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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – How to Keep a Mummy

When high school student Sora Kashiwagi finds himself staring down a mysterious over-sized package sent to him by his self-proclaimed “adventurer” father, the last thing he expects is for it to be opened from the inside by a little mummy so small it can fit in the palm of his hand. – ANN

Copyright (c) 2018 – 8-bit

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Source: Manga

Episodes: 12

Review: This review contains minor plot spoilers for the TV series.

One of my favorite anime series is Natsume’s Book of Friends, which I think is an uncommonly good blend of supernatural fantasy and very sensitive human storytelling. As a fan of Japanese folklore, it’s also an excellent overview of traditional ghosts, spirits, and creatures that are inherently Japanese. But as much as I like Natsume, even I can admit that I’m not always in the mood to process its sometimes heavy story beats dealing with bullying, abusive family situations, and various forms of loss. That’s one of the primary reasons why I found How to Keep a Mummy to be such a pleasant romp. The series takes some of the components that make Natsume compelling and lightens it up to be a more comedic, fluffy distraction. It might not have as much emotional staying power, but it certainly is cute.

One aspect that makes this series a winner is its likeable lead character. From the instant that Mii-kun the mummy’s coffin shows up on his doorstep to the moments when Mii-kun and friends encounter some sort of peril, Sora proves himself to be not only a competent protector, but also a kind and caring friend and parental figure (or pet owner, I suppose?). In an age when many of us – women, men, and non-binary folks alike – are wrestling with the concept and consequences of toxic masculinity in our culture and media, it’s heartening to encounter a character like Sora who’s a teenage boy, caretaker, and friend with a special sensitivity to the world around himself.

Sora and Tazuki are close friends.

Likewise, this isn’t an anime series which banks on stories about characters working out their social hierarchy through brawling, nor is it one where characters spend each episode cutting each-other down with insults. It’s a series that revolves around its main character and his friends opening up to one-another and developing relationships, while confronting personal elements of their lives that have caused them trouble or pain. All three of the side characters have hurdles to overcome, whether it’s Motegi’s relatively benign fear of lizards that’s confronted when a tiny dragon arrives at her home, Daichi’s damaged relationships with his classmates that are the result of nightmares (cured by a friendly Baku), or Tazuki’s traumatic past encounter a mythical creature and the men trying to poach it. Part of me believes that the addition of cute supernatural creatures is somewhat redundant; while all of the character’s troubles are at least partly due to some supernatural element, they’re also real human emotions and interactions that could have mundane causes in a series without a fantasy element. I’m the type of viewer that’s satisfied watching a slice-of-life story in which the main hook is that nice people are nice to one-another and work through their interpersonal conflicts constructively, so don’t necessarily need the cuteness on top.  But as a closet(?) connoisseur of cute, it’s a welcome addition that adds a little extra appeal for those viewers who are less willing to put up with low-conflict fluff entertainment.

Though I enjoyed the series, there were some bits and pieces that left me a bit cold. Sora, being that his father is out of the country, lives with his aunt Kaede. Kaede is clothing model and seems to have some amount of local fame, as other characters find her vaguely recognizable throughout the series. She’s beautiful, but also kind and supportive to Sora and friends… until she takes off her glasses, at which point she turns into a lusty sexpot with designs on her nephew. This “gag” only occurs once with a few additional references to it throughout the series, but it takes a show that I’d otherwise love to recommend to younger viewers or people who are less interested in anime’s overall penchant for goofy sexuality and complicates that recommendation. The trope of women becoming more sexual after they take off their glasses (think “sexy librarian” or “sexy teacher”) is tired and sexist, and in an anime series with really no other adult inclinations it stands out as a particularly poor choice.

Mii-kun just wants to be loved!

There’s also a push in the final two episodes of the series to make it more plot-forward, which felt unnecessary to me. There’s a recurring threat from poachers throughout the series who are on the prowl to collect monster specimens, which comes to a head when Sora and crew are attending a festival. While the provides a climax to the series, it’s also ill-fitting as the poachers never received any development and their actual threat level was questionable. I get that not everyone is satisfied when “nothing really happens,” but emotional climaxes can be just as cathartic as major plot movements, and I think that would have been a more suitable direction to take such a low-stakes show.

I watch anime from a very wide swath of different genres, some of which tend to be intense and/or depressing, so it’s nice to be able to unwind with a pleasant “healing anime” every once-in-a-while. How to Keep a Mummy was one of Winter Season’s great surprises on the front for me; cute, funny, and seemingly arriving out of nowhere to let us revel in an oddball relationship between a boy and his Mummy. I really enjoyed this anime, and if you too appreciate entertainment that, in spite of its flaws, is fundamentally kind, I think you will as well.

Pros: The main character is a good example of a male allowed to have feelings and just be nice to others. The character relationships are very satisfying. Everything is so cute!

Cons: There’s some plot conflict shoehorned into the final few episodes. There’s some sexist humor surrounding Kaede’s character that feels out-of-place.

Grade: B-

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Short Takes – Mob Psycho 100: Reigen the Miraculous Unknown Psychic

Mob’s master Reigen gets the idea to write an autobiography. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 1

Source:  Manga

Summary: Kagayama Shigeo, aka “Mob,” is one of the most powerful psychic forces in the world. However, Mob is employed by local spiritualist (and thinly-veiled con-man) Arataka Reigen, whose newest money-making scheme involves a novelization of their adventures from his clouded point-of-view.

Review: Fans hoping for a genuine bonus OVA or sequel to the wildly-popular Mob Psycho 100 will likely be disappointed by this special event episode, as it’s mostly a clip show summarizing the events of the anime’s first season. However, with a first-cour as strong as Mob‘s, there’s something to be said for the experience of reliving its best moments distilled into an action-packed and humorous hype-fest for the show’s upcoming second season.

Reigen the Miraculous Unknown Psychic is a retelling of Mob’s adventures through the eyes of Arataka Reigen, who in actuality played a small (but deceptively important) role in the original story. True-to-form, Reigen sees himself as the hero of this tale, and as he dictates his autobiography to Shigeo the recollections are embellished with his presence in situations where he didn’t, in actuality, have an active role. Most of the humor is derived from the absurd visuals of Reigen’s head pasted on Mob’s or Hanazawa’s body, as well as nagging feeling for those of us who are familiar enough with the original series to know that Reigen’s version isn’t quite right.

What’s interesting to note is that, despite Reigen’s puffery, he’s actually the storytelling conduit for the main theme of the series – having a talent doesn’t make one superhuman or above common-sense or responsibility – and this is evident even when he’s stretching the truth about his involvement in defeating the Claw group or mentoring Mob. It’s amusing that we the audience can immediately see the value in his words and mentorship, but Reigen himself seems to place more value on what makes him look good and how he deceives those around him.

