Thu 17 Apr 2008
Spring 2008 Anime Season: Preliminary Viewing Awards, Part TWO
Posted by DeathToZippermouth under Anime and Manga, First Impressions
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Hey, DTZ. Wake up.
Zzzzzz- Buh-
HEY. WAKE UP.
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! GEEZ. Microscopic thing, RIGHT in my face.
Wake up. We gotta do the awards show.
But we already did it.
We’ve already watched more series, and fans are requesting more reactions.
You lie. We have no fans.
But we still are scheduled for another awards show.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND we’re back, ladies, gentlemen and germs! Welcome to the SECOND HALF of our SPRING. ANIME. AWARDS SHOW!
*Canned Applause*
*looking around* Where the hell did that come from?
From our hearts and souls. Anyway, we have seven more series to provide reactions to this evening, and so let’s get started with a little show about how the world decided to screw around with the most apathetic kid ever.
Our souls have sound effect machines?
The show in question is the latest attempt the Japanese have made to make ninjas cool, Nabari no Ou. And while the ninjas aren’t necessarily cooler, I at least found reason to enjoy this show all the same.
Why am I the only one bothered by the sound effects?
The reason I enjoyed the show was largely due to the main character, Rokujo Miharu, and his incredibly endearing apathy to everyone and everything, plus his strange abilities to ninja vanish when people are annoying him and to overpower men with his power of “The Cute Happy Grin.”
I give up, fine. That kid scares me more, anyways. Judging from his use of unnatural feminine wiles to control men and the manifestation of black wings after he does so, he’s probably a succubus anyways.
Well, yes. But at least he has his priorities straight. When a bunch of crazies start trying to recruit him for their martial arts club, he mostly and rightly ignores them. When they start making claims that they’re ninja, he reacts as you’d expect: complete and total sarcastic disbelief. And when the evil ninjas start trying to kill him…
He still doesn’t buy it.
Yes, Miharu may very well be the most apathetic lead ever, actively rejecting the call to adventure simply by just not caring enough. And that actually adds a fun sort of charm to the series, unbelievably. Insane stuff happens to him… and he responds with a humorous “oh, hey” reaction. His English teacher pledges undying loyalty to him, he walks off to make dinner. A cute but insane girl claiming herself to be a samurai throws pencils at him, and he barely bats an eye. During martial arts training, he gets distracted by ladybugs.
And yet, it seems like it might be real fun. There’s a reasonable, if cheesy, plot behind it all, and the characters are enjoyable, and moderately complex.
Probably the most complex and well developed character at this point is the aforementioned English teacher, who I’d probably consider the actual hero at this point. A ninja from Ireland, Nohbari-Sensei is both pretty cool and actually fairly funny at times. What we’ve seen of his backstory so far implies that he’s both Miharu’s brother and somewhat responsible for why Miharu doesn’t seem to have any living parents.
And he has to be knocked out to ride in a vehicle. Or tricked by an evil cute boy.
But my favorite character is probably the insane girl that claims to be a samurai. From the moment she appears crashing through the dojo roof, she’s both likable and fun. The fact that her reactions to Miharu’s apathy are the most exaggerated only make her funnier.
And so, for all this, we will give Nabari no Ou the coveted “Best Ninja School Club” award. Do you think they have competitions with other schools?
Maybe a couple, here or there. So, what’s next, Dio?
Something purely pointless, and harmless. And it involves a cat. Reminder, DTZ, I know how to cause you horrible pain.
Kittehs? I love kittehs-
Do you WANT me to brew you?
I’m not even sure what that means anymore, with the way Moyashimon went. In any case, you’re referring to that adorable ball of fluff, Chi’s Sweet Home, and its titular character, right?
Yes. Despite it’s simple character designs, one of the most realistically animated cats I’ve ever seen. It looks like a kid’s cartoon, but moves perfectly well. And its so gosh darn cute!
I’ll say. But it’s also fairly mean to its poor kitty, what with the whole “cat gets lost, gets picked up by family, has to endure being fully domesticated while he tries to escape, and undergoes housebreaking” plot we’ve had so far.
But she’s settling down. In 8 episodes of 3 minutes each, we see the kitten rapidly begin to accept its new home. Maybe I just have a soft side for cats?
Anyone who doesn’t have a soft side for cats is a horrible human being. All in all, this is an incredibly endearing show, and the cuteness of our little star makes it a wonderful way to spend a few minutes of your day.
For some reason, I just can’t get past the cat turning its head around and going “Nan desu ka?” (what is it?)
