Ragashingo

In Short:

Released in 2011 by Shaft, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a delightful take on the popular Magical Girl genre of anime. In it, young middle schooler Madoka Kaname and her best friend Sayaka Miki are approached by a cute magical creature who offers to make a contract with them. It will grant each of them any single wish they desire, but in exchange they must defend their city against monster-like Witches. Although it can be a dangerous job, love and friendship are shown to be the keys to winning the day.

Some of the Witches, and the distorted magical labyrinths in which they reside, can appear fairly frightening at first in contrast to the abounding level of wholesomeness the rest of the show puts forth.

Suggested Watch Minimum: 3 episodes. Although Madoka Magica is highly reflective of past Magical Girl shows, it’s not until the end of the third episode that you get a full feel for where it is going and what makes it different from its predecessors.

Full Review:

For myself and many others, the Magical Girl genre was how we were first introduced to anime. My first anime, whether or not I really knew it as anime back then, was the original 1992 English dub of Sailor Moon. In a Magical Girl anime, you typically have a clumsy or naive main character who comes in contact with a knowledgable mentor in the form of a cute magical animal. That mentor reveals that the main character is destined to have great hidden power or the ability to somehow fight evil if only they would unlock it. In a moment of crisis, the main character manages to transform in a flashy, highly detailed Henshin (Japanese for “transformation”) that usually gets repeated at least once per episode and uses their magical powers to defeat what is usually a monster or villain of the week. Making friends to fight along side and defeating evil are two of the most common aspects of Magical Girl shows.

For Sailor Moon, the main character was Usagi Tsukino, a very clumsy and whiny middle school student who one day encounters Luna, a talking black cat. Luna reveals that Usagi is really Princess Serenity of the magical Moon Kingdom. With her true self revealed, Usagi is able to transform into the magical warrior Sailor Moon and fight to defend Earth against various evils along side other magical Sailor Scouts who soon become her friends.

Released almost two decades later, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a continuation of the Magical Girl genre first popularized by Sailor Moon. Our main hero, middle school student Madoka Kaname, is approached by the cute telepathic animal Kyubey who offers to make a contract with her. In exchange for helping to protect her city from “Witches”, hidden monsters who prey on ordinary people, Kyubey promises to grant Madoka any single wish she desires.

One of the things that makes Madoka Magica a worthwhile take on the genre, instead of a rehash of old ideas, is that Madoka does not become a magical girl by the end of the first episode as is so often the case with these type of shows. Instead, kind hearted Madoka and her friend Sayaka Miki, who has a strong sense of justice, hold back their wishes and team up with upper classman Mami Tomoe, their city’s most powerful Magical Girl, to see what it’s like to be a Magical Girl.

For the first few episodes, Mami explains to the two friends how being a Magical Girl is a great thing in that you get to save people and make the city safe. But Mami also touches on the more dangerous side of become a Magical Girl. That it’s not always fun and games, and that if you are going to exchange a single wish for the responsibility for keeping the city safe, you need to make sure your wish is a good one.

As the show progresses we also meet Kyoko Sakura, a more rowdy Magical Girl whose carefree attitude butts heads with Sayaka’s sense of justice. And we meet Homura Akemi, a cold, aloof Magical Girl who, for some reason, wants to keep Madoka from making her wish with Kyubey.

It’s these relationships and conflicts, all of which circle Madoka in one way or another, that really drive the show. In the end, it’s Madoka’s selfless sense of kindness that wins her friends over and saves the day. But along the way, there’s all sorts of great dialogue and outstanding character moments and some pretty interesting fights against the highly varied Witch monsters.

As a Magical Girl show, Madoka Magica wears its influences on its sleeve. From the cute episode opening and main theme, to the way Madoka wakes up in the morning, to the emphasis on the power of friendship, this show clearly knows the various tropes of the Magical Girl genre and hits on pretty much all of them. Even it’s main title graphic is highly reminiscent of past Magical Girl shows. But don’t let that fool you. Madoka Magica has a lot to offer even for someone who has seen past shows in the genre.

Graphics and Sound:

Though it doesn’t have the sharpest, most on-point animation, Madoka Magica still does a good job of getting its characters and situations across to the viewer. Though details can sometimes be a bit rough, the show manages to put forth a striking scene when it needs to. In particular, the show’s use of mixed media and stop motion animation for the Witches Labyrinths is particularly interesting and gives the fights against the otherworldly creatures an extra bit of creepiness. Artistically, the vision is there, but whether it was intentional or not, the actual animation in Madoka Magica is a bit… sloppy. I’d highly encourage you to track down the Blu-ray version of the show since many scenes received a fresh coat of paint and extra background details that make things feel more fleshed out and lived in.

Soundwise, Madoka Magica is excellent. The song that plays alongside the opening is bouncy and delightful. And the general episode music has a nice flair to it. One of my favorite tracks, Credens justitiam, which plays during Mami’s first transformation sequence is a great cross between a latin hymn and an upbeat personification of the power of friendship and justice. Other tracks within the show do a great job of setting the mood, as well. The music in Madoka Magica is provided by top anime composer Yuki Kajiura and is some of her most outstanding work yet recorded.

Subtitles vs English dub can go either way. Both are very well done with great voice actors giving life to their characters. It really comes down to your own preference as to which one you listen to.

All In All:

Madoka Magica is a refined take on the Magical Girl genre that easily distinguishes itself from past series. It’s universal themes of friendship and justice are paired with enough wrinkles to keep things fresh and interesting. And it’s soundtrack is epic and memorable.

That’s all to say, there’s a reason Puella Magi Madoka Magica is well regarded as one of anime’s top Magical Girl shows.

In Short:

Spice and Wolf is a 2 season, 24 episode anime from 2008 that is adapted from a long running series of light novels and manga. It tells the story of traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence and his companion Holo, a haughty yet clever wolf goddess who travels along side him in human form. In addition to bushels of downright excellent banter between its two leads, Spice and Wolf puts medieval economics front and center throughout its four main story arcs in a way that, astonishingly, remains interesting and tension filled right to the very end.

