Episode 1 Review: Shoddy Internet Addition + Memes (Memes)

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk:

A white flower patterned handkerchief blows across Genestella, a large futuristic city complete with buildings. A purple-haired boy jumps into a pink-haired girl’s room to return it – he mistakenly spies her as she dresses, so he is ordered to turn around. Rather than “kyaa pervert” she tells him to turn around, and finishes dressing. He hands her the handkerchief, and it seems all is well. Until she uses a “prepare to die” line a minute or two later, so they start fighting. Seeing a girl in lingerie warrants DEATH, as anime viewers understand.

Thus begins, the * War, because other punctuation, like ! or # or % was not good enough.

This tale takes place in an academy for magical students. Mahouka? Rakudai? Yeah, you know it. In that line, the first episode is  flashing lights and has strong character design. MC-kun is probably more of an Ikki than an onii-sama, which is probably a good thing in this case. But man the animators had a ton of fun with the explosions. “Hey guys what if we stole copious explosions from mecha and threw it into a magical school LN series” is what they’d say. In other ways, the harem ecchi stuff, the show is pretty standard, but it’s well-paced. I can attribute this to the Mahouka director leading this project – so you get good direction, and there’s less circlejerky exposition.

Nao Touyama plays Claudia, an enigmatic blonde, as she is wont to do. So, Gakusen Toshi Asterisk beats Rakudai as well, where the Nao character isn’t blonde – that’s when you KNOW a show is not worth your time. Maybe this show is closer to Strike the Blood, a superior LN trash series to the ones I mentioned earlier. What’s this? This review needs more pantsu and “kyaa pervert”? You’re probably right, but you’re better off just watching Rosario instead.  But you get ojou-sama Nao here. That’s almost worth a Nana Mizuki.

Okay, maybe there is exposition, but it never hits ONII-SAMA KAKKOI~ LEVELS. WHY AM I YELLING? EXPOSITION MAKES ME ANGRY. BUT I ALSO LIKE TECHNOBABBLE, SO WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. AND WHY DO I KEEP TRYING TO JUSTIFY PREFERRING THIS TO MAHOUKA? THAT’S, LIKE, A GIVEN MAN.

Maybe, this main character is refreshingly dorky like Ikki or Kojou. Onii-sama is too damn polished, you know? Doofuses are fun, you elitists.

Alternate history BS? Count me in, especially if there’s an actual explanation of it, unlike in Mahouka. Take a hint, Madhouse! Repent for Mahouka! Focus on Diamond no Ace like a good studio. Just add in the harem and flashing lights elements into baseball, and you’ve got the best of both worlds. But no Accel World, leave that for Sunrise.

The Witch of the Resplendent Flames…..that Julis (pink haired girl), with such a title, becomes a mythical character, which works well with her distant tsundere act. Ai Kakuma’s performance is oddly captivating. As Lovepon would say, EXECUTE! The penultimate ending shot of the episode, depicted below, is rather beautiful, drawing the viewer in for future episodes.

As for a score or whatnot: Gofigureitout/0.105

What Cool Breezes Do

Greedy splotches of blood red and neon green
crowd the persistent sky above
in disregard of the purple leaves, detached from the local pine trees,
billowing past --
leaves swerving in figure eights,
following the maniacal wind,
content with punishing all passerby with frigidity.

If a country's GDP depended on the weather,
then forget about it.

Fortunately, Mars is unique,
a place for humanity to forsake capitalism
while pursuing colonialism.

It is the best of places,
and it is the worst of places.

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This poem was not written to describe anything in particular -- it is just some quirky thing I half-wrote in ten minutes as a writing exercise. Bonus points if you get what the title refers to. I just wanted to get in a creative work that is not related to my story, and is not related to anime. Some variety can do me some good, right?

Creative Fatigue, and Cryptic Musings

Is it a thing? Creative fatigue covering both consumption and creation of art. Where you keep moving towards an imaginary goal just to serve some duty to complete backlogs. A friend insisted that he liked my "complaining", so today I want to dissuade him from thinking so. For the past month or so, I have felt the desire to keep watching anime, even as my practical backlog -- the shows I am working on -- has exploded. But this is just a concrete example of this creative fatigue.

