Favorite TV Series in 2009

Finally got some time to travel around. Consequently this sedate blog will once again freeze for indefinite time once again. Last time it hibernated for 3 years. Just so that the two or three persons who check to see if I update have something to do, I'm posting the Japanese animations from 2009 I relished.

Years ago, a guy asked a female friend of mine, Jessica, if I was seeing anyone. She confidently told him that I was straight. After telling me about it, I haven't questioned my masculinity ever since. However, when it comes to romance in anime and manga, I prefer stories directed to women. Male-oriented anime of this genre tends to be drenched in "fanservice". From Wikipedia: Fanservice explicitly refers to material that is designed to amuse or excite the audience with sexually-derived content. The tendency of sacrifing plot for the sake of gratuitous content drove me away from romance for men. In contrast, love stories directed towards women usually are more realistic, metaphorical, subtle, and introspective. Thinking about it, maybe existentialism made me gay.

Aoi Hana (Sweet Blue Flowers) is an eleven episode TV series directed by Kenichi Kasai and produced by J.C. Staff. Together, Kasai and J.C. Staff can be linked to extremely popular animated TV romances like Honey and Clover, Kare Kano, and Nodame Cantabille.

Plot summary from ANN: Fumi Manjoume, an introverted, bookish teenage girl, is beginning her first year of high school at Matsuoka Girls' High School. She enters the school year with her heart broken by a previous relationship. At about the same time, she reconnects with her best friend from ten years ago, Akira Okudaira, who is now attending Fujigatani Girls' Academy as a first-year high school student. As they reconnect, they both deal with their own respective romantic problems, and help each other get through them.

Both friends attend girls only school, meaning that the affairs occur between girls. Lesbianism is usually used just as bait to attract the audience due to curiousness, but in this case it is done with lots of finesse. The focus isn't on the fact that there are homosexual relationships. This is just the story of people falling in love.

Exceptionally elegant, Aoi Hana has a very gentle pacing. Beautiful water-colorish backgrounds and impressively discreet and clever use of CG. Definitely a good pick if you enjoyed Emma: A Victorian Romance. Although the manga proceeds the story, the TV show gracefully concludes itself.

I'm uncertain if Jessica would assuredly confirm my virility today or if existentialism actually distorted my tastes toward a girlish spectrum, but I'm sure that Aoi Hana will delight anyone seeking for serious romantic drama independent of sexual preferences.


Two other great titles from 2009 that are still being aired are Cross Game and Kimi ni Todoke.

Cross Game is a baseball TV series adapted from the manga of a famous Japanese author called Mitsuru Adachi. He is probably best known for being the author of the manga タッチ (Touch). A recent poll in Japan asked the question: "What manga made you cry?" and Touch attained 3rd place. The 1985 TV series, which I previously made a post about, retains the 7th highest average TV viewership of an animation in the country.

His new show tells the story of Koh Kitamura and Aoba Tsukishima. The death of young Wakaba, Aoba's sister and very close friend of Koh, devastates both. Besides memories, Wakaba leaves the dream of seeing Koh pitching at the legendary Koshien Stadium, site of the national high school championship finals. What is really interesting in this show is that it's not just the campaign of the team as it tries to reach the finals, it's the personal struggle of Aoba, a girl in the boys' realm of baseball. Prodigious at the sport, she can't participate in official games as she begins high school due to national tournament regulations.

The visuals and animation may be very simple, but what impressed me the most in this series is the concern of continually starting and concluding smaller stories within the plot while keeping a continuous narrative. It may sound simple and commonplace, but it's remarkable how natural this particular story flows and how rewarding most episodes are.

While I've seen 30 episodes of Cross Game, I only watched 3 episodes of Kimi ni Todoke. Regardless, it is a safe bet that this show will be one of the best of this year. Like Aoi Hana, this is also an adaptation of a manga directed to the female crowd. The protagonist is straight though. Her name is Kuronuma Sawako. She is nicknamed Sadako due to her resemblance to the girl from the Japanese horror movies The Ring. Shunned by her classmates, her life starts to change as she befriends Shouta Kazehaya, a very popular boy in her class.

Nothing revolutionary plot-wise. It's a romantic drama about teenagers who act as teenagers. Maybe it's the abundance of male oriented anime that makes KnT so refreshing. From what I saw until now, I can safely say that it is as good as Kare Kano and Bokura ga Ita. Besides having a great cast of characters, I must point out the charming colorful visuals. The studio behind this title is the prestigious Production I.G which is probably best known for the Ghost in the Shell movie, the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series, and the animated part in the Kill Bill movie. I'll end this enormous post with the opening just so you can understand what I'm talking about.

