Review Soul Link

In all honesty I am not sure why I decided to watch Soul Link. It is a seven year old obscure show that has never been licensed. I think I saw a trailer to the visual novel it was based on and it looked interesting. Plus I needed something to watch on a mobile device and a lot of shows are mkv files which doesn't work with my device. Anyways Soul Link is a mostly forgotten show that probably deserves its fate.

Soul Link is a story of some military cadets who go to a space station for an outer space boot camp of sorts. I won't bother going into names but amounts to three mixed gender pairs. There is also one of the girl's friend, another mysterious green haired lady and a group of obviously up to no good people. After a couple of episodes things go south when the obviously up to no good people highjack the space station.

One angle that I was thinking of taking with this review was to notice how useless most of the female characters were in this show. While I am not someone who usually takes a feminist stance in critiquing art something came to mind while watching Soul Link. Namely it is the idea of questioning a need for a dedicated feminist stance while reviewing art on the grounds that any truly bigoted work of art (be it sexism, racism or whatever) will be seriously flawed in a normal critical review as characters that are from a group that the creator discriminates against will be shallow, boring and general drags on the narrative as the creator doesn't think much of the group of people in question. If my conjecture bears out it is shown in at least somewhat in Soul Link. While there are some useful women in the show (namely two female mercenaries) most of them stand around and cry for most of the show. On top of this there is a female villain who is blandly evil and makes up for her lack of a mustache for twirling by wearing what I call the slutty clothes of evil.

Even with that said there aren't that many good points in the show. Even though it was made in 2006 the calls back to the bad cg techniques that were prevalent around the turn of the millennium. The pacing is also quite terrible as it takes a couple of episodes for anything to actually start happening. The few bright points that I found were mostly in the cast which had a few decent and somewhat interesting characters. I wouldn't say that Soul Link is truly terrible enough to be worthy of a hate based review but I can honestly say that you should not watch this anime show.

Rating The tin Gameindusti medal of participation (Hyper dimension Neptunia) for mediocre performance in science fiction.

Jeckyllcast and blog rating system

As with just about any other anime site there will eventually be reviews to be hosted there. Also reviews tend to require some sort of short hand rating system in order to allow readers a shorthand way of seeing how good a given show is. As I am of one of the degenerate generations where things like participation trophies are given out I will do the same for anime shows. However not all awards are equal and so here is my key to figuring out how good a given show is.

If I give a show a golden award this means I think highly of the show and think it is one of the best anime shows there is around. I probably won't give out more than a couple each year.

Example The revolutionary rose of gold (an award for a truly excellent shoujo anime, not going to tell if it is a reference to Rose of Versailles or Revolutionary girl Utena)

The golden von Lohengram Medal of Honor (Legend of the galactic heroes) for excellence in field of long form shows with a large scope and cast.

If I give a show a silver award it just means that I think the show is good but not exceptional. Shows with a silver rating are good enough that I recommend that you watch and are good examples of what anime in a given genre has to offer.

Example The silver Psibody (Star Driver) for being a genuinely fun and engaging mecha show.

If I give a show a bronze award I am telling you that it is just about average. It is very likely that you will not like a show and if you do, you might look at it as simple entertainment to get you through the day. These are often the shows you just watch because you like the genre conventions of a given work. I understand you probably won't watch these shows but often more in a sitting in the middle of a pile shame rather than outright avoiding it sort of way.

The bronze Hokago Tea cup (K On) for being a delightful time waster of a slice of life show.

If I give a show a tin award a simply saying the show isn't that good. While it may not be utterly terrible (see he category below) its bad points outweigh the good and I cannot in good reviewer conscience recommend it to anyone.

The tin Diclonius horn (elfin lied) for achievements in the fight against subtlety.

If I give a show a lead award it means my unholy wrath as a reviewer is upon this show. Do not expect me to say anything good in a long form review of it. In fact expect me to rip said work to shreds.

Example the leaden  angel pelt (Tenshi no shipo) for being a good deal dumber than even the usual harem comedy.

Hunter x Hunter sometimes a boys club isn't so bad

Note this article contains spoilers up to episode 25

Notice anything missing?

In some defiance of my usual anime viewing habits I have started watching Hunter x Hunter. I say this is unusual as I don't normally pick up a nearly two years old show and I almost never mini marathon twenty five episodes of a show in about two weeks. However I found the new Hunter x Hunter series to be quite interesting as thus worth this kind of treatment. I find this series to be quite interesting for several different reasons but the one I would like to talk about now is a bit about the show's view on gender.

I think the most important thing to remember about this show is that Hunter x Hunter is a shonen adventure show. This is to say that this is show aimed at the young male demographic with the intent of entertaining the prospective audience with action and in the case of this particular show thinking puzzles. I have seen several such shows (my knowledge is not exhaustive partially because of the fact that such shows are so incredibly long) and I have noticed a few things that are different about it. Noticeably the lack of a female character in the main cast, and I think that is a good thing.

