It’s a new semester at CSM, which means new courses, new instructors, and new problems. On the flip side, it also means a new CSMAC president showing new anime in a new room. Find out if Jack has put his best foot forward (as opposed to in his mouth) in this newest review…NEW!!!!
UN-GO
Just when you thought detective anime couldn't get any creepier…
About 20 or 30 years from now, Japan is still recovering from the ravages of war. Earning a living as one of the last traditional detectives is Shinjurou Yuuki. He is known as “the Defeated Detective” for being constantly outpaced by his sedentary rival Rinroku Kaishou, who exploits the country’s vast computer and surveillance network to solve crimes from the comfort of home. In reality, Yuuki always solves his cases thanks to his bizarre panda-looking assistant Inga.
And why wouldn't you trust your safety to a kid like this?
Inga is constantly fascinated by human suffering, and when that interest is piqued, Inga transforms into a tall panda-looking woman. In this form, Inga can ask any human a single question and always receive an honest answer. Unfortunately, it is Kaishou’s job to bury Yuuki’s success with government-backed lies.
Murder-mystery anime seem to be relatively popular for the last few years, but they continue to be told a variety of different ways. That said, UN-GO isn’t good at telling murder mysteries. Half the fun of a mystery lies in solving it before the characters do. That means there must be a balance struck between detail and execution. Making the interaction too one-sided (for either the viewer or the characters) ruins the overall experience. It’s a shame, then, that UN-GO makes it a bit too easy for the viewer to outpace “the Defeated Detective” and his brilliant deductions.
The Vocaloid is the killer, obviously.
The detail also has little-to-no structure, simply throwing events and information out in the open. This also means that Yuuki’s methods are almost never revealed, and he seems to take no interest in his cases (unlike Inga). As such, Yuuki becomes the black box of the series, which seriously detracts from the story-telling process. Once the clues are assembled, Yuuki makes his decision about who holds the most information, and Inga asks her undeniable question, leading to a closed case in less than 5 minutes later. Of course, this extreme condensation could be avoided if the series had more time to solve the mysteries, making the mysteries feel more emotional and the overall process more artful. While it’s an interesting take on mystery solving, Inga’s Geass is still an unspeakably cheap out, especially considering Kaishou can solve the same case using technology in a little more time.
Fortunately, UN-GO’s actual mystery lies in the backgrounds and driving forces of its recurring characters, and it tells that story very well. While Kaishou is intelligent and unreadable, his candid demeanor sharply contrasts his role as the government’s cover story detective. As for Yuuki, his stoic brilliance is complemented by a very guarded nature. His interaction with Inga seems especially interesting, since although their relationship is purely professional, Inga seems to be constantly inflicting psychological damage upon Yuuki.
And how could Inga not, in that get-up.
The animation brings Studio BONES back to prominence, and the music (while not memorable) performs its function of augmenting any given scene with that extra touch of atmosphere. Should you enjoy mystery series for the mystery behind the mysteries (and not the actual sleuthing), be sure to add UN-GO to your list.
Mawaru Penguindrum
AKA Mr. Popper’s Penguindrum
The story centers around three siblings, twins Kanba and Shouma, and their sister Himari Takakura. They’ve lost their parents and currently live in oddly-colorful poverty. Himari apparently has some horrific and incurable brain condition, and the doctor says that she has only months to live. So one day, the twins decide to let Himari do whatever she wants, calling it Himari Day. As this conversation is happening, a little boy starts spouting to his friend about his apple-centric model of the universe and the afterlife (you know, real subtle symbolism and foreshadowing). So the siblings all go to the local aquarium to see the penguins. Shortly after trying on a hat resembling a female Emperor penguin, Himari drops dead.
Crossing the Penguin Mafia means that tonight she’ll be sleeping with the fishes.
Hope seems lost, until the spirit inside the hat (who comes from “the destination of their fate”) offers to extend Himari’s life in exchange for their services in reclaiming an object called the Penguindrum. To aid in their task, the spirit gives each sibling a penguin whose actions are visible only to them.
And apparently whoever packed the damn things.
Do you like penguins?
I. FUCKING. LOVE. PENGUINS.
Then you’ll certainly love Mawaru Penguindrum. If you don’t love penguins, then you may like this show yet. Ikuhara Kunihiko, the director behind Revolutionary Girl Utena, returns with an equally unsubtle anime classic. While the anime itself rides the rails (albeit achronologically), it crams symbolism into every available orifice. While that would usually make an anime distractingly erratic, Penguindrum is more of an onion that requires multiple views before everything shifts into focus. The show covers a large swath of topics, including fate, family, atonement, rape, death, nihilism, and existentialism, all of which are treated in unconventional ways. As opposed to treating each theme linearly, the show slowly builds atop each other theme before zeroing on the two primary themes.
The artwork is….different. Something is almost always moving in this show, whether it’s during special effect sequences, scene transitions, quiet conversations whilst sitting on the subway, or the routines of non-player characters.
Yes, that’s the only odd feature in this picture.
Ironically, all the surrounding chaos provides very little distraction, primarily due to an expert use of color placement, drawing the viewer towards that which is important. Furthermore, the constant fluidity of every episode makes the still moments seem all the more dramatic. Even the OP has a music and sense of style that’s usually only reserved for Studio SHAFT. Overall, the animation proudly boasts its frighteningly high budget, even though the quality does take a slight dip in later episodes (which is pretty common for shows like this).
