Hard Sell

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a mouthful. It's also a deceptively good magical girl anime series and a hard sell.

I mean, how do you convince a non-anime enthusiast that PMMM is worth watching when it's promotional materials look like this:

It's understandable for a person to see that and write off the show as some girly crap that isn't up their alley. But that would mean they miss out on the creepy awesomeness that is Puella Magi Madoka Magica:

The plot gets rolling when the titular Madoka and her close friend Sayaka encounter a strange cat like creature called Kyubey who offers to grant a wish in exchange for becoming a magical girl. The catch is that magical girls have to fight witches, monsters that secretly prey on humanity, causing accidents and suicides. Rounding out the initial cast there's also Mami, a veteran MG who shows the newbies the ropes, and Homura, an enigmatic MG who is opposed to Madoka forming a contract.

Don't trust anything that doesn't blink

At 12 episodes PMMM is light on filler. Revelations and plot twists keep the pace up and the viewer (sample size: 1) interested. Characters die, choices are made and idealistic people find out they are not in the right series.

Of particular note is the visuals. The character designs are simplistic allowing fluid motion, and the backgrounds are elaborate and lavish or austere and bleak. But the witches, their familiars and the labyrinths they inhabit are the high point. They have different, sometimes rather jarring, animation styles which emphasis their alien nature.

As much as I like this series, it's not perfect. Madoka and Sayaka are painfully naive and idealistic, and the former also has a saccharine and squeaky voice. I was also a little down on the ending, but that's because I'd seen something similar in another anime where it felt more right. But these are minor quibbles (and ones whose presence I can understand even if I don't like) in an otherwise fine piece of media.

 (this one's just here for the Facebook thumbnail (which then stopped working after I added it, sigh))

Ruckus and Nonsense

Good news there's something that bothers me enough to blog: Durarara!! and all it's failings in comparison to its predecessor, Bacanno!
First some brief details on Bacanno! (which I'm surprised I haven't blog about before).
It's set in the prohabition era of America and follows three plot lines (set in 1930, 1931 and 1932) simultaneously, with a large roster of interconnected characters, many whom are gangsters, immortals and/or dangerous psychos. In 1930 we watch as a couple bottles of immortality elixir swap hands while the owners try to track them down; in 1931 several gangs try to take the same train hostage with messy results; in 1932 nothing happens in a way that can be interestingly summarised.
Baccano! is an enjoyable experience of over the top action, eccentric characters and gratuitous violence, and I recommend it to anyone who might be interested.

All this makes Durarara!!'s flaws all the more annoying. You see both series were originally light novels by the same author, both are animated by the same studio, and it seems that both somehow inhabit the same universe.

Durarara!! once again follows a diverse cast but this time is set in modern Japan. There is a supernatural element, a headless rider, as well as a 'normal' character who none the less performs superhuman feats. I can't really sum up the plot because despite having more episodes than Baccano! Durarara!! manages to have less happen, which brings me to my first compliant:

• Nothing Fucking Happens: okay that's a slight exaggeration, there are story arcs, but in the time it takes to complete the first one, Baccano! has almost completed its three arcs at once. 'But Durarara!! is a different show with a different tone,' a hypothetical fan might say which suspiciously leads into my next point;

• The Tone Is Shit: discarding the ruckus of its predecessor Durarara!! adopts a slower, more philosophical tone. Who needs gun fights and fun when you can have teenagers angsting and stuff. Now I like me some philosophy and can sink my literary teeth into a weighty and ponderous sci fi novel if it's done well but as you can probably guess I don't think that's the case with this show. After all I didn't even realise it was supposed to be slower and more thoughtful at first, what with the scythe wielding rider and the Anonymous-style gang. I just assumed it was action or maybe a thriller, and if your audience doesn't know what it is supposed to be then you are doing it wrong;
  

• Terrible Narration: sometimes I dream of a world where 'show, not tell' is enforced as law, if nothing else it'd put a stop to lazy storytelling like narration. While Baccano! had some narration, it took place within the story as one character explained things to another. But Durarara!! just has several omniscient disembodied voices directly talking to the audience. And even there is some justification coming later (I haven't finished the the last arc yet) it doesn't excuse the quality. The narration is that awful kind that tells us all the things that it shouldn't be used for eg what the characters are thinking or feeling, or worse, things the audience can work out for themselves;

• Weak Characters: despite having alot more time dedicated to explaining their backstory, many of the characters are noticably flatter than Baccano!'s, feeling more like devices than people. The audience surrogate is bland even for the standards of audience surrogate characters but the biggest offender is the closest thing the series has to antagonist is worse. He's supposed to be this cunning information broker who trolls people and manipulates events just to cause chaos for the sake of it and yet I don't buy it. He's this way because that's his personality, it's just because that's what the plot requires;

• Undeserved Popularity: yeah I know this is subjective, but it's also what I feel strongest about (and actually is the cause for this entire post). Durarara!! was better received than Baccano! and that just makes me mad. You know how people talk about stuff being dumbed down to the masses, well here it is. The simultaneous plots have been removed cause people don't want to have to keep up, the violence is removed cause people are squeamish (okay fair enough on that point, not everyone likes faces grinded or fingers bitten off) , and the setting has moved to teenagers in modern Japan because people can't relate to things that are slightly different.

