Now yes, I’m a fan of Japanese cartoons if that wasn’t blatantly obvious to anyone with a pair of working corneas. And yes, weeaboo, they’re cartoons, get over it. Naturally the East and West have distinctively different approaches and different schools of thought when it comes to comic books, cartooning and animation and both sides of the world have particular underlying techniques and ticks throughout.

But it irks me to no end when people go on about anime sucking because of something common to most cartoons in the world. Sure, you don’t have to like anime, but it’s my pet peeve and my website damnit! So here’s my list:

#1. Anime Characters Are Disproportioned!

I don’t understand this one myself. Are all cartoons, nay all art in general, expected to follow strictly realistic human proportions? Applying this complaint to anything else would seem unreasonable as best and puppy-neck-snappingly retarded at worst. According to modern figure drawing the average human body is about 7/7.5 head lengths tall, although idealized classical figures could be as much as 8 or 9 head lengths tall. What this means is that a proportionally correct person would be drawn as tall as their head repeated 7 times.

Let’s compare:

So how come Disney gets away with it guys?

#2. Anime Characters Have Big Heads!

I could just say “see above” in this instance but then I wouldn’t be a very good snarky internet writer would I?

Let’s do another comparison, this time showing the characters’ total heights with their heads all sized roughly the same:

The differences are pretty drastic huh? Of course there are alot of “chibi” anime styles wherein the head is purposefully drawn huge and the body is drawn stylized and “super deformed” but I’m going by the most average builds I can. As you may have noticed all of these characters have over-sized heads anyway, because you’d be hard pressed to find a toon that doesn’t. Also why do most American toon women seem to have tattooed on lipstick?

#3. Why do Anime Characters Have Big Eyes!?

Why do American toons have four fingers? Really, what does that mean? And you know what else?

MOST CARTOON CHARACTERS HAVE OVER-SIZED EYES.

Except Doug and Charlie Brown. But screw them.

Seriously though humans respond to eyes almost more than anything else in a picture. Get the eyes right and alot of other flaws will be forgiven, at least by the laymen. Cartoons stylize everything but eyes and heads are particularly exaggerated because that’s what we notice first and that’s what we’re drawn to because that’s how we recognize something as representing a human being (or at least an anthropomorphized being. You get the point.)

#4. Disney is BETTER!

Yes you sure showed those anime fans by implying that Japanese television animation is even comparable to American multi-million dollar full-length animated features! Pat yourself on the back, dumbass. By the way, have you noticed Disney has been feverishly dubbing and distributing practically everything in Studio Ghibili’s library over the last few years? A much smaller Japanese animation studio responsible for traditionally animated full-length theatrical films that are far superior to anything Disney has produced in the last 10 years or so?

Not to mention that in 2003 Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away (a film Disney was responsible for giving a North American theartrical release) beat out the likes of not only Ice Age but Disney’s own Treasure Planet and Lilo & Stitch to the Oscar for “Best Animated Film.”

Suck on that!

#5 ALL ANIME LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME!

No.

In Conclusion…

Sure, some anime does suck for legitimate reasons, just like some American cartoons suck, some books suck, some movies suck, etc. But you don’t write off an entire media for stupid, stupid reasons. In the end the whole American animation vs. Japanese animation argument doesn’t matter… because it’s all produced in Korea these days anyway.

Related posts:

1. Anime Fanservice
2. Elfen Lied
3. 5 Anime You’ve Never Heard Of (But Need To See)

If you’re confused as to why FMA even needed a reboot then clearly you’ve never read the manga.
Which I suggest you do.
NOW. Right here.
Go on, I’ll wait….

Anyway, the first series was created when the manga only had a few volumes worth of material, and instead of concluding it at the finish of a known story arc and leaving it open-ended for future seasons studio BONES (who aren’t known for ending series’ well, if you’ve ever seen Wolf’s Rain or Eureka 7 you’ll know exactly what I mean) decided to cook up their own plot which involved alternate dimensions and Nazis and… oh god, I can’t go on. It’s just too painful. Just read my ridiculously long and nerdy rant about it linked above if you really want to know. This second series promises to actually follow the manga closely, and it has a new writer and director, thank god.

See this guy at the beginning? He’s not Ed.
You don’t know who he is cause you
never read the manga, ha ha ha ha!

First lets talk about the opening. When I saw the first episode I kind of hated the song, so used to the energic songs Aniplex gave the series. I thought it sounded like an emo pop ballad at first but watching it not very late at night I’ve recognized its more girl-rock and it’s grown on me. It’s actually quite beautiful and haunting and suits the material. But whatever one thinks of the music the opening animation is undeniably badass and manages to fit in every important character from the first 50 chapters or so.

Episodes 1 and 2 are pretty much exposition-fests catching up the audience on the brothers’ backstory. It comes off a little rushed, but all and all they’re solid episodes (even if the first one focuses on an anime-only character and event.) Episode 1 introduces the Elric brothers and the main military characters: Armstrong, Mustang, Hawkeye and H.. H.. Hughes. Oh Hughes!! WHYY!? Even if you don’t read the manga you know what happens to HIM! We all do! -sob–cry-

Erm… anyway… Episode 2 covers the brothers’ past, kind of glancing over their mother’s death a little but the manga flashes back to their childhoods more than once so I assume this new anime might as well. Focus lays more on their first meeting with Mustang, pretty much exactly how it goes down in the manga, and more on the emotional aftermath of the events than I think the first series touched on.

