Anime reviews

[readsalot]

Haven't done this for a while. Let's see...

Series that I've seen all of:

Scrapped Princess:

Pacifica Cassul, spunky 15-and-a-half-year-old girl, has a problem: there's a prophecy that states that she will destroy the world when she turns 16, and a whole lot of people would really like to kill her so that that doesn't happen. In fact, pretty much everyone in the world is out to get her, except for her older brother and sister, who are fortunately an excellent swordsman (him), and a very powerful wizard (her). They're her adopted siblings; the King her father ordered her thrown over a cliff when she was still a baby, and the Queen's been in prison ever since for trying to interfere with said cliff-throwing.

I really like this series. I think the part I like most is the communication between the siblings; Pacifica is constantly fighting with her brother Shannon over inconsequential things like whether they're going to stop at an inn tonight or camp out again, but when things get serious, their posture says as much as the words that come out. There's a lot of silliness, but I think that's necessary; otherwise everyone would be constantly dwelling on the problem of being hunted and hated by everyone else they see. It's a fairly short series: 24 episodes on 6 discs, and the story is wrapped up at the end. I have a feeling that there are a lot more details in the book(s?) on which this is based, but that's going to have to wait until my Japanese improves enough that I can read it, because it's never been translated.

Oh, and I also really like the theme music for this series; the opening song is almost Celtic sounding, and the ending song is just pretty.

Angelic Layer:

I'm going to continue on from my original review here. This series had a much larger ensemble cast than I expected when I first started watching it. We eventually learned the backstories of many of Misaki's opponents, as well as how Angelic Layer came to be. Creepy Guy turned out to not be creepy at all, just clueless about how to behave, and we even found out what was up with Misaki's mother.

This is another cute, sweet series in which almost nothing really bad ever happens. Which is nice if you're feeling depressed. Almost everyone loves Misaki, because she's just so darn sweet and friendly and helpful to everyone, even her opponents. And I totally fell in love with the second ending theme song; at some point I'm going to either be investing a lot of money in Japanese CDs or figuring out how to get these things from the Japanese Itunes store.

Marmalade Boy:

There were times when I wondered why I was still watching this series. On the plus side, the discs usually had 6 or 7 episodes. On the minus side, most of the plots were pretty stupid and dragged out much longer than they needed to. But I wanted to find out what was going to happen, so I persevered. This is a very silly series, and most of the characters in it spend most of their time acting like idiots. But I was amused, in the last episode, to find out that Miki and Yuu's parents were not nearly as dumb as their kids had thought. If you're interested in high school romance, go watch His and Her Circumstances (see below) instead.

Series that I'm in the middle of and really like:

Princess Tutu:

Wow. This show will blow your mind. See, there's this girl at a ballet school who has a crush on one of the boys in the school. Only, she's really a duck, who's been transformed into a girl to help him, because he's really the hero of story that never ended (because the author died before he finished writing it), and the story is now kind of messing up the reality of the town that this all takes place in by bringing all kinds of other stories to life. Really. Highly recommended if you like classical music, ballet, and fairy tales, because it combines them all into one awesome structure. I've only seen the first two discs of this series (which has around 8), but then I think that only three have come out in this country so far. Oh, and two more beautiful songs (the opener and closer), written and performed by the same person who sang the theme songs for Fruits Basket. (When I heard the songs I thought that voice sounded familiar, so I looked her up, and found out that I was right, and also, sadly, found out that she died a couple of years ago.

Last Exile:

This is a science-fictiony story with incredibly beautiful artwork. Giant airships fighting wars, and our heroes are a spunky boy pilot and his best friend, a spunky girl engineer (yay!) who start out doing courier runs in the small airship but eventually get sucked into the war themselves. I've heard complaints that this is somewhat derivative of Laputa, but I haven't seen that in more than 10 years, so I can't comment on that. I'm very engrossed.

His and Her Circumstances:

Yukino, who's a high school freshman, wants everyone to think that she's elegant, refined, and brilliant. But it's all a facade: she's just decided that the appearance of these things is what she wants to cultivate. Then she discovers that there's someone else in her class who's even better than she is at all of these things. Naturally, she decides to crush him. When he confesses his love to her, she's elated at the weapon now in her hands. And then, well...

When I started watching this, I was a bit put off by the business of the art; nearly every scene has numerous written sound effects or comments about the characters in the margins: the pause button gets a real workout here. But the writing drew me in; this show has real characters who go through real changes. Just when you think you know everything about a character something unexpected happens, and new insights are revealed. I'm now about halfway through the series, and we've gotten the backgrounds of not only the main romantic couple, but several of their friends, and also the romantic history of Yukino's parents. It's all great. I'm probably going to have to buy the manga after I'm done with the series, because I think it goes on past the end of the series.

Oh, and I'm not totally in love with the music here, but I do like it, and the people who film the ending credits are crazed--the first few episodes show them over a camera moving through a school, and then they start moving out into random neighborhoods and other vistas; the last one I saw spent the whole time watching a cat. The preview of the next episode is done by the actresses who voice Yukino's two younger sisters, and the preview always shows them standing at a microphone, shouting the preview in unison and very fast--it's hysterical.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Where does one get hold of anime series these days?

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

I have a subscription with Greencine, which is similar to Netflix but has a better selection of anime. They're also smaller than Netflix, and based in San Francisco, so the round-trip time for discs is longer than it is for Netflix. However, they have not yet betrayed me by only having the first half of a series and claiming that it's the whole thing.

I'm also willing to lend out series that I own. Of the ones in this review, that's Angelic Layer; I've also got the complete runs of Cardcaptor Sakura, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Vision of Escaflowne, Gundam Wing, Chobits, and Rurouni Kenshin. I'll have all of Scrapped Princess as soon as the order I placed yesterday arrives, and at that point I'll also have the first 4 discs of Princess Tutu.

My current strategy is to rent a series, and then buy it if I think I'll want to watch it again.

[desireearmfeldt]

I'd be interested in borrowing Scrapped Princess sometime.

(I'm vaguely trying to identify the anime I like, which is not all of it, and watch some. :) )

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to lend you Scrapped Princess. I'm rewatching disc 1 right now, but if I'm through with that by Saturday, I can bring it by the Oath run.