Opens to the standard not-Olympus we’re familiar with. We get little introductory name introductions in case we’re not familiar with the characters. Deunan’s voice sounds WRONG. [ED – They changed the VA since Ex Machina. So very wrong. And something seems off with the animation. It’s almost as if it’s 3d models on a 2d plane. Except that isn’t at all like the movies.

Deunan reflects on her warlike nature, them and briaros have some good-time mumbling, and then we go back to the familiar es-wat. Opens to a scene reminiscent from Ex Machina, but not quite as excessive. I’m not sure how this fits into continuity, because Deunan wasn’t regarded as a rookie in either movie. Considering that they regarded Poseidon as sunken, it’s after Ex Machina, but… what? She just saved the entire EVERYTHING! She does not get rookie treatment!

On their way to the artificial riverside, Deunan pouted-cute. Despite her not having any direlection to either pouting or cute previously. Though we finally get backstory, and a treasured moment of weakness. Seems like this’ll be more character-based than action-based, but that’s fine with me. “You have eight eyes, and none are seeing me!” indeed.

Deunan messes up a social occasion with Hitomi, who’s cool with it ’cause she’s a bioroid. They then proceed to drop every special noun in the series within five minutes. It’s interesting to note that while cyborgs still self-identify as human, bioroids do not.

The first episode seems to be all proper nouns and backstory and character introduction, including a new girl who has such a poorly-defined role I can’t remember her name. They then go into a mission, dramatic music and mechs and all. Giant robots on a stealth mission is… actually, highly effective. Okay, sure, be totally awesome like that. They do a few callbacks to the first two movies, then continue on with the mission, until their targets are stolen away by a four-armed red robot with even more rapid-fire weaponry than Briaros had. When the villain gets away and Briarios is lightly injured, they have meaning quandaries, and the ending theme plays, another instrumental measure or two.

All in all, it was a firm addition to the Appleseed line. It wasn’t the best, or the most excessive, or the most action-y, but it also only had 22 minutes. Rating: 8/10, definite watch. We have to continue the OVA.

Blood-C

This is the show about Saya hunting demons. Not the original Saya, and not the original demons. This could be a good thing, as this Saya isn’t nearly as introverted and gloomy, and is also voiced by Nana Mizuki. However, nearly fifteen minutes of the twenty-four minute episode was dedicated to her walking around and being cheery. This is not a terrible thing in and of itself, except that we don’t learn anything about the setting. We don’t know why she fights demons. We don’t know why the demons are even there! It’s fifteen minutes of exceptionally dull school life. However, I’m giving this a watch. Why? The other five minutes were keenly-animated action: A fluid, well-choreographed fight scene against a freak of un-nature. A little more about the characters and their backgrounds would make this how action shows should be done.

Ro-Kyu-Bu

This is this season’s loli show. From the opening theme song to the PROMOTIONS-grade shower scene to the ending theme, it’s definitely one for the lolicons in the audience. But wait, there’s more! Unlike most trite offerings who assume that having underaged girls (innocently) in compromising positions would be sufficient for a show, it actually features the girls being people. We get a taste of drama, a taste of depth, and a bit of character conflict. It’s almost as if the production studios have realized that they need to cater to non-pedophiles too. The overarching plot starts with this episode, and looks to be a good one. Conditional watch; those who have a problem with cute children should avoid. (As a side note, Saki’s sports glasses are omgmoe.)

Kamisama Dolls

The opening seems like it’s ripping off a tale of memories, only with acoustic pop instead of modern classical, and multicolored paper cutouts instead of artistic replacements. In other words, derivative and terrible. Not sure the show is much better. The main character is either a college student or a job freshman out drinking with his parties, and has to ask out a cute chick as punishment. However, this is interrupted with a murder in the elevator. It continues in this disjointed manner until it reaches the climax of the episode, where his shrine-maiden little sister has her giant robot beaten up by another one by an evil dude. It’s completely predictable except for the bits that’ll fall into place later. I’m giving this a wait and see, because there’s so much going on it’s hard to piece it together, in a bad way. However, episode 2 could very well pull it together – I just don’t care enough to check.

iDOLM@STER

I wanted to like this. I really did. I just got to the point in Dearly Stars that you actually have to know kanji for, so I was hoping this anime adaptation would fill my fix until I actually learned moonrunes. Unfortunately, the first episode was a disappointment. The girls weren’t drawn well enough or animated well enough to be cute. Their personalities are definable by a single-word archetype, taken to the annoying extreme. They’ve decided to do all twelve girls, which will work out poorly even for a 26-episode show. And most notably, the ED is bad. For an *idolmaster* anime, the ending cannot be bad. (ED: http://youtu.be/kDsTwP66DgY?t=48s , actual song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOb7SdYAmGQ It’s the same song, just worse.) I’ve not mentioned anything in between the OP and the ED, because it’s the same bland moe porridge that otaku have been eating up for the past few seasons. Pass; play the game for your moe. The songs are better.

No. 6

Referring to the city the protagonists reside in, this psychothriller manages to lend an air of mystery, but also apathy. We manage to meet up with an escaped prisoner, who meets a super-genius. They have a lengthy conversation, super-genius treats prisoner’s wounds, and continue talking. Actually, most of the episode is talking, which may lend itself to the dullness. Never do we learn why this man is a prisoner, why being a prisoner wouldn’t be bad, or anything else about the society. Some background is required for this to mesh well, but unlike Kamisama Dolls, it seems like it’s focused enough to go somewhere. It just chooses not to. Wait and see, because it has everything to pull its act together.

