'Star Driver' ~ Galactic Pretty Boy

We've already established that the Earth is best saved by Japanese schoolchildren, even if, or rather, especially if they need to pilot gigantic robots brought to Earth by another civilisation and equipped with weapons of mass destruction.

It's also clear that galactic problems are nothing in comparison with the problems people experience in their youth, such as love, friendship, school club activities, applying sunscreen on gilrs' backs...

Actually, the more girls - the better. Let's have more of them introduced in the middle of the story even if nobody saw it coming.

If singing voice actors are engaged, much attention is paid to theme songs, with the characters singing everywhere possible, including not only karaoke, but also beaches, school corridors, bus tops, and who cares where else. My personal suggenstion would be, however, not to make 3 out of 4 important songs just happy cute pop hits, so that you don't have to use the remaining one as your only option to add drama when necessary. My personal wish - start searching for decent opening and ending songs, or the art of anime music will be lost.

The final battle will easily fit one episode, with the decisive fight taking no more than 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the remaining budget. Why not turn on theme songs here again.

And at least one furry animal to accompany the story, remember.

There is something new established by 'Star Driver', though. Seems like you can be a Galactic Pretty Boy even if you're a girl. We live in the modern age, no discrimination, okay?

At least they didn't forget about the humour, that I do admit.

IMHO. 'Slayers' ~ celebrating 15 years from the first broadcast in my country

Here's an interesting fact: 'Slayers' have a rating of 8.6 on a Russian database and community website, while it only has 7.7 on Myanimelist.

It's just another proof that, just like one commentator said on MAL, high rates are given to 'Slayers' out of nostalgia - because most Russian fans watched 'Slayers' when it was one of the first anime ever available in Russia.

So I have to be honest with myself: I'm not the same 13 years old schoolgirl greedy to watch whatever there's on TV. I'm a working adult. I'm an experienced anime fan. I can wisely choose.

What do I feel now, choosing to rewatch 'Slayers' 15 years after I saw it for the first time, and having watched so many other titles after that?

It's slower. It's simpler. It's full of flat, slapstick humour. It has a lot of fillers. It involves a lot of meaningless talk like informing others what one intends to do during a battle. It has a lot of awkward moments when evil characters just stand there and wait for the protagonists to finish talking. It's hardly believable at all.

But it's colourful. It's outside genre frames and free of limitations. It doesn't have that 'game mechanics' - the cause of my irritation with modern anime. I feel greatly relieved to see other people have noticed this phenomenon too.

'Slayers' have all the possible clichés just to make fun of them.

It breaks the 4th wall. It's crazy.

And it doesn't let us forget even for a moment that it is one of a kind.

'I take back what I said about 'Slayers', that it's a classic fantasy anime' - I said to my friend on the second day of rewatching.

'When I watched it, I thought this is how fantasy anime is supposed to be' - answered my friend.

And I realised I thought that too.

I just didn't know there could be something different, 15 years ago, I didn't know that later anime would present me again and again with the same set of flat characters acting like puppets as if to illustrate socially acceptable traits. I thought it's okay to be egocentric, wilful, arrogant, independent, powerful and skillful, to know what you want and know your worth. I thought every character was supposed to have their own goals and special traits. I thought theme songs must be so great that I'd spend a month listening to them every day and not getting enough. I thought background music must be noticeable. I thought voice acting must be unforgettable. I thought landscapes should be such that make you believe that such a world exists, and they are more effective in this than portraits on the wall or fancy candelabra.

I thought I'd say 'call me when you make another masterpiece like this', but seeing the compromises made for the new Revolution and Evolution-R series, I know it will never happen. 

Maybe high scores are given to 'Slayers' out of nostalgia. But it's not a nostalgia like 'I watched it when I was young, even though it was bad'. It's a nostalgia like 'I watched it when I was young and nothing compares'.

