Archive for the English Anime Category


Liz and the Blue Bird Movie (English)

March 10th, 2019

I haven’t seen so much symbolic bird flight since Oniisama E. ^_^

Liz and the Blue Bird is a complicated and fascinating look at the habit of loneliness, obsession, affection and human relationships. If you were paying attention last summer to Japanese theatrical releases for animation, along with Asagao to Kase-san, you’d have come across Rizu to Aoi Tori (リズと青い鳥 ), which often shared a theater with Kase-san. Liz and the Blue Bird is the official release of this movie from Eleven Arts.

The movie follows two young women who play woodwind in their concert band as the band competition nears. Nozomi is popular, easy-going and wears her position as sempai to the flute section comfortably. On oboe, Mizore is a loner who avoids any connection with the other double-reed players, leaving the undergrads wondering what they are doing wrong. They are doing nothing wrong, Mizore simply has no room in her existence for anyone but Nozomi. As pressure is put upon them to play the key movement in a competition piece called “Liz and the Blue Bird,” based on a children’s book of the same name, Nozomi’s and Mizore’s relationship starts to buckle.

The movie’s structure is complex, with two stories-within-a-story, three separate animation styles and acting parts for the voice actors, the foley and the music.

I said in yesterday’s news report that you could, if you were so inclined, see Mizore’s relationship with Nozomi as Yuri. In fact, its hard not to, as Mizore declares that Nozomi is everything to her. That said, this is not a romance and this obsession Mizore has with Nozomi is not the end goal, but an obstacle that must be set aside for them both to thrive. To do so, Mizore is required to break out of the habit of loneliness that she has developed for herself as an identity.

The characters outside Nozomi and Mizore are excellent. We don’t spend much time with them, but we get to know a fair number in that short time. I liked them all, from Yuuko, the band leader and Natsuki, another third year, to the first-years, especially Kenzaki Ririka, the only other oboe in the band, and the amusingly bad-tempered library club member.

Nothing in this movie is simplistic. The children’s story of “Liz and the Blue Bird”, it’s relationship to Mizore and Nozomi, their relationship to one another and to the people around them are all fully developed and realistically complex. In fact, after watching this movie through once, I went back and watched it again to pay attention to details I knew I had missed the first time, especially in the animation and soundtrack.

I had gone into this movie cold, with absolutely no knowledge that it was part of the Sound! Euphonium franchise. Once I did, my sole complaint about the movie was instantly given context. So many people I know and trust have told me I would enjoy Sound! Euphonium, but I was unable to get through the first episode, as we spent almost the entire time watching the girls’ legs. In Liz and the Blue Bird, the one thing I found distracting and, ultimately exhausting, was the way the camera dissected the characters, separating out body parts endlessly, so we watched legs, then arms, then an eyeball so close we could see the curve of it, then feet, a lap, rinse, repeat almost as a non-stop compulsion, which if we weren’t also moving back and forth through the fairy tale would have been as intolerable as I found the Sound! Euphonium anime. It was so much of a problem that the few times the “camera” backed up in order to show us a whole person, it was a physical relief. This is not an animation style I enjoy and I will be very glad when it falls out of favor.

The three animation styles are, as I mentioned, wholly unique. The main story is the kind of thing Kyoto Animation is best known for, with higher production values than a TV series, and faces and bodies that are mostly similar, with realistic backgrounds (although thankfully not hyper-realistic which would be out of sync with the character designs.) “Liz and the Blue Bird” is told in an animation style that is strongly reflective of a children’s picture book come to life. Any frame of that animation could have been used as is in a picture book. It was very fitting to the tale and fun to watch. The third animation style comes in later in the narrative and is abstract, colorful and modern, and wholly suited to the scenes in which it is used.

