First Impression DC vs. Marvel

Young Justice Invasion 

It’s no secret that I’m not a DC girl. For me, DC tends to miss the mark more often than it hits it. The same is true for their animation. Aside from Batman the Animated Series which is sheer awesome and the comedic anime-styled Teen Titans, I’ve not given DC a second glance. I do remember watching Justice League, later Justice League Unlimited as a kid and being unimpressed with the level of corniness. Then along came Young Justice and it was finally a show that DC seemed to have the right balance of silliness and maturity. Despite a relatively young cast, the show was surprisingly dark (in comparison to other superhero shows comprising of teenagers – Teen Titans or X-Men Evolution for example). The original season was clever, concise and had plenty of character development. The second series is a different matter.

Season two is set five years after the events of the season one finale (which only aired last week). Not that this is made clear as to why, it’s only briefly referenced by Batman. So in the initial episode we learn that Kid Flash, Artemis, Red Arrow and Aqualad are no longer part of the team. Wow, I mean that could be quite a kick to the teeth to their fans. Zatanna and Rocket have also left but we still do see them briefly as members of the Justice League. Replacing them are Robin (Tim Drake), Blue Beetle, Beast Boy, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Bumblebee and Lagoon Boy. Disappointingly none of these new characters actually makes an impression, their personalities pale in comparison to the original cast. Whereas season one gradually introduced its protagonists and even continued to expand up until the very end, season two completely jumps the shark by creating an entirely new line-up. Of course the biggest frustration is the break-up of Superboy and Miss Martian. During the original series their relationship was crucial to either character in order to gain stability and strength and ultimately to be able to accept themselves. It’s seems almost undignified that they should break-up off screen. Or that Miss Martian should be with Lagoon Boy (already top of the annoying list). I suppose the writers wanted the inevitable Superboy/Wonder Girl hook up to be less complicated.

In all, Young Justice: Invasion sure does have its work cut out. I mean in order to forgive tossing away five freaking years; it has to pull something beyond amazing out of its hat. I feel the need to explain to DC that fans get attached to characters. And fans don’t like change. We like characters with interesting personalities and experiences and we like watching them grow throughout the course of a series. We don’t like them being expendable or interchangeable.

Initial rating: 6/10

 The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Much like Young Justice, The Avengers had a killer first season with subtle hints towards an alien invasion in the next season. Unlike Young Justice, The Avengers is smart enough not to uproot its prior cast for an entire new one. Instead new characters/members are gradually introduced, notably Ms. Marvel, making her the second female to join the team, progress!

The second season spares no time in plunging the team into a new conflict with a new villain, none other than Dr. Doom. As well as introducing a new alliance, the Fantastic Four. The following episodes are primarily filler, exploring possible future story arcs, for example Maria Hill discusses superhero registration which would unavoidably lead into the notorious civil war scenario. The strength of The Avengers is in its awareness for what fans want to see. It doesn’t overload us with too many characters resulting in extended cameos, it takes its time to start on a smaller scale and build around the primary cast. This obviously allows certain characters – Iron Man for example more screen time, but more importantly is that it allows other characters the opportunity to develop within their own stories and solo adventures. For instance, Thor has not yet returned to Midgard, yet we have seen him and are aware a big bad Asgardian villain will pop up some time in the future. This is why I think Marvel has the upper hand as the creative staff seem to know less is sometimes more.

Initial Rating: 8/10 

Steins;Gate Review

In terms of plot, Steins; Gate is a remarkable accomplishment. It handles an interesting premise with an original and thought-provoking manner. As a time-travel-theory novice I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the physics involved, nevertheless the context is pretty heavy-going, enough to indicate the writers have a vague idea over the subject matter. Or at least enough to make the utterly absurd sound plausible i.e. the microwave that sends text messages to the past. Unfortunately this is one of the few drawbacks, the overtly technical side. Understandably it can be a bit overwhelming especially in the beginning and factoring in the speed at which things progress, it’s not easy to digest initially. 

Steins; Gate takes it time to introduce the cast, the setting and the science, all done to the anime’s credit, before plummeting full throttle into a magnificent thriller that becomes the focal point. Despite a relatively repetitive sequence of events (literally), the storyline itself does not become repetitive. Quite the opposite actually, it becomes grippingly addictive. This is in no small part due to the unravelling of the complex, multi-layered plot and the fascinating exploration of trying to twist it back together.

