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Shugo Chara
Twelve Moments in Anime 2008 – #10: Shugo Chara 44
Dec 16th
(Credit to 9LAW, Dkun, and this person for the images I shamelessly stole off of Pixiv)
(Part of a 12-day series fondly remembering some of the best moments in anime this year. Participants include: lolikitsune, lelangir, Owen S, FuyuMaiden, IKnight, Zeroblade, Nazarielle, ghostlightning, TheBigN, ETERNAL, Mike, A Day Without Me, digitalboy, Josh, otou-san, Culchann and Pontifus, IcyStorm, Cokematic,
koneko-chan, and miz, and you’re welcome to join too!)
Speaking of ‘my roots’, and ’shipping couples’, I’ll have to admit that shonen romances like Haruka’s Secret aren’t as far back as I go.
Rather, for those of you who are more familiar with the extended version of my username – and you really shouldn’t be, because it’s really embarrassing – Cardcaptor Sakura was my first anime, in any form. As such, I can consider it my true defining anime.
Although I haven’t seen it in my modern fansub-watching era, the fact that I watched it 3 times through (at 70 episodes apiece) gives some proof that 1) I was very obsessive in my younger days and 2) it has shaped a lot of who I am and what I watch, whether I think so or not.
As such, I have had more than a little affinity for magical girl shows; or at least the more mature of the lot. After all, what makes this genre most endearing to people like me, isn’t the rampant pinkness, or the fact that everyone’s an elementary schoolgirl, but rather the surprising depth in many of its ilk.
Although shows like Cardcaptor Sakura look like they could only be of use to those with a child’s mind, the surprising truth is that many of the themes and character interactions appeal to the older sect.
After all, how many of you liked romance when you were a kid? And yet, magical girl shows are full of couplings, sometimes not even hetero ones. And there’s this amazing concept of character development. This is what makes magical girl anime, so magical in a sense. They appeal to both your inner child and your inner adult.
But admittedly, not all magical girl anime fall into to this category. There are still those which exist only to pander to the lolicon, or those which are honestly too cutesy and fluffy for their own good (or at least for the good of a college-age male).
Shugo Chara is an interesting case to study, how it falls right on that border of the great magical girl anime.
12 Moments of Anime 2008
#10: Shugo Chara – 44
After a short phase of getting to know Shugo Chara, I was fairly quickly smitten with its ways of almost trivializing the ‘magic’ in ‘magical girl’. The raw, overwhelming power of Amu’s three transformations, for me, deemphasized the aspect of the genre I disliked – overly pink and feminine displays of shiny lights and monster-of-the-week fights.
In its place was a strong core of characters and character interaction, with what looks to be a much less predictable romance endgame. Amu’s weak yet strong character was easily endearing, and I can actually say I don’t know whether she will end up with Ikuto or Tadase (if either) in the end, much less which one is the better choice.
Such fun with character shipping, combined with the generally warm and fuzzy feel of your average episode, made Shugo Chara very much worth it for me.
And then, things began to fade. Maybe it was watching the set of bloggers following Shugo Chara get mercilessly torn apart by fangirls. Maybe it was the endless stream of filler brought on by the announcement of a second season.
But eventually, Shugo Chara had less and less importance in my anime queue. Enough to make me wonder if it really was, as I claimed, the “magical girl for the 21st century”.
Luckily, I am somewhat of a blessed fan. Even though I try to lose faith in anime, try to discredit anime like Clannad ~After Story~ and Shugo Chara, more often then not my skepticism is quickly disproven.
Maybe it’s a lowering of my standards that allows anime to blow me away; an artificial improvement in the anime, as it were. But nevertheless, I’m glad such a thing can happen, to prevent me from becoming a cynic.
I think, one of the best examples was relatively recent in the Shugo Chara timeline, in episode 44. It was my first step back into the anime in months; after the high-quality stunner of a fight with Utau in the previous episode, Recap Filler wasn’t something I was looking forward to at all.
However, since I had a strong desire to catch up with the second season, I decided to push on, despite the stench of “Oh God I’ve seen this already, do they think I’m stupid or what?”
And … well … Recap Filler it was. Until the last few minutes.
That was when Kairi Sanjou decided he’d make this episode worth it.
Kairi has always been, probably my second-favorite Shugo Chara male character. You can imagine why – glasses plus a cool demeanor (not to mention green hair) always is a good combination, almost reminiscent of Eriol from Cardcaptor Sakura.
And so I enjoyed the time with him on screen, especially as he played his double-role as Easter agent and Amu fanboy (er, Guardian). But as the time ticked down on his part, with his last episode – a filler episode – looking to be rather weak.
This was rather a shame for me; my true favorite in the show, Nagehiko, was already long gone, shipped away to Somewhere Else Land despite being, probably one of the more complex, and more intriguing characters, almost Tomoyo-like in nature. I was extremely tempted to put in her (his) last episode (the 24th) as the Shugo Chara moment instead … as that one was solid all the way through.
This moment was more intriguing for its placement and punch. Right as Kairi’s ready to step out of the show for a good long time, he says two things…
“I’m ahead of you, Tadase.”
“Amu Hinamori, I love you. Always and forever, I love you. One day, when I become a suitable man, I’ll come back for you.”
It’s enough to make any girl swoon~! Since I was feeling more masculine at the moment, I had to resort to fistpumping and raising my hands (’it’s good~’) to show my support of this side of Kairi. This was the Kairi that made this show better. The one that was absolute in his resolution, strong like a steel sword and every bit as sharp.
