Fairly More Concise Anime Review: Azumanga Daioh

Continuing my voyage into the heart of Moe-centric anime, it seemed necessary to watch the series that is perhaps most beloved of the entire genre, Azumanga Daioh. The 1999 anime is a retelling of the popular 4-panel manga by Kiyohiko Azuma, also author of the very entertaining Yotsuba&! manga.
    Azumanga Daioh is considered by many to be the finest slice-of-life/coming-of-age-story-revolving-around-a-group-of-school-girls anime out there. Basically, it is regarded in some circles as the premier Moe anime. These lofty claims are justified for the most part as Azumanga Daioh, while average in many regards, has an extremely strong sense of character and humor. While not exactly intellectually stimulating by any means, it is an excellent show to just relax and enjoy for what it is, mindless entertainment.
    If you want to compare popular Moe anime, it could be said that while Lucky Star is most self aware and K-On! is most sentimental, Azumanga Daioh is by far funniest. Not that the other two are not funny, but this show brings something entirely different to the table. Sure, there is the typical humor that is usually displayed in shows of this variety (back and forth banter about mundane topics resulting in resolution, judgment, or impasse) accompanied by the typical scenarios (culture festivals, trips to the summer house, athletic competitions, and a WHOLE lot of passing periods). From the casual uninvested perspective, there is nothing remarkable about Azumanga Daioh and for the first few episodes it is difficult to see what the hubbub is all about. Slowly though, the show's knack for excellent comedic exposition and timing as well as an interest in the just plain bizarre come into focus. The character Osaka, with her sleepy southern drawl, has got to be one of the best anime characters of all time. Her strange epiphanies and surreal daydreams make for many of the show's funniest moments. She is the kind of like that friend that always says the exact right thing at the exact right moment, unintentionally, that pushes the whole conversation over the edge. Magnet-for-abuse Chiyo and hyperactive Tomo are also hilarious quite frequently. The writing of the show seems to have a bit of a dark streak, which is funny given its benign context. Infact, the show's crowning moment of funny is equally parts disturbing and innocent, something that is difficult to pull off. There are also a slew of other gags worthy of being honored as some of the finest that anime has to offer. When a show has it's own chunk of YouTube real estate filled with "top 10 funniest moments" compilations, then generally, you know that it struck a chord.
    And that's Azumanga Daioh in a nutshell- a run of the mill, slice of life story with some entertaining characters, peppered with just enough moments of pure comedic brilliance. While some of the gags are great, there is just as much, if not more, of the tedium that can be found in any show of this variety. You will need some patience. You will need to scratch your head at jokes that don't hit on the head. (getting repeatedly bitten by cats doesn't do it for me) Most importantly, you will need to accept the fact that very little actually happens in these shows- it is more about finding a grove in the calm, casual air that exists within them and taking comfort in it.
    Make no mistake. Like its contemporaries, Azumanga Daioh is hugely entertaining. It's just plain easy to watch and it compellingly exhibits the qualities that are admirable about Moe and slice-of-life anime while expanding the envelope ever so much, to encompass a more mature observational keenness to the goofiness of everyday life. Although the conventions of this genre can grow stale quite quickly, Azumanga Daioh proves that it is all about the spin you put on it, not the actual content.

