The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I summarize my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material.
This week’s header image is from Rumble Garanndoll
It’s been a bit of a week here at Magic Planet anime! Between WordPress scares (that thankfully turned out to be false alarms) and the sheer amount of good anime coming out, there’s a lot to keep track of, which is why this column is a day late this week. Luckily, I’m still here to offer guidance in this time of multimedia overload. Aren’t I so generous?
Side note: on a non-anime note I’ve been both watching and reading an absolute astro-ton of Transformers stuff recently. Most of it is outside the purview of this blog (not that that’s stopped me before, as we’ll see at the bottom of this article), but maybe I can eventually find something to cover here. No promises, mind you.
Anyway, let’s get in to the weekly grind. I’m once again trying a slightly different layout for these columns. Let me know what you think.
Seasonals
The Heike Story
Where does Biwa herself fit into the saga of the Heike? This week’s episode sees Shigemori’s incompetent brother succeed him, and the natural follows. Meanwhile, his father’s ambitions continue to grow out of control. This episode isn’t the first time a battle has been waged in The Heike Story, and it certainly won’t be the last, but it is perhaps the most real it’s felt. In general, The Heike Story excels at putting a human face to the churning horrors of war and political machinations.
And yet apart from it all–yet inescapably entwined at the same time–is Biwa. Here she sees the emperor’s wife talk herself into forgiveness. How long can that last?
Platinum End
Of every genre that exists, taking that of the death game as the foundation for a cosmology is up there as far as being horrifying. Yet that’s exactly the note Platinum End‘s second episode opens on. It’s all mysticism and nature-of-man hand-wringing. It’s a little tiresome, honestly, but at least it looks cool.
Here’s a better question: is Mirai actually a decent character? He’s not super exciting, but he’s got a decent amount of moral fiber and it’s commendable that he feels compelled to stand up to the two bullies we’re introduced here. So he’s at the very least, easy to root for. The episode’s main plot begins by introducing an obnoxious comedian who only uses his Red Arrows to make women fall for him. Of course, Mirai never even gets to actually meet that comedian. Our Kamen Rider-lookin’ friend from last week shows up and shoots him with a White Arrow. Between the legs. Because that’s the kind of subtle visual metaphor you can expect from Platinum End.
Let’s talk about that guy in the mask, actually.
Said masked hero is Metropoliman, who styles himself after the main character of an in-universe toku show of the same name. “Guy who thinks he’s a superhero but is actually just an authoritarian zealot” is kind of an old character archetype in death game anime at this point, but going this hard on it is fairly rare in my experience. Metro has a suit, calls his attacks, and is clearly both very dangerous and kinda nuts. He is, in other words, an excellently camp villain. If the show knows what it’s doing, it’ll keep him around for a while. The final moments of the episode reveal that he and Mirai attend the same high school, so the seeds of an interesting conflict are there. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if Platinum End actually turned out to be good? Who knows what the future holds.
Side note: did you know the Death Note guys made the manga this is an adaption of?
Rumble Garanndoll
Somewhat foolishly, I’m still always a little caught offguard when a show as campy as Rumble Garanndoll deigns to have a fairly complex plot. (Don’t ask me why, my first seasonal anime was Kill la Kill, which was very much campy and got fairly complicated in its second cour.) There’s a lot one could comment on here, from the scenery that makes up the resistance base in Akihabara (which includes a mummified Statue of Liberty half-buried in the ground. It fires lasers from its torch to repel intruders, naturally.) to someone on the translation team having a laugh by making sure a line with the word “culture” in it lined up exactly with the camera cutting to a gratuitous butt closeup. The actual core of the episode though is on Hosomichi and Rin themselves, and that’s where most of the interesting material here lies.
As a host, Hosomichi must essentially suppress his real personality to make money, and that’s actually touched upon here when his sleazy boss forces him to try to get on well with Rin so he can make a paycheck from the rebels. (And, consequently, pay back the debt he owes.) This is contrasted by Rin whose commitment to the cause is entirely sincere, driven by a desire to reunite with her lost family. (And, naturally, find the Sea Emperor Zaburn masters so she can rewatch the series. This is still a bit of a silly anime, after all.) The difference between someone who’s been rendered spiritually hollow by the toll that capitalistic demands force upon his life and someone who is still very much holding the flame of passion in her heart is stark. Is it enough to rescue Rumble Garanndoll from its occasional but notable missteps? That’s a difficult question, and one I’m not sure we’ll get an answer to anytime soon.
Elsewhere on MPA
Seasonal First Impressions: Komi Can’t Communicate – This is just one of those things that I didn’t expect to like, and then it turned out that the first episode was really good. That happens sometimes, and it’s always a treat. I’m not sure what I’ll think of Komi six weeks from now, but for now the short version is that I can heartily recommend the series on visual merits alone. It’s just a lot of fun to watch.
Let’s Watch takt op.Destiny: Episode 2 – I said last week I’d cover this weekly and by gum I intend to keep my word. The second episode didn’t blow me away like the first did, but it’s still very good and I’m quite interested to see where the series goes from here.
As a small side note: you may be wondering what happened to coverage of Ancient Girl’s Frame, since I mentioned that last week. The unfortunate truth is that Funimation’s subtitles are so bad that they’re essentially incomprehensible. And while what I saw of the show didn’t knock my socks off visually, it’s really quite hard to fairly judge a series if you literally don’t know what’s happening in it. So with all due apologies to anyone who was looking forward to that, I won’t be covering Ancient Girl’s Frame.
Do you know what I do plan to cover, at least a little bit, though, now that it has a release date after literal years of being mostly a mass of rumors and hearsay?
We’ll see how things look on the 26th.
As a final, final note. Watch this music video, it’s extremely cool.
Until next time, anime fans.
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