It’s nice to see some of my favorite
comic sequences reproduced in animation!

Episode 3 picks up where the manga starts in the event in Lior, and I have to give them credit for bravery for including this seeing as its ground already well-trodden in both the manga and the first anime series. But it is the start of the story, and introduces the homunculus, so its vital to the plot, and they at least change it up a bit (I know, I complained about deviations from the manga in the first series but here the spirit of things is the same so I can let alot slide.) However its suddenly more colorful and has more funny moments than the first two episodes which is just a tad jarring, but this series is, admittedly, a fanservice since apparently I wasn’t the only one out there begging for a reboot anime after the horrific ending to the first one and the embarassing movie tie-in.

I think this writer works well with the material, he’s had to bundle it differently for various reasons but you get dialog, scenes and images taken right out of the comic and that makes me very, very happy. I also like this new director alot when not taking from the manga directly the shots are cinematic and the characters more expressive. The art style is also closer to the original author Hiromu Arakawa’s (specifically that Ed isn’t prettied up so much), and Ed’s voice actor Paku Romi is making actual effort to sound like a boy this time (one of the many reasons I always preferred Vic Mignogna in the role, despite his voice being way too deep in the flashbacks), all things to be glad for.

Episode 4 is now out there, they introduce Scar pretty early (though if I recall he does come in pretty early in the manga too.) Things are plugging right along episode-release-wise owing largely to a surprisingly progressive move on FUNimation’s part: they’re actually subtitling episodes and releasing them online 4 days after they air in Japan. It’s incredible a company is now doing what fansubbers have been doing for years, they’ve probably finally recognized the advertising potential rather than becoming sue-happy about it. I’ve been catching them on ZOMGAnime.com, but there are other places. Watch and enjoy! Let’s hope this reboot lives up to its promises of manga plot adherence! Feel free to discuss in the comments but make sure to indicate if you’re spouting any spoilers.

Related posts:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Manga Versus Anime
2. Hell Girl
3. 5 Anime You’ve Never Heard Of (But Need To See)

But before you fling yourself into eternal flames of torment at my behest, read this list I’ve compiled of a few anime you’ve never heard of but you really should see. And if you comment saying you’ve heard of them I’ll consider you obnoxious.

#1: Dragon Half

The Dragon Half OVA only has two episodes to its name but it is by far one of the funniest animes ever made. I’m not even exaggerating. In fact, recommend watching the dubbed version because its even funnier.

Dragon Half is… a little hard to explain. It’s just an incredibly silly fantasy series starring a girl named Mink who was the product of love between a dragon slayer and… the dragon he was supposed to slay. Although her parents are constantly fighting (often with fire and swords) Mink is a happy, normal girl. Except she has horns, wings and a scaley tail. Along with her two friends she embarks on a quest to get to a concert put on by her teen pop idol crush Dick Saucer, who is also a dragon slayer, who is hired to slay her by the king, and she’s completely oblivious to this as she vies for his affections. She also draws the ire of the king’s beautiful and deadly sorceress daughter Princess Veena… who happens to be the president of the Dick Saucer fan club.

Did you get all that? Well if you watch it or HAVE watched it and feel you’ve always wanted more the manga is even longer. And even more hilarious.

#2: Maho Tsukai Tai (Magic Users Club)

This is, in all honesty, one of my favorite animes ever. It’s original, its funny, the characters are all well-rounded and likable, and it’s just all and all an adorable series.

Maho Tsukai Tai is about a group of misfits who are members of the Magic Club at their school. The thing is, they really can do magic. The club was founded by Takeo, a somewhat perverted and girl-obsessed nerdy senior and his best friend Aya who is quite obviously gay and doesn’t even try to hide that he has the hots for him. The other members of the club are three girls: Sae, Nanaka and Akane. Despite actually having magic powers the club isn’t taken very seriously, their club space shared with and ever increasingly encroached upon by the Manga club. Takeo always fails to stand up for the Magic Club as the leader of the Manga Club is the arrogant primadonna Miyama who has bullied Takeo since they were children and always intimidates him with her *ahem* generous assets.

There’s an OVA which is pretty funny and has the Magic Club taking on a mysterious alien force that had invaded a year previously but remained dormant since (its not as dumb as it sounds.) But where the series really shines is in its 13 episode television incarnation. I would recommend seeing the OVA first, or the first episode of the television series will be rather confusing. However from there the series focuses mainly on hilarious hijinx, clever plotlines and character development and is quite enjoyable throughout.

#3: Twelve Kingdoms

I never heard of this series until I was commissioned to draw  one rather obscure minor character from it. In an effort to figure out more about the character I was drawing I decided to check the series out and… got pretty hooked.

Twelve Kingdoms is kind of weird and epic and hard to describe, it is, however, a fantasy for sure (I know, I know. I’m … I’m a huge fantasy nerd.) When it starts out the main character seems like a godawful Mary Sue, and certainly parts of the show are kind of cheesy, but around episode 4 it really starts to pick up and never loses that pace staying action-packed and plot-focused. Basically it starts with your typical schoolgirl gets spirited away to some alternate/ancient/fantasy world plotline (ala Fushigi Yugi, Inuyasha, Escaflowne etc. upon etc.) but its really the characters, character interaction and fleshed out fantasy world that makes this series stand out. And you do see alot of characters. Normally that bothers me but Twelve Kingdoms handles its robust cast of main and minor characters well, it ties up loose ends and never lets characters overstay their welcome or fails to give them enough screen time.