Rambling Anime Review: Mushi-shi

 Score: 8

Mushishi does not march toward some sort of conclusion or final purpose. Much like it's main character, Ginko, the anime merely drifts around, dispensing bits of wisdom and wonder. It is an almost zen-like meditation on the mystical unseen natural world and holds many parallels to our own lives, as it deals mainly in the unanswered and mysterious questions that we all find ourselves asking in life. It excels at acute observations on the state of humanity and revels in our lack of understanding. Most importantly, it romanticizes the things that we do not understand and creates a new language to describe it's nature. This language is the Mushi, an unseen force which holds great mystical power. This series plays out like a sort of collection of folk tales concerning the Mushi, centered around a sort of sage who helps people with their problems as he wanders the Japanese countryside. It is quite slow and is probably not for everyone, but if you have patience and a sense of wonder about the natural world, you will almost certainly gain something from this.
    This anime is beautifully drawn. Taking place mainly in the forest and small villages, the show contains an unfathomable amount of painstakingly painted backgrounds. You don't really notice how beautiful it is after a few episodes, but the fact that there is never a significant dip in quality to call your attention to it is impressive in itself. Characters are a bit more generic looking. Because this anime is meant to have an aesthetic quality similar to that of a restrained traditional japanese painting, there is no overt craziness in the character's designs. They all have dark hair, wear traditional Japanese garb, and life in modest homes. What distant visual flare there is comes from the atmospheric and believable settings that the show dwells in. The caves of a tunneling Mushi, a foggy sea, a field set ablaze, and an inescapable bamboo forest are all brilliantly infused with personality and a sense of realness that is uncommon in animation. The Mushi themselves are also highly creative at times.
    The series score is done by Toshio Masuda, also the composer for Naruto. The music here is restrained and has an almost improvisational feel to it. Each episode has it's own piece of accompanying music, which is nice, however many of them sound the same. Repetition also sinks in when the few other pieces, like the one used when Ginko is describing a Mushi, are used EVERY episode. I will say though, the opening theme, "Sore Feet Song" is absolutely amazing. It conveys the feel of the show perfectly and for all 26 episodes, I never skipped through it. It prepares you perfectly for the quiet and contemplative experience you are about to have.
    Mushishi, as I said earlier, dipenses bits of wisdom about the age-old relationship between mankind and nature. The story, if you wish to call it that, is all about different people and their experiences with the unknown and the unexplainable. The show never really makes any assertions on good vs evil, right vs wrong, etc. Instead, it makes simple observations about the things that exist in nature and twists them into bizarre phenomena. For example, it details the experience of closing your eyelids vs truly not seeing or actually finding the end of a rainbow. Although there is peril in many of these stories, they are usually resolved through natural and logical means. If there is one overarching message, it is that things simply are. Trying to control what simply is is a futile exercise. In this way, the series draws similarities to the Zen Buddhist outlook on life and existence. This show is, in-fact, as close to a meditation as any piece of popular entertainment I have seen.
    So what is wrong with the show then? As I just said, this show succeeds brilliantly as a meditation. However, It fares less well in terms of entertainment. Despite the show being beautifully done, If you know what the conflict and resolution is going to be going into each episode, you kind of lose interest. In each episode, you know after a certain point that there will be a problem which at first seems unexplainable, it will be explained as being the work of Mushi, there will be some way to fix it, and everyone will go home. Although there are deviations from this outline, they are somewhat rare. The real reason to keep watching is not to see what happens so much as it is to see what there will be. The scenarios and settings are sufficiently interesting and beautiful to keep you wanting to return to this world. However, you may become fatigued, as I did, and take a break for some more straight-forward entertainment.

