[Ended] Chaika the Coffin Princess (Hitsugi no Chaika)

Simple Effective Comedy

Pros: Drama, Quality Action in small amounts

-The shows base story is sound, and Drama/Human-Interest focused
-While few, the action is of good quality, the Magic flashy
-As per the usual of having a strong element of Human Interest, the Characters are solidly interesting, even the somewhat minor ones

Cons: Simple, Cut short, and less than it could be

-The original story is much stronger, and much longer
-The Magic is a little ridiculous, even if soundly explained
-At the end of the day, Shallow. Although this could be explained by the promise of a second season

My Opinion: This should be fairly obvious if you've read any of my previous Chaika posts, but I was sorely disappointed by this show. I was fully expecting this to end in 12-13 episodes like it has...although the promise of a second season took me by surprise at first.

Once I shed my chains of expectations, and took the show as its own, instead of the telling of the original story, I enjoyed it (minus one volatile memory). I soundly believe that anyone who sees the anime before the manga will be much better off for it. The story, characters, and plot are all sound and well-knitted here, and you don't really appreciate Chaika's verbal tic by reading it...it's just not as much as the original. Personally, I'm looking forward to the second season, if it actually comes. Having set themselves off from the original story, probably in a manner similar to the first Full Metal Alchemist anime, they can easily take the story and characters wherever they want in a second plot line. I speak with authoritative knowledge when I say, that the base material is strong enough to warrant a look even at a derivative like this.

Impartial Judgement: Quality story, characters that live up to it, and minus a few things, a very grounded and sensible plot. I think the term 'Anti-hero' applies nicely, although there might be a more specific term. Rather than the usual save the world story with a Hero, this show is about the dust settling, in the world after it has been saved. It's about the war-torn land and people, many of whom having lived their whole lives with war, no longer knowing how to live in this new peaceful world. I give it a good sound recommendation to anyone, with these caveats:

-Haven't read the Manga? Watch away, and wait for confirmation on the second season before even considering reading it. If the second season is canceled, consider picking the manga up then, but not before, if you're well interested in the story.

-Have read the Manga? Forget it. My expectations for the anime from the manga poisoned it for a good while. I'm strict enough with myself that I still enjoyed it anyway, but it may severely disappoint you if you let your expectations get in the way.

Hitsugi no Chaika: You have angered me again.

well at least you got this right

Last Seen: Episode 9

Y'know, Chaika, you were keeping me happy for a good while, I was really enjoying the show. Why did you have to aggravate me again?

Look, see, I understand that you can't freely convert everything, and I always look and judge with that in mind, but now you've just pissed me off. You've shown your true colors, and honestly, you didn't need to, you could have avoided it and kept me happily in the dark. With how completely 'safe' the stupid story is, they didn't even need to bother animating the scene, they could have just had Tooru say the story aloud, and it would have been just as frivolously ineffectual at making us care as much as we should have.

OH! But then you wouldn't have been able to completely fabricate a new character with the scenes!
Tooru's 'Mentor' never existed anywhere in the original story. I smell an end-card.

So the show finally got around to putting in Tooru talking about his memory of Hasumin. Her name isn't even the same. The featured sentence is one of the very few pieces of her story that remain, of the original lesson it conveyed. Perhaps I should say emotion, but the story's purpose, in manga and anime, is to teach us an important facet of Tooru's life. The problem is that the anime's lesson is completely wrong. The anime version of the story is much more sterile and 'safe' than the manga's story, revealing that the studio behind this is balking at featuring such critical material.

Y'know what, just, go read it for yourself. It saves me trying to dance around spoilers, and since the anime has forged a completely different story for themselves, knowing the original isn't going to spoil you for anything either. To reassure you even further, I also mention that this story was told before they even went into the first hero's mansion. You're not going to spoil yourself on anything. 

The story takes place near the end of Chapter 4, page 30'ish, and continues into Chapter 5.
I say 30'ish, because it will vary based on translators credit page sizes, and whether the hosting site numbers them. Some websites also include fan-art, so the number may vary, but close to the end of Chapter 4.

A word of caution. I meant it when I said the anime made the story much more 'sterile' and 'safe'. This story is a wrenchingly painful memory for Tooru. I don't think I'm ever going to get a better example for why these changes in the anime are so irritating for me, but this will be the last time I talk about it. I'm completely disenchanted with the anime as a telling of the powerful story the manga contained, and I'm going to watch the rest of it from here on out keeping in mind that the studio has opted not to risk offending anyone. I doubt anything amazing is ever going to happen.
Well, anything amazing that hasn't already been done before.

