It’s hard to talk about anime this season without mentioning one of Studio BONES offerings, Space Dandy. With Shinichiro Watanbe behind it and BONES with their sights firmly set on giving the series a worldwide release as it airs, the show has certainly been a note of interest in the industry.
It’s no secret to anyone who knows anything about the anime business that Sunrise are a huge name when it comes to Mecha series and their latest offering, Valvrave the Liberator, was another big hit for the studio. With a distinct Code Geass feel to the relationship between our two lead characters, and a more than intriguing story and feel to the series, Valvrave was the type of series we’d been waiting to see since Code Geass ended.
A new season normally means a new offering from Kyoto Animation, and this season proved no different with Kyoto offering us a fantasy action series in the form of Beyond the Boundary. It’s the type of series that we haven’t really seen from Kyoto before; the closest we’ve gotten is the action scenes from Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions. So, with that in mind just how does Beyond the Boundary shape up?
I’ve recently been watching this series through with a very close friend of mine, and while I posted the review up on Anime Plant after watching the series the first time around, I thought it might be fun to share it here too. A lot of what I thought about the series still stands.
Over the past couple of seasons it has been hard to go anywhere without hearing the name Attack on Titan. The show has gained a huge fanbase very, very quickly for a number of different reasons which are quite evident upon watching the show. So, does Attack on Titan really live up to all the hype that surrounds it?
Sunday Without God ended up being one of the pretty hyped anime of the season, despite the poorly translated name. Set in a world where death is no more, and with many mysteries to unearth, just how interesting was this show?
The summer anime season might have been filled with a number of highly anticipated anime, but maybe none more so than Silver Spoon. The manga series is another hit series by Hiromu Arakawa, best known for Fullmetal Alchemist, but with that in mind can the anime do it justice?
Dogs & Scissors is likely the series I’m going to struggle writing about the most this season. It’s quite a simple story and idea at heart, but the series spends so much of its time being utterly insane that it’s very hard not to lose track of what its original goal was. Nevertheless I’ve gone through the crazy and attempted to pull my thoughts together about it.
So, late last week I reviewed the first Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie, Beginnings, and if you haven’t already read that review then I suggest you go do so before jumping into this one. Now, Eternal covers the final four episodes of the original TV series, which are the most memorable of the Madoka Magica episodes. Has this movie done the story and series justice?
Madoka Magica. It’s the title of an anime that you can’t really have gone the past two years without hearing about at least once. It’s the one show that has become quite famous to say the least and it’s the one show that every anime fan knows about one way or the other. The first two Madoka Magica movies were released on Blu-ray at the end of July, and so I’ve thrown together a review of the first movie with the second to follow sometime soon. Can the first movie live up to the Madoka Magica hype?
One of the important things to note about the first two Madoka Magica movies is that, the two are retelling’s of the TV series. The first movie, Beginnings, covers the first eight episodes of the TV series while the second movie, Eternal, covers the final four episodes. Sounds like the first movie has its work cut out for it, doesn’t it? Well, it does and it doesn’t.
Beginnings manages to cut down the first eight episodes to fit into just over two hours of runtime. Mostly this doesn’t affect the story as much as you might suspect, but (as with trying to cut down any series as strong as Madoka Magica), it does come at a cost. A lot of the earlier episodes of Madoka Magica are spent with Madoka and Sayaka getting to meet and bond with Mami. Sadly, because Beginnings is pushed for time it feels like a lot of the time spent with Mami is lost and/or rushed and Mami loses a lot of value because of it. We don’t really have time to get attached to her, nor do Madoka and Sayaka, and while it’s easy to understand in the TV series why her death has a lasting effect on Madoka and Sayaka, it’s much harder to understand it in Beginnings. Early on in the story the death of Mami is one of the most important factors in the choices Madoka and Sayaka make, and this holds true for the movie of course, but having not spent as much time with Mami it becomes very hard to relate to and actually feel for Madoka and Sayaka. That said, Mami aside, the rest of the story has been handled with very well and it doesn’t feel like we’ve lost anything else of value from cutting the episodes down. Sayaka is the focus of the story near the end of the Beginnings, as the movie finishes with the scenes of Sayaka turning into a witch after falling into despair. Beginnings does well not to cut anything of value regarding Sayaka and thus we feel as much for her as we did watching the TV series.
Beginnings is of course treated to some very pretty animation in certain places and looks very nice for it. If you thought Madoka Magica looked brilliant to begin with, then you’ll find a lot of joy watching the movie because it’s simply stunning in places.Beginnings also features a very subtle but impressive soundtrack. Nothing is bold and stands out, but everything fits perfectly and it’s a very nice listen on its own away from the movie. Aniplex have kindly bundled the soundtrack CD with the collectors edition of the movies release leaving you with little excuse not to give it a listen.
In closing: Madoka Magic: Beginnings kicks off the retelling with a bang, but the loss of time spent with Mami does mean I wouldn’t recommend the movie to people who haven’t watched the series before. It just isn’t quite as powerful as the TV series is, but it’s still brilliant in its own way.