The only real problem is the series just… stops. With no ending. It was just abruptly cancelled it seems. Luckily, its only the last 5 episodes or so that leave you hanging, before that there’s an epic ending to a long story arc that could have easily just been the series’ ending anyway.

#4: Galaxy Express 999

An interesting film based on a manga series it follows a young man named Tetsuro who lives in a future time where, for a small fortune, people are able to transfer themselves to machine bodies, gaining immortality and leaving human weaknesses behind. Tetsuro’s mother had been gunned down by a man called Count Mecha who basically hunted organic humans for sport and ever since Tetsuro has been obsessed with getting a machine body himself, something his mother had wished as she was sure it could improve their lives.

After meeting a mysterious woman named Maetel who rather resembles his late mother he gets the opportunity to travel to a planet where he’s heard machine bodies can be acquired for free. Maetel gets him a ticket on the Galaxy Express 999, a train that can fly through space, under the condition that he be her traveling companion. Along the way Tetsuro learns alot about himself, the world around him, and the circumstances surrounding his mother’s death, and his outlook begins to change. If you watch this movie, you may notice the many influences its had on countless other series and films.

And just for an added sense of context: Galaxy Express 999 is related to the Captain Harlock series.

#5: Please Save My Earth

A paced, very character-driven series Please Save My Earth may not be for everyone, but if you like drama and good character development you’ll find it interesting. Alice is a young girl in high school who can “listen” to plantlife and feels a strong attachment to nature. She has an odd and turbulent relationship with her young neighbor, a seven year old boy named Rin, who suffers an accidental fall off a balcony after he upsets Alice one night while she’s babysitting him. After the accident Rin begins to behave strangely, and Alice is drawn into a group by a couple of her classmates who are all having shared dreams about being strange people living in a technologically advanced building on the moon observing the Earth. Things only get stranger for the Alice and the group from there.

It’s a very compelling, well-animated and gorgeous series. The only problem is the OVA is only 6 episodes and adapted from a very long manga series so it’s quite clear the anime makers had trouble giving the OVA a solid conclusion. However, the manic and cluttered ending aside, its still a great series to watch while it lasts.

Tune in next time and I’ll bring you 5 Mangas You’ve Never Heard Of (and if you point out you have I’ll hate you.)

Related posts:

1. 6 Manga You’ve Never Heard Of (But Should Read)
2. Ninja Girls
3. Bleach Sucks

One of those animes also happened to be a film on my definitive “to watch” list: the sequel to 1995 cyberpunk classic Ghost in the Shell.

If you’re looking for a second dose of Major Makoto jumping from building to building utilizing nude camouflage you won’t find it here as she’s barely in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. It focuses instead on her old partner Batou who fans would recognize from the first film and of course the television series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone complex. In this film he’s sort of a mixture of his incarnations from the original film and series, his design heavily lifted from the latter. He ends up with a man named Togusa as his new partner (again a character who plays a large role in the television series) as they embark on a case of prototypal gynoids (female androids), developed by a corporation called Locus Solus, malfunctioning and killing their owners (some of which are politicians and so terrorism is suspected.)

Where I don’t feel this film is as necessarily “deep” as the first one (as its idea of philosophy seems to be having the characters quote old sayings and more intelligent writing constantly) it still has its merits and still has some genuinely engaging things to say. It may be too slow-paced for many people but frankly I was glued to the screen. Characters often have seemingly meaningless conversations between all the existentialism and the few high-flying action scenes, but I think it really helps to breathe life into them. It makes them seem real, given that it gives them a chance to talk like actual people rather than every single sentence they utter sounding like an attempt at seeming dramatic and profound.

The best part of it all is the animation. And I don’t just mean the quality, though that certainly is a draw. In the rare times a Japanese animation is budgeted so that full frames and full character motion is possible it is always completely mind-blowing. The film does include some computer rendered 3D work, which usually bothers me when juxtaposed to 2D animation, but it blends in well for the most part.

But that isn’t what impressed me most. It was simply all the subtleties in the film. The way it was directed, the way the characters had such delicate facial expression, gestures, movements, and just all the little details that make up life that were included, this could easily have been a live action film. Although I don’t think it would have had the same impact if it was, even so, the effect it had on me was of being drawn in completely, never really questioning that what was happening on screen was “real”.

Well maybe not completely, as in the back of my mind my little artist was analyzing every scene and making these observations. But to people who can watch movies just to enjoy them without picking apart the direction, lighting, framing, and all around cinematography as some of us seem cursed to do it’s something that’s easy to miss, but certainly something that makes the film compelling.

(P.S: Dear DVD publishers, subtitles and closed captioning are not interchangeable things, please stop it, its so redundant to read that someone is breathing when I’m fully capable of hearing that they are)

No related posts.

The Slayers is a mixture of fantasy action, slapstick comedy, witty dialog and just general fun (mostly episodic) adventure storytelling that usually ends with a bang in a starkly dramatic climax generally revolving around saving the world from one thing or another. Where the stories may never really be the apex of literary genius the lovable characters are really what carries the franchise. It stars Lina Inverse, a comically boastful and powerful sorceress with a foul temper, a destructive and violent personality and a heroic streak despite all that, Gourry Gabriev her hapless and idiotic swordsman sidekick/love interest, Zelgadis Greywords the stoic straight man who specializes in Shamanistic magic and was turned into a chimera in his youth (and thus has stony skin and wirey hair), and the spazmodic and justice-loving Amelia Wil Telsa Seyruun the princess of the holy kingdom Seyruun.

