The Anime Thread

[Monoriu]

It is really depressing news that somebody has started a fundraising website for the animators, i.e. the guys who actually draw the stuff. 

http://animator.main.jp/support.html

The problem as I understand is that most of the anime studios are in Tokyo, where the cost of living is very high.  According to this website, the pay of junior animators is around US$11k per year, and 90% of animators quit within 3 years. 

They have my sympathies but no, I will not contribute 

[Monoriu]

I listened to you guys and watched A Certain Magical Index.  Based on a very popular series of novels.  In the Academic City where the majority of the population are students and a huge number of them possess super powers, the only power the protagonist has is the ability to cancel all super powers and magic.  By chance, he meets Index, a nun from outside the Academic City.  There is a magical world outside with churches, magicians and whatnot (super powers within the city is considered a science).  Index has memorised like 103,000 magical tomes, and it is up to the protagonist to save her from whatever power is chasing her.   

Basically a shonen adventure series with a "girl of the week" format.  And a good one at that.  Each story arc seems to focus on one or more girls who may or may not appear as an adversary.  Generally, in anime shows, they try to avoid a situation where a male protagonist fights a cute female.  Usually, it is female-on-female violence, or they fight using subtle magical power.  But see, our male protagonist doesn't have any power other than magic cancel.  His only offensive power is regular street fight punches.  Since a lot of his enemies are cute females, the only way he can defeat them is to punch them.  In the face.  This anime has no qualms about showing the process in detail.   



A Certain Scientific Railgun, spinoff of Magical Index.  The story takes place in the same world as Index.  This one focuses on Misaka Mikoto, one of the "girl of the week" in the Index series, and her three female friends.  Mikoto is one of the most powerful students with the electro-master ability.  That means she can shoot any object with electricity, like a human railgun. 

The show feels much more "girly" than Index, as all four protagonists are females.  There are no "girl/monster of the week", and there are a lot more slice of life episodes highlighting the friendship of the four girls.  The highlight of the show is a retelling of the famed "sister arc" in Index, this time in greater detail (16 episodes in Railgun vs 5 in Index) and from Mikoto's perspective.  While the sister arc is memorable and impressive, there is not enough material in the source novels to produce 48 episodes.  Hence I think at least a quarter of the spinoff consists of less impressive anime-original material. 

The two series add up to almost 100 episodes.  The best part is the sister arc, or the first 16 episodes of the second season of Railgun. 

[jimmy olsen]

Paging CdM, paging CdM

http://mangafox.me/manga/apocalypse_meow/v01/c001/5.html

[Monoriu]

Speaking of animals in anime, I really love this show, Animal Treasure Island.  A childhood favourite of mine.  An early 70s movie with Miyazaki Hayou (Oscar winning director of Spirited Away) as a member of the staff.  Basically a retelling of the classic Treasure Island story, with everybody except the protagonist and his love interest as animals.  So Long John Silver is a pig in this story. 

While the film is clearly aimed at children, it is great fun.  Everything is done in a melodramatic fashion.  The protagonist sets out in a steam-powered barrel, complete with a mouse side-kick.  There is a "pirate government" on a skull-shaped island, navel battle between Silver and said government (which uses a gigantic ship many times the size of Silver's), frequent shifting of allegiances, a ball held by Silver in his comedic attempt to steal the treasure map etc.  The film was released in the early 70s, but the story-telling and even the animation quality put a lot of recent anime to shame.  To this day Silver's pirate raid music theme still rings in my head from time to time. 

[Monoriu]

ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two.  There are two reasons to watch this anime.  One, if you like tragic love stories.  This show is right up there with the most depressing anime shows ever produced, e.g. Clannad, Air, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Elfen Lied.  It is bundle of four sad romance stories, and all major heroines have different degrees of tragic backgrounds, including memory loss, childhood rape, parental abandonment, domestic abuse, etc. 

Something as simple as a guy not showing up on a date with a girl made a lasting impression.  Instead of showing the girl sitting on a bench by herself, the show presents the girl's phone messages to the guy in plain text.  It is totally heartbreaking to listen to her gradual mental breakdown from taking it in cheerful stride to begging the guy to respond in some way, any way.  If done wrong, this can be easily interpreted as the girl making a big deal out of nothing.  But the writing and voice acting are so good that the scene becomes really difficult to watch. 

