I'm Not Crying! - Musings on Ikoku Meiro no Croisee

I was putting this off for as long as possible so I could try to forget about the terrible ending, but I realized that was ridiculous - I need to get this review over with so I just forget about this terrible anime all together.

A cutesy slice-of-life done by the same author of Gosick - I was into watching this show after knowing just one of those points. However, the characters were far less likeable than the ones in Gosick and the melodramatic type of ending stayed the same. What a bad combination.

There seems to be shipping or something for this pairing.

Animation
The animation was very detailed. Although I've never personally been to Paris, the details really did make it look like old-school Western Europe. The character designs were very annoying, on the other hand. Almost all of the younger girls were overly cute and super tiny, but the males were very gangly in comparison. Yune very clearly had green eyes but everyone kept saying they were jet black. I guess it would look weird if such big eyes were deathly black, but it was irritating nonetheless. Speaking of eyes, I think perhaps the decision to differentiate ethnicity led to some strange results; Claude had this extra line under his eye (as did any other Parisian), which just made him look like he was sleep-deprived all the time.

How old is she? This may or may not be inappropriate.

Setting
The story, set in the 19th century, of this anime was that Yune, a young Japanese girl, went to France in order to get her stewarding experience (mandatory for her undoubtedly rich family). This is where Oscar, the old man that visited Japan, came in; he brought Yune back to stay with him and his grandson (Claude) at their store/home in the Gallery (basically a shop-filled living quarters). With this out of the way, several pressing questions were never answered. I spent the entire anime wanting to know how Yune's family had sent her abroad, how they knew to trust Oscar, and what status of society she hailed from. None of these questions were answered; several times, when it looked like perhaps a character was interested, it was always swept under the rug (for example, Claude not wanting to find out more about her to keep from getting attached). It was so irritating that I hated the characters even more for their lack of curiosity, which is actually a really bad thing in an anime that's completely character-driven (given that nothing really happened in the way of story-telling).

Cute scenes to take your mind off the lack of story.

Story Presentation
Each episode was routine as though that was the rule. Someone did something that surprised someone else - either a Parisian doing something that surprised Yune, or Yune doing something that surprised the Parisians - and the cultures attempted to mix a little. The lack of understanding frustrated me almost constantly - Claude was very biased and closed-minded - but I can understand that 19th-century France wasn't exactly a cultural mosaic. I'd try to pinpoint some of the themes, but I'm really blanking on anything other than what I just described. The lack of a deep story was masked by cute scenes, which really grew weary after a while. Overall, it was pretty much a humdrum watch which, while boring, was acceptable - until the final 3 episodes. Suddenly, out of nowhere, back stories came out and the anime attempted to get a more serious feel. Due to a lack of build-up and a forced sense of seriousness, it just felt ridiculous.

Alice is a wolf! Run away, Yune!

Characters
The characters were really not designed well. They were quite 2D and unchanging, which left them to have to talk about their supposed changes (such as Claude's behaviour as the anime went on) in order to press that the characters had changed. All of the feelings were lacking; it's as though these characters were really bad actors. Yune was sickeningly sweet, leading me to just abandoning episodes at some points because I couldn't deal with her. (Could this be the source of Claude's constant under-eye bags?) The worst of all, however, was the fact that the characters never really learned anything from various plot points. Actions rarely had real consequences, and the ultimate moral was always "at least nothing bad happened". It got tiring to watch.

Ha, Alice is cosplaying as Alice.

Final Words
I had hopes for this anime, because I liked the concept. It fell apart because, other than that concept, it didn't have any substance. For a character-driven show, the characters were weak and not liked by me; that obviously destroyed a lot of the series, since the lack of story was supposed to let the characters shine. I had no problems with the story-telling; it was direct and to-the-point. Had there actually been a story, I probably would have liked this anime a lot more. Ultimately, just like Gosick, any reasons for liking this show I had were destroyed by the strangely melodramatic ending (does this author just not do endings well?). Unlike Gosick, the anime had nothing going for it before the crappy ending, so there wasn't any good memories for me by the end of the experience.

Most scenes with the two of them had this kind of moment.

Scoring - [4.5/10]
There was a good start that seemed to have a lot of potential, but the slow pacing and the so-so characters degenerated the overall experience. The characters grew weaker with time due to the lack of changes, leaving nothing that was enjoyable.

~Aaro

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee Eps10-12 [END]

With one extra episode in this batch, it's the end of the series! It's sad how, for a while, I thought that perhaps this anime was pretty tolerable. The last episode put an end to that madness. I'm glad this is over.

