First Impressions Re: Zero

I was hesitant to watch one of the most hyped shows of the season.  Re: Zero presents us with trope, cliché and archetypes alike, while still maintaining fun dialogue and small surprises.  But I get ahead of myself.

I was prepared not to care for the series much; That tends to happen when there is over hype.  I tend to be overly critical and unable to fully enjoy the work.  Further, having read others reviews, I knew a bit of the faults and of course they stood out like a sore thumb. If you're reading this, you may have already read some of the same reviews, or had friends demand that you catch the next Sword Art Online!

Re: Zero starts as another Alice in Wonderland (Archetype) of fans of more classical literature - A Conneticut Yankee in Key Arthur's Court.  Our modern NEET (trope - maybe cliché; also NEET stands for Not in Employement, Education, or Training) who plays too many games and has next to no social life, immediately falls into a fantasy world while hearing desperate pleas for help.  The first episode is an hour special separated, atleast on Crunchyroll into two half hour segments.  I'm left wondering how it originally aired.  The divide happens well as you're delivered with your first surprise, which I won't spoil.  Its another cliché though, and will leave those who havn't seen anything like it praising its creativity;  However for every other member of the sci fi fantasy fan base - you've seen it, and you've seen it done better.

Subaru, the NEET in question, is enthusiastic and tenacious, two easily likable traits and fairly archetypal for anime heroes.  I gave the series the standard three episode test, and the first small plot wave is able to wrap up in that time.  I bring this up because in that time, Subaru wasn't able to stand out as overwhelmingly special or break away from the archetype.  In three episodes he was flat.  Now I'll give the writers cred where its due - in speaking to himself, he speaks directly to the intended audience of the series.  Its not quite fourth wall breaking like you would get from daredevil, but Subaru and the character makes fun of himself and the setting at large. Subaru was/is funny.  Not overwhelming so, but enough. 

Because the plot and setting took 2 or three episodes to set up AND the gimmick of Re: Zero relies heavily in the first few episodes on those plot surprises, its also very difficult to figure what the hell the point is.  To put it another way, why do I care that Subaru has this going on with him?  Why do I care about this girl he has stumbled upon?  Flat characters and relying heavily on their surprise means there a bit of excitement, plus the bit of laughs, but you can tell that the series wants to say something... You just have no idea what. 

The series is also well animated, the fight scenes were nice to look at.  I enjoyed the character designs, though again you kind of are walking those archetypes, tropes, and cliches again.  The lead female has a bit of an Asuna throw back; I can't say she's as interesting of yet.  The other female you meet, Felt, appears to be your loli or imouto con; We'll see how that digresses.  Over all I'll give it a point for art. 

I can't say much for the music.  Nothing that is stuck in my head.  I didn't bother to listen to either theme all the way through. 

If you're new to anime, or just enjoy the more escapable variety, it'll rank highly enough for you.  They don't FAIL at anything thus far.  Everything they attempted to do they did at an adequate level. I'll keep watching for sure.  If you want something that is actually good you can skip this one and keep looking. 

Throw Back Thursday: Fruits basket

Fruits Basket has to be one of my favorite slice of life... fantasy... eh?  What genre is it?  It's been long enough since I've seen the show I'm tempted to go back to and watch it again. 

Tohru Honda, an orphaned high school student living in a tent.  Her tent happens to trespass upon the Sohma family's land, and she quickly finds herself invited to stay with them.  This strange turn of events also leads her to discovering a dark secret - the curse of the Sohma family. When tired, stressed, weak, or hugged by a member of the opposite sex, 13 different members of the family change into members of the Chinese zodiac. 

The anime was created while the manga was ongoing, so there are some differences the anime had to take license with, especially in its ending.  What the anime did a fantastic job with is keeping to the themes and feeling of the manga, albeit the anime never went quite as dark.

