STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!

Anime titles within this category used a nausea-inducing blurry animation techniques that pisses me off. It look like motion interpolation algorithm going SERIOUSLY BAD.

Review: Legend of Legendary Heroes (伝説の勇者の伝説)

Posted by ranpha on 18th January 2011

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Legend of Legendary Heroes (series), Legend of Legendary Heroes (伝説の勇者の伝説). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist, and also one of the best characters in this anime.

After being preempted by me watching The World God Only Knows, my plan to watch both Katanagatari and The Legend of Legendary Heroes will now proceed as planned. I will start with the latter first, and that title will compete with K-On!! for the ‘Anime of the Year 2010’ title. But let me just tell you one thing first; this anime won’t be able to wrest the title from K-On!! for a couple of reasons that will be mentioned below.

Story:-
Set up in a fantasy world, the main male protagonist has been ordered by his white-haired ~~man-lover~~ country king to find the ancient relics from the ancient era where the legendary heroes slayed the demons + monsters and rescued the world from devastation. Alas, the history is not exactly straightforward even in the fairy-tale world the anime is set up in, therefore the story quickly veered into Tytania’s territory, full with drama but without the war mind games though.

I actually expect a bog-standard fantasy storyline not unlike The Sacred Blacksmith but instead what you can get here is a storyline that is borderline seinen, and definitely can be dubbed as the lite version of Legend of Galactic Heroes. The only thing this anime lacks when compared to Legend of Galactic Heroes is the highly-sophisticated space warfare, but the background drama plots is made of solid writing as magical techniques and swordsmanship skills replaced the lasers and missiles from that venerable space opera. Too bad that the story haven’t concluded though, and there is no news about a new second season as of writing. The ending is written exactly to accommodate one, and many loose ends in the story are still not tied up yet.

The first reason why this anime failed to dethrone K-On!! from the ‘Anime of the Year 2011’ throne is the presentation. Here, I’m referring to the two (or is it three?) flashback prologue episodes that happened early in the series. Flashback episodes by itself is not a bad thing (see Saki) but what I don’t like in this anime’s flashback episodes is the fact that they doesn’t do their intended purposes well. They advanced the main story, but did not clarify gaps in the timeline fully. Some events are not shown at all, and only the end results are shown. This is probably the first time ever I have seen the flashback plot device being used on a plot that is better explained with a more conventional storytelling technique. IMO flashbacks are better used to clarify things, like telling the audience about the background of a character or chronicling a historical event. The flashback episodes in this anime does the latter very poorly, with the gaps and all that.

Nevertheless, if we were to ignore the fact that the flashback plot device is being used to portray the early parts of the anime, the storyline flow smoothly although the pacing is a bit slower than expected (slower for sure than the one in The Sacred Blacksmith). This may have to do with all of those political dramas that sometimes threatened to overwhelm the action part in this anime. While not as good and intense as the dramas in Legend of Galactic Heroes, they are still enjoyable as the proverb ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ slowly comes to fruition. This anime has a pressing need for a second season, just like Tytania is, because there are many loose ends that still have a long way to go.

Character development is also where this anime has done very well. The character roster in this anime is large, but yet almost everyone has appropriate character developments related to their respective roles. The best characters in this anime are definitely the two main male protagonists, whose friendship that is borderline romantic, and are the cornerstones of this anime. One of the mysteries I hoped will be answered in a potential second season is definitely whether they will be together forever at the end. Sorry I have to say to the blond swordswoman and the captain of the Taboo Breaker Squad; both of you won’t get him. He will definitely become the queen of the country.

Character Design:-
The character design in this anime is no different than the ones seen in The Sacred Blacksmith and Tytania, amongst others. Black hairs are ultra-rare in this anime, understandably so. But the main male protagonist was called ‘Black-haired demon’ or something like that even when his hair color is brown. A positive aspect for this anime.

Voice Acting:-
Overall, voice acting in this anime is good, with the two main protagonist being the best from all the large characters’ cast in this title. But to see a flawless voice acting gigs from everyone in this anime is a miracle by itself, considering the large size of the cast that increase the probability of bad gigs. A positive aspect for this anime.

