Forum - View topicJose Cruz Reviews Anime Titles. Latest: Bofuri
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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From the New World (2012-2013)
While I was watching all the mediocre stuff that is being put out these days I decided to re-watch something that is really good to remind myself of why I am an anime fan. Since I had finished watching this first back when it aired I guess it was time for a re-watch and that was a great decision. From the New World is a true masterpiece. A truly unique anime, in fact there is nothing quite like it among the other 600 anime titles I have watched. What I found the most interesting about it is that it is a story about an absolutely repugnant society from the point of view of the privileged elites that are living at the top of the social pyramid. While the depiction of the main characters as reasonable people shows that this kind of inhumane society could exist in a world of reasonable people: you don't need a Hitler to get to this kind of society. Set a thousand years in the future, it shows a society that formed many centuries after the collapse of our current civilization. Our civilization collapsed due to the fact it wasn't able to handle the emergence of godlike powers in a small fraction of the world's population: a mutation that was supposedly discovered in 2011 and affecting about 0.3% of the world's population that enabled people to control matter directly with though. Essentially, it's a godlike power since the volume of energy that their power could project is enormous: a person can easily use it lift a rock that weights about 50 tons and throw it around as if it were a baseball. Apparently the show argues that our current society just couldn't handle the fact that some people having this kind of power and degenerated into a massive war that destroyed civilization. Eventually, after many centuries of social collapse a new civilization arose but it depended on radical and inhumane methods to keep it functioning. spoiler[Apparently, only the people endowed with powers have survived after a thousand years and they live in an extremely authoritarian society. Genetic modification was made on all humans with powers to make then physically unable to kill one another: if one power users kill another person their brain is genetically programmed to use their own power to kill themselves. They only grant basic rights to people over the age of 18, before that age the government thinks that it can murder children without any problem and they murder anyone who is suspected of being emotionally unstable. Hence, the majority of all children are either executed or brainwashed and very few of the children actually manage to grow up in an environment where they have freedom of though.] Besides those social stuff with humanity new species of animals have developed over a short period of time, which they argued was caused by power leaking out of people's subconscious, which lead to mutations everywhere. Now, after a thousand years of the collapse of civilization the majority of the world's sentient population is not made up of humans anymore but of humanoid rodents who are as intelligent as humans but are treated as inferior beasts because of their appearance. spoiler[Although they are not explicitly presented as slaves of the humans in the show it is argued that humans used them in various ways, for instance, when they had relatively large construction projects, although I might think that using their power would be more efficient for large scale construction?, besides that the humanoid rats are shown to be living in self sufficient societies that are separate from the human territory but that the humans regularly decide to exterminate certain rat tribes for reasons that the rats are not even made aware off. A reason such as "well, those rats pointed their arrows at us so they deserve to be slaughtered", clearly showing that the humans do not hold the rats in the same level of regard as sentient beings that are deserving of rights. Basically, they treat the rats in the same way we treat horses and cattle. Eventually, after the rats decided to rebel against their human masters, and they almost succeed in exterminating the local human community, we learn what happened with the 99.7% of the humans who didn't have power. Since the genetic mechanism that makes people kill themselves if they hurt another human only works with people with power, the people without power were genetically modified to look like rodents as to make them be seem as less than human from the point of view of humans with power so that the people with power could still kill everybody without power with no consequences, as if they were just exterminating rats. In the end it resulted in a society that was even more unjust than the societies that came before it: lower social classes were completely dehumanized and genetically modified to look like rats while the upper class is the only one that regards itself as being human and they casually slaughter entire populations as if they were chickens!] Nick Creamer's review (http://wrongeverytime.com/2013/08/11/shinsekai-yori-and-true-heroism/) is also very good but I should point out a disagreement I had regarding the actions of one of the main characters spoiler[Squealer was right that his people were being subjected to a brutal treatment and they suffered as essentially slaves of the humans but genocide of the humans was not the proper response. In a way, Squealer was treating the humans in the same way the humans treated the rats: as vermin to be exterminated. While the leaders of the humans were guilty of crimes against humanity the common people were mainly unaware of what was going on so their extermination was not just. Also, it's not true that Kiroumaru was a "defector', as Kiroumaru's faction was also exterminated by Squealer so Squealer was his mortal enemy as well. Kiroumaru himself explained that if he had access to the same opportunity as Squealer he would have done the same. Although from a pragmatic standpoint it's true that Kiroumaru decision to help the humans was stupid because his rat people and humanity as a whole would be better-off if Squealer won even if his particular tribe was destroyed, but apparently, his provincial perspective dominated his decision making. Squealer was indeed the only character in the show to see the big picture. Finally, it's true the ending was unsatisfying but that's the point: this is a descriptive show not a normative it show. It shows how this brutal society works and not how it was supposed to work. True, a revolution didn't happen and the unfair way in which the humans treated the rats didn't end but evil never dies, only in Western fiction that it does. ] In terms of world building this is