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Man, it seems like visual novel adaptations are starting to come back. Not a whole lot compared to the previous decades, but the fact that some are still being made is nice to hear. I previously played and reviewed the original game for Atri: My Dear Moments, a little after an anime adaptation was announced (You can find my review of the game here: https://joyousmenma93 .livejournal. com/710659. html). Short version: While I did enjoy parts of the game, I did feel other parts could have been improved upon, but it was a valiant first game for Aniplex.exe to start with. With the knowledge I gleaned ... from the game, I was curious as to how the anime would adapt it, especially since the game itself is a fairly short 10-13 hours. It's inevitable that long visual novels would need to leave things out in the transition from a game to the TV format, especially a 12-13 episode series. On the whole, I do think the anime adaptation for Atri succeeded in its goal of adapting the game to a TV format, but it did make quite a few changes from the game. Some I liked, some...not so much, and the ones that didn't work are the anime's biggest problems.

In the near future, a sudden rise in sea levels floods the majority of the world and ends human civilization as we know it, forcing humanity to eke a living on what little dry land remains. Natsuki Ikaruga, a boy who lost his mother and his leg in an accident some years earlier, returns disillusioned from a harsh life in the big city to find his old countryside home half-swallowed by the sea. Left without a family, all he has to his name is the ship and submarine left to him by his oceanologist grandmother, and her debts. His only hope to restore the dreams for the future that he lost is to take up an opportunity presented to him by the suspicious debt collector Catherine. They set sail to search the sunken ruins of his grandmother's laboratory in order to find a treasure rumor says she left there. What they find is not riches or jewels; but a strange girl lying asleep in a coffin at the bottom of the sea. The girl, Atri, is a robot, but is so expressive and human-like that she could easily pass for a real human being. As thanks for salvaging her, Atri declares that she'll serve as Natsuki's leg until the end of the summer. The time they spend together over that summer changes the both of them.

I won't go into every single change the anime made from the game, as that'd make this review way longer than it needs to be, and I won't belabor a lot of what I said in my review of the game. I'll stick to my usual format before going into the nitty-gritty, starting with the animation. TROYCA, famous for Idolish7, was picked to do the animation, and while they couldn't quite replicate the finer details of Yusano and Moto4's character designs, they make up for that with kinetic character motion and fidelity to said character designs. They did, however, succeed in bringing the game's backgrounds and setting to life without compromising on the details. I also appreciate that the animators gave characters who didn't have sprites in the game actual designs, so it definitely has that going for it. On the sound front, I definitely appreciate that the anime decided to make its own original soundtrack as opposed to just reusing background tracks from the game, with the exception of a few, with one of them being important to the plot. I wasn't a fan of the overly chirpy ending theme, but as someone who usually doesn't like idol songs, I really liked the opening theme, Nogizaka46's "Ano Hikari." I never skipped it every time I watched an episode, it's that good. Hikaru Akao is still annoying when she sings in her squeaky voice, though.

A lot of the changes the anime makes is rearranging some events to make them happen either earlier or later than in the game, which does make some sense considering this is a 13-episode anime as opposed to a 13 hour game. The characters and their respective development remain the same from the game, even if a lot of aspects that put them on the path to getting it are either changed, downplayed, or cut out. Unfortunately, a few changes I didn't like were removing huge chunks of several characters' backstories, with Natsuki being the biggest victim of this. While his personality and development are the same as in the game, some really important parts of his backstory are cut out completely, such as leaving the Academy due to a combination of his own arrogance and a teacher being ableist towards him, both of which form the backbone of his development. By cutting those parts out, Natsuki comes across as much more needlessly angsty and mopey potato-kun. On the opposite side, Catherine and another character are made to be much nicer, with their more questionable actions watered down compared to the game. The anime seems to speed-run through the slice-of-life parts just to get to the plot faster, and while I can understand why they did this, as many who played the game complained that the plot should have happened a lot earlier, they kind of diluted the parts of the game that were genuinely good, such as the whole arc about the kids building a generator for the school.

There is one change that I definitely liked. In the last third of a game, there's a new character who gets introduced named Yasuda, who hates Atri and wants to kill her. He's universally despised by fans of the game due to a combination of his appearance completely lacking any established build-up or foreshadowing so it feels like he comes out of nowhere, and for being a generic villain whose motivations are really weak and tenuous at best. The anime doesn't change his characterization nor give him more depth and nuance, but it does go out of its way to address the first issue with him in that they add in whole new scenes where he's not only going after Atri multiple times, he even goes after other characters directly and using different methods, whether it be appealing to their guilty conscious or straight up trying to kill them, ranging from shooting them or unhooking Natsuki's submarine to wash him out to sea. While I do wish Yasuda's backstory had been fleshed out more, or given a stronger motivation for hating Atri than what he has, I definitely appreciate the anime's attempts to make him a more constant presence and a genuine threat, and it seems like the manga is doing the same.

But there is one addition the anime made that I really, REALLY wish they hadn't. Remember how in my review of the game, I mentioned that I absolutely hated the scene where Natsuki slips and falls into Minamo's boobs because it felt like unnecessary fanservice? The anime removes that, thank God (As does the manga)...but it also adds in new scenes involving Atri being sexualized or offering herself up to Natsuki in what's clearly meant to be a sexual manner, when she clearly looks and acts like an elementary schooler! Like, TROYCA, did we REALLY need a scene where Atri flashes her nude body to Natsuki several times when she's wearing nothing but a bath towel? I mean, it's at an angle where we can't see her nude, but come on! The game at least kept it limited to Atri jokingly calling Natsuki naughty and jumping to conclusions before she gets conked on the head! It's like the show is worried that we won’t care about Atri (and her death flags) unless we’ve been assured she’s a potential sex object, and it does a disservice to the story’s stronger emotional beats. Who thought deciding to openly sexualize Atri MORE was a good idea?! Because it isn't! Basically, Atri the anime traded one form of unnecessary fanservice for another, and it just makes me cringe into a singularity.

It's honestly a shame the anime decided to implement a lot of those more questionable changes, because I did enjoy the rest of my time with this show, and I want to recommend it to people who don't want to play the game or are unable to for whatever reason. I like the animation, the music, the opening song, most of the characters, and some of the better changes Atri: My Dear Moments made. But the not-so-good changes leave a pretty big black stain on what on paper is still a fairly decent adaptation of Aniplex.exe's first visual novel. Personally, if you want the better experience, I recommend just playing the game, if you're able. The anime is fine if you're into it or can't play the game for whatever reason, but I really wish I could recommend it more enthusiastically.

Man, I honestly can't believe it took me this long to finally finish watching Grave of the Fireflies in its entirety. I actually did watch this once before, way back in college. I took a class on how modern Japan was formed, and one of our assignments for that class was to watch two movies and compare/contrast them, this and The Flowers Of War. The other movie was about an American guy pretending to be a priest (or something, I don't remember) who was sent to China during World War II and witnesses the Rape of Nanking, but that's all I remember about it. Ironically, ... I actually finished The Flowers of War even though I didn't like it, but liked Grave of the Fireflies yet didn't finish it, though that was more due to other obligations than anything. I missed my chance to get the Sentai blu-ray and now that's both out of print and ridiculously expensive. That's what I get for not snapping it up when it was cheap. Luckily, Netflix put the subtitled version up recently, though neither the 1998 Central Park Media English dub or the Sentai Filmworks re-dub are on there. Why is that, I wonder? Still, I decided to finally sit down and watch it...and man, this movie really holds up in terms of depicting just how awful World War II was for everyone.

Based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, Grave of the Fireflies centers on two children, 14-year-old Seita Yokokawa and his 4-year-old Setsuko in the year 1945, when World War II was still raging all across the world. The firebombing of Kobe kills their ailing mother, and last they heard, their Navy captain father is out at sea. They go to live with their aunt, but she isn't too happy with having them around, constantly griping that they don't do enough to help around the house or contribute to the country. Unable to tolerate living under her roof any longer, Seita and Setsuko decide to try living on their own, moving into an abandoned bomb shelter. But no matter what Seita and Setsuko do to make the best of things and survive, they are beset by starvation and disease, met with apathy or cruelty by adults, and death lurks around every corner. World War II is cruel and merciless, even towards the innocent.

