Anime

From YearOfTheTeledu

This is a Scheduled Programme Item

Day: Sunday

Time: 3pm

Duration: 1 hour

Location: Kighton

Named Organiser: Dop

Parents: it's worth noting that this programme item could be considered 'adult', and isn't recommended for children. Please use your discretion :-)

NB:All clips shown are in Japanese, with English subtitles.

This doesn't have an overall theme, but I can split the things I want to show into groups.

Excitement, Adventure, and really strange things
There'll be some dramatic and exciting or just plain strange scenes.

Lost in Translation
In which I show a few clips containing dialogue which would make no sense in a straight translation to English. I will explain what the scenes are about as well as give more information when I expend this Wiki entry, so no prior knowledge of Japanese is required!

Anime for Grown-Ups
The word 'Adult' often has negative connotations, so here are a few sequences from anime which are aimed fairly and squarely at a grown-up audience.

Slices of Life
Big storylines, action and adventure? Who needs them? Slow down, relax, and watch.

POST-CON ADDITION

Here are some more details about the series I showed clips from at Teledu. NB: All the websites I’m pointing at may well contain spoilers. Discretion should be used here!

First, the clips I actually showed:-

Death Note
Light Yagami is a very intelligent young man – top of the class and gets the highest exam scores. One day he finds a black notebook titled ‘Death Note’ containing a set of instructions about how to use it.
After testing the powers of the Death Note, he plans to use it to clean up the world by killing criminals. Then the original owner of the Note, a Shinigami (Japanese death god) by the name of Ryuk turns up, and it turns out that he’d dropped it into the human world because he was bored. Ryuk, who resembles some kind of goth clown, hangs around to see what happens, because he finds humans interesting.
People start to notice that criminals are all dying. Crime rate falls, and some see this as the work of a hero they dub ‘Kira’ (think about it). However, Interpol have also noticed and while they can’t figure out how someone could be doing this, it’s not just coincidence. They set their top agent on the case, someone known only as ‘L’ who no one has ever seen and who communicates via a laptop.
A battle of wills commences as ‘L’ tightens the net on ‘Kira’ and Light tries to avoid being found out.
Read more about Death Note
It’s a story of how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Had Light never found the Death Note, he would probably have gone to University and followed his father into the police, but with the note he tries to set himself up as a god.
While the anime flags a bit in the third quarter, the manga is definitely worth reading. All the manga is available in English translation now. The anime has been licensed for an English language release sometime later this year.
The clip shown was from the first episode when Light finds the Death Note and tests its power.

Simoun
On the planet Daikuriku nations are at war. The Argentum Archipelago want to steal the advanced helical motor technology of the Simulacrum Theocracy. Meanwhile the Plumbum Highlanders have religious differences with the Theocracy. Simulacrum’s main defence lies with ornate flying machines called ‘Simoun’. Each Simoun is flown by two teenage priestesses called Sibylla, an Auriga and Sagitta. Simoun operate in groups of six known as a ‘Chor’. There are several Chors, but the best one of all is called Chor Tempest. Their main weapon is the Ri Maajon – a prayer to their god Tempus Spatium, taking the form of a pattern drawn behind the Simoun by the glowing gem between the two canopies.
There are several varieties of Ri Maajon – some ceremonial, some defensive, and some have a devastating power. Then there’s the Emerald Ri Maajon, which is something of a mystery but believed to be the most powerful Ri Maajon of them all.
On this world everyone is born female, but at the age of seventeen, the people of Simulacrum go to the spring to either choose their final gender, or have it chosen by their god Tempus Spatium. The Simoun Sibylla can put this off if they are needed, as they are in this war. But how long can you put off growing up?
Read more about Simoun
After a thrilling first episode, Simoun gets off to a slow start, but by episode eight I was hooked. One of my favourites. Subtitled DVDs will be available from the US later this year. The soundtrack is particularly good.
The clip shown was from the first episode, when Chor Tempest lose more than their confidence.

