Well, the holidays got me sick. Not fun. But being bed-ridden was a great excuse to do my first legit series marathon in a very long time. I chose the supernatural action thriller Ga-Rei Zero. There may be minor spoilers, but considering the bulk of the story is laid out within a couple episodes, there’s not a lot to spoil in this series.

Story

Ga-Rei Zero is the origin story of the Ga-Rei manga, showing the path a young girl named Kagura took to become a powerful exorcist in a world full of demons and government “spiritual defense” organizations. Told mostly in flashback, Zero recounts the love she shared for 3 years with her surrogate sister Yomi.

There’s not much way to talk about this series without talking about the bizarre beginning: The non-traditional structure is a make-or-break point for Zero. By starting somewhere near the end, telling in flashback, then finally joining the two ends, writer Katsuhiko Takayama (also series writer for ef) constructed a horrible ode to inevitability that anime doesn’t deal in often, and some people just aren’t gonna go for. I can think of a live-action parallel: In Scorsese’s Casino, Robert De Niro’s character dies in a firey car bomb in the first couple minutes. The ensuing movie is entirely a flashback, and three hours later you remember: oh, yeah. He dies. Ga-Rei Zero takes an even more desperately depressing approach. Scorsese aimed to shock you with your forgetfulness, but this series constantly twists the knife to remind you what awaits.

On a superficial level of motorcycles, government demon-fighting teams, heroes-turned-bad, and depressive mood, Zero strongly resembles Blassreiter. It has a few key traits that separate it, though: half length, devotion to standard anime-“isms,” superior animation, and more personal themes of love and individual destiny versus Blassreiter’s focus on faith and duty.

Characters

I really wish Kagura were a more interesting character, but in truth that goes for most of the characters of G-RZ. Rather than a complex collection of emotions, they often feel like they’re just a product of the things that happen to them throughout the series — can you honestly say there are many people out there who wouldn’t have taken Yomi’s route, given the absolute emotional and spiritual pummeling she suffers?

That said, their generic qualities might serve to make them more sympathetic (same question applies here), and as the climax approaches, it’s hard not to feel for Kagura and, to a degree, Yomi’s erstwhile fiancé Noriyuki.

Technical

There isn’t a whole lot to say here. Nothing animation-wise, or audio-wise, went over-the-top for execution, but it’s appealing and more than solid the whole time. Character designs and overall style project a Production IG vibe, but maybe that’s just because Kagura = Saaya (Blood+) to some degree in my mind and it colored everything else. Fight scenes are well-directed and there’s no slippage in the high quality over 12 episodes.

Themes

Amidst all the standard anime junk — dead mothers and distant fathers, swordfighters in seifuku (not complaining), a world of improbable science-meets-magic — Zero manages to raise some interesting points. It’s really too bad that it spends a lot of time broadcasting those points through viewer proxies, dramatic monologues, and its lovely Engrishy tagline, “Would you kill someone you love, because of love?” Not that I expect the average anime to stop holding its viewers’ hands, but Ga-Rei Zero teased that it was going to give me lots to chew on, then took that away by outright verbalizing almost all of it.

While the show really wants us to ponder the question of whether Yomi overcame the Stone’s power or it just granted her true wish, what’s the difference? Either way, love tragically triumphs over greed and revenge, not that it helps anything. In hindsight, it’s kinda like the Haibane Renmei question of intent, except with damnation in place of salvation as the end result.

The Y Word

If you’ve read anything on blogs about Ga-Rei Zero, you’ve probably heard the word yuri tossed around a few times. In fact, ANN’s page lists “yuri” as the only theme. Glad I wasn’t watching it for that, or the other themes of “senseless suffering,” “inevitable tragedy,” and “sweet swordfighting” would have really distracted me.

But you can feel the sisterly love, and it really has to be ramped up for the horrific result to be felt. In the end, out of 4 hours of series there are about 30 seconds worth of anything that could be called yuri. There is one mouth-to-mouth kiss (a sort of Lady and the Tramp thing with Pocky), but that scene is there for a reason: it’s paralleled later, with horribly sad (if slightly overplayed) results.

