16 April: The Winners and Losers Feature
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Gainax
Funny how people seem to think Gainax are a one-show machine. With the pure awesomeness of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan, on top of the recent Diebuster OVA, it is hard not to like Gainax as a studio. The detractors of this studio point to the fact that Gainax haven’t really done any TV series of note (He is my Master excluded) so TTGL would be the ultimate reply. Its mixture of fluid action, quirky (ok make that extremely weird yet amusing) mecha, over-the-top manliness and Yoko’s bouncing boobies are the hallmarks of a champion series. Other studios be warned, the sleeping dragon awakens. Oh btw, everyone knows the coolest melee weapon is the long katana - the tachi, while the coolest firearm is an anti-materiel rifle. Gainax got their weapon choices spot on!
Bones
Studio Bones, with the exception of the putrid Jyuuohsei, has been the model of consistency and excellence. Putting aside my personal bias for Gonzo, Bones is the best studio out there right now. With the likes of Eureka Seven, Ayakashi Ayashi, Scrapped Princess, Ouran, FMA and now the best show of the season by far - Darker than Black, it is strange that nobody is giving them enough credit. Bones transcends the mainstream and the niche, producing shows not only enjoyed by otaku, but by regular folks as well. It is a feat yet to be emulated by even the oft-worshipped Kyoani. And when was the last time a Chinaman was the lead in an anime, and didnt exhibit stereotypical Chinaman traits like knowing kung fu, speaking in a stupid accent and having a pigtail? Darker than Black is awesome.
The Scifi Genre of Anime
With more than 35 new series out so far, the majority of the top class shows are sci-fi. This has been by far the most productive scifi season ever in the history of anime. Darker than Black, Heroic Age, Kissdum, Moonlight Mile, Towards the Terra, Bokurano, Tengen Toppa… need I say more? Maybe studios have finally realised that scifi is the best application of the anime medium, where impressive technology and aliens can be brought to life far more economically than a live-action.
Horie Yui
How many roles does this woman have? Why is she in every show as one of the leads? Because she is awesome, that’s why. While other seiyuu suffer from overexposure and fade out, like Noto Mamiko, Hocchan’s star still burns bright after all these years. Perhaps quality prevails after all, and the various flavour-of-the-month seiyuus must watch out, ahem Hirano Aya for instance. Nevertheless, Hirano’s latest role as Konata is probably her best one for me. It was the first time I enjoyed listening to a Hirano Aya character.
The 4th Wall
Breaking the 4th wall appears to be increasingly used in anime lately. Gintama and Hayate no Gotoku are just two of the recent comedy series to extensively utilise this tactic, both to great success. I remember Inukami, Keroro Gunsou and lots of other series having it too. The thing is, it works very well in anime but not in manga, hence explaining why Gintama and Hayate are both very unfunny mangas but great anime, especially the former. Gintama is probably the funniest thing to have been exported out of Japan since, Fumoffu or something. Hayate is like a hundred time less funny but still funny, which just shows how funny Gintama is.
Impz
Impz has been gathering his 108 stars of destiny now… he recently recruited Crusader, famed for being one of the three legendary Commenter Horsemen as a guest writer, and with that, raised the writing level of his blog by a billion times. Which of the true runes does Impz possess? Does he get Viki and Jeane? We shall find out.
Losers
Production IG
Having cemented their status as anime kingpins with the Ghost in the Shell franchise, Production IG seems dead set on destroying their reputation. First the underwhelming Blood+, and then the borefest Chevalier. This season, they embarked on three new series, two with a period setting, albeit two very different ones. I’ve always felt Production IG’s weakness was their inability to do any non-scifi shows, and here they are proving me right with the mediocre Sisters of Wellber and Seirei no Moribito. They aren’t bad per se but just ain’t good. Reideen is an abomination in slow-motion mecha combat and shall be ignored. Seirei is better but surely not of the standard of GitS and even IGPX.
Toriyama Akira
The once-revered legendary creator of Dragonball has gone back to his roots in terms of character designs. Or so he thinks. I think his character designs are brutally ugly and uncreative, and when used on a show aimed at kids younger than the average Naruto fan, the ugly effect is amplified. I don’t think the kids these days who surely have yet to see Dragonball will appreciate his old-school arts.
