It’s a new season of anime, so it’s time to go through a new set of seasonal episodes! This time, I’m going to be watching along with In/Spectre (aka Kyokou Suiri). Now, this one… I’m not exactly going in sight unseen. I’m caught up with the manga (through volume 10, which is past anything we can expect to see out of this season), and I know the anime is going to be following that fairly closely since I got to see Episode 1 at last year’s Anime Expo rather than for the first time today.
My basic impression of In/Spectre
Episode 1 was that it did a good job at animating the manga, which
could be a strength or a weakness depending on how you look at the
manga. Because it’s practically beat for beat the exact same,
elements that were strong in the manga are strong here, while
elements that were weak in the manga are weak here, right?
Well, it’s actually a little more
complicated than that. Manga and anime are different mediums, with
different strengths and weaknesses, and what works in one does not
necessarily work in the other. Before I get into my specific
thoughts on the episode, a little background for those who don’t know
what In/Spectre is.
The general pitch of In/Spectre is
this: both Kotoko Iwanaga and Kurou Sakuragawa are individuals
touched by the supernatural. Iwanaga was spirited away as a child,
losing an eye and a leg to become the “god of wisdom” that all
manner of yokai and spirits can approach with their problems. Kurou,
on the other hand (as we learn by the end of the first episode) once
fed on the flesh of two sorts of Yokai, an act that seems to have
made him immortal (and sees most supernatural creatures regard him as
a terrifying monster). Iwanaga harbored a crush on Kurou for years,
and moves in quickly after he has a break-up with his fiancee. Of
course, in addition to her own affection, Kurou could also be
incredibly useful in her line of work, dealing with spirit creatures,
because of how he frightens them.
This is, basically, the content of
episode 1: following Iwanaga as she follows Kurou, then watching as
she makes some deductions, picking apart a story he tells with the
clever analysis that will be typical of the mystery aspects and
introducing us to the “supernatural is real” facts of the
setting. Finally, they encounter a hostile/insane spirit, and
Kurou’s immortality is put on display.
Episode 1 doesn’t get into the main
plot, and the next episode preview promises a 1-off from a later
volume, but the core story that the anime will likely spend much of
its full run covering involves Iwanaga and Kurou working – with
Kurou’s ex, a police officer – to solve problems related to a
violent ghost with a tangled story behind it.
Now, there are a few things to note.
First is that In/Spectre is mostly a mystery, even if not a
traditional one, so I will try to not talk too much ‘ahead’ of stuff
covered in the current episode. Which brings me to what the anime
can do and what it will have to work hard to deal with.
On the plus side for the anime is the
comedy. There are quite a few funny moments in In/Spectre. The most
typical involve that while Iwanaga has the appearance of an angelic
young girl (she’s one of those characters who, despite being in
college, could probably be mistaken for a middle school student) and
the mind of a top detective (she’s In/Spectre’s Sherlock, with Kurou
and our police officer friend more serving as the Watson), her manner
of speech is very shameless. Seriously, some of the things that come
out of her mouth would probably make KonoSuba’s Darkness blush. In
text, this is amusing. There’s humor to be had in the juxtaposition
of Iwanaga. In the anime, these moments can be laugh-out-loud
hilarious. A manga only has one panel of expression to get across a
character’s tone or reaction and text to communicate. An anime has
the inflection of voice acting, the fluidity of motion, and an
element of time that’s foreign to manga and really benefits comedy.
The right delivery with the right timing can push jokes like these
ahead, and at least in episode 1 that’s what the anime does.
On the other hand, a lot of the drama
of In/Spectre comes from deductions and analysis. That means
In/Spectre is a very text-heavy manga, and that a lot of the
important points don’t really have much going on if you look at them
objectively. The Manga makes it work, but the variable pace of
reading actually helps it there. It would be difficult, but not
impossible to make the best scenes in In/Spectre work in an animated
format. Episode 1 does alright, but Episode 1 is also a light
introduction to what makes In/Spectre tick. The deductions about
Kurou and Kurou’s Breakup that Iwanaga makes here take only a couple
pages in the manga. Some of the paths of reasoning she constructs
later can take entire volumes. Because she’s usually reconstructing
events (“What might have happened”, “What really happened”,
or so on) there are some good opportunities for visual storytelling
along the line, but it is absolutely going to be the biggest
challenge of the series and is the reason why, despite enjoying the
manga greatly, it wouldn’t have been my first choice to adapt to
screen.
And before anyone goes crazy, I know
that the In/Spectre manga is itself an adaptation of the original
novel, Kyokou Suiri, but I’m choosing to look at the anime as an
adaptation of the manga for a couple of reasons: one is because I’m
familiar with the manga, and another is because, well, it follows the
manga so closely that it’s clearly using that source rather than just
going all the way back to the root.
So far, the show is handling the
balance of being a show fairly well, but part of why I want to follow
along with it is because I know the dangers the show is facing. More
on those when we get there, next week and on.