Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week.
Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
In general, this season has been full of quiet surprises. Ippon! Again, a series about a girls’ judo team, is among the quietest. Aside from the trivium that it is the first TV anime from relatively new studio Bakken Record, almost no one seems to be talking about this thing. Which is a shame, because I think it’s quite good overall, and it’s powering through the woes of being produced by a minor studio in the midst of possibly the worst phase yet of the production bubble very well. That is to say; it looks good most of the time, too.
But I wanted to zone in on just one aspect of that for this small article, because it’s not something I’ve seen discussed much, and I think it really helps establish Ippon‘s visual identity; the judo itself.
It seems obvious enough that an anime even vaguely adjacent to real-world sport would try to depict that sport in the best light possible, but while Ippon! Again mostly looks good, it is very much a production with limits. In the most recent episode, there are several places where those limits are visibly being hit; somewhat wonky character art being the most obvious giveaway. One would thus perhaps think that the actual judo matches themselves would be only passable, but they’d be wrong. Instead, these are easily the strongest moments of the series.
Ippon is, it should be said, more grounded than is usual for an anime production in the 2020s. There are occasional embellishments, such as chibi heads and whatnot, but for the most part this is a series that is decidedly trying to remain in the realm of the plausible. Something that could happen in reality, even if it hasn’t exactly. Working in this mode—where most of the traditional action anime tricks present an unacceptable compromise to the show’s artistic vision and are therefore off-limits—presents the challenge of rendering something as intense as a judo match in “strictly” realistic terms.
The match in question, between the characters Towa Hiura (Chiyuki Miura) and Erika Amane (Aoi Koga), succeeds here with flying colors. The entire fight channels a genuine, raw intensity with technical fighting that seems to me, as an admitted layman, surprisingly realistic. Much of the combat focuses on extremely minute motions; grabbing, counter-grabbing, pulls and steps. It’s deeply compelling stuff on a moment-to-moment basis, as much as any flashier and more “out-there” action moments to come out of this season so far. For added support, the episode at several points flips back and forth between the present match and a flashback, imbuing the present round with a real sense of urgency and stakes. Not always an easy thing to do for something like this.
We don’t actually see the conclusion of Towa and Erika’s match in this week’s episode, as it ends on a cliffhanger. Still, if Ippon! Again can continue channeling its strengths into areas like this, where it really matters, 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 Directoryto 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.
Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
Of the anime I wrote first impressions on at the top of the season, My Master Has No Tail was and remains the most obscure over here in the USA. Its charming but unflashy production values and art direction as well as its somewhat niche subject matter have meant that it was basically destined to fly under the radar since day one. I loathe this phrasing, so I tend to avoid it, but it really is hard to conceive of something more quintessentially Japanese than a show about a tanuki learning rakugo.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. In fact, I’d actually put My Master Has No Tail ahead of several other “slice of life” anime this year. Partly, it’s simply that I’m a sucker for a good piece of art about the process of creating art itself. 2022 has felt light on those; anime that enshrine the creative and performative process itself as something worth valuing and holding on to. My Master Has No Tail is good enough that it’d stand out even in a year with more of them, but being the proverbial droplet in the desert has definitely made it mean more to me personally. (It’s not totally alone in this venture, mind. Earlier this year there was Healer Girls. This very season we have BOCCHI THE ROCK! Still, Master simply hasn’t picked up the fanbase that matches Bocchi, or even the more muted reception to Healer Girl.)
The anime’s tenth episode zeroes in on this to an even greater extent than the series previously has, as it heads into its final stretch. This episode focuses heavily on names, both in a general sense and several specific examples; that of the routine that features here, that of the previously-nameless Mameda herself, and on the tradition of name inheritance in rakugo as a field. In this way, it illuminates the importance of passing these artistic traditions on; from teacher to pupil, down through the generations. (The core conflict set up here is, in fact, about someone who doesn’t want that to happen.)
Mameda has, by this point in the series, been living with, and been the apprentice of, her master Bunko for some time. Except; the heads of Japan’s other major rakugo lineages aren’t having it. Mameda has to pass a test from all of them; the first was last week, and this week’s episode centers around the second. Her examiner, as it were, is Enshi Kirino, a cat-like rakugoka from a rich family who speaks in a dragging, laboriously slow monotone unless a metronome happens to be running nearby. (In which case, she can talk at normal speed. Though her tone is still informed by a sense of smug mischief.)
Perhaps not coincidentally, this is where the show finally makes use of “Jugemu”, probably the most well-known rakugo routine of all time, and certainly the only one that most western otaku are likely to be familiar with, if only because it’s referenced in anime, manga, and basically every other field of Japanese pop culture pretty often. The test put to Mameda is very simple; she merely has to memorize “Jugemu” from Enshi’s example (she has two opportunities to observe Enshi, in fact), and perform it perfectly. No mistakes allowed; not a single syllable out of place.
Enshi’s instructive performance is fairly interesting on its own; she puts a tightly-wound and almost mechanical spin on it, possibly in a deliberate attempt to psyche Mameda out, something her voice actress Ayana Taketatsu leans into quite well. Initially, Mameda just can’t commit the bit to memory. A problem when the entire premise of the routine is the title character thereof having a ludicrously long name.
Nothing helps until she thinks to meditate in the woods. There, for the first time, Mameda faces her fears in an honest way; she’s scared of failing the test, because failing would mean being kicked out. And she doesn’t want that because being under Bunko’s tutelage is the only place where she’s ever felt like she’s truly belonged. That realization is what makes the routine eventually click for her, and she recites it to Enshi, who in turn, is enraptured enough by Mameda’s performance—despite Mameda being totally exhausted at this point—to fall into reminiscence about her own master; the previous Daikokutei. Bunko‘s own master.
