More Spring Cleaning

May 26th, 2008 by Brack

Kurenai

Rozen Maiden director Kou Matsuo has clearly spent so much time directing shows about dolls of late that he’s forgotten how children move. For a show with a lot of realistic natural movement, I found the movement of the seven year-old girl that the title character has to bodyguard disturbingly alien.

Anyway if you like overwrought melodrama you may enjoy this. I found the intrusive piano on the soundtrack and the arrogant doll-like girl fantastically annoying. And the story a bit of a snooze.

Zettai Karen Children

Whereas this has 3 precocious children, none of whom as annoying as the one in Kurenai.

This animation of Ghost Sweeper Mikami creator Takashi Shiina’s current manga series, involves the adventures of three psychic 10 year-old girls and their minder.

It’s a fairly goofy shonen action comedy, much was GSM was. This first episode involved them chasing a psychic leather daddy who fired telekinetic bolts from his crotch. The usual stuff.

It’s passable stuff, but the leads aren’t as interesting as GSM’s were.

Allison and Lillia

This was light and fun. It’s a pulpy adventure set in a world resembling the 1930s where a young pilot Allison and her friend Wil set off to find a treasure that will bring peace to two nations who had been at war for 130 years. Unlike Kurenai, this has a really effective soundtrack, provided by Shusei Murai (and the themes have music by the awesome multi-instrumental group, The Kuricorder Quartet).

I can see myself watching more of this.

Kamen no Maid Guy

When I first started watching this I didn’t like it and gave up. Coming back a second time, it’s not as bad as I thought. The best parody of the maid fetish is still Pugyuru, but this bawdy, violent thing isn’t too bad if you like your comedy rough and ready. Don’t think i need to watch anymore though.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

This wants to be a whacky madcap comedy with a touch of ~moe~ of the sort UFOtable used to be able to make, but it ends up being a mess. I wouldn’t say it was truly awful, but the cat girl/woman (she is supposedly 20…) grew more and more annoying as the episode went along, to the extent I don’t want to see any more.

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HATE FUN? - Uninformed Judgments on Spring Anime Part 5

March 14th, 2008 by Brack

Zettai Karen Children

Based on the manga by Ghost Sweeper Mikami creator Takashi Shiina, this looks like it’s the replacement series for Hayate The Combat Butler, as it shares staff. It is about a military lieutenant forced to babysit three 10-year old psychic girls. Given it’s an anime made in 2008, that scenario is laden with the potential for creepiness, but I liked GS Mikami so Shiina’s getting the benefit of the doubt. The anime character designs have something of a nineties throwback look to them though not quite as clean as Shiina’s own line work.

God… “Nineties throwback”.

It’s worrying that I can use that phrase and have it mean something. With Slayers coming back I’ve a horrible feeling that angular early nineties anime look is going to become anime’s next “retro” look.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2

More Code Geass. I’ve not actually seen any of the first series as TTGL was filling my mecha quota at the time. I get the impression from fan reaction that it’s more of a writers’ show, with more emphasis placed on the plot and script than the animation, whereas TTGL was very much an animators’ show (the greatness of TTGL’s writing is that it understands what works in animation). I described the last TTGL arc to my brother the other day and he said - “that sounds like the mecha show Tex Avery would make” - which is about right and A VERY GOOD THING. TTGL fans tend to rave about the animation and the emotion of the show, rather than the story. Code Geass fans come across as sci-fi fans first, animation fans second.

Or ravenous CLAMP fans that must consume anything those ladies come into contact with.

Nabari no O

HIGH SCHOOL NINJAS! It’s directed by Speed Grapher’s Kunihisa Sugishima. Hopefully free from GONZO and only having to do 13 eps means they might actually fulfill their promise. JC Staff can manage 13 ep series quite competently, so this might be fun. Same writer (Michiko Yokote) as xxxHolic though. To be fair she has done a lot that I like - Airmaster, Cowboy Bebop, Genshiken, Patlabor - as well as a lot I don’t, so this could be perfectly fine.

Special A

Some sort of romantic comedy based on the manga by Maki Minami. The anime character designs look soulless and devoid of charm. And Gonzo are involved.

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