F1RST IMPRESSIONS: Shôwa Monogatari

We're coming to the end of our preview of the newest anime shows for Spring 2011 with Shôwa Monogatari, a story of nostalgia centered in Tokyo during the "Golden Sixties".

Storyline: 3

Picture it—Tokyo, 1964, the 39th year of the Shôwa Emperor. The year was a massive one for all of Japan, as it marked its first global sporting event in the 1964 Summer Olympics. It was the year that composer Yoko Kanno and frontman of X Japan, Hide, were born. This resurgence of Japanese culture marked a distinct change from wartime recovery and led to change even within households as they tried to bridge generations.

Such familial change is shown in Shôwa Monogatari (Shôwa Story) through changes in the Yamazaki household. While the show is narrated by the youngest in the household, 12-year-old Kôhei, we get both sides of the generational gap. The night before the New Year is a peaceful celebration in the household, but the next day brings a definite sense of change—Kôhei's father fights with his older brother Taichi when they discuss his potential career with a larger corporation, while the middle daughter Yûko attends the first shrine visit of the year and starts to develop feelings for her former senpai Yûsuke.

The story is meant to be a quiet and reflective one, significant steps in history drawn into the background as the Yamazaki family deals with adolescence and social change during a time of prosperity. In all likelihood, the family itself won't be remembered in history books, but at least such a show will be a considerable cross-section of what life was like in the '60's. Perhaps we could also consider it an animated Wonder Years for Japan, where thirty-something adults can understand how their own parents grew up and the elderly can smile about fonder times.

Animation: 2

While there are definitive structures and locations that have been revived through reanimation of still-life photos, the show frankly has yet to impress as an art form. Unfortunately, the animation is blended with a little bit of computer animation that doesn't help create a sense of reminiscence. If this show was completely drawn by hand, even if that pen was digital, the art would be much more impressive.

Characters: 3

To tell this story, it makes sense to produce an extended family that is slowly transforming itself into a nuclear version and to place them in an evolving environment. The Yamazaki family is a pretty good representation of core Japanese values; a blue-collar father, a stay-at-home mother, a traditional grandmother, and three children at varying stages of separation from the family. In some ways, this is a good transition between the close-knit unit seen in Sazae-san and the modernized view of the family we see in typical anime shows.

Track: 3

The music here is meant to reflect the times of the eras, so it's pushed further into the background for fortification of the show's age. However, it's good to see that the producers wisely chose songs that represent both the mid-60's and parts of Japan's past. While the songs may be unrecognizable to many viewers overseas, the music does its job effectively.

"Hype": 2

Despite the release of the story as full-length animated movie in January, it did not produce much of a splash in box offices—it failed to crack the top 10 in the box office. While the show is being animated by the same studio that produced the movie (WAO World), it is being directed by Hiroshi Kugimiya and Mitsuhiro Tôgô, both of whom are novices to the director's chair.

Overall: 13/25

It's nice to have a show like Shôwa Monogatari tell stories about life from one or two generations ago, but I'm not sure if this series will equate to a deeper nostalgia of the past. While life was a little more romantic in the 1960's, as we will likely see with the stories of Taichi and Yûko, the consumer lifestyle of the 1960's was not as difficult as life in the '40's (Barefoot Gen) or '50's (Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms). Perhaps Shôwa Monogatari can fill in the dramatic spaces that slice-of-life comedies like Sazae-san and Chibi Maruko-chan cannot touch, but it will be interesting to see how people will relive a prosperous era like the "Golden Sixties" through the show.

F1RST IMPRESSIONS: AnoHana

We're nearing the end of our preview of the newest anime shows for Spring 2011 with AnoHana, an original A-1 Pictures animation that occupies the second of two noitaminA slots on Fuji TV.

