K-On: After School Tea Time rocks!: Review

Ah!  The joys of being young,  Of having a passion.  Of working hard to fulfill your dreams.  Long nights of grinding hours of practice to reach the skill level to achieve your goals.  What more could an anime about 5 high school girls that create a pop band teach us?  Well... Anything but that actually.

K-on is about four friends that do indeed resurrect a dying rock band club from near extinction at their school.  Later to be joined by a fifth student,  Yui, Mio, Ritsu, Mugi, and Azusa meet every day after school for club activies.  You would think these would involve writing music, practicing their craft, and generally rock out in their sugary j-pop ways. But alas, mostly they just... drink tea and eat snacks.

So how can you possibly create a show about tea and snacks?  By adding in some mischief, friendship, and comedy routines of course.  There is a plot - albeit a meandering one- that does involve problems that need to be solved, and yes the occaisonal gig.  The plot and themes of this one mostly revolve around what its like getting through school with close friends and savoring each and every moment, not matter what you may be doing.

The characters themselves are simple, but avoid cliche.  I mean if meyers brigg is to be believed there are only 16 base personality types anyways.  The typical anime tropes are cleanly avoided; what you have instead are 5 girls each with very distinct personalities, dreams, hopes and fears. This is a good thing. There isn't much growth, as this isn't a coming of age story, and therefore doens't leave one disappointed.  The characters ultimatly stand on their own and keep the show moving along with their antics and responses.

I think my favorite part of the show was the opening and closing credits.  The opening credits were poppy and fun, while the ending credits were a little more rock and edgy.  All four tracks were good in their own ways. 

If you are looking for an epic rock story, than this anime isn't for you.  Its about girls being girls in cutesy ways that make you chuckle. There is no fan service, no male to trip and fall on these lasses, BUT there is a turtle. And that makes everything alllll right. 

Personally, I like a little more plot and drama in my high school anime.  I've seen my fair share of the "slice of life", but this one was hard to get through.  Each episode was enjoyable - not really fulfilling but enjoyable.  It certainly didn't keep me up wanting to watch the next episode though, and I think that is where this one leaves much to be demanded...  I also have the feeling that K-on was never meant to be a page turner.  Like the girls of After Noon Tea Time, the name of the band, you are meant to just sit back, relax, and enjoy.

RWBY: Review

There a gazillion reasons why I'm happy to present to you this review on "RWBY".  Let's get this out of the way quick so your brain can ready it the way its meant to be read. RWBY is said "ruby." Its a clever misspelling based around our main heroine and the names of her three team mates.  More on that later.

To start, RWBY presents us with a modern world full of magic and Dust, the physical embodiment of magic..  This world isn't our own, but rather of the name Remnant - an earth like setting with 4 main continents, 4 kingdoms split among 3 of them.  Attacking humanity are the Grimm, creatures of darkness only interested in eating humans.  Who stands against the Grimm?  The hunters - an organization that crosses borders to defend humanity.  Important to the plot are the  Faunus, a human species with animal like features.  These people share the world with the humans, but are persecuted out of fear and distrust for their differences. 

We open up our plot with Ruby.  She is a positive girl, naïve and socially awkward in the best ways, with but one goal - to become a world class hunter for the sake of saving humanity. She is shopping at a convenience/dust store, when robbers attack demanding all the dust in the store.  Ruby stops the criminals easily with her trusty scythe and magic.  Very quickly she finds herself outmatched as the boss character appears. Luckily a member of Beacon academy rescues her.  The headmaster of Beacon is impressed with her skills to the point he allows her to be accepted two years early, with Ruby's big sister Yang.  And that's where our story goes from - the adventures of a magical girl, at a magical school, fighting magical beasts, in a magical world. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT!

