#267: The Ribon Double Bill (2001)

 

Good Morning Call (2001)/ Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola! (2001)

Director(s): Masatsugu Arakawa (Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola! (2001))

Screenplay(s): Fumihiko Shimo (Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola! (2001))

Based on the manga by Yue Takasuka (Good Morning Call)/ Arina Tanemura (Time Stranger Kyoko)

Voice Cast:

Good Morning Call:

Eiji Moriyama as Hisashi Uehara; Yuka Tokumitsu as Nao Yoshikawa; Chiaki Shiino as Rumiko Ooizumi; Maki Saitou as Marina Konno; Masami Kikuchi as Kenji Asai; Masami Suzuki as Haruhi; Mayumi Honda as Nanako; Michiko Neya as Yuri Uehara; Ryo Naitou as Jun Abe

Time Stranger Kyoko:

Jun Uemoto as King; Rumi Shishido as Chocola; Taiten Kusunoki as Widoshiku; Eiji Takemoto as Subordinate B; Junko Takeuchi as Subordinate C; Keiko Toda as Akino Jiro; Makio Inoue as Toshito Kutajima; Mitsuo Iwata as Shinichi Hasegawa; Ryo Horikawa as Ranmaru Mori; Shigenori Yamazaki as Subordinate A; Takeshi Aono as Hokubei

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

So much animation exists in the Japanese industry that you can dig up real obscurities, helped considered when they are being preserved online, factoring in the independent work, ephemeral work and animation done as one-offs and/or promotional content for manga. For today, the following two pieces are based on manga published in Ribon, a manga founded in 1955 for the shōjo market for young women and adolescent women, with the following two incredibly diverse and representing two different sides of the coin from the monthly magazine in terms of genre. The first, Good Morning Call, is a one-off nineteen minute story adapting the work of Yue Takasuka. This manga, interestingly, was able to return after its first arch, published between 1997 to 2002, to both have a sequel manga, but also a wider potential audience with a 2016 television series adaptation, one followed by a 2017 sequel series have been both available through Netflix, allowing for people unaware of the source to see this story in a form.

Alongside free promotion of a PSOne controller at one point, the male lead Hisashi constantly dying in that scene in an RPG to a frost dragon, this was as much a work clearly made for the fans near the end of the first manga's final chapters in 2001. It would have been a chance to see this story of a female teen Nao onscreen, finding herself living with Hisashi in an apartment due to circumstances, becoming a couple as the story proper begins. Nao is convinced to help a male friend practice his hair dressing skills on her, having forgotten the actual date of Hisashi's birthday by ten days, becoming what would feel like a single episode in a whole series we never got as she tries to get an apology for her blunder. It is a very fluffy romantic comedy where the jokes lead to the characters, especially Nao, being comically distorted (especially in diminutive "chibi" forms) for cute reactions, including reacting to good clothes and the realisation of how much an item costs. It is a very silly and light hearted toned work, with some ultra cartoonish content, such as a few female characters, such as the elderly landlady, who are insanely short next to the rest of the cast. The composer also has imported guitar solos from the nineties, varying between a 32 bit era video game score to even flamenco guitar that feels New Age.

The short's length sadly means you cannot really gauge where this could have gone, especially with the other adaptation Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave It to Chocola. It is based on a manga by prolific author Arina Tanemura, which was a fantasy sci-fi set in the 30th century. Its titular character Kyoko, the daughter of the King of the entire Earth here, is placed to the side, her story in the manga more explicitly a fantasy tale with heavier stakes, whilst this is entirely about the character of Chocola, a tiny cat girl android who had this eleven minute short all for herself. Still feeling a mere snippet to a longer work, this however shows the premise of the world, where after their anniversary dinner of their meeting, seemingly missed by the King, Chocola leaves the castle to find a new life. The world set up is an interesting mass of western fantasy tropes but said to be in the far flung future, where Chocola is seen rescued from a landfill of discarded androids by Earth's king, and yet has horse drawn carts to be attacked by thieves. It is a very silly work too in its own whimsical way, introducing clear characters from the source, the Smasher bandits the most prominent who have a member named Cream Soda. Chocola attempts to help them out, though she is not to be trusted as a cook unless, needing chocolate to power up, you want everything including curry to have chocolate as a main ingredient.

There is not much to say beyond this, though Time Traveller Kyoko has the more vibrant looking world whilst Good Morning Call is set in the ordinary world and would have to rely on the characters, if you were able to live with them for a while like in the manga, to carry the emotional weight. The transition to live action television for Good Morning Call makes sense with hindsight, even if I could have seen and hopefully enjoyed a version with its comedic animated slapstick, whilst Kyoko including its barely seen lead has a world seen in a glimpse to help its favour. There are many obscurer titles in danger of being lost, and whilst feeling like fragments of series which never came, it would be a shame to not see these titles preserved too. Quality wise, I preferred Time Stranger Kyoko, but the pair together are rewarding as historical titles.

#228: Darkness of the Sea, Shadow of the Moon (1989)

 

Studio: Visual 80

Director: Tetsu Dezaki

Screenplay: Koichi Mizuide and Sōji Yoshikawa

Voice Cast: Mayumi Shō as Lumi Kobayakawa; Rei Sakuma as Luka Kobayakawa; Toshihiko Seki as Katsuyuki Tohma; Ryusei Nakao as Mr. Kobayakawa; Seiko Nakano as Mrs. Kobayakawa; Tesshō Genda as Doctor Kaibara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

I had never heard of Darkness of the Sea... until searching for horror anime, but this three part OVA is tantalising when you begin it. It is a shoujo story, a story of young women which combines romance against horror and over-the-top melodrama, all directed by Tetsu Dezaki, Osamu Dezaki's brother who can be credited for helming They Were Eleven (1986), a great sci-fi story from a legendary female manga author Moto Hagio, but also Mad Bull 34 (1990-2), the infamous and at times difficult to watch Kazuo Koike tale about New York City cops with all the ridiculous clichés and distortions you could imagine. Darkness of the Sea... starts off over the top in its own way when twin sisters Rumi and Ruki, already in a romantic triangle over Touma, the popular boy at school, go on an all-girl's trip to the coast with their school. Tragically, during a storm, they find a secret grave mass in the caves, and with everyone baring the sisters being killed by a strange air to the underground environment.

Ruki survives, but Rumi is distant, and now part of the only surviving girls of the sports team due to the horrible tragedy, the three remaining girls have to train with the boys. The third girl will die soon after, as Darkness of the Sea... does waste time with its plot, in which Rumi is now a psychic supernatural being, able in later episodes to infect people and turn them into her slaves, wishing to kill anyone who gets in the way to her and Touma. Even her own sister Ruki, the most melodramatic of sisterly rivalries possible transpiring as the core of the premise, whether it is trying to throw her off a floor on the emergency stairway, or turning their parents into brainwashed ghouls to do the job.

