Category Archives: Editorials

But I’ll be Peter Pan forever: To Aru Majutsu no Index and I

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Celeste

It’s a common story. A Saturday night, no plans. What do I do? Seek out a new anime to watch, of course.

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Madlax aka What’s wrong with the anime industry

Posted on January 26, 2012 by dengar

Young women with gun skills? Check. Mysterious organization that runs the world? Check. Quasi-religious mysticism? Check. Noir only lasted one season, but if you started watching Madlax and thought it was Noir Season 2 I wouldn’t blame you. Madlax isn’t a complete copy of Noir, it does tread new ground after about 20 episodes or so. And the new material is innovative in its own way. What ultimately holds it back, what has held many other shows back over time, is that it still feels too much like a rehash of what came before, rather than something fresh and entertaining.

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Don’t forget the side characters

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Celeste

In alot of ways, what keeps a longer manga engaging isn’t its main characters, but the side characters. Though our initial emotional investments as readers are in the main characters, the supporting cast and their links with those main characters are what keeps the story fresh.

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Because you need a little violence in your life: Dr. Mohiro Kitoh’s fabulous depression

Posted on January 14, 2012 by bateszi

One thing we may deduce about author Mohiro Kitoh from Bokurano and Narutaru is that he probably had a few bad experiences growing up.

It’s otherwise very difficult to understand why his stories about children are quite so fucked-up. Case in post, Narutaru, of which I just finished watching the anime adaptation.

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Anime Trends 2011: At least no one (of note) went bankrupt

Posted on December 30, 2011 by dengar

All told, 2011 was a stable year in the anime business. No anime company of any worth (so 4Kids doesn’t count) went bankrupt, although over in the manga world TokyoPop bit the bullet. The tsunami and resulting nuclear incident will unfortunately overshadow anything else that happened with anime this year. While there were no dramatic changes in the industry, a number of trends began or picked up steam in 2011. It is these trends, more than any anime production, that will be this year’s industry legacy.

Trend #1: Lawsuits

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Darker than Black is the new black

Posted on December 19, 2011 by dengar

Darker than Black is an enigma. The more I watch it, the less I understand how I feel about it. I wanted to write an article extolling its virtues, for example its deep characters and beautiful art. Then I went back and re-watched season 1 and did a double take, was this the same show I remembered? It was like I was back in the 90s when it was okay for a main character to waste half an episode being introspective instead of advancing the plot. I’d still recommend that people watch it, but be aware that this isn’t the second coming of Cowboy Bebop.

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Dear anime industry, think before you tweet

Posted on November 24, 2011 by dengar

My name is Dengar and I have a problem. My problem has a name, Twitter. Ever since I joined, I’ve been addicted to getting rapid news updates. It’s particularly convenient as a way to track anime news from companies like Funimation, Aniplex and Viz. Most of the tweets from the companies are acceptable, if not exactly groundbreaking. But some (like the one pictured below) are blatantly commercial in a thoughtless way.

How not to tweet

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An anatomy of a gaze

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Celeste

Though I suppose anatomy of a pose might be a better title for this post.

I’m in love with by this image of Himari. Rather, boushi-san, or hat-san, as Shouma calls Himari’s possessed form. This image, seen in Mawaru Penguindrum’s second opening, Shounen yo, Ware ni Kaere, has been captivating me for some weeks now.

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Sorry women, distributors don’t like you

Posted on October 29, 2011 by dengar

I love when the mainstream media tackles anime. Tomorrow’s New York Times’ features a story about the business opportunities in streaming anime. In its discussion of what shows work, the articles drops this great quote: “The small but avid audience is made up of mostly male viewers aged 18 to 34. Distributors said comedies, sports shows and anything aimed at women tend to not work.”

Hetalia apparently doesn't count

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How many lawyers does it take to screw up an anime series?

Posted on October 19, 2011 by dengar

Licensing agreements are usually kept top secret for business reasons. That is, until one company (allegedly) breaches the agreement and then goes bankrupt. At that point the court system takes over and the dirty laundry become public. That is exactly what happened when 4Kids got Yu-Gi-Oh! from TV Tokyo.

The upshot of the fighting is that anime fans get a backstage pass to see what an important license contract says. The language of this contract helps explain why, how, and in what form anime is released outside of Japan. Here I’ll discuss form, namely why 4Kids had the right to butcher Yu-Gi-Oh!. The short answer: TV Tokyo said they could.