Mayoi Chiki

A crossdressing character must conceal his true gender for self-contradictory and ill-advised reasons. A common subplot, now moved into full plot territory. (Women can’t be butlers! That would be like a man being a maid! Or a man being a prostitute! Or a woman being a host!) A boy discovers the secret, and must now be cured of his fear of girls with his sadistic master. This show is the result of an Anime Plot edition of “Will it Blend?”, with ideas stolen without regard for genre or sensicalness. Pass, you’ve probably seen it all before, and if you haven’t, this isn’t how you should see them.

Penguindrum

Spoiler alert: This is a summary of the first episode, and includes details of the premise. “So she’s possessed by penguins?” “Only when she wears the hat.” End of spoilers.

Anyhow. The characters are wonderful, and lifelike, even if I’m aware of their basic personalities. The drama starts off strong and keeps going. The art style is quite pretty, and their kitchen is my favorite character. Along with a sensical storyline and a strong character focus, this should be one of the great shows of the year. Watch, because it’s good and is only going to get better.

Baka to Test Ni

If you liked the first season, you’ll like this season, because it’s just like the first season.

Yuruyuri

This show seems to be spending equal amounts of time convincing me it’s not Marimite, then convincing me it’s Marimite. Four girls participate in a secret club in an out-of-the-way clubhouse. It’s outfitted as a tea room, and their goal is for amusement. However, it’s not Marimite, as there’s lesbian groping. On the whole, it’s a dull slice-of-life show for the shoujo-ai fans who don’t mind their subtext in fourteen-point Helvetica. Conditional pass: I may like my yuri a bit more implied than most, so if this seems like your type of thing, go for it.

Dantelion no Shouka

A man wanders through a shortcut, meets an enchanted book, and gains magical powers. He must then collect the Tomes that Should Not Exist in order to bring peace to the world. It’s the atmosphere that separates it from KyuPara – 1920′s England is an easy choice for class. The amount of research they’ve done shows on multiple occasions, and lends credence to the idea that they actually planned this show. As well, the main character has the ability to take responsibility for his actions. The beauty of sealing the clow cards hidden books is more than enough to make this series a watch, at least until it degrades.

Kami-sama no Memo-chou

A loli detective show. Another one. Well, it’s better than no detective show. I like everyone in it, except for the loli that we’re supposed to endear ourselves to. Her personality, a peculiar mix of Ro-Kyu-Bu-esque childishness, coupled with a surprising maturity about life, creates a character that is the inverse of the common expectations. I won’t say this is bad, per se, but it’s disconcerting. The ease at which the everyman goes into the girl’s posse indicates that this show will continue well, but I’m still ambivalent. Wait and see if this becomes a cornerstone of culture, or a cast-away pebble.

Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel: Kyun Kyun Tokimeki Paradise (Or, KyuPara)

This show is the sequel to a 90′s two-episode OVA, originally based on a pachinko game. The previous sentence should tell you everything you need to know about its quality. The three members of Twin Angel can be placed into archetypes based on their combat style. They’re frequently saved by a rose-throwing mysterious character named Misty Moon. If you’ve ever seen a magical girl show, or a parody of a magical girl show, you’ve seen this show. Only it’s not a parody, as parodies are funny. This one is completely predictable, except for the bits that make no sense. My advice is to pass, despite me personally watching this show. (And having the pachinko game theme as my ringtone.)

In the first episode, we’re introduced to the wonderful world of Fractale. It’s a perfect world, where everyone’s basic needs are taken care of. While there are jobs available for those who want them, no one has to work, as basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter are provided by the Temple, who also runs the Fractale system. The titular Fractale system is basically a thinly-veiled metaphor for the internet as it will be in the near-to-distant future. It provides free information, communication, and you can travel the world without leaving the comfort of your own home with the help of a holographic avatar called a “Doppel”. Everyone has free, constant access to this service through a chip implanted in their minds. Thus, everyone is free to spend their days doing as they will.

However, the Fractale system is failing. Clain, and old-tech aficionado, happens to meet up with Phyrne, on the run from the Temple. Along with Nessa, a Doppel, they are the key to restarting Fractale (as must happen every few hundred years). Now, if the temple catches Phyrne and Nessa, their conciousnesses will merge, Phyrne will be forced to do something vaguely unpleasant in order to keep the Fractale system running, and the world will have another thousand years of peaceful stasis. Obviously, Clain resolves to never let this come to pass, and joins up with a terrorist group attempting to take down Fractale for good.

Throughout the show, the writers attempt to show us how living without the Fractale system makes people selfish, petty, cutthroat, and base. The assumed idea, since our protagonists are against the system, is to show that the people are that way because the system made them bad. However, it’s fairly clear that the people would have been petty jerks regardless – people can get a sense of entitlement and power with or without a magic sky-temple. In actuality, it shows all the temple provides for them – without the temple, they wouldn’t have food without pay or shelter without work. Considering the state of the world, there’s not nearly enough infrastructure to support a community of any size without the blessings of the temple.

The point falls especially flat when we are treated to Xanadu. It’s the one place where the Fractale system is still in full effect. The most common occupation is artist, followed by philosopher. These people are the epitome of art and culture. Due to limited resources and spaces, however, they are forced to work for their position. If the Fractale system but were rebooted, the spaces in Xanadu wouldn’t be limited. The world would be Xanadu. All the Temple needs is Phyrne and Nessa, and the world could be in its next cultural revolution.

Obviously the Temple is exploiting their power and the people, right? No. Not really. The only time people deal with the temple is for their yearly firmware upgrade. But they’re trying to track down Phryne and Nessa to kill them, right? I’d argue that this is a trade-off. I’d argue that the lives of a computer program and a clone are less important than that of another thousand years of peace and prosperity. The people in charge may be distasteful, and possibly even criminal, but their intentions for this world are wholly pure. This show is one of the few where I want the antagonists to win, despite the show fully pushing for the protagonists.

