Anime Review: ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.

written by Laurie Tom

acca

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. is a slow burn, sometimes agonizingly slow, which is incredible considering that there are rumors of a coup with secrets all over the place and multiple characters who have no idea who can be trusted. Each episode feeds into the audience’s pool of knowledge and yet the truth feels frustratingly out of reach for half the show.

This isn’t necessary a bad thing, as it’s a ground zero view of the information most of the POV characters are working with, but ACCA plays its cards so close that the world seems made up of trees rather than a forest.

The Kingdom of Dowa faced a failed coup d’état a hundred years ago and to maintain peace through the varied territories, the response was to give them relative autonomy from the main government with an overarching agency called ACCA to oversee them.

Dowa today is a world much like ours, so there are cell phones, airplanes, and other modern conveniences, though there are some odd differences such as cigarettes being an incredibly expensive luxury good. And it’s through the ability to burn through such goods that we’re introduced to our protagonist, Jean Otus.

Jean is the deputy chief of ACCA’s inspection department, and as such it’s his job to travel around to the thirteen territories and make sure that everything is in order. In theory his job is supposed to look for signs of sedition, but the country has been so peaceful ever since the establishment of ACCA that in the first episode there’s discussion of closing his department entirely.

However, there are rumors of a new coup d’état and the current monarch, the aging King Falke, does not step down to offer the crown to his grandson and sole heir Prince Schwann as most people expect. The young Schwann wants to dissolve ACCA and is shocked that his grandfather hasn’t chosen to abdicate in his favor. (And though he comes off as a brat, Schwann is far less stupid than his initial appearance suggests.)

Meanwhile, the five Chief Officers of ACCA were going to close the inspection department, but change their mind. Presumably they do because of the coup d’état rumors, but at the same time, they bar the Director-General beneath them from investigating the matter. And the Chief Officers themselves are not a united front, with some of them suspecting each other of being part of the coup.

Jean finds himself caught in the middle of all of this, because his position allows him to travel to all thirteen territories, which are widely different from each other to the point that it’s amazing that they can be considered part of a single country (and probably why there was a coup d’état in the past, because there is no national identity). Both coup sympathizers and those who wish to track down the coup see Jean as the communication line for an uprising, which places him straightly in everyone’s crosshairs.

And yet throughout the show Jean largely just does his job. There is talk of a coup, but this isn’t the kind of show where everyone’s packing heat and assassins are around every corner. Discussions of secrets and plumbing people for information can happen over dinner and cake (I’m not kidding, this show could well be described as politics with pastries) and there’s so much spinning around looking for potential enemies without finding a thing that there came a point where I was wondering if there was even a coup at all or it was everyone’s paranoia at work.

It helps that Jean is a perceptive individual. Though he’s not a schemer himself, if given a hint as to his situation, he’s quick to pick up the rest. He’s also an incredibly hard read as the audience is rarely privy to his thoughts and his usual expression is one of bored disinterest. This occasionally results in moments where it’s not possible to figure out whether he’s been blindsided or he has a plan up his sleeve, and there’s a fair enough mix that it often goes either way.

ACCA is a slow build, but the pay-off once the cat’s out of the bag is quite good, and through the show never takes off at anything resembling a sprint (if ever there was a low key conspiracy show this is it) the second half reveals everything that had been subtly building in the first. It’s fascinating watching Jean once he realizes everything at stake and it upends his world in a way neither he nor the audience would have guessed when everything started.

The manga concluded at the end of last year so that helps in that the series is able to wrap up as well. I highly recommend ACCA.

Number of Episodes: 12

Pluses: Excellent mid-series plot reveal, fascinating watching Jean and his poker face navigate through treacherous waters, delicious baked goods everywhere (if you like that sort of thing)

Minuses: Show doesn’t really take off until second half, oddly relaxed pacing for a conspiracy involving a coup, hiding Jean’s thoughts from the audience becomes a little unfair once the ending is revealed

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. is currently streaming at Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed). Funimation has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie’s short fiction has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Anime Review: Saga of Tanya the Evil

written by Laurie Tom

tanyatheevil

Saga of Tanya the Evil is one of the best military-oriented anime series I’ve watched. While a lot of shows feature characters who are part of a military unit and involve war-related storylines, Tanya the Evil is particularly well suited to military enthusiasts, the kind willing to argue whether the Schlieffen Plan actually could have worked.

That’s not to say that lay people can’t enjoy Saga of Tanya the Evil on it’s own, it’s fantastic watching our jerk protagonist scrabble out of situations that progressively get from bad to worse, but military history buffs will get an extra kick out of the show from its pseudo-historical setting and frequent basis in historical tactics and battles.

Though it’s not billed as such, Saga of Tanya the Evil can be considered an exercise of what would happen if someone with the knowledge of historical wars went back to the time they were actually fought.

This is where Tanya comes in.

Tanya was originally a male middle manager of a presumably large corporation in our world, but being a ruthlessly pragmatic sort of person, he lays off a mentally unstable employee (for understandable reasons) without displaying an ounce of sympathy. That former employee repays him by pushing him into the path of an oncoming train.

Right before the moment death, a higher power freezes time to speak to him about faith. The soon-to-be Tanya however is unrepentant about his worldview and rejects the possibility of this entity being God, settling on calling it Being X. He even calls out Being X on being a poor deity if it can’t properly manage seven billion people the way it wants them to behave.

Being X decides to teach him a lesson and reincarnates him as an orphaned girl in another world on the brink of war, stripping him of his access to advanced science, his social position, and putting him into the worst straits possible on the chance that his faith might awaken when he has nothing else to rely on. But this time, if he dies, he will not have another chance at reincarnation.

Now Tanya Degruechaff, the former salaryman discovers that he has magical powers and will eventually conscripted into the army because of them. Given the inevitable war, he decides the best course of action is to voluntarily enlist, thus getting into an officer track, and eventually working his way up the career ladder to a comfortable rear echelon position. It’s not so much different from the corporate ladder, but a hell of a lot more dangerous.

