Tag: Reviews

… about baking bread?

Serious baking is not for the faint-hearted.

Azuma Kazuma, the protagonist of Yakitate!! Japan, is a sixteen-year-old with an immense talent for baking. He’s bumptious, naive and not terribly bright, but he is extremely dedicated to his craft. He has a special gift, “solar hands” that make dough rise unusually fast, and he has a quest, creating the bread that will allow Japan to take its place among the great bread-making countries of the world. The first episode relates Azuma’s introduction to baking; the second concerns his come-from-behind victory in his first competition at the major dojo bakery he hopes to join.

Azuma is the one with the brown shirt. It’s not clearly visible in this screen capture, but he’s wearing a pink hairband. There’s a good reason for it.

The premise sounds ridiculous, but it works. Kazuma is a typical shounen hero, but not to an obnoxious degree, and the other characters introduced so far have possibilties. The show is energetic and done with a light touch. Whether there is 69 episodes’ worth of story there is another matter, though, and I’m not sure that I want to invest that much time in it.

If what I’ve seen is representative, this is a good show for all ages.

I’ve been doing my bit to support legal anime downloads by keeping up with Strike Witches at BOST. I’m still not convinced that the series really needed to be made. Conceptually, it’s delicately balanced on the borderline between absurd and dumb, but, as Steven says, you’ve got to embrace the stupid. If you can overlook the manifold impossibilities and a few other problems, it’s fun.

It’s not great art. I don’t have much of an apetite for fan service, and the constant panty shots quickly become annoying. However, I’m more irritated by the protagonist, Miyafuji. In the first episode she’s an idiot pacifist who refuses to fight even the aliens attacking the Earth. In the second episode, she shows her quality by disobeying orders and getting in the way during battle. ((Miyafuji hadn’t enlisted yet, so it’s not actually insubordination, but it was still inexcusable. In a more realistic setting, it could have been disastrous.)) Of course, the battle is won with Miyafuji’s help and Sakamoto tells her that she did well, but it’s hard to enjoy a show when I’m constantly muttering “idiot.” It doesn’t help that the token meganekko is a snotty French twit.

On the other hand, the flying scenes are exhilarating and the battle in the second episode is genuinely exciting. Also, there’s no Rachmaninoff. I still prefer the original OVA, though. (Speaking of the OVA, here’s yet another example of why I don’t take most reviewers seriously.)

*****

I also watched the first episode of Birdy the Mighty: Decode. I don’t think I panned the earlier OVA as severely as Steven remembers. It actually isn’t too bad; the main problem is that it ends just as the story gets interesting, and for that reason I can’t recommend it. Decode is slated to run thirteen episodes. That might be long enough to tell a complete story about the high school boy and the interplantary policewoman sharing the same body.

The new version makes a lot of changes, which are not necessarily improvements. For instance, Birdy’s uniform is now symmetrical:

OVA

TV

Death the Kid might approve the new design, but I prefer the earlier version.

Birdy maintains a low profile on earth by disguising herself as a model whose image appears in magazines and on billboards. ((It makes as much sense as the Sailor Starlights’ disguises as members of a boy band.)) Tsutomu’s parents leave town for several months in the first episode, and his annoying sister has her own place, leaving Tsutomu alone at home. This is convenient for a young man apt to change into a woman at awkward times, but it sacrifices opportunities for both developing Tsutomu’s character in the context of his family and for embarrassing moments. The new Birdy is played by Saeko Chiba, who tries hard but isn’t Kotono Mitsuishi.

It’s not awful, but it doesn’t look to be an outstanding series. Perhaps I’ll watch more; perhaps not.

Update: Ubu has a fairly positive take on what he’s seen so far of Birdy.