The episode ends with Enshi presenting Mameda with a paper fan on which she’s written her own name. I do not actually know for certain if this is some sort of traditional gesture of esteem in rakugoka circles, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn so. In small moments like this, My Master Has No Tail is as compelling an argument for the arts as any other that’s aired this year.
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 Directoryto 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.
Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material.
“Idols don’t ‘do the right thing.’ They do what they want.”
I’m breaking a personal rule with this one. Generally speaking, I don’t really like to compare currently-airing anime. Especially not if the main reason they’re being compared is that they share a genre. In my view, people generally vastly overstate the importance of genre and tend to use what should be a guideline as a box to lump dissimilar things together. Or worse, to rag on something for not fitting a particular, narrow ideal of what something in a given genre “should” be. Comparing seasonal anime on the basis of their genre alone is usually pretty basic and uninteresting.
Yet, something about the idol genre specifically reignites an old fire of partisan fandom within me. I latch on to favorites pretty hard, and even I’m sometimes at a loss as to succinctly explain why, both in terms of individual characters and—as this column will go into—entire shows themselves.
So today, I’m letting myself do something I normally wouldn’t; I am comparing two things that I fully acknowledge have little business being compared. Those things being the second season of Love Live! Superstar, about the idol group Liella, and new girl on the block SHINEPOST, about the idol group TiNgS.
But come on! How can I not? We have here two idol anime airing in the same season, appealing to the same groups of people, but with wildly different approaches. One operating from within the established Love Live franchise, and the other, a punchy outsider that evokes 2011’s seminal The Idolmaster. (Bonus points; Superstar is from the long-established Sunrise, and SHINEPOST comes to us from the still relatively young Studio KAI, perhaps best known at this point for the second season of Pretty Derby and last year’s Super Cub. They’re also working on the excellent Fuuto PI this season as well.) One is pure fluff; sunny, goofy, and, in its best moments, purehearted and warm. The other is a down-to-earth look at idols as players in the idol industry, focusing on ground-level character dynamics and getting into the heads of its significantly smaller cast.
So here we go; two idol anime, two very different takes on what that phrase even means in 2022. We will look at them one at a time, and then consider how we might use the knowledge of what each is doing to look ahead into the future.
We’ll start with SHINEPOST, the one I prefer by a fair bit. TiNgS were introduced to the world with their trailer PV toward the end of last year, and it (and the accompanying song, the scintillating banger “Be Your Light!!”), immediately hooked me.
SHINEPOST is a scrappy little anime, one that seemingly rather few people in the Anglosphere are watching. But for my money, it outstrips Superstar in a few respects; it’s more ambitious, and the particular suite of emotions on display here resonates with me more. I don’t think SHINEPOST is a “better” show in any absolute sense—I rarely think of anime in that way, and Superstar has its merits too, as we’ll get to—but it’s easily the one that’s captured more of my heart.
Part of that, I think, comes down to the fact that SHINEPOST has what is for me more relatable character writing. Particularly in the form of Kyouka Tamaki (Moeko Kanisawa, lead for the real-life idol group ≠ME). Kyouka does fall within a firmly established character archetype; she’s straightlaced, serious, a good student, and considers herself very ordinary. She turns to idol work out of a desperate desire to be special, to mean something to somebody as more than just another person. The devil’s in the details here; Kyouka’s desperation to be noticed also gives rise to a farily pronounced self-loathing streak. See, for instance, the way that she convinces herself that she’s not “really” talented in the weeks following a performance of a new song, in which she sang lead, gone awry. Throughout the show’s second major arc, she tries to settle for less, only for that to end up making her feel worse. It’s a punch to the gut. She reaches her lowest point when she slips into a McDonald’s incognito, hoping—and then actively fantasizing—that one of the other patrons will recognize her. It is, and I mean this with no malice in my heart whatsoever, truly pathetic, in the most profound sense of that term. I have been this person; lots of people have been this person, seeking petty validation from random strangers, only then to feel even worse when we don’t get it. It is a truly miserable feeling, the sort of thing that can swallow a performer’s psyche whole if left unchecked.
But SHINEPOST is not a show that wallows in these kinds of things. The point, after all, of showing you what this kind of character is like in the dark is to then lift them out of that darkness. Kyouka’s manager—an important character in his own right—is able to convince her that actively wanting to be special, that selfishly, shamelessly wanting to feel, even if just for a moment, like the center of someone’s universe, is not just okay but is expected of her. That’s where this column’s header quote comes from; and it’s one that will stick with me for a while. Sure enough, when she’s able to get out of her own head and adopt the mentality of just letting herself honestly want what she wants, she absolutely aces the next performance of her song. In doing so, she shoots her biggest fan, the one person to whom Kyouka really is so much more than just another face in the crowd, through the heart. She straight up faints; it’s hard to blame her.
Granted, this is just one particular arc. (Not even the most recent one, as Rio, the spunky short girl of the group, is the star of the current arc.) But it’s illustrative of SHINEPOST‘s character writing strengths, which make the series feel far more grounded than Superstar despite its rather weird high premise. (Would you believe something this good is being sold on the premise that the idol group’s manager can tell when people are lying? He’s a good character and all, but it’s a downright bizarre thing to hook your whole show on.)
