Recent Reading: The Flowers of Evil Vol 2

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Chris Biewer

This week we continue our review of The Flowers of Evil series, volume 2 in particular from Vertical. If you haven’t checked out the review of the first volume, you can see that here.

Volume 2 sticks close to the anime series if you watched it online via crunchyroll. The contract between Kasuga and Nakamura continues, only things get a little complicated since Saeki starts to play a more pivotal role in the series. Saeki and Kasuga go out on a date and begin a relationship all while Kasuga is hiding his secret of the gym uniform from the first volume. Nakamura starts to interact more with Saeki as well playing the role of a potential instigator by telling Kasuga something about Saeki that may turn out to be a lie. In a way, Kasuga starts to develop a second life. His first being the book nerd student at school who is dating Saeki, one of the prettiest girls in school. The second life involves him sneaking around with Nakamura and keeping his secret buried. A secret that plants the seed of an inner struggle.

As the story progresses we can see more and more of the characters dynamics intertwine and how they are starting to develop for the rest of the series. We get more of an insight to the dynamic between Nakamura and Kasuga that begins to show deeper layers than just the contract that was agreed upon that I can only assume will get deeper as the story evolves. The relationship between Kasuga and Saeki is just starting to get underway and should start to be expanded on in future volumes.

Kasuga and Nakamura have their own inner struggles and we catch glimpses of each. Kasuga is torn on what type of person he is and the battle is played out over his choice of which female classmate he wants to be with. Nakamura feels trapped and suffocated in the countryside town the characters live in. This trapped feeling is something that Nakamura feeds to Kasuga and he starts to feel suffocated by the countryside.

The second volume closes on a notable scene with some great artwork. The scene is beautifully animated in the series and plays an interesting dynamic in the future of the story (at least it did in the anime series and assuming the manga and anime continue to parallel one another). The scene is important for more than just the beautiful artwork, in a way it solidifies Nakamura and Kasuga as a unit instead of two individuals.

We get more of an inside glimpse into the characters in volume 2 and each of the characters are becoming deeper, meaning we are allowed to see more of their character and what drives or frustrates them, and the few things that make them happy.

Recent Reading: The Flowers of Evil Vol 1

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Chris Biewer

I have been trying to catch up on some reading and I had to revert back to volume 1 of “The Flowers of Evil” by Shuzo Oshimi since it has been a while and I had to get caught back up. I reviewed the anime a while back and since the chances of a season 2 are probably pretty slim, I wanted to see the story to the end and picked up the manga. Here is the volume 1 cover.

One of the first things you will notice is the lighter art style. The artwork doesn’t get bogged down with a heavy use of tones. Here is an image of the manga art but also the side-by-side anime adaptation as well.

As for the story, it revolves around Kasuga who lives in a small town in rural Japan. He loves books and he feels that no one really understands his love and knowledge for books.
One day while walking home from school with his friends, he realizes he forgot his book back at school and turns back to go get it. While back at the classroom he sees that someone forgot their gym clothes in the school. Kasuga walks over and checks them out; discovering that they belonged to a girl in class he likes Saeki. Suddenly, Kasuga hears a noise and in his moment of panic runs out of the school with the gym uniform all the way back home. Kasuga finds himself in a whole new predicament when he finds out a girl in class witnessed him take them clothes, Nakamura. Nakamura promises Kasuga his secret is safe with her as long as he enters into a contract with her. Kasuga must now obey Nakamura or his secret will be known by everyone in class.

One of my favorite aspects of this series is the character development. The manga and anime remain true to one another in that regards and so far the manga and anime seem to be on the same storyline for the first volume. I also enjoy some of the artist’s notes throughout the book as he usually mentions real-life inspiration behind some of the scenes, people and authors that are mentioned in the story.

I will be posting up further reviews on the series. If you are currently reading the series, volume 8 will be out in early January from Vertical.

Recent Reading: Tropic of the Sea

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Chris Biewer

I was cruising through the local used book/music/movie shop in town and I discovered “Tropic of the Sea” by Satoshi Kon. I heard vaguely of the title a little while back, it was one of his earlier works and it was finally getting a release in the US. Check out the cover below…

The story is all wrapped up into one stand alone volume so there is no need to chase after subsequent volumes. If you are curious of the artwork, here is a page sample as well…

The story revolves around a family that overseas the Mermaid’s Egg at a shrine. The city the shrine is located in is undergoing some transformations and is under construction to become more of a tourist destination. Through the story there is a little bit of a struggle between natural beauty and economic development of the area, which made me wonder if this was more about a social commentary on the issue or if it is intended to be the backdrop for the story.

