Random Anime – Pinkie's Paradise

Pinkie Watches a Random Anime 3: Märchen Mädchen

Hello my dear Island Guests! It is time again for me to watch a randomly generated anime! This month Märchen Mädchen came up. A show that scores a lackluster 5.4 out of 10 on MAL. In the comments it seems to be very disliked, both on CrunchyRoll where I watched the first 6 episodes as on MAL. I can see why people would grade it so low.. but for some reason I really really like this show.

Quite often upon a Time

Märchen Mädchen is a show about a young girl named Hazuki! A book nerd with anxiety attacks. Even though she sits at that very same desk in anime as all the other characters sit.. she is very different. She has no friends! None at all! When she gets too socially awkward she has to calm herself by reading novels. She lives with her stepmother who barely has time for her.. and her popular step sister who can be quite harsh to her in Japan. One day she has another of these panic attacks and goes reading in a hamburger restaurant. Already assuming her step mother does not have time for her. When suddenly she finds a mysterious new book she can not open in her purse. At that time a mysterious girl shows up who nobody but her can see. She follows her into a library that is a gateway to another world. There she discovers the girl is actually a “Mädchen” a magical girl that draws her power from a classical story.. and surprise surprise. Hazuki is a magical girl too! Just in time even because a big tournament is about to start and the winning school of magic gets a wish granting magic! As the tournament draws closer we learn some of the darker secrets of these magical powers and how they can easily cause despair.

*Hazuki the clumsy bookworm protagonist! Like me she lost her shoes in school!*

On Paper this sounds like one of the most generic magical girl anime that has ever been published and it probably is. This anime made my Hoods Entertainment aired in the Winter Season of 2018. It seems to get a lot of hate from the community for it’s visuals and its weird writing and generic plot. I experienced something different myself. Now I shall be the first to admit that I do not really have an eye for solid visuals.. if I am engaged with an anime my brain fills in missing frames, and if I see a face in less detail I auto completed that. I had no trouble with the visuals..except for episode 9, it is one of those episodes like that one episode in Dragon BAll Super people still nag about! I must admit I noticed Episode 9 being super off.. but it happens with deadlines being a thing! It’s horrible yes.. but the show is more than that episode. Overall I enjoyed the visuals.

Henshin Kinda looks like Pokémon Mega Evolution.. so I am game!

Characters do look a bit samey and sometimes I had a hard time to tell who is who.. and sure.. we don’t always get perfectly shaped things.. but I kinda found that neat! The show gets flack for using a lot of archetypes and basing everyone on a fairy tale character could be counted as.. “well there are no original characters here” yet in a way it is designed to feel that way. I can see why people dislike it.. but I can also see why this show chose to go that way. Probably if you measure with grades per category like animation, story, music etc. you end up with an anime with a low grade..but to me this anime shines in all those things we usually do not grade.

I told you a lot of the characters looked samesie!

Hazuki’s story of power is Cinderella, which is an obvious metaphor but in a way this metaphor also applies to the anime itself.It might look like a commoner that is standing in front of us.. and in a way it is! Yet with a bit of magic that commoner can still conquer our heart.There are a lot of analogies I really liked in this series. Sure the countries participating in the tournament are quite stereo typical and the Americans are not depicted favourably but it really makes sense. This series is about fairy tale or fable culture and America does not really have that. So in this show it is depicted that America usually borrows stuff and does their own thing with it. Every girl uses a fable or a story to draw power from and the Americans have the Match-Stick Girl.. but also Star Wars (though slightly renamed) and Santa Clause.. which is one of my favourites.. her magic is to “gift” her enemies.. the ammo of her weapons.. Santa Clause gets out a Tommy Gun or a Bazooka.. because.. she’s American! I laughed! So yes.. because this series is very much about established work we can see very many tropes happening.. but again.. that is part of it’s narrative. How this story SHOULD go according to all the classics is an intrinsic part of what is being told here! It might not be told all that well..but I found it told super charmingly. As if I am reading an actual Fairy Tale.

