Pascoite gets bored and reviews anime, vol. 55 · 10:02pm Aug 8th, 2023
The current season is turning out to be a little lackluster. Of new starts, only one show is impressing me, though there are two others I initially gave a pass but totallynotabrony has really liked, so I'll probably pick them up later. But for this blog, featured items are a series from a few years ago, Deca-Dence, and a movie from 2015, The Anthem of the Heart. Those and several other good to not so good things, after the break.
Deca-Dence is only a few years old, yet I'd never heard of it before. Probably an oversight, as it won a number of awards. I found it through one of the more oddball ways I've picked up some of these shows: browsing what anime is discounted during Prime Day in case something I loved turns up, but also looking up ones I'm unfamiliar with.
This thing is really trippy. It's designed to be confusing at first. It's only a show, so there's no manga to draw on for additional context, and after reading over the background info of the premise from the Wikipedia article, I have no idea where they got some of this stuff. I never got it from the show itself. Maybe from interviews with the people who worked on it? I'll stick to what I could get from watching it.
All of known humanity lives in a giant rolling fortress called Deca-Dence. There are dangerous creatures outside called Gadoll. As long as they don't antagonize the worst ones, Deca-Dence is pretty impenetrable, so they mostly go after the weak and mid-level Gadoll. It's necessary, as their blood contains the fuel that Deca-Dence needs. Plus they're a food source.
There's a definite caste split. The most renowned warriors who fight the Gadoll are an upper class who may not even be human and live in the nicer areas, while the common folks live down in the fuel tank. The level never rises but so high, so there's space for them there. A number of them also become very talented warriors, but they're still always second-class.
The opener shows a warrior going off to fight and his daughter Natsume getting wounded, then skips to where she's older, living at an orphanage, and dreaming to become a warrior herself one day. Though she's never given the chance, due to a low-quality prosthetic arm she has. Her friends keep telling her to be happy working at a safe job repairing armor, but she at least finds work on an external maintenance crew, which gets her a little closer to the action. Then she finds out her boss is a former legendary warrior, so she begs him to train her. Of course he does, starting with building her a better arm.
Suffice it to say the rest of the plot centers around ending the war against the Gadoll once and for all, but there are numerous hints dropped early on that something else is going on. For one, several characters, including Natsume's boss, are shown interacting as avatars in what appears to be a virtual world. Only the upper-class ones are there, and that initially seems to be at a disconnect with the rest of what's going on. It isn't until nearly halfway through that it's shown what that place is and how it relates to life in Deca-Dence. And some of the terminology they use, often just fleeting bits of it, feels out of place and gradually starts to draw a picture of the bigger situation.
Certain elements of it remind me a lot of other things. The virtual interaction is similar to that in a couple of movies I liked, Summer Wars and Belle. The animation style and the way characters interact with each other, especially early on, smacked of Little Witch Academia to me, though it's a different studio. The way it keeps escalating things (though not to a galactic level) and some more aspects of the character interactions reminded me of Gurren Lagann.
The ending was a bit pat and predictable, but I liked the journey to get there. I rather enjoyed the art style, and the music was pretty good. Among dubs, this caught my attention as one of the better jobs of VA casting. Natsume is such an adorable character, sweet and naive in just the right ways, and character design in general was strong, even for some of the lesser characters like Jill's human appearance.
Rating: very good.
12 episodes, relevant genres: action, adventure, drama, sci-fi.
The Anthem of the Heart got on my radar due to the involvement of a director I'd enjoyed several times before and the screenwriter being my favorite writer of romance animes, Mari Okada.
It begins with a pretty heartbreaking scene. Little girl Jun is noted for her habit of jabbering. There's a castle on the hill above her town, and my first impression was that it was part of a theme park. She likes to sneak up there and watch through the fence as she dreams of getting invited to a ball there someday.
Then Something Bad Happens, and she becomes convinced (partly by blaming herself, partly by others blaming her) that her talking is responsible. A magic egg (additional context is given for this later) appears to say that as penance, she is forbidden from ever talking again. Is it real? Is it all in her head?
Years later, she's in her first year of high school, and the scene transitions to her homeroom class. Most shows would paint her as someone belittled for not speaking, but the other students don't have a low opinion of her at all. Primarily, they just don't notice her much.
The movie strikes a good balance of how many of the class members to flesh out, in terms of useful things to have them do and how much screen time it takes to characterize them, but it does focus on four of them: Jun, an easygoing boy named Takumi who's really not notable for anything other than being generally kind, a girl named Natsuki who's popular, friendly, and a member of the cheerleading squad, and a guy named Daiki, who seems a bit thuggish and is the star member of the baseball team, but has been unable to play due to an elbow injury.
The homeroom teacher is also the school's music teacher. It's this class's turn to participate in the cultural fair, and nobody wants anything to do with it, so those four students get randomly selected to form the committee. The teacher strongly suggests putting on a musical.
