Otakuism

Why are you so cruel God?

I hate you. So very, very much. I’m now going to go sit in a corner and cry while I listen to SKILL.

In the near future, maybe in Japan, humans and androids will live side by side, identical except for the data halo’s that float above androids’s heads. Average teenager Rikuo becomes concerned for his family’s android, Sammy, when he finds an odd string of data in her memory. Investigating with his friend Masaki they find that the data leads to a cafe with only one rule: in this cafe there is no discrimination between humans and androids.

This is the first work by indie anime director Yasuhiro Yoshiura I’ve seen, but I’m determined to find his other works now, as Eve no Jikan just blows me away. It takes the almost cliche story idea of humans and androids living together and infuses it with new life by using wonderful visuals and a low-key style. The main plot is very simple: why would an android freely go to a cafe where it could pretend to be human, but the ideas and questions it brings up are numerous, especially when the twist at the end of the episode is brought into effect. I particularly like all the little things that are shown to provide more depth to this near future world.

Robots have revolutionized agriculture but food that is specifically grown by human hands is advertised as being better. The media labels and mocks “dori-kei,” or android otaku who refuse to treat their androids like slaves. The fact that Rikuo just may empathize with the dori-kei also adds a lot of depth to his character. Masaki, a character who appears superfluous at first, also adds his unique spin on things as it is revealed that his family owns no androids and he views the whole cafe and dori-kei phenomenon with a sense of distant disgust.

However, the visuals are the real star of the show. It’s easy to draw comparisons to Makoto Shinkai in Yoshiura’s use of light and shadows in showing Rikuo’s every day life. However, the show shuns from the epic vistas of Shinkai, keeping everything focused on the perspective of Rikuo. The only sweeping views we get are multiple angles of the cafe. The camera, unlike most anime, isn’t static but moves with the characters, sometimes switching to a literal eye’s view to make the situation more personal. It gives the show a lot more life, though it was a bit too shaky at times.

Overall I’m completely infatuated with Eve no Jikan. It’s one of those unique shows that doesn’t feel like anime while still using animation to its fullest extent. The wonderful direction and visuals, added together with the though provoking story, make this an award winner all around. Eve no Jikan is actually an ONA production, so does anybody know how long it will be between episodes?

On a whim I decided to pick up Gundam X, even though there’s a lot of other stuff I should be watching instead, since Hero Legends is releasing it in DVD quality in easy to digest releases of five episodes. Gundam X has always been maligned as the weakest of the Non-U.C. gundams, all based on the fact that it was cancelled after 39-episodes. People think that this must mean that there’s something wrong with its quality, even though it was actually cancelled because of executive meddling. But if the first five episodes of Gundam X are anything to go by, then this is actually one of the stronger gundam shows.

The show seamlessly opens up by introducing the world of After War 15. Fifteen years previously the Seventh Space War ended with dozens of colonies falling on the Earth, killing almost all of its ten billion inhabitants and inducing a nuclear winter on the world. Fifteen years later the environment is only just beginning to stabilize and the rest of humanity lives out a meager existence among the rubble. One of the groups that has formed in this post-apocalyptic world are the Vultures, scavengers of lost technology from the war, including the most valuable of prizes: mobile suits. Gundam X is the story of the young gundam pilot Garrod Ran, his relationship with the innocent newtype Tiffa Adill, and the efforst of the Vulture group Frieden to protect all newtypes from the military.

Garrod Ran is probably the most refreshing gundam protagonist in a while. He’s outgoing, confidant, skilled even before he starts piloting the Gundam X, and immediately goes after what he wants, that being the cute Tiffa. Unlike many other couples in gundam history these two actually have chemistry together that’s apparent from the first time they meet. Garrod breaking out of his jail cell nightly just to bring Tiffa flowers is one of the sweetest moments in gundam history. The rest of the cast has only been introduced so far but they all provide a unique twist on the formula. There’s the two gundam-for-hire pilots Roybea and Witz, both much older than the usual gundam pilots and possessing much more maturity (well, Roybea does). There’s Jamil Neate, the captain of the Frieden and a very cool mix of Bright and an older, more war hardened Amuro. He doesn’t just slap people, he punches them square in the face! The Frost Brothers are the other gundam pilots introduced so far, both suitably creepy villains in a yaoi-incest kind of way.

The animation is pretty good considering when the show was made but I don’t really find the mecha designs so far all that interesting. The gundam designs feel very derivative by this point. Leopard is just a slightly boxier Heavyarms, the Virsago is the lovechild of Epyon and Altron, and the Ashtaron is just kind of dull. The grunt units are similarly dull with the requisite knock offs of the zaku and GM. The only two suits that are really interesting are the Gundam X, which has the awesome satellite canon and a unique beam sword design, and the Airmaster, mainly cause I like how its two guns hang off the body.

The show immediately hits you with just how good its musical score is. The opening scenes of apocalyptic destruction are accompanied by a powerful orchestra that breaks into the catchy OP Dreams by Romantic Mode. Elsewhere the music always kicks in when most appropriate and always in a way that makes you stand up and take notice. I love the soundtrack for Zeta Gundam, but even it only had a few tracks that really made themselves noticeable in-show. All of Gundam X’s music is like that. If the rest of the show can stay as strong as its beginning is then I’m in for one good gundam experience.

