Month: March 2022

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Seasonal First Impressions: Conquering the Pop World with YA BOY KONGMING!

Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.

Have you ever thought to yourself; “what if classical Chinese military strategist Zhuge Kongming was transported through time to the present day and became an idol manager?” Well, if you have, then you’re a very strange person. Or you’re the original writer of Ya Boy Kongming! One or the other.

Anime as a medium is sometimes underrated (or occasionally, even ridiculed) in its ability to just casually roll with absurd elevator-pitch concepts. A legend of East Asian military strategy as the manager for a modern-day pop singer? Sure, why not. It should surprise no one that the “mechanics” of how Kongming (Ryoutarou Okiayu) ends up in modern Japan are pretty vague and are glossed through briskly in the show’s opening minutes. There’s something about a dying wish for “a life without bloodshed” in his next life, but beyond that it isn’t elaborated upon much. That’s just fine, because Ya Boy Kongming! is primarily a comedy, and when it does dip into other modes it has the good sense to only touch very briefly on how the whole Samurai Jack-ian “flung into the future” thing works. There are other things to be focused on here.

Instead, he wakes up in a random alley in modern Japan during a Halloween celebration. A pair of randos drag him to a club, where one of them makes him drink some tequila. He then comes to the obvious conclusion; he’s in Hell.

It will shock you, I’m sure, to learn that I–a professional anime critic–am not really the clubbing type.

But then, he hears the voice of an angel in this clamorous and disorienting place. That voice belongs to Eiko Tsukimi (Kaede Hondo when speaking, 96Neko when singing), who quickly establishes herself as Kongming’s co-protagonist.

She ends up taking him home because he gets blackout drunk. (This is kind of crazy, if you ask me, and she seems to think so too; muttering to herself that she “must be a saint.”) The following day, she–somewhat reluctantly–helps him adjust to the modern world, all the while still being mostly convinced that he’s just a guy who’s gotten way too into method acting. (Everyone seems to think this, in fact, including Eiko’s boss, who ends up hiring him because he, too, is a Three Kingdoms-era history nerd.)

This is all pretty funny, and Kongming goes from totally lost about present-day society to reasonably able to navigate his way around a smartphone in surprisingly short order. (A joke in here even implies that he learns about cryptocurrency. Truly a terrifying thought.)

Given all this, one might reasonably assume that Kongming! is purely a screwball comedy. But while the series is definitely funny, it’s not only funny, and the fact that it understands that having a beating heart under the gags is important speaks to a certain consideration of its own goals that isn’t ever a given with anime. (Or for that matter, art in general.) The turn begins when Eiko sings a song in her bedroom, seemingly as much for herself as to comfort Kongming. (Who is, understandably, a bit blue over, you know, everyone he knows and loves having been dead for almost 2,000 years, his country having long since fallen, etc.) Eiko has a seriously powerful voice, and the fact that she’s such a good singer is hugely important here, because Kongming!, remember, is also an idol anime.

Eiko’s whole situation is given as much focus as Kongming’s own unusual circumstances. She’s a bartender and sometimes-club singer. And while her boss is a decent guy in his own way, the job itself seems pretty dead-end. This, and the fact that she keeps failing auditions, makes her consider quitting music altogether. When Kongming asks what drew her to music in the first place, we get a pretty damn bleak flashback to her high school years. The short version; she was nearly a train-jumper, until the man who’s now her boss literally grabbed her out of the way. Taking her to his club to perhaps jolt her out of the whole idea, Eiko is moved by an American guest singer’s performance. This whole idea; that music can sometimes quite literally save people, is at the very core of the idol genre, and snaps Kongming! pretty firmly into place within said genre’s modern zeitgeist.

Plus, on a basic level, all this helps Eiko feel like an actual co-protagonist instead of a backup character. But more importantly, it nails down the show’s stakes. Kongming! appears to want to be both a goofy comedy with a casually fantastical premise and a heartfelt story of a struggling musician trying to succeed in a difficult industry. That’s a hard line to tow, but at least one other idol anime in recent memory managed it. If it worked once, what’s to stop it from working again? The show’s general character helps a lot, too. In both more lighthearted and comparatively serious moments, it has a vibrancy to it that’s easy to take for granted but should always be properly appreciated when it’s there.

The episode ends with Kongming convincing Eiko to keep at it–though by phrasing it that way I’m way underselling the scene, which is legitimately heartwarming–and offering her “his services.” What services? Why, just the finest military mind of Chinese Antiquity. Turned toward helping her make it as a musician, naturally.

Grade: B+
The Takeaway: While the apparently history nerd-baiting nature of its premise may scare some off, this is a show with a huge amount of potential, and fans of “music stories” like this should definitely check this one out.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Seasonal First Impressions: Get Away from It All with ESTAB-LIFE: GREAT ESCAPE

Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.

“Do you want to run away from your current situation?”

And so, the season begins with a doozy.

