So the full season started up, and where was I? Writing posts on Horizon, suffering racial abuse playing a video game and contemplating my own purpose in this blogosphere while watching another Go Nagai “classic.” Actually, none of you read this introduction part. It’s all about what follows, isn’t it? Catching up on anything old is difficult during this time of the season, so there’s none of that. It’s all new airing here, with my catastrophic taste showing through all the way as my. Plus, there’s that terribad thing at the end.
Currently Airing Top 5
Sukitte Iinayo
I’m not one who is much into caring about the reputation of certain studios, but I do know a few things. Gainax used to make grand stories with baffling endings, Madhouse used to be good like 10 years ago, Shaft has the stable of adventurous directors and Shinbo and Xexcs can be relied upon to make crap. So that latter one got blown away by this first episode. I felt it perfectly captured that essence of loneliness in the modern world. This may be shoujo, but it felt like it was genuine. I don’t think the stalker scene was particularly underplayed. The brief nature of that sequence also provided enough insight into the stalker as one should ever get. The only complaint I had is that the CG running at the beginning looked terrible. Others may also have an issue with how the stalker problem was dealt with. Continuing
Zetsuen no Tempest
So you might ask, why the heck would someone like me put this so high? It probably has to do with the fact that it looks and feels like it was well produced. I do have a thing for orchestral scores, to be fair. I can only really judge by one episode, but this felt like the only episode this week that felt like it had an epic feeling. It will be easier to get more of a feeling for this show after a few episodes. Continuing
Space Brothers
This was both a frustrating and astonishing episode for me. With the latter, Azuma was made more human by being unable to find the words to say back when he was on the International Space Station. Plus, the question about preparedness to die is one that is deeply profound. It’s easy to say yes because it looks like it indicates a willingness to sacrifice, but it can also look like resignation in the face of danger. On the other hand, there were some liberties taken with geographic and historical accuracy. Mutta’s mother switches from calling the theme park in Florida Disneyland to Disney World. Though really the obvious one from my perspective is the lack of insults directed at Zinedine Zidane’s sister in Italian during the sequence done from Marco Materazzi’s perspective.
Little Busters!
Oh look, a Key adaptation. I have a bit of a reputation for hating these (see: Clannad, Angel Beats, Kanon…) so I went in with minimal expectations. So, it did better than the nothing I expected. I was an alright episode I guess. I did like Rin’s Chuck Knoblauch-esque control on the pitching mound. The rest of the episode was pretty hit or miss, like I was just watching a straight adaptation of a visual novel. The production values were still pretty poor, but it was a value episode. Continuing
To LOVE-Ru Darkness
So this is franchise is back on television and it looked like they are going to do this on the cheap. I know enough about the story for this, Yami being at the center of the action while Momo tries to build a harem for Rito. At least this plot gets some credit for not even trying to hide behind any sort of contrivance. It’s about getting as many girls close to him as possible. So that’s battles for Yami, lots of implied close calls for Rito getting laid. It says a lot about my taste that it’s this high. Still, I don’t know if watching poor animation for what I already know will happen is worth it. Tentative
The Rest of the Week
Busou Shinki
Trying to recapture the feeling of Rosen Maiden I guess with this series. The female voice cast for this show is massive. They even found work for Aya Hirano. If you’ve ever seen Hand Maid May this series will feel about the same. Small inexplicably attractive maid robots go on various adventures and at the end of the day they are ready to serve their master. They can also fly and fight each other, but I’m not going to get that far. Dropped
Onii-chan Dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne
Finally, a show that realizes that the younger sister trend has run its course. It knows it’s ridiculous, and it says a lot that this harem series has a male lead who seems to know it as well. There are other girls in this as well, but Akiko (voiced by a 14-year-old in a debut role) delivers line after line of stupendously cliche lines that are given the respect they deserve, none. Continuing
Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb
With Hidamari Sketch, anyone still knows what they are getting when they watch this. Sae and Hiro head off to Hokkaido on a class trip, and that’s about it for notable events. And Yuno still ends each episode with a bath. Shaft fulfills it’s obligation to have something airing during the season. Continuing
Kamisama Hajimemashita
The idea I was struck with as I was watching this was that it is a case study of how a character can seem independent, then get trapped by society in a certain role. The protagonist Nanami goes from homeless, but capable to having to serve as a god by Mikage. Then in trying to get out of it, she ends up permanently trapped in the role by Tomoe as she’s falling to her death. I could be interpreting that all wrong, but I see it as the typical attractive men forcing a strong-willed girl into a more traditional role, even if she does have god powers. Dropped
Hayate the Combat Butler! Can’t Take My Eyes Off You
I could have taken my eyes off of the animation quality. It was really poor. The story itself was really just a reintroduction to the characters for those who haven’t kept up with the manga. It does look like there is some sort of overarching story to all of this, well at least it would explain how Nagi ended up in the Nevada desert to open the episode. Continuing
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
I liked this episode, then I was informed that it was depraved and immoral. So I now don’t like it. I know it’s not getting my financial support in anyway, but I making everything I watch the rest of the week seem terrible does give it some consideration. Not enough for me to continue watching, though. Dropped
K
This painfully felt like it was produced by way too many people. The key moment came during the scene where Isana is being chased by the guy on the skateboard. It transitioned to a fisheye look, which continues to be the standard for low-value skate production videos. It probably felt like a good idea to the one person who thought it up, and there were too many people to come to a consensus to disagree on it. As a result, we get something that aspires to look cheap. Dropped
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure
I tried to give this a chance. It felt incredibly camp, or maybe exploitation should be a better description of what genre this seemed to be. At the end, it just seemed like Dio was just a dick to Jojo for no reason. I’m sure there is a good one, but I didn’t see it. This series does get credit for the most left field choice of ending themes, by choosing a song by Yes. Dropped
Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai
For a romantic comedy, I didn’t see much of either in this first episode. It was really just a bunch of slapstick humor and embarrassment. In light of the discussion around Kaibutsu-kun I found the former really problematic. There at least seems to be something salvageable here, even if I can’t really recall laughing at anything in the first episode. Tentative
Shinsekai Yori
Maybe this whole season got off to a bad start with this first episode to kick things off. It had a promising start too. A bunch of people exploding in the modern day, but that story is probably too hard to tell, so just mail in a generic suspense plot set in the countryside. I would still just be waiting for the Shyamalanian twist at the end where this on a space colony or something. Dropped
Btooom!
