Castle Town Dandelion

Just when you think you have seen everything, you find something new. Or at least, a combination of pre-existing genres in a way that feels novel. This is the case with the Japanese Manga (and Anime) Castle Town Dandelion.

The genres being combined here are: Family Sitcom; Superheroes; Soap Opera; and Reality Show. Yup, and somehow, it all works!

To be specific, the series is about the royal family of a (modern day) country. Except each of them has a different super-power for some reason (apparently it runs in the royal bloodline.) Then the King decides that they should live in the suburbs, because he wants his kids to grow up as normally as possible. And then he decides that the next king should be decided by public vote, resulting in his children -some of whom are preteens!– running for office against each other!

It sounds convoluted, but it’s not. Dandelion is mainly about its cast and their relationships with each other and their friends. Toss in some (rather inventive) superpowers and a *lot* of zany events and you have (multiple) fun stories each episode.

The name of the family is Sakurada, and its members are:

* King Soichiro: The father of nine (!) children. He was forced to become king at an early age due to his parents’ deaths; that might be why he has made such odd choices for his family. His power is the ability to see people’s “auras”, allowing him to know what they feel.

* Queen Satsuki: His wife and mother to the kids. She comes from a normal family.

* Aoi: The oldest child. Her power is supposed to be the ability to learn anything instantly. It’s not but I’m not giving away the truth- she has quite an interesting motive and reaction to it.

* Shu: Second oldest child. Can teleport at will. Wanted to be a soccer player, but a childhood accident affected his legs too much.

* Kanade: Shu’s twin sister, younger by a few minutes. She and Shu have a rivalry going on. Her power is the ability to create any object, but this costs her money (?) Presumably, she’s teleporting materials from somewhere and must pay for them.

* Akane: The focus of many of the stories, Akane is the fourth child with the power to control gravity. Unfortunately she also suffers from crippling shyness, which of course means she gets embarrassed the most.

* Haruka: Fifth child, a boy with the ability to calculate probabilities instantly. He’s also Misaki’s older twin.

* Misaki: Sixth child, with the power to create seven clones of herself- each with a different skill and personality based on one of the “seven sins”.

* Hikari: Seventh child, a girl with the power to make living things older or younger (for 24 hours.)

* Teru: Eight child, a boy who can gain temporary super-strength. Acts like a Shonen anime hero.

* Shiori: the youngest child, her power allows her to speak with animals- and even objects!

The stories are usually pretty simple; they either set up a joke or explore a certain character. The only thing that bothers me, and keeps me from otherwise recommending this for the whole family, is that some jokes are a little risque. Mostly these are the “Oh no we can see Akane’s panties!” jokes; but there’s also a joke where it sounds as if Misaki has a crush *on Haruka*. This is probably a parody of a certain type of Japanese adult fiction, but the joke might fly over Western audiences.

Unlike the Manga, the Anime has already produced a final episode so we see which sibling wins (not going to spoil it here.)

Overall Dandelion is just a slice-of-life comedy that focuses on a family; it just happens to have superpowers, royalty and politics messing things up. I recommend it for fans of comedy, anime, manga, and superheroes. Not recommended if panty or incest jokes bother you.

Roleplayers! #3 and #4

I now continue with my reviews of the comic book series about the misadventures of a group of role-playing game fans. (For the reviews of issues #1 and #2, see my earlier entries in the blog.)

Issue no. 3 is a “Special Cosplay Issue” (for those who don’t know, ‘Cosplay’ is short for ‘Costume Play’) and was actually made with help from two real-life Cosplayers. The story takes place a week after last issue, and Elliot and Sally are still mad at each other (after the latter killed the former’s character in-game for being mean to her.) The group decides to visit a Cosplay Convention, where Cassie befriends a somewhat overweight cosplayer. A sexy cosplayer insults her new friend, saying she ruins her character, but is rebuked by Cassie and, surprisingly, Elliot and Sally . Turns out the two had something in common after all: both were bullied as kids. They make up, but the bitchy cosplayer swears revenge.