ESTAB-LIFE: Great Escape is peculiar on several fronts. For one, it was a beneficiary of the increasingly-common practice of a pre-air screening. The first two episodes have actually been out for about a week, today merely marks the start of its actual broadcast run. (And just to clarify; to give it parity with the other anime I cover in this column, I’m only looking at episode one here.) It’s also an all-CGI affair, still novel enough a thing to be worth noting. It comes to us from Polygon Pictures, who have built their particular fiefdom of the anime industry entirely out of that sort of thing. Its director is Hiroyuki Hashimoto, whose filmography is a bit scattershot. (It’s difficult to make firm statements about a man whose greatest contributions to popular culture thus far have been directing the anime adaptions of Magical Girl Raising Project and Is The Order a Rabbit?) Nonetheless; this is first original anime, not based on any existing property. But interestingly, the “original plan” (whatever that means) is credited to someone else; Gorou Taniguchi. Who you may know as the man who directed Code Geass, perhaps the grandfather of all truly gonzo camp-fest anime of the past decade.

This is all well and good, but you’re probably wondering–even with that colorful legacy in mind–what this show is actually about, which is fair enough. Here are, with as little embellishment as I can muster, the events that unfold in the first five minutes of ESTAB-LIFE, before the opening credits even roll.

We open on a rain-drenched funeral with a priest solemnly reading out last rites for the deceased. His prayers are interrupted by a car horn, and our cast–two anime girls, a small robot, and a wolfman–pile into the Hearse, with apparent intent to drive it somewhere. We cut to a slight bit later, and our heroes(?) roll up to some kind of military checkpoint. The ball-shaped android manning the checkpoint notices that something is amiss when one of them sneezes(?!) and pulls an emergency alarm. At this, our heroes blow through the checkpoint while pursued by a cloud of armed drones, to the irritation of the third anime girl hiding in the coffin in the back seat. They arrive at a gate, which they must hack open, or something, while under fire. One of the drones shoots one of our heroines dead in the eye, at which point she bursts into water, only to reform seconds later. Her compatriot remarks that this ability of hers is useful.

It is at this point that the OP plays, and it sinks in what kind of anime we’re in for.

Eventually, a kind of context for all this does emerge. The setting is Japan (naturally), but a Japan divided into many independent city-states called “clusters” that have little contact with each other. A civilian moving freely from one cluster to another is unheard of, and met with harsh, sometimes lethal response from the “moderators” who govern these cities. That’s where our heroes come in; they’re extractors, people who spirit away citizens who are bored or disaffected with their lives.

As we establish, that’s mostly by night. By day, they’re ordinary citizens at what appears to be an all-girls school; the two male members of the main five hold down the fort at home, we must assume. The three girls are Equa (Tomomi Mineuchi), Ferres (Rie Takahashi), and Martese (Maria Naganawa). Respectively, the compassionate leader whose only desire to help out everyone the group possibly can, the cynical one who swears she’s going to quit this extractor business any day now, and the cocky, flirty one who can turn into water. (She’s a slime-person “demihuman”, as we eventually learn.) There’s a lot of great banter here, and even though I singled out Martese as the flirter it’s worth noting that all three of them kinda seem to be into each other, which is cute.

I won’t belabor the point by going over every single beat of the episode. Its main plot centers around the girls smuggling their philosophy teacher, one Yamada-sensei, out of their cluster. This eventually comes to involve, in no particular order; the man having to thumbprint a document saying that the extractor team can’t guarantee his prosperity or happiness in his new city, his being handed an emergency grenade by the team’s robot, Alga (Shou Hayami), just in case he gets captured and has to “end it all,” and Martese creating a diversion in a police station by pretending to be drunk off her ass. (This backfires. One of the cops scans her and finds out she’s a slime person, and apparently, slime people can’t have alcohol because it’s dangerous to them. The more you know!)

The actual extraction goes pear-shaped, because of course it does. Even with three girls with guns, a talking robot, and a wolfman who doesn’t talk but does have two swords (Shinichirou Miki) on your team, sometimes things go wrong. Eventually, Yamada-sensei does end up making it to his new cluster of choice; but he has to get there by rope, and it’s not after a whole lot of shenanigans involving busted elevators and improvised building-climbing. Nietzche quotes are thrown around.

Top to bottom, the whole episode is also stuffed with great banter and surprisingly good little character moments. (Especially in the animation department, which is far from a given in any anime.) That, combined with its generally oddball nature and focus on “escape” as a main theme makes it remind me less of any recent seasonals and more of that Idolmaster short I covered a few weeks ago.

All in all, it’s hard to say where, exactly, ESTAB-LIFE is going, but it’s certainly going somewhere, and the ride seems worthwhile. Keep an eye on this one.

Grade: B
The Takeaway: Interesting character designs, great banter, an intriguingly odd plot, and a general sense of WTF-ness combine to make this an early standout in the young season.

An administrative note: I alluded to this in the body of the article itself, but I have basically no clue what’s going on with this thing’s schedule. The regular broadcast apparently starts today, but on some JP services it’s apparently going up in three batches of four episodes each. And I’ve seen conflicting reports as to what schedule streaming services available in the US will be following. Personally, I’m probably just going to watch it week by week like any old seasonal. I hate to think that an unorthodox release schedule might hurt Estab-Life‘s chances at gaining an audience, though.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SABIKUI BISCO Episode 12 – “Bow and Arrow Duo” (SEASON FINALE)

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

Well folks, here we are. I always meet the end of each season with a certain air of cleaning out the cobwebs. Maybe that just speaks to my impatience and love of novelty (after all, the many shows that will come out next season remain nothing but a sparkle of infinite possibility until they actually air.) Still, more than usual, I am glad to put this one in the books. I haven’t started watching episode twelve of Sabikui Bisco as I type this, but the show has not exactly wowed me over the last third or so of its run, and whatever I end up thinking of the finale, I can’t really change that. On the other hand, I don’t want to go into it with clouded eyes, either. Judging something before I watch it is bad form.

