Two reviews? You lucky, lucky people, next up is Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi.
In the land of Osaka we join childhood friends Arumi and Sasshi as they contemplate the changes going on in their shopping district Abenobashi which involves Arumi moving away after her family's restaurant closes, but an incident with Arumi's grandpa triggers a series of events that sends the two kids to different worlds all called Abenobashi but themed after different genres such as Fantasy, Space, Film Noir etc. Arumi and Sasshi must navigate each world to get home but Sasshi is hiding a terrible secret from Arumi.
Now I can see what they were aiming for in this anime, an Excel Saga style reference filled gag anime, but the execution is a little to be desired but it's not because it doesn't meet Excel Saga's high standards of humor or the Gainax trademark of twisting the story, it's actually the language barrier between Japanese and English.
Quite a weird assessment considering that anime starts in Japanese but that's the problem; Comedy in Osaka is done with a series of stand-up routines usually between two people and relies on a lot of play-on words and puns as part of it's jokes, this makes Abenobashi very dialogue heavy and hard to translate into English despite the best efforts of the dubbers, subtitle translators and reference notes, it's still amusing when you do get it but it makes it a chore to watch and when you do reach the end you feel a little short changed by the twist at the end.
The dub is a good effort on ADVFilms part but can't get passed the language barrier, I would go as far as saying that it probably shouldn't have been exported.
Final Verdict: While the show is funny, the very Japanese comedy is hard to translate whether your reading it or hearing it and it can become a chore to watch as a result, if you do understand the culture enough to get the jokes then give yourself a cookie, but it becomes a salty cookie when you reach the plot twist.
Taking a break from the heavy theme of Gender Swap and moving onto regular anime I've seen in the last couple of months starting with Doujin Work.
Doujin Work starts on a train, keep an eye on it as it'll appear in every episode, anyway; Najimi Osana is a college girl who wants an easy way of making money, but after being fired from her part time job, things start to look down until her friend Tsuyuri shows her how to make money through selling Dojinshi, disillusioned and with help from a tall male college student named Justice and his little cosplay girlfriend Sora, Najimi attempts to make her own Dojinshi to sell at Comiket.
The show is in an unusual format as it's 12 episodes each running 15 minutes long but consists of 12 extra episodes of live action footage from the main cast, the live action stuff is distracting so were focusing just on the anime itself.
The anime is okay, it's just long enough to not get tired and it's innuendos are amusing and even when the jokes were looking like getting tired they change at just the right moment to keep it fresh. The characters feel a bit weak apart from Sora and Tsuyuri who are both magnificent and the plot really doesn't lead to a satisfying conclusion, and above all, Najimi isn't really deserving of a happy ending anyway as nothing she does really warrants her earning it.
No dub as there wasn't any on the DVD, it may have worked better if it did.
Final Verdict: Charming in places but never really encourages itself to be anything other than average, worth the $12 price tag I paid, £8 in English money.
My next review is a Manga only work that shows a unique relationship between it's Gender Swap victims, this is Mahou Shounen Majorian.
Iori is a timid, feminine boy. Masaru is an aggressive boy who leads the other boys in bullying Iori. One day, they encounter a pair of strange extraterrestrial bunnies who turn them into magical girls in order to fight aliens that are invading their town but Masaru isn't totally on board with being turned into a girl but is given no choice when the only way to turn back is to beat the aliens together with Iori.
Now there are factors in this show to consider, the first one being that the boys are young say about 8-10 years old at most and they are being transformed into I guess 16 year old teenage girls judging by their Magical Girl forms.
Now the main premise is that Masaru bullies Iori for acting girly, so the situation of the alien invasion and the Magical Girl stuff gives him a taste of what it feels to be an actual girl while Iori doesn't seem to mind being a girl at all. It really gives interesting takes on how two different types of personalities take to being turned into a girl.
The overall message the manga is obviously trying to give is that you shouldn't bully males who are more feminine by nature just because the norm is to be tough, like sport and I guess in some circles be an obnoxious jerk. In forcing Masaru to work with Iori both as girls forces the two to bond together, while Masaru tries to resist fiercely as it breaks apart his whole persona as a school bully but eventually by the end he respects Iori for who he is and that's quite a powerful message. It's actually quite surprising how little this manga is used to promote zero tolerance on bullying.
As this is Manga only, obviously no Anime.
