Category: Anime Reviews

I’m a fan of the small and relatively unknown company APPP. Nowadays, they’re just busy doing (pretty excellent) inbetween animation for all sorts of series, but ten years ago they actually made their own array of series. Those series stood out because of their simple, yet very imaginative and original premises. Premises that include a runaway hospital bed, an angel and a devil caught in the same body, and yes. They were also the ones who went with the premise of a show focusing on a middle aged guy saving the universe with hard rock. They showed that you can create so many interesting stories without relay trying hard, if you’re just willing to just ignore conventions.

Kurogane Communication is the same: it’s premise is so deceptively simple: we have a girl who is the last living human on earth. There’s so much interesting stuff you can get out of that. The animation is simple, the budget is small, the story moves slowly and it doesn’t try to build up an overly complicated plot. We never really know exactly why humanity nearly died out beyond a few hints here and there. It’s really trying to be simple, yet engaging. And to me, it succeeded.

This series takes an in-depth look at loneliness. Haruka, the lead character, may live together with a bunch of robots, and while this is a series where robots can act just like humans, there still is something missing. The relationship she develops with them as she tries to live her daily life is the highlight of the series, especially with the robot who eventually takes up the position of a mother figure in her life. This show really takes a look at the nature of robots, even if they were to get enough artificial intelligence to become as smart as humans, and what it means to be alive. It’s definitely a unique little series (the episodes are also just 12 minutes long each).

Also helping are a top notch portrayal of the lead character, Haruka: she’s well acted and is a great lead character to follow. As for the rest of the cast, there is a bit of a catch here: they’re nearly all robots with various levels of artificial intelligence. The dumber ones can get on your nerves, but the creators did this intentionally, and over time their purpose in the series will become more than clear. The smart robots by the way are all great to follow.

It’s overall a heart-warming series that makes great use of its bleak themes. The storyline that pops up in the second half does come across as forced here and there, but it has good points that it wants to make, and it ends with a satisfying conclusion. The production values behind this one are low, so there are quite a number of distorted frames and the animation certainly does not look as good as APPP’s other series, but this is a series with its heart at the right place. If you want to watch a calming series that’s something different from usual, then this is an interesting recommendation.

Storytelling:	8/10 – At times it does get a bit forced, but it’s well paced, quiet, and interesting.
Characters:	9/10 – The strength of the characters lies in their simplicity, and how it still can create memorable relationships between them.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Simple and low-budget, but the great art and soundtrack are enough to not make this one a major flaw.
Setting:	8/10 – The premise of this show is pure gold. Simple, but so effective, and it shows that creativity is far from ran out. It’s deliberately vague on its details, and that gives it a very interesting effect.

Suggestions:
– Uninhabited Planet Survive
– Black Heaven
– Omoshi Magical Theatre Risky Safety

Aah, apologies for the delay, I’ve been really busy for the past weeks with all kinds of appointments. I finally got the chance to check out what pretty much is the single most anticipated movie of 2011: Madhouse worked for seven years on this thing. They put their top animators on the project (to the point where its production schedule even ruined that of Iron Man’s). So, did it live up to its hype?

Well, let’s get the following out of the way first: while it perhaps did not have the best animation I’ve ever seen, I will say that it’s without a doubt within the top 10 of best animated anime of all time. Possibly even the top 5. The thing with this movie isn’t just that it has unique designs: every single shot is imaginative, and the amount of shots with really fluent animation that has characters moving in all kinds of interesting ways is amazing. This could only have been done with a tremendous budget, and they make the eye candy within this movie virtually limitless. You have the over the top action scenes, but even the quiet scenes look absolutely gorgeous due to the amount of subtle movements that are in them. The best parts was the part by Shinya Ohira: they actually gave him full freedom in creating a truly gorgeous scene.

So, the visuals are absolutely amazing. But what about the rest of the movie? Well, the setting is really imaginative, plus the entire concept of basing your movie round a race also isn’t something we’ve seen in a long while. This movie found an interesting way to still have a ton of explosions and over the top action scenes, and the amount of ideas that has been put into this movie is very commendable.

The weakest part is probably the characterization: it just isn’t as good as most of the other top movies out there, and doesn’t really seem to focus on them anyway. The characters are all interesting and likable, the main characters have a neat and down to earth backstory, but beyond that there is little that sets them apart: the cast of this movie is just too large and there are too many side-characters who are just uninteresting and seriously were in need of more depth. This is the most noticeable with the bad guys: nearly all of them are just random one-sided goons.

