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Oct 6, 2015
We should all feel some level of appreciation for Crunchyroll at this point. When I started really watching anime, the popular things were licensed, most of the late-night otaku shows were fansubbed (if not a little late sometimes), and more pertinently, if you were into kids shows, you could count on the big, long-running franchises - your Pretty Cures and Jewelpets - to be subtitled eventually, depending on the demand for such things. Nowadays though, while not everything will get picked up, Crunchyroll does seem to try their best to pick up as many things as possible to serve every possible audience they can every
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single week. Tribe Cool Crew is one of those weird little kids cartoons that probably would have never seen any exposure in the English-speaking (and Spanish-speaking, and Portuguese-speaking) world had it come out at a different time, but for the past year we have been thoroughly graced by the joy of this show almost every single week, and I couldn't be happier.
For most people, Tribe Cool Crew's premiere was mostly heralded by everyone watching and subsequently sharing the dancing scenes and music that seemed to be the main selling point of the show. Those scenes look like cell-shaded CG, and they are, but they are also a bit more than that. They are actually all made using motion capture using real dancers, as you can see on Sunrise's official channel. This has a whole bunch of advantages - namely, range of body movement and camera angles are essentially limitless thanks to this technique, and Tribe Cool Crew takes full advantage of both of these things. It does look a little cooler in real life, but that seems to come down more to the limitations of motion capture than anything else. I will admit that the number of songs and variety of dances used throughout the anime can feel small at times, especially the beginning, but as more groups are introduced and the plot becomes more involved, these problems become much less apparent.
In case you aren't familiar with what Tribe Cool Crew is actually about, though (and I don't blame you), the basic premise is as simple as you might expect from Sunday morning children's television. The fifty episode series follows our group of young street dancing friends who all admire an extremely talented foreign dancer. Named Jey El, this mysterious performer is world famous for his charitable acts and bringing happiness to the downtrodden through his dancing. Luckily for our protagonists, Jey El is looking to expand his influence by finding talented dancers all over the world to take under his wing via a series of challenges collectively titled Dance Road. The titular group, Tribe Cool Crew, spends essentially the entire show participating in this competition to find the dancers that will not only be able to finally perform alongside their hero but also help his long-term cause of bringing people together through their art.
Tribe Cool Crew isn't a group of idols, though, nor a bunch of geniuses like in many anime about music and the arts. Our protagonist is Haneru, a plucky and suitably tiny middle school boy whose main joy in life is dancing. He mostly does this alone, until meeting the much taller and insecure Kanon, who initially only dances under a mask and a pseudonym online until meeting Haneru. They are quickly introduced to the older and more experienced three members of their eventual dance group - Kumo, the break dancing tough boy with a heart of gold; Mizuki, a kind and rebellious girl with a surprising past; and Yuzuru, the portly and wise jack-of-all trades. They are pretty much nothing alike aside from all being really nice people, but their love of dance and what it means to them both individually and collectively slowly but surely brings them together
In fact, the diversity of this group in terms of age, body type, and even socioeconomic status is one of the most immediately apparent strengths of Tribe Cool Crew and what allows its narrative to branch out to explore so many ideas. The overarching narrative about Dance Road is the glue that holds everything together, but the dynamic between the members of the group and their individual problems are the wheels that keep the story spinning. The show isn't afraid of using episodes between major plot beats to delve into more personal subjects that flesh out the cast, push them forward, and eventually express a resounding empathy for their issues in a way that people of all ages can appreciate on different levels. In one instance we may suddenly be given an episode that talks about Kanon's wealthy and important parents not only pushing her away from expressing herself via dance, but from really growing as an individual at all. In another, we could see how Kumo's responsibility to helping his working-class family puts multiple barriers in front of his less profitable aspirations - physical, economic, and even mental. Thanks to the wide variety of characters, there are a whole plethora of interesting things to potentially discover, and Tribe Cool Crew is not only not afraid to address those things but also entirely eager to unpack them for all they are worth.
I also mentioned body type, and I really can't stress that enough: from the very beginning, Tribe Cool Crew never sets a standard for what a dancer should look like, and in fact embraces the possibilities that come with having so many different kinds of characters. Haneru's size is a sour point for him, but he learns how to stand out despite being so small; similarly, Kanon is frequently embarrassed about her height, and through her friends and dance finds acceptance and even appreciation for her body. Yuzuru is introduced as confident in his ability and never feels limited by his weight. The cast beyond the main group is similarly diverse - muscular, lanky, a certain character in a spider monster costume - and the show uses all of this to its advantage, giving us an abundance of dance styles that show off everything they have to offer and more.
Not that it is all so serious; another part of Tribe Cool Crew's appeal is that it is also entirely willing to be wonderfully silly when the mood calls for it. This comes up in both the one-off episodes and the Dance Road plot, too. For example, about halfway through the show, our heroes are introduced to a seemingly malevolent form of dance named "Crowd High", which proves to be an effective but worryingly mysterious way to win over audiences. Without even knowing the specifics of why this is, though, the show plays it up as the evil, antagonist dance in a variety of absurd yet fun to watch ways. Black and red circles dramatically burst from the dancers as they make big movements, you can repeatedly hear a voice say "what" exactly like Lil' Jon, and a main feature of the Crowd High songs is literal gun cocking and firing sounds that accentuate beats in what amounts to possibly the coolest but least subtle musical decision ever.
Luckily for everyone, the fun ridiculous bits also come in various other forms, usually to cool down between intense plot-relevant stories. Possibly the most talked about one is an episode that almost singularly involves a character named Master T having strange hallucinations about his least favorite food, pickles, and it is as bizarre and entertaining as it sounds. We are also introduced in the most straight-faced manner possible to a family of people who may or may not be actual tengu, and there are dance-offs against evil dancing robots on more than one occasion. There is even an assassination attempt and a conspiracy or two thrown in there for good measure, all carried with a delicate balance of heaviness and absurdity. The best thing about all of this, though, is that Tribe Cool Crew manages all of these things while paying close attention to its tone so that, at the end of the day, everything still feels like it came from the same quirky anime.
