anime review

All reviews written since I moved the blog to the wordpress platform. Default category.

Review: Kurogane no Linebarrels (鉄のラインバレル)

Posted by ranpha on 9th September 2010

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Kurogane no Linebarrels (鉄のラインバレル). Leave a Comment

The aptly named main male protagonist, and also the best character of this anime.

Today’s post is for a mecha anime I have never heard before watching its first episode, titled Kurogane no Linebarrels. Considering that I have a thing for mecha anime titles (although will not necessarily rate them highly), me not knowing about this particular anime with plenty of mechas in it is borderline blasphemous. Then I watched all 24 episodes of it and realized why this anime, with Gundam Seed-like character designs, wasn’t really well-known. This anime is a 2008 anime, but it has no chance at all to dethrone the current holder of the ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ title, One Outs – Nobody Wins, but I. And IMO that anime will hold the said title for a long time to come.

And he is truly proud of his given name.

Story:-
The biggest loser at a local Japan’s middle school was forced by the school bullies to go buy some junk foods from outside the school. With the time limit of 10 minutes, he tried to save time and take a shortcut through a forested spot in the middle of the city. Suddenly a stray mecha appears out from nowhere and fall onto him. As we all know, mechas are usually big, hard and heavy, therefore the falling mecha kills our main male protagonist instantly. THE END!

No wonder why this anime was unknown to me before I started watching it; the storyline is overwhelmingly ordinary. There are no angsty emo main character that you can make fun of; just your bog-standard shounen main protagonist like the one you can see in Märchen Awakens Romance, amongst others. While the save-the-world-from-evil plot cannot be hailed for its originality, at least it still make this anime pretty much watchable even if other factors tried to drag it down.

This anime starts well, with decent pacing and storyline progression, for at least in the first half of this 24-episode series. As this anime enters the second half, fluffy events (that welcoming party, Christmas events etc.) and the lame-ass romance subplot (someone should watch the first Macross and make it a definitive guide on how to wrote a romance subplot for any future mecha anime titles) started to make their appearance, making the central portion of this anime less palatable. The flow of the storyline, which is smooth at that point, was also interrupted by scene transition problems that you can see between episode 15 and 16, between episode 16 and 17, and the most glaring of them all, in the middle of episode 23. The latter in particular is pretty much retarded, and will be explained later.

The ending suffers from bad presentation, which is a pity because despite being cliché-laden and predictable, the plot of the ending is actually decent. Being crammed into 2 episodes (or is it 3?) caused the pacing to be notably faster than what you can see in the preceding episodes, but the aforementioned scene transition problem in the middle of the penultimate episode is just as bad as the same scene transition problem documented extensively in my Asura Cryin’ review. Doing an important story progression off-screen will always be bad for storytelling, and this anime is not exempted from this rule. I personally doesn’t see a new season, but then again there are some unanswered questions and few unpursued potential story arcs left hanging when the final credits stopped rolling. The ending would have done well with a couple of extra episodes, that’s for sure.

Character developments is uneven overall, with the badly-timed usage of ‘false antagonist’ plot device really not helping this anime in this aspect. By using that plot device too close to the ending arc, the main male protagonist (the best character in this anime even if his character development is pretty much by the book) would then have to focus upon a new antagonist which character is not clearly defined and has low airtime at that point. The same plot device also caused the character development of the original antagonist to be wasted, and exposed the severe lack of character developments for other characters such as the main female protagonist a.k.a. the antagonist younger sister (their relationship is almost worthless in the context of the storyline – not explored at all) and also for the JUDA’s president (his relationship with the main antagonist seems to be deep, but never explained – the grave at that island with giant squid is proof of that).

Unfortunately, the writers of this anime used this plot device once too many times.

Character Design:-
Character designs in this anime is very good, no complaints about this one. There are some black hair owners in this anime too, which is a very good thing. Mecha designs is just average though. Still definitely a positive aspect for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
In general, voice acting in this anime is decent, but there are no outstanding performer(s) that I can spot (or hear).

Music:-
The OST is good, but not so for any of the OP and ED themes.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is great, even in fast-paced scenes. But choreography in action scenes is just average, and you will not see any good battles or fights in here. The director who has screwed up the presentation of the ending arc, has done a neat job in other earlier parts of the anime.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. One Outs will still keep its title for the time being, and highly likely, for a very long time too.

This picture pretty much sums up this anime's main storyline.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-h6

Review: Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ)

Posted by ranpha on 31st August 2010

Posted in: anime movies, anime review. Tagged: Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist, refusing to become the main female protagonist's boyfriend.

When writing my previous post in this blog (the review of Black Jack 21), I discovered a teeny weeny relationship between the Black Jack series and the anime movie I will review today, the highly-rated (by others) anime movie titled Summer Wars. I have read somewhere in the internet that this movie has won many awards (alongside K-On! to be exact), and considering that I have it in my extremely long queue, I decided to take the movie for a spin. Not only I can scare the current ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ title holder for a little, I can also confirm one of my suspicions that I have after watching the two season of Black Jack anime series.

