Shelf Life

Corpse Bride

I maintain that this show is a rental, but if you rent the first disc and like it, you might as well buy the entire series because, by George, at least it's consistent. I liked the second half more than the first half, but I'm sure it's because I knew what to expect. With the bar of my expectations lowered, I was able to enjoy this even without a noticeable increase in quality. It's just like when I watched Black Sheep in 1996; my expectation bar had been set low by Tommy Boy (1995).

The character introductions that made up the cringe-worthy part one of this series were thankfully absent from part two. After the large ensemble cast has completely assembled, situations and jokes bounce around with surprisingly competent comedy writing.

OK, well, one new character gets introduced in part two. Akeno is sent from the Mermaid world to give Sun an exam to see if she's fit to stay in the human world. Akeno is a bureaucrat and a well-endowed swordswoman. She's instantly popular with the boys, who launch into a loyalty/popularity war. It's fun to see Sun freak out in these episodes, since normally she's mild-mannered and can be excessively nice to the point of being boring, like Marge Simpson (is Marge anyone's favorite character?).

Some of supporting cast definitely deserves a tip of the hat; Masa is a hilarious merman/thug/math teacher with an equally hilarious dub performance by Christopher R. Sabat. Masa's lesson plans always involve yakuza mathematics, which is comedy gold. Much fun is had with protagonist Nagasumi's adoration of Masa; it's a running gag yaoi parody that Nagasumi looks at Masa with sparkles in his eyes. Sabat's dub performance is an accurate(ish) Samuel L. Jackson impersonation, which is a lot of fun.

Shark Fujishiro, as his name implies, is a shark in human form, and he gets some great gags in part two. Bryan Massey's dub performance of this human shark is just about perfect.

The plots of part two are standard anime fare. Someone gets a disease everyone thinks is fatal (like in Kimagure Orange Road), there's a school trip to Kyoto, Lunar's dad plays gal games to understand her and ends up cross-dressing (OK, maybe that's not normal), Nagasumi gets a love letter and the whole school is obsessed with it, and the Mer-people are afraid of cats. A two-part episode wraps things up over an adventure where the stakes are slightly higher than normal.

This wasn't a bad show by any means, but it doesn't lend itself to re-watching like Ninja Nonsense or School Rumble. But, like I said, it's consistent, unlike some other shows…[TOP]

Mamori is drawn off model throughout this disc. She's not important to this particular arc, but is that any excuse to draw her so badly that she looks like someone else entirely? She's not even consistent from one scene to the next within a single episode.

A few unimportant non-football game episodes suffer from Initial D syndrome. When characters aren't in a race in Initial D they look even uglier than normal; likewise in Eyeshield 21, any episode without a game is clearly farmed out to an inferior animation studio.

While writing this column, I hit upon the idea that a series is only as strong as its most powerful villain. In this set of episodes, the main rival is Rui Habashira, a tough-playing yakuza-like chameleon-looking football player with unusually long arms. He's a somewhat menacing opponent, but after watching the game against the White Knights, Rui seems like a joke. Even our protagonist, Sena, says that Rui is no match for his White Knights rival Shin. That is weak sauce!

The team recruits Monta, a baseball fanatic who is an expert catcher as their wide receiver. He looks like a monkey, just like the henchman Hideyoshi in Mermaid (reviewed above). It takes Sena far too long to figure out he should recruit Monta for the team. In other words, I got bored.

As for the gameplay, I'd like to reiterate that I don't know that much about football, but even I know holding is illegal. There are a ton of fouls in this show, and I'm never sure if the rules are different in American football as it's played in Japan or if it's just that these kids are playing without any referees. Particularly in this arc against the Zokugaku Chameleons, a lot of flags should be thrown on those plays. (Of course, the high caliber weapons Hiruma uses to intimidate the rest of his team are probably illegal in Japan.)

There is a small side story about a little kid in a hospital who loves football that is just about the most hackneyed cliché sports storyline ever. If I were re-watching this show I'd skip this disc. There isn't even a dub or any extras.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to part two of Eyeshield 21. They haven't even introduced any cheerleaders yet! Hopefully some of the games against teams other than the White Knights will hold up. [TOP]