Natsuaki's Profile - Reviews

Oni: Kamigami Yama no Onari - from here on just referred to as Oni - is an unassuming little show I found on Netflix and just went in completely blind due to it very charming stop-motion animation and all of the characters looking like little dollhouse toys. And for the most part, that is where I think Oni is at its strongest.

The environments feel lush and beautiful, all of these fantastical creatures are like tiny children in a big, beautiful forest. The Animation itself is a hybrid between actual stop motion and CG-Animation, which for the most part blends incredibly well and helps make the ...

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Jul 24, 2022

Comic Girls (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

Cute Girls 4-Panel shows are a dime a dozen, and while each has their own flavor, they are somewhat derivative of each other, usually featuring the same couple scenarios like going to the beach, fighting over a misunderstanding, summer festival and fireworks, one of them secretly being the rich heir to a big corporation or royal family - give or take a few. And at first, Comic Girls seems to follow in the same vein.

The four main girls are moved into a dormitory together with the expressed goal of it being helping them develop their skills as Mangaka. Two of them - Ruki and ... Tsubasa - are already very much busy with the industry, keeping up with weekly chapters or developing new ideas, whereas the other two - Kaos and Koyume - may have debuted, but still have to get their work off the ground. And while I was watching, I kept wanting to see more of the manga-making process in the way a Bakuman for example did it. Instead we get the usual jokes of characters being worked to the bone with deadlines, the characters who volunteer to assist accidentally ruining the artists work... and most episodes honestly aren't about Manga at all. Instead they more heavily focus the girls going through small SoL-adventures together, going clothes shopping, hanging at the beach, crushing on each other... the usual. And I want to take the opportunity to praise the show on this front in particular - while the girls are high schoolers, maybe two or three of the episodes feature them in their school uniforms. More often than not, they are dressed in normal outfits - and damn, what a wealth of cute, fun and character-revealing outfits these girls sport! It was an honest-to-god joy to see, and really added to every moment feeling filled with life and color. Even on the basis of just looking at it, this show managed to be very entertaining and eye-pleasing - all without leery fanservice.

Granted, the main character, Kaos, stand out right away by being a screaming, crying, weeb elementary-school-sized mess who loves watching girls being close with each other and whose storyboards are often rejected for being too unrealistic, not capturing the essence of what teenage girls are and do. Comic Girls is an ensemble show, yet Kaos is undeniably the focus and, for the most part, the POV character. She may have a lot of expressions edging close to cutesy, and the jokes about her putting herself and her art down start getting run into the ground almost immediately, but even so... she is the heart of the show and ends up what makes the whole experience very much worthwhile and unique to other 4-Girls-gag shows like this.

However... as fun as life with her new friends is, Kaos is being told time and time again how bad her storyboards are, and it starts to get to her. She is really happy for her friends, but still wrestles with the feeling of being the one left behing, who is slower and not as good as everyone else. She beats herself up in a way that while usually portrayed as comedic, really shows her frustration in a relatable and endearing fashion. She just fails and fails again, and instead of getting annoyed, her editor takes pity on her to some degree, and advises her the following: "Don't try too hard and instead make sure to enjoy life as a high school girl with your friends". And I actually don't want to give this one away since it was such a wonderful moment - all of this actually contributes to the story and one hell of a conclusion.

Comic Girls may not do a whole lot of things too terribly unique, but the things that stand out with this one REALLY stand out. From character development to the care put into small details to an ultimately satisfying character are, and all pleasing on the eyes and ears - Comic Girls is a wonderful show for everyone who likes cute girls, yonkoma and stories about art creation. I was positively surprised at what this show could do even for a more jaded viewer like me, and would love for it to do the same thing for other people!

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Jul 22, 2022

Asatte no Houkou. (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

Spoiler

Kids want to grow up and be seen as equals by adults, that's a pretty universal experience- And who in their life didn't arrive at a point where they, at least briefly, wished they could go back to their past and do things differently? Be it picking up skills earlier, or realizing flaws in your socialization skills that you fixed and would want to experience a time like school again... man can dream, right?