Speaking of, let’s pivot to Superstar. Comparing the shows along a character writing axis in particular is rather unfair. After all; the Love Live series has never dealt with the ‘industry’ side of the idol industry, preferring to bubble its wholly fictional school idol concept off from real world concerns, which severely curtails the possibility of any kind of industry drama plotlines. (This despite the fact that, of course, any of the actual idols who voice the Love Live girls are industry professionals who’ve generally had to work very hard to get where they are, but that’s a conversation for another day.) Inherently, this isn’t a huge problem, and a different Love Live series, last season’s followup to Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, managed to turn that lack of serious engagement with what being an idol means ‘in the real world’ into a strength. Nijigasaki envisions, essentially, a utopia, where the distinction between idol and fan is nearly nonexistent and not only can everyone be an idol, but everyone should at least give it a shot. It has a particular kind of rare fervor that you don’t see in most of its peers over on the sunny optimism side of the idol anime spectrum.
Superstar, meanwhile, has what one could easily argue are higher stakes; its main cast are trying to win the titular Love Live. This is, in theory, a fertile ground for, if not the same kind of character drama as SHINEPOST‘s, at least something in the same general ballpark. Instead, though, most of Superstar‘s best episodes, especially here in its second season, have been a lot sillier than the looming presence of any serious competition would imply. One of season 2’s biggest developments so far is Liella expanding to eight (and eventually nine, although we’re not there yet) members. Two of those members, the stoic oddball Shiki Wakana (Wakana Ookuma), and the willful idol otaku Mei Yoneme (Akane Yabushima), recently got an episode all their own.
Shiki and Mei seen here in their natural states of “looking kinda stoned” and “being flustered and embarrassed.”
And while there was some focus on the twos’ relationship with each other (which goes past “best friends” all the way into borderline homoromantic, a plus for some viewers, certainly), the episode was mostly about wacky misunderstandings. It was a very good episode about wacky misunderstandings, but this, and similar examples throughout the series so far have made Superstar feel like a bit of a lightweight in comparison. Cheerful, fun, amusing, but not anything more than that.
Part of this, I think, comes down to Superstar‘s idols themselves. Liella are not by any means a bad group, and I’d put them on par with SHINEPOST‘s TiNgS in a vacuum, but none of its members come close to the sheer magnetism of, say, Nijigasaki‘s Setsuna Yuki or Lanzhu Zhong. You really need a certain level of camp to elevate this sort of story beyond the merely pleasant. And unfortunately, while there is camp and theatricality present in Love Live! Superstar, it’s mostly not from Liella themselves.
Let’s talk about Wien Margarete (Yuina). Or Vienna Margaret, depending on whose subtitles you’re looking at.
Introduced in Superstar‘s third episode as a rival not just for Liella on the whole but for center Kanon Shibuya (Sayuri Date) specifically, she actually hasn’t appeared in person in the two episodes since. She almost doesn’t need to; Wien has an absolutely electric magnetism that, honestly, none of the Liella girls can really match. What you have here is perhaps the classic problem of simply making the antagonist too cool. (And make no mistake, with her sneering dismissal of Liella and the entire Love Live competition, Wien is absolutely a villain, in as much as Love Live ever has those. Kanon frankly even seems a bit scared of her, despite the fact that Wien is literally a middle schooler.)
Granted, if a middle schooler with lavender hair started showing up outside my house to tell me how bad I was at singing, I might be scared of her too.
But at the same time, I’m unwilling to slam Superstar too hard over this. It is entirely possible that in the season’s back half the rest of Liella will rise to the occasion. Their actual talent, both in-universe and, outside of it, that of their voice actresses, is not remotely the problem, it’s just that you can’t beat crazy shit like glowing butterflies, iron clockwork, and a gothic lolita dress adorned with black feathers by being a pretty good idol group. (And honestly the show itself seems to be on my side here; go watch that clip and look at how Liella react to her. Those are the faces of girls who know they’re outclassed.)
Perhaps, then, Liella will meet that challenge at some point. As it stands, they just don’t have this kind of theatricality, but seeing the group transform into the sort of people who could pull that off would be very much worth watching. (If, still, an entirely different universe than what SHINEPOST is doing.)
In a sense, and to return back to our opening question, this is really less a criticism of Superstar and more of an open query. Now that this genre is entering its second full decade of being among the most successful and popular anime subgenres, where is it going? There’s a lot I haven’t touched on here, outside just these two shows. Right now, Waccha Primagi, a children’s anime that blends the idol and magical girl genres has been unwilling to let the possible outbreak of a war between humans and magic users—after the local Beyonce stand-in ascended to divinity and became an angry Sun God, naturally—interfere with its once-an-episode CGI idol performances. Last season, there was Healer Girl, which I would not really call an idol anime, but its dynamic approach to music certainly borrows something from the genre, and which it spun into hallucinatory dream sequences of rare beauty. And this very season, there are a few idol anime I simply haven’t seen; namely League of Nations Air Force Aviation Magic Band Luminous Witches, whose full English title is an absolute joy to have to copy and paste every time and which is a spinoff of the polarizing Strike Witches series, and Phantom of the Idol, which simply by starring a male lead, is already so far removed from almost everything else on this page that it’s almost another conversation entirely.
Perhaps, then, trying to say much about what idol anime will look like next year, in 5 years, in 10, is foolish in the first place. Writing this piece has been an exercise in perspective. Always a valuable thing, and I hope you’ve found reading it interesting as well.
