Pani Poni Dash

Pani Poni Dash is a hard series to review, because a review requires you to string words together in a sensical order, and Pani Poni rejects any kind of sense whatsoever.

Half-Japanese/half-American M.I.T. graduate and all-around genius Rebecca Miyamoto returns to Japan to begin teaching at a local high school. Perhaps the most distinct part of this is that she's a child prodigy and 11 years old, making her younger than her students; and she's being watched by aliens as an unknowing sample in the study of the human race.

This isn't even the strangest part of this series. That would be Miss Ichijo.

The plot of Pani Poni, such as it is, relies heavily on parodying other anime and genre tropes, and Japanese culture in general, especially Internet forums. It doesn't have a specific plot arc and is mainly composed of standalone episodes driven by the characters; but if you suspend your sense of disbelief and reality, it is hilarious! Since it focuses on four first-year classes, homerooms 1-A through 1-D, with occasional outside characters (and the aliens, of course), there's too many people to really get into here--which is a shame, because there's no way to explain how rib-crackingly funny this series can get without laying out the characters. But even hearing about them isn't as good as seeing them! Luckily, we can help you with that.

The manga of Pani Poni is 17 volumes and ran from 2000-2011, and is unfortunately not translated into English. (The puns are probably the main hindrance, but you'd think if Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo could get translated, they could pull this off too.) The anime Pani Poni Dash is, however; it ran in 2005 for 26 episodes, and was licensed for English by--quelle surprise--Funimation. There's also an OVA that was released in 2009, but it--like the drama CDs (similar to an audiobook, only all the voice actors get together to voice their characters and there are generally sound effects, making it more like an audio production than the usual one-reader-audiobook) and the Internet radio shows--has not been translated to English either. The whole run of the anime is available in Evergreen Indiana, just down the road at Plainfield!

Darker than Black

Darker than Black is a scifi action thriller. It's a 25-episode series (arguably 24 eps, since the 25th is more of an omake, or side-story, set within the series after it's been completed--similar to episode 25 of the first xxxHolic anime) that's set in a slightly-futuristic Tokyo.

Ten years before the opening of the anime, a phenomena occurred in Tokyo and South America--two "gates," the Heaven and the Hell gate, suddenly appeared. These wrecked havoc on the natural order, putting out the stars and replacing them with fake stars, each of which indicated a 'contractor,' someone who is no longer human and who has special abilities, such as the ability to control gravity, the ability to turn their blood into explosives (seriously), or the ability to travel through time. The name comes from the fact that these people are tied to 'contracts'--they have to fulfill certain actions each time they use their powers, or they risk severe pain or potential death.

The story focuses on Hei, a Chinese contractor for a group known as the Syndicate, who's working in Tokyo along with his team: a fellow contractor, Mao--who has the ability to jump into animal bodies, but who lost his original, human form and is now predominantly in the body of a cat--Yin, a "doll" (another consequence of the gates--dolls are mediums who can do reconnaissance by sending out spirits via different methods. Yin's medium is water; others include glass and telephone lines), and the team's handler, Huang. While the team is initially stationed in Tokyo to carry out hits ordered by the Syndicate, they slowly get embroiled in a greater political struggle that's playing out between multiple governments and groups around them--a struggle that ultimately has ramifications not only on the team, but on the very existence of humans, contractors, and dolls.

The original anime ran in 2007, and was licensed for English by Funimation, while the two volume manga is translated by Yen Press. There are also a couple sequels--two OVAs (Original Video Animations, or three-episode standalone storylines) and a second anime--but I haven't seen those, so I can't say much about them!

Ouran High School Host Club, by Bisco Hatori

I mentioned my Strong Feelings toward the anime of this series in my last post, so I figured I ought to clarify.

I've been asked before to explain why I dislike the anime so much, when I really do like the manga. I cannot! Seriously. I can't put a finger on what drives me so nuts about the anime, aside from the occasional sloppy animation and changes from the original--but honestly, if those things got to me that bad, I'd never be able to watch any anime based on manga. This is not to say the anime is bad, or even that it doesn't have its good points; it's just not for me. Ymmv.

