Knights of Sidonia

Sidonia no Kishi, or Knights of Sidonia, is a space opera.  It occurs in the far future and follows the inhabitants of a massive space ship, who are all that’s left of humanity after an alien race called the Gauna destroyed earth.   The ship is called Sidonia, and its inhabitants are essentially fleeing and fighting the Gauna as they go, with no real destination, just a drive to survive.   From the outside the ship looks like a long box embedded in a misshapen lump of clay. 

Sidonia is led by woman commander, Captain Kobayashi, and a Council of Immortals who exist in containers.  Kobayashi is also immortal.  They have led the ship through a long series of wars and were nearly destroyed during the last, Fourth Defensive War.  Having lost most of the population at that time, as well as most of the food supplies, humans took to cloning to restore the population.  The remaining fighters after that War became immortal, started cloning, and developed the ability to photosynthesize in people.  Thus the current humans need very little food, being able to live as long as they have sunlight to photosynthesize. 

At the time of the story, the inhabitants of the ship have been free of Gauna interference for most of the lives of the current generation and now they are coming under attack again and fighters who have only trained must learn to fight for real.   

The main character in the series is a boy names Tanikaze Nagate.  He has been hidden deep in Sidonia and raised by his “grandfather” who taught him to fight the Gauna from the time he could walk.  He comes to the surface and is found by the rest of Sidonia about the time they have to begin fighting the Gauna again, and Nagate is really good at it thanks to his training.  He is also the only human who cannot photosynthesize and must eat to survive. 

Later in the series it comes out that Nagate is the clone of Sidonia’s greatest fighter, who didn’t want to be cloned  and so stole Nagate as a baby and disappeared with him to raise him as a fighter.   Kobayashi and the other immortals know who Nagate is and send him out repeatedly to face the Gauna, and not just because he’s so good at it.  It turns out the Nagate himself is immortal, and he continues to get fatally wounded in battle and to survive it. 

The other main characters in the series are mostly the fighters Nagate’s age.  These include Shinatose Izana, Hoshijiro Shizuka, Midorikawa Yuhata and Kunato Norio.  Yuhata has an amazing skill for battle tactics and although she wishes to become a pilot, she is promoted to commander and develops and leads the battle strategies.   Izana and Shizuka are both pilots who have feelings for Nagate.  Izana is also a hermaphrodite and Nagate’s best friend, as well as having feelings for him and being jealous of Shizuka.  

Shizuka and Nagate like each other.  He rescues her in one battle and then in the next battle Shizuka is killed by the Gauna in a battle, and then Gauna in her shape appear as the Gauna use her DNA to create them.  One Gauna form of Shizuka is taken back to Sidonia by Nagate to be studied, and it seems to remember and respond to him.

Kunato is heir to one of Sidonia’s heavy industries and a pilot who thinks he’s better than he is.  He’s so jealous of Nagate’s abilities that he sabotages a mission he’s leading in order to destroy Nagate, and directly causes Shizuka’s death.  Nagate is the only one who knows this but doesn’t tell anyone, preferring to fight Gauna rather than his fellow pilots.  Kunato cracks when Shizuka’s Guana forms appear and spends the rest of the series hiding in his home.

This series is awesome.  It’s one of those series that I hate was so short – 11 episodes – but the good news is that there will probably be another season.  There is so much they can do with this series it would be a shame to end it here.

I liked pretty much everything about this series.  The animation style took me an episode to begin liking, but I like it a lot now.  The Opening theme song is awesome, and even though the plot is not unique, the characters and situations make it really watchable.  And best of all, although this is a mecha series, the mecha is almost beside the point.  They have fast-paced battles using the mecha, but other than that they spend almost no time focusing on it, which is one of the reasons this series is so watchable.  I’m delighted that they will have another season.  

Scryed

I’m struggling to decide what to post about today.  I’m watching some great new series, but almost never post about a series until it’s done.  That’s because the ending often makes or breaks the series, from my perspective.

Maybe I’ll go with Scryed, or s-Cry-ed if you prefer.  This story takes place in the future when some sort of geological disaster (the Great Uprising) has fractured an area of the earth near Tokyo.  That area is now known as the Lost Ground.  After the Great Uprising, people began being born with the ability to deconstruct and reshape material with only their mental power.  These people became known as “Alters”.  There are two groups of Alters in this series.  One is the Native Alters who go their own way using their power for their own purposes, and who all live in the Lost Ground.  The other group of Alters makes up the members of HOLY, a special task force of HOLD, the government police force.

