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I just finished Clannad and was wondering what all the fuss was about and then I saw this. Wow. This short episode was everything I’d been told Clannad was: powerful, affecting, emotional. This time Okazaki’s love interest is not Furukawa but Tomoya, the student council president. She’s a girl with a grand future ahead of her and everyone knows it. And for that reason Okazaki’s delinquent nature and lack of real direction are an anvil around her neck. He’s wrong for her and he knows it. He’ll just be dragging her down into the inevitable mediocrity of his life. And what a struggle life is ... when love isn’t enough.

This is a story that truly works. The love story has genuine obstacles. It’s a difficult path to follow filled with heartache and self-doubt. What is the right thing to do here? It’s a hard one. The downside of course, is that this story is all too brief. The entire love story is told over the length of a regular episode and they skip all the courtship stuff and move straight to the difficult questions. And while this story could easily have been expanded (Okazaki’s growing realization that he’s holding her back is somewhat awkwardly rushed by having an underclassman explain it to him) it does work as it is. What’s the point of rooting for two lovers to make it work when there’s no struggle to it? I really felt for the pair of them. More than I did for Furukawa honestly, whose relationship with Okazaki I found less interesting than the one he had with her parents.

I don’t normally watch shorts because I’m someone who likes detail and depth. A short film like this (< 2 minutes long) is something I generally avoid. I only checked this out because it was done by the same guy who directed Your Name and I wondered why on earth he’d make a film that’s too short to tell any sort of story. And after all, even if it was a complete waste of my time it was only two minutes gone.

This film tells the maximum amount of story that it’s possible to tell in two minutes. We see the two leads working at school, ... we get a small sense of their life and goals, and we get an idea of their connection, and we watch them move on to college. And that’s it. I couldn’t tell you much about their personalities or home life, but it’s not really about that. It’s about the emotion it captures. It’s about the feeling of discovering your place in the world. The sensation of moving out on your own for the first time. The urge to form a connection with others. And it does all of that in two minutes with minimal dialogue.

The animation is beautiful. Some of the best I’ve ever seen. It helps to convey an atmosphere all on its own. This could be a silent film and we’d still get the idea. It’s hard to say exactly why, but this film manages to convey more in a couple of minutes than many series do in twenty episodes. Recommended as a short waste of your time.

This is a decent series but I’m hard-pressed to see why it’s often praised as one of the greatest anime of all time. It’s got some entertaining characters, a few interesting story arcs, and a lot of high school angst. Is it because After Story is so good?

What works about the series is the high school setting and the characters. While they’re all exaggerated, none of them feels undeveloped or underused. Okazaki makes for an excellent protagonist. He’s a slacker and a bit of a tool, but he has a wonderful sense of humor that shows up in a troublemaker streak. He lies to ... absolutely everyone. Not cruel lies, but outrageous ones that are very funny when people fall for them. Nagisa is his main love interest (it gets a bit haremy for a while) and she’s the typical naive sensitive Japanese female. Her family is rather more entertaining, with her father a loudmouthed idiot who shouts a lot but generally takes his humiliation in stride.

The school setting is a bit idyllic, but I never know what to make of the story. Sometimes it works and REALLY works, such as the details of Okazaki’s troubled family life. It’s not typical anime trauma, it’s a sad collapse into a state of mutual despondancy. Nagisa’s background is suitably compelling as well. Then we get the random ghost girl (yes really) and the efforts to make her story real and tragic are just as exploitative as they seem. And they swtch back and forth between stories like this. Inasmuch as there is a single plotline to the series it’s the creation of the school’s theater club and Okazaki’s gradually increasing connection to the world. Everything else just sort of happens.

Beautiful. For all the tears I’m glad I watched it. The series is a slice-of-life drama about a young high schooler whose love for playing the piano has dimmed since his mother’s death, leaving him morose and unmotivated. Not that she was a sweet woman. She left him emotionally scarred in her rush to get him up to a professional level before she died. And it’s this lack of emotional connection to the music that leaves him so lost. Until he runs into a girl whose love of life kindles a passion inside him he didn’t know he had and causes him to reconnect with ... music in a more personal way.

I honestly can’t believe this series has achieved the level of success it has. I’d thought the plot was a very niche thing that appealed only to people like me on a personal level. I mean, it’s all about rekindling a boy’s love for classical music. How wide an audience can that reach? For me, having grown up listening to Beethoven and Mozart regularly, this spoke directly to me and brought back my childhood love on a very real level. The performances here are astounding, with the pianist an absolute master of his craft. If nothing else you will leave here with an appreciation for some of the best pieces of classical music out there. The anime’s original score is excellent as well, with a suitably optimistic tone merging with some of the sadder moments. And the opening and closing pieces are great as well.

