メアリと魔女の花 / Meari to Majo no Hana / Mary and the Witch’s Flower

It’s entirely by design that everybody looked at publicity materials for Mary and the Witch’s Flower and thought, ‘Oh, Studio Ghibli have a new film coming out?’ It looks just like a Ghibli film. And so it should, with Arrietty and Marnie director Yonebayashi Hiromasa at the helm and a number of his collaborators from those films present and correct. It’s also drawn in the Ghibli house style of art that, let’s face it, is Miyazaki’s style as developed from the Toei Animation aesthetic – but was unambiguously adopted as a house style by all the other directors including Miyazaki’s great and sadly departed senior, Takahata. But Ghibli this is not. It seems like the great animation house has given up trying to create a new figurehead director and is winding up feature animation production. So the young man who got to direct two of the most recent Ghibli films and who seemed to be such a good fit because he was meek and malleable, has actually gone off to a new studio. Ghibli producer Nishimura Yoshiaki has founded Studio Ponoc, and despite having to start everything from scratch – including trying to procure funding – they have produced a film that is everything a Ghibli film ought to be. Call it derivative if you like, but I call it a logical progression. And it’s wonderful to know that a new generation will be continuing the lineage of the studio and just might live up to or even surpass the accomplishments of their forebears.

And for all its imitative qualities, this felt like freedom for Yonebayashi. For the third time, he’s adapting an old, somewhat quaint British novel for his animation – but this time it’s not so peaceful and introverted. This time it’s about witches, magic, cataclysmic spells and soaring magical flight. His light, deft touch in the previous two films was appreciated, but I get the feeling he enjoys a larger and more spectacular stage, while retaining a lot of the cute, small-scale feeling.

The source material, The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart, is not a book I’ve ever come across. I don’t think it’s been in print for many years. I’ve vaguely heard of her from her books The Crystal Cave, an Arthurian work beloved of hippies, and The Moon-Spinners, which Disney made into a live-action film, but I’ve never read anything she wrote. I don’t know how closely this adaptation matches the source material, but I suspect it’s pretty close. And it’s probably a good idea to use a decades-old book as your source when you’re expecting to battle accusations of unoriginality: not only did they have to get Mary well-separated from Kiki so that this wouldn’t seem overly slavish in its Ghibli imitations, but it would be all too easy for a story about a British kid going to a school for magic and proving to be a prodigy at magic and flying brooms thanks to something her family did in the past to be called imitative of Harry Potter. Instead it might just make a wider audience realise just how derivative – or, to put it more kindly, how connected with a rich legacy of similar British works – Rowling’s books really were.

While Mary and Kiki are very little alike, there are far more connections with the Ghibli tradition here than just the fact that Mary looks like Ponyo grew up to look a bit like Arrietty. Perhaps most obvious would be the echo of Miyazaki’s passion for flight. But there’s more than that. The matriarchal figure first seen formed from a huge gush of water is very Spirited Away, while the powerful, noble, unstable and dangerous force at the end bring Mononoke-hime to mind. Mary at times gets the determination of Nausicaa or the inner strength of Sheeta. The design of the school is a little bit Howl-ish in places, while the gardens have just a hint of the world of The Cat Returns. On that note, just like in Whisper of the Heart, the cats here totally steal the show. Tib the grumpy cat was hilarious.

As with the likes of Mahoutsukai no Yome, it’s fun to see England rendered through the fanciful lens of Japanese romanticism. Once again there’s a very odd take on British food, with what looked like breaded chicken, beans, dumplings and sliced tomatoes on a plate together. But at the same time they had very clearly come to England and used photos of real Shropshire houses for their backgrounds – you could even see that they had some Celebrations ready to eat! Having only ever adapted British children’s books centred on adolescent girls, I’ll be interested to see if Yonebayashi expands from there after this. Britain has always kind of been represented as an echo in Ghibli’s works, from the adaptations of British books that had their locales stripped away or changed to Japan to the scenery based on Welsh mining villages in Laputa. But it seems like Yonebayashi actually wants to set films based on British works in Britain. And that’s very entertaining for me to see.

I’ll be following his career and the developments of Studio Ponoc with interest. I hope they make many, many classic films and soon the world will say Yonebayashi in the same way they now say Miyazaki.

Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover

After finally getting around to Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue as we build up to the long-awaited release of Kingdom Hearts 3, I sat down to watch Back Cover having heard pretty much only bad things. Nonsensical, boring, nothing to do with the Kingdom Hearts familiar to fans. And while yes, it has a lot of problems, I enjoyed this animation quite a bit. But I’m aware that it took very specific circumstances for me to enjoy it.