The story centers around two Alters, a Native Alter named Kazuma and a HOLY Alter named Ryuhou.  These two meet early on, detest each other on sight and spend a good portion of the series trying to annihilate each other.

The story plot starts out with HOLY and HOLD capturing any native Alters they run across and sending them to the mainland for their own good and to get them out of the way.  Along the way it’s determined that the native alters who are being captured are being “refined” by the mainland and used as the puppets of the government.    During story background it’s also discovered that the Great Uprising was caused by a similar phenomenon in an alternate universe in which everyone is an Alter.  Both Kazuma and Ryuhou seem to be able to access this alternate universe when they use their powers fully.  In one of their many battles Kazuma and Ryuhou break through to the alternate universe and cause another geological uprising to occur.  The government becomes aware of the alternate universe and decides to use its power for themselves, using their ‘refined’ Alters. 

Specifically, one particularly nasty government guy and Alter himself, Mujo Kyuoji, decides he wants to be most powerful, supreme overlord of the universe and kidnaps Kazuma’s Alter friend Kanami to help him achieve that end.  Kazuma and Ryuhou work together to defeat him and free Kanami, all the time despising each other.

This series has a good-sized cast of characters.  Many of these are HOLY Alter users whose various skills are showcased, but then who are killed off along the way. Both Ryuhou’s closest friend among the HOLY Alters, Scheris, and Kazuma’s closest friend, Kimishima, are also killed.  Several other characters are pivotal to the plot besides Kazuma, Ryuhou and Kanami.  These include Mimori, a non-Alter childhood friend of Ryuhou’s, and Tachibana, a HOLY Alter who begins helping Mimori and the native Alters.  These five actually survive the series so that’s something.

I liked the basic story and the concept of this anime series, but I really hate the whole, testosterone-filled, I-must-be-the-strongest-and-defeat-you mentality.  Even after they worked together and even though they have friends in common, Ryuhou and Kazuma cannot stop trying to kill each other.  In fact the series ends with them fighting and Kanami and Mimori waiting for them to come back.  If not for that, and the fairly high death toll, I would have liked this series much better.         

Tokyo Ravens

Tokyo Ravens is an anime series that was adapted from a manga which was adapted from a light novel series.  The series is about magic users, in particular two cousins, Harutora and Natsume, from a powerful onmyouji clan, the Tsuchimikado.  Natsume is the next heir in line to be clan head and is a powerful magic user with the ability to call and use a magic dragon.  She’s socially awkward and doesn’t make friends easily and through a weird clan tradition, is required to present herself as a male (you find out why later).  Haratoru starts out the series basically magic-less.  He's been raised by a side branch of the family, but he's out-going and has lots of friends.   Harutora and Natsume have known each other since they were very young.

At the start of the series, Natsume comes home for a visit from her magic (onmyouji) school, and she and Harutora and his friends foil a plot to use forbidden magic.  One of Harutora’s friends dies in the process and so he asks Natsume to make him her shikigami (magic servant), and allow him to serve and protect her.  Natsume has been hoping for this ever since Harutora told her when they were children that he would protect her.  Since Natsume needs the protection and since becoming her servant will allow Harutora access to magic, Natsume makes him her shikigami.  Natsume, Harutora and friends return to the onmyouji school in Tokyo.

The politics in this series are basically like this:  The onmyouji school where the kids are training is a power unto itself and does it’s best to protect the various kids.  Trying to grab Natsume (and the reason she needs a protector) are the members of the Twin Horn Syndicate, a group who is waiting for the re-incarnation of Tsuchimikado Yakou (an extraordinarily powerful onmyouji from the past).  The Tsuchimikado heir is said to be that reincarnation, so they want Natsume.  The Onmyouji Agency, a large force intended to police magic use and fight evil magic users (including 12 magically powerful “divine generals”), is ostensibly helping to protect Natsume, but really want her for the same reasons the Twin Horn Syndicate does.  Powerful onmyouji’s from the Souma and Kurahashi families who are working with or within the Onmyouji Agency also want to get hold of Yakou’s reincarnation.  So Natsume and Harutora-tachi are up against nearly everyone who’s not within their circle of friends, as well as a few who are.