I think perhaps the major draw of this event episode is the “big reveal” at the end that a second anime season is currently in production, but those who pay attention to anime news were probably already aware of that since the information had already been posted on the various news outlets. Still, despite the fact that this episode is mostly extraneous, it’s an amusing rehash of a series that could have been just another shounen action joint, but which happily coupled its awesome action animation with a perceptive story about giftedness and bullying. If you haven’t watched Mob lately, it might be worthwhile to check out this abridged (and slightly-altered) version of the show, if only as a pleasant reminder that it manages to hold-up to multiple viewings.

Grade: B-

 

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First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Gamers!

 Keita Amano is a lonely young man who loves video games; Karen Tendō is the beautiful president of the video game club; Chiaki Hoshinomori constantly fights with Keita; and Tasuku Uehara puts on a facade of being satisfied with his life in the real world, but he in truth loves video games. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) PINE JAM

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode 1 Summary: Keita Amano’s high school life is lacking in the things that make fun – he’s got no friends and he doesn’t belong to any clubs. He goes home everyday and spends his evenings playing video games. While perusing new titles in the game shop he’s approached by Karen Tendou, his schools’ most beautiful, smart, and popular student. She invites him to join the newly-reestablished game club she’s put together at their school, and she’s extremely passionate about it. All the current members are experts at the various types of games that they play, and they all seem to have much larger reasons for playing them than “they’re just fun to play.” Keita starts to feel like the odd one out, since he just likes to play video games for his own enjoyment. When Karen asks him to join the club officially, he declines in spite of multiple reasons why he knows the experience will be good for him. Though, to Karen, this feels like the ultimate rejection, it’s likely that this isn’t the last word in the matter.

Impressions: Most people have hobbies, and I think for many, their hobbies are a type of escapism. I don’t sit down and knit a scarf because I need another scarf to wear; I knit the scarf because I like the experience of choosing the right yarn, of feeling it running through my fingers with each stitch, and of watching the rhythmic loops upon loops of fiber expand into a finished project. I can knit while watching television or just enjoying the quiet somewhere, and it helps me relax. If I were to start an Etsy shop to sell my finished projects, suddenly a hobby that I enjoy would morph into an obligation, losing all of its power to take me out of my daily life. It’s the same reason why I don’t really do art commissions or write articles for money; when there’s a transaction involved, it just isn’t that fun anymore. When there’s a hard deadline, it’s much easier to stress about it.

Keita gets pummeled in a first person shooter game. Copyright 2017 (c) PINE JAM

I can understand Keita’s reluctance to join Karen’s video game club, in spite of all the potential positives. He likes to game in his room, alone; it’s a form of relaxation after spending all day at school feeling mediocre and isolated from his classmates. Why would he want to place himself among people who play video games for a broader purpose? It would only invite comparisons in which he comes out looking like an aimless doofus.

These are thoughts I never expected to have while watching yet another anime about some hapless high school kid with a crush on a girl who joins a club full of misfits on some grand time-wasting adventure in slice-of-life territory. There are a lot of pieces in this show that seem to defy expectations, and I find that kind of fascinating. In my defense, the promotional image for the series is misleading – it makes it seem as though the protagonist, through some form of dumb luck (or “protagonist syndrome”), gets thrust into a group of girls, creating the potential for a romantic entanglement while the obnoxious male sidekick cracks jokes and acts as wing man throughout. Just in this episode I think we were introduced to at least four total male characters and roughly an equivalent number of young women, taking the ratio pretty far out of harem territory (two of the characters are even already a couple). The assumed romantic relationship between Keita and Karen is already in a very different place; rather than dancing around an awkward attraction, things are already on the rocks and Keita’s denial of her club invitation is even framed as a romantic rejection. Whether this is a setup to turn things back around in twelve episodes is a mystery, but it definitely went against my own expectations.

Keita is too normal for this weird club. Copyright 2017 (c) PINE JAM

There are also several humorous interjections via the on-screen text throughout the episode. They’re kind of self-aware, from the POV of some omniscient narrator, and give some snappy perspective on future developments for the characters. It’s reminiscent of, say, Ouran High School Host Club, with its blinking pointer-finger indicator of the doomed vase in episode 1, or even some live-action films like Scott Pilgrim (which, coincidentally, also deals in video game culture for its aesthetics) that are self-aware and call blatant attention to it via blending of referential special effects. Stuff like this always runs the risk of making media feel too “know-it-all” about its own tropes through overuse, but it’s used sparingly enough here that it doesn’t wear out its welcome.

The episode does fall in line with some expectations, however, especially in regards to the character relationships between boys and girls. There’s still kind of a disappointing lack of sexual awareness that Keita displays towards Karen; there are a few shots of her legs and body from Keita’s point-of-view that follow with him blushing and being unable to get words out of his mouth properly. Attraction turns some of us into disasters, but I have yet to meet a teenage kid who is made into such a mess from seeing an attractive person that their eyes wander around their crush’s body like the cameras in these anime series seem to think they do. Shots like that are one of those tools of the trade that are used as a shortcut, but which could be eliminated with just a minor amount of finesse (and a big dose of respect towards women and their bodies – this is probably the bigger hurdle).

Aside from that, though, I found myself amused by some of the game parodies already featured in the first episode (will there be more? I hope so). Karen’s polite conversation with King Koopa as a result of her delirium from lack of sleep, was surprisingly funny for a show where I didn’t expect there to be a decent comedic element. Video games are part of our shared culture, and as a Gen-X/Millennial cusp baby, I’ve experienced most of the big, important moments as games have grown into their own as an art form. In part, this show (and likely the light novel on which it was based) seems to have some of that same perspective. Even if it never takes on any of that broader cultural analysis (which it definitely doesn’t have to), it’s still fun to see the things that I’m familiar with featured fondly in an entertaining way.

In any case, sometimes hobbies are just distractions, and that’s okay. But even if a beloved hobby never provides the potential for financial compensation and couldn’t necessarily morph into a day job, there could also be a happy medium (like, say, watching anime and having an opinion on it…). Keita might not have a broader purpose to his gaming, and competitiveness might not be something he wants to inject into his hobby. But perhaps there’s a happy medium somewhere, and I’m actually kind of surprised at how interested I am to see how the show handles this proposition.

Pros: The show seems somewhat self-aware about its own tropes, and can be pretty funny about it. The cast is large enough that, while there could be love triangles or whatever, it doesn’t feel like a harem.

Cons: The show is still pessimistic about teenage male sexuality.

Grade: B-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Angel’s 3Piece!/Tenshi no 3P!

