Post 30 and the final review of this year is Sekirei.
Minato is a hapless student seemingly struggling in life after failing his college entrance exams until a buxom woman literally falls on him. This girl is Musubi, a Sekirei; Sekirei are a group of human lifeforms with exceptional powers who fight under the commands of the person who awakens them known as an Ashikabi, their destiny is to fight each other until only one is left standing who will then according to the head of MBI Minaka ascend onto the Heavenly Palace for the ultimate prize but we don't find this out ever as the anime ends before the story even completes, stuck with reading scans of the manga online to get a payoff at all which isn't worth it.
Anyway, Minato who doesn't want his Sekirei to fight acquires more over the story and attempts to cause trouble by trying to defy the rules and not fight at all, the whole system is really messed up. Minaka makes no qualms about using force to get rid of Sekirei who refuse to fight and some Sekirei, remember the majority are female, end up with really abusive people so it can also be uncomfortable in places, if I like anything about this series it's the Sekirei themselves having a whole range of interesting personalities and really makes for an entertaining harem if there's many things I don't like it's Musubi being really dull to watch, no payoff from having to sit through two seasons of anime and just the plot itself being really messed up. There are worst anime under the genre of weaponized harem but if you want something better than this then watch Elemental Gelade.
Dub is fine, nothing worthy of mention.
Final Verdict: With no payoff from the anime it feels like a waste of time to watch, if you really want to know what happens then just read the manga, save you a lot of effort.
Merry Christmas to everyone at theOtaku, for post 29 of the 30 reviews since I turned 30 we look at all the short movies of Wallace & Gromit, so quite the treat this Christmas as we are looking at a true British Television tradtion as these short films are on every Christmas without fail.
A Grand Day Out
One thing you'll notice about all these films is that it's all done in Claymation, the British are the masters of stop motion animation and claymation is a sub form of this art as thousands upon thousands of clay models are made and animated over a period of many years, 7 years for this first film alone and the effort really shows in the end results along with the writing. Gromit has no voice as well as a few other characters through out these short film reviews as body language and facial expressions are used to show Gromit's emotions while Wallace is voice by veteran actor Peter Sallis who portrays the inventor as a nice but dim sort with a strong love for cheese and sounding somewhat Yorkshire.
In their first adventure Wallace is out of cheese so the inventor decides to create a rocket to travel to the moon which is made of cheese, but unbeknownst to the duo, a robot is watching everything they do but has a dream of wanting to ski so while he tries his best to stop Wallace and Gromit from what they are doing he ends up with two make shift skis; the short film is probably the weakest of the four but understandable considering it was very late 80s and a first attempt from the fledgling Aardman studios.
The Wrong Trousers
In this short film it's Gromit's birthday but the bills are racking up and Wallace needs to find something to make up the short fall so he decides to rent a room out. The occupant is a penguin known as the notorious jewel thief, Feathers McGraw who doesn't have a voice but his body language does give a nice impression of how threatening he is; upon seeing the capabilities of Wallace's Techno Trousers, Feathers finds a way to not only drive Gromit away but make use of Wallace in order to steal the Jewel he's after, his plan culvinates in an epic chase scene involving a toy train set which must've taken many years to animate just for the animation quality alone.
This is the strongest of the four short films as you start to understand some of the subtle jokes left in by the writers as well as how impressive the animation really is just by looking at the final chase scene alone, it's a triumph of British animation and still stands the test of time.
A Close Shave
Two years after Wrong Trousers we come to another film featuring the introduction of Shaun the Sheep who would later have his own claymation cartoon series.
In this one, rumors are spreading of a sheep rustler in town but no one quite knows what's going on until Shaun's escape from a large truck starts the events of the film rolling. Wallace & Gromit are working as window cleaners as they get called to wash the windows of the local wool seller Wendolene and her dog Preston, Wendolene can talk but Preston doesn't, neither does Shaun or the other sheep. Upon finding Shaun in their house, Wallace decides to clean him up using the washing function of the Knit-O-Matic only for Shaun to lose some of his wool and gain a sweater; Preston recognises the sheep as Shaun and decides to frame Gromit as the sheep rustler which succeeds but Wallace ends up housing the sheep that Preston has rustled. Upon breaking Gromit out of jail the duo discover that Preston is the rustler along with Wendolene who has been dragged in against her will. After a hilarious chase scene that ends in a dog food factory, they discover that Preston is an evil robot dog so the duo along with Wendolene and the sheep put a stop to Preston.
This is where you discover more about Wallace's character as well as create a lot more emotion as Gromit looks genuinely upset about his predicament, as well as create a new lovable character in Shaun the Sheep, while not nearly as fun as Wrong Trousers it serves as a brilliant follow up film to it.
A Matter of Loaf and Death
It would take 13 years before another short film was produced, by this time we had already had the duo in their first feature film but that's for another review. In this last short film, Wallace & Gromit are baker delivery men but watching their every move is Piella Bakewell a serial killer and former pin up model with a grudge against bakers for making her fat, she hopes to murder Wallace to complete her bakers dozen of bakers she has already cut down so she takes advantage of Wallace's hopeless romantic side, (a trait he's had since a Close Shave) and attempts to trick the dippy Yorkshire man into marrying her so she can finish the job of murdering Wallace easier but stopping her along the way are Gromit and Piella's dog Fluffles which also culvinates into a crazy sequence of events involving a cartoon style bomb. This final film (For now) is not only the funniest but also the darkest of the four films, while the deaths are anti violence it doesn't take a genius to work out that they are still gruesome, it's pleasing to know that the writing is still strong with this franchise and hopes that future films remain just as good but with Peter Sallis aged 95 and the only major voice required for this franchise retired since 2012 it's unlikely we'll get another Wallace & Gromit short film anytime soon unless a suitable replacement is found to voice Wallace.