So don’t watch this for yuri anymore than you’d watch it for guro — there’s enough blood, bathing, and shortness of skirts to cover your perverted needs, but it’s just not that kind of show. You’d have to be pretty depraved to get your jollies from something so damn depressing.

Bottom Line

Ga-Rei Zero caught me with its surprises in the first couple episodes, but after those were over, it continued to entertain and satisfy with good animation, cute girls with swords, and my ultimate anime fanservice, ludicrous tragedy (geez, maybe I am an extremist after all, clearly some people are not up for that and I guess I can’t blame them).

1990s OVAs full of tits, blood and total apocalypse fed my early fandom, and while this isn’t strictly an update to that it does provide the same kinds of thrills with a little more depth, a lot more heart, and a modern edge. Plus, it’s a lot better than Mnemosyne. Take its 12-episode length into account, and it’s hard for me not to recommend Ga-Rei Zero to anyone who likes their anime dark, action-heavy, and depressing.

Somewhere in the shady lands between tales we see as truth and those we see as bedtime stories for old Greeks lies Gnosticism. Actually first posited by some cats from Greece, this heretical and mystical form of Christianity (there are spinoff non-Christian forms as well) puts a very different spin on the world-view that you might be familiar with. It’s sort of what Kabbalah is to Judaism, and the two connect in many places, but it’s far less widely accepted by the traditional set (did I call it heretical yet?)

Here’s the shortened version of a few of the key Gnostic concepts filtered through the anime Ergo Proxy — any similarities are definitely not coincidental. Any Gnostics out there, gomen for my clumsy simplifications of your religion. Bullet lists and some possible spoilers follow. I tried really hard to keep them out, but then there wasn’t anything to talk about… ON with this.

Who’s who

Ergo Proxy doesn’t have a 1:1 correspondence of mythological figures to its own characters. You could say one of two things about this:

1. The writers of Ergo just pasted some Gnostic names onto their opus in an attempt to sound deep, after learning that “a flawed creator creating flawed creations” was a Gnostic theme.
2. They decided to let their own Creator — not to mention the Proxies, Re-L, and Vincent — fill numerous spots in mythology at once.

Ergo’s storyline is a complicated (some would say convoluted) and sometimes abstract one. Since it’s not always literal, that abstraction points me more toward #2. Plus, I like to give writers the benefit of the doubt.

Monad vs. Yaldabaoth the Demiurge

To Gnostics, the most fundamental belief is that the creator of this earth is not a true god, but a “demiurge.” This is Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah. That’s where the heresy comes in. This being’s very existence is basically a mistake, but it was powerful enough to create the material universe — and the little beings who populate it. Now, these folks aren’t bad, and in most Gnostic teachings Yaldabaoth isn’t either, but there are two truths here:

1. A flawed creator can only create flawed things. The Statues actually tell Re-L that they’re all the flawed products of a flawed creator. This theme continues to trickle down to the AutoReivs, the flawed creations of humans.
2. We, as fleshy beings, are prisoners of a material world. In this case Romdo is analogous to our own universe, in which we live perfectly happy lives until we acquire a glimpse of Gnosis (meaning knowledge, called “truth” in the anime). At the point where you know, your soul’s desire for more knowledge supplants your ability to be happy in slavery. All of its equivalent domes, represent potential similar planes of existence. Yes, both The Matrix and They Live are bigtime Gnostic flicks, according to some.

The one in Gnostic myth who brought Gnosis and saved us from this prison of slavery is Christ, but more on that in a second.

Some Gnostics break it down further, where the Demiurge was served by beings called Archons who did his laundry. In this case, I think there are two possible routes:

1. The proxies are in fact Archons to The Creator, who is the primary Demiurge.
2. The Creator is the real and truest God, known as Monad, while the Proxies are various Demiurges. Each domed city in this case would represent a material universe like our own.

Either is likely, but either way the central theme is what’s important: the Demiurge stands as gatekeeper to the realm of Light, and thus true God and Gnosis. I think that’s obvious in this case, since the Proxies rule over the false realities of the domed cities.

