Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

SEASONAL FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Amou Shiiba is Wanted Dead or Alive in AMAIM WARRIOR AT THE BORDERLINE

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.

Or: Teenage Boy is Accused of Terrorism, Becomes Actual Terrorist in Response.

AMAIM Warrior at The Borderline (known more succinctly as Kyoukai Senki in its native Japanese) is a bit of a tricky one, so let’s get the simple stuff out of the way first. Point one: this is a mecha anime and the mecha are traditionally animated instead of 3D. That alone is going to be enough for some to hop on board. Point two: it’s a production by Sunrise Beyond, a subsidiary of Sunrise proper whose work outside of this show consists almost entirely of various Gundam spinoffs. Point three: Hey! The show looks pretty good, at least so far. The mecha are the obvious highlights, but in general its vision of an occupied near-future Japan comes across pretty well, and that’s worth noting.

The complicated stuff comes from that last part. AMAIM takes place in the 2060s, after vaguely-described internal problems lead to Japan being divvied up, late Qin Dynasty-style, into a number of foreign-administered extraterritorial zones. And friends, let me just say, yours truly is not an expert on history, contemporary politics, or anything of the sort, so the fact that I even have to entertain this notion hurts me deeply. But, well, the setup does seem kind of….conservative fever dream-y?

Say, in the same way that something like Red Dawn was for us here in the US of A in the ’80s.

Haha. Oh boy.

Were it only established in the opening narration, it would be easy enough to write off as a stock setup. But this comes up over and over again throughout the first episode–indeed, the main antagonists are some of said foreign military occupiers. It is they who falsely accuse protagonist Amou Shiiba of conspiracy to commit terrorism and it is they who he eventually fights against. The regime–whoever they may be, their nationality is not explicitly identified here and the one time we see flags they’re all stand-ins–is unambiguously depicted as brutal, petty, and evil.

Now, all this said. Does that immediately discount AMAIM? I wouldn’t say so. Even if you’re not simply willing to write all this off, it’s not terribly hard to figure out why there might be some Japanese resentment about foreign military presence. And perhaps interpreting all of this so literally is a mistake anyway; there are (tragically) lots of places on Earth where this kind of thing happens. It is easy to imagine simply relocating this sort of incident at home to make it more immediately relatable for domestic audiences. So, while the overtone is there at first glance, I think it irresponsible of me to hold on to my knee-jerk reaction.

But admittedly! For as much as I do try to always hold myself to the standard of taking everything on its own terms. If AMAIM weren’t so tightly-plotted, I might’ve been less charitable. The story here is quite streamlined, and there are really only two important characters in the first episode; Amou himself, and GAI, an autonomous artificial intelligence that he, no joke, finds in a box in the woods.

Me when I run out of Arizona Tea.

Amou near-literally falls into the cockpit of his AMAIM (yes, that’s what the mecha are called here, hence the title of the show.) Something called out as rare in the present day, where most are apparently remote-controlled. A night scavenging mecha parts in the woods makes him a suspect for the local occupiers, and the plot thus kicks off when he ends up having to rescue his friends from them. He ends the episode a wanted man, leaving the whole thing on a cliffhanger.

Amou is easy to root for, as a vaguely-depressed seeming kid bummed out by the state of the world who finally has a purpose. It’s decent stuff. I just wish I less felt the need to couch it in so many caveats and disclaimers. But one should always be willing to turn the critical lens inward. Maybe all this says more about me than it does about the series.

Honestly, I’ve said all I’ve said, but it’s just fun to see traditionally-animated mecha in a mainstream TV anime in 2021. (Even if I was never really against CGI, myself. SSSS.DYNAZENON remains one of the year’s best anime, for my money.)

More than most anime I’ve covered on this column, what you get AMAIM is going to depend on what you put in. Does even the vaguest scent of possibly-conservative politics put you off? You’ll want to keep far away. Are you willing to power through almost anything as long as it’ll draw a robot in two dimensions instead of three? Well, I’ve got your anime of the season. For everyone else, I think simply giving the first episode a spin to try it out is the right call, assuming mecha anime appeal to you at all.

Grade: Wow! Cool Robot!
The Takeaway: If you’re into mecha, at least give the first episode a shot. If you’re put off by the possible undertones, I’m certainly not going to blame you, but I do think it’s at least worth giving a chance.

Wanna 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 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: Spooky Season is Here, and So is MIERUKO-CHAN

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.

Of the semi-common genre hybrids, the horror-comedy is one of the weirder ones. Horror relies on disquieting the viewer. Comedy relies on making them laugh. They’re not quite opposites, but they’re close, so striking the right balance is the key when trying to do both in alteration.

Well? Have you?

Mieruko-chan does a pretty good job of it. Although to tell the truth, I went into the anime skeptical. Mieruko-chan is an adaption of a pretty well-regarded manga, and said manga earns that regard. But simply by shuffling a few things around, the Mieruko-chan anime manages to keep things fresh even for those of us who’ve seen this particular story before. It’s an impressive trick, and it leads to one of the better premieres of the season so far, if not a flawless one. (We’ll get to the caveats in a minute.)

