Spotlight On: Mai-HiME

A new school year is about to begin, and high schooler Mai Tokiha is excited. She and her sickly younger brother Takumi have received scholarships to attend Fuka Academy, a prestigious private school, and are travelling there via ferry. The two of them are taking advantage of their situation to do a little sightseeing when two strange things happen. First, Mai spots a red star in the sky that Takumi is unable to see, then Takumi spots something floating in the water: an unconscious girl clutching a large sword in her hands. The ferry’s crew rescues the girl, and shortly thereafter a mysterious intruder boards the vessel, attacking Mai and demanding to know what happened to the girl who was rescued. This leads to a battle on the ferry’s vehicle deck during which the intruder and the rescued girl reveal that they possess supernatural powers. Caught in the crossfire between the two, Mai soon discovers that she has powers of her own, which manifest themselves when she is forced to shield herself from attack. This revelation prompts the intruder –revealed to be a girl similar in age to Mai – to retreat, but not before leaving behind an ominous warning: Don’t go to Fuka Academy. If you do, you’ll die.

Mai and her little brother Takumi.

Thus begins the story of Mai-HiME. In reality, trying to explain the plot of this series in any sort of real detail without major spoilers is an exercise in futility, as the series plays its cards very close to its chest for much of its length. It initially seems to pit Mai and the other HiME against marauding creatures named Orphans, but even in its early stages there are indications that this is not their real purpose, and that Mai and the others are being manipulated by outside forces.

 Mai's powers manifest themselves for the first time.

But enough on plot. What one really needs to know about Mai-HiME is that it is not your average magical girl show. There are no transformation sequences (though there is a scene that parodies the concept), the characters are older and more mature than most magical heroines, and the writing is excellent in terms of both depth and pacing. Too many people dismiss this show because of its genre, and they’re missing out. This series doesn’t just stand out among magical girl shows, it stands out among anime series in general.

Mai HiME is not your average magical girl series.

One of the biggest strengths Mai-HiME has is characters, foremost among them the titular Mai Tokiha. Mai is a fascinatingly complex character. At times her interactions with her sickly little brother make her seem more like a parent then an elder sibling, while at other times her love-hate relationship with a boy in her class reminds us that she can be just as immature as any of her peers, if not moreso. She’s a strong, kind, and caring person with a cheerful and energetic personality, yet she’s struggling under the weight of increasingly heavy responsibilities, and there are times when she’s as likely to smile for the sake of not burdening others as she is because she’s feeling genuinely happiness. She’s a very likeable character, but not a perfect one, and her well balanced characterisation is one of the keys to her appeal.

Mai having an argument with her classmate Yuiichi Tate.

She’s not the only major player in the storyline however. Joining her are Natsuki Kuga, a tough biker girl who wants to avenge her mother’s death (which she blames on a government agency known as First District), and Mikoto Minagi, a young orphan whose main objective is to find her missing elder brother. Natsuki’s personality is in stark contrast to Mai’s –where Mai is open and friendly, Natsuki is cold and hostile, refusing to trust others easily and hiding her vulnerabilities behind an aloof façade. She likes to come across as tough, serious, and in control, but is actually remarkably easy to anger and embarrass, a trait that the series utilises very effectively during some of its more humorous moments. Mikoto, meanwhile, is naïve, childlike, and full of boundless energy. She warms up to Mai very quickly, and almost seems to view the older girl as a sort of mother figure (it helps that they end up as roommates in the Academy’s dormitory). There’s more to Mikoto then meets the eye however, and her storyline –as well as her relationship with Mai- becomes increasingly important as the series progresses.

 Natsuki Kuga, an avenging badass with a soft spot for cute puppies.

 

Mikoto Minagi, Mai's roommate.  Don't let the calm expression shown here fool you,

she's actually rather hyper.

Complimenting this main trio are nine additional HiME who bring with them a diverse range of personalities, backstories, and motivations. These characters are revealed to the audience one by one as the series progresses. There are also a variety of mundane supporting characters, whose roles vary significantly in importance. Some of them are key players due to their proximity to various HiME, while others are there largely to help give life to the series (and to keep the audience guessing as to who the remaining HiME are).