The tendency with females cast in entertainment directed at males is to label as love interests for the main character. While this is all well and good for some shows, the fact of the matter is not all shows place enough focus on the idea of romantic relationships to warrant their inclusion.

Moreover, the lack of a love interest also creates an important lesson for the boys and younger men for whom this show is targeted. Having goals and working to achieve them doesn't always net you a woman for your effort and life shouldn't always center around finding a love interest. Oftentimes critics will rankle at the idea of a strong female character getting a love interest to the point where they begin to complain when they start noticing the opposite sex. Given this wouldn't one also say that it is a good policy to have high profile chaste male characters as well?

Also there is the issue of what happens after the hunter exam in episodes twenty one through twenty five. In these episodes Killua is manipulated into returning home only only to have the rest of the main cast follow him and attempt to break Killua free from the control of his family. This is very clearly a rescue arc. I can't but think that if there was a female character in the main cast of Hunter x Hunter that she would have been placed in Killua's shoes and the story would have been viewed as a derailment of her character.

In short I think Hunter x Hunter is a stronger adventure show because it dispenses with he idea of love interests and that while diversity in a cast may be preferable in many cases the exclusion of a certain type of person (in this case female) is preferable to weighing down a story with a shoehorned character.

As a side note I do know that there is a main female character added to the cast later. I will comment further after I have seen the greed island arc when she appears.

First Judgement, end of the preview

Scissors, it's totally a thing this year

For the summer season I have watched a total of twenty anime shows and have given a short synopsis of all of them.

The first thing that I can say is that my intuition proved to be mostly correct about most shows. It comes with seeing as much anime as I have. However I can't say that it was entirely accurate and there was a couple of shows that I missed in my pre-viewing assesments of shows, so I can that this experiment has been valuable for me as well as (hopefully) you. So without further ado here is my first overall judgement of the summer anime season.

Dog and Scissors, Gifu Dodo, Blood Lad and Fate Kaleid Liner Prism Illiya

These four are the shows I dropped after one episode with no intention of watching them again. Each of them were unenjoyable for their own reasons but all definetely did not make make cut so to speak.

Free! And Makai Ouji

I also dropped these two shows after one episode. However these cases I did so for an entirely different reason, namely I am a heterosexual man. I didn't find these shows particular bad and I could be peruaded to pick them up again by some evidence that they become better or by some type of group viewing. Either way I bear no ill will or negative judgement against those that do watch these shows.

Chronicles of the going home club, Servant x Service, Kinmoza and Genshiken Nidame

All four of these shows are slice of life comedies of middling quality.  While I have no intention of immediately dropping any of these shows  on simple issues of quality (in fact as of this article I have already seen the second episode of some of these shows) I am also aware that I at any time may simply lose interest simply because I don't usually watch so many comedy shows at one time. I think I will post about what shows I actually managed to finish at the end of September.

The world god only knows goddesses and Monogatari second season

both of these are extensions of media franchises that I already enjoy. In both cases they have not disapointed me with a new season and I plan to watch both of them to completion.

The eccentric family and Gatchaman crowds

These two shows are similar in that I wasn't thinking of watching them at the beginning of the month but after seeing the first episodes of both I am thinking of watching them further.

Illusion Daybreak, Fantastia Doll and Rozen Maiden

As of this article I have seen the second episode of all of these shows. I felt that seeing the second episode was important in terms of judging all of these shows on account that they were a bit vague in giving the viewer a good impression of where they were going. As for what I have found.

Illusion Daybreak feels a bit less like a magical girl show and more of a dark superhero show with an all girl cast. I am enjoying this show and where it is going so far.

Fantastia Doll is a fairly decent magical girl type show that pretends to be shoujo but really isn't. I wouldn't say this is a really good show but it has given me two episodes of fluffy entertainment so far so I will keep watching.

I wasn't expecting what the second episode of Rozen Maiden to be like it was but I am somewhat intrigued. It is possible that I may continue watching but I am currently unsure.

Silver Spoon

This show something I haven’t been looking for but I am glad I found. It is a sort of slice of life series with more weight to it than your standard four school girl show but at the same time doesn’t feel pretentious. I will keep with this show until the end.

Sunday without god

On the other hand this show does feel a bit full of itself. I am especially annoyed at the male protagonist trying too hard to mysterious. I am not sure about this show.

Stella c3

This show is really fun. It’s light hearted comedy with a decent action scene in each episode so far. It’s one of my favorites of the season so far.

Watamote

I was almost thinking of lumping this show in with the rest of the comedies. However It is different and sardonic enough that I feel like it stands out on it’s own. I will keep on watching this.