I wonder if any of these new titles, which are required to have at least 10 words in them, will cause such nostalgia in 15 years.

IMHO. 'Shugo Chara' ~ is longer better than shorter?

If I were asked what anime to recommend for a young boy, I would be in a puzzle. But ask me what a young girl may watch, and I have a ready list of anime series for all tastes - from anime adaptations of tales and children's books to new takes on classic fairy-tales and completely original slice-of-life stories.

Would 'Shugo Chara' be in that list? I doubt. At least I didn't expect to see a 'PG - children' rating for an anime which goes beyond kabe-don scenes and scenes of 'he caught her when she was falling', introducing scenes of ear-biting, ice-cream licking, which don't really look vague at all, to say nothing of cross-dressing and a girl with a brother-complex kissing her brother in the lips.

I mean, this 'inserting a key into a lock' moment... Should it really be so obvious?

Unfortunately, 'Shugo chara' lacks originality in everything. This idea of a girl with a special ability to purify spirits, this search for a special something that has unique powers and can grant wishes, this school club that has a secret mission, and, as if these qualities were connected, a glass orangery with a small tea table.

This is a warning to all anime directors on Earth: attempts to make short anime out of long ongoing manga maybe more or less successful, but any attempt to make an anime series longer than it could be if it followed its manga source - be damned.

I've seen it already in anime like 'Sugar Sugar Rune' or 'Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne'. Filling anime with fillers, forgive me this tautology, makes it hardly watchable. 51 episodes were probably tolerable, but 51 episodes followed by 51 episodes, which were, in their turn, followed by 25 episodes nobody really asked for, were a disaster, not only because there were so many, but because  there was hardly any story in them. Compare with Sailor Moon, which has its own share of fillers, but manages to present an exciting, developing (sic!) story including not one, but 5 arcs, while being 200 episodes long.

Why I didn't rate 'Shugo chara' as 1, or 'appalling', and gave it an 'average' 5, is because it was partially watchable, these watchable parts being the comic relief of moments that could otherwise overburden me with Spanish shame. Talking about saving the world is watered down by simplistic reasoning.

Discussing serious matters is interrupted by an angel adjusting her halo.

And 'dokidoki' moments are watered down by discussing the realistic aspects of 'hiza-makura'.

It never hurts to have just a little self-mockery.

In fact, 'Shugo chara' had much more potential than was used, thanks to the wonderful character design done by the original manga creators. Girls could find many various designs, not only girly frilly dresses or Japanese kimono, but also signature leg warmers, chokers and wristbands, with plaid pattern and 'Gothic' elements. As for men's fashion... I think I may have been missing slender guys in leather.

The only good thing 'Shugo chara' introduced, in contrast to borrowing from manga, was voice acting, since music was very, very secondhand. I was almost ashamed such nice seiyuus spent so much time voicing this nonsense. Here is the list: Aki Toyosaki, Saeko Chiba, Kanae Itou, Kana Asumi, Nana Mizuki, Yuuichi Nakamura, Akemi Kanda, Ayumi Fujimura, Junko Minagawa, Rie Kugimiya, Atsushi Abe, Mitsuki Saiga and many others. Akira Ishida was probably still bound by his contract of 'voicing a hundred of 'mystery-man-who's-watching-over-the-main-characters'. Not that I consider any of them my favourite seiyuus of all times, but they are good when together, creating that atmosphere of happiness, which was so abundant in 00s. Maybe they weren't absolutely special like older seiyuus I admire, but they have become kind of  'silver age' for me. The only exception was my beloved Miyuki Sawashiro. She stands out whenever she is involved. Even before I realised it was her, I was captivated by that voice.

In fact, that may be the reason why Yoru, the cute cat-resembling 'guarding character', became my favourite character out of all. I could literally give anything to stop this guy making such a sad face.