Sophia (Monad)

Monad is represented by numerous æons — emanations of God, also semi-analogous to traditional Christian angels — who come in pairs of descending importance. On the lower end of that, in the realm of Light, is Sophia and Christ.

From Wikipedia, paraphrased from the Gospel of Thomas (part of the Nag Hammadi), here’s what happens when the pairs operate independently of each other:

When an æon named Sophia emanates without her partner aeon, the result is the Demiurge, or half-creator, a creature that should never have come into existence. This creature does not belong to the pleroma, and the One emanates two savior æons, Christ and the Holy Spirit, to save humanity from the Demiurge. Christ then took the form of the human Jesus, in order to be able to teach humanity how to achieve gnosis; that is, return to the pleroma.

Well, that says a lot about the other Monad — the one in the anime — who is inexplicably tied to Ergo, and of course it says plenty about Vincent and Re-L as well. Vincent is the obvious Christ-figure of the story with his return to Romdo in earthly form, and when he and Re-L come back to Romdo again, they occupy the same body for a time.

When things start to both confuse and click simultaneously is when Monad Proxy herself returns to Romdo, but as Daedalus’s creation, a false Re-L. The names are obvious here, with the literal translation of her untimely end from the Icarus/Daedalus myth, although I think it’s only marginally related. But If Monad is Sophia to Vincent’s (Proxy) Christ, and Re-L is somehow also Sophia to Vincent’s (human) Christ, then that would tie them together fairly well.

What’s it mean?

There’s far more to cover in Ergo Proxy besides these three loose Gnostic parallels — for instance, the cogito virus, whose purpose bears a funny resemblance to another semi-Gnostic cartoon’s Human Instrumentality Project.

But regardless of whether I ever tie it all together, the point is the same as why Gnosticism still has an appeal as a religion (though please don’t consider this as anything other than and endorsement of an anime):

It values knowledge, thought, interpretation, and freedom of intellect over the material, the easy, and enslavement. it eschews easy answers in favor of learning for ones’ self.

But unlike this material existence, at least I’m able to do it a second time in hopes that it’ll make more sense.

Basquash!

Pre-airing thoughts: I don’t like sports. Never have. To me the fact that I was always a scrawny dork who was never any good at them was the reason I ended up an anime fan to begin with. Eyeshield, Slam Dunk, Hajime No Ippo, none of these ever really held any interest for me (although I know Riex and Choujin shake their heads when I say that about Ippo). But Basquash! has something they don’t: Shoji Kawamori. Does that mean the basketball players all sing? Probably not, but they do ride mecha, so we’re halfway to something.

duckies

First episode thoughts: Wow. Kawamori or no, this was cool. Mr. Macross’s studio of choice for the past couple installments, Satelight, may have even upped the ante from their impressive start of Macross Frontier. The look actually reminds me of Manglobe’s sweaty, sunny setting of Michiko & Hatchin, but of course with a stylishly futuristic wardrobe department. Dan seems to be a decent Black Star-esque protagonist with a good seiyuu and a “[insert thing] Mask” alter ego. Then of course, there’s lots of really well done CG of the “bigfoot” mecha whose cockpits are all 50s hot-rod-looking cars. I guess that’s the rock and roll angle of Kawamori’s designs. All in all, a fun ride of an opening with lots of great action and sufficient boobs to hold visual interest. Everything moved so fast, it was actually hard to get a screencap.

Careful! Lest these things Gainax all over the cockpit

What will go wrong: Kawamori isn’t the story or script writer, although the whole idea and design is his. So he can’t blow the ending by forgetting to think one up until he’s writing the last episode. Satelight can, however, do what they must have done with Frontier. That is, they could animate the 5 most important episodes first and fill in the rest with whatever tiny amount of cash they haven’t blown. For every hyper-impressive visual tour de force like this one, let’s hope there aren’t three all-out shitfests to follow.

Eden of the East

Pre-airing thoughts: I can’t say as I had any. I didn’t know anything about this series other than it’d be animated by Production IG, and would have music by Kenji Kawai and… Oasis.

