I wanted this to be a single post but when I finished, a quick word count showed roughly 3000 words which is just too much to ask people to read in one sitting and also, who wants to scroll through such a long post? So a hasty cut was in order and here we are.

Let’s pick up where the last post left off with number 11 …

(11) – Aquarion Evol

Rating for episodes 1 to 7 – 9/12  A-

Even more fun then Symphogear has been this anime, Aquarion Evol – a sequel set 12,000 years after the original series. Normally, I don’t try to jump into a series but I figured 12,000 years was long enough to reset the series. The story is moderately interesting at this point; I’m most curious about the reason why two different dimensions are linked together and what these two dimensions mean to each other. What pushes Aquarion Evol this high is an interesting cast of characters, the high production values, and occasionally its dialogue. The noteworthy dialogue might be more of a function of the translation but I loved two lines in particular. The first was, ‘You stink deliciously,” which was what one of the antagonists said to the main female character; this has to be one of the oddest pick-up lines ever. The other is, ‘He’ll fly for anyone,’ said by a couple of female characters about the male main character’s habit of floating when being excited by a female character.

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(10) – Last Exile – Ginkyou no Fam

Rating for episodes 1 to 16 – 9/12  A-

Gonzo has done a much better job with this sequel then I thought possible but, by being that good, this sequel of Last Exile is frustrating when it fumbles along when it clearly should be soaring. The world building is stellar; the politics is intriguing; the story is grand enough to showcase the world building and politics; and, the characters are a great mix of people who fit with the story and allow the story to accomplish what it wants to do. Yet, when examined closely, problems crop up with Last Exile 2. Probably the most disappointing is the vocal performance of two of the main characters – Aki Toyosaki and Aoi Yuuki. Both are personal favorites and have many great roles under their belts but here they are so lackluster. I don’t know if it’s that the characters are poor or if it’s the fault of the person in charge of the vocal recording for these lackluster performances but the result really saps the energy out of the show when either are on-screen. Many of the other problems with Last Exile 2 could be fixed if the person(s) behind the series composition and the individual episode scripts had been fired and more competent writers brought in.

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(9) – Hunter x Hunter

Rating for episodes 1 to 19 – 9/12  A-

I fall into the category of people who have not seen the original Hunter x Hunter anime series nor read the source manga it’s based on which leaves me in a different state of mind over Hunter x Hunter then the majority of the people I have read talking about the strengths and weaknesses of this anime. For example, at the beginning when I thought the pacing in the episodes was dragging the series out I was constantly reading people who complained about how quickly they were flying through the source material. To me, Hunter x Hunter has really started to hit it’s stride during the current winter season and, as a result, is slowly bubbling towards the top of it’s anime brethren. A good shounen series is a nice change of pace sometimes.

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(8) – Tantei Opera Milky Holmes 2

Rating for episodes 1 to 4 – 9/12  A-

The first season of Milky Holmes was a hilarious, subversive gem that flew under too many people’s radars. For a successful sequel, Milky Holmes needed to use everything good about the first season and infuse that with fresh, new awesomeness. I didn’t know if the creators had it in them but the first four episodes have shown that somewhere in the dark, twisted depths of their psyches they were able to summon new reserves of insanity to make Milky Holmes 2 even better.

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(7) – Another

Rating for episodes 1 to 6 – 10/12  A

I’m going to resist the urge to make a joke using this anime’s name – Another. It pains me to pass this over because I like jokes like that but we don’t need yet another blogger making the same joke. With Hanasaku Iroha, P.A. Works finally succeeded at producing a great anime series after a string of disappointing attempts. At the onset I was anxious to see if Another would continue in the footsteps of Hanasaku Iroha or would it fall back to being another frustratingly almost good series like their early works. Six episodes in and I’m relieved that, after a bit of stumble in the first couple episodes from trying to force the creepy/scary vibe, it’s found a pace that should end with Another being one of the best anime of the season.