Tokyo Marble Chocolate Logo

Gorgeous logo of the 2007 OVA Tokyo Marble Chocolate. Extremely clever way of using the kanjis and katakanas which normally look like this: 東京マーブルチョコレート. Even horizontally it's still very charming and still very easy to read. The image above comes directly from the video where it continually floats over the rolling background of the cityscape. Below, beautifully applied to the drawing.

Aim for the Ace (1973)

When I started to watch Ace wo Nerae! I was intrigued by the color of the balls. A little research led me to the International Tennis Federation webpage.

From the link: Historically, balls were either black or white in colour, depending on the background colour of the courts. In 1972 the ITF introduced yellow tennis balls into the rules of tennis, as research had shown these balls to be more visible to television viewers. Meanwhile Wimbledon continued to use the traditional white ball, but eventually adopted yellow balls in 1986.

Angel Cop: Brand Advertisement

A long time ago, way back in the 90's, I recall my dear friend Daniel telling me that he had seen a Japanese animation called Angel Cop. Never had heard of it before. I don't know if he was being polite to the owner of the VHS fansub, but his impression was sort of positive. Daniel, WTF? When you're young, many times you enjoy bad stuff for lack of reference. He still hadn't begun his love for trash media while being brainwashed by hours of the most ridiculous infomercials selling stupid Ginsu knives, Vivarina pantyhoses, etc. Fucking Tony Little. Anyway, I also hadn't seen much anime, but I already thought that stuff like Genocyber and M.D.Geist were extremely lame and stupid.

I recently watched Angel Cop for the first time. My impression was that someone was trying to rip-off Ghost in the Shell in the most imbecilic possible way. For an entertaining review, checkout episode 57 of the AWO podcast. Daryl Surat suggested watching it with subtitles once, then with the dub, and then with dub + subs to compare. I really don't have the guts nor the time to try them all, so I watched just the dub with the subs on. OMFG. This anime already has one of the stupidest plots ever made, the dub manages to somehow make it even worse.

Angel Cop has one of the weirdest brand advertisements I've ever seen in my life. Raiden is a special agent turned into a cyborg. During a fight in the fifth episode, he takes this laser shooting device from within his metal hand. There is a quick close-up as seen below. What the hell?

臀撃おしおき娘 ゴータマン

I wrote a plot summary for ANN of an animation called Dengeki Oshioki Musume Gōtaman which sort of translates to "Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gotaman". Hopefully no one will write an alternative overview to substitute this one:

Mari Amachi is a new student at the Perfect Religion Academy. When her roommate Saori Minami is kidnapped by the Black Buddha gang, Buddha himself appears before Mari. He offers her the opportunity to become Gōtaman in order to save her friend. Mari accepts the proposal and becomes Gōtaman, a sumo-belt-clad hero who fights to protect freedom of religion.

Torrent here. The guys at #anime-classic are awesomely insane.

Amuro Ray and Lalah Sune

Below are pictures from episode 41 of the original Gundam series. Last year I watched the trilogy that summarizes the entire 43 episodes of the 1979 TV series. My absolute favorite scene was the battle between Amuro Ray and Lalah Sune. I liked it so much that I ended up looking for the particular episode in which the confrontation occurred in the TV show just to compare with the trilogy version. It wasn't as impressive as the movie, but it was still very good. I can't even imagine watching this back in 1980. It must have been mind-blowing.





I prefer the movie version because the dialogue flows better. This type of scene just can't be rushed. You have to let the story breathe. The moments of silence or no one talking need to be more valued. Below are images from the third movie of the trilogy.




It's really silly the idea of rival pilots arguing with each other as they fight inside giant a mechanized armor and a spaceship, but this one is different. Not simply because both are espers, thus making sense that they are able to communicate with each other. Amuro and Lalah are definitely connected in a higher level. Maybe spiritualy is the adequate word. It's so odd that a series that tries to embrace a more realistic portrayal of war in space, displays such a romantic ideal in a glorious and elegant way. The animation in this particular scene becomes much more imaginative and metaphorical. Such tender and melancholic script. Amazing voice acting performance by Tohru Furuya (古谷徹) and Keiko Han (潘恵子). I've seen many couples in anime, but this is - without a shadow of a doubt - an affair that should not to be forgotten.

