Yuri to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito

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Bokurano – actually, I’m rather enjoying it

Posted on | June 17, 2007 | 10 Comments |

If there was one series that you might be expecting me, as a shallow anime viewer obsessed with moe and yuri, not to be watching this last season, it would probably be Bokurano. There are a few reasons for this -

  1. It involves GIANT ROBOTS
  2. It involves GIANT ROBOTS fighting GIANT ALIENS
  3. It has annoying emokids
  4. It was what Triad stopped subbing Nanoha StrikerS in favour of.

However, since StrikerS has yet to get anywhere near interesting (more of that in the next post), I decided to give Bokurano a shot.

The first episode, I thought, was fairly unremarkable. Although it did set a background for the whole series, it was fairly dull and didn’t particularly make me want to watch episode 2 (which I think should be the purpose of episode 1s). The characters felt like they had a lot to give, but since they all looked pretty similar and didn’t have the identifying hair colours that I am used to, they really didn’t make an impact on me. Also it involved GIANT ROBOT BATTLE which most people will know I am not overly fond of.

However, having now caught up to Triad’s subs, I am quite gripped by the series. The characters are slowly becoming distinct from each other (I am probably starting to be able to distinguish them by the different shades of brown hair ^_^;;) and each of them does seem to have a distinctly interesting personality and not less than their own fair share of teenage woes.

Ushiro (or Butt-Boy, as I like to call him) is your typical emo kid who blames his sister for his mother’s death. Chizu is one of the victims of the charms of a middle school teacher (and who wouldn’t fall for those dashing middle school teachers? Eh?), Kako (insane emo) is an insane emo boy who listens to far too much ‘My Chemical Romance’, Kirie is your typical overweight shy hikikomori type and Kodama has probably got buggered by his daddy since he was three.

Despite their multiple character flaws, the kids in Bokurano really give off the air of “typical teenager”. Though for the most part they seem to avoid the stereotype personalities (apart from Kirie, perhaps, unless he is surprisingly cool at something else) there are characters in which most viewers will probably empathise with (I probably empathise most with Kirie, though with less of a weight problem and more eccentric).

The point of the show in my opinion is that there is a ludicrous situation which you would only find in anime (i.e. being in control of a giant robot in which only these kids can save the Earth), but if you ignore that, this anime is pretty much about what these kids do when faced with a situation in which there lies only one option – death and glory.

Thinking about it, I’m not entirely sure many people would know what they would do when faced with a situation in which you must die for the greater good, though for the most part you would be unsung and compounded by the fact that you are a hormonal teenager with your own set of emo duties to attend to. I for one even kinda understood Kaku’s attempted assault of Chizu in episode 6 as when faced with a finality to things, real priorities come to light and Kaku’s number one was not to die a virgin.

Did I mention he was insane?

Although I have read that the manga tells it better, as far as I have seen, GONZO (the raper of all manga adaptations) have done an appreciable job in bringing this thought provoking storyline to the animation storyboard. (Although this is before I go and get blown away by the manga ^_^;;)

So where are we now? I am extremely interested about what’s going to happen to make it less linear. We’ve already had one unscheduled character death and so we are down one pilot (Not counting Kana, who seems to be tagging along now), so at the moment they have enough pilots to take down all but 2 of the monsters. So therefore, how are they going to save the Earth? I’m sure something interesting will happen to make it work out.

In conclusion, Bokurano deals with death in a rather strange fashion with giant robots and aliens, but the story is still worth a look. It’s not as depressing as…say Saikano (which is a good thing – Saikano actually made me depressed) but it’s still fairly hard hitting, which is difficult to say of most anime these days.

Category: Anime, Comment

Comments

10 Responses to “Bokurano – actually, I’m rather enjoying it”

  1. Adam
    June 17th, 2007 @ 10:26 pm

    Seriously, do go and get blown away by the manga. If you thought Kako lost it badly and Chizu got a raw deal before…

    If Gonzo decide to add a reset ending, though, we must all hunt them down (as soon as they finish animating Romeo x Juliet, that is).

  2. reslez
    June 18th, 2007 @ 1:10 am

    It’s definitely an interesting series and I’ll continue to follow the episodes as they are subbed. Still, there is only so much “fucked-up childhood” you can show before you’re required to bring it somewhere. What is the point of Bokurano? That the fucked up world creates fucked up children who may just be *too* fucked up to save it? Please tell me there’s a point to all this. Otherwise you’re just milking a made-up fantasy of emotionally scarred children for your and your audience’s pleasure. It’s not pretty. Sorry for the swearing. ^_^ I’m just wondering where this is all going — maybe the manga readers can help me out.

