Month: April 2022

Posted on in anime, Let's Watch

Let’s Watch SPY X FAMILY Episode 1 – “Operation Strix”

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

“Papa is a huge liar. But he’s such a cool liar!”

His codename is “Twilight,” alias Loid Forger (Takuya Eguchi). His real name unknown and unknowable. He is a spy; an international man of mystery. A shadow, a whisper. No one knows his name. In what is not said to be but clearly is the cold war, a certain nation stands divided in two. There, Loid is deployed for the commencement of “Operation Strix,” his toughest assignment yet. What could possibly challenge this earl of espionage? This master of manipulation?

Well, domestic life, for one. Loid’s assignment: find a wife and adopt a child, blend in as seamlessly as possible, and send said child to a prestigious private academy to get close to one of the nation’s top political leaders, a man of near-paranoiac caution who rarely makes himself available except at events for that very school. So begins SPY x FAMILY, Wit Studio and CloverWorks‘ adaption of the wildly successful Shonen Jump manga. So also begins our second Let’s Watch column of the season. We’re in for a ride, folks. Strap in.

For Loid, the first order of business is procuring a child. Time is of the essence, so doing so the—ahem—traditional way is out of the question. As such, the first major undertaking our big heroic superspy sets out on in SPY x FAMILY is a trip to a run-down, skeevy orphanage. There, he adopts Anya (Atsumi Tanezaki), a six-year-old girl with a very cute hair style.

Seriously though what ARE those things on her head? Antennae?

She’s also telepathic, which leads to quite a few shenanigans. Namely; it takes Anya only a few moments to learn that Loid is a spy, being able to read his mind and all. This creates a fun dynamic wherein Loid thinks he has to hide his profession from Anya, who knows what he’s thinking at all times anyway, but who in turn also hides the fact that she knows what Loid really is. The implicit comedic observation that SPY x FAMILY makes here is that children, like spies, have thought processes that are pretty incomprehensible to the rest of us.

Anya is also afraid of what might happen if Loid finds out she can read minds. We’re told upfront that she’s been adopted and then returned to the orphanage four times before. This is a cloud that hangs over all of Loid and Anya’s interactions and provides an interesting shade to even Anya’s silliest antics. Her deep and abiding love of peanuts, for example. (Atsumi Tanezaki also deserves some real credit here for lending a believably childish air to her vocal tics.)

SPY x FAMILY is not a drama, really. But you could make the case for “dramedy,” perhaps, if heavier on the “edy” side. It has the good sense to cut its comedic side with more tonally complex moments, creating an actual emotional core as opposed to just a parade of gags. Anya fucking around with Loid’s spy equipment is funny. Her then panicking, wondering if she’ll be sent back to the orphanage if he finds out, and flashing back to her days as “Subject 7” in the facility she was born in? That’s sad. And like any good dramedy, SPY x FAMILY can juxtapose these polar opposites without making either feel out of place. This is, after all, a little girl that we’re talking about. Kids do think like that, and Anya’s been through more than most.

That’s not to say that all of this totally works. Later in the episode, after a great action sequence where Loid rescues Anya from the direct result of said equipment-fuck-arounding, he engages in a bit of self-lionizing, and we get some rather leaden backstory. This comes too early and too unearned to really hit the way the show seems to want it to. (This is to say nothing of it bumping up against the fact that, you know, real spies are generally not great people. SPY x FAMILY generally renders the profession too ridiculous to feel like it’s glorifying it, but it does occasionally come close.) Thankfully, it’s brief, and not enough to seriously ding the episode in any real way.

The episode ends with Anya successfully passing the exam to get into the private school that forms the crux of Loid’s mission. Perhaps more importantly; it ends with Anya snuggling up to her adopted dad on a couch (and him slightly freaking out about it. He fell asleep in front of someone! That’s a huge no-no for a spy). Then things, as they always do, hit a slight snag.

But we’ll discuss the full implications of that next week. See you then, anime fans.

Oh, I think I already have, episode title. I think I already have.

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 KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR -ULTRA ROMANTIC- Episode 1

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

Kaguya-sama: Love is War! returns like it never left at all. Mercifully, unlike the second season, 2020’s Love is War?, the third is marked by an actual, distinct subtitle: -Ultra Romantic-. The first episode is, of course, excellent, and we’ll get to the how’s and why’s of that momentarily. First though, it feels right to simply appreciate the familiarity, here. Speaking just for myself, with as much of a gamble that any given anime season can be, it’s nice to have one or two things that you’re pretty damn sure are going to be great.

Eventually, this season will likely delve into the more dramatic parts of Kaguya-sama‘s storyline to an even greater degree than the second season did. I’m not sure what the reception will be–like many popular romcoms, Kaguya‘s wide popularity does not always shield it from backlash–but for now, it’s simply nice to have it around again. Since the second season concluded, the only real drop of Love is War! we’ve gotten was a short OVA from last year, which, frankly, is best left unremembered.

It’s natural to wonder, all this in mind, how something this widely anticipated marks its dramatic return, and the answer is very simple.

One of the characters completely embarrasses herself in a very funny way.

Keep an eye on the camel, it will be relevant momentarily.

Miko Iino (Miyu Tomita) and Yuu Ishigami (Ryouta Suzuki) are perhaps Love is War!‘s second-most important pair of characters, after the leads. -Ultra Romantic- chooses to open on a somewhat lowkey note by focusing on the two of them for the episode’s first “short.” (If you’ve forgotten; Kaguya-sama tends to divide its episodes, with only rare exceptions, into three “chunks” of about equal length.) The core premise with this one is very simple. Have you ever accidentally left your headphones slightly unplugged? Especially while listening to music you don’t necessarily want others to know you listen to? No? Just watch this short, then. It encapsulates the feeling of total, day-ruining embarrassment perfectly.

Miko sits down to study after chewing Ishigami out for not doing the same. Her case here is actually worse, because what she’s listening to isn’t music at all. It’s ambient sounds. First, fairly normal (soft rain noises). Then, somewhat odd (the sounds of a construction site). Then definitely odd (the loud braying calls of a camel). And finally, outright embarrassing (ASMR recordings of a bunch of “heartthrobs” telling the listener that she’s a good girl and is doing her best).