Yosuke is the main character of the story (he is feared in the above artwork in the bottom middle panel with dark hair), he is set to become the next keeper of the Mermaid’s Egg. The town has a festival to celebrate the occasion and the economic developers attend. The Mermaid’s Egg becomes an object of desire for the developer and Yosuke and friends must retrieve the egg so the seaside city can have great fortune in terms of fishing.

Originally the story was released in a weekly magazine, so there are a few little pacing hiccups. I am not sure if they were the breaks in between volumes or not. They can be a little distracting if you read multiple chapters at once.

In terms of artwork, I find the style very refreshing. Personally I enjoy less toned work that seems to be the norm in todays market, just a personal taste. I like pages that seem lighter and less heavy through dark tones and blacks.

The story isn’t quite what I expected. The title makes no reference to mermaids and the actual story doesn’t deal a lot with mermaids either. Despite not being what I expected (for better or worse), it was a fairly light read with no complex story lines and was a nice way to pass some nights. The story was enjoyable and could have easily been made into an OVA when the story was published.

I have heard some complaints about the story, artwork etc. I didn’t have a problem with the title. If you are interested in a one off, short read narrative give it a shot. The book is available from Vertical. Production Update Monday before the holiday!

Recent Viewing: Pacific Rim

Posted on December 12, 2013 by Chris Biewer

I have had several friends tell me since the Pacific Rim hit theaters that I needed to go and see it. They said that if anime was ever made into a movie, it was going to be this flick. It was some big statement to make, but I finally gave in and decided to check it out.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag&w=560&h=315]

If you watched the trailer, it basically summed up the premise of the movie. The giant monsters called Kaiju are wreaking havoc on cities and it is up to man to pilot giant robots called Jaegers to take them on. Each Jaeger is composed of 2 pilots that need to merge minds in order to operate the robot. So the plot follows some of you standard mecha series/films plot points.

One of the knocks on the film when it first came out, and one of the positives for some people, were that they felt the film followed Neon Genesis Evangelion too closely. I recall both points from social media when the movie was out, which was one of the reasons I stayed away for a bit. The bipolar effect of the film was astounding. It seemed as if it was a love or hate movie.

I fall into neither tent in regards to the film. I thought there was some good things about it and also some turn offs. Let’s start with the positives.

From an art standpoint, I thought the film was great. The CG was awesome and I felt the kaiju were interesting, even if they didn’t appear a little dark in terms of color, which is really only an issue if you want to see more detail. It was nice to see actual creatures instead of other robots or humanoid type opponent.

The cities and environments were bright and vivid. Areas with neon lights and scenes with bright skies and even the memory scene were all fun sets. The bright color added a lot and made the scenes more interesting overall as well as providing a sense of character. Conversely, some of the scenes that took place in the water were less entertaining to me since I didn’t feel like there was a good sense of where things were since they were out in the open.

I felt the pacing of Pacific Rim was fair. It followed the traditional action movie of starting off with a big action sequence and and filling in story as it progressed. I like stories that do this, in my opinion it jump starts the process of making the audience care for a character.

Now onto the things I felt were a little lacking in the film. In my opinion the acting left quite a bit to be desired. Several of the characters seemed to be too over the top and there were several characters that seemed a little more cold and uninteresting in terms of tone and overall character. I didn’t really feel anything in particular to the main characters. There was a lack of something (maybe charisma?) in the main character that I couldn’t get full behind him at times. His character seemed a little bit too formulaic and the performance was a little flat. The characters that were over the top, I felt should possibly have been more reserved and a couple of the heroes of the story should have been the larger than life and in your face characters.

My other negative point also feeds off of the bipolar emotion the film invokes and that is some of the storyline points. It seems as if the formulaic points of the characters also made their way into the story, but not all. The montage of kaiju attacks at the start of the film explaining their origin and such I thought was great. I also thought the end of the film was unique, but I feel that other things in the middle were as a result of a formula. Like they had a great start and end but highjacked the middle of a typical mecha or action story. The world and characters should have been more open to an unconventional line. I don’t want to spoil any of the story in case you want to check out the film, but I would be interested in others points of view if you thought the story and such suffered from that or not.

