The Winter 2015 Anime Preview Guide

Yatterman Night

Nick Creamer

Rating: 4.5

Yatterman Night wasn't really on my radar at all before this season, but it's certainly stuck there now. This first episode introduces us to Dorothy, her daughter Leopard, and their two friends Voltkatze and Elephantus, who live in poverty on a island marked by dead trees and humble graves. We watch Leopard grow up through a series of tender family moments on the island, as she plays with her loving family and reads stories about the noble Yatterman, who defeated Doronjo and her minions in order to stop evil. Eventually, Leopard learns that she herself is Doronjo's ancestor, and that her family is being punished for their past sins. But if she's very good, perhaps one day her family's crimes will be forgiven, and she will be allowed to leave the island for the heavenly Yatter City.

Any more summary than that would possibly spoil what amounts to a touching, perfectly self-contained origin story that ultimately sends Leopard and her companions off to Yatter City. The base beats of the story here are simple, but the framing and larger context makes them come across as iconic, and the way these characters’ purgatory is expressed both visually and through the narrative makes the life of these characters utterly relatable. “Human warmth in spite of tragedy” is always a poignant trick, and the contrast between the heartwarming character interactions and wilted surroundings lends a strong emotional tug to this first episode.

The visual and narrative storytelling share credit for how well this first episode lands. There's a lovely array of framing techniques on display, from alienating distance shots emphasizing their rotting home to intimate moments of character movement and even some well-chosen point of view shots. The faded color work really helps to emphasize the sad nature of their home as well, and there's a nice mix of strong character and effect animation. And the narrative storytelling often works on multiple levels, with the immediate lines humanizing these characters (“you can have my share. The longer I wait, the more I'll appreciate it later”) also reflecting on the overarching idea of descendants paying for their ancestors’ sins.

If I have any complaints about this first episode, they'd be that the occasional bits of humor don't always jive with the show's heavier pretensions, and also that the lovely visuals can sometimes be washed out by overbearing light in a way I didn't really find effective. But that's largely nitpicking, and does not reflective negatively on the core strengths of this premier. This is a show to watch out for.

Yatterman Night is available streaming on Funimation.com.

Theron Martin

Rating: 4.5 (of 5)

Review: If this was merely an original series about a young girl who decides to rebel against what she sees as oppressive authority due to social injustice then this would merely be a pretty good opener, as similar concepts have certainly been done before. That the series has a very old history, and is actively playing against it in a complete juxtaposition of normal hero/villain roles, is what elevates its opening episode to the “great” level.

The series is fundamentally based on the original Yatterman, the second, longest, and possibly most iconic of the Time Bokan series which aired in the late 1970s. (It also saw an anime revival in 2008-2009.) Like all of the Time Bokan series, Yatterman followed a standard format: two youths (in this case a brother-sister duo) and their mechanical pet regularly battled against the villain group Dorombo, which consisted of a smart and sexy but also vain female leader, a burly guy who provided the muscle, a thin, moustached guy who provided the technical expertise, and a pig mascot, in that case over the collection of Skull Stones. The concept here is that Yatterman eventually won after a devastating war and established the glorious Yatter Kingdom, while those who opposed them were exiled to an existence in poverty. So this has remained for generations, with the current generation of Elephantus (the muscle guy's descendant), Voltkatze (the thin guy's descendant), and Dorothy (the leader's descendant) left wondering why they're still being punished for their ancestors’ wrongs. This comes to a head when Dorothy falls ill and her 9-year-old daughter Leopard, who has grown up on stories glorifying Yatterman, tries to go to the Yatter Kingdom to seek crucial medicine. She, Elephantus, and Voltkatze discover, to their dismay, that Yatterman has no intention of letting outsiders in for any reason and is quickly willing to resort to lethal violence to enforce that. Disillusioned over the death of her mother because Yatterman (or someone who seemed to be them, anyway) stopped them, Dorothy concludes that Yatterman is actually in the wrong and leads Elephantus and Voltkatze in taking up the identities of their predecessors to actively oppose the Yatter Kingdom.

