Photography, whether illicit or not, can still be hard work either way.

Photo Kano on first glance doesn’t appear to have much in the way of substance. In many ways, it looks just like an adaptation of a console dating simulation would expect to look. There’s a bunch of girls at a school who all have a connection to the main character that happens to be key to solving their individual personal issues. In that sense, there isn’t much in the way of wiggle room in telling the adapted story. In the case of Photo Kano, that’s nowhere near the truth.

The basic series format of Photo Kano is this: the first 5 episodes are what could be referred to as main story. The series director Yokoyama Akitoshi also wrote the scripts for these episodes. This is where the real meat of the story was established. The characters had to be introduced and given enough time to get to know them for what would come afterward. Also, basic details had to be dropped in to establish a storyline for each character that had to be resolved. Those first five episodes could also be considered to be doing the most thankless job of all; completing the story and character development for Kazuya, Photo Kano‘s male protagonist.

Asking before taking pictures of a cosplayer is proper etiquette.

The series’s final seven episodes, which make up the resolution to each girl’s “route”, have had a different make up entirely. Take episode 7 as an example. The directorial reigns for the episode were turned over to a debutant director, but the storyboard was done by Yuasa Masaaki, which must have been as he was finishing up directing the crowdfunded Kickheart. The result was the story of a girl named Hikari who only took scenery pictures transformed into a vivid recollection of how she came to distrust other people and the light-hearted way Kazuya entered into her heart.

The most interesting scene from a design standpoint in the series to date.

Then, in episode 8 the student council president’s story of wanting to be freed from the expectation of being the perfect student had it’s own. Aki’s story was storyboard-ed by  Shibata Katsunori, whose previous done episodes of Mawaru Penguindrum and Sengoku Collection with the episode being directed by someone whose lone directorial effort is terribad’s Iron Virgin Jun would seem odd enough. Then, throw in some of Madhouse’s animation directors with credits as wide ranging as Aku no Hana to Legend of the Galactic Heroes and you have a compelling story of Aki finding a partner that allowed her to relax and have fun.

You really can’t go wrong with an end like this.

What exactly is the reason for pointing this out? It’s actually about talent development. Photo Kano is the safe way to partner established talent at Madhouse with those who may want to take on new and more advanced roles in the industry. It’s a venue that allows those who want to be creative with telling a story to do so without fear of failure. This series may not go on to be the best selling series of the year, and its appeal may be limited to fans of the game on which it is based, but that would hardly be down to a failure on the part of the new talent.

A certain incident of what was called aniblogger drama, which I’m not going to talk about specifically here, had me thinking of opinions on anime in general. I personally try not to come off as cynical about some of the series I’m watching. There’s the odd Urobuchi hating women moment from time to time, or occasionally there’s a show that I think can do much better than it is capable of. Ultimately, I hope to avoid the whole looking jaded thing as I write for you few readers out there.

Regardless, it got me thinking of opinions in general, plus it also helped that the book I’m reading recreationally covers the same area. Nuance is something I try to value when discussing anything I’ve miraculously happened to be watching at the same time as someone else. Being able to justify the existence of a series I’m not particularly a fan of, which could be something like the Tokyo Mew Mew dub, and convincing someone it isn’t a crime against humanity is a fun exercise. However, what I would say is that it is much easier to build a readership by holding views that have no nuance at all. A world that is black or white is easier to grasp in a brief read than one with nuance. What a terrible world that is.

Currently Airing Top 5

Muromi’s trip to Singapore gets off to an inauspicious start.

Muromi-san

The problem this show seems to have is consistency. When it is on song like it was this week, it can be one of the best gag anime out there. When it’s not, then the 12 minutes of the episode can feel like 12 hours. So this week’s best episode I watched was about mermaids who drank too much and threw up despite being millions of years old. But it was about much more than that. Turning the Kraken into a lecherous monster who is so bad with women he almost caused another world war to break out. Also, the next episode previews reference to Otohime’s fortunes falling faster than Lehman Brothers was good too. On the downside, the Yeti flashback was overly sentimental and her character seems to slow the flow of the episode down massively.

That’s a convenient place to fall.

Yuyushiki

The second most light-hearted comedy of the season continues a stellar run of consistency this week. They’ve done a really good job of slowly incorporating the trio of Chiho, Kei and Fumi into the regular rhythm of the show. The one thing I do worry about going forward is the rather perverted edge this series seems to have despite having no male characters. Last week it was Kei trying to give the okay to molest Chiho to Yui and now this week it’s Yuzu leering over Okaa-san-sensei’s breasts after falling into them accidentally. How hard is it to avoid the dumb stuff like this?

That swimsuit is too small clearly.

Hataraku Maou-sama

There was a bit of debate about this series this week as to whether this is a romantic comedy. Basically, it comes down to whether the fact that Maou has absolutely no interest in love makes a difference in the romantic aspect of the romantic comedy. I think it probably ends up being true for the simple fact that many of the situations involve other characters believing that Emi is together with Maou. That’s not something she helps by basically stalking him all of the time. Chiho’s confession to him didn’t really move him as much as firmly establish her role as the character who ends up with unrequited love. Anyway that’s all an excuse to avoid talking about this week’s swimsuit episode, which was a thing.

This is getting into the Ramen episode of Amagami territory.

Photo Kano

I don’t think I should feel particularly foolish for writing on this series in the middle of the week because this wasn’t an especially interesting episode. The vivid food dream sequence was about the extent of the highlights this week. The rest was about as standard single-episode love story as you can get. Kazuya is close friends with Mai, cheers her on when she is trying to get into the rhythmic gymnastics competition which turns those feelings into romantic ones, they then get involved in misunderstandings together before they finally confess their feelings for each other. That’s about as paint-by-numbers as you can get in this genre. So I’d put this down as competently executed, but with little in feeling.

Children’s bike censorship. Really.

Oreimo.

This is really just on this list by default. Much was made during the week of the ending of the final volume of the light novel in that it chose to go for an ever so unsatisfying ending for every single character in the story. While I’m sure it’s courageous to end a story in a way that will disappoint fans of the story, ending it in a way that isn’t much of an ending is quite frankly cowardly. That, however, is completely irrelevant to this episode. What I liked about this episode was the interaction between Kyousuke and Ayase. It has that rare platonic friendship between a boy and girl where they are each able to give the other a hard time with no hard feelings going on. Shame about the unfortunately designed bicycle falling victim to the evil light beams of censorship.

The Rest of the Week

She really likes apples.

6. Date A Live - Not much of a conclusion to the Kotori/Kurumi battle.
7. Aiura - Oh hey, that teacher who looks younger than the girls has unresolved issues
8. Hayate Cuties - Ayumu doesn’t really have much going for her, does she?
9. Oregairu - Scenery chewing class politics
10. Gargantia - Improbably gaining a conscious via contrivance
11. Nyaruko-san - Completely uneventful this week as a Shanta-kun episode

Updated Seasonal Average Episode Ranking

Terribad

In the middle of this swords and magic tale is this guy and his gun.

Spectral Force

Among all of the terribad anime I’ve watched over the years, I can safely say this is the 2nd worst looking one I’ve ever seen (take a bow Gundoh Musashi). Spectral Force is a two episode OVA based on the JRPG of the same name. What is it with JRPG adaptations being almost universally terrible? Only fighting game adaptations have a worse reputation.

Since I led off with it, the visuals in this OVA are appalling. There’s a combination of dated CG that looks like it was made 10 years before this was released, character designs and animation that I would be kind in calling half-assed. and a villain who looks like he is wearing a pommel horse as shoulder pads. The only thing missing is photographic backgrounds with JPEG artifacts. It’s also obvious that most of the production budget went into that catastrophic CG because you can’t avoid it being used terribly all the time.

As for the story, Spectral Force is about the struggle a demon princess has to face when tragedy strikes for her family. She has to seek revenge against those who wronged her with the help of the band of human mercenaries despite the fact that she has problems with humans in general thanks to a child-sized scythe being used against her and her friends when she was a child. For the most part, it’s not a horribly executed story. There appears to be too much trying to cram stuff in from the games and not enough time to do so. Yet, there leaves so much to be unexplained at the same time. Also, there’s no conclusion to the story in this OVA, presumably because this was supposed to sell you on buying the game to complete the story. I wonder how effective that would have been.

Time of First Female Nudity: 6:04 in the first episode when Hiro battles a giant fish underwater in the buff (though to be fair, she and her father are as anatomically correct as children’s dolls)
Rating: 26.5

Yuyushiki is always good for top images. I couldn’t think of anything else to put here.

This edition of Pointless Debate was inspired by the Animusic Tourney being conducted by the members of the Anime Instrumentality blog. Nominations recently opened up on the tournament blog with fans able to submit a list of up to 15 songs for consideration. These will ultimately determine which ones make it and the tournament seeds if you get the gist of it. I did make my 15 selections which you will get at the end of the post, but the story I want to tell is how I ended up there.So the first step in this process was to draw up a shortlist. I was thinking maybe 20-25 would be what I would end up with. So the criteria I had to take into account were two-fold; is it an opening/closing/insert song used in an anime and if so did it contain vocals? Then there was my own criteria of my wanting it to be a song that engaged me on some emotional level. Then there was a one song per series rule that I put in place after one notable exception.