I'm never sure how to finish so I'll just make this bitter generalisation: the masses don't deserve good entertainment. Now I'm going go find something better to watch.

Odd Picture Choice

Foreshadowing!

I had this idea to help myself update regularly by doing a weekly post that just talked about the various media I had consumed recently. This was a week or two ago. As you might guess, I've already let the schedule slip before it even really began. But Apple just crashed TF2 and I'm too bitter to play anything now.

The first order of business is Minecraft. After hearing good things about this game from multiple sources I gave it a go. And for a couple days I thought it was freaking brilliant.

You are placed in a world made up of cubes of various materials that can be harvested and turned into various items. Also at night monsters spawn and murder you rather effectively if you haven't built some shelter. Beyond that you are left to make your own fun (like Garry's Mod) in a world where basically everything wants to kill you (like Dwarf Fortress). Unlike these two games however, Minecraft is a lot more accessible (once you've browsed the wiki).

Here's some of the shenanigans I got up to while I played.
Since monsters spawn in darkness I decided to convert my house to glass in my spare time when I wasn't doing things such as...
...building a tower to the top of the sky. Unfortunately you cannot walk on the clouds. Naturally the next step was to dig to the bottom of the world which was considerably more difficult. At the bottom there's several nearly complete layers of unbreakable stone. If enough gaps line up the can reach the void beneath the world. So naturally I decided to link the tunnel containing the infinite abyss to the ocean of infinite and see if I broke the game:
Nope, but apparently stairs break the water physics.

I found a strange level of enjoyment linking the ocean to the tunnel. The inability to tell where you are in relation to everything lead to me making a series of tunnels coiling all around the place, and there was a sense of suspense because I never knew when I would strike a another tunnel, which may have been full of water.

Ultimately what turned me off the game was the lack of goals as I'm not obsessive enough to be one of those people that make huge scale structures and models. Once the multiplayer gets stabilised (the game is still in alpha) I will give it another look.

Since I'm running longer than intended I'll finish up with Highschool of the Dead. When visiting the Madman site for an unrelated reason I came across this show andwas intrigued by the idea of the Japanese take on the the standard zombie apocalypse scenario. Turns out it is the same as the western one except with lots more fanservice.

No seriously, lots of fanservice.

After getting over my initial disappointment that this wasn't a dark and slightly serious work that the first episode made me believe, I came to except the show for what it is: an entertaining romp full of bloody and breasts. It's not a work of genius but it still rates higher to me than most zombie fiction.

Oh right, I haven't actually really said anything about the show itself: great animation, adequate attempt at plot, one brilliant musical homage, serviceable action, mostly fast paced, no gore despite excessive violence and blood, fanservice (cannot stress that enough), possible second season.

Wherein I talk about trivial matters

When I signed up to Twitter I had the idea of doing mini-posts, only to discover the whole 140 character limit. I was hesitant to do it here cause it seems like a kind of tease, similar to how you are playing a game only for the the end boss and credits to jump out at like the two hour mark or something.
I'm going to do it anyway though, cause I've got vague thoughts and no one to humour me in real time.

Idle thought number one

Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 was finally released on DVD in Japan, so I'm downloading what I hope is a subbed rip. What I can't grasp is how Gainax seems to hate money and success.

1.0 was released in Japan in 2007 (screenings) and 2008 (DVD). It wasn't until 2009 that Australia got it on DVD. Now I could except this for an unknown movie or even one of middle-level popularity, but this is the anime equivalent of Watchmen; they should be getting this out as fast as possible.

Gainax, like a lot of Japanese companies, do favour the whole updated release thing which is suppose does milk money out of obsessive fans and collectors....like me.

The other cause for my bafflement at Gainax is the absence of inducing nostalgia. Other franchises have got nostalgia generation down to an art.
Recent Legend of Zelda games have made a habit of squeezing in music from previous games, Motoko Kusanagi can't go a movie/season without jumping off a tall building and cloaking midfall, and most of the Metal Gear series seems to be call backs to earlier instalments.

