2253: It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires

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I’ve already written generally about how much I like yuri/shoujo ai slice-of-life anime Yuru Yuri, but I wanted to single out a particular episode as a great example of what this genre does really well: the third season’s eighth episode, boasting the impressively Engrish title It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires.

Yuru Yuri has a few aspects in common with other, similar slice-of-life shows, but the show it reminds me of most is Squid Girl/Ika Musume — a show where, despite its fantastical, ridiculous premise, manages to be oddly believable and comforting in how it depicts its relationships between characters. It’s not so much the thematic similarities that I’m concerned with, more the format: Ika Musume explicitly splits each of its “episodes” into several smaller vignettes that tell miniature stories in their own right, and within these vignettes the show often experiments with form, structure and even aesthetic. Its most striking episodes are the ones where it goes completely off-piste, such as those that feature the “miniature Squid Girl”, whose sequences are completely dialogue-free, and which make wonderful use of music and animation to produce surprisingly evocative, emotive scenes.

The similarities between Yuru Yuri and Ika Musume struck me during the pre-credits opening of It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires because it adopts a similar approach to the aforementioned “miniature Squid Girl” episodes: it’s completely dialogue-free, focuses on a character that isn’t normally at the forefront (or, in the case of mini-Squid Girl, isn’t normally in the show at all in that form) and does all its storytelling through its soundtrack.

In the case of It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires, the episode opens by focusing on the student council president, a character who is so meek and timid that we only ever see her mouthing words in regular episodes; she has no voice, so far as the audience is concerned. The characters always understand, her, though, which is the core joke of her character, but this opening sequence approaches it from a different angle, showing how she understands people — and makes herself understood — without the use of words.

Yuru Yuri already has a wonderfully evocative soundtrack that complements its on-screen action perfectly, but this opening sequence in It is the Piece of a Smile Everyone Acquires takes things to a new level: adopting an almost programmatic approach to its music, with distinctive themes and instrumentation being used for the individual characters who show up over the course of the sequence, it’s a fine example of how words, sometimes, simply aren’t necessary: you can make an interesting and heartwarming piece of art using only visuals and sound. (You can make an interesting and heartwarming piece of art using only one of those things, too, of course, but this is a TV show we’re talking about here; to deliberately refuse to use one of the core features of the medium is noteworthy.)

The rest of the episode is entertaining in itself, too, but somewhat more conventional for the most part; this pre-credits sequence, however, was so striking I felt I had to write something about it. I’d share the video here if it was on YouTube, but no-one appears to have ripped it; you can, however, watch the full episode on Crunchyroll at this link, and I can highly recommend the whole series from the very beginning if you want some enjoyable, lightweight fluff to cheer yourself up with.

2247: Yuru Yuri: Charming, Dumb, Gay as a Window

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I finally started watching the third season of Yuru Yuri, an anime whose first two seasons I found immensely enjoyable despite it being one of those “slice of life” affairs where pretty much nothing of note happens throughout.

Yuru Yuri is packed with charm and some wonderful characters, though, and it’s through the strength of these characters that the show truly shines.

For the uninitiated, Yuru Yuri follows the total lack of adventures of a group of four schoolgirls who form a club that doesn’t really do anything except hang out and drink tea. Over the course of the first couple of series, a few other regular cast members were added, and each of these put in frequent appearances in the third season — so frequent, in fact, that, judging by the new title sequence, they’re now considered to be core members of the cast rather than regular recurring characters.

The astute and/or weebtastic among you will know that yuri is used to refer to Japanese popular media with lesbian undertones (or indeed explicit overtones) and the inclusion of this term in the show’s title is no coincidence. There are no male characters in the show whatsoever, and there are numerous members of the cast — both regular and irregular recurring — who clearly have the hots for another one of the girls.

The most obvious is first-year Chinatsu’s infatuation with her cool, calm and collected senpai Yui, but there’s also the clear attraction between the mostly sensible (but painfully tsundere) student council vice-president Ayano and the utterly chaotic, hilarious Kyouko, who is a total dick but somehow immensely likeable with it. Then there’s former series protagonist Akari’s older sister Akane, who puts up a facade of being the sensible onee-san, but is actually a complete siscon, degenerating into wildly inappropriate acts with Akari’s possessions whenever she’s by herself (or thinks she’s by herself). And Chinatsu’s sister Tomoko, who is infatuated with Akane. And… you get the idea. There’s a whole lot of lady-love going on.

