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Review: Monochrome Factor (モノクローム・ファクター)

Posted by ranpha on 14th October 2009

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Monochrome Factor (モノクローム・ファクター). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist frolicking with his willing and submissive boyfriend as the foreplay for…

The next random anime I picked from my backlog is Monochrome Factor. This is a 2008 anime, so I suppose that it will compete with Wolf and Spice for the ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title. Whether this anime really have the credentials to do so is high questionable though, so to find out if this anime can do it, please read this blog’s entry all the way to the end.

…the hot stimulating yaoi scenes that comes afterwards. This is the most SFW screenshot of that particular scene as the main protagonist started to have his way with him.

Story:-
The world is under siege from fiendish being from the Shadow World, thus our main male protagonist was recruited by a fishy white-haired bishounen character to stop them on their tracks. Together, alongside with some other unimportant characters, they went ahead and try to save the world from devastation.

This 24-episode anime is your typical shounen anime where the hero has to defend the world from being conquered by some evil forces etc. In other words, originality is not a strong point of this anime, and the unoriginal storyline here is not exactly a great one either. A weakness that this anime has that I want to highlight in this review is that there are too many ‘monster of the week’ episodes, which does have multiple consequences upon the rating of this anime.

Those ‘monster of the week’ episodes rarely helps at advancing the storyline, and just like what the white-haired bishounen character says in one of those episodes, it doesn’t help advancing character developments either. And with the fact that these useless filler episodes are usually bunched together consecutively, they become a big hindrance for the pacing of this anime’s main storyline. There are 24 episodes in this anime, and I estimate that at least 10 episodes can be eliminated just like that, maybe even half of the series if the director can manage the story’s flow and pacing efficiently. Character developments was also slowed down by the filler episodes, although I suspect that this anime is unique with the fact that the throttling of character developments are intentionally done as required by the needs of the storyline. The best character here is probably the main protagonist himself, although he is the one affected most by the throttling phenomenon.

The presentation of the ending (the last three episodes) was also affected negatively by the abundance of filler episodes here, because those fillers caused a semblance of discontinuation between the penultimate developments of the main storyline (happened maybe about 5 or 6 episodes before) and the ending itself. Having those episodes before the ending really screw up the flow of the storyline, after all, when the anime reaches its (crappy) climax, you have to see more fillers before you see the conclusion. This event is common in One Piece anime, where fillers are arbitrarily inserted in the middle of a canon arc in effort not to let the anime catch up to the manga too fast. The ending incidentally prepares the anime for a second season, but I think if the director cuts out all the ‘monster of the week’ episodes, then let the current ending happened in the middle of the series and fill the second half of the series with materials for second season, this anime would have scored higher in this review.

He is another object of the main male protagonist's sexual desires. He resented that incident so much, he is involved in that lame 'plot twist' at the end of the series.

Character Design:-
Just like Tytania and Nabari no Ou amongst others, this anime has plenty of pretty male characters (and has the minimum amount of female characters it can get away with). There are not many black-haired Japanese in here, although to be fair there are hints that there are extensive hair dyes usage in this anime. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

The fact that his servants are also sex-starved maniacs who will fulfill their desires with him doesn't help either.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is decent overall, with the white-haired creepy bishounen’s voice actor having the best gigs behind that microphone.

Music:-
Here is where this anime falls flat on its face, neither the OST or any of the OP/ED themes are any good.

These people are some examples of the monsters in the filler episodes.

Animation/Direction:-
The blurry animation techniques in action scenes I have mentioned in the same section in my Nabari no Ou review is also present here. Now I know that this annoying technique is not an aberration; this may herald a new age of headache-inducing action scenes in Japan’s shounen anime titles in the future. One point deducted from this anime’s evaluation just because of this. Animation quality in normal scenes, even fast-paced ones, are good though. Choreography in this anime is average, leading to many uninspiring battles. The directing is average, but for all the faults mentioned in the story section above, he/she has done well in camera works etc.

This is the annoying blurry animation techniques that caused this anime to lose a point off the final evaluation.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Wolf and Spice will retain the ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title. If there is a new season of this anime planned, I may watch it too.

Every shounen anime always have their own share of idiots in it, like the sibling characters above.

