Amaama to Inazuma

 

Kouhei is a single dad struggling to take care of his daughter, Tsumugi. He has a very busy schedule as a teacher and it's hard for him to keep up with all the necessary domestic tasks. He's particularly bad at cooking, but one surprising invitation from one of his students, Kotori Iida, to bring his daughter to have dinner at her mom's restaurant, takes them into a cooking journey, from burger to okonomiyaki.

Each episode is a self-contained story that surrounds around Tsumugi wanting to eat something, then Kouhei and Kotori rushing to prepare it using a nice restaurant kitchen and appliances. We get to see Kouhei trying his very best to be a good parent and following his successes and shortcomings is really interesting and engaging most times. He's really an endearing guy and you can't hope but cheer for everything to go his way. Kotori is also a lovely person that is always ready to try her best to bring joy into Kouhei's and Tsumugi's day.

By episode 4 or 5 however, it feels like we got to see everything those character have to offer. Their emotional range is spent, as well as their personalities. Part of the problem is how formulaic each episode is. Very few have something that stands out. Tsumugi wants to eat something, Kouhei and Kotori do their best to prepare it. Tsumugi throws a tantrum, Kouhei and Kotori manages to calm her down, she apologizes and feels happy again. Rinse repeat.

Amaama to Inazuma fails to make use of their side-characters to alleviate the loop. You have Kouhei's friend, Yagi, who seems to be a very interesting guy to follow around for a bit but for some reason he's barely used and so we never get to know him. He has a restaurant and he shows up a few times. That's it. It could be so much more than that. The same problem happens with Shinobu, Kotori's fiery friend. She has a large family and little brothers so she's really good with kids... or so that one 15 seconds scene suppose to convince us that that is the case. Like Yagi, she barely comes up to the story that really needs a shift in focus from time to time.

This is a very sweet parenting and cooking anime that should either be an OVA 4 episodes long or make better use of its characters. There are good moments in there but it's recycled too many times just to reach the 12 episodes mark. If only the plots would let Tsumugi in the school for a little bit longer and focus on something else for a little while, this would have more balance and be a lot more entertaining.

Natsume Yuujinchou

 

Everyone has their favorite yokai show. For a lot of people is InuYasha, a bunch of other people like Mushishi and there's also a fair number of xxxHolic fans. I myself am very fond of Gegege no Kitarou. Right now though, Natsume Yuujinchou is definitely my favorite yokai show and I think it's going to stay that way for a long time.

Long story short, Takashi Natsume can see yokais. He's the grandson of Reiko Natsume, a very powerful human who bound several yokais to her command by having their names written in a book. Takashi inherits this book and that causes a lot of problems for him. You see, a book that grants you commanding powers over a legion of demons and spirits is something a lot of yokais covet. One of these, to Takashi's luck, is Madara, a powerful creature that likes to walk around shaped as a fat and adorable cat. He calls himself Nyanko-sensei and end up serving as a much needed bodyguard for Takashi.

That's the setup. You sure have watched the story about a boy who can see spirits. Takashi Natsume is a different type of kid, however, which gives the show a very special atmosphere. Instead of using the book for going into some awesome run-of-the-mill adventure, he decides instead to liberate the bound creatures by giving back their names. Takashi Natsume is also the most compassive and kind mc to ever grace a supernatural drama show. I would even say he's a bodhisattva. Not only toward humans but toward the yokais themselves, many of which are hostile, some irredeemably so. There's a very tricky power struggle going on here, where Natsume's compassion can only be upheld by the power of Madara a lot of times.

It's very amusing to watch those Yokai scratching their heads in amazement by how nice and wholesome Natsume is. To the point that many of them end up liking him for it. He's such a kind, loving person that even those who are at first hostile or indifferent toward him are caught off-guard and can't help but end up respecting the guy, no matter how silly he may be. That's a major aspect of this show. Demons that end up aspiring to be something better by watching acts of compassion. It's Buddha enlightening hungry ghosts all over the place. Except Natsume is just trying to be a nice guy, he barely knows what he's doing half the time.

Of course, all the creatures in this show are equally interesting to follow around. A lot of them seem a little lost, like something about them has been dismantled and they lost their footing in the world. Characters like that have a great potential to be part of endearing, heartfelt tales, which is what this show is all about.

