Considering the ridiculous buildup to this moment in my life, this isn’t at all how I imagined it would go. Or would have preferred, if the choice had been mine. Mizukami Satoshi fans have suffered for so long, with only the brief salve of Planet With. And while that original series on the whole was very good, it wasn’t the same as having one of the master’s manga masterpieces adapted. And none of those had been the stuff of more anticipation and disappointment than The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer (though Spirit Circle is actually Mizukami’s best work).
This is most definitively not our salad days Gainax adaptation, with the Pillows soundtrack. This is not the reward for so much frustration of a Bones adaptation, with the aesthetically perfect fit Matsumoto Rie directing. This is not even an average adaptation, with a solid journeyman director. This is the work of crap factory NAZ, with a third-rate director and a staff more anonymous than anonymous. After all these years of inexplicably being ignored by anime, this is what the superlative catalog of Mizukami Satoshi finally gets. Suck on that one.
If I’m to look for bright sides – and I mean squint really hard – I can find a few. With Satoshi-sensei working on the scripts there’s a chance he can salvage something of the charm of the source. There’s no evidence in the premiere that the anime intends to try and shoehorn the entire manga into one cour, which would be the cherry on top of a shit sundae. And at least this isn’t completely lacking animation like Baraou no Souretsu (though that show actually had more artistic intent) – it’s not a slideshow of colorized manga panels.
Apart from that, there’s not much. This is pretty bad production, make no mistake about it. The choppy animation and generic character designs and backgrounds pretty much tell their own tale. But honestly, that bothers me less than the complete absence of style here. This is just completely bland and generic presentation — there’s no attempt to put any spin on the manga material at all. The cast is fine, but they get no help from the direction. Or the soundtrack for that matter, which is likewise as generic as it gets. And that really hurts, given what Mizukami was originally fighting for in that respect.
It seems to me that there are two very distinct audiences here. For those who’ve never read this work or any Mizukami, are they going to find much which impels them to stick around? It’s hard to see how, but I can’t answer that authoritatively. For the rest of us – the fans – it’s a matter of whether we can convince ourselves that seeing Samidare on the screen at last is better than nothing, even in this form. I can’t speak for anyone else but for me, it’s too soon to say. Honestly this wasn’t quite as terrible as I feared – it wasn’t unwatchable. In a sense it would have been easier if it had been.
The only source of hope here, honestly, is in Mizukami’s words. Are they enough to make Hoshi no Samidare a positive experience even if they have to do all the heavy lifting themselves? It’s a great story, no question, but like all Mizukami’s series the greatness lies in the execution and the subtlety of the character interactions. He’s not about flash (though Biscuit Hammer is certainly his flashiest work). And that’s the sort of greatness that stands to be most ill-served by an adaptation which lacks any flair or distinctiveness.
As I said, for me it’s too early to say if this adaptation is salvageable. I feel terrible for Mizukami – I know he’ll put the best face on it but he has to be agonized over this turn of events. It can’t possibly have have been easy for him to give this his blessing, knowing how stubbornly he fought for a Biscuit Hammer anime that would do his original justice. But he had to know that if it didn’t happen now, it probably never would. His fans deserve so much better but more to the point, he deserves so much better. All I can do is try and see the best in this series, but that only gets you so far. It’s not like we needed any more proof that life isn’t fair and the production committee system sucks, but we’re certainly getting it here.
Jindujun93
July 9, 2022 at 4:16 pmFor what it’s worth, we know that there will be 4 BD volumes, and that they are more expensive than the usual 3 episode volumes, so that alone already gives hope for two cours. But man, what an absolute shitshow this actually turned out to be. I’m in the camp of people who found this to be unwatchable – and that very early on into the episode. I tried to endure, but I couldn’t even make it to the end. Not like this. Waiting for over a decade only to be met with this is… honestly, beyond frustrating. At this point I’m sort of convinced that NAZ is more or less a front for some money-laundering operation, considering how their works always sort of end up like this. What’s the point?
