Since I'm probably not going to watch any seasonal anime for a while, I'm going to spend most of my spare time catching up on the older shows I really wanted to watch. Gunslinger Girl was the first show I completed as a part of this little exercise, and as expected it had been an incredible ride. The only problem is that it usually takes me forever to complete a series. I started watching Katanagatari in May, and seven months later, I've only just completed episode three. Maybe random acts of killing and Cheerios really aren't my thing. Well, at least I got spoiled. Togame dies.
Gunslinger Girl
Murder and moral dilemmas are usually not the kind of topics anime tends to address. But some anime does it anyway. Some tend to be more successful at it than others. Now and Then, Here and There is the successful kind. Elfen Lied is the unsuccessful kind. But regardless of their execution, shows that deal with 'serious' topics like death and morality tend to be quite sentimental.
Gunslinger Girl deals with all those serious topics, but unlike the examples above, Gunslinger Girl did a remarkable job creating drama, without resorting to cheap tricks like sentimentality to lure out your tears. The story, set in Italy, centres on the lives of little girl cyborgs who work for the Italian government's secret intelligence agency. Designed to kill terrorists (or whoever they are told to, really), they are absolutely obedient towards their male handlers.
With this sort of premise, it'd be pretty tempting (and wrong, I think) for the show to slip into a 'murder is wrong!' outcry. In reality, Gunslinger Girl rarely tells you what to think - it's a story that solely focuses on the humanistic side of the un-human cyborgs. In one episode, a cyborg named Rico is forced to kill an innocent boy to preserve the secrecy of her mission. But instead of telling us about how 'wrong' it is, it ends with a shot of Rico lying on the bed, with a single tear in her eye. Constantly juxtaposing cruelty with the gentle, prosaic life behind the scenes, Gunslinger Girl's drama is completely natural, completely 'human'.
What made Gunslinger Girl really successful, I think, is the lack of a clear antagonist. There are few, if any 'bad' guys in this show. Perhaps it'd be tempting to think that the Social Welfare Agency is a sort of exploitative institution, bent on subjecting little girls to unspeakable cruelty. In reality, its staff are just as human as any other. The handlers are, at worst, indifferent to their cyborgs -- at best, they can be like fathers to their daughters. Angelica and Marco belong to the former category - Jose and Henrietta belong in the latter. Gunslinger Girl did an excellent job making its characters 3-dimensional and filled with human emotions, despite that the greater half of its cast are mere cyborgs.
Overall, this show was pretty amazing. Not many series attempt to address serious topics like murder to begin with, and very few series actually do a good job of it. But Gunslinger Girl is the exception, and as a result it deserves to be called a classic.
Infinite Ryvius
Murder and moral dilemmas are usually not the kind of topics anime tends to address. But some anime does it anyway. Some tend to be more successful at it than others. Now and Then, Here and There is the successful kind. Elfen Lied is the unsuccessful kind. But regardless of their execution, shows that deal with 'serious' topics like death and morality tend to be quite sentimental.
Gunslinger Girl deals with all those serious topics, but unlike the examples above, Gunslinger Girl did a remarkable job creating drama, without resorting to cheap tricks like sentimentality to lure out your tears. The story, set in Italy, centres on the lives of little girl cyborgs who work for the Italian government's secret intelligence agency. Designed to kill terrorists (or whoever they are told to, really), they are absolutely obedient towards their male handlers.
With this sort of premise, it'd be pretty tempting (and wrong, I think) for the show to slip into a 'murder is wrong!' outcry. In reality, Gunslinger Girl rarely tells you what to think - it's a story that solely focuses on the humanistic side of the un-human cyborgs. In one episode, a cyborg named Rico is forced to kill an innocent boy to preserve the secrecy of her mission. But instead of telling us about how 'wrong' it is, it ends with a shot of Rico lying on the bed, with a single tear in her eye. Constantly juxtaposing cruelty with the gentle, prosaic life behind the scenes, Gunslinger Girl's drama is completely natural, completely 'human'.
What made Gunslinger Girl really successful, I think, is the lack of a clear antagonist. There are few, if any 'bad' guys in this show. Perhaps it'd be tempting to think that the Social Welfare Agency is a sort of exploitative institution, bent on subjecting little girls to unspeakable cruelty. In reality, its staff are just as human as any other. The handlers are, at worst, indifferent to their cyborgs -- at best, they can be like fathers to their daughters. Angelica and Marco belong to the former category - Jose and Henrietta belong in the latter. Gunslinger Girl did an excellent job making its characters 3-dimensional and filled with human emotions, despite that the greater half of its cast are mere cyborgs.
Overall, this show was pretty amazing. Not many series attempt to address serious topics like murder to begin with, and very few series actually do a good job of it. But Gunslinger Girl is the exception, and as a result it deserves to be called a classic.
Infinite Ryvius
A pretty old school show, directed by the same guy who directed Planetes. Planetes is probably his better-known work, and definitely a lot of people hold it in high regard. Not me. For me, Planetes was at best boring, and at its very worst pointlessly sentimental. It was a boring trudge in a space slice-of-life, featuring characters that, at least for me, deserved little sympathy. So perhaps Infinite Ryvius would fare a little better.
So far, Infinite Ryvius had been pretty interesting. I think the pacing deserves particular attention because of how easily the pacing flows. So for example, episode one introduces the characters in a very leisurely pacing, which almost makes you think you are watching some outer space slice-of-life. Next thing you know, the ship is about to get crushed and everyone is panicking. And the best thing is: it all feels completely natural.
What Infinite Ryvius has succeeded in doing, so far, is that it does a seamless job combining drama with light-hearted comedy. Its continuous storyline would mean that, unlike Planetes, there would be ample time developing its drama without having to crush a story within a 22 minute block. And of course, there's that enigmatic girl in a pink dress. The hallmark of a good story is that it leaves you with a few elusive secrets to discover, and Infinite Ryvius has done that as well. Since there's twenty-something episodes in the series, I'm expecting lots and lots of drama. I think this might be a pretty wild ride.
Shirobako
I've always been a fan of P.A.Works. Shows like HanaIro and Tari Tari may not exactly qualify as masterpieces, but are almost always incredibly well animated, with beautiful backgrounds and great music. Ever since Angel Beats!, P.A.Works has consistently delivered visual quality, even when the storytelling tends be a bit sub-par. So obviously I was very excited when Shirobako, an anime about making anime, came out last season.
If I had to choose one word to describe this show, it'd be 'mundane'. From daily office antics to meeting deadlines, Shirobako's story is a bit slow, a bit ordinary and sometimes, even a bit boring, considering that it's subject matter is the (glamorous) anime industry itself. I think Shirobako captures that common mentality among those underpaid animators: "We might be underpaid, but we love our jobs". And some of them might even say: "I love drawing cute girls, too".
I think what makes Shirobako rather appealing is that it's a story solely about animators and animation. Usually when an anime about anime culture comes out, it tends to be over-saturated with references to its own culture, which can be pretty annoying. But most of those shows are less about animators and animation than they are about the otaku. Shirobako isn't about the fandom, it's about its creators. And so far, it's been a insightful watch.
(It took me a while to find a picture of Aoi where she isn't in a yukata, in a bikini, in an onsen, half-naked, or on the page of a doujin getting violated. So there you go: Aoi at work)
