Shelf Life

Squash Knives

So what's the shtick? Well, let's go back and explore the setting first. The series takes place in a charming all-girls high school, where everyone is perpetually happy, and no one ever has to do homework. They all live in big cushy dorms where they never have to make their beds, or ever do laundry. Only the main character… is a dude. He's going to the school to fulfill his dead mother's wish that he go there. Only a couple girls know he's got boy bits, including a childhood friend who's secretly crushing on him. To everyone else, he's a sweet, gorgeous girl named Mizuho who's graceful and perfect in every way.

At the beginning of the show, the whole bit about him being a man seemed to be going somewhere. There was some reason as to why he was at the school, but eventually, I think they either stopped caring, or they realized that story angle was getting nowhere. So instead, he just ends up playing the cool awesome role model girl that all the other girls have a crush on. S/he helps them to negotiate being able to wear giant ribbons in their hair, s/he helps them run faster in track, and in the end, s/he has to kiss another girl in a rendition of Romeo & Juliet.

See, it's charming because she's the perfect supporting boyfriend! Only everyone thinks he's a girl, so they actually just have a really good friend. That whole twist is essential because… because, uh… um… Actually, I don't think it's important at all. Apparently in the first iterations of the H-game that the anime is based on, you (the man) had the option of sexing up a variety of women. I'm not entirely sure if you're a dude while you're having sex with them, or if you're still dressed like a girl, with long hair. Either way, there's a whole range of psychological issues that I'm sure accompany a game like that, but eventually they got rid of the sex.

As a result, you have an anime that's basically about a bunch of girls who go through high school together. They help each other get through the mundane activities of day-to-day life, and in exchange, they get to giggle together in their plush dorms. As a viewer, you don't really get anything deep out of it, but it's still fun to watch. The characters are charming and rather impossible to hate, so if you're just looking for some girly (…?) activities to kill some time, this might be a fun little shindig to check out. If you really want to analyze the hidden meanings of the show, go for it.[TOP]

Pumpkin Scissors takes its odd name from the military division that the characters are in. Apparently all the cool names were taken, so they got stuck playing the ol' "Name a vegetable, then a household object" game. Anyway, the division's main role is to provide war relief after a long and trying war. The Pumpkin Scissors play the good guys by helping out wherever some brute strength is needed, such as bringing an evil noble to justice, or helping out some town rebuild their busted railroad. The leader of the group is an unlikely soldier named Alice. Born a noble, she thinks her family should use their status to help others (her family thinks otherwise). One of the other primary character is this big lumbering ex-soldier, who unleashes his inner fight demon everytime he flicks on a blue lantern he carries by his side. There's also some lovable playboy character, and the quiet, studious one.

For the most part, the first several episodes in this box follow a mission-of-the-week pattern. This ranges from the perturbing, like preventing a guy from playing death games with his servants, to humorous/ridiculous, like watching a nurse chasing around a guy for a urine sample. I vastly prefer the serious episodes to the goofier ones. Not just because the serious ones seem to line up more with the sinister undertones of the show, but because the "funny" ones tend to really stink. As much of a gas as it is to watch people crack dick jokes and collect urine, it really detracts from the show, and it makes it obvious that the production staff was scrambling for quick filler.

The biggest downside is that the series, up until this point anyway, can't really make up its mind about what kind of show it wants to be. One moment, it'll tackle topics like class privilege, and whether people should use their resources to help others. Another moment, it'll descend into some bawdy goof fest, meant to invoke chuckles, but failing miserably. It's fine to want to be funny, but to expect viewers to then take it seriously is a bit of grandiose wish.

On the upside, the show looks really good. The artwork is clean and sharp, and makes really good use of a creative palette. There are some scenes in which the background is reduced to stark splashes of color, and it's pleasing on the eyes. So, at the very least, when you're getting bored of their unfunny antics, you can plug your ears and pretend you're watching a nice music video starring some up-and-coming hip hop sensation.

It's hard to recommend a show based on the qualification, "Well, some of the episodes are good!" but that's the best I can do. Rent it if the fancy strikes you, but it's not terribly high on my list of must-haves.[TOP]

So that we can all hold hands and get through this together, I'll try to give as pithy of a recap as I can. Apparently, there are dead people everywhere. Everywhere. One of these ghosts is a border guard, who manifests as some blobby demon thing with stripes. Luckily, it saves most of its trouble for the good guys, a collection of folk who can use their spiritual powers to fight these kinds of things. Fire balls, wind ropes, the whole thing. Our main character is a scrappy kid who can recite spells and banish the evil from things. Bad things happen, spirits get summoned, and people get possessed.

Of all of Geneon's resurrected titles, I'd wager that this was one of the least recognized ones. It was never that popular when it first came out, and it's not really that popular now. It's entertaining enough to watch, but it's easy to see why it's not that popular. Frankly, it's very bland. It's the same type of priest-type-people-prevent-bad-guys-from-opening-the-gate-to-the-underworld show that's existed since the beginning of anime. There are way too many characters, and they all just show up and fight. They're not really explained, and it just becomes Too Much.

If I woke up one day, and the disc happened to be in my DVD player, I'd watch it. I'd even be entertained. However, I don't think I'd ever put gas in my tank, just so I could drive to the store and buy this. It's an interesting show, but ultimately, I don't really care what happens. It's visually stunning, which is part of what drew me to the show to begin with, but at the end of the day, I just never really care if I get the next disc or not.[TOP]