Magical girls? Yeah, okay, whatever. Even if Sailor Moon was my first and only, I don’t have a problem with magical girls — but my opinion towards the genre probably wasn’t necessary to factor in anyway, considering everyone was liking Madoka because it was “different” from what you’d typically expect from a magical girl series.

But the first two episodes bored the hell out of me. I didn’t see anything different. It wasn’t bubbly and shoujo enough to be typical magical girl, I guess, but it wasn’t groundbreaking in any way or even halfway intriguing. The characters were flat and uninteresting, wholly good and moral. Homura was a question mark, but did not provide a lot of excitement. Kyuubey was creepy though. Clearly he has an ulterior motive! The collage element in some scenes were kind of neat, but not neat enough for me to watch on that basis alone. And boy, was that opening theme fan-pandering or what.

So I thought about dropping because hey, when was the last time I actually ended up liking a series that I almost dropped early on? Oh, right, never. (The only halfway case was when I almost dropped Dennou Coil near the midpoint because it was slow, but I wasn’t bored at the beginning of the series.) But I was goaded into watching episode three because it’s such a short series anyway, and episode three was the first instance of Puella Magi Madoka Magica being different.

(Spoilers for the entire series beyond this point.)

Well, I guess one of the girls dying horribly when a monster witch thing bites her head off is kind of unexpected, yes.

But even still, the series didn’t seem to pick up. There is drama, but the characters continued to be flawlessly moral with every bit of negativity justified with a tragic and uninspired backstory, and I just didn’t care. Here is another series that failed completely at getting me to sympathize with the characters. All of them could have died and it wouldn’t have been interesting because I wasn’t emotionally invested at all. It might have been a little surprising, but it wouldn’t have been interesting. The backdrop for the series is not unimaginative, but without characters that didn’t suck, none of the events mattered to me.

The terrible wishes all of the characters were making also annoyed me. I mean, really, guys. First rule of wishing-making: say it right. It isn’t like you have a time or 140-character limit. The show isn’t even hinged on interpreting your wishes wrong, and it was established that Kyuubey isn’t really trying to trick you. You can be as specific as you want, right? If you’re selling your soul to the creepy white alien bunny, you should at least make sure that you get exactly what you want in return. Who’s to say you can’t have a compound sentence in there too?

We didn’t hear Sayaka’s wish specifically, but really? You wished his hand magically perfectly well again, but not his legs? I get that his hand was more important and that his legs were probably gonna heal anyway, but come on. We’re making miracles here! Kyoko’s wish is forgivable, I guess, since she was depicted as very young at the time. But Madoka’s? Man… Madoka, you could have fixed everything, but you didn’t. (More on this below.)

I was ready to drop it again around episode nine. At that point, I would have been fine if someone had just spoiled the rest of the series for me. It’s always a bad sign when I stop caring about spoilers. I normally hate spoilers, no matter how minor. But man. It’s such a short series. Twelve episodes! Just three more to go. How bad could it possibly be? And maybe I’d get some pay off finally?

So fine, I watched ten. Ten revealed a lot of things. Ten also made me make instant comparisons to Higurashi, which I had (surprise!) dropped for boring the shit out of me. (Umineko, too.)

Episode ten did make me care a little more about the outcome of the series though. With Homura’s motivation finally clear, I could almost kind of care about whether she succeeds or not! And I love time shenanigans. Time shenanigans are cool. But time shenanigans also opened the floor to a bunch of questions and possible plot holes:

1. What was the contractual wish of original!Madoka if current!Madoka is having such a hard figuring one out?
2. Is Homura actually retconning/rewriting all previous timelines by physically traveling back in time?
   1. But that doesn’t make sense since she never meets a younger version of herself.
   2. Kyuubey implies that she’s been traveling into parallel universes, but in this case, she’d still need to deal with duplicate versions of herself??
   3. It’s conceivable that she’s merely transferring her consciousness into a past/alternate version of herself, but in this case, I feel like her physical skills/prowess wouldn’t transfer as smoothly.
3. Other than Homura’s knowledge of previous timelines, is anything else changing between timelines?
   1. Obviously, because Madoka is apparently having her fate twisted by the universe?
   2. And also, if nothing else had changed, Madoka would already be a magical girl in each timeline since she’s already one when she meets Homura and it’s implied that Homura restarts at the same place every time.
   3. Not knowing what Madoka’s contract wish was originally (since they hadn’t met at that point), I’m not sure how Homura could go about preventing Madoka from making that original contract. I guess Madoka could have told her, but
   4. Given all this, why does the mere fact that Homura is messing with time screw up these other things?

