Star Crossed Anime

Its very easy to disregard the light novel genre completely as it is responsible for the creation of quite a number of unoriginal, bad and shameless pandering anime in recent years. However there still are worthwhile stories within the genre. They are just a little less known.

 

Mushoku Tensei

Description: A 34-year-old NEET otaku was chased out from his house by his family. This virgin, plump, unattractive, and penniless nice guy found that his life was heading towards a dead end. He recalled that his life could actually become much better if he can get over the dark history of his life. Just when he was at the point of regret, he saw a truck moving at a high speed with 3 high school students in its path. Mustering all his strength, he saves them but ended up getting run over by the truck, which kills him. The next time he opens his eyes, he had reincarnated to a world of swords and magic, as Rudeus Greyrat. Born to a new world and a new life, Rudeus declared, “This time, I’ll really live my life to the fullest with no regrets!” Thus begins the journey of a newly made man.

The good: This is pretty perfect wish fulfillment. This book is of a genre that has recently popped up and for now I just refer to it as the reincarnation gerne. It normally details a character getting reincarnated/thrown into a new world and focuses on him grow steadily stronger. This starts the main as a child and the writer has the patience to let him grow slowly and not overpower him from the get go. Unlike many of this genre which the mains undergo what I would like to refer to as “kiritoization” where they become overpowered behemoths whom every girl wants. Take note that this story really does follow his life. Going from boyhood to teenager and adult. Even as far as marriage and parenting. It has a large cast of dynamic characters who while are not particularly deep are still fairly likeable. Honestly there are few stories like this and in my opinion this is so far the best written of its kind. It also follows very little of the traditional light novel formula.

The bad: The protagonist truly starts as the scum of the earth. In the beginning he is highly unlikeable with some of this thoughts raising an eyebrow or two. If you are easily offended then this is not the novel for you. There are a few insulted individuals who mislabel this a “lolicons dream fantasy” even though the content wouldn’t be very titillating for that questionable fanbase. He does grow into a much more respectable character and it is the development that is the main driving force behind the plot. But still those beginning volumes might turn people away. It is also very long at currently 21 volumes and the story is the very definition of a slow burn.

Recommendation level: 75%

Current number of translated volumes: 21, It also has a manga but due to how much story is cut out its not recommended.

 

Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari

Description: Iwatani Naofumi was summoned into a parallel world along with 3 other people to become the world’s Heroes. Each of the heroes were respectively equipped with their own legendary equipment when summoned. Naofumi coincidentally received the Legendary Shield as his weapon. Due to Naofumi’s lack of charisma and experience, he ended up with only a single teammate while others have several. Unfortunately, on his third day Naofumi was betrayed, falsely accused, and robbed by the said teammate. Shunned by everyone from king to peasants, Naofumi’s thoughts were filled with nothing but vengeance and hatred. Thus, his destiny in a parallel World begins…

The good: The rising of the shield hero is a bit of an odd duck. Reading it is somewhat a masochistic experience. This is a story that will make you filled to the brim with righteous indignation. I make no joke when I say one chapter managed to make me literally red with anger. But because of this the moments where the villains get well deserved comeuppance is incredibly sweet and satisfying.  Its human nature to root for the underdog. So to see the shield hero get stronger and put others in their place is a fun read

The bad: Despite saying how these villains rile you up I will say they are very one dimensional. They are designed with the intent to anger the reader but because of this they have to be made very stupid and ignorant to make it work. They are not well written characters, no matter how much they make you wish for their suffering. The other characters are passable but not standout. But the big strike against it is that at the end of the fourth volume it has what I can only see as an endgame climax. All issues are more or less resolved and the only thing left is the battle against some faceless rpg endboss. It was also disappointing to see harem elements become more apparent. The first four novel had foreboding signs but it at least managed to avoid them becoming too featured in the story. I found my motivation for continuing to be lacking. While not bad per say the content after volume four just felt like an extended epilogue.

Recommendation level: 60%

Current number of translated volumes: 4, through the translations continue to cover the ongoing light novel and are at chapter 197 currently. The translation speed is also lightning fast. There is also a manga and it is adapted faithfully so far. Though the novel is much further along if you are willing to accept some dodgy translation.

 

Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria

Description: Utsuro no Hako to Zero no Maria, or The Empty Box and The Zeroth Maria, tells the story of Kazuki Hoshino, who is almost madly attached to his everyday life, and his antagonist Aya Otonashi, who suddenly transfers into his class at the end of the school year—for no less than the 13,118th time. Without hesitation, she announces her intent to “break” him. Kazuki’s struggle to defend his everyday life begins, and the many secrets it is built on start to come to light.

