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Apr 21, 2015
Some may compare it to a meaningless black painting, others compare it to a symbolic innuendo of erotica; regardless of whatever opinions you may hold before watching this, you may toss them all in the wastebasket right now. FLCL is the peak of mental curiosity, the crux of anime history at the turn of the century, the meaningless jumble of human desires scrunched into six short quarter-hour episodes. The pace is so fast that the audience is shot as a paper ball from a bazooka down from a helicopter, blown out to the moon by kamikaze winds, and then pummeled in the face by a
...
bat wielding Babe-Ruth. But for all this, only one thing is certain: you will have a great time no matter which episode you begin with.
From the very beginning, FLCL appeals to the most basic of human appetite. Camera aiming from one car to the other as if a sniper aiming through his scope:
Legs spread same width as the shoulders, body tight, and then hit the ball like your defeating the enemy. Here the pinky finger is the key. Then you just hit, hit, hit, kaking-bingo!
With a Nicholas Cage like quality, the speaker rambles on about something vague; you suddenly realize that the person talking isn't a hired hit-man, but rather, a teenage girl holding a baseball bat in a left-handed fashion.
He who conquers the left side conquers the world. Setting the parameters... that’s the really hard part.
With no warning whatsoever, and little dialogue-filler, the girl's body somehow ends up on top of the boy's, right before the boy's body gets mowed down by a Vespa and smashed by a guitar.
That's FLCL for you. Fast paced and merciless, the first episode takes you leaps further than the whole of Naruto, miles above Wall Maria, and leagues beyond the discovery of the One-Piece. You are drawn into a world where your emotions are toyed with, hung upside down on a doorknob, and by the last episode, even your perception of the world has changed. You experience anger and anguish. You have just become another human tricked by the antics of Enokido, but you don't care; all you want is one more episode. Funny enough, there isn't any left; you've finished down all the cookies on the plate.
- - = = Introduction = = - -
FLCL, is a classical piece of anime that is watched by people of all ages. At some point while watching anime, you will have encountered FLCL, whether it is on adult swim, anime networks, friend’s recommendations, or something else. This anime is an extraordinary piece of anime literature. It incorporates many ideas from every single field you can find. The fast-paced plot and the new circumstances keeps viewers constantly on their toes even though the story is only an amazing six episodes long.
- - = = Story ---------- 9
FLCL has an awe inspiring plot. The story starts out mild, as everyday live goes, and the plot quickens as every new character is introduced to the story. The whole story might not make sense to first-time viewers, but this just enables the reader to want to watch the anime over and over again until he or she completely understands what the anime is about. Critics might argue that there did not exist any story, and that the whole anime was based off of characters misinterpreting each other, or a bunch of special ed kids coming together. This is certainly not the case. When one reads a novel by Shakespeare, one does not simply drop the novel just because the language is convoluted and hard to understand. It's Shakespeare for Henry's sake and the same goes to watching FLCL - If the story is less than understandable, then watch, watch, and watch it again.
- - = = Art ---------- 7
The art for FLCL is even more amazing. Every single frame in the anime boils down to completely hand drawn parts, and since FLCL was the test subject for Gainax’s newest and most futuristically equipment for anime, the art is unquestionably great. Plus, if you have watched the movie Avatar, which was produced for millions of dollars, you should know that FLCL was created using the same equipment. Ordinary anime take a long time to make, but FLCL takes even longer. There’s no doubt that, in order to go beyond the scope of human perception, to go outside the box, you would need a corresponding amount of time. Invention is everything.
- - = = Sound ---------- 9
I know, I sound like a hypocrite for saying so many absolute statements. The truth is, FLCL was not only made for testing Gainax's equipment’s; it was also used to make a band famous, namely, The Pillows. Few people could ever erase from their memory the soundtracks after watching the anime. A wave of nostalgia passes every time when steam pours out of the large building and covers the city with a warm, white steam; the soundtrack playing in the background presents us with an unforgettable voice that reminds images of towns with nice people and nicer climates.
- - = = Character ---------- 8
The characters were the pinnacle of classical anime. To be able to develop the characters in only six episodes to an extent where the viewer is left with feelings of abandon and awe, is strangely fantastic. It is impossible to let go, because during the six episodes that we’ve experienced, it seems almost as if we were in the town with the characters themselves. Who wouldn’t want to have an alien as a friend?
Haruko - A crazy good looking girl that drives a yellow Vespa. She plays the guitar and sometimes uses it as a weapon. She also goes and save Naota every time he gets in trouble. Rumors say that she is the member of the international police. A classical clichéd character with a catch: she came before the others.
Naota - A regular schoolboy that has a skeptical outlook on life. He leads a boring lifestyle and has an immature dad, who he doesn't like. A character that would be sure to make you root for him throughout the entire episodes.
