I've been meaning to watch this for a while, but always got turned off by the apparent childish silliness I saw while fast forwarding through it. I'm glad I finally gave it a try, however, as it's much deeper than it first appears.
Much like Cowboy Bebop this anime is a blend of many different genres. Unlike Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo, however, Oh! Edo Rocket goes a step further by giving the characters occasional meta-awareness to parody the genres--in a sense, meta-meta. You'd think that would be a turn off, but it's not. It's very well done.
The plot presented in the first few episodes borders on the absurd, yet no humor or meta joke is made of it. A space creature crashed in Japan in the early 1800s and is trying to return to its mothership on the dark side of the moon. To do so it requests the help of a Keikichi--a fireworks artisan--to create a firework capable of reaching the moon. This set against the dark era of prohibition, where all luxuries (fireworks included) are banned.
Absurd, yet this facet of the plot is never poked fun at. As absurd as it is, it quickly becomes the element of the story most based in reality. With alien tech and math involved it becomes plausible that people of the 19th century could create a rocket capable of reaching the moon.
The characters which have no depth are drawn flat. This was one of the turn-offs for me at first, yet it's fairly effective in separating type-cast roles from actual characters. Those characters which do have depth have remarkable depth. There is no cliche evil mastermind like Sephiroth or Orochimaru--the evil in the show comes from morally weak characters.
Oh yeah, and the soundtrack is almost entirely jazz.
No, they're not always cats. Nor is it a musical. Yet this wasn't just an off-moment, distinct from the "real" show. From a continuity point of view this sequence actually happened, and affected the plot like any other element would.
Absurd? You'd be surprised how rational it seems.
It's a great series. Keikichi is only sometimes angsty (cutely angsty, mind you) and unlike most thick-headed protagonists has enough depth to keep him interesting.
I won't say much about Sora's human form, but her beast form is cute as hell, ne? ;)
Can you show an example of the "drawn flat" alternative? In what way are they flat, exactly?
Though I lack the expertise to truly comment on most anime, I'm always a fan of asian interpretations of music being integrated into an anime. Cowboy Bebop had me floored when they used jazz, GOOD jazz, as their soundtrack, and as for Champloo (though I did not enjoy the series) the music was quite commendable and unique.
An old discussion brought up from shared Trigun-fanboi-ism, was us laughing at the soundtrack as much as we did. Elements of twangy country, transitioning into an almost new-wave feel, and then some electronica elements? In the SAME songs? Being foremost music-lovers before anime fans, the group of us all proclaimed that something so obtuse should not work together, AT ALL. Somehow, they made it sound good.
Those crazy innovative asians. More power to them.
The cat video was... intruiging, though maybe I'd have found more humor in it if I wasn't just waking up. I stared at my screen in confusion, "Are they speaking any language I know?" Nyao nyao nyao to you, too!
(I think the winner of the stupid name contest stays with "Read Or Die" however, of which I have not seen.)
I'm a sucker for cinematic soundtracks / OSTs no matter how bad they are. I love music like I love food--even the bad tastes good.
As for flat..I'd rather not. They still annoy me a bit.
I didn't even mention the art in this anime. You can probably tell by the screenshots but the background is drawn very differently than the foreground. The backgrounds are all deeply saturated with thick black outlines (which are then somewhat washed out to stay in the background) while the characters themselves are drawn fairly normally. It's similar to but not quite sumi-e while the lines themselves are almost exaggerated calligraphy. It's a really good effect that I love. I think I've seen it before, but can't remember where =/
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Though I lack the expertise to truly comment on most anime, I'm always a fan of asian interpretations of music being integrated into an anime. Cowboy Bebop had me floored when they used jazz, GOOD jazz, as their soundtrack, and as for Champloo (though I did not enjoy the series) the music was quite commendable and unique.
An old discussion brought up from shared Trigun-fanboi-ism, was us laughing at the soundtrack as much as we did. Elements of twangy country, transitioning into an almost new-wave feel, and then some electronica elements? In the SAME songs? Being foremost music-lovers before anime fans, the group of us all proclaimed that something so obtuse should not work together, AT ALL. Somehow, they made it sound good.
Those crazy innovative asians. More power to them.
The cat video was... intruiging, though maybe I'd have found more humor in it if I wasn't just waking up. I stared at my screen in confusion, "Are they speaking any language I know?" Nyao nyao nyao to you, too!
(I think the winner of the stupid name contest stays with "Read Or Die" however, of which I have not seen.)
I'm a sucker for cinematic soundtracks / OSTs no matter how bad they are. I love music like I love food--even the bad tastes good.
As for flat..I'd rather not. They still annoy me a bit.
I didn't even mention the art in this anime. You can probably tell by the screenshots but the background is drawn very differently than the foreground. The backgrounds are all deeply saturated with thick black outlines (which are then somewhat washed out to stay in the background) while the characters themselves are drawn fairly normally. It's similar to but not quite sumi-e while the lines themselves are almost exaggerated calligraphy. It's a really good effect that I love. I think I've seen it before, but can't remember where =/