Dissecting humor like this tends to kill it, so it’s not nearly as funny in the retelling. But Love is War!‘s ability to simply ramp up a joke like this is easy to underappreciate. The final blow comes when the rest of the student council returns. Ishigami–in-line with his habit of falling on the sword for others, no matter how trivial the reason–then deliberately leaves his music leaking for all to hear. (The track must be heard to be believed. Its lyrics consist entirely of “moe moe kyun kyun.”) Only for Miko to then scold him, talk about how embarrassed she is for him, and then promptly not realize that her phone is also still leaking audio.

Fatality.

The second segment is more frantic and uptempo. Love is War! has repeatedly used a trick of directing comedic scenes revolving around misunderstandings–or the leads’ attempts to get each other to confess their feelings–like high-suspense thrillers. The approach makes its triumphant return here, as the technological inexperience of title character Kaguya Shinomiya (Aoi Koga) ensnares her in a trap laid by the greatest adversary of any modern woman. No, not her love interest / rival Miyuki Shirogane (Makoto Furukawa). I’m talking, of course, about read notifications. Kaguya leaves Miyuki on read because she’s just so happy to have gotten a text from him. Miyuki can see the notification but, obviously, not her reason for doing this. He is a bit panicked.

Another key part of Love is War!‘s appeal is that it understands how to involve the foibles of modern life in its scenarios. Many anime only touch on technology briefly, but this entire segment rests on a social stress stemming entirely from what is supposed to be a convenient feature of instant messaging platforms (LINE here, rather than iMessage itself) but, is more often than not, a total headache. On the character side of things, there’s also Kaguya’s far more tech-savvy maid Ai Hayasaka (Yumiri Hanamori), who could explain all this to Kaguya, but opts not to. Hayasaka has long served as something of a stand-in for the section of the audience that wishes Kaguya and Miyuki would just knock it off and kiss already. It’s hard to imagine that fact not playing some role in her decision to not bother here. Even so, for the second time in the episode, second-hand embarrassment plays a big role.

The whole thing is resolved with a lie and minimal social casualties, but not before Hayasaka gets hit with quite the death glare.

Continuing the escalation, the third segment is the goofiest of all. The impetus? An arm-wrestling tournament, started by Chika Fujiwara (Konomi Kohara), but certainly not ended by her.

This is probably the short with the least to talk about, which is a shame because in spite of the lack of any pesky things like “emotional resonance” or “forward narrative development”, it’s pretty fucking funny. It’s also the most visually engaging of the three, integrating a grab-bag of visual tropes from fighting games and shonen anime (especially Dragonball Z). Conceptually, rendering something ridiculous by welding it to shonen tropes is nothing new. (Hell, Birdie Wing did it only a couple days ago.) But as it has in prior seasons, what sets Love is War! apart is sheer commitment to the bit. We even get a battle shonen-esque vaguely plausible-sounding explanation for our protagonist’s extraordinary abilities. Kaguya wins the tournament. Why? Well, she’s in the archery club and bow drawstrings are heavy, helpfully illustrated by a cute callback to season two’s OP.

It’s hard to be too surprised when the entire thing caps off with what I’m fairly sure is a Cho Aniki reference after Kaguya wins. Why wouldn’t it? The show’s grip on reality is loose at the best of times, and when it goes headlong into full surreal comedy mode it feels like it can do just about anything and have it make sense. A giant pile of muscle men, why not?

Sadly, not everything is entirely smooth sailing. While the actual show remains as great to look at as ever, this is the second romcom this season to be afflicted by a pretty bad case of subpar typesetting. The translation is as good as it’s ever been, but there is enough text on screen that plain multi-tracking (one up top and the other on the bottom) just doesn’t cut it anymore. I will still be covering the anime weekly as it releases officially, but if the more patient among you were inclined to wait for fansubs I would completely understand.

As for this episode? It’s a solid return for the series. Some might take issue with the series not launching right back into The Heavy Stuff ™, but we’ll get there soon enough. In the meantime, I can again speak only for myself, but I’m happy to just be along for the ride.

Ah, and since I like to make a habit of including a small something extra for folks who make it all the way to the end of the column, please enjoy this Bonus Hayasaka Screencap. A recurring feature from this point forward.

I’m sure some of you will be looking forward to that.

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: THE DEMON GIRL NEXT DOOR Moves Back in For Another Season

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.

Where does the time go? It feels like only yesterday that I was going over the relative merits of The Demon Girl Next Door—Machikado Mazoku to most, and throughout the rest of this article–over on GeekGirlAuthority. But it’s actually been nearly a full three years. Machikado Mazoku is a product of the pre-pandemic era. And perhaps it’s that knowledge, as much as anything else, that makes me consider the anime to have a throwback feel, for better and for worse.

If anyone’s definitely not feeling the passage of time, it’s the show’s characters. In-universe, only a few days have lapsed since season one’s finale, and the show wastes zero time with catching anyone up. Instead, it strolls on in like no time has passed at all. If you could prevent someone from looking the information up, you might be able to convince them the seasons aired back-to-back.

The core conceit here is simple. We follow Yuuko Yoshida (Konomi Kohara), rarely-used alias “Shadow Mistress” Yuuko, a demon girl, as she attempts to corrupt her ostensible rival, the magical girl Momo Chiyoda (Akari Kitou). In practice, they’re basically girlfriends-in-denial, and that dynamic only grew stronger over the course of the first season. It’s back in full force here, complete with the usual suite of miscommunications.

Supporting characters include Yuuko’s ancestor, the demon Lilith (Minami Takahashi), who is stuck in a statue, and the cursed, citrus-themed magical girl Mikan Hinatsuki (Tomoyo Takayanagi), who plays a fairly major role in this first episode.

What does not play a major role is pacing. While this first episode is definitely funny–and there are a lot of individual great gags–it’s also very quick. Quicker than I remember the first season being, although, again, that could just be my memory failing me here. Most of it is fine, although combined with the haphazard subtitle work (a lot of effort went into it, maybe too much, since I’m not sure literally every tiny “gurgle gurgle” sound effect or what have you needs a translation) it can make the episode oddly hard to follow on a basic, visual moment to visual moment level.

Does this interfere that much with the actual plot of the episode, a boondoggle wherein Yuuko now finds herself living next door to both Momo and Mikan on opposite sides?

Not really, but it is a touch disappointing, and it makes one hope that the subsequent episodes will handle this aspect a little better. Beyond that, though, there’s really not a ton to say here.