It is sad Ruki is an ineffectual protagonist, despite the inklings that she has supernatural powers too, even in mind that it befits that she is an ordinary person caught up in the most nightmarish of sibling rivalry, "Tutankhamen's Curse" a key reference to the plot exposition, referring to when in 1922 the British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen, those involved having mysterious deaths afterwards helping a legend of a curse transpire. Most of the time, Touma is the one who has to save her, which is a shame even if the point that, helpless, she is (baring the unnatural ability now to float) a bystander in trouble, arguably the best protagonist for a viewer to be in the shoes of. Largely the repetition of Rumi's attempts to kill her over the three episodes is the biggest cause of this issue.

Truthfully, there are many silly aspects to the show, and so much of it, even in mind to what I have said as criticisms, does not detract from how entertaining this became. The real problem becomes that, even at three episodes, this sadly ends abruptly when it starts to reach a new melodramatic point. By the time the story ends, where the sisterly tragedy is greater, people have died, and Ruki is starting to fight back, only to not have a follow up, feels like a gut punch of the most abrupt kind as this became a rewarding film to watch. This is a shame as this, even when logic starts to fall away, is delightfully over-the-top and macabre. It also befits as a story with a romantic edge, as it is about a female protagonist, who is stuck in a nightmare, yet in a scenario intermingling her growing confidence, as she and Touma start to come closer as people, her own sister the threat adding to the symbolic drama. There is one dubious moment, where Touma briefly comes off as non consensual in the gym closet in terms of getting more intimate with Ruki, which is the one sour point, but most of this is the right kind of melodrama, even when someone stays almost comically stoic in spite of their parents just being killed, the exaggerated tone appealing.

Even the aesthetic tone of the show befits this, the contrast between its character designs, by Setsuko Shibuichi, prolific in the industry from key animator to director on titles from The Rose of Versailles (1979) to Space Adventure Cobra (1982), befit a romantic show in the characters' elegance but contrasted by the macabre (and openly gory) incidents that transpire, to even the countless demonic faces Rumi has trying to off her sister. The sense this was even one episode off a full narrative does suck, more so as, even as pure pulp, it does stand out as a delightful surprise, as obscure as you could get for an animated title. Like a grotesque fantasy tale, even its opening credits are more fantastical, with its echoing of the sisters being nautical entities, and its title (depending on how you translate it) was absolutely one of the reasons I picked it out due to how evocative it is. There is pure cheese, like explaining overtly supernatural powers to ancient bacterial mutation, but that befits the tone as well. As something with no context, this hit with the right impact, only making its obscurity sadder. A Bandai production, at least with their involvement, one can only hope that it is preserved somehow as this, even without the ending it should have had, stands out.

#222: Another Lady Innocent (2004)

 

a.k.a. Front Innocence

Studio: ARMS

Director: Kinji Yoshimoto and Satoshi Urushihara

Voice Cast: Kazuhiko Inoue as John; Kumi Sakuma as Faye; Hiromi Hirata as Eichel; Kaname Yuzuki as Aine

Viewed in English Dub

 

Here with a Moonrock production, released by H.M.P., a company whose logo looks like it has three stone cherubs peeing, we are covering eroge ("hentai") anime, but with a distinct name involved. Known directors and actors, even voice actors, have worked on hentai, whether it was the likes of Hiroyuki Kitakubo cutting their teeth on the Cream Lemon series in the eighties, to Masami Obari around the early 2000s helming Angel Blade (2001-3). Satoshi Urushihara is the centre of Another Lady Innocence, co-director, Art Director, and Character Designer. He is a manga artist, anime director and illustrator with a very distinct art style, one which is not only known from anime he helmed like Plastic Little (1994), but also his work on the JRPG franchises like Langrisser and Growlanser. He is unapologetic though his female character designs and content of his work throughout the decades in depicting eroticism, which makes his decision to co-direct and be an auteurist voice in a pornographic straight-to-video series not that absurd. This is not the first time he worked on hentai either, as he was one of many cutting his teeth in the Cream Lemon days, a character designer on New Cream Lemon (1987), episode two called White Shadow.

The thing is, and connects with Another Lady Innocent as it was titled in the West for release, Urushihara's art style is exceptional, and he fetishes everything. The costumes for female characters, even armour for men and women, is resplendent; his male characters, as John in this show, can be just as elegant in their designs, and he is as obsessed with his female characters' faces and expressions, as is probably one of the more notorious aspects of his art style, the undeniable fact, without being too crass, he has gathered the title "Master of Breasts" at one point¹, the kind of title honestly which would suggest far crasser work than he does. That title does raise a concern, when dealing with an artist whose male gaze is undeniably here, but is contrasted by how, if you look up his art whether sexually explicit or not, is also very good. This side of him, being very much obsessed with eroticism, but being insanely precise as an artist, is exactly what is at the centre of this title, a hentai release unlike many others that was well made, looking like it took years just to get this one episode created when hentai, truthfully, in the animated form can be rushed out as cheaply as live action porn can be.

Moonrock are a distributor for eroge anime, but also involved are ARMS, an animation company who would transition to mainstream anime this year even if they still kept their toes dipped into ecchi and sexually franker work even in this territory. I had known them, without knowing, for Elfen Lied (2004), a notorious but cult anime series, a company until its 2020 bankruptcy who could go from production assistance on Naruto entries as they were involved lurid titles like the Queen's Blade franchise. This, set within the North American past, meant to evoke a Southern melodrama like Gone with the Wind (1939), is unabashedly pornographic, as for most of its twenty nine minutes the work is the sex scenes themselves. There is a story here, which follows the lives of Faye, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, and two childhood friends, Sophia and John, the later dubbed by both young women "Big Brother John". Faye and Sophia are childhood friends but are, as ends the episode, romantically linked, and both are in love with John. Faye has returned home, and as a prologue to the main story, we see a sinister person named Lord Mark who clearly had intentions to have Faye all for himself, in a narrative we never were able to see as only one episode of this was ever completed and released.

The tone is exaggerated despite its period setting, one chosen clearly for the choice of elaborate period costumes, but with Faye's father living in a stately manor where all the young maids working there are both well dressed but not dressed at all, exposing everything on themselves erotically. Even Faye's costume is closer to other Urushihara female characters in style than Scarlett O'Hara, including a giant red bow that looks like red elf ears. The show is still meant to be porn, a show when released in the West had an English dub with actors credited as Pete Meat and Dick Hardon in the voice cast, the performances for my wish to not bury anyone just doing their job frankly terrible, including Miss Jane, an older matriarch Faye views as a sister and barely seen, literally monotone in her line readings.

