For those who unfamiliar, my introduction can be found here. Parts 1 and 2 can also be found here and here. Moving on.


The Girl Who Leapt Through Time opened my eyes to the possibility that someone other than Hayao Miyazaki could direct brilliant anime films. It was a real surprise, and I’d end up watching it several times before buying it. Summer Wars, while a slight downgrade, was also great, proving Mamoru Hosoda wasn’t strictly a one-trick pony. I’d routinely be critical of it, even mocking it on my Twitter handle, but I also ended up watching it several times before buying it. By the time The Wolf Children was announced for a Western release, I was more than excited.

I ended up pre-ordering the DVD immediately, seeing as the film never made it to theatres in Toronto, yet ended up getting an early showing via, once again, illegal streaming (I was desperate, cut me some slack!) It was the day of my Winter exam in my final course of university, and I was anxious for some motivation. I watched the film literally 2 hours before I had to leave, packing up right as it ended. To say it was good is an understatement. To say it blew my mind is probably more accurate.


The Wolf Children is the story of Hana, a 19 year-old college freshie who falls in-love with a mysterious man in her class. The two instantly hit it off, but all isn’t what it seems. It turns out this man has a secret he’s been afraid to share, that he’s a werewolf that can change back-and-forth at will. After clearing up that he’s not dangerous to Hana, their relationship strengthens, eventually leading to her becoming pregnant. She bears two children, a girl named Yuki and a boy named Ame, over the next two years, and they begin a family.

Sadly, tragedy strikes. During a search for food, Hana’s partner falls into a ravine and dies. Because he was in wolf form, he’s hauled off to the dump. Heartbroken and alone, Hana’s left to raise her two children without his help, which gets complicated when Yuki and Ame prove to be a handful. Desperate to live free from her neighbours, Hana and kids move to the countryside. Ultimately, Hana learns to be a good mother, as well as when to finally let go.

Like Mamoru Hosoda’s previous efforts, the biggest compliment I can give The Wolf Children is that it looks beautiful. This was Hosoda’s first film under the newly formed Studio Chizu, and you’d think a first-time film would look cheap, but that doesn’t stop the beautiful environments and character models. But it also helps that The Wolf Children soaks in atmosphere. Ignoring that it contains one of my favourite scenes in any animated film, it knows how to stop and let scenery breathe. It sucks you in and immerses you in the lifelike backdrops, all of which are wonderfully detailed.

Musically, the movie falls into the category of “impressive, yet not really stand-alone.” It’s slightly below Summer Wars, but not by much. Composer Takagi Masakatsu still brings his A-game, giving us great pieces that compliment the more laid-back feel. And, of course, the end credits theme, “Okaasan no Uta”, is ear candy, being a simple ballad that doubles as a love song in the vein of a mother’s lullaby. It’s a great score, even if it doesn’t scream “epic” or “bombastic”.

The voice acting in the movie is, once again, fantastic. I can’t comment on the Japanese, but the dub is another home run from FUNimation Entertainment. Notable highlights include Colleen Clinkenbeard as Hana and Jad Saxton as the narrator/teenaged Yuki. Both help drive home the movie’s underlying theme of motherhood and coming of age, with Saxton’s chip-ins underscoring the film like poetry. There are occasional mis-castings with older Ame and Sohei, their dub voices sound too old, but the performances themselves more than compensate.

I love the characters in this movie. Hana is the determined mother many parents strive to be, being warm and optimistic even in times of uncertainty and fear. Her lover, while not in the film for long, turns what could’ve been a throwaway part into something special, which surprised and impressed me. But the big show-stealers are Yuki and Ame, being complex enough to resonate in their child and adolescent stages. Considering how few kids’ movies actually do that, it’s a refreshing change of pace to see characters who not only grow naturally, but whose changes happen believably.

Lastly, the major theme hits home. Narratively, The Wolf Children is Hosoda’s shallowest film. It’s not twisty like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, nor is it grand like Summer Wars. Even as a coming of age tale, Hosoda’s next film is more detailed. The Wolf Children is, essentially, an ode to growing up, nothing more.
And yet, it speaks volumes, more than the rest of Hosoda’s repertoire. I say this because mothers are the overlooked heroes of our lives. They carry us for 9 months in their stomaches, give birth to us, raise us to adulthood and then let us go when we’re old enough to take care of ourselves. It’s something we rarely stop and appreciate, but we should do it more while they’re still alive. Given that Hosoda, allegedly, based Hana on his own mother, that parallel is all the more special.

Which is why, save some jarring uses of CGI in some of the scenery shots, there’s little wrong I can say about this film. I’ve heard that it’s too long from some detractors. I’ve heard that Hana lacks personality and depth from others. I’ve even heard that The Wolf Children is overly sappy and sentimental. I don’t agree with any of these claims, as I feel it’s the perfect length, that Hana is wonderfully fleshed-out g and that the film’s sappy and sentimental nature actually serves to better-punctuate its themes about life. There’s really less “wrong” as “context specific details”, and while there are parts that could’ve been done better, namely the rushed ending, in the end I really love and respect what Hosoda’s done here.

The Wolf Children embodies everything a family film and a coming of age film should be. It marries childhood and nostalgia with maturity and adulthood, all the while not downplaying either aspect. It’s smart, funny, dramatic and even a little heartbreaking. There’s no other way of putting it: this is Hosoda’s magnum opus (at least, to-date). I give it a…

Join me next time in my thrilling conclusion, as I take you to the world of the unknown and primal with The Boy and the Beast. See you then!

A double game review is an odd prospect, especially on an anime blog, double especially given the length of the two game adds up to a solid week straight of playing without rest, and triple especially as these came out the past holiday season and are yesterday's news. I think it's important to give these at least another look if nothing else because they take so long, I don't know how many of the people who spear-headed the discussions actually finished them. Xenoblade Chronicles is on so many greatest and most essential RPGs of all time. And it deserves it. It is a glorious combination of Western RPG conventions with JRPG aesthetics, incredible music, a wonderfully imaginative setting, and addictive gameplay with a ton of exploration and almost thousands of quests. The one thing people neglect to mention is the last two hours are one of the most insane string of revelations ever seen. It doesn't so much go off the rails as the rails are vanished into another dimension and the train is placed in a limbo of last-minute R.L. Stine twists. Don't worry about me spoiling a five-year-old game because even if I gave you the direct text, you would punch me in the face and say the beginning of my fan fiction where I'm trying to warp time and space to get Fiora to bang my Mary Sue character needs a shit ton of work. It's on the Wikipedia page if you must know.

This isn't really a criticism as I pretty much love it when writer/director Tetsuya Takahashi's projects go completely mental. Xenosaga Episode III is one of my top five games of all time because it let go of the middlebrow anime space opera Namco wanted to make mad cash off of (...It didn't really happen) and became a story where Mary Magdalene's body is given a upgrade to evil cyborg with a breast cannon that requires her top be unhooked to use. The American censorship even takes it to another level where young Shion is shouting, "Put it back!" as she holds a ripped out body part of one of her parents... only THERE'S NOTHING THERE! It's amazing and I find the ending to Xenoblade Chronicles similarly enjoyable as a "?!" punctuation to a remarkable game.

For those unfamiliar, here’s the introduction, as well as Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. For everyone else, welcome to the finale!


Earlier this year, roughly January or February, Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film, The Boy and the Beast, was announced for a North American release under the FUNimation/GKids label. Unfortunately, the situation got complicated with Canada. Initially slated to be licensed via GKids, it fell through entirely. The film was picked up by Mongrel Entertainment, but was to be screened in a limited run in subtitles only. It bypassed the TIFF Bell Lightbox, aka Toronto’s arthouse theatre, entirely, with the only showing it being well out of city limits. It didn’t even end up mattering, as the film was slated for a DVD release in early-June, less than one week after its Canadian release.

I’ve already discussed my frustrations with this. I’ve mentioned in detail why this upset me in another pice for Infinite Rainy Day. I, therefore, won’t repeat my thoughts outside a reminder of how irritating it was. That having been said, I’ll be retreading my earlier review’s thoughts and ideas. I normally try to avoid that unless I have something new to add, but I re-watched this movie for the sake of this series and feel it necessary. Besides, time has warmed me to the film somewhat.


The Boy and the Beast is the story of Ren, a 9 year-old boy whose mother died in a tragic accident and whose father has been absent for some time. Desperate to be free of his mother’s family, Ren runs away and wanders the streets of Shibuya. He stumbles upon a world adjacent to his own, one where anthropomorphic animals live. The ruler of this realm is a rabbit lord on the verge of retirement and who’s looking for a successor. The two candidates he has in mind are a boar named Iōzen and a bear named Kumatetsu. Equal in strength, the two are polar-opposites in personality, the former noble and refined, the latter brash and scattershot.

As it stands, Iōzen looks to be the next lord. But Kumatetsu wishes to prove himself, so he takes Ren as his apprentice and renames him Kyuuta. The two initially don’t get along, but time forges a strong bond. They spend the next 8 years together, but not all feels right. What is it that Ren wants? And can he help Kumatetsu, or will he doom everyone?

Like the films preceding it, The Boy and the Beast looks gorgeous. This is Studio Chizu’s second film, yet you wouldn’t know from the scenery and character models. Even the animal realm and the human realm are distinct, with the former being colourful and old-fashioned and the latter desaturated and modern. There’s a feeling of life and energy to both realms, making you feel like you’re actually there. Then again, it’s a Hosoda film.

The score for this film, provided once again by Takagi Masakatsu, is good in-film, yet passable outside of it. It does its job to convey ambience, but that’s it. Even its end credits song, “Starting Over”, holds the record of being the most-uninspired of Hosoda’s films’ ending tunes, as, like the rest of the score, it’s solid in-context, yet less-so outside. It’s not even bad, but it pales to what’s come before it. Still, part of that could be the high expectations.

The voice acting is great. FUNimation Entertainment did a bang-up job with the dub, as per usual. Perhaps the stand-outs are Luci Christian and John Swasey as Ren and Kumatetsu respectively. Considering they have most of the major lines, I’d expect their performances to be top-notch anyway. But they go beyond the call of duty, and I commend them for that.

This extends to the characters. Ren, both young and old, is stubborn and loud, yet also contemplative and quiet. His circumstances influence a lot of his behaviour, yet he’s never not sympathetic. And given that he’s working with an arrogant master, who’s also sympathetic, it suits him. The side characters also make due with what they have and contribute to the story. Even Kaede, a character introduced in the second-half, transcends her “love interest” trope to become likeable, although that she’s not fleshed-out much is a tad disappointing.

Then there’s the underlying theme of fatherhood. Like The Wolf Children, Mamoru Hosoda based this film off his childhood relationship with his parents. Except, this time, he focused on his absent father-figure. It’s a little wonky, partly due to Hosoda writing this movie by himself, and somewhat less-interesting than his exploration of motherhood, but it still manages to convey harsh truths about adoption, surrogate relationships and estrangement. It’s not always consistent, but it works.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from a major flaw that keeps it from being a masterpiece. Factoring in that Hosoda’s usual writing partner, Satoko Okudera, was absent from the screenplay credits, you can see wobbly dialogue in spots that’d have normally been more refined. The character conversations are rough, there are quite a few exposition dumps and the the entirety of the third-act goes off the rails. I remember the latter complaint turning me off slightly during my initial viewing, even bringing down the grade of the movie in my initial review. But a re-watch makes it to be nothing more than a major flaw that’s tolerable because of the build-up.

For what it’s worth, the film comes pretty close to being a masterpiece. I remember Jacob Chapman once describing Howl’s Moving Castle as a problematic favourite. He recognized that it was chock full of story problems, but that the characters and themes saved the movie. I suppose that’s what The Boy and the Beast is for me: a flawed movie narratively, yet one that still works character-wise and thematically. It’s an incredibly thought-provoking and contemplative film, so I can forgive its occasionally clunky writing.

In the end, this is an absolute must-watch if you’re a fan of Hosoda’s work. It deals with themes of fatherhood without delving too far into toxic patriarchy and its destructive implications. I even kinda like it more than I originally did the first time around. Will you end up agreeing? Hard to say, but I can’t give it lower than a…

There you have it: four reviews of four excellent films from an excellent director. I’d rank them as follows: The Wolf Children> The Boy and the Beast> The Girl Who Leapt Through Time> Summer Wars. I highly-recommend them to view at your leisure, as you can’t go wrong either way. And, in the end, isn’t that what really matters? I’ll see you next time!

Welcome to the final seasonal post for a good long while.

We've been doing seasonals since the site first launched, but it's no longer feasible. Staff has left for various personal reasons, and we're reaching the point where most of us can't handle the load because of conflicting schedules. My hell semester alone this season has caused so many delays. I've also felt that general quality of reviews has weakened as we've been so rushed, and I've been more interested in long form articles anyways. The spark just isn't there right now. So, I've decided to end seasonals for the time being.

That's not to say we won't be giving updates on currently airing stuff. Staff has pretty free reign to write whatever, and I'll definitely be doing my own season premier impressions on my own blog, but organized reviews of airing shows is stopping for a bit. Expect to see more proper articles on the site from writers besides Zach, and bigger projects from me.

But for now, let's finish up this Summer season at long last. What was good? What was bad? What was meh? What was put into production hell? Well, let's start with the massive pile of dropped shows first.


DROPPED

Battery
David O'Neil

To an extent, I did feel bad about dropping Battery, because I appreciated what it was trying to do. Often anime can get in the habit of sticking too close to the norm of specific genres, so I did like that Battery wasn't just another generic drop in the sports anime bucket. It put much less of a focus on high stakes games and heated rivalries, instead focusing on quiet drama and interpersonal character interactions. In the six episodes I watched almost no focus was put on the sport of baseball itself, instead merely using baseball as a vehicle to drive the character's conflicts. It was trying to set itself apart from the crowd, but unfortunately, it just wasn't very interesting despite its best efforts. While the show had its moments, the drama as a whole just didn't have strong enough execution to make up for aforementioned lack of exciting sports games. As a result, the show was left feeling sluggish, and drab. Fans of sports dramas, and more low key character-driven shows in general may want to give it a try, but it simply left me bored.

Final Score: 4/10, Dropped at Episode Six

B-Project
Andrew Lepselter

This strikes me as the kind of thing that quite literally just wasn't my thing. I can't really say I've watched any vanilla otome type harems nor have I watched any and all idol shows in my life. Neither of which are genres I am unfamiliar with. For something like this to really appeal to me I'd have to like some of the characters, and this one had far too many to even keep track of. I understand why reverse harems and idols are popular, but this just seemed like I came into this genre watching less of an innovator of its type, and more of an imitator.

Final Score: 4/10, Dropped at Episode Six

First Love Monster
Megan "Queenira" Z

Boy howdy did I dodge a bullet. I literally have. First Love Monster kind of proves an old adage; just because you switch the “genders” doesn’t mean you’re going to prove your point. First Love Monster is abysmal, horrifying, and downright not funny. If anything this anime is creepy and just weird. The animation is horrible, it’s just plain awkward and deep down I feel like I need a damn shower after words. If this series had tried to be a backhanded comedy or a serious drama. I’m not saying you can’t make social commentary and dick jokes at the same time but you better have the nards to walk the walk and talk the talk. The only semi-redeeming factor is a dub that made me laugh my ass off more because of the actors and my love of them rather than the actual humor. If you’re into the show um yay? Just please keep at least five meters away from me and any schools you may see.

Final Score: 1/10, Dropped at Episode Six

Hybrid X Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia
Jonathan Kaharl

I regret to inform you all, but The Straights are at it again. Hybrid X Heart is basically everything wrong with otaku culture at large, wrapped up in one of the most repulsive anime ever created. It's sexist out the wazoo, homophobic as all hell, and presents some of the worst sex scenes I have ever seen with some of the worst censorship that has ever existed. The main character is a despicable monster trained to be a despicable monster by even more despicable people, and the show thinks it has earned an ultra dark story that brings up human experimentation and brainwashing while the main character and random fetishized anime girl have awkward foreplay and dry humping sessions. Anyone responsible for any part of this series probably can't look their parents in the face. Hell, they probably can't look other perverts in the face, because even perverts have some standards. Truly one of the worst anime that has ever existed.

Final Score: 1/10, Dropped at Episode Seven

The Morose Mononokean
Thom "Tama" Langley

Frankly I hope there's a yokai that plagues anime productions because this show is so incredibly blase, so unorginal, and frankly so stiflingly boring that I begin to wonder whether it was in fact haunted. Its protagonist is a wet blanket, its spirit-calmer-downer so boring and unlikeable and its plot and design so paperthin that I'm surprised this had the legs to get to production. Boring to the point of being insulting and, given it came the cour before the fifth season of Natsume's Book of Friends, pretty poorly timed. Nothing there to offend, but then there's nothing there to start with. Yokai design is decent, but Yokai Watch and so many other shows have done it better. Avoid or go and watch Natsume Seasons 1-4 again

Final Score: 1/10, Dropped at Episode Two

Qualidea Code
David O'Neil

This seems to happen every season. Every season there's that one show that I lose interest in very early on, and then by the end of the season I end up completely at a loss as to what happened in it and how I felt about it. This season, that show is Qualidea Code. I have vague, fleeting memories of what the show was like. A half assed knock off of the current trend of "teenagers with special powers fighting of vaguely defined unstoppable force", with absolutely nothing to set itself apart from the crowd. I remember liking a few of the characters, but can barely remember them now. I also recall losing all hope for the series in general when it failed tremendously at trying to shift to a darker tone, pulling a sudden major character death that came off as more comedic than tragic. But in terms of actual episode plotlines and events its all something of a blur. A mishmash of ideas and visuals with no common thread to hold it all together, resulting in an indiscernible mass of a memory, lost between more prominent recollections of those shows that better accomplished what it had set out to do. A lot like the show itself.

Final Score: 2/10, Dropped at Episode Five

Scar-red Rider XechS
Jonathan Kaharl

Maybe some things just shouldn't be anime. There are good ideas in Scar-red, but the pacing of a visual novel rarely translates well to an anime. For an action heavy series, it sure does waste time on unfunny slice of life bits. They work to build character, yes, but they don't use that time efficiently. The series doesn't start getting interesting till the halfway point, but it's far too late to care by then. There needed to be some massive rewrites during the adaptation process to make this appealing to more than the people who played the original game, because the structure they just took from said game is flimsy for an episodic anime. Also, please stop using over-designed nonsense for outfits unless you have a high level animation studio, it will look god awful otherwise.

Final Score: 5/10, Dropped at Episode Seven

Tsukiuta: The Animation
Megan "Queenira" Z

I really wish I could have enjoyed this. It had a lot of good going for it. It had a great seiyuu cast, great ideas for the images but it all just went south. This series, an IDOL series, was bland and like watching paint dry. There was no pizazz, excitement or even draw to the normal lives these guys could live. Maybe if these boys had personality, maybe if they showed some side other than “must work hard to be best idol!” I could get behind it. I mean what draws fans to series like Utapri and Love Live is that the idols have good personas and actual personalities not that their dancing pieces of meat. Okay well they are but hey let that meat sizzle instead of lay raw. But at least the cast was okay and it was harmless.

Final Score: 2/10, Dropped at Episode Six

Full Shows

91 Days
Thom "Tama" Langley

Three cheers for sweet revenge, especially when executed this well. By far and away, 91 Days is not only the best series of a season, but perhaps of 2016 so far. But how does this brutal revenge draw to its bloody conclusion? Well, first to deal with an Agent attempting to run the Mafia and bootlegging out of town, and in a particularly stark scene, it seems Angelo has very much become a mafia man, threatening the agent's child, whilst Nero grows increasingly ruthless. Finally, the relationship between Angelo and Corteo reaches breaking point, as the agent's family are nearly brutally, (and in a clear homage to the Godfather), blown up. Fango attempts to bring Corteo under his wing and plots his next step. As Corteo slowly drifts apart from his friend, and as Scusa finally betrays him, he turns on Fango, beating him to death in one of the series' single best moments. Nero becomes Don and admints to Angelo that he couldn't kill on the first job he was brought along on, being the murder of Angelo's family. Seemingly fleeing the city with Corteo, we get a flashback to reveal the true writer of the letter, and the duo lying low in Angelo's previous quarters. After a brief soujurn back to the city. Corteo is then tricked into returning, and summarily executed by Angelo. After this brutal moment, it;s opera time! With the clouds of bloody revenge gathering, its not long before bodies start hitting the floor, beginning with the death of Vanetti retainer Del Toro, in a scene worthy of any mob movie. Captured by the Vanetti family, the truth begins to eke out, along with the bodies. And, just like any good opera, the violence finally reaches a climax. Captured, Angelo expects to be dispatched, but of all people, Nero comes to the rescue. Dragging Angelo across country, they finally reach a realization, and, in a sense, some sort of peace with each other. And, not to spoil the ending...the show ends how it begins. Perfectly.

