Last Addition to Spring 2014 Watchlist

World Fool News is an oddity in Crunchyroll's spring line-up.

Daytime TV talent Takahashi is transferred to the station's evening newscast, the World Fool News, and soon finds himself surrounded by a staff full of eccentrics.

This series is an oddity for a myriad of reasons. It's not new (it's from 2013), it's an "ONA" (Original Net Anime), it's only six episodes long, each episode is ten minutes and the animation is very Western-looking (think The Simpsons). The first episode was so-so but the second one was hilarious.

A reporter is sent out to cover reports of a "Super Baby" seen at a local park. The baby in question isn't a giant-sized baby but rather a baby who owns a construction company, and who when we first encounter him is busy talking on his cell about a bid on a job in a middle-aged and rather crude voice. XD

I suspect that World Fool News, like last season's Hozuki no Reitetsu, is filled with extremely subtle Japanese humor, most of which is going straight over my head. But enough of the humor is accessible that it's a fun ride regardless.

And in any event - the series is already 1/3 over anyway. XD

Seiyuu Appreciation Day - The Change Artists

Whenever I look up a seiyuu on MyAnimeList, the comments from fans are usually something like, "Oh, he plays X in this anime and Y in that anime? I never knew! Gah, so talented."

That makes me wonder though - are the most celebrated seiyuu the ones who can disappear into a role - or the ones who have distinctive voices and are recognizable as themselves no matter what roles they play?

I read a few years ago that Takahiro Sakurai, despite being a popular and respected seiyuu, has been criticized for always sounding the same - in other words, for not changing his voice much from role to role. He does change his voice though; I noticed that recently when watching Psycho-Pass. I was playing guess-the-seiyuu in the first few episodes and I knew that Makishima was being voiced by an actor I was familiar with and liked but couldn't pin down who it was, and it was Sakurai. He used a very subdued voice for Makishima, which was appropriate as the character was a villain who eluded the police by appearing normal and hiding in plain sight.

For most women seiyuu who play boy roles, radically changing their voice is part of the job. I say most of them, because that doesn't apply to all of them: Romi Paku for example tends to sound similar whether she's playing boys like Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist and Toshiro Hitsugaya in Bleach, or female roles like Temari in Naruto; she has a low voice period, and only adds gruffness and volume to sound more male than female. ;-)

But other female seiyuu like Yuki Kaida and Sanae Kobayashi sound very different in their female roles compared with their male roles. For example, I've been watching Kawai Complex and I didn't recognize Kobayashi as Sumiko-san, the manager of the boarding house (pictured above). She uses a little old lady voice that is miles away from her boy roles like Akira Touya in Hikaru no Go and Allen Walker in D.Gray-Man.

Here's a compilation of her roles. I especially love her hoarse boy voice yelling in the opening clip as Touya, the boy with the greenish pageboy haircut. =D Oh, and a warning - there's a bit of female-on-female groping somewhere in here...



I'm sure there are tons of examples of seiyuu who change their voices drastically from role to role, impressing the hell out of all of us with their acting skills XD - but only two come to mind for me at the moment.

Tatsuhisa Suzuki has a successful singing career as well as voice acting career. The two very different roles he's played recently were Takao, the loud, rough-voiced, joke-playing point guard to the stiff Midorima's shooting guard in Kuroko's Basketball...

... and the soft-spoken, mild-as-milk Makoto in Free!:

Here's a compilation (it sounds like an audition tape) of Suzuki doing different roles:



Finally, there's Susumu Chiba. Unfortunately the following clips don't show just how hilariously different his roles in Hikaru no Go and Gintama were, but they should give you an idea at least.

In Hikaru no Go, Chiba played the ghost of Fujiwara no Sai, a go master from the Heian period, whom young Hikaru unwittingly releases from a haunted go board. Sai has long flowing hair and a pretty face and speaks in a soft, fey voice. The clip below shows him speaking loudly for once, but it was the best clip I could find of Sai.

Contrast that with his role as Commander Kondo in Gintama, for which Chiba uses the roughest, crudest-sounding voice ever. In this clip he's sitting with Tae, the woman who is always rejecting him, dejected and not even registering that she's saying yes to his invitation to a baseball game.

