Currently Watching: Shiki
You’ve got to love Fuji TV’s noitaminA slot. Every season they manage to bring something fresh to the table, and while these projects may not always work out (House of Five Leaves and the Tatami Galaxy, while good, weren’t universally well received), you have to admire them for trying their damnest to open up anime to the masses. Their offerings at the moment include the live-action version of the brilliantly quirky microbe-fest Tales of Agriculture and the subject of this blog post, Shiki.
Shiki begins rather hauntingly – in the middle of a search party for a missing person. This pretty much sets the precedent for the rest of the first five episodes I’ve watched so far. Shiki is based on a horror manga written by Ono Fuyumi and Fujisaki Ryuu based in an extremely parochial Japanese village cut off from the outside world by dense forest. The residents of said village are somewhat traditional and close knit, as you’d expect from a village of that kind. The story appears to start moving when some new residents move in to the house on the hill in the dead of night.
We’re very quickly introduced to a large cast of characters, all residents of Sotobamura. It’s absolutely impossible to remember all of these people, but the main recurring characters have all helpfully either been given actual personalities, or in many cases crazy anime hairstyles, to be memorable. If the number of characters wasn’t hard enough to follow, why don’t we jump back and forward in time as well. Seriously, this show could give Baccano! a run for its money.
First Impressions: High School of the Dead
So the Summer 2010 anime season has well and truly begun. As usual, everyone’s assumed that it’ll be crap and that anime is doomed. But it can’t be that bad, right? Err… Anyway, there are usually a few hidden truffles to snuff out every season, and I’ll be hoping to cover some of those over the coming weeks. At the moment, Occult Academy and Shiki are looking interesting enough.
One anime has arguably had magnified interest before the season started thanks to a fairly unique premise for an anime, which is strange both because “unique” and “anime” don’t often belong in the same sentence these days, and because the trope almost feels like it has been overused in other media. Zombies!
It beggars belief that there hasn’t been a proper Dawn of the Dead-esque zombie apocalypse anime before (at least, not that I know of). The medium has the potential to lend itself very well to emphasising the scale of such a disaster, as well as the human stories that arise from it.
So here we have High School of the Dead. It’s based on a popular manga which, as of Comic-Con 2010, has been licensed by Yen Press in the US. Luckily, US Yen Press releases tend to trickle on to the UK market as well.
An admission – I am terribly excited about this show. It has an original premise, giving it lots of potential, it promises balls-to-the-wall action thanks to the undead perusing the streets and as we see from very early on (episode one), it isn’t afraid to get into some of the moral strains that can appear during zombie apocalypses.
It’s being animated by Madhouse, which as we recently found with Redline, appears to still have the money to push the animation of its works into a different league compared to your typical late-night anime. The stellar opening sequence takes the time to transliterate its staff members into English. If that isn’t a sign of a show confident in itself, I don’t know what is. All in all, everything’s looking good.
The show doesn’t waste much time in setting up its advertised plot. While Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 left us waiting for the whole episode for the inevitable to happen, HOTD drops us right in with the gore turned up to eleven. Excellent!
Android Ana Maico 2010
I’ll admit that one of the main reasons I heard about Android Announcer Maico 2010 is the fact that we are now in the year it is set in. Given that it was produced in 1998, it’s certainly not as much of a leap to guess the future as Nineteen Eighty-four was. And yet, we still haven’t managed to invent android disc jockeys. What a tragedy.
The premise of the show seems interesting at a glance – the Japan Broadcasting System (Fuji TV if you regard the blatant logos everywhere) wants to get the listening figures up, so brings in an android radio announcer to present a show, and brings together a rag-tag group of the “best” staff to work on the radio show. The anime is based on a much racier manga involving crime-fighting and sexdroids as well as radio presenting, but the anime removes the blue parts, and is probably better for it. The premise of the manga seems jarring to me, though I can’t say I’ve ever read any of it.