And this is his avatar in the said MMORPG. The avatar that has gone bad!

Story:-
Our nerdy main male protagonist was offered a part-time job by the his high-school idol to………………………………………………………………… become her boyfriend during her grandmother’s birthday bash. Disgruntled at being forced to do unexpected things, his problems vastly multiplied when, literally, the world and its dog starts baying for his head for hacking and vandalizing the biggest casual MMORPG in the world. His cover blown away, he has to work hard against time to save the world from a renegade AI that wants to destroy it, hmmmm…… where did I heard about this before?

Yeah right, the .Hack//G.U. multiplatform series, which prelude anime was reviewed by me here and the video-game-trilogy-condensed-into-a-movie reviewed here. I have also played the Playstation 2 trilogy for at least 200 hours or something. This movie shared so many similarities with the game series when it come to the storyline, but then again there are major differences as well.

While the game series is pretty much shounen, this movie’s storyline has a heavy dose of slice-of-life elements infused into it. Unlike the game which focused almost exclusively on the in-game storyline, this movie divides its focus upon the online world and the world outside it pretty much evenly. That’s why while the renegade AIs of each respective series do wreak major destruction upon their real world, you can actually see it (the actual disasters) happens in this movie while the destructions in .Hack//G.U. trilogy are only implied in bulletin boards and private messages. The game trilogy also has better romance story arc than this movie too, which will be explained below.

For what its worth, this movie’s storyline is quite good. But what makes the movie stands up to its hype is its presentation. The flow of the story is excellent and the pacing is just perfect. For a movie to has this kind of perfect pacing is truly a rarity. It is even better than the likes of The Sky Crawlers and the venerable Spirited Away. The awesome presentation more than covered the unavoidable lack of nuances seen in this movie’s story.

Character developments. the bane of all things movies without a sequel, is predictably patchy. Only two characters has done anything remotely well in the regard: the main male protagonist (also the best character in this movie) and the main female protagonist's grandmother. The huge cast of characters really didn’t help. And the main reason why this movie’s romance subplot is inferior compared to the .Hack//G.U. trilogy’s is because of the main female protagonist’s weird character development strategies. Someone care to explain to me how on earth she fall in love with the main male protagonist?

And this is him in deep trouble after being framed by the scheming main female protagonist.

Character Design:-
This movie’s seinen-like character designs are excellent overall. Lack of black hairs is forgiven; I’m convinced that those who doesn’t have black hair dyed theirs. A positive aspect for this movie.

Voice Acting:-
Unlike character design, voice acting in this anime is just average. And unfortunately for this anime, no one stands out from the rest in this aspect. The grandma comes close, but not close enough.

Music:-
The main reason why this movie is related to the Black Jack series is because they shared the same composer for the soundtrack of both titles. The composer hasn’t done the work of Osamu Tezuka any justice it deserves, and 3 years later, nothing changed for this anime either. Therefore, it is safe to say, the OST of this movie is just mediocre. I don’t know if he composed the ED theme, but the theme is not very good either.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this movie is superb, with no decrease in quality in fast-paced scenes too. Beauty is everywhere, whether in online world or outside it, comparable to what Makoto Shinkai’s works. Choreography is also awesome, comparable to what you can see in the .Hack//G.U. OAV and not too far behind what you can see in Avatar – The Last AirBender. The director also has done a very good job presenting the movie to the audience with the aforementioned excellent presentation. A positive aspect for this movie.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. This movie lives up to its hype, but not good enough to dethrone Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as the best anime of 2009. How on earth K-On! managed to get toe-to-toe with this movie anyway?

Quoted for Truth!

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

Review: Black Jack 21 (ブラック・ジャック 21)

Posted by ranpha on 30th August 2010

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Black Jack (series), Black Jack 21 (ブラック・ジャック 21). Leave a Comment

The main protagonist makes his (presumably) final return to this blog.

The awesomeness of the slice-of-life anime Black Jack TV reviewed in this blog last month prompted me to watch its sequel right after the the ‘Anime of the Year 2010’ audition was over. Black Jack 21 is a 2006 anime title, therefore it will have a chance to dethrone the slice-of-life anime Chocotto Sister, the reigning ‘Anime of the Year 2006’ title holder. This anime does have a very big shoe to fill though, therefore will the plot that this new season will have helps this anime scale the heady heights that its predecessor has reached before? Read on to find out.

And he went for the highest fee he has charged in the whole first season, right in the first episode in the second season.

Story:-
Our main title protagonist BJ (this abbreviation that is used in the second season unnerved me somewhat – for obvious reasons) was reunited with his estranged father under professional circumstances. And within a single episode, some vague questions that have always bugged me during the course of the first season were readily answered straight to the point. You know, questions like what the hell happened to BJ’s mother after the explosion in the first episode of the first season. After extorting some good amount of money out from his father for a routine plastic surgery (he does this too a couple of times in the first season – the plastic surgery I mean) he went home just to find himself in yet another explosion that destroyed his house and nearly killed him. With that explosion, this anime has truly switched genres from slice-of-life to shounen, as the main protagonist has to run away from a mysterious organization that wants him dead and buried, Amazing Race-style.

