Posted in: Movies, Recent Updates | Tagged: anime, entertainment, film

A Brief Overview of the Summer Anime Season – Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh

Published Mon, 21 Jul 2014 09:30:06 -0500

Adi Tantimedh writes,

We're in the midst of Summer where schools' out in most parts of the world, and in Japan, that means a new season of anime series are now out. If you look up the listings, there are at least 60 anime shows on TV in Japan that started this month, not counting feature-length special episodes of popular shows. Fortunately for viewers outside of Japan, the majority of them are now simultaneously streamed on the internet on services like Crunchyroll, Hulu Plus, Daisuki, Funimation and many other sites.

I thought I'd do a brief rundown of some the shows that stood out to me. I've already written about Persona 4 Golden, so here are some shows that stood out to me so far. I've always said you can tell what a society's anxieties and obsessions are through their pop culture, and Japan has always been upfront about that in their anime.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaxHMzVosl4[/youtube]

Sword Art Online II is a sequel to the last series and adaptation of the third in the original novel series. The show always had interesting commentary on the culture and psychology of people who play online video games, and here the hero enters an MMO shooter game to investigate a player who has been killing top-ranked players in the game, who then die in real life. This puts him in the path of a top-ranking sniper who has become the killer's latest target, a girl with real-life traumas of her own who seeks therapy by playing the game.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTrJsXQL1F0[/youtube]

Aldnoah Zero is one of the more interesting new entries in the giant robot war genre. There's an element of class conflict in corrupt, aristocratic Martians who wage war on an Earth using superior technology. Earth is on the underdog side with their inferior giant robots and mechs but the teenagers trained to fight in the war use their intellect to strategically out-think the enemy. There's a vibe of fighting back not against invaders here, but against the upper class elite.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLVy50LnLMM[/youtube]

Terror in Resonance is probably the darkest anime – or any type of TV show – this season. Set in a Tokyo being ravaged by terrorist bombings and attacks, the authorities hunt desperately for the ringleaders, not realising it's a pair of teenage boys in an extended campaign of nihilistic terror. Adapted from a manga and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the director of Cowboy Bebop, this is the kind of story that taps into the pessimism and rage of Japan's lost generation.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNGhKIcHVQc[/youtube]

Tokyo Ghoul is one of the few horror anime shows this season. Adapted from a manga, it's about a man who gets transplanted with the organs of a ghoul and finds himself stuck between the flesh-eating underworld of ghouls and the normality of being human. Personally I don't like this show very much in its hysteria, but it has interesting subtexts involving alienation, addiction, isolation and existential terror. It's very much about the Japanese fear of the loss of control and civility.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GlN_oxV4oI[/youtube]

DRAMAtical Murder is an odd, somewhat muddled cyberpunk adventure adapted from a Boy's Love novel set in a near-future society where working class teens play in a life-or-death cyber sport connected via social media and smart devices. It's interesting for its subtexts about trying to find a better lot in life through video game sports, though its idea of gameplay doesn't really feel right.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVbmMpA9u0Q[/youtube]

Rail Wars is in some ways the oddest of the lot. Adapted from a visual novel, it's on the surface a rather earnest and cute story about a young man who loves trains and becomes a railway security officer and his slightly eccentric team, including a violence-prone, trigger-happy female colleague. There's an educational and propaganda layer in the way the series stresses the importance of the rail system to the whole of Japan and how the security division have to defend it against petty criminals, gangs and terrorists, sugar-coated with cute girls with big boobs as a Trojan Horse to its central message. As a friend pointed out to me, the rail system links all of Japan together and an attack on it could bring the entire country to a halt. The show is like a trainspotter's dream in the way its main characters are versed in the different models and makes of trains, what sounds they make, their speeds, what schedules they run on, and use that knowledge to stop crime.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh2SNTsznEg[/youtube]

Akame Ga Kill, adapted from an anime that's getting an English edition next year from Yen Press, is a leftist subversion of the usual fantasy series about a group of heroes and fighters in a quasi-medieval world. Instead of serving the crown and fighting to protect or restore the monarchy, this series has an overt anti-establishment story in which a young swordsman discovers the glamourous capital city is rife with corruption and exploitation, and joins a band of assassins who target corrupt politicians and officials, and anyone in power who exploits and murders the poor and oppressed. This feels like an attempt to counter the many militaristic and conservative stories that drive the majority of anime and manga right now.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0B5gnKvHKQ[/youtube]

Sailor Moon Crystal is a new adaptation of the original manga rather than a sequel to the 90s anime series that helped launch the current anime boom in the West. There probably isn't more buzz for a new anime show this month than for this one due to the nostalgia of all the fans who first watched it in the 90s and getting kids to watch this new version. When you think about it, Sailor Moon is kind of like Green Lantern for girls, and a lot more accessible. More feminism and Girl Power is always a good thing.

So there you have it: a selection of the latest anime from Japan that gives you a look at the range of thoughts, anxieties and obsessions in the Japan as of July 2014. Welcome to the Dreamtime.

Another summer of anime at lookitmoves@gmail.com

Follow the official LOOK! IT MOVES! twitter feed at http://twitter.com/lookitmoves for thoughts and snark on media and pop culture, stuff for future columns and stuff I may never spend a whole column writing about.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!