Baseball with Ookiku Furikabutte

 

After reading Bateszi’s juicy presentation of Ookiku Furikabutte, I got irreversibly hooked on this baseball anime and finished it in long, frequent sessions played one after the other. It is indeed intriguing to find the actual factors which make an anime of this genre so god damn catchy: no groundbreaking premise, no orgasmic art elements, no immersing plot. Not to mention that I have no idea about baseball rules whatsoever so I mostly watched the show vaguely wondering about what are they doing out there on the field – I only know what the catcher, the pitcher and the hitter do, the rest of the team’s roles are impossible to decipher for me.

So yea, with this in mind, I find myself wonder why on earth did I get so hooked on it? Despite the fact that I have an innate disgust for sports (reminiscing of high school humiliation) I do remember the old times when I used to watch Captain Tsubasa and Moero! Top Striker like a madman on Italian channels.

There was an intriguing discussion about this on Bateszi’s forum, but however, the answer is still somewhat unclear to me.

Finally, I think the answer may lie in the dynamics of the show, which basically are the same as every shounen anime – a group of friends with the focus on a particular ambitious protagonist are set to achieve their biggest dream (becoming the hokage, becoming a good pitcher, finding the treasure etc.) in a path full of difficulties, obstacles and progressive trials. The human mind (or mine at least) might not be as great as we might imagine, since I get attracted and drawn to this type of pattern over and over again, even if the the outcome is more than obvious, even if the clichés are abundant, even if I am constantly aware of the parameters of the stage set up for the viewers. Following the same line of reasoning, sports anime are just like shounen anime, and the overarching plot spread throughout all the episodes (never delivering a conclusion at the end of the episode, but rather a cliff hanger) has a lot to say about how many episodes one watches per session. I easily find a way to stop myself when I’m watching episodic anime, but with this cruel way of spreading a match through tons of episodes, there is no way one can easily get out of it.

The visual style is also very empathic – almost pushes you to feel schizophrenic “real life” feelings for the protagonist – Ren, a very interesting kid with a pathological desire to pitch. (Ren’s triangular smile is now a trademark, his insane shyness matches the drawing style to perfection) Overall, the anime is hilarious at times and treats the baseball subject with style and quality. Director Tsutomu MIZUSHIMA has done tons of good pieces, including Genshiken (the OVA and the first tv series) so this is perhaps where the quality comes from. Yoshi!

Anime Redemption Part 1 – Cowboy Bebop

For I don’t know what reason or sense of ethical responsibility, I do feel obliged to keep up with the otaku experts and actually watch series which are generally considered classics. It is true that I mostly overlooked such shows, like Ghost in the Shell SAC, Neon Genesis Evangelion and the likes, since I’ve plunged into this art form quite late in life. But the feeling of being indebted towards the anime community always seem to prevail over my desire to get into newer series. So I watched Cowboy bebop, finally.

And it was, unquestionably, a film noir masterpiece. The one thing which strikes it’s the refined excess of styles – we have intertextuality, we have collage – jazz, bebop, blues combined with futuristic elements and the actual eponymous “cowboy” which is a bounty hunter – an ingredient from the past thrown in a cyberpunk universe, once again a most peculiar mixture of future and past elements that gloriously combine to form a great series, not less not more than 26 fabulously made episodes.

While the anime starts leisurely with episodic periods of bounty catching and adventures, characters, background and flashbacks start to add up only to end in a tragedy epilogue that left me traumatized for a while, and had me make multiple attempts for recovery with some injection of joyful anime (just kidding, there is no such thing as joyful anime). Popular references are abundant in Cowboy Bebop, especially to science fiction classics like Aliens, A space odyssey and famous rock songs after which each session (episode) is named. This truly shows a passionate director who expects a certain type of viewers, with some sort of a musical culture and a tad of previous science fictional schooling. This certainly creates a stronger link between the creator and viewer – in a sense that the viewer feels connected to a system of secret codes with the director.

Spike, the main character, is your usual painful silent hero, Cloud Strife style, while Jet is the helper friend who would do anything for his partner in battle. We have Faye, the thief, with no recollection of her past, and Edward, an androgynous genius hacker and the dog Ein. The combination Faye-Jet-Spike sounds really cliché, but it’s actually an amazing collision of different personalities forced to live under the same roof. And most of the times the cyberpunkish loneliness of destroyed planets and the inability to find a rooting home, backed up by beautiful saxophones enthrall the viewer with such artistic jewelry that one does not care that the characters are somewhat conventional anymore.

It’s pretty much clear for me right now that these classics are not called classics for nothing.

I love you Naruto-kun! – overview of the first 23 episodes of Naruto Shippuuden -

Oh dear me. What the hell is it that’s so fucking appealing about Naruto and its plethora of characters? How can I, while overall a decent person, with serious occupations and thoughts, indulge into a crazed obsession over this cartoons aimed, truth be told, at little boys? The answer…below.

