Tag: anime

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) To The OTHERSIDE PICNIC and Back Again

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

What to make of Otherside Picnic? Named after a famous Russian novel to which it bears little resemblance, and drawing on a twenty year tradition of Japanese “net lore” for its inspiration, one might initially peg Otherside Picnic as a fairly heady, intellectual kind of horror story. But while it’s certainly creepy enough in its most unsettling moments to earn the genre tag, it’d be a mistake to box this one in as being solely for those with an SCP Foundation addiction.

A more proper indicator of where Otherside Picnic is coming from might actually be its opening theme. A rollicking, adventurous pop-rock tune with a romantic slant from accomplished anisongsters CHiCO with Honeyworks. Otherside isn’t not a horror series, but it’s important to consider what else it is; an adventure anime, and also a show with some pretty prolific lesbian subtext. It’s not at all dour, is what I’m getting at.

Instead, Otherside is a surprisingly breezy watch. It’s the story of Sorawo, a depressed college student who, through her vast knowledge of online urban legends, wanders through a gateway to another world; the titular otherside. When we meet her, she’s lying flat on her back in a puddle, pursued by a mind-invading monster known as a kunekune¹, and about to accept her imminent death. What, or rather who, saves her is a gun-toting Canadian-Japanese woman named Toriko, who she quite quickly develops a very obvious crush on.

Like, very obvious.

Otherside Picnic follows the two, as they grow closer, make trips to and from the Otherside, and contend with the many strange creatures that live there. Sorawo often gives a brief rundown of what these things are, which is helpful if you, like me, only have a pretty limited knowledge of Japanese creepypastas. The “net legend” angle is a big part of the setting’s appeal, so if the idea of even something as out there as the bizarre and disturbingly violent “monkey train dream” getting a nod appeals to you, the series is a must-watch.

Really, I was surprised at how much I liked Otherside Picnic in general. Horror isn’t really my genre, but Sorawo is just the right kind of relatable reserved nerd. (Although I will admit, the one thing the series is missing from the light novels is her delightfully gay inner monologues about how attractive she finds Toriko.) Her character arc over the course of the series is fairly simple, as she starts out as said reserved nerd and by the final episode, having along the way developed what are essentially magic powers, and having been through so much with Toriko is, well, decidedly no longer that.

On a less literal level, the series also hums a simple theme of the importance of finding people who you just vibe with. In the finale, this is all but stated outright, as Sorawo and Toriko both recount how the other saved them. It gives Otherside Picnic a point, adding some substance to its afternoon anime binge-friendly nature.

Much of the rest of the fun of the series comes from setting details or technical aspects. The monster design is quite strong, and combined with the often surprisingly good animation², this carries the series’ weaker episodes. There’s also quite a few running sub-plots tucked in to the show’s single cour. These range from fairly serious (a lost group of US Marines who the pair eventually rescue), to clear set-up for seasons yet to come (Sorawo’s apparent and only briefly touched-on ability to not-quite mind control people, the late-game introduction of minor character Akari), to the just plain odd (there’s an episode about cats who are ninjas) or funny (the pair accidentally buy a multi-purpose miniature harvester on a drunken spending binge at one point).

It’s hard to imagine that Otherside Picnic will exactly change anyone’s life, but like last year’s Dorohedoro, it’s strong genre fare in a genre that is under-represented in mainstream TV anime. That it is perhaps only the second-best anime of the Spring 2021 season to revolve around a heterochromiac who travels to an otherworld that also has a lot of queer subtext speaks more to the strength of the competition than it does any problems with Otherside. This is a series I could see getting sequel seasons for years, frankly, as there is a lot of unadapted material and a lot of mysteries left unexplored. Perhaps if we’re lucky, that will be the anime’s eventual fate. Either way, there’s a lot to love about a brief trip to the Otherside.

1: The subtitles somewhat astoundingly refer to these things as “wiggle-waggles”, which is pretty damn funny.

2: Surprising because this is a LIDENFILMS production. I’m not an expert on the company by any means, but what I’ve seen from them has traditionally had outright bad animation. While the CGI used for some distance shots won’t impress anyone anytime soon, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it looked at other times.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work for The Geek Girl Authority.

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) Everywhere and Nowhere in SIMOUN

This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by S.F. Sorrow. Many thanks, as always.

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

The gender binary works for almost no person on Earth. The national war machines of the world, even fewer. In the abstract sense; Simoun is about this simple pair of facts, and how they relate to the broader systems that define our lives. Moreover, it is about how those systems can be dealt with; through adaption, rejection, self-sacrifice, self-love, and self-knowledge.

It’s possible I’m betraying a small reference pool here, but I find Simoun a true original. I’m guilty of overusing terms like “unusual” and I call enough anime “a bit of a weird one” that you could conceivably make a drinking game out of it while reading my blog. But qualifiers like “a bit” are unnecessary here. I don’t think I’ve seen much else even remotely like Simoun. Frankly, I struggle for reference points. “A shoujo-inflected political war drama with gender identity issues” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And indeed, Simoun is defined by some very unusual stylistic tentpoles.

We have here a deliberately slow and ponderous pace, sketchbook fantasy architecture, a decidedly odd setting with flying vehicles rendered in airbrushed mid-aughts CGI (the titular simouns themselves), and a surprisingly complex….well, complex of fantastic gender roles and associated dynamics. All this is soundtracked, naturally, with a combination of very of-its-time canned breaks and four-on-the-floor rhythms, and a shocking amount of violins. It’s a lot to take in.

At its heart, Simoun is both the story of its cast, all of whom are young girls in a military unit called the Chor Tempest, and how they are affected both by the social systems that they live in and each other. If that sounds a bit heady, that’s because Simoun itself often leans that way. This is a show with a lot on its mind, and it spends all twenty-six of its episodes pouring it out.

Getting into the nitty-gritty of what Simoun is about requires first explaining a facet of its worldbuilding. Though I called the show’s protagonists “young girls” in the previous paragraph, that’s not actually entirely correct. Simoun‘s cast consists mostly of young people belonging to a social caste of their country, The Theocracy of Simulacrum, called sibyllae (singular: sibylla) who are perhaps best thought of as being a kind of nonbinary, although even this is, admittedly, a simplification. Sibyllae pilot the titular simouns, both as ritual instruments in their role as priestesses and as weapons of war in an ongoing conflict with first one and then two other powers; the Archipelago of Argentum and The Plumbum Highlands. Two pilots occupy each simoun, in a bond called a “pair” that is both tactical and emotional. Sometimes merely friendly, other times romantic. On a few occasions it’s even adversarial.

Once they reach maturity, sibyllae (and indeed, all of Simulacrum’s citizens) are expected to retire from their role and visit a magic fountain, where they will choose to either become male or “remain” (the terminology is somewhat odd, but can probably be chalked up to the age of the series) female. Alternately, if they are uncommitted, they can have the fountain itself (via its representative, a priestess figure named Onashia) choose for them. Much ceremony surrounds this, and the reasons individual sibyllae give for their choice varies wildly; some want to remain with their simoun pair or some other romantic interest and thus choose to become male, others seek specific jobs more associated with one gender than another, and so on.