There is a weird incestuous edge to the work as well, in that for a really icky joke, as the older patriarch has maids happily serving his needs and enjoying themselves, Faye does barge in on him mid-orgasm in the study, with two of the maids working for him, in an unintentionally funny (and icky) moment. He will also be spying on Sophia with her and John getting up to a lot in the stable, which emphasises a kinky transgression to the proceedings. Even if this was not there, if you are put off by porn, I do not recommend this, nor if you find animated drawings meant to be erotic off-putting too. The difference here, which makes this production interesting though, is how incredibly well animated and designed this is, which was likely the reason too why a second episode and any continuation did not happen. When hentai is usually very cheaply made, this production's aesthetic high bar clearly was not enough to sell, and too time and financially straining to continue with.

These are Satoshi Urushihara's designs fully, and it is an ode to the sexual act, uncensored for the Western release, as painstakingly drawn as it is as explicit as possible, all without crossing over into the unnatural barring that, like real life porn, certain considerations especially for the time period it is set in, like concerns of contraception, are ignored for the logic of porn regardless of the country of origin. It is also an ode to a relationship between two women and one man, a childhood friendship which became a sexual one for all of them, which is not something to criticise and is actually something that is in the work's favour even beyond being erotic fixated on animated sexual acts. If it may put some viewers off this very explicit erotica has flashbacks to these characters as little children meeting, and developing these earliest friendships, it is at least the show developing these characters so you care for them. Even if the short almost entirely, for this sole entry, is almost all the three having a lot of "activity" in a variety of ways, it is set around these three lovingly each other unconditionally in consensual sex which they all engage with. That the animation is actually well done, and intricate, to be frank, in the depiction of the human body in movement, this could have been so much worse, and the taboo of depicting the sexual act between human beings is the only thing that undercuts that, yes, with a male gaze involved that Satoshi Urushihara is painstakingly creating this ode to this act here and not slouching in the production quality.  In fact, this even takes a risk even having most of it set in a stable, as horses are by accounts some of the most difficult animals to render in animation in general, making them (not even seen with heads) in the background swaying and eating hay the closest to the budgetary ambitious stretching.

What this can be credited in having virtue for is to its credit, including the relationship between Faye and Sophia which, with the later acting like a maid to Faye out of preference, also is a physical one they devote themselves to. Even the incestuous aspect is less a taboo here, not like other hentai which does fetish the subject, or even non-erotic anime which does this as well, but more an icky comedy and that it is hinting at Faye's father being as attracted to Sophia as well. The only moment here which did concern me was problematic, an out-of-place introduction to Lord Mark, a character who would have been involved, where he and a gang of men in the countryside, whilst Faye passes in horse and carriage in the distance, have a women stripped on the grass with an uncomfortable sense of being a prelude to molestation or a gang rape.

This is something which sticks out in what is, even with the scenes like Faye bursting on her father having sex, very wholesome and celebratory of sex, the caution that, unfortunately, one of the reasons I myself have avoided eroge anime, alongside being not readily available to access in the United Kingdom, is that there are quite a few taboos including non- consensual sex which I want to distance myself from, sad knowing that a market for material which would welcome people to enjoy their sexuality, even if with some kinkiness, is welcome and probably exists more readily in manga. There is an end-of-credit preview for what would have been Episode 2, involving a masked costume ball that likely became an orgy, but it also notes at Lord Mark having his way, including a distressed Sophia in a shot with voice acting, likely an uncomfortable touch into non-consensual content that is a huge issue with hentai narratives and, even if this would have told a melodrama, could have easily made Another Lady Innocent a title for many to avoid for glamorising this type of content.

The other issue is that this is set during or around the American Civil War. There is no explicit reference to this being within a Northern or Southern state, nor any references to slavery, which presents a concern. This feels like a Southern melodrama, like Gone with the Wind, but as anyone can attest to with that film decades on, including in film criticism, such works are problematic for glamorising a period of deeply problematic culture, the American South, and depending on what Lady Innocence went could have added an additional moral quandary. Either it does not mention this at all, and would have become problematic, or it did, and either somehow managed to be a pornographic work that subtly tackled the issue with clarity, which would be a once-in-a-blue-moon moment, or be just as offensive. But that never came to be. Another Lady Innocent/Front Innocent never got a sequel. Satoshi Urushihara would go onto the likes of Key Animation on the Ikki Tousen franchise sequels, and there is a sense the hard work to even make one episode here was not worthy financially to be continued. A lot of what-ifs are here, and honestly, in the perfect world, no one would complain if there was a work set in North America, even in the past with all the problematic issues of their history their citizens have to struggle with, which was just a melodrama which some drama, but a lot of it being the romance between two women Sophia and Faye, in their master-maid relationship, and their protective boyfriend John, and had as much sex in as many different ways as we just get in twenty nine minutes here. No uncomfortable undercurrent of non-consensual content, choose a plot type that could dodge or nod to uncomfortable historical concerns, somehow do well enough to animate more than one episode this well, and let everyone enjoy.

Instead it is a curiosity, one with the sadder realisation, than unlike a regular straight-to-video one-off, that porn as in other mediums is done so quickly and cheap that, alongside trying to preserve or comment on it, trying to make something more artistically minded if like trying to push a boulder up the hill like Sisyphus.

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1) For an example of this nickname appearing, whilst looking at his work from an artistic standpoint, is Langrisser I & II Review: Legendary Weapons With A Side Of Tarnish, from Bella Blondeua, published by The Gamer on March 3rd 2020. With a review like this never mentioning where Satoshi Urushihara got the "Master of Breasts" name from, it feels like an elaborate Chinese whisper for a nickname which could undercut how, in the video game world at least let alone animation and manga, his work is as much a spectacle for how lavish and beautiful it is without the sexual content. Considering the review is a burial of replacing Urushihara's older art with a revamp from a new artist, his illustrative style clearly has more fans beyond their sexual content.

#184: The Book of the Dead (2005)

 

Director: Kihachiro Kawamoto 

Based on a novel by Shinobu Origuchi

Voice Cast: Kyôko Kishida as the Narrator; Tetsuko Kuroyanagi as the Story Teller; Rie Miyazawa as Iratsume of Fujiwara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

A new fangled wall would bring curses upon your sons!