Nonetheless, the fact remains. Whether the rest of the ’20s brings us more stories of passion and drama within the idol industry, and whatever twists they may have, more sunlit visions of a world where anyone and everyone can become the performer they’ve always dreamed of being, or something in between or even farther afield, the idol genre does not look like it’s going anywhere any time soon. People love pop music, and they love pop stars. That much seems unlikely to change.
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 Directoryto 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.
Anime Orbit Weekly is a weekly column where I summarize my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material.
Hi folks! I don’t have a ton to say up here today. I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things while still dealing with a bunch of life stuff, so happy as I am that this week’s been devoid of interruptions so far, I don’t want to make any promises about what the immediate future looks like. (Down to whether or not I’ll be able to finally cover Healer Girl on time for once tomorrow. That’s a big We’ll See.)
But in any case, I’ve gotten a lot of writing done this week, and if you’re a devoted enough fan of the site to be reading this, sincerely thank you for reading so much of it. I’m quite proud of the column this week, and I think you’ll see why as you read on. Also! I don’t want to promise anything (see previous paragraph), but I might have a special project starting up this week. We’ll see which way the winds blow.
Seasonal Anime
Birdie Wing
With episode 8, Birdie Wing closed the door on its “golf underground” storyline. The consequences were real and, in their own way, dire, despite the show’s absurdity. Eve has fled Nafrece and can’t ever go back, mob boss Rose Aleon is dead, shot in the face by a vengeful rival mob in a truly, utterly, indescribable pastiche of proper gangster cinema that Birdie Wing somehow managed to pull off flawlessly. The aftermath didn’t seem to bother Birdie Wing though, the very last shots of that episode were of Eve being goofy on a plane, literally flying away from the poverty she was adopted into, her and her family reaping the spoils of her improbable golf skill. The latter by being safe from that very poverty, the former by going to Japan to pursue her Golf Waifu.
So, in a way, this represents more the beginning of something than the end. An even slightly more ordinary anime would transpose the order here; introduce Eve as an ordinary high school girl and then eventually build up to the climactic confrontation with the, ahem, Golf Mafia. But Birdie Wing is not a remotely ordinary anime, and so, at the end of episode 9 we see that she’s enrolled in a Golf School in Golf Japan to pursue a Golf Romantically Charged Shonen Rivalry with fellow Golf Lesbian, Aoi, the aforementioned Golf Waifu. All this sets in as the sound of Tsukuyomi‘s “Nightjar”—the show’s needlessly beautiful ED theme—fills the sky and a shot of a golf ball dissolving into a full moon hangs overhead. It’s nuts.
It is still hard to know exactly how to reconcile Birdie Wing‘s ridiculousness with its sincerity. It’s been nine weeks and I’m still processing it; a show that transmutes the world’s most boring sport into high camp shouldn’t work as well as Birdie Wing does. Especially now that the series has seemingly abandoned the class element that made the first arc something worth chewing on thematically. By all rights Birdie Wing should fall apart here. But if it ever will, it’s not this week. From here, we golf sublime. If anything, I want to take Birdie Wing even more at face value than I already was. It somehow completely buys its own hype.
The first six or so minutes of episode 9 don’t even feature Eve at all. Instead, we focus on a new character who we’ve only briefly seen before. This is Ichina Saotome (Saki Fujita), an Ordinary Golf Schoolgirl whose greatest desire in life is, no shit, to be a professional golf caddy. She says things like this.
Saotome makes a hell of a first impression; among other things she’s late for Golf School because she missed the Golf Bus. Readers who aren’t watching this series may wonder if me appending “golf” to the front of random nouns is some kind of running joke or if the show is actually like that, and I am delighted to tell those readers that it is, in fact, both. Saotome’s school has a prominent Golf Club (haha. golf club), it is very serious business, and one of its members is the other character we properly meet here, Haruka Misono (Rina Satou).
Any fear that all this might make Birdie Wing even marginally more normal is dashed by the fact that Eve greets the both of these girls by deliberately driving a ball between them as they talk in order to get their attention.
Her blunt attempts to get a meeting with Aoi are pretty funny, but not as funny as the fact that Eve can somehow speak Japanese, and even she doesn’t know how. In a show that bought in less to its ludicrousness, this would be an obvious joke. Here, I almost wonder if it’s not some kind of foreshadowing about things we’ll eventually learn about Eve’s pre-amnesia life. (It can be both, of course.)
Her ability to meet with Aoi is eventually staked on a golf game (of course) by the Golf Club’s president. She gets an obvious victory over Haruka, although it’s closer than one might assume, and I suspect the now-shattered first year might serve as yet another rival to Eve.
Meanwhile, Aoi’s reaction to meeting Eve again is this.
Golfing!
Ultimately, the episode ends as aforementioned. Eve enrolls in Aoi’s school—obvious fake name and all—to the admiring gay screams of literally her entire classroom. And, well, god knows where the plot goes from here. I half expect Birdie Wing to turn into Revolutionary Golf Utena. It wouldn’t be out of character.
One thing is certain, Birdie Wing‘s total commitment to itself, an almost defiant attitude of “yeah, this is the Symphogear of golf, what are you going to do about it?” It’s hard to imagine Birdie Wing ever falling off in a serious way if it keeps that attitude up. Personally, I’ve joined the camp who strongly hope that this thing has two cours (no episode count was ever announced). Mostly just because I want to see what other total nonsense the show can come up with, but also because in spite of my general loathing of golf as a sport and everything it represents, I do care about these characters! I’m not afraid to say so, either. Much like some of its spiritual predecessors, Birdie Wing wrings emotional resonance from high absurdity, and it does a damn good job of it, too. It takes flight against all odds, a fighter jet of pure self-confidence.