In the series’ second episode, a sibylla named Elly has the fountain choose her gender for her. We don’t see much, but we learn as she does that she is to become male. Almost immediately, she cries out in anguish and breaks down crying. A lack of commitment on the part of someone who is still essentially a child is punished by being forced into a role that does not fit her and that she is not happy with. To say it’s “hard to watch” is an understatement. It’s horrifying. And it’s one Simoun calls back to more than once over the course of its run. It is the first major indication that all of these invented systemics are buildup to a real core, not just aesthetics or aimless experimentation.

The sibyllae occupy a role that has no direct, obvious real-world counterpart, which has the benefit of halting any preconceived notions on the part of the viewer. Any notions that do form will be quickly picked apart by the characters themselves. Almost to a one, every character in the show has a distinct opinion of the syballae, none moreso than the pilots themselves. Some see the sibyllae primarily as priestesses and lament the combat role they’ve had to take up in wartime. For others, such as Mamina, it’s the entire point; a chance to prove oneself and rise above one’s station. Others still, such as Aeru, who is probably the closest thing Simoun has to a proper protagonist, primarily serve in order to avoid the inevitability of the fountain.

Some are just as lost as the audience; Neviril, around whom much of the series revolves, is engaged with a desperate search for purpose after the loss of her partner in the first episode. This is all without even mentioning the complex and thorny dynamic of having a bunch of children who are essentially miko pilot the simoun themselves. Given that the vehicles are, when deployed at their full strength, functionally magical nuclear bombers. These are just some of the many issues that Simoun picks at numerous times over the course of its run.

It’s unsurprising then that tonally, Simoun is iron and rain. The foggy atmosphere tints the deep regret, unrequited love, and crises of faith that permeate the series. As it progresses, conflicting ideals of religious and noble duty clash with those of militaristic nationalism, the individuals that espouse these ideas caught in between. Simoun is heavy as lead. This is not a show you watch for fun.

This means that the show does have a few, not weaknesses exactly, but quirks. The way it handles big emotional moments is almost more reminiscent of dramatic theater than anything else. But make no mistake, that stately sense of gravitas is absolutely capable of sending chills up the spines of the unprepared. It’s a trait the series shares with some other big-picture war dramas, your Gundams and such, making it the thing that most easily places Simoun within the obvious broader context of its medium.

As for actual weaknesses, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Simoun something of a slog. It’s not pointless, which is what that term usually implies, but it is definitely not anyone’s idea of a breezy watch. There are very few moments of emotional catharsis or even many pleasant interludes during the entire run of the show, these only really coming to fruition in Simoun‘s final half dozen episodes. It works well with the series’ thematic core, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach on a moment to moment basis and I must confess my millennial ADHD brain found itself struggling to keep my attention focused on the screen at times. It’s almost impressive, given that Simoun is only a fairly short 26 episodes. Simoun also looks very much of its time. I grew to appreciate its mid-2000s charm over the course of watching it, but I would be unsurprised if others were less charitable.

So those are the ups and downs. It is fair then to ask where all of this goes, and the truth is that Simoun‘s greatest strength is that by spending all of that time on worldbuilding and similar details, it earns an incredible amount of leeway to take the entire thing wherever it pleases. Simoun‘s true core thesis then, is wonderful. The series broadly rejects all notion of heroic narrative; the ostensible main military conflict fizzles out with four episodes left to go. Its’ finale is not about any grand confrontation, but about how the sibyllae who remain deal with the end of the war, and consequently the end of their special relevance to the Theocracy.

All of this is broadly a metaphor for coming of age. A thematic line that many anime explore, but Simoun‘s closest compatriot, at least from my own pool of knowledge, is none other than Revolutionary Girl Utena. The two share something that looks like fatalism from a distance but is both more practical and more resonant up close. Unlike many other anime, Simoun offers no dramatic moment of breaking the system. The system, in a way, wins, in that it continues to exist even after the war. The sibyllae’s own choices are where the revolution lies; for many, to go to the fountain, for one, to replace Onashia as its keeper, and for two, something far stranger, and not unlike Utena and Anthy’s great escape at the end of their own series’ film. It is a revolution not of the world, but the self.

One could argue that this thesis is incomplete, maybe even irresponsible. I would counter that no single work of art is obligated to depict all aspects of the human condition on its own. We need lovers as much as fighters, and Simoun is decidedly for the former. This school of thematic material lives on in anime to this very day for that exact reason.

For the flaws it admittedly does have, Simoun‘s final catharsis is wonderfully well-earned. The hours of our lives tick on, and somewhere far beyond them spin two eternal maidens, in a land of hope and dance.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

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, Misc. Anime, Reviews

Ranking Every 2020 Anime (That I Actually Finished), From Worst to Best – Part 1

It’s always a weird thing to have to write about why you didn’t like something. I’m a big believer in the idea that positive criticism is both more important and more difficult than negative. Yet, the format of the list means that we’re starting with several anime that I consider the very worst of the year (and indeed these first two entries are….not what I’d call favorites, we’ll put it that way). It admittedly makes me a bit nervous, because negativity is not my preferred mode of criticism.

Yet, at the same time. I think that even bad anime can expand one’s frame of reference and provide interesting insights into the medium in general. My hope is that this first part of the list does the same for you.

#20: The Day I Became A God

As I write this, it’s been about half an hour since I finished The Day I Became A God. This is the second-to-last anime I needed to finish for this list (the entire thing, all four parts), and I really, genuinely did not think I’d be adding something this far down this late in the game. I have to rewrite the opening sentence of my next entry, which in its current draft now-falsely claims that it is the only anime on this list to make me genuinely angry. That’s no longer true! Frankly, The Day I Became A God‘s final three episodes are so far and away the worst television period that I have watched this year that it’s made me see every subsequent entry on this list in a better light.

To talk about the latest from Jun Maeda and his colleagues at Key, we need to talk about how it starts. Because understanding how The Day I Became A God transforms from a pretty solid slice of life comedy with a supernatural edge into one of the most galling, maudlin, hacky attempts at a make-you-cri-everytiem love story that I have ever seen requires understanding how we got here. Or rather how we didn’t.

The Day I Became A God concerns Hina, alias Odin. It feels like a lifetime ago that the character was introduced to us as a blithe esper with the power to know anything. The first two thirds of the series chiefly concern her adventures with Youta, the inoffensively bland everydude protagonist. They do fun things like cheat at mahjong and help a ramen restaurant turn its fortunes around. It’s hardly groundbreaking, but it’s good fun, and if that were what we were discussing here this series would be assured a comfortable spot somewhere in this list’s mid-section with all the other solid genre anime.

Jun Maeda’s signature as a writer–so I’m told, anyway–is to build up the relationship between the characters and you, the audience, with this kind of every day life fun. Then, near the series’ end, some sort of Sword of Damocles will drop, the drama will hit, and tears will flow. Indeed, I knew this going in to The Day I Became A God, and am familiar with the device from the only other work of his I’ve seen–Angel Beats!, an anime I actually like quite a lot. The show even appears to foreshadow this; the anime’s other core premise is that Hina can sense that the world will end in thirty days.

So, fair play, right? Why am I mad?

If only this show dealt with something as interesting as apocalypse. Instead, for its final third, through a series of plot contortions so mind-bogglingly ridiculous that I will not recount them here, Hina is abducted by a shadowy government organization and has the source of her powers, a machine in her brain, removed. It’s revealed to us that, actually, Hina was severely physically and mentally disabled this entire time. (Because of a fictional Anime Illness, of course. God forbid you give your disabled characters any actual condition.) It was only the sci-fi magic of the machine that was allowing her to do what she did with Youta and friends, in addition to being the source of her omniscience. Are you crying yet?

