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gosick

GoSick

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Alternate Titles: None

Original Japanese Release Date: Jan 2011

Episode Length/Run-time: 24 Episodes

Summary:

Kazuya Kujo has recently transferred as an international student to a school in the fictional European country of Saubure, located between France, Switzerland and Italy.  Here he meets a mysterious girl who has been given the nickname of the Golden Fairy.  She lives confined to the library on school, loves sweets, and is bored easily, always requiring a puzzle to solve.  As mysteries begin to surround Kujo he becomes central to Victorique’s entertainment, and perhaps more.  Their relationship evolves in the changing setting of a pre-World War 2 Europe still steeped in mystery, fantasy, and old lore.

Review:

Gosick starts out looking like a murder mystery type anime.  Where Victorique is a Sherlock Holms type character, solving mysteries with almost nothing to go on and an astounding success rate and Kujo is her bumbling, yet helpful and well-meaning Watson.  For someone who is a fan of this genre it serves to disappoint, because for one they don’t really give you enough clues to figure out what’s going on yourself, and two, it’s not really about the mysteries.  The murders and mysterious happenings serve to illuminate the larger plot and evolve the relationship between Kujo and Victorique.  The trouble-finding Kujo is just what Victorique is looking for and it evolves the unlikely friendship.

As mentioned, the mysteries serve to bring out the story.  What you think will just be a string of one random mystery after the next evolves into a grater story in which the characters backgrounds are thoroughly fleshed out and a rich world is built.  There are a few instances where they spend some time doing things that could likely be cut but you are so smitten with the characters that this is completely forgivable as it just serves as another step in elaborating relationships.

The story really begins to pick up as they begin to explain some of the lore in the world.  There is an overarching struggle between science and magic and often times you wonder what is real and what is fiction.  For example, one of the main things they begin to elude to is the “gray wolves” specifically around Victorique’s past.  The gray wolves are linked back to Sabure’s ancient history and by my interpretation are known for their intelligence.

There are a lot of things like this throughout the show that leaves the viewer up for interpenetration.  Don’t be fooled by the gothic lolita/moe ness surrounding Victorique.  This is a surprisingly deep show dealing with a lot of mature content.  The animation is good and the music is solid.  Something I HIGHLY recommend.

[starrater]

hoshi o ou kodomo

Hoshi o Ou Kodomo

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Alternate Titles: The Children who Chase lost voices from deep below

Original Japanese Release Date: May 2011

Episode Length/Run-time: 100 Minutes

Summary:

Asuna lost her father at a young age and has lived an independent lifestyle with her loving, yet absent often due to work, since.  One day, she meets a boy whose sudden death triggers a series of events that pulls Asuna with unlikely companions into a mysterious world beneath the earth that holds the secrets of life and death.

Review:

This movie is made by Makoto Shinkai, if that doesn’t tell you some things about it then you have clearly not seen his other works or listened to the show much before.

But! If you are such a person I shall elaborate for your benefit.

Unlike Shinkai’s past works this one really hits the ground running.  Asuna is an uncertain yet strong character and we first meet her listening to a mysterious song on a crystal radio.  Her father passed when she was young and she lives just with her mother, making her a fairly independent young woman.  One day, heading out to her special place she runs into a strange, large, and violent creature, a mysterious boy saves her from this creature and as theynspend time together for the rest of the day she develops a clear strong admiration/love for him. But as mysteriously as he comes he disappears from her life, dead. Now Asuna is drug literally to the bottom of the earth lead by Shun’s (the boy) brother and her new teacher Ryuji.  The world they find themselves is defended by large ancient beasts known walrus quetzacotl, for this world holds the powers of life and death.

All this in the first 25 minutes, I told you it moved fast.  And that’s the first, and really only criticism for this show. Shinkai moves so quickly in his storytelling that you barely have enough time to stop and absorb things before you’re already three steps further.  The world that he creates I such a short time is so rich and vast that you are literally yearning for more time there, but if he stopped to do it the movie would be 3 hours long… Though I wouldn’t complain.