Oh, and also; there’s a scene in here where Aoi gets all embarrassed because Eve stepped out of one of the locker room showers without a towel on but is also obviously checking her out. That’s pretty fun, too.
Ah, the classic “peeking through the gaps in your fingers” technique.
ESTAB LIFE: Great Escape
Ten weeks after its premiere, it’s still kind of hard to believe that Estab Life exists. Watching it, the threat that it will just disappear like a mirage on the horizon if you blink too hard feels ever-present. Yet, here we are, episode 12 is finally available in the Anglosphere, and the show is officially over. Its finale provides a suitably action-packed, pulpy, dramatic, and just plain weird exit for a show whose very existence feels vaguely like a taunt against all pop-artistic norms, a trait it shares with some, but perhaps not enough anime. (The Rolling Girls, and Estab Life‘s own contemporary, the above-discussed Birdie Wing, are a few that are on my mind lately.)
In a way, though, Estab Life‘s finale is a logical conclusion. How does a show about helping people escape their life situations end? By evac’ing the guy behind the whole system in the first place. For their grand finale, the Extractors extract Mr. M himself, their mysterious benefactor who turned out to also be the equally-mysterious Manager running the cluster system to begin with. Along the way, we get some pretty cool action scenes, some character model reuse that is too neat for me to call out how obvious a time- and cost-saving measure it is, an explanation-of-sorts for how the world of Estab Life came to exist in the first place. It’s a lot!
The high-tech castle facility that the Extractors infiltrate here is probably the best environ the series has ever shown off at all. It fits the high tech aesthetic inherent to an all-3DCG series to a tee. All three of the main Extractors get good turns here, and it’s interesting to note that Feles and Equa spend most of the climax by themselves; Martes seemingly sacrifices herself by exploding into many mini-Marteses (Martesi?) to fend off a swarm of angry drones.
When they finally encounter The Manager, Equa and Feles get hit with a truckload of exposition, perhaps the only part of the episode that doesn’t entirely work. (Something about how his builders created him, a nigh-omniscient supercomputer, to develop a utopia, but this is an impossible task because the natures of different people conflict too much. Sure, fair enough I suppose.) What does work is that “Mr. M” wants out of his situation as much as anyone else the Extractors have ever spirited away. He reformats himself, becoming the second character in as many episodes to change their gender presentation; this time on screen.
I will not pretend to know what this says about the people who made Estab Life, but I will take the representation—intentional or not—regardless. Before that, The Manager turns into a giant Facebook like symbol in order to thumbprint the extraction document. This is art, folks; the world’s first CTTTF (Computer to Thumb to Female) transition.
Her new body and name in tow (now it’s just “M.” No “Mr.”), she helps the Extractors escape from the facility, and in the process, we get to see her mind control a bunch of drones. Also, Martes has a huge hammer now.
The post-credits scene shows the Extractors back at their usual job, getting ready to rescue a cameoing Hachiro, who is finally ready to leave his own situation. M, now with a new look, supports the team over smartphone, and the series ends on an open, exciting note.
Incredibly, this isn’t the end for Estab Life on the whole. A mobile game is in development—though god knows if we’ll ever see it over here, see the still-in-limbo takt op. Destiny game for an example of that whole mess—and a film called Revengers’ Road. But until we meet the Extractors again, this is an excellent farewell.
Love Live Nijigasaki High School Idol Club – Season 2
“Don’t hide your brightness.”
At its core, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is an extremely simple anime. Almost everything it does is in service of its gleaming, utopian vision; a world where truly anyone can be a superstar, if only they wish to be. This is, I think, the Nijigasaki sub-franchise’s entire appeal, but it does leave only a fairly limited tract of ground on which to grow actual conflicts. One of the few that have come up over the second season is the friction between Lanzhu and the Idol Club themselves. Lanzhu’s solo performances have been a running background thread throughout the whole season, and her unwillingness to play ball with the Idol Club is one of the show’s few actual “unsolved problems,” as it were. In episode 9, the issue is laid to rest, in a decidedly Nijigasaki fashion.
We should talk at least briefly about Mia Taylor (Shuu Uchida), the American-born idol who serves as Lanzhu’s songwriter. The two are clearly close but exactly what their relationship is has been a little fuzzy, at least to me, up until this point. Likewise, I’ve personally had a little trouble connecting to Mia as a character. She’s rather arrogant, which is fine, but given that she herself doesn’t hasn’t sung up until this point (spoiler), it’s felt a little hollow to me, as opposed to Lanzhu’s very well-earned cockiness (which is itself a defense mechanism, but we’ll get to that).
Mia’s character is actually explored in detail for the first time here, and we learn that she feels the crushing weight of expectations from being in a legacy music family. The reason she doesn’t sing herself is that she’s afraid of not living up to those expectations, and in a flashback, a young Mia is literally drowned out by applause as she steps on stage to debut as a pianist before she can play even a single note. It’s effective stuff! And her dealing with her own issues helps Lanzhu deal with hers.
A line that comes up here is “as long as you desire to be a school idol, everyone will accept you.” This is, if generalized out, basically the entire thrust of the series. It’s a little awkward—at best—if applied to the real world, but within Nijigasaki‘s own unpoppable bubble universe, it makes perfect sense. All feelings spring from music, so there is no problem that music cannot solve.