And that is really the key to what makes Tribe Cool Crew succeed - it wears many hats, exchanging them as it sees fit and on whims, but it never betrays the positive and fun core that pulls it all together. This anime came as a huge surprise to me, but never stopped being appealing and finding new ways to improve, bringing me a short half hour of happiness every week for the past year. I'm sad to see it go, but I am equally glad that it exists as something that I can point to when people want something new, different, engaging, and memorable. I'm sure I'll be recommending it to people for years to come - including you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Feb 5, 2015
Slice of life as a genre has a small problem. By itself, there is not much to base an entire show on – there has to be some sort of focus, a setting or concept that allows for individual stories to exist while also providing a solid base that pulls all of the ideas together. Fuujin Monogatari takes its identity as an episodic slice of life show to heart, almost to a fault – the individual episodes contain themes and ideas that are usually interesting and sometimes even compelling, but there is just about no connection between episodes thematically. The consequence to this is that
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Fuujin Monogatari is a show of widely varying quality.
Not to say that there is not a string tying the show together, loosely at least. That string is the titular wind, which the main characters (among others) can control at will, for some reason. This seems like it might be an important mechanic that would set Fuujin Monogatari apart from similar shows, such as having the main characters using the wind powers in otherwise normal situations to make them more interesting. In execution it is actually not so. Instead, the show offers a low key usage of the wind powers, mostly used for interesting visual effects while the story and the characters take breathing time. This is also useful for the viewer, as this downtime provides a relaxing section of an episode where one can reflect on the events that have occurred; on the other hand, these scenes could be replaced by just about any sort of relaxing or visually interesting scene, making the wind mechanic seem like little more than a gimmick in the end. A very pretty gimmick.
The art in the show is a juxtaposition of purposefully rough character designs and almost impressionist background art, which works to a good effect and is most definitely the strongest part of the production. The minimalist design of the characters allows for exaggerated yet meaningful motions and facial expressions, and they also give the characters a definitively “Asian” look. There is not much detail in their designs; luckily, the show avoids characters looking too similar to each other by keeping the cast small, though in darker scenes where you can't see the color of their hair they look a little too similar. The backgrounds, though, are consistently beautiful. It's almost a shame that Nao is so obsessed with taking pictures of clouds, because the world of Fuujin Monogatari is lovely and detailed, contrasting in many ways the simple character designs – though they both share the sketchy, purposefully rushed-appearing aesthetic, keeping the overall feel of the show internally consistent, despite the huge difference in detail.
There are also some cool visual ideas used sparingly in the show - portraying texts with handwritten-looking colored text on the screen, or a phone call by overlaying the characters onto each others' settings, or flashbacks and dreams indicated with characters filled in with a single color. On one hand I appreciate that it did not abuse these things, but on the other they feel a bit wasted, sometimes only being used once in the whole run.
Similarly, the soundtrack and voice acting are lovely but subdued. This is a good thing – the sound is never overbearing, but is consistently supportive of the atmosphere that Fuujin Monogatari naturally builds. Voice acting is done in a subtle way, never overacting but also hardly ever relaying strong emotion, even when a scene calls for it, which is unfortunate.
However, the most hit and miss aspect of the entire production is the writing. As I stated before, there is little consistency when it comes to theme. Supporting others, avoiding responsibility, and finding your worth are all examples of ideas that Fuujin Monogatari plays with, but none is given a decent amount of time before the next comes along to take its place. In this sense, Fuujin Monogatari tries to live up to its main character Nao's goal as stated in the very first scene – to capture the wind. Like the wind, Fuujin Monogatari moves and changes as it pleases. Consequentially, not all episodes are created equal. There are a handful of absolutely amazing, perfectly executed episodes, and it is not a coincidence that these episodes tend to make good use of the interesting visual style matched with an equally simple concept as well as Nao as a competent narrator, but there are many more flops, usually too self-indulgent to come off as meaningful.
The episode about trying to get a perfect picture of a runner, for example, manages to use Fuujin Monogatari's strengths to much better effect than an episode about helping a momonga learn to fly, even though the latter has much more to do with the show's distinguishing idea. I should also point out an episode that takes place almost entirely in the nurse's office, featuring a fever dream contrasted by a completely normal conversation which utilizes Fuujin Monogatari's visual style to an extent never matched again.
If only every episode was as simple and effective as that one, this show would be an instant classic. As it stands, though, it is a compilation of mostly uninspired stories interspersed with small moments of genius. If you are a fan of the slice of life genre, you will definitely find plenty to like in this show, but people less patient with the trappings of the genre will frequently have their patience tested.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 23, 2014
Durarara!! is pretty addicting urban legend suspense stuff. It intimidates at first by having such a large cast, but each and every one of the characters is cool in a modern, hip way and also not at all complex, making them both easy to digest and to quickly like. This works in its favor for the most part, because Ikebukuro is not only the setting for Durarara!!, it is also essentially the story and the main character. So, the show presents the city to you in pieces, specifically, the cast, whose stories mingle, collide, and combine in an interesting and exciting fashion, but it eventually
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loses itself in the struggles of only a few, when the beauty lies in its many. This review contains spoilers, so heads up.