But despite remaking the original series in glorious high budget detail, no one has truly tried to deliberately get the fanbase screaming. Where are the homages and shout outs to iconic elements (actual plots and characters in the remake don't count).

Really the point of the last two paragraphs has been these two questions; where is a new version of Cruel Angel Thesis? and where is a new version of Fly Me to the Moon? They should be big and dramatic and orchestral. Look at what FF7's One Winged Angel has done to a generation. Evangelion could do that too. Twice!

Idle thought number two

Can't remember anymore.

Finally

Ghost in the Shell.
...
...
...
Christ this will be tough. For convenience I will be assuming that you the reader are familiar with GitS and will not hesitate to spoil anything from the movies or TV seasons.

The Ghost in the Shell franchise generates a good deal of ambivalence for me. There are parts that I really love and parts that I really hate. The two sides meet, cancel out, and leave me unable to decide how feel about the series.

GitS in some ways is a return to science fiction's roots, ie showing the effect of new technologies on society. But unlike the sci fi of many decades ago it still tells a story and doesn't let itself get bogged down in intricacies of how it all works (that's the philosophy's job).
Naturally there are many plot points based off the impact of cyberbrains but GitS really shines in the subtleties when it doesn't draw your attention.
The most common example would be simply all the times when anyone casually communicates via what is essentially telepathy. A more awesome example is in the end of the first film. The snipers have lasers that are invisible to normal eyes, so they can have laser sights without alerting the target (unless their eyes can also see them). Simple but clever.

The counter point to the above is the philosophy, the deeper effects of a world full of robotic bodies and mind-hacking. For starters, it just isn't well implemented. There are occasions where someone (usually the Major) either asks a vague question or stares off into the distance, despite it being not the appropriate time (in either the plot or pacing).
Look at the first film again; Section 9 have just apprehended a victim of the Puppet Master and then everything is put on hold for the Major to go for a swim.
Innocence has what I can only believe is a parody of this guerrilla philosophy in the scene where Batou and Togusa are investigating the remains of the gynoid. The doctor present begins to talk all deeply about dolls for no good reason while Togusa just tries to get straight answers and Batou ignores both of them. To me, Togusa's exasperation and the doctor's tangential musings can only be a self aware joke by Production IG. Which makes it worse because that means they are aware of the awkwardly wielded philosophy.

Often tied into the philosophy in GitS is the politics. It generates obstacles and antagonists, and often leaves Section 9 struggling between what's right legally and right morally. What it doesn't do is be interesting.
All the politicians are the the 'Director of X' or the 'Such-and-such Minister'. Their motives are generally personal gain and their beliefs are either vague or outright unknown. They tend to be devices and contrivances more than characters and most disappear into irrelevance as quickly as they came.
What baffles me is how dull the politics is in GitS. The setting is perfect for it and the philosophical questions that get raised could be expressed in a smoother fashion. If some of the political groups or leaders were properly upgraded to the status of secondary characters and given some depth beyond 'nuisance' I think GitS could turn one of its weaknesses into a strength. Here's an example of what I mean:
Cyberbrains and cyborg bodies are divisive issues I'll call X and Y respectively; from here we can create four generalised viewpoints;

-'Luddites', Anti-X, Anti-Y: this group is full of those that feel threatened by the new tech. They feel that one loses their humanity and individuality the more cyberised they become.
-'Futurists', Pro-X, Pro-Y: this group is all about improving oneself, removing limitations, pushing the boundaries. The new tech is another step for society and personal freedom.
-'Instrumentalists', Pro-X, Anti-Y: like the futurists, this group is all about taking humanity to what they believe to be the next step. However they view the next step as only involving freeing the mind and dealing with cyberspace. To them any sort of physical body is a hassle,a distraction and something that will eventually be obsolete.
-'Realists', Anti-X, Pro-Y: this group is the inversion of the instrumentalists. Cyberbrains are the threat to humanity and cyborg bodies are the way of the future.

And there's four new factions who each have more depth than the majority of the ones in GitS. From here you could also weave philosophical ideas into the plot more smoothly; eg when dealing with some radical futurists that are now indistinguishable from androids the question of what constitutes a person could be raised. It beats having the Tachikomas do it at least.

Things a feeling a little too negative so let's look at another positive: the animation. I know it's shallow in comparison to the above but it must be said. GitS looks good, in all its animated forms. Quality is often related to budget and so it is natural that a popular franchise such as this will have more money to spend on the visuals than a lesser known show. But what makes GitS great and worth mentioning here is the fluidity of the animation, which in to me is more important than the actual level of detail.
All too frequently in anime there are moments that can only be described as wonky or awkward, which mostly occur in action scenes. It's the times when the characters gracelessly shift stances or casually ignore conventional time or motion. This tends to be a result of adapting straight from manga, as the panels will only show the important actions, and the movement in between is left unknown.
Getting back to the topic on hand, GitS rises above this to frequent fault. And in the action scenes it really shows. If only the action was a bit more frequent.