Well in this show, this is what happens - a child who wishes to grow up becomes an adult, and an adult who wishes she could change turns back into a child. ... And initially, it's a really charming show that works well. Both of these characters - Karada, the girl turned adult, and Shouko, the woman turned child - seem to be happy enough, until they learn that the man in both of their lives, the older brother of Karada and ex-boyfriend to Shouko, Hiro, has something to do with the other. Cue the inciting incident - Shouko turns out to not be so mature of an adult and, despite knowing Karada hates being seen as a child more than anything, hurts her out of spite, which leads to her storming off and both of them getting transformed by the wish stone they happen to meet in front of. It happened because both of them are flawed as people which has to do with their own past trauma, and it seems that the next step is them helping each other out!

Shouko, still spiteful but seeing Karada in an adult body for the lost child she is, invites her to her own place, aware that she has nowhere else to go, and does her best to be as rational about the situation as possible. She takes on the role of an adult guiding a child. Things may not go back to normal, after all. Karada, on the other hand, shows Shouko housekeeping skills like cooking that she lacked for one reason or another, and soon, their life takes on a bit more normality again. They go and buy stuff like furniture, clothes and such for their life. Attention to detail, like Shoukos glasses no longer fitting her child face and her getting new ones, reveal that this initial bit was thought through by the author - and then the show kinda stops being fun.

You see, initially setting itself up as a show of two lost girls helping each other through their trauma by way of a shared supernatural experience, it very quickly involves more characters and while they are all likable, some feel like the time spent on them could have been better invested in the development of the main characters. Starting with Hiro, the brother who was unwittingly at the center of the inciting incident without realizing, who is an unbelievably boring third main character. He left his girlfriend in order to take care of his sister after her parents died, but he has very little personality to go along with it. He is more or less just pushed into situations by everyone else. And that would be okay, seeing how this is clearly a story about Shouko and Karada, except he gets a lot of screentime and doesn't really do a whole lot. He extends his disbelief enough to support the two girls in his life, and that's it. Sure, he sacrificed his ambitions in life to take care of a child in need because he felt it was the right thing to do, but that honestly seems more like a way to drive the plot forward by creating conflict instead of it really having to do with him. And then... the story just loses its focus.

Whereas Shouko immediately caught on to the fact that the little girl her ex-boyfriend never told her about during their relationship was the reason fir their breakup, Karada only realizes much later and it comes as a shock to her. Her guilt of knowing her brother left his girlfriend to take care of her eats her up and makes her run away. And while some scenes are really well-handled, like Karada slowly learning about functioning as an adult, what is needed to get a job, an apartment, in the end she just wanders into a really friendly pension who just take her as is and that was that. A friend from her school looks for her for several episodes which ends up with them falling in love, and that's that. All the while Shouko's trauma is addressed very briefly (like her remembering that she was too shy to join other children for playing together) and it starts to feel more like an accident that she got transformed rather than an honest-to-god wish she had from the bottom of her heart due to her past. Sure, it leads to the reveal that Karada's brother was literally her everything in life, her first friend, her best friend and that's why she felt so possessive over him, acting in a way very befitting of an immature adult with lacking socialization, but it's all basically just thrown into the show in 5 minutes of dialogue at the very end rather than waving it into the story to go with the narrative. Same goes for the final moment, during which, after accepting their past and settling into their new lives, the characters are turned back to how they were without any of them having anything of meaning to say about the whole thing. It just felt very rushed and seeing that the manga was still ongoing when the anime concluded, I believe that is where the problem lies; the anime team struggling to connect the initial setup of the manga into an anime that was still supposed to have a definite ending rather than ending openly, inconclusively.

However, despite all that incohesion upon further inspection, the show manages to overall be charming and soothing. It's fun to see these two girls slowly befriending and living with each other. The summer imagery is beautifully paced, giving the scenery and every mood room to breathe, and I could feel it to my core (in part due to the fact that I was watching this show during the height of summer 2022). I think it's a show worth watching. It just unfortunately doesn't follow through on its initial thematic throughline and more so just turns into a summer romance kind of deal. But then, don't we all have at least one childhood summer in fond memory?

