Category: Japanese

Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) #SherylPuthur

Sheryl PuthurLeave a comment

Directed By: Akiyuki Shinbo; Yukihiro Miyamoto

Written By: Gen Urobuchi

Voice cast: Aoi Yuki; Chiwa Saito; Kaori Mizuhashi; Eri Kitamura; Emiri Kato; Ai Nonaka; Yuko Goto; Tetsuya Iwanaga; Ryoko Shintani; Seiko Yoshida; Junko Iwao

Language: Japanese                                                       

Genre: Dark fantasy; psychological thriller

Number of Episodes: 12

Run Time: 24 minutes each

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is an anime of the magical girl sub-genre and yet it takes every such narrative and turns it on its head; not just in its story but in its aesthetic as well. The story follows a middle schooler Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki as they encounter an eerily cute magical being Kyubey. Kyubey offers them a contract that will fulfil any one wish of theirs in exchange for the power to be a magical girl that will battle witches.

Kyubey is especially interested in Madoka because he believes that she will be a magical girl to rival all the ones before her since he senses immense power from her. At the same time, there is a mysterious transfer student Homura Akemi who will stop at nothing to ensure that Madoka does not sign a contract; including attempting to hurt Kyubey.

A senior Mami Tomoe takes Madoka and Sayaka under her wing and decides to show them what it means to be a magical girl and fight for justice. But things go horribly wrong once they start to encounter witches because witches seem to have the power to warp reality and create a new violent dimension. This dimension is overpoweringly strange and seems to feed off despair. Despite the fears that set into the girls, Kyubey continues to insist, forcefully and not without a little subterfuge that they take up this important role. Especially since there is a rumour that a great witch Walpurgisnacht will approach the city.

The overall feel of the anime is a sense of unease and dread as though everyone has an agenda one should be wary of, including Kyubey which is a change from the average magical girl anime where the magical creature is a trustworthy mentor.

The aesthetic of the series is reminiscent of the Cardcaptor Sakura but like a dulled, gloomy, depressive version. The witch sequence art style is particularly fascinating. The clashing styles, the created reality feeling is great. It fuses a certain psychedelic cartoon style and gives it an amoral violent makeover.

The series is definitely dark and explores the darker side of human emotions and specifically those that impact young teens who are at a time in their life when they feel strong conflicting emotions and are yet to learn how to regulate them, making them easy prey to amoral beings with ideas of ‘greater good’. It also shows through characters like Kyouko Sakura that it is rather easy for young people to get jaded when forced to grow up and learn the despair of the world firsthand.

At 12 episodes, it is an impactful series that creates a paradigm shift in the magical girl genre.

Violet Evergarden (2018) #SherylPuthur

Sheryl PuthurLeave a comment

Directed By: Taichi Ishidate; Haruka Fujita

Written By: Kana Akatsuki

Voice cast: Violet Evergarden – Yui Ishikawa; Gilbert Bougainvillea – Daisuke Namikawa; Claudia Hodgins – Takehito Koyasu; Cattleya Baudelaire – Aya Endo; Benedict Blue – Koki Uchiyama; Erica Brown – Minori Chihara; Iris Cannary – Haruka Tomatsu; Dietfried Bougainvillea – Hidenobu Kiuchi; Luculia Marlborough – Azuka Tadokoro; Leon Stephanotis – Yuto Uemura

Language: Japanese                                                      

Genre: Coming of Age; Fantasy; War

Number of Episodes: 13 + Special

Run Time: 24 minutes each

Violet Evergarden begins where the war that ravaged the continent ends. Set in an alternate steampunk world with kingdoms that was torn apart by a four-year war. The war has ended but not without leaving its scars on the people. Not the least of which is Violet (Yui Ishikawa) herself. She lost her arms in the final decisive battle between Leidenshaftlich and the Gardarik Empire. A battle she witnessed at close quarters as the Leidenshaftlich soldier maiden or as she was considered, a weapon.

