2010 Archives - Page 2 of 3

House of Five Leaves

By DoubleSama | December 31, 2021 | Comments 1 comment

Series Overview

House of Five Leaves (Saraiya Goyou / さらい屋五葉) is a historical drama and mystery anime series that takes place in Japan’s Edo period. The series follows a ronin samurai who ends up joining a criminal organization known as Five Leaves.

On the surface, the members of Five Leaves appear to have nothing in common, and under normal circumstances would never interact with each other. However, the one thread that connects them all is the gang’s mysterious leader, Yaichi.

Every member of Five Leaves was drawn in by Yaichi in a different way and has stuck with him ever since. But, that doesn’t mean they all trust Yaichi or each other. In fact, it’s better for everyone involved if they don’t try to learn too much about their co-conspirators’ pasts.

Of course, the entire dynamic of Five Leaves changes once our protagonist, Masanosuke Akitsu, joins the group. Masa, as he’s known, is quite intrigued by Yaichi’s personality and wants to learn more about who the man behind Five Leaves really is.

This interest leads Masa to get to know and learn about the pasts of the other Five Leaves members in his attempt to figure Yaichi out.

While Yaichi’s background is the ultimate mystery that both Masa and the viewer want to uncover, the other members of Five Leaves are just as important. Each one has a role in the organization that we can only truly appreciate once we learn their respective backstories.

Before I get into spoiler territory in the next sections, I want to say that if you’re a fan of series like Mononoke, Blade of the Immortal, and even Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, you’ll like House of Five Leaves. Basically, if you have good taste in anime, this one is for you.

Five Leaves

In this section, I’m going to get into some, what I would call minor, spoilers while I go through the members of Five Leaves. There’s just not all that much you can say about each one of them without touching on their backgrounds to some extent.

I guess I should start with Masa since he’s the protagonist and most recent addition to Five Leaves. Masa became a ronin samurai because his shy personality and tendency to not read the room made him unfit to lead his family. He’s on a journey to change himself and believes he can learn a thing or two from Yaichi after they meet.

Masanosuke Akitsu from the anime series House of Five Leaves — Masanosuke Akitsu

Yaichi is the member of Five Leaves I have the least to say about simply because he’s so mysterious. There really aren’t any minor spoilers with his character; it’s all or nothing. So all I can say here is that he lives in a brothel where he works as a bodyguard.

Take was Yaichi’s first “follower.” Of all the members of Five Leaves, she’s the one who knows the most about his past — though, she won’t speak about it. I actually don’t remember what her backstory was, or if we even got it. But I do know that she used to be a prostitute before joining up with Yaichi.

Matsukichi, or Matsu, was the next member to join Five Leaves. He was originally a solo thief who was helped out by Yaichi (and Take) when he was being pursued. He’s an artisan craftsman of metal hairpins by day and gathers information on the gang’s targets by night.

Speaking of targets, I haven’t mentioned what Five Leaves actually does yet. And this is also where Umezou, or Ume, comes in. Five Leaves kidnaps people from wealthy families for ransom. And Ume is the one who hides the kidnapees until the ransom is collected.

Unraveling the Mystery of Yaichi

There are a bunch of details that hint toward who Yaichi really is sprinkled throughout the series. And, honestly, I probably missed most of them. But, there are three main clues that I want to discuss in this section.

First is the opening scene of the boy with the maple leaf-shaped scar. Second is Masa’s friend Heizaemon Yagi. And third is Ume’s former gang leader “Saint” Souji. While all important, I really liked how just how important they were wasn’t revealed until the final few episodes of the series.

As far as the opening scene goes, I completely forgot about it until it was brought up again late in the series. And, I guess when it was first shown, I assumed that the young boy was Masa. Or maybe I assumed he was unrelated to the events of the story. I really don’t know anymore.

