Anime wa Bakuhatsu da!

Yes, I just referenced Hirai Ken. I hope that song is stuck in your head for a nice, long time.

I actually had the chance to finally watch Macross: Do You Remember Love? this morning, and the experience of first watching that and then, later in the same day, watching Macross Frontier has been quite interesting, to say the least. The differences between the two decades is amazingly apparent, yet there’s still a kind of bond between them, that runs a bit deeper than simple sharing of plot elements.

The difference seem to be the most obvious at first glance. Do You Remember Love? is a condensation of the original 39 episode Super Dimensional Fortress Macross TV series (with changes made, of course, because Kawamori Shoji hates making the same thing multiple times) and it’s much more plot-oriented than character-oriented (but I’m willing to chalk that up to the fact that it’s the movie version; my memory is quite hazy on the TV series but I’m almost positive that they spent more time on the characters there). By contrast, Frontier is, and from the begining, has been primarily character-driven. Both series have elements of both, but it seems that in Frontier there is more emphasis placed on the characters themselves, and less focus placed on the characters driving the plot. I’m pretty sure that this character-driven approach is actually a feature of modern anime in general, as I’ve seen much less series that bank on plot over characters. Not to say that you can skimp on one and still be good; it’s just that I’ve noticed a growing trend to emphasize the characters of anime over the plot of anime.

The “bond” I talked about earlier running between Do You Remember Love? and Frontier seems to be a general sense of over-the-topness. It’s not quite over-the-top like Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann was over-the-top, but it’s a distinctly Kawamori brand of over-the-top. In the 80s, the focus of the over-the-topness seemed to be the battles (which in Do You Remember Love? were ridiculously large-scale) and in having Britol and Exedol stand around a lot and say “PROTOCULTURE” menacingly every fifteen minutes. In Frontier, the over-the-topness comes from the battles (but there’s not as many of them) and also from things like Sheryl hiding in a Zentradi shoe, Sheryl commandeering a giant pair of Zentradi panties as a scratchpad for lyrics, Ranka and her lovely prehensile hair, and various other cute moments that are the hallmark of modern anime. I don’t really think that one is better than the other, since I enjoy both, but it’s a bit easier for me to see the disconnect many old-school anime fans have for more modern material (barring a few I’ve seen around MAL and the likes who adapted nicely), since the transition even jarred me a bit. What’s strange about this is that many fans of modern anime seem to have no qualms about going back into the history of anime (barring those who complain that older series look too “old” for them or other trifiling quibbles), so the disconnect doesn’t seem to be two-way all the time. It’s two different sets of tropes designed to appeal to two different generations, and things have definitely changed.

On the actual episode itself, I’m pretty sure that Deculture is the new Anima Spiritia is the new Protoculture, but it seems that Ranka’s Deculture has the unpleasant effect of activating the Vajra, whereas in 7, Basara’s Anima Spiritia acheived the opposite, by bringing back humans from comas, and turning Gepelnitch’s men against him (I love you, Gigil, even if you can’t sing worth a damn). It will be interesting to see music save the day in Frontier, considering that it seems the odds are stacked against them at the moment. Of course, we don’t know that the Vajra was going to go on a massive evil rampage across the Frontier because they blew him up before he could break out.

Whatever happens, though, I have confidence in Macross to give me a solid story. And I need Ranka and Sheryl albums, STAT.

Nooooo, Minamo! Don’t think about what the word “orgasm” means! That way lies madness!

So Real Drive seems to be settling down into a kind-of episodically serial format, where each individual story takes up an episode or two, but characters progress along the way. I also couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the focus is on Minamo’s character more so than Haru, a fact which I probably shouldn’t like but which I don’t really mind. And it could be that they’re just holding back the Haru-plosion for later in the series. At any rate, the interaction between the two is lovely. They’re a perfect pair–Haru’s doubts and fears are removed simply by being in the energetic presence of Minamo, making them excellent partners in this diving detective business.