The soundtrack was my favorite part of the movie. As a former woodwind, it’s nice to hear them get some love in the music. ^_^ But more importantly, the climax of the movie is not only centered around the music , it is a moment in which this viewer suddenly realized that the best acting of the movie had come from the musicians playing the piece, as they had throughout the movie played it wrong every time. Not, badly, not broken, they’d hit all the notes…it was just wrong. It was a masterful performance and one that I hope you will appreciate when you watch it.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
Characters – 9
Yuri – 3
Service – 6 That whole bodypart-staring is a form of service which I do not care for. It feels dehumanizing to me.

Overall – 9

In the end, I think the thing that best captures my feelings about this movie is that it was worth watching a second time and that second time made me appreciate it more.





Revue Starlight Anime (English)

February 4th, 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the moment it began, Revue Starlight (which is streaming on HIDIVE) reminded me of something.

Centered on a group of young women at a Takarazuka-like performing arts school, in which they vie to be cast in one of three successive performances of a muscial called “Starlight,” they find themselves called upon to literally fight for the Top Star position in battles set in the surreal landscapes of their own desires and fears.

And wow, did it remind me of something.

Duels, surreal landscapes, hrm. Uniforms created by impossible machinery…

Now what did that remind me of…?

Oh, yes, I got it! It reminded me, almost immediately, of…Melody of Oblivion. 

Yes, of course, it also reminded me of Revolutionary Girl Utena, but there was something specific about the tone that pinged Melody of Oblivion in my head in a very immediate way, which shared some staff and a lot of theatrical elements with Utena. As it turns out, Revue Starlight shares some staff with Melody, so I’m probably not that far off.

In any case, there was a similar sense of grimness that pervaded the plot of Revue Starlight so, despite the apparent desire to excel, the play the young women are working on is depressing as fuck. We watch them shine, in order to star in a play in which they must fail. And yet, despite that, Revue Starlight was a pretty good anime with a lot of emotion and a soupçon of WTF, in between shiny fight scenes and earworm music, capped off by utterly likable characters.

Yuri here lies primarily in intensely emotional relationships between various pairs of the girls. Futaba and her charge, imperious Kauruko, Mahiru’s overt crush on Karen, the late breaking, but immensely satisfying relationship between Nana and Junna and the even more satisfying rivalry of Maya and Claudine. If the story had been about Maya and Claudine, I would have loved it even more. Maya gets very close to making the series about them a few times and even goes so far as to refer to her rival as “my Claudine.” ^_^ 

By now, if you’ve seen this anime, you’re wondering if I’m going to mention the giraffe in the room. If the role had been an adult man, everything he said would be bizarre and creepy. So it’s a giraffe instead, and comes off as inexplicable and surreal instead of a creeptastic old dude in a series about young women in a school that has no men. So, giraffe.

Of course music plays an important role. The duels are soundtracked by image songs for the character whose arc it is, sung by the voice actress. These are themed to fit both character and the tension that rules the duel. I’ve got the opening theme stuck firmly in my head, but what I ended up liking best was the repetition of the end theme, by the pairs whose story was highlighted in that particular episode. Again, I like Maya and Claudine’s iteration best, but they were all good. And damned earmwormy. I fear I’ll be singing this stuff for days unless I do something to stop it. 

Did I enjoy Revue Starlight? Yeah, I think I did. It was shiniy and singy and fighty and asked for very little commitment from me as a viewer. I mean, I never cared about the main plot tension between the leads, which is not all that surprising, I often find my self preferring supporting characters. But it was definitely worth a watch.

Ratings:

Service – Knees, not thighs. Is that an improvement, when it’s so clearly meant to be a stand-in?

Couple Ranking:

1. Maya and Claudine 
2. Banana and Junna
3. Futaba with someone who appreciates her, not Kaoruko
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282726. Mahiru and Karen
282727. Karen and Hikari





Yuri Anime: Bloom Into You, End of Season Review

January 28th, 2019

Bloom into You, streaming on HIDIVE, wrapped up and I wanted to to take a look back at it as an overall series and discuss what it did well. Because, I’ll admit, it did a number of things very well. 

