heeeeey pimping

[cerusee]

octopedingue requested something better than "omg it's soooooo good u shoulod watch it!" for commentary on some shows I was pimping, and I am a world-class pimp, so I obliged. However, that entry is friends-locked, and if I want people to lavish me with attention, it helps if they can see me. So, for your viewing pleasure, here are brief, non-spoilery reviews of AIR, St. Luminous Mission High School, and Futakoi Alternative:

AIR:

AIR is the delight of my heart. It cut me to the bone in way nothing had since I watched Haibane Renmei (unless I'd watched Planetes since then? I forget. And Mai-HiME and Full Metal Alchemist...never mind. Shut up.) It's fairly clean H-game adaptation; the basic plot is that a traveler named Yukito passes through a small town and meets six different women and girls, discovers their tragic secrets, and helps them confront their issues, etc. (Set-up brought to you courtesy of male otaku sex fantasies.)

Reasons to watch: the girls are interesting and sympathetic people, none more so than the protagonist, Misuzu; watching her relationship with Yukito unfold mesmerized me. I'd rather not go into detail about what makes Misuzu so fascinating to me, because it'd spoil you for things you should really learn by watching; suffice it to say, she has a kind of particular tragedy that made me feel fifteen and helpless again. If I could have made any change, it probably would have been to drop the storylines of the other girls, so the show could focus more on Misuzu, but that's by no means a universal opinion.

The character designs feature ungodly large eyes, but otherwise, the art and animation are absolutely breathtaking, the most beautiful I've ever seen in anime. The series is 12 episodes, and there's also a movie, which is a retelling of the series, rather than a follow-up, and a special that expands on one of the other characters. It's worth watching them all, just to compare how certain relationships are handled in each.

STUDY GUIDE KEYWORDS: wings, mothers


St. Luminous Mission High School:

I picked this one up because it was short, the files were small, and the synopsis sounded pleasantly creepy: a young fellow named Kaihei is appointed by his grandfather as chairman of an all-girl's school where girls just happen to be mysteriously disappearing. He takes on the position, with some reluctance, and brings along a male age-mate who cross-dresses as a girl in order to attend the school (I forget why. I think it was for the usual lecherous reasons, but the show does not play that up, and the fellow ends up quite likable), and spends the rest of the show trying to figure out how and why the girls are disappearing.

The thing that really caught my eye, early on, was a shower scene that completely bypassed the chance for fanservice--it was discreet, thematically relevant, and contributed to the plot. The whole show is like that--instead of playing lone-boy-running-a-girl's-school for sex jokes, it treats the characters seriously and sympathetically.

The plot is confusing--I have only a vague memory of how it ends--but I do remember ending it with a sense of satisfaction. The art is subdued, washed out, even (whether that owes more to a low production budget than to the show's ongoing water theme is anybody's guess), and the animation is nothing special, but the files are nice and tiny, which is some consolation to the hard-drive, at least.

STUDY GUIDE KEYWORDS: water, escape


Futakoi Alternative:

It's probably relevant to know that Futakoi Alternative is a sequel, of sorts, to a reputedly way-lame harem show called Futakoi. Futakoi's special contribution to the harem show was in having several sets of twins instead of the usual five or six girls. Nobody who's seen it has ever recommended it, and the connection to the sequel show is essentially all in cameos, so I passed. I mention this only because it sets Futakoi Alternative in proximity to the harem show, and suggests that Futakoi Alternative might be, in some sense, a comment on that.

It's about a 20-something detective named Rentarou and his faithful assistants, the 16-year-old, identical twin sisters Sara and Soujyu. If it sounds sketchy, it is: there is clearly affection going in all directions, and the greater part of the show is dedicated to exploring their relationships with each other as the girls approach a critical turning point in their lives. There is a secondary plot dealing with Rentarou's relationship with his deceased father.

There is also a giant, fire-breathing squid, costumed crime-fighters who take out yakuza bums with the "gothi-loli kick!", one memorable sequence in which Sara beats up a criminal while stark naked, and another in which Soujyu and Rentarou run a shopping cart off of a roof just for funsies. The episodes alternate between Excel Saga-paced, random hilarity, and slow, sweet deliberation. I was never able to figure out which I liked better.

Ultimately, it's a love story.

STUDY GUIDE KEYWORDS: love, squid