http://www.mangafox.com/manga/my_balls/
Make no mistake, Deadman Wonderland is gory. Within the first five minutes, an entire classroom is painted with blood, and a girl's severed head gets tossed across a room. The series is infinitely more Deadman than it is Wonderland, and it's fabulous for those of us who like their anime dark and twisted. And it is certainly extremely twisted. Even at the prison, there's some kind of strange system that hasn't been explain yet, where the prisoners’ necks explode (via Battle Royale-esque GPS collars) if they don't keep resetting a timer with candy. With candy! This whole show is full of beautifully mangled juxtapositions—prison vs. theme park, death by bombs vs. life by candy, Red Man vs. albino girl. Deadman… versus Wonderland. It's almost as poetic as it is exciting.
This is one of those shows that tells you nothing, but makes you ask everything. It's very frustrating. But it's such a fresh and unique show that I can't help but need to know more about this world. If I only follow three shows this season, Deadman Wonderland will be one of them.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Movie Claymore Ch 114
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/claymore/
It's late into the Spring Preview, but Deadman Wonderland was worth waiting for. It has a premise unlike anything I've seen before, and that doesn't even include half the things that happened in the first episode. At some point in the future, Tokyo is destroyed in an anomalous geological incident called the Red Hole. In an effort to rebuild the city, a company decides to erect a prison on the grounds of the tragedy. Called Deadman Wonderland, it's an amusement park that not only uses prison labor to build and maintain the place, but also uses the prisoners as the stars of its shows.
Already, this is a fascinating premise. It's not a new concept to use prisoners as entertainment, but having a penitentiary amusement park is one that's already so interesting that the idea itself could fuel an entire series. But this series one-ups it by adding the central mystery: middle schooler Ganta is the sole survivor of a horrific supernatural mass murder that leaves all of his classmates dead. He remembers the perpetrator only by the nickname he himself gives him—the Red Man (Red Man? Red Hole? Yeah? Yeah?), an apparition that appeared floating outside of the classroom windows. However, due to the lack of evidence to the contrary, and one especially damning video, Ganta is convicted as the murderer, and is put on Death Row at Deadman Wonderland. Throw in a mysterious mitten-wearing albino girl and the public defender/owner of the amusement park, and you've got a first episode that throws out unanswered questions like confetti.
It's late into the Spring Preview, but Deadman Wonderland was worth waiting for. It has a premise unlike anything I've seen before, and that doesn't even include half the things that happened in the first episode. At some point in the future, Tokyo is destroyed in an anomalous geological incident called the Red Hole. In an effort to rebuild the city, a company decides to erect a prison on the grounds of the tragedy. Called Deadman Wonderland, it's an amusement park that not only uses prison labor to build and maintain the place, but also uses the prisoners as the stars of its shows.
Already, this is a fascinating premise. It's not a new concept to use prisoners as entertainment, but having a penitentiary amusement park is one that's already so interesting that the idea itself could fuel an entire series. But this series one-ups it by adding the central mystery: middle schooler Ganta is the sole survivor of a horrific supernatural mass murder that leaves all of his classmates dead. He remembers the perpetrator only by the nickname he himself gives him—the Red Man (Red Man? Red Hole? Yeah? Yeah?), an apparition that appeared floating outside of the classroom windows. However, due to the lack of evidence to the contrary, and one especially damning video, Ganta is convicted as the murderer, and is put on Death Row at Deadman Wonderland. Throw in a mysterious mitten-wearing albino girl and the public defender/owner of the amusement park, and you've got a first episode that throws out unanswered questions like confetti.
Anime Seishun Pop! Chapter 12
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/seishun_pop/
Mitsuru Adachi loves baseball, and it shows. Cross Game never looks better than when it's in the midst of a game. Pitching, fielding, and running motions are carefully researched and illustrated, and baseball poses are drawn for maximum (but still naturalistic) cool. Uniforms are lovingly designed, equipment is lovingly detailed, and each play lovingly staged. Honestly the series' animation, even at the height of a game, isn't anything to be proud of, but its use of unconventional editing, be it fragmented, elliptical, or even intellectual, to communicate the impact of in-game events is. As is its canny musical escalation and driving use of Kotaro Nakagawa's distinctive score. The character designs are simple, even by Adachi's minimalist standards, the crowd shots are some of the worst ever drawn (really, did the animators get their kids to draw those faces?), and the cloud-pans are getting really old, but what else is new? If you've gotten this far into the series, you've already come to terms with its stylistic shortcomings. And thankfully, the worst of them—i.e. the ones that worked counter to Adachi's customary understatement—have been curbed.
