Are KyoAni trying to make another Escaflowne out of Munto?
Before I go any further, a quick history lesson: before Haruhi Suzumiya, before Lucky Star, before the Full Metal Panic! sequels, hell, even before the Key adaptations, KyoAni made an OAV called Munto. Nope, I’d never heard of it before either. This may well come as a surprise to anyone else who shares my lack of knowledge of unlicenced anime prior to 2006 but they apparently hit the big time with a straight-to-video series that wasn’t an adaptation of something else. Now they’re revisiting Munto in TV format, which led to comparisons with the OAV from long-term fans, an intrigued exclamation of “O rly?” from a few of us and a complete lack of interest from everyone else.
The full title of the series is one of the most awesomely long-winded and poetic names of any anime I’ve ever come across: Sora o Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru no Sekai, a.k.a. The World Reflected in the Eyes of the Girl Who Looks at the Sky. Honestly, it sounds like a song from the Smashing Pumpkins, Pink Floyd or 65 Days of Static or something. The story starts off with what looks like a rebellion against the Magical Kingdom of the heavens over the flow of energy in the universe, and the possibility that a girl from the human world holds the key to restoring peace and balance. It sounds like a magical girl show, which I was hoping would mean I could enjoy a series from the last genre category that I’ve never had any interest in before now. The premise certainly sounds familiar…
That is, another journey back in time that involves the first box set of Escaflowne that’s currently gathering dust on my shelf. I’ve still yet to buy the rest and see the second half of the series, mainly because the UK discs were released during Beez’s early days before they became awesome: the picture quality’s lacklustre and I’ve heard there were subtitle glitches in the latter episodes, not helped by the fact that the English dub is so mediocre it’s not an enticing alternative. Right from the outset though Munto reminded me a lot of my first experience with Escaflowne many moons ago.
The similarities are admittedly thematic; Munto is a KyoAni show through and through from an aesthetic perspective so is pretty different in terms of presentation. It has a vaguely-girly pastels-and-watercolour look that reminds me a lot of Lucky Star or Clannad, but at the same time shows that delightful attention to detail. Whatever else I say about their output, I concede that KyoAni are the only studio alongside Bones and Ghibli who are consistently impressive in their production values, and this is no exception: it all looks really, really pretty, which I guess isn’t a surprise given much of the footage is allegedly lifted from the OAV.
When I say ‘vaguely girly’ I mean it has a shoujo-friendly feel during the scenes that are set in the human world, which made me wonder if this was intended to be a series for teenage girls but according to Anime Calendar it’s in the more otaku-friendly 01:45 tuesday morning timeslot. This surprises me because while I’m sure fans’ studio loyalty will draw in an audience (not that this assumption has been supported by the blogosphere reaction) it has a storytelling approach that lends itself better to the tamer realm of saturday morning kids’ TV.
Why so serious?
There’s a peculiar combination of shoujo-friendly pastel shades and middle school angst (the human world) and shounen-style magical battles (the Magical Kingdom). I’m pretty comfortable with KyoAni’s high school fare these days so ironically the un-gar side of Munto isn’t too bad to sit through. The battles on the other hand are full of pretty-shiny CG explosions, OVER NINE THOUSAND destructive balls of light and exhibit the stereotypical long, drawn-out dialogue that bores me to death. Even the hero of the series’ (short) title is a variant on the spiky haired bishie archetype who has an unspecified (and apparently limitless) amount of fighting energy so it’s hard to make up your mind whether his battle is won, lost or even whether you should care in the first place.
The bottom line is, I’m dying to learn how this fighting of the war in the Magical Kingdom is relevant to Yumemi, the Girl of Destiny in the human world because on its own it’s pretty generic. Her more earth-bound issues of school, family and friends are I think supposed to be parallel to or reflections of her destiny in the lands of the Heavens, so presumably she’ll soon embark on a Magical Adventure à la Hitomi and link the two together. The trouble is the characters in this world are of the uninventive pointy-eared fairytale stock, don’t have much in the way of depth or personality and I’m not sure about the politics either.
What is this? Sugar-coated Tytania?!
The tame child-friendly impression I’ve had from this show comes mostly from the presentation of Yumemi’s life: one subplot involves a schoolmate ‘marrying’ a local boy by swimming across a river with him! After putting aside the obvious fact that thirteen year old kids are below the required age for tying the knot, I followed their story and came to realise how Yumemi’s realisation of her responsibilities (as in, helping Munto save the Heavens and in turn saving the human world) were kick-started by watching her best friend make a grand gesture at showing her own emotional maturity. So it’s relevant to her story. I think.
The problem here is that an idea like swimming across a river with your would-be fiancé to prove your devotion and maturity is unlikely to move anyone old enough to know the meaning of ‘cynicism’; to my jaded twenty-something eyes it came across as naïve and ridiculous. I’m prepared to give it a fair hearing though since KyoAni have a quirky storytelling style that’s tripped me up before but the moments of real-life comedy and drama are still punctuated by those yawn-inducing scenes of sodding supernatural fighting.
It’s corny but it’s sweet so I’m cool with it. More scenes like these please.
