Secret Santa 2011 – Binchou-tan
Hello again, and welcome to this year’s Reverse Thieves‘ Secret Santa project post. For those unaware of this, it’s a sort of take a recommendation, leave a recommendation system where a stranger will drop in and give you a choice of three shows to watch, while you do the same for your unwitting recipient. Last year, I was tasked with watching Shigofumi.
This year, I was recommended Binchou-tan, To Heart and Darker Than Black. First of all, big thank you to my Santa. These are three shows I really did want to watch after reading their descriptions. Unfortunately, time constraints lead me to only be able to watch one show, but I will certainly be getting around to the others at a later stage. The show I’ll be reviewing is Binchou-tan.
It’s hard not to be enamoured by Binchou-tan on first watch. The series starts by showing us a gorgeous setting – a run-down old house in the middle of a leafy green forest. The noises, the insects buzzing around, the shadows on the forest floor, they all contribute to creating a wonderful scene. Then we’re introduced to Binchou, our title character.
The Problem with Fractale
Last night, I took the final two episodes of Fractale downstairs to watch on the big TV. I should have been approaching that with delight, at seeing the culmination of a show that was both entertaining and enthralling. Instead, I almost had to force myself to finally finish the damn thing off.
Because Fractale was neither of those things.
What’s odder is how difficult it is to pin down what makes it bad. The glimpses of greatness it teases us with ultimately distract from the mediocre overall package.
MMF March 2011 – A Brief Analysis of Aria
The last time I wrote about Aria, I had only just heard of the series with the latest (and last) anime series Aria the Origination. Since then, I’ve collected all possible volumes of both manga series, Aqua and its sequel Aria, released in the UK, as well as Kozue Amano’s wonderful Illustration Works art books. Knowing this, you probably won’t be surprised to hear my opinion on the series.
To those unfamiliar with Aria, we follow the story of Akari Mizunashi, a resident of Manhome (previously known as Earth) who has come to the water planet Aqua, known as Mars before its near complete terraforming. Specifically, she’s travelled to the city of Neo-Venezia, made in the image of the long-since flooded Italian city of Venice, to become an undine – a gondolier tourist guide on the expansive waterways of the city. What follows is Akari’s slow and steady progression as an undine, the people of the town she meets and befriends and the general wonderment of Akari’s “beautiful miracles.”
I would say that any expectations about Aria from someone who hasn’t heard of slice of life or healing-type stories would quite quickly be shattered, but Aria would never shatter anything – it’s far too peaceful for that kind of verb. After Akari’s initial acceptance as an apprentice of Aria Company, we settle down into a series of chapters showing her everyday life in Neo-Venezia, as well as introducing characters from other undine companies in the city.
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt OST
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt – The Original Soundtrack
Produced by ☆Taku Takahashi
Length: 67:23 (w/o hidden tracks)
We’re well out of the Autumn 2010 anime season now, and I think something we can all take from it is not to put too much faith in hype. In reality, there were a few good shows, but nothing entirely earth shattering. In fact, I would probably call the anime linked to this review one of the worst offerings of the season. While it did something different with its western-style animation and delightfully filthy storylines, and did have episodes where it tried to experiment with its comedy, I didn’t find it terribly humorous or entertaining. Despite this, there are always diamonds in the rough if you look hard enough. The demon sisters were two of those, and this soundtrack is the third.
Like many others, I’m sure, I first noticed the possibility of a good soundtrack with the titular track Fly Away, used as the BGM for Panty and Stocking’s transformation sequences and a good proportion of their ghost battles too. Background music can sometimes take a back seat to the foreground action. Not here. If you were dozing off before the fight scene, you sure as hell weren’t when “FLY AWAY NOW” was suddenly blasting out of your speakers, trance melody in tow, all the while two angels have started undressing in quite a provocative way. It was the highlight of many a dull episode, so there might be a bit of positive reinforcement there too.
This gave us an indication of the style of music the soundtrack would lean towards early on. Lots of dance music (or electronica if you prefer). And because that’s the music I love the most, it made it even more exciting to finally crack open the Amazon.co.jp envelope and get my hands on the thing.
