[Ascaloth] Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~, Episode 02 at Riuva : Research Institute for Unicultural Visual Arts

[Ascaloth] Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~, Episode 02

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Popularity: 11% [?] Published by Ascaloth July 14th, 2008 in Ascaloth, Anime

Having flown all the way from her hometown of Biei, Hokkaido to Tokyo, Sora contemplates life for the next 1 month, as she muses on the mage training she is about to undertake. Being a country girl, her first time being in a city proves to be an eye-opening experience for her, as she gets to see many things she never even knew existed before. What awaits her in her first day in Tokyo?

After seeing the first episode, curiosity caused me to take a look at the manga that it was adapted from….and it seems that this anime is hardly an adaptation of the manga at all. Seriously, the anime has already deviated from the manga so much, that reading the manga after watching the anime (or vice versa) will likely cause a feeling of disconnect. At least, it did with me. Some of the pictures after the break will be from the manga, scanlations courtesy of NobiNobi Scans, who have done the first two chapters.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~, Episode 02

I will be doing quite a few comparisons between the Sora we are seeing now in the anime, and the Sora from the manga; there are enough differences to warrant comparison. For one thing, although both versions of Sora are country girls, the manga Sora seems to have a complex regarding cities; she gets nervous being in the big city, and is not too happy about being redirected to Tokyo from Sapporo (where she was originally supposed to undergo her stint in the manga; this was cut out in the anime altogether).

The anime Sora, on the other hand? Not only does she not have that complex, she’s so awed by the sights that she makes a snarky comment about the height of city buildings, heh.

Unlike the first Mahou Tsukai series, where Yume’s every attempt at magic starts off with a mahou shoujo henshin-esque sequence, there’s not much frills to the kind of magic Sora performs; here, having Jean Grey in place of Sora wouldn’t have been entirely out of place, the way Sora caught the truck by magic. Oh, and that was the way she first met Midorikawa too, as she saved him from the falling truck while at it.

However? Yes, that was not the way it was in the manga. It was Midorikawa himself who incurred the ire of gangsters on the train, and Sora had to save him from a bottle to the head. That’s not much, really…..the thing is, while the onlookers in the anime applauded Sora for her actions in this episode, in the manga the reception towards her magic isn’t quite that positive. I’ll touch on that more a little later.

Midorikawa was also quite a bit different from how he was in the manga. He’s supposed to be a youngster with a kind of ‘tsun’ attitude, and his method of brushing off Sora lead to the latter getting pretty annoyed with him. However in this episode, although he was just as unhelpful, he wasn’t quite as insulting while at it, and Sora for her own part merely had a resigned attitude to his brush-off instead of the WTF she had in the manga.

Whoever called this "scenery porn" certainly knew what he was talking about. I had originally intended to reveal tidbits that I learned about the Mahou Tsukai world bit by bit in my postings, but Sora did it for me here. It seems like this Mahou Tsukai sequel can be watched as is by itself, and a first-timer will not need to watch J.C. Staff’s first series to have an understanding of how the setting works.

Is this going to be a recurring theme where someone or a group of someones gets distracted by Sora’s country girl charm?

Another thing about the anime adaptation of Natsu no Sora that I’ve noticed, is how almost everything is seen through Sora’s perspective. The manga had a fairly standard structure, where the story is seen from several different perspectives, but in the anime, we’re basically shadowing Sora as she goes about her day, hearing her thoughts as if she’s speaking to herself. This brings to mind an aspect of Lev Vygotsky’s socioculture theory, which states that children often speak to themselves during play, as it helps them to unite perception, speech and action in order to internalize the visual field; this is termed as private speech. By speaking to themselves, children learn to use language to guide their own behaviour, and as they get older, private speech declines and takes the form of internal speech; the kind of conversations that one carry on with oneself throughout the day as one think and try to solve problems*, which is exactly what we’re seeing Sora do here.

And that is Social Psychology 101 for the day. Let’s move on.

* Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, ed. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, and E. Souberman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Originally published 1930, 1933, 1935.

Going back to Midorikawa, I was thrown by how different he is compared to the manga. Not only is he mostly lacking in the jerk attitude that pisses off Sora so much, even his character design is different; his chin becomes so blocky and square, he looks much older than he originally did. If I were to say how I felt about the anime Midorikawa, it would be that he gives me the first impression of being a dull, and not particularly bright or interesting character. I don’t mind the way they changed Sora from her original manga version (since she was a slightly more typical ditzhead to begin with), but somehow I’m not sure I like the anime version of Midorikawa. He gives me the yawns.

