Month: October 2022

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Seasonal First Impressions: From The Closet With Love – Socially Anxious and Slinging a Six-String in BOCCHI THE ROCK!

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.

We’ve all heard this story before, although maybe not in a long time. Introverted teenager falls in love with popular music genre at a young age, grabs an instrument and devotes their life to becoming the next Joe Strummer (or whoever). The history of rock n’ roll in Japan is long and winding, and frankly something I’m only passingly familiar with, but the general notion remains the same across national boundaries and across time. You hear the ring of the guitar chord and the roar of the crowds, and you want that; who wouldn’t?

Lots of people have wanted that, and BOCCHI THE ROCK! is not remotely the first anime to tackle that idea, even if the full-band anime as a format has been mostly dead for years at this point. (I once saw someone jokingly describe the genre as “idol anime where you can hear the bass.” They were being silly, but I think that the comparison exists at all speaks to how rare these things have become.) But Bocchi the Rock is not BECK for the same reason that Bump of Chicken aren’t The Clash. Time and space change both the ends and the means; Bocchi the Rock has a lot more in common with Hitori Bocchi, another anime, from a few years back, that uses the same pun on the Japanese phrase for “all alone”, than it does most older music anime. Except, of course, for K-On!, whose modern classic status is as easily argued for by how easily its lasting influence has bridged the gap between these once very different formats than anything about the series itself. (Which is good, because K-On! remains probably the most high-profile anime from the new ’10s that I haven’t seen.)

The chief conceit of Bocchi the Rock is that our title character—real name Hitori Goto (Yoshino Aoyama), nickname “Bocchi”—wants to melt faces with the sheer sun-like power of her guitar wizardry. Preferably, to audiences of thousands. But she’s deeply introverted, which makes that hard. I would go farther and say she is perhaps the character I’ve seen in an anime who most obviously has some sort of severe social anxiety, of every anime I’ve seen full stop. And yes, I am including the title character of the aforementioned Hitori Bocchi.

Bocchi being not just introverted but socially anxious is an important point to me. It will not surprise you to learn that I, nearly 30 and making a half-living by running a blog about cartoons, also have pretty severe social anxiety. In general, I talk to my roommates and very few other people on a day-to-day basis. I have not simply “gone out with friends” in a casual way to have fun since high school or so. I’m not remotely unique in this case, and I have made some steps to try to remedy this in the past year or two, but I bring it up because this makes me very sensitive to how socially anxious characters are portrayed in media. Maybe overly so.

All this to say; I was pleasantly surprised by how well Hitori’s anxiety is handled. It very much is a source of comedy, but that doesn’t inherently make it unsympathetic or reductive of that trait. It’s a frequent source of jokes among people who are socially anxious that our mental illness seems to think the world operates in some truly strange ways, and there is an element of that in Hitori’s particular headsnakes. The plot proper kicks off when she’s recruited to play guitar for a small band, initially as a pickup member but, by the end of the episode, apparently permanently. This is great for her, since her extreme shyness cuts badly against her desire to be a guitar hero.

Hitori, proud owner of a 30K subs Youtube channel (also called “guitarhero.” Really.) where she does guitar covers, thinks she’s up for the challenge. She isn’t; playing by yourself isn’t the same as playing in a group, and Hitori gets flatly told that she sucks.

Crumpling in the face of something she thought she could do but finds out she can’t—I’ve been there—she almost literally shrinks into a chibi, and the series slams us in the face with what is certainly the funniest fake credits gag I’ve seen in years.

I can’t believe Hitori Goto is fucking dead.

A side note; some praise should be given to Aoyama’s voice acting here; she dips into a growly, lower register for Hitori’s more depressed (or outrageous) inner thoughts, and easily flips to a flat, emotive-by-being-unemotive diction for Hitori’s actual speech. It’s an interesting contrast and gives the character a lot of personality.

