Originally posted to the Anime Guidepost blog, November 10th, 2009.
Aah-hahahahahahaha! My classes have taken over my life! How long has it been since I updated? Over a month? Geez . . .
Sorry,
everyone. This is long overdue, considering the back-logue of anime
and manga I've since watched. I'm only following one series for this
fall, the aforementioned Fairy Tail, though Book of Bantorra has peeked
my interest. However, I think I'll wait for it to end and see what
people say about it as a whole.
Karin (24 Episodes)
Animation: ***
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overal: ***
I
remember seeing a "preview" for this on some other Geneon disc, which
was basically the opening animation and theme. Therefore, I couldn't
draw any conclusions as to what it was about. I only saw lots of
conveniently censored nudity and a girl who has nose bleeds. I decided
it was some fan-service-heavy rom-com and forgot about it.
Some
time later, I decide to pick up the first volume of the Chibi Vampire
manga, thinking that it looked kind of cute and had some potential.
Before long, I burned through what my library had, having endeared
myself to the characters and their problems. It was later that I
realized that Karin was the original Japanese title and there was an
anime series that had the previously described opening sequence. I
haven't finished the manga (my hold at the library hasn't come through
yet), but I was able to get my hands on the anime's boxset and burned
through it, and found it was good fun, like the manga.
Karin is
the name of the main protagonist, the eldest daughter in a family of
vampires, the Markers (Maaka in Japanese). However, he vampirism seems
to work backwards as she has the tendency of creating blood instead of a
craving to steal blood from others. In moment's of high blood
pressure, she loses control and bites whoever happens to be nearby to
pass the excess blood from her to her victum. Naturally, this causes
her family no end of worries, simply because they don't know what to do
with her. She's a teenager, well beyond the age of maturity for
vampires, and yet she has no problem with standard vampire banes. She
can walk in daylight, go to school, and hold down a part time job just
like any human teenager. Her only problem is the once-a-month blood
explosions, which she's been able to keep a secret this whole time, even
from her closest friend, Maki.
Enter Kenta Usui, recent transfer
student whose family has had quite a share of bad luck. He doesn't
know his father and his mother can't hold down a job to save her life
(entirely because she's an attractive woman who keeps getting in trouble
with lecherous, middle-aged men; she's a complete victum). Because of
this, he always seems down and his disposition leads others to think
he's always angry (unfortunately, it's just the shape of his eyes).
Well,
things get sticky when Karin meets Kenta and her blood starts to boil,
curious because her monthly blood problem had recently happened. Turns
out that Kenta has Karin's blood affinity, a characteristic or condition
of humanity that excites vampires to feed. For example: lying, stress,
lonliness, etc. For Karin, it's depression, something Kenta has in
spades. Upon realizing this, Karin goes about trying to make Kenta
happy so her blood doesn't go haywire. Her first idea: making him
lunch.
From there it blossoms into ridiculous and cute romantic
comedy as the characters discover each other (Kenta finds out about
Karin and her condition quite quickly). It follows the basic premise of
the manga, but for its dramatic ending, it takes a different route.
Instead of dealing with other vampire families, the Marker family is
trouble with a family of vampire hunters. While most manga adaptations
that have their own endings can lead to mixed results, at least in Karin
it's one of the more creative ideas I've seen, primarily found in the
character of Winner Sinclair, the current heir to his vampire hunting
family and another transfer student to Karin and Kenta's high school.
I
personally consider Winner to be one of the best characters I've ever
seen. While he takes vampire hunting seriously, his delivery (at least
in the English Dub) is straight up melodrama, resulting in having the
rest of the school thinking he's completely insane. As luck would have
it, he falls desperately in love with Karin, completely oblivious to the
fact that she's a vampire. More romantic hijinks ensue. Basically,
Karin doesn't want anything to do with him (because he's a vamprie
hunter), so she gets the help of Maki, who happens to be in love with
Winner, to get rid of him. Unfortunetly, his obliviousness and devotion
to Karin wears them down to the point of simply ignoring him. Probably
the greatest result of this is whenever Winner talks to or refers to
Maki, he calls her "Karin's friend and sidekick," every time. And for
me, it never got old!
While the story is entertaining, I find
everything else about the series merely adequate. The music doesn't
really stand out, either being standard rom-com suites or old-school
horror scores. The animation is decent. The story doesn't demand much
action from the animators, but for the climactic ending, the combat
strikes me as only being slightly stiff. The character designs are
appealing and distinct and for a rom-com, that's all you really need.
I'm
looking forward to the end of the Chibi Vampire manga (weird title
change, by the way). I'm one volume away, so don't tell me anything.
In the meantime, the Karin anime was a fun diversion, using the same
characters and situations to present an entertaining anime series. It's
not earth-shattering by any means so those unfamiliar with the story
may feel either way, but I would recommend it to fans of the manga only
for the sake of being introduced to Winner. Seriously, he fits right in
like he was meant to belong.
Fullmetal Alchemist OVA Collection (4 "Episodes")
Animation: *****
Story: ***
Music: ***
Overal: ***
I
knew that FUNimation had finally grabbed this, but when I saw it in
Hastings for about $12 I figured I had nothing to lose. While I wasn't
completely blown away, I felt this was a decent package to fans of the
series like me.
The
four segments have nothing to do with each other (and little to do with
the main property) but provide some fun ideas that Studio Bones decided
to animate. First is a wrap party by the characters after the "filming"
of Conquerer of Shamballa, proving some goofy gags. Second is a side
story that treats the audience as a character, resulting in an
interesting fight scene between the alchemists and homunculi (it leaves
me with the impression that it was orginally part of a ride or event).
Third is a curious flash-forward, showing a trio of kids (who look very
much like Ed, Al, and Winry) wandering around a modern Japan before
returning to their great-grandpa Elric. The fourth is a live-action
segment featuring Alphone's armor as he wanders around Tokyo, trying to
find Studio Bones.
I
don't think I've said this on the blog yet, but I find Fullmetal
Alchemist's music to be a bit bland, which was used for the OVAs. Sure,
the character themes are alright and the lullabies and comic tunes
strike the right chords, but all it amounts to is decent background
noise that barely stands on its own. The animation is impressive,
though. I'd say it's equal with what Conquerer of Shamballa presented.
Slick, immersive, even when everything is chibi-styled it looks nice.
Clearly,
this stuff was for the fans, as most OVAs based on bigger properties
are. They expect a certain familiarity with the Fullmetal Alchemist
story, specifically the anime continuity (though I would suggest that
the second segment would be an ideal introduction to FMA). In any case,
the set provides some fun chuckles and nostalgias for fans.
This
should be good for now, but I've got quite a bit in the future. I
finally finished Revolutionary Girl Utena (I was three episodes away for
months!). I also wrapped up Gundam 00, which was interesting, and I've
got Shangri-La almost done, so there's certainly more to cover. Here's
hoping it doesn't take me a month to update this blog, eh?
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