Feb 04 2009
#32-#35 - “Yotsunoha” to “Ergo Proxy”
“Yotsunoha” was not a great anime series. The reason I know this is because a few days after watching it, I can’t even remember what it was about. I had to look up the details just to recall what I had seen. This doesn’t speak highly of a show that is only two parts, with each episode lasting almost 40 minutes. Based on a Japanese “Visual” novel, or basically an erotic video game, this is the story of a group of teenagers who were once best friends but have drifted apart over the years. Now they are coming together for a reunion at their old school, and much talking and making eyes at each other and fighting about the past ensues. The animation was pretty to look at, but the visual elements just weren’t enough to hold my attention. I couldn’t figure out where the story was going, and felt no compulsion to try and follow it there. I won’t be making a point of seeing the other episode of this show.
Now I can remember the next anime series I watched, “Ah My Goddess!.” I have been a fan of the “Ah My Goddess!” universe for many years, having watched and very much enjoyed the original OAV series back in the day, plus having read some of the manga and LOVED the feature film. This time I watched the first episode of the 52 episode TV series, which basically tells the same story as the OAV and manga. A young college boy makes a call from his dormitory one night and it changes his entire life, as he reaches the Goddess Hotline and is soon visited by the beauitiful and delightfully sweet Belldandy. This series is romantic, funny, and very gentle. There are no huge explosions or gun battles here, there are no giant mechas or tanks, and there are no kickass cyborgs or daredevil pilots. Instead there are a group of realistic and sweet characters who muddle along through life the best they can, while surrounded by a touch of the magical and mystical.
In an alternative universe where most of the world is occuppied by an empire that thinks very highly of itself and not so much of everyone else, who has the power to defeat them? Possibly only one young teenage boy, a prince in disguise who accidently winds up with an immense and frightening power. The first episode of “Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion” took me forever to watch. It seemed like every time I started to play it, something would come along to interrupt me and I’d forget to finish. Part of this stems from the fact that the first few minutes of the show are kind of boring, and part of it stems from the fact that I’m a little biased against this show because of how popular it is. I don’t always like to watch the popular anime, as I feel enough people are already watching them. But since I’m trying to really get a good variety into my viewing for the Anime 365 Challenge, I relented and decided to see “Code Geass.” Eventually I managed to watch the entire first episode, and it turned out to be much better than I had initially thought. The animation is very slick and highly stylized, the character designs are a part of the ultra-modern anime look, and the story has alot of depth to it. I’m actually curious to see what happens next here.
My new favorite series, of the ones that I watched the last few days, is “Ergo Proxy.” This is a series that looks like it fell right out of a gothic/cyberpunk nightmare. The drawings are dark and surreal, the music is electronic and a bit jarring, and the characters are morbid and interesting. It is future-times and the world is populated by humans and the robots they love. It is a dirty kind of paradise, until something sinister starts a rampage of mutilation and death right through the middle of that paradise. “Ergo Proxy” has a look and feel that is uniquely its own. The characters are not sharp and brightly dressed like they appear in so many current anime. Here they are washed out, with round almost shapeless features swathed in punk/goth threads. Scenes are drawn out and moody, or hyper-fast and violent, with little time in between to ready yourself for the sudden shift. It is fun to watch a series once in a while that strays so far from the norm. I will certainly be catching the rest of this one.