As for Hitori sucking, things get better. The also fairly inexpressive Ryo (Saku Mizuno) gets the idea to have Hitori perform while inside a cardboard box. This is, purposefully, very stupid, and it doesn’t really help in any meaningful way. But it does get Hitori—newly christened “Bocchi” by Ryo, and ecstatic to get her first-ever nickname—through the group’s first concert. Have I mentioned yet that the band is basically called “The Zip Ties”? A terrible name in any language, as commented upon by their third member, Nijika (Sayumi Suzushiro). I kind of love it. In any case, through a combination of the box idea and the other two girls offhandedly mentioning how much they like that mysterious guitarhero youtube channel (Hitori is too giddy to actually mention that she runs it. That’s a reveal for the future, presumably), they’re able to get out there, and they do in fact play their first show, in a scuffed little underground club called Starry.

The episode ends on an interesting, rather nonstandard note for this sort of thing. We don’t get to see the band’s performance at all, depriving us of the usual “surprisingly good first performance of the show” sequence. The whole cardboard box tactic hasn’t really accomplished much, and it remains very much to be seen how, exactly, Hitori will actually overcome her problems. But things are on an upward trajectory, and that’s mostly what counts.

I do fear I’ve made the show sound rather dramatic. It really isn’t; it’s a fairly standard slice of life comedy with a mildly melancholic outer edge, but I would be truly shocked if this twelve-episode run does not end with the band—who will hopefully have a better name by then—performing in front of some crowd somewhere. Hitori’s anxiety is the core of her character, but there is ample room for her to grow beyond it, and I really would love to see that. In any case, she exits the episode in the most me_irl way possible.

Someone tell her about spoons theory, please.

I should also at least passingly mention the series’ visual element. The show’s direction comes to us from CloverWorks‘ Keiichirou Saitou. This isn’t literally his first directorial project (he’s previously done a one-episode OVA), but it’s his first full series, so I’m interested to see if some of the more unusual touches here, particularly the more offbeat camera angles, will be ironed out or reinforced as the show gets further along. As far as the visuals in hobby comedies go this season, it’s still firmly in second place behind Do It Yourself!!, but that’s not a bad spot to be in.

As for Hitori, there is something to be said for the fact that it doesn’t seem to occur to her that by having made friends—or hell, at least friendly acquaintances—she’s already taken a huge first step. My hope is that Bocchi the Rock continues along this same path; I don’t mind laughing at Hitori—it’s not unlike laughing at myself, really—but I do also want to see her grow as a person. Part of the magic of any series based around a performing art is seeing the characters grow into these dreams that they have. By the end of this episode, I wanted to see Bocchi performing on stage, too. So, keep raising your skinny fists, girl in a box; the stage is yours to take.

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: What in the World is AKIBA MAID WAR?

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.

“maid is a state of mind and it’s about being a woman and shooting people.”

-memetic tumblr post by user lezzyharpy

Friends, rejoice. It’s finally happened, after who knows how many decades, the pop culture icon of the anime maid has finally completed her transformation, from her origins as a specific kind of live-in cleaning staff to a roving band of hyper-violent killers in funny outfits. The metamorphosis is complete; the postmodern otaku eschaton is upon us.

Akiba Maid War, a show that promises a whole hell of a lot by having that title, makes me regret I already pulled out the “Birdie Wing and Estab-Life” comparison earlier this week with Shinobi no Ittoki. Akiba Maid War isn’t the same kind of ridiculous as those two anime, but it’s definitely part of a minor ongoing trend of anime whose main defining feature is just being sublimely inscrutable. Like Ittoki, though, it’s also a self-conscious throwback. Once upon a time, this sort of deadpan surreal comedy where extreme violence is half the joke was pretty common, but demonstrative examples like Excel Saga, Puni Puni Poemi, or Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan are no longer widely recognized, at least not in the Anglosphere. This just isn’t a genre that has many modern descendants, with perhaps the only other recent example I can think of being Dropkick on My Devil.

But enough of comparisons to other anime. Even if you’d never seen a single other, you’d immediately clock Maid War as something supremely strange just by its opening minutes, where a rain-drenched Akihabara c. 1985 erupts in a, to us, currently unexplained shooting. A cafe maid is shot dead in the downpour, and her companion silently swears vengeance upon her assassins. Cut to opening credits.

When we return, it’s nearly 15 years later. 1999, the final year of the 20th century. Our protagonist is the chipper Nagomi Wahira (Reina Kondou), who is looking forward to her new job at a pig-themed(…??) maid cafe. A job that even provides free room and board.