So an online game with 3 million users is popular enough to spawn a real life version on an island? That sales figure didn’t seem impressive to me. Nor did the protagonist’s laser rocket arm…or the fact that I was informed that future episodes will involve lots of rape. At least Deadman Wonderland had redeemable characters, and that was catastrophically bad. The biggest sin though was the fanny packs. Dropped
Wooser no Sono Higurashi
This is actually a good idea on paper. A cute character who is really just as cynical as the rest of us about the world. The format, however, is all wrong. There’s no room for any of the jokes to work with 3 segments in under 3 minutes. Dropped
Litchi DE Hikari Club
This is probably acceptable if one had read the manga. For me on the outside, it just seemed like more flash animated garbage. Dropped
I’ll be back with the table of averages for next week, for now the order these episodes are in is the order that I preferred them for this opening week.
Terribad
Abashiri Family
My mind was clearly on other things since I watched a Go Nagai OVA that didn’t have mecha and didn’t see any implied rape or excessive female nudity. Had he lost his touch here? That’s not to say there wasn’t plenty of violence and little clothing being worn by female characters.
Basically, the plot of this story is Kikunosuke’s quest to live life as a normal girl despite the fact that she has the capability to kill people graphically and that the rest of her family is a crime syndicate who didn’t even realize she was a girl until she was 16. The story then transitions to one of those ridiculous Go Nagai high schools where the teachers are ultraviolent and it just turns into a battle anime. So it’s one for those who like to see people explode into blood and guts, not so much for those who want more traditional fanservice. (44.8/100)
Lower Mid-Table 
It was really just a bunch of slapstick humor and embarrassment. In light of the discussion around Kaibutsu-kun I found the former really problematic.
I think the key here is that this was slapstic, Kaibutsu-kun…wasn’t. At no point did you ever believe that Rikka was in serious danger from what Yuuta was doing, while Haru very nearly broke Shizuku’s nose completely by accident.
Yeah, there’s a difference between bopping someone on the head for being a dumb-dumb, and threatening someone with rape.
There’s a pretty large degree of difference.
I don’t exactly see where I was equating them, though I maybe accidentally slipped in a line like “The violence is just as bad as the rape in Kaibutsu” and forgot about it. I think that Kaibutsu discussion just altered my perspective on everything I watched after that to be honest.
The scene in the nurses office seemed to border on cruel to me. I’m also bothered by the fact that the physical comedy is all in one direction. As far as Kaibutsu-kun, I just felt that particular incident was completely overshadowed by everything else that happened before it.
Physical comedy of this kind is (almost) always in one direction – from the tsukkomi to the boke. When violence against women is fetishized to the point it is in, say, Juuden-Chan, it can become problematic, but I don’t really see that happening to a meaningful degree here. This is just a classic straight man/clown setup, with a girl playing the clown.
I think the point of the “violence” (which is so cartoony it’s hard for me to even call it that) is that Yuuta is using Rikka as a proxy to beat on his own embarrassing past self. Not that that’s a great way to go about your life, but again, it’s executed more like Wile E. Coyote cartoon violence.
I can probably accept this line of thinking.
Uhhhhh …. you have it completely wrong with Kamisama Kiss. Nanami was already stuck as an Earth Deity. What happened when she kissed Tomoe was that she gained the ability to give orders to him that cannot be refused.
And this may not change your mind, but if you drop Zetsuen no Tempest or some other show, could you perhaps give Shinsekai Yori another shot? Basically, with the advent of people who gained a supernatural power, society eventually regressed to an authoritarian rural society that seeks to temper individuals into controlling the powers by placing a lot of boundaries/limits on them and having fear being injected into them through the education system. Undesirables (people who are awful at controlling the power and people who abuse the power) are removed from society, and basically only the competent ones remain, preventing maniacs like those from the 21st from randomly blowing up strangers.
You speak widsom, fine sir.
I guess what I was getting at is that Nanami may have control over Tomoe, but she’s now strapped with all of these obligations she never had before because she was put in that situation by Mikage.
As far as Shinsekai Yori, that explanation of the plot leaves out important details that would get my interest. Mainly, why would society regress or more importantly, how would it regress. It just makes me feel like I should just not worry about the specifics of how it got from point A to point B.
Isn’t that the sort of thing you would expect to be explained later?
I’m sure it will be explained. Experience tells me that it would be somewhere in the last 2 episodes, and it won’t be a full explanation.
so your main criticism of Wooser is its length? Seems like if it gave you a laugh then no harm in giving it half a shot, or would I regret it?