anime review

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Review: Urusei Yatsura TV (うる星やつら)

Posted by ranpha on 29th October 2008

Posted in: anime review, over 100 episodes. Tagged: Takahashi Rumiko, Urusei Yatsura series, Urusei Yatsura TV (うる星やつら). Leave a Comment

Our main male protagonist Darling, laughing in the style of Lelouch.

Finally, after nearly two months of on-and-off viewing (punctuated by the Code Geass review earlier this month), I finally finished the humongous series Urusei Yatsura, the first Takahashi Rumiko work reviewed in this blog (the second one I watched after Ranma 1/2), and at 195 episodes, the biggest single-season series I have ever watched. For comparison, it is like watching Code Geass (50 episodes), Powerpuff Girls Z (52 episodes), Wolf and Spice (13 episodes), Chobits (26 episodes), Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai (24 episodes), Record of Lodoss War (13 episodes) and Kodomo no Jikan (12 episodes + 1 OVA) all in one go with some episodes to spare (I do not count movies or the non-anime Avatar). Just like Gakkou No Kaidan, this is another of those Animax titles I have partially watched in the past, and here I finally watched the series to the very end.

Darling’s house (destroyed by Lum here) and classroom (destroyed by Arsonist Ten) are regular collateral damage in this series. The mortgage and reconstruction efforts must be a pain…

Story:-
Planet Earth was invaded by a demonic alien race armed with overwhelming physical and technology superiority over the 1980's human race, and all that stands between the world as we know it and complete annihilation is our lecherous hero Moroboshi 'Darling' Ataru. Chosen to compete in a tournament with the fate of the world in the balance, he has to defeat Lum, the princess of the king of the alien invaders and win, or else he will lose his girlfriend Shinobu that has promised him her hand in marriage if he wins. Eventually he wins the contest using a simple trick, but his truly 'electrifying' married life has just started…

There is one of those anime that is powered by the immense character strength of its main male protagonist, and this factor alone salvage the really thin overall story this anime has. Our Darling is definitely one of the strongest anime characters I have ever seen in the myriads of anime titles I have ever watched. As a reference to the previous anime I have reviewed before, Code Geass, Darling is vastly superior to Lelouch Lamperouge for example. Frankly speaking, if it wasn't for him, I would have dropped this anime at around episode 30 or something when they started to do 1 30-minutes episode every episode (pun?) instead of the 2 15-minutes episodes per episode format this anime started with.

Darling is trying to hit on his childhood friend Shinobu while the jealous Lum is administering more electrical punishment. A common scene in this series.

Darling is similar to Raou in Inukami, but more decisive, more thick-skinned, more tenacious and exemplarily good at wooing women using some of the best flowery (and corny) pick-up words, and he has no qualms whatsoever at doing it in-front of the main female protagonist. He (and some of the other characters) is also extremely good at doing funny/insightful/witty one-liners which can really make excellent scenes. Some of his choice of words really amazes me, especially when he is doing his girl-hunting trips.

Mendou Shutaro and Darling, planning their next perverted move.

Darling is also ably assisted by some other side-characters; Mendou Shutaro, Arsonist Ten, Shinobu, Sakuramboo Cherry, Ran and Darling's parents, especially his mom comes to mind. What is criminal is that some of these characters suffers from the lack of airtime (and this is a 195 episodes series for God's sake), especially Darling's mom. This also applies to Ten in the second half of the series. Darling's relationships with the myriads of characters in this anime makes up the bulk of the appeal this anime has. Some of the characters are way too one-dimensional for my liking though, for example Rei (thanks God he did not appear often) and Sakura (oh snap). Episodes where these characters are the focal point tends to be uninspiring unless Darling decides to step in and have a big slice of the air time. And this bring us to the enigma that is Lum.

The twin terror from Oni Planet, our main female protagonist Lum and her cousin Arsonist Ten (who is about to fire a burst of flames as he burns down another house).

For a main female protagonist with huge amount of airtime, Lum is disappointingly one-dimensional and uninspiring. Her character is shallow, and things that she do tends to be very predictable. She would have done vastly better if she isn't fawning over Darling too much. Even more frustrating is that the child version of Lum is much better than the present herself. The way the child Lum harass/blackmail/set-up the child version of Ran can be brilliant sometimes, but she doesn't even do that in the present to the current Ran, except in some circumstances involving her beloved Darling (and she is being conservative when doing it). She improves somewhat in the last third of the anime, but it is simply not enough.