Secret Santa 2010 – Shigofumi
So you may or may not have heard about the Reverse Thieves’ festive anime Secret Santa project, dependent on how active you are in the anime blogosphere. You’re given a random blogger’s personal anime tastes (usually via a rated anime list of sorts) and need to suggest three new shows for them to watch, while the same happens for you. It’s a fantastic idea, as it removes the painful part of finding existing anime to watch. A curt 50 word description often isn’t enough to decide if a show will be worth it, so why not leave the decision to someone who has (hopefully) already seen it and is assured of its quality. Or terribleness. Either way, its entertainment.
I really lucked out with my choices, as they mostly weren’t series I had on the backlog, but were still interesting after reading their descriptions. I’ve had the time to watch my first choice, Manabi Straight, a gorgeously stylish show that’s moe for moe’s sake, with the best opening titles of an anime I’ve seen in a while. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to watch my second choice, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid, but it’s a credit to my Santa that he/she read my taste incredibly well. The focus of this review is my third choice, Shigofumi: Letters From The Departed. It’s relatively recent, having aired during the Winter 2007-08 season, but had still completely passed me by.
The basic premise of the series follows our protagonist Fumika, as she and her lippy but earnest magical staff Kanaka travel around the city delivering shigofumi, letters from the dead sent to the living as a last testament of sorts. Just from hearing that alone, the show has a lot of scope in what it can do, but is essentially relegated to an X-of-the-week format, where this time X equals “letter from dead person”. The only common factor you can really develop over the course of a 12 episode series is the main character herself, so her story sure as hell better be good.
The show does manage to overcome the repetition of the X-of-the-week format – each letter is too engrossing and the show mixes up the “get letter, transport letter, deliver letter, end credits” format throughout the series. Fumika’s story I believe is a different matter.
The first few episodes are extremely promising. The first story involves Shouta, his quest to build a rocket and Asuna, a girl he befriends while doing so. Needless to say, Asuna’s closet has many skeletons, and the episodes descend further into tragedy with every passing minute. We find she’s been “helping” her father produce child porn, who then wants to bring her little sister into the picture. The show certainly doesn’t shy away from showcasing the dredges of human society, and is all the more watchable for it, though it does bash the viewer with tragedy so much it manages to lose its meaning sometimes. Fumika’s take on events is fairly refreshing in that she sees the world through ruthlessly unclouded, emotionless eyes.
The Jellyfish Princess – 03
So I’m having some difficulty with Kuranosuke at the moment. On the one hand, he is someone who sees the good in others, even when they might act a little outside of society’s rules. He certainly doesn’t judge on first look. These are all good points about his varied and flamboyant character. Oh, and he’s a giant dick.
Yep, truly. Let’s take a look at his actions, shall we? From what we know so far, Kuranosuke’s been cross-dressing to shift responsibility away from himself and on to his brother, who seems to be wrapped around his little finger. Sure, perhaps the responsibility of the family “business” is a little great, but I don’t think he’s dealing with it in the best way. Being a hipster, he has other hipster friends, but look – he seems to have been ignoring them recently, even going as far as telling one of them, over the phone…
I’m not going to say that he’s completely at fault, given how the caller in question wasn’t exactly selfless about her reasons for phoning, but even at that, it seems a little harsh to throw out all of your friends.
Not to mention his constant intrusions at the Nunnery. The girls seem to have accepted the fact that he’s going to keep doing this, yet still he persists. Despite this, the culture clash that inevitably happens every time he’s there is always fun and exciting to watch, especially his interactions with Tsukimi.
And on Tsukimi, she seems to be setting herself up for a fall awfully early. I think we know that this will probably end in tears sooner or later, but I’m hoping that Kuragehime puts a better spin on the unrequited love trope. It certainly seems the type of show that could do that.
The redevelopment plans certainly sound foreboding, though it sets up an interesting dynamic with Kuranosuke at the centre of everything. It just might be a chance to redeem himself.
Princess Jellyfish is available to stream in North America on Funimation’s video site and Youtube channel. Fansubs available from the usual channels for everyone else.
