しゅごキャラ/ Shugo Chara

I am genuinely quite saddened by what happened to Shugo Chara. The anime adaptation came out, really, far sooner than it ought to have, with the manga quite thin on the ground and only coming out monthly, but despite some iffy filler chapters, it actually managed to flesh out its characters in a likeable enough way that it actually stood alongside the original as more of a companion piece than a ropey adaptation. Original characters may not have been universally popular, but they were often likeable enough by the end and allowed for more development for the major characters. So it was saddening when after the series’ major plot arc, the producers seemingly decided to draw it out further, abandon the fanbase to go after a younger demographic. A very young demographic. The last series, Shugo Chara Party, incorporated fifteen minutes of anime, shifting focus to a young original character, while the other fifteen minutes was a hideous variety show. It had some omake mini-episodes in a cutout-like style, which were actually great, but the rest of it was some funny-looking little kids learning to dance, decorating their nails, doing stupid quizzes and pretending badly to be having a great time. Unsurprisingly, it got cancelled, the story had to be awkwardly concluded in two episodes and the ultimate end of the series was one of disgrace. Like so many others, it was an anime series that on the surface looked meant for little girls, but was actually made for older, geekier guys and girls old enough to want to follow the intricacies of a budding adolescent relationship or four.

The manga came from Peach-Pit, who are behind the likes of DearS and, of course, Rozen Maiden. There’s quite some crossover here: a young person who shows a false face to the outside world is gradually changed by small, quirky, secret little familiar-type companions. While Rozen Maiden was a darkly elegant, dreamlike and rather insular tale, Shugo Chara is completely different, dealing mostly with interaction between friends within a school and extremely upbeat. So while there are a lot of parallels between some key figures, Suu and Miki in particular sharing much with Suiseiseki and Souseiseki, in tone the series falls closer to Chicchana Yukitsukai Sugar – A Little Snow Fairy Sugar – especially without Peach-Pit’s distinctive and beautiful artwork. It’s a shame the manga ground to a halt, too.

But what sets it apart is really the romance. Romance doesn’t really matter in Rozen Maiden – there’s some scenes between Jun and Shinkuu, but they are more silly than affecting, and it is of course an impossibility. However, Shugo Chara protagonist Amu first has a big crush on the cute blonde pretty-boy in her school, but later is courted by the dark and mysterious older teen Ikuto, and the tension between the three brings about some of the best episodes in any anime I’ve seen – especially when capricious Ikuto thrusts himself into Amu’s life at his most vulnerable ebb.

There are so many characters I love in Shugo Chara, and more than any other series, it was adept at making me come to like characters I’d initially found annoying. It’s also impressive to think that the silliness here was written at the same time as some of the darker chapters of Rozen Maiden II: versatility with a distinctive voice is impressive.

I must confess I don’t find the ages of the characters a fit. Amu is 11-12 and Ikuto is around 16. This doesn’t fit at all, as Amu seems at least 14 and Ikuto more like 18-19. But that’s a minor qualm, and is probably only to broaden the audience. It doesn’t stand in the way of what is, ultimately, one of the only anime I’ve loved in recent years.

風の谷のナウシカ/ Kaze no Tane no Naushika/ Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

I can’t help it.

I know the historical value of the film. I know that without it, Ghibli may never have been founded and some of my favourite films might never have existed. I know it’s an iconic part of Miyazaki’s canon. But I just do not like it.

Nausicaa is just a bad film. The manga was much, much better – and that wasn’t exactly great.

Okay, for its time, some of the animation is excellent. There are shots when Nausicaa is flying that are just awe-inspiring in their smoothness and daring, and the guy who went on to make Eva did a superb job with the Giant God Warrior. At other times it looks dated or unimaginative, and parallax-style animation is relied on a little too heavily, making everything look like it’s made of big cardboard cut-outs, but that I can forgive. But I really do think that Miyazaki, Takahata and especially Hisaishi have honed their craft considerably since these early days (though I shall have to watch the World Masterpiece Theater series, Conan and Panda Kopanda before I really make my mind up about that), and it was really the Totoro/Hotaro double-bill that marks the beginning of the Ghibli I love.

Still, this was the film that propelled Miyazaki to success. Made by Topcraft animation, it is nonetheless generally considered the first Ghibli film and these days is prefixed by the famous Totoro logo.

I think my problem with the film is much the same as the problem I have with many other Miyazaki films – that he is very good at imagining a setting, but not very good at putting a story into it, which remains true even in his most recent films – Sen to Chihiro in particular. Nausicaa’s setting, this world where nature has risen against humanity, is great, as is the idea of focusing on a small community caught between two larger states at war. But the storyline just lurches about, dragging on and on until its very artificial climax and even more artificial resolution. There’s never any real sense of danger or purpose, and it doesn’t even have the epic global scale of the manga.