The original series was mostly goofy, kid-friendly fun, but despite featuring a 9-year-old this one takes a decidedly darker and more mature approach, with small doses of silliness mostly subsumed under a serious “what happens after” kind of story. After an apocalyptic prologue, the story takes on a quieter and gentler tone as Leopard is shown growing up much like any kid in her situation: joyfully because she is well looked-after by three adults and does not realize or fully appreciate that she is living an oppressed, dirt-poor existence. All of the adults seem like perfectly decent souls, which makes them being the descendants of villains hard to fathom. If this series is trying to make social commentary, that is what its point seems to be: that people should be treated only for who they are, not for who their forefathers were. The sight of the trio coming up with ragtag versions of the costumes of their predecessors, down to Leopard carrying a bubble-blowing version of her ancestor Doronjo's signature pipe, is a wonderful crowning shot.

Director Tatsuya Yoshihara's only previous lead effort was the very funny Muromi-san, but so far Tatsunoko Production looks like it made the right call in having him helm this franchise revival. The artistry entirely uses darker and more subdued color schemes, rather than the garish look typical of the Time Bokan franchise, and while it may not be the sharpest beyond the early apocalyptic scenes, it and a carefully measured musical score still aptly capture the tone and yes, even the emotion of the work.

Reading up a bit on the history of Yatterman is recommended before giving it a try, but it looks like Night could be a fresh and major winner for the new season.

Yatterman Night is currently streaming on Funimation.com.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating: 4  (out of 5)

What makes a hero? This seems an unlikely philosophical question for the latest incarnation of the Yatterman franchise, which largely trades in parody and goofy antics. Yatterman Night, however, follows the ancestors of the masked heroes' foes, the descendants of Doronbow. Banished to an enclosed space apart from Yatter Land, these people live in poverty and darkness. It is deemed just punishment for what their ancestors tried to do. But these people aren't their ancestors. They don't have those same goals and only want to live in the more prosperous Yatter Land. In fact, Dorothy teaches her daughter Leopard that Yatterman is a hero, a good person. Then when Leopard is nine, her mother collapses. The doctor can't help her because there is no medicine in their closed world, so Leopard and her mother's friends set out in a boat for Yatter Land. Leopard is convinced that Yatterman will save her mother; after all he's a hero. That's what heroes do.

Except that to Yatterman's descendants, Leopard, Elephantus, and Voltekatze are villains, come from a land steeped in evil. So the current two “heroes” open fire on a little girl. Even without Leopard's perspective, this is not sounding like heroic behavior, especially since it's clear that they really mean to kill everyone in the boat. They don't succeed, but when Leopard returns home and buries her mother, her views have changed: she will become the hero of her people. She will take down Yatterman.

So really, the two Yattermen caused their own problem. Had they actually acted heroically, Leopard would never have declared war on them. Of course, then we wouldn't have a story, but you see what I mean. This reversed perspective makes the formerly silly story quite tragic and really imbues it with a lot of emotion. With a different tone, the patched costumes Voltekatze makes the gang, patterned after the original Doronbow outfits, would be funny, but here, they're sad. The pervasive sense of tragedy that this episode exudes in some ways makes it a better fit for modern superhero sensibilities, but it also really makes you look at the story in a different way. How does the hero look to the villain? And if Yatterman could do this to untold generations, can they even be called heroes at all?

Perhaps I'm over-analyzing this, but for me that's what made this episode so fascinating. It helps that Leopard is a spunky, determined heroine and the family relationship between the characters is really nice and adds to the atmosphere of the story. This isn't necessarily going to be a light and fluffy series, but it looks like a promising one, and I, for one, really want to see her come out on top in the end.

Yatterman Night is available streaming on Funimation.