Nopy's Blog

Few anime are as weird or wonderful as Mawaru Penguindrum, just think of the number of series you’ve seen with rockets, teddy bears, a pink stairway, penguins, and a girl in a cool costume all packed into a minute and a half with moe-fied rock music playing in the background.

If that video didn’t give you an idea of what Penguindrum is about, here is the plot summary from MAL:

Three siblings, twins Kanba and Shouma, and the in-and-out-of-the-hospital Himari who’s in poor health, live together at the Takakura home. One day, when the siblings are out on a trip to the aquarium, Himari collapses. The doctors state that nothing can be done for her anymore, but then, a miracle occurs…

The series was written and directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara (creator of Utena), produced by Brains Base, and consists of 24 episodes. Mawaru Penguindrum is one of the most complex anime that I have ever seen. It deals with various themes such as family, revenge, incest, yuri, and most importantly, fate and destiny. Coupled with extensive use of symbolism and metaphor, Penguindrum proves to be a highly abstruse anime for those not familiar with classical literature.

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With Mawaru Penguindrum coming to a close this week, I thought it would be fitting to write a review of Revolutionary Girl Utena. Some of you are probably asking what Revolutionary Girl Utena is and what it has to do with Mawaru Penguindrum. Back in 1997, under director Kunihiko Ikuhara and J.C. Staff, Utena revolutionized the (anime) world, earning several awards in the process for its mind-blowing presentation. Ikuhara did not direct a major project again until he created Mawaru Penguindrum.

In order to discuss Revolutionary Girl Utena, you will need to know what it is about, so here is the plot summary from ANN:

Just after Utena’s parents died she was consoled by a prince who gave her a ring with a rose crest on it. Utena was so impressed by the Prince that she vowed to become one herself one day. A few years later Utena is attending Ohtori Academy where she gives all the teachers headaches because she dresses in a boys uniform so she can be like the prince she met long ago. After Utena’s friend is insulted by a member of the Student Council, Utena fights in a duel for her friends honor. Utena’s rose crest allows her to enter the dueling arena where Utena wins the duel and becomes engaged to the Rose Bride. Unknowingly, Utena is pulled into a series of duels with other members of the Student Council for the possession of the Rose Bride. As she becomes fond of Anthy, the Rose Bride, she must fight to keep her friend safe and to discover the horrifying secret behind Ohtori Academy.

To say that RGU was brilliant is an understatement. Watching the series challenged my ability to not only remember everything I had learned about literature, but to analyze it in detail. The complexity of the series can only be grasped with an understanding of classical Greek plays, Jungian archetypes, and literary techniques such as extended metaphors. I will touch on these topics below.

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Following Kiddtic’s call for submissions of ani-bloggers’ top anime of 2011, I thought it would be a good idea to participate. While it may not be entirely fair to rank anime that haven’t finished airing yet, I think I’ve seen enough of them to make a call. My list will follow the original rules of ranking the top 3 per each season, followed by the best overall.

Winter 2011 (January – March)

3rd Place: Kore wa Zombie Desu ka?

Unlike your typical harem anime, this series not only has a bunch of cute girls, but zombies, masou shoujos, vampire ninjas, necromancers, chainsaws, cross-dressing zombie masou shoujos with chainsaws, and Dyson air multipliers. Ridiculous and funny are the two words that best describe this series.

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There was once a time when the majority of online anime was obtained from XDCC bots in anime channels on IRC. All of that changed when Crunchyroll entered the scene in 2006. I absolutely despised this group back then. With the extraordinary rise of Youtube in a matter of months, Crunchyroll saw an opportunity and tried to duplicate their success. The problem was that they didn’t own any anime, so they got it the way everyone else did, through fansubs. Now, if you were watching anime 10 years ago, you will surely remember 2 disclaimers that were present in nearly every fansubbed anime episode and went along the lines of:

“This is a FREE fansub. If you paid for this, you were ripped off!”

and

“Stop distribution and delete this anime when it becomes licensed in your region.”

This is what old anime looked like.

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One of the interesting things that I’ve noticed about anime from the last several years is how many of them passive-aggresively promote brand name products. What do I mean by passive-aggressive promotion? Just think back to some of the anime that you’ve seen recently that take place in the actual world. I’m sure there’s at least a few scenes of characters eating in a restaurant or using some electronic device. Now, have you ever taken a closer look at the names of those restaurants or the labels on those devices? If you have, you might have noticed that they say things like “Parasonic”, “McDymaid’s”, and “Sudohbucks”, and I’m sure you can make out what real-life brands those are supposed to be.

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The images speak for themselves.

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Recently, I wrote an article over at Forever Geek discussing how Guilty Crown wasn’t that bad of an anime. It had an average plot, but great music and pretty animation; not an award-winner for sure but at least it was watchable. Well, after watching episode 6 and being trolled, I am forced to reconsider my view on the storyline.

It was easy to overlook some of the improbabilities of the anime given the genre. Shu, for example, being a useless teenage boy suddenly acquiring some magical power that can destroy everything in sight. Of course it’s unrealistic, but almost every “hero” story starts out like that, even western ones like Spiderman. The harder pill to swallow is that practically everyone in the Undertakers is a teenager. Gai, their leader, is 17; Inori, the pretty girl, is 16; Tsugumi, the cute and adorable hacker girl, is 14; and Ayase, the giant robot pilot, is 17. This presents the problem of how Undertaker has managed to build up enough resources to take on a military power in just a couple of years with people who barely have any connections in the world. I ignored all of that though, just because this is anime and that’s how things roll.

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It’s time for another round-up of the season’s anime. I know I’m a month late to the party, but I attribute that to travelling for 3 weeks and spending 2 weeks catching up on everything. I won’t bore you with the plot summaries, you can find them anywhere, these are just my impressions of the series for Fall 2011 and whether I consider them worth watching or not. If you are new to my blog, note that I don’t include sequels/continuations as I would be watching a story starting in the middle. Seasonal awards will be given out at the end of this post.

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While its been a week since I got back from my trip, I’m still trying to catch up with anime, blogs, emails, and games. That means this will be a relatively short post. Taking an idea from Miette-chan and Exilehero, I thought I’d post my 5 favourite anime openings.

#5: Cloud Age Symphony (Last Exile)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg_WdJql2sE

No, this is not from the currently airing series, but from the original Last Exile that aired 2003 (has it really been that long?). I was really taken back with how airy the music sounded at some points, which fit really well with the story since everything takes place in the skies.

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Going off to work as a waitress at a traditional Japanese inn in the countryside is every girl’s dream, right? Well, maybe if you were Japanese Cinderella. Hanasaku Iroha takes the basics of the Cinderella story (minus the prince and magic fairy) and tries to weave a story of understanding and friendship out of the dredges of despair and lonliness. I’m not going to describe the whole anime, so instead here’s the plot summary from MyAnimeList:

After her single mother decides to run off with a boyfriend to dodge debt collectors, the young and energetic Ohana is sent to live with her grandmother. However, her grandmother is the strict owner of a hot springs inn and requires her to work at the inn to pay for her living expenses. Although Ohana is unhappy about this situation at first, she decides to make the best of her situation and work hard. Ohana’s life is suddenly filled with fun, mischief, and drama!

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