Tag: Sing Yesterday For Me

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

So OSHI NO KO is Getting an Anime, Let’s Talk About That

“Perhaps the next time you read about Oshi no Ko on this blog, it will be about an upcoming anime adaption.”

I don’t want to say “I called it.” But I’m actually lying, because I totally do want to say that.

To be fair it did not take a genius to know that this day would come eventually. Oshi no Ko is popular, well-liked, written by one of the new greats in his field and drawn by another in hers (Aka Akasaka, also of Kaguya-sama: Love is War! and Mengo Yokoyari, of Scum’s Wish, respectively). Nonetheless, I’m glad that it has. Oshi no Ko is like very little else; a dark, intense examination of the entertainment industry and what it means to be famous from almost every angle on one hand, and a strange, and occasionally even off-putting supernatural mystery on the other. As a kaleidoscope of tones and emotions, Oshi no Ko goes significantly farther, even, than that other manga Akasaka is known for, and Yokoyari’s illustrations really sell the series’ more out-there elements. It’s not flawless—what is?—but I love it a lot.

But of course, we’re not here to talk about the manga, which I will not spoil over the course of this brief article. (I did that pretty thoroughly when I wrote about it last year, so fair warning if you end up reading that article.) We’re here to talk about the upcoming anime. Let’s go over what little we’ve learned over the two days since its announcement. (I’m quick on the draw for this stuff, ain’t I?)

First, the studio; Doga Kobo. Those familiar with DK might think them an odd choice for a series like this, and, honestly, that was my first reaction, too. Doga Kobo are more known for laid-back slice of life series or lightweight romance anime. They are not the first studio that comes to mind when one thinks of intensity or drama, but the pairing makes a sideways sort of sense.

Over the past few years, they’ve begun branching out a bit with somewhat more serious endeavors like Sing “Yesterday” For Me and Selection Project. But interestingly, even some of their “fluff” has gained a visually compelling edge recently. Just last week, an episode of the pleasant but normally unremarkable Shikimori Isn’t Just a Cutie shaded the show over with rain and intense emotion by focusing on the story of a minor side character, and that show’s opening animation depicts a dimension-hopping adventure that is totally unreflective of the show itself. To me, these are possible signs of restless talent, a notion backed up by the fact that said opening animation’s director—Saori Tachibana—will be the assistant director on the Oshi no Ko anime. I am eager to see if I’m correct about all this or not.

As for who she’s assisting, here it’s worth circling back around to the Selection Project connection. (The Connection Project.) Because that show’s director, Daisuke Hiramaki, is also directing this show. I will admit to not having been terribly taken by what little I saw of Selection Project, but I did appreciate the show’s visual moodiness. Something that, if Hiramaki brings to the Oshi no Ko project, I think will suit the series well. Character design—a broad role despite the simple name—is being handled by Kanna “kappe” Hirayama, who also helped direct the Shikimori OP. I don’t envy her for having to help translate Yokoyari’s art style to motion, but my impression is that she’s up to the task. The only real question mark for me here is Jin Tanaka, mostly known for scripts and whose other series comp credits don’t have much in common with OnK. Still, needless to say, I am optimistic about the staff in general.

I’m honestly not super much of a production hound in this way most of the time. (I usually prefer going into an anime with as few preconceived notions as possible, but for an adaption of a manga I’ve read a good chunk of that’s already impossible.) But I will take anything as an excuse to get excited. There is a lot wrong with the anime industry, but when things align just so, there is a lot of fascinating, compelling art that comes from it as well. I am hoping the Oshi no Ko adaption can contribute to that tradition.

We don’t know a ton else about the series yet. Trailers, release dates, etc. are all things of future concern. For now, all we have is our hopes, our dreams, and the single picture of Ai that graces this article’s banner, where she stands alone under a smoldering spotlight, one finger pointing to the sky, singing her heart out to an audience of anonymous faces who lift cherry red glow sticks like antennas to heaven.

This is not the last time I will write about Oshi no Ko on this site. I intend to cover the anime weekly once it starts airing, at the very least, and I may well make another “hype” article like this when the proper trailers start dropping. I have one character in particular I’m eager to see adapted to the silver screen (those of you who’ve read my previous article on the manga already know who I’m talking about, most likely). But mostly, I am just happy that an excellent manga seems like it’s going to get a worthy adaption that lives up to—perhaps even elevates?—the source material. It’s the least Oshi no Ko deserves.

See you then.

Like what you’re reading? Consider following Magic Planet Anime to get notified when new articles go live. If you’d like to talk to other Magic Planet Anime readers, consider joining my Discord server! Also consider following me on Twitter and supporting me on Ko-Fi or Patreon. If you want to read more of my work, consider heading over to the Directory to browse by category.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text, excepting direct quotations, is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Seasonal Check-in: Spring 2020

Gleipnir

Let it be said that if nothing else, Gleipnir is far better than it has any right to be. To strip away all the extraneous guff (and my own biases at least for the moment) what Gleipnir essentially is, at least right now, is a battle shonen with a much darker outlook than most. I would also argue that because of said darker outlook it thinks it’s about a hundred times more clever and insightful than it actually is in a way that is sort of insufferable, but a lot of people like this kind of thing so it’s not a huge surprise that Gleipnir is proving to be one of the season’s bigger shows.

