Shoujo & General Weblog

A quick round-up of the spring and summer anime: I’m continuing to watch Itazura na Kiss and Kaiba, but dropped xxxHOLOC Kei as the plot wasn’t interesting.

Nogizawa Haruka no Himitsu The hero wastes little time in extablishing a relationship with the school “princess” after discovering her secret – she’s an anime and manga otaku. It’s fun but by about episode 5 I’m starting to feel that some of the elements are over-familiar.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto is a sort of sequel to “Someday’s Dreamers”. in which a witch girl leaves home in Hokkaido to start her apprenticeship in Tokyo. This is animated with very detailed and realistic backgrounds that rather out-shine the character designs. Modern setting with mobile phones etc. Not sure yet how good the story is going to be, and so far the heroine seems a little blandly “nice”.
Very realistic background art, but otherwise weak.

Yakushiji Ryouko no Kaiki Jikenbo – adult police drama which contains some supernatural elements (that’s apart from the lead female character being very rich, super-competent and gorgeous). The other main character is her put-upon male subordinate. Watchable.

Bounen no Xamdou has great production values and a very busy first episode introducing lots of interesting characters. There is also lots of action in the second episode. Not sure if I can take it seriously as it’s hard to suspend one’s disbelief at times, and there’s too much fun to be had playing “spot the influence”.

Eve no Jikan is set in a near-future world where many families have an android servant. The androids look and act exactly like humans but can be distinguished by the illuminated halo above their heads. They get treated much like the whites used to treat their black servants. The androids seem to be developing their own sub-culture, and there are some people who feel they should be treated more like humans… Though those who spend too much time with their androids are reviled as geeks. Fascinating stuff, and probably the best of the bunch so far, but there seems to be only 1 episode of this 6-episode ONA available at time of writing.

Hazumu enjoys being a girl

I see that I’ve only written one anime review since April, clearly slipping! I’ve ben ill, but that’s not much of an excuse. But I particularly enjoyed Kashimashi – Girl Meets Girl. Kashimashi (which actually means something like “girlish chatter”) is a comedy of gender identity, and how a group of friends react to a change in one of their number, Hazumu.  Some of the comedy, like the notorious bra-fitting scene in episode #2, is quite racy.

Hazumu is a somewhat effeminate boy, fond of gardening, who confesses his feelings for  the elegant Yasuna, but is firmly rejected. He goes for a walk on the nearby wooded mountain, but is fatally injured by a crashing alien spacecraft. The aliens manage to bring him back to life, but with one crucial difference – Hazumu is now a girl, even to the level of having female DNA. This incident is splashed all over the news media, while Hazumu is checked over in hospital, and found to be perfectly healthy.

Hazumu’s school friends gather as Hazumu prepares to return to school. They find the new, feminine Hazumu rather hard to cope with, while Hazumu, proudly showing off her new female school uniform, clearly has no problem adjusting to her new gender. Hazumu’s parents have her sex altered in the family register, and while her mother is quite happy to have a daughter, her father is happy in a rather inappropiate way…

Hazumu soon discovers that her friends Yasuna and the tomboy-ish Tomari both have sapphic feelings for her. A relationship is in prospect, but as both girls fight for her affections, Hazumu, a naturally indecisive person, is unable to choose between them.

Meanwhile, Hazumu’s former male best-friend Asuta is disturbed by his reaction to the new Hazumu, whom he clearly finds attractive. These feelings are likely to be shared by the male viewer…

There are also a pair of aliens, visible only to Hazumu, who appear repeatedly, offering further comic relief.

As the series progresses, Yasuna and Tomari compete for Hazumu’s affections. Only in the final episode does Hazumu choose one of them. But which will it be, protective childhood friend Tomari, in whose company Hazumu seems most at ease, or the elegant Yasuna?

Asagiri Rei in rehearsal

The 1st episode of Legendary Idol Eriko has recently been made available made available as a bittorrent.
This old TV anime is the story of  Tamura Eriko, daughter of Tamura Kousuke, a music production executive who is killed in a car crash in the first episode. Eriko becomes an idol singer, while her uncle, who wants to take control of the company, tries to block her career.
Actually, in the first episode, the most interesting character is Eriko’s rival, Asagiri Rei, who is seen at rehearsal belting out a song while wearing a tiny tight top and a skirt so short one can almost see her underwear. After giving Eriko a chilly look, she goes off clinging to the arm of Eriko’s father. Though she’s only 15, Rei is not an innocent-looking girl.
The opening credit song is sung by the *real* Tamura Eriko, an idol singer, while the rehearsal and end credit song are sung by Maiko Hashimoto, who on the limited evidence so far seems the better singer.  The “Unchained heart” song is really not bad.

Kaiba and creature

At last something really different in the new season! In an anime with a style somewhat reminiscent of the late Osamu Tezuka, a young man wakes in a totally strange-looking world. He has a large circular hole through his chest, and is wearing a medallion, and he can’t remember anything. In this world, memories can be separated from human bodies, and stored in pyramidal memory chips. They can also be traded and stolen. After some bewildering adventures in which he is variously helped and attacked, the main character, Kaiba, escapes in an aircraft.

This looks so different from the usual anime style that it’s fascinating to watch. I’ll follow this for a while to see how it turns out.

Punie wrestling with mascot

This parody of magical-girl anime is more like magical-princess anime on crack, as sweet-looking Magical Princess Punie from the Magic Kingdom joins a Japanese school for a year on Earth. She has to do this to prove herself worthy of becoming Queen. Punie, in a flashback to how she acquired her mascot, looks more like a brutal and evil witch.

A schoolgirl gang, a frightening collection of burly and well-armed freaks, take an instant dislike to Punie, but when they try to sort her out, she invokes her magic, with the call of “Magical Tokarev, kill them all”, and unleashes a swarm of fighting vegetables. In a later sequence, Punie, with her magic temporarily blocked, demonstrates wrestling skills which are equally dangerous.

It’s almost a shame to tell you all this, as if you watched it as I did with only the vaguest idea what to expect, you might almost fall out of your chair in surprise.

So, is it worth watching? Certainly the first pair of mini-episodes are a lot of fun, and I’ll probably follow it a bit longer to see how it develops.

Scene from Itazura no Kiss

Itazura na Kiss – traditional sort of school romance comedy where a girl from class “F”, the least able, has been for two years nursing a crush on Irie, a handsome boy from class “A”, and finally attempts to confess her love, only to find that he’s arrogant and hates stupid girls. Her father’s new house falls down, leaving them homeless. They are offered a place to stay by her father’s old buddy Irie who is none other than the father of Genius Boy Irie. She moves in, and finds that the boy isn’t at all friendly and even his rude kid brother is much smarter than her. Perhaps a bit early to say, but this looks like it could be a lot of fun.

Macross Frontier – same old tosh, but at least it’s superbly produced tosh.

Allison and Lillia – The politics look interesting, but it lost me when two of the main characters prang a motorcycle and sidecar combo, wrecking it, and then get up and run off to the next scene, and then “borrow” a light aircraft which just happens to be left in a hangar, unattended, fuelled up and with the keys in it.

xxxHOLiC Kei – a straight continuation of the previous and now licensed season of CLAMP’s comedy supernatural show. Lead character has a battle of obligations with his friend, and involving a vengeful spider. Looks good, worth watching.