Kemono no Souja Erin
Jan. 3rd, 2011 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsA few notes beforehand:
My big Amazon Japan order shipped today and should be here by the end of the week.
I also found my cache of anime posters, in time for my (Unitarian) church changing out the art and putting up a poster exhibit, so I'm taking some in for consideration, including a few Rurouni Kenshin ones, the one Fushigi Yuugi poster I have left and like (it's a cast pic, chibi, in a hat), and the Symphony of the Night wall scroll![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kumpania gave me back when.
When I went to church yesterday, I also finally tried the sushi restaurant in that town, but sadly, it was disappointing. They unnecessarily covered the rolls in sauces, and used some kind of shredded krab with mayonnaise instead of stick-style krab---and put so much of it in the tempura shrimp roll that the pieces were clumsily large and the tempura was overshadowed. It was still tasty, but for sushi? Not that good. Well, now I know...
But anyway, today I finished Kemono no Souja Erin, and I enjoyed it very much and recommend it highly. Just to reiterate, it can be viewed online here, and now that I've seen the whole thing I can say that that fanvid trailer, while it focuses on the second half and you wouldn't know from it just how domestic most of the series is, gives a pretty good idea of what the show is about.
If I were to make any complaints, the overlapping categories of "depiction of psychological states" and "recycled footage" sometimes go a bit too far, and especially toward the end the effects are perhaps wearing thin. The epilogue (as in the last ten minutes or so after the story is resolved showing what the characters go on to do etc) was underdone. The villain is also so oozingly obvious from the very first time he shows up that it's a wonder more of the other characters don't see right through him. Toward the end there are also some minor attacks of CGI pop-out*, nothing too bad.
But those are mere quibbles. I won't try to deal with the plot here (see the fanvid trailer), but I loved the combination of the domestic and the epic, and in particular, the beasts who are so crucial to the story (Touda, the armored assault vehicles of the animal world, and Ohjuu, the giant wolf-eagle things that snap Touda in half) are shown as an uncommonly appropriate mix of lovable and dangerous. The depiction of psychological states---particularly the brightly-colored, semi-abstracted "panic vision" that you'll see in the very first sequence, kind of a discretion shot without actually cutting away---was, yes, milked too hard on occasion, especially later on, but very effective most of the time (I particularly recall a time a character was injured and his viewpoint took on that style). I also like that that oozingly obvious villain is probably the only named character I would peg as outright evil---there's a right side and a wrong side, but a good deal of room in between and off to the sides, and most people are neither all good nor all bad and end up where they are through at least somewhat respectable differences (or being just pretty messed up, as in the case of the Poisons teacher with the paranoia-inducing habit of handing out candy). There are also quite a few women who talk to each other all the time, only rarely about men. Romance in general tends to be low-key but satisfying (and there is a stone-faced prettyboy for ladies like me to enjoy; dang, if he'd just gotten more than a yellow-colored portrait shot in the epilogue, I probably would have been satisfied...).
BTW, the series is based on novels by Uehashi Nahoko, who, as previously mentioned, also wrote the novels behind Moribito---I also watched the four episodes of it available on Crunchyroll; it looked promising, and the rest is on Netflix Instant View, so yeah... I'm starting to think, btw, that if an anime was adapted from fantasy novels to air on NHK, this may be a good sign in general (being true of Kemono no Souja Erin and Moribito, as well as The Twelve Kingdoms; makes me wonder what else...).
PS: ...Green-haired "mist people" who guard a secret art for controlling fantastical creatures... Why does that part seem so familiar...? ^_~
*Not related to Kemono no Souja Erin, but mentioning CGI pop-out reminded me of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where I thought that was actually harnessed to good effect on Envy's giant monster form (yeah, something about the way that looks and moves just seems like it doesn't belong in the world you're seeing it in; in that case, that feeling seemed entirely appropriate).
My big Amazon Japan order shipped today and should be here by the end of the week.
I also found my cache of anime posters, in time for my (Unitarian) church changing out the art and putting up a poster exhibit, so I'm taking some in for consideration, including a few Rurouni Kenshin ones, the one Fushigi Yuugi poster I have left and like (it's a cast pic, chibi, in a hat), and the Symphony of the Night wall scroll
kumpania gave me back when.When I went to church yesterday, I also finally tried the sushi restaurant in that town, but sadly, it was disappointing. They unnecessarily covered the rolls in sauces, and used some kind of shredded krab with mayonnaise instead of stick-style krab---and put so much of it in the tempura shrimp roll that the pieces were clumsily large and the tempura was overshadowed. It was still tasty, but for sushi? Not that good. Well, now I know...
But anyway, today I finished Kemono no Souja Erin, and I enjoyed it very much and recommend it highly. Just to reiterate, it can be viewed online here, and now that I've seen the whole thing I can say that that fanvid trailer, while it focuses on the second half and you wouldn't know from it just how domestic most of the series is, gives a pretty good idea of what the show is about.
If I were to make any complaints, the overlapping categories of "depiction of psychological states" and "recycled footage" sometimes go a bit too far, and especially toward the end the effects are perhaps wearing thin. The epilogue (as in the last ten minutes or so after the story is resolved showing what the characters go on to do etc) was underdone. The villain is also so oozingly obvious from the very first time he shows up that it's a wonder more of the other characters don't see right through him. Toward the end there are also some minor attacks of CGI pop-out*, nothing too bad.
But those are mere quibbles. I won't try to deal with the plot here (see the fanvid trailer), but I loved the combination of the domestic and the epic, and in particular, the beasts who are so crucial to the story (Touda, the armored assault vehicles of the animal world, and Ohjuu, the giant wolf-eagle things that snap Touda in half) are shown as an uncommonly appropriate mix of lovable and dangerous. The depiction of psychological states---particularly the brightly-colored, semi-abstracted "panic vision" that you'll see in the very first sequence, kind of a discretion shot without actually cutting away---was, yes, milked too hard on occasion, especially later on, but very effective most of the time (I particularly recall a time a character was injured and his viewpoint took on that style). I also like that that oozingly obvious villain is probably the only named character I would peg as outright evil---there's a right side and a wrong side, but a good deal of room in between and off to the sides, and most people are neither all good nor all bad and end up where they are through at least somewhat respectable differences (or being just pretty messed up, as in the case of the Poisons teacher with the paranoia-inducing habit of handing out candy). There are also quite a few women who talk to each other all the time, only rarely about men. Romance in general tends to be low-key but satisfying (and there is a stone-faced prettyboy for ladies like me to enjoy; dang, if he'd just gotten more than a yellow-colored portrait shot in the epilogue, I probably would have been satisfied...).
BTW, the series is based on novels by Uehashi Nahoko, who, as previously mentioned, also wrote the novels behind Moribito---I also watched the four episodes of it available on Crunchyroll; it looked promising, and the rest is on Netflix Instant View, so yeah... I'm starting to think, btw, that if an anime was adapted from fantasy novels to air on NHK, this may be a good sign in general (being true of Kemono no Souja Erin and Moribito, as well as The Twelve Kingdoms; makes me wonder what else...).
PS: ...Green-haired "mist people" who guard a secret art for controlling fantastical creatures... Why does that part seem so familiar...? ^_~
*Not related to Kemono no Souja Erin, but mentioning CGI pop-out reminded me of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, where I thought that was actually harnessed to good effect on Envy's giant monster form (yeah, something about the way that looks and moves just seems like it doesn't belong in the world you're seeing it in; in that case, that feeling seemed entirely appropriate).