For a long time when I thought of Ghost in the Shell, I thought of it as primarily action, but with depth behind it. But as time progressed I realised I was getting the proportions of the genres wrong. GitS is not an franchise about gun play, it's just that sometimes the philosophy leads to someone firing a shot.
While typing this was going to say that GitS needs more fighting less talking, and then attempt to come up a valid explanation about why I know more than the makers of a wildly successful franchise. But then it hit me; GitS doesn't need more action, it needs more suspense.
Let's look at the episode in 2nd GiG where Section 9 has to take down the rogue military helicopters: I was thinking "this looks great" and "yes finally some action", not "oh I hope they make it out alright".
I say this because I've recently been re-watching Death Note and there are times were you're not sure who's going to come out on top and how. And this is mostly when characters are just talking, so when there's car chases and explosions involved it is even more intense. Whereas the dialogue in GitS is informative but dry.

Tied to this lack of suspense is the characters. They are a bunch of super skilled counter terrorists, equipped with cutting edge technology, and against direct conflict they are basically never threatened. Section 9's real threat is bureaucracy, which like Superman's Kriptonite is kinda lame.
The Major Motoko Kusanagi is an issue all by herself. She's the most talented (better than the rest except in their specialised fields), most knowledgeable (able to quote obscure philosophy to ease) and most focused (remains professional almost always) member of Section 9; she's practically a Mary Sue. The Major's only real flaws are her disconnectedness to humanity and slight psychotic tendencies. These sound like they are fairly major (no pun intended) but are downplayed considerably: her disconnectedness never seems to interfere with predicting how people behave and the psychosis shows up so very rarely and briefly.

Batou and Togusa bother me as well, but for a lesser reason. In comparison to the Major they are more rounded individuals but the plot treats them like devices. Batou's purpose seems to be to fail so the Major can succeed, to the point that he needs her assistance in a Batou-focused episode (the one with Angel's Feathers). Similarly Togusa mostly gets attention when the plot Section 9 needs to fail or at least be challenged, and what better way to do that than with the soft fleshy human.

Despite saying all this I still like ghost in the Shell; it's better than much of the anime out there. What I can't decide is whether it is a good show that could be great. or whether I just want it to be something it's not.

PS Although the date says the 9th, this was actually finished on the 22nd. Make of this what you will.

The Hell with Planned Posts

Several weeks ago I finished watching Now and Then, Here and There and I've really wanted to talk about it with someone, and I guess that someone is my blog. Good enough.

What? Long overdue posts on Silent Hill and Ghost in the Shell? Several more Steam games? What is this nonsense you are going on about?
Anyway, NTHT is a deconstruction of the whole 'kid travels to another world' plot. Shu the protagonist meets a strange girl Lala Ru one day after school, only for soldiers to appear from nowhere and try to kidnap Lala Ru. Things get messy and then everyone returns to where the soldiers and Lala Ru came from: millions of years into the future.

The world is a desolate wasteland, the Sun has gone supernova, and Shu finds himself in Hellywood, the stronghold of an army run by a mad king. Always an optimist, Shu vows to protect Lala Ru and escape from Hellywood.

One of this series' strengths is that it makes good use of the rule 'show not tell.' For every detail that is explained directly, several are left implied. What's even better, is that for the earlier episodes, even the morality of various people and groups is left unspoken. Sure Shu does act baffled and accuse people of being crazy, but he's the fish out of water; he's from a functional society and they are on a post-apocalyptic deathworld.
I personally found this style refreshing as I've come to expect present day morals forced into settings where things should be different. Unfortunately in the later episodes of NTHT the character of Sister is brought in, who is an out of place voice of reason. And then the audience is told that violence leads to violence, children shouldn't be soldiers, you shouldn't abort a child because you were raped, no one should be sacrificed for the greater good, and so forth. Gee I didn't notice when we left the endless desert and returned to present day Earth.

