Random Curiosity

Episode 10

「正しい国」 (Tadashī Kuni)
“A Proper Country”

It’s always nice to see a romance get to the point where it’s obvious to the couple that their feelings are evolving, but not many stories manage to pull it off as naturally as Soreseka does. In fact, the magic probably lies in the fact that those feelings actually evolve. Livi and Nike did not fall in love when they first met, nor did they do so in the early days of their engagement. They got along and then became fond of one another, but they were still getting to know each other. It isn’t until now when Nike initiated the first kiss between them, that she’s beginning to see Livi as her husband rather than the boy she initially had motherly/sisterly feelings for. Livi has always seen Nike as his wife, but he nevertheless begins to act awkwardly and shyly toward Nike’s blossoming feelings. The relationship is becoming less arranged and more willing, but unfortunately Nike’s family doesn’t wish to see this.

To Nike’s grandmother, Livi is a dangerous element in more than one way. Not only does she see him as unworthy of Nike on a personal level, but she also believes that Livi would abuse Nike’s powers for his own tyrannical gain. Even if he proved trustworthy, it is true that any descendants of theirs may posses Nike’s powers and thus further endanger the world, at least in Tohara’s eyes. But most of all, I think Tohara simply does not wish to give her granddaughter up. Having raised Nike, Tohara must feel like Nike is her own daughter, more so than Nike’s sisters, who were presumably raised by their proper mother. She feels loathe to part with Nike, and much less to hand her over to a boy who may not be able to make her happy.

Her methods, however, are selfish though she may not see it this way. She refuses to listen to Nike’s feelings about the matter, nor does she care to really see what Livi is like. She assumes he is not right for her granddaughter and that Nike’s place is in the Rain Duchy no matter what. She throws Nike in prison with help from her besotted cousin Kitora and tests Livi with the intent of proving his lack of affection for Nike. Instead, Tohara ends up highlighting what makes this series great; Nike and Livi’s chemistry. Even when not together, they care and fight for one another. Though they are still exploring their new feelings, they are not afraid to admit they love one another in their own way. Nike doesn’t sit in prison and wait, just as Livi doesn’t give up looking for the key even up until he begins to drown. They believe in one another but still want to protect the other. That is a bond formed by getting to know one another, by growing together and learning to love. In some ways, that’s more powerful than what you’d call love at first sight.

 

Episode 11

「通り過ぎる風」 (Tōrisugiru Kaze)
“The Passing Wind”

Yeah, I really don’t know at what point these two are supposed to be legally married anymore. They definitely use the words “husband,” “wife,” and “queen” liberally, but then it seems like the two or three “weddings” we’ve seen haven’t quite tied the knot for some reason. Nevertheless, I like to think of the two as married, and they certainly act like it. CPR aside.

In any case, having proved their devotion to a grudging and sulking Tohara, Nike’s family decides to accept the union and apologize for their behavior by throwing Livi and Nike a party/wedding/engagement. Nike’s sickly mother kidnaps Livi and gets him dressed up while Nike gets dolled up by her family, which leads to a truly pleasant scene of a wedding in the tradition of the Rain Duchy. Not only are the costumes pretty to look at, but the scene has a genuine family party feeling and helps give color to Nike’s family. Livi’s speech and stolen kiss are sweet and good fun, but more than anything it’s heartwarming for the couple to move into a more public and comfortable place in their relationship, even if Nike’s cousin and grandmother are unhappy about losing her.

I suppose in a way there’s a message about letting go and letting young people seek their own happiness, but Tohara’s determined isolation also feels wrong even if it was originally a plan to stay out of war. Staying cooped up denied the people of the Rain Duchy experiences to see more of the world and build strong ties to other countries. It seems almost like a rebellion that Nike’s father offered a daughter in marriage and allowed her a way out of Tohara’s strict control. Tohara as a matriarch isn’t that different from an overly strict parent too afraid of the outside world and potential consequences to allow any freedom to spread one’s wings. In Nike, however, she’s finally being forced to face the truth. even if she and Kitora are not ready to let go.

While Tohara is a different story, however, Livi sets things right with Kitora on his own terms. Nike doesn’t belong to anyone even if she’s marrying Livi, and her affections are hers to give; that being said, love from afar is not the same as acting upon it (properly and in a healthy manner, of course), and in that sense Livi makes Kitora see that he can’t patronize his cousin no matter how much he cares for her. That doesn’t mean the boy king doesn’t have some fun in doing so though.

 

Episode 12

「帰還」 (Kikan)
“Return”

I’m so happy to see a good ending in an anime; it feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen one. Everything of importance gets wrapped up, we get good romance, and we get good nostalgia and happy fluffy feelings at seeing everyone for the last time.

The finale is obviously split into two halves: the emotional resolution to Tohara’s relationship with Nike and the romantic end for the married pair. The first half is really rather beautiful in its emotional sincerity. Tohara avoids Nike in her anger and grief, but not out of any deep seated hatred. She merely wants to keep her beloved granddaughter safe at her side, and she’s upset at seeing her grown up and making her own decisions against her grandmother’s will. Nike in turn loves Tohara deeply as her mother figure, and she hates disappointing her even though she refuses to leave Livi’s side. That hurts Tohara, but she’s too proud to face her granddaughter and her own feelings about the matter until the last possible second. Her beautiful sendoff is touching and hard to watch as Nike breaks down with the pain of leaving home and her grandmother behind. Personally, I loved this half, and I loved the stark emotions between the characters, whether it was between Nike and Tohara or in the gentle consoling hand Livi offered his partner as she cried.

The second half is good too, though in a different way. We get to see some old faces and some nice wrap up for the kingdom, and we get a good laugh at seeing Livi’s reaction to the way Bard kept things running in his absence (Note: You probably shouldn’t hold an extended orgy/harem while the King is out). Unfortunately for Nike, that means Livi has to go back to work, and she needs to return to a life of audiences and the court. As a result, Nike begins to yearn for her husband, and to come to terms with her newly developed feelings while in isolation. The lonelier she feels, the more she comes to love him, and the sadder she becomes.

It’s a really poignant thing, wanting to see a loved one who is far away, and the series perfectly catches that melancholy we all feel at some point in our love lives. The finale definitely plays with romance tropes, but it executes it so well that even Livi on his princely white horse feels like a wonderfully nice reunion at the end. And who would argue with such a lovely epilogue, kiss and all?

“You bring the world to me.” Wow. Just, wow.

 

Epilogue:

Final Impressions:

As a female involved in the anime world, I’ve found it difficult to find a place in terms of the kinds of shows that are produced for me. Female-oriented shows are small in number, and those that make it tend to make it because they are pandering shows that appeal to the female sex drive (which it would seem, people only notice when all those girls go rabid for Free! and buy tons of merchandise, even though we’ve always had it). There’s precious little else made for us anymore, and little that explores the nuances of emotions and characters (*cough*cagegirl*cough*) to my taste. That doesn’t mean shows like Free! are bad, there’s just not a whole lot of variation in terms of material overall. So when I saw that one of my favorite shoujo manga was being adapted, I jumped at the chance to cover it.

Though flawed, I think Soreseka has been exactly what we’ve needed in the “shoujo” department. The demographic itself has a pretty negative connotation nowadays, but it’s really not all sappy unhealthy romances and pretty boys, just like the shounen demographic isn’t all big breasted women and battle tropes (though in both cases these things do exist). In fact, I hesitate to say that Soreseka is a pure shoujo, because it’s not. It’s really just a romance, which happens to be told well and through the eyes of the female lead. You get the occasional cliche, but there’s more frankness, more starkness and depth to the simple feelings between Livi and Nike as their relationship changes and grows. We understand Nike’s motherly instinct for Livi, and Livi’s need to seem older than he is. We watch them grow into friends and partners, and from there into lovers. Lovers on equal terms too, because for all of Livi’s original intentions, Nike is not the kind of person one can keep tied down.

There are downturns in the quality of the show, more than anything through rushing material and the romantic rival arcs, but overall there’s not a whole lot to complain about. The animation is nice, the music good (even the rain song grows on you if you weren’t originally a fan), direction well done, and the romance captivating. I know there are still people who feel it weird that Livi is younger than Nike, but again, three years is not much and marriages at those ages happened all the time in history (though it’s not often you find microphones and amps in a world that still uses wooden galley ships). It really does nothing to change the chemistry of the characters, and it even adds complexity to their relationship. The kiss at the end, though anime original, is the way you expect a series like this to end, but knowing that lessens nothing about the impact of it. The final lines, in which Nike explains how Livi affects her life, are a beautiful way to describe love. Love is what makes the world bright, what makes it still beautiful when things seem dark. It’s a simple message, a simple depiction, but profound nonetheless.

As you all know, I will be taking a hiatus during the summer season, but I will be returning in the Fall. I have been posting late because of personal circumstances within my family, and feel like I need to take a break to set those things in order and avoid ruining the blogging experience for all the wonderful readers at RC. It has been my pleasure to write for you this season, and I hope to bring you something more timely and fun to read in three month’s time. Happy summer everyone!

Note: Many thanks to Stilts-senpai for helping me out with caps this post; I know I drive you crazy with my crappy internet, gomen!

Shipping Nico x Maki so hard!

