Wis[s]e Words – Page 88 – Ceci N'est pas Un Blog

Revue Starlight — First Impressions

Published on July 14, 2018Leave a comment

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight eh? Some sort of idol thing with a bit of buzz to it, let’s give it a try. Oh, they’re in a theatre school and it’s all a bit Fame? Neat. Using a talking giraffe as a spring board to start a transformation scene so you can interfere in the sword fight between two of your class mates? Wait, what?

Yes, this turned out to be Love Live meets Revolutionary Prince Utena, or at least that makes for a good elevator pitch. Reality is not quite that simple. Even if the director is Tomohiro Furukawa, who worked under Utena‘s Kunihiko Ikuhara on Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi. Instead, Revue Starlight takes its inspiration from the same source: the Takarazuka Revue, the all-female musical theater troupe. In fact, this started out as a proper musical and several ex-Takarazuka Revue members are involved with its creation. Not all sword fighting lesbians singing songs at each other are an Ikuhara invention.

More than two thirds of this first episode is actually pretty straightforward: the cool shit only starts in the last couple of minutes. First we have to have the usual idol anime introduction episode, in which we follow our eight main characters through their school routine before it’s interrupted by the arrival of a transfer student. Said student turning out to be the childhood friend of our protagonist. Even in these more mundane sequences the animation is top notch. Lots of fluid movement, with all the spontaneous dancing being a good excuse to show off the animators’ work. There’s a depth to this series that’s almost palpable. Even if this had been an ordinary series about theatre idols competing with each other for a starring role in this year’s revue, this would’ve been one of the best series of the season. Adding sword fighting lesbians and some kind of grand theatre conspiracy? Genius.

Grand Blue — First Impressions

Published on July 14, 2018Leave a comment

Grand Blue is here! Anime is saved!

Grand Blue: why are you running away?

It took a few minutes to get going, but once it did it had me laughing my head of for the rest of the episode. It’s not quite up the level of the original manga, but it got the comedy and the timing right and that’s all I ask for. Poor fellow up there being chased by two beefy nude blokes is our protagonist, Iori, who hoped to make a fresh new start in college, but any hopes for a happy college life disappear as he has the misfortune to encounter the uni diving club — who so far have only been diving in alcohol. Resist as he might, Iori soon shows his own idiotic side as he gets involved in their drinking games…

Grand Blue: important safety tip

Whether you’ll like this or not depends on whether you can laugh at seeing the exact same “guy gets tricked into drinking something that looks like water, but isn’t” several times in a row. For some it just reminds them of awful experiences in their own college life. Me, I laughed.

Jashin-Chan Dropkick — First Impressions

Published on July 13, 2018Leave a comment

Trust me, chopping up Jashin-chan’s tail because she ate all the meat in the hotpot is the least cruel of Yurine’s punishments for her summoned devil’s many misdeeds.

Jashin-Chan Dropkick: cruel and unusual punishment

This is also the tamest screenshot I could use to show the sheer glee with which the show indulges in those punishments. This is all slapstick violence, but it’s slapstick violence that hurts. No pies in faces here: Jashin-chan gets her tail chopped off to provide meat repeatedly, tasered, spine broken and on one occasion is beaten so badly the other characters wonder if the commercial break will be enough time for her to heal. If you’re overly empathic or squeamish, you might want to avoid this one. To be honest, all this comedic violence had me wincing just as much as I was giggling. It all starts slow, with Yurine, Jashin-chan and their friends (Medusa & Minos, both devils, as well as Pekora, an angel who lost her halo) having a hot pot party. The violence only starts because Jashin-chan gets jealous of Pekora. The rest of the episode goes similar, with Jashin-chan plotting against Yurine only to get her comeuppance. I like that the origin story of how Yurine and Jashin-chan found each other was dealt with in the opening.

Jashin-Chan Dropkick: snake meat is tasty

Even when it’s being cute, it’s still quietly horrifying, as here, with the adorable Pekora eating the snake meat Yurine has just cut off Jashin-chan. I’m not sure how to feel about this show. On the one hand, this is Tom & Jerry violence: it hurts, but the characters survive everything and are as good as new a couple of seconds later. On the other hand, the violence is much more “real” and gorier than in classic slapstick, leaning heavily on a horror aesthetic, even going so far as to mosaic censor when things get too gory. The various characters meanwhile are classic slice of moe archetypes with little depth to them: Jashin-chan is stupid and petty, Yurine is cold but does seem to care on some level, the rest hasn’t been fleshed out much. It needs more than just the routine of Jashin-chan doing something she gets punished for to keep my interest. Looking forward to seeing how it’ll develop or not in the next few episodes.

Planet With — First Impressions

Published on July 10, 2018Leave a comment

So yeah, this is not even the weirdest scene in this episode.

Planet With: no idea

I knew nothing about Planet With going in and I’m tempted to say I know even less now. Honestly, I thought this might be some kids show based on its MAL thumbnail. Which made me less than prepared for the weirdness that followed the cozy little breakfast scene above. The dude in the middle is our protagonist, having come out of a coma with no memories whatsoever two weeks ago to find himself in the care of this anthropomorphised cat person and green haired maid. At first it seems this might be some sort of weird Azumanga Daioh style slice of life series, if it wasn’t for the flashback scene at the start. But then the weird CGI aliens (?) robots (?) gods (?) show up and things get stranger. First we get the usual military overreaction, with fighter planes sent out to shoot them down, only for the alien/robot/god to blast them with something that makes them remember or simulates the happiest moment in the fighter pilots’ lives. Then the superheroes show up:

Planet With: super sentai squad

Who look quite interesting on their own, a good balance between character type and individuality there. What with our protagonist’s mysterious flashback and background, not to mention the company he keeps, it seems like a given that he’ll join them in some matter, be the missing link in the fight against those mysterious invaders. That would be the conventional thing to do. Give him the same sort of mecha powers as they have and bring them in as the rookie and/or team leader.

Planet With: the vore game

He does get his mecha. It’s just that the giant cat thing has to eat him to transform. And he’s not fighting with the super sentai squad, but against him, urged on by his guardians for reasons still unknown, though he has his own reasons as well, tied to his own past. It’s an interesting setup, not the weirdest anime I’ve watched, but certainly the most out of the box this season. The art style is a bit kids show, but that’s no problem for me: it fits the style of the show. Gender wise, there’s the maid, who is mostly there to be the cheery happy go lucky type, as well as our protagonist’s classmate, who’s there for him to have somebody to talk to. The superhero squad does have a couple of more women in it, who haven’t had much to do yet. All in all, this looks like it could be a real dark horse, something that AniTwitter will embrace wholeheartedly if it keeps up the quality.

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.