Conclusion
The franchise is a testament to British culture as a whole and showcases the results of years of hard work in stop motion animation and claymation, no other country can do this as well as the British, and while the jokes are lost on international audiences, it will always be a part of British culture. Merry Christmas everyone, one last review of the 30 reviews run followed by a special announcement, so stay tuned from Boxing Day to New Year.
Post 28 and a good reason why you shouldn't lend your video game franchise to a cartoon maker in the 80s.
Pole Position is often regarded as the pioneer of the racing game, not the first racing game by any stretch but certainly the title was the one that started the ball rolling proper, but around the 80s, cartoon makers seemingly out of ideas turned to video games in order to see if their impact on computers can work as tv shows, however there was so little to go on in narrative that most of them were dreadful, and had to dredge up older already well used tropes at the time such as Scooby Doo style mysteries and 50s style in what was modern day setting, think Happy Days.
Pole Position didn't fair any better by becoming a spy show but at least in their favor it felt current to the time period as the cars borrowed elements from Knight Rider, so what's the story?
Tess and Dan Darrett have inherited the job of crime fighters from their deceased parents and must use their super machines Wheels and Roadie to stop all evil in the world, where the title comes in, Pole Position is the name of their cover as Stuntmen, so yeah no relation to the games other than the car colors matching the main cars in the games but other than that it's surprising Namco let this slide or Knight Rider for that matter as the talking computers in the cars are ripped off from that.
As far as stories go, it's a generous mix of fairly decent, cheesy, ludacrous and seen it all before, so yeah it's not exactly ground breaking but it's at least better than a good portion of the 80s Video Games cartoons everyone had to sit through, but it's still so ridiculously 80s that it hasn't aged particularly well so if your watching it now, take it with a pinch of salt. Awesome theme song though.
Post 26, and I really hope nothing goes wrong this time, powercuts are not fun, this time it's Ultimate Girls.
Ultimate Girls is the perfect homage to the ever popular Ultraman series, it begins as UFO man accidently crushes to death the main three girls Silk, Vivenne and Tsubomi during a routine monster battle. Feeling guilty for his mistake UFO man revives the three girls with his powers but in doing so makes him powerless, so the girls take over his duties turning into giant Ultraman style heroes but having to spread his power across three people means that once the transformation is triggered all the girls clothes start disintegrating during battle, it doesn't help that the monsters while paying homage to many Ultraman monsters look like phallic sex toys, yes it is one of those anime but it falls short of being a hentai and opts for a softcore ecchi show.
The story is really bad, there's absolutely no reason for the monsters to be phallic nor is there any reason for the clothing to randomly disappear, it's amazing that this anime was picked up for a license in America.
At least the episodes are short and don't outstay their welcome and a plot point about embarrassment adding more power to the girls is a surprisingly clever work around for essentially pubically stripping the female characters, but the most shocking thing I like about this series is the amazing opening theme. "White Heat" by Yozuca is one of my all time favorite opening themes and it comes from an anime that is terrible, seems to be one of those things that defies logic; the animation as well is just as good for a low budget late night anime.
No dub, would be funnier and better received if it was as it suits a gag dub very well.
Final Verdict: It's terrible, mainly because none of it is really necessary, you can have a stupidly fun anime without all the sexual innuendo but as it is all in this anime it really comes off as awkward and forced especially when it's supposed to be a spoof homage to Ultraman.
Post 25 and were closing in on the home stretch, we look at Wish Upon the Pleiades.
Wish Upon the Pleiades started as a web animation by Subaru Automobile Company, yes by Subaru, a car more famous for street racing and rallying has made a Magical Girl anime. Upon a successful run online a 12 episode series was produced which is what were reviewing today.
Subaru (Real original naming) is an average girl who upon stumbling on a Magical Observatory ends up obtaining magical powers which then leads her to the Cosplay Club who are all revealed to be Magical Girls who chase after stars to help a squishy alien repair his ship, but a dark magical boy is also after the pieces so it's a race against time to obtain all the ship pieces from the various reaches of space to repair the ship before their enemy steals them.
This space themed anime is very heavy on dialogue and has a habit of really pushing it's boundaries to try and make us understand the mysteries of the universe and how far it really goes, it's trying hard to be thought provoking but it's hard to really take seriously when you remember it's a magical girl show then it hit me like a well aimed bottle in a nightclub brawl, they're trying to be like Madoka Magica, obviously less dark than that show but Madoka Magica none the less with the main character being the obvious comparison to Madoka herself trying to work out what's right before attempting to bend the universe in her favor, it's rather jarring that they would go for this when the design of the show promised something more whimsical.
A few other things I can't get over are the broomsticks sounding like Subaru cars and Aoi's rather confusing attitude towards everything, I think she has ambigious disorder, there's something wrong but no one can work out what it is which brings me to another issue, the characters, none of them really jump out at me as being well made and none of them are really given much to work with in the backstory department which is important in establishing a magical girl team, in fact Nanako spends more time speaking for the Pleiadian than actually being herself, but I think overall the most jarring thing about this whole project is the fact that Subaru cars made this!!!
That's not to say a Japanese company can't make their animated mascots cute girls and it makes sense for a car company named after a star cluster to do a space themed anime but why not a space action series rather than a Magical Girl show, it's just very distracting and the fact that the series plays more serious cards than light hearted and funny, it's very difficult to concentrate on, especially on a subject as neverending as the universe.
No dub but it wouldn't work as one anyway.
Final Verdict: It's nice looking but it feels far too heavy on dialogue and plot to be a magical girl show and can easily put off audiences expecting something else entirely.
