Pascoite gets bored and reviews anime, vol. 61 · 12:23am Dec 6th, 2023
End of the fall season is in sight, and there have been several rather good shows this time—a nice step up from a ho-hum summer. So the problem of having too much good stuff will persist. But two more down this week, featuring a romance series from about a decade ago, Ao Haru Ride, and a short supernatural drama movie from a couple years ago, Summer Ghost. Those and some more pretty good stuff, after the break.
Ao Haru Ride is mostly your standard high school romance series, but it does enough things from a different angle that it makes it stand out as more original. Plus Production I.G reliably does good work.
Futaba likes one boy in her class, Kou, and he seems to like her, too. They make plans to meet at the summer festival, but when another boy starts hounding her about it, she explodes and says she hates all boys. Of course Kou takes this to mean she didn't have any real interest in him.
I'll skip ahead for a moment to say that the first OVA is mostly a repeat of the first regular episode, but the second OVA is a new story that is ambiguous when it happens, though I think it's much more likely to take place after the finale than before it. Even if before, it'd be well toward the end of the series. Though it's mostly recycled material, the first OVA is still worth watching. It solidifies that Futaba really doesn't like boys in general. From the series alone, it seemed more like she was just lashing out at the one guy who was bothering her, but the first OVA makes it clear she does generally find boys annoying and immature. But Kou's an exception.
Kou unexpectedly moves away during summer break, and Futaba doesn't find out about it until school starts up again. As a second plot thread, she's also become aware that the girls like to gossip about her. She's naturally very cute, so they all say she just dolls up to impress the guys, and she must be very superficial. Her one friend is even menaced into abandoning her.
That's all preamble. She's in high school now, and to solve that particular problem, she's decided to reinvent herself as someone fun and approachable, who doesn't care about being seen as proper, wears her hair kind of messy, and has zero interest in dating. As designed, this wins her some new friends. But then she recognizes Kou in the crowd and finds out he's moved back. Despite her notably different appearance, he knew who she was from his first day back, and he's surprised it took her that long to recognize him.
He also knows what she's been up to, and he has some harsh words for her about it.
You've probably seen shows like this that take a gamble. Kou comes across as an asshole right away, and it takes some time before you find out why and what his motivations are. That can sour viewers on a show when you have an unlikable main character, and they might not stick around to get the justification for it if it's not provided rather soon. But you'd be rewarded for staying with this one. Yes, he's blunter than he needs to be, but he's not wrong, and Futaba needed to hear a frank comment on who she's become.
Of course this will lead to romantic tension, and of course they'll introduce another character tailor made for a love triangle. But for my money, a lot of it was done well. First, the good.
Futaba is led to form a new circle of friends after Kou prods her to give up playing at being popular, and she very deliberately picks one to make a statement about how she'd been treated in the past. So her motivation's not completely altruistic here, but I still appreciated what she was doing. There's the cliched student pining after a teacher as well, and as often as anime tends to say hey, it's not that bad, I like how this was handled. And for all that the reason behind Kou himself being a different person now was also cliched (making him a nice antithesis to Futaba), it was also developed into a deeper reason why he's become so stoic, where many shows would leave that as superficial, undermining the whole point he was making. I also liked that it's implied that the changes each one of them has made to themselves aren't uniformly bad. For all that Futaba wanted to create a new personality for herself then got criticized by Kou for it, she only corrects her course on the company she keeps and the attitude she has toward other people. She still keeps her hair messy and comes across as a little tomboyish, which doesn't bother Kou, and it shouldn't: there's nothing wrong with being those things if they're who you are.
What went wrong? Well, Kou lambasting Futaba for her shallowness did lead to a rift between her and her initial set of friends, and while that's revisited a couple of times, one of the girls seemed torn about it, and I wish they'd taken that somewhere. I would have also liked to see some more depth from a girl named Murao the group later befriends. You never learn anything about her. She is yet another example of someone being coaxed out of their shell, but her background and her motivations for wanting to be part of this group are vague at best.
Despite the series and even the possibly post-series OVA coming out before the manga ended, that OVA does heavily imply closure, so it's not as open an ending as romance series usually are, especially ones made from an unfinished manga. Overall, a nice piece about both Futaba and Kou coming to a stark realization about how they're managing their lives. Art is like a number of other things by this studio around the same time (2014), but they're consistently good. Music was very good, too.
Rating: very good.
Blue Spring Ride, 12 episodes + 2 OVAs, relevant genres: romance, drama, coming of age.
Summer Ghost is pretty short, under 40 minutes, including credits. And I'm impressed with how much they managed to pack into that time. I'm also surprised that movies this short actually get theatrical releases, unless they're packaged with another to fill out at least 90 minutes. The original version came out in late 2021, and the dub in early 2022.
High school student Tomoya was already friends with Ryo. The two guys later became friends with a girl, Aoi, but I think they actually met for the first time twice. Maybe. There are some bits of the movie shown out of order, and when they meet at a restaurant, they introduce themselves to her. Yet another scene shows Tomoya encountering her before, though possibly not in a way where they would have learned each other's names, so... I dunno.