Lina is rather abusive to her friends.

Three episodes have aired so far, and the fansubbers seem to make quick work of them. It’s great to see such dedication to this series and you probably won’t have to worry about needing your fix if you decide to follow it! Remember kids, fansubs are great for bringing us shows before licensing, this Slayers season will likely be distributed in the US by FUNiMation or Software Sculptors in due time.

I can’t exactly tell if this season is as good or as funny as previous ones, I think my fangirlism is getting in the way. I thought some of the designs of new characters were a bit hokey and the animation a bit stilted in places, but I quickly reminded myself the show’s always been like that. In fact, it uses the original music, and the character style and deep shading all ring of an oldschool feel, but at the same time everything is crisply digital and a bit streamlined. Being so familiar with the original (and having watched all three seasons at least twice in their entirety) it messes with my head a little. However the good thing is that the characters are drawn more consistently than in past seasons and for better or for worse it follows the usual Slayers formula exactly.

The infamous Luna or a false alarm?

But that’s just it, Slayers is Slayers, it’s funny, it’s over the top, and the characters are extremely likable. The opening and the closing seem to promise us alot of my (and everyone and their brother’s) favorite character Xellos but he so far hasn’t made an appearance. The opening also features a shot of a cute girl in a waitress costume which of course has sparked an explosion of speculation among Slayers fans that we’ll finally get to see Lina’s infamous off-screen sister Luna who turned down an offer to save the world in Try because she was too busy with her part time waiting job. Although this character’s design doesn’t resemble past glimpses of Luna in series openings and closings (yes I’m really this much of a Slayers fantard.)

We get reintroduced to the main cast very quickly in the first episode while Lina is out attacking pirates (because, you know, by now she’s wiped out nearly all of the bandits in the world.) Her reputation as a walking embodiment of chaos (which isn’t too far from the truth) has only worsened and later on she’s being fingered by a new character, the kingdom of Ruvinagald’s inspector Wiser Faylon, for, well, being Lina Inverse. We find out Zelgadis has been appointed Amelia’s royal bodyguard (which gives them an excuse to show up together like they always do I suppose, not to mention they’re generally considered a canon pairing) and that Gourry is still too dumb to remember Zelgadis and Amelia’s names after not having seen them for an extended period. A new character is also introduced who looks a little ridiculous but is not the adorable mascot character I feared it would be from the opening. Whoever this mystery creature is (who appears to be a living stuffed animal) he possesses a level of magic and attitude very similar to Lina’s.

The introduction of the characters in the first episode may seem a bit quick to newcomers, but although the series relies somewhat on the audience being familiar with the first seasons I think it’s fairly easy for new watchers to pick it up. And if you like what you see definitely check out the first three seasons, it’s one of the most memorable animes out there.

Just a finale note: the dedicated fansubbers here are Static Subs. They offer super high quality torrent downloads of the shows they sub so throw a donation their way if you partake!

Related posts:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
2. Civilization Revolution
3. 5 Anime You’ve Never Heard Of (But Need To See)

Warning: some readers may find images in this article disturbing.

I had heard alot of praise for Elfen Lied and I think it caused me to imagine all sorts of things about it without ever having actually seen it. Like imagining it was good, for example. I was on a forum one night and someone was complaining about a particular scene in the show with a link to Youtube. I was more taken aback by the juxtaposition of a cutesy, colorful, boringly mainstreamed, low-budget moe animation style with something that looked like it was supposed to be serious, dramatic and bloody than I was by the scene itself. To me it looked like it was pandering to guro fans, and the series didn’t serve to erase this opinion as I watched it out of sheer curiosity. I’ve seen about 10 of the 13 episodes and skipped around the last three for this article but I don’t think I intend to finish watching it. There will be spoilers because the plot is just too ridiculous for me not to rant about.

Yep. This is about where the artistry ends.

Let me first comment that the opening animation for Elfen Lied is deceptively artistic, of course it may only seem artistic because the entire thing is a reference to The Kiss and features an operatic song. The ending theme, it should be noted, is some shallow pop number.

The show is essentially about killer pink-haired catgirls (well okay, they have horns conveniently shaped like cat ears, but one of them even acts like a catgirl) with invisible stretchy hands that can explode peoples’ heads who are of some mutated race that is destined to destroy mankind and are usually killed at birth but some secret military place has kept a few alive, naked and tortured in the name of science. In the opening scene one such naked pink-haired girl escapes from the military compound, exploding guys’ heads as she goes, at one point twisting off the head of some unforgivably dumb, clumsy secretary girl who was introduced probably just to be killed like this and using her body as a shield for a million billion bullets. Where alot of men are killed throughout the series, it’s much more graphic, slow, and given alot more focus when women are killed. There also features alot of slapping, hitting and punching of women by men. Take from that what you will.

The show can't decide if Lucy should be a merciless killer or the Japanese ideal infantile woman.