The Day I Became A God‘s final three episodes are not just bad, they’re slimy. I actively felt repulsed by 11 and 12 especially. I absolutely loathe calling things “cringey”, but I physically winced at the screen during scenes in which (through another series of plot contortions) Youta, woefully-unqualified, tries to return her to his home where she lived for most of the series by posing as a physical therapist. These episodes go through great pains to portray Hina as pitiable because she is largely nonverbal and physically handicapped. In a particularly insidious twist, the show frames Youta’s generally ridiculous actions as being somehow, secretly, what Hina “wants”. It is a framing that cannot help but feel gross, ableist, and exploitative.

The finale, in which her actual doctor lets her return with Youta and the gang watches a student film they shot during the series’ first half (pointedly, when Hina was still verbal and able-bodied), feels like having this nonsense rubbed in your face. One has to go back a solid ten years, to 2010’s Occult Academy, to find a series that suffers a drop in writing quality this precipitous in its final 90 minutes. Even then, I think this example is genuinely worse.

I am left to wonder; who is this for? I make no secret of the fact that I am a massive sap, but the tearful reunions in the final episode of The Day I Became A God did absolutely nothing for me. My eyes remained dry, my fingers drummed in irritation on my desk, and I could only feel relief that the show was over.

Maeda has said he intended to create “the saddest anime ever” with this series. The only thing he succeeded at was making one that is profoundly frustrating, disappointing, objectionable, and, frankly, insulting to its audience. I considered cutting this series some slack with its placement here; after all, those first two thirds do still exist. But I actually think that they make the finale even worse. By the end of The Day I Became A God, all of my goodwill and any endearment I felt toward any of its characters had been sandblasted away by one of the most colossally inept TV anime endings in recent memory. All involved can–and should–do better.

#19: Sing “Yesterday” For Me

The operative word for Sing “Yesterday” For Me is “unfortunate”. This is another one with a promising start that slowly careens into an unsatisfying finish. It’s not quite a worst-case scenario for adapting old material into new anime, but it’s close.

But let’s start with the positives, because despite what that sentiment might imply, I can easily imagine why people who aren’t me might like the series. “Yesterday”‘s earthy, grounded visual style and accompanying soundtrack give it an aesthetic sense that is a genuine treat. Plus, it helps make the show’s slow narrative go down more easily than it might otherwise. It also has its moments of self-awareness, such as in an episode about a photographer whose obsession with one of the female leads, high school girl Haru, parallels protagonist Uozumi’s own.

So what’s wrong with it? Nothing and everything.

“Yesterday”‘s entire premise rubs me the wrong way. What is markedly worse is that through no one’s fault but my own, it took me the entire length of the series to realize this. (You can find material on this very blog where I praise the series, in fact.) Saying I have something of an irrational grudge against this anime wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

“Yesterday” is ostensibly the story of the aforementioned Rikuo Uozumi, a young adult working a dead-end job, and two potential love interests; Haru Nonaka and a former classmate who is now a teacher, Shinako Morinome. To its credit, both Haru and Shinako feel like fully-fledged characters. While their relationship (or lack thereof) with Uozumi does dominate their arcs, it dominates the entire plot, so that only makes sense. The real issue is pretty simple; Uozumi is a college graduate, and while Shinako is his age, Haru is a narratively-convenient eighteen. After much hemming and hawwing over the course of the series, Uozumi and Haru kiss in the final episode. Roll credits.

Fundamentally, even if you don’t find age gaps creepy, the way Uozumi treats Haru until the closing fifteen or so minutes of the final episode gives every indication that he’s going to end up with Shinako, despite what is framed as a somewhat childish fixation on Haru. But if this were merely a case of bait-and-switch or of one’s preferred Best Girl not winning, it’d be a minor gripe at most. The back half of the show’s final episode throws everything the narrative has been building toward wildly out of whack. The series’ real, actual problem then, is that like so many romance anime, it ends where it should begin.

The idea of a college grad who is finally starting to pursue his photography dreams after waking up from the torpor of the layabout life while having to juggle a relationship with someone years younger than him is wildly interesting. It’s also arguably super weird, but that’s an angle a story can work with. Why does Sing “Yesterday” For Me take so long to get to what is by far the most interesting development in its story, and then just end?

There are no answers, at least none for me. I have spoken to others who enjoyed the series and a common view I find is that the series is about building up to lifechanging moments, to sudden pivot points from which there is no return. More power to the folks who can find it in them to read the series this way, but I cannot. Thinking back, I find myself craving a more properly developed drama. I can only consider “Yesterday” a disappointment.

#18: The God of High School

I’m genuinely not trying to be meanspirited with these first few entries, because I fully acknowledge that making any anime requires an immense amount of talent from many people all working in concert. It’s a process I could never be involved with and I do genuinely respect anyone in the industry grind, no matter what the end result is.

So with all that said; what on earth do you say about something like The God of High School? The God of High School is not really what I’d call a bad anime, and despite its abundance of hyper-compressed shonen cliche I’d say it’s still fun enough on a moment to moment basis. But it really is the sort of series that one struggles to describe not because it’s particularly inscrutable but because anything you could say about it also applies to many other, better-known (and just better) anime. For instance; I could tell you that it’s a tournament arc-heavy series where the protagonist lacks much characterization beyond a desire to fight and is loosely based on Sun Wukong, but you might then assume I’m talking about Dragon Ball Z. Other aspects of the series similarly feel so heavily indebted to its predecessors that saying anything positive (or even neutral) about it that couldn’t easily be mistaken as praise for Dragon Ball or Bleach or Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure or almost any other shonen series is extraordinarily difficult.

The issue is just that The God of High School feels very much like what it is, which is an animated adaption of a webcomic written by a shonen junkie. Consequently, while it’s fun in the places where it truly lets itself cut loose (such as the more out-there fight scenes), it feels dreadfully anonymous much of the rest of the time, and even when it is firing on all cylinders the breakneck pace of the adaption means it’s generally for only a couple minutes at a time. There are worse things to be than a decent way to burn six hours, but as it further recedes into the rearview I’ve come to realize I cannot imagine I’ll ever watch even a second of it again. And more than any other show on this list, I can even less imagine what a diehard fan of The God of High School would look like. If this is more indicative of the quality of what’s to be produced under the Crunchyroll Originals banner than a certain other Webtoon adaption that shows up elsewhere on this list, that is really not a great sign for future CR Original material. I would like to think it’s an outlier.

#17: 22/7

Maybe it’s unfair to call 22/7 disappointing. Yet, looking back on it a few months removed from its airing that’s the adjective that first springs to mind. 22/7 seemed poised to offer something interrogative and worthy of thought; early episodes gave the impression of building up to some kind of grand reveal, positioning the series as something of a would-be Madoka for the idol girl group anime genre. Whether through deliberate misdirection or just too-high expectations on some part of its audience, it never got there. Instead, as weeks stretched into months, it simply gradually ran out of steam until limping across the finish line at the end of its season.

