Anime – Page 41 – Wis[s]e Words

Hataraku Saibou — First Impressions

Published on July 9, 2018Leave a comment

This is an anthropomorphised white blood cell in the process of killing an anthropomorphised Pneumococci bacterium and I have questions:

Hataraku Saibou: blood spattered white blood cell

Why do those bacteria carry blood that can splatter all over our white blood cell, anthropomorphised or not? Would that mean that if the camera zoomed in on its blood, we’d see tiny anthromorphised white and red blood cells there as well? Should I just relax and remember it’s only an anime series? But seriously, this is the sort of thing that bothered me with Er Was Eens… het Lichaam, one of those Pan-European eighties educational cartoons about the body and which Hataraku Saibou immediately reminded me off. The idea of your body as a huge city inhabited by your cells is an interesting one, but don’t think too hard about it or it breaks.

Hataraku Saibou: platelets are adorable

This first episode introduced our protagonists, a red blood cell (who all dress as parcel couriers) and a white blood cell (like a more psychopatic Mr Clean) as they travel the body in search of a Pneumococci bacterium trying to wreak havoc in the lungs. We also meet various other types of blood related cells, including the very adorable platelets above, who are all young children as apparantly this type of blood cell doesn’t live long. Awww.

Hataraku Saibou: berserker warrior woman

This was great fun and on the other side of adorable, I hope we’ll soon meet the sword wielding berserker woman, who’s very much in AniTwitter’s category of women who you’d want to step on you. Not sure how educational this will all turn out to be, but if it stays inventive and fun like this first episode, this’ll be something to look forward to each week.

Harukana Receive — First Impressions

Published on July 8, 2018Leave a comment

Is there such a thing as functional fanservice? Asking for a friend.

Harukana Receive: functional fanservice?

Harukana Receive is a sports anime about beach volleyball, so having girls in swimming suits jumping around is a given. It’s how it’s animated that makes the difference between a sports series and a fanservice show. So far, Harukana Receive is a mixed bag. That screen filling butt above starting off the series doesn’t help, even if it’s in service to a close up of hand signals, in turn illustrating the need for communication and trust in beach volleyball. Complicating things is that in real life beach volleyball isn’t exactly free from sexism either, with the women in bikini while the men wear shirts, so any anime series based on it will have the same issues. Again, how it will animate and show off the matches will determine whether the beach volleyball is more than just an excuse for fanservice.

Harukana Receive: fondess for butts

If the first episode is any guide, Harukana Receive is trying to be a serious sports series. The vast majority of this episode was filled with girls in swimsuits jumping and diving around, but the amount of excessive breast flopping was far less than in the first two minutes of Hanebado. In fact, there wasn’t any. And while the camera might have a fondness for the occassional butt shot, it doesn’t linger or leer, it’s all functional rather than letching. Here for example it’s trying to reinforce the authority of the girl in the foreground, scolding our flustered looking protagonist. However, this particular shot does point out one problem: a definitive lack of muscles for girls used to playing beach volleyball. Our protagonist being a bit soft looking, being new to the sport, is not a problem, but the other two are experienced players and should be a bit more muscular.

Harukana Receive: setting the stage

Harukana Receive is a simple story at heart. Haruka’a mother is going overseas for work, so Haruka moves in with her grandmother and her cousin Kanata, who live near the beach. Unsurprisingly, Haruka decides to strip off and take a swim there and then, already wearing her swimsuit underneath her clothes. She stumbles across Narumi and Ayasa’s beach volleyball practise when she’s almost hit by their ball, gets interested and asks if she can try it out. One way or another it leads to a match between them, with Kanata — who seems to share some history with Narumi — playing together with Haruka. They lose badly but Haruka promises Narumi that she’ll get better and will play her again. It’s only after she made that promise that she finds out Narumi & Ayase are the current high school champions… It’s a good setup for a sport series and I’m looking forward to following it.

Banana Fish — First Impressions

Published on July 7, 2018Leave a comment

Okumura Eiji, a naive Japanese photographer’s assistant comes to New York, meets a gang leader in a bar and immediately gets to touch his gun.

Banana Fish: hold my gun

Which is not exactly subtle, but does symbolise what Banana Fish is all about. This is a classic eighties shoujo romance manga, slightly updated for modern times, an adaptation a lot of fans of the manga have been waiting on. I only know of it by reputation myself, so if you want a review from a proper fan, try Anime Feminist. As for me, judging on the first episode only, this is going to be one of the best series this season. Just seeing those eighties character designs with real noses is a win for me. It makes it stand out from every other anime this season, just like Megalo Box did last season.

