An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Anime Reviews

The Cooler Elfen Lied – Brynhildr in the Darkness Spoiler Review

Last week, I took a long look at Elfen Lied. Long story short… I didn’t particularly care for it. But there’s another show based on a manga by the author of Elfen Lied, one that I hear most people refer to as a knockoff of Elfen Lied, like it’s doing the same thing the way a lazy and uninventive sequel does: repackaged, reprocessed, and not as good as the first time around. So, since I was, to put it mildly, not a fan of Elfen Lied, you might think I’d have a bone to pick with Brynhildr as well.

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I Don’t Get It – Elfen Lied Spoiler Review.

Elfen Lied is a classic. By that, I mean that if you were a nerdy 90’s kid going to high school in the first half of the following decade or so, you were probably aware of a few anime shows by name even if you didn’t watch: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Beebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, and in all likelihood Elfen Lied would be among them.

Though I didn’t really get into anime until far later, at least in terms of shows rather than films like Princess Mononoke, that was basically my youth interface. I didn’t watch them owing to trouble finding copies or catching the right time slot in the days before streaming (with the exception of FMA –I watched it and in those days, we really believed its greatness was the world’s one and only truth) but I knew them by reputation, and their reputations were all more or less sterling… but to be taken with a grain of salt seeing as they were generated largely by other youths. Since really becoming a full fan of the art form as an adult, I’ve gone back now and then and watched the big names of the past with fresh eyes, as though to frighten away the ghost of so many years ago with a little understanding.

Some titles, such as Evangelion, have largely held up. They were praised then and they deserve praise now. Others, well… Others are Elfen Lied.

I try to not cuss in these reviews, but this time I make no promises.

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The Semicolon Seal of Fun – Robotics;Notes Spoiler Review

I imagine this was fairly expected given the April Fools’ Day “review” of Gunvarrel, but we’re going to take a look at Robotics;Notes this week. And I know March is over and my arbitrary Mecha theme with it, but while Robotics;Notes is at least tangentially related to mecha I don’t exactly see it as a Mecha show in the same vein as the ones I reviewed. As seen through Gunvarrel, that sort of stuff is still fictional in-universe. Instead, Robotics;Notes functions more as near-future science fiction story that just happens to include some giant robots.

It’s also one of the members of the “Science Adventure Series”, or “Semicolon Series” based on the idiosyncratic style of the titles (note, this one is “Robotics;Notes”, with a semicolon and no space. They are all like that.), the most famous of which would have to be Steins;Gate. The main entries, including Robotics;Notes, are adapted from Visual Novels and feature a shared universe. What’s more, they also share some general traits when it comes to storytelling. The members of the Semicolon series start off with a general sense that we’re feeling strange people in an essentially real world. Some have darker or lighter baselines than others, but they tend to have a turn somewhere in there that catapults the story from personal drama to the world or at least regional scale in terms of what’s at stake. They tend to be a solid blend of Science Fiction, Mystery, and occasionally Thriller in terms of their genre, but are seldom short on funny (or at least fun) moments, thanks to fairly colorful casts. They overall try to be pretty grounded, and while the science fiction that they present isn’t exactly hard the presentation is extremely artful when it comes to convincing the audience that this is something that could happen. Part of this comes from the tendency of the series to lift elements of its plot and science fiction components from the murkier corners of the real world, including psuedoscience, conspiracy theories, unexplained mysteries, and scientific wishful thinking about unproven properties of the universe. The audience is likely to be passing-familiar with some of the topics, or at least to have heard of them, possibly even in terms that lend credence to the show’s take.

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Good Animation Does Not Equal Good Action – Star Driver Spoiler Review

Star Driver is a mecha show that presents itself as passionate and stylish. It certainly looks the part; it’s brightly colored with a fairly particular style lending flair to good standard animation, including some particularly gorgeous environments. The character movements are graceful, which extends to the show’s Mechas usually moving more like dancers than lumbering multi-ton machines. The costumes range from the colorful end of ‘normal’ to the garishly absurd, and at first the plot and setting seem to follow suit with a conflict between our chronic hero and a fun, loony group of ‘villains’ who, like Team Rocket, are more amusing in their capering than legitimately threatening. Perhaps it’s a little heavier, but this still seems like it’s going to be a fun and engaging show with some kickass action.