Post the war, she suffers from PTSD but doesn’t know it; purely because no one has treated her like a person. The one person who did, her superior officer Gilbert Bougainvillea (Daisuke Namikawa), is nowhere to be found and no one tells her where he is. His friend Claudia Hodgins (Takehito Koyasu), a former Lt. Colonel in the army who started a postal company decides to help her gets settled in because Gilbert asked him to look out for her. Especially if he did not return after the war. 

She decides to work for his company as an Auto Memory Doll – a female scribe who write letters on behalf of other people. Her reason to become one has to do with the fact that she wants to be able to understand people’s emotions. She feels if she does this, she may understand why Gilbert told her, “I Love You” – words she finds hard to comprehend.

A child soldier and an orphan, raised on the battlefield and growing up under violent circumstances that are barely hinted at but obvious in how she seems emotionless like the doll she looks like and is referred to due to her occupation.

Growing up as feral child and branded a weapon by Dietfried Bougainvillea (Hidenobu Kiuchi) who hands her over to his younger brother Gilbert as a ‘present’ – a tool to use during the war. Startled at the child he beheld, he decides to teach her to read and write, treating her as a person even though no one else does.

Her inability to perceive emotions comes in the way of her relationships with people as well as her letter writing but her guileless responses and innocently worded thoughts have a piercing clarity to them. Each letter writing experience helps the people involved tap into memories that they have not acknowledged to themselves and they also teach Violet how to understand her own emotions.

Since it is set right after the war, many of the letters have to do with coping with grief; grief of loss, grief of surviving, grief of being unable to communicate and the grief of not knowing whether you could survive. Much of the story is then about rebuilding; not just physically as a land but as a people.

With Luculia Marlborough (Azuka Tadokoro), Violet learns to write letters that while succinct touch the heart of the matter. With Leon Stephanotis (Yuto Uemura), she learns that recording words of the scholars past can preserve knowledge for time to come. Of course, not all the learning is from Violet’s side. Dietfried, who dislikes Violet for many reasons, not the least of which has to do with his brother’s disappearance, comes to understand the value of kindness.

A story about reclaiming, restoring and healing; Violet Evergarden restores letter-writing, heartfelt communication, the joy of the written word and love.

Steins;Gate (2011) #SherylPuthur

Sheryl PuthurLeave a comment

Directed By: Hiroshi Hamasaki; Takuya Sato; Tomoki Kobayashi

Written By: Jukki Hanada

Voice cast: Rintaro Okabe – Mamoru Miyano; Kurisu Makise – Asami Imai; Mayuri Shiina – Kana Hanazawa; Itaru “Daru” Hashida – Tomokazu Seki; Suzuha Amane – Yukari Tamura; Luka Urushibara – Yu Kobayashi; Faris NyanNyan – Haruko Momoi; Moeka Kiryu – Saori Goto; John Titor – Hiroshi Tsuchida; Yugo “Mr Braun” Tennouji – Masaki Terasoma; Nae Tennouji – Ayano Yamamoto

Language: Japanese                                                       

Genre: Psychological thriller; science fiction

Number of Episodes: 25

Run Time: 24 minutes each

Steins;Gate is an animated series that deals with time travel. It is about a group of friends who run a ‘future gadgets’ laboratory wherein they make a phone microwave that allows them to send mails to the past and affect the future as a result. The lab is headed by self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintaro Okabe (Mamoru Miyano), the super hacker Itaru “Daru” Hashida (Tomokazu Seki) and his childhood friend and ‘hostage’ Mayuri Shiina (Kana Hanazawa) who calls herself Mayushi.

The series starts off with a science conference on time travel and this is the first time we are introduced to the name ‘John Titor’, an enigmatic figure who claims to be from 2036. His theories become the base for the scientific plausibility of time travel. Titor is also the reason they start looking for an old computer, the IBN 500. Supposedly because it can decode the time research done by the organisation SERN.