Let's get to the reviewing!  First things first! RWBY feels like it was made on a budget.  The first season they didn't even bother to animate any background characters, preferring to leave them as walking black silhouettes.  This lack of funding could have resulted in something very bad, but instead it created something... well magical.  The creator, Mounty Oum, and his team chose to spend their limited resources on doing just a few things REALLY right.  The episodes are short, maybe 10-15 minutes each, so they kept the script writing tight and poignant.  The characters are artsy in their own way, obviously short on budget, but pretty and well crafted. The shortcut in different places to ensure that your focus is where it is meant to be - the characters and action.

 Characterization wise you even have short cuts.  Yu have no time for development in 10 minutes, and so the characters tend to be one dimensional archetypes. Not that its a bad thing; Notice I used the word archetype and not cliché?  Each character is well thought out and given several layers.  In fact its impressive how many layers they are able to present in as short as the episodes are.  AND THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS for such a shot running episode is impressive.  Each and every character is well thought out and serves a purpose to the show.  There is no wasted dialogue or actions here.  No time for it. 

And there is no time for wasted dialogue why?  Because of the beautiful fight scenes of course!  Each character has a unique fighting style and weapon.  Each choreographed to sci-fi fantasy uber geek perfection.  And don't get me started on the music!  Again - there is something slightly lacking in the production.  Doesn't quite sound likes something produced by a pro.  But you just don't care.  It was the music that drew me in to the series to being with.  Pandora snuck one in to my playlist and I mentally filed in under "must look into".  And I was forever sold.  The themes, the music in the backgrounds during the fights, all interlaced with a good score, are the best flavored ice cream on a well crafted cup cake.

I guess that's the best analogy I can give you to sum it all up.  They didn't have the budget for a full cake.  So they've given us some cup cakes.  In the creation of the cupcakes, they lovingly put in all the best ingredients.  Its just a taste too - because we know there is more - more that they are just hinting at.  They have the characters to explore, they have a world full of intrigue and prejudice that they haven't fully presented and they have mystery in the main plot.  AND plenty of bad guys to keep throwing at our heroes.  In other words lots more cupcakes to come.

Lastly, before I go - I want to comment on an out of show reason to like this series.  The internet is an amazing place for sharing.  A show like this wouldn't not have been possible 20 years ago.  Nobody would have picked it up, or the artists would have had to sell their work to a big production company and barely see any of the proceeds.  This is another example of doing what you love, using the resources you have to leverage what you can.  So keep at it all those dreamers and create something great and share. 
 At this point they have their product. There won't be much to the way its presented that they will be able to change.  Even still, there are noticeable jumps to quality between season 1 and 2.  I'm for one looking forward to season 3.  I rate this one highly watchable.  But what do you think?  Think I missed the mark somewhere?  Want to share?  Well that's what the comments are for!  Also you can follow me and other anime fans on Facebook at Late Night Otaku.

Attack on Titan: Review

Attack on Titan...

What do I have to say about my experience with this show?  You are here probably because you wanted to read a review that would convince you one way or another to watch.  Right away, I'll concede that my own impression whether to keep watching was shaky during the first arc or so.  So let's huddle up together and break down why.

The year... I can't remember the year.  Its like just after the dark ages in technology - that's the more important setting information.  You have canon's and sophisticated muskets.  You have giant walls. These walls are there to keep out the greatest enemy of man kind: The Titans.  The Titans, in their various shapes and sizes, have decimated the worlds population and forced the remaining survivors behind three walls.  Our show opens after 100 years of peace - within those walls.  Humanity has become corralled cattle to an enemy of unknown motivation and origin. But they are surviving. 

Eren is angry at his people's plight.  We see immediately that he is going to be the single track protagonist hero.  The set up is perfect.  We know Eren wants to become part of the expeditionary Scout Regiment that struggles (and fails) to take the fight outside the walls.  The series sets the tone and what we can expect from our heroes and then...

BOOM!  A colossal titan, shatters not only the peace of the last hundred years, but also literally shatters a nice big whole in the wall.  And the Titans attack. Violently crashing through the city, the Titans search to gobble down each and every human they can get their awkwardly expressed faces on.  And this is where the confusion in the shows watch ability begins to set in.