For the most part, the characters are crafted wonderfully. Okarin as the primary protagonist and self-proclaimed mad scientist experiences the most character development largely down to the emotional roller-coaster he endures and thus is the most three dimensional. Whereas his immediate companions, Mayuri and Daru are essentially stereotypes or stereotypes, yet are delightful enough. Kurisu the female protagonist and blatant love interest is a little more challenging. On the one hand her interactions with Okarin provide enjoyable conflict and on the other her personality weakens in the context of the backstory. However it’s the secondary cast, cat-girl and the girl-guy who are an eternal source of annoyance. At first I took them for throw away characters and I wasn’t strictly speaking wrong. As plot devices they’re integral, as characters they’re not.

All in all, Steins; Gate is an incredible feat, one that’s rarely seen these days. Yes, it’s not perfect, there are flaws primarily in the character department, but these are so minimal in comparison to the shows ultimate triumph, it practically re-writes the sci-fi genre. High recommendations.

Rating: 9/10

First Impression: The Legend of Korra

Technically Avatar the Last Airbender and its successor The Legend of Korra are not strictly speaking animes since neither are Japanese, but what is transparently clear is the inspiration behind both is. No surprise Avatar has been dubbed the American Anime.

 Set several unspecified years after the events of the original series with the primary cast presumably dead, so far the only member of the first series we know for sure is alive is Katara, as she quite literally passes the torch to the new avatar, a water tribe girl called Korra. Existing in a time of alleged peace, Korra has a completely different task ahead of her, finding her place in the world as the Avatar. It’s really interesting that whereas Aang had a destiny that he was trying to avoid, Korra is without a destiny despite really wanting one. This leads her character to make impulsive and often ill-thought out plans. Despite Korra’s ever so slight arrogance in her abilities and her title, the writers have done a brilliant job of not making her an annoying teenager trope. It could have so easily gone horribly wrong. However the greatest aspect of this new series is without a doubt the bad guy and his anti-bending movement. In this modern era the warfare of Avatar the Last Airbender is not just seemingly outdated, it is also a hindrance, resulting in the scapegoating of benders as the problems of the society. The Legend of Korra has the potential to be a more in depth, more historical commentary than its predecessor but at the moment I’ve not given into Korra fever. In its defence The Last Airbender had three terrific seasons. It’s too soon to decide whether Korra is on par yet.
 
Initial rating: 8/10

Hana Saku Iroha - Review

Hana Saku Iroha was somewhat of a bumpy ride, producing varying reactions along the way. In the end it had a wonderfully well written arc that result in a solid and satisfying climax that shined over prior calamities. I think the main problem was that it was good at what it promised, a slice of life, coming of age, the daily on-goings of a traditional Japanese Inn and appallingly bad at the unexpected – the outlandish comedy and romance triangle.  In both these areas characters and situations didn’t feel natural and interrupted the general flow – for example the perverted writer who writes explicit porn involving the underage girls at the inn, when discovered he kidnaps Ohana and later attempts suicide. Giving him a job at the inn is obvious the workings of a rational, sane mind. Yet this character becomes the perverted comic relief for the remaining series. Despite the fact I can’t imagine any teenage girl finding this situation comfortable. 

As for the romance section, the Minko-Trohu-Ohana triangle is expectedly, but even so the latter part appears almost out of nowhere. It certainly doesn’t come across as a genuine love interest, more or less like a plot device to create tension between Minko and Ohana. It does serve one good purpose, with Minko unjustly on the war path with Ohana; the ever-annoying Ohana is given a sympathetic light and thus becomes more endearing. As for Ohana, the primary protagonist the series did a fantastic job overall of making an overtly optimistic teenager, likable and compelling. In context this is a girl who quite literally has her life turned upside down and placed into a familiar environment, but what makes her relatable is the moment she begins to challenge her mother in favour of the inn. This is when Ohana stops being the archetypal heroine and becomes an average teenager.

 Rating: 7/10 

Ao No Exorcist Review

Developed from Dragonball, the shounen formula is a fairly consistent style of anime, considering the most well-known and popular shows tend to adhere to pattern – Naruto and Bleach for example. This is not without its drawback. Shounen animes (fighting ones in particular) are often long and overtly drawn out, having fighting sequences that can span for multi-episodes, which is especially tedious if they are unimportant to the major storyline, for instance a secondary or even a third-rate character fighting an inconsequential side villain. Not to mention the tedious and endless filler arcs.