And what a business it is. Real Drive wastes no time getting to the seedier side of technological progress, smacking the viewer full-on with a laundry list of bizarre sexual fetishes (having an extended female orgasm while also having a death experience? I don’t think there’s a proper paraphilia term for that!) made possible through the advent of the Metal. Like Dennou Coil before it, it explores aspects of the virtual as they apply to the real world. Whereas Dennou Coil explored the more philisophical side of virtual reality (yes, I’m shamelessly self-whoring; sorry about that), Real Drive seems to be intent on exploring instead how humans use or abuse this technology.

In episode 4, the first “case” for Haru, he gets to rescue a lost diver from the “torments” of his own personal sexual pleasure. A sexual pleasure so intense, that even Haru, who at his age should have no sex drive to speak of, finds himself caught in the allure of it. Minamo, meanwhile, has no idea what an orgasm is, let alone the whole complex act of copulation itself, and it’s her simple, childish devotion to Haru that pulls him out of the erotic grip of the siren. I found that strangely touching, in a way, both that Minamo was that devoted to Haru, and that Haru recongized the difference between reality and fantasy, the latter amplified by technology. The power of actual love (which I guess is the best way to explain the relationship between Minamo and Haru) conquers fantasy and all that jazz.

Whether or not MInamo was tacked onto the series due to the demands of the anime market or not, as mentioned last time, doesn’t seem to apply much here anymore, neither does it apply to many other series. Most writers of most series have the skill to pull off a convincing character, regardless of whether or not they were tacked on there to be nearly superfluous in the first place. The focus on Minamo tells me that maybe Shirow had her in mind for the protagonist/”narrator” all along, which is fitting: she’s an innocent 15-year-old with no cyberbrain, so she’s literally looking at the world of Real Drive with similar eyes to the viewer. And, in the end, it doesn’t matter for what reason a character is in a series for, as long as that character contributes in some way, small or large to the story, the setting, or the overall appeal of the series.

And I still maintain that Minamo is quite cute, thunder thighs and all. It’s nice to see a different-yet-attractive character design in anime!

Population: you, Aya Hirano, and the manliest thief ever. Thieves are already pretty manly anyway (see: Kokoro Library and Funny Tortoise the Thief), but they are especially manly when they send advance notice of their thieving intent and still manage to fool everyone anyway. Granted, thief shows tend to have this standard plot-generating mechanism, but there’s something much deeper working under the surface of The Daughter of Twenty Faces. And that something is named Chiko.

Twenty Faces is actually not an “original” character, in the sense that the original mangaka made him up. Rather, he drew on Japan’s literary history for one Edogawa Ranpo, the man responsible for publishing the first modern-style crime stories in Japan. Just to point out how awesome Edogawa Ranpo is, his name is a Japanification of none other than Edgar Allen Poe, which shows you where his heritage lies. I actually grabbed via Interlibrary Loan a compilation of some of Edogawa’s shorter novels to check out his writing, since it is pertinent to my interests. I don’t know if that collection actually features Twenty Faces or not, but, hey, never hurts to check it out. I’ll probably make a post eventually detailing my experiences in reading Japanese crime fiction, linking it with the tone and style of The Daughter of Twenty Faces, or something.

As for the series itself, it desperately needs more attention. It’s striking me in that special way that only old-time mystery stories can (even though the manga started serialization in 2003). Granted, my only exposure to this kind of thing is probably the fragments of Sherlock Holmes I’ve read, and Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. That last one reminds me of Great Detectives Poriot and Marple and, oh, how I wish that hadn’t been a cheesy kid’s series. Poriot does not take interest in missing jewellry, thank you very much.

Anyway.

True to the storytelling style of the 30s, Daughter of Twenty Faces is much less concerned with things such as “avoiding plot holes” so much as “being totally awesome”, and they’ve hit the nail on the head. The first two episodes are a little on the slow side, but once Chiko starts to get involved in the theiving in 3 and 4, things pick up considerably, as her sweet, innocent exterior hides a cunning mind and a drive to learn. Twenty Faces, of course, exploits this as much as he can in her, to the great amusement of those who like a bit of old-old-school in their anime. If one likes smooth players in their anime, then you’re in for a treat as there’s two: Twenty Faces and Chiko. If they weren’t so buddy-buddy it’d be hilarious to set them against each other and have them try to outwit each other. And if that happened, I don’t know who I’d be rooting for.

