Reviews don’t mean a whole lot if you don’t know the taste of the reviewer. Thus, before I post any series reviews or further ramblings here, I’m going to write about some of my favorite anime.
When I say “favorite anime,” I don’t necessarily mean “the best anime I have ever seen.” There are some on this list that I would consider “the best,” but there are others that are part of this list not because they have seamless storytelling and flawless production, but because my enjoyment of the characters and/or plot was enough to outweigh even the worst of their flaws.
(Of course, I don’t believe there is such a thing as a flawless anime.)
Escaflowne
As I mentioned in my first post, Escaflowne was my gateway drug to anime. When its run on FoxKids’ Saturday morning slot was cancelled prematurely, I wanted more. I bought a VHS of some of the edited episodes. Then, feeling bolder, the unedited VHS (yes, this was when DVDs were newfangled things that I had no use for). I saw the whole series on VHS. I visited fansites. I read fanfiction. I wrote fanfiction. I was born as a fledgling anime fan.
Yes, yes, but the series itself? The plot is such: A normal girl with a magical pendant is sucked into a fantasy world of dragons and mecha and catgirls. Romantic triangles and political intrigues ensue. There is wonder and complexity and humor here. (Not to mention, pretty boys.) I’ll admit that I look at Escaflowne through the rose-colored glasses of “My first anime *_*” but there are plenty of series that have disillusioned me along the way (one of the first DVDs I bought was Love Hina volume 1, OK?). Escaflowne hasn’t.
Mushishi
Mushishi is all about atmosphere. Yes, I love the wry and cool-headed main character, Ginko, who travels the countryside and helps those he meets in understanding and dealing with the mysterious mushi. But the things that define Mushishi are the lush backgrounds (often in cool shades of green, as seen above) and Masuda Toshio’s haunting music. No matter how bizarre the tales of each episode are (and some of them are pretty trippy), Mushishi puts me in a mellow, meditative mood (… too many m’s).
Comedy (Kigeki)
Comedy is one of Studio 4°C shorts — only 10 minutes long. The story is simple. Some years before, many books were burned. There are few left from that time. In the present day, a little girl’s village in Ireland is about to be attacked by English soldiers. The girl has heard stories of a lone swordsman living in a castle in the Black Forest. He is skilled, but only takes rare books as payment. The girl brings a book from her home — one that she feels he will want especially for some reason — and seeks out the swordsman.
Like Mushishi, much of Comedy’s strength lies in its atmosphere — it has the look of a watercolor painting; the whites glow, and the colors sort of bleed into one another. The soundtrack consists of a few familiar operatic pieces that ANN’s encyclopedia tells me are by Schubert. Comedy is a fairy tale, a dark picture book of a story. It is a little bit funny, a little bit creepy, very compact, and altogether lovely.
Code Geass
Code Geass is completely ridiculous, but I love it anyway. In case you’ve been living under a rock, it’s the story of Lelouch, the son of an emperor, who gains the means to take revenge on his family for his mother’s murder when he receives the power of geass — the ability to give an order that absolutely must be followed — from a mysterious, immortal girl named C.C. (who loves Pizza Hut). Also, he has a blind, crippled little sister who he adores and a best friend/enemy who is a soldier for the empire he wants to topple.
I started watching Code Geass because the summaries I read for the first episode made it sound like a Gundam Seed parody (best friends … on the wrong side of the battlefield!). And honestly, there’s a whole lot of it I can’t take seriously, even within the first season (let alone R2 … that was my weekly dose of crack). But the ridiculousness has a certain charm, and I ended up really loving the characters — C.C. in particular is my favorite female anime character. Code Geass is the series I was thinking of when I said this would be a list of my favorites and not particularly the “best” anime I’ve ever seen.
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Revolutionary Girl Utena is a bizarre, bizarre series. It seems like a regular shoujo at first: A girl, Utena, enters a boarding school hoping to find her “prince,” a boy who kissed her tears away when she was just a child and gave her a ring bearing the crest of said school. In any other shoujo, Utena would meet two boys who might be her prince and spend the rest of the series trying to decide which she likes more. It seems to be going in that direction at first, but instead, Utena (who herself wants to become a “prince” like her childhood love) gets caught up with the student council, who holds duels for some reason on a giant castle hidden on school grounds, and ends up “engaged” to (and living with) the “Rose Bride,” a girl named Anthy who is just a little bit … unusual.
Sure, there are bishounen. But there are also broken taboos (a whole lot of twisted love shows up here), cross-dressing, shadow girls preoccupied with aliens, roses flying everywhere, several weird elevators, a headmaster who really gets around, and tons of symbolism that may or may not mean anything. If you think this sounds a bit pretentious, you’re probably right, but somehow Utena doesn’t overdo the pretentiousness into being unlikable because it doesn’t always take itself seriously. Also, there’s also an episode where a girl turns into a cow. And if that doesn’t make you want to watch …
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More favorites to follow, in oh, another few months. I wrote the Escaflowne segment a month ago. I am a little bit ashamed to comment with this blog as my website when I only have one entry up. *sigh* I have always been very good at procrastinating.
Please Save My Anime 