• Yay, a girl chasing a cat for no reason at all. Way to start an episode. Does she go to school or need to do some other important stuff? It doesn’t matter, the cat is fluffy and the girl is fluffy. Moe Banzai!
• Oh my god, the director tries to enrage me, doesn’t he? After hitting her childhood-friend (?) with a baseball so badly that he bleeds, the typically energetic girl doesn’t even think about apologizing
• So where is this going? There seems to be some kind of dark past, but the ongoing stuff feels so badly generic that I could fall asleep.
• Seriously? The characters are 14 years old but somehow talk as if they’re way older and wiser.
• Okay, the main girl needs to be put into custody. After hitting his friend (childhood friends they currently are) inadvertedly at the be beginning she now hits him with a baseball on purpose and then starts to spew some nonsense a girl in her age would never say
• Well, the backstory is messed up but interesting. Why didn’t the episode start with this?
• But…that damn constant voice over. I could deduct the gist of the backstory myself without the MC retelling me what I was already watching. Geez, shut up for once, okay?
• Wait a minute: There’s some truly dark albeit slightly melodramatic backstory in here thanks to the physically and mentally abusive mother. So why does this anime feel like some stupid, shoujou-esque harem-comedy most of the time? The comedy moments are beyond bad when you take the dark stuff into consideration. It simply doesn’t combine well. At least the anime Kotoura-san knew how to punch the viewers with a dramatic opening fitting the dark elements of the plot. This anime doesn’t care at all
• Okay, I’m out. After some spats and some fairy-tale like sequence of the cat-loving girl playing some music (accompanied by much much pink and much much sakura petals) my bullshit meter went completely ballistic

The post Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso 01 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

Judging by the various reactions in the anime community it seems that nowadays cute girls kissing is enough to be called solid and fulfilling entertainment. If this were a live action series we’d be calling that borderline softporn with a stupid plot. But hey, it’s anime, so we don’t need to have good storytelling standards, right? Well, imagine any well known US TV series like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad or Mad Men having a plot like Sakura Trick does. Did you shudder at the mere though? Well, I did.

Now, before some argue that you don’t have to have Shakespearean plot quality in everything then I completely agree with you. Sometimes you need (funnily) stupid series to lighten the day. The big problem I currently see in the anime world is that less and less series aim high, aim to create something that lasts. Instead we get more and more substance-less fast food fanservice series which are faster forgotten than produced. These series are filled to the brink with cute girls being cute, shy girls being cute, incest, more incest, and then some incest, cute sisters, cute childhood friends, cute children being cute, harems in uncountable numbers, big tits next to bigger tits, massive tits, panties, panties being shoved in the male loser’s face, the “camera” being shoved into the crotches and cleavages of the cute and/or clumsy girls  etc. etc. etc.

If this trend continues I have no hope for the anime industry…No, let me rephrase that: If this trend continues I will pray for the day the anime industry will crash and burn. Perhaps then we might get again a large enough percentage of series having some actual substance.

P.S. I did not watch the second episode of Sakura Trick, I only read some other reviews to get the gist of it.

The post Sakura Trick 02 and the Anime Industry in General first appeared on anislice anime blog.

Sakura Trick 01 is exactly that kind of episode and series I have come to hate in recent months. There is nothing which you could call quality entertainment. It’s not. There is nothing. Nada. It’s vaporware about some girls kissing every now and then. Oh yeah, and there are enough flying bubbles and sakura petals flying in the background to fill a stadium. That’s it. It aims for a small core audience with no brain and too much free time. The worst part is the other side of the anime industry because there we have the anime fandom which is totally in love with it. Because of yuri. Guys, what happened?

