Some Thoughts on Summer Season 2013

We're into the summer season, and the two best new anime series I'm watching are both surprises.

Eccentric Family is about the uneasy balance between humans, tanuki and tengu in contemporary Kyoto. The main character is Yasaburo Shimogamo, a teenage boy who is actually a tanuki.

The Shimogamo family is the "eccentric family" of the series' title. Mother dresses like a boy prince, while eldest son Yachiro orders Yasaburo and little Yashiro around. The second eldest son Yajiro turned into a frog and lives at the bottom of a dry well, visited by townspeople who want to wish on a frog and/or to confide things to someone.

The father of the family was cooked in a tanuki stew, possibly by Benten, a beautiful and mysterious human female.

Eccentric Family is gentle slice-of-life with the occasional bite to it, plus fantasy action scenes. The sense of humor is wry and adult. It's the kind of show where the relationships between the characters are the most important thing, and the characters' interactions are always amusing, interesting and/or moving. A surprise, because I didn't know what to expect, but it's my favorite of the summer series so far.

Another one I wasn't expecting to like so much is Makai Ouji.

Set in an English boarding school, Makai Ouji is about William, a young aristocrat, and Dantalion, the devil/demon he accidentally summons.

What I like the most about Makai Ouji is the way the story is being told. In a nutshell, the script is excellent. The story proceeds logically, is paced perfectly and the characters keep revealing more about themselves in dramatic (but logically sound) ways. It balances dramatic and comedic scenes well. The little shonen-ai moments almost detract from the story (I never thought I would say such a thing, but it's true); it would be worth watching without any hints of boy-boy whatsoever. So, one more surprise this season.

I'm also enjoying Hiromu Arakawa's Silver Spoon, a story about a boy who goes to agriculture school in Hokkaido. The world of agriculture and dairy farming is certainly different than the usual anime setting, so it's like an education. ;-)

Blood Lad is an enjoyable romp. A vampire with his own territory in Hell comes to Earth with a human girl-turned-demon who needs to be restored to being human again.

I love the main character Staz's dead-looking eyes. ;-0 Even better, his older brother is due to appear soon.

Not only does Braz have the same dead-looking eyes, but he's a megane!

Yamishibai is a collection of creepy paranormal tales, one tale per episode. I've seen up to episode 3 and so far it hasn't disappointed. Oh, and by the way, each episode is only five minutes long, so if you give Yamishibai a try and don't like it, at least you haven't lost half an hour of your life. ;-)

And that brings us to Free!

To be honest, Free! is not quite what I expected. I don't know what I should have expected from a male version of slice-of-life moe. Maybe a more exciting plot? More feistiness from the (rather passive) teenage boys?

Yes, the boys are decorative and easy to look at, but I have to wonder if Free! isn't actually a sly parody of moe. The silly dressing room scene with the boys trying on different revealing swimsuits, Haru tossing his hair, the stereotyped roles (Haru the taciturn main character, Rin as his rival, Makoto the "normal guy" of the group, Nagisa the chibi cute one and Rei the neurotic intellectual). It's like KyoAni is deliberately sending up the moe genre - but to what end?

Not to mention the art. I have an issue with the art. Check out 1:08-1:17 in the following video:



When I first got into anime, a lot of my American comic book fan friends sniffed, saying the faces and bodies looked "stylized" and "airbrushed." So what happened with Free!?? What is with all these sinewy muscles (more than is even realistic)?

Honestly, Haru's and Rin's torsos could stand some airbrushing. You don't want to look as sinewy as THIS GUY

Right?

To finish up my thoughts on Free!, I like it well enough but it's hardly the droolfest this fujoshi was expecting. Maybe for me, moe even with guys doesn't work too well.

It's a good summer season of anime. Hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am. =D

Incongruous Things - One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
--"One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others)"
Words and Music by Joe Raposo and Jon Stone

Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed this one

... is not like the others,
Then you're absolutely right!

Think we could have used a few more anime series with bishonen this season, and a little less moe? ;-)

(A - Day Break Illusion; B - Rozen Maiden Zuruckspulen; C - Sunday Without God; D - Fantasista Doll; E - Futari wa Milky Holmes; F - Hyperdimension Neptunia; G - Kin-iro Mosaic; H - Love Lab; I - Free!; J - Ro-Kyu-Bu! SS; and K - Teekyu S2)

Anime Summer Season 2013 Watchlist

I am not even finished with my spring season shows - and here comes summer. :0

I haven't even watched the first episode or two of Free! yet, the most anticipated by fujoshis series of the season. Ah well... I will start in on the summer shows soon. In addition to Free!, I am looking forward to:

Silver Spoon is Hiromu Arakawa's manga about a boy who attends agricultural school turned into an anime. Arakawa, the brilliant storyteller of Fullmetal Alchemist, was raised on a Hokkaido dairy farm and if you read her manga her omake pieces always feature herself drawn... as a cow. =D Looking forward to this one.

