まりあ†ほりっくあらいぶ/ Maria†Holic: Alive (season 2)

The second season of Maria†Holic was largely more of the same, but it was worthwhile watching and thoroughly enjoyable. A lot of the characters who had a limited role in the first season have an expanded part to play – Mariya’s sister Shizu is seen in her own school, with her own butler as a counterpart to Matsurika, creepy teacher Kanae becomes a comic staple and Kanako’s little sister appears towards the end to provide an adorable sincerity that serves as a great counterpoint to Kanako’s constant hysterics and histrionics.

Ultimately, the show once again boils down largely to Kanako suffering, usually through her own fault, and things are if anything a little more surreal than before. Kanako and the others brave the silly traps and games of a ‘forbidden’ old dorm, Kanako is put on trial, a 10-year-old boy arrives announcing he’s engaged to marry one of the girls (though let us not forget arranged marriages still exist), and in the last episode, Mariya and Matsurika show a softer side – after they are flushed into a strange underground passage from the school baths with Kanako and chased by expanding seaweed. Yup.

For all that it’s stranger than before, though, stylistically it’s a bit less playful – we get the same shoujo pastiche style far too many times – and I’m not a fan of all the fourth-wall breaking references. I never like jokes where characters show knowledge of being fictional, or that they’re in episodes, unless it’s a really obvious childish comedy like Rock Lee’s Springtime ofYouth. At the same time, though, the characters are in general treated a little more sympathetically and…well, fleshed out, which is welcome. Mariya shows a softer side, Kanako reflects on her selfishness, and…well, it’s amazing how much of a different person Matsurika seems without her maid headband. I also quite liked seeing Shizu as a boy, especially as her hidden side is much more pleasant than her brother’s.

At only 12 episodes, once again not a whole lot is going to happen, but I’m glad there was more Maria†Holic to enjoy and if a third season comes along, I shall be keen to watch that too. Also, I should make mention of the brilliant in-character intro song, which is the first OP in several years that I’ve actually enjoyed watching each and every time – not counting the little variations!

リトルウィッチアカデミア/ Little Witch Academia

A lot of attention has been paid to the 26-minute theatrical short Little Witch Academia, which in some quarters is being reported as it being part of Anime Mirai 2013 and the Young Animator Training Project. That, however, seems to be neglecting the fact that the YATP is now in its third (non-consecutive) year and this kind of response was not matched by the shorts for Anime Mirai 2012 or 2010’s Project A. The truth is, the government-funded project to give young animators experience isn’t at the centre of this anime’s popularity. The attention comes from the fact that this is – not counting that one mecha-tastic episode of The IDOLM@STER – the first anime of a decent length to come from Trigger, the studio set up by Gurren Lagann and Dead Leaves director Imaishi Hiroyuki upon his leaving Gainax.

Of course, being part of the Young Animator Training Project, it only makes sense that the animators are not the most immediately recognisable names. But if you imagine that the project would be made and helmed by unknowns, that’s not really how it works – the young animators are trained and funded, but the resultant shorts are not made solely by them. The director here was Yoshinari You, who is in his 40s, like Imaishi worked on Evangelion and did the distinctive character design for Gurren Lagann. This is very obviously his baby – the character designs are reminiscent of the peripheral characters in the Gurren-dan, and like Panty and Stocking skirt the line between current-norm anime prettiness and Western comics, to the point that to the uninitiated this looks ‘not Japanese’. Movements are exaggeratedly cartoonish and physiognomies are malleable, but the animation is lush and fluid and the whole thing brings with it an air of exuberance.

Akko is a bit of a misfit in her witching school. The others come from magical families and have strong magical powers, while Akko entered because she was inspired by Shiny Chariot – a famous entertainer the rest of the witches regard as a cheap illusionist, but who may have a secret or two and be closer to hand than any of them suspect – and can barely do a spell or fly a broom. The go-to comparison in most of the Western blogs I’ve read has been to Harry Potter, because after all it’s a school for magic, but rather closer comparisons would be to The Worst Witch or, looking no further than other anime, to MahouShoujoutai Arusu.

Indeed, this reminded me of Arusu in a lot of ways. The experimental, loose animation. The three central young witches who are not quite like their peers but end up centre of attention. The odd creatures and the huge, impressive dragons. But Arusu had a little more seriousness to it, and Academia is more overtly cutesy and light-hearted.

