Review #50: Moribito, Guardian of the Spirit

 

Final Score – 10/10

Balsa, a wandering spearwoman for hire as a bodyguard, travels through the New Yogo Empire, one of the most powerful in the lands. One day, as she crosses a bridge, a royal procession passes on another just upstream. As she watches, the royal carriage falls off the bridge, letting the prince that had been riding in it fall into the water. Without hesitation, Balsa jumps in to save the prince, and managing to do so, is invited to the Yogoan palace. There she meets the prince’s mother, the First Queen, and learns that the tragedy on the bridge had been no accident, but instead a part of a plot to have the Prince killed. The man that wishes the Prince dead is none other than the boys father, the Mikado, under the belief that the boy is possessed by an evil spirit that would discredit the Yogoan royal name. Thus, the Queen asks Balsa to escape with Prince Chagum and to keep him safe from the assassins of the Mikado at all costs.

Thus is a simple wandering bodyguard wrapped up into a deadly plot, one that ends up reaching beyond the world and into another, having consequences for far more than the Yogoan royal family. It’s never easy though, as Prince Chagum must learn to live outside the palace, all as assassins assail him and Balsa every step of the way. Her hope lies with the help of those that care for her, such as two young street orphans she saved, as well as an herbalist and his mystic teacher. All the while Balsa must learn what the spirit is inside the Prince, the key to all the troubles that have come.

Moribito is based on a series of novels bearing the same name. Originally published in Japan, and later translated over into English, the anime was based solely on the first book of the series, though it doesn’t follow the book with exacting faithfulness. Those familiar with the series already may have seen it when it was aired on Adult Swim from 2008 through 2011 (there were also plans for it to play on Neon Alley, Viz Media’s digital content channel). If you HAVE seen the series, there’s not much I need tell you. For those who haven’t; see it. There are plans for a re-release of the series on DVD and Blu-Ray via Viz to coincide with their airing of the series, and that’s as good a reason as any to get it.

I don’t want to go on and on about what I believe makes the series worthy of a perfect grade, but I’ll touch on a few points. First, the music and art are as close to flawless as one can have. The soundtrack is one of the best from an anime I can recall, and for the visuals, only minor complaints can be given over some of the CGI for mass groups of soldiers. Otherwise, the art is stunning, working well with the sounds and plot to make a most atmospheric feeling. The plot is very well paced, and even with 26 episodes, I never felt the series was dragging its feet or lacked some form of momentum. Characters developed, not just one or two of them but most every one that played a major role. Even those that could be considered “villains” had depth and reason to their actions, so much that even those that oppose Balsa can be seen to have sound judgement and reasons for their actions.

There IS one specific reason for the series’ worthiness I want to pick out, and that’s the character of Balsa. When an anime has a woman as a main character, there are 99% of the time far too many pitfalls they can fall into. Some are fan service devices that are tough main characters only so long as there’s little clothing or much bouncing. Some are around to be love interests for the main male protagonist. Still others are damsels in distress, needing saving/rescuing from some evil they can’t handle. Balsa avoids all those. She’s made tomboyish, but still womanly. She’s shown to have feelings of love for a man, but struggles more with her feelings of motherhood than anything else, going through a majority of the series without making such matters rule over her feelings and development. In summery; far more shows, both anime and otherwise, need strong female leads like her.

Moribito is a deep, serious, breathtaking series of magic, fantasy, and wonder, but at the same time is all about the small things in life and the relationships people share. It has fantastic action scenes, thoughtful dialogue, a deep world, and all of that wrapped up in a story the engages from the start and never lets go. When I first got Moribito, I had no idea what it was, and I was doubtful I’d like it, the box making it seem far too grim and serious. What I got instead was one of the best series of all time.

• Languages: Japanese/English
• Episodes: 26
• Published: 07 (JP) 08 (US)

 

Review #49: Excel Saga

 

Final Score: 7/10

Set in Japan, in the City of F, in the Prefecture of F, Excel Saga is the saga of Excel Excel, agent of the organization ACROSS, a secret group bent on taking over F City. The head of ACROSS is Ilpalazo, Excel’s lord, master, love, commander, boss, and generally her everything. She’s joined  by Agent Hyatt, a mysterious purple haired woman from space that dies on a fairly constant basis (though she always manages to make it back to the light SOMEhow). ACROSS is opposed by Kabapoo, the head of the F Prefecture City Protection branch of the F Prefecture Civil Service offices, along with a group of less than willing trainees.

