His and Her Circumstances: anime review

Title: His and Her Circumstances (Kare Kano)
Genre: romance, comedy, drama
Released date: October 2, 1998 – March 23, 1999
Episode: 26
Director: Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki
Animated by: Studio Gainax
Comment: The most distinguished feature of Kare Kano is its revolutionary, at least at the time of its release, visual technique. The surreal cartoon, chibi drawings and on-screen texts are constantly used to emphasize the feelings and thoughts and also to display the multiple layers of the characters simultaneously. Sometimes, the anime uses color and lines to focus on certain things such as filling one person with colors and leaving the surrounding people with no color or facial expression. The various surreal sound effects are also used. This technique makes the anime incredibly fun to watch even in the scene involving lengthy exploration of the characters’ minds which is usually quite boring. The anime also adopts another way to tell the story by making the characters talk to themselves or sometimes talk to the viewers directly as if they are writing a diary or chatting with the viewers. With this technique, the bonds are cleverly created between the characters and the viewers.

The story of Kare Kano may seem pretty complex because so many things happen and so many people are involved in the series but it can easily be summarized into a single phrase; Kare Kano is about the high school life of Miyazawa Yukino and the people around her. This is the anime that the characters drive the series, not the other way around. There are plenty of character developments. Everyone in Kare Kano rapidly and constantly changes and grows up all the time. Their experiences are thoroughly detailed and all of them are very familiar things that every body must have been through at some point in their lives such as falling in love, meeting new friends or quarrelling with them, problems in families or with the teachers. As a result, the viewers will find themselves knowing and understanding the characters so well as if they are families.

Being extremely optimistic, Kare Kano, at some point, can be a little unrealistic since every problem in the anime finally resolves in a good way while, as we all know, things are not that easy in real life. We don’t always meet good and open-minded people and there are countless other factors and limitations in real life. But don’t get me wrong. Being optimistic is not the weakness but the best part of the Kare Kano. The anime gives the viewers strength, hope and encouragement to overcome the obstacles in lives. It taught me the value of the things I always took for granted such as family and to cherish what I usually overlook such as friendship and, above all else, Kare Kano gave me what every body needs the most in their darkest hours; laughter.

Despite all its merits, the ending of the series is quite a let down because it does not end there. The anime comes to closure right before the cultural festival and there is still Arima’s complex that is left unsolved. The animation technique in the last two episodes, using manga style images, is different from the others which I think is not suitable for an ending. The story continues in the manga which I haven’t read. Conclusion: Trust me, even without the proper ending, Kare Kano still securely remains in my highly recommended anime list. Actually, my frustration about Kare Kano’s ending comes from the fact that I like it so much and I want more!
Rating: B+

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Ergo Proxy: anime review

Title: Ergo Proxy
Genre: sci-fi, cyberpunk, supernatural, action
Released date: 25 February 2006 – 12 August 2006
Episode: 23
Director: Shuko Murase
Animated by: Studio Manglobe
Comment: Ergo Proxy takes place in the futuristic world destroyed by the ecological disaster. In the domed city of Romdo, Re-l is investigating a murder when she encounters a Proxy, a mysterious deadly monster, and Vincent Law, an immigrant with no memory of his own past. After the incident, her utopia was shattered and she sets out to explore the world out side the dome and learn the truth about Proxy and her own destiny. There are 23 episodes; approximately half of them tell what really happen, the rest tell what happen in the minds of the characters including their conflicts, their desires, their secret identities and their mental developments using abstract images and surreal situations. What I’m trying to say is that half of what you see in the anime isn’t real. It is full of strange twists, turns, illusions and sometimes deceptions. This feature of Ergo Proxy can be very interesting to many viewers especially those who are familiar with cyberpunk or hard sci-fi anime but it can also proves to be really painful and exhaustive for many others. What’s more, unlike other science fictions which usually raise one main idea, Ergo Proxy tries to lay its hands on multiple popular themes in one single show. These themes include the existence of God, human cloning, utopia or artificial intelligence. For me, I find the anime quite hard to follow at times but I certainly have great admiration for the anime’s creators for their bold and reckless effort to experiment all these strange ways of storytelling and expressing their ideas.