Fractale is a fairly well-executed show that I find no cinematic flaws with (even though that’s another post), but the plot is such a failing point that it deserves its own article. It’s a tale of a perfect world, attempted to be spoiled by terrorists that we’re supposed to sympathize with, where there is no reason to.

So the first thing that his me is the music. It’s exactly the kind of disinterested-cat-plus-piano crap that I berated Planzet for, except here it’s good because it’s what I expect. I expect bad instrumental music, poorly chosen words, extremely unlikely circumstance, pointless tragedy, and soft objects falling from the sky at a certain velocity(1). To set the scene, chick with cute outfit and dude are on a train. He offers her the remaining snacks, which she promptly snatches and consumes. They do some rather interesting weaving of storytelling here. They infer that she’s sickly and transferring, and only outright state she hates school. The CG here is a jarring contrast from Planzet, in that it is the kind of crap cheap animators use to pad out the budget. Clearly him and her have a thing for each other. And she likes the sky. Well, not likes the sky like some people(2) like the sky, and it’s not even that pretty of a sky.

Opening theme song plays. It’s alright, nothing special. About the same level of any eufonius production. The imagery is mostly the standard light and water motifs, with a little light fanservice thrown in. It’s a shame, because they didn’t do good on the light bits or the water bits. Every main character gets their little cameo, but surprisingly, they don’t spell out their names in the op, so I’m going to keep referring to people by their most noticeable feature (not that having their names in the op ever stopped me before). Spice and Wolf-styled letters introduce the first episode, “A distant memory”.

Apparently they’re in the sticks. Apparently his name is Haru and her name is Sora. … Moving on. She’s not as sickly as I thought, he has epic car-dodging skills, and their relationship is sometimes-loving, sometimes-hurtful. I’d call her tsundere, except that she has literally none of the traits, so I’ll just call it a normal sibling relationship. (Assuming they *are* siblings; what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen match up, but you never know.) We have a short segment with the blond maid admiring the dude they nearly ran over. We’re gradually building our harem here. So far, we’ve got the ice queen, the chick with boobs, and the ojou-sama (addressed as such! Double word score!). We’re not yet five minutes in, and all we’re missing is the loli and the shrine maiden, with childhood friend and cloud cookoolander left to mix-and-match those with.

So when they arrive at the supermarket, they meet the shrine maiden, who appears to have known him from childhood, and has a thing for him by the way she blushes. (05:41, and only one stereotype left!) So then they decide to bike home. That whole blushing thing loses its appeal when girls are doing it every ten seconds for no reason. They decide to take a trip around and introduce the viewer to every scene which will appear in the anime. So then they meet the final chick in our harem, who is also out riding her bike. She takes one look at him, and he sparkles. He sparkles like a watercolor factory covered in fireworks. She gets distracted. He bikes home.

Or not quite. First, he makes a detour to visit his childhood friend, who won’t be home because she’s out running errands. They then DO eventually go home, when it gets dark. She has a look of intense hate at one of the houses. They arrive home without incident. She complains about the lack of internet. I take back my crack about the stereotypes – these are painted using the same broad strokes, but differ in execution. People have minor differences from what their archetypes would lead you to believe. Visiting the neighbors was a well-executed scene, weaving plot exposition with character traits, and introducing a new character. Their reactions are a little exaggerated, but hey. What can you do.

The class introduction made it clear exactly how powerful he sparkles. It may be invisible to me, and to other viewers, but apparently this man is Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman, and Johnnie Depp rolled into one, and all the girls in the anime can see it. Cookoolander’s Akira, and yes, she qualifies. I hope she’ll tone it down. Her antics are well-loved, apparently. It’s a lot more laid back than any classroom I’ve been in. Scene change to his sister at home, with the poorly-reflected floor, mediocre anatomy, and photo album of them as kids. In case you haven’t noticed they’re siblings, they’re siblings. And man, do they have a thing for each other.

They do flashbacks throughout the day so that even if we forget character’s faces, because they’re identical, or hair, because none are strangely-colored, we’ll at least remember the chick who bashed her face into the desk is named Atsusume Akira. The endearing moment of girl’s love makes me heart go twitter. “Soothing to watch a rich girl and a childish girl get along”, indeed. She gets all jealous and storms out. He drops dramatic, heartwarming lines like it’s nothing.

The next day, they’re making… honestly, I don’t know, because generally when you make copies, the pages go in blank and come out with printing on them, but here, they both go in and come out with printing. So I suppose they’re making copies of a blank piece of paper. Class rep shows herself to be shy, jealous, and also terribly in love with the collision of superstars Haru. Apparently Sora’s his identical twin sister, because that’s totally how biology works. Spyrograph sparkles. Again. I really wish they would tone down the girl’s reactions, because gosh darnit, he is not that attractive, and I’m fairly sure he’s going to stay exclusive to his sister for nearly all of the show, with maybe a bit of infidelity as a plot point.

I can see the photoshop lines on the sky as they start with the flashback. Looks like, instead of saving important moments with him and the girls as children for when it would be dramatically appropriate, they’re going to do them in lieu of backstory. That’s fine too, since he was such a playboy when he was a kid. We’re building our web of jealousy and deceit from page one. She’s upset because he left his phone in his other pants. We have another moment of teary-eyed wonderfulness without any of the crying sound.