Creative fatigue, as I'm calling it, is wanting to be very productive but lacking the will to keep moving along steadily. In some ways, it has manifested in my lack of desire to partake in any writing, whether on my blog or not. And there is the matter of my rough manuscript that would be finished if I did not keep taking breaks. So many aspects of my life right now seem to come down to: if only I did not keep taking breaks. Each day I stumble through and wonder how it got to evening without me doing enough "work". 9 hours and I somehow only watch a few episodes of a show, or read a volume of a manga, or exercise. Even this combination does not assuage the dismalness of this loss of time -- it is dull and concerning. Every time I try to relax -- even when in the midst of hobbies I swear I enjoy -- I will find my heart begin to pace and become unable to focus. And then I keep pausing, whether literally for shows or figuratively for reading or writing, and in the end take up to thrice as long with whatever activity.

Hopefully as I am in DC longer, I can both get accustomed to EST but also revitalize my ability to be productive, creatively and professionally. But even the task of surmounting this "creative fatigue" is itself intimidating and scary. Maybe I need to start by proving myself wrong and having a busy day -- but busy in a satisfying way.

(And hopefully that friend has grown very tired of my complaining.)

In terms of blog updates, some thoughts I would like to offer:
1) Hopefully the "image analysis" idea offers some chances for brief but creative blog posts as "responses" to works of art. I will try to write more as a way to make up for a relative lack of activity -- it will operate similarly to the song review posts that were done earlier in this blog's history.
2) Outright reviews, thematic or otherwise, will take a lower priority as they tend to be more regurgitation than analysis.
3) More creative posts, especially poems and my story manuscript, should be on their way too.

So, in other words, this sums up to just another update post mixed with my complaints that exist as the very opposite of eloquent. But May may just be that month where there are more than four or five posts.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Back in February 2014, I penned a writing about how aesthetic and directing decisions played a role in the impact of a show -- namely, Hyouka. Here, the idea is similar but instead of of a full analysis of a show's artistic approaches, the emphasis will be on a single frame. What can be captured in a single frame, as opposed to scenes, or entire episodes. And instead of full few-page reviews, a paragraph or two per frame will suffice.

For this first "image analysis" post, I will actually look at two separate airing shows by different studios: Anne Happy by Silver Link, and Kuormukuro by P.A. Works. In my mind, both studios tend to make visually impressive shows (though admittedly both have failed to do so as well in some shows). So, without further ado, two images await careful review.

 Image 1: Opening Frame of Anne Happy Episode 1

Opening up with this perspective paints the city as scarcely bigger than the surrounding rural farming area. Portraying tall office buildings as themselves tiny creates a partial birds-eye view, allowing the viewer to watch over everything -- there is a great sense of suspense in that any part of this grand landscape the main story could begin.  A brilliant watercolor aesthetic perpetuates this feeling of hopefulness -- the main visible colors are whites, purples, blues, and greens creating a soft fuwafuwa look. The attention to detail is also astounding, from the large buildings, to the houses, to the mountains. Overall, a very eyecatching opening visual.

Image 2: Opening Frame of Kuromukuro Episode 1

Blizzard-coated lands, barren trees, sword-wielding mechas battling for domination. An absence of green on the trees creates a dismal appearance, throwing focus onto the shadow-colored robots, the subjects of our awe. White streaks of snow, saturated with the dim glow of nighttime create harsh conditions that makes the fight seem more harrowing, and dead center. A flash of blue briefly illuminates the surroundings but not to a degree that rescues visibility. Orange sparks reveal that attacks land with impact and ferocity -- this mecha battle, carried out among eternal snow, is a life-and-death affair, and only the victor can walk away.

The Horror, The Horror: An Introspective Midshow Review of Garo the Animation

Disclaimer: This post spoils events from Garo the Animation from Episodes 1-12.
Garo the Animation is MAPPA's rendition of the longstanding Garo series, which has had multiple live action series. Unlike some of these live-action series, however, Garo the Animation is a dark fantasy  tale set in medieval-ish times. The show opens with flames streaking across (from out of the frying pan and into the --) a screen depicting a gargantuan castle. Cue a cut to a woman tied to a large wooden stake, head dropped, with kindling scarcely below her. From a large balcony, King Fernando, his wife, and his young son Alfonso (depicted to the right) curiously overlook this scene. Alfonso grows fearful and hides behind his mother, as little children are bound to do, and he is escorted back from the dreadful site. A fire is lit, and the supposed witch, bound to a stake, is incinerated -- but not before leaving behind a wailing child, for this witch was pregnant. Garo, on the surface, is a tale about witches -- at least symbolically -- and other supernatural apparitions causing epidemics and mayhem in the land of Valiante, where this story takes place. This tale about witches however soon gives way to a full-fledged conflict that sweeps the country -- Alfonso's hiding behind his mother is surely a hint that the worst is yet to come.