The story here is fairly predictable.  Harutoru levels up time and again when he needs to, and in the end it turns out that Harutora is the re-incarnated heir to the clan rather than Natsume.  His clan sealed his powers and hid him from the people trying to take control of his re-incarnated self, putting Natsume out there as a decoy and requiring her to pretend to be a male to make the deception hold.  Late in the series, in the process of Harutora discovering all this and in the battles ensuing between the various groups, Natsume is killed.  Harutora, who loves her and is remembering his past life as Yakou, then uses forbidden magic that was perfected by Yakou to bring her back to life.  He and his own magical servants then take off.    

So although the main characters essentially all survive the series, at the end they are spread out and recovering, with Harutora on the run due to use of forbidden magic and all the various people after him for his power. 


I’m not sure why I watched this one all the way through other than it was interesting enough to keep me watching.  The animation style is good and the music is decent.  Parts of it are pretty derivative though, so you won’t find anything unique here, plot-wise.  It’s watchable though, and some of the characters are quite interesting.  Plus there’s no major character death, so I give it marks for that.  All in all, pretty decent.   

Angel Beats!

Angel Beats! is a short (13 episode) series with a really interesting plot concept.  A teen-age boy named Otonashi Yuzuru dies, and finds himself in high school.  The afterlife he finds himself in is a high school populated with other teenagers.   Otonashi is approached by a girl named Yuri who invites him to join her group of students who are fighting against God.   As she tells it, if you just accept this high school life and stay out of trouble, you eventually disappear.  Yuri and her gang don’t wish to disappear.  They want to know what’s going on, and why they died, and are just basically rebelling against God because they died with unresolved issues.  Otonashi has no memories of his life or how and why he died, so he joins Yuri’s group.

The person Yuri’s group battles the most in the beginning is the student body president, a girl called Tenshi (angel) who has supernatural powers, and whose job it is to keep the peace and keep the students like Yuri’s group in line.   Yuri-tachi attempt to find ways to best her and run various missions, using a girl-band made up of their members as a distraction during their missions.  Tenshi fights against them and always manages to foil their missions. 

This series has several surprise points to it – points where the series turned my thoughts around, switched bad guys and good guys, just basically did the unexpected.  One of the first was that I thought they were killing off cast members awfully early on, only to find that the students don’t die for good.  Members of Yuri’s group who are ‘killed’ in action, return later with no injuries.  Which I suppose makes sense since they’re technically dead anyway.  The only escape from the high school seems to be to behave and disappear.


Another surprise was the bottom line plot, which is this:  The afterlife high school is where kids go who can’t accept their death or are struggling with unfinished business from their life.  Once they come to accept things, they move on and disappear.  Tenshi isn’t a bad person, but is actually a girl named Kanade who is trying to help the students resolve their issues and move on, and has an unresolved issue of her own.  So about midway in the series , members of Yuri’s group begin resolving their lingering issues and disappearing – which is almost as jolting as the earlier episodes where they were getting killed in the battles.

Along the way Otonashi befriends Kanade when she loses her position to the student body vice president and even invites her to join Yuri’s group.  Eventually he remembers his life and death and begins working with Kanade to help the others resolve their issues and move on.   At the end he discovers Kanade’s issue was being unable to thank him for the heart she gained as a transplant from him when he died.  So in the end everyone happily passes on without too much regret, although Otonashi and Kanade probably love each other.

I had really mixed feelings about this series because it essentially ends with everyone dying.  Although I’m not sure I can actually say that since it starts with everyone already dead.  The premise and plot twists were definitely quirky enough to keep me interested, and the music is beyond gorgeous.  I’ve always been partial to piano music.  I’m glad I watched it, despite the ending.     

New Series - April 2014

I know, I know.  We’re already 6 - 7 weeks into the new season.  I’ve been sorting them out.  A lot of series start in April every year and I’m always excited to try the new ones, always on the lookout for the next great series.  So these are my current picks of the new season. 

Mekaku City Actors – This one is hands down my favorite so far.  It’s bright, colorful, and pretty much all the way through the first two episodes, totally incomprehensible.  I was intrigued trying to figure out what in the world the series was about.   Then in episode 3 they tie it all together so seamlessly, it’s jaw-dropping awesome, and everything sorts itself out perfectly.   Sou ka!  It’s about a group of kids with super powers!    Okay, that one sentence totally sells this series short.  The series has the potential to be an awesome series about a group of kids with super powers.   Plus it's just fun to watch.  I look forward to each new episode.

