Diego emerges from his anime viewing bunker to broadcast his thoughts on how some of this season’s titles are doing so far.

On today’s menu: Eden of the East, Hayate no Gotoku!!, K-ON!, Shangri-La, and Saki.

For reference purposes, I’ve included my initial impressions from Wolf Hurricane’s 2009 spring preview post.

EDEN OF THE EAST

Episodes seen to date: 5

What I said before: Missile strikes. A naked vagrant. Billions of yen in digital cash. It’s got an interesting premise, but Eden of the East’s character designs (courtesy of Umino Chika) are seriously putting me off. I kicked out the Hachimitsu to Clover crew just because I didn’t like their faces – Hagu’s repulsive china-doll visage above all – and the same is bound to happen to this series unless the plot keeps me hooked. Which it well might, so I’m all for trying this one out.

What I’m saying now: Forget about keeping me hooked – the plot has me gagged, bound, and thoroughly immobilised. The big questions have been asked and the answers are trickling in. Now that we’re at the halfway mark of this series’ 11-episode run, the rules of the dangerous game Takizawa finds himself in have become much clearer, with Episodes 4 and 5 making some particularly important disclosures. Up to this point, the writers have managed to maintain a good mix of suspense, mystery and action with a fair dose of humour thrown in, supplied mainly by the lead character himself.

The animation quality has remained consistently high, and the character designs haven’t bothered me as much as I thought they would. (Saki’s is pretty much the only face I’d like to rub out and redraw.)

HAYATE NO GOTOKU!!

Episodes seen to date: 6 (7 including the pre-season OAV)

What I said before: I enjoyed the first season, so why the heck should I leave Hayate no Gotoku!! out in the cold? On the other hand, I’m a little apprehensive about the change in studios, which is something I still can’t quite understand given the splendid work that SynergySP did the last time around. Let’s hope J.C. Staff can do an even better job this year. (N.B.: I’ve seen the new OVA – J.C. Staff’s first crack at the franchise – and quite frankly, I’m a little disappointed. It just doesn’t look right.)

What I’m saying now: Half a dozen episodes have come and gone, but one thing never came back from the previous round: those infamous bleeped-out references to other anime series that the old series was liberally sprinkled with. Like ‘em or loathe ‘em, they’ve become such a fixture of the HnG landscape that I was actually looking forward to more guess-the-title head-scratchers this time around. I’m also a little disappointed to hear so much less of that smug know-it-all Ten-no-koe these days (although it’s good that he’s still around to launch a witty retort or two).

The pace of the series also seems to have mellowed slightly: a bit more story-driven, a bit less dependent on gags and comebacks delivered at breakneck speed. This change gets my seal of approval.

On the matter of production values, the animation quality has improved somewhat – though this isn’t necessarily a good thing. The flatter but brighter style of SynergySP had its own appeal and not everyone will embrace J.C. Staff’s rounder, more depth-defined execution.

But what counts is that Hayate and Company can still deliver their trademark humour in spades. Episode one was something of a let-down; everything after that clicked nicely into place. After six episodes (and one OAV) under the new regime, I’ve grown quite comfortable with the changes and I’m committed to sticking with the HnG crew for the long haul.

K-ON!

Episodes seen to date: 7

What I said before: I’m not big on music, I don’t know the seiyuu and the lead character’s skirt is way too short. But as KyoAni’s official representative for spring 2009, the music-themed series K-ON! is automatically entitled to a place of honour on my living room couch. As long as the Great Ones keep up their high production values and penchant for surprises, the crew’s welcome to park themselves in my house all season.

What I’m saying now: I wasn’t all that excited about K-ON! at the start, but now my enthusiasm for this series is boundless. KyoAni has managed to deliver a wonderfully light slice-of-lifer that balances out some of this season’s heavier offerings. No convoluted plots to unravel, no twisted mysteries to solve: just sit back and enjoy the Light Music Club’s antics with unalloyed pleasure.

The technical aspects of this series are precisely what we’ve come to expect from the Great Ones: excellent animation (though nothing flashy since the story doesn’t call for it), great character designs, capable voice acting, bucketfuls of humour and a well-matched soundtrack. Needless to say, the songs – while not outstanding – are quite good too, and I’m sure many of us are looking forward to hearing more in the club’s future performances.

