When Redline first came out, there were a lot of comparisons to Wacky Races floating around. If you haven’t seen Wacky Races before, do yourself a favor and go watch an episode now.

I loved Wacky Races when I was a kid. It was in the running with Roadrunner and Coyote for my favorite cartoon (you can probably see a theme here). So I was absolutely pumped for Redline‘s release. Unfortunately, all the hype left me a bit disappointed.

Wacky Races is… well… wacky. In the short segment I linked to, we have stop lights delivered by rockets, lassos, vehicles floating on top of geysers, and cars driven by bears, the mafia, and southern belles. Redline isn’t wacky in the silly way that Wacky Races is. A better word would be crazy— they bring things such as speed and danger beyond the point of ridiculousness. But the film never descends ascends into silliness and wackery. The only point of commonality between the two shows is a no-holds barred race. What is Wacky Races without being funny? It isn’t Wacky Races, that’s for sure. In its essence, Redline is not a film about a wacky race, but a drop of distilled manliness in its purest form.

Problematic comparisons aside, Redline is a fun movie. If you’re looking for an adrenaline-filled action flick, Redline‘s got pretty much everything you could ask for: absurd speeds, manly shouts, guns, girls, eternal friendship, betrayal, explosions, deranged robots, orbital bombardment, and battles between giant space monsters. The race takes place in the middle of a war zone. The film is certainly wild, if not wacky. In the end, the guy gets the girl, and our heroes win the race by literally a hair’s breath, running across the finish line at mach speed while their car explodes in the background.

The visuals are downright spectacular.  But the actual story and characters are decidedly less so. Much of the narrative comes across as an excuse to create explosions (not to imply that there is anything wrong with explosions!).

A few of the characters are mildly interesting, and I did enjoy seeing the relationship between JP, the mechanic and the junk dealer unfold. The spider mechanic coming to the junk dealer’s rescue was my favorite scene. I thought he was either going to defuse the bomb or shoot the junk dealer, not rescue him.

Sonoshee was the film’s weakest link, from my perspective. She began as a strong and independent woman, but ended up as JP’s long lost childhood friend, winning the race while sitting in his lap. Kind of sad. As for the rest of the racers… well, suffice to say that I couldn’t name a single one.

Redline’s an enjoyable watch, but it’s just not my thing. If you love action shows, though, be sure to give this a spin.

• Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Action-packed with lots of explosions. Don’t watch this for the story.
• Characters – 8 / 10 – The lead and his two friends are interesting to watch, but the rest of the racers are neglected.
• Production – 10 / 10 – In the running for one of the best animated shows I’ve seen. Madhouse spent a lot of time on this, and it shows.
• Overall – B

Recommendations – Dead Leaves, Wacky Races

Since I’m late to the party on watching this, I have the opportunity to share a few interesting takes on the movie by people with better taste other bloggers.

• Yi examines oral sex and lips in Redline
• Animekritik discusses the names, robot writing system and Leijiverse tie-ins
• E Minor explains how the narrative fell short
• Ogue Maniax looks at fanservice and the “man of action” in Redline
• inushinde found Redline a ton of fun, but not a classic
• ghostlightning explains how badass Redline is
• Mr. A thought Redline was “visually splendid” but lacking story-wise
• psgels found Redline a “visual orgasm”, albeit not the best movie ever

Break Blade is a series of six movies following Rygart, a man who is extraordinary because of his lack of magical ability, in a world where everyone can use magic to control quartz and operate giant golems. An ancient golem is unearthed, and Rygart is the only one who can pilot it. He fights in the golem to save the kingdom which is beset by enemies on all sides, but mainly to save the life of his friends Sigyn and Hodr, the king and queen, fighting against their old classmate who fights on the opposing side.

From the description, Break Blade sounds like every other mecha show: boy finds mecha, only he can pilot it, and he does so for great justice, battling with his rival. In this sense, it has been done before, but it’s in the details where Break Blade is so interesting. First of all: these characters aren’t teenagers. There’s no teenage drama or coming of age or whatnot. The characters have already come of age and lived through their share of drama, and part of what makes Break Blade interesting is seeing how they have adjusted to it years later. As one example, this show had a love triangle where there is a mutual attraction between Rygart and the queen, Sigyn. Except Sigyn is married to Rygart’s best friend. To make things even more interesting, the marriage has cooled and the king encourages the two of them to get together. This makes for some very interesting relationship dynamics, to say the least.