Something else that bothered me were the main characters Shu and Lala Ru. Ordinarily I tend to either dislike or just ignore the central characters as the outliers often are more interesting and not constricted by plot. In NTHT's case, I actually have slightly more solid reasons than usual.
Shu is a deconstruction of the 'knight in shining armour' archetype, which means that he still has all the traits of said type; the entire series kicks off with him risking his life for a girl he just met and doesn't know until halfway in the series. His limitless optimism and ability to take a tremendous amount of physical abuse strains my suspension of disbelief. How can you empathise with a character who shrugs off torture and whose argument against someone's attempt at suicide is that he promises things will get better (they don't (repeated)).
Where Shu is unbelievable, for me Lala Ru is outright unlikeable. She has the ability to summon and control water, a powerful ability in a desert with a supernova overhead. Using this power weakens her each time though, so we the viewer are left to ponder how much of sacrifice must this young girl make, if any.
Later however, Lal Ru mentions that she is much older than she looks (decades, centuries, millennia I can't remember how long), and this destroys an possible empathy with the character. Why should we feel bad about a character shortening their life when they have already outlived a normal human? And when she does occasionally use this ability, Lala Ru doesn't seem to be too efficient with it.
Further more she doesn't seem to actually take much initiative in helping herself. Years of experience and supernatural powers should make it rather easy to escape captivity but apparently she'd rather just leave it to Shu.

Those issues aside Now and Then, Here and There is an excellent series (to the point that I actually feel bad about partially spoiling some of the events). At about a dozen episodes it doesn't get slowed by filler and side stories. If you can tolerate the bleak tone then it is well worth watching.

Bump

Yesterday I decided that I should do a Ghost in the Shell week, with a post each night discussing a feature of the franchise as a whole. Since there wasn't a finished post from Sunday, one can conclude that this idea did not prove successful. Worse still, I started on the one topic that I thought I could talk about at length only to find that I said all that needed to be said with one paragraph.

Go team.

So GitS Week will never be. I will however endeavour to do a post or two summarising the major concepts I wished to praise and/or condemn. If I'm feeling adventurous I may even try to make it entertaining AND insightful, something I constantly struggle with.

MicroReviews #1

Whenever I write I find myself alternating between two states: unable to effectively explain my views adequately, and talking at length about minor details.
In an attempt to avoid these issues (the second one at least) I'm going to try my hand at doing several smaller reviews instead of one sprawling behemoth. This way I'll avoid bloating in favour of an unsatisfying lack of depth.

Paranoia Agent

Combines the unexplained surreal style of Serial Experiments Lain with the rotating roster of characters of Boogiepop Phantom. Unfortunately the meta-plot and in particular its conclusion let down the how which starts so promising. The visuals are definitely a strong point as the animation style varies in certain scenes to illustrate a point, such as becoming more stylised to reflect a character's delusions.

3/5

Dennou Coil

A rare sci fi gem; a series that introduces futuristic technology and then actual shows some of the effects it has on the rest of the world rather than leave everything else the same (eg most DC and Marvel series'). Dennou Coil follows several kids as they live in a world with virtual reality googles. The tone is fairly light for the most part, although it does get darker by the end as the protagonists unravel the conspiracy. Like Paranoia Agent the ending is weak and for the same reason; some of the characters are directly involved with the mystery and everyone else become irrelevant. Unlike Paranoia Agent though, it doesn't bring down my entire view of the show, it just could be better.

4/5

Ergo Proxy

It's been a while so I can't remember what I like about this series. Set in a post apocalyptic world where cities exist in domes the story is about Re-l Mayer's mission to discover the truth about the mysterious Proxy. Despite the meandering plot, absence of non-grey colours and the overuse of pretentious pseudo-philosophical phrases I still look back on this work with fondness and actually find myself liking the characters rather than just tolerating them.

4/5

Blue Gender

A post is not complete until I complain bitterly about something. Yuji wakes up from cryogenic sleep to find that a mysterious race of nigh-unstoppable monsters have wiped out most of civilisation and that what's left of humanity fight a losing battle with power armour. The flaws are numerous: the action scenes are boring, most of the characters exist only as devices and plot points, and the final aesop is horrible. Not even the frequent breasts make this series worth watching.

0.5/5

Gantz: It's Elfen Lied without the mood whiplash

Frequently I feel that I should update this blog only to realise that I've got nothing worth posting. Critics would point out that this hasn't stopped me in the past but fortunately having no readers means having no critics. Yes! Pyrrhic victory!

With no inspiration I guess I'm just left with the two things that I can go on about long after people stopped caring: complaining about WoW and 'reviewing' anime. So let's do this.

1) WoW

Seriously, who's idea was it to give rogues an AoE attack?

2) Anime

I'd finished watching the series Gantz several weeks ago and had intended on talking about it but hadn't in the hopes that I'd come up with something better instead. So enjoy mediocrity.

The basic premise of Gantz is that when people die this black sphere called Gantz copies and conscripts them onto an alien fighting team. If they survive then they can go back home and live their life like nothing happened until the next time. If they die, game over.

That's the show in a nutshell, and conceptually it seems pretty cool. But just like communism, what works in theory does not always work in practise.