Everyone dies.  Horrifically and in small bite size pieces.  The juxtaposition of Eren's ferociously generated hope against the tragic hopelessness of the reality of the setting is to put it mildly jarring.  I'm going to swing and judge something I don't usually comment on - the art.  Because it fills out my point.  The art is beautiful.  Its both at once anime and very different from anime.  The backgrounds are lush, the cityscapes are a bit repetitive, but in the way a mountain range painted gorgeously would be repetitive and stunning. Eren and Mikasa are the  most anime looking (big eyes small mouth) of the troupe.  Everyone else has non traditionally Caucasian noses and facial features.  When I say that everyone dies in bloody messes, they are beautifully rendered, gross, almost too realistic pieces of human meat sticks.

I'm feeing a little wordy, overly descriptive.  I mean you would think that painting a war - whether between humans and titans, or nation against nation - as the bloody mess it really is, would be  good thing right?  And there have been movies and literature that do just that.  Its just in this case that the art and Eren makes us believe that we are watching a different story - a story of hope and triumph.  Of sheer force of will conquering any foe.  If that's the story you want, I'm not sure if you'll get it here. 

The mystery of the Titans, and humanity's desperate attempt to over come those mysteries drags the show forward.  I found myself dragged into each episode by clever cliff hangers and plot devices. Not that the plot was overly original.  We've seen giants attack before in Neon Genesis Evangelion - a similar theme set in a different time.  Whereas NGE focused more on Shinji's internal struggles against the backdrop of apocalypse, Eren's struggle isn't the main focus.  Eren is used only to give you a main hero and a way to drive the plot forward. 

Suspension of disbelief is important to become immersed in a show of this magnitude.  There is all this mystery and a fictitious world that has been crafted.  Mostly in an attempt that author can make some kind of allegorical statement about the real world.  The last thing we want is to be distracted by little inconsistencies.  Unfortunately - it feels like there are a few glaring items throughout.  And they can't be explained away with the inherent mystery of the show.  My first gripe is the 3D (or Omni depending on the subtitles) Directional Movement Gear.  This technology was developed to counter the Titan's height.  It is a grapple system that yanks the user up similar to the way Spiderman or Batman gets around the city.  It's fast, and while the how makes it sound fairly difficult to use - its not like any of the soldiers truly have a hard time at t.  My problem is the technology scale.  This is some really sophisticated and accurate stuff here.  It uses complex pulley systems, air pressure and comfortably houses it all in a light package that can be carried around with minimal effort.  It felt like it only existed so you could get these really cool visual effects.  But how else would you fight Titans that only have one weak spot?  Ah yes, my second gripe - the weak spot.  A specific chunk of neck has to be cut from the back. It must be a certain depth and width.  This is the only weak spot of the titans.  I'm not so much worried about why that is the weak spot, but how this decimated overly taxed humanity discovered it.   You see Titan's regenerate.  And in the show, prior to the 3D gear, the soldiers used canons which only succeed in slowing Titans down.  They can completely grow back heads given enough time.  So what's the deal?  Who made the discovery and how was it made?  These are just two, and I'll leave it here.  But given the setting of the show and what we know, there are elements that aren't as well thought out that nip at everything else the show is attempting. 

I've mostly talked about the negatives, but I did watch every episode, and I'm looking forward to the next season.  Short of learning more Japanese and picking up the light novel, its the only way I'm going to get all these mysteries in the show solved.  It's the world and it's mysteries, and wondering if Eren's over the top desire to kill all the Titan's and free Humanity that drives my interest.  And while Eren as a hero is my favorite character plot, there are some well thought out characters that act as foils against Eren.  Each hero that survives more than a few episodes has their backstory and fleshes out the themes of war and how you deal with it.  Here in the US we've never been faced with Genocide or any war that has threatened our very existence.  I read on Wikipedia, that there are cultures that were drawing parallels between their plight and this show, so I imagine, some of these themes were better executed but lost on me. I should probably fact check Wikipedia, but if you watch the show, its not hard to see the leap. 

