Samurai Flamenco is perfect for Noitamina: aimed at adults, creative, great characters, and really well written. I mean, Silver Spoon and Galilei Donna were nice and all, but this is going to be the next really big hit from the timeslot again after Psycho Pass.
There are two reasons why this show stands out. First of all is the characters: they are amazing. Pretty much the best of the season along with Kyousogiga. I can’t really say which are better at this point because both series have completely different ways in which they use their characters, but the chemistry between them is just amazing. Every character works well together.
Also, more than any other series, I have to say that this series is clever. Really clever. It may have an idiot as a main character, but everything is done very deliberately. Episode two played around with him brilliantly. It first portrayed his ideals as childish, immature, stupid. And then it completely turned things around, exactly by making this guy be the stubborn idiot that he is. That was actually amazing! You see, by far the majority of all stupid characters in any medium make the classic mistake of not knowing the difference between being “dumb”, and acting like you had your head lobotomized.
Our Samurai Flamenco clearly has issues, but he actually behaves like a character. He’s just simple minded and cannot see the results of his actions, and he lives in his own world.
And then there were these small details, like how this show also sheds some light on how much crap idol managers have to endure for their living, having nagging models on one hand, and the corporate drama on the other. She too is a great character.
I finally want to talk a bit about the guy who wrote all of this: Hideyuki Kurata. Why? Because this is a guy who has frustrated me for the past couple of years. Take a look at the shows that he adapted recently: The World God Only Knows, Asa no Yoichi, Dragon Crisis, Kannagi, all series with a terrible series composition. Oh, and he also did that Ore no Imouto show. That’s a pretty bad resume, right?
Well, the source of my frustration came from the shows he wrote before those: he’s the mind behind Read or Die, Now and Then, Here and There, Brigadoon, Kamichu, all brilliant and really creative series. What happened, really? Like with Manglobe, I at this point had given up a bit of hope on this guy, but right now it seems that he’s just really bad at adapting stuff. I dunno, but to me he just seems bored when he has to work on other people’s stuff, because his adaptations scream laziness all over. His original stories sparkle with personality, though. It makes me really wonder what happened. Couldn’t he land better jobs? Was he stuck in a rut?
Also, Manglobe. Really, the mentality they had when they created Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy, Michiko to Hatchin and House of Five Leaves: they need to get that back, even though it wasn’t commercially successful. Because those four series are an array of incredible series with a ton of creativity and heart. There really was a time at which Manglobe belonged among my favourite production companies, but yeah, we all know where that went. But at the very least they managed to stay alive despite their financial mishaps, so let’s hope that Samurai Flamenco will usher them to a strategy of a combination between cheap commercial driven series, and quality projects like this one.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)
don’t think i remember seeing this many reviews coming out in one day, you’re really punching them out @psgels. Clear sign this is a good season 🙂
Well by bad resume, I guess you have to look at it objectively. True that maybe he has done bad series on your opinion, by its those series that make profit the most (ie. Kannagi, TWGOK , Oreimo).
Not only profitable, but arguably well done for what they are. I tend to prefer Type A anime too, but I don’t mind some Type B candy now and again and I found all three of those to actually have some pretty strong character development. Especially TWGOK which kinda touches on just how depressing the situation is.
I agree it’s depressing that those are the types that turn into commercial successes, but at least what Hideyuki Kurata has worked on is typically the best of the bunch.
Aren’t all the good series you mentioned anime originals and the bad ones adaptions. That may be the problem. He doesn’t adapt things well.
The manager is a great character and Goto is getting more and more “Tomokazu Sugita” every time. In general I liked the episode, with the exception of Hazama’s backstory: I know it was supposed to sound emotional and all with the sad music included but it just felt really forced. For now the comedy part has been much more stronger so I want more of it.
While I like this show and its characters, I think you are giving them too much credit. They are not THAT amazing. While I can agree with you to an extent, you seem to automatically love characters that are adults. High schoolers do get annoying and a lot of the best anime have adult main characters, that doesn’t mean all adult characters are automatically amazing.
I think the root of my complaints come from when you basically said this is better than Silver Spoon of which I disagree completely. That may change over the course of the season, but as of now there is no competition imo. That and Kyousogiga has MUCH more interesting characters to me.
Really Psgels? This comparing this one to Psycho Pass cracks me up.
This story is generic. The real world super hero thing is done to death. The umbrella backstory was cheesy as hell and I laughed everywhere yelling at the TV for pretty boy to shut up. This goon is passionate about going after small crimes and it makes him look like an idiot. Lame action sequences too.
I’m not sure how homo erotic things will get between the two mains but I’m not going to stick around to find out (not that there’s anything wrong with a show aimed at at a gay crowd or being gay).