An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Benefits Package – Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. Spoiler Review

I enjoy the Magical Girl genre. I really do. But between dubious choices and disappointing outings, that hasn’t shown much in this year’s Magical Girl May, has it? Well, to avoid going out on a sour note, I’ve sourced just the girls for the job. Sure, the service involved is something a little different, but it’s still deeply tied to traditions. A sterling aesthetic that can blend its genres and deliver – it’s time for Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.!

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Magical Girls Broken – Twin Angels Break Spoiler Review

It’s Magical Girl May, so you know what? Enough of this half-counting nonsense. Arjuna and Magikano may show up on lists of technically magical girl shows, but they’re not in tune with the core of the genre. Twin Angels Break, on the other hand, is about as core a Magical Girl show as you could hope for, with all the tropes of a post-Sailor-Moon action Magical Girl outing on full display. After how the last couple of weeks have treated me, that’s good enough in my book to be worth a watch.

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Which Witch? – Magikano Spoiler Review

Well, once again my duties have brought me a show that’s old enough to vote and it seems like barely anybody cared about the first time around, but heck, what have we got here? Some cute witch girls on brooms, some dated moe, an even more dated poppy love song that could have gone with anything for the opening? You know, against all sane expectations, I’m going to choose to be hopeful. I don’t expect this show to be good, but I will entertain the premise that it could be, and that if it isn’t good per say it may at least decline to hurt me. I know that isn’t much, but it’s still optimism. Show me what you’ve got, Magikano!

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You Are What You Eat, and the Menu is Evil – Earth Maiden Arjuna Spoiler Review

If you’ve been around the blog a little, you might have an inkling of how I feel about message fiction.

Now, I’m no enemy of messages in fiction. Some of the true all-time greats in anime, as well as genre fiction in general have had, if not a dedicated message they were trying to get out, at least a distinctly message-like slant to their existences. These are pieces that know the best way to convey the message is to let the fiction shine, delivering a compelling story with interesting characters colored by the lens through which the world is seen in order to communicate on a deep level. In some cases you might not even realize you’re looking at message fiction until you find yourself introspecting on the topics of what you just watched or read.

But then you get the other and all too common sort of message fiction, that sees the fiction as the vehicle for the message, that treats the viewing experience as a school lecture, and the author is the “teacher” attempting to hammer some lesson home to students because it will be on the final exam. These can come in many forms from the obnoxiously preachy to the hopelessly saccharine to the “scare ’em straight” comical absolutism of hellfire preachers and those annoying D.A.R.E. rallies that most Americans my age had to sit through.

I don’t hate message fiction absolutely. But I do hate when the message decides to stretch the fiction on the rack until its limbs look like something Junji Ito would have night terrors of, ties the writhing and tormented fiction into knots to hold millstones of judgmental morality in place, rides the fiction and its millstones down a hill of broken Aesop summations like some stone-wheeled go-kart, and cheers at its first place finish over a field of inanimate straw men while the tortured fiction unmercifully expires beneath the weight of the message’s arrogant grandstanding. When message fiction is bad, it’s pretty much the worst, and it doesn’t matter what the message actually is.

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Start Your Engines – Wish Upon the Pleiades Spoiler Review

Some series exist to push product. It’s true in Western animation and it’s true in Anime as well. Usually, the product in question is some manner of toy; I’ve covered a fair number of anime shows based on card games or plastic models, so this blog is no stranger to the sometimes desperate product tie-in side of the art form.

Yet even given that, Wish Upon the Pleiades is weird. Subaru – the car company – apparently decided that they needed an anime outing to their name, and got Gainax of all studios to put it together for them, first as an ONA in 2011 and then as a full-run show in 2015. The latter is what we’re looking at today.

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Second Quest, First Anime — Blue Reflection Ray Spoiler Review

Let’s talk about feelings.

But not any specific feelings. Feelings in abstract. The idea of feelings. Let’s ride the fine line between deeply exploratory science fiction and outright Care Bears as we treat feelings, categorically, as well-defined things and not aspects of mood, situation, personality, or so on.

And let’s make this talk at least somewhat interesting by having magical girls battle over the outcome. Let’s talk about Blue Reflection Ray.

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What. – Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror Spoiler Review

Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror is a show about a girl called Yohane, who is trying to make it big as a pop idol when… let me start over. Yohane the Parhelion is a show about a girl called Yohane trying to fit in in her small town home, alongside her giant talking wolf… let me start over. Yohane is a show about a fantastical world with mythical beings, talking animals… one talking animal… magic music and… hold on, I think I need to start over again. This is a show about the bonds between a group of special young women and how they can hope to dispel a dark magical calamity threatening their town, and… You know what, I’ll try the simple version.

Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror is a show. Let’s talk about it.

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Streaking Shinto Magical Girls? – Matoi the Sacred Slayer Spoiler Review

Matoi the Sacred Slayer is a magical girl show where, say it with me, a teen girl gains mystical powers that allow her to transform into a prettied-up super state, and with which she’s able to fight monsters that secretly threaten humanity. In short, it’s got the same pitch as just about every other action-skewed Magical Girl show. What’s Matoi’s unique claim to fame?

Well, the show seems to want you to notice that when she comes out of magical girl state, she does so nude. So at least we have that.

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Pick A Card, Any Card (As Long As It’s Major Arcana) – Day Break Illusion Spoiler Review

Well, this month I’ve reviewed shows in the vein of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, two of the backbone shows for my first Magical Girl May… might as well take on one that’s trying to be Madoka, right?

Enter Day Break Illusion, a show that seems to be taking design notes and tonal pointers alike from Madoka Magica. But this one has Tarot cards? As pitches go, I’ve seen worse.

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