[Anime] Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans (S1 and S2) - 7/10

As a franchise, Gundam explores the meaning and effects of war.  However, the quality of each series varies greatly with the premise being periodically undermined by immature attitudes and pseudo-intellectual exposition.  Often the gains made by depicting senselessness on the battlefield are promptly countered by melodrama and sentimentality.  True suffering gives way to teenage angst.  Because of these tendencies, Gundam as a whole is shackled to its more adolescent underpinnings, with giant robots as nothing more than a proxy for having superpowers.

Iron-Blooded Orphans defies this trend and is one of the stronger submissions to the Gundam franchise.  Driven more by the characters than the machines, IBO uses past suffering as a backdrop rather than a plot device.  The story centers on Tekkadan, a mercenary band composed of child soldiers who have rebelled against their former overlords.  Led by Orga Itsuka, this misfit collection of human debris must now face a society indifferent to their struggles.  In the process, they discover a sense of belonging and camaraderie that they have never experienced.

With this as a backdrop, IBO is far grittier than most Gundam series.  There is no glory in what the children of Tekkadan do; it is an act of survival, not honor.  This can be seen most clearly in Mikazuki Argus, the ace pilot of the company.  Unlike many protagonists he does not view his opponents as rivals.  They are obstacles, nothing more, and he will crush them without hesitation or remorse.  So it is with the rest of Tekkadan, desperately fighting to continue living in an apathetic world.

The Good:

The inherent quality of the plot.  Despite the inadequacies of the execution (more on that below), I would argue that IBO has one of the strongest Gundam stories to date.  The essence of the series is anti-heroic.  Combat is not admirable, idealism can be dangerous, and determination does not always win the day.  Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the ascension and demise of Tekkadan.

As the story begins, we are treated to a familiar narrative: a downtrodden group finds an inner strength, rebels against the established order, and will now change the world.  However, Tekkadan is composed of uneducated children, wily in combat but inept at intrigue and politics.  While early on their strengths are enough to carry the day, it was blind luck that led them to a kindly patron in the Turbines, a conscience in Kudelia, and diplomatic backing from Makanai.  This sort of fortune does not continue forever, and soon Tekkadan found itself in over its head.  Having risen into the ranks of power, they came into contact with those who knew how to wield it before they themselves were prepared.  Their boldness was an unwitting challenge to the greater forces of the Earth sphere.  Seeing this coming, Biscuit urged Orga to restraint.  But with his unfortunate passing there was nobody left in Tekkadan to keep it from plunging forward into disaster.

It is in this final segment that IBO is at its strongest.  The narrative is uncompromising: an intrepid spirit alone is not enough to overcome any obstacle.  While we have come to believe in our heroes, as they have come to believe in themselves, there is no last-second miracle.  The resources and planning of their enemies, as well as their willingness to use unscrupulous means, prove to be too much.  And so ends Tekkadan, with a last stand of its greatest warriors, guarding the exodus of the rest as they seek asylum and anonymity on Earth.

But what threatens to be a dismal conclusion is ameliorated by the subsequent events.  Although our heroes fell, it was not entirely in vain.  Gjallarhorn was not defeated, but the strife caused by McGillis and Tekkadan did force it to restructure and become more accountable for its actions.  Human debris, formerly a blind spot for most of society, was thrust into the limelight and abolished.  Even though Tekkadan itself may have failed, it is not forgotten.  This was a surprisingly satisfying end, offering hope while not betraying the ethos of the series.

In addition to the story, the depiction of combat adds weight to the view that strife is not glorious.  In most mecha series the fights feel clean, antiseptic, distanced from the human element.  In IBO the fights have a sense of dirty desperation.  The fighting continues until the pilots are beaten and bloodied, their suits in shambles.  The ragged edges, the dripping oils, and the shuddering half-functional maneuvers all contribute to the feeling that this is not merely for show, but an engagement of life and death.  While there are many examples, several of Mikazuki's battles come to mind: his annihilation of Carta Issue, the dismantling of the Mobile Armor, and his last desperate stand all exemplify the merciless, animalistic scramble that is IBO's war.

This brings us back to Mikazuki Argus.  Having seen multiple Gundam series, it becomes an expected trope that the top pilot is a cold and emotionally distant killing machine, with nothing but the mission on his mind.  However, inevitably, it is discovered that he has a good heart underneath and it has only been repressed by his tragic past.  An ideal vessel for the adolescent male viewers to self-insert and fantasize with.  Mikazuki is nothing of the sort.  A true case of emotional damage he is devoid of any internal moral compass, only beholden to Orga who acts as his anchor and handler.  Mikazuki is composed but fanatical in his devotion and is unfazed even by his later progressive paralysis from excessive use of the Alaya-Vijnana system in combat.  As he tells Orga: "Just tell me what to do and who to kill.  I will remove all the obstacles before you."  He is completely broken, but is a far more compelling character for it.

"Thank y-"

The Bad:

If I had to pinpoint one crucial failing of IBO, it is the lack of consistency and subtlety in storytelling and character development.  My exposition of the themes and plot above come only after extensive review and contemplation; during the actual viewing of the series I was lost.

First, while IBO can boast many outstanding scenes, the bulk of the episodes between these moments were implemented poorly.  The pattern was often the same: in preparation for a key situation we are suddenly introduced to characters, organizations, or technologies with which we had little or no previous awareness.  Given a short run up, we have little time to incorporate them into our understanding.  And once they had served their purpose, they are gone, never to be heard from again.  Mobile Armor, Dainsleifs, the orbital Earth colonies, the separatist Mars groups, Makanai, and the elections of Arbrau just to name a few.

