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genshikin

Genshiken

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Genshiken (Season 1)

Palm Studio

Dir. Takashi Ikehata (ep. dir. for Girls und Panzer, Strawberry Marshmallow, Inuyasha)

Wri. Michiko Yokote (5 ep. only) (Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, Rurouni Kenshin, Red Data Girl)

Mus. Masanori Takumi (Claymore, Koi Kaze, Witchblade)

 

SUMMARY

Genshiken follows the story of university freshman Kanji Sasahara. After perusing the various booths at the annual club rush, Sasahara settles on the club known as “gendai ni okeru shikaku wo chuushin to shita bunka no kenkyuu,” or rather “The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.” This turns out to be an all encompassing otaku club, which is exactly what he wanted. Manga, anime, video games, cosplay, plastic models; you name it, Genshiken has its geeky toes dipped in it.

 

REVIEW

It’s not the prettiest thing to come out of the industry, but as a character piece, it doesn’t really need to be. The most visual impressive sequences are that of the imaginary-at-the-time anime “Kujibiki Unbalance,” which is a favorite among Genshiken’s members. The show has a nice visual style that isn’t too overblown. It really feels like it could make an easy and natural transition to the live-action medium.

 

For what one could certainly call an “otaku” show, the pandering and fan service is almost non-existent. The largely episodic stories feel all at once like an introspective on otaku culture and a celebration of what sets it apart and brings its participants together. In as much as the the Jackass franchise isn’t really about pranks and stunts but rather about camaraderie and friendship, so is Genshiken. To examine what brings people together is to examine people themselves, and Genshiken does this quite lovingly.

 

Like I mentioned before, the show is very episodic. Relationships progress serially, but events are mostly unconnected episode-to-episode. This works well for the different corners of fandom that the show attempts to tackle with each installment, but does little to encourage the viewer to watch more. I often felt satisfied watching a single episode and doing something else for awhile. It’s very pleasant viewing experience, but not terribly engaging.

 

The music is cute and never inappropriate, but doesn’t set itself apart in any particular way. The opening theme, however, has become one of my favorite anime openings of all time.

 

At the core of this show’s success are its characters. Truly loving portraits of believable archetypes among otaku – not terribly flattering, but never mean-spirited. Just honest, perhaps. Among the characters is a woman unlike any I had seen in anime prior to watching Genshiken, nor have I seen since. Her name is Saki Kasukabe (played with deft cynicism by Satsuki Yukino). She’s a smoking, drinking, fiercely independent upperclassman who starts dating Genshiken’s resident pretty-boy game wizard Makoto Kousaka, a choice she has no qualms about admitting were for his looks alone. She has no interest in anything otaku related and struggles for much of the series trying to understand why this hobby is so important to her boyfriend and his club mates. It’s a relationship that never feels forced or unearned, but rather real and unflinching; two people sitting in a room discussing whether they’re going to have sex later – one of them playing a video game, the other smoking a cigarette. If anything negative could be said about their relationship, its that Kousaka never does much of anything but play games, while Kasukabe is constantly trying to figure him and this whole “otaku” thing out. Kasukabe eventually comes around, but she’s never meant to be the syphon for a quote-unquote “normal” audience. A series like The Big Bang Theory never seems to be on the side of the outcasts. For a show that’s told from the perspective of geeks, the brunt of its humor is at the expense of those giving us perspective. The “normies” in the show provide the audience with a relatable escape from all the sci-fi references and indignant, glasses-pushing, academic one-upsmanship. Genshiken deserves huge points for making Kasukabe exactly what she is to the rest of the characters: an outsider.

 

All things considered, Genshiken is something special that we doesn’t get enough of these days. It’s a nice, well-meaning, thematically consistent piece about camaraderie on the outskirts of pop culture. Recommended to anyone who has ever called themselves a geek or any variation thereof.

 

4 glasses pushes out of 5.