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Jun 3, 2022

Ryman's Club (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

As an adult, keeping up with your exercise arguably holds even more value than when you're a teenager. But being an adult, the toll life has already taken on your body can also show. You can get injuries you don't recover from as swiftly anymore, if you're gone from your sports for a while you may be gone for good. There also isn't any money in it if you're just doing it because... you can. No matter how good you are, it'll pretty much always be for fun only. Nevertheless, there is a lot of value to be found!

Ryman's Club is clearly made by someone ... who loves sports stories, but may not have loved that most of them end with a high school graduation. In those stories, the characters spend years together, growing as a team, chasing their dream of competing in a big torunament, if not the national one, but eventually, they'll have to graduate from school and ultimately enter the workplace. And much like Class S stories - in Japanese societies, dreams and ambition can often end with school. People are expected to be serious. And because of that, characters in these stories tend to treat the sport as everything that matters to them. Their entire life revolves around training, tournaments, or at best hanging out with their teammates. The matter of school usually takes the back line, maybe as a "funny" filler episode about how everyone's failing school and has to get back on track, or else they won't be allowed to continue playing. Characters can also get downright reckless when it comes to their health - neglecting sleep, training from dawn till dusk. They are pouring everything they have into their sport. Though once you've graduated... where do you go from here? Like sure, once in a while a narrative about a single character and their career in their chosen sport comes to mind, but especially in more team-based stories, that's usually it. Maybe you get a cheeky future-episode about the characters meeting up, now having careers and familie and such, and that's about it.

And to that effect, Mikoto, the first of the main two characters we're introduced too, might have as well come from one of those stories. He picked up badminton when he was a child, and even developed amazing observation skills because they help him perform better. He and even seeked a company known explicitly for its strong team - and was then prompty fired for underperforming at work.

The show delights in having the coworkers in his new company point out to him that he IS supposed to be working and wasn't hired only so he could play in the corporate badminton team - forcing him out of his fixation on the sport and actually engage with his coworkers and team members, and, as a consequence, life as an adult overall. And from there, the show becomes a fun Sports-SoL-Hybrid and pretty much equally divides its episodes between the characters training, playing in tournaments and such, and having them work as salarymen for a beverage company. Selling products, developing new ones, marketing, getting drunk together and brainstorming... it's all here. And with that groundwork, the show manages to present very human, if not terribly complex characters. Everyone gets their own arc about adult problems - like struggling to get back into an old hobby after your life changed with marriage and kids, comparing yourself to your siblings and how they were faring since graduation, struggling to fulfill your own potential. It's all a bit basic, but it helps greatly to acquaint the viewer to characters who may just mirror your own coworkers in many ways.

And likewise, these characters have to mangage adult problems as well. They have injuries and insecurities to overcome, as well as responsibilities like a family, but approach them with the understanding and reasoning of an adult. They know they can't just run on a broken limb, they have to learn to adjust and allow themselves to heal, or to move on. They help each other out and talk - and not in a dramatic, overly emotional fashion. It grounds the show in realism - save for maybe two, three little things that seem just a tad too anime in parts.

For example, the two main characters, Mikoto and Tatsuru, met when Mikoto was a child - they have a 10-year-gap - and that encounter inspired each other to keep on pursuing badminton. Tatsuru then found out about him, and convinced his manager to hire him which is just a tad bit odd. At that point, them meeting each other again throgh sheer coincidence, or because they've been following the same path - like how Mikoto met his former middle school partner in a tournament again - would have perfectly sufficed. It's not a huge distraction by any means, but doesn't quite fit in with the more subdued nature of the other relationships in this one. And of course you have a climax with the future of the team at stake.

