What Makes Senki Zesshō Symphogear So Awesome?
When I found it a few years ago, I had no idea that Senki Zessho Symphogear would quickly become one of my favorite anime series of all time. It is a fun, uplifting, semi sci-fi spin on the classic magical girl genre that’s filled with awesome action, awesome music, awesome characters, awesome messages, and awesome stories told over five seasons. Here’s a brief description of a scene set in one of the show’s later episodes that is emblematic of why I love this anime so much:
Our main character, 17 year old Hibiki Tachabana, has just survived a powerful trap set by her team’s enemies. She did so by drawing on a never before used power granted to her by her Symphogear armor thanks to some key events that occurred in the prior season. After a flashy re-transformation sequence which sees her normally orange and white outfit slimmed down and adorned in shiny gold, she breaks out into a triumphant song about bravery and kindness as she now easily rebuffs the enemies who had moments ago been giving her so much trouble. With a few brilliantly animated blocks and punches in time with her self-sung lyrics, she swats two of her three foes aside before the final one unleashes a flurry of missiles at her.
Explosions light up the screen, and for a moment the scene is filled with smoke, but then Hibiki, still singing, her voice alive with righteous fury, bursts through the lingering haze fist first, completely unharmed. Her powerful punch careens towards the enemy leader’s face, certain to be a killing blow…
….but at the last possible moment Hibiki pulls back her punch, her fist mere centimeters away from striking true. She holds her attack there for a moment as if to make the point “I could have killed you.” But then her face breaks out into a kind, almost sympathetic smile as she unclenches her fist and turns her hand over to reach out an open, welcoming palm to her enemy.
“I don’t know if you were telling the truth or not, but you said you wished we could be friends… So…” Hibiki offers.
The above action sequence lasts just under three minutes but it contains all the pieces that make Symphogear one of the best anime I’ve ever watched. Without going too much farther into episode specific spoilers, let me break down just why I love this show so much.
1. It Has Awesome Action
While Symphogear isn’t as outrageously high budget as something like Akudama Drive or Ufotable’s various action oriented shows like Unlimited Blade Works or Demon Slayer, its action scenes and general animation quality are pretty good. Even its first season, which was produced with a lower budget and leaner crew, gets a lot right as far as action scenes go. Choreography, shot composition, tension, impact, and visual effects. They are all there from the very beginning. And the show just gets better and better by leaps and bounds as it moves into later seasons.
In particular, Symphogear’s action scenes deliver just about everything you’d want from what is essential a Magical Girl show that has traded the traditional frilly costumes of the genre for cool looking, form fitting power armor. From tense one on one battles, to smaller meaningful paired team ups, to the whole team squaring off against armies of minions, to exciting season ending boss fights, Symphogear has it all. There’s a lot of variety across the five seasons and the show is constantly able to one up itself while still remaining consistent with what came before.
One of the coolest things Symphogear does with its combat are the stylized freeze frames it holds for a second or two when one of the heroines utilizes one of her signature special attacks. These named attacks become integral parts of each character and are a joy to watch even if they only last a brief moment at a time.
Oh, and hold onto your hat for each season’s opening episode. Starting with the second season, the show goes all out with its first episodes to remind you just how awesome Symphogear is. We’re talking about extended action sequences that could easily be the finales of other shows!
2. It Has Awesome Music
All those actions scenes above? They are all of them set and choreographed and timed to various forms of awesome music. And it’s not just music. They’re all set to singing. You see, the Symphogear armors that our heroines wear are powered by myths and songs, with the songs felt deep within each wearer’s heart being the far more important of the two. Inevitably, at least one of the heroines in any given combat sequence will be pouring her thoughts and feelings into her singing in order to fuel her powers. This leads to some pretty powerful lyrics that express the main characters’ hopes and fears and doubts and dreams all while they are fighting for what they most believe in.
Each of the Symphogear armors emerge from pendants that contain fragments of a different relic from the pages of history, so likewise each of the wearers personalities and combat styles fit into a theme that draws heavily on the history of their relic. One relic’s origins came from the remaining fragments of a legendary Japanese sword, so its wielder naturally comes from a traditional Japanese family and uses a powerful nodachi as she sings lyrics with a traditional Japanese bent. This kind of thing goes for all of the Symphogear users and it affects the feeling of each combat scene. One battle might feature J-Pop, while another might be steeped in heavy rock music. And the thing is, the fights really do match up to the music. Sword slashes, heavy punches, missile barrages, and more are all well timed to the songs being sung. It can be a sight to behold as attacks, dodges, blocks, and special techniques all flow in time to the various beats.
Symphogear has a lot of songs sung by its core cast of characters, but even so, there’s more combat sequences by far than there are unique songs in each season, so you will hear some repetition. Fortunately, the show varies up which parts of the songs you hear in order to keep things fresh. More than that, the series also does a pretty good job of introducing new songs right when they are needed. Getting a powerful new song at a turning point in the plot or after a key moment in a character’s growth can be quite the thrill.
There’s also a handful of songs separate from the combat that I really love. Most notably are the concert scenes that show up roughly once per season. One of the Symphogear users truly loves to sing as a profession, not just as as part of defending the world from evil, and her concerts throughout the series are masterful showcases of music and animation.
3. It Has Awesome Characters
Symphogear’s action and music would be pretty soured without a cast of awesome characters to hold things together. Fortunately, the series doesn’t slack in that regard, either. Each of the handful of Symphogear users are interesting, fully rounded characters. They face their own personal problems on and off the battlefield. Sometimes they fail to meet their own expectations. But they also have plenty of instances where they triumph or support each other in their times of need.
Take Tsubasa Kazanari, one of the first Symphogear wearers we meet. As a shy child growing up, she was found to be compatible with a Symphogear relic and was trained over the course of the next decade or so to help defend the world from threats no one else could face. Tragic events early on in the first season see her abandon her normal wants and needs in order to shape herself into a self described sword. For the next couple of years she lives as a shell of a person whose one and only stated desire is to become strong enough to make sure nobody else under her protection is ever harmed again.
Tsubasa is a powerful warrior who is capable of being an excellent mentor and a true friend. In her ideal world, her singing would be used to comfort and entertain and would not be needed for combat. Thus, she tries all the harder to fight for that ideal world when it becomes necessary. Special note should be paid to Tsubasa’s phoenix imagery which, on occasion, sees her rise up from her own challenges and defeats to some of the show’s most inspiring heights.