To start off this list, I was in a joking mood. Noting that 9 of the 14 tracks on Daft Punk’s Discovery album would be eligible under the criteria having been the source music of the Leiji Matsumoto directed film Interstella5555, I decided to start with songs that actually were not in Japanese.

So being a fan of Radiohead (moreso around the turn of the century), I had remembered “Paranoid Android” being Ergo Proxy‘s ending theme so that was on there. Then I could come up with were Wondermints’ insert song in Crest of the Stars Franz Ferdinand being used in the Paradise Kiss opening, the Serial Experiments Lain opening by Boa and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex‘s first ending by Scott Matthew among other songs. Then I tacked on Vifam‘s opening for laughs. On that last one, it’s well worth seeing the live version. I was already approaching the maximum number of entries I could possibly get onto a ballot, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

I then moved back to the realm of songs that I could remember liking. This is where I struck a bit of form, or rather I just didn’t care about how many I could select. So I ended up with this, this, this, this, this, and  this. I was already well over now, but I couldn’t help but feeling that I had left some out. So I had to glance through the back catalog of songs I had in my collection to come up with some more songs that I had foolishly forgotten about in making up this list. So my list was complete, except for a Macross 7 song that I forgot to put in until after I sent my vote in. I would have chosen this.

For those keeping count, you may think that I had 30 songs above to choose from. Actually, I didn’t put any of those on my ballot. Forty-five songs was the total I came up with. 45. So in reverse order, here’s what I did send in:

15. “Catch You Catch Me” – Gumi (Card Captor Sakura 1st opening) This sticks in my head almost every time I hear it. It’s just bubblegum pop that fits the innocent tone of the series and opening animation. This was a more innocent time for me personally as I didn’t have a clue about CLAMP and was innocent to their doujin origins.
14. “TRY UNITE!” – Nakajima Megumi (Rinne no Lagrange opening) I had really stopped watching opening and ending animations to series at this point. So I think I forgot to skip it when I watched the first episode. I was astounded to discover a legitimately good dance track for an opening. Where was this for years?
13. “Cutie Honey” – Maekawa Yoko (Cutie Honey opening) I opted for the original 1973 version of this for the nomination. The Re: Cutie Honey version by Kumi Koda is also popular but I think it has too much added for a cover. Personally, my favorite cover version is by Go!Go!7188.
12. “Falling Down” – Oasis (Eden of the East opening) A song that fits the series as well as any on this list sparked some odd remarks from a con panel I attended 3 years ago. Negotiations to license the series and this opening by a certain company had their head of marketing referring to the band as “certain musicians from Manchester.” They got the rights to use this opening in the western release only for the first episode.
11. “Tenshi no Yubikiri” – Fukuda Mai (Karekano opening) This is another song that fits the series it is used in. Mainly because the opening animation fits Gainax’s production of this much loved or hated series. It’s a classic example of a song that sticks in one’s head. That opening line in English combined with the melody make it memorable. For some, it may be the only highlight of each episode.
10. “Rap wa Kan no Tamashii Da! Muri wo Toushite wo Kettobasu!” – Tarantula (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann insert song) Raw! Raw! Fight the Power! Combined with Iwasaki Taku’s orchestral backing this track is powerful. It almost makes you want to do the impossible and/or see the invisible.
9. “Girls on Film” – Duran Duran (Speed Grapher opening) I couldn’t possibly leave out Duran Duran when they are eligible in this. The opening animation even feels like something out of the 80s when the song was made. Also, I hope this doesn’t destroy any credibility I have in my musical taste.
8. “Motteke! Sailor Fuku” – Hirano Aya, Katou Emiri, Fukuhara Kaori & Endou Aya (Lucky Star opening) The lyrics to this song are completely nonsensical. It’s all over the place as far as direction including a like of sailor style school uniforms to worries about gaining weight. In other words, it captures the direction of the series perfectly in about 70 seconds. It has pomp and spectacle that seems somewhat lost nowadays.
7. “God Knows” – Hirano Aya (The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi insert song) From the voice actress I jokingly refer to as CDVA (Certain Disgraced Voice Actress), this is about as well as an insert concert scene can be animated and performed. It’s a rare combination of a song and a voice that fit together perfectly. Just watch it.
6. “Komm Süsser Tod” – Arianne (End of Evangelion insert song) It’s a upbeat song about ending one’s life. In the movie that’s played over surreal scenes of an apocalyptic event filled with people accepting the end of their individuality. It makes everything about the end of this film much more memorable. It’s the perfect track to be listening to for the end of the world. Let’s hope that never comes to pass shall we?
5. “One More Time” – Daft Punk (Interstella5555 scene 1) With a new album out, this seems to be the perfect time to mention the French dance musicians’ greatest hit to date. The visual version of this song is a concert on an alien world where all are having fun, but it’s so good the band is kidnapped by humans hoping to make some money. For those listening to Random Access Memories, “One More Time” will seem immature by comparison, but the modifications of the vocals is a case of using the tools of one’s trade to experiment without fear.
4. “Yakusoku wa Iranai” – Sakamoto Maaya (Escaflowne opening) Sakamoto Maaya’s voice with music by Kanno Yoko resulted in this grandiose opening theme to a series that had a character design problem. It hasn’t aged well at all. That’s the fortunate thing about music. This will always sound grand with piano and guitar riffs. Visually, those noses look worse and worse by the day, and maybe this ushered in the reactionary “no nose” era.
3. “Groovin’ Magic” – Round Table featuring Nino (Diebuster opening) If you’re going to make a sequel to Gunbuster and try to make it stand on it’s own, what better place to throw a curve ball than in the opening. Just compare it to the original opening. Both are love songs of their times, but the newer effort is just more fun. I’ll take the light fun synthpop over the late 80s pop ballad almost all of the time
2. “Twilight” – Electric Light Orchestra (Daicon IV Opening Animation) The two opening animations created for the DAICON science fiction conventions in the early 80s are AMVs on another scale. That would be picking the song and then creating the animation from scratch. ELO’s song became an unofficial anthem of otakudom and tribute of the song and animation was made in the Densha Otoko opening. As for the song itself, it’s not considered one of ELO’s best singles. It didn’t make the first edition of The Essential Electric Light Orchestra after all. It’s a
1. “Voices” – Arai Akino (Macross Plus opening episode 1/ending episode 4) To be honest, I don’t know if I actually write this post or have this blog without the idea of this song being dedicated to future pioneers. The song itself is wonderfully melancholic song that also fits the three characters involved in this story that sent me down the rabbit hole

Just look at that blushing, there are no women in this show.

An intelligent young man finds himself in a supernatural succession battle while trying to find some tuition money in this first episode. After discovering that his uncle had run his family’s estate out of money, William goes searching for other places where something of value could be hidden. He ends up finding a portal to the demon world and a demon named Dantalion tells him he is the elector of the interim king while Lucifer rests. Being the realist, William chooses not to believe anything that is happening right up until another demon tries to steal him away. Dantalion comes to his rescue, though William uses a mysterious power of his own to prevent him from utilizing his full power. Once back in the real world, William finds his tuition paid and a familiar face transferring into school.

I’m going to start with a little bit on the production. The director of this series has been shunted onto a career path of doing shounen ai series ever since her work on Nodame Cantabile wrapped up. However, her vision of frantic fights from on Higurashi no Naku Koro ni can be seen here. The battle between Dantalion and Gilles De Rais has a physical quality to it that is rare these days. There’s really nothing bad I can say about how this looks and feels.

As for the story itself, it does feel like it will be a pretty generic shounen action story. William will be fought over by all of the successor candidates for the throne. He will be put in danger a bunch of times and Dantalion will bail him out each time. While he could just choose one, William’s character will still refuse to believe he has that sort of power so it will drag on until either Dantalion has earned that right or Lucifer ends up waking up.

The characters in this series are basically made for different types of BL shipping, but unlike Brothers Conflict this has already earned the right to do that. William is the weak character who will be undeniably linked to the stronger Dantalion. Being taken by whoever ends up being the villain of the week will not be much of a threat to him, but his interactions with them will be lighthearted enough to make both parties come out better in the end. Also for the philosophical out there, I think that title makes for interesting reading. William can be the devil for controlling Dantalion’s powers while Dantalion is the realist for wanting to stick close to him to win the throne. It’s classic game theory in a silly sort of way and damned if I didn’t actually manage to find another fujoshi oriented show that I found watchable.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• Battles have an excellent look and feel
• Comedic timing is appropriate even if not always funny
• Strategic relationship between William and Dantalion is very debatable

Reasons to Drop

• It’s not very hard to find the fujoshi fanservice
• Plot structure appears to be extremely cliche
• References to The Bible have no bearing to anything

My Verdict: Probably the first show of this type I’ve found watchable since the infamous Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, notably by the same director. While I think it will fall into a series of cliches by the end, it’s done enough to earn a 2nd episode comfortably.