This weakness in storytelling also extends to the characters of the series.  IBO has an ambitiously large cast, but is unable to adequately support them all.  We hardly get to know most of them, good or bad.  Take for instance Rustal Elion, commander of the Arianrhod fleet.  As the primary antagonist of the end of the series, one would expect us to know more about him.  Yet, he is only given a cursory introduction.  With no prior development, we can only be left confused as he is first presented as a regressive-but-respectable member of Gjallarhorn, to an underhanded tactician willing to exploit banned technologies, to an effective leader that heads a reformed Gjallarhorn in wake of the events of the series.  If the writers had been more skillful I would take these to be dynamic facets of a complicated character, but instead they feel disjointed and opportunistic.

Nowhere is this lack of development felt more strongly than with the members of Tekkadan itself.  Despite having 50 episodes to work with, most of them still felt more like stand-ins.  This is especially devastating when many of them begin to die in the final arc, and I did not know who some of them were.  It is not enough to focus on a character for a scant few episodes while they are "important."  Without the small touches that endear us, the non-essential points of development that remind us of who they are, we cannot invest in them as an audience. 

As this two year saga comes to an end, I find myself both impressed at the scope of the narrative and frustrated by its inexpert execution.  Its strong themes, battles, and death scenes (Lafter...) were often lost amid the disorganized wash of events.  However, the series stayed true to itself and stuck the landing, being engaging up until the last scene.  It is a worthy submission to the genre and I look forward to future Gundam series if they have as much heart as this one did.

[Manga] Koe no Katachi Review

Koe no Katachi / A Silent Voice - 9.5/10

For Agatha

Social ostracism is a human universal: in order for there to be a group there must be outsiders.  Those with obvious differences are the natural choice.  Koe no Katachi is a story about the people on both sides of this experience.

Shouko Nishimiya is a deaf girl who has recently transferred to a new school.  However, her hopes for a fresh start are swiftly dashed when Shouya Ishida, a rambunctious but fairly normal boy, chooses her as the class pariah for his taunting and other antics.  This triggers an avalanche of abuse as the inconveniences caused by her disability become the grounds for her wholesale rejection by the class and teacher.  In the end Nishimiya is forced to transfer schools once again.  Unfortunately for Ishida the spite that was formerly directed at Nishimiya becomes focused on him, resulting in his own social isolation.

Years later in high school Ishida again meets Nishimiya, but with newfound empathy he seeks to atone for his bullying.  The resulting events of the manga lay them both bare, and they begin the slow process of healing together.

The Good:

The terrible clarity with which Koe no Katachi portrays the mentality of both the victimizers and victim is the bedrock on which the series is founded.

First there is Nishimiya.  Born deaf, she fundamentally cannot forgive herself for living.  She blames herself for her parents’ divorce, for the inconvenience caused by having to keep transferring schools, and ultimately for her own bullying.  It is the sad logic of the isolated that they believe they are at fault for their own suffering.  And since they are at fault, they are convinced they deserve it so as to remind them of all the trouble they have “caused.”

Next is Ishida who is given an insight into this same state after his elementary years.  However, as one who has fallen from acceptance his feelings are somewhat different.  While he also regards himself with a level of self-hatred he seeks to fix his mistakes.  That is, while he loathes himself it is because of what he has done, not who he is.

This distinction may seem small, but its effects are profound.  This can be most readily seen in the chapter leading up to Nishimiya’s attempted suicide.  Some may question why Nishimiya chooses this time to try to kill herself.  The answer is simple: she is too happy.  Here she is with friends now, enjoying herself.  It isn’t right in her mind.  She deserves suffering.  Ishida doesn’t think this way: while he also beats himself up, he seizes upon potential acceptance with a fierce hunger, such as when they attend the amusement park as a group.  He ultimately holds out hope for light at the end of the tunnel while she does not.

Last, I’m going to use Naoka Ueno, one of Ishida’s classmates that joined him in bullying Nishimiya, as a prime example of the tormentor.  Ueno is driven by her own desires and has reasonable self-esteem.  She isn’t evil so much as interested in her own well-being and willing to sacrifice the well-being of others for it – in other words: a distressingly normal human.

What is telling is when Ueno is faced with Nishimiya’s reflexive self-sacrifice she is incensed.  She wants Nishimiya to fight back, to give her justification for her actions.  But this fury more deeply stems from a lack of comprehension.  Ueno fails to understand Nishimiya because she cannot envision what it is like to not value herself.  It is completely beyond her ken.  She can only conclude that Nishimiya must be putting on an act, abusing her status as “disabled” to garner sympathy.

Another wonderful aspect of Koe no Katachi is its detailed drawings of faces and hands.  As a series that must portray the thoughts and feelings of a character who cannot speak them herself, Koe no Katachi devotes beautiful effort to ensuring that her voice is heard.  There are honestly too many pages to name where I was impressed once again by the detail given to the small details of expression.

Finally, while Koe no Katachi has many outstanding pages, there is one in particular that touched me more than any other: Nishimiya’s resolve in Volume 6, Chapter 45, pg 17-18 (read right to left).  A few pages before we see Nishimiya’s younger self, battered and hurt, expressing to her sister one desperate wish: “I want to die.”  This is not an idle thought or a petulant outburst after a bad day.  Nishimiya, in her soul, does not believe she deserves to live and be happy.

But in the aftermath of her attempted suicide she has been confronted with something that she never imagined: her self-hatred had hurt those closest to her.  But, this anger…it was for them wasn’t it?  Didn’t her mere presence cause them pain and grief?  How arrogant could she be to ever think that a nasty, useless creature like herself had the right to forget this?
…
And yet…they cry.  Her mother, her sister…even Ishida…they cry for her.  Why…?  Was she…was she really worth that?  No…yes?  She had hurt them again, but…they loved her still.  She has been hurting alone inside for so long…does she deserve to now cry with them, for herself?