I’m honestly not sure whether to continue with this because it’s currently a mixture of cute, almost-convincing slice of life and mediocre magical warfare; but then, it’s also a KyoAni show that has had virtually no attention, which is such an improbable prospect that even I want to do something about it. If it manages to offer their own take on a classic story that appealed to a broad and varied demographic of fans so much the better, but judging by the lack of fanfare that’s surrounded Munto so far I don’t fancy its chances just yet.
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I’ve been on the fence about whether to devote any of my limited viewing time to this. Kyoto Animation seem very into stories that I think smell of “kids’ stuff” but I’ve been lynched for saying that before, so no more on that from me…
That said, this doesn’t exactly read as a ringing endorsement. But a “misstep” (to use your word on twitter) from Kyoto could be a better watch than a resounding success from others, no?
I always saw Munto as more an exercise in style rather than substance, which is why I think there’s not much emphasis on keeping the plot as tight as something like Escaflowne. The plot in Munto is a bit all over the place, the different countries and political forces have so little depth that right now they’re almost indistinguishable (either that, or I’m not caring enough to go to the effort to try to distinguish them from the other). If you look at the OVAs themselves from the point of view of something that was showcasing an animation style that was cutting edge for when they first came out, it’s a lot easier to appreciate them, but rewatching them in TV format now just re-emphasizes that the plot was nothing special (and a touch ridiculous in the case of the river crossing) and the animation style is six years too late to make an impact.
I think the depth is what’s bothering me the most about this series. The river crossing lacked any sort of coherent meaning that I could grasp out of it and felt almost whimsical while the battle in the “other world” is a head-scratcher because there’s no political ideology that separates the two sides and the lack of a motive behind the conflict (or rather, the lack of an explanation behind the struggle) is really grating on my nerves.
I’ve watched 5 episodes so far. The show leaves me feeling good but I can’t help but think that these 5 episodes could have been stretched out to 13 episodes and it would be a much better show; it feels like we’re getting a greatly condensed version of the story.
I’ve noticed other people that want to justify their hate for the show compare it to Escaflowne and say it’s just a knockoff. I haven’t seen Escaflowne but when I checked I saw the original anime is 13 years old. If the last show this can be compared to is 13 years old, it should be a compliment. Even an awesome show like Toradora is of a show type that we several times a year and Toradora’s claim to fame is just being one of the most polished and well-executed attempts to date.
@otou-san: I’m still undecided on this show, honestly. Is it substandard, or merely not aimed at viewers like me? If nothing else though, it makes for prettier screencaps than most things I’m watching right now!
@Sorrow-kun: I’m starting to get the feeling that this was KyoAni’s demonstration of their technical ability as opposed to an epic yarn – that would certainly explain why I’m impressed with the visuals but like you unsure if I actually care about what’s going on. Since they’re revisiting it and continuing it in TV format though I’m cautiously optimistic that when the OAVs were planned there was a longer plotline devised and shelved for later use, which could be what we’re seeing here. I hope that’s the case, anyway.
@zzeroparticle: don’t worry about not ‘getting’ it – I had to look up the show on the AnimeSuki forum, and it wasn’t until reading the Munto thread that I came across any explanation for the significance of the river crossing segment! With any luck episode #5 will show more convincing drama in the human world and go easy on the supernatural battles, or at least put them into some sort of context. If that doesn’t happen I can see myself dropping it.
@steelbound: As far as I remember the first half of Escaflowne was excellent and taking the mediocre video transfer of the UK discs into account I don’t think it’s aged badly at all (Yoko Kanno soundtrack too!). What Escaflowne has over Munto however is the convincing nature of the politics – iirc Hitomi is in the middle of a huge conflict that draws you in. Munto isn’t so much a knock-off as something that might be aspiring to something of such epic scope, but it doesn’t have such a solid plot behind it. Point taken with Toradora! though – that series is as great as it is through the execution of what we’ve all seen so many times before…and yet it’s so full of warmth and humour. I’ll be blogging about it soon! ^_^
I normally don’t call that a deadly sin of anime. There are much much worse things you could say about a series. Like the opposite: long and drawn-out but with little plot and nothing to say.
It’s amazing, but I never put two-and-two together with the Munto OVA. I never knew it was Kyo-Ani’s first work. Thinking about it as a sort of “technical” presentation to show off their abilities to prospective clients makes a lot of sense now.
And as jaded and cynical as I’ve gotten lately, I still thought Suzume crossing the river with her boyfriend was quite heart warming. Maybe even quaint? It’s not like they met drunk at a party and declared that they were in “love.” So, they’re already better off than most fools I know. Plus I give them points for originality, if anything.
@otou-san: the pacing is a good thing in this case – I’d hate to see it drag things out. Unfortunately it’s the lack of context for certain things that’s a problem at the moment.
@Michael: I only noticed the origins of the OAV after a bit of background reading (since I know precisely nothing about it before watching the TV show). I’m still unconvinced by the series, but according to the next episode preview Interesting Things will start happening from #6 onwards. It’s still verging on droppage but I’m willing to give it another chance!
Very detailed review! I think that everything you’ve listed story-wise points at one thing: it’s aimed at a younger audience. Kids without knowledge of the realities of marriage can think that getting married via a ritual like swimming across the river is a neat thing. Kids who haven’t seen 32479823 fighting anime can think that all those flying balls of light are cool instead of overdone. Kids without experience can mistake obscurity for plot complexity (and have the patience to sit around waiting for an explanation.)
This, of course, clashes horribly with the 1:45 air time.