No matter how strong or weak a season of anime appears to be at the onset, one can always count on at least a couple of gems each season. As a result, I’m not at all surprised that, once again, the makers of anime continue to defy their prophesied doom by creating several series that are well on their way to excellence. What does astound me is the width and depth of quality displayed by this season’s roster of anime series. I could trim out the four best series (so far) and this season would still be a very strong one. In fact, it would take trimming out 7, maybe 8, of the best series before this season would look merely decent with the resulting group of series. I can’t remember another season this strong in the last 6+ years that I’ve been following new anime by the season.

(The closest competitor, that I can remember, is the Summer 2009 season which featured – Bakemonogatari, Spice and Wolf 2, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei 3, Aoi Hana, Canaan, Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, Hetalia 2, Taishou Baseball Girls, GA: Art Design Class and Sora no Manimani – but, even that season can’t compete in terms of the number of different types of series airing this season.)

On the downside (if you want to call it that), all these outstanding shows have made it difficult to find the time to write about them. It seems like every time I look there’s more episodes waiting to be watched or the realization that I should probably also give anime X or Y a shot as well. It’s crazy, I hope there’s at least a few good series left for the upcoming summer and winter seasons.

Normally, I like to rank the series from worst to best when I write a post such as this but this time I felt like doing something else; so, instead, I’ve grouped the 20 new series I’ve watched into small groups with other series that share a similar trait.

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

There’s no better way to gauge how successful the animation studio Shaft has become then to see how other animation studios (both new and old) have started partaking from Shaft’s playbook.

Acchi Kocchi

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 5/12  C+

Acchi Kocchi is studio AIC’s latest anime set in the now familiar genre of light comedy 4-panel comic adaptation taking place in a school and featuring a group of friends that lead lives full of hilarity (hopefully). Groundbreaking? Not really, but excellent execution can still yield a very enjoyable series. The problem with Acchi Kocchi, so far, is the execution has been meh and the result has been a slightly below average series. It’s most noteworthy feature has been its Shaftian visual treatment but, even there, it feels more like someone is merely trying to copy and I’m left wishing for the next season of Hidamari Sketch.

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Sankarea

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 9/12  A-

Did I die or accidentally fall into a bizarro world without realizing it? If neither of those are the case then we might just be living in the End Times. How else to explain Sankarea? Studio Deen and quality anime are like oil and water – they don’t mix. Of course, there’s still plenty of time for Sankarea to slide down to typical Studio Deen quality. Until then, I’ll be happily watching. Helping Sankarea along is it’s visual style with it’s obvious Shaftian influence to it; which, unlike Acchi Kocchi, hasn’t been a mere copying of style but an infusion into a larger unique style.

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Tasogare Otome x Amnesia

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 9/12  A-

It’s not astonishing that Dusk Maiden x Amnesia looks Shaftian because it’s from the studio Silver Link, a spin-off of talent from Shaft. At this point, it would have been surprising if it didn’t look Shaftian but just because it looks Shaftian doesn’t mean Silver Link can create a series on par with Shaft. Which has been the problem with their series; they feel almost “there” (like with their last one, C3 – CubexCursedxCurious). I’ve been waiting to see if they can grow and evolve into a top quality studio like their forbears and I think the wait might finally be over; Dusk Maiden x Amnesia looks to be their first true hit. This anime really reminds me of the first season of Natsu no Arashi with it’s mix of mystery, comedy, seriousness and the supernatural. There’s still plenty of time to fail, so the question is will Dusk Maiden x Amnesia continue to balance these various aspects like the first season of Natsu no Arashi or will it eventually fumble like the second season of the same series and end in disappointment?

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In Search of a Charm Point

Because I don’t like to drop anime series, I’ll normally keep watching a mediocre series if there’s at least one thing about it that’s likeable. The following anime series, so far, lack that one thing that will keep me watching.

Sengoku Collection

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 2/12  F

I gladly offer my services to Brain’s Base in facilitating a solution in the matter that is currently forcing them to produce Sengoku Collection because I know there’s no way that Brain’s Base wants to spend time working on this pile of steaming insipid drivel that is Sengoku Collection. Couldn’t they have gotten Yamakan to do it? I heard he’s not busy.

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Medaka Box

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 4/12  C

I guess it’s time to perform Last Rites on Gainax; if Medaka Box is indicative of the quality left at Gainax then they’re not long for this world. Medaka Box might not have the best source material behind it but Shaft/Shinbou just finished showing what can be done when Nisioisin isn’t at his best with their adaptation of Nisemonogatari. So, the failings of making Medaka Box even the slightest bit interesting falls to Gainax with their first mistake being the decision to make the anime look like a low-quality J.C. Staff series.

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Kore wa Zombie Desu ka – Of the Dead

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 4/12  C

I knew I was pushing it. I was astonished when I was able to finish the first season of this Studio Deen series and I should have quit while I was ahead. What helped make the first watchable was the storyline featuring the silent necromancer. With that resolved at the end of the first season, there’s a need for another somewhat decent storyline but that’s apparently not in the cards for this season. Instead, it’s been a random comedy series that hasn’t been all that funny.

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With Great Power

There’s always room for a good action series to help balance out the laid back slice-of-life series and the comedy series. This season there’s quite a few that aspire to fill that role but to succeed, these series can’t forget the action scenes need to well-done and the viewers need to like the characters.

Jormungand

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 7/12  B

I don’t think Jormungand has fully shown what its capable of yet; but, thus far this story of an off-beat arms dealer and her posse has been pretty good. It’s hitting a good vibe for this type of anime and I look forward to watching more. The only thing that tempers my enthusiasm for Jormungand is the fire-fight in episode 3 seemed to stretch credibility a bit too far. The hefty amount of bullets that were fired by supposed very quality gunmen in such a constrained space should have resulted in a lot more carnage. It wasn’t game-breaking at this point; but, the more handwavium I have to accept from the animators, the less I’ll take the series seriously as an action series and the harder it’ll be to like it.

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Accel World

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 9/12  A-

I gave Accel World a chance out of respect for Sunrise actually animating the loser male main character in such a way that he looks like a loser compared to the rest of the characters and its making me glad I did. The near-future setting with it’s augmented reality, police-state surveillance, and it’s machine-human interfacing is actually pretty well done and interesting. The way the Brain Burst program has been introduced and shrouded in mystery is enticing (always a good thing in getting viewers to come back). The characters are a good fit for the story they’ve been thrown into and appear to be on-track towards becoming fully interesting characters. The plotting has been brisk so far, probably signaling the creators are feeling ambitious, and has been relatively excellent. It hasn’t been perfect but if it can, at least, emulate last year’s Sunrise series Tiger and Bunny which remained a very good series even if the plotting was a bit rough then it’ll be a great series to watch.

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Fate/Zero Part 2

Rating for episodes 1 to 3 – 9/12  A-

I know I’m not the best person to gauge how good Fate/Zero truly is because of my total unfamiliarity with the franchise before the first part of Fate/Zero aired but with the second half finally airing I can, at least, see how the characters that I’ve come to like will fare. And it’s been a thrilling start; I just hope there’s still bigger and better stuff left to get too and plenty of Rider screen time, as well or else the second half is going to feel like a letdown. If I want to get nitpicky about Fate/Zero then I’d complain that, even though this anime probably looks the best right now when it’s standing still (which is saying something this season), I’m just not thrilled by the raw animation level of it. Nothing in Fate/Zero has done has been able to get near the stellar animation of the fist fight in episode 1 of Sakamichi no Apollon.

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Look for Part 2 covering the rest of new anime series, from the guilty pleasures to the truly heavy-hitters, in a near future .

And it all came to an end. 10 years ago today, on March 16, 2001, the grand finale, and the longest episode of FLCL, FLCLimax (originally Furi Kura) was released on DVD. It brought forth the 3rd amazing episode in a row and also provided a worthy finish to this great series, one that left me speechless and sad that it was over. But it didn’t leave me wanting more. Rather, it made me happy that the work was so complete, so well constructed from start to finish.

This is the last post in a series of posts I’ve made celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of each of the episodes of FLCL. As for all the posts before this, I did not rewatch the episode before writing this and instead chose to write based on my memories. The last time I watched the series was in the summer of 2009. You can read the previous posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing) (5: Brittle Bullet).