In this moment of remorse, pain, compassion, and release Nishimiya feels for the first time that she has value as a person.  I cannot emphasize enough how hard it is for her to do this.  Her whole life has been built on believing she is nothing.  To turn this around is possibly the most difficult thing she has ever done.  And as the chapter closes we see her realizing the truth: she has to live.

The Bad:

Without a doubt, the weakest portions of Koe no Katachi are the final 8 chapters.  Nishimiya’s attempted suicide is the climax of the series.  In that darkest moment everybody’s worst fears are realized.  The aftermath of this event lays bare the realities of the situation: that half measures and kind intentions were not enough.  But at the same time, it offers the hope that having passed through this ugliest of times people may renew and strengthen the bonds between them.  Ending with Ishida’s reunion with Nishimiya on the bridge, after both fearing they may never see the other alive again, was a perfect finale to this arc.

This is, in my opinion, where the manga would have best ended, with perhaps a couple of chapters afterward to round things out.  Instead we are treated to a lengthy and somewhat meaningless denouement, where details that did not matter before are given extensive coverage.  How all the characters would spend their futures was of no concern.  Nor, really, was the movie they were making; the entire scene where the professional artist berated their poor production was particularly underwhelming.

What made this worse for me was also the unfocused and ambiguous nature of the “friends” at the end.  I hold Koe no Katachi in very high regard for most of its psychology, but in this area it was tenuous.  The behavior of many of the characters in the hospital continued to reinforce that they were still focused on only themselves.  Kawai’s speech in particular was disgusting with its self-serving pantomime of compassion.  And yet, in the last few chapters we are shown that apparently Nishimiya is to continue to spend time with these people that resent and despise her, and that they are actually going to build a bright future together.  This goes beyond forgiveness into the realm of masochism.  Up until the very end of the series I felt uneasy, waiting for Ueno or Kawai to make another move; this isn’t the feeling one should have if they’ve truly become friends.  As such, this aspect of the resolution felt false to me, as though the author was caught between realism and a storybook happily ever after, and in the end faltered for a confused compromise.

The other notable weak point of Koe no Katachi is Ishida’s “best friend,” Tomohiro Nagatsuka.  In a series full of amazing characters, he is a caricature.  We learn almost nothing about him, except that he is slavishly devoted to Ishida because of his lack of friends and he has dreams of being a director.  He receives no development and his main purpose is to act as hybrid of comic relief and font of positive energy.  Even his visual style doesn’t match the rest of manga.  That I never took him seriously as a person is the harshest critique I can give.

Finally, I want to leave a remark about the captions at the beginning and ends of the chapters.  They were terribly mismatched with the tone of the series, frequently full of phrases that sounded like cheap commercial endings.  “What will happen next?  Only the clear blue sky knows!”  “Now…the story…begins...”  “How will everyone respond to this reunion?”  Thankfully I could mostly disregard them as they had no actual impact on the story.

As I end this review, I fear that I have given a false impression by my criticisms.  Koe no Katachi is a deeply moving portrait of what it is like to live in the shadow of others’ lack of empathy, and a hopeful expression that such times do not last forever.  I was moved to tears by its poignancy.  It is a story that I would recommend to anybody, if just to remind them how important being understood and valued is.

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” - Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

[Anime] Youjo Senki Review

Youjo Senki- 7.5/10

Youjo Senki is my favorite type of series, where a driving idea is comfortably nestled inside a self-sustaining story.  On the surface the plot follows the exploits of Tanya Degurechaff, a young girl advancing up the ranks of the German military in a magically-infused alternate WW1.  However, as is shortly revealed Tanya is the reincarnation of an amoral salaryman from modern Japan.  God (or Being X as the series calls it) has brought him here to this time and place to teach him humility and devotion.  Tanya (we never learn his former name) is a devout atheist, and sees no need for God in his world.  Furthermore, he is a psychopath in the strongest sense: he can understand how others feel, but experiences no compassion or moral drive beyond his own well-being.

The engine that drives the series is this underlying struggle between God attempting to prove itself to Tanya, and Tanya firmly rejecting the divinity or necessity of such a being.  The brilliance of the series is executed through the uncertain balance between these two, for while Tanya is clearly evil God does not acquit itself much better.

Tanya's evil is a special brand, one which is far more insidious than the "maniacal" evil usually demonstrated by villains.  While Tanya clearly enjoys her work, she has no special hatred for the enemy or love of her country.  She is not sadistic or gloating.  Instead she is the epitome of banal expedience.  One cannot even say that the ends justify the means, for in her mind the means need no defending if they are efficient and effective.  This is also seen in the peculiar legality of her efforts: she will commit atrocities, but only once she has nominally fulfilled her duties to international law.  The best example of this is her paper on the legalization of combat in cities and how to reinterpret regulations that prohibit the artillery bombardment of civilian centers.  She doesn't defy the law, she just twists it beyond recognition.  It exposes the disturbing corporate view of laws as nothing more than conventions, with no basis in morality.

And so, to rescue this sinner God has decided to intervene.  Mocking the traditional God has become passé, but what Youjo Senki does is demonstrate the inherent perversity of what are traditionally viewed as the signs of God's power.  God's use of trials and miracles is absurd.  Tanya is placed under the command of a heedless experimenter, her life put in danger simply to force her to capitulate to God's will.  And the miracle that "saves" her, the special insight given to the head engineer, again begs the question as to how a benevolent being could so grossly employ such tactics just to lean on a single mortal.  And now, for all God's efforts, these weapons have been bequeathed to the devil.  That Tanya is forced to recite a sort of prayer in God's name every time she uses her equipment is obviously a farce in light of what she uses it for.  At best God is incompetent, and at worst knowingly aiding evil.  This is all given special poignancy for being set in WWI: I do not know how aware the original writers are of European history, but WWI is what intellectually killed the traditional God in Western thought.

