Month: July 2010

There is no i in team: The multi-perspective approach in Giant Killing.

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hisuiconFor a bit of synergy with this months episode of the Speakeasy we decided to talk about Giant Killing, our favorite sport anime of the spring season. Plus with the World Cup having just finished yesterday it seems like the best time to talk about a soccer anime. But the reason we are looking at Giant Killing is its unique  story telling considering the other sports shows that have come out in English. It is a seinen series with a distinctly adult feeling. All the main characters are professionals trying to revive a floundering J. League Division 1 team.  Even most of the side characters are adults with jobs and adult problems. This is not a show about a high school team or some teenagers in a back lot. The cast has the responsibility of the East Tokyo United club on their shoulders with all the burdens that come with playing for a professional team. We see all the pieces that go into a professional sport club.

Giant Killing swept me up in its first episode. And as I am being carried along quite happily, I am here to tell you it isn’t the soccer that is holding my attention so thoroughly. Truth be told I know very little about the sport not being able to recall ever having watched a real match in my lifetime. The key to Giant Killing’s success despite presenting us with a rather familiar, if only by American standards, plot where an unconventional coach embarks to rejuvenate a washed-up team is how it approaches the story from angle after angle.

hisuiconNormally the main character in a shonen sports anime would be one of the players. In a shonen or shoujo series it would be a young kid with tons of potential but is just learning to play. In other seinen series it might be an amazing player with a past. The main character in Giant Killing is Takeshi Tatsumi, the coach of the team. As Narutaki said the unconventional coach may be a old troupe but he is almost always a side character in anime. With Tatsumi we get a bit of the typical seinen protagonist. He is the legendary player with a past but he is the team’s strategist not the key player. This lets him connect and deal with everyone who is a part of the club or has business with the club giving the show is broad range of perspectives. The story follows various perspectives so when Tatsumi interacts with them the impact is far greater.

The promotional material, the first episode, and his attitude itself tells us that Tatsumi is the main character, for he is the piece around which everything changes. However, don’t be surprised to see him merely in the background of an episode smirking or deep in thought. Giant Killing is attempting to tell a highly encompassing tale with a large and growing cast of characters occupying every role in the world of soccer from player to aging veteran fan, middle-management to reporter, coach to hooligan. Each new perspective builds on the other pieces until you end up with (or is leading up to) a panoramic view of the Japanese soccer scene. It’s ambitious but it’s succeeding. The way Giant Killing presents its characters, in snippets and moments, dives at the heart of the matter succinctly.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #091

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hisuiconNo matter how much Akiyuki Shinbo shows might feel like Akiyuki Shinbo shows you cannot mask the quirky trademark humor of Hikaru Nakamura in Arakawa Under the Bridge. I did notice after a while my enjoyment of segments really depended on which characters were in them. Scenes with Nino, Hoshi, Sister, Stella are usually excellent where as Maria and P-ko usually fall flat. Everyone else is hit and miss. I did notice in reflection Nino does not show up nearly as much as you think she would especially in the second half of the anime. I know some people found Kou annoying but I thought it was an excellent straight man to the rest of the cast. Episodes 10,11, and 12 have a story that has a decent conclusion with Kou having to confront his father over the development of the land under the bridge. There is a big confrontation with nothing really changed. But that is usually how you best deal with an ongoing comedy series like Arakawa. Also after episode 13 they announced a second season so they had to maintain the status quo. Overall I enjoyed every episode and always looked forward to watching the latest episode. Arakawa Under the Bridge is not as spectacular as Saint Young Men from what I have seen but always made me feel good after watching an episode. I hope the 2nd season can continue that feeling.

I had mixed feelings going into Arakawa Under the Bridge, while I thoroughly enjoy the humor of Hikaru Nakamura (also the manga-ka of Saint Young Men), Shinbo makes me wary. However, I found myself laughing heartily for most episodes and feeling an overall satisfaction with the show. The wacky premise of a colony of misfits living in a community under a bridge combined with the neurotic Kou joining their circle almost makes you feel at ease in the bizarre. Eventhough much of the humor relies on unexpectedness, the series has the ability to keep taking bigger leaps which allows for fresh moments to appear despite knowing characters’ schtick. Though some of the humor begins to fall flat at moments that rely too heavily on Kou being surprised. The first half is better than the second mostly because some of the resued jokes start to lose their luster and the later half deigns to tell us a semi-serious story which isn’t very compelling. The attempt to insert a plot to cap off the show was valiant but could have been better served by just bringing Kou and Nino closer together without all the rest. In fact, many episodes have just a moment of poignant brilliance (“We want to know who you are not what you have.”) which struck a better balance. The strange humor of Arakawa is certainly worth checking out even if it does ebb and flow at the end.

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One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island, Flower Power

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We talked at length about One Piece previously, but actually besides some random episodes and a few clips here and there, this movie is my first true foray into watching One Piece rather than reading it. My personal preference is to reading shonen manga, random fact, but with things like franchise movies it can be a good time to make an exception. However, greater than just the fun of films with favorite characters was the pull of director Mamoru Hosada whose work I wanted to explore further after enjoying The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars so. Starting with the sixth of the One Piece movies isn’t odd, especially because it is really unlike any One Piece you’ve seen before.

hisuiconBack in the age of chaos between the start of the infamous 4kids adaptation and the blessed license rescue by Funimation I would watch One Piece via fan subs as it was the only way to see a decent version of the series.  As I was working my way through the series I eventually caught up to the latest TV broadcast episodes so I decided to move onto the movies. Overall I was rarely impressed with any of the One Piece movies. Like every other long running shonen fighting series the theatrical films are almost all the same. They are very high budget filler episodes. They make a decent profit at the box office and spawn a bunch of lucrative merchandise but they are ultimately utterly forgettable in all respects. But every once and a while there is a shonen fighting movie that stand out. The 6th One Piece movie most certainly does not fit into the category of the standard formula.

This movie is of course an original one off but its unique qualities for this franchise making it anything but your standard silly adventure. The gradual build of the strange happenings feels like it is pulling you along and you’re compelled to see what is around the next corner. As the crew starts to realize something is very wrong, the entire show starts to take on a surreal quality. The movie, and the viewing of said movie, is like a dream or rather a dream you slowly come to realize is a nightmare. Even at the end of the film it is hard to say what all has taken place, what the crew will take away from the experience, or if they even remember it all.

hisuiconWe start with what seems to be a normal One Piece filler plot. The Strawhat Crew get an invitation to stay on a pirate resort island with all the amenities. When they arrive it is less than the spectacular vacation getaway they were promised and they are soon forced to play in a series of strange pirate games that are supposedly a test of the crew’s teamwork. Of course there is something more sinister going on in the background. But this is where things begin to really go off in their own direction. The story of Baron Omatsuri and the island go straight to horror without even stopping to pass go or collect 200 berries.

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