I don’t want to really touch the topic of if the film “stole or borrowed” too much stuff from Neon Genesis Evangelion. In my opinion I didn’t feel like it really did. For all the things I heard I was expecting more things inspired by Evangelion but I didn’t see anything too obvious. The kaiju have different origins than the Angels in Evangelion, the mechs are different, the characters in Pacific Rim don’t suffer from all of the mental disorders as the characters in Evangelion do as well. The main characters do not cross over, the ages aren’t the same, even some of the genders aren’t the same. I saw no Misato or Rei characters in Pacific Rim. The mech designs I would say are more inspired by a Gundam franchise. While there were some similarities, I didn’t feel as if anything was ripping anything off.

Overall it was a solid film that I am sure I will rematch here and there. I haven’t checked out the special features yet though either. A second film is rumored to be in the script writing phase so it is unknown yet if a second film will be out. The US release didn’t do that well, but it did well overseas.

Recent Viewing: Tsuritama

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Chris Biewer

When I was traveling in Japan last summer, I came a cross an advertisement for the show Tsuritama. The cardboard characters, with fishing gear in hand, were the first fishing characters I really recalled. Of course there was characters in shows, but not a show entirely about fishing. So I put the show on my radar and Sentai Filmworks released it in the US. It took me some time to get around to watching all 13 episodes, but I made it through the show. Check out the trailer and review below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQBw_XrZWkw&w=560&h=315]

First off, I must admit that when I was growing up I fished a ton, almost every day in the summer since I lived about a half mile from the river in the city I would ride my bike and take my fishing pole and gear. So I was really interested in seeing a fishing series and had to watch it.

(*cut out advertisement in Japan)

The premise of Tsuritama centers around Yuki, a new student at Enoshima and an alien friend he makes named Haru. The first half of the series focuses on character development (like most shows, of course), but Yuki also starts to develop his fishing skills. The show follows a little bit of a formula in which one of the characters doesn’t know much of a certain topic, in this case fishing, so the audience learns some things with the character.

The later half of the series (which runs 13 episodes) fleshes out the underlying plot of the story. Overall I felt the series was a fun and entertaining series. Nothing groundbreaking, I can’t imagine anyone calling this a must-watch series, but if you want a unique title, give Tsuritama a shot. The education of fishing throughout the series isn’t super realistic or too advanced that it could be a turn off.

The music for Tsuritama is light hearted and fun, it matches the art style of the show. The backgrounds are a little untraditional. Most anime backgrounds are designed to look traditionally painted, with brushstrokes and all, or more recently, 3D backgrounds. Tsuritama employs backgrounds that appear as if they are cel shaded, so the same style as the characters are typically done. It was a unique style that I haven’t really seen before, so I enjoyed it very much.

If you are an Evangelion fan, the voice actresses of Asuka and Misato are used for a couple characters in Tsuritama. I always enjoy hearing familiar voices and trying to trace who they are. There is even a cute animal sidekick in the show, Tapioca the duck.

Here is a little more on Tsuritama from Anime News Network.

Recent Viewing: Gantz (Live Action)

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Chris Biewer

It’s good to have a little free time again. I wanted to write about one of my favorite franchises. I need to first be up front and say that I am a pretty big Gantz fan, so with that in mind, check out the trailer below and we will see you on the other side.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuuHv1rZMhE&w=560&h=315]

First off, Gantz is broken into a couple films, and this is a review of the first one only. The trailer above showcases clips from both films. For those who aren’t familiar with the Gantz universe, it started as a manga series before being adapted into an anime series and eventually into live action films.

The premise of the franchise is that when people die they are taken to a room by a black orb and are given weapons to hunt aliens for points. I haven’t finished the manga series yet, I have completed the anime series a few times and am now working on the live action films.

The first film covers the first several games of the Gantz series. The live action adaptation has its ups and downs. As with any series, when condensing it down into a film you have to make sacrifices. In this case, the sacrifices came at the cost of character development. At times I felt they were stringing key scenes and buzz words from the anime series. It is probably some unfair harsh criticism, since I do hold the anime series in a pretty high regards from a character development stand point and also from a social commentary stand point. I felt they lost some of that in the first film.

The visual effects were pretty solid for the film, nothing to complain about. The film from an action stand point is also solid. If you are looking for an entertaining and action packed film, Gantz may be worth checking out. If you are a fan of deep character development, you may want to check out the anime series instead. The film takes a lot of inspiration from the manga series, even though the manga and anime are very similar for the first several volumes.