It’s unclear where things are headed from here (I’ve seen through 4, which is all that’s out now) but, judging from both the OP lyrics and animation, we’re in for a timeskip paired with a missing Twenty Faces. They’re certainly advancing Chiko’s skills faster than they would if this series was about Chiko’s growth solely, so that tells me that they’re going to do something much different with this series than a standard kaitou series. Wherever it goes, however, I’m certainly planning to be along for the ride.

I miss being able to ride in shopping carts, as that was always the best part of youth. Maybe I can ride in a Zentradi shopping cart. You know, if Zentradi actually existed.

There is now no way on Earth you’ll ever be able to convince me that Murasaki is anything other than an actual seven-year-old and not some kind of bizarre loli-bait for otaku. Then again, this latter school of thought is either dying out or has no real ground to base this on other than “Holy crap, they go to the bath house twice and Murasaki gets naked!” as if one normally takes a bath in clothes other than one’s birthday suit.

Just like a real seven-year-old, though, Murasaki is a handful, breaking DS Lites and dolls like they’re nothing. (Murasaki is never touching my DS, I can tell you that right now; she will simply have to play Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan on her own DS and break her own damn screen. Although, I still say that the sight of Murasaki playing Ouendan, especially given her stylus skills in this episode, would be hilarious). She’s every bit as joyously rewarding and frustratingly annoying as actual children are. Granted, there’s a difference between watching a child be a child on TV and watching a child be a child all over your living room walls with the crayon set, but the prospect of parenthood seems slightly less daunting now. Let’s just hope that kure-nai doesn’t follow Murasaki into her angst-filled rebellious teenage years where she gets her hair dyed and a lip piercing and a tattoo in an embarassing place and other teenage joys that I voluntarily skipped out on as a teenager, since I’m boring.

The focus of this episode, however, seemed to be mostly on the relationship between Shinkurou and Yuuno. I don’t think I would have pegged Yuuno for being the daughter of a family of trained killers, although I guess they hinted at it enough times for it to not have been too big of a surprise. I can’t remember if they’ve mentioned this in past episodes, but the Houzukis’ “adopted” Shinkurou after his parents died and began training him in the ways of their family, i.e. the fine art of killing people.

So it was interesting to see that the relationship between Yuuno and Shinkurou, who had always seemed like more than friends yet less than lovers, to rather be that of a kind of familial relationship, if not by blood. I don’t know if kure-nai is going to go down the “assign Shinkurou a love interest” route or not, but there’s a tiny spark between the two that could blossom into something better. Or not, because who knows if a romance subplot is what kure-nai really needs at this time?

And Shinkurou seems to regret having installed the supernatural knife-thing in his arm, as Yuuno pointed out to him. As he said himself, he granted himself that ability to make himself stronger, but now that he has it, it’s more of a burden on him than anything else. Not just in that he has to do the jobs for Benika, as he’d probably do those with or without the bone-knife, but in that he has to actively try to repress the thing while engaging in combat. It’s like a constant reminder to him that there are two ways to attain power: through artifical means, and through hard work and effort. He chose the first in his youth, and, now, he must wrestle with his choice, which sometimes prevents him from following the second path. It’s a delicously tangible reminder of his (presumed) failure as a human.

What part Murasaki has in all this, though, is unknown. She certainly seems to be melting his heart a little, and her very presence gives Shinkurou something to strive for, something to protect–a raison d’etre, as it were. And doesn’t everyone need one of those?

Goro knows how to please a man, and pleasing this man involves Shirley in swimsuit + twintails + thighhighs.

This was probably the best “filler” episode of Code Geass yet, perhaps even better than the Leouche chasing after Zero’s helmet episode. And, yet, it wasn’t entirely filler, much like the previous season’s festival episode wasn’t complete fluff either. What worries me, though, is that what followed the last festival episode was none other than that episode title to strike fear in the hearts of men everywhere, “Bloostained Euphie”. And we all know what happened there.