Mieruko-chan manages to hold out for an impressive 13 1/2 minutes before showing us anything indisputably out-of-the-ordinary. Before then, it’s all tension, cut with the occasional bit of comedy to keep the mood from becoming overtly oppressive; Mieruko-chan‘s goal is to keep you on your toes, not horrify you outright, and it’s very good at that.

A lot of the reprieve comes from Miko’s (left) interactions with her friend Hana (right). They have a very warm, believable friendship even here in the first episode.

Our main character is Miko (“Mieruko-chan” means something like “the girl who sees them”, it’s not her name). Miko sees dead people. Miko does not want to see dead people. Hence the conflict of the show. Or more thoroughly; as she goes about her daily life, Miko is often bothered by monstrous spirits. They ask her if she can see them and generally make her life miserable. The only saving grace she has here is that she’s in possession of an absolutely stone poker face, and the entities eventually leave her alone after she fails to react to them.

“Yo.”

To a point, the series (both in its original manga incarnation and here) is voyeuristic, a feeling certainly not diminished here by Studio Passione‘s “enhancements” to the material, which mostly consists of gratuitous T&A closeups. (Not that the manga was devoid of these, but the increase is noticeable.) What prevents any of this from feeling too gross is that Miko’s one weapon–her will–means she’s not totally defenseless. Admittedly, I’m going into this with some level of foreknowledge since I’ve read some of the manga. But Miko isn’t entirely a victim of circumstance, here, and she’s easy to root for because of that, even when her fear gets the better of her.

Visually, other than the aforementioned kinda-distasteful cheesecake, the series is pretty nice-looking. The entities themselves are what’s hit hardest by the transition to animation, as they don’t look quite as scary animated, but the sound work makes up for this. The synthesizer hums and throbs that make up the best horror soundtracks are well-represented here, along with judicious use of silence. It’s a nicely-produced affair, all around.

In general, if you can get past the aforementioned caveat, and you don’t feel so bad for Miko that you find the show hard to watch, give this a try. Mieruko-chan really seems like it’s going to be worth following.

Grade: B-
The Takeaway: Solidly-produced all around and with a novel premise, this one is worth picking up if you make a point of keeping up with seasonal anime. Its only real issue is the adaption’s insertion of some rather disruptive fanservice.

Wanna 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 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 Impressions: Romance and Rocket Ships in IRINA: THE VAMPIRE COSMONAUT

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.

Let’s start with the obvious; what a title! In a time period where there are quite literally more anime being made per season than ever before, a series needs to do all it can to stand out. A novel premise is one way to do that, and Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut, which is about basically exactly what that title implies, certainly delivers on that front.

The short version; some amount of years after the end of not-quite WW2, two nations, not-quite The United States (“Arnack”) and not-quite The Soviet Union (“Zirnitra”) are competing in a space race. In lieu of sending an actual human aboard a rocket, Zirnitra’s space program opts to use a vampire. Which, in the world of Irina, basically means a normal human but nocturnal and with pointy teeth. (The series goes out of its way to assure us that all the traditional vampire clichés are just myths. Which, in of itself, is something of a cliché by this point. But the point is made; it’s not a garlic and crucifixes sort of story. Fair enough.)

Surely there are no shady, immoral reasons for this.

Our actual lead is not Irina, the titular vampire, herself, but rather her caretaker, a training program flunky named Lev.

This is Lev. He’s pleasant enough.

It’s here I should point out; this thing is tagged with the Romance genre on every site I can find it listed on, and between Lev, Irina herself, and Lev’s assistant, Anna, there is absolutely the possibility for this to descend into mediocre harem hell. However, I prefer to assume an anime is going to become the best version of itself. What would that look like for Irina?

Well, the show’s strengths are evident even this early on. While none of the characters strike as super complex (at least not yet), the important ones feel well-thought-out. Lev is trying to reconcile having to give up on his own dream of cosmonauthood with his new responsibility taking care of Irina. Irina is all too happy to tell every human in earshot that she hates them, which is evidently a defense mechanism from being treated like an object her entire life. (That’s not me reading into the series; the latter is obvious from visual cues and the former is explicitly pointed out a number of times.)

There’s not a ton going on, so far, but the promise is there. The early scenes especially seem to hint at something deeper going on, with context-free flashes of Irina clutching a necklace, which she still has in the present, in the midst of a snowstorm. And in the political undertones of her involvement in the spaceflight program in the first place.

Really, for this sort of thing, “promise” is enough. It’s distinct enough that it can coast by on potential, at least for now. Irina is not going to be most peoples’ premiere of the season, but you could do far, far worse. And who knows? We might be talking about it in far grander terms six weeks from now.

Grade: C+
The Takeaway: Keep an eye on this one. Consider picking it up if you want an additional show and the novel combination of sci-fi and romance genres with a dash of horror appeals to you. Otherwise, maybe hold off until it gets some more positive word-of-mouth.

Wanna 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 is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in Uncategorized

Seasonal First Impressions: Gaze into The Void with TESLA NOTE

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.

