Torvus Blog

K-ON! Second Season Confirmed

2009-12-31T19:10:00.000-08:00

And to this news I give a big "meh". I will admit that I enjoyed K-ON!, but only for the moé fanserviceness. I don't consider it a great series by any means, and I was really disappointed when it ended because I expected more the first time around. I had a feeling a second season was inevitable, but I wasn't enthralled to hear about a continuation to the story, because frankly, it's a "slice of life" anime through and through, yet it fails at it.

Consider this a mini review of the first season if you will.

The first season is that it suffered from many things. The foundation to tall of these things is the fact that it was only 12 (13 with an extra) episodes, which is a bad sign for most anime. I'm not saying that 12/13 episode series are bad by any means, but they suffer from underdevelopment (with the exception of gems such as Haruhi).

*START OF RANT ABOUT 12/13 EPISODE SERIES*
Take Spice and Wolf for example. It's a great anime, yet imperfect. Although the relationship between the characters is greatly developed, it's not developed to it's fullest extent, with the saving grace being that it concludes rather open-ended, and let's us know that the relationship is still developing (though we could infer that, given it's short length at the fact that it's based on an ongoing light novel series, it was bound to have more than one season).

The "ef" series is another great example of this. In the span of 24 episodes (2 12 episode seasons), we follow four couples (2 each season). If time is divided evenly, we get 6 episodes per couple, and their relationships develop way too fast for us to care about them. Two (maybe three) have sex in the time span, and it's very hard to understand why Mizuki (female protagonist number 3) loves this man who is at least 15 years older than her. I'm not saying the age difference is disgusting, I mean, if you fall in love, you fall in love. Older women aren't my cup of tea, but I could understand why they could turn some men on. Anyhoo, the point is that the relationship is underdeveloped, and the audience can't find the strength to root for Mizuki's somewhat taboo love. Also, the only background we get on Kuze (her love interest) is that he was a player in highschool, is a world class violinist, has a terrible illness, and keeps female cosplay in his closet.

And while I'm talking about ef, I guess I should mention that I don't like Yuko (a very underdeveloped character despite being the one who ties all four stories together) much. Her relationship and story arc (*spoilers ahead*) can be summed up like this: I like you. I hate you. I was abused by my adopted brother...and I still hate you and I'm going to torment you with the fact that if you would've gotten over the death of your sister and accepted me as her replacement ten years ago at the orphanage, none of this would have happened. I love you now. I love you but can't be with you...okay now I can be with yo-OSHITI'MDEAD.

If they dedicated twelve episodes to just one couple at a time, then the series would be perfect, as it excels in style, animation, music, etc. The stories show some true potential, and the fact that each couple's love for each other was only made possible by Yuko would've been a great conclusion...if the developer's had developed the story enough for me to give a crap.

*END OF RANT*

Anyhoo, when it comes right down to it, K-ON! does not suffer from underdevelopment, or at least it wouldn't if it knew what it was trying to be. What separates K-ON! from a slice of life anime like Lucky Star is that it tries to create a climax. What was this climax? Oh yeah, that's right, Yui was sick :O!!! Oh noes!

...but why should I care? The anime spent too long showing us that despite being a mediocre school club band that would never come close to reaching Budokan level before graduating, they found happiness just spending time with each other. It can't simply make us care again without showing us exactly why the club cares so much about this performance. Granted, everyone wants to sound great, but it feels like a really predictable and "necessary" conclusion.

And I put necessary in quotations as it shows that that was the only way the felt they could go if they were to make this a 13 episode series. It results in nothing. The characters share the same relationship that they had for the last two or three episodes (whenever Azusa realizes why she is in the club), and as a result, it's open ended. The problem here is that you shouldn't put a climax leading to a conclusion in the middle of a slice of life series. The OVA was a better ending. It had a different mood, yet still kept that slice of life tone. To me, an appropriate ending would've kept a sad mood to indicate that things were coming to an end, yet there is a subtle change back the normal setting. In fact, I think the extra episode did this. Since there is nearly a year between seasons, you might want to have an open ended conclusion that raps things up. Have a character anxiously awaiting the next semester or something (assuming of course that they are on some sort of school vacation). The point is...don't create such a "dramatic" conclusion, for such a genre. It's just a bad idea.

K-ON! isn't a bad series, it just suffers from trying to achieve too much with too little. It fails to realize that what genre it's in, and tries to please fans with an open ending that is unfitting of the series, granted it is hard to create such a spectacular ending for such a series.

Halo Legends: The Duel-Episode Review

2009-11-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

With two weeks in between episodes, I nearly forgot about the second episode of Halo Legends. After the first episode, I honestly couldn’t wait for the next, and if the other episodes turn out like this, I think I’ll grow to love the two week interval.

“The Dual” follows the story of the arbiter named Fal, and basically takes place when the Sangheili (Elite) are joining the covenant. Most of his race is willing to join, but he is doubtful of the covenant’s true mission.

