Month: April 2011
X-Men 03 – What happened to the wimmin?
“OBJECSHUN! UR HONUR, THE ONLY THING GOING BOOMZ IS MY CLIENT’S SNAZZY DRESS SENSE!”
“Ippo said he’ll treat me to ramen after I finish weight control”
Oh Yukarin, why are you always so deredere for blondes
OK, so did the X-belles get replaced by pod persons? Because they are unrecognizable from their usual personas in the comics. I was wondering in what way the wheels will start to come off gently from this bandwagon, but I never thought it would be in this fashion. I take back what I said about Storm (not to say the depressing “delicate constitution” crap they thought up to make her depend on the big burly men is gone, it’s actually worse here), because Emma Frost<>Emma Frost. Not only has she taken up some sort of weird gentle sensei schtick that’s massively out of character, she has a bizzare shoujo-ai relationship with the nascent Armor, in which they’ve NEVER MET EXCEPT OVER THE VIDEOCONFERENCE.
It’s a pity that this issue is so prominent (no pun intended), because the rest of the episode continued in a positive direction. The animation and art is still consistently solid, Cyclops toned down his emo-ing and Wolverine behaved more like Wolverine. Although there was significant infodumping courtesy of Ms Frost in the 1st half, the main fight with the mad doktor was satisfactory, if not very well developed. From a certain perspective, it was meant to showcase Armor’s first major use of her powers, but I still felt we could have seen more of the sheer monstrosity of the character depicted rather than just the usual short muwahahaha-ing.
The Emma Frost issue just sticks out like a sore thumb though, because short of Cyclops everyone just swallows Frost’s actions hook line and sinker. Granted, only Cyclops saw her psychic projection when Grey died, so there’s Considerable Doubt(tm) there, but there’s just no excuse when it comes to Armor. The somewhat creepy dynamic between the adolescent Armor and Frost is hilariously interpreted by the rest of the gang as some sort of noble teacher/student relationship, when the audience probably suspects telepathic manipulation plain as day. To be fair, Cyclops is skeptical, but he’ll probably change his mind once he shacks up with Frost (HAH!), assuming the young Hisako doesn’t knife him in the back when that happens.
Next episode brings on Frost’s diamond form (no “your body is a million dollars, baby!” jokes plz). I hope none of the U-Men have hammers.
Madoka Pic of the Day, No 3
Deadman Wonderland – Shawshank Running Redemption Man?
“NUUUUuuuuuuu…….what happened to “if the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit“?!”
OK, I have to confess I started watching with almost zero preconception/foreknowledge, so I was reasonably surprised when the first 5 min started out with a school massacre, which went well with the songless credits lead-in. Our lead, Ganta, courtesy of an unusual encounter with the perpetuator, is wrongly arrested for the crime and framed in a near kangaroo court, with his defence attorney playing his part in a “not so good cop, bad cop” fixit routine. Ganta is subsequently sent to Deadman Wonderland, a dystopian gaol that uses prison inmates in gladiatorial games of the kind only the wacky Japanese can think up, where he is tagged with a Battle Royale-esque collar and must have “Candy”, the absence of which is essentially a death sentence adminstered via collar. He also means a strange savant girl that seems to know him, and resolves to find the “Red Man” to bring justice to his friends’ killer and prove his innocence.
OK, so that might be a bit of a mess, but seinen shows playing coy usually are, so I’ll give it some slack until a few episodes down the road. I’m pretty ambivalent about those early minutes though, because I’m uncertain if this was some attempt at mocking the real-life Japanese system for pinning societial ills on the young. In any case, the brisk pace of the plot meant the execution was rather clumsy for that bit, and in retrospect the classroom dialogue between his two friends and Ganta was just merely cheap pathos. Judging from the rest of the episode, the snake-like attorney with Gin-like speech patterns (has someone been reading Bleach?) seems to be the primary atagonist for Ganta. I’m not sure how seriously we’re supposed to take the Running Man gimmicks, because the amusement park sets and voluptuous warden isn’t really burnishing the “serious seinen” credentials. Hopefully, the atmosphere will tend towards the surreal more than towards the ridiculous, which given the conspiracy-heavy talk and the past Akira-esque destruction of at least parts of Tokyo, seems to be the intention. Epsiode 2 will lead in with more of the cast, so we’ll have more information on the prison dynamic then.