On a fundamental, very basic level, the absolute first thing a work of fiction ever has to do for you as the viewer, is convince you that the world that it exists in could be real. Not consciously, of course, but you have to accept the premise and the production–whatever they may be–on a subconscious level to even begin processing a story as such. That’s what the suspension of disbelief is. It is almost impossible to fail at this step when creating an even remotely professional work of art. And in anime, even very, very bad shows can convey a sense that the worlds they take place in exist in some sense. Even the worst things I’ve covered on this site, your Big Orders, hell, your Speed Graphers, can do that much.

Tesla Note, improbably, fails at this very first step. Even worse, it’s not even the first anime to do so this year, quickly establishing itself as a close cousin of the truly rancid Ex-Arm, which it makes some of the same mistakes as. Though in other ways, while Tesla Note is not quite as consistently awful, it is actually worse in the sheer number of ways it manages to be bad, as we’ll get to.

I’m not going to condescend to my readership by pretending any of you need to know about this thing’s plot. But if you are, for some reason, curious, here’s the official description, in its entirety.

Genius Nikola Tesla preserved records of all his inventions inside crystals known as Tesla Shards. After an inexplicable incident in Norway, Botan Negoro, a descendant of ninjas raised to be the ultimate agent, is recruited on a mission to recover the crystals. Her partner through this is self-proclaimed No. 1 agent, Kuruma. With the fate of the world at stake, the fight for the shards begins.

In practice this doesn’t matter. It’s a setup for garden variety super-spy BS that can absolutely be fun if it’s handled the right way. But folks? This is not the right way. Tesla Note is the first production from the brand-new studio Gambit, and I would not be surprised if it were their last. Surely no one enters the anime industry–hell, cartoons in general–and their desire is to make this? I’m not talking about the animators, who I have the deepest sympathy for. I’m referring to the higher-ups here. What led to this?

“This”, if you’re not picking it up just from the screencaps, is an absolutely eye-searing cornucopia of god-awful 3D CGI. And let me be very clear, I am something of a 3D CG apologist. There have been anime earlier this year that have made great use of 3D CG, one of which, Love Live Superstar!!, is airing this very season. I am not against the process on principle, and used well it can lead to wonderful things that are difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional 2D animation. In some sense, Tesla Note may also have been impossible to achieve if animated traditionally, but certainly not in any good sense.

Visually speaking, Tesla Note’s mix of stiff, under-rigged, poorly-lit, and generally bad-looking models for its main characters, its unconvincing backgrounds, the fever-dream editing style, its flat-out inexplicable decision to animate some but not all minor characters traditionally, and its profound failure to make any of this look like it exists on the same planet, much less in the same show, all combine into a symphony of incompetence. Tesla Note has all the visual panache of a teenager fucking around in GMod or a Virtual Youtuber working out the kinks in her rig before going live for the first time, which is funny, given that the main character is named Botan. It is the worst-looking anime of 2021, exceeding Ex-Arm, its only real competition, by lacking the one thing that show had, a unity of style.

Occasionally, the odd traditionally-animated cut will pop in, just for a moment, almost as a taunt. None of the few examples in this first episode are really any good, but they at least stand out.

Worse; Tesla Note is not merely awful-looking, it is also horribly-written. For nearly the entire 22-minute runtime of the first episode, no one ever shuts up. Almost every single second is filled with the characters chattering away in some of the most uninspired, cliché-ridden character dialogue I have ever seen. I was not super keen on the last series I did for this column, but this makes Selection Project look like The End of Evangelion. It is terminally charmless.

So does this thing have any merit? Well, if you’re the sort who enjoys gazing into the dying dreams of popular media, its first episode has some value as a thing to inflict on the unsuspecting. When it’s over, I could see it being an interesting thing to get wasted and binge watch with a particularly susceptible group of friends. Even then, be wary of falling on the wrong side of the Star Wars Holiday Special graph.

Truly there is an xkcd for every situation.

Other than that? No. Avoid Tesla Note at all costs.

Grade: F-
The Takeaway: Don’t watch this. Seriously, love yourself. Even for those chasing a “so bad it’s good” “meme anime” or what-have-you, the novelty will wear off, and you will be left spiritually hollow by the experience. Self-care is important these days.

Wanna 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 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 [10/3/21]

The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I briefly summarize the past week of my personal journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of pop culture. Expect some degree of spoilers for the covered shows.

One season ends and another begins, the world turns here on Magic Planet Anime.

The Heike Story

Japan races toward war. The third episode of The Heike Story only reinforces what we’ve known from day one, but it’s the method that really sticks out here. We know the character of Lord Saiko, for instance, for mere minutes. But he is the first to speak truth to power in opposing Shigemori’s father, Lord Kiyomori. For his defiance, he is beheaded, in a brilliant cut–in every sense of that word–that flickers from the falling of the sword to a flower landing in water. Elsewhere, archers fire at warrior monks and pierce portable shrines in the process, telling us that even already, nothing is truly sacred in the power struggle that’s about to ensue.

