Category Archives: Hourou Musuko

March 8, 2012

Anime OP: Part 1

By omo

I was just thinking how well encapsulated anime OPs are as both a pleasing thing, a teaser, and a pitch about what the show is. It’s also a pace setter and even at times a way to mislead the audience. It is a marketing tool, as well.

It naturally goes on that I thought about my own top 10 anime OP under those lenses. I used to update my top 10s, as they were actual lists of things, not just vague recollections or rose-tinted nostalgia disguised as some metric about how #1 is better than #10.So I’m going to just talk about a few of these OP that I like. I will try to proceed systematically for greater fun and enjoyment++ but this is probably not going to turn out to be a “your OP is worse than my OP” kind of ranked list.

This is part 1 of a two-part post, mainly because it’s taking me a long time to just come up with them, and the older I dig the harder it gets? Maybe it’s just that I have been not getting enough sleep (damn you iM@S). Who knows?

And maybe I’ll think about the other categories at some point later. No promises.

The Idol Master OP 2

Since I’m listing by date, some of my “honorable mentions” (it’s not like I’m doing a top 10 at any rate, so maybe it doesn’t matter) gets mentioned first. This OP is something I thought about a lot before putting it in here. Mainly, I just didn’t think it’s got a lot of staying power. So it’s just an “honorable mention.”

What it has, though, is catchy direction, solid character animation, and a very cool bridge. You don’t hear many cool bridges in anison. Yes, OP1 is catchier and the song is probably better. I just don’t think it’s got what OP2 has overall. Plus, they dance a lot more! That must count for something right?

  • Pleasing? DANCING!
  • Teaser? Well, not much left to tease.
  • Pitch? 8/10
  • Pace? Very spot on
  • Marketing power? As much as Takane’s hair is white

Rank: A-
Rank comment: ENCORE WA NAI LIFE

Hourou Musuko OP

I think this one is listed here because it’s one of those story-element things where it does a superb job setting the mood for the show, but also hides within a possible narrative that says something about the story itself.

The magic is in the music, yes, but it is also in that strangely distilled, but masterfully directed framing. When combined with witful color direction and a restraint that you will only find in anime for actual adults, the end product is remarkable just like that, even if there’s nothing to remark…or is there?

  • Pleasing?  I love “less is more”
  • Teaser? Kinda, yeah
  • Pitch? It’s really opaque but it’s there.
  • Pace? Slowly and methodical
  • Marketing power? 5/10

Rank: B
Rank comment: For srsbzns OP analysis and OPED types only

MariaHolic S1 OP

This OP barely makes the inclusion mainly for so succintly and stylishly express the overall concept of the story. Majority of the animation in the OP is 3D CG, and it looks fairly competent, if oversimplified. The song and the visuals just merged like a couple that were made for each other.

There is violence and anger but also fun and just the right amount of sarcastic despair that signifies the average SHAFT adaptation. Don’t take it so seriously.

  • Pleasing? Sorta
  • Teaser? Totally
  • Pitch? Parabola
  • Pace? Just like the song
  • Marketing power? 7.5/10

Rank: A-
Rank comment: Kobayashi’s big break

Xam’d OP 1

I think the song was the most striking thing about this OP. It is not your everyday anime with an electric-rock pumping the animation engine. It helps that the Xam’d had an unique presentation, being one of the only anime available to Americans before it was available to the Japanese, digitally available. It was the one watershed moment where I can now point and say “the future is here.” The future was also $4 a pop. It definitely served well as a marketing tool, and I have a couple t-shirts and an autograph from Boom Boom Satellites to prove it. Sony made the OP the primary trailer for the show, and I guess that goes to show the OP being, well, good.

The animation, however, is actually the crown jewel for the OP. It’s worth repeating that animating the OP animation is time consuming and relatively expensive compared to the remainder of a TV series. I’m not sure if Xam’d counts as a TV series, that said. It is a pleasing thing visually, especially given the moving camera treatment, the perspective changes, the way the mailman ran. It kind of sets up your expectation for some mysterious action slash Nausicaa naturalism nonsense, which Xam’d was. The pacing, though, I guess is up to debate.

  • Pleasing? Yes
  • Teaser? Sure
  • Pitch? 8/10
  • Pace? Fast and explode-y
  • Marketing power? Lots.

Rank: A
Rank comment: I’d loop it. Repeatedly.

Kannagi OP [LOL gimme a link]

It sure is plain, that OP. This is what I would also consider as “honorable” mentions but taking digital pens to a choreographed idol dance is probably old hats by Kannagi standards. The post-Haruhi ED generation (that probably should also be a honorable mentions) craves this nonsense, just like how the special episode 6 ED of Kannagi was kind of one of a kind. Or how the two OP for the idolM@ster was just the…best?