If you're going into this movie expecting cute Ghibli whimsy, you better throw those expectations out the window. Not only is Grave of the Fireflies down-to-earth and realistic, devoid of anything like magic or supernatural or so on, it's also the darkest, most bleak movie in their entire repertoire. People are shown actually dying or dead on screen without any kind of censorship or sugar-coating, and the movie itself doesn't have a happy ending. Hell, the movie literally opens with its protagonist dead on the streets, straight up telling you that you're gonna be in for a rough time. That said, having seen quite a few war movies, I can attest that Grave of the Fireflies is definitely one of the better executed ones. It's definitely the most well-animated one for sure, and considering this was the third movie Ghibli made, it's honestly a technical marvel even by eighties standards. This is the first movie that Isao Takahata directed for Ghibli, and it's easy to see that he has a strong knack for realism and little details that you won't find in any other movie, like how Setsuko acts like an actual 4-year-old with the way her body moves and how she behaves, or maggots completely covering the body of Seita's dead mother because her burns are so bad. Takahata doesn't waste a single detail here, both in the smaller slice-of-life moments and the harder-hitting war segments. I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as I definitely enjoyed it, but it did get a little too sentimental at times.

The characters are the most divisive point of the movie, as there's much discussion to be had about Seita and whether he's a good protagonist or not. Some say his actions throughout the film are understandable, while others say he's an absolute idiot who should have sucked it up so his sister could live. In all honesty, I'm of two minds on Seita as a character. Yes, the movie doesn't really gloss over the fact that Seita's actions did have a hand in his sister's death. He's a dumb teenager who made dumb decisions and was way in over his head, probably due to thinking he had to fulfill the role of the protector and the "man of the house." But really, what teenager HASN'T made dumb decisions at some point in their lives, even during war time? There were probably lots of kids like Seita during that era. Not everyone managed to survive World War II after all, and even if they did, they're bound to have been irrevocably changed because of it, whether through their own experiences or the actions they had to take and decisions they made. Desperate times can make people desperate.And while I can understand Seita's aunt wanting him to help out around the house a bit, I do feel the way she went about it was needlessly cruel, even if she might have had her own reasons for her actions. Besides, who's to say she'd treat them better if Seita and Setsuko even did help out more and "contribute to the country" as she kept whining for them to do? I can see both sides of the argument, but in regards to Seita, there's one thing I can appreciate about his depiction: Yes, he's overly prideful and doesn't always know when to give up, but I like that he's never portrayed as being mean. Usually, prideful people are portrayed as being arrogant, selfish, and think they're above everyone else, but Seita never acts like that. Besides, as flawed as Seita is, would you really prefer him being an uber perfect Gary Stu who does no wrong? That'd be super boring. Plus, you have to remember that Seita is a stand-in for Akiyuki Nosaka himself, who wrote the original short story out of guilt over not being able to save his younger sister during the war. All I can say about Setsuko is that she's a good depiction of a four-year-old kid of that era, complete with all the neediness and energy that a kid that age has. And man, props to Ghibli casting an actual four-year-old to play Setsuko. God only knows how difficult that must have been considering how four-year-olds tend to act.

My only real critiques for Grave of the Fireflies is that I wish the characters had been fleshed out more. For as much as I sympathized with Seita and Setsuko's journey, tragic as it is, I never felt like I really got to know them as people. I wish the movie had been maybe half an hour or an hour longer so it would have had time to flesh them out more, or maybe give a glimpse of what their lives were like before the war. I do find myself liking Who's Left Behind and In This Corner of the World better because both movies managed to do that, focusing hard on getting you to care about the characters before showing them going through the tragedies World War II brought on. Though that's not limited to just war movies, as I personally prefer everything that does that in general. That, and I wasn't really a big fan of the Setsuko death montage near the end. I found it to be a little overly melodramatic and unneeded. Yeah, I admit, I didn't cry at this movie, and I know you're thinking "What?! You didn't cry at the saddest anime movie ever made?! What's wrong with you?!" I personally found other movies to be sadder, but don't get me wrong, this isn't an indictment towards Grave of the Fireflies. I still really enjoyed this movie, and I'd definitely recommend it to people who love this sort of thing, or war movies in general. It's absolutely NOT for the faint of heart, for sure.

And before anyone asks, yes, I'm aware that Grave of the Fireflies as a movie only shows one part of Japan's side of World War II and not everything else about it, including Japan's war crimes. That very same college class I took went into detail about Japan's atrocities during the war and how afterward, every piece of fictional media they made adopted a hardcore victim mentality (i.e. always portraying themselves as the victims) while sweeping all their war crimes under the rug. There's definitely no denying that. But I do think there's value to be had in Japan's war movies, Grave of the Fireflies included. It doesn't try to glamorize the war, nor does it try to hammer you over the head with some kind of message. Many have argued that the movie was made to guilt-trip high school aged delinquents into respecting their parents and falling in line, but that claim has long since been debunked by Takahata himself in a lot of interviews, one of which explained that Takahata was a staunch critic of Japan's societal demand for absolute conformity. The only real message Grave of the Fireflies espouses is that...well, war absolutely sucks for everyone, doesn't give a moment's thought to all that suffer through it, and not everyone gets out of it alive. It's a war movie that you can interpret in any way that you want, and it's one of many that absolutely stands the test of time in my opinion. Grave of the Fireflies definitely isn't for everyone, but it's easy to see why it continues to be so well-regarded even now. I'm certainly glad I finally got around to watching it, and now that it's on Netflix, it might even reach further audiences.

Oh, Kanon. I watched the 2006 version of this anime back when it first aired and got fansubs, and while I did get a majority of the DVDs, I never managed to finish the English dub beyond the first few episodes due to other obligations. I wasn't sure if I'd ever go back to Kanon, even though I liked it. But due to...recent events involving the original visual novel, I decided it was high time I stopped putting it off and rewatch it. I wondered if my feelings for Kanon would change in the decades since I first watched it. I liked it back when ... I was younger, and rewatching it now as an adult...surprisingly, I still like it, even if I find other shows that came later to be better. The original visual novel from 1999 was Key's first solo foray into the eroge business after they split from Tactics, and it not only became a runaway success, but redefined the entire visual novel format. Toei did make their own anime adaptation of Kanon in 2002, but...I don't recommend watching it. It makes a lot of changes from the game and it did an absolutely terrible job at translating Itaru Hinoue's character designs to the silver screen. Thankfully, Kyoto Animation decided to do their own adaptation, hot off the success of their anime for Air, and sure enough, many consider this to be the better experience, me included, even if this version still has its own share of issues.

So what's the story, you might ask? High school student Yuuichi Aizawa used to visit his aunt Akiko Minase and her daughter, cousin Nayuki, in their quiet little town every holiday, but one year something happened and he left for seven years. When he transfers to Nayuki's high school, his memories of that time remain a blur. Upon his return he encounters a number of mysterious girls from his past who all need his help. Energetic taiyaki thief Ayu Tsukimiya is searching for a precious lost item she cannot describe. Quiet and serious Mai Kawasumi hunts demons in the school after dark. The childish tsundere Makoto Sawatari suffers from amnesia and has no place to go. Elegant, demure Shiori Misaka is estranged from her sister and never present at school due to a sickness. Finally, there's the lonely Nayuki, weighed down by rejection and tragedy. Yuuichi resolves to help them, but as he gets involved, he discovers that there is far more to the girls than meets the eye. Mystical happenings lie hidden in this strange town, tied to Yuuichi's forgotten past. In assisting the girls with their problems, Yuuichi must face his lost memories. What happened seven years ago, and why can't he remember any of it?