Despite the large cast, we can start with a single character. If I had to choose one character who does a good job embodying these ideas, it would be, beyond a doubt, Orihara Izaya. Izaya spends the entirety of the show manipulating the people around him. His troublesome presence is known to every single character in the show, so his reach clearly goes far and his actions connect him in one way or another to everyone else. This works in small ways - Izaya gave Kyohei the nickname he hates - as well as larger ones - Izaya enables Namie's control over her brother and the situation that implies. He works creating chaos in the shadows just as often as he parades around on the street causing trouble. This succeeds in multiple ways. First of all, it makes it completely believable that he would have enough intel to work as an information broker of sorts. It also keeps him as a looming, tangible threat that is always looming in any given situation. And, despite this great power he seems to wield, he is pretty grounded as yet another person, yet another player in the big game, albeit the one who is best suited to manage such a hub of life. This makes him a great villain who really takes full advantage of his role, but he also embodies the ideas that hold Durarara!! together as a narrative - the meaning and consequences of a large, intertwined series of relationships.
The way the show opens up is with this premise close to heart. The first character we are introduced to is Mikado, who is the new kid in town - he knows next to nothing about the city, so he spends the episode learning about it. Who does the teaching? Well, none other than an old friend of his, Kida, who has definitely been changed significantly by living here. In fact, that's how we are introduced to him - not by who he is, but how he definitely isn't the same after living in Ikebukuro. The unique experience of living in Ikebukuro is expressed in the episode through everything that occurs. The color gangs can be seen loitering in the background, Simon's unique personality accidentally intimidates and confuses Mikado, and of course the more experienced Kida is able to control the situation. Even characters themselves are established as parts of Ikebukuro before people - Mikado sees and hears Shizuo's rampage and sees Celty with his own eyes but as the resident urban legend-turned-real and not as a person. And the episode goes on like that, moving from set piece to set piece really characterizing nothing except for the city itself. It happens in the second episode, but when Izaya is taunting Kamichika as she contemplates suicide, the strongest imagery given in the entire episode is the blood stain on the ground - a permanent fixture of Ikebukuro, forever marking more pieces of the wide and untold story of the town.
Ikebukuro itself, though, is a smaller, mostly self-contained way for the show to express information culture, and Durarara!! takes full advantage of that, too. Rumors, for example, are a huge, common way for the plot to move and for characters to learn about their surroundings, such as the Headless Rider and the Dollars. Technology, therefore, works in Durarara!! as both a stylistic choice and as an extension of its theme. Having more information leads to secrets becoming even more important: Kamichika finds out about her father's cheating, Mikado doesn't know Kida was the leader of the Yellow Scarves (and vice-versa for the Dollars), Seiji doesn't know that his sister is lying to him about where Celty's head is, and so on. Izaya as a villain works simply by relaying and manipulating information to cause chaos. The characters talk and exchange information on the internet with each other, most of the time not even knowing that they know each other outside of the internet, creating both an interesting dynamic between them and giving them each yet another persona to adopt. This, by the way, is the coolest part about combining both the setting of a single city and the plot device of gangs - the characters can use technology to interact without knowing it, and it isn't at all far fetched that they just happen to all know each other one way or another because the Dollars as seen in the show are exclusively an Ikebukuro "gang".
What all this means for the characters is that keeping them simple is very much an effective choice. If they tried to have too much complexity, they would stop being pieces to manipulate and instead become the story itself, and the show would lose focus. For the most part, Durarara!! avoids making this mistake. Instead, they are each crafted to be natural elements of their environment that don't need much explaining to believe. We learn about their pasts, but this is used to explain how living in Ikebukuro has affected them, which is completely in-theme with the rest of the show since Durarara!! wants to paint Ikebukuro and contemporary culture as being a powerful, unique experience, and that no one who experiences it stays the same, for better or worse.
However, this isn't to say that they aren't entertaining in their own right. The stories and drama that holds Ikebukuro together are, after all, caused by the clashes and conflicts of the characters. On top of that, television is a serial medium tends to find success by offering characters and situations that draw in the viewer and give them a reason to come back for more. Durarara!!'s quickfire style of introducing characters and establishing their personalities and roles to the viewer works very much in favor of capturing the viewer's attention. The thing that really captures the viewer, making Durarara!! a truly addictive show, is how it never lets your first impressions match reality. In other words, a character's immediately apparent traits are met equally with the growing sense of suspense that come with the secrets you know they have.
The theme of secrets works wonderfully in how the show manages to successfully pull off suspense and surprise. Successful suspense doesn't work by trying to set things up and eventually reveal them to be true, which is where a lot of stories go wrong. The viewer is aware enough to put the pieces together themselves and so they won't be surprised when it turns out that they were right. It just isn't a satisfactory experience when so much time is wasted on a surprise you saw coming from a mile away. One of the real tricks to suspense is for the writer to understand this, though - the viewer isn't stupid. They put things together for themselves long before you can surprise them. This leads to some solutions to the problem, some good, some bad. Here's a good solution: trick the viewer into thinking they have all the answers and pull the rug at the last moment. You meet Celty - she doesn't have a head. Very quickly after that, you meet Mika, who mysteriously has a scar lining her neck. A bit later, you find out that Celty is in Ikebukuro because she can sense that her head is there. Mika has Celty's head. The show gives you just enough information to draw your own, completely logical conclusions about the way things are, but the funny thing about information is, you can't really ever have enough of it.
Mika never lost her head. It isn't Celty's. You've been onboard Izaya's ruse cruise all along. On top of this, the viewer is rewarded with more information about other plot points and is in general satisfied by their reward for all that build up. Even if you somehow aren't surprised by this reveal it is still creative and uses the plot elements built up to it very efficiently. It's a good moment and shows understanding of the relationship between the viewer and the creator. Durarara!! has a good amount of that relationship attention, too.
