Shelf Life

Brotherhood of the Wandering Pants

I reviewed this once a long time ago for Otaku USA (the April 2008 issue), and I didn't think it was that bad. But that was before I started Shelf Life. Since then I've really gotten a feel for the pitfalls of mediocre anime.

Black Blood Brothers is mediocre in that way that only shows based on light novels can be. The character design is just not… quite… good. Jiro Mochizuki, our vampire protagonist, wears a pointy red hat like Alucard from Hellsing or Freya Crescent from Final Fantasy, and he ALSO has a giant ridiculous buckle, AND goggles. Ridiculous anime costumes and hairstyles may be distracting to anime newbies, but c'mon, the goggles on top of everything else are enough to make even a seasoned veteran lose focus. A lot of the other characters have unmemorable designs akin to something like Kaze no Stigma.

That said, the characters are written well enough. They have somewhat complicated back stories, but we aren't talking Anton Chekov here. As one might expect from a light novel, this isn't literature, but it isn't complete garbage either.

If you absolutely can't get enough of vampires you'll certainly want to own this show. I'm only so-so about vampires, but I have to admit that the first episode is pretty good. Ten years before the main story, a vampire war breaks out in Hong Kong. We get some sweet fight scenes from the war; the hopping Chinese vampires are cool. As a result of the war, a “Special Zone” city is established where vampires and humans can live in peace. Most of the story follows “brothers” Jiro and Kotaro as they start a new life in the Special Zone, and get involved in vampire clan politics and make new friends who they fight to protect.

So this otherwise forgettable show comes with a ton of great extras. Apparently the Japanese seiyuu regularly do a radio show and worked on a drama CD of the BBB novels. Three of the seiyuu and the author of the books do a commentary track for every episode of this series. That's crazy! I would be less impressed if the original author weren't involved, but hearing his input is damnably interesting. Because the voice actors are used to doing a radio show, they have a nice candor. Unlike some American voice actor commentary tracks, the seiyuu manage to consistently talk about the episode they're watching.

The English dub is adequate. Michael Tatum makes a sexy-sounding Jiro, but Leah Clark is an annoying Kotaru. That said, I think the Kotaru is supposed to be annoying as the bratty child vampire who acts as a bright foil to the cool and mature Jiro.

If you actually like this show, you should definitely get the Blu-ray. The plot is just so “meh” that I can't bring myself to give this one a Shelf Worthy. But like I said, if you love vampires….
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Godammit El Hazard! Your first disc was totally Shelf Worthy! What the hell happened? There are several different OVA re-tellings of El Hazard. Maybe the TV series is just not the optimal way to consume this material. This "Complete Collection" does not contain the OVAs.

As our story opens, Makoto is working late at night on his weird science invention at school just before the cultural festival. Makoto's childhood friend, the entrepreneurial Nanami is also at the school that night, and it happens their teacher, Mr. Fujisawa, a mountain climber and sake enthusiast (maybe just a drunk) is sleeping at the school on night duty. Nanami's brother, Jinnai, the serious-to-a-fault megalomaniacal student council president, decides to mess with Makoto's machine and ends up opening a crazy portal that transports all four characters to the magical world of El Hazard.

Once in El Hazard, Makoto and Mr. Fujisawa visit three powerful priestesses of Wind, Fire, and Water in hopes to find their way home. Meanwhile Nanami gets a series of odd jobs and just keeps making money like she did on Earth (like Nabiki from Ranma ½).

And Jinnai… It took a lot of self restraint for me not to turn this review into an 11-page essay on why Jinnai is the best character ever. Jinnai is immediately taken prisoner by the seemingly hostile monster-ish Bugrom. They look like bugs, as one might expect. It turns out that Jinnai, with his signature screeching manic laughter, is much more evil than the Bugrom. He befriends their queen and positions himself as their horrible dictator, which you can tell was his life's dream all along.

I find it hilarious that the most evil person in El Hazard is from Earth. Even when Jinnai acquires a robot-ish girl who's supposed to be an evil weapon, she's actually nice.

Everything goes horribly wrong around episode ten, when suddenly the animation quality plummets, the plot turns badly episodic, soon you're watching Tenchi Muyo! instead of the other, better show this started off being. The addition of Ura the cat-thing signals the start of this transition; he's the Ryo-Ohki of this show.

By the final third of the show the animation quality improves, but the female characters have all lost their personalities. Makoto's love interest, the princess Rune Venus, never had much of a personality to begin with; she suffers from what I like to call Belldandy syndrome, she's terribly nice but not the least bit interesting. Nanami had a personality in the beginning of the show, but by the end she's stopped dreaming of making money in favor of supporting Makoto and Rune as a couple. Shorty Alielle was hired as a sarcastic guide in the first third of the series, but by the end she just makes lesbian-ish remarks about loving her "oneesan" Nanami. Both girls are utterly robbed of personality. Don't even get me started on the priestesses!

The unattractive standard sized DVD case is nothing special. At least the DVDs aren't on a spindle. The extras are kind of a stretch; line art galleries are not terribly thrilling.

The dub is a relic from the bad old days of dubbing. Fujisawa-sensei sounds annoying. Makoto sounds way too old and too goofy. Jinnai's voice actor Bob Marx tries to re-create Jinnai's cackle from the Japanese performance with some success. However, because I love Jinnai I couldn't get enough of Ryotaro Okiayu's performance (he also plays Scar in FMA).

I could see someone owning this for nostalgia purposes. If I hang onto this set it is only because I intend to make my own fan edit of the series so it is only about Jinnai. Or I could just watch Jinnai and the Bugrom a few thousand more times.

I want to throw out there that the El Hazard Wikipedia page is woefully inadequate compared to those of other, newer series. The differences between the OVA series and The Wanderers are only listed on the character page. I tried to do some digging for ancient internet sites with more El Hazard synopses, but came up short on Wanderers information.
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