First episode thoughts: From the looks of it, Eden of the East is going to shape up to be a bit of a shoujo romance with a twist of intrigue, much like last year’s Library War. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that that series lacked in both Libraries and War, but the romantic aspect was really not too badly done. So far, my ability to believe everything in episode 1 was strongly tested, but I am always ready to put that aside in the name of setup as long as it doesn’t go too far. After all, the premise of armed librarians was pretty fucking hard to swallow too, but it turned out that didn’t matter.

George Washington's Phallus looms ominously over our Japanese protagonist. Coincidence? Or symbolism?

In the end, it barely mattered what I didn’t believe because the execution was staggering. Facial expressions and body language effortlessly pulled off without all that Lucky Star/A-1 pictures simplification of design. CG integrated near-seamlessly into the slick cel work, and the traced photo backgrounds didn’t put me off at all (except for the fact that I have to go to Dulles airport next week). The Oasis OP was marvelous — even though I’m not a fan, the slick Western rock added a level of polish that really helped the full experience — and the cut-paper stop-motion ending sequence even better. OH! Also, they hired English-speaking voice actors to do the American parts. Nice touch.

What will go wrong: There won’t be enough Eden, or East. Saki, who looks a little like Itazura Na Kiss’s Kotoko, will turn out to be just as pathetic. And strangers will give up their hard-earned pants without question when I flash my balls at them.

Saki

Pre-airing thoughts: There is a series on Crunchyroll. I pay for Crunchyroll. Maybe I should watch it.

This is right, isn't it?

First episode thoughts: Gonzo? Well, they can make it work when it counts, but they seem stretched pretty thin this season. Possible Yuri? OK, I’m listening. Loudmouthed fanged loli eating tacos? I dunno, I’m losing interest. Mah Jong? Whoops. Gone.

Screencap not available. Artist's rendition of Saki.

Also, already watching one show with a lead character named Saki.

What will go wrong: I will actually watch this. That would be a problem. I have better things to do. Like go to the taco truck down the street. It kind of pains me to think of what a taco would taste like in Japan, which is why no matter how large a weaboo I become in some parallel world, I will still never go there for any extended period of time.

I’m hoping not to be the last person to wrap up Kure-nai — quite a few people already have — but I needed a little time to collect my thoughts about one of the most interesting series of Spring ‘08, a pretty good season.

Story

Kure-nai has a fairly simple, though inherently odd, storyline. Shinkurou Kurenai is a high-school student who has a part-time job as a “dispute mediator,” working for the tough and somewhat mysterious Benika. His duties include kicking a lot of ass in some fairly brutal sequences, and… that’s about it. But one day Benika has a job for him: protecting rich little kid Murasaki, who’s been forcibly removed from her family, the Kuhoins.

Characters

I often lump “story and characters” into the same little section in my reviews, but characters are way too important to Kure-nai for that, especially Shinkurou and Murasaki.

The main thrust of the series is Shinkurou’s development as a character; he starts off as a kid who admits his own weakness. He’s had a demonic bone-sword installed in his arm by high school haremette Yuno’s assassin family to compensate for his weakness, but he spends most of the show trying very hard not to use it. Murasaki of course makes the typical transition from spoiled rich girl to a regular kid who’s able to enjoy simpler things, to a child with a head full of crazy ideas implanted by Shinkurou’s bizarre neighbor women, and to something much more by the end.

Genre

Not an issue you usually have to discuss much, but Kure-nai seems to defy easy categorization. The fight scenes, though sporadic, are especially brutal and simple, far unlike the stylized Ninja or Chinese martial arts normally found in anime. But a big portion of the series was spent on simple slice-of-life non-events. Yes, between Shinkurou’s job, the freaky neighbors, and the very nature of the situation, these were really weird slices of life. But they could very easily be touching, cute, sad, or laugh-out-loud funny. So I have to hand one the best compliments I can think of to Kure-nai: It doesn’t live too simply in any one genre.