Music:-
The only good thing musically in this anime is the 2nd OP theme. The OST and the rest of the OP/ED themes are either non-existent (the former) or simply not good enough.

The fake rain effect found in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood can also be seen here.

Animation/Direction:-
The second reason why this anime won’t dethrone K-On!! from the ‘Anime of the Year 2010’ throne is because this anime uses the blurry animation technique I have mentioned before in this blog, usually in action scenes. See my reviews of past anime titles in this link to see what I am talking about. Using that animation technique results on an automatic one-point deduction from me.

Apart from that, the animation quality in this anime is decent, all around, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography is just average though, with too much dependence on visual special effects than on actual good action. The directing is good with the exception of choosing the flashback method at the start of the anime.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Could have been better, but a sequel for this series is fully deserved. The next title that will be reviewed here is Katanagatari; I heard good things from it. Maybe a new ‘Anime of the Year 2010’ will be born?

And just like in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the main male protagonist will be opening 'doors' in this anime.

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

Review: The Sacred Blacksmith (聖剣の刀鍛冶（ブラックスミス）)

Posted by ranpha on 5th December 2010

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: The Sacred Blacksmith (聖剣の刀鍛冶（ブラックスミス）). 2 comments

The main female protagonist, also the best character of this anime.

December is traditionally a very slow month around these parts, mainly because my workload has increased as 2010 nears its end. Then there is also Left 4 Dead 2. And Christmas, And New Year. Therefore this review of the magical medieval anime The Sacred Blacksmith will be the first of two (highly likely) or three (less likely so) anime titles reviewed this month in this blog. A 2009 anime, it will then face the current ‘Anime of the Year 2009’ holder Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei for the title.

The main title male protagonist. Doesn't look so sacred now after a beating by the main female protagonist.

Story:-
In a fictional medieval world where demons are abound everywhere and magical swords has slender legs and great racks, our bumbling main female protagonist failed her first test as a knight when she has her ass kicked by a local town ruffian. Predictably, our brooding and slightly emotional main title male protagonist sweeps in to save her bacon. He then has to repeat that feat several times throughout the series as the main female protagonist rashly surged into other battles she cannot win with her atrocious swordsmanship.

The storyline in this anime is one of the most predictable I have ever seen for quite some time. The moment that white-haired guy appeared in the conference in episode 2, I thought to myself ,“Oh, snap!”. But surprisingly the storyline of this anime is quite light-hearted in essence, which caught me by surprise, because I do expect a mainstream shounen plot like the one in Märchen Awakens Romance, a relatively more serious title than this anime in nature.

The light-hearted storyline may have to do with the fact that this anime has pulled an Index and made the main female protagonist the most influential character in this anime rather than the main title male protagonist. The irresponsible and rash inept female protagonist, yet an idealistic and optimistic character is not only a source of many comedic moments throughout the series, but also involved in pivotal scenes such as the finale of the magic sword arc and the conference in the final arc. Meanwhile the main protagonist is only active in the first arc, while taking a back seat in the magical sword and the finale arcs, and completely missing in the third arc. This can be a good thing because the main male protagonist is a stoic emotional character, but then again it can also be bad because the storyline that matters actually revolves around him. While the main female protagonist is good at driving the storyline forward in a relatively straightforward way and with a good pacing, she will still need the main male protagonist to provide the story to begin with.

Another weakness of this anime is the inherently predictable ending. Actually, being predictable alone is not the reason why the ending really sucks, but more like of what happened in the ending arc. See the white-haired guy referenced in the second paragraph of this section above? Once he shows his true colors in time for the ending arc, he then loses the extremely winnable final battle because of some stupid decision making on his part. I have been screaming ‘Kill that stupid bitch and finish off the wounded hero’ as the main male protagonist V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y F-O-R-G-E-D the katana of doom. I’ve seen some stupid antagonists before, but this white-haired antagonist, with vacuum between his ears, easily ranks up as one of the most incompetent antagonists in anime history. He must make this website a mandatory reading (rule no.6 for example), if he ever come back in a second season.

