Eagle-eyed readers will notice that I intend to review not just the most recent anime season but also the previous season as well. The reason for this is two-fold. The first reason is because these awards are my short-cut method in highlighting which anime I would recommend to potential viewers and I’d be failing in what I see as my duty if I passed over a season that contained praise-worthy shows. (Even though by now I’m incredibly late in covering the summer season. ) The second reason is writing this post will help me better remember this batch of anime shows in the future and it will also serve as a written record I can use if need be.

So, sit back, relax – it’s time to cover 32 anime over 2 seasons with 29 award categories and one countdown bursting at the seams with awesomeness.

Summer Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (4): Katanagatari, Kaichou wa Maid-sama!, Rainbow – Nisha Rokubou no Shichijin, K-On!!

New shows watched this season (10): Ookami-san to Shichinin no Nakamatachi, Amagami SS, Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu, Mitsudomoe, Highschool of the Dead, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin, Shiki, Asobi ni Iku yo!, Sengoku Basara 2, Moyashimon Live Action

Shows that got dropped (1): Seitokai Yakuindomo

Fall Season

Carry-over shows watched this season (4): Katanagatari, Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu, Amagami SS, Shiki

New shows watched this season (14): Ore no Imouto, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Sora No Otoshimono Forte, Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, Otome Youkai Zakuro, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls, Shinryaku! Ika Musume, The World God Only Knows, Arakawa Under the Bridge 2, Kuragehime, Star Driver, To Aru Majutsu no Index II, Yosuga no Sora

Shows that got dropped (3): Bakuman, Hakuouki Hekketsuroku, Shinrei Tantei Yakumo

Note: For shows that run multiple seasons, only the part that ran during the season is under consideration for that season’s awards. (s) denotes the summer season and (f) denotes the fall season

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Best Female Main Character

Winner: (s) – Azunyan from K-On!! ~ (f) – Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Runner-up: (s) – Togame from Katanagatari, Yui from K-On!! ~ (f) – Stocking from Panty and Stocking, Tsukimi from Kuragehime, Nymph from Sora No Otoshimono Forte, Togame from Katanagatari

Azunyan was the linch pin that held K-On!! together and she gave it the needed dimension to turn K-On!! into one of the best slice-of-nostalgia anime ever. (Slice-of-life is just too broad of a term since it covers at least three different types of shows: the nostalgic like K-On! and Hidemari Sketch, the relaxing like Ichigo Mashimaro and Aria, and the contemplative/ambiance type like Natsume Yuujin-chou and Haibane Renmei.) And she was just so likable as a character, as was Nino, the fall season winner. Nino squeaked past a very tough field of contenders this season to repeat her win of this award. It seems like the more time she spends with Ric, the more expressive and human she becomes.

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Best Male Main Character

Winner: (s) – Shichika from Katanagatari ~ (f) – Kuranosuke from Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Mario from Rainbow ~ (f) – Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono, Takuto Tsunashi from Star Driver, Shichika from Katanagatari

Shichika turned out, much like Katanagatari, to be a lot more interesting then those first couple of episodes that ran last winter lead us to think. He almost won this award twice but couldn’t quite overcome the cross-dressing, protector of interesting historical buildings – Kuranosuke.

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Best Supporting Character(s)

Winner: (s) – Assistroids from Asobi ni Iku yo! ~ (f) – The Phantom Thief Empire (Arsene, Twenty, Rat, and Stone River) from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Runner-up: (s) – Ui from K-On!! ~ (f) – Kuroneko from OreImo, Sugata from Sora No Otoshimono Forte, Briefers Rock from Panty and Stocking

Asobi ni Iku yo! was a really fun series to watch in part because the people behind it knew their SF and the assistroids were a great example of this knowledge. Likewise, Milky Holmes was a really fun series in part because it was so over-the-top and that included the villains which made picking just one villain impossible.

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Best Screen-grabber

Winner: (s) – Father from Mitsudomoe ~ (f) – Kurara from Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Microbes from Moyashimon Live Action ~ (f) – Mom from Ore no Imouto, The spirits of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, Amazoness and Billy from Arakawa Under the Bridge

Just because a character has a small part doesn’t mean he/she/it can’t become a memorable part of that show. Both winners (Father and Kurara) were prime examples of this.

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Best Couple

Winner: (s) – Togame and Shichika from Katanagatari ~ (f) – Togame and Shichika from Katanagatari

Runner-up: (s) – none ~ (f) – Ko and Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Togame and Shichika made a good couple but I wanted to take this chance to mention the worse couple was definitely Usui and Misa from Maid-sama, not because I wanted some other pairing but because I really didn’t like how this shoujo series depicted the relationship between the two of them – you’d think a series aimed at girls would show the main female in a more empowering light.

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Best Character Ability/Power

Winner: (s) – Seeing microbes from Moyashimon Live Action ~ (f) – The ability to make super-powered samurai with only a kiss from Samurai Girls

Runner-up: (s) – Glasses girl’s ability to get mixed up with the supernatural from Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin ~ (f) – Arsene’s Toys of Resplendence from Tantei Opera Milky Holmes

Moyashimon Live Action is only here because of where it ran and because the microbes were animated. It wasn’t a particularly good show but the ability to see and communicate to microbes remains a very cool power. And speaking of squandered potential, Samurai Girls was set in a very interesting world with a very interesting animation style and it wasted both by being a boring harem show. It was still a cool power, though.

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Best Cast of Characters

Winner: (s) – K-On!! ~ (f) – Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Runner-up: (s) – Sengoku Basara 2, Rainbow ~ (f) – Kuragehime, Sora No Otoshimono Forte

These were two relatively easy picks to make. I just noticed that Kuragehime is the only completely new show (neither a sequel or continuing from an earlier season) listed. In a certain way, that makes it the best because it accomplished the most.

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Best Character Development for Cast

Winner: (s) – Highschool of the Dead ~ (f) – Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Rainbow ~ (f) – Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

Count me as the odd one that enjoyed Highschool of the Dead not for the fan-service or for the zombies but for it’s social commentary and character development. My favorite example was the gun otaku who went from social outcast in modern society to local hero and ladies man when the zombies arrived. Thinking about it, both of the winners share a commonality; if it wasn’t for the extraordinary event at the beginning – zombies appear and Kuranosuke saving the jellyfish – neither cast of characters would have had the opportunity for growth that they had.

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Best Character Development of a Single Character

Winner: (s) – Sanada Yukimura from Sengoku Basara 2 ~ (f) – Tsukimi from Kuragehime

Runner-up: (s) – Scam from Rainbow ~ (f) – Garterbelt from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

One of the most important threads in Sengoku Basara 2 was the development of Sanada Yukimura into a man capable of being a general. It wasn’t always pretty to watch but it turned him into a real man; a really cool and epic one that can fight the Japanese equivalent of a Archimedes’s Death Ray and win. And for a complete change of pace, Kuragehime’s Tsukimi was the obvious pick for the fall season. All the characters in Kuragehime have had the chance to grow but Tsukimi’s transformation has been the most pronounced and the most heart-warming to see.

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That’s the end of part 1; I hope to have the second part up within a day. Comments and feedback are always appreciated – I’d love to see what others would pick.

 

Filed under: anime, awards

The year has come to an end and everyone and their dogs are doing end of the year lists. Once again I didn’t prepare enough to join them. These are my quick Top Ten lists for 2010 (which includes Winter 2009). Top 10 Anime of 2010 K-ON!! -The ‘moe anime’ of the year! YEAH~ Hanamaru [...]

With only a few weeks until the start of the fall season, it’s probably a good idea to finish up my look at the spring season.

I’m always surprised how every anime season develops a distinct feeling to it that separates itself from those seasons that came before it and the seasons that will come in the future. The difference between the Summer 2010 season and the Spring 2010 season have been huge. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, I like to change things up but I wish there were more seasons like this Spring season.

