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).

The 2006 Anime Awards...

Okay, this isn't quite the same as a top picks post in terms of series (that was what my last post was for). It's more of a series of awards for specific things. In other words, it's another excuse for me to mention bits of series that I like (as if I don't do that enough already...)

The 'Best Portrayal of a Crappy Student Film' Award: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimaya


Okay, it's not like there's much in the way of competition for an award like this (can anyone think of another show this season that involves making a student film?) but as someone who got dragged into making several crappy student films in high school, I found that the first episode of Haruhi really hits its mark. And it was a creative way to start off the series too...

The 'Dramatic Entrance' Award: Hild, Ah! My Goddess: Sorezore No Tsubasa

The Demon Lord Hild looks kind of scary before she squeals
'Urd-chan!' and embraces her daughter with a flying bear hug...

Dark clouds obscure the sky. Winds howl. Lightning shatters the night, and a shadowy figure appears in the middle of a raging whirlwind. And then it squeals "Urd-chan!" and starts hugging not only Urd, but her younger half sisters and Keiichi as well. Yep, that would be Hild, Demon Lord of Hell, dropping in to visit her daughter. If you ever think any of your relatives have a tendency to be a bit too flashy, consider yourself lucky...

The 'Extreme Makeover' Award: Marller, Ah My Goddess: Sorezore No Tsubasa

Marller had some issues with people mistaking
her gender in Season One...

She doesn't seem likely to have the same problem in
Season Two though...

Not much to say on this one. Maybe the regeneration Marller needed after the events of the 'Lord of Terror' arc near the end of Season One came with free implants or something...

The 'Over the Top Gun Battle' Award: School Rumble Nigakki

School Rumble Nigakki's 'survival game' has plenty of melodrama...

Okay, technically they're using airsoft guns and the muzzle flashes and blood splatters are just Akira adding special effects on a computer later on, but even so... there's something awesome about SR Nigakki's 'survival game' and how seriously the students get into it. It's just a contest to determine whether you do a cafe or a play for the cultural festival, for crying out loud! There's no need for quests of vengeance and melodramatic scenes between lovers trapped on opposite sides of the battle lines!

Not that I'm complaining or anything.

The 'Who Needs English?' Award: Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid (OVA)

The facial expressions say a lot, don't they?
(Click on the images for more detailed views.)

Sometimes, anime doesn't need English to be funny. The opening scenes of the TSR OVA, in which young Captain Testarossa has a dream about her crush (and subordinate) Sousuke, wakes up, and -without realising she's now awake- proceeds to the hangar and starts getting friendly with the socially awkward young soldier before realising her mistake and freaking out- is absolutely hilarious without any sort of translations, or even much background on the characters in question. Although I do have to admit that being able to understand the situationally ironic audio coming from the battle simulation Sousuke is running does add something to the scene...

Top Picks for '06

Okay, this is kind of a spur of the moment thing (I'd intended to do up that 'Spotlight On' article for Full Metal Panic! that I keep not getting around to working on), but I decided to do up a list of my top picks for 2006. Like many such lists, personal preference is going to play a huge part in this, as is the fact that there are a lot of shows this season that I haven't seen (including highly regarded releases like Death Note).

The Top Three (In Alphabetical Order)

Ah! My Goddess: Sorezore No Tsubasa/Ah! My Goddess Season Two

The brief reunion between the half-goddess, half-demon Urd and her mother

Hild (a high ranking demon) is one of the highlights of Sorezore No Tsubasa.

As mentioned in my previous post about this show, the second season of Ah! My Goddess somehow managed to be great despite the first season's mediocrity. I don't know whether this is because of a deliberate effort to fix the pacing issues and other problems that plagued the first season or whether it was more of an accidental thing, but somehow the people who worked on the second season managed to capture what was good about the first season while dispatching with much of what made it lame. There are still some issues with the new series (I think they ought to tone down Belldandy's domesticity a little) but overall it's pretty good. Belldandy's elder half sister Urd (who played a big role in keeping the first season's head above water) continues to be awesome in the second season: the portrayal of her love/hate relationship with her demon mother Hild proved to be one of the season's highlights.

Blood+

Blood+ manages to combine good characterisation
with excellent production values.

Okay, part of this one aired in 2005, but the majority of it aired in 2006, including many of the series' best episodes, and I fell it's okay to include it here. Boasting high production values, excellent characterization, and writing that manages to hold well under the strains of an incredible length despite a bit of a drop after the midpoint of the series, Blood+ is a real masterpiece of a series. Who would have thought a story about a girl who slays monsters could be so bloody good? (Forgive the horrible pun, please.)

School Rumble Nigakki/School Rumble Season Two

The cast of School Rumble returns for more Rumbling
in School Rumble Nigakki (Second Term/Semester).

If there is one flaw that virtually every series on this list has, it's a tendency to take a bit of a fall late in their runs. It's a problem that was quite pronounced in School Rumble Nigakki: for some reason the people behind the series decided to hold off on adapting the Kyoto arc from the manga and came up with original material as filler instead. Thankfully School Rumble Nigakki still has enough of it predecessor's spirit to make things a good ride however, especially during the earlier parts of the season when the show gives the first season a solid run for its money. I'm hoping we'll eventually see a third season of SR, though I hope that when they do it they either stick closer to the source material or come up with better original material. This series was definitely pretty good, but it could have been better.

(Oh, and also, what's with the title? Didn't the second semester start sometime during the first season?)