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

Review: Koukaku no Regios (鋼殻のレギオス)

Posted by ranpha on 12th October 2009

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Koukaku no Regios (鋼殻のレギオス). Leave a Comment

It seems like forever (actually only less than a week ago) since Wolf and Spice 2 was crowned as ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ holder, so I decided to present the first challenger to it in the form of Koukaku no Regios. This anime is probably the hardest title I ever reviewed in this blog, so read on to see why.

Story:-
In a distant future, the world’s atmosphere makes it inhabitable, plus with all those Pollutant Beasts around prowling for human’s flesh, mankind now has to live in giant moving cities called Regios. The main male protagonist moved in Zuellni, which is one of the cities mentioned above, and he started to do his thing. And that’s about it.

I started watching this anime right after the Over Drive review was posted at 9 October 2009 on 9.10pm. In 10 October at around 2.00am, I finished watching the first 7 episodes of this title. At this point, I realized that this anime lacks a certain ‘something’ (will be explained later), but I dismissed that pre-conception thinking that maybe this anime only starts very slowly (which is not uncommon at all in the world of Japan’s anime). With that, I went to sleep. Then I get up at around 7.00am and then an hour later, I watched episode 8 all the way to episode 15, which I finished at around noon. At this point (the anime is already well into the second half), that ‘something’ I mentioned above still haven’t appeared yet, and I have started to be alarmed. Later on, I watched episode 16-19 before going to my cousin’s birthday party, and only then, that ’something’ started to appear, but only barely. With this, I predicted:-

The ending is going to suck and be hurriedly executed, no matter what happened in the last 5 episodes.
The producers better be planning to have a second season at least, or else we will have an ending that is even worse than the ending mentioned above, plus the ending is the one that will keep the viewers bewildered by the various unfinished plot and character developments.

I then watched the final 5 episodes yesterday night, and went ahead to collect my mind and started to write this review.

That ‘something’ I am talking about is a visible storyline. With the hindsight after watching the whole series, I think the main story arc started when the wolf-like hooded characters attacked Zuellni and stole its Electronic Fairy, which the main female protagonist #1 (so many female protagonists here, they have to be labeled) then rescued. Now the problem here is that I cannot identify the main story arc until way into the second half of this anime. It is like the director taking the anime’s whole main storyline (assuming that it has already fully written), smudged one-third of it and then extended the smudgy part to the left, making the extended storyline so thin it makes the flow of the story disjointed and uneven.

Again, with the advantage of finishing the whole series, I finally be able to connect the dots that marks the developments of the main storyline, and here I realized another weakness that this anime has. That weakness is that alongside the main story arc, many other subplots were started at the same time as the main story arc itself. These minor plots obscure the main story so well; that at the end of episode 15, I thought that the most prominent storyline would have to do with 2 women (main female protagonist #1 – the main male protagonist’s platoon captain, main female protagonist #2 – the girl that the main protagonist saves in the first episode) and a white-haired flat-chested tsundere loli-trap (main female protagonist #3) trying to get into the main male protagonist’s pants. The director seems hell-bent on explaining the mechanics of the world, how life in a Regios city looks like, what is Pollutant monsters all about, doing character developments and advancing the side-stories all above his/her primary role; presenting the main storyline in a precise and concise manner.

That’s a pity because when it comes to doing the things I have mentioned, the director really excels. Especially character developments, which are done very well. The main male protagonist and main female protagonist #1 are two outstanding characters in this regard. In fact, I think there will be more to come from both of them, especially the latter. For the ending, it seems that a second season is in order (I then forgive the existence of plenty of loose ends in this anime), therefore making the ending less crappier than I thought. But my prediction about the ending being hurriedly executed is correct. See the caption of my screenshot below.

If this anime is just like any other typical shounen anime, the main male protagonist would take at least one fully dedicated episode to defeat an antagonist as powerful as the one above. Maybe even more, if Naruto is used as a reference. But here the main male protagonist swatted the antagonist away, literally just like Ash Ketchum does to Team Rocket. I demand an epic one-to-one Heavenly Blade battle!

There will be a second season right? If Darker than Black has one, this anime should have it too.

Character Design:-
The character designs in this anime is excellent, with my only complaint being that the design for the main male protagonist being too bland. Outstanding character designs in this anime is the Zuellni student council president, the breast-grabbing dark-haired queen (so little of them here in an apocalyptical world), the blonde lioness from the 10^th platoon and the main female protagonist #2. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is just average in general, and I can’t think of any characters that has their voice actors/actresses doing any outstanding gigs in there. And it is better for me not to mention the extremely poor job at speaking English in this anime (far worse than the attempts in Gigantic Formula). Thank god for English subtitles!