I think I am going to check out the second film at some point and see which direction it goes as well. It is possible the second film will focus on more of the character development too. I won’t know until I check it out 🙂 If you have watched Gantz, I would love to hear your point of view. Like I said, I am a little impartial because I enjoy character development above all else.

Recent Viewing: Kenshin (Live Action)

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Chris Biewer

When I was first getting into the anime scene in high school, Kenshin was one of the more well known titles to fans at the time. We didn’t have the abundance of streaming options and a few select titles were making their way to late night TV. I enjoyed Kenshin for the most part, but was never a really big fan of the series, admittedly.

Regardless, it was good news to hear that Japan was making a live action film. Some of my friends posted images of the film shoot and slowly but surely I was getting more and more excited for the film, even though I haven’t rewatched the anime in close to ten years at this point. I recall the second season being really good, but found myself forgetting some of the events in the first season.

When I was at A-kon earlier this summer, they had a screening but I missed out due to the lines for registration and pre-registration 🙁 So at this point I figured I wasn’t going to really get a chance to check it out. Then to my pleasant surprise, it was screened at this years SGMS. So how was it?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq4O1zHyJqo&w=560&h=315]

The story of Kenshin revolves around him being a top assassin during the war, but when the war is over, the age of the samurai is as well marking the start of the Meiji Era (I believe this is right, my Japanese history is a bit lacking). So Kenshin takes up a life of not killing, however, other wandering swordsman continue their search for the legendary assassin so they can have their crack at killing him.

The actors and actresses fit the characters well from what I recall, although some of the characters I didn’t remember (mostly some of the villains). Since I also haven’t seen the anime for a while, I wasn’t able to track how closely they followed the storyline (which is a completely different situation than my viewing of Gantz, which will be up next week). So The I wasn’t relegated to knit-picking the story progression to the manga or anime.

I was really thankful for that, because I enjoyed the film since I some of the characters and story seemed new to me. There were a few kinda awkward moments in the film that took it down a notch for me. Mostly there was a pretty harsh cut in the film in the latter portion that took me out of the film. I didn’t feel like they had to do such a harsh cut, they could have added in another scene or something to help smooth out the transition, or at least some dialogue. That was mostly the only issue I felt in terms of editing. The other moments were a couple lines of dialogue and weird moments of silence, even though I could see those being winks to the anime or manga.

I would be interested to hear what Kenshin fans thought of the film. I talked to one of my friends and she thought the film was really good, so it seems for fans it is a worthwhile film. The film has done well enough that a sequel is in the works as well. I must admit I am pretty excited for this because the second season of the anime was awesome and featured one of my favorite villains in my early anime years.

Conference Recap: 2013 SGMS

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Chris Biewer

As promised, I thought I would recap this year’s experience at the Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (SGMS) conference that I attended, located in Minneapolis MN. This was my 4th year going and my 3rd year presenting. This year I presented on Studio Madhouse, how they got started and how they evolved over the years. Recently I have been intrigued by the collaboration aspect of animation and studios, so I wanted to trace the roots of my favorite studio, Madhouse. Some of their works include, Deathnote, RedLine, and Summer Wars.

SGMS is an very interesting conference, in the regards that it isn’t like a convention like you may think. Instead, presenters discuss a topic that they have researched and share them in panel discussions that are in similar areas. The presenters range from college professors, to fans that want to share their research with the audience. Personally I tend to share animation based content since I am an animator and enjoy researching it. It is nice to hear presentations about cultural and academic aspects of anime, because quite frankly, anime gets a pretty bad stereotype based of a select few titles of what people may have seen or heard.

Anyways, this year there were presentations ranging from the rise of Kpop music in Japan to the retirement of Miyazaki and even the changes of the word “otaku” through the films of Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue and Paprika). There were some panels on the evolution of fandom, the anime industry and government regulations. The keynote speaker talked about Fukushima and his work to help the area recover since it isn’t an easy solution. He gave a presentation and later he returned in the weekend for a Q/A panel that he graciously went over time with because we all had so many questions for him regarding Fukushima and other cultural aspects.

At night, we also had some film screenings. This year we saw the live action Kenshin film (review next week) and I also watched the screening of Wolf Children, again. The film gets better every time I see it, can’t wait for it to be released.

I am already thinking of topics for next year’s conference and look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Recent Viewing: Attack on Titan

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Chris Biewer

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luYOt2-c2TI&w=560&h=315]

The above trailer belongs to a series called Attack on Titan. It was a series that I watched in spurts when I had some downtime because the title has a pretty big buzz associated with it. The fact that you are reading this is evidence of that. You are either reading what another viewer thought or you have heard something about the title and are interested in knowing more.

