Second Impressions Digest – Mieruko-chan, Muteking the Dancing Hero, Digimon Ghost Game

Mieruko-chan – 02

I think the fanservice in Mieruko-chan may be some of the least artfully done I’ve ever seen, and this is anime we’re talking about.  Seriously, it’s just unbelievably crass – they’re making no attempt to couch it as anything but a transparent ploy (which is working) to attract otaku interest.  As I made clear in my Taishou Otome post I think we tend to make too much of casual fanservice in anime, and there are more insidious forms of sexism in the medium that get an underserved free pass.  But for fucks sake, at least make an effort.

That whole locker room sequence had me so disgusted that I pretty much tuned out the rest of the ep to be honest, but it was mostly more of the same until the last five minutes.  If this is just going to be week after week of the cute girl getting tortured by visions she has no control over I don’t see much point to any of it, but maybe there’ll be some further development in future episodes.  At least the cat bit at the end showed the other side to her ability – not every spirit Miko sees is horrifying, and her ability can actually be of some positive use.

 

Muteking the Dancing Hero – 02

I continue to enjoy Muteking the Dancing Hero for its unabashed goofiness, as well as its amusingly surreal depiction of San Francisco.  This week you get Lombard Street, the Transamerica Pyramid, Chinatown – but all seen in a funhouse mirror of Japanese aesthetic and fictionalized future.  There are enough small details here to convince me that someone involved in this production has actually lived there – stuff that you aren’t going to get out of a guidebook or an organized tour full of Japanese tourists.

The pretext behind this series is emerging – an embrace of the analog world.  Skating, arcades, cassette players, boom boxes, all disappearing under the onslaught on a company that acts a like like Apple and is actually run by an alien (presumably).  I suppose that’a fitting for a series with a 78 and 85 year-old director, but it doesn’t feel especially fusty or cranky – just nostalgic.  There’s also a little twist where the TV reporter going on about aliens is actually Muteki’s older sister (according to Grandma Sarah anyway).

As for Muteki, he reveals that he’s actually a pretty good dancer when he runs across four gamers named for the seasons in a run-down Chinatown arcade.  I like the way Muteki just basically wants to hang out and find a girlfriend – very normal for a 14 year-old – and his sights are clearly set on Aida the waitress.  Her ice cream soda gag continues to make me chuckle but who knows, maybe there’s something plot-related to it.  And could the mayor be behind that locked door at the diner?

 

Digimon Ghost Game – 02

I must admit, Ghost Game strikes me as one of the snappier Digimon entries in quite a while.  I like that it’s tweaking the usual formula a fair bit, and not taking itself too seriously.  It’s just a good, solid, kids adventure show – well-directed, visually pleasing, and smart enough to avoid condescension to its target audience (part of it anyway).

This time around mummies are the theme, with a string of disappearances in Ueno Park being linked (on the internet) t0 a display of Egyptian relics at the natural history museum.  Meanwhile Gammamon proves himself to have an insatiable appetite and an amusingly fractured command of Japanese.  Hiro decides to go around telling folks that Gammamon is a hologram rather than trying to explain his presence otherwise, though that’s going to be more difficult if anyone catches a glimpse of his evolved “Betelgammamon” form.

An interesting twist is that this week’s opponent isn’t actually evil, but rather a Digimon that wants to be a doctor (why?) who’s convinced himself that Egyptian mummification is the latest in human medical technology.  And the resolution is actually Hiro telling him that, after which he just lets everybody go and heads off to intern at one of the local hospitals.  Refreshingly anti-climactic, that.  Little quirks make a big difference in what could otherwise be fairly generic material, and Digimon Ghost Game has enough of them to keep it interesting.

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4 comments

  1. A

    I follow the Mieruko-chan manga, where the gratuitous fan service is much easier to overlook or just flip through. I’d like to say that what you saw in the last five minutes is a better indicator of where I think the story’s true heart lies — in that the people and incidents she encounters are often not what they seem at first. The fan service is, iirc, more heavy-handed in the earlier chapters too, but I’d understand it if you find it intolerable in anime form.

  2. It just has no elegance, no art to it – it’s completely calculated and transparent. Fanservice is fine but they really ought to be ashamed of themselves.

    That said, if it mostly goes away, it’s done and dusted.

  3. J

    I’m actually having quite a bit of fun with Ghost Game so far – in part that’s because the previous Digimon anime was such a dumpster fire (seriously, the Adventure reboot was a mess and a half, and I’m very happy they’re going away from milking it for at least a while here), but also because I just like how it’s more of a fresh take on the franchise, especially because of the slight horror vibes that the show is going for. The previous ‘original’ series that Digimon came up with, Applimon, was also a fresh take on the franchise and I loved it for that, though most of the fanbase seems to have despised the entry for whatever reason.

    But yeah, second episode, second time I had fun with it, so that’s a good early sign, though the quality needs to stay up throughout the entire run. Mummymon wanting to be a doctor doesn’t surprise me too much, as Digimon having a fascination with human society and wanting to mimic some of it if they end up in the real world isn’t a first for the franchise. Though still kind of ironic, considering that Mummymon was one of the more iconic villains of Adventure 02, haha. Also relieved that the show will probably end up focusing on three duos (with probably introducing another one later down the line, given the series’ tradition), just because that already implies more focus for each individual character. Seasons with larger casts tend to dilute the focus a bit too much for me.

  4. Yeah, pretty much this – it’s fresh. It feels a little different, a little less beholden to the formula. It’s also quite competently made, which never hurts. It’s quite fun so far.

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