The setting is unique as well. Instead of being powered by electronics or steam, the mecha are powered by the magic to control quartz. Quartz-powered mecha don’t have machine guns or laser beams or missiles. Their only weapons are hand to hand or a larger version of a blowgun. This makes the battles more interesting than in, say, Gundam, since there are no laser light shows or naked pink people, and instead we actually get good choreography and action.

Finally, the production quality is worthy of a series of movies made by Production IG. The backgrounds are fantastic, and I can’t praise the music enough.

My only complaint is that I wish it were longer. It had a satisfying conclusion, but I feel like there are more unanswered questions. Cleo especially was kind of left as a cliffhanger, and Rygart’s rival just kind of disappeared. It definitely deserves a sequel, but I doubt we’ll get one, at least not in the immediate future. The manga (which is also excellent, by the way) is at the point where the movies are now, so it’ll probably be a few years before anything else in the series is animated.

• Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – Exciting story of the fall of an empire (I have a fetish for this kind of thing, like Simoun).
• Characters – 9 / 10 – Strong love triangle, villainous and interesting villains, and Girghe… wow. Just wow. (don’t want to spoil anything)
• Production – 10 / 10 – Beautiful backgrounds, and some of the best music in anything I’ve seen recently.
• Overall – 9.0 / 10

Recommendations – Simoun, Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari, Gundam

Kujo transfers from Japan to Europe to become a student, at a time when great changes are afoot in the world. At the top of the library tower, he meets a petite girl with blond hair who seems almost like a fairy, named Victorique. He plays Watson to her Holmes (complete with pipe) as she “assembles the fragments of Chaos” and solves mysteries, often involving fairy tales and the occult. Later on, she unravles the story of her own past.

Gosick is a tough series to review, because what I should really do is write two reviews: one for each half. The two halves come across as completely different. In the first, Victorique and Kujo attend class and solve random mysteries. The second half is a set of more closely connected mysteries revealing the secrets behind Victorique’s birth and the future of Europe.

The thing is, most of the mysteries in the first half are plain dumb. It’s painfully obvious who the criminal is for most of them. Sherlock Holmes is a genius, and this is illustrated by putting him on a completely different level from Watson. But Watson is also very intelligent. In Gosick, they try to make Victorique be a genius by comparing her with Kujo. But Kujo is an idiot (at least in the first half). To top it off, the side characters are annoying: the classmate in love with Kujo, the clumsy teacher with glasses, Victorique’s brother who needs her to solve all his cases for him and whose hair is shaped like a unicorn horn.

At this point I was toying with the idea of dropping the show. But then everything completely changed. They dropped the random obvious mysteries, and Gosick turned into a top-notch adventure series, exploring the story of Victorique’s past and her relationship with Kujo. Sometimes shows use the first half to better develop their characters and setting for the finale. But I can’t really convince myself that this was the case with Gosick. The initial episodes added very little. And oddly enough, the ending felt rushed. So they didn’t need to pad for time. I’m honestly not sure what the creators were thinking for the first half.

But the second half is great. The adventure is exciting, all the characters are fleshed out (even the guy with unicorn hair becomes a non-joke), and the mysteries are interesting. We even get some good politics and a bit of romance. Overall, I would probably rate the second half a 9, but the first half only a 7.

• Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Huge divide between the first and second half.
• Characters – 8 / 10 – Most of the cast is well fleshed-out in the second half. Kujo’s classmates remain fairly weak, however. Kujo is too dumb in the first half.
• Production – 8 / 10 – Consistent (this is Bones after all) but I can’t help but feel even the animation improved in the second half. This may be my imagination.
• Overall – B-

Recommendations – Kamisama no Memochou, Dantalian no Shoka (for more moeblob detectives)

Makoto moves to a small town to live with his aunt while his parents are away, and meets his cousin Erio, who claims to be an alien and walks around wrapped in a futon. He forms a harem with two other girls, Maekawa and Ryuuko, and embarks on a quest to gain as many puberty points as possible.