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(6) – Mouretsu Pirates

Rating for episodes 1 to 6 – 10.5/12  Strong A

It is indeed time for some piracy. Bodacious Pirates is about a high school girl who finds out her absent father was a space privateer (legal pirate) and with his death she’s inherited his ship and his title, if she desires them. She does, of course, because it wouldn’t be a show if she declined but it does take a couple of episodes for her to reach that decision. This made the show feel like it started off slowly but by episode 5 it started showing it’s potential and, egads, does this anime have potential. What it does with this potential remains to be seen but this anime has become the anime that I most look forward too each week.

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(5) – Ano Natsu de Matteru

Rating for episodes 1 to 6 – 11/12  A+

Over the last several years, J.C. Staff almost always has done its best work when Tatsuyuki Nagai is the director (Honey and Clover 2, Railgun, Toradora). Last year when he directed AnoHana for A-1 Pictures I wondered if he had left J.C. Staff for good and what that would mean for J.C. Staff’s future but with AnoNatsu I can stop worrying about J.C. Staff. at least partly. On paper, even though AnoNatsu is an original anime production, it doesn’t appear to be that ambitious of a project – as opposed to other recent anime originals like Penguindrum or Madoka – however, what it lacks in ambition has been more than made up with impeccable execution. J.C. Staff is in the odd position this season of fielding two of the top series of this season.

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(4) – Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou

Rating for episodes 1 to 6 – 11/12  A+

Extremely hilarious somehow still low-balls the comedic genius of Daily Lives of High School Boys. There are so many parts to this anime that are worthy of praise. There’s the comedy – it’s actually funny and there’s the characters – they capture high school boys and girls so realistically and the voice acting – they make the characters pop and then there’s the parts were NichiBros lightly lambastes common anime tropes to name but a few areas.

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(3) – Nisemonogatari

Rating for episodes 1 to 6 – 11.5/12  Near Perfect

Watching Nisemonogatari provides a yard stick to measure how much Shaft/Shinbou has improved in the last 2.5 years since Bakemonogatari and it’s almost scary to see the level of improvement that they’ve accomplished. Everything from the scripting to the visuals have been fine-tuned to be tighter, sharper, and better able to deliver the goods with less effort exerted. The only question left at this point is will Nisemonogatari outsell Bakemonogatari or not?

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(2) – Chihayafuru

Rating for episodes 1 to 19 – 12/12  Perfect

Residual respect for the animators, Madhouse, and my new-found respect for the voice actor Mamoru Miyano lead me to try Chihayafuru which is about a group of teens that play Karuta – a game where players compete over collecting cards featuring verses from 100 different poems. I’m glad I did because Chihayafuru started off excellently and has steadily gotten even better. Normally, I’m not a fan of “sports” anime but I love the characters and how they’ve grown over the course of the series and the creators have somehow even made a game like Karuta interesting to watch. The only potential fly-in-the-ointment is that the source material is a continuing manga and the animators have to give the anime some sense of conclusion while leaving the door open for a second season (fingers crossed for that).

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(1) – Natsume Yuujinchou Shi

Rating for episodes 1 to 6 – 12/12  Perfect

How does this series continue to find the room to get better? The creators should have already hit the asymptote of possible quality by the fourth season but they continue to push ever upwards. At this point, future seasons are probably a given and, though, I’m tempted to want countless more, I’ve started wanting to see an ending. I’ve even been thinking about how I’d love to see it end – an adult Natsume, happily married, sitting on the edge of one those short open porches that Japanese houses have and explaining to his young son/daughter not be afraid of the strange creatures he/she has started noticing and he then pulls out the now empty Book of Friends and starts into the story of his grandmother, Reiko, and the camera would pan up over a lovely bucolic scene, we’d hear Nyanko-sensei call out for some food item and the screen would fade out.

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I love doing these seasonal awards but I have to admit to feeling a weight falling off my shoulders now that I’m about to finish. But let’s not terry, it’s time to countdown anime.

4 – Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood

At the beginning of FMA:B there was no mention of it animating the whole manga (or that the manga was ending) so I kept wondering how Bones would finish the show without repeating the debacle that was the first Full Metal Alchemist. I figured there was a good chance at another poor ending since so many of their otherwise great shows end so terribly. Prior to the Spring season this wondering became worrying and started to intrude upon how much I enjoyed the show. I was relieved when it became known that the manga was ending and Bones was on-track to animate the ending.