Plausibility

I’ll cover this issue more fully sometime (put it on that big list of Someday Posts), but certain bloggers seemed to be really cheesed off by certain aspects of the plot. I can definitely speak specifically to that issue, and maybe even said blogger understands now that that particular point was fully explained in later episodes. Either way, Kure-nai does in fact make a weird situation seem somehow plausible, despite what the dinosaur says. I think that’s achieved by the creation of what basically amounts to a fantasy world, even though it resembles the real world. A high school “dispute moderator?” Female friends who are an information gatherer and the heiress to a family of assassins? Incestious imprisoners of female family members? A musical episode? It all works. How?

Anachronism and other contrasts

Kure-nai seems obsessed with the idea of strange centuries-old traditions (and equally dated career paths) living comfortably alongside the modern society that the rest of us think is hunky dory. There’s an air of mysticism that subtly presents itself time and again, even when nothing strange is really happening and the series is focusing on thoroughly modern stuff.

That contrast and duality is not the only one — obviously you have Shinkurou’s high school life and dangerous job, or his deadly serious task and the goofy antics he gets into with his friends and neighbors. Even the execution of Kure-nai is about contrasts. The show itself seems far more serious than the throwaway pop OP would lead you to believe (especially in the first episode, which starts pretty violently), and the similarly useless ED carries us away to happy-land right before the “next episode” preview halts all action and demands your attention with a captivating, minimal shamisen tune and silenced dialog.

Animation and execution

Some of the character designs really weirded me out, and anatomically just didn’t jive. Especially Benika’s. If you add it all up, two and two don’t equal four and the ears shouldn’t be coming from there. But Shinkurou and Murasaki were very appealing designs, and the animation (by Brains Base) was overall one of the show’s highlights.

So?

The ending didn’t do it for me. Perhaps the writers needed just a little more time that they didn’t take in other places, but the end took that plausibility and threw it out the window. I think the believable-factor really only happened the way it did because of the characters. They acted, overall, in a way that you didn’t have to stretch to much to imagine real people doing. Many times that was in the little details, like bored bodyguard Yayoi’s obsession with some game on her cellphone. Sometimes it was in the overall character arc, like Shinkurou himself. But for those of you who have seen it: Murasaki’s behavior at the end provides a convenient way to tie up the show without going in one totally obvious way or another, but is it right?

Bottom line, even with that ending, Kure-nai managed to be that one show that comes along every once in a while and elevates itself just a little bit above the typical TV anime fare. Not really even as much as last season’s True Tears, but enough that I can recommend it. The story was decent, the animation quality was a notch above standard, and I think it actually stands a reasonably good chance of being licensed somewhere in the future.

As Geass wraps plot twist after plot twist around their poncy little pastry (or is it, more likely, a calzone?) and stuff it with a filling of cheesy fanservice, there is other really good stuff on right now as well, stuff that gets me going like a cellphone in a young kabuki maiden’s pocket.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

Watching Kyouka on TV kind of makes me wonder if this is what Kyon and the SOS Brigade felt like. I love how she calls the audience “pigs.” Why does Yuuko have to be such a punching bag, though? I thought this was a comedy. My overall impression is still kind of ho-hum — such a random premise has to do some weird shit just to hold up week after week, and I’m not sure dramatic elements are right — but there’s a lot worse out there. Plus, Ginka’s managed to be gay and GAR at the same time.

Kurenai

Still being straight-up awesome. This week’s episode was light-hearted characterization, but the writing is so smart, there’s no way you could call it filler. Why do I like Kurenai so much? Because unlike any other male anime lead, Shinkurou seems like someone I might actually let babysit my kid. Certainly the only one with a bony weapon growing out of his arm. But what bothers me is, with Yayoi following them all the time, isn’t Benika effectively paying for two bodyguards? Animation continues to be good, though some character designs still put me off in a weird way.

Toshokan Sensou

What a blast. Aside from a totally ridiculous premise — basically an amped-up version of Fahrenheit 451 in which books are highly regulated but libraries are self-governed paramilitary organizations — this is a great series with a twist: it’s one part action and one part shoujo, which gives it a unique feel. Rarely outside of a true girls’ series is there such a winning female lead. And Production IG’s digitally-assisted animation tops their work on Blood+.