Thinking past the premise, it’s hard to visualise what the anime can actually do with such a restricted set-up. And sure enough, the majority of the short 15 minute episodes are set entirely in the broadcast studio of “Jump Out Maico 2010”. This anime is supposed to be funny, so Maico and the team get themselves involved in shenanigans involving the guests, the sponsors and each other, but it gets somewhat repetitive after a while. Read more
First Impressions: Redline
So, the Manga All-Nighter for 2010 happened overnight two nights ago in London. All in all, it was a very nice event – comfortable seats, free stimulants to power through the night, a great crowd and a few anime movies to digest.
As well as showing the first episode of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, the event showcased docu-anime Musashi, based on the life of famous samurai Musashi Miyamoto, a Bleach movie, namely The DiamondDust Rebellion, the new Fate/Stay Night movie Unlimited Blade Works, and a new film from Madhouse called Redline.
Musashi was very interesting, giving a view of samurai and their tactics not often seen. Despite this, I feel it’s one to re-watch in the daylight hours. The Bleach movie was the Bleach movie. Basically inaccessible to people who haven’t slogged through the hundreds of episodes already (you poor souls). Unlimited Blade Works was adapted from a route in the original visual novel, again not being the most accessible film ever. The action sequences were well choreographed, but a rushed introduction to the world and the characters dampened things a bit for me.
You’ve probably guessed from the title of this post that my stand-out favourite from the night, however, was the first movie shown, Redline.
The story is set in the near-future, where hover cars are poised to completely take over the wheeled variety. Proper motor racing is still a popular sport however, with the main event being the hotly contested Redline race. The movie opens with a fantastically animated qualifying race between a myriad of over-the-top characters in long, embellished machines.
The pure speed is emphasised by the cars literally ripping up the track and the spectator stands as they fly by at impossible speeds, all set to loud, banging dance music. I adore the soundtrack for this film, the high energy tracks fit very well with the both the racing incidents and the daring cockpit manoeuvres of the drivers. As a bit of a petrolhead myself, the racing sequences in the film are pure crack. With the commentators describing the race the whole way, it almost felt like a futuristic Wacky Races on speed.
It’s clear that the main focus for the film is on the racing action, and that the pace and plot does slow somewhat in between the set pieces. Despite this, the highly stylised animation help to bring a sense of life to the worlds and characters. The plot itself is simple – here are some people who want to win, and have always wanted to win. Quite clichéd, and it gets slightly dubious when they throw in some more antagonism near the end, when the Roboworld government attempts to stop the main race from happening. It feels like an excuse to wheel out some fancy 3D rendered enemies and ultimately distracts from the pure racing action that really should be the focus of the movie.
Despite a somewhat simple plot, the pure energy and character of this film really shine through – it’s really very enjoyable. I’m pretty sure this was the first time it was shown in the UK, so it’s unclear when (and indeed if) it will be coming out. Hopefully it’ll be soon.
Currently Watching: Sora no Woto
Now that the Winter 2009 season is in it’s winding down stage, it’s the perfect time to actually start some blogging about it. Where better to start than Sound of the Skies, or Sora no Woto (or So Ra No Wo To, to be pedantic).
This is the first anime to be born from the new Strength of Anime timeslot on TV Tokyo, clearly trying to be a pretender to Fuji TV’s noitaminA block of programming that manages to churn out some of the best stuff each season. It’s got a lot to live up to, given the pure gems that noitaminA shows (Honey and Clover, Mononoke, Trapeze, etc.).
First impressions don’t bode well here. It’s clear that A-1 Pictures (the production studio) have borrowed heavily from the K-On! school of animation with this one. The characters are animated with as little frills as possible. And why not, you might say, when people will lap it up all the more? This is true, it even gives the designs a certain charm. But this isn’t even for lack of effort, when you look at the luscious backgrounds the team have made for the town of Seize, based on the walled town of Cuenca in Spain, and even researched on location.
Looking past the character designs, the opening treats us to a Klimt-fest the likes of which we haven’t seen since Elfen Lied (note that the two series share a director, Mamoru Kanbe).