The Good:

Tanya, Tanya, and Tanya.  This series runs on Tanya, and as a character she bears the weight gracefully.  She is a villain that you find yourself rooting for, if just because the other guy is worse.  Her evil also comes and goes in ways that make it easy to forget what she is capable of, and many of her experiences are humanly relatable.  Her drive against God, rather than feeling like hubris, is eminently relatable through her disgusted anger. 

That said, this series has a great sense of subdued humor.  Most of it centers around using Tanya as the straight man.  Small touches such as after-credits scenes of Tanya hating second-hand smoke helped keep Youjo Senki from becoming too grim, while also adding a humanizing element that roots Tanya's personality.  At key points Tanya’s normally collected demeanor is "cashed in" to powerful effect, from her humorous reacquaintance with Dr. Schugel to the raw helpless rage at the letting the Republican army slip away.  What makes all of these scenes function so smoothly is the contrast with her well-established mannerisms.

Speaking of scenes, while Tanya’s final scene is striking I would argue that her meeting earlier with von Rerugen was the crowning moment for her character.  In this world humans are still believed to be rational.  They have not experienced the confused awakening that ours has, and through this tainted modern lens Tanya gazes down on their idealism and crushes it casually.  The moment where von Rerugen stares, aghast, his cigarette burning and falling to the floor, was the only appropriate reaction.  She is the freakish future of war, and now he knows it.

In summary, the English translation of the title (“The Saga of Tanya the Evil”) is entirely appropriate.  This series lives and dies on her character, and so help me I looked forward to seeing our loli psychopath in action every week.

The Bad:

The main problem with the series is that it tends to forget that Tanya is what matters.  While individual scenes spent away from Tanya are not detrimental, the bottom line is that whenever the story about the war begins to eclipse Tanya’s own crusade the series suffers.  Even her more mundane scenes around the office are more interesting than the character-defining moments of her enemies and allies.  I truly don’t care about any of the other actors in the series, and that is okay.  This setting is purely to showcase Tanya’s deistic vendetta.

My other recurrent issue was a suspension of disbelief.  Using Tanya’s age and gender to sharply contrast with her inner character is an old, but effective, trick.  Despite this, and a reasonable explanation as to why she is so vicious, I couldn’t take certain elements seriously.  There is simply no believable way a 12-year-old girl would rise the way she does in the WWI-era German military; basic chauvinism would keep that in check at the very least. 

But let’s grant for a minute that the high command is forward thinking, highly logical, and more willing to employ women than their real counterparts were.  There remain several scenes in which Tanya manhandles grown soldiers, entirely apart from her magical abilities.  The scene when her troops take the Republican forward command irked me as she snuck up Splinter Cell style on her targets and assassinated them…while barely coming up to their navel.  It was just goofy. Even as I enjoyed the show these mismatches pecked at me, and were detrimental to the experience.

Finally, there are some miscellaneous complaints I have, such as the vagueness of the magic system and the conflation of WWI- and WWII-era technologies on several occasions.  But none of these are great enough to warrant more than a passing mention.

Ultimately, I found Youjo Senki to be surprisingly enjoyable with an unusual essence and competent execution.  It has one of the singularly best main characters of any series and a sharp sense of humor to match the grim undertones.  However, its strength was also its weakness, struggling at times to accommodate Tanya's "largeness" alongside the rest of the plot.  One can only hope that God will work a miracle and give us a second season.  Amen.

[Anime] Hunter x Hunter (2011) Review

(As much as I bad-mouth the Chimera Ant arc, this episode was spectacular)

Hunterx Hunter (2011) - 6-6.5/10

Shounen series are some of the most iconic and well-known in anime, regardless of their level of quality.  Hunter x Hunter (HxH) makes an attempt to buck the usual shounen stereotypes or employ them in creative ways while still sticking with the endearing simplicity of the genre.

Take Gon, the series' protagonist.  A mixture of Luffy's dreams of adventure and Goku's half-feral wild child, Gon encapsulates many of the qualities one would expect.  He has transparent motivations, an innate sense of justice, sticks by his friends, and has vast potential to become the best there ever was.  The primary story is built around him becoming a Hunter and finding his father.

Building on this common foundation, HxH then purposefully alters the standard narrative.  Take, for instance, the classic shounen structure in which the protagonist always seems to encounter opponents he can barely defeat, while his friends confront appropriately-powered henchmen.  In HxH, Gon is not always the primary player.  He only survives the Hunter Exam due to Hisoka's twisted generosity.  Later in the story the heavy-hitters such as the Zoldycks, Chrollo, or Meruem are never directly matched against him.  Despite being the main character, Gon's contributions to the situation are often marginal.  The author of this series was clearly familiar with battle shounen and knew how to both give his audience what they wanted while keeping it fresh.

Unfortunately, the series simply loses its way after a period of time.  Novelty gives way to brittle plot elements and poorly-paced story, culminating in an experience which feels far closer to the standard shounen mold.  Ultimately while HxH does encapsulate some original ideas and can boast a few excellent episodes it fails to go the distance.