By far and away, 91 Days steals the crown of show of the season. Nothing comes close to this perfectly wrogght tale of revenge and how it can destroy someone set on it. As I've said before, were this show live action, it would be up there with The Sopranos and The Godfather in the high ecelons of Mafia media. A must-see.

Final Score: 8/10

Alderamin on the Sky
David O'Neil

I was somewhat weary of my decision to not drop Alderamin On the Sky, because it wasn't a show that I especially liked or looked forward to each new episode of. That isn't to say I disliked it either, it's an enjoyable show that's more clever than I typically expect from Light Novel adaptations, and even had some nice characters with genuine relationships. But at the same time, it just didn't leave much with me, and towards the end it was as if I was forcing myself to watch each new episode rather than actually being brought back on the show's own merits.

The story of Alderamin On the Sky is fairly straightforward, but also well thought out. It follows the main character Ikta in his unwilling journey to become one of the top commanders of the Katvana Empire, and there's a decent amount of depth to his character. He faces self doubt, loss, and the repercussions of his choices and attitude over the course of the series. Both him and his relationship with Yatori were by far the most interesting aspect of the show, going through a lot of change as things in the series escalated, but also feeling surprisingly natural in that change. The show also deals with a lot of themes on war in general, and the many difficulties and contradictions that come with it. The show typically manages to explore these themes fairly well, it only goes skin deep but it still manages to deal with a lot of heavy topics without feeling too heavy handed. The final conversation of the series especially I thought was a pretty clever way of taking both Ikta and the Princess's characters, and having them break away from the doomed fate that seems to be approaching them and their country (with that said, who knows if this will ever get a second season and actually follow up on that). At the same time though, it is more difficult to take the show's themes seriously when it occasionally falls back on obnoxious light novel tendencies, especially sexual humor. It's fairly restrained, and gets less and less frequent as the show goes on, but still manages to kill the mood multiple times throughout the series.

And really, while the show is smarter than I would have expected, it's never quite able to achieve greatness. As mentioned before the themes are fairly shallow in terms of anti-war messages, and on top of that most of the show's big emotional moments feel toothless in their execution. The show does the bare minimum to make important scenes work, but was always too predictable and restrained to make me care more than the bare minimum. Which really speaks to my feelings on the show as a whole. I never got bored watching it, but it never was able to excite me, engage me, or leave me looking forward to each new episode. I just watched it out of obligation, and had a decent enough time as I watched it.

Final Score: 5/10

Amanchu!
Thom "Tama" Langley

Whilst 91 Days up there may be the best show of the season, it's not my favourirte. That accolade goes to Amanchu, which, in a few words, is a joy to watch. First and foremost, like the best sports anime, (such as Haikyuu!!, next season's Yuri On Ice and a clutch of other series) you get a sense of the creator's utter and over-riding passion for the sport-the detail in place is extra-ordinary, as though their love and affection for it ioverflows onto the page-and it is the fact that this sport is diving, particularly in the last few episodes of the series, that adds an extra layer of utter beauty to the series. Even shots of the duo of Hikari and Futuba simply swimming back and forth in the pool are executed with grace, but when the sea is finally reached, the visuals are some of the best in this entire season. Then there is Hikari herself, and boy, where can I ever start with this adorable, infectiously enthuasistic "Whoop!"ing bug-eyed lively character? It is her joy that brings the shy and retiring Futuba out of her shell, her enthuasiasm that attracts the latter to taking her first steps into tthe water and her ecouragement that keeps her going. By far and away she is my favourite character of the season, a bubbly scatterbrain whose enthuasiasm and passion is incredibly endearing.

This is not to say Futuba herself is a passive character-certainly, she is as important in her own story as Hikari, and as their friendhip blossoms, so Futuba becomes a stronger and more confident character. Equally, the swimming club, with its duo of bickering siblings, and offbeat teacher who's as big a diving nerd as her student, are great characters, afforded as much screen time as their teammates; a subplot with a mistakenly delivered loveletter sheds some surprising light on both of the siblings, whilst Mato is rarely unfunny, often acting as straight-man to the antics of Hikari. Perhaps the sweetest thing about this show is the clear yuri undertones-a scene where Futuba becomes utterly lost and confused without Hikari, to the extent of essentially hugging the smaller girl fror support is perhaps the closest we get to an open suggesting that the two are more than just friends.

At its centre, however, Amachu is a series with a whole lot of heart, a beautful visual style, a quintet of great characters, and most of all, a clear love for what it's about, and nowhere is this stronger than in the series' final episode-not only does it have Futuba take to open water for the first time, a clearly cathartic and perfect ending to the series, but it does it in such beauty and style that this episode alone is worth the journey-to see how far Futuba has come, from shy girl overwhelmed by the sea, holding onto the electronic world of her ohone to stepping forth into the endless blue with confidence and her friends by her side.

Final Score: 10/10

Ange Vierge
Joe Straatmann

The last word a critic should use in a review is boring as it's far too easy to toss it out there and not confront what's actually wrong with a work. Yet as I subjected myself to around six hours of Ange Vierge, it's the most apt phrase I can think of to describe the entire project. It's an actioner created from a card game built around generic worlds that focus on one thing, creating characters with similar dimensions. The villains bent on ending the world don't even have the basic presence to BE the villains of the series (You'll see what I mean). The selling point is half of this show takes place in baths while typical anime girls blandly discuss the plot completely naked with dozens of light flares covering up things I didn't even want to see in the first place. The storyline is set up to where I know exactly what's going to happen and exactly when it's going to happen. This is an anime where the only thing you can do is sit and wait for it to be over.

The good news is portals have opened for four different planets other than Earth filled with vampires, angels, androids, and... uh, more military. The bad news is the worlds are being pulled to each other and if they get too close, all worlds will be destroyed. Thankfully, there are females with Exceed powers called Progress from all worlds who come together and expend their energy, which causes the worlds to stop moving towards each other because it just does and any other inquiries will be met with the middle finger. Their enemies are the Ouroboros, mysterious beings seemingly made of novelty flooring who come from... um, wherever, and want to destroy all existence because... reasons. Our main characters are the UC Progress girls, a mediocre bunch struggling to compete with their superiors for which they blame their alpha driver Amane, who is responsible for multiplying their power levels in exchange for feeling their pain in battle. In a twist, their superiors are caught in a diversion while the Ouroboros tunnel under their base and capture their alpha drivers, reversing their energy and turning them evil... except for the UC group as their relationship with their a-driver was far too weak to affect them. So they must take on their senpais extremely under powered and running out of time. Or they would be running out of time if the villains didn't just sit in their own individual bathhouses until they could be bothered to try to end the world. They want to make a game of it first because if your goal is ending the world and you've completely turned your rivals into puppets, that matters to the Ouroboros. Or does it? Who the hell knows. When their plans slowly fail one after another, it goes to that old chestnut of garbage writing that their constant failures were all part of the plan even though it clearly wasn't.

What results is a crushingly repetitive structure where one of the girls flashes back to first meeting Amane and they become best friends (Almost to the point of making one wonder how in the world they took her for granted in the first place). Then there's a crisis on each individuals' planet where their evil counterpart is threatening to destroy the world crystal (Which would essentially end the world), and they have to overcome an extremely minor character arc to rise above it all. The vampire Alma ,for example, must overcome her aversion to drinking blood. After that gets accomplished, there's this odd breather where suddenly main character Saya is the love interest of each of her teammates while at the same time they're all crushing on Amane while at the same time, most of them have some kind of attachment to their senpais. Of course, they're all naked for many of these moments. I'm not against polyamory. but that is BUSY. The cast mostly is made up of two traits, maybe one extra if they're feeling generous. The lead Saya received her powers and thought she was special until she realized so many others have similar or more powerful abilities, so now she has to fight to make herself truly special. That's 90% of her makeup and she's the main character. Oh, and this series seems to take a dim view of individuality in its subtext. For instance, one of the antagonists is Ramiel, a one-winged angel (No no, not Sephiroth). The dark side gives her the extra wing to fly, and this series seems to look down upon her being able to fly by herself, as well as anyone else who tries to do anything by themselves. Hell, the character who turns out to be the ultimate badass and can take care of everything alone turns out to be the ultimate villain.

I found the exact point where the script gives up. Nya, a Progress from the military planet, must defeat someone she thought she'd abandoned in a rescue operation while at the same time, saving her friends from a hostage situation. Her battle winds up creating a shockwave that is powerful enough to travel to through space all the way to Earth and knocks over the captors and ONLY the captors (Who are, by the way, pointless comedic time filler sister soldiers, and the punchline is the younger one wants incest all the time. Hilarious?). I don't think that was Nya doing that. I think that was the force from the writer yelling, "FUCK IT!" as loud as possible.

As a person who has been assigned to sit through this and Luck and Logic, which is the worst lazy anime based on a card game? To be honest, I haven't the foggiest. Most of Luck and Logic has already faded from my mind and I expect Ange Vierge to follow a similar path. It's cheap, dull, and its attempts at pandering is censored quantity over quality. Good things? I'm surprised a series such as this could get such a peppy orchestral score, but hey, so did dreck like Vividred Operation. Plus, I can't say I was completely unmoved by one point in the ending episode. That's about it, though. You've likely skipped it from what I can tell. Your instincts were not wrong.

Final Score: 3/10

Cheer Boys!!
Jonathan Kaharl

While Cheer Boys is definitely the weakest show I finished this season, it was a pretty enjoyable time. But seriously, coming out the same year as a new Love Live series was such incomprehensibly bad timing. The all guys cheerleading dramedy shares so many similar themes and ideas on character archetype use that it's impossible not to compare them on some level. But to Cheer Boys credit, it does eventually steer in a different and effective direction.

The series is ultimately about all of these characters completing an arc of growth, some overcoming simple character flaws, and others dealing with serious trauma. The last episode does a really great job of giving everyone a moment, even if it's not entirely earned for every character. There are seriously so many guys on this show that I tended to lose track from time to time, but damn if they didn't give everyone some sort of time to build their arc. Only the Chinese guy gets the short end of the stick, but he also gets arguably the best pay-off. The major focus remains on our main trio of the awkward Haru, the outgoing Kazu, and the former pro Sho.

What I was surprised by here is that the show seems like it was about to dip into heavy melodrama at almost every moment, but the solution to the problem managed to undercut the supposed heaviness in a meaningful way. Haru becomes distant from his sister, and it's portrayed like some sort of grudge for quitting the judo team, but it's really that she's scared that her brother is going to forget about her. The arc is ultimately resolved just by Haru cheering his sister on during a match. Sho's arc also seems really heavy, and his trauma is understandable, but it mainly happens because he misunderstood what his upperclassman was telling him. A large majority of the conflicts in the show come from people failing to understand what someone is trying to say, and just talking about those issues or their hang ups with others helps them find the answer. It doesn't negate their feelings, but it does point out how silly all this melodrama in the genre tends to be and solves them in the most logical and fitting way possible. Kazu is the only outlier, with his arc being as cheesy as a Cracker Barrel, but it's not terribly distracting.

The story also doesn't revolve around the usual underdogs beat the champions story, as the rival team has no real animosity towards them. The show does misdirect you, but it slowly becomes clear most everything that team leader does is to try and teach Sho something important. This is a cheerleading show, after all, so going with learning to be a better, kinder, and more happy person just works better than being the best. The show tries to say that your goal is to learn from your mistakes and overcome your shortcomings, and it does that great.

But while that's all fine and good, the series is a bit hard to sit through at times. Those melodrama scenes are still tiring, and it takes a good while to get to the payoff. The humor on display also feels incomplete, especially with the late joining members. They're all very simple archetypes that get only minor development, outside one or two here and there. The gangster guy turned out to be my favorite, with a very well handle subtle arc, but then you have the usual tossers like "the funny guy who's not funny" (he said broccoli and has an afro, that's the joke) and "the shota." And yes, the shota did ballet. They never really grow out of those archetypes and become particularly engaging characters, just one note jokes that have a twist in their story here and there (two guys are trying to get into sales and law, for example).

Add in the hard to miss production troubles (yes I have seen that flip at least twelve times now thank you for showing it again), and Cheer Boys is a bit hard to give glowing praise. But I think there's something charming about this show and what it wants to say, and it does have a good few entertaining bits. It's a gem, though covered in some grime.

Final Score: 6/10

DAYS
Megan "Queenira" Z


Handa-kun
Andrew Lepselter

My feelings for this series have been continuously conflicted. It felt like an internal conflict and turmoil to me. A semi-decent comedy show that kind of rubs me the wrong way due to its current franchise placement. However, even then it feels like this show kind of does whatever the hell it wants to whether it makes sense or not. It's a harmless show in a way, but I just couldn't get invested into it. The one joke it played of complete and total misunderstanding is always one of my least favorite comedy tropes and the show itself played that as it's biggest story line.

I did not hate this show. By all means I could see reasons why you would love this show. It's goofy, zany, colorful enough and sometimes the jokes hit well. It's just I felt like even then a lot of the comedic timing for this series felt rather off. Like even a lot of the misunderstandings seem kind of shoe horned in.

To me the biggest problem with Handa-kun is this: no matter what happens, because it's a prequel, you know Handa can't and won't grow or change. And that's the big thing going against it. You can do so many little wacky side adventures with classmates and the friends he makes, but in the end, you know he can't and won't grow as a character or a person until Barakamon happens. He can't learn lessons because he's not supposed to learn them then. I could overlook this flaw of the story going nowhere if I think the jokes are strong enough or I like the characters enough (Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun is a good example of this) but neither element seems really strong enough to sell the show on these things without being annoyed by Handa's pre-growth.

As a separate thing, it's pretty decent. As a prequel to Barakamon, it's really strange and kind of dumb. I'm still surprised they were both by the same mangaka, Satsuki Yoshino. I guess she just wanted a change of pace maybe but I just never felt it worked, or even made sense to be in the same world. I'd say you should at least check out Handa-kun, far or not, to make your own opinion, cause I still feel my thoughts, perhaps, are a bit too unfair to the series not being Barakamon.

Final Score: 4/10

Hitorinoshita – The Outcast
Thom "Tama" Langley


Love Live! Sunshine!!
Jonathan Kaharl

I'm honestly not sure what to add here.

Love Live Sunshine is breaking records right now, so I think the majority of you already know it's good. And yes, I do plan to write a few articles more on it soon. I've seen great pieces that explain how the series uses camp, I've seen people point out how openly queer the franchise is becoming, and I have even seen many praising it as better than the original series. And from what I've seen of the original series, I can agree on that. So what else do you possibly say about this show?

Not much really. But imma try! Love Live has a really simple formula that it runs with hard. Nine girls have dreams that relate to being idols, they go accomplish that dream, then deal with the fallout after. What makes the franchise stand out so much is that it plays it up in every way imaginable, from overblown drama to ridiculous comedy bits (that's practically why Yohane even exists). It does all this really well, even if the actual plots and stories are very simplistic. Everything is framed and centered around the main cast, who all have lively personalities that clash and grow. It's just fun to be in this world and watch these wacky girls be who they are and achieve something.

The series sells sincerity so well that it can make even the most overblown moments very effective. That show in episode three is an absolutely perfect example, helped heavily by the incredible voice work. The soaring music, colorful art direction and lively animation all create the perfect atmosphere. On top of that, as silly as the girls are, they all have familiar issues to deal with, like struggling with something you were once good at, or trying to be more like what society wants than what you really are. Yohane is actually more than a silly gag character, her almost split-personality cosplaying is a joke, but also an important part of who she is. We even see her dive into that personality to give herself confidence. Every little message Sunshine sends out is a positive one, and even fixes a few problems from the old show, especially with Kanan and Mari.

But Sunshine adds another layer. Because this is a new series riding off the coat tails of one of the most popular anime in the last decade, its entire premise is meta as all get out. Aquors initially forms because Chika saw U's play once, and she tries to be as much like them as possible. But as the series goes on, the characters start to question what their group is in relation to U's, whom they barely know anything about on a personal level. Their journey is also a different one, as this season ends with them still trying to keep the school open, when U's already saved theirs by this point. Their journey is one focused on the frustration of being so unaware of themselves that they can't function properly as an idol group, explained perfectly with their eventual shared goal of "turn the zero into a one." This show so perfectly captures the frustration of failing at something you love, knowing that so many others have succeeded where you failed, and then it becomes inspirational by having them charge ahead anyways. They're absolutely crushed at times, but they keep going to prove something to themselves, not to the world.

I think Love Live Sunshine is going to be something special once it finishes. I cannot possibly recommend it enough.

Also You is the best girl.

Final Score: 9/10

Mob Psycho 100
David O'Neil

Right out of the gate Mob Psycho 100 was a series that managed to exceed the high expectations I had set for it. In the lead up to its release it'd garnered unavoidable comparison to the widely popular action comedy series One Punch Man, being from the same original mangaka, having similar looking characters, and even a vaguely similar premise. Despite this, as far as I'm concerned the first few episodes of Mob Psycho 100 were on a whole different level from One Punch Man in terms of characterization and delivering meaningful themes, and while there were some bumps along the way, as a whole the show continued to accomplish this throughout.

The first six episodes of Mob Psycho 100 are probably some of the most consistently excellent anime storytelling of the year so far. The first episode was mostly fun, visually inventive set up, but beyond that nearly every episode managed to expand on Mob as a character and the sorts of conflicts he was dealing with in a fascinating, thoroughly engaging fashion. We explore his motivations, his fears, his ideals, his self loathing, his isolation, but constantly in a new and interesting way. From the cult arc, in which a crazy possessed cult leader tries to push Mob with a villainous amalgamation of social pressures, to an arc focusing on him facing a rival who represents the exact opposite of everything Mob's been taught in terms of using his powers, it manages to stay both exciting and thematically interesting without missing a beat. Unfortunately, the second half of the show is a bit more hit or miss. Episode seven and eight are certainly steps down from the strong first half of the series, but still have a lot of intriguing subtext regarding Mob and his relationship with his brother. Episodes nine and ten however are by far the low point of the series, as it shifts to focus on an arc where Mob's brother and the young psychics he'd been training with are kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as "Claw". I wouldn't call it explicitly bad, it's still generally fun, but it moves at a really unnecessarily sluggish pace and lacks any of the emotional stakes that made the early arcs so great. It's just a bunch of generic shonen fights against nobody villains who are popping out from around every corner, with no real meaning or purpose behind it.

Now, in a way the show actually does address that in climax, in which the show makes a comeback and pulls off two excellent episodes. The senseless shonen fighting leads directly into Reigen (arguably the best new anime character of the year) returning, and taking apart the battle royale they've gotten themselves into. What results is a pretty damn effective subversion of battle shonen conventions, as Mob struggles with the responsibility of basically being the Goku of the situation, as the entire cast begs him to just let loose his immense power and end the fight, and Reigen tries to gain control of the situation with his wit and expose the villains for the pompous, spoiled brats they truly are. Now, with that said, the same effect could likely have been accomplished without the show devolving into two episodes of bland slog, but it was a relief to see the show hadn't lost sight of its strongest aspects. And all that isn't even going into the show's excellent animation, which constantly experimented with different techniques and vibrant styles, and great soundtrack. Overall, Mob Psycho 100 stumbled along the way to its conclusion, but when it was at its strongest, managed to near perfectly balance character drama, comedy, and action into a single, cohesive whole that was a blast to watch.

Final Score: 8/10

momokuri
Thom "Tama" Langley

After 24 mini-episodes of  MomoKuri,what can honestly be said about it? It's...alright. Here's the big issue; it's a slice of life romance series in which two adorkable innocents really have their first brush with romance, fall in love, do cute romantic things with each other in a faltering, cute way, whilst their friends do cute stuff int the background. It's cutely paced, cutely packaged (I found out recently this is essentially a re-reun of a show originally broadcast online, with two 12 minute webisodes re-broadcast as a 24 minute tv episode), cutely animated and cute to watch. And that, after a while...honestly gets a little boring. There's nothing wrong persay about it, nothing offensive, nor does it ever get that boring to watch in of itself, but it really shows that this show is intended for more bitesized watching-like all sweets, gorging yourself on them all at once ends up with you hating sweets for ages and probably throwing up.