Ahaha~ even I sound like a bit of a fangirl here. Maybe I’ve gone a bit overboard, but that’s what this project is for.
I know Nagehiko’s coming back in the second season, I can only hope Kairi does too. After all, if I can be inspired to this much poetic fangirl ranting, at the end of a filler episode, who knows what other things Shugo Chara might bring us in the future?
-CCY
A Cardcaptor in the 21st Century: Shugo Chara 25, changing of the guardians
Apr 23rd
It’s quite ironic that shortly after a lengthy meta-post on how side characters tend to have their characteristics amplified (since they only usually have a single one) to the point that their image eclipses their true merit, I find myself stumbling upon the a similar concept in characters, and that is ending the lifespan of a character early.
Thankfully for our sanity, I mean that only in the chronological sense in Shugo Chara, as a character is removed from the plotline not by force, but by circumstances, but still it circles around to the same point, as suddenly I find myself wishing for a lot more of said character.
It’s probably something about how we always desire more than we have, and since side characters and those who don’t stick around for the full series get less screentime, we wish they had more attention paid to them, and take to flying the banner for them as a way of pseudo-protest. But I’m no psychology major.
What I am is very glad that Shugo Chara is restoring (or keeping, at least) my faith in its cast and in the genre as a whole. I’ve found the magical girl genre to be bar none the best for establishing a mood of warm fuzziness, with a level of sweetness that can stir hearts without rotting teeth.
Shugo Chara has this done pretty well in having more than just a lot of pink and shiny transformations, adding in some great character dynamics and development that really show just why shows like Cardcaptor Sakura can hit it so big in being appealing to viewers both young and old.
To me, Shugo Chara really feels like the Cardcaptor Sakura, like the definitive magical girl show, of this decade, and the most recently released episode, the 25th, only reinforces this belief.
(Pretty major character spoilers, be forewarned.)
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Looking Both Ways: The Fall Season Carryovers
Jan 19th
Looking back…
And now for the Slowpoke news: we’re in the winter season.
I’m still stuck in the past, not because of any traumatic accidents which have permanently scarred me and/or my memory, but because the fall season is arguably a much more robust season than the winter ones, at least in terms of new shows.
Especially for a visual novel slash romance slash restricted rock-paper-scissors fan like me, there were a lot of shows that were very appealing; many of them, despite being in tried and tired genres, brought a lot of fresh concepts to the table.
And what’s interesting about this, is that unlike in the summer season, a lot of the most promising shows didn’t close out at twelve episodes. Those that did, were strong shows, no doubt, but many more than that have been promised at least 20-odd episodes, double the goodness if they can keep the pace up.
As such, the winter watchlist is turning out to be strangely familiar. There are plenty of carryover shows on the list, and those that are new shows to 2008 are mostly sequels in some way or form (Zoku SZS, Minami Okawari). Not to leave a bad impression of the winter season – but there aren’t any names of new shows that really stand out from it.
This doesn’t equate with ‘no good shows’, per se – some of my favorite fall shows have been ones that have been completely off the radar – but going off the blog reactions so far, there hasn’t been a standout show that absolutely blows people away, that came out of nowhere and delivered the awesome. Undoubtedly there probably will be, but for now I’m content with surviving off both fresh old shows, and some true classics that are burning a hole in my DVD collection. Today, I’ll take a look at what we have to expect from some of the shows coming into their second cour in 2008.
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Track Two: Shugo Chara!
Jan 16th
Shugo Chara! is a ‘pure’ magical girl show that follows the adventures of Amu, a popular schoolgirl who hides a hidden desire to be accepted for her true self. This wish is manifested in the Guardian (Shugo) Chara, little entities that represent a future personality of someone – for Amu, it is the athlete, Ran, the artist, Miki, and the chef, Su. Amu is forced into a elite group of students known as the Guardians, people who have sworn to protect the dreams of innocent children everywhere. They do this by transforming (”character changing”) into their envisioned future self with the help of the Guardian Chara, and purifying “X Eggs” – negative wishes – back into their original state. Amu’s situation really gets complicated as she begins to get torn between Tadase, the King Guardian and guy of her dreams, and Ikuto, the soft-spoken gothic character who appears to be working for a mysterious but no doubt nefarious company known as Easter…
1/23/08: Episodes 14 + 15
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1/16/08: Episode 13
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Click here for more information on Track Two.
-CCY
Breaking a Few Eggs: Shugo Chara 1-3
Nov 25th
Shugo Chara is a “pure” magical girl show that’s receiving a lot of praise across the English anime blogging community, which either means that most bloggers are eight-year-old girls, that they’re still embracing their inner child, or that this show has more merit than a first glance would show.
So I gave Shugo Chara a try and I ended up waking up in a gutter the next morning with half my teeth missing. It was just that sugary.
Granted there were a lot of appealing aspects that looked like they could be turned into something good, but the rest of the show was so drowned in Bishie Catguys, LOL Fangirls, and Hay Guys English is Cool abuse, that I didn’t see them being able to overcome the flaws.
Remember, coming from a guy who liked Cardcaptor Sakura and Nanatsuiro Drops.
Naturally, however, since (with very few exceptions) first episodes never click with me I forged on with Shugo Chara into the second and third episodes and found things improved – or at least changed – to an extent.
And my quick judgment would be that Shugo Chara is a passable show that’s worth trying, especially if you – and even if you don’t – have the fortitude to stand more pink than a barrel full of Kirbies.
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