But I found myself willing to look past all that because the rest of this show was just so pleasant. It's nice to see adults hanging out for a change. It's nice to see that you can enjoy and continue to be ambitious in your chosen sport even if your body may not be able to keep up as easily as when you were young. Heck, you can still even aim for the world championship! Sport is important. Sport is fun! Playing with others is fun! Just remember to sleep enough, drink enough and arrive to work on time.

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May 29, 2022

Tensai Ouji no Akaji Kokka Saisei Jutsu (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

If you like Fire Emblem but are not a fan of the romance-sidestories in that one, this here might be for you.

As next entrance in the line of "I can't believe it's not Isekai"-type shows, Tensai Ouji is actually somewhat refreshing in its approach to tactical warfare and kingdom management. I was initially a little off-put by the protagonist claiming to want nothing to do with all this, whining about having to attend to his duties and basically planning to retire in luxury as soon as he can, but when he is forced to step up, he is actually fun to watch. At his core, ... he is a smart - if maybe not the genius type level he considers himself to be - yet somewhat lazy character who wants the easy way, and can actually show his stuff when forced to act. I'm not gonna say the little interludes of a chibi version of himself going "No! No! I can't believe this didn't work out as I had hoped!" can't get just a little grading, but he is at least fun to watch, especially when he has to bluff like he's in court trying to overturn a hopeless situation. He is very adept at handling his cards, staying calm and doing what's best for himself but also his kingdom. He claims not to care and he certainly has his moments, but overall it's amde apparent that he doesn't hate his life as much as he claims in his little fits.

Right next to him is Ninym, who initially comes off as a kind of annoyed retainer forced to keep his manchild tendencies in check, but whom he actually shares a nicely developed bond with. The show even addresses that, while they have a bit of a mutual attraction, they can never marry, so her being by his side as his companion, strategist partner and equal gives the show some much needed ground to stand on. She isn't used for fanservice, either, and just as capable as Wein himself, if a little less prone to take a gamble. They make for a nice team and are at the core of what I find makes this one worth watching.

As for the side cast, they aren't too notable overall, but what does stand out is that they're all human. This is a fantasy world, yes, but it doesn't have any magic, elves or cat-ears in it. There isn't too much attention given to the world building in particular, but there is only so much you can do in 12 episodes without completely taking the focus off of your main interests - Prince Wein, Ninym and the tactical warfare and such - and certain details do elude to an actually reasonably planned-out world to explore. In addition, there are several cool female characters - not that noteworthy overall, but in a light novel adaptation, it's nice that none of them has any harem-type feelings or personality and thus likewise approach Wein as his equal. Some of them may even be smarter than the "genius" prince. Again, it's a small bar to clear, but it lend the show an air of realness that added to me being able to take the negotiations and battles seriously instead of getting distracting boob-armor or panty shots in my face every other minute.

In the end, I find myself with not much more to say about this show in particular. It didn't really have much depth or commentary or anything I'm going to think about after finishing it, but once in a while it's nice to just have this kind of fantasy show with a clear focus, a likable cast, without Harem or Isekai hijinks and some tense negotiations. There are many other Fantasy shows that do individual aspects of this one - cast, world building, tactics, upper-management - better, but if you're looking for a bite-sized version of a story like this with genuinely good moments and dynamics, this one might just be for you.

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May 26, 2022

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Sotsu (Anime) add

Not Recommended

It's inevitable - friendships are going to change over time. Your best friend from your childhood may move to a different city and have a family there. Or they may lose interest in the things you shared and connected over. You have to let these things go sometimes, or at least allow them to change with the time in order for it to become something new. Because trust me, if you cling to all you've known and refuse to let new stuff in, you may just end up like Satoko in this godforsaken "sequelboot" of a show.