Love Live! S2 ended like it began – singing, dancing, smiling, and hamming it up like nobody’s business. But I finished the series smiling, so I think it did its job.

Sports Idoling

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I enjoy Love Live! despite not liking idols or idol anime. Here’s what I think it is: This isn’t an idol anime. Not like THE IDOLM@STER, at least. Other idol shows seem to focus more on the industry of professional idoling, which holds no interest to me. But Love Live! is basically a sports anime where the sport is idoling. It combines the amateurs-striving-for-greatness feel of a sports anime with kawaii girls singing and dancing, and that’s proven to be a winning formula. From training arcs to heart-pounding competitions, it’s a sports anime at its base.

Disney Magic – Hamming It Up 100%!

In my introduction of the first episode I mentioned that it had a very Disney feeling to it, and that continued through the season. Most of the meaningful drama was sacrificed in favor of over-the-top ham, cheap platitudes and feel-good moments (Ex: getting rid of the μ’s name when that’s a terrible idea). There was very little character drama, with the only moments that really made the heart pound being the ones right before their big competitions. Which is a shame, because the character drama in the first season enhanced the story. Here it felt too buddy-buddy, and while the girls didn’t have to be sniping at each other all the time – their unshakable friendship was nice to see – when drama is replaced with no drama, the series ends up feeling emptier.

Stretching It Out

Unlike the first season, where it seemed like they had a lot of story to tell, this season felt like it had a good six episodes of material stretched out into thirteen. Much of the season was unabashed fluff, which is both good and bad. As a fuwa-fuwa Disney magic sort of show, seeing all the girls goof around as friends was enjoyable to see. It’s just that they were goofing around so much that many episodes felt like 80% fluff, and now I don’t remember what happened in any of them. I remember the strong arc of the first season clearly, but this season had a vast fluffy middle area where I honestly have already forgotten most of what went on. The story also seemed more self-indulgent, more inclined to navel gaze (trope!) while the characters all talked about how wonderful being an idol is rather than doing anything substantial. Slice-of-life anime can afford to leave behind little more than vague warm feelings, but I feel like Love Live! was better when it aspired to more.

Snow Halation

I’ve leveled some criticisms at the second season, but in truth it’s not bad. The reasons why it underperformed the first season are a little tricky, which is why I wanted to explain them. Episode-by-episode though, it was one of the series I always kept up with (that’s rare for me), and I consistently enjoyed each episode. Friendship is huge in Love Live!, and that drew me to it each week more than anything else. I think we lonely humans not-so-secretly wish for a group of friends as close as μ’s, and the ideal way they were portrayed never failed to give me the warm fuzzies. Bonus points: Snow Halation (their winning preliminary song, in episode nine) is probably my favorite μ’s performance of either season. That, plus improved CG making all of the performances look better, made each episode fun to watch…even if I wonder how well they’ll endure in the mind.

μ’s Music End

In the end, Love Live! has been selling like hotcakes and a movie has already been announced, so the story will continue. A respectable sports anime with cute dance sequences, peppy J-Pop, and plenty of the power of friendship…yeah, that’s not a bad way to spend a few hours. Until we meet again, school-idols-formerly-known-as-μ’s. Make everyone’s dream come true!

Check out my blog about storytelling and the novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: Book update: Off to see the editor, The gap, Turning off comments, and Connection.

I’m looking for an artist for commission work. If you’re a talented illustrator, email me at stiltsoutloud(at)gmail(dot)com with some samples. If I like what I see, I’ll explain what the job entails. (Or if you’re just curious.) And yes, this is a paying gig.

Once in a while, a show comes along that leaves controversy in its wake. Whether it’s because it was over-hyped, under-hyped, poorly adapted, rushed, or just plain over the top, polarization’s the name of the game when it comes to a highly subjective medium, and Brynhildr ended up being a great poster child for this in particular.

Let me start off by saying this off the bat: Gokukoku no Brynhildr isn’t something that’ll be everyone’s cup of tea. There are obvious (major) omissions from the source material, the pacing shifts back and forth like no one’s business, slices of life moments turn into slices of death (and oh are these scenes dramatic) within a span of a few minutes, the main character clearly has some issues that need to be tended to, things don’t quite get explained from time to time, development tends to be a hit/miss… the list goes on. Clearly, Brynhildr’s not the shining example of how to adapt a series, but even then—even despite all these negatives—I must say I came out with fond memories of the series in the end.

In many ways, I’m not even sure why. Almost any other series with such negatives would’ve earned a trip straight to “dropped”-ville, but Brynhildr didn’t really ever come close to that for me. When it’s all said and done, there’s just a kind of artistic charm to a series such as this, and it’s something that started way back in the beginning of the first episode.

Yes, I’m talking about the opening sequence. The first and only vocal-less opening sequence I remember seeing in all my years of watching anime (okay, that’s an exaggeration, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some, but they’re pretty rare), it’s also one of the better sequences in general that I’ve seen in a while, and a perfect representation of what the Brynhildr universe is all about—blurring the line between life and death and living an actual life versus dying without ever getting to. It wasn’t particularly flashy, but it was different, subtle, and it worked. Here was a show that was clearly intended to be a bit ridiculous, over the top, hilarious, jaw-dropping, shocking, simple, and complex at the same time, and it’s the kind of show that you could switch your brain off and enjoy watching for what it is (entertainment) on a weekly basis.

Really, there’s so much you could have fun with in this show, and despite the rather rough-shodden development, there’s a cast here you’ll enjoy watching purely due to the circumstances they’re in. There’s just a kind of charm in seeing characters who’ve never been able to experience life do so for the first time ever, and it’s also refreshing to see a main character who’s generally quite competent (even if Murakami does have a few screws loose) in supporting them. Each episode also tends to have some memorable dialogue for one reason or another—whether it’s in the comedic virgin jokes or the more serious discussions about death—and the interactions between a cast that by all means shouldn’t be together normally are things that make this show a worthwhile watch by themselves. Add in crazy supernatural powers on part of both the cast and the villains, and it’s just icing on the cake of a story that’s equal parts Sci-Fi, Horror, Comedy, and overall hard to stomach at the same time.

With that said, again, Brynhildr’s not something for everyone. To make it tougher, the ending was controversial for even people that liked how the show was going. It clearly could’ve used an extra-cour to expand on things and it might be arguably better to go straight to the source material instead, but who knows? I enjoyed it when it was all said and done, and I think I can speak for a fair amount of people when I say others did too—at least, up until the last few controversial episodes. If there’s anything in the aforementioned that gets you interested, I’d give it a watch. Who knows? You might just find yourself with a surprise source of entertainment.

Still not sure? Here’s the links to the first episode snapshot and the series’ MAL.

「バクの街」 (Baku no Machi)
“Baku’s Town”

As the midpoint of Captain Earth arrives, so does the end of the designer child themed episodes for the time being. With Baku awakening to his Kiltgang memories (surprisingly due to the revelation that the yakuza were actually all just walking illusions), it’s all about singularities, and it’s generally another typical episode for the most part. Week after week, it’s as if they’re taking two steps forward then one step back, and one wonders when they’ll ultimately piece together things in some string of coherency.

For now though, all we can do is work with what we have now, and this week does bring its fair share of puzzle pieces into the equation. Singularities in particular end up being the talk of the town, and the key details seem to be that they’re special abilities the designer children have that require a particular set of circumstances to activate, and of which differ from one child to the next. Adding to this, it seems as though the “Neoteny” (or the Livlaster users) seem to have an ability quite similar to this as well, and it is interesting to see how they’re gradually linking together regular humans, designer children, and Neoteny in a phylogenetic tree of sorts.

At this point, it’s clear there’s a link between all the aforementioned groups, with a base similarity in their humanity, but with key differences in their abilities and life span. And in the grand scheme of things, I find it quite fitting that that’s how it boils down, because it ties in quite nicely with how the series revolves around a variety of factions that have different views toward the same goal (of saving humanity), the notion that differences tend to lead to conflict, and the fact that all this inevitably leaves people feeling a need to find a purpose and a place to belong.

With that said, it’s also important to note the brief conversation in the gun range we get this week as well, because it could very well address a key issue many of us seem to have had with this series in general. And by this, I mean the “development” of Daichi in particular, and the fact that he’s clearly not the person he was at the beginning of the series despite not really being given a reason for it. Up until now, many of us have tried to explain this with the assumption that the Livlaster might actually be causing Daichi to be someone he’s not, and it looks like that just might be the case. It still remains to be seen whether or not it’s a case of the Livlaster actually using the Neoteny to fire itself or whether or not the Livlaster is actually an extension of one self (and thus potentially a personality they might otherwise have suppressed), but there was a pretty obvious change that occurred pre/post Livlaster usage on Daichi’s part, and it looks quite clear that much of the strangeness of his personality is intentional.

That doesn’t change, explain, or excuse why some of the cast hasn’t been as thoroughly developed as I had hoped, but it does show a measure of calculation in regards to how they’re planning to do things here. As with previous episodes, this definitely bodes well for the second half of this series, but they’re not making it particularly easy on the part of viewers to get to that point.