I’ve finished the first batch of Legend of the Galactic Heroes episodes and I just have to say…wow. This show just blows me away. The characters, the story, the music, the pacing - everything is just perfect. This is one of the few anime that I would really call artistic as the themes and arguments it brings up are still relevant to this day, and indeed are relevant for all time. Several episodes got me thinking about various things, so I’m just going to go through and point at the stuff that interested me:

In ep.3 you got this great “with us or against us” speech by Truniht, the secretary of defense for the Free Planets Alliance. After his speech he’s immediately set upon by Jessica Edwards, a widow who had lost her husband in the previous battle. She asks Truniht where he was during the fighting and where was his family, or the families of any other politicians. For this action she is later attacked by the PKC, an illegal yet tolerated ultranationalist paramilitary group, but fortunately she is rescued by the quick actions of Yang Wenli. Living in America it’s easy for me to draw parallels between these events and the Iraq War, especially in the early years of the war. However, in truth these events could be related to any war, which is really what makes LOGH so fascinating.

In ep.4 it’s a very minor thing that caught my attention. There’s a brief ceremony where Reinhard is honored for his bravery in front of the Kaiser and other military officials. It is essentially a closed affair for the elite. Contrast this with the Alliance ceremony in the previous episode, which is a huge spectacle used by Truniht for political gain. It starkly contrasts the two societies governments and the way the leaders interact with the citizens.

In ep.5 (I promise I’m not going to go through every episode; the early ones were just awesome) we see Kircheis put down down a noble rebellion on Kastrop. The funny thing is that the noble runs the place like ancient Rome! Everyone wears togas and laurel wreaths and there’s pillars every where. When Kircheis does put down the rebellion the nobles followers, dismayed by his increasingly erratic behavior, stab him all at once just like Julius Caesar. The whole thing is just an ironic shout out to Caesar! It’s also a clever critique of dictatorship in an already autocratic society. Whether this is a foreshadowing for later events I don’t know, though a few minor nobles later on also get killed in a similar manner but replace daggers with lasers.

Ep.11 has another fun historical reference in the character of Marquis Benemunde, a noble who was once favorite of the Kaiser but is now forgotten as Reinhard’s sister Annerose takes her place. She concocts an elaborate planned, helped along by nobles who also despise Reinhard, to kidnap Annerose and poison her. To poison her Benemunde uses poison from her ring, a reference to Lucrezia Borgia from the Italian Renaissance. I only actually know this from Gankutsuou. After her plan is foiled she is allowed the “honor” of killing herself instead of being executed and is force fed her own poison. It’s all very medieval and brutal but also fascinating to watch. I also found it funny that in the Empire common thugs wear capes and masquerade masks. Are we really in the future?

Ep.18 features another ironical historical moment as the nobles rebel against Reinhard and fight for liberty, equality, and fraternity. Actually they’re just protecting their own skins, but the whole thing sure does look like the Tennis Court Oath that officially started the French Revolution.

LOGH has a lot of little characters that show up to provide a different view of things and put a human face on the often ugly facade of war. Ep.22 features the two most human guys that show up for thirty seconds in anime ever. The noble Littenheim is losing the battle and chooses to run away, but his escape path is blocked by his own supply ships. Instead of just going through them, since space is big and all, he instead opens fire on them. Right before this we get a scene with two guys, one of them showing a picture of his wife and newborn twins to the other, commenting on how he wants to go home and hold them soon. Both of them are then killed in the attack by their own forces. Now that’s just brutal right there.

Ep.23 features the greatest character conflict so far. Reinhard has to decide whether to prevent or not a noble nuclear attack on a planet. If he allows it then the nobles are basically finished as no good soldier will fight for them. But he’ll also be sentencing two million people to death. Like my favorite Star Trek episode “In the Pale Moonlight” everything is done perfectly here, with Reinhard’s reluctance, Oberstein’s machinations, and Reinhard’s acceptance that he’ll just have to ignore Kicheis’s opinion. A brilliant episode all around.

Ep.24 has the greatest weapon ever: chunks of ice shot at near light speed. Yang Wenli’s idea to get around an expensive automatic defense satellite is to just shoot ice really fast at it. It’s such a simple idea but the way the episode uses it is awesome. A real Crowning Moment of Awesome for Yang Wenli and ice. Also, more Antonin Dvorak used here.

Big spoilers here, but ep.26 is really the most surprising episode so far for me, as it basically kills of Kircheis, Reinhard’s best friend and heterosexual life partner. I’ve really tried to avoid spoilers for LOGH so I had no idea this was coming and I just assumed that Kircheis would survive seeing as how integral he was to Reinhard’s character. The effect this has on Reinhard is just devastating, as he immediately goes into a deep depression and by the time he comes out of it he’s definitely a different person. His eyes are drawn much colder and I really have to give credit to the animators for making me feel unsettle in his presence. This is now a guy who will either use you or kill you.