Another thing that Shinkai does not fail on is the execution. In his normal fashion it is beautifully animation with an attention to detail that could make a grown man weep its so lovely. It suits the fantasy world and his storytelling well.  Compared to his previous films he still pays close attention to light and dark but seems to have a new kind of restraint that adds additional sophistication and refinement to his work.

The music is simple but well fitting and really helps the overall package.

In all, this movie won’t disappoint and I cannot recommend it enough.

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hiiro no kakera s2

Hiiro No Kakera – Season 2

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Alternate Titles: Hiiro no Kakera Dai-ni-Sho

Hiiro no Kakera – The Tamayori Princess Saga 2

Plot Summary: The story continues to follow Tamaki as the special shine priestess of her family and her five guardians.  Picking up from where the previous season left off Takumi – one of Tamaki’s guardians – is of course the forerunner for her love interest but there are problems in paradise as the monster within him is on the rise.  If that isn’t bad enough, Logos is back and is determined to circumvent all the plans for their own interest.

Technical stuff – Does this even matter for this show?

Because I know many people are interested in this kind of thing, Hiiro no Kakera, unsurprisingly, has about the exact same staff as the first show.  The director, script writers, chief animation director,  series composition, and just about all other major positions involved with the show feature the same group of people.  The only major exception is music, with music for the second season being done by Hikaru Nanase.

Speaking of, the series opening is really good, better than the first season which is actually saying something.  (See, I said something nice about this show)  Otherwise the music was your generic of generic land type of thing.  An action sequence, or sentimental moment, may have stood out here or there but its nothing you can even remember right after finishing watching the episode.

The art is of the same style as the first season – of course – and looks nice but the animation quality itself I would put just below average.  Maybe even a little worse than it’s predecessor.

Review – Not that it had that much to live up to.

And that’s just the thing with this show.  It didn’t have much to live up to.  The first season was based off an old PS2 game and the second season progresses an already basic story further in ways that, all things considered, weren’t really necessary.

As a girl reviewing this it’s possible to find the first season charming, in a “shut your mind off and look at the pretty boys and squeal at the romance kind of way.”  But, maybe I am just a bit bitter at the notion that I wasted another six hours of my life watching the same reverse harem run around and do, well, more shit I couldn’t care less about.

Now, I suppose I shouldn’t launch into a complete hater-aid fest, the second season did do some things that I think were improvements, however slight, over the first season.  Chiefly being a faster-paced plot line, more involvement with various characters including some development that was missing from the first season, and even more fleshing out of the romance between the two mains. But it really isn’t enough to spare this show some hate and at the end of the day it walks in the realm of generic romance at best.  It’s everything you’ve seen before and a lot of what three fourths of us never wanted to see again.

If you are a HUGE lover of romance anime then this is for you, without doubt.  Or, if you love reverse harems, it has bishies for days.  But if you’re looking for a substantial, realistic, love story this isn’t it.  Or well, if you’re looking for anything else.  So my recommendation for those who watch this remains people who watched the first season and loved it.  Speaking of, this series gets off to a bit of a confusing start even if you have seen the first season as you work out what they’re doing with the characters.  So if you want to give it a try I definitely recommend watching that first.

In the end, I could slam this anime a lot for what it is and I likely should.  Everything feels so average and mediocre of what we’ve all seen countless times before.  But, to be fair, if it is what you’re looking for average fits the bill and is a lot better than shows that make you want to gouge your eyes out.  For that reason I’m giving this half of the series a 2 because I gave the first a 2.5 and I think on a 10 scale a 4.5 for this series sounds about right.  Maybe the romantic in me saved it a little.  But it’s definitely something I could slam and see people slamming a lot, lot, lot more.  It’s average though, in my mind, and therefore deserves an average score.

[starrater]

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