In practice, Tsubasa acts as a brooding warrior who is highly protective of her friends even to a fault. She can be encouraging and occasionally her words are enormously helpful to those around her, but sometimes she is too caught up in her own troubles to help others. Though the Symphogears don’t really have a team leader, Tsubasa might be the closest thing to one as she is often the one calling out strategies during battle.
Or, take main character Hibiki Tachibana who only gains the use of her Symphogear after being injured in a rescue attempt by Tsubasa and her partner. Though she struggles during her two long years of recovery, Hibiki somehow manages to maintain her fun loving nature and her deep desire to help others.
Where Tsubasa is heavily themed after the concept of blades and swords, Hibiki takes on a unique role among the Symphogear users as the only one who doesn’t wield a separate weapon. Though Hibiki fights her battles with some truly impressive punches and kicks, her true power is that of carrying the show’s core message of reaching out to one’s enemies in an attempt to bring peace through understanding. Sometimes she struggles with upholding her ideals. Sometimes she laments the fact that that her Symphogear powers only seem good for dealing with the “little problems” of villains who want to destroy the world. Super strength and a punch that can smash nearly anything aren’t much help when she alienates a friend or when she has to face down long lingering family issues. But, when push comes to shove, it’s Hibiki’s mighty clenched fists that can be opened to form helpful, outstretched hands that ultimately win the day.
In practice, Hibiki is the naive, hopeful goof of the team. She is always encouraging others, always pushing her more serious teammates to live a little and have some good, wholesome fun. At school, she is perpetually behind on her homework because she takes any and every opportunity to help those around her. On the battlefield, she is often the team’s ace in the hole, especially once the final boss is in sight.
It’s not just the core group of Symphogear users that makes Symphogear great. There’s a small but fun cast of secondary characters and some terrific villains as well. The villains in Symphogear range from cruelly self absorbed to frighteningly focused to uncompromisingly righteous to scarily silly. Each of the main villains is memorable and distinct, and they really round out the show by providing excellent foils to the Symphogear users.
4. It Has Awesome Messages
Consistent across the seasons of Symphogear is an oft repeated core message that says understanding one another and working through our conflicts peacefully is the only true way forward. Sure, the show features tons of combat and explosions, but in the end, every single time, it’s this message of compassion and forgiveness that is the real way out of conflict. It doesn’t mean the show is timid by any means. This core message is sometimes delivered in some pretty awe-inspiring ways. What better way to show an enemy the error of their ways than to reach out to them when they are at their most vulnerable? Similar messages are at the hearts of many of the best magical girl shows, but Symphogear puts this theme so front and center, and expertly integrates it so directly into its plots that it’ll have you cheering for that inevitable outstretched hand.
Additionally, the show puts forth a handful of other themes that have a bit less focus but are still pretty inspiring. Themes like redemption, renewal, and admitting one’s weaknesses come up again and again. While the overall theme of reaching out drives the biggest moments of the plot, these lesser themes lead to some pretty powerful personal moments for many of the show’s main characters over the course of the five seasons.
5. It Has Awesome Stories
The first season of Symphogear would be one of my favorite anime if it simply stood alone. It does a good job balancing excitement, sorrow, humor, and touching moments. That the series has five awesome seasons produced back to back, all of which at least match the first season story wise, just kinda blows me away. Each season is its own story and has its own set of villains, but the main and secondary characters remain and certainly the show’s themes form a repeating through-line across all the seasons. While each story does largely stand on its own, key events from past seasons do frequently come back in neat ways that make the series as a whole feel cohesive. The fifth season, in particular, is something of a victory lap that pulls back in elements from the other seasons in pretty awesome ways.
It’s not just the show’s immediate plots that are awesome. It’s the way the series emotionally resonates by leveraging all the other pieces. Whether it is referencing events from the previous season or from the previous episode, Symphogear has this knack for landing strong, uplifting emotional beats again and again based on what came before. Pulling off moments that warm your heart is almost as much a part of Symphogear as the fight scenes are. And you don’t get that in what is predominately an action series without the show being willing to take the time to tell good stories.
All in all, Symphogear is a show that saw me fist pump the air in overjoyed excitement several times throughout the seasons and had me leaping to my feet on occasion as it drove home its climaxes. It’s a show that has quite a bit of goofiness but mixes that with a well-appreciated maturity of storytelling. While its cast does face down some serious troubles and doubts from time to time, it’s not a show that is overly dark or depressing or filled with gore like a lot of magical girl shows seem to be these days. I wouldn’t want every show to attempt to be Symphogear. It has a direct, almost over the top, complex-simplicity that I think might be impossible to replicate. But it also knows that it wants to be an awesome action show with a big heart and good message, and it pretty unfailingly hits its desired mark again and again.
If you are at all interested in Symphogear or the magical girl genre, I’d recommend you give the first season four episodes to win you over. By then, the show will have given you a full taste of all it has to offer.
Review: Astra Lost in Space
In Short:
Astra Lost in Space is a twelve episode anime released by studio Lerche in 2019. Set in a future where faster than light travel is common, the show follows a group of high school students who are frighteningly transported from the surface of one planet into orbit above a distant unknown world by a strange energy sphere.
They should be dead, but because they were still wearing their all-purpose space suits after being dropped off at the start of their “planet camp” field trip, they are able to board a derelict spaceship drifting nearby which they soon name the Astra.
Safe, but with barely any food or water, the group must survive interpersonal conflicts, technical and environmental challenges, and a surprising amount of intrigue as they chart a months long, planet hopping course back home.
Suggested Watch Minimum: 2 episodes. Astra Lost in Space has a story that unfurls quite a bit as it goes, but the second episode is a good place to judge the show since it forms the basic template the rest of the series follows.
Full Review:
Astra Lost in Space is one of my favorite anime of all time… which makes it funny that I’m going to start off this review by encouraging you to stick with it all the way to the end of the first episode. The first two minutes of the show are great. It starts with one of our nine main characters frightened and alone, tumbling out of control in their spacesuit above an unknown planet. The final third of the episode is really good, too, as we see our somewhat antagonistic group work together for the first time. But, for as great as this show is, it kinda starts off slowly. After the intriguing open that got me hooked, the next twenty or so minutes had me growing more and more concerned for the show’s direction. They are filled with an odd mix of goofiness and cliches and hijinks just seemed off. Instead of a cool space adventure that the opening promised, it felt like the show was going to be a dumb, goofy, slapstick comedy with no real core or purpose.