Kyō Nukui is a high school student who tends to skip school due to a trauma in his past. Kyō secretly creates songs using vocal song synthesis software as his hobby. Three girls who just entered fifth grade — the crybaby Jun “Jun-tan” Gotō, the strong-willed Nozomi “Zomi” Momijidani, and the somewhat sleepy Sora “Kū” Kaneshiro who takes life at her own pace — email Kyō. These three girls, who were raised together like sisters since childhood, want Kyō to help them break into music. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Barnum Studio/Project No. 9

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode 1 Summary: Kyo Nukui is a hikkikomori who, in the spare time he has being home-bound, creates electronic music and posts it online. One day he posts something in a completely different style, posts it under a different pseudonym, and wonders if anyone will know the difference. Later, he receives an incredibly formal email from someone who made the connection between his new work and his older, more well-known stuff, and this person wants to set up a meeting. Mustering all of the sociability he can, Kyo walks to the specified meeting place in a local park. He’s expecting to see someone older, based on the language in the messages, but the author is really an elementary school girl named Jun, who’s incredibly shy. She’s there with her two friends, Zomi and Ku, who were all raised at the same orphanage together. It’s their dream to put on a concert, and the girls certainly have the equipment to do so; the church basement has some great vintage guitars and the gear to go with it. It also turns out that they can sing and play the intruments pretty darned well – and they want Kyo to help them live out their dream of bringing people together through music.

Thoughts: I was driving to work recently, and was stuck in pretty heavy traffic. Someone a few cars in front of me stopped suddenly, causing a chain reaction where all subsequent vehicles, including myself, had to react in seconds. I braked hard, and hoped beyond all hope that the person behind me would notice in time to stop before ramming my tiny Mazda and turning it into scrap metal. Time seemed to slow down as I watched the (much larger) SUV pull up behind me way too quickly, as I pumped my brakes in hopes of signaling them somehow. Luckily, they were able to stop; I could hear the honking and engine noises once again and I was drawn out of my panic, and we were soon on our way down the entrance ramp towards the city.

Kyo is sad and isolated. Copyright 2017 (c) Barnum/Project No. 9

My story had a happy ending; oftentimes, however, you can see a car wreck about to happen, and there’s literally nothing you can do about it.

This episode starts of by fooling you into thinking that perhaps the underage girls in the promo images aren’t a huge part of the show. The opening scenes are focused on the main character’s anxiety and depression and the outlet that he has in making music. Anime doesn’t have a great track record in portraying mental illness, but these first few moments didn’t raise a lot of red flags to me in that regard, and I was willing to entertain the possibility that it could be better-than-mediocre somehow. With the introduction of the three fifth-graders, I was starting to see distant brake lights, as if something terrible had happened just over the next hill. I was concerned by their blushing cheeks, the weird shots of their too-shiny knees and ankles, and their infantile voice, not to mention their glistening, pouty lips. Maybe the colorists just wanted to go all-out and add in a bunch of details?

Then Toonces just drove the damn car straight off the cliff.

One of the last lines of the episode is Nozomi (the dark-haired girl), in exchange for Kyo helping the three orphans put on their concert, offering to let him touch her – just a little bit. I was actually just thinking to myself that it had been kind of a long time since I’d seen anything in anime that was truly vile and reprehensible; It seemed like, back when I was writing more consistently, that there were several anime series every single season that banked on pushing boundaries in regards to good taste. I actually blame the existence of those series for my current feelings about fanservice – I’m continually annoyed, but also find myself saying “well, at least it’s not as bad as [fill in the blank]” and I’ve ended up giving a pass to things that I may not have in a different time or place in my life. In any case, that’s one of the consequences of becoming hardened and complacent as a fan of a medium that can be highly problematic – suddenly you’re blindsided by someone’s bad idea that’s so completely out of line that you wonder how it could have gotten produced.

Yay, I feel horrible for having watched this! Copyright 2017 (c) Barnum/Project No. 9

This show is based on a light novel, that some people ostensibly read at some point. Some people read this novel and thought “hey, this concept seems entertaining. I bet a lot of people would like to see an anime adaptation about this high school guy that hangs out with little girls, and then they’ll surely laugh about their precocious sexuality.” I bet a production committee was gathered, and some music executive was slavering at the mouth, thinking about which voice actresses or idols on their roster would be a good fit to sing the band’s songs and portray the little elementary school girls that people would be inclined to have the hots for. An art designer, a character designer, several animators, and all sorts of staff were hired, and worked long, grueling hours for very little pay to bring to fruition an anime where a little girl implores a high school guy to feel her up.

There were probably dozens of people who had to sign off on something to get this made, and dozens more that poured their energies into its creation. If there’s one thing that Shirobako taught me it’s that really good, talented people sometimes make their money producing things that don’t have much artistic merit. Heck, the music scenes in the show are actually animated pretty well and might be fun to watch if the camera weren’t lingering on the girls’ legs, thighs, and mouths. I don’t want to dishonor the hard work that was put into the show by blaming the staff for the sins of the creators. And, to be honest, this isn’t nearly the most objectionable thing I’ve ever watched in my life. But I will say this – certain things just really rub me the wrong way, and making childlike characters into potential sex objects is one of them. Whether or not the episode’s final line was a misunderstood joke, something that will be explained away in episode 2, or something that will never come up again, it’s colored the experience for me in an irreparable way. I imagine that many of my readers might have the same experience. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do this, but I’ve dusted this old thing off for the occasion:

Now I can put this to rest and hopefully move on to something I’ll feel better about.

Pros: I wish I could think of something snarky to put here, but I’ve run dry.

Cons: Oh, I don’t know, it sexualizes little girls?

Grade: NO

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – A Centaur’s Life/Centaur no Nayami

Himeno is a sweet, shy little centaur girl. In her world, everyone seems to be a supernatural creature, and all her classmates have some kind of horns, wings, tails, halos, or other visible supernatural body part. Despite their supernatural elements, Himeno and her best friends, Nozomi and Kyouko, have a fun and mostly normal daily school life! – MAL

Copyright 2017 (c) Emon Animation Company

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Himeno, Nozomi, and Kyouko are your normal, everyday high school students. In their world, however, “normal” means sporting some kind of super-human marker, whether that be animal ears and tails, extra limbs, wings, or other fantastic traits. Evolution took a vastly different course in this universe, and six-legged mammals eventually evolved into the variable humanoid sub-species that we might consider mythological. That said, Hime and her friends lead an especially average life, concerned with the things that might take up any student’s time and energy, like gym class or being in the class play during recital week. Of course, this present day scenario is downright idyllic compared to the atrocities and discrimination of the past, where centaurs were used as slave labor or were thrust into caste-like roles in society. But everything nowadays is fair and equal… or is it?

Impressions: I had every expectation that this show would be a silly, frothy, potentially (too?) fanservicey slice-of-life with some monster girls thrown in for flavor. What I didn’t expect was for there to be even the slightest suggestion of an unsettling backdrop to the story. While this isn’t an unwelcome variation on the theme, I’m concerned that the theme of the series might turn out to be a little bit too unsavory for my tastes.

