IMHO. 'Samurai Champloo' ~ more Japanese than you'd think

Ambient jazz fits the wabi-sabi aesthetics perfectly. Calligraphy turns out to be a perfect source for graffiti competitions. Break-dance is just what you need when fighting a really strong enemy. And gangsta-Edo story unfolds before your eyes once again reminding of the famous Japanese proverb: 'ichigo ichie'. Every encounter is one-of-a-lifetime. This review is completely blurred by the traces of my tears.

story and characters

Maybe as a teenager I was stronger than now. I thought 'Samurai Champloo' is one of the best comedies I have ever seen, never caring for the rivers of blood and tragic stories of the characters who were appearing on the way. And it's not that it's not. I mean it IS a comedy, who would argue? Did you see all those remarks on the modern Japan? Like three guys who tell a story of a ghost as a rap-song? Or a giant crab on a local cafe just hinting us on Osaka's Dotombori?

Just if you didn't know, Edo-period Japan was a highly developed country.

I love this kind of sense of humour. I can say it many times, so I'll just shut up before I make this post too long.

Even though I still find all this hilarious, re-watching the series made me notice many new things and re-estimate what I have seen already. I can count anime series where I thought the characters worthy of my respect with fingers on one hand. Even rarer are cases when I don't really accept the characters from the beginning as my soul-mates or completely agree with what they're doing, nor I would like to meet them in reality, but still respect and support them so much that I become worried for them and gradually grow to love them so much that I wish this anime would go on forever.

But I know it won't because such journeys have to end one day. I know they couldn't stay forever together, but I cannot help being 'centimeter'.

music

The level of coolness of has been proportional to the amount of hip-hop/electronica in the background. There couldn't be any better background for fighting scenes than those by Force of Nature. There couldn't be a more beautiful ending than the soul-ful song by Minmi. There couldn't be a better choice than Nujabes for a series main composer.
Ambient is the sexiest music alive. There couldn't be better music to create such a warm, close atmosphere with a participation effect.

voice acting
Here's what I said to my friend after watching the first several episodes: 'just whatever Kazuya Nakai may tell me to do, I will'. 'Cause he's irresistible. And he's not trying to woo you with his voice, by the way, like they do it now in female-oriented audio dramas. You can melt under the voice of any popular male seiyuu, but he is one level higher: he's realistic.
That does not mean I did not appreciate other voices. While Ayako Kawasumi was predictably good, Ginpei Sato showed again a new level of voice acting, parallel to Nakai. While the latter is a professional, Sato has few anime roles, and his manner of speaking was something you will never ever hear again in an anime - a low unemotional voice with almost no amplitude uttering short phrases right near the microphone with no attempt ever to show off like most characters who are supposed to look as cold-blooded do, like 'look at me how cool I am'. You probably haven't seen such respect for the viewers ever.
Some other seiyuus were impressive too, and the most wonderful thing is that I don't know most part of them: Maria Kawamura as a mature seductive lady, Miki Shin'ichiro as a suspicious artist, Noriko Hidaka as a brave kunoichi, Sakiko Tamagawa as the blind singer, bereaved mother and excellent fighter, Hiromi Tsuru as the soft, tender Shino, and many others.

graphics

When I think of why I consider older anime series better than those I see now, there is only one major difference: they managed to do perfect anime then, even if the graphics was poorly done. You can watch an anime for the beautiful pictures, but you'll have nothing else, or you may be attracted by the voices of famous seiyuus and give up the storyline. Things like 'Champloo' have it all. You don't need all those pretty round faces and sparkling eyes. One frame is enough to understand it all.

The simple silhouettes of Jin fighting, or Mugen's blood-covered face accompanied by the voice of the shima-uta singer Ikue Asazaki - it's enough to convey what's necessary.

music
As you may have guessed, music is the main actor in this artwork. It makes the mood, it makes the story. I didn't know about Nujabes when I watched the series for the first time, but I know it now, and I must say the world lost much together with him.
An extremely wise move on the part of the creators was to include not only Nujabes's ambient and hip-hop tracks, but more aggressive pieces by Force of Nature, strange melodies of Tsutchie and Fat Jon, soft voice of Minmi and several ethnic songs to slightly dilute the sour mix of these musicians.

conclusion
They say 'Cowboy Bebop' topped the list of must-see-anime, while 'Samurai Champloo' was included too, but somewhere lower, both being the works of the legendary Shinichiro Watanabe. I watched 'Samurai' earlier than 'Bebop', and 'Samurai' lies just slightly closer to my heart. If you asked me about my must-see list, I'd name it sooner than even 'Bebop'. And though hip-hop pseudo-historic gangsta-Japanese tragicomedy may not seem a serious thing to you, it's more Japanese than you think. I know I'm overstating, because it was one of the first series I have ever seen, but if you don't know 'Samurai Champloo', you don't know what anime is.

