by Casey Brienza, Oct 4th 2008
Read all the anime guides at Anime News Network
Skip Beat!
Mouryou no Hako
Earl and Fairy
Kemeko DX episode 2
Hyakko episode 2
To Aru Majutsu no Index episode 2
Rosario + Vampire Capu2 Episode 2
Clannad After Story episode 2
Chaos;HEAd
Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter
Casshern Sins episode 2
Toradora! Episode 2
Bihada Ichizoku
Kemeko DX
Yozakura Quartet
Shikabane-hime: Aka
Tales of the Abyss episode 2
Gai-Rei Zero
ef - A Tale of Melodies
Kuroshitsuji
Macademi Wasshoi
To Aru Matsuju no Index
Kyo no Go no Ni
Tales of the Abyss
Gundam 00 Season 2
Kannagi
Rosario + Vampire Capu2
Linebarrels of Iron
Casshern Sins
Hyakko
Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka!
Clannad ~After Story
Toradora!
Casey's Bio:
Jersey girl Casey Brienza currently splits her time between academia and otakudom. She has been employed in the field as a freelance journalist since 2005, and her writings on anime and manga can also be found in Anime Insider and Otaku USA. One of her readers characterizes her as "well-read, intelligent, and unapologetically cutthroat." Casey plans on getting her PhD and hopes one day to beat the odds and become a university professor. She is hopelessly addicted to books and websurfing and therefore feels right at home anyplace she has access to a high-speed Internet connection and ample printed matter.
Skip Beat!
Rating: 4 (of 5)
Review: Kyoko is a huge fan of up-and-coming pop idol Sho. She also works her a** off at multiple part-time jobs. These two facts of her life are connected: Kyoko has been paying all the bills while Sho chases his dream of superstardom. And she is fine with that—and his selfish, moody behavior—because she loves him. But her love turns to rage and thirst for revenge when she finds out that Sho knows full-well that he has been taking advantage of his amicable little slave. Now Kyoko plans to beat him at his own game; her star will outshine his;if it's the last thing she does!
If there one thing that anime does well, it is to make characters and situations that were already monstrous in personYoshiki Nakamura's original manga even more beastly in real time onscreen. The first episode of Skip Beat! is almost unbearably difficult to watch; Sho redefines the extremes of that masculine category of “selfish, enough-about-me-now-tell-me-what-you-like-about-me b*****d,” and the fact that Kyoko fawns so unquestioningly over him is equally stomach-churning, even in its original context in patriarchal Japan. But of course, this repulsion on the part of the viewer is the point, and boy oh boy will you be cheering Kyoko on when she declares undying vengeance.
Visually and aurally, there is nothing particularly spectacular or even noteworthy about this show. The animation and the soundtrack simply do what they need to do;and that, rest assured, is plenty. ’Cause if the point of the first episode of a new series is to keep you coming back for more, this one succeeds beautifully. You will not want to rest or change the channel until you have seen the villainous Sho get his just desserts.
Mōryō no Hako
Rating: 5 (of 5)
Review: First Casshern Sins. Then Kurozuka. Now we have Mōryō no Hako. Madhouse just keeps getting better and better this season. This show is so darn good, in fact, that it didn't even need the additional cachet of much-ballyhooed character designs by personCLAMP (though this is not to suggest that all those pretty faces do not contribute to the pleasure of this anime). Beginning with the ominous image of a girl's head in a box, the first episode takes us back to post-WWII Japan and the lives of personYoriko Kusumoto and Kanako Yuzuki, two schoolgirls who, at least according to Kanako, are reincarnations of each other. Their relationship quickly builds to a feverish level of mutual fixation;and then Kanako throws herself in front of a train.
