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Cautious Hero: The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (Light Tuchichi & Saori Totoya, 2016). YouTube often has, for free, 12-episode anime like Cautious Hero; I generally watch them at 2x speed, but this one I did not. Cautious Hero is stylistically and narratively unique for a 12-episode anime: Ryuuguuin Seiya’s grinding, the gamified isekai narrative, and the sheer size of the well-crafted diegesis are notable elements.

Establishing familiarity with characters and diegesis in certain action anime often occurs through comedy-based action that lasts for several introductory episodes; Cautious Hero retains this orthodox narrative structure. From it’s very first episode, Seiya’s characterization is laid out in ... a seemingly transparent manner as someone who is overpowered but overly cautious. This prompted a 2x speed marathon of the first few episodes. However, foreshadowing on Ariadoa’s part cleverly allowed for the working in of the alternative narrative presented in the last few episodes; Seiya’s overly cautious nature is a reasonable one. He is not ‘sick in the head’, to use Listarte’s terms. Plot-wise, Cautious Hero is surprisingly coherent. The plot-order appears comical without the tonality of Seiya’s previous failure, a horrifying one (resulting in the brutal murder of his would-be wife and child) arising from his character flaw; this use of hamartia is unique for it sets the tone of both plot (that which is presented) and story (that which viewers piece together), albeit in differing ways. This temporal exposition of hamartia is of course, a trope I have seen before in anime and does not differ greatly from the three act et-up, but it is well done for a 12-episode anime. There are very few visual or aural motifs that complement this, but that I found not to be a flaw, given the 12-episode nature.

Seiya’s grinding, I had initially presumed, was a result of him having already answered the notable bit of the hero’s journey, a search for the self: he is presented well. As an isekai narrative, Seiya faces little of what other protagonists do, the period of familiarization with the new world, because of the spill over of his past in his first message. Listarte’s character design is alright: her seiyu’s transitions towards exasperation and snarky commentary are wonderfully fluid and fantastically varied, complementing the entertainingly weird visual designs. The OP stood out, but the rest of the soundtrack, EP, and musical themes did not vary formally from those used in analogous anime. A quick review! This is perhaps the first isekai anime I have seen after being made aware of the genre.

The 47-episode television adaptation of the Oshii Mamoru film comprising the usual Special Vehicle Division, Patlabors, and SV Division 2 cast appeared to be interesting given several shared sci fi elements with Oshii’s subsequent Ghost in the Shell works (1995, 2: Innocence, SAC 1/2). I’d presumed this 1989 production’s episodic nature would assist in locating Oshii’s nascent signature directorial style. In retrospect, this text is rather dissimilar. Oshii’s episodes are wonderfully comical and border on soft sci-fi/hand waving, a component of (TV) Kidou Keisatsu Patlabor’s characteristic use of relative realism.

Patlabor attempts at realism in premise and internal coherence. Special Vehicles Section 2, comprising human officers, ... Patrol Labors (Patlabors), and mechanics, attend to Labor crimes. Labor origins, operational mechanisms, and fiscal data are treated with soft sci fi/hand waving: vague mentions of ‘software’. Nevertheless, realism abounds in Patlabor’s presentation of the mundane reality of a hyper specialized police force: office disputes, barracks/mess/budget, intra-office competition, politics, and media institutions operate in a remarkably natural manner. (Goto) “The PR team thinks this could be a windfall”: when Division 2 attempts to rescue a foreign diplomat. Goto’s backstory works in sociopolitical implications of the character’s unconventional methods and nonconformist temperance: he’s confined to the obscure SV Division.

Patlabor’s relative realism grows obvious as it attempts to address internal consistency. Labor software is an isolated phenomenon not applicable to other tech. Moreover, “Astonishing. Labors were created for construction work”, “Most Labors today are construction machines” deliveries flank admissions of “And anyone is legally entitled to own a Labor”. Furthermore, Labor production and R&D remains rudimentary despite military and private (Shinohara) interest. The singular instance of advanced development, Schaft/Richard Wong’s Griffin, manages to outstrip, rather ridiculously, classified military Labor tech. Nonetheless, presentational realism is often relative, with ‘realism’ indicating the inclusion of usually neglected negative consequences of internal or diegetic events. When done right, however, the relativity minimally hampers internal or character coherence. Patlabor’s realism, stringently enforced for presentation and sociopolitical elements, is applied sparsely to character coherence, initiating a breakdown in the latter half of the show but not enough of one that suspension of disbelief is lost. Notably, Patlabor’s script introduces several sober elements – ecoterrorism, international political feuds, domestic terrorism – all left unaddressed or unresolved. Nevertheless, it’s still a wonderful Slice of Life work.

Patlabor’s relative realism operates evidently in its character realism: application of presentational realism to human behavior, cognition, and affect. In (TV) Patlabor, both story (what viewers construe) and plot (presented sequence of events) attend predominantly to characters, particularly Izumi Noa, Kanuka Clancy, Kiichi Goto, Shinohara Asuma, Kumagami Takeo, Richard Wong, and Badrinath Harchand. However, every element/character assumes a different degree of relativism: Goto’s socio-politically credible situation differs from Izumi’s ingenuous conduct. Realism’s effectiveness disintegrates under proper character study: contact with the essentialized comical element of Izumi Noa appears a crucial mechanism. When Division 2 observes the political absurdity of a show-and-tell for the young prince of Oasis, a middle eastern country rich from oil exports: “You wouldn’t use a Porsche or Ferrari in a Driver’s Ed school” (Shinohara), “They might in his country” (Izumi) is delivered.

