At some point in every series, there’s a need for a chunk of exposition. Handled well, it fleshes out the story without interrupting it. Handled poorly, it’s episode 14 of R.O.D The TV.

I like the series. The characters are developing nicely, and disc 4 has some terrific action scenes, but when it came time to reveal what was really going on and how it connected to the original OAV series, they resorted to one of the clunkiest infodumps I’ve seen in years: the bad guy’s secretary spends the entire episode writing a report that summarizes everything that’s happened to date, talking over clips from previous episodes and the OAVs.

It’s a classic “As you know, Bob…”, telling characters things they already know but the audience doesn’t. The worst part is, it doesn’t work. If you haven’t seen the OAV series, it doesn’t give you enough information about the characters you’re starting to meet, and if you have, it’s mostly redundant, with the added negative of handwaving away significant changes in some OAV characters.

After this mid-series train wreck, they get things back on track by fleshing out Wendy and Junior, and finally bringing Yomiko and Nancy into the story. If they can avoid another jarring interruption, the rest of the series should work out nicely.

On a side note, fan-service in this series is primarily limited to the enthusiastic bouncing of large breasts that have never known the confinement of a bra (only one pair of which are ever seen bare), but they’re a bit less restrained in the mini pencil boards that ship with the DVDs. The Maggie pin-up is well-done, if a bit out of character, but the “candid” pin-ups of Nenene and Michelle are just awkward. Anita gets a pleasant, non-sexualized portrait, but the big surprise is the utterly gratuitous “please molest me” panty shot of Hisa-chan included with disc 4.

Yep, Anita’s shy, bookish, young schoolgirl pal is lying on her back, knees up, skirt up, school uniform rumpled, looking like she’s just auditioned for the little-sister role in a hentai game. Definitely not the way I expected that character to appear.

After I finished watching this series, I started imagining how they came up with it…

(warning: some spoilers included)

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You know, I originally started buying this series on a whim, thinking that it might be amusing, well-drawn, cheery fluff. I figured that it would be entertaining, but not good enough to justify the pre-release hype.

I was wrong.

In any sort of fiction, the people who get the most out of it are the ones who come to feel for the characters and their situations, and this requires placing a lot of trust in the creators, a faith that the story will continue to be told well. All too often, this faith is misplaced, and the ending hits them like a slap in the face. In anime, it’s usually called “the Gainax ending,” named after the company who seems to hit fans the hardest. Evangelion and Mahoromatic seem to set the standard for this sort of ending, although they came painfully close to finishing Mahoro’s story well before pulling a Zeist at the last minute (apologies to anyone who was trying to forget that Highlander 2 ever existed).

The creators of Kaleido Star never abuse the fan’s faith in the story. They make a lot of promises early on about the people, the place, and the plot, and they keep those promises, episode after episode. The result is a show that keeps getting better, building up to a climax that is both surprising and pleasing. Even if you failed to avoid the remarkable number of shameless spoilers put out by ADV, Newtype, and everyone else in the business, you’re still in for a treat. It’s so good, even a publicist can’t ruin it.

Season two? I’ll buy the entire thing, sight unseen.

Worth every penny I paid for the seven DVDs (but I am not, repeat not, buying the Noir otaku soap). There are a lot of things I could say about it, but I think it’s sufficient to say that the ending is driven entirely by the way the characters were developed during the course of the series. Nothing has to be explained in terms of “the director added it to make the plot work out” or “they needed a cool fight scene here, so X did Y”.

The plot does work out, and you definitely get the cool fight scenes, but it’s because the heroines and villains are doing what they should do, given the sort of people they are and the situations they’re in.

I finally started watching Noir, and just finished disc 5. Great stuff that carves out a new niche in the “pretty girls with guns” genre, so much so that it’s not really part of it. Sadly, in the weeks between now and the release of Kaleido Star disc 6, the last two volumes of Noir won’t be enough, so here’s what I’m ordering today from Robert’s Anime Corner Store:

• Seven of Seven, disc 3 --- I just can't escape this sweet, silly little series. The less-clean-cut manga version has now ended its English run, with an ending that I hope is different from the anime. Not that it's a bad ending, just not the one I was looking for. The person who wrote both created two very different stories, so there's room for this one to end differently. But not yet; it looks like they've split it across six DVDs. I can think of no reason not to buy them all.
• Chrono Crusade, disc 2 --- 1920s New York City, sexy teenage nun who fights demons. What's not to like?
• R.O.D The TV, disc 3 --- The first two discs have confirmed my impression that this is a worthy spinoff from the OVA. More, please.
• Gokusen, disc 1 --- Blackboard Jungle with a female yakuza boss as the teacher. Sort of.
• Burn-Up Scramble, disc 1 --- Hey, I liked the screenshots...
• Please Twins, disc 1 --- I liked Please Teacher, but I've read enough about this series to be a bit wary, particularly of how it handles characters from the first series. Still, it's worth a shot.
• Kiki's Delivery Service --- I have a Region 2 DVD of this wonderful film, but I gave my Region 1 copy to my mother, and decided to pick up another. Naturally I'll have to watch it when it arrives. :-)

Going into December, it’ll be Galaxy Angel Z, Tristia of the Deep Blue Sea, and of course more Kaleido Star and R.O.D The TV.