Himeno and Nozomi kiss during practice for the class play. Copyright 2017 (c) Emon Animation Company

The first half of this episode is devoted to a story event already in progress. The students are putting on a romantic short play, and Himeno is tapped to play the princess. The gag is that this has been the role she’s played since she was in kindergarten, possibly due to a pun on her name (the “Hime” in “Himeno” meaning “princess”), but more than likely due to her good looks and delicate personality. There’s a vaguely comedic mix up when a male student tries to position himself in the role of the prince but is found out and one of Hime’s female friends gets the role instead (allowing for a girl-girl smooch that seems perfectly aimed at a presumed straight male audience hankering for some yuri action), as well as a moment of tension when the set piece upon which Hime stands collapses under her weight (she is half horse, after all). It’s mostly kind of goofy and dumb, and serves mostly to introduce the main characters and make a few jokes at the expense of the titular centaur.

The second half of the episode, though, has a much more sinister undercurrent. In science class, the characters learn about human evolution from their teacher. All the humanoid variants in their world are the result of fish that evolved to have six fins, which began mammals with six legs, and eventually humans with several different varieties of additional limbs, horns, tails, and other accouterments. Much like our own society, these various differences had the effect of causing discord and discrimination among the different tribes. This is all mildly interesting, and even sort of funny in that the assertion is made that four-limbed humans would only have been different in their skin color rather than their overall body composition, from which no sort of discrimination could possibly have resulted. Perhaps the creepiest part of this whole line of exposition occurs while two very shady individuals monitor the classroom from outside the door. Their faces are mostly hidden but they appear to be listening intently to what the teacher is saying. The line she speaks seems perfectly rehearsed; she proclaims that equality is ultimately more important than anything else, including civil rights. Barring the fact that those two things are pretty darned related, in my opinion, the entire scene feels like some sort of bizarre authoritarian propaganda report. And the creepy men outside the door seem pretty pleased by it.

Big Brother is watching. Copyright 2017 (c) Emon Animation Company

It’s difficult to know exactly how these statements are meant to come across. I interpret them as indicative of some kind of extremely subtle dystopian society, where personal freedoms have been traded for peace and control, and that unsettles me. I’m not sure if the creator is making these statements to criticize moves to legislate equality, as have been done via various civil rights acts in real life (to varying degrees of actual success); while I might interpret these laws as meant to protect marginalized groups via the (imperfect) legal system, others (wrongfully) might think that they’re being instituted to give some people “special treatment” (ugh). It could also be a statement about the harm that’s done when we’re made to think of everyone’s experiences as being the same, when in fact they’re very different based on a number of factors. There’s a large chance that I’m overthinking a small aspect of an otherwise goofy show, but I think there’s also the potential that the show is making an attempt to be political, and I have the feeling if it goes that route it’s going to be really ham-handed about it.

A third potential interpretation, though, might not end up too bad. The creator could have set the story anywhere, but chose to use a high school as the backdrop for the story. We always hear about how the Japanese school system trains students in conformity and emphasizes sameness and group-think in order to maintain harmony. Knowing even what little we already know about what’s going on in the background of this society, that setup sounds kind of familiar, no? There are already tons of anime, manga, and films that criticize this type of school environment, so it’s definitely not the first (and probably not the best, either). But it does result in kind of an interesting variation on “cute girls with animal ears doing stuff,” so that’s a plus.

The show wastes no time getting to the yuri bait. Copyright 2017 (c) Emon Animation Company

Of course, there’s still a hefty dose of “cute girls with animal ears doing stuff,” for good or ill. There are some errant panty shots, a few suggestive yuri situations (basically the first shot of the show is two girls kissing each-other on the lips… but it’s okay because they’re in a play together), and lots of “girl talk” that feels pretty manufactured and occasionally needlessly voyeuristic about body functions. I’m sure we all have questions about how centaurs wipe their butts after going to the bathroom, but I don’t need a fantasy anime series to go into detail about those things when I just want to watch something dumb and silly. The up side, though, is that the characters are actually pretty cute. Somehow Himeno seems delicate despite being three times the size of her friends, and that in itself is amusing.

The character designs are cute, but the animation quality is mostly just serviceable. This is another Chinese partnership anime, and while this one in particular doesn’t feel like it was transported straight from the late 1990’s, I feel sad that seeing a Chinese hand in the production still seems to mean that the show is lacking in quality control somewhere or that the show isn’t given the resources and the time it might deserve. Then again, there are plenty of Japanese (and American) shows with similar issues, so perhaps picking on China in particular is wrongheaded of me.

This show isn’t life-changing and I don’t think it’s that “holy grail” monster girl anime that I’ve been wishing for ever since Monster Musume turned out to be a horny sex-fest of uncomfortable proportions. But if A Centaur’s Life devotes some time to the issues of its broader society (I’m not sure how much the manga goes into it, either), I think it could be kind of interesting in spite of its various issues.

Pros: The story might have more depth than originally indicated. The characters are pretty cute.

Cons: There’s some fanservice that doesn’t sit well with me and seems like yuri bait. The overall visual quality isn’t great. It’s hard to say if the setting and authoritarian rules might be suggesting something worse than “the Japanese school system sucks.”

Grade: B-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun/Keppeki Danshi! Aoyama-kun

The handsome young soccer genius named Aoyama is a Japan representative. His play style is “cleanliness.” He doesn’t tackle and doesn’t head the ball. If he’s doing a throw-in, he’ll only do it if he’s wearing gloves. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Studio Hibari

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Aoyama is the star soccer player on his high school team. This is in spite of (or perhaps actually because of) his germophobia. He won’t touch a dirty soccer ball, he won’t get his clothing dirty, and he won’t do anything that causes him to come into physical contact with other players, including his teammates. This drives his teammate Zaizen up the wall, since he thinks that everyone else is much too accommodating to Aoyama-kun’s needs. The thing is, though, that everyone else seems to admire Aoyama’s cleanliness, and they sure as heck think he’s the best player at their school. Even members of rival high schools keep trying to poach Aoyama-kun away. After Aoyama leads the team to victory in a game against a clearly better school, Zaizen starts to gain a grudging respect towards his unusual teammate.

Impressions: This episode is a great example of a premise that could have resulted in something really terrible, but which managed to avoid becoming terribad and instead settled comfortably into being slightly above average with some hit-or-miss comedy for flavor.

Aoyama goes for the goal. Copyright 2017 (c) Studio Hibari

Speaking as someone with a history of mental illness (though of a different style than featured here), I wasn’t looking forward to watching an anime try to feature a character who seems to be someone living with one.  Anime, like other forms of media, has a very spotty track record when portraying mental illness, and more often than not it serves as the punchline to a joke. For every show like Trapeze which to my memory seemed to get a lot of the emotional side of mental illness right (despite being a comedy), there are several more like Welcome to the NHK that mix up “profound social anxiety” with “hapless otaku maladjustment” and end up becoming insulting in the process. It’s a difficult thing to get quite right and there’s a feeling of glaring falseness that’s there when it’s wrong. So you can imagine how low my expectations for this anime were, knowing nothing much beyond its premise. Surprisingly, though, I’d qualify this attempt as “pretty okay,” which might not sound like high praise but which I think does a good job of capturing the fact that the show is decent without a lot of major screw-ups.