The animation quality is the worst I have seen in a long time. Seriously, in the first minutes alone we have almost no movement of the characters at all. Instead we get not one but two full body pans. In the very first.two.minutes. The rest of the episode is exactly the same with more static shots, no movements, massive body pans etc. It felt like 2003 again. Dude, how time flies, we are right back at the shitty time where quality doesn’t matter. The background “art” cannot be called that at all. Most of the time it’s 3D rendered environments with no creativity involved at all and the rest is filled with flat backgrounds full of bubbles, clouds and flowers or other shitty drawings.

Thanks to that any sense of flow is totally lost. The cuts felt arbitrary at best or random at worst where I too often got feeling that there is no connection between consecutive shots at all. Here’s a random example from minute 6:50 (if you like you can gladly start you video player and jump there):

Shot 0: The characters talk about linking arms and shit

Shot 1 (6:50): The blond chick looks at someone, not taking part in the conversation at all

Shot 2: A sitting girl says “Yuu-chan, was it?”

Shot 3: Another full body pan with flower background, where the blond girl introduces herself (hey, what about the arm linking conversation?)

Shot 4: Two chicks introduce themselves, too. The abstract background overlay makes it feel as if they’re standing on rooftop

Shot 5: Stars floating around leading to

Shot 6: Another girl enters and mentions that they are in the same class

Shot 7: Another full body pan with yet another introduction

Shot 8: Fancy, stupid intro animation of the girl

Shot 9: Rest of the girls suddenly stand for a cute (?) moeshit animation tidbit.

As you can see, there is no natural flow to it. It’s a series of cute(?) moments that are somehow connected and yet at the same time feel totally disconnected because there is no plot momentum that leads from one sequence or from one shot to the next. At one moment they talk about linking arms between girls and suddenly it’s introduction time with some stupid fancy animation thrown into the mix.

Sheesh…. seriously…. this series is a piece of crap and I advice anyone with self respect to stay far away from it. Everybody else can gladly jump onto the mediocre shitfest of a yuri bandwagon and spam the internets with “Yuri FTW”.

The post Sakura Trick – 01 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

If you did watch Aku no Hana…what did you expect? Did you expect something similar to the manga (at least stylistically)? Well, I’m pretty sure that whatever you expected, Aku no Hana certainly smashed those expectations. It’s a beast like no other we’ve seen in along time. Its visual style and its storytelling follows almost no anime cliches or tropes many of us have come to expect.

Let’s take the visual style and the animation, around which most of the hate is centered. Yes, the visual style doesn’t follow the manga at all. Yes, the animation is rotoscoped. Yes, the animation feels sloppy at times. Yes, the characters are flat shaded. Does this make it bad? Nope. Not because it’s different as some in the forums posted but because it perfectly fits with the plot. Aku no Hana is a dark, deeply twisted tale about two deeply twisted characters so how could you possibly use the usual design style approach used in all the other anime out there, add some blue color filters in post production (see the first half of the first episode of Kotoura-san) and call it day. Yes, the manga uses the usual design style but it’s this design style for which I cannot take the manga seriously. Heck, there’s not even an attempt to disturb the drawings or the character designs although the author had all the freedom in the world to do so.

The anime does what the manga should have done: Fit the visuals to the content. And it did it – in my eyes – in an exceptional and completely fitting way. You see, the animation, above all else, is in the deep end of the uncanny valley. Compared to almost all anime out there, the characters almost look like real people. The same goes for their movements. Both of course are a result of real people being filmed and then being rotoscoped in 2D animation. But by being that close to reality everything ends up…well…uncanny. The animation increases this unnerving feeling even further by giving it a sloppy look where very often the lines would jump and move around.

In a way the soundtrack follows this as well. The opening sounds like a bad, generic JPop shit, while the ending is completely disjointed and tuneless. In a way, the ending is the audio counterpart of the animation. Uncanny, unnerving. Again, this perfectly fits to the unfolding plot.

