He’s back!

Kallen rocks, I also like the mecha design in this show

Using the same strategy again? Well at least it worked…

Three cheers for emo face distortion!

I’ve been a huge fan of Code Geass since the very first episode aired last year. I remember reading about the pre-show hype and upon hearing that it was directed by none other than Goro Taniguchi I was quite excited. As the director of two of my favorite animes of all time, Infinite Ryvius and Planetes, I had high expectations for Geass. With it’s solid production values, excellent mecha action (I’d say it is on par with Gundam SEED Destiny, but nowhere near 00 or Macross Frontier), awesome story (I saw this show before I saw Death Note, so it was much more original for me), CLAMP character designs, and top notch voice acting this was an immediate keeper. Unlike most mecha anime, Lelouch was actually quite brilliant and in many ways the anti-hero. The fact that he was such a bastard made it interesting to watch, although I have to admit he is much more likable than Light-O. With a helpful smattering of fan service, shameless Pizza Hut endorsements, and my personally favorite, high school hijinks, Code Geass really hit all the right notes with me.

While SUNRISE shows of late have been a bit famous for being fun to watch trainwrecks or having horrible endings (I thought Mai-HiME was awesome until the end which was lacklustre), Code Geass managed to deliver for some reason and not fall flat on it’s face. Sure there were predictable character resurrections (Orange-kun anyone?), and wacky turn of events, but it never stopped being what the very first episode was, which was just non-stop action and non-stop excitement. That episode when Lelouch makes Euphie go berserk will rank up there as one of my personal all time favorite episodes.

Last season left us off on a cliffhanger, which was promptly dealt with in the first few episodes of this season. Apparently Lelouch really can’t fight off the super soldier that is Suzaku, as he’s sold out by his friend and brainwashed by the Geass-pocessing emperor in a ditch to recapture C.C. Fortunately for Lelouch, C.C. makes contact with Lelouch and restores his memories, and Lelouch is as cunning as ever, although now with a bit more humanity or apparent concern for those dear to him.

One of the things which I really didn’t like about the end of last season was how Lelouch slowly transformed from Light-O to super mecha pilot, but it seems like so far in this season this has been dealt with in many ways. While still not a chump, Lelouch is much more human in his mecha ability and is once again using his cunning to outwit his enemies. Although the beginning of this season has felt more like Death Note than last season, there has still been plenty of action to go around, and each episode is paced very quickly and filled with action.

In episode 4, we are left off with the cliffhanger from last episode as Rolo holds a gun to Lelouch’s head. Apparently this was all foreseen by Lelouch, and he uses the opportunity to trick Rolo into letting him go with the promise of access to C.C.. We also learn that Rolo is apperently a super assassin with no family and nothing to live for save his own life.

As the deadline nears for the execution of the capture members of the Order of the Black Knights, the cool kung-fu Chinese guy disposes of the Geassed ambassador but lets the knights do what they want for now. Meanwhile still under surveillance, Lelouch manages to sneak into the main battle just in the nick of time to save his army. Using a trick from last season, he gets the floor to fall and dump everyone into the embassy where the captured knights are saved. Rolo senses that something is up, and persues Lelouch in his knightmare still clutching his locket attached to his cell phone (Shinn anyone??!). Lelouch also uses this opportunity to Geass someone into shooting at Rolo and fake-saving him to trick Rolo into believing that Lelouch really does care about him. With Rolo temporally manipulated onto his side without even using Geass, Lelouch’s position is secure. The episode ends with a glimpse of Suzaku going back to school.

Overall this was a pretty good episode. The writers did a decent job of making us think that Lelouch was actually a caring guy, but turned it around all again with his declaration that Rolo is nothing but a piece of trash to be thrown away once Nunnally is saved. While they reused some battle elements from last season, it was still pretty tense to see just what Lelouch would do to save the knights. Overall a decent but not great episode which leaves me hungering for more.

The Setup

The Macross Frontier Fleet

SDF-inspired school architecture… awesome!

Shoji Kawamori, Yoko Kanno, Macross, Maaya Sakamoto OP, kickass animation… what’s not to love?

