【Anime】CANAAN

Old news anime…

Click to enarlge. (Illust: 関口可奈味)

Title: CANAAN
Studio: P.A. Works
Original Scenario: 奈須きのこ (NASU Kinoko)
Character Designs: 武内崇（TAKEUCHI Takashi)
Episodes: 13
Genre: Seinen (Action)
Status: Completed, not licensed.
My Rating: 7.8/10

OOSAWA Maria is an aspiring camerawoman who travels to Shanghai with her co-worker, reporter MINORIKAWA Minoru, in hopes of getting a big scoop. While they’re on the job, they get caught up in terrorist-related activities which have to do with a lethal virus called the Ua virus and its victims. The anime is based on a bonus scenario written by NASU Kinoko for the game 428.

To be honest, I’ve never really read/seen any of Nasu’s works before (5 paragraphs of Tsukihime doesn’t count!), so I’m not sure if CANAAN is the regular, awesome Nasu affair, but CANAAN’s story was pretty great, in my opinion. I wanted to watch this for four reasons:

1. 428 got 40/40 from Famitsu.
2. Alphard reminded me of Revy from Black Lagoon, who is awesome, and is voiced by Sakamoto Maaya
3. The OP sequence’s ranking as interpreted by Baka-Raptor.
4. The ED theme was sung by Annabel, one of my favourite doujin artists.

There was a lot of progression each episode, and the sequence for how they revealed everything (from the initial individual encounters to the reasons behind the whole grand plan), was done really coherently, and the best thing was that after everything was revealed, they went back to the characters and developed them a little more so that at the end they didn’t seem shallow at all. There weren’t a lot of plotholes that I noticed either, and even the silly mascot helmets were explained. Unfortunately, I thought the actual concept itself was pretty over-the-top. A superstrong virus, world government leaders, fighter planes, synethesia to this extent…It’s good to try and incorporate some real world stuff into elaborate stories like these, but here it just seemed a little out of place, especially when the whole thing is centered around relatively unserious large-eyed characters.

I should also note that the animation was seriously impeccable. After seeing a certain slideshow anime, I forgot that anime was supposed to immerse the audience with animation, but CANAAN reminded me with every second I watched. GJ P.A. Works!

The characters were in general awesome, but with a large, important exception: Maria. Maria is absolutely useless. She cannot take pictures, she cannot fight, and her most outstanding skill seems to be getting kidnapped so people can get a certain character to fight with them. I really felt that she was just there to act as a plot device to develop other characters and trigger events, and other than that, she didn’t seem at all like a character. Her voice is also not sugoi. Other than Maria, though, the rest were almost more than awesome, and I could say that the entire main cast (except Maria) was above average in terms of likeability. Here’s my ranking:

1. Hakko - Mute, beautiful, slightly deadly woman who stole every scene she was in despite not talking. So awesome.
2. Alphard - More like 1.02, because she’s equivalent to Hakko in coolness, but she really didn’t have enough scenes in the series, and if she appeared more often, she’d be my absolute favourite. At first she reminded me of Revy from Black Lagoon (Tattoo, ponytail, shorts, nonexistent fashion sense), but she is more composed and slick. She’s also voiced by Sakamoto Maaya, whom we all love.
3. Canaan - So unemotional and strong she is awesome. Although it seems like she likes Maria in a really yuri way to most people, it seemed to me that she just loved Maria since Canaan doesn’t really have anybody else to love. Crazy fighting style and pretty eyes, too, but just how old is she anyways?
4. Liang Qi - Psycho, sadistic villian who would’ve been my top favourite if she fit in with the rest of the too-chill cast. She is very entertaining to watch, and her dialogue is so incredibly interesting, but is far too exaggerated and insane. I couldn’t believe she was voiced by Tanaka Rie. Must’ve been a mistake in the credits…or not.

Overall, CANAAN was a really satisfying series to watch, especially because the fights were so well choreographed and animated. Great characters and a coherent plot that doesn’t make you think TOO much makes this series above average, but the existence of Maria pulls it down a bit, and the themes are not life-changingly deep. (Actually, it is slightly shallow.) Recommended if you want a quick, beautiful action fix with an awesome cast.

RE:Kimi ni Todoke 4

I swear I’m not obsessed with this series.

Does that look like the face of a terrible mastermind to you!!

Another superb episode titled “Rumours” that follows chapter 4 of the manga exactly, with select modified scenes from Chapter 5 and about two anime-original scenes. Unlike the last episode, episode 4’s tone was quite heavy, with only three or four humourous scenes, but being the high quality shoujo that Kimi ni Todoke is, it’s not overly dramatic or silly at all, and is pretty easy to relate to. The internal agonies of the four main characters here are slightly heartwrenching(?), and the episode might make one break out in a few tears if one is highly sensitive to the plights of our dear characters. If I remember correctly, the manga version of this arc drove me insane with grief or whatever it was for a few minutes.