*Why is it when people see a magical Portal they always try it! Bear Grylls would dissaprove!* I would go through as well though

Princess Charming

What appealed to me most in this show is the main character. Hazuki Kagimura is a character I relate to a lot! I might not flee in books when I am in stress but the way her mind works throughout this show I found highly relatable.While I do have friends, in that phase of life where she was in I did not really have them either. The questions in her head about how to address a social situation are extremely relatable to me and the whole way she flaps her arms nervously and constantly apologises for being who she is reminds me a lot of myself before I found my magic! I also love the journey she is on! In this anime she discovers that girls who wield the power of the book are destined to live lives like the characters they embody. So it means she will settle down with her prince charming, have a family that doesn’t love her and that she is quite quaint looking but a little bit of magic will draw out her charm. She is Cinderella after all! However she falls in love with a girl and doesn’t want a charming prince. She doesn’t want to be that frail little girl walking around on glass slippers. She wants to be with the person she wants to be with..she wants to write her own story and in doing that.. she encapsules almost everything I stand for! I love that aspect of this show.

*How do you even walk in that outfit Shizuka?!*

To complicate this, her semi-romantic partner or “special friend” as this show prefers to call it..though heavily implying the romance is Shizuka Tsuchimikado.. the wielder of the Moon Princess, or Princess Kaguya fairy tale. A story about a woman who is destined to be alone.
A girl that unlike Hazuki is much more traditional and more inclined to accept her destiny. While it is not very original to tackle a story like this it works for a reason. In my opinion it also works here! Not every story has to be surprising! In fact I dare say that NONE of the classic Fairy Tales are surprising… well at least not the publicly accessible translations and variations. From the moment they met to the very last scene I felt invested in this relationship. Not because it is cleverly done, unique or well written.. no because it felt like a Yuri variation of a Fairy Tale. All those classic stories are not made for the modern world and nowadays can have toxic messages, and that is what this show aims to explore and highlight. This show tells us.. let’s find a modern ending to our classic fairy tales and I support that story and a very soft core lesbian interest while not unique is a perfect method to explore this.

*Why am I weirded out..but a girl still liking an hours old hamburger! I guess she warms it up with magic?!*

I ADORE the voice acting in this movie. Hazuki and Shizuka both have very timid whisper-like voices, they feel frail and exaggerated. Yet without hearing the actual words you can follow the context of their emotion as everything is amplified..almost overacted. The same goes for all the other voice actors. The Brazen character does the shouting voice, the butch woman sounds like an actual man, the somewhat deranged american girl sounds like she is completely insane and the chinese girl has this melody in her voice like she is spouting wisdoms everywhere she goes, sounding like a mentor of a kung-fu movie. The principal is clearly brazen, bold and self confident and while they never really feel like “Real” characters because of it they once again feel very much like Fairy Tale characters. Think of how your mother threw her voice to make someone sound princessy when reading to you from a fairy tale book. The first time I heard Hazuki I was like.. oof this is laid on a bit obvious.. yet if I had to voice Cinderella in a japanese audio version of the classic tale.. this is probably the direction I would take. I really adore everything they do with Hazuki in this show!

*Well..except for making her naked all the time?! Not sure why the principal would steal your clothes!*

A Modern Fairy Tale

Like I said earlier this show goes to great lengths to establish it wants to be a modern retelling. Hazuki makes this very clear in her behaviour as well. When she gets invited to join the magic school and has to stand there in a bit of a skimpy-ish gymsuit she openly tells everyone she did not expect school to be like this and that she kind of expected it to be more like Harry Potter. It’s funny to see a Japanese girl in bliss when she references Harry Potter and seeing this world is NOT like that! It sounds so funny! She makes a lot of relevant comparisons. Oftenly a bit aimed at the weird dogmatic ways some of these old tales work kind of showing us “hey these stories have been more modernly retold.. why do we follow this old trope” I found that a great source of comedy. There is no flippy phones but actually touch screen ones , which the more classical characters have huge trouble using.. making references that they would prefer something like a flippy phone but acting as if they do not know what those are . Since the show is basically one big tournament arc with teams across the world we can see classical roles being fulfilled in several teams. So when the shy Hazuki brings snacks aboard a train.. the shy girl on the russian team would have had a similar mindset and does the same. This show uses tropes a lot. It is fun and kinda interesting to see the tropes clash with “itself” by placing characters that should not be together… well uhm.. together!

