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Review: Tiger and Bunny (タイガー＆バニー)

Posted by ranpha on 1st May 2012
Posted in: Anime of the Year 2011 title holder, anime review, perfect score. Tagged: . Leave a Comment

     This anime’s main protagonists, Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks Jr. Bunny!

Surprisingly, you don’t have to wait for a month for this review, unlike the last one for Sacred Seven. The main reason why this happens is because the anime I’m going to write about in this post is just so awesome, I can’t help myself from watching the second half of the series in less than 24 hours. It has been quite some time since I do such a thing. Years maybe? If you somehow managed to skip the headline above, the anime I’m talking about is titled Tiger and Bunny, a 2011 title that will definitely give Highschool of the Dead OVA some serious competition for the Anime of the Year 2011 title. Will we see a new winner here? Read on to find out.


Sometimes, the best character of this anime cheated on his partner and went out fighting terrorism with a sweet young thing instead!

Story:-
Some time in the future (kinda like Sacred Seven), humans that has special powers due to gene mutations (hmmm… sure smells like Sacred Seven) are common. Some of them participates in the local city’s superheroes reality TV program, where their powers are used to defend the population from criminals and terrorists, scoring points during the jobs. Being superheroes, wearing masks and armors is a must (Sacred Seven reference here guys?) complete with brand placements from major sponsors (Squall Leonhart will not deign himself to such capitalistic ways of life). Our first main title male protagonist, a 10-year veteran at the show, was forced to be paired with an up-coming starlet (the second main title protagonist) who has the same exact powers as him.  While their powers is the same, their goals in life isn’t, and this clash of personalities makes up one of the many faces that this anime has.

After watching this anime until the end in only 3 days, I can confidently say that this anime is Sunrise’s answer to Gainax’s Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a hugely popular 2007 anime. In fact, I can also confidently say that this anime is better than the latter, for reasons that will be explained later below.

 
Well sometimes he also play the 'Most Wanted' game too.

What makes Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (abbreviated TTGL from now on) very good (it scored a perfect score for the record) is that while it has a typical kiddy-grade storyline, almost all of the clichés and weaknesses of the associated genre has been eliminated, making TTGL watchable for people outside the genre’s usual demographics. The same polish can also be seen in this anime, but this anime has the advantage of having a considerably superior general storyline based on a more mature shounen genre aimed for middle and high school students.

As for this anime’s storyline itself, it is a cross of Tantei Gakuen Q’s prevailing main plot (with the homicides investigation cases being replaced with superheroes stuff) and some Blassreiter-esque action flick (minus the presentation problems), sprinkled with heavy doses of comedy and slice-of-life elements. The first half of the series is filled with plenty of Bleach-like fighting, while the second half is more Enemy of the State-like conspiracy thriller than anything else. While better than TTGL’s general storyline, on its own this anime’s storyline is not exactly a masterpiece. For example, the thrilling second-half of this anime is not as good as One Outs. Even that, other factors more than make up for it, which will be explained below. Just like the anime version of Tantei Gakuen Q, the prevailing plot is not over yet after the last episode ends, therefore a second season should be in order. But the transformation of one of the main title protagonists is radical, on par of his counterpart in Kuroshitsuji, therefore if a sequel comes out, the writing has to be very solid in it to accommodate the change in his characterization.


Just one of the hazards of the superheroes job.

The presentation in this anime is pretty much spot-on. The pacing is perfect, and I cannot even attempt to nit-pick on it even if I tried. Why is that Sunrise cannot do the same for Sacred Seven, I don’t know. The flow of the storyline is also the same, no scene transition problems unlike what what have happened in Sacred Seven. It also helps that the writer actively reuse story elements introduced in early parts of the anime effectively in later episodes, eliminating virtually all loose ends. This kind of foresight is what made the likes of One Piece and The World God Only Knows manga really good.

Just like in TTGL, character developments is a strong point for this anime. In fact, I personally think this anime does it even better than TTGL did. Unsurprisingly, the two main title protagonists are the most important characters in this anime, with the older character just  edged ahead of the younger character in the end as the best character in this anime, mainly because of his Kuroshitsuji-esque transformation. And unlike TTGL, these two powerful characters were ably assisted by many excellent secondary characters, such as the other participants of the reality program, the producer of the said program and even the antagonists of this anime. And of course, I have to mention the Macross 7 flower lady rip-off character that seems to be everywhere in the city, that is governed by an Obama-like mayor too.


This superhero job is far easier though.

Character Design:-
Yet again, not exactly too different compared to the last Sunrise anime title reviewed in the last post. The only thing that is different from Sacred Seven is that this anime has more variety in those character designs. For example, this anime has bishounen characters while, Sacred Seven doesn’t. Superheroes costume designs are all decent at least, none of the crap seen in Sacred Seven like the protagonist’s final form.


