An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Anime Reviews

Multi-Route Drifting? – Fruit of Grisaia Spoiler Review

Fruit of Grisaia is an oddball of a Visual Novel adaptation. It’s unclear who the proper heroine of the show is supposed to be, probably because if anything I’ve been lead to believe is true, it’s actually a hybrid adaptation, incorporating every major route into one Frankenstein’s Monster of a route that lets us see the personal stories of all the girls involved. What is clear, though, is that it really likes making its characters suffer, so strap yourselves in.

The story starts with the arrival of a boy called Yuji Kazami at, by his request, his new school. Sounds basic? Well, there are a few issues. For one, Yuji’s school has a student body of six including himself. The other five are all girls, which makes things a little more awkward. And, lastly, there’s the fact that while all the students of the school have special circumstances in one way or another, Yuji circumstance is that he’s a former black-ops agent, having spent most of his youth as an assassin for a shadowy government agency. He sincerely wants a normal life at this point, being bored and tired with his former paramilitary hitman existence, but of course if he got that we wouldn’t have a story, so we find ourselves here.

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Adapted Epic – Muv Luv Alternative Anime Spoiler Review

Welcome to something of the “Main Feature” for the month I’ve spent reviewing Muv Luv properties – Muv Luv Alternative, Anime Version. Technically, this is only season 1, which is something of a shame but the decision to do January as Muv Luv Month was made before the fact this show was getting a Season 2 was announced.

So, a couple things to make clear right at the start. For one, I am going to be a little more sparse on the plot summary here than I usually am because I already went into great detail on Muv Luv Alternative earlier this month.  It should still be more than enough to follow the story if you don’t already know it, but I will try to keep more to significant events. Second, since this is a review of Season 1 with Season 2 announced, it should be clear that this show doesn’t cover the entire running time of Muv Luv Alternative, so there’s a degree to which I can’t say how well it does justice to certain elements. I can speculate, and will try to do so where a logical guess can be made, but certain things just haven’t gotten to the screen.

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The Alien Invasion Story About Human Cold War Politics – Schwarzesmarken Spoiler Review

The entire Muv Luv BETAverse is, in some ways, a love letter to cold war science fiction. I don’t even know if this was intentional, but between the Soviet chicanery, CIA spooks, national pride, mad science, “Like the atomic bomb but bigger and badder” new weapons, and general theme of mankind on the brink, it does recall quite a lot of that period’s media and color. There was a time not so long ago when actual, legitimate government authorities sank time and money into researching psychic powers and messing around with plots that would make most spy thrillers look tame, and Muv Luv seems to adore that and the storytelling possibilities that come from it, at least enough to keep the blocs around even in a world where everything behind the iron curtain has pretty much been gobbled up by alien monsters. So, I suppose, it only makes sense that Muv Luv would eventually generate a spinoff actually set closer to the heart of the Cold War.

That spin-off is Schwarzesmarken. Set in 1983 East Germany, this is the Muv Luv sidestory anime that really does its own thing, and that thing is largely going all the way with Muv Luv’s infatuation with rebels, coups, and morally gray political backstabbing by engaging with its world.

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Imitation Gold – Muv Luv Alternative Total Eclipse Spoiler Review

I’ve talked a few times in this blog about imitations, the usually lesser offspring of greater progenitors. Yuki Yuna is a Hero from Madoka Magica. RahXephon from Neon Genesis Evangelion. And, in my previous takes, I’ve often pointed out that it’s not always bad to take notes, even heavy notes from something great just as long as the new work brings something legitimate and innovative to the table, a test that both Yuki Yuna and RahXephon passed with flying colors.

Muv Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse (from here on to be called simply Total Eclipse) is in a somewhat different place when it comes to that. For one, it’s not exactly a sequel (taking place at a similar time to Alternative itself), but because it’s part of the same franchise it does operate somewhat on sequel rules more than the rules for (dubiously) original works. For another… it’s much more overshadowed and clearly imitative than those others I’ve addressed.

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Waste in the Wasteland – Children of the Whales Spoiler Review

It’s becoming a Christmas tradition for me to review a show I absolutely despise towards the end of December. And why not? Negativity is fun to write and to read; it’s probably what a lot of you are here for, and Haruhi knows I’ve wanted to tear into some of these shows for some time. And this time it’s my miserable pleasure to open up on Children of the Whales.  Ho, ho, ho.

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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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