Pascoite gets bored and reviews anime, vol. 4 · 2:07am Mar 10th, 2021
Switching up the title a bit so it's more obvious what actually happens in these blogs. As I noted last time, I'm going to come back to a couple of movies in this edition, plus some quick-hit reviews of the rest as I start at the top of the alphabet. Featured movies are A Silent Voice and A Whisker Away, after the break.
One criticism I've seen of A Silent Voice is that the studio turns out movies that have very similar plots, so you only need to watch one of them. While I can understand that, if variety is important to you, I don't mind that so much. Maybe it'd keep me from watching all of them in a row, but just like reading one really good shipfic here doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy reading any others, having a similar theme or plot or whatever isn't going to preclude me from watching another. Good is good. Mediocre, yeah, I don't need another of one I've already seen, but I have a couple other things by this studio on my to-watch list (most notably Your Name) that I still want to see.
Wow. This was a powerful movie. It's kind of hard to discuss it in a spoiler-free way, but that has more to do with the pacing. If you buy the DVD and read the blurb on the back, it's going to reveal things that don't happen until more than halfway through, but that's kind of unavoidable, because they're the whole point of the movie, so avoiding them in a description would leave you with little to talk about.
There's a boy named Shoya who's tying up some loose ends in his life when he suddenly realizes a big one he'd forgotten about. He heads off to see to it, and then we enter flashback mode. To be blunt, Shoya was an ass as a kid. He was a bully, and his closest friends were (no surprise) just as shallow and nasty. A deaf girl transfers to the school, and she is almost Mary-Sue like in how she's just so sweet and in earnest about wanting to be friends with everyone. At first, the other students find her interesting, but once the curiosity wears off, the bully faction quickly makes her a target, to the point she can't take it anymore, and her mother transfers her to yet another school.
Sounds simple, right? Well, the movie goes through this so slowly that it takes up about half the running time. Slow doesn't mean boring, though, and that's one of the things we writers can struggle with. When something in the past informs what's happening in the present, how quickly do you move through that material? If you barely touch on it, then it feels too superficial, and the reader's not going to be emotionally invested in it enough to have a strong reaction. Especially with things like romances, it's often better to show those developing gradually than to jump from first meeting to kissy face. Too much, though, and it can get boring. This movie is one of the rare cases I've seen where really taking its time still hit that sweet spot of bringing it all alive without getting boring.
Finally, we pop to the present, and the one thing Shoya still had on his to-do list: he's in high school now, and for several years, he'd meant to track down this girl (Shoko) and apologize to her. She'd been on his mind a lot, and he'd learned sign language in the meantime out of interest. Right as the flashback starts, he says so; it's not spoiling the purpose of the flashback to reveal that. However, that is, as they say, where the real story begins. She doesn't seem to have changed, just as quick to forgive as ever, but maybe that's just on the surface. Maybe Shoya felt the need to apologize but still had never really internalized what he should be sorry for. That's the stuff I'm not going to spoil, but I will say more of those old classmates get brought in, and it's interesting to see which ones have changed and which ones haven't.
There are a few plot points that struck me as odd, particularly what happens during the fireworks show. It's not that I found the characters' choices implausible; it's that I didn't quite find it plausible why they would choose to act right at that moment. There were one or two other instances of the same thing. But after I watched the movie, I read some discussions about it, and was more or less convinced that in a particular mindset, they might have.
The last thing I want to bring up is another entry in the "what anime tropes are actually representative of real life" category I mentioned last time. The one here is melodramatic apologies. I realize politeness and etiquette are big things in Japan, but if someone has committed a transgression against another (which, depending on the show, isn't even necessarily a very serious one), they literally bow down to the ground and repeatedly beg for the aggrieved party's forgiveness. Is... that a thing? In extreme cases, I guess I could see it, but not as such a public display. I have a gut feeling this one's an exaggeration, but I dunno.
Rating: excellent. Relevant genres: drama, romance
Next up: A Whisker Away (Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu). I liked this quite a bit, but I think it suffers a little in comparison to The Cat Returns, since they have similar plots. Really similar.
At least they start out different. Middle school student Miyo is a bit of a free spirit and definitely considered weird by many of her classmates. She particularly likes a boy named Hinode, who's at least friendly to her. He works in his family's pottery studio. She encounters a mysterious person who gives her a mask, and she discovers she can use it to turn into a cat. Furthermore, when she goes around town in cat form, she finds that Hinode is particularly affectionate toward her. What's a girl to do? Get the attention she wants but without Hinode knowing it's her? Or continue her fruitless flirting with him as Miyo?
