Gakkou Gurashi
Alternate Titles: School Live!
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School
Hibike Euphonium
Alternate Titles: Sound Euphonium!
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Inou-Battle wa Nichijou-Kei no Naka De
Alternate Title(s): When Supernatural Battles Become Commonplace
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Danganronpa: The Animation
Plot:
Sixteen high school students are trapped in a school (well, you never actually see the sixteenth till like the last 3 episodes so sixteen technically but well, take that for what its worth). The school is an elite academy called Hope’s Peak Academy though none of the students are quite sure how they got there as the story unfolds. The school is run by a sadistic bear named Monokuma who is a robot controlled by the mastermind behind the operation. Monokuma gives the students some basic rules:
They cannot leave the school.
To graduate they must successfully commit a murder that their peers cannot decipher who is the murderer at a school trial.
Should the murderer not be found, all other students will be killed.
As the murders ensue the students work to find out who is behind Monokuma and why they are there, along with what the real secrets of the school are.
Source:
Danganronpa: The Animation is based off a PSP game of the same title. While I have never played the PSP game I can tell the anime is very truthful to its source. There are moments in the show where the effects used are almost identical to what you’d expect to find in a game.
Animation:
The overall animation is average. However, during a “punishment” or execution after a class trial there is a change in animation which I felt really pulled the viewer out of the show. I believe these cutaways are reminiscent, if not identical, to the game but for someone who has not played the game they might add more than takeaway.
Review:
Danganronpa, rightfully, gets right into the action and people are dying right away. It sounds exciting but the formula, combined with the game elements that cheapened the drama. It was also difficult to relate to the over-the-top cast. While their antics were interesting they were so crazy that it was difficult to find a grounding with almost any character.
The story progresses up to a climax that ends up coming out of nowhere. One of the frustrating things is the inability to play ‘who done it’ along with the characters. The ending is much the same, it’s so crazy at a point that it cheapens everything overall.
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Robotics;Notes
Plot:
Akiho Senomiya joined the Robotics club at her school to continue her sister’s dream of building a to-scale, working, giant robot Gunvarrel from a popular television series. Her sister had to leave the school before it was finished, somewhat disenfranchised with robots in general at that point. However with the help of her friend Kaito Yashio, a less than model student who loves fighting robot games, and other robotically inclined club members they work to complete the robot and answer the question, “What would happen if people really tried to build a giant robot?” But, things are never so simple, and in the process they encounter a number of mysteries.
Staff:
There aren’t too many notable members of the staff. However, surprisingly, the director wasn’t involved in Steins;Gate or Chaos;Head in which the world of Robotics;Notes is loosely fits into. But, note, you don’t need to, or have to, see the other two shows to watch Robotics;Notes.
Studio:
The production was done by Studio I.G. so the animation is very tasteful, slightly realistic feeling but still in a “traditional” anime style.
Review:
At the beginning of Robotics;Notes I was interested in where the show would be going. To come from an off-shoot of the universe of the much loved Steins;Gate I had hope for it. Robotics;Notes is also based off a visual novel game, much like Steins;Gate, and while I have never played it I still hoped the existing content could help the series.
I felt the anime started out a little slow, however, what I did like was that even though it was a little slow it was because of the realism they were trying to achieve with it. The show did work to have a realistic approach to high-school kids building a giant robot. Granted, there are some liberties that had to be taken with this that made the anime feel disconnected with it’s goal. For example, in “real” life the majority of the kids in the club would need to be technological geniuses. How would a school have that much space just hanging out to hold a giant robot for like 6 years? Where did they get the money? They answer that question some by having to win contests to gain funding and verify funding from the school. But the amount of money required for this project I feel would be so massive (as it’s only set in 2019 – not that far into the future) that it’s just crazy to contemplate High School students having access to that kind of funding.
Some things they did get right, I’ll give credit where credit is due for that. For example the team did have a number of setbacks and, a slight spoiler from the middle of the series, the first time they took out the robot it didn’t even really work. They also had people from high-ranking organizations like JAXA interested in the project at the point of the unveiling.
But the things they “got right” didn’t weigh up to enough for me when the GOAL of the anime was to tackle that question of being a “realistic” answer of what would happen if kids built a giant robot.
That being said, the show was solidly decent throughout the first arc when this was the only question of the show. It was a fairly straight-forward show in what it was trying to say and accomplish and for that it actually was solidly engaging throughout it.
