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Review: Aoki Densetsu Shoot! (蒼き伝説 シュート！)

Posted by ranpha on 4th January 2008
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment

 
The purity and ecstasy of men-love.

My first review in 2008 will be of a rare sports anime, Aoki Densetsu Shoot! With this and Capeta has just been completely subbed recently, there will be lots of episodes I wanna watch in the next week or so. Capeta will come after Angelic Layer and maybe Myself, Yourself too.

 
Sums up the majority of sports anime out there.

Story:-
3 budding footballers (soccer as it known in Japan and America) enrolled to Kakegawa High School so that they can play with the ace striker of the school. The ace striker unexpectedly dies early (whoops, is that a major spoiler?) and those three has to deal with the reality of replacing that ace striker on their quest to the nationals (this aim is common in many sports manga/anime). Thrown in some romance in and you got your almost typical sports anime.

Imagine Shinji Ikari from Evangelion playing football, and that’s what this series basically is. That’s why I say that this sport anime is not a typical one. I have watched my own share of sport anime and this is the first time I have seen the main protagonist acting so emo and insecure, especially when dealing with his woman. Although I think it makes him more realistic compared to the protagonists in newer anime in the same genre.

The story basically has the same template as many of the sports anime out there. You know; a middle/high school student joins a <insert sport name> sport club that aims for the nationals. That student may or may not have talents or specialty. After that, we will get to see the gut, persistence and <insert any good values here> as he/she helps his team (team sports has better impact than individual sports, which incidentally are used in anime/manga that has sports as background like Umisho or Suzuka) to beat the best of teams in their prefecture and qualify to the nationals. The ending may show victories and defeats, it is not always a happy ending. Additional spices may include side stories like romance or comedy.

Nevertheless, I will never get tired with this kind of stories. I dig this kind of anime all the time. These kinds of stories really have to screw up to get a bad rating from me. In this regard, this anime suffer from over-glorification of certain things, such as the no.10 jersey (if Manchester United can win the English Premiership without an ace striker no.10, there should be no fuss about it) and the offside trap (for god sake, how they managed to qualify to the nationals without knowing that, I don’t know). Apart from that, I do not really have nothing to say anymore.

 
A pointless council meeting to determine who is the wearer of the divine no.10 jersey.

Character Design:-
For an anime from the last century, the character design in this anime is pretty good. Black hair is still common (I miss those days), and high school girls wear long skirts.

 
How to portray a perfectly good guy as a villain.

Voice acting:-
Just like the character design, voice acting here is decent without being spectacular. No one stands out despite some notable names in the seiyuu list and huge number of episodes.

 
Another downside of being an emo kid.

Music:-
This anime fails completely for this section. Enough said.

 
There is something wrong about this screenshot. Can you pick out what is it? Hint: count the black dots.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation can be good and can be bad. Maybe it is because of the long run of 58 episodes? Unique for this anime, it did not use overexaggerated football techniques that will make real-life overpaid professional footballers look bad (Prince of Tennis and Eyeshield 21 are guilty in this regard). The direction is average at best, and has times controlling how the dialogue flows.

 
Ball watching. If this is Manchester United he will get the hairdryer treatment.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. While sport anime will have a hard time to be rated too low, the same also applies if it were to be rated higher. 7 out of 10 will be my median for this genre.

 
Yellow cards. An endangered species in this anime. Red cards? Already extinct.

Review: Karas (鴉 -KARAS-)

Posted by ranpha on 29th December 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


One of the action scenes at the start of the OAV.

Ok, I lied. Apparently Karas is only 6 episodes long, so I finished watching it in 3 hours or so. So the should be the last review of this year. Maybe…

Story:-
A Power Ranger Karas of the city of Shinjuku in Tokyo has to deal with an ex-Karas who wants to destroy the world city (the villain will feel at home in ACROSS). And that’s about it for the 6 episode OAV.  What is Karas? Well, I do not want to spoil you.

The story is average, but has a good ending. With low number of episodes, character developments are restricted to the protagonist only. The only good thing about this anime is that it has pretty and elaborate action scenes. And that’s it for this series.

Character Design:-
The style of the character developments for humans and youkai is similar to what you can see in big-budget animation movies such as Spirited Away and Metropolis. You will either like it or not, for me it is decent. The Karas design meanwhile comes straight from a typical tokusatsu series, and I will not be surprised with a few ‘Henshin’ here or there. I should reiterate that that is not a bad thing.