Do I really need to say anything about the animation here? KyoAni gave Kanon the exact same treatment they did for Air, which is give it the royal treatment in terms of both its character animation and actually translating the series' setting and character designs to the silver screen. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I never had any issue with Itaru Hinoue's character designs, and I still don't, with some exceptions, and that remains true here. Granted, while the original VN for Kanon came out before Air's did, the anime version was made a year after the anime adaptation of Air came out. Though unlike with Air, KyoAni was able to give Kanon the full 26-episode treatment, really allowing them to flesh out the characters and their individual arcs without rushing the pacing. Not only that, the staff at KyoAni clearly did they research when it came to the visual novel and made sure to retain a lot of important details like the characters' birthdays and having them take place at the right time, which is important since the game clearly takes place in the year 1999, the year the VN was made, over the course of about a month or two, I think. This is especially notable because the 2002 anime by Toei was pretty infamous for not only cutting out a lot of content to fit a 12-13 episode run time, but having some serious continuity errors.

I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as its nice and does its job, and the opening and ending, while not as good as Air's opening and ending themes, are pretty good. Plus, they're the same songs used for the game, so that helps. Now, something to keep in mind about the 2006 remake of Kanon is that the original VN came out a year before Air's, and the anime remake came out a year after the anime for Air was made. It's easy to think that Kanon came after Air if you look at just the anime for them, but you have to remember that Kanon the visual novel was the first truly plot-heavy, character driven VN that became popular. I haven't played the VN yet, but a lot of the game's hang ups have carried over into the anime, including the way the characters are written. It can be easy to dismiss all the characters, especially the girls, as walking talking moe cliches who lean really hard into their individual quirk, and I can agree that the series tries way too hard to make the girls cute, especially with their catchphrases. Ayu and her "uguu," Nayuki with "unyuu" (Which gets cut from the English dub), and Makoto's "auu!" got old after the first three times and definitely feel forced, and if you can't stand cutesy high pitched voices, you'll either want to put them on mute or watch the English dub, which makes the girls sound much closer to their actual age than like five-year-olds. Speaking of the dub, would you believe me if I told you this and Sasami Magical Girls Club were my introduction to Brittney Karbowski?

But problems with the characterization aren't limited to just their shoehorned in vocal quirks. There are several characters who I felt could have been utilized more. Poor Mishio Amano is literally just there to be an exposition dump in Makoto's arc and disappears after it's done, never appearing again unless its in the background. I also actually liked Kitagawa way more than I thought I would, and he spends most of the series being the put upon butt monkey even though he has quite a few moments where he really helps people out significantly. As far as the main ensemble goes, I think Shiori is the most well-realized character even though she's neck deep in the "girl is secretly dying from unnamed disease so please cry for her" trope. The main ensemble is okay, though their development is rather predictable and nothing that'll bring the roof down. I do think Yuuichi is the best out of the characters, not because he's a continuous wise-cracker, but because he's a flawed human being who made a lot of mistakes in his life, and Kanon's at its best when he's made to realize what an idiot he's been and learn from his mistakes. He's definitely a major step up from One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e's Kouhei Orihara for sure. What, did you really think I'd miss a chance to dunk on Kouhei Orihara? That absolute asshat deserves all the dunking!

For as much as I appreciate Kyoto Animation's efforts to tell the story of Kanon in a TV format, I think the plot suffered the most in the transition from game to screen. Then again, Kanon's plot in general isn't all that riveting. Yuuichi goes around helping various girls with their problems, complete with hearing their melodramatic backstories. I admit I didn't cry watching the show, and Kanon's main problem is that it clings to its harem roots too much. Several times, Yuuichi will befriend a girl and help with her problems, then drop them off at the hospital and move on to the next one, granted since the game's routes are standalone and focus on just one girl each, there'd be no real way to translate that into TV. There are also times when the show just forces drama just for the sake of it, the main offender being Nayuki's mother Akiko suddenly getting into a car crash. I'm sure this happened in the game, but even here, I felt like the creators were like "We need more drama! I know! Let's have Akiko get in a random car crash for extra tears!" There are a few more of these contrived plot twists that feel like they only serve to keep the story on the right track, rather than to get the best out of the characters (Like one character losing her powers after her arc is resolved. You know the one), not to mention the final episode end on one HELL of a Deus Ex Machina that pretty much magically solves every single problem ever. Yeah, Key has always had a problem with wanting their audience to stretch their willing suspension of disbelief to ridiculous degrees, and Kanon seems to be the progenitor of that for them.

That's not to say everything about Kanon is bad. I actually enjoyed the lighter slice-of-life segments, I feel Makoto's arc was the best out of them, and the air of mystery was also pretty well-executed, along with all the other positives I mentioned earlier. I do feel Air and Clannad are stronger, more improved versions of Kanon, as their VNs came out after the latter, their anime adaptations also being stronger in terms of pacing, plotting, character development, and continuity. That said, even with the show's problems, I still enjoyed Kanon and found myself nostalgic for it, even if my attachment to Air is stronger. For what the anime adaptation does well, it really manages to succeed in creating a heartwarming romance series, and if you like stuff like this, Kanon will definitely keep you fed. But if you're not into moe stuff or Key properties, with all their quirks and melodrama included, Kanon probably isn't going to change your opinion. Kanon by itself isn't all that ground-breaking or outstanding. It's just a fine series, and one I'm glad I got to go back to.

Comedy is purely subjective by its very nature, and different people have their own preferences in regards to what makes them laugh. Some people like gross-out jokes, some people like slapstick, some people like physical comedy a la The Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers, and that's fine. Everyone's preferences for comedy are valid and unique. But one thing that's really important when you're writing comedy at all is not just timing, but making sure it doesn't clash with whatever else its being used for. Unfortunately, there's a lot of series that think shoving comedy into things where it's not needed or warranted will make ... a series great, but it's really not. Unfortunately, after having watched the anime of The Elusive Samurai, it wound up being one of those series. Good lord, I really wanted to like this series, but it turned out to be such a mess.

Based on the manga by Yusei Matsui, the author of Assassination Classroom, The Elusive Samurai centers on 8-year-old Tokiyuki Hojo, the youngest prince of the Hojo clan, living his carefree life in Kamakura of the 1300s. He shows little regard for the serious responsibilities that come with his eventually succeeding his father as the next shogun, which is typical for a child of his age. Instead of dedicating himself to rigorous training in swordsmanship or archery, Tokiyuki excels in the art of evasion, skillfully dodging his advisors and discovering perfect hiding spots. However, his peaceful existence is shattered when a sudden coup brutally wipes out his clan, moreso when it turns out a retainer that he adored, Takauji Ashikaga, was the one who spearheaded the massacre. Overwhelmed with guilt for being the sole survivor, Tokiyuki contemplates joining his family in death, but his fate takes an abrupt turn when the enigmatic priest Yorishige Suwa suddenly shoves him onto a battlefield. Yorishige, who prophesizes that Tokiyuki will one day become a great hero, leaves the boy with no choice but to navigate his way out of the hands of enemy soldiers. As Tokiyuki struggles to survive against these foes, he finds a new thrill in raising the stakes of his usual hide-and-seek games. With a renewed sense of purpose and the promise of powerful allies from Yorishige, Tokiyuki vows to avenge his family—not through his capability to fight, but through his extraordinary talent for running away.