So, when Mia performs her insert song, the entirely-in-English “stars we chase”, and it breaks down Lanzhu’s defenses and she is revealed as, at her core, a very lonely girl who struggles to empathize with or even understand other people, it makes an internal sense. Lanzhu is convinced not to leave Japan (which, yeah, that was her reaction to being shown up at the idol festival, to leave the country. Girl’s a bit dramatic!) and it’s strongly hinted at that this season, possibly even next episode, will see the debut of Lanzhu, Mia, and Shioriko’s unit. Personally, I cannot wait.
She said the line!
Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie
Until now, I’ve largely considered Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie a pretty good show. If I’d had to pick an operative adjective, “pleasant” would be it. Like a summer breeze or a sweet flower. Not something one is inclined to think about terribly deeply, but definitely a positive presence in one’s life.
But sometimes shows that are “just pretty good” get episodes that are much better than that. (Highlighting these was the original M.O. behind Twenty Perfect Minutes, although I abandoned that narrow premise fairly quickly.) Singling things out like this does always feel a little unfair to me, because it’s not like what Shikimori has been doing up to now has been at all bad, but it’s been fairly straightforward. Other than a certain sweetness and sentimentality, Shikimori-san has lacked terribly much emotional resonance. That’s not a flaw per se, but it’s notable absence.
This week’s episode, the show’s eighth, is a different story.
Last week we were introduced to supporting character Kamiya (Ayaka Fukuhara), a friend of Izumi’s from some time ago, and, as we then learned, also someone who harbors feelings for him. Kamiya, honestly, sort of seems like she’s in the wrong show, or maybe the wrong genre entirely. Reflecting on romantic feelings she now knows are hopeless, she imagines herself as an impostor Cinderella, with unfitting glass slipers and who never finds her Prince Charming. Near the episode’s midpoint, she says that some girls are inclined to wait for a savior on a white horse, and it’s pretty obvious that she’s talking about herself.
During these parts of the episode, the visuals take an overcast turn. Washed out and grey, reflective of Kamiya’s own feelings, and complimented by rain of a sort when she breaks down in Shikimori’s arms in the episode’s climax. It’s extremely dramatic, and even more notably so because this is still Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie that we’re talking about. You know, the silly gimmick romance anime where the whole plot is supposed to be that the girl with pink hair is “cool”? That one? Maybe it’s tragic, Doylistic destiny that she could never be the lead in this particular love story; her hair is a rainwater blue, after all. And the show isn’t called Kamiya Isn’t Just a Cutie.
There are solutions to this that could please all three people. Mostly those solutions involve the sort of honest communication that teenagers are unlikely to engage in, and concepts like polyamory that they are unlikely to know much about. Failed teenage romance is hardly the end of the world, but then again, when you are that age it certainly feels like it is. This episode resurrected in me feelings I have not properly contemplated in a long time; and I think everyone has those moments. What-could’ve-been’s that haunt the less-accessed corners of our mind like lonely ghosts.
As an icon of them, Kamiya slips through the school’s doors and between its classrooms, a tragic figure in a story that isn’t her own. There is warmth and humor and all of Shikimori‘s usual strengths throughout this episode too—this isn’t She, The Ultimate Weapon or anything—but in a way their presence just makes Kamiya’s story stand out all the more, a lone storm cloud in an otherwise blue sky.
The episode’s remainder focuses on Shikimori’s own dealing with these events. She gives Kamiya what comfort she can, and Kamiya makes a sort of peace with her situation. That, at least, is good, but even through all this, it’s never in question who the main character is, here.
It’s an impossibility, but I wish Kamiya happiness in life somewhere far removed from Izumi and somewhere far removed from both Shikimori and Shikimori. She deserves to be in a series that can accommodate her massive heart and her strength of emotion. She deserves an Utena or a Revue Starlight or at least a show that’s willing to do this sort of thing more often. But, of course, that’s silly. You can rerun the tape a thousand and one times, the footage on them will never change. She is Rosencranz or Guildenstern in a play that, as much positive as I’ve said about it, is certainly no Hamlet.
Watching this episode, I was made truly, presently aware of Shikimori‘s shortcomings—or at least what is absent from it—for the first time. Paradoxically, I think that’s only made me like it more. But even so, I am not sure if I’d be more hurt if the show never returned to Kamiya’s issues or if it did so again. I suppose I will find out eventually.
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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.
Anime Orbit Weekly is a weekly column where I summarize my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material.
Hello, anime fans. I don’t have much to say to you this week. I hope you enjoy the writeups below. I had a lot of fun writing about Birdie Wing this week in particular.
Seasonal Anime
Birdie Wing -Golf Girls Story-
If you’re anything like me, you started watching Birdie Wing not because it’s particularly good, but because it’s fucking ridiculous. I am pleased to report that, after a somewhat disappointingly tame (but admirably lesbian) past two episodes, Birdie Wing not only gotten its groove back, it’s also reached utterly stunning new heights of absurdity.
The episode begins with Aoi’s tournament-winning putt being interrupted by a laser pointer to the eye from one of Rose’s lackies. On its own, this is a mildly amusing Dick Dastardly-esque turn. To say things escalate does not do justice to what eventually transpires here.
Post-tournament, Rose immediately calls in the favor she used to get Eve into the tournament in the first place. That favor? She has to win another underground golf game. But not just any underground golf game. Oh no, not just any by a long shot.
This episode’s plot goes so far into pure ridiculousness that I feel tired just typing about it. Things start at, for Birdie Wing at least, normal. The job Eve is called into handle is merely the way that a brewing mob war between Rose’s “patron” Catherine and one of her rivals is being resolved. When one realizes that the term “underground golf” is here meant literally—as in, the golf course is subterranean—they might think “wow, this is pretty absurd. Definitely more so than anything that’s happened in Birdie Wing so far.”
