Ikebukuro West Gate Park

For a studio that is well-known for handling many many anime featuring lots of cute girl, Ikebukuro West Gate Park (IWGP hereafter) is certainly a surprising line-up for studio Doga Kobo and for that reason alone I think it was interesting to keep an eye for this series. Whether or not it’s your cup of tea — whether or not you enjoy 24 minutes of angst every week — there’s one thing going for this anime: it wants to dream a little bigger. The bottom line here isn’t about money nor is it about broad appeal. This isn’t a show engineered from the ground up to reap in DVD sales and related cash-ins like seiyuu vocal CDs, nor people going to go out and buy a figurine of the freaking lord and saviour Makoto the Fruits Seller. That’s the thing I respect, but as a whole series, IWGP just falls in to the good old “bad adaptation” problem.

The series is based on a set of Japanese novels, which were originally published in 1998. It’s a series of urban mystery following an event/incident in the district of Ikebukuro. Do you want human interest stories that are slightly heavy-handed in its delivery? Then this is kind of show. There are themes of abandonment, drugs, murder, and abuse etc. but also solidarity and sacrifice. In all this is kind of also another slice of show shows, but this time the real concerns go beyond “my two sisters keep trying to seduce me” or “I’m so awesome that my only flaw is my virginity.”

But the problem with this anime is the fact it was mostly episodic side stories following the pattern of “Client of the week” in desperate situations and frequently approaching Makoto for solutions. Unfortunately, the execution was pretty rushed, Due to the anime’s episodic nature, the ultimately inconsequential side stories are forced to wrap themselves up in an incredibly short amount of time. IWGP thus maintains its brisk, frenetic pacing, but none of the conclusions ever feel all that satisfying. Our bad guy of the week barely has time to establish himself as a threat before going down. Likewise, is there a lacks of detail of clients that we are supposed to lament then the story’s over and we’ll probably never see them face again.

There’s also the fact that episodic anime can’t do a deep dive on weighty topics. We can’t really say a few sentences about justice and pat ourselves on the back. But what else can an episodic anime do? We’ve only got twenty-is minutes. For someone like me, a show like IWGP just leaves me wanting. From a storytelling standpoint, yeah, we need to move on. From a philosophical standpoint, I’m like itching to jump in the ring. But let’s follow the anime’s cue and move on…

That’s pretty neat, I guess,” is the most glowing praise I can ever offer to any given IWGP episode. Social commentary about Youtuber essentially selling their life for making content looks… neat, I guess. Single parenting and stress lead to child abusing sounds… neat, I guess. Hell, the action is sometimes very neat. But we never get to dwell on anything for very long. Now, now, let’s hurry along. After all, the episode is about to come to an end. We should begin preparing ourselves for next week’s entirely new set of characters and problems

If the story lacks detail, it usually leaves us feeling pretty flat. We are not be able to identify with the characters or plot in the way we would if there were more efforts made to describe the characters and scenes with care and attention. This is also what I feel regarding IWGP characters, Makoto is just your typical anime leads with high sense of justice, pretty caring and always try to helping people whatever he can. There’s no origins where he acts like that, and as results I found his characters to be flat to the point the most interesting thing about him to me is making fun of him with “The Lord and Saviour Makoto the fruit seller” whenever the story begin or come to its conclusion.

Honestly, I don’t find King/Takashi all that compelling either. He just doesn’t strike me as a very realistic character. Instead, he’s more like some person’s fanciful idea of what a mysterious, beautiful person would be. Appears out of nowhere without any background whatsoever, uncharacteristically refined, and pretty skillful in hand to hand combat. Truthfully, I think all of these characters besides Makoto were all sides characters because they don’t have much screen time even compared to the ‘client’ characters. Not to mention there are some internal conflicts in G-boys that takes 2 episodes but it feels so lifeless because we just don’t care about the characters.

I was even wondering that IWGP would be sooo much better if these episodic adventures were not through told by Makoto as a focal point. Something like different episodes, different protagonist, different personality Whether it is by King, by Makoto or even by those Red Angel. Because other characters are very paper thin as a result. There’s not even a characters/flashback arc throughout the series. But having doing research for the novel, I think that wasn’t a case.

As for the visual, I think it was good. Everyone is given a very clear and distinct, instantly recognisable look, still somewhat realistic character designs and a whole lot of attention to detail, both in the background stills but also the foreground. Later on, it seems a few more digitised scenes crept in, but this did not impact the style negatively. It does seem that there was quite a budget for the visuals. The tracks themselves might be rather simple rock music (though some will no doubt put them in a music genre consisting of far too many words) but splendidly fit with the visuals. The intro song is a fan favourite, and to my opinion deservedly so.