Special A

I don’t know why I’m still doing it, perhaps I like Jun Fukuyama more than I let on. I have now taken to watching the OP and ED because the singing is so incredibly awful. Rubbernecking at a train wreck, as it were.

Golgo 13

This week’s episode was boooooring. Blah blah blah guns, blah blah M-16, blah blah let’s try to kill Golgo 13. News flash, dumbass: HE CAN’T BE KILLED. Get back to Duke fucking a prostitute and assassinating someone, already. Still the GARest thing that will ever be on TV.

The Tower of Druaga

There’s a YouTube hack that lets you save any vid with a high-quality version into an mp4 on your computer, which is nice because I can watch it on my iPhone. I might be squandering Gonzo’s good will, but I call Fair Use, bitches. Especially when the iPhone/Touch’s actual YouTube app allows access to about jack shit percent of the videos on YouTube as a whole. Getting away from all that, this show has amped up its charm over 5 episodes, and when combined with free legitimate release and an amazing OP, it makes a series you really should be watching.

Kaiba

This.

This. Kaiba. This is why I wanted to write an “other shows” post to begin with. Sometimes we need to be reminded, with all the clichés and harems we both enjoy and deride in equal measure, why we started watching anime. Kaiba is why. Haters, stop bitching about vapid shows like Kanokon and To Love-Ru and start putting an antidote in front of your eyes. Lightly “H” series with tons of panties and a grade-schooler’s perception of sex are not “adult” — they share only ink and acetate in common with this very adult show. In the space of three episodes, it’s managed to be imaginative, fascinating, sexy, unsettling, and even heartbreaking. All with a design that looks deceptively like a kid’s show.

A lot’s been made of the animation, to me it’s a strong suit. Madhouse is usually very straightforward in style, but they manage to get crazy when it counts, for instance Satoshi Kon’s stuff. Here, they’re doing absolutely amazing things. Just watch the OP, you’ll see they mean business.

As much as I went and talked up the anthology factor of Shigofumi last episode, I’m also really digging the character developments that happened here.

Recap

We begin with a Kasai Haruno, a young would-be editor who’s apparently deemed useless by her publishing company; unexpectedly, she’s given her first real job after three years — editing for Mikawa Kirameki. Coincidentally, her younger sister Natsuka is the same girl that Kaname called when he saw the phantom Fumiko on the roof.

Natsuka digs the nerdy type, and though she knows all Kaname really wants is to grill her about Fumiko, she is excited to have him over.

When Haruno forgets her map on the first day to her new job and Kaname helps Natsuka scan and email it to her, Kaname’s obsession brings him and Natsuka to the bizarre glass Mikawa complex as well. But that’s not all: Mikawa Kirameki is the recipient of a Shigofumi, and guess whose job it is to deliver it? Fumiko, of course. And Kirameki seems to roll with it, for some unknown reason.

So the end of the episode is a pretty unexpected turn of events as all the characters converge on Mikawa’s remote glass castle thingy.

What We’ve Learned

Fumiko did indeed shoot her dad back in the day, though obviously he still lives. She is well aware of her sleeping body in the hospital, which she calls her “other half.” And Kirameki is even more “eccentric” and cold-hearted than we’ve been shown in previous clips.

Thoughts

Kaname’s obsession with finding answers is pretty hardcore, but it’s getting to be a plot contrivance. Natsuka is a shy girl, so maybe she wouldn’t have really stopped him, but it seems like bad form to follow your sister to work on her first day, especially when she works for The Fucked-Up Poet (isn’t that another Shakugan No Shana character?). At any case, we’re made to accept that in order to get all the recurring characters together in on place at the same time. I suppose I’m OK with it, because it’s still a fine show, and the merger of anthology-style and recurring characters in this episode is pretty interesting.

Looks like next week is the flashback to Fumiko shooting Kirameki that a lot of people are probably pining for at this point. Seems early to lay those cards on the table, so hopefully there is a lot more planned for the rest of this season’s episodes.

