Mamoru Oshii really is one of the most unique anime directors out there, his sense of dialogue is really unrivalled. Gosenzosama Banbanzai came from the period in which he was still in his experimental phase. As a result, this has been one of the most unique OVAs I’ve seen, there truly is nothing like it, even though it’s already 20 years old by now. It’s a unique take on the genre of series that focuses on long strings of dialogue, and gets the formula right.
The only way to get a really good impression on what this OVA is about is to actually watch it, but to give an attempt to describe this thing: the setting is incredibly simplistic. Every episode takes place for about 90% in one single room, with only a select number of cameras that it feels like a stage. In fact, the creators often use stage-lights to confirm this. On these stages, the anime shows all of the different characters engaging in seemingly endless dialogues and monologues, often about things that at first sight don’t even seem to matter.
In this OVA, Mamoru Oshii brilliantly manages to tell his story through this dialogue, in which he loves taking his arguments to the absurd while making them seem like they make sense by creating a context in which they seemingly do. The dialogues and monologues are brilliant at messing with their own logic and taking the piss out of themselves, and yet at the same time they manage to create a serious story with quite a number of interesting twists.
The visuals in this series also rock. Like I said, they’re simplistic: there are hardly any changes of cameras, but this has enabled the animators to really focus on animating the characters, and the results show. The animation is incredibly smooth and a lot of effort has been put into making the characters move naturally. On top of that, the visual direction also provides plenty of strong shots, creative situations and simple yet effective action-scenes.
It’s really a shame that they don’t make anime like this anymore. There really aren’t many series that can claim to be as unique and yet as well produced as Gosenzosama Banbanzai. With an excellent soundtrack done by Kenji Kawai and a great stab at in-series advertising more than fifteen years before Code Geass came with its Pizza Hut, I really recommend this for those who are looking for something short and different.
| Storytelling: | 10/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 |
| Setting: | 8/10 |
Guin Saga: epic fantasy done absolutely right. It’s based on a series of light novels, counting in at a whopping 130 volumes, and these 26 episodes animate the first 19 volumes of the story. It’s a terrific combination between classic fantasy and politics, Satelight did a great job in bringing the whole story to life.
There’s a lot of things at which this series stands out, among which is its absolutely HUGE cast of characters. Despite this size, a lot of them still manage to stand out as individuals, with their own roles, motives and purposes. it’s also no wonder that the story in this series is incredibly complex, successfully combining king-level politics together with small-scale battles and fights. A lot of the major characters go through quite a bit of development throughout the series, and especially the developments of Remus and Amnelis, who both start out as the most useless characters of the entire cast, is memorable.
As for the graphics, the story Guin Saga is so epic that you’d need the budget of a Hollywood movie in order to fully do it credit. Satelight obviously didn’t have this, but they definitely tried. Despite the limited budget, this series is full of eye-candy. The graphical designs in this series are absolutely amazing. The architecture and landscapes are incredibly imaginative, the character-designs make every single character unique, even the most insignificant ones that don’t have any dialogue (with the only exception those soldiers that always have their helmets on). On top of that it also has an amazing soundtrack to complement the epic atmosphere, with an OP and ED that I would rank among the best of the past half year.
But yeah, in order to make these amazing graphics possible, sacrifices had to be made. The animation is often jerky and rushed, but this series especially shows its weakest side during the battles between huge armies, which end up just as an onslaught of repeated frames and bad animation that fail to capture the grandeur of such large-scale battles. Thankfully, the creators realize this and as the show goes on they focus more and more on what they’re good at: short and sweet action-scenes, politics and character-development. And they do this really well.
I wouldn’t exactly recommend Guin Saga for those who are looking for just action. There’s Shin Mazinger for those people. Instead, the Guin Saga has a bit of everything: politics, action and character-development. If that sounds interesting to you, then by all means give this series a chance, because it’s one of the most epic shows to have come out in the past year along with the new Mazinger.
I’m not a big fan of moe, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t give these types of series a chance. I’ve been proven wrong often enough times about these types of shows, and there are plenty of series that may look overly chichéd and stereotypical on the outside, yet turn out to be surprising gems on the inside. I was hoping Saki to be the same, and for a while it indeed looked like this was the case, but in the end it unfortunately ended up too much stuck in its own clichés and stereotypes to really develop into something worthwhile.