However, the second half of the show, after about episode 11, began to just feel messy. It started to feel like an entirely different show. They began introducing new people and new arcs that felt like they never had proper resolutions. There was plot, and subplot, and I feel like the goal the anime set out to achieve and was in the first half got lost in all of the chaos that occurred during this time.
Also during this time I began to care even less. The anime had barely has my attentions due to the aforementioned contradictions but it lost it even more during this time.
Overall, I feel this show could have been something but was too ambitious in most areas that it ended up falling flat.
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Valvrave the Liberator
Sunrise
Directed by Kou Matsuo (Yozakura Quartet, Natsuyuki Rendezvous, Rozen Maiden)
Written by Ichiro Okouchi (Azumanga Daioh, Code Geass, Wolf’s Rain, RahXephon)
Music by Akira Senju (Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, Dead Girls, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
SUMMARY
Valvrave the Liberator is a science fiction mech series produced by Sunrise studios. It follows Haruto, a high school student on a terraformed space station that is part of the neutral JIOR society. Although JIOR is a pacifist state, it must deal with two powerful military states, Dorssia and ARUS. When Dorssian forces invade JIOR to procure a secret weapon, our hero Haruto stumbles upon it first. What he finds is a giant red robot known as Valvrave. After watching his love interest supposedly meet a terrible fate during the invasion, he climbs into the cockpit with all his adolescent rage and powers the machine up. The computer greets him with a question, “Will you give up being a human?” Of course he says yes, and off he goes. The Dorssian military doesn’t stand a chance agains the agile war machine, and they quickly retreat, but this means war.
Fortunately for Haruto, his crush — the daughter of JIOR’s president — didn’t actually bite the big one. Not so lucky for him, though, the whole giving-up-being-human thing turned him into a sort of vampire with the occasional insatiable lust for biting people and body swapping with them. Soon the student body of Haruto’s high school decides to declare independence from ARUS, their sworn protectors, and establish their own military state within JIOR using the Valvrave as its sole show of military force. Naturally, other equally brightly-colored robots enter the fold, and new pilots are recruited to man them.
REVIEW
The most refreshing thing about this series is how it doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest. As a sci-fi military epic about big ass robots, you get the requisite expository technobabble, but it never comes close to drowning in its own mythology before throwing an action scene at you. The show even has a song-and-dance number early in the series, so it’s clearly not gunning for any hoity-toity accolades.
This anime really knows how to prioritize its animation budget. While character designs and animations aren’t terribly attractive, the amazingly fluid action sequences more than make up for it. The whole show has a really excellent sense of color, and every frame explodes with over-saturated hues.
The music is great and overdramatic, utilizing full orchestrated pieces with a choir for the most over-the-top moments of action and melodrama. The opening and ending themes are energetic and rhythm-heavy, falling in line with mech shows of the past.
The show isn’t very thematically heavy, but the it seems to have something to say about the innate caste system of high school in how easily a student body can transform into a functioning society complete with governmental bureaucracy and political corruption. The story is slight and only serves as a backdrop for the great action beats. The characters are expectedly cookie-cutter, and the fan service is at a minimum, save for all of the robotic money shots. The situational humor can be quite funny at times, too. The show manages to land several jokes and make me laugh — a feat that very few anime have achieved.
Haruto’s vampirism affords the story some interesting if predictable opportunities to crank up the tension, but the details of the plot point don’t entirely make sense. The main character’s random and violent transformation is exclusive to Haruto and doesn’t seem to affect the other Valvrave pilots for reasons that are never explained. While under the influence of the curse, the desire to bite his victims — and subsequently swap bodies with them — seems to be his only motivation. That is until he rapes another character in the tenth episode.
The character who gets raped is called Saki, a pop idol who goes to high school with Haruto. She was at the center of the aforementioned song-and-dance earlier in the season. The rape scene comes totally out of left field but becomes even worse when the rape victim seems to stop struggling and accept her aggressor’s advances because, quote, “he is cursed.” Her character attempts to justify her victimization even further in the final episode when she tells Haruto that she is a pop idol and has been part of the dirty, adult world for awhile and is used to such things. So, whether or not she is being honest with Haruto, her character attempts to right the wrong of her sexual assault by comparing it to what the audience can assume is consensual sex she has been participating in her so-called dirty, adult world.