I didn’t expect the series to actually answer any/most of these. It’s actually pretty easy to be forgiving with timefuckery plot holes because it’s such a complicated plot device. But seeing as this turning point reveal was the only thing I found interesting in a series full of disappointments and that it took ten damn episodes to get there, well.

My brother had been amongst the people singing praises for the series and had specifically recommended it to me. He was disappointed that my final thoughts were basically “MEHHHHHH.” We usually have similar tastes, but it seems that every time we disagree, it’s me disliking a series that he likes. Rarely does he dislike a series that I like. He went through my MAL to make sure. The following is the conversation I had with him on Facebook about the conclusion of the series, and then the series in general. It’s unedited except to replace our names and his profile picture.

I like to think I won that debate. :3

Originally, I was on the over-ambitious bandwagon and planned on watching and reviewing all three of their possible choices in time for Christmas. Obviously this didn’t happen. I ended up going with Place Promised mostly because it was the shortest. I still kind of intend to watch the rest of Tatami Galaxy eventually, but the longer I wait the more I feel indifferent to it. I’m not sure that I’m ever going to get around to Gunslinger Girl unless someone gives a particularly passionate recommendation.

But here is the review for Place Promised. And here is the MAL mirror.

Merry Christmas!

I didn’t write anything about the first episode mostly because not enough happened for me to have much more than a neutral impression. With the second episode, the mood for the series has been better established, and I can more or less see where it’s going from here. And really, it doesn’t seem too terrible.

To be honest, I’m actually kind of impressed with how things are unfolding. Tony Stark is not arbitrarily in Japan. He has a reason to be there, and it’s believable enough. The reaction of the Japanese public to his presence in their country is also reasonable, subdued to an extent, and clearly different from what the American public would be like. That Marvel and Madhouse have been able to successfully plant this very American character into a Japanese setting has been a nice treat, even if the story itself doesn’t fall very far from your standard superhero fare.

The episodes so far remind me somewhat of the 90′s Batman: The Animated Series crossed with the 80′s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with more of the former’s storytelling and plot set-up style and more of the latter’s silliness, I suppose, though the fact that there’s a subpar reporter tailing Stark everywhere probably caused that association more than anything else. Sadly, Iron Man has none of Batman’s cleverness or innovation (though certainly can rival his technological output as a super power), but this may be because his villains are not nearly as interesting. I mean, really, a terrorist organization with mecha named after astrological signs? Been there, done that.

But I never expected this to have a creative plot anyway. I’m more interested in how the characters develop, if they do at all. Stark is pretty established, and while I’m incredibly thankful they didn’t go for Yet Another Origin Story, I’m kind of afraid that will limit his ability to grow within the series since he’s probably, at some point, already faced most of the obstacles ahead. Then again, it was established day one that Iron Man’s complete lack of humility wouldn’t mesh well with Japan, and it would definitely be interesting to see more culture clash happen as we go on. Indeed, the government and politics of Japan have thus far presented themselves as more of a hindrance to Stark, however slight, than the Zodiac.

I’m disappointed with the action scenes in the series so far though. All of Iron Man’s fights with the Zodiac robots have been boring and seem more or less the same. The enemy mechs’ designs are inelegant and bulky, and they seem to go out of their way to make sure you never really get a good look at them. The cgi integrates well enough, and I’m happy with how Iron Man himself translated visually, but considering how much of this franchise is built on advanced technology and explosions, I was expecting a lot more, Madhouse.