There are many examples of seiyuu with great ranges. In my view, it doesn't matter whether the seiyuu stretches himself and sounds totally different than his usual to play a role, or whether he sounds pretty much the same from role to role - just so long as he does a good acting job. Oh, and having a sexy voice never hurts either. =D

Spring 2014 Watchlist

Well, I'm back in the swing of things as far as anime-watching goes. My temporary slump of fall 2013 appears to be well over. I am however keeping my watchlist fairly short to avoid overload and burnout, and I'm open to dropping any series at any time if I start to lose interest in it.

With that in mind - I have three series that look like keepers, one I don't like very much but will watch regardless, and two maybes.

The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior (pictured above) is a slice-of-life about a high-school student who goes to live in a boarding house filled with eccentric young people. The only thing that keeps him there is the fact that a girl he instantly fell in love with at school turns out to also live there.

Kawai Complex has been great so far. The protagonist Kazunari Usa resembles Kyon in Haruhi in that his inner monologues and reactions to what's going on around him are very funny.

The art is also compelling. The characters and backgrounds are beautifully colored and the depiction of natural light is extraordinary. It reminds me a bit of Hourou Musuko in that regard; the art styles are different but the exceptional use of color and light is of the same high quality.

I don't have a great track record of sticking with slice-of-life series, but Kawai Complex might be one that I do stick-and-stay for.

And then there's The File of Young Kindaichi Returns.

Sometimes you don't particularly care about the art - you just want a really good story. Young Kindaichi is apparently a long-running manga and anime series in Japan about a high-school student who is the grandson of a famous detective and naturally a budding detective himself.

I wasn't sure at first, just watched the first episode out of curiosity, but right out of the gate Kindaichi's friend gets kidnapped while they're visiting Hong Kong. Add to that urban legends, priceless gems stolen from a dragon statue, attractive adult-age detective characters and the Kowloon Walled City (I've been fascinated by the Kowloon Walled City ever since I first heard of it) and I was hooked.

I didn't think about it until I read the comments on Crunchyroll, but it's true that there aren't many detective animes. There's Detective Conan of course, but not too many others or at least not many that get licensed here in the U.S. In any event, Young Kindaichi Returns has been great fun to watch and I can see myself staying until the end of this mystery series.

I wasn't expecting much from Haikyuu! It's a sports anime, volleyball to be specific, and coming after Kuroko's Basketball's wonderful second season which just ended I didn't think any sports anime would be good enough to tempt me again so soon.

Haikyuu! is about Shoyo Hinata, a chibi red-haired bundle of energy who plays the "spiker" position in volleyball (i.e., the one who spikes the ball into the other side's court).

In junior high, Hinata's team loses miserably to Tobio Kageyama's team. Kageyama's nickname is "King of the Court" and he plays the setter position. The setter sets up the other players' shots, including the spiker's.

Hinata and Kageyama instantly see the other as a rival, but when it comes time to choose a high school both choose the same one, meaning... the rivals are now on the same team.

It's an interesting twist. Usually sports animes have fiercely competitive rivals who are on opposing teams, but here the catch is that Hinata and Kageyama must learn to subsume their egos and loner tendencies and work together to make their team stronger. Haikyuu! is enjoyable and much better than I expected, so I'm probably in for the duration.

Yeah. The Comic Artist and His Assistants.

It's as the title states - a mangaka and his harem female assistants. The main character is in a perpetual state of heat, obsessing over boobs, panties and the possibility of groping girls practically every second. He cries and acts pathetic to get his way, is manipulative and self-obsessed - and those are his good qualities.

So why am I watching it? I am deeply interested in the manga industry in Japan and will watch any anime set in that industry. Sometimes it's wonderful like Bakuman and Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi, and sometimes it's bad like Mangirl! and The Comic Artist, but I watch it regardless for the tidbits about this industry where apparently no mangaka has ever, ever turned in a chapter to his or her editor on time. XD

Finally, the two maybes. Mekakucity Actors is a stylish anime with high-tech art design and a confusing plot. A hikikomori is forced to leave his home for the first time in two years because he spills a Coke on his computer keyboard. When he goes to the store to buy a new keyboard, he's taken hostage along with other shoppers by a group of terrorist weirdos.

The premise appears to be is-it-real or is-it-fake, genjutsu or... ? and presented with a lot of self-conscious cleverness. The result is a show that is both intriguing and irritating in equal measure, so we'll see if the first outweighs the second and it manages to hold my interest. ;-)

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has a huge cult following. There are many different series in the Jojo's universe, with the latest being Stardust Crusaders. All of the series center on the Joestar family from grandfather on down to grandson, and a cursed spirit named Dio that haunts the family.

