Animation Runner Kuromi (OVA 1 & 2) Review

BACK STORY:
'Animation Runner Kuromi' is a small two episode OVA for which the episodes one and two were created in 2001 and 2004 respectively. It was directed by Akitaro Daichi, who most people would only recognize through some of his other works such as 'Kodomo no Omocha' (known as Kodocha in the US), where he was one of three directors, 'Sexy Commando', as well as 'Jubei-chan' and its sequel, 'Now and Then, Here and There', and 'Fruits Basket', amongst a few other very good shows. Most recently he worked on 'Bokura ga Ita', but today we're not talking about his other works, though I may be inclined to take a look at some of them at a later point. Today we are looking at the aforementioned two part OVA, Animation Runner Kuromi, which, while being very low key and not particularly popular, was actually an interesting work to look at. So let's get to it without further delay.

SUMMARY:
As I've stated before, the OVA is two standalone episodes, which you could watch by themselves without ever knowing anything about the show previously. In episode one, we are introduced to highly energetic animation school graduate, Mikiko Oguro, who quickly becomes nicknamed Kuromi by the cast. Her interest in animation stems from her childhood days of watching a show named Luis Monde III. So, she joins a small animation studio called Studio Petit and on her first day there gets thrown into the job without much knowledge of what she has to do. I won't describe the details to you, as you can iron them out for yourselves by watching. She becomes an 'Animation Runner' so to say, and throughout the first episode you get a very good idea of why her position is known as that. The first episode's main plot is the work on a fictional anime that Studio Petit is producing, called 'Time Journeys', however it's not going to be so easy because Kuromi's job becomes that of a motivational speaker, as she is forced to try to pull together all of the staff to get the job done right and on time. Here is where I insert the cliche line: "And hilarious hi-jinks ensue".

Moving on to episode two we are faced with a weathered Kuromi, who has been "around the block" so to say. If you never caught episode one of the OVA series, there's a quick recap in the beginning of this episode to get you up to speed. In this part of the OVA the president of the studio delegates an assignment of three anime for the production team to work on, without hiring any extra help. Kuromi had enough troubles with her one series, 'Time Journeys', this new assignment would be a test of their mettle. However, to make matters worse, an "experienced" producer is brought on to their team and his name is Takashimadaira. The problem with Takashimadaira is that he views Kuromi is an amateur and as such, unable to "motivate" the crew to complete the shows by their deadlines. To Takashimadaira the deadline is much more important than anything like quality, so according to his plan, their quality goes by the wayside. You'll have to watch the rest to find out how the gang gets through the new ordeal and whether or not their deadlines are met.

CRITIQUE:
I'll be honest, when I first walked into this, I was a bit hesitant to watch because it just didn't look too appealing, of which I'll speak of a bit in the next section. I had rented the DVDs through NetFlix and they sat on my table for a very long time before I finally got around to watching them on two separate, lazy Sunday afternoons.

It's not an anime that will blow you away with its action or drama, but it had a good amount of humor and was quite informative. It's hard to say whether or not it was a true representation of the animation production industry, but I have a feeling that it was a close portrayal. It was interesting and fun watching the mannerisms of the different personalities on the team and gave me a little bit of a perspective on how tough and hectic the job can get.

One of the very nice features on these DVDs were the interviews with the director of the show and on the second DVD there was an extra called, 'A Day in the Life of Kuromi', which followed the seiyuu for Kuromi for one day as she tried to do the same job that Kuromi does in the anime. It was actually very interesting to watch that aspect of it, as you got to see how much of the real life paralleled the show.

AESTHETICS:
This won't be a long section this time around because honestly there's very little to be said about the video or audio within this piece. The animation is definitely very CG drawn and the models are very simple. The backgrounds are pretty nice, but there's nothing that makes this show's animation awe inspiring.

The music is a bit repetitive at points, but it doesn't detract from the story or the characters and the show keeps going without any issues.

So as I promised, short and sweet.

CONCLUSION:
Honestly, all I have to say about the show is that, while it doesn't impress on the visual front, its story and characters make up for the lack of other parts and I found it very entertaining. I would recommend it for any anime fan to at least rent this from NetFlix, if not buy it from a retailer. The DVDs are very likely quite cheap these days anyway, though a lot of sites list them as discontinued. I will post links for where you can find these, below.

And that does it for this review. As I've said before, I don't really like putting grades on these things, but from the general tone of my review, you can understand what my feelings are on the show. So until another time, ja ne.

WHERE TO PURCHASE:
Animation Runner Kuromi OVA 1
Animation Runner Kuromi OVA 2

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Review

BACK STORY:
Mobile Suit Gundam is a gigantic and fantastic (and throw in some more adjectives here) Japanese anime franchise, which has been around since the late 1970s and has persisted strongly all the way to the year of our lord, 2009... The brainchild of Yoshiyuki Tomino, this opus has been retold many times in many alternate settings and with many alternate characters, but in the end, the idea remains the same.

It is a bit of a mystery as to why they didn't just hold off the release of this series until this year, as to mark the 30th anniversary of the franchise, but with the coming of MSG Unicorn, that may be the anniversary mark in the making. Well, I could give more of a lecture on the history of the Gundam Universe, but I should probably get to the review of the anime at hand. Though I should preface by saying that I am a big fan of the Universal Century of Gundam so a lot of my biases and critiques come from that.