The content of the first few episodes, honestly, doesn’t take the plot of the series places, which in some ways belies it’s description – when you think of a war-time setting, it’s logical that there would be warfare, right? Instead, this series bases itself in a post-warfare setting, focusing on a platoon based in a town bordering no man’s land, not seeing much active service. I dove in with some expectations and found it jarring at first, but then settled in to the pace. The beautiful setting of Seize and the airy soundtrack gives the series a great atmosphere, and events should take on a leisurely pace to match.
The cultural references also lend very well to the atmosphere, and in the typical anime vein of borrowing (and twisting) not-Japanese culture, here we have a series based on a town in Spain, set in the remains of Switzerland, featuring a South African bird, with writing in French. I could go on.
The feel of the show so far is almost reminiscent of Haibane Renmei, and for more than just the atmosphere. Even from the first episode, hints have been dropped that something larger is going on. Rio’s bell, the story of the ‘Maidens of Fire’, the blonde woman in so many flashbacks; there are so many treats left lying around to those who would bother to look in to things. And that’s good – anything interesting that an anime does, that is different from the established, should be heavily praised. We’re stuck in a cycle of copycats that needs to be broken free from.
We’re up to episode seven now, with eight coming out around now. It seems the slow pace is beginning to quicken in the second half, with Filicia’s flashback in stark comparison to the first half of the series, showing the horror of war in more frank terms than usual. I think that despite a slow start, this series is only going to get better from here on in.
Sound of the Skies is available streaming on Crunchyroll, a week behind airing for non-subscribers, and immediately (and in higher quality) for those who paid. Higher quality video is also available from the fansubbers.
You Should Be Releasing
First of all, happy new year to everyone reading this. Hope you’re having a nice year so far.
If you’re an anime fan, the United States is a great place to live. It’s one of the biggest markets outside of Japan, and also has quite a large population, meaning plenty of fans are willing to cough up for their favourites. The big companies are all based there, and all have established contacts with the industry in Japan. And from Japan’s point of view, America must be looking more and more appealing as a secondary source of income in these troubled times.
These factors mean that for any particular series, the bar for entry in America is much, much lower than it would be here in the UK.
The smaller market here means that profit margins are never going to be high on all but the most popular titles, the Evangelions and Halo Legends’ of this world. All of the English production being done in the US means that while much of the work here is removed, more is added in the complexities of licensing the different parts of a series, in both time and money – now you need to negotiate with two countries instead of one.
This isn’t even mentioning the relatively expensive certification costs from the BBFC, who need to be paid twice if your series includes both a subtitled Japanese version and a dubbed English version, which is a de facto standard between companies and fans these days.
After all this, it isn’t really surprising when you look at the number of releases in the US compared to here – not everything can make a successful transition across the pond.
This is the reality, but an anime fan can dream. And in keeping with the list-mania spreading around at this time of year, I’m making a list of anime released in the US that isn’t out over here, but deserves to be.
Special thanks to MVM for recently removing the need to put Rozen Maiden and Fate/Stay Night down here, as they’re being released hopefully some time this year.
When They Cry
This one may be forever in limbo with regards to licensing, given that Geneon USA gave up the ghost mid-way through releasing this in the States, but it really does deserve to be on the shelves over here.
Also known as Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, this series focuses on a small rural village called Hinamizawa, where our protagonist Keiichi Maebara has just moved in to. He quickly finds solid friends at school, but begins to suspect they are hiding something from him when they seem to gloss over and change the subject on particular issues in the village. When Keiichi finds out about a murder and corpse dismemberment case, he begins to suspect his friends, and we see him slowly descend into madness as he tries to keep them away.
While Higurashi is a fun series, what with its bright and amusing characters, it can do horror with surprising effectiveness, as we see from the first story arc. Once the series gets started, the mystery element from the visual novel it adapted really kicks in as we begin to wonder just what the hell is going on.
