I mentioned last week briefly that I started watching Brave Police J-Decker which is kinda like if Tranformers was about police robots. I am up to 20 episodes thus far, almost half-way, and it is wonderful to see that is has a range. There is plenty of silliness to go around with like the fact that Deckerd (the main robot) uses a six-shooter a lot of the time, or the odd neighbors, the strange robots and their mysteries, and the many women who I’m pretty sure are in love with some of our robot heroes. Let’s not forget the names of these sentient hunks of metal like Power Joe (Kung-fu Detective) and Drill Boy (Soccer Detective) or McClane (Combat Detective) who claims to be a pacifist or the combined form Super Build Tiger! And of course the series is continually adding new robots and transformations for toys sake. But it has also had some fairly compelling episodes like the two-part story that introduces Shadowmaru (Ninja Detective) which gets a bit philosophical as we see freedom, what is means to be sentient, and sacrifice. Also you can’t not love the commissioner because he has amazing hair and responds that it “looks cool” when asked why they designed a robot in a certain manner. This show is tons of fun, sometimes engaging, has a fab opening, and is absolutely worth watching.

It came out a little too late for the spring preview but I finally got around to watching the first episode of Moshidora. It is an odd little series when you get right down to it. It is born from the idea of how do you make Peter Drucker’s Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices palatable to an audience of Japanese salarymen. The answer is obviously to center it around a schoolgirl. Minami Kawashima is the high schoolgirl in question who volunteers to take over as the manager of the baseball team in place of her sickly friend, Yuki Miyata, who has been hospitalized. After accidentally picking buying a business management book  she decides to apply the principles within towards her team. The team itself has a mixture of members with various levels of talent but they all seem to have broken spirits and various hangups. Minami herself used to play baseball but some incident in the past soured her on playing. The setup itself is a fairly standard baseball anime story of the new unsure manager has to whip the team that is a diamond in the rough into shape for Koshien. It is slightly amusing to see them cut to slide show styled title card when ever they mention certain business related key words. I am watching just because it is such an unusual blend sports and business anime. I am curious to see them play a game because I feel that is where this series will could prove its worth beyond a mere oddity.

Continue reading →