Shameful Otaku Secret!

Partially due to Crunchyroll availability, and partially due to JC Staff’s recent track record, I checked out Aoi Hana (aka Sweet Blue Flowers). I can’t say I’m normally into this kinda stuff — it’s not as if I’m the target demographic — but as has really been the case lately, JC Staff has taken something usual and made it shine through a solid execution.

Aoi Hana features, as Arudoc noted, Perky (Akira) and Pouty (Fumi), what I would imagine is a fairly standard pairing in these kinds of shoujo-cum-yuri series. They are, so far, not the most winsome characters ever. As is often the case with anime characters, assumptions are made and we’re encouraged to stick to them. The assumption here is that Fumi has something to offer as a friend, but in two episodes she’s really just whiny and needy. She cries constantly, she changes her mind quickly based on what she thinks a cute girl will be doing, and she puts ridiculous expectations on people like her cousin Chizu-chan. Akira is her foil — a reasonably genki-girl, at least within the slow and breezy pace of the series thus far (Minorin would be, obviously, out of place).

Character designs are nice, with a bent towards the plain you might see in less “sparkly” shoujo (if you know what I mean) such as Itazura Na Kiss. There’s nothing as exciting as the dynamic always-in-motion style of Toradora! or Hatsukoi Limited’s refined eye candy. There’s nothing particularly exotic about any of the characters, even the ones that I get the impression are supposed to seem slightly exotic. But there certainly isn’t anything terribly ugly either, and I never really worry about JC Staff making animation foibles so consistency is a plus too.

Everything here seems to be executed with soft focus — I suppose that’s the style, and even more than usual, the studio’s backgrounds are watercolored and pastel.

But even amidst all this, details of immersion are done really well: you can easily feel what it’s like to be at the train station, slump in defeated envy at Akira’s beautiful school, or climb under the downy covers of Fumi’s bed with her.

Now, maybe that’s not done quite as well as Bones has done it with their Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which despite its cartoony style really has an eye for realistic body language and scenery. But Magnitude absolutely depends on a feeling of immersion — however interesting the characters might be, the earthquake and the world are the main characters here, or at least the main attraction.

Aoi Hana, on the other hand, is probably a simple love story and doesn’t require a level of believability beyond what any other basic anime might have. It only does what it does out of sheer devotion to a quality product, and here’s the kicker for me: if you’re not ready to dedicate yourself to an immersive, visual experience, what are you doing telling stories in a visual medium? Aoi Hana is proof that you can do that without action, mecha, fanservice, or psychedelic Shinbo-isms.

It’s been a while since I wrote a watching report, but in truth it’s been a while since I was watching enough to justify one. Here’s my current tub o’ fun:

Shin Mazinger Z

A couple seasons ago, Madhouse breathed new life into an old franchise as well with Casshern Sins. That one was done in a very western-comic-book fashion though: He’s back, and this time he’s dark! Go Nagai’s Shin Mazinger, however, directly channels the spirit of the original and consequently transports you back to childhood — to a time when a Rocket Punch was a supremely cool thing. Hot-blooded pilot Kouji’s angst is a little overplayed in the past couple episodes, but retro robots maintain. The brick-shitting may be over, but the adrenaline rush that brought it on is still in effect.

Haruhi

What hasn’t been said? Despite my last post, this is at least partially true: For most people who enjoyed the first show, it’s requisite viewing. For the rest, it’s not.

Eden of the East

I’ve fallen really far behind on this one. It remains strong in my head, and it’s the kind of show that when I do get back to it (probably this week) I won’t be able to stop until I’m caught up. Sci-fi, mystery, a hint of romance — it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t come along every season.

FMA:Brotherhood

Funimation has not made it easy to watch (their streaming site is sorely unable to handle the traffic that FMA brought), but I’m officially caught up. The waifu and I both agree that the hyper-ramped-up pace is a lot of fun to watch. The sense of scope in the Elric Brothers’ quest is lost almost completely, but that sacrifice is made in the name of pure watchability. I might not have a lot of company in this, but I’m a fan.