In deciding the number of shows to include in my seasonal countdown I have two criteria; the first is to include only those shows that deserve the recognition and the second is to limit the number of shows to no more then half of the shows watched. This time the second criteria was the limiting factor and not the first criteria. I could have run the countdown up to 12 spots and still feel those extra shows deserved the attention.

And with that, let’s head to the countdown.

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8 – K-On!!

In the same vein as those Microsoft commercials where people say they made the new Windows, I can say I made the new season of K-On!.

The first season of K-ON! left me in the small minority of people who didn’t think it was the second coming or reviled it as the spawn of Satan. I thought it was decent but had a couple glaring problems that held it back. The first was the pacing – it covers 2 years of high school life in a single cour – which made it a relaxing type show that was always rushing to the next thing. It felt wrong. The second was the sub-optimal characters that dragged  the series down. Yui was the best main character and the only one that pulled her weight on the show.

For the new season of K-On! I wanted both of those issues fixed and that’s what we got. And it was just what K-On! needed. We went from covering 2 years of high school over 13 episodes to 24 episodes to cover 1 year of school. This gave/gives the characters the time to do what they’re supposed to do and it’s not becoming the next great band. With that problem fixed now some of the other characters needed to step up and Mugi and Azunyan (I can’t even remember her real name anymore) did. They, along with Yui formed a triumvirate of main characters that was able to raise the quality of the show and keep it there. And let’s not forget the addition of Jun and creating a secondary triumvirate of Ui, Azunyan, and Jun. This group creates a completely different feeling dynamic that’s fun to watch by itself and also by adding some variety to the show.

Since I’m so late doing this, instead of hoping the second cour could match the first cour in quality, I can say the second cour – currently running over the Summer season – is on track to finish very, very high in the countdown. Which makes me glad KyoAni decided to do another season of K-On! and didn’t waste their time on Angel Beats.

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7 – Durarara

What I think hampered many from liking this show more was that we all wanted Baccano! season 2 and tried to fit Durarara into that mold. I know it got to me; I watched Baccano! for the first time just before the start of Durarara because I wanted to get a feel for the work of Ryohgo Narita and spent most of the first cour trying to look at the two works as separate. It didn’t help that the two shared many similarities, as you’d imagine coming from the same author and animated by the same people.

For the most part, I worked this impulse out of my system by the time the second half of Durarara aired (during the Spring season) and was able to appreciate the show for what it was, not what I initially wanted it to be. It still wasn’t perfect, the ending was really telegraphed and lacked the dramatic tension to wow the viewers, but there was plenty to like about it like: the characters, animation quality, setting, and characters (the characters were cool enough that they deserve two mentions). In a different season, Durarara would have easily placed in the top 5 and maybe even in the top 3.

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6 – Katanagatari

Katanagatari has shown that sometimes less is more.

To see Katanagatari ranked this season would have surprised me back in January, when the series first started. I wasn’t that impressed with the opening episode and even if I was, there was only going to be 3 episodes shown per season (one ~50 minute episode per month for 12 months) which would make it very difficult for it go head-to-head against the excellent shows that run the full 11-13 episodes per season. However, as I’ve seen so often with anime, the first episode isn’t the best indicator of the overall quality of the show. It took a little time to develop the main characters and the relationship between them and to introduce the real villains of the series. It also took awhile before I noticed that the format worked in the show’s favor. The only thing that carried over between episodes was the character development and overarching plot so an exact memory of what has happened the previous month isn’t required. And the month-long wait between episodes correspond to the downtime of the characters experience as they journey to where the next sword is which rids the animators from the need to throw in some fluffy episodes to connect the sword hunt stories together.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t enjoy more Katanagatari episodes per season or that more episodes wouldn’t make it easier to compete against the likes of Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood but there are some positives to how the show is being done. The three episodes that ran this season (4-6) saw Katanagatari really hit it’s stride in terms of character development, plot, and general all-around awesomeness. And because it’s so late into the Summer season I can say, much like I did with K-On!, that Katanagatari has continued it’s run of excellent episodes and is well-situated to place higher when I’m doing the summer awards.

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5 – B Gata H Kei

The story of one girl’s quest to sleep with 100 men before high school does not sound like a show that you’d attach words like “smart”, “clever”, “heartwarming” or “a tender love story” to but I’m attaching those and plenty others including “highly entertaining” , “hilarious” , and “one of this season’s best”. The one thing I won’t say is that I was surprised at liking B Gata H Kei because I remembered 2 AIC shows from 2009 - Asu no Yoichi and Sora No Otoshimono. Both were “fan-service” shows that performed much better then the typical “fan-service” show so I figured there was a pretty good chance that AIC would do it again and I was right.

I’ve mentioned before that I watch anime with my one younger sister. There’s some anime that we watch together as it comes out (the spring season included Arakawa, FMA:B, Katanagatari, Durarara, and K-On!!) and some that I finish myself and decide afterwords that she’d like and rewatch it with her. Picking a show to rewatch with her is one of the best ways to show that I love that anime since I hate picking a show she’ll hate to watch. Rewatching a show with her  also allows me to get her feedback and to see if my thoughts about the show hold up the second time through. For B Gata H Kei, as one might guess at this point, I decided to rewatch it with her and have already, in fact, finished a second viewing of it. I loved it just as much the second time and she liked it quite a lot too.

Therefore, I won’t be swayed from putting B Gata H Kei so high and kinda wish I could rank it higher.

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I decided to split this list up because I ended up writing much more then I thought would about each entry. Don’t worry, I’ve already written the other half so there’ll be no month long wait.

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Spring 2010 Awards Part 1: Cast and Character Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 2: Genre and Misfit Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 3: VMA Awards
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #4 – #1

Filed under: anime, awards

Given that Katanagatari is a story in the style of chanbara, samurai films which focus largely on “manly” men, it’s great to see it play with gender roles (and subvert our expectations with regard to them) as much as it does. Despite the fact that the central character, who is set to become the strongest in Japan, is male, many of the show’s most powerful characters are women and the plot is very much driven by female characters. Warning: this post and one of the images within it contain major spoilers for Katanagatari episodes one through seven. Events in episode eight are mentioned, but there are no spoilers for the episode.

[Aco] (NSFW)

The first female opponent Shichika fights is Meisai Tsuruga, in episode three. She heads a shrine which protects young girls who have been abused by men, and she has been training them in self-defence. She seems remarkably kind, so it’s a surprise when we learn of her past – she was the member, and then the head, of a notorious and powerful group of bandits, and would kill without hesitation. She is now trying to repent for her past. Meisai is the not only the first female Deviant Blade wielder we meet, but also the first who is not ‘poisoned’ by their sword. She fights Shichika not for the sake of keeping her blade but to be able to continue to help the girls she looks after. This is a woman who is physically and mentally strong, and one who has held leadership positions with considerable courage (in the past) and selflessness (in the present). Her dying request to Togame is the continued protection of the girls at the shrine.

[詩音＠ついった]

One of the biggest surprises in the series to date comes in episode four. From the preview, we expect a fight between Shichika and Hakuhei Sabi, who holds the title of “Japan’s strongest”. Instead the focus turns to Shichika’s sickly sister Nanami, who has remained alone on the island, and the three Maniwa Corps ninja who are closing in on her. It’s now that even more subversions of expectations take place. We expect Nanami to be no match for any of the ninja, but then one of them doesn’t return to his team members. Later, the second appears in front of Nanami, and the stage is set for their fight. We expect her to attempt to use Kyotoryuu, but she then admits that she was never taught it by her father. Was it because of gender; did he believe her to be, as a woman, unworthy of the style? No. It was because he was afraid of what Nanami would become. This girl, who has been presented as weak and frail up until now, is actually something of a monster. Not only is she able to learn skills upon seeing them once, and master them upon seeing them twice (and is, as such, a phenomenal fighter), she also displays little emotion aside from the pleasure she takes from inflicting pain. After brutally torturing and killing the first ninja, she defeats the other two with frightening ease.