Biwa sees the bloodshed ahead, as Shigemori prepares to attack his own father to stop his power-hungry madness, but seems powerless to stop it. Only time will tell if that’s truly so. There is little in the way of embellishment to say about Heike Story, it simply is a gripping period piece drama.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S

In a meta sense, it’s not that strange that a show like this remains somewhat controversial. “Be yourself, ignore what society tells you” is about as close as Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid ever gets to a proper theme, and it certainly follows its own advice, for better or worse. But while it’s no philosophical treatise, the writing can be surprisingly characterful when it remembers to get out of its own way. Dragon Maid S actually ended a bit ago now, but I only watched the final two episodes this past week, and that’s definitely true of both of them, especially the actual finale with its festivals and faux wedding ceremony. It re-centers the focus on Kobayashi and Tohru themselves, making for the series’ strongest showing since, well, the last time I covered it on this column.

But Dragon Maid‘s thesis of ethical hedonism aside, the real story here in the long run remains the triumphant return of Kyoto Animation. I won’t drag the point out; all twelve episodes of the show look amazing, and while what they’ve been through will probably weigh heavy over the anime landscape for a long time, it’s just really good to have them back. See you all for 20th Century Electric Catalogue?

Elsewhere on MPA

I debuted my Seasonal First Impressions column this past week (which you’re going to be seeing more of literally today if everything goes as planned), but I’ve also put up a review, another episode of KeyFrames Forgotten I’m rather proud of, and just in general am keeping a decent clip of things. Remember to toss me some coins in the footer if you’ve liked anything I’ve written this week and are able to!

Seasonal First Impressions: SELECTION PROJECT – The season gets off to a truly “and the crowd goes mild”-style start with an idol anime that left me very, very nonplussed. It’s annoying to dislike something because it’s simply “not doing anything new”, and I wouldn’t even say I do dislike Selection Project per se, there’s just not much to it at the moment, which is unfortunate.

(REVIEW) The Far Side of Summer, SONNY BOY, and Me – Sonny Boy is one of those anime that’s going to be rolling around in my noggin for years. I don’t think I’m as huge as a fan as many of the show’s biggest defenders, but that’s splitting hairs. Immaculately produced, uncommonly nuanced, and contemplative to its core, Sonny Boy is a show we’re going to be hearing about for a long time.

KeyFrames Forgotten Episode 3 – WINDY TALES – Hey you, reading this right now, listen to our podcast about Windy Tales! The show is good and the podcast episode is also good! I don’t hear people discuss Windy Tales much anymore, and I’m not sure why? It’s a lovely little thing.

See you on the next, anime fans.

Wanna 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 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: SELECTION PROJECT

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.

As a critic, it’s a terribly annoying thing to feel unsatisfied with a work that doesn’t actually do anything wrong. But, the profession’s one requirement is honesty. And I can genuinely say that I just can’t find it in me to care all that much about Selection Project.

Here’s the thing; not just anybody can make an idol anime. The genre is more brittle than I think many realize. One needs a strong, well-defined and delineated cast, strong writing, and of course good music to make a truly good idol anime. But on top of all that, we the audience need to have a desire to see the cast succeed. It’s hard enough to do that when the main characters are all part of the same idol group. Doing it while the cast are part of an X-Factor-style competition, as is the case here, feels borderline impossible.

Studio Doga Kobo have, of course, tried anyway. Selection Project‘s first episode, as I said, is not by any means bad, but something feels palpably missing from the whole affair. On a production level it’s certainly professional. The animation is clean and at times characterful, and the character designs are distinct from, at least, each other. Conversely though, they’re not terribly anything new overall. “Solid, but not amazing” is the operative phrase here.

Probably the most interesting shot in the episode is this neat bit that loosely evokes Abbey Road.

The opening here tries to tug at your heart strings from the top. We (very briefly) learn that our lead, Suzune, used to be hospital-bound and used the in-universe Selection Project show itself as a form of escapism. We even briefly see her watch her own favorite idol, Akari Amasawa, win the first season of the show. There’s clearly an intent to portray Akari’s music touching Suzune’s heart, and to pass that sensation along to the viewer, but something about it just fails to connect. Maybe it’s just that this entire scene is very short. Maybe it’s that the song, “Just One Yell”, sounds just enough like “Eat the Wind” by Yorushika (one of my favorite Japanese pop songs from last year) to be distracting. Maybe I’m just cynical. It’s hard to say.

Perhaps the issue is that from that opening scene, everything about Selection Project‘s first episode (with one minor exception, which we’ll get to) feels almost too neat. It has a near-mechanical predictability to it. Watching a fully-committed genre show tick along can absolutely be a good time, but generally they need to at least try to do something to set themselves apart from the pack. Selection Project airing in the same season as the still-ongoing current Love Live installment, and just days before the premiere of the premisewise-bonkers PRIDE OF ORANGE certainly does it no favors here. It is perhaps just a little too straightforward to truly stand out.

The way this most obviously plays out is with the characters. Suzune is a very standard main character for this genre; she’s earnest, hardworking, and passionate with light brown hair and a light, airy voice. Even in a trainwreck like say, last year’s crushingly disappointing 22/7, the main character was different enough from the ISO standard to be memorable. Suzune really isn’t. She looks like the lovechild of any number of idol anime protagonists. Her most distinguishing feature is probably that she has a ponytail, and while she’s certainly cute enough, that’s not really a great sign.