Without further ado then, let’s hop on the crab and find out; can Sabikui Bisco nail the landing, totally saving the show just in the nick of time?

Well, in short, no. But! It does make a pretty good show of trying, and that counts for something.

The actual plot here is dead simple. Bisco, in revived-mushroom-super-saiyan form (reborn “as a god” I believe is how Jabi puts it) has to take down Kurokawa. Who, we here find out, has not turned into the Tetsujin giant so much as he’s “piloting” it. And when Bisco can take down the Tetsujin’s armored form we’ve been following for the past few episodes in just a couple shots, surprise, it has a second form. Tirol helpfully explains that they can’t just kill it while it’s like this, because if they do it’ll self-destruct and take out nearby Imihama along with it. So the only solution? Taking out the pilot.

Our heroes’ plan to do this is also pretty straightforward. Step 1. Have Pawoo break the giant’s helmet with her pole. Step 2. Have Bisco snipe Kurokawa’s sort-of still alive body from the head of the giant. The show spices this up in a few ways; mostly by giving everyone some delightful banter. Pawoo in particular shows a lot of personality here. She also starts gunning pretty damn aggressively for Bisco! Which, me being me, you might assume I’d complain about. But honestly, “warrior woman who aggressively steals a kiss from the guy she’s into” is about the only way they’ve depicted Pawoo that actually makes the pairing make some sense. (And hey, he does offer her “anything she wants” if she comes back alive.) This is the most chemistry they’ve ever had. It only took, you know, 11 and a half episodes.

She even brags about it to Bisco’s surrogate dad afterwards! I would’ve liked to see more of this brash, charmingly arrogant side of Pawoo. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get to.

The actual execution of the plan goes from A to B to C so quickly that it almost feels perfunctory. Pawoo bonks the giant, the giant’s mask breaks, revealing just how ugly the damn thing actually is.

It’s like if you tried to sculpt an ugly infant from cherry Jell-o.

Kurokawa and Bisco get into it a little bit, and then Milo once again overtakes his sister in the “getting with Bisco” department as he helps Bisco line up the all-important pilot snipe. The power of homoeroticism saves the day, and Kurokawa goes down in one.

And that’s honestly kind of it! We do get some additional stuff throughout the remainder of the episode. Bisco and Milo get a nice moment where they just chill on the bed of giant mushrooms that’s sprung up in the wake of the battle, and the last 10-ish minutes of the episode are a montage showing everyone’s rust infections being cured. (Bisco is now 100% Rust-Eater Mushroom by volume. How does that work? How does anything in a shonen work! Who cares?) This includes Pawoo! Who looked beautiful with her rust scarring and looks just as beautiful without it.

There’s a timeskip, and sometime later we get a fun closing scene where Bisco has to once again pass through the government gate from episode one, this time with Milo in tow. I’m fond of this whole bit, especially Milo also getting a wanted poster where he’s branded the “Man-Eating Panda.” Oh, and the very last interesting worldbuilding tidbit is something we see via a TV. Imihama has a new, political firebrand of a governor who’s done radical things like condemn the persecution of the mushroom-keepers and even declared independence from whatever’s left of the Japanese government. That governor? Pawoo, who–and you’ll have to forgive me here–looks fine as hell in a suit.

And on that victory for WLW everywhere, Sabikui Bisco ends. I didn’t dislike this episode, but from basically every perspective it really felt to me like the show started running out of steam by its end. And as nice as some parts of this episode were, it didn’t really change that. I have rarely seen a series so thoroughly tie up its own premise by the end of its first season. Even many original anime leave a bit more to the imagination than this. One could call that a strength, I guess, but to me it mostly feels weird. Especially since there actually is a sequel to the manga.

We do get one hook here, aside from Imihama’s independence–and I imagine it’s what said manga follows up on–Bisco is now immortal because of his mushroom-fueled resurrection godhood whatever. He doesn’t really like that, and it’s on the note of trying to cure this particular condition that the story ends. So there clearly is some space for the story to continue, should Sabikui Bisco have done well enough to warrant that. Even so, we’re a far cry from where we were back in episode one, and while I always try to judge anime based on what they are, and not what they could’ve been, a part of me does miss the neon-streaked nocturnal urban ambience of the premiere. And on a different note entirely, the smaller-scale character-focused episodes that followed it.

There’s also the issue of this episode’s somewhat inconsistent art. There’s some stuff that looks really great, like when we see Bisco’s resurrection from his perspective in the episode’s opening minutes.

But a lot of the character art is spotty, and it brings down an otherwise solid finale somewhat. Even so, as a decent finish to a decent show, “Bow and Arrow Duo” does its job just fine. (And boy, am I conscious of the fact that I’m yo-yoing between positive and negative opinions a lot in this article.) The series’ final shot is a framed picture of Milo and Bisco, and I think that’s a nice image to end on.

And ordinarily, dear readers, this is where I’d tell you I’ll see you next season. That’s true as far as the Let’s Watch columns go. (I won’t even be announcing the winner of the Community Choice poll until this coming Saturday in the weekly Frontline Report column.) But the first show of what looks to be a very busy season actually premieres tomorrow. So, with that in mind, I’ll see you then, anime fans.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

The Frontline Report [3/27/22]

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.

