Battle Athletes Victory - Episodes 1 to 4

This is great.
Battle Athletes was a silly OVA. Battle Athletes Victory shows no restraint and is therefore a master stroke of genius. As with so many other Pioneer anime, the fundament is the same, but other things are wildly different.

Akari is now a blundering athlete with a heart of gold and entirely no self esteem. She lives in her mother's shadow. This is the stage where all of the students are actually in training to go to the University Satellite, instead of being inducted. It's a different angle and definitely allows it to stand apart from the OVA - especially as Akari does not possess the ganbatte attitude.
The sports are extreme, almost to the point of sadism - but they're so ridiculously sadistic that they become hilarious. The first event that we see is a race wherein the girls run while drawing steamrollers. They have trouble at the hill ... but even more when they get to the mine field! It's stuff like this that makes it gold. Yet when the real injuries occur, then it takes on a serious tone. It's good comedy in that it knows when to laugh and it knows when to cry.

Director Akiyama also brings the taste of excitement to it all. Bike Hard! was a pure adrenaline rush sport, that really brought me to the edge of my seat. It was just so well done. There are also episodes which have very little to do with sport - Night of Woong-A-Ji was about faith versus practice and also about respect but mainly about face painting.

And in the year 4999, not everything is about futuristic sports - the fourth episode features a swimming competition. In a fifty metre pool. But it still works. Most of the sports aren't simply made up, which is good, but they've kept this one at its purest level - the only added spice was endurance.

The other thing is that the characters are great. Itchan is marvellous, with Hisakawa Aya in her Osaka best. She is such an encouraging, no-nonsense character and they milk the Osaka stuff for all its worth. Most of the training school's broadcasts are by a big Osaka network - "Hello, everyone, especially those in Osaka!" and their attention to Itchan regardless of her participation is also very funny.
The greatest new addition is Wong Ling-Pha, the Chinese princess. She's so devious, and her team of servants so ... servile ... that it would be difficult not to love her. She's the one who plays both the evil and good cards within the same moment. Truly great.
Jessie survived the first episode and she and Ayla look to be the greatest rivals.

The lesbian overtones look like they can only get stronger, but the thing is that there has to be one complaint: this is not a DVD. It can be given some leniency because it came out in the stone age of anime on DVD, a year when not even one hundred anime DVDs had been released. Still, one OP and one ED to a disc and no eye-catches is just wrong, as is putting previews for every episode on the following disc at the end.
Considering that the OVA had 15 chapters to an episode and Victory has one, it was a step backwards in authoring. But the quality of the series manages to rise above that.

Frequently hilarious and offering promising characters, Battle Athletes Victory is easy to love.

Battle Athletes OVA

Battle Athletes has two incarnations: an OVA series and an alternate universe TV series, Battle Athletes Victory. The two are apparently very different, and the OVA is widely disliked.

Battle Athletes begins with an exceptional account of a war that tore the world apart, and the natural disaster that ironically unified it. Then they detail the unmanned war that humanity had with an alien race, which was eventually solved through mankind's superior athletic prowess.
Naturally, this meant that all good human children would aspire to be the ultimate athlete - the Cosmos Beauty! They would Aim for the Top! and Aim for the Ace!. The male equivalent is not known, although it could feasibly be some title like Prince of Tennis.

After it is established that each year budding young athletes go to Space University, no mention is made of these aliens ever again. They lost to the humans and they went home, it would seem.
So what we're left with is the freshman class of 4999. The foremost character is Kanzaki Akari, daughter of the most famous Cosmos Beauty of them all - the athlete who beat the hundred metre record and ran with God.
Akari is another in a long line of never say die sports anime protagonists, but her lack of self confidence is a blessing and a curse. She strives to improve herself but can't see her own qualities.

Following this she moves in with her team, the even meeker Anna Respighi and the spiritual (read: nudist) moon dweller, Kris Christopher. Their trials only last two episodes, oddly enough, and then that whole concept falls apart. Not only is Anna's secret revealed to be the most bizarre twist ever, the whole idea of competing within the school is thrown to the wind when three representatives from the girls' satellite take on three from the boys' satellite (answering another question posed by the series), and then making way for the Great Competition.

Despite my seemingly mocking summary and mention of events and characters, Battle Athletes was compelling, well animated and boasted interesting relationships. There were only two problems with it: the aforementioned disbanding of Akari's team with no suggestion of replacement, and that the first episode features Akari's best friend who is never seen again after the induction ceremony. I can only suppose that she slipped on a puddle on the way to her dorm, suffering a broken leg that automatically disqualified her after training so hard all her life just to get to that point. That has to be it.