Plus I have real problems with the voice cast. The Japanese cast are just so bland, so obvious and flat that I get very bored of them very quickly. I didn’t like the girl who plays Nausicaa when she was in Cagliostro, and she was far more annoying here. it’s as if she was only interested in sounding pretty, and to hell with the performance. The new English voice cast was just as bad (and when a dub cast can only be decried as ‘Just as bad’, something’s very wrong with the original version). Whoever was playing Asbel was plain embarrassing, Nausicaa sounded even more vacuous, Uma Thurman sounded like she was embarrassed by the material and Mark Hamill seemed determined to read the script as you would read a scary picture book to a three-year-old. Patrick Stewart was great, though, and mercifully free of problems with lip-synch because he only had to worry about, in his words, ‘Moustache-synch’. He kept things understated and the casting decision worked well.

I have to say, of all Miyazaki’s movies, this is the one I’m least inclined to watch again. You’d think two armies facing off would be more exciting than a little girl waiting at a bus stop with a strange furry monster, but you really could not be further from the truth.

(originally written 17.09.06)

Kuroshitsuji Season II

(Season 1 impressions here: http://adziu.blogspot.com/2011/01/black-butler-kuroshitsuji-first-season.html
OVAS here: http://adziu.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/kuroshitsuji-ovas.html)

Kuroshitsuji season II was…terrible. The first season was no masterpiece, but even though it’s become widely reviled and held up as an example of all that’s wrong with anime, mostly by people who judge things by the fandom rather than for the actual value of the show, beside season two it was a piece of perfection, it was the ceiling of the Sistine, it was La Giaconda, it was…well, Faustus.

While it was, I stress again, no masterwork, Kuroshitsuji was not only quite fun and striking, it ended well. In the few seconds of epilogue after the absolutely terrible climax of the story, that is. I had expected the Faustian story to end with a somewhat limp Goethe twist, but it ended up nicely Marlovian.

Except of course, that ending doesn’t leave room for season two. The contrivance that allowed the story to continue wasn’t terrible – a rival appears! – but instead of finding some way to get back to the interesting, dark manga storyline, the anime writers made something original.

A little blonde boy with a by-the-numbers faux-edgy screwed-up past of being used as a sex toy by a fat old man has also made a pact with a demon. He soon ends up clashing with Ciel, and the two very similar butlers are pitted against one another. Over twelve very dull episodes, little predictable twists come and go, and the whole thing hinges on being emotionally invested in Alois. And I just cannot fathom why anyone would like him. He’s such a flat, unbelievable character, right out of a badly-written pornographic fanfiction written by a 13-year-old girl. He gets abused in a silly exaggerated way that is frankly an insult to people who campaign to have abuse better-understood, he becomes a ridiculous sadistic cackler, and he acts like a spoilt brat. I don’t know if the fangirls who love him just want to see him suffer erotically, but I didn’t even take pleasure in his realisation that he was insignificant and inferior. I just wanted him not to be on the screen at all. Claude, meanwhile, was just a slight variation of Sebastian.

I think the writers fundamentally misunderstood almost every character other than Ciel and Sebastian. Grell in particular was neutered from unpredictable, idiosyncratic nutjob to comedy gay #37, playing Ophelia in an absurd and unfunny rendering of Hamlet and being coerced into anything with sexual teasing.

The one saving grace was an interesting ending. It was really one of only three or four possible conclusions, but despite the unsatisfying way they got there, the final fate of Ciel and Sebastian was quite satisfying.

Part of me always hoped that Kuroshitsuji would prove its doubters wrong and improve. But the anime is beyond saving, now. Time to see how the manga is getting on…

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole

I’ve been waiting for this film since first seeing the trailers for it. A beautiful CG film with a traditional old-fashioned epic storyline – revolving around owls! And while it was perhaps not everything that I hoped it would be, it was very enjoyable indeed, and certainly one I’d be happy to see again, even if it’s not the full 3D IMAX experience.

From Animal Logic, who animated Happy Feet, at the very least the beauty of this film must be acknowledged. Some of the settings are incredible, and if the CG models for the owls look impressive, seeing them talking, fighting and especially flying through the rain is breathtaking. Happy Feet was a feast for the eyes, but this film was just far more ambitious, more varied and more striking to look at.