She reappears in episode seven possessing a Deviant Blade of her own. She has left the island, and rumours of her strength and cruelty have begun to spread. She has utterly destroyed two entire villages and wants to face Shichika next. By the end of the episode, she has been defeated and killed, not because Shichika is stronger than her but because her greatest wish is death. Katanagatari presents this all in such a way that we know that, despite her defeat at his hand, Nanami is stronger than Shichika and – without trying to jump the gun here – also the strongest character in the series. It’s fitting that her appearance in episode four takes the place of Shichika’s battle with Sabi, who was supposedly the strongest in Japan; before her death, she fits this role much better than he does.

[tom]

The last female Deviant Blade holder we’ve been introduced to so far is Konayuki Itezora, whose small frame and eleven years of age belie the fact that she is physically the strongest character in the series – aside from Nanami, who memorised the technique giving her such strength when destroying Konayuki’s village. Konayuki is another who is immune to the ‘poison’ of their blade and also the first character to defeat Shichika on his journey. Indeed, the two smallest characters in the series – Nanami and Konayuki – have been the only ones to defeat Shichika as of yet. Both seem disarmingly harmless at first glance.

Finally, the two other notable women in the series, Togame and Princess Hitei, are perhaps the most important characters of all. Female lead Togame is fiercely intelligent, a capable sword fighter, and her self-proclaimed “schemes” are what drive Katanagatari‘s plot; Hitei, a princess living in Owari, is responsible for the vast majority of twists and turns the story takes. Both women are in positions of power, and both control a male “sword”. The tremendously strong Shichika and Emonzaemon serve Togame and Hitei, respectively, with what at this stage seems like unquestioning loyalty. It also looks like the rivalry between them will drive the remainder of the series, as both race to collect the remaining Deviant Blades.

[水玉子]

Katanagatari takes great pleasure in subverting our expectations with regard to the roles women play in stories such as these. In a genre where men have traditionally held the spotlight, it’s fantastic to see a series set olden day Japan driven so much by its female characters. The 50 minute per episode format really allows for character development, and all the people we’ve met so far have been fascinating. If the series continues on like this, we’re in for a treat.

Links and Notes:

• In the style of the great mefloraine, all images in this post were sourced from Pixiv.
• Ghostlightning has been covering the series brilliantly, and his posts are definitely worth a read.
• Nisioisin really seems to love his female characters. Zaregoto‘s first book was set on an island populated almost entirely by an exiled heiress and female geniuses, and Bakemonogatari featured a number of strong, smart girls, though I feel they were portrayed as more sexualised than the female characters were here or in Zaregoto.
• Nanami is such a fascinating character, and there was so much I wanted to say about her that didn’t really fit in the context of this post. Suffice to say, I can see myself writing more about her soon.

It’s that time again – the voice, music, and animation awards – or as I like to think of them: the set of awards that are completely subjective and some of the most difficult awards to pick as a result. And this season was no different.

Best Male Seiyuu

Winner: Hiroshi Kamiya as Izaya Orihara from  Durarara!!, Hiroomi Souma from Working!!, Otonashi Yuzuru from Angel Beats, Kou Ichinomiya from Arakawa Under the Bridge and I think I missed some

The Overall 2008 Best Male Seiyuu and Summer 2009 Seasonal Best Male Seiyuu makes it a hat trick. Then again, it was essentially impossible for any other guy to win this time since so many shows featured Hiroshi Kamiya in leading roles and he continues to do a great job.

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Best Female Seiyuu

Winner: Maaya Sakamoto as Nino from Arakawa Under the Bridge and Akashi from The Tatami Galaxy

Runner-up: Yukari Tamura as Yamada from B Gata H Kei and Togame from Katanagatari, Aki Toyosaki as Yui from K-ON!! and Kena Soga from Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou and Satsuki Hyoudou from Kaichou wa Maid-sama!

Picking the best female seiyuu was a much different experience with a bevy of strong performances from many different women. In the end I had to decide on a tie-breaking criteria so I chose to pick the seiyuu with the best characters to win. And that was, Maaya Sakamoto, for voicing two female characters that came off as slightly odd at times but were really deep, interesting characters.

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Best OP

Winner: Working!!

Runner-up: Rainbow, House of Five Leaves, Durarara, B Gata H Kei, Arakawa Under the Bridge

There were a lot of openings I liked this season but no one single opening was able to break from the pack to be the easy pick, at least initially, because I remembered the old argument about picking the MVP in a sport. Do you pick the best player in the league or the person that contributed the most to a team even if the team didn’t do well? In this case, I’m picking the opening to Working!! because I loved it and it was the sole reason that I didn’t drop the show. Working!! eventually got watchable, barely, in the last 3-4 episodes but before then, it was the desire to see the opening one more time that kept me watching.

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Best ED

Winner: B Gata H Kei

Runner-up: The Tatami Galaxy, Arakawa Under the Bridge, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

And I’m picking the ending to B Gata H Kei because it was by-far-and-away the best ending and it was always like the cherry that one leaves to eat last from a piece of awesome cake.

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Best Background Music

Winner: K-On!!

This award is one of the awards that I almost never feel real comfortable picking the winner because I often don’t remember the background music to most of the shows I watch. There are exceptions, in the case of K-On, the BGM is light and airy and it perfectly compliments the show which is what the BGM is supposed to do.

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Best Dressed Characters

Winner: K-On!!

Much like the award for best action going to Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood was completely apparent and needed no justification, this award going to K-On is also completely apparent and needs no justification.

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Best Animation Style

Winner: The Tatami Galaxy

Runner-up: House of Five Leaves, Katanagatari

I fell in love with the animation style of Masaaki Yuasa in Kaiba so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that I’m picking The Tatami Galaxy with it’s similar style to Kaiba. What kinda surprised me was the number shows that were more stylized in nature this season. When I see animators willing to experiment and these shows actually given air time, I relax when thinking about the future of anime.

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Best Animation

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Runner-up: Angel Beats, K-On!!, Durarara

There were several very well animated shows this season but Full Metal had this award in-the-bag when it took it’s already great animation and bumped it up even higher this season for the final arc of episodes. Durarara was it’s closest competitor and might have pulled it out if there had been more cool action scenes.

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Top Animation Studio

Winner: Madhouse

The Fall 2008 Seasonal Top Animation Studio and Overall 2008 Top Animation Studio makes it a hat trick this season as well by producing two of the best anime of the season – The Tatami Galaxy and Rainbow. Both were very original works that showcased the best anime has to offer viewers. Both works also turned out to be, surprisingly, heart-warming series that always left me impatiently waiting for the next episode. And it’s possible that Madhouse could win this award again in the summer season because Rainbow continues on which puts them in a strong position.

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That’s it for part 3 of my spring 2010 anime awards. Stay tuned for my top overall picks of the season.

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Spring 2010 Awards Part 1: Cast and Character Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 2: Genre and Misfit Awards
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #8 – #5
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #4 – #1

Filed under: anime, awards

Before we get to part 2, I wanted to mention that I’m going on vacation in a couple of days but I plan on getting all sections of my picks for the spring season written and queued up before leaving. If you know me, it’ll take only one guess to figure out where I’m going. Which was what I wrote assuming I’d get this up before leaving on vacation but I couldn’t finish enough of the parts so it had to wait till after the vacation.

This time around I’m adding two categories that probably should have been included earlier in my seasonal awards and the inaugural winners are very well deserving.

Best Action

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Easiest.Decision.This.Season.