Sankarea

 

Sankarea starts really promising. The Furuya family have an uneventful, happy life. They live in a house adjacent to the Shinto temple where the head of the family, Don, serves as the priest. Everything is well and fine until the family cat, Babu, is hit by a truck and dies. Chihiro, the teenager of the family and protagonist of this tale, can't accept losing his pet cat and so tries to bring it back to life by following an ancient, mysterious manual that contains a recipe for a ressurection potion.

One night, while working the recipe with his mortar and pestle he spots a girl outside the building screaming down a well about the several nasty things her dad does to her. This turns out to be Rea Sanka, the richest girl in the land. They somehow find common ground for a friendship and Rea starts helping Chihiro with the ressurection potion. 

Rea's dad, Danichiro, is not at all pleased with her precious daughter running around with the local rabble and a thing leads to the other that leads to a chase that leads to Rea being mortally wounded and falling from a cliff. All is well, however when, as it turns out, Chihiro's ressurection potion actually works and she comes back to life. 

And that's when everything goes downhill, or rather, it goes nowhere for the rest of the show. All we get from this point on is testifying how dull Chihiro is as a character, how dull Rea is when all she can can think about is pleasing Chihiro and I keep wondering why this plot doesn't move when there are so many hooks and it could go anywhere it wanted. The impression I got is that the story is actually following the wrong characters. Chihiro and Rea are just too uninteresting.

This show would be so much better if we could follow Chihiro's younger sister, Mero. In fact we do for episode 9 and it's possibly the very best episode on the show. Another way more interesting character would be Jogoro, Chihiro and Mero's grandfather. A crazy little man who appears to have dementia but the short glimpses of sanity seem to hint he's possibly the character here with the most interesting background to explore (which, by checking the manga, turns out to be the case).

There was no good reason to have the plot stagnant for half the episodes of this show when there's so much to draw from the manga. It starts off really well but I guess it asked way too much of my patience for me to really like it. Better picking up the manga for this one.

Net-juu no Susume

 

Moriko has finally reached the limit with her job and decides to become a NEET. She comes back to a mostly empty home with a very clean carpet and a bobble head cat. She remembers playing some MMO games and enjoying it very much. You can be alone and still chat and have fun with other people. It's the perfect solution for the socially inept Moriko and after a quick search she starts playing Fruits de Mer, a high fantasy world with a medieval setting, because nobody ever gets tired of those, ever. She soon finds a partner, a healer nicknamed Lily and her party.

From that point on, an amazing sequence of coincidences have the players of Moriko's party finding each other in real life, including the player behind Lily, Sakurai, a very nice and extremely wholesome individual who falls in love with Moriko but can't bring himself to tell anyone about it. This is not, however, a case of romance that has to overcome a series or silly misunderstandings, though the premise might look perfect for that sort of thing.

This is where the beauty of this show happens. You're actually watching a reincarnation romance for modern audiences. You know the story, a love so strong that the two people involved keep falling in love through consecutive lives until they can finally be together. It's the whole Red Thread of Fate thing mixed in with Hindu rebirth mythology stories. Here however, instead of having actual rebirths, Moriko and Sakurai keep finding each other through several online MMO characters but for some reason or another the romance never happens. That's the real twist of Net-juu no Susume for me and what makes it interesting. 

Of course the characters are solid too, and I think there could easily be another season where we get to explore the lives of the other members of this MMO party. Unfortunately this series was cut short due to the author's illness, though I could not find anything about it outside Wikipedia. She never mentions any illness on her twitter account, so I don't know, but that besides the scope of this short review.

Tokyo Ghoul

 

Tokyo Ghoul is an invitation to the manga. A lot of anime is pretty much that, but Tokyo Ghoul is even more so. Every character here has a lot of backstory going on and we can see the people behind the show trying their hardest to cram everything in 12 little episodes. There are many interesting characters all around going through their own hardships and doubts. Even at the very end we're still getting introduced to a bunch of characters, situations and whole institutions we didn't even know existed 10 minutes to the end of the show. It is an expansive universe and the anime does a good job at giving you a brief tour to this world and the people living in it.

