Episode 29: Harem May Part 3
Disclaimer: The following consists of copy written material owned by Funimation, Studio Madhouse, Dark Horse Comics, and CLAMP this review/retrospective is my property and covered by the fair rights usage act.
"Hello I'm the Classic Critic; I remember it so you're not required to, and welcome to week 3 of Harem May." Airnaruto said as the special intro screen appeared which showed Airnaruto getting beaten to ground this time by a bunch of female cyborgs with no free will of there own.
"Well gang here's one anime I've been dreading to review for a while, an anime that starts off so stupidly you would think that it came from studio Arms and the irony is that it came from Studio Madhouse and has an opening theme so bad that it's driven a couple of guys on the new Otaku project website bat shit crazy!" Airnaruto said before his connection started shorting out on him. "Hey what the hell's going on?" Airnaruto asked before the transmission revealed a familiar British assassin.
"Hey there Airnaruto how's it going?" He asked.
"Nukid what do you want?" Airnaruto asked back.
"Well I heard about this Harem May thing you were doing this month and wanted to get in on the action. Anyway which anime are you gonna do?" Nukid asked.
"Well Nostalgia Kid, to my personal dismay, I have to review Chobits." Airnaruto answered.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Nukid screamed in frustration.
"Okay so Chobits, is a combination of the magical girlfriend, science fiction, and harem genres written by the famous manga team CLAMP, who've brought us many anime and manga such as; Angelic Layer, Tsubassa Reservoir Chronicles, Magic Knights Rayearth, Holic, and Card captor Sakura and if there's one thing you count on with CLAMP, most of their series will be tied into one another in way or another." Airnaruto explained just for those who didn't know who CLAMP was. "This anime adaptation was put together by studio Madhouse back in 2002." He continued, before Nukid cut him off.
"Wait a minute, you mean to tell me the guys behind the production of anime such as; Death Note, Monster, Trigun, BECK, and Paranoia Agent were behind this thing?" Nukid asked.
"Sad to say Nukid but yes, in fact this wasn't the first time Madhouse adapted a CLAMP manga into an anime." Airnaruto replied.
"Not the first time, then what did they do before this?" Nukid asked.
"Card captor Sakura." Airnaruto said out of irritation.
"DAMN YOU CLAMP!" Nukid screamed to the heavens.
"Nukid let's just get this over with alright?" Airnaruto said.
"Fair enough well here we go folks." Nukid said as the plot title appeared.
Plot:
"The plot revolves around Hideki Motosuwa, a 19 year old farm boy from Hokkaido, who knows about nothing but farming, and occasional porn magazines." Airnaruto said before Hideki introduced himself.
Hideki: Hi I'm Hideki Motosuwa. I plan on leaving the farm and heading to Tokyo to attend college this year.
"Oh my God, please tell me that this guy is not be voiced by Crispin Freeman Airnaruto." Nukid said in irritation.
"Which I could say that it wasn't Crispin Freeman Nukid but unfortunately it is. What some people will do for a paycheck. There's no way Crispin could have thought this would be a good idea, nobody could have. The only excuse I have is that he was under contract or something." Airnaruto complained.
"Tell me about it, I bet you and I could see him and every other well known dub voice actor, trying to sneak away from this project…speaking of which who else got dragged into it?" Nukid asked.
"Well let's see…"Airnaruto said pulling out a small list. "Aside from Freeman, there was; Steve Blum, Wendi Lee, Bridget Hoffman, Michelle Ruff, Mona Marshall, Tony Oliver, Kari Wahlgren, Karen Strassman, Dorothy Elias-Fahn, and Kirk Thorton." Airnaruto said finishing off the list.
"Damn well anyway role the cutaway." Nukid said.
Cutaway gag
The gag shows the ten aforementioned actors and actresses trying to sneak out of the studio.
Mona: I hear that they're going to reveal the voice for the hero of the series today.
Crispin: By the time the announcement's been made we'll be out of the country.
(The lights soon turn on revealing the studio owner and some security guards.)
Studio Owner: Having trouble with your car Freeman-san?
Crispin: Yes as a matter of fact we couldn't get it started.
Studio Owner: Surely you've heard that the studio wants you to play the voice of the male lead in the CLAMP sci-fi romantic comedy Chobits.
Crispin: I'm afraid that won't be possible.
Studio Owner: Oh but I insist surely you can't plan to beat the verbal onslaught of Japanese lawyers.
Crispin: Very well I'll go through with it.
(Other actors groan)
Studio Owner: Excellent, my men will lead you and the others to the recording studio, now you'll excuse me; I'm off to get Liam O Brien for Monster.
End Cutaway
"Anyway Hideki gets his college acceptance letter in the mail one day only to find that he's been denied." Airnaruto said as we see Hideki's reaction.
