Review time, and today we see another show on Otaku culture, this is Outbreak Company.
Shinichi Kano is an Otaku shut-in who applies for a job that requires his love of Anime, Video Games and Manga, upon succeeding in the interview, he is drugged and dragged into an alternate world, this is the Holy Eldant Empire, which Japan found by accident and now wants to create diplomatic relations by spreading Otaku culture into the alternate world which intrigues it's inhabitants, with his new found purpose, Kano wastes no time in spreading his culture into the world.
This show is both clever and stupid.
The Clever parts
1. The story is well written, it keeps to the subject matter without relying too much on cheap thrills.
2. Much of what is said within the story regarding the culture along with the praises and criticisms are true to real life Otaku Culture.
3. Much of what is said about Eldant's culture can also be true to real life Kingdoms in the past as well as the class systems used in today's societies.
4. The characters particularly Myucel make for an enjoyable experience.
5. The world of Eldant makes for amazing visuals.
Now the stupid parts.
1. You can see the plot twist coming a mile away.
2. Fan Service feels forced.
3. To understand the jokes you need a good knowledge of anime.
4. Many of it's best characters are under used.
5. Shinichi Kano has a nasty habit of switching from good well developed character to horrid cliche otaku fanboy without warning.
6. Petralka's voice hurts my ears.
and 7. The whole story fails to use it's potential to the fullest, I felt like there was more to offer but with only 12 episodes it never really got that far, the best episodes you're going to get from this show are the Soccer episode and the Akihabara episode, everything else is just meh.
While the dub is pretty good, Petralka has no indoor voice and makes ears bleed so Japanese subs is the best choice, this also makes the whole learning Japanese language plot point easier to understand.
Final Verdict: Whille I can see the potential Outbreak Company has to offer in it's clever writing it doesn't quite get the elements it needs to be a rousing success as the show struggles with unused potential that may never be realized.
Now for more reviewing as I look at Legends of Oz Dorothy's Return
With the Wicked Witch of the West long gone, you'd think that nothing bad would happen to Oz anymore? Well her broomstick is picked up by a new villain named Jester, who has his own vendetta against Oz, as he traps all the rulers along with Glinda the Good Witch. Faced with no other option, the Lion, Tinman and Scarecrow summons Dorothy using a Rainbow, with time not passing much between the original story, Dorothy is still rebuilding her farm when a so called Government agent wants to shut everything down. Dorothy then gets sucked up by the Rainbow and dumped somewhere in Oz where she must gather new allies to stop the Jester including a fat Owl, a Princess made of China and a Marshmallow soldier.
Were basically retredding the same tired story, nothing has changed from the original story, it even has a stupidly sappy song to try and start things up but what really makes this fail miserably is that you have all these big name actors and not one of them can make any of these characters interesting.
I've always had problems with the Wizard of Oz, I can't tell if the story is brilliant and the content is terrible or the story is terrible and the content is brilliant. To put this statement into perspective, the musical Wicked was amazing, a lesser known Korean manga where Dorothy transforms into a Witch was amazing along with several parodies from popular cartoons, yet big name productions are really terrible and I include the 1939 film which I believe only gets it's praise from the fact that it was made in color.
I gave this film a fair chance but all I want now is my time back from watching it.
Transformations are the staple of anime culture, from the days of the pioneering Cutey Honey to the current day Pretty Cures, the transformation sequence is always a highlight of any anime series should it have one, however some shows have sequences that are not so good, these ten anime highlight the most embarrassing transformations in anime.
There are no honorable mentions but may be some at a later date.
10. Corrector Yui
While nothing is embarrassing about the costumes per say and the sequences are mostly normal, each one has a facial expression that kind of tells a different story like they are enjoying this a bit too much.
9. Negima Neo
For context this is what I call the alternate Negima. Now you have three different forms. A magical one with great power, a cosplay form with less practical powers and a chibi animal furry form with no use at all that reduces your mind to a childlike state and you can't control which form you get.........HOW IS THAT PRACTICAL?
8. Kampfer
Kampfer doesn't look so bad at first, you get some cool weapons, you sometimes can use magic and your personality may change to help you fight, but if your a male, you will be force changed into a female whether you like it or not. Not made any better when you become the fan service of the show.
7. Is This a Zombie
How do you add insult to injury when you are already a zombie? By being made to become a magical girl where your main powers give you such a frilly costume that gets more frillier the more you power up, the only thing I can really salvage from this is the fact that your weapon is a chainsaw.
6. Moldiver
Having the powers of Superman in a handy geeky cassette tape (That's what it looks like) is pretty handy, only one problem, you need to be naked to do the transformation, depending on the version you can't choose between male or female forms and there's a time limit that will leave you naked at the worst possible places. Yeah those powers don't seem so fancy now.
5. Kill La Kill
The power of the uniforms grant great powers, only problem is they look very gaudy and some make you look like a hooker and some are even alive. Ryuko Matoi's revenge has very little dignity.
4. Ultimate Girls
You are made to grow into giant size and then your clothes start fading until you are butt naked for the world to see, fighting phallic monsters wasn't bad enough. Although it would make for a very awkward episode of Power Rangers.
