Spring 2009 Mid-Season Check

Author: nova

Oh yeah, a post at last!

So the another season has reached its mid point and it’s time for me to post a bit of impressions so far. As usual, let me throw in the summary spreadsheets before commencing with the TL;DR which is once again plenty.

Now let us proceed in the old fashioned way.

Friend zone: Keep telling yourself it’s better than nothing. A motorcycle-riding caveman will take your wimmin.

Eden of the East

I have little to add to what I previously wrote about Eden of the East in the season impressions post – it’s the top shit in the season and that’s about it. Everything from graphical work to story execution works like a Swiss watch and in each episode you find yourself staring at the ED before you know it, thirsty for more. Although the audiovisual work in Eden is close to top of the line, its main strength lies in the rock-solid setting and storyline. Eden basically mixes Mirai Nikki with The Bourne Identity but wisely refrains from introducing direct action elements in favor of something a bit more cunning. Long story short, a mysterious and apparently filthy rich person known only as The Outsider has selected 10 persons as Selecao, players of a game in which the goal is nothing less than saving the nation of Japan from degradation. Each Selecao is granted a huge amount of money loaded onto a cellphone to use to achieve this goal. The Selecao can pursue any way they think is improving the society around them in a large enough scale to be considered as fullfilling the goal. Once a Selecao succeeds, the other players are terminated. The protagonist is Takizawa Akira, a Selecao who wakes up in Washington DC butt-naked with only a revolver and a cellphone in his possession and without any memories of himself. Now if this doesn’t sound like a unique setting I sure don’t know what does. It’s even more interesting that since the Selecao don’t necessarily gain anything from fighting each other, the show doesn’t focus on anything as low as fights but simply on actions Selecao undertake to change the society around them in a way they think is best. Eden of the East is smart entertainment for a mature audience and definitely worth trying no matter where your interests lie. Stuff like this is too rare nowadays. Also, Saki is so cute and awesome.

Do the retard dance, do the retard dance…

Hatsukoi Limited

Hatsukoi Limited took me by surprise. It sounds generic, it looks generic, but underneath the surface it’s quite an entertaining show. Essentially we’re talking about a sort of spiritual successor to KimiKiss with enough character multitasking and relationship complexity for a year’s supply. The difference is that I didn’t really enjoy KimiKiss but I sure as hell like Hatsukoi. This is probably due to the fact that although KimiKiss incorporated character multitasking with several males and females with more or less equal focus on their (love)lives, the relationships themselves were fairly straightforward with nothing more complex than a love triangle. Whereas Hatsukoi’s messy relationship chart can hardly be even described by any geometric shape. Maybe JC Staff learned a lesson from its previous high school romance shows or maybe it’s just the solid original material the show is adapted from, who knows.

SO RONERY

K-ON!

Like it or not, KyoAni pulled another Apple with K-ON! – once again illustrating just how far brand loyalty goes. K-ON! is basically an Azumanga Daioh-variant with extra moe and a touch of light music. K-ON! isn’t really coming up with any new tricks but is doing a prime job with what it has. Oh yeah and if you compared this to Lucky Star, please leave the internets and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

REVERSE TRAP PUNCH!

Natsu no Arashi!

Natsu no Arashi is an odd bird. It’s a bipolar rollercoaster ride between drama, comedy and slice of life, adapted from a Kobayashi Jin’s manga series of the same name. Of course, no other studio would be more up to this task than SHAFT. Arashi takes so unusual approach to slice of life that it’s definitely a hit-or-miss series that bets a lot on the viewer’s personal tastes. Luckily for me I belong in the demographic that isn’t turned off by its bipolar nature and the lack of any coherent plotline. Natsu no Arashi is very random show but for me its peculiar humor hits right on. I also appreciate the colorful and rather static art style that seems to bring out the best things about summertime. A perfect springtime show for us northern residents who are recuperating from a long, dark winter and looking at all the green and sky blue like it’s the first time we see them. In my opinion Arashi also has the best OP animation and song of the season. Natsu no Arashi isn’t clearly a comedy or drama but one thing is certain – an anime show can hardly have more summer-feeling to it than this.

Queen’s Blade

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-

Ristorante Paradiso

Dropped due to schedule being too full of shows that am more interested in. I’m not that big into real-lifeish drama. And I’m not a girl, in case that wasn’t clear already (wouldn’t be the first time I hear about it).

How about no.

