AWESOME ENGINE » library war

May 5th, 2008 by Brack

Did you ever wish there could be a TV show that was a cross between Patlabor and Fahrenheit 451? With a bit of Read Or Die thrown in for free? Well you are in luck!

Based on novels by Hiro Arikawa, it puts forth the future Japan of 2019 where the national government and local government clash over censorship of the media. Two opposing laws - the Media Betterment Act and the Freedom of Libraries Law - have lead to the militarisation of government censors and the libraries.

Yes, this show’s heroes are paramilitary librarians.

It’s similarities to Patlabor lie mainly in the heroine, Iku Kasahara, a 22 year old member of the Library Militia, whose gung ho enthusiasm calls to mind Noa from Patlabor. Similarly the portrayal of relationships between the other members of the militia have the same degree of believability that Patlabor’s had.

I mentioned when I was running down the spring anime that I hoped this would be a visually interesting show, and this opening episode didn’t let me down. Coincidentally, both this show and Kaiba are doing interesting things with the weight of lines. Kaiba has more ambitious plans for that judging from comments on Yuasa’s production blog, but what is tried in Library War works well. One criticism that’s been leveled at the digital age of animation is that you don’t get the distinction between character and background that you used to get (Nabari no Ou is also addressing this by making their backgrounds really handcrafted). By varying the weight of lines Library War really makes the characters pop out of the scene. The best effect they get from it is when they use it to perform perspective tricks such as when Iku trips in training and falls towards the viewer.

Great stuff so far, and right now it’s up in the top 5 anime shows for me this year.

HATE FUN? - Uninformed Judgments on Spring Anime Part 9

March 18th, 2008 by Brack

Himitsu Top Secret

Reiko Shimizu’s mystery manga gets an adaptation from Madhouse. Yet another show with little in the way of amazing staff, however it’s a mystery show and Iwa Ni Hana is excited by it so I will check it. I’m hoping with all these shows directed by folks with little in the way of amazing back catalogues that we’ll get some talent breaking out, though I’ve not got my hopes up though as most have mediocre non-direction credits too.

Library War

This is going in the successful noitaminA slot in April, so I’m expecting a well made series. It’s from Production IG (is that 3 shows so far this spring?) and it’s far more appealing than RS or xxxHolic to me. This is possibly the show where we may get a talent noticed. Director Takayuki Hamana was on Hakkenden, Jin-Roh and Yuasa’s Vampiyan Kids pilot, but has been entrenched in Prince of Tennis lately, only getting out to do the Sisters of Wellber series (are these any good btw?). The noitaminA shows have been successfully filling the gap between otaku fodder and kids/family shows, and this shouldn’t be any different.

BLASSREITER

More Gonzo. More Shadow Monsters. These shadow monsters are people who turn into demons at will. Goddamn it, now I want a new Devilman series more than ever.

As much as I rip on GONZO, at least they actually post trailers themselves on Youtube, rather than paranoidly remove all potential promotion for their product from the site. From watching the BLASSREITER trailer I have to say it looks tech demo-tastic, which is one of GONZO’s many bad habits.

Nijuu Menzou Musume aka Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief

Again BONES are doing two new series concurrently, last year they had Darker Than Black and Skullman running and DtB suffered. This is a co-production with Telecom, who have plenty of swell credits of their own. This is Ranpo Edogawa pillaging along the lines of Detective Conan’s Kaito Kid. The director is Telecom veteran Nobuo Tomizawa who recently did the far better than you’d ever expect, Ramen Fighter Miki, as well as various Telecom works from Japan, the US and beyond.

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