Is there a time when streaming isn't enough?

There are plenty of ways to access dubbed and subbed anime on the internet, regardless of what country you're in. This ranges from official websites offering subbed only, stream cast content such as Crunchy Roll through to less than legal sites such as Anime Freak with a seemingly limitless catalogue of shows.

It struck me though that, as a student in a dark corner of the UK, I am in no way contributing to the anime industry. As I pointed out some sites are totally legal, with revenues coming from adverts, while others, such as Netflix, are based on subscription fees. I'd be lying though if I said I used these sites all of the time; besides anything else the majority of dubbed content isn't available online legally for any price.

I want to see as much new anime brought out of Japan as possible, and the only way studios can do that is with a good source of income. Fortunately, the US TV market seems to hold up reasonably well in terms of purchasing the rights for new shows, but that doesn't mean I should constantly take advantage of that because one day, they might not be able to.

So what am I suggesting? If, like me, you are stuck away from the delights of American TV and therefore limited to a sadly small amount of channels go out and buy a DVD. In fact knock yourself out, by the Blu-Ray. You know that the content you watch online isn't really of that high a quality anyway and some shows must make you think 'that would be good in 1080p'.

I'm not saying you, the reader of this blog, buying an official DVD/Blu-Ray of an anime will greatly help produce more anime content or vaguely change the industry in the slightest. In fact I know it wont (until I take over the world and everyone has to read my blog, then it might), but it might make you feel a bit better. After all, we do all love it, right?

Review: Infinite Stratos

So last week I finished the mecha show, Infinity Stratos. Before I say anything on this anime more specifically, I should probably point out that I'm not a big fan of the mecha genre. I get why big robots with swords and guns and all other manner of exciting and explosive weapons is attractive to a lot of people, but it's not something that has really ever overly interested me - animated or otherwise. Regardless, I decided I'd give Infinity Stratos a go given some of the positive reviews I'd read, plus I'm a big fan of both Brittney Karbowski and Josh Grelle.

Background:

The back drop to Infinity Stratos goes something like this. A few years ago a type of human controllable robot was developed call the Infinity Stratos, or IS for short. Along with their only be around 350 of these robots, the biggest restriction of these machines was that they can only be controlled by women. Our story takes a boy, Ichika, the brother of pretty much the best IS pilot ever, who turns out to be the only guy that can control an IS. We join the world when he starts at the IS training school in Japan.

Plot:

Infinity Stratos is unashamedly a harem show and before I say anything on how well that works, if you don't like harems, then don't watch this.

No escaping the fact that this is a harem.

After discovering he can use an IS, Ichika joins the IS academy where he meets various people (all love interests), saving them from various bad guys and each other. I can't say there is anything really unique about the plot line, although it does seem reasonably well paced and each character plays their part in the story well, even if it is a little rushed.

Character Development:
Besides Ichika himself there are essentially six other people we need to worry about in terms of development. His various love interests you can see above, who each have a varying degree of significance to the story, but all have a moment in the spotlight. The other character is his sister, who appears to be the schools most revered teacher and generally most badass IS pilot. With only 12 episodes developing each of the characters in any depth was always going to be quite difficult and it goes without saying that you don't know all that much about any of them.

Although some people might say this isn't an issue given that the focus is on Ichika and as a result his interactions with each of the individuals act as a periphery factor, I would be more inclined to say that if you're going to involve characters so much in the 'lore' of a story, you need to develop them. In my opinion, IS really does suffer as a result.

Sound, Artwork and Animation:
The artwork in Infinity Stratos is really crisp, and it stands out particularly well in the many action scenes that frequent the anime. The sound is fittingly epic given the action, over-the-top nature of the show, though it isn't anything to shout about in the grand scheme of things.

Favourite Episode:
8: Find Out My Mind
Choosing a favourite episode for this series was quite difficult given that most of the episodes follow similar plot lines. I went for episode 8 because it brings everything the show does well together in one episode. All five of the main female characters are involved, without them falling over Ichika backwards too much. The action scenes are probably the best of the whole series and we're offered up the biggest sort of plot twist the show can offer.

Overall:
As I said when I started this review, loving this anime was always going to be a long shot given that I'm not a big fan of mecha. And I don't. Don't get me wrong, it does a lot of things very well: the artwork is very good and the action scenes are animated very well. Ichika isn't the worst main ever written and Josh Grelle does do fit his character very well. However, there are problems, and unfortunately it comes primarily from the plot.