Yaichi from the anime series House of Five Leaves — Yaichi

But, of course, that scene turned out to be extremely important for figuring out exactly who Yaichi is. And, this is also where Masa’s friend Yagi comes in. When Yagi first sees Yaichi, he comments on his appearance. And later on, we learn that Yagi had a friend named Yaichi who died.

This is also connected to “Saint” Souji, the former gang boss who helped Ume escape from his gang. Upon meeting Yaichi, Souji comments on how “Yaichi” is the name he’s going by now. This implies he knew him before and that Yaichi isn’t his real name.

Then, at the end of the series, everything comes together. The young boy from the start is the man we know as Yaichi today, formerly known as Seinoshin. He had two older men as friends back then, the real Yaichi and Kagi. Upon learning that Yaichi had died, Seinoshin took Yaichi as his own name.

And, all of this ties into the actions of Five Leaves. It seems that Yaichi got into kidnapping specifically because that’s what happened to him when he was younger.

Conclusion

House of Five Leaves is a very good anime and I give it an 8/10. The art style is a bit weird, which I know will put some people off. But anyone who can look past or get used to that will find that this series has a lot to offer.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier, Key Mochi~ for supporting at the Senpai tier, and Toma and Rob for supporting at the Kouhai tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Mitsudomoe

By DoubleSama | April 29, 2021 | Comments 0 Comment

Series Overview

Mitsudomoe (みつどもえ) is a slice of life comedy series about the Marui sisters, triplets who terrorize their 6th-grade teacher (and classmates) with their antics. Comedy is one of the more subjective genres, and with Mitsudomoe, I think that’s especially important to keep in mind.

The comedy in this series definitely isn’t for everyone. For the first three or so episodes, it wasn’t for me. But I will say that if you manage to get beyond the beginning of the series, it does get better. How much better, I’ll leave for you to decide.

At the start of the series, there are quite a few bodily fluid gags — which isn’t something I’m a fan of. I’m very glad that the entire series wasn’t like that. However, the entire series is full of boob, underwear, and other mild sex jokes.

This is why I say that Mitsudomoe really isn’t for everyone. Generally speaking, I don’t think a series all about that is very interesting. But I will admit that some of the jokes involving that content are funny. For me, however, it was all the other jokes that really made the series enjoyable.

Yes, I do think that overall, Mitsudomoe is an enjoyable watch. Does every joke land? No. But the ones that do are great. And, for the most part, I think the best jokes in the series are the ones that are the most absurd.

There are so many jokes and gags that probably wouldn’t ever happen in real life in this series. However, they’re just on the border of what’s feasible. But then there are some jokes that build on pre-established ideas and take them way beyond what you expect. Those are the funny ones.

Main Characters

Yabe “Yabecchi” Satoshi is the homeroom teacher of the Marui triplets. He’s a new teacher who’s basically been thrown to the wolves by being placed in charge of the three troublemakers of the grade (or the entire school).

Before I get into the Marui sisters individually, I’d like to point out that their names are Mitsuba, Futaba, and Hitoha. Their names reference the numbers 3, 2, and 1 respectively. However, they don’t relate to those numbers in the way you would expect.

Normally you’d think that the eldest sister would have the number 1. But in this case, the eldest is 3. Is this actually important? No. But other characters do sometimes refer to the sisters by the number of their birth order, which makes it even more confusing.

Yabe, Mitsuba, Futaba, and Hitoha from the anime series Mitsudomoe — Yabe, Mitsuba, Futaba, and Hitoha

Mitsuba is the eldest Marui sister. She’s sadistic and wants everyone else to be her slaves. Aside from the sadism thing, she’s probably the most normal of the three. She’s also concerned with her weight but doesn’t seem to be successful in reducing it.

Futaba is, in my opinion, a much better character than Mitsuba. She’s extremely athletic and displays superhuman strength on numerous occasions. But, she’s very simple-minded and has an obsession with boobs. She can apparently tell sizes by sight alone.