A film I had always wanted to see, this is a curveball in that this is a stop motion puppet work, stepping outside the confines of hand drawn animation, and focusing on a figure of high regard in puppet and stop motion filmmaking. Kihachirō Kawamoto is sadly a figure not as widely known, and for me only in passing knowledge, among the string of widely acclaimed international animation directors who sadly seem cut off from wider accessibility. This is prominent in that Yuri Norstein, a legendary Russian animation director behind the likes of Tale of Tales (1979), worked on this project as a guest collaborator.

The Book of the Dead itself would defy categorisation, something which would tragically go against being able to sell it to many. It is not a horror tale, yet it is explicitly about the supernatural. It is also religious as it tells the legend of Chūjō-hime (called "Iratsume" here), the daughter of an imperial minister whose obsession with copying Buddhist mandalas, in a time period when Buddhism was first introduced to Japan historically, will eventually lead to her creating the Taima Mandala. The Mandala, reproduced in this tale, is a real artefact in Japan, part of their own version of Buddhism. In spite of being a sacred object depiction the "pure land" of Buddha, this Mandala in this tale is ironically crafted out of love for another.

This is where The Book of the Dead takes an interesting side, a beautiful film to look at in terms of a well crafted tale told entirely by puppets, even to the point of full locations which, lovingly, have panoramic camera shots overlooking the setting. The film could be considered "dry", if only in the sense that, be you anime fan or film fan expecting a fast pace supernatural story, you are instead watching a sombre and matter-of-fact folktale which, even over just an hour or so, is restrained. It is entirely about a point in Japanese culture where it was first being influenced by Buddhism, and its simple tale has a lot of cultural details specific to the time to adapt to, such as the fact that, when she first sees the visage of a sacred figure who capture her heart, Iratsume transgresses the rule that women are not allowed in the temple ground where that figure looms. What is fascinating is that, for a narrative told of how a real piece of art of such sacredness came to be, this film is as much about the emotions of its creator. A woven cultural object that (even if having sadly degraded over the eras) has still been preserved in real life, and is of great importance in Japan, this film tells the tale of it being the craft of a young woman, a young maiden, smitten by a godlike figure and makes that fact as profound. Specifically a nobleman, as told to her by an old woman, killed and whose ghost still haunts the land.  

For me personally, this tale as told here is captivating. The lack of any "thrills", that his haunting is not to possess her, but are explicitly about wishing to have a child he never had alive, is as rewarding, especially as the course of the narrative instead has her create a clock to wrap his giant beautiful naked form, a cloth that turns into a Mandala of great artistic and spiritual worth, her act of love subversive in itself. A playfulness spans the calm mood of the film, of the dangers of angering spirits of old houses if you include new wall refurbishments, something to learn from in the modern day, or that we encounter a group of gods by a haunted tree briefly, fifty years later returning to the land and feeling old now. A lot in this film, for a story which is as much a tribute to Buddhist ideals, is also fascinating to see as a very human tale of love, including Iratsume's own reaction to her masterwork in the finale, more so as this is told with puppets rather than live action actors. That the ghostly figure she comes to adore is a fictionalised version of a real figure, a poet and a son to an Emperor Tenmu called Prince Ōtsu, continues this film being as much looking to real Japanese history and artistic culture and bringing it alive again.

It would be a disservice, at the moment of writing those words, to not mention this is an adaptation of a novel Shisha no sho by Shinobu Orikuchi, a figure whose reputation in study and writings in countless fields, from Japanese folklore to performing arts to the Japanese language itself, is in itself a nod to what the intention of writing such a work was meant at, his own career and life devoted to looking at his own culture and bringing it in full vibrancy. Likewise, The Book of the Dead itself as an animation does feel like production meant to bring culture alive onscreen, with Orikuchi as much as Kihachirō Kawamoto himself figures in their homeland who have contributed so much for a lasting legacy in looking at their heritage. In terms of the film itself, there are many moments where, beyond itself simple tale, Kawamoto's adapted material has its own idiosyncratic touches which you could easily miss. It is a very deceptively unconventional narrative, a romantic narrative by a living young woman and a figure that wakes up in his tomb dead which blurs the living and the dead, and is entirely a passive romance. That this leads to a creation of a masterpiece, in her love for him which involves painstaking work of her own, is befittingly being adapted too by an animation director, bringing his characters alive with puppets alongside a team of animators.

#183: She, the Ultimate Weapon (2002)

 

a.k.a. Saikano

Director: Mitsuko Kase

Screenplay: Itaru Era

Based on the manga by Shin Takahashi

Voice Cast: Fumiko Orikasa as Chise; Shirou Ishimoda as Shuji; Miki Itō as Fuyumi; Shinichiro Miki as Tetsu; Tetsu Shiratori as Atsushi; Yuu Sugimoto as Akemi; Atsushi Ii as Kawahara

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

[Major Plot Spoilers Throughout]

Returning to She, the Ultimate Weapon it is amazing to think of how heavily publicized this show was especially in the United Kingdom for its release. A big license for Manga Entertainment, it has effectively disappeared despite also having a lot of praise for it at the time. Whilst this may be odd considering so many anime having these tropes and plot threats this has, She... is also quite a peculiar animated series in hindsight, which in itself becomes part of why it still clings with something of note for me and likely why the tide turned to its obscurity.

Set in a coastal city of Hokkaidō in Japan, this is set up like a conventional anime romance. A shy young woman, technically a teenager but older than most in other stories, named Chise is clumsy and awkward but is lovable. She finally gets the courage to date Shuji, a reserved seventeen year old boy in her school, and they blossom immediately together. She... is however a war story, set in a world where Japan is at war. The touch, adding to the strangeness of how the story is told, which stands out is that this entirely focuses on the world of these characters rather than focusing on the war. We see the battlefield in Japan, soldiers fighting on their own soil in an invasion, and the aftermath, but the show is entirely focused on the effect of the war on the ordinary people from the soldiers to the leads, living in Hokkaidō. This is also a science fiction show where Chise is also a figure of great importance to protect Japan, which is bizarre for an outsider to consider, of a story of a teenager being the ultimate weapon, expect that anime and manga have always had teenagers in war stories like this, as much to appeal to the emotions of a target audience as an obsession to have youthful characters, so we fans accept the logic.

The strangeness and uniqueness is the tone. Completely sober, a lot of the world is never explained. An spin off OVA called Saikano: Another Love Song (2005) explained more detail to why Chise is the titular weapon, in a side story on another human weapon, but in the series we learn little context. We never learn what the war is, with only a few of the opposite side as actual human beings seen, and the war itself is ultimately an apocalyptic one. Chise's use in the war, whilst conventional in any other narrative, emphasises this as she herself is literally the weapon, with body horror tropes that she can even produce heat seeking missiles from her body even against her will which can be painful. The sombreness of the narrative, and how little is explained on the science fiction plot, emphasises the distinct way the show is told, a tragedy where from the get-go the show's subtitle "The Last Love Song on This Little Planet" emphasises that this will become a bleak show in terms of humanity, once mysterious earthquakes hit the country and Chise herself becomes more inhuman to the point she can accidentally obliterate whole cities from existence.

