The world feels rather unique in the dead of winter. Everything is quiet, colors are muted, and the cold forces everything to grind to a halt. However, when the sun emerges, bright white light reflects off of every surface, and colors become vivid and reveal everything’s true nature. The same can be said for much of the anime in Winter 2012, which is either forcibly muted or blindingly noticeable. Bring some snowshoes and some sunglasses, preferably too dark to see the anime through.
Mouretsu Space Pirates
They’re also morose from the morass of morons.
In the far-flung future, humanity has colonized many exo-planets across the galaxy. The first of these planets is an Earth-like world called Sea of the Morning Star (yeah, kinda much for a planet). Though officially ruled by the invading Galactic Empire, it has been allowed to remain independent, and its citizens are allowed to live in peace and prosperity. It has an odd quirk of history though: during its battle for independence centuries ago, it supplemented its interstellar navy by granting privateering licenses to any ship willing to raid enemy ships. Of course, “privateer” is a fancy euphemism for the more common term of “pirate.” Some of those licenses survive to this day, passed from pirate to heir over the generations. One of them, specifically belonging to the captain of the Bentenmaru, is now in a grace period, following his death. Its recipient is an endlessly optimistic high-school girl named Marika Katou, the captain’s estranged daughter. Medic Misa and navigator Kane leave the ship to scope her out, followed by hordes of less-than-savory types curious about the ship’s potential new captain. Marika also makes a new friend out of Chiaki Kurihara, the daughter of yet another pirate ship captain. Marika requests some time to think about her decision, and goes space-sailing on the Odette II, an ancient schooner manned by her schoolmates. The ship becomes victim of a cyber attack, and Marika and Chiaki race to action. After their little trip, Marika decides to become a space pirate.
Although she’ll need a hat first.
With a show named Bodacious Space Pirates, you come to expect certain things and hold it to certain standards. Namely, you expect it to be a lame show with little plot, lots of fan service, and some actual pirating. Ironically, this show is the exact opposite of the previous sentence, and yet it still manages to be terrible.
The story starts simply enough, with the viewer thrown into a bygone age of piracy, but in space. From there, it cuts to Marika, who oozes main character optimism, but is decidedly calmer than one would expect from a pirate show. She is presented with the news that her father died, he was a space pirate, and she is offered the captainship of the Bentenmaru. Instead of flaking out like an idiot, she flakes out like a high-school girl. However, she realizes the gravitas of her decision so she asks for some time to think it over. I appreciate that slow and steady position, as it shows the maturity and initial strength of Marika’s character, and it also shows that this series is readying itself to be a very, very long one. Chiaki is very similar, although she seems a bit colder, while also proving more technically proficient when it comes to running a space ship. In that sense, Chiaki becomes a good foil for Marika without acting as her polar opposite.
The animation definitely has its moments. While the show does have some early experimentation with cyberpunk, such as with holographic arrows to find a seat in a classroom or holographic pocket watches or even sharing information from screen to screen with the flick of the wrist, it stops entirely after about the third episode. The backgrounds, especially on Sea of the Morning Star, are vibrant and beautiful. Even the spaceships looking exciting.
Although there are sadly no space swords.
Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ends. The show has almost no fan service whatsoever, despite casting an entire class full of high-school girls (none of whom would be considered “bodacious”). In fact, few, if any, characters are very attractive at all (you know, aside from just being female). The music is mostly symphony instrumental, but it feels far too grand for the story content. Then there’s the actual story material: it’s boring. Sure, the show tries very hard to distance itself from the silly pure-action premises of One Piece, but it goes about it in the wrong way. The first season (and believe me, the producers want a lot of them) uses a solid 6 episodes to persuade Marika to become a space pirate, which feels slow by any story metric. How is this accomplished? The show talks about electronic warfare, navigation systems, licenses, and paperwork. What part of this sounds exciting or even interesting? If you said, “electronic warfare,” then prepare to be supremely disappointed. Instead of using some Hackers-style animation and/or showing the physical effects of a cyber attack, such as engines breaking down or self-destruct sequences activating, we get a cute little ship-shaped progress bar and the comfort of knowing the Bentenmaru has “an impression electronic warfare system.” That’s it. Want to see what battles with space pirates are like? Well, they’re pretty much non-existent. There is an occasional laser beam fired, but it always misses (by about a football field). The space ships, of which many are shaped like actual weapons, are almost entirely for show, having no other purpose than to constantly remind you of how awesome a fight with actual space ships WOULD BE. How about the hallmark of pirating, the plundering of goods from unsuspecting sailors? The creator thought a more inspired approach would be to turn Marika’s crew into dinner theater performers instead. The crew members are staged in various parts of a cruise liner’s ballroom, Marika makes a big entrance, lofty words and trinkets are exchanged, the rich bystanders applaud like idiots, and everyone’s on their way. So to review, there is no fighting, no physical damage, no plundering, and no story.