As such, I will confirm that with this thirteenth episode, I will sadly drop coverage of Captain Earth in order to ensure that certain key shows are covered for the summer season. I will however, still continue watching, so it’s likely either me or another author will do an END post for this at the end of the summer, so please do look forward to that. Until then, I’d just like to apologize to everyone for dropping this series—I’m just too disappointed in how things are going so far here—and I’d also like to thank everyone who has come in on a weekly basis to comment/view my posts on this series. I hope you’ll continue to visit though, because there’ll be some intriguing changes coming up in the next season, so stay tuned for those!

 

Preview

「風立ちぬ」 (Kaze Tachinu)
“The Wind Rises”

Jirou dreams of airplanes…

If there’s one word that springs to mind when contemplating Miyazaki Hayao’s final film, it would be “difficult”. And I’ve contemplated it a lot. I saw it in Japanese soon after its theatrical premiere, and seeing it a second time with subtitles has done nothing to help me clarify my feelings about it – if anything, I’m more puzzled than ever. Both as a capstone to the most artistically ambitious and successful career in animation history and as a standalone statement, Kaze Tachinu is an enigma.

Certain things can be stipulated to, I think. The Wind Rises is a staggeringly beautiful work, both in sound and vision. Miyazaki works with his usual musical partner here, the peerless Joe Hisaishi, and the first frames are the film are accompanied by the composition “Journey (Dream of Flight)” from Hisaishi-san, a gorgeous Italianesque piece that’s interwoven throughout the entire film. Rarely have I encountered a piece of music that so suits the mood of a movie – it speaks eloquently of flight. Flights of imagination, of fancy, of euphoria and sadness. Hisaishi’s score – and especially this piece – are like the wind that Miyazaki’s vision soars upon for two hours.

And what a vision it is. As anyone who loves Miyazaki-sensei’s work could tell you, the master has a lifelong obsession with flight and airplanes. We’ve seen it expressed in some form in almost all of his movies, most specifically Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Porco Rosso. While Kaze Tachinu is less overtly fantastical than those films, it still takes the form of a dream. Sometimes quite literally, as the movie’s protagonist shares his dreams with the likes of boyhood heroes and the love of his life – but the entire story has the air of a dream to it, a musing on the way dreams allow us to soar above our limitations and experience true beauty.

If there’s one sequence in the film that’s most striking, however, it’s more of a nightmare – Miyazaki’s depiction of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. The immediacy of feeling he’s able to communicate with this slightly surrealistic set piece is remarkable, a testament to his genius. Even in this horror, though, there is beauty – for it’s in the aftermath of this disaster that Miyazaki’s hero forms the connection with the woman he’ll come to love. This, too is a theme we see repeated over and over in The Wind Rises – the inseparability of light and darkness, of beauty and horror. And it’s here in which the difficult questions that make the film so difficult reside.

Nominally this is the life story of Horikoshi Jirou (Anno Hideaki, Kaburagi Kaichi as a child), the man who designed the legendary A6M “Zero” fighter plane for Mitsubishi. But the personal side of the story is almost completely fictionalized – loosely based on a pre-WW II novel by Hori Tatsuo (also titled Kaze Tachinu) which has no connection to Horikoshi. This part of the film delivers some of its most effecting moments, mostly centered on Horikoshi’s love for a young woman named Satomi Naoko (Takimoto Miori, Iino Mayu as a child). Horikoshi and Naoko are on a train from Fujioka to Tokyo when the earthquake hits, and his bravery saves the life of her servant. Once she’s safe he leaves without any request for reward, but we know this is a connection that will be renewed in the future.

Without a doubt, the love story between Jirou and Naoko is the most conventional part of the film – yet it’s very engaging (Miyazaki’s decision to cast his friend Anno – the legendary Evangelion director whose previous seiyuu experience consists of playing a cat in FLCL - as Jirou is an interesting one. Anno-san is naturalistic and unmannered to the point of being somewhat flat – like so much in Kaze Tachinu, I have a hard time deciding how I feel about it). Naoko suffers from tuberculosis (as many did in those days) and to call this a bittersweet romance would be an understatement. But ultimately the part of the story that springs from Hori’s novel is pretty straightforward, essential to the movie’s existence but not at the heart of it. And it’s the other side of Kaze Tachinu, that which dances more closely with history and Horikoshi’s true life story, that’s both controversial (especially in Japan) and challenging.

It’s fairly well-known that Miyazaki Hayao is a pacifist. So why, then, choose to make his last film about the man whose planes destroyed Pearl Harbor, and were essential to the Japanese war effort? Horikoshi too hated war, and thought the Japanese government foolish to pursue war with America – his journals from the time bear this out. Yet design the planes he did, knowing full well what they would be used for. Miyazaki said the idea for Kaze Tachinu was inspired by a single quote from Horikoshi – “I just wanted to make something beautiful.” And while I’ve no reason to doubt Horikoshi-san at this word, for me at least the answer isn’t that simple.

Fundamentally, the entire raison d’etre of The Wind Rises boils down to a simple question – is it possible to separate the man from the way in which that which he created was used? It’s very possible that Miyazaki saw this film as an opportunity to spur debate over Japan’s plans to re-militarize (which has been a simmering issue here for decades and is now coming to a head under nationalist premier Abe Shinzou). But he also opened himself up to charges that he was romanticizing Horikoshi’s role – sugarcoating the truth to cast him in a better light. Miyazaki uses the aforementioned dream sequences – mostly in the company of Jirou’s boyhood hero, Italian aircraft design pioneer Giovanni Caproni (Nomura Mansai) – to give form to Jirou’s imagination and communicate the nature of this desire to create beauty. Caproni’s involvement hits very close to home – it was his plane that Miyazaki named Studio Ghibli after.

The movie is full of this sort of equivocation. We have a trip to Germany to visit Mitsubishi’s licensed partner Junkers, a decade ahead of Japan in aircraft design. The Germans are condescending towards their Japanese “guests”, but founder Hugo Junkers allows Jirou and his best friend Honjou (Nishijima Hidetoshi) to see inside the legendary G.38 “Flying Wing” and even take a test flight. Junkers was another pacifist – a genuine anti-war internationalist who had his company stolen from him by the Nazis and died penniless in 1935. We also meet a sympathetic German named Castorp (Stephen Alpert – another non-actor, this time the head of Ghibli’s overseas division) at the rural hotel where Jirou and Naoko reconnect years later. Castorp (the name is taken from the protagonist of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain) warns of impending disaster for Germany and Japan, and sings charming German ballads at the hotel piano while smiling beatifically (if a little impishly). It’s later implied that he fled Japan with the country’s thought police hot on his tail.

That sequence at the hotel – full of innocent romance and beautiful scenery, of soaring paper airplanes and Castorp’s charm – is one of the best in the movie. But it also contributes to the feeling that Miyazaki is trying very hard to convince us that there’s no blame to be assigned to his hero – that he was truly a victim at a time when victims were being made all over the world. Miyazaki makes it very clear that Japan was behind the times, in over its head, being dragged along by fools and scoundrels on a path of destruction. But what he never truly does is cast any independent judgment himself on Jirou’s role – and, more crucially, he never takes us inside Jirou’s process of judging himself.

Given the context of the film, that seems a surprising omission for Miyazaki. Perhaps it really is as simple in Miyazaki’s eyes as can be – Jirou is blameless. But that seems unlikely to me, as thoughtful a man as Miyazaki is. Perhaps he feels it’s not his place to judge Jirou, never having walked in his shoes. Perhaps he feels it would be disrespectful to show us what Jirou believes in this respect, when Jirou chose in real life to share little of that himself. Those are valid considerations, but for me it leaves Kaze Tachinu feeling like an incomplete portrait of its hero, fictionalized or otherwise. The film effectively stops at the beginning of the war, and the introspection for Horikoshi stops when the military takes delivery of the planes. The film is about the process and the dream, I get that – but it’s a conceit to pay so little consideration to what comes after.

“Airplanes are dreams.” Caproni tells Jirou in the movie’s final scene – fittingly, a dream. “Cursed dreams. Waiting for the sky to swallow them up.” This is as close as Miyazaki comes to framing Jirou’s life in moral terms, but it also strikes me that there may be a note of autobiography to it. This is Miyazaki-sensei’s final film, and he too is undeniably a dreamer above all else. He gives shape to the airplanes of his dreams, and to the castles and witches and forest Kami and boys and girls and conflicted men. Perhaps as much as it is about Horikoshi Jirou, Kaze Tachinu is a reflection by Miyazaki on his own dreams and visions – he releases them into the world, and once that happens he has no control over them. People will say of them what they will, and they exist independently of the man who created them.

