Sequel to a spin-off anime of a spin-off video game!

I’m doubly willing to bet this isn’t very good.

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The first episode infuriated me so much I refused to watch any more.

• Too deliberate in it’s invoking of elements of the original Gundam series.
• Cheap animation
• Repetitive character design

Despite all that, Mitsuo Fukuda & Chiaki Morosawa’s revamp of the Gundam franchise was a big success. Unfortunately that success meant that the backlash they got for the follow up all that much more great. But we’ll get to that later.

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From writing synopses for this back in the old job I think this is about a pair of superpowered repo men.

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Oh this terrible thing. By trying to be the future you’re going end up look incredibly dated a few years later. This is pretty much the equivalent of all those cheapo CG animated shows that came out everywhere else in the world around this time. And looked like they were made in Poser.

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Let’s ignore the writing for a moment. Has any other TV anime show managed to contain such extremes of animation quality?

In the episodes I’ve seen, probably the first 100 or so, you’ve the highs of some excellent Norio Matsumoto animated fights to the lows of elementary animation cock ups like having Naruto on the screen running upside down. The level of inconsistency in what Studio Pierrot produced was astounding. And infuriating.

But that’s not why I gave up on it. No, it was the writing.

Here’s the real problem Naruto had, the manga didn’t divide up neatly into arcs in the same way that Dragonball or One Piece did. There’s other problems with manga’s writing, but that’s neither here nor there, for the purposes of animating it.

That lack of breaks in the story meant that they struggled to pad out the story. You ended up with both repetitive recaps and then the long tract of sub-par filler episodes that people just hated. It’s not the only show that’s had that problem, but it’s certainly really noticeable when seen against the success of One Piece and Dragonball, and may have ultimately hurt the property. Certainly kept me away from it for years.

But outside of Japan it’s probably been the hit of the decade. Some may wonder if it’s deserved, but to really put the current success of Shonen Jump properties like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Gintama & Reborn into perspective I suggest looking at what else is running in Shonen Jump at the moment. It’s mostly terrible. Toriko and Bakuman are good, and I’d guess would be hits if animated. Bakuman I expect will be, Toriko might not, probably for reasons that have nothing to with the actual strip.

Every other non-gag strip that’s not been animated yet, feels either highly derivative or just clumsy. Naruto’s success in the US/UK is fueled by the manga, and that is head and shoulders above a lot of what’s in SJ, even if it’s not really my cup of tea. It is very good at what it does. Not the best ever, not the best now, but certainly better than the majority of shonen manga and anime.

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More Sister Princess. Apparently this is even worse than the first, in that it’s truer to the terrible moe light novels that spawned it.

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This was lacking in what I wanted from a Bomberman cartoon. Namely massive amounts of explosions.

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Ridiculously cheap boxset in the UK, that like a lot of DVDs I’ve bought, I’ve not actually got around to watching yet. It’s a Kazuki Akane (Escaflowne) project so really should get on that. Though its tale of manly robot policing does inadvertently remind me of this:

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Yes, that is the Backstreet Boys.

Makoto Isshiki’s supernatural comedy about a boy who can see the dead (published many years before Sixth Sense btw). Performed strongly for a late night slot, I’ve checked the first episode out and it looks like a really neat little show that completely swept past by me, unnoticed.

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