Hello Minna!
I'm baaaack :D
And now you have something different from me.
I'll be posting my review on the timeless classic Shōnen-Ai Gravitation (グラビテーション).
I hope I'll do justice to it. (and please don't be mad at me, no matter what I say, I'm just stating my opinions on it, even though I'm no pro ^^)
And, if you don't like/approve of this kind of anime/manga, please don't bash it here, since I will have any kind of rude comments removed.
So here we go.
I first watched this anime three years ago, when I ws in Switzerland, visiting my aunt. I had no internet connection, but I had a bunch of DVD-s I got from a friend, and among them quite a few BL ones. One of them was Gravitation. ♥ I don't remember that time quite well, but I know I was amazed by it, and as a new yaoi/BL fan, it got to me.
Now, three years later, being a bit more experienced yaoi/BL fan, I re-watched it and realized I forgot the most of the plot.
So here we go. If you don't know the anime, or are interested in the plot overview, check the wiki page about it. And I must state, I only watched the anime, so I don't know how the manga turned out. I'll make sure to check that as well, as soon as I find the time.
Here we have two protagonists - Shindō Shuichi(right) and Yuki Eiri(left).
Starting of the anime can be describe a bit strained (I'm lacking the right words here), but we see this aspiring young singer/lyrics wirter who's trying to make it big in the music industry, who get's shot down by a simple snide comment of an unknown "cool" man. His lack of talent, or as Eiri said "zero talent" hits him hard and he can't stop thinking about it after the ill-fated meeting. With no actual plot development we can see him stalking him (well not literally), wanting Yuki to apologize and starting to fixate him for no apparent reason. Then everything develops very quickly. Not to get into it much, we see their relationship growing rapidly, again, with not much explanation and Yuki kisses him in the elevator. Later on, in the next episode (I think) they progress further, having sex. What puts off the watcher but also pulls him/her (maybe I should just put "her" since I haven't seen many male BL/yaoi fans lol) into the story is this hot-cold situation they're in.
We have this flamboyant, happy-go-lucky young man (just not to say boy) - Shuichi, who is getting little to no trouble accepting he has feelings for a man. Also, what is noted is that he doesn't realize he has feelings for him until his friend Hiro doesn't point it out. So we can say he is a bit of a dim-wit, slow to understand things around him and also hyper and driven by actions of others. His relationship with his high-school friend and his band's guitarist Hiro is also very interesting, but I'm focusing on the Yuki/Shuichi relation here, so I'm sorry I'm not going much into it. Let's just say that they are real friends, and that no matter how rough things get, they will be there for eachother, in the weirdest ways. 'Cuz, that's what real friends do. ^_^
(damn you Hiro, too sexy for your own good)
On the other hand, we have Yuki Eiri. A gorgeous, blonde, honey-eyed novelist, eye-candy, adored by women, who has trust issues. No, maybe better said, has bonding issues. We are not shown why is it so, until the middle of the anime (which consist od 13 episodes and 2 OVA's btw), where things start to get a bit more serious.
(need I make a comment for this one? oh yuki, sex on legs and all that's perfect)
Now let's look more into their relationship.
Yuki is cold, broody character, who keeps to himself, doesn't say anything, doesn't really show any emotions except those of annoyance by Shuichi's appearance (and his sister and brother later on). Well, he actually doesn't show any emotions except for those that are in some way alienating him from others. He seems to hate life, so he kinda fits the novelist role. But then again, as he is the seme in this story, we see him taking action with Shuchi, being the first to kiss him and lead him to bed.
(elevator kiss scene)
At the beginning he doesn't seem to care about Shuichi at all, he is somewhat his boy-toy (noting that he made him his "date" just in order to escape his sister Mika - Shuichi just happened to be there), just another mean to spend time. My guess is that all those women he used to be and now Shuichi are his way of escaping reality and his dark past (go figure, it's obvious, I know). The point is, unknowingly, he got himself into this mess, this weird relationship, with a man nonetheless and somehow, it triggered him.
As the story progresses, we see that every episode has it's own plot, but with recurring characters, introducing some new ones along the way. I just wanna look into one specifically. It's Ayaka-chan, Eiri's
fiancé.