We then see how each of the girls views his day, in various states of undress. Somehow, the nipples makes the bath less sexy. Rain. Water. Lightning. A nocturnal visit. She presses herself upon him. A fade to black. Is it all a dream, like the one five seconds ago? A delusion? Dear lord I hope not, that series(3) turned out terrible. Ending theme song’s actually quite good. I wouldn’t listen to it for its own sake, but I’m surely not going to skip it, and I may add it to my playlist depending on how much I like the series.

The next episode preview goes in-depth into the life of the personal maid, and has the least arousing masturbation scene I’ve seen. Then we… have a second ending theme? I’m confused. This one paints it less like a drama, and more of an ecchi harem comedy, complete with what may be the first satisfying attempt at fanservice in this show. Now we have a proper preview, which resolves nothing and tells us nothing and is instead disconnected scenes with a random voiceover, just the way I expect.

Overall experience with this episode. It was a decent watch, if you really wanted a romantic drama (and I do), have memorized the plot to all the good ones (and I have), and don’t mind incest (and I don’t). The main issue I have with this show is its lack of restraint. If you’re going to have boobs all the time, it’s not special. Similarly, the sparkles? Not special anymore. The dramatic confession of love? There were no fewer than three this episode alone. What do I have to look forward to if you’re going to go past all the stops in the first ep? This show has the opposite problem of Amagami SS – it tries to do too much, too soon. Dramatic confessions don’t have that much effect until we know the characters, and the love triangle has yet to fully form before you already have your first fit of jealousy. Overall: 8/10. In all technical regards, it’s perfect, but it lacks that spark, and it lacks directive talent. Going to see if it suddenly grows either of those, or until it becomes too terrible to watch.

Footnotes:

1. This is first and foremost a reference to 5cm/s, where the cherry blossoms descend exactly at such a speed. Other series with soft items falling from the sky is the flower petals in Clannad, the rain in Sola, the snow in Kanon, the feathers in Air, and the inordinate amount of crying in Kimi Ga Nozomu Eien. Ef gets a mention here for notebook paper, but that’s a bit spoilery.
2. Sola. Protagonist there loves the sky. He loves the sky so much.
3. Chaos;head, the other series with delusions of ecchi. It was awesome freaky scary for a bit, but then it lost all coherence and fell apart.

Animation. The animation, such as it is, is entirely CG effects from the top of Koyomi’s hair to the bottom of their absentee father’s boots. As CG goes, however, this is not the conspicuous low-budget trash lazy animators use to fill difficult scenes, nor the Pixar-styled “toy” feel. They went for a photorealistic styling, and in the great majority of cases, it works wonderfully. A few small flaws in motion capture, such as the lack of little movements people make to steady themselves, make the CG apparent. Other telling flaws are the unnaturally white teeth, the oddly-perfectly-fitting clothes, and the symmetric pores on people’s faces. So, all in all, a miniscule step below live action. I don’t think I can impress this well enough through understatement, but it looks like it was done with real actors who have slight problems with moving about. Drunk actors, perhaps, but drunk in the way that gives them perfect balance and precision. A few light-doesn’t-work-like-that errors (shame on you, after 5cm/s) round this out to simply a 10/10, despite all the bonus points it earned for making me rate this like it was live action.

Music. The simple thing is, there isn’t any of note. The majority of this movie will be filled with the vast echoes of silence, filled only with the character’s conversations. I don’t remember hearing any ambient noise of machines, or anything not explicitly a sound effect or character dialogue. The scene of resolve, in which case he swears he will pilot the giant robot, should have been filled with triumphant music, or strains of longing, but we get a disinterested cat walking across an untuned piano. Even during the climax of the film, the music is strangely muted compared to even lower-budget anime soundtracks. The ending theme song is a saxophone-driven exercise in fingernails-on-eardrums, but it’s free to suck, cause it’s an ending theme. I’m going to give this a 3/10. Points for having something where you needed it most, but next time, a little more effort would be appreciated. (You’d think they’d have learned from Early Days)

Plot. And here we get to its true weak point. It starts as a coming-of-age story for a boy amid turbulent times. But wait, it’s actually a real robot show about a military group to overcome alien oppressors with a last-ditch gambit to win! A third shift at the climax throws any sort of coherency out of the story. What’s left is trite, unoriginal, and not even superbly executed. I don’t feel like I connect to any of these characters, I side with them solely because of protagonist sympathy, and I fully believe that they’ll triumph in whatever they do, despite any possible setbacks. However, compared to whatever else is on the market, they tried here, and they didn’t horribly fail. The normalized score here would be a 5/10, but remember I rate Japanese shows based on execution, not originality.

Characters. Generally the strong point of a work, here the characters seem flat, even for a movie. They don’t display any mannerisms, don’t have any complications, and are basically there to play their role and be done with it. It felt more like they were there for an RPG session when one had a shift at 10 and they were trying to get through the dungeon as fast as possible. The most human character, I feel, is Koyomi, the main character’s little sister. However, her entirely passive role in events completely removes any relation from the active protagonists. Characterization is also weak – motivations, opinions, and backstory are stated outright. There’s nothing to back up anything the characters say about themselves, besides that their squad leader’s a drunk. While Japanese animation is generally heavy-handed with characterization, here it feels like apathy more than anything else. 4/10, because I didn’t hate anyone. I would mention the aliens here, except we never see an alien, never see an alien do any alien-y things, and for all intents and purposes, they’re just a macguffin with lasers. I do like the outfits, though.