I don’t know if it came to me upon first viewing or later on, but what stayed with me was how well this final and the 1st episode bookended the series (indeed, there was a symmetry to the whole 6 episode series in some aspect). The most obvious thing the 2 episodes had in common was the manga dinner scene, which was an exact copy of the one in the 1st episode, at least at the start. There was also the title of the episode, Furi Kura, just 1 letter away from Furi Kuri, the title of the 1st episode. The use of The Pillows’s One Life right before the halfway cut as Naota bemoaned the boring life in this town while crying into Haruko’s bosom was similar to the series’s cold open leading to the title shot, in which he was being held by Mamimi. Right down to the overhead view of the iron-shaped Medical Mechanica factory. On a higher level, the episode started off with a slow, melancholy, almost dejected mood before Haruko entered and brought life to the setting, much like the 1st episode. And there was the epilogue as well, showing Ninamori taking Naota’s, a much more appropriate girl for him than Mamimi in the 1st episode.

These couple frames in which Naota became doe eyed somehow felt so significant.

Of course, to get to the epilogue this episode provided the climax proper. The yellow saturated finale, starting with The Pillows’s Last Dinosaur, followed by I Think I Can when Naota took Atomsk’s power remains one of my favorite scenes in anime. It lacked the raw emotional magic of the episode 4 climax or the high octane action of the episode 5 climax, but it was a worthy finish to this chain of 3 incredible episode climaxes. Seeing Haruko really upset for the 1st time was a bit jarring, and it would be some time later that I realized its significance in the series as a whole.

And it delivered the single most powerful moment in the series, when Naota, having beaten Haruko handily, dove at her and… said, “I like you” before stealing a kiss from her (the fansub I had translated the “suki” as “I’m in love with you,” which sounded even more powerful to me, though I’d learn later it wasn’t the best translation). There was something amazing about this simple moment, when our hero finally got the guts to say what he said and do what he did. It was an ultimate moment of catharsis, when all the emotional tension and pressure that had been building up throughout the series was released, with a simple, “I like you” and a kiss. The first one he initiated, one he had wanted so badly from the start.

This image was my wallpaper for a long time after I watched this.

In typical FLCL fashion, it was followed by a literal explosion, but all that was just the aftermath, the falling action before the denouement. I remember being heavily moved by the ending. Some of it was the sadness from watching the series end. Some of it was that it was a bittersweet ending, in which both Haruko and Mamimi left Naota. But more than anything, the ending was one of hope, showing Naota go on with his life, moving on to middle school, with a girl who genuinely liked him, not one who just wanted to use him. Mamimi’s story ended with hope as well, as she moved on from her stuck crush on Tasuku and left the town that had been nothing but abusive to her, to discover her own path (she likely learned a lesson about the futility of revenge as well, seeing what her “Ta-kun” this time ended up doing).

Certainly, life would not be easy for any of our protagonists. But life isn’t supposed to be. It’s about moving forward with what you have, making the best of it. This was how the most mature characters in this series – Haruko and, as this episode revealed during his conversation with Naota’s teacher Miyaji, Naota’s father – approached their lives. By the end, Naota and Mamimi had learned it as well.

Mamimi Samejima. She knew how to make smoking look cool.

Of course, this being FLCL, it was technically and artistically excellent throughout. One scene that stood out to me was Mamimi’s first meeting with the Terminal Core under the bridge, when she nonchalantly took a giant step towards it and shuffled over next to it discreetly before calmly turning to it and blowing smoke on it. There’s also a shot of her that has stayed with me, when she was enacting revenge on the scooter that had splashed her earlier in the episode, her dead eyes calmly watching the robot devour the scooter, her face only illuminated by the cigarette in her mouth.

Another memorable scene was the aforementioned hug between Naota and Haruko. When Haruko went from playfully poking fun at Naota to seriously asking him if he wanted to run away with her, when Naota’s usual barrier dropped down, his eyes swelled, and he cried into her bosom. The slow pan up to Haruko’s bored eyes as the sensor on her wrist started to clang once again, and The Pillows’s One Life fading in. It was a perfectly directed scene.

"Good bye, Naota-kun." A beautiful transition into the epilogue, Mamimi finally letting go and calling Naota by his real name.

I don’t know if or how watching the entire last half of the series in a row affected my initial reaction to it. As I’ve written before, I consider the final 3 episodes of FLCL to be a set, each a great episode in its own right with a powerful, exciting climax set to a rocking energetic song by The Pillows. The reason that they’re a set is that they worked together to form the final half of this series. Episode 4 saw Naota triumph over his fears of swinging the bat, episode 5 saw his downfall as he learned that he wasn’t “all that,” that the women around him were just using him. And episode 6 saw him triumph again, but differently. As amazing as he had been once he turned against Haruko, he wasn’t filled with joy or excitement afterward. He looked calm, almost serene, as Haruko sarcastically blamed him for losing Atomsk and said good bye.

It was as if he had finally learned that important fact, perhaps the most important fact about being an adult: there is nothing amazing or special about it. The path to adulthood isn’t one with leaps and bounds, it’s one defined by its gradual progression, of growing accustomed to new things little by little.

Naota wasn’t there yet, but he learned what it meant to grow up. And that was all I needed to see.

And as one story ends, another begins. However, it is not FLCL's role to tell that story. This is how it should end.

So this is a bit of a cheat, as it’s about something from 2000, not 2010. It’s about something exactly 10 years ago, in fact, as today, December 21, 2010, is still the 10th anniversary of Gainax’s release of the 5th episode of FLCL, Brittle Bullet. This is part of a series of posts I’m making on looking back at FLCL 10 years later. Like all my other posts, I opted not to rewatch the episode for the post and to write based only on memory instead. You can read the other posts here: (1 & 2: Fooly Cooly and Firestarter) (3: Marquis de Carabas) (4: Full Swing).

I see this as a bit of an odd episode. It was right in the middle of the tour de force that was the entire 2nd half of FLCL, yet it didn’t have the same magic of episode 4 or the significance of being the true climax of episode 6. Still, this episode was a major part of the reason that the last half of FLCL was as amazing as it had been, and it provided some of the best action sequences in the show while also pushing the plot along.

What got me about the episode at first was the action. It was full of it, from the opening BB gunfight between Naota and his father, to Amarao’s encounter with Haruko at the barber shop, to the climactic scene in which Haruko, dressed up as Gainax’s old Daicon girl, battled it out against the gigantic gunslinging hand robot.

I remember fondly the John Woo style scene at the barbershop, in which Haruko decimated Amarao’s troops with ease (speaking of John Woo, I loved the reference to him at the beginning of the episode, when the Nandaba family was watching some action movie on TV in which doves suddenly start swarming everyone, eventually escaping from the TV and entering their living room). One shot that stayed with me was when she was shown dodging bullets, not by avoiding them per se, but rather by changing the shape of her body to have holes where the bullets would hit. Or what about the scene just before, when Haruko cleanly sliced in half Amarao’s bullets using nothing but a pair of shaving razors? Talk about fucking badass.

This single take sequence is one of my favorites in any anime.

Of course, if you want badassery, what about taking down a gunslinging hand robot while riding a bass guitar like a hoverboard and using a slingshot as the weapon? Haruko’s devil may care attitude as she performed beautiful acrobatics, flying around and shooting and running on the gunslinger’s gun was a joy to watch. As was her display of more of her unique bullet dodging abilities. There was a great humorous touch of realism as well, as the oversize shells from the robot’s guns fell right into the path of Amarao and Kitsurubami (those shells actually reminded me a lot of Gainax’s earlier masterpiece Neon Genesis Evangelion, in which the gigantic humanoid robots got proportionately sized tools and objects). And of course the climax was distinctly FLCL, featuring Canti pulling out a glowing guitar from his face as both Haruko and Amarao, watching in awe, yelling out in unison, “That’s Atomsk’s Gibson EB Zero, 1961 edition!” And just as the all of The Pillows’s Crazy Sunshine played in the background during the final action sequence of the previous episode, their Blues Drive Monster played through this one, providing upbeat, energetic accompaniment to the equally playful scene taking place.

One of the truly iconic shots from this show. Let it never be said that FLCL was subtle.