Academia has proven quite a hit. Certainly it has eclipsed any of its fellow YATP shorts (thus far). And if it establishes a house style for Trigger, the variety will be very welcome. But I’m not going to join the voices crying for a full season. If one comes, I shall likely watch, but it really doesn’t strike me as new ground or something I desperately must see more of. Aside from Arusu, I feel like I can see very similar ground trodden by reading Soul Eater Not! or even Puchimon. 

Bleach: Post-Timeskip

Well, this is slightly awkward. When I wrote my impressions of Bleach up to its small-scale and, let’s be frank, completely unnecessary time-skip, I had no inkling that the anime version would last only another single season before being replaced by – rather embarrassingly – a spinoff of Naruto, so thought this second set of impressions would have rather more weight. I’ve even put off watching the last episodes because it felt too soon to write this. But now I’ve seen Episode 366 – the last one, for now – and once again the third of the current Big Three is dwindling away.

The manga continues, for sure – by all accounts full of the deaths of major characters but very little that appeals to the core fanbase. I don’t know, because I’ve never really liked Bleach enough to read the manga, especially finding the first 40-odd episodes of the anime tough going. More will quite possibly be adapted, perhaps in movies, but let’s be honest – Bleach’s day is done and if HunterxHunter retakes its place as the third of the Big Three, I will be nothing but pleased.

The last arc sums up what Bleach has become for me – some interesting ideas that don’t feel developed, so many strong and well-loved characters that you know the villains of the week won’t be able to do much against them, and when it boils down to it, Ichigo being able to solve everything by (figuratively) punching a little bit harder than his opponent. Preferably after a speech about trust, friendship and loyalty. The premise – Ichigo is displaced as a mysterious ability alters the memory of his loved ones and makes them feel he is betraying a long-term friend rather than fighting an enemy – is interesting, but by the end Kubo just takes all the easiest ways out he can. Which has rather been the problem with Bleach all along – including its filler arcs, which started so promising (for what they are) and fizzled out into tedium.

There was clearly no plan for the series to come to such an abrupt end, and as such the episode wraps up essentially like any other, with no closure and an impression that if you want to see more, you’d better go to the manga. Maybe one day I will – but then, I said that about Claymore and only read a handful of chapters. And I thought Claymore had a lot more promise in its scant few episodes than Bleach ever managed.

Bleach had one arc that apart from random power boosts did just about everything right, introduced what tends to make Shounen Jump series really shine – a varied, badass and likeable group of adversaries (see the Akatsuki in Naruto and the Ryodan in HunterXHunter) – and then later managed to make them firm friends of the protagonist. It also had the slow-burning mysteries of Ichigo’s father and Urahara. But it really suffered from a dull protagonist, nothing every really feeling truly at stake once Rukia was saved, and a time skip that seemed to do absolutely nothing but make Ichigo’s sisters a little taller. I stuck with it for all 366 episodes, and will watch any further feature films, but at the end of it all, the fact is that Bleach left me cold and if I never find out how the story truly ends, it won’t be overly upsetting. 

みなみけ おまたせ/ Minami-ke: Tadaima

Minami-ke is probably my favourite of the slice-of-life cute-girls-doing-cute-things comedy shows, despite my initial dislike of it, at least in the moé-dominated period that came after Azumanga Daioh and Ichigo Mashimaro, which I probably put top of my list. Minami-ke has an edge over the likes of K-On! and Manabi Straight because it doesn’t need a gimmick or strange setting. 

It doesn’t need to be frantic like Lucky Star or out-and-out weirdness like Nichijou (though all of these shows I enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent). It really is just a group of sisters and their schoolmates and the silly things they do, with nothing more surreal than a weird sweaty guy who likes to do dramatic monologues and unbutton his own shirt, and a boy who likes to dress as a girl. And after all, boys dressed as girls aren’t exactly unusual in anime – see MariaHolic, Hourou Musuko et al.

And I have to say, boys who pass as girls are something I always enjoy in anime, especially if there’s cute but awkward comedy, and this also has the reverse I enjoy just as much – a young girl who is often mistaken for a boy. Both in the same anime, supplying some of the big laughs – that has definite appeal!

And the anime has soldiered on and on. It’s changed studios several times now – the first series was from Daume/Doumo, then Asread took over for the next two seasons and first OVA, but now the continuation comes from Da Capo II animators Studio Feel. 