The suggestions of lesbianism are rather awkward, but I'm finding that I have to get used to awkward female on female crushes in anime. Fortunately the idea of athletic competition as "the next best thing" was not very deeply explored. Kris and Akari have one of those beautiful friendships that reminded me of that of Noriko and Azumi in Gunbuster - and that's probably the best comparison that can be drawn: Battle Athletes is Gunbuster with sports and without quite so much tragedy. It's incredibly watchable and features the coolest principal ever.
It's gentle and fun ... and inspirational in its own way.

It's hard to believe that Battle Athletes was animated as recently as 1997, but it's also hard for me to believe that 1997 was actually seven years ago (as opposed to yesterday). One of the last series from before cells were cast to the wind, Battle Athletes possesses that old romance and charm as well as a healthy amount of conviction. It might be silly, but it believes in itself - and that's important.

Battle Athletes Victory is silly and knows it - when I watch it next week I'll have to see how it fares.

Noir - episodes 17 to 26

Noir was one of the most thrilling, twisting anime series that I have seen since Vision of Escaflowne - in fact, I can't remember how long it has been since I've seen something so surprising. Many series get their dramatic impact from the characters finding out something that the audience has known all along - for example, that Misao was Pixy Misa.
Noir is one that keeps everyone guessing all along.

As before, despite the intrusion of Chloe and Altena, Mireille and Kirika are definitely the most important characters - and with each of these last ten episodes entirely about their relation to the Soldats, they're the most pertinent of them all. At some point, Mireille says to Kirika 'Where do I fit into all of this?' This question is so important because Mireille becomes increasingly distanced from the proceedings and begins to wonder why she is even there.
Fortunately, all of these questions are answered and several gasping moments occur, as well as those charged by pure excitement.
Noir is hard to put into words because so much of it is dependent on having seen it. A more than satisfactory series steeped in mystery that all comes clear ... right down to the last moment, the most divisive of them all.

Noir is a very important series that grew from its dirty past genuine human emotion. The production staff asked a very important question at the end, and the only suitable question for a program that touched its audience as it did:
"What was Noir to you?"

Noir - episodes 14 to 16

Noir is an amazing beast. The appearance of Chloe and Altena gave the impression of being the series' vitality, then they all but disappeared and the strengths of Mireille and Kirika became more apparent.

A bouquet of flowers for Mireille was wonderful, with more insight into Mireille's past than there ever has been, and the idea that there is more to her life than killing jobs - her own social life has been mentioned before, in tragic circumstance, but this episode shows her radiant and involved. The fact that the series' situations and perspectives can change so frequently and seamlessly is a marvel.

The other two episodes were The Cold Blooded Killer story. Shaoli had a beautiful design reminiscent of Takada Yuzo or Fujishima Kosuke. Unfortunately acte II simply couldn't seem to keep up the character model quite so well and she lost some of her detail. However, on the whole the action sequences were impressive. As always, anime lends itself to scene changes because it costs nothing to affect a battle in Taiwan. This was all tied together by Chloe's return, and the tantalising words that she says to Kirika.

Once you're in Noir, you're in.

Noir - episodes 11 to 13

Episode 11, wherein there is some dissent among the Soldats, featured some very nice action sequences. In fact, on the whole there are becoming more and more shots where Noir appear logically as if from no where. A flash which reveals them is always so exciting.
The thing is that as Chloe comes to the fore, it seems that Mireille is becoming the outsider - as if she has nothing to do with Noir at all, just that she has borrowed the concept. Chloe and Altena have a wonderfully strange and disturbing relationship, and Kirika has been able to relate to her on a base level. Neither Chloe or Kirika experience awkward moments. Only Mireille loses her cool in these times - but Kirika has been learning something of humanity from Mireille. In this way it's very nice.

The episode where Chloe stands alone was great in that it showed her own ethics and code of honour, also raising the question of just what is Noir. It's a very worthy question indeed.

To counter that, however, comes the episode Season of Hell, which has no Chloe at all and proves just how strong Kirika and Mireille alone can be. Kirika starts to understand the happiness of human companionship - and more importantly the sorrow of human death. She has been allowed to grow, because of her contact with Mireille, and this is the most significant step so far.
Kirika always looks so sad, and it's weird to see her look happy - but when she's happy, you know that her cheer is going to be washed away with blood.
Was Kirika better off before she started to grasp human emotion?

Worthwhile questions and increasingly pertinent plotlines make Noir a forever improving series.

Noir - episodes one to ten

I gave up watching Noir last year after the third disc, when it became too good to wait two months between each set of episodes. One year after the first disc's release, the seventh and final came out last week and I decided to watch it all.
I'm still in the episodes that I've already seen.