Makai Ouji is about an aristocrat who accidentally summons a devil. Well, the devil was pretty funny in last season's Hataraku Maoh-sama, so I'll take a chance on this one as well. :)

I really like Japanese ghost stories and creepy tales, so I will definitely give Yamishibai - Japanese Ghost Stories a try.

Not quite sure what to think about Uchoten Kazoku (The Eccentric Family), which is about a human-tanuki family in Kyoto, but I'll watch a few episodes - it looks like it might be fun.

Finally, Blood Lad is about a vampire in hell who is into Japanese pop culture. The character designs are hysterical and the poster reminds me of Durarara!!, so I'll try it out.

All of the above are available as legal streams from Crunchyroll, with the exception of Blood Lad which I think is available on Viz. So let's support the original creators and legal distributors by utilizing these sites this summer season. :)

On an ending note, I can't help but notice the overwhelming flood of moe this season. Just a brief scroll down the list of new shows spotlighted by ANN reveals at least 16 new series featuring cutesy little moe girls. I didn't even count the ones with cute junior high or high school girls.

Just imagine if there were 16 shows that featured bishonen like in Free!!, all in one season. And the fanboys are complaining about Kyoto Animation's lone bishonen show? -_-

How to Do Bad the Right Way

What makes a bad movie good?

I had the opportunity to ponder this question recently while watching two movies at Anime Expo.

When you go to see a movie entitled Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack!, first of all, you're not expecting Shakespeare. What you're ideally looking for is a stupidly entertaining movie that has fish attacking people (it's in the title after all) as much as possible. What you're not looking for is a serious story.

Tokyo Fish Attack! opens with Kaori and her girlfriends Aki and Erika vacationing at Kaori's boyfriend Tadashi's cottage in Okinawa. Kaori phones Tadashi, who is in Tokyo working with his scientist uncle Sazuku Koyanagi.

Kaori tells Tadashi she misses him. The next thing you know, fish with metal legs come ashore at Okinawa and the island is soon under attack.

(Nice touch with the schoolgirls taking photos of the salaryman as he's about to get eaten...)

When she hears the fish have invaded Tokyo, Kaori gets on a train to be with Tadashi. She meets a journalist, Shirokawa, who has his own agenda in going with her to Tadashi's uncle's house.

The fish attack now and again as Kaori and Shirokawa fight their way across Tokyo. Eventually, everyone in the cast starts sporting expressions like the following:

The problem with Tokyo Fish Attack! is that it actually tries to tell a story. You don't want this with a film called "Tokyo Fish Attack!" What you want from a film with a title that nuts is for crazy things to happen every minute.

It's the same problem that Snakes On a Plane had a number of years ago. Crazy things happened in that movie, but not nearly enough. I've always said Snakes On a Plane would've been better if it had been worse - in other words, if there had been insane things happening more often - like you'd expect in a movie called "Snakes On a Plane" - it would have been really bad then and therefore really entertaining and funny.

What you wanted Tokyo Fish Attack! to be, in other words, was Fish On a Plane. What you really wanted it to be was the movie I saw at AX the next night, which was...

Dead Sushi, written and directed by Noboru Iguchi, proud maker of RoboGeisha and Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead. Iguchi stated that he was inspired by Attack of the Killer Tomatoes when he conceived of Dead Sushi. Now that's what you want in a bad movie.

Rina Takeda plays a sushi-chef-in-training and martial arts expert who leaves her father's overbearing tutelage to work at a small inn in the countryside.

Not that the plot matters, but an evil pharmaceutical company's CEO comes to the inn, and a deranged former employee of the company starts infecting the inn's sushi with a serum that makes them come alive (and sport vicious teeth).

What happens next? The sushi begin to attack, of course.



The thing is - Dead Sushi has something crazy or effed up happening in almost every moment of the movie - nonstop. Pieces of sushi come alive and start attacking people. But that's not all. First, two fish sushi beat up the tamago (egg) sushi - because they sense he's not like them. A sushi boat flies through the air and launches missiles at humans. People get naked suddenly for no apparent reason (and then are attacked by the sushi). The deranged former employee eats the infected sushi and grows a tuna head. Instead of being upset about this, he throws his tuna head back and screams, "I HAVE BEEN REBORN AS TUNA!!" It's a free-for-all!

This is what you want in a bad movie. You don't want to be bored by a linearly-told story, and certainly not by a serious one. The audience watching Tokyo Fish Attack! left the room bored, whereas Dead Sushi had people laughing or groaning (and sometimes laughing and groaning) throughout.

That's how you do bad - the right way. =D

Anime Expo 2013 Report

Anime Expo 2013 was held July 4-7 this year at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

It was a packed four days. One of the most fun moments - for me at least - came on the first day at the Shonen Jump panel.

If you've read the Bakuman manga or seen the anime, you know Hisashi Sasaki, the veteran Shonen Jump editor. Sasaki in Bakuman is based on the real-life Hisashi Sasaki - the veteran Shonen Jump editor. ;-) In the panel, we learned that among his many achievements in Japanese manga publishing Sasaki discovered Nobuhiko Watsuki, the creator of Rurouni Kenshin, as a teenager in a local talent contest(!).