I’ve awaited 23 weeks without seeing anything but the first Shippuuden, and then, since I hate stopping mid-plot and waiting a whole week (that and I have a short-termed memory), just sat by and wait for a big bulk of episodes so I can sink my teeth in. And the day has arrived, I decided! Back to Naruto.

Naruto is freaking amazing. And it’s that type of amazing that you have to thoroughly analyze in order to realize the true nature of its attraction. Well thought out characters give away to a multiple choice of preferences and the poetic action scenes make the watcher smile idiotically in front of the screen (at least this particular watcher). I heard otakus are complaining about the slow-paced nature of the plot development. That is true. It is slow as hell, a fight can go on for ages and span across multiple episodes. But this isn’t really a problem if you have a lot of episodes to watch, and don’t have to wait a whole week to see what will happen. I think the slow-pace is really what dragged me into becoming an anime fan in the first place. This unhurried expansion allows for a more complex development, a thorough analysis of the battle sequences and a deep insight into the world you are greeted in. I love how they explain what actually happened after a cool fighting move, and how they go back to the battle to explain what went on beneath. This could be annoying to some people, but not to me. Also, I don’t follow the manga so I have no complains about not sticking to the actual story. And after what seemed like a century of bad fillers, who could complain anyway? I’ve been waiting for this for a long while, and now I’m not gonna complain, but just dig in with full geekiness.

I can’t over the extraordinary characters. Gaara is probably one of the greatest character ever to be portrayed in an anime. I like the way characters grow and form relationships with one another, the idyllic view upon friendship, trust and comradeship, the solidarity of a ninja group and the master-apprentice bond (idyllic again). I hate it that they screwed up a bit with Gaara’s personality during the fillers, but I decided to ignore everything that happened in that sad, sad period. What could I say to someone who has never watched Naruto? Except that they lost an immense, engrossing comeback into childhood, the same excitement that I felt while I was young and followed diverse anime on TV, straight down fun and edge of the seat storytelling. Naruto is a perfect example of how to get people to act geeky.

Plus there’re those endless battles, the way the characters hook up, the ninja exams and the curiosity into seeing how the fights will end, the great exhibit of intelligent villains and their eerie goals, the mysterious history of the Konoha village, the expectation, the excitement. All to create a passionate and credible new universe feeling.. Plus I’m a sucker for encapsulated fiction universes, which function with their own laws and patterns, different from ours. Yea, the possible universes. And Naruto represents one of them. My favorite character? Shikamaru!

Bring it on! Now I only have to wait another 20 weeks so I can do a real marathon. Ou the sadness.

Starting Bokurano (first 7 episodes)

Right. No, I’m not going to start blogging Bokurano. Call me stupid, but I can’t really find the use of doing episode recaps. What’s the point anyway? I read a lot of anime blogs, but I skip through the recaps and read only that particular blogger’s opinion on the actual episode.

Who needs a recap anyway? Is there somebody, after all, who, right after seeing an episode needs a summary of that same episode? Or does somebody who skips an episode really prefer the written version of it instead of downloading the actual one? I don’t know. I need an elucidation about this whole recap business.

But anyway, I wanted to talk about this particular show that I am pretty much hooked on. I’m usually really behind with anime watching, I don’t get into the new series mostly because I hate being interrupted by a whole week and I prefer to do 4-5 episodes marathons at once. That is why I left Naruto Shippuden to “grow” in the background, in order for me to watch entire, uninterrupted story archs of Naruto goodness during the summer. But reading a spring season preview on a blog a couple of weeks ago, I got really intrigued by this anime – there was a picture and some lines about a couple of kids playing a dangerous, mortal game. I’m not really into mecca either, but damn the style looked fluent and eye candy enough (it had the all modern look) so I downloaded the first episode.

And boy, was I pleasantly surprised.

Bokurano is highly suspenseful. Not as suspenseful as Death Note though, but still. It really makes you wander about “what the hell happened”, “who is that”, “how does that work” and stuff.

The premise is intriguing: 15 kids go on a summer school vacation. Some of them had known each other previously, some of them hadn’t, but they certainly aren’t well acquainted with each other. They accidentally go into a cave where they meet an awkward man who proposes them to play a game. They eagerly accept it, enthusiastic about a new playful experience, and this of course triggers a set of dramatic, tragic, horrific events.

The beginning theme song is quite beautiful (Uninstall). A laid-back voice singing a very nostalgic Japanese song, over a pattern of poppish drums and violins. The theme really comes in contrast with the background music that covers the whole show. From eerie pitchy sounds to gory, horror-like melodies, the gallery of sound effects is really peculiar and makes you feel like “something bad is going to happen” almost all the time.

