Month: March 2010

Review

Plot and Pacing in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

There has always been something about the shounen genre that pushed me away from it. This is partly due to some complicated gateway experiences, but for the most part it’s thanks to the tradition itself. Quite frankly, action is not something that I would normally go for, and it would take a masterfully animated fight scene from Kara no Kyoukai for me to justify watching a show solely for the action.

While my problem with the genre is an issue of personal taste rather than an objective complaint, I’ve been consistently amazed by Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood over the past year. I’ve delayed shows like To Aru Kagaku no Railgun and Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu to make room for FMA – a series that, theoretically, shouldn’t appeal to me in the first place. After almost 50 episodes of pondering, it occurred to me that Brotherhood strikes the most important element of the shounen genre with perfect precision, and that there’s a good reason behind my ability to watch a shounen without any stylish swordfights.

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Review

Self-Insertion in Sasameki Koto

Sasameki Koto didn’t seem to attract much attention when it aired in the winter, although it ended up on my watchlist by virtue of being a new yuri show. It departs quite a bit from the “walking slowly is preferred here” image of Marimite and the subtlety of Aoi Hana, going so far as to set its characters in a coed school and making one of them allegedly not a lesbian. It’s hard to say where it would fit on BakaRaptor’s real lesbian/super lesbian scale, but it’s certainly more grounded in reality than many of its kind.

Ironically, my enjoyment of Sasameki Koto has almost nothing to do with its yuri tropes and clichés. Instead, an interesting phenomenon occurred with regards to Sumika’s character: she began to feel less like the heroine and more like the male self-insert. I went into the show expecting a full serving of voyeuristic bliss derived from the idealized romances portrayed in shoujo-ai, but it wasn’t long before my experience changed from third-person to first-person.

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Editorial

Giant Robo and the Human Robot

Giant Robo is like a time machine, except you never know which direction it’ll take you in. Alternating between unusual predictions for the future and now humorously clichéd plot devices from the past, Imagawa Yasuhiro‘s classic shows its age without detracting from its initial quality. For an old-school super robot show, Giant Robo actually packs quite a punch with its story, providing something to hold the viewer’s attention beyond the awe of Robo and its sheer power.

Among the many things that a person could say about the show, one particular element stood out in my mind: the treatment of Robo within the story. It leads to some interesting food for thought about the early days of the mecha genre; the days long before Gundam and Macross.

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Editorial

Anime and the Changing of the Seasons

[zuta]

When you saw this post in your feed reader or Anime Nano or what have you, you probably assumed it was just another meta post on the upcoming season of anime. Perhaps I would ramble on about why it’s bad to drop shows after one episode; maybe I would say that it’s important to watch a multitude of shows, including ones that normally wouldn’t appeal to you.

Actually, the “seasons” mentioned in the post title refers to something completely different. I’m talking about nature.

Wait, don’t close the tab yet – I’m not here to preach. I enjoy my skyscrapers and carefully planned city parks as much as the next person, and probably more. However, I’ve always felt a strange connection with the use of nature in anime as a visual, stylistic tool. Nature can grant the most sublime motifs and emotionally evocative art if it’s used appropriately, and yet it’s something that can so easily go unnoticed.

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Review

Victorian Slice-of-Life Shirley


[shima]

Kaoru Mori should be a familiar name among manga fans, known for her unorthodox – or is it completely orthodox? – depiction of the life of a maid. The TV series for the Emma manga aired a few years ago, which happens to be her most famous story, but I opted into buying the one volume Shirley since it seemed like less of a commitment.

Indeed, Shirley isn’t much of a commitment at all: it took me all of an hour to finish the book, cover to cover. It’s a fairly simplistic story about a thirteen year old maid in Victorian England, doing what normal maids do. Shirley is a maid, not a meido, if you know what I mean. Of course, being a manga character, she also possesses enough youthful charm to not bore you to death with 150 pages on the art of housework. You could say that Shirley has as much to do with housework as it has to do with otaku pandering.

Anyway, Shirley’s story might not be particularly memorable, but it makes for a pleasant afternoon read – preferably with a serving of crumpets and tea.

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