Emma, The Story That Should Not Be As Fun As It Is
My life should not feel as uneventful as it does when I look at the eljay here. Even though it mostly is. And it really shouldn't be since it's two weeks until I am going to Germany and I have only barely started packing. And that was only because one of my bookshelves fell down from the wall in the middle of the night.
ETA: The manga was already gushed about here.
It's the usual schpiel, really: Awkward pacing makes for awkward story, at least compared to the manga; that's not to say that people are going to hate it upon seeing it. Hell, I loved it, but it didn't have the punch that the manga has. Mori is really, really good at her medium, and the anime is mostly just average - where Mori shone in her intensely emotional scenes, the anime got kind of... wonky at times. And by "times" I spesifically mean the last scene between Emma and William in the Crystal Palace. It's not up there with the "completely-frozen-for-five-minutes-with-music-in-the-background-and-wind-blowing-hair" kisses from Marmalade Boy, but with the angles switching as as she runs up to him, good God but that was not neccessary.
Another thing that actually annoyed me was the art style. This could be a result of bad animation, I suppose, since it is as close to Mori's drawings as it is. The thing that struck me was how awkwardly feelings often were expressed, and particularly by Emma - who so was not helped by her VA removing 80% of all emotion from her voice. I think that, if I hadn't read the manga and known that Emma really is am amazing take on the kind of character she is, I would have difficulties caring much about her at all in the anime. It might also be telling that the only two characters who looked better in the anime than in the manga was Willhelm and young!Richard.
But for things they did well:
- Nanette, surprisingly enough. I'm still not entirely sure about WHY they chose to introduce her except to display Emma's moral integrity (and even then there's no reason to give her such a large part), but she works out better than I would have expected. On cost of Tasha, but I was never fond enough of Tasha to get pissed of about her having to share the limelight.
- Hans, surprisingly enough. Or rather, the process of turning him into a love interest without raping his character.
- William, less surprisingly but kind of, still, since the anime went in such a completely different direction than the manga. To its credit, I actually find THIS version of his showing his worth and standing up for himself to be more believable than that of the manga, too. The sudden acceptance from his family not so much.
- I liked how they squeezed in Eleanor's new friend from the beach in the epilogue. Of course, I much like how Mori managed to take minor characters and turn them into awesome like only Hotta did before her, but that doesn't have much to do with the anime. SADLY, the turn of events in the anime means that the Friendly Opera Trio never made it to animated form even as background characters.
- About that epilogue: It was good to see that Emma managed to break the aryan color scheme of the Jones Clan.
- And of course: How Kelly got the last word in.
And:
- Oh, Lord Mildrake, you know that you never had your wife in the first place. The certain proof of Emma being fiction has got to be that the Monica and Hakim never really conquered the world together.
- Grace/Eleanor needs to happen.
- But what I truly ship is Arthur/Vivi Arthur/Eleanor
ETA: The manga was already gushed about here.
It's the usual schpiel, really: Awkward pacing makes for awkward story, at least compared to the manga; that's not to say that people are going to hate it upon seeing it. Hell, I loved it, but it didn't have the punch that the manga has. Mori is really, really good at her medium, and the anime is mostly just average - where Mori shone in her intensely emotional scenes, the anime got kind of... wonky at times. And by "times" I spesifically mean the last scene between Emma and William in the Crystal Palace. It's not up there with the "completely-frozen-for-five-minutes-with-music-in-the-background-and-wind-blowing-hair" kisses from Marmalade Boy, but with the angles switching as as she runs up to him, good God but that was not neccessary.
Another thing that actually annoyed me was the art style. This could be a result of bad animation, I suppose, since it is as close to Mori's drawings as it is. The thing that struck me was how awkwardly feelings often were expressed, and particularly by Emma - who so was not helped by her VA removing 80% of all emotion from her voice. I think that, if I hadn't read the manga and known that Emma really is am amazing take on the kind of character she is, I would have difficulties caring much about her at all in the anime. It might also be telling that the only two characters who looked better in the anime than in the manga was Willhelm and young!Richard.
But for things they did well:
- Nanette, surprisingly enough. I'm still not entirely sure about WHY they chose to introduce her except to display Emma's moral integrity (and even then there's no reason to give her such a large part), but she works out better than I would have expected. On cost of Tasha, but I was never fond enough of Tasha to get pissed of about her having to share the limelight.
- Hans, surprisingly enough. Or rather, the process of turning him into a love interest without raping his character.
- William, less surprisingly but kind of, still, since the anime went in such a completely different direction than the manga. To its credit, I actually find THIS version of his showing his worth and standing up for himself to be more believable than that of the manga, too. The sudden acceptance from his family not so much.
- I liked how they squeezed in Eleanor's new friend from the beach in the epilogue. Of course, I much like how Mori managed to take minor characters and turn them into awesome like only Hotta did before her, but that doesn't have much to do with the anime. SADLY, the turn of events in the anime means that the Friendly Opera Trio never made it to animated form even as background characters.
- About that epilogue: It was good to see that Emma managed to break the aryan color scheme of the Jones Clan.
- And of course: How Kelly got the last word in.
And:
- Oh, Lord Mildrake, you know that you never had your wife in the first place. The certain proof of Emma being fiction has got to be that the Monica and Hakim never really conquered the world together.
- Grace/Eleanor needs to happen.
- But what I truly ship is Arthur/Vivi Arthur/Eleanor