Urahara

Note: This review contains minor spoilers. Urahara is a highly entertaining joyride rich in craze and color. However, its inexperienced staff fails to blend its creative concepts in a cohesive fashion. Set in Harajuku, the show does a great job at adopting the district’s zany culture. It celebrates art and creativity, both of which are sought after by the Scoopers - the alien invaders threatening to steal all of Earth’s culture and creativity. What initially seems like trivial tale of weekly mahou shoujo-esque monster-of-the-week turns out to be a commentary on what constitutes creativity and the relation of artist and popularity. The transition between the two mayhave been aptly foreshadowed, but still ends up feeling rushed and jarring; the second half puts a nice bow on the show as a whole, but the surprisingly cruel twists end up clashing with its overall silliness. However, that is not to say that the show doesn’t stay entertaining at all times. The monster-of-the-week format of the first half is carried by its short and simple, but smart fights. Enemies are first examined and their weak points determined, the main trio then acts accordingly. Be it abusing a certain vulnerable time frame, luring a horde scattered throughout the town to one place, or just simple combat techniques - the diverse Scoopers and the great coordination of the protagonists makes the fights wholly enjoyable. The messier second half on the other hand is mostly carried by the great foreshadowing of the first few episodes. Hidden in plain sight, it’s easy to miss these hints, but they serve as the cornerstones necessary to hold the plot together: The inhabitants of Harajuku are shown fleeing from the district; until the bubble surrounding the city due to the girl’s wish appears, there are no people in sight. When the people then showing up in the city are first shown, they are depicted as shadows - not as people. Episode 1 first shows the key plot twist without any context - we are then introduced to the colorful culture of Harajuku. However, the paneling and camerawork suggests that what is shown on screen is actually the view of a rather important onlooker. The clownish nature of Park’s peculiar visitor also reminds of another character introduced just a few minutes later. Through these subtle hints, which at first seem rather irksome than meaningful, the later plot is already laid out in the first handful minutes of the show’s runtime. Sadly, this subtleness isn’t at all present in the rest of the show. Rather, it often resorts to indiscreet infodump dialogue to e.g. characterize its protagonists. However, there are moments when these introduced character traits are used to great effect, especially pertaining Mari’s anxieties. Therein lies one of Urahara’s major strengths: in the second half, the character’s minor traits and weaknesses are exposed and exploited while serving as cornerstone for the parallel narrative of artist and popularity. While initially the protagonist trio seems unassumingly simple, they are actually a lot more nuanced than they are made out to be. The calm and caring Rito first followed her gut feeling; she drew what she felt like drawing. But her art isn’t praised or recognized like other’s is and thus she grows frustrated. However, when Mari and Kotoko praise her art and she is granted the opportunity to sell her art and be recognized, she grows dependant on the two and their praise. On the contrary, Mari has copied other people’s art; she follows trends and copies the vogue - and she gets praised for it. She also grows dependent on praise and popularity, but wishes to keep up her appearance as self-confident designer, which results in ever-growing anxiety and her eventually being broken by the illusion of losing her followers. Kotoko’s curiosity, often highlighted through cat-like appearance, led to others being annoyed and disgusted by her urge to discover. Unable to suppress or express her curiosity, she grows insecure about annoying or talking to other people. She also ends up finding solace in and depending on their group of three. The visual style of Urahara oozes creativity; it uses tablecloth as backgrounds and highly-saturized candy colors which paired with the usage of panels instead of new cuts create a colorful and delightful experience. It’s designs are a sight to behold: be it casual clothing, battle suits, Scoopers or Harajuku itself - they are diverse and use a huge repertoire of animation and coloring techniques to underline important characteristics and create an amazing visual experience. Unfortunately, whatever excitement might stem from its gorgeous designs, Urahara is often sparingly animated - at times even lazily so. During important scenes in the second half, the lackluster animation completely ruins all immersion and dampens what should have been the show’s high point. But it is not only during the dramatic scenes that Urahara fails - the music and sound effects are mediocre and straight-up misplaced all the way throughout the show. It restricts itself to generic gleaming sounds and uses dramatic orchestral music when the scenes themselves actually aren’t tense at all. Because of this, the actually tense scenes, playing these very same tracks, feel less special and not as emphasized as they should have been. Urahara may stumble along the way, but remains an enjoyable watch. However, it is a niche show in a niche medium and as such I only recommend watching if you can look past its childish and amateurish presentation. Score: 60