There are just too many fundamental problems with this series. This series is about Mah-Jong. In preparation for this series, you can clearly see that the creators read through all of the rules of Mah-Jong, they looked up all of the major strategies that can be used to win, but on the other hand it also becomes so obvious that they’ve never actually sat down to play a game, in order to get the feeling of how a game normally progresses.
And so, the matches in this series aren’t decided by strategy, but instead by pure luck. Matches basically revolve around who can pull the biggest Deus ex Machina near the end of every match. These magical powers enable the characters to cheat in all sorts of ways, like becoming invisible, getting extra luck when the rounds are arranged in a particular way, and even blatantly giving all of your opponent crappy hands so that you can do whatever you please. The creators don’t even make use of this. The matches all end in the most predictable ways, with no attempt whatsoever to spice them up beyond their original set-up (which is just a courtesy of the manga it’s based on anyway).
This would have all been forgiven if the characters made up for it. Unfortunately, there too it ultimately disappoints. This series has about thirty named characters, and nearly all of them just end up being one-dimensional clichés and stereotypes, with the few attempts that are made to develop them being the most predictable and clichéd attempts ever, so that doesn’t really help either.
In the end, there are just three characters that actually resemble characters and don’t exist based on their exaggerated quirks, and those are just a bunch of minor side-characters. They definitely manage to spice up the series when they’re in the focus, but they’re just too overshadowed by the lead characters, Saki and Nodoka who form one of the most obvious lesbian pairings I have ever seen. There’s nothing subtle about their romance at all. It’s just a constant onslaught of blushing and strange looks when these two are near each other.
But by far the worst character in this series has to be the only boy in the entire series. This guy is so incredibly obnoxious that he makes every scene he’s in a pain to sit through. His endless fantasies about Nodoka’s bosom just get worse and worse as time goes by, and overall he remains an utterly pointless character. There’s no reason whatsoever to have him in this series!
I recently (read: half an hour ago) realized that this series is quite similar to Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou: both series start out with a flawed premise of lots and lots of moe, seemingly stereotypical characters, magic and huge boobs. And that’s all the more of a shame that YWGM did end up creating something enjoyable with a tongue-in-the-cheek execution and fun chemistry, while Saki kept hanging with a bland and unimaginative execution that always picks the most predictable option to go forward. With one of the most obnoxious soundtracks of the season (I’m not the biggest fan of J-Pop, and it’s music like that that’s exactly the reason why!), it fails to move beyond mediocrity.
The first season of Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei was awesome. It had wit, and came across as a really fresh comedy-series. The second season also had a number of hilarious episodes, but at the same time lost its edge, became repetitive and turned stereotypical. Season three in its turn continued to sap away all creativity, turning it into a repetitive bore-fest. It’s the perfect example of why you shouldn’t milk out comedies.
At this point, Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei has really exhausted all of its good jokes. The first season had me laughing nearly continuously, while your average episode in this season only managed to generate a chuckle out of me once or twice if it was lucky. Episodes are yet again divided into three chapters, each looking at a different type of social commentary, but most of them are just rehashes of some previous chapter, without really adding anything new. The ones that aren’t ripped off are about such a ridiculously obscure part of society that it’s hard to care about them.
The characters aren’t better off. On top of the fact that they still haven’t changed beyond their stereotypes, this season also gives a lot of them some sort of obnoxious catch-phrase that they tend to repeat in nearly every single episodes. There’s the psycho girl with her periods and commas that appear on the screen, the stalker girl with her “you were there? Always”, the foreign girl with her pantyshots, the hikkikomori with her fanservice and the fangirl with her fantasies. On top of that, every episode starts with a nonsensical audio story that just pointlessly goes on and on, and every episode ends with an even more obnoxious drawing game that already got old in the second season.
Granted, the better episodes of this series are near the end, and I have to agree that the cavemen part was pretty funny, but that in no way makes up for the rest of the series. If you’re interested in this series, watch up to episode 6 of the second season. Beyond that, it only gets worse. Still, at least the graphics in this series look as good as ever. The direction and character-designs make this series nice to look at (unlike that other Shaft-show, but more on that once it finishes), but in a season with so many other good comedies, this stands out as an incredibly repetitive series that was already milked out ages ago.