The Good:

Easily the best part of HxH relative to other series are the villains.  Most of the time villains exist for one purpose in shounen: to be defeated.  Before that point they are contract-bound to gloat over their superiority, refusing to lift a finger to stop the heroes from running amok until it is too late.  Essentially they are written as though their lives revolve around the protagonists.  HxH goes out of its way to embellish its antagonists, giving them a separate existence outside of the current context we have encountered them.  The two that stand out the most are Hisoka and the Phantom Troupe.

Hisoka is arguably the best character in the entire series.  His visual design elegantly portrays what he is about, reflecting his mysterious nature (face paint), utilization of illusion (clown/carnival), and wild card nature (the suit symbols).  And yet, it isn't overdone.  We see him without his mask, so we know he isn't some monster from beyond.  We learn the secrets of his deceptions, yet this doesn't make him any less potent.  And finally we are fully told about his motivations yet this does not make him more predictable.  What finally pushes Hisoka to the top is that the series manages to keep him in the right balance of relevant but not central.  He frequently interacts with the protagonists, but defeating him is not the end goal.  Ultimately he is a clever independent personality that sometimes aids the protagonists, sometimes opposes them, and the rest of the time pursues his own desires without having to relate them to the main characters.

The Phantom Troupe also goes into my book as an evil organization done right.  Like Hisoka above they have an independent existence.  During the Yorknew Arc their paths temporarily cross with Gon, Killua, and Kurapika but that is all.  This isn't a defining moment in their organization's history.  They aren't wiped out nor does Kurapika resolve his business with them.  The members of the Troupe also had positive attributes without the series trying to redeem them.  They shared a profound sense of loyalty and camaraderie, joked with each other, and felt deeply when they lost members.  But the series never tried to justify them for this: they were still in the business of killing and stealing even if they were nice to each other.  In this regard it was very refreshing to have a shounen recognize that the bad guys don't have to be 100% evil to still count as villains.

This segues into my compliments for the best segment of the series: the Yorknew arc.  It is the arc that best exemplifies all of the positive features I have listed so far.  It has an interesting plot that does not always default to combat to resolve situations.  Both sides are intelligent and act in convincing ways that keep the outcome from being certain, with Hisoka in the middle playing his own game.  Gon and Killua, rather than flying to the rescue, are actually taken hostage and have to be ransomed back.  In the end, surprisingly little is resolved.  It is true that Kurapika manages to kill both Uvo and (indirectly) Pakunoda while disabling Chrollo, but that isn't the end of the Troupe or his quest.  It even manages to introduce a few side characters, such as Melody, who actually complement the arc rather than detracting from it.  The Yorknew arc bucks every trend I've come to expect from shounen while still managing to be entertaining with a satisfying conclusion.

Finally, I want to give some credit to Meruem.  While I consider the Chimera Ant arc as a whole a wreck, Meruem himself is a good character.  Just how the Phantom Troupe is an example of how to write an evil organization, Meruem is the the right way to create an intelligent villain that has a change of heart.  He is effectively a toddler with nearly unlimited capacity, born knowing that he is King and innately feeling his superiority to all life.  When this view is disrupted by Komugi, as he cannot best her, he does not dismiss her or fall into mental disarray.  He adjusts his view, encompasses this new information, and adjusts his estimation of humans.  We see this when he is talking to Netero: he admits that humans have some value, and that rather than have them all consumed he believes that they ought to be preserved.  This may not sound impressive from our vantage point, but for Meruem this is a shockingly rapid adjustment in a short period of time.  He truly is the most perfect being in the HxH universe, capable of both amazing physical and mental feats.  It is a shame that he is weighed down by the mire that is the Chimera Ant arc.

The Bad:

As already indicated, the primary problem with HxH is that it does not manage to keep the quality of the Yorknew arc for the rest of the series.  We see the first glimmerings of this during the Greed Island arc, where the villains are one-dimensional and many of the victories are achieved more and more through grit alongside planning.  But it is the Chimera Ant arc that truly fails the series.  It was a protracted mess filled with stock villains and excessive time devoted to unimportant side characters.  Nobody, I repeat nobody, wanted to see that much of Ikalgo.  The plot was also necessarily simple: because the Chimera Ants' existence was antithetical to that of humanity the only possible conclusion was elimination. 

But the final nail in the coffin was the destruction of consequence.  At the end of the Greed Island arc we see the first stumble with the Breath of the Archangel healing Gon's missing arm.  Up until that point, events had serious ramifications that could not be undone.  The Chimera Ant arc takes this further by introducing pseudo-reincarnation in the form of new ants, negating the finality of death.  While this allows for touching reunions, it ruins the impact of the events.  This culminates in the final arc with Alluka, who is an incarnation of the Dragon Balls.  She is able to wish away the debilitating effects of Gon's sacrifice, making it no sacrifice at all.  It is this that, in my opinion, really harms HxH at the end.

These shortcomings also begin to painfully highlight the ridiculousness of Gon and Killua's development.  While it is simply accepted in these series that our young heroes will have exceptional ability, these two abuse it to a degree that destroyed my suspension of disbelief.  Training that should have taken months or years was completed in a single weekend.  At first I believed the author was poking fun at this trope, but the repeated reliance on these shortcuts made it a bad joke.

Finally, I want to remark on a philosophical problem I saw with HxH: it wanted to be better than its audience could support.  The author sought to demonstrate the inner mental workings and shifts of personality for a variety of major and minor characters.  Everybody in the HxH universe is meant to be 'real', rather than just a throw-away used for a few scenes or episodes.  This is a laudable goal, especially for an anime that is more than a niche artistic piece.  However, this creates a problem: good character development is usually accomplished with hints.  How a person reacts, the words they choose, and the actions they take all give insight into their inner workings.  But the audience of HxH is, frankly, that of the average shounen series.  Because of this it has to satisfy the lowest common denominator and it cannot risk having these subtle cues being missed.  So it falls back on exposition.  A lot of it.

