First Impressions – Page 16

First impression: Sakura Quest

Published on April 6, 2017Leave a comment

Two years after Shirobako, P.A. Works still cannot match their moe girl styled protagonist to the more realisic looking secondary characters.

Sakura Quest: our heroine surrounded by wrinklies

Our protagonist, Koharu Yoshino, has trouble finding a job after finishing college in Tokyo, but refuses to move back to her small town family. Short on cash, she gets a job as “queen” for the tourist department of Manoyama, a small town almost aa bad off as her home town. She thinks it’s for one day only, but not having read her contract, she doesn’t realise she will actually have to spend a year as the queen of the Kingdom of Chupakabura… She doesn’t really want to, tries to flee, but in the end is more or less guilt tripped into staying on.

Sakura Quest: Chupakabura Kingdom

As you know, Bob, Japan struggles with a demographic crisis and an aging population, especially out in the countryside where small towns like Manoyama struggle to keep young people living there. At the same time, there’s a certain nostalgia for and fetishisation of the country side and anime isn’t adverse to indulging in this. P. A. Works has essentially built a career out of this, even a mecha series like Kuromukuro being set in a loveningly rendered beautiful part of Japan. Sakura Quest is no different, but everything is a little bit more rundown than the norm.

Sakura Quest: down in Tokyo

There’s a depressing undertone to this first episode, especially in the first part as Koharu goes around Tokyo failing to find a job. This is of course to set up a contrast with the more idyllic Manoyama, but you can’t help but think it reflects just a bit too much of the real Japan and the anxiety of young people trying to find jobs in an ever stagnating economy. It’ll be interesting to see if Sakura Quest can keep a bit of this bite going, or whether it’ll turn more cozy than that.

First impression: Demi-chan wa Kataritai

Published on January 28, 2017Leave a comment

A biology teacher with an obsession for demi-humans gets his long cherised wish of having a harem full of demi girls.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai: vampire

Well, that’s a very cynical take on this show, but not entirely incorrect. Takahashi Tetsuo is a biology teacher who had wanted to do his dissertation on ajin or demi-humans — who had only recently been revealed to exist — but who hadn’t managed to find any. Cue the first episode of the series and he immediately runs into a vampire. Takanashi Hikari, a first year student, is energetic, cheerful, likes garlic and thinks crosses are unfashionable, doesn’t really drink blood other than the monthly boold pack she gets from the government and in all is a bit of a troll. Her biggest problem is sunlight, as she feels the heat quickly, which is why she agrees to have regular chats with Tetsuo so she can stay in the cool, shaded biology class room.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai: dullahan

Machi Kyōko is a dullahan, somewhat shy but with a good head on her shoul^w^w^ in her hands. One of only three dullahans in the world (the others being Celty and Lala) she has somewhat more trouble in her day to day life with her condition than Hikari has. Obviously having to carry your head everywhere is a bit of a handicap and that’s exactly how the series treats this, a condition that has some disadvantages and difficulties to overcome, but can also be an advantage to have your body at home while your had goes shopping. It’s one of the ways in which the anime improves on the original manga, by putting a little bit of thought in how these characters would work in the real world.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai: succubus

Case in point: the succubus. Satō Sakie is a maths teacher who dressed in an unflattering track suit and glasses for a reason, to dampen down the erotic feelings she invokes in men that come to close to her. She takes the first and last train to and from work for the same reason, to minimise the risk of contact and has to live in a rundown shack in the arse end of nowhere too. There’s a sharp contrast between how the public sees succubi — sexy seductresses — and her daily reality, which has kept her single and without ever having had a relationship, that’s also present in the manga but given more presence here. Taking a minute or two to show her commute impresses more than seeing the same thing depicted in one or two pages.

Demi-chan wa Kataritai: yuki-onna

If it is the succubus who arguably suffers the most from her powers and nature, it’s Kusakabe Yuki, the yuki-onna, who is the most conflicted about being demi. She doesn’t trust her powers and keeps her distance from others as a result. It’s interesting to see how each of the demis have adapted to their powers, from Hikari who’s basically no more than a normal high school girl with some strange habits to Sakie and Yuki, who either have to adjust their lives around them or are psychologically scarred by their demi nature. There are obvious parallels here with real world disabilities, which lends a bit of realism and grit to what’s essentially a light hearted not quite romantic harem story. Speaking of which, the harem aspect of this is a bit more creepy in the anime than in the manga, just seeing it animated. Which might be enough to put you off.

First impression: Kuze no Honkai

Published on January 26, 2017Leave a comment

Two emo teenagers can’t make it with the people they have a crush on but are still horny, so start fucking each other.

Kuze no Honkai: hopeless love

Yasuraoka Hanabi is in love with her older childhood friend, now her homeroom teacher. Awaya Mugi is in love with the music teacher. But childhood friend loves the music teacher and music teacher loves the childhood friend Both Hanabi and Mugi cannot have what they want, so they stick together and use each other as a substitute for their real love. If you’re into teenage angst, this is the series for you.

Kuze no Honkai: substitute

A stupid reason to hook up, but teenangers can do much more stupid things like this and the first episode does a good job of selling the idea of their coming together. It helps that these are actually horny teenagers. No dumb drama about whether or not it’s okay to hold hands yet: they kiss and do everything sort of outright fucking in the first episode. All while imaging doing it with their real crush. Over the top? Yes, but it still feels much more real than the usual chaste romance comedy.

