An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Anime Reviews

Battle School, But Weirder – Myriad Colors Phantom World Spoiler Review

So, while it’s something of an informal genre, I’ve talked a good deal about “Battle School” shows in the past. Typically, these are shows where the characters are in school (usually High School), but the curriculum includes some degree of combat. Most typically, these are Shonen action shows, and on the more prototypical end tend to have harem elements. The Battle School theme can at times be compared to Isekai, in that both have an oft-repeated archetypal form that’s not generally regarded as being of particularly high quality, having more of a mass appeal than a depth of meaningful storytelling.

In general, if given the choice between a bog-standard Isekai and a bog-standard Battle School, I’ll usually pick the Battle School, since even at their weakest they usually have a little more creativity, and the worst reprocessed examples I’ve seen haven’t been as bad (After all, Isekai gave us In Another World With My Smartphone). However, even then most battle schools do play it fast and loose with the logic of their settings. Chivalry of a Failed Knight was a fairly good show, all things considered, but it didn’t really explain much about its universe because, to be entirely fair, it didn’t need to. You might get a paper-thin excuse as to why the world has children wielding kickass powers to battle… whatever the hell it is they battle (that’s something that can vary from show to show) but it’s typically set dressing to give us the cool action scenes the show knows you want.

While Myriad Colors Phantom World has the basic trappings of the Battle School show down, its tone and themes are actually very different, which makes it something that, in my mind at least, is fairly interesting to explore in terms of its ideas, whether or not that makes it actually any more watchable.

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Reach Exceeds Grasp – Eden of the East (Plus Movies) Spoiler Review

Sometimes, creators don’t have a full story in mind when they start working on a project: they have the genesis of an idea, a good jumping off point, or even a first act, but not a conclusion. They have interesting questions, but the answers were not prepared ahead of time. Sometimes, we the viewers likely never learn that this was the case, because the later acts came together well enough that it didn’t matter that they were being made up as the story went along. Other times you get situations like many long-running TV shows and at least a few Stephen King novels, where whether the end result is good or not, it’s clear that there was some serious “Fly by the seat of your pants” writing going on.

Along with that, you also get situations like the one I discussed in Occult Academy where there was clearly some desire for a particular moment, and the story becomes contorted in order to reach that moment. This is even more usually a problem, and I refer you to my previous review for a lesson in why and how.

Why do I bring this up? Because Eden of the East is a franchise with an interesting relationship with both these concepts.

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Life in the Wired – Serial Experiments Lain Spoiler Review

There are a few shows that I’ve reviewed that can really be considered classics. A number of these are fairly well known to show their age; they obviously have something to recommend them, that their names are still remembered after twenty years or more, but they can be affairs where a casual viewer would probably prefer something that came after, learned from it, and built on it. It’s true not just in anime but in media in general that, after a point, anything is going to show its age. Some do so more gracefully than others.

But there are some older offerings that do really hold up, where even if they show age or are the product of their times, they can be looked at significantly later and still shine bright.

Serial Experiments Lain is a show that exists, compared to those two extremes, in a very interesting place. A big part of what means it straddles the line is that Serial Experiments Lain deals with humanity’s interface with modern technology, particularly computers and the internet. In some ways, Lain was actually weirdly prescient about how such technology would alter human lives. In others ways… it came out in 1998, so give it a break.

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Robot Zombies on Motorcycles! – Blassreiter Spoiler Review

There are some credits that you really have to sit up and take note of. I’ve talked at length about Studio Trigger and their particular brand of madness, but I have, perhaps, been remiss in mentioning Gen Urobuchi as well. He’s primarily a screenwriter, responsible for a number of original concepts, including shows like Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet and Madoka Magica. The former was something of a divergence from what he’s more famous for, while it’s said (though perhaps apocryphal) that he had to have his involvement in the latter concealed until after the third episode aired.

Why? Because this guy is nicknamed “Urobutcher”, and is well known for his dark, tragic, and often nihilistic stories, as well as his habit of slaughtering the casts of his shows, often including even likable characters to whom other writers would give a great deal of plot armor. He does have other offerings, including things like Gargantia and the film Expelled from Paradise that don’t exactly follow that pattern, but there’s a reason that Urobuchi has that reputation. 2008’s Blassreiter is no doubt part of his bloodthirsty reputation, a tortured and apocalyptic story in which Urobuchi actually manages to get more death moments for named characters then there are named characters in the show.

It’s also a show about robot zombies who sword fight while riding motorcycles.

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Cyberpunk Road Trip with a Double Dose of What The Hell – Ergo Proxy Spoiler Review

Ergo Proxy is a show that goes through metamorphosis as you watch, sliding from one plot to another without ever really losing the core line of what made it interesting and unique. It’s a strange dive with a philosophical bent, the likes of which typically makes for great cyberpunk. Rather than talking more in abstract about the show, though, it seems prudent to jump right in.