Fortunately, that feeling turned out to be extremely misplaced. Once I got past those awkward twenty minutes in the spaceport, there was a good episode and a truly great show waiting beyond. So, what I’m saying is, stick with it. Even the first episode ends up being good, but you do need to wait until the second half before it really kicks into gear. Once it did, Astra Lost in Space went on to surprise me with a very strong cast of characters, a good amount of light sci-fi, and a fun, well written story that steadily grew more tense and interesting the further the show went on. Let’s get into each of those a bit.
For characters, we have an ensemble cast with no real main character. Instead, we get nine individuals with drastically different personalities. They all have various strengths and weaknesses that come into play at different times throughout the series. Take Aries, the frightened girl we see in the show’s first few seconds. Turns out, when not fearing for her life, she is a bubbly, good-natured airhead, but she’s also someone whose strong sense of compassion and photographic memory are early keys to bringing the Astra’s misfit crew together. Or take Kanata, his “fake it until you make it” attitude and general goofiness are offset by his reliable leadership and world class athleticism, two qualities that save the day multiple times over.
Without going into too much detail, Astra Lost in Space is a story where every character is essential, where several of the characters get a good bit of backstory, and where even their flaws are there for a reason. While the cast’s early banter and interpersonal conflicts can be a little annoying, they set the show up in a great position to see its makeshift crew slowly come together as a family by the end. It was a lot of fun watching these characters bounce off each other and change for the better as the series progressed.
As a science fiction adventure, Astra Lost in Space is great. The core loop of the show is that in order to get home, the crew of the Astra needs to keep traveling to new worlds closer and closer to their end goal. They chart a course between habitable worlds that lets them go planetside and resupply their limited stores of food and water after each faster than light jump. The worlds they visit and the challenges they face are just good basic sci-fi. The show deals with things like alien ecosystems, micrometer strikes, natural disasters, and differences in gravity, but it does so in fun ways. This is a humorous adventure anime, not a science documentary, but the series still does a decent job on the science, too.
Finally, there’s the show’s overarching story of why these high school kids were transported into the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space in the first place. A lot of the early cliches and tropes and character oddities that feel like things you’ve seen in anime before actually matter as the story moves along. We have the main story of our nine crew members making their way back home, but the secondary story of what’s waiting for them there also comes into play part way through the series. Astra Lost in Space would make a pretty good sci-fi adventure if all it did was take our characters from one interesting planet to the next, but the way its various large and small plots fit together makes the series something special. There’s drama and sadness, but also some pretty nice moments of courage, humor, bonding, and forgiveness, as well. For a show that is largely a lighthearted adventure, the amount of stuff I can’t even hint at in this part of the review for fear of giving away spoilers is fairly extensive!
Graphics wise, Astra Lost in Space is decent, but not stellar, if you’ll pardon the pun. Character designs are good, and the show has a nice colorful vibe to it, but things like movement and overall animation are typically fine but not overly compelling. There’s far worse shows than this one, but it won’t be topping any animation best of chart’s either. If I had to criticize anything specifically, I’d point out that the computer rendering of the Astra is just not as good as I wish it was. Planetes, which came out some sixteen years earlier, has better ship animation by far, and most of its ships are completely hand drawn.
Soundwise, Astra Lost in Space is good. Sound effects are good. Voice acting is good. And its music is good, as well. You do get some nice, varied, upbeat music for the action scenes. I also like the opening and closing themes. Maybe they aren’t super special, but, again, they’re nicely upbeat and pair well with their on screen animations. Oh, and keep an eye out for evolving opening and closing credits that change over time and add new elements as the crew encounters them. The closings, in particular, show fun little slices of the crew’s life in their offscreen downtime as they travel from planet to planet.
All In All:
Astra Lost in Space is a bigger and better science fiction adventure than it first appears. Its characters have more depth, its worlds have more science, and its story has more intrigue, drama, humor, and heart than you might expect from the first few episodes. And, somehow, it achieves all this without losing its sense of friendship, family, and fun.
Illegal Cloning. Cruel parents. Attempted murder via wormhole. Political intrigue. World war. Planetary evacuation. An apocalyptic asteroid strike. Massive government coverup. Secret rewritten history. Royal assassinations. Yeah, I wasn’t kidding when I said the amount of things I couldn’t talk about were extensive!
It’s pretty amazing how many quality character beats and story beats Astra Lost in Space manages to fit into the space of twelve episodes. Some of them, like the cloning plot, take quite a while to make it out into the open. The way the show slowly introduced one bad parent after another was pretty interesting, because in isolation, any one of those parents could be written as a typical absurdly bad anime parent. But, as more and more of the Astra’s crew was revealed to have had bad childhoods, it eventually became apparent that we were looking at a major plot point instead of cliched writing.
I think it might have been the smaller things that I appreciated the most, however. Like the way Aries’ photographic memory was introduced as a convenient solution during a chase scene, but then kept coming back to help solve more and more serious problems as the story went on. Or how Kanata’s uncaring father and tough physical training was the key to rescuing so many of the characters over the course of the show. The scene were he lifts Ulgar out of the water one-handed actually kinda got to me. All that training really did serve a purpose!
Another fun detail that was really easy to miss were the Lucy Lum advertisements in the spaceport all the way back in the first episode. I wonder if anybody out there made the connection between those holographic posters and Yun-Hau’s appearance. I certainly didn’t.
But I think my favorite little thing the show did was revisit Kanata’s cheesy ultimate dive-bomb from the first episode. As noted up in the main review, that early scene in the spaceport almost turned me off the show, but by the end it was mirrored in one of the most tense and heartwarming moments in the entire series. That was pretty cool.
Anime Suggestions For A Ravenclaw
Your Name.
Your Name is pretty easily my favorite anime movie. It’s fantastically beautiful in both art and animation, has great characters, has some really well integrated music, and has a great premise. In it, two high school students living very different lives, a boy in the big city of Tokyo, and a girl in rural small town Japan, end up swapping bodies a couple of times a week. The juxtaposition between their lives, and friends, and budgets, and, yes, even genders, is just so much fun. At times, they have to pretend to be each other just so as to not disrupt their normal lives. Eventually, they have to solve a common problem together… separately… acting in each other’s place.
I was blown away by this movie when I first saw it a few years back. If you watch nothing else on this list, watch this one.
Wave, Listen To Me!