The second reason to watch this is if you love "artsy" shows.  Shaft is the animation studio (the same folks behind Bakemonogatari and Puella Magi Madoka Magica) and this show is filled to the brim with their signature symbolism and oddball anime style.  I am not a big fan of abstract art but this show feels like a series of art paintings coming to life at times. 

[jimmy olsen]

I you like tragic love stories watch Basilisk

[Monoriu]

I you like tragic love stories watch Basilisk

Looks like my kind of anime.  Thanks

[Monoriu]

Next week will mark the transition from the Spring (April - June) to the Summer (July - September) anime season.  The line-up for the summer season has been announced, and I am looking at the shows that I will follow.



Sword Art Online Season 2.  Easily the most anticipated show of the season, and a strong contender for the title of the most hyped show of 2014.  It is a "locked in a virtual game world" setting.  In Season 1, Kirito escaped from a medieval fantasy world (hence Sword Art Online).  Presumably he'll enter another virtual gaming world, and this time the game will use guns.  For some reason he looks like a girl in the poster above.  Reasons to watch this -

1. The first season (at least, the first half of the first season) is really, really good. 
2. The show is based on a best-selling novel.
3. Miyuki Sawashiro (recently married, congratulations to her) will voice the female lead this time (girl with light blue hair).  I consider her within the top 5 of the active Japanese seiyuus.  She is notable for speaking very good English, so she does voice work for many English dubs as well.
4. Yuki Kajiura will return to do the soundtrack. 

[Monoriu]

No Game No Life.  This is undoubtedly the best show that I watched in the Spring 2014 season, and definitely the best show aired in the first half of 2014. 

There exists a living legend of a player known as "blank" who is invincible in massive online RPG games.  "Blank" is actually a (step) brother and sister otaku gaming duo.  (Sister is "white", brother is "empty/sky".  In Japanese/Chinese, these two words mean blank when combined).  One day, they are summoned to another world by its god.  In this alternative dimension, god has banned all violence.  All disputes are settled by games in formats decided by gamers themselves.  Gamers can bet anything, up to and including entire countries, and all bets are upheld by god's magic.  There are 16 races in this world, and they all have different powers and specialties.  Imanity (humans) are the weakest of the 16 because they don't know any magic.  Blank's job is to help the humans and take over the world, one game at a time.

The plot is very clever and each of the matches is exciting to watch.  There is a chess game, but the chess pieces have willpowers of their own.  So it is possible to give speeches or use magic to get the queen to switch sides.  there is a word game where players speak words in turn.  The first letter is the last of the opponent's.  The twist is that, in this game, if the word indicates an object that doesn't exist, the object will appear.  If the word indicates an object that does exist, that object will disappear.  Now, this is a medieval fantasy world without modern inventions.  Guess what is the first word used in the game?  Yes, hydrogen bomb.  That's how crazy the show is.  (nuclear weapons is somewhat of a taboo in Japan.  The show dares to go against conventions). 

The games are most fun to watch, but the show is a lot more than just the games themselves.  There are perhaps a few major matches in the show.  Between the games, blank does extensive preparation to ensure that they win the next one, including intelligence gathering, alliance building, figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of the opponents etc.  The supporting cast does a wonderful job of spicing up the story.  There are several easter eggs and references to other anime shows in each episode - even the space fleets of Legend of Galactic Heroes made a brief appearance.  Or Archer's immortal line - you don't mind if I kill him, right? - in Fate/Stay Night (he was merely asked to buy time).  The production values are very high, with fluid animation, a distinctive "purple tint" style, and an all-star voice cast. 

Crazy, funny, exciting, intriguing and clever.  I didn't plan to watch this when Spring 2014 started.  I couldn't help but start following it when the show is mentioned everywhere. 

[Monoriu]

Sailor Moon Crystal, to be aired in summer 2014.  Honestly, I am not a big fan of the original Sailor Moon series.  Only saw a couple of episodes here and there many years ago.  But somehow I just want to see this one, if only for nostalgia's sake. 