By this point, the choice to only give detail to the foreground characters is something the viewer is very aware of. It is noticeable in almost every scene, after all. Using that as a launching pad, director Omori Takahiro's understanding of the style and ideas behind Durarara!! is really shown off. Throughout the entire show, background characters are portrayed as grey silhouettes for the most part. This, of course, plays the role it always does when used well - it saves some time and money, keeps the visuals uniform, and guarantees focus on the foreground characters. But in the scene in question, when Mikado raises his phone and sends the mass text to the Dollars, the grayed out characters fill out a few at a time in a wave of color, getting the message across without a word: from a plot sense, everyone is in the Dollars, the Dollars are actually Ikebukuro itself, but also, the main characters aren't special in their secret keeping and information lifestyle. It almost makes up for episode 2 being the only other episode where that idea is given the time of day, too.
Speaking of Omori, his sense of timing in this show combined with Yoshimori Makoto's excellent soundtrack makes for some very stylish and striking moments, and it is easy to see why this show is so easy to love in that sense.
Durarara!! doesn't stop at the drama in finding useful ways to utilize the characters in getting across its message and style, though. It also gives quite a few characters the chance to narrate episodes, switching characters between and occasionally even during episodes. This is a simple yet effective way of expressing that the whole picture of Ikebukuro can't really be seen by any one individual. There are some repeats, but all in all most of the major characters get a shot at narrating. It is unfortunate, though, that most of the narrators are omniscient, knowing plenty of information their matching character really shouldn't be privy of, so having different narrators rarely actually changes the way things are seen or interpreted.
Unfortunately Durarara!!'s most satisfying moments in the last two episodes of the first half are also the point where it drops the ball and seems to lose its grasp on what made it special and fun. This reveal is executed near perfectly and feels as good as it should considering every episode before it was straight build-up without many if any real chances for the viewer to feel the weight of suspense lifted even for a moment. However, the sense of mystery and mystique is abandoned in the second half. The idea of slowly leaking a mix of legitimate and misleading plot points is thrown out in a fashion much like the scene where Izaya burns his board game.
That board was shown many times and pretty hyped up as eventually meaning something greater than "the three kinds of games are the three teenagers!" so literally burning it is pretty symbolic in a bad way. Remember how I mentioned there are a few ways to deal with knowing that your audience is smart enough to play connect the dots with your set pieces? Well, in the second half of the show, Durarara!! loses its edge and the suspense becomes both less interesting and less satisfying. About half of the second part of the show is spend on the Slasher, something that was briefly brought up earlier in the show as yet another anomaly of Ikebukuro.
A good place to start; not a sudden new scenario, yet not enough is known about it to make it uninteresting. The problem lies, of course, in execution. The show spends a lot of time talking about the Slasher, showing her killing and terrorizing citizens, but none of it actually points us to anything else we know except for a vague sense that the person behind the incidents has issues with their parents. And we wouldn't even get this impression if it wasn't thrown at us unceremoniously that the spammer in the Dollars chat room uses a handle that matches the name of the blade the Slasher uses. That leads us to Anri, who is lonely, mysterious, and in general an enigma as far as the viewer is concerned And we're pretty sure it isn't Kamichika, because while she did have issues with her parents, we got a good look at her daily life before, and she seems to have come to terms with her situation. So the episodes go on and on, eventually leading us to the unsurprising and uncreative reveal of, yes, Anri was the slasher. Not very gratifying from the slow and uninteresting beginning to the whimper of an end.
Now, there is one nice thing this arc includes, which is the subplot of the reporter Shuji Niekawa. He and his story are well crafted to both match the themes of the arc and the style and purpose of Durarara!! itself. His job gives him an excuse to interview the many denizens of Ikebukuro, giving the only real showcase of community and being in the Slasher story that made the first half of the show special. His concerns about his family also provide for useful tone complimenting drama without introducing more than a single character and without deviating from the ongoing plot even an inch. It really works, and I wish there was more of it.
Unfortunately, as the Slasher arc ends, the writer decides there is no way to hide the final reveal of the three teenagers and simply dumps on the viewer the cruel fact that Kida used to be the leader of the Yellow Scarves. Now, to give credit where credit is due, this was actually nicely set up. The early episodes link Kida with the gangs in noticeable ways. Kida has an unnatural hatred for the color gangs, yet he is never truly afraid of them. He has also had a lot of troublesome run-ins with Izaya thanks to his impressionable girlfriend Saki. Also, he is frequently associated with the color yellow. Even the most obvious instance of this, his hair color, isn't a coincidence - upon the reveal of his connection to the Yellow Scarves it is pretty reasonable to look back at his comment about dying his hair since being in Ikebukuro and seeing those things as connected events.
So, before this reveal, it is pretty easy to come to the conclusion that Kida was once involved with the gangs before Mikado moved to the city. The kicker here comes in his position as the head of an entire gang. This is all good and would have totally worked, but it was missing a pretty important part of suspense - the suspense. Kida's past was given a touch of focus in the Slasher arc via his past with Saki, but it was hardly the focus, meaning that there was not a substantial enough of a tonal buildup to the reveal to make it feel like it meant anything. Really a sad waste, considering the good amount of effort putting into foreshadowing it.
This problem means that the second half of Durarara!! loses a lot of charm, namely, the excitement that comes with suspense and the satisfactory twists that comes with them. There is no longer the sense that you have to see the next episode to find out more, and also, the atmosphere of Ikebukuro being some grand, dangerous, mysterious place is given way too little focus. The show just plops along slowly and without flair until it finally ends, without fanfare or a solid return to its roots. Even so, the sense that Ikebukuro is a big place filled with charismatic, interesting people meeting and interacting never completely leaves the show, which is why it keeps its charm and keeps the viewer coming back until the very end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 20, 2013
There are plenty of stories about a young man finding some sort of passion and following it to some sort of logical conclusion, and Hajime no Ippo chooses not to stray from that basic idea very far. Luckily for original creator Morikawa George, not straying far from this premise seems to be the recipe for a successful comic that has lasted more than 1000 chapters week after week since its original Shounen Magazine publishing in 1989. This adaptation by Madhouse and director Nishimura Satoshi is longer than your usual TV anime run, at 75 episodes, but it doesn't quite cover the incredible length of Nishimura's
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original comic. Instead, it opts for a sort complete story in itself, covering protagonist Makunouchi Ippo's career from its inception until his eventual championship.
