Anime Review: Anne Happy

Continuing in my recent trend of reviewing mediocre anime, I’d like to bring your attention to the next waste of time series. Are you feeling the emptiness ever since shows like Gochiusa and Kinmoza’s latest seasons finished airing? Do you feel the itch to satisfy that ever-gnawing craving for watching mindless colorful moving pictures of cute moe girls doing nothing at all interesting? I know you are. I hear you breathing. That means you’re alive and if you’re alive, apparently that means you need a constant stream of this garbage airing during all seasons of the year. Your favorite pusher, the anime industry, has mostly figured out that your life support systems are connected directly to this stuff and if you run out you’ll likely die or, at least, have withdrawals. So never fear, because…

Anime Review: Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

Do you like your harem shows with some semblance of a plot? Well step right up and take a gander at our next contestant! It’s got the gaggle of assorted flavors girls who all have the exact same body except for breast size, height, and hair style. There’s the tomboy one, the kind flustered one, the prissy rich one, the ditzy one, the one with a weird business (lolicon cafe)… wait, I feel like that last one is just obvious comic relief. But anyway, this time our required-milquetoast-lead boy is rich! And his dad suddenly dies! And he’s gonna need to take over the company soon but wait! There’s the possibility his dad had an illegitimate daughter at some point! Scandalous! He needs to figure out who it could be before he starts dating for a company wife because it’ll be a disaster if he accidentally kisses his sister! It’s edge of your pantsu pseudo-incest — your favorite!

Anime Review: Kyoukai no Kanata

It’s true I’m a sucker for a high quality production series but I’m starting to see why a lot of people walk away unimpressed from some of them. No matter how good looking, how fluid the animation, or what have you… if the moving pictures on the screen confuse the shit out of you, you’re probably not going to have a good time even if the way that one glasses girl’s hair moves is particularly detailed and satisfying. And, yeah… I get that. I do. I’m still a sucker for good animation, though…

Anime Review: Isshuukan Friends

Sigh. It’s my old nemesis, memory-related plot devices. It’s such a lazy, unrealistic contrivance and rarely is it ever a good choice but rather a convenient way to get out of a tight writing spot. I don’t require world-class quality authorship in my anime screenplays but come on. If you’re reaching for the amnesia cheat then you’ve lost sight of what’s important. And it’s doubly worse when your entire storyline relies on this one fact, nay cannot escape it narratively, continuously circling back on it to revisit the amnesia element as a central non-human antagonistic force. Well, here we go…

Anime Review: Himouto! Umaru-chan

An often unfortunate fact about the anime biz as a whole is that it is entirely self-aware of its place. It knows that it is a relatively niche medium and it also knows that, for the most part, a significant portion of anime viewers are not casual ones but ravenous beasts consuming series after series that’s churned out. It means it knows its audience well and it plays to their desires, making almost a sort of feedback loop. We get into watching anime because we like what it’s doing and somewhere along the way anime starts to specifically do things because we like that and want more of it. Moe as a concept is probably the most widespread phenomenon of this sort, such that many shows every season are thinly veiled excuses wrapped around a nougaty moe center.

Anime Review: Shamanic Princess

I grew up on weird obscure titles found in our small town VHS rental store as well as, a bit later, whatever I could scrounge up from the deep reaches of the early internet. Which is to say, not much, because back then there was no YouTube nor Crunchyroll. At first there were a few websites, then there was DirectConnect, then shitty KaZaA, and, if you were adventurous (like me), there were the archaic-but-useful IRC channels for the various anime fansub groups. Ah yes, XDCC. How you saturated my poor slow internet connection with lovely AVI files. I still have hundreds of CDs burned with those old treasures. Later we would get the wonders of BitTorrent but until it caught on, things were rough. I mention all this because it pertains to the old title I finally, after so many years, got around to.

