Winter ’14 anime reviews part 2: Nagi no Asukara, Wizard Barristers, Tonari no Seki-kun (plus Space Brothers)

And here’s the last batch of anime reviews for the winter season. Time to start thinking about spring!…

Nagi no Asukara

Nagi no Asukara has been one of those anime that grew on me more and more as the episodes went by. I liked it well enough from the beginning, but by the middle to late episodes, especially after the time skip, I was totally invested. Anyone who’s seen it will probably agree that it’s main driving point is its characters. Even though it does have a larger scale plot, that really just becomes apparent in the second half. Pretty much every moment of conflict, drama, humor, and suspense in the show has to do with the feelings of the characters and their relationships with each other. And I’m happy to say that NagiAsu has a cast of fantastic characters. Honestly, I found all of them memorable, sympathetic, and interesting, not just the main characters like Hikari, Manaka, and Chisaki, but even the supporting ones like Akari and Sayu. Even characters who don’t seem like they’re that important to the story in the beginning, like Miuna did at first, surprised me by becoming just as engaging a character as the others. By the end of the series, I understood all of the characters’ feelings, their fears, their hopes, their motivations, how they feel about all the other characters…that’s a sign of a well written cast in my opinion. We not only get to see all sides of the characters’ feelings, but there’s solid growth for them over the course of the series. The way characters like Miuna and Chisaki matured after the time skip was really believable in terms of their feelings and struggles. Heck, even Akira was believable and interesting as far as little kid characters go. By the end of the show, all the characters have grown up, changed for the better, realized things about themselves and the others…Marow over on Anime Viking wrote a whole post just about Hikari’s character development. I’m really glad the show was two-cour as building up such solid characters wouldn’t have been possible with just 12-13 episodes.

Having such a stellar cast of characters is the main reason NagiAsu is great, but what makes it even better is the gorgeous animation P.A. Works gave it. Practically every scene is a work of art to me in terms of those soft, lovely colors, very detailed backgrounds, beautiful imagery of either the sea or the small sea-side village, and artsy camera angles that utilize the great animation. You can look at the show and tell that the creators really cared about and put effort into every scene, and when I can tell that they care so much about their animation and their characters, that makes me care even more.

I suppose that the only weak(er) part of NagiAsu is the underlying plot that doesn’t really play a role until the second half. The first half of the series is just character-driven, letting us get to know each of them and dealing with their problems, like Hikari being jealous of Tsumugu and Akari’s forbidden love affair. Even when the main plot with the Sea God, the Ojoshi, and the surface freezing over takes off in the second half, the focus is still mostly on the characters, how they’re dealing with these new developments, and how they’ve grown in terms of emotions and goals after the time skip. The only reason I say the whole Sea God/Ojoshi plot was the weaker part of the show was that I found it kind of confusing and vague in terms of what the Sea God really wanted, why the Ojoshi was necessary, why he wanted to freeze everything, and then why he would suddenly stop. This could just be me though and maybe if I watched the series again I’d understand the plot better. But as it stands I still understood it well enough. Another thing and something that people tend to complain about Mari Okada’s works, is that she often goes overboard with melodrama, i.e., there’s too many scenes of characters’ exaggerated crying and the angst goes so overboard that it becomes cheesy. But honestly, considering all the dramatic scenes NagiAsu has, I felt that way about very few of them. Some were indeed a little schmaltzy, but I really didn’t feel the angst in the show was as heavy as her other works, like AnoHana and even Toradora!. I’d rather the series stick with its dramatic tone, even if the drama gets overdone sometimes, rather shatter the mood with pointless comedy at random intervals, which thankfully NagiAsu didn’t do.

So yes, I think NagiAsu is a great series with a cast of well written, complex characters and gorgeous art. While it has a few flaws, they’re minor, and although it doesn’t have much to offer in terms of plot, it doesn’t need to rely on that because the conflicts and relationships between the characters are strong enough to make the whole show work. It’s a truly good anime and I’m glad I didn’t pass it by!