On the bright side, Tony Stark’s design is kind of fun, if expectedly hilarious. The general bishounen aesthetic doesn’t mesh well with facial hair, which obviously denotes manliness, but Stark pulls it off well enough. Really, the only thing that bothers me is the largeness of his eyes, which is another generalized anime aesthetic, but one that usually trends down when it comes to older and more mature characters. So given that, I think Stark’s eyes are waaaay too big. But hey, his voice actor is doing a swell job, and he even kind of looks like Robert Downey Jr? His nose is a bit too narrow though.

Still not expecting a lot from this, but it’s not what I feared, and if they manage to sneak in a few good action scenes and some halfway interesting character development, then I think I’m good.

And I’m feeling a little better about the rest of the Marvel x Madhouse ventures… even if the next one has Wolverine has a total bishie ninja or whatever.

As usual, I didn’t pay much attention pre-season and barely remember seeing this show on the preview charts. With Fall gradually starting, I skimmed a few blogs reacting to its apparent insanity, but I wasn’t really interested until I saw someone describe it as Powerpuff Girls x Gurren Lagann x Dexter’s Lab x Sailor Moon x FLCL.

Even with the mishmash of awesome shows making up its description though, I was still a little skeptical about the whole thing. I mean, it is entitled Panty and Stocking (with Garterbelt). This alone invites much skepticism. But it starts off so nostalgically! It wasn’t quite, “The city of Townsville,” but the atmosphere was close… even if opens with one character naked in bed after spending the night with a stranger. Panty is a remorseless sex addict. This personality, juxtaposed with the very simple art style, was absolutely hilarious. She has very little to offer in terms of traditional visual fanservice, but this doesn’t stop her from being successfully crude, abrasive, and sexy. In many ways, her personality itself is fanservice.

Stocking, her sister, did not have as much spotlight in the first two 11-minute segments, and her gothic lolita exterior is more in line with the style to an extent. Still, as a foil character, I expect that she’ll do some nice counterbalancing in later episodes.

The segments center around the girls’ — the fallen angels’ — beating up ghosts to collect coins to get back into Heaven, though really, the sisters seem to care very little about getting back up there and would rather pursue their individual vices (Stocking likes sweets). But Garterbelt, the afro-bearing local reverend, makes valiant attempts at keeping them in line! Throw in a little dog that looks suspiciously like GIR from Invader ZIM and Stocking’s stuffed Schrodinger’s cat and that’s pretty much the show! Did I mention that the first segment’s ghost was a shit monster? Like, literally? It had toilets eat people. And then spat up a giant flood of poop.

It’s crude to be sure, and I’m actually a little surprised with myself since I usually don’t find crude humor all that humorous (hence my dislike of most American adult cartoons). Why was this so damn entertaining? Why wasn’t I offended? Perhaps it’s because Panty and Stocking has, thus far, touched on pretty universal subjects. Sex is funny. Poop is funny. It’s not humor at anyone’s expense. There are no pokes at popular culture or celebrity gossip. There’s no racist or sexist humor, though the sisters’ respective archetyes could be perceived as the latter, I guess. GAINAX’s well-known wackiness and penchant for pushing visual and storytelling boundaries certainly helps as well, and for me, nostalgia factors in considerably… even if its putting my childhood under a rather obscene lense.

But come on. You have a protagonist who goes commando every episode because her panties turn into a gun. The absurdity of this is insanely intriguing. Not many shows can intrigue you that way, so even if you only end up watching it out of masochistic horror, you still end up watching it.

And then you stay because the transformation scene is the most amazing thing ever.

]]> http://op.deadend-detour.com/2010/10/first-episode-panty-and-stocking/feed/ 2 http://op.deadend-detour.com/2010/10/first-episode-bakuman/ http://op.deadend-detour.com/2010/10/first-episode-bakuman/#comments Sun, 03 Oct 2010 05:24:01 +0000 Kiriska http://op.deadend-detour.com/?p=1388 October 2nd was this year’s 24 Hour Comic Day, a day where comic artists everywhere break their backs and their wrists by attempting to produce, in its entirety, a 24-page, standalone comic in twenty-four consecutive hours. And, by amazing coincidence, it was also the debut of the highly anticipated, at least on my part, Bakuman anime — the animated adaptation of a manga about some kids drawing manga.

