Originally posted to the Anime Guidepost blog, September 19th, 2009.
As
I expected, things got rather hectic once college picked up again, but I
can still find moments to talk about my anime watching and manga
reading. By the way, I finally got around to reading Hayate the Combat
Butler and I AM LOVING IT!!! A total nerd fest that I imagine I'll be
enjoying for quite some time now.
I've
been kind of keeping an eye on the upcoming Fall Season of anime and I
have to admit that I'm only really interested in Fairy Tail. I don't
think that it's going to rewrite any rules of anime or anything, but it
should be fun. To be honest, I'm surprised no one has jumped on it yet
for an American lisence. I don't think it's the next Naruto, but I
think it would still do well.
Ah, well, time to get started!
Full Metal Panic! Fumoffu (12 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****
As
I had explained before, a friend of mine insisted that I watch this and
The Second Raid, so I rewatched the first series to hype myself up for
them, which I have since reviewed. Now I've finished the comedy/romance
side note of the series and I have to admit that it was straight-up
hilarious. Taking Sousuke Sagara's hyper-military perspective on even
the most mundane things makes for some very funny stuff, and it takes a
lead role for this short but sweet series.
Drawing
more from the funnier pieces of the manga and light novel series, there
really isn't main plot so much as it is a sitcom, taking our familiar
cast and watching them muck about the high school. Kaname and Sagara
generally go about solving high school level problems with the expected
mixed results. Tessa comes back for a stint as a high school student,
effortlessly driving up Sagara's blood pressure and stress.
Of
the new characters never before seen in animation, we have the Student
Body President, who may not even have a name (not that he needs one) and
his assistant. Let me just say that I consider the SBP to be one of
the best characters in the series. Totally on board with whole
Sousuke's-here-to-protect-Kaname-mission thing, he doles out assignments
to Kaname (as she is the Class President for her class) and her
bodyguard-cum-assistant Sousuke, ranging from helping serve rolls at
lunch to resolving issues with the Martial Arts club, and the SBP does
it with such style and command you can't not respect the man for all
that he can do.
Despite
being comedy-driven and not focused on a major plot, the animation is
spectacular. Even if it's just Kaname hitting Sousuke with her paper
fan yet again, it seems to be done so well that it is impossible not to
get caught up in all that goes on. The well animated slapstick and
antics really keep the show moving at a ridiculous pace, proving that
Full Metal Panic can be just as awesome when it's telling jokes as when
it was telling an intense action/thriller.
The
music is the same set of pieces heard from Full Metal Panic: standard
and adequate, with a few memorable tunes that excited you before. At
this point, I would also like to add that the ending animation is
contagiously cute. The song itself is decently punchy, but seeing chibi
versions of the cast marching to it for no reason is one of my favorite
parts of this series.
This
series, while still relying on its source material, is a very different
show from the first series. Sure, it had its moments of slapstick but
they were merely bookends to get viewers into the characters and
circumstances before launching into the real storyline. There really
isn't any kind of major villain or even Mecha action, leaving the robots
in the shop for TSR.
Fumoffu
has great moments, from Sousuke training a rubgy team filled with
pansies to the SBP speaking street slang to get the right message
across, to Kaname voluntarily being kidnapped just to see if Sousuke
will really come to her rescue. While I don't know if this will
properly set me up for the latest series, it is great material that
allows the viewers to sit back and relax before the next string of
explosions and plot twists.
KuroKami: The Animation (23 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ***
Music: ****
Overall: ****
You
have to admit: Bandai had some real guts trying to pull this off.
Trying to one-up the fansubbers, they helped produce the series so that
it could be broadcast in three different languages within 24 hours of
each other. I remember reading that the voice actors were dubbing over
line-art and sketches of the show, before the color was put in and
stuff. However, I'm afraid KuroKami will only be remembered as a
massively ambitious and experimental because, as an anime, it comes
across as rather corny.
KuroKami
is about a boy named Keita whose mother died in a traffic accident.