I don’t care who wrote this into the series our how naive Saki is supposed to be as a character, I cannot abide such irresponsible writing. This is not to say that rape has no place in any narrative. It is a terrible, powerful thing can conjure equally potent emotions in the audience, but mishandling such a thing can cause the audience to turn on your story. That’s exactly what Valvrave the Liberator did for me. Before that moment in the story, the one adjective I would’ve used to describe the series would’ve been “fun.” To be as succinct with my point as possible, rape isn’t fun. It doesn’t belong in this story. Shame on you, Sunrise.
Aside from such a huge misstep, Valvrave manages to entertain throughout and establish sufficient anticipation for its second season coming this October. Here’s hoping they leave the rape out of it next time.
3.5 pissed off Krams out of 5.
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Photo Kano
Madhouse Studios
Dir. Akitoshi Yokoyama (worked on lots, PK is first head director gig)
Mus. Mina Kubota (Aria franchise, Kaleido Star, A Letter to Momo)
When Kazuya Maeda received a digital single reflex lens camera from his father, he was just sure the hand-me-down would irrevocably change his life. And boy, was he right! With a fresh membership to his high school’s photography club and a newfound love for the art form, Maeda gets closer to his female classmates by taking photos of them.
Photo Kano, based on the PlayStation Portable dating sim of the same name, gives us one of those is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-harem-show shows in the vein of Amagami SS that manages to do some things right without stepping into too many narrative potholes along the way. Our hero, Maeda, spends each of the series’s 13 episodes with a different girl, developing their individual relationships from ground zero to a full-blown mutual confession of love within the half-hour run time. The constant rotation of characters and the breakneck progression of each relationship manages to keep things interesting. I can’t say I ever got bored, which surprises the hell out of me.
Narratively, I have a few bones to pick. The show certainly implies that this story takes place mostly over the course of one school year, but the lack of perceivable time passage like the changing of seasons makes me assume that the entire show takes place over just the first semester or so. Keeping this in mind, the fact that Maeda dates almost 10 girls in this time implies some things about the character that I don’t think the show intends to say. He acts likes a playboy, but he doesn’t “act” like a playboy if you know what I mean. The girls don’t ever acknowledge that he has been courting all of them simultaneously or at least back-to-back — again, the show isn’t clear on the timeline. We learn through some dialogue that he dates one of the characters for three months, so I don’t fucking know.
The same inconsistency issue goes for his decision to join the photography club as apposed to the rival photo club. While the photo club is dedicated to beautiful landscape photography, the club of Maeda’s choice shamelessly pursues surreptitiously acquired risqué photos of female classmates. But despite this, the show never paints Maeda as a creep — just a nice guy cypher for its target demo.
Photo Kano says some fairly despicable things about female body image issues and relationships in general, including but not limited to a female character swearing to change so a male character will like them better. I took issue with an episode where Maeda blackmails a girl into letting him take some photos of her in a bathing suit, but he ended up getting blackmailed with some of his misplaced porno mags later in the series so I think it more or less balanced itself out.
The audience knows the character has a little sister from very early in the series, but as the season draws to a close, you realize that you haven’t seen his adorable sibling in quite a while. Now, the weathered cynic like me knows that when you get into something like this, you have to be ready for some kind of disgusting incest storyline clearly written by and for someone with no siblings. Watching episode 12 of 13, I was naively hopeful that I had dodged a sister-kissing bullet with Photo Kano. I was wrong. Episode 13 not only goes to the all the trouble of justifying the taboo with an awkward she’s-actually-his-stepsister-flashback, but it firmly cements Maeda’s sibling as his final choice for a girlfriend or sexual parter or whatever humans do with each other.
It isn’t a bad looking show. I guess it can’t be when its core offering as a piece of entertainment art is aesthetically pleasing girls. That said, it doesn’t have to worry about animating complex action sequences. The character designs are certainly attractive, but they save a corner of the budget for some CGI flourishes that aren’t quite out-of-place enough to make me physically ill. The effects shots in question occur whenever Maeda is taking photos of one of his girlfriends. Maeda sees the perfect shot and breathlessly gasps, “Shutter Chance!” The camera then pans around the now three-dimensionally rendered anime girl moving in slow-motion. Without ever playing the game that provided the source material or doing any kind of time-consuming research, I could almost guarantee this “Shutter Chance” thing was lifted right out of the PSP game. I’m going to go ahead and give a blanket recommendation of this show to all the fans of the game based on that alone.