To star with the weakest link, I do think we need to revisit the current trend of eyeball closeups in anime.  And live-action television and movies and every other visual media. I do not want to be that close to anyone except my wife. It is creepy. Please stop. And with the strangely animated eyes (eyes are hard, I know, but that is not how they look) I found it very distracting to have to view them so close, so often.  It was particularly vexing as the animation was otherwise quite pleasant. I really wish they’d just back up.

The story was a fair representation of the manga. It ended just before the play – I sincerely wish we had been able to see that because it is such an important moment, but the anime captured two of the other pivotal scenes and did an excellent job with them, so I accept the decision. (It would still make an awesome Blu-Ray extra.)

The thing the anime excelled at was bringing the characters to life. Voice actors gave the characters more depth where needed and less heaviness where it was not warranted. We were able to spend time with Maki and Sayaka, two side arcs that I found in and of themselves intriguing. And we herd the characters’ voiced in a way that really gave them more agency than I ever would have expected. Yuu is especially strong in this regard. 

Overall, I was deeply impressed by the anime; far more so than I would have expected. In fact, it was because of the anime I was able to “hear” Sayaka so clearly when I read the Light Novel about her.

Ratings:

Art – 6 The eyes were a genuine distraction
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5 + 1 for Sayaka, so 6
Service – 1 on principle

Overall – 8

If you still haven’t taken a look, or you like or are on the fence about Bloom Into You, I hope you’ll watch the anime and let me know what you think in the comments!





Devilman Crybaby Anime (English)

January 13th, 2019

Too much cute happy stuff this week for you? Are you just raring to get your hands on demons slaughtering people in grotesque ways? Well awesome, because this week we’re talking a look at Go Nagai’s Devilman Crybaby, the newest – and possibly, the best – entry in the Devilman universe. Currently streaming on Netflix, this series was so good I binge-watched it in two days and only had to have two sleepless nights full of terrible dreams of people being devoured by demons. So that was good. ^_^

We don’t often cover the Devilman side of Nagai’s work, with the exception of Devilman Lady, so here’s a quick synopsis of this iteration. Puny little Akira’s inner demon is awoken so that he becomes the Devilman. Overnight scrawny crybaby Akira becomes a hunk, but he’s still a crybaby, even as he’s destroying the demons who have taken to attacking humanity. 

Akira lives with fellow student and track star Miki. Miki’s rival at school is also named Miki but is nicknamed Miko. Miki likes Miko as a friend, but it’s pretty obvious that Miko resents Miki and is struggling with a love-hate relationship.

To begin with, Masaaki Yuasa’s animation has never before been so exquisite. The style in the series slowly morphs as the story becomes darker. The first few episodes are positively pastel and cheerful, with cartoonish character designs. As the series progresses, the color palette shifts, the art style sharpens. It’s brilliant and perfect. 

Devilman Crybaby is also the second-gayest entry in the Devilman mythos. (Devilman Lady still wins, but this comes close.) During the course of the story we meet another champion runner, Koda, who has become a demon. Koda has, as a result of his demonization, killed and devoured his gay lover. We’re able to see that they truly loved one another and Koda is grieving deeply.

At the end of the series,  a demonized Miko confronts Miki – and while I will not tell you what happens, because that’s the climax of the series, I will tell you Miko confesses she’s always liked Miki. 

That said, it’s not Miko’s feelings that are the best scene, although it comes close. The best scene is when a random guy who likes Miko raps his feelings to her and both she and I welled up with tears. It was a magnificent scene.

I want to reiterate that this is a very, very, violent story. Demons decapitate and render people limb from limb, Devilman pulls demons apart,and humans respond to all this with very base, violent and tiresome but predictable mob behavior.  As we so frequently find at the end of a Nagai story, everything is destroyed. If you object to Nagai’s violence or the existential angst of a Yuasa series, you will definitely wish to give this series a hard pass. 

