Category: Anime

Hataraki Man, Three times the speed of a normal worker!

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I had been interested in this series for a while. It probably started when I learned a little about it after seeing some of the artwork displayed at Kinokuniya.

Hiroko Matsukata is an editor at the entertainment magazine Weekly JIDAI. She is a workaholic that tends to even unnerve the other workaholics at her office. When she is facing a near impossible deadline she has been know to go into Hataraki (Working Man) mode and is able to do three times the work by blocking out everything else out and just working. Her love life seems to be on life support as she has a boyfriend, but they hardly ever seem to connect anymore due to their jobs. Hiroko is of course surrounded by a very colorful but extremely realistic cast of characters. This is the story of a hard working ambitious woman and the trials and tribulation of her career.

And while the show is about her, some of the episodes focus on one character that is surrounding her. So you get a lot of insight into the many people she encounters on a daily basis.

The Hataraki Man manga ran in the working man friendly seinen magazine Morning but most people categorize the manga and the anime as being josei. I have to say that it clearly has an appeal to both genders. I feel it leans towards josei if only for its strong, well written, female lead. Hataraki Man still retains a strong seinen feeling because although the story never ignores Hiroko’s romantic life it also never focuses on it more than any other part of her life as well.

My first question when I found out it ran in seinen magazine was, “Did a man write this?” Hiro is so well written, that I was going to have to pay major praise to the guy. She comes off as determined and competent without becoming a major bitch. However, that is not the case. A woman does write it and she is great at capturing the underlying emotions of a career oriented woman.

I feel this balance is what is what made this series so popular among women. A female lead who competes and succeeds in a male dominated workplace. As we mentioned in the post on shojo manga, much of shojo focuses primarily on the romance aspect and most josei is no different. But in focusing on Hiroko’s career we get a different type of manga that really fills a void. A salary-man manga for women who need a hero and role-model in a workplace that is not accustom to women taking positions of authority or power. There was even an article in the UK paper The Times about the manga’s effect on the Japanese work force.

Well, what I think is drawing is although we see Hiroko mostly through her pursuit of stories, you never feel that is the plot of what is going on. We learn about who Hiro is through her trials and tribulations at work but the series is in no way about the work, it is about the woman. I also like that she is not vilified for making her job the most important thing to her. Often times we see a story about a working woman but how her life is unfufilled in some way. Hataraki Man is telling a simple story about a woman who loves having a career and how that fills up her life.

Hiroko Matsukata is an excellent and well realized character but her coworkers are just as interesting and play off of Hiroko well. The chief editor of weekly JIDAI mostly acts as a comic relief character but has serious moments. Kimio Narita takes on several roles: friend, mentor, and a hard ass boss as his job and his personality require him to be. Fumiya Sugawara is the gruff paparazzi who often clashes with Hiroko. Her fellow female editors Maiko Kaji and Yumi Nogawa are both interesting looks into how you can be a successful woman in the industry while following alternative paths and philosophies to the one Hiroko Matsukata has taken. Her friend and coworker, Mayu Nagisa, represents a more stereotypical look at a female worker in an office environment. The newest editor Kunio Tanaka acts as a her greatest irritant by being Hiroko’s complete opposite in working philosophy. We also get to know several other people who work at the magazine and others outside of work. Each character gives us some insight into who Hiroko is while often having complete stories in their own right.

I have to say Tanaka represents the opposite of the Japanese work ethic and it is pure comedy gold seeing Hiro freaking out about it. Of course he is mostly oblivious. The stirking contrast gives good depth to them. In fact, all the characters in the office are distinctly different in the way they look, act, and view the world. I found myself intensely interested in a number of them and wished there was a little more time to get to know them.