Noir is a series that has an intense sense of atmosphere. Kajiura Yuki's music is undoubtedly a major contributing factor, but more so are the intensely detailed scenes and incredible colour. The thing about Noir is that it gives the impression of being slow, but the episodes are over in no time at all.
While Kirika and Mireille's uneasy relationship is a great source of tension and ambiguity - it's always unclear whether Mireille hates, resents or admires Kirika - Noir is at its best when Chloe comes in. Episode ten offers the first major appearance of Chloe, and she is the series' greatest push.
Kirika and Mireille's partnership is tested upon the discovery that there's another pair of assassins calling themselves Noir. Chloe is a great character, and from rewatching just that one episode featuring her, motivation to complete the series sparks strongly.

There was a particularly striking scene towards the end of episode nine, as Chloe walks away from Mireille and Kirika, and they draw their guns on her. Kirika and Mireille were designed by one character designer, Chloe by another. This greatly emphasised the contrast between the two parties and their potential rivalry.
Hisakawa Aya's childish performance of Chloe is wonderful and lends a lot to the character.

Noir is a series steeped in mystery that I will endeavour to have finished by next week.

All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku OVA

This has long been one of my most romanticised series, but it didn't have the flair that I was so hoping for. I like a good OVA series, but Nuku Nuku lacked direction despite its excellent staff backing. Takada Yuzo's story about a man who takes his son and runs away from his wife and her machine factory with a prototypical android which he then transplants the brain of a cat into has entirely no focus or consistency. This was a pity because it physically is a romantic OVA in my own sense of the term: the romance of cells, the direct to video form ... it should be enough to bring tears to a man's eye. Only the first episode has scenes that make one say "Now that's animation".
Sadly, I found the characterisation wildly inconsistent, making Akiko a shrew one minute and a loving wife and mother the next, and Nuku Nuku was nothing more than a genki girl.
Some of the themes (such as "what it is to be a good wife and mother") were uncomfortable, and the reason for separation (and the completely ignored fugitive status of the Natsume family after the first episode) - Kyusaku's discomfort with his creations being used for warfare - was underdeveloped. To tie in with that was Nuku Nuku's sense of humanity, which was compressed to the simple "it's good that you can feel her misery" and "why did it take an android to teach me what it is to be human?", was also underdeveloped, which can't have been a symptom of the anime society at large - it's practically a prerequisite to pose questions along the lines of "What makes a robot? What makes a man?" Nuku Nuku as a student and Kyusaku as a teacher was barely given any of the time it deserved, and seemed only to serve to show Nuku Nuku in a seifuku.
To add to all of this, episode five made entirely no sense, except for the fact that Nuku Nuku got to wear a waitress' uniform. Always an excuse for uniforms.
Despite having my four year dreams crushed under foot, Nuku Nuku is only a disappointment, not the total loss that I am likely making it out to be. It is, as I said, very attractive and romantic in its use of cells, to a dreamy level. The songs of the series are some of my favourite Hayashibara tunes, which have lyrics that lend more depth to Nuku Nuku than is demonstrated by the OVA itself. The music, likewise, all later evolved into other great Hayashibara songs. Kamiya Akira and Hayashibara Megumi are great in their roles, Hayashibara lending the vitality necessary to make Nuku Nuku so charmingly genki. There were a couple of surprise roles, and some nice fan service (although sparing).
Despite initially promising an interesting study in separation and humanity, All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl suffers due to its lack of cohesion and inconsistency of characterisation. Still, it was successful enough to spawn a sequel TV series and an alternate universe OVA starring a green haired Nuku Nuku. And anything that prominently features Christmas KFC has to at least be perceived as an educational tool.

Dragon Half

After last week's Assemble: Insert comes another silly OVA. Dragon Half tried to tell a story, but then they stopped making it for mysterious reasons that have gone down in anime folk lore that no one can confirm or deny.
There's probably never been this much SD this side of the AIC SD shorts. So what there was was funny, and incredibly weird. It would have been nice to see more of Mink's parents, because they were a comedy team. Cheerfully violent spouses are always nice. If it's mutual ... and animated. The famous My Omelette ED lasted forever, and the animation didn't always make sense there. Oddly, the SD designs looked better than the standard designs.
It's odd to think that back in the day studios could just animate whatever they wanted for no particular reason other than to make it.