This world is an alternate World War I with thinly renamed countries standing in for Germany, France, Scandinavia (they get amalgamated into one), etc. The world map is the same and the Republic (France) is currently locked into trench warfare with the Empire (Germany) along the Rhine, and making matters worse for the Empire, they are being hemmed in from the southeast by Dakia (which seems to be Bulgaria, which oddly was Germany’s ally in WWI) and from the north by the Northern Entente (Scandinavia).

The reason for the war starting is not disclosed, but the Empire is clearly on the back foot. And did I mention that Tanya is an Empire citizen?

Apparently age is no restriction for warfare in this world as only token protest is given to Tanya’s enlistment while she is clearly still a child, and after she proves herself a capable and outwardly fanatical commander she’s deployed and ordered about as any other officer.

The funny thing about watching Tanya is that she (and I’ll use she from now on since other characters don’t know her history) comes across as this incredibly patriotic and devout officer to her fellow soldiers, when she actually doesn’t give a crap. One of the few higher echelon officers aware of Tanya’s true disposition describes her as a monster in the body of a little girl, and that is fitting.

Tanya is not nice. Tanya primarily cares about ending the war for her own personal security and isn’t afraid to manipulate rules and laws to get things done. In the very first episode when she tries to send misbehaving soldiers away from the front lines because she can’t count on them to follow orders, they protest in order to remain. Annoyed, Tanya decides to grant their wish, by leaving them in the position where they’re most likely to get killed. (Which they do.)

Being X never lets Tanya get too comfortable though. Whenever it becomes apparent that Tanya is overcoming her limitations, Being X likes to throw a monkey wrench into things and takes her down a peg.

What makes the whole thing bearable, since Tanya herself is an awful person, is the cast around her. Lieutenant Serebryakov, the only other female soldier in her unit, is incredibly good-hearted, and once Tanya forms her own air mage battalion, Weiss and Grantz form similarly sympathetic faces. Despite Tanya’s disregard for most people, she does seem to genuinely care about her unit and earns their respect in return.

I really appreciate this more nuanced approach to an admittedly fantastical version of World War I. It would have been easy to paint one side as the “bad guys” but the series never goes there and that’s what allows us to see how ridiculous all the speeches about patriotism and honor are. I highly recommend this series.

Number of Episodes: 12

Pluses: lots of nods to real world history, funny watching Tanya get what’s coming to her, Tanya and her battalion have good chemistry together

Minuses: Tanya is a jerk and that will be a dealbreaker for some viewers, Being X is incredibly petty for a higher power, Being X oddly disappears in later episodes

Saga of Tanya the Evil is currently streaming at Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed). Funimation has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

Spring 2017 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

Spring brings back a lot of anime with new seasons and spin-offs of older properties that I didn’t expect to be returning. My spring anime sampling is a bit incomplete though.

During the winter season I had mentioned that Amazon’s Anime Strike had entered the simulcasting game, but had too few exclusive titles. That is not true of spring, where Amazon has licensed a whopping 12 titles, just over a third of all new series this season.

For Amazon Prime members, it’s another $5/month, but if you don’t already subscribe to Prime, Anime Strike becomes fairly pricey. I may binge watch the Amazon exclusives later, but for now I’ll be sticking to the older streaming services; Crunchyroll, Funimation, and to a lesser degree Daisuki.

Alice & Zoroku

alice&zoroku

Why I Watched It: It looks like an odd duck for an anime considering that the two main characters are an old man and a young girl with super powers. Protagonists who are adults are in the minority already. One that has gone completely gray with age is almost unheard of.

What I Thought: While the girl with special powers escaping from a government lab story is not very original, Zoroku himself is a breath of fresh air as he’s old enough to not want to put up with all the very anime-style shenanigans of elementary school girls using magic powers to wreak havoc in the city. The fact he gets Sana (presumably the Alice of the title, and code named Red Queen from the Alice in Wonderland stories) and her two pint-sized pursuers to own up to the damage they did and face the police was a hoot. Though he is a cranky old man, it feels like there’s enough of a dimension to him that he’s more than a trope. I like that he recognizes that Sana, for all her powers, is also a poorly raised little girl who needs some proper boundaries set so she can behave like a normal human being (and not an anime character).

Verdict: I might watch later. Though I like Zoroku and his interactions with Alice, and old man with surrogate granddaughter is not a relationship we usually get in anime, the rest of the first episode doesn’t hold up as anything I haven’t already seen before. I need more from the antagonists in charge, rather than the various kids they’re toting around to do their dirty business.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Attack on Titan Season 2

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Why I Watched It: Attack on Titan landed with a smash in 2013, spinning off merchandising, video games, spin-off manga and anime series, and even a theme park attraction, in ways that few series have before and certainly not since. But because the series closely follows the source manga, which was less than 30% done at the time, it chose to pause the adaptation after season 1. Twelve volumes and four years later, there is plenty to adapt, and one of my favorite series returns.

What I Thought: Season 2 gets the ball rolling. After a minute and a half recap of the first season (definitely not enough for series newcomers) Attack on Titan picks up exactly where season 1 left off, and from there, launches straight into its next story arc with the mysterious appearance of titans spotted within Wall Rose. There is a fairly brutal death, reminding everyone that this world is cruel even to the best of soldiers, and it’s quickly revealed that the religious priests of the walls know a lot more about the truth of their world than anyone else. All the animation, acting, and the music is true to form, and in some ways even better. It’s almost like it hasn’t been four years since AoT last aired.

Verdict: I’ll be watching! It’s worth noting that Crunchyroll is now using the Funimation naming convention in their subtitles, which will be a bit of a jolt if doing catch-up viewing through CR, as Squad Leaders are suddenly called Section Commanders, Commander Pixis is now spelled Pyxis, among other things. I’m hoping since the manga is so far ahead that any new characters and terminology introduced will use the same names already used in the US translation so we don’t have as many variations across mediums.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required). It also started broadcasting on Cartoon Network’s Toonami April 22nd!

KADO: The Right Answer

kadotherightanswer

Why I Watched It: Government negotiator meets an alien entity when a mysterious cube appears in Tokyo’s skies, and the story is told from the negotiator’s point of view! I like that a guy in a suit is the protagonist instead of say a military man or yet another teenager, pointing to a much different sort of first contact scenario than we usually get in popular media.