Planzet is to computer-generated animation what Unreal Tournament is to video games – nothing new, nothing amazing, but does it show off those cool new graphics. Everything from the fake-old-film intro to the pan to the starry sky is standard Japanese anime fare. The voice acting was what you’d expect, the science was as unsciency as any robot show is, and the characters were your standard military team stereotypes. The only thing new was the animation, but man, that animation. That wonderful, wonderful CG animation. Overall rating: 7/10. Tons of points for the CG, because I like a spectacle, but TO was better in most regards as hard SF, and Voices of a Distant Star was miles better as a soft SF show.

I apologize for the lack of funny. It’s late, I’m overworked, and it’ll take me a terrible, terrible show in order to get me to make fun of things for being bad again. Thankfully, that’s what we have new seasons for! I’ll try to grab one when I have off-time, watch it, and see what comes out of my head.

The first thing that strikes you is that the game is Japanese. Everyone’s drawn in an anime arsty style. The 2.5d movement is reminiscent of any Dragon Quest game you’ve played, seen played, or heard about. The original Japanese voiceover was kept intact for speech. The “events” look like a visual novel. However, the localization is superb, indie game or not. (Except for one mostly-untranslatable circumstance – “Don’t call it ‘going home’” may confuse some players unfamiliar with the phrase.) Note that this is a localization, not a translation. The jokes are translated (an obscure armor gag becoming a mention of the “tea party”), the expressions are translated (Tear’s frequent “mattaku” becoming “merde”), and the situations are… well, they’re in a fantasy JRPG. That’s a setting familiar enough to leave intact.

Speaking of the setting, it’s left mostly intact. You have all of the standard fantasy tropes – the down-on-his-luck swordsman, the dashing rogue, the arrogant child sorcerer. However, these characters are presented with flourish and enthusiasm. It has a “Hey! Look at them! They’re awesome!” feel about it, and when you look at them, you can’t bring yourself to disagree. There are some mild dating-sim elements as you have to convince the adventurers go to treasure hunting to pay your mortgage (“like inviting them to a dinner party!”), but the difficulty is so low there’s little challenge to it. I didn’t spend nearly as much time dungeon-crawling as the game thinks I should have, but the hack-and-slash combat was kept interesting by a variety of characters, an expanding set of special moves, and a wide variety of enemies with unique attacks. So you go down into the dungeon, fight the monsters, occasional boss battle, then go back into town to sell your items. But wait, isn’t this “an item shop’s tale”, you ask? Where’s the item shop?

The item shop is actually the main focus of the game. If you play like me, you’re going to be spending most of your time running this little shop instead of adventuring in the dungeons. Lower risk-versus-reward, and after all, wouldn’t Adam Smith be proud? There’s a few places in town to buy goods cheaply, and sell them at a profit. However, growing mortgage payments and increasing complexity keep what would normally be a simple game of buy-low-sell-high quite fresh. After a while, you learn customer’s preferences, such as the girl liking books, and the old man buying anything in a window. The rather long tutorial, which doubles as the demo, shows off everything a new player would need to know, and then later expands upon it when new concepts come up. While the game may be simple on a mechanical level, it requires active participation and forethought in order to keep up with those ever-increasing mortgage payments.

Now onto the requisite “things I didn’t like” section. It’s difficult to tell when something’s going on in town, the price changes are arbitrary, and the movement between demo-save and game-save was awkward for a Steam game. The Japanese indie shows through in a few places, such as “config.exe” being separate from the game, save files being clustered in with the application, and the three obviously-synthed music tracks on infinite loop. In addition, the game does not start full screen. This may be a plus or a minus. As well, much of the game content centers around dungeon-crawling – at least three additional characters won’t be visible without going through forty-five levels of dungeon. Dungeon crawling is often hard to fit into a schedule, considering how tight the payments are and how little a dungeon crawl nets. One last nit-pick is that if I have my Xbox controller plugged in when I start the game, I don’t have keyboard control, which *would be* a minor annoyance if the button configuration wasn’t a separate program.

While the game itself runs only about 9 hours, the post-game content is varied and entertaining. There’s an “Endless” mode, achieved by continuing your adventure even after the end of the storyline, a “Survival” mode, where you’re pitted against ever-increasing mortgage payments until your shop finally collapses, and “New Game +”, a standard of JRPGs. Each of these may seem like an attempt to pad out gameplay, except that the game is fun. Remove the trappings, the goals, the artificial deadlines, and the game is part Dragon Quest, part Lemonade Tycoon, all good. While this game is NOT for anyone who thinks protagonists should be beefy men shooting aliens where everything is six shades of brown, this game is DEFINITELY for JRPG gamers who want a breath of fun into their normal rotation. Capitalism, Ho!

Starts off, dude goes to sleep in the infirmary. When I was in school, we slept in the desks. He discovers Chick there in the most boring way possible. Even the clichéd “lay down before noticing her” would have been better, as it would have involved action. As she’s putting on her socks, I notice that she’s willing to show her panties to the protagonist, but he’s not willing to look. Alternatively, she does have a magic skirt that obscures her panties even though three-quarters of her thigh are visible to the viewers, where our camera angle is carefully skewed to obscure the underwear of an 18-year-old girl. I’ve seen more fanservice during a zombie apocalypse. After a rather menial conversation and a lackluster attempt at pro-wrestling on a misunderstood line from the previous conversation, we get them walking home together. Turns out she’s never denied a guy twice. CHANCE! …Only he doesn’t get it, but decides to go ahead with it anyway. All throughout, the soundtrack equivalent of stock footage plays. Anything’s better than the silence behind the voices – there’s nothing to ignore them with.

We have the most pointless fanservice scene in the world here, followed by a pointless meeting in the library. He fetches her puppy books, bringing her one-dimensionality to the maximum degree possible. Them alone in the library after hours, her cute sleeping face, she wakes up. He confesses his love. Against the setting sun, she gives him a kiss on the… hair? Eyebrow? Forehead? Okay. He deserved one on the cheek, at least. The scenery and the music were turned to 8, and the action was turned down to three.