Shangri-la

Sort of a disappointment. GONZO’s big bird falls short mainly due to weak animation execution and being stingy with letting the viewer know what the hell’s going on. Although the concept of the world being ruled by carbon markets is truly fresh and interesting, the show lacks sufficient technical execution and effective directing to back up the interesting storyline. I’m sure stuff is revealed more as the show progresses but that’s just damage control after a screwed up start. It’s hard to give a damn about the misery of the residents of Duomo, Kuniko’s grudge over people living in Atlas, Metal-age’s “heroic” terrorist deeds or worldwide carbon markets if one knows basically nothing about any of these. As far as I have understood, in order to cut back on carbon emissions the Japanese government has forested the entire country and relocated the population into a massive steel tower known as Atlas. People left outside of Atlas are suffering of nasty weather effects, poisonous air generated the forests and whatnot. Atlas seems to be a self-governing entity though but hell, it’s not like they tell you anything about this shit. You just have to watch, wait for moments when someone says something relevant and do the math. That is, provided that the poor character animation and transsexual terminology doesn’t drive your attention to something more decent. Speaking of the forests, I find it rather retarded that the forests the Japs decided to fill their country with to cut back on carbon emissions are totally wild jungle-type. Quoting Plantation Forestry in the Tropics, Julian Evans & John Turnbull, Third Edition:

In natural [tropical rain] forest, though the total rate of production of organic matter (gross primary productivity) may be very high, relatively little of it is stored (as wood). Most is consumed in respiration and by heterotrophic organisms such as animals, insects, fungi: the forest is in a state of equilibrium. In plantations the rate of storage of organic matter (called net community productivity) is very high, and it is designed to be so.
[...]
Plantation management removes stored organic matter from the site at regular intervals, in natural forest the system is virtually closed – all this is produced is consumed from within by the ecosystem. It is for this reason that plantations have a role in ameliorating the ‘greenhouse’ effect by fixing carbon whereas the role of untouched forest is near neutral

This is my Kuniko-face.

In other words, a natural jungle-type forest is a hive of biological activity where organic matter grows, decays and is consumed constantly at a rapid rate. This means that although carbon is absorbed from the atmosphere, the respiratory and decaying activity release carbon back fast enough to make the forest’s net carbon absorption marginal. The constant process of growth and decay cancel each other out. In controlled industrial plantations the entire forest is designed to have maximal production of wood material with minimal decay and other loss of organic material. Due to regular forest management activity organic matter is removed steadily, preventing it from decaying naturally and serving as nutrition for other forms of life. As plantations have uniform size- and age classes, few vertical layers and only one or two tree species per stand, they offer much less habitats thus making the respirational activity within them much less than that of natural forests. So if Japan’s plan was to increase the net carbon absorption from the atmosphere, utilizing a completely uncontrolled jungle vegetation definitely was not a smart move in anything but short term.

Wait, what?

Tayutama ~kiss on my deity~

Uh…I’m not sure how I ended up picking up this series. Mizuhashi Kaori voicing a cute yellow-eyed girl might have something to do with it though. This show is pretty much your textbook VN adaptation for advertisement purposes but the animation is surprisingly decent. If you’re into the game it’s adapted from or for some bizarre reason thought Da Capo anime was the best thing since sliced bread then I guess Tayutama is a suitable pick. The artistry is quite faithful to Lump of Sugar’s original art which is very positive. Yuuri is a fucking fag though. ALSO TEH FUCKING BOXasgGVDFBsHDBXcv xbsdb-gsedrägtflbmUUUUUUUUU-

I see what you did there.

Valkyria Chronicles

Valkyria ain’t half bad, although it might benefit from trying to take itself more seriously at times. The story has immense potential but it seems as if the development team is just too lazy to use it for anything. It’s like if I had a million dollars and only used it to buy a can of 60 cent pea soup every day. But as ironic as it is, the greatest strength of Valkyria is perhaps the fact that it isn’t trying to take itself too seriously. The light-hearted mood fits just right with the likeable characters and colorful art style. A1 Pictures is doing quite a nice job with the visuals too. Valkyria might not be a spectacular show but does a lot of things right and succeeds in being more than just an advertisement for the game it is adapted from. And those who think its military tactics are retarded: Real military tactics are generally not any less so.

That’s all for now. Looks like there’s some shit going on about new Haruhi or something but I’m too tired to hop on that bandwagon yet.

Where is your god now, f/a/gs?