Star Crossed Anime

Fortune Arterial… I’m impressed. Hentai Game Adaptations are… notorious, a lot of them are utterly terrible. This series looked like one of those cheesy harems right from the start, and yet it’s characters are actually pretty good.

The thing I usually notice with these hentai game adaptations is that unless you have an inspired staff behind it, they don’t really know what their stories are and end up wasting most of their time with silly cardboard cut-outs of characters. Fortune Arterial however knows exactly how to use its time, and how to set its characters apart. In the second episode, it promotes the male lead from a boring nobody to a member of the student council, and actually has him perform some duties like organizing the school’s sports festival or cultural festival. It’s been ages since I’ve actually seen a student council DO something other than look important, and therefore I found the episodes that are devoted to properly organizing and these festivals quite enjoyable.

I also applaud this series for the main storyline between the male and female lead: it’s simple but knows exactly what it is, it’s well built up throughout the series and actually centred around some pretty mature issues for a bishoujo show. The ending itself is quite powerful, although things ended a tad too soon: a few key points were left unresolved that will leave you hanging.

However, the next White Album this ain’t. There are a few underdeveloped side characters, and the storytelling gets a tad too simple at times. This series has especially a hard time figuring out what to do during the moments in which nothing happens, and the results are that these scenes become tedious to get through. None of the jokes it uses really work and they only make some of the characters really obnoxious.

The graphics… well, it’s a co-production between Zexcs and Feel. The result is a series with some of the most generic graphics of the entire year. However, as a “screw the graphics, we’re here to tell a story”, it works surprisingly well. It’s a simple vampire romance so don’t expect something epic here here, but it’s quite effective.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Surprisingly solid for a show of this genre, but should have been a bit more ambitious.
Characters:	8/10 – surprisingly good lead characters, though the cast hasn’t been fleshed out as well as i would have liked.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Really generic.
Setting:	8/10 – Finally we get some vampires again who don’t sparkle.

Suggestions:
– Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
– Touka Gettan
– Futakoi Alternative

Ah, such a shame! Loups Garous is a movie with quite a few interesting twists and turns, offering a slight twist to your usual science fiction premise. It’s the kind of children’s adventure that’s not really meant for children: innocent at one side, really heavy and dark at the other. With the right execution, this really could have been a stunning movie. It’s just too bad that the execution sucks.

Loups Garous is the kind of movie where the writing staff either didn’t get enough time, or didn’t want to take enough time: it’s a collection of neat ideas unable to mesh together, tied together very poorly. The directing for example can’t even keep track of which scene it’s in: randomly it just skips time without even an introduction; things just happen because they’re interesting for the plot. There are countless of things that just don’t make any sense (we’re who knows how many years in the future, and yet there isn’t a single gun in the entire series), the hacking in this movie ranges from interesting to ridiculously stupid (especially during the final climax) and the bad guys have the most pathetic security system out there.

The main problem with this movie however is that it doesn’t know the concept of fleshing things out. It spends a lot of its time on mindless drivel, but it makes no attempt at familiarizing the viewers to its setting. The setting of this movie never gets analyzed beyond its premise, and only one of the characters has any depth at all: the rest are just stereotypes. The villains are also utterly terrible: all of them are just one dimensional stereotypes. People try to murder for the stupidest reasons (the pink-haired girl takes the cake: I dare you to find a dumber reason for her to get chased by a bunch of random punks out to kill her), the main villain is just laughably bad, the conclusion is a joke.

I’m getting a bit tired of Trans Arts, to be honest. They continue to abuse Production IG’s name to produce these ambitious titles that they have no idea how to correctly pull off. The only series in which they didn’t fail horribly was with Kemono no Souja Erin. The production of Loups Garous was horribly rushed and it shows through its entire airtime. I admire the spirit of these people, but please: first learn something from the people who actually know what they’re doing.

Storytelling:	6/10 – Disjointed story, plot holes, deus ex machina, stupid plot twists, poorly paced. Does no justice to its heavy themes. You can see that it’s going somewhere, but there are so many errors along the way.
Characters:	7/10 – Absolutely pathetic villains, likable but shallow characters.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Nothing special for movie standards, but it it does look good and stylish.
Setting:	7/10 – Has a lot of interesting ideas, but never uses them. Completely fails at getting the viewer accustomed to the setting.