Imagine that, a child winning at a children’s card game.

A child named Uzume finds herself thrown into playing a card game in real life with a group of new friends in the first episode of Fantasista Doll. Still playing a card game that she excelled at when she was younger, Uzume, she gets drawn into a real battle using the same mechanics as that game. With the help of a Fantasista Doll called Sasara, Uzume manages to save herself and win the battle. After that, she’s introduced to more Dolls who remain suspicious of her as their master, but her attitude goes some way toward allaying the fears she will abuse them for her own gain.

I think a show of this type has to be taken into context. In Brothers Conflict, I said that existed for the purpose of selling more light novels. With this, the anime exists to promote a card battle game for mobile phones that is coming out in the near future. Their target audience is young girls based on the costumes, though the action scenes have enough of a physical element with property destruction that it is also attempting to reach an older male audience. This game is made for lolicons, isn’t it?

For a card game battle anime, this is pretty pedestrian. There’s no attempt like one other show like this that was set in a dystopian urban setting to make it standout. Nope, it’s just a young girl running around trying to figure out how the game works. If this were a real card game, Uzume would have lost badly, and with the way the battles work she probably would be hospitalized at best. Ultimately, this story will lead to a setup where she slowly gets to know her Dolls and become good at fighting alongside them. Then, her friend she looks up to will end up being the final boss. That’s just how these things work.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• Destruction of property
• Fills the massive shortage of anime based on mobile card battle games
• One of the more family-friendly offerings this summer

Reasons to Drop

• The demographics being targeted are troubling
• The realization that old men participating in children’s card game tournaments is beyond self-parody
• The man who gave Uzume the ability to participate in this deadly game is clearly a lolicon

My Verdict: This simply isn’t my kind of show. I realize that affects my enjoyment, but I have a real problem with shows aimed at young girls and older men at the same time intentionally.

I don’t think this skull is anatomically correct.

Staz, a vampire living in the demon world, happens to be an otaku who is also a territory boss. When a human girl arrives, his desire to be an individual and a fate that befalls the girl combine to lead to a situation where he can finally go see the human world. Staz had his henchmen acquire otaku goods from the human world when they went there, only for them to bring back a human girl called Fuyumi on this particular day. Staz resists the temptation to bite into her to go off to rescue his men from a demon who fought using carnivorous plants. One of them escaped and killed Fuyumi only for her to become a ghost. He vows to find a way to turn her back into a human, while at the same time continuing to feed his otaku needs.

I’m not quite sure what to make of all of this to be quite honest. It’s clearly an otaku reference comedy which seems to also be making a not so subtle statement about relationships at the same time. Fuyumi being consumed by that plant becomes the key point in this early part of the story. She was some sort of object placed on a pedestal. Humans are rare in the demon world after all, and Staz didn’t want to be like those other vampires (men) who consumed (had sex with) them. When she’s a ghost, that feeling is gone since she’s just another demon. His whole desire to bring her back to life is born out of the desire to feel that urge to lust over an unobtainable object.

As for the rest of the episode, it’s really disappointingly ordinary. The brief battle looks good, but it’s really brief. The otaku angle of wanting to go to the human world to get the latest in high culture otaku goods was done much better in Nyaruko. Even the obvious contrivances can be seen as a nod to that particular series, though it did not go as far as referencing earlier foreshadowing in the episode. So I think what is left is a series that is going to be about a guy discovering the human world is not as kind to otaku as the demon world is, and the ridiculously attractive girl who has no problems hanging around him. Based on this episode, I don’t know if there’s sufficient chemistry between the two to make this actually work out.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• Fills that otaku reference comedy void left by Haiyore! Nyaruko-san
• An interesting take on vampire fiction
• The characters of the demon world seem very entertaining

Reasons to Drop

• Many jokes fall flat
• Fuyumi’s only contribution appears to be looking attractive for the viewers
• There’s not enough of the 3-eyed duo in this episode

My Verdict: It did just about enough to earn a 2nd episode for me. The secondary characters that are introduced in future episodes will have to be interesting enough for me to want to keep watching. Also, I hope this doesn’t turn into a harem show.

A silver spoon means this show is over.

Yugo finds himself working in the alien environment that is an agricultural high school in Hokkaido in the first episode of this Noitamina series. He quickly finds that the place he chose to attend is filled with people whose life paths have already been determined while he simply wanted to go somewhere that wasn’t home. He’s forced to deal with the clear difference in intellectual and practical skills all the while struggling to deal with having to work hard in his first days of school. He slowly figures it out by the end of the episode by virtue of eggs.

This is obviously a fish out of water story with a lead that shouldn’t be as far out of touch as he is. He’s from the same part of the country, but you would think that he was just some kid from Tokyo who went as far away as possible to end up in Hokkaido. I think there was one scene in particular that tried to convey just how different he was from the rest of the students at the school. He was talking to Keiji about math, and Keiji didn’t seem to have an understanding about even basic algebra. Meanwhile in the background, other students were busy discussing the implications and techniques of cloning animals on food supply and the impact that would have on Japan’s ability to restrict imports of certain kinds of animals. This after all was a purpose built school fit to graduate students who would be able to move on to become farmers, agricultural scientists, veterinarians and the like.

There’s also an interesting point made about the egg and the sources of food. Keiji is a depth of knowledge in this area in knowing that the school’s method of egg farming wasn’t exactly internationally accepted. Plus, the source egg production that proved to be a hurdle that Yugo struggled over. By the end of the episode, his desire to eat an egg overwhelmed his disgust at where it came from and he ate it. That egg was the very first hurdle he would have to overcome to survive the 3 years at this school.

As for production, it doesn’t really stand out much at all. Perfectly average in such a way as to not offend anyone. That’s the path Noitamina seems to be choosing now. While it means fewer Guilty Crowns or Black Rock Shooters, it also means that it will not live as long in the memory either. It’s better for name recognition to be infamously bad than to be okay.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• This cannot possibly offend anyone in any way possible unless you are looking to be
• The supporting characters are realistic
• Possibly has an interesting point to make on how urban society is separated from the source of their food

Reasons to Drop

• They state the name of the show in the 11th minute. There were once people who left when title drops were used in films, so why not here?
• Will hardly live long in the memory after watching
• The story of Yugo struggling to fit in with the rest of his peers may veer off into stupid territory

My Verdict: I don’t think this did much wrong, but it’s as adventurous as a butter knife. I’m going to continue watching in the hope that changes. I’ll be the first to admit I prefer glorious failure over average, but this seems too much like the latter.

Unfortunately, removing this tangent from a battle requires DLC that is already on the disc.

Having ended the constant conflict between the four goddesses that rule Gameindustri, Neptune slacked off and soon found that her popularity was declining among the residence of Planeptune. She then ended up hatching a plan that eventually led to clearing out some slimes and clearing a cave of dangerous monsters while the chief villain looked on. In the end, something entirely different gets the residents of the kingdom believing again.

This is obviously something intended for fans of the game franchise that I’ve only ever known as having terrible battle mechanics, new character DLC virtually every week of the calendar year and for having writing with so many in-jokes as to be utterly impenetrable to someone who hasn’t completed the game and bought the DLC. So what I was really left with was just a rush job just to get into the story of this episode. As an outsider, I was supposed to be interested in a story of a princess who plays games all day with her younger sister then going out and transforming into an overpowered queen to defeat monsters then going back to being lazy again without any sort of sense of where this came from. Needless to say, I don’t think this is an anime for outsiders.

What I can say about this is that the production level was passable with a noticeable drop in quality in the middle of the battle with the slimes. The number of scenes where it was stuff flying around a black background seems to be a worrying sign for those who care about future budgets. The insert song in the battle gets in the way of what is actually happening and is probably just meant to sell more CD singles to the fans of the franchise.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• You liked the game franchise
• There is plenty of fanservice to go around
• Social commentary on how pornographic images improve social morale

Reasons to Drop

• You are new to this franchise
• There’s an in joke happening almost all the time
• There is such a thing as being too meta

My Verdict: I’m sure fans of the games will absolutely love this. It’s made for you and its meant to be a shared experience among them. For those who are not, there’s nothing here for you. Since I’ve not fully embraced the Neptunia way of life, this is going to be a drop.

Another flag tripped

Haruto transfers into a Tokyo school and moves in with his older sister while trying to find the girl he fell in love with back home only to meet a couple more people who will have an impact on him in this first episode. Haruto finds himself attacked early in the episode by Akane, who mistakes him for a burglar when he was just cleaning his sister’s apartment. They spend the rest of the episode arguing about each others accents like children. He also meets Kyousuke, a fellow classmate who tries to help him fit in to his new surroundings even if he only knows how well he cooks. It’s all a sideshow to the big meeting with Yuzuki in next week’s episode after all.

The one thing I was quick to notice about this was actually production related. Haruto moves to Tokyo and comments on how there seem to be so many people in the city. Yet, it feels at times like they live in a part of the city that’s a ghost town most of the time. I think there were more people when Haruto was introducing himself to his new classmates than the rest of the episode combined.