This is a fun show I stumbled upon just a year or two ago. It follows a woman with an energetic and often comically disastrous personality as she tries to make the best of her day to day life. She has this ability to think and talk a mile a minute as she examines and comments on whatever situation she’s gotten herself in.
She is recorded one night in a bar while complaining about her ex boyfriend to an older man she doesn’t know. The next day, she hears her meandering, alcohol-fueled rant played over the local radio station! She rushes to the station to complain only for this older man, who turns out to be a radio station producer, to invite her to take a seat in the recording booth and apologize for her admittedly embarrassing rant on air! Which she does!
It turns out that this radio executive saw huge potential in her in that bar, and he recruits her to lead a late night radio show where she can use all her wit and improvisation and rapid fire thinking to tell stores and perform radio dramas and give silly life advice to callers based on their strange relationship questions.
Wave, Listen To Me! is a fantastic, fun, off-beat show that’s just a little different than anything else out there.
Time of Eve
This one is an interesting show set in the near modern day but where humanoid androids that serve as helpers and household assistants and the like are integrated into society. These androids are required by law to have a little holographic halo above their heads marking them as non-human, but there’s this one out of the way coffee shop called “Time of Eve” where the house rules allow androids to turn off that indicator. The rules also prohibit anyone from inquiring whether a person within the cafe is a human or not.
The show is centered around two high school boys who repeatedly visit the cafe and encounter a variety of different people with different personalities. Some of the people are obviously androids. Some of them are obviously not. And some of the peoples’ statuses are delightfully unclear. The interactions between our two main characters and the cafe’s patrons, each of whom get a fleshed out side story, are just wonderful. Sometimes the stories are endearing. Sometimes they are funny. And sometimes they are tragic. It’s such a great concept that is executed extremely well.
Oh, and you’ll want the movie version instead of the mini-series version. The movie version has all the content of the mini-series, and just a bit more.
Amanchu!
This is one of a class of anime that I enjoy where the anime is about a real world activity and really, really knows its subject matter. For instance, there’s various sports anime about baseball or tennis or whatever that get all the details right. Amanchu! is about scuba diving.
In it, we get a shy, introverted girl who has just moved to a new town and started attending a new high school. When she is forced to join a school club, she gets invited to join the scuba club by a wonky, energetic girl who soon becomes her best friend.
I was forced into taking one final elective in college and somehow lucked out at being able to take a sponsored scuba diving course. It was a huge delight to find this anime, because it gets almost everything right. From how the scuba systems work, to the buddy system you use to make sure you and your buddy are safe while diving, to the utter joy it is to be under water and able to breath.
Though based around scuba diving, there’s certainly plenty of fun slice of life content, too. Silly moments and friendship building and all that. But the process of our main character learning to scuba dive is the main draw here.
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
One last movie. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms is a tale that is both epic in scope but very personal in execution. The movie is set in a magical medieval world where the magic of the world has naturally all but faded to nothing. Mezarte, the dominate kingdom of this tale, has long made use of fantastic flying dragons to maintain its power over its neighbors… but these immortal dragons its troops ride into battle are slowly dying off. In an effort to maintain an advantage over its rivals, Mezarte invades the distant territory of a peaceful people called the Iorph. The Iorph live incredibly long lives, you see, where they barely age at all even over the course of a human lifetime. Mezarte invades, abducts a handful of the Iorph intending to marry them off to produce immortal heirs, and kills the rest.
Our main character, Maquia, is an Iorph who manages to escape the slaughter of her people. As she flees, she stumbles upon a newborn human baby trapped within the arms of his murdered mother. Their wagon just happened to be between the invading army and Maquia’s people. Though Maquia hasn’t even reached full maturity herself, she adopts this human child as her own. The rest of the story is about this virtually immortal girl caring for her son as he ages. The relationship Maquia has with her son changes dramatically over the years as he goes from a baby, to a boy, to a teenager, and beyond. At times, their relationship is heartwarming, but sometimes it is heartbreaking. It all surrounds the question of how do you be a mother to someone when they age and you don’t.
The movie is magical and beautiful and sometimes tragic and sometimes thrilling. It is very well worth watching.
Review: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
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 high 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.
The reason Puella Magi Madoka Magica is well regarded as one of anime’s top Magical Girl shows isn’t actually its delightfulness or homages to the past. Instead, it owes much of its fame to much darker things. (If you haven’t watched up through episode 3 yet, stop and go do that before reading further.)
Fans of the Magical Girl genre will already be feeling that things aren’t quite right throughout the first three episodes. The emphasis on the tension of choosing a good wish. The warnings Mami gives about protecting the city as a Magical Girl not being fun. The feeling of impending doom that rises any time Homura appears. It all points to something being off the norms for the genre…
…and then at the end of episode 3, Mami is unceremoniously killed and eaten by a Witch she thought she had defeated!
The shock that reverberated through the anime community by the end of the third episode is almost the stuff of legends. And, it’s something many of us who love the show try to preserve for newcomers as best we can. Going in thinking Madoka Magica is very nearly a typical, upbeat Magical Girl show only to slam into the episode 3 twist is something I’ve led friends into multiple times. And most of them loved it.
What at first seemed to be a delightful if somewhat out of the ordinary take on the Magical Girl formula is suddenly transformed into someone else entirely. Something darker. Something even more interesting. From episode 4 on, Madoka Magica concerns itself with what drives people to be Magical Girls, the perils of exchanging a single wish for a dangerous, unending responsibility, and what happens if your cute magical mascot is not the innocent benevolent creature it usually is in these kinds of shows.
In reality, Puella Magi Madoka Magica has two main strengths: Its characters, and the horrifyingly cruel situation they are put in by their supposed mentor and helper Kyubey.
In most Magical Girl shows, the small magical mascot animals that first grants the girls their powers become one of the girls’ closest friends. They stay with their appointed girl during their daily routine. They are invisible to others giving the girl someone to talk to about the challenges of being a Magical Girl. And they are caring and highly protective of their Magical Girls, often going so far as to defend their charge as best they can if the going gets rough. Kyubey fulfills all of those aspects… except the last ones. Instead of caring about the Magical Girls it makes a contract with, Kyubey is at best indifferent to their fates. In reality, Kyubey actively leads the girls to disaster through both its actions and inactions.
