Pascoite gets bored and reviews anime, vol. 35 · 11:50pm Jun 14th, 2022
Going to be a lot of entries to talk about this week, but I won't crowd the blurb with why. Featured items are a series, Witch Hunter Robin, and a new-ish movie, Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop, after the break, along with several other series I liked quite a bit.
And why will this be a long list this week? I went on something akin to a Wikiwalk. I'd seen mention of a good animated short, so I went to watch it on YouTube, then it started suggesting other shorts that were hailed as "award-winning," so I followed up with any such suggestions until I'd spent a couple hours at it.
But getting to the featured items... Witch Hunter Robin is a series I don't see discussed much, and when I do, it seems more often than not, the person didn't like it. Not sure what resonated with me about it, but I found it cool.
Main character Robin is a witch, and in this world, that means they have a single unique power that they don't have to develop—it's just inherently there. The Catholic Church (once again, see the "anime doesn't understand how Catholicism works" trope) recruits such people who don't fall victim to their own corruption in order to fight the majority who do. So it's yet another "people with supernatural powers fighting each other" show, but a fairly early example of it.
When they capture a witch, they get imprisoned in a bath of a special liquid that disables their powers and carted off to... somewhere. But it's all above the board. Honest. Robin's crew gets sent out on various missions to recover these people, but it becomes evident that something dishonest is going on in the background, to where even the witch hunters themselves start to be targeted.
Like any such show, it can be interesting to see what powers they come up with and what strategies the good guys use to counter them. And of course as the main character, Robin herself will prove to have a significant role in why everything is happening this way. She's trying to serve two competing interests, and I found her highly sympathetic, and by the end, there's the usual expository infodump about the true nature of witches. Not always the best method for delivering such info, but at least it was an interesting take on their origin (though one I have seen other times as well).
The first half is more episodic fights, while the second takes on more of a continuous story about the intrigue threatening to overtake Robin. I thought the art was rather good for its time, and the music was pretty good, too. Definitely on the darker side, so if you like a grittier take on police-type investigations of supernatural events, this is a good series to tackle.
Rating: very good.
26 episodes, relevant genres: mystery, thriller, supernatural, action, drama.
Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop is a pretty recent movie that was billed as a light high school romance. That's accurate, and I'm glad I didn't let the low-key description put me off, because it was really good.
It drops you right in the middle of things at first, with a couple of teenagers running amok through a mall, and it's a little misleading about the conflicts involved. Pretty much all of the kids get along to a degree, though at first it almost seems like the plot might focus on confrontations between them. It even takes a bit for the action to transfer over to Cherry (so called because his last name is Sakura) watching it happen. It does a good job of making seemingly unrelated events connect, all tied into this mall.
Cherry goes there because he helps out at an elderly day care center on site, and he hangs out with the other kids on the roof when he has spare time. There's also a girl named Yuki, but who's better known for her online personality Smile. She wears a mask in all her videos, somewhat indirectly leading to nobody knowing what she really looks like. She's there to see the orthodontist.
This movie does a great job of constructing the two characters in parallel (so many of the side characters are great, too, including the guy wreaking havoc at the start, who has multiple plot points about being able to speak Japanese well but not write it). Cherry loves to write haiku, and he's old-school about it. He doesn't mind people reading what he's written, but he's incredibly self-conscious about reading it aloud. Smile is incredibly self-conscious about her teeth, not only because she wears braces, but because she has buck teeth. Hence the mask. Ironic that someone named Smile never actually has her smile shown.
All that ruckus in the start leads to Cherry and Smile getting knocked over and inadvertently switching phones. Smile first takes the initiative to call her phone and see who has it, upon which Cherry's friends immediately recognize her and go nuts that he knows her. So begins an unusual friendship.
A new plot thread starts up soon after, and even though this movie runs on the short side, I think it was a good idea to generate that extra momentum, as it's pretty slow-paced overall. Smile ends up helping out Cherry at his job, and one of the old men there becomes obsessed with finding an old album he lost, and given the state of his memory, who knows how long ago he lost it. The shared adventure provides a nice way for the two to connect and become closer. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.
A sweet story with so many enjoyable characters: yes, please. The music is quirky but very good, and I liked the art style, all geometric, a bit distorted at times and filled with bright, saturated color. That's a bit of a trend lately, but it worked well here. Just make sure you pay attention to the still shot after the closing credits.
Rating: very good.
Saida no Yo ni Kotoba ga Wakiagaru, movie, relevant genres: romance, slice of life, drama.
I'll shuffle all those short films to the end, so other things first.