I love remakes! Believe it or not, but out of all adaptations, (ignoring the obvious recaps as Dragonball Kai, of course), these type of anime nearly always try to find ways to improve on their original series, resulting in some of the most amazing series. The same goes for the new Mazinger: this series knows exactly what it is: epic, mecha and action. And it has been by far my favourite action-series of the past half year.
Do NOT get fooled by the fact that this is based on a cheesy mecha series. The original Mazinger was the series that popularized the mecha genre, and it consisted (for as far as I can assume) out of a bunch of episodic stories in which the titular Mazinger would end up defeating some sort of monster that was set out to destroy the world. Let me say that the plot of the new Mazinger is NOTHING like this. It’s just taken the basic concept, characters, and did something totally different with it. The series is in no single way episodic, and it pays homage to the old series while delivering enough of its own ideas as well.
The creators put a lot of effort into fleshing out the past of this series, for as much impact as possible. They created a complex back-story around ancient Greek myths, science and betrayal. This really allows for a superb cast. Especially the half-male half-female Count Ashura has to be one of the most awesome villains in Giant Robot history, but the rest of the cast also truly shines.
But what really makes this series EPIC is the direction. The action is truly over the top, but for once they get it right and successfully mix it in with the more serious parts of the story. Every episode consistently delivers on the action, while also taking care of the plot, and it finds a really good combination between the two, so that they only strengthen each other. The creators really cleverly throw in all sorts of huge plot twists in the middle of the action in order to spice it up even more, with a number of truly awesome results.
True, this series does have the tendency to pull a lot of things out of its ass, but when you look at the big picture it all still makes sense. And besides, a lot of this is about secret back-up plans that the characters had reserved, which of course gets a bit boring if you have to go through all of them beforehand.
Overall, if you like over the top action you really should give this series a chance. It’s a series that knows exactly what it is, and it delivers as much epic action as possible with an awesome plot that always manages to pull a number of great plot twists. With an ending that I consider to be the single best of 2009 (no seriously, the final episodes in this series completely blew me away), this series exceeded all my expectations. This is a series on which you can always count to be epic.
Sometimes, these series appear that aren’t supposed to be good… and yet they are. Series as Asagiri no Miko and Wagaya no Oinarisama, who have the most generic premises, somehow end up being a very enjoyable ride from start to finish in their own way. The same goes with Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou. And this really isn’t one of my “pity”-reviews as with Sekirei or Strike Witches, in which I argued that they were pretty decent for a moe show. No, even if YWGM were to be compared to a regular series, it would still be pretty good.
But yeah, this series has a terrible first impression. The two lead characters have ridiculously coloured hair, voice actresses who try too hard to be moe, the series is yet another one of those series in which cute girls use magic, there’s lots of fanservice and at first sight the characters are nothing but moe stereotypes.
And yet especially that last part turns out to be interestingly wrong. The way this series excels is its characterization. Every single character here is surprisingly genuine, and unlike most other moe series I didn’t find any of them forced. Koyomi at first sight looks like yet another stupid high school girl, but yet she’s such a pure and innocent character that that gives her a bit of a different dimension. In the same way the rest of the cast is also surprisingly down to earth and enjoyable to watch. Especially because this series spends a lot of time on just slice of life, it’s nice enough to just see the characters interact due to the great chemistry they have between each other.
The idea of modern magic is also very nicely used in this series. You see, magic in this series isn’t the usual dull kind of magic in which you wave a wand and stuff happens, this series gives a bit of a modern touch to it, by allowing magic to be programmable. An excellent idea, which results in a lot of interesting applications for such magic.
Possibly the weirdest flaw in this series is its fanservice. It’s so incredibly strange that it often makes no sense (are you bullied? Why don’t you try to throw your pantie in the bully’s face? That will shut him up!), but on the other hand this series is also full of subtle jokes and tongue-in-cheek dialogue. You obviously don’t want to expect anything amazing here, but it’s an all-around enjoyable series if you’re looking for a light watch. This really is the perfect example of why a lot of moe doesn’t necessarily means a bad series.
