F1RST IMPRESSIONS: The Rest of Spring (Part 1)

We're getting closer to the end of the vast cascade of new shows for the Spring 2011 season. Today, we run down Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji: Season 2, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, and The Qwaser of Stigmata II.

Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji: Season 2

Storyline: 3

Animation: 2

Characters: 3

Track: 2

"Hype": 3

Overall: 13/25

Much like those betting small potatoes in high-risk games, it's hard to get a good feel from the second season of Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji (Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji), especially when I have yet to process most of the first season. Basically, the show drives the main character Kaiji Itô, a man torn asunder by gambling debts, to the depths of despair and forces him to fight back through more gambling attempts. The second season has Kaiji even further behind the eight-ball, as he is forced to work for the Teiei Corporation's secretive labor mines for peanuts in order to pull himself out of debt. Of course, his fellow laborers aren't content to just work to get out of the hole—a complex game of chinchirorin is there to test Kaiji's resolve.

There is certainly human drama and psychology that builds Kaiji into a nervous show that emphasizes the frail nature of the mind and heart, but the need to animate such a show doesn't seem to jive. Kaiji had been animated into a 26-episode arc, only to be released as a live-action film last year, so what was the reasoning behind animating a second season? Just my opinion on the matter, but I'd expect more drama if the players were a little more realistic.

Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko

Storyline: 2

Animation: 3

Characters: 3

Track: 3

"Hype": 3

Overall: 14/25

Take the talkative story of one generally-normal male with multiple female oddballs (Bakemonogatari) with the concept that one of those girls is from outer space (Arakawa Under the Bridge), and you just might have Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko (Electric Wave Woman and Youthful Man), another SHAFT-produced anime with Akiyuki Shinbo at the helm. When Makoto's parents conveniently transfer to jobs overseas, he moves to his aunt's house, only to come across her estranged daughter Erio, a blue-haired space-case who wraps herself up in a futon mattress and believes that she is, in some form, an alien.

And that's it. There are other characters that introduce themselves to Makoto's new school life, but the plot isn't exactly cumbersome or hard to handle. In fact, with all of the talkiness in this show, including a rather lengthy discussion about Erio's existence, it feels like Shaft is trying to get away with presenting a story that isn't all that exciting visually. In fact, Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko doesn't feel much like a Shaft anime at all.

Who knew that Shinbo could make something so plain?

Qwaser of Stigmata II

Storyline: MAKE

Animation: THE PAIN

Characters: GO AWAY

Track: 1

"Hype": 2

Overall: 3/25

Hey, wait a minute. Even I don't know why I'm delving into this madness.

Look, there were so many warnings coming from people that have seen the first season of Seikon no Qwaser (The Quaser of Stigmata), but it's hard to ignore the temptation to press a button with so many hazard signs placed about it. Plot be damned—near as I can tell, there's this guy from Russia who is part of some Christian police force, but his powers can only be magnified if he feeds off "Soma", which just happens to be breast milk. Great. One episode in, and we get twelve minutes of chitter-chat as the already androgynous "Sasha" infiltrates a girls' academy as a female student, five minutes of breast-wobbling fights, and three minutes of Sasha trying to suck on a different girl's udders as he searches for Soma.

Good grief. Even the censors aren't flinching at this show. The breast shots are explicitly blurred out with both bright and dark patches, erotic movements are put on pause, and anything even close to the sound of an orgasm is removed from the soundtrack. Hell, this is soft porn trying to masquerade as a serious show. Even worse, it gave fans just enough of a SPROING! to give it a second go-around.

Let's be honest here. Put the remote down, and run away.

2ECOND IMPRESSIONS: Crunchyroll

Spring marks the return of many cherished things—baseball, cherry blossoms, fresh weather (Allergies, too. - Ed.)—but it also means a resurgence for shows that had taken a holiday for a season or two. While the likes of Bleach and Naruto never rest, Crunchyroll has been more than happy to roll out three shows that make their well-awaited return to their streaming schedule. To keep things short and sweet, we review the new renewed anime shows with pocket-sized reviews.

Gintama' (Season 5)

Storyline: 4

Animation: 4

Characters: 5

Track: 4

"Hype": 5

Overall: 22/25

How in the world did I miss the first 200 episodes of Gintama? At what point did Shônen Jump comedies return to being true comedies and not just some strength contest in disguise? Perhaps it was due to the fact that I stopped reading the anthology in 2004, back when the manga from Hideaki Sorachi first made its appearance. Needless to say, I hadn't known the show beforehand, and I am fully regretting my ignorance to it.

The best thing about watching the stoic Gintoki and his odd-jobs partners fumble about the modernized version of samurai-era Edo, one complete with alien presences and gadgets that samurai would never be seen with, is the fact that the writers have completely lost all control of the fourth wall, often devolving the established characters into parodies of themselves before re-establishing the status quo. The sight gags are priceless, while the drama and energy are over-the-top, leading to even funnier conclusions. Best of all, the loose nature of the show brings the best out of the actors and some superior chops when the straight man yells at all the dumbasses the other characters have become.

Prior knowledge is not that big a deal—it took just an episode or two of Gintama' (it's still pronounced "Gintama" even with the apostrophe acting as a "secondary sex characteristic") to understand the show's direction. Of course, it helps to have characters that are about as lost as you are.

(Gintama' is simulcast on Crunchyroll every Monday at 5:30 AM EDT.)

The World God Only Knows II

Storyline: 4

Animation: 3

Characters: 3

Track: 3

"Hype": 4

Overall: 17/25

When last we left Keima, the galge otaku so absorbed in 2-D fantasy that 3-D girls turn him off, he was roped into helping a demon from Hell, the atypical scatterbrain Elsie, in her retrieval lost souls from the hearts of maidens. He does a nifty job at it too, if he doesn't say so himself, but the arrival of Elsie's senior from school Haqua, a steadfast hunter in her own right, signals a change in the weather. Apparently there are lost souls so strong that they can occupy the heart of demons, making Keima's job all the more riskier!