I haven’t even mentioned its beautiful use of guns for transitions. Gunshots were used to connect many scenes, from the opening BB gunfight to a flashback of them watching an action movie the night before, from Amarao and Haruko’s initial exchange at the barbershop to Mamimi shooting Naota with the BB Uzi, from Kitsurubami freaking out on Canti back to the completion of Amarao and Haruko’s exchange at the barbershop, and even Ninamori seeing the dumped and depressed Mamimi through the green squirt gun she won via the aforementioned popsicle.

I would be remiss not to mention the famous South Park parody scenes. They were stuff just out of left field and helped add to the crazy, surreal feeling that was so important to the FLCL experience. It didn’t occur to me until a later viewing, but the latter scene, in which Naota played the role of Kenny, unable to produce anything more than muffled sounds when talking to Mamimi, may have been a foreshadowing of how his ego was about to get killed in a couple of gruesome ways in the rest of the episode.

It's funny that now in 2010, 10 years later, Gainax once again parodied South Park with the beach episode of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. Were there any others in between?

But more significant than all the heart pounding  action was the intense character development taking place throughout the episode. One scene that I didn’t fully understand the first time around was the imagery of fellatio created by Ninamori sucking on her popsicle. Of course, it represented the overwhelming praise Naota was receiving from his friends in that scene. But what of when she bit the popsicle off? Did it show how Ninamori was one who had not been taken in by the hype and didn’t see him as some super hero? Or was it a foreshadowing of what would happen later in the episode, when Naota would be taken back down to Earth by learning that, in Mamimi’s eyes, he was still not equal to his brother?

That was the heart of this episode: Naota’s realization that even after everything he did throughout the show, to Mamimi, he was still nothing more than “Ta-kun,” the little brother to the one she really loved, a replaceable substitute. He was brimming with confidence as he forcibly dragged her to the cafe then tried to get a kiss, only to be rejected. But the breaking point was when they were on top of the gunslinger, Mamimi yelling out for help over and over again not to him but to his brother, “Tasuku-senpai,” even though he was right there next to her. His anger blew up then, and it was clear that he was trying to hide the immense pain he felt from Mamimi rejecting him so completely.

This was easily one of my favorite and most powerful moments in the show. It perfectly delivered the anger and confusion that the adolescent Naota must have felt at this rejection.

It was a pretty powerful moment. The episode ended with Naota getting rejected by another female, this time Haruko, who carelessly landed right on top of him to get next to the awakened Canti as she looked on with admiration. What this episode showed both to Naota and to the viewer was that despite everything, Naota was nothing more than a tool to these women whom he liked and thought cared for him. If the ending of Full Swing showed Naota hitting his zenith, the ending to Brittle Bullet showed him on his way to rock bottom.

At the beginning of the episode, Haruko was on top of Naota, wearing nothing but a towel, in bed. Here they are again, but in a very different way.

Looking back now, it’s hard to believe just how chock full of things this episode was. It started with the threads from the previous episode of Naota and his father competing over Haruko and Mamimi’s disappointment at seeing that Naota was one to swing the bat and ended with Naota being dumped by two women whom he thought liked him. In between, we got to learn a little more about Amarao’s past with Haruko – how he had been unceremoniously dumped by her when he was no longer a use to her – we got to see the effects of Atomsk’s manliness in Kitsurubami falling in love with Canti, and we were finally treated to the first glimpse of the “final boss” since the first episode, the red Canti without Naota within.

But more than anything, the nonstop wild action was what I took away from this episode on my first viewing. It was just plain fun, and it was a reminder that, for all the notoriety it gained with the ending to the Evangelion series, Gainax was an action oriented studio, and even if it wouldn’t do it in the most traditional of ways, it could still blow your socks off with its action. And even though, again, this episode didn’t have the power or significance of either of the episodes sandwiching it, it was a key component of what had made the last half of FLCL so special, and the Blues Drive Monster scene is one that easily stands toe to toe with any other action sequence in anime.

I leave you with another one of my all time favorite shots, so cool that Gainax decided to show it twice, from different angles!

That's a picture of my brain in it's current state

Before I get to the awesomeness, I feel the need to get a little meta.

A quick look at the previous post’s title shows that I haven’t written anything for The Null Set in roughly 3 weeks. This was entirely unplanned and was the result of several factors falling into place at exactly the wrong time. The first was a general sapping of enthusiasm towards anime brought on by looking forward and discovering that the next season just looks appallingly abysmal. (The new series by Gainax and Shaft will probably turn out good and that’s probably it.)

Second, many of the series this season, both great and not-so-great, haven’t really played-out in a way that I feel like I have something to blog about. The sequels to Arakawa Under the Bridge and Sora No Otoshimono have gone the way I wanted them to (focus on Nino, explore the story behind Synapse) and I’ve really been satisfied with them. If they had failed or gone in an interesting direction, I’d have something to talk about; instead, all I got is saying that both sequels do justice to their respective franchises. Shows like The World Only God Knows, Amagami SS, Shinryaku! Ika Musume, Yosuga no Sora, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, Samurai Girls and Otome Yokai Zakuro have ranged from watchable to pretty good but have done so without creating waves. For example, Ika Musume is a decent comedy about a squid girl that shows up with the intent to invade humanity and really sucks at being an invader. This description more then adequately explains all 9 episodes of the show that I’ve seen so far; there’s nothing else I need to add. Soredemo turned into a fairly standard Shaft/Shinbou series and most anime fans already know where they stand in relation to Shaft/Shinbou. (That makes it cool in my book.)

There’s been a few new standouts this season – Milky Holmes (one of the best shows this season and one of the best comedies of the year) and Panty and Stocking (Gainax doing what Gainax does best) – but there is a limit to how often I’m willing to repeat myself. And other awesome shows like Jellyfish Princess that’s already getting tons of coverage. The third reason for the lack of blogging is the ol’ real life excuse, you know the one. In my case, suffice it to say that nothing horrible happened and it mainly dealt with getting ready for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. (For example, my family’s iron-clad tradition to have one’s Christmas tree up and decorated before Thanksgiving, even when it’s near impossible to find a tree farmer/seller that’ll open before Thanksgiving.)

Now onto the tenth episode of Panty and Stocking.

I haven’t been the only person to realize that the really awesome Part B half-episodes seem to be matched with very weak Part A half-episodes. I’m starting to think it’s done on purpose; either Gainax is stuck using the weak ones and figured they’d do the least damage when paired up with a great half-episode or Gainax is purposely making a few poor half-episodes because they just feel like it.

So upon finishing the disappointing Part A to episode 10, I hoped and guessed the pattern was going to hold and it did. Before hitting the pure awesomeness, the show took a detour through a middle mini-episode that was rather odd until I realized what Gainax was doing. The entire 3 part Chuck mini-episode was to set a joke up involving the final scene, namely, a literal mind screwing to cap off a figurative mind screw mini-episode. I got a good laugh at the slyness of Gainax in acknowledging their own often mind screw type endings.

The highlight of the episode was the final mini-episode, the animated music video for one of the insert songs that Gainax has been using in Panty and Stocking. This is a field that Gainax has been exploring over the last couple of years with Gurren Lagann and I’m glad to see Gainax is starting to do the same with this show. It was probably the most awesome 5 minutes of anime this season will see and quickly becomes one of the highlights of the year. Screenshots to follow with a poll at the bottom.

The parodies were awesome and this was just some of them.

The poll question deals with the following screenshots.

American edition

Indian version

Australian version

Russian version

Spanish version

Greek version

Japanese version

And because Stocking is my favorite character:

I think the above screenshot speaks for itself but, since I’ve never believed the whole “a picture is worth a thousand words” saying, I’ll add some of my own and post more screenshots of the best character in Panty and Stocking.

I’m of two minds with this show. I’m completely not surprised that I’m enjoying the fun romp  that is Panty and Stocking because it’s Gainax doing the organized-chaos thing they do best but I’m also completely surprised that I find this show so much fun when I don’t normally find shows that revolve around bodily fluids and comedy funny. Maybe Gainax makes that much of a difference or maybe I just like shows that it’s impossible to know what’s going to happen next time. For example, in the first half of episode 7 …

… we get the story of what happens when two competing factions of sentient robots come to Daten City and our heroes, Stocking and Panty, get turned into robots. A shoujo robot series threatens to break-out during the course of the the story …

… but a ghost shows up and ruins the fun. (And we get yet another variation to the transformation sequence by our heroes. Sadly they only show Panty’ s part   .)