This works in the show's favor since, despite its length, not much time is wasted. The story progresses in a rather linear fashion from one fight to another, introducing Ippo's opponents one at a time and moving Ippo himself steadily up the ranks of a young boxer. However, since very little of the show is not about Ippo himself, the routine does become a bit stale quickly. By the second or third fight, it is already apparent what the formula Morikawa George is using consists of. Ippo's next enemy is stronger than his last, and he must somehow adapt to this, typically by learning some new technique. And when the fight itself comes, it all boils down to Ippo winning through his sheer tenacity - no matter what his opponents throw at him, he just doesn't give up, and you just know the spectators will feel the need to comment on his never ending stamina between every single round. In all truth, while simple, this is both tiring and unsatisfying, especially since Ippo's opponents are almost always significantly more interesting and endearing than Ippo himself.
The narrative wants me to root for the hard working underdog Ippo, but it usually turns out that I want his opponent to win. This is because Ippo's enemies are fleshed out enough for the viewer to understand how they've trained for this day and what is at stake for them. These are typically much more convincing arguments for their victory than Ippo's, who is new to the boxing world and is on the losing side of the fight until it eventually comes down to, once again, Ippo simply lasting longer than his opponent despite an overwhelming disadvantage. In particular, I found myself rooting for the Russian boxer Alexander Volg Zangief. The emotional weight of his fights and career was more powerful than anything Ippo ever managed to achieve.
Ippo's romantic life is also given some focus, but it seems more like an afterthought. His romantic interest, Kumi Mashiba, is your typical ideal domestic housewife and devoted fan. Her relationship with Ippo begins with a quick meeting at a flower shop very early in the show and, despite their insistent tendency to meet frequently, it never really progresses very far.
Regardless of Ippo's boring fights, there are moments of interesting boxing action. Specifically, the writing and choreography of the fights seem to become levels better when Ippo is not one of the participants. This shows in two places in the show - a short arc about Ichiro Miyata training in Mexico, and the subplot about Takamura Mamoru earning and defending his title. In both of these the viewer finds more complex characters and detailed, well-thought out fights that capitalize on everything their respective subplots have to offer. If only there was more of these sorts of fights and less of Ippo winning not because he deserves it but because he has to win somehow for the plot to progress.
The animation is a real highlight of the show, at least during the fights. The camera feels loose and free, not restrained by the cheap but easy to animate single angles that usually plague TV anime. The boxers' movements are accentuated by wind effects like they are kicking up dust every time they move, but it is used tastefully so that it only adds to the experience, something that can only be done reasonably in animation. Successful hits look painful, damage to the boxers accumulates as the fights go on. However, outside of fights, the animation becomes par for the course, though still not bad for an early 2000s TV anime. Madhouse pulled off a show that looks ahead of its time. The sounds are of similar quality, always tasteful and adding nicely to the experience.
Hajime no Ippo has moments of brilliance, and it is rarely so extreme that it is unbelievable, but it is weighed down a great deal by a shallow and boring protagonist and a formualic progression.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 8, 2012
Clarity is important to a movie's effectiveness. While it is true that clarity is always important in storytelling, a movie does well to keep that in mind even more, as there is much less time than usual to tell a story. With that in mind, as an introduction to a trilogy, Mardock Scramble: The First Compression does a wishy-washy job.
The main issue with The First Compression's execution is its confusing way of expressing itself. The first section of the movie consists of a vague and confusing sequence of related events. Many intense and provocative things are shown during this, but their relevance and, at a
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more basic level, what exactly is happening in them is all left unexplained. It seems there was an attempt to let the visuals do the talking here, but it doesn't work very well because absolutely nothing about the setting or characters was explicitly stated and the viewer is left scratching their heads until the sequence ends and the main character, Balot, wakes up in a tank to begin the next segment of the movie.
Once that is all over, though, things so relatively smoothly. The doctor, Dr. Easter, and Balot's companion for the rest of the movie, Oeufcoque, are quickly introduced. They are also utilized well in the sense that their conversations with Balot allow the viewer a more broad sense of the setting and the mechanics of Mardock Scramble's world. Unfortunately, while exposition was clearly part of the intent behind Dr. Easter and Oeufcoque's words, they fell victim to the movie's habit of keeping things too vague to be able to say everything portrayed in the movie made sense. This is a good thing in that their conversations were kept natural, but also a problem since there were no other chances given throughout the movie to expand upon the various political and technological developments that drive the movie's plot as a whole, making it all feel quite shallow.
While Dr. Easter's character is used mostly for storytelling utility and plot advancement, Oeufcoque stands as an anomaly among the characters, as he is interesting and unique. His development very much mirrors Balot's, as they are together through most of the movie and a majority of the dialogue is focused on them. However, unlike Balot, who's characterization begins fairly interesting and soon falls to melodrama and inconsistency, Oeufcoque begins the movie as the logical sidekick character and slowly reveals moments of real emotion and expression. He keeps the other characters in check and brings the tone of the movie to a more believable standard whenever he is allowed to have an influence on it. If there is anything this movie did well, it was Oeufcoque and in a related way his relationship with Balot.
Unfortunately, after some Balot-related plot developments are over, the movie decides to change atmosphere completely and enters a much worse territory than it was in before. Expanding upon its awkward focus on sexual desire, several incredibly undeveloped throwaway characters with a vague and uninteresting motivation are introduced seemingly for the sole purpose of giving Balot a reason to become a completely different character, presumably in an attempt to have her appear more complex. This was a mistake. The action scenes are boring and unimpressive, clearly given less thought than the rest of the movie was. The character designs are unintentionally hilarious and impossible to take seriously. This all results in a boring and unimportant final segment where Balot is shown fighting various enemies, leaving plenty of room for overdramatized scenes and a complete and intentional ignorance of the characterization that has happened thus far, culminating in a predictable cliffhanger for the second movie.
