Digest: Kill la Kill, Flying Witch, and Anne Happy

Kill la Kill's Over the Top Cheese Takes me Back to G Gundam

There's a certain strain of straight-faced, over the top cheese that I just love. It's pretty hard to pull it off, but when well done, it is sublime.

The first time I knew this about myself was in my early teens. I was familiar with Gundam. I'd seen Gundam Wing, and I think also a few of the UC shows, 8th MS Team and 0080 maybe, and possibly bits of the original Mobile Suit Gundam. I was no Gundam superfan, though. In fact, I was consistently underwhelmed by the Gundam shows, with their slow-paced action and long, murky digressions into politics and philosophy. That's why, when Toonami announced a new Gundam show called G Gundam, I didn't bother to tune in for the premiere. I had no intention to watch it, but in those days I spent about six hours a day watching TV, so I ended up seeing it.

I loved G Gundam.

G Gundam eschewed the bland political intrigues and staid battles of the UC Gundam shows. It was simple, direct, flamboyant, absurd. It takes place on a future Earth where most people have moved into space on colonies, as in the original Gundam. Unlike the UC timeline, the colonies have all retained national and ethnic identities from their days on Earth. The colonies/nations take turns ruling over, as the show superlatively puts it, "the universe" by holding a contest called "The Gundam Fight" every so often. Each nation builds a Gundam and finds a pilot from among its people to take the thing into battle against the other nations, with the winning Gundam's nation becoming ruler of the universe for the next while. All the nations build their Gundams to be as representative of their national stereotypes as possible, from Neo-Egypt's Pyramid Gundam, piloted by a mummy, to Neo-France's Gundam Rose, which wears a dueling cape and has a giant metal rose and is piloted by an aristocratic duelist. Italy's pilot is, of course, a Mafia boss; China's is, of course, a kung fu master; Germany's is, for some reason, a ninja whose mask is patterned after the colors of the German flag. The pilot of Neo-America's Maxter Gundam, which wears a football helmet and boxing gloves, is Chibodee Crocket, a rich and famous playboy with a rags-to-riches story. The Gundams in G Gundam aren't controlled by joysticks and buttons; the pilots are housed inside large rooms in the Gundams' bellies, wearing motion capture suits that make the Gundams mimic their movements. So everyone in G Gundam is a fighter both in and outside of a mecha. At first they're just regular martial artists, duelists, and soldiers, but as the show goes on they start to achieve Dragon Ball Z-like powers both outside and inside of a Gundam.

G Gundam is that sublimely straight-faced, over the top cheese. The hero, Domon Kasshu, always makes a giant speech before he finishes off an enemy. Then he says, "This hand of mine glows with an awesome power! It tells me to defeat you!" And defeat them he does, using his ultimate attack, the Shining Finger. 

The Soul Taker, a show that (rightfully so) no one has ever heard of, also had a bit of that over the top cheese that I love. In Western cinema, Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds both have it. I thought it was gone from anime until roughly 11:00 PM yesterday, when I realized that the show I was watching, Kill la Kill, was in fact the successor of G Gundam's over the top cheese.

Kill la Kill doesn't have as many awesome speeches as G Gundam. I doubt I'm going to remember any of its dialogue ten years from now the way I remember the speeches from G Gundam. (Well, maybe Naked Mohawk Guy's "Let me give you two pieces of information".) But it definitely has the same deadpan dedication to presenting its absurd, flamboyant, hyperbolic setting and characters. Kill la Kill trades the sleek, shiny look and gentle character-based humor of most 2013 anime for a retro look with lots of shortcuts and repeated animation, and lots of spastic, hyperactive humor and visual gags. In pretty much every way, it feels like something out of the 90s. In 2016 we've started to get lots of anime that are 90s in a bad way, or an indifferent way, but Kill la Kill is 90s in the best way possible. The studio responsible for the show, Trigger, was founded by Gainax alumni, so this makes sense; Gainax was a giant in the 90s, and some of my favorite shows ever (e.g. Eva, FLCL, and fine yeah I'll admit it Mahoromatic even with that ending) came from late 90s / early 2000s-era Gainax. 

