Bell Cranel, the main character, is a geeky kid with white hair and red eyes who is the only member of Hestia Familia. Hestia is a big-breasted loli (despite being goddess of hearth and home in Greek mythology, not something whose human incarnation I imagine as a big-breasted loli) who’s obsessively in love with Bell. Bell, however, is oblivious to her affections and instead falls in love at first sight with Aiz Wallenstein, the star player of Loki Familia, after she rescues him from a Minotaur.
The first few episodes were okay as shounen romance, but the show went downhill as soon as Liliruca showed up. Not because of her; she wasn’t a great character, but she didn’t torpedo the show or anything. The way her arc was written was just clumsy and cliched. By the end of the first episode of the arc, I pretty much knew how it would end. Even with the same predictable string of events, a little grace and subtlety could have gone a long way, but that was also sorely lacking. The final scene, when Bell rescues Liliruca after she left him for dead, was almost like parody for me.
This show was pretty highly acclaimed when it came out, even by the snobs at Anime News Network, but I don’t really understand why. Maybe it improves later, but I decided not to finish it. I don’t really have the energy to hate-watch things anymore. Back when I was stuck watching whatever was on Cartoon Network and G4, almost everything turned into a hate-watch, but I really can’t anymore, especially since I wanted to like this show. The art style and animation are quite nice and it does have its moments of genuine emotion, like when Hestia, having recognized Bell’s incredible potential, sells herself into massive debt to get him a good weapon so he can keep growing. I decided to drop it, hoping to come back to it later with fresh eyes and find some merit that I missed this time around.
After Danmachi I was in the mood for a comedy, so I went for Himouto! Umaru-chan, another highly acclaimed series from a few seasons ago. Like Danmachi, I had read a few chapters of the manga. Unlike Danmachi, I hadn’t been that impressed with the manga. The Umaru-chan manga is so slow-moving that it makes Aria look like Death Note; by Chapter 15, we haven’t even met two of the most important secondary characters, Sylphyn and Kirie. The anime, fortunately, moves a lot faster, and improves the impact of some of the jokes from the manga version.
Umaru-chan is sort of a mixture of Ore Imo, Lucky Star, and Working!. It’s about a young salaryman known only as Onii-chan, who for some reason takes care of his high school-age sister, Umaru. (Okay, Onii-chan does have a name after all.) Umaru appears to be a beautiful, perfect girl to the outside world, but at home she’s lazy and incredibly spoiled, doing nothing but laying around eating potato chips and drinking cola while she plays video games. One of the strange conceits of the series is that Umaru turns into chibi form when she’s at home being lazy, and her voice changes, and people who know her actually can’t recognize her and think she’s some sort of creature.
Other characters include Umaru’s friend and the downstairs neighbor, Ebina-chan, a big-breasted girl from Akita who suppresses a thick accent and is in love with Onii-chan; Kirie-chan, a weird and socially awkward girl with a secret crush on Umaru; Umaru’s wealthy, upper-class “rival”, Sylphynford Tachibana; and Onii-chan’s coworkers Alex and Bomber, who, by some horrific twist of fate, are the older brothers of Sylphyn and Kirie. Most of the episodes involve Umaru being incredibly lazy and manipulating Onii-chan to get her way by throwing a tantrum, nagging incessantly, and manipulating crowds with her innocent appearance.
Japanese readers of the manga apparently loved Ebina-chan so much that there’s a spinoff manga where she’s the main character. My favorite character is Kirie: her doomed crush on Umaru; her eternally messy hair; her weird, creepy expressions; and her extreme lack of social skills are all things I personally sympathize with. I also like Sylphyn. While she’s the rich, upper-class rival character, she differs from the standard in manner and apparent motive. Rather than being hyper-competitive, arrogant, and snobbish, Sylphyn seems to just really enjoy competitive games and hamming it up with big speeches and props. She always seems so happy when she challenges Umaru or Umaru’s secret competitive gamer identity UMR, she seems to actually enjoy the games themselves instead of seeing them as venues to score a petty victory over Umaru, and she never seems bitter or angry when she loses. I also like her theme music.
Today I checked out the first episode of Amanchu!. I had also read some of the manga version of this one, so I knew going in not to get my hopes too high. This is a Kozue Amano work, and the anime is directed by Junichi Satou, just like Aria. Aria is one of my favorite series ever, and while the Amanchu! manga was far from bad, it was missing that magic that made Aria so suteki. (Hazukashii serifu kinshi!)
I suspect it’s Pikari’s fault. Hikari “Pikari” Kohinata, one of the two main heroines, is in appearance just a more stacked version of Akari Mizunashi. Even their names are similar: akari and hikari both mean “light”. But where Akari was friendly, low-key, kind, and a little ditzy, Pikari is loud, hyper, and more of a manic pixie dream girl. Where Akari was characterized by her observant nature and ability to connect with people on a deep level, Pikari is oblivious and drags people into her pace. She’s not a disaster, but let’s just say she’s not as captivating as Akari: harder to like, harder to sympathize with, and not the same kind of gentle, relaxing presence.
The viewpoint character is actually Futaba “Teko” Ooki, a shy girl with long, dark hair who just moved to Pikari’s town and started high school with her. She and Pikari have a similar dynamic to the main duo in shows like Hanayamata and Encouragement of Climb: Pikari befriends Futaba and encourages her to join the scuba diving club, where they deepen their friendship and head towards some yuri undertones. I like Futaba better than Pikari, and as the viewpoint character she’s easier to sympathize with. But their interplay just isn’t as much fun as Akari’s interplay with Aika and Alice.
The first episode way overuses the chibi faces (the same sort we saw in Aria), but otherwise the art is incredible. While the school and the town look pretty boring compared to Neo-Venezia, the animators do a great job bringing them to life, making them feel like real spaces instead of window-dressing. I was particularly impressed with the spray of water that splashes up when a wave nearly knocks Futaba off a rock; you can see individual droplets flying off the crest of the wave as it just misses soaking Futaba and her sadly silent slide phone. I’ll hold out hope for the rest of the show. It took me a long time (one volume of the manga and eight or so episodes of the anime across nearly six years) before I really appreciated Aria, and it wasn’t until Aria the Origination that I really knew it would live on as one of my favorites. Even if Amanchu! never reaches that level, I’ll be satisfied with a nice iyashikei show with some great art.
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