*In her defence Hogwarts is a terrible place to live in! Cold damp castles, trolls, Basiliks, muderers ghosts and more!*

It has issues though! I will admit that but weirdly these issues only really come out once you start comparing it to anime. One example of what this show could vastly do better is explain how the world works. There is a magical world and a non magical world, where Hazuki comes from. Apparently only Hazuki lives on the other side but Shizuka comes there because there are hamburgers and they aren’t on the other side? It never is fully made clear and at times can even feel like a plothole like. They bounce between locations and worlds at times and it is hard to tell what is going on. Never ever does this show explain it properly. That is a problem…..when you compare it to an anime because there is plenty of anime who do it better. When you compare it to a fairy tale though, not explaining the world is kind of a thing there. Where did the fairy godmother come from? How does the Magic Mirror on the Wall work? How can Maleficent cast a death curse and how can the fairies cancel it?! It is not that relevant to the story so it’s not explained.. and the same can be said here.

*I half expected this spell to take three days!*

The side characters are all paper things, they get one exaggerated personality trade and are usually very much stereotyped based on a country. For example the leader of the German team is an amazing tactician, and very military minded. She has a stuffed animal called Messerschmidt , after the world war II plane. Her power is shooting guns! She isn’t as evil as she seems though. The british main girl is called Arthur Pendragon she is very regal and classic minded. She has a very commanding presence and wields a huge sword of light. The american girl Lyn Daves doesn’t respect classic stories.. as they do not have their own so they use their own media to copy and change cross media stuff to create their own more powerful stories not caring for tradition. She is a daddy’s girl and a cheater and doesn’t care for others. That is as far as these characters go! In anime characters this shallow are kind of passé.. but can anyone tell me the personality of Flounder, or the prince from the little Mermaid?! Side characters are treated like Fairy Tale side characters.

*Wonderwoman with a light saber Mrs Clause, Cinderella and Snow White together.. kinda sounds like my D&D!*

That is exactly what the problem of this anime is! It tells us that Fairy Tales did not always age well yet they build their story on these pillars to highlight this. Thus we get flat side characters like in fairy tales, we get very stereotypical characters like in those classics and this show does everything wrong what fairy tales arguably do wrong. By being flawed by design it does end up being flawed in the eyes of its beholder as well. I would love to see a few side characters more fleshed out but some even spontaneously pop up in the story when the need for them arises, their existence comes out of nowhere.Here it doesn’t feel modern it really feels like story telling of back in the days. So I can see why it isn’t well received, yet it’s flaws are not always by poor writing but by mimicking a flawed writing style?! So if you like this or not might really depend on your mindset. If you strictly can see this as an anime I can see how you would not be pleased. Also if you can not handle the Americans being very flawed because Murcia is perfect.. this is not the anime for you either!

*Since America has no original fantastical stories.. she just mashed them all together in a mixed media book! MURICA!*

And they all lived ….

How good this show is very much depends on your mindset. If you are the type that does believe you have to fit in society, get your job at any cost and conform to society and do what everyone does this show will not really do it for you. The message of this show hits hard for me.. but had it resonated less with me I would probably think less of this show. In the end I am the type that will refuse to give up my friends to take a job elsewhere I will just push to make my future possible here! I will not settle with a boy and have a kid and lose track of my friends and I will not take any job just to be productive. My life is about me, I determine my story and that is exactly the message of this show! I know some of my friends would disagree and I do not think they would like this show that much. If that message is lost.. a lot of things get lost in translation, it becomes a sub-par anime instead of a beautiful fairy tale. Yet if you are like me and dig this message and can judge it more as a fairy tale than a anime this bowl of porridge is JUST right!

*That medal is not pinned in a comfy place!*

People nag about the ending how a reveal is made in the end that for them came out of nowhere, but I can safely say, no that is not true! I have seen that twist coming from about half way in the series. The plot threats are there and while that story hasn’t really been a part of anything I think it got the perfect amount of attention for a 12 episode format. To me it shows that this story is much more cleverly written than most people give it credit for. It isn’t anything special by today’s standards but it is not aiming for today’s standards. If you watch this more as you’d watch a three hour disney movie or as story time before you go to sleep, this is just a very cute, wholesome story that has a girl in an iron maiden for some reason.