If you, like I, watched the first episode or two of Star Driver and thought that, then the show tricked you. The presentation stays the course, but almost everything you would have guessed about the content is pretty far from the truth. And in this case, at least, that’s not a good thing.

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An Epic About Robots, Love, and Surfing – Eureka Seven Spoiler Review

Eureka Seven is, in my opinion, a rarity in that it’s a show that gets the long, escalating epic journey just about right. Because this show is no doubt a marathon. At 50 episodes it’s not the longest anime I’ve watched start to finish, but it is in a high tier that most shows don’t go for, and you do feel the weight that time investment can bring to bear. So I suppose the question is if Eureka Seven uses its time well, and if it’s worthwhile.

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Ia Fhtagn – Demonbane Spoiler Review

In the spirit of Mecha March, this week we’re going to take a look at another deep, symbolic, long, twisted, psychological… ha! Just kidding, it’s time for Demonbane.

Demonbane (or, if you prefer, Kishin Houkou Demonbane or Roar of the Machine God Demonbane) is a property that I can only assume is the result of a series of drunken dares culminating in “I bet you can’t write and market something with panty shots of the Necronomicon as a selling point”. Needless to say, they did it, and the anime form of the slice of insanity that resulted is what we’re looking at today.

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Imitation, um, Sure is Something – RahXephon Spoiler Review

Welcome back to Mecha March! Today I’m reviewing RahXephon, aka Xerox of Evangelion. Yeah, I’m just going to come out and mention the biggest issue with this show right at the start, because it is in everything and better to just get it out of the way: RahXephon is a show that lives almost entirely in the shadow of Neon Genesis Evangelion and really, really wants to simply be its famous predecessor. Characters, themes, images… a lot of them are lifted straight from Evangelion, serial numbers filed off and remixed just enough to claim to not be just Evangelion all over again.

But does it work? Drawing influence, even strong influence, from a predecessor can be alright. Being a mimeographed copy of your predecessor, slowly degrading from replication, however, is not. There isn’t an exceptionally sharp line dividing one for the other, the “too similar” failure state from the “more of the same, but ultimately OK” pass. Even though RahXephon strives to become Evangelion, if it puts in enough of its own work, it could be fine. Evangelion had a lot of good material, after all, and didn’t always implement it perfectly, so there might be room in the shell for something else.

The task set, let’s start digging in to RahXephon.

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Tackling a Classic – Neon Genesis Evangelion Spoiler Review.

Welcome, one and all, to Mecha March! Every week this month I’ll be looking at a different Mecha show, and what better way to start things off than with the one I’m going to have to spend a ton of time referencing, Evangelion?

That is, I admit, mostly why I’m doing this. I feel like most people who read this blog already know what NGE is and have their own opinions about it, but if I’m going to talk about some of its successors, I need to put down my own thoughts. I also think it’s quite valid to look at old shows with new eyes now and again, which is part of why I spend more time outside the most recent seasons. In either case, Neon Genesis Evangelion

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No Sharp Line – The Ancient Magus’ Bride Spoiler Review

There isn’t a sharp line dividing what some can find beautiful and what others might find troublesome, even sick. This goes double when it comes to romance, since different people approach the topic with different hangups, expectations, and auto-failure situations that won’t be shared universally. Some things will usually get a pass, and other things will usually be found disturbing. Sat right in the middle of the gray area between the two is the core romance of The Ancient Magus’ Bride.

Here’s the basic summary of the setup: Chise, a teenage girl, is bought at auction, as a slave, by an ancient and powerful inhuman sorcerer named Elias, who intends for her to marry him. Full stop. If you think that sounds like thirty-one flavors of wrong, I don’t blame you. If that sentence (run-on though it may be) is enough that you think you could never like this show… you might be right. For me, there are mitigating factors, but I blame no one for being unable to make it through episode 1 of this.

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Matchmakers Beware – Toradora! Spoiler Review

Toradora! (the title is excited) is the story of two high school students, Taiga Aisaka and Ryuuji Takasu, who encounter each other and learn that they each have an unrequited (for the time being at least) crush: Taiga on Ryuuji’s best friend Yuusaky Kitamura and Ryuuji on Taiga’s best friend Minori (“Minorin”) Kushieda. The two agree to attempt to play mutual matchmaker, but end up getting closer with and falling for each other in the process.

That really doesn’t sound like it would fill 25 episodes, does it? Mercifully, though, the slow-burn romance actually manages to work, and stay engaging for the show’s run. How does Toradora! do it?

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