In issue no. 4, Cassie befriends a guy she likes from Acting Class and invites him over to role play along her friends. What she doesn’t know (but we the readers do, so this isn’t a spoiler) is that he’s the brother of the girl she “offended” last issue. In the game, the party sets out to find a way to resurrect Elliot’s character, and they find a female half-orc (played by the new guy- remember, all characters in this game must be women!) whom they rescue and she joins the group. Then they beat a necromancer, but she betrays the group, kills one of the player characters  and then reveals who he really is!

Opinions: Issue #3 has been my favorite so far. Not only it was good exposition about Cosplaying, but it also dealt with issues of body image, which are very important but seldom touched upon.

Issue #4, however, I found confusing. I mean, what exactly do the ‘bad guys’ think they achieved? The game characters aren’t real, killing them does nothing (in fact, in real life if a player intentionally ruined a game session, most likely he’d get thrown out of the game and the play called out as null.) The only real harm was to Cassie’s feelings, and I would be disappointed if she let it hurt her for long, she’s a smart and strong female character.

The best part of both issues, however, was as usual, the art. Derek Chua is great both at depicting the real world and the fantasy one, and while there’s plenty of cheesecake in the series, the realistic girls are also attractive.

Roleplayers is an Irrational Comics production and I recommend it for fans of RPGs, comics, comedy and drama. You can find it at: irrationalcomics.wordpress.com

Escha & Logy: Short but Sweet

Ever seen a show you found yourself liking unexpectedly, only to be surprised when it ended so soon? Yeah, that happened to me with Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky.

To be specific: Escha & Logy is based on the game of the same name, which is part of the Atelier line of Role Playing Video Games (noted for all having a female protagonist who practices Alchemy.) Within the line, there’s a recent trilogy, known as the Dusk Trilogy, set in a world affected by a mysterious event known as “The Dusk” which caused it to slowly grow more and more arid. Escha’s game is the second in the trilogy, although you do not need to have seen the previous one (Atelier #14, known as Ayesha) at all to understand this series. (The subtitled version I saw did however, point out which characters had previously appeared in Ayesha.)

The series takes place in Corset, a town in the desert’s frontier, established to attempt to reach the mysterious Floating Ruins. Like other ruins in this world, they were left behind by a civilization with more advanced alchemy- who disappeared mysteriously. Unlike the other ruins, these float in the sky surrounded by winds and debris that makes approach by balloon impossible.

Escha is a young female alchemist who, at the beginning of the series, joins the local Research & Development Branch formally (but had already been helping them for a while.) Her dream since childhood is to be among the first people to reach the Floating Ruins. She gets paired with a newcomer, a young warrior named Logy who transferred from Central City for his own reasons (if you think he has a tragic past, you’d be right- more or less.) At first I feared he and Escha wouldn’t get along, but quite the opposite, they ended up playing the old I-like-him/her-but-cannot-say-it game. Which is usually reserved for younger characters. It was cute though.

Other characters slowly join the cast, most of them bringing quirks of their own which are used effectively. Among them, there’s Willbell, the witch-in-training whose greed often gets the others in trouble; and Lusca, the no-nonsense female warrior with a rather bizarre secret (which is actually not explained in the show- unless they are planning a second season? I hope so.)

The main mystery of the show is, of course, The Floating Ruins. Who’s in there in and why is it isolated? Actually the first question is very clearly hinted at in the credits which shows a girl with iridescent hair standing in the ruins. And once revealed, her secret isn’t that amazing- not if you are used to watching science fiction and fantasy. Still, the show manages to move you with her story.

The series does have a couple of surprises at the end, though. I’m not going to spoil them, other than to say I went “Really? That’s how they are going to end it?” Given how by the numbers the show was, I expected a more typical ending. Since I haven’t seen the games, I have no idea if this is because the story doesn’t end there. (Note: Atelier #16 stars different characters.)

Still, I can say this: for such a short (only 12 episodes) typical fantasy show, I really enjoyed E & L. Maybe because of its slice-of-life approach that focused on each character at least once. It was very funny, too- I particularly liked the episodes with the Cursed Tail and the (obligatory) Hot Springs episode!

Highly recommended for: fans of fantasy, comedy, romance, and the Atelier games.