So killer pink-haired catgirl falls into the ocean before they can kill her and ends up with amnesia and some kind of dysphasia which instead of being serious of course leaves her only able to spout cutesy nonsense words; she’s discovered in this state by some boring stock anime guy and his cousin.  They naturally don’t go to the police when they find a disoriented naked girl wandering around on the beach but keep her at their house, and name her “Nyu” because that’s all she can say. She doesn’t know how to do even basic things and just acts like an all around obnoxious honto kawaii desu ne catgirl with lots of “accidental” flashings, precarious posing and boob groping thrown in. At this point I couldn’t tell if I was still watching the show or had accidentally loaded up an episode of Chobits instead. It’s supposed to be some sort of split personality but because it’s just so damn archetypal you can’t really take it seriously as one. This is also the point where the show teeters on the border of harem anime-land. Next stock guy and his cousin take in a runaway loli who has been raped repeatedly by her new stepfather, which brings the count up to three girls living in the house but luckily only two want to get into boring stock guy’s pants: “Nyu” and his goddamn cousin. I dunno what Japan’s policy on kissing cousins is, but, blech.

Nothing will convince me this scene isn't fanservice for guro fetishists. I bet it's popular on 4chan.

Anyway so another more loli killer pink-haired killer catgirl is sent out to retrieve the first one, she has a daddy complex about this antisocial scientist guy who apparently keeps her chained up and covered in blood somewhere. Okay then. She confronts “Nyu”, who at this point has bumped her head and gone back into psychobitch mode and so she mutilates killer pink-haired girl #2 in what can only be described as a guro fan’s wet dream, ending with pink-haired girl #2’s limbs being torn off.  Seriously, it needs to be seen to be believed (NSFW.)

The cutesy style, the moe look of the characters, and the overall lack of depth in the scene prevented me from taking it seriously at all and it really did just come across as some sort of bizarro world version of fanservice. Especially since the same girl gets stripped and beaten again toward the end of the series. Of course there is the aforementioned regular fanserivce too, we get to see “Nyu”’s boobs plenty of times, but it’s so often it just becomes boring, and of course she’s most often sexualized when she’s in cutesy, innocent, dumb catgirl mode.

I've brutally murdered dozens of people throughout the series but you need to feel bad for me cause DEY KILLED MAI PUPPEH!

And then it turns out “Nyu” (or her real name is Lucy) is in love with boring stock guy from a long time ago when he was the only one who was nice to her after a bunch of bratty kids at an orphanage she was at killed a puppy she had been taking care of for like a couple of weeks and she exploded their heads in return (this is the source of her deep, deep trauma and why she’s such a misanthropic bitch as the show will blatantly spell out for you.) She hung out and played with boring stock guy while at the same time murdering families in the night and staying in their houses because she didn’t want to go back to the mean old orphanage. It seems some sort of trauma makes these killer pink-haired catgirls realize they were born to eradicate mankind for some reason, and so Lucy hates people, all people except boring stock guy, except when she’s in catgirl mode then she loves everybody. You know, I never liked the whole “amnesia turns a violent, sadistic badass into a cute, squiggy all-loving sap” device, perhaps because it’s a shallow thing you generally see overused in bad fanfiction.

Anyway things went bad when killer catgirl killed boring stock guy’s sister and father out of jealousy and he delved into denial and decided his sister died of disease instead and has forgotten most things from that time, which had initially pissed off his cousin because they didn’t see each other for like 8 years after that and she thought he’d remember their last day together as fondly as she did despite the horrible, horrible murder. Have I mentioned that the cousin is a stereotypical overly emotional woman hung up on really stupid things? Because she is. Thanks, Japan! Oh yeah and later a third pink-haired killer catgirl is introduced who has explosives planted in her body so that the secret military/scientists/whatever can keep her at bay. What. It could be a serious plot device if they didn’t state it so blandly and it wasn’t obviously a convenient way to explain how they can keep the ultimate killer catgirl under control. And an easy way to get rid of her since she’s unbeatable and all. Oh and she’s also the real daughter of the scientist guy mentioned earlier who killer pink-haired girl #2 has a daddy complex about and they explode together in a sentimental scene blah blah blah.

Ho ho! Those homicidal catgirls sure are WHACKY!

I’m honestly confused by all the praise I’ve seen for this series. For one the animation isn’t that good, the characters aren’t that well designed, they’re also cookie-cutter and unrealistic, when the story attempts to be deep it just comes across as lame or not even trying, its themes aren’t anything that haven’t been explored before with much more thought, artistry and depth. It’s also got pretty clumsy writing and hits you over the head with plot points, like for example episode 12 having a long, near full recap of episode 9 in it, just in case you’re too dumb to get killer pink haired girl #1’s motivation for killing boring stock guy’s sister. Not to mention boring stock guy seems to take the revelation that she brutally murdered his family in front of him in stride. It’s not that I have something against graphic violence, hell Akira is one of my favorite anime films and manga, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this show was purposefully trying to attract a particular sex-and-violence niche. And I never thought I could describe an animation as having “fakey blood”, but boy does Elfen Lied ever. Usually I can finish watching even a mediocre series just to see where it’s going but even though I went and confirmed how boring stock guy’s sister died (a “plot twist” I’ve seen coming from nearly the beginning) as well as a few other things, I really have no desire to finish watching Elfen Lied.

Related posts:

1. Death Note
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3. Haibane Renmei

Anyway, among the anime I’ve been watching recently is Hell Girl. I’ve watched all of the first season and started into the second, and I’m still not really sure about what to think of this series. The main character is quite alluring in her design, but the rest of the series seems to fall flat. Don’t get me wrong, it’s entertaining, and it can be very pretty at times, but I can’t see it as much more than brain candy.