What I Thought: KADO: The Right Answer actually launches with an Episode 0, and while it’s mostly forgettable, it introduces us to our idiosyncratic protagonist Shindo and his personal philosophy on how negotiations should work by showing us a much more mundane land acquisition job. This is important because Shindo is on the passenger plane that gets absorbed by the alien cube when it lands at the end of the episode, and Episode 1 largely focuses on the reactions of everyone outside, while our protagonist is MIA. And it’s a pretty good focus, with people trying to look for realistic ways to rescue the plane and trying different tactics to see what works. Episode 2 looks like it will flashback to show us what happened inside.

Verdict: I’ll be watching! Shindo is a bit idiosyncratic in the way that genius types are often portrayed, but I like his philosophy that negotiation is when both parties get something they want and not just what the negotiator came for.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Natsume Yujin-cho 6

natsumeroku

Why I Watched It: I already like the series, though I hadn’t expected that a sixth season would be greenlight so quickly since there was such a long gap between seasons 4 and 5, but the teenage boy who sees yokai is back again. I’m not sure there is such a thing as too many episodes of Natsume Yujin-cho, but on the other hand I’m not sure what new material the series can add since by it’s nature it’s been episodic.

What I Thought: Natsume Yujin-cho continues its routine of handling small, personal plots in a world where yokai, Japanese spirits, exist but hardly anyone can see them. This time around Natsume helps a yokai with a pot stuck on its head. The grateful yokai, a Days Eater, decides to repay Natsume by restoring his youth, which results in Natsume being turned into a small child and forgetting his teenage memories. Watching Nyanko-sensei, Tanuma, and Taki try to regain Natsume’s trust, when the child version of him is used to be pranked and manipulated by yokai, serves as a bittersweet reminder of what Natsume has gained since he was a kid.

Verdict: I’ll be watching! It might not be top of my list, but whenever I need a feel good pick-me-up, Natsume Yujin-cho doesn’t disappoint.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled)

What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us?

worldend

Why I Watched It: I have to say that as far as atrociously long titles go, that is one of the worst. On the other hand, what kind of miserable world is it that asking those three questions is reasonable at all? So in that way, yes, the title got my interest, and I’ll be referring to the series as WorldEnd in the rest of this write-up since that’s the abbreviation used in Crunchyroll’s search field.

What I Thought: Over 500 years ago, humanity lost a war and has largely been wiped out to the point where Willem Kmetsch may very well be the last of his kind. The world is now a collection of floating islands ruled by beast people, and while there are those without fur or scales like a human, they are viewed as disfigured by society. One of Willem’s friends convinces him to make something of his life and take a job at a “warehouse” storing various weapons, which turn out to be a bunch of small humanlike children. WorldEnd is unusual in that its opening and post-credit scenes are incredibly melancholy in showcasing Willem’s loss during the war 500 years ago, but sandwiches much brighter and light-hearted scenes between them with the kids.

Verdict: I’ll probably watch. This one surprised me, as I wasn’t expecting this mix of light and heavy material. The only thing that bugs me is Willem’s age and I’m not sure if it’s just an art style issue. We don’t know how he’s gotten unstuck in time yet, but physically he looks like an older teen, which doesn’t jive with the fact that he apparently ran an orphanage and the kids there referred to him as their dad, even the older one who had to be a teenager.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Anime Review: Ajin: Demi-Human

written by Laurie Tom

ajin Ajin initially bears a superficial resemblence to Tokyo Ghoul, in that the protagonist goes from normal human being to a monster in the first episode. From there Kei Nagai undergoes a similar journey from lamenting his fate to accepting what he is, but Kei’s journey progresses faster and he takes a decidedly different tack when it comes to dealing with what he’s become.

The past couple decades have seen the emergence of a few people called Ajin. They cannot be conventionally killed. Any lethal damage from starvation to disintegration will result in the body dropping for a few seconds to a minute before regenerating to full health. But the interesting thing is that partial damage stays until the body dies, so it’s possible to incapacitate an Ajin for capture. Ajin themselves can put their regeneration to creative combat uses and may intentionally try to kill themselves if they’re too hurt.

Ajin are still incredibly rare though, with only 46 known to the world at the start of the series, and they’re considered to be no longer human. Any found are quickly rounded up by the government which is rumored to experiment on them. Since they can’t die, they’re excellent guinea pigs.

The catch though is someone has to die first in order to be identified as an Ajin. There are likely lots of humans around who just don’t know what they really are, as well as Ajin in hiding who died outside of anyone else knowing.

Kei Nagai is an isolated high school boy with superficial friendships (his contacts are seriously named Friend 1, Friend 2, Friend 3, etc. on his phone) studying to be a doctor. He knows his mother’s expectations of him, to become a good upstanding member of society, and he’s so dedicated to his schooling that he reads through vocabulary words on a keyring flipbook when walking to school or even during class when his teacher decides to talk about stuff that he explicitly says is not going to be on the test.

This incredibly inward focus causes him to not pay attention when crossing the street when an inequality inattentive truck driver doesn’t see him. This results in Kei being lethally crushed by the oncoming truck, only to pull himself out from under it moments later to the horror of the bystanders around him.

Kei, realizing that he can’t really trust anyone, bolts before a police noose can close around him. His lack of interpersonal relationships means that he really doesn’t have anyone to turn to, which makes him an unusual protagonist.

Once he learns to accept that he can’t go back to his old life, Kei’s personality shifts, though there are suggestions that this is the real him that was buried the entire time. Kei is logical and pragmatic to a fault and barring an emotional connection with Kaito, the estranged childhood friend who ultimately helps him escape when he first discovers he’s an Ajin, he views his relationships through a cost/benefit analysis. This jives with his superficial friends at school, where he is likely friends with them because they’re “good” people to be friends with, people who are going to make it later in life.