The second half follows what happens when Stocking and Panty need to raise a load of cash in only three days.  They start with those part-time jobs that seem always in need of filling like waitress, traffic cop, car washer, and geriatric nurse.

And finally as hostesses at a bar, (I knew Gainax would work in the bunny-girl suits eventually) when they learn that it’s possible to make loads of money at the casino and change for the occasion.

The only predictable thing about this show is that a ghost will inevitable show up but even then, Gainax keeps showing creativity. I think the ghost inside the casino was my most favorite yet.

Chalk up another great episode of Panty and Stocking by Gainax and I’ll have to wait another week to see what new surprises are in store.

10 years ago today, on October 24, 2000 (correction: actually October 25, 2000), the 4th episode of Gainax’s OVA series FLCL was released to DVD. This is part of a series of posts I’m making on this show. In my first post, I covered how I came upon this series and my reaction to the first 2 episodes. My second post was made a day late and covered episode 3, Marquis de Carabas. This one covers what my initial reaction was to the 4th episode, Full Swing. (note: for the purposes of this post, I did not rewatch the episode. The last time I watched it was some time in the summer of 2009)

What is there to say about Full Swing? Quite a lot, probably. I could talk your ears off about this episode. It is unequivocally my favorite episode of any anime, all time (so far). Others have come close, such as The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the final episodes of Gunbuster, Diebuster and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Bakemonogatari episode 12, but Full Swing still holds the number one place in my heart.

The question, of course, is why? As with all of these types of questions, there are many answers. I’m sure part of it is that I was a huge fan of baseball at the time, and the entire episode was about baseball. Or rather, it used baseball as a metaphor for all the events taking place in the plot. In typical FLCL fashion, it was not at all subtle about this, with the ongoing theme of “swinging the bat” which was blindingly obvious and resonated with me. Indeed, I still consider the adoption of Haruko’s attitude regarding “swinging the bat” – that is, trying even if it means showing everyone that you fail – to be a key component for becoming a mature adult. As an episode of a coming of age story, Full Swing hit it out of the park (sorry, this is the one and only baseball related pun in this post).

Then there was the scene in which Naota confronts his father and hits the TV. It was masterfully directed, surreal, hectic, and, yes, haunting. The build up to that was fittingly erotic and inappropriate with Naota watching his father and Haruko at night, the release of destroying his father was fittingly unsatisfying and confusing, and the redemption of finding his real father and bringing him back to life was fittingly wacky and off-the-wall.

This was one of the most hectic and confusing scenes I've seen, thanks in no small part of the events being shown non-chronologically. But somehow it all made sense.

But I think we’ve beat around the bush enough. The real reason I loved this episode so much was the thrilling climax featuring The Pillows’s Crazy Sunshine. That entire sequence may be my favorite in any work of moving picture.

From the very start of that sequence, when Amarao asked Naota to ask Haruko to hit another one out of the park, the scene was just plain cool. The music started off quiet as Haruko quietly contemplated the situation and commented that “doubleheaders are tough,” before taking Naota up to the top of the plant, but it quickly came more into the forefront as the anticipation of the impact kept building.

And during all the intensity, FLCL retained it’s unique sense of humor. There was Mamimi, sitting atop Canti, celebrating the satellite’s fall and wondering whether they’d have school tomorrow. There was Haruko, fitting a shampoo cap on Naota and pulling out his squirming guitar, commenting that “boys feel weird inside.” There were Amarao’s subordinates at his base, inexplicably getting nosebleeds.

Then, as the satellite neared its final approach, it suddenly and seamlessly turned into a gigantic hand throwing a just as gigantic baseball. Amarao called out, “It’s a sinker!” It was hilarious, but I didn’t laugh, lost in the intensity of the moment.

10 years later, I still can't get over just what an amazing scene this was. Kazuya Tsurumaki went on to direct other works with amazing dramatic action scenes (Diebuster and the Evangelion remakes), but I still rank this one at the top.

The intensity just kept building and building, all the way until the release. As the ball became a bigger and bigger object in Naota’s sights and Haruko abandoned him, her comment, “This might as well be goodbye” seemed like it just might come true. Of course, our hero swung the bat, his own bat. But it wasn’t over yet. The music had reached its peak, and there was more work to be done. Amarao watched nervously, knowing that it hadn’t been enough. And just as the ball looked to explode and all had been for naught, Haruko made her triumphant return, giving the ball that extra hit to leave the atmosphere.

It was just… awesome. The visuals were spectacular, true to form for FLCL. The way the sky lit up and shimmered as the ball neared its final approach still sticks with me. So does that scene of the moment of second impact, when we were treated to single-color frames of Haruko, Mamimi, and Naota reacting. The explosion at the end, the air pressure pushing apart the clouds and objects on ground, was just icing. Both the music and the music editing throughout the sequence was masterfully handled. Thanks to this episode, Crazy Sunshine was my favorite for several years afterward. Or maybe it was because of that song that I loved this episode so much. Doesn’t matter.

The episode was nearly over at that point, but the serene denouement made for a fitting finish. Naota lying in Haruko’s Vespa, reveling in the feeling he just had, wondering if Haruko feels like this all the time. Haruko, laughing her ass off for no obvious reason. The soft start up to the now-familiar Little Busters. And the final shot of Amarao’s fake eyebrow falling off. It was bizarre, but just like what Naota was feeling at the moment, it was satisfying.

Maybe it was the fact that this episode followed the 3rd, which had left me a little negative on the series. Maybe it was that I had watched episodes 4, 5, and 6 in quick succession, and I had taken all the positive feelings about the entire last half of the show and transferred it to the 4th. I think it was just that one Crazy Sunshine sequence, one that wasn’t topped even by the numerous other excellent sequences that would come in the last 2 episodes of the show. Regardless of the reason, I still consider Full Swing to be the best directed, most entertaining episode of any anime.

Like Naota, I felt spent, emotionally, but also supremely satisfied. I didn't get to sleep between Haruko's thighs, though.

So now I turn it to you, if you’ve read this far. What do you remember about Full Swing? Did it leave as big an impact on you as it did me? Did you like that song, Crazy Sunshine? Do you still like it? Do you think the show did things better in other episodes, particularly in episode 6, the true climax of the show?

Notes

• This episode featured the entrance of characters Amarao and Kitsurubami. Kitsurubami was played by Chiemi Chiba who, along with Yukari Fukui, was one of the few voice actors in FLCL who remained in the anime voice acting industry. This season, she plays side characters in both Star Driver and More To LOVE-Ru.
• If you watch carefully in this scene, when Mamimi gets up to go to the baseball game with Haruko, you can see her underwear being pulled off by Naota. One of the hints at just how far their relationship went.
• This episode revealed that Haruhara Haruko’s real name was actually Haruha Raharu. Also, it explained the concept of NO, which explained why Naota had been targeted by Haruko and why robots had been coming out of his head.

Earlier this year Gainax shocked many (including me) with Hanamaru Kindergarten; first because it was so un-Gainaxy and then because it was so good. It was like Gainax decided to show that not only they could be masters of giant mechs and frantic action but they could also outdo J.C. Staff’s watercolor-look, slice-of-life/light comedy anime series. Fast forward a couple of seasons and Gainax is back and this time they’re on a mission to showcase their mastery of contemporary American-style animated shows.

Rating for episode 1 – 8/12 B+
Rating for episode 2 – 10/12 A
Rating for episode 3 – 10.5/12 Strong A
Anticipation Level: 3.5/5 Medium

The Story

Every city needs a super-powered protector and Daten City, at the crossroads of Heaven and Hell, is no different especially since the citizens are beset by rampaging angry ghosts on a frequent basis. It’s a shame, then, that all the good superheroes have apparently already been taken and only two misbehaving angels, on their last chance before getting sent to Hell, are all the protection that Daten City will get. The first angel has the ability to turn her underwear into a gun and goes by the name Panty and the second angel has the ability to turn her striped stockings into katanas and goes by the name Stocking (imagine that). Together with a black priest, Garterbelt, they keep Daten City safe.