It’s been over a decade since the last full-flown Macross series (Macross 7) was released, and like many other fans out there I’m rabid about my love of all things Macross. After all, it was Macross which was the first real anime that I ever watched (it aired in Hong Kong when I was two years old), and Macross which was presented again as Robotech when I came to Canada. It was Macross which got me back into anime during my teenage years as Teletoon in Canada decided to air the first three episodes of Macross Plus (oddly enough leaving out the last episode which took me another 2 years to track down at a local comic book store to rent). It was Macross which got me into IRC to download RealAudio subs of the show, buy Robotech, buy Macross Plus, rent Macross 2, order Do You Remember Love all the way from Singapore over Ebay back when Ebay was still an upstart novelty, and not to mention my Macross 7 boxed set.

In the intervening years, I’ve matured a lot, and seen a LOT of anime and listened to a lot of jpop, but still the familiar tunes of Macross’ past keep popping up in my mind. So you can imagine how happy I was to learn that a new Macross series was being produced.

Macross originally began as a bit of a spoof/ripoff of Gundam, but eventually morphed into something much greater. Blessed by a really cool story (what’s better than transforming fighter jets, I mean REALLY?) and directed by Noboru Ishiguro who would later bring us the great epic Legend of the Galactic Heroes, with designs by Shoji Kawamori (who would later direct the Macross franchise in most of it’s future incarnations) Macross was truly a revolutionary show in it’s time. With it’s romantic idea of music conquering all and it’s epic storyline of intergalactic warfare, and entire generation of kids would get hooked on anime thanks to this show.

Many sequels followed including one of the biggest hits of 1984 which also spanned that year’s #1 single in Japan - Do you Remember Love? This was followed by the ill-conceived Macross II which has since been disowned from the entire continuity, Macross Plus (then the most expensive anime ever produced) and Macross 7 a 49-episdoe extravaganza which was simultaneously produced with Plus. Taking the ‘music conquers all’ theme to it’s limits Macross 7 got a bit silly at times, but you just wouldn’t help sing along to the songs which were ridiculously catchy considering how repetitive it became. Finally Macross Zero pushed animation to it’s limits yet again when it was released even if the story was a bit hokey. It is from this vantage point that we arrive at Macross Frontier.

One of the greatest strengths of the Macross world is that it is indeed an entire world. With movies, OVAs, TV series and an endless supply of games, there is a very rich narrative to the world which progresses in time with our world, although at a faster rate. This is in contrast to Gundam, which tries to recreate completely new worlds and new situations with each iteration, which become a bit silly as ‘important plot points’ like the ‘masked man’ seemingly must appear in every show. Within the continuum we have Macross Frontier, which seems more of a sequel to Macross 7 than anything else, although without a crazy guitar guy who for no reason is an ace pilot and has access to top secret military hardware.

The Characters:

Alto, our bishounen hero who isn’t afraid to fight (wait did I hear that right?)

Sheryl, the idol with biceps that would make Madonna blush… maybe not, but at least she’s not a John Lennon wanna-be

Ranka, or should I say Minmay 2? Chinese restaurant, sings, 16… hmm! (do I sense incestuous cousin as well?)

Ozma, Ranka’s big brother, the badass pilot, most likely to die mid-series

Bridge Bunnies! The one on the left is voiced by Aya Hirano, and I think the one on the right is voiced by Rie Takana

No mecha series is complete without a Leeron (ambigiously gay guy who also looks like that guy from Code Geass who falls in love with Viletta)

The old captain who has seen too many battles

Not quite Guvava even if it IS a frog

I like the characters in this show, so far it seems to be a good mix. I just hope it isn’t too cliched with Alto’s kohai Luca dying early along with Ozma, while a love triangle forms between Alto, Sheryl and Ranka… wait that is EXACTLY what’s going to happen, but hey I don’t care. Either way one of the strongest parts of any Macross show has always been the characters. Even if you began by hating them, the well written characters always tended to grow on you and were memorable in the end down to unimportant characters like the girl with the flowers. This is in contrast to a lot of other mecha shows which tend to have an overly large amount of unimportant throw away characters (or in the case of Gundam 00 this is basically the entire cast now that Graham Acre’s gone crazy… well at least his seiyuu voices Alto).

The Animation:

It’s not Macross unless there’s a zillion missiles
	I swear I fought those swords in Diablo II!