Her enthusiasm remains through her extremely rough first shift, in which Nagomi firmly slots herself into the classic dojikko archetype, but quickly withers when a guy shows up trying to demand what sure sounds an awful lot like protection money from Nagomi’s boss (Ayahi Takagaki. The character herself has no name, she’s just “Tenchou.”).

From here, things rapidly escalate. Nagomi is sent on a nondescript “errand” that consists of handing a letter to the manager of a rival maid cafe. Ranko (Rina Satou), another one of the maids, who is a 35 year old woman and, I’m pretty sure, the same woman from the opening scene, insists on accompanying her. We then find out that Maid War is, essentially, what would happen if someone watched Black Lagoon and got angry that Roberta wasn’t every character.

The letter contains a bunch of yakuza-esque insults, including calling the other cafe’s girls (who wear rabbit ears) “cockroaches with antennae.” This goes over aabout as well as you’d expect, and Ranko ends up taking over as the main force for the episode’s final few minutes, where it turns out she can do some serious gun-fu shit.

But honestly even without the bloodshed, the show’s entire vibe is “off” in a way that’s clearly deliberate but also surprisingly subtle. The color palette and lighting are the biggest tells; far more than the popping pinks and blues that populate the whole “otaku action anime” micro-genre like Akiba’s Trip and Rumble Garanndoll, Maid War‘s visuals are dingy, washed-out, and deliberately rather grimy-looking. Even the scenes that actually take place outside, under the neon lights of Akihabara itself, having a slightly sickly look to them. Fitting for Maid War‘s grotesque take on the whole “moe moe kyun” thing; the central setpiece is Ranko mowing down hordes of angry battle maids, soundtracked to her coworker Yumechi (Minami Tanaka) singing a cutesy song back at the cafe.

We end on Nagomi, traumatized from her exposure to frankly unthinkable amounts of death in a single day, trying to brainstorm a way out, only to discover that Ranko is in fact her roommate, and the very notion of escape is, consequently, totally impossible.

Obviously, all this is a joke, but it is a little hard to know if Maid War will be able to keep up the silliness. A lot of the most memorable shows in this genre are on the short side, and that’s because it’s difficult to keep topping yourself in terms of absurdity. Then again, this is a series where a gratuitous Kurosawa movie-style blood gusher can turn off and on again like a leaky faucet if it needs to for the sake of a gag. Maybe Maid War will be just fine.

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: Make Your Own Fun with DO IT YOURSELF!

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.

Yua Serufu (Konomi Inagaki, in her first lead role) has a problem, and no, it’s not that the official translation of her show ignores the truly stunning pun baked into her name. It’s that she and her very best friend, the uptight but diligent tsundere Miku “Purin” Suride (Kana Ichinose), have ended up going to different high schools. Serufu is a disheveled space case of a girl, so that fact in of itself doesn’t bother her. But the fact that she can’t hang out with her bestie anymore definitely does. How does she plan to solve this? By building a bench. Obviously.

Let’s back up a moment; Do It Yourself! is the latest from Pine Jam, a fairly low-key studio that usually only puts out one or two projects a year. But they’re consistently visually great projects; most recently the trashy but excellently directed action seinen Gleipnir, and then, last year, the stage girl drama Kageki Shoujo!! Those last two are also by this series’ director, Kazuhiro Yoneda, and it’s his first original project with the studio. (And Pine Jam’s first original period since 2017’s Just Because!)

The point is this; the first thing one will notice about Do It Yourself! is that it just looks gorgeous. The art styles are dissimilar, but the free-flowing animation and school life-but-slightly askew setting remind me just a bit of Windy Tales. And the series makes heavy use of a soft but very warm and inviting color palette. I dislike describing things as “cozy” because the term often gets used to paper over the flaws of anime where not much is going on. (Such as, say, DIY’s contemporary Management of a Novice Alchemist.) But it definitely applies here in a real and positive way. There are, crucially, also a few places where it does feel a bit colder. Mostly, these are the areas that lean into its very near-future setting. Purin, for example, has an eye-scanner on her front door, the swarms of drones that ambiently fly overhead certainly offer a very literal overcast to the otherwise warm setting, and Purin’s high school itself—an upscale vocational/technical school where, Purin brags, that she’s learning how to 3D print body parts for surgery—quite literally overshadows Serufu’s. It’s larger and physically surrounds it, being constructed in a U-shape around the smaller building. Regardless, all of this makes the series’ world feel truly lived-in in a way that’s rare enough to be worth pointing out.