Overall, I'd say Attack on Titan is entertaining.  With the hype around the show you would think it was the best anime of its time, but I'm not sure if I'd go quite that far. It's good.  I want to watch more, but I've seen others that hit me harder, were better thought out, and more original. 

Think I got it wrong?  Leave me a comment.  Have anything else to add?  The comment section is for that too.  Or you can follow me and other late night otaku at our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/latenightotaku.  If you found the review helpful, make a request for another anime.  Also I tweet random dumb comments about the shows I'm watching at #latenightotaku, so join the conversation.  Thanks for giving us a read. またね、

The Irregular at Magic High School: First Impressions (And my first request!)

So this was my first ever request!   Happy to give impressions.  Hit me up at the Late Night Otaku facebook page or in the comments here. So without further ado... 行くぞ！

     The Irregular at Magic High School poses a world in which magic is not only real, but technology enabled.  This was all necessary in a world in which global cooling (haha, appreciated that one) and world wars ravaged the population.  Now countries are desperately creating magicians and adapting to a world in which what you think can become reality. Sound interesting?  That is the magic of The Irregular - its setting in all its well thought out glory.

     The show opens on two siblings discussing school matters. They have been accepted into an elite Magic School.  The brother, Tatsuya Shiba, is in the lower ranking classes due to his practical exam being so low.  His sister, Miyuki Shiba, had no such bad luck.  Miyuki was accepted into class 1 - the elites. Its a hard conversation to follow.  If there is any gripes, its that the world is too big, there is so much to try to figure out.  Personally I enjoyed it.  I've only watched the first arc, and it was like reading the first novel in a series.  Detailed enough to feel out all the characters, but short enough to be enjoyable (and keep me awake all night still...). 

   

As the series progresses, we find out Tatsuya is not what he seems.  Despite of his poor magic testing marks, hes actually a hard working magical genius.  Our hero is worth his title as he solves problems by being calm, wise, hard working and just play bad ass.  Each character presented this far has a strong trait that makes them heroic, but Tatsuya is much like Wesley from The Princess Bride. He is completely over the top but likeable anyways. 

The writers play lightly on the humor - no breast grabbing tropes here.  Any humor comes from well written character dialogue.  The action runs well through out and keeps the plot moving.  The moving plot tends to leave more to ask then answered and again that just makes the series the more watchable. 

 To dig just a tad deeper, the first eight episodes dug into discrimination between Class 1- the elite magic user - and Class 2, our have nots.  While they were talking about magic, one can't help but be curious as to what our heroes actions and the resolution of this arc were actually allegory for current economic grievances.  Then again I am told I tend to look to deep.

Overall if I was to rate the series its better than entertaining.  But just a bit thus far.  While not on my list of MUST SEE's, its good thus far and if you want a series to watch its worthy.  I'll be watching for sure. 

So what do you think?  Think I missed something?  Think I got it wrong?  I'll do a full review when I finish, but in the meantime, join the conversations by commenting or at #latenightotaku.

No Game No Life: Review

No Game No Life Review
Bound by normal conventions we start with a basic summary... No Game No Life is an anime that follows in the footsteps of Alice in Wonderland with several important twists.  We have two protagonists of amazing abilities.  They are both geniuses with only slight divergences in skill sets  Sora, he male older brother, is incredibly smart with a knack for analyzing people.  Shiro, the sister, is beyond a genius, this once in a thousand years analytical machine.  The normal formula would have two normal people go to a mystical land and find their way; however, in No Game No Life, these two abnormal game lovers are transported by a God to a world in which everything is settled through... games. 