Anyway, they share an interest in a local urban legend that if you light sparklers at a particular disused rural airport during the summer, a ghost will appear, who's been reported as a teenage girl with long hair wearing a dark dress. It's unclear why they want to see her, beyond simple curiosity, but the implication is that they all have somewhat of a strained relationship with life, under different circumstances for each, which is required to see the ghost in the first place. Rumor also has it that the cliche of unfinished business keeping her around is that she killed herself.
They're about to give up when she appears. Normally that's all she'll do, but she gives them each an opportunity to ask her a question. Not surprisingly, each one asks something relevant to their personal situation. Then she has to go, but they promise to return, and she tells them her name is Ayane.
I liked Ayane's characterization. It's rare she's ever spoken to anyone, so she must see something in them to prod her into wanting to interact, and over their repeated visits, she develops a friendship with them, but Tomoya more than the others. She confides in him what's keeping her there, and she's touched that he wants to help, but she also doesn't want to be a burden.
The little bits of flashback they show and just the minutiae of character interactions do a great job of fleshing everyone out in the limited time. I felt I knew these characters better than some from series that go on for a dozen episodes or more. That takes skilled storytelling.
If I were to look for negatives, I would note two things. One, there's a second ghost they meet, and it's not evident at all what unfinished business that one would have, which makes that bit seem to be there more for plot convenience than anything. And when they do help the people Ayane left behind get closure, it's not clear that it's done in a way they would. Presumably, everything would come to light, but just from the bit you see, it's not a no-brainer that it would, and it seemed an odd way to go about it.
Art was a bit on the sketch-like side, but it was very good, and the music was also good. And I was pleased with the restraint they showed; it could have been very maudlin, if they wanted it to be, but that tends to make things feel cheaper, as if it can't speak for itself and needs hype to make it powerful. So, good call on that.
Rating: very good.
Short movie, relevant genres: drama, supernatural.
And some more reviews, and all these were good ones this time.
A Letter to Momo (Momo e no Tegami, movie)—made in 2011 but not widely distributed until 2012. Young girl Momo gets into a fight with her father for reasons which are explained later, but it ends up being the last time she sees him before he dies. When going through his things, she finds a letter he started writing to her, but he never got past "Dear Momo." She's always wondered what he meant to say. Her mother then moves them from Tokyo to a somewhat rural coastal area where her aunt lives so she can study at nursing school. As much as anime loves the transfer student trope, Momo actually doesn't change schools, instead doing distance learning at her old school. I wonder if that was a real thing in Japan that long ago. It's pretty commonplace here now, but even a few years ago, much less 2011, it wasn't. But Momo starts to notice odd things happening around the house and traces it to three supernatural creatures only she can see. They're mostly a nuisance to her, but in secret they're supposed to be watching over her and her mother on her father's behalf. There's really nothing unexpected here. The plot revolves around them trying to fit in amid Momo having to deal with the spirits, but it's still a good example of the plot, and it's a sweet story. Yes it's all going to come to a head for some climactic moment, though the drama was never that serious. This is almost closer to slice of life, and those thrive on how good their character work is, which is definitely a strong point. As to things it could have done better, it did seem a little odd how immediately accepting all the other kids were of Momo, especially since she's very standoffish to them. One boy interacts with her the most, and his little sister can see the spirits too, something I wish had gotten developed more. I feared it would be a completely dropped plot point, but it does get a small reprise at the end. And Momo taking the blame for the mischief the spirits had caused—it's implied her mother eventually would have come to believe her, but it still feels like that was a dropped plot thread as well. Art was good but didn't look like the usual from Production I.G. To me, it resembled Ghibli a lot, with a little Satoshi Kon thrown in. Music wasn't particularly notable either way, so average. Rating: good, relevant genres: drama, coming of age, supernatural.
Eden of the East (Higashi no Eden, 11 episodes + 3 movies)—the first movie, Air Communication, is just an edited compilation of the series, and I didn't watch it, but the other two movies, The King of Eden and Paradise Lost, are the conclusion to the series, and thus essential to it. I like the overall story and concept here, and I was tempted to rate it higher, but it feels a little too unfocused at times, and the first movie felt awfully slow-paced without covering much plot. It's kind of confusing at first, and it takes a while for the various plot threads to coalesce. College student Saki was visiting New York City and decided to take a side trip to Washington, D.C. There, she encounters a naked guy brandishing a gun but who has no memories. He helps her return to Japan amid turmoil resulting from apparent terrorist attacks: a number of missiles had hit Tokyo some time before, but oddly with no casualties as the areas had been oh-so-conveniently evacuated. Except another missile has hit. Thread two: Saki's classmates returned without her and are now supposed to pick her up at the airport, but they can't get there due to the security concerns. So Saki goes with the formerly naked guy, Takizawa, and has to hang out with him for a while. He has an odd phone he can use to make pretty much anything happen that he wants, and amid Saki reuniting with her friends, who are all starting an internet search company together, they uncover a sort of conspiracy. Takizawa is one of a secret group who are competing to improve Japan using a set financial resource and whatever means they desire. Only he apparently erased his memory of what he'd been doing and might have been involved in the missile attacks. Thus starts their investigation into figuring out what's going on and if they want to champion Takizawa's cause or try shutting down the whole thing. The ending had an oddly hippie-culture feel to it. Art was very good for its time, and I'm still tearing my hair out trying to decide what it reminds me of. Saki in particular, not just the art style, but her character design as well, struck me hard as something I've seen nearly identically before, but a perusal of the studio's other properties didn't ring a bell. Music was fine, notable for Oasis making the opening song. The closing song was pretty good, too, with great visuals. Rating: good, but high in that range, relevant genres: drama, thriller, mystery.