The Takeaway: It’s more Shamiko. Most likely, you already know if you want that or not.

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: BIRDIE WING Tees Off

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.

“The Symphogear of Golf”

-Blurb for a now-deleted ‘review’ of the first episode by Anilist user SolidQuentin.

From the start, I suspected there was something strange about this one. Even by the standards of the “cute girls doing cute things” pseudogenre, golf is a reach. Pairing up a genre of anime that already gets criticized for being dull with what is unquestionably the most boring major sport in the world seems like a recipe for disaster, on the surface. Thankfully, Birdie Wing isn’t anything like that at all. Instead, it’s one of those shows where a random game or spectator sport–golf, naturally, this time around–is taken with a seriousness by absolutely everybody that, in the real world, is usually reserved for matters of religion and politics. Late in its first episode, someone in Birdie Wing calls golf a “sacred sport.” They are not being ironic.

That said, with apologies to SolidQuentin, Birdie Wing is not nearly visually dynamic enough to be “the Symphogear of golf.” At least not yet. (And really, that’s no knock, that’s a hard bar to clear.) But it does manage to make an honest run at the “most unhinged show of the season” title in a season that also includes ESTAB-LIFE. That’s worth something on its own.

The trick here is that our protagonist, the mononymic Eve (Akari Kitou), is not really a golfer. She’s more of a….golf mercenary. A golf secret agent. A golf hitman. The first thing we see her do is impersonate a pro golfer–complete with a latex disguise–and play a qualifier tournament to said pro’s specifications (fourth place, nothing showy.) After she’s paid for that job, we eventually learn that she, her friend / girlfriend / something Lily Lipman (Akira Sekine), and Lily’s older sister live and work out of a bar, where they also take care of three orphans. Yes, really.

Eve’s golfing habits are half moneymaking scheme and half personal obsession. Over the course of the first episode we see her take on a masked, harlequin-themed golfer in the middle of the night and handily win 6,000 Euros in a bet. (Which she later loses by buying off a crooked cop harassing Lily’s sister.) She trains by bullseye-ing golf balls into rusty paintbuckets from a distance. There’s a flashback, which is inexplicably presented like a sepia-toned music video, where someone (presumably either her father or a former coach) compares golfing to firing a gun, saying that one should mentally destroy their opponents and “pierce their hearts.” All this in greyscale while Eve’s hair glows a fiery orange and she’s surrounded by whiffed shots.

Oh! And Eve has a nickname; The Rainbow Bullet.

It makes a kind of sense.

Despite all this, Eve mostly plays for money, downplaying her shonen protagonist-level skills by dropping this particularly great line.

She’s akin to an absurdist extension of the classic “perfect swordsman” trope. And it’s off that absurdity that Birdie Wing mostly gets its charge, as of now. (I could not help but laugh when, in her second match of the episode, Eve deliberately aims for a tree branch and breaks it with her shot, completely bypassing the course’s main obstacle.)

If you want to reach for themes, you could maybe dig up something about rich, establishment folk being more preoccupied with appearances than actual accomplishment. (Note how Eve’s second opponent first denigrates her for her appearance. And then tries to bail on the aforementioned broken tree branch match because she doesn’t want to “throw off her game for [a later] tournament.”) But that does feel like a stretch, this early on. And really, something this wonderfully stupid doesn’t really need themes, it just needs to keep up the absurdity.

Eve does meet someone who seems like she might become a worthy opponent–a short Japanese girl named Aoi Amawashi (Asami Seto) who, despite her small stature, totes an utterly absurd four-foot golf club–but we don’t actually see their match here. That’s presumably for next week.

The fact of the matter is that Birdie Wing‘s first episode works because of the sheer friction between the subject matter–again, one of the most boring sports known to man–and the shonen-esque seriousness everyone applies to it, especially Eve. And this is to say nothing of the dialogue, which serves as ample evidence that the folks behind this show aren’t taking it any more seriously than we are.

Golfing!

That’s a trick that works fine for now, but the show can’t simply coast for twelve weeks. It’ll either have to continually top itself (a difficult prospect, but not an impossible one), or it will have to actually wring some meaning out of all this absurdity (likewise). But I’m at least interested in finding out if it manages to do either of these, and if a first episode hooks you in, then it’s largely served its purpose.

The Takeaway: Fans of the sublimely stupid and of ridiculous premises should put this one on the priority list. As for everyone else, it’ll take you about five minutes tops to find out if this is “your thing” or not. There’s no reason to not at least check out the premiere.

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: Less Money, More Problems in TOMODACHI GAME

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.

I hate saying that something “isn’t my genre.” Partly, it feels like an excuse. Surely any reasonably well-rounded critic should have an at least workable command of all major genres within their chosen medium?

Well, maybe so. But I’m not going to lie to you all and pretend I understand the whole “death game” genre. This isn’t technically a death game, as I’m sure some would hasten to point out. Instead, it’s a “debt game.” Similar names, but one only kills you indirectly. (And if you don’t think so, trying being poor for a few years.) I disclose this upfront because the truth of the matter is that I have no real idea what to make of Tomodachi Game. I certainly wasn’t impressed, but maybe that’s just because I don’t really know what I’m looking for.

The setup isn’t complicated, at least. Our core cast consists of five friends. I could introduce them, but the show pops these nice little on-screen intros up basically as soon as it starts, and since the effort was taken to subtitle them, why not just use those?

(Voiced by Tomohiro Oono, Satomi Amano, Daiki Hamano, and Yume Miyamoto, respectively, top to bottom.)

The only one not displayed here is Yuuichi Katagiri (Chiaki Kobayashi), our protagonist, who is portrayed as a hardworking but poor lad but who is probably hiding some skeletons in his closet. I base that guess on the fact that he shows up in the OP grinning like a maniac with money literally hanging out of his mouth.

In his guest verse on Nelly’s classic 2005 bling-rap track “Grillz,” rapper Big Gipp says he “has a bill in [his] mouth like [he’s] Hillary Rodham.” It’s such a viscerally unpleasant mental image that it’s bothered me for years, despite the fact that I love the song otherwise. And now I’m passing it on to you via an overlong image caption because the above picture kinda reminded me of it. Aren’t you glad you read this blog?