This isn’t an ecchi show by any means, though; the yuri side of things isn’t fetishised at all, and we never actually see anything going on between these characters. It’s a show that, when it deals with feelings of affection, prefers the more romantic side of love in the schoolyard rather than anything overtly sexual. It’s all sidelong glances, lingering looks, wondering if that contact was intentional; of course, some characters make their feelings more obvious than others — Chinatsu and Ayano both being the most obviously gay for their respective objects of affection, albeit in different ways — but still, for the most part, the show depends on the feeling of “will they ever realise or acknowledge their feelings for one another?” and actually resolving one of these strung-out instances of romantic tension would almost certainly throw the rhythm and feel of the show off somewhat.

Mostly, though, Yuru Yuri is a show that makes me feel happy when I watch it. It’s not deep and meaningful and it doesn’t have anything especially profound to say beyond “friends are great”, but it’s always a pleasure to enjoy an episode. It’s one of those shows where you feel like you’re being included in a group of friends just hanging out and having fun; there’s no real point to it all, but it’s nice to experience nonetheless.

2199: Ever-Late to the Party: Fringe

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Couldn’t get to sleep the other night and didn’t quite feel like I had the mental capacity to watch something in Japanese (i.e. anime) so instead I trawled Netflix for a few moments and eventually settled on a show I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time: Fringe.

I knew very little about Fringe going into it, save that it seemed to be pretty well-received, and that my acquaintance Chris Tilton, who had appeared a couple of times on the Squadron of Shame SquadCast, had assisted creator J.J. Abrams’ regular partner Michael Giacchino on the soundtrack. Other than that, I was going in pretty much blind, and had managed to remain unspoiled to date.

Turns out it’s a fantastic show, and exactly the sort of thing I enjoy, so I’m well and truly hooked.

For those who, like me, have somehow let Fringe pass them by until now, here’s the pitch: FBI agent Olivia Dunham becomes involved in investigations of weird happenings collectively known as “The Pattern” after she starts looking into the inexplicable melty-face issues that struck an inbound flight from Hamburg to Boston. In order to investigate these strange occurrences, she enlists the help of Dr Walter Bishop, a somewhat eccentric but clearly brilliant man who had been locked up in a mental institution for the preceding 17 years. In order to get Walter out of the institution, she also has to enlist the help of his son Peter, who has a past that can be charitably described as “checkered” and together, if you’ll pardon the cliche, They Fight Crime.

If this setup sounds a little X-Files-ish, you’d be absolutely right, though rather than going in the “aliens!” direction, Fringe instead looks at seemingly paranormal phenomenon through the lens of “fringe science” — being able to explain them through scientific theories that may appear ridiculous to the layman, but which Walter proves time and time again to have some basis in reality. Or at least the reality that Fringe depicts, anyway.

Fringe’s biggest strength is in its characters. Olivia is, in many ways, the most “normal” of the bunch — at least in the initial episodes — and the perfect foil to the somewhat tense relationship between Peter and Walter. Walter, meanwhile, is downright fantastic, punctuating his explanations and hypotheses with seeming non-sequiturs; sometimes they end up being relevant, and sometimes he really is just commenting on how much he enjoys a glass of milk fresh from the cow he keeps in his laboratory “because they’re the closest thing to humans, genetically, which makes them ideal test subjects”.

This isn’t to downplay the ongoing narrative and its stranger aspects, meanwhile; J.J. Abrams has proven on numerous occasions — Alias springs immediately to mind — to be good at stringing out mysteries with apparently supernatural elements to them, and Fringe is no exception to this. Over the course of the first few episodes, we’re introduced to a number of elements, some of which appear again in subsequent episodes, but which aren’t explicitly pointed out to the viewer. Already I can see it’s a show that would reward a repeat viewing knowing the full truth — which, only five episodes or so in, I have no idea of yet — because you’ll doubtless spot things that you wouldn’t have given a second thought otherwise.

I’m really intrigued to see where this series goes. And yes, I know I’m late. But I’m watching it now, okay? (Also, it’s inspired me to go back and play Cognition again thanks to its thematic similarities. So that’s good! I never finished the fourth episode, after all…)

2130: Scrub Up

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I’ve been watching Scrubs on Netflix recently, because somehow, despite E4 showing it nearly every minute of every day for several years (the other minutes being taken up by Friends) I’ve never actually seen the whole thing all the way through. I’ve seen most of it, but I’ve not seen the later seasons in particular.