Even setting that aside though, 22/7‘s command of character writing is pretty limited. Every character arc is hamstrung by the show’s bizarre editing, which likes to cut backward and forward, interweaving flashbacks with scenes of the present day. It seems likely that this is supposed to draw a deliberate contrast; how our idols got from where they were to where they are. Instead, it generally makes episodes thematically and tonally incoherent. Even the best of them (such as Jun’s focus episode) are often hamstrung by dicey writing. At its worst, as in episodes revolving around more minor and frankly less-interesting characters like Reika, it hauls in hoary sexist ideas of what an idol should be that feel stuck in the ’80s. It’s impossible to prove that these somehow stem from the involvement of industry oldguardsman Yasushi Akimoto, but his presence in the background of the series’ production does not incline me to charitable interpretations of the 22/7‘s flaws.

The show does have its positives, of course. It’s generally nicely-animated and sometimes well-directed, especially in the case of the aforementioned Jun episode, and it has solid character interactions even if the arcs are not particularly strong. But I think if 22/7 the series survives in the collective cultural conscience at all, it won’t be through the lens of the show itself. 22/7 is also an actual idol group, and their music ranges from solid to, at its best, fantastic. The melodramatic cloud of black smoke they turned in for the show’s opening theme–a cheery number about how life is hard and no one understands each other called “Muzui” or “It’s Difficult”–remains one of my favorite pop songs of 2020, and I found myself returning to it many times over the course of this difficult year. Far more time than I ever spent appreciating the series it’s a theme to. 22/7 the group have a bright future. 22/7 the anime is best left in the past.

#16: Burn The Witch

Burn The Witch is a weird one, for one several reasons. It’s not a TV series, for one thing (the only such entry on this list), and it’s in the odd position of being the adaption of just the first few chapters of its source material. Something that would likely have never happened were the writer of said source material not Tite Kubo. The man most famous for the polarizing–but undeniably very successful–Bleach. Burn The Witch has a lot of things going for it. It’s animated by Studio Colorido, and being made as a three-episode special means that it’s never less than great to look at, and the fights in particular here are superb. The worldbuilding is goofy but in a fun sort of way; you know that things are off to a good start when we get a made-up statistic about dragon-related deaths in London right off the top. Our two protagonists, Noel and Ninny, are also quite fun to follow, each in their own way. Even the show’s magic system is a good time, more anime could stand to experiment with goofy horn-guns as their weapons of choice.

So all that said, why isn’t this higher up (or, well, lower down, one supposes) on the list? Well, not to repeat myself, but Burn The Witch has a man-shaped millstone hanging around its neck.

It’s really hard to overstate how much of a problem male lead Balgo Parks is, as a character. He’s sexist, he’s obnoxious and he’s everywhere. He completely kills the fun any time he’s on-screen, and he’s on-screen all the time. It’s a terrible, terrible problem for an otherwise solid OVA to have, because every second he’s there he’s cutting into the actually enjoyable parts of it, and ultimately, he ruins it. Time will tell if this applies to any further adaptions of Burn The Witch we get (and it’d be surprising if we didn’t get at least a season or two of a TV series), but I certainly hope it doesn’t.

#15: Gleipnir

Grisly, grody, sometimes flat-out exploitative seinen adaption that’s a mess from top to bottom. I feel like if I were a more “respectable” commentator on the medium I’d hate this show. But I’m not, so I don’t. I wouldn’t say I like it either, exactly, but it’s definitely the entry in this part of the list I have the most nice things to say about.

Gleipnir‘s been a part of my life for an unusually long time compared to the rest of the entries on this list. I first read the manga (which I markedly did not care for) back in 2017. When I heard of an anime adaption premiering this year I was curious to see if it’d be improved at all by the change in medium, and, admittedly, I was hoping that if it didn’t, it’d at least be a fun thing to riff on with friends.

To a point, that is exactly what I got. Gleipnir‘s idiosyncrasies too often fall on the bad side of good taste for me to really call it great. There are too many offputting shots of the show’s female lead in her underwear covered in fluid, weird problematic or just straight-up uncomfortable elements (a centipede demon from the show’s 2/3rds mark springs to mind as an example) for that to be the case. And its male lead is the kind of shonen-protagonist-but-edgier that just doesn’t leave you with a ton to work with most of the time.

But nonetheless, there’s just something about this series. Maybe it’s the surprisingly good action direction and atmosphere, which is certainly a credit to both director Kazuhiro Yoneda and his team at PINE JAM in general. The man has episode direction credits on the grandfather of 2010s trainwreck anime; Code Geass R2. While I can’t prove that the experience somehow uniquely equipped him to deal with Gleipnir‘s ridiculously up and down source material, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Over the course of its single cour Gleipnir manages to, in spots, eke out some surprisingly affecting character writing, has a downright haunting final few episodes, and, as mentioned, some great fight scenes. An example in the final episode might still be one of my favorites of the year as it unites both the show’s literal reality and its thematic core of relying on others to compensate for your weaknesses and confronting your demons in a way that it otherwise struggles to articulate. Gleipnir‘s central issue is its tendency to get in its own way, but that’s hardly a rare problem for the medium.

I don’t know if a second season would fix (or even mitigate) that problem, but Gleipnir is the only anime in this part of the list where if one were released I’d be interested in watching it. That must count for something, surely.

And thus we finish the “unpleasant but necessary” part of the list. Still, even among these unlucky few there is not a single one among them I actually regret watching, not even The Day I Became A God. I have said many times that part of what draws me to anime as a medium is its infinite capacity for surprise. That surprise is not always pleasant! But you take the bad with the good.

Speaking of the good, I will see you in Part 2 when it goes live. Happy Holidays!

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

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

Ranking Every 2020 Anime (That I Actually Finished), From Worst to Best – Introduction

Before I start, let’s take a moment to breathe.

What a year it’s been, am I right or am I right?

I think I speak for a lot of my readerbase when I say that 2020 has been the most taxing, challenging, and just flat-out exhausting year of our lives. Finding the time and energy to devote to experiencing, thinking about, and talking about art this year was not always easy. But by the same token, I’d say that a lot of the reason I’m handling it as decently as I am is because of said art. This is hardly unique to me; many critics, commentators, bloggers, and journalists have spoken about the importance of their medium(s) of choice this year.

To that end, rather than simply doing a Top 5, or a “Best and Worst”. I decided I would rank the anime I’ve seen in 2020, from worst to best. I’ve only seen twenty shows this year, which is not that many, in the grand scheme of things. But it’s enough that writing just one article was…not feasible, and as such, this post here will link to the four articles constituting the four parts of the list. Why worst to best? Well, I think it makes for a better dramatic arc, mostly. But also because even the shows I liked the least this year played a part in helping me keep myself together. It’s not an exaggeration to say that anime has helped my emotional state this year more than it ever has in my life.

I tried not to sweat the minutiae of placement too much; while last and first place are definitely where they belong, some stretches in the middle are occupied by shows that I’d say I liked about equally. So it goes!

Not present are non-serial anime (with apologies to music videos like “Ruru’s Suicide Show“ and “Study Me“ and shorts like Puparia) and, obviously, things I didn’t see or didn’t finish. (Which, those range from Akudama Drive to Healin’ Good Precure and everything in-between.) What it does include are 21 20* shows that, despite everything, I believe all have some merit, and are all worth talking about. Some of these writeups are short, a few are very long, some are more informal, and for others I endeavored to look at them through a more focused lens. Some lean heavily on personal experience, others, uh, don’t. Variety is the spice of life.

And of course, we’re required to use terms like “worst” and “best” because for a critic it is generally expected that one use the language of objectivity. I don’t really believe in that in the arts, and I don’t think most of my readerbase does either, but I feel the need to clear up any possible misconception nonetheless. This whole list is, obviously, of course, only my own opinions, thoughts, and observations. As says the disclaimer at the bottom of every Magic Planet Anime article.