first class fiction. I haven't experienced fictional narratives with so well rounded world building, as the social structures depicted are very well reasoned (even though it's a tremendously brutal society I cannot easily think of ways to make it more humane and still enable it to function as a stable society) and all events in the plot make almost perfect sense and the show is populated with very good sophisticated characters that feel more like real individual people rather than stacks of tropes than it is usual in fiction. In terms of quality of it's writing it's among the best of the best. The art and animation are excellent as well. Although the animation is not perfect it's higher in quality than the average for TV animation and in many scenes and works very well to depict what the show wants to depict. My main issue was with some poorly integrated CGI in some scenes but that's an anime from 2012-2013 and for the time it's CGI was pretty good. One I would like to show what is a good example of the power of animation as a medium of expression, From the New World would be among my top picks. Last edited by Jose Cruz on Thu Jan 16, 2020 8:44 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
It has been a while since I decided to talk about any show in more detail now: As the decade ended, I have greatly reduced the amount of free time I have so I have less time to talk about anime. Yet, at this point I have though about: well, since the 2010s ended, I decided to think about what would be my favorite titles of the decade and I decided to re-watch Madoka, given it’s a strong candidate for the best anime of the decade. I have watched Madoka about 7 or 8 times already, it has been the show that I have re-watched the largest number of times. The reason is that it is a unique experience: there is nothing out there that is quite like it. The experience I get from watching it has not been replicated by anything else (although there are shows with rather similar atmosphere, like Haibane Renmei, Lain, From the New World, Made in Abyss, or Higurashi, the way this show is executed is quite distinct). Besides being a masterpiece, it is a unique masterpiece. Something that appears to be distinct from everything out there, but it is actually a synthesis of Japanese pop culture in the early 21st century. It is not only a strong candidate for the best anime of the decade: it is perhaps the best animation of all time (at least the best one I have watched yet). The reason is that it is so well executed that after watching the show I felt like I had to just process it, because it was so much emotional power packed into about 300 minutes and very few, if any, problems in it. Conventional anime shows, or well, works of fiction, are usually operating at a mundane level of dramatic intensity and at certain points, such as climaxes, the level of dramatic intensity is cranked up. In Madoka, there is no such distinction: the whole thing is a 300-minute-long climax. In those 12 episodes this show packs so many memorable scenes, it feels like for instance, when Homura and Madoka I am witnessing of a mythical quality: a show that is a landmark. It is indeed true that Madoka still remains the biggest anime hit aimed at otaku since EVA in the mid 1990’s: it is the show that synthetized and redefined anime for this past generation from 1996 to 2020. The art style is one of the things that make this show so memorable: the characters are ultra-cute and the setting looks ultra-smooth, in a way they are the ultimate expression of the “anime-like” aesthetic of the time this was made in 2011. The animation itself is limited but one interesting thing is that it gets better than better as the show progresses. It is like as if Shaft knew they had hit the jackpot and had to make the extra effort over the last 6 episodes to make them look as good as they could, since this was something that would be remembered by anime fans for a long time (or at least, remembered by me). The music also fits with the show’s style in a way that rarely happens in anime or in film in general. It is perfectly matched, being, like the show, a combination of pop-culture with classical culture: The soundtrack is J-pop combined with some classical melodies from the romantic period. It is indeed, extremely dramatic but that fits with the perpetual climax style of execution. It is a show that took the elements of the slice of life genre (Hidamari Sketch), the seined magical girl genre (Nanoha), and the horror genre (Higurashi) and combined them into a single perfectly coherent narrative executed using the art-house directing style of a show like Bakemonogatari. In a way it is like a miracle: Fate Extra: Last Encore, for instance, is a failed attempt of doing something kinda like Madoka by the same director. Actually, Shimbo hit the jackpot with this show, as it far surpasses anything he did before or after it. It takes all the positive qualities of his style with none of the problems. The same applies to the writing: Urobuchi’s style for instance has a lot of exposition with might hurt some narratives but in the case of Madoka it fits perfectly: the uncompromising exposition to dig in and detail everything about the world of the show is part of the reason it is so good and so epic: it would be impossible to convey the same amount of information in only 300 minutes and the explicit expositional style is part of the shows’ charm: for instance, when Madoka and Kyubey confront each other in her bedroom his exposition serves the additional purpose of providing sadistic satisfaction for the audience since it amounts to psychological torture. What makes Madoka so good is also because it is so true and universal: consider a show like Evangelion, that show is basically Madoka for anti-social teenagers. Madoka instead, is “adult” in the sense that it goes deeper than similar depressive anime into the fundamental causes of depression and unhappiness, and being fundamental, these causes are the same for everybody: A persons’ subjective perception of the world they inhabit is always and everywhere wrong and tends to change continuously during the process in which that person has to confront reality. More often than not, perceptions are overoptimistic and the discovery that things are not as good as they appeared to be initially can lead to depression. However, life is made of challenges and to rise up and accept that these difficulties exist and to deal with them is an essential part of the art of living. When the show ends, nothing it quite allright but nothing is quite as sad as one could imagine: instead it is "realistic". |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6523 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Good to see your reviews back again. I've been feeling quite alone on this board.