Hitoha is my favorite of the three. Originally, I didn’t like her because her character started off as just being the gloomy and anti-social one of the three. However, she gets the most development throughout the series, and I think I can safely say that I like her more than Futaba.

A lot of the gags featuring Hitoha, especially after the start of the series, have to do with her attempting to come out of her shell and having it backfire. Usually, this takes the form of her having conversations with people who think she’s talking about something entirely different.

Best and Worst Parts

For this section, I’m going to spoil some of my favorite and least favorite gags and jokes of the series. For my favorites, I’ll choose one that focuses on each of the Marui sisters. Let’s start off with my least favorites, though.

I believe it was in the first two episodes that my least favorite gags are found. One of them involves copious amounts of urine getting everywhere thanks to the clumsiness of the school nurse. I don’t think I need to explain why I don’t enjoy urine gags.

The other worst gag involves copious amounts of… snot. As I mentioned at the start of this review, I’m not about bodily fluid gags. I just think it’s gross, not funny. Unlike the urine one that focused on all three girls, this one just focused on Futaba.

Mitsuba stepping on Yabe from the anime series Mitsudomoe — Mitsuba stepping on Yabe

It’s actually hard for me to pick my favorite Hitoha joke. But I think I’m going to go with Hitoha just being in Yabe’s apartment unnoticed all day on the weekend. The comedic timing of that skit was extremely good with Hitoha revealing she’d actually been there all day after Yabe lies and says he always notices her.

For Futaba, it’s much easier for me to pick a favorite gag. She wants her father to practice for the sports festival with her ahead of time, but he’s on the other side of the school gate. So she takes his hand and proceeds to smash his head into the gate while trying to pull him through. A simple gag, but a funny one.

Lastly, my favorite Mitsuba gag is when she finally comes face to face with someone who does want to be her slave — the mother of her class rival, Sugisaki. Mitsuba’s reaction to a grown woman wanting to be dominated by her was priceless.

Conclusion

If it weren’t for the first three episodes of the series, I’d probably give it a 7, which I’m actually a bit surprised by. But, because those first episodes were a real struggle to get through, I have to give Mitsudomoe a 6/10 overall.

Despite definitely not being for everyone, including myself at times, I do think it was a funny comedy. With that said, I would never recommend this comedy to someone out of the blue. I’m not about to start going around shilling this series to people.

I guess before I wrap this up I should also comment on the OP and ED. The ED isn’t anything special. But the OP definitely grew on me over the course of the series (I generally don’t skip them). The visuals are okay, but the song is pretty good if you pay attention to the lyrics.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤️ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Key Mochi~ for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika and Senpai tiers respectively this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

The Tatami Galaxy

By DoubleSama | November 26, 2019 | Comments 0 Comment

Overview

The Tatami Galaxy (Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei / 四畳半神話大系) or, The 4.5 Tatami Mat Galaxy, is an anime series which was on my plan to watch list for a decent amount of time. However, one day I removed it because I figured I was simply never going to get around to it.

But luckily for me, HeavyROMAN wanted me to watch it, so here we are.

And I say luckily because The Tatami Galaxy was actually a great anime that I would have otherwise missed out on. It’s animated by Madhouse, who have been known to make some pretty good anime, and it’s based on a novel. That’s right, a regular novel, not a light novel.

However, what I liked so much about this series was how similar it was to some of my other favorite anime. It reminded me of things like the Monogatari Series, Mononoke, Bunny Girl Senpai (sort of), and even Serial Experiments Lain to an extent.

It’s one of those psychological series which doesn’t make a lot of sense at first, but as you get farther into the story, all the bits and pieces begin to come together. And, The Tatami Galaxy is also very much about self-reflection. Something that most anime have a hard time pulling off.

Without spoiling the series — I’ll do that later on — the general plot goes something like this:

A college student is prepared to make the most of his college years and decides to join various clubs and organizations. However, at the end of his two years he finds himself unsatisfied and wishing that he could do it all over. It’s a tale of friendship, self-reflection, and unrequited love.