Maria-sama ga Miteru
Or ‘La Vierge Marie vous Regardez’, or ‘The Virgin Mary is Watching’ (often referred to as ‘Marimite’ for short, not to be confused with ‘Marmite’) is set at the Lillian School for Young Ladies, a prestigious Catholic girls’ school, or ‘a garden for maidens’ as the introductory speech states. The school has a complicated student hierarchy. Older pupils can ‘adopt’ a first year girl as their ‘petite soeur’ by giving them their rosary. This shows a promise to look after them and guide them through school life.
The student council is known as the Yamayurikai – or Mountain Lily Council. It is based at the Rose Mansion, and led by the three Roses – Rosa Chinensis, Rosa Foetida, and Rosa Gigantea, who are, at the start, in their third and final year. Beneath them we have the ‘en boutons’ – Rosa Chinensis en bouton and Rosa Foetida en bouton are both second years, being groomed to take up running things after their predecessors graduate. Rosa Gigantea en bouton is only a first year, for reasons which become clear during the first season as we find out some of Satou Sei – that Rosa Gigantea’s history.
Rosa Foetida en bouton, as a second year, has a first year as her ‘petite soeur’, and the thrust of the early episodes is the burgeoning relationship between Sachiko-sama aka Rosa Chinensis en bouton, and Yumi Fukuzawa – a relationship which flows through all the series to date. It’s a very character driven series. For being set at a school we rarely see any evidence of classes, or homework, as the drive of the series is all about the relationships between our characters, and especially between Sachiko and Yumi.
Read more about Maria-sama ga miteru
This series is based on a series of ‘light novels’, and while there are persistent rumours that it has been licensed for an English translation (in the US), nothing has been formally announced at time of writing. There are two TV series, five OVA’s (Original Video Animation), and a fourth series has just been announced, hurrah! This is one of my guilty pleasures. I got completely hooked on this series despite being as far from the target market as you can get.
The clip shown was actually from the second series, and chosen to illustrate the difficulties of translation, as it featured an argument over the use of the correct honorifics, for which there is no direct English translation.
Gokigenyou…

Kanon (2006)
Kanon was originally one of those dubious sounding Japanese computer games. The ones where you’re the guy and you meet all these girls and have to try and have sex with them. But then, Key – the company who wrote it – released a cleaned up version with the sex taken out.
In 2002, a 13 episode anime was produced (by Toei) based on that clean version. However, in 2006, a 24 episode anime was produced (by Kyoto Animation) with much better animation, and which had more room for the story. That’s the only one I’ve seen.
Now, normally, ‘based on a video game’ is a synonym for “It’s shit”, but somehow the Japanese seem to get away with this, as Kanon is actually really good. It all starts where central character Yuuichi arrives at a snow-covered northern town to stay with his aunt Akiko and cousin Nayuki. He used to go there when he was much younger, but for some reason he can’t remember anything from those times.
Along the way he meets a bunch of girls. Diminutive taiyaki thief Ayu. Amnesiac Makoto, demon-hunting Mai and her friend Saiyuri, and the sickly Shiori. He learns their stories, shares in their tragedies, and slowly unlocks the secrets of his past, and just why it is he doesn’t remember anything from the last time he went there. Read more about Kanon
The clip shown was from a later episode and chosen to demonstrate the use of Japanese personal pronouns and how a literal translation from the four different ways of saying ‘I’ to the one available in English would lose the point of the conversation and miss the joke.

