People on Tumblr ask me questions, I give them answers. It’s a good system.

letao said: got any solid anime recs that’re on streaming services? i’m falling back into it. so far (in the past 2.5 weeks) i’ve watched Ouran (4 times), Psycho Pass, the first two episodes of GitS: Arise, and Kill la Kill, for some context

I saw the first two eps of Arise, too, and I’m…super skeptical about the third! I haven’t tried Ouran but I have friends who swear by it. Psycho Pass and KLK are dope. I keep meaning to rewatch Psycho Pass now that there’s a new (extended?) series or whatever new in the franchise.

But yeah, let’s do this. These are probably pretty flippant but I enjoyed the time I spent with all of these:

Ga-Rei Zero: I just saw that this is not only dubbed, but streaming on Hulu now. I watched it on Netflix a couple years ago and liked it a lot. The first ep is pret-ty dang good, and the story that follows is pretty good, too. It’s about two girls who grow up like sisters in a family of exorcists. The sword-wielding, “spirit beast”-summoning kind of exorcists, not the Power of Christ Compels You kind. This one’s melancholy overall, I think. I might rewatch it now that it’s dubbed. (update: I watched the first two eps while writing this, I still like it)

Knights of Sidonia: The manga is better, but the anime is cool. A young guy returns to civilization after being raised by his grandfather on their own, like Goku. Only civilization is a floating space ark a long ways into the future and monsters called the Gauna are trying to eradicate human life. Luckily, the space ark has a fleet of Real Robot mecha…and this guy computer-trained on an older version so he’s super dope! And so on, but a weird mix of creepy, funny, half-hearted fan service-y, and violent. The manga’s up to volume 11, the show ends considerably earlier.

The Devil Is A Part-Timer: This show is seriously stupid but also pretty funny, like the cartoon equivalent of comfort food? It’s not challenging in the least. The title kind of explains the entire show. There’s the devil, in the video game sense, and he works a part-time job.

Blood Lad: This is about a prince of hell who is an otaku on the low. A living girl comes to hell, accidentally gets killed, and he brings her back to life as a ghost while working to bring her back to life-life. It’s funny and the fan-service is so weirdly inert that it doesn’t register as real service. But the character designs are cool, like if Jamie Hewlett designed characters who wear polos.

Tokyo Ghoul: Ghouls are vampire-zombies, but they’re not so monstrous they can’t like…run a swank coffee shop slash hideout for ghouls and wear butler outfits in-between eviscerating their foes. This one’s pretty grim and ugly, like if Madoka Magica got to the turn earlier and leaned way into it. A lot of scenes are censored due to gore, including my new favorite way to censor things, which is to turn the image negative while still showing multiple impalements. This makes me sound horrible, this makes the show sound evil, but it’s honestly entertaining like Gantz, but with more to say than “Like…boobs…y’know…?”

Future Diary: I think hate-watching or watching so-bad-it’s-good is a crap move. Life is short and I got things to do. But I gotta say, I hated this show and loved every minute I spent watching it. It is vicious and gruesome and it goes a lot of places that I feel like were incredibly bad storytelling choices. But there are also bonkers plot twists, clever violence, and cool ideas. It’s a survival game show—the hero gets a cell phone that tells him what’s going on around him, his stalker gets a phone that tells her exactly what he’s doing, someone else gets a phone that helps him do murders, others get phones that reflect their true love, etc. If you kill everybody else with these special x-men phones, you get to be Deus next but whoops ha ha somebody is sabotaging the game and things aren’t going as expected, I wonder why??? Also there’s a Home Alone episode only the toddler is the villain and the main character is the least palatable since the worst stereotype of Shinji Ikari you can think of. I cussed out my TV at great length probably a dozen times over the course of the series. This show is infuriatingly entertaining, like an exploitation movie written by a bunch of unforgivable marks and busters and filmed by someone pretty good. Honestly, though, by the end of it I was more exasperated than entertained and just wanted to see how poorly everything went. They didn’t even go a third as far as a bunch of people surrounding Shinji Ikari and clapping like a TRUE HERO would have. All killer, some filler here. Personally, it caught me with the cross counter.

Golgo 13: Don’t stand behind him.

Nobunagun: I like that Nobunaga, only (weird adjective) is a genre now. In this one, Nobunaga’s legendary soul or whatever has been reincarnated into this young girl, who then goes off and basically joins The League of Extraordinary Super Sentai Gentlemen, including Bishonen Jack the Ripper (who has a RIDICULOUS origin story, the most PREPOSTEROUS thing anyone has ever said about Jack the Ripper, I love it), Playboy Gandhi (he has a barrier ability), Professor Charles Xavier Robert Capa, Errand Boy Gaudi, :3 Galileo :3 Galilei :3, and New God Barbara Gordon Francois Vidocq. I was pretty into this show when it was new. It’s goofy and stupid but willing to be exactly what it says on the box, but not in a way that’s like “turn off your brain ha ha that will make it better.” It’s just a straight-up “Yo, here are historical figures with science powers versus aliens.” The first ep does a cool thing where all the black shadows (I believe) were replaced with this kind of glowing, moving floral print. It was immediately visually striking, and the rest of the show has a tone I dig a whole lot. It’s gleeful.