The more the kids think about it, the more the idea grows on them. But more to the movie's theme, Jun finds that she can express herself through music. Like art or dance or any form of expression, it's another way of speaking. But even in a more literal sense, would singing be a loophole?
Takumi in particular takes an interest in helping her express herself, since he can identify with her, in a way. Of course that means a potential romance arc for them, and what I will say on that front is that I was pleased with how all the romance angles turned out. Not to say specifically how it turns out, but I was happy that it didn't leave you on heartbreak, but it didn't take the obvious path, either.
If you like musicals, that's another point in this movie's favor for you. The plot element of the class putting one on takes up a significant chunk of the movie, but since the kids have limited resources for staging one, they borrow melodies from a number of famous show tunes.
The art looks maybe a tad dated for when it was made (2015), but it's still good, and the music was a plus. How much does the music matter, though? (I should just shorthand that as "the tnab question.") Quite a bit. It's not an amazing musical or anything, but its development and its meaning to both the class in general and Jun specifically is very integral to the plot. It leads to the class getting to know Jun beyond "the girl who doesn't talk," and it has a profound effect on one audience member (the aftermath of which is left implied).
Rating: very good, though maybe lower in that range.
Movie, Kokoro ga Sakebitagatterunda, "My Heart Wants to Shout," relevant genres: drama, romance, music.
More stuff, including the beginnings of another dive into YouTube's endless stock of supposedly award-winning animated shorts.
Charlotte (13 episodes + 1 special)—the title gets explained near the end. I picked this just because I saw it had a baseball episode, so I looked it up, and the premise sounded good. It's similar to enough other shows out there. High school student Yuu has the ability to possess anyone within his sight, but only for 5 seconds. He mostly uses this to see what answers the smart kids are putting on their tests. But it turns out there are other kids with special abilities as well. Like his, they're unique to the individual and have some sort of downside to them. A group of these kids populate a special high school for mutual protection, since anyone discovered to have these abilities will be kidnapped and studied—while that seems to be rumor more than anything, there is one example to substantiate it. Yuu's ability is seen as particularly useful, so he gets put on a team that seeks out other ability users in order to convince them to either transfer to this school or stay safe by promising never to use their abilities. By the time they age out of high school, they will have grown out of their ability. The first third of the run is just them tracking down someone each episode, but then it takes a hard turn with a tragic event, and things get kind of convoluted. I was impressed they made such a dramatic change, and the impact it has on Yuu was powerful... except when it finally forces him into a reckoning, it feels like it gets resolved awfully quickly and glibly. So on the heels of being impressed, it felt pat. But then it takes another dramatic turn, and I think it's fair to call it interesting, though it didn't suit my tastes but so well. Not necessarily Gurren Lagann level, to mention it again in this blogpost, but the plot becomes (imo) ridiculously expansive yet wraps up in only one episode, and the logistics of how all that works don't always make sense. The inevitable background romance arc was a bit clumsy. It has regular comic moments, but not to a degree I'd consider that a full genre for it. The special episode takes place some time back in the early part of the run, and it's below average for the series. Art was on the good end of what was a standard style of the time (2015 time frame), and while none of the music is amazing, it's overall pretty good. Rating: uneven, but it averages out to good, relevant genres: drama, supernatural.
Dragon Half (2 episodes)—this is based on a somewhat long-running manga, so I don't know why it was made into such a short series. A legendary dragon slayer was sent to kill the red dragon, but instead he fell in love with her. Mink is their daughter. The plot only scratches the surface of all that is in the manga. The king is in love with Mink's mother so wants to hire dragon slayers to capture her, but he'll settle for Mink, either as a substitute or a hostage. Mink is obsessed with an idol named Dick Saucer and tries to attend one of his performances, but she's thwarted by the princess. Since Dick is also a dragon slayer, the king then sets him after Mink and later arranges to have them both enter a tournament, hoping she'll die in it. There's no overall plot to the snippet of events in the anime, just random comedy. The art is typical of its time (early 1990s), but half of it, if not more, is in a chibi style. If that's what they wanted, why not do the whole thing that way? It's probably mimicking the manga, but then same question about that. Quite a lot of fan service. Music is okay, though the closing song is an amusing setting of nonsense lyrics to a mashup of Beethoven's symphonies, for some reason. Rating: decent, and even kind of low in that range, relevant genres: random comedy, fantasy.
Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma (86 episodes + 5 OVAs)—teenager Soma grew up cooking in his dad's restaurant, which cooked what's generally considered lowbrow food, but they always emphasized quality. When he gets the chance, Soma goes off to attend the most prestigious cooking academy in Japan, where there are constant tournaments and threats of expulsion for failure to perform. The plots of the five seasons revolve around various forms of political machinations behind the school's management, but none of that ever interested me too much. It's one of those shows that has an immense cast, yet spends enough time developing lots of those characters. A girl named Megumi who becomes friends with Soma is a good example of a secondary character who steals the show. She, to a degree, along with another girl named Erina, who's the daughter of the school's director, have the best character arcs. The frequent tournaments don't really matter, because for any of them that really matter, you rarely have any doubt who's going to win, so there's no tension. What is interesting is all the things they come up with to cook. They're all legit. Most are real, but as I understand it, the writers had a consultant on hand where they'd toss him a couple of random ingredients, just like the characters have to deal with in the show, and he'd come up with something to use them for that'd actually be good. I enjoy cooking, but I don't know near enough about it to follow all the nuance of what works and why, but just seeing what they make was the show's biggest draw for me, with the character arc of Erina's identity crisis being second. Art is quite good, and this is just full of fan service. When the gimmick is that tasting an exquisite dish can literally knock your clothes off and drive you to ecstasy, yeah, this is also a very sexualized look at cooking. Music is fairly good. Rating: decent, relevant genres: cooking, slice of life, comedy, drama.
Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana, 11 episodes)—In my search for good platonic yuri (but picking up romance ones that sound interesting, too), I came across this title. In the end, I have rather mixed feelings about it. It's another in the crowded genre of "girl realizes she likes other girls," and I think it took a serious misstep in coming on too strong at the beginning. It starts with a girl named Fumi who's infatuated with her (female) cousin, and it's unclear, to me at least, whether the two ever had any romantic encounters or Fumi was just fantasizing about it. But she suddenly announces to Fumi she's getting married, and Fumi didn't seem to be aware there was a boyfriend at all. Then plot thread two kicks in: her mother had an old friend who'd moved away when Fumi was young, but the friend and her own daughter Akira (who'd also been Fumi's childhood friend) are coming back to the area. Big reunion time! Except Fumi and Akira realize they'd seen each other at the train station that morning and failed to recognize each other, but they do pick up their friendship right where they left off. Through odd circumstances, Fumi meets an upperclassman, Sugimoto, and the two hit it off, Fumi feeling totally inadequate about dating the really popular captain of the basketball team. There's another girl who likes Sugimoto as well, and over the first few episodes, it seems like any single time any girl sees any other girl, she blushes and gets tongue-tied. I get that this fandom also likes to do the "everyone's a lesbian" thing, but when you're dealing with a more realistic setting, it can feel more out of place. But finally around the middle of the run, it's ironed out that there really only is the one pair of competing love interests, and things settle into a groove. No gaygnst here, as nobody reacts negatively to it, which is fine, since it could be realistic either way. It's a sweet coming of age story, where "coming of age" is the whole point. There's no strong resolution of any of the romances (for all that the opening credits show Fumi and Akira naked together, making it seem like that would be the outcome...), but it's one of the rare pieces that I think pulled that off well, just showing a wistful portrayal of a transformative period in a girl's life, ending more on an "and life goes on" note. I debated how to rate this, and I think it buries the lede so much that it's too misleading up front, initially (and maybe unfairly) seeming to paint Fumi as someone who falls in love at the drop of a hat and then pouts about it not working out. It takes a little getting into, but it was well worth it in the end. Art was pretty good and rather smoothly animated, and music was above average. Rating: good, and high in that range, relevant genres: drama, coming of age, yuri, romance.
And the couple of shorts I delved into:
Puppy Love (short film)—once in these spaces, I watched a bunch of animated shorts posted to YouTube and reviewed them. Another caught my eye, and this one is by a Korean studio called ChungKang Animation School (given the ubiquitous title of the film, you'd probably need that bit of info to find it). It's what it says on the tin: a story of a schoolgirl who admires a boy in her class. It's a tad clumsy about showing there are time skips, but the art style is cute, and there's something unusual about this boy. I particularly like the way she reacts to it. It's a sweet glimpse, open-ended in some ways and not others, and at only a couple minutes long, it won't waste your time. The music is a nicely atmospheric classical guitar piece. I might watch a few more things by this studio, but given its name, it's probably unlikely to be the same people who made any given one of them. Rating: good, relevant genres: slice of life, romance.
Metamorphoses (short film)—another short film billed as "award winning" on YouTube, this one from Russia. It mostly went over my head. I guess the main character is supposed to be autistic? I can't tell if that's what it was about. He sure reacts to being overstimulated or taken out of his comfort zone like that. The characters are anthropomorphic animals, but then maybe he isn't, and there's no explanation given for that. It's also pretty risky making the protagonist come across as really whiny without giving a justification for it until well later, so... cute enough in the end, but this just didn't land with me. Music was pretty good. Rating: decent, relevant genres: drama.
Seen any of these? Did I convince you to try any of them? I'd like to hear about it in the comments.