Humanity, called Imanity in this world, is at the bottom of the sentient and magical food chain of 16 races. They are backed into a corner and must fight their way out.  Enter our heroes, and all of a sudden humanity has a fighting chance.  Shiro and Sora decide to climb the hierarchy and challenge the god of games himself, Tet. 

Sadly the series is only 12 episodes long and therefore way to short for their dreams to victory; but as a I sad sadly.  The ride through their first few battles is well worth the watch and I'm sure I'm not the only one waiting for a second season.

Each mini arc of the 12 episodes revolve around the victory of a major challenge culminating in Sora and Shiro playing a game against their opponent.  The danger of such a set up is two fold.  Firstly, the writer has to make us believe there is a chance that they could lose - not that surprising, otherwise what's the point.  Second the solution to their victory has to be believable. The game has to be solved through something the viewer couldn't have imagined themselves while still following all the rules of the game and world.  And this is where the series gets a little weak and the message seemingly built in muddled.  The games are FUN.  The solutions are fun.  But our heroes are so over the top geniuses, that often their solutions don't feel even obtainable by normal mortals.

And that is where things fall apart for at least me...  You see the set up here is that normal boring humans are weak.  But its through this weakness that they invent, they are creative, they are more than any of the other races.  Because its necessary, because its adaptation, because its what makes us great.  We don't have physical strength and we don't have magic... we have our minds.  Sora and Shiro as our champions just don't work, because their minds are inhuman.  They are so good at what they do, on such a different level than your average mortal that this message, that humanity IS clever and creative and smart is lost because not a human exists in reality will ever be Sora and Shiro level smart. 

The art is beautiful, the fan service is there, the over the top moments in more younger audience animes are all there.  In fact, as a whole I may be asking the series to be more than it was intended.  After all, what 15 or 16 year old doesn't imagine themselves or desire to be the greatest gamer, and want to be seen as a hero for it.  And the show provides that fantasy wrapped in a beautifully rendered package tied off with laughable moments. 

So I'd have to say on a scale of I want my 6 hours back, to OH MY GOD THIS IS A MUST SEE... I'd say the series was entertaining.  I'm looking forward to them making more but I'll stick to watching it on crunchy roll - I'd probably never pay full retail to watch the series. 

What do you think?  Did I get it wrong?  You have a comment?  Then please post ^.^  Also join all of us other late night otaku at our facebook page: late night otaku or by using the hashtag #latenightotaku

The Devil is a Part-timer: FIrst Impressions

  You want to talk about a fun premise?  King of demons, lord of flies, corruptor, and spreader of vilenesses lowered to the position of fry cook?  Really? 

 I tend to be very interested in Christian mythology having studied it quite a bit in my life.  An anime based on "the devil" immediately caught y attention; however I wasn't anticipating too much as I'm regularly disappointed as much anime just grabs the images and names rather than necessarily the themes or settings.  Not to say that I am disappointed in the anime themselves.  And this was true in the case of the Devil is a part-timer.

The first episode was filled with the backstory and was beautifully animated in what you might see a darker or medieval/fantasy style.  You learn that there is an alternate universe filled with demons and the kind of demons: Satan.  Satan aggressively strikes out to conquer the rest of the land, raping and pillaging as he pleases.  The humans are able to strike back and during the final confrontation of The Hero and the Demon King, Satan is forced to withdraw. Opening a gate to another world, the devil flees the scene with one of his last generals, Alciel.  Flees right into modern day Tokyo. 

 So in other words, this ain't yo' momma's Satan, nor story about heaven and hell.  There is no "Yahweh" or true god mentioned, though the humans do have a religion in this alternate universe.  And while you see early on Satan is considered a bad guy, cruel and wicked, there is nothing about the war with the humans that humans havn't done amongst themselves in our reality. Its a fight for land, not for truth and justice or souls. 

  Baffling to all, by the end of the episode we see Satan and Alciel settled down into a very quaint slice of life routing.  The animation style has changed along with Satan's appearance.  The demonic lord is gone replaced by a teenage boy.  The animation keeps its quality but shifts to what you might expect out of a high school romantic comedy.