The other characters don’t fare much better. One we briefly meet, Nodoka, is defined solely by her love of sweets, after which she predictably voices a worry about the show having a “weight limit.” Another, Ao, is a sporty tomboy with short hair whose parents are gym freaks and whose one bit of characterization here is someone else telling her that she should be careful to not sweat too much, because her makeup might run. Probably the most notably distinct is the catgirl-inspired Shiori, who may have the unenviable task of carrying the series on her back if her costars don’t develop more interesting personalities soon.

Y’know, like, nya?

All of this would be easy enough to roll with if Selection Project gave you much of a reason to care about any of these people. And maybe it will, in the episodes to come, but Suzune’s general lack of any kind of hook is a much bigger problem. But, lest it come off like I’m being way too hard on this show, I will give it credit, because there is one trick that it pulls off toward the episode’s conclusion that points to some possible interesting developments.

As it’s her turn to sing “One More Yell” in order to try to pass the regional semi-final of the in-universe Selection Project series, Suzune falls to the ground and nearly faints. She actually loses the audition to her apparent friend Seira, who herself seems uncomfortable with winning. Now, Seira is not on Selection Project‘s poster art (which you can find all over the internet). So it seems likely that, some way or another, Seira is going to have to drop out or be disqualified, and Suzune will sneak in to the final round of the competition that way, the remainder of the show taking place there. But it at least shows some willingness to break with convention. The closing shot is her walking home alone with her rolling suitcase. It’s the only bit of Selection Project‘s desperate attempts to make you, dear viewer, Feel Things, that actually works.

There are a few other positives and things that are at least interesting to point out. For one, the show’s direction is quite nice. There are a number of fun visual tricks it uses throughout this episode to stay on the engaging side of the line. For another, there is a probably-deliberate overtone of weirdness baked in to the Selection Project series-within-a-series itself. There’s a brief moment of near-literally religious reverence for Akari, who we learn died in the car crash “at the height of her career” (the show’s words, not mine) some years ago.

Is she praying to the dead idol? Because that would make Suzune kind of awesome. If also very creepy.

And while he’s incredibly obnoxious, the show-within-a-show’s bear-like mascot character does inject some flavor into things. It makes things feel a little weird, and for a show that really needs something to stand out, weird is good.

So yes, it’s wholly possible that Selection Project will develop better character writing, or alternately will fly wildly off the handle and become at the very least, a compellingly strange show. But it’s far from a given, and for that reason I don’t think I could really recommend this series to anyone but idol genre diehards. But of course, the joy of seasonal anime is that the future stands unknown before us. Who knows, maybe I’ll be eating my words in only a few weeks’ time.

Did I mention Shiori has a butler? Forget the whole idol competition, I want a show about these two.

Grade: C
The Takeaway: A pass for anyone but dyed-in-the-wool genre enthusiasts. Might be worth your time in a few weeks if it picks up some positive buzz.

Wanna 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 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) The Far End of Summer, SONNY BOY, and Me

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

“Rajdhani’s parrot laughs.”

Abstract art faces an inherent double standard. It must both earn its right to be non-literal in the first place, and is expected to eventually “make sense” to its audience. It’s an impossible task, to convey truths through symbolic language alone but to do so so clearly that it cannot be accused of pretension.

Sonny Boy has only just ended, so it is hard to say where, eventually, it will fall, in the public consciousness. Some abstract anime are eventually acclaimed as classics, others are derided as nonsense. Either way, the series stands as one of the most compelling of the year. Enough so that simply saying such can feel rote–or even worse, dogmatic. But sometimes the reason so many people think something is interesting is simply because it genuinely is. Sonny Boy stands as a rare moment where a truly out-there piece of art has managed to capture the imagination of the public at large. Even by itself, that is a huge achievement.

On a production level alone, Sonny Boy speaks for itself. Its character designs lean more realistic than most modern TV anime, making it immediately stand out, with characters being distinguished by face shapes and so on. Its backgrounds are painterly and convey, as needed, a sense of surreality or depict vivid, natural landscapes. Accompanying all this is a bold, sharp directorial approach that knows precisely when to fully cut loose, scored by a well-curated soundtrack of synthesizer pieces, indie rock, and, sometimes, dead silence. To some point, mentioning these things at all feels like box-ticking. It is obvious from watching even any few random minutes of the series that it looks and sounds fantastic. So the big question is not one of production then, it’s one of theme. What is Sonny Boy about?

In a very real sense; nothing less than our lost generation. Sonny Boy centers on a classroom of high schoolers sent, per their own words, “adrift.” References to The Drifting Classroom and Robinson Crusoe abound. The nature of the anomaly that shifts our cast from the mundanity of modern Japan into the chaotic randomness that is the Matroyshka Doll worlds-within-worlds land they end up in is never explained and is not really the point. Nor is the nature of the superpowers they get (no quirky name here, they’re just called “powers”) examined either. Sonny Boy is an exploration of what young people would do, given all the time in the universe to do it, and of the social systems that shape them into who they are.