Apparent head of this witch-hunt for the nation of Valiante is Mendoza (left), a man overlooking the witch-burning along with King Fernando. As King Fernando, depicted in frail condition, gets sicker, Mendoza grows more and more powerful. He drives a fight between "witches" and "not-witches", which sets the stage for a greater conflict sweeping across the land .


Moments later, a Makai Knight appears, clad in silver armor, and whisks away the baby left behind by the witch -- undeterred by the flames, the Makai Knight jumps out of the bonfire, onto the castle rooftop, and escapes.

Though episode 1 apparently focuses on witches, it sets the stage for the rest of the show -- which takes place years later. Mendoza, in later scenes, reveals his quest against witches to truly be a fight against the society of Makai, which spurned him because of his creation of the Horrors. "The Horrors" essentially are spirits that take over when humans turn into their evilest desires. As creatures, Horrors represent the most heinous of experimentation, allowing for the subjugation and harming of humanity. As a spurned ex-Makai member, Mendoza has turned his views against the Makai values of protecting all of Valiante. Naturally that means his witch-hunt and his creation of Horrors are set to  revenge against the Knights. And so the Knights became cast explicitly as those who fight the Horrors

Though some knots are unexpected, such as Horrors representing evil experimentation for the sake of "progress", this tale falls pretty naturally into fantasy structure: the good guy versus the bad guy. Mendoza, though he is given backstory, has this doggedly bad aura. But, hold up. The story does not simply call that the conflict.

Through the character of Emma Guzman (above), the tale of Garo takes one a much greater complexity than good versus evil. (Yes, the characters of Leon, Herman, and Alfonso do play a greater role, but from a thematic standpoint: Emma is a convenient lens.) She is expected to play a little bit of every role by the circumstances she ends up in. The viewer first meets her in the second episode, where she is being held in not-the-most-spectacular captivity on the grounds that she is a witch. Once broken free by Herman and Leon -- a father and son team, both of whom are Makai Knights -- Emma reveals that she is a Makai Priest. In theory, that puts them on the same side, but Emma insists that she hates Makai Knights, portraying a schism in Makai society. There are Knights, and Priests; but not Knights and Priests together.

However, in addition to her duties as a Priest, Emma also assists the Makai Knights -- namely Leon and Herman - considerably, allowing the viewer to question if she truly hates the Knights. Through Emma Guzman, we can see hints of the Witch-hunt victim, the lone Horror-fighter, and the Makai Priest, tying the entire conflict together. Her involvement in this conflict, which seems to be driven by both personal gain and morality, highlights the moral complexity of the situation.

Now where does this lead? As the situation builds, the moral complexity with it, we suddenly see Leon (shown to the left, but without his golden Garo armor), fighting against Mendoza, lose control and go berserk, despite being the famous Knight of Light. Mendoza dies, destroying the farce of a witch-hunt that occurs, but everything is cast into ruin. At the hands of Leon, and not Mendoza, so we can see, in some respects, Leon as much more of a villain than Mendoza. Because of his failure to control his temper -- and because of the situation -- Leon is stripped of being a Makai Knight through the most basic way: he loses his weapon. With the collapse of the witch-hunt, and the role of the Makai Knight being thrown up in the air -- it is not simply a weapon to fight evil -- the basic conflict transforms. Though such a maneuver is inherently risky, it allows for a leap in moral imagination because the different factions can suddenly be seen in a new light.

And from a moral standpoint, Leon, the one who has lost his most cherished gift - the Garo armor from his mother Anna - becomes the one with the most potential. At rock bottom, he can choose to give up, or to keep moving on, pushing the story forward.

Only time can tell what's next, but the latter half of the show will probably be completely different from the first half.

A Review of Some Digimon Game (That I Rediscovered)

One of Those Minor Digimon Games, The Kind You Find In An Old Bag
Digimon Battle Spirit 2 is the kind of game no one asked for -- but that might be because no one would have thought to ask for it. Based on the universally reviled season 4 of Digimon, which involved Digimon fusing with humans, this game offers no significant canon of much on the way of story. That said, it's exactly what it promises: a simple fighting game based on a limited selection of combos and lots of button-mashing.