But enough beating around the bush. Here is the list, divided into four parts for your reading pleasure. In order to stagger things out (and because I’m not done with some of the writeups on some of the better anime here), I’ll be rolling out one part per day over the next several days, starting with Part 1 today (December 27th, if you’re reading this in the future). Hopefully I will be able to finish by the new year! I hope, also, that you find some tiny crumb of insight, interest, or just plain enjoyment from these walls of words.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

*I made an embarassing fencepost error when writing up the list, which is why not all four parts of the list have five entries each. I think it’s been fixed now. Whoops.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

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) Shadows on The Sun: The Forgotten Flames of DAY BREAK ILLUSION

All of my reviews contain spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

I’ll be the light that breaks the sky.

In modern tarot fortune telling, a card being dealt inverted is generally a bad sign. A portent of something ill, or at the very least, great obstacles to be overcome. This perhaps explains Day Break Illusion, an anime that uses tarot as a motif and often feels like a dark mirror of a traditional magical girl series. Generally regarded as the first of the “Madoka Clones” in its day, it was rarely given much of a chance. It’s dimly remembered, seven years on, and many who do remember it don’t seem to hold it in high regard. Yet, I found myself oddly drawn to this series. Maybe it was the stylish character designs. Maybe it was that middling reputation–I do have something of a contrarian streak with certain things, after all. After I watched the first episode, the opening theme–a soaring ode to bitter defiance in the face of impossible odds–was definitely a factor. 

No matter why, I found myself taken in by Day Break Illusion almost immediately. Perhaps because how despite its reputation, it feels like it has much more in common with a “straight” magical girl anime than it does Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

More specifically, it often feels like a particularly black take on a Pretty Cure season. Where that franchise is, thematically, generally a celebration of female youth, Day Break Illusion is a depiction of a loss of innocence and an examination of how the pain that comes from that might be overcome, or at least dealt with. It is not a happy series, and it is certainly not for the faint of heart. It is also the rare anime I’ve seen that I would call deconstructive, in that in the process of not being a “traditional” magical girl series, it helps define what one is, both in the breaks in tradition it makes and what it chooses to hold on to.

In brief: Day Break Illusion is the story of magical girls who wield the power of tarot cards and channel them into elemental powers. Our lead is Akari, who wields The Sun. The series goes through no pains to pretend her story will be a happy one. In the very first episode she loses her cousin Fuyuna, who becomes a Daemonia, this show’s version of the various baddies that populate Pretty Cure, Sailor Moon, and so on. This awakens her card, and she is brought to a magical school to become part of a team with three other students: Luna (The Moon), Seira (The Stars), and Ginka (Temperance), with whom she must learn to fight, and to deal with her unique gift; the ability to hear the cries of the Daemonia. Throughout the series’ thirteen episodes, the girls learn about each other, they have conflicts, they grow closer, and they suffer. 

That last part is actually surprisingly important. It’s easy to read Day Break as doing what it does for shock value. But while its bevy of cribbed horror anime tropes, weird digital visual effects, monsters begging to be killed, and even a few particularly nasty sequences that both draw on and snipe at the imagery of certain noxious kinds of hentai, are all both a lot in the dramatic sense and quite the emotional assault, they almost never feel pointless. This is important, and in the realm of the “dark mahou shoujo” series, is what separates the wheat from the chaff. 

That long, arduous ride through the dark night of the soul is what, I imagine, gives the show its polarizing reputation. Day Break Illusion is a good series, but it’s also a rough watch, and it plays its cards (pardon the pun) close to its chest until the very end. Perhaps I’m simply naïve, but I genuinely did not not know until the series’ closing episode if the misery of the final arc would pay off in any way. It does, but the journey there is fraught. Combine this with the lead villain’s goal being to–his words–”mate with” Akari in order to bring about a new species of super-Daemonia, and certainly, Day Break Illusion is a show that it is easy to read uncharitably. 

And I might well be in that crowd if the anime’s character building were less delicate and if its refutation of the world’s most predatory ills felt less pointed. Cerebrum, the aforementioned lead villain, is a bad guy in almost every sense of both of those words. The emotional manipulation he puts the cast through is often reminiscent of actual tactics used by real abusers despite its fantastical nature, and the parallel feels intentional. With this in mind, the show’s harder-to-swallow points–the blood, re-contextualized horror and H-adjacent imagery, the juxtaposition of all of this and the fact that it’s a magical girl series, and even just the storyline itself–begin to make much more sense. As do the ways that this ties into one of the show’s other main themes: self-acceptance.

Each of the four leads has a central flaw that is the source of their woes. It is confronted, admitted as part of the self, and reckoned with. In this way, Day Break Illusion often feels like a strange, shadow universe take on a specific Pretty Cure season, HeartCatch, which dealt with that same theme of self-acceptance. The difference is in execution, but drawing on some of the same thematic material places Day Break Illusion in conversation with the broader genre even as it stands perpendicular to it. 

So if another series, one that has more universal appeal, already exists and explores the same territory in the same genre and, arguably, does it better, what need is there for Day Break Illusion? 

Well, my theory resides in the show’s hardest sell: that dark nature itself. As we grow older, we become accustomed to the ills of the world. Magical girl anime, by and large, deal with simplified versions of such problems. This isn’t a flaw in the genre; children need stories they can relate to and for adults such stories serve as an important narrative place of healing. The key difference is that Day Break Illusion, by bringing the subject matter closer to home, closer to what is for us genuinely scary, functions to adults in the same way that those very anime do for children, by using this much more intense nature to raise the stakes, and produce an (ideally) even greater catharsis at its end. In the show’s own words; dark days help us appreciate the Sun. 

For every horrific moment in the series; every bit of slow-motion nightmare logic, every turn-key tension-building piece of music, every fright, every shock, Day Break Illusion ends happily. Not happily ever after, but with enough light left in the world that its cast both can and choose to carry on. 

In this way; Day Break Illusion absolutely deserves to be mentioned alongside more traditional genre touchstones. It is true that it lacks the same near-universal appeal of more straightforward magical girl anime, but what it doesn’t have there, it makes up for in its astounding belief in the power of the human spirit. Akari, who goes through so much, reminds me a bit of another orange-haired magical girl often compared to the Sun: Hibiki Tachibana of Symphogear, an anime that uses some of the same techniques as Day Break, to even greater effect. Day Break Illusion never found that series’ popular success, but maybe it didn’t need to. Sometimes all that needs to be done is to listen, and if you’re willing, Day Break Illusion has a lot to say.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

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, Twenty Perfect Minutes

Twenty Perfect Minutes – ReCREATORS Episode 1: The Wonderful Voyage

Twenty Perfect Minutes is an irregular column series where I take a look at single specific anime that shaped my experience with the medium, were important to me in some other way, or that I just really, really like.

“You made this crazy world. I’m stuck between the two….”

Re:CREATORS was a weird little blip in mainstream seasonal TV anime. I’m fond of the show–more than many other people are, from what I’ve gathered–but it’s definitely an odd and sideways take on the action anime genre. The “reverse isekai” is arguably more of a part with fellow ’10s genre subversion work like Rolling Girls and Anime-Gataris than it is other action series. It’s not a flawless series to be certain: the writing is an acquired taste to put it mildly and the pacing is downright bizarre. But it didn’t always seem that way, before 21 more episodes stretched out its hyper-meta story, its very first was one of the strongest action-anime debuts in recent memory. Even if Re:Creators itself never became the “story to surpass all stories” glibly dropped in Sota’s opening monologue here, it’s an incredible effort for other reasons.