The Bakuman manga, licensed by VIZ Media, recently made its US debut. I picked up the first volume and intended to write some kind of review, but at this point it probably isn’t going to happen. However, with the first volume relatively fresh on my mind, I approached the anime with every bit of my usual neurotic purist caution. I was psyched about the anime, but I have a tendency to be disappointed by adaptations, even when I try my hardest not to be. Surely the anime would lose something on the meta level, now as an anime about manga, rather than a manga about manga.

Opening with the theme of “Super Hero Legend” followed by the short flashback of Mashiro as a kid was cute. It was also surprisingly effective in setting up the middle school Mashiro’s perspective on life, despite everything not being explained immediately. The opening theme of Bakuman itself was oddly nostalgic in its generic simplicity: the music is mellow and romantic; there are shots of the characters around school, traveling to and from, hanging out — it could be the opening of any school-oriented series. Except it also included shots of our protagonists working in the studio. I noticed rather suddenly that Mashiro’s posture is terrible and if he pulls as many all-nighters as the story implies, then he is going to have serious back and neck issues later… like most real-life mangaka and comic artists! Naturally, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata know what they’re depicting here.

It was clear from the start that Bakuman would not have the production values of Death Note. This series doesn’t have the insane universal appeal of its creators’ previous work, and NHK VS Madhouse is no contest. The animation is very average, and while it’s clear they tried, I don’t think they quite captured the meticulousness of Obata’s style. In fact, I feel that the animators overcompensated in some aspects, such as the shape of Mashiro’s face, which comes to too sharp of a point, but were not ambitious enough in other aspects, such as the various exaggerated perspective shots. Many scenes are panel-for-panel, but the dynamic and energetic feel of the manga is greatly subdued. Perhaps this will improve when Mashiro actually picks up a pen? I am definitely hoping that we’ll get some ridiculously dramatic pen swishes a la Death Note… especially since, as a dip pen, we can have ink flying everywhere too!

On the plus side, the pacing in this first episode was excellent and matches up exactly with the first chapter of the manga, which shares the title. As with the manga, everything flowed naturally, despite Takagi recklessly pushing things forward halfway in. The characters are amiable, their aspirations and doubts relate-able. It’s an excellent way to start a series. Seriously, the first chapter of Bakuman is one of my favorite first chapters ever, and that the anime’s first episode mirrored it so perfectly has definitely put it on my good side, regardless of the animation.

The voice acting hasn’t wowed me yet, but I’m pretty pleased with how the actors are handling their characters thus far. A few people seem to be surprised/put off by the deepness of Takagi’s voice, but when I initially saw the 30-second trailer, it was Mashiro’s voice that surprised me more by sounding so young, even if he is supposed to be in middle school (this might just be a side-effect of me knowing that he’s university-age in current chapters of the manga though). In the actual episode though, Mashiro’s voice sounded fine — it suited him, and Takagi’s did as well, being the more ambitious and motivated one at the moment. I was also pleasantly surprised by Azuki’s voice! It didn’t annoy me! She’s a cute girl character and her voice didn’t annoy me! Hell yes. I was less pleased with Miyoshi’s one-liner this episode, but I’ll postpone judgment until she has some more significant lines.

I think the Bakuman anime’s off to a good start. I do wish the animation could be a bit better, but if they at least manage to make things more visually dynamic and interesting where it really counts, then the characters and story themselves, along with the voice acting can carry the rest of the weight. So far they’re doing a good job.

However… I have my usual concerns that they’re adapting a manga that’s not finished yet, though I do feel that the Bakuman manga can wrap up in the next 20-30 chapters. It is currently on chapter 103. Death Note was only 112 chapters, and while I don’t think there are many things comparable between the two series, I want to believe that Ohba knows when to end his comics, rather than dragging them out indefinitely. The Bakuman anime will probably be 26 episodes… which gives the manga that many weeks to wrap up if they want to finish first. I hope it does.