Hi folks, simple writeups this week, nothing too fancy. But I hope you’ll enjoy them as one of our recurring anime comes to a close and another heads there at a mile a minute. But first–

Seasonal Anime

Miss KUROITSU From the Monster Development Department

Miss Kuroitsu probably isn’t quite consistent enough to be called a seasonal underdog, but damn if it doesn’t sometimes come close. This past week’s episode is the beautiful little fable of a mute monster girl filled with weapons (named Mumy and played by singer YURiKA) who wants nothing more than to become an idol. The general idea is hackneyed, and the episode looks like ass. Did I tear up multiple times throughout anyway just because the show got me so attached to this girl? Yes I did. Did I have to actively stop myself from crying even more at the end of the episode where a combination of vampire bioengineering and sheer fucking moxie means she’s miraculously grown a voicebox and developed a beautiful singing voice? Yes I absolutely did.

What else can be said? Sometimes even a benchwarmer bats a home run.

Princess Connect! Re:Dive Season 2

I wish people still sincerely called things “epic.” I can’t think of a word that better fits the blazing spectacle that Princess Connect has transmogrified to as it enters the final stretch of its second season.

To get something out of the way; in previous articles where I’ve discussed Priconne, I’ve made a point of entertaining alternate points of view. The show is widely liked, but not universally liked, and while I do still respect everyone’s rights to hold their own opinion, I think the time for trying to specifically acknowledge criticisms that others might have has passed. If you object to rapturous praise for stuff like this, you’re on the wrong site. Sorry.

“Stuff like this,” if you need to be brought up to speed, is an absolutely shameless blind-fire of the Proper Noun Machine Gun, mixed with what is certainly some of the flashiest animation of the year so far. (Priconne is good at that.) We get some new characters here (and a few old ones make return appearances), and a good chunk of the episode consists of a guild–a guild who seem to have some knowledge of how the world of Princess Connect really works–fighting against Christina, another of the Seven Crowns and Omniscient Kaiser’s sort-of lackey, below Kaiser’s palace.

This is, in a word, awesome. New arrivals Ruka (Rina Sato) and Anna (Asami Takano) attack Christina with Anna’s Final Catastrophe attack. Ah, but of course, Christina is one of the Seven Crowns, so her passive ability Absolute Defense renders her immune to normal damage.

But that too can be overcome by simply overloading the ability’s computational capacity–a kind of VRMMO underflow error–but then it turns out that Christina secretly also has access to Absolute Offense, which fires glowing beams that invert the world’s colors. They eventually subdue her…only for the secret true form of Omniscient Kaiser to emerge from the very thing they were fighting over! All of this is deeply ridiculous, but it’s a total blast. Anna in particular is really fun, being perhaps the most chuuni chuunibyou I’ve seen in any anime in years.

Alongside this is Pecorine’s fight to save Karyl. Impeded here by the return of Jun–the blindfold-wearing knight we were introduced to several episodes ago–but now she is, of course, brainwashed by Kaiser and in full battle armor. The two prove a solid match for each other, although it says a lot that this is actually the more restrained of Priconne’s two battle scenes in this episode.

Eventually, Pecorine is able to break Kaiser’s hold on Jun, and the two turn the tables against the evil wolf-woman and kill her. Except they don’t actually, because of the aforementioned hidden true form of Omniscient Kaiser lurking beneath Kaiser’s palace. The form that they’ve been fighting this entire time? Merely a particularly strong-willed shadow. It has a very hammy death, and it’s not gone for ten seconds before the real Kaiser starts tossing Pecorine and Jun around like ragdolls with a wag of her finger. (As a side note, Kaiser’s actor Shouta Aoi deserves some praise here. He has a reputation for voicing dangerous women, and he is indeed very good at that, but he can also holler like a motherfucker when the scene calls for it, and he uses that skill several times in this episode.)

As you can surmise from the appearance of credits over this final scene, this, and the cut immediately after where Yuki finally arrives, is the end of the episode. But we should back up a bit, because one more thing of import does happen in between all the flashy sword-clanking.

Kokkoro, in about the middle of the episode, is spirited away by the Ameth, that mysterious girl with the broken clockwork floating around her who, like Labyrista, seems to have been instrumental in controlling the world. Regardless of the specifics of her, though, what she gives to Kokkoro is important; a small device for “keeping Yuuki’s emotions in check.” Ostensibly to keep him from overloading his powers and hurting himself. It’s an odd turn of events, and seems to imply that maybe Ameth isn’t entirely on the level, either.

The season finale approaches, so perhaps we’ll get some answers there. Or at least, more intriguing questions.

Ranking of Kings

“Shine on toward a yet-unseen tomorrow.”

Ousama Ranking‘s finale begins thusly; Daida reaffirms his (puzzling, though given the vaguely medieval-ish setting perhaps slightly less so) decision to marry Miranjo, swearing that the both of them will turn over a new leaf and concentrate on doing good in the world. At the same time, he relinquishes the throne, and all of Bojji’s retainers hail him as the new king; the scene is a happy one, with all present praising Bojji’s bravery and strength of character. There’s much celebration, and King Bojji’s new subjects quite literally toss him into the air with joy, and later take him to his new throne room so he can receive formal homage from the townsfolk. It’s very classic fairy tale. There are a lot of happy tears. So, we’re all good, right? Happy endings all around.