Our leads all attend the same high school, and the plot is kicked off when a collective funding pool for a class trip–two million Yen, all told, about $16,000 USD–goes missing, evidently stolen from Shiho’s locker. (You may ask why it was kept there to begin with and not, y’know, some kind of safe. I say just roll with it.)

Inevitably, there’s suspicion within the class, especially toward Shiho herself–she was the one holding on to it, after all–and Yuuichi, given his general poverty.

Eventually, a round of mysterious letters beckons our friend group to meet outside the school gates at 11PM. Inevitably, they are then knocked out, kidnapped, and hauled off to partake in some bizarre game for god-knows-what reason. No explanations are forthcoming this early on, which is fine. But it is kind of hilarious how abrupt all this feels. We’ve just met these characters, only just learned that they’re all friends, and now suddenly it’s time to do the thriller anime dance already. The extremely abrupt directing does the show no favors here. In general, there are tons of repeated cuts to the show’s “intermission card”, which is just the name of the series on a white background. You will get sick of this image fairly quickly, even with the couple variants the episode trots out.

When our heroes come to, they’re in an all-white, tiled room. I like to imagine this is somehow the same building that Cube 2: Hypercube takes place in. (Side note here; fuck that movie.) There, they’re introduced to the host of this “debt game,” one Manabu-kun (Minami Takayama), who takes the form of a small boy from an old children’s cartoon. He likes to, for instance, taunt Yuuichi about not trusting his friends. Sure, why not.

Manabu lays out the rules pretty plain; somebody among them owes a 2 million Yen debt. When they entered the game–which they allegedly all agreed to, even though none of them remember doing so–this debt was split up into 5 shares distributed equally to each of them. If they can win the game, their debt will be forgiven. If not, they’ll have to pay back whatever price of their share remains. (It will not shock you that we’re almost immediately introduced to rules that can change the amount of debt an individual person owes. Also; you’re allowed to tell people your debt, but not actually show them the electronic tag you’re forced to carry around which displays it numerically. Hmm.)

The first game–likely, one of many–that our cast have to play is a simple quiz involving a Kokkuri board. This scene forms the entire center of the episode. Thankfully; the core game as explained here is very straightforward. Our heroes need to answer some very basic yes/no questions by pushing a giant coin to one side or the other of the board (labeled Yes and No respectively.) But! The questions need to be answered with total consensus. If even one person disagrees with the others, the coin will favor the minority answer.

Even so, these are some seriously basic questions. We start with Japanese geography so simple even I knew the answers, and then move on to such brain-busters as “is one plus one two?” and “are there seven days in a week?” They only have to actually get one of these questions unanimously right to win the whole “debt game” outright, so this really seems like it should be easy.

Of course, Tomodachi Game would be totally pointless if our heroes just won outright this early. Thus, there’s the mandatory twist; someone pushes the coin toward “No” each time. Whether it’s the same person each time or not is left ambiguous, as is the question of why they’d want to do this in the first place. We get a hint, though; the fact that someone is clearly sabotaging things is enough to make Yuuichi consider doing the same. He doesn’t go through with it, but someone else pulls the coin toward “No” anyway. A pair of girls observing the game note that literally no team has ever gotten past this stage.

Thus betrayed, Yuuichi ends the episode on this note, before (presumably) sabotaging the last question himself. I must confess, this is one of the rare times an anime has ever put me at a total loss for words so early on.

Yes, that non-sequitur, delivered with total dead-seriousness, is how the episode ends. The closing shot is that ugly closeup of Yuuichi’s teeth.

I said this already, but death games–and their adjacent, related setups–are not my genre. I may simply be missing something here, but, if so, what? For all its bluster about how humans can’t endure hardship alone and the dichotomy between “money” versus “friends” being the most important thing in life. (Represented by flashbacks on Yuuichi’s part to conversations with people that appear to be his father and mother respectively.) The series feels much like any other adaption of a manga in this genre. Too edgy by half and ill-suited to the TV anime format.

I’m not comfortable simply writing the show off, mind you. Even the examples of this genre generally held up as all-time greats don’t make a ton of sense to me, and there are way too many things yet to be established for me to firmly claim this is just A Bad Show. But it’s definitely a series only for those of pretty specific tastes, and I don’t think I fall into that category this time.

The Takeaway: Genre fans should give it a look, but unless that describes you, you can safely skip this one.

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: The Soothing World of HEALER GIRL

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.

Before we even talk about Healer Girl, Studio 3Hz‘ new original anime project, let’s briefly discuss its trailer.

Released inconspicuously back in December, this PV is absolutely spellbinding. As recently as a few days ago, I’ve previously called Healer Girl an idol series, and it does have an associated idol group. But the actual Healer Girls are more Wilson Philips than AKB48, and as the soft, light pop music flows out of your speakers you’ll eventually notice the visuals, too. Our girls fly in the air, their songs extend literal beams of music outward, raising stone pillars from the ground and healing all who hear them. They’re dressed in all white, like they were angels. It’s one of the most singular PVs in recent memory, and Healer Girl the actual show has a lot to live up to.

Let this much be said: it must know that, because it puts a strong foot forward. It is exactly three and a half seconds into Healer Girl before we get our first piece of music. Before the opening credits even drop, Kana Fujii (Carin Isobe), our lead, sings a soft little song to a group of schoolchildren who were roughhousing. The scrape on a little boy’s knee disappears in the blink of an eye. One boy points out to another that this isn’t “magic,” it’s healing. This is a pretty bold first step for your show to take, and it speaks to a lot of confidence on the part of the writers.

After the OP finishes, we get some explanations for what exactly is going on. Healer Girl takes place in a world where “Song Medicine” is an accepted, scientific form of treatment. (Here referred to as the “third major branch” of medicine. My brief time working at a pharmacy does not qualify me to speak on how real either of the other two are, I have no idea.) The few pieces of terminology we get throughout the episode are–obviously–audiomedical technobabble, but that’s fine. The point is made; these girls are less like idols and more like doctors. Or med students, since our three leads are apprentices. They mostly train rather than do anything more involved at this stage in their careers. There are pushups.