It really is too bad that Mardock Scramble: The First Compression was unable to stay consistent or find its identity in this movie, as it is very pretty and does take place in an interesting world in its own right, but not there's simply not much to be said after finishing it except for "well, what was all that for, anyway?"
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Apr 2, 2012
I suppose I should begin this post by saying something to prevent misunderstandings from anyone who may decide to watch UN-GO. Despite its appearance and the main character's profession, UN-GO is not a mystery anime, or at least not in the traditional sense. The mysteries presented in the show serve not to make the viewer surprised or intrigued at the hints and such leading to the capture of the true culprit. Instead, they provide a means for the show to introduce and unravel various aspects of Japan's state as it has become in the future that UN-GO presents.
The formula is about the same for each
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case. The important players in each plot the protagonist, Shinjuurou, encounters are introduced as they appear on the surface - a sort of civilian's perspective of the situation. As the case rolls on, the truths that surround it are revealed, at first by Shinjuurou's analysis, sometimes by Rinroku's intervention, and almost always a single truth given by Inga's power. This simple series of events allows the show to move very quickly through the content it wants to cover so that the political intrigue can be fleshed out well.
The story is complimented well by the environments, which are consistently interesting and detailed. The viewer is treated to a fairly thorough post-war Japan, and that setting with all of its implications are never forgotten when presenting the world. Not much obvious attention is given to the physical setting by the characters, but their adaptation to it to the point where it is (almost) the norm in their daily lives is made clear during many scenes. In particular, it is interesting to compare the differences in lifestyle between a well-off character such as Kaishou Rie to the practically homeless protagonists, Shinjuurou and Inga.
On the topic of comparing characters, the clear contrast in both ambition and execution between Kaishou Rinroku and Shinjuurou is one of the strongest, most interesting components of UN-GO. To an outsider, it seems like they have the same goal - to find the truth behind mysetious circumstances. However, Rinroku aims to create convenient truths to move forward, whereas Shinjuurou wants the unadulterated facts. To the public, Rinroku is the genius, and Shinjuurou is the "Defeated Detective." This reflects well the way Japan's society works in UN-GO, which makes Rinroku a perfect character for this show's purposes.
It also speaks well for the show, then, that despite how black and white UN-GO could have presented these contrasting characters, it is not actually all that easy. Shinjuurou is not the hero one might think he could be from his love of the truth. He is actually quite selfish, not usually wanting to change much with his knowledge, only wanting to acquire it. Rinroku, then, is not the scheming, evil government official. He is simply a man who isn't afraid to manipulate people or facts to advance toward a greater goal.
UN-GO's worth is more than the sum of its parts. It never excels at any one aspect at any given section of the story it tells, but luckily it is carefully constructed to create a compelling whole.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 13, 2012
Commercials aren't usually much fun to watch. Actually, most people see them as a chore if they really have to sit through them, or a bathroom break if they don't. Occasionally one comes across a particularly funny one, but the memory of those few seconds rarely remain. Even so, this works out for advertising purposes. If one sees enough advertisements for the same brand or product, it is hard not to have a name associated with a product stuck in permanent memory. Anime like Mobile Suit Gundam have made a business by producing cartoons essentially created to sell products, toys in this case. However, before
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Mokei Senshi Gunpla Builders Beginning G (from here on referred to as Gunpla Builders), they had not made such a blatant push for a specific line of products in a full-length cartoon form.
Gunpla Builders is surprising in how enjoyable it really is, despite its nature and simplicity. At this point, fans of Gundam as a franchise have certain expectations when it comes to the plot points and quality of the story of their favorite series. At only three episodes, and only about forty minutes at that, there is not much time to develop the sort of extensive narrative Gundam typically portrays; however, one of the strengths of Gunpla Builders is that it is aware of its own essence. A young boy finds a new skill, meets new people, experiences new things, and eventually comes to become his own person through his adventures. While this is the plot of an innumerable amount of other cartoons (particularly Gundam as a whole), Gunpla Builders does not feel like a chore to watch like the rest do because it is so short. In forty minutes the viewer is given what other cartoons take anywhere from twelve to hundreds of episodes to accomplish. In addition, the ridiculousness of the mechanics of the show, such as the arcade game they play, are easily overlooked because Gunpla Builders never takes itself too seriously. The only serious complaint here is that, for a show about building models of robots, there was very little time given to the actual building and not much information given about how the process works. The occasional bone is thrown, such as showing different types of parts or how to paint the models, but it wasn't quite as thorough as one would hope from a show specifically made about models.
On the other hand, despite the simple story, the animation in Gunpla Builders was very nice. The action scenes are quite fluid, giving the arcade game battles the same feel as one would have from a typical Gundam show, which is definitely appreciated for a glorified commercial such as this. During battles, action is constantly happening in the background, and even the shorter or less important skirmishes provide plenty of interesting and fun to watch material, on top of being well-animated. The theme of custom models was clearly given thought to in the battles, as non-traditional, especially creative mobile suit designs fly around constantly during every scene. Despite this, the connection to the usual Gundam universes is provided through the various battlegrounds seen in the show. The viewer is treated to a quick and dirty pass at the progression of any given Gundam series through Gunpla Builders' steps through very familiar environments, one after the other, in a similar order that one would expect from the series. The score has a similar nostalgic feeling; though it isn't quite as strong as the visuals, it is clear effort was put into making Gunpla Builders feel as natural as possible.