The funny tear-shaped mouths are still there, and the overall character design, but it does look subtly different – a little clunkier in movements, but a little more consistent in staying on-model, which might be ironic if we judge Feel for being made up of ex-Pierrot staff (various videos exist of the laziest slapdash art from Naruto and Bleach) but for a slow-paced and pretty show like this the art looks nice.

There’s no structure to this 13-episode season apart from the loose changing of seasons, which was also the theme of the Omatase, the OVA Feel put out prior to this season. It feels mostly like checking in with a familiar old group of friends. We get an April Fools episode, which includes a funny moment where Fujioka very nearly finds out Touma’s gender. We see that Touma’s big brother is excellent at barbeques and that Touma has some impressive skills with needlework. Makoto gets into a girls’ swimming costume and helps Chiaki learn to swim, while the girls are put in yukata, maid outfits and wind up without towels after the bath – all of which somehow manages to avoid coming over as blatant, annoying fanservice because it genuinely seems like the comedy comes first and the camera doesn’t do the horrible blatant things that made Kyou no Go no Ni (from the same mangaka) so sleazy. 

Fujioka and Hosaka continue to dwell on their crushes on Minami sisters in their very different ways, and somehow Chiaki comes to regard Hosaka as her ‘curry fairy’ from the supermarket. The only episode segment that’s a bit of a mis-step is the one about a television show that hypnotises people, which breaks too much from the realism of most of the comedy, even if it comes with a cute dance and a brilliant fantasy sequence with Chiaki and Hosaka. 

ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：Q / Evangerion Shin Gekijōban: Q / Rebuild of Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo

Well, they can say what they like about being (not) able to redo, with this the third of the four Rebuild films, a whole lot has been redone. We’re a long way from the first in the series’ repetition of crucial scenes from the original series here, and in a whole new and interesting continuity.

You Can (Not) Advance finished with a big deviation from the plot of the original – it seemed instrumentality was imminent, until Kaworu showed up with the Lance of Longinus and put a stop to that. ‘I anticipate a good half of 3.0’s length to be given to trauma and suffering and weirdness’, I wrote at the time, and I wasn’t exactly wrong – though what I got was nothing like what I expected.

Fourteen years have passed since then. Shinji, who was about to trigger the Third Impact from inside Eva Unit 1, was extracted, but remained asleep for that long. Asuka and Mari are still piloting Eva, but the three of them seem not to have aged at all as a side-effect of piloting. It is hinted that in the interim Touji joined the other ‘children’, but it is only a hint – though his little sister is now involved in the running of the Evangelion. She does not work for NERV, however. There the most dramatic changes have happened.

Misato and Ritsuko are no longer juniors at Nerv. Instead, they are part of WILLE, set up to oppose NERV and the machinations of Gendou. When Shinji began Human Instrumentality in his attempts to save Rei, many of the horrors seen in the original End of Evangelion’s version of the cataclysm seemingly came to pass, including immense crosses sprouting in a red wasteland and, implicitly, a giant Rei rearing up and having its head fall off. The simple act of trying to save a girl he cared about brought about the deaths of millions and only Kaworu’s intervention with the Lance of Longinus stopped it. Of course, Shinji is ignorant to this at first, to why Misato and the rest treat him like a criminal and fit him with an explosive collar, why they have taken his Unit 01 and converted it into the power source for a huge airship called the Wunder. He is still confused when Rei – some version of Rei – attacks in a new Eva and wanting answers, Shinji goes with her.

He is taken to NERV, now with the sky visible above it. Distant as ever, Gendou tells him he can pilot a new Eva alongside mysterious white-haired boy Kaworu. Kaworu is once again mysterious, gentle, deeply insightful and preternaturally knowledgeable, and takes Shinji under his wing to treat him respectfully in a masterful display of manipulation. They begin to play piano duets in some of the film’s stillest and most beautiful scenes, but part of their bond involves Kaworu revealing the truth – that what has happened to the world is Shinji’s fault. Shinji begins his descent into despair again, and if anybody wants to complain about his whining and angst, I think being responsible for the deaths of almost all mankind justifies it.

