So, the return of MSR. This is the part of the blog where I’ll arbitrarily place two shows together for no apparent reasons and ask them to play Twister against each other for all out chattiness to see who knows more about Nolan’s secret to The Last of Us multiplayer. I like shows which have a rather focused creative mindset instead of having too many cooks in the kitchen disrupting the narrative flow, and here are two of them.
Death Parade – ep1~6
Back in 2013 came a show called Little Witch Academia which dominated all the attention in Anime Mirai, however within the same outing there’s another quality clip in Billiards. With a concept that’s rather unique and refreshing, and the presentation as great as expected for an OVA for special events, there’s a smaller but a tighter cult following for that short. Fast forward to 2015, there’s an extension of the concept into a full 1-cour tv series. Director and Written by Yuzuru Tachikawa, Death Parade is both his first role as a full fledged director, but also his baby from start to finish. For a show that’s controlled by a single creative mind, it will tell you a lot about his philosophy and his capability in making a meaningful story. So, being one of the most anticipated series pre-season and one of my favourite ep1 impressions, how did this show turns out?
Those of you who read my weekly post would notice that I’m having a massive fluctuation in terms of reception to this show. After the brilliant ep1, this series revealed its soft underbelly in the explanation ep2 that left a horrible taste in my mouth. While it started to climb back slowly, the initial magic is no longer there. What it does well since then though, is to give us a huge variety of emotions given the same setup. It’s heartwarming, confounding, bloodpumping, and just outright hilarious. Episodic shows has the inherent advantage of able to switch up the mood between episodes, and the latest episode just showed what it is capable of. It’s no longer the one trick pony that many feared, but at the same time the quality will also vary depending on how you view the different tones.
On the production level, this show looks really amazing. As expected from Madhouse, it is just high quality since the very beginning. The Opening is just one of the most bizarre yet amazingly fitting choice, while the Ending song always closes out any emotional episodes on a very strong note. The wide range of seiyuu casted also brought a diverse experience each episode. I truly enjoy those special appearances and how little by little the Quindecim staff members are introduced. We are only half way through this show, and while it’s no longer the mysterious solemn show that I projected after ep1, it’s starting to show off some nice personality as well. Still strongly recommended, just because it’s giving us a quality showing so far. Also those OP/ED are pretty sweet.
Current Score: A
Saekano – ep0~5
Once again in 2013 Fall Season, there’s a little VN adaptation called White Album 2 which caught everyone by surprise just by how delicate the writing is in setting up a rather engaging tale of lost love. The writer involved at that time, Fumiaki Maruto, ventured into Light Novel writing in 2012. The writing is said to be lowering the age of the target audience by at least half of his usual works, yet his usual style remains strong. Lined up as the other offering for the NoitaminA Winter 2015 slot and directed by Kanta Kamei, could this show break the curse of being “the moetrash commercial side of NoitaminA” show? It’s aways a massive obstacle, but perhaps this show was able to overcome the hurdle.
It’s always a big gamble to start out any series with ep0, since most of the time it’s like sneaking in an OVA which is often drastically different in tone than the rest of the series. The main gist of the show is about a massive, for lack of better words, otaku trying to recapture the romantic moment he felt during one encounter, and proceeds to gather talented people to create the VN of his dream. Of course being a Light Novel aiming at young teen, there’s harem element being involved, yet the fun thing about this series is how it dissects those up one at a time. It’s extremely self aware, and is not afraid to throw in some self-deprecating jokes on those common VN tropes. While it doesn’t necessarily mean good writing by itself, the fact that it created a refreshing character that’s devoid of all the common tropes is to be recommended. By surrounding the character with stereotypes, the contrast draws out just enough unique appeal.
I don’t really have issue with A-1 Picture’s visual other than it tends to be the samey across several shows. This series has the additional flair of occasional moments of altered line colours, for no particular significance from what I can see so far. This show is just well produced even if there’s no big eyecatch moment from technical stand of view. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying the seiyuu performance however, as they seem to have given extra appeal to the character themselves. This show is not in the running for a top show, but it’s still entertaining for all the little witty remarks it has on the usual mould.
Sticky Jellyfish 