Tokyo Ghoul is like a dark fantasy slasher where no character is disposable. If I had to describe this show in a single sentence that would be it. Everyone has a good reason to be here, even if some of the characters a little tropey, it's always engaging. Each episode points to something that we would like to know more about. What training investigators get that they become as powerful as ghouls? What is the procedure to make a kuinke? Mado-san's family, Rize's business in the 11th ward? And so many other things. The response to all of those are the same: It's time for you to pick up the manga.

The anime will just give you the basics. It's the struggle of coexistence. Like with the X-Men, but here mutants are ghouls and have to eat people in order to survive. Some ghouls enjoy the predator life and live it to the fullest, while others believe in a peaceful coexistence. How they do that? By eating people who suicide, of course. It's a delicacy. All ghouls have to deal with the hunger and the human police force specialized on hunting ghouls. The setting is one messy Tokyo, which is perfect for this stories to develop. 

I mentioned there are no disposable characters and I mean it. It's sad to see some of these people's demise because there's always so much going on for them. We get to know their families, friends, what they believe and where they stand in this crazy, crazy ghoul world. Even when they're quite obviously evil, they have a good reason to have ended up that way. There's nothing without cause in Tokyo Ghoul, that much the anime managed to make clear. So what's next? Time to pick up the manga.

Kuragehime

 

A group of friends bound by love, kindness and a lot of social anxiety. Tsukimi is an aspiring illustrator with a keen interest for everything jellyfish. Mayaya is obssessed with the Han dinasty and the Three Kingdoms period. Banba knows everything about trains. Jiji is always thinking about older, mature men. Chieko is a Ichimatsu doll collector and knows everything there is to know about kimonos. They all live together in an old fashioned inn owned by Chieko's mother. They're NEETs (thought they won't admit it) and spend the day mostly indoors, indulging in their hobbies. Once a week they all go out to the grocery store for supplies.

This is a very interesting group of friends and it's a delight to watch their failing to go outside and other shortcomings of no consequence. Here, social anxiety receives a lighthearted approach to a very nice effect. The chaos element in this rather uneventful, chilled group of people is Kuranosuke, a beautiful boy that looks better in a dress than most women. Little by little he finds his way into this group, bringing a new perspective to their lives, but mostly, at least at first, what he really brings is high quality kobe beef for the special dinner party at fridays. Things take off from there.

Kuragehime is an endearing slice of life comedy and the sparingly placed romance storyline is well played, making it a nice addition to the whole thing. There's plenty of funny situations at every corner with these characters and though you probably won't be laughing out loud all the time, it never fails to be an amusing watch.

What really makes it worthy though are the characters. They make a nice team of weirdos and we can't but find comfort that they found each other. The perfect NEET, nerd team. There should be whole episodes where we watch Chieko sewing new clothing for her dolls or Mayaya's jumping around her bedroom pretending to be one of the great generals of the Han dinasty. Unfortunately there isn't, but the anime is just the first volume of a 17 volumes long otaku friendship mostly indoor adventure, so if you like what you see here, the manga would be the next natural step.

Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji

 

Kaiji is the sort of person who only truly functions under tremendous pressure. His intelligence, gut and motivation only kicks in when he's thrown into terrible, desperate situations. Left to exist on a peaceful world, he's prone to laziness, boredom, self-indulgence, given to tantrums and extremely unsociable. Under normal circumstances he's numb, a little more than a shadow. Kaiji is also a compulsive gambler.

He can't climb the social ladder the regular way. His only chance, he believes, is to get it all at once in a gambling match. That's the premisse of Kaiji Ultimate Survivor. Crazy gambling ideas, tense plots and the exploration of Kaiji's personality as he sinks deeper into the underworld of gambling, organized crime and desperate people. A lot of desperate people, including Kaiji himself.

I find the gambling ideas in this show not to be the most interesting, as far as games go. Kaiji gambles his life in 4 different games during this season, two of them are card games of random chance more than anything else. A third is more of a torture race and the last one is a draft. Although all those games end up being a battle of wits, which makes them interesting, the games themselves are not rather simplistic.

What's really interesting here is the character development for Kaiji and the people he meets on his journey to the bottom of society. One of the very best episodes is the tenth one, when we get to see Kaiji working at a convenience store. This is a critical moment for the show because we can testify how Kaiji is unable to function in normal society. "It's no use, I can't stand this sort of atmosphere. I just can't stand it!" Kaiji thinks to himself while his coworkers socialize over tea and tell silly jokes to each other. He's an outsider and there's no hope for him among normal people.

