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Ongoing Investigations: Case #194

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narutaki I read Love Attack vols. 1-6 which was released by TokyoPop a while back, sadly that is all they did before the company went under. It is a super not serious romantic comedy about “the scariest couple in high school” Chiemi and Hirata. They both have a tendency to punch first and ask questions later, these two rough-and-tumble characters fall in love after Chiemi flying kicks Hirata. Hirata was so overwhelmed by his love that he asks her out in the middle of class.

One thing that really stood out to me was these two actually have fights, knock-down drag-out “you are a freakin’ idiot” fights, which is definitely a rarity. Again, it isn’t super serious either so it adds a lot of comedy to them and those around them trying to get out their path of destruction.

Still, deep down they are a really sweet couple who are very much in love. Yeah, they are idiots but loveable idiots. Watching them get to know each other and grow closer bit by bit is really endearing and fun. Over the years of reading shojo, I’ve gotten more and more interested in series where the characters are dating as opposed to trying to come together right up until the end.

The obstacles in the series are totally insane and over the top from Chiemi’s father locking her in a cell so Hirata can prove he is man enough to take her back; to the latest pretty guy who tries to seduce Chiemi who subsequently kicks him so hard he flies into a wall rendering him unconscious and then she feels bad and cooks him dinner; everything has the volume turned up. All the misunderstandings that invariable come are handled quickly and usually with comedy and a face punch as opposed to dragged out sulking.

The support characters have also captured me as Chiemi’s best friend Yuka starts to fall for Hirata’s friend Ohno. When she rushes to tell Ohno her feelings and is thwarted, she realizes she doesn’t need to hurry because her feelings won’t change over night. She can stay close to Ohno and slowly open his heart. I’d read a manga just about these two.

It is a shame there is no more available in the States, but a group of scanlators have picked it up so I’m hoping I’ll be able to see it through to the end.

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For an upcoming episode of The Cockpit I stated watching Heavy Metal L-Gaim. It was a good choice as it takes me one step closer to my goal of watching all the Tomino shows. It began in 1984 so in terms of Tomino’s TV output it was right after the mega uplifting Aura Battler Dunbine and before the equally heartwarming Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (that was sarcasm for the uninformed). From the first episode it is clearly not as dark as the shows around it but I don’t think it is as lighthearted as say Xabungle as well.

I know that Method to Madness likes to count the minutes to the first panty shot when watching fan service shows. Well there is no count in L-Gaim. We open up in the first scene with Amu Fanneria’s underwear right in your face. This is a running theme in this episode. We don’t see her unmentionables in every scene she is in but they are hardly an unfamiliar sight by the end of the episode. As Twitter informed me this tends to be more of fan service show than you might expect.

Amu Fanneria starts being chased by some mecha but it is all a ruse. She is actually a honeypot that is sent out to be rescued as a damsel in distress so she can help steal equipment from the unlucky sap who recuses her. So the hornball Kyao Mirao and the more gentlemanly Daba Myroad get caught up in her trap as her bandit gang tries to steal their hover truck and mecha. But soon Amu decides to join up with Daba after seeing how handsome he is.

As is the Tomino way.

This is an unusual in-between from Tomino’s either deadly serious mecha show tragedies and his slapstick comedies. Any scene with Amu Fanneria is mostly played for laughs but there are also people dying after breaking their spines  and having their hands chopped off like it was a “Kill ‘Em All Tomino” show. I have yet to watch any Tomino show that started so clearly straddling his two normal modus operandi.

I’m also curious because this is the show that seems to have annoyed Mamoru Nagano enough for him to make The Five Star Stories (whose anime would annoy him enough to make Gothicmade). While the show has a very Tomino style it is also clear that Nagano created the characters and robots. The L-Gaim look like a AV-98 Ingram and a Mortar Headd had a baby. So I am curious how much Nagano has  a legitimate gripe about Tomino ruining his grand vision that he had for L-Gaim. As far as a I can tell his problems with the the Five Star Stories movie were mostly in his head. But Tomino can be very variable (to be kind) in his work so Nagano might have legitimate gripes.

Well episode one alone makes it a bit hard to judge the story. The overarching plot has yet to be fully introduced. Some story seeds have been dropped but until I am farther into what is going on I can’t make a good judgment on the show.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Our Aestivalis Are Invincible

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Ichi, ni, san, shi, ni, ni, san, shi!