Actually, that’s a great description of this anime in general. The background is great, and the director has control of the scenery and music to evoke emotion, but what actually happens doesn’t live up to the hype. Score: 7/10. This series is in a permanent state of “droppable” for me. I’m not keeping records. If I ever miss an episode, I’m probably not going to catch up, track down the old ones, or even keep track of which episode I’m on. If the show gets better, this’ll change, but I’ve learned from Railgun. “Not bad” doesn’t mean “archivable”. It’s the anime analogue to Josie and the Pussycats – derivative, not particularly interesting, but you can’t hate it because it has no soul of its own to hate.

From its introductory episode to the final battle against Truth, it is clear that Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood is about the action. Go to Central, get in a fight. Go to Lior, get in a fight. Go to Briggs, get in a fight. If this were all there was to it, it’d succumb to the standard formulaic shonen trap and be promptly cast in the discard bin. But there’s much more to it than just the action. Plot summary in the following paragraph.

Our protagonists are initially Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric, who attempt to resurrect their dead mom. They fail, see the truth (with a capital T), and then realize that they can’t transmute humans. Ed loses his leg, Al loses his body. Ed then binds Al’s soul to a suit of armor in exchange for his leg. They then quest to get their bodies back, without using a philosopher’s stone. Once they uncover Father’s secret plan to use the Homunculus to create a transmutation circle across the country in blood, they dedicate their work to stopping it. After travelling to various places and learning the secret of the philosopher’s stone, they travel to Central. One military coup later, they’re in a battle with Father, but due to the five human sacrifices (Ed, Al, Sensei, Hoenheim, and Roy Mustang) who have committed human transmutation, Father is able to absorb Truth. Thanks to some planning from Hoenheim, they are able to defeat Father, and bring peace to the land.

If you read the above paragraph, you’ll notice that I kept adding characters as it went on. This is because the show does the same. At the beginning, we have a relatively small cast of characters – two protagonists, one supporting, one minor. By the end, we have seven protagonists, eight antagonists, around twenty support characters depending on how you count (my tally is at the end), and enough minor characters to staff a series to themselves. Each of these characters has their own dreams and goals, and works to achieve them independently of the others. This is great characterization, especially how they avoided the use of standard anime stereotypes. However, as any roleplaying gamer can attest, when the party is split, the story slows, and this affected the show greatly during one span. In all, though, the great characterization and variable run length allowed the narrative to continue running with panache.

As to length, the series is 64 episodes. This is not a light watch, and it shouldn’t be watched all at once. Watch a few episodes in a sitting, and come back to it. It has sufficient flashbacks and common themes to watch week-to-week, and that’s how I enjoyed it. The length does allow for an exploration of every character’s motives, adding to the great characterization, and telling of a wide-reaching story building from a simple quest to get a philosopher’s stone to a battle to save a country.

The story itself, being based entirely from the manga, gives us a great intro to the characters and provides firm footing once the story begins moving. However, several bits were done better in the original TV series than in the manga. For instance, the alchemy trials were much more interesting in the original and showed some ingenuity on the part of Edward, as opposed to relying on his magic clapping ability. A certain little girl was also handled much better in the original, especially considering how important this was to the story overall. I missed some of the fun side stories, but interpreting an off-hand remark in a middle episode a particular way, you can still view them as in the original TV series as canon. I choose to do so, despite this making the series run length exceptionally long. The narrative tells an original, intricate story well, with only a few minor plot flaws and one major narrative skip (Hoenheim’s plan in the end). This puts it significantly higher than most search-for-the-holy-macguffin shows, ascending the pedestal of greatness.

The music tends to fit the scene, even though the selection feels rather restricted for a series of its run length. While you can’t quite put your finger on any particular song, after their fifteenth play (around episode 50, mind) you tend to recognize them. The OP and ED sequences are highly variable, but at least one of each pair stands out. ED4, Shunkan Sentimental, remains a favorite of mine. All in all, the music is good, but not outstanding.

Overall, I give the series a Score: 9/10. Pacing issues in the Briggs arc felt like I was stuck in a blizzard, and the narrative Deus Ex Machina at the end with Hoenheim’s plan got to me. If, by some miracle, Briggs proceeded at a quicker pace without losing any detail, and Hoenheim’s actions could have been foreshadowed without interrupting the rest of the dialog (perhaps taking out the Lust scene), this series would be masterpiece work. As it is, it stands as a pillar of virtue for those looking for good entertainment.

Protagonist Listing (at the biggest):

1. Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist (and his brother, Al)
2. Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist (and his subordinate, Lisa Hawkeye)
3. Mei Chan (and her entourage, Shao May)
4. Major General Olivier Armstrong (and her entourage, Captain Buccaneer and the Northern Army, and sometimes Major Alex Armstrong)
5. Scar (and later, his entourage, the Ishbalans)
6. Hoenheim
7. Prince Lin Yao / Greed (and his bodyguards, Lan Fan and Fu)

Antagonist Listing (at the biggest point where the protagonist list is valid):

1. Pride
2. Wrath
3. Envy
4. Gluttony
5. Sloth
6. Lust
7. Father
8. Kimblee

Show starts off with a slow-walking older brother and a dependable little sister. He rides the train to school, holding his hands in the “I am not a pervert” pose on the subway. Turns out he’s the only male student in the school, which means that gender integration is even less successful than interracial integration. Oosai Academy Student Council, introduces the first rule, a half-hearted protest is issued, and the opening theme song plays. It’s a pretty generic number (but this is what makes them generic – there’s so many of them). The visuals involve standard “make your choice” visuals, along with some rather disturbing penis metaphors. What was that nurse doing? Was that literally a box of dicks? I’m personally for the girl on the left, possibly because she reminds me of Kallen.