It’s extremely rare to have a protagonist who is baffled when someone helps him when there is clearly no benefit to the other party. Kei isn’t intentionally mean when he decides whether or not it’s worth helping someone, and more than once he hesitates to actually carry out his logic, but his sense of self-preservation is strong and prevents him from taking chances. However, he is canny enough to realize the importance of appearances, so if helping someone is in his interests, he will be a helpful and giving person.

However, Kei spends a lot of time in the first half of the series as a novice Ajin who is still trying to have some semblance of a normal life, so the audience is also immersed into the two primary factions that inhabit this world.

The first one introduced is the government Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which has a task force dedicated to capturing and experimenting on Ajin. Yuu Tosaki is the head of the Ajin Control Commission under them, but he’s one of the most complicated characters in the series as he shelters an unregistered Ajin while also capturing others. He’s ruthless and driven, and willing to take unethical steps to get the job done, but his motivations are entirely human as he’s done the equivalent of selling his soul to the devil for the money to treat his comatose fiancee. This makes it possible to feel for him while he fends off the bosses who are willing to sacrifice him on the one hand and torturing people on the other.

Opposing Tosaki on the other side is Sato, an old man in a cap who is an unregistered Ajin. Sato plans to create an Ajin-ruled nation, carving it out of Japan itself. He’s an interesting character and a master manipulator though we get little backstory on him. Sato likes to do things the hard way (though he’s quite clever about it) so as to keep things entertaining for himself and he recognizes the importance of media.

Sato is the kind of guy who will release a video about Ajin being violently experimented on to the internet knowing that the real Ajin will be able to tell the real videos from the fakes because they know how it really looks when Ajin regenerate. By appending that video to a plea to publicly protest the treatment of Ajin at a specific time and place, he enables himself to secretly meet other Ajin who’ve been living in hiding and put together a force that can actually one-up the government in one of the biggest ways imaginable.

Unlike Tosaki, who is possible to empathize with and even root for (since he’s spends more time chasing Sato than Kei), Sato is a monster. He’s fun to watch because he’s an intelligent villain who gives off the air of being a congenial old man even when blowing people’s heads off, but he’s completely unconcerned about collateral damage and kills as easily as breathing.

One of the things I like the most about Ajin is that after the ground rules are laid (and one accepts the fact that the higher ups in the government are slow-moving idiots), everyone plays intelligently. Tosaki’s measures to stop Sato are solid based on what the audience knows, and Sato’s way around them is also good. Even Kei, while living in hiding, is extremely competent for a high school student his age. It’s nice to have a series with such a high competency level between different players.

If anything, the hardest thing to buy into is the animosity towards Ajin before the major events get underway. Though it’s clear from the opening minutes that a determined Ajin is extremely dangerous, nearly everyone Kei knows is either ready to sell him out or disgusted with him the minute they find out he’s an Ajin and they know that up until that moment he was just a studious high school student.

The animation of Ajin is done by Polygon Pictures, the same studio as Knights of Sidonia and the two series share a similar design and animation aesthetic, using computer generated characters intended to look like cel art. It’s not necessarily possible to tell the difference from screenshots, but it’s quite noticeable when watching characters do complicated movements where the motion seems oddly fluid for an anime series.

As with Sidonia the choice to go CG is a good one for Ajin as the Ajin characters frequently get injured and run around with “battle damage” that would be a pain to traditionally animate frame by frame and each Ajin has an IBM, a sort of black wraith-like creature they can summon that is best served with computer graphics since they have a ropey ethereal look while being hollow inside.

This also works in favor of the more elaborate choreography for the multiple combatant fight sequences, with an absolutely gorgeous one between Sato and a special forces team towards the end of the first season.

But on the other hand, the lighting is a little weird again, making a lot of characters look flat or washed out, and noses sometimes disappear if the angle of the shot prevents shadow on the face.

Ajin has two seasons available and there’s no word on a third. The manga is still running so the anime series doesn’t have a definitive ending so much as a story arc one. Unfortunately the series is only available on Netflix so it will require a subscription, but it’s highly bingeable and well suited to the platform.

Number of Episodes: 26

Pluses: engaging battles of wits, complex morally gray protagonists, creative uses of Ajin superpowers

Minuses: second season doesn’t feel as well put together, Ko is an oddly hot-blooded idiot in a cast of otherwise composed characters, some ongoing plot threads left hanging

Ajin: Demi-Human is currently streaming at Netflix (subscription required) and is available both subtitled and dubbed. Sentai Filmworks has licensed this for Blu-ray/DVD in the US.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.

Anime Review: Natsume Yūjin-chō Go

written by Laurie Tom

natsume yujin-cho go

After four years, Natsume Yūjin-chō (also known as Natsume’s Book of Friends) returns with Natsume Yūjin-chō Go. This is the fifth season of the long running series and I previously reviewed seasons 1-4 here.

Natsume Yūjin-chō follows the ongoing misadventures of teenage Takashi Natsume, who has the ability to see youkai (spirits out of Japanese folklore) when most people cannot. Though a kind-hearted person with good intentions, being able to see youkai creates no end of headaches as they frequently want, or even demand his help, and when his small circle of friends have youkai trouble, Natsume’s the person most likely to lend a hand.

Each episode of season 5 is stand alone, and slipping into Go is like putting on a comfortable pair of familiar shoes. Due to the day-to-day nature of the series, there aren’t a lot of details to catch up on as long as one remembers the cast of characters, and even then, there’s usually some backstory help to reintroduce them.

Despite its episodic nature, if there’s anything to thematically bind Go together, it’s history. More than other seasons, we delve into the history of the characters we’ve come to know and learn a little more about the various arts used by exorcists and others who are able to see youkai.

While most series would use backstory for drama, Natsume Yūjin-chō uses it for contemplation. Youkai are a part of Natsume’s life in the same way the people in his neighborhood are and the series arguably works best when focused on the relationships between people or between people and youkai.

This best manifests itself in Takashi’s free-spirited grandmother, Reiko, whose presence continues to loom over the present day, long after her own passing. Though we now know that her creation of the Book of Friends was a forbidden practice, it’s clear that most of the youkai gave her their names willingly and cherished their brief time together with her.