These tinges of darker and more mature concerns—the implied class conflict, the proliferation of intrusive technology—are not at the forefront of DIY’s modus operandi, though, and it’s hard to say whether or not the show will ever address them more directly. Serufu is a traditionally spacey (read, neurodivergent) lead for this sort of thing, and if she harbors any resentment toward the obviously-wealthier Purin, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she largely plays the part of the goofball school life lead. It’s an old character archetype, but done very well here, and Serufu has an unconventional but very much still adorable character design that really makes her stand out; covered as she is in bumps and bruises plastered over with Band-Aids. Not to mention smaller details, like the fact that her color palette leaves the inside of her mouth an un-shaded white when she speaks; minute touches, to be certain, but things that a lesser slice of life show would ignore.

As for the actual plot? There isn’t too much of one, yet. A kindly upperclassman (Rei Yasaku, VA Ayane Sakura) helps Serufu out after the younger girl’s bike chain slips and she smashes into a streetlight. Serufu, on the advice of shy and nerdy secondary character Takumi Hikage (Azumi Waki) goes to find her, to offer her a proper thank-you, and instead stumbles on a small wooden shack behind her school, where Yasaku whittles her after-school hours away as the only member of the DIY Club. As we meet her here, she’s making a bookshelf, which Serufu tries to help out with before promptly pulling the trigger too hard on a power drill and careening into a pile of planks.

(I feel the need to throw in somewhere here the fact that Yasaku is introduced by literally Heelys-ing to the site of Serufu’s bike crash, fixing her bike with barely a full sentence swapped between the two of them, and then Heelys-ing away without a further word. That’s the kind of A+ character introduction you don’t get every day.)

What happens next will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen even a single other series in the school club comedy format. You know the drill, they need X more members or the club will get shut down for lack of activity. Etc. Etc.

But sticking to a tried and true plot formula—at least this early on—shouldn’t be taken as some kind of glaring flaw. Instead, what’s obvious even from this first episode is that Do It Yourself! has an extremely strong aesthetic and storytelling sense. Look at, for another example, the wonderful way the show’s “imagination bubbles” are illustrated. Serufu’s daydreams actively shift the art style depending on their contents, going for a dreamy sort of comfort when she fantasizes about sitting on a cloud, a comedic chibi format when she reminisces about the time her mom banned her from doing arts and crafts because she injured herself so much. (And how this led to her taking up drawing as a hobby. And how she used to literally eat crayons. Serufu is a wonderful protagonist.) Occasionally it will pull an even wilder, bolder shift.

This truly is one to keep your eye on. In a way, Do It Yourself‘s relaxed vibe is deceptive; make no mistake, this is one of the year’s strongest premieres. Consider this article a wholehearted endorsement.

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: Throwing Stars & Broken Hearts in SHINOBI NO ITTOKI

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 a way, it makes perfect sense that Shinobi no Ittoki exists and is airing right now. This has been a year full of absolutely bizarre shocks-from-nowhere. Birdie Wing, Estab Life, etc. Shinobi no Ittoki (something like “Ittoki the Ninja”, although in a rarity for a modern TV anime, it has no official English title) isn’t that crazy, at least not yet, and it’s as much a part with a certain strain of harem-but-also-something-else anime that has been largely supplanted by isekai shows in the modern day, but there’s a reason the first episode is called “Bolt From the Blue.”

There used to be a lot of vitriol in the air for this kind of thing, and I can certainly see why. The modern narou-kei problem of the hyper-generic “potato-kun” protagonist definitely has roots in this genre somewhere. That, combined with the mostly rather staid character designs and the good but fairly restrained visual work, really makes me feel like I shouldn’t be as taken with this as I am. But there’s just something about it that charms me. It’s endearingly dorky. Stupid in a fun way. A guilty pleasure, as some people say.