Yet, he shows deep compassion and sympathy for his fellow men. Many times he will give up everything to save someone. He will go out of his way, puting himself in great peril to rescue a lost soul. He knows this person he's saving would cross him if given the chance. He knows humans are cruel and can't be trusted. He's seen the ugly side of humanity, and yet again and again, he will choose to help others to his own detriment.

The show is filled with very tense moments, carefully and slowly crafted through dialogues and narration. These are not fast-paced stories but their outcomes are always interesting and  well worth the wait. All characters, even minor ones are full of development and infused with worth and emotion. How I wish they would make more anime based on the works of Mr. Fukmoto Nobuyuki. A very nice watch.

Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge

 

Tanaka-kun is always listless. He doesn't want to be the main character even in his own life. It takes too much effort, too many things happen to you when you're the main character. You're always going somewhere, there's always someone bothering you. It's best to be just an extra in a street scene, if you're lucky enough, they don't even need to draw your face. One of Tanaka-kun's abilities is to become almost invisible.

Tanaka just wants a silent place where he can be quiet or better yet, doze off into a nice, ten hours nap. Like his friend Oota mentions, Tanaka is aiming to achieve a form of listlessness beyond anything known to mankind before. He's impressed enough by this resolution that he vows to help Tanaka in any way he can. Is he just curious to know how languid Tanaka can get, or he's convinced Tanaka cannot function without him? Maybe a little bit of both. Oota is a really nice guy and a really good friend.

While Tanaka is the heart of this show, such a character can only go so far on his own. What really hold things together here is the people around Tanaka, specially Oota. The responsible, reliable and incredibly abled-body Oota, who will literally carry Tanaka around and make sure he can function at the most basic level. Their friendship is the reason this anime works so well. They're opposite of each other in many ways and oftentimes their relationship become something of master and apprentice thing. Even if Oota is not on the path of becoming listless himself, he's always interested and intrigued by his friend's take on life and is always ready to listen to Tanaka's surprinsingly insightfull take on things.

Oota's dedication to his friend seems contagious and is a delight to watch. Tanaka's gratitude and appreciation is enough to make him worthy of such friendship and everything else in the show grows around that. Miyano, a classmate of the duo, wants to follow Tanaka and become a languid master herself. Ehizen is the fake delinquent beloved in the neighborhood for her helful disposition. Shiraishi grows fond of Oota and Tanaka after realizing they respect her for what she truly is.

It's one of those shows where everyone is actually kind-hearted and caring and so nothing can ever go too wrong. It's a circle of friends that keeps growing and everyday life is an opportunity for amusing, delightful moments... and for Tanaka to doze off to a gentle summer breeze.

Barakamon

 

Barakamon is about the emotional journey of Handa Sei, a young calligrapher from Tokyo. He goes from punching one of the judges who criticizes his work to a caring, sensible person. The plot has a lot of very good 'emotional intelligence' moments and it's hard to believe this was written by a 23 year old sometimes. This is one of those titles that really makes me curious about the original material, which I plan to check out sometime.

Barakamon's weakest point is its comedy. It's not bad but if depended on it, this would be a run-off-the-mill slice of life show. Not bad but not really funny, more like amusing most of the time and at least not annoying in its worst puns. No, this characters and stories really shines in its emotional moments, brought about by life lessons Handa goes through while living with a colorful cast of charaters in the Goto islands. It's actually very straight forward stuff. Never give up. Be caring. See the bigger picture of things. 

Just like in real life those rather obvious realizations only really make sense through a meaninful event and Barakamon manages to do just that. Each episode is a self-contained story and almost all of them are interesting and endearing enough to make you care. Even minor characters have real weight to them and even though you only ever know one of two things about them (like Tamako's younger brother, the village elder Nomura or the village chief Yuujirou) you're always glad when they show up to say something. Not a single character here feels like padding and I find this is rather unsual, be it on anime or other entertainment media in general.

Handa Sei, the main character in this tale is really well written and his broad emotional depth makes for excellent interactions with everyone he meets, from his Tokyo business friend to the elemental school kids that visits him daily. He's one of those people that can learn from everyone and his rather self-effacing and sometimes self-doubt, self-debasement behavior brings out the best on everyone around him. And that's how he ends up being friends with everyone in Goto, to our great enjoyment.