I also feel the story telling is very organic. Stories started in one episode don’t necessarily have to be 100% concluded in the episode they start in. In the first episode for example, Hiroko writes a story uncovering a corrupt politician. The episode ends with a strong a definite conclusion but that does not mean that that story is never spoken of again. We later see other peoples’ reaction to the article, articles in other magazines about the politician, and follow subsequent articles being written about the politician throughout the series. This gives Hataraki Man a rich mature flavor that sets it apart and makes Hiroko’s life seem more realistic. Too often such a series would lend itself to each episode being very standalone and only certain key plot points every being ever carried over. Hataraki Man rises above that and gives you something to sink your teeth into.

This series is quite short (only 11 episodes) which, in my opinion, is a shame. It is the type of show that could go on and on with the way the stories are told. You tune in weekly for a little bit of Hataraki Man. You really only get a small piece of the pie. This could be attributed to the manga series being on hold, however since I haven’t read it I couldn’t really say. But Hiroko is the type of character you want to watch succeed and grow and change without having a real expectations of where she is going to end up.

I do find the place where the series ends very unusually. It ends on a very monuments event but not the type of event that a series of its type would normally. A manga would end on a big promotion, the completion of a monumental article, the conclusion of a major showdown, or the start of a new relationship. Instead the series ends on a personal tragedy and only begins to show how Hiroko beings to recover from it. Part of me wonders how much of the end is intentional and how much of the end is due to the fact that the author has placed the series on hold. Either way it gives the series a sense that no matter what happens Hiroko’s life and career go on. It shows us no matter what life throws at Hiroko she is always the Hataraki Man.

Gundam 00 Season 01, Don’t judge a series by its bishie character designs.

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In the future, the world has depleted almost all available fossil fuel reserves and the resulting energy crisis has led to the creation of gigantic solar collectors. These devices are set around the earth with three orbital elevators in place to service them. The countries of the world have divided themselves into three major factions each of which controls one of the orbital elevators. These world powers are now locked in a seemingly endless series of conflicts over control of these orbital elevators and the solar power that comes down from them.

Thanks to these new forms of energy, the Middle East has basically been rendered powerless creating a hot bed of turmoil. Also, the factions of countries controlling things aren’t very surprising. It is essentially the Americans and Japanese (the Union), the Russians and Chinese (the HRL), and the Europeans (AEU). It is a sad commentary to think 300 years in the future people are basically still fighting about the same things.

In response, a mysterious group know as Celestial Being has sprung up and is seemingly declaring war on war itself. With Mobile Suit technology far beyond that of any world power they intervene, they destroy anyone who would engage in armed conflict. They descend into the middle of any conflict and devastate both sides until they must stop fighting. Everyone wants the power of Celestial Being but no one seems to be able to muster the strength needed to stop or capture them. If anyone seems to be a threat to Celestial Being it is Celestial Being itself.

Everyone has some type of talented mobile suit pilot who might actually be formidable if they had the right equipment. Of course at the beginning Celestial Being has the element of shock, where no one has any idea what is going. But as the series progress the Gundam meisters get into some pretty close scrapes with their opponents. It really seems like only a matter of time before they can’t just slip by.

Gundam 00 is set in the Anno Domini era as opposed to the Universal Century like the original Gundam series, the Cosmic Era is Gundam Seed, or any of the other various time lines of other series. Since Anno Domini is the present I think this is meant to be the closest Gundam to real speculative future. Gundam 00 definitely deals with many more real life issues in a very clear manner than other Gundam series. I feel that other Gundam series deal with the horrors and sadness of war but they tend to do it on a very detached level. While not utterly gritty and down and dirty, it is the closest a Gundam series has ever gotten.

The thing about this series is it hits really close to home. Because of the issues it deals with and they way it is dealt with, it doesn’t seem like 300 years in the future, is seems just around the corner. Complete with never-ending conflicts over energy sources. It actually scares me, never have I watched a show like this and really felt like this is the world today. Bus bombings, attacks on civilians, war spilling over onto the innocent, and war-mongering are just a few of the real-life issues that come up. There is a lot of who is a terrorist, is Celestial Being one? What do you have to sacrifice for the greater good? Is there a good guy in this conflict? As the audience, it is interesting to be considering these things while watching a show.