The first episode’s point-of-view character is Zaizen, who shortly becomes very frustrated by the fact that Aoyama seems to require so many special accommodations and his classmates and fellow team members seem unruffled by this and are even willing and able to deal with them without pulling their hair out. I think that Zaizen, despite being a pretty outspoken jerk throughout the episode, is use well throughout. Though I tend to stick with people online and in real life who understand the need to celebrate diversity, including neuro-diversity, I think there are many other people who are unfortunately not in the frame of mind to give others what they think of as “special treatment,” and showing Zaizen having that kind of reaction acknowledges that. That said, the point is that Zaizen isn’t shown a lot of sympathy, and in fact there are several people who try to get him to adjust his attitude by showing Aoyama’s good points as a player and a person – he’s an excellent soccer player with an incredibly accurate and focused playing style that’s the direct result of his needs as a player, after all. I think by the end of the first episode we’re all on board with who Aoyama-kun is.

Zaizen watches Aoyama’s post-game cleaning of the soccer balls. Copyright 2017 (c) Studio Hibari

One downside to this setup, though, is that Aoyama doesn’t get much of an opportunity to speak for himself. We’re positioned as outside observers who learn about Aoyama through the eyes of the people who know him. There are the gaggle of girls who have crushes on him because of his spotlessly clean hands (when in fact, all the hand washing would probably be more painful than anything else, but I suppose there has to be some element of fantasy), the other players and team manager who seem to be admirers rather than close friends with Aoyama, as well as the rival school members who know all about Aoyama’s skill on the field, but not really anything else about the way he operates as a person. It may be too much to ask for a comedic series to provide a lot of deep insight into a character, let alone from their own perspective. But that doesn’t make we want to stop asking for it.

Something I made note of while watching this episode was the fact that it exists somewhere in between a straight sports anime and a true gag series, and the juxtaposition of the two without a strong focus on either is actually a little bit disorienting. One shared trait of many of the best sports anime I’ve watched is that they do a good job of being funny while also portraying the seriousness and intensity of the sport. Hinata and Kageyama of Haikyu!! are quite the odd couple, and the comedic tension that arises due to their opposing personalities is really entertaining. But the show is also great at portraying exciting volleyball action and knows when to forgo the humor and bring that to the forefront. Clean Freak! Aoyama-kun seems to be just slightly uncomfortable focusing too much energy on exploring either side of the equation; there are a couple of good visual gags (Aoyama cleaning his classroom window got a chuckle out of me) and some heartfelt moments, like Aoyama working on the soccer balls after the game, I didn’t get the impression that the show was really committed to either piece. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like the first episode left much of an impact (aside from a repeating gag focused on a rival character’s abs – many people might find this kind of non-sequitur obnoxious, but it’s honestly so stupid that I actually laughed every time the character appeared with his shirt pulled up).

Aoyama is admired by his team’s manager. Copyright 2017 (c) Studio Hibari

Thankfully, the anime does seem to have a stronger visual style than its blander storytelling might suggest. During goofier moments, the characters do switch into kind of a funny “chibi” mode that, while not lending a lot of extra strength to the humor, does at least notify the viewer when things are meant to be comical. This is sort of a classic technique that might feel a little bit overbearing to some, but I found it kind of cute. The animation is fairly serviceable when portraying the sports action as well; the opening scene where Aoyama scores an important goal during the All-Japan championship is really well-done, as is the match that caps this episode and proves Aoyama’s prowess as a player (and his ability to be less-stringent about cleanliness depending on how far into the match he is – sometimes a little mud is tolerable, as long as it’s less than five minutes to the end of the game). The lines are clean (har har) and the animation is consistent throughout this opener.

Ultimately I don’t know if this show will satisfy sports anime enthusiasts or fans of comedy anime, but it does have the distinction of being significantly less offensive to me as someone with mental health issues than I would have expected, and its heart seems to be roughly in the right place, so that might be a decent starting place.

Pros: The animation serves its purpose well. The premise could have skewed in a much more offensive direction, but instead the bulk of the characters seem to be supportive of Aoyama’s needs.

Cons: The comedy and sports aspects seem to be at odds with one-another. That guy’s abs are like their own character.

Grade: B-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Restaurant to Another World/Isekai Shokudou

A restaurant called “Yōshoku no Nekoya” (Western Cuisine Cat Restaurant), which is located on the first basement floor of a building at a corner of a shopping district near an office area. While it normally feeds salarymen, there is a secret in Nekoya. Every Saturday when the shop takes a day off, Nekoya is teeming full of “special customers.” For the office workers, it is a familiar place with familiar dishes, but for these Saturday customers — “people from that world” — it is nothing but cuisine never seen or heard before. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

Streaming: Crunchyroll, with Simuldub on Funimation

Episodes: TBA

Source: Novel Series

Episode 1 Summary: Nestled somewhere in the city is a mysterious restaurant serving “Western” cuisine. What Western really means in this context is anyone’s guess; generally anything not “Japanese” in origin, coming from somewhere across the ocean, might be considered Western. What’s special about this restaurant, a little hole-in-the-wall with a cat on the door, is that one day a week its door opens into the “other world,” and fantastic creatures including elves, demons, werewolves, and even dragons enter to taste Earth’s delicacies. On one of these special days, a young demon named Aletta wanders into the restaurant and, hungry from not having any money or a place to stay, eats an entire pot of corn potage before falling asleep. Rather than punish her, the restaurant’s chef lets Aletta shower and then gives her a job as a waitress for the customers from another world.

Impressions: As a fan of both relatively-plotless low stakes anime series and anime revolving around food and drink, Restaurant to Another World is a rare instance of something that seems perfectly constructed to scratch multiple itches. The show also puts a bit of a twist on the popular Isekai fantasy anime subgenre by bringing the “other world” into ours, rather than allowing yet another character-less teenage guy have all the fun in a fantasy world of his imagination and invention. There’s a lot stacked in this show’s favor, and so far I’m having mostly positive feelings.

Delicious, glistening teriyaki chicken. Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

The dishes featured in this episode aren’t necessarily anything out of the ordinary; within the first few minutes we get to see restaurant customers ingest teriyaki chicken, curry rice, katsudon, and beef stew (while also arguing about which goes best with white rice). This might seem like a fairly typical conversation to be had among friends, but the twist is that, to the individuals sampling these dishes, these relatively commonplace foods are strange, delicious delicacies from our world that aren’t easily obtained in their own. There are times where I’ve daydreamed about what it might be like for someone from our distant past on Earth to be brought suddenly into the present day; what might they think about our technological progress or the strangeness of our popular culture as compared to our own? What’s fun about this episode (and by extension, likely the series as a whole) is that it speculates on the reactions of people to whom our world, customs, and favorite foods are completely foreign. It’s difficult to say exactly what a lizard man might think about the ways in which we prepare chicken, but I appreciate that someone has tried to speculate.