WANTED: A Lum’s character that is actually exciting (see the first picture) instead of the regular one-dimensional version (second picture).

Character development is excellent. Mendou Shutaro, Arsonist Ten and Shinobu are great examples of it. Watching over the course of the series on how the heir of Mendou conglomerate and a flying baby that can breathe fire to burn houses and schools slowly morphing over time to become just another copy of our lecherous Darling is brilliant, while the same can also be said about Shinobu who slowly loses her feelings about her childhood Darling after seeing him and Lum get betrothed, and she gets attached to Mendou instead. Meanwhile the nature of Darling did not change in a fundamental way; he is still a pervert that chases anything female (humans, extraterrestrial aliens, ghosts etc) in episode 1 until 195, but the nature of his relationships with other characters can change significantly. For example, at first he has problems dealing with Ten when he first appeared (with his abilities to fly and breath fire notwithstanding) and he always become the victim of Ten's breaths of fire, but at the end Ten ended up becoming Darling's punching bags or become a portable flame-thrower that Darling used every time he invaded Mendou's vast real estate for various reasons. The episode where Darling invades Mendou's home for Ryoko's lips while having the self-proclaimed innocent baby Ten tied to his hips is epic! A whack on the head and a huge burst of flames comes out. That's what I call a convenient weapon.

Darling’s mother has lots of potential that unfortunately aren’t tapped.

Moving to the story, do not expect a coherent main plot. Just like Ranma 1/2 (which I watched on AXN while I still do not have this blog), the very many episodes in this anime involves Darling and the huge cast of characters doing their thing in myriads of situations. A significant chunk of the episodes involves focusing on a character that is not Darling or Lum also make up part of the series. The quality of the episodes seems to be related with the amount of airtime Darling has (the higher it is, the better) and also whether the one-dimensional characters like Sakura and Rei is present or not. You probably can skip a lot of the episodes in this anime and do not lose anything, but some episodes can be considered as key episodes that advanced the thin main plot and should not be skipped.

Gender benders plot device in this anime are very well executed. The episode where Darling becomes a woman is one of the better episodes in the series. BTW, the girl in both pictures is Mendou Shutaro.

The main attraction of the story (or plots more like it) in this anime is the humor. Some of the jokes are brilliant, especially from Darling who are not only capable of one-liners but also slapstick humor as well. Plus, what this anime has that Ranma 1/2 doesn't is the constant references to other TV shows, Hollywood films or the humongous amount of Japanese mythologies (some episodes are dedicated purely for a parody, like the one for Indiana Jones). Seeing Fujinami 'Ranma' Ryuunosuke parodying Ultraman or Mendou Shutaro parodying Luke Skywalker adds up to this factor well.

Some of the parodies in Urusei Yatsura.

But this series is guilty of abusing some common plot devices common to this genre. For example, the number of episodes where Darling and his entourage (usually Lum, Mendou and Shinobu) going to the beach is very numerous. Fortunately, even with 195 episodes count, there are no 'going to the hot spring' episode, even if the perpetually 2nd year 4th class has a homeroom teacher called 'Onsen-Mark'. Some of the episodes has outrageously unreal plots, and I vastly prefer episodes that take place on Earth instead of another dimension or planets.

Another weakness that this anime has is that some potentially good story arcs are not pursued. A good example is the Arsonist Ten relationship with his stalker who attended kindergarten. It is beyond belief that we only have one episode about Ten's stalker, while the vastly inferior arc about Shinobu and the fox got more episodes. The last episode meanwhile, did not exactly qualify as an ending, maybe it wants me to watch the movies, of which I will definitely do in the near future.

edit: Finished with all the 15 volumes I got from lurk, the majority of the episodes in the anime seems to be the more elaborate versions of the chapters in the manga. Very many of manga chapters has been modified, with mixed results. For example, the ending of the anime is a random episode from volume 5 but presented much better (that Ameterasu episode). It also seems that there are many anime-only plots that did not exist in the manga (although the same thing can also be said with the manga). Is it just me, but the manga has less of the Mendou-estate invasions plots compared to the anime?