Creativity is a weird thing, but why do we even make art? Is it simply the strive to be original and make something that doesn't exist? Is it a showcase of our talents? Is it something we do to make others happy? Maybe it's just a way of expressing ourselves. But one thing many artists have in common is their emotional connection to their work; the anxiety and self-doubt that comes when that thing you made didn't come as good as you hoped or when you spend a long time on something only for nobody to notice it, but also the sense of accomplishmentand fulfilment when you make something you're really proud of. Maybe you're too hard on yourself and are never happy with your work, or maybe you just love creating regardless of what the end product comes out looking like. Urahara felt to me like an expression of that creative process. It's a show which itself is amateurish in many ways, but which has that underlying charm to it and passion behind it that made me respect and enjoy it much more than I ever thought I would. If you try to judge this show from a purely technical standpoint, you'd probably conclude it's not that good; The art style is rough and the animation is anything but fluid. It looks low-budget, and it may very well be low-budget, but I feel like from a design standpoint, it absolutely works. It's an aesthetic that works wonderfully with with the premise, themes and messages within Urahara, specifically the positive view it has on the process of creating art as means of expression rather than as a laborious process to achieve a high technical standard for other people to consume. This is a stylish and eccentric and fairly abstract show which takes a ton of risks, many of which I felt absolutely paid off. It's one of the most unusual and experimental anime I've seen in quite a while and I couldn't help but tune in every week to watch another episode. It's a show that leans much more on its general themes, light-hearted aesthetic and charming, relateable characters than on trying to tell any kind of complex story. If that sounds like your thing, you should definitely give this rather bizarre and colourful show a chance.

Expressing yourself can be difficult. There is the chance that nobody will notice your expressions or the chance that somebody might be irritated by them. Everybody has a different experience, but these moments of self-expression allow one's creativity to come through. Even if you are inspired by others, the end product is something that is unique to you. In Urahara, the idea of creativity is explored through three girls in Harajuku. The anime starts off with an episodic format where the PARK girls encounter Scoopers and then proceed to take them out by using the amatsumara – items that are the physical embodiment of imagination. Inthe beginning half of the anime, there is a slow buildup of the plot. There is no set direction as to where the story will go from here, and the audience is stuck with cute girls fighting cute aliens for the time being. It comes off as repetitive and uninspired. However, as the second half of the anime comes in, we are given glimpses into the true nature of the mysterious Misa and the Scoopers. A new threat is revealed and explained, and the girls must try and fight against it. This half of the anime also provides more insight into the characters; it gives them more characterization by showing their flaws, troubles, and backstories. Although the latter half of the anime offers a more concrete threat and other important issues, there are moments here that are prolonged and seem to drag on. The girls' reactions can especially test one's patience – which can be annoying at times. The PARK girls each have their own trope and assigned roles that they fill in for their group. Mari is the “ojou” of the group and works on designing clothes. Kotoko is the “cute nerd” of the group and works with the logistics. Rito is the calm “stoic” in the group and works with the drawings. In battle, Rito focuses on attacking, Kotoko provides support, and Mari deals the finishing blows. In general, the presentation of the characters leaves something to be desired. They come off as trite tropes. The characters are cute, but they are mainly flat and have tedious dialogue exchanges. The dialogue proves to be a challenge to get through at times when the characters keep an uninteresting conversation going and prolonging the duration of that specific moment. Moments where Kotoko was going on and explaining the situation in detail and when the characters were reacting to certain parts were not the most entertaining. Despite those faults, there is still some characterization to be had in the latter half of the anime. The girls' insecurities are explored, and you get a sense of understanding of where each character comes from. Mari has a desire to be popular and gain many followers, Rito wants her art to be recognized and liked, and Kotoko wants others to accept her quirky and inquisitive self. Each character goes through a moment of self-reflection, and they work on overcoming their flaws. Even Misa grows and learns something through the power of friendship and creativity. Yet, even with the characters getting explored more, you are still left with the same clichéd characters from the beginning. The visuals are the most memorable part of Urahara as they maintain the creative element of the anime. A more stylistic approach is taken with colorful and vibrant designs mixed with sketchy drawings. Despite how rough and incomplete some of the designs look, it gives the show a unique quality to it that adds to its quaintness. Everything is cute, and the backgrounds are detailed with all sorts of adorable decorative features. One major gripe with the art would be the animation of it. The panels used in the animation may be considered lazy, but they could be considered as aiding in providing a different mode of storytelling – adding to Urahara's distinct style. There are also moments when the characters turn into chibis, and that adds to the cuteness appeal of the show. Despite these different techniques, the animation is lacking, leaving a desolate sort of feeling. This is apparent in the last major fight of the anime, and it comes off as disappointing and dull to have such a lackluster ending. The sounds of the anime are nothing too special – the voice actors do a good job portraying the different characters, but some of the voices can get annoying if you are not into the "cutesy" types like Kotoko and Misa. The music itself is not remarkable. The use of orchestral music is prevalent and there are lots of whimsical sounding pieces throughout. Overall, despite the flaws of the anime, the story is able to present its themes and ideas decently enough. The creative process is a daunting journey. Throughout Urahara, the characters go through trials and self-doubts of their own creativity. As seen in Urahara, expressing yourself can be troublesome due to insecurities, art thieves, and other obstacles. However, in the end, the characters overcome their obstacles and work toward their dream of working together in creating various unique pieces. If you are looking for a cute and simple anime with cute girls and visuals, this is the anime for you.

