Read or Die OVA Review — A-

Reviews,

My first exposure to the Read or Die series was through Read or Die TV. Read or Die TV was decidedly average in every way (except in the quantity of lesbianism), so I had low expectations for the OVA. But I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

First of all, the action sequences are fantastic. There’s a creative variety of powers, and just the way Yomiko uses paper is interesting in and of itself (see the paper airplane above). You wouldn’t expect this from a series about books where the main character, Yomiko, is a clumsy airhead and bookworm. It’s partially her clumsiness which makes the fight scenes so gripping— she has no trouble fighting off giant robots with scraps of paper, but it looks like she’s going to trip and fall over at any moment. For example, in the above scene with the paper airplane, Yomiko made short work of constructing the enormous airplane, but just forgot to attach the tail fin, with nearly fatal results. The creators managed to make a very convincing portrayal of Yomiko as someone who’s both extremely capable and extremely clumsy.

Another strong point of the OVA is its setting, where agents of the British library with special powers fight for books. The agents travel from city to city in search of these books, so parts of the show take place in England, Hong Kong, India, America, and the middle of the ocean. There’s quite the variety here.

If I had to point out a flaw, the villains are much less fleshed out than the protagonists. They’re clones of famous people from history, and most of their motivations aren’t entirely clear. As another nitpick, a running gag is that the president of the US pisses his pants whenever he shows up. I personally just found this kind of dumb and not particularly funny. It’s certainly not on the level of a Legend of Koizumi presidential portrayal.

Still, the good points greatly outweigh the bad, and I highly recommend the Read or Die OVA, especially if you’re looking for some good action.

  • Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – The British library goes to war, we have giant underwater steampunk rockets, and the final boss is Ludwig van Beethoven. What more needs to be said?
  • Characters – 9 / 10 – Examines Yomiko and Nancy in depth. Other characters, particularly the villains, are less well developed since time is limited.
  • Production – 9  / 10 – Fluid animation, especially in fight scenes.
  • Overall – A-

Recommendations – Darker than Black, Book of Bantorra, Read or Die TV (although it isn’t as good as the OVA)

Hidan no Aria 09 — Second Base

Hidan no Aria,

This was the obligatory fanservice episode for the season, so I don’t have too much to say about it. Honestly, it was a pretty decent episode as far as these things go. Usually they don’t go too well though.

Riko’s return helped to make things more interesting, and I don’t mind Shirayuki too much, although Kinji probably should have escaped out the window several minutes earlier. Aria continues to be as annoying as ever. I feel that the show could only vastly improve if they removed her entirely. Perhaps for the next episode I can try fast forwarding through all her scenes. That will probably be about 80% of the episode though…. maybe just the mute button will do…

Ano Hana 09 — Down by the Riverside

Ano Hana,

Now that Menma has revealed herself. the focus shifts away from questioning the authenticity of Jinta’s account to the characters’ relationships with Menma and one another.

My favorite part of this episode was watching Matsuyuki’s feelings towards Jinta, a mix of jealousy, loathing and admiration. Matsuyuki has an interesting interpretation of why Jinta didn’t try to prove Menma’s existence earlier: he wants to keep her all to himself. I personally think it’s more that he wasn’t entirely sure if she existed himself, and was afraid to put her to the test and discover that she was only a figment of his imagination. But it’s details like Matsuyuki’s interpretation which best serve to cement his relationship with Jinta.

The love polygon in this show is turning out quite well too. It’s not over the top or the focus of the show by any means, and is more of an undercurrent. The relationships with Matsuyuki are particularly interesting: asking Anjou out while he still clearly hasn’t gotten over Menma.

I think that for the finish Ano Hana is going to need to bring both Poppo and Mysterious Girl Tsurumi into the spotlight. Tsurumi has mostly stayed in the background behind Matsuyuki up until this point, and we know very little about her or what she actually thinks. It seems that she likes Matsuyuki, but she hasn’t interacted much with anyone else. Poppo has been more talkative, but I feel like there ought to be more to him than there appears (but then again, maybe not).

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 09 — The time…. might come. *gasp*

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control,

The collapse of the Singapore stock market sends shockwaves around the world. Shockwaves in a very literal sense, called “C”, which travel relatively slowly. For the concept that the title of the show emphasizes, you’d think they’d try to at least provide the illusion that they aren’t just making crap up as they go along. And as if the show already didn’t make enough sense, the creators suddenly decide to let people in the financial district mint money from a beating heart in exchange for possible futures. Where did this come from?

Next, IMF girl lectures Kimimaro for a while, making up stuff about his father. She ends with a moving “and now you’re here!” speech as she removes her sunglasses and poses. Kimimaro is deeply moved. Then all the children become homeless men. Kimimaro decides that Souichiro is wrong and decides to take back the future. IMF girl warns him that they may have to use illegal measures, but he is brave and full of confidence. It only took eight and a half episodes and a country disappearing for him to decide to stop pretending to think deeply and to actually do something.

Next, Kimimaro tells Mashu to become his daughter. Then he kisses her. No, Kimimaro, doing those kinds of things to your daughter is not allowed.

The high point of this episode was Mashu getting licked by a dog. As is probably apparent, I’m quite disappointed in the direction this show has taken. It has one of the most creative settings in recent history. Yet it utterly fails at making this setting coherent and consistent. The creators continually pull things out of thin air, and never bother to delve deeply enough into any single aspect of the setting so that it actually makes sense. Half of the show is just spouting economics jargon without any real meaning behind it, just because it sounds cool.

The other half is Kimimaro hanging around and getting lectured at by random people. He is completely useless as a protagonist. It doesn’t help that most of Kimimaro’s lecture series is about comparing whether it’s better to have a present or a future. Am I the only one who thinks this is a stupid question?

In some ways C is similar to Fractale: C is the successor in the Noitanima timeslot, and both have ambitious settings. They both have problems in developing their settings: Fractale jumps around to too many locations and wastes too much time on Clain’s “perversion”, while C wastes time on the great present / future debate and doesn’t really even try to explain the setting aside from spouting more econobabble.

I’m not going to even bother complaining about the English scenes since they were actually pretty good compared to the rest of the episode. It certainly could have been much worse. I feel like I’m being especially harsh on this series, but I was hoping for much more.

Steins; Gate 10 — Jello of Death

Steins; Gate,

That’s got to be one of the most intimidating death threats I’ve ever seen.

The revelations came in fast and heavy in this episode. I had speculated earlier that part time warrior was John Titor, but it turns out that she’s actually his daughter (assuming he is Barrel Titor in this universe?). Still, this implies that she is either a time traveler as well or her father is a fraud. I can’t say I’d be surprised either way. Interestingly Kyouma’s ability to retain his memory of other timelines is turning out to be something of a hindrance, since he doesn’t know what happened in his current timeline.

It also turns out that Kyouma has been jumping timelines since he was a kid. The big question now is why: is CERN changing the past just as Kyouma is? Or is it other people, such as John Titor? Maybe it’s actually Mayushi who can change the timeline and not the microwave.

Kyouma also decides to discover Ruka’s gender once and for all. Attempted rape is never a smart move. I’m curious to see if they’ll ever explain how a message to eat vegetables could change her gender. Not that I’m complaining, this scene was pretty funny.

Finally, could this knife-wielding Mayushi be a portent of things to come? I certainly hope so.