Final Verdict: An obscure title that has deeper meanings you need to search for in order to appreciate the message it's delivering but it requires patience and a lot of digging up through Manga Scan sites to achieve that, otherwise study Japanese and find the Manga yourself.
My next review following the Gender Swap theme is Otoboku ~Maidens are Falling for me~
Mizuho is a very feminine looking male teenager who by virtue of his grandfather's last will, is requested to attend Seio Private Girl's Academy; to avoid the obvious problem of him being male, his childhood friend Mariya dresses him in the female uniform and teaches him how to act more like a lady, however things take an interesting turn when Mizuho gets nominated as the school's Older Sister, a title given to a figurehead student who promotes wisdom and virtue within the school which presents it's own problems including grabbing the unwanted attention of student council president Takako. Oh and this is originally a hentai game.
It maybe a hentai game originally but like Happy Lesson, when you take the adult content away you actually have a very charming story, if you showed anyone a still image from this anime you would have no idea that Mizuho is male, in fact just using the picture I got, try and find him; and that's kind of the point of his character.
Through just being himself, even in a female disguise he wins over the entire school just by being kind, thoughtful and understanding in every situation he's in, yeah inevitably the ending will always be him being discovered as a male it's kind of a guarantee with this genre but the ending doesn't feel bitter sweet as a result, and while the anime chose to focus on a love triangle developing between Mizuho, Mariya and Takako, the games take a look from the perspective of all the female characters and even the less focused ones in the anime get decent screen time.
There's no dub but it works better without it.
Now before I sign off on my conclusion I'd like to talk serious for a moment.
There are a few moments within Otoboku that struck a chord with me, mostly based around the subject of forcing to conform to a code based on someone's subjective opinion rather than the official rules. But looking at a character like Mizuho is a reminder that not all males are built to like sport and be strong, men can be kind and sensitive just as much as a woman can without losing any worth as a male, in fact Mizuho is a hero for putting his male pride second over the worth and feelings of a bunch of girls who would tear him to pieces the moment they discover he's male under that girl's uniform. Remember that he chose to do this because he loved and respected his family, granted he was androgynous looking enough to pass for a female with ease but it still takes a lot of courage to go through all that and succeed, in all scenarios Mizuho graduates and ends up with the girl that's picked and that's after he's revealed as male; in the end his closest female friends are shocked but ultimately don't care because he's changed their outlooks on life for the better, that is a strong male character and it's sad that there isn't more like him.
Final Verdict: For what was originally a hentai game, Otoboku manages to be a decent enough watch for any anime fan, it's just long enough to not out stay it's welcome and the characters don't easily fall into cliche traps that normally affect their archetype. It's not for everyone, the sudden chibis are distracting and the story does come off as weak but the stuff it does really well shines brightly.
Now I'm going to review a few anime that have the theme of Gender Swap, now there is a reason to this which I will bring up as I go through these reviews; as I'm away from Thursday night to Monday night this will not be a week long feature. Starting off the reviews is Kampfer.
Natsuru Seno is a boy with an obsession over the school's beauty Kaede Sakura, but his life ultimately gets turned upside down when a grotesque stuffed animal gives Natsuru a bracelet that forcibly transforms him into a Kampfer, female warriors fated to battle each other using a wide variety of abilities such as guns, swords and pyrokinesis that Natsuru uses, and yes I said female warrior as Natsuru is now a girl as a result. Along with other Kampfers, Shizuku, Akane and Mikoto, Natsuru tries to work out why they all got dragged into this battle with Natsuru ending up becoming a harem protagonist to all the other girls.
I find it ironic in this situation that the most popular girl in the school is a guy who's been transformed into a girl.
First off I have a lot of issues with Kaede Sakura, I'm not a great lover of psycho lesbian types if viewers remember my worst girls to have in a harem list a few months back. Equally the other characters don't make it any easier to like this series. So going back to the elephant in the room that is Natsuru, being honest this show didn't need the Gender Swap theme in the first place, it's so focused on giving us a yuri/fan service show with the amount of situations Natsuru gets into that the main point of the show is kinda lost in the wave of vivid colorful ecchiness.
The gratuitous German doesn't make this show any easier to understand, nor does the strange taste in stuffed animal mascots. No dub which I'm thankful for because it would be terrible.
Final Verdict: The plot may have worked if they stuck to it but with unlikable characters and focus on ecchiness over action, it just falls into a disarray that never recovers.