The conference is where Okabe meets Kurisu Makise (Asami Imai), a science prodigy, for the first time. She eventually becomes a lab member and helps him perfect the device that sends their “d-mails” – futuristic messages. Kurisu even helps Okabe create other gadgets that become pivotal to the storyline. However, their first meeting ends on a traumatic note when he finds her in a pool of blood, sends Daru a message about it and accidentally sets off a d-mail that alters events.

Steins;Gate camouflages itself as a comic series because even when Okabe realises that he is the only one who is able to remember events before and after time alteration, his eccentric mannerisms and the fascinating characters he meets, hoodwink us.

For instance, Suzuha Amane (Yukari Tamura), the part-timer who works for Okabe’s landlord Yugo Tennouji (Masaki Terasoma), calls herself a warrior and eventually becomes a lab member. Moeka Kiryu (Saori Goto), a socially awkward young woman who prefers to communicate only through text messages becomes another lab member especially when Okabe and she find out that they are both in search of the IBN 500.

The changes wrought by the d-mail are minimal at first but much like the butterfly effect, everything begins to spiral out of control pretty fast and they are left dealing with consequences they did not anticipate. As the story progresses, one realises that even the seemingly delusional stories they tell each other become a mask for latent concerns.

 The series starts off as a story about an oddball group but quickly snowballs into a fast-paced thriller where time becomes an entity to combat. It is a series with undercurrents of violence that throws up questions about identity and morality.

A Place Further Than the Universe (2018) #SherylPuthur

Sheryl PuthurLeave a comment

Directed By: Atsuko Ishizuka

Written By: Jukki Hanada

Voice cast: Mari Tamaki – Inori Minase; Shirase Kobuchizawa – Kana Hanazawa; Hinata Miyake – Yuka Iguchi; Yuzuk Shiraishi – Saori Hayami; Gin Todo – Mamiko Noto; Kanae Maekawa – Yoko Hikasa; Yumiko Samejima – Lynn; Mugumi Takahashi – Hisako Kanemoto

Language: Japanese                                                      

Genre: Adventure; Comedy; Drama

Number of Episodes: 13

Run Time: 24 minutes each

A Place Further Than the Universe is a Japanese animated series. Classed as an adventure and subtitled as the story that leads to Antarctica, the series focuses on four high-school students who want to be a part of the civilian Antarctica expedition.

Mari Tamaki (Inori Minase) or known to her friends as Kimari is a high-school student whose insatiable curiosity about life and need for adventure is thwarted by her paralysing fear of failure. Her desire to live her youth fully finds expression when she meets Shirase Kobuchizawa (Kana Hanazawa), a school-mate. Shirase wants to travel to Antarctica so that she can find her mother Takako Kobuchizawa, a civilian researcher who went missing three years ago during a blizzard in Antarctica.

Shirase’s dogged pursuit of her implausible dream makes her the butt of jokes on the school campus but Kimari’s decision to stick by Shirase and be a part of her dream becomes the catalyst for the narrative.

Their enthusiastic conversations are overheard by Kimari’s colleague Hinata Miyake (Yuka Iguchi) at the convenience store she part-times at. Hinata is a high-school student who dropped out because of certain events. She wants to be a part of Shirase and Kimari’s plan so that while she waits to take her college entrance exams, she can be a part of something momentous.

Their decision to crash the meet-up for the Antarctica Civilian Research group introduces them to Yuzuki Shiraishi (Saori Hayami), a freshman high-school student who is also a popular child actress. Yuzuki’s mother/manager wants her to accompany the civilian team and do a broadcast show on living in Antarctica.

Conceptually, the story sounds laughable and yet it builds the credibility of the narrative bit by bit as the faith and desire of the holders of the dream grow. Much like a bildungsroman, the series draws on different experiences to chart growth and learning. More so, since it is centred around loss; not just for Shirase but even the adult researchers like Gin (Mamiko Noto), Kanae (Yoko Hikasa), Yumiko (Lynn), and many other members who were part of the previous ill-fated expedition.

