I should point out that these are gonna be first impression reviews; tempting as it is to spend the entire summer sprawled on the sofa eating junk food, drinking beer and giggling at animated boobs and violence, it's probably not all that practical. So the following is garnered from the first episode or two, and is only a small portion of what's currently available.
Astonishing X-Men
Okay, so the first anime review isn't actually an anime, it's an animated comic from Marvel Knights. So sue me. The hybrid comic/animation thing takes a little getting used to at first, but once you do you'll be in for a treat. The three seasons cover most of Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-men; Gifted, Dangerous and Torn, with only Unstoppable being absent currently.
Look, I was a total fanboy for these comics back when they came out and these animations are pretty much a direct adaptation. If you like Whedon's writing (of course you do), and you like the X-Men (duh), go read the comics. And then watch these. Even if you have some sort of savage personality disorder and only like one or the other of Whedon or the X-Men, you'll still like it. If you don't like either, get the **** off my page. We don't like your sort around here.
Oh, and seeing Wolverine psychically regressed to his childhood state is a total nerdout for anyone who's ever read Origin.
Sound of the Sky
Sound of the Sky wasn't exactly what I was expecting; despite the World War styling, this is the most peaceful anime that I've seen in a while. It follows the (mis)adventures of Kanata Sorami, a young girl who enlists in the army as a bugler in order to learn music, and aside from the setting it seems fairly standard anime stuff; she's clumsy but enthusiastic, and text-book cute. The only other character in the first episode to get much screen-time is equally as cut-out, a stern young woman who I'm sure, if you cut her open, would have 'mentor' written through her like a stick of rock. It's cut and paste stuff, you've seen it all before.
That said, there's definitely something here, something a bit slice-of-life. Like I said, it's peaceful; a quaint coastal town that's either Spanish or Fake-Magical-World Spanish (the later, I think), with adorable festivals and gulls overhead and sunshine and everything else. And the music is spectacular; heavy on the bugle and trumpet, but with flamenco and resonator guitars that made me want to doze off in a deckchair in the sun.
I'll be giving this one a few more episodes I reckon; given that I already don't want the wonderful peace and quiet shattered by the horrors of war it should have the potential to be genuinely moving. But even if I don't get into the show, I suspect I'll be grabbing the soundtrack at some point.
Dance in the Vampire Bund
First up, a confession; I'm a sucker for vampires (no pun intended). I grew up on Anne Rice and Vampire: the Masquerade, and while Twilight managed to kill most of my interest in the genre I still keep an eye out for decent examples.
Not sure this is going to be a particularly decent example, though. The first episode was shot interestingly enough to make me check out the second, but there it started to fall apart. Fairly typical teen drama, fairly typical supernatural fight scenes, and completely bloody creepy lolicon stuff. Mina is an ancient and powerful vampire stuck in the body of a pre-teen kid, but this isn't enough to stop the writers having her oiled up half way through episode two.
Don't get me wrong, I like my vampire stories creepy. But not this particular flavour of creepy, as a rule. This sort of topic can be handled well; Lolicon takes its name from Nabokov's Lolita, for a good example of how to handle said topic. Anne Rice nailed it pretty well with Claudia too. But here it feels like any other kind of fanservice, which is just a bit squick.
And what the hell is a Bund anyway?
Emma: A Victorian Romance
Ah, Victorian England. Who doesn't like to pretend it wasn't all Imperialistic racism and floods of poo running down the streets of London? There's a reason Steampunk is so popular, and that's because if you take away a lot of the real-life bull you're left with a rather delightful setting of fabulous clothes and real, actual manners. Remember those?
I'm always a fan of the Victorian setting, and it's actually quite nice to see it without vampires or giant steampunk mecha for a change. The animation is slick with a faint Ghibli vibe, and the soundtrack evokes the setting nicely. It is a little tricky to give a decent review for though, as you can't get a real feel for a romance series on one episode.
Currently it doesn't quite live up to its tagline as a story about crossing class boundaries, as the cast seems to be made up of the only three members of Victorian society with no sense of propriety whatsoever. Presumably that comes later; if it handles it in a realistic and meaningful way this might actually become a favourite of mine. If it takes the clichéd crap route, I'll be skipping it.
Birdy the Mighty Decode
Everything about this screams retro-anime, so I wasn't surprised to find out the original manga ran back in the mid-80s. But the old-school concept is packaged in a thoroughly modern way, with an art style that put me in mind of a lot of Satoshi Kon's stuff. As someone who started off on old 80s anime, it's always pretty cool to see what it looks like with modern production values.
The story follows Birdy, an intergalactic cop who gets stuck sharing a body with a teenage boy whilst on earth. Just about all the old-school wacky conventions are here; cute robot sidekick, faintly demonic aliens, constant boobs.
Actually, constant boobs is a little unfair. One look at Birdy's crime fighting outfit (seriously, she fights crime in a suit Katie Price would find tasteless) and you'd be forgiven for thinking this one would be all about the fanservice. But while there is a fair amount of it, it's a hell of a lot less than you'd expect and doesn't really detract too much.
All told, this one is fairly middle of the road. I didn't find much wrong with it, but nothing much was particularly great either once the old-school/new-school shtick wore off. I'll probably give it another episode or two, see if something picks up.
Conclusion
So, halfway through the current selection and it's a fair mix of stuff. Nothing has completely leapt out at me yet (aside from X-Men, but that's sort of cheating), but nothing has been particularly awful either; even Vampire Bund might be more than just a squickfest given a bit more time. Anime fans who haven't seen any of the titles might be interested in checking them out, but there's nothing I've seen so far that's particularly likely to convert non-fans.
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