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Ooh, I've heard of Deca-Dence but didn't know anything about it. :O That sounds cool, and I have a suspicion about what's going on!
But Dragon Half though. :D So stupid that it only has two episodes, yet what a classic nevertheless!
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Dragon Half is so great! It's the perfect kind of stupid for me. Apparently the anime got a pretty poor reception so they never made any more than those two episodes.
5741307
and one can only wonder why :c
5741307
Have you read the manga?
Oh man, Dragon Half. I haven't thought about that in forever hahaha.
5741311
Nope. I went to Comic-Con way, way, way back in the early 90s and they had Dragon Half playing in an anime room. My friend and I were cracking up over it, so I bought a copy when I had a chance. I've never seen the manga on sale anywhere, and I've never really thought to look it up.
5741317
Given the nudity in the second episode, I'm surprised they were playing it somewhat publicly like that.
I do wonder what they were even thinking when they animated what they did. There's barely a coherent story going on, so it's not going to entice someone to the plot. It felt more like one of those series that only fans of the manga would enjoy, since it might be cool to see animated scenes of some scattered events familiar to them. But for bringing in new viewers? I can't imagine they thought this would do it. I kind of wish it had started with more of a proper setup, because it could have been the kind of wacky fun that Slayers was.
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The way-back part of my brain is recalling something a long time ago about the voice acting being really bad, but since I don't speak Japanese, I've never noticed if I'm actually right about that. Also, I've noticed that anime that's adapted from manga generally slavishly follow the manga nearly shot for shot a lot of the time. Maybe this one deviated enough to piss off fans. I have no idea, really.
5741318
Well, that nudity is like the very, very last thing to happen. It wouldn't surprise me at all if whoever put it on had watched twenty minutes and said, "Ah, this is harmless."
I've always assumed that the anime is basically what the manga is like. That's usually the case. They just did it in the same style with the same basic plot points. Since I haven't read it, that's just speculation on my part, but that's how these things usually go. It just didn't work for the fans for whatever reason.
5741320
fans of visual works, upset when moving adaptations do not recreate said works word for word?
this is a completely unheard of circumstance, which I'm sure has never been repeated in the course of history
I watched the first season of Shokugeki no Soma, and from what I gathered that's about what's worth watching; as in, the teen chefs are good, the cooking is good, the political drama elements are weak enough to be distracting. Ergo, I treated said first season like I do Chopped or the like, where it's more designed to show off good cooking than anything else, and once the first tournament wrapped up I was like "Cool, kid chefs have matured as people, forget about the loose threads involving Soma's dad and the secret council and whatall else, nicely done." From what I've gathered, the anime leans harder on the politics later on and eventually the food consultant left - i think due to pregnancy-related reasons? - at which point they stopped showcasing knowledge of cooking and just started throwing reality entirely out the window with secret gimmicky techniques instead, which further dampens my desire to watch further.
I'm surprised that your reaction to the music sounds fairly muted, though - I consider it one of the higher points of the show, with at least three tracks that I've stuck on a couple of my music playlists and listen to on a semiregular basis. (An opera snippet about the flavor of duck? a piano piece about the texture of tender meat? They're not supposed to go as hard as they do, but they do anyway).
I could have done without the sexualization, though. Not only was it distracting, it also makes it genuinely hard to recommend to people who don't watch much anime. since "please overlook the teen and adult women getting practically naked while tasting delicious food" is a hard sell that reinforces negative stereotypes about anime to folks who don't like or are on the fence about it.
5741387
Yeah, S1 of Food Wars basically tells you all you need to know about it, so unless you really like it, there's not a lot of point in continuing. I watch it because I watch most of whatever Toonami plays, but it wasn't something I looked forward to seeing. I've seen quotes before that pretty much any anime has that "just roll with it" thing that you'd have to tell a prospective anime watcher to gloss over, but it's so overdone here that I figure they want that to be the draw. I don't mind some fan service, but when the plot seems secondary to that, then it's probably too shallow for me to care about it.
5741491
I did a bit of digging, found out the main creator primarily did hentai before SnS got explosively popular. Which explains it, I guess, but doesn't really justify it, and I still wish it wasn't there.
Then again, I'm not sure my personal desires - five seasons of almost nothing but food battles, tournaments and culinary analysis - would appeal to most people. But dang it, i want to look at more strange and delicious curries set against each other by spunky teens to dramatic stringed instruments.
Agreed this season has been somewhat lackluster. I remember commenting at the beginning that trying out eight shows was the lowest I'd ever begun a season. Fortunately, next season is shaping up to be excellent.
5741624
Next season, there are a significant number of continuing series picking back up that I want to see. Of new starts, I haven't yet noticed a lot of what's premiering, but I'll look it up as we get closer. I've seen 2 or 3 announcements that caught my interest.