There's not much to dislike about Gunpla Builders. It is, in essence, a more honest form of advertising, but it is also so much fun to watch that one can't help but forgive it for its intentions.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 15, 2011
I am typically hesitant to even begin decently long shonen series. They tend to be filled with flaws that reflect lazy writing for the sake of length, unfortunately. From huge casts of characters, ranging from the barely touched upon yet interesting side characters to the incredibly dull main characters who receive much more than their fair share of exposure. On top of that, there are occasionally long stretches of boring developments or slow pacing to keep the content running. Very often these lengthy series become too stagnant and similar to itself, leading me to feeling the need to take breaks from the show simply because
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I need to experience something in any way different for once. Last but not least, the ending is very rarely satisfying, leaving me wishing I had spent my time on a series that could end itself without so many bumps in the road.
Cross Game has none of those problems, and that is why it is a series that will be remembered.
To begin with, as most will immediately assume based on what they may see about the show before viewing it, Cross Game appears to be a baseball anime. However, that presumption is a mistake – is a show that involves baseball, but it isn’t about baseball. Baseball is the lowest common denominator that ties almost every character to each other, and it is the driving force that provides the challenges and rivals that keeps the characters aiming higher. This drive and determination is a theme that is played out in a very classic shonen way, but Cross Game plays its cards just right by keeping the work, successes, and failures relatable to anyone. This is achieved by keeping the focus not on the baseball itself but on the characters and how they react to and deal with the significant baseball-related events as they occur, allowing the story to stay easily understandable and interesting to even non-sports fans.
That isn’t to say that there is no baseball in the series, quite the opposite in fact. However, the games that are focused on are limited to the most important, intense ones that keep the viewer on their toes while being easy to follow for the non-sports fan. The baseball fans in the audience need not be turned away by the comparatively sparse amount of actual playing, though. Since the viewers who aren’t into baseball won’t need to be entertained by antics or extravagant special moves, Cross Game’s take on the game of baseball is realistic and fun for purists who just want a good game of baseball. Both sets of viewers will easily be able to understand how the game keeps the world of Cross Game turning.
Cross Game also knows where to put its attention when it comes to the characters. The cast is kept decently small and focused, allowing for as much growth and screen time as possible for the most important characters. The people who will be mainstays are made clear early on, allowing for introductions to take as little time as possible to give way for optimal development. Of the main cast, there are no flat characters, and with the diversity of the roster it is a rare moment to become tired of what the series has to offer. On top of their contributions to the story, each character also provides a unique atmosphere and sense of humor to the scenes they are involved in, keeping the show fresh and on its toes at all times. The cast deals with basic themes of life, death, and love, but each in their own different stride, bringing an interesting dynamic of how long it takes individual characters to cope with certain situations while also interacting with each other on a daily basis. This all leads to a small, well-developed lineup of characters that are all memorable, and that cast itself is quite possibly the strongest asset Cross Game has to offer.
As the saying goes, the real beauty is in the journey, not the destination, and Cross Game recognizes and relishes in this fact. In terms of plot twists or surprise advancements in the relationships, there are very few if any. The turns and twists the story takes are, for the most part, what many would describe as unsurprising or cliché. In the case of Cross Game, though, this is definitely not a negative. From the results of games to the status of relationships, Cross Game takes the most natural progression without attempting to insert unnecessary drama or convoluted twists, and it works perfectly without either of those because the story simply doesn’t need them to stay both entertaining and lovely.
The music, animation, and even art are all simple and to the point. The retro-feel of the art with the more modern animation style gives a sort of “remastered” feeling to the viewer, complimenting the traditional standards and themes Cross Game makes a point to keep intact. The opening never changes and, while never exactly fitting the state the story is in at any given point in time, is just ambiguous enough to keep a certain relaxed mood in mind for each episode. The endings are never terrible but simply not memorable. The single exception is the first ending, which incorporates itself into the first episode in a beautiful and melancholy way that successfully set the tone for the entire next forty-nine episodes to come. If nothing else, that moment is one that will stick around in many viewers’ memories as possibly the most emotionally powerful scene of the entire series, and that in itself is worth something significant.
Cross Game is not the most intellectually compelling anime you will ever watch. It doesn’t delve deeply into subjects, and it never leaves a certain comfort zone when discussing more tender subjects. It doesn’t have groundbreaking characters or a surprising story with exciting cliffhangers. It is fully aware, however, that those things don’t matter if the execution isn’t just right, and that shows bright as day. Thus, Cross Game’s simplicity is also its beauty, standing as an instant classic and a coming-of-age story that will be looked upon as one of the greats someday by the power of its small successes and incredibly human characters.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jul 15, 2011
Ōkami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi is about a strange club, the Otogi Bank, made up of high school students who do favors for other students, their "clients," in return for their help in the future. It's a simple episodic anime with a decently large cast of likable, if not the most original, characters. Our male protagonist, Ryoushi, actually doesn't have anything to do with this organization at the beginning of the story. He does, however, have a crush on our female lead Ōkami. While Ryoushi has some extreme troubles with shyness, he manages to protect Ōkami from some attackers, and somehow manages to confess to
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her within the day. Ōkami refuses his confession, but her best friend Ringo tracks Ryoushi down and convinces him to join them at Otogi Bank.
From here the anime takes no delays in getting right to the first of many one episode stories that the show's structure is built on. Normally I would consider this kind of storytelling to be boring and unengaging, but Ōkami-san manages to be, at the very least, more entertaining with this layout than I expected. Its most unique factor is the fact that all of the stories are based (very loosely) on one fairy tale or another. Some are more obvious than others, but the first episode makes the intentions of the show very clear with its obvious parody of the well-known Cinderella story. From there on out the plots of each episode are more or less inspired by various familiar fairy tales. This aspect was very hit-and-miss for me; some of the episodes, such as episode three's The Tortoise and the Hare theme, felt unique and relevant, while others like Snow White often seemed superficial at best. Regardless, an effort was definitely made each time, and I can at least appreciate that.