'Ginban Kaleidoscope' ~ one more figure skating thing

spoiler alert

When you're 10 years old, Sailor Soldiers, who are just in middle school, are perfect adults for you. When you're 15, you gather a big harem of anime-guys - bishounen, macho, ikemen, cold and cool or nice and shy. When you're past 20, you start looking at those shoujo stories from the angle of judging whether you could recommend it for your cousin, or niece, or your friend's daughter.

story and characters

Some people say, the anime version of 'Ginban' only tells the story of the first 2 volumes of the original light novel. Some say, all 9 volumes are packed into this 12-episode series. I say, the hell I care.
Well, we have a story about a girl who's into figure skating, and she's serious because she'll go to the '06 Olympic games.

Her rivals are girls of different types, who never fail a chance to demonstrate their personalities. Even at international competitions.

 Well, our heroine is not less bold, either.

Her main rival among Japanese sportsmen, however, is a modest girl. She even doesn't bother to change clothes and always wears the same costume that shows her maturity, apparently.

The creators made a feeble attempt to make the story more humorous by making the Heroine's coach behave like an idiot, and her younger sister - the opposite, behave like an adult, even though she's obviously in primary school. Sometimes the popular trick of 'stop-frame as if from a different genre' was used, but it didn't save the story from being boring.

The love interest of the Heroine - a ghost that possessed her and was to go back to Heaven in 1000 days - was just a good guy, but did not show much of a personality to count as an attractive character, though certainly he was supportive and kind.

Though I would probably say thanks to the creators that they did not make it a usual happy-ending story, the ending was nevertheless very sweet and plain.

graphics
On one hand, here you'll see eyes showing through thick forelocks

On the other hand, move movements of figure skaters were created with love and scrupulously and looked very naturally.

And there were a few attempts to create an atmosphere with the means of visual image.

In general, I would not say the graphics was bad, but if you look at the light novel covers by Hiro Suzuhira, you'll find them much more attractive and appealing.

voice acting
Among voice actors I would not really name any particular person who impressed me, but I cannot say there was anything odd or unsuitable. For the goal set before them, I guess they all did a good job. Saito Chiwa was probably the only one whose voice was at least interesting.
It was embarrassing, though, to hear Maaya Sakamoto struggle to pronounce "authentically" the English phrases of her American figure skater.

music
Music in shoujo anime was good in 90's. Take 'Rayearth', for example - opening and ending themes and background music and character image songs alike, all tracks were composed with style and with love. Since then the trend changed and now it's a rare thing to find anything decent in shoujo series. Mostly they just compose a cute easy-to-sing song and either give it to the seiyuus or invite some random girl to perform it. Music in 'Ginban' was almost unnoticeable, and OPED songs were so plain and mediocre that I payd no heed to them.

conclusion
I won't say this was a waste of time, oh no it wasn't. However to say I gained anything or enjoyed anything particular in this anime would be an exaggeration. I guess, that's the fault of the creators that they mostly made it a comedy than a story about relationship with a person who is destined to die soon. This theme could be emphasised more and make the story a real profound drama. Instead, it was not properly shown until late in the series and thus, was not developed enough to make a spectator sympathise and cry together with the Heroine.
But well, I guess, as a short shoujo story it's not bad.

