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Dec 22, 2013
As someone who hasn't good much background on both Jazz music and Japan during the 1960s, I was wary of watching it at first.
And yet it succeeds in its combination of josei, drama and high school slice of life. The show features Kaoru, the socially-anxious new kid in a quiet, rather remote town, who has been blessed with piano-playing skills. Through jazz, he finds the greatest of comrades, a family and even romance.
The story, as most josei goes, isn't anything too intense. It just shows the life of a jazz-playing boy as he goes through high school with his friends. I love, though, its
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take on that part of life. It's so realistic, I managed to relate to it despite the fact that I wasn't even part of band back in high school. The series starts as strongly and ends, if possible, even more.
Romance and melodrama is thrown here and there, and while it wasn't its strongest point, it just felt very REAL. I've been there, through all the confusion and inability to communicate feelings. At times I found myself wondering if it's odd for me to be able to relate so much to Japanese highschoolers in the 1960s when it's 2013 and I live in the Philippines.
The pace of the story is rather relaxed, as there really isn't much going on. But that's fine as you obviously wouldn't be looking for action here (it's an anime about high school jazz-players for chrissake). The leisurely pace it has is very refreshing.
The characters were all well-rounded. It makes use of archetypes but never just relies on it. Everyone feels amazingly real. It also helps that there is a very limited cast of characters and they were all given time to develop. They all have layers to them and are much much more than what can be considered their outer personality. Everyone is likable and unlikable in their own ways, just like everyone is. Another thing that I like is that there are quirks as easter eggs placed everywhere that they didn't feel the need to put out in the open, such as the fact that Sen is left-handed (I took note of this when they are studying for his make-up test!).
The art is rather... vintage. At times I wasn't particularly fond of it-- it sometimes came off as someone who just recently discovered the gradient and smudge tool on Photoshop-- but it did manage to set the tone for the show. It can come off as plain but it worked. It gave off a nostalgic vibe from which the show benefited greatly. The backgrounds at times, like when it showed the church or Kaoru's house, were exceptional. I wonder if it was rotoscoped because it looked so amazing. How I wish they could have kept it constant all through out though. Wonderful lighting direction was present all throughout the show.
You would expect music to be the strongest part but I wouldn't say so. It was fine, but not exceptional. The opening and ending themes were rather disappointing for a music anime but it wasn't horrible. Just not what I had in mind, I guess. The choice of music was good for the most part, making use of various jazz artists and the Beatles to make it feel more like the 60s. The jam sessions scenes were amazing, obviously.
Overall, if you want a simple show with solid character and story development, with good music and pretty art, then this show is for you. It is extremely well-made, a perfect example of a josei anime done properly. The ending didn't leave me disappointed which was what I expected at the first sign of the love polygon. It's worth a shot, at any rate, if you want a break from all the heavy action and overly cheesy harem animes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Dec 22, 2013
From the cover photo itself, everyone can tell that Free! is most definitely not an anime for everyone. It is, in fact, an anime catered towards the female population; a rarity in the world where most shows are made for men. Put away the unexplainably perky boobs and long, long legs, boys, this fanservice is all about broad shoulders, abs and biceps.
Free! is anything but complex. It's about as basic as a slice of life anime can get. You have four boys who went to the same swimming club as children before one of them moves away and later coming back in a different swimming
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team. It's a high school comedy-drama, nothing that should make your head spin. The plot takes its time with progression, at a pace that is rather slow but not dragging. At 12 episodes there really wasn't much to be going on about and Free! makes use of it and keeps up its leisurely pace.
The characters are heavily reliant on tropes. They aren't anyone no one has ever seen before. You have the broody main character, his cheerful gentle giant of a best friend/sidekick, the mischievous ~shota~ and the very angsty frienemy who is motivated by pressure to beat the MC. Perhaps the only really memorable ones are Gou who serves as the female representation in the anime and Rei who subverts the serious megane type to show an extremely goofy side. Gou is important because she acts just like the target viewers of the show-- she's a typical fangirl, fawning over the swimmers and their bodies, shipping the boys with one another. Still, the characters didn't really feel flat, they had enough of their own motivations, quirks and fears to feel three-dimensional.
The artwork was amazing and the character design was incredible. The way it's different from other fanservice-reliant animes is that they kept the body proportions right. Comparing the main characters' bodies to actual swimmers wouldn't be ridiculous as they're more or less the same. There's also variations in their body types: long and lean are Haru, Rin and Rei; large and well-built is Makoto; and small but compact is Nagisa. On the backgrounds and other details, the artist did well. From the droplets of water on their eyelashes to the leaves of the trees, nothing seemed underdone. The animation of the boys swimming were great, their strokes flowed well and it was done smoothly, just overall excellent.