Exposition in itself isn't bad.  Often it is what is needed to ensure that key ideas are clear.  But in HxH it overstepped its boundaries, where the narrator became more and more compelled to explain every single event.  "Gon was shamed."  "The King had never felt something like this before."  "Knuckle then made a poor decision."  When exposition reaches this level it interferes with the actual story and throws its shortcomings into sharp relief.  Perhaps I am being too demanding of the series, but given its apparent goals I feel this criticism is fair.

In conclusion, I went into HxH with relatively low expectations and was pleasantly surprised by my initial experience.  Even as I watched the series go downhill it continued to demonstrate sporadic moments of quality.  Despite my criticisms I would still rank this as the best shounen series I have ever seen, and regret that it squandered so much of its potential.

[Anime] Mouryou no Hako Review

Mouryou no Hako - 8/10

Having just finished this series recently I am still perplexed by this show.  The MAL synopsis fails to do it justice:

"The story follows a series of bizarre murders of schoolgirls who have been dismembered and stuffed into boxes. The private investigator hired by a missing daughter's mother joins forces with an antique book seller and others to unravel the murder spree."

While technically correct, that summary falls painfully short of capturing its real essence.  Mouryou no Hako is an intensely psychological series, one that is driven by a perspective-warping injection of emotion and elements of the supernatural.  It is hard to describe, but as a viewer I found myself coaxed into a state of uncertainty.  The series begins on a surreal note, its first scene planting crucial seeds of doubt into your mind.  Afterward, despite the more mundane unfolding of the plot, I could not shake the sense that something was amiss with this common depiction of their world.

The brilliance, though, is that despite the "hints" otherwise there is no supernatural.  As Kyougokudou says of his own "profession" as mystic: it is both real and not real.  Mouryou (evil spirits) don't exist in an objective sense, they are only a disease of the mind.  But when people enter into that gray realm their rationality crumbles and they are driven by forces they themselves create and then perceive.  In this sense they are real; real enough to affect our world.  This element of the mind affecting the world was handled in a way that was far more subtle, nuanced, and compelling than I have seen in an anime.

The second stand-out element is the organic way in which the show unpacks itself.  Usually in a work the characters are clearly introduced and identified early, and the plot is simply a result of their interplay.  Instead, Mouryou gives a sense of this story simply coming together on its own as more people become involved in the drama.  That is, the plot doesn't exist for the characters to fill.  The characters come together to create the plot.  It is the result of chance and circumstance, not fate.  Unfortunately for the show, this idea is very un-subtly reinforced in the final monologue along with several of the other primary ideas.

The drawback of this haphazard approach to character introduction was, for myself at least, a great deal of confusion.  As you're not sure who's important and who's not, and with a steadily expanding cast of characters, it made it difficult to follow at times (doubly so for somebody like myself who has a poor memory for Japanese names).  I can't say this is truly a weakness of the anime, but it definitely impacted my overall enjoyment as I struggled to follow what was going on in several scenes and conversations.

The resolution was also a mixed affair.  While I appreciate the many threads they wove together in a convoluted tale to explain all that had gone on, the fact that it was so twisted made it impossible for the viewer to figure it out on their own.  The last few episodes are essentially the audience being force-fed an explanation that only Sherlock Holmes on his best day would figure out.  I don't want to say that it's poorly done, and it does a great job of tying together several different events throughout the series, but there wasn't the "ah ha!" that comes with the best mystery resolutions.  In that way it is a better psychological piece than mystery.

Finally, deep down, this show was really quite disturbing without being graphic.  While it has a few shocking scenes, they are very few and far between.  What drives it really is when you realize what has happened.  By the end several young girls have been dismembered while still alive, their consciousness left to wander as they are paralyzed helpless in their boxes.  The fate of Kanako in particular is unsettling - having been stolen away from her support, all that remained for her was to exist in a state of hell, trapped as a body-less head in a box until she withered to "blackened rotted food".  I'm not entirely sure I'm done processing it.

Ultimately, I'm not sure how to judge this series.  It was exceptional in its atmosphere, binding its method of plot construction to its message in a way I have seen few series do as expertly.  But at the same time, I felt just...lost a lot of the time, jarred from one scene to another, disoriented by the swift changes in scenery.  It feels like a series I would have to watch more than once to get a complete feel for, but I am unsure whether I will be doing so anytime soon.  I leave it for now with a generous "8" on the good faith that some of its flaws may simply be covered upon further review.

[Anime] Clannad After Story Review

Clannad After Story - 6-6.5/10

Clannad After Story is an extension of the Clannad original series, moving from a story of friends in high school to the beginnings of adult life.  This is a rare move for series of this type, as they are rooted firmly in adolescent drama and nostalgia and cannot risk moving beyond these themes.  After Story attempts to tackle this transition, and on many occasions succeeds well.  Unfortunately, it also carries with it many of the elements that hobbled Clannad which, in light of the increased seriousness of the content, makes their presence all the more jarring.  Because of these similarities this review will echo my review of Clannad on many points.

The Good:

As with Clannad, when the series didn't become excessive (more on that below), it was genuinely touching.  The highlight of After Story is Nagisa's death and the subsequent episodes in which Tomoya grapples with the aftermath.

The greatest daring of After Story is that Nagisa dies.  One of the two main characters, one that you have come to know throughout Clannad and After Story, is gone.  Even for somebody such as myself, who had been spoiled beforehand, the move was significant.  To actually remove a main character while there are still so many episodes to resolve is exceedingly rare, and for good reason.  People are invested in them, and when that character is suddenly gone they are forced to confront the aftermath.  This is why the timing in Nagisa's death is key.  Many series will casually kill off main characters near the end, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that it is the end.  But Nagisa's passing halfway through forces both Tomoya and the audience to confront the fact that life goes on.