Darkmirage
First boasting of how his Japanese handphone was hacked to enable its connection to the local GSM network and then showing us his delicious screen which could be good enough to watch anime, Darkmirage was tempting fate. The final straw came when he mentioned how his phone would still have a resale value of over 700 dollars in a couple of years. Then GOD took him down with a thunderbolt. Or more precisely, a handphone thief. Rest in peace Darkmirage.
Old School Mecha
Something evil has possessed the minds of several studios, inducing them to create doomed remakes of 20 year old mecha series. Jeeg, Reideen, Dancougar, Giant Robo…. The magic is lost. Time has passed and with it, audience palates are different. Trying to revive old franchises will only serve to anger the existing fanboys and the irrelevance of these old ideas surely will not attract new ones. That said, I sure wouldn’t mind some sequels lol.
Harem Anime
With only Nagasarete Airantou to fly the flag of harem, this season is a huge letdown for fans of this retarded genre. Thankfully, Airantou is very very good. Mediocre shows like Sola do not help the cause. Monster Princess is pretty decent though. The glory days of harem anime are long gone for sure, I PRAY.
Kyoani
If you ever need to find out the exact definition of "victims of one’s own success", look no further than everyone’s favourite studio. The backlash towards Lucky Star is disgusting. The show does not suck, and is actually rather good, along the level of Airantou. The appetite of fanboys and girls for Kyoani series have been whetted to such a insatiable level, the studio is now getting bad rep just because they did not produce an epic on the first episode. Haruhi wasn’t an epic on the first episode. It wasn’t even that good an anime besides Yuki and God Knows. The hype has been overblown to incredulous levels and with it comes nothing but disappointment. Haruhi was a success partly because it was unexpected and unhyped. If I expect to get an A for my exam and get a B, I’ll be sad. If I wanted a C but got a B, I’ll be glad.
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>>The 4th Wall
Bartender too.
Let me just put it out there, though. Nagasarete Airantou is the best harem anime I have seen in a long time. That might not be saying a whole lot, but damn it’s good. I’d go so far as to say it stands above most harem anime in quality and humor (so far).
>>The 4th Wall
Lucky Star with all the references.
>>The show does not suck, and is actually rather good
Yes.
Totally agree with you on the Lucky Star and Gintama parts. The second half of Gintama ep 21 left me in stitches.
Did Gintama change much after the first episode? I watched it, and it was not bad, but not really my style.
definitely agree with you on lucky star there
oh, and DM’s fate is just PAINFUL
This season witnesses lots of good anime.
I liked Juuousei, too. Sure, they butchered the story, but in retrospect that was to be expected - you can’t squeeze 5 volumes of manga into a ridiculous 11 episodes and have a good story. Still, the animation and the music were wonderful. (Why couldn’t it be longer?!)
Yeah, I’m a Bones fangirl through and through.
totally agree with you on the kyonani/haruhi topic.
preach on!
Very well said on Lucky Star and expectation, but I would just like to raise a question.
Could it be that fans of KyoAni who found Lucky Star sub par are actually having the wrong expectation instead of high expectation?
Given the original source of Lucky Star, it will be extremely tempting to label it as a straight comedy and thus expecting jokes to hit us audiences within seconds after the OP closes. So once people watched the first episode without laughing out even once, they will be disappointed. However, I would like to think of Lucky Star as a slice-of-life spices up with some comedy rather than just comedy alone. To me, the first episode of Lucky Star delivers a laid-back, relax feel which was basically what I expected and so I was quite satisfied after watching the first episode.
Similar stuff can also be said to the backlash of Suzumiya Haruhi that surfaced from midway through the show I guess. KyoAni did create an epic 1st ep of SHnY in my opinion, but in a sense it gave first time viewers (ie those with no knowledge on the original novel) a very strong false impression of the show. With Kyon’s tsukkomi flying all over the place in ep 1 and the weird but funny filming methods, audiences are led to believe that SHnY is a school comedy. But in actual fact SHnY is more like a slice -of-life, or more precisely, the whole show is more about the interactions among different members of the SOS-dan (at least this is what I gathered after reading 4 vol of the novel back in late 2005 - early 2006), with jokes and tsukkomi thrown in to spice up the writing. So as the show progresses with less and less wacky moments and catch all jokes, people starts to hold SHnY with lower regard. But was it bad to me? no because I have always enjoyed SHnY because of the plot and the interaction rather than the jokes. heck, my favourite vol of the first 4 that I read was actually vol 4 (which I was cheated by KyoAni’s ED into thinking that vol 4 will make it to the SHnY the anime) and I don’t reacall laughing out more than 10 times while reading through that volume.