The very fact that I note this is not an encouraging sign because it meant I really couldn’t care about the story or the characters. The primary focus of this episode is actually the beginning of Haruto’s relationship with Akane. It’s not actually about the fact that Haruto moved across the country to transfer to another school to try to get close to the girl who confessed to him when they lived together back home. Actually, you would have had to have read the manga to know that, but it would have been nice to have had some sort of grasp of why Haruto was actually there.

Speaking of the manga, I did actually read the manga for a while and it’s easy to see how much of the characterization actually carries over. I always interpreted the fact that this series has earned the nickname Kimi no Rage Machi on the fact that everything that happens in this story is geared toward ensuring maximum drama. Kyousuke, for example, is conveniently one of the first people Haruto meets in Tokyo for a reason that will become clear soon. Also, Haruto continues to set off love flags with almost any member of the opposite sex he talks to, unless he is actually interested in them then it turns to hatred. Those are the only two emotions in this universe, love and hate. There is no neutral.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• There is no shortage of drama
• As close to a soap opera as the medium gets
• There’s an entire fleet worth of shipping if you’re into that

Reasons to Drop

• Character relationships are consistently inconsistent
• Unrealistic portrayal of population density in Tokyo
• If you start caring at all, it will turn you into a being of pure rage for days after each episode

My Verdict: I remembered why I stopped following the manga while watching this. Hell, I don’t even think it’s Seo Kouji’s best work, but the drama means that it gets enough false emotional investment from the audience to keep running. I bet that carries over to this anime, but I won’t be watching.

This has been a rather interesting season so far from my perspective, even if I haven’t found any single series to be particularly outstanding. Recently I’ve been coming across a theme in a number of things. That would be the simple concept of quitting. Let me just clarify that as of the writing of this sentence I don’t have any intention of doing that as far as writing this blog is concerned. That doesn’t mean I’m above using it as a topic in this little installment of my not often run Pointless Debate series.

The first inspiration for this post is the character Madarame from Genshiken. In this second generation work, he finds himself as a salaryman still attached to the old club in a number of ways. His apartment is closest to campus from a physical standpoint. However much fans want to ship him with the crossdressing Hato is not really important to the story. No, this is more about how he is emotionally tied to a club that he’s unable to move on from.

For Madarame, it’s his unrequited love for Saki that keeps him coming back to the club. The rest of the group from his generation from Genshiken has moved on with their lives. Even if Ohno and Ogiue serve as the bridge to the new group, they both have relationships with the other members who graduated and have jobs. Madarame, for as much as anyone may want the scenario from Spotted Flower to come true, associates his being an otaku with the girl he can never be with. Is it a simple matter of replacing it with another love as Sue suggested? I don’t think it’s so easy because he doesn’t have anything on the other end to give him a reason to quit.

Another episode that followed a similar theme was the 4th episode of Free!. While new club member Rei is completely unable to swim for most of the episode, he maintains his commitment to proper form and style over anything else. He was letting the other 3 members of the club down by taking such a position. He had a sunken cost of all of the equipment and the swimsuit he bought to look stylish but ultimately had nothing to do with the act of swimming. The thing keeping him committed was the vision of being able to swim just like Haruka did the freestyle. Ultimately, it really just took the simplest act of all. He quit trying the specialties of the others and did the butterfly because it was the only thing left to try, style or no style and he could swim.

Continuing on this trend of quitting, I’ve tried to make it a point not to continue watching something I didn’t find enjoyment in. There have been times I’ve failed at that since I should have dropped Gargantia after episode 7. As far as MAL is concerned, I’m up to 340 different anime that I’ve given the boot. Most of these are 1 or 2 episodes in because it’s simply much easier to drop a show when that’s the case. Given a longer run, like say an Inuyasha, Space Brothers or Bleach and the sheer length of it makes it much easier to drop as well since each episode no longer feels as special as a single episode of another series.

Which leads to the image above from the 2nd episode of Gatchaman. This is a series that has nostalgic value for me when I was younger and it aired on American television as G-Force in syndication. Mainly, I started watching this to make a point to all of the people watching Gatchaman Crowds that there are other series called Gatchaman that exist, but it’s also about the nostalgia. Gatchaman is a 105-episode series from the early 1970s and when it was initially brought over it was trimmed to 85 episodes that were edited with the violence taken out, character names changed and a mascot character added in. On a side note, that’s sort of like how big budget movies are adapted to the Chinese market, but I digress.

So what initially turned into a half-troll/half-nostalgia trip has actually turned out to be quite the education. Sure, the plot for each episode is formulaic as hell, and this ninja team happens to be quite crap at not being discovered, the treatment of women is appalling (Ken punching a woman in the face for not pushing a button being a particular lowlight), but I find it interesting to watch for all of the stuff I don’t remember or was edited out. I don’t remember Ryu being completely useless, Ken punching women, Joe starting fights in empty rooms and Jinpei trying to ship Jun with Ken constantly. Then again, I don’t think shipping was even a thing in the early 80s. I’m only 7 episodes in to this particular run, but I think I’m going to hang with it for a while since it outweighs dropping it.

And I can now get to the big question as to this blog, my fandom and the idea of quitting. I guess when I first started this blog I had dreams of being able to engage with other people on whatever topics I felt like writing about. In order to do that, one has to have some level of popularity, maybe on the mythical order of 10,000 views a month or be in a position to collaborate with others on interesting projects.  Instead I’ve become popular in a limited way on Twitter which has little to do with anything here. I will admit that it has changed the way that I’ve watched anime even if I’ve never been successful in generating page views in ways that don’t involve Ladies versus Butlers and a girl sitting on Akiharu’s face. So really, if I left there’s not much I would leave behind is there?

But what would I be leaving it for? A life where I’m represented on Twitter as the guy who tweets opinions about shows that aren’t relevant to anyone while boring everyone’s weekends with the latest information on sport being played in Wales and England? That just feels like an empty life where I’m missing a hobby. As far as this particular fandom hobby, I remember taking the entire summer off 2 years ago and not really missing a thing.

Overall, I can’t really say I’ve found wasted my time on this project. I’ve met some goals in completely different ways, while others have become much more gigantic in scale than I realize. So I guess this is a way to say to my sole reader that I’m going to keep sticking around until I find something better to do and/or something I’m actually really good at to take up the time.

It’s time to bring this feature back for the 599th post on this blog. I suppose I should do something special for that one. I’ll get around to coming up with something this week. This is the first time I’ve done a roundup collectively of the summer. I hope that’s been enough to separate the bad from the good. Unfortunately, I’m almost certain that’s eliminated any other series that my readers are still watching. I have a tendency to do that almost every single time.

But first a little digression on what’s happened this week tied to the man I’ve pictured above. That would be Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun. The undoubted superstar of the club in Major League Baseball’s smallest market, 2011 National League MVP, 5-time All-Star and as of this week admitted drugs cheat. In the midst of that season, I had the unusual luck of catching the same cross-country flight as him, but as it was 2am I really made no note of it other than the coincidence of being on the same plane. This is more about fandom though. While the figures involved in creating something may go on to be a future disgrace, the thing they created will still exist. Urobuchi may now live on overhyped projects that chop women to bits and have characters say funny things just for laughs, but Madoka will still always exist. And while the season may be lost for Milwaukee now, come March 31st next season there will still be baseball played, and Braun will probably be starting in left field.

Currently Airing Top 5

C³-bu

I will be one of the first people to admit to liking Gainax series a little too much for my own tastes. Since most of that group has gone on to waste their talents at other studios or on vanity projects, I think it’s safe to say that bias can’t really carry over as I’m consciously aware of it. Yet, this little show pulled an amazing trick on me.

Last week’s episode was disappointing in the sense of how predictable it all was and how it tried to reset relationships within the club at the very end. The second half of this episode completely transformed the series entirely. No longer was this a story of Yura trying in vain to come to grips with the world she entered. Instead, Yura quite literally took control of her world and shaped it to her whims. This show about girls playing survival games now has a fantastic hook, and they didn’t even need to break it out at the end in typical Gainax fashion.

The World God Only Knows

Kaminomi‘s 3rd season got off to a rough start with fans of the franchise. A few arcs were left on the cutting room floor between where the series left off with Tenri/Diana’s introduction and the search for the Goddesses. It’s particularly curious as 2 of the girls Keima is trying to conquer again were among the arcs left out. Yet, I still think this works well as an adaptation so far.

There’s dramatic tension involved in trying to save Kanon’s life. At the same time Keima shines as a character for the way he continues to treat all life situations as though they are part of a game. Knowing their lives could possibly be in danger, the way he pursues 2nd, 3rd, 4th and more options in changing scenarios makes him an interesting character. They may ultimately result in cliche, but entertaining cliche nonetheless. The writing showdown between Shiori and Keima was touching, or if I can say it, adorable way of continuing that route.

Watamote

I didn’t write anything on the first episode of this series. It was just too hard for me to not actually make it about myself which I try to avoid unless that’s the point of the post. Watamote is a show for me that’s about the social safety net. Only when Tomoko, the delusional fujoshi protagonist, does anything wrong does she receive any sort of attention from the outside world.