The song is catchy, if plain. The dance is simple, but the animation makes it outstanding and mesmerizing. The end result is that it kind of hampers the overall experience? You feel like there can be so much more to it but in the end it’s kind of just a plain anime OP.

  • Pleasing? Sure.
  • Teaser? Like a whore
  • Pitch? 95mph
  • Pace? 9/10
  • Marketing power? Some

Rank: B
Rank comment: There are a lot of better OPs out there.

Manabi Straight OP

It’s probably the last Megumi Hayashibara song that I will sing to myself fondly, marking the end, hopefully, of the era when I didn’t really know any better. Well, I probably don’t still. The more important thing about this OP is that it is similar to another quality work in recent memory, Hourou Musuko OP, where the OP tells a story if you dig deep enough. Perhaps a controversial story, even. It did stir up some legit controversy at first when people complained that it was outright glorifying graffiti, tagging up a school. Most people opt not to dig any deeper than Manabi Straight’s strangely deformed exterior and moe/kuukikei style filling.

But as someone who did, the OP was rewarding beyond expectation. There’s a beautiful thematic symmetry within the show and the OP expresses it just as well. It sums up the soul of the show. It’s only then that the lightness of the OP theme song made sense, under the harsh light of reality that it parodied.

For clarity’s sake, the OP I linked is the original; a “digital ink” version replaced the original OP after the graffiti complaints.

  • Pleasing? JET SET RADIOOO
  • Teaser? It doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination at first, but much more in context.
  • Pitch? 5/10
  • Pace? Just like the show
  • Marketing power? It cries forget-me-not.

Rank: A-
Rank comment: One single tear

…. and I think that’ll do for now. I have like, 9 OPs to mention that I think are worth mentioning but kind of fall below the threshold (I’m not even sure MariaHolic falls above or below that) between Manabi Straight OP and the first on the list in the next post. Sigh. This is going to take forever.

5 comments | posted in Hourou Musuko, Idolmaster, Modern Visual Culture

December 27, 2011

Year in Review: N-Listing

By omo

So, the tradition continues. 12 lists of 12 things. Some are ranked, others are not. One this year is not ranked but merely numerated.

Continue reading

5 comments | posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai., Ben-to, Chihayafuru, Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Fate, Figures and Models, Fractale, Guilty Crown, Hanasaku Iroha, Hoshi o Ou Kodomo, Hourou Musuko, Idolmaster, Ikamusume, Infinite Stratos, Introspectives, Kore wa Zombie Desuka?, Last Exile, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Mawaru Penguindrum, Modern Visual Culture, Moshi Kouko Yakyuu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no "Management" o Yondara, Nichijou, Star Driver, Steins;Gate, Usagi Drop, Working!!, [C]: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

December 22, 2011

Year in Review: Working Hard Writing

By omo

Urobuchi Gen has a breakout year in 2011 between Fate/Zero and Madoka, but we already know Butch is the kind of writer that now more people have come to know. Beats trying to watch Blassreiter or Phantom of the Inferno lol (not a knock, just the truth…I still need to play the game version of the latter). However I want to talk about Okada Mari’s work some more.

Okada is responsible for at least four notable shows this year: Fractale, Hanasaku Iroha, Anohana, and Hourou Musuko. I think it is in Hourou Musuko that her writing really came off well. Given how much that deviated from the original manga, there may be enough space to infer that her style carried a relatively brisk adaptation (Note that it is directed by the director of Fate/Zero, which is probably no coincidence) into the animation medium with a lot of punch. In fact, there’s just something magical about the whole experience. It’s like, laced nostalgia or something potent. And I don’t even care about the whole genderbending aspect at all; the supporting cast of characters are all wonderful and the chemistry is well balanced, dramatic and entertaining enough to keep things moving without getting dragged down by the weight of its seriousness.

I find it so wonderful that if I had to list my top 2011 anime, it would be between that, Madoka, and Steins;Gate. It had me, actually, at the OP.

Hanasaku Iroha is, more relevantly, a Okada original. I think the story is really basically about the nature of work and career in the life of, in some mainline, culturally accepted sense, a woman. However I think it’s important to see how there’s this double talk of sorts in light of what is happening to Ohana versus her mom. I think it is right that so many people hated on Satsuki but I think she is the one thing that makes the story at all credible–it isn’t about societal expectation or doing what society think is right. It’s about actually having that heart of a mom. I mean that is ultimately the issue; people cannot be held to uniform standards when it comes to parenting, or so it would be the framework that I interpret the story.

