Orenchi no Furo Jijou

Orenchi no Furo Jijou (オレん家のフロ事情) is a 13 episode slice of life comedy fantasy series based on the 4koma of the same name by Itokichi.  The series originally aired in Japan in the Fall of 2014.

    Tatsumi stumbles upon a dying merman one day and decides to bring it back to his house to nurse it back to health.  The merman, Wakasa, gains his strength and decides to take up residence in Tatsumi's bathtub.  The two decide that there isn't much of a problem with that and the story continues to show their odd couple type living arrangement.

    This is an odd short series brimming with yaoi at every angle.  It’s like it was designed to fuel the wild imaginations of furry fujoshi.  It was sweet at times, utterly ridiculous at others and filled with nothing but shonen-ai stylized characters.  Not much actually goes on accept for a series of sexually tense interactions between Tatsumi and the literal fish-out-of-water Wakasa.  Over the course of the show a few of Wakasa's bishonen friends join the party, offering up even more fujoshi fantasies. 

    I'm not a fujoshi by any stretch of the mean but honestly this wasn't a waste of time.  It wasn't a good use of time either, but the entire thing ran for about 40 minutes.  I've wasted more time than that on worse things.  But it really does have its niche, even if the shonen-ai trappings are all in the subtext.  But in the end, it’s all about the loner high school student gathering a male harem of sea creatures to hang out with in his bathtub.  Strange.

    The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll and I highly doubt it will ever get beyond that.  The manga, not surprising, is not available in English.

New Years in Tokyo

Way back in 1999 I put together a trip to Tokyo for myself and three of my friends to spend New Years there.  With the absurd Y2K fears abound I figured, if technology goes the way of the ending of Escape From L.A., why not be stuck in Japan!  So after Christmas we all headed out.

    This would be my third time in Tokyo and I was pretty confident in the layout of the city, I was the tour guide essentially.  Japan is Buddhist as well as Shinto and New Years is an incredibly popular holiday.  Its the one holiday pretty much everyone celebrates.  We ended up going to Meiji Shrine in the western Tokyo ward of Shibuya.  The shrine is dedicated to Emperor Meiji who became the ruler of Japan following the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 1870s.  The shrine is part of the vast Yoyogi Park and offers tranquility not easily found elsewhere in the city.  It is also one of most popular destinations for New Years day shrine visitation. 

    After spending the day wandering around, we ended up at the shrine in the evening, before it got too packed.  They had planks laid over the various shallow steps that lead in and out of the shrine area's.  It was highly entertaining watching various yamanba tripping on the boards in their ridiculously high platform heels.  At one point two guys came up to us and said hey.  One of my friends gave them the cold shoulder after he mistakenly thought they called us gay.  Aside from the people watching there wasn’t much going on and I wanted to make sure we didn’t get stranded when the trains stopped running at midnight.  So after a bit we decided to leave the shrine.

    We hopped on the train and headed to the other side of the city, getting off at Tokyo station, as I thought we were going to be able get into the Imperial Palace.  Wandering around the east side of the palace grounds proved that nothing was actually going on.  So we wandered east to the train station and stumbled on a massive crowd lining a decorated street just off of Hibiya Dori.  We found the end, joined the crowd to the destination.  We were hoping this was going to be some awesome spectacle and celebration.  There were significantly more people here than at Meiji.  It was a fun and festive atmosphere.  At one point a drunk middle aged man made me give him my camera so he could snap a picture of all four of us.  We wandered along with everyone else, going quite a few blocks only to discover it was an elaborate promotion by Fuji Film.  We weren't the only ones visibly disappointed. We decided to call it a night and headed back east to Koiwa to make sure we made it back to the hostel.

    I was tired from walking around all day so I stayed in my room and watched various New Years Eve programs on TV.  My friends went to the top of the hostel to watch the city, seeing some fireworks in the distance.  When New Years came and the apocalypse did not follow I turned off the TV and lights and fell asleep listening to bell being tolled 108 times in the distance.