The premise going into this one was actually an ... idea with a lot of potential - two friends with polar opposite views of how their future together should look like. Rika wants to go to a prestigious all-girls-school to experience high society in contrast to the rural life in Hinamizawa, whereas Satoko can't seem to fit in at the school at all and feels abandoned by her friend. She wants them to just live together in the small town of Hinamizawa forever. A bored god ends up passing on to her the same ability Rika possesses and hijinks ensue. Well, I say hijinks, but most people would probably call it tasteless degenerate torture porn for 12 straight episodes. Sotsu aims to provide the "answer arcs" to the "question arcs" posed by Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gou, its direct predecessor, trying to recreate the structure the original Higurashi had, with just one major flaw... there is no intrigue, and no answers required. It's downright parodic.

In the original show, there was actually a huge plot involving a conspiracy in the background of it all, and each question arc indeed provided some answers to the overall picture, as well as what the protagonists actually needed to do to overcome their fate and make way for a good future for everyone. In Sotsu however, the "answer" is always the same: Satoko can infect people with Hinamizawa Syndrome now, and she has a gun. That's it. Her aim is always to crush Rika with the most devastating plots she can come up with, you know, the girl who's supposed to be her best friend and whom she loves so much that she wants to never be apart from her. I am not going to comment further on how marvelous it is to make the most tortured, saddest, abused character from the original show into a psychopath abusor who cackles delighted upon seeing her best friend and everyone around her suffer because trust me... I'd just fly into a pathetic sad rage. Instead, I am just gonna look at what it does to the show overall.

Higurashi has always felt a little dissociative, and that was by design. You had the kids in the close-knit town of Hinamizawa just hang out and have fun, and the flipside to that was all the violent murders that could happen depending on who caught the devastating illness this time around. Though the core of the outbreak could always be found in human sentiment. Jealousy, anger, alienation, distrust - these kinds of emotions were always there and with just a little viral influence spiraled out of control and into a tragedy. Sure, it may have not gotten that far if it wasn't for the paranonid delusions the virus caused, but it still told a lot about its main cast of six and their burdens. In this one however... it throws all that out of the window and instead goes for "bad person makes bad things happen because they find delight in it". I am absolutely ready to accept the reading I've seen of this show as a parody. But even if that was the intention, that doesn't change anything about the fact that unless you're super into torture porn - which I am not - I just don't think there's a whole lot to enjoy about this one.

There is a lot of reused content from Gou, not unlike a certain season of a show called Haruhi Suzumiya, that just reuses the same scenes with slight alterations or little moments of a different perspective inbetween. It's ungodly boring because you see know exactly where everything is going, yet it will still take 3 episodes to retread the same ground. You see good people suffering. Except there is no rhyme or reason to it, because you know exactly that the whole point is just to make Rika sad. You know, the person who spent a hundred years reliving the same couple days and dying horribly each and every time. Then there is sort of an "interlude" of two goddesses who are basically having a fight over... what exactly now? One feels empathy for the fate of Rika and Satoko while the other just sits back and enjoys the torture porn. Not to kinkshame, but... thats just not cool.

In the end, there is only one saving grace in this show, and that is the conclusion. Mind you, it's not a saving grace in the sense of "this was totally worth sitting through 12 episodes of torture porn, yes sirree". It's merely a final episode that moves on from the torture porn and instead just lets two childhood friends have a good ol fight over where their future is heading. What starts off with a supernatural battle flicking the girls through time and space eventually culminates in a fist fight between two twelve year olds, at the end of which they come to reaffirm their feelings for each other and arrive at the conclusion that it's okay if they just separate for a while and each do their own thing. If you disregard the fact that they both accepted the risk of killing each other for good with a magical sword, that conclusion is indeed much in the spirit of the original Higurashi. I may have even considered it worth the experience if it didn't involve sitting through so much bullshit beforehand.

In the end, I can't say that I regret watching the Higurashi Sequelboot in its entirety. Seeing all these characters in their pretty modern designs and just having some of the original Higurashi recreated was fun. Listening to all these voice actors reprise their roles from back when was fun. The atmosphere was tense and well-built - in Gou at least - which was also fun. And ultimately, the idea that Rika now has an eternal human companion is also to some degree comforting. And while Higurashi is one of the few shows that could actually benefit from a modern recreation, seeing this show just do its own thing was also interesting in its own right. I don't think I can recommend it overall - though if you're curious, it's more than enough to just watch the first and the two, maybe three final episodes for this one. Or better yet, just rewatch the original show and appreciate it with all your knowledge going in. This show definitely reminded me of my affection for the original, and while there are better means to that end, I sure think this one at least merits a closer look.

