Top 5: Anime Priests

Posted on by Karandi
Tuesday's Top 5

Very likely this list was inspired by the fact that I’m currently trying to watch Vatican Miracle Examiner, but today I’m looking at my top 5 favourite anime priests. When I say priest, I’m using a broad brush so I’m not overly concerned what sort of priest, or what religion, or even if they are actually ordained. If they dress and kind of act or are treated like a priest, I’m going with that. What put these characters on my top 5? They are a priest and I found them interesting and sometimes even useful to the story they were in. It isn’t an overly deep list this week.

Please Note – Probably a few minor spoilers this week.

Number 5: John Brown from Ghost Hunt

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It may be unfair to have John Brown at number 5 given of all the priests on the list, he’s actually the one who acts most like a priest. However, he’s held back by two things. The first is he wasn’t the protagonist of his story and was clearly strictly back up. There were almost no occasions where he was actually useful other than one or two minor exorcisms throughout the story. The second being his horrendous Australian accent in the dubbed version of Ghost Hunt. Certainly if you are looking for comedy, that accent is going to hit the mark but otherwise all it will do is make most Australians cringe.

Number 4: Shiro Fujimoto from Blue Exorcist

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Already I can hear people wondering why this anime priest isn’t higher up the list and the answer is simple: he’s dead after the introduction to the series. Yes, we get flash backs to him being awesome and to be honest, he’s probably the best character in Blue Exorcist, but none of that gets us past the fact that he’s already dead. The doting father and incredibly strong exorcist literally steals every scene he gets to appear in, there just aren’t enough of them.

Though I would love to see a prequel series about his exploits as an anime priest.

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Number 3: Frau from 07 Ghost

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This guy’s a priest? You actually do know that about him but sometimes it is very hard to remember given his flamboyant ways as well as his taste in… literature. Yet, he does his job and still manages to look pretty cool while doing it which has earned him a solid third place on my list.

And honestly it isn’t as though most anime priests actually act all that much like real priests so authenticity isn’t exactly a requirement here.

Number 2: Seishin from Shiki

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I really like Seishin’s character for a couple of reasons. The main one is that he provides a different perspective on the vampires and their invasion to his friend’s. Whereas the doctor chooses to rally people to fight the vampires, Seishin chooses to seek coexistence even when it clearly becomes impossible. It’s another valuable perspective that the story kind of needed particularly during the gory conclusion.

I wonder what the world has in store for him after the events of Shiki as this anime priest definitely made some questionable decisions along the way and his actions were noted. Still, he was a complex character and one who provided a needed alternative perspective to both the vampires and humans in the story.

Number 1: Nicholas D Wolfwood from Trigun

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Seriously, what is not to like about this awesome character. He and Vash are perfect as a team and Wolfwood very clearly highlights the path Vash might have taken rather than the one he chooses. Wolfwood, you will be missed.

But in the meantime you were my very favourite anime priest and quite the entertaining character before that whole tragic end thing. And, seriously, using the giant cross you lug around as a weapon is just kind of awesome.

Who is your favourite anime priest is and why?

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Karandi James

Vatican Miracle Examiner Series Review: This Show is in Search of a Miracle

Posted on by Karandi
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Overview:

Hiraga and Roberto are a pair of priests sent by the Vatican to investigate numerous miracles around the world. The story is broken into several mysteries that the priests investigate while also carrying around a lot of personal baggage.

Review:

After the first mystery in this anime finished, I moved it very firmly into the ‘They Made This’ category. It was so over the top and full of every potential cliché you could fling at the Catholic Church, and it was like the writers were having a competition to see who could pack the most stupid idea into the story. The Hitler Clone remains my personal low point, though the pedophile comes a close second.

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And yet I continued watching. Partly this is because I have a thing for episodic supernatural stories with lead characters that are a little more stoic (Ghost Hunt and the like) and partly this was because, in spite of its silliness, at its core Vatican Miracle Examiner seemed to  want to be taken seriously. So I gave the show some more time.

What I gained from this is that each mystery after, while still excessively over packed with events, characters and ideas, seemed a little more solid and grounded. It was as though that desperate plea for attention of the first arc had gotten the sillier notions out of the way and done and the story started to find its feet. We also slowly got closer to the two priests at the centre of the story who at first seemed fairly generic and replaceable.

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Now the argument that it gets better later is a trickier one, because you do have to sit through some of that awful writing and pacing but by the second last mystery, I have to admit I was pretty into this story even if there were still a number of issue. And the last episode really nailed the tone I’d been searching for throughout the whole series. I don’t know that I can recommend a show on a final episode, particularly when the episode in question doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve seen the lead up to it and built up some relationship with these characters, but that last episode was exactly what I started watching this show to see.