Ouran is a shoujo reverse-harem high school (obviously) romantic comedy set in a contemporary, if fictional, Tokyo. I don't know if "reverse-harem" is the technical term per se, but considering the set-up similarity to Negima or Maison Ikkoku, only here with one girl and a plethora of guys, I think it's apt.

The star of the series, (I'm not calling her the "heroine" for reasons that will soon become clear) is Haruhi, who's attending the uber-prestigious, ridiculously high class and filthy rich Ouran High School. The daughter of a widower, she's on a merit scholarship; and when she accidentally breaks a vase worth 8 million yen (roughly 80K in U.S. dollars--$1 to ¥100 is the typical translation, ignoring fluctuations in value), she finds herself roped into working at the school's "host club"--a club composed of six guys who meet in the music room and act as hosts to their female classmates, serving them tea and snacks and chatting with them. This is actually reflective of a common entertainment industry in Japan, although hostess clubs are more prominent there than host ones (a lot of Japanese will, in fact, argue that host clubs are designed solely to serve the women who work in hostess clubs, on the basis that they would prefer to relax around professionals--the assumption being that 'normal' women would never frequent them. Uh-huh).

"So, Haruhi starts working as a hostess?" Well, no. Like I said, I didn't call her the heroine of the story for a reason--she starts working at the club as a host. They get away with this pretty much because Haruhi doesn't give a rip for proper gender roles, and her clothes when she initially started attending Ouran were baggy secondhand threads (the club sets her up with a spruce new uniform--guys', of course). In fact, the guys in the club initially thought she was a boy (some were a little slower on the uptake than others); and the girls who frequent the club and become patrons of hers do as well.

The series from that point on is pretty much "Haruhi Tries Not to Strangle These Guys in Exasperation and Also Learns Some Things About Herself (But Mostly Tries Not to Strangle Them)." Hatori pretty gleefully twists and mocks standard harem tropes, both within the plot--the guys play very caricatured versions of themselves while hosting (the Silent Type, the Shota, the Twins, the Uber-Smooth Prince, Whatever On Earth Anyone Sees In Kyoya [okay, that's mean])--and without, like the arc where fangirl Renge shows up and tries to force everyone to act the way they would were they more stereotypical. It is a romantic comedy, though, and later volumes start to get more serious as the romantic part begins to outweigh the comedy one.

I haven't read the final volume yet, though (at the risk of spoilers?) I think we can all make an educated guess at who of the six--Tamaki, Kyoya, Huni, Mori, Hikaru and Kaoru--she's going to end up with. Me personally, though, I'm going to keep shipping Haruki/Kasanoda--because 'Haruhi the yakuza wife' would be the most awesome thing ever.

The series is complete; the manga has 18 volumes and went from 2002-10, while the anime ran for 26 episodes in 2006 (meaning the anime made up its ending, since the series was still ongoing, as these things so often do). Viz is publishing the manga as part of its Shojo Beat line, while Funimation licensed the anime for English. We don't have the anime at the library, but we do have volumes 1-17 of the manga--and we've got volume 18 on order!

Princess Tutu

This post exists solely because I was talking to our new Teen Librarian Rachel about anime and manga--specifically the Ouran High School Host Club manga and anime, the latter of which my antipathy to is vast--and after I recced this series to her, it occurred to me that I had failed to do a post on it yet! This error could not be let stood. So.

Oh man, Princess Tutu. Assuming you haven't seen it already, and you're still reading past the title, stay with me! This is one truly fantastic anime. I ran out and bought the DVDs as soon as they were released when I was still a poor college student, that is how fantastic is it. "Worth a steady diet of ramen to afford" is a rare honor I bestow (we here come to the crux of why this blog is about 80% manga to 20% anime--one of these is much cheaper than the other [well, was; manga's starting to trend up there as well]).