Summer preview part 6 A tale of crowds

Here it is folks we are finally in the home stretch of my summer anime preview. With the addition of this article the tally of shows that I have watched and reviewed for the summer season is twenty. I can only hope that my articles have helped some of you that are less willing to sit through all of these shows if for no other reason that they do not have an anime blog of their own and don't have to watch a bunch of shows they weren't thinking of watching simply to put up content for said blog.

Monogatari Second Season

The story opens with Tsubasa Hanekawa waking up to what she thinks will be an ordinary day. That is until she walks by a giant white talking tiger. She brushes of the meeting as best she can until another unexpected occurance happens, her house burns down. Despite the title this is the third season of the franchise (after Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari) so you probably shouldn't watch this if you aren't familar with the franchise. That said I found that almost all of the old strengths of the previous seasons were still there and this first episode gives us something new to chew on with the series protagonist, Araragi, not appearing at all and the focus being cast on the relationship between Hanekawa and Senjogahara. I look forward to the rest of this new season.

Gatchaman Crowds

The Earth is in danger from beings from outer space. To combat this menace there is a secret team of superheroes called Gatchaman. One day school girl Hajime receives a strange notebook and then soon finds out that she is the latest Gatchaman. Even though this first episode was clearly a stock introduction to a main character getting super powers I found it rather good. High points include Hajime's charmingly airhead personality which smooths over a lot of the boring but neccessary exposition scenes and the art style of the show which has a lot of interesting flourishes including Tiger and Bunny-esque super hero suits.

The eccentric Family

In the city of Kyoto there is not only humans but also tengu and tanuki. This is the story of (name) a tanuki who wishes to do more in life than to simply accept his fate. As such he mingles with some tengu and shapeshifts to look like a human. I am somewhat conflicted on how to describe this show. The general lack of plot in the first episode would have me label this show as a slice of life anime show. On the other hand, I found the character interactions to feel more complex than the simple comedy or Iyashikei that such shows tend to go for. However I can say that I am rather intrigued by the show and feel as though it is defintiely worth checking out, especially if you are looking for something different in anime.

Fate kaleid liner prism Illiya

Illiya is a normal school girl and just as you would expect she gets magic powers in the first episode. In this particular show said power source is the magical ruby stick who chose her after leaving her old master, Rin Tohsaka, for squabbling too much. From the first episode I can tell that this is more of a parody of magical girl shows using mostly Fate Stay night characters. The comedy was okay although I have the feeling that many people will be turned off by the show's fan service, especially given that a lot of it of a young lady like Illiya.

Summer overview part five Silver and Gold

In my insatiable greed for anime shows to watch an episode of before dropping I have done the unthinkable, I have gone to different streaming sites. I know I sound crazy but some shows get licensed to other, non cruncyroll people.  It’s just one of the odd things I do just to bring the best in reviewing to you the viewer. Why would I say stuff like that? Because unfounded arrogance I just part of being an anime blogger.

 Kinmoza

One summer a girl named Shinobu goes to stay In England for a while. She stayed with an English family that had a daughter named Alice who is the same age as Shinobu. Even though they had some trouble at first they eventually became friends. Eventually Shinobu has to go back to Japan and one day Alice decides to take a trip to Japan as well. Kin Iro Mosiac is a with two main hooks, Engrish and being quite adorable. It looks like they took some care to make sure the English phrases have decent grammar so the Engrish isn’t that unintentionally hilarious.

Sunday without God

One Sunday god announced to the world that he was fed up and leaving humans to their own devices and left. Since then people were incapable of dying no matter how badly they were injured, that is unless a gravekeeper put them to rest. Ai is such a gravekeeper. I found this show to be an interesting one and one that looks like It could be intellectual. The first episode is mostly used to set up the premise of the show as well as introduce us to the characters so can’t tell too much about it.

Blood Lad

Staz is a vampire who lives in the demon world and is fascinated with humans and human culture. One day a busty human girl about Staz’s age comes to the demon world. She quickly dies and returns as a ghost but Staz vows to bring her back to life. Even though this is a story about a normal girl and a vampire this is very obviously a show for boys instead of girls. The art style makes this look like a weekly shonen manga. Overall I think it’s not a terrible show but one that I probably will not continue with.

Silver spoon

Hachiken Yuugo decided to go to an agricultural university even though he studied a prestigious high school in the big city. Little does he know that this school is much harder than you would think it is. I wasn’t able to glean too much information from this first episode as most of it was dedicated to showing what an out of place city boy the main character is and him learning to like eggs even though they come from a chicken’s ass. Not much is given to the main character’s motivation although I expect that to be given an extensive flashback in a future episode. Overall I found this show to be unique enough to keep watching.