The three episodes of this batch actually fit pretty well together. Eps10-11 were kind of a pair, continuing stories of one of Claude's customers and Yune's sister, and also beginning the plot point of Claude's father, something that spilled into ep12. While it was pretty humdrum to see eps10-11, ep12 just pretty much killed the series. I was reminded of how little some things made sense and just how annoying Yune was.

Of course she knew what Jean looked like.

Ep10 began with Yune stumbling onto Claude pouring over some old designs and deciding to leave him alone, making dinner even though it was the boy's turn. Oscar decided to interrupt him once he found out, which revealed that Claude had an appointment with some Monsieur Gidrel, a man who had been a great fan of Jean's (Claude's father). This set up the plot point of Claude's father, although it wouldn't really appear so much until ep12.

Pictures can be scary.

After Claude left, Yune rushed back to the shop, though accidentally dilly-dallying due to things like a baby and a cat. It was pretty evident that she was quite comfortable with the Gallery, considering she had gotten miserably lost and learned some harsh lessons (did she really, though?) in a previous episode. Once she got back to the shop, she yearned to have something to do but Oscar really wasn't that type. Upon finding an old projector, they began setting up the store-front to use it.

She looked like a boy. Seriously.

There was a momentary flashback to Yune's childhood in Japan, and to her older sister. I was a little startled by her sister's pale blue eyes, but I was even more confused with how cute the girl was, considering Yune bothers me so much these days. Anyway, Alan dropping by the store caused the projection to turn into a "public display", with many members of the Gallery attending. It was interesting that Alice fit in so well; giving up her seat to an elderly woman was a move I didn't expect from an aristocrat.

Fight to the death!

While all of this was happening, Claude was on the train to and from his customer's place, thinking about the job at hand and his father, in general. I suppose that, since it showed up as early as ep10, I can't really gripe that the mentions of his father in ep12 came out of nowhere, but it still felt that way. There's something about the way the story-telling is done here... But, that can wait for a later post. Claude was very frank with Monsieur Gidrel, stating that he wasn't his father and couldn't recreate things. How cheeky.

Claude absolutely has a harem.

Ep11 picked up with Claude's plot point from ep10; he returned to the shop one day with the news that his design had been bought. He was pretty gruff and unhappy about it though, since it was obvious Monsieur Gidrel was still a fan of Claude's father. While that was going on, Alice dropped by to invite Yune to go to the department store with her, something that Claude was quite annoyed about and put his foot down about. This point continued as Oscar mused that Claude's dislike of the department store probably had something to do with his father.

That's kind of cute...

In order to make it up to her, Claude decided that the three of them would head out to a picnic. Oscar's "magic" was a focus of the episode, for some reason, in it that Yune seemed to actually believe it. Despite having been told earlier that rain in Paris didn't last for long, she still believed when Oscar said he would stop the rain, just for her. Ah, so naive... The picnic seemed relatively boring, or maybe that's just the words of a technology-dependent fool.

No, Shione, stay strong!

After getting her drunk (it was more an accident rather than malicious intent), Yune became quite sad when thinking about her older sister. Apparently, Shione's lighter-coloured eyes had caused all of the people around her to assume that she was harbinger of bad luck and ill omen. Her eyes eventually degenerated to the point where she was essentially blind (so some kind of genetic disorder?), while Yune (who had been frail since birth) got better. Yune, for some reason, thought that it was her fault, since she had told Shione to "be blind" so as to not have to see any of the scowls aimed her way. This scene was probably supposed to incite emotion within me, but it really didn't. It's also sad that I liked Shione a lot more than Yune.

What an interesting nickname.

Ep12 was, honestly, the worst of this batch. It started without an OP, featuring Yune and Claude walking through the Gallery where everyone knew and loved Yune. It was meant to show that, with enough time, she had become part of the family of the Gallery. It also set up the focus of this episode - a storeowner's cat kept disappearing, and so he put a bell on it. After that, it had yet to show up at home again. It's a pretty simple plot point, right? I can't believe it turned out so horrible. (If it's not clear, the cat represented Yune. The storeowner, in this case, represented Claude. The bell represented a yearning to keep Yune-cat close.)

He doesn't look tiny.

Back at the shop, Yune wanted to help out Claude as he worked, which is really what began the entire fiasco. She picked up the smallest work gloves and Claude flew off the handle, yelling at her to go away. It's interesting just how to emo he really is. I hated this same trait in Victorique from Gosick. Anyway, Yune was extremely saddened and went away. At Claude's behest, Oscar explained that the gloves had belonged to Jean, who had a pretty small frame, and Claude had been caught off-guard (as it that justifies anything).