That’s among many reasons why, despite whatever issues I may have with The Wind Rises, it strikes me as a very fitting way for Miyazaki to say goodbye. A fusion of a fictional novel and a biography, it may in the end be the most self-referential film Miyazaki has created. It’s the most “realistic” of his films in many ways, yet oddly the most fanciful as well – a work by an old man who’s always been very connected to the child that resides in himself and in all of us. Kaze Tachinu seems very much to be an impassioned tribute to the power of dreams, tinged with the frustration of knowing that reality will always place its own stamp on them. Even as we celebrate the man’s indispensable and glorious career, surely knowing that it’s coming to a close is cause for sadness as well. This film is a reminder that Miyazaki Hayao is a unique and irreplaceable artist, and we won’t see his like again.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「ひこうき雲」 (Hikouki Gumo) by (Yumi Matsutoya)

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Haikyuu!! 17:00 MBS (4/6)	Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance 20:30 AT-X (7/14)	Momo Kyun Sword 24:30 MX (7/8)	Majimoji Rurumo 21:00 AT-X (7/9)	Glasslip 22:30 MX (7/3)	Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? 25:05 MX (7/11)	Pripara 10:00 TX (7/5)
Jinsei 22:00 MX (7/6)	Himegoto 23:54 BS11 (7/7)	HUNTER x HUNTER 25:29 NTV (10/2)	Yama no Susume: Second Season 22:00 MX (7/9)	Shirogane no Ishi Argevollen 23:00 MX (7/3)	Tokyo ESP 25:35 MX (7/11)	Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Crystal 19:00 Niconico (7/5)
Sabagebu! 22:30 MX (7/6)	Ao Haru Ride 24:00 MX (7/7)		Bakumatsu Rock 23:30 MX (7/2)	Tokyo Ghoul 24:00 MX (7/3)	Nobunaga Concerto 25:50 CX (7/11)	Monogatari Series: Second Season -Hanamonogatari- 19:00 MX (8/16)
SPACE☆DANDY 2 23:00 MX (7/6)	Hanayamata 25:35 TX (7/7)		Free! -Eternal Summer- 24:00 MX (7/2)	Zankyou no Terror 24:50 CX (7/10)		Shounen Hollywood -HOLLY STAGE FOR 49- 20:30 AT-X (7/5)
Akame ga Kill! 24:00 MX (7/6)	Re:_Hamatora 26:05 TX (7/7)		LOVE STAGE!! 25:05 MX (7/9)	PSYCHO-PASS (New Edit) 25:20 CX (7/10)		Sword Art Online II 23:30 MX (7/5)
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun 25:05 TX (7/6)			Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya 2wei! 25:35 MX (7/9)	RAIL WARS! 25:46 TBS (7/3)		ALDNOAH.ZERO 24:00 MX (7/5)
DRAMAtical Murder 25:35 TX (7/6)				Persona 4 the Golden ANIMATION 25:49 MBS (7/10)		Sengoku BASARA: Judge End 25:50 ntv (7/5)
				Ai Mai Mi ~Mousou Catastrophe~ 26:05 TVS (7/10)		Barakamon 26:20 ntv (7/5)
				Futsuu no Joshikousei ga [Locodol] Yatte Mita. 26:16 TBS (7/3)
				Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus 26:19 MBS (7/10)

Legend:	2	Divine	3	Takaii	3	Guardian Enzo	3	Stilts	2	Zanibas
	2	Cherrie	1	Zephyr	0	Kairi	2	Passerby		Not covering

---

Manga

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	Bleach Weekly Shounen Jump
	Naruto Weekly Shounen Jump

Legend:	1	Prooof	1	Zephyr		Not covering

Now that you know what’s airing, it’s time to tell you what we’ll be blogging! This is Random Curiosity’s Summer 2014 blogging schedule.

As always, this is a tentative overview of our plans for the new season. We’ll also be doing introductory posts on many of the shows we’re not covering, so if something catches our eyes, things will be shifted around to accommodate. The schedule will be updated to reflect any changes.

As usual, DO NOT PANIC! We’re still figuring out what shows we we’re going to blog, and there will be a lot of intro posts before we all settle on our picks. Here are just a few of the shows we’re planning to introduce:

• Free -Eternal Summer-
• ALDNOAH.ZERO
• Barakamon
• SPACE☆DANDY 2
• Akame ga Kill!
• Ao Haru Ride
• Hanayamata
• Tokyo ESP

And more. That doesn’t mean all of those will get picked up, but they will get intro posts, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of those added to the schedule.

Plus, we don’t have everyone here yet! In case you haven’t heard, we’re recruiting another blogger, and since the deadline hasn’t arrived yet, we don’t know who he or she will be, much less what they’ll want to blog. We could even see some shifting among shows that have already been claimed. So be prepared for some moving around before all is said and done.

In other writer news, Kairi will be on hiatus for this summer due to personal reasons. But our other (currently) zero-show blogger, Zanibas, will not be taking a break! He’s just being all tsundere for his shows. He’ll get over that eventually.

We’ve also been kicking around a few new features we think you might enjoy, but since nothing is certain yet, I’m just going to leave those as big vague “maybes” for now. Thank you for reading, as always, and let’s all enjoy a fun hikikomori summer of anime together!

Updates:

• 7/5 – Enzo and Zephyr will be coming together to cover the explosive ALDNOAH.ZERO!
• 7/9 – Do you feel that? That’s the ground shaking. The unthinkable has happened – Divine has returned! He has picked up the addictive volleyball stylings of Haikyuu!!
• 7/11 – Zanibas has decided to come out of his shell and take up Hanayamata and LOVE STAGE!!. Yuri + Yaoi balances everything out, right?
• 7/15 – Stilts, with a little help from Zanibas, has decided to pick up the consistently hilarious Dogakobo comedy, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun!
• 7/16 – With the addition of Passerby, two more shows are getting coverage! Look forward to his posts on Persona 4 The Golden ANIMATION and Hanamonogatari!
• 7/17 – When Divine returns, he doesn’t do things halfway. He will be blogging Shirogane no Ishi Argevollen!
• 7/18 – Stilts has picked up the action-packed mutant esper adventure, Tokyo ESP!
• 7/21 – Cherrie will be blogging the pitch black grimdark action of Akame ga Kill!
• 7/22 – One of the most popular shows of the season (at least in Japan) is now getting coverage from one of our most popular bloggers – takaii has picked up Barakamon!

「帰艦」 (Kikan)
“Returning to the Ship”

Here we are, the grand finale. It’s as they say though, the end is just another beginning, and it’s hats off to a series that’s definitely earned its second season. So while we relish the great news, let’s look back at a finale that while not quite perfect, puts a solid bow at the end of a great ride.

Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind for me is the fact that this finale was felt like a straight up action/mecha/Sci-Fi episode in every sense of the word, and in ways, it harkens back to an older age filled with series of such a nature. But as times have changed, so have series in general, and what was definitely more commonplace stylistically in the past is now a kind of rare animal in every sense of the word. To top things off, Sidonia’s one of those rare series whose story-telling meshes almost flawlessly with its world-building, and it’s only fitting that the series ends the way it does—with Tanikaze on top, a fresh new perspective and start for everyone involved, and one of the greatest Gauna threats ever faced by the Sidonia thwarted by a length of a hair.

Admittedly, there were some moments that felt a bit off—likely due to either the constraints of the episodic format or the fact that they’re saved some developments for the second season in order to end things at this point—but the fact remains that the finale was fitting despite this, because there’s no denying that Tanikaze is the one all important cog that really makes this story tick. It’s his story that we’ve seen unfold throughout these last twelve episodes, his perspective that we tend to see things from, and his actions that’ve gotten the Sidonia as far as it has. And that’s the beauty of it all. The story itself might be a complex amalgamation of hundreds of years of history and dozens upon dozens of mysteries, but it all works because of the almost singular focus on Tanikaze, and it’s exemplified by this finale.

The comment that Ren makes about how it’s unfair Tanikaze gets all the gear? Her decision to give that one extra bullet to Tanikaze regardless? The fact that Tanikaze’s the one that takes down Benisuzume in a way only he can (it’s ironic it looks like it’s a middle finger)? Since day one, everything has and continues to revolve around Tanikaze—the flawed, yet perfectly reliable protagonist who’ve we’ve come to enjoy watching on a week to week basis. There’s just a kind of charm to someone who just appreciates the simple things (especially in a backdrop where people don’t even really eat physical food), and as much as most of us feel Kunato didn’t deserve to be approached by Tanikaze in the end, the fact remains that he is who he is, and it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t do what he did.

Ultimately, there just are few words to say about a series that’s really done everything expected of it. As mentioned previously, this first season does leave something to be desired regarding the multitude of mysteries surrounding the Gauna, the Immortal Council, and the like (some may feel that the 3DCG could’ve used some work too), but there’s just no denying the strength of the source material behind this show, and it’s quite obvious that we’ll get some of those answers once the second season rolls around. All things considered, there’ve been few shows this year so far that’ve managed to send chills down my spine like Sidonia has, and it’s truly been a special experience being able to watch things unfold here.

With that said, it’s sadly the end of another season, and I’d just like to end things here by thanking everyone again for not only reading and commenting on Sidonia the past few months, but for also the fact that you guys come in day in/day out to visit the site in general. We wouldn’t be here without you guys, so thanks, and I hope you guys’ll stick around for the future as well. I won’t go too much into detail, but let’s just say there are some exciting things in store on the horizon…

Author’s Note: As usual, please refrain from spoilers, especially if they’re not in response to a query of some sort. If you must, please remember to use spoiler tags.

 

Preview

「佐々美、猫になる」 (“Sasami, Neko ni Naru)
“Sasami Turns Into a Cat”

Any episode that ends with Komari disappearing is A-OK in my book…

Little Busters! is a series of many moods, no question about it. Starting with the last few eps of the first season, though, they’ve mostly been pretty serious – understandably so, and those were collectively the best run of episodes in the series. Still, it’s nice to have an episode here and there that harkens back to the more carefree moments of the first season, and this is definitely such an episode. It’s sure to get more serious just as Saya’s arc did, but I look at this ep as a welcome break.