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May 19, 2022

Tribe Nine (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Preliminary (6/12 eps)

Sometimes you only really appreciate what you had once it's lost, and just how deeply it was embedded into everything else beings to tear everything else apart.

Well, enough with the dramatics - Tribe Nine never set itself up as anything other than a dumb action type of show. Let's play baseball, but this neon dystopian city is our playing field, and dying in the game is not only normal, but downright commonplace! Tragically though, this show immediately displayed that it was already sorely lacking half of what makes a show like this fun - proper directing to give the action weight and pazzazz. The matches, ... while kinda fun, don't convey any sense of where everyone is relative to each other, and it doesn't focus too much on setting any rules. It could still be fun with a rule of cool sorta deal, but it just doesn't have that either. It's just sorta bland.

But nevertheless, the first three episodes were enjoyable. It had big sections of these kids just fooling around, giving each other silly nicknames, and everyone reacting to the zanyness that is their leader, Kamiya Shun, delightfully portrayed by Akira Ishida who is obviously having a lot of fun. It felt like the show, while not all that well-balanced, didn't take itself too seriously and that despite all the brutality, this show still gives off the vibe of a group of outcasts who found each other in this unlikeliest of places and are just trying, day in day out.

And then episode 3 happens.

I won't say why, but by the end of it, a huge shift to the general, somewhat comfy dynamic occurs that just... initially, it effectively pulls out the rug from under the main cast and lets them adjust to new circumstances, but after that? It still had some minor ideas I kind of liked... but the one other thing this show had going for it - the dynamic of the cast members with each other - is gone. There is no longer anything to really care about.

That's not to say a big mood shift is a bad thing, or that I think the show is bad because it wasn't going "my way", but just that it lost the one thing it had going for it despite kinda botching its initial premise. And with that one thing gone... the episodes just blended into each other, feeling like a random baseball show with just more brutality to it. And that kind of thing isn't even done well here. If I want outlandish violence, or if I want baseball, I have plenty of better options - and heck, if I want both there are Jun Maeda baseball episodes that deliver on this premise much better, safe for the gore. So while this show isn't the worst thing ever, it's uneven, and worst of all, honestly just pretty boring.

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May 17, 2022

Sasaki to Miyano (Anime) add

Recommended

Want some sweet BL but without all the bullshit toxic tropes? Then boy, do I have the show for you!

Personally, I am open to all kinds of romance shows, with Yaoi and Yuri being even more interesting to me than the same old hetero high school romance. There's just one problem; By now, there are plenty of fun Yuri options to pick from - and I bet plenty more that I am excited about, yet haven't gotten around to! - whereas with Yaoi, it's like a minefield if you aren't into stuff like assault and cookie-cutter seme/uke constellations and tropes. Not to say that once ... in a while, a show with a more "problematic" constellation like student/teacher, age-gap and so on doesn't also please, but the sheer lack of variety here is a big issue. It makes the whole genre seem like it's only meant to appeal to a very, very specific demographic.

Luckily, I came across this little gem and had a thoroughly pleasant time with it.

It tells the story of two high-school kids - a kouhai and a senpai, one year apart, who over the course of over a year slowly become friends, become more and more interested in each other and then slowly fall in love. But then, why does it have to be a BL? What makes this one so special? Well, it's the fact that it was clearly made by someone with a lot of affection for the genre, yet also enough self-awareness to ground the show and make it actually endearing. We got Miyano, a young man who is really into BL even though he isn't "into it in that way", and his Senpai Sasaki, who ends up asking for a manga recommendation and then slowly becomes more interested in BL as a storytelling genre as well as his cute Kouhai. And both of the boys get plenty, plenty of room to work with their feelings. There's a lot of consideration, thought process and desire that doesn't seem to match in the beginning. Yet this show also avoids becoming too heady by having its main couple talk to plenty of colorful, fun side characters, all of which can tell what's going on much sooner and can gently help to nudge them both in the right direction.

