Category: Reviews

Saki

This is a wonderful development. Three years ago, I totally enjoyed the tension and shounen feel of a board game-based anime of which I still don’t know how to play even to this day. That anime was [Saki->], and with its ridiculously large but effective girl cast, a light touch of yuri, and with the exciting presentation of impossible mahjong, it was a surprisingly good watch for me. I thought I’d never ever see a sequel because of the animation studio dropping off the production during its run, and that the anime then has totally caught up to the manga. Little did I know, the manga continued to be so popular, that its author actually sidetracked the series into another sidestory, a separate manga series! And now we have Saki Achiga-hen: Episode of Side A. Quite a mouthful of a title, but it is a sidestory that provides another view of the impending Nationals team tournament. It may not have the same insane mahjong intensity that the original series had, but it retains the same world and the same knack of adding more and more wonderful characters, which is more than good enough for me.
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Natsuiro Kiseki

When I say slice-of-life in anime, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is completely grounded in reality. In fact, I found that most of the so-called slice-of-life series out there features at least a bit of unrealistic aspect within them, whether it be talking animals, magical elements or alien settings. While the fantastic parts aren’t the focus of those other examples, here in Natsuiro Kiseki, the magic is front-and-center. We are transported into a world where mysterious rocks can actually make wishes come true. It did initially throw me off somewhat because of the odd premise in an otherwise normal world – I didn’t like what I saw at first. But because of the wonderful characters, coupled with surprisingly excellent performances from the voice actors, Natsuiro Kiseki’s world is somewhere I can totally immerse my slice-of-life enjoyments into.
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Hourou Musuko

Because I’m male, I am able to tolerate transsexuality of the female kind, but definitely not of my own gender. I don’t think I can stomach male femininity (read: traps) if it were the main theme of an anime, moreso in any other kind of entertainment medium. As a result, I was initially wary of Hourou Musuko because of my misguided thoughts of it being an anime with “gayness”. I was indeed hugely misguided. Beneath that veil of crossdressing weirdness, it actually has a heartwarming coming of age story about kids merely trying to grow up and explore their sexuality. And it is absolutely wonderful.
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Macross Frontier

I don’t normally watch mecha anime, it’s definitely not my genre. I apologize ahead for having no screens of mechas in action, because I don’t see the point. I do understand the fandom of fictional robot technology and how in the real world people are into plastic models and other mecha collection stuff, but somehow I can’t seem to be that audience. Music, on the other hand, in whatever shape or form it may be expressed, is important and appealing to me. Music drives my soul to various emotions. Everytime an anime appears to have great songs and background music, I would point that out front and center even though I am hard-pressed to describe it in words sometimes in my blog. Rest assured though, whenever I coin the music as having a ‘sense of wonder’ or being ‘amazing’, it is an integral part of my enjoyment of an anime. And what an example I have right now here: Macross Frontier. My least favored genre in anime, but with some of the best music I have ever heard in an anime.

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To Aru Majutsu no Index

Too short, too much. That would be my initial impression of this series. Well I do have to commend the light novel author for trying to convey a world where supernatural powers exist, and either through religion or science, humans can take advantage of such power. Although I am unable to read them, I have a certain feeling that the anime based on those light novels didn’t give the concept enough justice, but at least it tried. To Aru Majutsu no Index is an anime has surprisingly great animation and presentation, but a bit hampered by trying to rush stories too fast with its limited time on air.
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Spice and Wolf

Sometimes I don’t need to have knowledge about a topic to enjoy some entertainment that uses said topic to further its story. I realized this in part when I talked about [Saki->], where I don’t know much about mahjong but I enjoyed the anime anyways. In these instances, either there should be simple explanations about the subject matter, or the characters should be interesting enough for me to continue watching. Spice and Wolf somehow fits both solutions quite well. Its main theme is classic European cross-border trade business, which I don’t know anything about, and would even care less to learn about. Thankfully, all complexities of its economics are explained in simple terms, as we follow the trade adventures and romantic comedies of a travelling merchant and a mystical wolf in the form of a young girl.

As described, this is a historical setting with a little fantasy touch. Horo, our female lead, is a centuries-old wolf who can transform into a young girl. She used to take care of a certain town as a deity of harvest, but as time passes its people had forsaken her in favor of modern economics. Actually, the fantasy takes a backseat in favor of all this trade business stuff. Kraft Lawrence, our male lead, is a young wandering merchant who is quite smart in his line of work. With these two characters crossing paths, they set out on a continuing journey with Horo wanting to go back to her homeland up north. Lawrence’s goal is to be rich enough to not travel anymore and settle down somewhere owning a shop. Of course, their goals may change when you add romance in the equation. I wonder where their business and love would take them.

The way the anime presented the economics part is sometimes too fast-paced for my liking. Maybe they didn’t explain enough, or I myself didn’t care much about how trade works in their world to understand it. They have this confusing number of currencies, silver and gold coins with different levels of actual gold/silver content depending on the town producing it. Of course, each town and system fluctuates based on certain trends similar to our stock market today. To compound my confusion, Lawrence and the people he trades with talks too much econo-babble. Much is spent in the anime just talking-economics, really. Well thankfully, the conversations often end with quite understandable conclusions and a clear goal on who profits or got debt. Yup, they explain things in simple terms. At least I have that, because up until now I don’t understand those finer details. As a whole, the stories are still interesting considering the many aspects of their economic world, including even the Church being a rich overall player. Trade seems quite dangerous in this world too, with backhand deals, bankruptcy or trickery which may even lead to life-threatening moments.

The romantic comedy part is quite interesting as well, because the two characters are so witty and smart in their cross-talk. We have here an experienced economist guy with all the smarts to survive and has his way with words. We also have a hundreds-of-years old girl with more than enough knowledge of human behavior plus her animal instincts of sharp senses. It’s just so fun to see them outsmart each other, both in the middle of business deals and in their everyday wandering lives. They go to pubs and drink a lot, talking and arguing about everything from economics to food to “love games”. It seems that they really like each other, only that they don’t want to be caught red-handed on accepting the fact. Horo tries to make him squeal all the time, but Lawrence is a tough nut to crack. A third-party character introduction in the form of a shepherd girl named Nora complicates things more. Horo and Lawrence is an awesome double-tsundere pairing, and so even if your mind is bogged trying to understand economics, the romance of these two characters is where it’s at. It doesn’t even bow down to typical ecchi tropes, no fanservice stuff even when Horo is naked so many times. Impressive.

Spice and Wolf as an anime production is technically fine, but nothing special to report. The historical settings are visually nice enough, and the characters are adequately animated. I don’t notice much of the background music at all, they have odd melodies placing it at odd scenes too. I didn’t care about the OP/ED at all, and even the seiyuu. I had to check who voices who, but the number of characters are quite low here overall. Horo has a nice and enticing accent by the way.

The way the story goes seems to be structured like a travelling anime with a set goal but not reaching it by the end. Surely I was quite disappointed in that, but that fact was overshadowed by these two wonderful characters that I don’t want their journey to end. Well indeed there’s a second season and possibly more to come featuring more of them two, with the original format of Spice and Wolf being a light novel series. Nice introductory show I guess. All in all, this anime is short and sweet, with of course a lot of spice along the way.