Scrubs is an interesting show in that it strikes a good balance between comedy and drama. It’s not a show that you can particularly pigeonhole easily, because it’s experimental and strange and isn’t afraid to have one-off episodes exploring interesting, weird concepts. In many ways, it’s a bit like earlier shows that took a similarly experimental approach in a fairly mundane setting — I’m thinking stuff like Ally McBeal here — but it very much has a feel that is all its own.

One of the reasons I’ve been enjoying it so much recently is because I’m finding protagonist JD to be quite relatable, in a number of different ways. In particular, his naiveté and hesitance to truly join the “adult” world — even when confronted with challenging situations, such as those that he faces in his job as a doctor every day — are very familiar feelings to me, and as JD gets older over the course of the show’s complete run, it’s almost comforting to see that he doesn’t really get any more comfortable with being a “grown-up”; although he’s only a fictional character, it’s nice to know that the way I feel sometimes isn’t entirely unfamiliar to others!

Scrubs is also fun for the fact that it captures the atmosphere of working in a stressful environment rather well. There are people who handle stress with aggression and impatience — particularly if, like in Dr. Cox’s case, they’re dealing with other issues alongside anything that crops up at work — and there are people who deal with it using humour. There are some who take the humour further and confront difficult concepts by making use of black humour, and there are others who, at times, allow emotions to get the best of them. And then there are those who are able to leave all the troubles and difficulties of the working day behind them the second they walk out of the door; while this is arguably the best approach for one’s mental health, is this really the best thing for those you are taking care of?

To cut a long story short, then, watching Scrubs on Netflix has given me an appreciation of why this show has remained so consistently popular since it first appeared in 2001. I haven’t yet seen the notoriously different final season, though I’m curious to, even if it’s as much of a shift from the original format as it apparently seems to be. Even if it’s rubbish, though, there’s plenty of good stuff in the preceding seasons, and it remains timeless television that I can see remaining relevant to many people for many years to come yet.

2077: Narrative Media

Since I’ve become particularly interested in Japanese popular media, I’ve often found myself pondering which particular aspect is my favourite — in other words, what do I feel is the “best” means of enjoying a story that, in many cases, spreads its tendrils across a number of different forms of media with varying degrees of success?

There’s not really an easy answer to that, but I feel my own personal attitude towards it is inclined towards whatever the original version of the work was composed in, where available. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, by any means — on balance, I think I slightly prefer the anime of High School DxD to the manga, for example, and there are a number of interesting spin-off games that tell a completely different story to an anime or manga series, making them worthwhile in their own right — but I do tend to find myself preferring to experience a story as originally intended.

Part of the reason for this is enjoying a story in its original medium means that you don’t “miss out” on anything. In theory, anyway; that theory runs that a creative work is composed for a specific medium, and then adapted to other media at a later date. The adaptation process often involves editing, changing and even cutting content from the original, usually as a means of ensuring that the important beats of the story fit into what may be a more restrictive format. Consider an indefinitely running manga series that is adapted into 20-minute anime episodes, for example; you’re going to lose some detail, like it or not, unless you want the pace of the show to slow to a crawl. (Some long-running shows do indeed take this rather leisurely pace to their ongoing storyline, but for the most part, manga-to-anime adaptations tend to try and get through a significant amount of printed content over the course of 12-13 episodes.)

That said, different media are more or less appropriate for different ways of exploring material. Anime, as the most visually flexible of these media, allows you to outright depict things happening without having a narrator explain things (as in a visual novel, manga or light novel) and take a more subtle approach, implying things rather than making them explicit. At the other end of the spectrum, a novel relies almost entirely on the reader’s imagination, perhaps stimulated a little by illustrations here and there. The nature of text means that the inner thoughts and feelings of characters can be explored in much more detail than in an anime, and even from multiple perspectives.