    The next day we headed back to Meiji to see the New Years day spectacle, none of us really understanding it at that time and it would have been more meaningful if we did.  One friend got an omikuji as a souvenir for his parents.  But all in all it was a bust essentially.  We ate some food and made sure to call friends and family to wish them Happy New Year when it was that time back in America.  We spent the next few days frustrated that so much was closed, even ATMs.  And then boarded a plane back to home, with semi-fond memories and regrets that we weren't stuck in Tokyo a bit longer.

    I discovered later, some information not coming to me for years, the mistakes and missed opportunities in my New Years experiences in Tokyo.  Unlike all the other times of the year, the trains keep running well after midnight.  The trains shutting down around midnight always puts a damper on my attempts to party in Tokyo and go clubbing.  New Years Day it's self is the more important time and can lead to some amazing sights and people watching.  Much is closed for a few days around the holiday but you can easily overcome that.  I still have yet to find out any info on being able to tour the Imperial Palace on New Year’s Day...but the next time I’m in Tokyo for that time of year my game plan will be more solid.

   Extra bonus: At midnight on New Year’s Eve, Buddhist temples ring their main bell 108 times as a way to symbolize the purification of the 108 desires and passions people are supposed to have acquired over the year to lead to a rebirth in the new year, free of desire.

明けましておめでとう!! 

Rage of Bahamut: Genesis

Rage of Bahamut: Genesis (神撃のバハムート GENESIS) is a 12 episode fantasy series based on the mobile card game Shingeki no Bahamut.  The series originally aired in Japan during the Fall of 2014.

    Favaro Leone is a bounty hunter and the son of a bandit.  He's cocky, slippery and full of himself.  The only things that interest him are drinking and women, both of which he does with gusto.  While bragging at an inn one evening, a woman over hears him boast about traveling to the remote city of Helheim.  The woman, named Amira, is headed to Helheim in search of her mother.  She confronts Favoro, who doesn't know when to tell the truth, and asks him to take her there.  He agrees but doesn't realize what he's getting into with his lie.  Amira, half demon and half angel, is heading to find her mother.  She is being manipulated by power people working to change the world.  Amira holds within her one of two keys that help to seal the ancient world destroying dragon Bahamut.  She puts a curse on Favaro that forces him to help her.  As they begin to find out whats actually going on Favaro starts to do his best to help her, if only to remove the curse. 

    I don't generally like high fantasy anime.  There is just something about them that usually bothers my.  I grew up reading mostly fantasy novels and playing all sorts of Dungeons & Dragons, but the anime worlds representation of fantasy never struck a cord with me.  This show on the other hand, is fantastically entertaining and I rank it as my favorite show of the year.  The animation is slick, the character designs are fantastic and the background story is pretty entertaining.  There are equal amounts of action and humor and both are done very well.  My biggest complaint would be that the Demon characters looked stupid and some of them seemed to be pointless.  But lets talk more about how awesome this show was!

    It really reminded me of the spirit and pace of Cowboy Bebop.  Favaro and the other characters in the band of heroes are entertaining and unique.  They keep the real mastermind hidden until the very end.  With the exception of the annoying recap episode in the middle of the show it was well paced and told the story well, ending when it should have instead of stretching it out unnecessarily.  The show wraps up nicely with a tease that it may return.  Lets hope so!

    The series was simulcast on Hulu and is licensed by FUNimation, so expect a disc release at some point.  I plan on picking it up myself!

34-sei Mushoku-san

34-sei Mushoku-san (34歳無職さん) is a slice of life manga by Ikeda Takashi.

    The unnamed main character,  Mushoku-san (Ms. Unemployed), is an unemployed 34 year old single woman who lives by her self in her small apartment and goes about her daily, uneventful life planning and preparing for her future.  She goes about her life scheduled by garbage days and grocery shopping.  She mentally tries to be active, save her money and motivate to finding a new career.  Reality is another thing though.