It’s a testament to Goro’s own personal directorial philosophy that always creeps up in his series (that I’ve seen, so far), in that he’s not necessarily afraid to cut loose and just have fun every once in a while, as he did in this episode. He does it in Scryed (that entire series was about cutting loose and having fun, and it was all the better for it) and Planetes (where he added in comic relief characters that were not present in the original manga, infuriating some but ultimately making the series much more fun to watch). It’s also important to point out that Goro is good at both humor and drama. I don’t quite think Code Geass would be quite as well-liked as it is if it didn’t accomplish both with aplomb. The zany humor of this episode, for instance, don’t really feel out of place when compared with the rest of the series, and the scenes surrounding the festival scenes remind us of the seriousness of the situation, which only accentuates the absurdity.

Still, intermixed with all the absurdity are the chunks of plot, such as C.C. mentioning her…brother? Cousin? Something? V.V. to Lelouch. I’m guesing that all the Geass powers possessed by those in the employ of Brittania come from him in some way or form, which means that there’s much more working under the surface of Code Geass than a simple rebellion. It’s kind of a shame that they haven’t touched on this very much either in the first season or this season, but I’m guessing that sometime soon things are going to Come Clean. It’s likely that Lelouch, for all his scheming and outwitting, is actually playing straight into the plan of C.C. who might be an even bigger manipulator than he is, and they’ve hinted at this since the first episode of the first season. And God only knows what C.C. wants.

And it’s just too damn cruel to play the Nunnally card like Suzaku just did, but it’s just proof that Code Geass R2 is going to be less a season of Lelouch winning effortless triumph after triumph (or maybe I’m just rusty on my first season) and more like an actual chess game between two shrewd players of the game, where the relative ranks of the two players are constantly in flux with every move made. And that’s how actual real-world situations are, atlhough on a much larger scale, as everyone tries to out-maneuver everyone else before they get out-maneuvered themselves. Politics is tons of fun like this, and this is why I don’t really follow the news too terribly closely: one, it’s often too complicated for any one person to figure out on their own, even if they had something like Wikipedia to back them up and provide information on the actual facts; and two, Shirley Fenette is not parading around in a ridiculously hot outfit. But that’s beside the point.

The point is, things are getting much more complex for Lelouch these days. And he thrives on complex situations. He’s quite the dangerous man.

Best photo ever.

I honestly no longer think Irie actually has any kind of animosity or apathetic feelings towards Kotoko any more at all. If he was apathetic, he wouldn’t even bother to talk to her, let alone cede to her demands upon his time. If he was actively hostile to her, then he certainly wouldn’t have waited until the photo op to mention to Kotoko that, oh, by the way, I saw you working hard at your job. The two know each other well enough now to have fallen into the usual repartee that dominates any two human relationships, and Irie isn’t being cold-hearted and cruel so much as he is giving Kotoko a hard time. I don’t think he’s quite at the point where he’s so in love with Kotoko that he’d be fawning over and gushing with ebullient praise, but he’s quite clearly entering into the complex dance that is the game of flirting.

It’s funny how people do this all the time. We’ve seen at least two examples of “flirting” in Itazura na Kiss itself, although I hesitate to call Kin-chan’s rather forthcoming advances as “flirting” so much as a painfully awkward attempt to flirt without actually knowing how one flirts. Of course, flirting is probably some kind of bizarre human mating ritual that operates more on an instinctual level than a conscious level, so, of course, one actively trying to flirt will always end up being rather painfully awkward.

If it’s a natural process, though, then the whole complex set of emotions that defines Irie and Kokoto’s relationship, that on-again, off-again relationship that leaves some wondering why Kotoko doesn’t just ditch Irie since he’s clearly a manipulative bastard. The thing is, it’s just not that easy to drop one’s feelings for someone else, and Kotoko clearly had an almost slavish devotion to Irie before they wound up in the same house together. Rather than being an unrealistic, non-progressive represntation of girls in general, Kotoko instead is a fairly realistic representation of your average girl. Yes, I advocate women’s power and all that, but when you really boil it down, her devotion to Irie isn’t necessarily some kind of fault in her for not being assertive enough (she’s certainly assertive, because otherwise she wouldn’t have slapped Irie), but rather an indication that she’s simply caught up in emotions and feelings, which, well, is what teenagers do. It’s not a perceived lack of guts and independence on her part, she’s just conflicted and torn due to the whole process of flirting.

