Series thumbnails

Thumbnail reviews are annotated by their author:

• eak: Ed Keyes
• dm: Dave Mankins

Air Master (April 2003)

This is a melange of two classic anime series, the first of which is Lupin III. The main character is a private detective who uses guile, cleverness, and an uncanny ability to dodge bullets to get the lowdown for his clients. Investigating a casino which turns out to be a front for an arms dealer, he and his beautiful partner are involved in a seemingly-insurvivable car crash (note: the series looks to be set in the present day, but the cars hover...), and yet one week later, he awakes completely unscathed, but his partner is nowhere to be found. What could have happened to her? Of course, when the clock strikes midnight, he finds out.

In 1945 the aliens landed. Humanity has been at war with them ever since. The draft age has been lowered to 16 (and sometimes much younger), and the series is set in a (co-ed) high-school/military barracks. They're not just your classmates, they're your comrades-in-arms.

This is an ensemble series --- there are many characters, and as the series progresses we get to know their quirks and weaknesses. I'm tempted to say it's the series that Full metal panic aspires to: giant armored suits, battles, romantic entanglements and high-school festivals.

And death in battle, accompanied by mourning and the reality of death. In the days that follow, a character will find herself using a turn of phrase favored by a fallen comrade, and everyone in the room will pause, grief-stricken, at the sudden unexpected reminder of loss.

Reportedly, this series has its origins in a dating-sim game. Like To Heart, it's an exception to the rule of thumb that warns you to stay away from any anime inspired by a game. Unlike To Heart, this series doesn't have the ``girl of the week'' feel, it has a couple, and you (and the rest of the ensemble) watch their relationship grow.

Be sure to watch the ending animation closely. In the last episode they add one second of imagery that may come as no surprise, but which is still a lovely grace note on which to end a nice series.

I had completely the wrong idea of this series, as its home page made it look like a boxing anime. However, from what I can gather, this is completely misleading... the series seems to be instead a bunch of single-episode vignettes about the human condition. The first episode told the story of a boxing champ and his relationship both to the sport and to his estranged mother, told with voiceovers and flashbacks. (The next episode seems to be about an attorney, from the preview, and I presume the rest will bring in other stories). All in all, a very pleasant surprise, since I'd just watched it for completeness, expecting a mediocre sports anime, and instead found a rather well-done contemporary drama. ---eak

Our heroes are young members of the steampunk version of FedEx... in their souped-up (wingless) plane they deliver letters even in the middle of a war zone. The technology is a melange of a number of styles, as is somewhat typical of the Laputa / Final Fantasy / Escaflowne airship genre... steam-powered antigravity, basically, with a bit of a Napoleonic flavor to the combat. The CGI scenes are pretty impressive in parts, but the series didn't grab me: it bears watching, as it's got style coming out its ears, but it'll take a few episodes to establish enough character depth to go along with it. ---eak

Well, the first episodes of the series grabbed me and episodes three, four, five.... didn't let go). We have a spunky hero and heroine, just trying to make ends meet as couriers in a world dominated by a decadent nobility. The steam-powered muskets are a nice touch, as are the glimpses of a Babbage-engine navigation computer in the first episode. In the second episode we get to see Witch Hunter Robin's Amon channelling Captain Harlock, and there are clear signs that our heroes are about to be entangled in a web woven by Machiavellian forces moving to dominate their world. As the series deepens, our understanding of the leads deepens as well, and each episode sheds light on the other characters as well.

Character designs by Range Murata (character designer for [i]Blue Submarine No. 6[/i]).

This series occupies the niche recently vacated by Mahoromatic: light fan service with a main female character who is very competent but someone naive. In this case, the girl Narue happens to be an alien, and doesn't really make much of a secret about it, although her classmates just think she's a bit nutty. When she saves a classmate from a disguised monster (puppy + aluminum baseball bat = funny), he falls for her in spite of her weirdness and gets sucked into her world of galactic listening posts and shapeshifting assassins. If it weren't for the fan service I would, like Mahoromatic, recommend it without reservation as a charming romantic comedy. ---eak

Good news! The fanservice in the first episode seems to have been a fluke (well, judging from the next three episodes). While this series looks like it's a standard "magical girlfriend" series, it keeps exceeding my expectations. For one thing, Narue is not a doormat: the first thing she tells Kazuto is that he's just going to have to put up with the fact that she's poor, reads weird magazines, and is an alien. Second, they keep giving the formulae surprising little tweaks. For example, in the fourth episode, Narue's bratty little sister arrives. Only she's not a little sister, she's Narue's older sister. She's only twelve years old because she got to Earth by stowing away on a near-lightspeed freighter. She's spent the last fifteen years (our frame of reference) on a two-week trip (her frame of reference). If the Japanese don't really call this "the Urashima effect", they ought to (Urashima Taro rode off on the back of a sea turtle to the Sea-King's palace, where he visited for three days; when he returned to his home, he learned that 300 years have passed).

Shiina is on vacation with her grandparents when she discovers an unusual creature in the ocean: a large chibi starfish which doubles as a flying surfboard. It looks like the show is heading towards a Pokemon- like "kids with their power-pets" genre, but the pace is calm and there's enough artistic vision and characterization going on to lift the show up out of that particular cliche. Apparently the manga gets really serious later on, so people are expecting this anime to head in that direction too. For now, though, it's just cute fun, and I love the opening. ---eak

It's now the 24th century, and the Earth has finally rebuilt from the devastation caused by a nearby supernova 200 years ago. Our heroine is off to the Stellvia orbiting academy, with the mixed blessings of her parents. The flavor of this is very much like Battle Athletes without the sports, and with vaguely Azumanga-ish character designs. I personally like it a lot because it's obvious that the creators really have a deep love for the mystique of space. I also get a kick from the future technology, which has a suitably high-tech-but- overly-user-friendly feel to it: the spaceship must have been built by AOL. Good stuff, and most of the cast of characters are still to be introduced. ---eak

Combines the lighthearted cheerfulness of End of Evangelion with the sunny outlook of Now and then Here and There. This techno-dystopian horror series is like a film noir nightmare that's been tossed in the blender. It has a dark, original visual style that doesn't resemble anime as much as it does the decayed found-object animation of Jan Svankmeier or the Brothers Quay. You probably won't want to watch this series again real soon (but I mean that in the very best way: this is powerful stuff, and needs to be taken in small doses, it is at times painful to watch).

Character designs by Yoshitoshi Abe (designer for Serial Experiments Lain, NieA_7, and creative director for Haibane Renmei), script by Chiaki Konaka (script supervisor for Lain, Hellsing, The Big O, and Armitage III). Konaka has published stories set in Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos, and that experience in horror-writing is evident here. ---dm

Wandaba Style (April 2003)