The back story of this compelling mystery tale, based upon the original novel by personNatsuhiko Kyogoku (Requiem from the Darkness), is bounded by the portentous Yin triad of femininity, moonlight, and death, and director personRyosuke Nakamura (Death Note, NANA) cultivates it like a night-blooming flower. The intensity of the girls’ forbidden attraction to each other—more profound than mere friendship or sexual desire—and their rejection of ordinary life is impeccably balanced between the erotic and the horrifying. There are demons at work here, but some demons can be heart-rendingly beautiful. And so, for that matter, is this show. The animation is elegant yet not overdone; the seiyuu are all decorated veterans of the field. People with a taste for the morbid may in fact dream fondly of receiving the head of a lovely lady in a box, but at this rate, this “box of goblins” is fast proving the greater gratification.
Tytania
Rating: 1.5 (of 5)
Review: Selected classics of the medium such as Memories aside, it is rarely a good thing when an anime series takes the phrase “space opera” too literally. This, unfortunately, is exactly what Tytania does, and the cringe-worthy opening tune sung by a José Carreras opera tenor sound-alike bodes tremendous ill. And sure enough—it's all downhill after that final warbled note. The story, based upon a novel series by personYoshiki Tanaka (The Legend of the Galactic Heroes, The Heroic Legend of Arslan), is set in an age of intergalactic expansion where the space ships are ornate and the uniforms even more so. Ruling the empire with an iron fist is the Tytania family, and only the scrappy but resourceful rebels from Euria dare challenge their domination.
The first episode might wrest a giggle or two from generous souls, but the less generous among us will merely groan. Why does it have to be so awful? The answer remains a mystery for now, but suffice it to say that Tytania is the height of camp. The story is contrived, and the majority of the characters are pretty paper dolls cut along fascist despot lines. The heroine of the piece, who only appears for a split second, looks like she might shape up to be even more irritating. Worse still, this one-dimensional effect of the characters is left unmitigated by the equally poor animation quality; Artland is also the studio responsible for Earl and Fairy, and the production values here are almost as bad. Give this one a pass. Your valuable time will be better spent watching old Star Trek reruns.
Kannagi episode 2
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)
Review: Surprise, surprise. It only takes a single episode before Jin tires of his divine houseguest in a big way. Nagi may be a goddess, but she is a capricious one who is entirely willing to play on the emotions of Jin's childhood friend Tsugumi and to roll around the floor laughing when she mistakenly superglues her toy wand to the center of Jin's table. Her behavior would be enough to drive even the most patient of modern-day Pygmalions to distraction, and Jin, who has seen plenty already, kicks her out. Unfortunately, she realizes, when she attempts to exorcise an impurity that has taken the shape of a frog, that she still needs Jin.
After a delightful first episode, the second episode of Kannagi is downright disappointing by comparison. Although the scenery of provincial Japan is as attractive as ever, it has become backdrop to a story that is suddenly going nowhere. We finally meet Tsugumi, for example, but we learn next to nothing important about her. We learn conclusively that Nagi cannot fight the bad guys without Jin;but if that revelation came as a shock to you, well, I've got a Bridge to Nowhere that you'd be interested in buying. Even the little subplot about the kittens feels contrived. This show needs to get back on narrative track right quick, or it risks being derailed permanently.
Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Season 2 episode 2
Rating: 3 (of 5)
Review: If you're in the market for Big, Important Thoughts on the Meaning of Fighting and Freedom, wrapped up in distractingly convoluted package, look no further: Mobile Suit Gundam 00 should leave you satisfied and then some. The distractingly convoluted part comes in the form of five—count ’em five—parallel plots in the space of twenty-odd minutes. (So much for nuanced character development. That's awfully hard to do when you're leaping from plot line to plot line to plot line every three minutes.) The Big, Important Thoughts involve rumination on what is the moral thing to do if your failed rebellion has succeeded only in making the oppression many magnitudes worse.