While that may sound like a simple anime plot, albeit strange, Excel Saga takes little of that seriously. A slapstick comedy on one side, a parody on another, the series has inside jokes just as often as it has jokes that make little sense. Each episode has a theme, up to the end, hopping from a sports anime parody to a horror parody, and so on and so forth. This is fitted around a central plot, as ridiculous as it is. Like any good comedy, pain is temporary, explosions rarely do more than char a person, and characters always have a way out, good guy or bad.

The main plot involving Excel and ACROSS takes a while to really take off, so to start the anime takes a lot of time introducing seemingly random side plots, and quite a lot of them too. Many keep up with the plot though, and surprisingly or not, many play a part in the end. The first is Pedro, a foreigner working in Japan to help support his sexy wife and sun back home. His plot involves his death and his wife’s betrayal, but gets surprisingly deeper than that, even to the point of twining with the main story. Second, the anime’s director has a self representation character, Nabushin, who seems at first to be just put in for gags, but ends up tying into Pedro’s story, touching on Excel and Hyatt’s, and even has ties to aliens and guerrilla fighters. Oh, and yes, there are aliens, cute being that get ugly when they get hurt. They’re introduced seemingly at random, but keep around, even coming back in force later.

While it may seem like a lot to fit into an anime, so much so that it would lack focus, Excel Saga seems all the better for its randomness. At the start, its dedication to parody and wackiness makes it so that the jokes play a larger part than any deeper development, even as new character and ideas come flying right and left. Where Excel Saga succeeds the most in my opinion is in how it ties all those threads together when you expect no such thing. While there ARE a few one shot gags and characters, the end brings together a lot of gags, characters, ideas, and randomness and MAKES something of it. That’s not to say it loses all its wackiness, or that it resolves in an orderly, perfect fashion. It still resolves in a way that makes all the start feel like it has a purpose.

Excel Saga is hardly perfect, though perfection’s not something that’s easy to pick out from its mushy innards. Even excusing the randomness and wackiness, not all the characters are likable, and more than a few lack good development. A few of the gags felt overused, including but not limited to the fourth wall breaking with Nabushin and the manga’s creator, Rikudo. Still, all the faults don’t make the anime bad. It IS an anime that takes some getting used to (I liked it better the 3rd and 4th time I watched it), and not everyone will appreciate the sometimes grating humor. Those facts may be enough to grade the series down, but I still recommend it. It’s an older series that had a lot of great ideas, a bunch of good parody’s, and a sense of humor that never seems to fail.

• Episodes: 26
• Languages: Japanese/English
• Released: 99 (JP), 02 (US)

 

Review #48: The World of Narue

 

FINAL SCORE – 7/10

Kazuto is your fairly normal teenage otaku, going through middle school with few friends and only his anime, manga, and figurines to get him though. He seems perfectly happy to keep on going as he is until the day he saw a dog in a box outside an row of apartments. After giving it thought at school, Kazuto went back to check, only to find out that the dog is really an alien creature with tentacles and a 4-hinged jaw, ready to devour him. At the last second, a girl appears wielding a baseball bat, knocking the alien creature away and saving Kazuto’s life. She then disappears, leaving Kazuto confused and more than a little love struck.

With only her discarded bat to go on, Kazuto soon finds that the girl’s name is Narue, that she’s in the same grade, has class in the room next door… and is rumored to be an alien. Ignoring the rumors, Kazuto finally catches up with Narue on their way home, returning the bat to her and asking her out on a date. Narue seems uncertain at first, saying she’s too plain and strange. Kazuto insists however, and after he makes his intentions clear that he wants to date her no matter what, Narue decides to introduce Kazuto to her father (since they’re already outside her place). They go up… only to find a space ninja ready to kill him! After Narue teleports behind the ninja and knocks him out with her bat, she shows Kazuto a vision of her floating in space, surrounded by a huge alien armada.

World of Narue reminds me  a lot of a shorter version of what Ah! My Goddess does, being a more pure romantic comedy based around a boy finding a strange girlfriend, and the trials they face to stay together. Like in Ah! My Goddess, Narue ends up having a sister (Kanaka) that has to keep an eye on the two lovers, though Narue starts off not knowing she even HAS a sister. Other similarities include a group wanting the main girl to leave earth (the space ninja’s want Narue and her father off the earth), both main girls having unique “powers” (though Narue’s are from technology), the main male protagonist having a sister that wants to meddle in her brother’s love life, as well as there being an annoying popular classmate that wants to embarrass the main girl. Narue’s length is more like the OVA of Ah! My Goddess, though it lacks the tight cohesiveness of that series’ original run.