Weak character realism alongside strong presentational realism renders evident tonal dissonance. However, given the (TV) Patlabor presents itself as ‘extraordinary world, ordinary problems’, the dissonance retains a comical quality. Clancy, Takeo, and Nagumo are striking and realistically written characters. Izumi, however, is oddly written. Innately proficient with Labors, particularly her Ingram model, Alphonse, Izumi refrains from training/development and is later devastated by her discovery that she’s quite poor with Labor ordnance, stating “For a second I thought I might be a natural marksman”. Post critical question character development never occurs: she merely returns to her original psychological framework, stating “I’ve changed” to Shinohara. That doesn’t qualify as character development, to say the least.

Her humanizing of Alphonse is presented in opposition to the general mechanistic view of Labors: “Alphonse got dirty again!”, “Now that you’re repaired, it’s time for a little polishing” (Izumi), her anger/irritation when anyone refers to Alphonse as a mere Labor. However, this humanization has little to do with consideration of Labors. Izumi derives her Ingram’s name ‘Alphonse’ from an organic figure with whom she experienced affectionate biological attachment: her attachment with Alphonse is derivative of this organic figure and has little to do with considerations of robots. A slightly disappointing development. When newer Labor models are rolled in, Izumi stalwartly declares “We don’t need a new model. Alphonse is perfect”, despite newer models exceeding the Ingram in performance and specs. Alphonse is no subject, he’s unidimensional, an object for Izumi’s projections, perhaps even her attachment security. Her parochial understanding of Alphonse translates the Ingram into various dialogue regarding “dirty”, “clean”, “polished”, but little of working, charging, repairs. Given that he’s nowhere close to sentience, I’ll let this pass. However, character motive suffers terribly from such ambiguity.

Nevertheless, (TV) Patlabor is a neat mecha show, one that veers towards Slice of Life more than sci fi. While not heavy or too coherent, Patlabor’s comical and straightforward presentation of the daily lives of SV D2, the hyper specialized police force, and gradual Labor tech development, is a pleasant watch.

Mononoke (2007), Toei Animation: a spin-off of the first Bakeneko narrative in Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales. Kusuriuri, the nameless medicine seller of the lowest merchant class, seeks to eradicate Mononoke, forms “borne of human karma and fate”, Kusuriuri: knowledge of a Mononoke’s Form (katachi), Truth (makoto), and Reason (kotowari), where “[t]ruth refers to the state of affairs. Reason, the state of the soul”, Kusuriuri, allows his sword to destroy the eldritch creatures.

The Apollonian and Dionysian, Nietzschean terms: (1) Apollonian: structure, formal reasoning, order, wherein the structure imposes order and calm control over emotions, without which the Dionysian would overflow, and like Apollo, appears ... to be superior in its sheer might over the Dionysian; (2) Dionysian: Id-like, it is the incomprehensible frenzy, a madness that obliterates the rational ego with its return to primordial instinct, wherein the Ego is lost to a collective as the self is lost to an experience of a greater reality. In Mononoke, the Dionysian experience occurs through the viewing of the brightly colored, oddly structured, and undifferentiated layers in animation stylistics. It’s quite perplexing and rather difficult to have to distinguish both forms and layers as a viewer, given the stylistic choices.

However, Mononoke’s narrative structure relies heavily on visual exposition, largely through symbolic and aural means. Red strands signify entry into the body, abortion, blood, and death in Zashiki-Warashi: for those who can readily identify latent content, the manifest meaning is evident even before the Apollonian element, Kusuriuri, steps in to render these intuitively comprehensible symbols linguistic, in the form of rational logic. This requires the viewer to step away from structured linguistic logic and towards more intuitive means of comprehending the narrative: to separate, in Dionysian terms, from the Ego and lose the self to the collective of primordial instinct. However, the experience doesn’t remain that way for long: Kusuriuri, through Form (katachi), Truth (makoto), and Reason (kotowari), imposes the Apollonian element on the Dionysian, and makes comprehensible the intense instinctual experience.

“Perhaps Mononoke have no need for logic and consistency,” Kusuriuri: as materialized abstractions, the presentation of Mononoke in a Dionysian means – as intuitively comprehensible visual and aural symbols – fits well into the Nietzschean struggle of Kusuriuri and the Mononoke. The rule of three, prevalent in three act folktales, herein as Form (katachi), Truth (makoto), and Reason (kotowari), allows for the integration of Kusuriuri’s Apollonian existence with the Mononoke’s Dionysian one. All narratives in Mononoke have several iterations, in relation to the three components required to unsheathe the sword: the viewers are treated to a solely Dionysian experience, which Kusuriuri renders Apollonian for the viewers’ comprehension and reflection.

“Is the reason of humans and Mononoke different?”, Kusuriuri. He grows aware of the distinction, just as he grows into his Apollonian role. Rule of three usually comprises some sort of twist in its iterations, and Kusuriuri is often subjected to Rashomon-style narratives: characters omit, lie, or run away from the truth of the event, complicating Kusuriuri’s search for Form (katachi), Truth (makoto), and Reason (kotowari). The visual and aural symbols work here as foreshadowing, allowing the viewer’s Id, the more instinctive faculties, to parse a sense of ‘something is wrong’ or even the meaning itself, before Kusuriuri creates linguistic order.