Princess Tutu is a shoujo fairy tale, except for the parts of it that are action battle sequences, or a horror story, or the characters hijacking the plot from the narrator and rattling the bars of their cage. It is also the story of a duck, who is also a girl, who is not-really a swan, and her love for a heartless prince, who is heartless because he literally shattered his heart with a sword to defeat the Raven King. Ahiru (Duck in the dub) is trying to restore the prince's heart, but she finds herself thwarted by two very different people: the adopted daughter of the Raven King who prefers the prince remain heartless so that he won't leave her side, and the reincarnation of the knight who was struck down trying to save the prince the first time around and who fears that history will repeat itself if his heart is restored. There is also a lot of ballet. I suppose I should qualify that half the action battle sequences are also action ballet sequences.

Still with me?

I hope so, but just in case, let me show you the ubiquitous .jpeg associated with this series. I'm pretty sure it'll do more to convince you to try this show out than anything I can say.

Image from the wilds of the Internet; I do not know the original creator.

Whenever I recommend this anime to anyone, I warn them that the first few episodes are slow. And they are! But the payoff for sticking it out is so high, I promise.

The Princess Tutu anime ran in 2002/3 and was licensed for English by ADV; when that company shut down, another one called AEsir Holdings picked up the title and rereleased it last year (I have the ADV version, so I don't know if there are translation changes between the two. I do know that ADV didn't translate some of the puns in the Japanese; but then, this series was one of the rare cases where the fansubs [which came out prior to the English licensing] were so spot-on and well done that ADV had some Sideshow Bob-sized shoes to fill.) There is also a 2 volume manga, released by ADV in 2004/5, but I do not in any way recommend it. Even as tie-ins go, it's pretty bad.

We don't currently have the series here at Mooresville Public Library, and unfortunately the only library in Evergreen Indiana that carries it is Lebanon PL, which is a bit of a far drive! But it is available online at Hulu. And MPL has both a computer lab with Internet access and offers free wireless!

Paprika, by Satoshi Kon

Paprika is a scifi film set in relatively contemporary Japan and directed by the inestimable Satoshi Kon, self-same director of the fantabulous Tokyo Grandfathers. An R&D member of an unnamed psychotherapy organization has invented a way for people to interact with and record others' dreams; but when the technology is stolen, the team is in a race to find the mastermind behind the nightmares as dreams and reality begin to collide.

The movie is full of the same gorgeous animation that's typical of Madhouse (the producer)'s work, but it has an extra 'umph' due to the surrealism of the dream scenes--and of all the scenes, once the aforementioned collision of the sleeping and waking worlds begins. The sound track is also lovely, though I don't think I'm going to be able to hear the parade music for a while without having a reaction like this:

Illustration by Sparrowbirdd on Tumblr

Paprika was released in 2006, and brought to the U.S. by Sony Pictures as a subtitles-only film. Unfortunately we don't have it here at Mooresville, but it is available just up the road at the Plainfield Public Library--and since they're an Evergreen Indiana library like us, you can check it out there with your card and return it here!

Black Butler (redux)

"Wait, didn't you already do a post about Black Butler?" Yes! Yes I did, way the heck back in April. But that was before I watched the anime, so I was unaware that the series took the plot and chucked it out the window after it wrapped up the Jack the Ripper arc. I haven't seen part two of the first series yet, but it looks like it got back on track there, with the arrival of Agni and Prince Soma.

"Alright, so is it better or worse than the manga?"

That...is a complicated question.

On the one hand, the anime introduced a demon dog who turns human during two episodes of what I would call some pretty bad filler, except I watched Naruto during that ghastly stretch of time after the anime completed the Valley of the End arc but before the timeskip and Shippuden began. And also, to be fair, you probably shouldn't call something filler if an effort is made to tie it in to the larger storyline.

That episode with the camera, though? Filler.

However! The anime has also done some really nice things with character development. Especially with Elizabeth and Aberline; I was really pleased with how Elizabeth's character was fleshed out, compared to (what I've read so far of) the manga. And the dub is really spot on with the voice acting and the accents. (Good voice acting is still always a wonderment to me, because my introduction to anime was Yu-Gi-Oh! and the less said about the first--and thankfully brief--voice actor for Tristan, the better.) Plus, there's more Grell. Can't really complain about that.

So I don't think there's really a way to judge "better or worse" when it comes to comparing the anime to the manga. Different, yes! It is definitely different. But this may be the case of another FMA situation, where you basically accept that there are two (or more) versions of the same story (especially with the second series rebooting itself some), and that's that. If you're a fanfic writer, it certainly ups the AU opportunities.