Though Spice and Wolf’s art is never bad, it is fairly modest compared to most shows I recommend. Come for the great leads and interesting economics, not flashy scenes or outstanding effects. This is also an anime that, unfortunately, ends on a somewhat of a lesser arc and an abrupt cliffhanger. On the bright side, the light novel series and manga have long since been complete and are readily available in both Japanese and English, so the story can continue if you wish it to.

Suggested Watch Minimum: 2 episodes. One of Spice and Wolf’s most notable aspects, its banter between its two lead characters, doesn’t really begin in earnest until its second episode. I also think Lawrence and Holo’s conversation about wolves is worth seeing before you make a decision.

Full Review:

Spice and Wolf centers chiefly around Kraft Lawrence, an adult merchant in his prime who travels from town to town buying and selling a variety of wares in order to earn a living. Lawrence is an excellent business man and has a keen sense for making profitable deals, but he is also kind and personable, which tends to earn him the favor of most people he does business with.

At the beginning of the series, Lawrence stops to trade with the wheat producing town of Pasloe just as it is finishing its harvest. He gets to watch as they carry out one of their harvest traditions where the person who cuts the last stalk of wheat puts on a mask and pretends to be the ancient wolf goddess Holo. This goddess was said to have made a deal with the town many generations ago whereby she would grant them bountiful harvests in exchange for their patronage. In more recent times, modern farming tools and techniques have largely seen Holo forgotten, though the town still performs a few last traditions in her honor.

Lawrence feels an odd bump from the rear of his cart just as those last stalks of wheat are cut, but he quickly forgets about it as he interacts with the friendly residents. That night, however, on the road from Pasloe to the next town, Lawrence discovers what appears to be a young teenage girl sleeping naked in the back of his covered cart. When he wakes her he finds that she has the ears and furry tail of a wolf! This girl claims that she, in fact, is Holo the Wise Wolf and upon Lawrence’s insistence, she is able to prove it in dramatic and terrifying fashion!

With the villagers no longer really upholding their end of their promise, Holo has decided it is time for her to move on from the town. She request that Lawrence allow her to travel with him as she makes her way back to her home in the north. What follows is the adventures of these two as they become traveling companions, business partners, friends, and perhaps something more.

The relationship and banter between Lawrence and Holo is one of Spice and Wolf’s two main draws. While Lawrence is very adept at trade, he is a fairly straight-laced individual and often finds himself teased by the sometimes haughty, sometimes playful Holo. At the same time, Holo, who is some several hundred years old despite her youthful appearance, finds she has a lot to learn from the peddler she has decided to travel with.

The range of topics and emotions the two engage each other with is fairly extensive, but more than that, it’s just so well done. They easily slip between discussing the practicalities of their plans in the next town, to goading each other with clever wordplay, to, at times, being put out or even hurt by one another in unexpected ways. It’s a little hard to describe, but despite one of the two being an immortal wolf goddess with a high opinion of herself, their conversations always have a feeling of reality and subtly to them that you don’t often get in even the best anime.

It actually took me a good two or three episodes to really understand Holo’s frequent teasing of Lawrence, but what’s great about it is that the same holds true for Lawrence within the show. At first, he is often cut short by Holo’s proud nature and the little verbal traps she playfully lays out for him, but as time goes on, he begins to learn what flatters her, what angers her, and, perhaps most importantly, how best to tease her back.

And for Holo’s part, she never claims any real amount of power or authority as a goddess, in her words she simply is who she is, and she and Lawrence are mostly equals in their relationship, but, over time, she learns to put her faith in Lawrence’s business sense and supports him as best she can. There’s also a slowly developing romantic tension between Holo and Lawrence that eventually sees them on largely the same page by the end of the series.

This progression between the two of them, from having a simple business arrangement to wanting to travel together above even their most deeply held dreams, plays out over the course of the show and just adds further to what makes them top tier characters.

As the show progresses, we follow Lawrence and Holo through four main story arcs. Each one places a different challenge before the pair that test both their business sense and their growing feelings for each other. A lot of the time, the two have to work together to keep Holo’s true identity a secret. If the ever present church were to find out she is a pagan goddess, they would likely try to exorcise her or kill her in the name of the one true god. Holo poses as everything from Lawrence’s quiet business partner to his badly burned young wife so she can keep her wolf ears and tail hidden beneath her cloak. While keeping Holo’s identity a secret doesn’t play as large a role as the focus on finance and trade, it does come up from time to time in some interesting ways.

Spice and Wolf’s other core draw is its fascinating dedication to exploring medieval business and trade. Lawrence travels constantly from town to town trading one type of good, say furs, for another, such as apples. Though he almost always treats his clients with graciousness and respect, Lawrence does look to make the largest honest profit he can so as to one day fulfill a far off dream.

But now, with Holo at his side, Lawrence finds he has a business partner who is clever, thanks to her incredibly long life and innate resourcefulness, but who, because she had only dwelt near Pasloe for many generations, is also somewhat naive to realities of business dealings in the modern medieval world. This gives Lawrence the chance to explain things like the different worths of various silver coins and the reasons behind those differing values, or, how traveling merchants group together in guilds to protect and enhance each other’s good name. Though Holo may not understand a concept at first, she is often wise enough and quick-witted enough to catch on quickly. And, as she learns and explains new concepts to herself, we get to learn right along with her.

That I often think back to this anime when I hear about the real world valuations of currency, or import tariffs, or short selling stock, or trade negotiations is a credit to just how well Spice and Wolf handles the economic sides of its stories.

Graphics & Sound:

As noted above, Spice and Wolf’s art and animation are, perhaps, the least of its draws. It has great backgrounds, great character designs, and doesn’t cheap out anywhere in particular. There’s just something with the direction in general and action scenes in particular that lack the fluidity and movement you might see in other anime. Still, the show does have good direction in general and some great shots of its cities that do a good job showing off their layout and scale.