Of course, there’s the plot of the first episode itself. Many have argued that the pacing is the shits. Well, in a way, they’re right, but at the same time they’re wrong again. You see, the plot of the first episode had only one goal: It had to show us the mundane and boring life of everybody. Nobody is special. There’s nothing special happening. There’s no deep dialogue. Heck, there’s only unimportant small talk for the most time. The daily scenery doesn’t change at all. It’s all the same shit day in and day out (many backgrounds are reused to increase this exact feeling). We are shown the parts which normally are cut out in other anime or movies. We’re shown the boring parts. The ironic thing is that there’s only boring parts. That, of course, is a jarring difference to the usual beginning of many anime where we’re simply told by the protagonist (in the usual voice over) that he’s utterly average, only to meet a hot chick two minutes later, which marks the beginning of a silly or an epic quest of whatever.

For example, it’s thanks to this bleak and boring feeling that I was utterly surprised and shocked when Nakamura said “Shut up, you piece of shit” to her teacher. The same goes for his reaction which is so nothing one would expect in the usual generic anime. It’s the first glimpse of the twisted tale that’s to follow. And it wouldn’t have that kind of heavy impact if this would have happened in a different “world”.

So whats your take on this whole controversy thing? Did you like Aku no Hana like me or did you hate it like most of the fandom right now? Let us know and comment below.

Oh and by the way: Even if Aku no Hana might not be your type of series I hope we can agree that it’s at least way better than some generic crapfest like Date a Live where the usual genki girl (of course sporting a twin tail with cute ribbons) wakes up her boring and generic brother with her genki voice and genki antics, while not forgetting to flash her panties several times (Fanservice!!!! FAPFAPFAP). To me, it’s utterly uncanny how a fandom finds something like that more worthwhile to watch than Aku no Hana (judging by the average rating of 7.4 vs. 5.1 on MAL as I write this).

The post Aku no Hana – 01 (A Tale about a Controversy) first appeared on anislice anime blog.

For the love of God, it’s only three episodes in and I can’t stand that Survival Strategy Crap anymore. As last week the strategy meeting starts out of blue, heck, this week we didn’t even see the signature scream face of Himari before entering the minute long filler animation. I skipped two minutes, knowing full well that I won’t miss anything. Sheesh…

This segment has become so repetitive that I was starting to cheer in my seat when the script finally diverged a little bit from the usual. Not only do we learn that Himari can now drink milk (*clap, clap*) but also that Himari still is a walking zombie with a hat (*boo*).

You know, the thing that really irritates me is that without all that filler we would have gotten the same expositional information in three minutes in the first episode. Yeah, it probably wouldn’t have been that campy and over the top (three people sitting on a table talking) but it would have been effective. I guess, when this series is over we will probably have come so far that we know the name of the hat.

Other than that the series virtually made no progress. Because, well, we still don’t know what’s going on and why. Nobody knows anything despite the princess I guess. Perhaps she even knows something about the Pengiumdrum. But nobody dares to ask WHAT IT IS. It’s really amazing when you think about it: you have two guys braking into a house…and they don’t even know what they’re looking for.

And boy, another episode that heavily deals with food and eating and I will cause an uproar! What’s up with this season and food? Sure, there is some heavy and over the top symbolism going on but I cannot see food anymore after Ikaku and Blood-C.

Other than that the episode offers us some insights into the character of Ringo and how she became what she is. Well, I have to admit that I knew where this episode was heading to when the early flashback/dream revealed a perfect family setting. If something like that shows up in a series or movie it’s bound to be broken. So to see the actual stuff unfold before my eyes was not that surprising or shocking. This also applies to the revelation of sensei’s girlfriend. When Ringos delusion got too crazy I knew that a big female shock would be awaiting her. And I was spot on.

All in all I don’t fully understand the high praise this episode gets. Sure, it was funny (mostly thanks to the penguins) and it has its fair share of craziness with some added character development, but I sure missed something that has substance, somthing that would answer at least two or three questions out of the hundreds I have. At the moment this pretty much sums up the whole series.