Creativity is EVERYTHING Urahara is probably one of the most ambitious and experimental anime for Fall 2017 for LA with varying results. Urahara focuses on Mari Shirako voiced by Sumire Uesaka an amateur actress and the owner of PARK, Rito Sudou voiced by Luna Haruna, the illustrator of PARK and Kotoko Watatsumugi voiced by Manaka Iwami an eccentric inventor who helps around PARK. Harajuku soon faces an alien invasion where these aliens named Scoopers loves to steal the "creativity" and thus the members of PARK by gaining some supernatural powers to defeat these Scoopers so that they can keep their PARK and defend Harajuku. Urahara as an animeobviously has a pretty focused theme around creativity, with our main characters essentially being creators themselves with Scoopers wanting to steal that creativity and even this seeps into how the animation looks as well. However with Rito, Mari and Kotoko this also goes into their character development and the stages of grief with creativity in many ways. LA cannot talk about Urahara without how it does it's plot twists and there are actually ALOT for what is a simple "magical girl-esque" anime about defending a city from creative stealing aliens. For one thing, Urahara does the entire "look beyond the cover" for such an anime and for LA at least duped LA into thinking this was a happy go lucky anime....it still is....but when it gets serious, they get serious no matter how cutezy they bring the atmosphere. How the plot twists keeps stacking up as well as this affecting our main trio also brings in their character development intrinsically linked to what else...creativity. From Rito's dilemma about her drawings, to Mari's popularity getting to her head and cling onto it to Kotoko wanting to help her friends in order to make her...her, because of how introverted and eccentric she is. LA actually got invested to Mari and Rito the most though LA's personality is similar to Kotoko in many ways as well. The plot twists "makes sense" as the anime unravels itself and soon enough brings us one of the weirdest true villain for Fall 2017 and actually becomes a threat to the plot. The animation by Shirogumi and EMT² is experimental to say the least, by bringing us what is essentially a kids-book-ish drawings background that also goes into the character designs of the chibified comedic moments of the anime. The animation is obviously hard enough to used to, but LA got used to it if only because of the uncanny valley feeling to the anime, but oddly enough this actually becomes a PLOT POINT, so this wasn't Shirogumi and EMT² being lazy. So yeah Urahara's main draw and something to put attention to in Fall 2017 was the animation, no doubt for better or worse. The voice acting has some problems for LA...yeah this was coming. First thing though would be that this is Luna Haruna's first anime appearance, you might know Luna as a Japanese singer who sung Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata's OP, now her performance all things considered, she sounded like an actual teenager which was rather nice to hear. Sumire Uesaka was also pretty decent as well. The "problem" however goes to Manaka Iwami as Kotoko and Kokoa Amano as Misa Maruno as they go into "squeak" territory and this was just LA but Misa's "desu na!" character tic got old pretty quickly to the point of annoyance. Luna Haruna obviously got best voice actor for Urahara with Sumire Uesaka being second. Nonetheless, the voice acting is decent overall even with the annoyances. Urahara seems to be a love letter in a ways to those experimentally crazy fun animes or just to an ode to creativity and how great it is or how it can lead to problems. LA enjoyed Urahara for trying something utterly different for Fall 2017 and sticking to it's guns, sure it has some problems from the uncanny valley animation and slow pacing that would have put off audiences, but Urahara is fine nonetheless. Urahara is neither insulting awful or the pinnacle of greatness....it's just in the middle trying to tell a story of creativity. Urahara is good. Urahara is CREATIVE thus, Urahara is good.

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