Perhaps it’s because the somewhat subdued visual presentation makes Shinobi no Ittoki feel retro rather than just dated. These kinds of anime were everywhere when I first started getting back into the medium in high school, and the only things that really mark Ittoki out as being made in 2022 instead of 2007 or so is the CGI truck in one early scene and the female lead having two-tone hair.

This throwback nature applies equally well to its actual plot, such as it is. Ordinary diligent high school boy—and aren’t they all?—Ittoki Sakuraba (Ryouta Oosaka) does all the ordinary high school boy things. He goes to school, sleeps in class, is roasted by his friends, and is shadowed oddly closely by his childhood friend Kousetsu (Haruka Shiraishi), the aforementioned two-tone hair girl, who, in a bit of what I might very charitably call foreshadowing, pretty much always walks around wearing a black facemask.

Ittoki is confessed to by a classmate, Satomi Tsubaki (Miyu Tomita), in a scene straight out of every heart-on-sleeve romance film of the last 20 years. The relationship moves very fast, to the disapproval of Ittoki’s mother, and before too long Ittoki ends up flustered and confused in Satomi’s house while his kouhai is removing her clothes.

Then things take a turn, and Ittoki discovers he has things much more important than the ups and downs of puberty to worry about.

Long story short; his “new girlfriend” is actually an assassin from a rival ninja clan sent to kill him. Which is a big shock to Ittoki, given that he did not know he was the heir to a ninja clan before this. Or, indeed, that ninjas still existed at all.

That is his mom, by the way. Just to keep everything straight for you here.

Silly fight scenes ensue, including one starring Ittoki’s cool-loser uncle.

All of these feature snazzy hologram technology and some hilariously doofy-looking ninja-tech suits, and our opening episode ends on the setup that our protagonists here, the Iga Clan, have a rival in the powerful and wicked Koga Clan. Where is all this going? Who knows, but if it manages to keep up this brand of throwback goofball entertainment, it will remain worth watching.

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: MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: THE WITCH FROM MERCURY is The Season’s First Must-Watch

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.

Every so often, an anime comes along where simply by virtue of what it is, writing about it feels more than a little surreal. Such is the case with Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury. You can probably guess why; the series bears a supertitle with some very long and very heavy history in this medium. It is the first mainline Gundam anime in nearly a decade, and while I’m sure lifelong Gundam aficionados will have plenty to say about the series, I am coming at things from a different angle as a relative neophyte. I’ve only ever seen one other Gundam anime; 2007’s Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and when I saw it, it was only a few years old.

The legwork of worldbuilding and basic plot setup already done in an “episode 0” prologue that aired a few months back, The Witch From Mercury instead opts to open with our protagonist, Suletta Mercury (Kana Ichinose), rescuing an apparently-adrift astronaut from the inky depths of space as they float away from the space station / military academy that will presumably serve as the series’ primary setting. But less important than what happens in these opening minutes is how it happens; she’s a panicked bundle of nerves the entire time, with her demeanor contrasting sharply against the soundtrack; a bundle of whirling synthesizer swells.

Things establish themselves in stages. Our setting is a military academy where absolutely anything can be settled via duel (the “space Utena” comparisons write themselves) under the watchful, sinister eyes of a shadowy council of CEOs. “Anything” happens to include marriage, which means that when Suletta runs into Witch From Mercury‘s other protagonist, Miorine Rembran (Lynn), it’s mid-escape attempt, since Miorine is attempting to flee from the academy and her duel-decided future husband, Guel Jeturk (Youhei Azakami). Or, as you will come to think of him, This Fucking Guy.

Jeturk is, to put it politely, not a nice man. To put it less politely; he’s a conniving, self-centered dillweed who’s an abusive ass to his to-be wife, going on a performative “man rampage” at one point while smashing up a garden she keeps because it reminds her of Earth. His only real redeeming quality is an admittedly impressive head of two-tone hair. (Sidenote; a couple other characters with wonderful hair show up, including an evil CEO whose beard and hair combine to give him the same silhouette as Mac Tonight, and a girl with astronomically huge puffball hair.)

The good thing about Jeturk being such an ass is that he makes an ideal episode one villain. He spends most of his screentime either being terrible to Miorine or peacocking his status as the “Holder”; that is to say, the school’s ace pilot. Naturally, when Suletta, despite being all nerves, challenges him to a duel, he accepts and thinks he’ll win easily. Some complications (like Miorine hijacking Suletta’s mobile suit, the Gundam Aerial) aside, this setup of dominos naturally comes crashing down.