The vocal cast and key production staff return from previous seasons of Natsume Yūjin-chō, but the animation this time around is handled by relatively new studio Shuka instead of the previous Brain’s Base. This is only Shuka’s third anime series and it feels like they’re still trying to get their legs under them.

It isn’t particularly noticeable from episode to episode, the character designs are spot on and background palette pure Natsume Yūjin-chō, but Go has had production issues resulting in only 11 episodes being produced, and used the forgettable “Nyanko-sensei and the First Errand” TV special as a mid-season filler.

Usually skips like this happen when the production runs too close to air date and the episode isn’t done yet, and Shuka had done the same thing with their previous outing, 91 Days (though they used a recap episode as filler instead of a pre-existing TV special).

The episodes produced are solid though and worth watching. While it’s likely easy enough to pop in the middle newcomers should start at the beginning since the entire series is streaming free at Crunchyroll.

Number of Episodes: 11

Pluses: more Natsume and friends; more backstory on Reiko, his adoptive parents, Natori, and others; feel is spot on despite the studio switch

Minuses: run is on the short side, story doesn’t really go anywhere new

Natsume Yūjin-chō Go is currently streaming at Crunchyroll (subtitled).

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.

Anime Review: Yuri on Ice

written by Laurie Tom

yuri on ice

Figure skating has always been my favorite event at the Winter Olympics, having grown up watching it with my parents, and then continuing on my own as an adult. No other sport occupied my childhood nearly so much, so when Yuri on Ice was announced, it was a given that I would watch it.

Yuri on Ice is gorgeous just taken as a figure skating anime, but it’s also a lot more than that, being one of the most progressive anime series to feature a gay relationship without overly fetishizing it.

Yuri Katsuki is twenty-three years old when he flames out at the Grand Prix finals, signaling what he suspects will be the ignominious end to his figure skating career. It doesn’t help that he’s confronted in the bathroom after the competition by up-and-coming skater Yuri Plisetsky, who is going to make his debut at the senior level next season. Plisetsky doesn’t feels there’s room for two Yuris, so wouldn’t it be better if Katsuki just retired?

Our Yuri nearly does, but despite his failure, he’s actually a very good skater, and he would have to be to make the Grand Prix finals, which only accepts the top 6 at the end of a series of skating tournaments. What happened to Yuri in the finals is not unheard of or even that uncommon to anyone who’s watched the sport for a while. Sometimes despite having talent and years of hard work behind them, an athlete fails in that one moment and then the medal is gone.

Fortunately for Yuri, a friend’s kid records and uploads a video to social media of him performing the exact routine of the man who did win the Grand Prix, Victor Nikiforov, who is also the reigning world champion. Victor sees the video, and something in Yuri, which causes him to drop his own skating career and fly to Japan so he can become Yuri’s coach.

From there, the story takes a fairly predictable course. Yuri gets back into shape and Victor finds new ways to motivate him because in some ways it’s a lot harder for Yuri now. He’s not the new kid on the block anymore, and one of his early competitions for the new season has him facing challengers who are several years younger than him.

Due to his flame out, he doesn’t have the opportunity to return immediately to the Grand Prix, but has to prove himself again through a qualifier.

Considering that figure skating is an artistic sport that lends itself to visual presentation, I’m surprised it took so long for it to be turned into an anime, but it may be because it’s such challenging work beyond what the average animation studio is used to choreographing.

For a twelve episode series, there is a lot of figure skating. Yuri attends four competitions and performs largely the same short and long programs at all of them (which is expected), but the animation team manages to keep things fresh by intercutting other scenes and flashbacks, choosing which parts of the program to show, and by altering what happens to Yuri as he sometimes botches a landing, touches a hand to the ice, or even faceplants.

Though I can’t say animation is never reused, it’s shocking considering how much effort must have gone into it. Unlike a lot of anime that can fake action and movement through speedlines and or camera movement, Yuri on Ice needs to look like ice skating, especially the skating viewers are used to seeing on TV.

What comes out is beautiful. I can’t get over Yuri’s step sequences. I don’t think it’s as hard to animate a jump since a triple axle happens fast enough that the casual viewer likely can’t tell the difference between that and a double, but the step sequence has a lot of quick and deliberate movement, and it’s not something most animators would casually be familiar with. Moreover, it’s supposed to be one of Yuri’s strong points, and it looks good.

The animation team really did their homework, as the show follows the real world Grand Prix of Figure Skating competition. Scores are realistic, as are conversations about risk versus reward regarding whether to perform the more difficult jumps. The music director must have had a field day as all of Yuri’s competitors have wildly different songs to go with their choreography. There is no generic song that plays during a skating competition. Everyone has their own, as they would in real life.

The other skaters that Yuri meets are also fabulously diverse. Though there are expectedly European skaters, Yuri’s former rinkmate is from Thailand and the representative from the US is Latino.

While the figuring skating storyline is what drew me in, what broadened awareness of Yuri on Ice and made it one of the most talked about anime of the fall season is the romance that develops between Yuri and Victor.

Japanese media is typically not good about depicting queer relationships, often designing them to be comic relief, pander to hetero members of the opposite sex, or only flirt with the possibility that the characters are gay by leaving the relationship ambiguous enough that it doesn’t matter.

Yuri on Ice removes the ambiguity while also making Yuri and Victor fully realized characters who are much more than eye candy for the audience. We would be invested in Yuri regardless of his sexuality, which makes it more powerful that he is gay and unashamed about it.

I highly recommend Yuri on Ice. Even if figure skating and romance isn’t quite your bag, it’s so well put together that it’s worth checking out.

Number of Episodes: 12

Pluses: gorgeous and frequently realistic figure skating, progressive gay romance, amazing and varied soundtrack

Minuses: most competitors come and go without much fanfare even though Yuri should at least somewhat know them, sometimes faces get a little too cartoony in order to show humor

Yuri on Ice is currently streaming at Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed).

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.

Winter 2017 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

Winter is a slim season this year, though there are a couple gems. Because of the partnership between Funimation and Crunchyroll, most new anime brought to the US now is streaming on the former (if dubbed) or the latter (if subtitled) and I’m watching entirely on Crunchyroll again. Though there are other players in the licensing market now, like Amazon and Netflix, the former does not regularly simulcast and the latter never does.