By the way: weren’t you also creeped out by Himari when she said that Ringo is a friend she loves? I for sure was, despite the fact that she tried to cheer her up because at that point she knows her for, what, two hours maybe?

The post Mawaru Penguindrum – 03 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

Well, it’s about time. We, the viewers, finally got trolled by Nichijou.

It took only 18 episodes but I have to admit that Nichijou did it pretty well. If you’re wondering, I’m talking about the segment about the girl who travels to the library. I had many things in my mind but the punch at the end hit me (and her I guess) out of the blue. That was really well done and I think I had the same dumbfounded expression as Yuuko. That was viewer trolling on a high level but why am I praising them? Kyoani knows that business very well after Endless Eight a.k.a The Trolling Horror.

Other than that I wouldn’t call this week a highlight as the recent weeks. Nichijou “finally” went back to its random segments without any connection whatsoever. Some jokes were niche and others weren’t. Besides the Starbucks incident where Yuuko’s plan totally backfired on her, I liked her Trip of Embarrassment and how tsundere’s sister is on the verge of dying from holding her laughter.

Oh yeah, the explosive tsundere with her trigger happy finger who we haven’t seen for a while. Okay, her being tsundere around Sasahara (why do I know him? Is it the goat?) was okay but her being tsundere in front of her sister was really cute somehow. And boy, how her sister trolled her by forcing her into a corner was nasty but funny. I’d never have guessed you can call the universe as an excuse but, well, it’s cute when it’s not accompanied by lethal weapons.

Although it was not a laugh out loud moment I cheered for the animation team to finally troll Mio. At least I hope she felt trolled but perhaps she was snickering in her helmet for again trolling Yukko. Who knows.

The segment about biscuit boy #2 was anything but funny in the end because here we see a rather harsh personality trait of Hakase which is forgetting her inventions even if they are A.I.s  Also her reason for creating him was anything but noble so her character got a nice dose of childish darkness.

The final segment about princess Leia Starla and her legion of doom fun had some nice short moments but overall felt a little bit too dragged out. They should’ve cut out half of it and start short before the guard has to snicker (Oh, Monty Python, I so love you for inventing this), because that’s the moment where it really begins to get funny. But I really, really wonder: what’s still left of Mio’s head you can replace after that? I’ve got no clue.

Well, this week of Nichijou was nice to relax but compared to last weeks and their powerful and hilarious moments nothing special.

The post Nichijou – 18 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

The best way to describe No.6 is inconsistent and not thought out. Let’s start with the bigger stuff I didn’t like.

First of all, the plot takes a break of the mysteries surrounding the gated city to give us an introduction to the outside world and further develop the characters. This by itself is no problem at all but for my taste the main drive of this series – the gated city No.6 – was too underdeveloped this time, it was too subtle and too much in the background. This episode delivered some additional information and hints but they were far from being connected and didn’t do anything to increase my interest to learn the truth. I also believe to remember that Nezumi wanted to reveal the truth behind the city last week. This week was basically the same. Nezumi never seemed to want to give any explanation whatsoever and this time again only said he will sometime in the future tell Shion everything.

As far as I connected everything No. 6 seems to hint that the whole mystery surrounding the city is far more personal than we expected at first. Shion’s mom seems to be connected to some important people called Organization X and because of that she must know something or at least be suspicious of something.

But there’s one thing I didn’t get though, and this is where all the little inconsistencies start to kick in. It’s revealed that the uber-pimp of this week once was a journalist, trying to dig out some suspicious information regarding the city. Does that mean he was once a journalist from the gated city? If yes, how could he start to dig without being taken out immediately and how was he able to get that close to a seemingly important organization? The city itself also doesn’t have to have that much of a security here as seemingly people can get in and out as they want.