Well, she opts for the former, to the point she loses the ability to turn back into a human. And that ability is a commodity: it is acquired by a cat who particularly wants to be human. That's when things take a rather The Cat Returns way, where the race is on to rescue the girl from permanently becoming a cat, against the forces of magic and bureaucracy. It's still cute, though I do have one major hangup about it. I found it incredibly disappointing (spoiler, but maybe it'll head off you being disappointed by it too) that Hinode didn't figure out Miyo's secret or that Miyo didn't admit it to him. It's revealed to Hinode by a third party, and I just found that really aniticlimactic. Miyo's not there at the time, so there still is a confrontation of sorts when he tells her that he knows, but it's just less powerful than it could have been.
Rating: very good. Relevant genres: drama, romance, fantasy
And to the quick hit reviews of the rest!
.hack//SIGN (26 episodes plus multiple sequels)—I suspect I just caught this one at a bad time. I started watching in the middle, when there were 3 or 4 episodes with nothing but people sitting around talking, then logging off and talking some more IRL, and I gave up on it at that point. Though I'm not particularly fond of the "experience the game as if it's real" genre, so maybe it wouldn't have appealed to me anyway. Rating: decent. Relevant genres: adventure, fantasy
A Place Further than the Universe (13 episodes, Sora yori mo Tooi Basho)—Wanderer D recommended this to me. Nice slice of life where a high school girl gets a bit ostracized for her dream of going to Antarctica, so she puts her money where her mouth is and makes it happen. Along the way, she gains some really mismatched companions who don't even really ever consider themselves actual friends, but they're all going for different reasons, and they all have some way of getting it all to work. And in the end, why not? How many people can say they've been there? Rating: good. Relevant genres: slice of life.
Aeon Flux (21 episodes)—I'm talking about the original series that aired on MTV a long time ago here. This was more weird for weird's sake than having a coherent plot, but at least it kept me interested. It's just a surrealist thing about rebellions and political intrigue, and I don't think it even came to a conclusion. Rating: decent. Relevant genres: sci-fi, drama, artsy.
After the Rain (12 episodes, Koi wa Ameagari no Yo)—A high school track star named Akira hurts her leg enough to sideline her from the team for a while, which leads to her feeling disconnected from everything, and she starts using it as an excuse to remain that way. She also decides she's falling in love with the middle-aged manager from where she works part time, and he tries to rebuff her as gently as he can without making her feel bad. There's some obvious creep factor to this, but it does eventually go away, and this ends up being a fairly sweet tale in the end. Rating: good. Relevant genres: slice of life, drama.
Akame ga Kill! (24 episodes)—Not bad for an action show of fighting against a repressive regime, and I like the concept behind the magical weapons and how they work. This doesn't come to a very decisive end, though, just the promise that things are headed in the right direction, I guess? Some series can pull that off, but this just felt more vague and... more like sequel bait that never got picked up. It also always strikes me as weird when the title character isn't who the series is about, but maybe she plays a more prominent role in the manga. I would have liked it more if not for the underwhelming ending. Rating: decent. Relevant genres: adventure, fantasy.
Akira (movie)—Unpopular opinion time. I know this is considered an all-time classic. I have no doubt that it was quite groundbreaking for its time, but I've seen pretty much the same premise done multiple times since, and better, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't see it until maybe 10 years ago, and it just didn't leave much impression on me, but then I don't care that much about cyberpunk. Rating: decent. Relevant genres: action, drama, sci-fi.
Seen any of these, or did any of these blogs prompt you to try something out? Let me know in the comments. I'd like to hear what you think.
Akame ga Kill was a weird one for me. The magical weapons were a cool concept, and I liked a lot of them. And it was an interesting idea to make it a rule that whenever two people with special weapons fight, one of them must die... except that they paired that with everybody important having one. So early on, it was a great source of tension, but then it's just the norm for almost every important fight scene, and I think it could've been applied much more intelligently.
And then the ending left a massively bad taste in my mouth. It went so far out of its way to kill off main characters, and then if I remember correctly there's like an end note saying basically yes they did topple the evil regime but they were Morally Ambiguous assassins so nobody gave a crap about them. I can handle a tragic ending, even if it's for a character I like, but this one felt like it was really going out of its way to be miserable and depressing for the sake of it and it felt like I was being punished for liking any of these people.