So in short, I now understand why this show is aggravating me so much more than any other anime ever has, when changing the source material. It's one thing to change material to make it fit better. It's another matter altogether to change it because you're afraid of attracting controversy with polarized material. If you were going to chicken out, you shouldn't have accepted to do it in the first place.

Chaika the Coffin Princess (Hitsugi no Chaika): How can things go so Horribly wrong? So fast?

Last Seen: Episode 4


I don't even...how...where from...?
...What!?
I just...no. Fff..no.
Just... No.
WHERE DID ALL OF THIS SHIT COME FROM NOW?
I have Never seen an anime derail so fast or so hard from its derived source. When this episode first began rolling in, it was completely in sync with the manga, as of last episode moving into this one. Sure, my brain was niggling at me that maybe her armor design was a touch different, but after a week I'd more than easily forgotten about it, and they're free to improvise and improve things like that in the work of adapting into the anime from the manga.
[EDIT]: In fact, I like the new armor design more than the original. [EDIT END]
But it all went downhill from the first statue of Dominca. Cliff-face-vertical-drop down, downhill.
*Takes a step back to breath*

Ok, let me just take a moment to clarify that I'm not some sort of fanatic "IT MUST ALWAYS ADHERE TO THE MANGA" nutcase. I'm all for improvising, adapting, and attempting to improve when changing mediums, its a necessary thing. But! As I have repeatedly said, and beat into the ground, that does not include the plot and story core. Change a few elements of the story to make it come across better in the anime? Fine. Fabricate something to end it before its time? Poor taste, but fine, I understand not every anime can be a long runner.
CLIP NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF A CHARACTERS STORY FOR NO GOOD REASON FOUR EPISODES IN?
WHAT THE HELL!
I...you know what. I need to go review the manga to clearly define the limits of my annoyance. I'll be right back.
......
Alright. So. They converted 13 chapters into 3 episodes. That's fairly fast considering the first episode trimmed out some of Tooru's character building.
They just converted 11+ chapters into 1 episode. (some manga untranslated at time of writing)
Does that give you an idea of the scale? Even contained to just this anime? I've honestly never bothered to do this comparison before for any other anime, so I have no example cases to give, but I think my point has come across just fine.
They have literally ripped, like, 4 bones out of Dominca's story, maybe a 5th I can't be sure about since the manga still hasn't been translated for the rest of this arc of the story.
They have taken those bones, and jammed them into the dirt to grow like flowers for this new story.
That is not how bones work.
Ok, I'm done with the analogies now, sorry. I'm not joking though, they pulled four plot bones out, and completely repurposed them for this new story. That projector in the courtyard? That's an original plot element. What it's projecting however, is not even remotely related to what it does or means in the manga. That fourth bone? Fredrica. That name is significant from the manga, but to save spoilers for both the anime and manga, I can't say why or how. Just know that if they don't make a point of it having a meaning next episode, they're never going to. It will just be a random bone from the manga.
Now I want to take a moment for something:
*Click* Ranting Mode Off
[TL;DR]:
This episode was a good episode. As a contained unit, and a piece of the anime, it was good. Nothing mechanically wrong here. As a figurehead of what the studio adapting this manga is doing, it may as well be a gravemarker for the original story. This anime is only (super)loosely going to follow the manga. The new story they're telling, is alright in my opinion. After I calmed down a bit, I assessed it and decided I liked the new Dominica story they told. Too short, but it's alright. If you really like this anime by the time it ends, which I can't imagine being much further than 12-13 at this point, (unless they do a complete spin-off) then go get the manga, because it's going to have a lot more story.
The Manga tells a very Humanity strong story. The anime is aiming its sights at Action as best I can tell.
[TL;DR END]
Alright, now that that's out of the way.
*Click* Ranting Mode On
I feel like, specifically on the Fredrica topic, that they even bothered to include the name means they have an option of retroactively imposing a heart of Dominca's story into the anime, but since they haven't retro'd in Tooru's laziness...or even bothered to emphasis it at all, and instead are weaving a new element of 'I just had no purpose in life before this, when the war ended', I'm not inclined to believe they will do any catch up.
I want to take a moment to emphasis this point:

I was very attached to Domica's original story. It has not finished being translated in the manga, but I like it very much so far. My anger and annoyance is very likely 50% fueled by my personal fondness for the original story. You are now an informed audience.