Once again, looking down at her. Yes, she's stupid, but still.

Oscar had told Yune that she could go for a walk around the Gallery, an idea she didn't take up until she heard the sounds of bells. Remembering the lost cat, she decided to head out to see if she could find it. This idea wasn't that terrible at first - what's the harm with just looking outside - but then it just slowly became more ridiculous. She went high and low in searching for the cat, while Claude freaked out. I don't understand why, considering she hadn't been gone for so long and he had told her to take a walk. Nonetheless, he ran outside and told everyone that he was frantically looking for Yune.

Indeed. What are you thinking?

Claude eventually found Yune on the roof. Really? That's where she decided to go in the search for a cat? Ugh. She lost her shoes, Claude yelled at her, she tripped and fell onto a glass ceiling, Claude yelled at her, and then the "truth" of his father came out. Claude resented the man for not being very warm and loving, and was still saddened by his accidental death - while working on the construction of the department store. Claude seemed to make his peace with his father's death, somehow, making up with Yune and promising that they'd go together to the department store eventually. Everything was tied up nicely. I hated it.

Foreshadowing to together-forever?

I really had no hope for this anime after the first few episodes and any slow climb to being good it displayed was absolutely destroyed with the final episode. It was more than ridiculous. There was no real emotion behind these stories, and everything seemed concocted just to end the anime "well". So terrible.

~Aaro

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee Eps08-09

I wonder why Ayako Fansubs suddenly became so sluggish with this anime around the same time that I became lazy with watching it. The final episode was just released today, though, so there's another one to cross off the list (finally).

This batch dealt with the Camille-Claude situation that had been hinted at before. While there was some closure, it didn't really feel like there was enough. These two episodes left me almost rooting for these two, although it's pretty clear (I think) that Claude is being set up to be with Yune. This author (same as Gosick) really likes inter-racial pairings, perhaps. I really don't know; the remaining 3 episodes will reveal what's really going on.

Ah, old school thinking.

The episode began with Claude and Yune heading to the mansion, since Yune had been helped out by Alice when she was sick (with the sending of the doctor and whatnot). Claude seemed a little resistant, preferring to not go to the mansion at all, but he did it out of honour and a sense of duty. Just like with Gosick, where everything seemed to happen out of nowhere, the Claude-Camille thing here really just suddenly dropped in. Apparently, the two had played together all the time when they were young, with lots of feelings most likely involved, but then something happened.

No fairy tales of marrying for love here.

One of the key factors of this episode - and this batch, actually - was that Camille never really had it in her mind to marry Claude. Perhaps they had actually been "lovers" as children (in the non-adult way), but Camille never once thought that she and Claude could be together. By his actions, he might have thought otherwise. It brought to question an interesting notion - extra-marital affairs might not have been a big deal in France at the time. I've always known that men were able to have mistresses pretty freely, but I didn't know that it was okay for women too. In the way that Camille and Alice both talked, it seemed as though that was the case.

Why so mean?

Yune didn't really get much screen-time in this episode, as it was really a little more focused on Claude and Camille. She was taken to the garden by Alice, where they had afternoon tea (while Claude stayed indoors with Camille), and then taken to Alice's childhood room, where Alice recounted a story that she had made up in earlier years of a foreign girl with jet black hair and eyes arriving. It was only when Alice ran off to prepare Japanese-style tea that Camille showed up. (It's pretty weird how Claude's plan of action for the day was to just hang out at the mansion.)

I'm pretty sure it was the dress that Alice was wearing.

Her role in this entire scene was rather questionable; she seemed to be jealous of Yune at times, heckling her, but she also seemed as though she were giving Yune advice. In the end, I'm pretty sure she's just a woman tied down by her fate, still bitter about the goings-on around her. I don't particularly like her character, but it adds a little more to the story than the naive (and annoying) Yune trotting around all the time. The episode ended with Camille helping Yune into a dress that Alice wore in the past (and wrongly claiming that it had been her...?), which is exactly where ep09 picked up.

Alice is quite coddled, just as planned.

Ep09 saw Alice finding Yune and taking her back to the garden for some Japanese-style tea (although she initially messed it up by adding milk and sugar). More talking about the symbolism of the corset preceded this event; I get it already. The corset is binding the women. Move on. This was actually the most time that Yune would get in this episode; once the flashback began, she was obviously nowhere to be seen.

So, you're only secretly tarnishing your name.