 

Mai's classmates Chie and Aoi.  Aoi seems to find Takumi cute, but then, she finds everything cute.

 

 Shizuru Fujino, one of the few people who Natsuki has allowed to get close to her.

 

 Midori Sugiura, Mai's co-worker at her part time waitressing job.  Claims she's only seventeen, but 

is obviously lying.(The fact that she's working on a University Thesis gives a hint as to her true age.)

Having such a large cast would be detrimental to many shows, but Mai-HiME handles it very well. In fact it is this large, well developed cast of characters and the complex relationships between them (romantic and otherwise) that is the foundation for what is perhaps the series single greatest strength: its emotional impact. There are very few series out there that can manage to make their audiences feel things the way Mai-HiME can. The show spends two thirds of its length developing its characters, then milks that character development for everything it’s worth during the final third. This is the part of the story where everything changes. The gloves come off, the stakes get raised, and the characters find themselves fighting with everything they care about on the line. It’s a harsh new reality, and one that takes its toll on both the characters and the bonds between them. It’s here that the show is able to show us the true natures of the various HiME, stripping their souls bare and exposing the good, the bad, and the ugly for all to see. It’s a very dark stretch of episodes, with little in the way of humour, but it’s also the most powerful part of the series.

The final third of the series takes a heavy toll on almost the entire cast.

Which isn’t to say that Mai-HiME doesn’t have a light hearted side as well. In fact, it has some very memorable humorous moments. This is a show that loves to play around with anime stereotypes and conventions, and the first two thirds of its run actually rely very heavily on humour to keep things going as they lay the groundwork for what is to come.

Natsuki's reaction to the karaoke stage outfit another character forced her to wear  
kindly picked out for her. This scene gets even funnier after she tries to sing.  Emphasis on tries.

Of course, the series isn’t entirely reliant on humour to keep the viewer’s interest until things reach critical mass. Aside from fleshing out the characters and dropping hints about later developments, the early parts of the show include some pretty good action scenes (as do the later parts for that matter). Each HiME has a weapon or tool called an Element, and can summon a creature called a CHiLD to assist her in battle. These CHiLDs and Elements vary widely in appearance and capability, but typically suit the HiME they accompany quite well. A few of them are arguably kind of lame, but others are extremely cool, especially those belonging to main trio.

Natsuki's mechanical wolf Duran is one of the smaller CHiLDs, but he is also one of the coolest.

  

Kagatsuchi, Mai's CHiLD.  He's a sort of giant dragon/pheonix... thing.

 

The quality of the artwork in the series is somewhat sporadic, with a few bits looking downright crude, but is generally speaking very good. The distinctive character designs are a big help in a show with such a large cast, and special mention should also be made for the extraordinarily well animated facial expressions, which play an important and often subtle role in the show’s character development and storytelling.

 

  

 Well animated facial expressions play an important role in Mai-HiME's storytelling.

Does Mai-HiME have flaws? Yes it does. Foremost among them is its story structure. While this structure is part of what made the series so effective, it also kept it from showing its true strength until well past its half way point, then created some problems with regards to the ending, which will please some viewers but not others. Additionally, there are a few points where the creators let things get excessively cheesy, even for a show that like to play around with anime clichés. And lastly, there’s the weak English dub. While not as ridiculously bad as some of the English dubs that are out there, it has some serious issues that undermine its effectiveness. Perhaps the worst of them is the fact that some of the English voice actors are just not very into their roles. Mai-HiME is a very emotionally driven series, and it’s critically important that the voice actors be able to project what their characters are supposed to be feeling. Thankfully the original Japanese voice work is very good and it complimented by an excellent subtitling job.

Shizuru conducting a traditional Japanese tea ceremony.  If you dislike the idea

of her speaking with a southern drawl, stick to the Japanese voices.

Overall, Mai-HiME is an exceptional series. It has its share of flaws, but it’s combination of excellent writing, good characterisation, and sheer dramatic power make it well worth watching in spite of them.