After watching discs 1-3, I described this as one of the best anime series currently running. Disc 4 cemented that opinion, and was so good that I didn’t want to say anything for fear of spoiling it.

On disc 5 it gets better.

Much of what happens is expected, and some of it is even predictable, but in the final scene of the fourth episode on the disc, they casually drop a bombshell that has the potential to change everything. And it makes perfect sense.

The only thing that kept me from spraying my drink across the room in surprise was the fact that I’d just finished it.

This is a fluffy, squeaky clean little series about a teenage girl named Nana and her six personality-differentiated clones, who appeared after an accident that involved her mad-scientist grandfather, his latest experiment in high-tech prisms, a microwave oven, and a cherry tree. Our Heroine has one goal in life: to pass the high-school entrance exams so she can get into the same school as the boy she has a crush on. Unfortunately, her new sisters share that crush, and that’s not all…

It’s almost painfully cute, with an opening theme to match. Disc 2 just came out, and I’m going to have to buy it.

Update: apparently the associated manga is a bit more fan-service oriented. Obviously I’m going to have to confirm that…

Update: Oh my, yes. The manga version is definitely aimed at a male audience.

Update: Just finished watching disc 2. It’s still cute. I’ll buy the next one.

Quick takes on stuff I’ve watched in the past week.

Kaleido Star, disc 4 — Damn, this show is so good that I’m afraid to say anything that might spoil it. Just don’t read the back-cover blurbs or liner notes, don’t watch the next-episode previews or the special features, and stay away from the episode list on ADV’s web site, because they love to spoil things for you. Worse, many of their spoilers are misleading or just plain wrong. I’ll be buying the rest of the series (eight more discs!). [update: ADV puts spoilers into their press releases, too! I was just looking at a list of release dates, and wham!]

R.O.D The TV, disc 2 — Things are building up nicely, and the paper is flying. Good work on developing the relationships between the characters. I’ll definitely buy the next disc.

Chrono Crusade, disc 1 — Good stuff. A sexy, heavily-armed teenage nun who fights demons in New York City during the Roaring Twenties, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake like a one-woman Dirty Pair. The most glaring flaw is some poorly-integrated 3D CGI, but they either got better at it quickly or I got used to it by the time I reached episode 4. I’ll definitely buy the next disc.

Galaxy Angel, disc 4 — Fluff. Fluffy McFluff, with a side order of Fluff. This show goes nowhere, and is proud to admit it. If you’re in the mood for old-school anime wackiness with modern production values and no pretense at continuity between episodes, Galaxy Angel is the show for you. There’s really not much difference between the four volumes, and no matter how much you learn about the characters, they don’t actually grow and change, so you can pretty much watch them in any order. I’ll buy the first disc of season two when it comes out, because I like fluff. And Mint is evil, in a good way.

Kiddy Grade, disc 6 — Eh. Not impressed.

Ikkitousen, disc 1 — I can’t describe just how much this show sucks. I’ve read the available manga volumes, as well as reviews of the fansubs, so I wasn’t expecting it to be good, but I thought it might at least be amusing, in a “she kicks high” combat-fan-service way. It’s not. It does manage to be about 70% less raunchy and 50% less poorly-plotted than the manga, but also at least 20% more sucky.

What really stood out for me is that it’s just sloppy, both in execution and translation. I expect Geneon to do a good job on their releases, but this back-cover blurb is actually representative of their care and attention to detail on this product:

Once again blood flows in the streets of Kanto. The eternal fate that has been handed down for over 1800 years is now being fought by ancient warriors who have been reincarnated into the students of the seven top schools. One such student, Hakufu Sonsaku, arrives on the scene and is rumored to be the legendary Shou Haou (The one who is said to be the one to defeat many in battle). But can this blonde airhead with the overly-endowed assets actually be the legendary Shou-Haou?

I originally figured it was just a case of putting the junior translator on box work (like the charming example in Hyper Police where the box-cover claimed a character “begins acting like a little child”, but in the actual episode he becomes a child), but no, the subtitles are just like it. And I have to say that the show doesn’t really deserve better. Anyone who thought that Agent Aika’s panty-flashing was obtrusive or that Mahoromatic was in some way misogynistic should stay far, far away from this turkey.

Actually, everyone should just stay away. This show makes Amazing Nurse Nanako look wholesome and well-written. I won’t be buying disc 2.

Next up: 7 of 7 disc 1 (fluff), 50 Years of Playmates (the Playboy box set), and something called Star Wars. I think it’s a comedy. Or maybe a tragedy, the way Lucas keeps pissing in his whiskey.

Next potential purchase: Gokusen disc 1.