The ending is indeed predictable, but I didn’t find that a major issue. The build-up of the climax of this movie was excellent, and I really liked the ending for how it stayed true to itself, and how it didn’t pretend to be anything more than what it was, while at the same time having a number of interesting stories behind it. It’s a well balanced movie that knows when to pack some action, and when to just be quiet and let itself build up.

When you go into this, don’t expect the best movie ever, because it isn’t. It remains a really good movie though, and if it’s a visual orgasm you want, you really can’t go wrong here.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Simple story, but effective execution and balancing, with over the top action scenes that work.
Characters:	7/10 – I expected more of this. They just are too one-sided and there are too many one-dimensional characters.
Production-Values:	10/10 – Incredibly high budget, tons and tons of eye candy and fluid animation.
Setting:	9/10 – A ton of neat ideas were put into this, and the premise is simple, yet works really well.

Suggestions:
– Macross Frontier – Itsuwari no Utahime
– Trigun – Badlands Rumble
– Trava – Fist Planet

So, Towa no Quon has finally been released. I’m not sure whether I got the full version of the first of six movies, but I watched something of about forty minutes in length. And I will be honest here: a lot of hype went into Towa no Quon, and it has not lived up to that yet. I want to emphasis the word “yet”, because it does have potential, but this first movie cold have been better.

The promo art for this movie looked really good, and I’ll get to the actual production values below, but behind that lies a surprisingly mundane premise: we live in a world where people have superpowers. The good guys (who are mostly teenagers who have powers themselves) want to protect those people, while the bad guys want to… I guess either kill them or exploit their powers through force. It’s all deceptively cliched. The scenarios also did not bring any depth to this concept to this movie yet nor were there any hints, beyond a bunch of sad pasts.

On top of that, it also has fairly bland characters: most are one-dimensional, and even though there are a few adults amongst the good guys, they all stand in the shadows of the teenagers who go out and save the day. The acting is either unimpressive or rather annoying, and none of the characters stands out so far, aside from an obnoxiously nice main character. The villains are also not very intimidating and pretty incompetent at their jobs, not to mention the amount of techno-babble that pops up once in a while.

The storytelling, pacing and animation are very good though. This show may not have gotten a real movie budget, but it does have a number of really talented animators working on the action scenes, and they make the action scenes a feast for the eyes, with detailed movements, bold actions and excellent choreography. The soundtrack is also pretty good, and the movie was well paced, with few points that dragged on. Even shows with cliches can be great, and these are the ingredients that can actually make this work for Towa no Quon in the long run.

It’s also not that all of the characters have bland actors. There are a few characters here and there that look like they can become very interesting to watch over time. At the moment though, they’re a bit overshadowed by the bland ones. This movie series needs time. Can the upcoming five movies make use of that?

Storytelling:	8/10 – A well balanced movie with good build-up, though there’s too much techno babble.
Characters:	7/10 – It’s fine for the creators to hold back and all, but at the moment the characters are too bland and one-dimensional for a standalone movie.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Nothing special during the quiet scenes, awesome during the action scenes.
Setting:	7/10 – Potential is lurking, but for now it still is a bit too cliched.

Suggestions:
– Toward the Terra
– Crystal Blaze
– They Were 11

I obviously haven’t seen all of the anime that are out there, and this especially goes for the series that were made in the sixties and seventies, so the following statement should be taken with a grain of salt. But I’d actually wager that at the time that it aired (1979/1980), the Rose of Versailles was better than any other anime that had aired so far. Heck, it would probably take until the premiere of the Legend of Galactic Heroes for this series to leave the top 3 of best anime ever made. This statement is just based on my opinion and the stories that I’ve heard about LoGH, so this obviously shouldn’t be taken as a fact. But damn: this series really blew my mind.

The Rose of Versailles is another product from Osamu Dezaki. It’s perhaps not the series where his direction is the strongest. Instead, what sets this series apart is its plot, characters and setting as it chronicles the events leading up to the French Revolution. There are a ton of things to praise about this series.

Imagine this: most series only take place during a few years, at most. The Rose of Versailles takes place over twenty four years, starting at the point where Marie Antoinette arrives in France to become the future queen. There’s so much character development in this series because of this: you can really see the entire cast grow up and gradually change over time; the amount of character development in this series is really unbelievable. On top of that, the creators actually succeeded in making a great character out of Marie Antoinette: she’s one of the most important characters in the series and the creators did really well in making her sympathetic, yet still retaining her as the wildly irresponsible queen that she was. On top of that, we also have the main protagonist of this series, Oscar. Oscar was… amazing. Charismatic, ridiculously strong, independent and charismatic, and yet with plenty of flaws most notably her pride and with pretty much the best development out of the entire series. I’m not sure what it is with anime, France and cross-dressers, but this series explores every inch of her character.