Tomoko’s world is actually quite cruel for the fact that there is no malice directed at her at all by others. This is terrible in the sense that she really has nothing in the way of common sense because she is not a part of the common. Even when people do nice things for her, as the kid buying her a replacement umbrella in this week’s episode did, it’s out of social obligation. That’s really what this series comes down to. Will she ever become more than society’s obligation and become important enough to someone else to change that? It takes just a conversation.

High School DxD

I’m always going to accept that I’m left field in my opinion of this series. When there aren’t breasts popping free all over the place, this is actually a pretty good shounen comedy that follows formula perfectly. After becoming strong last season, Issei has his ass handed to him by a church member who declares her love for him by wanting to kill him because he’s become a demon. So he’s got to get stronger all the while fulfilling his contract to a human by riding a bicycle. This week it was about a group of people from different sides coming together to understand Yuuto’s struggles with his past and promising to help him. Fairly standard shounen series trope and it worked for me. If it weren’t for that minor detail, I’d be recommending this without making it seem like it was ironic.

Senyuu.

Yamakan’s comedy is very hit-and-miss if you’ve watched a lot of it. Also, run for the hills the moment he tries to do anything serious. With that out of the way, this story of heroes and powerful demons took a comedic turn this week. Alba was finally deemed invincible by the all-powerful narrator simply because he’s the main character. He was partnered this week by Elf, one of those demons who wants to kill him, but has the worst sense of timing imaginable.

When the jokes are working well in this series, they rely on a combination of cynicism and the absurd. This is a world where people can literally appear bigger than they really are because of their manly attributes. It’s a world where cool transformation sequences can kill people because the creator didn’t take into account that there is a person inside and doesn’t mourn at all. That it managed to be funny to me without relying on the masochistic talking cat or Ross doing his thing is the first accomplishment of note in a while from this series. As for Senyuu.‘s consistency, I’d expect next week to fall flat on its face.

The Rest of the Week

6. Kiniro Mosaic - This is definitely an endearing show which thankfully focuses more on cross-cultural interaction rather than pointing out how different British and Japanese cultures are. Karen’s the more laid back of the girls from England and really a vital character in making this show work. It makes Alice standout much more than she did before and the audience should be thankful for that.

7. Genshiken Nidaime - The Comiket arcs were never really my favorite parts of this franchise to begin with and I think this episode was the same. Time simply passed by with a bunch of cosplay references thrown in to make the viewer forget about the episode’s plot.

8. Free! - In getting Rei to learn how to swim this episode was at least thought invoking, but it still feels like this series was going through the motions.

9. Love Lab - With the entire team back together in the Student Council, the examination of love continues. Rather it really doesn’t because this entire episode revolves around Sayori backing Riko into a corner. The way out of this arc will really define how endearing this series can be.

10. Monogatari Second Season - The intrigue seems pretty much secondary at this point to the monologues and dialogues that absolutely have to happen. The oddities seem to have zapped any eccentricities from Hanekawa in particular. This arc has felt much like having plain food. While nourishing, it’s missing character.

11. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya - I’m not entirely familiar with the Type Moon universe so the jokes that seem to be getting deeper into that world aren’t registering with me. I think this was also the start of this being a normal magical girl show which really makes the humor work much less than the first pair of episodes.

12. Uchouten Kazoku - Really has lost momentum from episode 1; if having the antagonist go whale hunting with no clothes is the best this show can do I don’t know how long I can stick with this.

13. Silver Spoon - 

14. Servant x Service -It’s not that Lucy’s been weakened as a character to the point that she’s just a sexual harassment target with a glowing sign saying every male character has a free shot, but rather the utter stupidity of having the director of the section represented by a flush bunny that kills any enthusiasm I had for this series to begin with. Done

Updated Seasonal Average Episode Rank

My Gatchaman Tweet of the Week

Since I can’t watch Gatchaman Crowds until I’ve caught up with the rest of the series, I’ve been tweeting my thoughts as I watch the episodes of the original series. My most inspired use of 140 characters over the week will go here.

The doctor trolls the Science ninjas by having them risk their lives on a decoy base #gatchaman—
Emperor J (@emperorj) July 26, 2013

Terribad

Repeat of the final 2 episodes of Mad Bull 34 this week. Still waiting on the availability of the latest Happy Science joint to fill the comedy void.

I have a feeling anyone who says this girl is the worst will have missiles launched at them from New York.

In recent days, I’ve thought about changing up the design of this blog. Basically it’s been about 2 years with this current look and I have a constant reminder of how unpopular this place is every single time I look at it. Unfortunately, the one thing I can’t seem to change is this dumb title that pretty much inhibits any potential growth (and the writing – self ed.). I wouldn’t really be starting over if I moved this to another .wordpress.com address would I?

There’s this small little convention going on somewhere on the east coast of the United States this weekend. I went to it last year, but the person I went with last year seems to have fallen completely off the face of the Earth. There have been any number of people that I’ve mostly just followed on Twitter or in this particular sphere of blogs that have withdrawn or simply moved on with their lives. That’s just something that tends to happen with the passage of time; people get lives, girlfriends, spouses, children and spend time with new groups of people. I don’t think a conscious choice is made to cut people off in situations like that, but this is the era of the declining social community. Yes, people can communicate with each other online, but how long is that going to last between nations?

Currently Airing Top 5

The World God Only Knows

I can safely say this is the only series this season that I consistently look forward to. It’s consistently entertaining, and odd choices in adaptation aside, is very well produced. Also, I’ve been rather impressed by Keima’s character especially given the latest chapter of the manga.

Keima is a knowingly-flawed character who found himself sucked into a world similar to the dating sims he played prior to the story beginning. He comes to the realization that he doesn’t love any of the girls he is trying to help. It’s that classic trope of having the male character who doesn’t covet any girl having them fall all over him for his affection. Now, he is questioning what good that does for him and for anyone close to him. This isn’t your typical harem show.

Genshiken Nidaime

Is there any more typical shot of life as a new office worker than Madarame sitting around in his apartment drinking by himself and wondering why his life has changed. He doesn’t get as excited about Comiket anymore for the obvious reason that Saki isn’t there anymore. He has a group of people close to him that want him to move on from that relationship that won’t happen, but it’s complicated.

I think Madarame is the sole consistent bright spot in this franchise and the episodes he features in are by far the best. I say his situation is complicated because he’s the most vulnerable character of anyone. Angela’s role in this episode was really to make this obvious though they all want the same thing. He has to get over his unrequited love of Saki and/or find someone else to fall in love with. Angela’s aggressive actions have noble intentions, but with Madarame getting increasingly uncomfortable Sue and Hato step in. It’s simply not going to be easy for him to get where they all see he needs to go.

Monogatari Series

The first few minutes of this week’s episode could not have been cheap to produce. It felt sort of like that scene in Clannad where the teddy bear that was destined for Kotomi made its way around the world only with real emotion behind it.

This was the conclusion of Hanekawa’s arc and it began with that desire to become a person who doesn’t want to be pure. It ends with her moving on with her life after Koyomi’s rejection of her confession. The process just felt right to get there and I can’t really say much more than that.

C³-bu

I’m really not entirely sure what to make of Yura’s sudden transformation into airsoft killing machine this episode. I would note that she has yet to actually be hit in an episode to date. Is that more a function of her imagination at play or is it simply luck? That’s the big question I have going forward for this series. Sudden character development doesn’t feel real without it being challenged at some point.

There’s context to this shot? I think?

High School DxD

This week’s episode is really meant to show how different a leader Rias is from the other demon leaders. She consoles those who need it and punishes those who need it as well. Actually that’s really just Issei, but the point is that the issues never linger that long after they get themselves into trouble. The story is heading to a chaotic battle on the school grounds now with virtually the entire city under threat and this show has done a good job in keeping me interested so far.

The Rest of the Week

6. Love Lab - The chemistry in the Student Council is growing rapidly. There conversations are getting ever more entertaining, but Riko still feels like an outsider in this show.
7. Watamote – This wasn’t a bad episode by any means, but it just stayed way too loyal to the source material and didn’t feel like anything new as a result.
8. Kiniro Mosaic – Another group where the group of characters is starting to work well together. They still can’t shake the fact this is obviously a 4-koma adaptation, but I think the combination of simple characters works at least half of the time.
9. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya – I was close to dropping this show after last week, but I found the contrast between Illya and Miyu when it came to flying was genuinely funny. I think I can stick it out for 6 more episodes.
10. Uchouten Kazoku - For an episode that involved lots of explosions and alcohol fueled hijinks, this really was sort of dull. I just think the rivalry between these families is not the story I want to see.
11. Senyuu. - This was pretty much an episode devoted to advance the plot. Only the character design change for Februar Zwei (This demon naming scheme is ridiculously easy) was funny.
12. Silver Spoon - Suspense of disbelief is gone. I don’t think that much agonizing over pizza is even possible. Done

Free! - No episode this week.

Updated Seasonal Weekly Average Ranking

My Gatchaman Tweet of the Week

Since I can’t watch Gatchaman Crowds until I’ve caught up with the rest of the series, I’ve been tweeting my thoughts as I watch the episodes of the original series. My most inspired use of 140 characters over the week will go here.