The good: Highly original concept with good execution.  Characters have interesting dark sides and the “box”s monkeys paw nature is belovedly twisted. To those who saw Kokoro Connect and thought heartseed was a villain too good for the show, “0” is that style of character given justice. There are no magic superpowers to speak of. The only weapon these characters have is their mind.

The bad: The first novel is confusing with an endless eight/groundhog day scenario. It also doesn’t help that some characters have similar names, making it hard to understand whos who. Characters tend to talk in a manner that is heavily logical. Think bakemonogatari, but the long winded ramblings actually being connected to the plot.

Recommendation level: 90%

Current number of translated volumes: 6, with the next being confirmed as the last.

 

Rakuin no Monshou

Description: The countries of Mephius and Garbera have been waging a war for ten years and are trying to put an end to this long fight through a political marriage between the two royal families. Orba, who was driven from his home because of the war and was forced to become a gladiator, looks exactly like the crown prince of Mephius, and it has been decided he will be substituting him during the wedding ceremony. On the other hand, Vileena, the princess of Garbera, has secretly decided to ensnare the crown prince for her own country’s interests.

The good: The main character is Batman-esque with his handling of his alter egos.  Its fantastic seeing maintain the facade of an incompetent prince while secretly planning for victory. I am reminded of code geass though with much better writing and a more high fantasy setting. The first two volumes are excellent and from what I hear the story has an ending at 7 volumes.

The bad: Very slow translation. If theres anyone with more time and can translate Japanese then implore you to work on this. Or better yet get an anime studio working on it. The story is hard to get into at first as it takes a while to grasp the setting.

Recommendation level: 95%

Current number of translated volumes: 2

Fights blew past fast this episode. We had four fights in one episode so my previous fears of this getting dragged look to be untrue.  Notables being the fight between a mystery girl and a holy knight whose head is so disproportionate from his body that you could swear someone took the head of a thin guitarist and stuck it on to a heavy bodybuilder. I found it rather off putting when I noticed that his shoulder is three times the size of his head. At one point in the episode it was even four times the size of his head. I understand that these characters are not supposed to be anatomically correct but I would appreciate it if they looks human at least when they are supposed to be. The animation looks good with a fair amount of movement. Admittedly with fate’s high quality airing at the same time my standards for animation have been set at an unreasonable height. So when gauging Seven Deadly Sins I can at least say exceeds the standard for these kinds of shows. It far overshadows the shounen of old but seeing as I have long given up on many of the main shounen of today I cannot say how it fairs against them. Kings fight turned out to be interesting too though in a way different from the others. Because this is the first time we see king fight without a weapon and learn that king without a weapon is about as dangerous as a defanged kitten. He lost fairly pitifully to an old man.

The mystery girl turned out the Diane,  who was earlier shrunk down to human size by a monster mushroom. Now she is human sized with a mini nude Elizabeth in her cleavage. You stay classy, fanservice. King was sure overjoyed,  now that his love interest can be loved without it being potentially lethal or outright impossible. Though oddly Meliodas wasn’t very impressed. At first not even recognising her but much more shocking is that even with Daine asking him to, he didn’t sexually harass her once. I guess he’s faithful to the girl he constantly molests. Whatever that might count for. The first ten minutes were humourous with antics and all the sins taking it easy through the elimination round. I am saddened to see Ban ditch the kitchen apron once he saw a fighter with the exact same top he used to wear.Convenient, but most shounens don’t give that much with their magical regenerating clothes and explosion proof pants. But I think seeing Ban fighting in a apron would be much more amusing. Next fight is Meliodas vs Ban, so I wonder if there will be a ring left to fight in afterwards.

 

The fight between explosives girl and the sins was ended quicker than I thought. When King entered the fight it was settled almost immediately.  King made short work of her as Elaine provided some supposedly badass exposition saying how King is originally known as the king of the fairies, harlequin. I say supposedly because it is hard to consider someone badass when they have a title as flowery as king of the fairies. Still King adds a new dynamic to the group as he’s the most level headed. From his observation the Sins have been significantly depowered as each of them has lost their legendary weapons in various ways. Its amusing to see King be so hard on Ban and Melodas about losing them yet get flustered when faced with Dianes reaction. This show really does get more fun as the team grows. On the villains side, we see some previously defeated villains get a risky chance to drink demon blood and become grey wardens…err..holy knights I mean. With the female knight Ban stripped gaining new power and out for revenge. Or possibly something else. I can’t help but get the feeling this girl may have gained a thing for Ban after his stripping session. A bit confused as to why, as molesting women tends to normally not lead to love.

