Sometimes you get good days.

Settling down for a quiet evening with my latest downloaded import cartoons, I found myself by chance at the centre of a pleasing convergence of televisual events which seemed to focus the entire global supply of fuck yeah! on my laptop screen. Or, to put it simply. Michiko to Hatchin episode 1, Detroit Metal City 9, Soul Eater 28. Perfect.

So let’s start with the new girls.

What we have here is a show whose studio pedigree (Cowboy Bebop/Samurai Champloo) had it marked out for glory from day one, arriving in a blur of insultingly sultry looks and immaculate movement to exceed the wildest of my expectations. I would be satisfied if this was, in fact, one of the greatest OVA’s ever. Only it’s not. It’s the best episode 1 of the year for a series I’m now insanely keen on.

Just an action series right?

But one with the wit to play on its gunslinging girl getting away with ridiculous crap. She doesn’t just start out by fighting a helicopter, Michiko swans around a bank robbery like she’s bulletproofed, then ignores shotgun blasts repeatedly without seeming to take the slightest offence at attempts on her life. She’s invulnerable. Bebop’s Spike with breasts. Even the prison uniform showed off her body – the world spins for her.

The intro sequence, OP, and, well, all of it, is filled with a ballsy self-confidence that transcends parody. It recalls the best of Tarantino – mocking a filmic culture, but totally in love with it and asserting everything good about it perfectly.

Oh, and today, everything bad about the rest of life. In a dastardly procession we start with burning an omelette and watch as the day gets worse and worse for Hana. It’s a shitty life, and even if you stand up tall there’s nowhere to walk off to. Religion is just the tool of the patriarch, the rest of the useless family crowd around with dickish manipulations. This is why a person would escape into motorbike craziness – because life is unfair, dour, vicious. Still, we can be proud of Hana’s backbone.

I adored the fantasy prettyboy rescue scene. And it’s all the better because Hana doesn’t get out through chance, there’s no fluke for her. She has something lined up. Only it’s something intimidating and amoral and it isn’t quite sure who she is, nothing like a friend (or even a mother). The bandit is a sneering sexbitch without lame sympathies, the orphan is no pathetic everyman, even if she’s cowed.

But it’s that same trick from the fellows at Manglobe. The pure gorgeousness of everything, the emotional closeness of the journey to come. Could I be overhyping? Well yes. But this is the kind of stuff that thrives on how evidently brilliant it is. Which triumphs in high budget and big reputation. You really don’t ever overhype a diva, you just repect star quality.

Of course my path of grovelling admiration is not really open to the likes of Krauser-san. When you’re a star yourself, it’s practically an obligation to gob down the neck of lesser beings. And his show is just the same as always. It is never less than laugh out loud funny. Didn’t even need much rape to satisfy me this time. DMC is just always good.

Is it that same feeling I want from Michiko to Hatchin? The reliable perfection of a formula. I guess in a way it’s a denial of art (if not artistry), in that perfect execution as a virtue is occurring without the story surprising me or looking to strike me down.

Well Michiko has a certain novelty aspect for now. It’s partly a discovery of just what formula is being trotted out – so there’s more than just great execution to recommend the experience. And the joy of Manglobe is that proven ability to stretch their artistry into art when least expected. So I’m looking for something better than DMC… Better than joy? Actually, fuck it. I’d settle for joy anyday.

Though in a world which can produce Soul Eater, why settle for anything? As is now par for the course, Soul Eater followed a couple of episodes which merely shat on the average show with one that reminded me yet again that comparing this one to the ‘average’ anime really isn’t fair.

Soul Eater trots out evil science, multi-sword combat styles, Hyuuga style scouting skills, henchmen murdering, intriguing subvillains, charming heroes. It trots out with a dose of the normal, and then turns out to be having a good day. Which means it goes beyond the impossible and makes all those things perfect. Which is worth celebrating.

Watching the loveable Mifune go to work in the second half, we were treated to a rocking background song which ran uninterrupted through the switches of scene and brilliant action. A three minute shonen orgasm.

[And I can't let the chance go by to compare how magnificently the series managed to both avoid bloodshed as Black Star was buried in sword blows, and gratuitously show off Tsubaki. Priorities of which I approve]

And yet it’s more than action. There’s the fact that Mifune, already cool, is now even more easy to like. That confidently exposed backstory (devoid of action) was the emotional heart of this episode. And then there’s the way Black Star has developed away from his initial comic egotism, showing his good will and now tasting not just defeat, but demotion into the background. A victory for Shibusen which leaves him humiliated. It’s been said a hundred times, but these series thrive on character as much as fighting. These are the things which make it sublime.

I assume tomorrow won’t be so good. But when I’ve had a good day, it’s not like I care.