Mami Tomoe’s death early on is the first big twist of the show. It is a harsh wakeup call telling you that Madoka Magica won’t be like other, more wholesome Magical Girl shows. But, it’s not the last surprise the show has in store. Instead of Madoka Kaname becoming a Magical Girl and using the power of friendship and love to defeat evil, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is actually about preventing Madoka from making her contract with Kyubey in order to try and save her from the grotesque, horrifying fate that, by design, awaits all Magical Girls.
You see, Kyubey is actually a member of an alien race that call themselves Incubators. They are logical and emotionless and something of a hive mind to the point that they see human individuality and emotion as a sickness. They probably wouldn’t deal with us at all except they have a higher purpose. It’s their goal to save the universe from the restless force of entropy by harvesting an unending supply of energy from the Magical Girls that they create.
It turns out that the Witches that Mami and all other previous Magical Girls have been fighting have actually been the twisted forms of past Magical Girls who gave in to and were driven mad by their despair. Kyubey collects the energy generated by the transition from hope to despair without really caring about what it’s doing to the girls it makes a contract with.
With that big reveal later in the series, suddenly all the efforts that Homura Akemi has taken to try and prevent Madoka from becoming a Magical Girl begin to make sense. Instead of a cold, uncaring person, Homura is shown to have become a Magical Girl expressly to save Madoka from her fate no matter how many tries it takes. Each time Homura fails, she travels back in time to try again and again and again. By the time the show starts, Homura has been stuck in this weeks long loop for over a hundred cycles. Her harsh, aloof attitude isn’t because she is uncaring, its because she cares so much that she has already exhausted every kinder, gentler approach to saving Madoka!
Along with Homura’s unending task are the tragic stories of Sayaka and Kyoko. The way these two first clash and later gain some sense of understanding of each other fleshes out the show so much. Sayaka’s initial sense of justice is understandably dashed when she finds out that she’s just being manipulated as a tool for a greater purpose. And, oddly enough, it’s the somewhat mean spirited, carefree, anything goes Kyoko that tries the hardest to save Sayaka from her downward spiral into despair.
One of my favorite things about Madoka Magica is that its turn from delightful to cruelly tragic was all planned from before the beginning. All the teasers and trailers released for the series before it aired showed your typical candy-coated Magical Girl series. The initial ending theme for the first two episodes is light and happy only for the ending to be swapped out for a dark and ominous sequence by the third episode. Once you get far enough in to the show, even the lyrics to the opening song take on a new, darker meaning. Astonishingly, the production actually went so far as to hide the involvement of its co-creator and writer Gen Urobuchi from audiences since he was well known for going dark with his past works.
This purposeful deception on the part of the show’s creators, combined with the legitimately awesome story and characters are the real reason that Puella Magi Madoka Magica is held up as one of the best of the Magical Girl genre. This is one of those shows that doesn’t waste a moment. Every episode matters. Every action the characters take is important. But, maybe the best thing that the show does is that after all the grief and suffering it puts its characters through, it still remembers what it means to be a true, ideal version of a Magical Girl. It’s right there in the title. Magical Girl Madoka Magica. It turns out that the show wasn’t all one big elaborate lie. It just takes its sweet, delicious time building up to the things it initially promised. By the end of the series, Madoka finally makes her wish with Kyubey and becomes a Magical Girl. With the full knowledge of all the terrible things that came before, Madoka is able to make a perfect wish and embody the true spirit of a classic Magical Girl in breathtaking fashion.
It’s this great moment where the series loops back on itself. After having shown just how horrible it is to trick young girls into fighting and dying and giving in to despair, the series is able to show us that the power of love and friendship and selflessness can win the day. The writing and pacing skills it took to pull that off along with a major time travel plot and along with multiple big, jaw dropping twists is truly remarkable. Because of all that, I’m of the opinion that Puella Magi Madoka Magica has one of the best stories and perhaps the best, most well supported, most perfect ending of any anime out there…
…which is gonna make things a bit awkward when we talk about the follow up movie, Rebellion.
Review: Spice and Wolf Anime
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.
There are many, many good interactions between Lawrence and Holo throughout the series, but one of my favorite early ones is the conversation about wolves I mentioned at the first of this review. We get to see how Holo enjoys teasing Lawrence. She spins a little, playful folk tale about her kind not realizing that to Lawrence, a wolf attack is a deadly serious thing. We even see that Lawrence has lost traveling companions to wolves. That he’s seen them torn apart by them!
When Holo realizes what she’s done, she and Lawrence abruptly pause their banter for the entire time it takes them to pass through a village. For two companions that chat almost constantly, this long moment of tense silence is very powerful. When they emerge back into the countryside, Holo does the right thing and apologizes. It’s one of the first times that we see Holo as something more than a haughty, teasing goddess, and get to view her as a real person who can make mistakes.
Though Holo is typically quite feisty, pay attention to the times when she isn’t. Her sense of loneliness, isolation, and the way she worries about her future even though she is effectively immortal are some of the things that elevate her to being one of my favorite characters in all of anime.
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to evaluate Lawrence and Holo’s relationship further. But, before I go, I’ll leave you with an interesting recommendation for another anime. If it turns out you liked the economics lessons of Spice and Wolf, go give Maoyu a try. It’s certainly the lesser of these two shows, but it was made by some of the same people and has a very familiar art style and aesthetic. Though not connected plot or character wise, the show relates to Spice in Wolf in the way it shows how a small medieval village is able to grow into a thriving city through the use of improved tools and techniques. You get explanations of things like crop rotations and trade deals and so on in much the same way Lawrence explains currency valuation to Holo.
Maoyu’s underlying plot and attempted romance between its leads never engages as well as anything in Spice and Wolf, but it’s still worth a watch for its economics lessons alone.
Review: Kaguya-sama: Love Is War
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.
Review: SSSS.Gridman
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.
I held off talking about the plot until this section because it is so tied up with the mental state of Akane Shinjō. The show takes some care to obscure her role in the story for the first episode, but from the second episode on it’s clear she is the driving force behind everything. And, as the story unfolds more and more, we find out that “everything” really does mean “everything.”
It turns out Akane is dreaming, and everything in her dream city is set up for her by her. The city layout. The school. Even all the people who populate the city. None of them are real. All of them are geared to the ideal world that Akane wishes she lived in. Including our three main characters. Even Akane is an idealized version of her true self in this dream world!
Take a closer look at Akane. In her dream world, she is a back row student with big breasts and oddly bleached hair who lives alone in a house packed with kaiju models and garbage bags. Despite not really ever doing anything other than sitting at her desk, she is easily the most popular girl in the entire school. Everyone wants to hang out with her all the time. They’re almost always gathered around her desk. Everything about Akane, her looks, her popularity, her carefree living conditions, they’re all made up and made perfect to one extent or another.