And while the naïve, old-fashioned tone clearly hasn’t captured popular imagination
like tap-dancing penguins did, I found this plot to be more interesting and compelling, mostly because it didn’t have an annoying and preachy final act. Indeed, though there was a degree of formulaic Hollywood preaching (the plot revolves around the struggle against a group of barn owls who have decided they are ethnically superior to smaller species and begun to call themselves ‘the Pure Ones’), the issues raised in the simple good-against-evil story were quite interesting. Hero-worship of warriors is tempered with a grizzly old fighter spitting out the realities of battle, and while the plucky young hero told that he will be useless in a fight and that it takes many years to train as a guardian eventually holds his own against veteran warriors in a rather unlikely manner, it feels more like a relativistic complexity than the weak writing of…well, blatantly contradicting the lesson you had your protagonist learn. After all, a heroic story should end with a big fight.

Do the same film with live-action actors and admittedly it would be nothing special. It’s a very by-the-numbers story and it doesn’t even end properly, leaving things open for sequels. It suffers from Star Wars chronology syndrome, too, setting up the impression of an ages-old mythology and then revealing that all these stories about olden times and great heroes are actually from within living memory. But the fact is that this film is about owls, owls who can use tools and speak and harness mysterious magnetic powers. It doesn’t need to be that strong in story terms, because it is carried by its visuals, its spectacle and the sight of realistic owls interacting like people.

The only thing it needed was more original characters and a better story. Which is why I’m very interested by rumours that Animal Logic are going to produce a Watership Down remake.

That said, if they do adapt more of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books, I’ll certainly be buying a ticket. I just hope… they don’t put in another Owl City song just for their name. It was alright for the credits, but for a montage? They could have chosen so many better options….

狼と香辛料 /Okami to Koushinryou/Wolf and Spice/Spice and Wolf

Arguably, Wolf and Spice is one of the titles that set off the whole moé trend, with its adorable lead female and tsundere tropes. But it came before the moéblob explosion, Horo doesn’t look like a baby, and it has always been a little more sophisticated than the likes of Lucky Star and K-On, which I notice have gone out of fashion again.

I watched the first episode of Wolf and Spice back when the first subs came out, and this is why I’ve never quite been able to get used to the official English title of Spice and Wolf. I think that Wolf and Spice sounds better anyway, and seems to fit with the two series, the first seeming to focus more on the wolf, the second on the trading aspect.

For what makes Wolf and Spice stand out is that its plotline sounds utterly bizarre at first: the wolf part is nothing wholly original, an ambitious, personable trader in a medieval European-style world coming across the wolf god Horo, who shows herself to him as a human girl (with kemonomimi and a tail), sparking an unlikely companionship. What makes the series special, and somewhat peculiar, is the way that in the episodes that follow, the two of them engage in a number of trades, most of which have a clever twist or hidden factor to them that require you to pay attention to such things as the value of salt in the region, or the pecuniary standing of the church in a town. It makes for an elegant, cerebral and delicate series that I not only enjoyed but rather admired.

And Horo is something special, too. While I cringed a little in early episodes, where she was naked most of the time and it all felt very juvenile, her character – proud but vulnerable, wise yet not very self-aware, vain but insecure – is developed extremely well, and the sometimes tempestuous relationship that unfolds between her and the merchant, Lawrence, as well as the business acumen she soon acquires, make for an excellent through-line for a series.

While small animation studios Imagin and Brains Base were sometimes inconsistent with animation quality, Wolf and Spice consistently looked better than the average anime, and when it was at its best, it was visually exquisite. Imagin’s work (series one being, I believe, the only time I’ve seen a show of theirs that they produced solo) was particularly painstaking and often brave in terms of angles and mise-en-scene, and the background work on this show was some of the best I’ve ever seen. The voice-acting also could not have been better.

It’s been over a year now since the second season ended, and I remain hopeful for a third. There’s plenty of story to tell, and the second season admittedly ended on a rather abrupt and unsatisfying note…it was the only way that the story arc could have ended in a way that made sense, but the turnabout in the final episode was far too brief, and its aftermath much too short. I really would like to see more of Lawrence and especially Horo, with her wacchi and nushi!

あずまんが大王 / Azumanga Daioh

When I couldn’t sleep last night, and wanted to watch something that suited my good mood, I knew what to put on: Azumanga Daioh. When I say that this show is amongst my top five comedies of all time, I’m not just talking about anime: I mean in any format. This was one of the anime that our uni anime club was showing when I matriculated, and I fell totally in love after watching the first two episodes.

Being based on four-panel gag strips, the show has a very simple storyline, and jokes every few seconds, but there are moments of great poignancy and stillness amongst the chaotic humour – and what brilliant humour it is. Azumanga thrives on its characters, and does so with more success than any other show I know.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the characters in Azumanga are some of the finest comic creations I’ve ever come across. In all of literature and televised comedy, I can think of only a few characters who evoke in me the same affection as these girls. In all of Shakespeare, perhaps there are as many brilliant characters as there are in this one show. No overstatement.