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Best Fight

Winner: Shichika vs Kanara from ep.5 of Katanagatari

And yet when I started thinking about specific fights, I kept going back to this fight and not one from Full Metal (an example of not being able to see a single tree in a forest). The fight in Katanagatari wasn’t the most flashy, complex, or intricate fight but it was unique, unexpected and felt very important in terms of developing the main characters and the story.

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Best Comedy

Winner: B Gata H Kei

Like many awards I give out, this one is very subjective. For example, some people thought Working!! was funny; whereas, I found it to be probably the least funniest show of the season – the awesome yet very serious anime Rainbow made me laugh more often. And some people disliked B Gata H Kei when I thought it to be, easily, the funniest show of the season.

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Most Entertaining

Winner: Arakawa Under the Bridge

Runner-up: B Gata H Kei, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

A comedy entertains but not all entertaining shows are comedies; thus, the need for two separate awards. And once again, a different show wins each category. Arakawa Under the Bridge wins for it’s superior ability to mix it’s comedic side with it’s heartwarming and surprisingly poignant side while always maintaining it’s high entertainment level.

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Most Interesting Setting

Winner: The Tatami Galaxy

Runner-up: Durarara

Durarara gave The Tatami Galaxy a strong run but it’s near impossible to beat a show that involves dozens (if not many more) parallel worlds connected by a 4.5 tatami mat dorm room with the only constants being a castella cake, a hidden 100 yen bill and a stress toy.

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Best Plot

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Runner-up: Rainbow – Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin

Full Metal has been working for a year to build up to this final climax and boy was it an awesome ride, topped only by events of this season. Those that followed the manga probably had a good idea about where the story was going but, after the debacle that was the first Full Metal series, I stopped following the manga and got to be surprised as a result. (The type of surprises that I like. )

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Best Story

Winner: The Tatami Galaxy

Runner-up: Durarara, Arakawa Under the Bridge

The story of Watashi’s quest to find his rose-colored college life and subsequent enlightenment in The Tatami Galaxy could have been a SF story I read. That probably sounds like weak-sounding praise but, being a life-long fan of print SF, I’ve come to accept that in America (at least) television or movie SF will, 99.9% of the time, lack the depth found in print SF. Which is fine, sometimes, but I love it when somebody makes a TV series that equals the quality of the best print SF. Incidentally, if you liked The Tatami Galaxy, I’d suggest reading The Walls of the Universe from Paul Melko; it lacks the cool animation style (obviously) but it was a good read and the theme was similar to The Tatami Galaxy.

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Best Villain

Winner: Izaya from Durarara

Runner-up: Father from FMA: Brotherhood

Izaya falls into the conniving, intelligent villain category. It doesn’t seem like he’s out to cause the same level of villainy that Father from FMA:B was planning to do but, on the smaller scale, Izaya’s ability to manipulate everyone around him to his messed-up whims earns a great deal of respect from me, even if I’d wish he got more of a comeuppance at the end of the series.

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Best Final Episode

Winner: The Tatami Galaxy

I wasn’t sure The Tatami Galaxy was going to be able to pull itself together by the end but I shouldn’t have worried. The final episode showed exactly how in control of the story the director was even when each episode felt completely disjointed and the final episode was also just plain epic. If I could, I’d lock the people behind Angel Beats into a room and force them to watch this show a few dozen times and hope they learn the right way to do a final episode.

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Best Ending

Winner: Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

The ending to FMA:B took up the entire spring season so for the same reasons why it won Best Plot, it’s also winning Best Ending.

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Most in Need of a Sequel

Winner: B Gata H Kei

Runner-up: Durarara

I liked Durarara a lot and it would have won this award easily (since it seems like there is so much more that could be done) but I’m not convinced that the sequel could surpass the first season in “awesomeness” and I want a Durarara that was just a bit more “awesome” then the first season. (If that makes sense .) Therefore, my desire to see a second season of B Gata H Kei was able to pull ahead to win this award. In the case of B Gata H Kei, I think the next season has to include Yamada finally getting what she and Kosuda desires to be a successful show. (Which then kinda ends the point of the series but the creators could then go off in a new direction and have the luckless couple make a mistake and Yamada get pregnant. They’d probably never do something like that but it would be hilarious and completely different.)

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That’s it for part 2, the next part is the VMA awards.

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Spring 2010 Awards Part 1: Cast and Character Awards
Spring 2010 Awards Part 3: VMA Awards
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #8 – #5
Spring 2010 Awards: Top 8 Anime – #4 – #1

Filed under: anime, awards

As you might have guessed by the title, yesterday marked the start of my match in the second round of the Aniblog Tournament. You may have also guessed that this post is the type of post that at some point, maybe after trying a bit of bribery or trash-talking or arguing for my superior worth, I’ll ask people to please go here to vote for The null set. And you’d be right on both accounts, but I’ll try to keep this interesting for you nonetheless.

Three Reasons Why You Should Vote For The Null Set

1.   I Have a Cute Nephew

And I have the pictures to prove it:

If that’s not a good enough reason to vote for me, I don’t know what is.

2.   I’m From Youngstown and I Know People

Sure some cities have nice sounding nicknames like ‘The City of Brotherly Love’ or ‘The Big Apple’ but my hometown has cooler sounding nicknames:  ‘Mob Town, USA’ and more recently ‘Murder Town, USA’. And don’t think these nicknames are misnomers, in the 90’s, for instance, Youngstown had the highest per capita homicide rate in America for many of the individual years of the 1990’s and we were either #2 or #3 all the other years.

3.   I’m Part Elven

If J.R.R. Tolkien is right about how elves develop a yearning for the sea the first time they get near it then it’s conceivable that I’m part elven because I seem drawn to it. Look how often it’s come up on my blog, here and here and here. In two months I’m going on a week long vacation at a beach house and that’s in addition to the beach trip I just went on (found a bunch of nice sea glass) and another trip sometime in June. Here’s some new pictures I took on the most recent visit.

Isn’t my blog the most awesome, so go here and vote for The null set now.

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Okay, so this list wasn’t a serious one, though, everything said about me true. I do have a cute nephew and I’m proud of being from Youngstown and I do enjoy going to the beach. I included being from Youngstown because it is an important part of who I am. If you look past the nicknames and the murder rate and the inability to park your car on the street because sooner-or-later someone will break the windows in – I still think of it as a great place to live, it’s got the second largest urban park in America behind Central Park in New York City; the people are by and large good, hard-working people; and I’m optimistic the worst of it has past and the future will be a better one for Youngstown.

Now for the serious list as to why I think people should vote for The null set.

Three Reasons Why You Should Vote For The Null Set

1.   Unique Philosophy to The Null Set

I wanted The null set to be a successful anime blog and not wither away after a few short months. To do this, I needed to find something that would separate this blog from other blogs and I needed to believe that whatever this blog did, it had some importance to my potential readers.

What I eventually came up with as The null set’s mission is to get people to watch good anime, even if that means trying something they normally wouldn’t and to steer people away from wasting their time with bad anime. This influences everything I do, even if it’s not apparent. I normally write my anime posts as if the audience reading them has not seen the anime in question which means including as few spoilers as possible, among other things. The types of anime posts I write mainly – impression posts of new anime, series reviews, season previews, and seasonal/yearly anime awards – are designed with this mission in mind. I’d rather have people spending time watching good anime then spending time reading what I have to say about good and bad anime.

2.   Wider Variety of Content

I have only the highest respect for episodic blogs and their ability to cover the same shows week in and week out; I’d probably burn out quickly if I tried. I think the format, however, is very constricting and it would limit the quality of my blog since many of my most read posts and the posts I’m most proud about wouldn’t fit into that format.