Honey and Clover
This is the story of a group of art students, friends, colleagues. It’s got comedy, it’s got drama, it’s got romance. Arguably the main character is Takemoto, who starts and ends the series’ with his voiceover. Then there is Mayama, the first to graduate, the first to get a job, the one who knows what he wants in life and is working towards it. There’s Morita (Shinobu), the madcap talented but eccentric type who has never graduated as every now and then he disappears for a while and comes back exhausted with loads of money. At first nobody knows what he’s doing, let alone why he’s doing it.
Yamada is part of the third generation of shopping arcade families, heavily sought after by the young men of the third generation. She specialises in ceramics, and only has eyes for Mayama, but her love is unrequited. While he sees her as a dear friend, he’s only got eyes for Rika.
Hanamoto-sensei is their lecturer, advisor, and friend. When his young cousin Hagumi comes to college, both Takemoto and Morita fall in love with her at first sight. Rika is an old friend of Hanamoto-sensei and on some occasions Mayama’s employer. Her husband Harada died in a car crash that left her seriously injured, and it’s feared that once she’s cleared the order books for their design company, she will join him. Mayama starts doing part time work for her while still at college, and works full time with her after graduation, and falls in love with her and wants her to live.
The story unfolds over four years covered in the first and second series, accompanied by great music from the original author’s favourite artists.
Read more about Honey and Clover
This is pretty much my all time favourite anime ever since I first saw it last year. Rumours are the manga and anime will both be available in an English version from later this year. The characters are great, the story is great, the music is great, there’s nothing I don’t like about it.
The clip shown was from episode eight, where they play twister with too many colours, an example of the humour and different art styles of the series.

Hataraki Man
From the verb hatarak.u - to work, this is the story of Hiroko Matsukata, magazine editor. When deadlines loom, she becomes a complete workaholic and puts everything else to one side, earning the title of ‘Hataraki Man’. Through the twelve episodes of this series we see her struggling to balance her various work commitments with her practically non-existent lovelife, as her boyfriend Shinji (who’s a bit pathetic and She Could Do So Much Better) repeatedly stands her up because he’s been landed with working late – again!
Read more about Hataraki Man
Hataraki Man followed the second series of Honey and Clover in a time slot developed by Fuji TV to appeal to the grown-up viewer. It’s based on a manga by Moyoco Anno (wife of Hideaki Anno) and neither the manga nor the anime are available in an official English translation. It was apparently very popular, so I’m hoping there’ll be a second season as they definitely set it up for one.
The clip shown was from episode four, showing Shinji left behind to do the work after all his workers go to the pub, and thus leaving Hiroko to invite a friend to the restaurant she’d booked for them.

The Bartender
Along a quiet back street behind a heavy plain door, is a bar called Eden Hall. There you’ll find Ryuu Sasakura, the bartender who has the glass of the gods. I was intrigued by the concept when I first heard of this one, and when I came to watch it I was amazed as it’s completely unlike any other anime I’ve seen before. It’s got a strange almost theatrical feel to it. Quiet and formal narration, characters speaking directly into camera to tell the viewers something. Theatrical lighting effects, a jazzy soundtrack. It’s all very relaxing to watch.
The basic premise is this: Someone goes into the bar. They spend time there, and talk with Ryuu who will tell them a story about what they’re drinking, and make them a really good cocktail, and helps them with their problems.
This ‘glass of the gods’ seems, to me, to be a combination of Holmesian deductive reasoning, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of drink.
Each episode features cocktail recipes, and the end credit sequence is live-action, where someone actually mixes one of the drinks shown in that episode to show you how to make it yourself. How cool is that?
Read more about The Bartender
Not licensed, and probably too weird to ever be picked up for an official English translated version. But it’s an absolutely beautiful and strange little series (eleven episodes) and well worth a look. The Hemingway episode is particularly splendid.
The clip I showed was from episode 6, dealing with single malt whisky.

Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
This is set in a future following some kind of upheaval or cataclysm. Sea levels have risen, and what was once the large city of Yokohama is reduced to some hilltop towns. There are fewer people around, and you see deserted ruined houses, and dilapidated roads, some of which disappear into the water. The top of Mount Fuji is gone.
But it’s a gentle apocalypse. There’s still electricity, gas, fuel for light trucks and scooters. There are even trams. Some form of commerce is still going on in the world, but it’s all scaled down. It’s the twilight years of mankind.
Off an overgrown road outside a small town there is a quiet country café called Café Alpha. Here we find Alpha Hatsuseno, running the café whether customers turn up or not, waiting for the owner to return from an unspecified journey.
The original manga was serialised over nearly twelve years only finishing last year, and there are fourteen volumes in total. It’s up for Japan’s big SF award this year, in the Best Science Fiction Manga section. This year the awards are being presented at the Worldcon.
In 1998, they made two OVA episodes, based on a handful of chapters from the manga. In 2002, they made two more, based on some other chapters from the manga. Obviously, as there are only four half-hour episodes available, then there are a lot of things missing, however they do manage to give you a feel for the story, and contain some nice music and the voices really work for the characters.
This is a wonderful example of the ‘slice of life’ genre, as we see episodes in the life of Alpha Hatsuseno – a parcel arrives and she makes a new friend Kokone. She hangs out with her nearest neighbour ‘ojisan’ who runs the petrol station. She spends a lazy day making coffee for customers who never show. She goes out for a scooter ride with Kokone. She spends an evening watching the sun set over the flooded city.
The only real dramatic events are weather related.
It’s very relaxing to watch. Sit down, put your feet up, and watch the charming Alpha go about her life.
Read more about Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou
The manga ran for nearly 12 years, and has been collected in 14 volumes. That’s only in Japan, of course, but with a bit of googling you can find a ‘scanlated’ version – that’s where someone has scanned in the original and translated the text. The manga is absolutely wonderful. There are more characters, and you find out more of the strange things in this twilight age. There’s the Misago, a strange being who lives by the water and resembles a naked woman with sharp pointy teeth, and only shows herself to children, because she wants to play. There’s the guy with the flying fish, there are the strange things growing in various places – plants which look like streetlamps and light up at night, strange fungi with human faces, staring out to sea. There’s the Taapon, an aircraft high in the stratosphere, which will never land.
Oh, by the way, I didn’t mention that Alpha is in fact a robot, as is Kokone, and a few other characters we meet in the manga, which also deals with the mystery behind the creation of these robot people. In the manga, time passes. A character who starts off as a boy, becomes a man, marries a character we first saw as a girl, and they have a girl of their own. But Alpha, Kokone, and the rest are ageless, as is the Misago.
So, read the manga, watch the anime. They’re both great!
The clip I showed was from the first episode of the second OVA (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: Quiet Country Café) where Alpha laments the run-down look of the café and the lack of customers.

Because we started late, there were two clips I didn’t show so we could finish on time. These were from the following.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
A black comedy about a teacher who can see nothing positive in the world, believes his life is worth nothing and there is nothing but despair. His name, Itoshiki Nozumu has 23 strokes, a sign of ill-omen. If you write it horizontally, it spells ‘Zetsubou’ or ‘Despair’. He hangs himself from a tree before his first day teaching at a new school, to be rescued by a girl called Kafuka Fuura, who can see nothing negative in the world. She believes nobody could possibly want to die on such a beautiful spring day, and what he was trying to do is make himself taller. Later, they meet again in the classroom, where she is one of his pupils. Read more about Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
This has just started airing in Japan, and I’m not holding my breath for it ever to get an English language release. Which is a shame, because it’s brilliant!
The clip I had planned to show was from the first episode, where Kafuka saves Itoshiki from hanging himself by repeatedly yanking on him until the rope breaks. She then gives him the name ‘pink supervisor’ as he had been hanging from a tree she’s dubbed ‘pink young CEO’. She says how nobody could possibly want to die on such a beautiful spring day, and he was simply trying to make himself taller. Just like her father tried to make himself taller when his company was restructured, or when the debt collectors came.