P. S.

I remember some maitres of anime describing how young animators should come out into the world and look at as many things as possible to be able to draw them naturally. Well, out of all animators who created 'Shugo chara' only one seems to know what violin looks like when played. And that is despite the fact that violin is not just an item for a single episode, but an important recurring theme.

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IMHO. 'Tokyo ravens' ~ makes me wonder if it were a wise decision to quit watching slice-of-life

I don't think there is anything in the world that would make a boy interested in shoujo genre, at least if he wasn't initially into those lovey-dovey stories. But making a shounen appealing for girls is easy, just add several comrades who are even stronger and more handsome than the main character.

It might seem that due to this, 'Tokyo ravens' is head and shoulders above other shounen series - you know, since apart from a typical harem of a shy tsundere plus a loud tsundere plus a positive girl also tsundere a bit and a tsundere loli, gathering around the main character, there is a nice harem comprised of a loyal friend, a mysterious teacher, a righteous warrior and several other types.
Is it enough to make a shounen good? Unfortunately, no. It's probably not the best idea to try outwit yourself when writing the story. Setting a premise of an adult world where everybody lies means creating a maze, but it's no good when the creator of the maze forgets, well, not the way out, but the very fact that such a way is necessary.
I swear there are other anime based on an unfinished work or simply not that allow for the ending to feel like a real ending, at least of certain chapter. Unfortunately, instead of the culmination I was hoping for - a culmination for only this section - things gain momentum up until the second half of the last episode, but if there's no time to untangle what has been messed, there's no peak as well. The crude attempt to end the chapter in a moment of romance fails in my eyes, because, I must confess, I don't find it particularly appealing when the guy only realises and confesses his feelings after his beloved get killed...  As did fail the attempt to show that there is nobody wrong or right in the real world, which is why former friends and colleagues turn into enemies and former foes can become allies... It's also too crude, you know. I bet by the end of the series nobody of those dudes fighting other dudes at full blast could say what they were fighting for. Or not fighting, as for some of them.
What a waste of nice music, especially that opening by I've Sound reminding of some of the most recognisable songs of Shimamiya Eiko, wonderful voice acting and, I'm surprised at myself for saying this, art, including the 3d parts.

And what a waste of this beautiful concept of modernXcombat onmyodo. Those spells intertwining mantras and ancient words sound absolutely magical.

'Elemental Gelade' anime ~ when Yuki Kajiura was still young

spoiler alert, as usual

It's your usual shounen. But it's also romance and fantasy. So it's a story about a young boy who travels in a different world, fights enemies, makes friends and falls in love. Be ready to see lots of silly things. Shounen as genre is not for you, 30-year-old manager, or even you, university student in his early twenties.

story and characters

Once upon a time in another world there were flying ships. Made of wood.

And then our Hero finds a mysterious girl who's like

and the Hero is like

and like, I'll guide you to the end of the Earth! Oops, it was not Earth but another world. So, they unite and do something like

and the huge attacking monster is like AAA I'M FALLING OMG

but then a guy like this comes and try to guess whether he's a good guy or not.

But our heroes are not giving up!

 And they like

 and

but then another bad guy comes, or stop, can he really be bad having such appearance? Oh he can. He's SUCH a BAD_GUY OHHHH

 But there's also this guy

 Who's all mysterious and merciless. Guess if he is really that bad?

And the enemies are all like

 and our characters are like

OF COURSE YOU HAVE! But guess whether they will win that battle or not? OK, 'twas easy. Now's the time for the main enemy. And they are all very mysterious and their house is all in dark violet.

 

And then our characters have to deal with many troubles. The story tries to look more serious than it is, so we have several unnecessary deaths, and our Hero is like

But then they gain the remaining strength and defeat the big boss. And their enemies are like

 And our heroes are like

And except for those characters that were created only to die artistically, all the others are like

And then after some time they fly in the sky together. Which is essentially a very heartwarming, happy end. Like I said, I don't like it when the adventure ends and they 'live happily ever after'. This kind of ending is much better for me. Oh, wait. Did you think, after seeing all these ironical descriptions, that I hate this anime?