'Skip Beat' ~ beating my previous record

I should have learnt my lesson well - NO MORE watching animes based on ongoing manga. what am I doing again? without a second thought I gave a try to 'Skip Beat' believing that 1. a 2009 anime cannot be based on a manga that is still running in 2013, and 2. an average shoujo would not be able to capture my heart. oh, I was wrong - and I do not even know whether this is a good or a bad thing
I have surpassed myself. while in school and first years in university I used to watch no more than 3 episodes a day. then sometimes, when I had free time, I could watch up to 8-10, spending several hours near the screen. my biggest record was probably around 15 episodes, like it happened with 'Working', when I was both interested and free. well, I watched 21 episodes of 'Skip Beat' in one day, after watching the first 4 the day before.

plot and characters

to my surprise, though some achievements of Kyoko were a bit far-fetched, which made 'Skip Beat' look close to average shoujo about a heroine who, by her spirit, gains everyone's love and respect and overcomes all the obstacles, in general 'Skip Beat' is not THAT far from reality. yes, 'twas a bunch of miracles that the LME agency's boss felt interested in Kyoko, and that she learned many useful things while being brought up in Kyoto, etc. however, at least the number of such 'convenient' developments and their scale was not as great as I could expect

moreover, this is an incredibly wise move of the authors to make it so that Kyoko, fortunately, had no reverse harem around her, and even the number of girls who felt jealous of Kyoko because she received some special treatment from some guy was pretty tolerable

then, again, we do not have typical main characters here. Kyoko is not just a 'yooosh gambaru zo!' girl. I mean, she shows much more human feelings than a shoujo main heroine would. first of all, she is able to fall in love sincerely - unlike heroines who sway and cannot choose between their variants. next, Kyoko's condition was brilliantly portrayed when her love and dreams were crushed. her anger, despair, hatred etc. etc., her process of creating her new self are not momentary, her feelings remain through the whole series - while usually they die within a number of episodes and are never again revealed later. she does not try to make friends only because she loves everyone on this planet, but because she never had a female friend. she does not tenderly calm down a crying child, but says that no one comes to help only because a girl is in tears. when someone is unfair she feels hurt, and when someone picks a fight she responds. and of course, she cannot get rid of her desire of revenge easily. for me as a spectator, even if a characters behaves 'wrong' but is led by his strong feelings, 'tis better than if a character becomes a saint, but empty inside

now, we do not even have typical 'love interest' here. well, I could say the same for other characters. I could describe them for a long time, but to make it simple - they are human, though bizarre a bit
oh, and I have forgotten... 'Skip Beat' is funny! really funny. I did laugh a lot at the unexpected plot developments or some characters' lines, but you know... not every anime creating team can allow making SD, simplified faces like here ↓ and make fun while creating a shoujo series

though the characters are the way they are due to the original manga, this does not change the fact that watching 'Skip Beat' never left be bored. I love the LME's president with all his eccentricity

graphics
here I find only one problem. along with beautiful girls with long lashes

and wonderful backgrounds

I see this ↓

such type of men is usually a sign that the work belongs either to the genre that starts with the letter Y (or at least S-A, if you know what I am talking about), or at least determines a very certain direction - pleasing girls, which mainly means the work is shallow. I was truly happy to see the graphic style had nothing to do with the quality

seiyuus

however, I cannot ignore who is Ren's seiyuu - mr Konishi Katsuyuki. well I have already put up with it - Kosugi-san, Ono-D, Toriumi-san, and many other seiyuus with this type of voice are frequently participating either in hentai, or in yaoi/shounenai, or in both, and not in series I could acknowledge as good. 'tis time for me already to learn how to put up with this

the seiyuus I knew were only Miyano-san, Enomoto-san and Kawasumi-san. the others were new to me. and I was not even in the least disappointed. Inoue-san as the protagonist was simply great. I would probably also praise Hayamizu-san for her performance of Kotonami. too bad her list of works is not long

music

unfortunately, I am not able to say much about the background music - I do not remember it. however, OPEDs were good. opening songs were probably nothing outstanding, but still above average. first ending was a very nice hiphop song, and the second, though I did not like the song itself, contained pretty good lyrics fitting the anime's plot

conclusion

am I absolutely satisfied with 'Skip Beat', then? no, unfortunately I must say I am not. and the reason is not the 'and I believe that tomorrow will be better than today' ending. the reason is that the creators made this ending too abrupt which leaves an unfavourable impression. just 10 minutes before the end we see a hint on something important, and then it just ends... moreover, in manga the moment ending the anime was only a beginning, while in the anime we are just made to face the fact we will see nothing else. plus the fact that the 'standard' length is not 25 but 26 episodes. in other words, I cannot but thing the team of creators did not do their best. thought their 'not-best' is not-bad