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The Fine Print

The summary of my thoughts on Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt (PSG) is that it’s the next hit for Gainax. It’s very funny and lots of fun; it’s different in a good way and it isn’t resting on it’s laurels.

The most pleasant revelation from the first three episodes of PSG is how great the music has been. Normally, I find it difficult to recall individual pieces of background music from even the best series and I have only a mild interest for the music of an anime outside of the opening/closing songs; but here, I’m already desperately wanting the soundtrack album to get released. Coming in a close second is the continued focus by Gainax to mix different animation styles into their works. I wish I knew more about the individual animators behind Gainax but, even as a neophyte animation fan, I can appreciate them. Strangely, it was this trait that most reminded me that PSG was not an American animation series.

Speaking of the origin behind PSG, after the first episode I had a hard time articulating what I thought about the show. (Making it difficult to write a first impression post. ) At first, I thought I was a bit shell-shocked trying to reconcile the successful effort on Gainax’s part to get the look and feel of PSG to match that of shows like Power Puff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and Dexter’s Laboratory and having the subject matter being far removed from those same shows. I knew I didn’t dislike it but it didn’t feel like I really liked it. This happens sometimes and one remedy for me is to rewatch the episode a few times and focus on the different parts. These rewatches helped but it was only with the second episode that I started to really like PSG. This makes me think that the animators might have been trying too hard with the first episode to get us to understand what the series was going to be like and relaxed during the subsequent episodes and just let the characters and comedy carry the show.

I highly recommend Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt as being one of this season’s top comedies and I’d suggest watching at least 2 episodes before deciding one way or the other about liking PSG. There will be many people that’ll drop this because of the level of crude humor which is understandable but I hope no one will pass of PSG because of the animation style.

Gainax changing up the animation style.

Stocking is my favorite character.

Assorted screenshots that I just feel like including.

10 years ago yesterday, on August 23, 2000, the 3rd episode of Gainax’s OVA series FLCL was released to DVD. It probably wasn’t until a year later that I first got to watch it. I wrote a corresponding post on the 10th year anniversary of the 2nd episode, wherein I explained how I came across this series. I downloaded Marquis de Carabas only after having downloaded the first 2 episodes together and having watched them multiple times. Episode 3 was downloaded by itself, and it would be another few days before I got to see the last 3 episodes of this series. In retrospect, after watching the rest of the series, I can appreciate this episode for what it did. It set up Eri Ninamori as a proper foil for Naota, to show us a different way that someone going through the same things could act. Eri was a kid at an adolescent phase, just like Naota. Though her troubles undoubtedly manifest themselves in a much more mundane manner. However, at the first watch, Marquis de Carabas was a huge disappointment to me, especially after the incredible first 2 episodes this series had had. My main source of disappointment was that this episode lacked that moment. You know, that moment. When it feels as if all barriers between the director’s brain and your heart have been broken down, and your emotions are his to play with. When you feel as if you are at the presence of something great, that you’re lucky to be watching what you are watching, even if you don’t quite know why or how. It’s that moment that makes you want to watch it again and again, if only to marvel at the excellence of direction. These moments are usually fleeting and short. But they are also the ones that can define a piece of work. They’re the ones you remember later and turn to when you think of why you liked a piece of work. The first two episodes had several. The One Life and Never Knows Best scenes in Fooly Cooly. The Hybrid Rainbow scene and the Little Busters climax in Firestarter. Marquis de Carabas had… well, it didn’t really have anything, which is my point. When I think back to the episode, no singular scene or sequence of scenes stand out. Even the climax, with the rare non-Pillows soundtrack – it was actually a piece called Galloping Comedians by a Russian composer named Dmitry Kabalevsky – wasn’t that well directed, and its transition to the denouement and credits was jarring. In fact, the entire second half of the episode felt shoddy and thrown together. It lacked the polish and tightness of direction that had made the first two episodes so unforgettable. What did stick with me from this episode was the character of Eri Ninamori.

I gotta admit, even the first time around, I thought her in the glasses and too-short pajamas was fucking hawt.

Eri was a tough nut to crack. She had been given a few lines in the first two episodes, but I hadn’t expected her to play any major role. But here she was, ostensibly the main character of Marquis de Carabas. My first time watching it, I was surprised at what appeared to be the entrance of a third heroine. What about all the stuff with Mamimi and Haruko that had been set up in the first two episodes? Given that this OVA was only 6 episodes, could they really afford to add another protagonist and spend an entire episode on her? As I wrote above, I realized after the fact that Marquis de Carabas was important in placing Eri Ninamori into the role of foil to Naota. Her story was that of the divorce of her parents. Like Naota, Eri struggled with what it meant to grow up. Also like him, she perceived herself to be more grown up than the kids and adults around her. This despite her still childlike tendencies that were featured heavily in this episode. She cheated to get herself and her crush roles in the school play. She went for the mild Little Prince curry at Naota’s house. She wore a shampoo cap. She hid her need for eye glasses due to her vanity. All the while, she considered herself superior to those around her. Like her father’s cheating secretary. Or Naota for skipping the rehearsals.

The perpetually bored/disgusted/superior facial expressions of Eri Ninamori.

She was the very reflection of Naota. She showed us the ugly manifestations of Naota’s way of thinking. I don’t know that this episode showed her develop out of that immature phase. We were told that her parents divorced, but her reaction to it wasn’t revealed (until episode 6, that is) beyond her cool demeanor at the school play. Most damning is, of course, the final shot, showing her declare her glasses as being fake. It was a sudden reversal after the initial surprise that she had shown everyone that she wore glasses. To the end (of the episode), she remained a cynic, wanting to pull one over on everyone else. That’s probably why, even though Eri Ninamori stuck with me after I watched this episode, neither she nor the episode as a whole left me very fulfilled. I sometimes have a hard time choosing which of the episodes was my favorite. But I can say without reservation that Marquis de Carabas was my least favorite. Even though Eri and the episode were redeemed by the events in the final episode (which I should be writing about around March 16 of next year), it didn’t meet the standards set by the previous episodes, nor the ones that would be set in the coming episodes.

As to be expected from GAINAX, the fanservice was pretty good. Alas, 10 years ago, like Naota, I was not at the age to appreciate it for what it was.

Do you remember watching this episode for the first time? Was it during the Adult Swim run in 2003 that had made this show so huge in the US? Was it before, when you had to scour IRC or one of the filesharing clients for low quality fansubs? Was it after, on that high quality, though expensive, DVD release by Synch Point? What was your initial response to it, negative like mine, or positive for reasons not stated in this post?

Notes:

• A couple months ago, there was a nice little post made on Anime Diet about the 10th anniversary of FLCL as a whole. It’s a nice, quick little read. I added a link to it after putting up my first post, but in case you missed it, check it out.
• Funimation is supposed to release a Blu-ray edition of FLCL some time later this year. Reports of the Japanese release – out last week on the 18th – indicate that the HD versions of the episodes are mere upscales, and poor ones at that. Shame on GAINAX for not keeping higher resolution masters!
• This episode also featured the triumphant entrance of Naota’s homeroom teacher, Junko Miyaji, played by none other than the wonderfully lispy voice of Yukari Fukui. She went on to make a name for herself with two more works by GAINAX (Aim for the Top! 2 and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) and remains one of a handful of FLCL’s cast still in the anime voice acting industry.

FLCL is a show that really needs no introduction. In the US, it gained a lot of popularity in 2003 thanks to its airing on Cartoon Network with an excellent dub. But of course, this 6 episode OVA existed for quite a while beforehand in Japan.

In fact, it was 10 years ago today, June 21, 2000, that the 2nd episode was released on DVD. While I didn’t watch it until over a year later, I figured that this 10 year anniversary was a good time to write a little something on the 1st 2 episodes of this show. Why didn’t I do this on April 26, the day the 1st DVD came out? Well, to be honest, I didn’t even think about the fact that this year is the 10th since the release of FLCL until a few weeks ago. But it turned out pretty convenient for me, because I had experienced the 1st 2 episodes together as a set.

I first watched it in the fall of 2001. I had heard about this little 6 episode OVA some months before, but it took me a while to get curious enough to actually download it. This was in the days before bittorrent, and downloading shows still took some commitment, both in time and effort. I managed to find someone sharing it on IRC and downloaded the 1st 2 episodes and watched them, one after the next. Then I watched them again. And again. And again.