Of course, that’s because it thinks its name is “chii” (childish name for going number 1) and the little boy likes to say the word alot. So, because it’s so cute and huggable, we give Chi and his wonderful home the “Cuteness Overload Award” prize.
Must…find…cat…*runs off*
So I’m all alone, now? Ah well, I have three series that I’ve seen but Dio hasn’t, so I’ll use this time to talk about them.
Here kitty kitty kitty…
First up is the shoujo action/romance series, Vampire Knight. Acclaimed by some, my view of the series was actually saved by precisely one character: the apparent lead male, Zero, voiced by Mamoru Miyano using his Light Yagami voice to do deadpan comedy and some good seriousness. The basic premise is that there’s a school which is trying to facilitate peace between humans and vampires in secret, and so during the day the humans take classes and the vampires get their turn at night. Our heroine, Yuki, is a girl who was saved from a vampire when she was very young, and that vampire now attends the school, for which her father is the headmaster. She along with Zero are prefects, which is a special position for those that know that the Night Class is filled with vampires in order to prevent the Day Class from finding out that the Night Class is full of vampires.
I FOUND A KITTY!
Of course, her job is alot harder than it should be, for the vampires are mostly bishounen stereotypes and alot of the girls in the day class are transfer students from Ouran High School, which is to say, they’re fairly vapid fangirls who kyaa an awful lot. The internal kyaa-ing at bishies irritated me a little, because I tolerated it in Ouran as satire, and this is actually a shoujo series that focuses a bit on action as well as the usual romance. I don’t need to have a kyaa-track in the same way sitcoms have a laughtrack. A few of the vampires really need the shit kicked out of them too, like the blonde arsehole Aidou. Fortunately, most of the vampires are taking a step to the side to make way for the infinitely more interesting and cool Zero, who is revealed at the end of the first episode to be a vampire himself after we’re given alot of insight into his character. I’m hoping the plot doesn’t falter from here and that Zero gets to keep the spotlight, because I dislike the rest of the vampires to varying degrees. To Vampire Knight, I award the “Saved by Awesome Male Lead” award.
YOU’RE A KITTY!
Next on my list of newly watched series is another shoujo series, this time a “romantic” comedy by the name of Special A. And I’ll be honest: despite loving the absurd setting, and most of the cast of the show, precisely one thing nearly shut me off from it forever. That was the male lead, Kei. In the first episode, every scene that had Kei, all I could really find myself thinking was that Kei was an asshole. I love Hikaru, the female lead, for her spunk and her underdog nature. I didn’t like Kei, though. Not because he’s the one that Hikaru has to beat as the underdog, but rather because every victory of his came with a snide remark and a dropping of a big huge rock “RANK TWO” kanji on poor Hikaru. The fact is obvious that Kei likes her… but the way he treats her due to his shyness made me almost completely give up on him, since I don’t agree that that’s how any relationship should go. And if I can’t like one of the main characters and it seems all the series is going to focus on is his inability to just be nice for a change (not let her win, but be nice about it) I wouldn’t have been able to stick with it.
Yes you are! And you’re sitting there! Hi, kitty!
But then after much resistance from me, Ruan managed to convince me to give it one more shot. And in watching the second episode, I realized that the first episode was the typical habit anime tend to have for making the first episode a rather exaggerated introduction to the characters. While my patience with Kei was tested through the episode, the fact that at the end he was acting better towards Hikaru was enough to make me less irritated with him. While I still can’t get behind him as a character, he didn’t ruin the fun atmosphere of this rather absurd shoujo series in the second episode. I give Special A the “Almost killed then saved by Annoying Male Lead” award.
GAAAAH! The cat scratched me!
Finally, the third series I watched on my own was Golgo 13, a series very much on the opposite end of the spectrum from Special A, as a hard noir seinen series about an assassin, Duke Togo, AKA, the titular Golgo 13. The series will likely be fairly episodic, but the first episode started things off right by being a gripping ride through a plane hijacking and Golgo 13’s method to put a bullet in his brainpan from two kilometers away. There wasn’t much more to the first episode than that (well, okay, there was a sex scene in the middle for the time Golgo was waiting for his new rifle to be specially modded) but it was all very cool and had a great feel to it, being completely different from everything else this season. Golgo 13 gets the “Best Single Rifle Shot” award. Ready to come back, Dio?
Kitty was mean…
Good enough for me. Next on our list is the silly sci-fi/semi-historical fantasy/somethingorother series Amatsuki, wherein a guy gets trapped in a fantasized version of Edo when something goes haywire in an augmented reality learning center.
It’s hard to decide what to think on this one after one episode. I mean, you want to think the main character was an idiot for walking right up to a horrible monkey lion thing without thinking about it, but then, he had every right to believe it wasn’t real.