As for sound and music, I have no complaints. The opening songs of each season are wonderful. They both have this sort of sad comfort and coziness which is very appealing. Its two closings are a good bit more playful which works great most times, though I think there might be a couple of instance where we cut from heavy tension to happy, upbeat engrish. While a bit jarring, it’s certainly not the worst offender I’ve ever seen, so I’ll give it a pass for its rare minor musical sins.

Finally, it takes good voice actors to pull off the wide ranging exchanges we get from Lawrence and Holo. Holo, in particular, can switch from feisty, to drunk, to introspective, to lonely, to appreciative all within the span of a single scene, and both her Japanese and English voice actresses pull off her various moods with aplomb! If you’re looking for a killer, best of anime performance, stick around until season 2 episode 3 where Japanese actress Ami Koshimizu kills it as Holo.

Lawrence is more subdued, most times, but he too goes through his fair share of emotions. If anything, we know that J. Michael Tatum, Lawrence’s English voice actor, has far and away more than enough range to pull off Lawrence thanks to his energetic, best of the best performance as Okabe Rintaro in Steins;Gate. Lawrence’s Japanese voice actor is pretty well regarded, as well, having started in a decent number of high profile roles. So, no matter how you watch it, Spice and Wolf is just a delight to listen to.

All In All:

Spice and Wolf somehow manages to combine great characters and conversations with explorations of medieval trade in a way that’s actually interesting and engaging. The relationship between Lawrence and Holo is very well regarded by anime veterans for good reason, and you don’t have to try hard at all to find someone who will jokingly claim that this anime helped them get through their economics classes.

In Short:

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is a 2019 anime from the well known studio A-1 Pictures. In it, our two main characters, the President and Vice President of their prestigious academy’s student council, play hilarious, ever escalating mind games with each other in an attempt to force the other to be the first one to declare their love.

This is a bombastic, over the top show with off the wall situations and zany, stylized animation. It’s certainly possible that some may not like its presentation or its largely disconnected episodic nature.

Suggested Watch Minimum: 1 episode. Although the show develops a bit more of an ongoing story in later episodes, the crazy situations and misunderstandings that make up much of the show are well represented in the first episode.

Full Review:

Love Is War’s inventive animation, wacky sense of humor, and crazy, bite-sized stories pulled me in almost immediately. We chiefly follow two main characters: Miyuki Shirogane, a smart, well-mannered, but financially poor high schooler who is the student council president of Shuchiin Academy. Opposite him is its student council vice president, Kaguya Shinomiya, who is the polite, clever, but heavily sheltered daughter of one of the Japan’s largest multi-corporation conglomerates.

These two are crazy for each other, but there’s a problem: They both believe that being the first to admit their love will make them subservient to the other. In order to prevent that, the two keep their feelings a closely guarded secret from each other even as they spend much of their school days together in the large student council offices. Since neither one wants to admit their love, they engage each other in outwardly calm and subtle but inwardly dramatic and over the top mind games where they try and force the other to admit the feelings they are sure are there just beneath the surface. Seeing as our two main characters come from vastly different background, their attempts to force the other’s declaration of love vary in fun ways.

Kaguya Shinomiya comes from the massively wealth and powerful Shinomiya family, so her tactics tend to be based on her limitless wealth and power… but she’s also massively sheltered so she tends to devise absurdly complex schemes only to be foiled by her own shyness or naivety. Her biggest fear is giving up her high standards just because she’s fallen for someone. Her most endearing quality is the way she sometimes freezes up when her plans go too right too quickly.

Miyuki Shirogane, on the other hand, comes from far more modest means. He only made it to the academy because of his impressive grades, not his family’s wealth, so his tactics tend to be simpler and more direct, but often fail in amusing ways. His biggest fear is doing something embarrassing and having Kaguya dismissively say to him: “How cute.” His most endearing quality is his selfless need to help others.

Playing a crazy, unintentional foil to our two fantastic leads is pink-haired Chika Fujiwara who is so delightful that she is very nearly the star of the show. She is so simple minded and excitable that she tends to be the hand grenade who accidentally derails the two main characters’ carefully laid plans time and time again.

There’s also Ai Hayasaka, Kaguya’s assistant, who realizes that Kaguya and Miyuki are secretly in love and who tries to force them together in amusing ways. And there’s Yū Ishigami, an emo geek/gamer in charge of student council finance who tends to unintentionally get on the ladies’ bad side. He’ll often skulk out of the room saying “I think I’ll go home now and die…” to which someone inevitably says “ok… but please don’t actually die.” A couple of new characters are added to the student council in season two and do a great job at keeping things interesting.

Most episodes are spilt into three “battles” where one side or the other tries to carry out a scheme to force the other to confess their love. One character will play their hand only to have the other counter that play in some fashion only to have that counter countered. And so it goes. During all this, they exhibit frantic worrying at whether a plan will work and wide eyed shock as one of their foolproof plans is upended with nothing more than an unexpected word or action. At the end of each battle, the ever present narrator will declare one side the winner or loser, and the episode will move on to a new situation.

What kind of schemes, you ask? Here’s a small smattering of the many many little scenarios that play out over the course of the series:

• Kaguya arranges for Miyuki and herself to receive movie tickets to a romantic movie. The two enter into a battle of wits to see who can force the other to ask them to the movies.
• Kaguya, Miyuki, and Chika play a game where they have to trick each other into saying a word each of them doesn’t know but the others can see.
• Miyuki tries to give relationship advice to a fellow male student while Kaguya secretly listens in.
• Kaguya switches Miyuki’s coffee to decaf with unexpected results.