Over time, the Kusuriuri performs more Apollonian tasks and takes on an Apollonian personality, that of a calm logic, through which he renders into three, Form (katachi), Truth (makoto), and Reason (kotowari), the visual and aural symbols that make up the Mononoke’s narrative. Kusuriuri appears to be the Apollonian force that renders comprehensible, through the superimposition of structure, the Mononoke: moreover, this structuring, materializing as the human-like form of Kusuriuri’s sword, obliterates the Mononoke, which are Dionysian existences, wild eldritch creatures of human karma and fate. “The sword is wielded by humans. My abilities have limitations”, Kusuriuri. The human-like manifestation of his sword, stylistically, is like Kusuriuri, though with inverted, heavier colors that indicate a powerful figure. Perhaps this manifestation is Kusuriuri’s Apollonian nature, taken to the extreme, to neutralize the Mononoke. The elements of structure are discovered by Kusuriuri, but not superimposed by him, due to his ‘limitations’: slightly wary of this line of reasoning, since there are enough hints that Kusuriuri himself isn’t entirely human.

This integration of the Apollonian and Dionysian element is done incredibly well in the work, both in terms of narrative coherence and experimental stylistics. Kusuriuri is a brilliant character, with the ambiguity surrounding him making it difficult to work out his own Form (katachi), Truth (makoto), and Reason (kotowari), unlike all of the other characters.

Terraformars: Revenge, Sagasu Yu & Tachibana Kenichi (2014), is an atrocious slight to the rather enjoyable first season, with its notable stylistic and cinematic aspects. With the change in director, music director, and the addition of a new studio TYO Animations, Terraformars: Revenge is a farce of a continuation that drops the formal elements of sound, mis-en-scene, camera work, and editing, that resembled an apocalyptic or dystopian style. The visual and aural motifs (the black swirls resembling swarms, the ringing synthetic music, the conflation of a lost past and lost present) are obliterated for a shounen-like cheery anime with no gore, no remarkable motifs, and ... a tone-deaf narrative. Terraformar’s implied or implicit meaning, in its staticky use of color, silence, and conflation of lost-past to lost-present, which was its strength, is tossed aside for a superficial narrative.

The diegesis and narrative no longer fulfills science fiction tropes, in relation to technology: the odd pseudoscientific explanations and the biological presuppositions posited by characters are absent and if there, are only empty plot or action progression devices. The narrative is still quite troublesome, logically. There had been slight humor before, only as a mature defense mechanism, but this work has plenty of fanservice, ecchi frames, and slapstick measures that take away from its previous somber and bleak visual and aural tonality.

The characters previously displayed an understanding of the illogical nature of their diegesis, and as a seinen work, addressed character backstory brilliantly, with deliveries such as: “Does losing money mean that your wishes get stolen away, too!?”; “Sakurato! Is there something you want to do when you get better?” from an evidently distressed Akari; “Judging from the lack of hesitation in all your actions, that leader has a vision”. In Revenge, this is dropped for deliveries that contradict earlier depictions: “I’d get to see your shower scene!”; “Is it true that you’re going to Mars”, when Sakurato Harukaze had no idea of Annex 1 in the first season; Akari and his childhood friend crying together when they had not previously; and most idiotically, “Let’s all go back to Earth! Go, go!”. Complete turnaround in both narrative content and narrative tone. “We sent our best men and our kids with the brightest futures” one world leader states, but as viewers can recall, the children and young adults selected volunteered out of desperation, and were not selected for their bright futures. Moreover, the extradiegetic narrative, the little bubbles with comical visuals and deliveries, adds to the slapstick tonality. Infuriating!

Previously, the cinematic elements had been artistically significant. Now the cinematics are generic, even subpar given the bland and undetailed faces. The hues, the technology, the intertitles, all resembling traditional science fiction frames, had utilized darker hues with interspersed dulled whites. The use of black, silence, and space was notable in the first season: several frames are dedicated to the scurrying movement of cockroaches, the black in the frames is dynamic, like a writhing mass of cockroaches/insects; moreover, the blackness creeps over the screen not with distinct lines but with the staticky formlessness of swarm. This visual motif was rather impressive. The colors are now too-bright, too-cheery given the death and dismemberment, and the bug transformations look comical and prevent a suspension of disbelief. In fact, for most of the second season, it evokes only disbelief. The camera movement through cinematic space is generic, with few notable shots and transitions. The off-screen space is no longer key: in season one, Adolf Reinhardt, who’s past and present conflate and blur in-out of focus during the action sequence in a notable manner: “Are you saying we’re going to take their entire lives away?” states an off-screen voice as the camera moves over and through a cinematic space comprising a restrained Adolf and the equipment used to modify his base of electric eel. This is all done away with for generic cuts and transitions.

Aurally, the anime bears no distinct science fiction sounds: the synthetic music of the first season that resembled several video games of the same genre and the use of Gustav Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War” for Adolf Reinhardt, a striking character and perhaps the most intriguing part of both plot and story is all missing. The sound mixing was well done: often, the vital aspect of a scene overpowers the other elements; sometimes everything is overridden by the silence that resembles the sound of a swarm, and particularly the violin during Adolf’s initial strike and his memories of his wife’s affair are replaced by generic fighting music that complements the screaming-based transformation of the character, like a Dragon Ball move. Atrocious!

The character design has clearly shifted from seinen to shounen, with most looking outright comical. The facial movements and clothing detail are restricted and flat. In season one, the use of light tones, particularly white, in character’s eyes and tears was a brilliant juxtaposition against the use of the black color in a swarm-like dynamic manner. Here, everything is comical and generic, perhaps to complement the laughingstock status of this season. The less I speak of the actual narrative content of the anime, the better: “Bring it on, 100-dan judo man!”; “The virus goes against everything we know about virology”, these deliveries alter the fundamental personality of major characters. The characters are subject to, what we call in psychopathology, Capgras Syndrome or Capgras Delusion, an [irrational, but not so irrational here] belief that someone known has been replaced by an imposter. And that loss, more than the stylistic and cinematic quality loss, is what makes this work unpalatable. Final unforgivable sin: the green drawing/outline of the Johj looks like a children’s sticker in comparison with the first season’s anatomically complex depictions.