They might have a few seconds to hold on to that thought before Catherine pushes a button and the entire course begins transforming like Autobot City into Metroplex.
They have a “randomize golf course” button! A button to randomize the physical golf course! Like it’s Pokémon and they’re loading in a ROMHack! The terrain is ripped apart, a random little lake is drained, and it reconfigures into a new and novel shape. I am so utterly thrilled to live on the same planet as the person who dreamed up this beautiful spot of true-blue total nonsense. It’s awesome.
And we haven’t even gotten to discuss Eve’s actual opponent yet. Meet Viper, or “Vipère” (Kaori Nazuka) as I will not be calling her because I don’t feel like pasting that accented E every time. Now, every important character in Birdie Wing is two things; one, obsessed with golf, and two, a lesbian. Viper adds a twist on the formula by being an evil golf lesbian, meaning that she’s uncomfortably pushy, wears a ton of perfume, and has a skimpy outfit. In any other show, I’d probably find this character, and her relentless advances on Eve (down to a wager wherein whoever loses has to do what the winner says for a whole day. Yikes.) rather off-putting.
Golfing!
I still kind of do, but it’s hard to entertain any thought of reality when the character in question is named Viper the Reaper. (Yes, she needs two menacing nicknames apparently.) And that she’s playing against our hero on a mighty morphin’ golf course that can bend into any shape its owner wants. I’m not a big advocate of the “turn your brain off” philosophy for campy bullshit—it’s not hard for something to be both entertainingly silly and meaningful—but in this particular case, it might help. If only to save yourself from psychic damage.
Oh, and I should also show you all her golf ball.
Of course there’s a two-headed snake stamped on it. Did you think there wouldn’t be? Have a little faith.
Viper cheats, of course. She’s the villain! Obviously, she cheats! But Eve is able to sniff out her strategy pretty quickly. Literally, because she cheats by having a perfume-scented tattoo that throws people off-balance just enough to disrupt their swings. She gets the perfume to diffuse by unzipping her top, which “explains” why she does that several times over the course of the episode. I want to really, really strongly stress that I am not making a word of this up. This happens. This is real. This is the actual plot of Birdie Wing.
The truly absurd thing is that there actually is a trickle of a genuine theme in here. Eve’s distaste for the bourgeois, despite playing perhaps the most rich-folk-only sport in the world, has become consistent enough that I’m convinced it’s part of the central point of the show. I sincerely hope that the series finale somehow involves Eve destroying golf as a concept and replacing it with something far better, more egalitarian, radical, and lesbian.
In any case, Eve wins after figuring Viper’s trick out, naturally, and her one order to Viper is for the evil snake golf lesbian to drive her to Nafrece Golf Course by 5am. So that she can meet Aoi for a final game before the latter goes back to Japan. (I neglected to mention that that’s a running B-plot throughout this episode. Can you blame me? There’s a lot going on.) She just barely misses Aoi, who is straight-up heartbroken. How do we know that? Well, Eve finds something on the golf course. I’ll let the series speak for itself here.
Golfing!
Even when Eve tries to prove that she got there by shooting golf balls at Aoi’s plane as it takes off, Aoi still screams and cries that she’s a liar. End episode, roll credits.
I’m tired of beating around the bush. There’s a lot of good to great stuff airing this season, but Birdie Wing might be the best. If it’s not, it’s at least in the conversation. What else is going this hard for so little reason right now? Nothing, and that’s why Birdie Wing can’t be beat.
The Executioner and Her Way of Life
Some anime’s strengths are subtle; their merits only become obvious either upon repeat viewings or prolonged contemplation. And then, on the other end of the scale, are those where just watching them can feel like repeated kicks to the ribs. Guess where The Executioner and Her Way of Life falls?
That breath-snatching immediacy is a very subjective thing, of course. But I feel it in a real and present way with Executioner. The most recent episode is, from start to finish, a slow-churning nausea in the stomach, the knowledge that something is about to go very awry, and then a chop to the throat when it finally does. Menou loses everything she’s held important, both new and old, in an instant, and the episode stops dead at the end of its run on what might be one of the most evil cliffhangers I’ve ever seen.
I don’t actually feel comfortable detailing the episode at length. I intend to cover the fallout of all this in more detail next week. For now, take this fiery impression as yet another recommendation to watch Executioner if you aren’t already.
Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club – Season 2
In which Karin and Ai try in vain to comfort a depressed girl.
I’m being flippant, but that really is what the plot of last week’s Nijigaskai High School Idol Club boils down to. One of Ai’s friends, recently recovered from some nonspecific long-term illness, is out and enjoying her freedom again. But oh, she’s sad because Ai’s become a successful singer while she was gone, and she feels left behind. Look: I’m sympathetic, I’m a blogger, I do not have an exciting life and I sometimes envy people who do more outwardly interesting things. That’s a valid feeling, and as a base for creating an interesting character, you could do some strong things with it.
The question is whether it works in the context of this show, as a mostly self-contained story that takes up the better part of its fourth episode. And the answer is no, because what this plays out as is everybody involved—Karin, Ai, Ai’s friend, whose name I have already forgotten—just kind of being a downer to each other for about 12 minutes. I could recap the specifics for you, but there’s really no point. None of this seems like it’s going to have a big impact on the series, none of it reveals anything new about Karin or Ai, and the girl in question is certainly not an interesting character on her own.
