Hige vs. Otaku

I think now, with the perspective of knowing with that the anime and manga definitely will be different, it makes judging Bokurano on its own merits easier. Some of those merits still don’t sit well with me (the washed out colour scheme, the gangly CG segments etc.) but I can’t fault the success of Bokurano’s more domestic-based character development, and episode nine is a good example of this.

The slow burning tragedy of Daichi’s predicament exemplifies the underlying tension of the entire show incredibly well. The kids know they will die after their turn with Zearth is over, and most of the dramaturgy is born from what they do with this remaining time. Some are driven insane and act out, some resign to their fate and detach themselves from their daily woes, and Daichi, forced to care for others above himself, represents pragmatism.

If handled poorly, this could’ve been as detached and inhumane as the characters who lost their shit, or the ones who gave up because they knew they would die. Characters that sacrifice themselves for the sake of duty often seem like robots and have very little for the audience to identify with. What really maintains Daichi’s pathos, however, is that he never loses his sense of self; of being the responsible, eldest caregiver but equally being a loving brother. He doesn’t allow his impending death to victimise his life. He makes arrangements for his siblings’ futures and gives them as much of his companionship as he possibly can. Daichi’s circumstance initially suggests he has one of the hardest lives of the fifteen kids, but it turns out to be the thing that keeps him strong until the very end.

I really enjoyed this episode. It wasn’t as messy as some of the previous arcs, and the emotional highs and lows weren’t as severe, but it was excellently plotted and the character moments never floundered. One of the highlights of the series so far and exactly what I needed to revitalise my waning interest in the show.

This was a lovely example of pacing. No overt showing off of capabilities, a standard GONZO first episode practise, but rather a very solid and faithful representation of its source material. One of the main aspects of Bokurano’s manga I love is its seemingly leisurely pace in the face of incredibly bleak prospects, and its anime adaptation honours this approach whilst offering a touch more to legitimise its existence.

Visually, it captures the style of the comic quite well. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, as I’m not a fan of Mohiro Kitoh’s character designs or the anime approximations, but it did nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the manga and I doubt it will for the anime. The CG for Zearth and its combatants is fine, but I’ve yet to see an anime that can integrate CG and cel animation seamlessly and it still grates, even at the hands of the proficient GONZO. I understand why they animated the fights this way, though; Zearth is a hulking cumbersome thing without much articulated movement, so the heavy, mechanical affect you can get with CG suits it perfectly. The fight itself still bored me to tears, however.

Bokurano, as I see it, is basically a character study with sci-fi window dressing. The manga dedicates the majority of its time to fleshing out the fifteen protagonists and eventually placing them in a battle that will lead to their deaths. The battles themselves never excited me; the real grit comes from the children’s realisation that to fight means their end, and what they do in response to this knowledge. Instigate Lord of the Flies imaginings and you’ve got a pretty idea of what’s to come. The myriad of characters briefly hinted at in this episode means the variety of ‘coping strategies’ is disturbingly vast, as are the moral dilemmas, and I’m pretty damn excited about how GONZO will approach the task. Out of all the new shows this season Bokurano has the greatest expectation to perform and so far I’m not disappointed