Sasaki uses his manga character as his avatar in his Twitter feed and mentioned in the panel that manga artist Takeshi Obata made the editorial staff look "one thousand percent better" in the manga and anime.

Actually, I disagree. Here's the panel. I took the final picture of Sasaki-sensei from close up:

And here's Sasaki-sensei as he appears in the Bakuman anime and manga:

I think the real-life Sasaki looks much younger than his artistic renderings and told him so after the panel. He laughed. =D

A lot of good panels were held on Day 1, including Digital Manga Inc.'s:

DMI announced that they are seeking to publish all Osamu Tezuka books as ebooks in conjunction with Tezuka Productions. In addition, they said that Yaoi Con would move back to the San Francisco Bay Area next year in October.

New streaming site Daisuki also held their panel on the first day of the convention. Chaired by Robert Napton, the panel featured Shaft president Mitsutoshi Kubota who announced that Monogatori S2 would stream as a simulcast on Daisuki. They gave out some cool freebies, including the Madoka Magica clearfile above.

One of the Copic-sponsored art panels focused on what it's like to be a mangaka in Japan. Three mangaka women demonstrated how to draw skin, eyes and hair with Copic markers. In the Q&A, I asked whether the depictions of mangaka in Bakuman and Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi were accurate, and one of the women answered that "everything that happens cannot be told." Hmmm. XD

A delightful new feature was a drawing wall, located near the West Hall entrance. Each day people drew on sheets of butcher paper that had been tacked up:

Here are a few close-ups - some people are quite talented, aren't they?

The best thing was that each morning... clean new sheets would be put up, ready for more drawings.

One of the academic lectures focused on the origins of the symbolism in Fullmetal Alchemist.

The lecture was very good. The presenter's website is AllysonFloyd.com, if you want to take a look at her work.

Veteran seiyuu Kazuhiko Inoue appeared on Day 3:

Inoue walked to the table holding a Nyanko-sensei doll from Natsume Yuujincho, and occasionally answered questions using his Nyanko voice. :)

At first, many questions from the audience were on his work in Zeta Gundam, to the groans of the non-Gundam enthusiasts. Inoue got a big laugh when he stated that he could barely recall the role, as it was thirty years ago.

He also said that Nyanko is a middle-aged cat, and he is now a middle-aged man so he could relate to Nyanko quite well. When asked what it's been like to work on Naruto for the past ten years, Inoue said Junko Takeuchi (Naruto) was just starting out when she got the role, but is now a veteran. He added that the cast was like one big family.

He concluded by singing part of a song, and offering advice to an aspiring voice actor: "People think voice acting is just using different tones, but you should study acting - it's about learning to act." Very much a class act, Inoue was laid-back, smiled often and was the professional that you would expect him to be.

The gaming room at AX this year was simply cavernous. The following picture doesn't do it justice:

A new card game called Weiss Schwartz was very popular. Weiss Schwartz involves using card decks featuring anime characters.

Both the tabletop games and video games were held in the same room:

Now, on to some cosplay photos. Here's Chiho from Hataraku Maoh-sama:

And a few more. Don't know how the Dalek found himself in an anime convention...

A helpful new addition to the convention were electronic boards announcing scheduled events:

LA Live was as lit-up as ever:

And this year, Lounge 21 was held in a very large ballroom.

Around Saturday, Day 3, I could have used a cup of coffee around this size:

Here are some more cosplay photos:

Sentai Filmworks brought their own tank to promote Girls und Panzer:

I was tired by Sunday, Day 4, but I made a last circuit of the Exhibit Hall and happened upon a group that indie-published their own manga, Ronin Galaxy:

Looking at the manga book, handling it and examining the spine, the color illustrations on the front and back and the print and paper quality of the interior, I couldn't see any difference between Ronin Galaxy, Vol. I and any manga volume from DMI, Tokyopop or any of the other publishers I've worked for as a freelance editor - none. Indie publishing has come a long way, and as an indie publisher myself I am extremely excited for the future. When a small group of independents can put out a quality book like this, the sky is the limit for all of us creators. =) Their website by the way is: RoninGalaxy.com.

I'll probably post a little more this month about some things I experienced at AX 2013, but a few last words. Each year, AX has scheduling and organization snafus and this year was no different. I missed seeing the Blue Exorcist movie largely because it was screened in a smaller room than it had to be, considering how enormous many of the rooms at the LA Convention Center are. (I also arrived to line up fairly late, but still...) Also, I missed seeing Makoto Shinkai's The Garden of Words even though I arrived an hour early. The line was already long enough that they determined the room would be full. And again - it was held in that same rather small room, while other events that didn't draw as many people were held in the large rooms.

All in all though, it was a very good convention and I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the entire four days. =D I'll look forward to next year's convention.