This anime fan was forced to watch 4Kids' Yu-Gi-Oh! dub

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Quantum is .hack as it should have been, albeit now too late

Posted on October 11, 2011 by dengar

.hack//SIGN was one of the first anime shown by Cartoon Network and it left a lasting, negative impression on me: an otherwise brilliant show with a plot that went nowhere.  .Hack//Quantum is the latest iteration of the series.  It is .hack//SIGN as it should have been.  It’s not a remake, just a three episode version with a similar story.  It’s not perfect, but if it had come out eight years ago it could have provided a foundation for subsequent stories.  But this late in the game it is underwhelming.

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Streaming is good, streaming is right, streaming works.

Posted on October 4, 2011 by dengar

Digital is the future of video media.  Funimation’s announcement of a new premium streaming service this weekend shows that it recognizes what it needs to do to maximize its profits.  Up until now, Funimation mostly used streaming to advertise its physical disc releases.  I think this announcement reveals the company’s true online strategy, to use streaming as the primary source of Funimation’s profits.

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Feast or Filler? Full Metal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos

Posted on September 28, 2011 by dengar

New anime movies rarely come to southern California (they tend to go instead to Viz’s theater in San Francisco) so I jumped at the chance to see the Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood movie at the Burbank Film Festival.  The movie, titled The Sacred Star of Milos, is the first Full Metal Alchemist movie set in the Brotherhood timeline.  Unlike the original FMA movie, this one is set during, rather than after, the end of the show.  While the producers managed to make a movie with an engaging plot and big budget visuals, they missed the chance to explore new themes.

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This place of dreams and ghosts

Posted on September 25, 2011 by bateszi

It was around this time last year that I started watching Aria. I loved the first series, but stalled at some point during the second (Aria the Animation.) This week, though, I came back to it.

It felt new to me all over again, that sense of peace so typical of how I’ve felt about Aria from the off. It must be a seasonal thing. It’s just an autumn kind of anime. Neo-Venezia is the land of frozen time, a place where one admires the breeze as it passes through fallen leaves and the way the sky’s reflected by the surface of the water.

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Back to School

Posted on September 12, 2011 by dengar

September in the US means the end of summer vacation and the beginning of the school year. Kids spend more of their lives at school than anywhere else and I’d wager that more shows are set in schools than in any other setting. Even though school based shows have the same setting, some of them couldn’t be more different. I looked back at three such shows, Azumanga Daioh, His and Her Circumstances (Kare Kano) and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Each show could be described as a slice of life story about high school students, but each show is unique.

A little taste of Azumanga craziness

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A cloud prairie

Posted on September 8, 2011 by bateszi

I’ve fallen behind on anime recently. I’m not sure if that’s down to a lack of interest in what I’m watching or if I’m just not in the mood for anime at the moment, but I’m feeling quite ambivalent about it all. In Celeste’s latest post, she shares the idea of “sticky anime,” positing that certain anime seem to stick with us in an emotional sense, and that others, well, don’t. They are forgettable.

Forgettable anime is a subjective thing, of course. It’s as much about circumstance and taste as anything else. So, for me to say I’m finding most currently-airing anime to be forgettable isn’t as much a comment on this season’s quality as my own indifference to it all.

I’m enjoying anime like Mawaru Penguindrum, Tiger & Bunny and Steins;Gate, but they aren’t affecting me. I’m watching these series because I’m an anime fan and that’s what I do, I watch anime, but it’s now more of a routine than a deep fascination for the medium.

Hence, I’ve fallen behind.

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Dedicated to all pioneers: sticky anime

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Celeste

At the risk of taking anime too seriously, a part of the reason my fandom has endured for as many years as it has is the idea of “stickiness”. And yes, feel free to leave your perverted jokes in the comments (jerks.)

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No. 6 and homoeroticism in anime

Posted on August 15, 2011 by bateszi

It’d be hard to watch No. 6 and not notice how homoerotic it is. I’ve now seen up to episode 5 and it’s notable how blunt it’s becoming in suggesting that Shion and Nezumi are in love. This is not a yaoi series though, it’s not a sexual or pornographic thing, I’m not sure it’s even shōnen-ai, it’s merely homoerotic in the sense that Shion and Nezumi are yet to take things that far.

That ‘yet’ is important, because it strongly feels like No. 6 is heading in that direction and, quite frankly, I hope it does. This is a mainstream series; not some low-budget trash produced for the fans-only, but a noitaminA series animated by the famous Studio Bones, to be seen by all (well, all adults.) For the most part, anime is not the best at dealing with male homosexuality, I mean, just look at the gay characters (or should I say caricatures?) in Gurren Lagann and Tiger & Bunny. No. 6 has the opportunity to become something unique, because Shion and Nezumi are relatively normal people (that ‘relatively’ is important, given Nezumi is bat-shit!)

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