This seems like an excellent show to write a scholarly paper on. I know there is some Gundam otaku working on one as we speak. Some clever history or sociology student can get a thesis out of Gundam 00.

I think we all have to admit that when the first trailer of this series came out everyone had a reaction to the character designs. These guys are far beyond the pretty of Gundam W, these are designs by a BL artist. It is so funny how things like this can color your reaction to a series. The girls in the series are gorgeous too, and each side has its bit of fan-service. I don’t think it is any less honest because of it. In fact, I find this series to be one of the most realistic and dark Gundam incantations.

All I remember were GUYS going crazy about how mad they were about all the girl in the series being fairly busty. Who knew that U.S. Gundam otaku were such prudes? Maybe they don’t want to admit they are secretly huge Loveless fans complete with cat ears. There were a few scenes of slight fan service and one or two “interesting” camera angels during the show but nothing gratuitous. I distinctly remember a scene in which the camera was clearly always centered on Sumeragi’s shapely bottom. But we got a decent amount of fan-service of the male Gundam meisters as well so everyone should be happy.

Our pilots (and other members) have all come to Celestial Being for various reason that we learn about as the series goes on. But you basically start to see the pattern of violence in their pasts thanks to war, corruption, and conflict and they want to stop that cycle. I’ll point out that the youngest is Setsuna at 16 but the rest are a little older, Allelujah at 19, and Lockon at 24. Tieria we don’t know about it although he definitely comes off as older. These varying ages seem to give some depth to their own inner turmoil and wisdom of the world.

To me Tieria does not come off as older as much as more of a jerk than anyone else. Something makes me want to punch Tieria Erde. As stated in our I Hate You Misa Misa article I don’t tend to develop strong diastase for characters but for some reason Tieria gets on my nerves. Something about his nasty attitude and “oh so mysterious” past really grinds my gears. Die Tieria! Die you nasty little male Rei!

Well, it is nice to not be the only one hating on characters! Although, in this series I don’t really have a undying desire to strangle anyone. But Tieria is not my favorite by a long shot, mostly because he is rather under developed and robotic. I took an immediate liking to Lockon and Allelujah. It was nice learning about all the other pilots and watching them move further away from the mold you think they are when the series begins. I was most happy about Setsuna because for the first ten episodes or so all I saw was Hiro Yui staring out at me. I think these comparisons are only natural because of the legacy of Gundam.

I think everyone took a liking to Lockon. He seems without a doubt the most human and easy going of the Gundam meisters. Alleujah gets a lot of development in the beginning and then sort of sticks the the background towards the middle. He gets some character development rather rapidly near the end as well. Setsuna starts off an a Hiro Yui clone but slowly starts to show that he has a soul and the ability to have emotions even if they are somewhat muted. His love story seems somewhat forced or at least a little bit rushed. I guess when you have a cast this big and so many major plot lines you sometimes have to cut corners.

One of the things I really loved about Gundam SEED was its strong female characters. And while I think they continue to create women like this in Gundam 00, I feel a lot of them get pushed the wayside instead of being fully realized yet. Sumeragi, who is the most developed female, is one of my favorite characters. She is a little older and has made a career as a tactical forecaster. She is also the in combat leader of our meisters. We know something serious happened in her past, my guess is some sort of miscalculation that cost a lot of innocent people their lives, and we know she is still punishing herself for it. Her strength and independence are only enhanced by her moments of vulnerability, like when she cries or when she needs a drink.