At first, the show seems like it’s not going anywhere. It’s massively fun and entertaining, to be sure, but the first few episodes are just one unrelated battle after another. But, pretty soon, you start to notice that later episodes connect to earlier ones. A plot slowly begins to form. This is not a narrative heavy show by any means, but by the end of the first season, you’ll find yourself rooting for both the main characters in ways you didn’t expect because of little plot points that have built up along the way.

The second season has a bit more of a running plot, but it too has a lot of loosely connected witty one-off battles. It’s interesting to note, though, that the title changes in the second season from “Love Is War!” to “Love Is War?” The title change matches the slowly shifting objectives of the lead characters as they being to realize that, yes, the other is in love with them.

Animation wise, this is not exactly a powerhouse in a traditional sense. A lot of episodes take place in the familiar, large-ish student council room or in other reused parts of the academy. There’s a lot of minimally animated close ups and slow panning shots. But, that’s not to say the show cheaps out in any way. Love Is War goes to extraordinarily lengths to mix things up as its two leads dive deeper and deeper into their crazy plots. The show shifts to absurd charactatures, and complex moving backgrounds, and constantly changing over the top special effects as it visualizes each characters’ thought processes. The show’s art is totally absurd and off the wall, at times, but it totally works!

When talking about animation, I’ve also got to heap praise on the shows’ various openings and closings. The season one opening feels like something out of a James Bond film with lots of complex shots and interesting imagery of our two leads at war with each other. The second season opens with a fun, quickly told miniature story typical of the show’s longer battles. Both openings are set to some downright groovy soundtracks that you’ll find yourself humming long after you finish the show. The closings of the seasons are also well worth watching. They are strange and fascinating in their own ways.

And then, there’s the one-off closing for episode 3 of the first season. Titled “Chika Dance”, it features about a minute of some of the most absurdly detailed character animation you’ve ever seen. This closing had the entire internet abuzz when it first debuted, and for good reason!

All In All:

This is an outstanding, goofy series that pokes fun at the absurdity of high school students who wish they could make the other declare their love but who are too smart for their own good. It’s delightful and good natured while being laugh out loud funny several times an episode. And, as the series progresses, it does gradually reveal that it actually has some heart tucked away somewhere between all the absurdity.

In Short:

SSSS.Gridman is a 2018 anime by Studio Trigger that centers around four high school students living in a seemingly normal world, one of whom transforms into the building-sized, robot-looking hero known as Gridman in order to protect his city from equally large kaiju monsters. The show is packed full of great animation, terrific action, excellent characters, and stand out music, as well as a well told plot that has some nicely hidden depth.

Suggested Watch Minimum: 2 episodes. You need to see the full results of the first kaiju attack before making a decision on SSSS.Gridman.

Full Review:

SSSS.Gridman, for me, was an “eh, I might as well try it” kind of show. I’m not such a big fan of Godzilla, Power Rangers, or the numerous “giant-sized hero fights giant monsters who are very obviously guys in monster suits” type shows. They always felt too cheap and silly to me. SSSS.Gridman, though, knocked the formula clear out of the park, scoring a grand slam, a drop goal, and an extra point all at the same time. Yes, it’s that good!

It’s a little hard to say much about SSSS.Gridman given that I tend to be a little more protective of first time viewers of shows I really like. At its core, the show is about four high school students: Hibiki Yūta – a normal student who wakes up one evening with amnesia, Utsumi Shō – something of a nerd and lover of old kaiju shows, and Rikka Takarada – a girl who would prefer a normal life and is shocked by what takes place around her. There’s also Akane Shinjō, who hates it when things don’t go her way.

One day, kaiju start appearing in the city, and it’s up to Hibiki to merge with Gridman, some sort of high tech computer based guardian, in order to put a stop to them. Along the way, Gridman picks up new allies and enemies as the ongoing conflict escalates. As the show continues, we learn more about the why these monstrous kaiju are attacking the city, and who is sending them. The answers are interesting and character driven and go far beyond the typical “an evil villain did it.”

SSSS.Gridman features insane, highly detailed action sequences, great effects, wonderful character animation, and some high octane action music that lets the show kick ass every episode. The battle scenes have that same “these monsters are moving really fast but are also really big so they look slow and powerful” feel that Pacific Rim had a few years back. When Gridman appears, he typically lands in the street and the entire surrounding city shakes as cars and debris are thrown dozens of feet into the air. The attention to detail is just outstanding. And so is the combat. From massive energy beams to rocket accelerated punches, to classic kaiju throws, SSSS.Gridman delivers.

Gridman saves the city from the kaiju time and time again as our three friends try to figure out what’s causing it all. The things they learn are pretty shocking. Out of our three leads, I really enjoyed the realistic human emotions given to Rikka. The way she frets over her friends throughout the series, even to the point of inaction, felt very believable and very well done to me.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t specifically mention the music. It’s interesting in that SSSS.Gridman actually doesn’t use music that often, and when it does, it mainly uses its opening theme “Union” as Gridman’s upbeat battle song. And that’s kinda it. Most of the non-action scenes don’t have significant music backing them, but it works because the tension and dialogue keep things moving just fine on their own. But, wow, when the show does use music, it does so perfectly to further amp up the action.

All In All:

I’ve got no real wrap-up this time. I’m just here to say good things about SSSS.Gridman. Great art. Great animation. Great action. Great characters. Great plot. Great music. And some nicely hidden depth to its story and characters. Just go watch SSSS.Gridman, already.

Oh, and be sure to watch until literally the very last second or you will miss out! You’ll also want to watch the official music video of “Union” by OxT for a final few scenes of closure after you finish the series.

In Short:

Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry is a 2006 sci-fi anime from Studio Fantasia that follows cadet Strain pilot Sara Werec as she pursues her older brother across the stars looking for answers after he betrays her. The show offers interesting takes on depression, determination, and mech-based space combat. It also makes novel use of the time dilation effects of faster than light travel as part of its core plot.

Though I enjoy the show and its themes a great deal, it is decidedly not in the top tier of anime. It simply does not reach any kind of “best of the best” status across plot, animation, sound, or music… though the battle theme is pretty good. There’s also an unfortunate fan service episode in episode 7 that can almost be entirely skipped.