Anime Review: Shingeki no Kyojin

Well… shit. Where does one begin when reviewing the titan that is Attack on Titan? Yeah, you know the one. Maybe you didn’t see it or still plan to or saw some screenshots and figured it wasn’t your thing. Maybe you watched it every week as it aired. Regardless, you’ve at least heard of it. I know you have. During its run, and long after, you couldn’t go anywhere near Crunchyroll or any anime community and not see an ad, a picture, or a mention. The looming titan face with exposed muscle and bone is now practically iconic (see below). There are several spinoffs and tons of merchandise. AoT dominated everything, at least until Kill la Kill  and then Sword Art Online II dethroned it (but I’ll deal with those behemoths another day). Don’t even get me started on all of the parodies. It was fantastically popular and still is, and the second season is just around the corner now.

Anime Review: Diabolik Lovers

Cool colors, dark vignettes, and high contrast do nothing to innovate yet are certainly appropriate and striking. But alas, the actual result is that of a frustrated high school girl’s fanfic of “dark gothic vampires” that inevitably becomes a masturbation fantasy of her repressed desires for sexy despicable devils to consume her innocent life and literally fight over her body. It would be deplorable in an anti-feminist way, despite the tell-tale trappings and obvious catering to a female-dominated audience, if it weren’t just down-right silly and sad.

Anime Review: Plastic Nee-san

I have long been led to believe that the domain of the three-minute mini-series were for the adaptations and ideas that, well, to be charitable… couldn’t secure real funding. Maybe they’re too risky, maybe too niche (even by anime standards), or maybe it’s sometimes just all the money and talent is busy with other things. So for the rare gag series like Nichijou that lands a full cour with a top studio like KyoAni there’s bound to be dozens of others that fall to the wayside. Such is the nature of the biz, I suppose. But all this means that when I see a new series pop up and find that it has a running time of roughly 3 minutes per episode I’ve learned to scale back my expectations. It’s not that they can’t still be good but just that most tend to be only okay, relatively speaking.

Anime Review: Nagi no Asukara

Wow. Well… I should have known once I saw this was a P.A. Works production. It’s beautiful and pushes all of my buttons. The animation is phenomenal (as expected anymore from them), Manaka is adorbs, the osananajimi vs. newcomer storyline hits me right in my vulnerable spots, and the setting is nicely inventive and stylistic and adds to the charm and the presentation. The music is above average, with nice OP/ED themes, and the sound and voice work is equally great. And it’s also a full two cour that doesn't drag? Oh dear…

Anime Review: Kin-iro Mosaic

Super cute, colorful, and charismatic. Do you revel in lolicakes? This show excels in loli by putting on a fantastic presentation. It’s got fairly high production value and it shows by having gorgeous storybook backgrounds, a swelling soundtrack, and more cute little girls being friends and cute together then you’ll know what to do with. Pedobear approved! And did I forget to mention the Engrish? Because there’s lots of it. Part of the setup is that one of the main girls is from England, so… yeah. It’s pretty bad rad. (No, they don’t try for any British Engrish… probably for the best.) A lot of later jokes and conversations revolve around this foreigner shtick particularly with regards to blonde hair… despite the main cast including girls with red and blue hair. Who knows, maybe in this universe Japanese people are limited to a Ro G. Biv palette of follicles.

Anime Review: Golden Time

It seems like every time I review a genuine romance anime (as opposed to one of the many fluff pieces) I’m constantly making comparisons to Toradora! and revisiting my opinion of it. True enough, I keep coming away with the same general conclusion: I was probably too dismissive of its merits in hindsight. Perhaps having seen so many inferior series since then has given me renewed appreciation but I still don’t think it excuses Toradora!’s many faults. And, really, is it that much of a compliment when I’m effectively just saying “Wow, you’re not so ugly compared to these other girls!”

Anime Review: Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyōbi

Toying around with Christian imagery and ideas is not a foreign concept to anime (with Evangelion being the most extreme example) but it is often a gimmick or confusing at best. I attribute this mostly to the awkward handling of Western religions in general for Japan, but whatever the cause it is usually either a bit cringey or silly (or both). Fortunately, that isn’t the case here but that may be because other than some lip service there isn’t really anything terribly religious going on. Instead, we get an often clever, challenging, and curious take on death and ethics and so on, mired at times by a confusing delivery that’s trying too hard and a short length that leaves things a bit curtailed though not wholly unfinished.

