Belated reviews of spring and summer 2010 anime I watched

I finished watching seven seasonal anime over the past two weeks…more than I’ve done in quite a while actually. Since the fall ’10 season is already upon us, and I’ve only reviewed three of the seven shows so far (Ookami-san, Heroman, and Maid-sama!), I decided to finish things off with mini-reviews of the remaining four shows: Occult Academy, K-ON!!, Rainbow, and Seitokai Yakuindomo…

As usual, my reviews are prone to spoilers, so only read them if you’ve seen these shows or don’t care about being spoiled.

Occult Academy

When I watched the first episode of Occult Academy, I had very high hopes for it. It introduced a unique, unpredictable plot, complete with sci-fi goodies like time travel, psychic powers, and monsters/aliens. With the way the first episode was set up, it looked to me like it was going to be along the same quality as Eden of the East (their first episodes are surprisingly similar actually).

However, as another ten episodes rolled by, nothing was done to advance the plot. Instead, we got filler-ish episodes dealing with different instances of occult-related mysteries that the characters have to solve. They weren’t bad, I just wondered where the plot went. I also wasn’t fond of the two main characters – I found Maya’s violence towards Fumiaki rather unprecedented, and Fumiaki seemed cowardly and slightly full of himself in the early episodes. I didn’t dislike these episodes, I just got turned off by the fact that it didn’t look like the filler feel would end until last minute, and then everything would be forced to rush to a conclusion. Then when episode 12 came along, I didn’t know what to think. For those of you who have seen it, you know what I mean – we have two characters doing complete personality changes, a battle between a white and dark mage, and a flying panther all in one episode…yeah, I wasn’t sure whether these totally WTF twists in the show were a sign of desperation or brilliance. I decided that the final episode would make it or brake it for this show. And luckily, the ending was great in my opinion – it did indeed show that they had planned it out from early episodes and it concluded the main plot that was ignored for most of the series. It wasn’t perfect, but I found myself engaged in the show and actually caring about the characters.

In general, Occult Academy introduces a very interesting premise in the first episode, but don’t expect much progress until the end. As long as you just enjoy the sci-fi mysteries that it offers with a dose of patience, and you have an open mind when the shocks in episode 12 occur, it’s quite a fun show. I would say the unpredictable ending that the show has is worth some of the lesser episodes. It’s one of those series that should be judged as whole.

—–

K-ON!!

Since my opinion of the second season of K-ON!! isn’t too different from my opinion of the first season, I’ll just plug my review of season one here, as well as another post I wrote about the humor and characters in season two specifically.

My only difference in opinion between them is that I feel many of the episode in the second season are actually funnier. I don’t remember laughing as much in K-ON! as I did in the first half of K-ON!!. The later episodes then turned sentimental, foreshadowing the girls’ graduation and the inevitability of Azusa being left behind. As if to make up for the episodes she missed in season one, Azusa got a lot of screentime in season two. And of course there’s episode 20, one of the most memorable episodes in the series, with a concert that rivals the “God Knows…” scene in Haruhi – gorgeously animated, great music, and choreographed in such a way that the viewer feels like they’re right there in the audience listening to the concert and feeling all the vibes. This episode is KyoAni at their best, showing how brilliant they are at portraying “feeling” in their works.

And now we’ve got a K-ON! movie on the way. Since the anime already concluded the story, I assume the movie will either be a side story or a sequel that focuses on Azusa, Ui, and Jun keeping the club going. But it’s KyoAni, so you never know.

—–

Rainbow

Though technically a shonen/seinen anime, Rainbow is quite different from the likes of Naruto and One Piece. Instead of being wish-fulfillment, with the characters having super powers and going on fantastical adventures, Rainbow is set in the real world, Japan in the late 1950s, and its main characters are normal teenage boys. As any quick summary of the show’s plot suggests, the series is incredibly dark, angst-ridden, and often times painful to watch. Sex, drugs, prostitution, torture – all these themes are dealt with very seriously in Rainbow. There’s even a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode in which the creators state that they feel the intense violence and hopelessness in the show is necessarily to portray what was going on in those times. In this sense, the show is very historical, focusing on how horribly condemned youth were treated at the time, and in the second half, the struggle for work that many Japanese went through, as well as relationships with occupying Americans.

Rainbow’s twenty-six episodes can easily be divided into two – the first half deals with the boys during their time in prison, where they’re constantly abused and demoralized, yet they continue to hang onto a ray of hope. The relationship they have with Anchan, especially Mario, is quite typical of a shonen series. However, I never thought he would be killed so soon in the series and that the most detestable character in the show, Ishihara, wouldn’t be killed when the chance came (seriously, I was looking forward to the satisfaction of seeing Ishihara pay for all he did, and how relatively light his eventual demise was angered me). The series could have easily ended when the boys finally got out of prison. Instead, it continues on into their lives afterward…

….which leads to the second half, dealing with how each of the boys is trying to follow their dreams and make a living as best they can after they’ve served their time. This part of the series is much less violent and gloomy than the first, though it still deals with upsetting themes and the occasional abuse and depression. If intense violence is not what you’re looking, the second half is a lot more enjoyable. Each of the remaining six boys gets their own arc, so we see where their life is headed before ending with our main boy, Mario (strangely, Soldier doesn’t get his own starring episode). Rainbow concluded quite nicely with both its arcs, leaving the potential for a second season or not.

If you can stomach the depressing themes and violence, Rainbow is a pretty good show. Madhouse does a nice job with it, getting the pacing and mood right, and putting in only the mildest moments of humor when it’s appropriate. If you want your pound of shonen angst and ethos with a refreshing historical setting, Rainbow’s got it covered.

Oh, and just an FYI, the narrator of Rainbow is Megumi Hayashibara, my favorite j-pop singer and seiyuu =D

—–

Seitokai Yakuindomo

I can review this series in just a few words – every episode features the student council at Ousai Academy making sex-related cracks and gags that you’ll either find amusing or not. That’s pretty much it. It’s basically just like Seitokai no Ichizon except with sex gags instead of otaku ones. But despite revolving around sex jokes and potty humor, there’s relatively little fan service or ecchiness – all the visual aspects of the adult jokes are alluded too, often in funny ways, rather than shown straight out, so someone like me with a distaste for fan service won’t be immediately turned off. So yeah, in each episode, the four student council members, along with a few other forgettable characters, engage in typical school-anime activities such as the culture festival and school trips, all the while dirty jokes abound.

Obviously this show is all about the humor, and whether it succeeds or not will depend on your taste. For me, I found the humor in the early episodes to be quite funny and clever actually, but it started getting lame in the latter half of the series. My one favorite running gag was Suzu’s shortness and how, whenever we see her standing next to another character, only the tip of her head would show because she’s so short, and on-screen text would point to it and say something like “Suzu’s somewhere around here” XD The opening and ending songs are quite catchy too (even though the ending theme seems like it’s from a different show ~_^) But yeah, you can tell just by watching a few minutes of this show whether it’s something you’d like or not.

—–

I should have my first impression review of the fall ’10 anime I decide to watch posted sometime soon. I’ve only picked up three so far – Tegami Bachi Reverse, Ore no Imouto, and Bakuman. I’m thinking about The World God Only Knows. I may pick up one or two more, so I’m currently open to suggestions if you think there’s one I’d like.