And that is also where the BL commentary comes into play; it's light, but it's undeniable. Miyano questions the true nature of his feelings for his senpai a lot, and in no small part due to the common BL clichés. He's a small, somewhat girlish-looking boy with a cute face. Would he have to be the Uke? But that would place his senpai as the cooler, older Seme. But that doesn't seem right! Can't he be cool, too? It's weird for him to find this tall, supposedly manlier senpai cute, isn't it?

And Sasaki isn't just cool either - he wrestles with his desire for his kouhai, he wants to touch his hands, his hair, his face, but also wants to be sure his kouhai is comfortable. He doesn't want to do something just out of desire, so he constantly makes sure to give his kouhai all the room he can.

It's just all around a pleasant show, with two good kids who give each other all the space and consideration while also having a real connection that many other yaoi works are devoid of. They have interests they share, they have a wonderful chemistry, they more or less share a friend group, give and take a few, who are all supportive of them. They develop and think about their feelings each in their own pace and it's really well-done. Add to that the shows somewhat mellow, soft presentation with plenty of warm oranges and pinks, and a lot of soft shapes that kinda just float in space softly, and perfectly communicate blossoming feelings and the mood of each scene.

In conclusio, this show may not do anything revolutionary, but sometimes just doing something ordinary really well and being a good time through it all is enough. Sometimes just a sweet little romance is all you need. And in a genre desperately lacking grounded romance, this is one solid entry I can easily recommend to everyone.

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May 16, 2022

Shenmue the Animation (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

Shenmue was, at its time, a marvel of a game, an accomplishment in more ways than one. The first true Open World Game loong before the genre became popular. And while that certainly was an impressive feat, the game is probably even more remembered for its characters and its philosophy.

And the latter ones, the most important parts, are what this Anime actually managed to capture really well.

Ryo, despite not being an overly interesting or complex character, is nevertheless very likable and even endearing as a protagonist. He's straight as an arrow, which initially makes him fit neatly into the "young boy on a revenge quest" ... archetype, but together with all the other characters, he actually develops very nicely alongside the people he forms a connection with. And while the gamey elements of this shows roots are very apparent - learn a new technique by finding out who teaches it and running a quest for them - this show actually takes a fairly clever approach by not having the people explain any sort of technique to Ryo, but instead guide him towards learning not techniques, but principles of what it really means and takes to learn their specific brand of Kung-Fu. Ryo starts off wanting to learn as much as he can as fast as he can to face off the murderer of his father, but is sort of forced to slow down by circumstances and instead gets to know the people of his hometown and later Hong Kong. And it works wonderfully. While the characters aren't terribly complex, they all bounce off of Ryo's straightforwardness very well and generally add to a nice atmosphere of community and Self-Betterment. He lost his father, but he finds plenty of other mentor figures, rivals and more to help him on his way. It may be a very videogamey plot, but it's just well-done enough to engage. I did enjoy my time with this show.

Though as well as those elements work, I also have to point out where this one flounders... and that just has to go to the production.

The stuff that makes this show worthwhile - the fact that it manages to capture at its core what made Shenmue so endearing - has all been taken from the game just rearranged and repaced ever so slightly, whereas the unique strengths and chances of animation just aren't utilized whatsoever.

Sure, the show has a couple nice shots, nice renditions of the games soundtrack and such, but... it's nevertheless very stiff and in large parts kind of boring to look at. The character designs look rather bland, the fight scenes - for the most part - feel unexciting and unengaging and the direction is also just somewhat passable.

It's a bit of a shame, and after my praise this may sound a little overly harsh, but... despite me enjoying the story and the characters to a fair degree, I cannot emphasize enough that this is despite the show being generally boring to look at. It is a serious flaw, especially considering that aside from its content, Shenmue was also praised for just how beautiful, ambitious and out there the game was back in the 90s.