Character development in this anime is uneven; the main female protagonist, which happens to be the best character in this anime, has the most expansive character development strategies, while the main male protagonist character developments is glacial in comparison. The ending mentioned above was set up for a second season though, although no news about it yet. I want to see an extension, mainly because there are many untapped potential in the general storyline, character developments and settings, plus I also want to see the return of that stooopid antagonist.

The main female protagonist shouldn't have had this katana of doom if the antagonist is not retarded.

Character Design:-
Character design in this anime is good, although maybe the designs are very common for its genre. The main female protagonist stands out for her ordinariness though. Black hairs are rare, but then again this anime is set up in a fictional medieval world.

Voice Acting:-
This anime has done very well in this regard. Voice acting for the 4 main recurring characters are excellent, with the blond helper and the main female protagonist being the outstanding characters in this regard. A positive aspect for this anime.

Music:-
Meanwhile, this anime totally failed at this section. The OST is sparse and basically unnoticeable, and the OP/ED themes are forgettable.

Animation/Direction:-
This anime uses the blurry animation techniques detailed in past anime titles reviewed under this category, in fast-paced battle scenes, therefore one point will be docked from the final evaluation. Apart from that, the animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography in action scenes is just ordinary though. The directing in this anime is flawless, assuming that the director doesn’t write that stupid ending in the first place.

Conclusion:-
6 out of 10. Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is safe for another day, very comfortably even. You can see what anime I will review next by looking at the left-sidebar of this blog Facebook page.

I thought Engrish in recent anime titles in the past 2 or 3 years has already been eliminated…

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Review: Oh! Edo Rocket (大江戸ロケット)

Posted by ranpha on 23rd September 2010

Posted in: anime review, STOP THAT BLURRY ANIMATION TECHNIQUE NOW!. Tagged: Oh! Edo Rocket (大江戸ロケット). Leave a Comment

The main male protagonist, given some man-love by the best character in this anime.

The random anime picked out for a review from my very large queue that spanned 2 terabytes worth of hard disk space is a 26-episode 2007 anime titled Oh! Edo Rocket. Naturally, this anime then will have the right to challenge the reigning ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ title holder Bokurano. Also, well, naturally, Bokurano makes short work out of this anime, for reasons that will be outlined in the review below.

The best character of this anime sure has a thing for the male populations of Edo.

Story:-
Taking place in ancient Tokyo (or Edo as they called it at that time) during roughly the same era as Hakuouki is, the supposedly-famous firework maker Tamaya Seikichi a.k.a. the main male protagonist received a strange request from a strange customer with starry eyes to make a strange firework called ‘rocket’ that can reach the moon. Meanwhile, the young maidens of Edo were terrorized by a strange blood-sucking monster that is rumored to have come from the moon! Is the main protagonist’s strange customer is involved with all those gruesome murders?

This anime is a dialogue-heavy slice-of-life title, although you can also expect plenty of humor and a reasonable amount of action scenes. The quality of the storyline is decent, but the romance elements in this anime is actually found in an unexpected place (read: not involving the main male protagonist). The aforementioned humor in this anime is pretty much generic most of the time, with the exception of some toilet-type humor scenes. While the pacing of this anime is a little bit on the slow side, the storyline is moving along just nicely without any notable hiccups up until episode 20, where a major story arc ends.

Some witty lines there by the best character of this anime.

This is where my major complaint about this anime will come in, which is about the three filler episodes that comes after the end of the major arc mentioned above, and before the ending arc started. No matter how I looked at those three episodes, they doesn’t explain anything useful to the storyline prior to that point, or contribute anything new that the ending arc can use. This is similar to the filler episodes that you can see in Ergo Proxy, but with worse results. And of course, just like the vast majority of filler episodes out there in any given Japanese anime, the filler episodes in here doesn’t contribute to character developments either. The director should have re-appropriated the three filler episodes and replaced it with a simple time-jump plot device. That way, the continuation of the storyline would not have been interrupted and the ending arc should have come immediately after the episode 20 finished playing.