IWGP has a lot of flaws. It isn’t overly original and the story doesn’t go in unprecedented directions like you’d hope. Considering the themes, it was brought on, it’s disappointing that the series sticks to explore it only on superficial level when it absolutely has every opportunity to be something deeper and more memorable.

Having said that, at least there’s positives, I like the technical qualities that Doga Kobo offer here and I do not mind if they adapt more of this kind of series in the future.

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‘Cringe’ is the best possible description for this anime.

I do not know, I was really hyped for Ikebukuro West Gate Park. After all, Ikebukuro West Gate Park is an anime, where young men, living in Ikebukuro are supposed to right the wrongs that proper authorities cannot. Where law is helpless, a gang called ‘G-Boys’ is there to save the day. An anime about the ugly side of Japan, this is going to be one of the best anime of this season, or not?

Yet, this is just cringe. Although, I hate this word, this is the best description for the anime. While I did not read the manga, the anime looks like the people, who are responsible for it, do not know anything about real gangs. Like, just watch some GTO, if you have no idea. IWGP, however, focuses on a gang, where the leader is just some ballet dancer, or a pro dancer, does not matter. And sometimes the whole gang just watches the boss dancing. This is just so cringe. All the characters look like some members of a popular k-pop boys’ band, or something; which is also somewhat of a problem for you to take the whole show seriously.

And this is pretty much the story, cool bishounenes saving the day dancing and sometimes mediating disputes between other gang members. Characters wise, what would you expect from a guy, who has a ‘smoking kills’ T-Shirt. This is the same as a teacher that tries to explain children that masturbation is the way to hell. This is just beyond cringe. Makoto, one of the protagonists, sometimes is more of a captain obvious than Shirou Emiya himself.

All in all, this is the whole anime. Perhaps, I should not kept my hopes high. I do not know. Anyways, if this is what you want to see, go for it. But if you think that IWGP has some realism and interesting story to offer, bad luck. Regardless, the choice is yours to make.

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Tell me, what did you expect after reading synopsis? I expected a criminal drama, where our mc tries his best to find out the truth while being caught between two fighting gangs. What I did not expect was to see a bunch of boy scouts instead of a gang who do such horrible gang crimes as dance performing, helping single mothers and immigrants and guarding peace in the neighborhood. If it does not sound even remotely close to crime drama - you are not the only one confused. 10 episodes out of 12 are wasted on showing how mc is a good "fixer" guy. I may be wrong, but that kind of introduction should only take an episode or two at best, not most of the season. I could get it if those stories were linked in any way to the actual drama, that is shown in the last two episodes - it would be some insanely long build up, but if executed correctly it would justify all those unlinked meaningless stories. But you see, when you put a bunch of those stories and forget to give them any link to or place in the main plot line - what is even a point of having them? It felt like the first 10 episodes were a giant filler, and they are here just to waste viewers time instead of showing them the show they came for. As for me, cause of this mess I arrived at ep11 already bored and there was not a single chance that anything would redeem this huge waste of time. I doubt I have ever seen such big problems with pacing before.
If we move from discussing the plot - things are still pretty bad. Characters for example - there are lots of them. But only a few have a constant place in this show, and even those few are pretty undeveloped and feel more like the tools that mc uses to solve problems in the neighbourhood. Like what do we know about the King, who is literally the most influential character around and a great pal of our MC? Well, he is cool and respected, basically it. The rest of the cast either gets that kind of treatment or even worse.
Visuals? They are fine, being a real world it is not really hard thing to draw adequate, but nothing more is done to make the visuals stand out and be something above mediocre.
Sound? Well, the choice of tracks fits the theme, but it is not my type of music so I can't call opening and ending good. For bgm in episodes themselves - I can't even recall if there was a bgm to be honest.
Enjoyment? Story and paicing ruined any enjoyment for me.

Conclusion: a huge unfun waste of time. You may like it if you like unconnected shallow stories, but for most people I would advice skipping this anime entirely.

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The anime that is in every sense of the word, akin to Durarara!!, yet the majority of the people make the assumption/mistake that this series was a rip-off of the former. In actual fact, this show came FIRST (debuted in 2001), and the former (debuted in 2004) was merely inspired from it (that was leaps better in every way). If you're watching this show, please take note of this pointer.

I do have a legitimate worry for people and studios trying to capitalize on decades-old source materials that were lost in time. If you remember the 2 shows that aired in Spring 2020: Yesterday wo Utatte (produced by Doga Kobo, based on a manga) and Kitsutsuki Tanteidokoro (produced by Liden Films, based on a novel), both were late-90s source materials that if were adapted right and close to their original magic, could usher in the new revival of old-school adaptations. Sadly this wasn't the case, with the former getting a rushed adaptation (for the 2nd half) and the latter being better in its original material (because it's so boring to watch). Fast forward to Fall 2020, and Doga Kobo is back with adapting another early 2000s classic: Ikebukuro West Gate Park (or IWGP for short), written by Ira Ishida and based off a novel, a live-action TV series and a manga (that was a loose adaptation of the live-action TV version).