Proper Gatchaman time and holy shit that ancient mecha assembled itself—
Emperor J (@emperorj) August 03, 2013

Terribad

This week’s villain is apparently Darkseid.

Amon Saga

This week’s terribad was directed by the same man who directed the classic Ninja Turtles: Superman Legend. It’s about as typical an ultra-violent 80s fantasy anime can get as far as story goes. Main character meets an ally, then finds a princess, tries to rescue her from the powerful villain and then at the end when she wants to go with him he goes off on his own. Typical man afraid of commitment,etc.

The real reason why this is terribad has to be down to the production quality. Early on when Amon, the protagonist of this piece, is evading punches he disappears from the shot rather than animating him moving. There’s plenty of gaps in animation that have me questioning if they didn’t finish it or they simply ran out of money. There’s still plenty of blood and guts to go around as weird combination animals are killed, though. Even better, this was dubbed into English and very often it sounded like there was one person doing all of the background voicing. Not noticeable most of the time, but in the middle of a bar fight hearing one guy make assorted grunts in the same pitch is noticeable.

In the end, this will go down as one of the more forgettable bad anime. The plot is decent enough to get buy and there’s not enough laughs to make it fun to watch either. It unfortunately seems to be happening a bit more regularly lately.

Time of First Female Nudity: None
Rating: 39.5

Even if it fires death lasers out of its eyes, I can’t take it seriously as a bad guy.

This past week I did try something different with posts elsewhere. It quickly reminded me that single-digit view counts are pretty much expected when starting fresh. Even when you write on Sword Art Online to start. Then, I did my annual off-site preview of the Premier League season on my personal blog I hadn’t touched in over a year. That was about the same level of interest after blowing 3500 words. Maybe I should have just posted a bunch of screencaps from Attack on Titan and bitched about the episode not meeting my standards. You’re actually here for the few screenshots of shows that I do watch and bitching about those shows, right?

Currently Airing Top 5

Love Lab

I was feeling in a comedic mood this week. Those who follow me on Twitter will probably think that I’m not being serious. As for Love Lab, there’s finally some element of practical application of all of the hypothetical love research they’ve been doing. Natsuo has no clue how to pick up social cues as illustrated above. He’s deliberately ignoring her, but she’s just going to assume he doesn’t speak Japanese. I think that’s the definition of KY. This was all driven in part by Riko having to remember the one boy she rejected since he became attractive at some point. The pair of them work well together in an episode and I think this show would be better off doing it much more regularly even if they’ve added members.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya

This series reached its halfway point this week with the return of Luvia and Rin into their magical girl forms. The quality of the writing dramatically improves at that point in the middle of their battle with Saber. It’s good quality complaining about each other in the friendliest way possible. That really illustrates part of the problem with Miyu and Illya as the main magical girl characters. The relationships involving Rin are so much more developed since she’s been used so often in other works and Illya basically having to be rewritten much younger. However with this being the 2nd farthest I’ve ever made it in a Type Moon series I may be completely full of it.

Free!

The boys return to swimming action this week with a bit of open water training. This episode felt like it was a bunch of relationship building. Makoto with pretty much everyone else and hints of some tragic accident on the sea. Gou gets closer to her older brother just by talking about Haruka. On the downside is the bit of utter stupidity on the part of Rei at the end of the episode. The moment someone feels safest in nature is the moment that they are most in danger. Swimming in the open ocean at night, alone and not really knowing how to swim is really a fatal recipe.

The World God Only Knows

Yui was conquered this week on Kaminomi and it really felt like they missed a lot from skipping her arc in this adaptation. They may have gone through the body-switching thing that was hinted at here, but there’s no sense of that experience carrying over to the 2 characters here. Sure, it was still a fun episode to watch with Mars constantly confused over the pair of them cross-dressing. Yet at the same time it felt like something important was missing from the pair of them.

High School DxD

There’s a reason I find this show entertaining. It’s very much like Index in that large portions of the battles are split up into brief action followed by heroic monologues delivered by a protagonist. That’s really just the shounen genre as a whole where that happens. Yet with High School DxD I get a variety of characters who get to play the hero, and I don’t have to have a guilty conscious from seeing women punched in the face at the end of every battle. This week, Yuuto got to play hero and channel a holy demonic sword to defeat his enemies. The shock of the villains is by the book, but it follows a well-established template in making shounen battles feel important as well as feeling empathy for the character involved.

The Rest of the Week

Watamote - The references grow ever more obscure and Tomoko’s battle for popularity feels ever more pathetic as it should. Empathy is where this show succeeds and it just wasn’t enough for me this week.

Genshiken Nidaime - Madarame only makes a brief appearance, but this felt like the first episode where the new characters to the franchise could carry scenes on their own. Hato, Yajima and the sisters Yoshitake’s scene at the end was one of the highlights of the season.

Kiniro Mosaic - The philosophy of this show has completely turned to the cute girls doing cute things and it doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks. The girls are entertaining me enough so I keep watching, but there’s no real reach for quality here.

Uchouten Kazoku – I’ve really turned on this show since the excellent first episode. I think the description someone gave of it being Ghibli characters forced to live normal lives sums it up better than anything. Benten is also boring me as a character, but she’s supposed to be the most interesting of all of them.

C³-bu - Yura is turning into a monster of a survival game player, but so focused as to be incredibly useless in a team game. Unfortunately that was completely hidden behind a fanservice-heavy school festival episode run amok.

Senyuu. - It was an entirely different show this week as almost all of it was spent on developing the plot and there was but one attempt at a joke. Even the narrator called it out for being different.

Monogatari Series - Bye. Recap.

Updated Seasonal Weekly Average Ranking

My Gatchaman Tweet of the Week

Since I can’t watch Gatchaman Crowds until I’ve caught up with the rest of the series, I’ve been tweeting my thoughts as I watch the episodes of the original series. My most inspired use of 140 characters over the week will go here.

Holy Fuck, A Giant Glowing Smiling Mecha #gatchaman—
Emperor J (@emperorj) August 10, 2013

Terribad

Nothing this week as stories were told of crippling Football Manager addiction and discrimination against the Irish in the Australian labor market. Terrible game OVAs will wait another week.

This was an attempt at a serious post. So I may as well get it started with this.

Back when I was really intensely studying such things, the ideas of “soft power” and in particular “Cool Japan” were popular in the international political scene. The idea for those who don’t know is that by spreading one’s culture around to other countries and gaining a foothold there, it can have longer term positives as the perceptions of one’s country becomes positive as a result. You can see this in the present day in American movies being rushed into Chinese cinemas with added footage specially for that audience and to ease it past the censors there. Then, of course, there’s the repeated attempts to try to sell anime and manga to Western audiences over the years with mixed success in the case of Japan.

I personally have always had two specific criticisms of the idea of culture as a way to spread influence, and they can both be summed up nicely by Oreimo. The first is that the culture being exported has to maintain a level of popularity while being associated with the nation or origin. Pokemon, is probably the best example of that from an ongoing standpoint. The second criticism is that the worst aspects of that culture get ignored in the beginning but only emerge over time.

I believe this would have been one of the few copies of this version sold…if it actually existed.

With the first point and how it ties to Oreimo, we have to start by attempting to follow the money. I think it’s fair to say that the early days of anime being shipped to the west was in the form of finding something that could be marketed to kids with all of the Japanese stuff taken out of it. A couple of waves followed where a base of bowdlerized children’s shows would spread slowly as more niche works failed to find an audience outside of Japan. With the advancement of technology making it possible to pretty much watch any anime series that has aired legally or illegally, that seems like an entirely different age.

Oreimo’s role in this story is that it represents that latest attempt to bring a niche title to international audiences with a public backer in Aniplex pushing it. The question that I’ve never seen answered on this series is the question of how popular Oreimo is with that audience to the extent that they will spend money on it. The discs are priced in such a way as to insure profit from their domestic audience is not affected. First of all, does the international audience create a profit for this series? Second, will a series with themes like Oreimo have the opposite effect and actually reflect poorly on Japan?

The turn toward harem was possibly the most mainstream targeted thing it did.

That second question hits more at what Oreimo is about. I think it can be interpreted as a series about a high school boy and his otaku sister that portrays darker aspects of otaku culture without any sort of controversy. This is after all a series that begins with Kirino pulling out a bunch of eroge from her closet to show to someone close to her for the first time. Needless to say, the export of eroge to the West is limited at best and mostly via piracy for the reason that it would not be above board in most countries. Add in heavy incest and lolicon tones throughout the later episodes of the series and the series becomes something that makes people very uncomfortable about the contents.

I think that it says a lot that something that goes out of its way to reduce its appeal to a wide audience is seen as the best way to make money from pushing Japanese culture to the outside. Is the implication that international audiences aren’t interested enough in titles like a Shin Sekai Yori or any other series that isn’t high concept a feature of the people who will pay money for it or of the culture itself?

