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Posts tagged Series Review
H2O ~Decompression in the Sand~ … a challenger to True Tears and Clannad?
Mar 24th
If you take one line away from this review, it’s this:
They didn’t lie when they said “H2O will rock your soul.” Not in the slightest.
If you take two lines, the second would be to not believe everything you see in H2O – style-wise and certainly character-wise. I know that I was for sure completely turned off the show on the first episode, ambivalent for the next two, and wanted to scratch my eyes out with rusty spoons by the fourth. It was essentially fanservice and pandering central…plus a now-infamous trap.
But, lured with the promise of improvement, of insanity, and yes, of soul-rocking, I soldered on, and my God, did H2O take off like a rocket. It really showed how it is unlike nearly no other visual novel show in recent memory, for few reasons.
The two that I could closest compare to, though, would be Shuffle and sola. The former, simply because of the similarities in how the first half was utter rubbish and the second half was beyond parallel, and the latter due to the style and feel of the show. Both sola and H2O are very impressive visual-novel-types, and while sola didn’t touch on romance or on fanservice quite as much or at all, both shows managed to be great plot-twist tour-de-forces that really leave you thinking.
Unfortunately, if you think too much, you realize the show is shot full of holes, but as a dramatic work, it’s top-notch.
To call H2O the best show of recent memory would probably be a lie. There’s too much of a rough taste in my mouth from a painful start and a mindscrewing final arc to give it such accolades. But it’s easily good enough for me to want to retract my allegations from earlier regarding it’s quality, and give it a solid reccomendation, for being unmistakably different than what we’ve seen in the past from this genre.
(Spoilers after the jump.) Read the rest of this entry »
ef ~a tale of memories~ Series Review: Unforgettable memories
Jan 29th
Do you have any memories you don’t want to forget?
ef rocked my soul. (Wait…)
As you may have surmised by the slightly-more-than-late review, it’s taken me a long time to collect my thoughts on this show, which has been acclaimed by the majority to be nothing short of stunning.
Originally when I first watched the show I had that feeling of “this could be something,” but was off-put by the dual storyline, the typically SHAFT (i.e. form over function) art style, and my overall sense of confusion with ef. I put it on the shelf after three episodes.
Later on, I awoke to the sounds of bloggers singing the praise of this show from the top of the highest hills, and decided to get back into watching the show. After seven episodes, I was, to put it one way, nonplussed. I had had it up to here with all the visual novel cliches and concepts, the romance was tacky (Chihiro) or annoying (Kei vs. Miyako) and they spent all of ten dollars animating one of the supposed ‘most powerful moments of 2007′.
Five episodes and one rewatch later, I think I’ve done about as great an about-face of opinion as Kanon did an about-face of animation from 2002 to 2006. Quite simply, ef is top tier.
If I wanted to wax poetic about things, I would say that on the scale of romance, I truly ‘loved’ this show.
Kanon is a show I would ‘worship’, that I would deny any flaws in.
Cardcaptor Sakura is a ‘first love’, blind admiration of something with a feeling that can never be matched.
School Days is a ‘handsome devil’, the kind of show that I know I hate and I know will kill me, but I can’t stay away from it anyway.
But ef really is the full package. It has the moments that charm you and it has the moments that repulse you. It’s handsome yet fashion-challenged, smart yet sappy, serious yet silly. It is a show that sweeps you off your feet, whether you like it or not. And you accept its flaws with its strengths, and really see it as real, instead of something idolized, which can never be touched.
Perhaps, with the extend I’m going on to rave about ef, it’s a bit of a lie that I’m not idolizing it. But the fact of the matter is, that, despite this nagging feeling in the back of my head that ef really should suck, that it really does mess up at times, I can’t help but be absolutely smitten with this show, the characters it has, the storyline it tells, and the messages it conveys. It’s very different from many of the moe-smitten visual novel adaptations out there, yet it still maintains a connection to its roots. Quite simply, it is a brilliant example of what this genre can do.
(Series spoilers ahead, so either be forewarned, or make plans to forget them within 13 hours…)
Series Review: Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Jan 15th
“You were…trying to make yourself taller, weren’t you?”
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a funny kind of show.
Naturally, I mean that in both senses of the word. First off, it’s a ‘funny’ show in the same way that someone like me might smell ‘funny’, with a style far removed from most slice-of-life shows. You come to SZS expecting a standard bright, cheerful school-life comedy and what you get is something you might expect from the British and their flying circuses.
It’s a type of show that’s insulting and off-the-wall, with continuity thrown to the winds in favor of sheer insanity in numerous disconnected sketches. And compounding this is that distinct SHAFT style, with the plentiful camera cuts, the occasional strangely-framed shot, and parody after parody of every aspect of both anime and society.