Terraformars, Sagasu Yu & Tachibana Kenichi (2014), at least for its first season stands out, for a relatively new studio, with its hard and gruesome stylistics despite its numerous plot holes. The stylistic and cinematic aspects were a large part of the appeal, on first watch. The formal elements of sound, mis-en-scene, camera work, and editing, all resemble an apocalyptic or dystopian style. The visual and aural motifs (the black swirls resembling swarms, the ringing synthetic music, the conflation of a lost past and lost present) are cinematically superior to most 12-episode science fiction anime. Moreover, the gore is realistic and aurally accurate, as in ... the scene where muscle fibre filled the frame as it stretched and tore visually and aurally. Rather pleasing: the uncensored version is quite brilliant. Terraformar’s implied or implicit meaning, in its staticky use of color, silence, and conflation of lost-past to lost-present, is its strength.

The diegesis and narrative fulfills science fiction tropes, in relation to technology, odd pseudoscientific explanations, and the biological presuppositions posited by characters. This is not hard science fiction, a category of science fiction known for accuracy and correspondence to real time scientific data; on account of it being soft science fiction with little accuracy to data or logic, the plot is endurable, despite several unsound scientific leaps. However, certain plot elements are glaringly faulty: why select only untrained children, surely there will be no shortage of able individuals who will volunteer all on their own; why have very little international consensus regarding research, who/how did they verify that the Alien Engine Virus is from Mars and not from any other extraterrestrial body; why 1,000 samples; why send only a small group of 100 untrained young adults; and so forth. The narrative is quite troublesome, logically. There is slight humor, but only ever as a mature defense mechanism, not as a slapstick measure.

“To think that they were this intelligent” is an understatement, yet the characters too display an understanding of how illogical their diegesis is; “[…] experimentally combined with various bugs”, any bug base for a “mosaic” ability that permits a transformation of human anatomy into resized bug anatomy. However, as a seinen work, it addresses character backstory brilliantly, with deliveries such as: “Does losing money mean that your wishes get stolen away, too!?”; “Sakurato! Is there something you want to do when you get better?” from an evidently distressed Akari; “Judging from the lack of hesitation in all your actions, that leader has a vision”. Moreover, the extradiegetic narrative offers plenty of accurate information regarding the base insects/animals. The extradiegetic narrator is also a means of pacing and insight that ties in well with the anime’s emphasis on the emotional backstory, “At that moment, Michelle had a feeling […]”, and so forth. The conflation of a lost-past with a lost-present is depicted beautifully in the case of Adolf Reinhardt.

However, the cinematic elements more than compensate. The intertitles of “Christian Era 2619”, the black screen with the Terraformars logo provide plot pacing and breaks amidst the sense of inevitable failure and bleakness visible in the anime’s earlier episodes. The hues, the technology, the intertitles, all resembling traditional science fiction frames, utilize darker hues with interspersed dulled whites. The use of black, silence, and space is notable in the anime: several frames are dedicated to the scurrying movement of cockroaches, the black in the frames is dynamic, like a writhing mass of cockroaches/insects; moreover, the blackness creeps over the screen not with distinct lines but with the staticky formlessness of swarm. This visual motif was rather impressive. “Use the corpses?” is a notable scene that illustrates how the swarm-like use of the color black both in terms of opacity and dynamicity work well with the unnatural silence motif of science fiction, usually employed in relation to a fear of the unknown. The editing is unusual for a 12-episode anime, but given Terraformar’s propensity for artistic stylistics, it is well done. The camera movement through cinematic space is unusual; often, it requires more of the viewer, who is expected to piece together the provided plot to discern the implied story. The editing is visible and not continuous, often having faded transitions between the lost-past and lost-present. The off-screen space is key: many story elements of Terraformars reside there. A primary example is that of Adolf Reinhardt, who’s past and present conflate and blur in-out of focus during the action sequence; “Are you saying we’re going to take their entire lives away?” states an off-screen voice as the camera moves over and through a cinematic space comprising a restrained Adolf and the equipment used to modify his base of electric eel.

Aurally, the anime bears distinct science fiction sounds: the synthetic music resembles several video games of the same genre. Lovely use of Gustav Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War” for Adolf Reinhardt, a striking character and perhaps the most intriguing part of both plot and story. The sound mixing is well done: often, the vital aspect of a scene overpowers the other elements; sometimes it is only the sound of breaking bones or the sounds particular to the anatomy of the insect/animal, sometimes it is only Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War”, sometimes everything is overridden by the silence that resembles the sound of a swarm. The heavy rock and metal of the action and gore scenes is striking, often allowing for a disinvolvement with the brutal visual and aural nature of gore. The classical pieces, particularly the violin during Adolf’s initial strike and his memories of his wife’s affair is a favorite.

The character design renders each slightly more mature, as is the case with most adult viewership targeted anime. The Johj resemblance and nationalist tint are a point of conflict with some, I believe. The realistic proportions and darker tones complement the tonality of the plot, story, and the aural timber. Moreover, the character designs further illustrate the somber circumstances and resulting desperateness evident in the action and gore sequences. The male and female characters equally exhibit resolve and terror. There is more I would like to say of the anime, but any more, and this will become a critical analysis, not a review.