Kind of a shame it took 11 episodes to get there.

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There’s also the issue of Lauren, who seems like an interesting character but remains strictly side-lined. I’d have loved to see him more involved in the story and in some of the cases. Yet the story has ended with little to nothing being done with his set up. Julia as well kind of remains a loose end that serves a valuable purpose but without news of any kind of sequel it just leaves us without any sense of closure on his story.

I do have to discuss the appearance of this show though. It is very brown. Like, really and incredibly dull to look at. Plus a lot of scenes happen at night or in dimly lit rooms with an excess of shadows. They were really working on a particular atmosphere but with the writing not quite holding up its end, mostly it just looks dull. Which is a shame, because aesthetically it could have worked quite well.

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The opening theme is also ridiculously intense for the pretty low key tone of the show. Really, you would think you were going to watch something where the priests are kicking in doors every episode and banishing demons back to hell after watching that opening. If I recall correctly, in the entire series the priests attempt one exorcism and then realise the kid isn’t possessed but drugged (honest mistake that one).

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Basically I am not recommending this anime. I ultimately enjoyed the final episodes and to be honest, I’ll probably rewatch it at some point because this is still very much the type of show I like rewatching (I know, I’m weird), but it isn’t objectively very good and even from a pop-corn entertainment point of view there’s better out there.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episode 12: Why Wasn’t the Rest of the Series This Good?

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

I know some people will find this episode of Vatican Miracle Examiner overly emotional trite and it would be hard to argue that point. The focus is entirely on Hiraga’s brother who is dying in a hospital full of other dying kids and we get a flash back of another boy who died to young (and happened to know Roberto because this show loves an excess of coincidence).

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And in case that wasn’t enough forced drama the show throws in dead parents and visions of other dead and dying people. My consistent complaint about this show is that it always over-reaches in its mysteries and as a result the whole thing is left feeling half-baked.

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Yet episode 12, with a single episode and not three or four, manages to deliver an emotionally moving and dramatic story that makes you care for the characters and question the nature of miracles. Something that not one of the other mysteries managed in all their over the top antics. If only the rest of the series had managed the tone of this episode I probably would have liked it a lot more.

I’ll get around to a series review of this soon.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episode 11: A Conclusion of Sorts

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

This week they solve the mysteries and we actually realise that for once not every single weird thing is connected as coincidence ends up playing quite the role in linking some of the events. It makes the main mystery make more sense but it means some of the answers for other things are highly unsatisfying. (He stowed away under a plane? Really?)

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I think the biggest issue is the sheer amount of content these mysteries want to pack in. Underground people, cults, murders and love quadrangles, miracles… there’s so much going on that very little of it can get enough time to feel satisfying. The explanations are similarly rushed and just kind of come together in exposition at the end.

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While this does bring this mystery to a close, apparently there is one more episode so I wonder what that will give us given they clearly don’t have time to start another mystery arc, and there is no way they can give us closure on some ongoing issues that the priests have.

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Karandi James.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episode 10: They Threw Him Off the Matterhorn?

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

You know sometimes when you are watching something and there’s this one line or moment that just sticks with you afterwards, even though it is really inconsequential? Well, I had that moment while watching this episode of Vatican Miracle Examiner. In an effort to prove that Hiraga doesn’t really get people or jokes or anything else outside of the church, he gullibly believes the investigator when he tells him another character was taken up the Matterhorn, frozen, and then thrown off resulting in him crashing through the roof of a barn.

There’s actually nothing wrong with this scene and it is quite amusing, except that the fact that Hiraga doesn’t get these sorts of things was told to us by him early in the episode, and then emphasised when he didn’t get what Roberto was implying about the relationships from 30 something years ago, and then they hit the audience in the head with it in this scene. If this is such an important character point, possibly it should have come up in the 9 previous episodes rather than having the writers just get a hammer out and keep pounding the point home in the space of twenty minutes.

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Anyway, onto the mystery.

Hiraga has apparently figured out the whole rainbow light mystery in the church, though only part of that has been explained to the audience, but the priests all but don’t care as they are fully into the murder investigation. Which has now turned into some sort of economic terrorism case involving forged American money and a boy who lived underground and lived on bugs. This show really does love to overcomplicate everything.

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Still, it isn’t like I’m walking away mid-mystery so I guess we’ll all just wait and see what happens next week.

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Karandi James.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episode 9: Somehow a Decapitating Clown Just Doesn’t Sound Scary

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

And here we go again with yet another mystery. This time Hiraga and Roberto find themselves in a small village where a magic horn plays before people see rainbow coloured lights every single day. There’s also potentially a killer clown in the forest behind the church and for reasons that will never make sense everyone gets locked in their rooms at night (as Roberto points out, that’s just a fire hazard).