(I don't really like her character, guess twice why)
He is cold to her as well, he didn't see her for years, but the arranged marriage is not something to mess with. This is the first time we get to see Shuichi so uncertain of his bond with Yuki, thinking back on things that have happened, him being a male thus not appealing to Yuki and not being able to fight for him since the engagement is just too hard to counter with. I consider all this to be bullshit, pardon my language, but this is an anime so all is allowed. It's for the sake of the plot, so I'll let it pass. (irl, I doubt he would just now start thinking about the gay problem, since he overcame it before - people don't just second-guess themselves with something that's already decided).
Here we have an escalation, Shuichi giving up and Ayaka seemingly winning the fight with not much effort, when she comes over to the studio where he is and slaps him, telling him really horrible things ("Your and Yuki's relationship can't be, blah blah blah...) making him feel even worse (poor Shuichi, I really wanted to give him a hug then and there). Then, a wild cat appears!! Lol, I'm just joking, to get your attention XD We're coming to a breakthrough. During the Bad Luck's debut live (Bad Luck being Shuichi's band) Yuki and Ayaka appear which makes Shuichi sad and angry, finally making him do the right thing (screaming into his mic: "Yuki is mineeeee!" yeah, very subtle). Ayaka somehow admits her defeat and at the end of the episode we see Yuki and Shuichi in Yuki's apartment where Yuki says the destined words: "I don't mind being yours. I'll be your lover." (which made me all warm and fuzzy inside, I was fangirling like crazy, my mother actually yelled at me making so much squealing noise in the middle of the night).
You'd think that all to it? Noo way. We're just getting started. Later on, we finally see Yuki dropping his guard (wow, he has feelings!) when after a fight Shuichi gets himself into a bad situation with another group's singer Tachi. After he's beaten into a pulp he goes to Hiro, who rushes to Yuki after taking care of Shuichi. The breaking-point! Yuki is pissed, how did this Tatchi dare beat his Shuchi! He intimidates him, claiming the pictures of the beaten Shuichi which Tatchi wanted to use to blackmail him which leads to Tatchi's guess that Yuki is capable of killing a man. Later on, after much more drama (and Shuichi's AWFUL cosplay of Ayaka) Yuki at his parent's house tells Shuichi that when he was 16 he killed a man.
Tatchi again seeks revenge, fixating on hurting Yuki (who is much capable of taking care of himself), but here comes Shuichi to the rescue! And the story goes on and on and on.
Before I re-tell the whole anime (lol just figured), I wanna take a look at what's going on here. So the hot-cold relationship is progressing, Shuichi is more and more in love and Eiri too, even though he would never admit it. We get just the slightest details about it (like scaring the CRAP of Tatchi), but then again due to his inner turmoil, he want to drive Shuichi away from him, thinking he is no good for him. What's crucial here is Shuichi's resolve and love. Even after finding out about those scary things in Yuki's past, he still loves him and doesn't want to give up. Yuki's always the one doing the running.
Again, we have something important. In a completely stupid way, Yuki seems to becoming sick, getting light-heded, losing weight and in the end, vomiting blood. It seems it's somehow related to his relationship with Shuichi, but no matter how I look at it, I can't seem to find the connection. In the anime several people say that Shuichi is hard to deal with (and I agree) and that Yuki probably god sick due to the stress, but it's just stupid to think so. I think they needed a better reason, but failed to give us one. I don't like the idea of Yuki being terminally sick, but maybe some sickness from before would've been a better choice.
After realizing Shuichi is making him sick, Yuki's being convinced to leave for NY, but not before having a date with Shuichi (who had to sell million albums as a deal for the date - how much tough love is too tough?). It all ends with haste, Yuki leaving suddenly at the end of the date, leaving behind a broken Shuichi.
This is again, without a real explanation - here the anime really started to piss me off due to lack of plot. Yuki is just so eager to leave and Shuichi loses his drive, yet again, deciding to focus on his career insted of pursuing Yuki. Yuki is NY, reminiscing about his sensei whom he killed after he tried to rape him, and Shuichi loses his voice after a live concert.