Well, no, not quite.

Not present among Bojji’s gaggle of retainers is Kage. The shadow clansman rationalizes that the young king no longer needs him–and that his own reliance on the boy is bad–and leaves silently, seeking honest work in the same nearby town he used to make his way as a thief in. He ends up miserable there, of course, as the townsfolk haven’t really changed. No one wants to hire him for honest work, and when he sets up a small wooden hut outside of town someone destroys it.

Meanwhile, Bojji, too, is lost without his best friend. He seems like a fine king based on what little we see, but his heart clearly isn’t in it. Fittingly, it’s Queen Hiling (now Queen-Mother Hiling, one supposes) who picks up on this. In a cozy bit of motherly wisdom, she tells him that being a king is his responsibility, but if there is something that truly matters to him more, he should go seek that instead.

Bojji, thus, ends his brief reign by re-relinquishing (delinquishing?) his crown to Prince Daida. Making for, I’m sure, a fun footnote in their kingdom’s history some hundreds of years down the line.

Bojji sets out to find Kage the very day, and they meet up again not long later. He reveals to Kage his secret ambition; to someday found his own kingdom, after having a great many adventures before then, of course.

As for what happened to King Desha at the end of last week’s episode? We don’t know, and perhaps we never will. Some mysteries remain even under the morning Sun.

Ousama Ranking is occasionally criticized–and I’ve made these criticisms myself–for its odd pacing and the plot’s tendency to drift all over the place. Even in this final episode there’s an aside that really doesn’t add anything at all, although it does look pretty cool. (Kingbo makes a surprise return appearance, splits the rock that Ouken is imprisoned in in half, and then decapitates him and chucks his head into a lake many miles away in the span of about 3 minutes.) But, while that is certainly a flaw, it’s not one that negates the show’s many strengths. In the end, Ousama Ranking boils back down to what made it great in the first place; Bojji, Kage, a bag of treasure, and the great, wide world stretching before them. The promise of more adventure on the horizon billows into the sky like smoke. If not now, it seems to say, then someday, somewhere.


Elsewhere on MPA

Vote on the Next Let’s Watch for the Spring 2022 Anime Season

Please vote on this if you care about what I’m going to be covering during the (rapidly approaching) next anime season. You’ve got a little under a week left to make your voice heard!

Let’s Watch SABIKUI BISCO Episode 11 – “I’m Bisco!”

Sabikui Bisco continues to be Sabikui Bisco-y as it comes to a close. I kinda feel like I’ve run out of much to say about this show other than what’s already in the

Let’s Watch MY DRESS-UP DARLING Episode 12 – “My Dress-Up Darling” (SEASON FINALE)

Meanwhile, My Dress-Up Darling ends the only way it really could have, sweet nothings and fireworks. It doesn’t hold a candle to the very best fireworks-centric romcom finale in recent memory–that being a different show’s season one finale–but still, it’s a definite high point to go out on for a show that’s been something of a rocky ride. I hope the second season (and let’s be real, one is definitely getting made) is more like this than say, like episode six.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Vote on the Next Let’s Watch for the Spring 2022 Anime Season

It’s getting to be that time again, folks! Spring has sprung, and the time for a new Magic Planet Community Choice pick is here.

If you were here toward the tail end of last year, you already know the drill and can safely skip down to the poll link. If not, let me briefly explain for any newcomers how the Community Vote poll works. It’s quite simple.

Essentially, each season I (currently) cover two anime on Let’s Watch. One I pick myself, and a second show, that y’all pick. This past season that show was My Dress-Up Darling, which absolutely crushed that season’s community pick poll. I suspect this season will be a closer race, given the many highly anticipated anime coming out this season. (If you need a primer on what’s dropping, I suggest hopping over to Anichart.net and taking some time to poke around. Who knows, it might change your vote even if you do know some of what’s coming out!)

You may note that there are a few notable omissions (with one show in particular I’m sure people will be surprised to not see there.) There are three reasons I don’t add a series as a poll option even if it’s coming out.

  • It’s a sequel to an anime I haven’t seen.
  • It’s in “streaming jail”, which makes covering it week-by-week impractical.
  • I am planning to cover it anyway.

In any case, that’s basically all there is to say on the matter, so without further ado; here’s the poll. It’s a very simple checklist-style thing. Some important notes: the poll is organized in alphabetical order, by romaji title (which is how Anichart.net presents them), with a localized English title, if known, after a slash. Also, you can vote for as many shows as you want. So please don’t be afraid to really spread your votes out as you see fit.

I look forward to going over your responses over the next 10 or so days. Until then, anime fans!

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SABIKUI BISCO Episode 11 – “I’m Bisco!”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

There is a moment near the halfway point of “I’m Bisco”–Sabikui Bisco‘s penultimate episode–where the hookers from episode one show up again. It’s little more than a cameo; the populace of Imihama watching Milo and the Kurokawa-Tetsujin duking it out in the wastelands outside their city with bated breath.