I first encountered Mitsuru Adachi via Touch. The series was one of the first to open my eyes to anime's potential and I credit it, along with Kare Kano and Berserk, with transforming me from a casual fan to a heavy-duty fanatic. To this day I rank it among anime's stone-cold masterpieces. I mention this so as to put the following in its proper context: By the end of these episodes I wasn't comparing Cross Game to Touch any more. I wasn't lining Ko up next to Tatsuya, I wasn't weighing Osamu Sekita against Hiroko Tokita, I wasn't even feeling nostalgia. I was just watching Cross Game. From me, there is no higher praise.
Mitsuru Adachi loves baseball, and it shows. Cross Game never looks better than when it's in the midst of a game. Pitching, fielding, and running motions are carefully researched and illustrated, and baseball poses are drawn for maximum (but still naturalistic) cool. Uniforms are lovingly designed, equipment is lovingly detailed, and each play lovingly staged. Honestly the series' animation, even at the height of a game, isn't anything to be proud of, but its use of unconventional editing, be it fragmented, elliptical, or even intellectual, to communicate the impact of in-game events is. As is its canny musical escalation and driving use of Kotaro Nakagawa's distinctive score. The character designs are simple, even by Adachi's minimalist standards, the crowd shots are some of the worst ever drawn (really, did the animators get their kids to draw those faces?), and the cloud-pans are getting really old, but what else is new? If you've gotten this far into the series, you've already come to terms with its stylistic shortcomings. And thankfully, the worst of them—i.e. the ones that worked counter to Adachi's customary understatement—have been curbed.
I first encountered Mitsuru Adachi via Touch. The series was one of the first to open my eyes to anime's potential and I credit it, along with Kare Kano and Berserk, with transforming me from a casual fan to a heavy-duty fanatic. To this day I rank it among anime's stone-cold masterpieces. I mention this so as to put the following in its proper context: By the end of these episodes I wasn't comparing Cross Game to Touch any more. I wasn't lining Ko up next to Tatsuya, I wasn't weighing Osamu Sekita against Hiroko Tokita, I wasn't even feeling nostalgia. I was just watching Cross Game. From me, there is no higher praise.
Anime Let's Lagoon Chapter 16 17
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/let_s_lagoon/
Praising the ending isn't meant to belittle the rest. The journey has its charms too. In fact, it's a delight from start to finish, filled with laconic humor and terse emotional insights, with keenly drawn characters and a quiet appreciation for the everyday joys of ordinary life. The cast's rapport is good, particularly as regards Ko and Aoba, whose verbal sparring is all tart retorts and easy chemistry broken by the occasional glimpse of the emotional icebergs—the biggest and gnarliest being Wakaba—that lie beneath the smooth surface of their comfortable relationship. Never has the "bickering couple" been done better. We've grown to love and care for these characters, all of them, much the way they love and care for each other, and it's one of the series' great pleasures merely to spend time in their company.
And let's not forget the baseball. The summer tournament supplies baseball matches in great quantities, and even the inconsequential ones are quickly paced and spiked with little surprises. The important ones are downright engrossing. Its sports action may be overshadowed by its personal and emotional content, but Cross Game is still a show best watched with a baseball in hand.
Praising the ending isn't meant to belittle the rest. The journey has its charms too. In fact, it's a delight from start to finish, filled with laconic humor and terse emotional insights, with keenly drawn characters and a quiet appreciation for the everyday joys of ordinary life. The cast's rapport is good, particularly as regards Ko and Aoba, whose verbal sparring is all tart retorts and easy chemistry broken by the occasional glimpse of the emotional icebergs—the biggest and gnarliest being Wakaba—that lie beneath the smooth surface of their comfortable relationship. Never has the "bickering couple" been done better. We've grown to love and care for these characters, all of them, much the way they love and care for each other, and it's one of the series' great pleasures merely to spend time in their company.
And let's not forget the baseball. The summer tournament supplies baseball matches in great quantities, and even the inconsequential ones are quickly paced and spiked with little surprises. The important ones are downright engrossing. Its sports action may be overshadowed by its personal and emotional content, but Cross Game is still a show best watched with a baseball in hand.
To-LOVE-Ru Chapter 162 162.5 163
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/to_love_ru/
At its heart, though, dominating all else, are Ko and Aoba. Contrary, dishonest, and forever haunted by the shadow of the girl they both loved and lost, they've long been the emotional backbone of the series, and the nature and fate of their relationship is the big open question going into the final episodes. The answer comes in the very last episode, as Aoba realizes during the final heat of the game that Ko's biggest lie is his claim that he's a liar. It seems a simple thing, but coupled with Ko's answer to a question asked by Aoba several episodes previous, it changes everything. Suddenly earlier events take on entirely new meanings. The shift in Akane's affections, for instance, or Ko telling Akaishi to stop handing everything over to him. The full import of her realization takes just a second to hit, but when it does it hits with all the force of their fifty episodes of shared experience. It isn't just a good or even an excellent scene; it's a great one. It makes rewatching what came before a virtue, and watching what follows an unparalleled pleasure. It is, in short, the opening round of the most satisfying final (half) episode in recent memory.