This realistic, or, well, what I perceive to be realistic, representation of the conflicting emotions of being trapped in the flirting pinball machine (being played by an expert pinball wizard aiming for an unbeatable high score, in this case)  seems to me to be the source of Itazura na Kiss’s enduring popularity, both in the 90s and now. I haven’t had the chance to read the original manga, so I can’t say that for sure, but as long as this anime is faithful to the original, then I’d say that’s a pretty fair assessment. People, teenagers in particular, like fiction that portrays the complex world of emotions that is everyday life, and if Itazura na Kiss can accomplish that on top of being fun to watch, then so much the better. It gives a certain sense of security that, no, you are not alone with your feelings.

Smooth, Ranka. Real smooth. But oh so adorable.

You can color me impressed with the result of the Miss Macross Frontier contest. I expected Ranka to somehow pull through and win against all the odds, although in retrospect I really shouldn’t have expected this. The expectance, and subsequent denial of said expectance, drove home with a vengance the level of the writing in Macross Frontier, especailly in the light of SDF Macross. In SDF, Minmei winning MIss Macross was an essential plot element to making her a pop idol so that she could sing Do You Remember Love? at the Zentradi until they rediscovered Culture and became good guys. Except for Kamlin, who likes to make Culture with his lady Zentradi friend, but that’s beside the point.

At any rate, in Frontier, Ranka loses in spectacular fashion. Kawamori Shoujo states that every Macross series will be different from the other ones, rather than a rehashing of the same basic formula (a fact made true with Macross 7, which, in the minds of some, isn’t a real Macross series because it lacks Itano circuses in high volumes), so obviously they won’t be pursuing the “end the war through song” angle. Rather, they seem to be going for a Ranka who is less of a plot point than Minmei was (apologies to SDF fans; this is merely for the sake of argument) and, instead, perhaps obtain a more detailed dive into her character and personality. It’s a small part of the difference in anime storytelling that has happened in the 25 years between SDF and Frontier. Or maybe I’m just delusional.

And, while we’re talking Macross in general here, I think the Vajra are pretty much the most hardcore antagonists in a Macross series yet, although, again, I’ve yet to see 2, Plus, and Zero. The Zentradi were basically giant humans, which was cool, especially when the Zentradi in question was Britol,  but that’s all they were. Macross 7 had perhaps the most ridiculous antagonists, whose main threat to humanity was sucking out the Spirita of a human, but that amounted to nothing because all it took to bring them back was to have Basara sing a song. The Vajra, by contrast, are incredibly hard to defeat. I don’t know if they’re spacefaring aliens of some kind, or just a bizarre mecha design, but you have to pound at the thing until something gives. A point-blank cannon shot at the thing just barely scratches it. And when they finally do go, it’s a massive explosion that can rip a Valkyrie to shreds. The total impossibllity of killing these things turns Macross Frontier into something that may potentially be more epic than any previous Macross series. I mean, you have to try really hard to top the war-arc ending of SDF, and, likewise, Basara singing Try Again at Gepelnitch is also hard to beat, but only beacuse Try Again is an awesome song. But Macross has always been about succeeding against seemingly insurmountable odds, but it’s the getting there that matters. As an anniversary project, I have high hopes, but all signs point to those hopes being filled, and I’m rarely disappointed anyway.

At any rate, even outside the context of Macross, Frontier is shaping up to be an excellent series in general. It’s kind of amusing to me that both of the major franchises–Gundam and Macross–have their anniversary series airing in close succession. It certainly provides a sense of justice to fans of one but not the other, and to fans of both, well, this is a wonderful time to be alive.

Final thought: Ranka’s backpack (the Valkyrie one) is pretty much the best backpack ever and we need a mass-produced version of it. I would wear one to school. I would be laughed off campus, true, but awesome backpacks are worth the price.