In space, no one can here you "HEEEEYI!"
Mouretsu Space Pirates is about as inspiring or accurate as Napster 2.0. By trying to distance itself from the tired pirate stereotype of yore, the series drowns in the details and unbearably slow story development. The show could have easily been retrofitted into a decent Space Opera, but again the story eschews the more interesting elements to focus on the equivalent of a lexicon. Everything that was romanticized (and therefore popularized) by pirating has been stripped away. The Mouretsu Space Pirates should walk the space plank.
Natsume Yuujinchou Shi
Why is that kid lighting leaves on fire?
Natsume Takashi has the ability to see spirits, which he has long kept secret. However, once he inherits a strange book that belonged to his deceased grandmother, Reiko, he discovers the reason why spirits surround him. It turns out his grandmother had a bad habit of enslaving demons, all the time. Containing the names of these spirits, a binding contract is formed between the spirits and the owner of this book, the Book of Friends. Realizing that his grandmother was a horrible person, Natsume is determined to dissolve the contracts and free the spirits. With the help of a powerful yet apathetic spirit cat named Nyanko, his days are filled trying to return the names to these spirits. Along the way, Natsume helps a bunch of beings (humans and spirits alike), and he makes some friends with both types. As he becomes closer to both, Natsume faces the inevitable question of whose side he should take.
They’re playing Hide and Seek, after all.
Yuujinchou is a series that has been around for years now, and the formula it follows really hasn’t changed, and not always for the better. Natsume encounters a demon either after the Book of Friends or wanting to be released from the contract, or distressed about something. Then Natsume bends over backwards to help them. Then the conflict is somehow resolved (almost always positively), and the story arc completes. In spite of the show’s premise, it acts like slice-of-life. The backgrounds are often soft with light tones. The character designs of the demons are heavily influenced by Miyazaki, ranging from imposing to stupidly charming. The humans’ designs aren’t quite as influenced, but it’s definitely noticeable. However, it’s the story’s execution that keeps it from being particularly interesting.
Natsume is rather neutral when it comes to “choosing a side” between favoring demons and humans. He has a very simple view of the world, and most all of the characters in Yuujinchou are either “good” or “misunderstood.” As such, he does pretty much anything he can to resolve these conflicts for complete strangers, and even goes out of his way to break the contracts forged in the Book of Friends. Here is where the problem arises. There’s no real substance in any of the conflicts, no being’s actions are particularly “evil” or even interesting. Any act of violence (and believe me, in this show they’re all tame) is just a way to express frustration over some trivial issue. As for the demons, most of them seem to only care about the Book of Friends that Natsume possesses, since the owner can command an impressive army of spirits to do their bidding. Some freed demons do become friends with him (although that was kinda the point of having a damn Book of Friends), but most others just go on their way, never to be cared about again. In that regard, much of the series feels like pointless padding, since there are no ramifications to Natsume’s actions and no consequences for choosing to help or not help other characters. It is this purely episodic nature that holds the overall storyline back, and the slice-of-life angle only serves to make the series that much more boring.
