Anime: Nostalgia Entertainment?

There was one scene in Angel Beats! that I didn't touch on much, even though some of the ideas conveyed by it were potentially powerfully poignant, and likely very telling. I didn't touch on it much because it was suggesting a general truism of sorts about anime today which transcends Angel Beats! itself, and hence I didn't want to spend much time on it in an actual Angel Beats! review. That truism is that modern anime intermittently intensely idealizes school life. 

Ga-rei Zero Review

Before I begin this review, two key heads-up:

1. This review will be highly spoilerrific. I don't think that I can do justice while delving into the key strengths of this anime, without spoiling a lot of it.

2. I came into this show in large part due to its moe appeal. In other words, I didn't come into it mainly for the action, which I think will give this blog a very different (if not contrary) flavor when compared to some of the other Ga-rei Zero blog reviews that I've read. This anime was recommended to me on Anime Suki by 0utf0xZer0 when I asked for suggestions for a "moe character designs with dramatic storyline" anime. After watching the Higurashi animes, the Nanoha animes, Clannad, and Mai HiME, I've come to feel that moe actually blends very well with serious sophisticated suspenseful drama, as I think that the two compliment one another nicely while providing crisp contrasts between look and feel that can give the final work an added 'oomph!'. However, notice that Clannad is on the list there, so fighting action scenes were not a prerequisite for what I was looking for here, but they certainly can help. And it helps a lot for why I enjoyed Ga-rei Zero a lot.

In the Shadows of Clannad

I recently watched Amagami SS Episode 9.

It had slick artwork and solid animation, it showcased mostly good character designs, and it was rather benign. Few people who are already very familiar with anime would find it disturbing in the least, and the only scene that would even possibly raise the eyebrows of even a total newcomer to anime is the flashback scene of one girl giddily gleefully rubbing another girl's breasts.

Junichi may be a bit of a pervert, in the very broadest sense of the term, but he's the most innocent type of one. He gets aroused by even the slightest of physical contact with an attractive girl, even through layers of clothing. There's nothing in Junichi's approaches and reactions to girls that even a shy choir boy at the age of twelve would find alarming, or hard to appreciate. There's also nothing even coming close to the degrees of slapstick violence found in Love Hina!, Negima!, or even your typical Jun Maeda produced comedy bit. So Amagami is incredibly inoffensively innocuous.