Suggestions:
– RD Sennou Chousashitsu
– Dennou Coil
– Metropolis

I don’t touch hard yaoi in the same way that I’m not going to talk about those extreme fanservice OVAs, but beyond that I do enjoy a good shounen ai series like Uragiri or Antique Bakery from time to time, despite being a straight guy. The main problem with most of the series of that genre however is that most of them are just so horribly uninspired. That however isn’t the problem with Togainu no Chi: its creativity is in fact the only part of this show with which there’s nothing wrong; it really had the potential to be an interesting and intense story about drugs and violence. If only it were handled by people who actually knew what they were doing.

And I guess that the soundtrack too deserves points for its cheese factor. Everything else however, is just downright poor. The story is incredibly cheesy and ridiculously poorly paced. Nothing really happens for a reason, things just happen for the heck of it and the few reasons that are provided are the corniest in the book. The characters are all flat as a pancake and any attempt made to develop them is just restricted to cheesy plot twists that try to be dark but only end up laughable.

The thing that really sets this show apart is how ridiculously poorly it’s executed, though. The direction is utterly terrible, and none of the voice actors manage to deliver any line correctly. The animation… is even worse than Iron Man. The characters are consistently stiff and feel like cardboard cut-outs. During fights, characters fight like experts one time and like sissies the next. Especially the final two episodes are a complete disaster in which the producers just flat-out give up. The entire final battle is riddled with just pans of random landscapes in the middle of the action scenes. There are animation restrictions due to small budgets, but this was animated by people who put no effort whatsoever in what they were putting out.

Granted, this series is better than Iron Man: its characters are stupid, but not THAT stupid. That however says just about everything positive that can be said, though. It’s just such a shame here that we have two series that do focus on adults, compared to the hordes of teenagers you see nowadays, and yet the characters have the emotional complexity of a bunch of ten year olds.

Storytelling:	5/10 – Is that supposed to be storytelling? Random twists, poorly paced, pointless story.
Characters:	5/10 – These characters couldn’t even act themselves out of a paper bag.
Production-Values:	6/10 – You actually have to put in effort to get visuals that are thisunimpressive.
Setting:	7/10 – At least it has potential.

Suggestions:
– Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru
– Night Head Genesis
– Himitsu ~ The Revelation

At the start of this season, Natsu no Arashi was the last time in which I actually liked a Shaft series, so I guess that it’s no surprise that I wasn’t really looking forward to their two shows: Arakawa Under the Bridge and Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru. Nevertheless, the latter surprised me by being a pretty charming slice of life series. It neither feels like a rehash of one of Shaft’s previous series, nor does it take its style to the point where it gets in the way of the storytelling.

From the outside this seems like another show full of cliches, with the maids and all, and while this show certainly could have done without the maids, it’s the execution that makes this a fresh series. It’s especially good at fleshing out its characters though its dialogue, which is interesting, varied and really brings the characters alive. The entire cast has a good chemistry, and the show continues to juggle them in different situations and combinations in order to keep the series fresh throughout 12 episodes. I especially liked the conflicts between Hotori and her math teacher: they’re pretty much the polar opposites of each other and the tension between them is quite addictive.

There are some annoyances throughout the series, though. First of all is the way in which this series uses these eye catches that already were obnoxious back when Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei used them. Hotori herself also has this really annoying voice actress, who really manages to portray her as this immature teenaged girl. It’s a good characterization, but her yelling will get on your nerves in one way or the other. The most annoying are the scenes that focus on Hotori’s love interest, though. His inner monologues about how he wants to get inside Hotori’s skirt are boring, overdone and go on for way too long, and it never really amounts to anything.

In terms of the graphics, Shaft really put the earnings of the DVD sales of Bakemonogatari too good use, as this series is really well animated, especially the first two episodes. There are few of their usual shortcuts that have gotten old at this point, and instead it’s able to fully animate its characters while still able to experiment a bit. This definitely adds an interesting dynamic to the characters.

An interesting note is that Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru is the first series since the first Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei that Shinbo actually directed himself, rather than acting as some sort of supervisor. The results really show: this series is skillfully directed and balanced instead of just using Shaft’s style for the heck of it. There’s enough to keep you busy and the characterization is surprisingly good when you look past the initial annoying characters.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Sometimes funny, sometimes not. Doesn’t aim to be the most spectacular, but manages to keep things surprisingly interesting for a slice of life series.
Characters:	8/10 – Characters don’t shy away from being annoying, especially the lead character. They’ve all got a bit of depth and background and are quite likable, though.
Production-Values:	9/10 – Very well animated, especially the first two episode.
Setting:	8/10 – Solid, aside from the one or two weird moments where the show delves into the supernatural.

Suggestions:
– GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class
– Natsu no Arashi
– Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight

Okay, time to talk about the most underrated show of the season. Autumn 2010 featured a lot of comedies. Out of all those shows, the series with the best jokes was without a doubt Milky Holmes.