If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying. – Mark Grace

The critical moment in the 8th episode of C³-bu comes when the protagonist of the series, Yura, reacts to being struck by a stray shot from a member of the Meisei team by continuing to fight and winning the battle and tournament for her team. The nature of the victory represents a pivotal moment in the development of her character going forward, but how does it reflect human nature in this circumstance? Additionally, what can we learn about Yura as a character in figuring out why she acted the way she did?

One of the things I like to look at when someone is involved in destructive behavior is what was the incentive in doing so. Doping scandals are numerous in sport and the reason why is quite clear. Success by whatever means possible brings reputation, money and fame that far surpass any consequences of getting caught doing so. The fear of failing at one’s dream, trying to earn that next contract or endorsement, staying in good faith with coaches and simply wanting to win are all reasons that can be cited for cheating. Another example I like to cite is the financial crisis where the instruments that brought down the economy can in many instances be traced back to individuals negotiating deals that brought them tons of money even if they would destroy the banks they worked for and lose their jobs.

With that in mind, I’m going to attempt to construct Yura’s incentives in that moment after she was struck by the pellet and before shooting at her rival Rin.

• Desire to defeat Rin
• Desire to win
• Desire to avenge Sonora

By acting on these three desires and continuing to shoot, Yura can potentially still accomplish these goals. What are the potential consequences?

• Rin continues to rule over her mentally
• Her team probably loses
• Sonora will be disappointed at losing to Meisei

Ultimately, it’s a championship match and being disqualified would lead to the same results as accepting that she was hit. The fact is that Yura shooting at Rin is what would give her the greatest satisfaction at that moment. She would definitely not be the first person to put short-term positives ahead of long-term negatives.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Rin says Yura has become just like her in doing anything to win. In this case, I think Rin mischaracterizes herself. It’s easy to point out that if she did want to win, then she would be appealing to the officials at the event arguing that Yura was hit and that the C³-bu should be disqualified as a result. In almost any situation where someone really wants to win, they will push the rules and argue with those that make them. It doesn’t matter if it is something like diving to win a penalty or bribing government officials, there will be a few people who will exploit systems to try to gain something. They may end up in prison and/or have their reputation in tatters, but tried to cheat to win by convincing the right people to act in their favor.

Yura’s reaction after the victory is one of someone who realized they had done something terribly wrong. Her tendency to get caught in the moment now lurks in her conscious. In her desire to get back at Rin for all that she is perceived to have done to Sonora and herself, Yura has turned the rest of the club from a group of girls who had cakes and tea and played survival games for fun into a joyless tactical unit because it suited that purpose. Unfortunately, feelings linger far after the games are over.

The one that would go that far to win ends up on her own.

The Yamakan vehicle Senyuu.can be seen as one of the latest examples of the short five minute (or less) comedies series that have become more prominent in the last year or two. The names of these shows typically last as long in the memory as the episodes themselves. Recorder to Randoseru and Teekyuu are in or will have third seasons airing by the end of the year. On the other side there are examples like Ai Mai Mi, Boku no Imouto wa “Osaka Okan”, Haitai Nanafa, Mangirl! and Sparrow’s Hotel that throw jokes at the wall for 2-3 minutes straight hoping something sticks, and in many cases are more well known for having microscopic budgets. Then there is also the rarer examples of light-hearted storytelling like Aiura and Yama no Susume, which are more short-form school life series than anything. So what makes Senyuu. special?

First and foremost, Senyuu. is a comedy at its core. The hero Alba and his attendant Ross start out being sent by a generic king figure on a generic mission to defeat the new Demon King who opened up a portal to the demon realm. Over time they are introduced to new characters; Ruki, the new Demon King who is responsible for their current plight by making popcorn, Rudolf the lolicon attendant working for the evil hero Foi Foi, Hime-chan the armor-suited princess hero and Ares the attendant who always messes her up. Along with them are a cast of demons who are comical or not depending on their role.

In its second season, Senyuu. has had a much more serious edge to it, while also still maintaining the awareness that it is a comedy. I have found it increasingly interesting because of its attempts to inject a bit of seriousness where there was little before.

At the start of the season, the cast split up into two different groups. Alba, increasingly on the periphery as the story went was comically trying to reunite with Ross using the assistance of Eres, Hime-chan, Foi Foi and the comedic shape-shifting demon November Elf. That group represents the pure comedy take that the early episodes of the first season represented.

The other group is where the story has evolved. Ross ended up in an awkward coalition with Ruki, the demon Januar Ein and his personal hero Samejima along with Januar’s masochistic cat Michaelaju and another demon Februar Zwei generally being useless. This group has been involved in exposing the grand scheme of Dezember Zwolf in trying to wake up the original Demon King. They need either the power of Januar or for the legendary hero Ross to use up enough of his magic to break the seal keeping the Demon King asleep.

The episodes involving the first group have been classic Yamakan slapstick comedy. Alba gets in trouble, ends up in jail for the umpteenth time and breaks out again in absurd fashion. Eres adds a function to Hime-chan’s armor that transforms it into a motorcycle, without considering the consequences to the person inside. It’s almost like Ross’s constant abuse of Alba in the first season all over again.

The other group’s scenes vary depending on which character is the main focus. For all of Samejima’s schtick of just being incredibly manly to intimidate his opponents, there’s Dezember dispensing with threats and schemes. The only connection stylistically to Yamakan being the fact that he wears a mask that is his face in a shadow. They went a whole battle scene with no jokes in it at all. The ever entertaining narrator, voiced by Nakata Jouji, questioned the direction of the series. This was Senyuu, but not as anyone who had seen the show up to this point knew it.

Now that both sides have come together, where does Senyuu go from here? A return to the first season’s silliness seems out of place now that we know that Ross is the true hero. Actually judging by the conclusion of the most recent episode, I may have overestimated Yamakan wanting to create a genre-busting short-form comedy.

Katsuragi Keima for most of the time I knew his existence as a character from The World God Only Knows‘s universe was a fairly average harem lead noted for his lack of affection for any other human beings. He viewed people very much like characters in the visual novels he played; either they were characters he had to conquer and pursue down their various routes or they were simply mob characters that could safely be ignored most of the time. This served him quite well in his job helping Elsie capture loose spirits that inhabited girls with gaps in their hearts since he could follow them. There was still a big question the remained with this approach. What would Keima do if he found himself affecting a girl’s genuine feelings?

I’ve alluded to this before, but my knowledge of this series particular universe is limited to the anime and everything in the manga that happens after the arc that is being covered this season. The fact that the current episode and the manga are effectively covering the same territory is a fairly nice coincidence from my point of view. I think it’s easiest to start with the anime first.

Upon remembering Chihiro’s tears soon after, Keima feels emotional pain for the first time.

In this week’s episode, Keima discovered that Chihiro was not the girl hosting the remaining goddess. The fact that she had confessed her feelings in last week’s episode for him and the feelings she conveyed for him this week had messed with him mentally. Here was a person in Chihiro, who had fallen in love with him without his intervention, showing her feelings for him. For the first time, Keima had to take in another person’s feelings in accomplishing his mission. He had to focus on Ayumi’s route now, but that would come at the cost of the feelings of Ayumi’s best friend.

The end result was a decision that would deeply affect him. He mocked Chihiro’s feelings for him in an attempt to make as clean a break as he thought he could. In effect, he was setting fire to a real person’s feelings. The sadness he caused would echo long after she ran away from him. The kiss from Chihiro marks the beginning of a transformation for Keima. Gone is the pure God of Conquest able to conquer any target he wants to. He’s replaced by a man who fulfills his duties while mindful of the emotions of others. In the process, he gains a heart of his own.

Keima remembers the pain even if no one else does.

Where this episode ties in well with the current arc of the manga is the latter’s dark turn. Keima has switched places with his 10-year younger self in trying to stop Vintage from executing their plans. All proceeded fairly smoothly as though he were playing a game which would reset if he made a wrong move. When he finally comes across the current antagonist of the story, a 6th-grader called Kaori, kisses him in front of Tenri, who later says that Keima doesn’t love anyone. Like a dagger through his heart, he realizes that he’s messed with another girl’s feelings and after seeing a younger Ayumi and Chihiro playing innocently, he wants to start the process over again.

Going back to the anime episode, Keima’s reaction following the incident on the rooftop is something that really humanized him for the first time. He’s taken outside of his comfort zone with other people for the first time and finds that he absolutely hates it. He hates that he destroyed the genuine love of someone else because he had to. The very games he has played that have made him so effective in the capture of loose souls have made him unable to answer a simple question. What does he want? All we really know at this point is that he doesn’t want to hurt others. It’s a terrible way to live life avoiding the pain, however we now know that he inhabits not the realm of 2D visual novels but humanity itself.

There’s the big image you come to expect from me at the end. I, of course lead with this under-appreciated character.

I will get this statement of fact out of the way quickly. There are 47 series airing in the fall. Only 2 of them are continuations of series that began in the summer. One of them is Kingdom which doesn’t really count. When you have that many shows I think it’s kind of pointless to write a lot on each and every series. I think I wrote about 3000 words on 20 organizations engaging in a competitive business against each other over the course of 9 months. That’s the most distant description I could write of describing sport I could think of by the way.