The anime follows a group of girls through high school, and their ordinary everyday lives, punctuated by summer trips, sports days and two memorable trips to a theme park called ‘Magical Land’, which, in a stroke of storytelling genius, is never actually shown, and is all the more special for it. This simplicity is the key to the show’s brilliance – every episode simply concerns the girls, their personalities, and their relationships, and because they are such perfectly-sketched and familiar characters, they are always a joy to watch.

The main cast consists of Chiyo-chan, an 10-year-old prodigy who has been moved all the way to high school because of her intelligence, but is of course still a sweet, innocent little girl, often teased by the others, but of course protected by them, too. Then there is Sakaki, a quiet girl who towers over all her classmates, and is idolised by another girl called Kaorin, who doesn’t know that beneath Sakaki’s cool, taciturn exterior, she just loves cute things like kittens, and is always trying to stroke one particular cat: which never fails to bite her. There's also Tomo, always hyperactive and a little bit dense, and her best friend Yomi, always the rock in the midst of Tomo’s tornado, although she does have a complex about her weight. Later, they are joined by Kagura, who has a real competitive streak, but isn’t too bright – though she’s the only one who can match Tomo’s hyperactivity. Finally, there is Osaka-san, real name Kasuga Ayumi. Words cannot describe her brilliance. A little slow and spaced-out, her lateral ways of thinking about things give some of the best laughs in the series. In addition, there are the teachers, childish Yukari-sensei, her long-suffering, sensible childhood friend Kurosawa-sensei, and then Kimura, easily the strangest man in the world, with a predilection for high school girls & a constant expression of vacant amazement.

These elements make up the perfect comedy team, with no weak links at all. Everyone has their favourites (mine are Chiyo, Yomi and Osaka-san), but it’s the chemistry between them, the superb direction (with flawless comedy timing), the plaintive music and the endless brilliance of the observational comedy that really makes you care for these characters, and laugh along with them for the whole series.

(Originally written 27.4.2005)

Pumpkin Scissors

When Fullmetal Alchemist became one of the most successful anime of all time, I predicted that in its wake would be a great influx of copycat shows revolving around the Military. In fact, I was wrong, but Pumpkin Scissors is perhaps an early indication that I may yet be proven right. However, the show does something rather different with its military setting, and comes close to being a great show, one or two bad decisions just making it fall short.

Pumpkin Scissors focuses not on the military during a war, but in the wake of one. Yes, that’s similar to Fullmetal Alchemist, but in shifting the focus to war relief, Pumpkin Scissors offers a novel perspective on a country picking up the pieces after the devastation of war, and the class struggles that ensue.

Like many Gonzo anime, the show has a very European feel, with early 20th-Century Western architecture, uniforms and vehicles, and heavy use of German which in tandem with the major subplot of human experimentation brings to mind the aftermath of the Third Reich. The aesthetic of the show is mostly dark and serious, although there is comic relief, mostly coming from the adorable childlike Sergeant Major Stekkin and her over-enthusiastic military dog Mer-kun (who also star in the light-hearted, sometimes inappropriate end theme, which sounds like skiffle). In fact, the principle characters are remarkable, taken from anime stock but put in positions of prominence that are very unusual. Our two main characters are the huge, hulking, simple-minded gentle giant Oland and the stern but softhearted Alice, a noble who nevertheless devotes her life to rebuilding the country and defeating injustice in a purposefully strange way. There are some other likeable soldiers in the military section, and the dynamic between the characters is one of the most enjoyable parts of the show.

The trouble with Pumpkin Scissors is that it’s good – but one feels it could have been great. Oland has been experimented upon to make him a super-soldier, an infantryman who can take on tanks, and the central arc of the show is a fight against another man whose body has been altered by the military. However, once that arc is concluded, the writers seem to think they have said all they need to, and rather than taking on the corruption within the army, the climax of the show is provided by a standoff between disillusioned peasant revolutionaries and decadent nobles that just falls flat. The last few episodes are given over to a duel between Alice and some bodyguard, with a peasant mob standing around watching, because of course angry and disillusioned men who’ve seen their children starve will be persuaded by big speeches and moving words and unexpected tears. Yes, the idea that nobles apologising and peasants forgiving is a nice one, a powerful one, but it’s just not done right and there’s no way that given the situation, with cackling baddies unleashing bodyguards that things would have worked out that way. And then at the very end we get a token scene to show that the powerful corrupt individuals still exist in the army. Yes, it leaves things open for another season, but I can’t help but feel that really, the full story should have been told here, and characters like Oreld and Machs should have been better-developed, because the final arc was a real misfire that cast a shadow back over what was otherwise an excellent series.

(Originally written 13.05.07)