Gantz, like a lot of anime, has terrible action scenes. And like a lot of anime, the action is fairly central. What distinguishes Gantz from the rest is that it excels at failing. Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and Bleach have got nothing on this series. 'How?' you gasp as your monocle falls off, possible into a glass of champagne. Let's see:

-As I've mentioned previously Gantz acts like a manga/comic in that time essentially stops for the characters to speak;
-The characters seem incapable of remembering that they have guns, and so fights are drawn out for as long as it takes them to remember what they are holding onto;
-Adding onto the last point, the characters also seem to be unable to take any action without discussing it. This would be acceptable if their plans were complex but really they all basically boil down to 'shoot the alien, don't get killed';
-The animation just isn't that good. Now I don't need motion picture quality pictures but Gantz is just unpleasant. The show does all the classics: recycled animation, shots where it's just people shooting, awkward no fluid movement etc.

I could go on but I've got other ground to cover.

I'm used to bad fight scenes in TV and anime (I practically expect it) and can ignore it if there's a good plot, deep characters, whatever. Too bad Gantz doesn't swing that way. Once again like far too much anime out there, the characters are shallow and the dialogue just doesn't feel natural (even taking translation into account).

Onto the good points (sort of).
Initially my favourite part of the 26 episode show were the scenes in the waiting room when the newcomers and surviving players all teleport in. While I thought these could be interesting scenes, the aforementioned wooden dialogue lets them down.
It doesn't help that the characters are all terminally stupid, as the survivors consistently fail to explain the situation and the newcomers are all strawman doubters despite being seeing people getting teleported in from the head down.

Finally, as I'm running rather long, this show has a high body count. Seriously high. Most of the cast are red shirts, and the rest are wearing mauve and feeling worried. In a better show this would create some brilliant suspense but given Gantz quality you can't bring yourself to care enough.
However if you do get attached to anyone, prepare to be saddened at some point. I found myself liking a pair of characters and hoped that they'd never resolve their relationship little plot point, because that was the only thing keeping them alive.

It's a shame that Gantz sucks so much because the premise is interesting and it can be taken in many directions. The series could have been about straight adrenaline-pumping action, or the players trying to cope with the surreal double life, or even an exploration into existence and meaning. Instead it tries for all and sucks so hard that light cannot escape it.
Perhaps in several decades when Gantz is basically forgotten someone will plagiarise it and make what should have been.

RAGE!

Having just been curb stomped by the Alliance repetitively I'm filled with righteous fury. I'm not going to type hateful anti-WoW post raging at the unbalanced classes and teams because it would just degenerate into barely coherent bitching that everything is against and it's not just that I suck (that is a factor though). Instead I'm going to talk about something completely unrelated.

So what was the point of the previous paragraph? Well it gave me some time to cool off and get over how immensely unfair PVP can be. Fucking Paladins.

Mostly over.

Moving along, today I'll be reviewing FLCL and using the tradition structure of: vague summary, unnecessary attacks on the producer, subjective statements on how I'd make it better, no rating.

FLCL is essentially the Japanese take on Looney Tunes. There's plenty of fourth wall humour, art shifts and in true anime style there's some sort of vaguely explained plot involving aliens, robots, and alien robots. It's the type of show that people struggle to effectively describe and thus resort to saying "It's like X but on drugs."

Third from the right is actually the main character

The brief series is visually pleasing; it's smooth, interesting and at times rather clever. But this really shouldn't be a surprise as FLCL was made by none other than the infamous Gainax, and one thing Gainax is know for is good looking animation (when they can afford it).
Of course Gainax is also known for having plenty of sexual insecurity/frustration present in their dysfunction characters and FLCL is no exception, as the protagonist develops an affection for his abusive room mate whilst his brother's girlfriend develops some sort of clingy dependance on him. Good wholesome fun.

(I've come to believe that Gainax is actually a robot locked in an animation studio's basement who is trying to understand the concept of love)

As I've already mentioned, FLCL is the sort of show people describe with terms like 'trippy' or 'weird'; subjective, not particularly enlightening words and phrases. And is FLCL weird? Yes and no.
In comparison to a realistic or serious show of course it is; robots emerge from the head of the protagonist, one character revs her guitar like a chainsaw and swings it like a bat and so forth. The series is like Lost in a sense. Weird stuff happens but the feeling the viewers gets is not so much "what is going on? I'm so confused" but more of a "this isn't going to get resolved well".

Ordinarily I would be rather disappointed in lack of off the wall craziness I was promised, but FLCL as I didn't have particularly high hopes for it to begin with. Plus with only 6 20 minute episodes it's not like I was really invested in the series, which I suppose translates to watch FLCL if there's nothing better on.