Goblin Slayer (Kumo Kagyu, 2018), is largely an unpalatable anime for its content and narrative, despite brilliant animation and gore. Goblin Slayer is a guild member that specializes in the meticulous extermination of goblins, an attitude developed from childhood trauma. Priestess, the secondary character, is a rookie guild member that joins him, and then proceeds to radically alter him to suit her tastes despite those particular traits being utterly useless and in fact, largely counterproductive.

“Some dumb and naïve moron preach that you should let the children go as if they are sanctimonious. But they fail to realize that those children will attack villages and ... steal livestock in order to survive,” is Goblin Slayer’s (henceforth GS) initial characterization of Priestess’ naivete in relation to goblins. She is at best a rookie and at her worst, completely unaware of the wide-ranging consequences of naivete on the battlefield. Goblins have a great nose for the scent of women, elves, and the like, so GS often douses his equipment and self with goblin blood. Despite the utter utility and effectiveness of this, Priestess squawks and protests. This is perhaps understandable given her rookie status. However, GS later acquires more team members, one of which is a 2,000-year-old elf archer. She too displays the same childish disdain and embarrassment over being doused with goblin blood.

Archer Elf and Priestess are perhaps the most intolerable of the lot. “Also, you are not allowed to flood the goblins with water. Do not set them on fire, either”, are some of the demands both of them make of GS. GS is an effective adventurer guild member whose solitary, independent, without-any-help exploits vis-à-vis goblin slaying are well known. In those ventures, he made of water, fire, and poison, all of which these new ladies outlaw. This severely limits long-range combat and most of his future injuries are a direct result of the limitations of close-range combat. Utter rubbish. There are no moral grounds to prevent him using such measures; several of the action sequences could have ended rapidly if they had such long-distance measures. In a particular difficult goblin confrontation, he makes use of an explosion, which is far from water, fire, or poison, and is a brilliantly clever measure given his atrocious and arbitrary restrictions and all the Archer Elf can say is “Wait, explosion!” instead of being grateful that his tactic allowed them to live. GS is the only one who formulates a plan and thus, is the only one constricted by such idiotic demands. He, despite being the most effective of the entire group, is stupidly limited by such demands, and for what? For: “Looks like you have learned to show consideration”, on account of Priestess.

Never mind that, Priestess does not, not once, attempt to comprehend why GS acts and is the way he is. In her naïve entitlement, she expects GS, goblins, and combat to unfurl the way she wishes. Perhaps she is too aware of her incompetence and compensates by reducing GS’s abilities: “Was she eaten? Just murdered? Are there any other things…” GS asks, and given his vast knowledge of goblin biology and psychology, it is no different from contemporary interrogation and even contemporary psychotherapy to ask sensitive queries, but Priestess sees it fit to interrupt with “That is too insensitive!”. How on earth will he acquire data if he never asks the difficult questions? Given that priestess finds it difficult to confront anything difficult on her own and without GS’s plan, it makes sense that she impose a sense of incompetence on others to make them more familiar to herself. “You could have said that better.”; “But that is the truth.”; “The way you phrase it matters precisely because it is the truth”. Absolutely disagree. It is often better to not offer false hope. Priestess displays overconfidence because she is always protected by GS, but GS has no one to depend on but himself, or has had no one to depend on for five years. She has been with him for “only a few months” and expects a radical personality shift, particularly one that does away with his preferences and morals to impose hers.

Despite his resolute and unwavering personality style in the beginning, in the end he is reduced to pathetically high levels of agreeableness, take for example, this conversation with Priestess towards the end: “I see”; “Also, you say ‘I see’ a lot!”; “I’ll try to reduce them”. What on earth does he need to reduce them for? Merely because she hints that she does not like them? She’s attempting to foster some sort of codependency, which is merely a projection of her own condition. On account of her ordinary chain mail being damaged, she states that she will get hers repaired and not take the obvious choice of purchasing a new set, because, “this is the first thing you praised me for”. Repair is one thing and upgrading is another.

Priestess again: “You’re really a handful.”; “I’m sorry.”; “I don’t want to hear that.”; “I’m sorry”. However, she and Archer Elf are the handful. They require constant validation from him, often attempt to acquire his attention. They reduce his inventory of attack tactics and material to a short sword and a shield, then sob when he is gravely injured from close combat. Utter rubbish that I could not stomach. I would have tossed aside Priestess and Archer Elf had I wished to ensure some character development in GS. Instead, they’ve reduced his value and restricted his prowess in its entirety. This ultimately made Goblin Slayer unbearable to watch.

I never write long reviews for 12-episode anime, but this one drove me quite mad when I watching it. Quite a lot of anime prefer to have one or two clever characters whilst keeping the rest rather idiotic and comical. This allows for some level of enjoyable complexity. Only great anime can afford to have several, if not all, intelligent characters, for that then produces dialogue, plot, and character development of a complex and difficult nature. Writing intelligent characters changes the entirety of the narrative, no longer can there be outright idiotic actions, dialogues, or idiotic character alterations. Which may be why so many anime have several of the idiotic-comical types, aside from the obvious requirement of a greater imaginative capacity required to write such characters.