- - = = Enjoyment ---------- 10
This anime is all about enjoyment. The whole plot revolves around picking you up from the stress and weights of everyday life and toss you into a whirlpool of desire and ecstasy. Who has time for work when you've got a guitar wielding alien sex symbol?
Indeed, nothing amazing happens here. Only the ordinary~
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Mar 18, 2014
A coupling of brilliant acumen can evoke undertones of approval, or of apprehension. But all can rest assured that in the case of Pluto, the pairing of manga suspense master Urasawa and legendary cartoonist Tezuka is an exceptional good stroke of fortune. From the creators of anime giants Monster and Astroboy, the multiple-award winning manga Pluto gives first impression as a high-tension thriller that befits the reputation of its creators.
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.
Once in a couple of years, a great manga that differentiates itself from the rest of the horde, overcoming stereotypes of near-sighted
...
librarians, perverted high school boys, and female fighters with huge chests and short skirts – at the same time unusual and ludicrous. No, Pluto does not possess any of these indiscretions. Instead, this novel offers characteristics apparent in great anime classics that moved our hearts back during the turn of the century; a robot impersonating humans and striving to acquire emotions, a tear straining allegory of an old director with music as his only memory his homeland, a child genius that can impress even the smartest of doctors, a series of robot murders, and a detective giving all he has to solve the case – all in the style of novel classics such as Akira and Monster. This is the kind of manga that we have come to love, that we have become used to during the golden age at the turn of the century.
Taking inspiration from Isaac Asimov, arguably the greatest author of robot fiction, we are presented with a retro-futuristic world, the exact prototype of envisioned by Verne, Bradbury, and Huxley. Taking insight from Tezuka, we are again presented with old characters of renown that inundates one with vast pangs of nostalgia. An entirely new universe is born from the remnants of the old. An entire world envisioned to perfection where robots coexist with humans besides building and on sidewalks, a world in which, instead of Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow laws, we are presented with anti-robot organizations and the trashing and replacing of machines without sympathy. A world where those who fight for the rights of robots are killed mercilessly.
The strength of the story comes from its impenetrable plot. The setting is based on a police state of a society in the near future, where the moral dilemmas of ethical treatment of machines arose after the invention and development of the robots; as such, the plot is cleverly woven, and the issues brought up subtly. We are presented with big pictures. Head of departments screaming at their officials because they are robots, criminals kept alive in order to undergo extensive examination; we are also presented with insiders. In the homes of the denizens of the city, we see families mistreating robots who have worked for them without complaints over their short life-span when they are unfit for work. Although the characterization is arguably equally important, the minor characters, the ones that Urasawa is famed for focusing in order to develop the plot, are the ones that should receive the most attention.
Regardless of whatever accepted norms in which one writes a story, Urasawa breaks expectations and brings plot progression not through the introduction of characters, not through their deaths, but through the conversations between the main character and minor characters in the story. Through the conversation with a common household robot maid – whose husband is directly involved in a robot death, the reader is reveled with insight into the emotional threshold which robots are envisioned to develop in the story, and thus, have been perfected into beings which crossed the fine line between the living and the dead; the conversation with a robot who is locked up as a psychotic human killer – introducing events happening long before the story, creating the story’s back drop without excessive filler; through the dialogue uttered by father of the greatest robot ever built Atom – another character with only rare appearances in the novel, we are introduced to new ideas through subtle means. What better way to deftly progress the plot than to use minor characters instead of the protagonists from whom we expect change? So we’d better pay attention, because seemingly unrelated allegory to a musician can explain volumes.
A great skill that Urasawa possesses is the ability to keep suspense in animation for the entire duration of the manga. Unlike its more relaxed cousins, Pluto brings the suspense permeating through the entire cast of the characters. No matter from what angle one views the purpose of the protagonist, the mood is felt throughout the manga that he is on the edge of being blown into bits or slaughtered mercilessly. There is no moment when the reader ceases to worry for Gesicht as well as his compatriot androids; they seem at once invaluable to the plot, and disposable at any moment, a large boon to casting most of the characters as robots who can be seen as more things than persons, which brings up a main motif of the novel: if robots are so close to the real thing that they may be seen to have a conscience, then are they still animated objects? Humans originate from silt, and animate through the electrical signals sent by nerve endings, a description essentially identical to that of robots; so why are we held in higher regard?
As contrasted from thoughtless stories, the presence of these aforementioned reoccurring motifs provides the opportunity for thought, adding flavor to the plot through personal interaction. In this respect, Pluto proves itself as not merely a juxtaposed series of events for entertainment, though it provides a plethora in tow, but rather, an insightful reflection towards the allegory of life’s purpose. The addendum of these motifs also serves to bind the story together by providing a central theme as well as benchmark topics that work as threads connecting one parcel to another, forming the overall sphere of plot from the background.