Our ostensible main character is Nagara, a somewhat unassertive and otherwise unremarkable young man. But much of the cast get put under the microscope, always to interesting effect. Take for example Mizuho, whose principled nature clashes with the remnants of the student council. An entire early episode revolves around her unwillingness to apologize for a wrong she didn’t commit, and for this part of the series, Sonny Boy seems like it may conclude that any group of people, isolated and given enough time, will reinvent the worst aspects of the society they originally come from.

But, Sonny Boy abandons this comparatively straightforward, political strain of thought early on. (Consequently, there is a certain crowd who will be displeased that the show is not an effective handbook for revolution. So it goes.) As it marches through its twelve episodes, the series becomes increasingly big-picture and existential. Political themes give way to religious ones, which finally give way to the philosophical. So whatever one might think of Sonny Boy, they absolutely cannot fault it for lack of ambition.

Because our generation (Millennials, and, increasingly as they reach majority, “Gen Z” as well) is often derided as overgrown children rather than real adults, Sonny Boy earns its right to use an all-teen cast in this scenario even more than most would, given that it is us–the literally immature, and the spiritually immature–at whom Sonny Boy is directed. It feels deliberate that the only adults in the series are respectively an imposter playing at an authority they don’t truly possess (Ms. Aki) and someone so far removed and incomprehensible to the rest of the cast that they may as well be divinity (the Principal).

In this sense, Sonny Boy is that old metaphor, a ball of confusion. If it’s sometimes hard to tell quite what’s going on, well, it’s even harder to tell what’s going on in real life. I would say “especially when you’re young”, but it’s easy to argue that part of Sonny Boy‘s core thesis is that, in the grand scheme of things, we’re all young.

That, of course, could feel to some like a cop-out. One might want to know what all of this is building up to. And while the series certainly settles well into a role, in its midpoint, as a mint for surreal parables of the modern age, anyone wanting a broader, singular “point” might feel a little left in the cold.

If there is an overall message, it is what the character Rajdhani states in the penultimate episode and Nagara finally internalizes in the finale. The world–all worlds–are chaos in motion, “an endless exercise in vain effort”, as Rajdhani puts it. But in this seeming meaninglessness, there is beauty.

Call Sonny Boy, then, a treatise on optimistic nihilism. Life is, and then it isn’t. It is a hectic, meaningless thing, to hear Sonny Boy tell it. The other side of that, of course, is that that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

The final words of the series, spoken by Nagara, are “Our lives are only beginning. What lies ahead will take just a little bit longer.” It’s a simple, almost prayer-like coda to a series that is otherwise anything but. Yet, a truth is a truth. Like some of its peers that have aired this year and in the recent past, all Sonny Boy asks of us is to take care of one another and do our best. All we can do is make the most of what we have, and all we have is ourselves and each other.

Wanna 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 is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, KeyFramesForgotten

(PODCAST) KeyFrames Forgotten Episode 3 – WINDY TALES

Our third episode arrives some months late. Forgive us, folks! This whole podcasting thing is hard. More importantly; Windy Tales is a lovely, subtle little show from Production IG’s mid-2000s period with an unconventional art style and a lot to say about the impermanence of all things. You can listen to the podcast below, or, when it’s finished processing, check out the Youtube mirror at the bottom of this article.

KeyFramesForgotten is a podcast about anime you haven’t thought about in a while. Join anime nerds Jane-Michelle and Julian as they discuss anime from the recent or not-so-recent past that the general public has forgotten about. We discuss the merits of these anime, why the public has left them behind, and whether we think they’re worth a second look.

You can follow Jane on Twitter here and Julian on Twitter here.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

The Frontline Report [9/26/21]

The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I briefly summarize the past week of my personal journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of pop culture. Expect some degree of spoilers for the covered shows.

Hello, anime fans! You may have noticed the site looking a little different this past week. I got a new WordPress theme which comes with a somewhat spiffier look and more general readability. Sadly switching themes does seem to have made the archives a bit of a pain to browse and there’s not really anything I can do about it until I can eventually afford a WordPress Premium plan and implement some custom CSS. I’m going to try to work on a workaround at some point in the future, but in the meantime, I beg your patience.

All that in mind, I do strongly urge you to take a gander at this article’s footer and consider pledging some support. It really does help me continue writing in a very real and tangible way.

Administrative notes aside, we’ve got a bit of an interesting bit of zeitgeist in the air this week. Four of the five anime covered here are about an all-female cast pushing through some obstacle(s) or another. For the girls of Magia Record this triumph is shadowed with equal parts tragedy, but nonetheless, it remains compelling. For the most part at least, it seems the girls are alright.

Blue Reflection Ray

This is among the first anime to actually end since I started doing this column. I’ve already written about the series at length in my review of it and I’ve no desire to repeat myself too much. So let me just say, Blue Reflection Ray is that rare anime that just kind of clicks with you if you’re the right sort of person. It has its flaws, sure, but I wouldn’t trade the series for the world and I’m very happy with how it ended. I may simply be a straight-up sucker for magical girl anime. But my view that there is always room for these stories of girls triumphing over the evils of the world remains unchanged. Blue Reflection Ray was not the best to ever do it, it wasn’t the first, and it certainly won’t be the last. But it is a valid, meaningful part of that artistic lineage, and no one can take that away from it.