As an added bonus, the intro to Sasasegawa Sasami’s arc also features a healthy role for the regular cast (sans Kyousuke) who were almost wholly absent from Saya’s episodes (again, sans Kyousuke). I like this bunch with the notable exception of Komari, but as usual it’s Kud and Masato who provide the biggest laughs in the episode (Kud Wafter announcement when?). Haruka taking Kud for a spin is always good, but the highlight is when muscles-seeking Kid and Masato share a taste of his katsudon-flavored protein drink.

As for plot, the gist of it is that the imperious Sasasase is randomly turning into a cat (seemingly one whose owners moved away and abandoned it) for some reason – this is really one of those LitBus deals where I think it’s best to just play along – and Riki is the only one who can understand her when she “speaks”. She seems to turn back into a human only in his room, and only when she’s alone with him – which leads to some rather awkward (and painful) moments whenever Masato is awake (eventually Riki exiles him to live in a concrete pipe for his own protection).

There are some other odd goings on here – most especially the aforementioned disappearance of Komari – and Riki has seen enough weirdness by this point to figure out something is amiss with this world. Mostly, though, this is a setup to give him a chance to bond with Sasasegawa just as the first Saya episode did with her. And that’s perfectly fine – it was rather nostalgic to spend time with all those cast members who haven’t really been a part of EX, and Sasasase always manages to be pretty amusing whenever she’s involved in an episode. Next time things will presumably move pretty quickly as Sasasegawa only gets two episodes, and I assume they won’t get as tragic or plot-intensive as they did with Saya.

 

Preview

Imagine a world filled with endless conflict. A world where it was kill or be killed, where you fought to survive and merely survived just to fight another day. Now imagine if that conflict comes to an abrupt end. Suddenly, a world that’s known nothing but war is a peaceful land, and the times begin to cross you by. There are no longer wars to fight, no need for someone with your skill set, no longer a place where you belong, and you’re left without a purpose. What do you do?

The easiest response would be to just find another goal, to look for another purpose to fulfill. But as we know, life’s a fickle thing. It’s not something that gives you a path because you’re looking for one, and that’s Hitsugi no Chaika in a nut shell. In a way, it’s a story of displaced people trying to find a place to belong, of heroes meeting lonely ends, of specialized soldiers (saboteurs, magicians, cavalier and the like) left to fend for themselves. At the same time, it’s an adventure shaped by chance meetings, led by a girl with a coffin, and dependent on acquiring the remains of the recently defeated Emperor. More than that, it’s an amalgamation of mysteries set in a world where magic is fueled by anything and everything, even human memories.

To say the least, Hitsugi no Chaika’s ended up being an interesting series to talk about. It takes a few episodes to develop and to get used to the world they’ve set here, and it’s not exactly the best of shows in terms of overall execution, but there’s a lot to like here. It just depends where you’re looking, because Chaika’s surface and its interior are drastically different things, and it’s quite easy to dismiss this as just another average adventure story at first, second, or even third glance. Granted, I won’t blame you if you did—it’s easy to be deluded by someone who (minor spoilers of scenes from mid-series, no plot spoilers) does cute things like this—but if you’re someone that gave up on the series early on, this is where I’ll tell you to give it another try.

I won’t say too much for the sake of keeping this post generally spoiler free, but I will say this: some stories are worth waiting for the development and I feel like this is one that’ll leave you wanting to see what happens next. There’s the individual stories of the heroes our main cast meets on their en-route to attempting their corpse reclamation project, the stories of the individual cast members themselves, great (and at times hilarious) interactions between the cast , a solidly developed world with broad applications of magic that stretch the imagination, some decent twists/turns to look forward to, and it broaches plenty of questions both regarding the plot and other more philosophical aspects as well.

Why does Chaika want to gather the remains? What could the remains be used for? Who exactly was Emperor Gaz? What do you do when times change too fast for you to adapt? What would you be willing to do to regain a sense of purpose? These are just some of the many questions that come up as the series progresses, and it’s like a smoke/mirrors show that hides some pieces while occasionally revealing others—coming together to ultimately form an adventure that’s fun to watch, filled with more depth than some would give it credit for, and has someone who’s arguably done one of the best voice acting for any character this year in up in the up and coming Anzai Chika, who voices our coffin princess.

When it’s all said and done, just as not everyone’s lives are the same, not all coffin (princesses) are either. Then again, one does wonder when it’s ever normal to have a young girl who speaks with broken sentences and walks around with a giant coffin containing remains of their father and a giant Gun(do)…

Author’s Notes:

If you’re clicking on the image at the top of the post, be sure to click the bottom right of the pop-out for full size.

For reference, a 2nd Season for Hitsugi no Chaika has been confirmed for the Fall.

「収束法《ルール・ナンバー・10》」 (Shuusokuhou “Ruuru Nanbaa 10”)
“Rule Number 10″

A game within a game within a game. Kuuhaku’s target is never the one in front of them, but them, their next opponent, and everything else standing between them and the game against Tet. Long live the Elkian Federation!

Blood Destruction – The Super Cheat

Wow, so much happened in this episode that, by the time I got to the end, I almost forgot that the game against Izuna-tan finished in this episode. What a blast! Okay, let me back up.

Izuna-tan’s Blood Destruction mode lets her boost her physical abilities far beyond her previous limits. You can be forgiven for thinking some of what she did was magic, because no matter how fast you are it doesn’t seem like double jumping should be possible. I won’t argue that because, honestly, how can we prove either side? What I will say is that not only was it great foreshadowing for later on, it did a great job of being so overwhelmingly powerful it was hard to see how Sora and Shiro managed to avoid getting hit for so long. Shiro even exclaimed that Izuna was cheating! It takes a lot to put Shiro on the ropes, even if she was (probably) acting, at least in part. And that shot? Damn! Always remember the double tap, Sora.

The Ultimate Trump Card

I’ve been saying it for the past two episodes, but Steph to the rescue! Backing up, some people thought the equations Shiro was drawing up last episode were kind of silly. How could she anticipate Izuna’s actions so perfectly? Statistics could perhaps help, but even those wouldn’t be certain.

Turns out that’s not what she was doing. I anticipated Steph being the critical point, and even Kuuhaku wearing Izuna out by forcing her to stay in Blood Destruction for so long, but using an NPC to sneak up on her? Using equations to predict Izuna’s actions would be dubious at best, but using them to predict the actions of set NPCs shouldn’t be a problem. They’re all programmed after all.

On the topic of things-Stilts-didn’t-expect, bouncing the shot off Jibril’s to refill Steph’s love power (ammo) was far beyond my expectations. And for those of you who called that Sora would use the pledges on Steph to give her the cutting edge, well done. I didn’t expect that to be used to suppress her intent to attack so she could sneak up on Izuna either. Or Steph to shoot her with her eyes closed!

Great storytelling is often all about expectations. The anticipated show that’s okay will be favored far less than the unexpected show that turns out to be good, even if the anticipated show is objectively better. Defying our expectations again, and again, and again is what makes No Game No Life so much fun.

It’s Okay to Have Fun – Izuna-tan Get-o!

Izuna crying when she thought she let so many people down was heartbreaking–or it would have been, if I knew Kuuhaku wasn’t out to leave anyone beat. They have opponents, certainly, but not enemies, and they want allies (and fellow gamers) more than to trample people beneath their feet. It was a special stroke when they assured Izuna-tan that no matter if she had fun or not, they still would have won. The line between confidence and arrogance is thin, and from anyone else that would have been 100% on the side of arrogance. Not for Kuuhaku!

Which leads us to the better news: Izuna-tan get-o! Finally, they’ve found a way to get Shiro into the bath willingly: give her a kemonomimi girl to wash. Swiftly approved!

The World’s Most Brutal Coin Toss

As soon as the story moved to the Warbeast capital, the OST kicked it up another notch. Moments like when Avantheim showed up and Miko-sama’s dash sent chills down my spine. That only matched the worldwide scale of events.

I’ll say this again in the final impressions, but while everyone else is playing checkers, Kuuhaku is playing chess. They might think they’re playing chess, but they’re not – not on the same level Kuuhaku is. Case in point: using not only Elven Garde but Avantheim as well (thanks, Jibril!) to force the Eastern Federation to challenge Elkia. But why is that important?

Elkia doesn’t need the lands it took from the Eastern Federation, it needs the lands + the people + all of their technology. By itself, the land is useless, especially with Elkia’s current (shitty) technology. They need the Eastern Federation to properly make use of it…but the Eastern Federation withdrew all their technology and people. If Sora & Shiro weren’t as smart as they are, that would have likely led to Elkia challenging the Warbeasts again, giving the Eastern Federation the ability to set the rules of the game again. But with Elven Garde and Avantheim breathing down their backs, they didn’t have that choice.

But why didn’t Kuuhaku just add leaving the technology and people there as part of the original bargain? Because 1) the Warbeasts probably wouldn’t have agreed to wagering a bunch of their people in a bet, and 2) They wanted to bring the Warbeasts to the bargaining table. So they needed to leave the Warbeasts with some cards to play, i.e. something that Imanity would want immediately.

The Birth of the Elkian Federation!