Storyline: 4

As the heat from the summer months hammer down on Jinta, a reclusive teen who has given up on going to school, he's also haunted by a different presence—the ghost of "Menma", a childlike girl with silver hair. The two of them comprised part of the "Super Peace Busters" when they were kids, playing with their other friends Tsuruko, Anaru, Poppo, and Yukiatsu. While the nicknames still stick years later, Menma's unfortunate death after a spat within the group has demolished the friendship between the remaining five.

However, Menma isn't some sort of undetectable ghost—when she hangs on people, they feel her weight, and bumps against tables upset glasses. Jinta calls it a manifestation of his "stress", but Menma's desire for a "wish" to be fulfilled stirs him to the point of revisiting the old hangout where the "Super Peace Busters" used to play. It's here where he meets his friend Poppo again and gets the sense that everyone's still attached to Menma's death in some form.

AnoHana, short for Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai ("We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day"), is basically striving for attachment to the viewers still looking for their past childhood, whether the memories are good or bad, and that's typically a good subject for a solid story. If anything, I expect the story to play like a Studio Ghibli film and focus on that conflict between maturity and familiarity, change and complacency. It should be a good show as the ex-friends reunite.

Animation: 3

While the hand-drawn animation is generally without much in terms of flaws, on par for the course with A-1 Pictures, there isn't anything overly attracting about the overall flow and art. We get some good backgrounds, but there rightfully shouldn't be much in terms of focus on how pretty the landscapes are or how fluid the characters move. This is a story-fueled show, so the art is on point to stay away from complex points-of-view.

Characters: 3

At first, I was tempted to lower my grade when I came across the plain characters and the character designs by Masayoshi Tanaka (Highschool of the Dead)—there just doesn't seem to be much on the surface to make this random display of six characters appealing. However, I'm allowing for some developmental leeway, as we see just how much some of the characters have changed in ten years. Menma does appear to be the childish sort and a little frustrating to accept as a central character, but the role fits for a ghost who hasn't matured in ten years.

Track: 4

Considering the idea that AnoHana still takes place in the 21st century, even during the flashbacks, it was nice that the staff opted for someone who had experience composing music for dramas during that period. While the REMEDIOS brand hasn't produced anime soundtracks, they've worked on films and TV dramas of the late 90's/early 00's (Friends, PiCNiC), so the music gets a great hint of breeziness. Especially meaningful is the ending theme, a cover of pop band Zone's 2001 single "secret base ~Kimi ni Kureta Mono~" that captures the final passage of summer.

"Hype": 4

The noitaminA and A-1 pictures names should be enough to lift AnoHana to a little more of a respected status, but the real reason to watch may be in the staff listing. The AnoHana project managed to lure in Tatsuyuki Nagai for direction, and his work on lighthearted dramas (Toradora!, Honey and Clover) has been commendable. I can't wait to see how this one turns out.

Overall: 18/25

Trends seem to indicate that noitaminA is opting for a bipolar approach to their seasonal shows by creating one that depends more on action ([C], Fractale) and one that depends more on drama (Wandering Son). I certainly have no problems with this approach at all, as it gives everyone a chance to appreciate the product. I'm a little surprised to find that AnoHana was the product that wasn't selected for online streaming, but it's likely that this slow sort of drama may not be appreciated by foreign fans as much as domestic fans might.

Nevertheless, if you were a big fan of Wandering Son last season and need a show that takes the edges off of the comedies out there, AnoHana is a selection that should appeal to you.

F1RST IMPRESSIONS: The Rest of Spring (Part 2)

We're getting closer to the end of the vast cascade of new shows for the Spring 2011 season. Today, we run down Hyouge Mono, Dororon Enma-kun, and Moshidora.