Just a few short comments on the production values. This is without a doubt one of the most finely animated weekly TV shows ever created. With extremely fluid HD character animation, exquisitely detailed backgrounds, extremely complex animation sequences (look no further than the fight scenes and the Sheryl concert) and extremely solid production design - this show has it all. It is extremely rare for any show to have any one of these characteristics, but Macross accomplishes all of this. Gundam 00 and perhaps Seirei no Moribito are the only other shows in existence which even come close, and in fact in some ways exceeds Macross Frontier, while Macross exceeds Gundam in others. The one aspect where I think Gundam has this show beat is that the CG in Macross annoys me a bit. Sure it looks jaw-dropping and is extremely well done, but it’s almost TOO well done… in a way that I think watching these battles reminds me of playing some sort of video game (more accurately playing Wing Commander Armada) or watching some sort of cutscene instead of watching one cohesive show. The CG just stands out a little bit TOO much for my tastes. I don’t know what Gundam 00 did because it is obviously CG as well, but it just looks so much more natural and blended in with the rest of the show.

Of course the other major aspect of production values is the music and sound and for that not even the wave sounds in True Tears comes anywhere near close. Turning up my speakers with the bass up is like watching a Hollywood movie. Yoko Kanno meanwhile never fails to disappoint. Even then, I don’t think I’ve seen her compose music this good since Wolf’s Rain (or maybe even since Macross Plus). Darker than Black’s OST was forgettable at best, but this is grand, symphonic and shows the entire range of her skills as the greatest anime composer of all time. And oh, did I mention I love both the OP and ED so far? I just hope it doesn’t get played until my ears bleed like Planet Dance, but we’ll see.

Tributes:

The Animation

Flashbacks of episode 2 of the original Macross	There’s a scene like this in DYRL with Misa and Minmay
Minmay Attack! (Macross II)	Macross Plus tribute
They’re playing Totsugeki Love Heart in the car… didn’t know Ozma was such a Fire Bomber fan ^_^

And finally… Sheryl’s surname, Nome, is the same as that of female leads Sara and Mao from Macross Zero.

Episodes 0-2

Oh yeah… how about the story? Episode 1 ended up being a slightly different version of the special preview episode, episode 0 released back in December 2007. Set in the year 2059, the story centers around the adventures of the Macross Frontier fleet, one of the many fleets created after the great Zentradi war (of the original Macross) sent to colonize the universe. We’re introduced to pilot academy student Alto Saotome who dreams of one day conquering the skies, and to Ranka Lee, a waitress at a local Chinese restaurant. As our story begins, Alto is tasked with being part of the flying entertainment during the concert of visiting intergalactic idol Sheryl Nome. Alto does some crazy stunts during the show including carrying off Sheryl into the sky. It is during this concert that the Frontier fleet is attacked by a mysterious alien force which easily kills off the pilots of the fleet. As the battle rages on, the private civilian mercernary force SMS (think Blackwater) led by Ranka’s brother Ozma, rushes to the defence of Frontier.

In the ensuing battle, one of the aliens manage to break into Frontier, and is followed by squad leader Gilliam. Distracted by Alto who is flying to avoid the alien, Gilliam is killed, and with Ranka who happens to be nearby about to be the next target, Alto takes the control of Gilliam’s VF-25 and fights the Alien.

Although he puts up a valiant effort, Alto is just an amateur and eventually he is saved by Ozma and ordered by Ozma to take Ranka to safety. After some awesome antics, Ranka is saved and Alto realizes the magnitude of what’s happened and runs away crying like a little schoolgirl. The next day, the military detains Alto for his antics, but is later released into the care of Ozma who demands to know how Gilliam died. It is during this where Alto realizes that some of his friends in school are actually mercenaries in SMS.

Before Alto can speak, the colony attacked yet again, and the pilots launch. Then for the first time in mecha anime history, Alto, never the coward ACTUALLY ASKS IF HE COULD FIGHT! He is promptly refused and thrown out. Meanwhile Sheryl has been busy searching for Alto after his antics at the concert, and enlists passerby Ranka for her directional help. Ranka gushes with praise for Sheryl but doesn’t realize the woman she is helping is her idol thanks to the power of a hat and dark sunglasses. With Macross under attack, Ranka starts singing one of Sheryl’s songs, and it is then that Ranka realizes she has met her idol face to face when Sheryl sings along. The episode ends with Alto running into the girls, and the aliens catching up to all three of them.

Overall an awesome beginning to what is so far a top notch production. As long as it can continue like this, I will find it difficult to say whether this or Code Geass will be the show of the season, although all signs point to Macross. I really like the ‘realistic’ quality to the show, as this show is really the ‘Rainbow 6′ to Macross 7’s ‘Doom’.