And then are inconsistencies in the outside world. Firstly, who would build a city, where the industry is located right next to a wall, meaning that the pollution can only flow into the city? I’m also not quite sure whether or not this is a post-apocalyptic world. Sure, it’s run down but other than that the people seem to have almost everything needed. Like cars, or guns. Or electricity which is proved during the night shots of the city. That again makes me wonder why so many people don’t have electricity. The industry in the background also hints at least to some production and technological abilities which make me wonder why they won’t try to improve their own situation. Other than that there’s the prostitute who’s the most dazzling inconsistency this week. When you closely examine her, you’ll notice that she wears quite fancy clothes. Where did she get them and from whom? And who produced that stuff?

Overall, this week lacked the same kind of development as the second episode where the plot was  lightning fast. As I wrote last week I gave this series another chance to redeem itself. This week indeed was an improvement but didn’t really reach any level I’d call redeeming. So despite some meta level ideas the episode seems to juggle with (check out Moe Sucks for a detailed analysis) I won’t continue to blog No. 6. The excitement is gone.

No. 6: Dropped.

The post No. 6 – 04 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

You know, I was in inch away of droppping Mawaru Penguindrum for good in the first few minutes.

The beginning with Ringo in the toilet was interesting and even funny (where the heck did the sparkly stars come from?) at first so I got my hopes a little bit higher compared to last time. But then the erratic shit happened again when the hat starts to scream its catchphrase out of nowhere. This leads to the complete, ass long transformation sequence and then the same shit happens all over again, even the same animation is recycled from the first episode. Heck, they even reused her cloth transformations which in other words means that it’s nothing else than a stupid gimmick. Or the fact that the other brother gets tossed down the fantasy toilet again. What amazes me about this sequence is that in all that animation and colors the princess doesn’t seem to care to shed some light on what the fuck is going on.

It’s amazing when you think about it: that Survivial Strategy Thing starts roughly at 3:10 and finishes at 5:20, which is more than two minutes. And the whole purpose of that ass long scene is one simple order to trail a certain high school girl. Man, we could’ve saved a lot of time if the alien hat would’ve used pen and paper.

Thankfully the episode gets a lot better after this. Not only does this episode finally  have something we can call a consistent plotline but I can also say that it was a heck a lot of fun to watch those two brothers trail the girl with the help of their idiotic pantsu penguins. And boy, Ringo is one heck of a nutcase. Her constantly changing impression from a generic schoolgirl to a somehow “eccentric” girl to a crazy stalker girl was…well…I wouldn’t say genius but really intriguing and funny, especially with the penguins hanging around her and being stalked by two idiots.

Thankfully we also got some hints what the heck might be going on. Of course, I’m talking about her diary that seems to contain entries from the future and immediately reminded me of the manga Mirai Nikki (which I can wholeheartedly recommend by the way). Even if the diary does not predict the future its design and content are strange enough to raise an eyebrow (and the fact that it’s part of the opening), so I guess this is our main clue at the moment.

Besides the Penguindrum question we now also have the question whether Ringo might turn into the main antagonist of Mawaru Penguindrum or whether she’ll be an addition to the main cast. I seriously hope for the latter since this would shake up everything pretty well and add some seriously funny moments and character interactions.

As you might have guessed from the post above I’ll continue to watch and blog Mawaru Penguindrum for now. This series could become really awesome and the fact that over the course of a single episode my opinion changed from “I’ll drop this shit” to “Well, that was good” is a strong indicator for that.

The post Mawaru Penguindrum – 02 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

Man, I really should stop to judge a book by its cover and an episode by its first minutes. During the first half I feared that Natsume Yuujin-chou might slip a little with its exceptional quality because the story little bit chaotic especially when Natsume suddenly walks over the bridge with the Arakashi in the middle.

Thankfully my fears were absolutely wrong because the second half way more than enough makes up for that and also connects everything that happened in the first half in a splendid way.

It’s still amazing how many touching stories Natsume can squeeze out of the Arakashi of the week formula. This week deals with Kanawa, a rusted, monstrous looking Arakashi who is trapped in our world after he and his sister mistakenly went through a portal.