The 7 out of 10 may make it seem like the series isn’t that good, but in truth, I liked it quite a bit. The characters were likeable, the voice actors did well, and the humor worked well for me. The problem is that none of it was great, leaving World of Narue somewhat forgetful when it’s all done. The one tie that would make for the most special effects and strange happenings, Narue’s tie to space and her half alien heritage, are downplayed for a majority of the series in favor of a more human approach. Even those parts where the Galaxian race and its doings comes up, it’s almost always in context of the Earth, Narue and Kazuto wanting a normal relationship, or Narue wanting to be human/stay on earth. None of the Galaxians look any different from humans, sound any different, or otherwise act strange, so for the most part, it feels like a normal romantic comedy set in the near future.

For all its plainness, in plot as well as action, the series is still a recommend for me. There’s nothing “wrong” with the series, in that nothing offended me or turned me off watching it. If you’re in the mood for a cute, somewhat short romantic comedy with a little tension added in, you could do a LOT worse. It won’t be your favorite series ever likely, and you’ll probably forget about it a few months down the line, just keep that in mind.

• Languages: Japanese/English
• Published: 03 (JP) 04 (US)
• Episodes: 12

 

Review #47: Ragnarok the Animation

Final Score – 3/10

I want to start with a disclaimer. Ragnarok the Animation is based on the MMO Ragnarok Online. Since I have never played the game, there could be things I’m missing, like inside jokes about the game, or cool references to the gameplay. That said, I’ll be looking at the anime on its own without worrying about that, since a majority of people looking into watching the series will not have played the game as well.

The world of Rune-Midgard is full of monsters and adventurers, magic and wonder. Roan the swordmaster, Yufa the acolyte, and Iruga the assassin have all known each other since they were kids, linked together around Yufa’s older brother Keough. Years ago, Keough was killed on a mission that all four had undertaken. Now, Roan and Yufa travel alone, trying to become stronger.

It is in these travels that the two meet Takius, a mage that wears a blindfold. A student of a powerful sorcerer, Takius helps Roan and Yufa defeat a powerful enemy after they help her stand up to a group of hooligans in an alley. Takius pursues “the ultimate truth”, the goal of her master, and in search of that, Roan and Yufa journey with her out into the world.

The three don’t remain alone long. Soon they’re joined by a young merchant girl named Maya, a girl that seems in it all only for the profit. Added to that mix, Iruga shows up alongside a blonde archer named Judia, the two joining to help with the matter of another late arrival; Keough appears at a monster attack, now wearing a mysterious mask and wishing destruction on the world. Iruga seeks to redeem his friend, Judia to help Iruga (whom she cares for), Yufa to save her older brother, Roan to protect Yufa, Takius to fulfill her master’s quest, and Maya to… well, get rich.

Let me try to get the good out of the way. Unfortunately, it’s not a very long list. There is SOME character growth in the series, with more than one person growing in a marked way that moves the plot along. Both “main” characters (Yufa and Roan) change from uncertain rookies to hardened adventurer’s by the end… mostly. The series also has catchy music, and for an anime based on an MMO, the integration of game mechanics into the world seems well done.

The rest of the series however… where to start? The characters perhaps. Not since Suzuka have I disliked main characters more. Yufa and Roan both grow, but Roan’s growth is annoying and painful to go through, while Yufa remains a whiny damsel in distress up to the bitter end. Even apart from those two, few characters are what I’d consider likeable, most being self absorbed or single tracked in their goals. Maya and Takius both grow in more tolerable ways, but even then it’s all done in such a ham fisted way that it feels cheesy and drawn out.

The characters thick headed natures also did a number on the progression of the plot. More than one battle seemed to be drawn out because no one looked at an obvious solution. Most one on one fights suffered from Dragonball syndrome, where it all seemed much more an event to talk during than anything interesting. More than one key trouble or worry that carried the tension of the plot seemed inane, or were solved with a poor solution.

The ending seals the deal on the series, having the “final boss” battle an excuse for the old trope of “go on ahead, I have this” as an excuse for Yufa and Roan to be alone in the end. While this allows them to wrap up a relationship that’s been barely there the entire series, it also causes a few main character deaths that seem entirely unnecessary, especially since there wasn’t really any hurry. The ending also wraps up more than one of the villain plots with “sudden redemption” in the worst sort of way… in fact, all the major villains wrap up that way.

I really don’t know what else to say about Ragnarok. I’d originally gone into the series hopeful, wanting to see not only a good fantasy anime, but also a good example of a game translated into an animation. I still can’t speak for the later, and if there might be a redeeming quality of the anime, perhaps it’s nostalgic for old players of the MMO (though perhaps not as well). From the view of an outsider though, all I got was a poor cast of characters wrapped around a poor plot. This is one of those few anime I really can’t recommend to anyone.

• Episodes: 26
• Languages: Japanese/English
• Published: 04 (JP), 07 (US)