And yeah, I know that from the outside, it looks like the cheesiest moe show imaginable, but that’s its entire point as a parody: this series takes the piss out of the phantom thief and the moe genre; it makes fun of all kinds of annoying and overused tropes, including itself. It’s completely over the top and nonsensical, but this really allows it to come up with some very inspired episodes and scenarios. Some of the things it comes up with are as brilliant as they are bizarre, despite the overall stupidity of the plot.

A plot which granted isn’t the most solid for a comedy. The series has a general premise that’s quite an interesting twist on the usual Phantom Thief genre, but as a series it mostly stands as a series of unrelated episodes with a conclusion at the end. Some of these episodes are brilliant, while others are a bit less impressive and try too hard, making this a very inconsistent series. The cast of characters is very fun to watch, but also flat and two dimensional, with the very notable exception of Henriette: a wonderful character who on her own manages to carry the entire plot of this show.

But seriously, it’s been ages since I laughed as hard as I did with the series. Especially the sarcophagus scene is just utterly priceless. The way this series makes its jokes is unlike any other, and a real recommendation for any parody fan. It does have its share of cheesy episodes, and at times the fanservice gets a bit out of hand, but those moments are vastly overshadowed by the good stuff.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Perhaps not consistent, but when it’s funny it’s absolutely hilarious. uses its lack of subtlety wonderfully with its comedic timing.
Characters:	8/10 – Especially Sherlock and Cordellia are always fun to watch, despite their flat characters. The rest of the cast is also flat but great to watch.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Surprisingly good, really. Some of the action scenes are better animated than most shounen series. Beyond the action scenes it could have been more solid, though.
Setting:	8/10 – Leaves nothing intact from the phantom thief genre, but its overall backstory could have been more fleshed out.

Suggestions:
– Marie&Gali 1st Season
– The Law of Ueki
– Skip Beat

Manglobe is quite possibly one of the top five of best production companies out there (for me, at least). They’ve produced some truly unique and engaging series, but unfortunately those turned into a commercial flop. Especially Michiko e Hatchin and Sarai-ya Goyou didn’t sell well at all. So yeah, they’re also making mainstream moe shows now.

The World God Only Knows, at first sight I wasn’t really looking forward to a show that starred a guy who was the world champion of playing dating sims, but really: it’s not a bad show at all. Its big problem however is that it’s completely redundant in just about every way. “Underwhelming” is the best way to phrase this show.

This first season consists out of four main arcs, all separated by a side-story episode. The side-stories are meant to flesh out the cast and look at the nature of dating sims, while the main arcs feature Keima, the protagonist, as he has to try and get a kiss from a cute girl that has some sort of problem. They form the main meat of this series, and therefore it’s a big problem that most of them just aren’t interesting. The idol and rich girl arc in particular are very poorly characterized, with shallow developments. The the first one is probably the best, and the last one has its charms, but also leaves a lot to be desired. At first sight, these girls all try to be different from the usual stereotypes, but half the time they don’t get anywhere.

All of this isn’t really helped by a dull lead couple. Keima at first sight looks like an interesting yet eccentric character, but his delivery feels just uninspired. His voice acting is bland and lacks subtlety and the only part at which he’s really interesting is in the very first episode. Elcea, his female co-star is a terrible character, though: she’s the only thing about that series that’s genuinely bad. Her whining never seems to stop. She’s a completely annoying klutzy airhead with no likable traits whatsoever. The creators also try to use her in an attempt to parody the moe genre, but completely fail at this, playing everything she does straight, from trying to “bond” with her brother while bathing, having terrible cooking and tripping and falling at random moments. A parody actually requires a good joke to work, dear series!

In the end, what keeps this series afloat is its structure: it doesn’t forget what it is, and is constantly comparing the world of games with the real world. The characterization may leave a lot to be desired, it does bring some interesting stuff to the table. In particular there is one very impressive episode that analyzes broken games that is by far the best episode of the series. This solidness is what kept me from dropping this series and what actually might make the second season better. Still, anime needs to stop making these series that only suffice to build-up. There are plenty of ways that you can make your story exciting while building up at the same time.

Storytelling:	7/10 – With the occasional exception, slow and dull delivery.
Characters:	7/10 – Mediocre voice acting, shallow characters, really annoying Elcea.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Without a doubt, this is the ugliest series that Manglobe ever produced. The animation not bad and has its moments, but those are few and far inbetween.
Setting:	8/10 – The attention to dating sims saves this series from being a complete waste of time.

Suggestions:
– NHK ni Youkoso
– White Album
– Kuchuu Buranko