Not even having a popular voice actor can make minor characters popular.

I’m still going to look ahead to the coming season for the reason that it presents an interesting case. There is a hell of a lot of noise when it comes to looking at what’s being released. Light novel adaptations, sequels, sports anime, game adaptations and combinations of those 4 are the dominant shows. I think one can’t go wrong with a known quantity with this much going on. I don’t blame anyone for that because inevitably there’s going to be a ton of crap. Hidden gems are extremely unlikely because everything is known beforehand in this blogosphere. When a series is announced, it seems like a perception takes effect based on just a few facts about it and its either terrible, great or forgotten entirely. I’m still going to watch most of these to get an impression of where they are coming from and I present these to you knowing that I’m just as biased as everyone else. I’ll try to keep it short since I don’t think you want to 5000 word walls of text.

Don’t even think that older sister characters can truly be popular with the fans.

The Light Novel Adaptations (Non-Sequels)

These shows get a bum rap much of which is completely deserved. I think at this point, most people just assume they are all forms of otaku trope pandering like 1. Outbreak Company, 2. Golden Time, 3. Unbreakable Machine-Doll or 4. Noucome. There are also some out there which sound completely familiar. I mean 5. Tokyo (Should be Baltimore) Ravens (Blue Exorcist), 6. Strike the Blood (Dantalion), 7. Yuusha ni Narenakatta (Hataraku Maou-sama), 8. Log Horizon (Sword Art Online) should seem very familiar to fans of the shows they are unfortunate to have aired after. That leaves 9. Beyond the Boundary as the only one that doesn’t fit into those 2 categories. Kyoto Animation have promoted another staff member up to make their directorial debut with this, though it looks too generic for my taste.

It’s Not My Fault Chinese Childhood Friends Aren’t Popular.

Game/Visual Novel Adaptations

Game adaptations used to have the reputation that light novel adaptations now enjoy. I think the fact that it’s just taken for granted that most of these come straight from eroge has somehow made them more pure than the light novels that borrow from the same tropes. Funnily enough that makes the adaptations hardly edgy at all. In 10. Walkure Romanze and 11. White Album 2 you have pretty much the expected format for that type of adaptation. Generic lead who happens to be the greatest thing since sliced bread to the women around him, but really a self-insert character. Throwing 12. Blazblue in this category might be a tad harsh on it, but fighting game anime adaptations are often more terribad than simply bad.

Being the first main contender to the harem lead can’t make up for reputation.

Sequels/Remakes

Sequels are the promised land when it comes to looking forward to the new season. Unless you have an Endless Eight situation when an entire franchise decides to douse itself in gasoline and set itself on fire in Myself;Yourself fashion. The ones that didn’t make the cut for me previously are 13. Kuroko no Basket (Unrealistic Basketball Sequences), 14. (Abbreviated) Battle Spirits (Gasp! A Children’s Card Game), 15. Aikatsu! (Reign-esque CG dance sequences), 16. Freezing (Literally a show about clothes being ripped off of attractive women), 17. Yozakura Quartet (Seriously, how many times are they going to reboot this), 18. Pokemon (Ash/Satoshi would be a 25-year-old unemployed drifter surviving on the cockfighting circuit by now), 19. Magi (Really boring 1st episode for me), 20. Hajime no Ippo (Simply never watched any of the earlier series) and 21. Valvrave (A Literally Evil Show). That leaves me with the rest of the sequels that I’m very familiar with. So 22. Infinite Stratos, the mecha-harem-otaku-pandering series that I had fun with, 23. Little Busters! which looks set to be a literal bus crash of a season and 24. Phi Brain has that ironic comedy formula going for it that makes it a hit in the UK though I only watch select episodes. All in all, the sequels are probably going to pass me by entirely. More episodes of the currently airing 25. Monogatari Series will also fill yet more time.

While Tsundere childhood friends have fallen out of fashion recently.

Manga Adaptations

Manga adaptations are the bread and butter of source material for anime. Sell a lot of the manga and leverage that into an anime to try to sell more of the manga and merchandise that now comes from it. There’s 26. Super Seisyun Brothers and 27. Non Non Biyori to fill the awkward school comedy gap. 28. Diabolik Lovers will take the fujoshi space almost by default. 29. Coppelion and 30. Arpeggio of Blue Steel (disappointingly unrelated to Zoolander) fills the post-apocalyptic action void. 31. Kyousougiga,  32. Gingitsune and 33. Pupa showcase as much supernatural as one could possible ever want. Sports needs are filled by 34. Ace of Diamond, 35. Sekai de Ichiban Tsuyoku Naritai! and 36. Yowamushi Pedal. If I’m perfectly honest, I struggle to see a winner from any of this lot. Meanwhile, 37. Seiyuu Sentai Voicetorm may win the price for most absurd concept for a series made in the last 5 years.

Having a man for a waifu can make up for deficiencies.

Originals

I think a lot of people mistake original for excellent with early perceptions when really it can be just as bad as any light novel adaptation. 38. Gaist Crusher and 39. Gundam Build Fighters may technically be original, but it’s clearly meant to move product. P.A. Works’s 40. Nagi no Asukara appears to be like most of their recent works with loads of melodrama. 41. Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono will likely have the look of CG animation done by people on work experience. The Noitamina block brings 2 originals in 42. Galilei Donna which looks like some sort of mix of alternate history with Eden of the East vibes and 43. Samurai Flamenco; a potentially subversive social commentary filled take on superheroes. 44. Kill La Kill is getting the most hype from this group despite the dubious name and weapon wielded by the main character.

Ultimately, The King Stay the King

Everything Else

Just 2 shows left that I couldn’t fit into a category, so call them unconventional. 45. Bushi Road has apparently been floating around as a concept for over a decade in various forms and has largely gotten this far on one man’s effort with the help of a few production companies. Will that faith pay off? Finally, 46. Meganebu!. If you have seen Watamote and scenes where Tomoko is listening to male voices saying erotic things, I’d imagine the source was something like that. “My Glasses Are Focusing on Their Own”

What on Earth have I done?

The ceiling on that second floor must literally be 3 feet high.

The fall season’s first entry leaves me with a bit of regret in that I don’t think I can adequately put all my feelings to paper on this one. Very rarely do I feel like something can be made that goes out of its way to insult its target audience, treat them like absolute scum and yet still be able to reliably make money off of them like they are some sort of masochistic ATM. If I had even given a certain streaming site the pleasure of giving them ad money, I would have felt terrible that it was going to fund this stuff, but I didn’t. That said, even the visual novel this is based on is even worse than I imagined.

So I’m going to start off with the scenario because why not? The premise begins with the vulnerable and naive protagonist Yui thrown into a house with 6 vampires because plot. She spends the whole opening episode being insulted by six of them being insulted and attacked in all sorts of implied rapey ways. Considering the history of the genres, it really felt like Yui should have been thrown in with zombies rather than vampires, but zombies aren’t “cute” enough. I generally associate zombies with the whole seduction and/or liberation from patriarchal society. This just reverses that in the worst possible way. Ok helpless girl, you shall spend the whole series being dominated by lecherous, empty, but attractive men who reinforce that you have no power and mean nothing to them beyond implied sex.

As for the rest of the first episode, I think it goes without saying that its really easy to lose attention when the characters are expositioning themselves all over the screen. It makes it really easy to spot the architecturally impossible rooms in this house that the seven of them will now share. Or the fact that despite being rich, none of the vampires can seem to afford buttons or complete pant legs for both sides. I know it’s the trendy thing for male characters these days to be designed like this, but why can’t they make one conventionally dressed character into one of these monsters. If you are going to have a sexist character, you may as well have them wear a nice suit. That’s all I’m saying on that.

Reasons to Continue Watching

• Yui gets what she deserves, you monster.
• Yui gets what she deserves, but those vampires are so dreamy.
• Yui gets what she deserves and it adds money to the bank accounts of those who would make more of this, so keep spending.

Reasons to Drop

• You have a soul.
• You possess empathy or at the very least have a sense of morality.
• You make economic decisions based on whether the quality of a series rather than squeeing at ‘cute’ vampire boys.

My Verdict: Girls and for that matter anyone who wants decent vampire anime would be better served watching Shiki even though it wasn’t in my realm of taste. They deserve much better than to be insulted. That masochist cat character from Senyuu. is supposed to be a parody of masochistic people. Yet, the creators of this think that wallets will be emptied for them by abusing their audience. For humanity’s sake, I hope they are wrong.

1. RahXephon
2. Future Diary
3. Big O
4. [C]
5. Madoka Magica
6. Mai-HiME
7. Serial Experiments Lain
8. Abenobashi
9. Wolf’s Rain
10. Neon Genesis Evangelion
11. Darker than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini
12. Sailor Moon
13. Squid Girl
14. Devil Survivor 2
15. Angel Beats
16. Zero no Tsukaima ~Futatsuki no Kishi~
17. Magikano
18. H2O: Footprints in the Sand
19. Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito
20. Pokemon: The First Movie
…
56763. Being stuck in a time loop where you are run over by a train repeatedly forever
56764. Clannad After Story