Kuze no Honkai: consent

The climax (heh) of the first episode then is an extended sex scene, again much more explicit than the norm in anime. There’s a lot of fanservice and sexy sexiness in anime, but it’s usual a matter of camera angles, unlikely accidental gropings or extended shower scenes. Not so much two people coming together wanting to fool around. Mugi even explicitly asks for consent from Hanabi, after she initiated, whether she really wants to do it.

Kuze no Honkai: big dots

Much has been made of the way the series makes use of inset panels to mimic the look of the original manga, but what I noticed rewatching is the way the show Lichtensteins it up at key moments, mimicing the look of a cheaply printed comic. These are nice little tricks to liven up what’s otherwise a rather mundane adaptation. The other thing keeping it interesting is Anzai Chika’s voice acting, who does a very good job bringing over Hanabi’s frustraction.

First impression: BanG Dream!

Published on January 24, 2017Leave a comment

K-On season three as another group of high school girls get bitten by the rock bug and start a band.

BanG Dream: Hungry Heart

Really, this starts out as K-On, with a slightly ditzy girl going to her new high school for the first time. She even has a somewhat more reliable younger sister. She’s looking for something new and exciting and sees high school as the start of something new. Obviously that’s going to be music of some sort, but first she has to spent half the episode visiting every club in school to see if they suit her. Though in the process we do get a first look at those who are destined to join her band.

BanG Dream: Point Blank

What I like is how the protagonist, Toyama Kasumi, is actually fairly social and outgoing, quick to be friendly with her classmates and actually fairly decent at the club activities she tries. What I don’t like is how she met her first friend: literally bumping into her while looking to see which class she was assigned to, the camera firmly at butt level. It’s one of those little indulgences that can put you right off a series.

BanG Dream: Thunder Road

The plot only kicks in roughly 2/3rds of the way through the episode, as Kasumi notices a trail of star stickers and follows it to its end point: a pawn shop. She looks into its storeroom, is caught by a girl working in the garden, then persuades her to look at the strange case in the corner, which turns out to contain the guitar she’s cradling in the first image above. For some reason she also persuades her to take her to a live house to play guitar, but instead she gets to hear the band the episode started with.

BanG Dream: she is a rocker

Stars are a recurrent theme here. Kasumi starts the episode by narrating how when she was little she once heart the rhythm of the star beat. When she introduces herself to her new class she talks about her dream of finding it once again and in an extended flashback she reminds her sister of how she took her stargazing one night and saw the Milky Wa and heard that star beat. Not surprising then that the band she saw that gives her the last push to make music herself wears stars on their outfits…

First impression: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

Published on January 23, 2017Leave a comment

A drunken sysadmin stumbles over a dragon one evening, pulls the sword from her back and gets the shock of her life when the dragon shows up the next morning to become her new maid.

This is the least KyoAni-esque Kyoto Animation series since Nichijou. Kobayashi-san is a working woman, an IT professional who is some years removed from the usual perky, cute KyoAni high school girls, as her complaints about an aching back and upset stomach make emphatically clear. Nor is there the usual romantic pussyfooting here. Tohru loves Kobayashi-san –“I mean sexually” — and is not shy to show it. Kobayashi-san herself is somewhat less enthusiastic about the whole idea, but allows Tohru to stay with her nevertheless.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: the thirst is real

The first episode then was all about Tohru’s thirst for Kobayashi-san and the latter’s reactions to it. It’s amusing, especially when Kobayashi and a coworker go out for drinks after work, a jealous Tohru joins them which prompts Kobayashi to start ranting about maids and how Tohru is just cosplaying. Which indeed she was, having based her uniform on two girls advertising a maid cafe. There’s also the recurring theme of Tohru wanting Kobayashi-san to eat her tail, which is not symbolic of anything whatsoever.

What’s also fun is seeing small asides from the manga being animated and given life. Like Tohru happily and messily eating her own tail, which is much more scary animated than as one small panel in the manga. Had the second episode followed along the lines of the first however it would’ve been disappointing, as Tohru lusting after Kobayashi-san while the latter remains stoic was wearing thin already.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon: startng a family

Luckily the second episode kicked things up a notch. First, there was the scene in which Tohru stops a thief when they went shopping at the local shopping centre, with Kobayashi getting a bit paniced at Tohru perhaps exposing herself as not human, leading her away holding her hand and when Tohru notices, gripping her firmer. Subtly done but such a great way of showing how far their relationship had progressed already. But the heart of the episode is when a second dragon shows up, in the form of a little girl called Kanna, who went looking for Tohru when she went missing and is now stuck on Earth. Kobayashi offers her a place in her home, which Kanna is reluctant to take as she doesn’t trust humans. The way in which she breaks down as Kobayashi tells her she doesn’t have to be friends with her to let her stay and especially that final shot of the three pair of shoes lined up at the front door made me choke up.

The subject matter may be slightly outside KyoAni’s usual range, with the animation style taking its cue from the original manga, but that doesn’t mean the usual care and attention the studio is known for isn’t taken. Most of it is fairly subtle, focusing on characterisation and character interaction, but there are several scenes in the first two episodes like the one above, where the animators get to cut loose. It makes you wonder what a good KyoAni action series would be like (as opposed to tripe like Musaigen no Phantom World).