The first episode also devotes a little time to the subject of prejudice, and how even a world about which we might fantasize could still have some of the same types of discrimination that we’re still working hard to identify and mitigate. The way that this is approached is pretty obvious and somewhat ham-handed; Aletta is a demon, and so the humans of her world don’t want to be around her or let her have a job despite her harmlessness. It’s the type of situation that pretty much anyone, aside from the most fervent racists, would identify as being wrong, so there’s a definite lack of nuance that doesn’t result in the type of meaty commentary that the creators might think that they’re providing, but I’d be curious to know if it’s a subject that comes up again and if so, whether it’s examined in more depth.

Aletta starts her new job at the restaurant. Copyright 2017 (c) Silver Link

I’m a bit amused by where the show’s staff seems to have devoted the most visual resources. Most of the character animation is functional but unremarkable. Even the depiction of what seems to be a relatively important (and incredibly sexy) character, the female dragon who seems to own the magic restaurant door as one of her many treasures, is mostly serviceable rather than eye-popping. But when it comes to the food, I can’t say I have any complaints. The glistening, darkened skin of the chicken, the crunchy fried katsu coating, the fluffiness of the fried eggs… almost all the food we get to see throughout the episode is incredibly appetizing and makes me want to pull out the pots and pans and cook up a feast for myself. I may not have been hungry before I started watching, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t develop a bit of an appetite after getting an eyeful of juicy deliciousness.

Unfortunately (and along those same lines, to some extent), this anime suffers from something that I’ve refrained from commenting on too much as of late (because of reasons). Though the show’s focus isn’t exactly on the humanoid characters for the most part, it seems like there’s an exception when it comes to the women of the show. Both Aletta, one of the few named characters, and the powerful dragon who seems to have ownership over the restaurant, are both subject at various points in the episode to the camera leering over their questionably-necessary nudity. I’ve gone from a near zero-tolerance policy on this kind of material to something of a more grudging acceptance of it in certain small amounts (believe me, when you’ve seen some of the vile anime I’ve seen throughout my time as an amateur reviewer of anime, there are a lot of things that suddenly become tame in comparison), but there’s never a point at which it doesn’t rankle me a little bit, and in this case it feels really out of place. The narrative doesn’t seem constructed to appeal to a primarily straight male audience otherwise; on the contrary, it’s these types of iyashi-kei series that I often think of as being almost universal in their potential appeal. So why waste multiple camera shots lingering over nude bodies when there isn’t otherwise a focus on titillation? It’s frustrating and jarring in a way that it wouldn’t be if this were just another in the endless string of fanservice vehicles.

All of our faves are problematic, though, and while I can’t quite place this premiere among my favorites yet, I do think the basic setup allows for something mostly pleasant and kind of unique to come. If the show can play to its strengths and stick to the food rather than the fanservice, I think this could be a nice low-key addition to my Summer queue.

Pros: The food looks delicious – it’ll whet your appetite! The show might have something to say about prejudice (albeit in a simplistic way).

Cons: There are several lingering shots over female nudity that are distracting and don’t serve a purpose.

Grade: B-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Magical Circle Guru Guru/Mahoujin Guru Guru

The seal that confined the evil monster Guruguru for hundreds of years has worn off. A young boy named Nike is chosen (against his will) as the hero. He sets off with Kukuri, a girl who is the lone survivor of a tribe that uses black magic for good, to save the world, RPG style. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Production I.G.

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 24

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: After 300 years, the seal on Demon King Giri has worn off, and it’s time for a new hero to go on a journey to defeat him. As a kid, Nike might seem like the least likely choice to deal Giri a smack down, but his parents have been raising him to take up the mantle of hero for his entire life. Despite Nike’s protests, he’s sent off to Magic Granny’s house to obtain a traveling companion. There he meets Kukuri, the last of her line of magic users, and a start-struck 12-year-old to boot. She considers her meeting with Nike her destiny as a magic user, and the two journey to the Anshient Castle to meet with the king. Though there are hundreds of other hero-wannabes already there, Nike demonstrates some elusive inner potential and is sent on his way (along with a modest monetary payment to purchase supplies). They meet their first monster on the road, but due to its bad case of monologuing and Kukuri’s innate talent (luck?) with magic, they’re able to defeat it.

Impressions: Magical Circle Guru Guru is a surprise in both tone and style; in an age when anime (even humorous anime) takes itself very seriously, this show seems to hearken back to a simpler time of rapid-fire gags and outright parody, and is ultimately stronger for it.

Nike doesn’t want to be the hero. Copyright 2017 (c) Production I.G.

The anime reveals itself as a parody of 8-bit style RPG’s right from the get-go with its use of pixel art and dialog boxes straight out of classics like Dragon Quest or the original Final Fantasy. As Nike is thrust into the role of protagonist, the show wastes no time in pointing out the inherent ridiculousness of so many video games in establishing the hero’s role and purpose. Who in their right mind would assume that a tween kid still living with his parents would make a suitable hero. Of course he holds some mysterious unnamed power – all the tropes say that he has to! The way in which the show employs each and every one of those time-worn cliches belies the fact that the creators of the story truly have a lot of love for these kinds of scenarios; many of us geeks of a certain age have a shared experience in playing these types of games, so while we might not exactly what’s “supposed” to happen, seeing it unfold gives us a chuckle and a warm case of the nostalgia fuzzies.

Another nostalgic aspect of the episode is evident right from the get-go; the show channels other classics like Kodomo no Omocha in its way of presenting the story through non-stop visual gags and hyperactive dialog. This barely gives the viewer a chance to take a breath and regroup before tackling the next item on the story agenda, but this is definitely where familiarity with the structure and pacing serves another purpose; when you already know what’s supposed to happen and have already accepted that it will do so without question, it leaves enough time for your brain to latch onto the fact that one of Kukuri’s magic circles is the “laughing man” symbol, or that the home-cooked meal made by Nike’s mother is the perfect visual representation of an RPG world map. It’s a bit like the way in which moé characterization can, in some cases, serve to provide a good character baseline so that additional character development can occur within the relatively protracted time period allowed for in most TV anime these days. It definitely doesn’t occur that way successfully in all cases, but when done right it can help make the most of limited resources.

Don’t draw your magic circle incorrectly! Copyright 2017 (c) Production I.G.

Speaking of characterization, though, I feel like that might be one area where this episode happens to fall short. It can be easy to underestimate the importance of character development in a comedic setting, especially with a gag-comedy focus. In the end, the most important thing is that most if not all of the jokes were successful in entertaining the audience. I’ve found that a lot of viewers (and some creators) tend to underestimate the potential value added when competent comedy is coupled with sympathetic characters with whom the viewer can form a connection. Jokes that harp on one person’s primary defining trait often grow tiresome, but jokes that escalate as we learn more and more about a character’s inner self make for some of the most transcendent, memorable laughs in anime (one series that does this surprisingly well is Nichijou, which is a must-watch as far as I’m concerned).