These are just a few highlights that I jotted down while watching, but really everything has been perfect so far. It’s just impossible to say everything that is so great about this series, from its very human relevance to all the historical shout outs for history buffs like me. I’m a quarter of the way on my journey and I’m definitely looking forward to more.

And for those who think LOGH might be boring, just look at all the gratuitous violence you’re missing. Real men in space fight with axes, after all.

Is there even a name for Ranka’s super evolved, CD eating cellphone thing? It seems wrong for one of the most prominent characters on the show not to have a name. With all the crazy cyborg stuff going on how do we know it isn’t the cellphone that’s controlling everything? Yes, I’m saying that the cellphone is a backup memory for Grace. Mark my words, that will be the big twist. But then you could just stomp her to death and everything would be fine.

Oh, and new OP is cute. That’s what I was supposed to be talking about, right?

I like Masami Obari’s anime. I like their haphazard storytelling, lanky men, even more voluptuous women, and extremely cool mecha. They’re the epitome of the style over substance anime. Gravion, being a later Obari work, fortunately has a much more straight forward story without lacking any of the other vital components of an Obari work; namely fanservice and mecha.

The plot begins with Eiji Shigure breaking into the castle of the mysterious Sandman to find out the fate of his sister Ayaka, who disappeared earlier under Sandman’s services. This being a mecha anime, soon the big bad attack, dubbed Zeravire, and Eiji finds himself enlisted into the Fellows of the Gran Divas to fight the new threat. Ironically Eiji is not actually the main pilot of Gravion, that going to the mysterious Toga, and, really, in an Obari anime who isn’t mysterious? Instead Eiji pilots the jet that becomes the foot of Gravion. I thought that was a neat little subversion right there.

Aside from Eiji and Toga there’s the four main ladies who also serve as Gravion’s pilots: the feisty Luna Gusuku who screams main love interest, the fanservice magnet Mizuki Tachibana, the incompetent head maid Ena, and the always mysterious blue haired loli Leele. A lot of people have described another Obari work, Dancouga Nova, as the third season of Gravion, and I know why now. The two are stylistically the same with Gravion having a better budget. The best description of Gravion however is Dancouga Nova meets Hanaukyo Maid Tai. Sandman has a literal army of maids at his disposal, from the usual clean up staff to the maintenance crew that wears overalls and frilly hats. Per Obari tradition they all have weird colored hair and huge breasts too.

The whole thing is a lot of fun though in the best Obari way. Everyone shouts out attack names, the girls always know when to show some skin, and Gravion features a new attack every episode. Pure guilty fun. The main flaw would have to be that the show ends abruptly at episode thirteen. Of course, there’s Gravion Zwei to immediately pick up the story, but I would be really pissed with that kind of ending if I was watching the show as it aired. Considering the year time difference between the end of Gravion and the beginning of Zwei, it’s probably good I didn’t watch it as it aired.

Story:

The computer genius Kunagisa Tomo and her very normal best friend/sidekick Ii-chan are invited to the island salon of Akagami Iria, a fabulously wealthy ex-heiress who invites the world’s greatest minds to share in her exile. That is, until one is found murdered. On an island of geniuses the normal Ii-chan is the only hope to solve the case, but can he solve a crime when he can’t even understand himself?

Impressions:

Zaregoto is the long awaited first novel of Nisioisin, the greatest up-and-coming author in Japan, now finally available in English. I’ve already read one of Nisiosin’s other works, Death Note Another Note, and thought that while the msytery was smart the characters just weren’t all that vibrant. Zaregoto fixes this completely as Nisioisin’s allows free reign for his quirky creations and the intricate crime they’re involved in. Quirkiest of all is the apathetic to the extreme Ii-chan. He’s Holden Caulfield turned up to eleven. While half the book is about solving the murders going on, the other half is just trying to figure out what makes this guy tick, with several characters offering their views and not even Ii-chan is sure if any of them are right. Fortunately Nisioisin does all this in a way that doesn’t stop Ii-chan from being a likeable, if baffling, protagonist. Doubly good for me since I hated Catcher in the Rye and everything about Holden in particular.

As for the mystery part of the book I found the constant twists exciting and unexpected. Ii-chan’s constant muttering of “nonsense” really does describe the implausible yet plausible crime of the novel. However, I’m not a big fan of mysteries and Nisioisin’s work has been my only encounter with the classic locked room scenario, so more expierenced readers of mysteries than me may not enjoy it as much if they can figure it out, which certainly there are enough clues to figure it out if you think in a really specific way.

My only problem with the writing is that there’s no “he said, she said” to mark who is talking. In Japanese the writing probably spoke for itself but English just doesn’t work that way. This is especially a problem when there’s a paragraph break even though the same character is still talking. I was still able to keep up with the conversations, though, even the really fast paced ones towards the end. Despite this flaw and some clunky wording in places I found Zaregoto to be an extremely enjoyable read. It’s an exciting mystery that never forgets it’s the characters that really drive the plot, and it shows how to be anime-influenced without feeling derivative. Really one of the best light novels out right now. I look forward to the second volume in December.