Visual novels, meanwhile, tend to unfold from a single first-person narrative perspective. This allows for in-depth exploration of a specific character and their responses, feelings and attitudes towards various situations — as if you “were” that character. It’s not quite the same as a full-on game where you take full control of a character, mind; most visual novels give you relatively limited choices as to how they proceed, and the protagonist otherwise has a mind of their own: you’re just along for the ride. Some visual novels do experiment with multiple perspectives — The Fruit of Grisaia’s various routes each feature a sequence where the main heroine of that route narrates an important event in their lives, be it to the reader or to protagonist Yuuji; Deus Machina Demonbane, meanwhile, features a first-person protagonist narrator, but occasionally slips into third-person to depict things happening elsewhere when appropriate. For the most part, though, when you come to the end of a visual novel, the character you almost certainly understand the best is the protagonist.

Video game adaptations — i.e. those that aren’t visual novels — present their own challenges by allowing the player to control iconic characters and perhaps make them behave in ways that aren’t necessarily in keeping with their character as depicted in other media. This is partly a matter of attitude, though; someone who is already particularly engaged with a series and comes to a video game adaptation after reading the manga/visual novel/light novel or watching the anime may well find themselves “method acting” as the character they find themselves in full control of, even if the game mechanics do provide the opportunity for them to do unexpected and strange things.

In other words, I don’t really have a concrete answer for the question. At the moment, I’m particularly enjoying reading The Fruit of Grisaia’s visual novel, and after hearing how the anime adaptation packs the VN’s many hours of narrative and interesting happenings into just a single season, I feel that the VN is probably the best means of experiencing this story in full detail. At the same time, I’m enjoying the video game of Sword Art Online, the manga of Monster Musume, the anime of Himouto! Umaru-chan — there really isn’t a straightforward answer as to which one is “best”.

It sometimes pays to explore a single work in different media, though; the unwritten rules that “the book is usually better than the film” and “video game adaptations are universally terrible” don’t always apply!

2043: This Would Go Great with Cola

One of the highlights of the current anime season is Himouto! Umaru-chan, a rather odd little show that takes the Squid Girl approach of splitting each “episode” up into several shorter little vignettes in which nothing really happens, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.

Umaru (as I shall refer to it hereafter for simplicity’s sake) is a show that exemplifies the Japanese concepts of honne and tatemae, these being a person’s “true feelings” and their “public face” (or, literally, “facade”) respectively. Title character Umaru is the very model of beauty and respectability when she’s out in public: she’s the darling of her whole school, always gets the best grades, is good at sports and is respected by everyone. Back home, however, she’s a lazy slob who sponges off her long-suffering brother and sits around in her hamster hoodie playing games and drinking cola all day.

Umaru highlights this contrast by literally changing the character’s appearance when she switches from one “face” to the other. When she’s out in public being the beautiful and respected Umaru-chan, she’s the epitome of moe — long, flowing hair; big, sparkling eyes; a calming, gentle voice — but when she gets back home she immediately becomes represented by a short, aggressive, chibi character that is cute in an entirely different way to “full-size” Umaru. Her behaviour and mannerisms are completely different, her voice becomes louder and more forceful, but it’s abundantly clear that this is when she’s at her happiest.

As the series progresses, Umaru reveals a third persona: that of the elite gamer “UMR”. UMR is something of a balancing act between the two extremes she had previously exhibited up until this point; she’s realistically proportioned and acts like a normal human being, but is passionate and enthusiastic about gaming — not to mention in possession of some serious skills. UMR is by far the most naturally likeable of all Umaru’s personalities since she tends to keep things fairly low-key — she even dresses considerably more conservatively than her “ideal schoolgirl” persona — but is also a lot more honest about who she really is.

The idea of the necessity of putting up a facade for the rest of the world to respect you is a defining characteristic of the series, and it’s not just Umaru who exhibits this. Umaru’s friend Ebina, for example (above), is an attractive, busty young girl who draws the eyes of everyone around her, but she’s afraid to open her mouth in case her country bumpkin dialect slips out, as it occasionally does when she’s feeling at ease and comfortable. Likewise, recurring character Kirie is completely unable to approach moe Umaru at school, despite wanting to, but she manages to bond with lazy slob Umaru — whom she actually believes to be Umaru’s younger sister, just to complicate matters — over games, cola and laziness.

Over time, these characters all become better defined, and their different personas start to merge into one another. I’m interested to see whether or not the series intends to “say anything” with this concept by its conclusion, or whether it’s simply going to continue using them for comic effect. Either way is fine by me; Umaru is not the kind of show that particularly feels like it needs to have a strong moral message — though I won’t deny it will be somewhat satisfying to see the precocious little slob version of Umaru get her comeuppance for taking her poor brother for granted by the end of the run!