Suggested Minimum Watch: 2 episodes. You need to see Sara before and after the attack on planet Grabera before making a decision on the series.

Full Review:

I first found Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry in my early days of anime. It was one of the first I watched during the earliest days of Funimation streaming, and it stuck with me all these years later.

The story starts with Sara Werec, a young girl who faces the prospect of never seeing her beloved older brother again. You see, her brother, Ralph, is a Reasoner: a pilot trained to fly large, mech-like space fighters called Strains. Ralph is being deployed to the front lines of humanity’s long running civil war several light years away and due to the effects of time dilation caused by faster than light travel, this means young Sara will grow up, grow old, and die before Ralph is able to return. In order to again see her brother, Sara makes a choice to follow in his footsteps and become a Strain pilot herself.

We catch up to Sara a few years later as she and her fellow cadet Reasoners are nearing graduation at their Strain pilot training academy. Sara, like her brother, has become one of the best of the best, and she can’t wait to head out to the front lines to finally meet up with him. Unfortunately, fate has other things in store for her. When Sara’s university on planet Grabera comes under attack by enemy forces, she and her friends board their Strains in order to push back the enemy. They do well at first, but then learn that Ralph and his advanced Strain are leading the enemy’s attack! After defeating nearby opposition, including Sara, Ralph breaks into a research facility to steal a strange girl being held there. He then departs leaving his battered younger sister behind traumatized and in need of answers.

Having lost her ability to pilot a Strain due to her brother’s attacks, Sara’s quest should be over, but her need for answers won’t let her quit. She changes her name and reenlists in the military in secret as a pilot in the much slower rank and file Gambee mech squadrons. Though she is deeply frustrated and deeply traumatized, Sara continues after her brother no matter the risks or abuses she faces along the way.

It’s Sara’s determination that really kept me with the show. She’s stuck piloting a machine that her Strain could run circles around and she has to keep her identity hidden unless she wants to face endless questions about her loyalty given the atrocities her brother committed. Perhaps even worse, her fellow rank and file pilots treat her terribly as she is relearning the ropes and pushing herself far too hard in order to reach the front lines as soon as possible. Sara’s now silent, determined attitude doesn’t win her any friends, either, but there is something oddly compelling about how she endures emotional and occasional physical abuse all without complaining or lashing out in return.

Eventually, Sara does find a way to pilot a Strain again, and it’s interesting to watch as she is encouraged back out of her trauma and depression. She has to learn to trust others again, all while still protecting her biggest, darkest secrets. That she continues to hide her true identity creates some nice moments of tension in later episodes. After all, her brother didn’t just betray her, he hurt a lot of people, and Sara is forced to deal with that fact eventually.

All of this might have come to nothing if we never leaned why Ralph did what he did, but we do learn his motivations. By the end of the show, Ralph’s own story is revealed and those facts place a new twist on his actions.

Unfortunately, as much as I like Sara and the emotional journey she’s forced down, she’s kinda the only character worth following. Ok… there’s Lottie, an ace Strain pilot almost as good as Sara who has her own story of sadness similar to Sara’s, and there’s Carris who gets a smidge of characterization late in the series, but really none of the other characters matter all that much. All the other minor characters might have their one differentiating trait… one is shy… another likes meat… but whatever. The show is just not given much to work with in terms of characters.

Animation wise, aside for forever being stuck at low DVD 480p resolution, Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry is… fine. The show has the occasional neat scene or neat bit of art, a city built within a hollowed out asteroid looks pretty cool, for instance, but for the most part there’s no big wow factor. Even the combat of the fast moving Strains and their battles with the clouds of numerous explosive robotic “tumors” is a bit bland and confusing. Sara and the other Strain pilots fight enemies that latch on and explode by… chopping them at close range with arm blades? Some of the crossing attack patterns are cool, but again, overall the combat seems like it needs another round of thought to be truly compelling.

The same rating of “ok, but a bit bland” goes for the character animations and backgrounds and even the show’s music. I would, however, like to give a little shout out to the show’s battle theme which actually has a bit of fun punch to it. Despite everything else, I did find myself getting a little pumped up whenever that theme kicked in.

All In All:

There are space anime with more compelling casts, better art, and more exciting action, but that doesn’t mean that Strain is not worth watching. Sara’s highs and lows are fairly compelling. The core story is actually kinda clever in the way it uses the sci-fi setting. The resolution is genuinely good. Just… watch out for episode 7, the out of place goofy fan service episode.

In Short:

Steins;Gate is a 2011 anime by White Fox that follows the humor and tragedy of self-proclaimed mad scientist Okabe Rintaro as he, and his friends, get in over their heads when they accidentally create a time machine by hooking up a cellphone to a microwave. Steins;Gate features great characters, witty dialogue, one of the better time travel plots around, and easily one of the best English dubs in all of anime.

Steins;Gate has a unique, desaturated art style that may not sit well with anime fans used to more colorful works. It is also one anime where you cannot use the “three episode rule” to determine its quality. Instead, it takes nearly twelve episodes for it to put all its pieces on the board. But, once it is finally ready, it goes all out for a thrilling, non-stop second half.

Suggested Minimum Watch: 3 episodes. You can’t give up on the show until Kurisu is made a lab member. But really, you should watch till episode 12…

Full Review:

Okabe Rintaro, or “Hououin Kyouma” as he prefers to call himself just because it sounds cooler, likes to pretend he is constantly engaged in a secretive, high stakes battle for the future of humanity against a fictional group he calls “The Organization”. He often speaks in a grandiose, self-important tone, deflects scrutiny away from himself by pretending to get urgent phone calls as if he is a secret agent, and he likes to assign meaningless norse code names to his mundane tasks and projects as if he really is the mad scientist he claims to be.