Of Cowboys, Outlaws, Apples, and Oranges

Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star:
Two seemingly similar series that are actually distinctly different.

A few days ago, I was riding home on transit with some members of the anime club I'm part of. We'd been discussing some of the series out there, and for some reason or other, I decided to mention one of my recent favorites -an older sci-fi series called Outlaw Star- to another member. He more or less replied that he'd seen a bit of it and thought that it was basically "the Poor Man's Cowboy Bebop." Which, according to my brother, another club member, is pretty much a general concensus about the two shows.

If so, then it's a bit of an unfair one, because comparing Outlaw Star to Cowboy Bebop is a bit like comparing an apple to an orange.

On the surface, the two shows seem like good material for comparisons. They're both sci-fi shows. They were both produced by Sunrise, Inc. They were released about a year apart from each other.

Major characters: Spike, Jet, Ed, and Faye from Cowboy Bebop,
Aisha, Jim, Gene, Melfina and Suzuka from Outlaw Star.

Such similarities, however are largely surface level. When I first saw Outlaw Star, I thought it was kind of similar to Cowboy Bebop. As I've continued to watch it however, I've realised that the two shows are at heart very different.

Cowboy Bebop may have sci-fi elements, but they're used largely as a framework to allow the show to jump between different genres.

Cowboy Bebop, a story about a group of down-on-their-luck bounty hunters in the 2070s, is a genre jumper. For Cowboy Bebop, the science fiction aspect of the show (with its interplanetary travel) is largely just a framework that allows it to do something different every episode (well, almost every episode). The elements of a sci-fi series are there, but they don't do very much -for the most part, they just allows the show's writers to tie some widely disparate material together.

While Cowboy Bebop switches genres, Outlaw Star is
more or less an archetype for a single genre: the Space Opera.

Outlaw Star, on the other hand, is not a genre jumper. Its a simple space opera. What makes it special isn't that it does much of anything new or different, like Cowboy Bebop does, but that it has a lot of spirit and a strong sense of adventure (this is particularly apparent in the awesome Openning Credits sequence). Its a spin off of a sci-fi parody manga* called Future Retro Hero Story, and while its not much of a full blown parody itself, this may explain to some degree why it seems like an archetype for the whole space opera genre. Neither overly silly not overly serious, Outlaw Star is simply a Space Opera adventure that's a whole lot of fun to watch.

*The comic book counterpart to anime. Many anime series are based on manga, though some are original and some are based on books.

And that more or less says it all. Outlaw Star isn't simply the Poor Man's Cowboy Bebop, because its a different type of show from Cowboy Bebop, and its great strengths aren't in the same places that Bebop's are. It should be judged by its on merits, not by another show's.

And Now, For Something (Almost) Totally Awesome…

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex makes

heavy use of CGI in it's openning sequence.

There are some shows out there that are widely regarded as must see series in the North American Anime community. Shows like Cowboy Bebop, Full Metal Alchemist, and Neon Genesis Evangelion have huge followings in the fandom, and are widely considered to be at the pinnacle of what anime is capable of. I have to admit however, that I haven’t seen all of these ‘pinnacle’ shows, and have in fact been somewhat sceptical of them. Cowboy Bebop for instance proved not to be worthy of its hype (though it was still an excellent series) and many of the others really failed to interest me enough to have gotten around to watching them yet. That being said, just because the great Cowboy Bebop failed to live up to its awesome reputation doesn’t mean that there aren’t other pinnacle shows that are worthy of their hype, and having just finished the first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex yesterday, I’m happy to report that I’ve found a show that may be truly worthy of its formidable reputation.

In the near future world Stand Alone Complex is set in, forays
into cyberspace are part of everyday life for much of the populace.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a sci fi anime set in the (relatively) near future, when many human beings have been cyberized, allowing them to personally link up with computer networks and other cyberized humans. This technology has many possibilities, and not all of them are benevolent. Thus security agencies have their work cut out for them as protecting the public has taken on a whole new dimension: cyberspace.