Denpa Onna is cuteness overload, and this is the show’s main draw. Erio is sparkly and acts like a little kid, Ryuuko more or less is a little kid, and Maekawa’s main task is dressing up in random cute costumes. Makoto’s aunt is also disturbingly cute (see the image below). If you are obsessed with all things moe, you’ll love Denpa Onna.

If you aren’t… well, it still has its good points. It’s a SHAFT show, and Shinbo has managed to tone down his style to levels where it complements the story rather than dominates it.

As for the characters, most of them are excuses for more cuteness. Maekawa, Makoto’s aunt and Ryuuko are definitely entertaining to watch, although they aren’t particularly deep or anything. Erio really annoyed me though. She really starts out as nothing more than a moeblob who gets carried around wrapped in her futon in her cousin’s bicycle basket. She develops some over the course of the story… but not much.

The male lead, Makoto, is an improvement over your usual spineless harem protagonist. For one thing, he can hold his own in a conversation (he plays the tsukkomi). In addition, he’s a bit cynical and recognizes how boring he is in his accounting of the puberty points he earns each episode.

The dialog is fast paced and witty, as expected from SHAFT. As for the plot, we get to see a bit of Erio leaving her shell, but otherwise there isn’t much. The focus really is the cuteness.

• Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Fast and witty script from SHAFT, not much of a plot.
• Characters – 7  / 10 – Moeblobs, but still entertaining (aside from Erio).
• Production – 9  / 10 – The usual SHAFT stylistic effects, but managed not to go overboard.
• Overall – C

Recommendations – Bakemonogatari, Haruhi, Arakawa Under the Bridge

Astarotte no Omocha is about a succubi princess, Lotte, who lives in a magical world. She employs a human, Naoya, in her harem so that she can gain magical energies by drinking his juices when she becomes an adult. Naoya also happens to be the father of Lotte’s step-sister who moves in with them at the castle.

I wasn’t initially impressed by Astarotte no Omocha, but I decided to continue watching it. The people who’d read the manga seemed to be saying that the story became something touching involving family as it wore on. Even if it didn’t seem great from the get go, everything was done passably well. The characters and premise were… unique, to say the least, and the story could have had some potential.

Unfortunately, the rumored touching story never materialized, and it turned into a rather unremarkable harem show. I suppose the story did involve family… as in, it tried to develop a romance between a little girl and her stepfather. There are different cultural norms and all, but I feel like I should draw a line somewhere. The touching part of the story, I guess, is about Lotte growing up and becoming a woman… or not, as it is revealed in a bizarre anti-climax in the final episode where it turns out that everything was a misunderstanding resulting from a mosquito bite.

In addition to the problematic story, at least half of the show’s “jokes” surround a little girl not wearing underwear. To make matters worse, the lead character is a little girl voiced by Rie Kugimiya. Lotte is a vast improvement over both Rose from Dragon Crisis and Aria from Hidan no Aria, but still, she’s annoying. The other characters seem like they could be interesting, but never really get a chance to shine. Most of Lotte’s castle staff end up becoming glorified errand boys.

With all that said, if you can look past the premise and the plot (or lack thereof) Astarotte no Omocha isn’t terrible. For one thing, I wasn’t bored while watching it. The show managed to mostly keep my attention, and it used its time effectively. The stories are somewhat episodic in nature, and each of the shorter stories were interesting, even if everything didn’t come together as a whole.

But Astarotte no Omocha also isn’t particularly good. And herein lies the crux of the problem: the show lacks ambition. The creators seemed to set out to make a passable story, not an excellent one, and they succeeded. There were no real risks taken: everything is done by the book. I’d much rather watch a show like [C], which at least had some interesting ideas, even if it did end  in a spectacular explosion of nonsense. Astarotte no Omocha takes the safe path, and ends up the lesser for it.

• Plot / Script – 5 / 10 – Unambitious, although the script kept my interest.
• Characters – 5 / 10 – Only the three main characters really get their turn in the spotlight… and all that comes from that is learning that one doesn’t like wearing underwear, one isn’t sure about whether or not he should date his stepdaughter, and the third is a loli voiced by Rie Kugimiya.
• Production – 6 / 10 – Average, like everything else.
• Overall – D-

Recommendations – Hayate no Gotoku, other Rie Kugimiya series if you like that stuff (Shakugan no Shana, Zero no Tsukaima, etc.)