The first half of the episode plays out like a reasonably typical work or school life comedy, albeit one set in a world with key differences from our own. Healer Girl is certainly not short on the merits that the better examples of these shows have; there’s a lot of colorful animation, some interesting directorial decisions (the series has a fixation on rotating the POV of a shot), and the coveted Good FacesTM that seal the deal on any character comedy. Kana’s co-stars are fun, too, with simple personalities that avoid being one-note. Reimi Itsushiro (Marina Horiuchi) is the straightlaced one, but she has a fixation on the apprentices’ collective teacher, Ria Karasuma (Ayahi Takagaki). The crush she harbors on Ria is hilariously unsubtle. I might use the word “thirsty.”

Hibiki Morishima (Akane Kumada) is soft-spoken and eccentric, at various points in the episode she professes to be scared of manju(?) and white rice(??) and tries to freak out her fellow apprentices by claiming there are ghosts in her bedroom.

On top of all this, Healer Girl is also kind of a musical! There are, by my count, two proper songs and a medley in this first episode. Which, combined with those aforementioned strengths, would make Healer Girl recommendable on its own.

Before we get to the last thing about the show, though, we should back up slightly. It’s established that that little stunt that Kana pulled in the opening minutes isn’t something mere apprentices are actually allowed to do. For reasons left ambiguous to us, healing music is strictly regulated. Apprentices doing so much as singing away a knee-scrape is very much not okay.

Which leads us to the closing act of the episode. A little girl named Yui pounds on the front door of the clinic while Ria and the other in-house doctor happen to be out giving a conference. Her grandmother is in trouble, and she doesn’t know what to do. Our apprentices, accordingly, spring into action; dialing an ambulance, trying to get ahold of Ria, and heading to Yui’s house to comfort the patient, respectively.

It’s Kana who takes that last job, and good lord does she ace it. She knows–and we know, from earlier–that she shouldn’t try to heal this old woman, so she improvises, instead singing simply to stabilize her and calm her down while the ambulance arrives, and it is as she’s doing this that Healer Girl goes from having a good first episode to having an amazing one.

The central connection that Healer Girl makes, even this early on, is between music and medicine. One heals the soul, the other heals the body. Healer Girl‘s main trick is to make that connection literal with music that can soothe both. Other anime in and around the idol genre have occasionally flirted with spiritual, magical, or religious imagery, but, speaking personally, I’ve often been frustrated by how hesitant they are to commit. If you’re going to draw up grandiose metaphors, go hard on those metaphors! Restraint is for suckers, and it makes most popular art worse! Go fully unhinged! Have your idols literally heal the sick! Do it! Madonna wasn’t afraid to compare herself to Jesus and you shouldn’t be either!

Healer Girl seems to agree; when Kana sings to this poor old woman, a flower blooms beneath her feet, she levitates in the air and tiny poppets in her own image materialize from the ether to calm her patient down.

It is a beautiful thing to watch, and the show damn well knows it, because when Ria does arrive, she excuses her apprentice’s kinda-sorta rule break, and is as impressed with her display as any of us are. This is not the face of a woman who’s unhappy.

There’s some more exposition here–apparently this transcendentally luminous phenomenon we just witnessed is called an “Image”, and the fact that Kana’s changes while she sings is somehow notable–but mostly everyone is just happy that the old woman is okay. Kana, deservedly, takes some time in the episodes final moments to bask in a job well done.

If you’re a certain kind of person I could see finding Healer Girl‘s whole thing offputting or even creepy. There is no denying that the little worldbuilding we get here also raises some odd questions about the setting. (What is the role of non-healing music, for example? Does it even exist? Does all of it sound like early 90s light pop?) But I can’t pretend to be part of that group, I’m all in on Healer Girl. I have tried to refrain from making predictions about a show’s success (doing so last season ended, I would say, embarrassingly), but I certainly want this one to keep up this level of quality.

Speaking personally, I had a very bad morning before I sat down to watch Healer Girl. A morning filled with medical anxiety, even, complete with missing prescription refills and an agonizing wait in a doctor’s office. Healer Girl made me feel better, too, and I cannot give the series a stronger endorsement than that. Early in the episode, Reimi compares recorded healing music to OTC drugs. But what can I say? Sometimes the over-the-counter stuff works.

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, Reviews

(REVIEW) Reckoning with MAGIA RECORD: DAWN OF A SHALLOW DREAM

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

Here we are, again and at last. I have written about Magia Record; the anime adaption of a mobile game spinoff of the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica, again, and again, and again over the past two years. This will, barring something truly unexpected occurring, be the final time. Dawn of a Shallow Dream is the final “season”–really more of a movie with intermissions–of the series. Part of me will miss it.

Magia Record on the whole is, to use a term I consider neutral, but some would call a denigration, messy. Its pieces do not all fit neatly together. It overreaches, and from a purely technical point of view, it’s a serious mixed bag, marrying near-immaculate directing with consistently inconsistent quality of actual, y’know, drawings. Its three seasons are all very different and its cast of characters is too large for it develop them all equally-well. Its core theme–persistence in the face even of impossible odds and crushing despair–is arguably overdone within this genre, and is better-executed by its parent series, by Symphogear, and perhaps even by distant cousins like Day Break Illusion. Aren’t we all a bit tired of this by now?

Well, if you’re reading this, you probably know how I feel about these things (and if not, you will soon enough.) So, it will not surprise you that the answer from me, the woman who thought Blue Reflection Ray was really underrated, is “no, I’m not tired of it at all.” Bring them on a hundred strong, I say.

My thoughts on Magia Record have shifted a bit several times since the first season originally aired, but I remain resolute on a key point. As a “Precurification” of the original Puella Magi Madoka Magica‘s general idea–that is to say, a vehicle for delivering and iterating on “Madoka stories” within a fixed format–it absolutely kills. Shallow Dream is its swing at a grand finale. It doesn’t hit every target perfectly, and I will discuss what bones to pick I do have a bit farther down, but it makes a good show of things in its own way.

Magia Record‘s plot has always been a point of contention; the show is very cognizant of its own worldbuilding. Lucid, even. But that doesn’t translate to it always being clear to the viewers. This is probably the simplest it’s ever gotten, and thankfully things are conveyed fairly strongly here. Even so, to sum it up I can only offer something like; Iroha (Momo Asakura) and friends stop Embryo Eve by weaponizing the power of human connection. Not perfectly, of course, because this is Madoka, but, you know, pretty well. Along the way we get some long-overdue explanations for what was going on with Iroha’s sister and their two friends. Also because this is Madoka, about a quarter of the cast dies along the way. You can’t win ’em all.