Also, while the anime portrayed Sora’s magical potential as extremely high, if a little uncontrolled, it removed the manga Sora’s signature trait of her magic always coming with the theme of sunflowers in one way or another. Which kind of leads me to wonder, why do that?

I couldn’t help but notice that HAL recycled footage of Kawada-sensei’s face, when it’s that blatant. It’s really starting to look as if HAL is trying to do this on a tight budget, and I’m not sure I like that.

Something else which I noticed was present in the manga, and even in the first Mahou Tsukai, was the concept of discrimination against mages by people in the big city which both Yume and Sora had to deal with. After reading the manga, I was looking forward to touching on the concept of prejudice in this episode, but HAL did away with that altogether and instead had Sora taking a sightseeing tour around the streets of Shimokitazawa (and she was originally nervous about being in the big city in the manga, too). Not that it isn’t nice in its own way, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m really watching a Mahou Tsukai series, or simply a travelogue of Japan disguised as a Mahou Tsukai series. Maybe DarkMirage had a point last week.

(On another note, who was the voice behind the street busker? She was good.)

And the manga’s Hara Seiichiro was supposed to be a hunk with a laid-back personality, much like Yume’s mentor Oyamada.

But the anime Hara? He looks more like a lump of chunk, and his personality wasn’t even the same; he was more like some kindly backwater uncle than anything. LOLWUT?

Well, to conclude things. I liked the first episode for its highly relaxing feel, and didn’t mind that it was different from chapter 1 of the manga. However, the changes made in episode 2 were a lot more jarring, mostly because of the fact that the character interactions just weren’t the same. I’m all for slice-of-life where little happens, but I like interesting character interactions to go along with it, and there just wasn’t any of it here. It didn’t help that the anime versions of Midorikawa and Hara were several degrees duller than the manga versions they were adapted from, and didn’t strike up any sort of chemistry with their interactions with Sora at all. Like I said earlier, it felt like I was watching a Japan travelogue disguised as a Mahou Tsukai series, and while it was okay the first time, I sure hope they don’t keep it up too much longer. Seeing everything from Sora’s perspective is okay, but I want to see some chemistry soon.

Well then, I hope to see things get better next week. Ascaloth, out.

Popularity: 11% [?]

6 Responses to “[Ascaloth] Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~, Episode 02”

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1 Hinano 112 comments Jul 14th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

why does the manga seem so much better than the anime
2 Zeroblade 163 comments Jul 14th, 2008 at 10:18 pm

Wow, I didn’t know that some characters’ personalities were so different compared to the manga (I didn’t even know that there was one at all).
3 hashihime 31 comments Jul 15th, 2008 at 1:37 am

Actually, I think I like the anime better than the bits of manga you show. The manga is closer to the original series. The anime is giving us something new. And I like the new Sora, who is less like Yume, more capable, and insecure in a different way. I loved the original Someday’s Dreamers, and I’m loving this one so far, too, especially since it is something new.

We’ll see how the guy turns out. We haven’t seen much of him so far except for his self-loathing. He’s nicer to Sora in the anime, it appears, though. It’s interesting to note that the writer of the anime is the mangaka, Yamato Norie, so she obviously has no problem with the altered story.

And I think “scenery porn” is not a good description of what’s going on. The scenery, especially in Shimokitagawa, really gave me a feeling of being in that place. It worked, for me. If they can get away cheaply and still produce something as good as this, I’m all for it.
4 Hynavian 67 comments Jul 15th, 2008 at 2:48 am

I’m going to give the manga a try since it looks more promising than the series. Just something minor though, I think the background images in the anime looks more attractive and realistic as compared to the female lead. She’s like a drawing plastered into a beautifully photographed background.
5 lelangir 9 comments Jul 15th, 2008 at 6:44 am

I heard the same voice actor that did Satou-san in Beck play the teacher’s assistant, whatever her name was. Actually, putting Hal aside, there was all the [British] rock stuff that drew similarities and stuff.
6 biankita 6 comments Jul 18th, 2008 at 3:32 am

wow… i really like the anime. but i didn’t know it was so different from the manga…

*must check manga out*

Do not use any < and > for your own sake. It will end the comment there and then. Also, there is an automatic IQ filter which weeds out comments made by those who accidentally got transported from the stone age.

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