Dessins Animés Japonais

So, thought I'd have a few comments on my recent anime (and manga) viewings.

• Rented Halo Legends—a sort of Animatrix thing based on Halo—and, well, to be charitable...you know those shallow Western attempts to emulate anime and manga? Turns out half-assed cultural appropriation sucks just as hard in reverse. There are three basic complaints:
  1. The usual Japanese alkie-who-doesn't-want-other-people-to-drink pacifist preaching has no place in the Halo universe. The time wasted on the usual war-anime cliches would've been better spent on the unique traits of the setting.
  2. Would it kill them to crack a story bible? Elites do not work that way, Jackals and Grunts aren't all that scary even to normal humans, and Spartans do not do spin-kicks. Also, girl Spartans probably don't wear their hair long, since Spartans spend so much time in their armor that their skins are bleached white: think of the hygiene!
  3. The whole thing was, in essence, the corpse of Halo animated by a Japanese spirit. Especially the last short, the CGI one: did you guys have to mo-cap unemployed Power Rangers stuntmen for Master Chief? Or make him deliver some cliched sentai line about "becoming stronger"? His armor's olive drab, not red, for a reason.


• On the other hand, Needless. How to describe Needless? "The unholy hybrid child of GunXSword and s-CRY-ed, raised by Maka's dad from Soul Eater"? Yeah, that'd about cover it. And it's awesome.


• So, Baka to Test to Shôkanjû—i.e. Idiots, Tests, and Summoned Beasts—is one of the more amusingly messed-up shows out there. I love how they deliberately taunt the audience, for instance by having most of the fan-service shots be of Hideyoshi, the guy who looks like a girl. Also, Minami is a great tsundere; I wish I wasn't sure she isn't gonna win.


• Considering that huge swathes of the point of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu is advocating tolerance of otaku, why does the show do such a bang-up job of showing everything that's wrong with the subculture? Also, seriously, what's with the maid-who's-also-a-ninjaesque-bodyguard becoming the standard portrayal? Am I the only one who thinks that's odd?


• Bamboo Blade is an excellent sports anime, and an amusing example of how flaws make heroes better—Tamaki would be insufferable if she wasn't a tokusatsu-otaku wallflower. It also has a very good portrayal of the limit of genius, how Tamaki can lose her focus because she's still a kid. But...the swordfighting sucks. Admittedly I'm coming from a battôdô background—kendo is a toy, battôdô is a weapon—but the counter to jodan kamae (the high guard) is not to use jodan kamae yourself, it's to learn to take advantage of the fact it exposes the user's belly. With her speed, Tamaki should have no trouble defeating jodan, at least once she gets past that mental block about her mother. Yes, jodan opening the belly is very useful as a false opening, to bait the opponent closer, but the weakness of using openings as bait is, they're still openings.


• Goshûshôsama Ninomiya-kun is not actually very good, but I'll put up with a lot to hear Sawashiro Miyuki (Shinku in Rozen Maiden) as a student body president. A tsundere student body president, who's also her school's self-righteous morals officer, in a harem anime. Does anyone need proof that casting choices can be divinely inspired?


• Speaking of inspired casting choices, Hayate the Combat Butler (there's that domestic servant/bodyguard thing again) has both Ries, Tanaka (Suigintô) and Kugimiya (Louise, Taiga, Shana). And they share scads of scenes. That's like the Van Gogh's sunflowers of the voice actress's art. Come for the unconscionably messed up gags, stay for the incredible talent.


• It occurs to me, Tanaka Rie and Ishida Akira should get some kind of prize for range. Tanaka's played Chii in Chobits, and Suigintô in Rozen Maiden—things don't get more different than that. And Maria in Hayate is almost exactly in the middle, so she can do anything in between, too. Similarly, Ishida's done Xelloss in Slayers and Gaara in Naruto, but he's also done Coud Van Giruet in Elemental Gelade and Dan in Bamboo Blade. Yes, I listed them in the order they go in, on his range.


• Talking of Ninomiya-kun and BakaTest reminds me, does anyone else wish we'd get better anime-based-on-light-novels over here in the states? The only possible reason that Haruhi Suzumiya has had an American release, and Kyôran Kazoku Nikki hasn't, is that some obscure economic principle is working to make quality inversely proportional to success. Aside from how KKN actually has likable characters (apparently those are considered an expendable frill in some quarters?), Haruhi is only omnipotent. Whereas Kyôka, as a marvelous fact...


• I forgot to say, Kishin Hôkô Demonbane. You pretty much had me at "Lovecraftian giant robot anime." Though maybe it's easier to put one over on Japanese viewers—when a lady with black hair, dressed in black, says "Call me Naia," I, for one, was shouting, "Oh crap, Nyarlathotep shows up in the first episode? Crap crap crap!"