escalation humor that that series has). I think the visual gags, namely the comparisons between DJ skills and tonkatsu-making, are much more successful. It’s silly enough to garner some genuine laughs while also upholding the main premise well.

One item worth noting is the weird, stereotypical language quirks applied to the series’ Black character, DJ Big Master Fry. In the first episode of the show, DJ Big Master Fry gives a monologue that’s audible in Japanese and visually-represented in some kind of heavily-accented written pidgin English on screen. I’m guessing the creators were trying to represent slang dialect, but it comes across as sounding like dialog from Huckleberry Finn. The Crunchyroll translation does a good job of smoothing this out, but there’s really no avoiding it and it comes across as ignorant on the part of the show’s (or the manga’s?) creators. It’s a weirdly uncomfortable moment in a show that’s otherwise very lighthearted and fun.

Space Patrol Luluco

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: Original

Thoughts So Far: Luluco is a middle school student who just wants to live an ordinary life in an exceedingly extraordinary place – Ogikubo, a city where Earthlings and Aliens live alongside one-another. When her father, a member of the Space Patrol, gets into a pickle, Luluco is forced to take over his job and thus her life strays further and further from the ordinary.

When I think “Studio Trigger” what I’m really thinking of is animator/director Hiroyuki Imaishi, a creative voice who specializes in visual stylization and wacky vulgarity. After Trigger’s Kill la Kill, I found myself waiting around for something similarly accomplished to come from the studio. And while we did finally get a hold of Little Witch Academia 2 in the meantime, both When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace and Ninja Slayer From Animation were decidedly mediocre. My original enthusiasm for the company began to flag. Luckily, this season has been pretty good for Trigger, and while I’m still mostly undecided on how I feel about Kiznaiver about 5 episodes into it, I can already safely say that Luluco is living up to that Imaishi spirit.

The series is what I imagine the lovechild of Kill la Kill and Inferno Cop to be. It’s an apt comparison, too, since the show is pretty clearly drawing influence from both in its visual style and sense of humor. The show is not well-animated in the traditional sense, and this is a complaint that a lot of people have with Trigger’s productions. I think there’s something to be said, though, of being able to take one of Japanese animation’s common shortcomings – few frames and choppy animation – and morphing that into something stylistic in its own way. Luluco incorporates elements of Flash and web animation and puts a lot of emphasis on dynamic character poses rather than smooth in-between animation. It’s one of those things that bothers people and would cause a lot of them to call the show “cheap,” but I really like it as a style choice. I think it takes a lot of talent and an eye for composition to be successful with something like this. I love the character designs, too, which are cute, round, and drawn with thick, bold lines. I hope that they sell figures of the characters at some point!

The current story arc is an extended homage to some of Trigger’s other works, and that really tickles me. What some might see as blatant self-advertising, I see as having fun with some great properties. Of the short series I’m watching this season, this is probably my favorite.

Pan de Peace

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: 4-koma manga

Thoughts So Far: With episodes this short, it’s difficult to create something that’s too complicated. In this case, it’s simply about a group of four high school girls who are brought together by their love of bread. All of their (decidedly mundane) adventures revolve around bread (making it or obtaining it).

This is one of those shows that’s best described as “mostly inoffensive.” I say mostly, because it occupies a weird slice-of-life sub-genre that I’m still not sure what to do with. There are a lot of shows, both normal and short-form, that feature groups of girls doing this or that. It’s been popular in the last few years to go further, and suggest that the characters might or might not be gunning for some sort of lesbian romantic tension with one-another. Yuru-Yuri made it famous, but there have been several copycats. There’s something that makes me uncomfortable about fetishizing sexual orientation, and then not even being brave enough to follow-through with it.

For a show ostensibly involving bread, there’s unfortunately not a lot of focus on the bread. I kind of live for the last two or three seconds of each episode where there’s a luscious photograph of the type of bread in that episode (as someone who no longer eats bread on a regular basis, looking at pretty pictures of it is one way I continue to go on living without it). As a general rule, I’m congratulatory towards a series that focuses on its characters rather than its gimmick, but these episode are three minutes long and there’s not enough time to develop these characters beyond their stereotypes, so give me my damn food porn!

If you can’t tell, I’m very picky about my food-related anime.

Have you been enjoying any of this season’s short-form series? Let me know!

Tags Action, Comedy, Crunchyroll, Science Fiction, Short Form, Spring 2016