    I really have been enjoying this manga.  Its simple, uneventful and naturally drawn.  This is what Ikeda-sensei has been doing since finishing Sasameki Koto.  There are currently 5 tankobon in existence and I am slowly working on translating them for personal use only as a way to improve my Japanese.

    This will never see any sort of release in North America and has seen little response from the scanlation community.  I doubt it will ever see an anime rendition, but it would work well in an anime short format...so who knows!

Maido! Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku

Maido! Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku (毎度！浦安鉄筋家族) is a 25 episode gag comedy based on the manga of the same name by Hamaoka Kenji.  The series originally aired in Japan over the second half of 2014.

    This short series continues the insane antics of the Osawagi family beyond the original Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku anime.  Osawagi Kotetsu is a hyperactive elementary school boy whose family and friends are a collection of bizarre weirdo's.  The show is segmented into 2 minute long episodes containing isolated stories of insanity involving a large cast of characters.  From the clueless homeroom teacher who models his wardrobe after Bruce Lee's.  Kotetsu's taxi driving everyday middle aged father.  A classmate who can't keep clothes on, another who has the body of an old man and on and on.

    Even with the fact that I could only understand about half of the dialog in this series it quickly became one of my favorite shows for 2014.  No one has picked this up for subtitling...legitimate or otherwise.  Which is really disappointing.  I love gag manga and this is one of the best I have ever seen.  The animation is crisp and clean, which is rare for this style of anime.  The RAW provider for this show is claiming that episode 25 is the final but information in the episode points to it continuing in January of 2015...so time will tell.  Hopefully someone picks this highly entertaining show up.  Regardless I still enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who is a fan of insane and off kilter comedies.

    As stated, this is in no way pegged for licensing outside of the Japan at the moment.  The original series from the end of the 90's had seen some foreign licensing, but not in North America.

2014 Year in Review

2014 turned out to be a pretty fantastic year for anime.  We saw the return of some old series' and some fresh new ones.  One thing for sure is that CG animation is making a huge impact in the industry and isn't going to go anywhere.  Depending on the style and quality I like it, but sometimes its annoying and less natural than traditional animation.  But, that's all dependent on the technology used.

Either way, this year had some great shows.  Here is a look at some of the ones I really enjoyed, in no particular order.  I even linked to the reviews of the shows that have finished.

    Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun:  This slice of life comedy is about an ill fated, one sided love between Sakura Chiyo and her stoic classmate Nozaki Umetaro.  Sakura ends up getting recruited to join a motley crew of peers that help Nozaki produce his monthly shojo romance manga.

  This series reminded me heavily of the humor and flow of School Rumble, with out all of the surreal oddities.  The cast of secondary characters are varied and entertaining.  This was a clean and well done comedy that dipped a little into the trials and tribulations of a manga-ka.  The romance portion of the story takes a back seat for the majority of the show, only to really come into play in the final episode.  Here's hoping for more beyond the 12 episode TV series and the shorts included in the DVD releases.

    Hamatora: Part comedy part deadly serious super natural action show, Hamatora deals with a group of people who form a lose nit detective agency that use their unique genetic abilities known as Minimums to solve crimes.  A variety of murders begin to thrust the existence of Minimum Holders into public knowledge.  The group has to figure out who is behind it and why before the world turns on them for being different.

  I can't say it enough, this is a homegrown Japanese rendition of the X-Men...and I kind of prefer this over that long running comic.  The animation and character design were a bit annoying, but the character background and over all plot was well done.

    Aldnoah.Zero: Due to alien technology people emigrated to Mars in the 1970's and decided to fancy themselves different than humans.  Decades later that hatred turns into an invasion of Earth by the Martians using their superior technology.  A small group of refugees from the suburbs of Tokyo find themselves at the front line of the attack as one of the people on the escape boat is a 'dead' Martian princess.