What does this say about the real world Akane? Does she not like her appearance? Does she wish she was more popular? Does she enjoy kaiju but has to keep her like of monster movies and models a secret? Maybe! But let’s keep going.
Think about Hibiki. Near the end of the series, Gridman says he was only able to take over Hibiki’s body because… and then something distracts Gridman and we don’t hear the reasoning!
But, I think we can tease out what he was going to say. Right near the end of the series, in the final episode, Rikka and Utsumi again speculate on why Gridman choose Hibiki and we’re shown a very interesting scene. We see Akane at her desk surrounded by her many friends, but then there’s Hibiki sitting beside her, not paying her any attention. Instead, he’s looking towards Rikka at the front of the room. And they notice each other. There’s a spark between them! In Akane’s perfect world, a world where everyone was built to like her, the boy she sits beside took an unexpected interest in someone other than her!
During the series, we see that Akane’s creations can have free will. Hibiki, Utsumi, and Rikka reject her perfect dream worlds. Anti overcomes his programming and instead of fighting against Gridman he fights with him. I think maybe Hibiki was the first person, and at that point the only person in Akane’s entire city, to actively go against her designs. That’s pretty cool.
But, there’s another, super fascinating layer to that. We know Akane can’t control a whole world by herself based on what she said near the very end. Even creating a river rafting play space for a day trip takes her time and effort. So, it seems likely that she also didn’t hand design each and every person in her city or even in her classroom. Rather, the city, the classroom, and all the people in her dream world are copies or replicas of people and places she knows from the real world. Maybe Hibiki is a representation of a boy she likes in school? That could make sense. Akane clearly likes him in the dream world, and is attracted to him. It even takes her to the next to the last episode to physically attack him despite knowing that he’s the one constantly messing up her plans. She targeted and killed people with her kaiju for far less than that!
So then, what about Rikka? I think Rikka is a lot more interesting than she first appears and is more critical to the plot than is stated out loud. Think back to all the times Rikka and Akane interact. Think of how Akane singles Rikka out to be her friend when she has people fawning over her already. Take note of all the similarities between Akane and Rikka. For instance:
- In the dream world, Rikka and Akane live directly next door to each other, a coincidence Akane must have designed.
- They both hate walking to school when it’s hot out so they take the bus on hot sunny days.
- They dislike the group date with Arcadia for very nearly the exact same reasons.
- They don’t want to join a high school club and both would just rather go home at the end of the day.
- They excuse themselves from awkward situations in the same formal manner.
- They both dislike school festivals.
- They both are prone to getting depressed and curling in on themselves with their knees against their chests when they’re upset.
- And, this is the big one, Rikka in the dream world has the hair and build of Akane when she wakes up in the real world!
Here’s what I think happened. Unlike Hibiki, Rikka isn’t a copy of a real world friend used to populate Akane’s dream world. No. She is, in actuality, Akane’s projection of her real world self!
To put it more simply: Rikka is Akane.
There are so many scenes where Akane and Rikka react the same, talk the same, and even move the same. I didn’t notice this the first time through, but watching the show again a second time, knowing that Rikka is Akane’s creation the entire time, it just jumped out at me how similar the two are.
And that ties back in to Gridman and Hibiki in a fun way. Hibiki, the boy that Akane created, the one she choose to sit by in class, the one who should be drawn to her just like everyone else. He actually did like her. Did fall for her. He just fell for Rikka, the more real version of her. I think Akane subconsciously set up Hibiki to like her, but he saw through the fake version Akane choose for herself and ended up liking the more realistic version by mistake. And that little, unintentional defiance on Hikibi’s part gave Gridman his way in to help save Akane from herself. That’s pretty cool!
As for Utsumi? I wonder if he’s not a projection of Akane’s kaiju obsession in some way.
Let’s see… what else?
I really liked Akane’s choice to leave. Her friends convinced her that it’s no good being alone. That she needs to lean on and rely on the people around her. And so she does, but she also says that she’s done too many terrible things to her fictional world and that she needs to choose to leave it and go back to her real world. The first time around, I thought her choice was simply to vanish at the end. But no. It was a lot more deliberate than that! Look closer. She packed up her room. She cleaned up all the trash. She placed all her things into neat, tidy, sealed moving boxes. It was a very deliberate act on her part to go away. And when she does vanish, note that all her boxes leave with her while Rikka stays behind in that empty room in Akane’s empty house. It was a powerful moment, and also one that I think fully confirms that Akane’s dream world will continue on without her.
The last thing I’d like to note is the final thirty seconds of the series. The part where Akane wakes up in the real world. At first I saw it as a cop out. “It was all a dream!” is one of the worst turns a story can take. But here, the ending doesn’t take away from the story. It’s a continuation of it. It adds closure to it.
Multiple times during the show, most notably during episode 9 where everyone was dreaming, Akane is told that she too needs to wake up from her dream. And she does! But the coolest part of that is, her story doesn’t end with the end of the show. Go watch the official music video of OxT’s “Union”. We see Akane wake up and go out to meet up with her friends, possibly to tag along with them on the way to school.
I think the takeaway there is the real Akane had some sort of trouble at school. Perhaps boy trouble. She went home mad, depressed, angry. She had a dream where she ruled everything and could fix anything she didn’t like. During that dream, the alien Alexis Kerib invaded her mind and gave her the power to shape her world by making kaiju. She got so tied up in it and in her negative emotions that eventually she even saw killing as ok as long as it made her feel better. But then, Gridman came and together with some of the created inhabitants of Akane’s dream world, he managed to remind her that she had friends she could rely on. When she wakes up in the real world, she feels better about herself and the first thing she does is go track down and join up with her friends.
One last thing worth noting is an area I don’t have a ton of knowledge in but should be pointed out anyway. SSSS.Gridman is based on and may be even a direct continuation of the 1993 Japanese live action show “Gridman the Hyper Agent”. Many of the things that seem to come out of nowhere like the Fixer Beam or the kaiju girl who told Hibiki about Akane are directly related to the older series. I haven’t done anything so crazy as try to track down all the references, but just know that a lot of the unexplained didn’t just spring up from nowhere. They were probably things that happened a couple of decades ago that got a knowing mention in this new series.
Review: Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry
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.
