Anime Chicago Fall Sampler

[dorchadas]

As always, here's the shows we watched and my impressions of them. I've ranked them in the order of me being likely to watch and more of them.

1. 魔女の旅々 Majo no tabitabi, "Witch's Journey", Eng: "Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina": Majo no Tabitabi: A little girl named Elaina enjoys reading stories about a traveling witch named Nike, and grew up to become the youngest witch graduate in the history of her country. She looks for a witch to train her but every single one turns her down--except Fran, the Stardust Witch, who lives in the woods! Fran is pretty odd, though, and she starts Elaine off on odd jobs like cooking and gathering ingredients. After a month, finally, Fran decides to test her with a magical duel!! Elaina loses, Fran makes fun of her for being a prodigy, and reveals that her parents set all this up to teach her humility. At that point, her true training began, and after a year, she assumes her place as the "Ashen Witch" (灰の魔女, hai no majo) and begins her witch's journey.
   
   I really didn't like the opening training session or the parents' assumption that no one is special and their daughter needed to be crushed in order to survive in the world, but once that unpleasantness was out of the way I got more interested in where the show is going. I'm of two minds about it--if it's about how Elaina needs to learn that the world is hard and she's not important, well, the whole world is teaching us terrible lessons this year and I don't need another one. But if it's more like Kino's Journey, that sounds amazing. Mushi-shi, Haibane Renmei, and Kino no Tabi, my trinity of amazing otherworldly anime, could use another entry.


2. アクダマドライブ, Akudama Drive: In cyperbunk future Kansai, a young woman saves a cat from being hit by a car. She stops for takoyaki and despite having a ¥500 coin dropped by a mysterious man, she keeps it and accepts when the takoyaki stand owner calls the cops. The mysterious man turns out to be a courier, transporting mysterious packages for likely criminal purposes, then there's a montage of various weird criminals like a hacker, a serial killer doctor, and so on. While one of the characters smashes up a bunch of police robots, the others attack the police station trying to free an Akudama named Cutthroat. They're called Akudama (maybe 悪魂, "Evil souls"), and the courier enters the police station past all the various akudama. The young woman is still in the station though, trying to rescue a cat again, and as she comes out and the Akudama plan to kill her, she bluffs them into believing she's an Akudama called "Swindler" (詐欺師 sagi-shi). The Akudama burst into the execution ground just before Cutthroat dies. The Courier delivers the package to Cutthroat after he's freed, which turns out to be a bunch of explosive neck collars. As the assembled Akudama (and ordinary woman) wonder what happened, the cat speaks and says that they're finally assembled.
   
   I'm huge into cyberpunk, so A++++ for visuals, but I'm not sure about the plot. Of course the cyberpunk future is grimy and full of crime, but I'm not certain I want to watch a show where people constantly die and it's treated as not that big a deal. There's enough of that in real life. Now that the Akudama have bomb collars on their throats, maybe they're being channeled toward some specific purpose and won't be committing tons of random violence. Again, whether I stick with this all depends on where they go.


3. 憂国のモリアーティ yūkoku no moriāti, "Moriarty the Patriot": A kid is reading detective books, smash OP, cut to a different kid runnig through the red-litten streets before the killer finds him. Cut to two blond men, a nobleman and a butler, discssuing the case, then Lord Albert buying a suit--from a man whose son was murdered. The blond man starts questioning people, developing theories, eventually questioning a lord in a club that overlooks a square where a murdered child had been busking. William Moriarty finds the killer, aprehends him, and gives him to the tailor for revenge. As a member of the aristocracy, he is very familiar with how little jsutice the common people receive and he's willing to ignore the law for those people who can hire William Moriarty, crime consultant.
   
   The OP of this one is great, and I like the premise of hiring Holmes to solve crimes but hiring Moriarty to commit them, and there's plenty of aristocratic evil for Moriarty to fight. Of course, Holmes is going to show up at some point, so the main point is how the show deals with the conflict between Moriarty and Holmes--and if Holmes doesn't show up, I'd spend the entire series waiting for him and getting kind of disappointed at his non-appearance. But this might be a nice guilty pleasure show. In a world where the rich and famous often get away with everything, watching them receive justice for their crimes is kind of cathartic. As long as it doesn't get too bloody, anyway.


4. 体操ザムライ taisō-zamurai, "Gymnastics samurai": After watching the protagonist faceplant during practice, he talks with his coach, who tells him to retire because he's already injured and he needs to think about his daughter and his future. He goes home and tried to figure out what to do with his life, and takes his ninja-obsessed daughter to a theme park, Edo Wonderland, to take his mind off and eventually break the news to her. At the park, they watch a show where a ninja is being chased by three people in suits...but the ninja follows them home! Because the ninja is an illegal immigrant and wants to stay in Japan to learn ninjutsu? The ninja stays with the family and the protagonist still can't tell his daughter about his retirement. At the gym, the ninja follows them and demonstrates that he actually has amazing ninja skills, and the next day at the press conference to announce his retirement, he instead announces:

   引退しません。引退しませぬ
   "I won't retire. I shalt not retire."