I do have a few reservations though. First of all, it is only listed as 13 episodes on AnimeNewsNetwork and I worry that is all that there will be. With such high production values, it likely won’t run 52 or even 36, but I was hoping for at least 24 episodes. Secondly, I honestly wonder how they will make the aliens badass enough. The Zentradi were a galaxy spawning fleet of ships. The Protodeviln almost ended all life in the universe… I just hope the Macross Frontier aliens aren’t too crazy. Finally i’m worried whether the ‘reality’ aspect will be diminished like Gundam 00, but considering how Macross Plus and Zero stayed quite true to itself, I thing it should be okay.

I like the cute uniforms ^_^

So the Special A classroom is a giant greenhouse…

Etoile!!! Damn I wish there were more Strawberry Panic out there

The character design is very CLAMPish

I’ve always been a sucker for light hearted high-school anime, and all the more of a sucker when there are:
-Cute Girls
-Special group of students everyone fawns over
-Hilarious hijinks
-Crazy high school competitions

Following along such notables as Strawberry Panic, Gokujo Seitokai, Ouran High School Host Club, Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru, and Hana Yori Dango, S.A. (short for Special A) gives us a bit more of the fun that I’ve always enjoyed. Although produced by Gonzo, this show doesn’t have high production values (like Ouran), but promises to be more of a low-end but fun show.

The story centers around Hikari Hanazono, a high-achieving and hypercompetitive girl whose pro wrestling crazed father trained her from an early age to fight like the best of them (apparently pro wresting in Japan features actual fighting ability). After beating everyone, even adults in street combat, 6-year old Hikari is introduced to fellow 6-year old Kei Takishima who is rumoured to be even better than her. Ever the fighter, Hikari immediately challenges Kei to a fight and promptly gets her ass kicked. Fast forward 10 years, and now she’s in high school. It seems that ever since that day she’s been following Kei around, trying to beat him at anything - from schoolwork to gym class to fighting - without success, and now she has enrolled in a super elite school where Kei is the number one student in an attempt to beat him. It seems like in this school there is a special class of students called the Special A class, comprised of the top 7 students from all years who attend school in a special greenhouse building, don’t really have to to go class, and have free reign of school facilities to do whatever they want. Much like the moneyed classes in Ouran, all of the top 7 are all children of important and rich people except for Hikari whose poor carpenter father is working very hard to keep her in this elite school.

The first episode does a decent job of introducing us to the characters, and much like the rest of this genre of very large casts, uses the tried a true still screen with the person’s face and name trick to get us acquainted with everyone. Much like the rest of the genre, the rest of the school also fawns over our 7 protagonists, while there are a few ‘too cool for school’ types who secretly resent them. Along with the every genki and competitive Hikari and the arrogant Kei (voiced by Jun Fukuyama, the new master of really arrogant characters as he stars as Lelouch in Code Geass), we have the ‘best friend’ Akira, her counterpart and probable later love interest Karina Tadashi, cool guy Ryu, and the twins Megumi and Jun. The episode proceeds as we see Hikari challenge Kei to do some jumping over stuff by jumping off one of those gymnastics bouncy ramps just to see her jump about 10 stories and still lose to Kei. We then learn about three students who resent the S.A., and who try to steal the question sheet for the next exams, but are caught and confronted by Hikari. When they tell her off, she and Kei team up and kick the crap out of them, and it is then that Kei realizes that perhaps this girl who always loses to him isn’t so bad after all.

It seems like this will be an interesting show and I look forward to the next episode. The characters so far aren’t as interesting as the ones in Ouran, nor is there enough girlXgirl for the show to rely on anything but plot. I hope that Gonzo doesn’t even up recycling a lot of plots used in shows of this genre and that they go for something at least somewhat unique. All in all, this is a welcome lighthearted comedy in a season surely to be dominated by the giant mecha shows Code Geass and Macross Frontier.

You think that’s why she can’t cry? That’s it? You don’t know I surgically altered her tear ducts?	Indirect kiss time!
I think we need those heaters in bus shelters in Canada.	What do you mean you can’t see the bacteria?
^_^,

This week has been a bit hectic. The only three shows I’ve been following all decided to end at the same time, and while I won’t be writing about Spice & Wolf or Gundam 00 just yet, I thought I had to start off with True Tears. I do admit though that I regret being so busy these days and couldn’t enjoy the fun of blogging the show in it’s entirety like I used to, so I gotta thank Kabitzin for having something about this to read every week.