For example, there was my rebuttal to Mr. Sherman, president of Bang Zoom, about the impending death of anime in America and from a couple of years ago, my two-part (1, 2) rebuttal to the “documentary” that Otaking put out. There’s also this post where I used the licensing patterns of the anime from 2008 to show that instead of blaming fansubs, maybe studio execs should be looking at the shows they license; the post still holds up well though there’s been some more licensing of 2008 anime shows since I wrote it back in November.

From time-to-time I like to pit two series or two characters against each other to see who would win. The most read one remains the Haruhi vs. Gurren Lagann one I did back in 2008 but the one I had the most fun putting together was the Haruka Minami vs. Ibuki Ikaruga battle because I was surprised by the winner.

I also enjoy dabbling with Photoshop because it exercises my creative side a different way then writing does. The result is often posting wallpapers that I’ve made. The Soul Eater ones (1, 2, 3) have been the most popular; my Toradora ones actually got linked to by a Japanese anime blog which I thought was great. My favorite wallpaper was one I did for Bakemonogatari that splices Araragi and Mayoi onto a picture I took while on vacation at Washington D.C.. I also once tried out vector tracing using Muraski from Kure-nai. And I also sometimes take the time to stitch together those pan-up shots the animators do of a really awesome outfit/character. The latest was one I did the other day after watching episode 5 of Katanagatari and I might as well share it with you know as thanks for reading this far down.

There’s also those posts that are hard to categorize except to say that something about the anime I was watching or manga I was reading at that time interested me and I wanted to share. There was a recent post about fixing a joke I read in the Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei manga, there’s this post where I mention anime songs that make me cry, the post about how animators seem fascinated with the night sky, a post about how anime needs more mature characters, and the post where I talk about When an Anime Becomes a Keeper.

3.   Winning Would Do The Most Good For The Anime Blogosphere

I struggled with how to word this one without sounding presumptuous and I still don’t think I quite got it right. I’m not saying that my anime blog is super important or even more important than my opponent, Bokutachi no Blog, but the feedback I received during the first round and pressure to make my blog competitive for the second round pushed me to improve The null set and winning in this round will push me even harder to improve the quality of The null set to make it competitive for the next round. I have several ideas that I think would make very interesting posts which have been kicking around in my brain for a while now, waiting for a good time to get written, and trying to win in the third round would be a very good reason to get them written. I’m even thinking about bring back my weekly anime review.

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So, hopefully, something I said has convinced you to go here and vote for The null set in the Aniblog Tournament; I’m currently behind by a little bit but with your help, I might just win.

I wasn’t going to try the bribery route but I just had an idea that attempts to bribe while still keeping within the parameters of running The null set like normal. If I win my second round match-up, I’ll watch and write a series review of any one randomly selected anime (up to say 40 episodes in length) picked from a list generated of people leaving a comment at this post saying that they voted for me and the name of the anime they’d like me to review. Of course, I can’t verify if the winning person did, in fact, vote for me but I’m willing to trust in my readers. And  no matter the legitimacy of the comment, I’ll still be reviewing a show I haven’t done yet and I’ll only do it when I win so it’s a win-win for everyone involved.

Filed under: anime, general anime interst, meta/office keeping, other wallpapers and pictures

Another month, another installment of Katanagatari.  The series glazed over Nanami in the first episode, but this week she gets her turn in the limelight.  We get to see three thrilling fights against the Maniwani Corps!  Oh whom am I kidding, this series is about the dialogue, not the action.  Moreover, the cute sister is nowhere near as harmless as she appears.  The total fight time is about 2 minutes out of 50.  Well, let’s get this underway!

Holy cow, Shichika’s sister Nanami is downright mean!  Thus far, the writers have painted the villains in a sympathetic light, and the account from this episode says the same for Sabi.  So what do you do when you have straightforward villains with whom no one can sympathize?  Obviously, you make the hero sound worse than them.  Sure, they attacked her first so she can claim self-defense.  You can see she enjoys it though, especially with that creepy smile of hers.  She sets every one of them up to show her their techniques, and then kills them with the same.  Nanami even rips the fingernails out of the first Maniwani since she hasn’t seen his skill yet.

You can see where she got the negative personality.  I doubt she feels too good about her father passing over her as head of the Kyotouryuu style.  In addition, the inability to feel lasting pain of her own probably makes her a bit oblivious to the pain of others.  Perhaps the root problem here is the dissonance between her innocent look and sadistic tendencies.  At least she has the decency to give her victims a proper burial.

You might think Nanami’s ability is awesome, but she highlights an aspect that makes it feel more like a curse.  While it seems counter-intuitive, much of the pleasure we derive from a task relates to the effort we exerted.  We feel accomplished when we complete a difficult task.  Conversely, if we expend no effort, we become disgruntled.  I might be crazy, but near the end of summer vacation, I wanted school to start.  You also see retired folk who quickly pick up a part-time job or several hobbies.  We need something to work on because if we don’t, boredom takes hold, which slips into depression.

Nanami hasn’t expended an ounce of real effort in her life outside of observing her father and brother.  It sounds great but it actually sucks.  Now she has the means to escape from her island prison and go seek out new experiences in the vast world around her.  She has waited for this opportunity all her life.  Of course, with a personality addicted to acquiring knowledge, you have to wonder what she will learn in her travels.  Will she approach Shichika as an ally, or perhaps as his enemy?

Now, we come to the major point of contention in this episode.  I have to tip my hat to the author and White Fox for having the massive stones to troll us so thoroughly.  You might have expected this amazing fight between Shichika and Sabi, and instead you get an episode about Nanami.  Then they drive the stake into you further by having the protagonists talk, at length, about the amazing fighting techniques and how they came so close to losing.  For some, this didn’t just make or break the episode, it broke the whole series.

Well, as one person pointed out on MAL, given the length of the battles in this series, what we saw in the episode preview was probably the entirety of the fight.  You can compound this because if they had focused on Shichika and Togame, you’d all just complain about their dialogues instead.  I can’t find it in me to be really mad at them.  I would have loved to see the Sabi/Shichika fight, but I enjoyed what they gave me anyway.  All I can do is stand back, flip them the bird, and smile as I await the next episode.  Speaking of which, it will contain pirates and ninjas.  Did I mention I enjoy this series?

Along with this realization, I think I solved a question I’ve been pondering for years now – namely how can one best differentiate between a kid and an adult. The answer is that a kid thinks time does not go fast enough and an adult thinks time goes too fast. I fall into the latter category; I’m appalled that I haven’t posted anything in slightly over 2 months but it certainly doesn’t feel like it’s been 2 months. Where does the time go???

For those that are interested in why it’s been so long since I last wrote something, I’ll get to later down the page. First, let’s do some anime blogging and we might as well start with my thoughts on the new shows that made up the Winter 2010 season.

Sora No Woto

Status – Finished
Final Score –  8/12 B+
In Short – A-1 deserves praise for attempting a show of the caliber but it really needed to be a 24 episode series. It wasn’t, though, and as a result the pacing is too hurky-jerky, the story-telling is too compressed, and the characters are too flat for the viewer to really enjoy Sora no Woto as much as it should have been. Which is a shame because the world that A-1 created was a really interesting one that truly begged to be investigated more.

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Chuu Bra!!

Status – Dropped after 4 episodes
Interim Score –  2/12 F
In Short – I knew I shouldn’t have bothered with this show but there was so few shows this season I figured what was the harm in watching a couple of episodes. Mistake, I could live with a merely poorly constructed fan-service show but I was not ready for this show. It was a poorly constructed fan-service show with a quasi-realistic portrayal of young teenage girls as they grapple with self-image issues. Each episode left me feeling unclean and wondering who exactly thought animating this show was a good idea. Thankfully, I could legitimately drop Chuu Bra after 4 episodes when it became apparent that the show, even without accounting for the creep factor, was a lousy show.