The girls love Ichika too much simply because he is a boy. Despite having no training, he is by far the strongest IS pilot. And finally, and probably most obviously, he is the only boy and at no stage are we given an explanation as to why.

Who knows, we might find out in the second season, but it won't be at the top of my list for things to watch soon.

Top 5 Anime so far

It occurred to me that if you have been reading this you might be wondering what I'm basing all of my reviews and idea on upon so far, so I thought I'd fill you in on my top 5 for enjoyment. According to My Anime List so far I have watched just 20 different series, plus 1 OVA and 3 specials.

#5: A Certain Scientific Railgun S (Season 2)

As you will have seen from my recent review, I really enjoyed the second season of A Certain Scientific Railgun. I thought the character development was really good and that it used the previous season to really add to the overall quality of the production. The focus on the main character was also really good and made me more invested in the series as a whole. On a less deep level, the action scenes were frequent and fantastically well done summing up the stellar artwork and animation throughout.

Mikoto Misaka attacking the vending machine: well there's an idea?

#4: Clannad: After Story

In truth, this series should probably be higher on this list. I really appreciate that the overall production and emotional response this anime inspires is incredible. More specifically, this was worth watching for the amount of times I thought I'd got over the worst of the emotional shock, the show hit me again with something even worse until the very biggest emotional earthquake at the end of the show. It was great to see the characters, who are fantastic, go beyond high school and get real lives and have real problems happen to them. Without making this too much of a review, I will say that I'm not entirely sure how well I thought the supernatural element of the show worked but that really is a debatable point.

So much sadness.

#3: Angel Beats

Angel Beats was the anime that really got me started on watching lots of series quickly. Watching the English dub, I really enjoyed the voice acting and music. There were some really funny moments which fitted in well with the fundamentally serious and difficult storyline that was the bedrock of the anime. Yuri is also possibly (in competition with #2's lead), my favourite female character in any anime - it was just a disappointment that there wasn't a bit more time to develop her clearly very interesting character. Angel Beats comes above Clannad in my list because of the meaning it has for me in getting me really interested in anime. Why does it not come higher then given the sentimentality I have towards it? Two reasons really: firstly it was too short, I felt that there were several back stories that could have been developed much more in 24 episodes and secondly; the love story that most people seem to think worked very well should have had more time through the anime to develop - being one of the key parts of the show, it should have definitely had more building time.

Kanade and Yuri. They're great, like really great... right?

#2. Mirai Nikki (Future Diary)

Before I say anything about Future Diary, I think I should point out that I know it has a lot of problems. It's not that original, there are some pretty big plot holes towards the end and actually the whole of premise of selecting the next god of space and time by seeing who can kill 11 other people is frankly crazy. That said this list isn't about overall objective quality, I'm going for what I enjoyed the most and Mirai Nikki is right up there. There are of course many reasons why which I will explain more when I do a review of this show, but essentially it can be summed up in one word. Yuno. After watching a 10 hours or so of anime, she is without doubt the craziest and possibly scariest lead I've yet to see, but I can't help but love her. Maybe call me mad, but I often felt myself feel really sorry for her; despite her psychopathic tendencies she did love Yuki, and I couldn't fault her for that. With that in mind, the degree level history student knows he could write a whole essay on Yuno's character, but that can probably wait for another day.

Yuno. She's as crazy as they come, but I love her all the same.

#1. Guilty Crown

Please keep reading my blog after this. I understand that a lot of people don't like Guilty Crown. They don't like Shu as a main character or they thought the ending was awful. Personally, I couldn't see the problem with the ending at all (really, I'm not going to try and pretend that I can) and if I was going to have a problem with a character it would be with Guy, not Shu, who's development was, at time, questionable. The first and most obvious reason to love Guilty Crown is the way it looks: the artwork is incredible and the action scenes are animated to a spectacularly high level. Another reason I loved the anime so much was Shu - as I mentioned above he received a lot of criticism for various reasons but I felt that his progression from powerless, shy school child to authoritarian ruler was very well done and made a lot of sense given the background of the show. Finally, I really enjoyed the overall premise of the show, the love story was strong without being overpowering and the post apocalyptic setting worked well for terrorist/reluctant leader aspects of the show. You don't have to love it, but I really did.

The conflict within Shu might just be the best part of Guilty Crown.

Thanks for reading this one and though I'm sure you don't agree at least you can see where some of my opinions are coming from in my reviews. I've just finished watching the first season of Infinity Stratos, so look out for the review of that one in the next few days!