  3. ik
    June 18th, 2007 @ 4:52 am

    bokurano is great.

    imo, the adaptation isn’t perfect, but nowhere near the fuckups GONZO usually do. The death of Kaku (oops spoiler) was more shocking in the manga, but more realistic in the anime.

    the “kids fighting evil robots” is a clichèd theme, but this is Kitoh we are talking about. Of course he is going to give it a fucked up spin (read: NaruTaru).

    not all the kids are fucked up. some of the more touching stories are about the more normal people, like Mako (short haired girl) and Daiichi (guy who looks like he’s 30).

  4. T_I
    June 18th, 2007 @ 10:56 am

    let’s just say I was never pleased over the way the anime is handled and the recent announcement on the following website is making me upset

    http://zepy.momotato.com/2007/06/13/bokurano-director-hates-the-original-work/

    …

    oh, let’s just be realistic, it’s freaking Gonzo. No hope

  5. Zzz...
    June 19th, 2007 @ 2:15 am

    “bokurano director hates the original work”

    AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…!!! That’s so rich. It’s a pity though. No hope indeed.

    And even if the show seem decent remember it’s the ENDINGS (or at least the 2nd half) that GONZO tends to screw up.

  6. littlered
    June 19th, 2007 @ 2:53 am

    hey this is the same dude who did the art for ack whats it called…narutaru. another messed up ZOMG WHAT JUST HAPPENED SERIES. that leaves you QQing to the cows come home..

  7. Haruchin
    June 19th, 2007 @ 9:00 am

    Since the news broke about the director’s less-than-appreciative attitude to the original material I got curious and decided to check out both anime and manga.

    As a result I had *actual* nightmares. Good grief. I’ve not been this affected by an anime… well… ever. Not sad, just disturbed. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to take watching them all die one by one, although it won’t stop me trying. If I have to go into therapy afterwards though, I doubt my other half will be terribly understanding. Thus far (three chapters in) there’s no appreciable difference between anime and manga. I’m looking forward to playing spot the difference later.

    In love with the OP as well. Best I’ve heard for a while.

  8. Jackson
    June 20th, 2007 @ 1:24 am

    A good anime, but I dont like depressing animes that much. Too gloomy for the happy go lucky Action Jackson.

  9. Haruchin
    June 20th, 2007 @ 10:11 am

    Ok, some concerted anime watching and manga reading later…

    The manga has indeed blown me away. I don’t think I’ve cried so much reading manga since getting through Fruits Basket vol 16. I understand why the anime has made the chances it has done – putting the more disturbing character deaths early to catch our attention – but I’m not too sure about the chances made to individual character stories. For example, I think Chizu’s story was made less meaningful in that her motivation was reduced hugely (arrgh! Can’t remember if there are spoiler tags and what they are! I’ll settle for being vague). In the same way, Mako’s story lost some of its edge in that we didn’t get the full rendition of her journey up to her death – the slicing open of the love hotel in the manga was just priceless. This story cutting may be due to time constraints, and I understand if that’s the case, but if we get any sniff of a filler episode, I will not be happy.

    As for the central concept – now that I’m as far through as I can be, it feels a lot better. No nightmares last night. Rather than being disturbed by the childrens’ mental scars, we’re actually getting a glimpse into how anyone would act knowing that they’re going to die, and all the different way that one might be affected, good and bad. And there are some very good ones, especially with the more mentally balanced characters. Nice mystery elements later on as well, so it’s not like it’s all just watching children die one by one. I find it kind of interesting that none of our heroes thus far have sought religious solace – I would have thought that would be an obvious trope to go for – but their responses feel emotionally real and the story carries you along. Not sure why the director would hate the manga, but he seems to be doing a fairly decent job thus far (with obvious and allowable cuts for violence, nudity, sexual content etc.). I’ll definitely keep on watching to the end. Fingers crossed that he keeps the quality all the way through!

  10. rocket
    June 22nd, 2007 @ 1:43 am

    Bokurano is definitely one of the hidden gems that makes this season shine(Denno Coil being the other). Of course I am a sucker for emo-kids and giant robots so when you combine that with non-suckyness I’m just a push over. But I am sooooo disappointed the review did not mention the AWESOME opening music. YuriBOOOO!

    Not sure if I can attribute the good parts of this show to the directors intrinsic skill and professionalism, or to the source material’s quality, but I sure am curious to hear more about the conflict there. If the manga is even better I’ll definitely have to track it down. Watching this has already made me order the Shadow Star : Narutaru manga off Amazon. *Looks at wallet and sighs*

    P.S. I told you StrikerS jumped the shark!

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