Ratings:

Art – 10, no, 11
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service –  9 There always is in both Nagai and Yuasa’s respective works
Queer – 7 It’s not really Yuri and not quite LGBTQ

Overall – 10
 

I thought Devilman Crybaby to be an honest-to-god work of genius by two creators who are in their own right geniuses. I’m actually glad that I was able to see it. Sleepless nights and all.





Yuri Anime: Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3, Disk 2 (English)

December 21st, 2018

As I wrap up watching Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3, I find that there is indeed a lot to talk about in this final disk of Crystal so far.

First, let us speak of the actual story, in which a very few tweaks to the plot turn a messy confusion into a rather horrific arc.

The Outer Senshi tell us that when they are gathered together and their Talismans resonate with one another, Sailor Saturn appears with the sole mission to destroy everything.

Sestuna says that it was unlikely for them to all have been reborn at all, and for them to be born together is even odder. And we’re told by Haruka and Michiru that they were used to being alone on their planets. They imply that being along was by design to keep their Talismans from being together, and resonating.

We know that as the Senshi awaken in this world, they have imperfect recollection of their past lives. We saw it with all the Inners and Haruka and Michiru. (Not Setsuna, because she is a particularly strange case. PLUTO appears in ‘R’, but we know that to be the Pluto of the future, because for her to be reborn on Earth, the Pluto of the second season had to die and Meioh Setsuna had to be born as a human some years before Tsukino Usagi was born.)

All of this is why I want all anime with magical girls to have an adult, rather than a toy or animal, as a companion.

The story is told wrong because it’s told by people who don’t have all the information and no one told them any different. 

They believe that, when the Talismans all gather and resonate, Sailor Saturn is caused to be reborn, but it’s pretty obvious that the Talisman resonate because Sailor Saturn is being reborn. Ami really drops the ball on the whole genius thing here.

So what we have are three young woman who are practically unsocialized in their interaction with other Senshi, lacking a guide with the ability to say, “Kids, this is not on you. Saturn will appear when she appears and when she does, your Talismans resonate.”  And we have to assume that their memories of the past are imperfect when they say Saturn destroyed everything, because she explicitly does no such thing, even as we watch her attack Pharoah 90. It’s easy enough to imagine that she never destroyed the Silver Millenium.  Saturn’s use of the word”invader” reminds us that she, too, is an Outer Senshi, tasked with defending the Solar System from invaders. Duh, right?

So I propose that Pluto, Uranus and Neptune remembered what happened the wrong way ’round. The Silver Millenium was attacked and invaded, but not from the outside, from within, so the Outers could do nothing until it was too late. When they arrived, they saw Saturn destroying what was left in order to keep the future safe, because she too has ties to Chronos, aka, Saturn.  Their Talismans resonated as they saw her, but when they were reborn it all got mixed up in their heads, because they are fricking’ children. Haruka and Michiru are 16 years old and this Setsuna is 20, she says she’s a first-year in college.

All of this is to say, I got very little work done today. ^_^

I think Sailor Moon Crystal Season 3 is brilliant, and if I wrote fanfic anymore, I’d write one, because there is a terrific story in there.

The music is good, the writing actually works better here than in the original anime (and the idiotic final confrontation of Outers and Sailor Moon that made no sense is disappeared appropriately.) Professor Tomoe comes off looking much worse, by having any desperation or desire to save his daughter stripped and, as a result, Hotaru’s story is darker and more moving.

Director Kon’s touches of visual homage to the original anime are on point. 

In conclusion, I liked Sailor Moon Crystal, Season 3. It was good.

Ratings: 

Art – 9
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 0 really
Service – Not really…unless you are quite desperate

Overall – 10

I hope that the fourth season has been postponed until after the 25th anniversary celebrations are complete. Ideally, they have been working on it all this time, so as a theatrical release it will look amazing. Knowing Toei, they have done nothing and will cheap out and rush the whole thing if the project gets revived.