I breathed a big sigh of relief; not only did I not have to worry about the ending, getting the manga ending promised to see Full Metal Alchemist go out with a bang.

Which ended up happening, gloriously so. And I even loved how they managed to make the ending completely satisfying while leaving themselves with an angle for a sequel (which I really, really hope they do).

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3 – The Tatami Galaxy

When I found out about The Tatami Galaxy, I was giddy because it was being directed by Masaaki Yuasa who’s last series was Kaiba, my pick for the top anime of 2008. I tried to keep the giddiness in check since sky high expectations often only result in disappointment but I was only partially successfully. Good thing for me that The Tatami Galaxy was able to beat my high expectations. It had the interesting animation style that hid how well-animated it was animation that I expected. It had the intellectually interesting premise while not forgetting to have good characters, solid character development and an entertaining story that I expected as well. It had that unique quality to it that set it apart from everything else even while reminding me of so many other books and shows vibe that I expected from an accomplished master of storytelling like Masaaki Yuasa.

I also expected that The Tatami Galaxy would be largely unwatched by people like Kaiba was but that turned out not to be the case. It was shown (as many people know) on the TV block Noitamina in Japan which has earned a fan following around the globe for it’s consist high-quality anime programing. This pushed many people to give the show a shot and, in a not very shocking to me turn-of-events, they liked it. Now, I hope the popularity of The Tatami Galaxy will spill over to Masaaki Yuasa’s other works and get people watching them as well (hint, hint go watch Kaiba ).

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2 – Rainbow – Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin

In the rush of trying to catch all the new shows at the start of a new season, invariably, there’s a few that I miss. During the spring season one of those shows that I intended to catch was Rainbow because Madhouse was animating but it somehow slipped through the cracks. Several weeks later, after the dust had settled some, I looked around at the various blogs to see which shows I missed and if t
hey were worth sampling. There wasn’t much coverage of Rainbow and most of what there was considered the show way too melodramatic to be any good. Star-Crossed had a more positive outlook about the show so I decided to give it a shot.

And I’m glad I did, Rainbow is an awesome show.

I had a moment of cognitive dissonance when I started watching Rainbow; I kept waiting for the absurd, over-the-top drama and waiting and thinking that surely I was watching some other show then everyone else. The moment passed and I realized that I was watching the same show but I got it. Granted, I was maybe more ready to watch Rainbow then some. I had just finished reading Samurai! and it touched on the brutal hardships faced by many after the war and how the war disrupted the basic fabric of Japanese society. Which fit well with what I learned of the time period from reading and from anime like Millennium Actress, Magical Arcade Abenobashi and Natsu no Arashi. I think the portrayal of the time period is accurate and anything less would be a fanciful fantasy that would paint over the despair and grittiness of the time period.

If I had to pick an anime to compare Rainbow to, I’d pick Gurren Lagann. The two share many of the same qualities that made Gurren Lagann more then just a dumb movie with giant robots. For starters there’s the single-mindedness of our main characters to overcome the perceived wrongs of their world with hard work and self-determination and the help of their friends. And let’s not forget that society is often a poor judge of people as both anime remind us as well as the hardships of trying to be a hero. Rainbow and Gurren Lagann also show the power, beauty, and majesty of a courageous person which always warms my heart to see.

It’s comes juuusst a bit short of the top spot but if it can continue on this same level over the summer season, it might just be snagging the top spot. Before moving on there’s another similarity the two anime shared that I want to mention. It was how both far surpassed what I imagined the end point of the anime to be. For Gurren Lagann, I thought it was going to end with the defeat of the Spiral King and for Rainbow, I thought it was going to end with the kids getting out of prison. I know I wasn’t the only person who thought this of Rainbow and it sounded like it might have kept some from giving Rainbow a chance which is why I wanted to mention it.

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1 – Arakawa Under the Bridge

Inching ever so slightly ahead of everyone else this season is Arakawa Under the Bridge. When Shinbou and Shaft get it right, they really get it right; not only was this my top show of the season, it was the one I would most look forward to between episodes.

