Wednesday, April 26, 2017

[Retro][January 2016] Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash



Summary: Thrown into a foreign land with nothing but hazy memories and the knowledge of their name, one can rely only on fear, survival, and instinct. A group of strangers is given no other choice than to accept the only paying job in this world: 
The role of a soldier in the Volunteer Soldier program, and eliminate anything that threatens the peace in their new world, Grimgar.
When all of the stronger candidates join together, those left behind must create a party together to survive. Despite its resemblance to one, this is no game. There are no redos or respawns; it is kill or be killed.
 
Manato, a charismatic leader and priest; Haruhiro, a nervous thief; Yume, a cheerful hunter; Shihoru, a shy mage; Mogzo, a kind warrior; and Ranta, a rowdy dark knight.
The story follows them as they try to work together towards no greater goal than simply keeping food on the table, and a roof over their heads.
But, their equipment isn't free, and it will cost money to care for it, just as it will cost money to pay a Guild member to teach them new skills and spells. When they struggle to kill even a single Goblin, 6 on 1, how will they endure?

My Opinion: This was a magical ride from start to finish. If I had to use a single phrase to sum up this show, it would be "Kill or be Killed". The show sits in this magical little niche between the gritty realism dark and edgy shows fall into, and the light-hearted revelry of friends working together in a magical world. It doesn't really suffer from the drawbacks of either extreme: It doesn't faff about with excessive romances, and it doesn't grind your face in the mud saying, "IT'S SO REAL, REALITY SUCKS DOESN'T IT".
I think the magic behind the show is that it focuses on the characters survival, to keep things moving forward. I don't mean the life-or-death fighting, but the day-to-day need to buy food, and repair clothes, and pay for lodging. In real life, you don't have eternity to mourn or lament your failings and mistakes, you need to get up for work in the morning, no matter what happens, because if you stop thinking, if you stop working, if you give up, all that awaits you is death. It keeps the show rolling, which is important for a 12-episode season.

Having said that, I want to talk about something I've noticed. I remember thinking vaguely like this before when Rokka the Six Flowers came out. Is it just me, or are people super hostile to any fantasy setting show that doesn't drown itself in almost shounen'esque shallow action? It's like the only thing people can accept coming from a fantasy settings is big flashy magical effects and battles, and characters screaming for power and bravely hero'ing it up. I understood it more from Rokka, because that show gave all of the wrong impressions of what it was going to be, but Grimgar never onces makes itself out to be full of flashy action. It's always zoomed in on the characters and their life struggles.

So let me take a moment aside to tell you: This show is very close to being a straight up Slice of Life genre. It just happens to be a Slice of Another World's Life.
I happen to think it's wonderful, but every episode on crunchyroll had several comments bitching about either the pacing, the characters, or just in general nit-picking everything. Hilariously, they even nit-picked about how Haruhiro gets riled up by and nit-picks everything Ranta says and does. Hypocrites criticizing hypocrites eh? It sometimes amazes me that people fail to see that characters acting hypocritically is a Human trait. 


To be fair, the characters have a bevy of old archetypes on display, but for once, I think they felt natural. It's very rare you find anyone who isn't a narcissist, that is perfectly happy with every aspect of how they are. To me, it makes the characters more human, that they endeavor to grow outside of who they were yesterday.
The entire time, I was just waiting to hate Shihoru for being the shy-quiet archetype...but I didn't. She actually puts in the effort to grow. In a longer running season, would I have expected her to completely leave her shy nature behind and become out-going and boisterous? Ha, hell no. Anyone with a scrape of sense in their head knows that people don't change so easily. It's not a matter of her changing her nature, or any of them changing their nature. Rather, it's a matter of them becoming more comfortable with who they are, and realizing that they don't have to be someone else to fit in and get along with others, even people they don't like. Ideally, if you have the option to avoid someone you don't like, you do. But life is never so simple, and sometimes you have to put up with people you dislike or hate, and that's a good thing, because it helps you to grow as a person. To learn how to accept things as they are, and work with them.

That's this show in a nut shell, besides the touchy-feel-good moments all over the place. A group of individuals, learning how to live with each other, because they have to, if they want to survive.

Normally, I include an Impartial Opinion section, to basically try and summarize how my opinion of a show changed throughout its run, and what I think of the show overall at the end, but...
I watched Grimgar basically all at once. So my opinion exists only for the whole, didn't have time to let it slowly develop week by week. Since I didn't have the chance to deduce misconceptions, or make assumptions on what would happen next, I don't really have any fallacies to dispel. So I believe my simple opinion will suffice this time.

All things accounted for, this show was:

Great
and I give it a whole-hearted Recommendation.

So long as you understand you're getting into an almost Slice of Life show, where the draw is the characters and their story, there's a lot to love here.