3. Pretear
While the costumes look relatively underwhelming for a magical girl show that's not the main issue here, the costumes are basically your male allies, so put that into context for a second, you are wearing pretty male characters as your costume and Himeno's reaction first time around is pretty much how any girl would feel being told that.
2. Agent Aika
While this anime doesn't have much dignity to begin with, Aika's powered form is activated by being groped by a sentient corset that can make her super powered, I'm surprised it still gave her clothing, considering the rest of the anime. (Review coming soon)
1. Jungle De Ikou
The dub summed up this transformation, "the sleaziest transformation ever seen" and they are 100% correct, I won't describe the full details because it's uncomfortable so I'll sum it up. 13 year old girl becomes an adult girl with very little clothing and boobs the size of beach volleyballs, that along with the quote will tell you everything, and this anime wasn't even a hentai.
Now lets look at something completely different, time to look at a crappy gag comedy in Kill Me Baby.
Sonya is a world class assassin, Yasuna is an idiotic naive student, Agiri is a laid back ninja, no one cares about the unused character. Together an average day of school is Yasuna deliberately annoying Sonya, Sonya reacting by causing grievous bodily harm to her, and Agiri watching in the background or sometimes pulling rubbish ninja tricks, this is all 13 episodes in a nutshell and nothing else to write about plot wise; while I didn't expect much out of a series that was originally a 4-Koma comic, this is really all there is to know.
As this is a gag comedy, one based around slapstick, is it funny? Not if there's only one joke in the whole show.
I'm serious, there is no other joke other than Yasuna annoys Sonya, Sonya nearly kills her and Agiri just jumps in every now and again, even with the different scenarios they try to concoct it really doesn't change the feel of the show.
There wasn't any faith in this show whatsoever and even the dubbing team felt that way with no attempt at lip syncing and while the dub actors did try to make the most of it you can tell a couple of them just wanted the show to end by the simple tone of sarcasm from Agiri in particular.
Slapstick only works based on the reactions of the people involved, it doesn't work when there is too much dialogue breaking apart the punchline, for example if Tom & Jerry were talking during their classic chase scenes it would ruin the moments of hilarious reactions when Tom gets hurt, the pioneers of the art form come from silent films such as ones done by Charlie Chaplin, while not entirely devoid of sound and dialogue in this day and age, you can still make the art form work if the reactions of it's characters work well, however it needs more than just a simple bonk on the head to be successful and can easily out stay it's welcome which is what happened in this anime. 25 Minutes of the same slapstick just gets stale and I had to put up with 13 episodes of it while an average Tom & Jerry short is 5 Minutes making it easier to digest and every episode is fresh with new material, Kill Me Baby doesn't have any other material; in fact from my viewpoint, Yasuna is the type of person I'd rather not associate with and much of Sonya's reactions are justified as she continuously tries to annoy her with the most random crap to ever cross her mind and in the end, that just makes her a jerk.
Final Verdict: One joke comedy anime that fails to hold the attention of any normal human being, you see one third of an episode then you've pretty much seen the whole series, nothing changes, the characters are annoying and I feel this is less a comedy, more trolling because I feel that's what Yasuna is doing to me while watching this.
Time to have a look at an anime with a huge reputation for frequently being the best anime ever made. It's time for Cowboy Bebop.
Spike is a Bounty Hunter, he makes his living capturing wanted criminals for the pursuit of money in order to live on, he does this with a former cop and partner named Jet who owns the ship known as the Bebop. Later they are joined by a dog named Ein who possesses a unique brain packed with data, a thief named Faye Valentine who desperately seeks answers on her past and a genius eccentric hacker named Ed.
Each episode has a focus on a particular villain who is more often than not the target for the Bebop crew however occasionally between breather episodes we sometimes dive into the backgrounds of the characters themselves and discover the reasons behind their existence with the most depth saved for Spike as he attempts to keep a distance on the Syndicate he used to work for.
Cowboy Bebop is a perfect Sci-Fi show, it picks it's moments of drama, it chooses the right moments to be comical and its most serious moments can leave an everlasting impression. All the characters including episode characters are treated with respect in their design, not one character comes off as especially bad nor does anyone take too much away from the spectacle on screen, every little detail is done well and being only 26 episodes long, makes sure that it doesn't out stay it's welcome despite having the setup and potential to do more episodes, all rounded off with the perfect ending.
The dub voice acting is top notch from an era where it was starting to become more professional and I would go as far as saying that its far better in English than Japanese and has one of the best soundtracks in anime history.
There is one fatal flaw the show has but not so much when it was released in 1998 but more to do with the era were in now. It shows it's age. Well the anime is 18 years old at time of writing but much of it's content is not as well represented in this current era than it was then. Space Dandy is the closest relative of this show in the modern era which is done by the exact same director, yet there's no other current anime series in this genre other than Space Dandy who can capture the same feel as Cowboy Bebop.
Final Verdict: I often get skeptical when a show is frequently number 1 on any top ten list but with Cowboy Bebop I actually agree that it deserves it's popularity and is one of the most well respected anime of all time, only a hand full of others can claim the same kind of respect, it's only issue is that it's more or less forgotten in this current era through no fault of it's own.