Production I.G., Shirow Masamune, and Furuhashi Kazuhiro have collectively lost their minds. And it’sawesome. And, yes, I skipped over all the old men diving naked and etc. for a pretty picture of Aoi Minamo, who is awesome in multiple ways.

But, yes, they’ve lost their minds. Furuhashi Kazuhiro has a rather interesting track record: he directed Binchou-tan, which is the cutest thing that I haven’t seen all of ever, and Zipang. I assume that Real Drive is more like the latter than the former, as I have yet to see any cute anthropomorphizations of charcoal show up in Real Drive, but that’s not to say that it won’t happen. Because, at this point, Binchou-tan could show up and it’d probably make sense in the context of the series.

I’m not really sure where I get this from, but I picked up a very noticable old-school Western science fiction riff from these first two episodes. I think it’s the world setup, maybe. I don’t really know where this feeling comes from, but the thought I had running throughout both episdoes was “wow, this feels old-school.” It’s not retro like Project BLUE: Earth SOS was retro, but it’s definitely got an older kind of sensibility coming from it. It feels kind of like Shirow channeled the spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and added pantyshots. That may not be the right author comparison, but I swear it feels like a modern version of something from a distant age.

The other fun thing about the series is the crazy pairing of the main characters. We get Haru Masamichi, who’s been stuck in a coma for fifty years and therefore looks like a wrinkled old man. We’ve got Aoi Minamo, a cheerful and upbeat fifteen year old girl who is apparently doing a school project or community service project at the hospital with her classmates. Iit’s a crazy age gap between the two major characters in a series. I’m guessing it’s done this way so that Minamo can act as a kind of foil for Haru, and vice versa.

And, speaking of Minamo, I am really liking the character designs in Real Drive. For one, the girls in the series aren’t impossibly skinny. Look at Nonaka Ai’s character–she’s got some heft to her. Not quite the heft of the dorm manager in Blue Drop, but enough to make you feel weird when you hear Nonaka Ai’s voice coming out of her. The rest of the girls we’ve seen in this series thus far haven’t been quite that extreme, but even Minamo has some flesh on her bones. The other characters (Souta, Haru, Eiichiro, and Holon) stand out from each other just fine (especially Haru because he’s old while everyone else in the series hasn’t aged at all in 50 years).

The other thing I want to mention is Minamo herself, or, rather, her presence in the series. As above, I assume they’re planning to use her as an age foil for Haru, but her appearance kind of jolted me a bit (and not just because I wasn’t expecting that pantyshot). Prior to her appearance, I thought that we’d have a series that dealt with adult characters (and most of the characters are, in fact, adults). When she showed up, however, it took me a few minutes to track and change my view of the series, especaily because given the serious tone of the series before that moment, the lightheartedness/cuteness snapped me into a different kind of mood.

Probably Minamo, in all her glory, exists in Real Drive as a direct result of moe and its far-reaching influence on anime. I’ve heard it said that it’s practially impossible for an anime to be successful if it doesn’t contain a cute girl of some kind or another in the series, the series would inevitably be much less of a success than it would be if there was a cute girl present. And I started wondering, would Minamo exist in Real Drive were it made in 1988 instead of 2008? Perhaps she would, but then she might be an older, more mature, no-nonsense woman, and not the cheery and genki and other bouncy adjectives Minamo that we have.

It certainly seems to be true; much of anime fandom, myself included (so don’t think I’m getting on my high horse and talking down at you) enjoy the series we do in part because they have cute girls in them. I can quite honestly say that, for me, enjoyment of the girls is a secondary or even tertiary reason to watch and enjoy a series. I’d argue (and will argue, once I get the time to sit down and write this post that’s been brewing in my head for months now) that, in anime, enjoyment of the women in a series is and pretty much has always been an integral part of anime viewership. What separates the hardcore moe afficinados from those who watch older series isn’t necessarily that the former is overly girl-obsessed and the latter is all about otoko no roman; even the manliest of shows from the 70s and 80s and even the 90s have their fair share of token eye candy female characters. The difference is in the kind of girl the girls are.