Kill la Kill takes place in a weird dystopian alternate Japan where the Student Council is so powerful that the entire country is ruled by various Student Councils and the giant corporate cartels whose owners are the parents of the Student Council members. In Honnouji Academy, where the main action takes place, Satsuki Kiryuin rules over all with her minions, the Elite Four. The students are ranked according to various criteria, including grades and stature within the school. Apparently the economy is also controlled by the conglomerates, because a student's rank determines where their family lives, with "no-stars" living in the slums. Higher ranked students also get Goku uniforms, uniforms containing magical Life Fibers that give them special powers. The main character, Ryuuko Matoi, comes to the academy after her estranged father is killed to find out the truth. She ends up with a Kamui, a uniform made from 100% Life Fibers, called Senketsu, as well as one half of a giant pair of scissors, which she can use as a sword to cut through her enemies' Goku uniforms. 

Yes, the entire show is about clothing-based special powers, and it's so weird that one paragraph can't even scratch the surface. The haves at Honnouji seem to all be members of various clubs, so their Goku uniforms usually give them powers related to their club. Nonon Jakuzure, one of the Elite Four, is leader of the Band Club, and her Goku uniform lets her transform into a jet with gigantic speakers on it that can fly around and shoot beams of concentrated sound and recorder-shaped missiles. Uzu Sanageyama, another member of the Elite Four, is from the kendo club, and his uniform lets him turn into a giant robot suit that resembles kendo armor. Then there are the anti-clothing rebels, the underground paramilitary group Nudist Beach, who all run around pretty much naked except for a giant utility belt that just barely covers the nether regions. One of their members wears crossed bandoliers full of thread bobbins, and carries a submachine gun shaped like a sewing machine that shoots out sewing needles. Their insignia is a big red X over a pair of underwear. 

Unlike G Gundam, which was very PG, Kill la Kill is full of nudity and sexual innuendo, another trademark of Gainax at the height of its glory. Ryuuko's kamui (and also that of her rival, Satsuki) goes into battle mode and becomes an absurd skimpy bikini-like garment. At least some people interpreted this, and Ryuuko's transition from embarrassment to acceptance of it, as some kind of metaphor about female adolescence and patriarchy. I don't know if the creators intended that, but I can see how someone could read it that way; like FLCL, Kill la Kill is bizarre enough to be interpreted in different ways. Doesn't matter to me; no matter how you interpret it, it's hammy dialogue covered with over the top cheese with a side of fanservice and a sprinkling of lolis (Jakuzure and the main villain, Nui Harime), and I enjoy that, even if I had a hard time getting into it because I couldn't see where they were going right away.

Flying Witch is Kiki's Undine Service

I hardly ever watch new shows. I hate having to wait a week in between episodes, especially when there's so much completely published stuff that I've never watched or never finished. But I read ANN's preview guide review of Flying Witch, and I had to check it out. ANN's reviewers are usually pretty hard on slice of life and iyashikei. I guess I know why; when your job is getting paid to watch anime, you're already living a sweet life covered in flaky crust, with no need to try a slice of someone else's; and rather than healing, you need some trauma to help keep in perspective that you get paid to watch anime. But even they said good things about Flying Witch.

Makoto, the show's heroine, is older and a bit ditzier than Kiki, but her situation is similar: as a witch, she's supposed to go out at 15 and start living on her own, using her witching powers to get by in life. But her parents wanted her to finish high school since the witching industry is in a downward trend, so they tried to have it both ways: they made her leave the house, but they made her go stay with her second cousins, Kei and Chinatsu, and finish high school.

