FunBlog

Once again it’s time to look back on the past year and pontificate on what was noteworthy in the world of anime. This is not intended as any sort of definitive list. I’ve only sampled a small part of what was available, and of course my interests are idiosyncratic and may not match yours. Also I am excluding any series that began in the Fall of 2008 and is continuing in 2009. These will be eligible for consideration next year.

Outstanding Anime Series of 2008

No Winner. I’m sorry. I just didn’t see anything this year that I would award 5 stars to.

Noteworthy Anime Series of 2008

On the other hand, there were a number of solid, entertaining series that I considered time well spent.

Bamboo Blade. This tale of the misadventures of a high school kendo club was consistently funny and charming.

Clannad. Surprisingly the latest collaboration from the people who brought us Kanon (2006) and Air (TV) turned out to be a funny and upbeat comedy, though with a rather sad backstory. (This statement applies only to the original series. Watch the sequel at your own risk.)

Hakaba Kitarou. A stylish adaptation of the classic horror comic from the 1960s. Not to be confused with Ge Ge Ge no Kitarou, a long-running series that featured more child-friendly versions of the same characters.

Hatenkou Yuugi. Spooky variant on the magical girl genre, with a delightful heroine.

Itazura na Kiss. I could almost imagine this romantic comedy playing on American television–in the 1950s, perhaps starring a younger version of Lucille Ball. The hapless heroine suffers every imaginable humiliation, but always manages to bounce back by the end of the episode.

Kure-nai. Dark, noirish thrillier, lit up by the wonderful character of Murasaki.

Shakugan no Shana Second. This sequel is strictly for fans of the original series, and perhaps not for all of them. It gets off to a very weak start, especially compared to the powerful opening of the first series. Things don’t really start to turn around until about half way through, after which it builds to a suitably resounding climax.

Shugo Chara! A classic magical girl series that is extremely cute and very funny. It’s also very long and noticeably padded in places. It would probably be better if edited down a bit.

Telepathy Girl Ran. I would classify this not so much a magical girl story as a child detective story. “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those darned kids!” (The comparison is unfair since the writing is about 10 times better, but I couldn’t resist.)

xxxHOLIC Kei. A rare bird–a sequel that’s every bit as good as the original.

Disappointing Anime Series of 2008

I’m going to skip this category. I had a whole bunch of snarky comments saved up, but they mostly boil down to two principles:

1. Most sequels aren’t as good as the originals.
2. Anything adapted from a series of light novels will have a strong start to introduce the characters and premise, but then will probably wander around without ever going anywhere.

Interesting, But Not To My Taste

ef–a tale of melodies. This is not just a sequel to ef–a tale of memories; the two form an integrated whole and should probably be viewed together. Once again the artwork is stunning and the stories are compelling, and it addresses some of my objections to the original series. Unfortunately the explanations are often implausible and some of the answers to the questions raised by the first series are answers that you might be happier not knowing. Frankly, watching this is like being kicked repeatedly in the gut.

Ga-Rei Zero. “I’ve got a great idea! Let’s introduce the heroes, then kill them off at the end of the first episode! It’ll be like a Gainax ending, only at the beginning!”

Kaiba. An innovative anime with a strong European flavor. I really wanted to like this one. Innovation is always praiseworthy and I want to see it succeed. Unfortunately I found that I just did not care what happened to any of these characters.

Kannagi. This series has nice animation and some nice moments, and raises interesting questions about the implications of Shinto religious teachings. However ultimately it’s mostly just routine, uninspired harem comedy shtick.

Kuroshitsuji. “I’ve got a great idea! To show our mastery of dark humor, let’s start the series with an episode featuring cannibalism! The good guys will EAT the bad guy! That’ll get their attention!”

Shigofumi. Dark, beautifully drawn, a searing indictment of Japanese society. This has justly been compared to Kino’s Journey, but you have to imagine what that show would be like with a Kino who acted cold and heartless, and a Hermes who was really irritating.

This is not the show to watch if you are looking for searing drama, tearful heartbreak or gut-clenching action. It’s more like the ultimate feel-good show, a cheerful vision of a future world in which people are nice to each other and nothing really bad happens to anyone. I don’t think I could stand to marathon this series, but I find that an occasional episode is a good way to regain my emotional equilibrium after watching something like Neon Genesis Evangelion.

This is another example of Nozomi Entertainment’s publishing strategy: find a quality show that has languished unlicensed for several years; license it cheaply and release it without a dub as an inexpensive DVD box set.
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Usually Will Smith makes upbeat movies, either comedies or uplifting dramas like The Pursuit of Happyness. Seven Pounds is different; it’s rather dark and sad and not everyone is going to like it. It’s also the sort of movie that tries to hide the real story until near the end, revealing it bit by bit.

Will Smith portrays an IRS agent who clearly isn’t following the rules. He seems to want to play God, using his position to reward the virtuous and punish the wicked. Also there seems to be something that’s troubling him, but we don’t know what it is.