Amazon has started it’s own Anime Strike streaming channel for an additional $5/month on top of Amazon Prime membership (US members-only), but with only a handful of exclusives and two winter simulcasts it’s hard to justify at this point. The dollar goes so much farther with their competitors.

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.

acca

Why I Watched It: This is one of the season’s more mature offerings, featuring an adult cast containing bureaucracy members of a fictional country divided into thirteen states. The art style is distinctive, following the designs of its manga origin, which gives the cast a unique look compared to other series.

What I Thought: We follow the POV of Jean, a sleepy-lidded deputy chief of the Inspection Department, a sort of auditing bureau that ensures the thirteen districts are compliant with the national government. It’s a political job in a department that is beginning to look unnecessary given the long years of peace since its establishment, but there is something brewing and Jean is canny enough to sense it. It’s clear that he’s intentionally projecting a false image of himself that is a lot wealthier and disinterested than he actually is. This first episode is clearly setup and the storm is still to come.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I like that Jean is a canny and observant protagonist. We don’t get inside his head in this first episode, so we don’t know his reasoning for anything, but his actions are curious enough that I want to know more.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Fuuka

fuuka

Why I Watched It: I admittedly didn’t have high hopes for this one, because it looks like the anime version of manic pixie girl upending a normal guy’s life, but the hype going in was good so I figured it was worth looking at.

What I Thought: Fuuka relies on a well worn anime convention to get started, the meet cute that goes wrong due to an unexpected panty flashing, which results in the titular Fuuka spiking protagonist Yuu’s phone into the ground. He wasn’t taking a picture, but her behavior is so outrageous that the memory of her is burned into Yuu’s brain. Fuuka’s a free spirit without a cell phone who still listens to music on CDs and she horns her way into Yuu’s life, leaving him wondering how he ended up with a girlfriend by the end of the first episode. It’s not my fantasy, but I do like how Yuu is a complete Twitter addict as I’ve never seen the medium depicted in anime before.

Verdict: I’ll probably pass, though I might come back to it at some point, because I know of a development later in the manga that takes this beyond the standard romantic comedy and I’m curious how the event will be handled.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Interviews with Monster Girls

interviewsmonstergirls

Why I Watched It: I wasn’t originally, since I feel like anime’s fascination with cute monster girls who look mostly human except for ears/tail/horns/etc has been done to death in the wake of Monster Musume, but early word of mouth is good, so I decided to check it out.

What I Thought: This is not my kind of show, but it’s surprisingly light on fan service and the first episode is what it says on the tin. Demi-humans have always existed in low numbers in this reality, and high school teacher Takahashi finally gets a chance to meet one who happens to be a student at his school. From there he inquires about the myth versus reality of being a demi-human by interviewing students, the first of which is a vampire. The interesting thing is that the demi-humans aren’t treated that strangely by the rest of the student body. They’re different, but not something to be feared. The myth vs. reality angle doesn’t tread much new ground though, especially starting with a vampire, which has already been reinvented to death.

Verdict: I’ll pass, but it’s a new angle for people who aren’t tired of the monster girl phenomenon.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Ms. Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

kobayashisdragonmaid

Why I Watched It: This is the one monster girl show I was going to check out, because of the unusual gender flip in that it’s Ms. Kobayashi, a woman, who gets stuck with a unusual houseguest in the form of a western dragon who can turn into a cute young lady.

What I Thought: The gender flip does add something to the monster girl genre, as the things that concern Kobayashi are different from that of a heterosexual male protagonist. She’s more concerned that Tohru doesn’t burn down her apartment than cohabitation with a stranger. Watching Tohru try to disrupt Kobayashi going out for drinks with a coworker (under the mistaken impression it’s a date) was entertaining as Tohru makes it clear that she harbors romantic feelings for her. I think the idea of having a dragon maid would be funnier if Tohru was in her full dragon form more often, but that would take away from the cute monster girl look that appeal to fans of the subgenre.

Verdict: I’ll pass. It’s cute, but I don’t think there’s enough here to sustain my interest.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

Saga of Tanya the Evil

tanyatheevil

Why I Watched It: Reason one was the wacky premise of a Japanese salaryman reborn as a little girl where he becomes a super-powered child soldier. Reason two was that World War I is seldom visited in anime but it’s my favorite historical conflict and the series takes place in an alternate WWI.

What I Thought: I was expecting to be more put off by Tanya, and to be sure, Tanya is “a monster in the body of a little girl” but she (he?) is interesting in watch in the way that some villainous protagonists are. It’s not that we like her, but we want to see what she does next and what her game is. The world building is more interesting than I expected. Air mages replace the airplanes of the real World War I, and the story takes place from the Empire (German) viewpoint, but there are several noticeable differences between real world history and the alternate one in how the war started, early grand strategy execution, and the progress being made.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. This show is definitely not going to be for everyone, but the other Empire characters are more relatable human beings (no cardboard Nazis transported to the wrong time period) and having a sympathetic cast around Tanya could balance things out.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll (subtitled) and Funimation (dubbed, subscription required)

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.

Anime Review: ReLIFE

relife

Despite taking place mostly in a high school, ReLIFE seems to be designed to appeal to people in their twenties and thirties, following the misadventures of twenty-seven year old Arata Kaizaki.

Arata got out of grad school a little later than most, got his first job, and then quit after three months. Being twenty-seven and jack to show for work experience, he found himself completely unhireable by any white collar company. To make ends meet he ends up taking a part-time job at a convenience store which doesn’t pay enough to cover rent, and to make matters worse, his mom intents to cut off her support and have him move home.

His situation, being college educated and still struggling to obtain a full time job, is something easily relatable for anyone who’s been in a tough job market.

Fortunately for Arata, the ReLife company steps in and makes him a deal. They’re working on an experimental program to rehabilitate people who’ve fallen out of the job market, and they need test subjects. In exchange for being a program participant, Arata will be paid a full year’s worth of living expenses, and if the program is successful, he will also be given job opportunities.