The career side of HanaIro is probably less thorny but just as tricky. On one hand you have Sui doing her thing at the end of the series, and on the other hand you have someone like Satsuki who pursuits it without regards to the other women in her life. I think it might just want to paint an image where there is conflict and there is no harmony, but people are still able to prioritize what is important in their lives and resolves things in respect to that. It is here that I can see some people raise a stink about its anti-feminist message. It really doesn’t bother me: if I was a feminist I would not be a fan of Japanese animation at all.

The truth is, it becomes more a cultural contextualization problem. If we can either power through or sidestep that, Hanasaku Iroha is a fairly sharp series, perhaps mired in the typical, 26-episode style of presentation that had to feature the backstory of everybody. But make no mistake; it is about a woman’s work. And that is an empowering message in a society where women have always been treated poorly than men.

It made me wonder a couple things: how much of HanaIro was taken out of a page from her life? And what was it like working on that and working on Fractale at around the same time? LOL. As we know, Fractale is the brainchild of Yamakan, cultural critic Hiroki Azuma (who authored that Database Animal nonsense that I refer to all the time) and Okada. I think it’s unfortunate that it didn’t end up doing well, but it makes you wonder what went on between the three of them. You would think that there’s probably potential for something great. I guess it doesn’t always work out that way.

There was also Anohana. It is a very charming and bittersweet story featuring likable characters despite the somewhat predictable path of character development they were on. It is also a little way too sappy, and unfortunately (and ironically) something I find difficult to remember 6 months later. The smiling-crying Menma-face and the sexually-charged nicknames (MANMA wwwww) of our cast of characters aside, Anohana leaves me little to go on besides to wonder how many other references to Forget-me-Not it can squeeze in that 12-episode package. Like Okada’s other stories, it is a very tightly-woven package. I mean if we can boil HanaIro down into the same size it will probably have the same overall format. Both shows have a fairly “slow” segment just after the half-way point in which the story builds up to the dramatic conclusion, and Anohana remedies that drastically thanks to its limited length.

Looking back, I think again the TV anime packing issue is still the one most consistently problematic thing for me when I poke at these works at the big picture level. Urobuchi’s style, in contrast, makes tighter packages–think of it like a HBO mini series–for the same format. Still, it makes me wonder how much you could fit in that 22-minute package every week, with enough of a build-up and release, and keep enough suspense for next week. It cannot be that easy.

Yet if you think about it, given how prolific Okada is in 2011, for whatever the reason, she is probably batting above average overall. I am someone who typically puts down the contribution of writers to quality of TV anime narratives, because I think in general fans elevate that aspect beyond its due worth, but certainly writers (especially people who come up with this stuff from scratch) are important parts to the creative core that brings every anime to their inevitable conclusion. Between them and the directors, the fate of many anime is in their hands even before the horse is out of the gate, and if anything 2011 is definitely the year that demonstrated this.

Something to leave you with: Okada wrote 9 episodes of Simoun and worked on True Tears (both Nishimura projects). She is credited for series composition for Bantorra.  This is somehow NOT a coincidence either, I believe. To go back to the same baseball analogy, I’d safely say she’s batting the proverbial 300. And not entirely a coincidence, in 2012, Okada is thus far tapped for the new Kenshin Shin Kyoto-hen remake,  Black Rock Shooter TV, Aquarion EVOL and the AKB48 anime. Oh boy! I’d say that’s about 300, how about you?

PS. Meeting Nagai Tatsuyuki and Tanaka Masayoshi at AX this year remains one of the highlights of con life for me in 2011. It was wonderful to see some of the people responsible for all that Taiga mania.

PPS. I’m not sure why I’m going with Japanese name order in this post, but oh well.

5 comments | posted in Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai., Fate, Fractale, Hanasaku Iroha, Hourou Musuko, Modern Visual Culture

April 7, 2011

Last Christmas I…

By omo

Just going to toss these thoughts down before they fly away with the Spring breeze.

Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? – Korean Zombie Desk Car – It’s my most enjoyable, uh, romp this season. It has just the right kind and right amount of randomness. It’s the sort of otaku show that they make every season, that has the kind of self-referential humor that pisses some cancer-speaking-people off and just annoying enough with its senseless plot to highlight that the point of this exercise is all those things otaku like about…things otaku like. Mousou Yuu! Boobs! References to Kira Kira! Of course the drama was pretty amusing that they can even pull it off, but I am not sure if it was used to the show’s benefit.

The only thing left to do is to make Korean Zombie Desk Car our version of Ankoiri Pasta Rice.

Level E – Really enjoyed the show, just as it is. It’s just retro enough, and I really like the ED for some reason.

Fractale – It’s a nice try Yamakan. The story and the composition is all “there” but it just didn’t come together. Which is probably more unusual than I would expect? How many shows like this fall flat? I think noitaminA is flushing them out.