At its base, though, this episode boasts only two major plot points that you need to remember. Namely, that Kataron and A-LAWS are marshalling their respective forces and that Setsuna gets Gundam 00 to work for him. The rest is just window-dressing;and like window dressing, it's all for show. This anime series is slick, with a coherent, internally-consistent world and respectable production values. But like its character designer personYun Kouga, whose admittedly imperfect artwork was somehow more appealing before she turned to Photoshop, this show often feels like a Gundam that has been so marketed and mainstreamed that it soul has been sucked dry. The second season only serves to heighten that uncomfortable sentiment. It reaches broadly yet does not touch profoundly. And on a lighter note;even the fangirls nostalgic for Gundam Wing while noting the tantalizing similarities here surely feel obscurely cheated by Sunrise; fewer Gundam pilots means fewer yaoi pairings!
Kurozuka
Rating: 4.5 (of 5)
Review: Fleeing inter-family politicking that could be bad for his health, Yoshitsune, also known as Kuro, and his servant Benkei hike high into the forested mountains. There, they meet a beautiful woman named Kuromitsu. She welcomes them into her home—but not before warning them sternly not to enter her private chambers. One guess as to where Kuro decides to go late one night. And when he does, he sees a horrific sight: Kuromitsu licking the blood off of the neck of a man's upside down corpse. Then, in the wake of an ambush, Kuro learns that she is immortal and that she is willing to invite him into her eternity;
Well, what can you say? It sure is a good time to be Madhouse. While other studios such as Gonzo and Gainax have fallen of late from their respective pedestals, Madhouse just keeps on chugging along with more and more of the sort of anime it does best—gloom, doom, and richly sensuous violence. True to form, Kurozuka is exquisite and lush, resonating with the weight of myth, not a discordant note sounded anywhere. The feudal Japanese setting is transporting in its evocative detail, and the character designs are equally beautiful, particularly around the faces. (Although the spindly, toothpick-like legs on the guys didn't quite do it for me; thankfully, Kuromitsu's kimono hid hers.) personBaku Yumemakura's original story is quite ambitious in its scope, and it's a pleasure to see an animated adaptation rise so confidently to what is undoubtedly going to be a formidable challenge of execution in subsequent episodes. Stay tuned.
Linebarrels of Iron episode 2
Rating: 3 (of 5)
Review: The story premise of Linebarrels of Iron remains irritatingly opaque, but it is possible, with multiple viewings of the second episode, to get a broad-stroke sense of what is going on: 1) An organization called Juda has a fleet of special “Arma” (mecha) called “Machina” (super-duper mecha); 2) These Machina have a symbiotic relationship with their “Factors” (pilots); 3) A rival organization called Kato-Kikan wants Juda's Machina; and 4) Linebarrel is a Machina, and Emi brought Kouichi back to life after landing on him with Linebarrel by making him it's Factor.
Whew. Okay, so it's not the most original premise out there by a long shot, but it's not totally idiotic. And now that the aforementioned four points are all cleared up, this show gets marginally more tolerable. Heck, if the action scenes didn't whiz past at light speed, one might even sit back and enjoy the various mecha designs; one of them has a pretty snazzy set of wings, for example. Unfortunately though, “marginally” is the operative word, and those sequences that do not involve giant robots trying to reduce each other to so much scrap metal (and sometimes even those that do) continue to grate on the nerves. Nothing much of importance really happens in this episode, save that Kouichi rightfully claims his Annoying SOB Prize once and for all. Superpowers have made him arrogant, foolhardy, and indiscriminately destructive—we don't need his friends’ expression of concerned gravitas to be horrified by the behavior. Whether or not you will be horrified enough to stop watching this show will be determined by your own personal level of tolerance for Kouichi's hubris.
Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka! episode 2
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)
Review: Astounding, isn't it, what a difference one episode can make? In the first episode of Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka!, nothing made sense. In the second episode, pretty much everything does—and it all gets knotted up together neatly into a nice little bow. We learn that Yuuhi is being forced into an arranged marriage by the Chairman of the über-wealthy Katagiri Group and that she will not tolerate having her husband decided for her. The best she can do, though, is get them to agree to letting her live with her bridegroom-to-be for a sort of trial period.