Aside from the situations, the characters themselves were also a mixed bag of generic, boring, and pleasant surprises. Most of the usual archetypes are there and not too different from what a typical anime viewer is used to by now. Most of the characters do have some sort of interesting backstory or developments that separate them somewhat from the caricatures you are used to, but this itself even has flaws. The histories of the characters who are looked into are typically brought about suddenly and without much fanfare, usually delving deep enough to be engaging but not enough to be meaningful or make me feel anything most of the time. Then there is Ōkami's backstory which, without spoiling anything, is interesting but is never really explained for what seems to be the sake of keeping the show's content acceptable for the target audience - a disappointment, to say the least. The gist of it can be gathered, but the clear avoidance of certain topics makes me want more.
On the other hand are the background characters, who receive almost no development whatsoever and stay ambiguously strange and unappealing for the entirety of the series. The poster girl for this flaw is Majo, the crazy scientist. I would say more, but there is quite literally nothing else I can say about her despite Majo appearing in every episode and apparently being an active member of Otogi Bank. Other characters, like the President of the club and his cousin, follow a similar pattern, and it is sad when the one episode side characters have more personality than recurring characters that the viewer is supposed to feel something for.
On a similar note, there is an overarching plot that is slowly expanded upon until the last few episodes, but its ending was significantly anticlimactic, making me wonder how badly J.C. Staff wants a second season after teasing us with an arc like that.
The comedy is nothing to write home about. Near the beginning of the series it is typically almost embarrassing; half the time I wasn't really able to tell if what was happening was supposed to be funny or not. Somehow this does improve over time and Ōkami-san finds its groove, but that might be a result of the show becoming a tad more serious and the joke scenes becoming clearly different from the more serious ones. Overall, though, comedy is most definitely not one of Ōkami-san's draws or strong suits.
I also have a love/hate relationship with the art and the music. The BGM is all well and nice, just about always fitting of the atmosphere and the scenes, but nothing ever stood out to me. The character designs are very familiar to anyone with any recent anime experience, so much so that you might be right to call it plagiarizing if fans weren't so forgiving. However, I feel as if this is, for the most part, J.C. Staff's fault; the illustrations related to the original light novels are nicely stylized and appealing, while the adaptation's versions of these characters aren't so interesting, so I can't help but feel disappointed in that regard.
Overall, while Ōkami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi was quite a rollercoaster ride of surprises and disappointments, I did at the very least look forward to what it had to offer each week. In the end though, I can't shake a sweeping feeling of mediocrity.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 15, 2011
You're sitting in school one day, skipping class. Your genius friend comes to berate you for being so stupid, your childhood crush is dating your best friend, your grades aren't great and you don't have much direction in life. In other words, a usual day. Suddenly you see an undead monster bite a teacher, and from there you can see what happens - all Hell breaks loose, literally, and your first instinct is to save your friends who haven't been treating you all that well recently. Now you have to deal with relationship drama and zombies attacking from every angle; fun, right?
Highschool of the Dead
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is nothing if not simplistic. It has just about every cliche one might expect from a zombie story, so anyone looking for something they have never seen before should look elsewhere. However, it is quite a bit of a breath of fresh air in the anime genre; Western stories are filled with zombie apocalypse scenarios, so much so that one must be exceptional (or a decent comedy) to stand out. Anime, on the other hand, hasn't had the same oversaturation of the zombie genre, so the sort of generic anime antics are applied to what one might think is a worn-out idea to bring about something more interesting than at first glance.
Gratuitous ecchi is rampant in Highschool of the Dead. Understandable, as the artist Shōji Satō is quite used to drawing for h-doujinshi and the like. Luckily for him, this artstyle of his fits seamlessly into the world of Highschool of the Dead, and Madhouse did quite an impressive job in translating his art to an anime form. As a result, the adaptation is almost panel-for-panel correct, with only a few creative liberties taken by Madhouse, and this is definitely something to be thankful for as there really wasn't anything to change to make it work.
The story itself, as I said before, is simplistic to the point of being very predictable. While this might normally be a bad thing, it actually adds some charm to the series for a few reasons. One is as I said above - anime doesn't have zombie stories around too often if at all, so from that perspective there isn't much that can be generic for the genre. Another is that the normalcy is almost welcome in the zombie genre at this point; too many zombie stories have been written recently using irony, over the top comedy, and post-modernism in order to avoid the inherent silliness of a zombie movie. Fortunately one of anime's high points is that it rarely takes itself too seriously unless it really wants to, and on the other side of the spectrum it is almost never afraid to go the whole nine yards with an aspect before giving into the absurdity of it all and attempting to add other unnecessary things such as irony in order to appear more "edgy." Perhaps that is the reason that the entirely normal and reasonably simple storyline of Highschool of the Dead is still very entertaining.
The third and final reason Highschool of the Dead is an enjoyable addition to anime is that the genre actually does lend itself to things anime rarely sees other than zombies - male protagonists that can stand on their own two feet. Takashi, the main character, begins the story appearing to be a normal dejected anime lead, but as soon as the situation gets serious he takes things into his own hands and begins protecting the people around him without hesitation. He still has some of the issues with girls that most anime characters do, but he doesn't whine about them, he deals with them, and when an issue arises he deals with it himself. The other male lead, Hirano, is another anime stereotype-breaking character. He's overweight, wears glasses, and is a gun freak; being obsessive and overweight almost always makes you absolutely useless in anime. However, he takes his chance to shine and from there becomes one of the biggest offensive forces in the group, as well as earning the respect of even the most judging people around him.
All in all, Highschool of the Dead may not be the most original anime ever, and it may not have the best written story. But it is truly entertaining for various reasons, the biggest of these being its uniqueness when considering the plethora of endlessly rehashed anime that appear so often. In this regard, it is definitely worth at least checking out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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