  The mechs are cool, the background story is cool, the character designs are appealing and the main character is a hard/stoic bad-ass.  This was a fun story that isn't done and will be returning in 2015 with a whole bunch of questions needing to be answered.  The internet kind of lost its shit with the final episode of this show.

    Maido! Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku: Return of the long running gag manga series continues more odd ball antics and gags of a small group of misfit children and the adults around them.

  This would be my second favorite show of the year...and no one has picked it up for subtitling...sad sad world we live in.  This show is well made and incredibly funny if you enjoy stupid humor and sight gags.

    Mekakucity Actors: A group of kids are drawn together because of their special abilities.  Little do they know they are being manipulated by forces outside of their control.  They come together and theirs fate begin to reveal its self as they confront the forces manipulating them.

  This interesting and arty show was based on a popular series of Volcaloid video's.  While confusing until the last half of the show the story is interesting and worth a watch.  The art and presentation are interesting and reminded me of some things done in Lain and Evangelion.  Definitely worth the watch.

    Sidonia no Kishi: Set 1000 years after the Earth is destroyed by mysterious aliens, a seed ship travels the depths of space in search of a place to call home.  After a hundred years of peace they are again in threat of destruction at he hands of this relentless behemoth, mindlessly bent on humanities end.  A boy raised in the pits of the city may be the ships best hope for survival.

  This is a slick and well done CG series that takes mecha space opera out of middle school and into adulthood.  This mature story has a fantastic backdrop, excellent intrigue and some creative ideas.  The animation is a bit clunky, being cell shade wire frame technology, but its well done regardless.  Season 2 can't come quick enough!

    Tonari no Seki-kun:  Odd slice of life antics of a high school student and her mental dialogue concerning the levels of slack her classmate Seki goes to.

  Short anime series are a quickly growing trend.  This series uses that format exceedingly well and was able to keep the basic premise fresh for most of its run.  The animation is simple but is more than made up for in creativity and the main characters internal dialog.

 

    Mushi-shi Zoku-sho:  Ginko returns for more episodes of helping people with their mushi problems.  This season was split in two and the second half which began airing in the Fall seems to have the best stories out of the entire franchise.

  I would say Mushi-shi is one of the best anime TV shows ever made.  It is original and exudes a dream like aura in each installment that I have never before experienced.  The show is void of action or power ups and at times can be slow paced and I love every minute of it.  Aside from Ginko there are only 3 recurring characters but it is an amazingly well done story.  The shows is steeping in allegory and twists on traditional Japanese lore.

    Barakamon: Handa Seishu is a privileged professional calligrapher who is banished to a remote island town to cool his head.  While there, refocusing, he has to put up with the towns cast of odd ball hicks and learn important life lessons through their antics.

  This typical slice of life, life lesson comedy is fun and enjoyable.  The cast of yokels are enjoyable, especially the main girl who causes Handa the most trouble.  Nothing special, but above average in the slice of life comedy arena.

    Shingeki no Bahamut Genesis:  Based on a video/card game franchise, the story deals with a half demon half angel who holds in her one of two keys that seal the evil dragon Bahamut.  Powerful agents are manipulating her to unleash the dragon from his 1000 year slumber.  Unfortunately for Favaro, a quick tongued bounty hunter/bandit, he ends up being dragged along with the woman through Heaven and Hell as she searches for her mother.

  This is my top pick for the year and I hate fantasy anime.  This show is amazingly entertaining.  The background is interesting and fun.  The cast of characters are entertaining.  The animation is slick, the fight scenes fast paced and satisfying.  The comedy is well done.  This show feels so much like Cowboy Bebop.  Well worth the time...it is the best show this year.

    Gugure Kokkuri-san: Spiritually sensitive orphan Kohina ends up attracting a number of animal spirits, much to her annoyance.  The main one, a kitsune dubbed Kokkuri, does his best to fill the void of familial love he senses in the young girl.