Wizard Barristers

I was quite enthused with Wizard Barristers after watching the first few episodes. While it doesn’t have the most original setting – normal humans and magic users (“wizards” or “wuds” in this case) trying to live together isn’t exactly a new setup – the main premise of wizard barristers who defend the magic users in court is an interesting idea. On top of that premise, the series had a lot of other subplots going on in between; Cecil trying to get a retrial for her mom, Shizumu’s secret agenda, Cecil’s hidden powers, and of course, throughout the episodes we get hints of something more sinister going on behind the scenes with Makusu’s underground cult, before it finally comes to light in the last couple of episodes. Despite having quite a bit going on for just 12 episodes, the series even managed to have a few episodes dedicated to developing (some) of the side characters who work with Cecil at Butterfly, such as Mitsuhisa, Kamakiri, and Hotaru. While of course not all of the characters got enough development, and even the ones that did aren’t exactly the most memorable or original, for the kind of story it has, I thought the characters, main and supporting, were handled okay. And as for the main and sub plots of the series, again, nothing great but they kept me somewhat invested. Another thing I liked about the show is that they didn’t try to insert too much pointless comedy. Besides relatively few scenes of Nanajiinyi, and occasionally Sasori, being perverted towards Cecil, the series was pleasantly consistent with its dramatic tone.

But even though I personally liked Wizard Barristers more than not, I can certainly see its flaws. As I said, I was really excited about it for the first few episodes before it got increasingly less exciting to me as the episodes went by. I still liked watching it but I just didn’t look forward to each new episode like I had before. First off, our main character Cecil just isn’t that fun to watch…well, her backstory is kind of interesting in terms of what happened to her six years ago, but I’ve seen her personality in so many other anime female leads that I just ended up finding her dull (if you’ve watched enough anime, you know what I mean). I found the side characters more engaging in terms of personality, and while I did enjoy some of the episodes that focused on them, the one with Kamakiri being among my favorites, the show obviously couldn’t spend much time with them in favor of moving the plot along. Having an episode featuring all the familiars would have been cute – the only one we see a lot is Nanajiinyi and when all the others just kind of appeared I wanted to know which one belonged to which wizard barrister and what their personalities were like. Oh well. And as far as the whole big conflict in the end turned out with Cecil finding out the truth about her past and Makusu trying to put his evil plan into motion, eh, I thought it was kind of rushed, but again, not too bad. Some of the things in the final trial, or really, in a lot of the trials in the series, were over the top and unrealistic in terms of how things go in real courtrooms, but for a fictional story like this, it didn’t bother me much, and the judge having a change of heart in the end and using his testimony to save the day was a decent way to end things.

Wait…so Moyo is Lucifer? Why didn’t they include that plot point more instead of literally ending the series right when Cecil questions her about it? Unless they intend to make a sequel, which doesn’t seem likely as I don’t think the series was much of a hit, it’s a very odd way to end it. Speaking of odd things, while the animation quality for the series was average, for some reason it seemed to really suffer in episode 11. They totally ruined what could have been an emotional, action-packed scene where Shizumu gets killed by literally just showing Makusu shooting, followed by Shizumu already on the ground…there was a serious lack of movement for such a dramatic scene and I think they even repeated the exact same footage of him on the ground soon after. I really have to wonder who choreographed that scene and what the heck they were thinking…unless there was just something wrong with the video file I was using.

I actually feel the same way about Wizard Barristers as I do about Inari Kon Kon – liked them a lot at the beginning, liked them less as the episodes went by, but still more or less enjoyed them and felt they suffered more from loss of potential than being downright bad. Wizard Barristers obviously had problems as I said, but it still entertained me for the most part. Yet another anime that’s not great or terrible, just decent.

Tonari no Seki-kun

The anime with one of the shortest episode lengths this season is actually one of my most favorite of the season! After Nagi no Asukara, I honestly enjoyed Seki-kun more than the other seasonal shows I was watching. It’s such a simple idea but the creators get so clever with it! The types of crazily creative ways Seki-kun comes up with to pass time in class is funny enough, but what really makes the show hilarious is how Yokoi, who at first acts annoyed by them, ends up getting more emotionally involved in them than Seki-kun does! From how she imagines the battle of shogi pieces, to how nervous she gets with the “mountain climbing” bear, to the mini driving school course, to the robot family, gosh, there was just so many smart ideas in the show for such a seemingly boring premise, and Yokoi’s reactions to them were always funny. The only thing I can’t praise the show in is animation, but it doesn’t matter if it’s low-budget since the episodes just take place in a classroom rather than any grand setting, and the character don’t need to move around much either. I highly recommend Seki-kun as a short and simple slice-of-life comedy that can be used as a breather in between dramatic anime you’re watching. All the episodes are consistently funny and clever, which is more than I can say for many other comedy anime.