To Mr. Director, if you get rid of the 3 filler episodes, maybe then you can close many of the plot-holes left in this anime after the end credit finished playing?

The ending arc is pretty much underwhelming, no thanks for the three filler episodes that took out the momentum built up to the end of episode 20. The fact that the ending is full with clichés and very predictable, not to mention somewhat outrageous, doesn’t help either. Apart from the ending, this anime has made quite a lot of references to other TV shows, anime, manga and other printed materials, like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and, purposely multiple times, Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi. Unlike Hakuouki, this anime is only barely historically accurate, with plenty of unabashed tinge of modernity abound throughout this anime. Those hints of modernity (like mobile phones, Internet, AV products etc) are what makes the storyline went off the railways of true history (not that the Japanese is alien of doing this in real life) but also allows this anime to have some out-of-this-world (literally) plot developments that tests the limits of suspension of disbelief.

The best character in this anime is truly a refined gentleman.

Character development in this anime is uneven, but yet easily the best thing this anime have. While the two main protagonists are just your bog-standard anime characters you can see in similar titles in slice-of-life/shounen genres, the main antagonist of this anime is really someone else. Easily the best character in this anime by a million miles, the main antagonist of this anime is what you called a realistic character, which gone against this anime’s outrageous fabric if you ask me. Comedic but cruel, indecisive yet impulsive, insensitive yet cowardly, this anime is worth watching just to look at him doing his thing throughout this anime. His character development is superb, using the strategy that you usually can only see in a main protagonist of a shounen anime. His growth from a weak coward that only knows how to bully helpless poor residents of Edo to a highly-dogmatic, very skilled swordsman antagonist is spectacular to say the least. His end in the underwhelming ending arc is underwhelming, but kudos at the writers for creating an antagonist like him. The shounen genre would benefit with more characters like him.

Pay your homage to the best character in this anime above!

Character Design:-
The character design in this anime is excellent, and if you ignore the characters that comes from the moon, almost seinen-like. I actually want to complain about the overabundance of hair dyes in this anime, then I remembered that they have the Internet in this anime (yet they doesn’t have ICBMs), therefore I think I should just shut up. Definitely a positive aspect for this anime.

The best character of this anime is not the only problem that our main protagonist has to deal with.

Voice Acting:-
Voice acting in this anime is just average overall. Still, there are some good voice acting gigs in this title that has huge character cast, such as the main male protagonist and the main antagonist.

Music:-
The OST of this anime is excellent, and so are the catchy OP theme. The two ED themes doesn’t fare so well though.

For a slice-of-life anime, the violence in this anime can be so spontaneous and so raw. In other words: IT'S AWESOME!!

Animation/Direction:-
This anime uses the abhorrent blurry animation technique detailed very much in this category of posts, usually in fast-paced scenes that does not involves battles. Surprisingly, the usage of this technique in battle scenes is quite low, but can still be seen as the anime nears its end. Considering that this anime predates Nabari no Ou, the first anime where I observed this phenomena happening, this only shows that this plague that is infesting Japan’s animation industry do have deep roots that spanned years.

One point docked off this anime final evaluation.

Overall, the animation quality in this anime is good, even in fast-paced scenes. Choreography in action scenes is average though. The directing really screwed-up with the filler episodes, but the main antagonist development somewhat balanced things out.

Some of the modern amenities that is suspiciously available during the Bakufu era in Edo.

Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Bokurano still reigns as the ‘Anime of the Year 2007’ holder, and highly likely, will be for a very long time, just like One Outs is. Only the positions for Chocotto Sister, Zan Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and Working!! are less tenable. Currently I’m torn between a 12-episode series and another one with 50-episode series, therefore, if I decided to watch the latter next, the next review will not come for quite some time.

A parody of basically a lot of toku-sentai titles in real-life Japan.