I used to limit the number of ongoing anime series I was watching to just a few. There are so many older anime series I need to catch up on, that I didn't think I had time to watch currently-airing series as well. But finally I concluded that if I only caught up on older series that I would never get around to seeing the new series, and the problem would grow on itself.
So recently, I've taken up watching a number of currently-airing series. Two series that I've found interesting - for different reasons - are Hanasakeru Seishonen and Miracle Train.
Hanasakeru Seishonen is a 39-episode series that began this past summer. It's currently airing at Episode 32. I've been pleasantly surprised by this series, which is a change from the usual bloodthirsty shonen stuff that I watch. ;)
The story revolves around Kajika Burnsworth, the only child of Harry Burnsworth, an oil magnate. Harry proposes an odd challenge for his teenage daughter: that she take the next year to choose her future husband from among three candidates. The catch is - he won't tell her who these three men are. Her job is to find that out for herself.
From the outset, it seems pre-destined as to who Harry really means for Kajika to pick: her childhood friend and sometimes-guardian Li-Leng, head of the powerful Chinese industrialist Huang family group. Kajika spent her childhood being raised by friendly natives on a Caribbean island that Harry owned, and Li-Leng was the teenage boy who summered on the island with her. But Li-Leng initially seems more like an older brother figure to Kajika than a romantic interest.
So as the series moves forward, we meet the three men Harry was referring to: Eugene, an heir to one of Burnsworth Oil's subsidiaries and a tragic-poet type figure; Prince Rumaty, the grandson of King Machaty of the oil kingdom Raginei; and Carl Rosenthal, the son of the oil magnate whom Harry Burnsworth beat out for control of Raginei's oil export market. All three of these men come to fall in love with Kajika; but there's more to the story than that.
In a flashback episode, we see that decades ago King Machaty had traveled to America for an international conference, and had a one-night affair with an American woman. Their child, as it turns out, is Harry Burnsworth. As a civil war erupts in Raginei over succession to the throne, the secret that complicates everything is that Kajika - as the child of Machaty's first-born son - is actually first in line to the throne of Raginei.
Kajika is a strong character and genuinely likable. I don't recognize her seiyuu, Aya Endo, from anything else, but all four of Kajika's suitors are played by well-known seiyuu: Toshiyuki Morikawa (Li-Leng), Daisuke Ono (Eugene), Daisuke Namikawa (Rumaty) and Jun Fukuyama (Carl). It's a quality production and an engaging story, and I'm looking forward to watching the last seven episodes to see how it ends.
Miracle Train looked like a lost cause to me, virtually from the first episode. The premise is that the train stations of Tokyo's Oedo line - Tocho, Shinjuku, Roppongi, Tsukishima, Ryogoku, and Shiodome - are personified as bishonen, and their mission is to help female passengers with whatever problem-of-the-week it is that they have.
The first few episodes were tough slogging. Each week's woman who got on board the Miracle Train seemed to have an even less interesting problem than the one who got on the week before, making for a parade of female insipidness that was hardly inspiring. For example: one episode featured a psychic who had gone into business with another psychic. Her partner was pushing her to market her services to as many clients as possible, while she only wanted to read for a few clients a day as she used to. Her problem was solved when Ryogoku told her that it was okay for her to be honest with her partner about her wishes. She needed a total stranger to tell her this...?
The main problem of the show is that we never get to know any of the main characters very well. We get the short version of what distinguishes each of them: Tocho is the seemingly stern (but secretly kind-hearted) leader; Shinjuku is the rakish ladies' man; Roppongi is the quiet, thoughtful one; Tsukishima is the monja-loving one; Ryogoku is the one who loves Edo period doramas; and Shiodome, as the "youngest" (aka the newest-built) station, is short and excitable and child-like in his personality.
Besides the six train station characters, there is a mysterious masked conductor; a young girl dressed in pink who acts as kind of a welcoming hostess figure; and Tokugawa, a little black and white dog.
Tokugawa makes snide asides about the human characters for the viewers' sake, and grumbles a lot about everything. As the series dragged on, I half-expected an Adorable Pet Episode, an episode in which Tokugawa was the star, since episodes centered around cute animals never fail to work. But I guess in a 13-episode series, there wasn't enough time for this.
In short, I kept watching Miracle Train like an automaton, expecting less and less of it, looking forward to the end of the series simply because it would be the end of the series.
But the last two episodes - Episodes 10 and 11 - have been unexpectedly good. Episode 10 was about an actress who was the daughter of a TV cop drama star from decades past. She wanted to do the same action stunts as her father used to, but the director kept using the stuntwoman instead for the dangerous stunts. To convince her that she needed to focus on what was really important - playing her character with heart - the eki-bishies acted out an episode of the old cop drama, complete with a chase scene through the rivers of Tokyo - with a runaway train car. It was funny and clever and quite enjoyable to watch.
And Episode 11 was even better, though in a completely different way. The story featured a rather ditzy girl, who we first see rushing to meet her boyfriend in Roppongi. The girl is easily distracted by everything: an old man who is lost and needs directions, two little schoolkids who are fighting, etc. As she explains to the eki-bishies, since she stops to help everybody, she usually winds up being late for her dates.
As the episode goes on, the eki-bishies escort her to where she is supposed to meet her boyfriend, while Roppongi (the thoughtful one, remember) becomes increasingly disturbed by the girl's behavior, while not being able to articulate why.
It is not until - literally - the last three minutes of the episode, when something truly startling occurs, that we finally understand what the entire episode was about. The twist was so unexpected and yet so perfect that I can't dismiss Miracle Train so easily anymore. The show seems to be hitting its stride - just as it's coming to an end. There are only two episodes left in the series, and you can be sure I'll be there to watch them.
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