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nekomonogatari black

Nekomonogatari: Kuro

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Alternate Titles: Nekomonogatari: Black

Plot:

A second prologue to the overall Bakemonogatari series the story takes place between the original Bakemonogatari and Kizumonogatari.  Black is told from the perspective of Araragi-kun, our mostly-immortal, vampire-related, protagonist.  He owes his life to the seemingly perfect and perpetually put-together class president Hanekawa Tsubasa.  The world continues to be full of “oddities” or supernatural beings which tamper with humans at will.  Hanekawa has become charmed by a white cat during the golden week holiday and begins violently attacking people to relieve her built-up stress.

Production:

Staff ~

The staff is almost entirely different from the original series Bakemonogatari, but the new staff did an excellent job of blending the best elements from the two previous seasons.

The chief director for Neko is Akiyuki  Simbo who has a large number directorial credits to his name.  He was the director for Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha, Dance in the Vampire Bund, Kizumonogatari – following this OVA, and Arakawa Under the Bridge, to name a few.

Naturally with a strong history behind it, the staff worked to be top-knotch.

Animation ~ 

Studio SHAFT continues to do an amazing job on the animation. Not only is it stylistic, smooth, and generally flawless, but it retains all the charms of the previous series such as striking landscapes, minimalist images, camera zooms, word splash screens, and stark color contrasts.

Visually Nekomonogatari is astounding just like any other installment in the franchise.

Music ~

The music is repetitive and that’s the largest flaw I find with it.  However, with the sharp pacing of the dialogue the repetition adds a necessary and creative monotony to the drill of the character’s voice that works with the feeling of the series.  What is there is quite well done.

Review:

The dialogue remains the star of the show.  The anime continues to channel it’s dark flares here and there with random acts of violence or a commentary that catches you off guard with the level of it’s morbidity.  But this show is not, and has never been, an action show.  The dialogue is sharp, quick, and delivered impeccably.  It is the entire driving force of the show and if a well-delivered monologue gets your gears going then this show will have you zero-to-sixty in the first few minutes.  However, if you’re a less-is-more person in the talking department than this show will likely prove more frustration than pleasure.

As a prologue, the barrier to entry to the franchise is low.  You don’t even need the series to the prologue.  A short (well done of course) narration at the beginning sums up important points introduced in the first series such as oddities and who these characters are.  They don’t bog you down with information either which for a first-time viewer should allow the show to be a pleasurable watch.  Of course, that being said if you were a fan of the original series but not a super fan I wouldn’t place this in the “must see” category to get an insight that you have to have for the overall story.  To be honest I never much cared for Hanekawa and while this arc helped me do so I would’ve been fine without it.

Nisemonogatari was a take it or leave it for fans and this series I feel Neko was a step back in the right direction for the overall franchise.  It does not live up to the original glory the series had, but that may be something that simply cannot be done as the original had been so ground-breaking.  One thing I have trouble deciding if it’s a fault, or somehow a glorious thing that works with the presentation of this series is the level of fan-service.  It’s relatively high and normally I would ream a show for walking around a cat girl in lingerie for the sake of it.  But, one of the things about this show is an element of sexuality and sexual repression.  That has been there since the very beginning.  They approach it a bit unlike general fan-service, or at least that’s how it feels.  So somehow you’re willing to forgive it a little more.  Yes, some is just not forgivable, but it doesn’t strike me as horrific as it would with other things where it exists solely as fan-service and little else.

I do praise the story for it’s directness.  Other characters are very much kept to a supporting role, and in a four episode OVA this would be necessary to maintain the integrity of a more simple story-line and get it done well.

Overall, this anime is a watch I think, it has it’s flaws but the Monogatari franchise delivers once again.  Four white cats out of five black ones.

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magi

Magi

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Plot Summary: 

In a lose “retelling” of stories from the classic Arabian Knights tales the story is set in a fantasy desert land filled with many peoples and countries.  In this land magic and the fantastic are still very much alive as the world is filled with Rukah, the magical life source in every person.  Only a couple people in the world are known as Magi, those with the power to draw endlessly from the Rukah and use their powers to suppose their chosen King candidates.  A young Magi, Aladdin, has begun to discover what it means to be a Magi as he explores the world with his new friends the brave and kind Alibaba and the strong and mysterious Morgiana.

Technical:

Magi is based off a maga which started in 2009 and is currently still running with 16 volumes.