The fourth season (which was shown) did give me a sense of hope. The first episode throws Natsumi into a chase scene with the first 5 minutes against of group of demons after the Book of Friends for their master. This leads him into the forest of their master, so he’s already deep within enemy territory. Then, Natsume encounters large sections of the forest full of traps designed to work on both humans and demons. These traps are set by minions of Seiji Matoba, the leader of a powerful clan of exorcists, and he himself is a relatively ruthless individual. I say relatively because it’s only implied how cold and heartless he can be by using music and lighting to make him seem very imposing. His techniques are interesting, if only because he has to move around a lot to fight and to make attacks, which goes against the grain that Yuujinchou has established. So far, the only thing that makes him seem “cold” is his realistic view that demons do what they please in order to get what they want, and the human world is better off with demons eradicated. Four seasons of this show verify his statement rather well. However, it should be noted that once in a while the humans in this series act the same way. While that makes the case that demons and humans act very similar, it doesn’t excuse the fact that only exorcists and other demons and kill other demons, whereas everything can harm humans. One of Yuujinchou’s main problems stems from Natsume’s naiveté concerning the two sides. His ambivalence shows that he actually lacks resolve most of the time. Sure he stands up to Seiji and says that what he does is morally wrong in his eyes, but Natsume doesn’t actually stop him, ever. Instead, Natsume’s demon friends protect him or help the other demons for him.
And they do such a great job, too…
It’s very uninspiring to watch a main character that feels so overwhelmingly weak. Although he’s not as annoying as the “boku wa” protagonist, Natsume has very muted emotions. He can express himself, but such actions are very limited, and not because of self-restraint. That’s rather disappointing because his muted emotions compound his physical weakness to create a main character so dull that he would otherwise fade into the already pasty background.
The soundtrack doesn’t do the series any favors either. Almost every scene has a muted sense of whimsy, and it kills any sort of tension the episode conflicts are supposed to generate. Even when Natsume is captured and confronted by Seiji deep inside his mansion, deep in the forest full of demons, the music cannot act serious for its life. It doesn’t matter how psychopathic Seiji acted, how worked up Natsume gets, or how tense the situation could become because that damn music continues to so effortlessly diffuse the gravity of the situation. It just feels like Yuujinchou can’t escape the slice-of-life angle, even when it’s trying for once to take the series in a more serious direction, and that’s after three other seasons of this drivel.
If you looking for a decent supernatural slice-of-life anime, Yuujinchou remains a classic choice. However, you should abandon all hope of the series aspiring to be something greater because it seems to be forever trapped by Natsume and his Book of Friends.
Another
What a surprise, Another bad pun…
The story of Another opens with various shots of the quiet mountain village of Yomiyama. During this montage, two high-school students talk about a ghost story involving a beloved girl who died along with her family due to some unknown tragedy 26 years ago. Her class, shocked by the news carried on with daily life as though the girl was still among them. However, during their class graduation photo, an image of the girl appeared. That in and of itself would make for a decent ghost story, but one of the students says that’s when things really started getting freaky. All of this time, the music and imagery has been building up for a solid two minutes, and then the bubbly OP starts, breaking the tension entirely.
Thus the story as the audience knows it begins April 25, 1998. The scene then cuts to a hospital overlooking the town of Yomiyama where Koichi Sasakibara looks on from his hospital bed. Although he was living in Tokyo, his father had to go on an extensive business trip to India, so Koichi gets to stay with his aunt and grandparents in his mother’s hometown for the rest of the school year. Koichi’s mother died shortly after childbirth, and Koichi himself was hospitalized due to a case of pneumothorax. He is greeted by his class’ representatives, who seem oddly interested in his background and family history. His class also has 3 representatives: a male and female representative, and one in charge of “countermeasures.” While walking around the completely unlit hospital that night, he gets in an elevator. Shortly after the elevator starts moving, Koichi notices a pale eye patch-wearing girl his age named Mei Misaki, who also carries around a creepy blindfolded doll. He tries to start a conversation with her in the elevator, but she keeps things short and walks off towards the morgue.
When he finally arrives at the school, Koichi notices Mei sitting in the corner of his classroom. He also notices some other interesting things, such as her absense from a lot of activities, everyone’s unawareness of her, the isolation of his class from the rest of the school, and his classmates’ particular wariness of him. Everyone seems to carefully avoid talking to him about certain topics, including a supposed curse that his class is subject to and a mysterious set of special class rules that he’s supposed to follow but is never informed about.