What I found especially touching this time is how we found out the way Reiko (yeah, she’s back) fights all the Ayakashi. It’s nothing fancy or dangerous but a short game of Janken. As far as I remember there was a hint to that in the very first episode in the first season but this time it’s been made clear that Reiko doesn’t rely on violence at all. And my guess is that she (almost) never has to because Reiko and many Ayakashi are lonely existences, desperately seeking connections, even if it’s in a master-servant relationship. Kanawa is another one of those lonely existences, trapped in a world he doesn’t belong to and with no one near he could talk to after his sister died.

One thing I’m wondering about, though, is how Natsume could ever have the impression that Reiko hates Ayakashi. You just have to look at the flashback to see that this is not the case at all. When Kanawa talks to Reiko you can see that there’s no hate in her eyes. More importantly she adds his name to her book after she listened to his story and found out that he gave up and only wants to die somewhere. And after the “initiation” is complete she gives him the “order” to inform her when he found the way back to his village. Those aren’t the actions of a girl who hates Ayakashi but of a girl who was really concerned about them and their fates.

The same can be said about Natsume, so in that regard he’s really close to her. But at the same time we also see more and more how he grows distant to Reiko because Natsume found friends and relationships. I loved how this was further established by showing him and Tanuka sharing a friendly gesture and how Tanuka was really concerned about Natsume.

As usual there’s not much action or big drama involved but this makes this series so much better. This week was no exception to that. Can’t wait for the next episode which seems to be a favorite among the manga readers. So it must be of amazing quality.

The post Natsume Yuujin-chou San – 02 first appeared on anislice anime blog.

I couldn’t help but take a screenshot of this shot when Daikichi and Rin left for Tokyo again. The big hearted smile of the grandparents is just heartwarming to look at. I don’t know exactly why but I especially love the expression of Daikichi’s dad. It’s a little bit like “Dawww, finally our family got bigger and cuter.”

And I can’t disagree with him. It was really nice to see how the family slowly warmed up to Rin and how Rin warmed up to the family. So when she asked if she could come back again it was like a big step towards the future has been finally made and the ice has been finally broken. This also shows in the moment when Daikichi’s mom tells his sister that she should become a mother. Yep, you can’t beat the cuteness of Rin or her genius statement that Daikich’s mom is too young to be called grandmother. I think that was the exact tipping point to the better.

Nevertheless not everything’s fluffy and sparkly. Although Rin has become more and more relaxed she’s of course still not over her father’s death. Her fear that she or Daikichi might die felt natural and it showed that Rin really has grown very close to Daikichi in a very short time. The old bachelor played his parent role almost perfectly in how she told her that she has to fear nothing (anymore). He’s been a really good parent up to now, that much is sure.

On the bigger scale everything’s not that heartwarming either and it was a nice change to see some subtle political statement added to the mix. Being a parent can be really hard and it seems that being a parent/mother in Japan can be especially hard. As far as I know Japan has quite a strict view on everyone’s position in society which is that everybody has to work their asses off for the greater good. But at the same time a mother has to be a good mother and stay by her baby for a while which means she’s a housewife. Yet after that time it’s almost impossible to get back into your usual job or what you usual did. In other words, as a mother, you lose your position in society a little bit and even worse a little bit of your raison d’être. This has to be a devastating feeling for many and how they have to make big sacrifices. Usagi Drop added this political statement really well because it’s always told from the perspective from the parents and they don’t start some big speeches about that issue. Daikichi has to make a decision about his future in the company. And since last week established the stress of bringing Rin to the daycare, neither the thinking process nor the fact that Daikichi has to give up something feels out of place. From the various dialogues it also became clear that Daikichi is a really important asset for the company and his colleagues so this adds weight to the whole matter.

The post Usagi Drop – 03 first appeared on anislice anime blog.