The characters aren’t the only ones with top notch development. Just about the entire series is the same. It actually starts of like your typical shoujo series, full of sparkles, court politics, nobles, frills and pretty character designs, and only subtly gets darker and darker as the series goes on and the French Revolution draws nearer, up to the point where you really can’t call it shoujo anymore and it transcends genres.

The one criticism is that it has dated a bit, and it does tend to get a bit overdramatic at times: it’s a very theatrical series that has the characters overacting on purpose to get an as big emotional response, sometimes accompanied by those cheesy shoujo sound effects. Still, it’s not like the acting is bad here: the voice actors have an amazing range here, from wonderfully restraint to powerful and over the top. It works for the most parts really well, but there are times where it goes a bit too far in this.

Overall, if you’ve never seen any series from before 1985, the series that I’d recommend the most are the Rose of Versailles for a dark shoujo, Ie Naki Ko for its drama, The Mysterious Cities of Gold for a more innocent adventure. Most of the top series of those days are tests to your patience: Gundam is an endless string of battles and fights, Perrine Monogatari takes a really long time to set up its characters, and Votoms also takes a while to really get going and develop. The series of those days just didn’t have to worry about time constraints and there was much less competition, allowing to spend a lot more time to careful build-up. The three series above however are amazing, right from the start, and they continue to be so through their entire run. Even during the shoujo-esque start of the Rose of Versailles, there’s plenty to like and it only gets better as time goes on.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Amazing plot progression, excellent direction, excellent pacing, wonderful told.
Characters:	10/10 – 24 years worth of development. Just about every character develops significantly and memorably.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Obviously dated, but comparing it to other anime of it time and it starts to look really good and refined.
Setting:	9/10 – An amazing look at the events leading up to the french revolution. It’s not 100% accurate, but it definitely does try to be true to history.

Suggestions:
– Revolutionary Girl Utena
– Onii-Sama e
– Simoun

Ah, the nineties: a time where you still could make huge series based on a simple premise that aren’t kiddie shows. Mahoujin Guruguru couldn’t possibly have been made in today’s age: it’s a non-stop series of 45 episodes, devoted to nothing but RPG-parodies. And this review doesn’t even include the 38-episode sequel that aired six years later.

Let me tel you one thing about this series though: the jokes in Mahoujin Guruguru are quite brilliant. It may be that I’m a big fan of parodies and all, but even taking that into account I have to praise at how creative this series can get with its gags. This series is sharp, witty and has a great time poking fun at all kinds of RPG cliches. It goes far further than just having characters act silly or have them engage in quirky banter: this show is always looking for situations to make actual good and well thought out jokes and clever situations. This is definitely the biggest selling-point for this series.

The length also allows the creators to tell an engaging storyline that brings the characters to all kinds of places and worlds. The storyline here is pretty simple (bad guy evil. kill him), but the various subplots and side characters keep this series moving. There’s even a bit of character development, albeit nothing special, although it remains a nice twist to see that the creators actually used the RPG leveling-system for the two lead characters.

With the length also come a number of problems, though. The jokes of Mahoujin Guruguru are really good, but it does not have enough material for 45 episodes. The result? Running jokes and repetition, while refusing to repeat jokes that had the potential to be even funnier with more fleshing out. It’s not like this series suddenly features a dip in quality along the way: it’s pretty consistent with alternating its good jokes with its overused jokes and its jokes that just don’t work. That doesn’t prevent that from really weighing down on this series.

the mostt notable of the overused running jokes is the old man. This guy. This guy is beyond obnoxious: he will do everything in his power to annoy both the viewer and the characters. And he just. refuses. to. freaking. quit. In the same way there are a few more jokes that are used way too much, and on top of that there are a number of episodes that just aren’t interesting. I’d say: cut this thing down to about 30 to 35 episodes and you’d have a classic.

Right now, this series is fun, but long-winded. On one hand you don’t want to watch this if you’re looking for something exciting, because the good jokes are just a tad too far in between compared to today’s standards. If you want to watch a laid-back series and don’t care about time though, then this is a great recommendation for light-hearted fun. Most shows that claim to be just light-hearted fun hardly have anything that makes them worth watching. Guruguru however has plenty of them.

Storytelling:	9/10 – This show has aged: its pacing is a tad too slow for today’s standards. In terms of the joke department though, this is really, really good.
Characters:	8/10 – There is character development, but again: this is small for the standards of a 45-episode series. Then again though, it does have quite a likable cast that are fun to watch throughout the entire series. WITH a number of exceptions, though.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Again: dated. Very simple graphics and animation that doesn’t make use of this. Good Monster designs, though.
Setting:	8/10 – Has a ton of fun poking, subverting, averting and analyzing the RPG-genre.