The most remarkable thing about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders for me so far is the art style. It's a letter-perfect rendering of the American comic book style circa 1940s-1950s with that old pulpy look. After reading manga and watching anime all these years, I have to say American graphic novel character designs now look dead ugly to me. XD

The series has a seinen look and feel to it, and I'm not sure I'm in the mood for that right now. Guess I'll watch a few more episodes and see how I feel about it. =D

Psycho-Pass - Review

It's one of the best series I've seen in the past few years - Psycho-Pass.

In the near future, a person's "psycho-pass" or state of mind and personality can be read by a machine. This machine can tell you if that person is a "latent criminal," i.e., someone about to commit a crime.

To maintain public order, detectives supervise "enforcers," a group of latent criminals utilized to catch those about to commit crimes since they understand the mindset - as they have the same mindset themselves.

Newbie detective Akane Tsunemori (Kana Hanazawa) is the supervisor of Shinya Kogami (Tomokazu Seki), an enforcer with his own way of doing things.

The series moves slowly for the first ten episodes, getting the viewer into the universe of supervisors and enforcers at a leisurely pace. When a certain event occurs in episode 11 however, the viewer is taken on a rapid roller coaster ride all the way to the end of the series.

Psycho-Pass has a memorable villain - Shogo Makishima (Takahiro Sakurai).

Makishima is a brilliant, educated man who commits horrifically violent crimes. To explain how he gets away with it would be spoiling a major plot point, but I can say that as in the rest of life - aren't there always exceptions to every rule?

I won't discuss the storyline as there are many shocking twists and events and I don't want to spoil any of them. So I'll just say generally why this is such a great anime series.

The glib Hollywood logline description for Psycho-Pass would be "Ghost in the Shell meets Minority Report." It's a futuristic setting in which high technology has enabled the populace to rest safe in the knowledge that the infallible Sybil system, which administers the psycho-pass screening method, has rendered crime virtually impossible - or so they think.

The disbelieving, sheep-like reactions of the citizens when crimes actually do start to take place in front of them is perhaps the most disturbing takeaway from the entire story.

The Wikipedia article for Psycho-Pass mentions that the producers deliberately went for an adult approach - there's no moe and no gratuitous nudity. The result is a dark, fascinating story for adults with no distracting fluff or comic relief. As the enforcers are trapped by the morbid world they live and work in, so are you the viewer as you watch Psycho-Pass.

The violence is uncompromising and where most animes would cut away to the aftermath once it's clear what's about to happen, Psycho-Pass just goes ahead and shows you the whole terrifying scene - so be prepared for some stomach-churning moments. And oh - feel free to have favorites among the main characters. Just know that some of them will die.

Psycho-Pass, like all great entertainment, leaves you thinking about it long after you're through watching it. Is it true that people who value security over liberty deserve neither? What is "security" if a person can be pre-judged unfairly? And what happens when the inevitable occurs and the technology fails?

On a 1 to 10 scale Psycho-Pass is easily a 9 in my book, and probably a 10 once I watch it again.

Just watch it. It is amazing.

Psycho-Pass - Out of Control

Until You Tube takes it down... enjoy Nothing's Carved in Stone's "Out of Control," the second opening to the magnificent Psycho-Pass.

Supporting the Industry - What I Did in March 2014

I actually bought some anime merch in March. My friend Yumeka and I went to Anime Jungle in Little Tokyo and here's what I got, starting with the above.

The above is a huge Kuroko's Basketball wall hanging. Amazingly, it's licensed. (An Anime Jungle clerk assured me that all of their inventory is licensed.) I say amazingly because I've had trouble finding any KuroBas merchandise here in California whether licensed or not. As you can see, it's still in the plastic bag as I'm still looking around my home for a clear wall space big enough to hang it on. The wall hanging is 110 cm tall by 190 cm wide (approx. 43 inches by 74 inches).

Next up is what I hope is not the beginning of a trend. It's a Pikachu figure - my first anime figure. Having seen the obsession other fans have with buying expensive character figures, I hope this modest little Pikachu doesn't signal the future doom of my wallet. XD

Finally, I bought this Celestial Being (Gundam 00) mug.

The handle says "Celestial Being" on its side.

I also paid my monthly Anime Network fee of $6.95.