There is one very simple reason that MomoKuri ends up as "alright" rather than good or excellent: it's repetitive as all heck, and nothing ever truly feels important or major. Momo and Kuri certainly have moments of uncertainity, but like many slice of life series it simply either gets swept under the carpet or overly quickly resolved by the end of the episode (or half episode)-it's also sadly rather predictable-love rival turns out to be friend, girl thinks boy is cute and overcompensates for event XYZ. I'm not deriding MomoKuri for being cute and sorta fluffy as a series but it's as though nothing really ever causes an arguemebt between the two of them. Towards the end of the series, I was almost hoping for a sudden and unexpected turn into slightly darker territory-(Kuri having a picture that Momo really dislikes, whatever)-just to have this series actually do something and stick with it. Sure, life is full of little moments that build atop each other but MomoKuri, if it is building towards something, is starting so small that the pyramids will seem a weekend job compared to it.

Finally, there's just a sense with this show that, despite its rather novel "Older possessive girl and younger cute boy" set up, it eventually just becomes another romance show, in which a girl and boy try their best to be a loving couple despite their shyness and initial formality with each other. If you adore slow burn, slightly awkward, slightly role-reversey, very cute anime, where over time, two people learn to live with one another and love one another, then this is a perfect series for you. For everyone else...it's not awful, has some truly funy moments from time to time and the shorter episodes make it less of a time vampire. Plus, it is very very, almost painfully cute. Now, if you'll excuse me, i need to go eat a bag of Skittles.

Final Score: 7/10

NEW GAME!
Joe Straatmann

If you thought Shirobako needed to make its yuri-baiting between the girls more overtly lesbian-ey, Doga Kobo has a New Game for you. It's still just subtext, but if you watch the opening and closing animations, their intentions are far more obvious. One would think it would be distracting from the angle of getting a decent behind-the-scenes look at video games, but all the pieces have a snug fit. If you're not focused on a certain other series about girls getting into an otaku industry that covers its topic with a much more encompassing brush, New Game! works rather well on its own terms.

To put it simply, New Game is charming. Gaming company Eaglejump is filled with the quirkiest of women trying to put together the latest of their famous fantasy franchise with high school graduate with Aoba as their new staff member (Something Japanese gaming companies actually do. They like blank slates who can learn how to do things their way). Aoba slowly learns the ropes with the help of her painfully shy co-worker Hifumi, department director Ko who practically lives at the office most days down to comfortably sleeping in her panties there, programmer and military otaku Umiko, and many more. They have dyads where one co-worker has an especially close relationship with another, like Ko and art director Rin who are a Yin and Yang of organization and personal presentation. Most of the staff also have their special moments with Aoba as she has to learn how her work connects with everyone else. It's tantamount to keeping shippers happy, but they find the balance of allowing the women to live out their lives while keeping the subtext there without being distracting. The show knows enough about game design to keep a confident hand over matters, but the game creation itself and the plots that deal with the potentially rockier issues are rather surface level and tame. Episode titles such as "Like.. the Release is Cancelled?" only deal with theoretical situation and not anything that comes to pass. It's not even much of a spoiler to say the staff achieves their ultimate goal, the show is that chill.

The experience is best described as spending free time with co-workers you really get along with. I've worked with a variety other employees, and some write message to the staff  in the bathroom with their own shit as the pen (True story). On the other end, you have these lovable women who would be fun to see outside of work for a drink or go karts or something. They make the soul-crushing concept of working nights and weekends almost sound appealing rather than grueling. What I like most is their layers of nerdery. These are not just attempts to relate to the target audience, but individuals who are on their own journeys through their own geeky hobbies. There are the younger ones who have an intense energy for their fandom and have to collect everything within their interests (Motion capturing employee Hajime plan her paycheck around what figures she can get). There are the in-betweeners who have to learn how to adult, but keep some semblance of their hobbies on their sleeves. Then there's the full adults who have it all cleaned up, but still have a certain gleam their eye. The episode with a subplot involving a "kids'" movie all the staff happen to have seen and how they react and talk about it is a wonderful example of just how well tailored these characters are as individuals.

Rounding out the experience is Doga Kobo's most consistent work I've seen. The animation and coloring have a quiet confidence in their craftsmanship that won't win awards, but makes it easy to disappear into Eaglejump's world for 25 minutes. There are occasional wanderings to plot cul du sacs for a quick couple of laughs, but the scripts are mostly tight affairs, keeping on task while allowing plenty of wiggle room for the characters to develop and be themselves. It's the quiet anime girl with glasses and pigtails. Maybe she's not the flashiest or the wittiest, but she's somebody's waifu.

Final Score: 8/10

orange
Jonathan Kaharl

Well, this show made me cry. Really all you need to know. Orange went on a rocky journey, especially with some particularly hideous episodes where the animation took a nosedive harder than Trump's poll numbers (TIMING!). But in the end, it worked. Orange ended up becoming a beautiful story about nostalgia, regrets, and human relationships, and while it's very unrealistic in most every respect, it tugs at the heartstrings in the right ways.

The cast is what makes it work so well. These kids are insanely likable and feel very human, even if they're obviously playing with old character tropes. Orange gets away with it through this sense of nostalgia it creates, crafting a tale that heavily relies on looking back through the letter premise. Naho gets a letter from the future that tells how to make things better, and she tries to use it, pondering on what her future self is feeling in looking back. We get to see that ourselves, as the show keeps cutting back to the grown versions of the kids and we learn more about the emotions they felt during their school days. We see the fully grown versions, and the story with the kids plays out like we're partly seeing it through a lens of longing.

That trick really sells the drama, which could have so easily been a heavy handed disappointment like Erased (it was good, mind you, just not great). Kakeru's problems constantly border on being understandable and a bit far-fetched for drama, yet the show makes it work by letting us spend a lot of time with him and the rest of the gang. You see these people at their happiest and get an idea of what makes them tick and what they value. So when the problems arise, you want to see them get through it. This goes especially for Suwa, who has the most perfect possible end to his character arc in both past and future. Despite a lot of unnecessary fudging to make a ticking clock element with Kakeru's guilt complex (the climax arrives via a very awkward dramatic turn where he finds something I'm surprised he hasn't seen before), the foundation is really strong. What he ultimately feels is realistic in many ways, and the show captures his depression incredibly well. His smile is always hiding an obvious sadness that's not so obvious at first, and it uses that well for a little kick in the teeth.

All my nags that keep this from a ten are unfortunately all impossible to miss on viewing. This show LOVES playing up dramatic conveniences. Suwa accidentally admitting he's in love with Naho softly to Kakeru, the bully girl sabotaging Naho's possible relationship, Naho getting the wrong ideas from the letter for the millionth time and making things worse, and of course the constant looming threat of Kakeru getting clinically triggered over the most mundane events. Almost none of these things add anything to the show in the long run, besides creating some short lived tension that becomes obnoxious within seconds because of how horribly forced it is. Seriously, do not even get me started on that bully character.

But despite that and the aforementioned quality drop (definitely wait for the blu-rays), Orange sticks the landing. Everything it builds up leads to an emotional wallop that works despite its cheap narrative tricks and one deus ex machina that I'm surprised didn't happen sooner. The past and future story lines wrap up on pitch perfect notes, leaving a truly hopeful, melancholy feeling. Any show that gets tears out of me always deserves a nod, but Orange just captures something truly powerful. Really, the show is just a what if a few friends are having about how their lives could have gone differently, but it sells that what if scenario so hard that it leaves you more than you began. Where Erased became dragged down by the poorly handled thriller elements, Orange picks one direction and does it the best it can.

Final Score: 9/10

Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars
Andrew Lepselter

Series smashed into production problems, review left unfinished - Jonathan

ReLIFE
Joe Straatmann

This is one of those good series where it feels like I'm disproportionately harsh. For the most part, it is a solid yarn about a twenty-something who gets to relive his high school years for better or worse with some touching and smart moments that allow teenagers to fully unleash the illogical side of themselves alongside an adult with the slightly wiser experience of someone from the "real world.". So it's with some disappointment that it feels like there's a safety net under the dramatics at all times. Arata Kaizaki, a 27-year-old unemployed sad sack who is given a pill that allows him to revisit high school to help fix what's wrong with his life, never feels like he's in any danger. He's surprisingly a reasonably adjusted human being already who simply ran into an extremely unfortunate first job that firebombed his prospects. Certainly an ideal subject for a second chance, but not rehabilitation.

The concept begins to feel like it's backing off the farther it is along. As anime tends to do when dealing with an awkward situation of an older person with potential love interests that are significantly younger, it provides a back door when love interests begin to get more serious. It starts when Arata's classmate An, who seems like a good match with her slacker ways, is revealed to be a handler-in-training for future ReLIFErs. So she's not really ten years younger than him, and it's the start of a long line of tension diffusing moments. Arata's handler Ryo is strongly suggested to have issues with his failed first project that he hides being an overly wide smile. This goes nowhere. I'm not going to spoil the final twist, but it's a real head scratcher that provides another out to the main character being a creeper placed on top of one of those endings that's REALLY hoping for a second season to pick up the slack.

Again, this is a good series. I simply wanted it to take off into something special and it doesn't get there. At its core, there are cutting and sad moments stripping away the layers of what makes high school life so difficult and complicated, the worst of it reflected in Arata's adult years where the bullying that was supposed disappear only became organized and corporate with his co-worker being forced to suicide. The center character for most of the drama is Rena, a competitive student who finds herself struggling to keep at the top of her class in academics and volleyball. Her journey to accepting where she is in the world and not seeing the rest of her class and friends as secretly enjoying her failure is really well written. The colorful look and playful tone of most of the rest keeps it from being too depressing while at the time, serving as a contrast to the sadder moments.

Overall, though, it's a fun rerun through high school days that looks at through wise enough eyes to see that's neither the best times or the worst times of our lives. The main cast has a free and fun chemistry with each other even if some of the broader comedy falls flat (Arata constantly failing exams is probably spot-in for an adult going back to full-on high school, but after awhile, it comes off like he's an idiot, which he's not). The animation can be surprisingly good to the point where Haikyuu!! is given a run for its money on volleyball scenes from a show where volleyball isn't even a focus! The all-keys soundtrack is occasionally distracting, but an overall worthwhile addition. It didn't get much heat from the week-to-week viewers as it was released all at once from the beginning of the series, but it's certainly worth a look even if it's not all it can be.

Final Score: 7/10

Rewrite
Joe Straatmann

Where do we begin and where do we end with this incoherent garbage? I think what's essential to this entire experience is that it never really seems to have an interest in itself, forget trying to sell itself to others. I may not been big on director Tensho's Fruit of Grisaia, but it had a certain charm and even as a harem between extremely bonkers people, it liked its characters and they had decent chemistry with each other. The overarching plots were either really stupid or horribly botched, but the percentage between the characters hanging out with each other and doing big plot things was about 80/20. Every single weakness of Tensho's completely unconvincing macro storytelling is in play here while his strengths are wrapped under the boat anchor of some of the worst Key visual novel adaptation melodrama I have ever seen, and if you know their track record, that's saying something. There's a battle about environmentalism that has absolutely nothing to say about anything except one side thinks the environment would be a whole lot better if humans were all dead, and really, the only person who has the money and resources to push this opinion is an ancient, grouchy lady who has no happy memories yet still feels the need to forcefully implant them into her descendants. This gross simplification of the show leaves a hero who can basically make himself do anything the plot requires, nonsensical two-pronged special abilities among the harem girls, gigantic mutant dinosaur creatures, three guys who can summon beast portals at will, double-agent fairies, and countless other curiosities. The tidbit that most explains how much it all matters is lead Kotarou's ultimate goal of saving humanity and rescuing the assumed main interest Akane so he can potentially collect on the bet of allowing him to grope her. And that entire running joke is painfully stretched out to absolutely no payoff because their selling point was an ending that wasn't featured in the game regardless of how well it fit with the narrative. Yep.

I've already explained the bizarre and poorly conceived first episode way back at the start of the season. While the story and the goals of its various oddities ultimately becomes clearer, what exactly this show wants to be never comes into focus. The expository section plays out as typical Key harem mixing goofy antics with sudden left turns into tragedy, but it eventually abandons that course after a couple stabs at it. What follows is the harem is organized into an occult club that tries to find proof of the supernatural. Then they find a case that gets too close to the truth and most of the girls reveal themselves as either members of Gaia, a secret group out to save the Earth by annihilating humanity, and Guardian, who really doesn't want that to happen. Strange that they don't want to drag Kotarou and the innocents into their struggle, but occult club president Akane is one of the main figureheads of Gaia, has all the power in the world to delete or just not show the club the forum posts that lead to their doorstep, and just doesn't do it. Oh, and we haven't even reached the Key! Yes, in a Key adaptation, one of the essential characters to the story is called the Key. She appears as a ghost-like figure only Kotarou can see (Until the writers decide everyone can see her), and she visits his bedroom every night to bite him. This part is never properly explained, by the way. She also likes cheap coffee (Especially Key brand coffee! These guys are more into branding than Spaceballs).

I'm trying to assemble four different jigsaw puzzles just to explain this one anime, and that's really the major sticking point. Being subversive takes real skill, and if you don't have that, you have to know who your audience is, what you're trying to convey, and how you're trying to convey it. The fan service and bonding time with the girls is too insignificant and roundabout to make this work as any kind of harem. The tragic melodrama is either too telegraphed, too out of left field, or simply too contrived. The loli-bodied Shizuru can heal people, but she can also make people forget about her. How are either of these abilities connected? In Charlotte, the shortcomings of the super powers usually had some logical connection to the powers themselves, but here, it's nonsense pairings. Rewrite tries to blossom into an action series, and like Fruit of Grisaia when it tries to be some kind of Bee Train conspiracy mumbo jumbo showdown, it fails. Mainly with Gonzo-level astoundingly bad CG monsters in a series with otherwise passable technical aspects.

Speaking of Gonzo, Rewrite picks perhaps one of the worst pieces to rip off in the mediocre film Origin: Spirits of the Past. Kotarou has this ability to conveniently rewrite himself to get out of whatever bad situation he happens to be in. This turns out to be power borrowed from the earth that slowly is turning him into a plant. You know, there was a reason the popularity of plant-based superheroes didn't skyrocket after Origin, and this anime ignores all that. This revelation occurs far too late and is not properly examined enough to make any kind of emotional impact, much like most of the final few episodes. Oh, we want to give that sadomasochistic beastman and his friends some definition. How about we wait until AFTER they die? Kotarou's childhood friend Kotori has a shocking secret involving her parents? Let's give her parents about one scene previously and have them completely lost in the narrative shuffle. Even the climax with potentially apocalyptic consequences is so rushed and skips some scenes that were obviously meant to be there, that the possible end of the world doesn't matter. If this doesn't clue you in to what a waste of time Rewrite is, I don't know what will.

Final Score: 4/10

SERVAMP
Megan "Queenira" Z



sweetness & lightning
Megan "Queenira" Z


Taboo-Tattoo
Andrew Lepselter

I feel like I knew this show wasn't great from the start. I kind of knew that all this time, but I think it actually went even further beyond from being a not great show, to an actual honest to god messy piece of mutilated trash the likes of which almost offends me. This is a series that starts on mediocre at its absolute best, and descends into the likes of atrocious, terribad, offensive trash the likes of which I haven't seen in a long, long time.

Taboo Tattoo, to briefly describe it, is everything a blooming adolescent kid could ever want from a show. Insert protagonist, super cool powers and abilities, a secret world unbeknownst to the average person, some crazy antics and cool characters, and dynamic action and increasing stakes. Before I started watching this show, my reference points to anime of this type were Sword Art Online, and Akame ga Kill. I assumed that those shows were the bottom of the barrel when it comes to trashy, "mature edge" shows that in their attempts to go so far to be hardcore and mature, they come off as laughably immature.

I now have to apologize to both shows. SAO's source material is enraging, but at least the anime is directed by a competent enough director to make the action scenes look appealing and even hype at times. Akame ga Kill's hardcore, inconsistent mood whiplashing edgy schlock too, but the character designs are plenty appealing, I did find myself enjoying some of the characters and the OST is pretty strong and the color palette, while off at times, is certainly appealing to the eye.

Taboo Tattoo has the problems of both, without any of the positives of either. It's a fucking trainwreck.

It's been so long since I've been so baffled by a show in almost every regard. Nothing seems to be right about this. The characters are unappealing, the designs are hard to look at, the action while sometimes dynamic is jarring, the comedy's fucking light novel juvenille schlock, full of some of the most jarring and honest to god grossly distasteful fanservice scenes I've seen in a long ass time. Characters are so poorly developed, given some dumb traits and one-note things about them that were so unappealing and dumb. At around Episode 8, the show does a big game changer scenario that felt like one of the more forced and baffling things I had ever seen, and the entirety of Episode 8 by itself could probably be a 1/10 on it's own and a perfect 10/10 in terms of sheer vile edgelord trash. The tone is jarring, the humor's distasteful, the action isn't all that great, the show aesthetically is unpleasant and looks vile, I didn't like any of the characters, and the show wanted to be so many things all at once that in the end it came out as a jarring nothingness to set itself apart from any other shows of it's type.

If you want cool characters, cool edgelord type self insert stories, attractive character designs, with cool magic powers, solid action, actually interesting or appealing fanservice scenes, good music and overall more interesting, less confusing and overall better products, there's about a couple hundred different places to look. The things I did take away from Taboo Tattoo is that it almost became hilarious how I could take certain screencaps or quotes out of context and find use to them in internet forums or Twitter conversation. Outside of that, this show's got nothing to offer, and is a vile, offensive, infuriating, and trashy piece of shit.

Final Score: 2/10

Tales of Zestiria the X
Joe Straatmann

I'm sure one of these days, we'll get a passion project by the hard working folks at ufotable. For now, they have an adaptation of a Tales game that isn't bad at all, and that's a bigger compliment than it sounds coming from someone who rarely plays the franchise for the story and also was one of the handful of people who watched all of their infamously messy adaptation of God Eater. It's perhaps more straightforward and less artistically ambitious than their previous project, but it's not like the random implementation of slow motion and acid cuts actually added much to God Eater. Tales of Zestiria the X is a force driven by some mind-blowingly beautiful imagery and detail work, but it also understands what works about the Tales games' stories and characters and what holds them back, mainly the bland leading men who eat up hours with their vacant expression as they drift in and out of conversations with their far more engaging supporting cast.

I was surprised to find people critical of the prologue episode. Yes, it's a little murky as to what exactly is going on, but they open the door to making Princess Alisha essentially the second lead and that's probably the best move to make. Sorey isn't quite as much of a complete bore as his character design mixed with his Jesus-mixed-with-King-Arthur character arc would indicate, but the more the focus isn't 100% on the main character of these Tales stories, the better. Plus, Princess Alisha is a part of the royal family that leads her own investigations into the woes of her countries, personally tends to plague victims, and refuses to be a tool of her royal council trying to push war onto an already suffering nation. She's pretty damn awesome and deserving of a co-lead status, so ufotable does it and good for them.

Eventually, Sorey and the massive amounts of mythological references that blends into Zestiria's plot comes along, and it works well enough. Sorey is an exceptionally innocent lad who is raised among seraphim, the protectors of the land who have become invisible as mankind has fought among themselves and created massive amounts of malevolence, a negative energy force that turns living being into Hellions and creates a whole mess of problems like tornadoes and illness. Sorey is able to draw the sword of Ladylake, which happens to be not so much the sword but a powerful seraphim who lends Sorey her abilities if he becomes the Shepard. a hero of legend who clears the malevolence of the land by taking it within himself. So lots of gobbledygook that approaches conventional from all sides, but it more or less works, especially when Sorey is opened to just what absorbing malevolence means for him. How much he has to absorb the nasty of humanity, especially if Alisha's country goes to war, has  bit of impact to it. Sorey thankfully gets a cast to play off of most of the time, including his seraphim bro Mikleo, who is a much cooler customer, and not just because he's a water elemental.

The star of the show is definitely the visuals. Yes, their 3D aspects still need a bit of work, especially the dragons, but I've seen Chaos Dragon. It could be many times worse. They can recreate every kind of rain from when Forrest Gump was in Vietnam, and it look surprisingly real as slides down a window pane. Clouds are painstakingly recreated to provide the perfect backdrop. Rivers shimmer gorgeously, town roads have characteristic gunk between the stones, and carpets seem extremely comfortable to walk on. It's like those super-realistic movies like Captain Harlock or Appleseed without the side effect of being dull and overly self-serious.

