Jan 17 2009
#18-#20: “Seto no Hanayome,” “Kyouran Kazoku Nikki,” “Macross Plus”
What do you get when you take a teenage boy, drown him in the ocean, and then have him get saved by a mermaid who is also part of a mafia family? You get the shojo comedy “Seto no Hanayome.” This is an extravaganza of hyper-distorted figures who scream and smack each other around and act completely ridiculous. This anime series is loud and bizarre and follows its characters as they ramble off into yelling tangents about silly things. I wasn’t terribly impressed with it, but I’m sure some anime viewers who love incredibly silly shows would like it for its bright colors and over-the-top characters.
“Kyouran Kazoku Nikki” is another shojo anime that rests its story on the backs of very silly characters who run around doing very silly things. Basically the premise is that a young government man is recruited as part of a secret operation to stop the Child of Enki from destroying the world. In order to fulfill this mission he must marry one of the children of Enki and adopt the rest as his children. This doesn’t really make sense when it is explained in the first episode, and I found the characters and the story too irritating to have any desire to watch further and see if it ever makes sense. The main female character, especially, is very obnoxious and impossible to like.
Luckily I did find some anime that I could enjoy a bit in the last few days. ”Macross Plus,” an OAV series that is somewhat a part of the larger “Macross” metaseries, revolves around three friends who were once close when they were younger, but have since grown apart since they reached adulthood. One is a brash test pilot with too much bravura, another is a pilot who knows the right and wrong ways to do things, and the woman who has always been torn between them once had dreams of being a famous singer but has since let those dreams take a backseat to her new career as a manager for virtual pop sensation Sharon Apple. There is much flying of planes and shooting at things and the re-animation once again of the giant Macross ship. There is also some deeper stuff going on here, with lots of backstory and interesting twists revolving around Sharon. But while the action is great for a while, the climax sees it just peter out. I watched all four OAV episodes, and by the last one I just felt confused and disappointed. This might be okay for hardcore Macross fans, but for other viewers it may be a bit of a letdown.