First rule of Class 9-3: Don’t talk about the rules of Class 9-3.
As Koichi eventually learns, his particular class has a dark and tragic reputation dating back 26 years. Stranger still, it turns out that Mei Misaki (as Koichi knows her) does not exist, and students in his class start randomly dying…
Produced by Studio P.A. Works, Another is the anime adaptation of the horror mystery novel that was incrementally published starting in August 2006. Just like in the book, a brown-haired 9th grade male is suddenly transferred into a small mountain village in rural Japan just before summer. Then weird stuff starts happening, and people start dying. Funny story, this premise sounded familiar, so I did some digging. It turns out that the Visual Novel for Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, which has an eerily similar story, setting, character design, main character, and facial expressions, had its first release in August 2002, with its final game release on August 13, 2006.
What an oddly detailed coincidence.
Now while I wouldn’t call Another a complete and total rip-off of the single greatest murder-mystery story in all of anime (that award goes to Ookamikakushi), I will say that both stories are good at what they do and should be compared and contrasted thusly. As such, if you’ve never read or seen anything related to Higurashi (STEVE), you’ll be glad to know that this is merely a discussion of technique, not content.
The first thing you’ll notice about Another is its animation. It’s gorgeous, gorgeous in the same way Denpa Teki na Kanojo is. Everything looks crisp and clear, even in the rain and fog. The settings are drawn with such exacting care and detail that viewers are almost overwhelmed as every frame is rapidly scanned by the eyes. Signs have textures and rust, and textures on the rust. Leaves have distinct definition. Every last thing in Another has at least 3 different characteristics that drive the artwork into sensory overload. P.A. Works has been using quality artwork in its anime for the last two years, and it leaves a very positive impact on the studio’s reputation. I wish the first season of Higurashi had even 1/3 the animation talent that this show has. Horror needs an absurdly high level of character expression in order to successfully convey characters’ stronger emotions, and Another does an excellent job of that. However, the series has this rather annoying habit of mixing in random shots of “disturbing imagery” wherever and whenever possible. Crows, knives, spilling blood, and bemused dolls all make frequent 3 frame cameos, and they are utterly pointless – oh except to add to the gloomy atmosphere prevalent in every square inch of Yomiyama.
The music has a strange tone to it. It’s not necessarily gloomy, but it does befit the story’s early episodes in how strange it sounds. It is composed of mostly stringed instruments and xylophones, and it definitely sounds as odd as you’d imagine it to. That said, the music has a personality all its own, and it’s moody. It’s either loud or it’s pushy or it’s murmuring or it’s mute. That makes it borderline distracting, but it fortunately never seems to actually cross that line.
Speaking of pushing boundaries, the story teases and taunts the audience from the very first frame. It hooks you with an interesting story, tells you that it doesn’t end there, plays some unfitting music, resets the story, then mentions the weirdness and the rules that you should probably find out about but are not allowed to find out about. Mei is particularly guilty of this, responding to Koichi’s questions with “I hate to be questioned,” and “you really don’t know anything?” and “you’ll find out soon enough.” How frustrating it is to have to sit there for over an hour and be so brazenly strung along for the sole purpose of trying to build up tension, when all it actually does is wear down patience. Even though the show tries to act like dead weight, the story does persevere, and like any good mystery story, it raises many questions the further it leads you.