The element of friendship is important in this anime.

Character Design:-
For its time (this anime was aired in Japan when I am still a snot-nosed brat and finished even before I get to kindergarten), the design is pretty decent. Not exactly too different than Ranma 1/2. Some characters has black hair like Mendou Shutaro, but the lack of them can be forgiven for the nature of the alien-infested Japan.

Waterboarding is already popular at the era when this anime is aired. The victim seems unperturbed though.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is mixed bag. Obviously, Darling with his creepy laugh that scares women (and sometimes Lum too) stands out from the rest, alongside Arsonist Ten and the double-faced Ran. At first, I think that Lum's voice did not match her character (like the main protagonist in Excel Saga) but after 100 episodes or so, I just forgot about it.

Some of the best one-liners in the anime.

Music:-
The OST for this anime is pretty decent, but from the very many OP/ED themes that this anime has, only the 3rd ED (so good they use it twice), 2nd OP and the last OP themes are of any good.

Final confirmation of Mendou Shutaro’s transformation to Darling Mark II.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation quality is pretty decent but holds its own in fast-paced scenes. Animation reuse seems to be common here too. Choreography for whatever the small action scenes that this anime has is average. The director is good, at least for organizing the plots in any given episode although failed in character management (some characters like Shinobu can be missing for extended periods) and also in timeline management (the first year spans about 40 episodes, the second year nearly double that etc.).

Sakuramboo Cherry harassing both Darling and Mendou Shutaro.

Conclusion:-
9 out of 10. Despite the immense character strength of Moroboshi 'Darling' Ataru and co., he can only take this series so far. I should watch all 6 movies in the near future and review them here too, although highly unlikely not the next one. Maybe I should consider reading the manga too at some point in the future.

Darling will chase almost anything female, even if it made of snow.

Shortlink: http://wp.me/prgSo-9m

Review: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (コードギアス反逆のルルーシュ) S1 + S2.

Posted by ranpha on 8th October 2008

Posted in: anime review. Tagged: CLAMP, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (コードギアス反逆のルルーシュ). 3 comments

Just like Darker Than Black, this anime also has those product placements for Pizza Hut.

If you are wondering why there are no reviews for the whole month of September, it is because I am in the midst of watching Urusei Yatsura, a 195-episode behemoth on an on-off basis. Then the last episode of Code Geass R2 was released and I went ahead to watch both seasons of this anime that I have always wanted to watch for quite some time. This series follows in the footsteps of Zero no Tsukaima in the fact that it will make a double assault upon Chocotto Sister and Wolf and Spice for Best Anime of the Year 2006 and 2008 titles respectively. Code Geass has a lot of considerable hype attached to it, so can it really live up to it?

Our main protagonist a.k.a. the best character in this series.

Story:-
Lelouch ‘Zero’ Lamperouge, a prince of the Empire of Britannia that was banished alongside his sister to Japan a.k.a. Area 11 that has been colonized by the Empire, obtained the power of Geass that allowed him to make people to unconditionally obey him from a mysterious girl with bright green hair that he has saved from the military. Armed with his newly-found powers, he decided that his father deserved a kick in the ass and started a rebellion against the Empire while the mysterious girl piled up Pizza Hut points on his tab.

There are two majorly positive points that makes this series excels. The first is the character strength of the main protagonist. Lelouch Lamperouge can be best described as the amalgamation of the positive points of Yagami Raito of Death Note, Kaiser Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wenli of Legend of Galactic Heroes and Kaiji Itou of Kaiji. He has so much strength and appeal; he overshone everyone in the series, inclusive of the supposed-to-be-main-female-protagonist-but-ends-up-moonlighting-for-PizzaHut girl that gives him the Geass. Unfortunately, the director of this series makes some mistakes that tarnished this factor somewhat, which I will elaborate more about in the subsequent paragraphs below.

The second positive point I will mention here that gets the series going is the excellent storyline this anime has in general. Comparing between both seasons, I think the first season’s plot is better but contrary to what I have heard on the intertubes, the plot in the second season did not really regressed. Well, maybe it does during the last third of the second season. The plots flows very well with reasonably good pacing, complete with a couple of awesome plot-twist throughout the 50-episode run.