In reality, Okabe is an intelligent, if slightly eccentric, university student with a decent sense of humor who lives in a tiny second floor apartment which which he calls the Future Gadget Labratory. He and his best friend, computer hacker and fellow student Itaru “Daru” Hashida, frequently hang out together and come up with silly inventions in their spare time. Although he can in no way be called normal, Okabe mostly keeps up his mad scientist act for the benefit and delight of his childhood friend Mayuri Shiina.

One day, while attending a lecture on the possibility of time travel, Okabe is pulled out into a hallway by genius university student Makise Kurisu. Strangely, Makise demands to know what Okabe wanted to tell her earlier… which is odd because Okabe has never spoken to her before in his life. Stranger still, just minutes later, Makise later ends up lying dead in a pool of her own blood at that same conference! But, strangest of all, is that everything seems to shift when Okabe texts news of Makise’s murder to Daru. Okabe soon finds out that the events of the past day have drastically changed. In this new timeline, Makise is still very much alive. In fact, she is the one now holding a talk on the impossibility of time travel.

Makise and Okabe verbally spar over time travel theories at the lecture with Okabe coming out on the losing end. But still, Makise is intrigued enough by Okabe’s claims saying time travel is possible that she comes to visit him at his Future Gadget Laboratory apartment. Though the two frequently argue and spar and tease each other endlessly, they are both dedicated to the pursuit of science and actually hit it off fairly well despite a rocky start. The way these two characters interact is just brilliant and becomes even more so as the show moves into its non-stop second half. A scene where the more serious Makise at one point imitates Okabe’s eccentric mannerisms is easily a top highlight of the show.

And that brings us to pacing. Steins;Gate is somewhat known for its slow start, and for good reason. For the first three or four episodes, you’re kinda left wondering if this time travel thing the show seems to be built around is even real. And, if it is real, will it ever be consequential enough to carry a twenty four episode series? The constant setbacks and limited time travel successes Okabe and friends achieve with their strange cellphone activated microwave almost leads you to believe that Steins;Gate is going to be about the boring, unimportant subtleties of time travel. But that’s not the case at all!

Every episode in the first half of Steins;Gate is packed with good character moments and interesting plot developments, even when those developments are occasional subtle. As an example, Okabe and friends at one point early on try to prove they can send messages back in time by attempting to win the previous day’s lottery. It’s a classic time travel trope. And their plan works… except the person they send the winning lottery numbers to gets them mixed up and they don’t end up winning after all. That’s the sort of thing that keeps occurring in the first half of Steins;Gate. Except it’s not the whole story.

The closer Steins;Gate gets to it’s half way point, the more show ratchets up it’s level of tension. Things that seem innocent or incidental at first keep becoming more and more important and keep intruding more and more on the somewhat leisurely flow of the plot. Little by little, the story starts to accelerate, and you do start to see major consequences caused by Okabe’s meddling in time travel. By the time you reach the halfway point you know something big is going to happen. And then it does. And from then on the show’s pace changes from lazily drifting down a stream to battling the toughest white water river rapids imaginable. You quickly come to realize that the first half of the show was like the long slow pull up the first big hill of a roller coaster. Once you get to the top, the show doesn’t stop and doesn’t let up until it puts you through a series of thrilling high speed loops and drops and turns that continue all the way to the end.

If it’s solid, exciting time travel plot is one of Steins;Gate’s strengths, its characters are its other strong point.

Okabe plays the role of pretend mad scientist with equal parts charm and delusion. He’s really not so out of the ordinary when he occasionally drops out of his crazier persona, but when he is fully in his role as mad scientist Hououin Kyouma, he can be quite egotistical and infuriating to his friends.

Daru plays a great straight man to Okabe’s mad scientist, but he can be just as wacky as Okabe thanks to his occasional semi-lewd observations and his devotion to his online video game character harem that he has to keep up with.

Then there’s Makise who really is the show’s second main character. She is intelligent and witty and is constantly verbally sparing with the goofier Okabe over everything from legitimate scientific theory to how bad she is at cooking. One of the funnest things about Makise is she’s just as much of a nerd as Okabe and Daru are, but unlike them, she does her best to keep that fact hidden. Her attempts to hide her knowledge of nerd culture lead to some of the best lines of dialogue in the series, and Okabe’s teasing, antagonistic love/hate relationship with her is a highlight of the show.

Steins;Gate also has a small cast of interesting characters who help or hinder Okabe in various ways. The stories of these seemingly minor characters are a lot more personal and fleshed out than you might expect, and actually play a larger role in the main story than you might at first think. There are some great, weighty moments that I don’t want to spoil, but check out the Dig Deeper section below if you are interested in learning more about these side stories and why they are included alongside the main plot.

One final thing that makes Steins;Gate’s story so good is that it pulls in a lot of real world elements and twists them around for its own fictional purposes. For instance, time traveler John Titor actual was the originator of the time travel theories that the lecturer plagiarized at the beginning of the first episode. “John Titor” was a real username who posted on message boards about time travel back in 2001. Likewise SERN, a misspelling of the real world CERN, better known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research is a real world group of scientists who do high energy particle physics. Their fictional counterparts play a major role in Steins;Gate and help make the show feel more grounded in reality than it otherwise would.

Graphics & Sound

Graphically, Steins;Gate is… different. It has plenty of detail in its characters and backgrounds, and while it’s by no means an animation powerhouse, it gets by well enough. What makes it a little odd is its palette and style that sorta sucks the color out of most of its scenes. Indoors, this mostly just means that a lot of the colors, especially the background colors, are somewhat muted. But outdoors, the show often combines its subdued colors with bright glare meant to convey the heat of summer. This subdued but also blown-out look was a little distracting to me at first and took a while to get used to. I wouldn’t even say its unique style is used to any great effect. It simply is what it is and you can like it or not. Personally, I kinda don’t.