Now, to be frank, I think the show is flat-out ugly both in its thematic core and occasionally visually. PINE JAM largely do their damnedest to bring this material to life, and, god help them, make Shuichi’s ridiculous fursuit look seem intimidating, but it only intermittently works and occasionally the production values slip, depriving the show of its biggest asset. When the visuals don’t connect what you have is a fundamentally wrongheaded show that is constantly working against itself in an effort to wring some kind of pathos out of its setting and characters in a way that frankly gives me secondhand embarrassment. Yet, that said, the most frustrating thing about Gleipnir is actually that it’s occasionally kind of stupidly cool.

Much of episode 5 centers around Shunichi and Clair fighting a huge skeleton dude with blade arms who kinda looks like Summoned Skull from Yu-Gi-Oh! I love everything about this character design. He looks like he just walked off a DeviantArt page. And holy hooray, he actually survives to the end of the episode, so we’ll probably get to see him in action a bit more. (The show is swiftly approaching the point where I dropped the manga, so who knows, maybe it becomes Actually Good at some point going forward. Honestly my recollection of Skeleton Boy here is pretty fuzzy, which makes me wonder if he doesn’t die in short order or something. I guess we’ll find out).

On another note entirely: I wish the show had the good sense to let Shuichi and Clair’s relationship breathe a little more. You can do a lot with the idea of two fundamentally broken people finding solace in each other, but the series’ approach to writing this is so clumsy that it actively gets in the way of the surprising amount of genuine chemistry they have. But, of course, if it had good sense it just wouldn’t be Gleipnir. Lastly, because I feel compelled to mention it somewhere. What is it with this show and a commitment to just being stepped-on-a-slug gross about once per episode? A few episodes ago we got some bafflingly grody empty visual metaphors. Last episode we were treated to the sight of the alien slurping down one of Clair’s hairs like a spaghetti noodle. This week we get This Fucking Thing.

Sigh, why did I pick this up instead of My Next Life As A Villainess again?

Sing “Yesterday” For Me

I have never been so purely flummoxed by enjoying an anime as I am with this one. You don’t really watch Yesterday it more just kind of….happens to you. It’s an odd show. Despite its very grounded premise (Serial Experiments Lain this is not), its portraits of lives gone sideways feels weird and surreal; like a Mountain Goats song or a Youtube video on a little-visited channel.

The most recent episode introduces a photographer character with a tendency to perhaps unwelcomely subject others to his strong opinions on the artform and a fondness for circular metaphors. Yet, I find Yesterday‘s literal plot to be kind of hazy and hard to recount, it’s almost the least interesting thing about the show. (It helps that the gist of it is simply a complicated love triangle.) Instead, I was struck by, how, when taking screencaps for this very column, I ended up (by pure happenstance) grabbing a picture of Haru in the exact same manner that said character photographed her at episode’s end, just facing the opposite direction. It is not often that an anime gets one’s head all a-tizzy about their role as a critic, but here I am.

Wave, Listen To Me!

Now this is a show with a few screws loose. Some four or five weeks ago I called it the most promising premiere of the entire season. That of course does not mean that it would actually live up to that promise. So far, of Wave‘s five episodes I’d say only the most recent (the fifth, at the time of this writing) really lives up to that first episode, which is a little disappointing but maybe a good sign that the show is finally starting to get somewhere.

The issue with Wave is that when it’s focusing on what it does best: being a vehicle for voice actress Riho Sugiyama‘s portrait of Minare, its protagonist, it’s great. This is a woman whose life is in shambles and maybe always has been, saved (well, “saved”. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves) from both existential despair and the setting-in realities of poverty by the magic of early-AM radio. Minare’s a very three-dimensional character, which is great, but does leave much of the rest of the cast feeling a mite flat by comparison and branches of the story that revolve around characters that aren’t Minare tend to feel kind of underdeveloped. In particular, the gaggle of men that exist as supporting characters (some of whom the show is trying to build as potential romance partners for Minare) are slight, and the chemistry between any of these pairings is pretty minimal.

By contrast, Mizuho, the other woman in the show with a large role, really seems to be hitting it off with our heroine. Especially given that the two are now rooming together. It’s probably too early to hope for a gay conclusion to this particular part of the story, but Minare’s cracks about the chef who owns the curry restaurant she works on and off at being gay do kind of come across as jokes from within the closet. Time will tell.

But the romance outlook being kind of dicey would be less of a problem if the show spent more time elsewhere. When Minare finally gets another chance to cut loose in episode 5 like she did in the premiere it instantly ratchets the show back up to a real contender. Sugiyama’s performance, giving Minare a convincing, blown-out, rambly bluster is something you just don’t see that often in anime, especially for women. This is without mentioning the bizarre radio drama she manages to adlib about half of on her own, involving a woman who murders her boyfriend and then gets abducted by aliens.

More of this, please.

Even here though the show tries to tie things back to relationships. The character of Matou, Minare’s greasy boss at the radio station, essentially openly fetishizes her voice, which makes Sugiyama’s performance a bit harder to appreciate, adding a totally unnecessary sleaze to the proceedings. The entire thing comes across as a bizarre attempt to make the audience complicit in a creeping “man vs. woman” streak within the show’s writing. One that it’s not difficult to interpret as simple misogyny if you’re feeling uncharitable. Of course, we do need to be open to the possibility that this is all being set up to be knocked down later, and indeed at the end of episode 5 Minare explicitly rejects romance at least for the time being.

On yet another hand, this episode introduces an actual murder subplot which, who knows if we’re ever going to actually follow up on that. This show is certainly going somewhere, but it’s still an open question as to where, exactly, that is.

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.