This explosion completes this anime’s switch from slice-of-life to shounen genre.

When I first learned that the second season will have a prevailing plot, I thought the story would be seinen (like Wolf and Spice or Kaiji etc.), based on what I have seen in the first season. Instead, whoever wrote the main plot for the second season has decided instead to wrote a kiddy storyline that targets the elementary schoolers, not unlike what you can see in Onmyou Taisenki and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. And this is where my first complaint comes in. Unlike what the writers in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has done, the writers for the second season doesn’t bother to remove any of the clichés associated with such kinds of storyline though. This makes this anime extremely predictable except for one occasion (which will be explained later) and gratingly very cheesy too.

Now armed with a prevailing plot, you cannot skip any of the episodes anymore and expect to still understand what is happening in this anime. Yet this anime still inherits one of the few weaknesses that the first season has, which is uneven story development. There are many occasions where the events and/or scenes seems to happen unnaturally, as if it being forced upon the viewers. This weakness was compounded by the fast pacing, despite this anime not being episodic anymore, and also undermined BJ’s strong point seen in the first season: the awesome surgeon skills he has. You know, mad skills like that out-of-the-world, so ridiculous it must be fictional, anesthetic-free open heart surgery he performed in one of the episodes. Is that even possible? The awaken patient doesn’t even groan!

This anesthetic-free self-surgery that he does upon himself pales in comparison to the anesthetic-free open heart surgery mentioned above.

Maybe if the director can slow the pacing a bit, he can extend this anime up to 21 episodes, which will fit the title theme perfectly instead of only 17 episodes. I think the uneven flow of the storyline and the fast pacing can be blamed by the need to cram at least one full manga arc inside only one episode maximum, instead of letting the arc flows into the next episode. And this will become worse as the anime nears its end, where you can see 2 manga arcs (presumably modified) being rolled into one anime episode. In those episodes, presentation of this anime really suffered a lot.

By the end of this anime, I definitely have thought that the prevailing plot that the second season has did not exist in the manga version. But I do not read the manga therefore I do not know for sure.

As expected, the very conservative 4-episode 2-phase ending arc is naturally predictable, cliché-laden and has a over-the-top plot (HOLY SHIT! NUKES!!). But one very good exception in the first phase of the ending arc is the hidden daughter-turned-assassin plot twist, which I really didn’t see coming. What makes this plot twist an excellent one is that the writers has already dropped hints about it in the previous episodes, but I didn’t even know what is going to hit me later. This is almost comparable to the shocking episode 44 in the first season when it comes to impact, and would have been just as good if the fast pacing and horrendous flow of the story doesn’t dilute the impact by the time the first phase ends.

Character developments is one aspect where the second season has done tremendously very well compared to the first season. The prevailing plot allows you to know more about BJ’s background, and the plot also allows his character to develop according to conventional shounen genre development strategies. His pseudo-loli assistant is more subdued compared to what she is in the first season, maybe because her character has already matured due to what happened to her in the first season. Therefore BJ is definitely the best character in this anime.

Will there be a third season? If there is one, the anime should just returned to its roots shown in the first season where all we can see is BJ’s extreme greediness combined with awesome people-cutting skills.

You won't see him doing these Indiana Jones stunts in the first season.

Character Design:-
My comments for the same section in the first season review still applies.

Voice Acting:-
My comments for the same section in the first season review still applies.

Music:-
The OST is still has the same average quality seen in the first season. The first ED theme uses the 3rd ED theme from the first season, and frankly speaking, this is the only theme that is any good. The OP theme and the 2nd ED theme wasn’t really good.

The main protagonist tried to portray his nemesis using an apt description that, ironically, also applies to himself.

Animation/Direction:-
Do you know the horrendous animation technique I have always disparaged in this blog before? Unlike the first season, this anime employed the same technique too, but unlike the other anime titles that does so, this anime uses the said technique correctly. Yes, you heard that right, this anime uses that blurry animation techniques extensively only in very slow motion scenes, which can be flashbacks, or during surgeries etc. That animation technique really doesn’t have a place in fast-paced scenes or even normal ones.

Apart from that, the animation quality in this anime is still average just like the first season. There are more fast-paced scenes in this action shounen title, and the quality is also passable. Choreography is just ordinary though. The directing has regressed if the presentation of this anime (fast pacing and rough storyline flow) is taken into account.

By the end of this anime, his fee has now risen to the equivalent of a GDP of a small country, therefore…

Conclusion:-
8 out of 10. This anime failed to match the awesomeness of its predecessor, and Chocotto Sister survives the challenge on its throne. So what random anime title I will review next?

…all greedy people will meet their deserved end.