As January provides new series to fill in the empty spaces left by half season shows, there are a number of new titles premiering this month.
A year after the 2nd season started we have the third series in the Minami-ke franchise, Minami-ke Okaeri. The story continues the mundane adventures of the 3 orphaned Minami sisters and their cast of bizarre friends. From the first episode of the new series it seems to have returned to the sketch format from the first series as opposed to an episodic format found in the second series. As I have stated previously the series was more enjoyable if each installment was compromised of a number of little scenarios that didn’t relatively relate to each other, and Okaeri has provided that once again. Not that the second season was bad, with each episode dealing with one main plot, it just didn’t flow as smoothly as the first season.
The disappointing thing I have found so far with the new series is the artwork. The attention to detail has gone down noticeably in the characters and the backgrounds. The characters have grown older and it’s noticeable, but their faces particularly have changed significantly. Where before they had soft rounded chins they now have pointy chins and all of the female characters have two little hair wisps that frame into their cheeks, it’s actually kind of distracting.
Where the past series had finely detailed facial and hair features with the coloring in the hair doing some funky gradual shading, the new series is pretty flat with the hair and faces. The backgrounds seem devoid of life as well compared to before. The most concerting thing about these noticeable changes is the fact that the character designer for Okaeri is the same character designer from Okawari. So it’s anyone’s guess as to why the change, perhaps just to help show that the characters have all aged. That still does not explain the lack of detail in comparison. Regardless of this picky little problem the series is entertaining as always. I enjoyed the first episode of Okaeri more than any of the episodes of Okawari, which might be due to the segmented way it was presented. I’m happy to have more adventure of the Minami sisters regardless of the quality of the artwork.
Asu no Yoichi is a brand new series that doesn’t know whether it wants to be a samurai show, a harem show or a preteen shonen adventure. The story deals with anachronistic Yoichi, who has been raised from birth in a secluded mountain by his strange father in the ways of their samurai family. At the ripe age of 17 Yoichi’s father decides that there is nothing more he can teach his son and arranges to send him to train at a sister dojo in the city. This will be Yoichi’s first time away from his mountain home but he agrees eagerly in order to improve his sword skills. Yoichi has been raised since birth as a samurai, in manners, skills, speech and dress. He looks like he came directly from the 1700’s. He knows of the world outside of his home but has never visited it or been explained about modern society.
The sister dojo is located in the city and is manned by 4, apparently, orphaned sisters. They are normal, modern people and are unsure as to what their guest will be like, considering that they were notified of his impending arrival via an arrow with a message attached to it. The sisters head off to a local shopping center, which was chosen as the meeting place. Yoichi on the other hand has caused trouble for himself already upon arriving at the city. A thug bumps starts harassing him and Yoichi quickly dispatches him with his boken (wooden practice katana) causing him to be arrested by a police officer. While being questioned at the koban (neighborhood police station) Yoichi excuses himself from the cops because of his meeting with the people who run the sister dojo. Once at the mall he becomes even more disoriented. When a purse snatcher causes a commotion he springs into action, defying the security guards and tracks the fleet footed thief through out the mall. Before he catches him he causes quite a commotion, damages some stuff, breaks into a girl in a changing room, accidentally fondles her, ends up face first in another girls panties at a book store and generally causes alarm by his actions.
After leaving the thief for the authorities he again resumes his search for the people eh is meeting. He finds a lost young girl and offers to help her find her sister. The girl points her out and he swings from the ceiling down to her like Tarzan. Security notices this and tries to apprehend him, when he accidentally falls out of the building and onto a train. Riding the train back to the mall he is about to give up and return to his mountain when the sister of the little girl asks if he is Yoichi and explains that she has been waiting for him. She takes him to the dojo where he is reintroduced to the little lost girl, the girl he molested and the girl whose panties he buried his face in. He is now at his new home.