It’s perfect. That’s the only word that feels right when describing why this show deserves to place in front of so many other fine shows but it’s not terribly descriptive. It’s perfect in the same way that the perfect way to end the day is eating your favorite ice-cream, on the beach, listening to the waves lap at your feet, as you watch a spectacular sunset with family and friends. Which is still not very descriptive but will have to do.

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So there it is. I finished the spring awards just in time to start considering the summer seasonal awards . I’d like to thank all the people that read my 5000+ word review of the Spring 2010 season; I hope you enjoyed it and maybe discovered an anime or two that you want to watch now.

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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 – #8 – #5

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

Everyone has one and there’s no surer way for other people to figure out loads of information about a person then from a person’s personal top 10 list. The genre of shows the person likes, the length the person has been a fan of anime, if the person is an elitist fan or a populist fan, what the person thinks about old anime being superior to new anime and vice-versa, if the person watches anime with fan-subs or dubs are just some of the things people can glean from a top 10 anime list. Even using some other number then 10 can be illuminating; a person doing their top 75 anime shows is saying something completely different then a person that only has a top 4 or top 6 list.

I knew this when I started blogging and I also knew that I didn’t have the breadth of knowledge needed to make such a list without being deeply embarrassed of it a year later. Therefore; I waited, read other people’s lists and consumed as much anime (current and old) as possible. I refused to rough out a list until I was done considering what important conditions I should set-up for the list because I didn’t want potential picks to influence my thought processes. The conditions that will constrain this list are three.

1. For an anime to be eligible, I needed to watch it at least two times.
2. No movies would be eligible.
3. For shows with multiple seasons, I could choose which seasons to include but no one show could be listed more than once.

The first constraint made a lot of sense to me. I’ve often encountered a show where the second time watching it yields a different response – either positively like Lucky Star or negatively like Azumanga Daioh or Witch Hunter Robin. Watching an anime that second time also reinforces the experience in my memory and helps ensure that imperfect recollections of a show don’t improperly help or hinder a show’s chances. The flip side of this constraint is that there’s a large number of shows that I can’t consider at this time that I’d love too. Kaiba, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Baccano, Cross Game, Clannad, Kanon, Kemono no Souja Erin, Spice & Wolf, Ga-Rei:Zero, Sora No Otoshimono, Hanamaru Kindergarten, Blue Literature, Hidemari Sketch, and Bakemonogatari are just some of the shows that I think could be competitive in making this list but have only been watched once.

The second constraint is there because I think series and movies are just too dissimilar to put into one list together; it would be like creating a top 10 list of the best cow and dog breeds. It might be possible but it wouldn’t be meaningful. And by carving movies off, I can make a companion list at some point of the my top ten anime movies.

Since most seasons (not cours) of anime are produced separately, I put in the third constraint in because it didn’t make sense to me to penalize an earlier season if future seasons stunk and were made just to bilk money from the fans or if later seasons improved from the earlier seasons.

Now with that out-of-the-way, let’s get to the list.

Vintage: Winter 2009
Director: Kazuki Akane
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Times Watched: 2

The first season of Birdy was a good show, one of the bright spots in a pretty weak summer season but there were weaknesses that prevented it from being great. I can be a very optimistic person so when the second season rolled around I had very rosy hopes. Imagine my shock when even these rosy hopes couldn’t match how good the second season was. The wooden characters from the first season were replaced with characters that oozed personality and depth. The story was grittier and more real; the building destroyed in the first season remained destroyed and the people who lost their homes were still homeless in the second season. No punches were pulled, the super-powered character with an understandable desire for revenge kills in a way you’d expect an angry individual out for revenge would. And I loved the animation style they switched to for the fights; if I had to describe it in one word that word would be “kinetic”. The characters looked like they actually weighed something and the sense of motion was unparalleled. It ended at a good point but one can just tell there’s still untapped potential with the bigger story so I’m still fervently hoping for a third season.