About the only negative I can thing of is that I didn’t really like the character design. The basic shapes were fine (and the animation lovely) but there was something about the abnormal eyes that I found empty and creepy. It does also have a tendency to drag out scenes. If you’re not floored by the musical performances then many of the competition sections will likely seem too long. The series’ conclusion is perfect and brings a completely different view to the preceding episodes. It’s also sad as hell, which may not come as a surprise by then but it still hurts. Because by then you really do care about everyone and wish it could all work out. But life can be cruel, and so can emotionally manipulative anime. But still, I’m glad I watched it. And it has left a lasting impact on me, which is more than can be said for most entertainment in any media. Highly recommended.

This is a unique series with many familiar elements. It’s set in a fantasy world that’s almost, but not quite, identical to ancient Persia. Arslan is the crown prince, and soon enough the rightful claimant to the throne of Pars. Despite being a fantasy setting the fantastical elements are kept to a minimum and the story is mainly about young Arslan learning how to rule. The series generally feels like a historical epic, with massive battle scenes and constant textural identification of characters and their ranks to keep up clear on what’s going on.

The plot is that of high politics. Arslan has to figure out ... what actions to take to achieve his goals and also what battles to fight and when to fight them. It’s generally well done, although it can dawdle a bit on some fairly mundane issues. Fast pacing is not generally a virtue of this series. It spends the last twenty episodes or so not really getting Arslan any closer to his “capital” of Ecbatana. The series could have done with trimming off a few episodes. Battle scenes were awe-inspiring and well done. The scale of these battles and the tactics involved were sensible and well conceived. This is one of the few anime out there that can do epic well. While the personal side of combat is never forgotten, the large scale battles between nameless hordes is shown on a scale that few Japanese productions can achieve.

While there are clear heroes and villains, the goals and responsibilities are not so black and white, starting with the question of whether Arslan has the strongest claim to the throne or not. The evil Lusitanians have some good ideals, notably of freedom and equality, but are let down by a religious fanaticism that justifies anything. This is laid out early on by a Lusitanian soldier who comically goes on with noble sentiments about the equality of all mankind only to then express the view that heretics and nonbelievers are inherently inferior and must be purged. Alas, the religious beliefs are kept at that level of crazy and we get little nuance in the harsher end of that spectrum, to the point where Arslan can lecture people on religious tolerance in a particularly patronizing and simplistic way. The flip side of all this is that Pars is a slave-owning society who treats war captives barbarically. I thought they handled this idea far better, with Arslan’s confusion over why anyone could possibly object to slavery for the defeated feeling very genuine and his arguments that they should just submit and they’d be happy feeling suitably detached from any personal experience. In short, there’s good and bad things to be said about both sides.

The characters are probably the least interesting part of the series. Arslan himself is a caring, sweet guy. A bit too much of both to be frank. His most distinguishing character trait is his niceness. Daryun and Narsus (a transliteration error for Narses?) are his chief subordinates. Daryun is pure honorable unstoppable warrior, and his invulnerability reduces the tension of many of the more dangerous seeming battle scenes. Narsus is a bit more interesting. He’s essentially the chief strategist, a very Japanese position and probably the least Persian-influenced character here. He’s always right, which reduces the tension of battle scenes considerably. On the bright side, his obsession with his (abhorrent) artwork at least gives him a comic and human side.

There are other characters as well, though none of them have as important a role. Gieve is the typical cunning rogue, always trying to seduce or steal from somebody. Falangies is a priestess of Mithras and a great fighter. She probably has other character traits as well, though not many. Elam is Narsus’ page and fits into the slightly worshipful servant role. Etoile is about the only interesting side character for me. Etoile is a Lusitanian soldier with an honorable streak who likes Arslan (despite not knowing he’s Arslan) and has generally good ideals that come into conflict with the way the world works. Alas, there’s not much of a role for a character like that. Silver Mask is the antagonist. That’s really all that can be said about him. As might be gathered from the name he wears a mask to hide his identity, but when he takes it off we realize that (gasp) it’s someone we’ve never seen before. But I guess some of the other characters have. Seriously though, does nobody get suspicious of a guy wearing a mask? I feel like if he was on my side I’d find out who he was under that. People who hide their identities generally have a good reason.

As a fan of Persian history I found myself very interested in this series. It’s hard for me to judge how others will see it. Despite what people say it’s not really about the life of Cyrus the Great. While Arslan has some family similarities to Cyrus, the story as a whole draws from all over Persian history, particularly the Byzantine/Persian wars which are a strong influence for the presentation of the Lusitanians. Another influence for them is obviously the Crusades, with the religious crusade and immensely French names (Guy of Lusignan was the last king of Jerusalem). Sassanid (3rd-7th century AD) influences are more common than Achaemenid (6th-4th century BC) ones for the people of Pars (itself the ancient name for Fars, Iran). While we do get the capital of Ecbatana, we also get marzbans, Middle Persian names like Shapur, and powerful eastern nomad conglomerations. On the whole it works better than it should.