Staff~

The director Koji Masunari has little other notable credits other than the Read or Die OVA.  Which speaks well for the action sequences in Magi and the attention to detail in that respect shows.

Otherwise this series has a mac-truck metric ton of episode directors, story boarders and key animators.  Most notable is the art director Ayu Kawamoto who worked on No.6, Kodomo no Jikan as the art director.

Studio~

The animation was done by A-1 Studios which is a subsidiary of Sony Music’s Aniplex.  They’ve worked on other shows such as Black Butler, Big Windup, and Fairy Tail.

Animation~

The fight scenes are really well animated and the animation, especially in the beginning of the series is fairly good by current standards.  Not amazing, but good.  The fight scenes remain consistent throughout but other animation gets really sloppy toward toward the end.

Music~

Music is catchy, diverse, and well done.  It’s not going to win separate awards for music but it’s above average in my book for a shonen show.  The man who did the music, Shiro Sagisu, also did music for many other shows including Bleach, Evangellion – including the reboots, and His and Her Circumstances to name a few.

Review:

This review will be developing as I review later seasons.  The fact remains that the series will be more than one season and at the end of the first it has a literal “to be continued” type ending.  Since I know it will be getting more I won’t entirely fault it for this.

I’d also like to say that I haven’t read the manga, and being a good girl and doing my homework I have discovered many people lamenting about the pacing of the adaptation relative to the Manga.  I’ll touch on this more in-depth in a bit if I think not reading the manga is a pro… or con…

So, the first season…

The series starts out with a bang.  Right off the bat we’re meeting the main characters, being introduced to an engaging world, and getting involved in back-stories involving poverty, purpose in life, and slavery, to name a few.  We meet Aladdin first who you know off the bat has a greater purpose but you don’t really know why yet.  Aladdin meets Alibaba who wants to be a dungeon capturer.  Dungeons are these large tower places with treasure rooms, inside are djins who will lend their power to the capturer and massive wealth.

Within the first five episodes they capture a dungeon, seeming like the series has already completed its purpose of what it set out to do.  But one amazing thing the series has going for it is progression.  By the end of the first season capturing a dungeon doesn’t even seem like it’s that big of a deal anymore because the characters have moved so far past that.

But after these awesome first few episodes where we meet our main cast they end up splitting apart in a second arc that seems relatively slow, and comparatively pointless.  The whole time you’re wondering if the characters you thought were the important ones actually are… spoiler, they are, despite this arc.  Yes the arc ends up doing some things for character personal evolution and ends up being necessary, but the adaptation from the manga here I think is weak and lacking.  I’m sure in the manga this part is much better.  Or maybe, the anime is better because it blows through a “boring” part of the manga when they’re split… I don’t really know.

After the characters come back together, unsurprisingly, things pick up and get really interesting again.  There are two more arcs following this, the third was my favorite and felt the most developed.  The fourth was so-so.  It felt like the progress that was made in the third arc was removed as characters just moved on from their achievements rather than building upon them in some way.  Beyond that it felt like aspects of the fourth arc existed as simply a way to introduce more of the world that we won’t see till the second season.  I read the ending is actually not a “manga ending” but an anime adaptation, I can’t confirm or not, but if they did make up an ending for the show it really wasn’t much of one.

But I’m not complaining, I want more of the series. It had great action, good humor, and really good characters.  It does have flaws, obviously in the fact that I’m not able to sing a lot of praises with regards to the depth of story and at times it felt like it moved way too fast to have any more depth.  But the series is entertaining and has everything you need to be a good shonen show.  Action, characters, and battles that seem to get more and more impressive as time goes on.

I’ll be looking forward to future seasons.  But since I have to review what is out right now I’m going to be forced to give it 3.5 flying turbans out of five.  The reason why this score is low for all the good I’ve said about it is because of the ending and overall pacing that didn’t seem to allow for anything deeper.  It’s not finished and so it just can’t get an amazing score.  But on an entertainment level it falls pretty high for me.  I think if you like shonen shows and enjoy this brand of fantasy then get on the show now because it may be a long running one…

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