  This show is incredibly funny.  There are no straight men in this comedy, everyone's a nut job.  It is everything Keroro Gunsou was unable to get right and so much more.  Witty, entertaining and steeped in traditional Japanese animism.

    Tokyo ESP: Flying fish are giving random people in Tokyo psychic powers.  A group, taking this as a sign, use this opportunity to make themselves the rulers of Tokyo.  A small band of ESPers end up being their only opposition and face insurmountable odds fighting them.

  This is a well drawn series that has some fun characters and entertaining pop culture references.  The actual background of the story is less than original but watching the main character learn to deal with her new powers is entertaining and fun.  It has bad points and good points but is over all a decent series and worth the watch.  I'm intrigued to see if a second season will surface in the future.

  Argevollen: Two nations are fighting each other for larger territory and political clout.  A small mech platoon from one side stumbles upon a new design that could change the fate of the war.  The more that is learned about this incredible new machine the less the encounter seems like a fluke.  Instead these soldiers find themselves at the center of a dangerous power struggle between military leaders and corporations.

  This is a true and straight forward military anime.  Aside from the random and pointless fan service scenes from time to time this is a really enjoyable and entertaining show.  I dig clunky mechs and this one if full of them.  The mechs though are actually less of the focal point of the story which swings back and forth from focusing on the military and corporate intrigue at work behind the war.

    Shirobako: 5 high school girls promise each other to have successful careers in the anime industry.  A few years later some of them are on their way to that dream but the hard reality of their tireless work can sometime seem overwhelming.

  This is a fun and cute slice of life show that gives a great view into the world of anime production and the insane schedules everyone in the industry ends up dealing with.  Its full of great insight and plenty of comedy and otaku references.

Zenkyo no Terror: Two young men have a well detailed terrorism plot planned out to expose the horrors of their upbringing in a secret orphanage.  Their goal is to lead the detectives investigating their bombings to the truth before they are ultimately captured or killed.

    This series features a completely different direction for Watanabe Shinichiro (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Space Dandy).  This is a slickly animated, straight out of Hollywood action packed cops vs genius terrorist type story.  While nothing ground breaking it offers a smart by the book action show amid all the normal offerings in anime land.

While this year was stellar in selection it also had some pretty tragic and disappointing shows.  Here are a look at a few of the offerings that ended up being rather disappointing.

    Keroro:  Keroro Gunsou, which ran for way longer than it ever should have in the half hour format 10 years ago was redone in the increasingly popular 2 to 3 minute format. The show starts from ground zero and retells the invasion of the Keroro platoon.  Unfortunately they went super cheap on the art and the entire thing is done in Flash, which looks pretty horrible compared to the original.  I like Keroro Gunsou, even if it got old and should have stopped probably around episode 60 or so.  But to redo it in shoddy animation and to cut it to shorter episodes seems annoying and unnecessary.

Ai Tenchi Muyo: The first new Tenchi Muyo TV show since 2002.  Ai Tenchi Muto is a confusing series of 5 minute episodes that offer nothing new and only present fap material with pointless and annoying harems that put this classic harem series to shame...this show soils the franchise.

One Week Friends: While not bad, this slice of life romance series is actually really really boring...like really boring.  I watched the entire thing and didn't really feel anything for the characters.  I started to read the manga, which seemed a bit better, but since the anime seemed to follow it verbatim I stopped.  The manga at least is presented in a semi comical way as its a 4koma.  But the series is incredibly dry and oppressive in its atmosphere.  It was weird.  I wanted to like it more but it was just so incredibly pathetic.

Soul Eater NOT!: Another return to an entertaining and loved series.  Much like Ai Tenchi Muyo, Soul Eater NOT! turns a fun series into a pointless fan service spectacle with no real point.

    Well, 2014 yielded one of the best years for entertaining anime since 2006 or so.  2015 has a few gems already in the works; season 2 of both Sidonia no Kishi and Aldnoah.Zero.   The return of Soukyu no Fafner and Durarara!  New series too that seem mildly interesting like Death Parade and Assasination Classroom.  January is up next and an all new batch of shows are neigh!
 