I’m not nearly well-read enough on pre-2000 anime compared to post-2000 anime (my major weakness, I’ll admit, but one can’t know everything), but from what I’ve seen (especially the really old series like Super Diminsional Fortress Macross, Mobile Suit Gundam, and Zeta Gundam) that there’s no less an element of tacking on female characters in series that don’t really need them, but the kind of girl they are is distinctly different. There’s probably more series nowadays that are heavily cute-girl-centric, I’ll admit that, but there’s a lot from earlier decades that got swept under the rug never to be mentioned again. It’s one reason I find criricisms of the moe phenomenon from fans of older series somewhat perplexing–it’s the same thing, it’s just a different kind of girl. It’s like the age-old argument between Western comics fans and manga fans: Which is more degrading to women, comics or manga? The answer is, of course, both are capable of being incredibly degrading and incredibly empowering. It all depends on your taste, and what you’re used to seeing. And taste varies wildly across the board, so there’s no accounting for it.

Pic unrelated to title, but the expression on Iku’s fact there perfectly represents the feeling I get on a day when work is getting slammed with patrons who all want to find that one special book that got stolen two years ago and, not finding it, pick another book with an embarassing cover (which is 90% of the books in the library) and take it to the circulation desk whereupon they discover that they have a $0.50 fine and begin to argue with the circ staff about how unfair it is that they should have to pay a 50 cent fine, to which the reply is “Well, you turned in a book five days late” which elicits a “No I didn’t, that was on time!” and proceeds to defend their precious 50 cents while the guy down the line with the $50 fine writes a check while smiling and telling us to buy some fun books with the money. I know you guys like the library and all, but really, you don’t have to all come in and do this at the same time.

Er, sorry. Work rant. This series might prompt more of them.

Anyway, now that there are subs, Toshokan Sensou is still glorious and still everything I had hoped it would be when I heard about it months ago. It’s actually better–I didn’t expect Iku at all, and neither did I expect her to channel Ai Tanabe at the same time that Doujou was channeling Hachimaki, which makes this a quite fun series to watch. The premise of setting libraries at war against an independent team of media censors has been described as ludicrous by some, but these people clearly do not understand the awesome inherent in sticking guns into the hands of librarians. The command to shush while in the library sticks a bit better when we’re pointing a gun at you and telling you to shush, rather than just giving you a stern look from beneath our collective beehive hair (note: I have never seen a librarian, or even a non-librarian, with beehive hair. We all look as awesome as Nancy Pearl with her push-button shushing action).

Coming from my librarian background, the best part of the two episodes I just watched was the bit in episode 2 where Iku is performing library duties with varying degrees of success. I felt sorry for her when she knocked over the book cart (that happens every once in a while, and it’s never pretty, especailly when the whole cart tumbles over and you’re staring at a pile of books that were once in perfect Dewey order and are now sorted according to entropy), but nevertheless admired her plucky tenacity to learning the ropes of the classification system. I couldn’t help but notice that the Kantou Library Group uses those nifty shelves-on-rails things that we’ve got at the local university–those things are handy but annoying when you’re trying to shift the collection across the border and have to put books on a cart, get out of the aisle, push the button, wait, and then unload and do it all over again.

And my Expert Library Worker Eye spotted horrible inefficiency in the shelving process–I mean, really, Iku just grabs a small bin of books and whisks off to the stacks to shelve them. I don’t know what kind of circ Kantou gets, but it’s a huge library and that seems like a horribly inefficient way to go about the tedious process of putting the books back on the shelf.

I get carried away talking about the process of working in a library, so here’s something of actual pertinence to the anime I’m supposed to be discussing: I’m quite liking the blend of seriousness and lightheartedness. As mentioned above, the setting could be construed as quite ludicrous, but the series doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It’d be a silly premise if this was a gritty war drama with death and blood and guts and courage, but with the mood of the series the way it is, the silliness of the setting doesn’t really bother me at all, and in fact actually adds to the experience. And, honestly, it’s no more ridiculous than Read or Die’s setting, where the British Library actually has a huge network of secret agents who all have supernatural powers who protect great literature the world over. And Read or Die is considered a classic of anime in general, so I see no reason why we should criticize Toshokan Sensou just because it isn’t snappy mad cool like Read or Die was.

