Cinnamon Ass

OP - Hikari no Machi (TOKIO) - this song is so cheesy. The OP animation is a seriously class act, if you ask me - it’s stylish and dark, and above all ANIMATED. It’s not, say, Sci-Fi Harry, but it’s still awesome and sets up the kind of show I thought this was going to be (which wasn’t quite how the episode turned out!).

ED - Ashita wa Ashita no Kimi ga Umareru (Chocolove) - meh, girly Jpop. Plus Skull Man sat in a building site.

First off - all the kanji in this episode are back to front! I didn’t spot it the first time through, but it’s really disconcerting - I presume it’s because it’s a “period” show or something (I don’t know anything about Japanese history, so sue me) and back in the 50s or whenever this is set everything was printed right-to-left, perhaps. It’s a bit weird if you’re not expecting it, though!

In post-war Japan, Hayato Mikagami is a big-name freelance journalist in Tokyo who learns of a mysterious rumoured “skeletal man” who has apparently been committing a series of murders in his old home town, Ootomo, the most recent victim being a woman named Hitomi Tachibana. Hayato hasn’t been back to Ootomo since he left home seven years ago when his father died. Entrance into the town is strictly controlled by immigration and the Ootomo group of corporations - Hayato manages to sneak in a stowaway wannabe photographer, Kiriko Mamiya, with him, who then follows him around all over the place as he goes to places for backstory exposition and so forth.

That night, after a rather tiresome towel-pervert moment gets Hayato chucked out of his own flat, he goes off for a wander and bumps into a gibbering, super-humanly strong moron (and a hot biker chick). Said moron then gets executed by two demonic dogs and the Skull Man, who brandishes a knife in his wrist and speaks portentously about the night being his soul and retribution and stuff like that; Hayato gets on the scene and then collapses from a wound to his head.

I thought this show was about a masked anti-hero vigiliante, not Joe Bloggs the Journalist and his perky little sidekick with corporate crime on the side! Nevertheless, I rather liked this first episode despite it not being quite what I expected it to be; i’s got the potential to be quite an interesting show once it gets going as long as it stays focused on the Skull Man mysteries rather than getting bogged down in Japanese politics and corporate whoredom (Speed Grapher’s been there, done that, and bought the badly drawn T-shirt, I’m not sure I want to see it again!). Hayato and Kiriko aren’t exactly the most exciting lead characters in the world, but they’re not too obnoxious and it’s possible I’ll warm up to them; the Skull Man himself is barely in this episode, so it will be interesting to see how the show chooses to handle his character.

From a more technical viewpoint, I have to confess I really like the character designs in motion. The overall animation style reminds me of something, and I can’t quite work out what it is; it vaguely reminds me of Castle of Cagliostro for some reason in just the way the characters move and look, although obviously on a television budget. The atmosphere is slightly odd given that it’s not what I was expecting, but the Skull Man sequences are well thought out and animated and interestingly moody.

I can’t see this show being as immediately accessible as Darker Than Black (and I know that’s not even proved to be a complete success with “fandom”) but I think it’s certainly an interesting start, even if from a narrative viewpoint it’s not overly creative or innovative. It IS early days yet, so I can’t be too harsh, and I think there are definitely seeds of a pretty decent show in here. Once I’ve got a bit more of a feel for the direction of the show and the characters have had a bit more time to make an impression I think I’ll be better placed to pass judgement.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 8:06 pm and is filed under The Skull Man. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.