Aria
In the future, Mars has been terraformed and turned into the largely water covered planet Aqua. Floating islands in the sky run by people called ‘salamanders’ control the weather and provide an earth-like climate. Machinery underground controlled by people called ‘gnomes’ provides the same gravity as earth, which here is called ‘man-home’.
On this watery planet we have the city of Neo-Venezia – a reproduction of Venice as it was on man-home before it was claimed by the sea in the 21st century. One way for visitors to get about Neo-Venezia is to take a gondola rowed by a female gondolier known as an ‘undine’. The story follows three girls training to become Undines.
Akari has come from ‘man-home’ to work for the smallest of the three gondala companies, Aria Company. Aika is the heir to the second gondola company Himeya, where she trains to be an undine. Alice is a prodigy. Still at school she trains with the newest and largest company, Orange Planet. But far from being rivals, the three girls are good friends who help each other in their training, just as their instructors Alicia, Akira and Athena did when they were in training. So they go around on their gondolas, have picnics, drink tea, meet interesting people and have the occasional minor adventure. There is a bit of a fantasy tinge, as in the first series (Aria the Animation) Akari has a few time-slip adventures, carrying a message from the past to a man long dead, and going back in time to the early settlement from when Neo-Venezia was being built. The second series (Aria the Natural) has the occasional appearance from Cait Sith, the king of all cats, as well as a fox spirit and a vengeful ghost. But mostly, it’s all about Akari, Aika and Alice going about their rounds. It’s very relaxing to watch, and the music just fits the mood entirely.
Read more about Aria
The clip I had been planning to show was where Aika runs away from work and stays at Aria Company, claiming she wants to leave Himeya and join Akari at Aria. Then her instructor Aika, turns up, and sets her a challenge. If she wins a race against Akari, she can stay at Aria Company. All is resolved with tea and walnut bread. Aria is based on a manga. Three issues were previously published in an English translation then the publisher (ADV) stopped. The licence has changed hands, and the whole manga series starting with the prequel ‘Aqua’ is being published by Tokyopop starting later this year.

Honorable Mentions:
There were things I would have liked to have shown, but I only had the hour to do it in.

Welcome to the NHK
There have been several series which take a lighthearted look at the world of the ‘otaku’, of which the best is probably Genshiken, although while the manga is available here, the anime that’s been out a few years now is only available in English translation from America. Remember, multi-region DVD players are your friend. Welcome to the NHK, however, doesn’t so much gently nudge the otaku as stab them in the back and twist the knife! It seriously lays in to all the worst aspects. It’s the story of Satou Tatsohiro, a hikikomori. Hikikomorism is a big social concern in Japan. Young people, mostly men, are locking themselves away and refusing to go out and become productive members of society.
However, where Satou is concerned, it’s all a conspiracy!
Read more about Welcome to the N.H.K
NHK by the way is the Japan Broadcasting Company – kind of like the BBC. This is coming out on DVD later, but I wonder how much would be cut. It’s a black comedy which really has a go at people. It can be really nasty!

Nodame Cantabile
When Chiaki was a boy, they lived in Vienna where his father was a famed concert pianist who introduced Chiaki to the great conductor Sebastiano Viera. When Chiaki’s parents split up, and he went back to Japan with his mother, he promised that one day he would return and study conducting under Viera. Just one slight problem. He’s absolutely terrified of travel by air or sea. So he’s stuck in Japan, brushing up on his piano at a musical college. After an argument with the piano lecturer, he’s transferred to a different lecturer’s class, which is where he’s paired off with Noda Megumi, nicknamed ‘Nodame’. They had met before, when Nodame dragged a drunk and sleeping Chiaki into her flat and he awoke to his horror in a room full of rubbish to Nodame asking him if he remembered last night. She’s untidy, eccentric, can’t cook, and doesn’t wash as often as she should. She can play the piano, and can play anything after hearing it, so she’s less good at reading music, so it’s up to Chiaki to get her to play her part of a duet properly as their class assignment. After playing, she declares her love for Chiaki, who’s really not interested!
More characters are introduced but it’s only after the introduction of German conductor Franz von Stresemann (who originally introduces himself to Nodame under the blatant pseudonym ‘Milch Holstein’) that the plot starts moving, Stresemann sets up a second orchestra using all the people who didn’t make it into the college’s A orchestra, then goes off drinking and womanising leaving Chiaki to conduct. The ‘S’ Orchestra proves very popular, and Chiaki starts to become well known.
Read more about Nodame Cantabile
The manga is already published in an English language edition, so I wouldn’t think it’s long before the anime follows. The anime scores heavily over the manga purely because it has the actual music. Episode 11 in particular devotes half the episode to a wonderful rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 2 in c minor, opus 28.
The anime was produced by the same production team who made Honey and Clover, and the ‘look’ is very similar! There’s also a live-action version, which I’ve not seen.