Category: Reviews

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya #001: I Think I Just Got Placed on a Watch List

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hisui_icon_4040 I feel like most people reading this post has probably already made up their mind about Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. And that is most probably for the best. As someone who has read pretty far into the manga this anime is based on I will state right here that it does not get more complex. This is not some deep deconstruction of the genre hidden in a pastel disguise lulling you into a false sense of security only to pull the rug out under your feet when you least expect it. It a show mostly for people who were REALLY upset that Illyasviel von Einzbern never got a path in Fate/Stay Night (BTW a majority of those people are very bad people). And they demand recompensation with some yuri undertones.

But I’m Hisui and this is Reverse Thieves so I’m going to watch this regardless and I might as well write about it.

So lets cut to the heart of the matter. I always go out of my way to mention that most magical girls shows are actually written for little girls. The demographic of older folks who watch the shows for less than the most upstanding reasons certainly exist but they are not the percentage of the audience some people assume they are.  But these older fans are a distinct and dedicated fan base and they occasionally get shows that cater to them. This is one of those shows.

That means we get Illya being less than dressed for about a quarter of the episode. While I can’t ever remember getting that much naked Illya anywhere past this point it does mean there will be a good amount of implied lesbian undertones,  fanservice, blue comedy, and obscure Type-Moon references. It is that kind of show.

So now we are all on the same page.

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Manga of the Month: Bamboo Blade

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Bamboo Blade (バンブーブレード)
by Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi

hisui_icon_4040 Sports manga while well respected in the fan community is in general sales poison. Moe has a vocal dedicated fandom that talks with their wallets but in generally maligned by the critical fandom. But moe being this Sriracha sauce of anime can be combined with almost anything. But much like Sriracha sauce moe hardly goes with EVERYTHING despite what some advocates might tell you and adding it to some things turns some people away without question.

I don’t necessarily dismiss a series just because it adds moe elements despite not having a blanket approval for anything that incorporates it. This applies to the sports genre as well. Some manga like Saki and its derivatives positively bathe in the aesthetics and form making it an acquired taste indeed. But Bamboo Blade wisely avoids that pigeonholing and reaches out to a broader fandom.  At its heart Bamboo Blade is a manga about kendo and friendship first and foremost and a series about cute girls and their problem second. This lets the story appeal to more than a simple niche audience.

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Smile PreCure! The Movie: Take a Look, It’s in a Book!

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When I recently reviewed the Kamen Rider Fourze movie, I noticed that one of its biggest appeals is that it let me revisit a series I really enjoyed with minimal baggage and maximum enjoyment. In that way, the Smile PreCure! movie has much of the same appeal. Smile PreCure! The Movie: Big Mismatch in a Picture Book! lets you return to the Smile world that has characters you love for one last ride while still having everything you enjoyed about the original.

Unless you just watched the original for Majorina Time or as fodder for your Wolfrun fan-fics. In that case, you should just be ashamed of yourself.

In fact, the movies have a lot of similarities when push comes to shove. They are both based on extremely long running franchises that have variable quality and mass market appeal. They are both fairly goofy iterations of their respective series with an emphasis on having a good time over drama. Both movies are self-contained stories inside a larger and more complex plot. They both take place near the end of the series so they let the cast use most of their high level powers but just early enough that none of the end game events of the series’ climax have started taking place. Both of them also have the old gaiden trap of being important enough that SOMEONE should have mentioned the events of the movie sometime during the TV series but don’t because that is how self-contained side stories work.

But most of all they are fun little stories that can be watched inline with the TV series as a long episode or after the TV series as a refreshing sorbet to complement the main course that is the main story.

I found the Smile PreCure! TV series to be a charming, feel-good show that brightened up my week. So, for the life of me I can’t imagine why I sat so long on this movie without watching it. Happily, it follows in the “everyone is hanging out and having a good time”-formula of the show.

Smile PreCure! The Movie: Big Mismatch in a Picture Book! This also happens to be the first PreCure! movie I’ve watched despite there being at least two for every year in recent memory. I had no idea there was an audience participation portion either!

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