You fight your way through six enemies by collecting blue orbs that appear when you hit your opponent -- however, your foe has the same objective, instead seeking red orbs. The person with the greater number of orbs is declared the winner.

The game's simplicity lends itself to tightness, its very saving grace because it lacks depth. From my brief experience playing Digimon Battle Spirit 2, it is very much a pick-up-and-go type of game. I played it for some time when I was younger and then yesterday for an hour or so on the plane, so I can attest to its swift nature. The game is so simple that I went without even listening to its music -- and there is no true plot, so you never have to wonder about character motivations or things like that.

One curveball: the final boss is fought unlike any of the other enemies -- here you must fight it with a health bar, consisting of several orb things on the screen, and must win by hitting the weak points at the right times. However, this twist does little to shake up the playing or add nuance. Rather, I found the boss so frustrating I gave up, as there was little reward in continuing.

At the very least, artwork is decent, giving you a sense of place -- though unfortunately, any references to the show are lost on me. Stages progressively add on traps, such as enemies, to trip you up and nuance the gameplay -- this can operate by giving your enemy orbs, or by just making the fighting harder. Beautiful simplicity defines this game -- it is an early '00s portable game, after all -- which can seem like a euphemism for its lack of real content, and its shallow gameplay. Digimon Battle Spirit 2 is the sort of game worth a couple bucks, and not much more, as it is fun but incredibly short and never chances above mediocrity. Simplicity is its strength, after all.

Scoring
Artwork: 6/10
Music: ??/10 (played without sound)
Gameplay: 5/10
Writing: ??/10 (implying there was writing)
Replayability: 8/10
Relevance to Digimon: 2/10

Overall Score: 4.5/10

A Week of Shoddy Luck, and Eromanga Sensei

Hello blog,

You probably have forgotten me after my billionth two week hiatus. I am here to point out that I am alive, thought it may seem otherwise. Rather, this post serves to highlight the vitriol and pent-up frustration threatening to make me flame up.

This week has been filled with shoddy luck, where a variety of individually minor events have coalesced into something terrible. As much as they each call out for attention, they can't wait their turn, either.

I resent this week for happening and I'm only a few days into it. Glasses that are partially held together by tape -- that's how far metaphorically south this week has gone already. My least favorite part of this week is how so many things are quite frankly my damn fault. But then why do they feel irreversible?

Amidst this aggravating situation, I have leaped into reading Eromanga Sensei, another meta work by the Oreimo author that features light novels, imoutos, and kouhais -- you could call this work the one dangling thread connecting me vertically to sanity, else I shall fall into the abyss of madness. The main character, much like Kyousuke, is a passive person, who goes about his daily business - in this case, he writes LNs for a living while attending high school. But he is exceptionally talented at describing beautiful girls, even if they happen to be a year or few younger than him. But I wonder what happened in the author's life that gave him such a bad experience with sibling situations. This series, and Oreimo, both imagine a chilly brother-sister relationship where they go without speaking to each other for over a year. Despite seeing each other everyday, Izumi and Sagiri do not get along, until some magic event happens and makes them talk to each other.

Sagiri, at first glance, seems like an ice queen hikkikomori  but her frostiness has a warmer core, a core that reveals when around her Onii-san. Megumi, classmate of Sagiri, is indeed a much more terrifying character, capable of reducing Izumi MC-kun to self-defense mechanisms -- seemingly a kind-hearted, genki girl, Megumi is secretly conniving and manipulative.

One point of keen appreciation for the work so far: I enjoy how many characters exist beyond gender roles. In fact, two of the characters are thought to be boys because of their illustrating style and writing style respectively -- but in fact, they are girls! This reminds me of how CLAMP, a team of women mangaka, wrote the teenage-boy-oriented  sci-fi/romance Chobits. It's neat how Eromanga Sensei plays with typical gender roles in an amusing yet on-point manner.

And one point of concern: how will Elf Yamada-sensei play into the story? I hope she's not used simply to prop up Sagiri and Megumi but rather gets a life of her own. I say that because she's a rather amusing character.

So far, Eromanga Sensei is very good. Much better than this terrible week, at least.