The story of Ralph Werec, his mission to save the research ship, and the crazy time dilation effects he experiences chasing the ship down are really cool. Because of the speed at which Ralph traveled, most of his story took place long after the events of the anime. He was then sent back in time to avenge the aliens he unknowingly killed.
6361 – Aliens first discovered
7003 – Ralph is deployed to save the research ship
7005 – Ralph defeats the remaining alien fighters, Sara is defeated by Ralph on Grabera
7012 – Sarah’s final battle against Ralph begins
7137 – Sarah defeats Ralph
7564 – Ralph get to research ship and is sent back in time – yes, long after the events of the anime!
It gets a little tricky. All the dates except the last one are listed in Ralph’s local time. The last one is in Sara’s and shows the full effects of Ralph’s faster than light travel. The research ship under attack sent a signal to the union forces who then had centuries to develop Strains and come to their rescue? Does it work? Do the timelines match up? I’m not actually totally sure!
Even so, I really like the time travel part of the plot. Even if the dates don’t align perfectly, the idea that time dilation could let you deploy piloting a fighter that was invented based on technology still on the ship you are being sent to save is pretty trippy. I applaud that cool bit of sci-fi!
Review: Revue Starlight: The LIVE #1
In Short:
Performed a year before the release of the Revue Starlight anime, the first Revue Starlight stage play tells a similar story complete with some familiar songs and fun choreography. This stage play is notable because the nine core live action stage actresses went on to voice their same roles in the anime.
Though it may just be an unfortunate trick of the camera, a lot of the projected graphics used for character introductions and magical combat effects appear to be very dim in the DVD / Blu-Ray version of the play and are not as impactful or as easy to see as they might have been when viewed in person.
Full Review:
I’ve come to love Revue Starlight, the anime. It combines fun characters, great music, and a strong appreciation of the stage to create an outstandingly unique show. But, Revue Starlight is more than just an anime. At this point, it’s a moderately large multi-medium franchise that includes: Three multi-volume manga, a single cour anime along with an upcoming followup movie, at least four live action stage plays, and an ongoing mobile game that continues to add new stories. It’s the first of these stage plays I’d like to focus on today.
First showing in 2017, “Shōjo Kageki Revue Starlight: The LIVE #1” tells a similar story to the anime where nine stage girls fight in magical Revues in order to try and win the position of the Top Star of their music academy’s 99th class. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting into when I decided to watch the stage play. Would it be the same story as the anime but stuck on a more limited stage? Would it be a condensed, unfinished, prototype version of the anime? Would it be a different story altogether? It turns out, it’s actually pretty good on its own merits while still being similar to the anime.
The play opens with our two main characters, Karen and Hikari, as children enjoying the pivotal, tragic scene of the in-universe Starlight stage play. We learn about the two’s promise to become stars of the stage together and of their abrupt childhood parting. We then cut to several years later and are introduced to the eight main member’s of Seisho Music Academy’s 99th class. Each is a different personality and each gets a fun self-sung musical introduction to let the audience know who they are and what they are about. From the proper, rules-following class representative Junna, to the egotistical Maya and Claudine, to the shy Mahiru and Banana, to the larger than life Kaoruko and Futaba, each character rings true. It’s only later that our lead character, Karen, is found sleeping in a separate classroom. Her musical introduction was especially fun and silly!
After introductions, we get a lot of good character banter that hits on one of the core problems these stage girls face: They only seen each other as on-stage rivals, not partners, and while some shine individually, their inability to work together hampers their performances. The teaching staff, here, take on the roles as something akin to narrators who help move the plot along. Soon the girls are forced into the Trial of Legend where they compete against a chorus of stage hands and extras in musical combat where it again becomes apparent that the eight girls can’t work together properly.
It’s then that Karen’s childhood Hikari arrives as a transfer student from a more prestigious school in London and helps save the day. Karen is thrilled to see her old friend again, but Hikari doesn’t seem to share the same enthusiasm. Eight of the nine soon receive a text message inviting them to special Revue auditions. The only one to not receive the message is the energetic but lazy Karen!
In the auditions, we see character pitted against character in one on one stage combat. Each girl transforms on stage into a military dress uniform and each uses a unique weapon from swords to daggers to even a bow to try and prove that they have more stage presence than their rival. These multiple ongoing battles are a lot of fun, and there’s some cool partially transparent panels set on wheels that are moved around the stage during this part to segment off and highlight the multiple concurrent battles. I thought this part was pretty clever and pretty well done.
Ultimately, it’s Karen who wants to be friends with everyone who helps unify her class into working together. As partners, the girls put on one last musical combat spectacle as they work together to defeat the chorus. At the very end, the 99th class properly welcomes newcomer Hikari into their ranks, and everything ends happily.
And then the second half of the show starts! You see, this whole event is broken up into the first half, which is a musical stage play that tells a complete story, and the second half, which is a more traditional idol style song and dance performance that’s just one song after another with no plot in between. Some of the songs are certainly catchy, and the dancing and movements are decent, there’s just not as much to say about this second half. You kinda just have to experience the songs for yourself.
My favorite song in either half of the performance was “Watashitachi no Iru Riyuu” (The Reason We Are Here), which is actually a song that showed up a year later in the anime as “The Star Knows”. The anime version is a duet between Karen and Junna during their big Revue battle. In the stage play, it’s an ensemble song that shifts between each of the nine girls. The first half of the song is slower backed by a powerful piano and string solos. Each of the girls, in turn, sings about why they are stage girls. But, by the end, the song builds in tension and power as we learn that all the girls really have the same goal: they each want to find what makes them unique on stage. As it builds to a climax, percussion comes in and the song jumps quickly to each of the girls thoughts before unifying on them singing the same lines separately but together. It’s terrific!
I like the Junna / Karen version in the anime since it’s really the first song that reveals the shape of the rest of the show, but I really, really love the song here in live action for it’s great little character moments and powerful conclusion.
But it’s certainly not the only good song in the play. The earlier “Position Zero e!” Is a fun, upbeat number about the girls activities and goals at the music academy. “Star Divine”, which also appears in the anime as the climatic battle song, serves roughly the same purpose on the live action stage as the big number showing the girls shining together as a team. Finally, the second half of the event kicks off with an upbeat version of a fantastic song called “The Knowledge of a Stage Girl” which was later used in the anime. The animated version is a slow, happy reflection of what it means to be a stage girl. The live action version is considerably faster and more energetic and is used to get the crowd excited for the second half of the show. I like both versions a lot!