I really don’t think this would be enjoyable for someone who hasn’t played Kingdom Hearts χ or Kingdom Hearts Union χ, which is a remake of χ but removing its ending and continuing past that point (which is confusing enough as it is – I’ve only played Union χ so to get the full story so far had to go and look up the original ending). There was some suggestion that this animation would retell the story, making playing through Union χ unnecessary, but that’s not true at all. Without knowledge of the Union χ story I seriously doubt that anyone would have more than a vague idea of what’s going on here. This extended cutscene basically retells the story of the Master of Masters and his apprentices, which drives the action of Union χ but is absolutely not its story. I don’t see how anyone who only watches this would understand the Union χ storyline or have any idea who Ephemer is or what he does. It obviously doesn’t continue to the new story Union χ has continued to unfold, with the new Union leaders like Lauriam or Bl…Blay…dammit, ‘Brain’.  So basically, it’s a companion piece to Kingdom Hearts χ and it is still absolutely necessary to play it or Union χ through – or watch the cutscenes at least, to understand the Keyblade War and the beginning of the Kingdom Hearts story.

Which is not to say that this part of the story is actually good. It’s pretty poor storytelling, with the kind of annoying prophecy-spurs-action narrative that I really don’t like. The Master of Masters, who wears the cloak later associated with Organization XIII and who actually has a playful personality that is by far the most interesting writing choice in this part of the narrative, can see the future thanks to the eye he implanted in the keyblade ‘No Name’. He knows a great war is coming, so prepares his six apprentices for this cataclysm by giving them specific roles. And then of course it is their attempting to follow his guidance that leads to the war taking place. The storyline intentionally leaves open questions – who is the traitor? What’s in the box? Where did the Master of Masters go, and why did Luxu disappear too? These are interesting issues for those of us invested in this storyline, but not at all for fans who have only followed the main games, and probably mostly bewildering.

As I say, for a hardcore fan who already knew this story, and who is playing the clunky, money-grabbing browser/mobile game, this is great. We get to see in CG what was hitherto only in iffy cut-out animation. We can enjoy vocal performances and get the Foretellers with way more personality. Ava is so sweet, Gula both adorable and suspicious, Invi so much more virtuous than I read them in the game, and for me that really helps differentiate them. Ephemer is also infinitely more likeable and cute as he appears here – and of course it’s fun to see Chirithy nicely-rendered. As the first fully original animation, these impressions belong on my animation blog more than my thoughts on the movie versions of 358/2 Days or Re:Coded, even if part of a video game, and while perhaps everything is a bit overly glossy, with lots of perfectly-laundered unicorn outfits and shiny leather belts, this was a very nicely-made animation that I enjoyed watching.

Not even remotely explanatory for the uninitiated, absolutely not a replacement for playing or watching through the full story of the χ games and almost certainly just a bewildering mess to the uninitiated, for the people it was actually made for – those of us who actually play even the shoddiest spin-offs just to get the full story – this is a highly enjoyable vignette. But I absolutely understand why most people hated it.  

Coco

Just like the Studio Ghibli films, I’ve fallen behind with Pixar’s movies and can no longer say I’ve seen them all. Not only am I a year late seeing Coco, but there are the likes of Cars 3 and The Good Dinosaur that I have to catch up on at some point. Though I can’t say either of those fill me with enthusiasm.

But Coco I definitely wanted to see. Day of the Dead imagery is always fun, and I like the idea of promoting and supporting Mexican culture at a time where there’s a tendency to look at border controversies and dehumanise people. Which is not to say I support illegal border crossings. Disney also made a pig’s ear of trying to seem culturally sensitive when they attempted to trademark “Día de los Muertos”, which you’d think somebody would have realised was a bad idea before it went public. But Mexican culture is one I have only very superficial knowledge of, so it was nice to see more – even if it took an American studio to lead me there.

The set-up is neat and tidy, the kind of plot you know went through numerous writing rooms and was tightened up until it squealed. Young Miguel is the youngest in a line of shoemakers in a family where music is banned, because his great-great-grandfather abandoned the family to pursue his dreams of being an entertainer. But music is in his blood and Miguel secretly worships Ernesto de la Cruz, seemingly the greatest star Mexico has ever produced.