The Detective is Already Dead

Another recently-concluded show. Boy, Detective was….something, wasn’t it? I think after the dust settles and it recedes into memory, the few people who remember Detective at all will remember it more as a sometimes-compelling trainwreck more than anything genuinely awful. I don’t mean to come across as elitist about this, but I think anyone saying it’s truly terrible hasn’t seen any truly terrible anime. (Not that I blame them, of course.)

But it certainly wasn’t particularly good either, and I can’t picture it picking up even the ironic cult following of something like Big Order. Such is the curse of being rough going but not outright bad enough to watch “as a joke”.

That said, as I mentioned in my review of the series, I do think all of that gives it a kind of charm if you’re a pretty specific sort of person. But most people aren’t that sort of person, of course. So into the dustbin of history it will inevitably end up. What a tragic fate for our heroic detective! But so it goes. So it goes.

Kageki Shoujo!!

I stand by what I said last week, and what do you know, Kageki Shoujo!! stuck the landing. I’m still not sure I’d put it in my personal upper echelon of anime from 2021 (you’ll have to wait for my year-end rankings to find out for sure), but it did what it wanted to do and it did it well. That’s worth quite a lot all on its own.

The finale this week succeeds in my mind largely because of two things. One; it finally gives us, however briefly, a Sarasa performance that’s truly her own. Her take on Romeo & Juliet‘s Tybalt here is a wonderful thing to behold, and watching the audience (which, mind you, is just her own classmates) dance in the palm of her hand as she wrings the dark, moody character for all he’s worth is just excellent. Two; it ties up some other loose ends, in particular with respect to the hitherto slightly underdeveloped Sawa Sugimoto. Her own frustration at not getting that very same role comes through just as clear as Sarasa’s triumphs, and how she deals with that disappointment ends the show on a realistic, but still high, note.

Inevitably, some will be a bit cold on the choice of stopping point. (We don’t even get to actually see any of our girls act in a proper play, after all.) And the faint hope of a second season remains in the air. But I think that so many people care so much about Kageki Shoujo!! in the first place speaks a lot to its strengths. No one really expected much of this series, but it ended up captivating the crowd anyway. Isn’t that sort of surprise what following seasonal anime at all is all about?

It probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to feel “proud of” a show, but nonetheless that’s where I find myself at with Kageki Shoujo!! When the season started I was fairly sure it would be written off by most due to sharing some vaguely similar subject matter and a very similar name with Revue Starlight. That it’s managed to comfortably find and secure its own audience, even over here in “the West”, is a lovely thing. I’ve rarely been happier to be proven wrong.

Magia Record

Magia Record‘s second season is over, though not without some amount of tumult, coming as it does after a week of delays and with a number of technical issues.

As with before, most of my thoughts are over on Geek Girl Authority. Though with an asterisk, this time.

This is the last article I’m going to be writing for them. My current plan is to fully focus my efforts over here on Magic Planet Anime. So, if you could give it a look, that’d mean a lot to me. The people at GGA have been great to me in the, gosh, two years I’ve written for the site, and I’m happy to part with them on the best terms possible.

As for the episode itself? Honestly it’s a real treat to have Mami survive a season of anything Madoka-related alive and unhurt. Everything else, probably deliberately, remains up in the air right now. I’m definitely quite invested in the fate of Kuroe, in particular. Her disappearance here raises a lot more questions than it answers.

Tropical Rouge Precure

I don’t write about Tropical Rouge Precure, or really Precure in general, much in this column, both because its air-day, fairly late on a Saturday night here in the States, makes it hard to talk about the “current” episode and because, being a year-round show with four full cours, it doesn’t change that much from week to week. Most of the time, that is.

But every once in a while Precure will deliver an absolute knockout, and that’s episode 29 (“Reviving A Legend! The Pretty Cure’s Power-Up Makeover!“) for Tropical Rouge. Easily the best-looking episode of the show so far (and one of the best of the year period, up there with Magia Record season 2’s debut episode among others), it introduces some half dozen new plot points without making anything feel congested or convoluted and looks amazing while it does it. It’s the rare anime episode that feels twice its length in a decidedly positive way. Expect this one to come up in conversations even years from now. Episode 30 has since aired too, and it’s also good, but 29 has to remain the star here, an all-timer if there ever was one.

Elsewhere on MPA

I linked them already, but seriously, do check out my reviews of The Detective is Already Dead and Blue Reflection Ray if you have the time. I’m quite proud of how the both of them turned out.

Lastly, it’s yet to fully come to fruition, but I can say with relative confidence that a new episode of KeyFrames Forgotten is on the way. I’m not entirely sure when it will arrive, but the wheels are in motion, you have my word of that much.

Until next week, anime fans.

Wanna 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 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) The Door to The Common is Open: There’s a Light at the End of the Tunnel in BLUE REFLECTION RAY

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

She said
“I feel like I’ve come untethered,
in a room without walls.
I’m drifting on a dark and empty sea of nothing.
It doesn’t feel bad, it feels like nothin’ at all.”