I don't even know if this is a complete remake or a continuation of the original story.  I am however shocked when I read the voice cast list.  Japanese female voice actresses usually have a short career.  The majority of anime female characters are cute, moe girls that require a relatively high-pitched voice.  But most females lose that by the time they reach their mid-30s, plus or minus 3-4 years.  Doesn't mean they really can't do it.  The problem is there are young, fresh actresses who can do a better job.  The original Sailor Moon was produced in the early 90s, more than 20 years ago.  The original voice cast are well into their 40s or beyond.  Keiko Han who did Luna (the black cat) is over 60.  So it is not surprising that they have been replaced.

That is, everybody except the title character's voice.  Kotono Mitsuishi (who is 46) will reprise her role as Sailor Moon.  If anything, I'm going to see this just to see how well she does it.  I also note that the rest of the voice cast is extremely impressive. 

[Siege]

Ok, I addded sword art online to my Netflix list.
I should end Star Trek Enterprise in a cou[leple weeks, then ill wartch it.

[Monoriu]

Gokukoku no Brynhildr.  Just finished watching it this morning.  Every description of this anime will likely mention the fact that this is based on the manga by the same author as the famed and utterly depressing Elfen Lied.  They do share a lot of similarities.  Both stories are about pretty girls cursed with lethal powers.  They escape from a cruel and sinister research facility, and meet a nice guy who shares some history with the lead girl and helps them unconditionally.  The group then fight the pursuers in battle after battle. 

The anime falls short of the standards set by Elfen Lied.  The story is supposed to be serious and depressing, and the girls' situation very sympathetic.  They are imprisoned in a research facility, and experimented on.  They must take a specific drug every 36 hours or they melt.  They have a harness installed on the back of their necks with buttons.  If one of the buttons is pressed, they melt and die. 

But the atmosphere isn't there.  There is an attempt to mix a ton of fanservice, a bath scene every other episode, and poor humour into the show, and it fails.  The character reactions and dialogue are unpolished and sometimes border on the absurd.  Say, when the group discover that they are being hunted by an all-powerful witch that can easily locate them and destroy planet Earth, their reaction is to put red paint on themselves and play dead in the same building that they have been staying for the entire show.  When the lead heroine is fighting to the death, the lead hero and another girl engage in a long and drawn out conversation 10 feet away.  The pacing is also problematic.  The first 10 episodes build up the story nicely with lots of mysteries and foreshadowing.  Then the last 3 episodes enter turbo speed and dump everything on the audience as if somebody changed their mind about the possibility of a sequel mid-production. 

[jimmy olsen]

Live action Attack on Titan film coming

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/04/03/live-action-attack-on-titan-film-casts-lead-role-sets-filming-location-and-start-date/

[Josquius]

That has been known for ages. Its controversial stuff. But I'm intruigued by how silly it will be.
Seems they could be changing a fair bit with wanting to film it at battleship island. Quite changes the setting away from a medieval Germanyish place.

[Monoriu]

Live action Attack on Titan film coming

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/04/03/live-action-attack-on-titan-film-casts-lead-role-sets-filming-location-and-start-date/

I don't know.  I have yet to see a live action adaptation of an anime that is good.  They tend to be either mediocre or outright disastrous. 

The first problem is that a lot of anime character designs that look great as cartoons are horrible as live actors.  There are all sorts of anime hair colours.  It just feels wrong for an actress to wear a pink wig.  This should however be less of a problem in the case of Attack on Titan, because the anime character designs are relatively realistic.  The hair colours are black, brown, or blond. 

Second problem is that there is insufficient budget to produce effects that look good.  Let's face it.  Anime is a relatively niche market, and film makers aren't willing to bet huge dollars on these.  Anime effects are often "out of the world" designs that are outrageous or over-the-top.  It requires a sufficient large budget to bring those to a live action adaptation, but due to financial constraints, those effects are usually crap. 

Third problem is that the folks doing the adaptation aren't the same people who produce the anime.  They often have no idea what makes the anime great, and some of them may even drastically alter the story. 

Case in point: Dragonball Evolution. 

I am however looking forward to the two summary anime movies.