Random Anime Review Monday #10: Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo
My project: watch and write about the first episode of a series with as little prior knowledge as possible.
I'd know what this series is about from the title if I knew a lick of Japanese, but I don't, so I didn't. Heh. Ahem.
Review 10: Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (Yakushiji Ryoko's Supernatural Case File)
Fansubber: AnimeONE & AnimeYuki
The first scene: Girl on a hill in a white dress shoots herself in the head. [see the review windup below.] Whoa, okay then.
The protagonist, Izumida, is an ancient-by-anime-standards pencil-pusher in the police department, who has been having nightmares (above). He kicks off the series by being summoned to his boss's office for a good solid crabbing. The boss is the title character, Ryoko, a sexpot with an attitude problem.
OMG, I think this series was not written for fourteen-year-olds! Eeeee!
/irony
It also seems to love France, for some reason. French titles flash up before all of the Japanese titles in the intro, there's a strain of Stereoypical Bistro Music wafting around early in the episode, and the opening and ending songs are both titled in French. Hm. (I'll hazard a random-ass guess and say that Ryoko may be half-French. Anime/manga does love to explain away hair color by assuming that everyone outside Japan is blond and having ancestry of exactly half Japanese and half something else makes you into some strange moon creature with magical powers that is also blond. I guess you get that in a genetically homogeneous population.)
During a probably-not-an-approved-use-of-public-funds shopping trip, a random man flops onto the duo's taxi, instantly grows old and then explodes. Do I foresee supernatural detectives?... Apparently so. The pair investimagates, in a manner more like a buddy cop movie than, well, an anime. Ryoko flirts her face off in public to embarrass Izumida, and rather than flailing around and nosebleeding and knocking things over and falling on boobies, he just looks embarrassed. And so on.
Cultists get involved, as does a rival pair mirroring the main characters, and by the end of the first episode there is a fight scene in evening wear. So you know what you're getting into here.
First impression: Hey, noir! That's new!
Would I watch more? I'd give it another shot. I'd give another try to just about any story about grownups at this point.
Has this damaged my faith in humanity? I do wonder what's wrong with it that has caused it to not get licensed, in an age in which seemingly everything gets licensed. (It looks relatively recent, at least 2003+. [Edit after checking: 2008. OK, that was my really conservative estimate, because I didn't want to overshoot and look foolish. Heh.])
"Count the green cars" moment: I keep noticing "girl in white dress on hill, hat optional" shots, and I wonder whether that's just confirmation bias. (Most notably in Kare Kano, where it serves as a bizarre metaphor for sexin'.) A couple of them turned up, and now I notice it every time it passes by. Odd.
I'd know what this series is about from the title if I knew a lick of Japanese, but I don't, so I didn't. Heh. Ahem.
Review 10: Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (Yakushiji Ryoko's Supernatural Case File)
Fansubber: AnimeONE & AnimeYuki
The first scene: Girl on a hill in a white dress shoots herself in the head. [see the review windup below.] Whoa, okay then.
The protagonist, Izumida, is an ancient-by-anime-standards pencil-pusher in the police department, who has been having nightmares (above). He kicks off the series by being summoned to his boss's office for a good solid crabbing. The boss is the title character, Ryoko, a sexpot with an attitude problem.
OMG, I think this series was not written for fourteen-year-olds! Eeeee!
/irony
It also seems to love France, for some reason. French titles flash up before all of the Japanese titles in the intro, there's a strain of Stereoypical Bistro Music wafting around early in the episode, and the opening and ending songs are both titled in French. Hm. (I'll hazard a random-ass guess and say that Ryoko may be half-French. Anime/manga does love to explain away hair color by assuming that everyone outside Japan is blond and having ancestry of exactly half Japanese and half something else makes you into some strange moon creature with magical powers that is also blond. I guess you get that in a genetically homogeneous population.)
During a probably-not-an-approved-use-of-public-funds shopping trip, a random man flops onto the duo's taxi, instantly grows old and then explodes. Do I foresee supernatural detectives?... Apparently so. The pair investimagates, in a manner more like a buddy cop movie than, well, an anime. Ryoko flirts her face off in public to embarrass Izumida, and rather than flailing around and nosebleeding and knocking things over and falling on boobies, he just looks embarrassed. And so on.
Cultists get involved, as does a rival pair mirroring the main characters, and by the end of the first episode there is a fight scene in evening wear. So you know what you're getting into here.
First impression: Hey, noir! That's new!
Would I watch more? I'd give it another shot. I'd give another try to just about any story about grownups at this point.
Has this damaged my faith in humanity? I do wonder what's wrong with it that has caused it to not get licensed, in an age in which seemingly everything gets licensed. (It looks relatively recent, at least 2003+. [Edit after checking: 2008. OK, that was my really conservative estimate, because I didn't want to overshoot and look foolish. Heh.])
"Count the green cars" moment: I keep noticing "girl in white dress on hill, hat optional" shots, and I wonder whether that's just confirmation bias. (Most notably in Kare Kano, where it serves as a bizarre metaphor for sexin'.) A couple of them turned up, and now I notice it every time it passes by. Odd.