The only reason I picked this up was because of Stan Lee’s involvement, which I guess is funny because I’m not a huge fan of anything credited to the man. And most of the things credited to Stan Lee were made awesome by other people anyway. But it still felt obligatory. Maybe it’s because I’m graduating with a degree in comics and no one in comics ignores Stan Lee, as senile as people are calling him these days. Regardless, I wasn’t expecting much out of Heroman, which is why I don’t feel bad about dropping it at episode two.

Hell, I almost went ahead and dropped it at episode one.

Once again, I faced a protagonist I couldn’t sympathize with and whose circumstances didn’t interest me. Joey is a good and sincere kid, workin’ hard at a part-time job while going to school and being bullied by people bigger than him, blah blah blah. Pure-hearted characters with no apparent moral flaws bore me to death, and bullies being bullies for the sake of being bullies is also boring. Why should I care? Joey doesn’t even seem to really care about being bullied. Is it because he’s just that good? Or because he’s really afraid? If it’s the latter, he doesn’t do a very good job of showing it, so he doesn’t even have that going for him. I mean, it would be more interesting if he was seriously intimidated by the bullies, but he doesn’t seem to be, so whatever?

There was pretty much no way Heroman’s birth could have avoided being contrived and silly, so that didn’t bother me. The mech’s design is unique and kinda neat, and I think its serious business expression is a bit endearing. Unfortunately, its relationship with Joey is also boring. Joey gives impulsive, desperate commands, and Heroman complies. Joey doesn’t really do much beyond issuing the command, and Heroman doesn’t provide too much of a conflict point — he doesn’t disobey and he doesn’t overdo things. The perfect giant robot servant. Hurray. Snore.

At the end of the first episode, I was completely disinterested in seeing the second episode, but I felt like I should just so I’m not dropping on the first episode. I put it off. I got the second episode and still was disinterested in watching it. You know it probably isn’t worth it when you more or less have to force yourself to watch it just so you can say you gave it a chance, but there you go. In the second episode, it seemed like they were trying to play off the conflict as Joey being worried about having too much power, but it isn’t like Heroman really did much to warrant this worry. It just felt forced. And the aliens that have apparently come to destroy the earth? With no motivation given, I can only assume they’ll be a wave of generic “bad guys.”

I can’t decide what the target audience of this series is supposed to be. On one hand, the protagonist is in what, middle school? On the other hand, I would say much of Stan Lee’s works for Marvel had an “older teens” demographic, even if a lot of younger kids end up reading them. If Heroman is supposed to be aimed towards middle school kids, I guess I can pass it off as just something I’m not interested in. But if it’s supposed to be aimed towards a more general audience, one that might possibly include myself, then I will call it a disappointment. There’s nothing to set this apart from any number of other mecha action series and I’m bored.

In other news, I like how I always come back from long breaks with a “dropped” post.

So instead of that, here are nine series I kind of meant to watch at some point during the last ten years and never got around to, either because I was too busy or too lazy or too cheap or forgot about it. Maybe I’ll get around to some of these eventually, but some of them will probably just slip on further and further into the back of my mind where I’ll forget about them like I’ve probably already forgotten about a dozen other things I intended to watch at some point.

These are in no real order.

1. Voices of a Distant Star (2002)

After seeing 5 Centimeters per Second, I was very interested in seeing Makoto Shinkai’s other works. I was going to include The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004) in this as well, but I think I’ve actually seen a few minutes of that, either of the beginning or the end, I don’t remember. Voices of a Distant Star seems to have a theme similar to 5 Centimeters, which is depressing in that I can relate too well, but it also reminds me a little of PLANETES, which was considerably less depressing, perhaps because it slipped in a lot more comedy. Either way, this movie is definitely something I still intend to check out eventually. I really don’t know why it’s so hard for me to sit down with movies; I never feel like I have enough time.