I didn't focus on the sound during watching, mainly because they seemed so natural. The opening and ending songs were great, though! The music and the video themselves were highly entertaining. The boys' characters can really be seen in it, no matter how ridiculous it all was (the way Haru was dancing so unenthusiastically and just kind of swaying around in the club while everyone was showing off their maddest dancing skills was hilarious).
It's fairly obvious that it is targeted towards female fangirls, especially those who can be considered fujoshis. The humor is silly, some of the plot progressions ridiculous but it all works well for the show. I'm not ashamed to say I find this quality entertainment.
As a conclusion, it's a very good show that managed to deliver despite its at times over-the-top premise. It overcomes possible problems with good art, relatable characters and very high rewatchability. Like I said, it's not for everyone but as part of its target audience, it did very well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Dec 22, 2013
Baccano! has got to be be my most favorite anime of all time.
The story may seem confusing in the beginning, which is not hard to imagine why. The anime is made up of three main storylines divided into three consecutive years, with more or less a different set of characters. Initially the plot may seem too much to handle for most viewers but as the show goes on, you can see these seemingly unrelated threads weave together to form a wonderful, interconnected story.
What makes Baccano! different from a lot of animes out there is the setting. It takes place in the 1930s and in America,
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moreover. It tries its hardest to emulate the Prohibition Era with its use of jazz music and New York slang. I've seen both the subbed and dubbed version; they were both great but the dubbed version gave it an authenticity you can't find in the sub, which is not what you can say for most anime which has been given both treatments. The opening song is just a-m-a-z-i-n-g. Sure, it's just one featuring most of the characters being themselves to the tune of a wonderful jazz tune but it /works/. The ending song isn't much but it's still wonderfully subtle, downplaying the craziness that went down in the episode.
The artwork was quite good, though it's nothing too different. It's all the details that make it worthwhile though, and the fact that they didn't make all of the characters amazingly beautiful and none of them looked alike (except for those related, obviously). The backgrounds were great and I thought its use of darker, more neutral colors were fitting.
The characters were all so well-developed and incredibly diverse. Yes, most of them were ridiculously cartoonish but it worked. With such a short show, you'd think that such a large cast would make it a pain to watch. But no, it wouldn't be likely for you to confuse them given how unique all of them are (the OP was great in helping us memorize them and besides, with names like Jacuzzi Splot, Luck Gandor, Huey Laforet, who'd be likely to forget?).
I was completely starstruck by the anime. Yes, it starts out slowly but once you get past the first two episodes, I guarantee that you'll be in for an amazing whirlwind of an anime. I've been in love with it after my first viewing and never looked back since. I understand the anime didn't get that much views in its initial run back in 2007 but don't let that stop you from watching it. The show had many competition in its season and I'm sad that it caused them to discontinue it. The anime had so much potential, and having read some of the source material, there are way more they could make from it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Dec 22, 2013
Boy, oh boy. This is a rather short anime so I decided to dedicate time to watch it. While I wouldn't say it was a mistake, given the chance, I would rather not have seen it at all.
The story is interesting indeed, especially people who are suckers for mysteries like me. It's based on a video game of the same name, however, this adaptation managed to do so many things wrong and its main failure lies in the lack of time for development.
The class trials were just really poorly executed. 1-2 episodes per trial (including the crime, the investigation and the trial itself in that
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short a span) just doesn't cut it. The twists came off so suddenly, without any prior build-up and just comes off as poorly-done. What's the point of creating a mystery if you don't give the audience a chance to even formulate their own theories?
I found the characters lacking as well. Given that this was a show featuring extreme characters, they weren't really quite made to be realistic. Yet we weren't given a chance to see them grow, to even /see/ how they are. When they died, I mostly just went "oh, okay" because I didn't manage to form an emotional attachment to anyone. I especially wish the main character could have been given more well-rounded, seeing as how we were watching the story from his point of view. We just didn't know anything about him and yet we had to trust him as there was no other way to watch it. Aside from Kirigiri, no one else was molded to be a somewhat three-dimensional character. The way the show portrayed the characters, no one was very memorable except maybe for Monobear and Kirigiri.
Now, to the anime's credit, atleast there's the soundtrack and art. The seiyuus were mostly all right, but the one who voiced Monobear deserves praise. The rest wasn't quite as notable but the music was intense and gave way to tension that wouldn't even be existent without it.
The artwork, though a bit... unique, gave the anime the vibe it should have. I found the purple blood to be a nice touch. Details were on the spot and I thought the angularness and thick lines were perfect. The character designs were very particular. The animation of the executions was also a wonderful touch, it gave the scenes a stranger, trippier, more intense feel. Danganronpa wouldn't even be half the anime it was without the very original art.
To sum it up, I don't think anyone would be satisfied with how it ended up. Original fans from the game would be pissed at the poor adaptation, new viewers would just be confused with what /exactly/ is going on (I sure was). If the anime could have been extended up to, say, 25 episodes to give way to character development then I'm pretty sure this could have ended up great but the way it is now just leaves a gigantic room for improvement.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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