I often justify my habit by saying that I love a good serial: I can even call my favorite live-action American show, Lost, a pretty good time for all its faults. But in truth, I like a good anthology as well. It’s just regular-episode television that bores me. Whether comedy or drama, sticking the same characters into various situations with only a vague semblance of progressing story is wasted opportunity if you ask me. At any rate, Shigofumi is turning out to be a great anthology.

Story

While Episode 5’s delivery to a cat was largely an excuse to develop Fumiko’s back story, this time it’s a more strict anthology route. A meek kid named Kikukawa is bullied mercilessly at school and another kid, Morishita, sells him out to protect his own ass, even though he snoops on internet message boards and sees how horrible things are for Kikukawa. Eventually, Kikukawa tops himself and Morishita finds himself the recipient not only of the bullies’ torture, but a vengefully-written Shigofumi from his dead classmate.

Tying things together, Fumiko’s former classmate is still exploring the mystery of what happened to her. His detective dad worked the case of her father’s shooting, and he confirms she’s been in the hospital for three years. So… as I feared, she is indeed a Fuko. Sigh.

Thoughts

I think one of the reasons why the anthology route works for me is the ability to change tone and vary the stories without jacking up the flow. Compare this to the sweetly sad episode with the tennis player, and it’s obvious you couldn’t do those same two types of episodes in a standard show. This one was dark as hell, and it made me wonder at the realism level of the psychologically brutal bullying. Is it really that bad? I suppose it’s probably not too far-fetched.

The Show

This is the first I’ve written on Shigofumi, another series you can chalk up to my flu. Now I’m up to my eyeballs in weekly anime, and though I’d still drop them all just for True Tears, I’m really enjoying this odd beast. Again, the anthology factor is a change of pace, Fumiko’s deadpan delivery is fun, and overall it’s just a slightly less conventional kind of enjoyment. It’s that change of pace that also sets it apart from perhaps its nearest comparison in recent memory, the repetitive Hell Girl. It was created by Ichiro Okouchi, the writer behind Code Geass, and Martian Successor Nadesico director Tatsuo Sato. I suppose the Ruri comparisons probably aren’t just in my head.

JC Staff (Shakugan No Shana, Azumanga Daioh and a ton more) does their typically capable job of animating, with the same dash of computer assistance you see in Shana.

Music is a pretty decent part of Shigofumi; incidentals are often suspenseful and kind of eerie. The OP (by Ali Project) is just odd, kind of makes me weirdly nervous in a way that makes a suitable prep for the show.

I’m looking forward to watching more, and though it’s not as rad as that other show about death and uh, notes, it’s a pretty good break from harems or action shows with no action.

One day, people will be able to write about School Days on the internet or wherever without having to address its infamy. That day won’t be until it reaches these North American shores, gets dubbed, and is viewed by people who have no connection to the Internet anime culture whatsoever (the fansubbers, bloggers, blog readers, and dating-sim players who took it on last fall).

School Days was infamous from the start, thanks to starting as a less than traditional dating-sim. And those non-traditional aspects carried over — it was even more infamous after airing, thanks to the “Nice Boat” incident where the final episode was replaced by 4 out of 5 TV stations with nature scenery. But I’m trying not to spoil too much, in case someone genuinely wants to hear a real review. I did write down my impressions episode by episode, but another recap of this show is not what the internet needs.

Story and Characters

Remember, cute things only belie horrible tragedy later.

This is first and foremost a love triangle. It’s not a slice of life, it’s definitely a love triangle. Cute Sekai sits next to Makoto in class, and finds a picture of a hot girl on the train on his cellphone. She helps him get the girl, the ditzy Kotonoha, but in the process they actually fall in love. That’s a fairly typical storyline — though it’s well done here — and it’s very warm and fuzzy, rainbow-fart stuff, but what a lot of anime dramas fail to do is show the realistically fucked up things that can happen when you introduce sex into the picture. Sex messes with the minds of kids who are not only new to it, but written as stilted and shy anime characters.