   With the second said in deliberately archaic Japanese.
   
   At the very least, this one kept me guessing the entire time. I thought it was going to be a sports show, which I don't care about at all, but then the ninja angle showed up. And I thought the ninja would be a student of the famous gymnastic but they actually do have fantastic ninja abilities, and then the idea that he's going to become some kind of samurai? This show will live and die based on how good the characters are because they certainly can't keep up this level of surprises. I might tune in some more.


5. 無能なナナ munō no nana, "Talentless Nana": Nanao moves to a deserted island to attend a school for people with superpowers, despite not having any superpowers. Two transfer students arrive, one of which is a cute girl named Hīragi Nana who can read minds, and the teacher seats her next to Nanao. She nominates Nanao as class rep, despite his lack of powers, and follows him as he shows her around the island. He explains that the school is training the children to defeat the mysterious "enemies of humanity," which none of them had ever seen, when a sudden gust of wind almost blows her off the cliff! He saves her, and later watches as the students fight each other, and as one of the students rages at losing a battle, Nanao reveals his power--the ability to cancel other powers. He and Nana talk at the cliff, she tells him that it's good he's among his own kind and encourages him before pushing him over the cliff! As he holds on to a rope, Nana tells him that she used her powers of reasoning, she can't read minds, and that those with superpowers are the true enemies of humanity. Then he falls.
   
   spacedragon said this seemed a lot like Assassination Classroom, but little did she know how right she was! The main character fakeout (kind of--it's in the name) was interesting, and if this is dedicated to Nana killing one person per episode while trying to remain undetected it might be fun.


6. 呪術廻戦 jujutsu kaisen, "Sorcery battles": Itadori Yūji has been captured and is to be executed. Flashback to him calling his grandfather, who tells him to go to "club." This turns out to be the occult club, which has no legitimate activities and so the student council wants to shut it down. But there's an actual sorcerer looking for a cursed object near the rugby field, and he detects it in Yūji! And then while visiting his grandfather, his grandfather tells him to spend his time around people and not die alone, then he dies and Yūji is left alone. The sorcerer visits him and orders him to hand over the cursed object...but he gave it to the occult club members and they're planning to unwrap it. They rush to the school, the sorcerer enters after ordering Yūji to stay outside, and as the battle takes place inside, Yūji talks himself into entering. His distraction allows the sorcerer to kill the curses, but an even larger one shows up and Yūji eats the cursed object to gain its power...but also the spirit inside.
   
   This one is certainly pretty, but I'm not much of one for anime about battles and contests of strength and learning powers and getting stronger and everything that comes with it. The animation is great, and I do have fond memories of when I read the beginning of Bleach and it was Tokyo High School Ghostbusters, but it's not really my thing anymore.


7. 魔王城でおやすみ maōjō de oyasumi, "Good night at Demon Castle," Eng: "Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle": Everything is good in fantasy kingdomia until suddenly the demons attaccked and stole away their princess! A hero sets out to rescue her...but meanwhile at the demon castle, the princess is resting in comfort for unable to sleep due to the commotion the demons make, so she sneaks out of her cell and tricks the demons as part of her scheme to make a better pillow. The demon lord bursts in but, overcome by the sight of the peacefully sleeping princess, lets her sleep. Having slept, she wakes up with sheet marks on her face and rubbing from her crown, so begins the quest to upgrade the rest of her sleeping arrangements. This includes stalking the castle with giant scissors, seeking soft and silky cloaks, and eventually killing a set of living sheets. And so on with stopping the noise, which involves dying, being resurrected, then turning the coffin into a perfect bed.
   
   We got a teddy bear demon emoji out of this on the Discord, but I'm not sure about it. It's cute, I guess, but "princess torments demons" isn't a strong enough hook for me.


8. ヒプノシスマイク-Division Rap Battle-, "Hypnosis Mic -Division Rap Battle-: A microphone is invented which causes those who hear it to suffer "various misfortunes," leading to banning of all other weapons in favor of rap battles. Next, the "Buster Bros" follow a member of a rival gang into a warhouse, only to realize it's a trap! But their older brother shows up, and breaks out his mic, and the battles begin.
   
   Apparently this is based on a series of mobile games? A lot of people in the group were really into this, but it's just not drawing me. I'm not really into the music, and the the ridiculous premise didn't draw me in either. And the opening started with how women would fix the world thanks to the hypnosis mics is a bit weird when all the rapping teams are men? Nah.