Members of the elite Public Security Section 9.

Enter Public Security Section 9, an elite, low profile unit with top notch training and equipment. Made up of a diverse group of people with varying levels of cyberization (ranging from Togusa, the unit’s only fully human operative, to Major Motoko, who has had a completely cybernetic body since childhood) this unit regularly deals with difficult, high risk assignments. Even they may be getting in a bit over their heads however when they become involved in the Laughing Man Case –an unsolved mystery involving a super hacker, corporate blackmail, and a conspiracy that reaches to very high levels. This complex storyline (hey, did I just make an unintentional pun?) runs throughout most of the First Season, starting with the Fourth Episode and continuing until the end of the series, though it is broken up by self contained stand alone episodes (you may all groan now).

Despite some big action scenes, Stand Alone Complex
is definitely a series that takes some thought to follow.

One thing viewers of Ghost in the Shell should be aware of is that it can be a rather heavy going series. Sure, there are episodes where Section 9 cracks out the big guns and let’s loose on the baddies, but this definitely isn’t a series in the big, dumb action fest genre. Aside from the philosophical undertones present in some of the episodes, the Laughing Man arc takes active viewing on the part of the viewer to properly follow. In fact, it takes very active viewing on the part of the viewer. I’ve heard it suggested that Starship Operators takes active viewing to follow, but Starship Operators seems downright simplistic in comparison to Stand Alone Complex. Even I don’t have that solid a grasp of the Laughing Man arc in some respects, though the fact that there was a big gap between when I saw the first seven episodes and the rest of the series may have something to do with that.

Motoko, Togusa, and Batou all get some decent characterisation in
Stand Alone Complex, but not everyone in the cast fairs so well.

Does Stand Along Complex have any flaws? It has a few. As with many story driven shows with quite a few characters, not everyone gets a lot of development, though there’s certainly some good characterisation present in the series. Also, while the artwork is pretty slick overall, it’s not entirely consistent, with some bits looking great while other bits looking kind of off. And finally, we have the matter of the Major Motoko fan service. Ghost in the Shell isn’t exactly a huge fan service series, but it does have some involving the Major, and what there is kind of detracts from the series. I’m not entirely opposed to fan service in anime –I actually sometimes enjoy it in moderation (keywords ‘sometimes’ and ‘moderation’)- but it needs to be done right in order to work, and Motoko’s outfits and fan servicy scenes just weren’t that good for the most part. In her case, I think the animators could have done better with some less revealing clothes. If they’d handled things properly they could probably have made her extremely sexy without her outfits detracting from the series. As it is, they kind of managed to get the worst of both worlds.

The thing this little girl has attached her dog leash to is the key
for the safety cover on the Tachikoma's grenade launcher...

Anyway, I’m just about ready to wrap this review up, but before I do, there’s one more thing that I’d like to mention, and that’s the Tachikomas. It’s common practice in anime series to have a cute character or characters who provide comic relief. In Stand Alone Complex Season One, this role falls to the Tachikomas –the small, spider-like combat robots/personal armoured vehicles with learning AIs and high pitched voices, and I think we can be glad it does. Stand Alone Complex is a serious series, and it would be problematic if it became too goofy. Somehow though, the Tachikomas don’t seem to cause too many problems for the series, even when one of them runs away from home and ends up helping a little girl try to find her ‘lost’ dog. My compliments to the writers for handling these cute little machines so well.

Stand Alone Complex is a series that really deserves a thumbs up.

Anyway, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex may not be one of my top favorite shows, because it hasn’t clicked for me the way that some shows like Full Metal Panic! and Ah! My Goddess have, but its still an impressive series and well worth watching. Some of the other top rated shows out there don’t live up to their hype, but this one sure does!

Hmmm...

Somehow, I get the impression that the ending for Pumpkin Scissors is going to leave viewers with a lot of loose plot threads. The next episode (the twenty fourth) is supposed to be the last, and the writers would have to pull one heck of a fast one if they wanted to tie everything up in the space of a little over twenty minutes. Oh well, at least this means we might get a sequel. I just hope that whatever they come up with for this season's ending doesn't feel too empty. Zipang managed to make it's open-ended/inconclusive/clear set up for a potential sequel ending work okay, but who know how this series will manage...