The rape and gore I found no issue with; the juxtaposition of near childlike naivete and horrific gore is a notable tactic; the first episode renders the viewer uneasy. I would have thoroughly enjoyed the anime had it been a pastiche of such elements, but the aforementioned intolerable characters and plot made it near impossible to like the anime. However, I will give credit where credit is due: the animation is rather good, the background quality and foreground quality are well, matched, unlike in most digital animation. The audio is well done, with a notable opening sequence to the OP. The overt sexualization of the female characters is the usual fanservice, but GS and Cow Girl clearly have much better chemistry than the empty-headed Priestess and Archer Elf lot. Even Guild Girl will do. Notably, I was relieved to see that Cow Girl understood and accepted GS for himself; she demanded very little of him and was able to communicate with him in her own manner. Infuriatingly, though GS never takes off his helmet unless to sleep/when it breaks, for her final reward, Priestess asks him to take it off. I realized about halfway through that Priestess cares very little for GS’s true self, trauma, and preferences.

Ultimately, I was left rather sickened by how much she was able to change GS, and not in a manner for the better. He did not “learn to show consideration”, for five years he toiled away at a job “no one else will do”. He merely learned to act and present himself in the way Priestess and Archer Elf desired. This subjugation of self to external demands, external demands which are clearly unreasonable, impractical, and inconsiderate, was slightly sickening to see. Perhaps that is largely because I am somewhat of a Contrary Mary who abhors conformity. Then this reading is mere projection or to use technical terms, countertransference!

Saint Oniisan (Saint Young Men) (Hikaru Nakamura, 2013) is a light hearted work serialized in Kodansha. Jesus and Buddha, in true NEET form, attempt to vacation in Japan by taking up residence in Tachikawa City’s apartment complex Matsuda Heights. As a light hearted work, it steers clear of the more worrisome and horrendous aspects of religion and focus more on the improbability of a god’s existence in the human sphere of life. Nakamura’s interpretations of the personalities of Jesus, his archangels, Buddha, Ananda, and so forth makes this text and its variations (manga, anime, and movie, all of which I have consumed) notable.

The comical elements ... are largely that of the improbability that a god could exist fully as a human without reincarnation or birth as one. Descended directly from the heavens or something of the sort, Jesus and Buddha still carry a divine air and command over nature. When Buddha is confronted by the landowner lady, his stomach rumbles from hunger, prompting the dry peach tree to suddenly sprout enticingly plump peaches in a soft hue offset by smooth green tones of the background. “Don’t be so concerned!” he tells the peach tree in mortification as the neighbors look on, baffled, since the peach tree was only attempting to offer something to appease Buddha’s hunger. Jesus, in moments he finds utterly hilarious, is subject to rose blossoms bursting forth from his stigmata, resulting in a flower crown of sorts, which he then has to pluck out.

Little interpretations of such nature make the OVA, only 2 episodes, and the movie, an hour and a half, quite entertaining. It has very little depth to it, in terms of narrative and content. “I wouldn’t suspect you of it, but you’re not doing anything a god would be ashamed of, right?” is about as complex as it gets in terms of true religious material. Upon nearly being arrested, Buddha “[…] locked himself in the restroom for three hours” is yet another one. Aside from rare instances like this, Jesus and Buddha are guileless young adults (early 20 somethings) living a NEET life, Jesus with his drama review blog and Buddha with his t-shirt prints.

What is brilliant, aside from the unique interpretation of Jesus and Buddha, is the art style of the OVA and movie. The animation is brilliant in terms of formal elements and style. Stylistically, it resembles the older cel works and is nothing like digital anime. The colors are soft and smooth, with light, particularly divine light (the blinding whitish-yellow) standing out. In depicting contemporary Japan, the art uses broad color strokes and thick single color, unshaded elements which are shadowed or given depth using the traditional consecutive black lines. It is this style that stood out and prompted a watching of both OVA and movie, it is also this that made it worthwhile to stay and see several of the scenes outlined in the animation. As a lighthearted animation, this is stylistically a good one, though perhaps not so much in terms of narrative complexity. Nevertheless, if the interpretation is intriguing, it is worth a watch.

Hitoshi Iwaaki’s 2014 ‘Parasyte: The New Maxim’ is certainly one of the more interesting science fiction anime I’ve seen. “Is it so unpleasant to you that your kind are being eaten?”, Migi. Aside from animation quality, Parasyte’s authorial intention is a point of interest: it was written to reflect the “‘egotism of the human race over this planet,’ but I didn’t want to look down on humans. I just wanted to tell the story from an ordinary person’s point of view” (Iwaaki). The ordinary person is Shinichi Izumi, 17-male high school student; the sheer naivety and contradictory nature of his philosophy towards parasites reflects oddly ... how humanity may “[deal] with the unknown, or someone you have a hard time connecting to” (Iwaaki).

Parasyte’s animation doesn’t differ too greatly from general digital anime, so I will not speak of it at length. The animation for the action sequences was slightly underwhelming, but that is symptomatic of a constricted imagination vis-à-vis parasite anatomy and morphing capacity. Gotou, Reiko Tamura, Miki, and Migi are the only parasites that are individualized, in a sense. Formally, it did not deliver greatly frames, aside from a few emotional scenes and parasite morphing. Aural elements were passable, though the trap music in a notable action sequence was slightly annoying. Stylistically, it is like most other anime.