If you ask me, the city where this anime take place has more crime problems than Gotham City.

Voice Acting:-
This section is another part where this anime has done better than TTGL, and Sacred Seven for the matter. The older main title male protagonist voice actor has the best voice acting gig in this anime, and the other main title protagonist’s voice actor also has done an above average job too. Other notable gigs in this anime includes the antagonist of the first arc, his subordinate (the female one) and the superhero that can use wind.

Music:-
The OST is decent, but not as good as the one in TTGL. The 1st ED theme and 2nd OP theme is excellent though.


Their budding relationship that the writer utilized to try to steer this anime into yaoi genre is one of the highlights of this anime.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. This is comparable to Sacred Seven, but somewhat inferior to TTGL. One good inconsistency between the two Sunrise titles is that this anime doesn’t use the blurry animation technique that the other one has, so no mandatory point docking will be performed. 2D and CGI integration is seamless. Choreography in action scenes is just average though, both TTGL and Sacred Seven are better than this anime in this aspect. The directing is excellent just like it does in TTGL, for exactly the same reasons too, which is mainly the moderating the common clichés commonly seen in the genre the storyline is in, having strong characters in the storyline itself and perfected presentation.

Conclusion:-
10 out of 10, which means we have a new ‘Anime of the Year 2011’ title holder. While TTGL has the bad luck of being pitted against the stupendously awesome Nodame Cantabile S1 five years ago, this beach episode-free series has more luck because it has only to contend with a 15-minute beach episode OVA featuring hips that moves on its own.


English in this anime is quite decent.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-x2

Review: Sacred Seven (セイクリッドセブン)

Posted by ranpha on 18th April 2012
Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: . 3 comments


The main male protagonist with his awesome ride.

The second review of this year is for the first challenger of last year’s Anime of the Year title holder, the unconventional beach episode Highschool of the Dead OVA, for Sacred Seven. This anime has its own beach episode on its own too (a given considering that this anime is a shounen title) but this anime is more (in)famous because of its main male protagonist’s similarity with a certain video game’s main protagonist. After watching this series, I do see why comparisons are made, but not in the way you think it is.

Story:-
Our aloof, anti-social and greatly misunderstood high schooler main male protagonist prefers to suppress the pain in his heart by collecting rocks at the creek behind his hut. But the sudden appearance of two mysterious people into his life gives him headaches, and he screamed in anguish as the painful memories of his disturbed past comes back to haunt him. He doesn’t have any choice but to break through his shell though when he realized that someone important to him is being drawn towards danger…

For the purpose of this review, I’ll divide this 12-episode series into three parts. The first part consists of the first three episodes, the second part consists of the next 5 episodes and the final four episodes will make up the final part. This division is made based on the varying quality of the plots throughout the series. In the first part, this anime started so well with plenty of action and a plot that is actually interesting; I started to wonder what is with all those negative impressions for this anime. Then the second part comes and I started to see the reason for all those negative impressions; examples includes the bland beach episode (when compared to the HotD OVA), that awful episode 8 and the Naruto-esque retconning of the crystals’ origins. Equally damaging, if not more, is the characters in this anime too, and I will touch on that issue below.

This anime recovers somewhat during the final part, but it is unable to reach the heights achieved during the early parts in the series. Looking at the ending, it is obvious that the writer tried to ‘think different’ when writing the ending when he/she makes a certain useless character the final boss instead of the main antagonist, but the attempt fails flat on its face.  Plus, I think it is contradictory to do such a thing because the earlier parts of the series the writer subscribed to Sunrise’s ‘play-it-safe’ strategy that sink Gundam SEED Destiny to oblivion back then. There is another factor that makes the ending looks bad, literally, and I will also comment on that later below.

As for the presentation, the series sure has a thing for scene transition problems, especially in the first and final parts of the anime. In the early parts of the anime, this problem happens within episodes as those episodes have faster pacing pacing than latter ones, causing some details to be skimped when going between events. An example of this can be seen in the second episode in event that lead up to the battle over the ocean. In the final part of the anime, the problem manifested itself differently, where there is clear disconnect between episodes. An example of this can be seen between episode 10 and 11, where the tax-evasion investigation springs itself out from nowhere at the start of episode 11. A competent writer would have written that one into the end of episode 10, essentially building out the suspense before the next week’s episode was aired. Amazingly, the bad second part of this anime doesn’t have this scene transition problem at all. And as I have implied above, the pacing in this anime is uneven; the pacing of the first part of the anime is faster than it is in the latter two parts.