Monday, April 17, 2017

[New][April 2017] The Royal Tutor

Roughly my reaction

Last Seen: Episode 2

Summary: The "Royal Tutor" is a special tutor carefully selected for the task of teaching the prince, and a title given only to the best teacher in the nation. Heine Wittgenstein has been called to the kingdom of Grannzreich to take on the role of the Royal Tutor. He's been ordered to raise the princes into worthy candidates for the throne, but he's greeted with four princes of completely different and unique personalities, all brothers, and all appear hostile to him from the start. How will Heine handle these princes who the previous Royal Tutors all fled from?

First Impression: Waste of Time. Episode 2 softened that up a bit.

My Opinion: At the first glance, this looked like Man-Service anime. What do they call it...Bi-Shounen I think? Basically a reverse harem. By episode two, I'm willing to roll back on that a pace. For starters, the main character is also a guy, not a girl, and he seems to pointedly be here for his own private interests, or so he says. The first episode made this show seem ridiculously shallow, and I'm not going to relent on that point. It is shallow, just not as shallow as I thought. Each of the characters are going to be defined by their generic archetype. The one thing I'm willing to 'spoil' from the second episode is that the main character, Heine Wittgenstein, is the Deus ex Machina of this show. That's basically all you need to know about the show, I believe. It's going to be about him interacting with four archetypes, and magically having the resources to always know the answer, while vague and effervescent 'plot' skulks around in the shadows. For the time being, I think it's amusing. I'm eager to see episode 3, and apply some more concrete material to my thinking. So far, we've only just seen the main character introduced to the four other mains. (five? six maybe? Does the dog count?).
Watch at least to episode two to get a grasp of the basic idea of the main characters, and if they're annoying you, I don't think there's going to be anything particularly amazing here, just a sort of light drama-comedy maybe. I'll report back with more if anything changes, of course.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

[Ended] Kobyashi's Dragon Maid, Quality from Start to Finish

The Manga made him seem shorter...maybe just me?

My Opinion: This ends on a great note. They went for the pure Feel Good ending, instead of trying to shoe-horn in some last minute plot elements from the manga. After seeing how they handled it, I came to the realization that either of the two dragon introductions could have been done in either order. There's absolutely plenty of space for them to make a second season, and the current one isn't left with a crippled ending. It's complete, whole. That's how you should bloody well be doing it, anime industry!

From start to finish, this show is a wholesomely straight forward good time. It hits all the right notes, in the right order. I must say, whoever was in charge of the budget on this anime should get a gold medal for their work, the animation balance is perfect. The show looks great all the way through, without looking like the Attack on Titan budget-busting-level of animation that makes me wonder how overworked the studios employees must be.
Yet they still have reserves to splurge on all of the Dragon Fights in the show. I think that's impressive.

Impartial Opinion: This is no action-packed show, despite the stunning animation level on the fights. It's not a high-stakes drama, romantic or otherwise. While you could make an argument for it, Tohru is the only one here who thinks the show is a romantic-comedy. If I had to pin a genre down for this show, I would say Slice-of-Life. I'm tempted to say comedy as well, but really, the show isn't about its gags and jokes. It really is just about some extraordinary people, living an ordinary life, and the ways they have to cope and adjust, learning as they go.
As a bonus, it's a slice of life that isn't set in a high school! Isn't that amazing?
*Ahem*
You should watch this show. Give it a shot, even if you don't normally like Slice of Life. Why?
Because this show has a very special mature and level-headed tone to it, all through out. I honestly can't remember ever having felt like that about a show, through all of the shows I've watched. Certainly, many anime have a deep and meaningful story, plot, characters, Et Cetera.

But for the first time that I can recall, the mature tone isn't a brooding one, or a dramatic one. It's just quietly straight forward about everything that happens, giving everything a realistic, but not gritty, sheen. I suppose I could say, that everything in this show feels very human, without coming off as excessively so, or trying too hard. Demi-chan Interviews was similar, but that had a much weaker comedic element, and was much more light-handed with its tone and depth. Despite its stronger comedy element, Dragon Maid is more enthusiastic about touching deep questions about interpersonal relations.
To be fair though, I do feel like for her background, Kobayashi is always just a little too well prepared with the answers all the time. She just always seems to have the right answer, and while I didn't notice that in the manga as much, it comes off a bit stronger in the anime. It's just something I noticed.

Maybe this show is just very appealing to me personally, but I can't help thinking everyone should give this a try, to find out how they feel about it.

Oh, and if you liked 'I can't Understand what My Husband is Saying', you should absolutely give this show the go ahead. They're quite different from each other, but you can absolutely tell they were both made by the same author.

Finally, I give this show a:

Great
Recommendation.
Go enjoy 13 quality episodes of feel good fun.

Hope to write for you all again on a second season!