But say you've already played Tales of Zestiria or you really don't want to go through another one with a generic plot. There are two episodes that offer a preview to Tales of  Berseria, the one coming out soon in the U.S. I've sat through enough of these Tales games to know this one feels different. While time will tell if the final product plays out as something special, at least the concept seems like a refreshing departure. The main character is Velvet Crowe (I know, this series loves stupid names), an anti-hero who was dropped into a deep maze to kill daemons by the leader of a priesthood, and finds her way out of it with designs to slaughter the entire "benevolent" organization behind her imprisonment. The writing relies too much of awkward tossing in of proper nouns in conversations between people who know each other far too well to need it, and it may be trying too hard with the grimdark angle, but it sounds like the radical shift a franchise too bent on status quo needs.

First Cour Score; 7/10

This Art Club Has A Problem!
David O'Neil

I've always had this sort of special place in my heart for the anime romcom, whether it be the workplace hijinks of Working, the shojo satire of Nozaki kun and Ouran, or the ever eccentric Chuunibyou, it's a fairly recent realization of mine that I have a sort of special place in my heart for this sort of comedy series. Even when they repeat tried and true running gags, even when they tease the actual romance for ages without any fruition, even with the constant misunderstandings, I just love the charm of watching cute dorks being cute. And This Art Club Has a Problem fit the bill for this sort of entertainment perfectly.

As I'd mentioned in previous parts of this seasonal coverage, I actually had read a good chunk of the manga this series was based on, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into. Despite this, a good manga never guarantees a good adaptation, but luckily studio Feel pulled off a plenty good one in this case. The series does start off a little iffy, not bad, it just has trouble getting the manga's brand of comedy down. It has almost a rhythm to it, with drawn out comedy gags that lead to climactic punchlines, and in the earlier episodes the comedic timing wasn't quite there. Luckily, as the show went on it almost felt as if they started to get into a groove, as the jokes slowly got funnier and funnier, the character interactions felt more natural, and the comedic pay off of the various gags reached some incredibly hilarious heights. Even jokes I vaguely remembered from the manga managed to make me laugh a second time in the later parts of the series, just due to excellent use of visual comedy and waiting until just the right moment to get to the payoff. They also get a lot better at handling the "romance" of the series, which essentially boils down to Usami's unrequited love or Uchimaki. Later on it finds a great balance between subversion of the audience's expectations, and actual moments of genuineness between the two, which makes for some really heartfelt moments.

It also helps that the show is a treat for the eyes. Studio Feel is always good at making shows look pretty in terms of visual style, and generally having strong visual comedy. In addition to that though, the show has various scenes handled by Ryo Araki, the animator behind some of the best looking scenes of Romantic Comedy SNAFU's second season. It's only on occasion, but whenever he's in charge it's almost like a completely different show, as characters move with realistic weight and subtle expressions and character acting. It would've been nice if the show could look like that more often, but the little moments of beauty are still nice. The show doesn't really do all that much special, or set itself apart from the romcom crowd, but it's a good entry in the genre that's well worth watching for fans of that sort of show. It takes a bit to find its footing, and has occasional moments of iffy ecchi humor, but the show's likable characters and strong sense of humor more than make up for it.

Final Score: 7/10

Time Travel Girl
Andrew Lepselter

This was a curious little production. Simple premise and low-budget execution with a shockingly open presentation of history, science, and even a surprising amount of entertainment. I assumed this would be pretty dull and boring in terms of what it was, but it's kind of been the most surprising thing to me. It's a historical science edutainment type show with some real anime-esque character archetypes and some conflict thrown into the story, but mostly it seems like the goal of this little series was to entertain and educate, and it did a much better job in both areas than I expected.

Main girl was charming enough in that she was dumb but not an idiot, which worked for her to learn things that should already be common knowledge in her era but not understand it so the show can explain it. Cast of characters was generic but harmless enough, and I kind of found myself surprisingly hyped out by her dad as this weird action time patrol fighter. Also anime inventor personas were surprisingly fun too, particular favorites of mine being Edison and Ben Franklin. This was a surprisingly decent show that I expected nothing from but was kind of surprised. You can probably show this on PBS without too many problems (save for some blood and the usual Japanese cultural things) but really, this wasn't so bad.

Final Score: 6/10

Shorts

Banayan
Andrew Lepselter

This one's relatively uncomplicated to talk about and always has been nice and simple. It's a cute, adorable little way to pass the time and give you enough cute potassium filled fun rounding about under an hour's worth of content. A nice little appetizer that's quite fun and charming. Baby Bananya and Long-Haired Bananya being nice, early contenders for the Best Bananya contest. I don't think I fully understand WHY this show exists, what it's for, or even if there is any real rhyme or reason to it, but I can safely say that this is a comfortable show, nice popcorn entertainment that will last you some mild cutesy pleasure, and you can watch it with kids as a nice senile Japanese man narrates the lives and antics of these strange, peculiar mascot creatures.

Final Score: 7/10

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
Joe Straatmann

They probably gave me the perfect choice for the first Shonen Jump animation for me to review. Not because the material appeals to me or because of its actual quality, but because it literally takes the one issue I have with most Shonen Jump and makes sure I can't complain about it. When I watch most Shonen Jump, I don't see characters and scripts, but formulas to sell to a mass audience. The trick with Saiki K. is it's a comedy literally about a self-aware genius psychic in a Shonen Jump anime trying to navigate his life through a handful of unaware archetypes that are purposely made to be as stock as possible. See, Joseph, the characters being completely cliche in a standard situation is the joke!

Them misadventures of Kasuo Saiki only made me laugh occasionally. There are characters whose insane methods of staying on their own trope rails never cease to amuse, like the kid who constantly believes he's the chosen one in an extremely convoluted action anime. More often than not though, everyone merely plays out their character type predictably within the four minutes. Also striking once again is Shonen Jump's greatest folly: The lack of brevity. Rabbits could take multiplying tips from Saiki K. as I can't even turn around without ten brand new episodes ready. Even at four minutes, the fact that there are over SIXTY episodes available in one season gives more than enough time for the material to wear thin. It's still all right and does make me laugh from time to time, but this is a parody where it avoids being smart most of the time and settles for making you feel smart for recognizing that it's a parody.

Rating after 64 episodes: 6/10

The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi
Thom "Tama" Langley

...Fuck this show. Summer tends to be a dumping ground for anything that didn't get finished in the equally lamentable winter slot, and goes on the general assumption that its audiences are usually outside or doing things other than watching anime. This show frankly doesn't even deserve to be aired, doesn't even deserve to be subbed, and frankly every single yen spent on this show is a yen wasted. It's an ugly unfunny stereotypical mess of a show that's entirely misjudged its audience aside from the 1Direction/5SOS/Castiel shippers that will doubtlessly not only see themselves in the ship-crazed no-homo-bro protagonist but take this as read that "OMG! Japan understands us." Japan doesn't understand you, you cretins.  Yet this show does for BL fans what the oft derided Big Bang Theory does for western Sci-fi and comic geeks-for all its unfunny jibes at the expense of awkward white men, once in a while it smashes the nail home like a jackhammer.  The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi is awful drek but it underpins the utter double-standards of being a BL fan, of the often creepy and cringeworthy way in which men are essentially thrown together in the sexual fantasies of otherwise homophobic people. This one glimmer of truth, however, does not redeem a slow, one-joke-overstaying-its-short-welcome, poorly animated, weak show. If I'm bored by three minutes of this, then this is a sign that a show sinply does not work. I would happily take this show outside, much as Young Master Coats does in Old Yeller, and put a bullet through the back of its head to put it out of its misery. Avoid at all costs.

Final Score: 1/10

Mahou Shoujo? Naria Girls
Jonathan Kaharl

Someone remade Who's Line is it Anyways with voice actors, animated it in Miku Miku Dance or some equivalent, and then threw in a super sad ending to a story that suddenly came into existence that dealt with sacrifice, family bonds, reincarnation, and endless tragic cycles.

This was the most baffling fucking show. Never before have I seen something so ...nothing. That includes JK Meshi. The voice actresses make a lot of terrible jokes and say random things with vague instructions, and nothing of interest actually happens on the screen. It's not funny, it's not anger inducing, and it's weirdly not boring? It's just nothing. This is the void in animated form. All reaction disappears into it.

Final Score: Physica/10

Ozmafia!!
Megan "Queenira" Z

Seriously. Fuck this anime. Of anything I watched this summer this is the one that wasted my time the most. This series is nothing but piss poor, at best, fan fodder for Ozmafia game fans. I honestly don’t have much to say. Nothing gets resolved, everything is a bishonen joke and literally nothing happens. I’ve honestly gotten more investment out of the side stories in my Love Live School Idol Festival account than I did this. At least this show has one little thing going for it…AT LEAST ITS NOT A FULL ON ANIME. Seriously go watch like an actual anime or better out spend them time actually trying to find Ozmafia and play it. Now let’s all hope we don’t get a fuckin Mystic Messenger anime.

Final Score: 1/10

Show by Rock!! Short!!
David O'Neil

(Warning: the following piece contains suggestive content and imagery. Reader discretion is strongly advised.)

Butts and breasts.

It’s no secret that anime has a really weird relationship with fan-service. Dating back as far as its origins, the medium has thrived on its abundance of fan-service heavy shows, even dedicating a term, sābisu katto (or "service cut"), to it. Fan-service has cropped up in genres like Boys Love, aka the genre most-frequently considered homoerotic, and Harem, but nowhere is this more apparent than the frequent shows about teenaged girls that pretend to have a overarching story as an excuse to show off T&A to horny men. Simply put: sex sells. Doubly so if you’re risky enough to include it, yet clever enough to work around the censors.

Which leads to my most-recent fascination, so to speak, with this oddity:

To be clear, I have nothing against fan-service as a concept. I believe the human body is sacred and beautiful, and pretending that people aren’t aroused by it is absurd. Fan-service can also be used in a fun and thought-provoking way when done correctly, especially if it’s attempting to comment on something about society. (If you want an example of that done well, look no further than the Studio BONES adaptation of Ouran High School Host Club.) However, a lot of the time the fan-service serves no real purpose other than bolster the male libido and paint women as pleasure objects for men, and the exceptions are so rare that Infinite Rainy Day has dedicated an entire series to sniffing them out via “Smut That Doesn’t Suck”.

Keijo!!!!!!!! looks to be, from the trailer, a show about teenaged girls competing in a game where they try knocking one-another off of a ring using their butts. It’s basically water polo-meets-sumo wrestling if the wrestlers were skinny, female and perverted. The premise doesn’t sound too bad on paper, it’s actually pretty creative when you stop and think about it, but the execution is a little bit troublesome. Why? Because so much attention is focused on the characters' rears and breasts that you’re left wondering if the show was only made with those aspects in mind; after all, why make soft-core porn if you’re better off with actual porn?

That was my initial reaction when seeing the trailer, I won’t lie. But then I watched it again, and something interesting stood out in my mind. It’s something you tend not to notice the first time around, for obvious reasons, but it’s worth mentioning anyway. It’s especially worth mentioning because of how rare it is in fan-service shows of this calibre, making it stand out even more: the characters’ breasts are realistically-proportioned. No jiggle physics, no “how does that work?” questioning with their sizes, none of that. Simply put, Keijo!!!!!!!! is actually somewhat sincere about its fan-service.

I recognize that that’s not a high bar, but it’s worth noting considering how many fan-service shows over-exaggerate their characters’ breasts for the sake of arousal. Far too often, a fan-service show tends to focus way too heavily on the same old nonsense: big, flabby breasts that jiggle-jiggle-jiggle. Big, flabby breasts that jiggle-jiggle-jiggle. Big, flabby breasts that jiggle-jiggle-jiggle. Oh, and big, flabby breasts that jiggle-jiggle-jiggle. The constant reuse of that same trope has become so obnoxious that I often joke how hard it is to differentiate between that and real pornography, especially with the Pavlovian response both receive from horny men.

So when fan-service doesn’t employ that tired trope? Well, that’s when my curiosity takes over and I become interested. Not “interested” in the “I legitimately care about what’s going on” kind of way, no. That’d require serious effort in the storytelling and character writing departments. Rather, I become interested in a more “let’s see what this does differently” kind of way, as the exaggeration is so normalized that anything grounded immediately ends up the exception. And Keijo!!!!!!!!, for all its purported shallowness, is grounded enough with its breast physics to be an exception.

This begs two questions: one, why does Keijo!!!!!!!! care to get its breast physics correct, yet not enough to get its storytelling together? It’d seem like not giving a damn about one would imply not giving a damn about the other, especially with a premise as ludicrous as butt polo. But, for whatever reason, someone in higher-ups that was responsible for this show’s production clearly cared, hence we got a fan-service series that had realistically-proportioned body parts. Or maybe the Manga was like that as well, I don’t claim to be an expert on anime.

And two, assuming someone cared about the characters’ bodies being realistic, why does the show reek of the gross kind of fan-service? Judging from the trailer, there’s plenty of emphasis on cleverly-censored nudity, copping feels and smacking underwear-wearing rears. This doesn’t cover the obvious butt-bashing in the tournaments either. I don’t see any focus on subversion of fan-service, all I see is plain old fan-service. And that disappoints me.

That said, does it really matter long-run? Probably not. Aside from being realistically-proportioned, I doubt the characters were written as anything other than masturbation fodder for horny nerds living in their mother’s basements. I can’t blame the staff either, as-like I said-sex sells. There’s a market for cheesecake shows of this calibre, and if it makes money…

Still, I wish there was a version of this kind of fan-service on-par with Ouran High School Host Club or Free! Iwatobi Swim Club intellectually, but I guess that I can’t have my cake and eat it too…

As I write this, the second season of Sound! Euphonium is airing, and I highly recommend you catch up with season one. It's one of the best anime I have seen in a decade, exploring the intense emotions that come from following your art or craft when society doesn't deem it as meaningful, but it has a massive flaw completely unrelated to the show itself. If you want to talk about Sound, just don't. You will be bombarded with some of the worst discourse imaginable. This is what brings the show to Otaku Queer, as the leads of the series, Kumiko and Reina, are definitely queer characters. They're also the subject to some of the nastiest arguing in the anime watching community in the west.

See, Kumiko and Reina are two girls in love with each other.

And they're bi.

If you don't tangle with the discourse often, welcome to Hell, I'll be your guide.

Before we jump into this, let me explain that this mess stems mainly from an anxiety caused by lesbian erasure in Japanese culture. There's this belief that lesbianism is just a phase of youth, that it's a way for girls to explore sexuality safely before becoming proper wives in adulthood. Even lesbian fiction reflected these ideals for a long time, filled with tragic endings for every single couple. I've explained this more in depth elsewhere, but the long and short is that the constant erasure of lesbian identity in a lot of Japanese genre fiction that makes its way into anime has caused queer circles to get a bit on edge whenever lesbian characters appear in a non-yuri work. It's justified too. Just look at Fire Emblem Fates, which included a plot line where you cure a woman of her queer sexuality via slipping her drugs. Incidentally, that was the last time I remember anyone mentioning a character could be bisexual, though the people saying it were trying to gaslight a real life transwoman who criticized this horrific plot line because videogames.

Yes, I am going to be bitter this article.

Sound! Euphonium attracted a lot of attention because of how it started to pair up Kumiko and Reina halfway through the first season, which I've heard never happened in the original light novels, but I would take that with a grain of salt because of how toxic talk around this franchise is. The show was very, very blatant about it too, what with all the constant innuendo, mesmerized stares, and even both of them making confessions of love. But the usual homophobic crowd started popping up, trying to erase the obvious chemistry, with their only actual not complete failure argument being that Reina was attracted to Taki, the music teacher. There were also stirrings that Kumiko was destined to get with a childhood friend named Shuichi, and then all discussion of this show became forever horrible and awful.

So, there are effectively two warring sides of this show's most rabid fans. One side is homophobic and refuses to accept that maybe the two anime girls they have become attracted to are into girls and not just guys, and the other are queer circles worried that the series is queerbating the audience and will erase the relationship in the name of heteronormality. This is sadly understandable, because KyoAni (Kyoto Animation) has a habit of doing this. The screaming homophobes are not helping the situation.

But you may have noticed nobody is saying the incredibly obvious thing. Nobody is going, hey, maybe they're bi. Reina definitely is, and I can read Kumiko as that from a few exchanges with Shuichi, where something is there but not at the same level as with Reina (on a side note, I read Reina as ace as well). To think, if we just agreed one or two of them were bisexual, maybe people could just bloody enjoy the amazing character drama without having to engage with this poisoned debate.

This is all incredibly frustrating to me, because what neither side seems to get is that they
are both erasing bisexuality entirely. It never occurs to the majority of these people that it's not just about winning some representation war, that characters can have more than the two “main” sexualities. I'm bisexual myself, and a major issue we have to deal with is erasure of our sexual identity. Gay circles accuse of of being traitors or just gay, depending on our main preference, and strait people just don't believe bisexuality exists at all and is just apart of sexual experimentation.

Nobody EVER bothers suggesting that a character in an anime or manga may be bisexual. There's always a creeping fear that a presented queer character is going to turn out to be straight as some twist or tragic development that bisexuality never comes up. Hell, it barely comes up in canon, outside cartoon stereotypes. We're almost always some sort of predator or deviant. Milly, who I discussed earlier, was a rare exception, and even she fell into that depraved pervert archetype in many respects.

When an actual example of a bisexual character does appear that doesn't involve wild flailing of the arms and the screaming of “I'M INTO GUYS AND GIRLS,” nobody ever seems to read the character that way. Just look at Himeko, who was apart of a series sold as a yuri, but showed attraction to both boys and girls. This never comes up whenever Kannazuki no Miko is talked about. Most genre works erase bisexuality because they use outdated tropes, but Sound is a bizarre exception. It's a drama work that doesn't care about genre or tropes. It's about exploring a real subject with layered characters, even making the more exaggerated anime comedy still feel very human and relatable. There's a huge lack of samey archetypes flying around.

This show should be allowed to explore sexuality the way it deserves to be explored, and it does. It's filled with complicated emotion and a mixture of words and body language. Relationships become layered and more than just will they or won't they. Kumiko and Reina are clearly attracted to each other, but not just because they find each other attractive. They have conversations filled with multiple meanings, and they react to each other in ways they never do around anyone else. The same can be said for a ton of the cast, with the most interesting character arguably being the self-focused Asuka. She goes far beyond her supposed playful archetype and reveals herself to be someone far more selfish and even heartless at times, but ultimately with purpose. These characters feel like real people, even the most minor, and they're all explored in interesting ways.

But heaven forbid the show dare explore bisexual characters! I once heard an argument that this isn't realistic bisexual representation, and which point I have to ask; WHAT THE FUCK IS!? I have never felt more personally insulted by the discourse of any piece of media as much as this one. The sheer volume of awful opinions and offensive, ignorant takes drives me up a wall. Sound! Euphonium is a show that deserves a much better audience than what it has, and while I understand how we got here, I think it's time to stop with the bitching about queerbaiting.

I'd suggest reading this interview with series director Naoko Yamada, who goes a bit more into the complicated feelings she tried to portray between Kumiko and Reina. I really appreciate how much thought Yamada put into this series, and I was interested that she doesn't see the show as “yuri” but something capturing the feelings of adolescence. The relationship she helps portray is a complex one. There's definitely love there, and a lot more than that. She doesn't care about genre conventions, but what fits the characters and themes best. She's something I want to try becoming as a writer, someone who can knit rich tapestries as stories. I like my simple stuff, but we can always do more and go further in our stories, and Sound! Euphonium is a series that understands that in its complex character work. Writing queer characters is more than just cementing their sexuality. They're people too. They can't be so easily defined in simple terms once you start to understand their headspace. I'd like if we'd remember that. I always scoff at people who argue against certain kinds of representation, but even I have to say that we need to remember that representation isn't the end goal. It's a means to an end or normalizing marginalized groups. Sound Euphonium is a show that actually successfully does that with these two characters, and it should be examined more for how it handles that, not with endless screeching about queerbaiting and how homophobes react to it.

Have you seen Shelter yet? If you haven’t, please do. If you have, that’s great! What’d you think of it? I found it quite interesting, even if there were parts (like the electronica) that I wasn’t so hot on.