To Know the Light, You Must Know the Dark

Well, it's getting towards the end of the month, and I'm thinking I should really post something. There's so many things I could write: that Spotlight On article for Full Metal Panic! that I was thinking of writing during the Christmas Break, the opinion piece on fan service I've been considering, a review of an awesome series called Zipang that I've recently seen...

However, I'm kind of busy at the moment, and instead of those articles, you're getting something that I can easily whip up in a short time period. Namely this.

One of the dangers of watching too much good anime is that one can start to have overly high expectations. Without an idea of what truly bad anime is, it is difficult to truly appreciate good anime.

So, for those of you that think you may lack an appreciation of good anime because you lack a knowledge of bad anime, I present the following list, which consists of some of the worst anime I have ever had the displeasure of viewing. Please note that the following series are not 'so bad they're good.' They're 'so bad they're just plain bad.' What follows compromises some of the absolute dregs of my anime viewing experience.

So, in alphabetical order, my three picks for horrid stuff you should only ever watch if you feel the need to know how bad anime can be:

All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku TV

Ever had a movie you really liked that was remade... and completely butchered in the process? If so, then you have some idea how I feel about this atrocity of an anime. It's a spin off of the highly entertaining All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku OVAs , but has been retargeted at a much younger audience. Now, I'm not saying all children's entertainment should be shunned by adults... some of it is actually quite enjoyable even for some older viewers. Shows like Nuku Nuku TV should be shunned however. Like the writers behind many other children's shows, whoever wrote the episodes for Nuku Nuku TV decided that the best way to entertain kids was to be stupid. The result: instead of being silly and entertaining like the Nuku Nuku OVAs, Nuku Nuku TV is dumb and excrutiatingly painful to watch. There's a few good moments, but they're almost entirely smothered by the mind numbing idiocy that permeates this heavily reworked series. There's a fine line between silliness and stupidity, and Nuku Nuku TV, unlike the original All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, is on the wrong side of it.

Gundoh Musashi

There are a few series out there that failed to draw me in so badly, I never even made it through the first episode. Gundoh Musashi is one of them. Taking medieval Japanese history and then royally screwing around with it by doing things like throwing in revolvers, this could perhaps have been a decent camp series (hey, I didn't even finish the first episode... it's hard to say for sure) if it had been executed well... but what I saw wasn't. At all. One of the first scenes is a 'hero confronts arrogant/overconfident villain and horde of henchman, then easily kicks their butts while holding a casual conversation with the leader' scene, but it's so horribly executed that it's terrible. Seriously... who knew it was even possible to make an over the top fight scene that unexciting? And the hero's hair colour... what the hell is that doing next to all the traditional looking characters? It's jarringly out of place! Ack!

Love Hina Again

The original Love Hina was hugely flawed, but massively entertaining. Sure, it relied a lot on perverted humour, had a significant amount of fan service. and was pretty repetitive, but it was light hearted and highly amusing, and it generally didn't make you feel too dirty for watching it. That's not so much the case with Love Hina Again. Armed with lameness and an excess of fan service, this set of OVA episodes just doesn't have the same feel as the Love Hina TV series. And to make matters worse? It indulges in the harem genre cliche of having a younger sister character who's interested in the male lead (and of course isn't actually related to him by blood... or they might have been half siblings in this case... I can't remember for sure). Yeah... it's that trashy.

Desktop Ramblings

Sousuke looks a lot happier then usual in this shot.