Now, I haven't read or seen Assassination Classroom, manga or anime, so I'm not familiar with Yusei Matsui's brand of comedy. But after seeing the anime for The Elusive Samurai, I've come to the conclusion that...his brand of comedy just isn't for me. But I don't want to be a negative nancy, so for the sake of wanting to be fair, I'm going to talk about the good things the anime has to offer, and there are quite a few things it has going for it. For one, CloverWorks really went all out in the animation department here. Not just in things like character motion, backgrounds, and the costumes, but for using all sorts of experimental animation techniques in a variety of different ways, reveling in being as weird and surreal as possible when it feels its necessary. The Elusive Samurai is at its best when it lets its animation staff completely let loose and experiment, whether it be with intentional rough-shod pencil sketches, Renaissance-style water colors, or psychedelic acid trips filled to the brim with color, symbolism, and crazy imagery straight out of Belladonna of Sadness. I'll give CloverWorks this, they mostly made Elusive Samurai look awesome. I say mostly because it does cut quite a few corners from time to time, with the most egregious offenses being awful CGI models of characters, whether they be riding horses or just...turning to look behind themselves. Like...what? Why even do that? At least Atri: My Dear Moments limited CGI-modeled characters to when they're far into the background. The CGI almost borders on Tsuki ga Kirei levels of obnoxious and in your face.

And for the most part, I liked some of the characters. Tokiyuki is a fun lead character who does grow over the course of these twelve episodes and makes full use of his skillset without the series ever making him come off as overpowered. He's not physically strong, but the skills he does learn manage to compensate for his lack of strength, giving the battles more of a tense edge to them, and he manages to have enough personality to be endearing and fun to follow. Alright, this is the part where I have to be honest and say...other than Tokiyuki and Fubuki, none of the other characters are given this same treatment. All the other characters, even the ones in the main ensemble, don't really have much to them except their mission to protect and help Tokiyuki. Kojiro gets some development outside of being just one of Tokiyuki's retainers, but that only happens in the final episode, meaning it's far too late for it to really have any real impact. I'll go into more about other characters in a bit, but I will say this: I fucking hate Genba. He's God awful, but more than that is what the show does with him. No, show, I do not need to see a ten-year-old child not only being drunk off his ass, but sexually assaulting every girl he sees, have the whole thing be played for wacky anime comedy, and have that very same episode end on a close-up of his comically censored genitals. This also extends to the villains, who I really couldn't bring myself to give two shits about because all of them are just generic Saturday morning cartoon villains who you'll only remember because of one exaggerated character trait they have and nothing else. The only, and I do mean ONLY, villain in this series that is given even a sliver of nuance and humanity is Sadamune, but that only happens near the end of the show, and after that he just disappears. All the other villains in this show don't do anything except be out for Tokiyuki's blood or scream maniacally for the sake of forcing unneeded comedy.

Speaking of unneeded comedy...you know what? It's time I rip this band-aid off, because I cannot hold back any longer. I want to like Elusive Samurai as a show. I really do. But I'll be honest, watching this was a total chore, mainly because of it's biggest flaws: Both its comedy and its constant use of tonal whiplash. Actually, I'm going to highlight a specific scene in episode 2 which I feel encapsulates everything wrong with the anime as a whole: When Tokiyuki returns to his home, seeing it in ruins, he falls to his knees and openly cries, mourning the loss of his family, friends, and clan at the hands of Ashikaga. It's a moment of vulnerability for him, and Tokiyuki needed to grieve in order to process what had happen to him. The scene should have remained somber...but in the VERY NEXT SECOND, the mood and tone are completely and utterly ruined by a shot of Yorishige Suwa shoving his creepy as fuck smily face in Tokiyuki's line of sight and scaring the bejeezes out of him, complete with exaggerated anime faces on both characters. Basically, not only is The Elusive Samurai's approach to comedy cringy as all hell in that it relies way too much on constant yelling, exaggerated gags, and one-note fourth wall jokes, the show constantly shoehorns it throughout its entire run, especially in scenes where it's not only completely unneeded, but actively clashes with what's going on on screen! Like...do we really need some dude screaming like a banshee as a child's family gets horrifically murdered around him?! This show seems to have no concept of how to balance both its dramatic and comedic moments properly, or is convinced the material won't be able to stand on its own without constant comedic exaggeration amped up to eleven 24/7. I know other series had problems with balancing drama and humor sometimes, Demon Slayer being one such show thanks to Zenitsu, but I've never seen it be so obnoxiously omnipresent as it is in Elusive Samurai. And unfortunately, from what I've heard about the manga, this is a feature, not a bug, so it's here to stay. Uuuuugh.

And a lot of the unnecessary comedy is perpetuated by Suwa, the vehicle through which Yusei Matsui espouses all of his weird comedy bullshit. Yeah, not gonna mince words, Suwa pretty much breaks the show for me (Though less so than Genba). Every single time his comically exaggerated creepy as fuck smily face gets plastered on the screen, either the mood or tone gets completely shot to hell and back. I actually think the show works better when he's being a more serious mentor rather than the unhinged banshee fourth wall espousing comedy vehicle the show clearly wants him to be. He's basically the Zenitsu of Elusive Samurai, only his presence is constant and we're expected to just find his antics funny even though they're clearly not. It doesn't help that his so-called powers seem less like actual abilities and more like excuses for him to break the fourth wall and throw in modern or pop culture references that are completely out of place in a show like Elusive Samurai. Seriously, this show thinks its funny when it's just...not, and before you come at me with all your "Oh, you must not like fun!" accusations, I don't hate fun. But I don't like it when a piece of media tries to shoehorn unneeded, unfunny comedy in places where it clearly has no business being, case in point the aforementioned scene in episode 2 which should have been just somber and sad.

The Elusive Samurai does have the makings of a good show, and even with its animation hang-ups, it's clear the staff who worked on this show put a lot of hard work into it. I just wish that same passion and versatility was applied to everything else, and if I'm being honest, the anime has put me off of reading the manga. The less I have to put up with Suwa and Genba, the happier I'll be. If you like Elusive Samurai, cool, more power to you. Feel free to enjoy it if you're into Yusei Matsui's brand of comedy. It's not my cup of tea, and that's okay.

So...I knew nothing of Delicious In Dungeon until I learned an anime was going to be made for it this year. My only knowledge of anything by Ryoko Kui is reading her one-shot collection Seven Little Sons of the Dragon. It was a cute manga and had interesting ideas, but I don't really have any strong feelings about it. Apparently Delicious In Dungeon is a popular manga that's pretty well known for its thoughtful fantasy world-building and fun take on the concept of cooking monsters into food. Somebody even paid Linkara to review the earliest chapters of the manga, which apparently led to it being ... more well-known if what I've heard is true. I've heard so many good things about this show, and at one point, I was bored and thought "Eh, what the hell? I don't have anything better to watch, maybe I'll check this out and see if its any good." As someone who hasn't read the manga, I can definitely see why people like Delicious In Dungeon. It's a cute, delightful, and fun fantasy anime that's a breath of fresh air among the glut of bad isekai that continue to oversaturate the market. But I also don't really have any strong feelings for it beyond that as of this season.

In a fantasy world of dungeon exploration, adventuring parties set out on expeditions to raid dungeons, with many hoping to find the mysterious Golden Kingdom, which is said to be the treasure of an island dungeon. The story begins as a group of adventurers unsuccessfully attempt to slay a red dragon and are forced to escape as it consumes the leader's sister, Falin Touden, a "tallman" (human) spellcaster. Wanting to rescue Falin, who used magic to teleport them to safety, the remaining members of the party—Laios Touden, a tallman swordsman; Chilchuck Tims, a halfling locksmith; and Marcille Donato, an elven spellcaster—brainstorm how to get back to the dungeon level with the dragon in time to save Falin from digestion. With most of their supplies left behind in the dungeon, their mission seems impossible until Laios, who secretly wants to eat dungeon monsters, suggests they sustain themselves by finding food inside, to which Chilchuck and Marcille reluctantly agree. Inside, they encounter Senshi, a dwarf with many years of experience surviving in the dungeon by cooking monsters and harvesting food. The story details their travels through the dungeon, the environments, traps, the monsters they encounter, and the meals they create.