It is during this process of recovery that After Story is the most meaningful, revisiting its core themes of family and the importance of connections between people.  After Nagisa's death Tomoya becomes a hollow shell as he withdraws from everybody around him, abandoning his child to the care of Sanae (Nagisa's mother).  But after several years he is forced to confront Ushio, to reconnect with his daughter, and so be brought back to life as he realizes how much his actions have impacted not just himself but all those around him.  It is during this resurrection that he also gains a new appreciation for those around him.  The three best elements during this arc of the series were:

• Nagisa's death scene: Everybody, everything, is removed except Tomoya, Nagisa, and Ushio.  The rest of the world, for this moment, matters so little that it does not exist.  The abundant light shows that Nagisa is not completely in this world anymore, with the screen beginning to waver and dim as she fades.  Nagisa's face in particular also deserves comment.  She was exhausted beyond description, fading from her last great effort of giving birth.  It was simply well-crafted with all the elements necessary for saying goodbye.

• Closure with Naoyuki Okazaki: Tomoya's coming to terms with his father is handled very well.  Nothing is more frustrating in a series than when a character reconnects with an abusive figure through reinterpretation rather than understanding.  That is, in an attempt to explain why the audience should now care about the formerly "evil" human being, a series will offer up a feeble back story to explain why they weren't actually bad.  They were just misguided.  Or trying too hard.  Or had some tragedy that justified their harshness.  This approach is simplistic, hinging on the assumption that a person is singularly good or evil.  It cheapens earlier suffering because now it must be glossed over in a feeble attempt to say, "But they didn't really mean it!"
  
  Naoyuki was an alcoholic.  He was abusive at times.  He got into shady, illegal business.  He was lost.  But he tried his best for his son even as it cost him everything.  This last point doesn't excuse what he did, and the series doesn't say so either: Naoyuki's own mother comments that he was a failure as a human in many ways.  In rediscovering his father Tomoya doesn't find a good man underneath.  Instead he is finally able to understand why, despite everything, Naoyuki always had a bafflingly friendly smile toward his estranged son.  It was only now that Tomoya had lost so much that he could finally see his father for who he was.

• The strength of Sanae Furukawa: Sanae is treated frivolously through much of the series, but this belies her true nature.  When Tomoya abandoned his life, it was Sanae that stepped in and raised her granddaughter even while suffering from the loss of her own precious child.  It was Sanae that put Ushio's wellbeing above her own loss.  This scene highlights her resolve beautifully, as Akio remarks that Sanae had not cried since Nagisa's passing.  She raised Ushio in a home of happiness rather than mourning, and there is nothing more to say.

Finally, as I close out this segment I want to tip my hat to how clean the series is.  Repeatedly in the past I have decried fan service as one of the perennial downfalls of good series.  Clannad (and After Story) avoids any sense of voyeurism by taking this more reserved approach.  In some ways, it may even go too far in the other direction: we never see the protagonists do more than hug each other, which is not very realistic in light of their relationship.  However, I will take this over a lurid romance that would have detracted from the series' underlying focus.

The Bad:

While all of my praise goes to the middle of the series, the first eight episodes and the last plot episode (22) are, for lack of a better word, garbage.

The first eight episodes are painfully incongruous with the rest of the series.  They take place while the characters are still in high school and are far less mature than the rest of After Story.  The whole is diminished for their presence. The episodes in which the rival gangs made up struck me as particularly inane.  These episodes belonged with Clannad and its high school antics, not the transition to maturity that After Story was supposed to be.  I could only give a sigh of relief when they were over.

However, as frustrating as the first episodes are at least I could pretend they were part of another series.  But episode 22, coming at the end, utterly and completely negates the entire meaning and purpose of the anime.  In the final episodes a reconciled Tomoya is living with his daughter, but she is beginning to show the same signs of sickness that Nagisa did.  As Ushio gets more and more ill the series darkens again, and finally in a tearjerker scene she dies as well.  But, through the magic of...being a light novel with latent magical elements, the good karma of Tomoya rewinds time, Nagisa lives, everybody's happy, the end.

I cannot over emphasize how detrimental this cop-out is.  If it was not abundantly clear, Nagisa's death is the pivotal driving force for the best parts of the show.  Without her death Tomoya would have never grown into the man he is at the end.  He would never have reconciled with his father or viewed his mother-in-law as anything other than a fixture.  He would have remain emotionally stunted, a short-tempered teenager with a chip on his shoulder.  More than this, we lose the message that life involves pain, but continues anyway.  Before this excessively tragic end, the hope remained that there was a path out of dark places.  By attempting to go back and whitewash everything to be happier, episode 22 completely fails the series and undermines the power of Clannad's message.

This brings me to the other point, and that is that Ushio's death is utterly unnecessary.  Ushio was designed to be weapons-grade adorable.  Everything about her design and mannerisms screams "cute."  Too cute, really, considering we never once see her misbehave or act in a way that isn't formulated to evoke a sigh of affection.  Metaphorically, they fattened her up for the sacrifice.  While Nagisa's death was the catalyst that powered the story, Ushio's death is for no other reason than to evoke sorrow.  Cheaply at that, for she is functionally "dead" for less than 10 minutes of screen time before everything is magically fixed.  It is one of the most egregious cases of emotional pandering I have ever seen.

Finally, the same complaints I had about Clannad's inability to control the "emotional volume" and its tendency toward contrived and supernatural plot devices remain in force, although slightly more muted in After Story.  As I have already expounded on those in my Clannad review I am not going to spend the time here.