I think this show is supposed to be creepy, or boggle your mind with plot twists. It’s generally a series of short stories loosely strung together by the main theme and an enigmatic, supernatural person, much along the lines of anime such as Boogiepop Phantom or Paranoia Agent (both of which I incidently own boxsets of.) Unlike Boogiepop Phantom or Paranoia Agent, however, the characters featured in each story are pretty shallow, seeming to make rash decisions far too quickly, and the “twists” in their stories are highly predictable, some you’d be able to guess from the first few minutes of the episode.

To explain the pattern of each episode I have to explain a little bit of the plot: there’s a website called HellCorrespondence.com (of course if you type that into your browser its an ad for the series) that only appears at midnight. You can type a person’s name in and have the Jigoku Shoujo (literally “Hell Girl” or if you will: “The Quintessential Emo Kid”) take revenge on your behalf. People who do this are later contacted by the Jigoku Shoujo and she hands them a- er… well I’d call it a “voodoo doll” but it’s actually something that used in Shinto curse rituals, with a red string tied to it. Once the person pulls the red string their revenge will be carried out  (the victim tormented with a surreal vision of their sins and then ferried to Hell in a traditional Japanese rowboat by the Hell Girl herself) but they also consign their own soul to Hell in doing so. Naturally, most of the episodes carry some sort of moral lesson. Hell Girl also has some lackies which together with her makes for a foursome of spirits with nothing better to do than harass people at the behest of indignant crybabies.

But like I said, the episodes generally follow the same pattern: Person A wants revenge against Person B for whatever reason to episode gives, Person A hears some giggly schoolgirls talk about HellCorrespondence.com, Person A contacts Hell Girl (and her lackies), Person A struggles with the decision wondering if its worth damning themselves to get revenge, something Person B does or says pushes Person A to the edge and they pull the string, Person B is tormented in an ironic manner and refuses to admit they did anything wrong, Hell Girl rowboats Person B into the foggy mists of Hell, cut to Person A’s life much happier for it but then they contemplate a mark on their chest that reminds them they’re going to Hell too. The end. Repeat.

Around episode 8 of the first season this begins to let up a bit when two reoccuring characters, a shadey journalist and his daughter who seems to have a psyhic connection of some kind to Hell Girl, are thrown into the mix. The only other thing of note about the first season is it contains a whole lot of implied rape. Seriously. Date rape, serial killer rape, blackmail rape, etc. etc. rape etc. It’s like every time the writers were gathered trying to think of a disturbing plot twist there was always one guy who always suggested rape, but they were on a tight schedule so they were all just like “Okay, whatever, write it in, we wanna go to lunch.”

The second season starts out a bit better but seems to have quickly devolved into episodes that deal with Person A having a grand misunderstanding with Person B. They also attempt to flesh out Hell Girl’s lackies (mismatched in design as they are) a bit, which is good for the most part, but she seems to start sending them in as detectives to see if the hell-damning is actually worth it. I think I’d prefer if it was just the lone mystery girl, but perhaps Hell Girl does need her lackies around because she barely says anything besides the same old speeches she drones off in each episode. This series has alot of that going on, as well as alot of repeat imagry, which I hadn’t seen in an anime in a while and struck me as sort of painfully old school.

But you know, I’m still watching it. Like I said, it’s brain candy. Overall the visual style can be very nice, especially in the second season, although some of the supernatural aspects are sometimes too over the top making them look ridiculous and laughable. The second season also puts some more thought into the characters in each short story, building up to the climatic pulling of the red string with better pacing.

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Actually, I just lied. I finally did finish watching Haibane Renmei recently. What happened was I had seen the first episodes, and the last episodes, but completely missed the middle (entirely because the DVDs weren’t numbered and so I played Russian Roulette in purchasing the next one.) But my good friend Veoh.com came to the rescue as I randomly decided to watch what I had missed one night.

The 13 episode series is based off a short comic by Yoshitoshi ABe, better known as the man behind the animes Serial Experiments Lain (another I’ll have to talk about down the line) and Texhnolyze. It’s not a very anime anime, if you know what I mean. No pink-haired, big-bosomed superpowered girls, mechs or epic threats against the entire planet/universe here. And as strange a story as it is, nothing very outlandish happens. Of course some might argue nothing happens at all in Haibane Renmei, it’s a very quiet, slow-paced series entirely driven by its characters and their day-to-day lives. But under its quiet, sleepy exterior is a subtle tale about pain, forgiveness and dealing with life and death.

The story begins with a young woman falling from the sky, eerily calm about the whole situation, carrying on a conversation with a crow that appears to be trying to save her. She thanks the crow for trying, but tells it there’s nothing it can do, and so it then departs. She continues to fall, and suddenly she can see the ground below, and can feel the wind, and its then she starts to get scared. We later find the young girl is in cocoon, much like a womb, and she’s soon “born” into a place called Old Home which is inhabited by other young people with wings and halos who are known as Haibane (Grey Feathers.) Old Home turns out to be in a town surrounded by large, ominous walls called Glie, which no one is allowed to leave or enter save for mysterious people called the Toga, who do not speak to anyone save the Communicator, leader of the Haibane Renmei, an organization that looks after Haibane until their so-called “Day of Flight.”

The young woman is given the name of “Rakka” (“falling”), based on her dream. It turns out all Haibane are named this way and they all had dreams inside their cocoons. They all also have the sense they came from somewhere else, and had a life before that they now can’t remember. Soon Rakka sprouts wings of her own in a rather painful scene, and is given an artificially made halo.