The series is an emotional experience but it doesn’t become trite or matter of fact even when the viewers are able to sense a reveal. True to the idea of an adventure, the backdrop of the animation is dynamic and detailed, giving us a realistic insight into what the daily grind of living on a ship or working on one of the most desolate landscapes could be about.

The story has the ability to connect across age and culture largely due to its realistic characterisation, scenery and in the sense of catharsis it conveys. It also continually gives us a sense of possibility.  Kudos to its intimate portrayal of relationships such as that of Kimari and Megumi (Hisako Kanemoto), on the strains that form and the insecurities that build when people choose to follow their own path.

Galileo – TV Series (2007) #SherylPuthur

Sheryl Puthur4 Comments

20101215_1909327

Directed By: Hiroshi Nishitani

Written By: Keigo Higashino; Yasushi Fukuda; Osho Furuya; Otaro Matsumoto

Cast:

Masaharu Fukuyama – Manabu Yukawa

Kou Shibasaki – Kaoru Utsumi

Kazuki Kitamura – Shunpei Kusanagi

Hiroshi Shinagawa –Shiro Yuge

Ikkei Watanabe – Hiromi Kuribayashi

Miki Maya – Sakurako Jonouchi

                               Language: Japanese                                                                   Genre: Mystery-Thriller

Number of Episodes: 10                                                                             Run Time: 58 minutes

 

After reading up on Suspect X, I found that it was actually a movie spin-off of a crime thriller TV series – Galileo. Suddenly, it came as a realisation that the characters I saw take centre stage later, were actually the most important.

So the story revolves around Utusmi (Kou Shibasaki), a rookie cop who is trying to carve a space for herself in a rather patriarchal and chauvinistic police force. She wants to emulate her senior Kusanagi (Kazuki Kitamura), who had created a name for himself by solving tough cases and was now promoted to a higher branch.

The pilot episode is about how Utsumi and her partner Yuge (Hiroshi Shinagawa) are assigned a ‘supernatural’ case – a young man’s head suddenly catches fire. She turns to Kusanagi for help, only to be told that he solved his cases with help from his college friend, a genius physicist from Teito University – Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama).

Enter Yukawa sensei also known as Galileo sensei – who does not believe that there is anything like supernatural and there is and can only be a scientific explanation for everything.

So all the cases start off seeming rather supernatural like a child levitating or a poltergeist rattling houses and so on. Sometimes it is quite obvious who might be the perpetrator but it’s not the suspense so much as how Yukawa sensei scientifically explains it. It’s thus a very Sherlockian story – more about deduction and even Yukawa sensei seems a lot like Sherlock – not very social, highly intelligent and has the strangest skill set (squash, mountain climbing, sculpturing…). Also when he figures out something he randomly starts scribbling out equations with whatever he can find. Utsumi is like Watson – humane. She also believes in the ‘detective’s intuition’ which Yukawa sensei rejects as not very scientific but it does come as very useful. There is however an underlying plotline that seems to talk of the possibility of attraction between them. If the ending song is a narrative then this chemistry is more vocalised then. Interestingly, it is sung by Kou Shibasaki and the music has been composed by Masaharu Fukuyama.

Each episode deals with some interesting supernatural phenomenon which is given a scientific twist – healthy girl dies suddenly – a man murdered in a locked room – a reader of crystal balls called by his soul-mate only to be shot as a stalker – a woman who dies twice – a murdered woman astral projects herself to her sister who is a few kilometres away. The last two episodes are connected and are a brilliant end to an intelligent series. Also I must mention that the episode of the poltergeist is an especial favourite because it is about a house that rattles at night due to an ‘unhappy ghost’.

So just like Yukawa sensei says ‘jitsu ni omoshiroi’ (really interesting) when he is intrigued by something and wants to figure it out. This series is definitely Omoshiroi!