Patz and I look at the classic mecha show Martian Successor Nadesico on his podcast the Cockpit. The series is one part comedic parody of all things sci-fi, one part loving homage to anything that would be in a Super Robot Wars game, and one part serious mecha drama. While the show has never been king of the roost it has always had a unique place in mecha fandom. Now that Nozomi Entertainment recently license rescued Nadesico it is a great time to not only examine what makes this show special but what the RightStuf has added to this release of the show.

In Part One we look at just the TV series. Part Two (which will hopefully come out soon) will examine the Gekigangar 3 OVA, The Prince of Darkness Movie, and briefly touch upon some of the oddity with the games and the ultimate fate of the series.

The Cockpit – Episode 2A – You Get To Burning

Ongoing Investigations: Case #191

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Rental Magica seems like a fairly solid premise to me. The anime is about a magical organization that hunts down case of abnormal magic in the modern age. It seems to have a decently eclectic number of magic users and the school of magic seem well researched. The original light novels were written by Makoto Sanda who worked on the original Record of Lodoss War series and is working on Red Dragon with several other artists. It really seems like something that would be in my wheelhouse. But sadly the actual show itself does not live up to its promise. The show itself in not really bad. In fact it is extremely inoffensive. It is just not really interesting as well. It is like plain rice with boiled tofu. It is not totally tasteless but at the same time it is hardly exciting.

The main problem is that characters don’t really have any spark to them. Itsuki Iba is the head of the Astral company and he is just a milquetoast weenie. The sort of guy that bland harem heroes push around. It does not help that his running shtick is that he passes out every episode. He has a magic eye that when unsealed makes him super competent but that moments are few and far between. And even then he is sort of boring when he is in Glam Eye mode. It does not help that Naruatki and I could not stop snickering when ever they said Glam Eye despite the fact that I know that Glamour is the name for faerie magic. The main girl is a mix of the childhood friend and the angry girl. Her Celtic Magic is fairly cool but it hardly makes her character interesting. The rest of the company is a cat obsessed Onmyoudou expert, a little Shinto Priestess, and their mysterious secretary. There is also a blonde foreign sorceress who uses the Key of Solomon. Again there is nothing wrong with using well-worn archetypes. But you have to breathe some life into them.

The stories have a spark of possible interest to them. You have haunted hospitals and cursed shires which have some good story seeds in them. But like that characters the potential is there but the execution never capitalizes on what is there. It’s never boring. It just never engages you like it needs to.

I will say the show is interestingly fan-service free. There are plenty of opportunities to flash some panties, have girls popping out of their uniforms, or walk in on people changing. But so far no boob grabs or learning cameras. It seems like the type of show that would revel in such tactics but oddly enough it keeps itself inline.

The main problem with Rental Magica is not that it is a hard show to hate. In fact I would say it is super hard to hate it. The problem is there is not much to love as well.

I recall watching the first episode of Rental Magica when it was first coming out in Japan and feeling very negative about it. Watching eps. 1-6 now, I found it rather inoffensive because the show is just rather bland more than bad.

Our lead hero, the president of Astral, is so unassuming that I’d forget he even existed if the girls didn’t make such a fuss over him. He is always fainting or getting injured, and when I say always I mean it. In these episodes he passes out at least seven times, falls off a bike, falls down a flight of stairs, breaks his leg, and I’m probably forgetting some stuff. This is supposed to make him incredibly noble and whatnot.

The two lead girls are more interesting. Honami working for Astral and Addie working for Goetia are rivals fighting for magical jobs. They are also both fighting for the love of Itsuki, I try to say this in the most monotone voice possible. I truly think the series missed its moment to shine by making this show about the love between these two rival witches instead. Their interactions have the most bite in the show.

Rental Magica comes from that era of anime that decided to broadcast its episode out of order, riding on the coattails of Haruhi. They of course do this without really thinking it through or with a greater reason for changing the order of things. Maybe it shows greater purpose for it later, but in these first episodes it is just confusing. There were no grand surprises because I didn’t know certain information or any “aha” moments. If I didn’t know about the broadcast order VS. chronological order, I would have thrown up my hands in frustration wondering why people didn’t know each other among other things.

There is nothing special about Rental Magica. The story, the characters, their interactions with each other, even the animation are all mediocre and unmemorable. Can’t hate it, but there is nothing to recommend here.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

Continue reading →