Ao no Exorcist is not a radical leap from the shounen formula, not by any stretch of the imagination, in particular if you address the similarities between it and Bleach (which I will later on). Nevertheless there are several remarkable improvements to the tried and test formula. The most prominent is reduction of long-winded fighting scenes. Aside from the big bad square off during the final three episodes, most action is tamed to one or two episode parters and fights do not exceed themselves needlessly. Ultimately this means the audiences is not overloaded with violence, deterring away from the plot, which results in genuine tension since we are invested in the characters. As much as I like Bleach and Dragonball, Ichigo and Goku are fairly bland archetypal protagonists. Right from the get go we know if beaten both will eventually return stronger, even if killed (in the case of Goku).

A shorter, more concise series is beneficial to the filler episodes as well. Since in Ao no Exorcist these are singular, stand-alone episodes and therefore don’t come across forced. It’s actually pretty favourable to observe characters during their ‘off-days’, despite the limited use of the school backdrop. It really was a shame that the anime didn’t make full use of the school outside of the Exorcist classes. Of course this is comparable to Bleach and Dragonball, where the protagonists often leap from one epic adventure straight into another, living filler episodes (as mentioned prior) empty and forced comic-relief. Take the impending epic battle between Cell and instead of training Goku’s wife decides she wants him and his green alien training buddy Piccolo to learn how to drive. Really? I mean is that even a priority? It just seems so silly and out of place.

Onto the tropes! Unfortunately in the character department Ao no Exorcist does not excel, since it opts out for the safe approach. We have our main character, Rin, the son of Satan and like most protagonists, his birth right feels like the weight of the world on his shoulders. Nicely this is even pointed out plenty of times since Rin is often running head first into danger on his own. This is in part due to his heritage the need for secrecy but is a habit Rin finds hard to break. In comparison Ichigo (Bleach) has actually very little reason to the main protagonist. He only gets involved with the conflict after his two potential love interests are kidnapped, yet that seems enough to declare Aizen his enemy and take on the responsibility of stopping him. Whereas Rin’s reasoning is much more simplistic and holds more realism. Satan killed his father, Rin want’s revenge. It’s no wonder vengeance is such a high motivator; it effectively brings the conflict to a more personal level.

The secondary characters are where things don’t quite gel. We have the rival archetype Ryuji, doubling as potential love interest and healer archetypes Shiemi, the smart but haughty girl archetype Izumo, the shamelessly big chested-little clothing teacher archetype Shura (more common than you think, the good guy on the wrong side archetype Arthur August Angel and the mysterious, has additional motives archetypes Mephisto. While most of them are pretty harmless and even do a good job upholding their stereotype, others are woefully grating and just extend into plot devise territory – take Arthur August Angel as an prime example.

What gives Ao no Exorcist a real boost is the additional of Rin’s twin brother, Yukio. This enables the plot to reduce the pressure placed on Rin as primary protagonist and even at the end have a more balanced resolution. By getting rid of this lone-wolf complex, the anime enables a brotherly bond to be beautifully created and developed over time. There are one or two hiccups along the way, the sudden jerk as Yukio rapidly changes character feels a little stiff but this is quickly turned around.

On the disappointing side, the main villain was a colossal let down. The series spend a good deal of time introducing Satan as a bad arse and portraying him as a major player, then suddenly right at the end we received some crucial information that is supposed to flesh out the character from standard bad guy archetype – he’s got a I’m so lonely, I just want to be loved side. It doesn’t work, primarily because it flat out contradicts not just the original premise of the character but also their immediate actions. Making your character do a complete 180 is not adding depth.

Despite the ups and downs, Ao no Exorcist is a very strong show and has potential to be next big shounen anime. Alas there seems no secondary season in sight, through a movie is in the works. Perhaps this is for the best, let the manga develop first than have a second season. No filler seasons!

Rating: 8/10

A Channel & DOTSO Review

A Channel - Review

A show about the daily lives of four school girls might not seem very interesting on paper but in practice it’s moderately successful. This is because the anime focuses efficiently on the protagonists and on developing them as distinctive but not radically difference individuals. Of course this is not without flaws. Run, the resident cute airhead is borderline retarded. This is demonstrated numerous times but the clearest example is the instance in which Run nearly falls out of a three-story window whilst waving at her friend. That’s just natural selection surely? Or the time when she forgets to put on her underwear and flashes her friend, I mean how does this girl function in the real world? Evidently the creators are incapable of decipher between naïve and dumb. Another problem takes the form of not knowing who the target audience is. On the one hand the non-threatening female characters and their mini-escapades into the joys of friendship and growing up would suggest primarily young girls are the intended mark. Yet the often uncomfortable and somewhat sexualisation of their cuteness (take the underwear episode or the teacher with a crush on Run’s forehead) would suggest an older male demographic. Fortunately these are few and far between. In short if you want an enjoyable, simplistic, non-challenging anime to pass the time, A Channel delivers.

