Shelf Life

Magnificent Eleven

Based on the trailers, I didn't think I'd like 11 Eyes, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying the show, at least at first. Sure, there are a lot of database tropes, but if I squinted a little I could sort of avoid the panty shots and not think about the non-consensual groping scenes. With those things out of the way, I was free to enjoy the plot.

Kakeru and Yuka are childhood friends who grew up in the same orphanage, and they seem just on the brink of hooking up as a real couple in high school when they're suddenly thrown into another dimension they name “The Red Night.” There, they are forced to fight creepy monsters spawned by some creepier villains. Fortunately, the couple is quickly rescued by a (red-headed) sword-wielding badass named Misuzu, who also attends their school. (The-red headed girl with a sword is apparently a trope now, like in Shakugan No Shana.)

Our trio is whisked back to the normal world soon enough, where they meet other kids at school who have also been forced to fight in the Red Night. There's a videogame logic at work; they don't know when the Red Night will appear or why the monsters want to kill them. The small group of dimensionally afflicted friends starts meeting up like an afterschool games club, except they are forced to go on raids. I can dig it.

Most of the characters have interesting back stories. For example, I liked Yukiko as a character, even if she had the cliché-personality-changes-when-the-glasses-come-off thing and was a (the) compulsive breast groper. It turns out she's from a crazy war-torn village that's relevant to the plot, and even though she seems cheerful she's filled with deep dark angst.

I was even willing to forgive some of the repetitive dialog early on. Kakeru says over and over again how much he wants to "protect" Yuka. He says it so often that you just know he's going to fail horribly later on. You can also guess from the start that Yuka probably has some kind of magic power, since all of the main characters have powers. Many of the subsequent plot "twists" are equally obvious. Nevertheless, the characters were lively enough (and cute enough) that I found the show charming.

Unfortunately just before the half-way mark, the plot starts to go awry. 11 Eyes presents almost textbook examples of poor writing. The “bad guys” move without motivation, which might work in videogames but seems hackneyed in anime. We eventually find out why they're doing what they do, but we never know why the bad guys time attacks at odd intervals. In fact, even the good guys show up for scenes as the plot demands, rather than gathering for some plot-motivated reason. Eventually, two characters sleep together explicitly in order to advance the plot, and they explain it that way, too, which is laugh-out-loud bad writing.

11 Eyes has very appealing character designs (if not a tad generic), decent animation, and a kickass opening theme song. It's too bad the writing department dropped the ball on the ending so badly.

A non-continuity OVA episode at the end is one long sex joke. I appreciated this "Pink Night" episode, which graciously kept the ubiquitous hot springs scene out of the main continuity. The OVA may be an eye-roller, but it's funny enough.[TOP]

This set contains episodes 29-51, which means it doesn't quite match up with season two, which is 26-66 (if you believe Wikipedia). This awkward cutting up of the series means that the Dark Tournament arc neither begins nor ends in this box. It's just one long slog with no relief.

I still have serious problems with the Yu Yu Hakusho premise as explained in my review of part one. I liked the YYH presented in the first four episodes, and not this giant, unending tournament. I've just never been into pro wrestling. Don't get me wrong, the Chūnin Exams are still my favorite episodes of Naruto, and I like DBZ enough, but I think those shows have more a plot-based fighting structure. YYH seems like it's trying hard to sell us a trading card game about yokai arena battling.

Unlike Naruto, I can't bring myself to care about any of the members of Yusuke's team. Sure, Yusuke and Kuwabara have some history, but I still feel like I barely know Hiei or Kurama. I won't say who, but one major character dies and I found myself completely indifferent.

Part way through the box, Koenma reminds Yusuke about his spirit egg, which was important early on. Yusuke seems to have forgotten about it, and frankly, so did I. And you know what? Yusuke doesn't even care about his spirit egg anymore… and neither do I! When his spirit animal finally shows up it seems absurd and unneeded.

Yusuke spends a significant amount of this set training in a cave, screaming. If there is one saving grace to this set it is that the dub actors do a great job with all the screaming. Granted, the dub isn't very loyal to the script. 80% of the fight announcer's dialog consists of very obvious lines like, “He's in a big pinch now!” (Japanese people say “big pinch” all the time, “Dai pinchii!”) The dub graciously varies the most didactic of the dialog, spicing it up with self-referential, sometimes ironic lines. Granted, the script re-writes take away an element of sincerity.

Some of the effects animation (explosions, energy beams, smoke) look great on Blu-ray, but frankly, if I'm scrutinizing the flying rocks, it's because I'm bored senseless. Less important scenes involving the girl characters relegated to watching the fight don't look so great, but it's nowhere near Initial D syndrome (where the characters look terrible as soon as they step out of the car).[TOP]