- ANIME/JAPANIMATION
marin and yamato's mysterious sunday
this is an educational short about the importance of sales tax. i wish i had known that going in, because finding that out was kind of a rabbithole given how obscure this thing is. the inciting incident of the girl, marin, wishing to a pair of magical bird fairies to get rid of taxes as a concept because her brother lost some pocket change was insanely funny, i will not lie. the messaging is good but the way they go about it is bonkers and i LOVE it.
after wishing to the fairies, koppy and kuppy, the two are sent back to their house. their mother is gone and their grandmother can't eat with them because she had to pick up a part time job "ever since sales taxes were abolished"
so begins the childrens quest to find the fairies again and undo their wish!
i actually really love the designs of the fairies. they have a fun dynamic as well!
if you couldn't tell from that alone, this is a pretty silly short if you aren't, like, one of the japanese 5 year olds this was shown to as educational material. actually, those kids are probably adults by now, so they might find it funny too! who knows.
striking daughter sayuri
i honestly don't know wear to start with this? it was really visually interesting, which is about the most concrete thing i can say about it, honestly. striking daughter sayuri is just a CG short made by a single guy, i believe, about a girl called sayuri and her family. there isn't much "plot" but i don't think that necessarily makes this bad, or anything.
it's just extremely weird and out there, which i liked about it! if you can stomach mildly gross-out and sexual elements i'd actually reccomend checking it out, it's only 5 minutes long and readily available online.
cat soup
now, i want to say that i enjoyed cat soup quite a bit. it is however, one of those anime that is kind of allergic to being "figured out" in the traditional sense.
cat soup is based off the works of nekojiru, a japanese mangaka who's work resonates a lot with me. i can't really find the words to describe how, though.
this movie is really, really lonely. the only two characters who aren't needlessly cruel, hateful or simply apathetic towards one another are the siblings nyako and nyatta. even the two's parents barely even register their existance, which sets off the one true thread of "plot" connecting each scene together.
nyatta, nyako's younger brother, falls and drowns in the family tub, and nyako has to journey through scary, scenic and trippy wastelands in order to get him back. though, none of it matters.
i won't spoil the ending, but it did genuinely make me sit down think in a lot of ways no anime since has.
mini moni the TV
this is a collection of shorts in which the members of morning musume sub-unit mini moni run a cute little cafe!
that's... about it! they're incredibly short, no more than 5 minutes per episode, but they're incredibly cute for a 2003 CG anime!
each episode usually revolves around everyone causing chaos in the cafe while mika (the head chef) is tasked with keeping everything from going too crazy.
nabari no ou
where do i start... firstly, i guess, is that this anime is incredibly close to my heart. more like this series; the anime, the manga, drama CDs, the lot of it!
maybe i should make this a shrine at some point ...
the one thing i will say though, is that nabari no ou, the anime, is kind of bad. i'd highly reccomend checking out the manga, as the anime doesn't really do it justice. but i still think the anime has its own strong points! for instance, the casting is spot on for both sub and dub in my opinion. the OST and OP/EDs are also some of my favorite songs to this day. (i am listening to the soundtrack as i write this!)
the reason i say "the anime is kind of bad" is because, like many anime adaptations of the time, it suffered from the incurable "my source material is still running and i've out-paced it" syndrome. the symptoms in nabari's case, is that the second half of the anime effectively makes it a completely different experience from the manga. which, is why i say i reccomend the manga over the anime, but i don't think you should completely ditch the anime.
nabari no ou is an anime about the hidden ninja world and how it operates in the 21st century. the story follows miharu rokujo, a 14 year old boy with a very bleak philosophy about the world and his place in it. miharu comes to find out that he is the holder of a mysterious ninjutsu known as the shinrabansho.
the anime follows miharu, his english teacher tobari, his classmate kouichi, and raimei, a girl who tracked the group down so they can help her track her brother. they all collectively agreed to help miharu rid himself of the shinrabansho after multiple attempts were made on his life due to the jutsu.
i don't want to make this too long, so i will leave it there!
TL;DR please watch or read nabari! it's an amazing coming of age story. the action is cool too but that takes a back seat to the character drama after a while.
haibane renmei
what is there to say about haibane renmei ... a lot, surprisingly! so, so much. i only finished this anime recently but it's already wormed its way into my brain and made its home in my cortexes. all of them.
haibane renmei is a deceptively simple, slice-of-psychological-thriller anime. in it, we follow the haibane, a group of angelic beings living in an abandoned school dormatory called "old home". we find out more about the world through rakka, a newly hatched (yes, hatched) haibane learning about her new culture.
the haibane do not remember their previous lives, although they are certain they had them. they live in a town where they are indebted to work for their keep, and are only allowed to use old, no longer needed, or thrifted items. each haibane has their own job, and we watch rakka through her daily life as she helps out the other haibane, while trying to find where she belongs in this system.
now, you may be wondering "where do the psychological thriller elements come in?!" that i will not be spoiling here. you truly have to experience it blind to appreciate it.
the one thing i will touch on is how this anime handles grief, especially from a religious perspective. it does it better than any anime i have seen to date. it's also the only anime i have seen to handle "ugly" topics like jealousy and depression without romanticizing, nor demonizing it.