In summary, After Story follows in the same footsteps as Clannad: touching at key moments, but otherwise held back by its general mediocrity and deus ex machina resolution.

p.s. I think the ending I would have liked the most was if Tomoya had pursued his newfound relationship with Kyou and ended up marrying her.  It would have been a bittersweet conclusion to the series, with the memory of Nagisa slowly fading while his new life took off.  Shame we got the mess we did instead.

[Anime] Princess Tutu Review

Princess Tutu - 7.5/10

Princess Tutu is a traditional family friendly fantasy with modern finesse.  What is most charming about Princess Tutu is its earnest simplicity.  The setting is that of a fairy tale: princes are noble, princesses are beautiful, love is eternal, and dreams come true.  In a word, it sounds cheesy.  And yet, I found myself sucked into it as it executed its premise expertly.  While watching it I likened it to coming on a child playing make-believe.  At first you find yourself only patronizing them.  Clearly you know better; you just don't want to hurt any feelings.  But strangely, against your will, you find that the enjoyment is genuine and that perhaps you're not so superior after all.

I think the other key to appreciating Princess Tutu is just knowing that it isn't trying to be subtle or deconstructionist.  There are some twists and turns in the story that keep things interesting (more on that below), but these are merely the evolution of the genre.  They are not a grim negation of what has come before such as what Evangelion or Madoka aimed to do for mecha and magical girl respectively.

Finally, where I watched the series only had the English dub.  At first I considered this a bad thing but it grew on me rapidly. The anime has such a Western tone that hearing it in English seems natural after a short time. In addition, Luci Christian knocks it out of the park with her performance as Ahiru/Duck; after just a couple of episodes I had a hard time imagining this character with any other voice.

The Good:
First, let's get the obvious out of the way: the music.  The entire series is based on various ballets, and many of the episodes feature orchestral music to match.  I am far from being an expert on the pieces, but I did enjoy them as they added some variety to each episode.

Next, I'd like to tip my hat to the child characters.  I normally criticize young characters in anime, saying time and time again how the choice of adolescents is to the detriment of the plot.  This is one of the few series where I would say the age choice is entirely appropriate.  The simpler emotional structure of the series would be drivel if coming from adults, but from 12-14-year-olds it is more believable.  Fakir's development in particular fits the mold perfectly, although the arc they took him on was unexpected.

And finally, I would like to give some praise to Princess Tutu's plot.  The most surprising thing about it was the lack of major plot twists.  They told us from the earliest episodes what would happen: Tutu returns the shards, Prince fights Crow, the story ends happily.  Drosselmeyer isn't reinterpreted as the good guy, the Crow isn't secretly a tragic figure.  But what makes the plot different are the small wrinkles thrown in along the way:

• Tutu doesn't end up with Myuuto as his princess.  She reverts to a duck with no special powers.  I was confident that a way would be found to avoid her fate, that she would overcome her inability to confess her love and live happily ever after.  Instead she really does sacrifice her abilities, fulfilling her mission in spite of her fear, and ends with no regrets.  When reading others' comments I found many to regard this as a negative result, but I found it to be a very sincere conclusion to the anime.
• Fakir's development was similarly surprising.  Most stories would resolve Fakir's plight by having him overcome this weakness and finding the courage to be a great knight.  Instead he finds out he really is a mediocre knight, and that his ability lies elsewhere.  Again like many of these modifications, it was simple but unexpected in light of traditional stories.
• The events of the story are actually being written by Drosselmeyer, a character within that story.  While the story is intelligible without this aspect, it neatly explains why some of the coincidences occur, such as why people are saved at the last second and how they never quite give up.
  
  One interesting effect of this storybook setting is how easily we overlook the strangeness of the animal people wandering around town.  When first confronted with them I was surprised, but when the characters didn't act surprised I simply assumed there was an explanation.  At the end the series draws your attention to this oddity, reminding you that this is not normal and that no explanation was ever offered.  In short, it uses our own suspension of disbelief to trick us into accepting something outrageous.  A small, but delightful, twist to be caught in as the viewer.
• Tutu doesn't use violence in any way.  I'm not sure if this was a personal surprise, but when some of the interactions turned ugly I expected her to break out some sort of special magic or something.  But no, her only power is emotional comfort.  It was an aspect of her personality that made so much sense but it was so easy to expect something otherwise.

This gives a taste of how the practical execution of these small modifications on a traditional framework kept Princess Tutu recognizable but fresh at the same time.

The Bad:
If I had to level a criticism at Princess Tutu, it is that there were some aspects that were overused.  Through the entire series, all 26 episodes, they skip Tutu's transformation scene once (it is in the second to last episode; trust me, I was watching).  This obviously isn't a major sin, but it reflects the fact that at times Tutu's scenes are remarkably repetitive.

Initially the repeated approach of Tutu showing up, asking them to dance, and solving their problems was to be expected.  It lays the foundations so when things don't always follow that formula later it has more impact.  After these deviations the second half of the series returns to this pattern as the corrupted Myuuto tries to steal the hearts of various girls and Tutu must save them.  Unfortunately, these situations were nearly identical, evoking a sense of déjà vu as similar scenarios are rehashed.  Entire episodes dedicated to flower girl or love-letter-carrying girl were unnecessary and made the middle of the series drag.

There are also some times where I would have to criticize the use of stills, again as part of the repetition issue.  However, I don't judge the series to harshly for this.  It is merely something I noticed.

In closing, Princess Tutu is a series that I feel doesn't get nearly enough recognition.  It might not sound or look like much at first, but it dances circles around many flashier series.