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Katanagatari

Status – Waiting for the next episode
Interim Score –  8/12 B+
In Short – The first 3 episodes of Katanagatari aired this season and while it started off very shaky – each subsequent episode has shown a marked improvement over the previous. I think the key to liking this show is to not create the wrong expectations. This is a NisiOisiN story so even though it’s about sword fighters and medieval Japan – the emphasis is on the characters and their conversations and not on the blood/ gore/ action scenes that one might assume a show like this would focus on.

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Seikon no Qwaser

Status – 12 episodes watched and still reluctantly watching
Interim Score –  3/12 D
In Short – For a show that tries to push the envelope in terms of fan-service, you’d think the animators could come up with something that wasn’t so boring. Scenes that should shock or titillate more-often-then-not leave me yawning, wishing that I could bean some sense into the manga/anime creators that think T&A is all that’s needed to carry a show. Sometimes I think they forget that the internet exists. The sole saving grace to Seikon no Qwaser is that one character is being voiced by Aya Hirano (aka Haruhi) and she’s absolutely awesome – truly one of her best efforts to date. It’s not enough to make this show a worthwhile watch to the vast majority of anime watchers but it is something.

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Omamori Himari

Status – Dropped after 7 episodes
Interim Score –  5/12 C+
In Short – I continue to be weak against anime shows that feature the supernatural/Japanese religious elements so when a show like Omamori Himari comes along with it’s generic blandness and it happens to have a supernatural element to it – I end up watching it longer then it deserves and having a higher opinion of it then it deserves. It wasn’t a horrible show and I’d probably have finished watching it except that I decided one day that I was sick of the all the not-really-horrible but not-really-good shows I was watching and dropped it along with a few others.

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Ladies versus Butlers!

Status – Finished
Final Score –  4/12 C
In Short – And yet somehow I finished this show,  though in my defense this show did have some potential and I found the opening song catchy. If they had skipped the harem of girls with one-dimensional personalities and focused on the triangle of the main guy and the two girls – drill hair and childhood friend it might even had been a good show but this is Xebec were talking about so that was just wishful thinking. This was probably the least painful fan-service show to watch of the season so if you absolutely needed your fix this was your bet.

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Durarara!!

Status – 13 episodes watched and impatient for more
Interim Score –  10.5/12 Strong A
In Short – One of the best new shows of the season. For those that wanted Durarara to be Baccano 2, this first half of the show was probably a big disappointment. The very minimal body count and focus on character/story development was just two ways Durarara felt unBaccano-like. I’ll admit that this desire clouded my feelings for a while but I eventually got over it when I realized that Durarara was going to be 24 episodes long and it had the time to develop it’s characters in ways that Baccano didn’t and because the animators started to reveal parts of the larger plot of Durarara and it became interesting in it’s own way. I totally psyched for the second half.

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Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu

Status – Dropped after 7 episodes
Interim Score –  6/12 B-
In Short – Another casualty along with Omamori Himari; I thought it started strong but it began to bog down in the middle and I wasn’t in the mood that day to put up with a show that could obviously being doing much better. Since then I’ve kinda felt bad about dropping it but I’ve yet to feel the urge to pick up where I left off so I guess it’s just best to let sleeping dogs lie.

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Dance In The Vampire Bund

Status – 9 episodes watched and a desire to finish
Interim Score –  6/12 B-
In Short – I really had high hopes for this and I thought the first episode was brilliant but my disappointment grew as I kept waiting for the show to settle down and start telling a story.  since I like the Shaft/Shinbou combo I didn’t want to give up on it so after the sixth episode I decided to put it aside till I had all the episodes and had the ability to watch them together. Some shows, I’ve realized, work better when marathoned and just the other day I watched episodes 7-9 together and I liked it more than I was expecting. I hope this bodes well for the rest of the series.

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Ookami Kakushi

Status – Dropped after 7 episodes
Interim Score –  6/12 B-
In Short – Another not-really-bad but not-really-good show that I decided to drop. In it’s favor was the fact that a competent animation studio was animating this and not Studio Deen who had done the previous Ryuukishi07 shows (Higurashi, Umineko no Naku Koro ni). This positive is negated by the larger problem of the source material recycling so much of the show’s content from those previous Ryuukishi07 shows. Also, I’ve gotten tired of how all these shows are placed 25+ years ago – I’m starting to think Ryuukishi either lacks the will to figure out how to do a mystery/horror series where the characters have access to cell phones, GPS devices, and the internet or lacks the intelligence to write a new story that doesn’t rip off his/her/its one other story idea.

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Hanamaru Youchien

Status – Finished and Wishing for Season 2
Final Score –  12/12 Perfect
In Short – Saved the best for last. I can still remember how utterly stupefied I was when it was announced that Gainax’s next series was going to be Hanamaru Youchien. This series had J.C. Staff written all over it, why was Gainax doing this? I checked the manga out and was decidedly underwhelmed after reading the first 10 chapters. With absolutely no confidence that Hanamaru Youchien was going to be good, imagine my surprise when Gainax cranked this out of the stadium. Who knew the studio known for it’s hot-blooded action series could do such a warm, relaxing, cute, funny series. I think Gainax just became my preferred studio to do the anime for Yotsuba if/when the creator ever allows one to get made. Gainax also deserves tons of praise for having a different ending song/animation for each episode; I loved all the different songs and subjects. (Now if only KyoAni could do the same thing with K-On.)

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I really should add one final show – Hidemari Sketch x ☆☆☆ (aka season 3) – since it aired this season as well but I’ve just seen the first couple of episodes and so I don’t have a firm opinion on it yet. After purging all the bad – mediocre shows of this season, I needed something to fill the space and decided it was time to catch myself up on this series and started with the first series. I plan on making a post about all the series I’ve been watching instead of the current crop of shows so look for my thoughts on this Shaft/Shinbou series soon.

And maybe I’ll even get around to doing my top shows of 2009 already and talking about the new spring 2010 shows as well. Now onto where I was for 2 months.

If it was just up to me, I’d probably just pretend nothing happened and keep blogging but I’m pretty sure there are at least a few people who were wondering what happened to me and so I’ll give a condensed version of the various reasons and we can go from there.

A normal February is a pretty depressing month already but this one was a bit harder to get through than most. The weather was truly atrocious; it wasn’t so much the almost unending amount of snow we got (about 45 inches) but the complete lack of sunlight we had. I checked online and for the entire month of February we had 7 hours of clear skies. It didn’t break down how much of those 7 hours occurred during daylight or at night but even in all 7 hours happened during daylight hours and I happened to be awake – it still essentially meant I went a month without seeing the sun.

Also weighing on my mind was that this February was the one year anniversary of my grandma passing. I’ll get myself wound up in anger if I think about it too much so I’ll just say that I consider my 3 aunts the reason why my grandma isn’t living today. Also, it’s very important for everyone to decide how much or how little medical care they want and get it in writing because you can’t rely on your family to have your best interests at heart – you could get admitted to the hospital for a serious but not life threatening reason and in the course of treatment your family could decide to remove your feeding tube and let you starve to death over the course of 3 weeks.

Factor in a really weak anime season and I just didn’t feel like talking about anime or do much of anything. March rolled around and almost like a switch the weather turned gorgeous. Temperatures shot up into the 60’s and 70’s and it was wall-to-wall sunny. I spent as much time as I could outside and the sight of the first flowers of the season  – crocuses – went a long way to improve my mood. I started to feel the urge to write again but I kept getting blocked.

I volunteered to be the Dungeon Master in a 6 part campaign for my sister, brother-in-law, and friends in Dungeons & Dragons. We were going to use a printed campaign but we were not satisfied with the quality of writing so I further volunteered to write one myself and it takes an amazingly large amount of time to create a halfway decent adventure. I also picked up a temporary job working for the census and it’s been leaving me really tuckered out when I get home at night. And of course to blog about anime I first need to watch anime. And I’ve also been slowly working on my top anime of 2009 posts because I’d like all the parts to be done or almost done when I start posting them. And once it got to be a long time between posts I felt reluctant to explain why it’s been a long time because I started a blog talk about anime and a little SF, not to be a personal blog.