Anime Review: Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

Time and time again, I feel like I end up defending myself a little bit in these reviews, desperately scrounging at times to justify why I watch (to completion) and subsequently review (no small effort) so much transparently commercial otaku-bait. I get it: the anime genre itself is, on the whole, fairly niche and uniquely pandered to. Most production companies know they aren’t going to score widespread appeal and so deliberately opt to zero in on their reliable base market of late-teen-to-twenties males who already watch and, perhaps most importantly, buy anime merchandise. It’s why anime home releases are so expensive. And so it’s also little surprise you see so many clichés that never seem to die. I’ve been wallowing in the weeaboo now for about fifteen years and I’ve pretty much seen it all. There are countless samey-shows and me-too series. And yet, here I am… about to spend ~3300 words on yet another one.

Anime Review: Tonari no Seki-kun

As someone who, generally speaking, detested school and the many thousands of hours I spent waiting for the bell to ring, I can sympathize with the desire to zone out and just doodle or whatever to pass the time. Of course, in my case that’s about as far as it went; I never did try to sneak in comic books or food or even a Walkman. (Yes, I said a Walkman. Look it up if you’re that young.) Maybe I just didn’t have appropriately sized balls or simply the requisite “fuck it” attitude. And I’m not sayin’ you should do those things… but I understand.

Anime Review: Miss Monochrome

I have been a long, long time fan of Horie Yui ever since seeing (and obsessing over) Love Hina so many years ago. She’s delightfully talented in both speaking and singing roles and she’s managed to maintain that for well over a decade now (though even her great talent can’t save some series). So when I heard she was pushing to produce a short series on an original character of her own I was definitely curious. It’s rare that the world is bestowed with triple-threats like the too-charming Justin Timberlake but they do happen so… maybe Miss Horie is good at character design and synopsis too? Hell, she’s been in the biz long enough to see what works and doesn’t work, right?

Anime Review: Kaitou Reinya

As an anime and weirdo Japanophile who’s a bit long in the tooth I’ve been around the JPop block long enough. Even so, while I have long had a cursory knowledge of its existence, I can’t say that I’ve ever shown any genuine interest in Morning Musume. I thought it was a TV show for the longest time and apparently it is closer to the more recently popular AKB48, though I’m almost certain I am probably oversimplifying things and making some Momusu nerd cry somewhere. That said, when a former member (or is it current? I have no idea, they’ve churned through more members than Jenna Jameson) does a weird comedy spin-off animated short thing, well… I’m not really sure what to think because any notoriety or novelty is largely lost on me.

Anime Review: R.O.D. / Read or Die

Ah yes, R.O.D.; it’s been a long time coming. I still remember how fantastically popular it was back when it originally came out in 2001. Footage of it appeared in countless AMVs of the time and for years after. It was praised for being refreshingly original and action-packed with some high-quality animation for its time. Alas, though, I never got around to seeing it until this year. And I’m sorry for being so late to the party because I really don’t think I can tell you all anything you probably don’t already know at this point.

Anime Review: Nerawareta Gakuen

Now this… this is a good movie. Superbly animated, wonderfully executed, and a joy to sit through. Other than the slightly confusing ending I’d still say it’s damn near flawless for what it is and sets out to do. It mixes school romance, replete with blushing beauties, a childhood friend, a goofy nice guy, and a dashing new transfer student; with a sci-fi twist of telepathy and time travel. Sure, there are a ton of clichés in this stew but damn if it doesn’t taste delicious.

Anime Review: Gekkan Shōjo Nozaki-kun

It’s no secret that I tend to gravitate towards simplistic comedy series featuring plenty of pleasing cutesy girly shit. I admit, it’s an easy trap to fall into, no less because anime has evolved over the years to perfect it. Hyper-realizing embodiments of moe has become the default approach these days and it can be both frustrating and fun. The interchangeability of most series might be more distressing if they weren’t still generally enjoyable.