Taking the Melancholy of Harumi Suzumiya and removing the best elements (Harumi herself and the crazy club activities) to focus on the weakest parts (the normal school life and supporting cast) sounds like it should be an awful idea, but somehow this film really takes the concept and puts some real meat on the bones of what I thought was a pretty shallow series. The basic idea here is that Kyon finds himself in an alternate timeline/dimension/whatever where Harumi doesn’t go to his school and can’t reword reality for her own amusement. This obviously removes most of the comedy and makes a character ensemble into ... one character’s personal journey. But it’s a great journey. Because what Kyon has to accept to move on is that he really enjoyed his other life and that his air of nonchalant indifference was largely an act. Because his new ordinary life is achingly mundane compared to the crazy stuff he used to be doing.

This makes for very good drama, and the problems I’d been anticipating never materialized. I was never bored of his quest nor did the absence of many of the more comic elements make the film seem like a different animal from the series. It made for a stronger story in fact, and provided some of the closure I’d hoped for from the series. Overall it made for a very pleasant change and made me feel for the characters in a way I hadn’t before. An excellent conclusion for the Harumi series.s

This is one of those famous and influential anime (like Evangelion) that changed the way future productions approached their topics. Unlike Evangelion it is pretty consistently fun and not overly serious. The basic idea is that Haruhi is someone with the power to rewrite the world as she sees fit, but she doesn’t know it and therefore has to be kept happy or her boredom will lead to catastrophic changes or the creation of a whole new world in place of this one. And so the SOS Brigade is formed, an afterschool club designed by Haruhi to serve her every whim and woefully underthought idea.

Haruhi ... is just a fun character. She’s wildly unpredictable and her crazed enthusiasm and oblivious superpowers cause an endless series of problems for Kyon, our lead. Kyon is basically a cynical and lazy highschooler who has a sarcastic aside for everything and holds himself as too cool to be involved in any of this stuff. His frustrated yet resigned narration is a big part of what holds the series together. And then we get the three people trying to hold Harumi back, an esper, an alien, and a time-traveller. Because of course.

The series is typical school-based adventure with the supernatural twists only appearing to explain why everyone goes along with Haruhi or to make the situation so unbearable or dangerous that the team needs to go into action. Which isn’t to say that supernatural situations are kept to a minimum. There’s one arc of eight episodes where they’re stuck in a time loop so the plot just repeats over and over again with minimal changes. It’s a bold idea that doesn’t totally work, but the overall effect does stand out.

I enjoyed the series overall, mostly because Haruhi and Kyon are such fun characters and because the absurd situations they get into are great. The supporting cast was rather weak though, with the three special people never really clicking for me as anything but plot devices. There’s no real overarching story, which surprised me a bit because it keeps seeming to suggest there’ll be one, but the story arcs are rather long and tend to be different and interesting. It was an enjoyable light entertainment affair with no real emotional hook or depth. But I enjoyed it.

Longing: The Movie. Do not go in expecting a happy ending. Or any sort of ending really. This film is really a trilogy of mood poems about two young friends who were separated when their families moved away but who never really found the same sort of belonging they had with each other. They were never able to forge new bonds that held as strong as that one and have waded through unfulfilling lives never quite able to find the satisfaction they once had. And that’s basically it. Each chapter is purely an account of their feelings at that moment combined with beautiful imagery and ... some very sad music. It’s an emotional work, but not one for plot or characterization. The film feels very pure and true to the sense of melancholy that comes from a loss. And sometimes it can never be risen above or escaped. As such, this isn’t exactly an enjoyable film so much as it is a powerful one.

I usually go nuts for this sort of thing. 1950s/60s Japanese setting (flashbacks of Kurosawa) with a focus on character and setting with coming-of-age drama and the connections formed by music predominating, all mixed together with beautiful Studio Ghibli-esque animation and directed by the guy who did Cowboy Bebop. But something about it just never clicked for me. Maybe it's the jazz focus (I've never really been a jazz fan) but I think it's more the lack of any structure or satisfying resolution. Not that the ending is bad. Actually, the concluding section is near perfect. It's just that nothing builds up to anything and ... in the end all the characters seem to be drifting aimlessly. Maybe that's the point? I don't know. All I know is that it had lost my attention by about episode eight and the last few episodes were a real struggle to get through.