Bakemonogatari

 

I began watching Bakemonogatari because I read there were lots of Japanese mythology into it. There is, but the presentation of the material is rather hectic. Maybe in the novels those stories have a better passing. Here, a lot of it is told, not shown. It's a dialogue heavy show and the dialogue is entirely on this very Japanese wit style 当意即妙, with lots of retorts being a pun over Kanji radicals or how two words sound similar. If you don't know Japanese and you're not interested in the Japanese language, then it's likely you'll be missing out on half this anime has to offer.

The characters are very self-conscious about being anime characters and I'm still undecided if that's an thing I like or not. Lots of meta jokes about it and lots of playing around with anime and manga cliches. It's sort of hard to get into some of this characters but if you manage to stick around I'm sure you'll like most of them by the end. Animation is also rather different. Lots of collage and sorta hidden written jokes everywhere. The mythology in Bakemonogatari is intimately connected with language, so again, if you really want to enjoy this, knowing some Japanese will really help you appreciate things that are completely lost in translation.

Plot development is not linear and character development is not always connected to the actual plot. You know more about them because they talk to each other about lots of things, not just what is actually going on in that particular episode. Once I realized that's how the whole thing was going to play through, I learned to curb myself and enjoy the talking.Other than that there's lots of fan service, but it's so forced that's even more ridiculous than it usually is. 

So, Bakemonogatari is about this highschool student, Araragi Koyomi, that goes around helping other students that for some reason or another are cursed. Sometimes it's a clueless god, sometimes it's a demon, other times it's just stress. He'll help anyone in need and that all of the people he helps are cute girls is purely just a coincidence. The show itself is, of course, very aware of such fact and it's also a running gag throughout.

There's a lot of quirky things in this show and I feel it by reading the MAL reviews, it's a sort of love or hate thing but for me it ended up being a little bit more balanced than that. I enjoyed the mythmaking and some of the endless dialogues but it did feel too quirky at times. Hard to really explain. I think you'll just to check this out for yourself.

Chobits

 

 

 

Chobits touches on several interesting topics, from growing up and trying to become a good adult to the relationship between humans and technology, and although many, if not all of the topics this series touches here and there could easily be the focus of this story, Chobits chooses to be a love story, or rather, several of them, all dealing with the impact technology has on human relationships, in between ourselves and with our machines. This came out when the internet was really just starting out but its consequences could already be felt in society at large. CLAMP knew this and Chobits is their response to this dilemma, if you will.

We have a wife who is abandoned by her husband, who fell in love for his pasocon and is on an emotional quest to find her self-worth again. A baker marries his computer and tries to give her the best life he possibly can. A boy builds an android with the appearance and personality of his deceased sister. Chi, the main character, tries to understand what love is, when she begins to realize her own emotions towards Hideki, the man who found her in the street, deactived. Personal tragedies and how each character deals with it is really what this series is all about and it's never disappointing or condescending, there's a lot of sensitivity and warmth in all of those stories and each one is very enjoyable.

The real mystery in Chobits is where exactly being just a machine ends and being human begins. Computers in this universe seem to be machines with human souls and the people living within it, just like us, are not sure where to draw the line. Is it just a machine? Are all those android emotions just programming? Should they be taken seriously? The main characters, each and in their own way end up finding out that in the end those questions are not as important as making sure to approach every situation that happens in life with the uttermost compassion and understanding.

Corpse Party - Tortured Souls

 

A vengeful ghost slasher story in anime form. That's it. It lives up to its title thanks to a cast of highly disposable characters. Nobody will be spared, this is a corpse party, after all. We need corpses. Lots of it. It's suppose to be horror but there really isn't enough tension for any horror to happen. The violence is too upfront about itself and you soon find the plot gives no expectations about anyone surviving. Everybody is so obviously doomed from the get go.

The good part of it is the story behind the curse, or rather, the place created by it. The idea of having a school stuck in some Beyond forsaken part of hell where you can end up by complete accident is a pretty interesting idea and not enough time is dedicated to explaining or exposing the concept further. The slasher party get the upper hand here every time. You get some exposition here and there but it never feels enough. Maybe curses are better left unexplained?