My favorite thing about the show was the music. It was mostly pretty generic. At it’s worst you could call it a bit Animal Crossing-y, but at it’s best it was occasionally really great and reminded me of some of the electronic elements found in the Final Fantasy X and XIII soundtracks and the music of Owl City.
It’s no surprise that this isn’t my kind of show, but when it’s all said and done what the show attempts to do it manages to do pretty well.
2.5 beach episodes out of 5.
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Chihayafuru 2
Plot:
Directly following the events of the first season we re-join with the protagonist Ayase Chihaya and her budding karuta club. To keep the club Chihaya must recruit a certain number of members. After successfully doing so she pushes the club to win Japan’s team karuta tournament while continuing to peruse her dream of becoming the Karuta queen.
Staff/Production:
I won’t go into this too much. Being a sequel all the important staff members and production studio was kept consistent between the series. However, perhaps one important change worth noting is that the series composition went from two people to one new person. Some of the pacing in this series seemed a bit off from the pacing of the previous season and this could be due to the change in control there. The current series composition was done by someone who is new to the industry, with only one other credit to his name.
Worth noting is that while there are obvious cost-cutting measures on the animation – internal dialogue, long tense pauses while listening for karuta cards, and a generally not fast-paced action show – the music is great. Often times it will feature full strings, or even an orchestra to create the perfect moment. It is noticeable without being obtrusive and adds a lot. The only criticism I can say is that because a lot of time, and money, went into the songs they have there isn’t a huge variety.
I recommend the Main Theme – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ne7oNIMJyA&list=PLbaPMFthaxm1_FjZMr4OZKiBj4tlFRxHk
Review:
I love this anime. Because I love this anime it is admittedly very, very, difficult to do this objectively and give it a fair score… but I will do my best.
I think though, the love I have for it, says something (good I hope) about the show even through whatever flaws it may have. I consumed this show ravenously and begged for more. The characters are heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. The show starts out and I was a little nervous that half the show would be spent on new member for the club recruitment as each new member was seeming to get their own episode. But, thankfully, this was not the case and the arc only lasted about the first 1/4th and we got back to what we really care about – karuta.
This show is a character-driven show to begin with, but this series is especially so. Much more does the show focus on how each of the characters is growing as a person through karuta as the show focuses on the karuta itself. Personally, I really enjoyed this. I liked seeing the back-story to characters on the karuta team that we’d never really seen before and as a result of this heightened level of involvement. One notable one is Kanade Ōe. In the first season she was little more to me than the “kimono new girl.” But in season 2 she wins over the viewers hearts with her insightful nature and wisdom beyond her years. Not to mention, I think Taichi x Chihaya fans will love her to a particular degree given her helpful pushes for their relationship.
Speaking of, that’s another thing they progress more this season, the romance. This series I would say is a character-based drama via karuta, than a series explicitly about the “sport.” With the self-awareness mentioned earlier we see the love triangle develop between Taichi, Chihaya and Arata. While I won’t spoil it, Chihaya begins to evolve from the completely clueless girl we met last season to having some awareness of romantic feelings. The romance is like a slow-moving boulder. Once it gains momentum it’ll crash into your heart at the end of the series.
The biggest criticism I can say for the show, as previously touched on, and most people out there I think agree is the pace. While I kept like I was always hanging on for more and begging for the next moment I truly have fallen in love with all the characters which helps this. If you do not love these characters I could see how this season could drag, a lot. Because they spend a lot of time not doing much. By the end of the season they’ve only played in two tournaments, and one weekend tournament took the better part of the second half.
But even this I didn’t mind, as they accomplished a goal with it, and the series ended up somewhere – I feel – far beyond where it started.
Speaking of the ending, it is definitely another “to be continued” so if you’re in too deep like me you’re going to be begging for more. I am going to assume it will be getting another season, as there is already an OVA coming out soon. But, if it doesn’t this show is completely left unfinished.
In the end, I will give it 4 out of 5 spinning top karuta players. Because in my opinion it was at least as good as the first season, but in different ways.
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Hourou Musuko
Alternate Title: Wandering Son
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School Rumble
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