I also love how they have to announce to each other over the intercom that they’re opening hostilities, and that the Media Enforcement Corps actually give the libraries time to evacuate patrons who might be caught in the crossfire. Then again, I’m sure somewhere in a later episdoe there will be a patron death and Iku will go on a rampage or something fun like that. But we actually haven’t had a death in the series yet, and I don’t think we’re going to. It’s not a kill-people-off story, especially as the librarians are quite content to shoot to disarm and not to kill. I think that’s the best part of the series, for me–they may now be soldiers trained in the art of war, but they’re stil librarians at heart.

Now if only libraries in our world could field their own army, and we could launch attacks on book burnings and similar nasty things. The right to free speech and freedom of information should be enforced with military might, thank you very much.

Oh, Patty, I knew you would be amazing just by glancing at your design.

Death the Kid is amazingly awesome. I think every person on the planet had OCD in some form or another, so there’s no way you can’t tell me that you didn’t see elements of yourself in him, Personally, I don’t have the ridiculous devotion to symmetry; although the concept is certainly biologically pleasing, there’s a certain kind of beauty in asymmetry with good composition. I have more issues with making sure that I don’t step on cracks or tiles of the incorrect color (watching me walk must be a laugh riot at times), so I certainly understand the need for things to be just so, or else you aren’t happy. It’s a primate thing, I think.

The absolute highlight of the episode, though, was the Thompson sisters, Patty and Liz. Mostly Patty. Oh god, Patty. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the “cute-yet-lovably-airheaded” type in anime, and she bowled me over wholeheartedly. Her seiyuu also seems to be new to the business, like Maka’s: I like Takahira Narumi’s voice better than Omigawa Chiaki’s (Maka), but I really don’t have an issue with Maka’s voice as she seems to be less about squeaky cuteness and more about raging power. All that screaming would give anyone a harsh voice, wouldn’t you agree? That and Chiaki’s originally a stage actress, so she’s not as trained in voice acting. I find Maka’s voice fits her character, and most of the hatred probably comes from people desiring a voice more like Patty’s than what they got.

Not only is Patty cuter than a button that has a picture of a kitten on it, but she’s dangerous. I think the single best scene of the entire episiode (and the series thus far), in terms of “you did NOT just do that” action was when they did the mid-air role swap. Patty jumps, transforms into a gun, while Liz goes from gun to human form, grabs gun-Patty, and blasts the mummy. The sheer creativity of that move shows that perhaps Death the Kid, for all the raging passion he exhibits when confronted with assymetry, would probably be useless without Patty and Liz (See, it’s that reversal of standard shounen gender roles again!). It’s also fun to note that it’s Patty who comes up with this move. Yes, air-headed Patty. With adorable poofy jean shorts.

The three prologues of the main characters have done an excellent job in setting up the characters of the series in a way which clearly defines who these characters are. It’s amazing how much detail they crammed into these three episodes, while keeping up the comedy aspect. It’s that comedy aspect that I think helps define these characters and makes them likable and memorable this early on, as humor is the best way to implant something in the human mind. Sometimes, I watch a series and can’t remember the names of characters until 4-5 episodes later, and even then, I’ll forget minor characters easily. Maybe it’s just the high volume of discussion about the series I’ve been seeing, but I have zero trouble remembering these characters’ names, despite only hearing them a couple of times each. When names and faces of characters stick this well, someone’s doing their job right.

I have no idea where Soul Eater is going now (the preview offers no clues); they may branch from the manga early and develop an anime-specific storyline, they may follow the manga until they run out and then do same, or maybe they’ll dispense with a plot altogether and just be manic fun for 51 episodes. The last one is the least appealing, but as long as the series stays this consistently entertaining I’ll stick with it. And it’s a 10th anniversary series for BONES, which is an extra incentive to see what’s up with it. But one never knows with these things.