For those not in the know, Shelter is an AMV created in collaboration with anime production house A-1 Pictures, sound designer Madeon and indie artist Porter Robinson. It tells the story of a teenaged girl in a virtual world that she can manipulate via her touch pad left by her father. You learn a lot about this world, why it exists, how she got where she is and what’s keeping her going. The AMV is really a story of how memories, even sad ones, shape who we are, as well as how isolation can influence our development.


Shelter has also rekindled the argument of what’s considered anime, with it being a collaboration between an American musician, a French sound designer and a Japanese studio. Those of you who routinely check Infinite Rainy Day’s content will have noticed a window on the right-hand side of the site that Re-Tweets the staff’s Tweets. I usually don’t mention said window, both because my Tweets are usually ignored and in case my family sees the content that features there, but recently there was a string of in-joke Re-Tweets about what classifies as anime. I didn’t get them immediately, because I’m slow on the uptake, but after looking at the AMV and seeing the backlash…yeah, it’s kinda funny. It’s also annoying, as it’s led to some ill-founded slights against Shelter because of its origins.

Let’s back up to get a clearer picture: the definition of “anime” is loose. It’s loose because it’s the Japanese word for “animation”. It’s not some fancy demarcation term Japan throws around for effect, contrary to what many Otaku claim, it’s merely another word for “cartoon”. In fact, by technical usage, Spongebob Squarepants classifies as anime, as does Family Guy. Even Pixar movies are considered anime. In short, it’s as broad as the word “Otaku”.

That said, the divide between anime proper and anime in its generally-accepted usage is more defined. Simply put, the average person on the street wouldn’t exactly call a Pixar movie “anime”. Anime has clear traits that make it what it is, something I think this video does a great job explaining:

So yeah, “anime” may be a broad term theoretically, but practically it’s confined to content made in the East that’s meant for Eastern consumption (particularly in Japan.) Going by this, it’s easy to see how Shelter is an anime: for one, it’s made in the East for Eastern consumption. And two, it’s an AMV. The first word in “AMV” is “anime”, so that speaks for itself. There are other minutiae that make it anime, most-notably the character models, but those two points should sell the idea that Shelter is an anime, right? Right?!

Well…not to some people.

See, Otakudom can be a little snobbish when it comes to anime. This is so well-known that it’s even been satirized by groups like CollegeHumor. That Otakudom is so outwardly elitist in classifying anime means that: a. It has to be exclusively Japanese in content and production. b. There are no exceptions. c. There are absolutely no exceptions. This causes collaborations to fall to the wayside, hence why Shelter’s status as anime is up for debate.

Here’s the problem: arguing what is and isn’t anime based on flimsy definitions is a slippery-slope. It doesn’t matter how well-intended, acting as gatekeeper and shutting down stuff that “doesn’t qualify as anime” means that a lot wouldn’t qualify as anime. Shows like Big O, for example, wouldn’t classify because, as Digibro mentioned, its second season was made with an American audience in mind. Additionally, OVA collections like The Animatrix and Halo Legends, both of which are anthologies made by anime studios, wouldn’t qualify either because they’re tie-ins to Western properties (the former being inspired by anime action films.) It’s no different than saying that 2014's Godzilla isn’t a Godzilla movie because it was a Hollywood action film, or denying that anime production house TMS Entertainment has animated a good chunk of Western cartoons since the 90’s. Saying that “__ can’t be anime” does more harm to your credibility than you’d think.

Do I consider Shelter to be anime? Yes. I understand that Porter Robinson isn’t Japanese, and neither is Madeon, but A-1 Pictures has done anime shows like Fairy Tail, Fractale, Sword Art Online, Space Brothers and Magi: Labyrinth of Magic, to name a few. Ignoring that A-1 Pictures played a big part in this AMV’s creation is doing it a huge disservice. And it hurts to see that.

But really, the whole “is Shelter an anime” debate irks me because it goes back to the whole “Otakudom as gatekeepers” nonsense I mentioned earlier. Because, really and truly, it’s obnoxious to have people dictate that something isn’t “real anime” because it’s a mutt creation. Because, really and truly, anime should be watched and enjoyed, not lumped into arbitrary categories. The West has an unfair stigma attached to its perceptions of anime, it doesn’t need another one.

It's no secret that I’m a huge Studio Ghibli fan: I own every movie they’ve made except The Ocean Waves. My room has a giant Totoro plush on one of my shelves. I own a detailed book of the studio’s work up to Ponyo. My screensaver is comprised of stills from each of their films, as is my background on my computer. I’ve even written about the studio an unhealthy amount on this site!


However, I sometimes wonder if that’s detrimental to my ability to enjoy other anime. If you’ll recall in my Beginner’s Guide on Studio Ghibli, I mentioned that one of the key reasons for their success in the West is that their films don’t feel like conventional anime. As a collective, Western society has an anxiety about Eastern cultures and their inherent value. In some cases, like with Kubo and the Two Strings, Kung Fu Panda and Avatar: The Last Airbender, we take cues from them and adapt our own spin. But for the most part, the East, more specifically Japan, remains a bizarre part of the world that we don’t want to understand, even to the point of, as I mentioned in another piece, unfounded ridicule.


I recently had a conversation on Twitter with two other Infinite Rainy Day writers over whether or not Studio Ghibli’s influence is helpful or harmful. Being the wide-eyed innocent that I am, I argued that this was an issue of education triumphing over ignorance. However, I soon began to wonder if that was true, especially with how frequently the studio is mentioned relative to other anime. In other words, is Studio Ghibli the only anime worth discussing, or is there other anime that's worth checking out too?

(By the way, I already know the answer, and so do you, but please humour me anyway.)

Despite anime’s origins going back to the 1960’s, it only started gaining traction in the West in the mid-80’s. This was when Disney was starting to get its act together before The Little Mermaid, and there wasn’t much in the way of great animated films to sink your teeth into. Sure, there was Don Bluth…but he was a rarity, and even then one could argue that he peaked early with The Secret of NIMH. For the most part, if you wanted great animated films, you had to look for them.

I say this because the mid-80’s also sparked the birth of Studio Ghibli. We take it for granted nowadays, but back in the 80’s Japanese animation was filling a rare niche that people didn’t know they wanted. Especially in the West, where anime was coming over from Japan via VHS and Laserdisc collections. It didn’t matter that the translations were often poor and rushed, the demand was still there. And, of course, amongst these were early Studio Ghibli films.

Of course, the real boom came when Disney approached their parent company to distribute Studio Ghibli’s films in the West. What set Disney apart was their commitment to quality. There was a real desire to translate the films for a Western audience respectfully, so Tokuma Shoten caved and allowed their library to be brought over under the Disney label. Initially, the distribution only saw Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke, yet by the time Spirited Away made its way to the West in 2002, even nabbing it an Oscar, it’d become pretty clear that Studio Ghibli had made its mark.

It’s really easy to see why the studio’s work is well-known and coveted, especially given the pact made with Disney, but has that come with a downside? Anime die-hards, for example, point to the late-Satoshi Kon as being on-par with Studio Ghibli, particularly Hayao Miyazaki, yet never making the mark he should’ve. It’s easy to see why: Studio Ghibli has become so centric for casual fans that anything that isn’t Studio Ghibli’s work is either seen as lesser, or an extension of them. I remember introducing the works of Hayao Miyazaki to a friend and fellow-g1 in the days of V4 of ScrewAttack, and his reaction when he checked out films that weren’t Miyazaki was enough to show this ignorance. There’s simply been an unfair shadow cast in the wake of Studio Ghibli’s success.

This hits a deeper, and perhaps more toxic, root than initially expected. For one, Studio Ghibli is the poster child for “good anime”, when it shouldn’t stop there. There are plenty of great anime shows and films not produced by them that deserve recognition too. Ignoring big-names like Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z, there’s Fullmetal Alchemist for action fans, Cowboy Bebop for the more sophisticated crowd and films like those from Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Hosoda, the latter of whom I even dedicated a Beginner’s Guide and a full retrospective series to his filmography. That’s barely even scratching the surface!

Two, the lack of understanding of what anime is is a big problem, one so heavily ingrained in our culture that I’m unsure if it can be easily reversed. I’m not talking about The Academy’s damming outlook on foreign animation, though that’s a problem too, I’m talking microcosmic. The subtle, unconscious bias against foreign animation is so prevalent that it’s even influenced close friends and family. I’ve heard those whom I respect greatly jokingly mispronounce directors’ names under the guise that “it’s all the same to me”. I’ve heard shows be brushed off jokingly as “anime #_”. I’ve even heard people tell me that the conversations I’ve had about anime “aren’t interesting to most people”. This shunning of a culture with real range and ideas is upsetting, and is, in many ways, racist.

And three, there’s a bigger problem that’s, arguably, comparable to how the West views its own entertainment. Dating back as far as Jaws's success and the mainstream elevation of the action blockbuster in 1975, Hollywood is viewed of two minds: the action showcase, and the thoughtful, artful drama. The former dominates in the Spring and Summer, the latter in the Fall and Winter, with the two rarely meeting. To an outsider, that’s what Hollywood is, completely ignoring the range and variety that’s mainly shoved to the sidelines. Small features like Drive or Ex Machina, both subtle, thought-provoking art films, would never make it big in theatres, and on the off-chance that people have heard of them, they’re labelled “pretentious”. This isn’t to say that it’s solely the fault of Jaws, and later the Star Wars franchise, that the current system is the way it is, there are other factors involved, but their influence can neither be denied nor ignored when discussing “what went wrong”.

And that mentality can extend to Studio Ghibli and its influence. Is there other anime worth checking out? Absolutely. Is it fair that Studio Ghibli overshadows it all? Not at all. But does that mean that Studio Ghibli is somehow “lesser” or the “prime culprit”? Again, not at all. Because as Hayao Miyazaki himself has made known, people are really only comfortable with what they know, not feeling a need to challenge themselves. If people ignoring the spines of Studio Ghibli cases when talking directors, even though many are printed on them in bolded letters, isn’t enough indication of inherent ignorance and bias, then I don’t know what is.

Since I've started writing about games more often again, I've started diving my toe into the vast ocean that is the western visual novel scene, a place flooded with sub-par titty games and messy experiments (much like the entirety of Hanako Games' catalog, the experiments, I mean). One of the more promising groups I've come across, however, is Lupiesoft, a very small studio that just released a full VN in both clean and adult versions on Steam and through MangaGamer's store called The Stargazers. I have yet to try it myself, but I can attest that they have another series worth watching in the coming year. That series is The Reject Demon: Toko, a pretty, pure on visual novel being released in episodic format, with the second episode planned for release in 2017.

The first release, Episode Zero, is all set up, but has a lot of promise for things to come. The series follows a demon named Toko, who is absolutely terrible at her job of devouring the souls of dead humans. She has not managed a single reaping, and has been sent to Earth to live as a human as punishment. While up there, though, she meets a college student named Nadia, whom is the source of her inability to take souls due to a childhood event between the two, and falls in love with her. It's not long before the two realize that demons, angels, and even witches all have their own plans for them, threatening whatever life they could lead together.

The group's artist, Taosym, has a really angular and kinetic art style that lends a lot of life to the characters and originally drew me to the game. Their characters have odd proportions and a good few different body types, which is wildly refreshing in a development scene filled with generic anime girls. Some designs are so odd that they occasionally look like they came from different games, like a brickhouse of an angel in a suit Toko fights later in the episode that would look right at home during a Skullgirls fight. I especially like Nadia's design, partly because there's this weird avoidance of chubby girls in most visual novels I see, and also partly because of her constantly closed eyes that give her more amusing expressions. The use of little chibi drawings for some scenes is also a cute way to portray smaller moments, while the backgrounds look pretty fantastic the entire game. The only major art failing is a lack of diversity in character portraits, which is a tad distracting at points. The score makes up for that a bit, with some sweet electric guitar licks in the main battle theme. While a few pieces loop poorly, the pieces themselves are all great stuff.

While this first episode has a lot of exposition to get out of the way, the game knows to at least include some events in between that to keep the pace from feeling like a slog. It's structured in an odd way, though. This first episode feels like three episodes strung together and condensed a little for the sake of time. Toko and Nadia reunite in the human world, Toko has to fight her sister Nevan, and Toko and the gang have to deal with two angels holding a pop concert. This allows for events to occur between explanations of the lore pretty regularly, but this also results in the game lacking room to breathe and let the characters have some needed little moments. This is still managed in a few spots, like a nice exchange between Toko and another demon named Ginxhou, but a few lines could have easily fixed the rushed relationship between Nadia and Toko. The two fall for each other very quickly, and a later reveal that Nadia remembers Toko completely sort of tosses out the read that she just picked up Toko at random and things grew from there. The episode is so focused on getting things going that it leaves out establishing moments here and there for the two.

But despite that, the episode works on the whole. Nadia and Toko make a great pair together, and a lot of time is spent on the two just hangout out. Their relationship is great, despite a lacking of a satisfying starting point, and their personalities bounce off each other with some great lines. You buy that the two have become so close to each other, and their personalities gel with the rest of the cast almost perfectly. Nadia is a really refreshing main character, because while she does raise concern over many dangerous events occurring, she also roles with all the magical insanity without a second thought. My favorite moment is easily at episode's end, where she's offered witch training and takes it up without an argument because she wants to have a pet unicorn. While this episode has a pretty normal fighter and damsel dynamic with the two, future episodes are set up to subvert that and have the two fight on more even footing.

Plenty of different interesting plot lines are set up with efficiency, and the main cast all come off as endearing and interesting. Episode Zero has some flaws that hold it back from being a fantastic start, but all the ingredients for a fun and engaging story are there, and a lot of hints are thrown out that those ingredients aren't going to be ignored. This first episode is only five bucks, and I highly recommend it to see if you'll be interested in future episodes. I think Toko has a lot of promise for such a small studio production, and I want to see it succeed.

HIT IT!


It’s no secret that music and film have a shared history. Since its inception, when film was only silent images juxtaposed to a piano player, music has been an integral part of the theatre-going experience. It should also figure that because dialogue is such a crucial part of storytelling, so too is music. In fact, as the tools used for making movies became more advanced, so too did music’s part in the overall presentation of movies become more elaborate and integral.

A while back, Tony Zhou, creator of the Every Frame a Painting series, did a video on the musical failure of the MCU. I won’t share my thoughts in too much detail, you can see my response on my personal blog, but, in a way, he did have a valid point about how a lot of modern films, particularly those of Hollywood, have a bad habit of using scores and musical cues in such a way that they feel invisible. It’s become epidemic, and it detracts from the overall experience. Recently, I even started contemplating how anime efficiently incorporates its music, to the point where even mediocre shows and movies still have memorable music, as a response. However, is it perhaps integrated too efficiently?


Let’s use two examples of where anime music might be overpowering, as well as why. The first is from Sailor Moon. The show is well-loved by anime fans, and with the recent re-dub by Viz Media it’s possible to experience the show in English in its truest form. Unfortunately, that also means that any flaws and silly moments in the original show, music, writing or otherwise, are now available uncut. Some of it’s charming, like when Usagi gets drunk and tries to explain The Theory of Relativity through pudding, but then you have moments that don’t work at all. The musical cues are no exception, and nowhere is this more apparent than this scene where Mamoru and Usagi decide to stop seeing one-another:


The scene is quite powerful, and the dialogue drives home how the two feel at that moment. But there’s a problem: the score overpowers everything because it’s too loud. It’s hard to hear what’s being said because the piano’s so intense, and it almost ruins the moment. We don’t need the melodramatic score for it to work, or, if we do, it should be more subdued. By not doing so, the score is oppressive and overbearing.

Think of it like this: imagine if you were staging a serious scene in a play. Now, let’s pretend that your talented friend, whom you requested to play the piano to help underscore said scene, starts playing over it. You want to keep going, yet as you instruct the people playing the characters to speak up, so too does your friend play more furiously. In the end, no one can hear what’s said, only what they’re supposed to feel. But because there’s no balance of music to conversation, you’re left with a disconnect.

In other words: it doesn’t matter how nice the tune is, if it’s used poorly, it’s not helpful.

I’ll use another example, but because it’s not on YouTube, I’ll describe it to you: there’s a scene in Wolf’s Rain, aka my favourite anime series, where Hubb and Cher, two of the show’s human characters, are tied up inside a moving van. Seeing as they have nothing better to do, they begin reminiscing about their failed marriage, how they used to love each other, and how their love may, in reality, still be there. As Hubb pours his soul out to his ex-wife, some sentimental music starts playing. Except it doesn’t merely play, it goes full-out. And at an extremely loud volume too! I originally thought that raising the volume would fix the situation, but then I realized that the music was burned right into the sound quality and that the TV volume was loud enough to compensate for Wolf’s Rain already being such a quiet show.

Still, my frustration remained. I’m a firm believer that Wolf’s Rain has one of the best OSTs, and subsequent usage of said OSTs, of any anime, but this was the one time I didn’t want the music to play. Because it was drowning out an important and tender character moment, and that bothered me. Besides, why this moment? Why not wait until after the conversation, as opposed to its peak? I’d have preferred that!

You see what I’m getting at? I’m aware that the mixing of audio and music isn’t an exact science, and that there’ll always be places where drowning out dialogue with music is appropriate. But there has to be a balance of sorts if music and audio are to co-exist. Because they both should, ideally, work toward the same end-goal. And honestly, if the big problem with Hollywood is not shutting its characters up long enough to hear the music, then anime’s big problem is not shutting its music up long enough to hear the conversations. I think those are both equally bad, truthfully.

Welcome to another installment of Otaku Queer, were we look at various queer and queer coded characters in anime, manga, Japanese games and all the like! Today, the topic is Love Live Sunshine, as in the entire show. Every character in this show is so ridiculously gay or gay coded that focusing on just one character wouldn't really do the show justice. In particular, I'll be talking about how the show try to appease both queer fans and the usual otaku lot, and the advantages and problems this approach brings.

Sunshine is the second Love Live series, and I'm sure not the last with its popularity. Love Live is Sunrise's stab at the anime idol market, and one of the biggest franchises in anime currently, showing no sign of slowing. It's also kind of famous for an unusually large fanbase of gay and bi women. I say “unusually” because this franchise has become the big Sunrise cash cow that managed to take Idolmaster down a peg. However, it does it with almost not a single male character to be seen, going against a lot of conventional industry wisdom. It's not a harem series at all, just a really well done sitcomish series about a group of nine girls chasing after a goal and having fun along the way. On paper, nothing about the series seems to scream big hit, but there's a lot under the surface. The fantastic direction is one element, but one of the most important parts of the equation is purposeful coding the main cast as gay.

Idolmaster never really got the same sort of crowd as Love Live did, mainly because it started trying to appeal to the usual crowd of straight otaku guys. While it's toned down more in the franchise nowadays, especially the recent anime, the games still have that vibe that the main audience hasn't changed too much. It also tends to code all the girls as bi now, which is perfectly fine in many ways, but doesn't give it the same magic appeal Love Live has (plus they have so many loli characters these days what even). Idolmaster also aims for sheer variety, while Love Live chooses to instead focus on a core cast every series and develop them and the relationships between them. Mainly the gay relationships between them. There's a LOT of gay in this franchise.

The original Love Live anime had a bit of this, but Sunshine really goes all out to the point there are moments that can't really be counted as subtext but outright text. To summarize, the nine girls in the cast are divided into three groups, based on what year of high school they're in. The first years are the eccentric chunibyo Yoshiko (or Yohane, her “fallen angel” persona), easily startled Ruby, and sheltered country girl (as in she has never seen a computer before) Hanamaru. The second years include leader and overly hyper Chika, the ever dependable You, and an exchange student and piano player named Riko. The third years round out with the level headed diver Kanan, school council president and closet idol fangirl Dia, and the rich, half-Italian Mari. This set up gives each year a different sort of energy so it's initially easy to keep track of who is who (first years have insecurities, second years are confused of what they want to do, and all the third years have different styles of authority over the others), and then allows the show to expand on everyone's traits and lets them bounce off each other.

It's a welcome change from Idolmaster's focus on archetypes, as Love Live characters either lack clearly visible archetypes or defy theirs in some way, which also allows for more interesting character dynamics. There's something funny about seeing new unexpected sides to all of these characters, like the seemingly normal Riko being a closet yuri fan and freaking out at Loony Tunes levels around dogs, or Dia revealing herself to be a giant nerd who obsesses over her sister and insults people who know less about idols then her. It allows comedy to go all over the place, but the same also applies for drama. Seemingly comedic characters also have their own problems to deal with, and those problems explode out as drama bombs.