And so, we see Yuuhi hating on Jun'ichi with a passion that ought to be reserved for romance;while becoming fast friends with his little sister, who teaches her how the “other half” (a.k.a. normal people of normal means) lives. In a bit of sincere girl talk late in the episode, we also discover what up until now we have only suspected—that the Saito-lookalike who began the show with a bang (literally) is the Hayase paterfamilias. Oh, and his sexy sidekick is his wife.
All in all, this installment is a modest, pleasant departure from what has come before. The gals in particular start to get really interesting here, and they are revealed as more than just cute distractions. Also, the protracted periods of female bonding—that don't involve heart-to-heart discussions about men—are unusual for these sorts of anime series. This is really the only show thus far this season to improve significantly in the second episode. Hopefully, it's just getting started.
Hokuto no Ken Raoh Gaiden: Ten no Haoh
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)
Review: Ah;good ol’ 80s anime, how we miss thee! 70s styles and storylines have been experiencing a renaissance for the past few years (the latest offerings in that vein being Bihada Ichizoku and Casshern Sins), and the 90s hasn't yet been forced off the proverbial creative stage, but the 80s—of muscle-bound, invincible heroes and gruesome, post-apocalyptic anxieties—are in short supply these days. So thank goodness for the Hokuto no Ken franchise, which has been swinging away undefeated for the past quarter-century.
The Raoh Gaiden: Ten no Haoh TV series is the franchise's latest offering, and it stars Raoh, a popular villain who is now taking his turn in the spotlight as protagonist. Raoh, accompanied by his sidekicks, the siblings Souga and Reina, plans to rule the world;or the blasted, crumbling urban wasteland that passes for “world.” He does not waver in his goal, using his Hokuto Shinken to punch his way through whatever stands in his way, be it a gang of hooligans or a concrete wall. In this episode, he defeats the monstrous Kioh and claims his fortress.
If nothing else, this show is a great reminder as to why shounen manga evolved toward whiny loser protagonists as the 80s drew to a close. Where's the fun in watching the exploits of a guy who has mastered a fighting technique that has never been defeated? The end is practically predestined, and if you stop to think about it, you will quickly conclude that, where there is no suspense, there is little to sustain interest. Unfortunately, this anime's dreary, washed out colors and lugubrious narrative pacing are unlikely to win over new fans. It's supposed to be about power and excitement, but all the first episode does is limp sullenly along. Still, longtime fans will certainly appreciate this hearty helping of man-sweat and violence after the cloying, all-you-can-eat banquet of moé.
Hakushaku to Yousei (Earl and Fairy)
Rating: 3 (of 5)
Review: Hakushaku to Yousei looks a lot like Angelique in subject matter, style, and questionable animation quality, but the similarities, at least for now, otherwise seem superficial. Based on a series of light novels by personMizue Tani, the story is set in a 19th century Great Britain where fairies are real, albeit largely forgotten. Heroine Lydia Carlton is a fairy doctor, a liaison of sorts between the fairy world and the human one. While traveling to London to meet her father, she instead ends up tricked onto a ship with the Earl Edgar Ashenbert (voiced by fangirl favorite personHikaru Midorikawa), supposed descendant of a fairyland noble. Edgar wants to claim his birthright, and to this end he needs her help in acquiring the Sword of Merrow.
Plot-wise, this isn't a bad first episode, although there are a few places that may be momentarily confusing. Fortunately, those don't matter much, and you will find yourself much more preoccupied with questions about the characters. The first minute, for example, shows Edgar shooting (and presumably killing) someone in cold blood, so despite his charming, accommodating attitude toward Lydia, you are just waiting with bated breath for that pleasant façade to crack. The largest disappointment of the show has to do with the aforementioned façade, however; novel illustrator personAsako Takaboshi, long beloved for her many parody doujinshi and occasional boy's love yomikiri, does not draw in a style well-suited to anime adaptation. The lines are too wispy and uncertain, and eyes that look pretty as jewels on paper look uncomfortably beady on the screen. Even so, shoujo anime have been in short supply this season, and this show should fulfill any craving of that sort sufficiently well.