Rating: 5/10

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko – Review

With a name like Electromagnetic Wave Woman and Adolescent Man, you know this is going to be awesome right? With a premise of a young girl who is a self-proclaimed, futon-wearing alien, having been missing for half a year and later recovered floating in the sea; this isn’t going to be a chore to seat through. Well you’d be wrong on both accounts. DOTSO is just another cute-but-somehow-inept-female meets boy-void-of-personality. Rather than utilize the premise to its full potential, the anime prefers to exploit Erin’s backstory merely as a device to make her childlike and helpless, thus dependent on her male cousin. But perhaps the most insulting part is that we never learn what did happen to Erin, not even ambiguously. It’s never addressed, which renders the entire premise utterly pointless. The writers could have substituted a less outlandish backdrop – Erin was bullied at school and thus became a shut in, you could still have exactly the storylines. If fact that would make people’s reactions to her more convincing. Presumably the knowledge of her disappearance/reappearance was well known, any person with common sense would determine that the girl is suffering amnesia due to some form of trauma and take that into account before treating her like a social leper. Oh no, Erin generally fears returning to school and has trouble finding employment because people find her ‘weird’. Why? Erin wraps a futon around herself. Why? Because she is mental/emotionally traumatised! Why? Because she was missing for half a year! Or the brain-dead mother who doesn’t see fit to put her daughter in therapy, apparently she thinks Erin is going through a fad. Or maybe she is waiting for some generic male relation to come in save the day with optimism! And how does this marvellous series end? With an entire episode dedicated to a baseball game, which our hero is absent from as he has been sent on a random quest to locate the father of one of his miscellaneous friends. A filler episode! It ends on a filler episode. No, the entire series is a filler episode.

Rating: 4/10

Deadman Wonderland - Review

My first anime review of 2012 and it’s something that’s been on the backburner for quite a while. Deadman Wonderland is on the meh side of okay, despite being one of the few anime’s I’ve actually managed to finish since returning to the bustling university lifestyle. I chalk that up to the crisp animation more than the storyline, which I’ve had the most problems with.

Primarily Deadman Wonderland makes no sense. The story is inconsistent, its chief aim is to take the protagonist Ganta, a fourteen year old high school student out of the comfortable life his lead so far and screw around with him as much as possible. For instance, we are initially plummeted into a horrendous mass murder in which Ganta is the number one suspect. How do the authorities reach such a conclusion? He was the only living survivor. Yup, that’s it. I mean they don’t even wait for him to regain consciousness and give his sole survivor eye-witness account before putting him in handcuffs and charging him. Sloppy police work or part of a larger conspiracy? We don’t know because it’s never addressed. Nor is the fact that the warden of the super prison is moonlighting as Ganta’s lawyer; now surely that’s a conflict of interest? Or maybe the warden is in on the conspiracy? Nope, never addressed. Once Ganta is in the prison and this plot point has done its job, off it goes, never to be seen or heard from again.

Instead we’re introduced to Deadman Wonderland a prison/theme park/battle royale game. Complete with poisoners collars that kill off the prison population unless they eat the antidote (candy) every three days. Admittedly this is an interesting twist, because it gives the prisoners a reason to partake in dangerous sports, it’s quite literally a matter of life or death. But does the prison have a never ending supply of generically ‘bad’ criminals who are expendable? Surely this raises eyebrows? Nope, since the spectators think its fake, no one seems to question the body count. Convenient since it won’t be addressed again.

Half way through, the story takes its final leap into disbelief when Ganta discovers a secret prison underneath his own. One where people (like him) with special blood killing powers are pitted against each other semi-mortal kombat style, all the while shadowy agents watch. This just raises even more questions than it answers. Why do they have these powers? Why were they caught if they could clearly use they own blood as a weapon? Perhaps more importantly, can’t we think of better things to do with them rather than cage fight? Nope, not gonna answer these either.

Undeniably the latter half is the most exciting and feels the most organic, in that this is where the plot wanted Ganta originally. But it could have moved along much better and cleaner, instead of being wishy-washy. Unfortunately the series is only 12 episodes long and I have a feeling that many of the unanswered questions would have been brought up later in the show. Too bad there isn’t a season two in sight.

Rating: 6/10