2. Seirei no Moribito (2007)

As with most series that manage to get on [adult swim], I intended to watch this when it aired there. Unfortunately, its debut coincided with me not owning or having regular access to a television set, and [as] didn’t care to provide it with an online stream like many of its other series at the time, including Code Geass. So I missed out for the while, and I guess it was just as well considering the various bullshit [as] put the series. I think they eventually did air all of it, but yeah, it definitely never got the respect or attention it probably deserved. To be honest, I really don’t have a good grasp of what the series is actually about or why it’s good, but ghostlightning, among others, assures me that there’s good character development and such, so I guess I’ll probably get around to it eventually. (Then again, ghostlightning, among others, also goaded me into Eureka seveN, so maybe I don’t trust his judgment anymore…)

3. Junjou Romantica (2008)

Actually, nothing about this series interests me. The premise bores me and the character designs bore me, and those are really the only solid things I have to go off of. It seems like a huge combination of all the things that would make a newcomer skeptical of the genre, and after having dabbled in a few other shounen-ai series, I’m inclined to think that maybe my fondness of Gravitation is a huge, huge fluke. Nothing else has appealed to me since, and in retrospect, I can accept that Gravitation really wasn’t all that amazing either. Junjou Romantica interested me solely because, for a while, it seemed almost as popular as Gravi had been in its heyday, especially in that a fair number of guys seemed to regard it with some positivity. It also managed to get a second season. It’s definitely not high on my list of things to see, but I may eventually check out a few episodes at least. Dunno.

4. Kino’s Journey (2003)

My brother’s read and recommended me the manga a few times, but I’m better about eventually seeing an anime than I am about eventually reading a manga, and Kino’s Journey is wonderfully short at 13 episodes. Observations of the human condition always tend to interest me and for one reason or another, I feel that this series has a whimsical nature to it. (Maybe it’s the talking motorcycle.) I definitely want to see this eventually. Eventually!

5. Gankutsuou (2004)

I really like Alexander Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo. Perhaps that is reason enough not to see this series. I mean, I hated Romeo x Juliet, though honestly, I think that hatred stems more from the atrocities of storytelling and character development than any offense I took to the utter bastardization of Shakespeare’s play. But Gankutsuou looks so like such a trippy visual treat! But I’ve already had Monte Cristo ruined for me once before a la the terrible 2002 movie adaptation. Not sure I want to deal with that again. Sure, I’d expect Gankutsuou to be a much looser adaptation, and really, as long as it manages to tell an okay story with okay characters, I probably wouldn’t be that pissed at whatever they end up changing… but by now I know that I’m a purist at heart, even when I try my best not to be. So will I ever see this series? Maybe.

6. Azumanga Daioh (2002)

I just feel like I’m missing out on a lot of Internet nerd culture references by not having seen this, y’know? That and not having read more than a few chapters of Yotsuba&!.

7. Yakitate!! Japan (2004)

When I’d first heard about this show and that it was about bread and puns, I really, really wanted to see it because really, who doesn’t love bread and puns? For one reason or another though, I was unable to do so immediately and so forgot about it and then put it off and then put it off. With a final episode count of 69, it now violates my usual rules for picking up a new series that isn’t currently airing, which are basically “it’s gotta be less than 27 episodes or a Gundam series.” There have been exceptions to this rule certainly, but the more I continue to put it off, the less confident I am that Yakitate!! will be ever an exception.

8. Xam’d: Lost Memories (2008)

I was excited about Xam’d being launched on the PSN and all, but that was mostly irrelevant to me since I didn’t have access. Still, as the series aired, I heard many good things about it. BONES’s animation looked gorgeous as usual and Michiru Oshima did the music! Not to mention the awesome, awesome theme songs Boom Boom Satellites provided. With all those technical goodies, I still haven’t really bothered to see what the story’s about. Maybe if it’s cool sounding, I’ll get to checking it out faster. If it’s forgettable, I’ll probably keeping putting it off and putting it off…

9. Chi’s Sweet Home (2008)

I think I just need more simple adorable sweetness in my life. It’s ongoing and already has like sixty episodes, but this probably isn’t a series for hardcore watching, analyzing, and discussion, so whatever, right? Maybe I’ll be able to sneak some episodes this year in between all the running around hectic and stressed. Who knows. Kitty is so cute.

Happy New Year!

Read it before you buy it? Or buy it before you read it?