Regardless of how it ends, Himouto! Umaru-chan has been a really fun series so far, and I hope there’s more in the future.

2020: Original Content

I’ve been watching a fair bit of Netflix’s original content lately. I’ll freely admit that I’d been resistant to the idea of an online service’s exclusive content through irrational prejudices, but I’m pleased to have been proven very, very wrong indeed.

Let me explain those irrational prejudices first.

I grew up in a bit of a golden era of TV, full of popular shows ranging from Friends to Star Trek: The Next Generation via Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. These shows ran for a long time, attracted passionate fanbases and, in many cases, were big-budget productions that put out some impressive stuff on a week-by-week basis. Conversely, in the early days of Internet video, Internet video series tended to be done on the cheap; there’s nothing wrong with that per se, of course, but that cheapness didn’t just extend to production values — it also extended to quality of talent in all aspects of the production. A side-effect of the whole “suddenly everyone is a content creator” aspect of Web 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever it is we’re on now.

So, then, I didn’t make much of a habit of watching regular Internet video series for quite some time. To this day, there are very few YouTube series that I follow, and I generally preferred to grab a DVD or Blu-Ray box set of a favourite TV series and binge-watch it over the course of a month or two. No waiting for new episodes, no having to watch according to someone else’s schedule — just literally content on demand.

With my lack of involvement in Internet video, then, I maintained the assumption that Internet-exclusive video would be cheap, shitty productions that weren’t really worth bothering with. I even continued with this assumption as people started praising Netflix’s first original series House of Cards — largely because the subject matter didn’t really interest me — but just recently, I’ve finally come around to it, and I’m impressed.

The two shows that have made me a believer in Internet-exclusive content and convinced me that Netflix is absolutely a contender in the original TV programming department are Bojack Horseman and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I watched both on the recommendations of other people, and both have been highly enjoyable, not to mention well up to the standard of the stuff you get on TV or in DVD box sets.

Bojack Horseman is an animated show about a washed-up ’90s sitcom veteran who just happens to be a horse-man. Not like a centaur, he’s just literally a dude with a horse’s head. Over the course of Bojack Horseman, we’re introduced to a number of different characters, some of whom are regular human beings and others of whom are, like Bojack himself, anthropomorphised animals. This is a wonderful source of comedy: for the most part, the animal people act just like normal humans, but just occasionally — just often enough to be funny without feeling like a forced joke — they’ll exhibit some sort of behaviour that their animal counterpart would do.

Bojack Horseman isn’t just cheap laughs, though. It’s one of those “adult animation” shows that looks ridiculous and silly on the outside, but which has a heart underneath. Bojack is a deeply flawed yet somewhat sympathetic character struggling to come to terms with the fact that he 1) isn’t as famous as he used to be and 2) might actually be a horrible person. The series explores his character in great detail — partly through the eyes of his biographer Diane — and we learn a great deal about him. He’s certainly much more than — and I’m sorry — a one-trick pony.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, meanwhile, is a live action show from the pen of Tina Fey. It concerns a young woman who was kidnapped and kept underground for fifteen years by a ne’er-do-well claiming to be a “Reverend” saving them from the Apocalypse. Since Kimmy was kept sheltered from all of existence for these fifteen years, she knows pretty much nothing about how the world works, and gets into numerous entertaining misadventures in New York as a result.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, like Fey’s other work, is sharp, quick witted and frequently scathing. Kimmy is lovably naive without being irritatingly stupid, and the supporting characters are all strong in their own right — albeit often being somewhat exaggerated caricatures. It’s a show in which not a great deal actually happens from one episode to another, but the whole thing has a ton of heart and soul to it, and the entire story arc is nicely and neatly wrapped up by the end of the run. I wouldn’t be averse to another season of it, but the beauty of it as it exists right now is that it doesn’t really need one, since it’s told Kimmy’s story pretty much from start to finish over the course of 13 episodes.

And that’s sort of the beauty of what Netflix is able to do here. Without the pressure from networks and advertising, the teams coming up with this stuff have a lot more freedom than they would if they were composing for traditional television. This, in turn, allows them to be a lot more experimental, daring and interesting with what they’re coming out with, and we’re already starting to see what a positive effect that has on output.

I’m over my prejudice towards Internet-exclusives, then — though a ton of YouTube-exclusive stuff is still a load of old wank — and am now much more inclined to check out Netflix’s original content than I would previously have been. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more of Bojack Horseman and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s calibre in the future, and I’m looking forward to watching them when they appear.