Characters

The protagonist of this series doesn’t actually have a name, which actually makes the self-reflection aspects of the series all the more meaningful. Nobody ever calls him by name, so all we get is him referring to himself as “Watashi” (I/me in Japanese) in his internal monologues.

"Watashi" from the anime series The Tatami Galaxy — “Watashi”

Watashi’s best friend at college is a student in the Electrical Engineering department named Ozu. Ozu is constantly described as one of the most unpleasant people you will ever meet. He’s also physically described as looking like a demon. And to be fair, these descriptions are pretty accurate. After all, Ozu’s self-proclaimed goal is to drag Watashi down to his own level.

Then we have Akashi, Watashi’s love interest who always seems just out of reach. She’s Ozu’s junior in the Engineering department and has become acquainted with him through that. Akashi’s likes include a children’s superhero known as Mochiguman, and her dislikes include moths.

Seitarou Higuchi is a mysterious man who claims to be a god of love. However, he lives in the same apartment building as Watashi and is the mentor of both Ozu and Akashi for unknown reasons. His head is shaped like an eggplant.

Ryouko Hanuki is a friend of Higuchi’s and works as a dental hygienist. She’s also a prominent member of the English Language Club, which is where Watashi knows her from. She has a habit of licking people’s faces when she gets drunk.

Finally, there’s Masaki Jougasaki, a jock and the leader of a film making circle. He’s around the same age as Higuchi and Hanuki, and has been caught in an endless prank battle against the former for years.

Discussion (Spoilers)

So with that out of the way let’s spoil the series by discussing some of my favorite — and least favorite — parts. One of the first things you’ll notice about the series is it’s strange art style. But then you’ll immediately forget that when you’re hit with the second thing, the rapid fire internal monologue of Watashi.

To say the dialogue in this series is fast would be an understatement. The Monogatari dialogue is fast. The Tatami Galaxy dialogue is on another level entirely. And the reason for it is that, like Monogatari, the anime attempts to adapt every line of dialogue from the source material.

But, although it’s a quirk that makes this series stand out, I do think it’s a detriment. As far as I’m concerned, some of the internal monologue should have been put on text cards like Monogatari does, or the series should have been 22 episodes instead of 11 to make room for all the speech.

Akashi from the anime series The Tatami Galaxy — Akashi

So to balance that out with something I really liked about the series, there’s how the series evolved with each episode. In a way, it’s set up like the Endless Eight of Haruhi. Each episode aside from the final two is a redo of Watashi’s two years at college.

And with each episode, although they go down different paths, we learn a bit more about each of the supporting characters. For example, as the series progresses into the latter half, Ozu appears less demonic and more human. And by the end, the roles of he and Watashi have been swapped to an extent.

Then, there’s Watashi himself, who finally learns that all those paths he chose to redo were actually great in their own ways. No path is perfect — what matters is making the best of whatever you choose.

Conclusion

I’ve been contemplating what to rate The Tatami Galaxy ever since I finished it. On one hand, I did really enjoy this series, and would highly recommend it if you don’t mind reading at the speed of light. But at the same time, there are a few little things, like the dialogue speed, that make this adaptation less than ideal.

In the end I’d give it a 9/10, but with the caveat that the novel it’s based on is probably a 10. I don’t necessarily think the series itself had any issues. The issues I have with it come from the adaptation of the series.

But that doesn’t mean I think you should skip the anime in favor of the novel. The anime definitely adds things to the mix, such as a great OP/ED combo. The OP song is by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, so it’s automatically a banger (as the kids would say). And the ED is even better. I’ve actually been listening to the ED song on repeat for the past couple of days.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this review, or found it helpful in any way, let me know by clicking the like button ❤ down below. Also follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And, if you aren’t already aware, which I assume you aren’t since you haven’t joined it, we have a Discord server.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the spin-off movie, Night Is Short, Walk on Girl is available here.