Minions of the Fickle Muse

Has it really been over six months since my last anime post here?

Well, a few new things have turned up to recommend:

I was uncertain for a while about just how good Maoyu was, but it certainly got my interest. And in the end, it turned out to be a very good series indeed.

The setting is quite deliberately epic fantasy in nature: For the last fifteen years there has been a war between the human and demon realms. The humans have mounted a couple large crusades, and taken some cities in the demon realm, and the demons have managed to take an island off the main continent from the humans. As the prologue to the series, a Hero has arisen, and with Knight, Mage and Archer, go to defeat the Demon King.

And at this point, some very good worldbuilding starts stepping in. First, all the characters just have jobs or titles as names: Hero, Merchant, Winter Prince, etc. Hero goes off alone to confront the Demon King (Maoyu), and finds a lady determined to end this war—and fighting each other will not end it. The episode then starts going off into the economics of the war, and how they perpetuate the conflict, and the series goes off to try to change all that.

 

 

 

There's three new giant robot series this season, and they actually all seem to be interesting. However, the best one is definitely Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. Gargantia, as it turns out is not the name of the giant robot, but of a massive fleet, where all the ships are rigidly clamped together.

We are introduced to the far future, where humanity lives entirely on spaceships and habitats, there being no habitable planets available, and fights a desperate war against the alien Hideauze. After an operation goes wrong, the main character mis-jumps to a distant, habitable, water world, which the on-board AI pronounces to be Earth, based on observable astronomical data.

From there, the plot ranges all over, with plenty of culture shock, as the main character, raised in a thoroughly militarized society, deals with the largely peaceful ways of the Gargantia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So far, Majestic Prince is looking surprisingly good. This is surprising because the series has problems deciding if it is a comedy, or serious.

Five teens known as the 'Fail Five' at the academy are put in the most advanced mecha Earth has as the newest unit in the GDF's attempts to defend against an alien menace.

The team members are individually well qualified, and excellent choices. It is hoped that they could help turn the tide of the war... if they can just learn to work as a team. Recent episodes have started showing the other side, which has some interesting contrasts. The series could get very interesting, though so far it is fairly mixed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And  in the realm of things not on Crunchyroll, we just got to see the 2007 anime Ghost Hound. With Masamune Shirow as co-creator, it is just as smart, strange, and thought-provoking as any of his other works.

Set in the near future (technically 2008, one year after when it was produced), it deals with the small town of Suiten, out in the back of nowhere, where the big news is the dam built thirty years ago, a mysterious kidnapping and suicide case eleven years ago, and the new biotech firm that just opened a facility in the area.

The story revolves around three high school kids who are struggling with their own pasts, even as current events swirl around them. It's very smart, very well produced, with a lot of interesting, somewhat artsy, techniques. In some ways, it's a better done Serial Experiment Lain.

Highly, highly recommended.