*Bonus review* Space Brothers

You’re probably wondering, how can I review a 99 episode anime like Space Brothers in just a small section of a post – it should have its own post at least! Well, to be honest, I don’t have that much to say about the series because…it’s one of the best I’ve seen in a long time and there’s practically nothing I can criticize. Usually when an anime ends up being long, like with the long running shonen series like Naruto and Bleach, things are dragged on, plot points are recycled, pointless filler stories pop up, and you can easily discern the really good episodes from the “meh” episodes. Space Brothers didn’t have any of those problems: just about all the episodes were good and contributed to the plot and characters in some way, and there were of course many different story arcs as Mutta when through the trials and tribulations of becoming an astronaut, but again, I didn’t feel like any of them were dragged on or rushed. Everything just fit into place perfectly and created a very well written narrative.

Another advantage of having so many episodes, besides being able to have many different story arcs that build an overall plot, is having ample time to develop a large cast of characters. And again, Space Brothers does an excellent job with this. Not only are the characters more like real people than “anime characters,” as there’s no tsunderes, yanderes, bishonen, moe girls, or token yaoi/yuri, but most of the important ones have at least one starring episode where we learn about their personalities, goals, motives, and/or backstories. The series has a unique way of showing us the background of our two main characters too, Mutta and Hibito. Instead of having an episode or two showing us their whole childhood in chronological order, all throughout the series we see little anecdotes here and there of things that happened when they were kids that led to their actions and feelings as adults.

Yet another thing that Space Brothers does well is keeping its tone consistent. Again, many times in very long anime, there are batches of episodes that are really dark and dramatic, and in between there are filler-ish comedic ones to lighten things up. While this works fine if done well, it can be jarring, but Space Brothers kept its “light but still prone to some drama and emotion” tone consistently. Some episodes were a little lighter, some were more emotional, but the only time it leaned much more one way or the other was during the arc with Hibito’s accident on the moon, where it got incredibly dramatic and almost painful to watch. But I can understand them making that incident so horrifying as it made it easier to sympathize with Hibito’s panic disorder later on.

I guess if I wanted to nitpick, the only thing I can complain about Space Brothers is that the characters aren’t the most good-looking bunch. The designs are unique but also kind of plain and not the attractive anime character designs we’re used to, which I suppose could turn off some people. There’s also some pointless recap episodes, which are easily skip-able, and that “Mr. Hibito” segment at the end of some episodes was weird and not that funny, but again, it’s easily skip-able and has no bearing on the quality of the actual episodes. And I guess the ending of the series was kind of unsatisfying as I would have liked to see at least a scene or two of what Hibito was doing that would put my mind at ease that he would be able to become an astronaut again instead of leaving things hanging like that. Not a bad ending or anything, just would have liked a better feeling of closure.

All in all, Space Brothers is a fantastic anime with a well written, well paced, and very engaging story, with a large cast of likable, interesting characters who don’t fit the tired anime stereotypes we always see. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s well paced, it’s a great learning experience in terms of how one becomes an astronaut…it’s just great.

—–

I did finish one other anime this season that I haven’t yet reviewed – the second season of Silver Spoon. I never reviewed the first season either as I was planning to discuss both in one post once the second season finished, not exactly in review form but in an editorial-type post. That will probably be my next post or the one after next, so stay tuned ;)

For the upcoming spring season, so far my only definite watches are Mushishi and Meikaku City Actors. I’m also interested in No Game No Life and Seikoku no Dragonar as long as they’re not too heavy on the ecchi. I’m open to recommendations so feel free to suggest any of the upcoming shows you think I’d like =)