The show does have some levity - even some cartoonish distortion of the characters when Chise and a soldier named Testu she befriends decide to have a day out away from work, including liberal attitudes to going "shopping" by blowing doors open - but this is melodramatic and tragic to an extreme. Eventually by Episode 9, titled after a side character named Akemi, Chise and Shuji's tomboy friend who becomes the latter's consciousness, this show is ill-advised to binge for how bleak it gets. This tone is one of the more divisive aspects of She... as it has no qualms even beforehand of emotional gut punches over and over in-between its very quiet dramatic tone and moments of war which, never depicted as action scenes, are dramatic in their pointlessness. Some of it in hindsight is ridiculous - in mind to how this type of scene makes some viewers uncomfortable, having Shuji slap Akemi twice in the series in a moment of emotional distress is absurd if likely to upset viewers. Some of it is heightened with an appropriate tone, befitting a show where you have to accept this premise of a seventeen year old girl with robot wings as the ultimate doomsday weapon.

The people behind the show are worth looking into to think about the series. A rare female director, Mitsuko Kase has mostly a career of Episode Directors and other positions on projects, but she has been at the helm of a couple of titles. That you have a female director on this project does cause one to think of how she would handle this material very differently from someone else. In mind to this, if this is the same figure and there is no confusion by accident between two people, screenwriter Itaru Era has also worked with Takeshi Miike, of all people to hire for this project also the figure who has worked with him sporadically over the years including on Visitor Q (2001). A notorious film in Miike's career, it is however also a reinterpretation of Teorema (1968), a subversive Pier Paolo Pasolini film, which means Visitor Q is not just a film notorious for having disturbing taboo scenes of incest and breast milk but a social critique. I cannot help but think, in particular with the screenwriter, that She, The Ultimate Weapon was much more carefully built that it may suggests, especially with mind to someone whose career has been focused on a lot of genre and pulp narratives, deciding to bleed them into a much more idiosyncratic narrative.

Some of it falls into the history of the animation studio which created it as well. Studio Gonzo, even before financial struggles eventually kneecapped them in 2009, is a divisive studio from when they started in 2000. At least for Western anime fans, when I got into anime in the early 2000s and companies like Manga Entertainment but especially ADV Films released many Gonzo releases in the United Kingdom. Gonzo has some titled held as gems - particularly the experimental Alexandre Dumas adaptation Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo (2004) - but alongside titles which never succeeded, they had a few where how they were told and put together became divisive. Some was bad luck, as they adapted titles where they could not finish them as the manga were ongoing (Chrno Crusade and Hellsing) and had to improvise anime exclusive narratives. Others, like Trinity Blood (2005), were just shows which (least to my younger self's eyes) merely fell hard over a long stretch of episodes. She, The Ultimate Weapon is a fascinating title, but one where I completely understand an individual viewer being divided between the moments where it succeeds as a risk in storytelling but also can be both manipulative and as awkward as its leads. It befittingly has a premise about a young woman, shy and innocent, struggling with a sinister dehumanising weapon part of herself now, and about a boyfriend who is the same age and not as mature as he thinks he is, as that is a perfect metaphor for a show which has tenderness and yet also so much darkness. One with characters dying with ease and an ultimately hopeless scenario for the war, exaggerated with the naive earnestness of teen leads in how it emphasises the one true love of one's life, something which may cause viewers to roll their eyes, but also with complete sincerity to it.

At least the show also does not beat around the bush too. It does have these characters be imperfect. Chise is a stereotype, but appropriate a person stuck in a horrible position where she can obliterate so many with ease, mandatory for the military. Shuji is not perfect, and in a subplot, with an older woman he had a crush on as a child comes into his life, there is the danger of him breaking Chise's heart as appropriate angst ridden rather than the show being sleazy, more of him being tragically controlled by lusts when the dehumanisation of Chise physically has an influence. The bluntness of the show to eventually be more than platonic love, but also a physical love between the leads, is a damn sight better than a childish one most characters can have in other anime, with no fan service but eventually a consummated romance. This is surprising rare in anime even if this one has many unsettling aspects surrounding it, not least when the woman you love's arm falls off just beforehand and she is clearly not human anymore.

Another factor, which is merely hindsight, is the look of the show. Tragically, time has changed a lot, so an early digital animated work like She... looks of its era. Neither helping is that, whilst there was progression in sound (such as 5.1. stereo which became a huge thing for Manga Entertainment licenses on DVD), this is in standard definition, which still does not mean not watching the show, but together means the show was struggling with limitations even for an animated show avoiding action sci-fi narrative tropes. This was actually an early title in Gonzo's history, and this becomes obvious to see again even if, thankfully, there is style of its own. It tries in spite of this, helped considerably by the character designs adapted from the source material, softer in features and almost even for the adult characters more likely to evoke a happier story, one which intentionally feels against the tragedy of the show's progressing narrative. The music as well, both composer Takeo Miratsu with various versions of the main theme but also the ending song Sayonara by Yuria Yato, really adds a lot of sincere emotional weight to the show too that is admirable. It is hilarious, adding to the curious history of the show, the composer for a Violence Jack OVA, Hell's Wind (1990), can progress to such a good score based on love and tragedy, but sadly they have not done a lot in their career either. Mostly working in the OVA era, if this was one of the last projects before retirement, it was a great way to bow out and defy expectations.

Returning to this series, as I got into She, The Ultimate Weapon when it was released in the United Kingdom, the obvious point of interest now revisiting the series was its ending. She... to its credit, least for this viewer, has characters that I was connecting to. Even the emotional gut punches could have been worse, though there is a reason this review from the get-go has huge spoiler warnings. The narrative even for a character like Akemi, very likable but with an entire episode dealing with the awful deathbed conclusion, is at least aware to give these moments the time for these characters' sake. The show for me became notorious in my mind, instead, for all these years for how unexpectedly it ends.  