2010: Monster, Monster, Mon, Mon, Mon, Mon, Monster

One of the highlights of the current anime season for me right now is Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls (typically shortened, as appears to be the custom nowadays, to MonMusu).

MonMusu is a show that I wasn’t sure about when I first heard the concept. I enjoy a harem-type show, I enjoy fanservice and I enjoy slice-of-life, so all the ingredients were there to interest me, but one thing made me hesitate a little: the “monster girls”¹ part.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go back on the thousand and one rants I’ve made on the subject and brand it “creepy” or anything, but the idea of monster girls is an aspect of anime that I simply don’t have much experience with. Typically, I’ve found the harem/fanservice/slice-of-life shows that I’ve enjoyed the most in the past to have characters that I either find relatable or so overflowing with moe that it’s impossible not to fall in love with them. And, I assumed, part of this would be dependent on me finding them physically attractive.

Papi’s introduction in the original manga.

The reason why I was hesitant about the idea of monster girls is that they’re a peculiar, striking phenomenon — at least as they’re depicted in anime. The girls of MonMusu are all relatively typical, pretty anime girl tropes of various descriptions “up top” — Miia is a ditzy, adoring “childhood friend” type, Papi is a loli, Centorea is a haughty, aloof, “presidential” type with huge knockers — but below the belt they’re… well, monsters. Miia is a lamia, Papi is a harpy, Centorea is a centaur.

If you, like me, have no experience with the concept of monster girls, this is initially jarring. Miia, the first to be introduced, is a delightfully adorable (if somewhat clingy) character… and then you look down and she has several meters of giant, thick, scaly snake tail. Papi acts like a little kid despite being a lot older than she looks… but she has wings instead of arms and bird legs. Centorea… well, her arse is a horse. This takes some getting used to — with no small amount of thinking “i-is it all right to find them kind of hot…?” along the way — and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people out there who fall at this first hurdle.

But it may not surprise you to find out that this reaction is, I feel, entirely intended, and in fact a core aspect of MonMusu as a whole. The overall concept for the show concerns “non-human” individuals such as the aforementioned (and a few others who will be introduced in later episodes) engaging in cultural exchange with human society, primarily through homestay visits such as those foreign students sometimes do in the real world. The show’s protagonist, as harem shows tend to go, finds himself with a house gradually filling up with chaotic monster girls, and having to come to terms both with their ignorance about aspects of human society and his own feelings towards them.

Protagonist Kurusu is a remarkably tolerant individual who takes most things in his stride — and he proves himself early on to be a dependable, reliable sort of person who stands up to people he feels are “wronging” those that he cares about. The main concept of MonMusu is, of course, a thinly-veiled racism allegory, and Kurusu represents an idealised interpretation of what a truly tolerant, inclusive sort of person should strive to be. He doesn’t treat the monster girls any differently to how he would treat human girls; he doesn’t refer to them as “monster girls”; he’s patient and he explains things to them when they don’t understand — which is pretty often, as you might expect. But he’s not perfect, either; he’s a young man who has no experience with women (and even admits outright that he’s a virgin in an early episode) and consequently has hormones going pretty crazy in his body — particularly as the girls engage in provocative behaviour or fight over his affections. He’s a good protagonist for this type of show, in other words — and mirrors the journey the audience goes on as they overcome the initial hurdle of trying not to judge the monster girls by their “monstrous” aspects and instead see them as just people.

There’s a lot to like about MonMusu so far — and, like most anime shows I’ve watched that initially seem to be fairly throwaway, dumb fun on the surface, there’s a lot more going on than there might appear to be at first glance. I’m really interested to see how it develops, and I’m no longer concerning myself with whether or not I’ll have developed some sort of snake fetish or the like by the end of the season!

¹ Monster Girl: Girl inspired by mythological creatures; a mermaid would be a popular, recognisable example. Instances in MonMusu range from lamia (snake-tailed woman) to centaur (human head and upper body, horse legs and lower body) and some sort of scary spider lady thing.

2007: Rias is Love

In between the “current” anime shows I’ve been trying to keep up on this season, I’ve been gradually working my way through High School DxD (no, I still don’t really know what the DxD is for — likely something to do with devils) and like it more with each episode.