Bloom into You (Yagate Kimi ni Naru, 13 episodes)—I had mixed feelings about this. The music is very good, and the art is a little different style, but still nice. Main character Yuu is the kind of person who can't really say no when people ask her to do something. The show opens with her not far into her first year of high school, when everyone's fretting about what clubs to join. Her homeroom teacher suggests she help out with student council with an eye toward joining it, and it turns out he has an ulterior motive, as they suffer from a lack in participation, which is kind of odd, given the prestige anime always attributes to it. Anyway, Yuu has some self-esteem issues, most immediately that when she graduated middle school, a boy who was friends with her confessed a crush and has been waiting for an answer for over a month now. Yuu doesn't feel anything for him but can't bring herself to say so. The student council room is on a remote part of campus, and while trying to find it, Yuu overhears a boy confessing his love for a girl, who declines, but she does so very gracefully. This is just what Yuu needs. So after meeting this girl, Touko, and staying after the council activity, she asks for help, and... it goes off without a hitch. Touko was the same way, never feeling any sort of spark for anyone, except now she's decided she does. For Yuu. After knowing her for one day. And this is where things got weird for me. On the surface, it's kind of a sweet love story between two people who have similar issues with trust and identity, but Yuu knows immediately that she doesn't feel the same way for Touko. At first, Touko tries to drum up interest by kissing her, but later devolves into her preferring it to be a one-sided thing, for reasons that do make sense, but it was a bit disturbing seeing Yuu become essentially a punching bag. Not that she endures violence, just in the sense that she's put in a position where she's supposed to absorb Touko's need to hold and kiss her whenever the whim strikes. Had it been portrayed as something a bit disturbing, I could have bought it better, but it sure felt to me like it was supposed to be sweet or endearing, even with everyone's mental issues. It even comes to a weak conclusion (no surprise, as the manga wasn't finished at the time), and interestingly, the last line of dialogue is much more conclusive in the dub. I only know because the dub I watched was patched together from two sources, and that episode didn't have text translated, so I watched the sub of it to see what phone message Yuu had been sending just before. Then it follows them through their council activities for the next several months, pretty standard fare for the genre, and some usual school drama pops up, though there's a well-done allegorical subplot about a school play. Good character work, nice aesthetics, but some creep factor that, to me, never got acknowledged as creepy. Rating: good, relevant genres: drama, romance, yuri.
Welcome to the N.H.K. (N.H.K. ni Yokoso!, 24 episodes)—this was a roller-coaster ride. It seems to change what it's about several times. The first episode is especially misleading, as it's a very sardonic take on a character seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. While that never goes away, it's not the main thread. (By the way, NHK is a Japanese TV network, which will always be a target for conspiracy theorists.) Main character Sato is a shut-in, but actually not all that bad of one. He gets annoyed with an anime theme constantly getting blasted from the next apartment, only to find the guy who lives there is an old high school friend of his. So they rekindle their friendship, which takes several amusing directions, like them fumbling their way through otaku conventions or trying to develop their own hentai game. Sato also encounters a younger girl named Misaki, who takes it upon herself to cure him. She makes him meet her in the park every evening, with a contract stating he'll do so with severe penalties for failing to, and their meetings usually focus on her lecturing him about subjects she clearly has only a superficial knowledge of, especially the psychology of fixing him. It's kind of funny to watch at first, but then it just gets sad. This is a phrase I've used to describe a couple of other series before, but it's a constant parade of broken people. Not severely broken in this case, at least most of them—it's very much a dark comedy, with there being fridge horror behind what on the surface is pretty humorous. Just be aware it may become uncomfortable if you've got any of the same mental illness issues these people do, but I enjoyed it a lot. It pretty skillfully melds humor, tension, and actual drama. I also like the character design, but then I like the aesthetic of Yoshitoshi ABe anyway. Art was pretty good for its time, music fine. Rating: good, relevant genres: dark comedy, drama, slice of life.
Winx Club (208 episodes + 4 specials)—I probably only saw the first season or two, so on the order of 20-30 episodes. I alluded to this one in my review of W.I.T.C.H. last week, the Disney equivalent to this Nickelodeon show. They have very similar magical girl plots, except that in Winx Club, there's not some central princess the girls are trying to protect, and there's much more of a Harry Potter vibe, in that there's a formalized academy where everyone learns how to use their powers. There's even a boys' school for training heroes. It's a fine enough show, and the variety of powers can be cool. I always like the aesthetic of complementary powers that are more effective when used as a team. Aimed at a younger audience as it is, the conflict is always going to be on the uncomplicated side, along with hitting a bunch of tropes, like the arc where the main character Bloom turns evil. A quirky animation style takes a bit of getting used to, with impossibly stick-thin waifs (waif waifu?). Music was average. I liked this show more for its variety, W.I.T.C.H. more for its character design and somewhat more sophisticated plot. Really, they're so similar that if you like one, you'll probably like both, but Winx also has the advantage of not stopping cold because it got cancelled. Rating: decent, relevant genres: action, fantasy, drama.