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Vintage: Summer 2007
Director: Takashi Ikehata
Studio: J.C. Staff
Times Watched: 4

The set-up for Potemayo (sentient unearthly creatures coming to life in a refrigerator) would have been the start of a horror film in probably every other country in the world but in the hands of J.C. Staff, we get a cute comedy/slice-of-life show with a very messed up sense of humor. Calling it unique would be an understatement and trying to make an accurate judgment about the show based solely on it’s animation style and characters is impossible.

I really didn’t expect Potemayo to make my top 10 list but the show holds up so well every-time I rewatch that I need to just accept that Potemayo is a great show.

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Vintage: Winter 2004
Director: Satoshi Kon
Studio: Madhouse
Times Watched: 3

I first watched Paranoia Agent when I was a freshly minted anime fan on Cartoon Network way back in the day when Cartoon Network ran animated stuff all day and wasn’t afraid to show anime before midnight. The realistic setting, the mystery behind Lil’ Slugger, the examination of the psychological effect Lil’ Slugger would have on the populace, the oddness that I’d later learn to be Satoshi Kon’s trademark and the interesting – often quite twisted – characters fascinated me and helped open my perception of what anime could do. Several years passed and I grew hesitant to watch Paranoia Agent again because I worried that it wouldn’t stand up. That had happened with Witch Hunter Robin and I didn’t want to lose another early anime favorite but my youngest sister stated bugging me about watching it. I pushed it off for a while but I eventually relented and we started watching Paranoia Agent. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have worried since I adore every other work of Satoshi Kon I ever watched and Paranoia Agent is no different. Many mystery type shows are only good the first time through but even knowing how Paranoia Agent ends doesn’t diminish how enthralled the show left me.

An interesting tidbit, Paranoia Agent is the only show on this countdown that I’ve never listened to the Japanese dub of it.

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Vintage: Summer 2007, Winter 2008, Summer 2009
Director: Akiyuki Shinbo
Studio: Shaft
Times Watched: 3, 3, 1

Having to bend my rules to include the whole series of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has left me in despair!

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei really is an acquired taste. Looking back, I needed that first season and the months between it and the second season to really get the show and it’s sense of humor situated in my brain. And it eventually clicked because I instantly, and completely, fell for the second season and later rewatches of the first season left me with a better opinion of it. I’ve also learned the best way to watch Despair is to watch each episode twice; once with my finger posed over the pause button so I can read all the text in the background and the second time without pausing so I can focus on the foreground. This leads me into putting much more effort into getting this show than any other anime but I think it’s worth it.

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Vintage: Spring 2006
Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Times Watched: 6

At one time this would have been my #1 or #2 pick for top anime and seeing it drop this far makes me a bit sad even if I fully believe it deserves this diminished level. It’s very difficult to get into the old mind-frame for this show when the renewed Melancholy of Haruhi (2009) employed the Endless Eight stunt. It’s not that I particularly hated Endless Eight but back in 2006, I decided not to read the novels Haruhi were based on because I didn’t want to be spoiled before watching the future seasons of anime and I’ve been waiting for more of the story ever since and thought that time had finally come. I know this is a mend-able feeling, though, all I need is Kyoto Animation to animate a couple of seasons of Haruhi, reaching the quality level of the 2006 series,  and chances are I’d be pushing this back up.

One of the interesting things about The Melancholy of Haruhi (2006) was observing how hype effected fan reception. At the very beginning when there was no hype for the show, everyone (and I mean everyone) loved the show. I remember watching Haruhi work it’s way to number 1 on ANN’s top 10 anime list. As time and the hype increased, though, I noticed more and more new viewers react negatively towards it, wondering what the hype was all about. This trend continued and intensified when Haruhi was licensed in America and the non-fansub fans finally got to watch what the fansub fans had been incessantly talking about for over a year. Their reactions were even less positive and reading what these people thought of Haruhi made this fan’s blood boil on numerous occasions.

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That ends part 1. I’m curious if anyone can guess my top 5 before I post it in the next day or two.

*sigh* So, I think everyone and their mother has criticized Rainbow at some point for acting a bit lax in the storytelling department.  It looks like today is my turn to jump on the bandwagon.  Episode 4 explores Sakuragi, his past, and his current motivation to protect the boys in his cell.  Unfortunately, the way they present it, it falls flat on its face.