But in that moment, I was led to think about how the show has grown and changed over these eleven weeks. What started as a post-apocalyptic mushroompunk (is that a word? It is now) tale of intrigue in a near-future city morphed into a traveler story and then, as it entered its final act, a much more traditional shonen, with Imihama Governor Kurokawa playing the role of the stock evil villain. (A role that, admittedly, suited him very well.) Now, Bisco is in its final stages, and has boiled down largely to its climactic final fight between Milo and the Kurokawa-Tetsujin. It’s not the ending I would’ve picked for the series, but that’s only marginally relevant when the time comes to discuss it. In the framework of what it’s trying to do, does Sabikui Bisco’s final act succeed? That is the question we should be asking ourselves as the series draws to a close.

Well, it’s not a total washout. But I think the fact that “it’s not a total washout” is the most positive descriptor I can muster speaks volumes. “I’m Bisco!” is divided roughly into two parts; the first involving the Kurokawa-Tetsujin attacking the Children’s Fortress from the episode of the same name. We do get some cool returning characters here; chiefly the town’s chieftain / leader / whatever term you’d care to use Nuts. Who I must confess, I forgot was called Nuts. What a great name.

He gets a fun little turn here where he covers for the other kids under his care, distracting the Kurokawa-Tetsujin as they flee the town. Milo shows up to properly give the thing a challenge not long after, of course, but it’s still a solid little interlude.

The second part of the episode is Milo’s challenge against the Kurokawa-Tetsujin proper, after a brief respite in the middle where he has to protect Pawoo, Tirol, and Jabi from the creature’s hitherto-unused main cannon, a massive weapon the fires appropriately huge blasts of Rust wind. This is where the cameo from the hookers (and several other Imihama citizens, all also from the first episode) comes in.

And it is nice to see our protagonist’s heroics being appreciated, although the actual fight choreography and such here is oddly workmanlike compared to last week’s.

The episode ends with Milo nearly getting killed after managing to get on top of the Kurokawa-Tetsujin and carve up part of its noggin with a knife. After doing so, he briefly (and mistakenly!) thinks the creature is dead, and takes the time to mourn Bisco when he finds the latter’s goggles embedded in its weird gelatin-y flesh. He nearly gets squashed for his trouble as the Tetsujin wakes back up, but he barely has time to process being smacked across half a city block by the monster before we get to this episode’s final revelation.

Surprise! Bisco wasn’t dead after all.

Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about this. Like superheroes, it’s fairly rare for a shonen protagonist to actually die and stay dead. (Goku alone has gone back and forth to and from the afterlife so often that he probably has a second house there by now.) But Bisco was incinerated in a pit of lava. Once you’ve established a character can survive that, any attempt at further raising of stakes just feels inherently hollow. Also Bisco’s right arm is all red and glow-y now, who knows what that’s about.

If this all feels a bit anticlimactic in the retelling, it’s moreso to actually watch. I said a few weeks ago that Sabikui Bisco falls apart when it’s forced to deal with large-scale dramatic stakes and I’ve yet to be proven wrong about that. This entire “Bisco lives on within Milo” subplot we’ve had running since the former initially died is rendered moot by his return. And while the Kurokawa-Tetsujin is a cool foe in a video game enemy kind of way, the knockoff Titan is not exactly the most compelling narrative force.

As a final, and I admit, deeply petty complaint, Pawoo once again gets about a minute total of actual fighting screentime before spending the rest of the episode worried about her brother and/or being protected by him from Rust-wind-laser-whatever attacks.

And also complaining about how slow trucks are.

So, yeah, part of me does feel like the show is basically fizzling away into seafoam as it ends. I wasn’t bored while watching the episode, and I don’t want to give that impression, but it was hard to care about anything that happened on a stickier narrative level, and that’s a pretty big problem, given that we’re now heading into the finale.

Will episode 12 make up for episode 11’s shortcomings? Will I ever figure out a more compelling format to end these columns in? Only one way to find out, anime fans! Until next time.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

The Frontline Report [3/20/22]

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.

Hi folks! No fancy lead-in this week, just two solid writeups for you and some links to other stuff. Enjoy.

Seasonal Anime

Princess Connect! Re:Dive Season 2

“The advancing hands cannot be turned back.”

If you only ever liked Princess Connect for its softer merits; the warm character interactions, the charming comedy, etc. I can imagine finding the past two episodes disappointing in a strange sort of way, for the simple reason that they’ve been the heaviest on the show’s capital P Plot that Princess Connect has ever gotten, and that’s not a development that looks to change any time soon.

Two weeks ago we saw Omniscient Kaiser kill Labyrista and claim her powers. Within the text of the show itself, the rules that the Princess Connect universe operate on remain somewhat fuzzy, but it wasn’t hard to tell that this was a bad thing. The episode was huge and sweeping; a clash of cosmic forces conjuring gigantic CGI labyrinth-spheres and the obligatory near-defeat of Kaiser herself. As villains do, she won with a dirty trick; teleporting in her underling, Karyl, to serve as a human shield.

Labyrista’s defeat has probably rendered Kaiser the most powerful being in the whole setting. Given that she’s been the lurking broad-scope villain of the entire series so far, that’s not great. What’s worse is what she does to Karyl, who is here empowered with a magic mask and rendered Kaiser’s all-too-willing puppet. If Karyl has ever had a genuine, serious character flaw, it is her belief in Kaiser, a sort of surrogate mother figure whose approval she desperately seeks. That need for approval turns her into little more than a weapon for Kaiser in this past week’s episode, where she unleashes absolute terror on the people of Landosol. Why she suddenly commits so hard to being Kaiser’s attack dog is left ambiguous, although I side with the theory I’ve seen floated around social media. Karyl feels guilty about indirectly causing Labyrista’s death has left her feeling as though she has no choice in the matter. (Perhaps she believes that if the rest of the Gourmet Guild found out, they’d turn on her as well, leaving her well and truly alone.)