A beautiful and ambitious game deserves a shiny, ambitious production, but it's just not here. Though I suppose the fact that this show actually made me even more curious about the games needs to be honored, too.

In conclusion, the Shenmue Anime is generally watchable and has fun characters and moments, but it falls flat as an adaptation due to its fairly lackluster production and presentation, which renders it a fairly average experience overall. I'll go check out the games, though, so I can just hope that at least reaches a few more people like me to go and discover the games for themselves.

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Feb 25, 2021

Fugou Keiji: Balance:Unlimited (Anime) add

Not Recommended

A rich kid that throws money at problems to make them go away paired up with a young cop who takes his job very seriously, almost to the point of being overbearing? Even as a comedy, that premise could've led to fun scenario and nice growth for both of these characters and their incredibly different lives, even more so when you combine that with family drama and criminal procedures.

But sadly, the effort spent on this show was not distributed evenly at all.

To start; what makes a good buddy-story of two incredibly different characters being forced to work together towards a common goal? I hope y'all ... paid attention in chemistry class - but jokes aside, there needs to be a balance. In order for characters like this to bounce off of each other and bring life into the show and their surroundings, there has to be giving and taking. Both characters need to bring a thing or two to the relationship for the other to take away from it - an equal exchange of sorts.

Sadly, the relationship between these two cops is hardly satisfying. Inherent inequality of characters in terms of status for example can be used for a variety of creative jokes, but in this one case, it's always one and the same. The rich kid is an antisocial jerk all the way through with not even a hint of development or change, and the cop has a bit of an arc later on that feels very shoehorned-in - and even then, still leaves him pretty much unchanged by the end. The "joke" is always the same as well; Rich kid abuses the cop or is just a jerk in general towards him one way or another, and the cop can't do anything about it. It gets boring really fast. And don't get me started on the side characters.

The majority of the side cast is made up of the main duo's coworkers - each and everyone of which is one-note and could be easily described in one sentence or less. Foodie. Butt Monkey. Old Cop. Soft Chief. They each have basically one trait and all of their jokes center around that trait. Sure, one of them actually contributes to the plot later on, but even then, everything about him is predictable and cliché and you have a vast pool of movies and series to choose from that did this very thing better. The other half of the side cast is made up of the rich kid's family. And the same applies; a sister with a big brother compley usually played for laughs, but it honestly gets downright creepy, and then there's the grandma and a butler. There might be a little more to them than what meets the eye initially, but again; I've seen it done elsewhere and done better.

Does this show at least entertain on the basis of being a mix of compatible genres?
Well, the first episode would have you believe so, yes. It's kind of absurd how used the rich kid is to solving his problems just by having money. It's absurd just how little regard he has for other people. It could have worked as a comedy that dares to go completely over the top with the concept. But instead, after a couple of actually entertaining one-off-episodes that at least hint that the rich kid has a bit of a heart or is a normal person after all, everything after that just drives into drama like a mud pile in the middle of the road. It's slow. It's boring. It's predictable and lame. The main mystery that is set up by the middle of the show has one of the most boring solution I've seen in quite a while. Nobody changes and nothing gets better. Rich kid's little human moments from the prior episodes disappear completely. Sometimes he will know how to deal with a bomb filled with poisonous gas and other times he will stare at all those weird commoner things. It becomes hard to watch the cop try and put effort into understanding him and making things work, only to be the only one to do so or to even care. They look like they've been forced into a group project in middle school, not like adults trying to pull themselves together. It's not funny and it's not entertaining, it's just mildly annoying at best.

The only thing that kind of works is the production. The show has sleek, elegant character designs and the action is fun. One or two gags land, especially in the earlier episodes. But as soon as the plot kicks in, it drags everything down. And with a genre like this, that is common thorughout all kinds of media all over the world, you have plenty of better options. Trust me.

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