Weekly Anime Review!

In many respects Prisma Illya is to the Fate/ franchise what Pretty Sammy and Magical Project S are to the Tenchi Muyo franchise: a reimagining of the original series centered on a young supporting character who becomes a magical girl. As with Pretty Sammy, many characters from the earlier series (primarily Fate/stay night, although Irisviel from Fate/Zero also makes an appearance) appear here but often in substantially different roles, with a roster of new characters mixed in for good measure. That, however, should not be a barrier to total newcomers, as those guest appearances are more bones thrown to fans of the earlier series than anything intrinsically critical to understanding this one.

In fact, structurally speaking this is a very straightforward and even somewhat formulaic magical girl title. In it a late elementary school girl encounters a sentient magical item which can turn her into a magical girl. In that role she must collect certain McGuffins in order to prevent calamity. She soon encounters another magical girl working towards that same task with whom she initially has a prickly relationship with but eventually befriends. Naturally the heroine is somewhat incompetent at first but has a lot of potential power, and naturally there is a crisis of confidence for the heroine which almost takes her out of the picture before someone talks her back into it, leading to a climatic team-up and confrontation. Everything comes up hunky-dory in the end, at least until the inevitable second season/iteration comes around – and yes, this one is already confirmed to have a second season in the works, per an announcement in the final episode.

This being in the Fate/ franchise means that there is a bit more going on here, primarily in a Rin/Luvia rivalry which has shades of Ryoko/Ayeka from the Tenchi franchise. The way that they serve as mentors and supporting combatants for the two magical girls is a nice addition, though, as is the way Illya's friends function as a likable support group. However, neither factor amounts to much extra depth or complexity. The series also takes a decidedly comical approach for much of its run, though it does, predictably, eventually turn mostly serious.

When it does turn serious is when the sparks really fly, though. A certain battle which happens about mid-series, where Illya is forced by desperate circumstances to pull off a heretofore-unimagined trick, completely blows the top off of what had been until that point some decently interesting and moderately dynamic action sequences, turning the series into a jaw-dropping spectacle of intensity and heavy-duty action. (This is one of the few points in the series where being familiar with the earlier installments in the franchise is specifically valuable.) From that point on the action scenes exude wispy blue tendrils of a cool factor which transcends the series' cutesiness and more serious and dramatic undertones become more prevalent, though not exclusively so. Another nice touch is the revelation that, while the serious-minded Miyu is generally more competent at most things concerning their task, Illya does outshine her in one respect: that her greater acceptance of the whimsy inherent in magical girls makes it easier for her to perform certain magical girl-related tasks. In other words, being a fan of magical girl series actually makes her a better magical girl.

That clever twist is not the only way that the series panders to hard-core otaku audiences, who ultimately seem to be more the intended audience than young girls. Although the series is usually more subtle about it than most, it does have some fan service in the way the camera occasionally lingers on the chests of various female characters, some inevitable breast size jokes, a couple of scenes which imply lustful behavior on Illya's part, and one steamed-up appearance by Irisviel in a bathtub. It also shows some slight lolicon leanings in a couple of shots of Illyasviel in different episodes and a more overt dose of it in the ending artwork of episode 10. Again, this content is never so heavy that it cannot easily be ignored by viewers, but it is present.

Production on the series comes courtesy of the very busy SILVER LINK and the same directorial duo which produced Dusk maiden of Amnesia, although the visual style is utterly different here. The base artistic level is flatter, less vivid, and less refined than either Dusk maiden or the concurrently-running WATAMOTE and more resembles the studio's 2009 effort Tayutama – Kiss on My Deity. Character designs are fairly typical for the genre and animation and visual tricks are nothing exciting – normally, anyway. When the series forays into its action scenes, though, one can clearly see where all the time, effort, and budget went. These scenes are invariably sharper, flashier, and more crisply-animated, including effective use of CG, plenty of magical circles, energy bursts, and explosions, and even some riveting physical action. Graphic content is almost non-existent, but the intensity does kick up quite high at points. And mercifully, we are spared frequent recurrences of the magical girl transformation scenes.

The musical score by Tatsuya Kato, who has done effective work in titles like The Qwaser of Stigmata, Future Diary, and Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, is competent in the lighter moments and hits the right sounds to enhance the intensity of the action scenes, including occasionally inserting some rock numbers. The result is somewhat eclectic but it generally works. The opener and closer are both fitting for a magical girl series but quickly forgettable. The Japanese vocal cast returns all seiyuu whose characters appear in previous franchise titles and fills some new roles with seiyuu who voice other roles elsewhere in the franchise. (For instance, the voices of Sapphire and Ruby appeared in Carnival Phantasm.) The cleverest bit of casting here is a minor stunt that will probably fly beneath the radar of even many ardent franchise fans, as it involves an association between a character from Fate/Zero and the name that character goes by at the time of Fate/stay night, a connection never made explicit in animated content.

