Winter ’15 anime reviews part 1: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, Parasyte, Death Parade

Another season of anime is coming to an end, and three out of the five I finished – Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, Parasyte, and Shirobako – were actually leftover two-cours from fall. I only watched two actual winter ’15 anime, Virgin Witch Maria and Death Parade, both of which are only one-cour and end(ed) this season. I knew that cramming them all on one post would be too much, so I decided to break them up by reviewing these three today and the other two next week. So yes, here are my thoughts on Shigatsu Uso, Parasyte, and Death Parade…

Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

If you read my first impressions of Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, a.k.a. Your Lie in April, my opinion upon completing the series hasn’t changed all that much. After watching the first two episodes, I felt that the show has a pleasantly feel-sy atmosphere amid brilliantly beautiful scenes of piano concerts that are nicely coupled with characters’ self-realizations and emotional epiphanies. My only issue was that the comedic moments were too overdone for an otherwise very dramatic show. So now that I’ve watched all 22 episodes, that’s still how I feel about it…with a few more thoughts.

I’m sure most will agree that the concert scenes are the highlights of the show, and I thought that they were all gorgeously animated and choreographed. Whether it was Kousei and Kaori playing, or Takeshi or Emi, the music together with the characters’ inner monologue and pretty symbolic imagery had me engrossed in every one. Shigatsu Uso is indeed a character-driven show revolving around the emotional turmoil, love triangles, and other hardships of life that the characters face, particularly our main character, Kousei. Being this kind of show, liking it or not depends heavily on whether the emotional and dramatic moments (which is, like, 80% of the show) work for you.

Most of the show’s drama had me at least a little invested, but when it didn’t, I could unfortunately feel my emotions being manipulated. For example, Tsubaki’s angst went overboard for me in the latter part of the series, particularly episode 20 when she just plain kicks the poor guy for no reason, her in-denial love for Kousei barely letting up even in the last episode. The relationship between Kaori and Kousei also didn’t grab as much as it should have. While there was a lot of Kousei monologuing all these serious, metaphorical speeches about the affect Kaori had on him, considering the show has 22 episodes, the two of them really didn’t share that many scenes together. I definitely felt something for their relationship by the end, but not as much as the show wanted me to, which could have been avoided if there were more scenes of the two of them having good interactions and conversations instead of the many totally out-of-place comedic scenes of Kaori smacking Kousei around a la cartoon slapsticks. The relationship between Kousei and his mother, while I felt it was the most realistic of all the character relationships in the show, also felt manipulative at times; it seemed like the show wants us to like her and forgive her, but that’s kinda hard to do when we see her physically beat her son so much that he bleeds just because he didn’t perform quite as good as she wanted…not to mention putting so much pressure on him, even taking away his beloved cat, that he ends up having all these hang-ups and emotional baggage when he grows up. But I did get a good sense of how Kousei is torn between resenting his mother while also trying to be the perfect son she wanted him to be, and how his mother may have just been a victim of her illness and wasn’t completely in her right mind most of the time she was raising him. So there’s some depth there at least.

Besides a handful of the emotional parts of Shigatsu Uso feeling a bit contrived, my main issue with it was, again, the comedy. Between the hyperbolic yelling, crazy slapsticks, and sudden shift to crude animation, the comedic scenes completely shattered the mood whenever they appeared, which sadly did end up hurting my overall rating of the show. It’s the kind of humor that relies on the characters emotions being momentarily exaggerated just for the sake of getting a laugh, which doesn’t work in a show that’s supposed to be driven by believable characters who act differently outside the humorous moments. The dramatic affect of Kousei’s mom bloodying his head with her cane is compromised when just a moment ago his head was comically bloodied by Kaori smacking him. So yeah, unfortunately I had to cringe whenever Shigatsu Uso went into “comedy mode,” but luckily those scenes never lasted too long and there were usually only one or two per episode. Other minor issues I had was feeling that Nagi was a pointless character who came in late and didn’t contribute much at all to Kousei’s character or any of the others. And was it really necessary to add insult to injury for Kousei by having the cat he tried to save, that just happened to look identical to the cat his mother got ride of, die at the same time he’s already utterly depressed about Kaori’s condition? And then a similar-looking cat appears before him in the last episode? Again, I appreciate what they’re trying to convey here if they could make it a bit less obvious.