Sumeragi is undoubtedly one of the most developed characters who is not a Gundam meister. I’m sure that what ever that incident was in her past it will tie in with the main plot line eventually. I like Feldt but I feel they developed her just enough that you wanted to know more about her but not enough that you got a good feel of who she was. I assume we will be getting more of Wang Liu-Mei’s story and character in the next season. I think that the writers want you to be interested in Marina Ismail but I find her quite bland. Princess Princess just seems so generic and slightly moe. Maybe will we see her become more dynamic next season but right now she just comes off as a flat character. I am still waiting for a competent female pilot that is equal to the main male characters in piloting ability (that is not a horrible psycho bitch). Come on Feldt. Be the woman I know you can be! Be the pink haired Allenby Beardsley.

This series plot is really complex with a lot of players on the board. For a while it was hard to keep straight who was who and who they worked for and what they wanted. And the show is constantly giving you ten different peoples’ view of the situation. I really like this because it bring that “the whole world is involved with this” feel to it but it also makes it confusing at times. It is starting to solidify in my mind now but of course now there are traitors and the switching of side seems on the brink of happening.

There are distinctly characters who have very fluid allegiances and tend to back an idea more than any particular organization. Several characters switch sides, like in any Gundam series, but it seems more characters have secret agendas than normal. Even Celestial Being seems to have several layers and factions within it. From the beginning, they make it clear that the only person Ali Al-Saachez works for is Ali Al-Saachez. Of the three major powers I feel, I have the least idea of what the Advanced European Union is all about. They seem to have the fewest named characters and Patrick Colasour is practically a joke character. I did not have a hard time keeping up with who was who but I wish we had seen more of what defines each of the three major powers in the world.

Saji and Louisse are pretty far removed from the actually day to day battles (I doubt it will stay that way). But this adds a layer to the series that isn’t always done. They are just two kids going to school and dating but war destroys them anyway. Their story is really heart wrenching. I think all Gundam series what to show the terrible consequences of war but this small piece of this show does it quite poignantly.

Saji and Louisse are definitely not the same people they were at the beginning of the series that they are at the end. Both of them lose quite a bit during the first season and I don’t see their lives getting any better anytime soon. I also have a feeling that Saji and his sister being orphans is no simple coincidence. I think Saji’s parents death will eventually tie into the history of Celestial Being.

Clearly, we have rivals to our meisters (as the pilots are called) popping up giving us some great battles and interesting dialogue. We are graced with the charming Graham, captain of the flag pilots of the Union; and the very villainous Ali, a mercenary and self-proclaimed lover of war. Both of these guys add some much needed competition for our meisters.

Well there was one secret villain who I think we both thought was slightly over the top with his freaking golden gun and golden Gundam. Dorothy Catalonia and her freaky eyebrows would be proud. (BTW that is not a good thing.) In fact, I would go as far as to say it is if Dorothy Catalonia and Light Yagami had a child he would be equally megalomaniacal. I also got the feeling that Narutaki wanted to punch a certain female pilot squarely in the face until she stopped being a horrible character. But I think she was written to be such an easily hated character. Since not all the villains from the first season are coming back in the next season, I wonder how iconic the next batch of villains will be. Will we get the second coming of Char? Is it blasphemy to even suggest such a thing?

As per usual, no recent Gundam series would be completely without stellar opening and ending songs. I kind of come to expect this and I always look forward to who is going to do them. I can’t decide which opening I liked better. I love the L’arc-en-Ciel song more. But the actual opening for the Brilliant Green’s song is better, since the first opening looks like it is the Setsuna show and there are some other robot pilots hiding in the back room. I hope T.M.Revolution will do an opening for the next season!

All I want is more Feldt in the openings. Because in Season 2 she will be 18 so you don’t have to feel extremely dirty being attracted to her. I liked the first opening better overall but they were both very good. And you know in you heart you want Gackt to do the next opening. Dressed as Allelujah. In your bedroom.

Gundam 00 is the first Gundam series that is being split into two seasons. So for now we got 25 episodes and in the fall we will get the rest. Personally, I would like all of my Gundam in a row with small breaks here and there. However, I was pleased with the ending point of the first season. It was not a cliff-hanger and it was not in the middle of the action. The team of people making this really thought about how to make this season have closure but also leave you without all the answers. While speculation will certainly fly about what we see in the last few minutes of episode 25, we really have gotten the ending of part 1.