Gist(?) of the episode: Continuing from Episode 3, the drama being brought up here is that Sawako is supposedly spreading rumours about Sano and Yoshida, and that she’s also a terrible mastermind who commands Kazehaya with Sano and Yoshida backing her up. Obviously that’s not the case, and Sano and Yoshida don’t believe the rumours, but the two start to have their doubts after seeing a few things that test their confidence in the matter. Sano and Yoshida ask Sawako what she thinks of them, she half-replies that she “doesn’t like them, but…”, and the two just cut her off and assume that Sawako really doesn’t like them. Sawako notices that her friends look down, and after hearing the rumours about how she herself is supposedly making Sano, Yoshida, and Kazehaya miserable, she decides that the best action to take is to avoid her three friends so she doesn’t hurt them anymore. This avoidance technique makes the three sad and worsens the situation.

Production I.G. is so Incredibly Great that it looks nice even in crapres.

The next episode is called 決意 (Ketsui/Decision), which has the same title as Chapter 6 in the manga. Ketsui also happens to be the title of a very good shmup by CAVE, but that has nothing to do with this series (Unfortunately!).

On another note, the Kimi ni Todoke DS game (育てる思い/Sodateru Omoi/Nurturing Feelings) came out last week! I haven’t played it, but it basically puts you in Sawako’s shoes as you go through all the manga scenarios, with a few original scenes written especially for the game. The limited first press edition version comes with a cellphone strap with a Sawako charm on the end that changes colour depending on how much light it gets. (Termed as a UV strap)

RE:Aoi Bungaku 2

Of course the one time I should have no free time I catch up on animu.

This is the shota character of the series. (His true identity is actually the Ghost of No Longer Human Past.)

Finally watched two episodes of this slightly overlooked series. Motivation was due to reading reviews of the book (No Longer Human, Arc 1 of the anime) on Amazon and finding out that it was superdark. Dark themes compel me.

Anyways, this seems quite akin to Death Note and Mouryou no Hako (Ohoho MADHOUSE) in terms of animation techniques and overall mood, but I believe that the level of depth expressed by sparse but (quite) deep dialogue in No Longer Human so far is not really a common occurence in anime. This is definitely because it was adapted from a piece of literature, but I’m surprised at how well it was utilized here, what with the images actually giving room for thought, and even the flashes of past shots weren’t just there to hurt your eyes or give the feel of craziness (maybe). The best thing I found so far was how the main character YOUZOU Ouba (played by 雅人堺/SAKAI Masato) was voiced. The articulated, careful style of speaking seemed pretty detached and emotionless to me, making it all the more chilling. It’s hard to believe that the same person played Hanamoto in the Honey and Clover live action movie.

Gist of the Episode: Youzou is released from the hospital, sees a monster whom he believes is himself, said monster follows him around, Youzou is now no longer human, but a nice lady reporter who is poor and probably depressed tries her best to help him out. The two go to her house, and…is to be continued.

There is also a really long summary below, the entirety of which is completely unaccompanied by screenshots.

RE:Kimi ni Todoke 3

WHAT HAVE WE HERE

Aww yeah, Kimi ni Todoke! This first anime in about 3-4 years that I will be following every week (no lie). Anyways, after the crazyawesome that was episode 1 and 2 (both of which made me cry, even though crying is supposed to be an extremely rare occurrence found in polymetricans), episode 3 cuts back a little on the overwhelming heartwarming factor with more humour and just plain shoujo cuteness(?). There was a lot of Sawako and Kazehaya blushing at each other this week, though I don’t believe anyone will object to that (please don’t) as they are pretty cool kids. As with Ep.1 & 2, this episode also follows the manga exactly (covered chapters 2 and 3), and introduces new characters like Pin and NotAlto Ryuu (latter is played by NAKAMURA Yuuichi). That Girl With The Long Brown Hair (aka Kurimizawa, played by HIRANO Aya) also finally gets a chance to speak: “Hai” and “Un”. I found this extremely funny for whatever reason (maybe spite).

Gist of the episode: Sawako makes more new friends this episode, and the class starts warming up to her, leading to her exhibiting that incredible smile in the screenshot up there, which in my opinion was superior to the manga version. Other events/things covered in this episode include getting a substitute teacher, filling out the attendance, dropping papers in the hallway, walking a certain dog, self-study in class, and terrible, terrible gossiping girls. (Okay fine, they’re not that terrible yet as they have spoken about 6 lines so far.)

After the ending theme was played, it was also announced that Kimi no Todoke will be getting a Nintendo DS game titled 「君に届け 育てる思い」 (Kimi ni Todoke: Nurturing Feelings), and is a text-based game with character portraits. No minigames or other features have been shown yet. I expect (or require) them to show more info about it next week!!

RE:Bakemonogatari 1

Click for ultra high-res version.

First time downloading an episode and watching it in full screen \o/ The result was gorgeous. Every frame was screencappable, seriously. I wonder how I will go back to streaming anime hahahaha.

Anyways, lovely lovely episode. The animation quality is extremely high and I couldn’t help but gawk at everything. There were a lot of still scenes but that really added to the mood. The way the characters were drawn were really faithful to VOFAN’s original depictions too. I dig! Really nice presentation style too. So artsy…As with SHAFT’s usual stuff they liked using lots of text to make it seem more epic, and being kind of a sucker for nice text I loved the touch.

Things that stood out:
- Awesome awesome cropping.
- “Creative” use of stationary. (ie. this scene)
- The ED song, ahahaha.

Will probably keep downloading for the eye candy but may or may not be blogging. Everyone else and their goat will blog it anyways right!