As a result, even though I’ve been meaning to start writing again it’s been almost a month before I had the chance to sit down and write something I could publish. I guess at this point I should just listen to the wise words from Manabi Straight and say, “Forward, Go!!” and get back to blogging.

Filed under: anime, anime rants/views, meta/office keeping, series review

Last month on Katanagatari, Shichika and Togame retrieved Zantou Namakura from the tragic villain Ginkaku.  The next sword on the list is Sentou Tsurugi, or the thousand swords.  The weapon has fallen into the hands of Meisai Tsuruga, the matriarch of a shrine and yet another foe with a tragic history.  What are you going to do now Shichika?

The episode starts with our heroic duo climbing the thousand steps outside of the shrine.  Shichika ends up carrying Togame up to the top, where Tsuruga greets them.  The two women retire to discuss the terms of their visit.  Tsuruga lays out the challenge: Togame must identify the original Tsurugi, while Shichika must defeat her in combat.  A shrine maiden attempts to kill the strategian, but Tsuruga blocks her and sends all the girls away.  The leader calls Shichika in to tell him about the purpose of the temple.  It serves as a refuge for broken women who have nowhere else to go.  Despite hearing the story, he stays determined to defeat her in combat.  Maniwa Kuizame shows up to claim the sword, but Tsuruga dispatches him with ease.  Togame believes she has found the original Tsurugi, and the battle begins.  Tsuruga lures Shichika into a trap, and then explains her past in detail.  Shichika “escapes,” and the two face off for a final rush between his martial arts and the true Tsurugi.  He emerges triumphant upon slaying her in a single blow.

The shrine maidens set the framework for this episode.  Many of the girls suffered severe abuse at the hands of men.  The psychological damage is so extensive that they cower in fear of Shichika, even though he would do them no harm.  They all came to the temple looking for a sanctuary, both for their broken minds and from the crimes they committed.  While their assailants may have raped or abused them, in the eyes of the law, they are guilty of murder.  As a result, they also have to keep their faces covered so no one can recognize them.  Their circumstances force them to live in isolation for the rest of their lives.  Tsuruga puts their welfare ahead of her own life.  Thus, Togame offers aid from the Shogunate to take care of the temple and pardon the women for their crimes.

Tsuruga is quite an interesting character.  She lost her father to the rebellion.  To gain power and influence, she used the skills he gave her to kill hundreds of people.  Then, she found salvation, but only by treading upon the bodies of her comrades and an innocent priest.  Finally, she has helped all the girls at the shrine to repair their damaged minds, but they will have to pay with their souls.  Everything she set out to do has reached fruition, but she did it by paving the road of her life in blood.  To her, the ends do not justify the means.  At this point, she doesn’t feel she has the power to break the cycle, or no longer thinks she’s fit to try.  Following Shichika out of her trap seems like a tactical blunder, but she herself says she thought she would probably die.  Like Ginkaku before her, Tsuruga ultimately wants death, and she knows that Shichika is fully willing to grant her wish.

On that note, Tsuruga also mentions a belief in fate several times.  Let’s look at the events in the series through that lens.  When Togame’s father died in the rebellion, it set into motion events that would cause her to resent the empire.  Since Shichika is the only heir to the anti-sword style, fate dictated that the two would meet.  Their search means that so long as they live, they will eventually meet every person who bears one of the twelve swords.  Tsuruga believes fate decided that her multi-sword style would bring her in contact with the Tsurugi that perfectly compliments her.  This means that her path would have to cross Shichika’s at some indeterminate point.  The ensuing battle would finally allow her to feel death’s embrace.  When you look at it in this manner, Tsuruga’s death broke her cycle, but served to prolong Shichika’s.

Finally, we need to look at Shichika’s character development.  You probably have trouble sympathizing with him given the way the writers have constructed his character.  When Tsuruga questions him on why he fights, he states that he does it because Togame wishes it.  It evokes thoughts of a soldier that carries out his duty with no regard for the task’s morality.  That idea is firmly rooted in reality.  Many times, we kill our enemies because they tried to kill us without taking a moment to think about why they tried to kill us.  Even when he’s given the opportunity to learn Tsuruga’s motivations, he ignores it.  This leads Tsuruga to accuse him of ignoring it simply because he doesn’t want to think for himself.  She is absolutely right, and he even admits it.  Think about it.  Tsuruga and Ginkaku are not truly evil characters.  At worst, they are simply misguided.  Their only real crime was standing in the way of Shichika’s, or rather, Togame’s goal.  He never questions if the ends justify the means.  I have to wonder if a real fight for his life would get him to start examining his actions, and it seems that Sabi will put him through hell next month.  I’m looking forward to it.

Last week on Katanagatari, the show acquainted us with our main characters, Shichika and Togame.  They didn’t have long to talk though, as Koumori from the Maniwa Corps attacked.  Shichika defeated him and retrieved the first sword, Zettou Kanna.  This week, they pursue Zantou Namakuma and the ronin that wields it.

The episode begins with the couple making landfall in Kyoto.  We already knew Shichika had problems telling people apart, and with so many people around, it’s a bit disorienting for him.  This leads to an “identification exercise” that seems more to bring the two physically close than to serve any real use.  He also questions the necessity of buying new clothes to replace his practical peasant garb.  The two encounter some bandits on the way out-of-town, and the martial artist handily disarms them.  Togame stops him from finishing them.  Unfortunately, it’s rude to kill everyone with a sword that crosses your path, even if they are a nuisance.

As Togame describes the sword’s owner, Uneri Ginkaku, the perspective shifts to his castle.  Shirasagi Maniwa has come to claim the sword, and his peculiar quirk is talking backwards.  You can imagine how difficult this might be to understand.  Fortunately, Ginkaku cuts him down in all of 90 seconds.  Togame continues to narrate the desert condition of the ronin’s domain.  Neither really understands why an accomplished swordsman like himself would be the sole resident in such an arid place.

Their conversation turns to the bizarre with Togame lodging complaints about Shichika’s lack of personality and catch phrase.  She isn’t breaking the fourth wall, simply leaning on it quite hard.  Since she’s recording everything that happens on their journey, the discussion is based on the premise of exciting writing.  Of course, the guy really has no interest in all this extraneous stuff, and decides to just accept whatever phrase she spits out next.  You wouldn’t think this country bumpkin would have already mastered believable sarcasm, but there you have it.

The pair reach the castle and literally trip over the body of Shirasagi.  They decide the event is lucky, because that means the sword is still here and reveals the ronin’s skill level.  In addition, a dead person can’t speak, so Togame won’t have to write dialogue for him.  They explore the castle and find Ginkaku’s room.  The strategian attempts to negotiate, and almost gets herself killed.  Shichika saves her at the last-minute as the two show their respective skills.  Today’s battle will come down to the no-sword style against the quick draw style.  The protagonists make a temporary retreat to strategize.

Shichika remarks that his style of attack and that he allowed them to leave means that Ginkaku must stay in the room to reach his optimal skill level.  Despite a rather clever plot to force the swordsman to leave, the pair decide to face him head to head.  Shichika asks that Togame stay behind him this time, so he can protect her.

On the other side, Ginkaku reminisces about his current lot in life.  He’s thought about abandoning the territory, but could never commit to it.  All that he has left to protect is his castle and the sword by his side, which he resolved to defend until his last breath.