I know we have already started to throw around theories on the forums of how season 2 will start. The little epilogue shows enough of the surviving characters to really get us interested in what is going to happen in but not enough to be in any way conclusive. The ending is definitely decisive in terms of the overall main story arc but they leave enough things open to make a season 2. Certain characters fates are also ambiguous enough that I’m sure fans of them will be on the edge of their seats until next season.

Gundam 00 certainly doesn’t pull any punches, which is a bit refreshing. No one is safe from attack, death, or downfall. As the series goes it it pulls further and further away from the typical and kept me guessing about what was going to happen next. It certainly didn’t turn out predictable by any standards. It is really one of the best Gundam incantations in years.

It’s very true. About half way through the series they start killing off major characters left and right. You distinctly get the feeling that no one is safe and they don’t cheap out on it. So far when characters die they die no matter who they are. We have not had that many off screen “soap opera” deaths. I think this Gundam is one of the biggest departures from Gundam formula we have seen since they made G-Gundam but I think this departure really works. I wonder if this Gundam will revolutionize the mecha genre as much as the original Gundam did.

P.S. I think that Black Haro is the evil mastermind behind everything.

UPDATE: Gundam 00 is now licensed by Bandai!

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Zero Day Warez Duex!

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This is such a great experiment and am glad to be apart of their first go at it!

I was surprisingly impressed with the titles they chose to be the test case for streaming video in America. It seems like they did not randomly select two titles out of a hat and hope they work in the U.S. They picked a fantasy comedy and a dark Tokusatsu style action show. Since they are both fairly popular genres here they just might have a chance at doing well. As I wrote this up on Monday April 7th Druaga had 44,139 views and Blassreiter had 7,625 views on You Tube. That is not even counting the number of views both shows had on BOST TV and Crunchyroll. Are these the numbers that they had hoped they would do? I can’t tell but I think it was a success in terms of getting people to watch the shows online. How much of this will translate into financial success is still to be seen.

I was surprised to see the streaming quality is very low. You can download it for free, since you can name your own price, so there is really no reason to keep the stream super crappy. Sometimes I don’t want to clutter up my hard drive with a show or some people don’t have the space, or various other reasons for not wanting it. I would like to see that change, if only just a little bit better.

I’m not surprised at all. They really want you go to that donation page and hope that your throw a few bucks their way. I guess the idea is if you like what you see in the low quality stream they hope you will pay for the high quality download but if you don’t like what you see there is almost no chance you would pay anyway.I did find it a little bit odd that while Crunchyroll and BOST TV had the streaming videos as front page news on their sites it seemed that You Tube devoted almost no effort into making people aware these shows were now available.

I was shocked to see some people shelling out $30 to $50 on Crunchyroll for the first episodes! I myself paid $1 for Druaga and I didn’t download Blassreiter. Crunchyroll also throws in cute little incentives for paying, like badges and additional extensions like a ipod version of the episode. Okay maybe I am a dork, but I thought they were fun. So now I have some cute badges! Not like I wouldn’t have paid anyway.

I paid a dollar for both episodes. I think I will continue to pay for Druaga but Blassreiter did not hold my attention enough for me to continue to pay for it. I am hoping that these people playing $30+ are not just crazy and that they are basically paying up front for the whole season. Now the fact that you can download the episode without an minimum download might be a practice they stop after a while but I assume they are trying to see what works before they demand payment for a decently quality download. I also vaguely remember there being talk that the first two episodes could be downloaded for free and that there would be a minimum price on all the episodes after that. I might also be crazy.I think we both agreed that they might want to but some sort of reasonable minimum offering like 25 cents an episode. The streaming video could still be free but the higher quality download would come with a minor price tag.