Hideki talking to a cow: I'll go Tokyo and attend cram school then, I'll study hard and go to college next year well college I want to go to is in Tokyo.
The camera then cut back to Airnaruto who had a weird look on his face.
"Now that was just the most disturbing thing I've ever seen." Airnaruto said before Nukid cut him off.
"Hey Air I just thought of a great joke." Nukid said before calling X prodigy over.
"Hey X listen to this. When he gets to the city maybe he'll go see a MOOvie." Nukid told X only to get no reaction from the half-hollow before the camera cut back to Airnaruto
"Sheesh don't have a cow man." Airnaruto said.
(Laugh track)
The camera cut back to Nukid and X where X was laughing his head off. "You find that funny?" Nukid asked him before taking a frying pan and a steel toed boot to X's skull knocking him out. "Anyway, when Hideki gets to the city he finds these things known as persocoms, computers with humanoid forms and motor functions but lack any kind of personality, getting excited he decides that wants one, until he sees the price tag." Nukid said as Hideki looks at one of the price tags for a persocom.
Price: 598000 yen = roughly 5980 USD
Hideki: THERE'S NO WAY I COULD AFFFORD ONE!
Everyone stares at Hideki and then walks away
"So anyway Hideki gets himself an apartment with consent from his new land lady Chitose and then while he's about to unpack he's greeted by old buddy Shinbo and his mobile persocom Sumomo, and let me just say that this little toy is the most irritating character in the series." Airnaruto said before the scene skipped to Hideki finding a blonde haired persocom wrapped in tape or paper and deciding to take it home where he tries everything possible to activate it.
Hideki: I looked all over this computer for the on/off switch, I tried these (the cord reels on both sides of the head that would count as the ears.) and this (Nose), and this (Navel), and those (toes), and those (Breasts), I've looked everywhere.
"I think you know where this is leading right folks?" Airnaruto asked the audience, before showing the activation of the persocom that Hideki names Chi since it's the only word she can say.
Chi: Chi!
"So now Hideki has balance out his cram school work, his job at a pub, and educating Chi just to make ends meet while at the same time keeping Chi out of trouble and sorting out his feelings for this seemingly innocent robot." Airnaruto said.
"Bottom line the first half of the story is where most of my complaints occur; 1. Over indulgence of fan service, I can handle a little bit of it or if it's used as a device to lead into some form of slapstick like it was in Ranma ½ but this just more along the lines of what shows that don't give a damn about their audiences pull off; such as Elfin Lied, Ikki Toussen, and Queen's Blade, bottom line the first half full of pointless fan service. Thankfully the second half cuts back on this flaw and takes itself more seriously with the plot and development of the characters. " Airnaruto said before moving on to the animation.
Animation:
"Well the animation again is very well done, I mean its Madhouse so there isn't a lot of corner cutting; the character models are simplistic, the backgrounds are nicely detailed, and CG elements are kept to a minimum, the color pallet is bright and well polish, though to be fair this kind of subtlety in animation is not what I would expect from Madhouse, in fact this more along the lines of what I would expect from Studio DEEN." Airnaruto said.
"I can't argue about that one Air old pal." Nukid said.
"However I find the characters having ghost faces to be a little creepy." Airnaruto said.
"Huh ghost faces?" Nukid asked.
"You know the distant look in their eyes, the pale skin tone hence the term ghost face." Airnaruto said.
"You mean from the Scream movies?" Nukid asked.
"No…." Airnaruto said before his cell phone rang.
"Hold on I have to take a call Nukid." Airnaruto said picking up his phone.
"Hello?" Airnaruto asked only to be greeted by the ghost face knock off from Scary Movie 2.
"WASSUP?" The knock off said.
"WASSUP?" Airnaruto answered back earning a confused look from Nukid.
"Air what are you doing?" Nukid asked.
"Dude pick up your phone." Airnaruto said leading to Nukid picking up his cell phone.
"Hello?" Nukid asked.
"WASSUP?" The knock off said again.
"WASSUP?" Nukid replied as X Prodigy woke up and stared at him.
"What the…" X started to say before Nukid cut him off.
"Dude pick up your phone." Nukid told him, shrugging his shoulders, X did so.
"Hello?" He asked.
"WASSUP?" the knock off asked again as soon the camera would cut in between the four of the m saying the same line.
"So what's up?" The knock off asked Airnaruto.
"Nothing just sitting, reviewing an anime, having a coke." Airnaruto answered.
"True." The knock off said.
"You?" Airnaruto asked.
"Nothing just sitting, killing having a bud." The knock off answered before everyone hung up.
"Moving on let's look at the soundtrack." Airnaruto said.