In this anime, everyone tries to find who they are or tries to solve their conflicts. Vincent tries to understand the mysterious monster within him and tries to find the place he belongs. Re-l struggles to explore to world she never knew existed and the reason behind her feeling towards Vincent. Pino who is an infected AutoRiev gains her soul and feeling and little by little she gets closer to becoming real human girl. Iggy follows Re-l trying to hold on to his only “reason of living”. Even other minor characters such as Daedalus, Raul, Cristeva or Donov Mayer display intriguing complexities and development. The sound and animation of Ergo Proxy are amazing, outdoing most of the series I’ve watched recently. The characters and the background are full of details and the movements are fluid. The mixture of CGI and 2D animation is just perfect.

I’m giving this anime an A rating because of its brilliant characterization, groundbreaking story telling, thought provoking and innovative ideas, magnificent animation and its lack of any major flaws but that does not necessarily means that Ergo Proxy will always be entertaining or is made for everyone. It requires certain level of concentration and patience to really take in all that the anime offers.
Rating: A

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Mai Hime (aka My Hime): anime review

Title: Mai Hime aka My Hime
Genre: action, fantasy, comedy, romance
Released date: September 30, 2004 – March 31, 2005
Episode: 26
Director: Masakazu Obara
Animated by: Studio Sunrise
Comment: Mai Hime is generally another ‘magical girls’ anime that combines fantasy, comedy, drama and mecha subgenres. It is an exceptionally strong proof of how scary teenage girls can be when they are in love and wield deadly weapons. HIMEs are girls who are gifted with superpowers. They can materialize their personal weapons called ‘element’ and they can summon powerful biomechanical creatures, the Child. Tokiha Mai, along with other several girls who are also Hime, is recruited to Fuka Academy which will serve as the background of the series. Early in the series, Mai and her friends use their powers to defeat Orphans, the monsters terrorizing the school. Later, they learn about their true missions and destinies that can decide the fate of the Earth.

Although the fate of the world is at stake, Mai Hime mostly focused on more personal stories regularly seen in high school animes. The anime’s pace relies heavily on the characters. Mai Hime cleverly creates interesting conditions and conflicts for the characters to struggle through. For example, the ones dearest to the Himes will die if the Hime’s Child are defeated. This condition leads to a great deal of conflicts among the characters both Himes and regular students because many people can do anything when love is involved. Another great technique that makes the story even more compelling is how the anime keeps the true identities of the twelve Himes and the natures of their Childs secret and reveals them slowly, one by one, as the series progress so the viewers will be constantly surprised. The action sequences in Mai Hime are really fun and not too long. The comedy and drama parts also work really well thanks to the deftly crafted relationships between the characters.

There are two significant flaws I notice in the anime. The first is that Mai Hime fools around too much. It wastes too much time making jokes. There is one whole episode about an orphan that steals girl’s underwear. I wondered who came up with this idea. The second flaw is its background story about the very meaning of the Himes and their importance. The viewers are told that every 300 hundred years the Hime Star will approach the Earth and the battle between the twelve Himes will determine the future of the world. But all the viewers see is what happens in Fuka Academy and few brief news reports about the disasters occurring around the world. There are no credible explanation linking together the Himes, The Hime Star, The Obsidian Prince and the fact that the world is coming to an end. To me, it seems like this background story is just an excuse to give the Himes some reasons to fight. Fortunately, this flaw can hardly be noticed during the show because Mai Hime always and successfully keeps the viewers entertained using interesting characters, touching drama, imaginative action sequences and the main theme of the anime that is not saving the world but is simply about the beauty of love. Conclusion: not everything makes sense in Mai Hime. Nevertheless, I find it quite adorable and fun.
Rating: B

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