Uh... thanks for the visual aide, guys.

We get a flashback in the second half of the episode.  Sakuragi’s father goes off to war.  When the war ends, he doesn’t return.  Eight years later, he finally shows up at the house, and it turns out the Russians had held him for the past eight years in a Siberian internment camp.  The experience changed him completely.  He’s become a drunkard, abusive, and lost his motivation for living.  Sakuragi decides to stay out of the house more often to avoid him, but runs across his father in the pouring rain one night.  They quarrel, and son essentially tells father to go to hell.  The father actually complies, and the experience leaves Sakuragi emotionally scarred.

So, what’s the problem?  Well, it generates no sympathy for Sakuragi’s father.  His son correctly surmises he suffers from survivor’s guilt, but this is something we’re told matter-of-factly, rather than shown.  Think about how much more impact this flashback could have had if we had even a glimpse into the father’s life.

Imagine the life of a middle-aged soldier having to fight in the Second World War while missing the family he holds dear.  Imagine his reaction as his superiors hand him report after report of his children dying on the battlefield, likely without him ever having the chance to say goodbye.  Imagine the despair he feels as the Russians corner him.  Imagine the trip to Siberia, in an overloaded train car, as he realizes he may never see the wife and child he loves dearly ever again.  Imagine him slowly breaking under the strain of the harsh and unforgiving environment in his “new home.”  Imagine the disillusionment he feels when they finally release him eight years later.

All the events, culminating in this one emotional outburst.

Yet, we get none of this.  Survivor’s guilt and its ilk can make for powerful storytelling, but you actually have to work with it correctly.  You never feel immediate sympathy for a character who shows up on the doorstep in a psychologically defeated state.  We need an emotional attachment to the character involved.  This means we also have to experience the events that lead to the gradual breakdown.  I know everything that happened, I just told you all of it, but Rainbow didn’t show it to me itself.  All we see is the result: a man who has broken in several ways and then takes his own life.  It presents us with fact instead of emotion.  I feel no sympathy.

When Sakuragi says his motivation is to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again, I feel nothing as well.  Yes, it is fact, and the conclusion derives from the premise, but that’s all it does.  I don’t think it helps any when the whole fire scene is needlessly overwritten and dramatized.  The amount of time they spend in the blaze, the Inspector beating up Uncovered, debris pinning Bro down, it’s all meant to pull at the heart-strings.  They simply do too much with it though, thus it feels overdone.  Perhaps I’m harsh in my assessment.  However, presenting a dark drama doesn’t give you a free card from criticism.  You also must have the writing to back it up.  I’ve read a few comments on MAL that say the manga picks up at this point.  I certainly hope it does.

With creepy doctor on the watch, it at least looks interesting.

Trust is something many of us give with great reluctance.  We have to know a person for some time before we feel like we can open up to them.  However, trust is a double-edged sword.  When we reveal these aspects of our lives, we open ourselves to attack.  It’s so easy to betray someone.  It is fitting that this episode, entitled Distrust, revolves around a person who cannot trust anyone.  His name?  Baremoto.

I don't need you! I don't need anybody!

After the events of the last episode, Joe wants to become a singer.  I think this is a career choice right up his alley.  You can tell he is more prone to emotional outbursts than the rest of his companions in the cell, but it isn’t necessarily bad.  You must put emotion into your singing to make it real.  A person who sings about something he doesn’t believe in himself comes off as fake.  In addition, Joe wants his fame to catch his sister’s attention.  However, I think he can do more.  A popular singer can become a strong voice for social change.  He already has a wealth of experience to draw from in his song writing from both positive and negative experiences.  He can use music to convey the problems facing the young, the abandoned, and the impoverished.  Perhaps this is a bit big and idealistic, but sometimes all it takes is one person in the right place to start a change.

Well, I believe in your dream, Joe!