Magical Project S - Episodes 22 to 26

This series peaked many times in the last ten episodes. Each time it reached one, it jumped right over to the next. It may be a terrible analogy, but Magical Project S was mountain goat anime.
It became terribly weird to watch anime in which Aeka was the ultimate evil and Ryoko was a devoted and loyal servant of Juraihelm, but these aren't the same characters as before. Ryo-Ohki had human intelligence and an entirely different gender (which is why he was so embarrassed to be in the bath with Sasami). Sasami was a very good lead and Misao was great when she emerged from her chrysalis.
The final ten episodes raised Magical Project S from a simply enjoyable series to a rockin' fun great series. That said, it's not simply a case of "tolerating" the first fifteen. Development was handled very well and Tsunami was great, although quite how she was fit for ruling I'm not sure. But that's the whole point!
The omake movie trailer was hilarious, and I wish all fake movies could be like that. It took a while for me to warm to the second ED, but it grew on me for sure. A good series has an ending that makes you sad to see it go, but ultimately satisfies. Magical Project S did just that.
It was a triumph of direction for Akiyama Katsuhito, who directed the worst thing that I watched last year - Armitage III: Dual-Matrix. When he works with traditional AIC material, he is a king.

Magical Project S - Episodes 2 to 21

I started to fear that this was falling into the trap of Jubei-chan: that is, too formulaic. Fortunately, like Jubei-chan, it turned itself around.
After the smash hit first episode, Pixy Misa's English dialogue really started to grate. However, after the second she really seemed to tone it down somewhat, which was a great relief
Around episode sixteen it took the mahou shoujo genre's greatest hook: emotional jeopardy. Team Sexy Madam actually posed a threat to Sammy, which made things more colourful, and Pixy Misa was revealed as a surprisingly weak fighter (as opposed to simply a coward).
But then episode eighteen came up and the ultra genuine emotions came out and the tears never stopped. It had to happen in a series in which best friends are pitted against each other as magical girls, and it did. With five episodes left, I have to wonder what will become of the rest of them.
The appropriation of other characters, such as Yosho and Tenchi's father, and my old favourite, Washu, were welcome additions. I just hope it didn't peak too soon.

Patlabor WXIII

Watching this made me nostalgic for the first two Patlabor films. Patlabor is an extremely atmospheric series that fills me with love even if I'm not paying the fiercest attention. I was not outraged by the limited appearances of Special Vehicle Unit 2.
It was a very nice mood piece, but I will have to watch it again. As always, I was impressed by the architectually idealised model of Tokyo presented.
Question: Was WXIII set before Patlabor 2? I thought the unit had pretty much broken up in it - and I remember being struck by the mature Noa's distance from her Labor.

Magical Project S - Episode 1

Traditional AIC! Probably don't need to have seen Tenchi Muyo! to watch this, but it makes the idea of Mihoshi as a teacher the funniest thing ever. Also it questions the species of Ryo-Ohki. I can see where Pixy Misa's parrot was formed from, but who was transformed into Ryo-Ohki?
It looks like it will tread the fine line between conviction and over the top. And English is always funny.

Anime comedy is alive and well!

Assemble Insert

Why was this made? It's like Silly Patlabor! Best anime ever. Well, not the best, but I laughed so frequently, it was marvellous! Then I found out that all of the people in the Demon Seed Defence Squad were based on all of my favourites in the industry, and it just got better and better!
I think this would be accessible to anyone, the only problem being the lack of OP and ED subs. And at $5US, it was (without exaggeration), one of the greatest bargains ever!
No justifiable reason can be given for the creation of this - which is perhaps why it's so marvellous! Anything that can take itself entirely seriously while poking fun at itself all the while is good enough to make anyone's brain explode.

Orphen - episodes 4 to 12

The Garden episode was reminiscent of Laputa, in a good way.
I liked the Deep Dragon episodes more the second time around, because the first time I was obsessed with the picture quality. Any Azalie episode in this series is good, and Dortin and Volkan are always hilarious. And, of course, the part where Dortin showed that s/he really cared about his/er brother was good, too.
No surprises any more (you can't be surprised by something you've seen, unless you've forgotten or it's transcendentally magical), but firmly enjoyable.

Orphen - episodes 1 to 3

I've seen this (two years) before, but I didn't like it much until the third disc - but this time through, knowing the general lay of the land, I found it heartily enjoyable. Volkan and Dortin are marvellous!

Sakura Diaries

Sakura Diaries failed to be anywhere near as ecchi as they made it out to be. So if you don't worry about the ecchi or the idea of kissin' cousins, Sakura Diaries is a nice little romance. I particularly liked the idea of Mieko (the object of Tonma's affection) being manipulative and stringing Tonma along.
The series didn't have one of those definite conclusions, but it ended very nicely - and with a character montage of all things! Also the characters had consciences - so after they commited acts of bastardry they felt remorse. I liked that.