Now let’s go through the weaknesses of this series, where there are at least a couple of them. First is the aforementioned directing mistakes mentioned a couple of paragraphs above and has some bearings on the presentation of the story. The problem is the director (who seems to also write the story) uses some flimsy plot devices that simply aren’t convincing enough for me to believe that Lelouch can fool his enemies with. For example, Lelouch’s identity would have been revealed earlier in the second season with those cheap tricks of his if he were to face an adversary such as Conan Edogawa or even Yang Wenli. The director does not seem to be able to write elaborate/complex plots you can see mostly on detective or psychological warfare stories like Meitantei Conan, Kaiji and Legend of Galactic Heroes.

The second weakness of the series is the constructions of the endings of both seasons. Much has been said and commented upon about the cliffhanger ending of the first season; in fact, the reason why I do not watch the first season right-away is that I know that the first season ends in a cliffhanger. After watching it, the first season is indeed ending in a very good cliffhanger but my beef with the first season ending is that it ends up too abruptly for my liking. This series can thank up the heavens that I waited until all two seasons was completed or else a point would have been deducted from the rating.

Meanwhile, the ending of the second season is neat but you can really feel the aftermath of the cancelled 3^rd season here. It simply does not have the same impact of the cliffhanger ending of the preceding first season or the beautiful ending that Code Geass R2 competitor, Wolf and Spice has.

Those Pizza Hut boxes and food looks so out of place in a party meant for aristocrat kids, am I right?

Character Design:-
A positive point of this anime, the character design by Clamp for this anime is excellent overall. There are marked improvements from what you can see in Chobits or Angelic Layer. Lack of black hair is forgiven in this version of Earth where Britannia seems to be in America instead of England.

Mecha-on-wheels-and-ropes designs are pretty well done, comparable to what you can see in Gundam series.

Voice Acting:-
The voice acting in this anime is decent in general, with Lelouch Lamperouge and Kururugi Suzaku being the standouts towering above the rest of the characters.

This Order of the Black Knight sounds so much like Al-Qaeda right?

Music:-
This series has many OP/ED themes, but all of them are meh. Only the OST is pretty decent.

Animation/Direction:-
Another positive point of this anime, the animation of this series is excellent, even in fast-paced scenes. I noticed that there are reused scenes (not recap or flashbacks) though, especially in the first season. Action scenes choreography (there’s a lot of them here) is very innovative especially with the extensive use of cables; a good departure of mecha battles in Gundam 00.

Some of the beefs I have with the director has already been mentioned above, but I still think he/she has done well for this series.

The English in this anime is pretty decent, although there are a lot of copy-and-paste here.

Conclusion:-
The first season scored 9 out of 10 while the second season scored 8 out of 10. Average rating after I generously round the score up is 9 out of 10. Both seasons failed to challenge Chocotto Sister and Wolf and Spice and dethrone them. For now I will return to watching Urusei Yatsura and the next review is definitely of this one. The problem is that I have a little bit more of 100 episodes to go, so it may take some time (this review is probably the only one for this month). I have a lot of 2007 and 2008 anime titles piling up for me to watch (Monochrome Factor, World Destruction, Sekirei, ToLoveRu etc), so I will take everything one at a time.

This is what happened if Geass is abused.

Review: Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z (出ましたっ！パワパフガールズZ)

Posted by ranpha on 31st August 2008

Posted in: anime review, The Scream Painting spoof in anime. Tagged: Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z (出ましたっ！パワパフガールズZ). 5 comments

Mojo ‘Abraham Lincoln’ Jojo would have been far more successful in his destiny to rule the world if he has access to this website. Then again, almost all villains in this anime need to read that website.

After seeing Wolf and Spice taking over the provisional title of Anime of the Year 2008 in the last post, now let’s see whether Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z, an anime adaptation of a Cartoon Network series, can do the same to our current Anime of the Year 2006, Chocotto Sister.

The scene where the epic rivalry starts.

Story:-
Three unsuspecting middle-schoolers were turned into superheroes after they were bathed in a white light that comes out from an iceberg that was destroyed by Professor Utonium’s son with Chemical Z. After that, the three of them has to protect a futuristic Tokyo City from the threats of monsters that was spawned from the black light that comes out from the same explosion.

