365/1 - Red Garden

This show is kind of weird.

It has this dark magical girl kind of premise (well dead magical girls but whatever, it still kind of works) and some very melodramatic scenes and dialogue.

SO melodramatic. Like suddenly bursting into moody song melodramatic.

And sometimes the songs are more spoken than actually sung. I don't know if it would be like that in Japanese or if they just did it for the English dub, but it's ... kind of strange.

I actually laughed a little the first time in happened because it was unexpected. Here are these girls fighting for their lives against a dude with glow-y eyes who keeps barking at him (real dog-like sounding barks and not just person-doing-dog-like sounding barks) and then ...

Singing?

Huh.

The story seems to basically revolve around four pretty dead girls who don't seem all that dead but apparently totally are and have been re-animated (but not in a zombie fashion) so that they can spend their nights fighting supernatural baddies while screaming a lot. They come from different backgrounds but I have a feeling will bond in a super girl-y fashion before too long and possibly become a crack monster fighting team (sailor suits probably not included though as this show is supposed to be all dark and stuff). 

I'm digging the artistic style here a lot. It is reminiscent of Revolutionary Girl Utena with the big noses and pointy chins. And for once it doesn't seem so off to see an animated world populated by blonds and brunettes and redheads as the setting is New York (as opposed to Japan where many anime are set).

Not that the characters act particularly American really. More like how people from other countries probably think we act. With some Japanese cultural norms thrown in.

But overall, bizarre bursts of moody song aside, I'm liking Red Garden quite a bit. It has some definite horror/supernatural/fantasy/violent stuff going on, and some interesting non-linear storytelling techniques popping up, and some twisty complex mythology being hinted at.

PLUS I can watch it dubbed on HuluPlus which is excellent as that is the only way I can watch while at work (as I do have to at least pretend I'm getting important work tasks taken care of while I'm watching and I haven't gotten my Japanese language skills down yet).

Two >> High School of the Dead

(watched 4/2/13)

Leave it to anime to find a way to stick gratuitous fan service in a show about zombies.

I don't know why I'm surprised. At this point I'm ready to expect fan service to appear in historical dramas and children's programming. Fan service is just one of those things - like epic nosebleeds or giant sweat drops - that peppers the landscape of anime whether you want it to or not.

Oh well. Moving on.

I saw several clips from High School of the Dead during Sakuracon this year. The best was a parody AMV of the song "Call Me Maybe." I'd try to explain it but I don't think I'd do it justice. Just know it was pretty dang funny and a well made fan video over all.

The show itself isn't nearly as funny, but then it isn't supposed to be. This is a show about zombies, after all, and it is serious business. There is lots of screaming and running and yelling and dramatic pauses for deep emotional reflection.

Once again this is anime after all, and you can't have anime without long, dramatic, pregnant pauses where characters reflect on their emotional baggage with other characters or themselves. Even if the zombie apocalypse is happening.

And the zombie apocalypse is happening here. They don't play around in High School of the Dead. People start dying early on and it is graphic and violent and nasty. Flesh tears, bone cracks, and blood spurts all over the place.

Of course then the real drama starts happening, because character development is the backbone of a good zombie story. How do the survivors react to what they are seeing, what they are doing? How do they treat each other and themselves? How do they go on when their whole world has changed?

I'm only a couple of episodes in but so far I'm intrigued. Fan service isn't exactly my thing but good storytelling sure is, and so far as characters are introduced and storylines are laid out, I'm interested to see what happens next. I see much pain, anger, fear, romance, and panties in the future.