After a mishap in a mausoleum on the Day of the Dead, young Miguel is cursed and his corporeal form enters the realm of spirits. Only his deceased family’s blessing can take him back to the land of the living, and there’s a problem – his family want him to renounce music. Instead he sets off looking for his great-great-grandfather, and might just uncover some skeletons in the family closet on the way – figuratively speaking.

It’s a really fun adventure that’s given extra scale by the fantastical imagery possible in the afterlife. There’s the brightly-coloured Alebrije creatures, giving a fantastical touch to the world. There’s all the usual animated movie gags with skeletons being able to take off their skulls, independently move detached limbs and suchlike. There’s the piled-up colourful houses and a spectacular party, as well as a very odd but very funny take on Frida Kahlo’s artistic output – pitched perfectly to get in references to the kind of imagery Kahlo put out while still being kid-friendly. Just the right amount of obvious.

I’ll freely admit that a lot of the subtle things went over my head. I know many of the dead guests at the big party were famous in Mexico, but I don’t know who they were. But what’s fun about a film about another culture is that you learn. Now I know what an ofrenda is and something about xolo dogs. I have a new affection for the grito, which is a little different from the kind of grito I know from capoeira songs. Though I do wonder how these beliefs sit alongside Christianity, which is almost wholly absent from this story. Not that I expected a Pxar film to go there.

There were some elements that could have been improved, in my opinion. Miguel himself could have had a bit more of an interesting design, even if he was going to have his face painted for much of the film. The way modern Disney and Pixar films (see Frozen and Moana) tend to push one song with many refrains is usually rewarded with an Oscar – as was this film’s ‘Remember Me’ – but I thought ‘Un Poco Loco’ was a much more interesting and well-performed song. I feel something of a lack of closure not knowing what happened at the end of either music competition (though we at least know who won one of them, though possibly only because Miguel ‘withdrew’), and while wrapping things up with brevity made sense, I thought there might be a little more on just how the family managed to convince the world of the truth Miguel uncovers. And honestly, compared with more iconic films in the Pixar oeuvre, I don’t think this will stand out much more than the likes of Ratatouille or Inside Out.

Nonetheless, this was an expertly-crafted, beautiful, well-written, satisfying and sometimes moving story that does a good job of introducing to kids that sometimes following a dream and staying with a family can be at odds with one another. Very much worth a watch, if not rewatching over and over.

Isle of Dogs /犬ヶ島 / Inugashima

Wes Anderson's animations have developed their own very unique style. It's partly the ugliness of the stop-motion, but it's mostly the rhythms. The comic timing is the most charming thing about these films, established firmly in The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The deadpan humour is absolutely brilliant, delivered by a stellar cast including the likes of Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, Tilda Swinton and Bryan Cranston. This may be the most entertaining thing Yoko Ono has ever done, beside perhaps interrupting John Lennon and Chuck Berry’s duet with her weird croaky noises. 

This film is a strange one. Japanese dogs are sent to a trash island after paranoia spreads about canine flu. However, one little Japanese boy, ward of the mayor who masterminded the doggy exile, sets out to rescue his dog. 

Oddly, there's a lot of hilarious Japanese in this film, which is probably funny only to Japanese speakers. I loved the little montage of the scientific analyses. On the other hand, the film is mostly a somewhat condescending free-wheeling depiction of Japan, all sumo wrestlers, yakuza and taiko drummers. I don't know why they didn't bother to ask for some Japanese names - the main boy is called 'Atari' for some reason, and there's a bunch of Rexes and Spots but not a Pochi in sight. A bit bizarre given these are meant to be Japanese dogs.

I absolutely loved the adventure of the boy and the five main dogs, with their deadpan storytelling interrupted by getting each other's ticks off or sneezing. Their tendency to look at the camera sometimes is marvellous, and dogs are just inherently funny. The exchange student with the big blonde afro is much less entertaining as a subplot. The ending is also random and confused, but it's not as though the plot was the main purpose of this film.

I can't see this being a big hit. Anderson fans will of course watch it and a few animation fans will be interested, but it's probably way too weird and ugly to get a new audience on board. At least Fantastic Mr. Fox had some degree of cuteness. Well, this one does have the most adorable little puppies, in fairness. And I guess some of the other doggies are cute. Probably all Anderson's animated films will eventually become cult classics in some circles. But whether they'll be able to recoup their costs enough that many more can be made I do not know.