Hourou Musuko – Best show of the season, and I didn’t even read the manga (nor do I really want to). Pretty much everything about this show is spot on, except how we had to squeeze episodes 10 and 11 together. It does have the “you don’t really need to have a vested interest about transgender issues” thing to it, but I think even that is done just right as to not alienate people unnecessarily. OP and ED are not my bag of tea but they are very well done.

Freezing – It was pretty okay except for the horrible pacing for a boobs show. I don’t get why people say the manga is good either. It feels a bit like High School of the Dead, just much less well-produced.

Infinite Stratos – This is the true moe show for this season. Half of which is because of Charlotte. The other day I karaoke’d Straight Jet, and it went down pretty smooth. It’s a quality tune. The ED, as mentioned previously, is cool ensemble stuff.

Dragon Crisis – This is the moe show for the season, and except Yukana’s character, it’s not even that moe. The one quiet girl was more WEIRDO than moe, the Kugyuu character is Yet Another Kugyuu Character and Rose isn’t setting any records there (not even sure if it sets the “most number of times Kugyuu repeat the same word per episode” record). Maruga and everyone that comes after only offer boobs, and not much else. Maybe you can make a case for furry girl but I don’t want to waste my time. Oh wait, oops, too late.

Star Driver – Save the Best Kiraboshi for Last. What he said.

Kimi ni Todoke – I like the first season more, but this one at least pays off. That said, I’m indifferent about the overall story the series covered in season 2. It doesn’t even make me RAEG like it does for some others. The thematic content, however, was pretty interesting terms of talking about communication.

Casulties: Rio, Gosick, Beelz (I should’ve just go watch Gintama), Merry, LOLOL Index.

The Other Type of Casualty: Madoka

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Fractale, Hourou Musuko, KiraKira, Kore wa Zombie Desuka?, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Modern Visual Culture, Star Driver

February 4, 2011

Melting to Wandering Son’s OP

By omo

It’s really weird, but somehow I really like Hourou Musuko’s OP. By Winter 2011 anime on Japanese TV standards, it’s not a happening OP. For noitaminA standards, it’s not a happening OP. In fact it’s basically the polar opposite of Kuragehime OP. Maybe because it is so out of place, that it ranks at the top of my favorite OP/ED this season.

I think Kuragehime OP is a good point of comparison. The dynamic and lively chain of references aside, the song “Koko Dake no Hanashi” is one of Chatmonchy’s better works–at least from a non-fan’s perspective–and it is great accompaniment to a happily-paced romantic comedy. On the other hand, I simply melted to my seat when folksy upstart Daisuke played out his “Itsudate.” during the opening of Hourou Musuko. I’m not sure what it was or why it happened, but there was something that was able to grab my attention, help me focus, and make me soak in the watercolor landscaping and the simple guitar chorus, on a dime.

If I had to guess, it was the watercolor credits hovering eerily over the empty school scenes. It came with an English translation. Three-Dee English translation. If that doesn’t draw your fancy, well…

The funny thing is, from some kind of objective sense, the OP to Hourou Musuko is all messed up. There are different kind of visual elements clashing together; it’s largely full of computer generated visuals, and (again) nothing really happens, yet it is almost the first thing we see in each episode. It works for me, but I can’t imagine it working for the average Western anime person. What is going on here?

This is just one part of the conspiracy. To see the big picture, we have to talk about theme (a little). Soft focus? That’s a good place to start. It’s like digestive juices of a pitcher plant, blending together character animation, background, colors, themes, and viewers like you.

One of the themes as expounded upon by others within Wandering Son is loneliness and finding common ground as a way to bring people together. I think the OP plays right in by cranking the folksy nostalgia lever up to 10 and lets you fill in the blank on your own. That’s why the school is empty, anyways. The show works when we project ourselves, when we engage our powers of empathy. The anime works because it invites us to do so. Even if you never had a problem with any of the problems the characters from the show faced, you can put yourself in that empty school. [And you can imagine how much more so for people who can really identify with the cast.]

Anyway, I melt when I watch the OP each week. It’s almost like the whiplash Rie Fu is now serving up weekly in the ED, except it is reversed; the OP buys us in, the ED flips out the trump card and collects the winning. There is a method to this not-so-madness.

And we didn’t even get to talk about transgender stuff! But hey, them otaku love it when a plan comes together. That plan is having a visual direction that is a part and extends the thematic content of the story. And it’s a grand plan.

PS. This is the best anime since K-ON at this trick. And I have no idea why a carnivorous plant was referenced in this post. Food chain identity disorder?

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Hourou Musuko, Modern Visual Culture