Subtitles were good! Quite good! I thought it was apparent when I was laughing so hard while watching Druaga, clearly they were doing a good job or the jokes wouldn’t have worked so well. I am the Crimson Knight: Black Knight!But I came away knowing what was going on and there was not a bit of Engrish or bad grammar. I heard the BOST TV downloads have notes, I would be curious to see that. Especially for a show full of parody like Druaga.

I think I remember you catching a grammatical error during Blassreiter but I don’t think it was anything too horrible. Heck you can sometimes catch grammatical errors in non simultaneously released shows. All in all they seemed to be professional done by someone who has an excellent grasp of both languages.I did find it slightly odd they did not translate the opening and endings song for Druaga while they translated the end song for Blassreiter. They did not need the crazy flashy fan-subber style karaoke lyrics. They just need a simple translation for the songs. I know I generally like to know what the opening and closing songs are about and I know a big J-music fan like Nartaku must be greatly saddened by the lack of opening song lyrics. It’s certainly not a deal breaker but I hope it is something the correct in the future.

I do like subtitles for the opening, but as you mentioned the karaoke ones. I’m not a fan. I hate having 40 different subs in the opening to the point I can’t see what is going on. On that end it was nice to see a clean opening for the show, well with credits. I love openings, everyone knows how much effort is usually expended on them, so I would a bit more translation to go into them. Or on the download maybe it can be optional.

I guess we should actually mention if we liked the shows or not. I think it was clear that we both really enjoyed Druaga while we both thought that Blassreiter was rather mediocre and poorly paced.

Well, as we talked we realized Blassreiter is just not our cup of tea. However, I will mention that the dude on the ads for Blassreiter appears for about 10 second in the first episode. If HE is actually the main character I think I could like it. I am curious if anyone is going to bother fan-subbing these shows. And if they do is AnimeSuki going to list them?

I am really hoping that the fan-sub community sees that they are still plenty of shows out there that are not being subbed and pick up some old school classics instead. I know that is dream up there with cold fusion but I dream it anyway. Any fan sub group with any type of ethics or good sense will just leave these shows alone. I assume that we might see the normal groups of French, Spanish, and Italian fan-subbers still working on these shows since they did not get a legitimate release. I can’t be mad at these groups. Animesuki is usually a stickler for ethical releases so I can’t see them even thinking of putting up links to any groups that would dare sub these shows.

My only other question is why did they not include Special A in this download experiment. There are four major reasons or combinations of the following reasons that this show was not put up as part of the streaming project. The first is the might have might want to still release Special A in America with a conventional DVD release. The second is they might have figured it would be a wasted effort to try and sell a shojo anime in the U.S. considering most shojo anime tanks despite how popular the manga might be. The third reason is that Maki Minami or Hana to Yume might not have allowed them to release the shown in America through online distribution. Of the three titles coming out this season I assume that Gonzo has the least amount of control over Special A because it’s based on a preexisting work. Adding the forth reason is that it seems that Gonzo co-produced this show with AIC. Gonzo might be down with streaming shows here but that does not mean AIC wants anything to do with it.

I was just disappointed about Special A because it is actually a show that has had some real buzz behind it. The manga has recently hit shelves here and is gaining a fan following, but yes shojo does notoriously poorly. Maybe they will see how Host Club fares to decide about licensing S.A. But all in all I think Gonzo has a good mind behind what they are up to. I think it was a success but we will see what Gonzo says in the next few weeks I suspect.

Narutaki Currently!
Watching Hataraki Man
Reading Kekkaishi
Listening to Ayumi Hamasaki

Hisui (Brainwasher Detective) Currently:
Watching Macross 7
Reading Emma
Listening to Higurashi no Naku Koro ni by Eiko Shimamiya

Top 5 shows I plan to watch this season
1. Macross Frontier
2. Blade of the Immortal
3. Tower of Druaga
4. Vampire Knight
5. xxxHOLiC Kai