Do you watch the Cartoon Network version as I do? If yes, do not hope that there are many similarities between USA and Japan versions because you can safely say that this anime is basically a remake of the Cartoon Network version. For example, our heroines here are not even made with Chemical Z, but a variation of the same chemical made a long time ago by Professor Utonium’s ancestors. Chemical Z was instead used by Mojo Jojo (whose origin is completely different than the Cartoon Network version) to make the Rowdyruff Boys, thus making them immune when Him (Kare) summoned all his black particles back to him. There are extra characters not found in Cartoon Network version, and some settings are changed like where our heroines go to middle-school while the America’s versions’ went to kindergarten.

This anime STARTS VERY SLOWLY, with nearly the first third of the 52-episode anime completely dedicated to characters introductions and developments. The story primarily consists of appearances by Mojo Jojo and co. having their collective asses kicked by our protagonists, splashed by some monster-of-the-week episodes. Kare (and the plot) only appears in the middle of the series and was woely undeveloped for at least 10 episodes after that. It is only in the last third of the series did this anime comes to life with a somewhat decent story, but the ending is awful in both substance and presentation. This is the first weakness of this anime, which is uneven pacing of the flow of the storyline.

As mentioned above, the anime started slowly, then started to roll faster after Rowdyruff Boys and Kare were introduced but sped up too much during the also aforementioned awful ending, which is the second weakness of this anime. My main complaint about the ending is about the time-travel plot device used in the penultimate episode because that alone punches some holes in the overall plot of this series (like how all the white lights is supposedly needed to seal Kare when you can see as plain as daylight that the Powerpuff Girls predecessors in the distant-past Edo did not need to do so) and also how the ending’s pacing is too fast relative to the pacing of the whole series (spread across only 3 episodes, surely the director can kill some of the monster-of-the-week episodes and give it towards the presentation of the ending).

Hyper Blossom and Mojo Jojo, the best characters in this series. Both hated each other guts, acts first without thinking, extremely destructive in their actions, love sweet foods/snacks and are failures in romance. Sometime I wonder whether these two are twins separated at birth.

What saves this anime from the oblivion Hayate no Gotoku finds itself in is that the character development in this anime is excellent in most places. Two characters comes to mind; Mojo Jojo and Hyper Blossom respectively. These two awfully similar characters are completely superior compared to their Cartoon Network counterparts. Being a remake, Hyper Blossom in this anime seems to be a cross between Cartoon Networks Blossom and Buttercup, while Mojo Jojo of this anime is less serious than the American version and more like Sokka in Avatar The Last Airbender. Other characters are very well done too to a degree, but some characters are woefully underused and undeveloped, like Taka-chan and the Rowdyruff Boys.

(said by Hyper Blossom) Quoted For Truth.

Character Design:-
Considering the target demographic, the design is very well done especially our superheroes. Monster designs can be mixed bag though and the mecha at the end of the anime is awful to say the least. Even the numerous short-lived Mojo Robo mechas looks better. The lack of black hair, except for Professor Utonium and son is acceptable considering the futuristic setting this anime is set up in.

Yet another parody of The Scream in Japanese anime. To be fair there is also Mona Lisa being featured in this anime.

Voice Acting:-
In general, voice acting in this anime is good, with Mojo Jojo, Hyper Blossom, Shirogane ‘Princess’ Himeko and Kare being the best. Definitely a plus point of this anime.

A creepy near-bestiality moments in this anime.

Music:-
The OST is great, but from all 6 OP/ED themes, only the 1^st OP and 2^nd ED themes are of any good.

This is a good parody of Darth Vader by Mojo Jojo in one of the best episodes in this series. Scenes like this are the reason why Mojo Jojo is one of the best characters in this anime.

Animation/Direction:-
The animation in this anime is decent for most parts, but it can be awful at times in low-area low-motion scenes. Fast-paced scenes do not seem to be affected. Unfortunately, choreography is just average with so many repetitive techniques been used by the heroines. The directing is not really that good either, for reasons mentioned in the story section.

(a monologue by Mojo Jojo) Quoted For Truth.