Where Steins;Gate shines, however, is in its dialogue and voice acting. It’s fine in Japanese, and there’s some great moments like Okabe’s odd broken English greeting to a back alley vendor, but I will probably never watch it in Japanese again because the show is stellar in English. Steins;Gate is one of maybe five anime that I’ll hold up as incontrovertibly better in English than they are in Japanese. In either language, Steins;Gate’s dialogue is fast paced and witty, but in English, Funimation both provided great voice actors and made some substantial changes to the dialogue to make it flow better for an English audience.

What this means is, the English dialogue and acting in Steins;Gate is among the best of the best. Conversations flow brilliantly and you can hear every emotion the characters are conveying. But it also means that English dub is very decidedly not a direct translation. If that matters to you, by all means stick to the Japanese. In most places, this is wonderful. In episode 9, for instance, the English dub swaps out a confusing joke about @channel (Steins;Gate’s in-universe version of Twitter) for a trio of sly references to Star Trek. This kind of thing happens throughout the series. The English dub never changes the intent of the characters and it doesn’t at all alter the plot, but individual words, sentences, and exchanges can and do sometimes end up a bit different in the English version than they were in Japanese.

There’s not a lot to talk about in terms of music for Steins;Gate. There is some music, I guess, during tense or important scenes, but I can hardly recall it. What did stand out to me, though, was its opening theme. “Hacking to the Gate” is upbeat and relevant to the plot without being any kind of direct spoiler. I still listen to it on occasion, but this is not a show where I picked up the full instrumental score like I do for some of my other favorites.

All In All:

Steins;Gate is one of my favorite anime of all time. Its combination of great characters, fantastic witty dialogue, and a very strong time travel plot kinda checked all the boxes for me. Yes, it’s a little slow in the beginning, but rest assured that things really do build on themselves and pick up as the show approaches the half-way mark. Steins;Gate has tension, and emotion, and excitement to spare, it simply doesn’t show its full hand nearly as quickly as some other shows. But once it does hit its proverbial 88 miles per hour, you will, indeed, see some serious shit! (What?! I had to get a Back to the Future reference in there somewhere!)

In Short:

Land of the Lustrous is a 2017 anime by CGI powerhouse Orange about a small group of immortal, genderless people whose entire bodies are made of the gemstone or mineral each is named after. While most of the gems, like Jade or Diamond, are content to carry out their same routines day after day, just as they have for hundreds or even thousands of years, the show’s focus on the spunky but naive and physically brittle Phosphophyllite rewards viewers with one of anime’s best character arcs.

For better or worse, the anime only covers the first few chapters of the manga it is based on. So, while Land of the Lustrous tells an interesting story filled with great characters, some spectacular combat, and a deft combination of fun humor and intense drama, it does end just when it seems the real story is about to begin.

Suggested Minimum Watch: 2 episodes. It would be a big shame to quit the show before you get to meet Dia and Bort.

Full Review:

Land of the Lustrous (houseki no kuni) is one of those rare anime that requires a lot more explanation than usual simply because its setting is so different from anything else out there. It’s not set in a high school, or on a military space ship, or a sports field, or really anywhere else your typical anime is.

At its simplest, Land of the Lustrous is an anime about a group of immortal sentient humanoid gemstones living together on an otherwise uninhabited grassy island. The gems are primarily organized by their hardness, durability, and personality. The green haired Jade, for instance, is logical and factual and serves the role as the group’s day to day organizer. Bort, with its long black hair and cold, demanding demeanor is the most durable of all the gems and so it serves as their most potent defender. Other gems take on a variety of roles from lookouts to gathers to even a clothing designer and a surgeon of sorts.

The gems do not age and cannot really die. They essentially just lose consciousness if sufficiently dismembered, but even if they are shattered by an accident or by an attack, they can always be pieced back together and wake up good as new. They don’t breath, so operating underwater is not much of a hinderance. They don’t eat, per say, since they get their nourishment and energy from the sun, so even food is mostly a non-issue for them. It does mean that they tire easily at night to the point of sometimes falling asleep unintentionally, and that they spend the long cloudy winters in hibernation, but they can, with effort, stay awake, so even those actions are more an inconvenience than an outright limitation. The gems also store their memories all throughout their bodies instead of just in a brain. This means that if they are shattered but not put completely back together they can forget things they once knew. But, since they are immortal, it is rare for them not to be able to track down all the pieces of one of their companions.

The only true enemy the gems have are the show’s second set of strange, otherworldly creatures: the Lunarians. Their sole goal appears to be to shatter the gems and cart them back off to the moon for some unknown purpose. Each time they appear, they emerge in the sky out of what looks to be strange ink blots that open to reveal a small army riding on a large yellow disc of clouds that hovers above the island. These raiding parties are armed with bows and spears, but they almost seem more ritualistic than warlike, as roughly half the Lunarians in each raid come playing drums, tambourines, or flutes, while others hold flags and banners. If anything, the Lunarians appear to be based in Budist imagery. Interestingly, the Lunarians appear to be made of clouds themselves. They are the same yellow color as the clouds they ride on and they blow away when defeated.

For the most part, the gems are content to live their immortal lives doing the same thing day in and day out for years, decades, centuries, and even millennia at a time. Although there are some, like the doctor Rutile, who show curiosity in their specific fields of expertise, it seems pretty clear that the gems are not especially inquisitive and prefer to simply carry out the roles given to them by their leader, Sensei Kongo.

But then there’s Phos.

Phos, short for Phosphophyllite, is a brittle, easily cracked peppermint green gem who bears the distinction of being the only one of the gems to not have an assigned task. Phos is upbeat, happy, energetic, and spunky. It is also clumsy, prone to complaining and talking back, and more than a little inattentive. For the first nearly 300 years of its life, Phos has just lounged around in the sun doing little more than occasionally annoying its fellow gems. In all that time, Sensei Kongo has been trying to find a task that the short attention spanned and easily broken Phos can carryout without wandering off or being shattered. Phos seems to be a poor choice for any sort of repetitive task, and even though they wish to take part in what they naively see as the glamour and excitement of combat against the Lunarians, they are far too fragile to do so.