I haven't seen anything to undermine the quality of the anime, objectively, up to this point. I now have very little trust in whatever studio it is that did this adaptation, so much so that I'm genuinely afraid to look and find out who, because I might let my personal feelings bleed into my judgement in the future, and prevent me from watching another of their works that by all means could be a perfect masterpiece.

I'd cook up some sort of 'Biggest Let-down of the Season' award for this, but only four episodes in is far too soon for me to let myself judge this show so harshly...also I don't want to keep track of so abstract an Award. To be perfectly honest with myself as well, it's not the anime that's a let down either, as much as it is the adaptation and studio working on it. If they didn't have the time/resources to make an anime that could be truer to the original Plot, if nothing else, I don't even know why they decided to make it in the first place. Popularity maybe? I'm not sure. It's one thing to clip story and characters, like how I don't mind much that they trimmed Tooru's introduction paper-thin, but you don't hacksaw the plot like this without major consequences to quality. That's the way I think about this, anyway. I'm a little too emotionally-fueled right now to have confidence in my objectivity, even calmed down as I am now.
[Aside]Completely unrelated to any of this though, I've found that I quite enjoy re-reading Manga. I have such a powerful memory for Plot and Story, that I usually don't get much out of re-reading books, or re-watching movies and Anime, but somehow I really enjoyed re-reading the manga for this. I wasn't predicting or instantly remembering every next step of the story and plot as I read. It was a rather liberating experience. So at least I got that from this endeavor.
(and no, it is not a Perfect Memory. I just don't forget plot and story easily, and instantly remember with the smallest of pieces. Works almost as well for music, too. Or would, if I ever bothered to remember the names of songs, or composers/muscians. [which I don't] )
[Aside End]

[New][April 2014] Chaika - The Coffin Princess

Summary: On the continent of Verbist, an age of war lasting for three generations finally ended with the fall of the northern nation, the Gaz Empire. In addition to legitimate knights and soldiers, the militant forces sent to battle included wizards, saboteurs, and mercenaries, totaling 620,000. What's more, three airborne strongholds and massive numbers of magical weapons plus beast and dragon cavalries were added to the ranks, ending in the annihilation of the Gaz Empire, which had been deemed "the root of all evil." Enter Toru Acura a 20-year-old retired soldier, meandering through life now that the war has ended. He encounters Chaika Trabant, a 'Wizard' carrying a coffin, and a 'Gundo' for using her magic, and follows her in hopes of finding meaning to his life again.

First Impression: Another anime from a manga I'm following, this one's a lot harder to summarize. Not for lack of things to say, but for figuring out what is a spoiler. There's a lot of detail in this story, but I'm not sure how much of it is making deep complexity or just decoration. It's going to be a lively anime to watch, and they appear to want to capitalize on this because they clipped out a large section of the manga emphasizing how much of a lazy layabout Acura is.

First Opinion: What's with all the anime from my manga reading list? The Manga is "Hitsugime no Chaika", for those interested. Mostly I've been writing off my knowledge from reading the manga, but trying to keep it tied down to what they've shown so far in the first episode, and what the websites are writing in their summaries. The history lesson is much more slowly delivered in bits throughout the manga, so the dumps not a spoiler, as much as a light introduction that normally takes too long to get, not that you need it. It is, mostly, irrelevant information outside of the fact there was a war with the Gaz Empire, Gaz has been defeated, and labeled the root of all evil. My best advice is 1: try to keep this one, whatever your first impression, at least 2-3 episodes because the manga, and the anime so far, winds up to top speed slow. 2: Don't turn your brain off for this one, at least not as much as you might otherwise think you should be. You very well should be asking questions about how fast things are moving in this first episode. The manga gets a bit more freedom to draw attention to this, but thinking on it for myself, it probably would have been a lot more dull to watch the first dump of information in the siblings living conditions in the town.
Of course, I'm still annoyed by the trending implication these last few anime have had, that we can't be bothered to be interested in an anime if it doesn't explode and dazzle us at the door from episode 1. Ah well, It's not like I have a degree in anime consumerism or whatever. Maybe they do need to do this to sell it well, and I should knock a few more points off my trust in humanity. Or just not care, but that's basically the same thing.