It’s worth noting just how badly Jeturk gets his shit utterly rocked. His purple mecha is pretty impressive in its own way, but it’s not a Gundam (contextualized here as being a portmanteau of “GUND-ARM”). The Aerial is a truly sublime piece of deadly artwork in Suletta’s hands, and her capability with it comes across as a mecha pilot analogue to performance composure. Some people come alive on the stage; Suletta, on the battlefield, for better or worse. The thing’s weapons spin and reconfigure themselves in a floating ring that is an absolute visual delight. The rest of the episode looks, variably, solid to pretty good, but the entire fight scene here is just astonishing. In particular, a shot where the Aerial’s shield deflects a laser strike, only to make it scatter and scintillate into the air behind it, is just beautiful.

Suletta and Miorine also bicker while inside the Gundam, of course, and Suletta’s philosophy that pushing forward at all times, because even if you don’t win you’ll have “experience and pride”, is certainly something that the series seems like it will loop back around to before too long. But here, and for now, it carries her to an inarguable victory, as Jeturk’s purple mobile suit ends up in a tattered pile of laser-cut scrap on the ground.

The Witch From Mercury‘s premiere then concludes with what is perhaps one of the all-time great end-of-first-episode revelations, which I cannot comment on except to reproduce it here in its entirety, in screencap form.

Really, what could I possibly add to that? Are you, dear reader, surprised that I’m going to tell you that I think you should watch the sapphic giant robot show that seems to be taking at least a few cues from Revolutionary Girl Utena? You shouldn’t be. The Witch From Mercury delivers what is thus an early high-water mark for premieres in an already absurdly stacked season; competing with this one will be hard.

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 SPY X FAMILY Episode 13 – Project Apple

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

If it seems like Spy x Family never really left, that’s because for all intents and purposes, it basically didn’t. In practice, this episode marks the start of a second season, but on paper, what the series is doing here is a once-rare but increasingly-common split cour. Two batches of episodes considered to be part of the same “season” even though they air months apart. Confusing! But if it lets the animators rest their weary bones even a little, we should probably be accommodating.

In any case, from a plot and style point of view it definitely doesn’t feel like things have changed. Spy x Family’s second cour opens with dual plots about adopting a cute dog for Anya and preventing not-Willy Brandt from being assassinated by bomb dogs. Naturally, these two things collide into each other when Anya gets lost at a pet adoption event.

Yes.

It’s easy to forget, since the series leans pretty heavily on the “comedy” end of the “action comedy” spectrum, but there is some genuinely harrowing stuff that happens in Spy x Family. The terrorist plot is played pretty straight throughout this episode. Keith, the terrorists’ leader, is a no-nonsense right-wing extremist, and when Anya stumbles into his group’s hideout, he’s the only one who’s completely unhesitant in trying to kill her.

But Anya is nothing if not lucky (and, you know, telepathic). One of the other assets being kept by the terrorists is a living mountain of fur in dog form.

He doesn’t have a name yet, but he doesn’t need one to make a strong first impression here. He has precognitive abilities, and makes his debut in this episode by yanking a child away from a sign that was about to fall, immediately establishing him as a “good guy” dog. (Although, really, with how Spy x Family generally is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the other dogs introduced in this episode eventually turn face also. We shall see.)

Here, our canine friend heroically slinkies Anya down some stairs.

We also learn of the sinister Project Apple, from whence all these telepathic dogs (and apparently a fair amount of other weird science-enhanced animals) come from. It’s not a stretch to assume that this might have some link to Anya’s own powers.

Regardless, the episode ends mid-showdown, with Yor rescuing her daughter from the terrorists, and things setting up excitingly for next week. It’s good to have the series back, foot foot planted firmly on the gas, dead-set on sparking a sense of adventure in your heart once again. And really, for now, that’s all it needs to do.

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 Tricky Art of Telling Tales in MY MASTER HAS NO TAIL

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.

To hear some tell it, there’s a lack of wonder in the world these days. Yes, if you put your ear to the ground or gaze out your nighttime window you might understand; once again, the world is changing.