Then there’s the execution of the story, and it’s here that it differs from a story like Higurashi or Denpa Teki the most. It lacks subtlety. Every last particle of Another is engineered to tell you that this is a horror story, and by “tell” I mean “grab you by the back of the neck, lift you across the room, and dunk your head in a bucket of ice water.” In the words of the immortal Trollcaster, “Terror, in its truest sense, is not a static state, but a dynamic one.” If one watches early scenes from Higurashi or Denpa Teki, the world that the main characters find themselves in is rather normal, pleasant even. Then they start to notice small things, things that don’t seem to fit the world they live in. The situation snowballs, and suddenly the world they currently reside in is far different than the one they’ve known. Both stories conjure a nervous and worrying emotional state, not because of what other characters say (reading through the scripts conveys a completely normal conversation), but because of how the words are spoken. Is what that person says true, or is there a hidden meaning in their speech? Is this person just very insightful or is this person a murderer? The words rattle in a character’s mind, and what they picture are the worst possible scenarios, based on mere snippets of context. The way a story is carefully unveiled and combined with imagery and sound is what immerses the viewer, what makes them question the characters around them, what makes them fear what lies around the next corner, what actually scares them. Another, on the other hand, takes you to a creepy town with creepy people, fills your ears with creepy music, splashes in liberal doses of creepy imagery, and then expects you to be shocked by the “revelation” that pops up 3, 5, and 6 episodes later: that creepy shit happens in creepy places.
Is creepy girl creepy? How will I know?
What does deserve credit is director Tsutomu Mizushima. Although most of his previous work is on comedies, there is one unifying thread between comedy and tragedy, and that is timing. It’s what means the difference between a nice introduction or a pleasant conversation and an atmosphere that’s downright discomforting. It also means the difference between falling flat on some stairs and tripping, breaking your angle, plummeting down a stairwell, and impaling yourself on your own umbrella. The director also knows exactly how much a viewer will tolerate being strung along before changing the channel. As such, he constantly stops about 5 seconds short and tosses the audience some crumbs in order to reset their attention span. While that may not be a laudable skill, it at least shows that he possesses some knowledge of human mental processes and how to manipulate their emotions, something every good director should possess. That said, the storyline at least moves at a consistent pace, and the viewer remains interested in what happens next.
Whether or not Another becomes enshrined in the anime Horror Hall of Fame remains unclear, but it is definitely one of the most interesting series in the Winter 2012 season. While it may lack some key traits of other horror stories, Another tries its absolute best to make up for them in other areas, and the results do not disappoint. If you’re a fan of highly-budgeted killer-thrillers, then you should definitely check out Another. Not watching it could prove hazardous to your health.
Join me next time, as I attempt to comprehend the most surprising of evenings.
Pirates is an interesting case, where because the show was better than I thought it would be, it is notably less interesting than it could have been. Action shows need to have action, and a lot of it. Consistency and complex characters be damned – these shows are driven purely by adrenaline, and so they need to supply it at a constant rate to keep the audience watching. With nothing else going for it, the one thing shows like this can’t afford to do is settle into a routine, and become boring. I appreciate the level of realism Pirates is trying to maintain with all of the warfare that doesn’t involve shooting, because that’s the kind of stuff that actually wins wars, but this somewhat compromises the point of the show. D-Day was one small part of WWII. You know why there are such a disproportionately large number of war documentaries on that alone? Because there were lots of guns, explosions, heroism, and it’s overall really cool to watch. Leave the “electronic warfare” and political misdirection off-camera, and show us some damn fighting already.
No comment on Natsume Yuujinchou. Aside from the first 3 episodes of the first season, I’ve never watched it. It’s probably good, but I wouldn’t know.
Another is a show I’m following this season. It’s certainly reminiscent of things like Higurashi, but Matt points out the biggest flaw – subtlety, or lack thereof. Every single part of Another (save for a couple sparse moments) is made only to emphasize the creepy atmosphere. I assume Yomiyama is actually a pretty nice place to live (aside from Class 3, of course), and that most of its population is pretty happy, but given the perspective, you’d think Kouichi lives in Silent Hill. The creepiness becomes status quo, and as such, it ends up desensitizing viewers. Now, it’s jarring and uncomfortable when something normal happens. I think what made Higurashi so memorable is that you could trust nothing you saw to either be true or false. The truth is diluted in lies, and lies in truth. The picture was clear enough that it made you want to look closer, but blurry enough that you never could really make out what was behind it – like a frosted windowpane. But everything in Another is creepy, and everything lies. You can only throw viewers so many red herrings before they give up, and once that happens, the mystery and horror loses half its impact. Still, it’s interesting enough that I’ve still got theories, and I’m interested to see its conclusion. I only hope it doesn’t disappoint.