Ultimately these ten episodes do enough to hold the attention of fans of the franchise while also proving approachable enough to serve as a non-intimidating gateway into the larger franchise. They also provide a potential lead-in for the upcoming second season and a definite sense that we have not seen anywhere near the whole story yet, as mysteries about the nature of Illya's powers yet linger at the end. The series may sacrifice cuteness too much in favor of intensity to satisfy fans of more classical magical girl formats, as this one is definitely not about the power of love winning through all, but those who prefer more bite and vigor in their magical girl content should appreciate this one just fine.

Normally I try to avoid spoilers with these reviews, but screw it, it’s Pokemon. Pokemon The Origin is a bomb of nostalgia. If you haven’t played Pokemon Red, Blue or Green, then you will not enjoy this one slight bit. This really is made as pure undiluted fan-service for the fans of the first games. Pokemon was the first anime that I watched on TV that made me aware of the existence of anime. Pokemon Yellow was the game that had me hooked, more than any other game when I was younger. So yeah, I am a fan, Pokemon holds an irreplaceable part in my childhood. And biased. Very biased.

Here’s the interesting bit about this OVA: it’s got so many things that the television-series did really badly. And yet at the same time, it’s got some huge flaws that the TV-series was better at.

Let me start with the positives: finally, after more than a decade of Pokemon, we've got it: a Pokemon anime without Ash. Team Rocket is present, but Jesse, James and Meowth are completely gone. in fact, the only regular characters who do return are Giovanni, Professor Oak, and Brock and Misty as Gym Leaders. This is what I've been waiting for: the Pokemon universe is open to so many different stories and interpretations, so it sucks that it always has to be the same thing. I gave up on it years ago for a reason.

Next up: the length. At four episodes of just 20 minutes, finally Pokemon has come in bite-size chunks. The TV-series was absolutely notorious for wasting time, for running for way too long and including so many pointless stories that diluted the experience. In these four episodes the creators picked the best parts of the game and brought that to animation.

All of the characters, in terms of acting at least improved from what we've seen of them: Giovanni actually has a personality, Brock stopped being the womanizer and now is just a gym leader, and all of the Pokemon stopped trying to look and sound cute. They behave much more like animals. Heck, there was one brief appearance of Pikachu, and somehow the creators managed to give it mouse noises. That is one thing that I did not expect them to get past the marketing machine.

Now, the bad stuff: you obviously can’t stuff one entire game in four episodes. The solution of the creators is to have Red recap the things that happened off-screen. Great for fans of the game, but anyone not familiar will just scratch their head, wondering what the hell is going on. The only single reason I tolerate this is because it’s Pokemon: any other show attempting this would have not worked at all. Adaptations need to stand alone, not give the message of “you need to check out the game/manga/whatever if you want the complete story”.

What also stood out was that this OVA became quite a good example of the difference in adaptations between today and fifteen years ago: adaptations today follow much closer to their original source material. On one hand this creates less obnoxious filler, but on the other hand this also limits the creators when they take over something stupid, or something that doesn't work. This stands out especially in game adaptations.

There’s something bizarre in the entire game meta being visible in these OVAs, like Pokemon have life bars now, they talk about level. People hand out floppy discs with moves on them. Oh, and the battles themselves also become really weird because of this where the main focus is adhering to the game rules, rather than common sense. Take the fight against Brock for example: oh yeah, it may follow the game’s rules and all, but what we saw there was the equivalent of a big tank being drop-kicked by a hamster. Pikachu’s victory against the Onyx actually made sense. You can give the original series a lot of flack, but at least they looked at the different powers and used their heads, whereas in The Origins you have a Charizard whose tail keeps burning even when he’s underwater.

The characters also really suffered, and the creators I think made the explicit decision not to flesh them out or give them much depth. They get all their depth from the nostalgia with the games. This worked particularly strange with Giovanni, who behaves really weird throughout the parts he’s featured in. Heck, he loses to a kid and just abolishes his entire organization, even though losing to a kid just a day earlier did nothing to him. But yeah, this entire OVA fails to make any ounce of sense. The original series has more logic in it than what we saw here.

But here’s the thing: When I first learned of this OVA, I imagined that it would be this big budgeted OVA, or at least something really solid. This was everything but solid, and the animation budget in particular wasn't that impressive. This leads me to believe that this was a simple experiment: a test to see whether it’s worth it to also cater to the older fans of Pokemon. A pilot, if you will. And that idea, I really support.

Pokemon deserves to have some stories in it that target a different demographic than the usual kids. There are plenty of adult players who would like to see a more mature story line animated, I would definitely see a market for that. For future experiments, I would really suggest: try something standalone. Don’t depend on the games. Make sense. Take yourself seriously. Have a main character who isn't a kid. I know that the last point is really stretching it, but hey you made Pikachu talk like a mouse, so apparently you do have freedom.