Each member of the zodiac is well developed and fleshed out as a character with their own baskets of problems.  The plot of the series moves from zodiac character to zodiac character, allowing Tohru, with mixed results, slowly alleviating their pains.  She doesn't always solve their problems, however her life view of enjoying life, holding on to those dear to you, and her tenacity win the day.  Tohru isn't perfect, but its the earnest effort that wins the day more than her intelligence or diplomacy.  I found a quote the summarizes well:

The entire series of Fruits Basket proves to be a true emotional roller coaster, hiding truly deep and heartfelt drama behind a candy coating of fun and humor. Deep down, it explores many aspects of emotion as the various characters search for their place in the world, gaining strength from each other.

— Allen Divers, Anime News Network

Tohru as our heroine, is perfect. She represents values that are greater than herself, that she has to strive for, growing and learning along the way.  That's what makes a real hero worth watching and remember.  Today's culture is obsessed with the anti hero. These incredibly broken people that struggle, and sometimes become better, but often leave us wanting.  This is incredibly true in romances.  And in slice of life, we are often just left without a hero pandering to just whimsical fun. It has its place, but Fruits Basket was a story that was able to hit on all notes largely due to the success of Tohru Honda as a complete well rounded character. 

 I remember watching the series thinking to myself, that when I have a daughter she has to see this anime.  That is what you will be watching if you go back and visit this series.  Its fun, entertaining, deep, and above all, can make you a better person if you takes its values into your own life. 
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Ranma 1/2: Throwback Thursday Review

Ah the glory days.  The afternoons and evenings gone by, growing up on anime of yore.  Ranma 1/2 is by far one of my favorite animes of all time.  I am a huge fan of rom coms anyways.  I mean love, laughter, you just can't go wrong that combination.  So here is a very biased review of Ranma 1/2.

We open on a young girl fighting a panda in the streets of Japan.  The girl is arguing with the panda during the spar as if the two are very close.  Ultimately the panda defeats the girl and hauls her off to an unknown location. Then we are introduced to the Tendo household.  A father with three daughters, Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane. He announces his good friend Genma Saotome is bringing his son Ranma, to whom one of the girls will be betrothed.  Then our panda and girl show up.  The girl introduces herself as Ranma Saotome.  These are words of relief to the daughters, as now none of them would have to be in an arranged marriage because of course they can't marry a girl.  During the evening bath, Ranma goes in on her own.  The next scene shows a male, obviously Ranma, still in the tub.  Akane announces she is going to enter the bathroom, and the now male Ranma is caught with Akane walking in on him. Hilarity ensues and poor Ranma now has a lot of explaining to do. 

Ranma and his father Genma, now reverted to human from panda, explain that they have been studying martial arts in China.  They happened upon Jusenkyo, the training ground of cursed springs, where every spring has a tragic story to it.  During their training they fell into the spings.  Ranma into the spring of drowned girl and his father that of drowned panda.  And now when splashed with cold water they are cursed to transform into their springs' matching namesake. When in hot water they revert to their original selves. 

If this doesn't seem funny enough, Akane, the youngest daughter, is a skilled martial artist with little interest in boys. It's immediately decided against her and Ranma's wishes that THEY should be the ones to be married. After all, Akane doesn't like boys, and Ranma is half girl.  This starts a very hot/cold relationship between the two.

The series progresses in a very episodic fashion.  Ranma accumulates more fiances, never intentionally, and always accidentally.    Ranma and Akane of course can't help but have a budding romance as they are forced into ridiculous encounters and situations. And so the series progresses for a gazillion manga and anime episodes. The two are so similar - the anime and manga, that you could take your pick and enjoy either. 

Rumiko Takahashi is known for her characters, no matter how shallow or complex, giving them interesting angles and outlets.  She practically invented the tsundere and few are more subtly complex then Ranma. 

In fact, it's here where I'm going to comment on cultural significance of the series.  And I daresay it has cross Pacific resonance.  Ranma is a world class martial artist, dedicated to his craft by practicing each and every morning and seeking challenge after challenge to test his mettle. Honorable and having a desire to protect those that can't protect themselves, Ranma is also unmistakably a teenage boy.  Around the other female characters he is hopelessly lost and sticks his foot in his mouth as if its natural place was protruding from his chin for easier access.  His arrogance and brashness is only amplified as he uncomfortably fumbles around Akane.  In short he is a fairly straightforward young man we'd find in many stories, anime or otherwise.