*I never knew my neignouring country puts girls in Iron Maidens! Would explain my crazy german ex though!*

If you watch it, watch it in batches of either 2 or 4 episodes at the same time. Not only are the even number episodes stronger.. but by using that format you will not end a day on episode 9.. because that one is so badly animated it will give you nightmares! In the end it might be a generic , unoriginal story but so are all disney movies and I love this exactly the same way as those classics… and that I think can only be a huge compliment. I choose to believe in Fairy Tales! Do you?!

Speaking of Fairy Tales?! Have you heard the Fairy Tale about the Blog Follower that got turned into a Coconut?! They supported the princess Kofi and were invited to live on a magical island with a unique coconut avatar and ALWAYS got nominated for any Blog Tags!
The princess used the Kofi money to build a better palace and to write her blog in more comfort so they could even show more positivity than she already tried! And they all lived happily ever after! At least.. if the coconuts could really miss the money! The princess would not want them to sacrifice what they could not miss! So if people would not the princess would just smile gleefully when people left something sweet in the comment section!

Pinkie Watches a Random Anime 2: Nanana’s Buried Treasure

As you may know I have a love for everything that is random! Once a month I use a website that gives you a random list of anime. I then roll a random number and flip to said item on that list. If I am not totally off-put by the title or the sheer episode number (which it usually tells you) I try to find if it streams somewhere. If it does I watch the first five episodes of it without reading the synopsis! Last month I failed.. I watched The Reflection.. a Stan Lee anime.. but I had nothing to say about it.. this month I got Nanana’s Buried treasure and here I am writing a blog! So guess I have more to tell about this one.

_{<Disclaimer>
This Review is mostly spoiler free, characters will be discussed and several settings and situations will be mentioned, however I will not discuss specifics or loyalties etc. The synopsis of this show will be mentioned so if you call that a spoiler you want to avoid… you are kinda a weirdo for clicking on this review in the first place
<End of Disclaimer>}

Technical Treasures

So let’s talk about the technical/paperwork stuff first. This anime is a one season anime which aired in spring 2014. It is produced by A1 studios and aired on Fuji Tv. I watched it on Crunchyroll and I actually managed to watch all of it before I wrote this blog! It has 11 episodes and leaves the story rather unfinished and finding the light novel to finish the story can actually be quite a hassle. So straight up, if you can not stand open ended.. uhm… endings…(great writing Pinkie), then this show is not going to be for you. It very much feels like a promotional anime. “That’s how far our story goes, now go and buy the manga or light novel” which will put a lot of viewers off. For those who stick around though the show can offer you a few fun adventures with a passable ending. There is a conclusion even if nothing is resolved. Depending on how you look at it. The show targets a shonen demographic..which most likely is less equipped with the ability to deal with open endings. It feels a bit like Lupin meets Indiana Jones, meets Mission Impossible, meets detective Conan, with a fair bit of fanservice mixed in between. It blends traditional anime with a lot of that cgi quasi 3d animation and a colour and style that reminded me bit of Persona.

The show like said earlier has 11 episodes which feeling wise takes us about one third through midway in the total story of the series. I’d call it an adventure comedy with some slice of life elements. We deal with a main character struggling to deal with rent.. and visiting an onsen.. and what girl to date but we also see him scale buildings and collapsing floors to find treasures. There even are a few actual anime fights. It’s a little bit of everything. It scores as 7.1 on MAL which I think is a surprisingly accurate grade and nearly identical to I would give it on a scale of one to ten. The main character Yama Juugo is voiced by Yuki Ono, whom I know as Isami Aldini from Food Wars and Moral from Hamatora. He also played Seaman A in Hunter X Hunter (the 2011 version) and Fish Dinosaur in Muromi San. Deuteragonist Nanana is voiced by Rui Tanabe.. whom I have never heard in anything before and whom I can’t tell if she had any important roles! I like the voice though but you can tell she falls a bit flat when having to work a bit with her voice (As in when she has to make it quiver or shout) The series is directed by Kanta Kamei for those people that find such things important.

Tomb Raider the Anime

The anime opens up with Nanana and some female friends exploring an ancient ruin. We get some heavy Indiana Jones vibes as we see poison darts flying around, crashing ceilings flash floods and more. Nanana is smiling widely from happiness while doing this while her friends have mixed reactions. Eventually we see them enter an antechamber and everyone catches their breath before we cut to the opening credits. Which brings me to my biggest problem with this anime… this show isn’t about that! I would have LOVED the show to be about that! Indiana Jones with anime girls! Sign me up! Yet instead we discover Nanana is not even the main character.