I will not spoil the final battle for you.  Suffice to say it has action, insight, and surprisingly, humor.  That’s kind of the series’ defining mark at this time.  The characters talk a lot, but the banter is witty and gives us a good look into the characters and the world around them.  Togame has loud, big ideas, while Shichika prefers a more subdued, practical approach.  Their polar opposite dynamic means that you’ll probably find yourself more interested as the dialogue progresses.  Additionally, the series immediately introduces the concept of the tragic villain.  Ginkaku really isn’t a bad guy, his motivations just ran counter to theirs and weren’t entirely clear.  However, in a way, the pair finally granted his wish by liberating him from his burden, and his brief last words are powerful.  You have to wonder why the antagonists to come made the choices they did to reach this point.  Next month they will target Sentou Tsurugi, and the preview animation promises much more action.  If you haven’t already done so, pick this series up now, I really think it will be one of the best by the end of the year.

Before I get to my top picks of 2009, I thought it would be a good idea to write some of my winter anime impression posts. I started with Katanagatari because it was one of the titles I was really curious about and also hopeful that it would turn out well.

Rating: episode 1 – 6/12 B-
Anticipation Level: 2/5 – Below Average

The Story

Set in medieval Japan, our main character, Shichika, is a young man who lives alone on a remote island with just his sister. The reason the pair of siblings live on this island is because their dad was exiled there 20 years ago by the shogun who worried about the father’s popularity after he put down a rebellion. And the siblings might have lived their entire lives on this island in peace if Togame – a young woman who happens to be the shogun’s chief strategist – hadn’t decided that she needed the skills of Shichika in her quest to find 12 supernaturally powered swords. Of course, taking the time to travel to a remote island and employing the skills of the son of a banished swordsmen might seem like an odd decision by a chief strategist but she had already been burned by her supposed loyal ninja subordinates (who took the swords for themselves) and Shichika’s style of swordsmanship does not involve using an actual sword (so he can’t actually use the 12 swords). The other reason Togame thinks she can trust Shichika is because she plans on him falling in love with her .

The Fine Print

For potential viewers of Katanagatari, probably the first thing I should mention is it’s unique episode setup. Katanagatari is made up of 12 episodes that run 50 minutes long with one episode being released per month starting in January 2010 and running to December. Also noteworthy is that the source material comes from the same guy, NisiOisin, that wrote Bakemonogatari – the summer 2009 season hit – but the animation effort for Katanagatari has no connections to Bakemonogatari (animated by Shaft and Katanagatari by the animation studio White Fox).

I tried to keep my expectations in check for Katanagatari because shows can almost never live up to hype but Katanagatari still felt like a bit of a letdown. Oh, it does have some things going for it but taken as a whole, it feels like there’s more going against it then for it.

The first problem was the show’s pacing and how it spent it’s 50 minutes. A halfway capable (and willing) director could have condensed what happened in episode 1 down into half the time without losing anything of importance and given the show some of the snappiness in pacing that a Bakemonogatari (or a Toradora or a Baccano) display which helped make those shows so interesting to watch. Instead, the show just lazily stumbled from conversation to conversation to conversation to conversation with only an infrequent interruption of a small action scene before going back to talking. And speaking of action scenes, I have to say that I was very underwhelmed with Katanagatari’s action scenes; episode 15 of Railgun had a 30 second fight scene that was miles better than anything that episode 1 of Katanagatari had to offer. I’m willing to cut it a little slack since this is the first episode but I expect future episodes to contain more interesting content or else I’m going to drop it.

I was also surprised by how flat this show felt and I’ve been trying to pinpoint the exact problem. There’s the two main characters – Shichika and Togame – they’re interesting and likable but they feel more like a third or fourth generation copy of Senjougahara and Araragi, similar but lacking the finer detail that made the originals good but that hardly covers it all. Another area that I think helped contribute to the flatness was, during the dialog scenes, White Fox was content with just showing the talking heads, talking; I’m not saying they need to copy Shaft but at least when Shaft did the conversations in Bakemonogatari, they provided your eyes with something to look at – even if it was just the character’s body language. Another possible reason that just came to me, as I find some screenshots to take, is as interesting and pretty as the animation style is, I was never wowed by it. I was constantly wowed by Bakemonogatari and even new shows like Ookamikakushi, Hanamaru Kindergarten, and Durarara have more of a wow factor to their animation. And there’s the possibility that the longer episode length could be contributing to the flatness of the this show by making the show feel like it drags.

You might be saying to yourself at this point – why did steelbound give it a 6/12 B- and not a lower score when he had so many problems with it? And I’d reply, that’s a good question so I’m going to switch to what I liked about it.

First and foremost, I do like the animation style; it’s refreshingly different from what’s normal in anime. Also, the characters aren’t bad; Togame is probably my favorite and her screen time in the first episode were the best parts and I’m interested in how there might be more to the sister but it seems that they’ll leave her behind – which is a shame – and the weakest character so far is Shichika but all they need to do is some quality character development soon and he’d be fine. And not all the dialog was boring, there was some flashes of greatness, now if only there was a greater percentage of those moments. And finally, watching the first episode left we feeling pretty good (which is always a big plus for an anime) so I’m optimistic that the future episodes will be better.

So, in conclusion, Katanagatari is not a bad anime but does have room to improve; therefore, I’m willing to say it’s worth a watch (especially if you like to appreciate different animation styles) but can’t really recommend it right now. If this conclusion changes significantly after the next episode or the episode after – either positively or negatively – I’ll be sure to post my updated thoughts.

Filed under: anime, first impressions

We’ve almost reached the end of the Winter season launches with the airing of Katanagatari.  However, this is a nonstandard series.  The plan is to be a sweeping epic series that is aired as one 45-minute episode every month for the rest of the year.  I don’t have a lot of time before shipping out for Ohayocon, so let’s jump right into this.

The anime starts on an isolated island where our protagonist Shichika and his sister Nanami live.  They came to this island with their father when the empire banished him.  Shichika has inherited the no sword style, called Kyotouryuu, from his father, who died a year before our story.  Togame, the shogun’s “strategian,” has come to this island to seek out the head of the Kyotouryuu style, which means her aim is to recruit Shichika.

Togame lays out most of the plot for us.  An infamous swordsmith by the name of Shikizaki Kiki made a series of 1000 swords.  Of these, the last 12 are especially dangerous, and have special properties.  The shogun sent ninjas and swordsmen to retrieve the weapons, but to no avail, as once obtained the hires disappeared.  She needs Shichika to aid her in her task, since he’s the only person in the world with the skills necessary who wouldn’t be swayed by love or honor.  She also wants him to love her.

An assassin, Koumori, interrupts their conversation with a hail of kunai.  Our hero gives chase and the two stop at the beach.  It turns out this guy has the first legendary sword, which he keeps in an… unorthodox place.  The Zettou Kanna’s special ability is its extreme durability, rendering it mostly unbreakable.  After a lot of talking and a small amount of combat, the assassin escapes with Togame.

Koumori takes on Togame’s appearance using his ninja skill, and goes to kill Shichika.  Unfortunately for him, our hero has quick reflexes and immediately lashes out when surprised.  Koumori reveals the strategian’s true intentions to  try to convert the martial artist.  It turns out she’s actually the daughter of the rebel leader, and Shichika’s father killed her father.  However, hearing that she decided to turn to her enemy for help actually moves the young man to commit to aiding her.  He dispatches Koumori, takes the sword, and the two then set off on their quest.

This first episode serves as a prologue, and because it must set the stage for the rest of the plot, there is an incredible amount of dialogue.  Shichika lampshades this halfway through when he asks if ALL mainlanders talk this much.  However, the plot is interesting, and hopefully we’ll get more action in later episodes.  Shichika plays the role of the rather quiet, dumb protagonist, while Togame serves as the plot force and comic relief.  Foremost, the art style alone makes this series worth watching in my opinion.  The colors are vibrant and appealing and the art direction is a lot more fluid then what you might be used to.  It reminds me of Kaiba.  I am extremely interested in seeing more, unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a month for the next episode.