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rozen maiden rewind

Rozen Maiden – Zurückspulen

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Alternate Titles:

Rozen Maiden 2

Rozen Maiden Rewind

Rozen Maiden 2013

Plot:

Jun is a middle school boy who endured severe trauma from the treatment of other children when his hobby of sewing was discovered.  He retreated from the world, avoiding interactions with real people and stopped going to school.  One day he receives a letter asking if he will or will not wind.  Jun chooses to wind and soon a Rozen Maiden named Shinku appears.  Shinku informs Jun that he is now her servant and she is involved in a game with other dolls, known as the Alice Game, to become the perfect girl named “Alice.”

However, in an alternate world, Jun does not make the same choice.  He chooses not to wind the doll.  He grows up without resolving most of his problems, has a low-paying basic job in which he is unappreciated and walked all over doing and has difficulty with his college classes.  That changes though when he finds a package about doll making.  Combined with a mysterious text from his younger self in the alternate dimension where he chose to wind and he is drawn into the world of Rozen Maiden once more.

Source:

Rozen Maiden is based off of a manga by Peach Pit.  The original manga has eight volumes and went from 2002-2007 with an anime adaptation done in 2004.  There is currently an ongoing manga with nine volumes that started in 2008.  There is also one other television series, Rozen Maiden: Taumend, and an OVA Rozen Maiden: Ouverture.  Rozen Maiden: Rewind is based off of the current revamp of the manga.

Staff:

The director Shinichi Omata only has one other directorial credit to his name – under a pen nname actually – and that is Sankarea.  This was not the director for any of the previous Rozen Maiden series.

The music was done by Shinkichi Mitsumune who has worked on a few notable series such as the music for the original Rozen Maiden and its other incarnations, Utena, FLCL and a Love Hina OAV.  Despite this I did not feel that the music in the series was anything astoundingly special.  I would give it an above average rating.

The animation production was done by Studio DEEN.

Review:

I have seen the original Rozen Maiden, though not Taumend or Overature, and I have not read the manga.  So I come into Rozen Maiden: Rewind with some experience in the franchise and knowledge of the characters.  I reviewed the original back in episode 83 and gave it a 3.5 out of 5.

That being said, I actually enjoyed the original Rozen Maiden.  I recognized its problems, but I thought it was fun to watch and the characters were enjoyable.  So I went into Rozen Maiden: Rewind with optimism.  I did not expect the series to be a stunning exemplar for the season, but I expected myself to enjoy it.  I was, more or less, correct.

Right away I found the premise interesting.  The first three or four episodes they spend a good amount of time really cementing you into this alternate universe.  The main villain, Kirakisho presents herself during this time.  Called the white rose she has meddled in both universes, which originally led the wound Jun to be able to reach out to the unwound Jun.

I enjoyed the first four episodes of this twelve episode series.  The first episode was a nice refresher into the world of Rozen Maiden.  The next two I felt we really got to know the unwound Jun.  By the fourth I was ready to go, we had Shinku, knew the villain, and had a mention of the Alice Game.  OK, Great.

Then, the series kind of spins its wheels for a bit.  Episodes 5-8 felt like they devoted too much time to world and character building for a 12 episode series in which MOST of the viewer base likely already knows enough about the characters to skip.  When it wasn’t doing what could be argued as “development” the main plot was really on hold.

The anime tries to manage two stories at once, the unwound and the wound world.  At the end you learn that the unwound world has really kind of been a plot-device for progressing things in the wound world, where the focus – I feel – of the series really lies.  The only thing that mattered in the unwound world was unwound Jun, really everything else could be tossed away and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.

Despite the slow down part-way through the series the final episodes finally get to what we’ve been looking for the whole time: Alice Game action.  The final three episodes do deliver.  There is a bit of a cliffhanger, but in that “there could be more” kind of way and not a “uuum, this isn’t finished” kind of way.  There is a complete story here, yet I can’t help but feel I would have been happier if it was a 24 episode series to merit the feeling of slow world-building through the majority of the first 8-9 episodes.

In all, I don’t think I enjoyed Rozen Maiden: Rewind as much as I enjoyed the original Rozen Maiden.  Perhaps I would have a lot more if I could enjoy how true the anime was being to its manga counterpart (or, so I hear).  Or, perhaps the content of the series just has a shelf-life of one anime for me.  Whatever the case may be, I did not find myself hating it, but I found myself simply watching it out of obligation more than enjoyment.

[starrater]

robotics notes

Robotics;Notes

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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.

[starrater]

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