I completely understand why MagiReco’s insistence on burrowing so heavily into its foretext is offputting to some (I would argue it’s still in service of a solid thematic goal, regardless), but it does mean that for the hardcore magical girl fan, Magia Record has been a treat of well-done henshin sequences, fight scenes, and just in general, deliciously weird imagery that nothing else in the genre quite touches. We don’t get as much of that in “season three” here as we did last year for season two (there’s really only one fight in the whole thing and it’s pretty brief), but it remains a pleasure to look at, even when the character art goes headlong into “why is SHAFT like this?” territory.

The background we get for Touka (Rie Kugimiya), Nemu (Sumire Mohoroshi), and Iroha’s long-missing sister Ui (Manaka Iwami) fill in a lot of the gaps from the first two seasons, which does have the nice benefit of making this all feel a little more like it’s one thing instead of three discrete shows under a broad umbrella. Their turn from good intentions to total villainy makes sense in hindsight. From just wanting to save Iroha, to trying to loophole their way out of the magical girl system entirely–which of course, horribly backfires and is why Ui goes missing in the first place–and finally to their full villainous, cult leader-esque incarnation from seasons one and two, it’s all compelling stuff, a story of how the best of intentions can go horribly awry when met with poorly understood circumstances.

Elsewhere, Momoko (Mikako Komatsu) and Mifuyu (Mai Nakahara) give their lives to free as many of the girls trapped by Magius’ “witch factory” as they possibly can. The sequence is heartwarming and tinged with a cosmic all-is-love energy. Nothing in the Madoka universe comes without sacrifice, of course, but we would all be lucky to go out, if we had to, while helping so many others.

Not everything works quite so well. In particular, I can’t help but be a touch disappointed with the treatment of Kuroe (Kana Hanazawa), who becomes a witch here before being killed off, mostly to teach Iroha a lesson about how she can’t just impose her own worldview on other people. This feels like something that should’ve come up more strongly than this earlier in the series, and Kuroe being offed when we just got to really know her does leave something of a bad taste in my mouth. Even so, the sequence is undeniably pretty damn cool.

The last battle against Eve, in which it is only just barely prevented from merging with Walpurgisnacht, is suitably epic, even when it gets interrupted by the ranting, raving, honestly a little out-of-nowhere? Hijacking by Alina Gray (Ayana Taketatsu).

These scenes are all notable individually, and there are a number of others I’ve not discussed here. (Yachiyo (Sora Amamiya) makes up for her absence from much of the season by getting a lovely, touching reunion with her late partners, or rather, the magic they held that lives on inside her, for example.) But you may ask what this all adds up to. It’s a fair question.

The truth of the matter is that Magia Record is, again, messy. It is not an immaculate distillation of its core values down to a euphoric four-episode package. It does not “transcend” and become “more than the sum of its parts,” perhaps. But I challenge anyone with even the slightest shred of affection for this series–Madoka, not just Magia Record–to watch the closing shots; where the surviving magical girls band together and push forward, heads held high even in the face of their unenviable, tragic situation, and not feel something.

Magia Record ends with a literal closing of the book; the white-gloved hands of a Goddess (Aoi Yuuki) shutting it with an affectionate finality. The girls narrate that no one knows of the battles they fought and what they sacrificed. That no one knows of the dreams they held that were lost. Of their picking up the pieces and starting again. The existence of the series itself, and of this review, is proof otherwise, of course. And you could interpret this as a tragic ending, if you were so inclined. But what, really, is more positive than starting again? I have said this before in other columns and will say it again in many more. The true essence of hope–that nebulous thing–is to live on, and to help others do the same.

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 [4/2/22]

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! I’ve been crazy busy this week with impressions articles (a trend that will likely continue at least somewhat into next week and possibly even the week after), so I haven’t had a ton of time to write much else. (Especially considering that for administrative reasons, it’s arriving a day early.) Still, I hope you appreciate the Priconne writeup below.

Before that, though! The Community Choice Poll has concluded, and in hindsight the victor was perhaps a bit obvious. Still, I didn’t expect it to absolutely crush its competition in the way that it did.

So! Our previous community choice winner–My Dress-Up Darling–was a CloverWorks-animated romcom. Congratulations to our new community choice winner. SPY X FAMILY, a CloverWorks-animated romcom.

Jokes aside, I hope you look forward to my covering the series. I’m sure you’re all as excited to see Yor animated on the silver screen as I am. And I’m sure the rest of the show will be pretty good, too. Best of luck next time to the runners-up Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2, The Demon Girl Next Door Season 2, and BIRDIE WING.

Wait, really, BIRDIE WING? Huh.

In any case, you can look forward to seeing those shows covered here on MPA as well to at least some extent.

Not on the Frontline Report though, because this is the last edition of this column.

By which I mean, I am changing the name. The column will be on hiatus next week, since I have more premieres to cover and some real-life stuff to get done. (Taxes, ahoy!) When it returns, it will be under the name Anime Orbit Weekly, a name that better fits my site’s loose “planet” theming and….frankly is just better in every way. I’ve never really liked “Frontline Report” and have largely stuck with it out of inertia. The new name is catchier and also easier to Google.

Anyway, on with the column!

Weekly Anime

Princess Connect! Re:Dive

They really didn’t have to go this hard. That’s what I kept thinking as I finished up the second season of Princess Connect! Re:Dive. This episode is a finale, so it should look good, but the fact that they were able to do this without visibly sapping resources from elsewhere in the production–aside from maybe a single filler episode near the middle?–is astounding. Shows just being produced this cleanly is a rarity in of itself. Add to that the following; Princess Connect‘s season finale is a symphony of magic fireworks; magical-digital floating spell circles, fuckoff-huge sword beams, gloopy swarms of shadowy darkness, CGI metallic projectiles, pick a favorite visual trope that a fantasy-action anime of the past 10 years has come up with, it’s in here somewhere.

But I fear that in my coverage of Priconne I’ve maybe over-emphasized the production merits and made it seem like that’s the show’s only strength. So, all I’ll say further on this front is that I wouldn’t be shocked if this whole damn episode was on Sakugabooru.

