Anime Brigade: We all have 8th grade syndrome~

[TheoreticalSelkie]

I just finished a bunch of anime during break so... my thoughts on them (Going off what I've written in my tags on my MAL):

Code Geass

Spoiler:

Going to start with this one first because it's the one I don't like too much. I get that the show is meant to be quite cheesy (with the amount of pizza there is, I'm not surprised), however it worked against me in this case, which is unfortunate. But! I prefer the second season since it does improve upon the first in most areas.

Story - I found the story somewhat intriguing. In R1, we see Lelouch moving around the political landscape in Area 11, which made sense because he was trying to build up his organization before tackling larger problems. On the other hand, R2 was mostly Lelouch working on a global scale as we can see by his dealings with the Chinese Federation and Brittania as a whole. I prefer R2 more because it's better paced for me than the first season, plus gives a lot of closure the show as a whole.

Characters - Man, I kind of don't want to comment on this one too much. I don't like Lelouch as much though I do recognize his genius. He is driven by his emotions and I do like how it does lead to his downfall in R1 and parts of R2. Not every character can be perfect and I think Lelouch is a good example of that. On the other hand, I understood Suzaku's motivations and found it ironic that Lelouch picked him to be the new Zero. It's something like glory to zero (I'm terrible). I liked other characters too, such as Karen and Orange, though I found that the only really dynamic characters out of the cast would be Lelouch, Suzaku (at the end), Karen, and possibly Ougi/Vileta. I may be forgetting a few, but the majority of the cast was defined by one major quality throughout the show.

Art - My major gripe with the show, I didn't like the CLAMP style with the noodle arms and the weird hands. The mech design looked cool but the colors agh. So I basically spent like most of R1 getting used to it, and then R2 was a bit better about it. Still a problem, but hey I guess the justification for the mech was to be intimidating so that worked.

Sound - Not my favorite, found it a little too overtheatrical for my tastes. The tubas didn't help either during the dialogue, and I had trouble hearing when the characters would speak because the music would be loud. I guess it would be kind of pointless for me to hear dialogue when I'm watching it subbed but it does help to know which character is speaking some times T^T

So for now, I'm rating R1 as 6/10 and R2 as 7/10. It's something I might rewatch, but I have too much in my backlog.

Mononoke

Spoiler:

Ah Mononoke. Not Princess Mononoke, but the show known as Mononoke. It's about a medicine seller that goes around cleansing the world of spirits known as Mononoke. Think about it as a bit similar to Mushishi in that sense, but with more... deadly consequences.

Story - So Mononoke is made up of 5 arcs that's around 2-3 episodes long. They aren't connected except for the Medicine Seller, but I found the arcs to be pretty interesting with each premise. So the thing about Mononoke is that in order to cleanse them, the Medicine Seller needs to know the Mononoke's Form, Truth, and Regret. Most of the arc is devoted to figuring that out, and usually leads to a mystery/horror type atmosphere (if you don't believe me about the horror, the first arc is unsettling once you figure it out). While the formula is the same for each arc, I liked how the development of the plot and character gets fleshed out. This is pretty apparent in the final arc (since it's a mystery of who did the thing) but is also found in a lot of other arcs such as the Noppera-Bo one. I got hooked enough to watch all of the series in two sittings so that's a plus.

Characters - Partly covered above in the story, the only recurring character is the Medicine Seller, and he still remains a mystery from beginning to end. I'm not sure how to talk about how the characters develop from arc to arc, but the show starts with the flat character and peels it apart to reveal motivations and pasts and emotions to find what and why the Mononoke is there. This kind of character development is my favorite and particularly fitting for the length of the arcs. There's twists and turns because of those characters as well.

Art - This is perhaps my favorite part of the whole show. The art resembles ukiyo-e and is very much like paper cutouts. I falsely thought that this anime was one done by Yuusa because it did resemble the people of Ping Pong the Animation. In any case, the colors are my favorite, emphasizing the mood shifts especially in Nue. While the animation is somewhat minimalist, it does suit the feel of the show as a mystery type thing. It's all so pretty aahhh

Sound - The OP and ED songs grew on me and I never really skipped them while I was watching the show. The sound also served to accent the horror/tension we as the audience should be feeling, and I believe a lot of it was period-type instruments. I'm terrible at IDing instruments but I found that the sound added to the experience more than anything. I do like the Medicine Seller's VA though some of the voices of the female characters were a little offputting because of their pitches.

I rated Mononoke a 9/10 in my book. Probably will rewatch it in the future again since it's so short.

As for other things, I'm finishing up Space Dandy S2 today. Might write up something later for Barakamon because that show is so adorable Q___Q