Now, I ask you, did anyone expect Trigger of all studios to be the one to do the animation for Delicious In Dungeon? For as little as I knew of Delicious In Dungeon at the time, I did see that many people were rather skeptical of whether Trigger would be able to do the manga justice. Thankfully, Trigger themselves managed to prove that they were definitely up to the job, giving the series fairly high quality and dynamic animation that a show like this deserves. The quiet scenes are fairly well done on their own, complete with the series' signature food porn, but the action scenes are brought to life with Trigger's signature stylized animation, exaggerated movements, and comical expressions that really make the show, its characters, and setting truly come alive. So don't worry, Marcille's constant comical facial expressions are still there. Also, how am I only just now finding out that the anime's soundtrack was made by Chrono Trigger and Xenoblade alumnus Yasunori Mitsuda?! Well, that certainly explains why the soundtrack is so awesome and reminded me so much of Chrono Trigger. I think that tells you all you need to know about how I feel about the soundtrack.

The characters are definitely a fun bunch, and I enjoyed watching them grow and bounce off each other, even if Marcille does start off like a stick-in-the-mud sitcom housewife who recoils at even the thought of eating monsters until later. I do feel that several of the side characters feel either a little superfluous or underutilized. Granted, a second season was announced, which may cover the rest of the manga, so for all I know that issue might get addressed. I know the villain has yet to be more fleshed out, and I admit, said villain feels pretty cliche so far. Again, the second season might change this, so for all I know my complaints about him might be moot. But like I mentioned before, I don't really have any strong feelings for the characters. I like them okay, but that's it. I don't LOVE them like others seem to, but that's more of an issue with me than anything.

Another point people might take issue with in regards to the show is that it takes a while to get going. The first few episodes are pretty episodic, not really getting into its groove until halfway through, which is when Delicious In Dungeon really starts to strut its stuff. This is the kind of show that's happy to be what it is and be as weird as humanly possible. I mentioned the show's world building before, and this is where it really shines. It really goes into what the dungeon is, how it works, its ecology and ecosystem, what the monsters in it are like and what their behaviors are, and so on, really making it feel like a real place with its own set rules as opposed to just some no-name fantasy land that's just there for an isekai protag to get transported to. It almost reminds me of Twelve Kingdoms or Escaflowne in how fleshed out its setting is. Seriously, more anime and manga need to do this, and KEEP doing this! Good thing we have more well thought-out fantasy series like this, Frieren, and Witch Hat Atelier bringing us all the goodness, because the anime industry is in dire need of fresh, pure fantasy series again.

Yeah, I'm with the fans with this series: Delicious In Dungeon is a fun, goofy cooking fantasy series that still manages to be intriguing and thoughtful, and the team at Trigger did a great job at bringing it to life. I haven't become a diehard fan of this series, but I can definitely see its appeal now. I do plan on watching the second season, and I should probably check out the manga, as that has more details that the anime didn't adapt. So yeah, definitely check this series out if you want your fantasy/cooking fix.

Man, why the hell did I ever force myself to watch this trainwreck of a show? One of three anime produced by PA Works for the summer 2024 season, Nanare Hananare, or Narenare for short, is a "cute girls doing cute things" anime focused on...cheerleading? We already had an anime about cheerleading, Anima Yell. Remember that show? I only checked out Narenare because it looked cute, but man do I regret it. I'm not going to mince words here, I haven't seen many anime that PA Works have made, but out of the ones I've seen, Narenare is the worst thing they put out. No, ... I haven't seen what many consider to be their actual worst work, Glasslip, nor do I want to. Why would I want to subject myself to that disaster? And before anyone says anything, no, I don't have anything against the whole "cute girls doing cute things" genre. There are quite a few shows I like that fit into that bill, but many of my favorites tend to have more to offer than just "hurr-durr, look at these cute anime girls." Narenare is a show that claims it has more to offer than just CGDCT, but every attempt it makes to be something meaningful or interesting completely falls flat and is completely, horribly mediocre.

Normally I'd give a summary of what a show is about, but in the case of Narenare, I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to be about, really. It claims to be about a girl, Kanata, who is struggling with something called yips, resulting in her being booted out of her school's cheerleading team, but then she meets a Brazilian girl who browbeats her and other girls into forming a cheerleading group focusing on making videos for her channel. Actually, Narenare as a show can't seem to figure out just what its end goal is supposed to be. To have the girls be their own cheerleading group? To make some sort of viral video? The whole show feels directionless, like nobody on staff has any real idea of what they want the show to be about, and what few plot points it does focus on only come up when the show itself thinks its convenient. Even the cheerleading in this show just feels like it was thrown in just to give the characters something to do, like "We're cheerleaders, and we're gonna go around cheering on random strangers over really stupid stuff to make them happy, even for something as unnecessary as using eyedrops!" Like...I'm pretty sure that's not how cheerleading works. If some group of girls went around butting into people's business with cheerleading, they'd just be seen as annoying rather than endearing. So not only does Narenare not know how cheerleading works, they try to shoehorn it into literally everything, even when it'd be completely pointless to have it be there.

Furthermore, the characters are little more than one-note moe stereotypes with squeaky voices who never evolve past their main archetype, and even when the show TRIES to develop them, every attempt it makes at doing so completely botches any potential they could have utilized with them. Narenare's biggest problem with handling both its story and characters is that it thinks it's doing a good job at getting you to care about them, but not only do its attempts at developing them come off as shallow and surface-level at best, any kind of arc they get winds up getting resolved in the very next episode. And seriously, the show pulls neat and easy resolutions to literally everything from out of its ass, and does this for EVERY. SINGLE. PLOTLINE. Kanata has yips and can't go back to her cheerleading team? That's fixed by her going to a whole new team and abandoning her old one! A shop that Anna has an emotional attachment to is about to be shut down? Let's have everyone perform a cheerleading routine and have Anna be friends with super famous musicians who conveniently stop by and save it at the very last minute, with a dollop of emotional blackmail and stupidity on top! Kanata is lambasted by everyone for going behind their backs doing solo cheer routines and hurts herself? Let's have Megumi, the local walking-talking inspiration porn, perform a physically daunting cheer routine in the rain and milk as much sympathy from the audience as possible! There is one segment that TRIES to be more dramatic and not have an easy solution, the aforementioned episode about PomPoms cutting back on cheer routines but Kanata doing solo ones without their permission, but not only do the show's staff ignore the more obvious, helpful solution by having everyone talk things out, what Kanata did in the grand scheme of things isn't even all that bad, but everyone around her acts like she committed a fucking murder, devolving into the kind of insipid, ridiculous melodrama you'd find in Elsie Dinsmore.

But its lack of scaffolding, scattershot narrative, and stereotyped characters aren't Narenare's only problems. Take for example the visuals. The animation by itself is fine, though I really don't like how literally every single character has two-toned hair. However, there is one thing about the show's art style that really bogs it down: Who thought it was a good idea to have colored border lines on literally EVERYTHING? Seriously, this makes what should be a normal, pleasant artstyle akin to Aquatope and Sakura Quest look absolutely gaudy and eye-straining. These are used on not just the backgrounds, but the characters, I mean it when I say this is used throughout the entire show, and unfortunately, it's a feature, not a bug. I don't know if this was a deliberate stylistic choice, but it's one that really doesn't work, because it makes everything look radioactive. Seriously, it says a lot when another show PA Works made in this same season, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, looks way better than this and is easier on the eyes due to having regular black outlines on everything. Oh, and do I even need to mention the bad CGI for the cheerleading performances? I have even less to say about the soundtrack, as it's just your usual bland, squeaky J-pop that I'm pretty sure rips off other OSTs from other shows. Speaking of audio, by God is Kanata's voice annoying as hell, especially when she screams.

I'm not going to waste more of my time on this show. Nanare Hananare is dull, annoying, gaudy, cloying, has absolutely no idea what it wants to do with itself, and is pretty much corporate shill that think it's good when it really isn't. PA Works, I know you can do much better than this. How in the world did you manage to mess up a show like this so badly?! It's so easy to fix this show's many mistakes! If you wanted to do a CGDCT show, this is NOT the way to go about it. Seriously, skip Narenare for all it's worth. There are many shows out there that are just way better than this, like A Place Further Than The Universe, Laid-Back Camp, Do It Yourself, Sakura Quest, Shirobako, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, Super Cub, Bocchi The Rock, Girls Band Cry, and so on! Spare yourself the eye-searing inanity that is Narenare.

