Star Crossed Anime

Houlgrave recommended this series to me, which really intrigued me. A few years ago, I watched its first episode, and at that time it seemed like nothing more than standard “boy meets mecha”-fare. After watching the entire series, though, I’m glad to see that this series is much more than that, and definitely a product of Good Gonzo.

The series starts out as something that Mars Daybreak should have been: a fun adventure series, in this case following a delivery-boy who doesn’t mind dangerous jobs that involve a few mecha-fights here and there. The interesting part about the mechas in this series is that you can’t ride them, and instead you have to control them from outside. The cast of characters is varied and interesting: there basically are more children who found themselves such a mecha, and the series explores them as each of them is trying to act out his/her own sense of judgement.

A huge theme in this series is taking responsibility, and it goes further than you might expect at first sight. This series doesn’t merely preach “thou shalt take responsibility for thy actions”, it also critically asks when and why one should do that, and whether it wouldn’t be better to just go into your own way. This is where the diversity in characters comes in again, because of so many different viewpoints at this issue, it’s really able to explore these topics.

The big criticism against this series is of course that the plot doesn’t always flow as smoothly as you’d like. If during a big action-scene you suddenly see two characters pop up from out of nowhere, you’re going to have to assume that they were worried about some other character, and came to check it out, even though this is never directly said. This can also be a good thing, depending on the way you look at it. On one way, it’s indeed a bit lazy, but on the other hand it’s a series that doesn’t assume its viewers to be stupid, and the creators assume that their viewers are able to conclude that two plus two equals four, without having to spoon-feed it to them. Unfortunately, this mindset does not always work: there are a few very rather jarring convenient coincidences, which just serve to push the story into the direction the creators want it to. That’s indeed a bit lazy, but at least the results of these plot-twists make up for it.

Because what especially impressed me in this series was the completely different way that the plot evolves into during its second half. For a while, it really seems like it’s building up for a straightforward climax, but instead the mood of this series completely shifts and instead of focusing the climax of this series on lots of action and drama, the series finale instead aims to give a lot of depth to the series’ setting.

Overall, this is a series with a lot of diversity: not just in the characters, but especially the mood of the series can take on lots of different colours: from calm slice-of-life to a number of solid action- and comedy-episodes, to powerful drama, heart-warming character-development and mystery in the second half of the series. I think that that’s something typical of Good Gonzo, as you see that effect in a lot of their better series. The plot’s a bit jiggy, but because of that sacrifice Gonzo managed to put down a very nice series. Not to mention that this really is the first series I’ve run into that correctly understands the principles of Karate. Take that you generic shounen-series!

Wagaya no Oinari-sama: a fox-spirit and a shrine maiden move into the family of our lead character and hi-jinks begin. It’s a premise that shouldn’t be good. It’s been done so many times in so many variations. Still, somewhere along the line the producers must have done something right, because it’s been a very enjoyable series from start to finish.

Everything seems to fit somehow, both the main- and side-characters are well-fleshed out and developed and very enjoyable to watch, the story is divided into a number of arcs, ranging from one to four episodes, and the creators make sure to keep every one of them interesting, with a story that’s complex enough to keep the viewer’s attention, yet remains simple and far away from convolution. The background music is very subtle, but also very effective. The only bad part I can think of is the lead character’s character-designs, but even that annoyance disappears once you get used to it.

…and that’s pretty much it. This isn’t a series you need to analyze from top to bottom, it’s a series where you just need to shut up and watch. All you need to know is that if you’re looking for a series that combines slice of life with supernatural stories, then you’ll like Wagaya no Oinarisama. It’s an enjoyable series, in both the light-hearted as the serious aspects. What else is there to say, really?

The thing with Bones is that their works are either excellent or complete flops. The Mars Daybreak is a flop; probably the biggest flop they’ve produced. Still, at least it’s a fun flop… sometimes.

In any case, it takes an entire washing-list to fully summarize all that’s wrong with this series, so here we go:
– It’s got a bad main character-syndrome (without any prior experience whatsoever, the guy only needs ten seconds to fully master the complex machinery of his personal super-mecha, for goodness’ sake!)
– There’s hardly any character-background whatsoever (we never know how the crew of the Aurora joined the ship in the first place)
– The background that’s there doesn’t make any sense (if Gram, said lead-character, grew up in the slums, then where did he learn to cook so well?)
– Junior will make people punch their screen out of annoyance.
– Vess will make people toss their screen out of the window and burn the remains out of annoyance.
– It fails to flesh out the setting well enough (why are people living underwater if they can also do that above? Where do these people get their food? How come it never rains?)
– It fails at properly introducing its characters (one particular crewmembers of the ship that most of the series takes place on take twelve episodes to get mentioned)
– It’s got a “screw the plans I’m impulsive/horny/whatever”-mindset.
– There’s an incredible amount of plot-holes through the entire series.
– Trivial plot-points are never explained (how did Gram get his necklace? Where did his super-mecha come from? Especially that last one is just jarring. It’s just… there.)
– Characters behave inconsistently (I’m looking at you, Kubernes; we also never learn exactly why Yagami got his nickname. He’s freaking useless throughout the largest part of the series)
– The overall storyline is shallow at best, and the end reward is uninspired.
– There’s a pointless love triangle in which Gram managed to conquer the two daughters of the most influential men you can imagine.
– The show thinks it’s good at drama while in fact the drama sucks with the power of one thousand vacuum cleaners.
– The setting has so much potential and yet the series never uses it.

So, with all these flaws, is there really anything left on this series that’s good? Well somehow through some kind of magic, the light-hearted chemistry between the characters ended up pretty nicely. It’s not always the case, but if the stars are aligned in a particular way, the scriptwriters feel inspired and they’ve gotten their coffee, then this show might actually be able to deliver an enjoyable and fun episode to watch. Especially the cat and the dolphin are great side-characters. In fact, this series would have been much more enjoyable if the focus fell on the side-characters a bit more, but instead someone on the production-team found it a good idea to turn this series into “The Adventures of the Almighty Gram (and his Crew)”. Gram’s just too perfect, for goodness’ sake.

Through all the flaws, the biggest one is that this series doesn’t know what it’s good at. At heart, this is a fun-filled adventure to search for treasure on a fantasy-version of Mars. Unfortunately, it too often lapses into pointless drama, gets way too serious or puts too much attention on Gram, rather than letting the entire crew get involved into some exciting chase-sequence or something. The episode where the crew meets Enora is a good example: it was light-hearted, fun and creative. If only the rest of the episodes was like that… In the end, this series biggest strength now is that it doesn’t ask anything from the viewer. You can just watch it and turn your brain off, without being forced to sit through anything difficult. That’s nice and all, but you can achieve the same effect by watching paint dry.