One final thing I’d like to address is what order this live action stage play and the anime should be watched in. They share a lot of similarities in characters and plot, but they are two distinct things. Ultimately, I think the anime should be watched first. Mostly, because since it has more time to tell its stories, there is more there to be spoiled. There’s a few instances in the stage play that reveal one character’s desires and those same desires play a much larger expanded role in the anime. Not knowing this character’s true desire is a key plot point of the anime, in fact. So, just for that reason alone, I’d recommend the anime first. I also liked having the anime depictions of the characters in my head as I watched the stage girls play the same parts. This isn’t so strange, I don’t think, because the anime version of each character gets a very brief appearance projected on stage during each of the live action girls’ short intros.
All In All:
I thought the stage play was great. Each actress stuck to their character well. Each of them had something to do even if they weren’t currently under the spotlight. And, the songs often gave each character a chance to contribute and further highlight their personality. I’d probably give highest marks to the actress who had to physically embody the energetic yet timid Mahiru. Her jittery, smiley performance was very well done. The stage combat was pretty good with slashes and sword locks all supported by clanging sound effects. I’d rate this live action version of Revue Starlight a success. Its core story is somewhat different from the anime that came later, which I’ll talk about more in the Dig Deeper section, but is still strong in its own right even given the much more limited time the play had to work with.
As Claudine Saijo might say: It was très bon!
Now that we’ve covered “was the play good and worth watching”, I’d like to dive into the specific similarities and differences between it and the anime. I’d say that the live action stage play and the anime are telling the same basic story. In both, Karen and Hikari become enamored by the play “Starlight” that they saw together as children and make a promise to one day become stars together. In both, Karen is too lazy to be invited to the Revues and Hikari transfers in devoid of passion because of a past defeat. All the other characters have extremely similar personalities and wishes and desires. The live action play has the stage girls act a little bit more antagonistic towards each other, but that’s resolved by the end of the play.
The biggest difference between the two are just how much more time the anime has to work with. Somethings that can be a quick song lyrics or lines of dialogue in the stage play are expanded to full episodes of the anime. I think it’s pretty clear that the stage play and anime were developed side by side, because those expanded storylines fit in great.
These changes do have some real impacts on the way the different stories flow:
- In the stage play, Futaba and Kaoruko’s fight is interesting because Kaoruko is pretty much in charge the entire time. She knows and recognizes that Futaba is the better stage performer so she uses her own superior acting ability to distract Futaba and get in a sucker punch of a final blow. The anime also has something of this, where Kaoruko tricks Futaba into closing the distance, but it is much more pronounced in the stage play. It’s also important to note that in the stage play, the two’s Revue battle harms their relationship somewhat, while in the anime, their Revue battle both improves Kaoruko’s work ethic and mends her relationship with Futaba.
- In the stage play, we only get one line about why Hikari returned. That maybe she’d been beaten in London and had to come crawling back. The anime shows us that entire series of events. What was a one line explanation in the stage play was turned into one of the biggest core plot points in the entire anime. That’s pretty cool.
- Likewise, the anime greatly expanded Banana’s role to the point that, really, three out of the twelve episodes focus on her while she was just a minor character in the stage play. Hearing live action Banana sing about not wanting to grow up and wishing time would stand still is actually pretty chilling coming from the anime where she straight up put her entire class, if not the entire world, into a time loop specifically so she could relive her class’ first performance of Starlight. Banana planning on repeating the loop is so well integrated into even the early episodes of the anime that I think it would be a shame to tip viewers off with some of the things she sings about in the stage play.
- Finally, any school staff we see in the anime are completely unaware of the Revues, but in the stage play the head of the academy is under orders from the giraffe to pit the girls against one another. This makes even the giraffe a more malevolent character than he is in the anime. He also only appears at the end of the stage play, so he’s quite a bit more mysterious, as well.
I think it’s great to have both versions of the story. It’s great to see a single good story told in different ways that are remolded to better support the medium they are being told in.
Review: Steins;Gate Anime
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!)
Steins;Gate’s Visual Novel Influences:
One of the interesting points that I kinda feel is necessary to fully understanding Steins;Gate – the anime – is that it was based upon Steins;Gate – the visual novel. For those that don’t know, Visual Novels are a popular type of role playing game in Japan. In them, you typically play a lead character in a story and you travel around various locations in an area such as a town and have branching conversations with several other characters. But it’s almost all presented in fixed screens and backgrounds and unmoving character art instead of in 3d like an open world game. Visual Novels often have several different endings depending on who you talk to and what what you say to them and what dramatic choices you make.
Steins;Gate is one of the better known Visual Novels, but there are other anime based on Visual Novels you might recognize. For instance, Fate/stay night was also originally a Visual Novel. In the Steins;Gate game, you played as Okabe and, along with talking to the characters represented in the anime, you could also receive text messages from the future where acting on them was critical to get one of the better endings. To get the best ending, which is basically the one depicted in the anime, you almost had to replay the game multiple times so you could act on information you learned during your previous failures.
Steins;Gate’s original form being a Visual Novel also plays into some of the anime’s plot choices. The various one off episodes where Okabe spends time with each of the girls and rolls back their altered futures comes directly from the Visual Novel. Depending on your choices Okabe could end up paired off with any one of the girls in one of the game’s multiple good endings. Or he could end up dead in various ways in the game’s multiple bad endings. The anime pays respect to that by working in most of those sub stories that were mutually exclusive from each other. You actually had to play the game several times to see each of the endings.
In the anime, I thought this worked fine, but it does shed a little light on why the anime seemed to string a few side stories together and made them critical to progressing the main story of saving Mayuri and Makise.
The Almost Perfect Time Travel Plot:
Out of all the time travel shows and movies I’ve seen, I think Steins;Gate has one of the best, most consistent time travel plots out there. All the pieces fit into place across several timelines and several failed attempts to set things right… except one thing. I’ve never been able to justify the video Okabe gets from himself being static the first time he looks at it. Oh, the justification in the show is fun and clever… that it was locked or inaccessible until he moved onto the worldine where he killed Makise, or some such thing. But how does that make any sense? I think it would have been better if he’d never looked at the video of if it had been slow to download so he didn’t have time to look at it before he had to rush to see Makise seemingly dead in the hallway. The way it is now, it feels like the one puzzle piece that doesn’t fit into the great time travel plot.