東のエデン OP

Whoa. I have never seen an opening for a Japanese animation like this. Done by Reelvision. The song is Falling Down by Oasis. Eden of the East has a jaw-dropping animation quality. Production IG is not joking around.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985)

Just finished watching the 50 episodes of the Zeta Gundam TV series, considered the finest Gundam series ever made. It's also extremely popular in Japan. From ANN: "Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam currently holds the record for the highest viewership rating among all Gundam TV titles, scoring an average rating of 6.6% during its run." This is a direct sequel to the original Gundam. I watched three movies that compile that TV series not too long ago. I didn't like it all that much, but it's definitely essential to watch it at least once if you intend to understand anime today. The comparisons alone between it's creator, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and Hideaki Anno, creator of Evangelion, begin to make a whole lot of sense.

Gundam is a huge franchise that has lots of parallel universes, but the original timeline features one of the most captivating characters in anime history: Char Aznable. In Japan, he is equivalent to Darth Vader in America. He kinda reminded me of Robert Redford because of the sideburns.



Also from ANN: "Due to Bandai Entertainment's inability to secure the rights to the opening and ending theme songs outside of Asia, the U.S. release uses orchestral tracks for the opening and ending sequences." The orchestral track sort of sets a more serious mood which is really what this story is all about. Preference probably boils down to which one did you watch first. Below are both openings. It would probably be interesting to make a poll with people who never saw the show to see which one they'd prefer.

The Five Star Stories Logo

I recently watched this 1989 movie and I was mesmerized by the beautiful logo. I wonder if the author of the manga created it. Do mangakas make the logos for their stories? According to Mike Toole, anime historian, the author of Five Star Stories was trained as a fashion designer.

げろたん/ゲロタン

Gerotan is an extremely peculiar fictional character. A talking baby with the katakana ゲ written on his chest who keeps throwing up every now and then. Some might remember him from episode 7 of Cromartie High School (2003).




What is interesting is that he had previously appeared on episode 39 of another animation called Sexy Commando Gaiden: Sugoiyo! Masaru-san (1998). Only this time his name was written in hiragana, but with the same sound pronounciation. The katakana ゲ on his chest was replaced by the equivalent hiragana げ as seen below.


What is odd is that the production of both shows was done by different companies. Cromartie was produced by Production I.G, Starchild Records, and TV Tokyo. Sexy Commando was produced by Madhouse Studios, Magic Bus, and Studio Gilleta. The ending credits in Sexy Commando don't list Gerotan's voice actress, but I suspect it's the same as the one in Cromartie, Ayaka Saito. The best evidence I could find online that she might have done the voice of Gerotan back then is that she did work in Sexy Commando. She was the narrator of episode 43 on a scene that depicts Masaru's conception seen as the legend of Momotarou.

Toradora! x Last Blade

Trying not to forget how to draw and how to use Adobe Illustrator, I recently had the urge to materialize an image in my head. It's been so long since I last drew anime characters. The last time was before the website project, which means around 2005. Above are the two main characters from the best anime I watched from 2008, Toradora. Taiga and Ryuji are dressed up as Shigen and Kaede from my favorite console fighting game, SNK's Last Blade. The title Toradora (tora=tiger and dora=dragon) made me wonder if the characters were based on the four symbols of the Chinese constellation known as Shishin. The first time I recall encountering a reference to it was in Yu Yu Hakusho, but the first time I actually realized they were popular symbols was after playing Last Blade. In the game, Kaede possesses the power of the dragon known as Seyriu while Shigen has the power of the tiger known as Byakko. Below is the intro from the game.

S.O.S.

Episode six of Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (1998-10-02 to 1999-03-26) features a very catchy song that only recently I bothered to look up information about. S.O.S. is a hit single from 1976 sung by a duo called Pink Lady. During this spectacularly simple and creative Kare Kano scene, the song starts to play and Miyazawa is aware of that. To illustrate that the music is in her head, her colors are replaced by a fast paced music sheet moving upwards. Then her face covers the entire screen and the letters "S O S" keep quickly shifting from right to left in her mouth. I absolutely love these ideas that only work in animation. When I watched it for the first time (about ten years ago), I didn't know katakana. It's written ピンク・レディー (Pinku Redi) on the text of the last image below.




What's interesting is that an animation called Alice SOS was airing in the same year (1998-04-06 to 1999-01-28). Both shows were produced by J.C. Staff and had the same person as a sound director in Alice SOS and sound producer in Kare Kano; Toru Nakano. What a surprise when not long ago I watched the opening animation of Alice SOS for the first time.

