Once upon a time there was a girl who had lost her father. Her sister and mother were very upset, but this little girl didn't cry, she refused to believe her father had died. This little girl was Rikka, and she wielded the Wicked Eye: able to summon tremendous dark power; and though she had many minions, her greatest ally was the mysterious Dark Flame Master.
But the Dark Flame Master's powers waned with age and it was up to her Wicked Eye and her devoted minion, Dekomori, to try and save their once great ally and discover the Ethereal Horizon where Rikka's father now resided. There were pretenders, trials and tribulations along the way, and at one point the Wicked Eye lost its vigour all together, but eventually, she prevailed and built a great dark kingdom with her allies.
“A four episode taste test? And for a last season series? I haven't been this disappointed in you since that lazy two episode taste test for Katanagatari! UNFOLLOWED.” It breaks the mould yes but not without some cajoling. In reality though this is a traditional three episode taste test because the first episode is diametrically different, to the point that it feels like its from a different series, to the subsequent three.
a fearless exploration of what it's like to be just ordinary when surrounded by brilliance
Raucous, racy and disappointingly trashy, the first episode of Sakurasou no Pet no Kanojo (The Pet Girl of Sakura Dormitory) will likely affirm any preconceived ideas you had about a series about an autistic girl and the word “pet” in the title. You'd nod sagely and stroke your beard, perhaps letting out a disparaging “Oh Japan”. But then the next episode is surprisingly affecting. It's still got a perpetual do-gooder as a protagonist (“He rescues cats! Awww”) but behind the shiny pastel coating is a rare and deft touch.
Eureka Seven AO was never going to be as good as its progenitor, Eureka Seven. Very little since has been as unyieldingly brilliant as that 2005 masterpiece and few could hope to match its expansive, multifarious characters and story. That AO makes a good stab is, paradoxically, to be commended as well as lamented.
The story of Ao, a pariah on his own home island, joining up with a clandestine organisation to pilot a giant robot and battle similarly sized enemies is not new. The details of course are different and the background of political turmoil between Okinawa and Japan rumbles on while trapar - the nebulous green energy which allowed E7's robots to surf - is now mined as an energy source. For anyone with any familiarity with the original series then it's all a bit discombobulating; is this a prequel, sequel or alternate universe? Is it just another telling of the same story like the tonally wonky Pocket Full of Rainbows movie was?
The final day of Scotland Loves Anime touched on the entire spectrum of releases with the early 90's classic Ninja Scroll – remastered in high definition but with the original Manga Entertainment English dub – a look into the junior animators of today with the Anime Mirai collection of short films and an already established master at work with Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki (which I mistakenly referred to as the European premiere, the honour of which goes to the BFI screening last week).
Beginning deep into the afternoon with Ninja Scroll, the introduction by Jonathan Clements covered the film's context, namely as an homage to the ninja novels of Futaro Yamada which were written in the 50's and 60's when any mention of samurai or imperialism in a post-war Japan was forbidden, hence ninja. Madhouse decided that the novels relied too heavily and prior knowledge of Japanese lore and set out to create a film that invoked but wasn't at the behest of history. This was Ninja Scroll, somewhat ironically popular almost everywhere except Japan.
It's fitting that in his introduction at the world premiere of Nerawareta Gakuen (literally: School In Peril, official: Psychic School Wars), Jonathan Clements mentioned that whenever The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is remade, so too is Nerawareta Gakuen. It's easy to see why: it has the same overall genre of a campus love comedy with strands of science fiction bubbling beneath it that makes the stories so endearing. Here though the time travel is a little woolier, the story a little more meandering and the visuals a whole lot more colourful.
skirts and stained glass windows, sunsets and sad songs
Were you to take the skies of a Makoto Shinkai work and push them through a high-powered kaleidoscope, you would be some of the way towards imagining how colourful and visually arresting the entire production is. This is not to say it is universally beautiful, although there is sublime artistry in every scene, but the lack of restraint is at times wearisome, dulling the eyes. What could be better than a classroom bathed in the evening sun? One with stained glass windows! And bubbles! All lovingly rendered and fully animated.