Of course, we’re hardly the first generation to deal with this sort of thing. And My Master Has No Tail, an ostensibly straightforward gimmick comedy based on a 4koma that’s been running since 2019, might seem like an odd vessel to even briefly touch on that idea. But it belongs to a growing body of available-in-English Japanese pop media set in the Taisho Era, so it has more reason to think about the subject than one might assume.

But we’re starting in the deep end of the pool here; let’s back up a moment. On a premise level, My Master Has No Tail is pretty straightforward. Enough so, in fact, that instead of wasting time and effort, why don’t I just drop the relatively succinct official English summary right here, verbatim? (With VA credits added by yours truly, of course.)

Throughout time, supernatural, shapeshifting tanuki loved playing tricks on humankind. One plucky tanuki, Mameda (Mao Ichimichi), is no different. But there’s one big problem. She wasn’t born in the days of yore — she was born in modern, more cynical times! How can she fulfill her mischievous tanuki destiny when supernatural hijinks are a thing of the past? She finds an angle when she meets Bunko (Hibiku Yamamura), a master of the Japanese art of rakugo, which uses storytelling to beguile its audience. Mameda is determined to use rakugo to cast a spell on humanity, but first this tanuki trickster must convince the no-nonsense Bunko to take her on as an apprentice.

My Master Has No Tail – HIDIVE Official Summary

So yes, it’s about a tanuki—the supernatural kind—getting interested in the art of rakugo and trying to get a successful rakugoka to take her on as an apprentice. This simple premise belies two things; one, a genuine appreciation for the artform the series is centered around, and two, some interesting musings on the Taisho Era itself, and its nature as a transitionary period in human history. Of course, that must coexist with the fact that it is, at the end of the day, a comedy. The primary goal here is to charm you and make you laugh. If it can get you to think, that’s more of a nice bonus. (But an important one!)

Indeed, the first half of the opening episode is about Mameda’s attempts to trick people in the city of Osaka. But her pranks—trying to pass off leaves as money, attempting to spook policeman by appearing to have no face, etc.—go awry, and end up making the townsfolk cross with her instead. Disheartened, she eventually finds her way into an entertainment hall, where Bunko, her to-be mentor, is performing. She finds herself unexpectedly enraptured by the story that Bunko tells, and she likens it to her own quest to deceive humans. (By the end of the performance, she’s had such a good time being “tricked” that she actually looks rather drunk, which is pretty funny.)

Bunko’s story is done well, too. It is (apparently) a well-known stock rakugo routine, but she tells it well, and the world of the show is supplanted by sketched, pastel drawings to enhance her tale.

The rakugo bit itself elicits more sensible chuckles than full-on belly laughs, probably owing to both the age of the bit and the simple fact that an Anglophone audience isn’t necessarily going to pick up on all the subtler details. (Certainly, I’m including myself there.)

After the performance, Mameda finds herself surrounded by angry townspeople, who recognize her from her earlier pranks and attempt to chase her out of the city. She’s cornered on a rooftop and nearly falls to her death because she forgot that, as a female tanuki, she lacks the comically large balloon-scrotums that are traditionally ascribed to the creatures. (Yes, that’s a real thing. Folklore is wonderful.) Luckily, she’s rescued.

By Bunko.

Who is piloting a flying boat.

Bunko’s musings; on the nature of human development, on the fact that both she and Mameda, as creatures of myth (Bunko herself is a kitsune) will soon no longer have a place in their world, and on the nature of storytelling, put an intriguing spin on the series’ solid but otherwise fairly simple first episode. This sequence exposes My Master Has No Tail as having a thoughtful emotional core in addition to its simpler concerns of comedy and charm. Bunko herself serving as the wise—if reluctant—mentor figure rounds this out nicely.

The episode concludes with Mameda deciding to stay and committing to studying under Bunko. Whether or not the fox spirit is interested is an entirely different question, and I suspect that much of the comedy of the weeks to come will involve the inherent push-and-pull baked into their dynamic. But capping things with a nice bout of quiet introspection is a nice trick, and while something like this is never going to find a massive Anglosphere audience, I do hope it finds one that appreciates it for what it is. It’s a subtle sort of magical; like all good stories are.

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.