You have depression.
There’s also a bizarre B-plot wherein Ai tries to get Karin to form a group with her, which Karin initially doesn’t want to do. That seems like it might have lasting implications, and perhaps draws a parallel between Karin and Lanzhu. But it’s made a moot point at the end of the episode when they decide to group up anyway, under the pretense that they’re “rivals” on-stage, “competing with the same song.” That does not make any sense. You don’t need me to tell you that. It’s also totally unimpactful, since we only have known Karin feels this way for about half an episode by the time she changes her tune. Also; at one point, Karin tries to comfort Ai when her friend’s being down makes her consider quitting being an idol at all. Her approach here is hilariously dickish, and completely whiffs as an intended emotional moment.
Immediately after this scene Karin says that if Ai quits being an idol, she’ll steal all her fans, including her friend. This, somehow, is what gets Ai out of her funk. In a better context this could actually work. Here it mostly just seems like someone remembered they had to get these two on stage together by the end of the episode.
The good news is that the music itself is still there. The duo of Ai and Karin (yes, they team up anyway, despite all the talk. They even get some very sharp matching outfits) perform the insert song “Eternal Light” for the music video portion of the episode, under the name DiverDiva, and instantly it becomes pretty easy to forgive any missteps the show might be making. These, at least, are still consistent highlights, even if none have quite reached the highs of Setsuna’s total fucking barn-burner from season one yet.
For my money, if we want to indulge their “idol duo who are rivals” bit, Karin absolutely smokes Ai on the song. She just has the more powerful voice by a good margin and Ai’s admittedly dexterous rapping doesn’t really make up for that. But hey, I may be biased.
Eventually it all turns out fine, and Ai’s friend officially declares herself to be Ai’s fan also (which is a fucking weird thing to do, but whatever, it’s an idol series.) She redoubles her commitment to working overseas (in what capacity, we never learn), and says something about how Ai inspires her. That’s all fair enough, but we again run up against the problem of none of this seeming to much mean anything. Are we ever going to see this girl again? The last thing this show needs is more characters, especially if they’re totally extraneous.
After the credits roll, we’re quickly introduced to another new character who will presumably make her proper debut next week. She, though, is an actual idol—that’s not pointed out explicitly and, frankly, it doesn’t need to be, you can just tell from her two-tone hair and cocky attitude—and I feel like her contribution to the show will, by its end, massively dwarf that of Ai’s little friend here. (This is without mentioning other far more interesting running plot threads. Lanzhu’s inevitable upcoming face turn, Shioriko Mifune (Moeka Koizumi)’s likely eventually becoming an idol. ETC.)
Plot detours are normal for seasonal anime, so none of this spells the end for Nijigasaki as a series or even for this season of it specifically. I intend to find out today if this is merely a rough patch or the start of a recurring problem. (Nijigasaki actually airs on Saturdays, but, because of my schedule, I can rarely get to it earlier than Sunday evenings.)
Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie!
I won’t pretend I have a ton of value to say about Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie!, my obligatory after-the-season-starts pickup. It’s an entrant into the growing “romcom about a valid straight couple” genre, and one I like. It is, admittedly, a series of extremely limited ambitions. (Which only makes sense, given that it got its start as four-panel gimmick strips on Twitter.) But that actually works in Shikimori‘s favor, a lot of the time. The series is relentlessly pleasant enough that it almost operates on the same wavelength as an iyashikei anime. You turn it on, you enjoy the lovey-dovey vibes between main characters Izumi (Shuichirou Umeda) and the titular Shikimori (Saori Oonishi) for about 22 minutes, including whatever particular antics they get into this week (and there are certainly antics to be had), and then you turn it off. It’s not a particularly complicated show.
I mostly wanted to shout it out here for the most recent episode, which showcases two things I really like. One, and the more low-key of the two, is the show’s smart eye for set design. All of the places about town that our cast end up in feel tangible, yet nostalgic. The mall in particular is sure to trigger nostalgia for a lot of people.
Secondly, I really like the fact that every member of the cast seems to be casually bi. Izumi himself has mulled over the idea of his girlfriend as a boyfriend before, but this episode spotlights said bi vibes more directly with Nekozaki (Misato Matsuoka), who spends much of the flashback sequence she stars in freaking out over how hot she thinks Shikimori is.
And there’s a post-credits scene where Shikimori herself gets flustered by Izumi’s mom. (They take a cooking class together. It’s a long story.)
It’s very easy to be unkind to a romcom, as a queer critic. Especially one where the main couple are straight. And I have definitely seen my fair share that just make me want to puke. (An impression you could be forgiven for not getting from this blog, given that I don’t tend to write about anime I dislike and never finish.) But I do think that for what it’s trying to do—which is admittedly not much!—Shikimori is pretty good. My hope is that I can provide a bit of a counterbalance to the show’s small but definitely present antifandom. And if you’re not watching Shikimori, well, it’s a busy season so I certainly understand, but consider penciling it in if you want something to help you unwind.
Poor Ishigami can never seem to catch a break. I feel bad for the guy a lot of the time. Oh yeah; and the last part of the episode with Chika sleeping over at Kaguya’s place is great, too.
Fun fact: I believe this is the longest article title anything on this site has ever had. It’ll probably be a long while until something else breaks that record. Anyway, yeah, this manga is great. It’s got lesbians, cool fantasy nonsense, and swords. What else do you need?
And that’s all for this week, folks. See you tomorrow for the Healer Girl recap.
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 Directoryto 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.
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