Canaan is, without a doubt, the series with the biggest budget and best graphics of all the series that debuted the past Summer Season. With this, PA Works have really established themselves as a company with a number of amazing artists, with an amazing attention to detail. Canaan is a bit iffy on its plot, but it nevertheless turned out to be a great action series.
Especially the first episode is a masterpiece in terms of direction: there is so much happening at the same time, and there’s lots of stuff moving ont he screen at the same time. The rest of the series is toned down a bit in comparison, but nevertheless continuously puts forth well-animated and directed climaxes, in which the action ranges from subtle to over the top, but always packs a punch.
The problems in this series come from the fact that it can’t seem to decide whether it wants to be taken seriously or not. On one hand, it has this deep subplot of Canaan’s past, and her friendship with Maria. On the other hand, there is the American President and Liang “Psycho Bitch from Hell” Qi. These characters are so ridiculously over the top that it becomes really hard to take them seriously, especially among the rest of the series that does want to be taken seriously.
The back-story behind this series is also nothing special, and the plot has no real surprised. It’s something about a virus from some village being evil, and Canaan’s mortal enemy Alphard having something to do with it. This really is a series for the action.
Thankfully though, the rest of the cast manages to save this series from being yet another action series that fails to stand out at everything else. Canaan, Maria and Alphard are a great cast of main characters, and the side-characters also have their own issues that make them interesting to watch. The cast is colourful, and while nothing like the best of this season, they do manage to carry the weight of this series.
There have been a lot of action series during the past half year, and while Canaan isn’t the best, it did manage to stay interesting, and despite the few over the top characters it did manage to pick itself up again and delivered a very strong finale that only has one real problem: breaking the “people die when they’re killed”-rule. Some of the resurrections in this series are a tad hard to buy. But hey, it’s an action-series, so it shouldn’t be that surprising.
Watching Key the Metal Idol really makes me appreciate how awesome art from the 90s can be. Sure, the past decade has also put forth a fair amount of beautifully drawn anime, but there definitely is a charm to the cell animation that dates from the time when there was no CG yet. The designs in Key the Metal Idol in particular are beautiful, only made better by some terrific animation. But how does the rest hold up?
Well, very impressive. This is an OVA that shines in its direction, which knows exactly how to keep you guessing, interested and caring about the characters. It really draws you in with its strange plot, and the way it plays around with its characters (especially Key) gives them all a unique feeling.
Key the Metal Idol made really well use of its OVA format to try out new things, in an attempt to be unique. The premise of this series is that robot girl Key wants to be human, but needs to become friends with 30.000 people, but this is only the tip of the iceberg in this. As the series goes on, more and more very creative idea pop up and make sure that even fifteen years after it originally aired, this series still stands out as fresh and original.
With 13 episodes of 25 minutes, plus two episodes clocking in at a whopping 90 minutes both, this really is one of the longest OVAs out there (aside from Legend of Galactic Heroes, of course), and it really shows. While most OVAs are just way too short for their story, Key the Metal Idol does for once have plenty of time to show its entire setting, and it makes really well use of this and takes its time to let the story slowly unfold.
This gets taken especially far in episode 14, which is really nothing but ninety minutes of non-stop talking. It’s those kinds of things that are risky, and will either have you love or hate the series. I personally loved how it built up and very carefully explained exactly what was going on in this story, but you don’t want to watch it with a short attention span and it also violated the “show, don’t tell”-rule at times during the exposition.
The final episode in its turn suffers a bit from hasty and convenient explanations, that may leap logic a bit too much at times. On top of that, the budget also seems to have dropped in these episodes. It’s a bit sad for the finale of an otherwise excellent series, but it’s not like this final episode is bad either. It’s just… not as solid as the other episodes.
Nevertheless, Key the Metal Idol really has a lot to like. Because it was released over the course of four years the producers really had the time to make this series as solid as possible, and aside from the final episode this worked very well. The cast of characters is imaginative and very varied, yet every character feels unique, the storytelling draws you in and the dialogue is deep and meaningful as well. A great example of OVAs done right.