The series suffers from a rather low-end animation budget and a rather streamlined style, but its made up for by the characters and the gorgeous background work. The music of the series is rather classical, almost like chamber music, which suits the setting. Glie is a very quiet, idyllic if not antiquated place, it has a town square lined with cobblestones and full of old-style architecture but elsewhere the town is punctuated by large expanses of green plains, some with windmills that generate electricity. However this peaceful visage only underscores the rather disturbing notion that no one who lives there really knows what lies outside of the town’s looming walls.

The series is seeped in symbolism, but its much more subtle than Lain, for those of you who have seen that. It’s also not as depressive as Lain, if anyone was worried about that. Haibane Renmei can have many light-hearted, happy, and even funny moments, but it does get down and serious, touching a bit on existential philosophy and questions of sin. But mostly the series focuses on feelings of being alone and lost, of feeling unable to overcome guilt and regret and having to learn to trust the people around you emotionally. As sleepy as the series is for most of its run it can be quite captivating if you don’t mind slow-paced stories with little to no action, and its climax in the final episode is, in stark contrast to everything else, truly intense.

I do like Haibane Renmei, although I don’t think its the best thing I’ve ever watched, but it’s a good little story that’s rather poignant and touching in the end, and quietly profound when it wants to be. I personally interpret the plot as kind yet wayward souls given a second chance, but I can’t say much more about that without giving away too much of the story. I’d say if one doesn’t find it to be their cup of tea by the second episode or so, it probably won’t feel worth it to stick with it until the end.

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I had just been watching Avatar episodes on Veoh.com so I decided to see if Death Note was on there. Sure enough it was and I watched the entire anime series over the course of 3 days. Now I’ve also collected and read all 12 volumes of the manga. At this point I have come to the conclusion that the goth kiddies who carry around little black notebooks and worship “Kira” have completely misinterpreted the plot.

Without many spoilers, I’d like to give a little review of the anime, the manga, and the overall plot. But mostly I wish to discuss how I believe many fans of the show misconstrue the main character Light Yagami entirely.

For those of you unaware, the story of Death Note goes something like this: One day a bored Shinigami (grim reaper or literally “god of death”) named Ryuk drops a notebook called a “Death Note” into the human world. These books are used by the Shinigami to take human lives, adding years to their own, but the Shinigami realm is just a wasteland full of aimless creatures who only take enough lives to keep living themselves.

A genius-level student named Light Yagami picks up the Death Note, on which Ryuk has written rules on how to use it. It seems if you write a person’s name in the note with their face in mind they will die in 40 seconds. Light doesn’t believe it at first, but as he had been thinking lately how the world would be better off without all the “rotten” people causing crimes and making others miserable the idea becomes more appealing… and so he tests it out.

Validating to himself that the Death Note is real (bolstered by Ryuk’s appearance to Light, whom only he can see) Light quickly decides he will become the bastion of justice, eliminating all the people he thinks are “rotten” and unworthy of life, and almost as quickly decides that this would make him, in essence, the god of a new world.

However, the sudden, mass, unexplained deaths of criminals all over the world quickly attracts attention, and Light doesn’t even try to hide it, admiring the many websites that spring up to praise the one the public names “Kira” (sounds like “killer” pronounced in a Japanese accent.) It also attracts the attention of the world’s law enforcement agencies and in turn a mysterious figure called only L, a famous detective who has solved every case he’s ever been on who can command even the FBI and other agencies to go along with his plans. Light becomes angered that anyone would dare to stand in his way, and so a rivalry begins…

The story, as you might imagine, is very good. Though it follows a familiar anime/manga structure of a seemingly ordinary object giving a person powers and an iconic character only that person can see or only that person knows about coming along with it, Death Note is anything but light-hearted, and anything but typical. At it’s very core it’s a psychological thriller and a detective mystery, except on the latter the audience is in on it the whole time and the supporting characters are the ones in the dark. Both the anime and manga follow the exact same plot with little variation (the anime ending is much more sympathetic to Light but it’s essentially the same ending, and it abridges some things, especially in the N arc, but not by much.) The characters in the work are well-rounded and each with their own distinctive quirks.

The manga’s art is the work of the supremely talented Takeshi Obata who is behind the art for Hikaru No Go among others. The art and animation of the anime is just as spectacular, top notch especially for a television series. The author of Death Note is Tsugumi Ohba, but as this is the author’s only work and it is extraordinarily high quality for a debut comic it’s suspected to be the pen-name of another well-known manga writer who elected to remain anonymous.

Now. On to Light (what people already familiar with this work were waiting for.)

Light, the main character, is also the villain. I really liked that. I don’t find him to be a likable person at all, even before he got the Death Note he comes across as arrogant and thinking he’s better than everyone else. He’s a sociopath who knows how to go through the motions of society as the golden boy without really getting close to anyone, even his own family. He knows exactly what would be expected of him in any given situation and acts accordingly, often covering up his true cold, callous intentions.

Although he clearly has the potential, he probably wouldn’t have become a killer had he not had a way to do it in which he thought he couldn’t get caught. Even when he starts using the Death Note to kill he quickly develops a serial killer’s mentality: he thinks he’s smarter than the police, he likes to taunt them, he likes to take credit for his killings, he thinks he’s too smart to ever get caught. He’s so arrogant he even moves into a position where he’s close to the guy trying to pin him.

He also thinks because he’s smarter than everyone else he has the right to judge which people in the world are worthless and deserve to die. He justifies his rapidly developing god complex with the fact that he only kills criminals, however he doesn’t hesitate to kill innocent investigators who are looking into the deaths he’s caused and getting too close to him either. Even while killing innocent people he still justifies himself, and says he’ll become the god of a new world.