Though initially skeptical, Arata ends up taking the program medication after a night’s drinking, and wakes up to find himself de-aged to seventeen. Initially he does not take this well, but considering his other options, he agrees to sign up.

The program sends him back to high school as a third year student (a senior in the US) where he will have to study and relearn what he’s lost. And it’s not simply the course material, which he’s completely forgotten like any other adult who’s been out of high school for ten years.

As we follow Arata’s adjustment to being a student in school, we see the difference in how he behaved as an adult, at the bottom of his company’s social hierarchy, and how he behaves as a student, where he feels free to say whatever is on his mind.

Watching Arata is the biggest joy in the series and the biggest source of comedy. At first it’s because he’s been out of school (and an adult) so long that he screws up things like forgetting to bring a pencil to class, bringing cigarettes to class, and worrying about outdated restrictions like whether it’s okay to bring cell phones to class.

But later, the fact Arata is twenty-seven makes a difference when it comes to friendships and his interactions with the other students. Because Arata is actually older, he pushes and encourages the teens around him to be more honest about their feelings and to step out of their comfort zones because he’s well aware that high school isn’t going to last forever.

The refreshing thing is that because he’s considered such a goof-up by his classmates (he’s forever in make-up test hell due to his grades) the exchange between him and his classmates feels equivalent. Arata may have more life experience, but he’s far from an older brother or mentor figure, and many times when he’s talking to them, he comes to realize how he may have failed in those very circumstances himself.

Arata is not the only adult character masquerading as a teenager in the story (he has ReLife support staff watching him too), and it’s interesting seeing the differences between how the adult characters pretending to be teenagers differ from the actual teenagers. None of the adults flat out behave as adults, but they’re much more inclined to act based what they think is the best action, where the teenagers tend to hesitate.

Unfortunately, the manga is still running and is only a handful of volumes in, so the ReLIFE anime doesn’t have anything close to an ending. The finish episode wraps up with a revelation about one of the characters and settles into a new normal as the credits roll.

It’s not particularly satisfying since this ends Arata’s story four months into his year as a high school student, but if one doesn’t mind the lack of an ending, it’s a fun watch.

Number of Episodes: 13

Pluses: painfully relatable for its target audience, adult perspective on high school hang-ups, Arata being a fish out of water

Minuses: whenever the show deviates from Arata and his immediate circle of friends, no ending, Arata’s ongoing incompetence at tests gets old after a while

ReLIFE is currently streaming at Crunchyroll and is available subtitled.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.

Anime Review: Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy – Despair

danganronpa 3 despair

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy assumes familiarity with both with the original Danganronpa and Danganronpa 2 video games (the latter of which was never animated).

Because of this, this review will also assume familiarity with the franchise. Watching either Danganronpa 3 arc will be very difficult for the uninitiated, even if they’ve seen the first Danganronpa anime, and the Despair Arc in particular puts a large amount of focus on the cast of Danganronpa 2.

Despair Arc begins sometime in the middle of Class 77’s first year at Hope’s Peak Academy. This means that they have yet to meet Junko Enoshima (who will be in Class 78) and we get a chance to see them in their pre-corrupted personalities.

This arc unfortunately starts slow and the early episodes consist mostly of shenanigans that could only happen in such a wacky school for the supremely talented. If anything, Despair feels oddly constrained by events that have to happen to maintain continuity with the games’ backstories and to plug in gaps with Future Arc.

Though the initial focus is on Class 77 and the first episode makes it look like Despair is their story, the various classmates aren’t treated equally, and most of them don’t get much in the way of character development. Occasionally they disappear from an episode almost entirely. One of the most devastating events of their high school life that isn’t directly tied to the main plot (the Twilight Murder Syndrome story) is built up in a single episode following the POV of a character who wasn’t even involved, and then wrapped up off camera.

My two biggest issues with the Despair Arc are the lack of a cohesive story and the pacing, which likely stems from trying to fulfill too many functions.

Despair is not just the story of Class 77’s fall from grace. It’s also the story of the corruption of Hope’s Peak Academy and the Izuru Kamikura Project. And it’s the story of Junko Enoshima’s preparation for the most despair-inducing tragedy the world has ever seen. Though they all eventually get tied together because of Junko’s meddling there is no central cast to root for.

We’re essentially following the POVs of five groups of people (Class 77, Junko and Mukuro, Izuru/Hajime, Munakata and friends, and Principal Kirigiri’s group) for a total of 24 recurring characters who don’t always have much to do with each other. That’s a tall order for a 12 episode series that is also trying to fill in backstory for the Future Arc.

The second half of Despair ends up in a terrible hurry to get everything to happen and it’s unfortunate that in most cases, it falls on its face and the corruption of the Danganronpa 2 cast, which should have been the highlight of the prequel, ends up being the biggest letdown.

Junko certainly has some wicked moments that showcase just how devious she is, but she doesn’t quite reach the horrid peaks she had been built up to be in the game, the kind who can convince hundreds of people to kill themselves through sheer force of personality.

I suspect that Future Arc was scripted first and the reason for the odd pacing in Despair was to make sure that when something meaningful happened in Future there was a corresponding episode in Despair to expound upon it. Three of the Danganronpa 3 exclusive characters show up in just one episode of Despair and never return again, making their appearance a narrative anomaly. That episode was unsurprisingly sandwiched between two Future episodes that dealt with the conflict between the three.

Other parts of the series such as the student council killing game felt oddly done. We knew it needed to happen because it was mentioned in Danganronpa 2, but it didn’t feel like it happened naturally (though once underway it is incredibly gut-twisting and violent in a way that Danganronpa rarely is, because for once the brutality isn’t stylized).

Unlike the Future Arc I don’t think it’s possible to watch Despair as a stand alone. As a prequel it relies heavily on the audience being familiar with the cast, and Danganronpa 3 original characters sometimes pop in and out without much context. While Future viewers can appreciate them, they’re given little to no introduction for someone only watching Despair.

Even as a companion piece though, I find Despair difficult to recommend due to retcons and what may have been impossible to fulfill expectations. It has its moments, and the backstory for the Future Arc characters helps, but it doesn’t come together or offer nearly enough cohesion to be its own entity.