But what is this show about, you ask? In a nutshell, as mentioned in the beginning, think of it like Durarara!!: the crime-ridden city of Ikebukuro, where majority of the city is ruled by violent gangs and frequent clashes of turfs for the taking, only less refined. The MC is the city's gang mediator-cum-troubleshooter, Makoto Majima (who's living together with his single-family mother). A 20-year-old guy who often sees himself getting caught in frivolous acts of crime from seemingly both related and unrelated cases, and has ties with the gang that has a majority stake of Ikebukuro: the G-Boys, lead by his old schoolmate, the goofy and serious two-faced Andou "King" Takashi. In this aggravating city where crime does not pay, the single-family supporting son must tread through the vast wilderness of violent outbreaks that range from rival factions to sporadic situations, and even requests from strangers and close friends requiring protection to loved ones being victimized for revenge in the process, solving these various cases and resolving them faster than the local police could, before more lives are lost.

Now here my problem with this adaptation: Ira Ishida's material undoubtedly gives off the old-school vibe, but to adapt the 4 volume manga seems like a waste in comparison (as akin to just watching the 2000 TV version instead, albeit with a few differences). So, I'd presume that the scriptwriters made up their own version of IWGP by composing entirely new story scripts to reflect the modern-day standards of Japan in the classic episodic story format, and truth be told, the execution is both hit-and-miss. There are some instances where the episodes are really good (I love that one story where they focused on Japan's treatment of foreigners), but the rest were just the same-old cardboard cut-outs of unlinked, repetitious self-contained stories with mindless rival gang fighting over turfs that maintain the power balance of the gang environments (if you don't count the episodes featuring another formidable gang: the Red Angels). If you're looking for a story to be worth investing your time into, this show will most likely turn you off from its episodic format as there are little overarching plots (that span 2-part episodes at max).

Unfortunately, there is little to highlight about character development, as most of them tend to be 2-faced: neutral, or (un)necessarily triggered. For the few (like Makoto's mother), they do have personality and past histories to back their hard-lived environments and growing-up circumstances that shape their "organizational behaviours" to both friends and strangers through kinship, but sadly those are far and few in-between for a setting like this (that I'd really like to see more of). Most of the gang members (between both G-Boys and Red Angels, save for the respecting leading duo of King and Kyouichi, along with troubleshooter Makoto) are one-note, and is about what I'd expect of the typical one-note bad rap of gangs that are in for the violence and overflowing revenge.

Doga Kobo's in-house director Tomoaki Koshida is back from Senko-san to direct this series, and the visuals are just about as expected: replicating Yesterday wo Utatte's old-school palettes of art and animation to match, only this time, adding the dark mystery vibes that are associated with drama-type shows, and I have to give some good credit to the studio for a pretty good and consistent production from start to finish. Sure, there isn't as much Sakuga that you can cherry-pick with some decent action, but at least the action was solid, no questions asked. Good job Doga Kobo, double thumbs up.

The music...is another hit-and-miss department, I'm sad to say. I remember watching the horribly-made adaptation of "Junji Itou: Collection", and THE PINBALLS's OP "Shichiten Battou no Blues" (that screams "ISOLATION DOPE!!!") was so freaking excellent, it has remained memorable to me (even to this day). So to my amazement when "Needle Knot" came out, it was...OK at best. The same "in-your-face" bombastic quality signature of the group, but kinda missing the "OOMPH!" factor somewhere in between. A good effort, but nothing close to the quality that was once hearkened. And what better way to reflect the gang setting through the rapping ED by INNOSENT in FORMAL, but to be frank, the more I hear this song, the more I relinquished it as pure white noise. Their 2nd ED song "Omou mama" on the other hand, it's a calm and collected, but fantastic sounding song that I'd wished had appeared more. Maybe it's my personal preference of a bias to have heart-warming songs that are in stark contrast to dark and mystical shows like this, but in this case, along with the fine line of different story plots, this payoff really worked well.

In a season full of many average-to-decent (and few great) shows, this show I can only classify this as part of the middle-road package of being decent. Nothing eye-popping really stands out (other than the lore of gangs/crime aspect), and since this show hasn't had a clear direction (other than both start and end points), it's easy to be distracted by boredom, even if you tell yourself to "stick to the end". Let this sentence ring true: "If it ain't CGDCT (which is Doga Kobo's work ethos), you're gonna be hung about a 50-50 chance of watching a good or bad show." Nevertheless, for the 3 of you who likes gang/crime settings like Durarara!!, this is the show for you, otherwise, give this the unquoted 3-episode rule treatment.

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