When he becomes a girl, he becomes far more... vitriol?  Watch the show closely.  Rarely does he talk smack when in boy form.  As the series progresses, in spite of his protestations, he uses his girl form to get away with more and more actions that no boy would ever do - including flirting for free food.  Only some of his "girlish" behaviors leach over to boy type Ranma and Akane is happy to point it out for the viewers pleasure.  So there is a clear attempt at pointing out "girl" and "boy" stereotypes.  Several episodes play on what should be the 90's role of a woman in proper Japanese society.  These include episodes from comparing hip sizes to cooking competitions. Truly its not too different then archaic and persistent western ideals. Always with a martial arts twist and always with Ranma's half girlness being dragged along. 

There are other differences the show points out.  Ranma never fights a "real" fight in his girl form.  Girl type just is not strong or fast enough, he rationalizes.  And he never attacks a girl while in boy form, though there are several formidable female martial artists as the series progresses. None of this bothered me - it seemed right, until recently.  You see I like my women to be strong and beside their men, never behind. 

And that lastly brings me to Akane.  She starts as the tsundere strong female match for Ranma. Sadly she degenerates into a love interest/trophy and often gets cast as the damsel in distress rather than Ranma's equal.  To me this just makes her... less. 

At the end of the day, it wasn't Rumiko Takahashi's purpose to comment on the differences between male, female, and gender roles - as far as I'm aware at least.  She was writing an entertaining work of comedy spiced with fun martial arts zaniness. I think its the assumed that tells us most about our cultures, whether on that island of the pacific or here in the states. And strangley enough the assumed works so well here that Ranma is indeed a very entertaining piece with surprise and fun to be had.

Gate: First Impressions

Gate: Thus the Japanese Self Defense Force Fought This anime has been a bit of a pleasant surprise.

I was browsing Crunchyroll trying to find something new to get into and seeing the juxtaposition of fantasy on a modern day soldier and Humvee I wondered what could this be about. 

The blurb is simple.  A fantasy army travels to modern Tokyo through a magical gate.  After a bloody battle, the Japanese Self Defense Force (JSDF) pushes that back through the gate, and then pursues, finding themselves in a fantastical land of magic, swords, and dragons. 

Our hero, an otaku, is the leader of one of the JSDF recon squads.  Youji Itami is a standout for anime heroes, in his lack of... standing out.  You see, your anime heroes tend to be over the top in some way.  Because he is an otaku you immediately think he is going to be a loveable loser - theses heroes are awkward and incompetent. Loveable losers have some core trait or value that makes them worthy of the title: hero. It could be a latent power, or just the plain old power of friendship that they dedicate themselves to completely.  Surprise, surprise! In the first episode Itami shows himself to be quite capable as he saves several people and dispatches one of the attackers. This brings us to the other end of the anime spectrum.  The hero that is so bad ass he is the "superman" of that show, perfect in almost everyway, but with some fatal flaw.  Itami disappoints us here as well, atleast so far.  He is... capable.  That's the best word. I've seen three episodes and he hasn't done anything extraordinary.  Which moves me to my impression of the anime itself.s

Itami's character summarize quite nicely the whole feel of the anime; Interesting, likeable, but a bit confusing.  The show has introduced three female characters, as picture above in the promo shot.  So is this going to be an epic fantasy, a love harem, a military anime... I don't know? I'm resisting the urge to read ahead, as the anime has both a light novel and manga already in release.  And I guess that's the charm though.

The confusion of exactly what's going on, is EXACTLY what has made the show entertaining.  Like the characters being invaded by this strange fantasy realm, I the viewer am engrossed in the world building taking place. There is a likable hero to follow as we discover the mysteries of this strange fantasy realm and what kind of place our JSDF friends have found themselves in. 

Everything else about the show is solid and supports the entertainment value - art, music, pacing etc. It appears we are in for a treat, and I can't wait to catch this weeks episode. 

I'll be watching late, enjoy ^.^
じゃ、また。

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、