fantasy anime: August 2008 Archives

In "Wagaya no Oinari-sama", we are introduced to Noboru and Toru Takagami as they are heading back to their ancestral home. They were told their maternal grandmother is deathly ill so the boys' destination is a town far from the city and definitely home to a hill or mountain.

But it seems the deathbed tale was only a ruse since grandma, a humorless small woman with the face of a toad, is very much in good health. They were sent to the Mizuchi family home in order to protect Toru who is being targeted by a demon who wants to eat him.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. So grandma tells the 16-year-old Noboru that because he is technically the head of the Mizuchi clan, he must free the family's guardian deity, Kugen Tenko. Kugen is a wily fox that was sealed because of pranks and misdeeds committed hundreds of years ago.

Ya see the family has never told the Takagami brothers that the Mizuchi family has the power to ward off demons and certain women in the clan become the Water Priestess.The last one was Miyako, who was the boys' mother.

While the clan's power has weakened and the boys cannot succeed to the title of Water Priestess by reason of their gender, they still carry the Mizuchi blood which demons really really like.

And Toru has more yin than his elder brother so he is often targeted by spirits and demons.

Kugen agrees to protect Toru not for the Mizuchi clan but because he is Miyako's son. Seems Kugen was fond of Miyako who called her Ku-chan like Toru. She defeats the demon who turns out to be some low-class snake spirit.

Kugen can change into a male or a female depending on her whim but retains the blonde hair, blue eyes and cute furry ears. Now that she's free, Kugen ends up being a bodyguard of sorts to the Takagami brothers. She moves in with them along with the clan's sentinel called Ko, a young lady dressed like a shrine maiden who is great at fighting spirits but horribly inept with housework. Kugen has a wolfish attitude toward food. She pigs out when offered free food.

"Wagaya no Oinari-sama" has about as much depth as a bowl of oatmeal. Episodes usually deal with spirits targeting Toru and getting beaten by Kugen. The enemies are often some poor shmuck who Toru forgives. I have yet to see the baddie get annihilated for good and I doubt if that will happen anytime soon.

This is light entertaining fare. If anime were a banquet, this show would be a canape.

Everyone has a list of their favorite anime shows. That's a given. But do you have a list of the anime you consider so pedestrian, lame or terrible you wouldn't show them to you ex ever?

Lemme share my lame list. It's not in any order by the way.

1. "Bartender" - Show about a mixologist who can ease your troubles with a drink. Each episode comes with a history or story behind the cocktail du jour. Employs fourth wall techniques. Verdict: bleah and just plain boring

2. "Boys Be" - Tales of boys at school and the way they drool, pine for and leer at girls and women. Contains fanservice which means scenes where female characters inadvertently end up showing their underwear. Verdict: sexist and dumb

3. "Diamond Daydreams" - Show about the lives and loves of several women who reside or work in the nothern part of Japan. At times seems like an ad for certain locations. The character designs are among the ugliest I have ever seen. Memo to the show's animators: Go back to art school and learn how to draw. Then smack yourself for producing what amounts to nothing more than a disguised travel brochure.

4."Haunted Junction" - Kids from different religious backgrounds attend a haunted school with well-known ghosts from Japanese popular culture. Well they focus mostly on spectres Japanese school kids yak about such as the girl who haunts toilets. Verdict: A big mess. Supposed to be funny but is excruciating to watch. Has disturbing characters like a teen-aged girl overly fond of little boys. Gag.

5. "Gregory Horror Show" - MIni episodes about a mouse the unseen protagonist encounters in a place full of "scary" characters. The segments are too short and choppy. The characters are NOT scary at all since they are drawn simply. Think of wooden blocks then imagine them with faces and stubby appendages. The premise isn't bad but the animators faltered in the execution.

6. "Oh My Goddess" OVA - The first installment in a series that should have been buried long long ago. Geek meets one of the Nordic goddesses of fate. She ends up keeping house for him and falling for this very common guy. This show is nothing more than wish fulfillment for the guy who cannot get a date and still lives in his mom's basement. This tripe is an insult to any woman who can think for herself.

7. "Onegai Teacher" or "Please Teacher" - Half-human/half-alien lands on Earth and pretends to be a teacher to gather data on humans. Circumstances force her to marry one of her students. She looks like a well-endowed woman in her mid-20s. He is actually 18 but looks 15 because he was in a coma-like state for several years. They keep their marriage a secret and eventually fall in love.