Beyond the Boundary: For some reason “half-monster dudes and the violent ladies who love them” is a genre, too, and I think this is the best I saw in that lane. The girl kinda sucks at first, but her power is controlling blood as a weapon, so that’s already interesting to me. it goes a lot of interesting places and is pretty nice to look at, too. All the episode titles are colors—I liked that.

Samurai Flamenco: It’s like Kick-Ass, only about a model who decides to become Kamen Rider and not mean or anything. Then they added a little of Sailor Moon with some Go Nagai attitude to back him up down the line, and then it turned into full-on Power Rangers, and then…look, it’s Kick-Ass, only it keeps doubling down on its earnestness and dedication to and respect for all the different types of tights & fights entertainment until it lands on a rousing ending. It’s superhero as heck, is what I’m saying here, but it is also a love letter to and critique of the genre. Dudes get kicked in the dick by the lead singer of a trio of superheroes who make cash as a girl group, the hero rides around on a bike with a helmet that matches his uniform, many speeches about the necessity of heroism are made.

Gargantia on the Verduous Planet: A guy who pilots a mech crash lands on a ship (think Waterworld)…and the army he belongs to is nowhere to be found in the solar system. So he just like…chills? This show is incredibly well-animated for what it is. If Hajime no Ippo looked like this I would die. This show had the nerve to have either two or three beach episodes in a row—either way, there was a lot of cavorting and bbqing toward the middle bits, way more than most other series dare. It’s charming, has nice designs, and is pretty fun. I like A Boy and His Robot stories. This one’s pretty fan-servicey though.

Straight Title Robot Anime: Three robot girls post-Skynet, post-Judgment Day, post-extinction try to figure out humor! The entire show is explaining jokes using crude computer graphics, but the writing is so unbelievably good. “Here’s how a pun works” sounds dumb as heck but the way they choose to do it is A+, and then there are Super Robot jokes alongside. The running gags are second-to-one.

gdgd Fairies: I don’t know how to recommend this show without hyperbole, but it’s the one STRA is second to. If Eric Andre did an anime, and that anime was so ugly it was aesthetically pleasing because it looks like 1998 and that was a good year, and it starred three voice actresses who mostly stayed in character, and those three actresses had a whole segment where they have to make up dialogue for brief video clips…they might as well have stopped making anime after this, and probably outlawed jokes, too. Nothing will be as gdgd. Here are some clips I reblogged a while back.

DD Fist of the North Star: The Devil Is A Part-Timer for FotNS fans, only Ken is the part-timer, Jagi lives in a box, Ryuken owns the convenience store, and Yuria is a cardboard cut-out. It is almost exactly as funny as gdgd Fairies, but probably not funny at all if you’re square and don’t like Fist of the North Star. (You’re already dead inside.)

The Eccentric Family: This one is a heart-warming tale of a family of cute Japanese monsters who exist in a community of cute Japanese monsters and the sort of trials and travails they go through. It is very warm and melancholy on occasion. Totally worth the time.

Champion Joe 2: It’s a boxing anime with a hero who accidentally killed his main squeeze’s brother in the ring in the prior series and talks a lot of long walks in dramatic rain in between knocking fools out accordingly. This was made for me.

Aldnoah Zero: I kept expecting this to be Encyclopedia Brown Pilots A Robot, but it continually defied my expectations. Mars has tense relations with Earth (Martians are just regular humans only they have the feudal system??) and then things erupt into war. Luckily, there’s a whip-smart kid on the ground who gets swept up into things through sheer chance. There’s a whole lot more going on and this ended up being a very interesting and tight show. It ended recently; I loved it.

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun: A high school girl confesses her love to her crush. He takes her back to his apartment, they settle in, and she begins helping him ink his manga. He writes a very popular girls’ comic, you see, and she confessed her love by saying she’s “a fan.” These things happen, and more things like this keep happening, thanks to a freakish and wonderful cast of characters. This show is basically that manga subplot from Nichijou (the only thing that’s as gdgd as gdgd) only with less violence. It’s real funny.

From the New World: Tomorrow, a bunch of kids go full Akira and telekinesis is outlawed. In the far future, there’s a village in a pseudo-feudal future Japan where children learn to control their powers. It’s basically full-on fantasy, but surprisingly down and kinda…1984 about some things. The world-building is good, the revelations are horrifying, and this is a good “serious” anime. It’s not very flashy, but it’s good. I like the opening theme.

Kyousougiga: Probably the best-looking thing I’ve seen in a long while. It reminds me of The Eccentric Family, I think because they both share the same family thing at the center of it, but this is like…if Cowboy Bebop became a genre unto itself, then this is what happens when FLCL is a genre, and someone does a story about belonging and feelings on a Michael Bay budget, definitely fool cool, but not fully fooly cooly. So much fun, too. I’d recommend this to anybody but it can get saccharine. Swear all I like are cusswords and violence cartoons and heart-warming friendship smiley face stuff.

It’s not on streaming any more but I would pay tens of dollars for a boxed set of Nichijou/My Ordinary Life. I remember when anime was new and mind-blowingly realistic compared to American stuff, and Nichijou somehow manages to evoke that feeling and tell some unbelievably good jokes. I think it went off streaming this month or last.

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Posted in movies, reviews by david brothers |