Music:-
The OST in this anime is good, but not for any of the OP/ED themes. And BTW, having several variations of a crappy ED theme is not going to make them better.

Animation Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is top-notch, very fluid even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography in action scenes, especially human-vs-human battles is average though (the fact that the main male protagonist is basically invincible doesn’t really help). My comment about the directing has already been mentioned largely in the story section, but I think he/she has done well if the mismanagement of the main storyline is ignored.

Conclusion:-
5 out of 10. Actually, at the end of episode 15, I would have put this anime alongside the likes of Hayate no Gotoku, Macross 7 and Hani Hani Operation Sanctuary but this anime redeems itself somewhat at the end. Wolf and Spice 2 successfully defended its title from the first challenger.

If the director has done his/her job properly, the audience would have known what the hell the 'Rigzario' and 'Ignasius' thingy are by now. But you have to wait until second season for that!

Review: Over Drive (オーバードライヴ)

Posted by ranpha on 9th October 2009

Posted in: anime review, sport genre standard. Tagged: Over Drive (オーバードライヴ). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist.

Today’s post is my review for yet another sport anime, titled Over Drive. Actually when I downloaded this anime, I expects a mecha anime or something like that. This is a 2007 anime, which will then compete with Nodame Cantabile for the ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ title. With the sport genre handicap, can this anime do what countless other 2007 titles has failed to do and dislodge Nodame Cantabile off its perch?

The main male protagonist with his woman.

Story:-
A dorky yet overdramatic high-schooler enrolls into his school’s cycling club despite not knowing how to ride a bicycle, and in the end, he becomes a Tour de France winner. This anime shows what happened in-between, and that’s about it.

This anime starts slowly before the pace picks up when the tournament arc of this anime started. In fact, this anime only gets going at that part. The story itself is dull before the tournament but the quality becomes better as the plot developed far more quickly during the tournament compared to the first 10 episodes that precedes the tournament arc. Just like Saki, this anime uses flashbacks to manage the flow of the story and also do character development, but usage of this plot device is not as flawless as the ones in Saki. For example, flashbacks in episode 13 and 20 disrupts the pacing and the story’s flow, but the ones in episode 14 and 19 (I believe) are done very well. The absence of the exaggerations found in Saki also helps this anime immensely.

Character development is definitely the major positive point of this anime. Some factors conveniently shore up character developments in this anime, like the fact that bicycle road race is one of the most physically demanding sport in the world, plus the fact that at the start of the anime the main male protagonist is a weakling that cannot even do PE classes well. With this situation in place at the start of the anime, the viewers will be able to see the rapid transformation from a completely untalented normal high-schooler to a promising bicycle road racer in Japan, using the commonly seen ‘protagonist become better in his/her sport by sheer hard work, unbreakable spirit and unwillingness to give up’ plot; common in this genre. This alone is an incentive for any fans of Japan’s sport-genre anime to put this title in their watch-list. In this regard, this anime is not too far behind Capeta.

The ending of this anime is not only written very well, but was also presented flawlessly. Having one whole episode to tie up every loose ends is a masterstroke by the director. Unfortunately, there is no second season for this anime though.

The main male protagonist dropping his pants in front of his woman.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is decent enough, especially designs for female characters. In this anime’s version of Japan, brown-haired people vastly outnumbers those with black hairs.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is generally good, with outstanding gigs from the main male protagonist himself and his blonde club’s captain.

Music:-
All OP/ED themes in this anime are good especially the 2nd ED theme. The same thing can also be said for the OST. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

When the main male protagonist's woman is not around, his classmates will also do well as replacements.

Animation/Direction:-
While the animation quality for normal scenes is passable, the ones for fast-paced scenes (like the ones in the race) are almost always mediocre, and sometimes can be downright terrible. Some racing scenes are done in CGI and they are much better. Integration between 2D and CGI scenes are not exactly seamless though. Choreography in action scenes in this anime, especially in the tournament arc are great. The directing is good, especially when doing the presentation of the ending and there is also some nifty camera tricks in some rainy racing scenes.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Nodame Cantabile successfully defended its title for the umpteenth time.

There are plenty of grimacing faces in this anime.