Your EVA comparisons are close to the mark.
One major weakness of PMMM is its very otaku-centric emphasis. It really is hardcore anime. I just couldn't recommend it to someone who isn't familiar with the art form. Visually and thematically it could well be incomprehensible and alienating.
While I wouldn't go so far as describing Evangelion fans as "anti-social" my theory is that people who love that anime first watched it as teenagers and that people who come to it later in life are more sceptical. I've always found unpleasant its passive-aggressive undercurrents. I wasn't aware until later Hideaki Anno's grappling with depression. Learning that helped me understand and sympathise with those undercurrents better. On PMMM itself,
Can't quite agree with that. One of the powers of PMMM is how, throughout, what's happening on the surface belies what's happening underneath. Or, to put it in TV Tropes terminology, it's loaded with fridge horror and fridge awesome. The end of PMMM extols hope but the reality is horrible: Madoka is going around spoiler[euthanasing 14-year-old girls succumbing to despair], while Homura has spoiler[lost the one thing she tried to save]. I still think it's amazing, though. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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This board needs more activity!
I agree that to fully appreciate Madoka it requires a lot of understanding of anime.
I first watched EVA when I was about 12, then I re-watched it when I was 23 and recently at 31. I think that the show is an excellent introduction for young people of the artistic potential of animation in general, even though when I re-watched it as an adult I found some parts of it to be a bit too much over the top.
I think that the ending is sad but it is an improvement over the reality the girls were living through. Homura was basically locked into time-loops trying to do something impossible while the incubator energy harvesting policy was tremendously cruel to the girls. By the ending, they managed to change the system to a better one and Homura learned to move on and accept the fact that Madoka couldn't be with her (as she had died in the original timeline). So it was about learning and accepting reality, adjusting your expectations in line with it, and doing the best you can given those constraints. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I agree completely that to fully appreciate PMMM you really do need to have seen quite a lot of anime. I really like how it takes standard anime tropes and puts a whole new twist on them. Someone new to anime would be missing out on all that. But that said, I think that it can still be liked by people who don't know much about anime because it is such a powerful and compelling story. I have shown the series to many people who have had zero prior experience with anime and they still loved it. As for the ending, I think it is very bleak, and deliberately so. Consider what happened throughout the course of the plot: spoiler[Madoka became divine in the true sense of the word. The universe was outright re-created. And after all of that happening, the world is little different from the original world. In fact, it's so incredibly similar to the old world, even down to word choice (wraith vs. witch) that the similarity itself becomes the whole point. The entire theme of the show is a Daoist-like karmic balance which will never be upset.] |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6523 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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To illustrate what I'm talking about, take the image of Madoka and Homura at the top Jose Cruz's review post. Today at work (we hot desk) I was sitting next to a guy in his 50s who isn't familiar with anime. I showed him the image and asked would he be interested in watching the show if I told him it was superb. He looked at it blankly for a while and said that it wasn't his thing. (Note I'm also male, but I'm in my 60s.) That's the problem. It isn't universal; it's esoteric. The very image of those two characters will be off-putting for many people. As rabid anime consumers, our eyes have become desensitised to how alien and alienating the aesthetics of PMMM are to the average person (without even considering the witches' mazes). By way of contrast, I successfully convinced a woman at work in her 40s to watch Violet Evergarden. She, in turn, got her father to watch it. It's easy to see why. Violet and the other characters of the show are more conventional, visually and thematically. Hence, while I think PMMM is the better anime, I think VE has a greater potential reach. The guy I questioned made a couple of interesting observations. He surmised that Madoka was protecting the city in the image, whereas he found Homura more troubling. I told him he was absolutely spot on. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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That's been my experience too.