Gundam 00 was split up into two seasons and as much as I'd like to talk about the series as a whole, it's quite impossible, because the show really became a story of two seasons. Some would compare the first season to the likes of older Gundam sensation, Gundam Wing. While others would compare the second season to the likes of the classic Zeta Gundam, to this day my favorite Gundam series. While I don't think that 00 copies any of these shows directly, it is quite interesting to see the parallels that are created.

SUMMARY:
So what is the show, or rather the two seasons about? In the first season you are introduced to an organization seemingly created to bring peace to the world by taking the burden of conflict upon themselves. Celestial Being, as it is called, is created to intervene in all conflicts across the world, thereby instilling hatred towards themselves, to unite humanity against them. Very "Savior" like. It is comprised of four pilots, who pilot the namesakes of this show, the Gundam units. Each pilot has their own particular reason to hate wars and conflict and of course each one of these pilots also has some hidden back story that gets slowly revealed throughout the series. If you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, this sounds a lot like Gundam Wing!" you're right, it does, never mind that there were five pilots in Wing.

The second season seems to be a harsh contrast to the first as it seems to hearken back to the darker type of show that Gundam Zeta used to be. While I won't describe any major plot points, I will say, that Celestial Being is still in existence and that their goal of season one, seems achieved, though it may have turned out worse than they had even anticipated. This show parallels the plight of Celestial Being to that of the Arghama from the AEUG in Zeta Gundam and seems to invite the idea of "newtypes" back into the 00 continuity. They're not called newtypes in 00, but rather Innovators. The duly created A Laws were a blatant ripoff of, or maybe homage to, the Titans in the aforementioned Zeta Gundam. The second season in general seems to pay a lot of homages to the UC storyline and as such, created a very different atmosphere for the series.

CRITIQUE:
To a lot of people, Gundam Wing is a source of nostalgia and therefor they remember it as being a good series. While it's not a bad series per se, it is not the Gundam idea of a good series at all. For 00's season one to use so many of the same plot ideas as Wing, was a mistake in my opinion. The one thing that always bothered me about the series was the fact that these pilots had fantastic mobile suits and when faced with peons, in what looked like LEGO versions of mobile suits, they did phenomenally (and why shouldn't they), but as soon as a worthwhile opponent were to appear, they would become completely useless, whiny nincompoops. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that these pilots didn't rely on personal skill whatsoever, this whole show relied on the idea that the Gundam was to be the unstoppable unit and that's what mattered most. If you compare it to some of the older series of Gundam, even some of the newer ones, like SEED, the point of those series was that the pilots themselves gained an insight and knowledge on how to best use their mobile suits. Sure the Gundams in those series were overpowered, but at the same time, some moron off the street couldn't jump into the Hyaku Shiki and just become GOD. It required a knowledge of the controls, of tactics, and of the unit's capabilities in general.

Some may retort with the argument that 00's pilots were more realistic, because that may be how normal humans would react in such a situation. My reply to that argument is that Gundam was not meant to be realistic. There's a reason people watch shonen shows and I guarantee that it's not for the realism. I may be a bit harsh on the show, but it's only because I expect a certain caliber of performance from my Gundam.

The second season of Gundam 00 seemed to improve drastically over the first, at least in my opinion, while most fans would disagree. I must again mention that I feel Zeta Gundam is the strongest of the old Gundam series and for this show to try and emulate Zeta was a big plus for me. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty for me to dislike in the second season, but at around episode twelve or thirteen, where the group of Celestial Being is on a mission to take down the SUPER LASER Memento Mori, I felt like a child in a candy store; so full of glee. THIS is what shonen is all about! If I want realism, I can watch CNN, but when I want some escapism I need huge lasers that can destroy chunks of the Earth in a single blast. I enjoy an occasional realistic anime, but as I've stated previously, that's not what I want from my Gundam.

Lastly, about the characters in the show, I only want to mention that until mid season two, I didn't like ANY of the characters in the show, at all. In fact, there were SO many characters introduced that my head was left spinning at points. That for me was yet another value that added to the detriment of the show.

AESTHETICS:
I think I just felt like giving a fancy name to the section about video, audio, and other miscellaneous queries.

What can I say? The show is drawn beautifully and this is probably one of its strongest points. There were no moments during the telecast where I felt that I was getting ripped off by burgeoning costs resulting in sub par animation. The Gundams looked very nice, even if they did get a bit bland towards the end. And character animation was well done. So no complaints from me on that.

The audio, or more accurately the music and sound associated with the series was also well done. There were some exceptional insert songs and very little can be said in complaint of the Opening and Ending themes, though I did feel that the second season's music selection was actually stronger than the first's. In particular, the Tommy Heavenly6 track, Unlimited Sky, was fantastic.

Not much more to say about it other than what I have.

CONCLUSION:
Overall, while I'd love to say, "Go ahead and skip season one! Go straight to season two..." sadly, I cannot. The show would make absolutely no sense to someone who would just jump in during the second season. If you're a devoted Gundam fan, there's a reasonable pay off at the tail end of the series as a whole. If you're not a Gundam fan and this is your first mecha series, you may enjoy it, but keep in mind that it isn't what Gundam is truly about.

GRADE: C
Even though I don't like giving "grades" to series I watch, I felt it was important to show that it's a show that's teetering on the Average line. Take it as you may.


That's all for now, look forward to more reviews in the future!