Phos is the lead character of the show, and deservedly so. Early on, it is tasked by Sensei Kongo to compile an encyclopedia for the other gems. It immediately tries to find a way out of the job either by getting others to fill in for it, or by at least roping one of the other gems in as an assistant. In the early episodes, Phos’ wit and spunk shine, filling each scene with humor and laughs. Land of the Lustrous could have easily padded out its twelve episodes with Phos’ delightfully dismissive antics, but it goes far above and beyond that. Where this could have been a show of nothing but humor, Land of the Lustrous is actually more an examination of tragedy and change, with most of that change happening to Phos itself. One of the strongest points of the show is the arc Phos goes through. The Phos we see by the end of the twelfth episode is a far different character than the Phos we get in episode one.

Phos’ journey is set in motion by Cinnabar, a second oddity among the gems. Where most of the gems, including Phos, live together on the island, Cinnabar lives alone away from the others by its own choice. Cinnabar, you see, is literally toxic to the plants and animals of the island thanks to the never ending flow of mercury it exudes. This mercury is even dangerous to the other gems as it can damage their finish and prevent them from absorbing the sun’s rays. Early on, Phos hears that Cinnabar is very clever, so it tries to rope Cinnabar into its encyclopedia task only to learn Cinnabar has a tragic secret.

Although Cinnabar is tasked with performing the night watch for the other gems thanks to the way its mercury lets it live off starlight, this tasks is actually pointless and futile. The Lunarians have never once, in several thousands years, appeared after sundown. When Phos finally meets Cinnabar, the latter admits it would welcome being incapacitated and taken away to the moon if only to end its monotony and isolation. Day after day and night after night Cinnabar stands waiting for the Lunarians to come for it, yet, for some reason, they never do. That it isn’t even desired by the Lunarians only serves to push Cinnabar into further self-loathing.

When Phos learns of this shocking, bitter secret, it makes a hasty yet sincere promise to Cinnabar to find them a better job than the night watch. To find Cinnabar a job that only it can do. This heartfelt promise from the flighty Phos, who has likely never promised anyone anything like this before, drives much of the plot throughout the rest of the show.

Graphics & Sound

One of the first things you often hear about Land of the Lustrous is how it is computer animated. This is a rather divisive issue among anime fans as 3d computer animated shows are often thought to be more clunky and less fluid and expressive than 2d hand drawn shows. Land of the Lustrous got around these problems by taking the best of both worlds. Orange brought in noted 2d animators to help with storyboarding and combat scenes. They would sometimes literally draw expressive line art on top of the unfinished computer animations to give the computer animators tips and goals to shoot for, ensuring that the show remained just as expressive as the best hand drawn anime.

Orange also recorded the voice actors first and did the animations second. This is opposite of the way most 2d and 3d anime are done. By recording the voices first, it gives the animators something to work off of. They were able to time movements and invent new animations that added fluidity in time with each characters’ already recorded voices. The end results is that Land of the Lustrous has an extra level of snappiness and expression that you don’t often get in anime.

But beyond all that, the show is just beautiful! Land of the Lustrous makes brilliant use of lighting and color. The island the gems live on is detailed and scenic from its wave-swept beaches to its marshy forests to the two white stone structures the gems live in. It had me captivated by the very first blade of green grass that came on the screen.

Each gem looks spectacular, as well, with their own diverse styles and colors of translucent hair that casts light on nearby objects and environments. One of my favorite visual tricks the show pulls is showing that the irises of each gem are, in fact, composed of a complex facet of gemstone shapes that appear whenever the camera gets close enough. The Lunarians, too, have such an interesting and creepy look to them that feels so different from everything else in the show. They have an entirely different visual style that can at times be awe inspiring.

A lot of the show’s general look and feel comes from its manga. While the Land of the Lustrous anime is not a shot for shot recreation, it does take some of the best panels from the manga and mixes them up where necessary to make a more compelling tv show. This is a fine line to walk, as showing the same scene from a different angle could ruin it, but Orange pulled it off with room to spare. Check the Dig Deeper section below for some links to videos that go in-depth about the show’s visuals.

On the audible front, I love this show’s sounds and music just as much as I love its colors and animation. There’s this great mix of piano and strings and horns and more exotic instruments that come together to create a wide variety of moods. Special call out goes to the chillingly strong piano notes of the main theme you get just seconds into starting the first episode.

I actually bought the soundtrack to this one like I do for all the anime whose music I love, and it’s been great to listen to Phosphophyllite’s upbeat, hopeful theme as well as the sad, worrisome, lonely theme provided to Cinnabar. Then, of course, there’s Sunspot, the strange theme filled with bells and tambourines that plays whenever the Lunarians appear. The battle theme, Battle, is great too!

I also love the show’s opening. It has a complexity about both its graphics and audio that is entrancing. It’s also interesting because while Phos is the one who dominates the screen, the song itself appears to be sung by Cinnabar. Listen closely to the lyrics where the singer talks about being the only one to wander through the night. Those words don’t belong to Phos or any of the other gems!

Finally, in regards to voice acting, Land of the Lustrous is excellent there as well. The Japanese cast did an amazing job bringing their respective characters to life. Phos’ voice actress, in particular, brings a ton of energy and fun to the character. The show’s English dub is also very good. The Japanese cast set a hard act to follow, but the English actors did a great job. I was a little afraid for the English dub just because of how fast paced and nuanced characters like Phos could be at times, but the English actors for Phos and the other gems matched those performances to my satisfaction.

All In All:

Land of the Lustrous is an interesting show that is unique even among other great anime. Its setting and concepts are delightfully alien while still being relatable. Its look, animation, and sound are excellent. And, its characters’ desires and motivations, especially those of its lead character Phos and secondary character Cinnabar, are complex in ways you may not expect from just watching the first episode.