Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei is a reminder of just how thrilling a series can be when it dares to be different. Underneath the speed talking protagonist and the eyeball LSD art-style is a current of enthusiasm that is positively infectious; it toys with narrative, characters, aesthetics and music in such a playful and endearing way that before long it doesn't matter if the series fits together all the pieces, the energy and cast are enough to carry it through. That it does tie together all the story threads in a way that is achingly brilliant is just another reason to fall completely and utterly in love. Unpretentious, endlessly enjoyable and supremely satisfying, this is a series whose execution and limitless creativity is only the tip of something sublime.
there are precise clockwork mechanisms working beneath the surface [...] and the fun comes from piecing together what they are operating
It doesn't seem to matter which university club the protagonist chooses, events never end up how he wants them to. Tennis, cycling, foreign languages, film - all conclude with him unhappy and burdened with the desire to turn back the clock to relive his two years and obtain his rose-coloured campus life. His misadventures are accompanied by a panoply of roguish characters: the devious and incomparably snide Ozu, the belligerent and mottephobic Akashi, the plunging chin of the easygoing Higuchi or the dentistry student Hanuki - prone to giving gum massages when inebriated. The protagonist is convinced his discontent stems from a wayward decision, the question is will he ever make the right choice in order to be happy?
Watching Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei is like watching a very complex engine; there's the constant thrum as it operates - provided here by Shintaro Asanuma's staccato voice - the complex mechanisms all operating together in order to drive... something. In the first three episodes the series doesn't reveal what it is attempting to convey or even how it intends to fill the remainder of its eleven episode run, there is only the core situation, continuously augmented, with the nameless protagonist at the centre. Bolstering this Groundhog Day-esque scenario is an impossibly trendy production from Madhouse that sports a gung-ho, raucous animation style and an opening backed by Asian Kung-fu Generation. There is an infectious, breathless enthusiasm to the opening episodes but whether this will be maintained and the final twist worthwhile, will make or break the series.
Sly nods to popular culture reinforce its underlying attacks on community, creativity and personal fulfilment
The opening days of a university education are filled with promise, especially the decision on which club to join to best spend time in between lectures. The protagonist opts first for the tennis club but discovers too late the skills required to make friends and, crucially, woo partners of the opposite sex. Instead he throws his lot in with Ozu, a snide and vindictive young man with a face only a mother could love and a penchant for causing brainless mischief wherever he goes. Complicating this mix is Akashi, a cantankerous and forthright girl who seems to take a special interest in the protagonist, much to his delight. When his tennis club adventures end with him being thrown into a raging river, time reverses and he is given another chance at a club, this time choosing the film club. Events end badly once again, as too does the cycling circle; it seems that the protagonist is tied to Ozu with the "black thread of fate", or perhaps the local deity or suspect fortune teller have something to do with his continuing mishaps.