Kaworu convinces Shinji that recovering the Lance of Longinus – and also the Lance of Cassius, added for whatever reason and the iffiest bit of Christian mythological esoteria added here – the near-Third Impact will be undone and everything will be happy again. Now, for the plot to work, it must be that Kaworu truly believes this, and is not simply being manipulative, because otherwise his actions stopping the Third Impact in the first place, as well as his heroic, horrific actions once he realises that this ‘Lance of Cassius’ is not there, only another part of the Lance of Longinus, make no sense. He is still everything he was in the original and perhaps more, still oddly homoerotic with his affections, and still acts based on a piece of information that turns out to be critically wrong, but it seems that to make sense of the plot of 3.33 we must accept that he was misled and did not want the ‘doors of Guf’ (slightly iffy but acceptable Judeo-Christian mythology reference) to open or the Fourth Impact to take place. He has essentially become another of Gendou’s pawns.

As ever, the plot is complex and full of bizarre lofty ideas, but everything is presented in an exciting and fast-paced manner, and leads to an interesting cliffhanger with Asuka, Shinji and Rei together again, this time with no Eva units left. The fight scenes, explosions and huge flying battleships are a marvel, and the CG-heavy imagery is stunningly good throughout, even if it’s the human parts that are most interesting. The scale is a little overblown now, post-apocalyptic with advanced technology, and the human heart of this film is kept at a distance knowing Kaworu is not all he says he is. I hope that the next film has a little more humanity, but at the same time I will not be surprised if it is still more harsh and clinical – yet beautiful. 

まりあ†ほりっく/ Maria†Holic (season 1)

For whatever reason, Catholic girls’ schools in Japan have a reputation for lesbianism. A certain very male-centric form of lesbianism. Nothing to do with Doc Martins, Dykes on Bikes or cute androgynous girls in saggy basketball tops with half their hair shaved off – nor, I suspect, any other stereotype that might come with the word ‘lesbianism’ in a Western mindset. In fact, the style has much more in common with books about English public schools where two boys become very close – a little too close to be good friends, and perhaps fittingly a lot of those books are in fact aimed at middle-aged women. The relationship between the girls at these Catholic schools is presented as utterly devotional, idealised, innocent and elevated. Typical associated clichés involve exchanging rosaries, referring to the older partner highly respectfully as ‘onee-sama’ and the adorably-old-fashioned greeting ‘gokigenyou’. Perhaps the most obvious example of this style is Maria-sama ga Miteru, which if it didn’t establish these tropes (probably found in novels and such before it) certainly brought them to a new audience, started a fashion and spawned unfortunate imitators like the execrable Strawberry Panic.

Maria†Holic, perhaps obviously given that it’s a Shaft anime, sets out to send up all these conventions and make a joke out of them. The creative aspect of this can’t be credited to them, given that this was a manga first and Shaft simply adapted it, but their signature fast-paced reference-filled style is immediately apparent and the artists clearly have a lot of fun taking every chance to mix up the art style, parodying absurd Yuri and Shoujo sparkly-eyed and spindly-limbed art, as well as stained glass windows and other Christian iconography.

Miyamae Kanako is an open lesbian whose aversion to men even has a physical manifestation – she breaks out in hives if a man so much as touches her. She is delighted to be transferring to the Catholic school Ame no Kisaki, where she hopes she will find her true love. Indeed, every girl in the school seems to be beautiful, and being a comic buffoon of a character, she will never be able to act on any of her crushes because when she gets excited, she gets a powerful nosebleed that usually leaves her unconscious – that typical anime sign of arousal that here becomes increasingly exaggerated, until Kanako is turning entire swimming pools red with blood and in the final episode, the planet, then the galaxy, then the universe gets the sanguine touch from her excitement.

Her life gets much more complicated as a result of Shidou Mariya, the grandchild of the school’s chairman, a beautiful angelic blond who also happens to be a boy in disguise. Kanako of course stumbles upon his secret, but this only leads to his true sadistic personality being discovered, and he and his laconic maid Matsurika set out to subjugate Kanako – which is not a particularly difficult feat. 

Add to this a cast of typical anime girls – the childish loli type, the strange and seemingly cold girl who seems to solve most of Kanako’s problems by declaring a love between them, the tall and glamorous archery star who has self-esteem issues…as well as, of course, an identical twin sister for Mariya who usually dresses up as a boy in the neighbouring school, and a truly bizarre ageless woman who looks like a small girl and serves as the terrifying dorm mistress. Oh, and in the last couple of episodes, a very silly male teacher/priest who tries to comfort Kanako in his own very strange but well-intentioned style, led astray by Mariya who makes up a story about a dead older brother he resembles.

