Here’s what I think makes a great cartoon – taking an idea and escalating it beyond the confines of logic. Take Tex Avery’s Bad Luck Blackie:

It’s just one gag: whenever a black cat walks past the dog, ill will befalls the dog. But there’s a good 7 minutes that you can get out it by exploring it and pushing it beyond exhaustion.

Some people wonder why Gurren Lagann connects with viewers for whom other robot shows don’t. It’s because Hiroyuki Imaishi and Kazuki Nakashima understood what is specifically effective in cartoons and rather than just using animation as the cheapest route to sci-fi on TV, they created a series designed to take advantage of what the medium offers. And that included escalation. Not only are the stakes in Gurren Lagann progressively raised with each arc, but it takes the idea of piloting giant humanoid robots and escalates that as well. It escalates it beyond what might be considered sensible by more conservative creators, and by the end you have the giant robot equivalent of the ship falling out the sky onto the dog.

If you want to see the best of the last four years of MADstravaganza, then come to Kitacon III, April 1st to 3rd at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole.

It will be the first time I’ve run it at a hotel con, so if you’ve missed out at the Amecon and Ayacon versions here’s your chance to catch up.

And if you’ve been before, there’ll be all your old favourites, along with a smattering of new clips.

Excretion Without Honor or Humanity

Our first introduction to the premise of PSG is this story of haunted toilets and a giant faecal monster. The premise is a classic Magical Girl Premise, two girls from another world who must fight monsters in order to attain rewards and return to their world. The joke is that the Magical Girls in question are shallow monsters obsessed with sex and sugar respectively.

Much has been made of the visual style and its inspiration from 90s Hanna Barbera fare (it in turn influenced by anime, 60s HB and 50s UPA). As refreshing as it might be when cast against the standard anime fare of today, there are signs that it suffers from it’s multiple dilutions of influences. And unfortunately that’s mostly seen in this first story.

As bold as the design, movement and colours are in the characters, the backgrounds in this episode also are. This means it looks cluttered, overly busy and the foreground gets confused with the background.

There is also a problem with far too much exposition to set everything up. As fun as the opening theme with its auto-tuned Panty, Stocking, Panty, Panty, Stocking mantra is, they could have used that time more effectively by setting up the premise in the theme tune.

I still enjoyed it, but was a little disappointed in the execution. Thankfully that was erased by…

Death Race 2010

Set during the day, as opposed to the night time of first story, the colour design and backgrounds begin to work in the show’s favour. Sushio’s in charge of animation here, and we get a lot of comedy action that is closer to Imaishi’s Re:Cutey Honey episode than the hectic barrage of Dead Leaves. You could argue that some of action comes at the expense of gags per minute, but I’d rather have action than exposition filling that time.

The Clamor of the Beehive

Here we get the introduction of Briefs, the nerdy teenage fanboy of Panty. Who dresses like a Ghostbuster. They meet him when infiltrating a school where students are going missing. The gags start coming a lot faster in this episode compared to the opening two, but at the cost of showcase animation. There’s definitely a question of where their priorities are and balance between the various aspects of the show lays throughout the episodes.

Sex and the Daten City

An episode without a ghost for the girls to hunt, instead it involves the debut of Panty & Stocking’s first motion picture. Only it turns out Panty had unknowingly filmed a porno film, and so they go on worldwide hunt to destroy all copies. Probably the most effective episode all round to date.

Catfight Club

Another episode where the “Anarchy Angels” have a falling out, and struggle to defeat their foe. Probably most notable for introducing paedophile priest gags into the show as we see Garterbelt taking an untoward interest in Briefs. Some funny gags, but not that memorable as an episode.

Pulp Addiction

Whereas this episode about the ghosts of sperm taking over a tissue paper factory definitely sticks in your mind. The gags don’t come as thick and fast as Catfight Club’s but they are delivered with more aplomb. I’m certain the sperm as soldiers gag has been done many times before, but probably not with this amount of thought given to the visuals.

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In conclusion, it’s clearly not a show for everyone, lots of folks will get stuck at the puerile humour and not see the craft involved. It’s not a show where folks are going to stick with it to see if they might warm up to it. They might not even stick around for the second story in the first episode.

For my tastes, I think it pulls it off quite well. There’s room for improvement, but when you look at other shows, animated and otherwise, mining the same vein of humour it’s doing a lot right. Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time, I am looking at you and your over-long, leaden sketches.

A great, great first episode. Possibly the most promising TV anime since Tatami Galaxy.

As the first episode throws you in at the deep end I won’t try to do a full synopsis, so lets just reel off what is great.

1. The use of Venetian Masks and Commedia dell’arte imagery. This is what people are claiming is flamboyant and homophobes are claiming is gay about the show. At this point I don’t know if they are going much deeper with the imagery that just using it because it looks cool and different. The fact the bad guys also have this Hellfire Club thing going on with fishnets does make you think that they may have just liked Eyes Wide Shut a lot.

   On the other hand, the hero does have an element of performance to the way he behaves, both in his cracking jokes and his eventual appearance with his robot. And he dresses in white and doesn’t have to wear a mask to activate his robot, so he may be meant to represent Pierrot. Something definitely worth following up on when the series is complete.

2. Using a bonkers giant robot story as a metaphor for being a teenager. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what a secret conspiracy out to break the seals of maidens is a metaphor for. That and the fact it actually takes place with a high school backdrop reminded a little of Devil Hunter Yoko (particularly it’s “every devil is a man in disguise” theme tune) another show that took the basic sexual subtext of many a magical girl shows and pushed it further to the fore. Thankfully this is much better made, and it has the twist of making the magical girl a boy with a giant robot. There’s been plenty of robot shows with school backdrops, but few use the robot aspect to actually reflect school life. It will be interesting to see how this plays out too.
3. Finally, and this is the big one, Takuya Igarashi is awesome. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed direction on an anime this much since Tatami Galaxy. There’s just shot after shot that are composed with such skill it makes you realise how little thought is put into most anime. It feels at times like a unification of his work on Ouran High School Host Club and Soul Eater, with the great acting and comedy of the former and the great action of the latter. And it moves along at a fair clip too, throwing you right in at the deep end. I love the way it gets you into the meat of the story just before the belated opening sequence. While you will be bombarded with mysteries by the episode’s end you don’t feel stupid for not knowing what’s going on. Compare that to the new Super Robot Wars OG anime where it seems to assume you have prior knowledge and so if you don’t, you find yourself wiki-ing mid episode to figure out what the hell is going on. Here you feel they’ll give you your answers down the line, so just sit back and enjoy the show.

And your bonus point of greatness – the Opening animation was apparently by some chap called Shinichiro Watanabe!