Cinnamon Ass

OP - Douwa Meikyuu (Yukari Tamura) - synth-tastic chirpy pop; at least she’s not singing it in character…
ED - Clover (marhy) - it’s the same song from the OVA! It’s still as good as it was back then.

14-year-old Souta Suzukaze dreams of a fairy story his mother once told him before she got taken away by a giant spider; Souta was saved by a cloaked figure wielding two swords. After an H-game wake-up call from his childhood friend Ringo Kinoshita (absent father figure, natch) they head off to school, where it seems Souta can talk to plants and make them come alive. Later, he heads off to buy a book of fairy stories like the
one his mother told him, but hears a mysterious voice reciting the same story but slightly different; when he follows the voice to correct it (obviously not hearing the spooky synth music, otherwise he’d KNOW it was a trap) he comes across a rather ugly looking fellow who recognises that he must be “the Key of Erde”; one ripped-off collar later, and Souta’s being chased by the giant spider once again.

In comes a talking blue wolf, Baal, to the rescue; while they escape, they end up being chased by “Man on Bike” (it’s what the credits say!) who transforms into a giant evil praying mantis; all hope seems lost until in pops Akazukin (Little Red Riding Hood), the dual-sword wielding figure from Souta’s dream. A quick battle and some merchandise-tastic Engrish special moves
later and the beasts are vanquished; whilst Akazukin introduces herself to Souta, the evil Sandryon’s attempt to capture Souta is currently thwarted, and her cringing Puss-in-Boots-esque servant Randage meets his new co-worker; the grey-haired bishounen Hansel.

I was a rather guilty fan of the original Otogi-jushi Akazukin OVA, made purely to see if Konami could successfully market a figurine. Obviously it paid off, as we’ve now got a TV series out of the franchise with toys, manga and games on the way too. As such, I was actually quite looking forward to seeing the TV series adaptation; it’s animated by Madhouse, after all.

Well, it’s turned out pretty much like a generic kid’s anime show, as to be expected really - and unfortunately, this has brought some stodgy direction with it. Scenes go on for far too long in order to drag the pacing out in this episode, which sucks all the tension out of it. For example, when the spider-thing first transforms right before the advert break at the halfway point, Souta cowers in fear and the music builds to a synth-tastic climax (the music’s quite crap, incidentally); then it stops, the shot pans out a bit, and Souta gasps a bit before we get the eyecatch. It totally kills the scene (not that it’s especially terrifying or anything, but you get the point) and there are a couple of other instances of similar things happening in the rest of the episode.

In fact, I was pretty lukewarm about Otogi-jushi Akazukin in general from this episode, and Yukari Tamura’s annoying kiddie voice didn’t help matters right at the end. But then the ED came on, and it’s nicely done and I like the song, and the episode preview came up and I remembered why I liked the OVA; Shirayuki-hime (Snow White), despite being a cliched ojou-sama, made a really welcome addition to the cast. As such, I’ll be back next week to see if she’s still as entertaining as she was in the OVA, and perhaps I’ll make it all the way to Ibara-hime’s introduction too!

Also, I’d forgotten that I loved the villains; Sandryon has a cool vocal effect applied on her voice that makes her creepy, and Hansel is just A Dude; can’t wait to see him going after the Three Musketeers. I could have done without the weird bishounen-in-an-egg king and the mascot appeared briefly in this episode, but maybe they’ll turn out interesting in the end; as Nishi no Yoki Majo is proving at the moment, sometimes mascots CAN be cool!

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 1st, 2006 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Otogi-Jushi Akazukin. 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.