The jewel in Pluto’s crown is its pantheon of characters, as well as Urasawa’s use of characterization on the antagonist. Wielding dexterous bouts of diction and plot devices, Urasawa molded the villain into a constant force lurking in the shadows; albeit having few appearances, we are left with a deep impression of the deep dangers threatening the main character. There is no place that is not influenced by the darkness; even in the mildest of settings, the central conflict is unconsciously understood through symbolic harbingers. A ride in the peaceful woods can turn into an explosive battle and insinuating sabotage. What to expect? What will happen next? We are kept at the edge of our seat as we turn page after page of insidious ploys and puzzling mysteries.
Without attention grabbing action and music adding a flourish, manga is rarely preferred over anime in this community. However, belonging to part of a minority does not mean that it does not have anything valuable to offer. On the contrary, manga works such as Pluto provide an interesting alternative to much of the tasteless cash reapers debuting on adult swim. Immobile graphics burst into life with the help of our imagination, each person envisioning a different world in the mind, with glorious music fitting perfectly into the background. That is the beauty of manga. To animate the imagination.
Any way the wind blows~
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jan 5, 2014
Clear all of your previous jaundice, because Doraemon is not as clear and transparent as it would seem on the surface; it should not be simply considered as another anime on par with the pace of all of the classics of anime. With its immensely large number of episodes, and the repetitiveness of its plot line in line with flat characters that hardly undergo any change, it is easy to assume that the anime is simply about the numerous different gadgets that Doraemon brought back from the future. To change your perspective, you only need an open mind, then you will see the truth as
...
clear as daylight.
To begin, as much as you wish to believe that Doraemon is about a ne'er do well named Nobita and how his life changed for good from the arrival of Doraemon, the plot of Doraemon actually revolves around the fact that Nobita is a boy suffering from a severe mental disability, and all of the characters, including Doraemon, are the product of his imagination. In real life, Nobita would be a little boy on his deathbed who imagined the entire series in order to keep himself entertained and to ease his pain and depression.
From this perspective, the entire series of Doraemon now becomes a series about the different sensations of human life that the little boy would’ve felt had he not fallen into a mental disability. Every time Nobita becomes depressed in the story because he was bullied by Gian or Suneo, he is probably suffering pain from his mental disease; Gian and Suneo are simply the manifestation of his illness. Every gadget Doraemon pulls out of his pouch in order to save Nobita is a manifestation of something in real life used to relieve him of his pain; or rather, it may be the surgical tools of a doctor, since sometimes the gadgets cause him pain if Nobita goes overboard with them.
The settings also provide concrete evidence to the truth behind the series. The mental capabilities of a child is much greater than that of an adult, yet it is not all powerful; it is not able to create objects that he has never seen. Therefore we see that the neighborhood inside Nobita’s imagination is very small, with a sparse number of houses and even more sparse the types of people that can be met. For example, we can only see Japanese people in the neighborhood, there is hardly any foreigners. Furthermore, when Nobita is walking around, we almost always only see blank walls, side-walks, and telephone poles; when Nobita is flying, we can only see the clouds in the sky and numerous trees and houses, with many of the same structural build-up. There are hardly any miscellaneous people or things walking around, in accordance with the fact that Nobita’s imagination can only support what it considers as important.
Now, a little bit about the series itself. At this point, if you continue to believe that Doraemon is about how Nobita's life changed for the better because of the arrival of Doraemon, you will continue to enjoy Doraemon only as a remnant of a great series of memories, and possibly, a great childhood. However, considering the complexities of the plot as analyzed, Doraemon is actually a chilling insight to how the mind will react when driven to extremities of solitude. It is painful to consider how lonely and hopeless it must be for a child on his sickbed without being looked after by a friend, and possibly abandoned by his family for good. With this in mind, the boy now proceeds to indulge in escapism in order to run away from all of the emotional and physical pain that he is experiencing. We laugh at how silly it is, and gaze in wonder at the impressive gadgets that Doraemon can pull out of his pouch, yet behind the facade of happiness and wonder, behind the cover of the moral lessons, behind the desire and personality of an ordinary school boy, there exists a background of such darkness, such that in rereading the series, one cannot help but wonder at how strong a fortitude a child can possess.
Nobita’s friends are also very important in finding just what exactly the series is trying to do. In the beginning, we know that Nobita is very interested in marrying Shizuka, but becomes very agitated when he learns from his great-grandson that he instead marries Jaiko, Jaian’s little sister. Therefore, immediately in the second episode, he tries to change his fate by imagining himself traveling to the future and then… [I will not write a spoiler]
The changes that Nobita makes because of the arrival of Doraemon gives us a clue that Nobita indeed hasn’t given up hope of his recovery, and wishes to live long enough to give birth to the next generation. However, the fact that Nobita never changes the present from his imaginary excursions with Doraemon to the past and the fact that his own manifestation in his imagination reveals that Nobita accepts the fact he cannot change his sickly body, and is not afraid to face his circumstances head on. A line from the original opening of Doraemon:
How wonderful this is,
if only it would come true.