We meet a boy named Juugo who get exiled by his father and forced to live in the cheapest room he could find. An alcoholic female landlord makes some advances on him but then shows him to his room. To his surprise it is not empty. A girl is there eating pudding and playing video games every hour of every day . When he informs the landlord she tells him.. it’s not a girl.. that’s a ghost. Nanana got murdered 10 years ago and now is trapped here. She is a legendary treasure hunter and through those treasures she once found and had this island built they might find her killer so she can kill him. Since Yuugo starts feeling some affection for the poor girl he decides to help her and join up with a treasure hunting club. The anime is about the adventures of that club and Yuugo’s personal quests. Trough the many factions within this world.

When Nanana died her treasures had been spread all over the island hidden in so called “ruins” which are basically just puzzle rooms that each hold a magic item. Of course everyone Yuugo meets has their own agenda. Like the president of the Treasure hunting club, the all perceiving great detective Tensai and her male androgynous crossdressing assistant Daruku. Which in series is given a nasty name for that particular type of character.. which is another strike against the series.. but it is actually a very enjoyable character. He is adorable and comfortable with being a male, he just really wants to be a maid as well. Then there is the mysterious thieving organisation Matsuri ..which has deep connections with the very Treasure club and then there is some evil bloke! And a criminal gang and the little writer girl who is kinda into Yuugo. There honestly is a lot happening in this show and it’s surprising how much they are all fleshed out over the course of only 11 episodes. Of course there is still more to tell but by the end I had a pretty good idea of who everyone was and why they did the thing they did ! The show makes that very clear.. which means that despite it not telling the whole tale.. all pieces are pretty much on the table. Good thing!

To help Nanana discover who killed her, Juugo explores these ruins all while manoeuvring across all the treacherous elements. These artefacts can possibly hold great powers . Some are rather harmless, yet others could in the wrong hands be used to rul the world. So Yuugo can not just ask for Nanana’s sake! These ruins are life or death situations that each time are very different but usually contain some very Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones like challenges. Filled with trials of agility, wits and of course strength. These ruins are often riddled with traps or hidden mechanics keeping each episode fun and varied. The way the Treasure club moves through these can be reminiscent of Mission impossible .. with each team member fulfilling a certain roll and allocated to a certain strength. While the weight usually lies with Juugo and Tensai (the detective girl) others get involved as well which results in a fairly competent series with lots of plot twists and fairly fleshed out characters! More good things. The fact that people risk their lives for a CHANCE to get what they want and they might end up with a dud makes it feel more alive and makes you feel there is a world, behind just this group as well.

Oh Valley of Plenty, Oh Valley of Plenty!

Since this is a bit of a mystery story I am not going to explain everything that happens here, it’s all about how these relationships work but overall the stuff that happens and how it happens offers a plenty entertaining show. The way it is presented though rubs me a bit in the wrong way. We get some harem tones with the main character having obviously a connection to Nanana, but also to detective Tensai.. then there is a writer girl whom he has chemistry with and a flame from his past. Four girls.. in an 11 episode anime?! That’s a bit much for me personally. Add to this that there is a lot of fan-service comedy, like him wrestling with a girl and him allowing his arm to be dislocated just so he can cup a feel and there are a few scenes I am not particularly interested in. Oh right the drunk landlady also solicates for some action at times so I guess it’s five girls. It just feels unneeded for me.. then again I am not a young boy and people do like that stuff so happy for them it’s there. For me it’s plentiful enough that I can get a bit annoyed at it. I must commend them though .. I could see him ending up with all four of these girls, non of these romance options feels disingenuous. All ships have a charm to them. If I had been a manga would have tracked the series down to find out how this ended.