Makoto goes from typical harem-show doormat to a guy who actually seems to realize he’s in a harem show, turning the love triangle into a sex tetrahedron that you absolutely have to see to believe. And of course, all that sex has consequences.

He’s not the only detestable human being, though: “Morally loose” is pretty good for these characters, downright cruel is more the norm. And really, no one at all is innocent. Sort of like real high school students.

Realism, at least in some form, is a great boon to School Days. Sex, peer pressure, Carrie-level humiliation, lack of morals, cheating, (date)rape, abortion, mental instability, the cruelty of teenage girls, even a fucking foursome yes you heard me — they’re all here, side by side with the biggest holy shit of all, the Nice Boat. Only hard drugs and boozing escape this one. The moe problems of Clannad characters suddenly seem even more quaint.

Welcome… to the Thunderdome! Two girls enter... then so does another one! Did I mention morally loose?

The basic gist of the ending will come to you with no problem, but as its inevitability spirals faster and faster toward you, you will be amazed. And you’re not ready.

Animation and Design

If anyone asks you why Pani Poni dash is funny, show them this.

I probably could have enjoyed this thing far more if it hadn’t been drawn by Gelfling fetishists. The profiles especially are just horrible. Animation is typical high-school-show fare, don’t get spoiled by Clannad or anything. School uniforms appear to mandate thigh-highs, and some episodes (the obligatory water park episode comes to mind) are so harsh with the fanservice that even the most balls-out otaku might not really feel “served.” No nudity though, in spite of all the sex. The OP, of all things, does have some nipply shapes. Kinda weird and gross.

There are a few interesting details that I like. Oddly, shoes come to mind. I feel like I have a better idea of Sekai’s character, just because of the sneakers she wears.

uh...

Make it a learning experience

School Days, in spite of its poor execution much of the time, raises some great points, like: how far is too far to go for your own happiness? Halfway through the show, you may be thinking “well, they’re going about this all wrong, but they’re following their hearts at least!” But in the end, the story’s whole situation parallels and mirrors that moment, and it’s unambiguously terrible. I’m sure it’s also no accident. There are so many interconnects in the story that I wouldn’t take anything for granted.

Poor Sekai. She’s pretty sick in this scene, but this is the end of a pan up from a crotch shot. I’m not making that up. And if you're wondering... blue and white stripes.

Maybe more importantly, School Days takes a common format, the harem genre, and asks its viewers to look at it in a new light. It turns anime love triangles around to their dark side in unabashed horror. It adds incredible complexity to a genre that is basically pretty simplistic though it purports to deal with human emotions. And for that I can’t fault it at all. Just as an example: in a dating-sim or harem I would assume that a four-on-one would constitute a pretty desirable outcome, but when it appears in the show, it’s a jaw-dropping tap-dance of cruelty.

Some people say that, even with all that, the ending was still too disturbing.

I don’t.

But I watch Takashi Miike movies with some regularity, so you’re gonna have to get pretty rough to bother me. Anyway, I think it needed its harshness.

Flaws?

Two things: first and foremost, pretty uninspiring animation.

Secondly, there’s a pretty long setup for a show whose action all happens in the last few episodes. I didn’t want to talk about the end at all, but I am afraid that someone coming blindly to this thing will give up before things really get set into motion, so don’t give up. Some setup is necessary in hindsight.

But — it’s not a huge flaw given that School Days is only 12 episodes. And once it gets going it is one sociopathic cruelty after another, with only small breaks for hysteric despair. I don’t count that in itself as a problem, though I can see why some would. If you don’t do dark, don’t watch. Period.

No arguments.

In the end (Nice Boat)

Few movies or shows will change the way you look at anime. Evangelion (and RahXephon) forever made other giant robots less interesting, and Haruhi makes me laugh every time an animated camera pans to the sky. School Days, if you’re not careful, will cast a pall over the harem genre, from Love Hina to Clannad.

I don’t want to sound too over-analytical because the main thrill here is visceral, and it got me. The reason I put it in such bold company as Haruhi or Eva is because just maybe it belongs there — not necessarily for quality, but certainly for impact.