TokyoPop

I mentioned in my last post that TokyoPop restructured in 2008. What does that mean? Well, for one, they're not glutting the market any more.

All right, that was a little mean. I have a certain fondness for TokyoPop; my first introduction to manga was Sailor Moon, which they published (back when they were Mixx. Trivia! TokyoPop published their earliest manga series under the PocketMixx title. Tell your friends, they'll be amazed that you know something so obscure. Or not), and they've published other series that I've reread often despite owning them for years (Jing: King of Bandits, Pet Shop of Horrors). It's just that they've made an easy target of themselves due to the aforementioned glutting, and also due to the poor quality of their translations--which goes back to the glutting again, because when you push to get so many different titles out on a monthly basis, it overworks the translators/adapters who wind up doing "good enough" work. (Pet Shop of Horrors is a prime example of this; you can easily tell when the translation is sloppy or even straight-out altered, because the dialogue is laid out in a way that doesn't mesh up with the speech bubbles. Like I said, easy target.) Viz suffers from this too, to a lesser extent; their earlier, more adult work was very high quality, but when they got the rights to publish an English version of Shonen Jump, the monthly deadlines and increased output decreased the quality.

But all of that aside! TokyoPop's 2008 changes were the beginning of the shift toward digital delivery of manga that we're seeing more of in 2011. I'm going to leave aside all the complicated legal shenanigans that the restructuring meant (you can read about that on Wikipedia, if you're interested): basically, TokyoPop lost the licensing rights to several series, and has discontinued translation of others (again, see the last post re: the Kingdom Hearts 2 manga). Add in that TokyoPop is now closing its North American publishing company, and that the U.K. company will be closing soon as well since it imported so many titles from there, and what does that signify?

Well, for one, that my above comment was really pretty mean.

All hope's not lost, though--at least yet. A lot of manga publishers are moving to counter scanlations with cheaply-priced digital manga--not only English publishers, but Japanese ones as well. Yen Press and Viz, as well as TokyoPop, have digital versions of many of their titles; and there's another company called JManga, which is a consortium of 39 Japanese publishers! (I'd link to it, but it's still in beta mode. This site tells more about it, though!)

As someone who grew up relying on scanlations and fansubs for manga and anime that wasn't available in English yet, I think the publishers have their work cut out for them. Here's hoping they succeed, though; I've seen manga series that I loved get canceled mid-translation because it wasn't selling (Bride of Deimos, From Eroica with Love, Category: Freaks, Kingdom Hearts 2!) and companies go under (CMX, Dr. Masters), so here's hoping that with publishers offering a cheap, digital alternative to scanlations (hopefully with better translations!), the companies that're still around will stay that way.

(Don't worry if you don't have an ereader or personal computer, though--we'll still be buying print copies of manga here at the library!)

Kingdom Hearts, Shiro Amano

"Wait," I hear you saying, "isn't Kingdom Hearts a video game?" Yes, yes it is. It is a video game series spawning just about every game system out there, from the PS2 to the GBA to the PSP and DS and--when Dream Drop Distance (a.k.a 3D) comes out--the 3DS, not to mention mobile phones, if you for some reason played Coded in Japan and not Recoded on the DS like a normal American, because Nomura is clearly in the pay of Nintendo and Sony.

But that aside, Kingdom Hearts is also a manga series!

Overall the manga follows the same linear story line of the games, though it adds some things and presents other events from different angles. It also takes a more light-hearted and comedic approach--for example, Naminé wearing a hard-hat when Sora and Riku are running around tearing up Castle Oblivion. For those of you who've played any of the games, you probably know who I'm talking about. For those of you who haven't, well, let's see if I can encapsulate the continuous plot of six games into a relatively reasonable-sized post.

...Okay, I can't. For real, guys, this entry has been sitting on my computer for a month waiting to be posted while I try to figure how to cram the storyline of KH into a paragraph or two. It's about the forces of light battling the forces of darkness! Except when it isn't. It's also about monsters that have names that make no sense--Heartless are made solely of hearts, Nobodies are bodies without hearts, the Unversed...well, that's a spoiler (if you haven't played BBS), but they still don't make much sense.