Then there is the cross-dressing maid… who looks like a girl sounds like a girl.. but is actually a guy. He gets upset when people mistake him for being a girl but he acts very girly. This show names him as “trap” which I find quite nasty and does bump this show down a peg or two. They mention it a few times.. and the worst one if when Yuugo calls him a trap claiming this person has an Excalibur just like his own” The wordt Trap can easily be harmful to trans-people so it should not be just a joke. Luckily they do portray him well! He identifies as male and can get kinda upset if people call him a girl. He is a man that just happens to look like a girl and likes woman’s clothing. He just wants to be himself and is sad if people do not see the real him. Nice However they also give him this quirk that wants to taste Tensai’s saliva but feeding her with his chopsticks and then licking them.

This is a returning gag and actually quite a good example how the humor in this show is taken. Everyone acts so awkward about their feelings here. Then there is a character whose name I honestly have forgotten as his character trait is to be Juugo, but a bit stealthier and just missing out on being on par with him. .. He keeps telling the girlish guy everything he does is so erotic and how he could initiate him. Why is everyone so horny when their lives are in danger or heck when there is food. As longs as you might die.. or can score some food there is no reason to feel the tinglies just above your legs! At least nog as much as these guys do! I don’t get it and feel this disconnect to that kind of joke. There are also a lot of boob jokes if that is your thing.. they aren’t even cringingly bad.. I just feel nothing for them.

The show also has a lot of jokes that actually did make me chuckle. Like the club president’s assistant constantly trying to let her beloved help her as well as Yuugo helps his girl to no avail or even the silly Nanana pudding humor. Nanana the ghost can only eat pudding.. and for the rest she just plays video games as she is bound to the room she died in. This means those puddings are what little she can experience of the world outside.. and she prefers puddings made at locations.. like the special pudding from the mall or from the town that made the onsen. It is cute. It might seem shallow first and it can feel kinda gimmicky but there is something humble enough about it. Like when Juugo asks her about a hint on one of the ruins..she tells him she has one condition.. as he says “yes of course I will get you pudding from said location ” she thinks and says “I have two conditions” showing she forgot about that but now can not let it go. Nanana has three things in her afterlife.. pudding, games and her rules and that’s so little she can’t give any up.. so I liked those kinds of jokes.

GIga Pudding

In the end this show is much like a pudding. It’s sweet, easily digestible and something you watch after coming out of a very serious series or after watching something long. It’s a bit of a palette cleanser. Unfortunately for Nanana this isn’t one of those custom made puddings she made.. this is a bit of a store brand ones.. she still loves them just they do not make her list of favourites. The vanilla flavour is fine and the treasure hunting is like that chocolate/cherry sauce that shift it towards a more unique experience. Tet if we look a bit better at the composition we can see it is made out of some lower grade materials. Which are fine.. but also not that special. It’s a tasty mix of all elements being good enough but there is also not that much to make it stand out.

The way all these puddings are structured does leave you wanting for more though. After I finished each episode , I wanted to watch the next due to a cliffhanger .. that almost always got resolved off screen weirdly enough, to find out what actually happened I had to watch through almost nearly an entire other episode for it being mentioned. Which is a great way to make you hooked on a show that otherwise might not be strong enough! So it is at least clever! I wanted to watch 5 episodes for this review and see if I wanted to continue it..but episode 5,6 and 7 ended on a cliffhanger and then i was like.. I only need 4 more episodes and before I knew it I was out of pudding! I consumed it almost all as one as a sort of Giga Pudding. …I think I heard a song about it once… it was really long. I liked this anime it was a nice way to spend three hours or so. However I am pretty sure it will not take that long for this anime to be buried deep within my mind!

I really wish this concept would have been used for a slightly better show, it’s not that this show is bad.. I just think the concept is amazing but the show never aimed for that standard. Instead of ending up with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow we end up with a pudding cup at one of the shelves in your fridge..it will still make you happy for a little while but that happiness will not linger. Hmmm now I feel like getting a pineapple pudding! Why Pineapple?!
Because this anime is

Now that is done it’s time for me to go on a treasure hunt myself! By that I mean raid my fridge for some lunch, have you seen this anime?! Do you know of any more Indiana Jones like, treasure hunting anime? I don’t mean One Piece.. I mean .. traps, puzzles and stuff!
Let me know and have a nice weekend! All the love! Stay Happy!

XO

Pinkie

P.S. I remember that song now!

If you want to make the song stop but are powerless to click away I suggest you get redirected by supporting my Kofi! Now this is the best Kofi add I ever did!