Hi no Tori – Review A-

Reviews,

I finally finished Phoenix today after starting it approximately one year ago. This isn’t due to any fault of the show but due to my poor watching habits – I’ll start watching something and then either forget about it or not want to finish it because I like it and if I watch it it’ll be over. I still have about five episodes left of Utena which I started two years ago, and two episodes left of Lucky Star which I began three years ago. And in that interval I watched the first ten episodes of Lucky Star at least three times… But fortunately I remembered Hi no Tori yesterday and it hasn’t suffered the same fate. One of the advantages of having nothing new to watch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Hi no Tori is a collection of short stories, each one to four episodes long, which involve the titular Phoenix to some degree.  It’s based on the manga which is widely considered to be Osamu Tezuka’s masterwork, which unfortunately I haven’t read. Initially all the stories seem completely disparate, but the way the creators bring the stories together in the end really stands out. I’m generally wary of shows which depend on separate plot arcs (especially episodic shows), but Hi no Tori did an excellent job at telling the shorter stories in the span of a few episodes without feeling rushed at all. In the last two arc, they managed to compress several billion years into two episodes and make it feel like a really long time, so the creators were definitely doing something right on this front. Making the best use of the time a show has is really a challenge which so many shows screw up on, but Hi no Tori manages to do just right. In just thirteen episodes it manages to have a larger, more developed cast than most two-season shows with at least double the plot content.

The other character that all the stories have in common besides the Phoenix is Saruta, who plays a different role every time. He’s never the main character of the arc but always a side character. I thought this was kind of strange, until at the end all the pieces came together and it became clear why this was so. Many of the characters are cursed with immortality and long lives. Saruta never is, but he lives as long as any of them in a sense. And the true driving force of the narrative in each arc is not the main character of that arc; it is the Phoenix throughout the entire story.

  • Plot / Script – 10 / 10 – Very compelling stories in all of the arcs.
  • Characters – 9 / 10 – Suffered a bit from their short shelf life.
  • Production – 9 / 10 – Pleasant visuals, although I’ve noticed that none of the hands are very lifelike…
  • Overall – A-

Recommendations – sola, Simoun (can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like Hi no Tori)

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka 04

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka,

This episode was definitely an improvement over last week’s. In the beginning we start out with a Doberman knocking on the door instead of the pizza delivery man, who proceeds to cut apart Ayumu’s arm. When he sees Yuu he realizes it is a misunderstanding, and Ayumu follows him to the scene of the latest serial murder, where the Doberman dies protecting a zombie from something that wouldn’t have killed him. Ayumu gets stabbed anyway when the blade goes through the Doberman’s chest. Ayumu learns that Yuu has to suffer the same pain as him to revive him. A heartbreaking discussion ensues.

Well, whatever, they were going to put drama in somehow. At least they decided to do it in a ridiculous over the top way instead of trying to take this show seriously. The dog was quite funny. And the Yuu segment was redeemed by being followed by a completely random battle against a giant whale after Ayumu told Yuu he would protect her. Way to make him stick to his promises immediately!

The battle against the whale was great, as Ayumu’s magical girl costume powered up. The Trans-Am giant whale missile dodging was excellent, as were Sera’s delayed insult and Haruka’s warnings not to power up any further. Hopefully the show can maintain the pace of this episode and the first episode rather than becoming bogged down with fanservice.

No, Ayumu, don't do it! You can't become any cuter!

In other news, Level E has really picked up since the first episode! I didn’t find the first episode that interesting but they really made good use of it in the second and especially third episode. It goes to show that you can’t really judge much by just one episode.

Star Driver 17

Star Driver,

Ok, so apparently everyone and their second cousin is doing beach episodes today. Well, Star Driver managed to make it less painful than Onii-chan, but it was still disappointing especially since I had higher expectations for this show. At least it was only a third of the episode instead of the entire thing. Wako’s sand burial, her friend’s delusions and the volleyball match were mildly amusing, so it might not have felt as horrible if I hadn’t watched that other beach episode right before.

Because now I'm above you.

We’re introduced to two new characters from the Adult Bank. I thought that the Adult Bank sounded like the name of a prostitution ring and it seems like I may have been right. But really, so far we know absolutely nothing about these characters except that they appear to be lesbians. This made for a rather lackluster battle since Takuto’s opponent this week was someone who had made no impact whatsoever. Hopefully the creators will do more to flesh these characters out in the coming weeks as they have done so far with the rest of the side characters.

Head pulled off a coup de etat in the Hiraboshi this week, but aside from that it didn’t really seem like much happened. I suppose the first half at the beach was intended as comic relief of sorts after the intensity of last weeks episode, but still, they could have at least taken the opportunity to better introduce the new characters.

But Sugata’s appearance in zero time in pajamas did help to redeem the episode in the end.

Onii-chan no Koto… 04

Onii-chan no Koto,

This is what I feared that this show would end up as. Pointless fanservice while using the same jokes over and over again which are by now getting old. It was the obligatory beach episode so hopefully it will pick up again after this… but still… what was the point?

The entire episode basically consists of Iroha and Nao abusing Shuusuke at the beach and Nao’s two friends making horrified faces at them. I’ll admit their faces were pretty funny… but that was about all that was funny.

And Shuusuke’s dreams were honestly just dumb, not funny at all. I can see that they were setting it up for him to kiss the guy, but it definitely wasn’t worth all the time they wasted on it. I really hope that next week we can have something new instead of constant fighting between Nao and Iroha.

Fractale 03

Fractale,

This episode was much more eventful than the previous ones. We have a lot more development regarding Team Rocket, who we realize now is part of a larger organization called Lost Millenium which wants to dismantle the Fractale system. Clain and Nessa become their “hostages”, and Clain eats food that didn’t come from a tube for the first time. Lost Millenium stages a raid on the priestesses’ ritual, in which the fat guy, the guards, some priestesses and random bystanders are killed. Phrynne comes and sings and everyone stops shooting for some reason. Nessa’s clone is one of the priestesses.

I honestly was not expecting anyone to get killed, considering how serious the kidnappers seemed to be, but this episode was actually quite bloody. It was quite a disconnect from how peaceful and low-key this series has been up until this point.

Also, I wish they would be more subtle about some of the themes in this show. The argument about Clain and Lost Millennium about the nature of freedom was particularly overblown to me – it seemed like that guy was just trying to pick a fight so they could have someone talk about it. And why did Clain get so mad at him? He more or less agreed with most of what he was saying last episode…

The thing which upset me the most about this episode though was how the Fractale system went from being morally ambiguous to downright blatantly evil. Up until this point the show could have brought up some interesting points about the nature of freedom, personality, post-scarcity societies, and privacy… but now that one side is brainwashing people, it’s more or less in the wrong by default. I just personally find it more interesting and prescient when the dystopia is less obviously evil.