Big distinction here. The COVER is esoteric. The average person (by that I mean someone not familiar with anime) probably has no interest in the art style, it appears "foreign and strange", and the fact that it's animation probably makes them assume it's a children's show. I can easily see how someone might find the cover unappealing. Heck, I'm a huge anime fan, and *I* found the cover art to be unappealing because I assumed it to be a cutesy children's show. I didn't watch a single episode of Madoka until 2+ years after it came out specifically because the cover art is misleading. It got to the point where I kept seeing people talk about Madoka, Madoka-themed image macros everywhere, etc, that I thought to myself that I must be missing something because there's no way a dime-a-dozen cutesy magical girl show would remain in people's memory that long. So yeah, I totally understand what you mean about showing someone the cover and asking if they want to see it. That said, if you can get a person to actually sit down and watch the show it quickly becomes apparent that it has a lot more meat to it than some cutesy cartoon like the cover implies. But that said, I wasn't talking about cover art when I said that the show was accessible. I meant that if you got someone to give it a fair shake and they watched some of it they would find it appealing. I had typed out this paragraph with the intent of putting it in my earlier post but deleted it from my earlier post because I thought it was redundant and felt a bit bloggy. I'm retyping it because I now see that simply making a statement about it's appeal isn't enough. I have had this exact situation happen to me several times: Me: Hey, I know anime isn't your thing, anon, but you really need to check this show out. It's amazing. It's designed to appear cutesy on the surface, but give it a chance and it is truly fantastic. (They take this statement seriously, because they know I watch a ton of anime yet rarely, if ever, recommend anything to them) Anon: Uhm, why are we watching a cartoon about little girls talking about hair ribbons? Me: Be quiet and watch. Give me an hour, and if you still think it's stupid then I owe you one. Episode 3 rolls around Anon: Wait, why are you taking the disc out? This is amazing! ....at which point I have a new convert who is showing the show to others. I've had this happen with a 44-year-old oil field worker, my 70-something mother, a 22-year-old PC gaming junkie, and multiple co-workers (all of whom are male professionals in their 30's through 50's). No, they won't watch it if you show them the cover and that's it. But sit them in front of the TV and show them a little and it's a different story.
No arguments from me about VE being more appealing to the average person. That doesn't mean that PMMM is inaccessible though, it simply means that VE is moreso. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I think this is a show that can be enjoyed on several levels so people who are not familiar with anime can enjoy it on a more superficial level. But its main appeal is the way it plays with expectations induced by anime-related knowledge. I showed it to people I know and I noticed that only anime fans really enjoyed it for what it was trying to do. Others enjoyed it for other reasons.
Agreed. The point was that Homura had to learn to move on, as Madoka died and she couldn't move on always coming back in time. But the "karmic balance" was that she was supposed to die, so she did (in a different way). |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I totally agree that it works on many levels. I suppose which is the most significant depends on each viewer. I enjoy the fact that it plays with so many classic anime tropes and twists them around; it's a very fresh take on the Magical Girl genre, and so on. But even though I appreciate all that stuff I still think it's stronger on the merits of its own plot than it is a parody/homage to classic magical girl shows. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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I agree. It mainly succeeds in its own internal logic and the references/parody to the subculture it comes from is the icing on the cake. |
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Jose Cruz
Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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Bofuri (2020)
Bofuri is a great example of a very entertaining show that succeeds in the concept of "perspective of players in a massive multiple online RPG". In fact, it is so far the best "isekai" show I ever watched (wheter you might qualify it as a isekai or not). I found it great because it takes the interesting aspects of MMORPG and discards the nonsense (i.e., Sword of Art Online style "if you die in the game, then you die in real life") that plagues the genre. I am also a big fan of slice of life shows and this show is unlike typical isekai shows and instead is basically K-On! or Bakuon set in MMORPG. Since I love K-On! and I played a lot of MMORPGs when I was a teenager I strongly identified with the show. The characters are all loveable, specially the main character Maple who becomes the strongest player in the game without looking like she was trying seriously. I loved that silliness. Also, the name of Maple's guild was "maple tree", I love this kind of not-taking itself seriously style. I also loved the art style, it is very generic but, the generic art style became the generic because it IS the best art style. I also loved the way they showed the special powers of the major players, specially the main character's overpowered skills. The only downside? I think the show didn't last long enough. 
My rating is 9.5/10. |
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