Anime Review Roundup

As a reviewer, I’m always fighting innate bias, trying to approach each new title with an open mind. There is no such thing as an objective review, and we’re all prone to approach each new experience with prior similar experiences in mind as a comparative. I’ve never been keen on videogame adaptations, and my approach to a show or a movie will be coloured by any other entries in that franchise I have previously seen. Sometimes I can win that fight, other times I just surrender, and when it came to Persona 3: The Movie 1 – Spring of Birth, I opted for the latter. You can click on the review heavily weighted by my negative experience of Persona 4, or you can opt for the reviewer get out clause, if you like this sort of thing, you’ll like this. And I still don’t know what all that “Welcome to the Velvet Room” nonsense is all about!

I’m innately biased about Berserk too, in that I really like this swords and sorcery show, which was the Game of Thrones of its age. It’s an epic tale of warring nations, seen through the eyes of a mercenary band that through their military prowess climb to the highest heights, before one man’s ambition sends it all crashing down. I always had a reluctance to watch it though, and an old and creaky DVD transfer had a lot to do with that reluctance. Now MVM have bought out a re-mastered Blu-ray collection, and the traditional cel and paint anime looks an absolute treat, revealing artwork, depth and detail you’ll have never seen before.

It was the same again with Claymore, another sword and sorcery epic, which also got the Blu-ray treatment. This one is weighted more towards the fantasy action, and away from the politics and drama of Berserk. In a world plagued by demons, the only defence against the supernatural creatures are the Claymores, swordswomen who are half human/half demon. Only there are dark conspiracies about the whole set-up. The show follows one Claymore named Clare, as she hunts a particular demon. Claymore was a show from the SD digipaint age, so the Blu-ray isn’t as much of an upgrade, but there is an improvement nevertheless.

Ouran High School Host Club. I always look forward to re-watching this one, although on paper it shouldn’t work. Actually it works very well on paper, and the manga by Bisco Hatori is very much recommended. It features a central character, Haruhi Fujioka, a poor girl who’s got into an obscenely rich school on a scholarship, and winds up walking into the wrong room one day when looking for a quiet place to study. And that’s how she ends up cross dressing as a cute boy, working for the Host Club. This particular after school club consists of elegant young men who cater for the romantic inclinations of female students, acting as objects of desire and fanaticism for them... for a fee. You have the cute little boy, the twin brothers flirting with incest, the prince, the dark horse, and so on. It shouldn’t work, but it works brilliantly by subverting all these clichés, turning them on their heads, and focusing more on the idiosyncrasies of fandom rather than the clichés themselves. And the ridiculously overblown characters allow for some hilarious culture clash melodrama.