Mushishi 2 – I really liked the first season of Mushishi and this is simply a continuation of that.  If you haven't watched the first season, briefly, mushi are supernatural creatures who interact with humans and sometimes cause harm.  Ginko is a mushishi, a traveler who knows about and deals with mushi when they become troublesome.  This season seems like it may be a little darker than the first season was, with the mushi being more threatening, but  I’ll have to wait and see if that holds true.  I’m also hoping for a little more plot than just the individual cases of Ginko dealing with mushi, but I’ll be happy without the extra plot.  It would just be nice if it were there. 

Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushi – This is a feel-good series.   It’s  about an outgoing princess from a tiny country who happens to be able to control the weather, and who is stuck marrying the king of a large, Sun country.  This king turns out to be a small, arrogant, bratty kid several years younger than she is.  So far there’s all sorts of political intrigue as well as the mismatched personalities of the two main characters.  All in all though, it’s entertaining to watch, and it really is a feel-good series.   Both main characters are smart, brave and on top of things.  It’s also got some nice music and good animation style, so I’ll continue watching it for awhile.     

Sidonia no Kishi, or Knights of Sidonia – This is a mecha series.  I’m not sure exactly what attracts me to this series and keeps me coming back to watch it.   I do like the animation style and the music.  And certain elements of the plot are fairly unique, like: the main character is the only human who can’t photosynthesize – humans having developed the ability when most of their food supplies were destroyed by the race that destroyed the earth and that they’re fleeing from.   Other than those few unique details though, it looks like it’s going to be predictable: oddball main character flies older form mecha and is better at it than everyone in their new mechas, as everyone fights in a hopeless space war against vastly superior forces.    I’m not totally sure why, but I’ll keep watching it for awhile.  

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei – This series has so much potential and at the same time is so annoying that I’m torn between continuing to watch it or not.   It’s about kids who can use magic attending a high school where there is a sharp dichotomy between really talented, strong magic-users (flowers) and those who can barely manage to use magic at all (weeds).  The focus of the story is a brother-sister pair, both in the same year in school, the sister a flower and the brother a weed.   That’s fine as far as it goes, but the brother-sister thing is annoying.  The two act like lovers and frequently embarrass everyone around them.  In addition, and really more annoying, the sister becomes insanely jealous if the brother even looks at another girl, and that gets old really fast.  The only reason I’m still watching is that they have thrown in some interesting twists.  We’ll have to see if the interest factor is enough to keep me watching despite the annoyance factor.

So those are some of the series I’m currently watching.  I hope for good things from several of them and will probably post on them individually when they’re over.  

Wizard Barristers Benmashi Cecil

Wizard Barristers is a bright and colorful, yet highly weird, short series.  The story occurs in a reality where magic is common, but people who use magic are considered second-class citizens and are tightly controlled.   They cannot hold public office, and crimes committed with magic are dealt with severely, especially if a life is lost when magic is used.  Thus crimes committed by magic-users are tried in a special magic court.  Defendants hire wizard barristers, lawyers who themselves use magic, to help defend them.

The series follows the story of a very young wizard barrister named Sudou Cecil.  Cecil finished her lawyer training at 17, making her the youngest wizard barrister.  As the story starts she’s going to report for her first day of work at her new place of employment, Butterfly Law Office, which specializes in defending magic users accused of crimes.  Cecil actually fits right in with this group, as the members of Butterfly Law Office look and act so far left of center that they tip the universe.  This group could be used as the definition of a “motley” crew. 

The series begins by following Cecil’s involvement with various cases, but quickly brings in the back story, which is that Cecil became a lawyer because her mother is on death row.  She has been accused and tried for using magic to kill a person.  At her trial she was found guilty and condemned to die.  

The plot of the story is actually good, keeping you guessing about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, and making you wonder what actually did happen with Cecil’s mother.  It’s intriguing enough to keep me watching, even through the annoying things.  And the biggest annoyances are the magic-users "familiars".  Cecil’s familiar is a lecherous frog creature, and the rest aren’t much better.  I’m not sure why the creators of this series felt it necessary to include these familiars because they don’t add to the story.  They have no obvious role and no point in the story other than to be annoying and detract from the series overall.  Can you tell I didn’t like them?

At any rate, the fascinating plot line comes down to this:  Cecil was killed when she was 6 years old and her father essentially made a deal with the dark forces to bring her back to life.  When all this happened, her mother tried to protect her and ended up getting pinned with a murder she didn’t commit when these “dark forces” needed to get rid of someone.  The “dark forces” encompass a group of magic-users who hate normal, non-magic users.  They plan to call Satan from Hell to make themselves vastly powerful and to destroy normal humans.  To perform this calling ritual, they need a powerful sacrifice, and they plan to make the re-animated Cecil that sacrifice.   So they drive her to gain more magical powers herself, becoming a better sacrifice for their ritual. 