Largely, it’s typical Shaft stuff, with typical Shaft shortcomings – the set-up is great, the humour is great, the acting is great (who would have thought Kanako had Dejiko’s seiyuu?), the references are brilliant and the pastiches are spot-on, but ultimately the problem is that…well, nothing really happens. I know it’s an episodic comedy, but after twelve episodes, when the season closes with the story of Kanako getting excited about the school’s swimming pool opening only to not get to partake in any of the lessons there, it feels anticlimactic. Yes, there’s a second season, and yes, this is really how most Shaft anime, from Pani Poni Dash! to Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei have worked, but the fact is that I would like some development to happen, some character arcs and some emotional involvement.  

Well, there’s a second season to come. I liked the scenario enough to be eager to watch. But I hope there’s a bit more to sink my teeth into, and not just the same repetition of lesbian-gets-nosebleed-over-cute-girls jokes.

ハンター×ハンター / HunterxHunter 2011: episodes 1-76

HunterxHunter has now reached the stage where it’s a long-runner, and I have to say it’s maintained its status as one I definitely want to watch as soon as it’s released each week. It hasn’t ended, but it has just entered the Chimera Ant arc – which means that we are now at last seeing material that has never before been animated. The previous adaptation ended after the Greed Island OVAs, so after 76 episodes Madhouse’s version has caught up.

And it looks as if much will change. With Togashi still not producing any more material and the anime moving at an impressive pace, it’s likely the Chimera Ant arc, which took so many years to tell in the manga because of ‘Hiatus x Hiatus’, will be quickly swallowed up by the anime, which may mean we get filler. Episode 76 saw the introduction of Kaito, who appears at the very beginning of the manga and the Nippon adaptation, and not only did that have a very different (and lesser) impact, but Madhouse also put in a filler backstory about his childhood. Does this mean we’ll be seeing more filler in the weeks to come? I can’t tell yet, but filler has done nothing buy harm for other big shounen series, especially Naruto – though as I often say as a proviso on this subject, some of my favourite One Piece anime moments have come from filler episodes. It may be that HunterxHunter does some good things with its material. Or it may mean the anime just ends again.

Either way, with the excitement of seeing the likes of Palm, Morau and Neferpitou animated for the first time in the intro, it seems a good time to break my impressions in two – not least because I’m going to have waaay too many screencaps.

Despite the Kaito situation and some odd changes to the first episode (as detailed in my first impressions), this version has largely been an attempt at a more accurate adaptation of the manga (albeit of course having to be somewhat less violent), with a faster pace, and as such does a better job of that NaruTaru-like trick of presenting a happy-go-lucky typical world and then increasingly adding depth and darkness to it, until it actually shocks. It doesn’t go as far as NaruTaru, of course, and certainly not as far as its manga, but it’s after all a Jump title, and it retains its action and adventure elements.

It’s in part just a change in the general aesthetics of popular anime, but Madhouse’s version manages to be a lot more cutesy. With simple lines, Gon and Killua in particular are made to look very baby-faced and I have to say, it oddly made me like Killua much more than I did before. Their somewhat homoerotic friendship is emphasised, especially in the little comedy skits at the end of each episode, but at the same time they seem more like innocent kids than in any other version, even knowing each of their pasts.

I’ve read a lot of people who seem to feel that you can only like one version. Manga readers hold the original supreme, fans of the original series criticise this one for rushing this or not placing enough emphasis on that, and then some newer fans tried the original but found it horribly dated, slow and uninteresting. But I’m yet again with that minority that sees each anime adaptation as a different spin that doesn’t replace the manga but brings its own little elements, and I love all three. Madhouse’s effort is beyond a doubt the most pleasant to look at, has main voice actors I prefer (even if some of the Ryodan’s original voices were much creepier and seemed to me to work better), plus tends to get the humour right far more.

Honestly, I have little but praise for this new effort. HunterXHunter is probably my favourite overall Jump manga, having a clever edge and an ever darker tone that I really enjoy, plus in the Ryodan probably the best group of antagonists of any show, the Bomb Devil seemingly an intentionally unimpressive follow-up act.

I’m not sure how the future will go for HunterxHunter. I’m very keen for the movie. But for the time being it’s going strong and I’m very much looking forward to the rest. I think it’s time for a new opening theme, though.