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No. 6 Review — C-

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No. 6 began quite promisingly, with Shion abetting a wounded fugitive on a stormy night in the dystopian city of No. 6. Shion is caught, and his family is placed in internal exile. Later, he witnesses some mysterious deaths by bees, and narrowly avoids death himself at the hands of the city. He escapes with the help of Nezumi, the boy he saved many years ago, and they begin living together in the slums outside the city.

Unfortunately, once they leave the city, everything goes downhill. Shion becomes a housewife, and they spend the next six episodes doing nothing in particular, hanging around in the slums. I guess you could claim that they’re “developing” the characters, but when both of the characters make me want to wring their necks, this isn’t really a positive thing. Shion has the emotional stability of a five year old girl, and both Shion and Nezumi are bishounen who act like they’re a seme and uke taken out of a yaoi doujinshi. Plus, the entire script reads like the lines from a bad play. I’ve been told this is part of the charm, but I don’t get it.

For this entire time, the creators more or less forget about the city of No. 6. Warning: Spoilers Ahead. They seem to realize this around episode 9, and send Shion and Nezumi to talk to the underground guru who tells them everything about the city in an extended monologue. It turns out there is a giant fairy rainbow bee who is possessing the girl who wants Shion’s sperm, who has been thrown into prison by No. 6. The city of No. 6 kills babies and old ladies, and has piles of dead bodies hidden beneath the floorboards. So Shion and Nezumi must defeat it. Then the final episode comes along and makes the rest of the series look like it made sense.

No. 6 follows in the lines of Fractale and [C] as bad noitaminA sci-fi shows. All three of them had their own flaws: Fractale had no idea what it wanted to do, [C] was utterly nonsensical, and No. 6 had two conflicting visions of where it wanted to go (as a romance and dystopian thriller) and ended up going nowhere at all.

  • Plot / Script – D – Overdramatic, reads like the script of a bad play, and they forget about the titular No. 6 for half the series.
  • Characters – C – Inconsistent and obnoxious, especially the leads.
  • Production – A – Bones does know how to make things look nice.
  • Overall – C-

Recommendations – Fractale, C (if you actually liked this), Shangri-La, Innocent Venus

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YuruYuri Review — B

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With both YuruYuri and Nichijou airing, this season has been a great one for comedies.

YuruYuri follows in the footsteps of Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star and K-On in chronicling the lives of a group of high school girls. The main variation on the theme in YuruYuri is the abundance of explicit yuri elements. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

When watching a comedy, there is only one question that matters to me: is it funny?

For YuruYuri, I can say yes. The jokes are generally fresh and funny, the pacing is tight and upbeat, and the characters are unique. Kyoko, in particular, is a joy to watch— she is always full of surprises. Akari’s eternal invisibility is amusing, as are her opening eyecatches, and Chinatsu is downright evil, which makes for some good fun too.

On the negative side, one joke in particular goes a bit too far— the nosebleeds. When Kyoko and Ayane do anything suggestive, Chitose takes off her glasses, puts on her yuri goggles, and bleeds out her nose. Her visions were funny, but after twenty or so times it was a bit much.

Otherwise, it was a great comedy— funny, fresh and with characters who can keep your attention. Assuming you don’t mind the yuri, of course.

  • Plot / Script – B – Consistently entertaining and funny.
  • Characters – A – I loved Kyoko especially.
  • Production – B – Who cares as long as it’s funny.
  • Overall – B

Recommendations – K-On, Lucky Star, Softenni, Saki

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Sacred Seven Review — D+

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Arma has the power of the sacred stones within him! Ruri, a rich girl with her personal army of maids, and Kagami, her butler, visit Arma and recruit him to join in their fight against the darkstones, evil stones which are… evil. We follow the adventures of Arma, Ruri and the rest of the rock collecting club.

We can already tell from the premise that this is going to be bad. But how bad? Well… pretty bad, as it turns out. With maid armies, Egyptian pyramids, and the power of rocks, the plot is dumb and predictable (you can tell the scientist will be the final boss the first time you see him). The characters are annoying and uninteresting, especially the two leads.

With that said, it could have been much worse. The creators seem to realize how hopelessly dumb the premise is, and for the most part, they don’t take it too seriously. For example, see all the dumb jokes revolving around rocks and Hellbrick. Of course, it’s also possible that I’m putting thoughts in the creators’ heads, and they approached this whole thing seriously… but in a way, that would only make it funnier.

The battles, which are the main focus of the show, are well done and entertaining in an over the top way. Don’t expect any sort of realism or logical consistency here: it’s just full out hot blooded action, complete with transformations, mecha and maid armies.

Overall, it’s a dumb show,  but good for some clean brainless fun and explosions if you’re in the proper mindset.