Subtext!

A while ago I was watching the first Naruto movie on Cartoon Network (there was nothing better on...seriously) and I couldn't help but feel something was a little off. Shonen fighting anime traditionally has cliched morals, flat protagonists and over the top villians, but this was something new.

To effectively explain what it is, I'll need to summarise the plot first: Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi are hired as bodyguards for Yukie as she goes to the Land of Snow to make a movie. Through the magic of contrived coincidences it turns out that Yukie is the deposed princess of the country, and her usurper uncle wants to capture/kill her to get the plot device crystal she carries. As well as dealing with opposing ninjas the titular character must also stop Yukie from running away and convince her to take back her country. In the end the villians are all dead, spring comes to the land and Yukie becomes the princess (queen?).

So the idea is that Yukie must face her fears, stop running away and take responsibility for her country. Or at least that's what it is in planning. In actuality it is a story of a normal woman caught between two groups of superhumans, each with their own agendas and little regard for Yukie; the villains want Yukie's land and its treasure, and the 'heroes' want Yukie to be in danger to validate their existance as bodyguards.
What makes this film so sad is that by the end, poor Yukie has changed from the independant woman capable of giving ninja's the slip to a cheerleader for the very people that were forcing her into danger.

Yukie Kazahana: self-centred ice queen, or tragic heroine?

The reason for this charcter derailment? None other than Naruto himself. I've come to realise that Naruto is brilliant but evil character who hides behind an image of rash but well-meaning incompetence.
He uses a combination of brutal one-sided (he's got as much chakra as the plot requires) beatdowns and repititon of the superiority of his life goal and philosophy (and therefore the inferiority of everyone else's). This physical and verbal combo has an accelerated Stockholm Syndrome effect, making the victim subservient to Naruto.

Thinking I'm bullshitting? Let's look at some of the peole he has converted:
-Yukie, who went from finding Naruto an annoying brat to calling him the greatest ninja ever;
-Neji, who changed his whole view of fate after losing to Naruto;
-Gaara, who went from being a psychotic killer to.....less of one.

The face of cunning, believe it.

Two for One

I have a love hate relationship with the genre of space westerns. On one hand there's the whole run-down future setting, which both is stylistically appealing and also can explain why some technology has advanced and some hasn't*. On the other hand there's all the elements from pure westerns that I hate: gruff silent protagonists, fairly dull plots, cowboys.

Why am I talking about this?


Cowboy Bebop is an anime series in the genre of, you guessed it...romantic comedy. The series follows the crew of the Bebop as they hunt bounties throughout the solar system. Each episode has a musical style (and thus mood) attached to it, and all the episodes manage to have some manner of an action scene in it.

The best way to review this series is to compare it to something I'm sure more people are familiar with: Firefly.
Same genre. Same setting. Both shows have the protagonists in a state of essentially perpetual poverty. They even ran for about the same amount of time, as Cowboy Bebop had 26 half hour episodes and a movie, and Firefly had 14 hour long episodes and a movie.

Despite these similarities I have bought the Cowboy Bebop boxset whereas having watched all of Firefly once, I'm content never to watch any of it again. And one major factor of this is the previously mentioned episode length, for it seems that about the same amount of stuff happens in an episode of Firefly as does in one of CB. Which makes me wonder, what the fuck happened in the other half hour? Since the show had only one season there wasn't time for any angst to set in, and since it's set in the future there was no opportunity for pop culture references. I didn't realise how much time was taken up with dry wit, foreign words and Inara being a waste of space. Whereas in an episode of CB, a target is introduced, things will be more than they seem, all the plot points manage to converge into one complex chase/fight scene, and there's plenty of structural damage by the end. All to a jazzy tune.

This was just going to be a review of Cowboy Bebop but since I've managed to say more about firefly than it, I may as well make it about both. In that case, I'll finish up by saying that the only element of Firefly that I particularly like (River Tam) is present in CB in both the characters Spike (kicks a lot of ass) and Ed (acrobatic and not really in touch with reality).

In conclusion, if you like Firefly then you will probably like Cowboy Bebop, assuming you aren't just anti-anime or pro-Joss Whedon. If you don't like Firefly them you still might like Cowboy Bebop. If you haven't seen Firefly then this comparison is obviously meaningless to you, so why are you reading this?

*This is a pet peeve of mine. I hate the way in most science fiction there'll be spaceships and lasers but then there'll be a bald guy reading a newspaper or something.

Context Included

Boogiepop's outfit: nightmare of cosplay's worldwide

While typing the review of Serial Experiments Lain I kept finding myself wanting to compare it to other series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Boogiepop Phantom as I found review a surreal series in a vacuum just doesn't work. That said, here's another slightly informative but not particularly funny review; Boogiepop Phantom (NGE is a whole can of bile-filled worms I'm not going to even consider right now).

