Anime Review Roundup

I’m all over the place this week when it comes to my feelings about collecting home media, especially when it comes to the urge to upgrade older formats to the new. First I reviewed Norn9, which I had previously watched on DVD. It was a bargain bucket that tempted me, yet I still wound up regretting it with a show that was more than twice as tedious the second time around. Norn9 has a fascinating premise, and no small mysteries behind its enigmatic story. But it wastes it all with vapid characters and insipid writing, which takes far too long to get to the point. Click on the review to read my lament.

Just as I was indulging in a soupcon of buyer’s remorse, it came the turn of Memories to be reviewed, another double dip from DVD to Blu-ray, although it took well over a decade for the anthology of Katsuhiro Otomo stories to get an HD release. Three stories, Magnetic Rose, Stink Bomb, and Cannon Fodder got a theatrical presentation originally, and that kind of animation quality is best served by high definition. They are three, wholly different tales, by turns dramatic, comedic, and satirical, and it’s worth noting that Magnetic Rose has a screenplay from Satoshi Kon of Perfect Blue and Paprika fame. No buyer’s remorse for this collector’s edition here.

A bit of live action next, as I took a look at School in the Crosshairs from the Nobuhiko Obayashi 80s Kadokawa Years Boxset. It’s based on a novel called Nerawareta Gakuen by Taku Mayumara. If it seems familiar, it’s because it was adapted into the Psychic School Wars anime movie in 2012, but the School in the Crosshairs version dates from 1981. The anime buried its story under its crazy visuals, but the live action film doesn’t have that problem, set in a school where the quest for academic achievement clashes with student freedoms, and into the mix are thrown a couple of psychic schoolgirls.

A Lull in the Sea, Norn9 might have been a show with a strong premise that failed to deliver, but when it comes to excellent storytelling, that makes the most of a brilliant premise, you can’t get much better than A Lull in the Sea, and it’s no surprise that it comes from the pen of Mari Okada, the screenwriter behind some of the best anime being made today. Two communities live uneasily, side by side, one on land, and one in the ocean, populated by people that can breathe underwater. There’s tension between the two communities, especially given how many sea breathers move to the land and give up their amphibious nature in the process. When the school under the sea shuts for lack of students, the few remaining children have to transfer to a school on land, and they get caught in the tension, made worse as big changes are coming to their world.