It has been a while since I’ve seen a simple high school love anime that wasn’t full of chiche. Kanon was nice, but then again it was just so damn weird that it didn’t fit my simple tastes. On the other hand there have been a bunch of girls only school (including one man-girl) animes which were fun but just not the same even if Strawberry Panic was a fun distraction. Slice of life is also fun, but has no romance, and so Minimi-ke has to wait. All in all, I was really looking forward to True Tears ever since Jeff wrote about it on Hop Step Jump!. When I saw the first episode I was surely not disappointed, although much like Jeff I was a bit hesitant. Was this just yet another pretty first episode which ultimately falls flat or will it be one of the classics?

Over the next several weeks, I thought I had my answer. With it’s unique direction (remember the first time Shinichiro enters Hiromi’s room and we see the same scene from his perspective and then hers?), smooth animation (people were comparing this show to KyoAni productions), awesome sound effects (best sound effects ever in a non-sci-fi anime) and great character designs I was throughly impressed. It didn’t hurt that this was one of the few OP/EDs that I actually watched every time in a long while just because I enjoyed the songs.

But what of the story? The first few episodes managed to set the stage pretty well. On one hand we had the childhood friend/hottest girl at school Hiromi. Then we had childhood friend/genki shop owner Ai. And finally we had wacky but cute Noe whose cuteness was superbly helped by wonderful voice acting much like Misaki was helped greatly by acting in Welcome to the N.H.K. Thankfully the ‘no tears’ thing wasn’t some weird Kanon-type magic, and even the chicken references were sort of touching unlike a certain annoying emu. Thus the stage was set, and True Tears did not disappoint. As the relationships between the characters grew more complex, many of us were torn between the cute and spontaneous Noe, and the pouty but good looking Hiromi. The story progressed nicely and just as we thought that Shinichiro was making progress with Hiromi we had a bombshell: they might actually be brother and sister.

For me personally that was the height of enjoyment of this series. Not that there weren’t touching moments after (like when Shinichiro bikes down the hill and catches up to the moving truck Hiromi) but I really felt the story went a bit downhill after the ‘revelation’. That revelation was resolved way too early, and then some strangeness inserted itself into the last few episodes. I really felt that the story lost a lot of it’s momentum with the pointless ‘relationship’ angle between Jun and Hiromi, the increasing marginalization of Ai and Engrish-hoodie best friend, and Shinichiro’s struggle to pick between Hiromi and Noe not adequately explained. The consistently dropping production values (with the exception of wonderful sound effects) bothered me as well. It was with this view that we entered the final episode.

In the final episode, Shinichio confronts Noe and lets her read the totality of his picture book (thankfully minus the last page which was conveniently missing), and finally, finally sets his feelings out straight for Hiromi. The story ends as we all knew it would from the very beginning with ShinXHiromi and Noe finally crying at the very end. And oh yea, Hiromi finally learns the splits… Shinichiro you lucky dog…

While the ending was a pretty good ending episode in terms of neatly wrapping up the story, I felt that there was enough which was suddenly thrusted into the viewers to make me think a lot of ‘what ifs’ in terms of how this anime could have been better. What if the anime showed a lot more of Hiromi’s feelings throughout? For a lot of the anime, she is presented as a very quiet character who never really talks about how she feels or how things are affecting her. To be sure we get the festival flashback, and the Kanae-Hiromi tension, but I would have appreciated a bit more from Hiromi, at least as much as the final two episodes where they finally did focus on what she really thought and how events were affecting her. Secondly, I felt that Shinichiro’s feelings were a bit muddled. I understand that this was the point of the show, but in the end I think the side plotlines with Ai-chan and the chickens really detracted from Shinichiro’s real feelings. Again, a bit too much of him acting all angsty and not enough reflection. Finally a bit more sports, or a bit more Hiromi learning the splits could have been a fun distraction.

Overall, I did enjoy this series. It certainly is not the best high school romance anime out there (that title of course goes to Suzuka), and in fact I will probably not remember much of this a few months from now, but it was enjoyable while it lasted. I appreciated that simply high school romances can still be made in this age of endless crazy harem animes or gimicky KyoAni-type high school romance animes, and that this anime handled the high school love genre with respect and a lot of class.