It’s worth mentioning that Funimation’s streaming service orders the Despair episodes as 1-11 and Future as 13-24. This is how they chronologically occur within the story. However, their airing order alternates starting with Future (so they aired 13, 1, 14, 2, 15, 3, etc). If viewed in airing order, the two arcs compliment each other with a plot thread raised in one storyline being immediately handled in another.

Episode 12 by the Funimation count is the Hope Arc, which closes off both the Future and Despair arcs and should only be watched after the end of Future. As far as Despair is concerned it’s more of an epilogue, since the story proper ends at 11.

Number of Episodes: 11 (12 if if Hope included)

Pluses: one more chance to spend time with old friends, Izuru’s motivation in Danganronpa 2 fleshed out

Minuses: more of a series of events than a plot, corruption of Class 77 handled poorly, divided focus between too many POVs

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy is currently streaming at Funimation and is available both subtitled and dubbed. Funimation has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.

Anime Review: Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy – Future

written by Laurie Tom

danganronpa 3 future

Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak Academy assumes familiarity with both with the original Danganronpa and Danganronpa 2 video games (the latter of which was never animated). For the Future Arc this also includes the interquel game Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls.

Because of this, this review will also assume familiarity with the franchise. Watching either Danganronpa 3 arc will be very difficult for the uninitiated, even if they’ve seen the first Danganronpa anime. The animation team knows their target audience and Danganronpa 3 – Future Arc is a murder filled send-off to a much loved cast of characters, as well as wrapping up the Hope’s Peak storyline.

Future Arc follows Makoto Naegi, the protagonist of the first Danganronpa, who has returned to the Future Foundation to face the music for his actions at the end of Danganronpa 2. Though the focus is on Makoto, and a lesser degree Kyoko Kirigiri and Aoi Asahina, rest assured that all six survivors of the original killing game put on an appearance.

Before the various division heads of the Future Foundation can decide on any punishment against Makoto, their secret headquarters is attacked by a missile-toting helicopter, which causes enough destruction to effectively seal them inside. If that wasn’t enough, their computer systems are hacked, preventing communication with the outside world, and the group of them are gassed unconscious. When they wake, a digital Monokuma appears on the monitor of their meeting room, revealing that he’s trapped them in a new killing game.

The biggest mystery is the identity of the new mastermind since the ones who began the first and second killing games should no longer be (directly) involved, though their legacies may well live on.

The previous two Danganronpa installments relied on individuals being willing to kill a stranger to achieve freedom, even if it meant leaving everyone else to die, but this killing game features a group of people trying to put the world back together after the greatest tragedy that has ever struck humanity. They’re supposed to be the world’s greatest hope, and they all know each other.

So the twist this time is that one of them is a traitor. Each of the fifteen people trapped inside is outfitted with a bracelet that serves a number of purposes. It tells them what their forbidden action is, and then will give them a lethal injection if they do it. More importantly, every two hours the bracelets will knock them unconscious with an anesthetic, with the exception of the traitor, who will then have free rein to kill someone.

Each cycle of unconsciousness will result in someone dying, unless the killer him/herself is killed first.

It’s like being trapped in a lethal version of the party game Werewolf or Mafia.

The mastermind clearly wants everyone at each other’s throats and encourages rampant paranoia. Killing the right person early will save more lives, but killing the wrong person raises the body count and brings horror and despair to the remaining individuals.

Danganronpa has always had a heavy hand in pitting the concepts of Hope and Despair against each other, and the symbolism in having the best hope for the world’s future falling into despair as they murder each other would be interesting if that hadn’t been the reason for the first killing game in Hope’s Peak Academy.

Fortunately, the cast makes up for it. I was concerned that there are sixteen participants listed, and we have just 12 episodes to the Future Arc, but as before, all the characters are distinctively designed and after a couple episodes it’s not hard to tell people apart or remember who they are due to their outsized personalities.

After the first two games the production team thought it would be too much to have another round of Hope’s Peak Academy students killing each other (and by then, inventing another excuse to use the class trial system might be pushing it) so they decided to tie off the storyline with an anime, and I think that was the right decision.

Future Arc follows some of the same narrative beats as the first game, but gets to do a lot of things a game can’t, such as offering multiple points of view. Things can happen simultaneously and stories can unfold without Makoto being in the thick of everything (though he is still very much in the crosshairs of far too many people), which results in earlier than expected reveals of critical information. It’s not enough to tip the reveal of the new mastermind too soon, but the pacing definitely picked up since there’s less of a need to set the stage or for a protagonist to get used to the new normal.

If there’s any fault in the Future Arc it’s that once the mastermind’s hand is revealed it’s a little hard to swallow, and those accustomed to poking out plot holes will likely find several that don’t quite add up.

While the identity and purpose of the mastermind is a nice Danganronpa style twist, the ending relies too much on information that’s been withheld to feel satisfactory, and worse, it removes agency from Makoto in favor of giving the audience some fanservice. Considering how much the poor guy has gone through both from the first game and now the concluding anime series, it feels like the final moment should have been his, and it wasn’t.

As a conclusion to the series, it’s definitely an ending with no leftover plot threads. As a killing game it’s a lot of fun to watch along and try to figure out the traitor. But as a story it can’t pull itself together in the end, and that’s unfortunate since there’s a lot of fun along the way.

It is mostly possible to watch the Future Arc without watching the Despair Arc, and that may have been intentional since fans are more likely to want to see the conclusion of the series than a prequel, but watching Despair does offer more backstory for the new characters, giving the audience additional time to get to know them that the killing game does not offer.

Episode 12 by the Funimation count is the Hope Arc, which closes off both the Future and Despair storylines and should only be watched after the end of Future. In fact it is the conclusion of the Future Arc and is not skippable.

Number of Episodes: 12 (13 if Hope included)

Pluses: interesting cast of characters, new killing game to puzzle through, fanservice when it’s done right

Minuses: fanservice when it gets in the way of the story, unsatisfactory red herring takes up part of the early plot, mastermind’s plan and real goal is needlessly complicated

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and the Year’s Best YA Speculative Fiction.