Not much to say on this one. I just thought I'd show off some of my pretty desktop wallpapers. The one up top is my last desktop and showcases Full Metal Panic's Sousuke Sagara and Kaname Chidori, who together form one of anime's most awesome couples, while the lower one shows Skuld, Belldandy and Urd from Ah! My Goddess, which I'm a bit enamoured with at the moment (largely due to Urd -and no, it's not just because of her sex appeal). An interesting tidbit with the second desktop is that I was able to get both widescreen and fullscreen screencaps, since the Japanese TV broadcast was fullscreen and the DVDs were widescreen. This is useful due to the fact that my laptop display is widescreen while the peripheral monitor I tend to use at home (a leftover from my old desktop computer) is fullscreen. With the old Full Metal Panic! desktop the image was always stretched slightly when I used the laptop; with the new Ah! My Goddess desktop I have the option of switching to the widescreen shot when I use my laptop.

This shot makes it pretty obvious which one of the sisters is
half-demon, doesn't it?

Midpoint Impression: Pumpkin Scissors.

This is one of the series I watched a couple of episodes of back in 2006, and at the time I wasn't overly impressed by it. Recently however I went back and watched a sizeable chunk of the show, and I'm glad I did, because like Starship Operators (which is one of my favorite series) it's a lot better then the first episode would have you believe. In fact, I've considered adding it to my 'Top Picks for '06' list.

The events of Pumpkin Scissors take place in an
Empire that has been devastated by war.

A show that began airing last year and which is continuing to air this year, Pumpkin Scissors is set in the aftermath of a huge, World War I like conflict between the Empire (which seems to be loosely based on the Imperial Germany that existed prior to that conflict) and the Republic of Frost. A Peace Treaty between the two powers was signed, but it came too late -the Empire was left devastated and economically depressed. Apparently worried about their funding, the Imperial military created Section III -the War Relief unit that would become known as Pumpkin Scissors- in order to improve their image. Thus, the series focuses on personnel in this tiny laughingstock of a unit as they try to live up to their designation as a War Relief Unit in spite of a real lack of commitment on the part of the Imperial Army as a whole.

It's a little more complicated then just that however. Ambivalence to their mission among the rest of the Army is not the only problem Section III must deal with. Heavily armed bandits (some of them ex soldiers) and powerful Noblemen also show up to stand in their way, and it seems that the unit's newest member -a gentle giant of a man called Orlando who can quite suddenly become a monster when facing enemies- may have been part of a shady military research project that someone wants to keep under wraps. Thus, the members of Pumpkin Scissors can be trying to deal with the nature of humanity one episode and getting shot at the next. Often, both elements will be present in the same episode. The series has so far done a good job of mixing stand alone arcs with a conspiracy ridden main plot, and hopefully it will keep that up.

Lieutenant Alice C. Marvin is a bit too over the top at first,
but her characterisation seems to improve as the series progresses.

As far as characterisation is concerned, Pumpkin Scissors makes a strong showing. While many of the unit members (such as the idealistic Noblewoman Lieutenant Alice and her playboy subordinate Olend) start off as being quite shallow, some of them also gain quite a bit of depth as the series progresses. Not every character is like this, but enough are to make the series quite interesting from a character perspective.

Orlando's ability to win toe to toe fights with tanks the
way he does is sometimes a tad hard to swallow...

So what problems does the show have? Well, the characterisation is sometimes a bit overdone, and not just for minor villains. Alice's 'Prepare for Castle Siege!' spiel in Episode One is a good example of this. I also had issues with the combat scenes. I know expecting complete realism in a series like this is rather unreasonable, but Orlando probably pushes things a bit far. The whole thing about him being a super soldier from some shadowy research project may allow for some suspension of disbelief, but this is sorely tested by the fact that he has a tendency to go toe to toe with tanks and survive -just what sort of effect does that blue lantern of his have that allows him to survive getting hit by the cannon on an armoured vehicle?

The sign outside Section III's office. Note the Engrish.*

Overall however, Pumpkin Scissors is an excellent series, featuring both good characters and good storytelling. I'll have to see how it turns out as a whole (Gonzo isn't exactly known for delivering series that maintain a consistent level of quality through their entire run) but right now my hopes for this series are quite high.

*The term Engrish is used to refer to the badly butchered English one will sometimes encounter in Japan. It is often difficult to determine whether one should use L or R when translating from Japanese to English because of how the languages are phonetically different (don't quote me on that).