Platinum End – 02

Platinum End is actually off to a pretty decent start, but that’s not entirely surprising given that the manga is at its best early on.  Still, it’s clear that the anime is in the hands of a pretty good staff, and having Miyu Irino at its heart elevates the material and gives it some dignity to a not inconsiderable degree.  I’ve said from the beginning that this series could be an instance of the adaptation being better than the source material, and I’ve seen nothing so far to dissuade me from that view.

Nevertheless, the anime has a lot of baggage to carry as the story evolves.  It’s not a bad premise Ohba Tsugumi has come up with here, even if it is highly derivative of Mirai Nikki.  At its best Platinum End works as a trashy pulp thriller, though it gets bogged down in self-indulgent nonsense far too often.  Mirai is a reluctant protagonist to say the least – he was trying to off himself, after all.  But even now that he’s decided to have a go at being happy he wants nothing to do with this God Game of Nasse’s.  Unfortunately for him (and unsurprisingly) that’s not an option, as she informs him that by accepting the wings and arrows he’d now die without them.

There are thirteen twelve candidates in this derby, and 999 days for the whole thing to run its course.  Some just want to use their arrows for cheap gratification, like the scumbag comic “Tonma Rodriguez” who uses his red arrows to have sex with idols.  Others, like “Metropoliman“, are in it to win it.  And since he, like Mirai, has a special rank angel supplying him with both kinds of arrows, he’s a problem.  He plays the superhero role, but while he does do some good mostly it seems to come down to killing people.

Mirai – who’s bought a condo with the money he gets back from his uncle and gotten into high school – thinks maybe he can lay low as long as he isn’t seen with his angel.  Unfortunately for him it doesn’t seem to work that way, as the other angels can spot him as a candidate.  High school will be no refuge for him, and he’s going to have to play the game whether he wants to or not.  I’m going to be interested to see how faithful the anime is to the source material as the game progresses, because some change would be pretty welcome.  But probably not for a while yet…

Sakugan – 02

Sakugan seems to be going over relatively well with the English-speaking audience as far as I cam tell, and I can see why.  It does a lot of things well, but ultimately I find it pretty boring.  It’s a textbook new-school mecha show – lots of CGI, fetishized loli protagonist – and in theory it has some relationships that should have narrative traction at its center.  But they all ring pretty false to me, much as they did in Deca-dence – the show Sakugan most closely resembles.

I don’t have a lot else to say about it, honestly.  There’s a lot that’s superficially competent here, with the driving soundtrack and the relatively interesting character designs, and the visuals are pretty good even with the CGI.  But when the premise an characters ring false, not a lot else about a series is going to make an impact.  The second ep felt much like the first for me – a lot of boxes being checked off, without any authenticity of genuine feeling behind it.  I suspect that on some objective level Sakugan is better than I’m giving it credit for, but when a show doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work.

Taishou Otome Otogibanashi – 02

I could wade back into the whole swamp of what I find wrong with Taishou Otome Otogibanashi, but there’s not much point.  I think back of the words of my friend in the movie business, declining to criticize the Twilight movie he’d just sat through at an Academy screening, despite finding it laughably unwatchable – “It’s not for me.”  And he was right – movies have target audiences, and if you’re not part of it, you’re probably not going to connect.  And it’s no different with anime.

All I’ll say is this – I find the historical defense for the laughably sexist gender politics of this story to be pretty far off the mark.  And at this point everything that happens between the MC and his family is so absurd as to be purely a dramatic device.  But it’s not for me, so I’m the last person who should be assessing the merits of this series.