  So far in the first few episodes the show is paced extremely well, masterfully interspersing comedy and normalness with the mystery and fantasy of the devil's story.  Further
the main characters are engaging, the devil being the most three dimensional of them; though some of his dimension merely comes from the impressions we get of him from the first episode. Its hard to tell how much "changing" has actually gone on, as we don't truly get to see his personality in the first episode. 

  You know I'll be sure to try to find a deeper meaning if you've been reading any part of my blog.  The use of the Christian names and titles for characters has to be for something.  What's more is the seemingly role reversal of the hero and satan. The Hero, Emi, acts like a spoiled brat, psycho ex girlfriend for much of the first episodes and reminds you much of an antagonist, while the devil is this soft, charming guy, dedicated to his work.  Very interesting indeed. 

  The anime has me hooked, and being only 13 episodes I'm sure Ill get through it quickly. Until the full review, じゃまた

First Impressions: No Game No life

  Watching I was immediately expecting another Sword Art Online.  You know, protagonist gets stuck in a alternate digital universe and then has to survive, find his humanity and deal with the consequences of being stuck in a new world.  IT ISN'T THAT!

  Oh there is an alternate universe that is introduced first thing, and its a world with a seemingly active god and very odd rules.  And there are characters that go through the looking glass, take the red pill, or whatever have you and get pulled into it, at first against their will.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

  Two episodes in, I'm guessing we're watching a morality play unfold.  A story built on over the top characters that represent thoughts and ideas in moving form that are going to lead us to the artists message. I talk a lot about "the artists message" because mark my word, that every story has an intent or a message to say about life and OUR reality. Well, not every story.  Inu to Neko which I just reviewed earlier this evening is just there to make you laugh.  And maybe there you can stretch and say that is the message - just laugh more, but sa... I'm digressing, back on point.

 Sora and Shiro are brother and sister.  They form a sort of yin-yang of personality and ability.  In "OUR world" they are two elite gamer otaku who can beat any game and any player.  They are geniuses on a level that is hard to fathom.  In the first to episodes, they beat 1200 players in an MMORPG EVEN when the other players were cheating.  They were playing 4 characters - that's right the two of them were playing with their hands and feet in an attempt to control 4 characters by themselves.  The two are our over the top protagonists.  Sora is good with people... well analyzing their motives reading their micro expressions and manipulating them.  You might think of him as a jerk and a bad guy, but just under that we see his genius has led him to be a jaded naïve virgin.  So while he seems to despise people and only see them as his tools, he holds some values close that he is searching for in others.  Shiro is the mechanical genius.  She is the type of person that can see every possible combination of a chess board at once.  She is adorable, but obviously way more soft spoken and doesn't want to attempt to deal with people.  Oh btw, Shiro means white.  I wonder what Sora means... I should look into that.  Kuro is black, so I don't think "Sora" completes my yin yang combo here sadly...

 The world our pillars get transported too is a world where games rule.  No one can steal or be murdered.  But they can challenge you to a game. These games are bound by 9 rules, and once the terms are agreed to any particular challenge, the results of the games are mystically enforced.  There are 16 races, with humans being on the bottom of the totem pole in this world.  Enter our two heroes and I can't help but predict that the siblings will champion the human race and help us climb that totem pole.  So what is it the author is telling us?  That if you can find some over the top champions of the human race we can do whatever we want?  That seems too shallow and unrealistic and inapplicable so I'm hoping there is more to this series.

You take all of the above and dress it up in anime clothes and you have No Game No Life.  The normal dated sight gags are there, the hair, the big eyes.  You know all that stuff. I'll catch up to the current episodes and keep sending you guys my insights and thoughts on how the series is progressing. 

Think I got it wrong?  Have a comment?  Leave me a post!  Thanks!
#latenightotaku