Could someone please take pity on this little demon?
(This post covers the OVA and the gist of the first episode of the TV remake, but the latter is fairly similar, except Rinko holds Azazel’s contract at the end of the episode)
Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san is the oddest of beasts, a slapstick comedy using that oh-so-common subject matter, demonology. Akutabe is a disreputable gumshoe running a small agency in rather rough office block, but his clients have no idea how REALLY disreputable he is. The man is actually a fairly skilled demonologist, and most of his cases are solved with the aid of demons that he summons and binds to service in a circle. The show’s nominal protagonist is either Rinko (his space cadet apprentice and general audience surrogate) or the eponymous character himself, Azazel the lust demon. The latter is either dishing out the jokey sexual harassment to Rinko, who holds his contract at the end of the first TV episode, or more often, the subject of merciless (or in the case of Rino, unthinking) abuse from his summoners.
Amazingly, all this actually works. Most of the comedy stems from the fact that Akutabe, mindful that the damage a loose/berserk demon can do is proportional to the power of its earthly shell, intentionally forces his summonings into ridiculously chibi-ized forms and sets them to do insultingly menial tasks, like cleaning up the office and such. Most of the comedy is of the physical kind, with Azazel constantly doing demonic faces before realizing his predicament and reverting to a chibized sadness, which never gets old. The master and apprentice are two sides of the same coin, one dishing out the pain because of malice while Rinko crushes the spirit of Azazel by treating him as an ambulatory hug toy. Most of the episodes thus progresses by Azazel screwing up the company cases and suffering the consequences as a result.
Assuming this show lasts the distance, it’s actually a very refreshing comedy take using crude humour and much better than the otaku-pandering 30-sai no Hoken Taiiku this season. Azazel is a character that you can’t hate despite his venal nature, and he’s pretty much Kon (from Bleach) on steroids. There is also a bunch of demons appearing in the series corresponding to the seven sins, and they look similarly offbeat/demented. In fact, the OVA introduces Moloch, a tyranny demon that is skeptical of Azazel’s complaints of his tribulations at Akutabe’s hands. This leads to hilarity once Moloch is accidentally summoned by Rinko and finds out what Azazel’s servitude “upstairs” REALLY means, and it’s doubly amusing because we’re allowed to see their true forms in the underworld itself and its dismal nature. I’m looking forward to more from this show, not least because the industry needs more comedy that doesn’t default to fellating the otaku demographic.
Looks like someone JUST. CAN’T. STOP. DIGGING.
I’m sensing a trend here….
Whatever could it be……
Madoka Pic of the Day, No 4
Iroha 02….A Tale of Rubbish and Breakfasts
NINJA GARDEN 101: GARDEN MOAR
So we get some more background on our spunky girl Ohana, learning her mom is indeed a Dark Lord of the Sith and told her to STRIKE THEM DOWN WITH ALL OF YOUR HATRED. Ahem, so yes, bad parenting led to the formation of a stubbornly independent streak, but over the course of this episode she realizes it’s counter-productive to continue doing this in an alien environment, so she resolves to form her tripod support network by first force-feeding her 2 co-workers with prison grub. Excellently cooked prison grub. Supposedly.
There’s also a small main plot regarding her throwing away the supposed masterpiece of the inn’s resident wordsmith guest, but it serves mainly as a backdrop for Ohana to resolve her personality issues and win Die-girl and Shrinking Violet over to her yuri campus, so it wafts in and out of the episode discreetly when it’s not needed, until the last few minutes. When our wordsmith is hilariously exposed, figuratively. Though judging by his awesome verbiage, probably literally too in private. The show continues to deliver its “humorous growing-up pangs” drama quotient, and the art is still gorgeous, so I have zero complaint so far.
Dog Days – Truth in Advertising
I was already regretting my decision to give this show any time at all before the OP sequence was over which is probably something of a record. The show itself did nothing to change my mind.
So, this show is about a mixed race Japanese school kid who gets summoned by the dog princess to be her champion in the battle against the cat people. The battlefield looks like an obstacle course which is perfect since our hero is a gymnastics otaku. The “fighting” results in no casualties, losers just turn into stupid looking spheres.
This is a dog of a show. Avoid.