The quiet and aloof main male protagonist is slowly changing his ways because of love…

Now we arrive at the character development parts of this anime, which is incidentally the main part of this review. As I mentioned before, this anime is (in)famous because allegedly the main male protagonist is similar to his counterpart in the Square Enix JRPG title Final Fantasy VIII, Squall Leonhart. Apparently, people thinks that is a bad thing, but I disagree. Now look at how I divide the storyline in the first place; part one being the first 3 episodes of the series, part two being the next five episodes and the remaining episodes making up the final part of the series.

During the first part of the storyline, which definitely is the best part of this anime, the comparisons between this anime’s aloof and unsociable main protagonist and the aloof and unsociable Squall Leonhart is truly merited. The only difference between them, apart from looks of course, is that the latter has no qualms whatsoever when it comes to rejecting hot women. As this anime’s quality problems emerged during the start of the second part, it can be said that the regressions in character development for the main male protagonist also contribute to the cause.

When I say regressions, I meant that this anime’s main male protagonist has stopped being a Squal Leonhart-lookalike and instead the writer developed his character to become more like Orimura Ichika of Infinite Stratos. The second part of this anime would have been more palatable if the main protagonist stay in Squall mode during that period. When gg fansub group substituted the main male protagonist’s name with Squall’s, I exclaimed to myself that they are already 4 episodes too late when doing so. Unlike the anime that somewhat recovered in the final part of the series, the main male protagonist stuck firmly in Ichika mode until the end and never recovers from that. That reason is also one of the factors why the final part never become as good as the first part is.


The main female protagonist sure is similar with a certain FF8 character that has equally weird hair that can send you into raptures!

Some of the other characters in this anime did not escape comparison with other Final Fantasy VIII characters. For example, the main female protagonist has been compared to her counterpart in the game, Rinoa Heartilly. Personally, I think that comparison is wrong because for me, she is more similar to Selphie Tilmitt than to Rinoa. The character in this anime that is most similar to Rinoa is actually the president of the rock collector club instead, and she is definitely the best character in this series despite her low airtime. And when I say ‘someone important to him’ in the first paragraph above, I really talking about her instead of the main female protagonist.  The only good thing about this anime-Final Fantasy VIII comparisons here is that the romance in this anime isn’t really overt, if it exists at all.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is not that different really from the previous anime reviewed here before; this anime being your standard shounen mecha power suit title.  Rare black hairs, big eyes et. al. But one factor that makes the ending even less appealing is the designs of the last boss and also the final form for the main male protagonist. The latter for example, the final form’s design is worse than his previous white form and the original rampaging penis-like red armor suit. And the less said about the facepalm.jpg-like form for the final boss, the better. Only the final form of the other Seifer-like character is better than his previous design.

Voice Acting:-
Just like Sora no Otoshimono, this anime did not perform anything above the average in this department. There is no outstanding voice actors at work in this series.


At this point of the series, the main male protagonist's transformation into Orimura Ichika has been completed.

Music:-
The OST for this anime is decent, but not so for the OP and ED themes. Even the troll OP track inserted by gg fansub group is better than the original theme.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this series is good, even in fast-paced scenes. One point is docked from this anime final evaluation for using the blurry animation technique that blighted many new action anime titles nowadays. Choreography in this anime is quite good actually, with some decent battle scenes like the one between Seifer and the SP girl. While the director may not be able to do anything about the storyline, and maybe the final mecha suit designs, he/she should at least be blamed for the presentation problems.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. A 15-minute beach episode OVA still reigns as the best 2011 anime title I have watched to date. Need to watch more anime then, if I have the time…


During this cliche-laden scene, I'm actually wondering WTF is the main antagonist doing behind their backs. The main antagonist sure need to read this website.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-wV

Review: Sora no Otoshimono (そらのおとしもの) & Sora no Otoshimono Forte (そらのおとしもの f （フォルテ）)

Posted by ranpha on 19th March 2012
Posted in: anime review. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment


The main male protagonist who have access to many pervy superpowers, and is one of the best characters in the series.

After about 6-month break from watching a single episode of Japanese animation titles, I grabbed a random title from my 2TB+ queue storage, in the form of the two seasons of Sora no Otoshimono series, for my first blog post in 2012. For clarification, I only watched the TV series, mainly because I missed the existence of the OVA between the two seasons and I don’t feel like watching the movie for now, for some reasons that I will explain below. The first season is a 2009 title, while the second season comes out a year later, which means Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Katanagatari will have some busty competitions at last…


And this is one of his super powers in action.