Boogiepop Phantom is a 13 episode anime series that just a small portion of the Boogiepop series, which consists of many light novels and also probably sounds a lot less retarded in its native language.
BP's plot takes place in the aftermath of the events of a previous story, and focuses on a whole bunch of vaguely connected people and how they cope with the supernatural powers that have been awakened by a pillar of light.

Now, time for some comparisons (which incidentally are a lot easier to structure than actual sentences, hurrah for convenience):

Structure:
-SEL is linear and straightforward (the subject matter on the other hand...).
-BP is non-linear. Episodes cover the time of the pillar of light to about a month later, and frequently flashback to five years ago when a serial killer was stalking the city.

Characters:
-SEL has a small group of core characters (Lain, her family, her friends, God) and a few recurring characters (the MiB, the Cyberia kids). None of these characters seem to have any real development, but given the nature of the show, that could be the point or I could have just completely missed it.
-BP features a new central character and their close acquaintances in most of the episodes. By the end of the episode the central character has probably meet an unpleasant end and only will appear again in a cameo in a later episode, which chronologically will occur earlier. There are several main characters though, and despite featuring in the intro they don't appear as much as one would think.

Visuals:
-SEL's strength is its visuals; they are diverse and creative. Old school game graphics, surreal lighting, weird shit coming out of the walls, and on screen text directed at the viewer are just some of animation present in this series.
-BP goes in the completely different direction. Where SEL is diverse and ever changing, BP uses a desaturated colour palette and a vignette effect (clear in the middle, blurred on the edges) for every episode except the last. While this can be hard to see in the numerous night scenes and may get monotonous, it also gets across the bleak uncaring feel of the anime's world.

Plot:
-SEL...
-BP...

Ultimately Serial Experiments Lain and Boogiepop Phantom can be simplified as works with similar styles and genre that go in completely different directions, and this is significant in regards to the overall plot and viewer understanding of these works. With each episode of SEL more questions are raised then answered, and by the end much is left unanswered and the viewer must make their on conclusions; whereas BP starts off foggy, but as one watches the episodes characters and events begin to line up, and by the end a coherent plot (or at least the hints of a coherent plot) are present. It's for this reason first and foremost that I prefer Boogiepop Phantom over Serial Experiments Lain.

Rating things is often problematic. Since I gave SEL a 3/5 already, I guess I should give BP 4/5. But does BP really does that? Perhaps I should say that SEL gets 2/5 and BP gets 3/5? The nature of ratings is that unless there are some really clear and concise guidelines, past ratings come back to bite you in the ass, and even with guidelines there will always be special cases. So how about this?

Boogiepop Phantom > Serial Experiments Lain

The Matrix, just less pretentious and more Japanese

If only the entire show had this quality of animation...

After I finished watching the anime series Serial Experiments Lain I thought it would be a good idea to review it whilst it was still fresh in my mind. Well it's two weeks since then so I've already failed on that point.

Serial Experiments Lain is cyberpunk set in the present day, present time, with a liberal dose of horror for good measure. The plot follows the titular Lain, a 14 year old schoolgirl, as she delves into the hacker culture of The Wired. That's the plot in a nutshell; to go into more detail would either lead to spoilers or personal interpretation, as this is a series that remains vague for many of the details and reasons of the various events.

Given its nature as a mind screw Serial Experiments Lain has some rather interesting visual ideas. A particularly surreal one is this:


I was going to talk about contrast, atmosphere and the subjective nature of the 'blood pools' but you know, I think the screen capture does enough by itself.

Unfortunately, not all of the visuals are quite as nice. The overall quality is rather fuzzy at times, although I'm willing to bet some of this is due to my version of the series being downloaded from a torrent purchased legitimately. Some scenes also leave me guessing what was cost cutting and what was artistic choice. An example would be one of the shots of students in Lain's class. Are they grey and less detailed because it's cheap to do so? Or is it a metaphor for how they are not relevant? Or perhaps an effect of The Wired on Lain's perception?

In the end, I'm not actually sure whether or not Serial Experiments Lain is a good anime or not; nor do I know whether I personally like it. Pros look like cons with a different frame of mind, and vice versa. Is Lain just a flat character with no developed personality or motives, or a girl who is trying to find herself amidst a supernatural identity crisis? These sorts of questions leave me unable to form any real strong feelings either way so I guess I have to say:

Serial Experiments Lain: 3/5

Or better yet, decide for yourself; the series is only 13 episodes long. 13 episodes of incomprehensibility, magic computers, and far too many eye close up shots.