What's with all these anime about girls making rock bands? Did Bang Dream start this new trend? And what's this? Toei is putting their hat into this pile as well? Why the hell not?! Sure, one could argue that Bang Dream started the trend of companies making shows about girls starting up bands, but the runaway success of Bocchi The Rock was apparently enough to convince others to jump on the bandwagon. Yes, that pun was intended. So when a promo for a show called Girls Band Cry popped up, with Toei listed as the producer for it, many decried it as just a knock-off ... made to ride the cottails of Bocchi The Rock's success. Then it was revealed to be a 3D CGI anime, making people think it was just going to rip off Bang Dream. Many were quite dismissive of the show, me included...but then Girls Band Cry actually aired, and people's opinions on it did a complete 360, for damn good reason. Not only was the CGI surprisingly good, but the writing and characters were much better quality than even other shows airing in that exact same season (Three of which were also shows about girls focusing on music, Sound Euphonium season 3, Whisper Me a Love Song, and Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night). I was late to the GBC party, only just now finishing it and...yeah, I agree, this show is awesome.

Life hasn't been going well for 17-year-old Nina Iseri. Bullying in school and being betrayed by her friends and family have left her so jaded that she decides to strike out on her own to prove to everyone else that she can live by herself and be independent. The only thing keeping her going is her favorite band Diamond Dust, mainly one particular song. But life in the big city is a new adventure for Nina, one she is woefully unprepared for. While struggling to find her apartment, she happens upon the very person who wrote her favorite DD song, Momoka Kashiwagi, an ex-DD member who left the band due to internal conflict. The two of them quickly bond of their shared love of music and troubled pasts, deciding to form their own band to use as an outlet to unleash all their pain, rage, and raw emotions into. Three other members join their band afterward, and with that, Togenashi Togeari is ready to take on the music scene! But forming a band isn't all sunshine and rainbows, as all of them face their own hardships and struggles on top of managing the band and trying to break into a scene that's already dominated by more popular competition.

First off, let's talk about the thing most fans of GBC tend to notice right away: the animation. As far as I know, this is the first time Toei has ever animated humans in entirely 3D CG, and most of the time, CG models of people made for TV are criticized for how stiff and uncanny it can feel compared to 2D animation. Even well-known studios like Sanzigen and Orange had their growing pains with it before they really hit their groove with their 3D animation. Surprisingly, Girls Band Cry doesn't have this problem at all. Every 3D model of whatever character they're animating is expressive, smooth, and buoyant, with none of the usual stiffness you see in most CGI models, and the animators really took care in animating everything from subtle gestures to facial expressions, so it never gives off that uncanny valley vibe. The few uses of 2D animation are pretty good too, even by Toei standards...though I do have to question why they chose to mix both as opposed to just going with one style over the other. There are times when both styles of animation are used for a scene, and the differences between them are so obvious that they're almost jarring. It does make me question why Toei didn't just choose one animation style and stick with that as opposed to blending the two of them together. Individually, the differing animation styles are fine, but together they go about as well as mint and chocolate, which is an acquired taste for anyone, really.

But in all honesty, GBC's clashing animation styles are but a minor bump in the road, as what really holds it up is its writing. GBC prides itself as being a girls band anime that's much more down-to-earth, grounded, and cynical than its more optimistic contemporaries like early Bang Dream, or even idol series such as Love Live, lacking a lot of the saccharine cheesiness and over-the-top positivity that they embrace. For one, the main characters actually struggle to start their own band, and said band's members are a mix of teenaged dropouts and adults in their early 20s trying to balance both the band and part-time jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table. They're only able to play short gigs at whatever small venue will give them the time of day, and one girl dropped out of her former band and had to sign away the rights to her original song as a result, and has to watch as her now successful former band flourishes off her work. GBC wants to explore the often unforgiving realities of being a professional musician and the constant friction between making art and making money, and unlike, say, Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night, which would either resolve everything with a neat little bow or not at all, GBC more than succeeded on that front. I'm gonna be comparing these two shows a lot because they share the same premise and themes, but have completely different approaches in regards to their execution, and GBC succeeds in how it manages to pull it off whereas Jellyfish didn't. This really shows what good execution can mean for the overall quality of a story.

One aspect in which GBC succeeds over Jellyfish is how it writes its characters. Now, I admit, I only watched one episode of Jellyfish and read blog posts and reviews of the other episodes. But just watching the first episode was enough for me to see its flaws and knowing how they persist throughout the entire show, I'm not surprised. Jellyfish's characters never felt to me like three-dimensional characters or flawed, awkward human beings with their own unique strengths or weaknesses; rather, they felt more like a combination of what adults writing kids THINK kids are like and mouthpieces/props that just spout moralizing, melodramatic speeches about the show's messages without even an ounce of subtlety and trust in its audience, only acting on whatever the writers feel is convenient to make drama in the plot happen. GBC's cast of characters actually felt well-rounded and true to life, with all the drama and conflict mainly being fueled by angst and optimism being at odds with one another. It helps that any angst is nicely balanced with some fun physical comedy and absurd slapstick that manages to keep the show from being a slog to go through. It also helps that unlike Jellyfish Can't Swim In The Night, the characters' actions and motivations are actually consistent and feel natural, and GBC actually understands the concept of "show, don't tell." These kids are flawed, awkward, and aren't afraid to riff on each other if someone deserves it, but their interactions felt believable and grounded, and most of them are well-realized and wonderfully layered.

I say most of them because while Nina, Momoka, and Subaru have strong character arcs, Rupa and Tomo admittedly got the short end of the stick, Rupa especially. The latter two don't get as much screen time or development in comparison to the other band members, and while we're given snippets of their backgrounds, they're not given any proper exploration of their pasts, nor do we see their journeys to come to terms with and overcome their personal traumas. Considering how open-ended the series is, with quite a few plot threads left unresolved, this isn't much of a surprise. Hell, even the creators of the show have said that since Nina's whole arc takes up so much time that the other characters don't get to do much. I also would have liked more background on Diamond Dust and their newest member Hina, who is the source of most of Nina's problems. For what it's worth, the show's creators have said that they do want to continue GBC's story, though there's no concrete info on what form that'll take. It was announced to be getting a cellphone game, but as of now, there's little information on it. Other, smaller nitpicks are the band's songs having a bass sound to it even though early on, Togenashi Togeari doesn't have a bassist, and Rupa's bass producing a sound it really shouldn't. Also, I liked the songs, but I admit I'm not really a huge fan of hard rock songs, even though that's Togenashi Togeari's whole schtick. That's not to say the soundtrack is bad, it's more personal preference for me than anything.

I'm not gonna go into the whole spiel about Toei refusing to put GBC on a streaming site and putting it up on Amazon to purchase, because everyone and their mother has done that already. For anyone who has an Amazon Prime account, you can buy the series digitally on Prime Video or the Microsoft Store for $8-10. I wound up buying it at its first price, around $30, on Amazon, but that's fine with me, because Girls Band Cry is absolutely worth the cost. While I admittedly like Bocchi The Rock a little more, Girls Band Cry is an excellent anime showing Toei at their best, sporting a great cast of characters, uniquely strong animation, stellar writing, and some head-banging songs. Is it any wonder it became so popular? Yeah, I think Girls Band Cry earned its popularity, and I really hope this isn't the last we see of these dumb chaos children.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up is the actual title of this fairly short yuri manga. And I really do mean short, as it's only about three chapters long. Yes, really. But what's it about, you might ask? All her life, Machi Morimoto has lived for the sole purpose of meeting her parents' very high expectations and doing everything they tell her to do, no matter how much she might be opposed to it. But currently, she's grown tired of her parents pressuring her to marry a man of their choosing, knowing that they're ... only doing it so they can brag about having a son-in-law. In comes an old acquaintance, Hana Agaya, who needs a place to stay while her apartment building's being renovated, and convinces Machi to fake a marriage with her as a way to solve both their problems. But there's a catch: while Machi is straight, Hana is gay, and both are aware that Hana was interested in her romantically back in school. Machi has to figure out how to deal with this new "relationship", as well as navigate her possibly changing feelings toward her "wife".