The flashback began with some scenes that were seen in the previous episode; namely, Camille talking about how her mother hated stray cats (with a lot of hinting that it was actually "outsiders"), but she herself loved them (as in Claude). The scenes continued with various incidents were Claude visited Camille - and then various times where Claude wanted to take Camille out with him, to view a puppet show for example, but failed. After Camille secretly ran to the Gallery one day and Claude chased her back, she finally revealed that the only reason her nannies had allowed Claude to visit was under the condition that Camille not leave the estate. (Why couldn't this have been said before, without all the drama, anyway?)

I wonder if slightly less noble women didn't wear them too.

When the flashbacks finally ended, Claude was walking back with Yune when she mentioned that Camille wore a corset without complaining, also providing the miraculous insight that perhaps Camille wore the corset for people other than herself. This brought the entire Claude-Camille saga to its end; Camille had realized her limitations and decided to stay within the boundaries created for her. In doing this, she was trying to ensure a better life for her younger sister. In that sense, she probably had also given up on Claude (unless an extramarital affair was one day possible); however, as with most feelings-related decisions, she sometimes wavered (as with her jealousy of Yune). It's nothing confusing; it just feels a little out-of-place since it got so serious so fast...like Gosick, actually.

Momotaro! I agree; it's pretty weird.

This batch of episodes basically just added in some drama to the otherwise happy anime, and ended it off pretty quickly. I can't see Camille posing any problems in any relationship that Claude and Yune choose to have; if anything, she just served as a convenient catalyst to get the ball rolling a little faster. I like that some more intricacy was added to the story, but it feels just as out-of-place here as it did when it happened in Gosick.

~Aaro

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee Eps06-07

It turns out that my desire to watch anime is nothing in the face of my desire to watch the Dota2 tournament; that's pretty funny. Somewhere in the middle (it's not like I really want to watch the Losers Bracket matches), I managed to write about this show.

She still hasn't outgrown the "omochikaeri" phase...

This batch of episodes was not only boring but also highly annoying. While ep06 was kind of slow-paced, focusing on a photography session with Yune and Alice (and with Claude not really making any major appearances), ep07 was just one cliche on top of another, showcasing Claude's remarkable ability to be short-tempered and controlling. The only reason I'm not bashing this anime more is because I understand what "olden days" mentality was like, but that's still only barely a reason that a main character should be like this. My only hope is for some kind of redeeming quality to show up - anything - or at least an interesting character.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee Eps04-05

I procrastinated a full week before even watching these two episodes. Maybe it's because I'm feverish, but it was pretty difficult to watch this anime. I think I'm losing all interest.

That's pretty quick development...

These episodes continued the "every simple day" feel presented thus far. Ep05 dealt with the appearance of Alice - who, after being introduced as a spoiled brat who would have her way no matter what, became pretty demure in the course of one episode, obviously not going to get in between Claude and Yune in any kind of malicious way. Ep06 was about Yune shedding some of her innocent trust - although, not really, since she went back to her old ways, more or less, by the end of the episode. It also showed a homeless child that'll most undoubtedly be a part of the story to come.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee Eps02-03

Seeing as how this is by the same mangaka of Gosick, it's pretty clear that I prefer Yune to a fault...and so this post is really just an excuse to plaster images of her everywhere. On a serious level, I just didn't have enough to say to do an episodic post.

Good bread makes me sparkle, too.

I'm losing some interest in this anime, which is difficult since it's still in its initial episodes. I just don't find Yune endearing beyond her appearance, and Claude isn't a strong character either. Ep02 focused on Yune adjusting to Paris a little bit more, and then ep03 was Claude learning about Japan. With a new character set to be introduced in the upcoming episodes, I worry about the turn that this anime might take. This seems like it'll be a feel-good anime about how Yune's innocence changes the thought processes of the hard and stubborn Parisians around her; it wouldn't be so bad if I actually liked Yune's character more, I think.

Ikoku Meiro no Croisee Ep01

I tried watching this two mornings ago, but then life got in the way. With my return to Mainland China impending (in a day or two, as it stands now), I question what Internet access will be like since I don't even know the scenic route we'll be taking to Beijing (being treated like a child is always annoying). We'll see~

Wow, real French. I'm impressed~

The first episode of Ikoku Meiro no Croisee didn't disappoint me at all. I'm pretty sure this anime is pretty much just shoujo slice-of-life, potentially with story arcs thrown in here and there (and maybe for the ending). Those are hit or miss for me and I really feel like this one will be a hit. The characters are likeable (and visually appealing), I like the realistic way in which they portray 19th century France, and the pacing is far from slow. I'm in.