ソードアート・オンライン オルタナティブ ガンゲイル・オンライン / Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

In a season of very silly, trashy anime - I'm looking at you, Uma Musume - a new Sword Art Online spin-off suggested it might aim to be taken a little more seriously. Well, that idea was soon put to rest when it became clear the central premise would be super-cute loli characters using guns. And that's really about the extent of it. 

It's actually quite a joyful and exuberant clash. The two central pillars of the anime are pleasingly contrasted - super-cute little girls with bunny-ear hats dressed all in pink, and gun otaku writing, preoccupied with military tactics, bullet calibres, magazine capacities and suchlike. It's kind of like Babymetal - contrasting the cutesiness and the aggressive manliness is inherently absurd and fun.

And the universe of Sword Art Online is a good one for this premise. There's an acceptable in-universe reason that we have a sweet lil' girl in a gun-totin' universe - our main character in the real world is a girl with a complex about her height. She's very tall and feels as though that means she's not cute. It hurts her self-confidence, so she seeks an escape in the full-immersion VR games of this universe. However, time after time she gets rendered as some hulking Valkyrie type, which only makes her feel worse. Only when she enters shooting game Gun Gale Online does she get rendered as a little cutie, so that’s what she sticks with. Makes sense. 

Later, of course, more loli contrivance comes about as her best friend also appears as a cute lil’ loli so that they can make a lil’ loli team, and a group of big beefy women she meets in the game of course have real life counterparts who are the most adorable little girls – who by coincidence our main character knows in real life. There’s further contrivance in the final reveal of who the antagonist is, which is about the most obvious twist possible and was clearly telegraphed a few episodes in.

For all that this is a very daft anime, though, and for all I wish they’d proceeded to finally animate the only Sword Art Online arc I’ve actually wanted to see since it became clear the main show was getting insufferable partway through season 1, I enjoyed this for what it was. I liked how rather than focusing too much on real military manoeuver tactics, this show explores how the game mechanics can be exploited. The main characters were also engaging, the little loli Llenn-chan being very sweet, the antagonist Pitohui entertainingly unhinged in a very Black Lagoon sort of a way, and stoic M-san actually giving the impression of being someone who cares about the game itself.

The attempts to make the stakes seem meaningful were questionable at best, and the overall story flow was kind of poor – introduction and then two rounds of a tournament back-to-back – but this fluff was at least cute, entertaining and occasionally a little clever within its own setting. Worth watching, if not revisiting. And I guess since this is a different studio, relatively new company 3Hz, it ought not to be delaying any other SAO production. 

Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir / Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir / Miraculous Ladybug

What with celebrated movies like Persepolis and Les Triplettes de Belleville and weekly animation like Wakfu and the continuation of Les Mystérieuses Cités d'or, I’ve become quite a fan of French animation. Alongside the Belgians, they’ve always had a tradition of taking comics a little more seriously than Britain did, with the likes of Astérix having appeal to an older demographic way before that was fashionable worldwide. I absolutely love Wakfu and when I saw a lot of people raving about Ladybug, I thought I’d check it out.

It took a long time for me to get into. One big factor was that before it was on Netflix it was hard for me to find the French version with English subtitles, and while my French is decent enough to understand the basic gist, that’s not enough to enjoy the show. There are actually solid reasons to watch the show in other languages – by date of first airing, the Korean dub has priority; there’s quite a bit of focus on making it appeal to English audiences, including a lot of English on-screen text; and of course the creation, setting and lip-sync are centred on the French. Trying them all, it was instantly apparent that the French dub was the best-acted, matched the animation and of course made sense with the Parisian setting. So I had to make quite a bit of effort at that point to find it in French.

Moreover, at first I didn’t really get into the show. I had begun watching it in the American viewing order and they unfortunately kicked off the series with two of its weakest episodes, ‘Le Bulleur’ and ‘M. Pigeon’. I probably would have had an easier time getting into it if those particularly goofy episodes weren’t presented right from the off.

I also wasn’t that taken by the animation. This is a prevalent French style at the moment, as also seen in the recent adaptation of Le Petit Prince, in the Mystérieuses Cités sequel and in Un monstre à Paris, it’s CG animation done far cheaper than what you see from Pixar, and though individual frames tend to look great when you pause, it’s largely on the stiff, clunky, awkward-looking side in motion.

