Kazuya Minekura is the creator of Saiyuki, one of my all-time favorite manga and anime series. Araiso Private High School, etc. is a comic anime that -- well, it's hard to describe, but I'll try.
The Executive Committee of the Student Council is the body charged with maintaining peace and order on the school campus -- the enforcers, as it were. Headed by Katsuragi, the group includes Kubota and Takitou, who travel together and are the focus of the story; Murota, a huge young man who always seems to be working out; Matsubara and Ainoura, whose specialties are hard to figure out; and Fujiwara, who is hopelessly in love with Kubota and winds up always being low man on the totem pole..
The first episode centers on the school ball-game tournament, and the efforts of Ootsuka, the leader of the school's less desirable element, to get revenge on Kubota and Takitou for repeatedly thwarting his petty criminality -- usually at great embarrassment to him. Needless to say, Ootsuka and his followers don't get things their way. The prize here is an appearance by Igarashi, the school's doctor, who obviously has the hots for Kubota and whom Takitou accuses of being a transvestite. It turns out she's into S&M, much to Ootsuka's dismay.
The second episode involves a rash of strange occurrences, and the inevitable ghost stories, on campus. It turns out that some of the ghosts are real.
I love the character designs in this one, which take Minekura's typical drawing style and add a little bit of clarity. One thing that struck me especially is the way characters smile -- there's is something fundamentally appealing about those smiles, even Ootsuka's. The contrast between Takitou, small, energetic, high-key, and Kubota, tall, taciturn, and quiet, is engaging. The subtext between them is interesting, and leaves a lot of room for interpretation -- they are either playing just to yank everyone's chains, or the play is masking real feelings. We never know, but it's fun to speculate. Igarashi is a delight, as are all the characters -- all the seiyuu get high marks for this one -- the delivery of the lines is half the appeal, and everyone is perfectly on target. (In fact, I can just sit and listen to the spoken dialogue on this one -- it's that appealing.)
Minekura has used Kubota and Takitou as the main characters in Wild Adapter a manga series of a decidedly dark cast. Their relationship in that one is very complex and somewhat tangled, and when I get around to finishing it (so many manga, so little time!), I may discuss it here.
This one is a treat, and only two episodes, running somewher ein the vicinity of 50-55 minutes total. It doesn't seem to have been released on DVD in the U.S., but there are fansubs online.
Here's the closing titles to give you a feel for the thing:
Crew:
Director: Shinji Satoh
Screenplay: Mami Watanabe
Music: Koichiro Kameyama
Original Manga: Kazuya Minekura
Character Design: Hiroyuki Horiuchi
Art director: Norifumi Nakamura, Takeshi Waki
Animation director: Hiroyuki Horiuchi
Director of Photography: Akinobu Majima
Producer: Sanae Mitsugi (Tokuma Shoten), Takeshi Oikawa (MOVIC), Takeyoshi Matsushita (Tokuma Shoten), Yutaka Takahashi (MOVIC)
Animation producer: Atsushi Tanaka
Assistant Animation Director: Kumiko Shishido, Yoshiko Nakajima
Color design: Makiko Nishidate
Production Administrator: Daisuke Hagihara (MOVIC), Kenta Nishikawaji (MOVIC), Ryouta Hayashi (Tokuma Shoten)
Production Cooperation: Sawako Oshio (Tokuma Shoten)
Sound Direction: Jun Watanabe
Theme Song Performance: Hideo Ishikawa, Toshiyuki Morikawa
Cast:
Hideo Ishikawa as Tokitoh Minoru
Toshiyuki Morikawa as Kubota Makoto
Akira Sasanuma as Matsubara Jun
Atsushi Kisaichi as Fujiwara Yusuke
Ken Narita as Matsumoto Takahisa
Kousuke Toriumi as Ainoura Seiichi
Nobuo Tobita as Tachibana Haruka
Tomoko Kawakami as Katsuragi Kazumi
Tomoyuki Shimura as Toshihiko Murota
Yuko Kobayashi as Igarashi Tohru
(Please note: The only cast list I can find seems to be incomplete. If I ever find a complete one, I'll add the missing names.)
No comments:
Post a Comment