symph lizard
01-27-2005, 12:04 PM
Series: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi
Genre: Eh…. Loony anime sendup comedy fun times?
Release date: 2002
Director: Masayuki Kojima
Planning/Story: Gainax
Episodes: 13
Synopsis: Arami and Sashi live in the Abeonobashi Shopping district in Osaka. When Sashi announces that her family is going to move, the two find themselves transported to increasingly weird versions of their neighborhood, and trying to find their way home.
My Opinion: Well, it’s kind of an ideological cousin to FLCL, with some of the randomness, and some of the same coming of age themes. It has moments where it’s really really funny (I about fell off the couch when the Evangelion music started up in Ep 3) and when you find out why they can’t get home initially… well, it’s touching. I admit it. Arumi’s a great character, and makes fantastic use of the famous baka fan. A lot of people don’t like the convention of giving Osakans Southern (US) accents in dubs, but in this case, I think it works really well to give Arumi a kind of steel magnolia quality as she’s trying to deal with the general insanity and Sashi’s infuriatingly immature qualities that keep getting her (and keeping her) in trouble.
In the end, I think the show suffers from an odd schizophrenia: the first half seems to be about sending up what we’d probably call otaku-dom in America, beating up on giant robot anime and role playing games and stuff like that, while moving towards relationships and wanting to keep things comfortable. It works as a metaphor for growing up, but it’s a bit too drawn out, I think, and it stretches the metaphor beyond the script’s capability to hold it together. People complain that FLCL was too short; this shows why it was just right.
There is some gratutitous fan service, though, that I found a bit distracting at times. There are only so many boob jokes you can make before it gets old, which happens in about the fourth episode or so.
Overall, that’s a light criticism, though, and MSAA is solid fun.
If you Liked This: consider FLCL for more Gainax weirdness, Excel Saga for some more… well… weirdness.
Genre: Eh…. Loony anime sendup comedy fun times?
Release date: 2002
Director: Masayuki Kojima
Planning/Story: Gainax
Episodes: 13
Synopsis: Arami and Sashi live in the Abeonobashi Shopping district in Osaka. When Sashi announces that her family is going to move, the two find themselves transported to increasingly weird versions of their neighborhood, and trying to find their way home.
My Opinion: Well, it’s kind of an ideological cousin to FLCL, with some of the randomness, and some of the same coming of age themes. It has moments where it’s really really funny (I about fell off the couch when the Evangelion music started up in Ep 3) and when you find out why they can’t get home initially… well, it’s touching. I admit it. Arumi’s a great character, and makes fantastic use of the famous baka fan. A lot of people don’t like the convention of giving Osakans Southern (US) accents in dubs, but in this case, I think it works really well to give Arumi a kind of steel magnolia quality as she’s trying to deal with the general insanity and Sashi’s infuriatingly immature qualities that keep getting her (and keeping her) in trouble.
In the end, I think the show suffers from an odd schizophrenia: the first half seems to be about sending up what we’d probably call otaku-dom in America, beating up on giant robot anime and role playing games and stuff like that, while moving towards relationships and wanting to keep things comfortable. It works as a metaphor for growing up, but it’s a bit too drawn out, I think, and it stretches the metaphor beyond the script’s capability to hold it together. People complain that FLCL was too short; this shows why it was just right.
There is some gratutitous fan service, though, that I found a bit distracting at times. There are only so many boob jokes you can make before it gets old, which happens in about the fourth episode or so.
Overall, that’s a light criticism, though, and MSAA is solid fun.
If you Liked This: consider FLCL for more Gainax weirdness, Excel Saga for some more… well… weirdness.