Pantheon Season 2 (8 episodes)—I don't like to review things piecemeal, but when I covered season 1 back in volume 49, all indications were that the series had been cancelled and wouldn't continue. Then season 2 came out in its entirety a few weeks ago, amid some mixed signals about whether it was still an AMC+ property or not. I'm still not sure. After season 1 left off as there being a conflict over the ethics of people uploading their consciousnesses electronically and various cloak-and-dagger organizations having their own opinions on the matter, this picks up with it escalating to being publicly known and everyone making their own decisions of whether to upload. This leads to the online society advancing far more quickly and questions about whether they're the same species anymore. It gets big, and YMMV a lot. I usually dislike the tendency for shows in general and anime specifically to make everything epic. It's always got to be a grand scale, global conspiracies if not galactic. But what gets my interest more reliably is the character focus, which usually works better on smaller-scale happenings. This went so over the top that I use my usual yardstick for such things, Gurren Lagann. In fact, it shares a lot with it, in that it starts with a focus on just a couple of characters dealing with a fairly limited problem, but then blossoms into galaxy-wide conflict by the end. That right there should tell you if it's your kind of thing. Me, I find such hyperbole eye-rolling more often than not. It's a good example of the genre, though. At this point, I think they've concluded the plot, but I could be wrong. Art was very good, music was barely there but fine. Rating: good, relevant genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller.
Pumpkin Scissors (24 episodes)—this anime started in 2006, adapting a manga that started in 2002, but after over 20 years, it's still going, so this show had zero hope of coming to any closure. As you'd expect from something that long-running, there are a whole lot of threads, and the anime leaves a lot of them feeling tangential and underdeveloped. At its core, this is about the titular military unit of a Germany-like country who is assigned to help rebuild after a recently concluded war. Specifically, they're supposed to implement aid programs for the citizenry and root out corruption. All six members of the team get their moments to shine, but the focus is on its field commander, Alice, who is the daughter of a noble family set to inherit a title, but who has an almost naive idealism about how she can help everyone. She's a great character, and she reminds me a lot of Tasha Yar from TNG in both personality and appearance (though, oddly, I never liked Tasha's character much). The other female, the chief's aide, is adorable as well. Most episodes are disconnected missions, but toward the end, there are some longer arcs suggesting a hand manipulating things behind the scenes, though you never get to see that resolved. It at least does finish on a note showing they've made some progress and gained the peoples' faith. Oh, and they have a military dog as well, Mercury, who's also adorable. I haven't even mentioned the other main character, a hulk of a man named Randel, who's suffering from PTSD. There's a lot of focus given to his mysterious background and implication of being some kind of experimental super-soldier, but that never goes anywhere, and to me was the weakest thread. When his conditioning compels him to act, it's supposed to look ominous, but feels over the top and comical at times, plus the authoritative voice in his head ordering him in German to kill... and using the polite form of the command? Alice being subject to a somewhat arranged marriage is yet another storyline that's left hanging. Fighting action was pretty good, though, and Alice was such a likeable character that I overall enjoyed this. Background music was pretty good, and the closing song was in zydeco style, a strange fit. Art's pretty standard for its time. Rating: good, relevant genres: drama, thriller, action.
Seen any of these? Did I convince you to try any of them? I'd like to hear about it in the comments.
Last 10:
vol. 51 here
vol. 52 here
vol. 53 here
vol. 54 here
vol. 55 here
vol. 56 here
vol. 57 here
vol. 58 here
vol. 59 here
vol. 60 here
And:
Season 3 of Hilda is supposed to start on Netflix on Thursday!
Mike
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Oh, finally! I'd watch it myself surreptitiously, but I got the family interested as well, so I rewatched S1-2 with them. I'll have to wait until we visit the in-laws again and have access to their Netflix.
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And y'all watched:
The movie, too? The one that wraps up season 2 and resolves all the cliffhangers?
Mike
oh my god, I have no idea how much I watched, but I loved Pumpkin Scissors :D
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But it left more questions open!
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Of course!
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It had its slow patches and it comes to no resolutions about any plot threads, which is what kept it from a higher rating for me, but I liked what was there. The dog and the sergeant major were really cute, plus Alice was a cool character.