From the first minute or so, it looks very promising. Each studio presents its own style, and Production I.G. took full advantage of their “look like a water color painting” approach. Unfortunately, style is all this episode has going for it, as after the title card fades, we see an elite rowing down the river wearing feudal Japanese clothes and a straw hat. At least it sets you up for disappointment.

I’ve always appreciated artistic license, and the first episode took some of that. Brutes were ten feet tall, and the forerunner structures looked like Japanese castles. For the most part, though, it was entirely believable. This second episode steps on the line dividing laugh-out-loud ridiculous, and WTF-ery.

First off, the antagonist wears samurai armor, which is completely ineffective in modern combat. I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with this if the episode would stop clashing modern technology, with ancient. The episode opens up with Fal killing a group of elites wearing highly advanced armor and wielding plasma swords. Yet our antagonist insists on wielding a blade that’s twice as big, and made out of metal. It may sound nitpicky, but the structures make no sense either. We see that Fal lives in a house reminiscent of the architecture of feudal Japan, but at the same time, the same covenant technology is present. We see gunships and wraiths appear, and highly advanced covenant bases, with the familiar designs that we see in the game. Hunters are 30 feet tall, and half the covenant army uses steel weapons, too. Again, this is very nitpicky, but you can’t tell me that elites don’t look like total douche bags wearing robes.

Ultimately, the episode tries too hard to cater to a wide audience, but even if you don’t know Halo canon, the underlying plot is tired, highly uninspired, and illogical. I may be critical because I watched it at two in the morning, or it may be because I lost interest. Ultimately, Fal has to kill his wife because it somehow relates to the covenant’s grand plan. This drama is extremely weak, as I find each character very undeveloped and unbelievable. I found it interesting to see female elite, but did they have to choose the most uninspired design ever? A flat faced elite with a human figure and hair. Wow. Way to go guys.

I just don’t understand why they couldn’t put a female voice to any elite. It would have made it much more believable, and made me feel a little bit of sympathy, and I feel that the underlying problem of this episode is that it makes anyone who has ever seen a Halo game in action feel detached. There are too many conflicting timelines, and ultimately the feudal Japan theme only tries to bring us back down to earth. It tries way too hard to add this human aspect, and I don’t understand why they have to try so hard to do this. Honestly, as long as I know it’s a girl, I can accept the fact that she looks like a male. The show presents itself as a story showing the Sangheili lifestyle, but it strays away from that in the opening scene. What Halo fan isn’t eager to see the elite lifestyle? Well I can sum it up for you: take feudal Japan, puts some aliens with 26th century technology there and you got yourself an alien civilization.

Again, my Halo fanboy side made me even more critical, but I had higher expectations than this after the last episode. But as I mentioned before, the plot is tired and old. One hero taking on an entire army is nothing new, a man (or in this case, alien) making a sacrifice for his beliefs is nothing new, and duals are nothing new. And ironically (or rather suitably) the title is as unoriginal as the whole episode. When I hear dual, I expect to see something epic, but instead I witnessed the combatants pose for twenty seconds, the screen flash, and the two are standing next to each other in another stance, then one character’s chest explodes. The most overused way to end any dual (see this drawing I did in paint if you still don’t get it:http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb118/Falcen7/lol.jpg).

It’s not like the piece is totally flawed, though. The voice acting is excellent (2 out of 8 so far, keep up the good localization guys), and the animation, as I said before, really is the highlight of this piece. At time this piece looks like moving concept art, but on the other hand, it ironically dulls out the action sequences. The action happens so fast at times, that all you see are these yellow blurs bumping into each other. Most of the time though, it’s really enjoyable to watch, and there were at least two moments where I really appreciated this style.

Overall, “The Dual” was a huge letdown to me. The moving painting thing is nice, if only it had a greater sense of…well…everything else.

Final Score:
1 out of 5
Painful...very painful...

Halo Legends: The Babysitter-Episode Review

2009-11-26T22:31:00.000-08:00

The first episode of Halo Legends entitled “The Babysitter” was probably the perfect way to start out the series. It’s nice to start off with a story about the ODST’s and their rivalry with the Spartans, which is a topic much talked about but not explored well in the books. Not only did this episode surprise me in terms of the beautiful transition from Halo to anime, but it really stood out among the crowd of anime in general. With a year filled with some really crappy anime (it’s kind of sad that I’m only able to think of three or four good shows off the top of my head), it’s refreshing to see a story filled with action, drama, and class.

I guess what really stood out to me the first time around was the voice acting, which was superb. Although there were a few iffy parts, there wasn’t a moment that made me cringe and cover my ears in terror. Along with this, the animation quality was excellent. Studio 4˚C really made it enjoyable to look at, and stylish as well. While the character designs were a little flat and disproportional (canonically speaking) the environments were amazing. A nice change to see the more beautiful landscapes in contrast to the more industrialized environments in Halo (I’m so sick of forerunner architecture).