Shinichi Izumi is a slightly frustrating character, albeit true to the normal distribution of his age range; his ideas of Migi, parasites, and morality are volatile, contradictory, and intolerably green. His sound verbal assertions of saving others are clearly undercut by his desire to save himself and his inability to bear the burden of that responsibility for which he stakes claim. “Many people have been killed” is hard to defend against the parasites’ “Foolish humans. Why act so surprised when you turn cows and pigs into mincemeat”. Izumi fails to make a clear case for why humanity must be spared from the consequences of an introduction of a natural predator, and while Migi is quite clear that it is “natural for life forms to eat”, Izumi yet again demands that parasites “live without eating humans”. He remains simple minded throughout the show, not realizing that Migi is not always accepting of his imposition of human morals and only manages to survive through Migi’s cooperation. At Gotou’s death, he repents, and in a stupidly sudden change of heart in the end, claims “They [parasites] are, without a doubt, neighbors deserving of our respect” without the appropriate build up to such a sweeping alteration in standpoint. Uragami served well to illustrate the flaws in Izumi’s ideas of humanity and could have been used to cause relevant moral conflict, as the parasites’ statements were met usually with disdain. With true human egotism, Izumi is influenced only by humans and altered at fundamental levels by parasites. Interesting!

The characters of interest are actually that of Migi, who develops somewhat of a bond with Izumi, going so far as to call Izumi his friend, and Tamura Reiko, a parasite who births a child and develops maternal attachment and affection towards her child. Japanese popular culture is often considered a medium offering understanding of Japan; Parasyte/Kiseiju perhaps reflects some notions of subjectivity and coexistence in contemporary Japan (Wai Carol, 2017). Japan’s assimilation process is arduous but the imports ultimately assimilate to produce an “aesthetically blended culture” in a syncretistic manner; harmony, order, and collectivism mark such measures (Wai Carol, 2017). It retains and operates through a strong element of Japanese imagination, uchi (内) and soto (外), inside and outside; coexistence is determined through the conflicts of subjectivity arising from these ideas, one that is reflected in the juxtaposition of human and parasite in Iwaaki’s work (Wai Carol, 2017). This author touts the usual: that hybridity and openness of the outside is a virtue, but ultimately, in Parasite, nothing of that sort actually occurs, aside from the singular case of Izumi-Migi. The little said of a “fine balance between ‘I’ and ‘We’” (Wai Carol, 2017) in the anime the better, though Tamura Reiko speaks well of a collective human entity that subsumes the I or ego, at one point.

Migi is exceptionally clever, in one instance browsing through Dostoyevsky ‘Crime and Punishment’, and speaks clearly to Izumi in a developmentally appropriate manner regarding Izumi’s imposition of “human laws and morals”; “Granted, I believe ‘rights’ are a concept unique to the human species”.

Tamura Reiko’s “Can’t it be said that, in a certain sense, humans and livestock coexist? From a pig’s perspective, humans are merely monsters who feed upon them. See, it is the human species who are making grandiose statements like, ‘all life on earth must coexist” is only one of her more striking deliveries. Even then, it is her transformation into a mother that is notable: she neither flees nor attacks when they come for her, instead electing to safeguard her son. Tamura Reiko attempted assimilation and perhaps, without interference, would have come to do so successfully. Her “thank you” and interaction with Izumi is far more revealing of human egotism than anything of Izumi isolated. Migi and Reiko allow for the narrative to be more than (developmentally appropriate) a teenage sense of omnipotence fueled action scenes.

Intolerable: Satomi Murano. Her primary dialogue is that “Are you Izumi Shiniichi-kun?” with no processing of his answer. His personality alters radically after the death of his mother and the attack on his father, yet she asks “Who can change like that without trying at all?”. Though she is still quite young, it is hard to believe that she is unaware of how death and loss can affect and alter individuals. When the official task force comes to request Izumi’s assistance, she snaps “Why is it always him?” as though there are plenty of other options available to the task force. Kana is far more fundamental and drives Izumi to realize the consequences of his naïve approach towards a collective good.

All the adults are idiotic in this show. There is little worldwide communication about the presence of parasites, slow formation of a task force despite enough surveillance and parasite unfamiliarity with Earth, and incredibly arrogant task force member behavior in the mayor candidate’s meeting. Unthinkable unprofessional behavior and lack of foresight on all adult ends. Perhaps that reflects the ordinary person’s point of view of the unknown: that even the finest human institutions are woefully unprepared. Still, had they been appropriately competent, Izumi may not have been both first defense and offense.

However, I did enjoy viewing the anime. Izumi is remarkably developmentally appropriate; a 17-year old acting like a 17-year old is unusual in anime, where 12-year old children supervise military troops and fight on the front lines. Moreover, Migi is an absolute joy to listen to, the seiyuu is wonderfully adept at switching between slight bafflement and curiosity to a calculative flat tone in times of danger. Daichi Miura’s “It’s the Right Time” is a brilliant EP!

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Mushishi was produced by Studio Artland, which did Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Yang Wen Li is a favorite). "When it's quiet around you, you can hear your own heart beating. But the sounds lose their distinction when there is too much around you. And in the extreme - Could that be the same as sound disappearing? (Episode 2).” Ginko, the mushi-shi (literally the insect master), wanders through Edo-Meiji time in an overcoat, pants, and smoking something that resembles a cigarette (reminiscent of the 1940s/50s), with white hair and only one unnaturally jade eye from his encounter with ... the Ginko and Tokoyami mushi.

Ginko’s encounters with mushi (the fundamental sentient elements of life which are insect-like in only their appearance), visible only to a select few, and his attempts at assisting in restoring balance between human-mushi life, occur in a fascinating manner. Mushi (of which my favorites so far are the Ginko, Kouki, Uroana, and Kuchinawa), their primordial nature, and the influence they exert on human life are depicted in relation to the sundering of individuals from a human life and timeline (if returned, they return ‘hollow’). In Mushishi, encounters with mushi, arising from Kouki (the river of life), leads to various levels of deterioration or death (Cooley, 2019). Bruno Latour’s actancy, wherein the world is viewed as a nebulous interconnected collective, is Cooley’s (2019) posited reading: the events in Mushishi are merely ‘procedural consequences of the interconnections and interactions of its various agents’, forcing the viewer to go beyond a subject-object divide and attribute the capacity of action to a whole host of new agents. It is perhaps within this new framework that the human-mushi relations of Mushishi begin to make sense.
 