The first two minutes of the episode are quite quiet and subdued for what follows. We get a context-free collage of shots of popular in-universe media which serve as foreshadowing for later in the series, but more important is the silent suicide of a character who, at this point in the story, we knew nothing about. A girl calmly walking in front of a train; that’s how Re:Creators begins. It’s perhaps the one and only sign in this episode of what the show would eventually become, because what follows is frankly nothing like it at all.

Instead, after his opening voiceover we see Sota sit down on his computer. Pop open ClipStudio Paint, get bored, look at Pixiv. Usual Nerd Stuff. It’s when he goes to watch anime on his tablet that he’s promptly–albeit only briefly–teleported to another world, and it is here where the episode promptly kicks into high gear. The fight scene that comprises the following three minutes might be the single most iconic thing about Re:Creators. It’s not hard to see why. You have Selesia’s Vision of Escaflowne-style fantasy-mech throwing down against one of the downright coolest villains of all time. Altair, though she was nameless at this point in the series.

Hell. Yes.

This scene is honestly amazing. It’s so burned into my mind that on the rewatch for this column I was astounded at how short it is (not even quite three minutes total). In that short time though, we get the Vogelchevalier thrashing about, the delightful digital CGI blue cubes that represent worlds crossing over and breaking apart, Altair tossing swords upon swords at Silesia, and of course, the first appearance of the infamous Holopsicon. A machine gun that she plays like a violin to activate its reality-bending powers. I maintain, and will until the day I die, that if you don’t find something ridiculously cool about that, then your sense of wonder needs a jumpstart.

This here? This rules.

Also great here? The soundtrack. Re:CREATORS developed a reputation for running this specific piece of music–called “Layers”–into the ground, as the show had few pieces of battle music, but having not heard it in its proper context in quite some time, I was immediately delighted to hear it again. It really is one of my favorite battle themes ever.

The following scene, which serves as something of a cooldown, has Selisia and Sota, shall we say, conversing.

Your waifu does not want to smash. She wants to stab.

Sota’s panicked half-rambling explanation to Silesia that she’s a fictional character from a light novel series is occasionally pointed out as a weak spot of this episode, and while it’s not as strong as what surrounds it I honestly think it’s pretty fun. It does strike me as something a panicking nerd would do in such a situation, even if Sota’s reassurance to Silesia that she’s, you know, super popular is not as comforting as he seems to think it is.

Altair follows them to the real world before much else can be hashed out. Selesia puts her sword through the window to sort of flick it open, in one of this episode’s best-remembered shots.

This really is not how any of these things work, but who cares?

She and Altair have a little back-and-forth here. With Altair making the classic “join me” offer as she cryptically monologues.

SHE’S. SO. COOL.

….and Selesia riposting with what is among my favorite instances of anime logic ever.

The escape that Selesia pulls off here–using her magic to jump off the balcony, Sota in tow, and land on and promptly carjack some poor sap’s brand-new wheels–is silly in a way I really appreciate. My favorite moment of the whole thing comes when Selesia, who really does an astonishingly good job of driving a car for someone who’s never seen one before, assumes she’s found the “weapon” button, and promptly pushes it, which turns on the windshield wipers. Quote me: Comedy. Gold.

Another battle scene follows, because Altair is not really the sort of villain you can outrun in a compact car.

Can your favorite villain stop a car by teleporting in front of it and shredding it to pieces with a barrier made of rotating sabers? No? I rest my case.

I might actually like this fight scene a little better than the already-great first. It’s a bit longer and is more dynamic, with a couple changes of scenery and some great up-close locked-blades action between Selesia and Altair while the latter continues to exposit (as much for our benefit as Selesia’s) about her plans and the nature of the world they now both inhabit.

I want you to know that it is taking every bone in my body to not just caption this picture with a row of capital A’s.

What breaks the tie is the mortar-fire-first introduction of Meteora, who appears here for the first time toting some artillery which we’ll learn in an episode or two that she stole from a nearby JSDF stockpile.

The episode winds down here. In his closing voiceover, Sota, among other things, says of these events that the beginning was “haphazard”. He (of course) is not actually talking about the episode, but were he, I’d actually argue the opposite. Anime that plunge you head-first into their stories and worlds as fast as this one does are pretty rare. He also says that it only takes “one minute” for the world to change.

There, I must also disagree. If we’re speaking of our own personal worlds, Re:CREATORS had a big hand in shaping my eventual desire to become an anime blogger. The show in general, and this episode in particular, were one of several that convinced me that there was value in following seasonal weeklies, as opposed to just cherrypicking things that were recommended to me by friends after they were over. This, in turn, lead me to where I am today. I would say, then, with all this in mind, and if you’ll pardon the title drop, that it takes about twenty.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Why Blog About Anime Anyway?

I see the question asked, sometimes, you know? And I’ve thought about the answer at great length. I have, at this point, stumbled ass-backwards into a kind of, sort of, if you squint, successful-ish career as a person who Writes About Japanese Cartoons For A Living. (It’s only able to be such because of additional support from my beloved girlfriend and our mutual flatmate, but, a living-of-sorts it remains.) So I’ve thought a fair bit about the question of, you know, why this?

The cast of Azumanga Daioh are here to break up the visual monotony of these opening paragraphs.

The practical answer is that I like doing it and am good at it, but that’s unsatisfactory. Not the least of which because it applies too specifically to just me. No, I think a better approach is to zoom out a bit. Why do I like anime anyway? No no, farther. Why does anyone like any art? Well, now we’ve got a big question on our hands. People have written about this subject at length, of course, and my response is just one part of what we must imagine is in truth a larger answer that we as a species are still figuring out.

but all that said

I think the simplest answer is that we like things that resonate with us somehow. And that’s kind of a funny word, resonate. But I think it’s apt. People don’t look to art for any one specific feeling or theme or aesthetic, what they look to it for in the broadest sense possible is something that speaks to them in some way. Things they can relate to, or they see themselves in, or things that inspire them. In some fashion, even if it’s not that straightforward a lot of the time.

And I think in my case, I have a tendency to hunt for resonance in places where many people in my position would not think to look for it. Let’s put anime aside for a second. My first love, as an artform, was actually hip-hop music. That’s kind of silly on the surface. A deeply closeted white transgirl from a rapidly-collapsing old-money Pennsylvania Dutch family has no business finding anything to relate to in, say, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).

….and yet I did. Not to the specifics of a rough upbringing in New York, of course, but to the broadest, most general sentiments. To again use 36 Chambers specifically as an example, to the deep melancholy of the Wendy Rene sample on “Tearz”, to the “put it on if you need to feel invincible” vibes of “Wu Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta F’ Wit'”, the basics-of-capitalism breakdown of “C.R.E.A.M.” I was also entranced with the actual text of the record–the style, if you will. The wordplay, the way the rhymes were actually constructed, the timbre of each member’s voice, Rza’s dusty, gritty production. I risk spending too much time on an example, but you get the idea. Even in a piece of art that had, essentially, nothing at all to do with my life experience, I found something that connected with me.