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I think my issue with these mysteries is very simply that they try to do too much. Every  time they go to investigate one thing, there’s about four other things going on that somehow all end up relating. Just once it would be nice for the miracle to be pretty straight forward but then there just be a separate story that they stumble upon while they are there.

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Not to mention, if people keep dying when these two show up, eventually they are going to stop being let in to new places.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episode 8: The Truth is Revealed (Kind Of)

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

I’m in two minds about this episode. This was a much more satisfying conclusion to a mystery than the first mystery presented in Vatican Miracle Examiner where they decided to go for Hitler clones as their solution. I liked that Roberto got to take centre stage (quite literally) in rationally explaining away each prophesy. That was fairly satisfying to watch.

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But I less liked that Hiraga pretended to disagree with Roberto, that they then had to link the mystery to Roberto’s tragic childhood, the unnecessarily loose ends that they left hanging, and even the final resolution where both Roberto and Hiraga offer to quit being examiners to atone for stuffing up when technically they didn’t. Admittedly, debunking a prophesy and a sainthood on camera in front of a large audience is probably not part of their standard operating procedure either.

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So yeah, some good stuff this episode. Certainly a better ending to this mystery than the last, but I’m still not sold on this show overall.

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Vatican Miracle Examine Episode 7: Snake Bites and Visions

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

The mystery continues with Roberto getting increasingly worked up over the mystery, the prophecy of his death, some childhood trauma, old texts found in the library, and finally a snake bit and a demonic vision. Once again Vatican Miracle Examiner is determined to shove everything into one story and it just keeps piling one thing on top of another and much like the first mystery, this really starts to hurt the impact of each revelation or clue.

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Though, I am kind of enjoying this mystery more than the first one despite still picking fault with the pacing and delivery.  This mystery has at least managed to give both priests some purpose and they have begun to feel like an actual team rather than a one man show with an overprotective tag-along.

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One thing that did annoy was that Roberto didn’t just share his thoughts on the corpse (you know, pre-snake bite) with his partner. Instead, the audience is deliberately kept in the dark in an unnatural way on this point. That’s an annoying way to add suspense.

This show isn’t getting any better or any worse. It kind of just is at this point.

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Karandi James.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episode 6: Here We Go Again

Posted on by Karandi
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Review:

This episode seems pretty much identical to the first episode of Vatican Miracle Examiner in that it is setting up what might be a pretty interesting mystery. Unfortunately, this show has a credibility issue at this point with how it might bring things together as this mystery progresses. On the other hand, at least Roberto is actually getting to take a more lead role at this point and doesn’t seem like excess baggage in this episode.

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Still, with a non-decomposing corpse of a possible prophet who is being investigated to see if he is a saint, some weird snake cult and a dead foreigner, and an FBI agent moving around, things are very likely to get messier before they get any better.

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I don’t mind mess given it is kind of necessary at the start of a mystery. My issue is that I know exactly where they went with the last messy mystery and I won’t be overly thrilled if we get a re-run here.

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Vatican Miracle Examiner Episodes 4 + 5: Not One Original Thought

Posted on by Karandi
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Review Episode 4:

Right, so this show just kept piling mystery upon mystery in the first three episodes, hitting almost every cliché about Catholicism that it could in the process and then we get to episode 4 which technically resolves this arc. Yep, virgin birth is actually artificial insemination using Hitler’s sperm because… well, my theory is that this story was written by a teenager who is overly impressed at their own cleverness and of course Hitler was evil so why wouldn’t he be at the centre of all of this mess.

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So yeah, not impressed with how this wrapped up, but not surprised either given the past three episodes. I’m guessing they’ll start a new case in episode 5 and I’m still kind of tossing up whether I’ll bother. I don’t really care about either of the examiners and they’ve given me no reason to. The writing in this mystery was pretty ordinary and the resolution was pretty immature.

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About the only thing this show has going for it is it doesn’t look or feel like anything else I’m watching this season. And that isn’t saying a lot.

Review Episode 5:

This episode takes us back to how Hiragi met Lauren and how they built up their relationship (also, how that weird game mentioned briefly in the first arc factors in).

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During their game they discuss an unsolved case of a man who was given 1000 wishes and I kind of enjoyed the story as it unfolded. It wasn’t as cluttered or as desperate to show off as the previous mystery. The fact that it remains unsolved is neither here nor there as it really is just aiming to make you think and that it does quite well.

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Still, the very nature of this episode plays into my initial though of why does he even have a partner for his examinations. Other than a gush at the end of the episode about how good Roberto is at ironing there is no mention of him in the story and he doesn’t appear at all.

While this was a better episode, this series is really not doing so great so far. It remains watchable, it has some ideas that might be interesting, but hasn’t really done anything I could recommend at this point.

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Karandi James.

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