The cast of characters is more or less standard-issue: the hyperactive leader, the airhead, the shy but cute and sensible type (marry me), the resident ojousama. Same goes for the side acts, the reliable imouto-chan and the woman with a hidden past among them. But this formula works, so their travelling down a well-trodden path nets no complaints from me.

SHANGRI-LA

Episodes seen to date: 6

What I said before: I’ve been a fan of Range Murata’s art since Last Exile, so my ears instinctively twitched at the news that he’s doing the character designs for Shangri-La. Trouble is, radical environmentalists have never been welcome in my house, and I’m not sure I’m prepared to make an exception just because the lead reminds me of Lavie. If the save-the-world slogans are kept to a barely audible whisper then we’ll talk, but if this series tries to ram another highly politicised, ultra-lefty “the-world-is-better-off-without-humans” message down my throat in the first few minutes, those darned tree-hugging carbonphobes are out on the pavement in two seconds flat. Leave the scare-mongering to network news and former vice-presidents; all I want is entertainment.

What I’m saying now: We could have done with less of the convoluted carbon-trading schemes that made the first few episodes seem as complicated as heck. Not that the whole idea should be jettisoned – it’s a plot-critical theme and a rather interesting one – but the presentation might have been handled differently. Say an Atlas underling doesn’t know what’s going on and someone goes through the trouble of explaining matters to him in a dummy-friendly way (which benefits those of us in the audience who find ourselves in the same position of ignorance).

Having to deal with so many unexplained concepts also makes it difficult to take a position in this high-stakes game. Kuniko and the Metal-Age appear to be the protagonists by default, but am I expected to root for a ragtag gang of bandits that seems to have no established objective and whose activities seem to accomplish nothing but provoke reprisals against Duomo? (It’s easier to root for Kuniko alone, given the distance she’s trying to put between the Metal-Age and herself.) As for the merciless Mikuni – whose very existence in the story seems quite pointless thus far – what role does she play in the current scheme of things? Is the greedy young head of Ishida Finance actually part of the solution, given her ability to manipulate the carbon market (even if it’s only to protect her own position)? Bottom line: whose bloody side am I supposed to be on?

On the whole, the story does seem to be going somewhere. The usual set of mysterious elements (the resonating daggers, the imprisoned child, the nature and origins of Mikuni-sama herself, etc.) are in place and prepped for gradual unravelling. It’s the pacing that’s the problem: unless they upgrade from molasses speed soon and trim off some of the excess complexity, neither the reasonably good animation nor Range Murata’s distinctive character designs will be able to keep me from striking this title off my viewing queue.

Still, I’m glad that my fears of more lefty carbon-bashing haven’t been borne out (at least not yet). If the standard Goreist slogans are already playing, the volume must have been set to low because I’ve been happily able to ignore them so far.

SAKI

Episodes seen to date: 6

What I said before: Nothing. This series wasn’t even on my radar before the spring season began.

What I’m saying now: Six episodes in and I feel as if I’ve already been force-fed a year’s worth of fanservice. Haramura-san’s generous (one would even say excessive) endowment has been an established fact from almost the very start; they can stop rubbing it in my face now as if I were begging for the pleasure. On top of that, we’ve already seen a maid cafe, an onsen training camp, a dramatic “let’s go to the nationals together!” vow in the sunset – it’s like the producers are trying to use up every trick in the book before the series celebrates its two-month anniversary.

All that aside, at this point, the unsolicited fanservice overdose is the only thing that’s keeping my finger poised threateningly over the big red “Dump” button. Almost everything else is satisfactory, from the sharply animated mahjong games (which almost look like duels to the death in this rendition) to the well-mixed cast of characters. I still can’t wrap my head around the convoluted rules of this game – my only real exposure to mahjong consisted of using the tiles as toy building blocks – so unlike Hikaru no Go or Shion no Ou, it’s harder to keep track of each game’s progress and how each player is doing unless the scorecard is flashed onscreen. But it’s not a critical flaw, and for the most part I’m satisfied with seeing whether the club can move forward in the current tournament.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Anime.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.