*****

When Geneon abandoned region one, not only did we lose a lot of anime, but we also lost the principal source of anime OSTs. I just scanned through the musical offerings at that other dealer and spotted no new soundtracks, unless you count the Suzumiya Haruhi spinoffs. This is a pity. Often the soundtrack is the best part of the show, e.g., Cowboy Bebop, Azumanga Daioh, Spice and Wolf. The remaining Geneon titles are cheaply priced. If you still don’t have a copy of the Haibane Renmei soundtrack, grab one while you can.

Truth in advertising

I finally watched the first episode of Toshokan Sensou, a.k.a. Library War. It looks like my spring viewing will be Kaiba, Allison and Lillia, Real Drive and maybe Kurenai, ((I had some problems with the first episode of Kurenai, but so many people have declared it to be one of the best this season that I probably will give it a second chance.)) with Soul Eater and perhaps Wagaya no Oinari-sama for essential fluff.
But not Toshokan Sensou. I could tolerate the absurd premise — the brain police (i.e., “committees of Media Improvement Act”) raid bookstores and confiscate such dangerous literature as books of fairy tales, while a branch of the military defends libraries — if the anime has compensating virtues. And it is a Production I.G. series broadcast in the Noitanima timeslot, so I would expect the show to be better than average. However, the protagonist is a hot-headed fool, too thoughtless to be sympathetic. Toward the end of the episode she rashly attempts to halt a bookstore raid by invoking her authority as a “Private First Class Librarian,” unaware that she needs to be at least a lieutenant to do so. At that point I quit watching. Toshokan Sensou may be intended to be part comedy, but Kasahara is too dumb and annoying to be funny.

Here’s the first batch of this season’s rejects.

Lala, clothed

Against my better judgement, I watched the first episode of To Love-Ru. It starts off as an action-in-space thriller, but that’s deceptive. As the opening makes abundantly clear, the show is actually a fanservice vehicle with occasional laughs and perhaps a bit of a story. Lala has run away from her home planet to avoid an arranged marriage. She’s an inventor, albeit a ditzy one who doesn’t always remember how to turn off her contraptions. She’s pleasantly curvaceous, and she is not the least bit self-conscious about materializing naked in someone else’s bathtub. When she does get dressed, she wears her “costume robot,” undergoing a quasi-mahou shoujo transformation in the process.

The bathtub she arrives in was occupied at the time by the luckless Rito, who spends most of the episode blushing. By the end he has managed to accidentally propose to the alien Lala (she doesn’t have horns, but she does have a tail), who is enthusiastic about the prospect. Sound familiar? At least Rito isn’t a jerk like Ataru, but his dithering and overreactions make him just as annoying.

The premise of To Love-Ru does have some possibilites, but so did that of Rosario + Pantsu. Never mind.

By the way, why the skittishness about showing nipples? We see almost every inch of Lala, but there’s always something — strands of hair, Rito’s hands — hiding the nipples. (Wolf and Spice is downright weird: Horo’s breasts are smooth and featureless.) Urusei Yatsura and Ranma 1/2 were far less concerned with fanservice, and they weren’t coy about showing the entire breast.

*****

If you would like to earn the Kawaii Menace Award for Service to Humanity, devise a player for matroska on Macintosh that really works, or a utility to convert soft-subbed MKVs to hard-subbed AVIs. VLC will kinda play MKVs, but it handles soft subtitles poorly. The majority of the MKVs I’ve downloaded require more processing power than my aging mac and its video card are capable of. (I had hoped to do some upgrading this year, but medical and dental bills take priority in the budget. Bleah.) Sometimes these will play on my machine at the office, and I spent lunch yesterday watching the first episodes of a couple of new shows, Kurenai and Zettai Karen Children.

The opening of Kurenai is bright and cheerful, showing simplified versions of the characters dancing. The show itself, however, is a rather dark action drama so far. In the first episode high school student Shintaro accepts the job of guarding Murasaki, a very young ojou. Beyond that, I really can’t say what it’s about. There are a lot of characters introduced, including several women with Red Garden noses, and hints of complicated backstories. Spying is a frequent motif, with characters observing other characters from a distance or listening at the door.There might be an intricate story developing here, or it could just be poorly-thought-out drivel.

