Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Final Impression - Getsumen to Heiki Miina






















Okay, I’m finally dropping this series – it took me 6 episodes to do it – more than half the season. The well just ran dry. It was a fanservice anime, running on gag and scantily clad bunny girls and that’s not enough for my time. It’s kind of like poop – it’s all the extra stuff that you don’t need.
This is a Final Impression – it’s sort of like a review, only I haven’t finished the series. I decided there should be a formal farewell for the shows I’m dropping. After all, there’s a reason I’m dropping them. I try to pick shows I won’t drop, but, you never know, do you?
These are the problems I had with Getsumen to Heiki Miina:
The use of women as stuffed bunnies.
I remember an anime blog colleague pointing out the millions of dollars spent to attach giant carrots onto a girl’s butt. Mina and the other Miinas basically are a device to be used for convenient camera angles and breast jiggles, not characters. Even the non-bunny faces we know are just stock characters.
Boredom.
Let’s face it (I had to) after a while milk-tasting mediocre, gags just aren’t enough to satisfy. After a while it’s just useless, even annoying. Also, don’t expect character development from a fanservice anime.
Bizarreness.
There is such a thing as too bizarre a concept. In fact, if a writer’s not careful, a weird concept without enough reality to tie down the reader/watcher will be confusing or fall flat.
Rating:
Concept: (4/10)
Writing: (5/10)
Characters: (7/10)
Animation/Art: (7/10)
Voice Acting:
(7.5/10)
Enjoyment: (6/10)
Total: 60.84/100
Content Warning:
This is the kind of anime that will put a camera anywhere near a convenient place around its girl characters. Expect jiggling breast, skimpy outfits, and weapons smashing down on certain body parts. There’s lot of slapstick and other gags.
Recommendations:
Lucky Star, Pani Poni Dash, Android Ana Maico 2010, Kannagi, Love Hina, Mezzo DSA, Rec, Sailor Moon, Seto no Hanayome, 2x2 Shinobuden, Hayate the Combat Butler,

Munto TV Review - 77.5/100
























Same as last time, I’ve reread all the posts I made for Munto TV in order to write this review.
Concept: (8/10)
The fact that they had a good idea – several good ideas – makes it even more disappointing. Basically, they threw all these ideas together in one giant hodgepodge of scenes and very poorly timed cut-offs. Stories aren’t salads, people! Make something of this! Sometimes I think anime writers are so rushed to get something out there that they forget what it means to be a writer. I can’t believe I’m saying this (yes I can), but they should get out in the real world for a while and learn how to write provocative, significant stories.
Writing: (6/10)
When you have a good concept and a few good characters, you can’t just end there. A good idea can come out weak and a bad idea great all depending on the writing. I’m talking about pushing the characters to the point that they change, exploring the emotions and connotations creating by your ideas. Good stories aren’t created like comics, with pictures of almost the same thing for several frames. It has to move, spin, leap, and dance to grab hold of the elusive audience. The pacing of Munto TV was stagnant. I would have liked more answers, and I’m not talking in long, montages of information binging. Answers actually carried out in the story.
Characters: (8/10)
Even after everything, Suzume is my favorite character! I began to really like Ichiko as a character, too. In fact, the best friend three received much more attention that the rest of the cast, and that made them the best characters of the show. Though, they probably would have been even if the creators had worked harder to develop the rest of the cast. Even though Munto had the best male voice actor in anime, he wasn’t given much, if any development in this story. That’s ridiculous. He was a main character, and yet he was shuffled back and stuck in a tornado the majority of the finale.
Animation/Art: (8.5/10)
Okay, using the footage from the OVAs was a huge blunder. I mean, the first OVA came out in 2003, the second in 2005. Anime’s came a ways since then. With digital artwork and newer, sleeker drawing styles, it would have been a much better idea to redraw (as well as rewrite) the whole story. As I said in an earlier post, that would have been expensive, but if they weren’t serious about making Munto TV great, they shouldn’t have started at all.
Voice Acting: (8/10)
Ono Daisuke raises this score to 8. Man, I love his voice! I really liked him as Yukito in Air, too. The other voice actors are much to mention. They don’t stand out so much. I thought the voice matched the characters well enough.
Enjoyment: (8/10)
I enjoyed Munto TV the way you enjoy a meal you thought was going to me savory and was just a snack. This show was cute. Once I wrote a poem I was very proud of. My friend read it and said, “cute.” Cute? I thought. That’s the way Munto TV came out. A cute, fairly enjoyable little KyoAni tidbit. I like snacks; I eat a lot of them, which I guess is good, because there are a lot of little cute anime snacks. I hate how harsh I’ve had to be in this review, so, just know that I did enjoy this show.
Rating:
77.5/100
Content Warning:
The philosophy, or you could even say, religion of this show is contrary to what we know as the truth. Because of this, I would suggest an audience that is strong in their faith, or else they may be confused. The world is created by the souls of those alive and depends on the strength of that soul to determine the way it is. Therefore, the world can be whatever we want. But, in reality, only God can create; the best we can do imitate. But we delight in God as creator. There’s mild emotional intensity, the issue of very young romance, and some magical battles.
Recommendations:
Munto OVA 1 and 2, Place Promised in Our Early Days, Air, Brave Story, Clannad, Kanon, Millennium Actress, My Beautiful Girl Mari, Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, Spirited Away