Before a game ever starts, Kuuhaku has won. I didn’t for a second think they forgot about Blood Destruction, but I actually thought either winning or losing would be fine with them – either they get Warbeasts back on the continent to help with the land, or they get all of the Eastern Federation. But the latter would make them conquerors, which could be problematic later on.

They took the third option (trope!)–no, they made a third option. Miko-sama (Shindo Naomi) had the flips right, had the coin landed on flat ground, but it didn’t. And here we see another hallmark of how Kuuhaku does business – winning without defiling their opponents. Everyone came out the other side smiling.

Rule Number 10

10. Let’s all have fun and play together!

In an episode full of things I didn’t expect, it all came together when this was explained. Some people noticed that Rule Ten was suspect because Rule Nine, “In the name of God, the previous rules may never be changed”, didn’t encompass the final rule. What everyone I heard from failed to anticipate was that Rule Number Ten is serious business. If you’re not having fun, you’re technically in violation of the rules!

Maybe, maybe. More to the point though, it’s a huge hint about the world Tet wants to see – one where everyone is having fun together. Strife? War? Death? A gamer wants not these, save for on the board of games, between the deck of cards, or on the simulated field of video game battle! No, a gamer wants to have fun, and games are more fun with everyone.

This can only mean one thing: To steal a phrase from Wil Wheaton, play more games! And hopefully we’ll get to see more be played if (when!) No Game No Life gets a second season. Final impressions below.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Steph pulls out the win, Izuna learns to have fun, & the Elkian Federation is born. Everyone have fun! #nogenora 12 END

Random thoughts:

• I love the lessons good stories can convey. For example: You can either advance your own strategy, or respond to another player’s strategy. Either take initiative or someone else will take it for you, and force you to dance to their tune. That’s as true in real life as it is in games.
• Do you even have to ask, Shiro? Sora would never let others see his imouto naked! (Steph is okay though.)
• “Nobody’s going to die, and nobody’s going to suffer. This world is a game. Everyone here fails to understand that.” Only Kuuhaku really understand the world Tet created. A game can be serious, but it should also be fun!
• Muscular ojii-san is what why noooo!
• “Checkmate doesn’t mean you’ve simply cornered the enemy king. It’s a declaration that the enemy king is yours.” Chills man, chills.
• Kuuhaku are always thinking one (and more!) steps ahead. Hello, Old Deus!

Check out my blog about storytelling and the novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: Turning off comments, Connection, On the lookout for ideas, and Make it worthwhile.

Full-length images: 11, 25.

Epilogue:

Final Impressions

I knew as soon as I saw the artwork for this show that I wanted to blog it. I am glad I did.

Hyper-Competence Done Right

I came into this hoping for a little of that Mondaiji flavor, and got something far better. Hyper-competent characters are tricky because if they’re too good, they can get bland. The usually depend on matching them up against such titanic opponents that it’s only by seeing the unstoppable force battle the immovable object that a proper conflict can be created. We got that, with an interesting wrinkle.

It’s hard to empathize with perfect characters, and that’s what the Sora/Shiro/Kuuhaku dynamic is so friggin’ brilliant (and I say that with all due jealousy, because it’s an idea I wish I had thought up. Brilliant!). Taken by themselves, neither Sora nor Shiro are perfect., so they remain relatable and likable; it’s only together, as Kuuhaku, that’s they’re invincible. That means they know what most invincible characters do not – the sting, and the value, or defeat. They’ve both lost, so they know its value and have learned its lessons. Life beat them down, so they understand that too. Their strength comes from weakness, a weakness we can all imagine, and it’s from weakness that we truly bond with characters. Sora & Shiro have that, while coming together to be the juggernaut that is Kuuhaku for our enjoyment.

Beautifully done. The storyteller within me is weeping.

Seriously Silly

Another thing No Game No Life does so well is mixing the serious with the silly. Serious business stories can be great, but No Game No Life focuses on what many of us look for in much of our entertainment, and that is entertainment. We want to have fun! The stakes are high, with the fate of nations – or even the characters’ very existences – hanging in the balance, but it never forgets that its role is to entertain, and it’s telling a story about games. Games are fun! And an anime about them should be as well. That’s what No Game No Life was, in spades.

Pitch Perfect Pacing & Direction

I cannot praise director Ishizuka Atsuko and her team enough. Simple things matter, like giving each episode enough time and not rushing to adapt too much material at one time. They followed the (generally) golden rule of four-episodes-per-one-light-novel-volume, and it worked well. It probably didn’t hurt that original creator Kamiya Yuu-sensei was on hand, even writing the script for a couple of episodes, but I can’t praise the fundamentals of this show enough. This is my storytelling geekery showing, but even getting the simple stuff correct is hard, so kudos go to Ishizuka-san’s team for pulling it off. And the seiyuu were superb as well, including a performance I never would have expected from Hikasa Yoko and one unlike anything I’ve ever heard her do from the notoriously one-note Sawashiro Miyuki. Though with Matsuoka Yoshitsugu and Kayano Ai leading the group, we got great things from the beginning.

As for Ishizuka-san herself, she’s directing another show this coming season, Hanayamata, and while it’s markedly different than No Game No Life in many ways, I’ve come to trust her ability enough that I’m going to give it a shot. I hope some of you will join me.

Chess & Checkers

But undoubtedly my favorite part was the care and thought which went into every single game. Once again, I can’t stress how difficult it is to think ahead to the degree that Kamiya-sensei apparently has. While everyone else is playing checkers, Kuuhaku is playing chess, and even when you have total control over the world (as Kamiya-sensei does), you actually don’t. You can’t violate the rules or spirit of your creation, and despite the collision of ridiculous plans, nothing ever felt “forced”. And, because Sora & Shiro are imperfect, even though I know Kuuhaku will beat Elven Garde and the others someday, I still want to see how they’ll pull it off. Watching these games is a whole lot of fun, and like I said, that’s the whole point. No game, no life!

The Future

The big question now is “Second season when?” To answer some questions: The BDs/DVDs look like they’re going to sell decently-to-well (probably…the first BD volume just went on sale), there was a huge bump in LN sales after the season started, and yes, there is enough currently released source material for another one-cour season. If I were to bet, I would say No Game No Life will see a second season eventually, and hopefully sooner rather than later. What I know for sure is this – I will be disappointed if one doesn’t happen. No Game No Life has been one of the most fun series I’ve had the pleasure to both watch and blog, and I want more!

I’m looking for an artist for some commission work. If you’re a talented illustrator, email me at stiltsoutloud(at)gmail(dot)com with some samples. If I like what I see, I’ll explain what the job entails. And yes, this is a paying gig.

What do you do when you face an omnipotent God-like entity that can shove you in and out of dimensions in the blink of an eye? Well, if you’re Naruto, you bring back an age old technique and—what what?

I have to say, the chapter name ends up being right on all count. I didn’t see that coming at all. I mean, really? Out of all the possible things he could’ve done, he pulls the “Reverse Harem” jitsu? And Sasuke agreed to it? AND it actually worked for a moment? Are they going to bring back the koncho or what not too?

Jeez. After that chapter, I don’t know if I should be laughing, crying, face-palming, or shaking my head. Because however ridiculous it was to see Naruto pull that jitsu out again, it actually ends up quite appropriate given the situation. In many ways, it emphasizes how Naruto’s still got the same viewpoint/personality he’s had in the beginning, and it brings a measure of truth to the fact that some things never change. You can change how someone looks, how strong they are, and/or how others view that person, but inevitably things carry over, and it’s clear that’s been the case for not only Naruto, but practically the entire cast.

In this way, everything here ends up quite fitting considering how much Kishimoto loves to bring things full circle, and it really is an enigma how Kishimoto manages to do it. Week after week, despite making things more and more over the top as he goes, he manages to piece together plot pieces in ways we didn’t think were possible, or surprises us with something we thought we’d never see again. At times we’ve come to realize that some of the clues were actually in chapters from months ago, and it’s like: is he a genius? Crazy? Lucky? A good writer or a bad writer? One just can’t tell, and I think these past few chapters are a perfect example of just hard it is to pin him down as anything.

Ultimately though, it’s another rather short chapter, and the highlight really ends up just that jitsu and the fact that things are looking grimmer than ever before now that our new godly pairing of Sasuke and Naruto are separated by who knows how many dimensions… which means the previous Hokage are going to play a part soon right? Right? Maybe? What ever happened to Yamato again?

「近づきたくて」 (Chikadzukitakute)
“I Want To Get Closer”

Sorry for the delay–it’s always hard to write posts like these, especially when it’s been a good series such as this.

A few weeks ago, a sensationalist article from Slate with the title, “Against YA (Young Adult Literature): Adults should be embarrassed to read children’s books.” (I refuse to link the actual story and give them pageviews, but here is just one of many rebuttals to that article.) Apart from being an obvious sensationalist and controversy-hungry topic, the piece gave off a prescriptive air, a ‘mother knows best’ mentality that talked down to those who dare derive enjoyment from coming-of-age and innocent-love tales.

Ritsu faced that same situation here in Kawaisou’s final episode. She was right to stand up and not take that guy’s crap. It’s a bell that rings closer to home than we first perceive, as an attitude that pervades not just books, but any sort of hobby, including anime. I’m sure all of us have been guilty in one way or another of adopting this attitude towards certain other anime lovers. I can half-guiltily say that I’ve used the term ‘narutard’ on more than one occasion, but looking back on this episode, that’s not really a fair thing to say.