Back to Lucky Star…
On a somewhat related note, some of the jokes used in Lucky Star are unfortunately (or fortunately in my case since I actually would want to know more about how Japs are like) relatively cultural base, such as the controversial food conversation. And I guess the level of enjoyment one gets from Lucky Star will also depends heavily on whether he or she can link to the small happenings in the show.
Jokes like these are a hit or a miss, and thus it could be easier for an Asian to appreciate them since we in a sense share a slightly closer cultural background with the Japanese as compared to the rest of the world. It really puts a smile onto me when konata and gang were talking about how a group of diners will stare at the last piece of yakitori left on the table, many Chinese would somhow had similar (stupid) experience. Also, it brings back memory for me when Konata talks about how she hates sport because of all the shifting in TV schedule due to sport events airing on TV because I recall myself cursing the local TV station as well for cancelling my Pokemon (yes I did watch Pokemon) and other anime years back due to things like extension of a soccer match because some idiots couldn’t score a goal and settle the game…
and sorry for the long and totally disorganised comments, I would just like to say that fortunately for me, done of my university modules are essay based…
darkmirage died after he lost his handphone?
he recently recruited Crusader, famed for being one of the three legendary Commenter Horsemen as a guest writer, and with that, raised the writing level of his blog by a billion times.
Ouch… *sad face*
Thanks TTik for your insight! The jokes in Luckystar are indeed quite cultural in natural. I found the Breaktalk funny too. Lol but you’re the biggest Kyoani supporter I know in real life. Indeed, misguided expectations are even worse than high expectations. If I want to get a A for chemistry but sat for a physics exam, an A in physics would be disappointing too.
Seth: yeah the first few eps were not very polished. But the subsequent ones are so funny body builders use it to train abs.
DarkMirage’s phone got stolen? LOL PWNED. BIG TIME SIA.
Hell yeah! Darker than Dark is simply awesome. Honestly i didn’t expect the lead character to be a Chinaman and further more not being cast as a CHING-CHONG! Kung-fu Bruce Lee!~
BONES was simply awesome too, i guess the first animation i saw from BONES was Angelic Layer. The artwork was simply fantastic and no doubt over the years BONES has proven themselves to be one of the big boys in animation. (Stuffs like FMA, Ouran etc).
Ouch for DM!~ Handphone thieves are the equivalent of pantsu thieves for the males. Those itchy-finger bastards certainly have no respect for some ‘private’ property. Who knows what stuffs are on handphones these days. For all you guys know, the next hottest ‘Tammy’ video would be of a famous anime blogger humping a Haruhi sex doll.
(Just kidding!~ Hope you find the wretched thief and chop his hands off.)
Finally an objective view on the KyoAni stituation.
Or maybe Lucky Star just isn’t funny (to foreigners at least).
I’m just waiting for Hei to go completely emo on us a la Shinn’s Mayu. I can see it in his eyes. There’s no freakin’ way that they’d leave a China man unharmed. Inconceivable I tell you!
Pretty shocked about the HP loss, heh.
“And when was the last time a Chinaman was the lead in an anime, and didnt exhibit stereotypical Chinaman traits like knowing kung fu, speaking in a stupid accent and having a pigtail? Darker than Black is awesome.”
Do you still realize, though, that most Chinese are portrayed evil, mentally-ill, barbaric, insensitive, have black hair, no good resolution, and are portrayed as darker characters? It’s funny how most people in Japan have blonde/brown/red/purple/blue/etc colored hair/eyes while the Chinese are shown with the normal Asian features.
Akira Toriyama will remain one of the greatest manga artist for me. ^_^ He’s just over the hill.
>”Gintama and Hayate are both very unfunny mangas”
Hey, Hayate’s manga was funnier :V
>”[Akira Toriyama’s] character designs are brutally ugly and uncreative”
QFT
>Lucky Star is blah blah blah
Agreed; people expected the wrong thing from the anime. It’s supposed to be a relaxing slice-of-life show with occasional jokes - a lot of it cultural - and not straight out comedy. People should watch this with a more open mind, instead of expecting anything.
I enjoyed Hayate’s manga though… and for airantou, i gave up coz i machi in anime
I love Lucky Star
=D
Lucky Star owns, but yes it has definitely NOT lived up to my expectations. But I still rewatched it alot tho since its slice-of-life, and the OP I really watched countless countless times.