An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Anime Reviews

There is Now a Level Zero – Little Witch Academia Spoiler Review

Little Witch Academia is a show with an interesting history. It first started as a half-hour special, introducing us to the major characters and at least a version of the world. Later, the funding was achieved to produce another, longer special which fleshed out much more of a setting and introduced some new characters. It didn’t really contradict anything in the original, but it did evolve the material significantly.

They’re not the main thrust of this review, but I think it’s important for background to cover them quickly.

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Your Mileage May Vary – Vividred Operation Spoiler Review

Vividred Operation is a weird one for me. The first time I tried to watch it, I quit part-way through Episode 2. The reason for this is probably the reason it’s got a fairly poor aggregate, and why a lot of viewers will also be dissuaded from getting through the show: The fanservice is intense, and if that doesn’t bug you on its own it’s worth noting that it’s mostly loli fanservice. Like most Magical Girls, the leads in Vividred Operation are in middle school, and unlike a lot of Magical Girls (especially ones that get fanservice-heavy treatments) at least some of them, notably the main character Akane, are drawn to look on the younger end of that and still get a lot of shots focused on their rear ends.

To be fair, the show lets you know this pretty much from frame one, when one of the first shots of the show does the James Bond style “Scene between the legs” shot with one of the girls. The show does, frankly, tone it down a little over time (I guess they assume they’d hooked the audience they wanted to hook) but it never goes away, with even that particular shot coming back a couple times.

If that’s going to filter you, you can stop now. If not, what do you actually get for going through the whole show? Honestly, a very heartfelt, legitimate, and well-constructed Magical Girl show.

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Metal Hands & Human Hearts – Violet Evergarden Spoiler Review

Violet Evergarden is one of those shows that you’ve probably at least heard about if you’re the kind of person who’s reading this blog. It’s fairly recent, the anime releasing in 2018, but it caught just about everybody’s attention and generally in a positive way.

And yet I went into this show basically unspoiled. I heard a lot of people talk about how good it was, but very little about the content. I wasn’t even certain, from what little I was made aware, if Violet was actually human or if she was some kind of robot. There might be a reason for that confusion.

In my opinion, there are two things that are really worth the hype in Violet Evergarden – the titular character, and the setting. Let’s start with those.

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Fire Breath to Warm the Heart? – Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Spoiler Review

So, you want a “Feel good fanservice” sort of piece – something like Helpful Fox Senko-san – but want it to be a little more high energy, like a traditional comedy. An odd wish, but there’s just the show to grant it: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid!

The concept is about what you’d expect from the title. An overworked office worker, Kobayashi, finds herself the subject of the attentions of Tohru, a dragon, who assumes human form in order to serve as Kobayashi’s maid. Hijinx ensue, especially because Tohru may be unclear on concepts like how humans live and what maids are, while being a dragon with titanic destructive power.

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Misery & Redemption – The Rising of the Shield Hero (Season 1) Spoiler Review

Isekai is something of a touchy subject. It’s a simple concept, turned into a complex genre, which has then gained something of a bad reputation. And, I have to admit, the reputation is not entirely undeserved. Modern Isekai shows have a very tight list of genre tropes and expectations, which is why I called the genre complex. There are a ton of things that go into the common perception of an Isekai show. The style, the feel, the harem, the cheat ability, the power fantasy. And despite the fairly strict formula, these shows are everywhere. They’ve been mass-produced in recent years, and to an extent the torrent is still ongoing. With that kind of volume of shows that are so massively similar, it’s inevitable by Sturgeon’s Law alone that the average quality is going to be on the low end.

Perhaps because of this, most Isekai shows will have something about them that’s a good-faith attempt to be unique. They don’t have a lot of room while remaining perfectly in-formula, though, so in addition to a battery of ‘unique’ cheat abilities, you get shows that pick an element of the formula and either subvert it, or at least attempt to sell themselves on subverting it. KonoSuba, as a parody, is sort of the model for subverting just about everything, but more will just pick a trait. The Harem might be subverted by leaning more into romance, or the Power Fantasy might be subverted by going with the “starts out absurdly weak” trope (though these characters often become broken strong very quickly with powers that follow the Magikarp growth pattern, itself not really being a subversion of the power fantasy).

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One in the Chamber – Danganronpa Spoiler Review

Death games are often difficult to get just right. There’s a real tension in how much you develop characters that must ultimately be killed, in how desperate the plight is, how you manage the danger for main characters that the audience knows ultimately have to survive, and so on. It’s a careful balancing act of sympathy and threat, of gore and hope. If it’s done well, it can be amazing. Mirai Nikki is an experience, a compound cat-and-mouse game that’s (on the whole) a joy. If it really fails, though, it can be an absolutely abysmal viewing experience. Magical Girl Raising Project, for instance, doesn’t know how to spend its time or when and where to actually build characters, and is a failed show largely because of how it didn’t manage the Death Game aspect.