The series has a number of mysteries right off the bat. Like how did a guy go from walking through an augmented reality educational exhibit into weird supernatural take on Edo, Japan? How did the friend he made at the exhibit end up being there as well for two years when he was gone for at most two hours? And given the time period, how did a woman (a really awesome woman, mind you, voiced by Romi Paku) end up being a Samurai? Personally, I’m curious enough to go on to find out if the series has some interesting answers in store.
Existentialist creepy little imps, weird hair scarves, and all?
Even those, yes.
We had a lot of award ideas, but they are just as confused and mixed as the first impression. So therefore, we give it the coveted “No Clue Award“.
And that brings us to our final series of the evening, and like before, we saved our favorite for last.
You see. Underneath this calm, normal exterior….we’re both pretty fracking insane.
And one of the series that got our insane senses of humor rolling back when we were still exploring the great sea of anime was a little piece of ZOMGWTFBBQ called Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu. And we both feel it’s been far too long since a good pure ON CRACK anime appeared.
So when I noted a bizarre opening on youtube, I investigated further. And, well, you know what its like when you see one insane cat girl? You cant help but keep watching.
And through it we found an answer to our prayers. A wonderful piece of pure insane energy that managed to be astoundingly fun. A show… called Kyouran Kazoku Nikki.
When your series starts with a bunch of keystone cops chasing a superhuman powered cat girl, and thats the LOW end of the insanity, you know something’s up. Lo and behold, meet Ouka. Someone who must have REALLY pissed off his boss at his government job, for the assignment he’s been given.
When this paranormal investigator finds a fairly strange catgirl, he takes it back to base, only to find her to be receiving utmost respect… and then is sent off to have a shotgun wedding with her and to adopt a bunch of other weird things as kids.
Then he learns that his job is to see which of this group of weirdos will become a monster that destroys the world. And when I say weirdos, I mean it. Lets see. We have the poor normal shy girl….the jellyfish…..the lion….the killer cyborg, and the okama.
At first with the wedding bit and later with the little girl, the show almost seems to be setting itself up to be harem, but that’s quickly diverted when the rest of the family shows up. Thus, from the first episode it seems to be becoming the WEIRDEST AND MOST ON CRACK FAMILY SITCOM EVER.
It’s not harem. It’s worse, in terms of “god I’m screwed”. Because this guy is getting all the harem disadvantages, regular beatings and insanity, without any romantic hope, since hes married to a 20 year old catgirl who looks 8 years old, and has a terrifying god complex.
The whole this is as one blogger described: the unholy lovechild of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu. And given sugar rather than the acid that Guu was on. And honestly, I truly hope it can keep its energy, because its madcap nonsense is just what was needed to round out this season. I give it the “Best Mom Award.”
I disagree entirely. After all, what we have here, in the plot, is a government attempt to make their own Xanatos Roulette. Since they have no idea what they’re doing, theyve made a completely batty plan, since they know that in anime that always works, so they can take credit later. So I think instead, this madcap adventure wins the “Most Elaborate Plan Award“.
Well, they clearly have a plan going, but it’s not that big. I think it’s just that Ouka really did piss off his boss, and so this whole thing is one big plot to drive him into misery. Thus, it turns into the “Most Elaborate Plan to Drive a Man to Misery” award.
Stop changing my awards! Fine, then I nominate it for the “Best Jellyfish until new Slayers season Award“!
Holy crap, three awards? Why, that means it beats all the two-award winners and beats the tie we had going. The recipient of the “Most Awards” has been found!
Bloody… you’re just trying to annoy me, arent you?
I would never! Ahhh… this format is so much fun. I wish we could do something like it each week. Discussion of series… talking about weirdness… why, it’d be just like a Talk… Show…
TALK… SHOW… TALK SHOW…
…That’s it, I’m leaving. I’ll be trying to make the kitty happier. *leaves to find kitty*
Yes… a TALK SHOW! That’s PERFECT! Why, we could do it every week… on Wednesday, yes! And we could get Ruan and Dominic Raze to help out with it! And we could call it… yes, we could call it… “WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!? WEDNESDAYS: THE SHOW!” IT’S BRILLIANT! I gotta go plan… *runs off cackling like a madman*
OW! Stop it, you stupid cat!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Okay, I have so much anime backlog now (about 100gb worth), I really shouldn’t be picking up new series, but you guys got me interested in two. I’m going to try out Kyouran Kazoku Nikki and Zettai Karen Children (mostly because I miss Aya Hirano’s voice).
Curse you bloggers!
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