Sasameki Koto - anime

Sasameki Koto (ささめきこと) is the 13 episode adaptation of the slice of life romance manga by the same name from Ikeda Takashi.  It originally aired in Japan during the Fall of 2009.

    Murasame Kazuki is in love with her best friend and classmate Kazama Ushio.  Ushio is open about her love of girls, but Murasame hasn't told anyone her feelings or preference.  Murasame has a few problems to overcome before she can decide if she wants to let her best friend know her true feelings.  Kazama has a penchant for cute girly girls and Murasame is a tom boy.  On top of that she has to deal with the problem of threatening her most important relationship for the possibility of her feelings being reciprocated.

    After reading the manga I wanted to watch the anime to see how it translated, especially given its creation halfway through the series.  It was both disappointing and enjoyable.  The animation and voice acting seemed pretty sub par.  Yet, the length and portion of the manga it dealt with made the story significantly better than the source material.  Where the manga was filled with story lines I thought were pointless the anime cuts to the chase and has the love story of the two main characters as its sole focus.  I liked that.  As stated earlier what I didn't like was the animation. it was cheap.  The anime version also made it seem like the series was really made to be a shojo-ai dojinshi of Azumanga Daioh.  That was a bit weird to think about...  The manga didn't give off that vibe though.  So I think in the end...even with the lower quality artwork of the anime, given the cleanness of the story compared to the manga, the anime is the better choice out of the two.  It keeps everything to the point and delivers the feels in a good way.  If only more shojo-ai stories could be more about the emotions instead of the ecchi.  Although...the anime doesn't put a defining conclusion to the relationship of the main characters like the manga does.  Perhaps they were hoping for a continuation once the manga was completed.  Given the age of both I don't think that's going to happen.

    The anime is currently available for streaming on Crunchyroll.  It has not been made available on disc in North America.

Amagi Brilliant Park

Amagi Brilliant Park (甘城ブリリアントパーク) is a 13 episode comedy based on the light novel series of the same name by Gato Shoji.  The anime originally aired in Japan in the Fall of 2014.

    Kanie is a perfect high school student in most aspects, and he’s completely full of himself for it.  Due this attitude no one wants to really associate with him and be spends much of his time bored.  That changes when a transfer student named Isuzu begs him to be the temporary manager for the decrepit and failing amusement park Amagi Brilliant Park.  They are in danger of being forced to sell the property to a developer unless they can bring in 500,000 guests by the end of July.  Kanie refuses and thinks it would be better off closed and sold.  He is shown the real purpose for the parks existence though and is convinced enough to take the job to try and save the park.  Many of the employees of the park are actually magical beings from a different realm.  The park is used to funnel magical energy into the realms princess who resides in it.  If the park is closed her life could be in danger.  This tugs at his heart strings, as he encountered the princess when he was younger and she left an impression on him.  Now it’s up to his direction and efforts to try and save her.

    This was a run of the mill comedy that had a predictable ending and rote story lines.  The animation is nothing special, and the characters are rather one dimensional.  There was really nothing of worth in this show aside from some of the parks living mascots, who tended to be rather crude and entertaining, as mascots should be.  Imagine if Mickey wasn't a costume and he spent his nights getting hammered and chasing women!!  Otherwise it really wasn't worth the time.  The character of Kanie was your standard smart-ass know it all.  Isuzu really seemed to be there only for her boobs and as Kanie's lackey.  The princess looked like some tragic shojo character.  Near the end a strange background plot line was added in that actually seemed a bit unnecessary and didn't stop the show from ending predictably.  In fact, I would say it made even more pathetic in the end.  The main story concludes with episode 12 leaving episode 13 as a bonus 'fun' story which was actually somewhat entertaining.

    There is no word yet on this series being licensed for release in North America in any format.