Okay, I don’t remember how many times I watched those 2 episodes of FLCL before the 3rd episode finished downloading, some days later. Somehow, those 2 episodes grabbed my attention in a way that no other piece of work had before – or since. I don’t know why then, and I’m not sure why even now. I could tell you why I still consider that entire 6 episode OVA to be the best work of motion picture I’ve ever seen, or how masterful the direction, cinematography, and pacing of the show was, especially in the last half of the show.

But just the 1st 2 episodes? It was an incomplete body of work to me at the time. yet I had already fallen in love. In retrospect, I think maybe the mood of the episodes captured me. Yes, the art, the story, and the characters were unique and compelling. But it was the atmosphere that these 2 episodes were absolutely drenched with that made me feel so strongly about the show.

Note: for the purposes of this post, I chose not to rewatch the episodes. Please excuse and point out any errors I might have made.

It started with the very first scene of the show. Mamimi and Naota together under the bridge after school. Just by the way they interacted in those couple of minutes, I could tell what a plain, boring scene this was for them. It was something that happened every day, and the frustration Naota felt at the constant same old became my frustration. The glistening wavelets on the river and Mamimi’s playful bite of the earlobe from the back looked special, but Naota’s words and reaction rendered them meaningless. And as the camera zoomed out from Mamimi and Naota to show an overview of this boring town that trapped these characters, the haunting tune of The Pillows’ One Life began to play and hit a crescendo. As magnificent as everything looked, it all felt too comfortable, as if it was something that I had seen before countless times.

Another scene that took ahold of me was the well known Never Knows Best scene. Again, the music was absolutely integral to the mood of this scene. I remember feeling very emotional the 1st time I saw it, but I had no idea why. It felt like a beautiful climax to some cute love story, just inserted in the wrong place. The darkness of the night, the faint sounds of the cars passing over the bridge, the peculiar tune of Bran-new Love Song, that dead look in Mamimi’s eyes as she stared at the out of breath Naota. They could have run at each other and kissed, and it wouldn’t have felt out of place.

But they didn’t. This was actually a far more depressing scene, as Naota struggled to tell Mamimi the truth about his brother, and Mamimi refused to face the fact that she surely already knew. It was sad to see them like that, especially given the new information that Mamimi was living off scrap bread from Naota’s father’s shop. To feel so strongly about characters about whom I knew so little, it’s no wonder I felt so confused. And it’s a testament to how well the scene and the whole episode leading up to it had been directed.

Mamimi knew how to make smoking look cool.

There were places in episode 2 that hit me hard as well. The standout scene, the one that I think of when I think of Fire Starter, is the Hybrid Rainbow scene that finished the 1st half of the episode. It wasn’t depressing, but it was powerful. Juxtaposing Mamimi’s discovery of Canti with Naota’s trip to the beach, it was filled with a sense of wonderment.

It was a scene filled with hope. The rain had just stopped. Mamimi was discovering a new idol just as the sun was coming out. And the music came to the front at just the right moment, the energetic, Engrish based chorus shouting out while the rays of sunlight hit Canti as if he were the lion king. In the case of Naota, he was earning his reward for saving Haruko. His monologue showed that despite the fear he showed in the ride to the beach, he had enjoyed it. The scene ended with the shot of a rainbow over the sea that was glittering with the sunlight that had just come out. What joy Mamimi and Naota must have felt from these diversions from their otherwise lonely and plain lives?

Perhaps that made the night scene in the 2nd half of the episode that much more impactful. Right after the show revealed the reason behind Mamimi needing a new pair of shoes earlier – being bullied – it hit me with another depressing scene, in which Naota was following the bare footed Mamimi. Like with the Never Knows Best scene, the darkness felt pervasive. The repeating strums of the guitar in the background was haunting. And as Naota went through his memories sand thoughts to discover that Mamimi was actually the arsonist, I was presented with this sad, bullied, abandoned girl whose sole sources of light were the glow from her cigarette, from the screen on her game system, and from the mass fires she set all over town. The feeling of pity and sympathy was something that stayed with me long after the episode was over.

Besides showing off the excellent cinematography, I feel that these shots perfectly convey the pain of the life that Mamimi is leading.

But I don’t want to present FLCL as if it were some depressing, moody show. Because it’s not. It had those aspects, and it used them to powerful effect. They certainly left on effect on me. But if that’s all there was, I doubt I would have watched those 1st 2 episodes obsessively like I had. And the most common word associated with the show wouldn’t be “lolrandom.” Indeed, I haven’t even mentioned yet the most recognizable character from the show, the very face of FLCL, Haruhara Haruko.

Haruko herself was more of a catalyst than anything else in the 1st 2 episodes, as her character remained shrouded in mystery and unexplained fantasy. She was an enigma, but she made possible the some of the iconic scenes that also fascinated me.

I think my favorite scene with her in those 2 episodes was her introduction. Yes, you’ve read countless times already just how lolrandom it was to have a woman come out of nowhere on a yellow Vespa, trying to hit the main character with a guitar while yelling a variation of “itadakimasu!” But, well, there’s a reason that people remember that scene. Thinking back to it now, I can’t help but crack a smile, even though I didn’t find it all THAT funny at the time. I remember noticing that Haruko was swinging the bat left-handed – I was and am a big baseball fan – and wondering if that was something that would remain consistent or was just based on convenience of the animators (turns out, director Kazuya Tsurumaki had made her a lefty on purpose). The opening scene in which Naota criticized the way Mamimi was holding the bat probably primed me for that thought as well.

And that line, “Stop, the native girl!” I found very funny for some reason. Maybe it was the poor Engrish. Or how it reflected Haruko’s view that she was in some foreign land, whose populace could be called “natives” from her perspective. Or just the physical gag of seeing her hand spin around and around in an impossible manner, something Mamimi clearly took note of. In any case, with the sporty high tempo Runners’ High playing in the background, it was an energetic and wacky introduction to a character who also fit that description. The violent high speed sketched scenes, the Matrix rip-off featuring the kiss (ironic because Naota had just purposefully avoided an indirect kiss), the cut to the trailer in which the “actors” discussed filming that scene – they showed that anything could happen in this show.

Like another well known scene from the first episode, the manga-style dinner scene. I learned later from the commentary that Tsurumaki had done this to make an otherwise plain dinner scene interesting and dynamic. And it had worked on me. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the scene, but it somehow captivated me. It was fast, it was different, and, at times, it was funny. The show had grabbed, no, demanded, my full attention. It is an iconic scene from the series, one that people remember, one that got me watching those 1st 2 episodes again and again.

Perfectly framed shots that stick with me as the most memorable action moments of the 2 episodes.

Then there are the action scenes. They were effortlessly beautiful. That is to say, the production quality was very high, but the show didn’t try to flaunt this fact. Rather, it used the music, choreography, and cinematography to create fun and memorable moments, ones that I wanted to watch over again. Even back then, I knew just how corny that moment was when Canti turned red and stopped the oncoming robot, just as Little Busters started playing. But god damn it, it was still fucking awesome. Despite every cell in my brain telling me I was supposed to be bored, it still sent chills down my spine. And when Haruko ended the 1st fight by smashing Canti in the head with her guitar, Naota’s inner monologue said exactly what I was thinking at the time: “Amazing!” I don’t, and I didn’t, consider the action scenes to be highlights of the 1st 2 episodes of FLCL. But they served as fittingly over the top climaxes to the episodes and provided me with incredible moments that I wanted to experience again.

Maybe in all the drilling into the scenes I’ve done, I might have glossed over the main thrust of FLCL. That is, it’s a pretty straightforward coming-of-age story. Being a growing teenager myself, perhaps I latched onto it as something I could sympathize with. The full story wasn’t told in the 1st 2 episodes, but already, there were changes that Naota was going through. It was seeing him take a swig of the canned coffee at the end of the 1st episode. Listening to him commit himself to Mamimi at the end of the 2nd. Those horns, especially the particularly phallic looking 1st horn, that were so clearly metaphors for an adolescent’s uncontrollable erection. No one will accuse FLCL of being subtle. But I found that brashness refreshing. When something changed in Naota, when his character developed just a little bit, it was simple and easy and, probably due to that, satisfying.