The story was also great. Without spoiling anything, I’ll sum it up by saying that the episode is basically about a group of ODST’s and one Spartan (CAL-141) who go on a mission to investigate alien ruins and eliminate a covenant prophet. It gets somewhat intense towards the end (though it’s nothing unexpected or new and won’t have you on the edge of your seat), and although one episode can never provide enough character development, each character is fairly three dimensional, and the episode does a good job of appealing to anime fans, as well as those who are familiar with some of the Halo canon and know about the hate the ODST’s have for the Spartan. I saw very few things wrong with the canon. The brutes are about 11 feet tall, and there is Japanese architecture on this “alien” planet, but stuff like that is easy to forgive.

I’m posting this review along with my review of “The Duel”, and I can say that this is easily ten times better. I’m excited that Studio 4˚C took it upon themselves to produce “Origins” a 100,000 year history of the Halo universe, as they clearly know what they are doing. While I can’t judge it as a series, I think this is one of better episodes of any anime I’ve seen in a while, and although it isn’t anything phenomenal, the premise is well executed in nearly every aspect.

Final Score:
4.5 out of 5

Lucky★Star: Manga Overview

2009-10-18T16:33:00.000-07:00

*TAKE NOTE: FIRST MANGA REVIEW. RETITLED AS OVERVIEW BECAUSE OF LACK OF STRUCTURE. WITH MORE EXPERIENCE, MY NEXT MANGA REVIEW WILL BE MORE STRUCTURED AND INCLUDE AN ACTUAL SCORE.*
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Bandai is a respectable company when it comes to anime and manga. Overall, they give us quality entertainment, especially when it comes to dubbing anime (though the Haruhi dub was...meh). Anyhoo, I think that so far Bandai has done a praiseworthy job in handling Lucky☆Star's transition into the states, and while the English dub is amazing, the manga deserves just as much praise.

The title page features a sketch of Kuroi-sensei complaining about how she doesn't get enough screen (er...panel?) time. Nothing special, but it's a nice way to open the book. The following page is pretty basic, too, and features a colored picture of Miyuki dressed like a teacher. After that you get your table of contents followed by the first episode title and the first four panels.

I can't complain about the four panel layout. I mean, it's nothing unique to Lucky Star, and it's well executed. There are 24 episodes, each about 4-6 pages long, with eight panels (two columns) to a page. At the beginning of the first few episodes there is a short character bio on the page before, accompanied by an illustration and three small sketches of the character. It's very nice, and adds some variety to the panels. While we only get bios for our first few characters (Konata, Kagami, Tsukasa, Miyuki, Nanako, and Yui) there are still illustrations at the beggining of the rest of the episodes. This was undoubtedly done to save space for other characters in later volumes (so expect to see bios for Konata's dad, Yutaka, Misao, Patty, Kanata, etc.). Overall, the whole book is just masterfully designed. You know when each episode starts, and it does the transition smoothly.

But besides the design, the art is very nice, too. Lucky star isn't an action packed series by any means, but the attention to detail is amazing. It's almost befuddling as the artwork at a glance is very simple, but there's soooo much more that went into it. The characters' eyes, hair, expressions, gestures, etc. were done with a certain care that each panel almost has this sort of three-dimensionality to it. In other words, there's just so much care that went in to it, that Lucky☆Star takes on a style of it's own, and stands apart from most manga of the genre.

Overall, the translation is flawless, though throughout the book, Bandai did this weird thing where there's the initial text within the word bubble, and piercing it from the outside is another sentence or two in smaller text. It's hard to describe, and at first I didn't care for it, but now I actually enjoy it. If I wanted to glorify it, it's almost as Bandai took the composition of each world bubble into consideration, as the variety adds to the style of the manga. Also, I'm glad that they translated the sound effects (*glares at Yen Press*). Yeah, it's nothing too special, but I guess I'm just glad that they took the time to redraw them and make them fit in with the art style. Overall, it just works. The only complaint I have about the translation is when a character says something like "sis" for the first time, they place "oneechan" in parenthesis right after it. This is probably so they could stick to the original translation, and so far it seems that they only use it once for each term. While I haven't really caught on to it, I'm sure they'll continue using "oneechan" as well as other terms rather than the english translation, but I still find it a bit unecessary, especially when you have a plethora of translator's notes.

Before I conclude this overview, I would also like to mention that I'm happy that the manga explains what that cat...thing is. It's basically the persona of Kagami Yoshimizu A.K.A. Nyamo A.K.A the creator of Lucky☆Star. There's a special section at the end of the manga (which can be seen above) where he discusses how the artwork and dialogue changed, the biggest example being Konata who went from cool to...ummm...complete Otaku epicness.

Overall, Lucky Star is just a great manga, and I have to say that it was well worth the wait. Rather than getting a rushed and overall meh version of the original, we received a simple, elegant, and accurate version of it. Lucky Star was the very first subtitled/unlicensed anime I watched, so granted I have some bias towards it. I think that justifies the fact that one can enjoy it despite the claims that it appeals only to the otaku demographic.
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