  • Plot / Script – C – A terrible premise, but I guess they make the most of it.
  • Characters – D – Boring, cliched and annoying.
  • Production – B – It looks fine.
  • Overall – D+

Recommendations – Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan, Full Metal Panic

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Usagi Drop Review — B+

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Daikichi’s grandfather passes away, and at the funeral, he discovers that his grandfather had an illegitimate child, Rin. Instead of sending her to the orphanage, Daikichi takes her in, and begins the life of a single parent.

First of all, in a medium where most shows are about teenagers whose parents are conspicuously absent, I have to give Usagi Drop credit. It takes on parenting directly, and its main characters are a thirty year old man and a six year old girl.

With that said, the relationship between Daikichi and Rin is one of the weakest parts of the show. Rin’s main role is to act cute and need Daikichi. In many ways, she’s too “perfect” as a child to be believable— she cooks all the family meals, never throws fits, and she and Daikichi get along perfectly from the get-go. There are occasional conflicts, like Rin wetting the bed, but again, this falls in the cuteness category. In the sense of getting along with Rin, Daikichi’s job is too easy.

Fortunately, the relationships between the other characters are much more interesting. In particular, we have Yukari and Kouki, a single mother and a child of Rin’s age who befriend Daikichi and Rin. Daikichi takes on a fatherly role for Kouki, and there is some chemistry between him and Yukari. We also have Daikichi’s extended family interacting with Rin to good effect, and Daikichi’s meetings with Rin’s biological mother provide some food for thought.

All in all, this was another good noitaminA show, following in the footsteps of Hourou Musuko and Ano Hana.

  • Plot / Script – A – Never feels rushed or boring, with thoughtful dialogue.
  • Characters – B – Daikichi is a bit simplistic, and Rin is more or less a placeholder, but otherwise strong.
  • Production – A – Gorgeous, bright animation, that resembles the drawings of a child.
  • Overall – B+

Recommendations – Hourou Musuko, Kurenai, NieA_7

Note: I’m going to be experimenting with giving letter grades instead of the odd 0.25 increments I used before, let’s see how it works. Thanks to Marrow for suggestions.

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Hanasaku Iroha 25 — Balut’s not on the Menu

Hanasaku Iroha,

Hanasaku Iroha is great when it sticks with the drama.

Goofing Around

The fact that the creators can consistently make excellent drama when they try makes me wonder: what were they thinking with the other episodes? I can’t help but feel that this show would have fared better as one-cour rather than two.

I mean, what was the point of half of the episodes? Take the Nako episode as an example. Nothing much happened. That isn’t damning in and of itself, if you’re going to further develop the characters. But that didn’t happen here. We learned that Nako is shy and takes care of her family, which we already knew. She has some inner struggles with trying to change, but decides to stay the same. So we end up exactly where we started.

This might have been a good way to reinforce Nako’s character, but it took up too much time for this. In general, I think that the non-dramatic episodes could have either been much tighter or eliminated entirely without much of a detrimental effect to the show as a whole. This episode’s Nako, who interrupted the argument with a yell, could just have easily been the Nako from twelve episodes ago with no one the wiser.

The creators have demonstrated that they can tell a great story when they try, and this made the meandering around seem all the more wasteful.

Siding with the Boss

On to this episode. Ohana agrees with her grandmother that the inn should continue in the same vein as before, and is consequently shunned by everyone else in the inn (except Beanman).

Color me impressed. I didn’t expect things to go in this direction, but it’s a great way to wrap up many of the loose threads:

  • Ohana’s decision to stay at Kissuiso or return to Tokyo with her mother / Ko
  • The closing / continuation of the Kissuiso
  • Change at the Kissuiso
  • Ohana’s love life, with the Bonbori festival
  • The relationships between the three generations of Ohana’s family, by having them all work as waitresses

We also get a conflict with some very interesting sides: Ohana and her grandmother vs. everyone else. And wow, they are harsh on her. As in, everyone is acting like Minko. They won’t even participate in the festival. Even Tohru joins in on bullying Ohana.

Ohana is at her finest when she’s being bullied though.

Of course, the entire staff overstretches itself, and they aren’t able to keep up. They have to resort to a buffet, and overexert themselves and make themselves miserable to deliver worse service than usual. Then they get in to a huge fight, but fortunately Ohana’s grandmother and mother step in to make the save.

We have all three generations working as waitresses. A nice way to wrap things up on this side of the story. Ohana, her grandmother, and her mother’s relationships have all improved dramatically over the course of the series.

Hanasaku Iroha has always been at its finest when its main cast is in conflict, and this episode was no exception.

Shipping

How many doujinshis will this episode spawn?

Further Thoughts

  • That was some great narration by the novelist in the middle of the fight.
  • Takako is keeping Enishi under control. Not someone you want to mess with.
  • We learned what Beanman and the novelist do all day: help people park.
  • What was up with that music at the end? Choral music with an organ accompaniment is not exactly what I would associate with the Bonbori festival…

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