Skip this so-called romantic show. If you have the DVDs, burn them and fumigate the room where these were kept. I found the relationship between the main characters disturbing and just wrong. The creator of this show should be ashamed for producing this putrid excuse for an anime. He or she deserves a flogging.

8. "Rahxephon" - Show where giant statues ( actually just prettier looking giant robots) wreak havoc in a walled-off world. Hero is a teen with a murky past. There is also a mysterious girl and a woman who is more than what she seems. Great animation, nice CGIs and compelling storyline at first. But I found the plot too convoluted for my taste and the pace of the show can be glacial at times. I couldn't finish this out of frustration and boredom.

9. "School Rumble" - HIgh school anime about a clueless girl, the guy she likes, the bad boy who loves her and their classmates. Typical show where someone can't tell the object of their affection how they feel because of certain reasons and circumstances. (e.g. the person they love just doesn't get it). Some people like this show. I don't. I got tired of the main characters' inability to confess their love.

10. "R.O.D." the TV series - Three sisters with the unusual ability to manipulate paper. They solve cases and are called paper masters for a good reason. One can create paper animals that do her bidding while another can fashion weapons out of paper. This is the tv spinoff of the popular "Read or Die" OVA about a bookworm who is really a special agent for the British.

The television show buchers certain characters in the original movie much to its detriment. The plot is more complex and folks double cross each other out of the blue. The series also runs too long and gets bogged down by the different subplots. This is one sorry spinoff to a decent, original movie.

One of the reasons I enjoy anime is the variety. The genres range from magical girl shows to horror. And there are subgenres within those sections as well. But sometimes you have to wade through a sea of dreck to discover a gem though. Luckily for me, I found two new shows this summer that look promising. One of them keeps surprising me with each episode.

"Natsume Yuujinchou" is both a fantasy and a supernatural anime but it's not scary at all. Think "Mushi-shi" but wilth a younger protagonist and a simpler storyline.

Our hero, Takashi Natsume, is an orphan who just transferred to a new school set in a bucolic-looking town with green fields, clear blue skies, a shrine and a horde of spirits.Takashi has been able to see spirits since he was a child which made for a lonely, isolated childhood, The various relatives and people he stayed with thought he was weird and treated him accordingly.

Now he's staying with a nice couple in a town where his grandmother, Reiko, once lived. And the spirits are pestering him more than usual. In the first episode, we meet Takashi as he's being chased by a one-eyed long-haired monster that only he can see.
He makes a run for the nearest shrine for safety but trips over a rope and snaps it.

The rope is part of a barrier around a small shrine that houses a spirit in the shape of a cat charm. You've seen what this charm looks like if you've ever been to an Asian market or souvenir shop. It's a white cat with one paw raised.

Anyway, the cat charm thingy is the size of a very fat cat and speaks as well. Takashi is less than impressed since he's seen weirder things before. The cat's true form is of a shaggy white beast (looks like a dog actually) with red markings. The spirit's name is Madara but he prefers Takashi call him sensei or master. Our hero also refers to him as Nyaanko sensei (don't ask me what that means).

The teen finds out that the spirits want their names back from him and calls him by his grandmothers' name. It turns out Reiko Natsume could see spirits and also had a lonely existence. So she went around challenging spirits and taking their names after she defeated them. She kept the names in a journal called "The Book of Friends." It is this book that the spirits are after.

Takashi agrees to return the names of the spirits who come to him and promises sensei he can have the book when he's gone. Nyaanko sensei despairs that the book is getting thinner since Takashi keeps returning the names.

Having power over someone because you know their true name is a concept not restricted to Japanese folktale. Several cultures also believe in this.

The show's pace is slow, almost languid at times. But it's interesting and can be touching. Case in point episode two, which is about a local spirit who has shrunk since only one woman is left who remembers him and makes offerings. She is dying but still painfully makes her way to his small shrine to pay her respects and leave him a peach. The spirit could have left years ago but he chose to stay, knowing he would vanish once the woman dies. The reason why he stayed made me teary-eyed. Sniffle sniffle.

When Takashi returns a spirit's true name, he sees the spirit's memory of its interaction with his grandmother. He is getting to know who she was and starts to feel some empathy toward the spirits that progress and people have forgotten.

I've seen four episodes of this show and I'm always waiting eagerly for the next one. I like shows that make you think and feel.