As the Gourmet Guild struggles to piece together what’s going on, we get a lot of cameos from supporting characters from previous episodes. Most of these are pretty inconsequential, although Yuni contributes to the plot in a huge way at the episode’s climax.

The bulk of the episode’s runtime consists of a smattering of characters fighting off Kaiser’s shadow army as she uses Labyrista’s powers to trap the entirety of Landosol in a huge metal dome. The episode is very effective at conveying a sense of impending doom. Really, it’s remarkable how far Princess Connect has come. There was always a wider story slinking around in the background, all the way from the first episode of season one, but to see all those hints and plot points be forged into a proper Epic Fantasy Story is pretty amazing. Despite this, the story’s bones–VRMMO genre, light novel, and gacha game tropes entering their second decade of dominance right now–ensure that it could never exist in any other medium. Princess Connect is damn good, and it’s also very much an anime.

Of course, this properly epic scale is also very effective at making Kaiser seem like possibly the worst woman to ever live. Sacrificing the souls of your entire kingdom is some classic evil overlord shit, and whoever boarded her expressions in this episode worked damn hard to make sure we know that she’s enjoying every minute of it.

Perhaps the worst of her offenses here is what Kaiser does to Karyl once she stops being a willing part of her plans. Pecorine eventually confronts Karyl.

Initially, Karyl commits to the fatalism–that’s where this subheading’s quote comes from–and begins launching barrages of magical energy at the townsfolk. But it’s hard not to notice that she doesn’t actually kill anybody. She can’t bring herself to do that, even this late in the game.

Kaiser, naturally, has a trick up her sleeve. Be it a result of the mask, Karyl’s recent empowering, or something else entirely, Kaiser extends literal puppet strings from her hands; forcing Karyl to resume firing on innocent townspeople as she begs Kaiser to stop. It is probably the closest Princess Connect has ever come to being genuinely hard to watch.

It’s here where Yuni comes in, using her patented um….turn-rocks-into-walky-talkies-and-also-projectors magic to blow the whistle on Kaiser. Earlier in the episode there’s a scene where she and some of her assistants piece together the identity of the real Princess Eustania, the one who should be ruling Landosol. We, of course, have known for an entire season who that is; Pecorine.

It’s on that note; Kaiser’s deception revealed, Karyl hanging in the sky begging for help, that episode ten comes to an end. Who knows what awaits our heroes in their final, darkest hour?

Ranking of Kings

It’s been quite a long time since we’ve seen young Prince Bojji and his merry band on this blog. But, much of the reason I stopped covering Ousama Ranking for a while was simply that the series has not fundamentally changed at any point, really, since its premiere. It started as a modern spin on classic fairy tale-style fantasy. It’s still that, just with a lot more players now, and with everyone having complex, sympathetic motivations.

That may sound like a good thing. It may be a good thing. But it makes discussion of Ousama Ranking hard, at least for me. I would say, broadly, that Ousama Ranking has only one real problem, and it’s an analogue to an issue often seen in editing. Many series, especially those short on actual plot, employ a tactic of rapidly cutting between different scenes. This produces the illusion that more is going on than actually is. It’s a clever way of disguising a general lack of forward narrative motion. Anime guilty of this particular shortcut usually have a beginning and ending mapped out, but everything in between is essentially guesswork.

Ousama Ranking, on the other hand, has almost the opposite issue. So many plot details have been sprinkled through the series; the demon, the titular Ranking of Kings itself, the woman in the mirror, the war against the Gods, etc. etc. etc. etc. That when the time comes to actually tie up all these plots, it does feel a little like the series is rushing through them. Plot twist comes after plot twist. Sympathetic backstory after sympathetic backstory. It can be thrilling, but also exhausting. I can imagine someone really liking this about the series and conversely, I can imagine it completely ruining the show for someone else.

I fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, lest it sound like I’m being too negative. But it is notable that in just the most recent episode alone (22), we get the near-instantaneous resolution of the “Miranjo sentenced to an eternity of suffering” plot from the episode before that. Things are, basically, resolved in a poof. Similar examples recur throughout the show’s recent run. The most glaring example being Daida’s rather inexplicable decision that the solution to Miranjo’s lingering woes is to…marry her?

We could excuse this, if we wanted to, as Ousama Ranking glomming to old fantasy tropes. Or even, alternately, an in-universe folly of youth (although the show doesn’t treat it that way, certainly). But it does make the show feel strangely rushed despite its many other strengths.

And so as not to end on a down note, we should talk about those strengths. In spite of any other complaints, it’s inarguable that Ousama Ranking is a visual stunner. This past episode is not quite the visual feast that episode 21 was, but it’s still incredibly impressive. Even if Ousama Ranking‘s story issues were much more serious (and I fear I’ve perhaps overstated their importance here), it’d still be well worth watching for its production alone. Its characters also largely remain excellent, with only one or two possible exceptions. Queen Hilling gets a great moment in this episode where she tries to put on a serious, stern face when congratulating her sons, only to break down crying about halfway through. Scenes like this help the series feel alive in a way that offsets some of its writing issues.