When I said apocalyptic, I was not joking, as this ultimately does become The Last Love Song on This Little Planet. How this comes about in the final episode is still to this day the exclamation mark for how peculiar the show, for good and bad, is. When I first watched this show, engaged with it, the ending did enrage me and to this day, I can still see why. She... is definitely a show that could only work in the heightened, melodramatic world of anime and manga especially with having to make this look credible, something I wonder of now learning a 2006 live action film from Japan exists but has likely disappeared from existence. Even when the obvious is there, that Chise is literally turning into an immortal weapon of God-like power, what happens in pace is perplexing. Even if you see the obvious metaphorical concept not meant to be explained, that the war as a global one that ultimately destroys humankind is there to emphasise the stakes of the central romance, you have to try to depict this and everything ends quickly in the midway of the final episode. The sky is red like this will turn into The End of Evangelion (1997), with Chise apparently now with mechanical tentacles independent of her in the sky, and the world literally being washed away, the earthquakes throughout the series never directly connected to anything in the war or Chise herself. Gonzo is a studio I will evaluate as time goes, but I can immediately see how they developed the notoriety they had for titles for good and bad, stumbling to their finales with an erratic nature, and She... lunges into the world being plunged into total end as abruptly as you can get.

The ending still works, with a bittersweet one, even if the outcome if left open to what will happen to our leads, or that there is some vagueness, such as the possibility this is all due to Chise deciding to kill everything else, something which if the case is definitely vague in its depiction. [Manga Spoiler]] Thankfully, they did not follow the manga by having Chise left as a giant spaceship with Shuji the last human being, though that might have been fascinatingly weird to see animated. [Spoilers End]. If anything, it does emphasise that whilst this is truly a show to divide viewers on its virtues or lack of, I wish She, The Ultimate Weapon was critically evaluated as an example of when anime takes risks. If Gonzo's back catalogue was sadly full of bland titles, which ultimately left them as a studio still in existence today but with less of their status as back then, that would a sad conclusion. Thinking back to when I drifted to Japanese animated television away from Western shows however, live action and otherwise, She... still emphasises why I did as even this deeply imperfect show is taking risks in tone and its curious genre mixing I have to admire. It is a mess in hindsight, but a fascinating one to see again as an adult. One I cannot help but still admire and even, honestly, feel an attachment to. Obviously, nostalgia to seeing this title has to be admitted, as I saw it at an impressionable time. At the same time however, I thankfully liked a show whose actual content even today is very unconventional and still rewarding.

#171: Futari Ecchi (2002-4)

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#167: The Vision of Escaflowne (1996)

 

Director: Kazuki Akane

Screenplay: Akihiko Inari, Hiroaki Kitajima, Ryota Yamaguchi and Shoji Kawamori

Voice Cast: Maaya Sakamoto as Hitomi Kanzaki, Tomokazu Seki as Van Fanel, Ikue Ōtani as Merle, Jouji Nakata as Folken, Jūrōta Kosugi as Dryden Fassa, Kouji Tsujitani as Jajuka, Mayumi Iizuka as Millerna Aston, Minami Takayama as Dilandau Albatau, Narumi Hidaka as Eriya, Shinichiro Miki as Allen Schezar, Toru Ohkawa as Gaddess, Yuri Amano as Naria

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

For a good example of how anime defies genres in general, Escaflowne is that title to name check, from Sunrise (the handlers of the Gundam franchise), who decided to step into something different. Namely what would be a future masterpiece for many, and what predated what would be coined in the 2010s the isekai genre, where a person (sometimes by a truck-kun and dying, sometimes in less harmfully ways) would enter or be transported to an alternative world. Here, high school student Hitomi, whilst in a moment with a male Senpai she likes on the school running track, is accidentally taken to the world of Gaea when a young man named Van, heir of a kingdom, and a dragon abruptly blip into her world. Add to this Sunrise's bread and butter of mech robots as, whilst a high fantasy world based on European aesthetics, it has giant robots, powered by magical properties and gears, in capes and swords, among other tech like floating air ships. It has romance and melodrama, as between Van and Allen, a knight who seems a nobler soul, Hitomi is torn between both of them as much as having to contend of a world where one militarised nation, Zaibach, is conquering and destroying others. That their plans lead to a goal where she is of interest to literally alter fate is as much a concern.

It is a tale full of plot twists, a lot of cliff hangers to episodes, and all built around an emotional drama which is ultimate sweet and beautiful, even if the show does not hold back on death and is surprisingly bloody, even at one point envisioning a metaphor for a nuclear bomb in one of the final two episodes which, not made by Zaibach but one of the allies meant to stop them, evaporates everything on the battlefield to every side's horror in a blink of white light. Even with these serious aspects within itself, Escaflowne is a story with an emotional edge. It was geared for a "shōjo" audience of young women, which is frankly simplistic and patronising to try to target a gendered audience, but adds many new factors for this show to include in this narrative. These include an optimistic female protagonist, and the romance and melodramatic plot points, alongside the mystical and fantastical edge which are all as much part of why this television series, popular in the West, has become of great reputation in the passing decades.

It is also full of quirks, which is not surprising as it originates from when Shoji Kawamori, an important figure in anime just as a mech designer, came back from Nepal and suggested to Sunrise a giant robot show about the ideas of fate and mysticism to try something different. Fully committed to high fantasy, it is even in that genre with idiosyncrasies of its own. It is helped so much by how fleshed out the world feels even if we only have twenty six episodes to go with, a microcosm of various empires and regions here before you consider this world even has human beings but also beast people of all shapes and sizes, why we have a side character Merle, a cat girl who grew up with Van as a child and is close to him, or that later on Van himself is revealed a heir of the race known as the Draconian, originally the rulers of Atlantis who sported angel's wings and could fly. Yes, Atlantis, the Fortean favourite, is involved alongside the fact this narrative story will encompass both fate and divination too, as Hitomi was already gifted with using tarot cards, and an inheritor of a pendant with unknown origins, whose gift is amplified and becoming a curse the moment she enters Gaea. It is a world where, the titular title of the legendary giant robot Van has inherited, he will eventually not only learn divination abilities to known where he will be attack, but literally become one with the machine to the point any wounds it has will mark him. It is a world where the leader of Zaibach has experimented with fate altering machinery and with his sorcerers even dabbled into weird touches like blood, from the luckiest people ever, that gives soldiers ultra-lucky properties (i.e. causing enemies to miss or their machinery to malfunction) at the risk of drastic aging. Escaflowne is held in high regard as a sumptuous, elegant fantasy epic but thankfully upon returning to it, it is also a deeply idiosyncratic and eccentric series too, which as someone who has found Western high fantasy as bland as white bread is a godsend.