I can only imagine what Mizukami actually feels (but doesn’t say out loud), because he gets to see this abomination made first hand as a staff member…
Haraga
July 9, 2022 at 7:44 pmAs someone who is not familiar with the manga, the writing in this episode was good enough to ignore everything else. I found the characters endearing (though I’m not sure about the professor yet) and the mysteries captivating, the jokes landed despite questionable direction. So even if you have every reason to be disappointed as a longtime fan, please be assured that there will be people who will now read the original thanks to this, um, adaptation.
Guardian Enzo
July 9, 2022 at 8:47 pmThat’s a silver lining, I suppose.
KM
July 9, 2022 at 9:57 pmI didn’t know Mizukami fought hard for an adaptation, is there anything to read in that regard? Interviews or something i don’t know
Guardian Enzo
July 9, 2022 at 10:48 pmHere’s one example, there are others out there if you search.
Jindujun93
July 10, 2022 at 4:19 amThat one’s actually a fake, but it IS a documented fact that Mizukami has been asking for several years for Samidare to be adapted (mostly through comments on his Twitter account).
Guardian Enzo
July 10, 2022 at 10:07 amIs that confirmed?
Jindujun93
July 10, 2022 at 2:53 pmIt is. The whole Gainax + The Pillows adaption thing is one of the most persistent, yet completely baseless rumors out there about potential anime adaptions. I’m not surprised that it did spread as much as it did, because it’s pretty much tailored towards the fans – it sounds like such a natural, perfect fit that people really want to believe in this. But if it has any grounding in reality, there has never been actual proof of it. Chances are that the rumor originated from one of the fake seasonal charts that people were doing around that time (I know they used to be fairly popular for joke purposes right around the time Samidare ended), and got out of control from there.
There has indeed been a time when there has been talks about it (and that’s the only ever confirmed instance) – but that was ultimately failing for a lack of sponsors, according to a Tweet from Mizukami. No mention whatsorever about the whole Gainax and/or The Pillows thing.
sonicsenryaku
July 10, 2022 at 6:03 pmIt sort of reads like a fake interview if I[m to be honest, the rhythm that is typical found in interviews involving japanese creators is not here at all
Bob
July 9, 2022 at 10:47 pmIt’s just so… brown. I’m just going to reread the manga, this adaptation isn’t worth my time.
Honestly, this reminds me of a scene from A Sister’s All You Need where the LN author watches the awful first episode of his anime adaptation and sees the internet tear it apart in real-time. The only he can do at the end is thank the viewers for watching. There’s no way that you watch the whole show, but that scene is a funny and brutal way of expressing the sentiment of countless creators.
sonicsenryaku
July 9, 2022 at 11:08 pmOh fuck, this was…….uhmm…..hmmm….mmmm…….uhhhhhhh….aahhhhh; why does this exist if this was how it was going to turn out? Let me start by saying that I don’t think every animated medium has to have 10 out of 10 visuals. What I think every animated medium should have is competent visual direction. I don’t care if you’re lacking sakuga, just make your product look like it’s being made by people that actually know what they’re doing or have been given the time to put together an acceptable product. This shit just reeks of either an untalented fifth party effort or that of a team of people who were told to slap something together the day of. I honestly wouldn’t want something like this to be financially successful at all, but yea; the production has already done that to itself. Like man, the industry needs to realize that they can’t keep doing shit like this; wasting resources; wasting talent to put together sub-mediocre shlock that barely anyone will be proud of. This first episode doesn’t justify its existence in the slightest; the manga exists and its leagues better. What reason do I have to keep following a much more inferior effort?? An adaptation should always aim to offer you an experience that channels what’s good about the source material by taking advantage of the strengths of its medium to creatively elevate the substantive essence of a story. I didn’t see any creativity here; no strengths utilized, no talent; no passion; all of those things exist in the source, so again; how does this adaptation justify its existence?!!! What a damn shame!!!
leongsh
July 9, 2022 at 11:22 pmSo far, I gather that this is a comedy about somebody’s lame chuunibyou fantasy made real. Right? Right?
sonicsenryaku
July 10, 2022 at 12:18 amI mean I certainly was laughing AT the show at parts so your guess isn’t really that far off. We’re in 2022 and shit like this is still happening; ridiculous