{"id":7776,"date":"2013-08-07T00:04:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T10:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.studionewmedia.com\/blog\/?p=7776"},"modified":"2013-08-07T00:04:43","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T10:04:43","slug":"the-cards-have-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/08\/07\/the-cards-have-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cards Have It"},"content":{"rendered":"

As in previous years, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a common theme in some of the anime properties this season. This year it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s magical girls and cards. The three I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of are Fantasista Doll<\/em>, Day Break Illusion<\/em>, and Fate\/kaleid liner Prisma Illya<\/em>. In Fantasista Doll, the middle-school protagonist comes into possession of a smartphone that allows her to call forth five combat \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dolls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that she can variously equip with a card app on said phone. In Day Break Illusion the high-school protagonist has inherited the power to transform and use the power of tarot cards to engage in battle with dark forces. In Prisma Illya, the elementary-school protagonist becomes the unexpected heroine through happenstance and has to use her newfound powers to stop the transdimentional manifestations of cards and collect them. All three have different intents, but all share high quality artwork, both in the character animation and background art.<\/p>\n

Day Break Illusion<\/strong> (Gen’ei o Kakeru Taiyou<\/em>) is the most serious of the three properties, and is the most stylized. If I had to compare it to something, it would be like Heat Guy J<\/em> or Basquach!<\/em>, where the character art is very individual to the property, and the setting and backstory are extremely detailed, immersive, and complete. The characters don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look like anything else this season. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the big head\/hands\/feet and unnaturally lanky extremities that make even adult characters look like adolescents going through their awkward growth-spurt years, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lots of weird hair to go around. This one has been compared to Puella Magi Madoka Magica<\/em> a lot because of the initial \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cutesiness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, but it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dark for dark\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the adversaries are more completely realized and more importantly, properly animated. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to jack us around with the endless time loop anguish either. Although at cursory first glance at the promotional artwork, one might be led to believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a kid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s show, it does become quickly apparent before the first episode concludes that it is not. This is definitely for an older viewer demographic. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get the expected \u00e2\u20ac\u0153four girls with different personalities have to learn to work together\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coming to terms with unwanted destiny\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153coming to terms with death\/loss\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accepting death\/disappearance as the consequence for maintaining the greater good\u00e2\u20ac\u009d themes in troves. Oh, and if you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t figured it out from the background art already, the setting is Nagasaki. Five episodes in and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m impressed. \u00c2\u00a0A<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Fantasista Doll<\/strong> is another property that at first glance seems to be a kiddy show with the overtly cute characters, overly detailed costumes, and heavy reliance on bright, heavily saturated primary and secondary colors. Watching the first episode alone is enough to clear up this as a misunderstanding, as the somewhat dumb and sugary story with purposely ambiguous setting sets this one up as a parody aimed at the geek\/fanboy community. You could almost imagine Bandai\/Tomy making dress-up dolls of the main characters, and a toy phone for the under-12 market, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point: That is the atmosphere they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re aiming for. This one is sort-of like Tantei Opera Milky Holmes<\/em> where it outwardly appears to be for a young target demographic, but the content leads you to conclude otherwise. Just the fact that it is so heavily loaded with tropes, character archetypes, and visual clich\u00c3\u00a9s indicates that it is aimed at an audience who has seen all those properties going back to the 1980\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that they are parodying. The real strong points of this property are the action is done very well, and the characters are resolved well from all angles. The one negative thing I can think of is like Milky Holmes, the story is tedious and predictable. I almost think it might actually be better for the bright-color-loving under-12 crowd just because nothing unexpected really is going to happen. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also no fan service nor any really questionable content (like the incessant nipple references of Milky Holmes). The action is enough to keep me watching, so I guess I can suspend belief long enough each week to make it through this visual gem. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll watch it all the way thorough.\u00c2\u00a0 B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fate\/kaleid liner Prisma Illya<\/strong> is simply a magical girl parody using characters from the Type-Moon universe. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve played Tsukihime<\/em> all way through begrudgingly, and attempted to watch some of the previous serious anime adaptations of Type-Moon properties, and even the parody short Carnival Phantasm<\/em>, but in all honesty, I really, really disliked them all. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the characters, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the visuals, and I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the stories. It therefore came as a total surprise even to myself that I liked Prisma Illya. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because they \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcre poking fun at themselves so much as the story is so detached from their universe that the characters set free of the bonds that would otherwise burden them with obtuse, pointless backstory. This one again has been compared to Madoka<\/em>, but in this instance it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t because of any dark, menacing, fatalistic tone, but the presence of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153characters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (are magic wands characters?) who somewhat approximate the enabler, Kyubey<\/em>. These characters however are not as detached and amoral. Although this show is the most lighthearted and fun, the level of fanservice would indicate that it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for kids, even with the lack of any heavy darkness or scary stuff. Loli fans, your train has arrived. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 4 episodes in and liking it so far. As long as they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hit me on the head with any heavy Type-Moon dogma, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably keep on watching.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 A-<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As in previous years, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a common theme in some of the anime properties this season. This year it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s magical girls and cards. The three I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of are Fantasista Doll, Day Break Illusion, and Fate\/kaleid liner Prisma Illya. In Fantasista Doll, the middle-school protagonist comes into possession of a smartphone that allows her to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[3,12,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paJYlx-21q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7777,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7776\/revisions\/7777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}