As for the show’s ending, maybe I was naive but I really was not expecting Kaori to die; the final concert with Kousei and Kaori “in spirit” was beautiful, and I thought he’d meet up with her later after her surgery was successful. But after he said “goodbye” and then we see him in a cemetery, I was like, “Holy crap, she died!” But despite that, I still felt it was a decent ending. Like with the ending to Zankyou no Terror, it was a sad, upsetting ending, but it certainly was a possible outcome – she did say the surgery was risky after all – it just wasn’t the happiest outcome. It was for Tsubaki maybe, but rather than appreciate it she still insists on being annoyingly tsundere to Kousei even to the last minute…oh well.

Despite having my share of problems with Shigatsu Uso, overall I did like it more than not. I got accustomed to shutting off my brain during the comedy scenes and losing myself in the show’s tons of angsty, dramatic, and whimsical moments even if they did go overboard at times. But as I said, most of the drama did work for me, and the many amazing concert scenes were definitely worth putting up with a few ineffective scenes.

Parasyte

I already know for sure that Parasyte will be among my top 5 anime of this year. From beginning to end, this show had me sucked into its world and never let go. The storyline of alien creatures posing as humans and a main character who’s pulled between the conflicting sides, isn’t anything terribly new. This premise could have easily lent itself to typical shonen-fare of having a “monster of the week,” with a lot of fiery angst and bloody battles. But while it does have a little of that, Parasyte brings a level of depth to this kind of sci-fi story that’s lacking in many other similar works, in addition to having a cast of believable characters and well-written scenarios. That’s what made Parasyte so great to me: a combination of both understanding the characters’ motives, and seeing this familiar “monsters vs humans” conflict in a new light thanks to questions that the characters, both protagonists and antagonists, bring up about what it means to be human, what it means to be a parasite, and whether each is truly different from the other. And it wasn’t just the main characters that stood out like this…even side characters like Tamura Reiko or villain characters like Gatou, who could have just been one-sided plot devices, had their own chance to reveal their motives and thoughts on the issues at hand, and they were believable. Heck, even the freakin’ serial killer Uragami got a chance to shine in the last episode, revealing exactly why he does what he does, which is rare for a character like this. And I even found myself thinking, “Huh, he kinda has a point.” Any series that gives this kind of respect and attention to all its characters, showing how their goals and opinions contribute to something larger than their function in the story, is definitely doing something right.

Of course, its good writing that makes good characters and a good story, despite having a premise that isn’t all that original. As I said before, Parasyte’s good writing extends beyond its characters to pondering questions about its plot that really do make you think. Are the parasites really that different from humans? Was Shinichi right in killing Gatou when he almost wasn’t going to? Did Migi truly change from an antagonist to a protagonist by the end of the series? The show brought up these and other questions I could write whole posts on, but the point I’m making is that Parasyte made me think, not just about things that happened in the show’s world only, but things that can be attributed to the real world in terms of the human condition and our relationship with other species. Having themes that can relate to reality doesn’t necessarily make a show better if it doesn’t also make sense in the show’s world, but in Parasyte’s case, I felt it did.

As far as the actual episodes go, there really isn’t anything that I had issue with; all the episodes were good in some way and certainly contributed both to moving the plot forward, and focusing on developing the important character relationships, like Shinichi and Migi, Shinichi and his parents, and Shinichi and Satomi. The dramatic tone was always consistent and not broken up with random comedy like so many other anime, the suspense was unpredictable and heart-wrenching at times, and the gore and violence was done just enough to be effective and not overdone to the point where you start to get numb to it. If I had to nitpick a few things in Parasyte that I didn’t like, I never warmed up to Kana; she acted pretty bitchy to Satomi and it’s hard to forgive her for hanging out with a jerk like Mitsuo. So her death and Shinichi’s reaction to it didn’t elicit as much emotion from me as it should have. I also thought the thing with Shinichi staying with the old lady Mitsuyo was a bit weird. If it was just a day I could understand, but who would let a kid they found in the woods stay with them all that time without trying to find out who their parents are, and where they came from, and whether they’re a missing person or not? And the last episode, while still very good, was very predictably set up. There was no reason at all for Shinichi to pursue Uragami other than to leave Satomi alone so the latter could kidnap her. He knows the guy’s a psycho and any sane person would just get away from him as soon as possible. The rest of the episode was great, I just thought there were other ways they could have set it up that weren’t so painfully obvious.