Baremoto trusts no one and believes only in himself.  This stems from his childhood, where he saw vile men taking advantage of his mother.  In one way, he is correct in his appraisal.  Truly terrible people exist in this world who are capable of equally terrible actions.  You wouldn’t want to be mixed up with someone of that nature.  At the same time, Baremoto misses the point of his mother’s sacrifice.  She derives no pride from living a life of prostitution.  However, you have a strange sense of admiration for his mother, who literally did everything she could to ensure her son’s safety and survival.  If she believed only in herself as Baremoto does, he would have died long ago.  In addition, you can draw a striking parallel between his mother and himself.  He knows the cigarettes are his and he knows he started the fire.  Baremoto essentially sells himself to Ishihara to escape punishment in a form of mental prostitution.

He's seeing exactly what you think, and it'd scar you too.

I think you can define Inspector Ishihara as a control freak with a superiority complex.  He craves power and he gets it by holding control over the kids in the detention facility.  You can see where a guy like Bro would pose a problem.  When Ishihara beats him, Bro simply looks at him with defiance in his eyes.  It is a silent look saying, “You can batter me, but you can never break my spirit.”  It drives him straight into a rage.  His terrible traits make us hate him as a character, perhaps even think of him as a monster.  Yet, just like the boys, I wonder how he got this way.  No one is simply born this way, so what happened in his youth to make him flip out when he loses control?  It runs counter-intuitive to a series about character who have to deal with someone like him, but I hope they resolve it just the same.

You dare challenge the all-powerful Inspector Ishihara!?

Finally, we have Bro.  He acts like a big brother now, but if Ishihara’s words are true, he killed his parents.  It surprised me to see them put this plot into motion so early.  Whatever the circumstances of the crime, we can see Bro wants to become a better person.  He’s acted as a pillar of strength to the boys, to the extent that Mario still believes in him despite the claims.  When Bro runs into the fire, it really drives home his character.  Generally, a person running into a fire embarks on a suicide mission.  So many things can go wrong.  You can receive heavy burns, suffocate, or even the building itself might crush you with its quickly diminishing structural integrity.  He knows it and volunteers to sacrifice himself anyway, even if his inmates hate him and even if they already died.  I really don’t care what he did in the past right now, I look at him as a hero.  Next week, we’ll see if his heroics bear any fruit.

He ran into the fire...

I’ve been putting off this episode, partly because I’ve had something to write about every day so far, and partly because I hoped FroZen could save me from ridiculously huge files.  Well, I ran out of episodes.  I cleared some space on my hard disk and sat back with a nice refreshment while I waited for it to finish.  Okay, enough silliness.  After all, prison is serious business.

OH GOD! Can we go back to just silliness? Please?

The boys arrived at the detention center in January, and some time has passed.  Today, Joe has a visitor, the woman who runs the orphanage where he was raised.  He arrived with a girl he treated like a sister, named Megu, and someone has adopted her.  This prompts flashbacks to his childhood, where the two were all each other had.  Unfortunately, the director sexually abused him.  You can understand his concern for his sister given the orphanage’s record.  When supplies arrive, an opportunity to escape presents itself, and his fellow inmates help him.  He runs straight for the orphanage.  This is actually a very bad move.  A little forethought would tell you the officers would have the grounds under surveillance.  Joe simply cannot think clearly under the conditions.  Despite his normal mild manner, he’s filled with rage and sadness and wants nothing more than to protect his little sister.  I imagine most of us would make the same crucial error.  The officers capture him easily and he receives a severe beating for his escape.

Poor guy had already failed before he started.

On the other end of this equation, we have Megu.  The orphanage director has just sold her off to a… rather unsavory fellow.  You can tell she doesn’t like the arrangement just from looking at her body language.  Yet, she still tells Joe off rather tersely.  Why would she do such a thing to her brother?  It’s quite simple.  We do not like seeing our loved ones in pain, and we hate it even more when we cause the pain ourselves.  Joe has put himself in danger by escaping the prison to search for her.  Guards have roughly subdued him, and he’s even sustained a head injury.  She can probably guess he will try to escape again at the next opportunity, and he might suffer even more.  When Megu tells him to leave her alone and to think about himself, it crushes Joe.  It crushes her as well, and she bursts into tears in the temporary safety of her room as she quietly thanks her brother for his concern.  However, at least he will stay in the detention center and not suffer for her sake.  I hope they will meet again someday, so she can tell him why she did this.

