An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

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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A Forgotten Masterpiece – Keit Ai Spoiler Review

What if I told you there was an anime that was like the love-child of Your Name, Toradora!, and Noein, but actually predated all three? It’s a largely forgotten slice of weirdness and romance which you may have heard of but almost certainly haven’t seen: the near Urban Legend known as Keit Ai.

Nearly as interesting as Keit Ai itself, though, is the story of how it came to stand on the misty border of what can be confirmed as ‘real’, how it became known in the West, and how I was even able to watch it. So, if you’ll permit, I’ll take a little time to tell that story before diving into the show.

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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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Mechs & Magic – The Vision of Escaflowne Spoiler Review

Escaflowne is an… interesting production. It’s a sprawling story spawned out of the lawless pre-2000s zeitgeist that didn’t require shows to inhabit particular genre boxes quite as insistently as you usually see in more modern works. It’s kind of a fantasy epic, technically Isekai, at least as Mecha as Full Metal Panic, sometimes a shoujo romance, and held together with sutures of psychological drama and alternate history. Whew!

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