It helps that, in this little we get, the world and its cast are interesting. Baring a few characters, no one is simple or just villainous. Van is unlikable in his goal for vengeance at first, but he is headstrong and lost everything to Zaibach, capable of nobility eventually. Allen, as the show grows, is as noble as Lancelot in Arthurian legend but, like that figure, has an unfortunate real issue with attracting the opposite gender, particularly as Princess Millerna, a figure of the nation he is from, is in love with him too despite Hitomi and a previous relationship with her sister in his closet. From the villains, the calm figure of Folken, revealed to be Van's older brother, is a figure brought to Zaibach for reasons he felt were right, and even his sociopathic henchman Dilandau, as vain and sadistic figure, is revealed to have been as such due to a tangled web of issues. Even a minor gag character, a Mr. Mole, despite not having any real contributions to the plot is a figure in the little we see that he stands out, a figure first looking like a creepy thief in the woods, looking like a mole with spectacles, only to become a fun side character in the background.

It is, forgotten in its high production value and the iconic Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizoguchi score, distinct in its many touches. The mix of fantasy and robots is actually not new at this point in the mid-nineties - Yoshiyuki Tomino helmed Aura Battler Dunbine (1983-4), based off his Byston Well narrative but with the robots added, a decade before - but this show has both an utmost poignant tone of romance and high emotion which is entirely distinct. It hits a level of absurdity that anime is blessed with even if ridiculous, next to both cat sisters on Zaibach's side being injected with that luck filled blood, but never is felt that way, but instead touching. The sides mingle which helps, Hitomi's romantic triangle even being a huge part of the narrative, as Zaibach and their leader realise that her connection to Van is to their downfall, even going as far as manipulate her towards Allen in one episode.

[Major Plot Spoiler]

One plot aspect to this day is still curious to untangle when Dilandau is revealed to be Allen's younger sister, who vanished and was transformed by Zaibach;'s sorcerers. It is never explicitly that the character is transgender, as Dilandau is masculine but is Allen's sister in truth, but decades and viewing this in the time that has passed does make it something to pause over with no real answer. It is not something to raise suspicion on, as it is instead a weird twist that to alter her fate, you do not get a psychopath character after your experiments as you might find in another story, but a complete drastic alteration, including body transformation in one shot, likely considered without thought or a yin-yang scenario of a dualism between the innocent beneath the monster. It helps, whilst Dilandau is the one truly evil character, sadistic in the truest sense, that throughout they build this character. That he is a damaged character, that he holds his personal soldiers close to the point he enters a mental breakdown when they are slaughtered, and the show does not punish but has it depicted as a psychological figure of experimentation that is reunited with Allen. Time has made it merely an odd creative choice.

[Spoilers Ends]

There is an inherent danger of just turning a review like this into a puff piece that Escaflowne is a great anime series that everyone should watch, which could put people off if the review itself is bland and copies everyone else's. So instead, the best way to describe why that is what you should do, go out and watch the series if you have not or rewatch it, is to think of how Escaflowne would have been inferior, even if it had turned out still well, if all the little creative decisions were subtracted. The show would have been different if targeted to a male audience - again, that target audience stereotype is reductive, but the divisive retelling Escaflowne The Movie (2000), for feature length, is meant as that alternative version for a male audience for a fascinating contrast. How different would the show be if Hitomi had been designed differently, as a stereotypical heroine when here she is an athletic track runner with very short hair who helps considerable throughout, or written differently, an optimistic and determined person in drastic contrast, again, to the later film version which inverted this. Or that the show never cut back to her own world at times, which adds a distinct emotional touch in seeing the world and friends she had left by accident with her absence. How different would the show had been if Kawamori had not been, at first, inclined to make the series with all the esoteric content for a robot show. How different would the show been just without its score and music, which is iconic in itself as it is from Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizoguchi. That score, including the opening theme sung by Hitomi's voice actor in her debut acting role, is as much a weight baring load that adds as much to the show as all its other virtues and achievements.

Its overall value, and why to watch Escaflowne, is that it is a show not of any genre but all of them. The fantasy is unique; the mech design and animation is a high bar and set in a distinct context where it can stand out, and the melodrama leads to this having a tremendous heart, its real achievement in the final scenes. Any of these, done wrong, would have failed the series but none of them did, which is why it deserved its reputation especially among Western fans, including in Britain, where the show gained a love. It is orchestrated and done with sincerity perfectly, and know as well this show was originally of a different length, and tone with an entirely different director originally on board before Kazuki Akane took the seat, adding a lot of changes when he didincluding Hitomi's characterisation and targeting a female audience more, adds to the real sense of hard work that went into the show and how the production team managed to knock this project out of the park with completely success.

#158: Amagami SS Plus (2012)

 

Director: Tomoki Kobayashi

Screenplay: Noboru Kimura

Based on the Visual Novel by Enterbrain

Voice Cast: Hiromi Konno as Sae Nakata; Kaori Nazuka as Tsukasa Ayatsuji; Rina Satou as Kaoru Tanamachi; Ryoko Shintani as Rihoko Sakurai; Shizuka Itou as Haruka Morishima; Tomoaki Maeno as Jun'ichi Tachibana; Yukana as Ai Nanasaki; Hitomi Harada as Manaka Hiba; Izumi Satou as Ruriko Yuzuki; Kana Asumi as Miya Tachibana; Mai Kadowaki as Keiko Tanaka/Risa Kamizaki

Let's start the meat bun convention!

Following on from Amagami SS (2010), this sequel series does feel like a bonus rather than a proper continuation. The original Amagami took a novel approach to its origins, as a visual novel romance story with multiple paths and multiple possible female love interests, by imagining six alternative stories where our lead, Junichi Tachibana, goes down the route of a romance between one of six possible women each time in his high school. This is not as extreme as, say, if it had fully embraced a sci-fi/metaphorical fantasy, as it never played to this reputation beyond an occasionally wink. Neither did it turn into School Days (2007), another visual novel adaption where it got around its multiple path format but taking the nastiest and more gruesome for a compelling and agonising trip that ripped the clichés of the genre to shreds. Instead, this franchise's first season was sweet, bearing in mind the potential issues at hand with its underlying tone of the ultimate fantasy girlfriend scenario it was trying to dodge, working as a one-off series with a fascinating form. Amagami Plus as a follow-on as instead two episode narratives for each female character than the original four for each, following the period after those narratives or at least their actual endings, as some did end with an epilogue set further in the future beyond high school.