I don’t know if the specific experience of listening to 36 Chambers had anything to do with it directly, but as I got older I found myself seeking that kind of experience out more and more. Being interested in the broadest, most universal and elemental building blocks of the human experience. I would never deign to call myself someone with truly eclectic tastes–I’ve well fallen in to personal habits by now–but I think a big part of why I connected with anime specifically is that despite the cultural differences and a very obvious language barrier, I still find that I get that very simple joy of knowing other people out there experience the same feelings I do even if our experiences, upbringings, and so on are vastly different.

I couldn’t put a name to the feeling at the time, but Serial Experiments Lain, one of my first anime where I really “knew” it was an anime, felt like it was speaking to me–a young girl who, like Lain, was largely growing up on the internet instead of in the physical world, with all the up- and downsides that that entails.

I can draw from dozens more specific examples. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya spoke to the adventure-filled high school life I wished I was having while Azumanga Daioh reminded me of my interactions with the real friends I did have. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was the first time I felt like I was on the same wavelength as older anime fans who loved pure, hot-blooded action. Code Geass and Death Note, well, had smart protagonists and made me feel smart for liking them. Listen, I never said all of these reasons I resonated with things were good reasons.

On the style side I was starting to feel myself out too: sci-fi, giant robots, “high school” settings where it feels like anything can happen, roguish protagonists who aren’t quite necessarily “good guys”, etc. Some of these tastes have changed over time and some have stayed the same, but I find the process of thinking about why I like these things to, itself, be incredibly interesting. I think many people enjoy, maybe even need, this kind of self-reflection even if they aren’t necessarily cognizant of it.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed expanding my horizons and finding when I have similar feelings as other anime fans and when I don’t. Straight-ahead mainstream action-shonen? Still kind of frosty on that most of the time (although Tower of God is perhaps changing that). Dark magical girl-adjacent fantasy stuff? Madoka Magica has rapidly become one of my favorite anime of all time both because of its aesthetics and its surges of deep, black emotions, and it’s taken me all of about three months to become a hardcore Rebellion apologist, so, yeah, I think there’s some real merit in that (now rapidly waning) subgenre.

Homura is the coolest character ever and none of you will ever take that from me.

But those are still all just examples. The point I am attempting to make is that I love seeing art, and, specifically, anime, push those emotional buttons. I’m not yet an experienced enough critic to say I have a concrete philosophy on what makes art “good or bad” (to be frank I sort of consider the question uninteresting), but I think what makes art important is what it reflects of us. Of who made it, of who engages with it, all of us.

Perhaps that’s a cheesy answer. Perhaps in ten years I will look back on this post and find myself wondering how I ever thought it was that simple. What I do not think will change is that when I make myself strip away the extraneous things people associate with critics: The idea of being a voice of authority, of having some kind of “sway” over public opinion, of having “the most” knowledge about your chosen medium, all things I think most critics on some level at least aspire to a little bit (it’s the inherent mild pretense required to even become a critic in the first place).

I find myself thinking that what I write for is ultimately for the joy of watching. Through all the possible barriers, any time I can imagine the sheer strength of feeling from every director, animator, storyboarder, voice actor, script-writer, et cetera, reaching certainly not just me, but any viewer, I remember that that, right there, is what I am writing for. That connection.

That is why I blog about anime.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

It’s Out of Touch Thursday – How A “Lucky Star” Edit is Keeping Us Sane

“But I’m out of my head when you’re not around….”

How oh how did we get here? If you had asked me a year ago, I’d have told you that Lucky Star seemed like one of those shows whose cultural footprint was not destined to outlive the 2010s. That’s not a knock, plenty of great shows aren’t widely remembered a year after they come out, much less thirteen in the case of the seminal school life comedy. It wouldn’t have been that weird either, a lot of Lucky Star‘s humor is reference-heavy and was deliberately “dated” even when it was new. I can tell you with certainty that the series is the only reason I or any other otaku of my general age knows what the hell Timotei shampoo is.

So it seemed like plenty of great shows from the late 2000s and early 2010s, that Lucky Star would be a victim of the changing tides of the English-speaking anime fandom.

Then, at the start of this deeply unlucky year, something weird happened.

This video, an absolutely inexplicable but oddly inspired remix of the show’s frantic opening sequence, started making the rounds on tumblr. The clip makes a few edits to the OP–the footage is slightly slowed down and a transition is doctored out, but other than that, it’s downright bizarre how well the song chosen–“Out of Touch” by Hall & Oates–fits. Especially given that it has almost the polar opposite energy of the show’s actual opening theme, a goofy ode to school uniforms called “Motekke! Sailor Fuku!”

I am not a music critic (thank God), but the particular song choice strikes me as interesting. “Out of Touch” dates from 1984, 23 years prior to the Lucky Star anime’s premiere. Yet, in what is part of a fascinating ongoing deliberate cultural back-collapse, nowadays 1984 and 2007 feel like they might as well be equally long ago in the present moment. This is the same spirit of deliberate anachronism that inspired the vaporwave movement at the start of the decade.

But you may notice that the video itself was actually made a full two years ago, in 2018. So why has it blown up and become a full-fledged meme now? Well, the answer is likely multifaceted. Youtube’s algorithms increasingly like to put oddball things in peoples’ recommendations, for one thing, but I think the real heart of the matter might speak to a particular zeitgeist. For one, that the term “Out of Touch Thursdays” can be taken (by total coincidence) as an entendre about social distancing has been lost on precisely no one. (Do give @sampapaste here a follow.)

In a more general sense, in an era of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, “timekeeping memes” have become a popular daily pastime. Both as a way to wring some humor out of the current situation and literally as a way to help keep the days of the week straight in a time when it can be kind of hard to do that. “Out of Touch Thursday” is probably the most popular of these, but there are many others.

Indeed, the meme’s popularity is such that it’s begun to take on something of a life of it’s own. There’s a dedicated twitter account, which has created something of a community unto itself around the meme.

Someone even went through the trouble of making an honest-to-god You’re The Man Now Dog page (which is a whole bygone phenomenon in of itself). Spinoffs include Out of Time Wednesday, featuring a pitched-up version of the song set to footage from elsewhere in the series.

And a personal favorite, this frankly inexplicable edit that features the core Generation 1 Decepticons from Transformers and is a full-on redraw. (Perhaps an attempt to get a cartoon that’s actually from the 80s involved? Who can say.)

I think what all this speaks to is that “Out of Touch Thursday” happens to hit a rare sweet spot. It’s an instant nostalgia (or fauxstalgia) hit, and it is completely innocuous–anyone who’s not a complete stick in the mud can enjoy the video at least occasionally. I mentioned vaporwave earlier, but the sort of forceful reclamation of “disposable” pop culture like synthpop and late aughts anime does really remind me of the subgenre. A declaration that the past belongs to us as much as the present that goes beyond just simple nostalgia. As we watch a lost spring tick on by, four anime girls doing a dance routine might be contributing more than we think to keeping us–funnily enough–in touch with each other, and ourselves.

Darlin’ darlin’ please!

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Spring Anime Season First Impressions – Round 3

Shachibato! President, It’s Time for Battle!

I’m not one to accuse shows of going through the motions, but it feels fair to say that Shachibato! is aiming pretty much exclusively for one crowd–people who like the mobile game it’s an adaptation of–and nobody else. The ultratypical fantasy series is spiced up with the minor twist that the main character is the president of an adventurer’s guild rather than a hero archetype, and thus has to contend with all manner of humdrum business stuff as well as the usual monsters and mages.