Ok, so that is petty much the first episode in a large nut shell. Here are my biggest problems with this series. The four sisters fit every single stereotypical moe fanservice role possible. The oldest has a massive and un-Japanese bust, wears aprons everywhere and has a giant ornate bow in her long flowing oddly colored hair. The next in line, the apparent tsundere sister, wears cosplay ripe outfits. The third sister has a large and present ahoge that looks like a bugs’ antenna, sports glasses and cosplay ripe clothing. The fourth and youngest fits the classic innocent scared little sister role, quite and timid. So just to start out with these 4 classical stereotypical fan service characters puts a huge strike against the series for me. Then to have Yoichi in atypical, played out ecchi scenarios was even more annoying. To top it all off, when he helps the youngest sister look for the oldest one he asks her what is noticeable about her appearance. The sister states she has a giant chest. From that point he scans a number of large breasted women in the crown and comments on each of them before finding the target chest. If it weren’t for the horribly bad ecchi comedy, the glaring and prominent harem story this might be a mildly entertaining anime. Aside form all of that it also suffers from shonen action tendencies as Yoichi is a master swordsman of his family school and has a plethora of long named distinctive attacks that rely more on his spiritual (or whatever) power then actually hitting the target with his sword it’s self. His goal of coming to the city is also to grow stronger meaning training and possibly fighting a slew of tough opponents. In fact the only thing that would make this show interesting is the fish out of water aspect of it. To see this kid, who has been raised like it’s the 1700’s have to adjust to the 21st century. Based upon the horrible plot devices and creative writing so far I can’t see that aspect of the story being very riveting of entertaining, instead they will pull out old tricks like the kid having to cope with coed gym class and bloomers or how to deal with a TV. The series already had an Elf moment when Yoichi had his first escalator encounter. I might watch episode 2, just to see how horrible his introduction to school life goes, but I won’t watch past that. This series has its target audience, but even some of them might see this as going too far.
Michiko to Hatchin is actually a hold over from the fall season that I have finally gotten around to watching the first episode of. This stylish and hip series follows an orphaned girl and the escaped convict who rescued her from abusive foster parents on some unknown adventure through Brasil. Hanna is a young girl who was graciously brought off of the rough streets by a half Japanese minister and his family. The man of God is not however a man of virtue. He is as corrupt and manipulative as the cruel world around them. Hanna is brought into a reverse Cinderella life as she is the outsider that is being tormented relentlessly by the priests’ wife and two children. The wife sets Hanna up for her myriad abuses and the children deliver them. In one scene the boy is riding her like a horse while the girl is threatening to burn her with a hot iron. The priest however that the time of their plaything may be short as a mysterious woman named Michiko has broken out of a maximum security prison for some unknown reason. The priest knows, again unknown as of yet, that this wild woman will be coming straight for Hanna, there is a possibility that she is her mother. As predicted Michiko arrives at the house in a grand spectacle. She crashes through the window on a scooter to land on the kitchen table in the middle of breakfast. Michiko pinpoints Hanna and offers her the chance to escape from the hell she resides in. With uncertainty she accepts the strangers offer at a chance for freedom and two hit the road, with the authorities in hot pursuit.
This is a very stylized series, the characters designs mimic something you might find in he modern American pulp comic world. They are very non-Anime and the series is a breath of fresh air in the stagnant uninventive world around it. The series takes place in Brasil and depicts it as a desolate and depressing place…from what I know of Brasil the series looks like it would be in
Moryo no Hako is another fall season hold over that I actually forgot about. This moody and creepy series begins with a man on a long distance train ride. At some point as he is napping a strange man sits in the bench across from him. The first man wakes up to find his travel companion creepy and mildly insane as he is smiling and talking to himself while hold an elaborately ornate box on his lap. When a strange sound comes from the box the crazy man asks the first man if he heard it too. He then proceeds to open the panels on the front of it revealing a girls head. Its eyes open, look around, focus on the first man and speak the strange sound again to him. From there we move to a story of a school girl in the early 50’s. The girl goes to a private all girls academy and has fallen for the top girl of her class. The top girl ends up becoming friends with the other girl and they spend as much time as they can together. On a moonlit walk she tells her that they are one another and in death one will become the other and so on. The girls’ mother warns her about her friend and tells her to stay away from her; this just drives her further away. On the night the two plan to go on a train ride and spend time at a far away lake for the summer vacation the strange girl is hit by a train and killed. The girl who loved her goes crazy and when the authorities ask if she knew the dead girl she says no, that she is the dead girl.
So the first episode really didn’t give me too much info into the plot of the series so here is a synopsis of it from Anime News Network.
The story follows a series of bizarre murders of schoolgirls who have been dismembered and stuffed into boxes. The private investigator hired by a missing daughter’s mother joins forces with an antique book seller and others to unravel the murder spree.
Needless to say I’m really intrigued with the story, even before I found out the synopsis of the series. Upon reading up on it as well I found out that Clamp has a hand in the character design, which I should have figured. The first thing I noticed was how freaking large the school girls eyes were. I should have known it was a Clamp design. Either way, the series is dark, creepy and macabre so I am definitely intrigued and will continue to watch it.
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