These arches here are slight, and this definitely is a case where you need the original series to fully flesh them out in context, existing within the time where the romances were already kindled between Junichi and the characters. They being - Tsukasa Ayatsuji (deceptively layered, even ominous) taking part in an election for school representative; Rihoko Sakurai (a childhood friend) still trying to get Junichi to know she likes him; Kaoru Tanamachi (another close friend and a tomboy) and Junichi going on a bus trip vacation which goes south when the bus vanishes; Ai Nanasaki (first year and friend of his sister Miya), finding herself isolated when Junichi is stuck in a cramming class over even Christmas Eve which comes off as a secret cabal who kidnap failing students; Sae Nakata (another of Miya's friends, extremely shy) having developed more confidence but facing a bigger hurdle now she is head of running the Christmas fair; and Haruka Morishima (an eccentric but popular British-Japanese third year) in a melodrama around her possibly setting sail to Britain, with her English cousin Jessica introduced, her identical double with blonde hair.

Out of all of them, Rihoko's does have dramatic heft, as her arch originally ended with unrequited love, only for this to escalate when in this season's story she is invited over to cook dinner. My personal favourite is Kaoru's as, as a two episode comedy of a squabbling couple who clearly like each other, it plays as a farce with a dynamic change of locations, even involving a sinister looking inn in the middle of nowhere where the neighbouring monkeys will steal your underwear as you bath in the bathing pool. They are all interesting stories in a sense, honestly, I have a fondness for these characters after all the investment I have put in, but this is definitely a case of a show which is spinning on its wheels.

Here, the potential issue I raised last time, the hetero-fantasy at play in multiple love interests played at once, is here and an issue for other reasons. One of the show's best parts here is that, even in another girl's chapter, every female character gets scenes in the others, and even as archetypes, they are interesting. Even a figure like Jessica, a broad character who speaks perfect Japanese but with an accented form to it, is interesting that even a broad stereotype, once fleshed out, gains a personality. It helped considerably here still that Junichi is a much likable male protagonist; still shy and with sex on the brain, but someone who is kind and does his best to help people.

The sense of ill-ease comes from the fact that, whilst these characters are lovable, the production itself is stuck unable to really progress beyond its original structure, and that leads to these interesting stock figures being stuck in a really generic form of romance which plays to gendered stereotypes. Most of this is the issue that, for the idealised romantic interests to stay idealised, this show now cannot go anywhere unless they gain more personality and drastically change, which is where for these female characters, as for another here and there, after high school at a young age it is marriage and likely kids with no sense of their own personal growth awaiting them as characters beholden to their creator Gods.  

This is probably why a figure like Tsukasa now stands out more, frankly manipulative and with darkness to her personality in the first season and here, even when a female rival in the elections tries to get to her through Junichi, a potentially crass twist of her creating a fake seduction sense of campus romantic confession, only for Tsukasa not to bat an eyelid and only reprimand Junichi for falling into such a obvious trap. She grows more interesting as a result as, even if her arch in the first season did involve marriage and a daughter, she clearly wore the trousers in the relationship, their dynamic marriage life as an anime in itself would have been great, even as an entirely separate tale that could have woven their narrative between these two seasons in there.

The problem for a lot of female characters in anime is that, if the characterisation is good or they are given independence, even a character drawn for male fan service (insanely busty figures, even unnaturally proportioned, and skimpy costumes) can gain worth, and female fans who would even cosplay as her and find something to admire, but it takes the writing of the stories to trap them in prisons of generic male-centric narratives, as idealised images, to prevent this from happening. If the character is merely to be a fantasy of romance, then this prison is even more of an issue. Harem shows, not including the reverse ones of a male harem and one female suitor, are a subject I have yet to fully understand but in even that choice of sub-genre name - based on originally the separate part of a Muslim household reserved for wives, concubines, and female servants, but slanted towards the idea of the wives (or concubines) of a polygamous man that is a male sexual fantasy in the modern day - is problematic, alongside the issue of the women, despite always usually being far more interesting than the male leads, being merely in the shadow of the male protagonist, the stand in for a target viewer usually meant to be male, in examples I know of.  

Once established, the problem is worst when the characters cannot develop their own independent personalities. In the first series of Amagami, the arches were the attempts at romance when Junichi first met these women, and their personalities grew as he has to learn to know them. That made sense and less of an issue. Here, by now, not much progress transpires and you cannot say anyone in the female cast is helped by this. Haruka is particular, in the last arch, unfortunately even gets the soppy melodramatic ending where Junichi professes his love for her the third year graduation ceremony; at the time, I was engaged in the moment as drama, but now the eccentric figure who was far interesting in her flighty nature and that she had a really close relationship with her female best friend, which felt far more romantic in between the lines, is now less interesting as a character. There is also the sense, whilst not increased in amount from the first series, that the fan service becomes more pronounced, including for the sister Miya. It is never incestuous thankfully, but now the little sister who was fixated on meat buns is far more interested with her best friend Sae's pronouncedly large breasts, which goes beyond horseplay at points. Especially as the final episode, her own, is centred around a hot spring, including a pool designed to help increase bust size, one wonders if Japanese women actually are obsesses with bust size, as this is common in a lot of anime, or if this is a trope Japanese male anime writers came up with. Hell, in an alternative world, is Miya's horseplay with Sae able to be read with a gay reading, as she did in a bonus OVA in the first episode declined dating a boy who asked her out, or more likely just an excuse to tease male viewers with female on female fondling?

The final episode as mentioned is a fan service one, but ironically, I find virtue it is as it actually cuts Junichi out of the plot, of a new hot spring resort offering a free day for women only, by having the female cast by themselves interact and be themselves. It is all meant as an episode of pure cheesecake fan service, merely teased with no actual nudity or anything raunchy, but jokes and moments actually make it one of the best episodes, like the ramen pool or Tsukasa and Kaoru, in the pool for bust size, deciding (in a love-hate moment of bonding) to challenge each other to stay in the pool even the heat nearly knocks them both unconscious. There is actual characterisation of interest, even if it is not the most feminist of narratives where the cast could have had a lot more personality if their archetypes were allowed to be flexible even in bonding and conversing. It also has one final joke with Junichi, when he does have a moment in the episode, involving a bath powder that inadvertently encourages abstinence, which did end the show on a high.

Truthfully, in knowledge the original show was one that for anyone with a greater knowledge of visual novel and high school romance anime might have found more derivative than I did new to these tropes, this is a case of diminishing returns. It is, already mentioned, bonus material to a show that was inherently six feature length stories that were based on six possible relationships blossoming which could have existed by themselves, here with the exception of one only additional material that never raises the stakes or really pushes to new dynamically rich hijinks. Only a drastic tonal and/or structure shift would really take this show further, but as it was always at the back of my mind, the sense of the undercurrent of gender politics which I could get past in the first series became more apparent when characters here are stuck in the same patterns in the sequel. This was the time for a tale, in each time line, of the six relationships after high school or even older - what becomes the stagnant tone here unfortunately was the selling point in the first place and now it was the premise's biggest hindrance.