I have serious problems with the premise. Shintaro accepted the bodyguard job even though he knew that he would leave Murasaki alone in his room during the day while he’s at school. Uh-huh. His employer offered him the job knowing that this would be the case. Sure. Shintaro doesn’t think to ask why Murasaki needs a bodyguard. Perhaps all will be satisfactorily explained in later episodes, but I have better uses for my lunch hour

*****

Zettai Karen Children features Aya Hirano, and that’s its only salient feature. Her performance is noteworthy because there’s nothing noteworthy about it; it’s a competent portrayal of an annoying ten-year-old girl and nothing more. Her character, Kaoru, is one of three little girls with paranormal abilities, the “Absolutely Lovely Children.” This dirty trio (there’s likely to be considerable collateral damage when they’re involved) are deployed in the first episode to deal with a jerk who turns bystanders to stone while wreaking havoc. It may sound like a kid’s show, but it’s intended for an older audience: the jerk is stereotypically gay, and Kaoru is obsessed with breast sizes and the like — a peculiar trait in a prepubescent girl. It’s not a bad show; it’s just not very good, and not worth my lunch hour.

*****

The above are the weakest of the recent releases I’ve seen. Fortunately, there are better shows. While nothing yet has grabbed me the way the first episode of Denno Coil did a year ago, Allison and Lillia and Special A both started off well, and Chii’s Sweet Home has the virture of brevity. My favorite thus far is Soul Eater, not so much for the story as for the art and especially the animation. ((I just noticed that one of the characters listed is “Sid Barett.” Does somebody on the staff listen to early Pink Floyd?)) I’m also waiting impatiently for the fansubs of Library Wars and Kaiba.

The Waragecha Five are back, and they have new uniforms:

Nice, but I prefer the old style.

A year after their first release, Epic Fansubs have reached episode six of Master of Epic. As a reward for my patience, the Waragecha Five, who were entirely missing from the previous installment, dominate the show this time, with a two-part skit that occupies half the episode. It’s a bit out of character for the show, since it introduces a giant robot into the fantasy universe, but the girls in the sentai team are still very much themselves, even with their science-fiction helmets. The rest of the show is mostly forgettable.

*****

Shigeru Mizuki’s Gegege no Kitaro has been the basis of a major franchise in Japan for fifty years. There have been numerous TV shows and movies based on the manga. I’ve seen the first episodes of both the 1968 and 2007 series (the former in black and white), and was not impressed. Like his ’60’s American counterparts in The Addams Family and The Munsters, Kitaro was fundamentally good-hearted in these versions, and the resulting shows were rather bland, despite the graveyards and the monsters.

Hakaba Kitaro, the most recent adaptation, apparently makes an effort to be true to the source. This Kitaro is genuinely creepy, and humans who meet him don’t necessarily benefit from the encounter. Unlike the Gegege no Kitaros, this is not suitable for kids. Although there is some humor, this is primarily a horror story, occasionally quite grotesque.

Visually, it’s one of the more distinctive shows I’ve seen. It looks more like an artsy graphic novel than a typical anime. I was not surprised to learn that some of the crew responsible for Mononoke worked on the opening, in which the artists recreated Mizuki’s style. It’s worth attention in its own right (you might want to turn the sound down unless you like monotonous dance music).

****

I’m four episodes into Magic Knight Rayearth. A lot of stuff happens; there sure is plenty of plot. Unfortunately, it comes largely at the expense of character development. None of the characters have much depth yet. After watching a few episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura, I felt like I’d known the characters for years and would recognize them anywhere. The most I can say for the characters in Rayearth is that some are quirky.

This is not to say that Rayearth is a bad series. It isn’t. I probably just came to it with my expectations too high. The story is potentially good, particularly since CLAMP will likely twist the formulae in unpredictable ways. But it does look like it will be one of the lesser CLAMP anime, despite its length.