My main complaint with this episode in this regard isn’t as much with Nike, who’s kind of your crabby “everykid” hero and seems fairly self-aware, but with Kukuri who stands out to me as being more ill-defined. She’s introduced as a character who’s cute but ineffectual but for her streak of dumb luck. She’s worshipful of Nike, her “hero” who serves some sort of important role in her life as an ideal rather than a friend or equal; it’s this piece of it that grates on me a little bit. Kukuri toes the line between someone who could eventually become aware of her own potential and someone who’s purpose in the narrative is to provide Nike more obstacles to overcome due to her clumsiness and lack of awareness. For now their dynamic is kind of funny, but it’s something to keep my eye on.

The characters travel in 8-bit mode. Copyright 2017 (c) Production I.G.

I briefly mentioned above how the show utilizes visual parody in addition to other forms of humor, and this is probably one of the more entertaining aspects of the episode. There are several 8-bit overhead view interludes (in 4:3 aspect ratio, no less) that occur when characters travel, or something is occurring that seems particularly ripped-off from any of several classic RPG video games. This breaks up the episode nicely and the technique isn’t overused which lets it keep being funny rather than repetitive and tiresome. There’s also a similarly funny effect that occurs in some instances during character closeups, where they’ll be portrayed as they are in the anime, but highly pixelated in close-up. It’s difficult to describe why it’s so amusing to me; I tend to think that extreme close-up shots of people’s faces are inherently pretty funny for whatever reason, especially if the zoom slowly increases in intensity. The added effect of the pixels only enhances that. Overall these cute additions really serve to emphasize the tie that the show has to a particular era of video-gaming; while I believe that the show is made for younger viewers, this aspect makes it entertaining for those of us who played the first Dragon Quest on cartridge, too.

I have to say, this show really came out of nowhere for me. As a re-make of an older series, it definitely looks pretty unassuming. There wasn’t a lot of energy put into making it flashier for a new generation of viewers, and I think that was the correct decision. Considering that anime comedies tend to be mostly-miss for me, I really didn’t have a lot of reason to pay attention as this was coming down the pipeline. After finding myself highly amused by episode 1, I feel like I might have to add it to my queue. At the very least, it seems like it might be a fun distraction.

Pros: The visual and parody humor work well together. There is judicious use of visual gags like 8-bit style and pixelation.

Cons: The characterization is a bit lacking so far.

Grade: B

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – 18if

One day, Haruto wakes up on a round bed in a strange room, with the only familiar things around being his smartphone and headphones. After encountering a strange girl in white named Lily who claims to be his sister and a man who looks like a cat, Haruto learns that he is in a dream belonging to Yuko, a girl stricken with Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. Yuko is the Witch of Thunder, an all-powerful woman who makes the dream world bow before her to ensure she’s known the strongest, the best, and the most fun person around. Haruto’s sister tells him that he must wake Yuko up by killing her in the dream in order to break the “spell” she’s under, but Haruto’s got some other ideas about what might be keeping Yuko asleep. – ANN

Copyright 2017 (c) Gonzo

Streaming: Crunchyroll with simuldub on Funimation

Episodes: TBA

Source: Multimedia Franchise

Episode 1 Summary: The Witch of Thunder rules her dream world with an iron fist, turning its denizens into avatars of cuteness and destroying anything that she doesn’t like. Enter Haruto, a sullen teenage guy who seems unaffected by the inherent strangeness of the dreamscape around him. He’s the only person who can see the elusive “Lily,” a legend of the dream world and a white whale of sorts to Professor Kanzaki, a researcher who appears in dreams as an anthropomorphic cat. As the two chase after this mysterious girl in white, the Witch of Thunder clues into their location and begins the process of bending the two interlopers to her will. Kanzaki is quickly dispatched, but Haruto refuses to see what is happening as anything other than a strange dream. It’s through this skepticism that he’s able to distinguish the Witch for who she is – the dream persona of a girl named Yuko, whose feelings were hurt by a group of bullies. Haruto releases Yuko, who then awakes again in the real world. But Haruto’s job seems far from over as he awakens and finds himself still within a surreal setting.

Impressions: Having been an anime fan for so many years, it’s difficult to avoid comparing a current anime to ones with similar ideas, especially if the earlier examples were executed more successfully. At first glance, 18if seems to be about a mysterious young man who encounters women with problems, and due to some inherent talent on his end is able to heal these women and release them from their suffering. Another anime that immediately came to mind was one of my favorites, the horror drama Mononoke. For those who are unfamiliar, Mononoke follows a character known as the Medicine Seller, who identifies and exorcises malevolent spirits. The show is fairly episodic, but one common thread between all the stories is that they shine a light on the injustices done to women throughout history (mostly Japanese history, but with some minor variations I think many of the experiences could be interpreted as fairly universal); the titular mononoke are based around various Japanese yokai and spirits, but are colored by how they originate from things like forced abortion, abusive relationships, and workplace sexism. I’ve seen some reviews that interpret the show as being terrible for women, in that the stories are built entirely around women’s suffering. For me, however, I found a lot of personal meaning in how the stories were presented – each story arc revolves around uncovering the truth, specifically the truth of the life lived by women and how their poor treatment represents an illness within society.

The Witch of Thunder surveys her dream kingdom. Copyright 2017 (c) Gonzo

Having seen one of the very best representations of this kind of storytelling, it’s difficult to overlook a situation in which the structure of the show seems similar but the execution feels lacking in depth and nuance. Whereas the Medicine Seller’s otherworldly presence in Mononoke and his ability to uncover subtleties and details allows the truth of each situation to be exposed on its own (usually out of the mouths of the people who caused the problem in the first place), Haruto’s sarcastic disinterest and unaffected nature runs contrary to the fact that he seems to be naturally able to navigate and control aspects of the dream environment. He seems more alarmed by the fact that Lily, a girl only he seems able to see, calls him her brother than the fact that he’s about to be squashed by giant teddy bears or hacked-up by a vengeful witch. None of his actions seem purposeful, and while this might be typical for an anime hero getting oriented to a new and strange environment, the lack of any consequences for the character and his lack of focus, direction, or even personality leads directly to a lack of tension throughout the episode.

The episode itself attempts to bank on its presentation of the dream environment as disorienting and weird. Much of the first half of the episode is short on dialog and seems more focused around the various environments that Haruto encounters as he wakes up multiple times from within some sort of dream-ception. One thing that I love about animation is that it can be utilized fairly readily to create settings that cannot exist as easily when portrayed in live-action film. In this case, though, a problem arises from the fact that dreams, while often strange, still often have some element of reality to them. One of the most affecting things about the animated movie Paprika was that Satoshi Kon was able to capture both the reality and the strangeness of dreaming so completely. The dream settings were often mundane, or drawn from film imagery that wasn’t especially extraordinary; when pieced together with representations of the dream-specific feeling of being unable to run quickly or seeing faceless background “characters” however, the experience felt very genuine. 18if represents dreams as wacky abstract environments and characters that seem visually complete but purposely out-of-place, which definitely provides for something zany, but doesn’t give the same unsettling impression of a genuine human dream.

