Bucchigire!  – 02

No question about it, Bucchigire! is stylish.  That’s a recurring theme this season, style – some series have it, some don’t.  It’s a quality that doesn’t depend on budget (though a big one certainly makes it easier to express), and Bucchigire! has a modest one.  But it has a boatload of experienced and gifted animators and artists behind it, and they’re being allowed to display their talents.  Oh, that Hoshi no Samidare could have this staff behind it – even on the cheap it would be the legend it should have been.

That’s frustrating, do doubt – that series is great material with an anonymous staff, and this one seems to be mediocre material with a great one.  Combine the best of both and you’d get a masterpiece, but Bucchigire is still pretty good.  And I found the second episode more cohesive and engaging than the premiere.  It didn’t try as hard to be funny, which it doesn’t seem to be great at.  It showcased Sakuya, who seems to be among the more interesting of the new Shinsengumi.  It also showed some wit and subtlety when it started to delve into the politics of the era (which still shape Japan even to this day).

Certainly, Shouzan Sakuma was an important figure where those politics were concerned.  At the heart of the conflict was the opening of Japan to foreign trade and culture, which Shouzan strongly supported.  Here we see the Shinsengumi assigned to guard him on a journey, and it turns out he knows Sakuya – for very good reason, as he was once hired to kill him.  Sakuya has quite the checkered history – first among his many victims was his father, who the young Sakuya hated for abusing his mother.  Eventually one of Sakuya’s old assassin cohorts comes gunning for him – Kawakami Gensai (considered one of the four greatest assassins of the Bakumatsu).

I could do without the argle-bargle of Kondo and the other dead Shinsengumi possessing their swords – I think there’s enough here for an interesting story without it.  But on the whole I’m still hopeful this show can muster an engaging enough story to keep up with the visuals.  A lot will come down to how interesting the rest of the group is as they get their turn in the spotlight.  But Sakuya got them off to a good start – and we still have Miki Shinichirou waiting in reserve after all…

Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru – 02

No question about it, Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru is a very likeable and charming series.  That said, if it’s possible for a school romcom to have too little artifice in its setup, this one probably errs in that direction.  Unlike with Takagi and Nishikata, it’s hard to swallow that Ayumu and Urushi waltz through life without acknowledging the truth.  Partly it’s because they’re older (fair enough), and partly because they’re so obvious about it.  What’s believable with the middle schoolers is not so believable with the high schoolers.

But that is what it is.  Souichirou-sensei is about nothing if not the dance, and the dance is the whole series here pretty much.  This time around we have the undoukai (sports festival), which is another chance for Urushi to show how inept she is at anything athletic and Ayumu to show the opposite.  There’s obviously some backstory with his quitting the kendo club – all the more so given his childhood friend and kendo rival Takeru quit, too.  Ayumu would be the prize catch of any athletic club, but sempai is not about to let him wriggle off the hook.

It wouldn’t be a school romance – much less a Souichirou one – without a B-couple.  That would be Takeru and Sakurako.  Incredibly enough they’re even more bald-faced about their relationship than the main pair – she even uses hypnosis on him when he doesn’t give way.  They have library duties (just like a certain other couple) two days a week, but apart from that he’s a free agent – so Ayumu recruits him to be a member of the shogi club.  Theoretically it’s about making Sempai happy, but he’s happy enough to encourage Takeru to be a ghost member, leaving both of them free to have alone time with their girlfriends but let’s pretend they’re not…

Interestingly enough, Ayumu is perfectly okay with using Urushi as an “adorable object” in the scavenger hunt, but Takeru can’t do the same with Sakurako when his paper says “your crush”.  If the slips had been reversed, would the results have been the same, or different?  That’s about as mysterious as  Soredemo Ayumu wa Yosetekuru  gets, really – mostly it’s about stuff like indirect kisses and declarations of love for inanimate objects with the same kanji as your crush.  Which is fine – we know where this train is going, or we wouldn’t be on-board.