Story:-
Our main male protagonist that has contrasting personalities (like quiet and peace yet is a pervert of the highest order) hit the jackpot when a beautiful big-breasted angeloid literally fell from the sky onto his lap. He then made a contract with her (yay to originality) and aided with her ability to do anything he wants (world destruction included), his pervy rule of terror on his hometown has just started…

Let start with this series’ most obvious flaw first. My first major complaint I have here is about the awful presentation of the series’ storyline. Specifically, in this anime you will find out that the flow of the storyline isn’t really smooth, and contributes as the primary reason why the pacing of the storyline is way too slow for my liking. What really happened here is that right after the main male protagonist made his contract, this anime repeats what the likes of  PowerPuff Girls Z and Koukaku no Regios has done: this anime try very hard not to advance its storyline at all.

For reference, the first season has 13 episodes, while the second one has 12. The actual plot actually only appears at around episode 8, about 5 episode from the end. I probably would not have been pissed if the writer or director spent the next five episodes concentrating solely on the main plot but no, that’s not what has been done here. Instead of having the story being moved forward as the ending (of season 1) looms, I instead have to settle with rage-inducing episodes like the gender-bender episode 11. This trend continues in season 2 too, especially with the two appearances of that guy that totes toy guns around in summer festivals. When he appears, I know that the said episode is going to be crap. The same thing can also be said for the final episode (the anime has already ended before that), which mirrors what you can see in Kore wa Zombie desu ka?.

So what this anime is doing in the first 7 episodes of the first season? At best, those episodes only deals with character introductions and developments, with a couple of them being not too far behind of episode 11 in terms of lameness. Personally I think with the low amount of characters in this anime, their character developments should have been more integrated into the storyline. Just like Monochrome Factor, this series would have fared much better if all the useless episodes are removed, the pacing of the storyline is increased a few notch, introduce the blue-haired loli angeloid at episode 3, end first season’s material at episode 6, introduce the blond angeloid in episode 7 and then end the whole series at episode 12 or 13. The scenario I described is very possible, that’s how bad the messy flow of the storyline is.


She is more integral to the storyline than the main female protagonist…

The bad presentation really held back this series’ storyline, which is one of the two positives that this series has. If you can just ignore the presentation aspect of this anime, the storyline is actually above average in quality, and one of the better ‘make a contract’ titles out there. The only drawback I have seen in the story is that the main female protagonist doesn’t really play a major part in the core storyline, with the loli angeloid having more role on the story than her and the other angeloid. This anime would have scored at least 2 points higher if the presentation can be somewhat decent.

Another positive aspect in this anime is the character strength of the main male protagonist. While the ‘make a contract’ premise of the storyline is just a cliché-laden plot that has been used in countless anime titles in the past, the perverseness of the main male protagonist is truly something original. Almost all of the time, all of his perverse plans actually succeeded, and there are couple of occasions where he actually gets away with it. The one early in the series really shows how it was done; he asked the main female protagonist to make him invisible, then he goes to his childhood friend’s house to sexually assault her (no rape though) as a revenge for her constant violent treatment of him. And he gets away from it. Similarly perverse main male protagonists from other anime titles such as Inukami and Urusei Yatsura never have even a quarter of the luck his counterpart in this anime has.

Surprisingly, the fan-service in the Blu-ray version of the series is not really something to crow about, they are mostly average.

But not surprisingly, the main male protagonist is one of the two best characters in this series, alongside the loli angeloid who has more impact on the storyline than even him. Sometimes, less is more, because after all you do not have to put up with an overbearing moralizing main protagonist unlike a certain main protagonist from a certain anime series that isn’t named after him. The ending naturally doesn’t end the series, and I wonder if the movie will do exactly that. There will be a third season for this series too, so I will watch it anyway some time in the future…


…or the other mostly peripheral angeloid.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this series is decent, although typical for the genre. Black hair is rare, as only the main male protagonist has it. Therefore, not only you will see multiple non-black hair colors, impossible body shapes also rules the day especially for the angeloids that isn’t underage. That guy with white hair is almost out of place in the series…

Voice Acting:-
In general, voice acting in this anime is just about decent, and not more than that. There are no outstanding performers amongst the voice actors at all. At least, there are no bad ones either though.

Music:-
If there is any soundtracks in this series, then I really doesn’t notice it at all. This series has a unique ED theme for each episode, with significant influences from the 70s and 80s era in Japan, but only 2 of them are good; the first season’s 2nd episode ED theme (that has flying panties in the sequence) and the second season’s 5th episode ED theme. As for the OP themes, they are all forgettable.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this series is good, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography of action scenes is actually quite decent too. As mentioned above, the director really messed up the flow (and by extension, the pacing too) of the storyline which is detrimental to the series as a whole.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. It could have been so much better. The incumbents of the 2009 and 2010 Anime of the Years holders can rest easy now.


Quoted for Truth!

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-wB

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