Witchblade (24 episodes)—an anime take on the comic that spawned an earlier live-action series, which wifey liked. I saw this as part of IFC's short-lived Friday anime lineup, but I don't think they ever got to the end. I certainly don't remember seeing the ending. Masane is a woman who was found at the site of a disaster, and she lost her memory, but now she has possession of a bracelet that turns her into a fierce warrior. She tries to use the power for good, though she's a little out of her mind when in that form and can have trouble controlling herself. This attitude pits her against a shady corporation that has similar warriors under its influence, as well as some allies with shifting loyalties. And all that is a time sink she can't abide while trying to raise her adoptive daughter, who may have some similar talents of her own. The music was fine, and so was the art, but I've never been that interested in situations where the violence is eroticized, so I was a bit put off. If that doesn't bother you, then it's a pretty good action show with some intrigue piled on. Rating: decent, relevant genres: action, mystery, dark.
Wolf's Rain (26 episodes + 4 OVAs)—ah yes, the overhyped show from the makers of Cowboy Bebop. The announcement of such a project had everyone drooling, but when the actual show aired... I sure didn't find many people who cared for it. Just kind of a dark, brooding thing that reminds me of a shallow grab for teen werewolf/vampire mania, this followed opposing clans of wolves who can take on human appearance but are significantly more powerful than humans. One group would like to stop living in the shadows and just dominate mankind while the other is fine blending in and living in secret. They were thought to be extinct, which is related to a legend that wolves will be the first to recognize paradise when it comes, with the aid of a special maiden. There will be lots of fights and death along the way, and I could just never be made to care about any of it. Yoko Kanno did the music, so of course it's good, and this studio has great art as well. It just felt like too generic a plot, the pacing was poor, and production issues led to the ending being pushed off the original run's docket and to the OVA market. Rating: meh, relevant genres: action, dark fantasy.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (movie)—a beginning almost identical to the recent live-action movie's leads to a different plot about a plan to invade her home island by a criminal organization. There's nothing really complicated here. It's just going to be repeated fights against a group of villains and henchmen with escalating powers, with the common wrinkle thrown in of someone from Diana's past turning out to be on the wrong side and in need of redemption. That angle was played well, and if the plot doesn't surprise, at least it's a quality take on it, and the production values are good. If you like superhero stuff in general or Wonder Woman in particular, it's definitely worth watching. I'm not someone normally into superheroes much, and I still liked it. Rating: good, relevant genres: action, drama, superhero.
And now on to the parade of short films. I kept to the shorter ones, so I think these were all in the 3-9 minute range. I will say I found them a little on the disappointing side. Not that they were bad, just that they almost universally went for low-hanging emotional fruit, exemplified in how many of them dealt with death and single parents, often both. After only really enjoying two of these, I called it quits after a couple hours of trying them out. Again, these are all available to watch on YouTube. First, the good ones:
Let's Eat (short film)—this is only about 8 minutes long, and it can be tough to find, since there are numerous things by the same title. There's some I'm reading between the lines on, but it appears to be about a lady from China who's moved to the US and is raising her daughter alone. It's pretty common to see short (or even long) works tackle the relationship between a parent and child over time, and this one gets predictably melodramatic, but it is a sweet story and certainly won't make you feel like you wasted 8 minutes. The music is quite good, too. My only issue is that I wish it would emphasize the relationship with parents in general, not just mothers. It's not unusual in anime to see a shrine to family members who have passed, and you do here, too, except you never get an inkling of the girl's father, and when she's grown and has a daughter of her own, again, there seems to be no male figure (or partner of whatever gender, I guess I should add) involved in the slightest. Not to say that's unrealistic, but it feels at odds with the mother's situation (she's a successful professional, and yet there's no hint of a daytime caregiver either). CGI art is kind of Pixar-looking and pretty good quality. Rating: good, relevant genres: slice of life, drama, coming of age.
Tella (short film)—not CGI, the only one of these I watched that wasn't. This was really cute. Now this is how to stand out from the rest. A girl who seems to live alone in the wilderness, but has no trouble with it, has hair that serves many functions: wings, shield, mattress, blanket. She witnesses a very literal falling star, then observes its attempts to get back home before deciding to pitch in. Music was rather good. Art was on the simple side, but that's not unusual for these short films, since they're often not big studios (or studios at all) making them. Adorable, and I'd definitely recommend this one. Rating: good, relevant genres: slice of life.
And the decent ones:
One Small Step (short film)—a little girl dreams of being an astronaut, and as she grows up, she faces various obstacles, though she's always supported by her father (is a single parent required for short films?). Again, there's nothing to surprise here, but it is rather cute. The music's pretty good, and the animation is incredibly fluid. Like Disney-quality fluid. I was impressed by that. Rating: decent, relevant genres: drama, coming of age.