The show follows Makoto, Kei, and Chinatsu's daily life and encounters with weird magical things. The magic in the show is treated in a very mundane way. In Episode 2, a strange looking being called the Harbinger of Spring arrives at the house to say hello to Makoto. Chinatsu, rather than recognizing him as a magical being, treats him like a creepy stranger and tries to lock him out of the house. There's also a hilarious scene involving a mandrake (yes, like in Harry Potter) at the end of Episode 1, and some cute hijinks with crows in Episode 3. The show maintains a good balance between magic and slice of life by giving the magical scenes the same mundane slice of life tone as the scenes involving planting a garden or going to a festival.

So far I like the show, but it hasn't wowed me yet. I'm going to stick with it, though. It took me a long time before I appreciated Aria. That's just the price of admission for a show like this; you often don't see the beauty until you come back to it. I have to admit that the forested mountains of Aomori where the show takes place, while quite beautiful, don't quite match the canals and Renaissance architecture of Neo Venezia. But Flying Witch is a charming show, and I'm glad to see it in a year when 90s-era middle of the road action comedy seems to be coming back into style.

Anne Happy Pulls a Bait and Switch

At the same time I read ANN's positive review of Flying Witch, I also read a negative review of Anne Happy. The reviewers complimented the show on an original concept, but complained that it was shaping up as another fairly mediocre cute girls doing cute things show. Given my total weakness for cute girls doing cute things, I had to check it out.

Sadly, Anne Happy is not really a cute girls doing cute things show. I can see why it would look that way after the first episode, but in the second episode it starts to shift towards zany comedy, and Episode 3 completes the transformation. Anne Happy is really the sort of high-concept repetitive madcap comedy that was popular in the early 2000s with shows like Digi Carat, Comic Party, and Excel Saga. It just pretends for a while to be a cute girls doing cute things show, until it pulls a bait and switch.

The concept is that the main characters are all horribly unlucky girls, and they've been gathered in a special class where blah blah and crazy stuff happens. The show is named for Hanakoizumi Anne (who is mysteriously known as Hanako—why bother giving your characters weird names if you're not even going to use them for anything?), the main heroine who is just ridiculously unlucky in every aspect of her life. In Episode 1 she forms a trio with Hibari, a normal girl who somehow fell in love with the guy on the warning sign at construction sites, and Botan, a horribly clumsy and sick girl who gets hurt by everything. Episodes 2 and 3 toss the girls into increasingly zany challenges and also introduce Hibiki, another horribly clumsy girl who is an overly competitive tsundere and has no sense of direction, and Ren, who is beloved by all animals and is constantly covered in cats or rabbits.

Not only are the jokes repetitive, they're also stale. The late 90s shows were doing similar stuff and sometimes doing it better. In Episode 3, the characters play a big crazy life-size board game! As penalties, they have to shout the name of their crush and wear cosplay costumes! There's an annoying rabbit thing! I'm not a big fan of mascot characters (especially in a moe show, where the girls themselves are basically mascots), but if you need to have one and you can't have it actually be part of the story like Kero or Kyuubei, the model to follow is Gochiusa's Tippy, who looked cute, occasionally did contribute to the plot, and mostly just sat on Chino's head not bothering anyone.

On the plus side, the art is pretty good. The characters all look cute, but I just haven't felt the moe. The only character I like so far is Botan, who has over the top low self esteem and constantly apologizes and demeans herself. I like characters like that—Sayounara, Zetsubou Sensei's Ai Kaga and Ritsu Souma of Fruits Basket are other examples—because I identify with them. But Botan is also constantly getting hurt, and it gets a little tiresome. In Episode 3 I was even feeling sorry for her because she keeps breaking her bones, and we see it all in graphic X-Ray detail, and it's not funny; it's repetitive, and it looks horribly painful. Towards the end she even breaks all her front teeth out and talks with a mouth full of mush for the next scene, and there was no way I could laugh; I just wanted to give her a hug and take her to a dentist.

I haven't made up my mind yet whether to keep watching Anne Happy. I probably shouldn't; I know there are much better shows out there, and I know that next episode, poor Botan is just going to break her bones again.