Then there’s the other side of Mawaru Penguindrum. It’s gaudy, only slightly less so than a Lady Gaga performance, but in anime form. At some points, it’s almost obnoxious how a studio can have SO much money to throw at a story without making it feel any more meaningful. Penguindrum’s directing can accomplish the same goals and evoke the same emotions with easily ¼ the budget, so it annoys me that other shows with great potential are left with scraps. However, just when you thought things couldn’t get any more bombastic, there’s…
Ugh….
I normally wouldn’t be so aggravated by a scene like this, except that it happens EVERY EPISODE. The sequence screams from the rooftops to be paralleled with the Utena movie. In fact, as soon as I saw this scene, I knew that no anime director could create such a pointless transformation besides Ikuhara Kunihiko.
Muahahahahaha, Penguins!
Artistically speaking, Mawaru Penguindrum is packed with an immense amount of flair and ambition. That said, it will undoubtedly be one of the more polarizing anime of our time. Regardless of this show’s eventual success or failure, it pleases me that anime artists still possess the confidence to pursue their ideas to the fullest and push the medium to its boundaries.
Usagi Drop
In before HNNNNGGGGGG!!!
A 30-year old man named Daikichi is a bachelor, has a respectable job, and lives alone. One day, he receives word of his grandfather’s death, so he and his entire extended family attend the funeral. At the funeral, they discover that the grandfather had an illegitimate child with a younger lover. That child is Rin, a quiet blond-haired 6-year old girl. Seeing as she is a bastard child, no one in the family will take responsibility for Rin, and they are prepared to immediately place her in the custody of Child Services. Deeply offended by his family’s callous demeanor, Daikichi decides to raise Rin himself. As Daikichi nurtures Rin, he begins to understand the struggles and joys of parenting.
They're getting along fine already.
CSMAC watches a lot of anime (mostly bad), and it covers the gamut: murder-mystery, high-school, survival game, mecha, etc. However, every once in a while, the club watches a slice-of-life anime, and they almost all suffer from a very fundamental flaw: they’re boring. In order to mask this flaw, these shows resort to comedy, putting a lighter spin on an otherwise uneventful existence. Slice-of-life shows don’t have to take this route, but most do because doing anything else requires a truly special kind of execution. That’s where Usagi Drop comes in.
Instead of watching how the characters interact with the world around them, the viewer sees how Daikichi interacts with Rin. The relationship can’t get any simpler, because the characters are developing themselves before our eyes. As such, they learn life lessons in small but meaningful ways. Lessons about working hard to provide for your child, but breaking a promise in the process. Lessons about not wetting the bed, even though you realize that the same death that befell your father mere days ago may come for you at any time. It’s difficult raising a child to be without flaws, but it’s even more difficult when the parent has to simultaneously confront their own flaws. Usagi Drop is less about the parent-child relationship as it is a deep partnership based on trust and understanding, the basis of what we call “love.”
The nature of this particular relationship is amplified by the adjacent foils found in Daikichi’s extended family. The elders seem apathetic and stiff, even oblivious to one another. Only a 6-year old child they had never met thought to bury the grandfather with his beloved bellflowers.
Even though his back yard is full of them.
Daikichi’s own sister acts selfish and shallow whenever she’s seen. Then there’s Reina, the other little girl about Rin’s age who acts like a rambunctious twerp. Of course, it’s easy to judge the character of a child, but it isn’t difficult to see why she Reina acts that way, given the nature of her surroundings. Even Rin’s own mother turns out to be cold and unpleasant. This is the type of family that is seen far too often in the real world: a collective of people that are bound by blood and obligation, rather than emotion and compassion.
And don't these people seem like the understanding type…
In such a world, Rin and Daikichi’s family truly shines. They both possess a fundamental understanding of what is right, what is wrong, and what is fair. Usagi Drop is special not because it tells a fascinating story, nor because it shows an adorable interaction, but because it accomplishes the ideals of a family without being torn apart by the traditional baggage of…having a family.
Usagi Drop is probably Production I.G.’s furthest departure from its traditional animation, and it remains of the series’ most polarizing issues. Scenes continuously bounce from hard lines and textures to round lines and watercolor, which can make following the story rather difficult (especially in a dark lecture hall). The OP and ED look like something a 6-year old would create.
An incredibly talented 6-year old, but nevertheless it drives me up a wall.
What is actually interesting are the character designs, particularly the faces. The older the characters are, the straighter the edges of their faces are. Likewise, the younger characters have rounder facial structure. However, Rin is different. Her face seems in constant flux between round and straightened, and it also seems based on her reactions to different situations – round when she acts like a regular child and straighter when she is confronted with adult issues, such as her father’s death. It’s a subtle cue, and it stands to further prove Production I.G’s expert animation. The music serves as pure accompaniment, lending itself to the story only when necessary. The tracks themselves are forgettable, but their added effect on the audience means the difference between feeling ambivalent and awestruck.
Usagi Drop isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t make the greatest sales pitch for having offspring, but this may well be the closest that non-parents ever get to feeling what it’s like to love a child.
Tune in next time to see if the new CSMAC president can keep the good times rolling with quality programming (spoiler: he won’t).
Chris · January 28, 2012 at 11:09 am
Damn it, I’m doomed to read every caption ever in your voice, now.
Great review, as usual. Lots of good insight. You also usually notice how the animation and music are telling part of the story, something I tend to miss. That faces bit in Usagi Drop was particularly interesting. And one of these days, I’ll remember to pick up Penguindrum.
Next time for Rubik’s Cubes, pirates without hats, and cheating. Can’t wait.