This dream, that dream,
so many of them.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 5, 2012
There are many ways to interpret the definition of a dream. Is it the manifested world of our imaginations? Is it the parallel world that we live in while we sleep? Or is it the final goal, the end of the path that all of our goals and motives lead to? Yumekui Merry implicitly engage us in an intriguing tale of dreams; of dreams that are reached and dreams that are shattered. Of friendship and contracted promises, and of betrayal and wily deception. Yumekui Merry narrates a scenario that can be enjoyed by all people alike, by people with dreams that may have come true,
...
or of people with dreams that lie in wait for the day that they may be manifested.
-= --- Story --- =-
From the producers of Blood + and Dragon ball Z, Yumekui Merry starts with bang. Yumekui Merry is certainly not one of those animes that lags around in the beginning; rather, grabs our attention immediately by giving the protagonist an unexpected disaster from above that ends in a very special acquaintance. All in all, Yumekui Merry narrates the pivot point of the life of Fujiwara Yumeji, who can see the inner atmosphere of the people around him, and can predict the type of dream the person will have that night based on this inner aura. The story pivots sharply as Yumeji meets a strange girl called Merry Nightmare. The story is one of the most original plots that have been made yet, incorporating concepts of that not unlike the movie “Inception”. In addition, the plot goes through many interesting twists that keep us guessing the next turn of the plot.
-= --- Animation --- =-
I found the drawings of Yumekui Merry extremely interesting and contrary to the usual graphics of contemporary anime. Although Yumekui Merry incorporates essentially the same type of portrayal of the outward appearance of characters as other animes, with the same background in the “normal” world, the graphics of scenes in the dream worlds are wholly different. Not only do objects not follow the laws of physics, what we would normally conceive as the effect of one action differs completely from the actual effect that is shown. Despite others who argue that the art of anime is not particularly appetizing to watch, I see it as part of the twists that make Yumekui Merry the attracting anime it is, that’s quickly rising through the board.
-= --- Sound --- =-
The soundtrack of Yumekui Merry is also part of the twist that makes up its personality. One of the aspects is that it defies the basic rule of using clashing dissonance of die-hard rock music and screaming guitars; instead, Yumekui Merry surprisingly chooses to use the romantic building sounds of a group quintet orchestra consisted solely of violins and violas. This effect makes the fight all the more enjoyable. From an unexpected transcribing, the fight shifts its position. As the music builds into more intense chords and arpeggios, the fight climbs to its climax. The experience is particularly exhilarating as the violins play in sync together in a strangely baroque tone to build up the rising action as the fight leads to its climax. I found that other reviewers also criticize the producer for giving the anime such an unfitting soundtrack, but as we will see while watching Yumekui Merry, the experience proves otherwise.
-= --- Character --- =-
There character development is the one weakness of the anime. Although it is clearly marked that a few characters progress and change throughout the anime significantly, the relatively minor characters (not to say that they aren’t important) do not have such a change. Although there exist flat characters, we grow to be fond of the protagonist and cheer them onwards throughout the anime. The protagonist Merry is especially lovable due to her engaging character and her nonchalance and ignorance to everyday things such as video games and groceries. Besides the protagonists, the minor characters, despite that they remain the same throughout the anime, are very interesting. I especially appreciated the character of Takateru Akiyanagi, the boy who constantly expresses his feelings and thoughts as through haiku; this shows an extremely keen sense of creativity that is parallel even to Angel Beat’s T.K.
-= ---Enjoyment --- =-
Yumekui Merry is especially enjoyable. Not only does it make the everyday aspects of school life as interesting as it can be by creating character development, but it also has many enjoyable fighting scenes that gives ecstatic feelings of greatness. As the anime progresses, we will be enthralled by the ever thickening plot as we try to guess the next possible action that the protagonists will take.
-= --- Overall --- =-
Yumekui Merry is an extremely underrated anime, not because it lacks charm and glamour – it has an abundance of those – but very few people know of its existence. Do not be motivated to skip this opportunity of inspiration just because no one recommended it. Yumekui Merry is actually a very interesting anime, and it does not take long to find out.
Reviewer’s note: Thanks you VERY much for reading this especially long review. I purposefully did not add ratings to this review. I feel that reviewer’s ratings never appeal to the reader, and who even cares about how I feel about the anime right? Regardless, I tried to revise this (my second) to create an effective review that will not only encourage the reader to watch Yumekui Merry, but also have a realistic idea of Yumekui Merry. If you did not like this review, please give me advice so that I can improve my horrible writing skills, and write a better review next time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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