Elsewhere, the tale of King Bosse trading Miranjo’s soul and the strength of his then-unborn son for more power is told with suitably epic visual storytelling, with the presentation of one his mightiest opponents, a literal god, being the highlight. (Bosse himself, arguably, is one of the aforementioned exceptions. Dude just isn’t great.)

It helps, also, that the series seems to be heading in a more focused direction as it nears its close. The final two episodes promise to return to the Ranking of Kings system that gives the series its title. As the episode ends with Desha accepting his ranking as #1 and descending into the vault that holds the mysterious treasure accorded to those who earn that title.

Ousama Ranking, certainly, remains compelling, in spite of anything negative I’ve said here. I am not sure if I’ll cover the finale (though I’d like to), but I can safely say that it’s a good series and worth watching, regardless of if it sticks the landing or not.

Elsewhere on MPA

https://magicplanetanime.design.blog/2022/03/15/lets-watch-sabikui-bisco-episode-10-tetsujin-revived/

Sabikui Bisco kinda picked up again last week. Isn’t that nice? I guess we’ll find out tomorrow if it can keep that up or not.

https://magicplanetanime.design.blog/2022/03/20/lets-watch-my-dress-up-darling-episode-11/

To paraphrase myself in a Discord conversation from yesterday, I really like some parts of My Dress-Up Darling and really dislike some other parts. This episode was about 50/50.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SABIKUI BISCO Episode 10 – “Tetsujin Revived”

Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!

I will say one straightforward, positive thing about “Tetsujin Revived” before we get into the ups and downs of the episode in more detail. It opens with one hell of a little plot detour. Remember the Ganesha Cannon? The bio-engineered elephant nuclear missile launcher from last episode? Well, Sabikui Bisco opens this week by making it seem like the thing’s going to fire anyway, despite Kurokawa’s timely demise. Instead, Pawoo, in what is provably her most substantial contribution to the plot thus far, throws one of the giant cyborg gorillas at it and knocks it over, disabling it.

God, I wish that was me.

Now, does this cause its reactor to go critical and almost kill a bunch of people? Yes. But that’s fine, Pawoo is a knucklehead who thinks with her fists. She’s allowed to make mistakes like that, I’m just over the moon that she actually got to do something important for once. The show does not really use Pawoo that well, and even this little moment is over way too soon (and she’s conspicuously absent from what follows). But still, it’s something.

It’s been clear to me for a while that, in general, what I like about Sabikui Bisco is different from what it actually wants to focus on. And true enough, the moments of sentimentality and stabs at subtler character shading that the show attempts here largely don’t work. I’m repeating myself at this point, but they mostly come across as unintentionally humorous.

But that doesn’t mean that Bisco is a lost cause. Even with one of its leads dead (frankly, the less interesting one), there is still space to make a compelling cartoon, here. And when all the commotion from the fight at Kurokawa’s facility reawakens one of the Tetsujin giants, Bisco suddenly feels far more coherent than it has in a long time.

Attack on blightin’

The Tetsujin here is a creature in a long tradition of weird nuke allegory-ish giant monsters from anime and manga. It kinda rules despite being pretty ugly. It’s hastily established that the Japanese government (remember them?) can’t reasonably fight the thing off, what with its arsenal of poisonous Rust clouds, laser vision, self-healing screams (?!), and sheer size. But Milo might be able to, because he was given the full Rust-Eater injection and is probably immune to Rust.

So, there you go, our last arc is set up; Milo sets off to defeat the Tetsujin with Jabi and Pawoo at his back, supporting however they can. Somewhere in here, the show unsubtly hints, and then confirms, that Kurokawa’s consciousness is somehow merged with the Tetsujin (villains like him rarely stay dead on the first try, though I must admit that I didn’t see this particular twist coming.)

There is a wrinkle in all this. Remember Tirol?

You know, the pink one.

She was introduced near the start of the series, and last appeared in episode six, in what was, in hindsight, the show’s last unambiguously good episode. (That first paragraph reads like stage irony four weeks later, but what can you do.) Here, she’s wandering around some town, only to be caught up in the tide of soldiers fleeing in the Tetsujin’s wake. This has the effect of very quickly cementing just how serious the whole situation is and provides a nice inroad for her to link up with the rest of the cast, later.

The episode climaxes, of course, with a fight between Milo and the Tetsujin. Only, it’s really more like another fight between Bisco and Kurokawa. Milo begins acting strangely too, claiming to be Bisco. Whether this is some genuine supernatural / sci-fi stuff going on, Milo developing an Anime Split Personality, or something else entirely has yet to be spelled out. Maybe it never will be, who knows.

Regardless, the fight is pretty great. What it lacks in truly spectacular animation it makes up for with great staging; everything feels appropriately huge and sweeping as Milo pelts the Kurokawa-Tetsujin with mushroom arrows. The nomadic astronaut-helmeted people from episode six get in on the action, too, acting as fire support (and narrowly dodging being annihilated by the Tetsujin’s laser eye.)

When the episode ends and it somehow heals itself, only to unleash another massive Rust blast, there is a real sense that the fate of Japan hangs in the balance. That’s a good thing, and those are the kinds of stakes Sabikui Bisco can afford to raise. It’s totally possible it’ll faceplant again sometime over its final two episodes, but this is the best the series has been in some time, and for now, that’s good enough.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.