Shameful Otaku Secret!

New Life

[Don't know your Tomoya from your Tomoyo? Clannad Info page to the rescue.]

After having to wait an extra week after last episode’s bulldozer-of-bodies, I was set up for disappointment. But honestly, at this phase of the show there should be no wasted minutes, and thankfully that wasn’t the case.

Recap: Okazaki’s final mission

First thing’s first, one of Tomoyo’s first acts as student council president is to allow the theater club to share an advisor with those troublesome weak-handed choir bitches. And Nagisa starts to figure out just how difficult it’s going to be to pull a play off before the school festival.

Okazaki serves up a tasty dish: Bitter in flavor, yet subtley demeaning.

After a counselor has a lot of difficulty trying to talk to Okazaki’s dad about his future, Nagisa has to chase O-Town down and force him to meet the guy.

You’ve created a monster, Okazaki.

Nagisa sees just how bad things seem to be between our ever-sloppier hero and his pops. So, much to Sunohara’s jealous dismay, she offers up her guest room for him. Sanae is happy as a clam, and even crazy old man Akio seems to enjoy having him around to help in the bakery.

I SAID tell me about the damn grizzly attack!

But it’s never quite a bed of roses, is it? Not only is Tomoya uncomfortable in his overly-homey situation, but something is amiss in the Furukawa household, and the villain is Key’s standard bogeyman: a troubled but cloudy past. It seems Sanae runs a cram school for kids, because she’s no longer able to teach middle school.

Okazaki, hero to the kids.

Why doesn’t she teach anymore, wonders Tomoya.

“A lot of things happened,” Akio tells him. Later, Nagisa confesses to him that she feels that she somehow wronged them in the past, but they always tell her she’s imagining things.

Yes, yes. Our special little boy. Yes you aaare.

And the robot in the imaginary world that you totally forgot about decides to try to make another robot. The girl helps it. The CG is very conspicuous.

What We’ve Learned

What did I say? I said there was some kind of horrific grizzly attack in the Furukawa’s past, because no one is that cheery in these stories without covering something, especially not when their daughter has the mysterious moe-itis disease. So Tomoya’s Final Mission (should he choose to accept it) will be to discover what the thing is, and most likely in the process repair his relationship with his father. But next episode’s preview shows us Akio insisting that even if Tomoya finds the truth, he’d better not tell Nagisa.

We also learned that the budget might be slipping a tiny bit. Kyoto is not immortal, I guess.

Thoughts

In spite of the heavy subject matter that’s looming on the horizon, there were lots of scenes good for a chuckle in this episode. Okazaki running from the counselor with Nagisa chasing him had great comic timing, even as it showed Nagisa becoming a more appealing character (she’s gonna die, right? I’ll put money on it).

If only pictures could make the awesome sounds in this shot.

The single funniest scene, though, was Sunohara’s improvised melodrama featuring the theater club’s sound effects synthesizer. Yes, Sunohara is usually just comic relief, but at least he’s good at it. And to be fair, he does toss a little sidelong wisdom to Tomoya later in the episode.

Me too. I guess.

Finally. For the first time in a while, I’m looking forward to what Clannad has in store.

A Town Where It Doesn’t Snow

[If you're not up to speed, check out the new True Tears info page]

Well. I realized as I sat down to watch this that I was super dooper excited. True Tears really is my favorite show right now, and you can bet I’m not throwing out that Trapper Keeper where I wrote “Mike hearts True Tears 4ever” all over in glitter sparkle pen. I still think it’s a fucking farce that Bandai is going to want $40 a pop for two-episode DVDs of what has to be the shortest series in town, just so we can see Crispin Freeman as Jun (mark my words…).

The Obligatory Recap

The pacing continues to be solid, with story developments coming fast enough to hold my attention but no so fast as to lose the feel of the show — nor does it seem like it’s going to run out of steam prematurely.

Shinichiro really seems to enjoy his time spent with Noe, which is ever-increasing. Perhaps he wasn’t just trying to convince himself he liked her, after all. In fact, he’s walking on sunshine, whoah. He’s writing a picture book again, this one’s about Raigomaru the rooster, and Noe couldn’t be happier to hear it. In fact, it even earns Shin a kiss on the cheek.

Speaking of smooooch, the aftermath of the Aiko kiss incident is as expected: while I usually knock the whole “pretend it didn’t happen” thing in dramatic anime, it’s not the show itself that’s pretending it didn’t happen. Shinichiro is actually taking the pretty mature route here. He says he thinks of her like a sister, not to mention he’s not willing to be a party to crushing his friend Nobuse.

Hiromi , suffering more subtle jabs than ever from Shin’s mom, starts to turn (even more) despondent.  While hanging out with cold-ass Jun, she wins a rigged basketball-driven truth or dare type game, and asks him two questions:

1. How many boys has Noe gone out with before? Zero. As Jun starts to ramble on about Noe, Hiromi calls his ass to the table: “Siscon.” I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been waiting to hear that.

2. Why are you going out with me? And not surprisingly, the cold cold bastard tells her. She slips in a third question — what happens if one side breaks up. His only reply: That would be a problem.

As if by cruel fate, the two pairs meet. Hiromi is not feeling especially charitable, but she doesn’t tell Noe about the Dirty Deal. Instead, she makes a pretty unkind comment about how easily Noe stole Shinichiro’s heart, before immediately realizing how much like Shin’s mom she sounds.

We end with Hiromi deciding to bolt from the house, probably for Shin’s mom’s benefit as much as anyone’s, and demanding that Jun take her somewhere (”a town where it doesn’t snow”) on his bike, despite the danger of riding in the snow.

What we’ve learned, what’s to come

Hiromi is now up to speed with the viewer on just about everything, only Noe is in the dark about the Deal. Let’s hope it stays that way, since Shin seems to really be into her these days. The Aiko-Nobuse situation is looking bleak, but look closely: the next episode preview sees Shin fighting with someone, but it’s not Nobuse. Could he be defending Noe’s honor?

Other interesting bits of the preview include a cop car (motorcycle incident or just Mrs. Nakagami calling in Hiromi as missing?), Shin arguing with his mother (probably over what he sees as her driving Hiromi out), and Hiromi apparently disrobing (eh?).

And furthermore

Can I just take a second to verbally spooge all over this show again? This week’s Magic Scene could be Noe and Shinichiro by the seaside, sure. But I think I’d vote for Hiromi vs. Noe by the chicken coops. The subtle range of emotion in both characters’ faces is absolute brilliance, down to Hiromi’s oh-so-tiny tooth grinding. I’d wager it’s even better than Aiko and Nobuse at the mall. Not to mention, Hiromi’s voice acting is the best on TV. Bandai have their hands full with this overpriced dub, no matter how many Crispin Freemans or Kari Wahlgrens they bring to the table.

At any rate, True Tears is my jam and it’s not disappointing me yet. It’s subtely fascinating and still surprisingly real, so I continue to have high hopes.

Scream

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

Bad news

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.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor your sorry ass…

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.

Welcome. You’ve got mail.

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.