Anime speaks in many voices – action-packed and brainless, mature and sophisticated, artsy and whacked-out, achingly romantic, hilarious…exactly like most modes of popular storytelling, in fact. But one area that anime has that you’ll be hard-pressed to find in, say, contemporary cinema, is the mixture of cutesy, action-packed and epic that characterises several popular anime, like Cardcaptor Sakura or DNAngel. The closest you’re likely to get is probably Disney animation, but anime is about cute kids, not cute lion cubs or cute cars, giving an element of moé that inspires a hardcore fanbase of 16-25-ish male otaku to buy, buy, buy. And its to this audience that Otogi Jushi Akazukin shamelessly caters. But while it starts as a paint-by-numbers set of clichés and recycled plotlines, its warmth, strong if archetypal characterisation and knowledge of how to make the cheesy genuinely moving vindicates it, making it more than just a marketing tool for ‘sweet phones’ and action figures – making it charming.
In Akazukin, there are two worlds – the world of science, or Erda, where we all live, and the world of magic, or Fandavale. A young boy named Souta, who used to be told stories of these two worlds by his mother before she mysteriously went missing, is drawn into a battle between the forces of good and evil in the world of magic. You see, he has a mysterious power inside of him, which soon acts as the driving MacGuffin. Yeah, like I said, clichéd.
Akazukin draws heavily from Western fairytales, putting a cool spin on familiar characters to fit them into the anime mould of little girls with super-powers. He is protected by three of Fandavale’s most powerful warriors: Akazukin, which means ‘Red Riding Hood’, an endlessly adorable spunky girl who sometimes thinks with her fists rather than her head, and has a wolf as a sidekick; Shirayuki-hime (Princess Snow White), a gifted mage with a somewhat inflated sense of self-importance; and Ibarahime, the narcoleptic briar princess, based on Sleeping Beauty (‘Briar Rose’ in the Grimm version). But there are more interesting sources, too – the musicians of Bremen are comic relief antagonists, while more obscure figures like Trude pose more serious threats. Rather than the familiar English translations, the Germanic and French sources of these tales are used for names, so Souta is helped by characters like Hameln (based on the Pied Piper of Hamelin) and is ultimately opposed by Cendrillon, whose name sounds far more impressive and sinister than it would have been had she been named Cinderella.
There’s very little new here, but the show succeeds in doing familiar things well. The central characters all have interesting and moving backstories, including Cendrillon. Randagio the comic relief cat is genuinely funny and the comradeship within Bremen towards the end is actually very affecting. The little quirks of characterisation, like Shirayuki and Ringo’s prickly rivalry, help them to be more likeable, and Souta is easy to sympathise with. Let’s face it, there’s little real reason that 99% of the population of Fandavale should look about 11 years old, but it makes them all absolutely adorable and Akazukin in particular, with her good heart and innocent spirit, is pure moé.
This show would not convert anyone who hates anime or is repulsed by cuteness, but it does what it sets out to do, presenting old ideas extremely well, like One Piece or Naruto at its best, like Trigun or Hellsing. One of my favourite shows of the past year.
(originally written 11.9.07)
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