It’s very much an acquired taste — it’s very in-your-face with its nudity and violence (particularly the former; the latter isn’t especially gory as such, but it can be pretty brutal, and there are some fairly strong and unpleasant threats made at the very least) and consequently both of those things are something you have to be 100% on board with before watching, but if you are, it’s a wild and thrilling ride with some stunning fight scenes, an amazing soundtrack and some extremely memorable characters whose “iconic” status in the world of anime fandom is well-deserved.

I’ve found High School DxD an interesting show to watch because it’s one of the few anime I’ve watched to date that is largely action-focused rather than slice-of-life. I’m a big fan of slice-of-life, because it appeals to that part of me that is fascinated by watching relationships unfold (and, sometimes, collapse) but as my love of JRPGs and Japanese shoot ’em ups in the video gaming world will attest, I’m certainly not averse to some high-octane action, too, and High School DxD delivers that in spades.

One thing that feels a little jarring when you first come across it in a show like this is how much like a Japanese role-playing game the action sequences are. I don’t literally mean that they’re taking it in turns to do things, but they do do things like shouting out the names of their moves, unleashing attacks that level the surrounding scenery and take impacts that would flatten a real human being in an instant. It’s a particularly Japanese stylistic element — Western superhero-type stuff, which is kind of the closest equivalent, doesn’t seem to be quite so overblown in its action sequences except when it’s being specifically inspired by anime (the final battle of The Matrix trilogy springs to mind here) and thus it’s a bit of an adjustment you have to make. Even as a fan of the aforementioned Japanese role-playing games, where this sort of thing is de rigueur, it took a little while for me to embrace the fact that yes, they were doing these things absolutely unironically — and it was awesome.

Special mention should be given to leading lady Rias Gremory here. While the show is a textbook “harem” setup — pervy main character, bevy of beautiful ladies inexplicably throwing themselves at him, eventual and gradual redemption of protagonist into a generally decent person — Rias is a highlight. If this was a visual novel (which it probably is in Japan) then she would be the “true route”. She’s a strong, interesting character with plenty of depth to her that is gradually revealed piece by piece over the course of the show’s episodes. Her relationship with protagonist Issei is intriguing, too; she knows full well that he is overflowing with teenage hormones, and knows just how to take advantage of this fact — but she also clearly comes to regard him with genuine affection.

And yet she’s a devil. This is probably the most interesting thing about High School DxD: it’s a show that centres on ostensibly “evil” characters and portrays them as “the good guys”. And it’s not even portraying them as anti-heroes; when they’re not battling in alternate dimensions to figure out whether Rias has to marry Lord Phoenix, the devils are shown responding to peoples’ requests for help. Okay, accepting a devil’s help does come with a price — making a pact with them — but this is not portrayed as anything that is especially bad for the people involved, and in many cases — particularly when Issei is concerned — the “help” involved is little more than being there for someone who is lonely, or upset, or distressed about something. There is, I feel, some sort of message about religion bringing comfort to those in need here — albeit from the opposite angle to what is typically portrayed.

You may well feel I am reading too much into a show that starts its credits sequence every episode with its entire female cast being completely naked (and concludes each episode with all of them doing various stripper dances) but, as I’ve argued on numerous previous occasions, embracing sexuality in an artistic work doesn’t preclude it from having meaningful things to say — and in this respect, DxD is absolutely more than just fanservice. It’s an exciting, thrilling show that I’m very keen to see more of. Fortunately, I have another two seasons to enjoy yet…

2003: Sound! Euphonium

Anime, as a medium, is most well-known for its more exaggerated aspects. Exaggerated action in titles like High School DxD, Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online; exaggerated comedy in shows like To Love-Ru, Squid Girl and Monster Musume; exaggerated horror in shows like Hell Girl and… uh… some others (horror is one angle I’m not massively familiar with as yet). Even pornographic hentai anime tends to be exaggerated, with participants screaming in pleasure (and usually narrating the action just in case it wasn’t already abundantly clear what was going on) and gentlemen ejaculating with the force of Niagara Falls several times in the space of five minutes without any need for recuperation in between.

Uh, what was my point again? Oh, right. Anime is most well-known for being exaggerated. But occasionally something comes along that subverts your expectations and proves that not only is anime a particularly good medium for this sort of exaggerated action — the use of animation means that you can depict things that are physically impossible and/or impractical to show with traditional live-action special effects, as I discussed some time ago — but it’s also a really solid medium for down-to-earth, human, heartfelt and honest drama.