Banana Fish: witnessing a murder

Most of the focus in this episode is on Ash, the blonde gang leader, who stumbles across a murder done by his own men. Just before he dies, their victim hands Ash something and mumbles two words: Banana Fish. Which are the last words Ash’s older brother said when he seemingly went mad and attacked his squad in Iraq. It’s this that drives the plot of the series and this first episode is mostly setup, getting all the pieces in place for the story to start in earnest. There’s a lot happening this episode but it never felt rushed. Similarly, though about a dozen new characters are introduced, it was easy enough to keep track of who was who and what their role in the story was. It makes such a difference to have a good team working on this

Banana Fish: unhealthy relationship

There are some nasty undercurrents in this episode, revolving around the relationship between Ash and mafia boss “Papa” Dino Golzine, here doing his best to come across as a paedophile. Combine that with his henchman being a “fan” of the videos of Ash used to make and some very nasty things are insinuated here. How these insinuations, as well as Ash and Eiji’s relationship will be treated is what’ll make or break Banana Fish. The original manga is very much a product of its time and the way we talk about queerness, about being gay, about child abuse, has changed. Banana Fish can be a bit problematic and the anime has to be careful in how it deals with these elements, finding that balance of being true to the original and not causing harm by doing so.

Banana Fish: using slurs were none were used is disappointing

The same duty falls on Amazon’s translators and they already failed, by translating a non-homophobic insult with a gay slur. The first hurdle and the translation failed. Disappointing. Hopefully this will improve with later episodes and corrected in this one.

Isekai Maou — First Impressions

Published on July 5, 2018Leave a comment

Isekai Maou to Shoukan Shoujo no Dorei Majutsu‘s appeal is not exactly hidden:

Isekai Maou: boobies

So, shut-in edgelord gets transported to the world of his favourite game as the demon lord he’s playing as, summoned by a cat girl and an elf, who were trying to summon a familair ala Zero no Tsukaima, but instead became enslaved to him. This is, as @LossThief said on Twitter, an anime that says the quiet part loud about isekai fantasy. As such it’s less hypocritical than something like last year’s Death March, not trying to be better than it is, a slavery fetish power fantasy. There’s no deeper meaning to be found here, you know exactly what you’re in for from the start.

Isekai Maou: sexual assault

Having read the manga version of this until it got too boring, I know it’ll stick to the template all those isekai fantasies have: our overpowered protagonist will, join the adventurers guild, then faff around, though there may be some nominal plot about going on a quest or whatever. In the end, it’s all about the waifus, our hero getting to play with flesh and blood girls rather than plastic figurines. Of course he’s the kind of otaku who has never ever talked to a girl, so of course he hides behind his Devil Lord persona. And since the girls here have been enslaved –accidently! through no fault of his own!– they’re safe. So the series can flirt with all that sexy, sexy pretend rape while still have its hero be a good guy. He only wants to help that cat girl after all, so that’s why he has to rub her ears to get her to spill her secret. See? She’s grateful he did.

If there’s anything where Isekai Maou stands out it’s in the quality of the animation: it’s all a bit better than it needs to be. Normally garbage tier isekais get garbage tier effort put into them, but this is all just that little bit smoother than usual. Most of it to better show off the elf girl’s chest or the cat girl’s arousal, true. So it’s still trash, just slightly better looking trash. I think this actually has a chance of being popular, having just that extra bit of quality that anime like Death March and Smart Phone lacked. f you’re fourteen and horny, this may be the anime for you, if you can get past the slavery.

Senjuushi — First Impressions

Published on July 3, 2018Leave a comment

I’ve tried giving this a chance, but I doozed off halfway through the episode watching it on the couch.

Senjuushi: bland pretty boys

Remember the sword boy animes from a few seasons ago? Well, Senjuushi is the same, only with antique guns. Some of which are special guns, owned by people like Napoleon, while others are more generic incarnations of a certain type of gun, like Springfield or Brown Bess. Anyway, they’re all pretty boys, with some dressing in a non gender conforming way, serving a master who in some way has called them to live and who the subtitles keep addressing in a gender neutral way. Which is about the most interesting thing about this episode. Apart from that, the setting could be interesting: World War III happened and the centralised world state that took over all weaponry after it has slid into tyranny, with our gun boys being part of the resistance. But there are far too many characters introduced to care about and most of them seem to have no personality other than their hair colour. Too much talking, not enough action, with the animation nothing special either and it all looks like every other pretty boy series. Not for me I’m afraid.