Another

 

The atmosphere was the thing that I liked the most about this one. The curse looming over the students in Yomiyama North Middle School and their families affect everything, including the colors, the rain and the doll shop, my favorite spot in town. Misaki also has an interesting character design and appeal to her. No wonder she's on the cover.

There wasn't much to try to follow here, as far as a mystery goes. The culprit could be anyone, as everybody in this has its own red herring going to keep us guessing. Except that you quickly realize this and stop guessing right the way. There's no point. Then people start dying. A lot. There's quite a body count here. I wasn't expecting this. Many of those deaths are quite nasty too. I felt there wasn't much of a transition from mystery part to the body horror part. Once the curse is sufficiently explained to us people start dying and there's no stop to it.

Except Misaki could have stopped before anyone got killed. It's hard to understand why she didn't do anything earlier, give she has quite an advantage when it comes to identify spirts and things "that suppose to remain hidden." It's alright though, you don't want the whole show to last only 10 minutes, do you? Eitherway, I felt sorry for the characters, that curse really meant business.

The most interesting part of Another for me was when I woke up next day after finishing watching it and my mind was under the impression to be close to some outlandish sadness or melancholy that didn't seem to affect me directly, but still looming over like I had taken too large of other world glum the day before without realizing it.

Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!

 

I'm writing this as I listen to the ending song on a loop. As I followed Tomoko around, the whole situation went from funny, to concerning, to nervously saddening. The way her delusions are again and again cause of self-sabotage are stomach churning. Her vast experience in fantasizing situations up have a tendency to give Tomoko surreal expectations of how real life works and her disappointment is depressing to watch. You have to keep remembering that at least she has a decent family and at least one friend, Yuu-san, who really deserves all merits for putting up with Tomoko. I'm really glad that she does.

 

Tomoko wants to be popular, but as the show progresses, she just want her existence to be acknowledged. Her best shot at that is obliterating a cockroach during class, causing an adverse impression on her classmates. Meanwhile she makes up a past where she has friends and everybody looks up to her, have an imaginary club with imaginery friends, an imaginary boyfriend, taking all fantasies too far, often leading to disaster or a mental breakdown. Apparently it's really hard for her to stop or learn her lesson.

She has serious issues and is one of the biggest sour grapes persona out there, but in the end I really like her and kept hoping things to improve, which I suppose they do in the manga. I've seen the cover of the last issues and apparently she has more friends now. I should check that out. It seems even the author feels like he had enough of punishing poor and silly Tomoko. It's all good from here!

 

Lovely show, it really explores the character and leads it to interesting, sad and happy situations. Tomoko has her moments of deep insight and the show offer very sensitive, even poetical moments in almost every episode. I'm really glad I picked this one.

Himouto! Umaru-chan

I never watched anime but now that I’m mostly burned out from manga and games I decided to put my Japanese to some other use and anime is pretty much what’s left for me as far as escapism goes. I’m going pretty much blind here and the first title I picked up more or less at random is Himouto! Umaru-chan. I managed to watch the whole thing through so it wasn’t a bad pick, I think. I like the episodic nature of it. You can enjoy a whole story in 10 minutes or less.

The main character, Umaru is the perfect student and athlete, excelling in everything at life without even trying. At home she’s an otaku, fast food junkie and an annoyance to her brother, Taihei. Most of the show is made of jokes on her double identity, sort of. To be honest I didn’t find it funny, more like amusing. It’s an easy, relaxing watch. The important thing is to take it for what it is, light hearted stories about characters that really care for each other.

What I liked the most about it though is the actual hero in all of this, Umaru’s brother, Taihei. I liked his wholesome personality, always trying to do the right thing, clearly trying to become a good adult. He’s a decent cook and manages to keep order in his house, despite Umaru’s being a toy hoarder and never cleaning after herself. Again, this is all setup for the jokes, but I enjoyed Taihei’s character beyond that. I also enjoyed the episodes around Kirie a lot, as she progresses from being basically mute to being able to make and maintain friends. I would like to see her finally coming into terms with her brother.

All in all, all problems those people have are superficial, it’s either there for a joke or to be easily overcome. Everyone has a kind heart and everything works out in the end. Good escapism, and a good start. Let’s see what I’ll stumble upon next.