Hatsukoi Limited

Talk about your dark horses. A JC-Staff-animated romance series just after the very good Toradora seemed too soon, but this one has delivered. You might even say it’s got a little something for everyone. Kei’s internal monologues give fascinating insight into the mind of the tsundere, Misaki provides cool and spicy, and the whole thing is just exploding with cute, engaging romantic story threads. And panties. Which helps.

Unlike the best shows of its genre, Hatsukoi doesn’t look like it’ll transcend the anime medium, but the series is doing a fantastic job within it. What I’m most thankful for is consistent payoffs. I think 12-26 episodes without a hand-hold or a kiss is a lazy trick employed by anime writers to keep people watching their poorly-conceived romantic series in anticipation of something happening; Hatsukoi keeps rewarding its characters and viewers with romantic payoff while still stringing us along brilliantly.

Noein

This isn’t current, but I recently started it, in dub, from the iTunes store. Sadly, I’m not very pumped about it. The animation is an example of Satelight’s worst offenses: a beautifully crisp, modern, computer-aided look marred by horrible anatomy and a near-perfect lack of character consistency. These are really distracting to me, but if the story picks up soon I’ll be happy to ignore them. One thing I probably won’t be able to, though: American dubs’ tendency to pronounce character names with second syllable accents, e.g., hah-ROO-ka.

Anything I’m missing? I fell off the Saki and Shangri-La wagons a while back, might try the latter again though. And I never did pick up Sengoku Basara, but I hear it’s pretty manly.

Every anime season has its girls. Bishoujo shows give you gluttonous heaps of cuteness, harems pump crotch-face misunderstandings into the hallways of animated schools, and every once in a while some badass chick with cutoffs and guns ass-kicks her way to your heart. I was going to write something interesting about Hatsukoi Limited this week, because the wide-reaching strands of the story are starting to weave into a web, but I got slightly turned off-course by that girl for the spring season: Misaki Yamamoto.

You see, she’s the source of the interesting things that are happening. Long the “girl next door” in every sense of the word to poor personality-deprived Zaitsu, now this stone-cold fox with supposedly no desire for dudes has another lame-ass suitor, Koyoi’s beloved onii-chan. Now, let’s not get too hung up on the whole brocon/siscon thing and how it, like boobless girls, is on the surface made to be the freaky but undesirable fetish but of course its very presence in modern anime constitutes a ringing endorsement and custom fetish delivery to stinky otaku. I digress like fuck.

The elder Besshou is no more interesting than the younger Zaitsu, and has just as little concept of where his league is and when he’s out of it. To top it off for this poor sap, Misaki’s ditched her sexual disinterest in favor of his tactless, uncaring, lollipop-wielding best friend (who happens to be Kei’s older brother). And, tell me you ronery fuckers that you’ve never been here — she calls him to the restaurant to find out what she should do about her crush on crass-a-nova. FFFFFFFFFFF.

All of this matters because it’s the harbinger of the change of tone that every romantically focused anime must make before it becomes part of its genre. In love, everything isn’t breasts and roses, and tragedy is the name of the game. Here, we have both Besshou and Zaitsu, hopelessly hung up on the mesmerizing Misaki, and we’re already treated to the earliest tragic truth of the series: One of them — perhaps neither of them — will have her. Bummer.

Because let’s face it kids, Misaki’s pretty bangin. And she’d have to be. In an anime where the 14-year-olds cause lelangir confusing feelings (and cause pan-ups to be pasted together into pinups, apparently), the 16 or 17-year-old (maximum age in anime, deshou?) can’t just be bomb, she’s gotta be nuclear.

I’m starting to wonder now, how much Misaki will be a character, how much we’ll see into her head (like the unprecedented tsundere-POV of Kei) or whether she’ll just continue to be an object of desire, a veritable walking nosebleed for the male characters of the show. Regardless, this is animation, so I think we can all rest assured she’ll stay sexful. How her courtship fares, well that might not be as positive but a rosy outlook for love doesn’t make for good TV so let’s see what kind of damage she can do.