Top o Nerae! (Gunbuster)

Lately I've been re-watching Japanese animations from the 80's with abundant female cast members on primary roles. Dirty Pair, Gall Force, Project A-Ko, and Gunbuster. They probably reflect who was the primary demographic target during the 80's. They also demonstrate the contrasting difference of who is today's audience.

The 1988 Top o Nerae! stands to me as one of the landmarks of what anime meant back in the day. Science fiction tales told in the most fun possible way. If you get annoyed in things like "no way a robot could do that" then you better stick to documentaries and the daily news. One of the things I love the most about the medium is how it can bend the rules and still seem... coherent. Knowing how much you can bend the rules is the true talent of a storyteller.


The design of the aliens is incredibly detailed in Top o Nerae! It must have been murderous to animate them. I wonder what was the source of inspiration for their ingenious layout.

Below are some images from episode five of Gunbuster. Really cool posters. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Uchuu Senkan Yamato (1974), and... Van Halem! I knew that Hideaki Anno, director of Gunbuster, had worked in Nausicaa as key animator because Hayao Miyazaki had seen his work in Daicon 4, but I had absolutely no idea that Noriko Hikada, voice of Noriko Takaya (main character of Gunbuster who can be seen in the images below), was the voice of Satsuki Kusakabe, the older sister in My Neighbor Totoro.

Dirty Pair: Project E.D.E.N.

While searching for Kei and Yuri in the 1987 movie, Mughi has several images displayed on his screen.




Some are of Crusher Joe, a title by the same original creator, Haruka Takachino.


Sci-fi FTW.




Initial design attempts of Kei and Yuri?






I have absolutely no idea to what these images refer to. Maybe the last one could be an initial design concept of Major Tanya from "The Final Weapon: Ash" Crusher Joe OVA. The problem is that the image above looks too young when compared to Tanya as seen below.

Gall Force

Thanks to Gerald from the Anime World Order podcast for reviewing this animation. I had seen one of the Gall Force flicks a long time ago, but I'm still not sure which. I recently watched Gall Force 1, 2, and 3 and just wanted to create a post to upload the picture below, taken from Gall Force 2: Destruction, which I couldn't find online. It is mentioned on wikipedia along with other curious references from staff members who worked in other titles. Part of the staff who worked on the second Gall Force OVA also worked on Bubblegum Crisis. Both titles produced by AIC.

From Wikipedia:
"In Gall Force 2: Destruction there's a quick promotional shot for Bubblegum Crisis in the form of a poster on a soldier's wall, with Priss in her rock star get-up. The word 'Crisis' can be seen written in Solanoid on the poster."

Below is an image of Priss in Bubblegum Crisis (1987). I stole it from the Anime World Order's post on Bubblegum Crisis.


Of all names that worked on the two OVAs, the one that really caught my eye was the amazing key animator Shinya Ohira.

Tokimeki Tonight

An "inspired" plot I encountered in the Anime News Network encyclopedia: The main character, Ranze, is a junior high girl with troubles: her father is a vampire and her mother is a werewolf. Ranze has yet to manifest her supernatural powers, and her parents are beginning to get worried she might be normal. So begins the fantasy romantic comedy story.

Bubblegum Crisis (1987)

Thanks to the Anime World Order podcast, I watched the Bubblegum Crisis OAV. Only the three hosts of this podcast to make me watch this anime. I was traumatized by the dreadful Bubblegum Crisis 2040 and I was certain that I would never watch anything remotely related to that title.

I noticed something interesting on episode 5, Moonlight Rambler. Sylia Stingray, leader of the Knight Sabers, meets an informant called Fargo in a pool bar called C'est la Vie. Episode 20 of Cowboy Bebop (1998), Pierrot le Fou, has Spike Spiegel play pool on a place called C'est la Vie. I wonder if that is a direct reference to BGC or if both are referencing a famous noir movie. Could this specific scene from BGC be an inspiration for CB? I also compared staff and cast of both titles and was surprised with the results.

Below are images from Bubblegum Crisis:




Below, images from Cowboy Bebop:




Kouichi Yamadera, voice of Spike Spiegel, below seen inside Cowboy Bebop's C'est la Vie:


He was also the voice of Fargo, below seen inside Bubblegum Crisis' C'est la Vie. Notice the loose necktie.


Megumi Hayashibara, voice of Faye Valentine:


On BGC, she is the voice of Nam, who briefly appears on the beginning of the episode 5, but notice a girl who is seen at the Bubblegum Crisis' C'est la Vie.




Kenyuu Horiuchi, voice of Gren:


On BGC, he is the voice of Daley Wong, member of the AD Police. If you watched both, you know why I'm posting these two.