It’s okay because it’s just a dream. Copyright 2017 (c) Gonzo

This, I think, is where the concept falls apart. Ultimately we learn that the dream world is something of a witch’s labyrinth a-la Madoka Magica; Yuko falls asleep in the real world as the result of some cruel bullying from her classmates, and a malignant dream in which she has sovereignty and has the luxury of being pampered and given total attention is the result. That set up seems fine except for the fact that there are literally zero visual connections between that reality and Yuko’s dream prison, and the attempt to connect the two conceptually through her need for control is pretty pasted-on. Add to that the fact that there’s the potential for some garbage gender dynamics between the “hero” – a typical teenage anime guy – and a bunch of girls(?)* with problems, and I’m very hesitant about where this show is going.

As much as the first episode attempts to present a visually engaging setting, there’s a major setback in the fact that the animation is merely functional rather than striking. Not every anime series enjoys the benefits a lot of lead time and great planning; I have no idea what the turnaround time on this show was and so it’s difficult for me to be too judgmental, especially when anime, despite being a visual medium, is almost always more about the story and characters for me. Sadly, though, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that the character animation in this first episode is kind of shoddy and underwhelming for a first episode and I’m concerned that, if it looks like this now, it will probably look even worse later on.

Because nudity = vulnerability. Really! Copyright 2017 (c) Gonzo

Having been an anime fan through Gonzo’s heyday with properties like Gankutsuou, I always kind of hope that they might somehow end up involved with another artful classic close to that level. While this show seems to want to make an attempt at visual uniqueness and the cultivation of intrigue via the route of confusing and disorienting the viewer, it falls short in establishing a story (or protagonist) that feels genuine, and that’s really a shame. Yes, things might get better later on and yes, all the sexist undertones may at some point be subverted in favor of something better, but I don’t have a lot of faith.

*I’m just speculating due to the use of the term “witch” which normally suggests some kind of malignant, aggressive, or otherwise contrary femininity, unfortunately.

Pros: Gonzo, you tried?

Cons: Visually disjointed. I interpret the set up as having some sexist undertones.

Grade: C-

Categories
First Impressions Reviews

Summer 2017 First Impressions – Chronos Ruler/Jikan no Shihaisha

The story centers on “Chronos Rulers,” those who fight the time-eating demons that appear when people wish they could turn back time. The Chronos Rulers fight a time-manipulation battle against these demons. – Wikipedia

Copyright 2017 (c) project No. 9

Streaming: Crunchyroll with upcoming simuldub by Funimation

Episodes: TBA

Source: Manga

Episode 1 Summary: Koyuki and her friends are about to graduate from high school. Koyuki wants to put on a musical performance at their graduation ceremony, but regrets that her brother won’t be able to attend. He passed away rescuing her from being hit by a car, and she still carries that regret with her. When other students begin muttering about a clock tower in town  where one can make a wish a turn back time, Koyuki is greatly tempted by it. Unfortunately, conducting the ritual only attracts the attention of a “Horologue,” a demon who feeds on human beings’ time-related regrets. Luckily, she’s protected from harm by Kiri and Victo, individuals with some control over the speed that time progresses. They’re able to dispatch the horologue, but at the cost of some of Victo’s memories. Victo himself is the victim of a horologue; though he appears to be a young man, he’s slowly becoming younger and younger, losing time and memories of his past life in the process.

Impressions: Note: Contains a spoiler for the major revelation at the end of the first episode.

Kiri looks out over the city after his battle with a Horologue. Copyright 2017 (c) project No. 9

Chronos Ruler is kind of an oddity in my eyes. What starts as sort of a typical early-2000’s-style buddy cop urban fantasy series a-la Descendants of Darkness turns weird (weirder?) when we learn that the two main characters, who’d normally probably be assumed yaoi couple and primary draw of an otherwise straightforward TV anime, are actually father and son. Due to some weirdness related to the flow of time (basically the entire mechanic that makes up the plot), the youthful, twerpy protagonist is suddenly made to be a tragic figure and his “brother,” actually his son, is the one who gets to watch him slowly fade into nothingness. Fun times! It’s kind of a unique situation, a surprise for me as a viewer; for a medium that relies a lot on copying what came before, I think that’s something to be lauded. I just wish that the concept had been a part of a show less workmanlike and a bit more interesting in other ways.

As an action vehicle, this episode does some good things using what it has to work with. I thought that the opening scene was especially exciting and well-executed; Kiri chases a horologue through the streets of the city and there are lots of dynamic shots with some slow-motion pauses that ramp up the “cool” factor a bit. They also emphasize, without outright saying anything, the nature of the character’s time manipulation ability, which I thought was a nice touch. There’s also some surprisingly good CG integration in these scenes; the moving backgrounds and the horologue enemy are both accomplished using primarily CG animation, and the character animation goes between 2D and 3D in this and later scenes, depending on the complexity of the camera movement and distance from the camera. Obviously it’s noticeable since I noticed it, but I think it works well and isn’t so jarring as to become distracting. As compared to something like Hand Shakers, my low-bar for diarrhea dumping CG elements into an anime, Chronos Ruler is relatively judicious with its CG and the resulting product is very watchable.

A horologue is produced from Koyuki’s regrets. Copyright 2017 (c) project No. 9

The episode does have a glaring problem, however. Like many anime before, there is an overriding tonal conflict that takes away from the meat of the show. Overall I’d peg this as a relatively serious action/fantasy series with kind of a classic feel to it; there’s an opportunity for contextual humor with a sarcastic, cynical edge, but for the most part the story seems to lend itself to being straightforward and a little dark or melancholy. But several times throughout the episode, the character interactions devolve into something out of a manzai routine, with Kiri as the exhausted straight man and Victo as the goofball. These moments serve to heighten the tragedy of the characters’ situation when it’s revealed later, but in the midst of the exposition these moments are distracting and irritating. This episode deals with a regretful death, albeit in kind of a melodramatic way. There’s an overall sadness to it that isn’t well-served by this type of intrusive goofiness, and to be honest I’d rather be ham-handedly manipulated into feeling sad for the characters than jerked-around between feeling bad and feeling irritated over the immaturity of the production.

Time travel and time manipulation are two subjects that are rarely examined in a way that’s comprehensible, because due to the nature of time itself, messing around with it creates every manner of logical conundrum and paradox one could imagine. I doubt that this anime series, which seems to operate entirely under the guise of the “rule of cool” has the chops to really follow through on that front. And as a bishounen vehicle, well, I’m sure there are many fans who won’t worry about the father-son dynamic in the protagonists’ relationship (nor should they: people can like what they want), but for me that kind of removes all that would have attracted me from the “hot guys doing action stuff and being hot together” angle. Ultimately I’d expect this show to unfold in way that’s mildly entertaining but probably pretty forgettable.

Pros: The action elements in the first episode are pretty well done. There’s good integration of CG elements.

Cons: The comedy stuff sticks out like a sore thumb. The relationship between the protagonists could be weird/squicky for some.

Grade: C