To be honest, what this series mostly has going for it are some neat character designs, high production values, and a certain ease-of-watching. If that sounds like faint praise that’s because it kind of is. I can’t imagine anyone following twelve weeks of this, despite a perfectly inoffensive and pleasant first episode that looks nice and hits its plot beats just fine. The main thing I ended up walking away from Shachibato!‘s first episode thinking was that one of the characters–Akari–looks a lot like Hatsune Miku. It did also make me want to check out the mobile game, so it succeeds as an ad, at the very least. Will the series greatly improve and stage a come-from-behind takeover as one of the best anime of the season? Well, anything’s possible, but it doesn’t seem terribly likely, let’s put it that way.

First Impression Score: Aquamarine Twintails / 10

Wave, Listen To Me!

In an already ridiculously strong season, Wave, Listen To Me! might have the most singular premiere of anything currently airing. Our main character; Minare, an office worker with a drinking problem and the worst-best case of The Rants you’ve heard this side of a pompous rockstar concert intermission. A chance meeting at a bar with a scuzzy radio producer prompts an angry mid-workshift drive to the radio station the next day as Minare finds her bar ramblings being used as cheap airwave drama fodder. Then, our heroine is unceremoniously dropped into the role of amateur-hour radio DJ.

Lead actress Riho Sugiyama talks like a waterfall runs. Insanely, this is only her second main-cast role ever following a run in Franken Family back in 2018. She absolutely makes the show, and her performance as Minare is probably the best single character performance of the season so far.

The series itself is spellbinding, almost entirely because of that performance. Minare is clearly a trainwreck of a person and I’m certain the show will delve deeper into the how’s and why’s later on, but even at this early juncture she’s just fascinating. It’s easy to speak of “realistic” or “grounded” character writing, but Minare is intriguing specifically because she’s so bombastic and rambly. All this is tied together with a distinct look and, fittingly for something about radio, incredible sound design. I don’t think it’s absurd to say that this the most interesting thing airing right now. Watch this.

First Impressions Score: 10/10

Gleipnir

Sigh.

Gleipnir is another manga adaptation, this one coming to us courtesy of studio PINE JAM. I can’t in good faith say I went into Gleipnir’s premiere unbiased. To the casual observer it might seem like a good (maybe even great) first episode of a solid action anime. Unfortunately, I’m familiar with the manga, which I’m on record as thinking is pretty awful. The good news here is that the production values are uncommonly high for a seinen adaptation and the animation and soundtracking work are good throughout the episode (if occasionally bizarre, listen to whatever the hell plays as BGM when Claire is getting changed, for instance). So if you are a fan of the manga, this is going to be a high point of the season for you, certainly.

The real issue with Gleipnir is its scuzzy writing, which shows through even at this early stage. Mostly in the first episode this deals with the treatment of the female lead–the 15-year-old Claire Aoki–as some kind of sexpot femme fatale, but it gets worse in widely varied ways later on. Even if you’re unbothered by that kind of thing on a moral level, it’s incredibly hokey. Male protagonist Suichi Kagaya doesn’t fare much better, being the same kind of self-loathing pseudo-nice guy that stars in the vast majority of the sort of manga that the original series is a part of, squandering his singularly weird superpower of transforming into a Five Nights At Freddy’s reject. It’s a tired archetype.

I can’t in good conscience score the episode too low because of said production strengths, but this isn’t one I can recommend to most people. At best, if you’re the same sort of animasochist I occasionally am, it’s shaping up to be a decent hatewatch to riff on with friends.

First Impression Score: 5/10

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Spring Anime Season First Impressions – Round 2

LISTENERS

Self-empowerment parable through the medium of superpowered CGI rock n’ roll-robots. You’ve heard this story before even if you didn’t realize it–the folks behind Listeners are surely familiar with the seminal FLCL–but wearing its influences on its sleeve is no knock. Call Listeners a “high variance” seasonal, this one could end up being the best of the season or it could putter out into the same disappointment pit that Darling in the FranXX fell into. Perhaps most likely is that it could stay the course and turn out to be Just Solid. It’s hard to say right now.

The show’s got a fair bit going for it; a strong aesthetic that welds a 2000s-era look (I’ve seen Eureka Seven brought up as a point of comparison and I do see it) to clear inspirations from classic rock album art, and a good command of what differentiates the retro from the merely dated. On the less positive side, the animation is inconsistent and there are some very unwelcome sex jokes in the first half of the first episode. Listeners is a “who knows” right now, but consider keeping your eye on it if you’re the gambling type. Speaking personally, I’m also a sucker for anything whose first episode ends with its protagonists having to flee from their hometown (well, one of theirs’ hometown, it’s complicated) on a train. We’ll see where it goes.

First Impression Score: 6/10

Gal & Dinosaur

One of the season’s true oddballs, Gal is ostensibly an adaptation of the manga of the same name, a comedic slice-of-life series about a gyaru and her unexpected new roommate, a blue dinosaur. While it does directly adapt the source material the approach is….eclectic, to say the least. This all makes more sense if you consider the director here–Jun Aoki, of Pop Team Epic fame.

This isn’t to oversimplify, as the two shows are far from identical. Even the animated front half has a slow, loping pace that flows like not much else airing right now, and very differently from the hyperfrantic PTE. The second half of the series, which is in live action and reprises some of the same material, is more in line with what Aoki converts from Pop Team Epic will be expecting. The altered context and different medium changes the way some of the gags land and it’s interesting to compare and contrast the two. Of course, even if you’re not one for that kind of thing, it’s hard to deny the simple comedy appeal of airhorns.

I suspect whether you prefer the more traditionally adaptive first half or the weirder, more experimental second will come down to how big a fan you were of the manga. Personally, I was never huge on the Pop Team Epic adaptation (as far as bizarre slapstick anime I prefer Teekyuu and the brain-melting Ai Mai Mi!), so I know my preference, but both halves excel at what they’re trying to do. It’s hardly “essential TV”, but this is the kind of thing that if you’re part of the intended audience, you’ll figure it out pretty quickly. Definitely one to at least give a cursory watch to see if it’s Your Thing or not.

First Impression Score: 7/10

Sing “Yesterday” For Me

Straight-n-true adaptation of a classic drama manga makes its way to television. The original manga dates way back to 1997, and some of the plot beats here make that pretty obvious even if the setting didn’t (and it does). Yet, despite going into this being pretty sure I wouldn’t like it, I found myself surprisingly compelled by the cast of castaways that are Sing “Yesterday” For Me‘s characters. To a one, they’re burnt-out young adults ranging from a high school dropout to a high school teacher to our main character, a disaffected convenience store worker and self-described “loser”.

This is stuff that’s fairly well-tread ground for the genre and it wasn’t exactly revolutionary in ’97 either. Yet, somehow, I feel more of a beating heart under this show than I do many similar titles, perhaps it’s just the age range of the cast, perhaps it’s that even in the first episode said cast picks at and openly questions the value of stories like this in the first place. Maybe I’m just kind of amazed that there was a confession in the first episode of something based on a romance manga. Who knows? Yesterday is one to keep your eyes on. Those familiar with the original will have more concrete opinions, but even for someone like me who isn’t, the possible ceiling for this series seems very, very high.

First Impression Score: 8/10

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.