Fundamentally, the finale is a huge tug-of-war between the Gourmet Guild and Omniscient Kaiser. It is, in a lot of ways, super basic. The heroes triumph over the big evil villain via (spoiler) the power of friendship. But if, in a meta sense, Princess Connect has any core thesis, it’s that you can build a perfect machine from imperfect parts. There is not a wasted moment in the whole episode; every line sharpens the show’s emotional core just a little bit more. You’d have to be a real stone-face to not grin while watching this, its sheer enthusiasm for its own genre, its strength of belief that this is an impactful story that will light a fire in your heart, is infectious.

Kaiser even gets a somewhat sympathetic backstory squeezed in here, where the sheer ennui of being a tyrant in the name of a failed utopia quite literally consumes her alive; she’s eaten by the mostly-dead shadow clone we thought died last episode, in an honestly pretty damn gruesome bit of body horror for something that’s generally been pretty conservative with even showing blood.

In the last raising-of-stakes available to a VRMMO series, it’s made clear that if Kaiser dies while under the Shadows’ influence that she’ll be gone for good. And that’s just not allowed, of course. So the show’s big final act is our heroes venturing inside this giant End of Eva shadow lady to bust Kaiser’s soul out like this was the world’s most high-stakes heist movie. Karyl does most of the actual convincing Kaiser not totally give in to nihilistic solipsism, but Pecorine performs well throughout the episode, too. Throughout the whole series, Pecorine has felt like the “real” hero, and it’s cool that she mostly gets to ride that status out here as her kingdom is finally restored to her at episode’s end.

Yuuki gets a great showing here as well, and honestly, this is probably the most he’s ever felt like the protagonist he ostensibly is. But even with all he gets done over the course of the finale, he still only gets eight total lines–I counted–and two of them are just “Go!” and “Nice.”

Still, it’s worth noting that the final battle does technically ride on him–he refuses another pass through the time loop from Ameth, choosing to live or die by the bonds he’s formed with his friends. That faith in them pays off, and all present are, in fact, able to defeat Omniscient Kaiser, who is returned to her normal state.

It’s Labyrista who sums up the episode’s–and really, whole show’s–theme best.

It’s simple, but simple works for Princess Connect, a series that–despite its ostensibly complicated “lore”–is very much focused on the fundamentals. The show’s very few problems; Said lore’s complexity, Kokkoro not getting much of a role in the finale, and arguably the oddly showy outfits, do not really ding it at all. At the end of the day, Princess Connect is just a really damn good fantasy anime. When the Gourmet Guild officially reforms and the World is Once Again Saved, it feels like the most logical ending possible for such a pure, warm series. Even here, there’s one last fun little character detail; Karyl is the one who cooks the Gourmet Guild’s first meal back home after their big adventure, and we see the scrapes and burns on her hands from prepping the food.

Everyone settles in for some good, hearty food, and the credits roll. Will we meet the Gourmet Guild again? It’s not impossible, but if this truly is the last episode ever of Princess Connect, it’d be hard to complain. What else could you ask for? Everyone lives happily ever after.

This section is pretty long this week.

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

ESTAB-LIFE isn’t the best thing airing right now, but it might be the weirdest, as the two episodes since that have involved a mob boss who wants to be a magical girl and KGB penguins have proven.

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

Ya Boy Kongming! is a weird one, a solo-focus idol series with the bizarre high premise of said idol’s manager being Chinese military genius Zhuge Kongming, who was brought to the present….eh, somehow. It doesn’t really matter. The first episode of this was surprisingly affecting, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Seasonal First Impressions: THE EXECUTIONER AND HER WAY OF LIFE is a Knife in Isekai’s Heart

The Executioner and Her Way of Life is what we call a “banger,” friends. God knows if it’ll keep up the impressive visual quality and interesting–if a bit edgy!–storytelling throughout this whole season, but I certainly hope it will.

Seasonal First Impressions: AHAREN-SAN WA HAKARENAI is a Sleep Aid in Anime Form

I don’t get it.

Seasonal First Impressions: The Dream Lives On in LOVE LIVE! NIJIGASAKI HIGH SCHOOL IDOL CLUB SEASON 2

The first season of Nijigasaki High School Idol Club was one of my favorites when it aired back in 2020. This first episode of the second season doesn’t quite match up to some of season one’s highs, but I have confidence that it’ll get there. Plus; the new girl introduced in this episode is just a deliciously excellent heel. Girlboss fans everywhere, eat your heart out.

(REVIEW) The Lost Legacy of FLOWER PRINCESS BLAZE!!: How a Forgotten Toei Series Shaped 15 Years of Magical Girl Anime [April Fools’]

Finally, there’s this. As I’ve now indicated in the article name, this was just an April Fools’ prank. One I inexplicably decided to spend like 2 months working on. It’s a review of the fake magical girl anime from My Dress-Up Darling. Except, given that that show doesn’t exist, most of it is just made up. This was a fun creative writing exercise but also a huge amount of work, surprisingly. So, I doubt I’ll be doing it again. Enjoy this odd-man-out of my website; file it next to the Mao Mao review and the ENA writeup. Huge thank you to commenter momomanamu for playing along in the comments, it made my day.

And that’s about all for this week. There may or may not be articles tomorrow and Monday (my schedule is a little off, right now, as I’m sure you’ve noticed by the fact that I put up three articles today. Something I almost never do.) But articles should resume on Tuesday at the latest, where I plan to cover the BIRDIE WING premiere.

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, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Seasonal First Impressions: The Dream Lives On in LOVE LIVE! NIJIGASAKI HIGH SCHOOL IDOL CLUB SEASON 2

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.

In its own way, the daylit parallel present-day of Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is a utopia. In the show’s first season, from back in 2020, there were few if any conflicts that could not be solved with a song. It was a fairly far cry from the franchise’s stereotypical portrayal as being obsessed with school-in-danger plots and melodrama. Its highlights, uniformly, were livewire “music videos” that disregarded any pretense of realism for pure visual splendor. What it may have lacked in minute detail–although it could do that too, at times–it more than made up for in a truly rare dedication to pure spectacle.

Nijigasaki High School Idol Club‘s second season continues that devotion; opening as it does with a delightfully bonkers promotional video shot by the titular Idol Club. We get reacquainted with most of the first season’s highlight characters here, although the actual narrative, in as much as there is one, stays firmly centered on club behind-the-scenes-er / sort-of manager Yuu Takasaki (Hinaki Yano), and new girl Lanzhu Zhong (Akina Homoto).

