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. 'Itazura na kiss' ~ forget what I said, the perfect textbook on shoujo romance is this!

I wonder when it started... Which anime can be named as a divide? Which can be considered as a trendsetter? I haven't watched enough to be able to judge about that, but this is a fact: long before shoujo anime and manga began to center on timid, fragile girls with no resolve to confess to someone they like or to tell someone they dislike to fuck off, helpless at the mercy of any guy who would want to use them, the usual type of heroine was just like Kotoko, and the typical shoujo romance was like 'Itazura'.
An ideal family of the 90s. He is a successful representative of a respected profession - a high-ranking manager, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a king of a small country in a fantasy world, or something else requiring good brains, good education and good amount of time to spend at the workplace every day. She is a devoted wife, waiting for him to come home, tired. She can be a full-time housewife, or an 'office lady', or work part-time. It doesn't really matter since his income would be sufficient in any case. She is the first one to fall in love. He lets her love him. She is the one to confess, in some cases - multiple times. He mutters something like 'I will only say it once, so listen closely. I love you', or says it only in extreme circumstances, preferably out of the blue to enhance the impression.

She is the Huxley type, he is the Gabin type, or an ENFp and an ISTp, speaking in Myers-Briggs terms.
'She will be running around him, fluttering her eyelashes, smiling at him and giving him every possible sign of ethical attentions. Still, she will see no reaction. Which, in its turn, will make her even more excited'.
That's not my description, that's a part of a popular article (in Russian) on these two types.

'He doesn't know how to put into words what he feels, not that he doesn't want to, he just doesn't understand his own feelings very well. But Huxley (ENFp) doesn't need that. Her intuition helps her to understand everything, she can even understand his feelings before he does'.
Again, these are not my words.

Unfortunately, here comes the problem. While the mentioned traits are common for most Huxley-girl-Gabin-guy couples, it does make a difference how exactly these two live their life. The archetype itself is not bad, but a character can be. I am not an anime fan who can only like a character he/she can relate to. I can name several heroines of the same type who earned my respect, being brave, selfless, educated and professional, or striving to be so. Kotoko, unfortunately, doesn't belong to this list. I can name a few Gabin characters I found attractive, but I couldn't care less about Naoki. The attempts to show that she can be cool at times, too, were so rare and unimpressive that  they didn't influence the story much. The attempts to show that he can be tender and loving were so short that... Huh?

Such stories are called 'heart-warming' and earn high rates. Meanwhile, able women with good grades at school or university, firm goals for their futures and successful careers, are branded as one-dimensional tsundere and scored out.
While the beginning was tolerable and even funny, the more into the series, the more I got pissed off with the heroine and the story progress. Or maybe I should say - the absence of it.
The story starts and ends in nothing. As if we didn't suspect that she'd get married and have a baby.
She is clumsy in the beginning - well, okay, we saw it coming.

And after many years she is still the same.

And everybody around her kinda understands that.

Her only ability is to 'try hard', and that's what she does, motivated by only one thing.

Studying for the sake of being a reliable professional, improving oneself, achieving new horizons... Not really.

I wonder, does her practice change the fact that she wanted to become a nurse only because she wanted to be together with her husband, and not because she was interested in medicine or wanted to help people?
Well, I may admit there was one thing the Heroine was good at - finding possibilities and offering them to other people, such as prompting her boyfriend to become a doctor, but again, it wasn't very much stressed on, so it didn't pass as a big advantage.
Her main quality is that she is pretty confident that she will succeed.

According to this series, the main qualifications for becoming happy are:

The problem is that everything goes smoothly for her simply because she tries hard. But people don't see it as a problem.

And that's enough, right?
My god, she didn't only fail to learn English and understand what a Hawaiian policeman asked her, she didn't understand anything...

Have you ever heard of pregnancy tests? I checked Wikipedia, they had been available in the market  for almost 20 years when this manga was published! And more importantly, why do you ever pose it as a question?!
Of course she gathers a nice reverse harem around her. Moreover, the other guys are ready to give her their everything. One is always near her and ready to help, even if it means to dig up her father buried under the ruins of their collapsed house.

 And guess just what he will say to her. Surprise-surprise.

The other is so nice that even the Hero's mother admits he is good.

But she prefers her harsh-spoken first crush.

He insults her, ignores her, mocks her, no matter how much time passes, but she's okay.

So she starts doubting him, he says something that is supposed to be romantic, like 'don't cause me much trouble', and she is again head over heels in love with him. Many problems and worries of the characters were solved by an effective method known to the science from ancient times - a slap in the face.

By the end, the story was so full of sweet scenes of happy families that I was really longing for a salty marinated cucumber. But nobody actually changed or made any noticeable progress. That's exactly why the same actors can play in a live-action movie even though the story spans more than 10 years.

And try to guess what kind of relationship they have with their daughter...

You know, I thought it strange when Chibiusa came to the present Earth and stated that Mamoru would be hers and not Usagi's, but I guess this is a usual thing in Japan and a trend in shoujo...

In fact, much more than the Heroine, I was happy to see supporting characters happy in the end. At least they have been really funny throughout the series...

but still, I regret these 4 days spend with this story. After a serious, sometimes heartbreaking stories I always want something light and with a taste of happiness, but this I will say: such stories make me even more depressed than serious ones. They always have that side to them that makes me want to run away and pretend I didn't see anything. They promote the idea of the earthly, simple happiness of everyday life with your family and nothing special happening, just 'trying hard' at a work you don't particularly like, keeping the house, raising children... and if it's all the future holds for a human, I refuse.
I might as well add something about art, music and voice acting, but there isn't anything I could particularly praise. Hirakawa was trying so hard to make his character cool that I was afraid he would start reading one of his audio-doramas for adult girls the next moment.
Oh, maybe just one thing I made sure! It seems that one needs to be raised in Osaka to speak realistic Osaka-ben. Shuuhei Sakaguchi was a nice one.

'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.