Kemeko DX episode 2
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)
Review: You just know that a show which begins on a shot of a monolithic television screen rising up from an otherwise generic urban cityscape like a phallus of overbearing corporate power—set to an instrumental tune with a distinct kinship to the one that 2001: A Space Odyssey made infamous—is gonna be great fun. And sure enough, the second episode of Kemeko DX does not disappoint.
This episode is told primarily from the point of view of Sanpeita's little sister Tamako, a little girl who has grown old before her time under the weight of domestic responsibility. She makes the mistake of inserting herself between the ongoing violent conflict between Sanpeita and his aspiring bride-to-be Kemeko and ends up taking an evening ride on a rocket ship with the “happy” couple. To her brother's chagrin, however, she soon allies herself with her amenable sister-in-law, and Mama Kobayashi, delirious from a string of all-nighters, acquiesces to the new domestic situation with little more than a distracted whimper.
A veritable truckload of pop culture references and insider jokes, combined with a narrative pacing that the anime's creators have put into seemingly permanent hyper-drive, makes this show an unexpected joy to watch. In fact, it doesn't even matter that no clue is yet on offer as to what the Kemeko-bot actually is, what her relationship to Sanpeita is, or what the deal is with the Mishima electronics corporation—the sadistic fun of watching Kemeko bully her beloved bridegroom is more than enough entertainment for now.
Hyakko episode 2
Rating: 1 (of 5)
Review: The quartet of unlikely companions is back for another round of self-inflicted misery. In this episode, they plan to join a club and spend a long afternoon investigating the enormous range of extracurricular activities available. Only Torako is particularly gung-ho about the process; Tatsuki, by comparison, does not want to join any clubs and grows increasingly frustrated by her classmates’ refusal to pay attention to her. Soon, testing the waters with a half-dozen clubs, from baseball to flower arrangement, becomes a tense competition between the two. The whole scenario begs the obvious question: Why doesn't Tatsuki just hightail it out of there? She definitely wants to, and staying onboard with this train wreck of an episode is causing her—and the viewers—unnecessary pain and suffering.
For that matter, why are these four girls still hanging out together period? Surely getting lost together on their monumentally large but bizarrely empty campus shouldn't really be strong enough social glue to keep them together! From the extreme extent of injury she suffers here, it's clear that Tatsuki would be better off without Torako;and so, for that matter, would the anime fans of the world be better off without Hyakko. The visuals are annoying and the characters even more so. The sorry excuse for a story is worst of all, and the only way it succeeds is in causing migraines. This show is, hands down, the most loathsome and pointless new anime series of the season; if you do not wish to feel sullied by the very experience of even one more atrocious episode, you would be well-advised to stay far away.
To Aru Majutsu no Index episode 2
Rating: 2.5 (of 5)
Review: Oh super-powered silliness and rancid stir-fry, where art thou? Talk about a one-eighty. Now that it appears Touma has answered Index's question, “Will you follow me to the ends of Hell?” in the affirmative, To Aru Majutsu no Index looks like it might be going straight to Hell as well. The second episode is devoted almost entirely to a battle—if Touma using his right hand to defend himself against a fiery inferno counts as a “battle”—outside Touma's dorm room with a Gojyo dead-ringer who has a barcode under his right eye and claims to be a magician. The man, who calls himself both Steel Magnus and Faltis 931, wants Index. Touma isn't going to let him have her.
Pleasing pyrokinetics with decent production values and interesting camera angles aside, the great character interaction and intriguing world-building that made this show such a pleasant surprise in its first episode are almost entirely absent. There is a bit of background information about what magic is in this world and how Index's abilities as a human library function, but it feels more perfunctory than profound. Hopefully, subsequent installments will be better-balanced between various sorts of narrative components. Battles are a dime a dozen in anime, and if the initial, frail assets that the series appears to have plowed under to not resurface quickly, the pleasure of the first episode will fast decay into disappointment.