At times in the series it’s difficult to tell who’s on whose side, with one of the cops turning out to be a bad guy and another law office who appeared bad at first, actually trying to protect Cecil.  In the end, Cecil and the good guys prevail and at the end of the series Cecil’s mother is going to get a re-trial.  A quirky addition to the overall plot is that Satan had already arrived long before the ritual . . . and joined the Butterfly Law Office as a clerk where he/she can watch over Cecil, who fascinates her.    

 So overall this was a quirky series that was mostly fun to watch and that kept me interested and entertained.  Without the familiars I would have liked it even better.    

Noragami

Noragami is a series adapted from a manga, and it’s about a god called Yato Gami, or simply Yato.  Yato is not your stereotypical god, wearing traditional Japanese robes, living in a shrine and surrounded by shrine maidens.  Yato is a poor god, wearing sweats and a ratty scarf, living on the streets and spray painting his cell phone number everywhere advertising that he does odd jobs for a living.  In fact, give him 5 yen and he’ll take on any job – from slaying demons to cleaning your bathroom.

At the start of this series Yato has taken on an odd job and he's searching for a lost cat.  In pursuing the cat, he steps in front of a bus.  He is pushed out of the way by a high school girl named Iki Hiyori, who is hit by the bus instead and should have died.  Her soul leaves her body, but when Yato makes her notice her body lying in the street, she returns to her body and lives.  Since Yato’s life was never in danger, he goes to the hospital to check on how Hiyori is doing, and the two begin to interact routinely. 

Due to the bus accident and essentially dying, Hiyori now has the ability for her soul to leave her body, at which point her body falls asleep.  She has a tendency to do this without intending to, leaving her body sleeping in various places, which her friends then have to deal with.  Her soul form looks just like her regular self except as a soul she has a fuzzy tail, which is essentially her lifeline to her body.   Hiyori blames Yato for this and demands that he fix her so she stops leaving her body.  She pays him 5 yen and he accepts the task.

Around the time he meets Hiyori, Yato is weaponless.  Gods take and name wandering spirits, who then become their “regalia” or shinki, and can then be used as weapons by the god.  Yato has just released his previous regalia due to personality conflicts with her, so he’s without any regalia.   Because he needs a weapon to fulfill some of his requests and to protect Hiyori and fulfill her request, he and Hiyori search for a new spirit which he can take on as a shinki.  Yato eventually settles on the spirit of a teen-age boy who he names Yukine in boy form.  When Yukine takes on weapon form he is called Sekki, and his form is a katana.    

This series is basically split into three arcs.  The first one introduces all this background and the characters and sets up their interactions with each other.  The second arc is Yato and Yukine coming to terms.  Yukine resents being dead and takes to lying and stealing, not knowing that whenever he does something bad, Yato’s life force takes a hit, becoming more and more defiled.  Eventually Hiyori rounds up Yato’s friends and acquaintances, who Hiyori has met, to perform an intervention on Yukine.  This ritual will either bring Yukine back to the good side and save Yato’s life, or to destroy Yukine in the demon form he’s become and hopefully save Yato’s life that way.

The third arc is related to Yato’s past.  Apparently Yato was once a God of Calamity, killing and maiming and just generally wreaking destruction as he went.  Another god of calamity named Rabou, who was at one time Yato’s friend, tracks him down and wants to fight him as Yato once was, a powerful god of calamity.  (yes, the old testosterone-filled ploy of ‘I-must-fight-the-strongest-to-prove-I’m-the-best’).  Because Yato won’t play, Rabou and Rabou’s shinki Nora (who was at one time Yato’s shinki) go after Hiyori, taking away her memories of Yato and Yukine and eventually taking her life.  Yato and Yukine of course ride to the rescue, but satisfyingly, Hiyori herself is as much a part of the rescue as the one being rescued.  It takes all three of them to beat their opponents.

This is as usual the bare bones of the series without introducing any of the secondary characters or smaller plot lines.  It was actually a fun series to watch, with good music and a good animation style.  I could have wished to know more about Yato – like why he went from a god of calamity to a good guy, saving teen-age boy spirits and granting wishes for 5 yen, but overall the series was well worth watching.