“Between dreams and reality is the vault of your soul”: Mushishi’s stylistics and narrative are reminiscent of dreams, fantastical, oddly harmonious, continuous, and revelatory. The mushis’ sphere of life is not divorced from the human one; they evoke, like director Nagahama intended, “the sensation of ‘lights that are not visible and sounds that are not audible’” (Jackson, 2010). This is reminiscent of the disappearing of the sounds of the mushi world, like that of the first quote in this reflection. The “lights that are not visible”. In Episode 10, Ginko sits in the valley below the mountain, observing the Kuchinawa snake-Master coiled atop the peak. The tones are cool, not warm, but the softness, transitions, and watercolor-esque qualities of the tones, interspersed with bright and dull whites, remind me of Kurosawa’s ‘Dreams’ with its lyrical quality and folklore undertones. This dream-like quality of textures, shades, and color in Mushishi reflects the idea of a disappearing of the lights: amidst the prevalent cool-colors, it is only the mushi that stand out in bright, often soft neon shades. The ecological relationship between human-mushi, represented in color or lights, follows very much a similar pattern to that of the disappearance of the sound. Stylistically, the minimalist artist approach (static frames with little movement which are more often than not mushi movement, the smooth transition between static frames in a shot, and the use of cool colors with the interspersed brightness of the mushi) is a brilliant manner of illustrating how the static components are related to the disappearing of the mushi.
 
Despite the astounding stylistic quality, the narrative, crucially, is not overshadowed. Very much like the commoners who can no longer hear the sound that has disappeared, and are privileged occasionally to encounter a mushi, the viewers experience both a narrative and visual revelation when Ginko finally pieces things together. This revelatory process is related to the mushi at first, but is quite complex when Ginko begins to parse the event, the fascinating bit: the earlier quote is about a mushi that sits in your ears and consumes all sound. Fairly complex reflection about a mushi that resembles a cochlea. Moreover, only this sort of revelation, regarding the nature of the mushi and the episode’s event, produces a resolution. In the first season, the mushi are mostly encountered in isolation. Moreover, Ginko’s revelations never posit the mushi as a peripheral component of human existence. Like some Japanese animistic beliefs and mythology, Mushishi takes a non-anthropocentric view: that humans and nonhumans (organic or nonorganic) are equal (Bryce & Davis, 2015).
 
Some favorite bits: "A swamp is born in time and stagnates. At the death of the world in which it creates, it carries its own legs and begins to move (Episode 3).” "Every species has its own longevity, but it’s said that they all live for roughly the same number of heartbeats. Which means time is more dense for some than it is for others (Episode 6)." Such reflections within Mushishi are great fodder for considering what it means to maintain an ecological system where one half is beyond the reach of the other half, while it is not so the other way around. Why is it that the sounds of mushi are drowned out, how important are the things that are not seen, what is the value of someone who can truly see, when nearly everyone can no longer see the mushi, and why is that those who encounter mushi return to ordinary human life somewhat hollow? “For it is said that many have lost sight by watching it for too long (Episode 1)”. For Ginko, it is enough that he can see the mushi and how human life continues around it. In the case of mushi encounters, the resulting deterioration and decay are a significant aspect of ecological balance: Ginko’s choices and actions, that of interference and non-interference, in the maintenance of this precarious ecological balance, are a great way of locating answers to the listed questions.

"Kotowari" is a beautiful soundtrack!

Sanrio Danshi (Mai Ando, 2016). Sanrio sponsored anime Sanrio Danshi is a brief slice of life anime detailing the friendship of five high school boys, while also acting as advertising and public relations for Sanrio's products, which range from Hello Kitty-Cinnamoroll to Pomupomupurin. Hasegawa Kouta's (the young, dramatically naïve type) relationship with his late grandmother and Pomupomupurin acts as the underlying narrative thread from which sprout the varying considerations of friendship.

Stylistically, it appears as good as any other high school slice of life though the face animations suffer slightly in more complex angles and the background is, as with smaller animations, lacking detail. The diegesis ... of Sanrio Danshi is intentionally small; there is little to explore outside the school, camp, Sanrio Puroland, and the homes of the characters. Despite its dubious origins, Sanrio Danshi is a light hearted, and greatly unrealistic, anime about the possibility of those with uncommon interests finding a collective that fulfills a desire for relatedness.

Hasegawa Kouta is an ordinary high school fellow, but the rest of the Sanrio boys are not: Seiichiro is both archery club and student council president, Mizuno Yuu is the stock popular figure, Shunsuke is the soccer team's star player, and Nishimiya Ryo is the stock androgynous near-loli figure. There's more than enough fanservice in this anime: it'll sell well. However, it is this particular aspect (the unlikely nature of the new friendship of the slightly stock-natured characters) and the unnaturally rapid road to a ridiculously strong bond that makes it more than a little unrealistic. Nevertheless, I found Shunsuke enjoyable to watch: the oddity of his prudent nature often made it near-impossible to suspend disbelief regarding his love for Kitty-san. It is the exercise of willfully suspending disbelief and forcefully assimilating dissonant factors that makes anime like this enjoyable.