So far there are translated versions of Kingdom Hearts 1 (4 volumes), Chain of Memories (2 volumes), and Kingdom Hearts 2 (3 volumes, technically. Volume 3 of the KH2 manga exists, and believe me we here at Mooresville Public Library are trying to get it; but the print run on it was much smaller compared to the ones on all the others that it is, shall we say, an extended [and extensive] process. It's not even for sale on Amazon at wallet-gouging prices! That's pretty bad. I'm not discounting the possibility of simply trying to buy the blasted thing at a con and donating it to the library, but currently that is plan Z.) Volumes 4 and 5 are not available in English, and the translation was cancelled when TokyoPop restructured in 2008, so those are only available via scanlations.

There are several light novels adaptations of the games, but only Kingdom Hearts 1 and the first volume for 358/2 Days have been published in the U.S. The other novels (for CoM and KH2) are not officially available in English, though there are fan translations.

There is no anime version of Kingdom Hearts, which is kind of a shame.

Noir

Last time I said I would get to Noir soon, and now I come through!

Noir is an action/thriller set (mainly) in France (the title is French for “black”). It focuses mainly on Mireille, a Corsican-born assassin, and Kirika, a Japanese girl with amnesia. When Mireille meets Kirika, she discovers that the girl has also been trained as an assassin (despite the amnesia, the training shows through), and they team up to form Noir. Kirika is looking to discover her past; Mireille is seeking the people who murdered her family.

Although Mireille names their team on a whim—“Noir” is the only thing that Kirika remembers, beyond her assassin skills—the decision quickly plunges her and Kirika into the world of a secret society called the Soldats and the power struggles going on within it. They also soon find themselves being tailed by Chloe, another young assassin who was raised and trained by Altena, a high-ranking Soldat who believes the group has lost its way and is orchestrating a takeover to return it to its mythological roots—a takeover that hinges on the return of Kirika to the fold, and a series of increasingly deadly tasks to test whether Mireille is worthy to carry the mantle of “Noir.”

Noir is an older title; it ran in 2001, and was published by Bee Train before being licensed by Madmen and Funimation. Like El Cazador de la Bruja, Noir is an example of high quality dubbing; the action ranges over a sizeable chunk of Europe, and characters’ accents reflect where they are from or located. There is no manga or light novel version of Noir; it is an anime only.

El Cazador de la Bruja

El Cazador de la Bruja is Japan’s take on the Western, but with witches. Because that’s how Japan rolls! If you know Spanish you may not be surprised by this revelation—Google Translate tells me the title means “Witch Hunter.”

It’s a comedy/drama (I just can’t type the word “dramedy”) set in a semi-contemporary Mexico. Nadie is a bounty hunter who runs into Ellis, an amnesiac fugitive who is suspected of a murder. She initially begins traveling with Ellis in order to bring her in and get the bounty on her head, but as more clues to the suspicious murder—as well as Ellis’s own genetically engineered ‘witch powers’—arise, Nadie starts to suspect that the real bad guy in this story is the agency that’s striving to reacquire Ellis, even going so far as to hire another bounty hunter to track the two of them and unleashing another witch, L.A., who pretty much has a straight up stalkerish obsession with Ellis, he and her being the only survivors of the DNA experimentation that gave them their powers. L.A. has much better control over his powers than Ellis, who mainly only activates them subconsciously in times of dire need; that, combined with his hatred of human beings, makes him pretty much the biggest threat to Nadie of the lot sent after her and Ellis.

If this sounds a little familiar, you should know that Bee Train, the company that produced El Cazador de la Bruja, also created Noir. Much is explained! (If it’s still not explained for you, just wait, I’ll get to Noir soon.)

The anime series ran in 2007, and was licensed and dubbed by Funimation. It’s one of their better dub works; like Noir, serious effort was put into hiring voice actors who could give various characters location- and background-appropriate accents. There is also a manga series which ostensibly is still ongoing, but since only one volume’s been published since 2007, you probably shouldn’t get your hopes up. The manga has not been translated into English.