It hurts terribly, but at least he can be safe.

Finally, we have a very brief look at Spoon.  He lost his family in the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  He didn’t have any lost love for his abusive, alcoholic father, but he lost his sister.  He still blames himself for leaving his sister behind when he went for a walk that day.  I’m not going to cover anything about the nuclear attack for now, and I instead defer to the book Hiroshima by John Hersey.  I know it’s required reading in some schools, and if you haven’t read it, you should.  However, people seem to hold a misconception that anyone even near the blast zone died in short order.  Shouldn’t Spoon have died already?  Hersey’s book relates the stories of six people, five of whom were within a mile of ground zero.  He followed up on them forty years later.  Four of the six survived.  The bomb caused a great deal of psychological and physical trauma to people, but it did not guarantee death.  On that note, radiation exposure has probably shaped Spoon’s physical appearance.  Next week, we should to learn a little about Baremoto.

Even in despair, never forget the good times you shared.

Rainbow is the story of seven teenagers who are thrown into a juvenile detention center in 1950s Japan.  The series is decidedly dark and gritty.  If you are looking for an anime with rainbows and butterflies, find another series, like K-ON.  If you cannot handle explicit images, turn back now.  For everyone remaining, welcome to Hell.

Even the opening splash warns you what to expect.

In the aftermath of the bombings, World War II, and the reparations demanded of them, Japan has become a crapsack country.  In such conditions, those with power thrive, and those who lack power constantly draw the short straw.  On the one side of this equation, we have Inspector Ishihara, who presides over his center with an iron fist.  He prefers to issue punishment personally through beatings, viewing the teenagers as less than human.  You can see he enjoys the work with the twisted smile on his face as he inflicts blow after blow.  He also hates having his authority challenged in any way.  If the Doctor hadn’t come to the cell to stop him during one of his tirades, we would probably be out one main character in the first episode.

You can tell this guy has issues.

Speaking of Bro, he embodies the other usage of power.  Ishihara’s power has corrupted him and he rules through fear.  By comparison, Bro leads by example and commands respect from the new additions to his cell.  He has an air of maturity and a great deal of control over his actions.  When the teens attack him to assert their superiority, he defends himself, but not to an extreme extent.  He dodges and counters each one with simple blows meant to show them who leads, and not to inflict great injury.  While he berates them when they question him, he also reaches out to them in friendship by passing the cigarette around the cell.  Where all the other characters get brief introductions by the narrator, Bro doesn’t introduce himself until the end and he still doesn’t tell us why he’s here.  It’ll be interesting to learn the source of his maturity, as well as the crime he committed.

Can the fearless leader tie this motley crew together?

Then we have the other six delinquents who have freshly joined the detention center.  The narrator introduces each with the crime they committed.  Some of the descriptions are straightforward, while I assume others will have a bit of fleshing out as the series progresses.  Turtle and Uncovered are both con artists and thieves, while Cabbage’s imprisonment is due to alcohol consumption and assault.  These three illustrate the squalor plaguing the country as the poor and unfortunate resort to crime to support themselves, or fall into the wrong crowd.  On the other hand, Mario, Soldier, and Joe all have sentences relating to assault, where they defended themselves or another.  Their crimes represent the failings of the penal system to mete out true justice.

Left to Right: Cabbage, Joe, Soldier, Uncovered, Turtle, Mario

The people running this institution drive home that the teens have no power.  The first thing they have to deal with is riding on a bus filled with people while they stand in chains with their faces covered.  Then when they arrive at the facility, the doctor subjects them to a cavity search using a long glass shaft.  They use both of these experiences to degrade them.  Deprived of any power, they try their luck at harvesting some level of superiority by taking on Bro, but to no avail.  When offered the opportunity to strike him by the Inspector, they refuse.  They know they have no right to strike him when a downed man when they couldn’t even touch him while he stood.  It illustrates both a capacity for humility and morality I am interested to see develop.  In the next episode, Joe tries his hand at escaping to see his sister.  I don’t imagine his plan going too well.

Can they find any hope within despair? We'll see.