It's unique to watch Keima, who should be the untalented average male in the show, stealing the spotlight by acting so confidently during challenges. While his techniques may be far-fetched and logical only to other otaku, it's nice to see a brave male lead who admits his lack of talent instead of a souped-up male lead with the spine of a chicken. While the show is predominantly a parody of harem shows, the main concern I have is that this will turn into a Rumiko Takahashi scenario where all the girls end up fighting over the one guy.

Decent in presentation and animation, The World God Only Knows II is good for Shônen Sunday's health as it gets some good representation in the Shônen Jump-dominated Spring 2011 schedule.

(The World God Only Knows is simulcast on Crunchyroll every Monday at 2 PM EDT.)

Tono to Issho: Eyepatch's Ambition!

Storyline: 2

Animation: 3

Characters: 3

Track: 2

"Hype": 2

Overall: 12/25

I'll be dreadfully frank—I didn't like the first Tono to Issho season at all. It was way too short to even count as an "animated short", each episode merely a one-minute slice from the 30-minute OVA. I'm not sure if other fans had the exact same complaint, but it looks like Media Factory and animation studio Gathering might have actually listened.

Surprisingly, the shows have dramatically improved, even though the 90-second shows have only been doubled in duration. The animation is not only cleaner and brighter, but it has allowed for more movement for the characters. The creative license even appears to have been pushed further, some superdeformity scattered with the stoic characterizations. As an after-effect, the comedy's actually a little better now that some time has been allotted and the jokes have space to breathe.

Tono to Issho: Eyepatch's Ambition is still hardly a great "show", but compared to the past season, even this rickshaw looks like a Rolls Royce.

(Tono to Issho: Eyepatch's Ambition is simulcast on Crunchyroll every Monday at 2 PM EDT.)

F1RST IMPRESSIONS: Bridge to the Starry Skies

We continue our look at the newest anime shows for Spring 2011 with Bridge to the Starry Skies, an anime adaption of the visual-novel game published by Feng.

Storyline: 0

Kazuma Hoshino's a good older brother to his sibling Ayumu—because of Ayumu's frail constitution, he decides to move back to the countryside that he was raised, all to give him fresh air and peace. However, the town of Yamabiko is not exactly the easiest place to maneuver. While chasing down a monkey who has taken his brother's hat, Kazuma meets Ui, a beautiful green-and-blue-eyed(?) girl in the forests. Of course, like many adaptions of visual novels and eroge, Kazuma accidentally kisses Ui when he trips over his feet.

Kazuma's embarrassments don't finish there. He's kicked in the face by Ui's angry friend Ibuki, who naturally flashes her panties in the process. He's seen naked in the bath by the inn's assistant and the innkeeper herself. At least the next day of school is decent, but of course the small town of Yamabiko has only one school, and all the new friends (tsundere and not) share it.

So what's new? Bridge to the Starry Skies (Hoshizora e Kakaru Hashi) is Yosuga no Sora without the creepy incest angle, although seeing Ayumu in the opening sequence making cute smiling faces towards the camera with the other female characters doesn't help. There's no real plot to the first episode, except to establish Kazuma as the main character and his friend Daigo as the token "perverted friend". Other than that, there's nothing but sightseeing, and if you can't sit through a slide show and pictures from vacations to the Grand Canyon, you're not going to be able to sit through this.

Animation: 2

Yes, we have the entire Crayola box for this series. The animation is depressingly simple with hues that were never thought to exist being used to color in the lines, and it's a wonder that the characters' glasslike eyes don't break in the process. There's some good background shots that likely came from research, but is the animation here to sell the show or the towns that no one goes to anymore?

Characters: 1

1. Normal high-school male.

2. Central female with a black hole for a stomach.

3. Childhood friend of normal high-school male with a fear of men.

4. Tsundere friend of the central female.

5. Assorted other females.

6. Incredibly jealous and perverted male friend.

Well, if you had all those on your Bingo card, come up to the front and claim your prize. There's nothing new about the cast here, and I shouldn't be wasting your time explaining why.

Track: 0

For the first time this season, I've come across a soundtrack I would try to pawn off in an instant. The opening theme "Hoshikaze Horoscope" waffles between keys and melts from syrupy warbled lyrics, and the ending song "Dash do Cinderella" is unexcited karaoke. The acting itself from the voice actors is quite uninspiring, and the selection of voices is confounding.

"Hype": 2

The only hype from this show might be from its sales as a visual novel and the reputation of its animation studio, Dogakobo. Their main body of work is comprised of visual novel adaptions (11eyes, Koihime Musô, Myself; Yourself), so having them work on Hoshizora makes too much sense. This is also Takenori Mihara's first attempt at directing, so the staff looks a bit lacking in experience.

Overall: 5/25

I wish I knew why Japan keeps going for the sort of animated show Hoshizora would qualify as, but perhaps there's a chance it's due more to the idea of reminiscence than sheer moe appeal. It's unofficially categorized as being a "soothing" game (iyashi-kei) where the main character is transferred to the countryside, so it's possible that the creators were looking to send otaku back to their hometowns. that doesn't belittle the point that the show has no direction and no objective in mind. It's just a harem show that glorifies the towns people have left.

If you miss your home enough to watch Bridge to the Starry Skies, here's an idea—turn off the TV, put down the remote, and give your mother a call.

(Bridge to the Starry Skies is simulcast on Crunchyroll every Thursday at 1:30 PM EDT.)