In a sense, writing for a Death Game is more of, well, game design than it is ‘traditional’ writing. Or, if not more, that’s at least a skill it draws on. While I’m by no means as much a game designer as I am a writer, it is at least a lesser area of my expertise. There are many schools of game design, focused on different aspects, and not all of them are relevant. Competitive balance, for instance, doesn’t really come into play so much when you’ve got a script. What does is how to create a fulfilling “gameplay loop” and design a good player experience. Because, when you get down to it, the structure of a death game show is, by nature, a “gameplay loop” for the death game in the fiction. Assume the story’s main character is the “player” and work around that. Mirai Nikki has a good loop: Yuki is menaced by a diary bearer and has to kill or be killed with his current target, ending that scenario and initiating a bridge to the next. The formula gets shaken up here and there, but that is what the show comes back to. Magical Girl Raising Project teases what could have been an interesting loop (get candies-elimination) but never really gets you feeling it, as there’s only one iteration between when the consequences are made clear and when it’s never used again and Snow White never really has to “play”.

You’d think this would be a real asset for Danganronpa. This is, after all, a Death Game show based on a video game, so in theory they should have addressed the game design elements of a good Death Game in the source material, making it extremely easy to transport over to the anime, right?

Well… I do think the core understanding of the ‘gameplay’ elements may have saved the show, because it’s got a lot of problems all the same.

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Who The Hell Do You Think I Am? – Gurren Lagann Spoiler Review

Now, here’s a show I’ve alluded to before – the whirlwind of illogical, enjoyable energy known as Gurren Lagann. Part of me wants to just jump right in, because it’s that kind of show, but given the contexts I’ve brought it up in before, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least address something of the production history.

You see, Gurren Lagann (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann if you prefer) is, technically, a Gainax anime. But to an extent that’s like saying the studio behind Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was Topcraft. Which it was. But Nausicaa is largely considered a Ghibli film because much of the talent that worked on it went on to become Studio Ghibli. Similarly, while Gurren Lagann was created under the auspice of Gainax, it is in some respects Trigger anime #0. Much like you can see many of the themes that would be endemic in Ghibli’s work (particularly Hayao Miyazaki’s) in Nausicaa, it’s easy to see that loads of Trigger’s favorite tropes and styles were first developed here in Gurren Lagann.

So, if at some point in this review, I mention how an element is very much like Trigger, or even call Gurren Lagann a Trigger show, know that I am fully aware that it technically belongs to Gainax, and am speaking more to the fact that many of the people we think of as Trigger were here too.

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Not Enough – The Price of Smiles Spoiler Review

On a distant planet, in the mecha-riding future, a princess ascends her country’s throne in a time of crisis, having to take the reins and defend her people against an invading empire while, perhaps, a greater threat to the survival of all looms just out of sight. Along the way, though bitter losses are incurred, we also learn that the Imperial aggressors and the noble defenders may not be so different, ultimately seeing that they’re all just human, flawed and largely trying to do what’s best for them and theirs.

This sounds like it could be really good. It’s reminiscent of shows, books, and games: to me, most pointedly Valkyria Chronicles or Fire Emblem. It’s a timeless framework that can be endlessly revitalized by putting new flesh on those old bones, and at least has the potential to reach a high level of quality. Potential, mind you, not guarantee. The Price of Smiles stands as a testament to the fact that even if you use good ingredients, you still need skill and effort to get a pleasing result.

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A Tribute to Tokusatsu – SSSS Gridman Spoiler Review

“Tokusatsu” is a Japanese term for effects-heavy live action film-making. Most often, it’s associated strongly with a very particular few styles. Flashy costumes, suitmation monsters, and very often a cheesy but beloved kind of attitude. Tokusatsu outings include the classic Godzilla films, which have always been favorites of mine despite not really being within the normal scope of this blog, as well as TV shows such as Super Sentai (known in the west for its stock footage being used to create Power Rangers), Kamen Rider, and the ‘Ultra Series’ franchise spawned by the original Ultraman. The Ultra Series in particular is kind of the distillation of Tokusatsu sub-genres, featuring transforming heroes and kaiju (giant monsters) doing battle.

Why do I bring this up? Because SSSS Gridman is Trigger’s mecha-flavored love letter to all things Tokusatsu, and the Ultra Series in particular (seeing as it’s called out by name), and it is at least as insane as you would expect from that.

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