While the first years have their arcs handled mostly during an episode focused on them early on, the second and third years each get arcs that run through the season, and most of those arcs are based around relationships. And yes, this is where we finally hit the gay talk. Love Live's whole thing is playing up both comedy and drama in extreme ways, even when they're of mundane subjects. It's also pretty good at it. Episode three in Sunshine is one of the series strongest episodes just for the performance the second years give to the town, as the scene keeps tossing wrenches out and the actresses really give it their all to sell the emotion the characters are going through. But Sunshine is also more notable than the original series because it dives far deeper in relationships between characters that go beyond close friendships.

First off, the drama between the third years is presented as them recovering from the trauma of a failed performance, but it's actually a spat caused by complete miscommunication between Kanan and Mari. Kanan originally quit trying to be an idol when she was a first year because Mari was willing to give up studying abroad for their group, and Kanan couldn't let her do it. Eventually the two make up and regain what they lost two years ago. That being girlfriends. It's never said out-loud, but it's framed exactly this way, with a song about about rekindling a lost relationship and a ridiculously over the top make up scene with a lot of tears and hugging. Plus Mari constantly rubs her head up against Kanan's boobs so there's that.

The second years also have love triangle drama. Chika and Riko are constantly hinted to be falling for each other by the show itself (THEY CONNECT HANDS FROM ACROSS THEIR SECOND FLOOR HOMES UNDER THE STARS), and it eventually leads to Riko saying to Chika that she loves her. You starts to pick up on their closer connection and starts to feel like she's losing her connection to Chika, who's she's always wanted to do something with. She also has three different love confession fantasies and Riko is a huge fan of girls love works so there's also that and that.

What's interesting about all this is that the show frames it all in just the right way so that it's not clearly saying the characters are gay. I mean, it's insanely obvious, but there's always a bit of the context that doesn't seem to match usual romantic scenes. Mari's homosexuality can be written off as a joke (similar to Nozomi in the first series) because her sexuality is used entirely for gags. The second year stuff also makes it a bit vague to the average viewer, as Riko and Chika never show any changes in their dynamic after this confession, and You's fantasies only have one that clearly show interest beyond friendship, while the other two focus on her frustration of feeling left behind. The one that's clearly gay is also another joke, so it easily goes over a lot of people's heads.

Love Live's origins suggest it was originally going to be a more overt yuri series, but both anime tend to downplay these elements significantly for mass appeal. However, it has also lead to the series gaining a strong core queer fanbase alongside the usual otaku one, managing to appease everyone in some way. That's great business, and a good trend for anime becoming more inclusive and friendly to queer characters and works ...except because the series veils the queer elements in jokes and subtext, not a lot of people actually realize (or refuse to realize) how gay the series really is. Fandom for this series tends to get really messy when the homophobic crowd comes in, and while we're getting clearly queer characters in one of the biggest franchises in anime, we're in a situation where most people don't even realize it.

Love Live using jokes to hide queerness is nothing new. For example, a lot of people were genuinely surprised to find out that Deadpool was pansexual, despite all his constant gay jokes. It's because he's a comedic character that people tend not to take these jokes as a sign of his sexuality because why bother taking jokes seriously? When comedy is the main expression of sexuality, then it's harder to take the signs more seriously. The sheer drench of queer stereotypes in the entertainment world has conditioned people to not see queer characters when queer characters are being funny in a queer way, but simple punchlines related to a long dead joke. It's a huge problem that we're just now starting to overcome.

So what's going on here is that we are getting a series about lesbian characters, but this is being covered a little for the sake of marketing. Yuri fails to sale in big numbers in Japan, so not too many bother to pursue the genre in a serious manner, which tends to hurt chances at seeing queer girls in other works without them being overtly sexualized (ie Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid). Love Live Sunshine is probably the best we can get right now, which is kind of depressing. It's a show that can't even be up front about what it is, and that is endlessly frustrating. But it can also be seen as a stepping stone towards a show that's more openly queer for larger audiences. The series itself is great, but what it means for anime as time goes on is hard to say.

Also You is the best girl and should go date Yohane fight me nerds.

With the post-election aftermath rippling across the world, I figured that now was the best time to offer up a distraction. After all, the situation looks bleak, and people need diversions from real-life more than ever. However, finding diversions have proven tough, as politics seems to be all that’s on people’s minds. If I’m to succeed, then I should discuss Otaku-centric issues for those burned out by the real world. Fortunately, I think I have what the doctor ordered:

Let’s talk moe instead.



For those unaware, moe is a big source of contention in anime right now. More-specifically, it’s been a source of contention in anime for years. The argument stretches back to the early-2010’s at least, going by the discourse, although it could even date back further. Regardless, it’s a hot-button topic for many, and it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. Go figure.

What’s “moe”? Basically, it’s the Japanese word for “cute”. The term is so heavily ingrained in Japanese culture that anything can be considered “moe”. A baby, for example, is considered moe, for obvious reasons. A puppy or a kitten is also moe. Even an action or behaviour can be called “moe”. Basically, moe is everywhere in Japan, whether you like it or not.

However, that’s not what Otakudom thinks of when discussing moe. When they think of moe, they picture cutesy-looking, overly-dependant girls with big eyes, squeaky voices and penchants for cuddling, giddiness or flat-out “d’aw” moments. Simply put, moe is viewed as a Freudian, over-dependant caricature cliché meant to elicit Pavlovian responses from the target audience. Moe characters are often inserts for pleasure fantasies, and, if the internet is indicative, can often be conflated with lolicon fetishism. In other words, Otakudom sees moe as something to fawn over.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it’s infantile. Remember, moe, by this definition alone, makes characters look younger than they are. A 17 year-old moe girl, for example, looks and behaves like a 6 year-old. This, in turn, leads to the self-masturbatory thought that all girls, irrespective of age or maturity, behave like 6 year-olds, which, in turn, perpetuates infantilization of women. This is really unhealthy when you consider that women get the short-end of the stick in society anyway, and that by over-consuming media that promotes this behaviour, it reenforces misogyny. Cogito ergo sum.

Besides, this isn’t the only way in which something can be moe. Going by moe = cute, anything cute in anime can be moe. Chihiro Ogino from Spirited Away, for example, classifies as moe. Yuki and Ame from The Wolf Children, at least in the first-half, classify as moe. Even Takeru from Digimon Adventure can be considered moe. They’re not the moe Otakudom is familiar with, especially since they don’t fit the traditional, Freudian build, but they are, by definition, moe.

One could also argue that anime is, by definition, moe. Think about it: Osamu Tezuka, considered the pioneer of modern anime, took “cutesy” influences from Western animation, like chubby, rounded faces, big eyes, stubby fingers and toes and a tiny mouth that expands whenever a character’s excited. These are features meant to over-sell personality, hence they’re moe. And while many have evolved and changed over time, the Tezukan influence remains. I know it’s controversial to say this, but if people propagate “the moe problem” in anime, well…they might want to stop watching it altogether.

So the question that needs to be asked is as follows: if it’s a varied word with a vague definition, then what’s the “moe problem” really about?

Well, I think it can be distilled to a bigger, and perhaps ignorant, concern that Otakudom has felt in recent years: a lack of diversity. Ignoring that most anime in the 21st Century has taken place in high school, something Digibro did an excellent video on, the complaint is that anime’s been overly “moe-ified” since the “moe boom” of the 2000’s. The claim is that every genre of anime has moe in it, and even character designs have followed suit with their moe-ification in face and body. I remember writing about anime character designs on Infinite Rainy Day a while back, and one of the points I made was about the transition of anime noses from being noticeable to being barely noticeable. I meant that article as a joke, I commented on other features that were trivial to the average watcher, but it’s no-less true how “blobby” the anime face has become recently.

Here’s the problem: anime has been slowly evolving to this point anyway. You look at 80’s anime films like those from Hayao Miyazaki, and you’ll see that “moe face” already existed. I re-watched Castle in the Sky and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind for the first time in a long while, and you know what I noticed? The kid and teen character models had early traces of moe. Pazu and Sheeta in particular are guilty of this, as their noses, while noticeable, are softly drawn in relation to their adult counterparts. Their faces too! So this isn’t new.

On top of that, there are two issues that arise from clumping post-2000’s anime into a generic lump called “moe”. (They’re actually connected, but I’ll separate them because they deserve individual attention.) The first is that the “moe trend” has a plethora of exceptions. Shows like Wolf’s Rain, Fullmetal Alchemist, Psycho-Pass, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and the likes all have more “realistic” character designs compared to moe. I say that relatively because they’re still anime, but details like noses and eyes are more subdued than what you’d normally see in moe-style. This is especially prevalent in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where the noses are so defined that it’s impossible not to see them even in a close-up.

Second, when exactly did the moe trend begin? People frequently point to modern anime looking worse than classic anime for that exact reason, but the moe age is vaguely-defined too. Plus, if you look hard enough, you’ll find examples of modern anime that aren’t moe, especially in contrast to some shows from the 80’s and 90’s that are moe. The idea that moe began in the 21st Century is misleading, as this chart demonstrates.


The final question is whether or not the moe-boom, assuming there is one, is bad for the industry. I’d argue that the current anime system has enough problems without moe weighing it down, but it’s definitely a concern amongst Otaku that moe is “ruining anime”. To that, I’d say, “not really”. There certainly has been a boom in slice-of-life moe shows as of late, thanks in part to the successes of K-ON! and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, but that’s only one facet of the industry. Cutesy, slice-of-life shows will always exist, yet there are other genres out there, like Shonen, that buck this trend. And even within the moe style, there are oddities like Mahou Shoujo Puella Magi Madoka Magica, shows that adhere to moe-ified tropes and patterns of characterization, yet manage to flip these on their heads in dark and disturbing ways. Moe, like I said, is a design choice, and it can be used in interesting ways.

Keep in mind that the anime industry, like any other, is a business. Businesses follow trends. The moe-boom is simply another trend, and it too will eventually die out. But until the perceptions of what moe is, the unhealthy strand it frequently takes shape in, the claim that it’s destroyed anime and the claim that it can’t be used effectively all disappear, we’ll never be able to engage in healthy discourse. And I think that’s more harmful than the concept of moe.

Earlier this year, we finally saw the release of the Venezuelan visual novel VA-11 Hall-A. If you missed out, I wrote a pretty comprehensive article on it for Hardcore Gaming 101, but the short story is that the game is a cyberpunk visual novel about a futuristic bar in a decaying city, telling the stories of the various customers that come in for some spirits and a break from the daily grind. It's easily one of the best games of 2016 by a large margin for me, but since I've already discussed how good it is in detail, I'll instead be focusing on the game's aesthetics today. It's a good as an excuse as any to finally talk about one of the coolest things Japan ever did: PC-98 gaming.

The PC-98 was one in a line of Japanese only PCs made in the 80s and 90s, and it was the home to a gaming Renaissance we here in the west have only gotten a taste of. We know it mainly because Hideo Kojima released Snatcher on the sister PC-88 series, while his equally infamous Policenauts found a home on the PC-98 line proper. There was also the strange case of the failed localization of Princess Maker 2, though we were supposed to get the DOS version. If you dig around the net awhile, it won't be long before you come across beautiful screenshots and gifs of old games from the PC line. The machine was god's gift to eroge, and even saw some Touhou Project games. Similar PCs also out at the time saw the release of major franchises like Metal Gear, and all of it was for Japanese eyes only.

Despite this, the PC-98 and its ilk has gained a sort of mythical status among many anime and gaming fans. The intricate pixel art found in many releases and old, forgotten art styles have created a strangely timeless style, helped by the heavy bent towards cyberpunk. Japan loved it some cyberpunk back then, and Blade Runner was a huge cultural phenomenon that helped whipped up the big OVA movement. As a result, many games released on Japanese PCs focused on futuristic settings and styles, with lots of bright lights and complex, bulky machines. It's like some dreamlike other-world we were never privy to, and no matter what the actual quality of the games were, just the style and look they carried was enough to instantly endear a myth of what these machines held.

As time has gone on, a lot of western productions have taken inspiration from this era. Christine Love's Digital: A Love Story tries capturing the feel of an old western PC, but it captures a similar aesthetic to Japanese PCs. The fantastic Read Only Memories takes more direct inspiration, channeling the likes of Snatcher most, even down to a similar aiming mechanic during one section. It also perfectly captured a few similar design sensibilities, like a focus on pop-up images and colorful screens. VA-11 Hall-A, though, really sticks out to how close it sticks to this style and blends it with other styles from the time.

Along with similar approach to presentation and the focus on unnecessarily decorative menus, VA-11 is basically the single most 80s game to come out in a long while. It makes pretty direct visual references to Akira, Blade Runner, Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell, Metal Gear, Snatcher, Policenauts, Shin Megami Tensei, and a whole mess of games and works that were partly inspired by that era or helped inspire it. It's THE 80s cyberpunk piece. I also hope it's a sign of a trend of things to come, because that is a style we need to see more of. I can't think of a time where it hasn't been more relevant. Just look at the state of hings in the United States and where it's headed for the next few years. Cyberpunk is basically the grim fantasy version of that.

It's the 80s Japanese PC game style of cyberpunk that has always struck me most. There's just something so unbelievable about it. I think cyberpunk is just the right genre to explore that coming grim landscape in a meaningful manner, allowing us to take in the worst and best of what life has to offer in such a fantastical way. VA-11 Hall-A is a fantastic example of this. Using their own experience in living in a degrading country, the developers crafted a story filled with overpowering dread, but in a comfortable way. No matter how bad it gets, life goes on, and there's something beautiful to find in the waste and rubble. That's the cyberpunk I love: Grim, unflinching, and gloriously human. No matter how much technology advances or government corrupts, we keep going and adapt. As a people, we will continue on into the next era. History tends to move in cycles as it continues on a direct path to an unknown future, and as history tells us, the worst doesn't last forever. It will get better. Until then, we fight through and enjoy the small things the best we can.

That's what this aesthetic has always said to me. It's a dream coated in darkness and horror, but it is a dream. There's always something to strive for. Good cyberpunk, particularly VA-11 Hall-A, tackles such dark elements so unflinchingly and still finds levity in it. It's very nihilistic, but shows beauty still exists within a struggle. We're here right now. Let's enjoy that as best we can.

To all my fellow queer friends and racial minorities, we will continue past this. Stay safe, and most importantly, find something that makes you smile. Do what you can and go enjoy a drink after. You earned it.

"In the land of Twilight under the moon
We dance for the idiots."

-Yuki Kajiura lyrics, .hack//SIGN soundtrack

My relationship with studio Bee Train is a little confusing even to me. I do not enjoy most of their library. In fact, if I ever wanted to cash in on instant clicks for negative coverage around here and do a list of the worst series I've ever watched, I dare say their signature title Noir would make a... beeline to the top. Yeah, their work is so lackluster most of the time, they don't even inspire the good puns, folks.  And yet, I've watched a good portion of their work all the way through. Voluntarily. I do not consider myself a masochist, and no matter what my seasonal viewings may seem to suggest, I don't actively seek out bad series to puke on because I have limited time on my hands that gets shorter every day. Maybe one intentional viewing of something terrible a year to keep my baselines properly tuned. This begs the question of why I'm wasting my time with all of this, and even have a certain affection for titles even if they are more than a skosh terrible.



My initial thought leans towards director/Bee Train founder Kouichi Mashimo, who directed the first half of Dominion Tank Police, my touchstone to becoming an official anime fan. The thing is, I first watched and was entranced with Tank Police on a broadcast of the second half, which was directed by somebody else entirely (Yes, I know, the pretentious half of the OAV that totally betrays the tone of the series. I was 13!). I didn't even make the connection until much later thanks to Central Park Media's name romanization that doesn't play by the rules (It's credited as Kouichi in the shows that are streaming on FUNimation, so we'll go with that one even if Google recognizes Koichi and FUNimation's own website spells it differently than the show. Not confusing at all). Perhaps I am simply allured by the mystery traps Bee Train lays out. Oh, they know how to draw in viewers with tempting enough bait. Widespread lesbianism, secret Illuminati-esque organizations, and enough occult and ancient technology cloaked in the shadows to keep make people tune into the second episode and beyond, even if they overuse the amnesia trope like they have to clear a factory surplus. The easiest answer is Yuki Kajiura, one of my favorite composers whose scores mostly outclass the anime they were in before Madoka came along.

Whatever this case, this "hospital for animators" subsidiary of Production I.G as Mashimo called it was meant for nurturing artistic sensibilities over commercial success, and it rarely ever appears that way. It seems especially disingenuous given their early works were adaptations of video games like Arc the Lad and Wild Arms. Granted, they at least took an adventurous stab at Wild Arms by making an entirely different story, but the yarn about a seasoned gunslinger trapped in a ten-year-old's body really didn't grab me and Arc the Lad was close enough to the second game that I simply skipped it since I'd already played through its PlayStation counterpart.

NOTE: This will be no means be a complete chronicle of their entire library but instead an overview of my personal experiences. So if you're longing for a view on Avenger, sorry. In an age where 3-4 episode volumes were sold at full price as the norm in the mid 2000s, Avenger was immediately put on budget pricing from the outset. That set off all of the alarm bells.

My experience begins with the Yuki Kajiura soundtrack to Noir. It has aged poorly since the synths are way out of date, but it was a kind of badass New Age music I didn't know I needed in my life. Every inch ached with intrigue and mystique which led me to the series proper. I did not expect to have the disdain I had when I got to the main event. It seems a simple enough show about one professional assassin named Meireille who takes in a amnesiac teenager Kirika who has oddly built-in skills involving killing people. They team up to take on various jobs while peaking the interest of an organization called the Soldats that may be controlling everything behind the scenes. Perhaps it is best described as being too simple.

The first entry in the girls-with-guns trilogy is every lazy, lousy, cheap anime trick in the book to get a title on extreme budget tightening limping across the 23-minute finish line with material that hardly has enough story to last 13 episodes, much less 26 (But they get there with a hefty dose of one-off episodes). Much worse is the shortcuts that are passed off as stylistic choices. You could say the trait of rarely showing blood spilled is an artistic choice if it wasn't for an episode entirely written around the bad guys following a trail of blood to our heroes. Digital sunsets reflected in the eyes of the characters are created with an awful and distracting effect that looks like someone's shining an orange laser pointer. The opening spiel explaining the line of killers known as Noir is stretched to take up as much screentime as possible as well as one moment when one of the leads looks into a pocket watch and has a flashback that eats up a solid minute per episode as well. This isn't Ed Wood putting his heart and soul a work he doesn't know is garbage. This is a director with talent knowingly wasting your time with parlor tricks. I re-watched the first couple episodes and the people I wanted to most compliment were the background and foreground artists who made something that looked good to distract from everything else the series lacked. Kouichi Mashimo deserves some credit as he storyboards most of the shows he directs and he has a good vision for much if it, but the talent greatly underperforms to bring his vision to life. On a similar note, the HD revolution has made it more than obvious the sky backgrounds are paintings with smudge marks on canvas visible. That's an unfortunate drawback which will follow the studio for a few series.

Many are told time and time again to wait for Chloe. Chloe fixes everything. It's all money once Chloe is a fixture in the story. I will admit it's an improvement because they're officially addressing the main plot in ways other than leads Meireille and Kirika shooting men in black with static animation in the middle of empty French streets and rooftops where constant gunshots don't awaken anyone and police response to multiple homicides in the open is about an hour. But you see, Chloe is more the writer of, "now KISS!" Mary Sue fanfiction who forces the lesbian undertones to become lesbian overtones. She is the lead character of her own story and she tries to force herself to replace one of the leads, so even if she provides a character boost, it mostly feels like manipulating the show to give the people what they want. That's not to mention it underlines the leads don't have much chemistry together so they literally NEED a spark to keep the entire series from constantly flatlining. Like Weiss Kreuz was a boring series that just happened to have attractive gay men as assassins, Noir is the female equivalent. This may have been a relatively untapped market at the time, but nowadays, you can have all the lesbians and bi-sexuals you want in about every genre, and many of their relationships are executed much better than this. The Soldats also do that thing Spectre and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation do where these institutions that secretly shape the world are only a handful of individuals at its core. This makes it easier to put a rushjob on destroying them for the climax. However, Noir can't totally commit to an ending that determines whether they're done with the story or not and is completely unsatisfying as a result.