At its heart, though, dominating all else, are Ko and Aoba. Contrary, dishonest, and forever haunted by the shadow of the girl they both loved and lost, they've long been the emotional backbone of the series, and the nature and fate of their relationship is the big open question going into the final episodes. The answer comes in the very last episode, as Aoba realizes during the final heat of the game that Ko's biggest lie is his claim that he's a liar. It seems a simple thing, but coupled with Ko's answer to a question asked by Aoba several episodes previous, it changes everything. Suddenly earlier events take on entirely new meanings. The shift in Akane's affections, for instance, or Ko telling Akaishi to stop handing everything over to him. The full import of her realization takes just a second to hit, but when it does it hits with all the force of their fifty episodes of shared experience. It isn't just a good or even an excellent scene; it's a great one. It makes rewatching what came before a virtue, and watching what follows an unparalleled pleasure. It is, in short, the opening round of the most satisfying final (half) episode in recent memory.
Figure Heart no Kuni no Alice Chapter 35
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/heart_no_kuni_no_alice/
The feel-good cliché is that the journey is what's important. Let's be honest. That's a load of crap. Everyone knows the destination matters—a lot. A good ending can redeem a bad series and push a good one towards greatness. A bad ending nearly always ruins a series, even the best of them. Cross Game's ending is a good one. Very good.
The end of Cross Game is of course a baseball game. It's a fine game, the kind of dryly funny, unpredictable match that the series is known for. But that's hardly all it is. It's also a crossroads, a place where Cross Game's characters and ongoing relationships meet and take a turn towards their final destinations. Akane fights for her life and shifts ever so slightly the direction of her affections. Ko gives Akaishi a gentle push to be less selfless. Azuma picks up some of Akaishi's selflessness and moves further yet from his days as a baseball robot. Azuma's flighty older brother reaches the final punch-line of his running joke of a love life, Aoba's amorous cousin Mizuki makes a sort of peace with his own unrequited feelings, and even bratty one-time manager/idol Risa can be spotted taking another step towards full-blown baseball fandom. This isn't just some game; it's a slice of life, in the best, most profound sense of the term: broad, varied, and poignant.
The feel-good cliché is that the journey is what's important. Let's be honest. That's a load of crap. Everyone knows the destination matters—a lot. A good ending can redeem a bad series and push a good one towards greatness. A bad ending nearly always ruins a series, even the best of them. Cross Game's ending is a good one. Very good.
The end of Cross Game is of course a baseball game. It's a fine game, the kind of dryly funny, unpredictable match that the series is known for. But that's hardly all it is. It's also a crossroads, a place where Cross Game's characters and ongoing relationships meet and take a turn towards their final destinations. Akane fights for her life and shifts ever so slightly the direction of her affections. Ko gives Akaishi a gentle push to be less selfless. Azuma picks up some of Akaishi's selflessness and moves further yet from his days as a baseball robot. Azuma's flighty older brother reaches the final punch-line of his running joke of a love life, Aoba's amorous cousin Mizuki makes a sort of peace with his own unrequited feelings, and even bratty one-time manager/idol Risa can be spotted taking another step towards full-blown baseball fandom. This isn't just some game; it's a slice of life, in the best, most profound sense of the term: broad, varied, and poignant.
Anime XBlade Chapter 38
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/xblade/
The summer tournament is finally underway. For Ko and his longtime Seishu teammates, it's their last chance to get to Koshien, the holy ground of high-school baseball. It'll be a hard battle, especially since they'll have to get through Ryuou, the school that ended their Koshien dreams the year before. In the meantime Akane's health begins to deteriorate, putting extra pressure on the team—particularly Akaishi—while Ko and Aoba must at last have a reckoning with their own feelings. Regardless of the outcome, it'll be a summer to remember.
The summer tournament is finally underway. For Ko and his longtime Seishu teammates, it's their last chance to get to Koshien, the holy ground of high-school baseball. It'll be a hard battle, especially since they'll have to get through Ryuou, the school that ended their Koshien dreams the year before. In the meantime Akane's health begins to deteriorate, putting extra pressure on the team—particularly Akaishi—while Ko and Aoba must at last have a reckoning with their own feelings. Regardless of the outcome, it'll be a summer to remember.
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