Then there was Mamimi, who was a high schooler like myself. I wasn’t bullied, and I didn’t have to go through the kind of shit she had to. But somehow I could connect with her loneliness. It stuck with me as something universal. The desire to be loved and wanted. Her desperation that showed through her latching onto Naota, then the cat, then Canti. I could sympathize with the dead look in her eyes and her almost forced ambivalence to everything around her.

What can I do for Mamimi?

I cared for these characters. I loved them.

Maybe that’s why I had been obsessed with these 2 episodes. With minimal effort, the show had accomplished in 2 episodes what few shows could ever do. It was a pleasure simply to watch Mamimi and Naota in those 2 episodes, see them interact with each other, with Haruko, react to the things happening around them. They didn’t feel real, but they felt lifelike. Unconsciously, I rooted for them. Unconsciously, I shared their pain, their joy, their confusion. I wanted to feel that again, to understand what I was feeling, and why I was feeling it. Maybe it was just a perfect storm of who I was at the time and what the show was about. After writing this post, I’m not sure I’m any closer to understanding why I had felt compelled to watch those 1st 2 episodes of FLCL over and over again. But I kind of feel like I am.

Anyway, that’s my experience with Furi Kuri and FiSta. That’s my attempt at explaining just a little bit of what I got out of them. I guess if you’ve read this far, my question would be, what was your experience with them? Did you get anything out of those episodes, and if so, what?

Note:

• I just noticed that Anime Diet also had a post on the 10 year anniversary of FLCL.

A hint about my top pick, and no, it's not as simple as it seems.

I was not planning on taking this long to finish this part of my top 10 anime but as I tried to write something for each anime, I found it increasingly difficult to do so. Some of the anime on this part I could write thousands of words about and still not get everything said I want to say about them which made writing only a paragraph or two about them extremely challenging. I finally finished, though, and present the second half of my top 10 anime of all-time now.

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Vintage: Summer 2005, OVA1 – Spring 2007, OVA2 – Winter 2009
Director: Takuya Sato
Studio: Daume
Times Watched: 4

It’s only been a year since I first watched Ichigo Mashimaro, aka Strawberry Marshmallow, which makes it the newest-to-me anime on this list. I avoided it for several years because it just didn’t look that interesting to me but I finally decided to give it a try after I realized it was made by the same studio that did the first season of Minami-ke, my favorite anime comedy. I realized almost immediately that, underneath the cute, slice-of-life feel to Ichigo Mashimaro, the characters and their roles in the show were deeply thought out and expertly put together allowing it to excel in many of the same ways that made Minami-ke so good. Miu, much like Kana in Minami-ke and Haruhi in the Melancholy of Haruhi, is the spark plug that directly or indirectly creates and drives the show; take her out, and there’s no show. Chika plays the straight-man, Ana and Matsuri play the victims (Ana wants to hide the fact that she no longer remembers English even though she was born in Cornwallis, England as well as her last name and Matsuri is an innocent soul willing to believe anything that’s told to her), and Nobue plays the lazy authority figure that allows everything to happen and sometimes is the facilitator of the action.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a show being cute, having a relaxing slice-of-life feel to it, or the ability to lighten the viewer’s mood. Last fall, after my younger sister’s guinea pig died, I used Ichigo Mashimaro to get her to smile again after days of crying and being completely crushed. And I used Ichigo Mashimaro to help get through this past February when it snowed practically every day and the sun totally disappeared for the month.

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Vintage: Fall 2007
Director: Masahiko Ohta
Studio: Daume
Times Watched: 4

Squeaking past Ichigo Mashimaro is Minami-ke which I was just saying is my favorite anime comedy. As many of you know, the second and third seasons of Minami-ke were handled by a different animation studio and since those seasons were so glaringly deficient, I’m not including them here. The difference between them boils down, I think, to two key differences. The first was that Studio Daume was able to handle the large cast to Minami-ke, never spending too much or too little time with the various characters, and the second was Studio Daume had great comedic timing.

One of the reasons why Minami-ke is my favorite anime comedy and my number 4 top anime is because the show is built around three sisters and the family comedy on display here reminds me of my family growing up. I’m the oldest of 6 siblings but after me came 4 sisters and the first 3 younger sisters have personalities that the Minami sisters emulate pretty closely.

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Vintage: Summer 2000 – Spring 2001
Director: Kazuya Tsurumaki and others
Studio: Gainax
Times Watched: at least 9

FLCL was another series that Cartoon Network introduced to me but unlike Paranoia Agent I never stopped watching FLCL; it’s like an itch I need to scratch every so often. As a result, it’s been a constant companion as I’ve grown in my anime fandom and it seems like every time I watch it, there’s still something new to appreciate about it. I still remember the first time I actually got the Lupin references in FLCL and recently, the realization of how old South Park is dawned on me when I saw it referenced in FLCL.

When I first watched FLCL, I didn’t give much thought to it’s uniqueness; I thought it was a typical anime show and that I could find many more shows like it. I eventually learned otherwise; FLCL showcased Gainax at it’s creative best, with everything – story, plot, characters, animation, animation style, music, and voice work – working together perfectly and there’s almost no one that can come close to competing. Even having Gainax hitting that same level of perfection is exceedingly rare, by my count it’s only happened one other time, though the near perfect efforts by Gainax (like Magical Arcade Abenobashi) are still treats.

FLCL is unique to me in another way. It is, so far, the only anime that I enjoy the English and Japanese dubs equally as much.

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Vintage: Spring 2003
Director: Ryutaro Nakamura
Studio: Studio Wombat
Times Watched: 4

Outside of being one of my favorite shows, Kino’s Journey also became quite influential in turning me into the anime fan I am today and helped ensure that I would stay an anime fan. Before Kino’s Journey I had only watched and been exposed to shounen/action anime like Yu Yu Hakusho and Kenshin and I thought this was what anime was. If I would have continued to operate under this impression, eventually I would have grown tired of anime but I happened to give Kino’s Journey a shot and it opened my eyes to what’s possible with anime. From there, I started discovering the many various types of shows anime offered, especially if one removed the filtering agent known as R1 DVD companies, and now I’ve taken the search one step further and try to watch everything, relishing the moment when I find a great anime show in an unlikely place.

Kino’s Journey remains one of the shows I most want to see a sequel of, though I realize with each passing year it becomes less-and-less likely as are the chances of every getting to read the light novels that Kino’s Journey is based off of. I remain hopeful, maybe once the current crop of anime fans start getting tired of the current big action/shounen shows and start wanting something different there’ll be a chance to introduce a show like Kino’s Journey to them. Which reminds me of the most recent time I rewatched Kino’s Journey. It was with my youngest sister and I’d been waiting until she seemed old enough to appreciate the show. I wasn’t surprised that she really liked it; nor was I really surprised when she told me afterwards that she’d watched a couple of episodes over my shoulder, years ago, and didn’t like it one bit.

Kino’s Journey also remains, due to it’s ability to be very entertaining and very thought-provoking, part of my gold standard when evaluating new anime.

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Vintage: Spring 2007 – Summer 2007
Director: Hiroyuki Imaishi
Studio: Gainax
Times Watched: 5

Drilling through the past favorites and kicking all new competitors to the curb is my top anime – Gurren Lagann.

By rights, Gurren Lagann should have failed at some point; it took so many risks with it’s story (character deaths, characters being introduced late, time skips, plot twists, etc.) that it seems inconceivable that Gainax pulled every single one off. It made for a very thrilling and memorable viewing experience that first time because no one, except the Gainax staff, knew what was going to happen. Watching Gurren Lagann the first time the way I did, having to wait a week for the next episode to air and be fansubbed, also allowed me look at the series in a much deeper way then watching it on DVD ever could. I couldn’t marathon the whole series in a few days or even watch multiple episodes at one time or go read spoilers; instead, the only way to feed my desire for more Gurren Lagann was to watch the episode multiple times, pick it apart, and try to guess what was going to happen next. Of course I bought it when it came out on DVD but, much like Haruhi, if I hadn’t been a fan of Gurren Lagann before the DVDs came out I don’t think the reviews over here would have convinced me too.

One of the reasons I really liked Gurren Lagann and think it’s deeper than many people give it credit is it’s portrayal of heroism and the costs heroes have to pay to become heroes. It’s not something that’s seen too often on American television anymore or discussed about in society so I liked when Gurren Lagann focused on it.