Even the music fails because they funnel the track selection of the show to two or three essentials and most of it is putting the trademark action theme "Salva Nos" on repeat. They did this so much, I was able to analyze individual sections of the song and discovered an irritating hi-hat loop that completely ruins every listening of it thereafter. Noir's quality aspects are pulled into an event horizon of tediousness and become just as uninteresting as everything else. It is the antithesis of entertainment and I hereby suggest all black holes be renamed Noir holes (I'm pretty sure the French are already doing that).

Moving along, .hack//Sign was part of an ambitious, multi-media franchise launch. It was half of the experience with the other half being Bandai's 4-part faux-MMORPG series on the PlayStation 2 that came with the Liminality OVAs. I have limited experience with the games. I finished the first one and quit halfway into the second when it turned out to be more repetitive and sparse gameplay (Imagine either Xenoblade Chronicles games with 1/10th of the enemies, uninspired scenery, little character interaction, and combat stripped down to the bare essentials). It was certainly ambitious yet not ambitious enough at the same time.

It takes place in a virtual RPG where the people within it seem resistant to adventuring and more planning to adventure. It is dull, talky, loves stalling, and the music selection involves paring down the swath of Yuki Kajiura tracks to simplistically playing during certain settings and times until the episode ends. Whenever the administrator is talking with her mods-really, these banal exchanges happen constantly-"Fake Wings" plays. When an ending episode has a bit of information to tease the viewer for the next episode, it's "Key of the Twilight" time. And so on. On early episodes, the music is mixed so badly into the overall sound, you can hardly hear some conversations. Not that the conversations are particularly stimulating. Does the Key of the Twilight exist? Is it good or bad? Does main character Tsukasa exist in the real world? Is he good or bad? Let's hang out and discuss these issues for 10 episodes unnaturally in dungeons that have no monsters for whatever reason.

So what does .hack have that Noir does not? A chaotic neutral player killer by the name of Sora, for one. His entire game is playing every side against the middle for his own amusement. He lives for the attention, going so far as to give sound effects to his entrances. Sora's Japanese voice actor Hiroshi Yanaka is having the time of his life, savoring every ounce of uncluttered scenery with drawn butter. The show actually improves at around the halfway point, too! Once Tsukasa's situation is properly introduced as a person who may or may not be dead, it makes him far more interesting than when the first half which has him wandering seemingly at random into the lives of others while he flippantly states how much he doesn't care about them. Oh, and he has a conversation with a talking cat we can't understand most of the time while hanging out next to a sleeping woman. It's hard to explain the second half without spoiling matters, but the series becomes more visually arresting with locales like an abandoned online castle, and dramatic weight is actually there instead of counting on esoteric plot points to spur interest. I don't think it quite saves it, but the effort makes it at least watchable, which is not a word I would use when I was trying to take a look at Noir for a second time.

.hack//Sign also has the BEST Yuki Kajiura Engrish songs. They were there casually in the background in Noir, but most of them were so subdued and the most amazing one was not really well utilized ("Maze" is an old-styled march with lyrics that would make a sentence diagrammer convulse on the floor with foam seething out of their mouth with such word combinations as,"If you seek for the fire in your eyes..."). .hack lets you know right out of the gate it's going to have the greatest Engrish with its opening song "Obsession" by Kajiura and her band before Kalafina, See-Saw. Blaring the phrases, "How come I must know where obsession needs to go?! How come I must know the direction of relieving?," it's a rush of sugary energy that greets every episode. I only wish the rest of the show picked up the slack, especially the opening animation with a choppy woman in a VR headset dancing around and the makers transparently repeating the same idea 4 times over and over (Repetitive openings with constantly reused ideas in Bee Train projects are almost a drinking game of their own). "Key of the Twilight" also reaches a surprising amount of poetry given the stilted knowledge of the language involved ("Come with me in the twilight of a Summer night for awhile...."). There's something exceptionally fun about the way these unsteady words burst out with the confidence of a Cirque du Soleil show, and for whatever reason, I can run through entire verses from Kajiura's repertoire and yet I have severe trouble remembering lines from my favorite poem and one of the supreme marvels of the English language, "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg. This is one of my guilty pleasure ultimate sin s.

I'd like to think I buck general opinion not to simply to be contrarian, but because I see things in certain titles others don't. In the case of Madlax, I honestly can't fathom why this seems to be the least liked of the girls-with-guns trilogy. This is Bee Train with a budget to fully realize their vision. Action is dictated by the story rather than filling time. Anonymous men in black do exist here, but they aren't such worthless fodder and the high-energy encounters are saved for more important encounters. There are choreographed action sequences. There are interesting visual metaphors, especially involving a flower field that seems to connect the living and the dead only one character can see. I have a genuine affection for the characters and their conversations with each other. Animation is solid! Pacing feels like they're taking the exact amount of time they need to tell the story they want! I get to know all of the people in the first episode and why they're doing what they're doing and not just wonder who the main man in black was who pulled focus when he nonchalantly surrendered! This is a GOOD series!

Probably the best idea people weren't keen on is separating the two leads at the start. There's Madlax, an assassin in the fictional jungle country of Gazth-Sonika taking assignments from both sides of an incredibly bloody civil war, and Margaret, a teenage girl from the civilized country Nafrece who seems to be missing a part of herself after she went missing for months and can only operate as a human being for a few minutes a day. Their fates slowly come together on two separate ends of an investigation into the criminal organization Enfant who utilize the power of ancient books to literally reprogram people into their command. The first volume of the initial DVD in the U.S. had an interview with veteran writer Yosuke Kuroda (Currently penning some episodes of Drifters) where he was throwing everything but the kitchen sink into the story, and he spoke of an instance where Kouichi Mashimo still jumped down his throat yelling, "Is that all you've got?!" In a friendly way, from the tone of the interview. I hope, at least.

It is an intricate story with many moving pieces that converge in surprising ways. Enfant actually being this evil organization that is run by a couple of guys makes sense here. The natural inclination of these girls-with-guns shows is to pair the two main girls, but they do the complete opposite (Madlax still has a lesbian fling, though she and Nadie from El Cazador de la Bruja are technically bi-sexual). The leads also have touching relationships that fit their characters. Madlax is a lonely person whose only interactions is her assignments, which leads to a sort of intimacy few people have with each other. Unfortunately, most of them must flame out due to the nature of the beast. Margaret is surrounded by people who are determined to protect her, including a literal combat maid. They keep her safe, but also trapped in her own little world. They are charming, likable, and they have solid rendezvous when the two worlds intertwine. The only two aspects that keep it from being one of my favorites is the villain and the ending. Friday Monday is a poncy guy wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask whose need for an endless war never really becomes clear besides being an evil guy. While the ending more or less completes the story, it lacks a proper crescendo and cops out of its ultimate sacrifice (Though that is a common thing among the girls-with-guns trilogy, so... points for consistency?).

While Noir is my most disliked title, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles might be the biggest letdown by a country mile. It's one thing for Bee Train to deliver a substandard product with their own original titles, but it's quite another to take someone else's golden goose to the slaughterhouse. Clamp's ambitious project slamming all of their works into one grand adventure was met with a severe lack of ambition from the people animating it. Clamp is known for ornate character designs oozing with style occasionally to a fault, but there will be no style getting in the way here. Everything looks flat and lifeless, designs are oversimplified, and animation is stiff with a bare minimum of effort. It is high adventure that looks like a particularly drab corner of the Gobe desert. Now, I was particularly hard on the adaptation of xxxHolic's style, but at least it HAD style.

Tsubasa is the worst of Bee Train projected on the highest stage. The story in Reservoir Chronicle was dry enough melodrama, relying on the audience's familiarity with the Clamp characters to pull the emotional wagon. Bee Train captures none of the emotion in the writing and animation and has the most dependence on a Yuki Kajiura score with a studio that constantly relies on it. The 4 CD Future Soundscapes OST collection is a glowing tribute to the spirit of adventure, beauty, and excitement, and the show does as little possible to pay the bills. The execution of the main storyline is bland, their filler is bland, and like Noir, it's anti-entertainment where everything falls into a void of emotion. Just don't watch it. It's not even worth the two paragraphs I set aside for it. And yes, I know I'm using an image from the Production I.G produced OVAs instead of the series proper, Mr., Ms., or Mrs. Smarty Pants! I ain't going back....

The finale of the girls-with-guns trilogy, El Cazador de la Bruja, is one of those anime that is so hilariously awful in an entertaining way. Despite the budget being drastically cut back and not looking up to par with its contemporaries, it starts off strongly enough. Kajiura does an exceptionally effective imitation of Ennio Morricone to add an edge to the prologue. The future-esque, western-esque setting works a lot better than Wild Arms. The plot is kind of a buddy roadtrip where amnesiac girl Ellis (natch) and bounty hunter Nadie are trying to break through a barrage of people out for Ellis' bounty stemming from the murder of the person designated as her father. It's generally a very jokey series despite the somewhat harsh premise (The humor mainly driven by Ellis's childlike behavior), but with enough of a mystery to keep the drama side interesting with some frighteningly effective villains.... at least, at first. Then writer Kenichi Kanemaki (Author of a TON of trashy scripts... and part of Yugo the Negotiator) simply could not deliver on the promises the first ten episodes made. The series constantly torpedoes itself, modestly at first when Nadie is faced off against cringe-inducing transvestite thugs (even listed in the credits as Transvestite A and B). I wish they were one-off goons, but they're genuine supporting characters for far too long. Ugh. It gets progressively worse from there.

To understand the show's failure, you have to understand how good it could've been. We have a mishmash of western, witchcraft, human cloning, ancient ruins, and other such aspects anime has a knack for combining seamlessly. As I've said before, the antagonists start off smashingly with Rosenberg as the fabulously rich genius who is always a step ahead of everyone to the point where he constantly taunts a woman sent to secretly infiltrate his organization with the knowledge that he knows who she is and what she's sent to do. His muscle is a creepy teenager named L.A. (Yes, L.A.) who is frighteningly obsessed with Ellis and wields the kind of destructive wires that can slice through concrete and would probably be exceptionally unwieldy in real life.  Oh yeah, and when he first sees Ellis, they have an extremely awkward moment where the show stays in closeup shots and it looks like they're both masturbating. Genuinely disturbing stuff. With top-notch early stages, Cazador spends the rest of its time whittling down the effectiveness of its villains until Bananya would be a more effective adversary. Then there are little goofs as well that add up like when Rosenberg plays back a one-camera recording and it magically has multiple angles from where L.A. couldn't possibly have been standing, almost like they were re-using animation from the previous episode to save money. At least they stop with annoying noises on their eyecatcher graphics. I know the point of an eyecatch is to let the audience know the show is back in business, but on DVD, their choices of sound effects for about every series up until now scratch the ear.

When the roadtrip kicks into full gear, Rosenberg sees himself to his scenic villa where he spends the majority of the story. It is here where he becomes the main character of every Fellini knockoff featured in Roger Ebert's I Hated Hated HATED This Movie that has a rich guy who does nothing but naughty things to an empty vessel of a steaming hot sex partner. Literally every moment of Rosenberg during this time is him getting an update from his henchmen before, during, or after some intense boffing with his girlfriend who we learn next to nothing about. Before he does this, he makes it a project to shame L.A. for going too far in his stalking of Ellis to the point where L.A. is a worthless sad sack who only occasionally works up the energy to be a mediocre psychotic stalker. The menace simply withers and dies, and the rest of the show gives so little of a shit about what to do about itself that it becomes hysterical. Now, I watched this with less-than-legal sources way back when it came out because after the anime market crashed, I figured this had no chance. I haven't gotten to this part of the legal translation's part yet so I can't tell you if it's accurate, but I distinctly remembered the line of dialogue, "Hello, White House? Can you put me through to someone important?" At least they intentionally made the taco song funny. It is that kind of attitude that undermines and permeates the show. Yet the two leads who have a sweet chemistry between each other and all of this has a goofy charm to it such as when nuns in a missionary arm themselves with golf cubs to stop those who soiled holy land with gunfire.. If that's your kind of amusement, go for it. There's even a genuinely touching scene with one of Yuki Kajiura's best songs, "Forest," as a bonus.

By the way, don't expect much from the floating Incan ruins in the opening. The Final Sacrifice has a better one. Seriously.


I'll end this coverage on Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom. I bring up Yuki Kajiura a ton here because it's her soundtracks that stick with me the most. With Phantom, she is replaced with Tatsuya Katou trying to do an impersonation, and people who should not be trusted said it was an improvement. It's a kind of world music mash-up and one or two hip-hop action tracks that would later be completely eclipsed by Taku Iwasaki's score to Jormungand. The parts imitating Kajiura rarely go anywhere besides basic atmosphere, and when it tries to be hip and with it, um, it is as laughable as you think it is (And I'm usually the one who usually defends Japanese music that tries to be "cool" and instead is cheesy as hell). Well, Yuki Kajiura got to score prestige projects like The Garden of Sinners in the wake, so I shouldn't be too disappointed.

Yet Phantom is almost one of their best works. Now make no bones about it, it's rock stupid and operates on a visual novel logic as it is based on one. It's one of those where you take the writer's word for it on a computer screen with static backgrounds, but when put to an animated world, the reality of the whole endeavor starts to unravel. We have yet ANOTHER amnesiac (This time a guy) who gets caught under the massive organization Inferno's heel. They give him the dehumanizing name Zwei (German for two), and force him to become trained into their syndicate by assassin Ein (German for one, of course) who is far more of a Bee Train type lead than her student who is all regular visual novel guy. This is one of those ridiculously huge organizations that is also ridiculously wealthy, flaunts it, and yet is as secret as the Illuminati.

 It's all dealt with much better than Noir as it is unflinchingly dark. These people are in an extremely soul-crushing line of work unlike the leads of Bee Train's signature work who never seem to have any kind of emotional reality connected to what they do or their relationship to each other. But it also acts like an eighties sleaze-fest action movie with enough cocaine involved to attempt bombast and gravitas. There's a straight shot of uncensored breasts and Scarface reference within 40 seconds, so it's very much intentional. It catches enough of the style to be an entertaining guilty pleasure. Not that there aren't actual pleasures to be found. Lizzie Garland is secretly one of my favorite characters as bodyguard to the Inferno organization who tries to be as much of a consciousness as the corrupt institution will allow, but she's incredibly deadly and sexy when the time calls for it. There are also two killer plot twists that break up the series into thirds and they are mighty dramatic blows I wasn't expecting. It isn't until the final third that Bee Train derails the whole venture and it's not even totally their fault.

You see, the original visual novel gave you a choice in what you wanted to do. Either you could go through the brooding drama, or you can experience a romantic high school melodrama. So when the adaptation is inching towards its climax, that's when Bee Train decides to indulge on the VN's other side and it completely changes tone, attitude, and even brings in an opening that paints its darker aspects as a seemingly fever dream within a slice-of-life love triangle. The whiplash is ferocious and any attempts to take the show seriously again fail horribly. Which is a shame, because when it gains its bearings for the finale, it is the rare Bee Train work that nails the ending with a bittersweet mix that acknowledges even characters with the best of intentions forced into a bad situation don't get away clean with the acts they've done. It's almost film noir in its simple, subtle ending. The animation was already lagging behind almost all of its contemporaries and even the house composer had moved on to greater things, but this was one of the last gasps that showed they could at least make a presentable show.


Alas, even after doing a short for Batman Gotham Knight for some cash (It's actually not bad if you get beyond an absolutely atrocious CG golf ball. It shows a bishy Bruce Wayne and how his public persona helps in his moonlighting detective work), Bee Train has been in hiatus since 2011. With their track record of mediocrity, I shouldn't miss them. And yet, I do. With an exception of Noir and Tsubasa, their series are strangely memorable even when the work is the definition of forgettable. They've stayed with me for better or worse for over a decade, at least. It feels like the ending of Cool Runnings where the team crashes their bobsled in the Olympics. They were underdogs I was kind of rooting for even if their results before weren't impressive in the least and everything got smashed up right around when they were about to break through. Aw well, at least I have a Yuki Kajiura mix CD that is completely fire from this whole exercise....

Welcome to Kinkmas, everyone, the happiest and saddest time of the year at the same time. Every Friday in December, I'll spotlight a different weird fetish game I've found, and yes, the large majority of them are Japanese and very, very confusing. Please note that these are not porn games, but fetish games. Nothing particularly explicit happens in them, but everything in there is not squeaky clean, if you know what I mean. These are the balloon rubbing videos of games, people.

Before we enter the weird realms of the Japanese net, I'd like to start us off easy with a western title that's entire premise is based around marketing via fetishes. After the success of HuniePop, a game I am endlessly frustrated to admit is actually good, studio HuniePot decided to try their hand at a new genre. The end result was HunieCam Studio, which tosses out the outright pornographic elements of the last game and tried to be a more modest effort with a much more comedic tone and style.

Also, it uses AIDS as a game mechanic.

Did I mention the developers are regulars in chan boards?

For those unaware, HuniePop was a game that caught a lot of attention for combining dating sim elements with classic match three puzzling, and also because the developers were kind of huge scumbags, spouting MRA lingo absorbed from the dredges of the internet and thinking curse words were a shortcut to good writing. Despite all this, the game turned out to be genuinely good and one of my most played games on Steam (to my endless despair). HunieCam Studio, on the other hand, did not get the same attention and did not end up being nearly as good. This game changes to a tycoon formula, having you hire the girls from the last game, alongside some new ones, and having them work as cam girls.

The game works by having you manage your employees and what they do at any given moment. You need to earn fans to gain more money in cam shoots, but you also need to make sure your girls have the right set of fetishes in order to maximize profit, as fetishes draw in different crowds in different numbers that fluctuate with advertising and which girls you use in photo shoots. You can give them new ones to exploit via items found in a store, plus earn some extra money by having them work as escorts as a hotel. On top of this, you have to send them to a spa to relax when they get too stressed, and you have to keep stocking up on cigarettes and booze to keep the high earners satisfied and working. It can all stack up on you and cause issues, but the game is piss easy once you realize you can just have one or two girls do nothing by handle chores while more talented and expensive employees earn cash. That's the mechanical downfall, but there are far more problems here.

You don't have to play long before you realize how gross this game is, even when you knew you were already getting into something gross from the get go. First off, it's pretty damn racist, even for these developers. I mean, HuniePop had you giving girls gifts based on their ethnicity (this includes a sombrero for the Latino girl, if memory serves), but the characters had personality traits beyond fetishization of racial stereotypes. Most every new character is basically a joke based on race, gender, and subculture, and it's less funny and more makes you wonder if the writers have ever talked to anyone besides white guys before. The writing for this franchise is a painful distillation of every terrible thread I've ever seen on /co/ planning a comic about superheroes who were moms and also had giant boobs. Yes, that was a thing people were trying to crowd-produce. Thinking back, there were a lot of failed web comics where the entire premise was “____ but with big titty.” At least I can say HuniePot managed to avoid that trap.

Oh, and remember when I said this game turned AIDS into a mechanic? When you send girls on escort jobs, they risk getting STDs that impair their work or make them useless, including AIDS, which can't be cured. The tone-deafness is mind boggling. There are porn games out there where you train sex slaves and even those have too much class to include one of the most horrific diseases in human history, one that nearly completely wiped out the queer community in the United States, as a mechanic. That addition is both a mechanical misstep and a gross bit of exploitative edginess that feels like too much even for the Hunie guys.

Part of me wants to like this game. It has an art style I find kind of amusing (heart pupils are good actually), and the idea is solid enough. But god, where HuniePop's mechanics could distract from all the awful dialog, racism, and sexism, HunieCam Studio just can't do that. With so many tycoon games out there, the only claim to fame is its comedic energy, and that comedic energy is mainly used for laughing at women. Which is not funny. That's terrible. Good sex comedy has balance, or has jokes beyond “HAHA WOMEN AREN'T LIKE MEN AND ARE ALSO MAINLY SEX OBJECTS.” I'm expecting them to announce a third game soon and I hope it's something better than this. These people have some serious talent and promise, but the quality of their work depends primarily on how much of their id they're able to wring in. I like dirty sex comedy and all, and there's a few good chuckles in here (mainly in the tutorials), but try to do more than the laziest version of that.

But if you want to see creative, join me next Friday. I promise you that you haven't seen lunacy like this before...

Welcome back to the four part Holiday series I call Kinkmas, where I look at weird fetish games I've found on my travels through the dredges of the internet. The first game I talked about was a tad on the “might have actually heard of somewhere” side of things, so now we're getting into the weird stuff you gotta dig for. I think an action game about torture with a bondage powered vampire ninja is a good a place as any to start, don't you? Let's talk about the oh so bizarre Huuna Mina.