He remarks that it’s an all-girls school, and is met at the gates by the head of the student council. After thirty seconds of dramatic camera work, ranging all across the school, she announces that his uniform is messy. She has a thing about loose neckties because she doesn’t want others to think she’s an indecent girl. (Then maybe you shouldn’t stare at men’s crotches in the OP.) After some tie-fixing that is as far from Marmite as possible, we get an introduction to twintails, who has the tsundere pattern down so strong that I expect an animal-themed catchphrase. The slowest kick in history ends with a shoe in his face. Too bad the secret service isn’t around to arrest her. She’s also not in Zettai Ryouiki, which is confusing as she has literally every other marker. Suppose they couldn’t get the character design patent away from Kugimiya Rie. Due to her tsundere genius abilities, she’s the accountant. We then get an introduction to red-haired chick and her SPARKLING HAIR and peaceful demeanor. I would be calmed by her if she wasn’t horribly patronizing.

They explain the relationship structure at the school, stealing first from Tenchi and second from Marmite. They actually look better in the marmite school uniforms than in their proper ones, even if it was a “joke”. Bump that. Yuri goggles, power on. He gets invited to the student council in possibly the most boring manner ever. Then we get our period joke, stereotyped comparisons, and finally everyone agrees on what they originally intended. She’s interested in him because health education is limited. I mean… was that a joke? Am I supposed to be laughing? I can’t tell.

We see our first glance of the stamp on his application. It was translated as “Approved”, with what looks like Student Council up top. The official student council seal of approval. I’ll call it the “Stamp of Whoring” for now. She attempts to arouse him with various rooms, but it’s like she’s not even trying. They make quite possibly the lamest gag about declining birthrates I’ve seen. They argue about feminine products in front of him. I don’t know about you, but I find monthly bleeding from an orifice creepy and try to think about it as little as possible. This is the second time in 12 minutes this show has caused me to think of the miracle of life being ground into a bloody discharge. Thanks, Seitokai Yakuindomo. Thanks.

While walking through the halls, she accuses him of being a masochist for fairly poor reasons. They then go to the roof, where Suzu says she likes high places so she can look down on people. “Why aren’t you laughing?” “Because it’s not something to laugh about.” This describes the entire show so far. Turns out the student council president has a fear of heights worse than Hinagiku’s. (It is at this point I take a short break to dig out Hayate no Gotoku, Vol. 1, so I can remember how to laugh. – Turns out I read Sei Sou Tsui Dan Sha (NSFW) instead)

One inane sparkle-montage later, we’re back where we originally started. “Loving Husband and Wife” (S&M play) is STUDENT COUNCIL APPROVED! They do a few short, pointless, and unfunny sketches. Of note, there was the vagina-based (probably, it was mosaic’d to all hell) suggestion box. I assume “burst your cherry” actually meant “rape your ass”, considering that it was hate mail. Council president gets turned on when lots of people stare at her. It’s a girl’s wallet because it lacks a condom, despite it being frilly and pink. I keep waiting for these to result in something, but they never do. It’s like an episode of The Today Show where everyone has Tourette’s. The newspaper interview approached funny, but the timing was so far off base they bypassed awkward completely and went straight for boring. They end with her turning off what appears to be an adult video. Ending theme song plays. It’s an upbeat, happy song, different for an ed. I like the music itself, but the visuals I’ve seen dozens of times before. The preview is done solely based on the original comics, which is the laziest way to promote sales I’ve seen.

In total, this comedy is a failure. It has no sense of timing, no sense of direction. I don’t care any more for the characters than I do for their respective stereotypes. In total, this show was pretty much an unfunny morass of censored words and talking heads. Score: 6/10. May this be gone from the airwaves.

First thing I notice is that the main character sounds familiar. Like, really familiar. Like, “I know that dude” familiar. This is because he has the same voice of every generic protagonist of every dating-sim-based anime since ToHeart. Opening sequence plays. Speaking of ToHeart, these uniforms look approximately the same degree of boring. It’s 2010, people. You’re competing with Sekirei in the girl-oriented department, Sengoku Basara in the action-oriented department, and Mitsudomoe in the moe department. Have some appeal to your uniforms. The next step was to compare the anime op to the game op. As I couldn’t find the game op, I’m going to count that in the negative category. At this point, I decide that the show will fail.

After a dull, slow, whiny, and generally bad OP we get a dependable little sister waking up her irresponsible older brother for school, because he slept in. Also, he sleeps in his closet, which is covered in stars done in highlighter. One of these two things vaguely resembles original. On the way to school, they meet up with friends. I like this sequence because of the phrasing. It’s not ef-quality, but it’s at least proper translation-speak, with Eclipse keeping in the foreign weirdness. They manage to introduce names in a manner that is only slightly awkward.

Cut to a musically-backed montage. See, you can tell who the main girls are because they’re the ones wearing unique coats. We’re told that an upperclassman is pretty, but she suffers from having the same face as everyone else, so I can’t actually tell. Also, I believe this has the most detailed rendering of love bubbles since Kimi ni Todoke. This next bit is done in watercolor, which seems a tad excessive for an introduction shot. I smell CG reuse. As usual, the school’s bell can be heard for miles, and they hurry to class.