Aside from the important take-away message, this particular scene in Kawaisou does a number of things effectively in one fell swoop. First, it cements Ritsu’s dedication to her principles–she’s quiet alright, yet that doesn’t prevent her from from speaking the truth. It’s the white elephant that has to be said, even if that happens to be a brutally hard fact to face. Second, it affirms that Ritsu views Usa’s efforts with honesty, recognizing that despite his mixed intentions, he’s a good guy with an honest desire. Although we didn’t get a kiss, a hug, or an accidental announcement of one’s feelings, we still got several well-crafted scenes that affirm the connection these two characters have. The most beautiful forms of affection are the ones embedded in the smallest of actions.

Sure then, I’m a little bummed out that these two still have a long ways to grow closer. It sucks when romantic comedies tend to end this way. However, seeing the two of them find joy in small honest actions makes the entire conclusion worth it. Like I’ve said in previous weeks, Kawaisou is a series that champions self-awareness, where a good action rarely goes unnoticed, where bad ones rarely go unpunished. You piss off a character, they will bring down the hammer. You do something brave for them, they take note of it and thank you properly. Now, Kawaisou may be guilty of using the ‘one step forward two steps back’ approach to erase any progress the characters make in a specific episode. It happened more than a few times and eventually got irritating. Even so, those moments did not outweigh the bare times when either Ritsu or Usa had to face their insecurities head-on (and did so).

Therefore, it’ll be especially saddening to say goodbye to this series. The show did take a serious dip towards the middle of the season, but towards the beginning and end, it got an important thing right–perception, honesty, and laughter are just some of the great traits to form authentic bonds with people. For Usa, it was admitting his faults while being genuinely interested in Ritsu as a person that won me over his creepier traits. The dude knows how to be clingy for adolescent reasons, but the mature ability to change makes him an all-too-real character. For Ritsu, it was being able to come out of her introverted shell to defend her lifestyle and Usa that made me appreciate her character. From thanking Usa for all her hard work to distancing herself from those who mistake her quietness as something to be cured, Ritsu is a stronger character than she looks, yet at the same time has just as many flaws as Usa does. The balanced nature of these two characters, surrounded with a more capable yet just as flawed supportive cast, made Kawaisou a real winner this season.

I could go on about this, but eventually I have to push this post out! Thank you dear reader for following this series up until now, and here’s to finding another good romantic comedy to follow in the upcoming seasons!

Scattered Impressions

There are a few specific points I want to address here, since they don’t necessarily fit with the general picture. For starters…

Hanazawa Kana’s Voice

It’s really such a shame that HanaKana gets typecasted into high-pitched roles so often, since she honestly has such a great range of tone at her command. I really admired her lower register performance as Kuroneko during Oreimo, but sadly she hasn’t done too many roles involving her lower range too much since then. To hear her in a more mature and softer role as Ritsu was refreshing and surprisingly cute–I couldn’t imagine a better suited voice. She played the part remarkably well too–even though Ritsu is a reserved character, the moments that she lets her emotions run wild are skillfully portrayed by HanaKana, to the point where the show would be almost as enjoyable if it were a drama CD.

Kawaisou’s Dance Around Personal Space

Kawaisou can be a thoroughly realistic portrayal of high school life through the hopeless and reserved, so much so that it could almost be too realistic. The series definitely isn’t afraid to put in themes of molestation, stalking, unwanted touching, clinginess, drunk ethics, and the such–all scenarios of a dark underbelly of Japanese society that we often avert our eyes from as a general population. Perhaps it’s a case of cultural differences and not being used to shoujo, but I can count several times that I got chills of disgust whenever Ritsu was the victim of unwanted touching. It sure doesn’t help when she’s the quiet unprotected type too that gets funnelled into these kinds of nasty scenarios in other places. Although inappropriate touching is a cornerstone (whether we like it or not) of many anime romances, when it crossed the line from unintentional clumsiness to intentional shadiness, that’s when things got hard to watch. It’s both a burden to watch these kinds of issues being explored, but at the same time it helps cement the human aspects of Kawaisou, albeit the darker ones.

Curious Cinematography

Although sometimes a hit and miss sort of fiasco, one thing to take note of in the art of Kawaisou (besides the beautiful color palette) is the creative use of transitional scenes. Though unnecessary for the story, these scenes really gave the visuals a nice pop and were refreshing to see. Some were useful transitions to help illustrate the passage of time. A great example of this is during the sped-up scenes that illustrate the day-night cycle, either to help a few days pass or to transition from day to evening. Other transitions were more for visuals, such as the shrinking picture technique or the use of rolling heads. Aside from transitions, a liberal use of text was used, oftentimes to express an inner characters thoughts or the reality of the situation. Some people really dislike this sort of text usage, but I personally have a penchant for it. It reminds me of a moving comic brought to life and often makes sure that something is moving on the screen, making the show seem more…full. Overall, I approve of the visual direction taken for Kawaisou–if not for that terrible dip, it would’ve been one of the best animated shows this season.

「クライシス・ポイント」 (Kuraishisu Pointo)
“Crisis Point”

This week’s episode sadly reminded me about just how bad of a train wreck this anime was during its first few episodes. Wacky pacing and awkward scene cuts aside, I think the writers tried to stuff way too much in a single episode. Sure the finale is next week but I’m pretty sure we went through three episodes worth of content in the span of one without any of the benefits.

Kagetane x Rentaro

With the original bad guy back in action and actively fighting alongside Rentaro, I don’t know what else to say — his sudden appearance is really neither a good or bad thing but rather a convenient plot twist that gives Rentaro the last pair he needed to have his perfect adjuvant. I suppose it appeals to all the Kagetane fans who were probably a little disappointed with how he lost to a guy like Rentaro and I suppose I can get behind a “new” character who has the balls to indirectly criticize Rentaro but I just can’t find any meaning behind it.

The Awkward Pacing Returns

Starting the day by defeating a key Gastrea boss and ending with the preparation for one last stand against Aldebaren where failure would mean the loss of the entire Tokyo Area, I think there was just way too much thrown at us. Because as much as I want to get behind how important it is to give the finale a decent spot to jump off from, I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing the important emotional impact we’re supposed to get from things like Midori’s death. Sure she wasn’t a main character but as a prominent girl in the opening, she deserved better! Because with the way things were handled, not only do we lose the feelings associated with mourning her loss but it almost feels like she was just killed off to make room for a more battle-orientated Initiator! Throw in the over-exaggerated yelling from Shouma as he questioned Rentaro’s resolve and Rentaro’s awkward attempt at becoming the “bad” guy in a vain attempt to scare people into following him and it starts to become pretty tough to take things seriously.

Hope Still Remains!

With a real doozy of and episode appearing right before the series comes to a close, I’m still hopeful that things will end on some kind of positive note. Seeing how the final battle between Aldebaran and the Civil Officers ready to begin and no one really on Rentaro’s case about his crazy dictator actions, I’m sure a bunch of awesome action scenes will help us forget about all of this week’s nonsense. Toss in how much I want Yasuwaki to get his face bashed in for trying to undermine Rentaro’s plan and you have the makings of a great finale!

In all seriousness though, I have some positive feelings about the finale. If the writers are following the usual pattern of dumping a ton of exposition on us before doing something awesome and the audio from the preview is to be believed, next week should definitely be full of awesome!

 

Preview

「コノヒ×ト×コノシュンカン」 (Konohi x to x Konashunkan)
“This Day x and x This Moment”

Togashi. Koujina. Madhouse. Nothing else really need be said.

Author’s Note: Please be very careful to avoid divulging any information about upcoming events from the manga. When in doubt, don’t post it – and even if it’s remotely possible to view it as a minor spoiler, please spoiler-tag it. Thanks for your cooperation.

That really isn’t fair, creating an episode like that and expecting me to say anything meaningful about it. Not after all the ink I’ve spilled over the previous 59 episodes of this glorious, difficult, contrarian and brilliant arc. Except that calling it an “arc” doesn’t really do “Chimera Ant” justice – on its own it’s longer than most anime and many shounen manga. It stands apart – not just from shounen and from anime/manga generally (Hunter X Hunter as a whole does that) but from Hunter X Hunter. It seems to me that “Chimera Ant” is the story which saw Togashi Yoshihiro take his own limiter off and take advantage of his status and track record to try everything he might have been hesitant to try earlier in the series, or his career. And thank goodness he did – and that we had Madhouse to bring it to the screen.

If I’m not mistaken (I might well be) this is the first episode of Hunter X Hunter 2011 to forgo the OP and ED themes. Given the emotional tenor of the episode and the intensity of the content it seems entirely appropriate (I only wish Koujina had also waived the usual preview music and irreverent content, which were rather jarring arriving when they did). I don’t know whether to call this the finale of “Chimera Ant” or whether that technically comes next week, but that’s clearly going to be a postscript (that all of the main cast should be a mere postscript says something about how unpredictable and unconventional this story was) – this was the true denouement of “Chimera Ant” and it’s only right that it shouldn’t be treated like other episodes. 60-episode storylines don’t come along every day, never mind ones this historically brilliant.