I came across this bizarre gem of a game when I was browsing through English DLSite (mainly for the hilarious descriptions and titles of games there, please do go check that out one of these days). Nothing about it particularly interested me at first, but I downloaded it out of curiosity and came to quickly realize that this is not my first time dealing with this developer. See, Huuna Mina is the first game from the Hajime doujin circle, who I previously discovered from a Steam title they released titled Cinderella Escape. Expect more on that game next year, there's only so much crazy I can handle at once. The thing that really made me make the connection is that both games love torture and bondage, but can't really be considered porn games by any measure.

The premise here is that Huuna Mina is a ninja that was captured by some unknown organization for her healing factor ninja skill thing (SPOILERS: SHE HAS VAMPIRE POWERS). A friend of her's breaks her out, though she barely remembers anything about herself or her friend and it is clear this friend is not a friend because she keeps thinking to herself how she can manipulate the hot ninja vampire. But that point is moot for the moment, as said friend gets kidnapped and Huuna Mina has to go around beating up maids, bunny girls, and BDSM queens to actually figure out who the bad guy is. She also captures each boss for interrogation and keeps them in torture machines after she learns what she needs to know, despite only one of the bosses actually being apart of the organization. The rest are all just random people tangentially connected to the situation, as far as I can tell from the awful translation, meaning Huuna Mina is kind of a huge sadistic jerk. She clearly enjoys her work far too much as well.

The story of this game seriously is a non-nonsensical mess. The big twist is spoiled early on, and the whole ninja angle seems pointless after the vampire stuff comes up. But there's definitely comedy to be found in realizing how little most of the events in this matter at all. The first three levels have Huuna Mina attacking an organization of maids, a casino populated by bunny girls with rocket launchers, and a BDSM lesbian sex dungeon that one of the bad guys likes going to apparently. None of these places are apart of the evil organization that captured you, they just get hired for jobs that aren't even related to Huuna Mina at all. So because you're looking for your best friend who is clearly not a friend, you end up storming these places, beating up and kidnapping the heads of each group, and put them through torture to learn information that just leads you to the next pointless link in the chain. Once you do finally reach the bad guy organization, which is populated entirely by hot women in glasses wielding halberds, you topple them with little effort and then go on to one more level with a bunch of fake best friends you don't even have to interact with. The final boss is said best friend, the incredibly obvious vampire, but she's in bondage the entire time while flipping around like a mad man, using incredible superpowers that can easily be overcome by just abusing the combo system.

As I mentioned, Huuna Mina is an action game, and a messy one at that. There's not really a lock on, at least as I could find, so part of the challenge is moving Huuna Mina in the direction of the target as she wildly swings around with her flashy moves. Thankfully, they have a pretty wide hit radius, but it's a big problem is up close brawls. This issue is negated once you realize how easy it is to abuse the combo system, though. Long combos tend to result in losing track of your target, so the wiser strategy is to do a short combo, stop it before the big last blow, and quickly start a new one. The game's mechanics are basically an unfinished Devil May Cry prototype that has some necessary basics, like air launching and dodges, but doesn't really work in the polish or refinement of that system, making it a mess of button mashing.

The other thing you can do in this game is torture captured bosses for information, which is just ...strange. You start off with noose hanging, which is apparently not deadly at all and somehow the least effective torture method, move onto a wooden torture horse, and eventually get a brain washing machine. Using any of these is less erotic and more “huh?” That brain washing machine is a major head scratcher, because it doesn't seem to do anything different from the other torture devices. The characters just mildly writhe in all instances, leading one to wonder why these scenes are here at all. You can also smack bosses with a riding crop, but that is also confusing because you just do a normal attack swing and a smack sound plays. It's all done with the normal combat set-up and is therefore completely detached from itself. Things like this should really be their own minigames. Action game mechanics work with action games, not spanking segments. This is why all those weird Vita RPGs have erotic content as minigames. Imagine trying to have softcore bondage scenes entirely with menus.

But these weird torture sequences are not why I'm spotlighting this game, no. The other interesting thing here is that Huuna Mina has multiple outfits to wear. While one gives a speed boost, the others put her in increasing amounts of bondage, with the last outfit putting her in a full body rope dress that ties her arms behind her back. This is the best outfit in the game because rope bondage apparently awakens vampire superpowers, letting you use superhuman kicks, cause radial aura explosions, and even do the near infinite air kick thing Kirby does in Super Smash Brothers. It's like you're raining bullets from the sky, but it's really just super fast kicks in heels.

The creator of this game is really obsessed with bondage, including a little book talking about the art of rope bondage, and your ultimate reward is a final flashback level where you're completely bound, hands and legs, as you try inching to an exit in a maze filled with women who will push you down and grab your tits if you get too close. Also, this level is just as strange as the torture segments, as these women only have one very stiff animation and nothing else. The level goes on for nearly fifteen minutes and nothing of interest happens. Cinderella Escape, the creator's second game, is a vast improvement over this, but there's dumb fun to be had with the BDSM exploits of Huuna Mina. Just not for the price on DLSite. You don't see confused fetish trash like this often, and that's worth something. Not much, but something.

Come back next Friday for a look at a ryona game. That's Japanese for “getting the shit beat out of you erotically.” Hey, don't judge, have you seen the stuff we in the west are into? Cake farts are a significant fetish here. Just reflect on that.

Take a good look at these two shapes:


What do you see? What makes them unique? What makes them stick out? What if I told you one of them is called “Kiki” and the other “Bouba”? If I were to ask which was which without giving any clues, do you think you could point them out? According to Synesthesia Theory, first coined by German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929, upwards of 90% of those asked about Kiki and Bouba would respond the same way without much thought: the sharp, pointed blob would be identified as Kiki, while the rounded, softer blob would be identified as Bouba. That this is universally-accepted even by the uneducated shows how similar language structures really are.

I first heard about Kiki and Bouba in this video. The video dealt with geometry in film, and how it can subtly influence how we perceive the medium. The narrator began with the above question, then went on to explain how said concepts worked. The part that stuck with me most on a personal level was how he mentioned “Kiki VS Bouba” in relation to animation, and how it plays around with both shapes. I then began to think about its relationship to anime, particularly in how it uses both to influence its viewers.


Now, remember that Kiki and Bouba, like The Bechdel Test, aren’t an exact science. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor is it objective. Anime, which has seen a gradual shift in the last 20 or so years, is doubly-so, as most modern-day anime, and even some early anime, uses Bouba-esque designs. That said, if I applied Synesthesia Theory to anime, movie and show-alike, would it hold up?

I’ll start with film, since it’s usually given bigger budgets than shows and, therefore, has more of a stylistic identity. Most films have protagonists with soft, rounded faces and eyes, and sometimes mouths and noses. This is because we’re meant to relate to them. A character like Ashitaka, who’s clearly the audience-insert, has an oval-like head and rounded eyes, not to mention a flat-cut haircut, rounded shoulders and stubby feet underneath his shoes. His hood and mask might be slightly pointy, but even then there’s a softness to both. He’s incredibly Bouba, so much so that it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s angry, which happens quite a bit.

On the flip-side, we have Lady Eboshi, who’s the “unofficial-official” antagonist of Princess Mononoke. Lady Eboshi’s interesting in that the lower-half of her body is Kiki in shape: she’s got slender hands, baggy pants and even wears a cloak that looks triangular. She also to has a hat that’s pointy on both ends, and her hair is tied in a pointed ponytail. That she tends to slant her eyebrows upwards creates a diagonal line to her adjacent eyes. However, her head is round and soft, much like Ashitaka’s. Her body and hair might be Kiki, but her face is undeniably Bouba. This contrast subtly reinforces the ambiguity of her character-is she a villainess, or a heroine?

If you want polar extremes with Miyazaki movies, look no further than Chihiro Ogino and Yubaba from Spirited Away. Chihiro’s face screams “moe”, something I discussed last time, and it makes sense: her nose is almost non-existent, she has a round head, her eyes are ovular and she has flush cheeks. She’s cute, but she’s also a Bouba character. Even her name sounds soft, both before and after it’s changed, furthering the cuteness and relatable nature of her personality. Like Ashitaka, she’s the audience-insert, and her design reflects that.

Yubaba, on the other hand, is a Kiki character. She looks ugly, but her most-discernibly Kiki characteristic is her hooked nose. The nose is triangular, a typical Kiki trait. Additionally Kiki elements are her long, pointy fingernails and that her bird-form is triangular. Again, like Lady Eboshi, Miyazaki is sending subtle reinforcements about how we’re to view Yubaba. Except that, unlike Lady Eboshi, we’re supposed to be disgusted.

The idea of Kiki and Bouba can also be applied to non-villainous characters. In The Wolf Children, Yuki and Ame, particularly during early childhood, are Bouba characters, especially in their wolf forms. Their father, on the other hand, is more Kiki as both a human and a wolf, hence his somewhat intimidating appearance initially. These subtleties reflect a sense of maturity versus immaturity, denoting how we view kids and adults differently. It’s not overt, unlike Yubaba in Spirited Away, but the demarcations are there and, thus, understood in unique ways.

But why stop there? The title character in Millennium Actress, Chiyoko Fujiwara, has two stages of her life presented in the film. The first is the old woman stage, where she recounts her story to a journalist, while the second is flashbacks to her younger days as an actress. The film is clever and definitely worth a watch, but one element that sticks out is the designs on the faces of both Chiyokos: young Chiyoko, for instance, has soft, rounded features, a distinctly Bouba archetype. Conversely, old Chiyoko has saggy, elderly features that denote age, falling more in-line with Kiki. This progression is natural, especially given the age difference, but it also denotes that Kiki and Bouba aren’t inherently black-or-white. If anything, they can highlight the differences between youth and experience.

And this doesn’t even have to be drastic. Taeko from Only Yesterday is a 27 year-old woman who reminisces about her 10 year-old self growing up in Tokyo, and the differences in art styles and designs shine through: young Taeko is soft and pale, even cherub-like in appearance, while older Taeko looks more adult and has noticeable dimples. The latter initially bothered me, and it still does to an extent, but applying Kiki and Bouba makes them easier to digest: young Taeko is Bouba, older Taeko is Kiki. Neither are drastic, the latter still has Bouba features, but it’s enough to understand the age difference without it being spelled out.

I’ve talked a lot about anime films, so what of shows? The differences exist there too, but they’re harder to notice. The whole moe trend is meant to “Bouba-ize” anime characters, perhaps a little too much, but it does occasionally work to the show’s advantage when it’s used to comment on something specific (see every character model in Mahou Shoujo Puella Magi Madoka Magica.) However, even in less “moe-ified” anime, the distinctions are still there: Edward Elric from the Fullmetal Alchemist franchise is a Bouba character, something additionally played up for laughs via his height. The four leads in Wolf’s Rain, especially Toboe, have Bouba-like faces, obviously by way of attachment. But then you have characters from that same show, i.e. the nobles, who have harsher features, aka Kiki. Lord Darcia is especially Kiki whenever he puts on his mask, which is littered with points and rugged feathers.

Of course, we also have the kids from the Digimon franchise, all of whom are Bouba to the point where you’d be in denial to not notice.

So what about when Kiki and Bouba are flipped to create a jarring reaction? Well, a perfect example is Alphonse Elric in the Fullmetal Alchemist series. In his human form there’s no denying that he’s a Bouba character, but after his soul is transferred to a suit of armour he's more Kiki. And yet, we’re supposed to relate to him. Still, his appearance is quite unsettling, enough that both shows resort to Manga Iconography to make him feel Bouba enough in times of levity and humour.

Overall, these uses of Kiki and Bouba, as with anything else, help convey meaning in ways fans aren’t fully-aware of. Whether it’s via denoting protagonist and antagonist, mixing them up to create conflict, using them in the same characters to create perspective, or flipping expectations to challenge the viewers, these shapes and concepts are everywhere. And yes, like I said earlier, this isn’t exact science. Synesthesia Theory isn’t absolute, it’s merely a rough guideline for visual language. But it’s worth noting the next time you watch anime.

(Also, despite her name, Kiki from Kiki’s Delivery Service is a Bouba character. Sorry internet, there’s no Illuminati!)

Welcome back to Kinkmas, my holiday timed four part look at weird fetish games, from the guilty pleasures to the infinitely strange. I'm taking off the kids gloves from here on, so now it's time to talk about a very, very strange game about a very, very strange fetish. As I promised, it's time to look at a ryona game. What's ryona, you ask? Why, it's the fetish where you get excited by physical abuse, of course! It's guro's puritan cousin, and a popular sub-fetish among fans of anime titty. After all, why just have anime titty when you can have anime titty getting punched? We're a weird species. With that in mind, let me tell you about Battle the Three Sisters, which is certainly ...a thing.

This game comes from MZ Fist, a doujin group that mostly makes comics and image sets where anime girls get beat up. There is little else to say. They know what their audience wants and give it to them. All I can add is that their art is bad. Pretty, pretty bad. Most every design they come up with is incredibly generic, and the amount of sameface on female characters is somehow an even larger ratio than with the Stepford wives. Also, you can tell they only know the basics due to the heavy amounts of obvious photoshop and lack of detail in their ryona scenes. See, ryona is a fetish based around impact, and their art has very little of that because they're so constantly focused on keeping the anime girl faces cute. The end result is very awkward, even more awkward a proper “I have just been covered in barb wire and cannot stop the horrific pain” expression would be.

Battle the Three Sisters is also a last minute replacement. I was going to look at another ryona game before this one, but I didn't realize how text heavy it was, and how little happened in it (that I could understand without some sort of rough translation coder thing), so I had to change my plans (to a game that is also not translated because I am smart). But it took me longer than expected to get started with this weird thing because the controls make no sense. Get this; to make any progress in this game, you have to use not only the mouse to use menus and the arrow keys to move, you also have to use the spacebar to talk to towns people. It took me forever to realize this, and you have to talk with townspeople to make any progress. Now, I know you're thinking I'm an idiot, but here's the kicker. You know how most JRPGs like this have an action button to look at or interact with objects?

This game doesn't have that.

Oh, you do need to use the spacebar to talk to people when they have an exclamation point over their head, but objects are automatically examined by just walking into them. So I assumed that since this wasn't working with townspeople but did work with people running the shops and inn, that must mean these people had no dialog and were just there for no reason. Now that also seems like a dumb assumption, but this game is so poorly put together that the safer assumption seemed to be to accept that the team didn't understand how to make a videogame. Characters on the screen randomly appear and disappear at points, objects in the area sometimes appear over menus, borders, or the character portrait window, the character sprites and world are on separate layers that have to take a second to catch up with one another's positions when you move, and towns are littered with pointless objects and buildings. This is not the product of people who had a good grasp of game design or even the most basic technology.

But wait, it gets worse! The actual game proper is basic Dragon Quest stuff. Talk with tonwsfolk, buy stuff, wander around the world map, and grind baby grind. The random encounters rate is about the same as older JRPGs, which is to say far too high and very obnoxious. Monsters like appearing when you least want them to appear, not necessarily when you're weak, but when you just want to get somewhere and they won't let you. There's also not a whole lot around, so you start seeing the same few over and over every area. It gets old, especially with how boring the move sets for the three heroines in your party are. You hit things, and you have some basic buffs, heals, and a super move here and there, and none of them are visually interesting. It's a very boring game, and longer than I expected, so I got about to the halfway point, got bored, and just stopped because the endless pattern had become too obvious.

It's not a game worth the eight bucks it goes for, not even for the weird fetish factor. Now granted, the weird fetish game is strong here. Most enemies have their own ryona attacks, and they're magical. This is where the terrible photoshop work shines, as the team thought it was a good idea to add obvious and distracting effects to added items, like poorly made shadows under spider web threads, or the images added don't match their art style in the slightest. Outlines are all over the place, so it's easy to tell when something was made differently and added later, like how some things shown are actual things cropped and given lazy outlines to make it seem like it's apart of the art. Not a single filter! The biggest offender I noticed were some snakes, where a snake that was biting into one girl's anime titty had a very clear divide of the three images used to make its texture in three different spots. Come on, how do you not know how to use the clone stamp tool? That's photoshop 101!

These details just add to the scenes depicted, which are so painful and cruel that they become hilarious. My personal favorite is the cannonball one, in which one of your three anime girls gets a cannonball to the gut and there's no sense of motion or reaction in any part of the body, except for the face. That face. That face is just the most perfect expression. If the game had more stupidity like that, I'd be raving about it for ages, but it's sadly mostly filler. Anime girls getting electrocuted and being covered in spiders should be much more entertaining than this.

But thankfully, the final game I'll be looking at is an actually solid game with actual game design. Also, it's a vore game. We'll be going out not with a whimper or a bang, but with a gulp next week. Stay tuned, and don't pig out on holiday treats. Save your appetite for the monsters swallowing anime girls.

Let’s face it: 2016 was a cruddy year for everyone. Whether it was the lacklustre film cycle being especially lacklustre toward Oscar season, the insane number of celebrity deaths, the Brexit vote or that Donald Trump won the election and is now setting out to make the US his 7th bankruptcy, 2016 simply doesn’t want to let up. This makes its occasional moments of awesome that much more spectacular, of which there have been a few here and there. Case in point? This:


I happen to be Infinite Rainy Day’s biggest Studio Ghibli fan boy. I can’t help it: they’re basically the Japanese Disney, both in status and influence, and not even Hayao Miyazaki’s official-but-maybe-not-official-but-maybe-not-actually-happening-I-don’t-know-retirement can break that. I also own every movie they’ve made on DVD or Blu-Ray, with one exception. That exception is Ocean Waves, but, as Only Yesterday’s recent theatrical release has clearly demonstrated, anything’s possible. So I’ve kept my eyes and ears opened for years for any signs of it making its way here.

My prayers have now been answered. As if hot off the press, Ocean Waves, that elusive Studio Ghibli title that’s technically a made-for-TV film, is finally coming to North America. I’m hoping it’ll be dubbed, GKids is the distributor, but this is great news for two reasons:


First, I’m a collector when it comes to Studio Ghibli. Like I said, I own all of their films released on DVD or Blu-Ray. I’ve watched them all at least twice, and some more than that. So to acquire that one remaining title that I’ve never gotten my hands on, even if it’s considered a “weaker entry”, is nothing short of satisfying. It’s also a sure-fire sign that I’m a nerd, but I take that in stride.

Two, I’ve never seen it before. This isn’t like Only Yesterday, in which I caved and watched it illegally before I knew it’d be released in North America (and yes, I feel incredibly guilty for doing that, so shush!) No, this time I stayed clear of ruining the surprise in case I got the opportunity to watch it properly. I’m curious as to what it’s about: will it be exciting? Will it be unique? It looks like another low-key drama, but Studio Ghibli excels at that so…will it be as good as, say, Whisper of the Heart or When Marnie Was There?

There are a lot of questions that arise, but that doesn’t mean that this isn’t an exciting development. Because any Studio Ghibli film is an exciting development, honestly! I may have discovered their work late, you can blame my ignorance for that, but I’ve been more than making up for lost time by buying and watching their filmography. I only hope this follows suit.

If I have one complaint, it’s not that the film’s arrived almost 24 years too late to Western shores. I put up with Only Yesterday coming over here 25 years too late, so that’s not a concern. No, my issue is more in the arrangement. To quote Nerdist’s website directly:

“GKIDS, the company that’s released several Ghibli movies in the past few years (including From Up on Poppy Hill, Only Yesterday, and When Marnie Was There), announced on Wednesday that they will be releasing Ocean Waves in a limited theatrical run at New York’s IFC Center beginning December 28 and one night only at LA’s Egyptian Theatre. The movie will then get a home video release sometime in spring of 2017.”

Why? For clarification, this isn’t a new film. This isn’t like The Wind Rises, where it was released briefly in 2013 to qualify for its Oscar nomination (which it lost to Frozen, not surprisingly.) Ocean Waves gains nothing from this other than word-of-mouth, which is baffling because the only people who’d care are aware of its existence and will see it anyway. That it’s being treated like an indie-film right now, only to have a home release early next year, is flat-out ridiculous. Again, why?

Ah, whatever! There’s no point in harping over the weird decision to release it in stages, especially since we’re even getting it at all. I should be happy, not acting like a spoiled brat. It’s Studio Ghibli, after all! Besides, if Ocean Waves turns out to be a dud, I’ll be as disappointed as I was with Tales From Earthsea, so they deserve the benefit of the doubt. I only wonder how I’m gonna manage to fit the film on my special rack when it comes to DVD in 2017. Seriously, it has no more space left!