I’ll diverge here to talk about how the story is organized. Much like Kanon, they’re going to tell the story of each girl in sequence. Like Umineko, these will be in named arcs, and the episode title makes note of both arc and episode However, unlike Kanon, it has no sad-girls-in-snow to redeem it from any poor pacing it may achieve, and it’s going for another girl in the same run length. Unlike Umineko, it has no Shannon and her wonderful tattoo. Hint: If Key did it before you, and got four girls of five, you’re probably going to fail. On the off chance they’ll succeed, I continue watching.

It seems they’re going immediately into the school festival episode. Usually this is reserved for when the plot is running thin… (The implication to this statement is left as an exercise to the reader.) In the background, I noticed the girls have idle animations. One girl was fiddling with her pen, one was biting the end of her hair. This wouldn’t normally be surprising, but it was notable in contrast to the standard static backgrounds of classrooms, or even the earlier cheap CG reuse. And unlike most times this is attempted, the background motion doesn’t detract from the camera focus. This show, despite appearances, has a budget. It seems our main character has a thing for the hardworking class rep. Now let’s see if we can collect a childhood friend, a princess character, a loli, a cookoolander, and a tsundere.

We now meet the childhood friend. I find this show is exercising great economy of character traits – they assign one trait to each character, such as not to confuse the viewer with characters that have multiple motivations or conflicted feelings. After all, what kind of romantic drama would it be if the love was contested or impossible due to other circumstances? A trip to the lunchroom introduces us to our loli character, in the shape of a freshman. She blushes furiously at what shouldn’t even be triggers and latches onto the social structure as if it were her only lifeline to a pit full of lava-breathing pirhanas with rocket launchers and… ahem.

On the way back, he manages to trip, fall, and introduce himself to a new girl. The tips of her hair BARELY make the proper drill shape, but I’ll predict that this is the ojou we’ll be enduring for this series. Turns out it was the same chick from when they were walking to school. I’m glad they mentioned that, because I wouldn’t be able to tell otherwise. He gets all amazed that he talked to a chick, we see love bubble variant #5, and she walks off, her hair sparkling exactly like a vampire doesn’t.

We meet the cookoolander at this juncture. You can tell because she ends every single sentence as you would a question. On the list of annoying speech patterns, I’d rate this somewhere between “desu” and “vuvuzela”. Back at lunch, they eat and complain. The career survey gives the class rep the proper incentive to come over and speak to our protagonist. (He’s not a hero; he doesn’t *do* anything.)

As the school day ends, the camera seems to linger at the back of the head of a short-haired girl. Turning in the survey is an exercise in inanity worse than building gearhead relation points. In the library, he manages to literally bump into the upperclassmen. Does it count as a meet cute if this is literally the third time this has happened? Should she have a proximity warning system to ward off collisions? Find out after these messages from our sponsors! (Yes, seriously, that was half an ep.)

He is obviously ingratiating himself, so let’s skip ahead until it gets interesting. She does that turn-and-hair thing that I usually find irresistible, but not here. Possibly because her hair doesn’t move. He swears to renew those feelings he had two years ago… those feelings of love. (These are actual lines.)

We have flashback, recap, him basically being whiney and worthless. Though many complain about the protagonist being faceless and unfeeling, there’s actually been a trend to the opposite recently. School Days had a total jerk, leaving us with a hilarious ending. Kanon had a minor, lovable jerk, leaving us with a comitragedy that ended all too soon (possibly because they forgot Mai’s arc). This is self-serving whining, level 3. If he doesn’t make a positive statement of determination, he forever risks falling into the pre-~AS~ Nagisa trap for me. …Which was promptly made, but then he suddenly sinks back into the whining. Definite level 3.

Morishima-sempai distracts him from his odd, vaguely homoerotic game (seriously wtf were they doing that was not leapfrog). She drops the “If it was you, I’d think it’d be okay” bombshell so far off-context she accidentally started a global conflict. Imouto-san is obviously jealous. We’re treated to a rather random and frankly unarousing scene as he images his crush and his younger sister in the bath together. Turns out the little sister has two traits – little sister *and* tsundere. But it’ll turn out they’re not blood related, so does the first one still count? Either way, now that we’ve met our headcount of stereotypes, we can now get on to the plot! …Or at least the rest of the show.

After a screen montage of people we don’t know, the camera focuses intently on a potted plant. Turns out ojou-chan is waiting for protag-kun by sculpture-san. You receive knowledge of the cur Hibeki, after the affections of your lover. Do you challenge him to a duel? – Sorry. Too much warband. She straight out ASKS HIM if she likes her. He admits that he is her most ardent admirer. She says he’s not her type. She is throwing up serious flags, like, what’s the word stronger than “tease” but less-strong than “skank”? That.

“Wait, did I just get rejected? Wait, did I just confess? No, I couldn’t have.” YES YOU DID FRANK, YES YOU DID. And the only person that Mr. Wallace likes getting—ahem. After staring at her from a distance like a creepy stalker for a while, he decides to go home. Once he gets home, he collapses in self-pity into his Cabinet of Solitude. Ending theme plays.

It’s a painfully generic number that’s obviously tailored to this girl’s arc, as it contains pretty much massive spoilers for every scene to come.

So, in total, where it wasn’t generic, it was stereotypical, and where it wasn’t either of those, it was doing a cheap montage with a rented orchestra-in-a-box. Not only do I not leave with more than I started with, I leave with less. I literally feel as if that thirty minutes of my life was robbed by Japanese media executives. This isn’t die-in-a-fire bad, but let’s just say that if it was this or my cell phone user manual to take out of a burning building, I’d choose the user manual. It’s more interesting. Score: 6/10. Oh, and FMA:B is over. You should watch that. I might do a write-up on the series if I have too much time.