Voice acting and Music:
"If you already noticed the cutaway gag from earlier you already know who the major names are but again honestly I question why put Crispin Freeman in the role of the spineless protagonist of the series, I mean yes the fact that he makes Hideki sound a bit more human and relatable is one reason but other than that half the time I think Freeman is trying a little too hard and sounds just a bit off pitch and other times you just want to give a boot to the head with how he always screams when he gets upset about something." Airnaruto said.
"Yeah I would agree that this is not one Freeman's better performances Airnaruto, in fact I think that this goes along side his performances as Tabul in NTHT and Toga in Revolutionary Girl Utena as among his worst roles though granted it's not as bad as either one of those two." Nukid said.
"Everyone else in the English dub more or less plays a stereotype of character in my opinion; you have Tony Oliver as the best friend, Mona Marshall as the tech guru child prodigy, Dorothy Elias-Fahn as the by the book character who focuses on the reality of things rather than pipe dreams, Bridget Hoffman as the cute but barren woman land lady, Wendy Lee plays the hot teacher you wish you could get your hands on, Karen Strassman plays the robotic duplicate of Minoru's deceased older sister who died from illness a couple of years before the series starts, Kirk Thorton plays one of the few male persocoms we see in the series, Steve Blum plays the part of a broken man, Kari Wahlgren plays a no nonsense mobile unit, and personally I like her character better than Sandy Fox as Sumomo, who is just so annoying you wish you could throw her into the scrap heap." Airnaruto said before Nukid cut him off.
"You're not kidding I wanted to rip Sumomo's processor clear out of her shell but thankfully Chi takes care of that when Sumomo tries to find any data in Chi's memory bank." Nukid said as the scene was shown.
(Sumomo starts laughing like crazy.)
Shinbo: What's wrong with her she's gone insane.
"Insert random Windows Vista joke here." Airnaruto said.
"Finally there's Michelle Ruff as Chi who just sounds flat, dull and overly robotic and infantile in her mannerisms that it's just annoying." Nukid said.
"Yeah no kidding. The Japanese dub sounds better acted and scripted but you could go with either dub when watching this show folks trust us." Airnaruto said before getting to the music. "The music on the other hand is mostly J-pop synthesizer music with a light hearted tone to it though we do get some violin music later on for the darker moments, but still the opening theme will just drive you insane, I mean look what it did to JD of Nash Inc. reviews." Airnaruto said pulling out a set of earplugs and then playing the opening theme before the camera cutaway to a different British young man with brown hair wearing a light green shirt and blue jeans named JD screaming in agony while listening to the theme music. "Bottom line while most of the track is bearable skip the opening and closing themes they're irritating." Airnaruto said before getting to the closing thoughts.
Final thoughts:
"Overall while the story does start off at a snails pace, it does have good characters, subtle and well detailed animation, a pretty good social commentary on the relationship between men and machines and the darker tones of the second half of the plot really shine through by that point, but the over indulging amount of fan service in the first half combined with the utter nonsense found in it really will get on your nerves but if you're able to get through the first half or so of crap, I think you'll like it." Airnaruto said.
"I couldn't agree more Airman, while as you mentioned the plot is slow in progression and the magical girlfriend genre more or less reduces women to a stereotype it's not a bad anime by any stretch of the word but it's also not a good one either." Nukid said in agreement.
"Therefore Nukid and I give Chobits a rating of 3 stars out of 5." Airnaruto said before the camera cut back to him.
"Well that's it for now I would like to thank Nukid aka the Nostalgia Kid for showing up as my co-reviewer today." Airnaruto said as the camera cutback to Nukid.
"You're welcome Airnaruto by the way what anime do you have to review next for Harem May?" Nukid asked.
"Simple, Oraun High School Host Club." Airnaruto answered before the camera cutback to Nukid's room. "Oraun? Alright I'm gonna go get Advent to see if he'll like to watch." X said as he left to get his little brother.
"Well I'm Nostalgia kid; I remember it because you're all idiots." Nukid said before cutting his transmission.
"And as always I'm the Classic Critic; I remember it so you're not required to." Airnaruto said as he got up to prepare for his next guests.
Final recap:
Pros: Lots of subtlety in animation, character models, and backgrounds,
Voice casting is fine on both sides
Interesting social commentary on man/machine relationship in human society
Dark second half
Good bit of Character development.
Cons:
Over indulged fan service in the first half
Music is forgettable
Opening theme will drive you insane
Michelle Ruff sounds flat, infantile, and robotic as Chi
The whole concept of falling in love with a computer and marrying it is a complete mindfuck that desecrates the laws of nature and physics
Final Rating: *** out of 5
With all apologies to Chobits fans until next time read and review folks.