Yet I kept coming back to Ladybug, and finally binge-watched most of the first season and some of the second, and ultimately found myself fully won over by its charms. Actually, I can say quite specifically what made me go back and watch more, and it was a gif of Chat Noir looking stupidly cute talking about how black brings out the green in his eyes. The fact is what made me watch more of this than I otherwise would was the incredibly cute character designs, which are a very pleasant mixture of cool and goofy, which is a pretty tough balance to pull off. The attractiveness of the main cast is absolutely what got this show rolling and spread its influence far enough that some favourite Pixiv artists from Japan surprised me by drawing fanart of the characters.

In story terms, this is a very generic mix of classic American superhero clichés, with a healthy dash of magical girl anime, especially Shugo Chara. The kwami are little familiars very much like the shugo chara, and Adrien/Chat Noir is almost like a mash-up of the two boys from that show. The transformations of course bring to mind those of shows like Sailor Moon and the idea of people being manipulated by a magical force to turn evil was also done to way more goofy levels by Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z. Yes, goofier than the pigeon fancier becoming a pigeon-based superhero. Thrown into this is the silly but often fun conceit that just putting on a little mask completely hides your identity so that even those close to you can’t possibly recognise you, and a luck-based superpower that basically functions like Batman’s infamous utility belt in the old days where it always held exactly what he needed to solve any problem.

A simple formula plays out over the course of the show – someone in Paris, usually happening to be in the immediate vicinity of our heroes (including every single one of their classmates) ends up in emotional distress. Sinister villain Le Papillon, who somehow is always ready to observe these events, sends out an ‘akuma’ butterfly to turn them into a supervillain, in hopes they can draw out superheroes Ladybug and Chat Noir and steal the artefacts that give them power. It never works. Towards the end, they try to get a little more creative with this, like having two separate villains as a kind of cause-and-effect, or having a villain who can summon and control the previous villains, but generally things are kept episodic. Interestingly, as a season finale (in France at least), the heroes’ origin stories are told, basically showing that normal teenager Marinette Dupain-Cheng and, well, relatively normal teenager Adrien Agreste are given their powers essentially as a reaction to the rise of Le Papillon.

There’s nothing special about the set-up or the storytelling, but what really works is the leaf taken from Shugo Chara’s book and making the show incredibly good shipping bait. It’s all about the relationships, and the cute set-up that Marinette is in love with Adrien (after, typically, a rocky start) and that Adrien is in love with Ladybug. While neither of course know that the other is the superhero they fight side-by-side with every time a new villain appears. Superficially Marinette and Adrien aren’t the most interesting characters. Marinette has the interest of being half-European and half-Chinese (like me!), but is largely an everywoman character whose main defining trait is that she’s a klutz who falls over a lot. Adrien is a super-attractive 13-year-old professional model who is an expert at fencing, languages, acting and video games which makes him pretty hard to identify with – though later we learn more about his painful past and that he’s largely so good at things because of an oppressive home life. But the role switch as superheroes is what works so well. Marinette as Ladybug becomes capable, confident and a natural leader. Chat Noir, meanwhile, is a total goofball, often the butt of jokes and constantly making terrible puns, as well as openly flirting with Ladybug and constantly getting rebuffed. It’s just so cute, and while at first I wasn’t convinced by the ship, it gets cuter and cuter and now it just seems perfect. There are various other minor characters it’s easy to ship, from canon pairings to two cute chalk-and-cheese best friends who could so easily be an adorable lesbian couple. I earnestly believe the romantic elements paired with super-attractive designs on the main duo are the key to why this show succeeded with a wider audience than I’m sure was initially anticipated. Sometimes the shipping moments are a bit overly ham-fisted, with Chat Noir constantly landing on top of Ladybug or the possibility of a relationship being constantly raised, but it’s cute enough that it doesn’t matter and it’s so sweet that the two don’t know that they’re actually in love with one another in different guises.

I’ve started the second season and they’re starting to play with the formula a bit, which is a good idea because it’s already in desperate need of innovation – though I resent them changing ‘Une ladybug!’ to ‘Miraculous!’ in the opening theme, which was almost as fun as the Wakfu opening to follow along with and taught me the term ‘porte-bonheur’. I also really liked how the show unveiled the identity of the villain neatly so that it was more and more obvious to the point that most people will have figured it out just before the show explicitly reveals it. I’m not too sure about the show turning more characters close to the main duo into superheroes, but we’ll see how things develop. The more they play with the concept, even if it’s in a goofy way, the better I think it goes. And yes, that includes all-singing evil Santa-themed Christmas specials.

Not wholly sure they should have a bunch of new superheroes in season 2, and I’m especially not so keen on Queen Bee because Chloé is amongst the most detestable characters ever created. But I’m happy to have more Alya if only because Fanny Bloc’s voice always makes me think of Yugo, even when she’s not acting as a boy.