It also bothered me that the character motivations seem so incomprehensible. That's a typical Japanese thing, particularly in the mid-20th century and earlier, but just because a piece is set in a time doesn't mean it has to be obtuse. I'm reminded of my least favorite Kurasawa film, The Quiet Duel, in which a doctor contracts syphillis when operating on a wounded soldier and spends the rest of the film heroically not saying anything about it to his fiance (who he can now never marry) or anyone else since he cannot bear to live with the apparently impossible shame. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me either. And the characters here act like that. Shame prevents them from doing absolutely anything (although it doesn't extend to performing publically, oddly, the one area where that makes total sense to me) and even when all sides know something nobody is ever willing to talk about it. And really, I didn't understand the reasons behind half of what the lead does.

I think pretty much everyone has secretly fantasized about going back and redoing their youth again to take advantage of all their missed opportunities. I'm rather surprised there aren't more manga that deal with the fantasy. The approach taken here is not exactly what you'd think though. It's distinctive because of the very deliberate nature of it. Kaizaki intentionally takes the pill that makes him look (not actually become) 17 and signs up for the program designed to deNEETify him through a return to the optimistic energy of youth. Also deliberate is the time limit of one year: after his year has passed he must ... return to his adult life where he'll be set up with a job and a chance to reclaim his lost future. All records of his time at school will be erased as will the memories of him among the other students.

I'm of two minds about this as an approach. On the one hand the deliberate nature removes the need for a lot of the confusion about why this is happening (leaving plenty of room for confusion over high school life) and the need for exposition clarifying why he feels obliged to continue acting a high schooler and keep the secret from his friends. The fact that it's not actually youthenizing him also means that there's room for some conflict with the fact that he's not as fit as all the other kids (though really, at older than 27 I might not have the stamina of a teenager but I can still sprint without pulling a muscle) and with all the changes to school life in the decade since he left. And of course the irregular but dangerous moments where his secret maturity seems sure to come out.

On the other hand... aren't the rules here rather arbitrary and absurd? I know that the whole concept is impossible, but making the youthenizing process so mundane as a pill seems even worse than just having it pure magic. It's a lot easier to accept that a wizard did it than that a virus somehow removes all knowledge of someone and can alter pictures. The policies adopted are even more absurd. When it becomes clear that a second test subject has been introduced to the school they make clear that revealing their status to each other would result in mutual memory erasure and ejection. I mean, what possible purpose could that serve? Isn't that sort of connection exactly what they should be encouraging? As indeed they do constantly in amusing ways. And if the goal is to make people care again then why the memory erasure? That seems to completely make any emotional growth meaningless since you know none of your new friends will even remember you. And the fear that this might leave an unbreachable gap in their life is very real, which conflicts with the fact that they want to cure him of a desire to isolate himself to prevent others' suffering. The rules make no sense.

Fortunately, the series is very well written and has a cast of excellent characters. They all fall somewhere on the extremes of academic/social skills. Kaizaki is the most emotionally intellegent guy and also the most utterly incompetent student. Kazu and Hishiro fall at the opposite end of this spectrum, intellectually brilliant but not able to take a hint if you printed it in big letters on your forehead. Everyone else fits somewhere in the middle, with only Kariu having a healthy mix of both. The concerns are mainly those of love (particularly getting the emotional doofuses to recognize their own feelings) and friendship. Typical high school drama fare, but well told and with characters so lovable together that you really root for them. And Kaizaki's (and occasionally his handlers') outrageously brazen matchmaking faces are very funny. The average story arc is very long and takes forever to get to the point, but it doesn't feel padded so much as deliberate. But expect to work though a lot to get to the conclusion of the main arcs.

I relate to this series very deeply on an emotional level. Obviously I never took a de-aging drug and went back to high school, but I did the next closest thing and restarted college in a new degree program where I was 4-6 years older than everyone else. And it was super weird. The insecure awareness that you're several years more experienced than everyone else never really goes away nor does the mistaken belief that you're bound to know more about life than your juniors. In fact it can get worse. By the time I was a 28-year-old PhD student I felt like a creepy old man for hanging out with fresh-out-of-high-school kids in the club I helped run and had to withdraw from all activities. And I've felt the rest of it as well. As an exchange student the knowledge that you only have a year to make friends and then leave them behind forever is always there, a constant awareness that the best year of your life is passing by. It hurts, but only a fool would avoid making the most of their opportunity just so the pain wouldn't be as bad. It's a feeling that's hard to describe but there's probably a snappy German word for it like heiterschmerz.

Anyway, my personal background means that I enjoyed this very much indeed. The inevitable separation in the ending is emotionally crushing as you might expect, and I felt that the arbitrary tragedy of the setting seemed a little forced, but on the whole I cared about the characters and their stories. You just kinda wish they could forget this whole returning to his adult life thing and keep on growing as a high schooler. But the bittersweet setting is the whole basis of the plot, and you get through 215 chapters of sweetness before the end is reached for good so happiness far outweighs the sadness. A good series for anyone who's ever pondered the question of what it would be like if they could do it all over again.