It’s quite simply, an anime that you’re unlikely to see the likes of again (barring its sequel, Zoku SZS), in style and in concept, for good and for bad. A show like this feels highly experimental in nature (at least for me, who is used to comparatively sane slice-of-lives), a kind of ‘what happens if I press this?’ on a six-hour scale, and naturally as a result it has its great moments and it has its annoying moments.
Luckily enough, for the most part Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is ‘funny’ in the gut-busting sense of the word as well.
(Unless you’re prepared for spoilers, that is.)
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Series Review: Minami-ke
Jan 13th
“Haruka-neesama IS amazing.”
Actually, wait, that’s not a quote, nor is that Haruka. Have your pick of catch-phrases for the obligatory quote to kick off the post, then:
“NINOMIYA-KUN!!”
“Bakayarou!” (spelling brutalized)
“SENSEI!!”
“Rare expression!”
“*Hosaka’s extremely strange laugh*”
And I’m sure I’m missing very many. It’s a slice-of-life show that, like many, is simply filled with personality.
One of the shows that many have named as one of the better school life comedies in recent times, what Minami-ke does best is both embracing and breaking the bounds of slice-of-life shows.
Like many, the focus of the show revolves around a bunch of female characters in one place, and their adventures both at school and at home.
Unlike many, there actually are guys in this show, and even if they do get abused all the time like the uncommon male in a slice-of-life, their presence is very real and very central to the show.
Like many, the show relies quite a bit on repeated gags, both of the ‘in rapid succession’ and ‘in every episode’ types; some of which work well, others which do not.
Unlike many, Minami-ke doesn’t shy away from the romance side of things, frequently left unexplored in slice-of-lives. Rather, it makes great fun of it.
Probably the best aspect of this show is the breadth of it. It has a bit of physical comedy, a bit of verbal comedy, a bit of disturbing comedy, and even a few Lucky-Star style sympathetic moments. Characters are introduced nearly on an episode-by-episode basis, and they nearly always come bearing new gags. Minami-ke does a great job of feeling like a contained snapshot of a limitless universe, where the characters were not the only ones in the world.
(And thus, neither did that make them the gods of that world. That review is coming later, I swear, officer!)
It’s tough to gauge whether Minami-ke is truly the best comedy of recent memory, especially because the genre itself seems to be spreading out – there’s dark humor (Zetsubou), the connective shows (Lucky Star), the relaxing shows (ARIA), and so on. Minami-ke feels the closest to what one might call the original school-life comedy roots, with the likes of Azumanga Daioh, and in that slot it functions quite well as a show.
Maybe it’s a bit of a put-down to call it ‘yet another good show from the fall season’, but that’s what it is; not forgettable, by any rates, but not legendary, either. The kind of show that lives on in catchphrases more than moments. And that’s fine.
Oh dear, I’ve concluded the post already, what to do after the jump?
(Oh, and SPOILERS ARE BOSS, even though it’s tough to spoil a show like this.)
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Series Review: Myself;Yourself
Jan 9th
“What are you saying? In love, age and gender does not matter.”
Myself;Yourself is a strange show. It’s kind of like a do-it-yourself visual-novel show would look like.
You know, the kind you see in magazines and TV ads. Quick to set up, easy to assemble, and cheaper than a name-brand. Certainly, a lot of Myself;Yourself is almost cookie-cutter harem/visual novel fare, and a lot of it is put together following the simple included instruction manuals and diagrams.
An appealing female cast outnumbering the males? Check. Replete with the loli, the tsundere, the dojikko, the nice girl, and the older woman? Double-check.
Light-hearted opening episodes leading into serious drama and conflict? Yup. Revolving door of characters getting their turn in the spotlights? Got it. Myself;Yourself is, largely, by the numbers, at first glance.
But like a well-assembled kit car, it has that special touch that makes it more than the sum of its parts. The show has a shiny finish to its paint, a personal touch, that sense of caring that most machine-assembled shows lack. The drama’s a bit more dramatic, the characters a bit more fleshed-out, it’s more enjoyable and fun a show than one would believe.
Unfortunately, there are flaws by this same hand-assembled approach. It’s not as professional as the ones the pros make; the pieces of the show don’t always fit together exactly, and some of the parts show clear signs of a rush job, of time suddenly running out.
And for this reason it’s tough for me to pass a judgement on Myself;Yourself. It’s a good show – definitely one of the better in a season full of visual novel conversions – but not top tier, and it struggles to compete with the Shuffle!s and solas. I don’t regret my time spent watching it, but really wish that it had been just a bit longer – Myself;Yourself pushes the boundaries of a 1-cour show, but in the end is dragged back to reality by the physical limitations of time.
(Listen to Aoi.)
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