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Tales from the Memory Hole – Pandora Hearts Spoiler Review

So, apparently there exists a show called Pandora Hearts. I put it that way because, despite having seen it and engaged with it, I often struggle to remember that this show exists, much less what its content was like. With effort I can summon recollections regarding Pandora Hearts, but honestly and for a different reason as is usual this is a hard one to review.

And the funny thing is, this doesn’t at all seem like it should be a forgettable show in any way. It features its main boy get banished to a strange and esoteric hell, only to team up with that dimension’s top dog, an entity known both as Alice (and styled as a palette-swapped Alice in Wonderland in her human form) and the Blood-Stained Black Rabbit (or B.Rabbit). Add in battles against gribbly monsters, time abnormalities, changed identities, delves into lost memory, and grand conspiracies and you would think you’d have a recipe for a show that would at least be memorable.

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I Did Not Sign Up For This Feels Trip – Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai Spoiler Review

“Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai”… The very title conjures a certain set of expectations, doesn’t it? Something seems very goofy about this. The perspective deepens when you hear the pitch, the show being about a more-or-less ordinary High School boy, Sakuta, helping a series of girls deal with strange phenomena caused by something called “Puberty Syndrome”. You can even start to watch the first episode, and it looks and feels a good deal like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, especially when you have the main character being fairly deadpan.

That sounds really plausible. All together, you’re being told, more or less, that you’re in for a Haruhi-esque Harem/Comedy with a “zany supernatural elements in the real world” vibe. If that’s what you’re being told, though, you are being lied to.

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A Scare for the Kids – Ghost Stories Spoiler Review

I don’t tend to review a lot of anime made primarily for the younger bracket. Most of what I look at is at least targeted towards teens, if not Adults. So in some senses I have to really switch gears to look at something that’s clearly intended for more the grade school bracket, such as Ghost Stories here.

All the same, there are some basic fundamentals of storytelling, so I don’t feel I’m really at a loss to evaluate the topic. Especially not when the topic is what it is with Ghost Stories, hooking in to several, well, ghost stories (some of which even an invested westerner such as myself might be familiar with from other sources) to provide a horror-genre show for kids. Growing up in the West, I had things like “The Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby-Doo”, and there’s a degree to which this is clearly cut from the same cloth.

However, it wouldn’t be entirely fair to judge a show for kids, again especially a horror show for kids, by the same standards used to grade works that are more mature and don’t have fetters placed on them by their audience alone. Because of that, I’ll be once again busting out the Pass-Fail scale for Ghost Stories, with the understanding that it should really be looked at for what it could bring to a younger audience, and that there might not be as much there for adults.

It is important to note, though: I watched this show, as I always try to, with subtitles rather than dubbed.  The Ghost Stories dub is infamously unfaithful and according to some reports quite funny on its own, but I’m dealing here with the more conventional subtitled version.

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Wherever You May Roam – Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina Spoiler Review

So, this is a show that seemed to be custom tailored just for me. On one side, I love anime witches. Call it a personal appeal but making the robe-and-pointy-hat combo look goodis a plus, along with the usual combo of impressive magic and decent cunning. On the other side, I typically enjoy travelogues, stories that focus on a person’s journey through a number of other engaging scenarios. So, a show about an anime witch going on a journey through a fantasy world encountering a variety of wonders and threats? This should be really good, or at least really appealing.

Of course, looking at things with a critical eye, I can’t just let a show get away on a couple of themes alone; this has to be fairly considered for what it achieves, not just want the pitch is.

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How To Not Write Mysteries, Twists, or Characters – Occult Academy Spoiler Review

“Picture of a man, a weary dreamer in a mundane world, and thus like many steeped in occult matters and fantasy diversions. One harmless enough after all, indulging in the fictions of alien visitors or out-of-place artifacts, the coy suggestions of might-have-been believed fervently by others and made believable by careful atmosphere and storytelling. But in the search for horror fiction and urban fantasies, such a man is likely to encounter horror of a very different kind, in the form of a show that purports to trade in such favored topics but instead trades in other things, a profusion of cheap twists supported by obnoxious characters and forced scenes. Because, at this Occult Academy, the subject we’ll be teaching is not about monsters or spirits but about writing, and the worst is about to be on display.”

So, Rod Serling style narration aside, let’s talk once again about constructive issues in shows, because there are going to be a ton of them to explore in Occult Academy. Many we’ll have to get to as we get to them in the summary of the plot, but let’s lay out the basics here at the start. For one, we’re going to have to talk about tone and atmosphere. We’re also going to need to talk about character growth, twists, and when a writer should let something go.

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