アグレッシブ烈子/ Aggressive Retsuko / Aggretsuko : Netflix series

When I finished the 100 episodes of the original Japanese run, I had no idea the 10 episodes of the Netflix reboot were already out. I thought there would be a long wait before they found a new venue for their charming little shorts, and was very surprised when I saw the promos for the Netflix version, marketed at the west.

On the surface, this reboot is more of the same. The designs are the same, the voice cast is the same, even the animator/director, who also supplies the metal growls, is the same. The animation is a little different, slightly more crisp and careful but actually to my eye rather less fluid and a little cheaper-looking. But with the format change to full episodes rather than little skits and a more overarching story, there’s actually quite a lot that’s different.

Perhaps surprisingly given that there’s a lot more time to develop these things, Retsuko’s working life is much less complex. This is the biggest change I disliked: in the original show, Retsuko is a very normal, very identifiable cog in the wheel. She works too hard and is taken advantage of, but there’s a feeling that a lot of others in her huge company (and in Japan Inc.) are in the same boat. She even gets a kouhai, a junior worker who answers to her, though he’s a bit useless and brings his own problems. In this new series, she’s right at the bottom. The chihuahua kohai and the random seal pup she teaches to use spreadsheets have been cut. The hierarchy is much starker and it often seems like it’s only Retsuko who is picked on, overworked and forced into too much overtime. Her only Kohai now seems to be Tsunoda the gazelle, who has figured out how to get treated better than Retsuko does. For me, that actually makes her seem less universal and less likeable, because if she’s the exceptional case there should be a way for her to get back to the norm. If everyone’s in the same boat, it’s more hopeless but more understandable.

Most of the cast is shaken up a bit. Fenneko has become a closer friend for Retsuko with impressive powers of deduction, though she’s introduced as pretty two-faced. Tsunoda gets some scenes where her cold, calculating inner self gets made clearer. Washimi and Gori are no longer regular coworkers who are a little glamorous but will hang around in your house way too long when you want them to go home, but instead are very senior workers who are a great transformative influence on Retsuko, encouraging her to take risks and embrace her true self. The pig boss is now no longer one of several roughly equal authority figures but the absolute unquestioned section manager with only the CEO to answer to – the Buffalo boss character who has a creepy crush on Retsuko barely appears as a random yes-man. The Meerkat is similarly altered to a total yes-man rather than just another annoying co-worker. That said, the pig boss has a bit of an interesting development here, essentially embodying the old guard in Japanese offices, mostly a deeply offensive chauvinist until he’s brought into line, then finally and grudgingly offering Retsuko some profound life lessons. Other characters have their roles greatly reduced or cut altogether, like the annoying Hippo co-worker Kabae, the spacey axolotl and the highfalutin cat. On the other hand, another cat, an old childhood friend, appears to give Retsuko a dream of something different from her regular job in a little character arc that really gets the audience on her side.

The biggest and most positive change, though, is to Haida-kun the hyena. He was barely relevant in the original series, doing things like arranging office parties and fixing Retsuko’s stuff (at length), but here he is a close friend to Retsuko who has a crush on her. His character arc is so sweet, having a crush on her, watching her get interested in the spaced-out Resasuke (given a character of sorts here but mostly being portrayed as totally unable to understand others’ feelings), going through some bad times but eventually working things out. He’s not a complicated character but he actually becomes the real heart of the show and by far its biggest point of improvement.

It’s also quite nice that here, Retsuko’s singing remains literal. Not an inner expression only Retsuko can take part in (with Fenneko occasionally on guitar). Now, each time she lets loose it really happens, usually in the karaoke bar or the office toilets, but sometimes in places like the office drinking party. It’s quite nice to have it more grounded.

There’s a lot that people who only watch this version will miss, including most of the funniest and sweetest moments. It’s a pity not to have the times Retsuko starts getting angry but realises she shouldn’t, or funny gags based on the actual nature of the animals like when they complain about Washimi not making a silly face only for her to say she doesn’t have the facial muscles for it. On the other hand, there’s also a lot here you don’t get in the shorts. I would absolutely recommend anyone who enjoys one watch the other, and I know I binge-watched both versions almost all at once, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So if there’s more Retsuko to come, sign me up!

Oh, and I just want to say that the ‘Protein’ kangaroo reminds me of the bra skit from The World of Golden Eggs, and that always makes me giggle.