The episodes all end with more questions to add and the numerous mysteries and questions make me hate this one episode per week routine. But, like every first-class anime, the story, the characters, the overall elements that compose its complexity, develop slowly. Every component is being showed to us gradually, growing unhurriedly and we find out something new by each and each episode. I’m a sucker for “kids playing a dangerous game” type of situation and believe me, this anime takes itself very seriously. This is far form being your typical “how cool to drive a mecca and save the world” type of anime. No no no. This is the “I’m so fucking scared to drive a mecca that I will fucking shit in my pants, and god no, i don’t want to die a virgin” type of youngsters’ psychology. And plus, it deals a lot not with the actual fighting (until now) but with the consequences – the hazardous deaths, the political and military problem and how the regular people on the streets react to it.

I’m down at episode 7 so it’s definitely hard to form a structured opinion. The impressive number of central characters (15) makes it really hard for real portrayals to stand out but somehow it had managed to keep focus on some of them through the typical flashback habit, by showing a bit of background, slices of previous family life etc. It seems we might eventually get to know all the characters.

I’m really excited to see the outcome of this series. Until now, everything’s great.

 

Honey And Clover

Ok, so usually I skip this kind of drama slice-of-life anime. I’m more of a Naruto, Bleach, Death Note sort of anime watcher, and that’s not because I dislike drama (because I do really enjoy it in cinema and tv shows) but because I tend to regard it as ridiculous in cartoons. Or maybe because I was so indulged in my elementary school years with classic anime drama for kids (like Candy Candy, Kiss me Licia, Sandy Bell and the likes) that I tend to stereotype easily when I’m confronted with this category.

But obviously I was profoundly wrong. Honey and Clover is so good that it’s almost unimaginable. I really didn’t know anything about this show – it was just recommended to me by a friend who uttered “it’s cool and it’s about some kids at an art school”. Therefore one day I was so bored with everything else, and I decided to sunk in some new anime to obsess to. And I found this gem.

First of, let me start with the premise. A bunch of art students, in a dorm. That’s it.

There are 2 elements that make Honey and Clover the excellent anime that it really is: 1. atmosphere 2. character development. These 2 qualities bring it up there with the greats like Makoto Shinkai, Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii.

The intermingled relationships between these 5 youngsters are what make the series so enjoyable. Friendship is much more important and brought into focus in a subtle, natural way, without patronizing the viewer with the creator’s own opinions upon the way into which this should be perceived. Characters interact in various modes, and have different opinions and personalities that collide frequently, forming a pattern of complex dialogues and situations. From the mellow, laid back, quiet Takemoto, to the over-excited, psychotic Morita, to the more mature, financially achieved Mayama, to Yamada self-destructive behavior and up to Hagu’s weird autistic conduct, there’s a very wide array of characters, and all is done without stereotyping too much and without the common mistake of creating caricatures. These are three-dimensional personages, who react and think differently and their friendship gradually builds up during the show. However, when we are first introduced to the characters we don’t get the feeling that one usually gets when entering a fictional world: that all has been set up for the viewer, but rather a feeling of intrusion into a real group of people, whose lives were there from before the watcher started to perform the act of viewing, of intrusion.

Character development is done with refinement. Morita intrigues by his wild temper and his sudden unpredictable voyages, but also leaves the feeling that there’s more under the surface of a foolish young man. His will to take care of his friends, his great artistic talent and inability to let go of the campus life are all assets of a complex persona. Takemoto, my other favorite character, is the one who suffers the most dramatic change during the series. His story is a typical coming-of-age one that ends with a remarkable soul-searching trip, when he spontaneously takes his bike and just rides it and rides it, frenetically, without looking back. We also take an insight into Takemoto’s family and issues that he had back at home. The people he meets during his lonely trip, the discoveries he makes about himself, are all going to reverberate in his later behavior and process of growing up. Mayama’s relationship to an older woman is also intensely portrayed. And Yamada, the pottery maker is very realistically portrayed as the young girl who engages in self-destructive behavior (like drinking until she collapses on the floor) because of disappointment in love.

Another aspect nicely done is the leitmotiv of the spinning wheel. It’s funny how many elements of this anime are rather symbolic and it’s sad how so many people nowadays regard anime as being somewhat of a retarded tv show for young audiences. The spinning wheel appears regularly on the show: there is the giant Ferris wheel from Tokyo that the characters all ride together one day and there is also Takemoto’s spinning bicycle wheel. The aftertaste (despite of the rather melancholic feel of the whole show) leaves a feeling of warmth that I have yet to see in an anime series.

(Honey and Clover – directed by Kenichi Kasai, STUDIO J.C.STAFF, after an anime created by Chika Umino)