For anime, how many of your DVDs contain series you haven’t seen at all until you bought them? The number of series being broadcast on television has been dwindling for a while, but more and more companies are streaming their goods online, in whole or part, so there are still plenty of legitimate ways of seeing a series at least partially before buying it (and in addition to DVDs, there are now also budding download-to-own schemes for various platforms). Does anyone walk into the store without an idea of what they want to get? Does anyone just decide to buy a title coincidentally sitting next to the one they intended to get, thinking that it kinda looks interesting?

For manga, there are less legitimate routes to sampling. There are companies that have begun putting their comics online, but they’re almost never in complete collections: some will have a few pages; some will have a few chapters. The few manga magazines we have left and scanlations fill in the gap… along with grazing in the manga section of the bookstore, i.e., sitting around in the aisle and reading the book at the store. How many people buy comics without at least flipping through them first? Who goes off of cover design and backflap synopsises only? Because a vast majority of series are contained over several DVDs or graphic novels, I find it hard to take the risk of buying a single volume of something I may end up disliking. It’s an investment every time I buy something; I don’t buy something without the intention of buying all of it. A four DVD anime series (approx 12-13 episodes) can run up to $100 if they’re particularly expensive. A twelve volume manga series will be least $130. That’s a significant lump of money. Thus, sampling beforehand is pretty much required for me.

Movies and other television shows work similarly. How many people buy DVDs of movies without first having seen it in theatres? Who buys TV dramas without having seen the television broadcast or online streams? Or from a rental? From watching a friend’s copy? There might be exceptions in the five dollar discount bin, but hey, I can buy a sushi lunch for those five bucks instead of picking up a potentially crappy movie that no one else wants either. Music is also similar. Stores have listening stations. Online stores have clips. There’s the radio, Pandora, and related services. Except the cases where they’re already very familiar with the artist, few people will buy an album without sampling it first.

Books might be the trickiest bit. Libraries make them some of the easiest to sample entertainment items ever, and some publishers will have excepts ranging from a page or two or an entire chapter. And yet, most people that read books from libraries probably won’t bother buying a copy of their own, perhaps because the rereadability of books may be less than the rereadability or rewatchability of other media, at least over a short period of time. All the same, book buyers may be among those that are most likely to spontaneously purchase something based only on a synopsis or a book review or a recommendation. Those things certainly influence anime, manga, movie, comic, music, and other buyers, but certainly not to the same degree. Perhaps because paperbacks are among the cheapest of media, book buyers are just be less picky and more willing to take a risk? There’s also much less commitment. Even books in large series are often self-contained enough to buy on their own.

Assuming those assertions are true, it’s interesting that the media that’s easiest to get free is also the media that’s most likely to be purchased without sampling. For the former, is it just a rereadability issue? For the latter, is it just the price point? Is it because library users and book buyers are just different kinds of readers? And are those readers just different from the consumers of other media? Would a book buyer that often buys books based on reviews buy a movie based solely on reviews?

And then there is the question, how many of those that sample anything actually end up buying? Do they not buy because they’ve already sampled or did they just never intend to buy at all? For many media, samplers are usually pirates, but I don’t actually think that matters much. Sampling is sampling, whether or not the means are legitimate. In the end, they can all be split into the following groups:

1) Those that sample something because it’s available. They have no intentions of buying anything ever. Most steretypical pirates probably belong to this group. They download everything because they can. They don’t ever intend to buy anything. If they can’t download it, they just won’t watch it. No big deal for them. They don’t care. These are the people that go into grocery stores and eat all the free samples without ever intending to buy the product. Companies don’t really lose sales over these people; these people were never their customers.

2) Those that sample something because it’s available. They don’t necessarily have intentions of buying it, but might if they really like it. Most respectable fans probably belong to this group. They might watch broacasts or download fansubs and scanlations or ebooks or whatever. They aren’t necessarily looking to buy something, but it’s never out of the question. They are not adverse to supporting those that entertain them. It’s within this group that much of the illegal sampling debates center around. The big question is: how many people are on the fence about buying but end up not doing so because downloading is just easier and cheaper? They might feel guilty, but they still do it. Morality VS Money is a difficult thing. But if they don’t sample anything at all, how will they ever be exposed to something they might want?