Due to this and other events, he lives alone and generally doesn't try
to make friends, afraid that anyone he makes friends with will get
killed. However, as he attends high school, he suddenly hears about the
idea that if people meet another person who looks just like them, they
will die. Putting together some of the things he remembers about his
mother's accident and wonders if it's true. As if answering his
question, a little girl he knows from his neighborhood happens to
mention that she saw a girl just like her then crossed the road too soon
and gets hit by a huge truck.
At
the same time, Keita befriends a girl by the name of Kuro by giving her
ramen at a ramen shop. While she's grateful, she also explains that
she is on a quest to kill her older brother. She also explains that she
is a Terra Guardian in charge of the Doppleliner system. Every person
starts with two dopplegangers of themselves throughout the world and
their terra, or life force, is divided between them. If one should die,
the other two gain the dead one's terra. However it has come to the
Terra Guardians' attention that someone is abusing this system, with
Kuro's brother at the head.
While
Keita doesn't seem to show much interest, he gets wrapped up with
Kuro's battle for revenge and dies. Kuro leaps to save him the only way
she knows how: by forcing Keita into a contract with her. Now as a
Terra Guardian's Contractee, his concentration has an impact on Kuro's
ability to battle. Before long, other evidence arrives to show that
perhaps Keita's mother was caught up in this mess as well. Keita
finally comes on board and Kuro takes him on a quest for the fate of the
world.
There
are a lot of great ideas presented here, but before long it declines
into the massive rut of generic shonen-style action. People seem to
battle for little to no reason and by the end, the dialogue and
motivation for the characters, as they rally to fight a common evil,
grows cheesier by the episode. As a result, I found myself not really
trying to raise my expectations anymore. Instead, I focused on the
animation.
Which
was CRAZY!! While the character designs take some time to get used to,
the action is unbelievable. If I had to describe it, then imagine you
were watching Dragon Ball Z with a massive subwoofer and EVERYTIME some
landed a punch, the whole house shook. Despite all of the attack-name
shouting and superhero-like powers, everything seems to hit with great
weight. You feel every crack and crunch, and quite often, I felt myself
wincing. Perhaps I should be giving credit to the special effects
guys. In any case, the action is the real star of this series and is
worth seeing just for that.
The
music may seem tacky at times, but I rather liked the whole rock/metal
motif they had. It got the blood pumping as characters crashed into
each other. I particularly like the second opening theme, "Trance".
Overall,
it was a fun show, despite the characters being almost forgettable and
the plot getting shallower as it went along. Perhaps it was a safe
series for their multi-dub experiment, but I think the ride was worth
it.
Kieli (2 Volumes)
Rating: **
It's
really hard to review a manga series that is so short, especially with
one as dynamic as Kieli where there certainly was more room to explore
within its distinct world.
Taking
place in some far future where people have since colonized other
planets, Kieli is teenage girl going to a church school in what looks
like a recreation of 1930s Europe. Supposedly several years ago, there
was a horrible war where super soldiers called [immortal] were created
to end the war, only to have their creators turn on them when they were
no longer needed. Now, they are used as a kind of boogeyman and
generally considered as a myth.
Meanwhile,
Kieli goes to class, continually isolating herself because she is the
only person she knows that can see ghosts, that is until she meets
Harvey, a strange man who doesn't seem to want to hang around much,
especially. After a small adventure in helping Kieli's ghost-roommate
finally move on, she becomes infatuated with Harvey, thinking that me
just might be an [immortal], decides to use her school vacation to
travel with him and his companion, a ghost called Colonel with a harsh
tone of voice possessing a radio. Their quest: to help the Colonel find
peace.
The
story doesn't have much to tell, mostly showing how this adventure
helps Harvey become human again by letting this girl fall in love with
him. Perhaps the light novels have more to share, I don't know, but
it's hard to really get into the series when it ends so quickly. The
pacing is fine and the art is nice, pleasant when it needs to be,
haunting when it calls for it. But the series seems mostly content with
not having much of an impact. It might make a nice movie someday, but I
would have really liked to see more of the setting and scenario.
Once
again, I can't promise when I'll be able to write up a new article, not
that I have any decent excuse: I've recently watched the Karin anime
and I'm still just a few episodes short of finishing Utena. However,
I've also got a set of classes that may not seem like a lot, but they're
very demanding in their own ways. I'll get back to writing as soon as I
feel I can.
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