When Dianes hammer Gideon is found in a village, we get the most obligatory shounen trope around. The fighting tournament. It looks to take over the next few episodes and looks to have the sins (minus Diane, as the village does not allow giants. ) duking it out against each other. It should be fun as long as things don’t get too dragged out. A fighting tournament can go as long as a few episodes to an entire arc. Yu yu hakusho for Instance had a total of 40 episodes dedicated to a fighting tournament. These in general are not really a bad thing though it is a way of letting the author put in a lot of action without having to set up villain motivation and situations. And have the heroes fight tricky one note opponents. Though these arcs tend to have not much plot besides training to fight some endboss character. So far seven deadly sins has brought back the nostalgic value of traditional shounen. But now its going to have to avoid the flaws of traditional shounen.

 

There was a few questionable things here this episode. The episode starts with the new villain quite literally killing herself to enter the kingdom of the dead. Which is a big risk considering it was based on one sentence from a child she was threatening. True being a shounen show there’s likely some magical biology science which somehow makes this possible without actually losing her life completely but still,  for a makeshift decision it’s a little drastic. We also learn that the forest guardian Ban apparently killed was Kings sister and…well Ban had the hots for her. Now take note people, Ban is a character whose design looks that of a 25-30 year old range. Whereas Elaine(The forest guardian) looks 12 years old at best. Am I the only one who finds this quite creepy? I mean sure in the anime world we have thousand year old lolita’s giving them the excuse that it’s legal even if they only look ten. But quite frankly when they claim things like Biscuit(HunterXHunter) being 57 years old and Okabe(Steins Gate) being 18, I prefer to disregard that completely and call them as I see them. So yes, I can’t say I find Ban and Elaine’s relationship to be well…romantic.

I like how Ban brought up the elephant in the room when being confronted by King. It does seem like a no brainer to bring up that killing an immortal for revenge is going to be a tad difficult when that immortal won’t die. To which King answers by turning Ban into stone. But when Elaines ghost comes back to lend Ban a helping hand, King is left rather confused and distraught by it. It seems that while he was blinded by revenge he failed to realize that things may not been as he expected. That and maybe running away and leaving your sister to do your job for a thousand years may have been a bit of a bad thing to do. Honestly it’s the way most expected things to go. I highly doubt anyone believed that Ban really did kill the girl, instead the blame falling on some rather generic demon thing. Our new villainess is putting the sins on the ropes, or at least giving them some trouble with her explosion rapier. Here’s a general rule of shounen characters with closed eyes. They are either mischievous, calculating or sadistic psychopaths. Or in this case, all of the above. The fight is pretty good though filled with shounen talk. I must wonder how irritating it would be to hear people speak like this while fighting. But again the banter between the sins makes it all fun. Lastly it’s nice to see Elizabeth mention that she’s useless to the sins and attempt to assist them instead of asking for Kings help. Not that she’s going to enter a more combat focused role but at least she understands her position and regrets it. The fight continues new episode, so lets hope it isn’t dragged past it’s welcome.

 

I will admit it, I laughed at the beginning. The episode started with a pretty funny joke related to Meliodas and Elizabeth sleeping in the same bed. Maybe because this one didn’t have a second agenda of providing fanservice at the same time. Actually I enjoyed this episode a lot more than the previous. Maybe because the humor was better than usual or maybe because the animation budget seems to have returned. But I think the primary reason is that the cast has now a selection of contrasting personalities. Before it was just Meliodas, Elizabeth and the pig. So the dialogue between the three was mainly melodas harassing Elizabeth with the pig playing straight man. Now we have Ban and Diane on the team so the banter between characters has become more varied.

This cast is only going to get bigger and now we have King entering. Hes had a rather interesting introduction so far. Meliodas told a story of how upset king was at Ban stealing a large amount of childrens stuffed toys for a laugh and spent the entire night returning them. This rather sensitive image is changed when he stabs Ban through the chest with a spear pretty cold heartedly. (I find it odd that he found this perfectly acceptable to do with two children there to see it.) But then he runs away in embarrassment after seeing Diane. A interesting combination with his battle and regular demeanor. He is also the one who looks completely nothing like his wanted poster. So much so that while Diane and Melodas recognised him, Ban had no idea who he was. Speaking of which, this episode had parts of a later chapter put into it. That being Bans backstory of how he became immortal. And this backstory looks to be the main reason as to why King wants him dead. The fight looks to be a good match up as Ban is a close quarters brawler while King is an indirect fighter who uses his flight and floating spear to his advantage.

Ban’s past relationship towards the forest guardian looks to play a part in the next episodes as the crew journey into the capital of the dead. The also a new villain has entered the fray. A female one to boot. I will give Seven deadly sins some credit. At least theres more diversity than your average sausage fest shonen.