Above and beyond that, I sincerely don’t think there’s much point in my adding anything. In the end “Chimera Ant” turned out not to be about suspense but fate – not about action but quiet reflection. There was no question as to how this episode was going to play out – the die has been cast for a couple of weeks. It was indeed as Eliot said, “not with a bang but a whimper” (poor Shaipouf’s end was especially ignominious – both he and Menthruyoupi died off-camera, but Pouf’s was the more forlorn and wretched). But there was so much quiet power in that whimper, so much meaning and so much feeling and so much perspective. It’s so audacious of Togashi to choose this route – to make the arch-villain the emotional protagonist in the end. To conclude not with a titanic battle, but with the slow and tragic aftermath.

There are some larger themes I could touch on here, such as the extent to which Togashi uses “Chimera Ant” as an intentional subversion of shounen tropes, and the extent to which Meruem’s spiritual journey is meant to mirror that of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha). I don’t want to cheapen the emotional triumph by “dissecting gossamer” too much, but in my view both of those aspects are very real. There’s also the matter of “Chimera Ant” as a contemplation of the nature of humanity – one of the themes I’ve been feeling for the longest. And it’s really in Netero’s role that we see all three of these elements brought together.

We didn’t see much of Netero in this arc, and not at all over the last ten episodes for obvious reasons. But his presence is crucial, and he casts a big shadow – right up the finale, in which we see his final message and the impact it has on Beans. He underwent a spiritual journey of his own, of course, and it’s no coincidence that it was shown to us in such detail. And he climbed the shounen ladder in his battle with Meruem – bringing out every one of the Nen abilities that made him the strongest human in the world. And when that failed, resorting to sheer brutality – the worst that humanity could offer. But when the big punches and the bigger explosion couldn’t kill the big bad, Netero (and Togashi) didn’t take the “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” storytelling approach typical of shounen. Netero’s plan had already worked – we just didn’t realize it, and neither did Meruem. He was right – Netero had him at checkmate all along.

In the final analysis Meruem simply wasn’t as good at being human as Netero. Netero was no idealist – he was fully aware of the depths of humanity’s capacity for cruelty and deception, and how it manifested in himself. Netero – he of the “mind like a plant” – had a lot more experience at this than Meruem. It was a very old and supremely clever man against a very young and supremely clever child, and Netero simply saw around more corners than Meruem did. I wouldn’t say Netero was proud of what he did, but neither would he ashamed – he knows he’s the same man who relished the chance to finally go all-out and try to kill someone after holding himself back all those decades. He recognized that in himself, and acknowledged it. And he did what he thought had to be done for humanity, because he knew there was no one else who could do it.

This is a very important part of the story in “Chimera Ant”, I think. Netero wasn’t wrong in what he did – in fact, if he hadn’t done it there’s no reason to think Meruem wouldn’t have enslaved and consumed humanity for his own purposes. Meruem was simply acting for the advancement and propagation of his own species, but that ideal was incompatible with the future of humanity and Netero knew it. But once Meruem discovered the truth, there was no anger or judgment in him – only acceptance, and a desire to spend his last moments with the being he now realized he loved. Komugi was certainly responsible in-part for Meruem’s transformation – but Netero no less so. And the Royal Guard, too, as Meruem came to understand the meaning of loyalty and love. Without any of it, he would not have died as the enlightened being he was.

Siddhartha too was poisoned, and he too felt no anger towards his (accidental) poisoner. Siddhartha Gautama was a prince who lived a life of luxury where the world was at his beck and call, and seeing the suffering and pain that existed in the world changed him fundamentally. Empathy and humility are awesomely powerful agents of change, and the final moments of Meruem’s story are a study in their effects. He came to believe that his entire life’s purpose was to sit across that crate from Komugi and play Gungi – that this one moment of enlightenment was more meaningful that world domination could ever be.

Of course, staying with Meruem to the end was in effect an act of suicide for Komugi. I was curious as to whether Meruem was going to tell her this or not, but he did give her the opportunity to leave – albeit halfheartedly, as I think he knew she would never do so. There’s so much irony here – this most humble and meek of the humans he encountered changed Meruem so much, and this monster who saw Komugi only as his next disposable source of entertainment was the one who finally brought meaning and joy to her loveless and lonely existence. “Chimera Ant” turned out to be a love story in the end, on top of everything else – a musing on the power of love to assert itself even in the most hostile and unlikely places.

I don’t want to sully those final moments between Meruem and Komugi with too much analysis – they speak for themselves. That so much emotion could be generated from these characters is a testament to how “Chimera Ant” defies all convention and predictability. The first moment that really hit me hard was when Komugi said she wanted to thank the Royal Guard for saving her after Meruem deferred credit to them, and he replied “I’ll relay the message – I’ll be seeing them soon.” Her use of “Kokoriko” is a tribute to Meruem, though he’s not aware of it at first and even displays a bit of his old imperiousness. He never does beat her at Gungi, but that was never really the point. In the end their love story is one of acceptance – of the flaws in others, and of fate. It’s as purely Buddhist a moment as I’ve seen in any anime, or film for that matter – including ones about the Buddha himself. It’s a beautiful, terrible sadness – exquisitely truthful in the writing and brought to life with great care and skill.

Another interesting element in all this was Palm’s role. She knew the truth from the moment Meruem found her in Bizeff’s bunker, and he as soon as he’d seen it in her Nen. Yet she resisted, and when Meruem went to take a knee and beg her to bring him to Komugi, she tried to stop him. Why? Because part of her was now a chimera ant, and that part of her couldn’t bear to see Meruem reduced to that. It’s an acknowledgement of the trials Palm has already and will continue to endure – she’s been changed forever, and even as Meruem marvels at the beauty of her aura it’s impossible to ignore the prospect of great difficulties in her future. When she accedes, Palm has only one request – she wishes to see Meruem and Komugi’s final moments. Why? There’s the strategic reason of course – as a representative of the Hunter Association she needs to verify that Meruem has died. But the real reason is deeper and more sentimental, and it’s perfectly consistent with the Palm we’ve seen from the beginning – a beautiful soul that’s riven with instability and anger.

Well, there I’ve rambled on again as I always do with this series – my apologies, I really did mean for it to be different this time. This story isn’t over, of course, and whether you view the next episode as the end of “Chimera Ant”, an epilogue or the start of the next arc, it has a lot of ground to cover. The world of humans has been saved, but many chimera ants remain – creatures who surely have the right to make some sort of lives for themselves. And Gon has been left in a terrible state, bereft and full of self-loathing that’s so unlike him, perhaps powerless. Meruem has found peace in the end, but Gon (and Killua) must live on, and carry with them all the pain and regret they’ve accumulated on this dark journey. Even if “Chimera Ant” has often turned its gaze elsewhere it’s that journey that remains the eternal spine of Hunter X Hunter, and it too has ventured to a place where no shounen series has ever gone. On top of everything else “Chimera Ant” is the tale of the end of childhood for Gon and Killua – and as it ends, Hunter X Hunter becomes a tale of the difficult road that lies ahead for them.

Epilogue:

 

ED8 Sequence

ED8: 「Understanding」 by (Yoshihisa Hirano)

Preview

It’s that time of the year again!

What’s up everyone? Takaii here once again to post a quick shout out about one of the biggest most awesomest conventions that’s going down on the West Coast. For those of you who are out of the loop or outside of the US, Anime-Expo is one of the largest anime conventions in the country. Held in the ridiculously large Los Angeles Convention Center which is smack dab in downtown LA (which is conveniently only a short drive away from Little Tokyo) and hosts 60,000+ anime fans from all around the world. With tons of panels that are both fan and industry driven and a gigantic dealer’s hall / artist alley, there’s almost anything for everyone. Also there’s cosplay. A lot of cosplay.

For me personally, I haven’t went through the schedule yet (shame on me, I know) but this year is looking like it’ll be a return to the glory days. Besides the huge amounts of time I’ll be spending snapping photos, walking around artist alley, and hopefully interviewing people in the industry I’m totally excited to attend the awesome Kill la Kill special live event. Because if getting the opportunity to watch a bunch of bigwigs from TRIGGER and Ryuuko & Satsuki’s voice actor all appear live just for the fans wasn’t enough, there’s even going to be a live concert featuring Eir Aoi. EIR FREAKING AOI. (Disclaimer: If you didn’t already know, I’m a huge Kill la Kill fan. My “blogging” business card should probably speak volumes :p)

Besides that, I’m really hoping I get to meet any RC-ers out there who are attending AX! I say this every year and still have only met a couple of you — which is why I’m going to make a really dedicated effort to try and spot any and all of you out there. I don’t know how I’ll distinguish myself among the wave of anime fans but I swear to god I will meet more of you this year. That and if you have any bright ideas, I’m totally game to try just about anything because there’s no point in not embarrassing myself at a once-a-year event. Maybe if there’s enough people we can start a game of Ninja or something?

Anyways, you’ll be able to reach me at my regular places (@rctakaii or takaii@randomc.net) and if I’m not mistaken I’m pretty sure @Xumbra will be there too so don’t forget to send some love his way! Either ways, I hope that everyone who’s able to go is getting pumped up like me and even if you can’t go you’re still awesome <3. As usual, coverage of the convention will follow afterwards and if you didn’t derp like me and have checked out the schedule — what do you think is worth going to / checking out?