I am going to start by being completely honest, I think this title is going to be a big series for the anime community when it gets released in the states (by FUNimation). The series is a stark contrast from a lot of the titles that are coming out. Attack on Titan is not a series based in comedy, not a musical promotion anime and not one for the harem crowd either.

The series takes place in a world where humanity has retreated to within tall walls to prevent “Titans” from getting in. Titans are giant fleshless human creatures that exist to wipe out humanity. There are various classes of Titans, some 12 feet tall and some with abilities, as you will see in the show.

The animation of the series is pretty enjoyable. Some have griped about the color palette, I personally didn’t mind it. There were lots of earthy tones, some oranges, tans, etc. I felt as if it felt the world they were portraying well. Considering the circumstances of the story, they wouldn’t have various colored buildings, etc. The action scenes are animated well, with several shots having unique camera views.

The soundtrack to the series enhanced the animation and the unique story. I was watching the stream so the title isn’t dubbed yet. I am excited to see the dub when it is eventually released. The opening tracks by Linked Horizon are some of the catchiest openings I have heard since Evangelion and Deathnote.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OkpRK2_gVs&w=560&h=315]

While the trailer provides a unique look at the world and the story, it really doesn’t do it justice. There is so much more to the series than story outline I described, but I want to avoid spoilers for readers who haven’t streamed it this season. Let me put it this way, Attack on Titan may be an early favorite for my presentation for next year’s SGMS conference.

Have you watched it yet? If not, go check it out on Crunchyroll, I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Recent Viewing: Penguin Drum Season 2

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Chris Biewer

I am a few days late on my review of Penguindrum Season 2, but when I sat down to write about it, I realized I needed a few more days to gather my thoughts. My initial reaction to the series was that I thought it was great, but at the same time there were so many layers to it, that I realized I couldn’t write a full on review of it without watching it a few more times to peel back each layers. I also instantly felt that I needed to do a research paper on the whole series because I felt that there was so many thing they were trying to say.

Let’s start with explaining the basic premise of the story. There is a sister, Himari, and her two brothers, Shoma and Kanba. Himari is terminally ill and one day while at the aquarium, Himari dies. Himari wears a Penguin hat that brings her back to life, but in order for her to continue living, Kanba and Shoma must find the “penguin drum”. Along their way of searching for the penguin drum they come across several interesting characters, Mr Tabuki, Natsume, Ringo and more.

You can read my review of the first half of Penguindrum here. Season 2 wrapped up the series and this review is going to be more along the lines of the whole series. Overall, season 1 was a mix of comedy, character backstories and hints of a larger plot that came to fruition. Towards the ending of Season 1, we received glimpses of a new character and potential story paths, but we could see how some of the characters were going to start having intersecting story arcs.

Season 2 starts to expand on these storylines and we learn more about what the Penguindrum is. At the same time we start to see a dark side of some of some of the characters and even darker areas of their backstories. I don’t want to spoil the series for anyone because I highly suggest for people to check this series out. I personally felt the series was written to make you view it several times, which are the types of series I enjoy. I give the show high ratings based on that. I reserved the right to change my opinion after a few more viewings so I can determine if I can make sense of potential arcs.

Season 2 saw a more direct influence of terrorism as an element, which coincides with an actual terrorist attack that took place in Tokyo. This angle of inspiration or creator statement, is one that really interests me. I am thinking next year, I might research this topic further.

There is also possible directions in Japanese society and in particular, homelessness and possibly homeless children. There are sprinkles of a fate vs destiny debate as well. With so many paths and influences towards characters actions, it is hard to write a non spoiler review of the series. That isn’t even touching on the purpose of the penguins as in the series as well.

I highly suggested the series to a friend and he read episode summaries before watching the series. He told me after he marathoned the show, he regretted reading the summaries. The episode summaries do not do the show justice. The best comparison I have heard in regards to Penguindrum, is the show is like a scenic train ride. It takes you from point A to point B, but along the way you see so much interesting stuff that you can’t explore at the time and makes you need to revisit it several times. Once you are through the show, you are no longer distracted from an entertainment stand point, and you can start to focus on things that escaped you the first viewing.

I will touch on the series again at a later date, once I am able to view it a couple more times. I hope you give it a watch 🙂 Penguindrum is licensed by Sentai Filmworks in the U.S.

Cosmic Rage

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