But speaking of the ending, I really thought they were gonna kill off Satomi at that moment, and after just watching the Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso finale before this one, I was like, “No more sad endings where main characters die!” But thankfully they went for a happy ending with Parasyte. Though I’m not sure how I feel about Migi going into an eternal sleep and thinking that Shinichi could somehow handle parasite attacks on his own, at least we got the sense that parasites aren’t a problem anymore and Migi can still possibly help him if need be.

While I had a few minor issues with Parasyte, they weren’t nearly bad enough to ruin everything else that I thought was great about it. I wouldn’t say it’s an absolutely perfect show – nothing is, really – but it’s close to it in my opinion. It has excellent writing and pacing, believable, intriguing characters, suspenseful, gripping scenes of action and drama, and themes that make you ponder. Definitely one of the best anime to come out in recent years.

Death Parade

Death Parade started off as a fairly interesting drama/supernatural series presented in character-of-the-day, episodic stories similar to Cowboy Bebop and Mushishi. But as the episodes got into their latter half, we see that there’s a more sinister, overarching plot going on behind the scenes involving the origin of the arbiters, and with the then-nameless assistant brought into Quindecim. For a while I was getting the impression that there was going to be more in terms of world-building and finding out all the details about who controls the arbiters and what they are. But the finale instead focused on the “heart” of the series, which is Decim finally being able to understand human emotions, Chiyuki coming to grips with her past, and the two of them being able to form a relationship before she receives her judgement. Normally I feel dissatisfied when a show that has a very fictional setting like this one ends without explaining enough of how its world works and who all the side characters are. But I actually felt that Death Parade revealed just enough without going into detail that would then require more explaining and then more explaining. All we really had to know was that arbiters are supposedly emotionless beings that judge people who die, and the main plot of the story is that one such arbiter develops human emotions due to his relationship with a particular human he comes across (Chiyuki), and in the end we’re confronted with the fact that not having emotions or knowing what death is may not be the best attributes for those who judge people. It ends up being a much “smaller” story than the fictional elements and strange setting make it seem it would be, but I think we’re given enough information about the arbiter world to not feel completely hanging at the end.

While I felt mostly satisfied by the end of Death Parade, the show wasn’t without issue of course. I still would have liked to know a little more about that flower-bearded guy and what his story is – I didn’t feel the need to know exactly who made the arbiters and why, but he seemed like some kind of “higher up” in their world, so a bit more about him, and that “information bureau,” would have been nice. But as I said, more explanation about these things wasn’t essential to a feeling of completion at the end. The drama in some of the judgement games got a bit overplayed at times and sometimes the characters’ emotions and motives got a bit too chaotic. I also thought Ginti was kinda pointless; I guess they included him to show us how another arbiter bar works, and by the end we’re supposed to get this sense that the relationship between Mayu and Harada had an affect on him, but he was so unlikable most of the time it was hard to tell, plus I didn’t get why Mayu and Harada we’re allowed to stay at the bar for so long and then why Harada’s soul was taken but not Mayu’s.

Unlike Shigatsu Uso, Death Parade had a (somewhat) happy ending, and I’m glad the show decided to focus on the character-driven conflicts of its two leads rather than building up the world of the arbiters and then ending up not explaining enough. The last two episodes were very well done in terms of showing us Chiyuki’s story; her issue with people not being able to understand one another is a very believable one, and the whole long scene of her skating as she remembers her past was beautifully done. I got a little taken aback in the last episode when Decim gave her the choice of being able to take another person’s life in exchange for her own, thinking “Ok, how is he suddenly able to bring someone back to life? That doesn’t make sense.” But then when I saw it was just something he fabricated, it was fine. Again, I didn’t feel the need to know details, like how he’s able to control things with those puppet strings we keep seeing. It takes place in a world beyond death, so I suppose anything’s possible.

Despite these few problems, like Shigatsu Uso, I still liked Death Parade more than not. It has its share of things I didn’t like or that didn’t make sense, but not too many or too extremely. It had its own little story to tell about what purgatory could be like, and it told it pretty well. Nothing about the series impressed me all that much, but there was nothing that bad in it either. Just overall a good supernatural drama series.

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I plan to post my reviews of Shirobako and Virgin Witch Maria sometime before next week is over. See you then~