Listen to the Rain

I went to another Anime Chicago Sampler on Saturday and watched more stuff. As is my tradition, here's what I though about the shows, in the order in which I'm likely to watch more of them.

1. コップクラフト DRAGNET MIRAGE RELOADED, "Cop Craft": After a gateway opened between Earth and a fantasy universe, a city was established on a nearby island and now a huge portion of the city's population aren't human. Two cops participate in what they think is a routine drug bust, but one is murdered during the arrest and his partner vows revenge. However, he is placed on a different case--the fairy handed over as payment during the best is an important citizen in the other world, and so the cop is paired with a noble from the other world to track down the fairy and the killer.
   
   The hook isn't bad--it's a buddy cop drama, that classic story generator--but the real reason this is as the top of the list for me is the similarity to the Bordertown books by Terri Windling et al. A city on the edge of Faerie, where magic and technology mix? The main characters being a cop and a noble change the calculus from Bordertown's mix of outcasts, runaways, and rockers, though even then, Bordertown had elven nobles on the run, vampires, and a bunch of stuff in the shadows.
   
   Also, the original novels are by the author of Full Metal Panic!, which I liked a lot back in the day.


2. かつて神だった獣たちへ "To the Beasts Who Were Once Gods," Eng: "To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts": In an obvious Civil War expy, there's a way between the North and the South in some fantasy country. The North has industry and the South has resources, and things are going badly for the North before they unleash their secret weapon: the 擬神兵 (gishinhei, "Imitation God Soldiers," Eng: "Incarnates"), humans who can transform into beasts out of legend. The Incarnates win the war, but the transformation takes its toll and some go out of control and need to be killed. In the end, the scientist who worked on the Incarnates shoots the Incarnate commander, knowing that he would not be cruel enough to have the victorious company killed, and then is shot by the second-in-command who thinks the Incarnates should rule as gods. The commander chases down his former second and his old soldiers to stop their rampage and find the scientist, whose body was never located.
   
   So the second-in-command is named "Cain Madhouse," which, well, honestly he might as well have been named "Evil McBadguy." But the title is interesting. "Were once gods"? What is that implying? Does McBadguy have some point, and the scientist's research is based on some kind of ancient secret? Or maybe it's just a bunch of monster of the week episodes, which still might be fun. McBadguy needs some comeuppance.


3. 炎炎ノ消防隊, "Blazing Fire Brigade," Eng: "Fire Force": Twenty minutes into the future, Earth lives in fear of 焔ビト (Eng: "Infernals"), humans who spontaneously combust and turn into demons, seeking to burn everything around them. Arrayed against them is the Fire Force, a group of ordinary humans and people with the ability to control flames, who destroy the infernals. A new recruit is a powerful pyrokinetic, feared by most ordinary humans, but with a great ability to combat the infernals. Also there's a religion based around flames.
   
   This is by Kyōto Animation and the premise is a bit jarring in light of the worst massacre in post-war Japanese history that happened there. I thought the show was cancelled after the attack, but it looks like it was just delayed? The animation was really great--usually that's not a draw for me at all, but I noticed it here. The story has to go somewhere other than "Monster of the week," though. I expect conspiracy.


4. ヴィンランド・サガ, "Vinland Saga": A group of Norse live in Iceland, where life is hard and the winters are cruel. Sometimes they have to raid to survive, when the snows cover the land deeper than a man, but Leif Erikson has stories about finding a beautiful and bountiful land far to the west, where they could live in peace. The family shelters an escaped slave for a night and gives up eight sheep to buy him back from the slave-hunters who come looking for him, and then the slave dies the next day. Life is hard.
   
   Admittedly, the main draw for me here is being a historical work. I have no idea where it's going to go--are they going to colonize Vinland (which we know didn't work out that well), or get distracted, or half of them get murdered and the others taken as thralls? I like the hook, but it'll all be in the execution.


5. ドクターストーン, "Doctor Stone": There's some ordinary high school students living ordinary high school lives in ordinary Tōkyō. After five years, one of them is gearing up the courage to confess...but then a light shines in the sky! And everyone turns into stone! And...the ordinary high school student somehow doesn't go completely insane from being frozen into a statue for thousands of years and wakes up in a new world, where he punches trees for wood and then meets his friend who maintained his sanity by counting to a billion. With his own tree-punching ability and his friend's scientific genius, they will cure the stone disease and rebuild the world! And maybe he can finally get his confession out.
   
   I admit, what drew me to this was the Minecraft memes, hence talking about punching trees. The actual show seems less interesting than that. If it's about literal world-building, about restoring civilization using the power of science as embodied in an usually precocious high school kid, that might be fun. If it turns into some shounen battle series, that would not be fun. I've heard that's what happens, because of course. It's the same reason I gave up on Bleach as soon as it stopped being Tōkyō Ghostbusters. We'll see.


6. 女子高生の無駄づかい, "Wasteful Days of High School Girls": A group of high school girls going to an all-girls high school worry about how they'll become popular, meet boys, and have fulfilling lives. One of them gives nicknames to everyone else in the class, and then she is forced to receive a nickname herself. I admit I laughed pretty hard when people were calling her 家族が裸族 (kazoku ga razoku, "My family are nudists"), and one person wanted to be more polite and called her ご家族が裸族さん. The summary moment of this episode was the nickname-giver was coming up with a bunch of scenarios where she would meet a boy, all of which involved someone happening to bump into her and deciding that she was interesting. One of her friends pointed out that every one of her scenarios happened by chance, and she replied that of course they did, she wanted to find love without putting in any effort or having to change in any way. This reminds me a bit of ちおちゃんの通学路 / "Chio's School Road" in the way that the characters relate to each other. It might be fun.


7. 荒ぶる季節の乙女どもよ, "O Maidens in Your Savage Season": A bunch of high school girls are reading great literature in Literature Club that just happens to have a lot of sex scenes. One of them insists that this is high art! But the others can't help but think about sex, because they're teenagers. Nearly everything reminds them of sex, including one of their childhood friends who lives next door and who always gets dinner delivered. Sex.
   
   This could so easily tip over into being extremely creepy, but the first episode managed not to do it. As is a theme here, I'm not sure how long the initial premise will work, but the first episode somehow held together.


8. ギヴン, "Given": A high school student is in a band. One day, he finds another boy sleeping in a stairwell wrapped around a broken guitar. He restrings the guitar and the other boy follows him like a lost puppy, asking if he can learn guitar and watch the band. He's astonished by their band skill. You know. This is clearly shaping up to be a romance, but broken guitar boy is...weird. He's like a babe lost in the woods, constantly asking questions about the simplest of topics. I legit expected him to be an alien or something, but I guess they're just going for extreme naivete. No thanks.


9. 通常攻撃が全体攻撃で二回攻撃のお母さんは好きですか, "Do You Love Your Mother, Whose Normal Attack Is a Two-Hit Multi-Target Attack?", Eng: "Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?": A sullen teenage kid doesn't appreciate his doting mother (who creepily looks exactly the same age as him). She's a little clumsy and kind of spacey, but she's happy to do everything she can to help him succeed. When he's chosen to enter the beta of a special online game, he immediately does so thinking that he'll learn to appreciate his life and grow strong and can come back with an appreciation of everything he had left behind. Then she follows him into the game and hijinks ensue. As near as I can tell it's exactly as annoying as it seems, and even one episode was too much.