However in this he orchestrates his own fall.

Naturally I thought the final scene was very satisfying, that’s all I’ll say about it. And as unlikable as a person as he is, watching Light’s slow descent into madness is what made him fascinating and the story so engrossing.

What I can’t understand is the fans who idolize Light or think he’s cool. Wouldn’t they be sort of like all the people he manipulated throughout the series, and then cast aside like toys or even killed when they were no longer useful to him? He’s a terrible person, really. Of course I guess the kids who might sympathize with Light’s position are as immature as he is, thinking it would be great to have a book they could write “bad” people’s names in and make them die. The fangirlism surrounding him is also quite puzzling to me in that Light quite obviously hates women: he sees them as irritants that complicate matters when he can’t control them, doesn’t mind using them, doesn’t care about their feelings, sees them as below him and could discard them at any moment. It could be argued he does this with nearly every person around him, really, but with the women he woos and pretends to be in love with he becomes quite frustrated when their emotions or presence put a minor hitch in his plans. Then again, he’s a bishie, so anything he does is forgiven by crazed fangirls I guess, which means they also miss the point Light’s character makes as to how we as a society never think beautiful people look like killers and have trouble suspecting them. It’s amazing, Light is such a well written and poisonous character that he can even manipulate the audience.

Anyway, like I said, I think the goth kiddies who are now carrying around little black notebooks because of Death Note have completely misinterpreted the plot, and I’m sorry I looked at them and underestimated it. Feel free to post spoilers in the comments if you want to discuss the series, just put a little warning first!

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And before you ask: Yes I did actually watch it. I saw up to the story arc where the characters all ended up in the poorly named "Soul Society", at which point the show went from simply almost unbearable to completely unwatchable, despite numerous people telling me this is where the show is supposed to improve. Why was I watching it? Well it happened air on Adult Swim between Trinity Blood and Eureka 7, two anime I sorta wanted to watch (Eureka 7 wasn’t bad, but wasn’t that good either, and I missed the first few episodes so I still have no idea what the hell was going on in Trinity Blood) and I was too lazy to change the channel.

And no, I didn’t go into watching Bleach with any preconceived notions. I had heard of it, but I had no idea what it was about, so the show had only its own merits on which to impress me. And my first impression was: "Yeah, I liked this show the first time, when it was called Yu Yu Hakusho." Well okay, I’m exaggerating: I never liked Yu Yu Hakusho.

The first thing that struck me about Bleach was the character designs. They’re not very good and none of the characters appear to be drawn in the same style. The whole series reeks of a hack who just crammed together every popular genre, element and character type in an attempt to get a hit. Considering the guy who writes the Bleach manga had a previous manga that completely tanked, I suspect my speculation may be close to the truth. 

Hey, Ichigo! Kyo Sohma called,
he wants his fucking hair dye back

At any rate, first there’s Ichigo, the hero, who looks and acts like an ugly knock-off of Kyo from Fruits Basket. Then there’s Rukia, the magical dead girl who lives in his closet, she looks like she belongs in Yugioh. Then there’s Chad, whose design I actually like, but when he’s put next to the other characters it looks like someone from Fist of the Northstar just walked into Naruto. Then there’s Fanservice McBouncey- I mean, D.D. Busty- No, no I mean, Oral-hime-*cough* Orihime. There we go. Quite possibly the most useless character in the show, but she gets to be a hero because the writer obviously dumped a handful of characters he still felt like drawing into the second story arc and forgot about all their friends and family and their previous Earthly lives.

Yeah that abrupt change in theme and location bothered me alot. Wouldn’t people worry these kids are missing? We never see their worried family or anything. Are they all dead? Did I fall asleep between those two parts? All I know is the writer (which I’m assuming the anime follows the manga) continues to write himself into corners by introducing way too many fucking characters. Okay, maybe you had some cool designs laying around, maybe you just don’t know any better way to keep a story going, but you don’t have to write in every goddamn person who pops into your head! Argh! 

Tee hee! Like, I’m just here cause I’m a
young teenaged girl with big boobs!

I also greatly dislike the EVERY1 IZ SPESHUL aspect of the show, where all of Ichigo’s friends get powers… just because. Just because the manga artist only felt like drawing four of the characters from the first story arc and dumped them into the second story arc that might as well be a completely different goddamn story. Why not just start with that plot!? Or are you just making this shit up as you go along? Damn you Tite Kubo (which isn’t even your real name!)

lol VGCats

The show has no focus, it can’t decide on a genre (is it high school, magical girl, magical girlfriend, supernatural, samurai, fantasy, sci-fi, what the fuck is it!?) Not to mention the characters’ powers are as mismatched as their designs are from one another. Chad gets some… arm thing… that looks like it came right out of S-cry-Ed (which also sucks.) Oral-Princes-*brick’d* Orihime gets the power to summon fairy-like people who also all have very-different-from-each-other-designs and obviously exist just as an excuse to draw these overwrought characters. And nancy-boy… er.. what’s his name… Uryu, Uryu’s power looks like he stole the friggin’ bow of light thing from Slayers Try.

I honestly can’t understand why this show is so popular, then again I might have liked it myself when I was younger. And sure, maybe it’s one of those series that is just good brain candy, but please don’t try to tell me it’s much deeper than that.

Also, what the hell kind of title is "Bleach" anyway!?

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