The Song of the Rain (short film)—back to CGI. Pretty standard take on the "how they met, then he goes off to war" narrative, but I hadn't seen this particular brand of it, dealing with China being invaded by Japan during WWII. The animation and music were both a plus, though the beginning of the plot was pretty weak. Rating: decent, relevant genres: drama, romance, coming of age.
Two Different Kinds of Love (short film)—this was cute, I'll grant, and it at least comes from a motivation I can relate to, as my sister adopted a baby and some friends of ours have adopted three children from overseas. It's a nice story of a young girl who already knows she's adopted and finally asks to know about where she came from. It's a nice sentiment, but it's set up for a Very Hallmark Moment, and the dialogue doesn't feel very natural. Art's pretty good, music is average. Rating: decent, relevant genres: slice of life.
Umbrella (short film)—another CGI of about 8 minutes that came well recommended. This one greets you at the door with its pathos, having a lady bringing a young girl to an orphanage as one of the residents looks on with hope that he'll have a new friend. But he's more interested in the umbrella she's carrying, since it spurs memories of how he got there. There's no dialogue. It's pretty good for what it is, but it's predictably maudlin. Art and music were average. Rating: decent, relevant genres: slice of life, drama.
Violet (short film)—I liked the animation style of this. It reminded me of Cartoon Saloon's style, where it feels like an "unfolded" 3D, where it's projected flat, and height up the screen equals depth away from the viewer. If you look this up on YouTube, the title explicitly tells you it's a tale about self-esteem, and... that's what you get. A fairly standard take on it, but still a good one, though it's also one that stops at making its thematic point without ever bringing the plot to closure. Depending on how you interpret it, it could amount to a rather dark ending, reminiscent of things like old fairy tales that do not end nicely and leave you to ponder the fridge horror of it. I don't think it was quite intended to do that, but for me, it did. I think it did lend itself well to be a narrated rather than voiced story. Art was good, music serivceable. Rating: decent, relevant genres: drama.
Windup (short film)—Why do most of these have to be so maudlin? I guess it's a good way to grab attention, but then the problem is they all do it, so it's hard to stand out from the rest. This starts with a girl playing with her father (yet another single parent?), and as soon as new context is supplied, you'll easily predict how the rest goes. If there's a main reason to watch this, it's for the creativity in the dream parts. I couldn't tell whether that's how this world looks, or whether it was just what the girl invented out of her imagination, but it was pretty cool. Running time is about 9 minutes. After watching 8 of these and only rating 2 of them as good (and to be fair, not rating any worse than decent), I figured I wasn't getting anywhere, so I stopped. 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.
Last 10:
vol. 25 here
vol. 26 here
vol. 27 here
vol. 28 here
vol. 29 here
vol. 30 here
vol. 31 here
vol. 32 here
vol. 33 here
vol. 34 here
Is there a comprehensive list of all of these reviews anywhere? I subscribed to Crunchyroll a week or two ago, so I'd like to check through and see if you've reviewed something if an anime catches my eye.
Ah, Witchblade is one of the few dozen anime series I've had on a hard drive since 2006 <.<
That Wonder Woman thing sounds interesting. c.c
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I don't have a sorted list anywhere, but if you want to ask about specific ones, I can tell you whether I reviewed them and in which volume. They're roughly alphabetical, so unless it's something I finished within the past year, you can find it that way. I can PM you a link to the spreadsheet I keep, and I have been toying with adding in links to my reviews there so I can find them later, but haven't gotten to it yet. At least you could see if it's one I've seen. Though while my finished tab is alphabetized (some under the Japanese title, some under the English, depending on my perception of which is more commonly used), my in-progress/to-watch tab barely has any order to it.
This might give me the kick I need to add review links to my spreadsheet... but not until the weekend at least.
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Yeah, I'd love to see the spreadsheet.
Yeah, Anime Catholicism is on TV tropes.
That's a lot of variety. Of all of those, Witchblade and Wolf's Rain are the only two I've seen, and even then I don't think I finished either.
Er, I am thinking of Wolf's Rain and not Howl's Moving Castle, right?
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I only keep a log of reviews of manga. I have it in a GDocs file, if only because the search function of the weeb Discord server I post them on doesn't always work.
The blogs I post on FIMFiction I typically don't keep past a month or two. I dunno, it never seemed that important to me because most of the stuff I was talking about was contemporary and apt to change the next week.
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Vareity kind of comes by default, since I'm just going through alphabetically and working stuff in as I finish it. As you can see, I'm almost at the end of the alphabet, when it'll become only stuff I've finished recently. I've got about 180 things on my list of what I'm currently watching or want to, and a fair amount of that is stuff that may go back a few years to a couple decades, as I come across things that pique my interest for whatever reason. Do you mostly stick to what's new, or do you also go find older things to watch?
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I have a much shorter want-to-watch list, and so having depleted it, these days watch new stuff almost exclusively.