There are a number of good examples of relatively “low-key” drama anime; the most well-known ones are things like Clannad and AnoHana, which are both notorious for being particularly emotional, particularly towards their conclusions. More recently, I’ve been very much enjoying a curiously named show that was fairly popular last season: Sound! Euphonium, also known as Hibike! Euphonium or simply anime-eupho depending on who you’re talking to on which platform.

Sound! Euphonium is a show, like most anime, about high school kids. (There’s a very good reason for the perpetual use of school as a setting for anime, but that’s a subject for another day.) As the peculiar title suggests, it’s also a show about music. But this isn’t an exaggerated Love Live! kind of affair, where the kids involved have unrealistic goals that they manage to magically attain without any real explanation (not that there’s anything wrong with that; I adore Love Live!) — Sound! Euphonium focuses on the rather mundane experiences of a school concert band.

Sound! Euphonium centres largely on Kumiko Oumae, a euphonium-playing girl just starting her high school career shortly after her middle-school concert band just missed out on attending a national competition. Kumiko is wracked with guilt over her last words to her former bandmate Reina Kousaka, who was utterly convinced that their band deserved to go the distance — Kumiko disagreed and incredulously asked Reina if she truly believed that they would have ever made it to Nationals. Reina, understandably, was upset at this line of questioning, and the two parted on bad terms.

Kumiko is surprised to discover that Reina is also attending the high school she chose; she’s surprised because Reina has a great deal of talent on her instrument — the trumpet — and the ambition to compete at a national level. Meanwhile, the school they are both attending has a concert band that, upon their arrival, is best described as somewhat mediocre; Reina had her pick of the prestigious schools in the area, many of which have much better concert bands, but she chose the same one as Kumiko for some reason. It later transpires that the reasons for her decision were something to do with the teacher who takes over coordination of the concert band — and who encourages the students within to push themselves as hard as they can through some harsh but fair methods — and perhaps even something to do with her feelings for Kumiko herself.

What I particularly like about Sound! Euphonium is the fact that it’s one of the most realistic depictions of high school music I’ve ever seen. It takes great care to show characters using their instruments correctly and realistically — and not just while they’re playing them; incidental footage during scenes shows characters cleaning their instruments and performing proper maintenance, too. Having lived the concert band life at school — including some competitions and tours, though nothing at a nationally recognised level — I find Sound! Euphonium’s depiction of this aspect of high school life enormously compelling and pleasantly nostalgic.

One thing it captures particularly well is the inherent romanticism and intimacy I’ve always found in making music as an ensemble. During my hormonal teenage years, the majority of people I found myself attracted to were somehow connected to me through the arts in one way or another — primarily through music. While my feelings were usually unrequited, that never really mattered too much; the thrill of sitting next (or near) to someone I liked and making music with them was usually more than enough. The feeling of “butterflies in the stomach” I’d get on the evening of a concert performance as I shared my nervousness with my friends and the object(s) of my affections was something I found intoxicating and exciting; while it was never the primary reason I enjoyed making music — that was always the simple joy of… well, making music — it was a happy perk.

Sound! Euphonium captures this feeling particularly well in its later episodes. An extremely intimate moment between Kumiko and Reina in one episode in particular makes for one of the most honest, heartfelt scenes I’ve seen in any story for quite some time — and after this scene has taken their relationship to a new level (no, they don’t get it on or anything like that, before your filthy mind starts running away with you, pervert) the chemistry and electricity between these two characters is palpable: every glance between them becomes wistful and lingering; every touch becomes sensual and exciting; every unspoken understanding between them clearly deepens their connection without a single word being said. I haven’t yet seen the entire run so I don’t know how — or if — their relationship resolves itself or pans out, but at the stage I’m currently at, it’s enormously exciting and compelling to see.

Sound! Euphonium is well worth a watch, then, particularly if you’re a fan of somewhat more understated drama. Kumiko is a fascinating character, clearly struggling somewhat with a degree of social anxiety and depression — which, as you may well expect, makes her enormously relatable for me — and her relationships and interactions with her friends and bandmates make for compelling drama. It’s a very honest, heartfelt show, and a marked contrast to the more exaggerated end of the anime spectrum — and for that reason, I have a feeling it will stay with me long after I’ve seen the final credits roll.