Rambling Anime Review: Aim For The Top! Gunbuster

Score: 6

This is a review of the 1988 OVA series Gunbuster. Be sure to also read my review of Diebuster, the second part of the Aim For The Top! series. I had never seen either before so I decided that watching both, one after the other, would be a great way to witness the progress of Gainax as a studio and perhaps to observe trends in the anime genre at large. After all, Gainax's productions has always had a certain effect on the industry. This is the one that started it all for this studio, so it's importance is inarguable.
    I feel like the Aim For the Top! series fits into the category of media in which the original was a cult phenomenon that gained critical appreciation over time, and when the sequel finally came out much later, there was no way it could live up to the unrealistic expectations placed on it. Another recent example of this is the Tron sequel that was just released. For something like Tron or Gunbuster, their fandom has become something of an institution- something that has far reaching implications in the rest of the medium. They have been attributed with pioneering and shifting tropes that exist to this day. Like the more popular Evangelion, Gunbuster is seen by many anime appreciators as a series that was ahead of it's time, heavily nuanced and far deeper than it may seem from a glance. To what degree should we attribute this to actual quality, as opposed to nostalgia? As we know, nostalgia can cloud our perceptions of things. As a viewer with no sense of nostalgia, this should be an unbiased comparison of both Aim For The Top! series.
    Gunbuster was Hideaki Anno's debut as a director and in many people's opinions, it is the first real reveal into the mind of a man who is one of the greatest ever to grace the anime genre (a sentiment I would agree with). I'll say right here that if you are looking for an expertly paced, beautifully twisted, life altering experience on par with Evangelion, you will probably be disappointed. Gunbuster does not set it's goals and stakes nearly as high. So, in a way, Gunbuster is the smaller, more simplistic prototype of the masterpiece which was yet to be told.
    This is only a six episode series and there is very little time for the subtle character development found in Eva. However, it is very noticeable that Anno MAKES as much time as possible, even at the cost of much explanation of the setting and plot itself. Like Evangelion, it is very clear that while the story could easily focus on the stunningly rendered sci-fi world, it would rather spend time in the minds of the main characters, searching for what it is that makes them tick. I have absolutely no qualms with this approach but there are a couple nagging issues that don't work in it's favor. Length is one. There is simply not enough time to develop anyone other than Noriko. In Evangelion, we got to really get inside the heads of five or six characters. Here there is just one or two (you could maybe argue that Amano counts). The other thing is that the main character, Noriko is simply not as deep and multifaceted as some of Anno's later characters. Her motivations are pretty two-dimensional.  That being said, she is still deeper than the  majority of anime characters. She is almost a more simplistic representation of the themes that were later fleshed through Shinji Ikari in Evangelion. She is given a seemingly impossible task despite very little experience, the fate of humanity rests on her shoulders and she has a very hard time with this, she is desperate to be accepted and loved. She has deep insecurities about abandonment and self-worth. The only thing that is lacking is a sense of maturity in storytelling of knowing how a character would actually behave and react in given situations. You can see the raw emotion that went into this character but there is very little restraint and subtlety. So, Noriko is perhaps a perfect personification of this series- ambitious and filled with volatile emotion, displaying hints of some great untapped potential. Noriko is a great character to discuss. However, she is unfortunately the only really developed character in the series. The only one that even comes close is Amano, Noriko's idol. Her most discernible quality is the tendency to be utterly two-faced. A sort of Asuka Langley Soryu prototype shows up too, in the form of Jung Freud. (haha get it? Anno likes psychology) It would have been nice to see more of her too. There is nothing to set her apart from any other hot-headed pilot. It's hard to knock Gunbuster for it's characters though. After all, it is only six episodes long. Although better characterization can be seen in just as short a span of time (FLCL, much later), it is an admirable and impassioned early try.
    Okay, so… art style. It looks dated. No way around it. Compared to the quality of animation in say, Diebuster, it looks pretty uneven. Where as Diebuster comes off as a culmination of everything Gainax had done up to that point, Gunbuster has the visual look of something in it's insecure infancy. You can see vague traces of what would come to be known as the Gainax style, (female character designs, jiggle, interesting robot ideas) but you really have to search for them. For the most part, the characters, animation and designs look generic. Not bad, just a lack of that certain exaggerated visual flair found in later productions.  The music is notable for being far more produced and expertly done in many places than the visuals. The theme song for when the Gunbuster machine first makes an appearance is a relatively famous piece of music that is both instantly recognizable and invigorating. Other orchestral pieces are found throughout and are extremely effective at conveying the emotion of the series. The 80's style OP and ED just sound dated unfortunately- they remind me a bit too much of 80's montage music.
    Gunbuster was Gainax's first take on the giant robot genre, originally made popular by the likes of Gundam and Macross. It serves as a unique and interesting take on the concept, with a heightened sense of personal drama and inner turmoil. Iv'e said it already, but this series should really be longer. It is just too grand a story to be crammed down into six episodes. This problem could have been potentially solved had the sequel, Diebuster, been a continuation or embellishment of the story instead of an update… Stick around for the review.