Now, I will use my good little friend wikipedia. The last episode, titled "Got it all" (I don't really get it that much) says this much: ...Shuichi's voice is still gone, Yuki is still missing. Everyone tries to help Shuichi but no one is succeeding. Can Shuichi find his voice again? Will anyone ever find Yuki? Will Shuichi ever see him again? Why does Yuki need a gun and why has he gone there?...
I really don't know what else to point out about it. It's all rushed and not written well at all. There was so much more place for improvement (if they can put the same song 3433242 times during the episodes - no matter how much I like it - they could leave out some space to develop the story). Yuki is in the apartment where the killing took place, with a gun in his hand, saying something about ending his life, not being able to cope with it anymore and then out of the blue, Shuichi pops up through the floor (he has a tendency of breaking doors, walls etc) in NY, stopping Yuki in his own way, showing him a song he wrote, needing Yuki's opinion. His voice is back (surprise surprise!) and Yuki seems to have abandoned his suicide idea the very moment Shuichi appeared. It's all so long-drawn, it's making my eye twitch even now.
Boom, next caption, Bad Luck concert, Shuichi is nowhere to be found, and Nittle Grasper fills in. Shuichi falls from the sky (LITERALLY) right onto the stage and sings making the mass go crazy about him. And then it ends. So abruptly! No BL lovey-dovey ending, no nada!
Then we have the OVA, where we get a different drawing style (which I'm not sure I like), Shuichi who suddenly turns into a read head etc. It's the actually ending of the series (anime at least) where Yuki's back, but he's again cold to Shuichi. Shuichi can't write a new song and everything gets worse when he finds out that Yuki wrote a song for Nittle Grasper, making him go back to his parent's house. In the end he comes back, goes to the concert, ends up singing the song (which he heard the first time there) with Ryuichi (I'll have to make a totally different post about him later) and realizing Yuki wrote it about him and for him.
All is lovey-dovey again, and the last scene shows Yuki and Shuichi in the apartment, hugging and Yuki asking Shuichi to take things to the bedroom (which he doesn't refuse ofc).
Now what I have to talk about more, except the lack of a continuous plot, is the gullibility of the whole anime. We have so many situations that could've been done a lot better, but who am I judge? I seem to only be bitch-slapping the anime in the face all this time, so let me clear something up. I really love this anime. I really do. I fell in love with it 3 years ago, and now I did again. I cried, laughed like crazy, I sang the songs and spammed my facebook with music and quotes. So I don't think this show is bad. I just think it could've been done much better.
But this I have to praise are: the music, I really really can even begin to explain how much I love it; the seiyuu casting - Inoue Kazuhiko-san (voice of Yuki, also voice of Kakashi in Naruto - guess why I jizz my pants every time when I hear it?) is one of the most amazing and talented voice actors in the anime universe! And then there is a bunch of others whose names I don't really know and I'm to lazy to look them up. Shuichi's voice being of the voice actor for Bart in Vandread anime(which I adore with all my heart) was a bit hard at first, since I knew him as Bart, but then I got used to it and it went out perfectly. Even the side-casting characters had amazing voices. And I adore Tohma's voice ♥ That woman's sugoi desu XD
Another thing to praise (and scold a bit) is the * squeeeeak* factor.
It definitely made me squeak, but I still sense the lack of BL scenes for a BL anime. And I am more oriented to yaoi, so I prefer it a bit more explicit. But the kisses were so cute and baww, it turned my brains into pure fluff. The drawing style of the anime (not the OVA) is amazing, I really can't say anything bad about it. Only thing that bothered me was the insertion of real videos here and there (mostly at the beginning), I don't think they needed that at all. Oh yeah, the funny scene were REALLY funny. My mom caught me multiple times during the last 3 days laughing out loud (too loud) and crying tears of joy while watching it.
So now, we finally come to the conclusion of this HUGE post. I am sorry for taking so much of your time, I doubt anyone will even read this when they see how long it is. But if you actually do, I'll give you a cookie and a virtual hug ♥ So if you're reading this, thank you for baring with this post.
This anime is really great. Even after bashing it so much, it remains one of my favorite BL anime's and I will deff watch it again after some time. It's just that kind of anime to whom you come back again and again.
What can I say... It's gravitation.
Kumagoro signing off~ Bye bye na no daaaa~ *pika pika*