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Did anyone figure out the hint? I used a screenshot from the latest Evangelion movie because it felt like Gurren Lagann was definitely on the minds of the creators of Evangelion when they put together the second movie. See also the screenshot below for another example.

Replace that missile with a giant drill and doesn't it remind you of a certain scene in Gurren Lagann?

Filed under: anime, anime rants/views

In case you haven’t heard, a certain anime movie was released in Japan on Blu-ray and DVD on May 26, and it has made quite the splash. Thanks to Japan not having as good theatrical pirates as the US, it was only then that a proper direct feed to the movie became available to us outside of Japan. But it’s finally here, GAINAX’s 2nd entry into the remake of their show from 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion, easily the most impactful anime ever released.

I myself only got to watch it last Friday, and it’s taken me this long to digest it enough to make a post (ok, I was also pretty busy during that time). And to be honest, I’m still digesting it. I’m going to have to watch it start to finish at least once more, but let me just say, I loved it. It was well worth the wait and was probably the best animated work I’ve seen in quite a few years.

A Love Letter to Fans

That’s exactly what Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance was. If Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone was a nudge and a wink to the fans with its near identical scenes from the show, this was a full on love letter to those who are already familiar with what’s supposed to happen. That is to say, everything was familiar enough to elicit nostalgia, but different enough to keep you on your toes. And your heart pumping.

My favorite such scene was definitely the climax, which merged elements from 3 different iconic scenes from the show and End of Evangelion. Of course, the encounter was an analog to the one against Zeruel in the show. But having Zeruel eat Unit 0 and subsequently transform its body into Rei’s was reminiscent of the end of the fight with Armisael (the glowing white tube) in the director’s cut, in which Unit 0 transforms into a giant Rei. And the final sequence was, of course, a callback to the famous Komm, Susser Tod scene from The End of Evangelion.

Another highlight was the infamous elevator scene featuring Asuka and Rei. I loved the short call back, showing us just a few seconds of that scene that had remained near static for a minute in the show before the conversation actually began. The contrast produced by that quick cut, along with the way Rei defended herself from Asuka, really drove home the point, “this is not the same as the show you watched a decade ago.”

Having the N2 bomb be a missile was a wonderful touch

Visuals

It’s a given that this anime was going to look good. This is GAINAX with an unlimited budget, after all. And the movie followed through on that expectation. A comparison might not be the most appropriate, but I kept thinking of the recent Kara no Kyoukai movies, which were somehow showered with complements for its great animation. I never shared those sentiments; besides a few brief fight scenes in movies 5 and 7, I thought it had been pretty mediocre in the visuals. Watching Evangelion 2.22, I couldn’t help but think, “Now this is what a high budget anime movie should look like in this day and age.” I simply couldn’t find any places that I felt could have been done better or any obvious cost cutting measures.

Given co-director Kazuya Tsurumaki’s directorial credits – FLCL and Diebuster – it came as no surprise that the action scenes were fluid and well directed. Especially with Maaya Sakamoto in the cast, sometimes I felt like I was watching Diebuster in an Evangelion setting. And that is a very good thing.

Beyond the technical impressiveness though were the art and design. Evangelion 1.0 had expanded upon the original Angel design a little with Ramiel – the blue octahedron – being animated with CG for its attacks. They added interesting eye candy, but nothing else to the scenes. In Evangelion 2.22, GAINAX took things a step farther and made the design changes also affect the way the encounters progressed.

Take Sahaquiel (the falling meteor Angel), for example. The movie did the same race-to-catch-it scene from the show. That scene was appropriately tense and exciting and very well animated. The additions of the rising platforms and having Eva Unit 1 break the sound barrier were wonderful embellishments that added a lot to the scene. But the best part was having the Angel come out and defend itself. That was all new, and having Shinji suffer like that made the scene all the more intense. Same goes for fast-moving core defense, which made Rei’s and Asuka’s roles in the scene much more important than in the show.

Could you have imagined seeing Shinji like this 12 years ago? Me neither.

Shinji

And there’s the star of it all, Shinji, who, by the end, was barely recognizable as the same character from the show. Shinji is probably the most maligned character in all of anime for being a timid, indecisive coward. I never really saw him in that bad a light, given his past and where he is in life, but it is true that he has no backbone, to a fault. The transformation we see of him in Evangelion 2.0 is profound and should please many of those people.

I find it hard to quantify how Shinji was different in Evangelion 2.0 compared to in the shows. He still has that insecurity, that lack of confidence in himself that makes Shinji Shinji. But even from the beginning, he seemed more sure of himself as a pilot. Perhaps the success in the fight against Ramiel at the climax of Evangelion 1.0 had given him the appropriate boost in self confidence.

And when he does run away, it feels entirely justified. Heck, even during the unit 4 scene, he seemed less like a pussy. But with what happened to him, his reaction feels right, not over the top or feeling like running away. His return during the fight was similar to the scene in the show, but it was Eva Unit 1′s berserk mode that really showed how different this Shinji was. That is, this was not triggered by his mother in order to protect him, it was triggered by Shinji himself in order to protect Rei – who is sort of his mother.

If you didn't yell, "Fuck yeah!" during this scene, you're a lost cause.

What a reversal! That entire “internal” scene in which Shinji was trying to break into Rei’s cockpit to pull her out gave me chills, and that shot of him finally pulling her out was just… badass. This was a Shinji we could all get excited about rooting for.

Mari

Of course, I’m a little/completely biased, because I’m a Maaya Sakamoto fan, but I fell in love with Mari‘s character right away. To be sure, she doesn’t get enough screen time to give us a good idea of who she is, but what we see of her is pretty awesome, from the fun, almost light hearted romp in the opening scene (reminiscent of Chiko‘s scene at the beginning of Diebuster episode 3, right down to the mecha being destroyed) to the intense beastly transformation at the climax.

My one complaint might be that she seems too similar to Asuka. Asuka on steroids, if you will. She does manage to differentiate herself a bit in that she’s not a complete bitch. Her scenes with Shinji were great, especially that last one which prompts Shinji to turn around and fight. I thought Sakamoto’s performance did a lot to show off Mari as the fun, thrill seeking girl she is. Her role as Asuka’s stand-in in the fight against Zeruel was over-the-top intense and had me wishing she wasn’t destined to lose.

I hope the mystery surrounding her origins and motivations become a bit clarified in the next movie. Who does she take orders from, and why did she parachute into Japan? How did she get access to Unit 2 and learn to have such a lackadasical attitude about piloting? Well, I don’t really care as long as she remains this awesome, but I’d like to find out regardless.

The look in Misato's face at the end looked very retro to me for some reason. Anyone else get the same vibe?

Fist Impressions

This post isn’t so much a review or even a commentary as much as it is just a (partial) brain dump of what I got out of Evangelion 2.22. I just… loved it. Story-wise, it didn’t explain a whole lot, and I doubt someone who didn’t watch the original show would understand much. But at the same time, it was just a good action movie, filled with intense hot blooded moments that GAINAX is so good at creating. It’s easy to forget with all the psychological and political drama, but Evangelion is a mecha anime, after all. This movie shows us that GAINAX certainly didn’t forget.

I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who’s seen the first movie, even if he hasn’t watched the original series.

I’ll admit that I was a bit surprised how much I liked the first episode of Hanamaru Kindergarten. It fell far outside of what Gainax is known for – more reminiscent of a J.C. Staff show then a Gainax show. For the second episode, Gainax was able to keep the warm, slice-of-life, cuteness feel but they also slipped in some awesome stuff that reminded the viewer that they’re watching a Gainax show. Look below to see what I mean.

It appears that Gainax might go the route of Sora no Otoshimono and do different ending songs for each episode. For episode 2, we got, presumably, Hiiragi’s closing song. I love the Gainax feel to the animation.

And of course the episode was full of cuteness.

The trio go exploring

Tsuchi-sensei is overwhelmed

Tsuchi decides to let his student's slide on the slide

Know-it-all kid tries to make trouble

He finds a ghost

And needs saving by Hiiragi

At least he's willing to admit that Hiiragi is superior

Next episode seems to involve a love triangle:

Posted in anime, episode review