Anime review twofer
Aug. 13th, 2011 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foxinthestarsWell, I put off blogging about the one so long that I finished another one, too (my one ep per series per day plan hasn't been holding up so well lately), so time to get the lead out...
The first one is, as previously mentioned, Psychic Detective Yakumo. Here are the fansubs at AnimeSuki (I watched the AnimeOne version because the others wouldn't behave); I found Bakatsuki, a light-novel fan-translation site where you can get at least a taste of the original novels; and there are two manga versions, of which MangaReader* has both: as best I can tell, the first one is closer to the novels, and the second is closer to the anime. The title character, Yakumo, can see and communicate with ghosts, thanks to his freakish red left eye (he usually hides it with a contact lens); in the first episode, his fellow university student and main character Haruka hears that he's the person to go to about the supernatural and comes to get help for a friend, and from there the two get into various scrapes. It starts out with episodic mystery stories with a supernatural element, but at about the halfway point it shifts into a more integrated, character- and relationship- driven mode. Especially after the shift, I enjoyed it a lot. The approach to the ghosts was nicely complex, the cast is enjoyably quirky, and a character death toward the end was handled I thought very well, although there are some groan-worthy passages (the last of the episodic stories would have been sweet if not for an annoying "women naturally like to doll themselves up" theme, and the results when one of the characters is suspected of being gay for about one episode weren't pretty). Yakumo himself is a standoffish character whose jerkishness masks his inner turmoil, and we never really get that deep into his head, but this has advantages; even as it turns out the villains are literally trying to drive him into rage and despair, he doesn't hog the spotlight with played-up manpain, but withdraws and lets the other characters take the lead; his state is more of a background tension until he gets reconnected and the payoff then is pretty good. It's not among my favorites ever, but I liked it.
The other one I finished (bolted) is Amatsuki. Not such a multimedia mess, here are the fansubs at AnimeSuki, and here's the manga at MangaReader. In a near-future/light sci-fi Japan, a rather aimless student named Tokidoki goes for remedial study at a high-tech history theme park, but something goes terribly wrong, and he is transported into a late Edo period fantasy world of human intrigue, gods, and demons, and finds that within that world he has a unique and mysterious power (also involving a red left eye, coincidentally). Not much time is spent on culture shock, and once the anime gets going, it concerns itself mainly with an enjoyable foray into the ethics of demon-hunting, beyond black and white morality. The world-building is interesting, but occasionally confusing, and the anime only adapts the first part of the manga, leaving it with a definite "tip of the iceberg" feel; it ends as one arc is beautifully resolved but the larger story is just beginning to explode. The animation itself has a somewhat old-school feel to it, I thought; I was surprised that it was made in 2008 or so. I haven't read much of the manga, but I can note that it's even somewhat more confusing and surreal (it has a bit of that slapdash quality some shoujo manga has and that I personally don't much like), and it has a real-world storyline running alongside which the anime completely ignores. Again, not among my favorites ever, but I enjoyed it and thought it was worth seeing.
I'm also very close to the end of Allison and Lillia, which really picked up after I commented on it before, so I may be back with that soon. And I have to find more things to watch. I really should do the last couple of Aoi Bungaku bits after all these months...
*Re: scanlation sites, I seem to have trouble with finding viruses on my computer after indulging at MangaFox, so I'm trying MangaReader instead; each one seems to have some things the other doesn't.
The first one is, as previously mentioned, Psychic Detective Yakumo. Here are the fansubs at AnimeSuki (I watched the AnimeOne version because the others wouldn't behave); I found Bakatsuki, a light-novel fan-translation site where you can get at least a taste of the original novels; and there are two manga versions, of which MangaReader* has both: as best I can tell, the first one is closer to the novels, and the second is closer to the anime. The title character, Yakumo, can see and communicate with ghosts, thanks to his freakish red left eye (he usually hides it with a contact lens); in the first episode, his fellow university student and main character Haruka hears that he's the person to go to about the supernatural and comes to get help for a friend, and from there the two get into various scrapes. It starts out with episodic mystery stories with a supernatural element, but at about the halfway point it shifts into a more integrated, character- and relationship- driven mode. Especially after the shift, I enjoyed it a lot. The approach to the ghosts was nicely complex, the cast is enjoyably quirky, and a character death toward the end was handled I thought very well, although there are some groan-worthy passages (the last of the episodic stories would have been sweet if not for an annoying "women naturally like to doll themselves up" theme, and the results when one of the characters is suspected of being gay for about one episode weren't pretty). Yakumo himself is a standoffish character whose jerkishness masks his inner turmoil, and we never really get that deep into his head, but this has advantages; even as it turns out the villains are literally trying to drive him into rage and despair, he doesn't hog the spotlight with played-up manpain, but withdraws and lets the other characters take the lead; his state is more of a background tension until he gets reconnected and the payoff then is pretty good. It's not among my favorites ever, but I liked it.
The other one I finished (bolted) is Amatsuki. Not such a multimedia mess, here are the fansubs at AnimeSuki, and here's the manga at MangaReader. In a near-future/light sci-fi Japan, a rather aimless student named Tokidoki goes for remedial study at a high-tech history theme park, but something goes terribly wrong, and he is transported into a late Edo period fantasy world of human intrigue, gods, and demons, and finds that within that world he has a unique and mysterious power (also involving a red left eye, coincidentally). Not much time is spent on culture shock, and once the anime gets going, it concerns itself mainly with an enjoyable foray into the ethics of demon-hunting, beyond black and white morality. The world-building is interesting, but occasionally confusing, and the anime only adapts the first part of the manga, leaving it with a definite "tip of the iceberg" feel; it ends as one arc is beautifully resolved but the larger story is just beginning to explode. The animation itself has a somewhat old-school feel to it, I thought; I was surprised that it was made in 2008 or so. I haven't read much of the manga, but I can note that it's even somewhat more confusing and surreal (it has a bit of that slapdash quality some shoujo manga has and that I personally don't much like), and it has a real-world storyline running alongside which the anime completely ignores. Again, not among my favorites ever, but I enjoyed it and thought it was worth seeing.
I'm also very close to the end of Allison and Lillia, which really picked up after I commented on it before, so I may be back with that soon. And I have to find more things to watch. I really should do the last couple of Aoi Bungaku bits after all these months...
*Re: scanlation sites, I seem to have trouble with finding viruses on my computer after indulging at MangaFox, so I'm trying MangaReader instead; each one seems to have some things the other doesn't.