Hyouge Mono

Storyline: 3

Animation: 3

Characters: 2

Track: 3

"Hype": 2

Overall: 13/25

Confidentially, perhaps due to an aftereffect from all the modernized Warring-Period shows out there (Tono to Issho, Battle Girls, Hyakka Ryôran), Hyouge Mono wasn't on my radar and likely wasn't on many others. The story does take a turn by focusing on Sasuke Furuta, a vassal of the great Nobunaga Oda, instead of Oda himself, and there is a little more insight on what aesthetics meant to the Japanese. While Sasuke understands the way of the samurai, he also desires the arts, comically fretting when priceless tea ceremony artifacts are sacrificed or involved in negotiations. However, such appreciation may cause him to conflict with the grandiose scale of Oda's own sense of aesthetics.

There are some parts to Hyouge Mono that makes the patience worthwhile—Sasuke's facial expressions when he is holding back euphoria and his vigor to preserve the arts, in particular—but there are also drier, more dramatic parts to the show. At times, its fits the general feel of the era, but other times it requires a little more resolve. For anime fans, this may be a bit too vanilla for their tastes, but for fans of Akira Kurosawa films and art films such as Rikyu it could be a worthwhile watch.

Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera

Storyline: 4

Animation: 4

Characters: 4

Track: 3

"Hype": 3

Overall: 18/25

Lately, there has been a desire in Japan to rewind the entertainment clock to the Shôwa era. Shôwa Story is currently running as an animated series after a successful run in movie theaters, and My Family's History (Wagaya no Rekishi), a live-action drama series, covered what it was like for both commoners and popular figures to live during the stretch between 1927 and 1964. Perhaps that's why Gô Nagai's famed series from Shôwa 48 (1973) Dororon Enma-kun is getting a reset.

When her friends become faceless, all thanks to a face-eating monster at their school, Hiromi is rescued by the "Demon Patrol", a quartet of Japanese yôkai from the underworld who have been sent to control the outbreak of demons. In charge is the titular Enma-kun, a fire yôkai who can detect the presence of monsters and exterminate them with a giant hammer. Flanked by the sweet snow princess Yukiko, the Muppet-like kappa sprite Kappaeru, and his trusty hat-monster Chapeauji, Enma-kun save Hiromi and her friends, but like most comedy shows, the damage from the rescue is far greater than expected.

With plenty of Shôwa-era imagery in place, Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera doesn't disappoint. The comedy is fast and furious, while the animation is rather active on the screen. Even better, the interactions within the patrol and the anticipation of some creative monsters gives plenty of material to use, and the producers actually gave the reset more charm by substituting a sub-character from the original series as the new lead character (the original central character was Tsutomu, Hiromi's friend).

Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera is a great way to reintroduce Gô Nagai's funnier side with the new generation. Let's hope there's more.

Moshidora

Storyline: 3

Animation: 2

Characters: 2

Track: 1

"Hype": 4 (in Japan), 1 (elsewhere), so call it a 2.5

Overall: 10.5/25

There's more than one way to Kôshien, that famous location in the outskirts of Ôsaka where all high-school baseball teams strive to play. Most of the routes require hard work (Big Swing!, Cross Game, Touch), but very rarely are we shown one where strategy becomes more cerebral. However, I can't say that I have ever seen the path to Kôshien treated the way it is in Moshidora (short for "What If the Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team read Drucker's 'Management'"?).

With her childhood friend Yuki forced into a hospital for a chronic condition, Minami Kawashima opts to take charge of managing the high-school's team in place of Yuki (mind you, "manager" does not mean "coach" in this sense). However, Minami doesn't know the first thing about managing one, even though she used to play it, and accidentally choosing a book about managing a business doesn't initially help the situation. After all, what's "marketing" got to do with baseball?

Moshidora is an interesting approach to get people to read Peter Drucker's Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, and it has apparently had some success (the Moshidora business novel has sold 1.8 million copies and will be adapted into a movie for a June release). That being said, the appeal for Moshidora overseas is likely non-existent, especially considering the series has already finished for the season, having started its 10-episode run in March. The drama will likely overtake the actual lessons taught by the book and tell its own story, but for now it's hard to really stand behind an attempt to think of baseball as a business.

Considering the labor disagreements in sports, I doubt many here will want to see baseball that way through Moshidora.