 
The protagonist facing one of the monsters.

Voice acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is decent, with no one being really outstanding. That’s it, mainly because low episode count did not allow anyone to shine.

Music:-
The OST is good, but not so for the themes.

Animation/Direction:-
The positive point of this series. This anime has one of the best animation qualities I have ever seen in an anime series. It is up there with Hayao Miyazaki or Osamu Tezuka gigs. Everything is fluid and smooth in all kind of scenarios, and if I were to nitpick, my only complaint will be the integration between 2D and 3D scenes. The directing is excellent, at least on keeping those action scenes joyful to watch.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. That’s it. Will there be a second season?

 
The final boss should consider reading this list.

Review: Sakigake!! Cromartie Koukou (魁!! クロマティ高校)

Posted by ranpha on 28th December 2007
Posted in: anime review - reposted. Tagged: . Leave a Comment


Takashi Kamiyama with his mecha mount.

Nagasarete Airantou should be the last 2007 anime reviewed this year, and the last review for this year should be Cromartie High School. The next anime in the pipeline are Karas (now fully subbed), Angelic Layer and also Myself Yourself (a 2007 anime but will be reviewed next year). Read on to see how this Lucky Star-esque anime fared in my last post this year.

 
One of the parodies in the anime. DiGi Charat is quite a popular anime isn’t it?

Story:-
Takashi Kamiyama, a do-goody high school student enrolled at Cromartie High School which is famous for its delinquent populations. He encountered plenty of interesting characters, inclusive your bog-standard Japanese delinquents, a gorilla, a sentient mecha and also Freddie Mercury. The delinquents of the other schools also tried to challenge the infamous Cromartie with varying degree of success. Despite how it looks, the anime involves very little violence, which in this context is a very good thing.

This anime is really similar to Lucky Star in many ways. To a certain extent, Cromartie High School is also a dialog-heavy comedy anime, but not as intense and also not as fast as Lucky Star (the fact that each episode is just about 10 minutes long helps greatly). It also contains references/parodies to other anime/manga/musician/actors etc but not as often as Lucky Star. But unlike Lucky Star, jokes in this anime are delivered in variety of ways, unlike the near-monotonous method Lucky Star employed. The jokes used in this anime are generally just as good as Lucky Star, but with some exceptions (some jokes are downright lame) and a few others need intricate understanding of Japanese culture.

Generally, the anime has a very loose plot but supported by the character strength of surprisingly very many of the characters. There are a lot of outstanding characters in this series, such as the main protagonist himself, the delinquent with the false Mohawk, another one with blond hair, the heir of the financial group and many more. The stories and secret behind all of those characters ensures that Takashi Kamiyama did not steal all the limelight for himself. In this aspect, this anime is vastly superior to Lucky Star. This anime does not really have an ending just like Lucky Star, but it is more open-ended.

The anime does not have a weakness actually, and if you ask me, this anime is better than Lucky Star.

 
The main protagonist trying to act tough.

Character Design:-
This is a positive point for this anime. The characters are designed perfectly for their roles, whether the pacifist main protagonist or the whole group of delinquents who seems ready to went off whenever possible. Plus the mecha, the gorilla, Freddie Mercury and others, how can you complain? It may not have the usual design that a shounen title has, but you will be satisfied with designs that are usually reserved to side-characters a.k.a. small villains that will be beaten in every other series.

 
Even without dialogues, Freddie Mercury and the gorilla is still cooler than 99% of the anime characters out there.

Voice acting:-
Another positive point for this anime. The voice acting here are excellent, with everyone doing their best sounding like hot-blooded delinquents. I like the delinquent mecha the most.

 
A typical delinquent meeting.

Music:-
Unfortunately, only the OST is any good, with plenty of over elaborate rock tracks. The OP/ED themes cannot match the quality of the sections above at all.

 
Things that only a delinquent can do.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation is decent, even for fast-paced scenes. For a series like this, it is very surprising that there are virtually no action scenes such as fighting scenes. Directing is generally good, not really outstanding.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. A very good score to end up the reviews of all anime I watched this year.

 
He has the best voice acting in this series.

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