From what I can see, the artwork is pretty nice. Nothing that'll bring the house down, but it does its job. The panels are easy to follow, the character designs are decent and down-to-earth, and the backgrounds are the right amount of detailed without being intrusive. If I can name one complaint though, it'd be that the mangaka relies way too much on screentones for everything. Seriously, they put them on shadows, clothing, random knick-knacks in the background, transition panels, I don't think there's any scene that doesn't have screentones. They're all over the place to the point that it's really hard to ignore them. They really ought to dial them back a bit. Eh, the art itself is competent, and I'm sure the mangaka is doing the best they can. Not everyone can be Kamome Shirahama or Kentaro Miura.

The manga also has a fairly small cast of characters, and the only one who really receives much in the way of development is Machi. If there's one thing about the manga that I appreciate, it's that the artist doesn't waste any time. The pacing is fast, yet not so fast that you can't follow what's going on, and the artist makes good use of the short time they have to flesh out Machi as a person and show her changing over the course of these three chapters. There's no filler so the story never feels bloated, and any potential cliches that are typical of the romance genre are actually skillfully avoided. You know how in most romance media, someone will suspect their boy/girlfriend is having an affair when they find out they're with an ex, even if the context isn't romantic, and they jump to conclusions that result in a lot of pointless drama? I'm so glad that I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up doesn't go that route and instead has Machi just go to where Hana is, at her ex's bar, and they talk things out afterward. Speaking of other characters, I do wish Hana got more background aside from just having a crush on Machi. I would have liked to have learned her history with her ex, Ayaka. Machi is the most developed character in the cast, which is fine since she's the main focus of the story and has a good head on her shoulders, but I wish more had been done with the other characters.

Yeah, there really isn't much to talk about with I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up. It's a nice little time killer that's short, sweet, and to the point without coming across as saccharine or shallow. It's short length can be a dealbreaker for those who want something longer to read. While I do wish the manga had been longer so the other characters can be expanded on, it does manage to make good use of the time it does have, and it doesn't try to drag itself out, so I don't mind what we do have. But you're looking for something longer and has more meat to it, you'd best look elsewhere. I did enjoy my time with I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up, though there are other romance and even shoujo-ai manga I enjoyed a lot more, but feel free to check this out if you're looking for something short and sweet.

Seriously, was ANYONE expecting a show like A Place Further Than The Universe? And for it to turn out to be great? On the surface, it looked like it was going to be yet another cookie cutter cute-girls-doing-cute-things show. But then it was revealed it was going to be about the main characters going to Antarctica. Show of hands, who there thought "Oh man, this is gonna be sooooo bad!" and assumed it'd completely botch its premise in favor of cutesy anime schoolgirl shenanigans? Even I was kinda flummoxed and wondered how the show would even tackle that premise. And then the first episode aired ... and people changed their opinions on it right away, me included. The show then proceeded to become one of the most popular and talked about during the winter 2018 season, to the point where it was flat-out featured on the friggin' New York Times! How? How did this happen? What's even so special about this show anyway? A lot of things, actually, and I'm in full agreement that Place Further Than The Universe absolutely earned its acclaim.

16-year-old Mari Tamaki has made a terrible discovery: She hasn't managed to do anything interesting with her life so far! Not for lack of trying on her part, but Kimari's the type of person to get anxious and back out at the last minute whenever she even attempts to try something new, and can never seem to get past that block no matter how hard she tries. Then one day, she sees a girl from her school racing past her at the train station. The girl loses an envelope that turns out to be filled with cash–one million yen. That's a lot of money for a high school girl to have on her, isn't it? When Mari tracks her down, the girl in question, Shirase Kobuchizawa, tells Mari that her mother was lost on an Antarctic research trip when she was in middle school, and now her goal is to raise money to go find her. She invites Mari to go along with her on the trip, which just may be the push that Mari needs to finally begin living the life she wants. Together with two other girls, cheerful yet mature Hinata Miyake and snarky celebrity Yuzuki Shiraishi, they make their way to Antarctica, down in the farthest regions of the Earth.

I'm no expert on Antarctica, but any person with even a sliver of knowledge of Antarctica or how to get there will tell you that going there is no easy feat. It's easy to assume that, in the wrong hands, A Place Further Than The Universe would use the setting as little more than a shiny backdrop for cutesy moe adventures, ignoring all the danger and rules that come with actually going there. Thankfully, the show itself has no interest in shallow, surface level effort and actually treats the actual trip to Antarctica very seriously, addressing every question viewers might have for it: How do they get there? How would they even be able to get permission to go? Where do they get the money? What do they need to take with them? How will they be able to deal with the potential dangers there? Every stage of the trip is planned out in meticulous detail, showing that the creators really put in the work and research to make the premise feel palpable and believable. Some might not like that the girls don't manage to actually get to Antarctica until episode 9, but I think the build-up is worth it because the work that goes into actually getting to Antarctica is just as important as the actual destination, and having the kids just appear there out of nowhere would feel really cheap and unearned.

But A Place Further Than The Universe can't just bank itself on its premise alone, and thankfully, the show's writers conjured a great cast of characters to follow on their journeys of self-discovery and self-actualization. All four of the main girls each have their own goals and reasons for taking the trip to Antarctica, making them feel more significant than just "We wanna go to this awesome place!" and they're all wonderfully fleshed out and developed, to the point where you can't explain their arcs and personalities in just one sentence. The series makes it a point to deconstruct the usual character archetypes associated with CGDCT shows, even if the show itself doesn't quite fit the CGDCT mold because of it's more ambitious adventure/coming of age story type plot, and any drama that comes from it actually feels natural and makes sense rather than feeling forced, cheesy, and cheap. I do feel more could have been done with every side character that's not Gin or Takako, but Place Further Than The Universe put them to good use, and the main four girls carry the show perfectly. Honestly, the only character I can say I actually hated was that one lady who's always whining about her boyfriend. Seriously, what even is the point of this character? She's completely useless and does literally nothing but whine and cry about her boyfriend.

The animation for this series also does a lot to elevate the show. For a series like this, Madhouse put a surprising amount of care and detail into everything, from expressive character motion, to the lush, detailed backgrounds, to creative lighting that changes depending on the mood and atmosphere of a scene, and so on. Even the CGI, thankfully, is kept to where it's appropriate and never intrudes on the 2D animation. What else is there to say about it that others haven't said already? It really surprises me how much care was put into this, and Madhouse didn't need to go this hard, but they did, and a lot of it has to do with director Atsuko Ishizuka, who I admittedly don't know a whole lot about, and I've never seen No Game No Life, nor do I want to. But after seeing Yorimoi and her later movie Goodbye Don Glees, I really hope she gets to do more stuff, because she and her team have proven they have talent. The soundtrack is pretty nice too, soft and appropriately moody when it needs to be, and the opening, ending, and insert songs are all used to great effect and fit the show perfectly...though was it really necessary to have insert songs in literally EVERY SINGLE episode? Eh, that's really my only complaint about it.

Yorimoi also has great pacing and every episode feels carefully planned out. No scene ever feels wasted, and I never felt like the series left any loose ends hanging. The story itself is well told and given the right amount of gravitas and emotional weight that is required for something like going to Antarctica. A series about anime girls going to Antarctica shouldn't work on paper, but the team at Madhouse managed to make it work, and by framing the journey to Antarctica as being more about growing as a person, embracing your true self, and facing all the unknowns that come with adolescence, all of its dramatic beats actually felt earned. And really, A Place Further Than The Universe really has no business being this good. This is a show that I'd recommend to just about anyone, and it's a great example of what an original anime production can do when it's allowed to tell a story from beginning to end. Now that it's finally out on blu-ray in the US, complete with an English dub, it's more accessible, though you will have to pay a pretty penny to buy said blu-ray. I did, and I don't regret it one bit.

