The Fall 2010 Anime Preview Guide

Gia Manry

Gia may refer to any of the following: the Gemological Institute of America, Glasgow International Airport, Garuda Indonesia, and/or the associate editor of Anime News Network.

---

Otome Yokai Zakuro

Rating:

This season's preferred method of forcing mismatched boys and girls into awkward living arrangements: the military decides to forces with the local monster-fighters. Soldiers in a vaguely World War 2-ish Japan are assigned to work with "half-spirits" who fight malevolent supernatural beings. The spirits are, of course, attractive young ladies with cat ears. And of course, one of our pretty-boy soldiers is phobic of all things supernatural.

Original creator Lily Hoshino's style is retained nicely in the animation; her frilly, flowery style is also a very interesting aesthetic for an episode with a bit of a shounen streak...especially surprisingly since it's based on a work by a manga creator best known for her yaoi titles. The background art is particularly attractive, and the designs are very much steeped in traditional Japanese culture.

The characters show promise, but could just as easily turn into one-notes. Our heroine, the titular Zakuro, is mildly tsundere but her sarcasm and distaste are oddly refreshing. Her male counterpart Kei is a pretty boy with the aforementioned phobia, but he can occasionally work through it by the sheer force of his will and sparkles. The secondary female cast is rounded out by a shy girl and a pair of perky, teasing twins; the remaining two men are a stolid soldier and a young go-getter. There are also a whole bunch of other spiritual beings around, and a couple of other military guys appear as well.

There are a few irritating elements to the show: in a battle scene the CG is pretty heavy, which may distract some. There are a couple of quick-sketched shots, including one that's a reaction to the battle that feels surprisingly important to be given the slapdash treatment (perhaps all that background-painting tightened up the animators' schedule). There are a couple of cheesy moments as well, though the show is willing to poke a bit of fun at itself here and there.

There's nothing particularly surprising or clever about the characters, dialogue, or story of Otome Yokai Zakuro so far, but the combination thereof feels solid and may have some promise, at least of light entertainment if nothing ground-breaking.

Otome Yokai Zakuro is available streaming at Crunchyroll

---

Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector

Rating:

The first five minutes of Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector has, on the surface, very little to do with the rest of the episode...at least if you're someone who hasn't watched any previous Super Robot Wars series. Beyond that, however, the episode is mostly comprehensible to a layperson-- the only hard part is in the battle scene that takes up roughly the final third of the episode, because you don't know who's fighting for which side (unless you cheated and looked it up).

For the newbie, however, a little cheating plus The Inspector might make for an okay introduction, assuming you don't have access to earlier titles (but do have access to Wikipedia). Sure, the nipples on the female pilot seem to grow in every shot, but hey-- there's a female pilot! And she appears to fight for the good guys! (Ahem, Gundam 00, with your effeminate-but-not-female Tieria and your psycho Nena Trinity.)

Another thing that was a nice bump up from Gundam 00 was the ages of the characters. With a couple of exceptions that appeared in the OP or ED, the characters all could legitimately be in their late 20s to 30s, at least by anime standards. I won't profess to be much of a mech afficionado, but both the machines and the characters in the series have strong designs...mostly. One looks like the goofy would-be captain from Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and another sports some pretty ridiculous shades. Also, half of the pilots wear helmets while piloting their mechs and half of them don't, although that may just be my lack of mech familiarity showing. The characters themselves seem reasonably strong without being over-the-top single-trait shells, although the two female pilots who have dialogue in the episode aren't going to win any stereotype-breaking awards.

Veteran Super Robot Wars fans probably already know whether or not they want to check this out, but if the idea of a slightly aged-up Gundam-esque political mech drama appeals to you, The Inspector may be worth your time. Just make sure you schedule yourself enough time to pause, Google, and read up a couple of times throughout the episode.

---

Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector

Rating:

The first five minutes of Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector has, on the surface, very little to do with the rest of the episode...at least if you're someone who hasn't watched any previous Super Robot Taisen series. Beyond that, however, the episode is mostly comprehensible to a layperson-- the only hard part is in the battle scene that takes up roughly the final third of the episode, because you don't know who's fighting for which side (unless you cheated and looked it up).

For the newbie, however, a little cheating plus The Inspector might make for an okay introduction, assuming you don't have access to earlier titles (but do have access to Wikipedia). Sure, the nipples on the female pilot seem to grow in every shot, but hey-- there's a real female pilot! And she appears to fight for the good guys! (Ahem, Gundam 00, with your effeminate-but-not-female Tieria and your psycho Nena Trinity.) As an added bonus, the female pilots shown so far are both over the age of 13. Astonishing. With a couple of exceptions that appeared in the OP or ED, the characters all could legitimately be in their late 20s to 30s, at least by anime standards.

I won't profess to being much of a mech afficionado, but both the machines and the characters in the series have strong designs...mostly. One military character looks like the goofy would-be captain from Irresponsible Captain Tylor, and another sports some pretty ridiculous shades. Also, half of the pilots wear helmets while piloting their mechs and half of them don't, although that may just be my lack of mech familiarity showing. The characters themselves seem reasonably strong without being over-the-top single-trait shells, although the aforementioned female pilots who appear in the episode aren't going to win any stereotype-breaking awards so far.

Veteran Super Robot Wars fans probably already know whether or not they want to check this out, but if the idea of a slightly aged-up Gundam-esque political mech drama appeals to you, The Inspector may be worth your time. Just make sure you schedule yourself enough time to pause, Google, and read up a couple of times throughout the episode.

Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector is available streaming at Crunchyroll

---

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Rating:

Gainax has been watching too much Adult Swim.

Watching the studio's latest TV series, Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, feels sort of like being thrown into a kaleidoscope filled with merchandise for teenage girls: too much sex, too many pinks and purples, awful music, and the stuff never stops moving. Of course, it's not a show created for teenage girls so much as for older guys-- it'd be easy to guess it's being created with the Adult Swim audience in mind.

Do you Grand Theft Auto 4's made-up anime "Princess Robot Bubblegum" and how it was a terrible pastiche of all the awful stereotypes about anime rolled up into one ball of hilarious (okay, mildly-amusing) awfulness? Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt basically that show, except that the show actually exists, and I'm not sure if Gainax is having a joke on us or not. The girls look like Power Puff Girls (e.g. young), but spend the episode banging strange men on the fly and eating cake. And pooping.

Another show the series resembles, at least superficially, is Ren & Stimpy. The episode is broken into two separate stories, complete with the much more attractive still art shot showcasing the mini-episode's titles. There's a lot of gross humor (I mentioned the poop, right?), but there's a lot more sex, and a lot less comedic timing. Or comedy, period. Ren & Stimpy knew how to take a second to stop all the sound and all the motion and let the audience react. Panty and Stocking, again, never pauses for a breath.

In a time of constantly re-hashed high school romantic comedies, one can appreciate Gainax's attempt to do something that's different, but the result feels too much like a Nickelodeon show that overdosed on Ritalin. In the first half of the episode in particular, the "camera" never ceases moving. Combine that with a constantly-barking dog (which looks remarkably like Invader Zim's Gir, speaking of Nickelodeon), loud music, overlapping dialogue, and lots of bright colors, and congratulations! You've just won sensory overload. The second half-episode is only slightly less intense.

I'm usually pretty willing to strap in and take a ride on the Gainax roller coaster, but so far the show looks less like destination: fun and more like destination: vomit. Literally.

Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is available streaming at Crunchyroll