Rosario + Vampire Capu2 episode 2
Rating: 3 (of 5)
Review: The first-year stalker who has been tormenting Moka with hate mail is actually her little half-sister Kokoa! And now that her identity has been revealed, she is chapping at the bit to take Moka down. She quickly proves to be a formidable opponent, and none of Tsukune's supernatural friends can stand up to her;least of all Moka, the full extent of her vampiric powers suppressed. Good thing that Tsukune has the wherewithal to rip off the cross she wears at the last possible second so that the silver-haired, ruby-eyed version of Moka can put the brat in her rightful place.
Rosario + Vampire continues unabated as the worst show that you will find yourself unable to thoroughly despise. Its bright, solid blocks of color, infectious cheerfulness, and unabashed fanservice match the original manga's creative intention to a tee, and it never takes itself too seriously. How, for example, can you not be charmed by Kokoa's obscurely obscene-by-implication use of her bat minion? Characters also routinely break the fourth wall—they have amusing remarks on the identity of the bat, who has been with them since day one, in this episode—which also helps keep the tone light. So while other shows of this sort might try too hard, taking their wackiness into an overtly strained overdrive, GONZO always executes exactly the right balance of between warm and wild here. Despite the Otaku-ish subject matter of magical girlfriends and panty shots, this show is, as befitting of a Shounen Jump title, actually as accessible to casual viewers and as mainstream as anime this season get.
Clannad ~After Story~ episode 2
Rating: 2 (of 5)
Review: Tomorrow's a new day, and yesterday's baseball game is but a memory. Alas, the soft-focus banality that is Clannad ~After Story~ continues in the second episode, which focuses on an ill-conceived plot to find Sunohara a sham girlfriend so as to relieve the worries of his little sister Mei. Needless to say, he has trouble finding any takers, and the show yet again marches viewers through a pointless roll call of its cast of female characters. By the end, it is Nagisa's mother Sanae who has agreed to play the game;but will Mei be convinced?
Unless your life will not be complete until you see an older woman dressed up as a schoolgirl and doting—rather disturbingly, despite the ostensibly inoffensive, itty-bitty tones of her voice actress—on a boy her daughter's age, it's safe to skip this episode. The humor, mainly revolving around Sunohara's cross-gender relations missteps, isn't funny; the vaguely Celtic background music does not improve matters. Worse still, next to nothing is happening, and the soothing atmosphere of the show ends up being downright soporific instead. Any narrative arc of the second season thus far has been perfunctory at its most generous, and not even the big-eyed eye-candy is just compensation. Even the surreal sequence in the beginning featuring a weirdly cute robot and wisps of golden light seems pitched precisely to put viewers to sleep—or to persuade them change the channel.
Chaos;HEAd
Rating: 3.5 (of 5)
Review: Well, if there is a show that takes the prize this season for most deceptive advertising in its opening and ending themes, Chaos;HEAd, based upon a visual novel of the same name, has thus far come in first place;and perhaps broken a world record in the process. Not that this is a bad thing. While the opening and ending themes are all bright but boring, candy-toned colors and bishoujo with wings, the story itself—at least as evidenced by the first episode—is a cross between a person]CLAMP-style plot (think X) and eroge-style character designs.
And at its best, it is thoroughly enthralling. The protagonist is Takumi Nishijou, an Otaku living in a converted shipping container who also suffers from apparent paranoid schizophrenic delusions. Sometimes he imagines that his favorite magical girl is hanging out with him, but other times he imagines that some girl from his school is out to kill him. Or this all this just his imagination? Meanwhile, a wave of frightening crimes strikes Shibuya, and Takumi fears that someone who he met in an online chat room is going get him caught up in the hysteria. The show is reminiscent at times of personSatoshi Kon's Perfect Blue, albeit with Otaku and their toys instead of pop idols and their careers. Takumi is having trouble telling what is real and what isn't, and Chaos;HEAd’s narrative structure ensures that viewers will too. Nevertheless, chances are the provocative images of horrid deaths and the destruction of Tokyo will intrigue many apocalypse-oriented and curious-minded anime fans alike.