I've been watching anime since I was a kid, growing up with stuff like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Digimon, and Hamtaro, but it wasn't until 2005-2007 that I began to really look into what anime really was and dip my toes deeper into stuff outside what was airing on TV. I actually came across fansubs of Air while looking for another show, and knowing nothing about it, I watched it and I wound up enjoying it. Fun fact: This, along with Ouran High School Host Club, were some of the first anime I watched fansubbed, before they were brought to the US on home video. I didn't ... learn about the concept of licensing until later. I used to think anything that wasn't on TV was only in Japan until I learned that anime and their English dubs could only be watched on DVD, not on TV (Depending on the series). I enjoyed Air enough that I bought the DVDs (The movie included), though I did exchange them for a complete collection later. Air is an adaptation of one of Key's visual novels, and the anime was pretty well-liked when it first aired, though it would quickly get overshadowed years later by Clannad. While I do enjoy Clannad a little more, I still have a sentimental attachment to Air as a series, and rewatching it now, while some parts of it didn't age all that well, I still think it's a great show made by people who clearly loved the source material and did it justice.

Traveling street performer Yukito Kunisaki arrives at a small seaside town called Kami, having traversed around Japan in continuation of his late mother's search for the "girl in the sky" who, according to a family legend, has been cursed to spend eternity all alone. Yukito's sole way of earning money is by performing a puppet show by moving a doll that has been passed down in his family with magic, but he fails to gain anyone's attention by doing so, and as a result, he's low on money. The next day, he meets Misuzu Kamio—a sincere yet clumsy high school girl who is eager to become friends with him. He accepts her offer to eat lunch at her home, and Misuzu's aunt and foster mother Haruko Kamio is later persuaded to let him stay for the time being. Later on, Yukito meets two other girls who go to Misuzu's school—sly, friendly Kano Kirishima and serene, quiet Minagi Tohno—who, like Misuzu, have strange personalities connected with mysterious pasts. Any one of them could be the incarnation of this "girl in the sky," and if the curse isn't broken, the girl in question could die.

If you can believe it, this is technically the first anime produced by Kyoto Animation all by themselves, without the need for outsourcing, which is what they themselves were known for providing to other studios throughout the 80s and 90s. If there's one thing KyoAni is famous for, its for its attention to making movement as smooth, detailed, and life-like as possible. Say what you will about Itaru Hinoue's over-the-top cutesy moe character designs, with their comically big eyes and small mouths on large chins, KyoAni managed to not only have them transition to animation quite nicely, but really put in the effort to make them come alive with fantastic character movement. Everything from clothing, walking, and hair animation is given as much care and attention as humanly possible, and even in scenes that would normally be static, such as characters standing around talking, the animators still put in the work. It helps that even mundane conversations are made visually interesting with intimate camera angles, absolutely stunning backgrounds, and creative, cinematic storyboarding. Real talk, I never had any problem with Itaru Hinoue's character designs, and still don't to this day, because I've seen way worse, and whether you like them or not, those designs at least made Air distinct and gave it a sense of identity. Personally, my only real issue is that the whites in the characters' eyes look distractingly blurry, like someone used the photoshop brush tool on them, which, to be fair, KyoAni improved on when they would go on to make the anime for both Kanon and Clannad.

Really, there isn't much to say about the soundtrack that hasn't been said already, so I'll be brief: Yes, it reuses music from the game, but all of it is great, and Tori no Uta is still one of the best anime openings ever, no cap. Before I even go into the characters, there is something I want to talk about: For as revered as the works by Key are even now, there are many who dismiss their stories and narratives as emotionally manipulative. On some level, I can understand where they're coming from, as most companies think having cute moe girls be sad is all they need to get people to cry and spend money. Hell, I have this view on Prima Doll, another Key property, which I feel tried way too hard to push being cutesy moe over making any logical sense and putting in the work to get you to care about the characters and story. Again, I haven't played the VN for Air yet, so I don't know how it handles its narrative and characterization, but personally, I don't think Air is emotionally manipulative because unlike most moe shows, it's very clear that the staff behind the anime respected the source material and put in the work to get you to care about the characters and their interpersonal conflicts, and any so-called "moe" qualities they have do have in-story explanations behind them rather than just being there for the sake of having them be uwu pwecious. For example, Misuzu's quirks—her clumsiness, acting younger than her age would suggest, and tendency to make cutesy dinosaur noises—are treated as weird and causes for concern rather than as endearing. Air takes great pains to flesh out its characters and develop them, making them feel like more than just squeaky-voiced moeblobs, even if their characterization still can't be considered three-dimensional compared to others down the line. Not every character gets this treatment though, and out of the three girls, Kano is the weakest one because her story is just there to give more info on the "girl in the sky" legend and make her into a red herring, that's it. Without going into spoilers, Misuzu's mother Haruko is the most complex, compelling, three-dimensional character in the whole cast, and Air did an amazing job at bringing this conflicted, hard-partying mom to life, especially in the finale. Even Yukito winds up having more to him than just being the snarky, disillusioned self-insert MC that Key is usually known for.

As far as the narrative goes, Air as a series is surprisingly well paced, having a clear plan on how it wanted to tell its story, build up to its twists, and wasted absolutely no time in doing what it needed to do. Being that this is a short series based on a much longer visual novel, I'm sure a lot of stuff wasn't adapted, and fans of the VN might consider it to be rushed as a result. I wouldn't say that's KyoAni's fault because they were only given 12 episodes to work with, and the staff made the most of what they had. However, much like the rest of Key's works, Air is a series that, while it does put in the work to have an overarching narrative that makes sense, a lot of the supernatural elements don't get a whole lot of explanations behind them and really require you to stretch your suspension of disbelief. I personally had no problem with how Air did it, as the series did try to tie everything together as much as it could, made as much use of its overarching themes as possible, and had it all work in the context of its narrative, but if you're someone who wants your stories to feel more complete and logical, you will find yourself disappointed. In my opinion, I think Air's story and how it tied everything together and made use of its cast of characters worked in its favor, allowing all of the drama it set up to actually feel earned rather than cheap and slapped together for the sake of easy emotional manipulation. I actually consider One: Kagayaku Kisetsu e to be fair more cheap in its drama and actually emotionally manipulative because unlike Air, One thought it could get by with just cutesy moeblobs, a stick thin storyline, and an MC who is a repugnant jackass and didn't bother putting in the work to make us care about any of it.

Say what you will about Air as an anime, it did help put KyoAni on the map as a serious animation studio, and its success paved the way for the studio's explosive success in the late 2000s, resulting in many other anime people still love to this day. I liked Air when I first watched it as a kid, and I'm surprised at how well it still holds up when I rewatched it as an adult. While I do enjoy the anime for Clannad a bit more, I still have a soft spot for Air, as it was one of the first anime I saw that showed me that anime could tell many more kinds of stories than just Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon. Plus, now that I'm older and know how to use an emulator on my computer, I found a way to actually play the visual novel now, so expect a review of that in the future! Though with the new advent of Kanon finally getting an official release in English in the near future, here's hoping Air gets that same treatment. Is Air sappy and melodramatic? Sure. You can either embrace it as a heartwrenching drama, or just dismiss it as moe fodder made to cater to the fetishes of lonely otaku. Whatever floats your boat, and everyone's mileage may vary for something like Air, or Key's entire portfolio in general. But to me, Air is a nicely crafted drama made by people that truly loved its source material, made the most of the short time it had, and managed to expand my horizons for what anime is capable of, and for that, while it's not one of my favorite anime of all time, as I like several shows better than it, Air will always a place in my heart.