Star Crossed Anime

Around four years ago, I watched the first three episodes of Scrapped Princess, but I dropped it soon afterwards because it didn’t interest me enough. Based on some recommendations from several people I decided to watch the entire series and I must say that Scrapped Princess definitely has its merits.

This really is a typical Bones series. For nearly every single one of their anime, you can be sure to expect a very imaginative setting, and Scrapped Princess is no different. While it starts with a story about a princess that the entire country wants dead, it soon develops into an interesting mix between fantasy and science fiction. It’s a thought-provoking series that questions whether or not one should allow the deaths of thousands, simply to protect one insignificant life. This really was my highlight for this series.

This series’ flaws lie in the cast of characters: they really are a mixed bag. Some are interesting (Fulle, Yuhma, Senes), but a lot of them are insufficiently developed or just plain dull. Pacifica really starts out as an interesting character, but around the middle of the story she suddenly gets amnesia out of nowhere, which doesn’t really contribute or influence anything in the story except for slowing it down. Winia and Leopold never really were interesting characters, but this series just keeps coming back to them in favour of the more interesting characters. Christopher is a walking mystery: we never get to see any of his background or development, and yet his change of character and motivation are really hard to buy.

The same goes for the series’ antagonists: they start off really good and this series really manages to show us that these people are dangerous and are not to be fooled around with. This sense of despair is another one of the true highlights of this series when you realize all the horrible things that the lead characters are put against. It really helps to sympathize with not just the main characters of Pacifica, Shannon and Raquel, but also the villains themselves. Unfortunately, in the final third of this series this is abandoned completely, and they turn into your average bunch of incompetent fools who keep changing sides and never seem to get anything right.

And yeah, this series is typical Bones, and that also means that it has a typical Bones ending. In the end, everything is just solved too easily (as in, “why the hell didn’t you just do that in the first episode?!”), characters are randomly brought back from the dead and everyone just lives happily ever after in the now ideal world. It’s a real shame: I would really have been much more positive about this series if only that ending didn’t leave such a bad taste in my mouth. This really is my big problem with Bones: I really want to like them. I really appreciate how much time and effort they put in their series to make them look unique. But why the heck do they keep screwing up with their endings over and over?!

Nevertheless, this series does make some good points; especially in its first two thirds, it really is a nice look at humanity. It’s not a perfect series, and Bones has made much better series as well, but nevertheless it makes for a nice watch.

Storytelling:	7/10
Characters:	7/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	9/10

For this review, I want you to try something. First, visit Yoiko’s MAL page and read the description. Then, take a look at the OP:

While this is also a good opportunity for me to test whether or not embedded Youtube videos work on this site, I now want you to imagine what kind of series this is going to be. It sounds like a heart-warming slice of life series in the same veins of Mokke, doesn’t it? A nice and quiet series about a small child who lives in a grown-up body; an innocent tale of growing up. That’s what I thought, at least.

So yeah… where to start?

Yoiko is a series with twenty episodes of 10 minutes. Every single episode starts with a nude shower scene and a full close-up of Fuuka’s boobs. Every single episode ends with Fuuka’s brother making a masturbation joke. The rest of the series isn’t any different: chockful of fanservice jokes, boob-shots, masturbation jokes and arousal jokes. This series has no sense of shame, and the worst thing is that this is supposed to be a series about elementary schoolers. Time and time again you see grown adults of all sorts of ages getting horny over a 9-year-old who happens to have the body of an 19-year-old.

However, this isn’t the case with most fanservice shows, where I can just label it as crap and get it over with, like To Love-Ru and Kanokon. Yoiko definitely has its merits. For one, I laughed like crazy during a fair number of the episodes. A lot of the series’ humour comes from seeing what borderline of taste the creators are going to break this time, and that results into a number of absolutely hilarious situations and a fair number of actually good sex-jokes.

The other source of humour in this series comes simply from watching elementary schoolers and their usual antics. Despite the huge amounts of fanservice and the creators who keep dancing on your grave because you became aroused by a 9-year-old, this series can boast a charming cast of typical kids and their simple minds. While there are a few stereotypes here and there (like the horny teacher, et cetera), the cast somehow works.

Part of the reason of why the characters are enjoyable is the cast of voice-actors, who do a terrific job of bringing the cast alive. Especially the above-mentioned horny teacher is greatly voiced, but the rest of the cast also sounds awesome, and really like their age.

Granted, this isn’t the best comedy out there; there are a number of dull episodes in which the humour doesn’t work as well as it should have, especially in the second half of the series. Still, this series never gets too dull to just start dropping. There also isn’t really an ending. The show just stops after 20 episodes, without really concluding anything (not that there was anything that needs conclusion, though; this series did avoid going down the emo road in its final few episodes). This series does well in its characterization, but in terms of character-development it doesn’t go much beyond the introductions of the different characters.

What baffles me the most though is that this series was directed by Omori Takahiro, a powerhouse of a director who also was behind awesome series as Baccano, Jigoku Shoujo, Natsume Yuujinchou and Fancy Lala. I guess the best thing this series can be compared with is if you take Fancy Lala, remove the idol bit and any sort of serious storyline and symbolism, let the lead female in her adult body 100% of the time, remove every single border of taste and add in lots and lots of boobs. And then some more.

Storytelling:	8/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	7/10

Argento Soma is one of the post-Evangelion series. Like series as Betterman, Reideen and Dai Guard, and even awesome series as Figure 17 and Bokura no, it features a series of smart and very hard to destroy monsters that need to be destroyed, and the lead characters have some sort of huge mecha that can do the job. There’s a lot of potential for this kind of formula and granted, Argento Soma isn’t the best of the bunch, but it’s a fine attempt nonetheless.

Argento Soma chooses for a slow-paced approach with some subtle angst, and I must say that it works quite nicely. For once we don’t have any teenagers piloting the giant mechas, but instead we have a team of people well in their twenties. In fact, there is only one child in the story, and with her it’s made clear over and over that she actually doesn’t belong in the military. Central to the story, and the definite highlight, is the relationship between the two lead characters: the young girl and one of the main pilots that is to fight the evil “aliens”, as they’re called in this series. They’re both heavily traumatized and scarred by things that happened in the past and through the series they help each other growing over their troubles.

A major theme in this series is also symbolism. There are two particular characters who have a habit of comparing the situation they’re in to either random anecdotes or figures of speeches. This show also has a nice little pattern with its episode titles, which are all emphasized at the end of each episodes. In some cases the symbolism is a bit silly, but most of the times it works pretty nicely.

You don’t want to watch this series for the battles, which more often than not take just a back-seat to other things. Central to this series is its cast of characters, which develops nicely throughout the series. There are a lot of episodes that don’t have anything to do with fighting, but instead focus on other things, like one episode is fully dedicated to politics (a very well done episode, by the way), and there are quite a few episodes dedicated to character-development. The battles themselves quickly turn repetitive though. There are also a few random plot-holes that pop up near the ending, and I also think that Soma’s voice actor isn’t fully able to make his character believable once he starts angsting. The villains in this series are also very stereotypical and really lack any sort of impact.

This series does stand out in its soundtrack and character-designs: both give this show a unique feeling. Overall though, this series could have done with a bit more ambition. It never really reaches any heights: the story is very simple if you start to see the bigger picture, and the characters themselves do feel like they could have been fleshed out a bit more, but that too has its charms: it’s not trying to become the best thing since sliced bread, but instead just puts down an enjoyable little series with a bit of depth, yet doesn’t hit heights and at that, it succeeds.

Storytelling:	8/10
Characters:	8/10
Production-Values:	8/10
Setting:	8/10