3) Those that sample something to decide whether they want to buy it. They buy it if they like it. They don’t if they dislike it. I don’t actually know many people in this last group, but I’m sure there are a good chunk of them. After all, they must be the bulk of people keeping various entertainment industries afloat. These are the people that want to buy things, but aren’t sure what to get.

Maybe the trick is just to put out more products that people actually like love so that more people in group #2 will be compelled to buy. It doesn’t really matter whether or not people are getting a hold of something beforehand if the product kind of sucks. Or maybe people should somehow, impossibly, be forced to not download things and then we’ll see how many actually stumble onto products on their own? Who knows?

In the first place the premise bored me. It reminded me immediately of X-Men, among other things, and didn’t feel like it would take it in a particularly interesting or new direction. The art also bored me. The style reminded me a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh!, which isn’t bad, but it’s not exaggerated in a way I find aesthetically pleasing and not very interesting either. I couldn’t bring myself to actually pay much attention to what was going on in the first episode — the expository was exceedingly dull — but the action was fun in that absurd and hilarious sort of way, though I think it was more “I’m laughing at you” than “I’m laughing with you.” Either way, it’s hard not to laugh at ridiculously named Engrish attacks and excessive fanservice. I thought I might just stay with the series for that, but it kind of gets really old, really fast, especially when the characters are all kind of annoying. At least it isn’t the primary reason for droppage this time though.

The main kid is whiny and useless and has a sister complex, but honestly, he isn’t that bad. The chick and white-haired guy probably annoyed me more, but there’s more apathy than anything else. I’m not sure if apathy is better or worse than irritated; at least the latter has some emotional involvement? Is it better to passionately dislike a show or feel absolutely nothing towards it? The second episode was very much like the first. It had (more) fanservice and action and a bit of boring expository and overt shenanigans that at some point involved dramatically named attacks. But the reactionary amusement faded very quickly into the same apathy and I had no real desire to check out the third episode at all. It isn’t that I dislike Needless necessarily. I just don’t particularly care.

So I’m dropping it. And I guess this is the best way to drop a series because unlike the cases with Kurokami and Shangri-La, I don’t end up hanging on episode after episode hoping in vain that it could get better eventually before finally giving up in exasperation.

We had our first look at the art of the DOGS OAV back in December. It was questionable, particularly for Badou and Haine’s designs, but I decided to be optimistic. This optimism seemed to have paid off, as the short trailer that surfaced last month looked brilliant. There actually aren’t many shots of Haine in the trailer, but Badou, at least, looked terrific. (Camoflague print is still missing from jacket, but I’ll live.)

Now, some character sketches seem to have surfaced, and it looks like we took three steps forward just to take ten steps back?

Now, Mihai still looks great. His facial expressions and angles are great, and his outfit is pretty spot on as well. Naoto’s turnarounds look fine, and her facial studies aren’t half bad either, albeit a little generic-feeling. At first glance, Haine doesn’t look terrible either: I love the boots in his turnarounds, and the top row of faces on his facial studies looks pretty good. What gets me are his eyes on second row — especially on the left-most face. Also, that guy needs more forehead, man. The more I stare at it, the more I want to get into art kid super critique mode.

And Badou. God, look at Badou’s face! He doesn’t even look consistent from face to face on that design sheet! What is this freaky-eyed, long-faced monstrosity?

AHHHH!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

….

All kidding aside though, it’s really weird to see these sheets, honestly. I’ve always known character design sheets for anime to be pretty spot-on with their animated counterparts, and these just throw me for a loop because I just rewatched the footage from the trailer and Badou still looks great! What’s up with this nonsense? I almost feel like we’re being trolled. In the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter how shitty these sheets look as the actual animation remains as awesome as it was in the trailer. I find these character sheets kind of insulting to Miwa Shirow’s art in general, but it isn’t like we haven’t seen huge style shifts from manga to anime before. It usually turns out okay, even if it’s a little different.

I’m just kind of fearful of some random cheap crap showing up in the backgrounds:

That’s what I immediately thought of when I saw that Badou. Do not want.