Let’s not mince words, as far as gaining its own fanbase or leaving a cultural impact of basically any kind, Blue Reflection Ray never had a chance, at least not over here in the West. Not only was it easy to write off by anyone so inclined due to its floaty animation, sprawling story, Shoujo-inspired art style, and links to an already-obscure parent series (the larger Blue Reflection franchise), it was also sandwiched between two other magical girl anime tackling some similar subject matter in a more succinct and accessible way; Wonder Egg Priority and the second season of Magia Record respectively.

Nonetheless, it’s 24 weeks later and I find myself still with a real soft spot for BRR, in spite of everything. Maybe it’s because more than almost any other magical girl series I’ve ever seen, the enemy as personified in Blue Reflection Ray is not something simple. Instead, its real antagonist is sheer emotional burnout, the very death of feeling itself. Late in the series when main villain Shino infiltrates The Common, humanity’s collective unconsciousness, she drives the whole world into apathetic, mechanical lockstep. “Going through the motions” made very literal.

How do you tackle that? Comparatively little popular art in general even tries. And of that that has, it’s hard to argue Blue Reflection Ray is the best-equipped for it. But by god, there is glory in the fight, and fight Blue Reflection Ray did. Over the course of a nowadays-somewhat-rare two-cour run, this scrappy little show with a small initial audience and an ever-smaller one as it went on fought like hell. And now that it’s over, was it all worth it?

Let’s put it this way. Despite its ramshackle production, Blue Reflection Ray also has some real strengths. It takes genuine courage to even try to portray some of this stuff. And while one might (not incorrectly) accuse the show of being rather melodramatic, the fact remains that as a frank look at how bleak life can become when it’s defined by such evils as child abuse and suicidal ideation, there’s a real power to it. It feels written from a place of empathy, not voyeurism. Sincerity is a virtue, and it’s one Blue Reflection Ray has in spades.

As far as its literal story? Fairly simple stuff, at least in concept. A group of magical girls (the Reflectors of the title) must stop a villainous group, from robbing the innocent girls of the world of their feelings. The only obvious kink in the rope here is that the villains are another group of “red” Reflectors rather than monsters or something of the like. But Blue Reflection Ray‘s length lets the story unfurl and twist in odd, unusual ways. And the enemy Reflectors have their own complex backstories, which are doled out to us at a slow enough pace that in certain parts of the series, it can make one question if our girls are really in the right to begin with. The most prominent example being protagonist Hiori’s own sister, Mio, whose enigmatic decision to join Shino defines the first third or so of the series.

All these attempts at nuance do have a downside. Which is that while the characters’ stories are resonant and even powerful when properly played out, say, as in the case of turncoat Nina, anything that fails to be sufficiently resolved stands out as jarring. The most glaring example being the curious one-dimensionality of the aimlessly sadistic Uta, one of the red Reflectors. Some of this is understandable by virtue of the fact that Blue Reflection Ray is meant to link two games in its parent franchise, and some things are deliberately left to be resolved in the future, but Uta’s case is particularly strange. While she’s still a fun enough character, she sticks out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of the rest of the cast, who are otherwise fairly well-developed.

Uta after an average day of kicking puppies and stealing candy from orphans.

There is also the matter of that aforementioned production. Blue Reflection Ray has the misfortune of being a minor work by a studio long past its prime, J.C. Staff, and as such even the best-looking episodes are mostly competent rather than genuine eye-poppers, and some are outright bad. There is still some great direction here, and other aspects of the visual design, such as the peculiar look of the altered zones known as Leap Ranges, will certainly appeal to some. (I once described them as Madoka Magica‘s Witch Labyrinths by way of 90s computer art, and I stand by that comparison.) But on the whole BRR is not a series one should watch under the impression that it’s a feast for the eyes. Similarly, while there are a decent amount of fights, and some number of those contain most of the show’s best cuts, they tend to be over pretty fast.

On the other hand, all these restraints mean that on the rare occasion BRR does do something aesthetically in line with the traditions of the magical “transforming heroine” subgenre–your Pretty Cures, Sailor Moons, and such–it’s legitimately wonderful. In episode 23, the girls transform back to back for the one and only time in the whole series, complete with a transformation chant and a monster to fight afterward. And it is absolutely magical. Blue Reflection Ray is certainly aware that it’s part of a storied artistic lineage. If it only needs to invoke said lineage once, then that is enough.

So where does that leave us, all things considered?

Well, I choose to look at it this way; Blue Reflection Ray understands a certain truism of the human experience very well. We hurt ourselves in isolation but find solace in the company of others, it’s a concept as old as time. No man is an island. It’s also the same general idea that powers much of the magical girl genre, regardless of tone. It’s so obvious that it should be, by all rights, a cliché.

Yet, in BRR’s finale, with its deep blue sky, weepy reunions, and heavy, saccharine piano, it feels like nothing less than the truth all over again. The answer the series returns to, over and over again, is that love for each other is what can truly save us. Friendship, familial love, and romantic love, all equally important bulwarks against the darkness.

There is a minor running joke in some circles, one with more than a single grain of truth, that magical girl anime fandom can feel like a religion. If that’s so, let Blue Reflection Ray be a sermon, and let all who have ears hear the song. The same old same old has never felt so important.

“I’m pretty happy lying here with you,
it feels good to feel somethin’.”

Wanna 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 is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.