And that’s about all I can say about the premise without giving too much away. This is a powerful, tragic story. It’s well done, and worth watching if you are up for that sort of thing.

I going to try to be fair with this one, since I’m clearly not the targeted demographic. This movie delivers what it intends to deliver, which is a 90 proof dose of teenage girls’ sexual fantasies.

Twilight involves a girl named Bella (Kristen Stewart) who goes to live with her father in a small town in a remote part of Washington state. At her new high school she is fascinated by Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a pale young man with large sensuous lips who stares at her with a look of burning hunger. (Or maybe it’s just a bad case of indigestion. It’s a bit hard to tell at first.)

Actually all the members of Edward’s family look like that: pale and sort of gothic, and with good reason, since they are all vampires. However they are good, “vegetarian” vampires who eat only animal blood.

To my mind, this sort of thing robs the vampire myth of much of its power. If you are immortal and beautiful and rich, but you aren’t actually undead and you don’t have to kill humans, that doesn’t seem like much of a curse, no matter how much Edward wails about it. These vampires are just having too much fun.

There are also some bad vampires who do want to kill humans, and some Native Americans who obviously don’t approve of vampires (though it is strongly hinted that that is because said Native Americans are actually werewolves.) There’s plenty of action and brooding passion and romance, and it all builds up to a suitably thrilling climax.

Then after the climax they spend at least 10 minutes setting things up for a sequel. Fair warning: my daughter is skeptical about whether the sequel will be worth watching. She says that the second book in the series this is based on is mostly an extended setup for the third book. But we’ll leave that problem for another day.

…the main characters Nagisa and Honoka will be named Natalie and Hannah in the English-dubbed version.

ANN: Pretty Cure to Run on Canada’s YTV in Early 2009 (via)

I’ve often complained about the dubs done by American anime publishers, but fortunately they seem to have stopped stooping to this level of obnoxiousness. It takes a supreme level of arrogance to license a show and then use the dub to rewrite it–in this case by making the characters Canadian instead of Japanese.

If you think your customers don’t want to watch a Japanese show, there’s a simple solution: don’t license anime. How about paying someone to make a Canadian show?

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OK, you know the drill. The far-flung members of a family return to their parents’ house for Christmas (or for Thanksgiving, or whatever) but things aren’t what they used to be. Kids grow up; people change. A series of crises flare up. Hopefully everything will work out satisfactorily before the closing credits. (Cue the group hug.)

Nothing Like the Holidays is a better-than-average example of the genre. Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Peña play the parents of a Puerto Rican family in Chicago. They have three sons: one is sort of a goofball; one has become a Yuppie New York lawyer, married to career-driven Jewish woman who isn’t enthusiastic about having children; and the third is a veteran just back from Iraq. There’s also a daughter who is a Hollywood actress, but is wondering whether it’s worth continuing to pursue a marginally successful career.

It follows the standard formula, and perhaps inevitably the ending feels just a little too pat. However the acting is good and there are some very funny moments. You could do a lot worse for a holiday movie this season.

Note, however that this is PG-13. Do the preschoolers a favor and take them to something else.

Probably no anime series was more anticipated in the Spring of 2007 than Lucky Star. The studio had previously released two big hits in a row: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and Kanon (2006). Naturally the fans were expecting something special.

So it’s understandable that there was a certain amount of grumbling on the ‘net when Lucky Star turned out to have neither the off-beat brilliance of Haruhi nor the emotional resonance of Kanon. Nevertheless the show soon found an audience for its peculiar charms and became very popular in its own right. Certainly the fan-art websites are bursting with drawings inspired by the cute character designs (I’m using one as my desktop wallpaper at the moment.)
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Australian director Baz Luhrmann seems to be trying to recreate the sprawling, glamorous blockbuster movies of the 1940s and 1950s. I think he does a pretty good job of capturing both the good and bad points. This is a long movie that starts out much like a John Ford western, then turns into something more like a wartime romance.

Australia involves an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) who comes to Australia just before the outbreak of World War II to round up her husband, who has been playing at being a cattle rancher. She intends to sell the place and drag him home. But it turns out that her husband has been murdered, the overseer is a crook, and the only potential buyer for the place is your standard-issue Evil Cattle Baron.

After thinking it over she decides to save the ranch by driving a herd of cattle across the badlands to Darwin to sell to the army. She will have to rely on the assistance of an Aboriginal boy and an uncouth and cynical, but ruggedly handsome cowboy (Hugh Jackman).

As I said, this has many of the same weaknesses of the films that inspired it. It’s long, hokey, sentimental and implausible. Also the attempts at political correctness may make it embarrassing for people a few decades from now to watch. (The difference between “respectful” and “patronizing” can be subtle and is not always immediately apparent.)

Nevertheless it’s beautiful to look at, and if you are able to just get into the spirit of things and sit back and enjoy it, it’s a ripping good story.