Suggestions:
– Kero Kero Chime (This is what I’m talking about with more compact: the characters are a tad more annoying, but it is shorter and its good jokes to unfunny jokes ratio is a lot higher)
– Mysterious Cities of Gold

Rintarou. He’s one of my favourite movie directors, only surpassed by Satoshi Kon (and perhaps Hayao Miyazaki, but that’s more because Hayao Miyazaki is incredibly consistent, while Rintarou most definitely isn’t). Yona Yona Penguin was his latest work, so I’ve been wanting to check it out for a long time, but it just didn’t show up anywhere. After watching it, I can sort of understand why: it’s a kids’ movie that’s completely different from any other series he has directed or worked on, and entirely in 3D CG. I really liked it, though.

Now, Yona Yona Penguin is neither nowhere near Rintarou’s best nor his worst work. It is merely a whimsical really young kids adventure: the main character is around six or seven years old, and the entire movie has this mentality. It doesn’t try to be anything other than that (a mistake that actually a number of other movies of this genre did make, like Haruka and the magic mirror for example), and just focuses on delivering a heartfelt and adorable adventure. And succeeds.

Let me get this out of the way here: Yona Yona Penguin is absolutely adorable. The main character runs, jumps and dances around the entire movie in a penguin coat. The soundtrack is as whimsical as the premise of this movie and only makes her even more fun to watch. She’s really just an innocent child who likes to play around, yet also is serious enough to know when not to goof off and continue on with the plot of the movie. A plot that seems simple at first, but becomes surprisingly heartfelt after a while due to a number of simple but interesting twists.

Rintarou’s experience also really helps during the finale of this movie. I mean, you shouldn’t expect anything as amazing as Metropolis or anything, but nevertheless the climax of this movie is beautiful wonderfully atmospheric. This is something where a lot of other movies don’t know how to deliver, but here it’s the highlight of the entire movie.

It’s a kids’ movie, but if you’re looking for something really innocent, then this fits the bill. Just know that it’s entirely based on kids’ logic: it’s not supposed to be logical…

Storytelling:	9/10 – Ah, why not? This has a childish innocence that a lot of other kids’ movies and series lack, and even during the dramatic parts, it never lets go of this innocence.
Characters:	8/10 – They’re kids, and the characters feel like kids. At first they’re simple, but the movie gives main cast some surprising depth.
Production-Values:	8/10 – 3D CG entirely, which doesn’t look as good as regular 2D animation, but it still has a number of gorgeous scenes. The soundtrack is also really excellent.
Setting:	8/10 – Actually a ton of creativity went into this, from the backgrounds to the world it’s set in. It’s imaginative, yet retains its simplicity.

Suggestions:
– Andersen Monogatari
– Swan Lake
– Metropolis

Fafner in the Azure is another one of those series where a bunch of teenagers pilot to save the world. Unlike a lot of other series of its genre though: this series is actually aware of how many things are wrong with that, and actually provides a number of very good reasons for it, making it one of the core themes of this series, up to the point where this becomes a character study first, and a mecha series second.

If this show does anything right, it’s the way in which it explores its themes. This series is about so much more than just the atrocities of war: it’s about using children to fight for you, it’s about existence, and how other life forms view humans. The villains, the Festum, seem like your average brainless monsters at first, but as the show goes on they take on a very interesting role in the entire series. This show, is inspired. It knows exactly what it wants to do and delivers one heck of a tragedy.

As a character study, this series also really delivers on its characters. The cast is quite big, but this series makes sure to give everyone the time and opportunity to show off his character and develop. Soshi is a great main character to make this happen: he has presence as a main character, but at the same time he also gives his co-stars plenty of opportunities to stand in the spotlights. This doesn’t just go for the major side-characters, but also the minor ones: every named character has a very clear and inspired purpose in this series.

It’s a series that’s wonderfully crafted together. Now, it does use some techno babble at times, so some of the twists that depend on this may come a bit abrupt on this, but heck: this is the kind of series that looks generic on the outside, but has so many great ideas on the inside. If you’ve never watched a mecha and would like to know what the genre is about, this is a very good one to start with.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Well told, nicely paced, very good delivery of its plot twists, though a tad too much techno-babble at times.
Characters:	9/10 – A really well developed cast all around, ranging from the main to the side-characters.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Made in a time when 2D and 3D really did not mesh well, but the animation and visuals still are solid and look quite good.
Setting:	9/10 – Tons of great ideas and inspired themes and backgrounds.

Suggestions:
– Bokura no
– Bonen no Xamdou
– Star Driver