Before we discuss what that narrative actually is, though, we should take the broad view for a moment. Nijigasaki is in an interesting place in 2022. The first season’s only real competitors in the idol anime format were Hypnosis Mic, which targets a different audience and has vastly different aims, the already-forgotten Dropout Idol Fruit Tart and Lapis Re:LiGHTS, and the utter train-crash that was 22/7. In the present day, though, Nijigasaki is no longer the only smart kid in the class, and there are other, equally-bright pupils of the genre present. Mostly in the form of the admittedly yet-to-premiere wildcards Healer Girl and next season’s SHINE POST, but even this season has Ya Boy Kongming!, which despite its absurd premise and smaller focus on just one singer, is very much in at least a broadly similar tonal space. There’s even a fellow Love Live season, also premiering in Summer; the followup to last year’s Love Live! Superstar. In other words; there is an actual level playing field for the first time in a while. Nijigasaki‘s status as Idol Anime of The Year is no longer a given.

In a way, the increased competition is mirrored in the first episode’s own story. What we have here is pretty simple, Lanzhu near-literally steals the show during the Idol Club’s promotional time at a school event. Her songwriter Mia Taylor (Shuu Uchida) makes a bit of an impression earlier on in the episode, but Nijigasaki is Lanzhu’s show, this week. And tellingly, it’s she, not any of our returning characters from season one, who gets the premiere’s music video. It’s a thing of beauty, and also as pompous and grandiose as any real pop diva’s videos, which, as we soon find out, fits her character pretty damn well.

The music video, it must be said, carries on the tradition of total showstoppers from season one very well. These are the episode’s centerpieces and need to convey important information in addition to being visually compelling, and Lanzhu’s knocks it out of the park on both counts. The scene transitions have her doing all kinds of random but awesome-looking nonsense like posing in a bubblebath, standing on top of a bunch of aquariums, and dancing in an elevator while wearing what looks like a borrowed Revue Starlight costume.

By this, do I mean “it has epaulettes”? Yes.

Shot made and sunk; Lanzhu is immensely talented and also hugely egotistical.

That latter point is followed up on at the end of the episode in what is the only real development of conflict here. Lanzhu basically calls the Idol Club a bunch of posers and announces her intent to enter the Idol Festival by herself and to upstage all of them. She does, admittedly, come across as astoundingly bitchy here, but it says a lot that this is what passes for villainy in the Love Live universe.

This does raise the possibility that the second season of Nijigasaki might possibly be more in-line with the melodramatic Love Live baseline than season one was, which would, admittedly, bum me out ever so slightly. But on the other hand, the Idol Club end the episode resolute that their new rival simply means they all have to work harder, and that “where dreams come true” tagline rears its head again in the premiere’s closing moments. That in mind, even if Nijigasaki High School Idol Club isn’t the shoe-in for its genre’s nebulous AOTY award that its predecessor was, it’s hard to imagine the girls won’t be alright. These are school idols we’re talking about, after all, and if my decade-plus of anime watching has taught me anything, it’s that high school girls can do anything.

The Takeaway: Obviously, you should watch season one first, but unless you just hate pop music, you should, of course, check this out.

Special Thanks: Additional Idol Research for this article was provided by Josh the Setsuna Fan, thanks Josh.

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: AHAREN-SAN WA HAKARENAI is a Sleep Aid in Anime Form

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.

Friends, I may have met my match today.

I pride myself on being able to find something, if not necessarily substantial, at least evocative to say about every anime I cover. That streak, which has in my own opinion continued uninterrupted for the two years I’ve piloted this blog, may well come to an end today. Writing about Aharen-san wa Hakarenai, an absolutely narcotic new offering from Felix Film, feels like trying to draw blood from a stone. (The title means something like “Aharen-san is Unfathomable”, but in a rarity for a modern TV anime, it has no official English title, and is being released in the EN market under a romanization of its Japanese name. This may be the most interesting thing about it.)

The premise could not be simpler. Two new high school students, the tall boy Raidou Matsuboshi (Takuma Terashima), and the diminutive girl Reina Aharen (Inori Minase), are chronically shy, and end up seated next to each other in their classroom.

At one point, Reina drops an eraser and Raidou picks it up. The two bond over this simple act of kindness and become fast friends.

Premises this simple can lead to great things. Last year, Komi Can’t Communicate did a lot with a similar idea (down to the fact that both Aharen and Komi are difficult for other people to hear). Nearly a decade ago, Tonari no Seki-kun took the same “desk neighbors” premise and ran it into a totally absurd direction, creating one of the more memorable surreal shortform comedy anime ever made. In the case of Aharen-san, though, I could not only tell you that it doesn’t do anything great with its premise, it doesn’t really do anything with its premise at all. Calling a slice of life anime “boring” is a little like calling ambient music such, but even for iyashikei–that subgenre sometimes known as Ambient TV–this is utterly torpid. Almost nothing of note happens over the course of the first episode’s 22 minutes. There are a few slow-rolled gags dolloped throughout the whole thing, but very little else. Visually, it seems to adapt the look of the manga basically 1 to 1. Contributing to the soft-focus ambiance, everything feels very placid and understated, even the gags. There is plenty of softness here, but only occasionally any actual warmth. This is the Pure Moods of school life anime. (And honestly, I like Pure Moods a lot more.)

Lest it seem like I’m trying to trash the series, I can at least understand the appeal. Aharen-san fills a role akin to lo-fi beats to relax to. It presents an all-consuming nonspecific fuzziness that, if you allowed it to, could conceivably, provide an escape from the cares of the real world. For me, I mostly found it vaguely grating. I will concede that I did chuckle at two of the episode’s few true jokes; Aharen misinterpreting something Raidou said in the form of repeatedly headbutting into him from a distance, and whatever Raidou is doing here.

Other than that, I really can’t find much to say–to praise or to criticize–about this series at all. The post-credits sequence does tease a new character for next week, so maybe that’ll shake the show up somewhat. Until then, though, the most interesting things about Aharen-san are its OP and ED. This one is just not for me.

The Takeaway: If you’re looking for something to put you to sleep, this might help. Otherwise? Unless you have a monstrously high tolerance for pure, uncut cotton, I would probably give this one a skip.

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