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Now that just about all of the 11 or 12-episode summer TV anime series have ended, it’s time to look back and draw some conclusions about what was worth watching.

Fumi (Aoi Hana)

Aoi Hana didn’t stand out at first, but as I continued to follow it, I grew to like it more and more. The subject, girl-girl love among schoolgirls, is one that some will find intriguing…  The characters all seemed as if drawn from life, and  were never made to act out of character, as the story unfolded in a natural unforced way. In contrast to many other romance anime, there was no attempt to exaggerate or to contrive humorous situations.   While the lead character wasn’t particularly good-looking, many viewers found her – or her facial expressions – very cute.  I found that her habit, when alone in her room, of  throwing herself down to lie contemplating the day’s events, was rather charming. Partway through the series Fumi drops one relationship and continues with another.  In the anime, the viewer has to infer how far these relationships went, or might go, but if you read the original manga far enough, it does eventually spell it out more explicitly.  The anime artwork is done in a beautiful pastel style, that suits the story well.

Tokyo Magnitude 8 does not disappoint, unless you wanted 11 episodes of structural catastrophe! In fact, this is a disaster as experienced by a young girl, Mirai, and her younger brother Yuuki.  There’s less emphasis on large-scale destruction after the first episode, and more on the experiences of the characters as they trek for kilometers through the wrecked city to reach  homes and families that may no longer exist. Towards the end, there’s a wrenching shift of perspective, that will probably send you back to re-watch several episodes.

Spice and Wolf II ended being a disappointment, as it started off promisingly, but never attained the excitement and magic of the first series, instead losing itself in drawn-out business schemes, and tiresome and none too convincing squabbling between Lawrence and Horo.  Too often, Lawrence behaves like a schoolboy rather than an experienced traveller and trader. It has an open-ended last episode, so we may get further series until everybody agrees they can’t bear it any longer.

Bakemonogatari is fantastic, with magical curses, gorgeous sexy girls, wicked humour, and an art style that some will love and some  may find annoyingly arty.  I’ll definitely buy this if it is issued as a reasonably priced subtitled box-set.

Cross Game (51 eps) is still running, and continues to charm as our two main characters continue to practice their baseball skills and still refuse to accept that by the end of the series they have to stop detesting each other and be a couple.  Superb scripting, good characterisations, and manages to make baseball seem interesting even if one has never played. A casually dressed  Aoba looks cute in the end credits too.

Fumi

I’m following several of the new Summer season anime.

Aoi Hana (Sweet Blue Flowers) is a rather sweet tale of girl-girl romance among high-school girls.  Fumi moves to a new district and a new school. She discovers that an old schoolfriend, A-chan, attends another school nearby. Fumi is miserable because her cousin recently got married. However she soon meets a tall and charming sempai at her new school.  Fumi, a tall, shy girl who cries rather easily, is very cute.

Tokyo Magnitude 8 is a bit different. It’s about a future earthquake of magnitude 8 and claims to be carefully researched.  It’s worth getting the 1st episode just to watch the pre-quake sequence – a beautifully scripted Day in the Life of a disgruntled schoolgirl who wishes everything would just self- destruct. Subsequent episodes mix dramatic collapses and tremors with the sort of situations survivors might find themselves in: queuing for toilets or tramping towards ferry terminals.

Spice & Wolf II is up to the standard of the previous series.

Bakemonogatari is about a schoolboy who discovers that a girl in his class is not quite normal. She falls in anime-style slow motion, he catches her and discovers that she doesn’t have any weight. Not one for the faint-hearted – in the opening sequence the wind blows up a girl’s skirt showing her underwear,  and when the ‘weightless’ girl suspects that the youth has been talking about her to someone else, she does something beastly to him with a trimming knife and a stapler. The animation is VERY arty.  The dialog is very good, and whle the wierdness is quite slow-paced it’s certainly interesting.

Also checked:

Taishou Yakyuu Musume is set in 1925, and is about some schoolgirls (some still wearing kimonos to school) who want to play baseball like the boys.  So-so.

Umi Monogatari is about two young sisters who live under the sea (!) and venture on land to return a beautiful ring which somebody has thrown into the sea. They innocently blunder about till they find the owner, and also trigger, or at least get involved in, some dark supernatural doings. Has some nice bright colours; might appeal to younger viewers.

Sora no Manimani is about a school astronomy club. An amusing comedy.

Kanamemo is about a 13-year old schoolgirl, Kana, an orphan who lives with her grandmother, until the old lady dies suddenly and creditors invade the house to reposess anything of value. Kana flees into the streets, and is taken in by an all-women newspaper collective. Three of them are lesbians, and while two are interested in each other …  This is a light comedy, but I should warn the unwary that while this might have played alright in Japan, some Western viewers, especially parents, may find themselves unamused.

Yokawaraku Gendaimahou: Magical drama. In the first episode, the young heroine, a rather irritating girl with a high opinion of herself, inherits a magical book and staff. Initially without any magical powers, she is chased by dangerous characters who want the staff. She also appears bare-assed in one scene for no valid reason. Avoid.

Just finished watching Tekkonkinkreet. Another neglected masterpiece! Unusually, it is directed by an American, Michael Arias, who was also involved with “Animatrix” etc.  Less unusually, it has a sound-track by two British musicians.  Having seen it, I have to say that perhaps Western direction is what anime needs to drag it out of the mediocricy into which it seems to be sinking.
Tekkonkinkreet (the original title of the manga better known here as “Black and White”) is a Japanese pun on the Japanese word for reinforced concrete.  Not that the story has anything much to do with concrete, but if you watch the whole thing you may agree that it kind of makes sense. While the manga was in, er, black and white, the movie explodes into glorious colour.  Two street brats clash with gangsters who are taking over their city.  The two brats, both of them rather crazy, are portrayed with remarkable depth and sympathy, and White in particular has some great lines.The characters are depicted with a sophistication that is far removed from typical anime, and succeeds notably in making the yakuza characters seem human as well as menacing and nasty. The art uses both painted backgrounds and computer graphics to allow the viewpoint to swerve up and down garish oriental buildings and along twisting township streets, in a way that older animation methods can’t.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tekkon_Kinkreet
It cost me £5 at HMV.