Now you see what kind of story EG is. Does it mean it's bad? Nope. I'm just warning you. It's extremely silly, naive, plain and usual. Did I like it? Yes, a lot. Why? Exactly for those things that most people would probably dislike. It's not the case when people say 'this and this was bad, but instead that and that was good', no. It's the case when people say 'it was so mediocre' or 'it could not happen that way'. And my friend +Арагорн Араторнович said 'shut up and watch'. You don't want all laws of physics maintained here. You don't want credible stories. You want flying ships. You want red or blue hair. You want loli-girls with big eyes. You want magical swords and non-human creatures. You want Medieval Europe villages mixed with Ancient Greece clothes and oriental fighting styles and and 19th century Europe progress.

The story was obviously changed to meet the requirements of a TV series. Some episodes were such obvious fillers you would probably want to skip them, but I did not. I don't know why, but even those parts were enjoyable.
The humour was not original or new, but hey, it's 2004. It was the trend those times.

music
Now for the main attraction. In 2000s Yuki Kajiura was still young and fresh and her music was good. Just in case you want to ask me, I think her latest melodies repeat and resemble one another too much. However, in early 2000s she was still able to write a decent OST with several melodies that can be easily taken for listening as independent tracks. The only minus point for this OST is that not all melodies that were used in the anime were issued on CDs, even though there is an OST album and a special album, too. Like I said to my friend when I started watching, guess who is the composer here if I hear pseudo-Latin lyrics laid on pseudo-gothic chorals?

The OPED songs were not as good, since they were very plain. I would not say they were bad, though, since they belong to the category 'nice to listen when you watch the show'. And just in case you want to know, savage genius' song 'ameagari' was used in episode 15 as a background song. It's a coupling song for 'Forever', the opening.

graphics
It was mid-00s. Anime was becoming better and better, the visual side of it, too.

However, there was still no money for creating absolutely-every-frame-beautifully-decorated. Most moving objects were created simply but nicely. In my mind, it's better than 'kuro to kin to hirakanai kagi' that I looked through the other day, where you will see clear sparkling images with no faults, but won't find anything except for hard fanservice for female fans.
'Gelade' also did not let any slack in design. The clothes were all elaborate and nice, even though simple, and so were interiors. Name the style? =)

voice acting
While art was becoming more and more expensive-looking, voice acting in 00s began to slightly decrease its gorgeousness. Outstanding seiyuus of 90s were giving up their place to new seiyuus, but some of them were not worse than their seniors. 00s were rich in young promising actors. If 'Gelade' is not an eye-candy for you, than it will for sure become an ear candy. Have some Ishida Akira, Ueda Yuji and Ogata Megumi, multiply them by Toriumi Kousuke, Okiayu Ryotaro, Kugimiya Rie, Suwabe Junichi and many others. My discovery of the year is Saito Kimiko. Her low voice was making me tremble with excitement. Another seiyuu that I did not know before is Hanba Tomoe. Her performance was very good. The main heroine voiced by Takahashi Mikako was good. Kuea's Suzuki Naoko was so good it's a big trouble she does not do many anime roles. And even Mizuki Nana whom I basically dislike previously did a very, very good job. That's good that some of them are still active. I'm afraid of times when they will move to an elder category and will have to be replaced with younger ones.
Or you could say that I am simply grumbling because 00s was the period of my youth. Well, that's true.

conclusion
Yuriko Kaida's and Yuri Kasahara's voices have never spoiled an anime. Bizarre vehicles and strange swords, magic crystals and mysterious people, but more than that, journeys to another towns, to another continents... Yesterday one of my friends told us she's really intending to spend at least half a year in India... but I'm not as brave as her, and Valcione is not India, so I think I'm glad to have travelled to another world with 'Elemental Gelade' team.