anime review

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

Review: Shounen Onmyouji (少年陰陽師)

Posted by ranpha on 24th September 2009

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: Shounen Onmyouji (少年陰陽師). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist with his talking pet that will fetch the keys if he was jailed in a dungeon somewhere.

Shounen Onmyouji is yet another random anime I’ve picked from my still-huge backlog, and this one happened to be a 2006 title. Chocotto Sister will be quaking in its boots because its position is the most untenable amongst the three ‘Anime of the Year’ title holders listed at the right sidebar of this anime review blog. But actually, Chocotto Sister doesn’t have to worry about this new challenger because this anime is not really that good anyway.

Story:-
Our main male protagonist is the grandson of a famous onmyouji in ancient Japan, but he doesn’t inherit any of his grandfather’s talents or power. But because this anime falls into the action genre, he actually has those latent talents and extraordinary powers after all; they are just locked away by his worry-wart grandfather. All those talents and powers then were unlocked during a certain incident, and the anime went on as the protagonist revels in his new-found power; eliminating the evil forces that is about to harm the capital city alongside his furry sidekick and mandatorily getting his woman too (it has to be a noble princess too, you know, the one that is in distress while the hero swoops in to save the day). Now, where did I heard this storyline again?

The only sin this anime has story-wise is that the story is completely SO NOT ORIGINAL, therefore it was predictable most of the time. To be fair, the story itself did not suck and is mildly entertaining. This is not a comedy though, unlike what ANN’s synopsis in the link above would want you to believe. Another weakness of this anime is that some potentially good story arcs are not explored further; a good example would be the relationship between the protagonist and his woman, especially after she moves into his house. Now that would be a chance for some toilet humor (can validate ANN tags too) but the quickness of the director of relegating her into some tertiary character role with limited airtime is really astounding. The only thing that deviates from the genre this anime is in is the ending, which is quite good and not your normal happy ending where everything went well (nobody dies though).

When the story did not deliver, the presentation actually does. This anime has perfect pacing and the story develops very well bar some forgettable plot transition problems (happened usually between episodes). Character development in this anime is average with the exception of our protagonist (the best character by default because he has all the spotlights). Some characters are woefully underused, and a few others are introduced too late into the anime. For example, the protagonist’s grandpa has 12 summons (shikigami) but the number of them that are active throughout the series is low. Your have to look at the pathetic attempts by the director to introduce those who are not active yet in the last episode to see what I mean.

Character Design:-
The character design in this anime is similar to what you can see in Nabari no Ou, which means that this anime is filled with plenty of pretty characters. The protagonist here is not a jailbait though. Interestingly, while this anime is set up in ancient Japan, the lack of black hairs is very noticeable, with brown being the new black. What an irony, considering that Nabari no Ou has plenty of black hairs and the setting is in modern Japan. The protagonist in this anime has black hair though, plus some of the very unimportant characters. Monster design are also done well, especially for that horse-less carriage.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is simply average overall. Not bad or good, just average. There are no voice actors/actresses in here that has great voice acting gigs.

Music:-
If voice acting in this anime is just average, the music in this anime is a total failure. Non-existent OST and forgettable OP/ED themes, that’s all this anime has musically.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography in action scenes is not bad either, but not very spectacular. The directing in this anime is a weak point though, with numerous shortcomings listed already in the story section.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Chocotto Sister still reigns as the best anime in 2006.

He has a cool ride too, like the one Enma Ai use.

Review: Shion no Ou (しおんの王)

Posted by ranpha on 20th September 2009

Posted in: anime review, sport genre standard. Tagged: Shion no Ou (しおんの王). Leave a Comment

The silent main protagonist.

My mission to reduce the glut of anime titles I haven’t watched continues, with a 2007 anime titled Shion no Ou. I watched this one purely because the title is similar to the previous anime I watched before this one. Being an anime aired in 2007 in Japan, it will compete with Nodame Cantabile for ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ title but because this anime is a sport anime, it will be at a disadvantage because the sport genre handicap will be applied here.

Story:-
Our main female silent protagonist is an elementary school student who aspires to become professional shougi player. She, who lost her parents in a murder case, entered a long-running open shougi tournament (it lasts for three-fourths of the series) with lucrative prize money on offer as she is about to find out who is the culprit in the murder of her parents.

The story in this anime is quite good actually, even if you don’t really know what shougi is all about. Storytelling techniques usually associated with the sport genres makes their appearances, where the protagonist becomes better in each match she played and eventually surpassing everyone at the end. Her power-ups seems to come mostly during her games only, using literary devices such as flashbacks etc. which is quite unbalanced compared to titles such as Eyeshield 21 (the hero there can ‘upgrade’ during off-game events).

Accompanying the main story is a significant subplot that involves the mystery of her parents’ murder case. The subplot is very well-written, even I cannot predict the outcome until after all cards has been shown by the writer. Then, the main story and the murder subplot are combined perfectly to give the viewers a great package. Furthermore, as a bonus, there is virtually no romance at all in this series, ensuring that there will be no unnecessary distractions from the core of the anime.

Pacing and the flow of the story are quite good, except for some moments right after the second half of the anime has started (episode 15 and 16 has fluidity problems). Character development is not a strong point of the anime, where the only outstanding character here is the protagonist and, to a lesser extent, her cross-dressing blue-haired friend. The ending is good too, with the climax being the showdown between the protagonist and the murderer of her parents. < ----- SPOILER ALERT!