But I was generally enjoying it up until the later bits, so Decent sounds about right? I thought it started off fairly strong, and I liked a couple of the antagonists a fair bit, so probably there's enough to balance the ending somewhat.
Kinda funny what we accepted as good anime (or tv generally) back in the 90s. Lot more choice these days.
I really liked a Whisker Away, I think we talked about it for a bit.
But glad you enjoyed A Place Further than the Universe!
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The only reason I could figure that Akame is the title character is because she was the only one left alive at the end. Well, except for the leader, and even she has an indeterminate (but probably short) lifespan left to her anyway. But then it later occurred to me she might be more of a main character in the manga. I agree, it felt like an "everybody dies" show without much justification for it. Contrast that with something like Rogue One, where it was obvious pretty early on it would be an "everybody dies" movie, but it didn't feel so much like a cheap tactic, since they all had a reason to.
Also agreed that it started off strong but fizzled out. There are some shows I liked the strong beginning enough that the weak ending didn't sour me on the series as a whole, but this one just left me with too much of a bad taste to let the early going save it.
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There's not a lot that holds up to enough time. I've rewatched a few things I loved in the 80s and 90s, and most were either terrible or just okay. To a degree, that can't be helped, just due to technology. I was a big TNG fan, and if you're in 1995, the special effects look amazing, especially compared to TOS. Now that we're 25 years further on, a lot of that doesn't look so good anymore.
A curious thing 'bout Aeon Flux: here, in Brasil, when it was aired by our MTV, it was presented yo us as a metaphor for AIDS, sex and modern society. Nothing to do with rebelions amd such.
So, 15 years (I think) old me really, REAAAAAALLY tried to understand, and like, it at the time.
And, now, you come and shows me I had the wrong mindset to understand this thing. Probably the wrong age too...but a correct perspective could make things easier to me.
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To be fair, the rebellion was the surface level story. It's quite possible all that other stuff is subtext to it and I just missed it all. It wasn't a show I paid a great deal of attention to, so I easily could have missed the deeper meaning.
Golden Boy is a hilarious anime. Although, you might be put off by the sexual content. There's a lot of it, although it does somehow become woven into the plot of each episode. If you want to check it out, the series is only six episodes. They use to be available on YouTube, although now I'm not sure where to find the show.
I recommend the Englished dubbed version as that is the best version.
The Shape of Voice A Silent Voice is great. Like, sure, it has its flaws, but when it works it really works.
I find the fireworks scene really interesting, in that I'm not quite sure why I buy that the characters would act that way, but it just feels right? Idk. I can totally see why it might feel strange though.
Mild spoilers the one major issue imo is the way they leave the relationship. They seem to want to leave the romantic aspect ambiguous, and like...structurally, it's a romance, right? Feels more unresolved than anything else.
But yeah, great movie.
A Place Further than the Universe is pretty fun as well.
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I could see that the romance felt unresolved. It didn't bother me much, because I thought Shoya realized he hadn't been pursuing it for quite the right reasons, just like he realized his urge to apologize to Shoko wasn't originally coming from quite the right place. So he hit the reset button, started fresh, and see where things go now. There's definitely interest on her part, so I think it's one of those open endings that still heavily implies what direction it's headed, but yeah, that'll hit different people different ways, depending on where they sit on the spectrum of wanting a more definitive answer. So while I didn't mind the way they left it, I don't think it would have hurt to show a real romance starting, especially if it's going to be tagged as a romance.
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Golden Boy is amazing, if you are in the right mood. Not something for woke society. The guy is, at the same time, the more perverted human being in the world, and the nicest person.
Typical smooth 80's animation, simple, but very well done. The motivations seems odd, at first, he wants to "gather experience" with any kind of job he can get. I love the TI chapter:
"Do you know how to work with computers ?"
"Sure !"
"Perfect, tou can begin right now."
* sits at desk *
"Ma'am...where do I turning on this computer ?"
Classic.
Ah, .hack//SIGN. My sister (who was far more into anime than I was) absolutely adored this show. I never really got into it, but had to watch it because we had only one TV at the time and she, being my elder, usually got to pick what we watched. She saw literally everything that was put out in this particular franchise/series and even 100% completed the entire video game despite regularly complaining about the gameplay mechanics in it being crap.
Still don't know what she saw in it. That said, the music was by Yuki Kajiura, so of course it was awesome.