Freezing

Genre: Drama/SciFi
Age Appropriate: Adult
Emotional Response: sad and confused
Notable Features: pandoras, limiters, evil monsters, high nudity
Language: English
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes (plus extras)
Overall Recommendation: not for me

"I would be honored if you would come to my room tonight." - Satellizer

There are Pandoras and their limiters in the world of Freezing. Pandoras are genetically modified girls with "sacreds" implanted in them. These give them powers and weapons to battle Novas, energy pumped beings that are terrorizing the world. The Limiters are the Pandoras' counterparts who "freeze" the surrounding battle areas during Nova fights. This is meant to diffuse some of the power and give the girls a change to bring down the Novas. This is the background that brings together the main characters of the series.

Kazuya is a young boy who has transferred into Genetic West academy. He is attempting to follow in his sister's footsteps, who was a super powerful Pandora. Unfortunately, she died in a battle against a powerful Nova, and it seems now Kazuya is intent on following her path somehow. He chooses the academy specifically because it was the school she attended before joining the fight.

At this school, he literally runs into Satellizer, known as the Untouchable Queen. She was the first ranked second year student, until his bumbling interrupted a ranking battle. She has a terrible reputation as a troublemaker because of her standoffish attitude, but somehow Kazyua manages to squeak past her personal barriers. His determination leads him to choose her as his Pandora, despite the personal issues she has with cementing her bond, and the series explores how that works out. However, the main focuses turns quickly to the Nova battle at hand, and there are some serious twists to find.

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This series reminded me of Master of Martial Hearts. It's all battling, and girl bitchy attitudes, and boobs. Lots and Lots of boob. With every battle, at least one per fighter strips the other of her clothing. Actually, it's very much like Master of Martial Hearts - instead of battling girls for a fake wishing jewel, everyone is training to fight mysterious alien robot things. I don't mind nudity, generally at all, but I appreciate it in comedic scenes, or even incidental nudity - this just irritated me after awhile.

I hated the first episode, but I realize only because I was looking for something else at the time. When I started it again, I wasn't that disappointed actually. There are a lot of anime series that have random nudity, so I wasn't bothered by it much, but I eventually hated how much and in what circumstances the nudity occurred. Freezing may not be as much of a mind screw as MOMH ended up being, but I hated it. It was well done, I suppose, because I have some strong feelings about it. I can even think of a few friends who would appreciate it more (even aside from the nudity), but I wanted more out of it. Maybe a sprinkling of comedy, or better emotional relationship development, maybe some actual friendship...I don't know. This was definitely not for me.

Re: extras - Wow. Loads more inappropriate than the series itself. Just wow.

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Time of Eve

Genre: Sci-Fi
Age Appropriate: Any Age
Emotional Response: Huh
Notable Features: androids, human conditions
Language: Japanese
Length: 6 episodes
Overall Recommendation: Not for me

"Just follow the rule." - Nagi

Time of Eve centers around a high school age boy living in a futuristic world where humanoid-androids are house servents and workers as a normal part of everyday society. The news talks about different issues in the background of episodes and often hits on social aspects per episode. One of the major themes is the relationship between humans and androids, both negative and positive. Those humans moving toward the side of androids being considered more human are even called android-holics.

Rikuo, the main protagonist, follows his android one day, after discovering an interesting anomoly in her travel log. He, and his friend, Masaki, find themselves inside a coffee house where the rule is no discrimination between humans and androids. While in the outside world androids have rings floating above their heads to signify their status, inside the cafe no one has any identifiers. The boys find the whole process very controversial, and find themselves learning more each time they arrive.
Each character finds a different path in their understanding of android/human, human/human, and android/android relationships.

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Time of Eve feels like a mix of AI and I, Robot. Partially because of the human characteristics given to androids, and partially because of the result of those characteristics. It was a truly intriguing series, but I'm also glad it was short. I found myself struggling to watch multiple episodes in a row. I think, perhaps I would've been more likely to watch this for someone else. I don't think I would've chosen to continue it for my own personal interest in a regular situation. Or, maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it. I can think of a few of my friends, who are more sociologically inclined, that would really enjoy the commentary present about the human condition combined with technological morality issues. It was done really well, but it just wasn't my particular cup of tea (pun not intended, but why not?). I guess, the only disappointing thing that I found, in general, is that the ending was a little lame, but I should've expect much out of a 6 episode series.

Given the brevity of the series, it's a pretty short review. If you liked AI and I, Robot - or any similar movie/series - then I would definitely recommend this. If you didn't really care about them, then I wouldn't recommend it.

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