Character Design:-
Just like the character development, character design in this anime is simply average. The protagonist has overly big eyes like the one mentioned in Hatenkou Yuugi, but far less creepy. Too few people has black hair in the modern Japan setting.

Voice Acting:-
Too bad that the protagonist is a card-carrying mute, so most of the dialogues (or almost all of them) are done by supporting characters. Generally, just like the character design, voice acting in this anime is average at best. Notable voice acting jobs involves the aforementioned blue-haired guy/girl (cancel where appropriate) and also his/her mentor that sounded like a bad-ass creepy antagonist.

Music:-
A major positive aspect for this anime. The OST and the OP/ED themes in this anime are excellent.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is good when the series started, but I can’t help but notice that during the last third of the series, the quality has markedly dropped. Not only that, the drawing also suffers during the same time frame, which contributes to the lukewarm character design comments above. Considering shougi is not a sport that involves action, there will be no choreography comment here.

The director has done very well doing his/her job, as explained in my comments in the story section above.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. An excellent score despite the sport genre handicap. One more point and a replacement for Nodame Cantabile as ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ would have been born.

The prelude to a hot steaming moment between the cunning master and the naive student of his.

Review: Nabari no Ou (隠の王)

Posted by ranpha on 17th September 2009

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Nabari no Ou (隠の王). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist. So sweet he will never ever kill a ladybug.

This review in numbers; this is the third post for this month and fifth in the last 30 days (nice considering that there are no posts in the preceding 4 months before them), this is the 7th straight challenger for ‘Anime of the Year 2008’ holder Wolf and Spice, and the score is 7 out of 10 (read: another failure to challenge the incumbent). Read on to see my review of Nabari no Ou, yet another title in my huge backlog.

Story:-

Miharu Rokujou is a quiet middle-schooler who is good at cooking okonomiyaki and acting as jail-baits to get whatever he wants from older people. When attacked by a group of mysterious ninjas, he found out that he actually possessed the most powerful ninja technique ever created, called Shinra Banshou. From there on he went on an adventure as he strived to become the Nabari no Ou (King of Nabari).

Essentially, Nabari no Ou’s story structure is quite similar to Bounen no Xamdou I have reviewed not too long ago (therefore comparisons will be inevitable). The main protagonists in these two anime obtains a great power but in the end rarely used them (you can count how many times the main protagonists in those two anime used their power with only one hand). Unlike Bounen no Xamdou though, there are far more action in this anime but usually the protagonist only watches them from the sidelines (if he isn’t running away or being kidnapped etc). I wonder whether this is the new trend in Japan right now, not letting the protagonist use their newly acquired power the way the protagonist in Speed Grapher did.

While Nabari no Ou and Bounen no Xamdou are similar in structure, the quality of the storyline is vastly different, in favor of the latter. Still, Nabari no Ou’s story is still very decent, plus it has more intricate plots compared to Bounen no Xamdou. For the first couple of episodes, this anime has some pacing problems (too fast) and the story develops erratically but those problems goes away after that. Nabari no Ou doesn’t have the slow pacing problem Bounen no Xamdou has.

Character development in Nabari no Ou is more conventional compared to Bounen no Xamdou, with the exception of Miharu Rokujou (the best character) whose character also used the same strategy as the main protagonist of Bounen no Xamdou used. This anime is also dialogue-heavy, but not as much as Bounen no Xamdou is. Plus romance is kept to a minimum, almost as an afterthought.

The ending, while is more unpredictable in details compared to other shounen anime titles, ends up being ordinary and unfulfilling. This is definitely one of the negative points of this anime.

A shounen hero must have a pet too. As added bonus, the cat is pink, can transform into a girl with white hair, and immortal too.

Character Design:-
Nabari no Ou used character designs that comes out straight from shounen-ai titles like Loveless or Gravitation (or some random CLAMP anime). Thinking about that, considering the relationship between Miharu Rokujou and the other main male protagonist (did you notice that there are no main female protagonist here – all females in this anime are supporting characters only), this probably is inevitable. Well, at least the designs are not out of place unlike Tytania. Black hairs are common, and that is a good thing. Definitely a positive point for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is quite good, with the main male protagonist and his sickly effeminate boyfriend being the best of the bunch (the latter only speaks more during the second half of the anime though). Better than Bounen no Xamdou for sure.

Music:-
The OST for this anime is good, but you cannot say the same about the OP and ED themes.

Animation/Direction:-
My biggest complaint for this anime. The animation quality in this 2008 anime is subpar (jerky movements with flawed fluidity) compared to the standard set by other anime titles shown in the same year. This applies also for fast-paced scenes that are not part of ninja battles (like moving vehicles). When it comes to those fast-paced ninja battle animations, those blurry vertigo-inducing animation techniques really pissed me off because it makes following the action harder than it should have been. The fact that the two fansub groups that translated this anime introduced many combing artifacts during encoding doesn’t really help either. I docked one point off the final rating for this anime, it was really that bad.

The director has done his/her job neatly, with the exception of the pacing and story flow problems in the early episodes.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. The problems with the animation, the less than stellar story (compared to the perfect Bounen no Xamdou anyway) and the ending caused Nabari no Ou to fail to even challenge Wolf and Spice.

Are you a handsome guy with white hair, good with taijutsu and ninjutsu skills and is immortal to boot? If yes, then you will be popular with women, and some of them may want to follow you home and peek at you in the bathroom.