Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

Working’!!

The crew of Wagnaria are back, with pedophilic-to-the-bone Takanashi, misandrist bitch Inami, frothing-bucket-of-abhorrent-midget-jokes Poplar, and some other bastards that I couldn’t give less of a fuck enough to even name them. The plot for this season is… uh; they just hang around and do anything that would get an actual restaurant quarantined or slapped with a cornucopia of lawsuits. The only things that happen involve Takanashi getting pissed over a roach dying, and Poplar trying to grow a pair (of inches).

So yeah, you like unfunny gag shows with utterly no development or depth in the characters other than one joke repeated over and over? Then fuck you for making this series popular enough to have a second season. At least with shit like K-On!, they actually care enough to get some proper production values. Whereas for Working’!! (And the fuck kind of title is that?), even looking at a frame of this makes me groan. Not a single second of this show made me smile in the slightest. Even by slice-of-life standards, this anime is fucking awful. You’re better off watching middle-aged amputee gay scat porn than this.

But on the bright side, it doesn’t have that “Some WAN WAN!” opening.

1/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Bakuman 2

So here we are with season 2 of this writer’s favorite currently running manga, Bakuman. The story of Ashirogi Muto’s (pen name of artist Mashiro and writer Tagaki) quest to become the ultimate manga-ka and the king of the manga world. Now despite my praise for the manga, I wasn’t too thrilled on season 1. It was overly slow, had uneven pacing, filler that wasn’t necessary, and too much of a focus on one of the manga’s subplots in a way that almost shifted the tone of the story. The horrendous opening theme of the season didn’t do it any favors either. They basically turned a fast paced shonen about following your dreams into a slow paced shojo at times. The season was good, but not particularly great.

Here we are with season 2 of the manga starting on the Trap arc, and almost instantly you can see improvements. The direction is always moving, the dialogue doesn’t have as many awkward breaks, and the pacing finally manages to match up to the manga. What’s more is the little filler used here is used to enhance the story and not to add padding to needless aspects. Even the voice actors seem more inspired and into it, and they were easily the highlight of the first season. Suffice to say, the premiere of season 2 is a marked improvement from season 1’s affair and I for one am hoping the rest of the season matches up.

In this episode we meet new characters, learn new information about the world of manga, and Ashirogi Muto gets a new editor. If this sounds boring to you, then you definitely aren’t acquainted with how Bakuman works. Ignore season 1 and jump in here, or better yet read the manga and catch up on the adaption starting with this.

9/10 – Desensitized

Hunter X Hunter (2011):

So, anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge fan of Togashi’s manga, from Yu Yu Hakusho and Level E to Hunter X Hunter. I especially love how good the adaptations of his anime have been, including the original HXH anime that started airing back in 1999. So, naturally when I heard that Mad House was doing a full on reboot starting from scratch, I had my doubts as to whether they could live up to the original anime adaptations, especially given their more inconsistent track record with their recent output over the last few years. After having seen their premiere episode of HXH….well, its only 1 episode so no, its not like it changed my mind, but I will say that it has given me some more hope that they know what they are doing with this renowned shonen title.

The general premise is about a boy named Gon Freecs who wants to follow in his in his father, world famous Hunter Ging Freecs’s footsteps and become a licensed Hunter himself. A Hunter is a sort of licensed expert who is highly skilled in combat and various Hunter specialize in different fields from treasure hunting or discovering new species of exotic creatures to Blacklist Hunters who serve as bounty hunters of sorts. The plot itself has a very generic set-up on the outset, but anyone who is familiar with Togashi’s unique and unconventional writing methods would know that his series are anything but generic. Togashi takes enough to tried and true shonen archetypes to set up a basic story, but everything else is his own spin on the genre and he isn’t shy from taking this story through some downright dark turns that can quite frankly border on madness for what’s supposed to be a children’s story in Japan.

Of course, things in the series do start out on a light note and at least in this tone Mad House succeeds at capturing the feeling of wonder, mystery, and the sense of adventure that Togashi’s story has about it. They also have one HUGE major advantage that almost no other shonen anime has the luxury of these days, and that’s a HUGE wealth of source material. The manga for Hunter X Hunter is essentially over 300 chapters long at this point, and while its still going, Mad House starting from scratch gives them plenty of material to work with without having to resort to extended bouts of filler, and this premiere shows that they won’t use any filler material unless its absolutely necessary. Essentially doing in 1 episode what took the original anime 3 episodes to cover, Hunter X Hunter (2011) manages to start things off at a quick and even pace. You get to see just enough of Gon’s home village and get a sense of the world he grew up in before he departs into a much grander world outside of Whale Island, which is completely foreign to both him and the viewer. When you throw in some considerably high production values (relative to other series in this genre) and a pretty great soundtrack that may arguably be on par with the original anime, you get what could be the perfect set-up for another hit run for an already proven hit series. The question still lingers as to whether Mad House can deliver on Hunter X Hunter’s endless potential, but if the first episode is any indication, they’ve certainly gotten off to a decent start. – Ensatsu-ken

Another day, another remake. Yes, you’re reading this right, this is a remake of an anime from 1998 adapted from a manga by the creator of shonen classic Yu Yu Hakusho. But I won’t be comparing the two here for a multitude of reasons, merely to tell you that this new adaption of Hunter X Hunter has so far started on the right foot. If you would like to get into this long running (and still running in Shonen Jump) series, this is probably the best shot you have and that isn’t exactly a bad thing.

Everyone is aware that the one issue leveled at Hunter X Hunter is that it has pacing problems, especially in the early story. Right off the bat, this first episode condenses the first three episodes of the first anime into one package making the plot a lot easier to dive into for those who might not have the patience. Of course, there are aspects of the story left out (possibly for flashback material later), but unless you’re a super fan, you probably won’t notice there is anything missing and that might be for the best as the material, while important, works against the series in pacing at this early stage of the story.

As a fan, I could be a bit more critical, but I also realize that this is being made especially for those of us who have not experienced the story of Hunter X Hunter yet, and on that level it’s a rousing success. If you have yet to dive into this epic shonen, now is most definitely the time to do so.

8/10 – Desensitized

C³

The first words in the show are “The smell of the soil, the smell of the iron, it smells like iron.” Just pointing that out there.

So random, boring kid gets a suspicious looking box that he can’t open. The box turns out to be a naked, albino girl who eats crackers in a cutesy manner likely to become jack-off material for paedophiles. Naked, albino girl then turns out to be an abusive bitch that has to be taught how to drink tea. While random, boring kid and his best friend/hypotenuse go to school, naked, albino girl puts on clothes (yet shows enough skin to make Mary Whitehouse’s head explode) and decides to go out on town. She then comes back and fails to clean up the house, just so the viewers can get some schadenfreude out of the annoying “Ha-hah, silly girl can’t do anything useful for her future boyfriend!” moments. Random, boring kid comes back and seethes with generic rage at how his house is a mess, yet he decides to have a bland tender moment with albino girl by the end of the episode.

Stock archetypes that were shoved in my eyes via a dozen other shows, a bland plot that has as much movement as a quadriplegic horse, and crappy animation which DEEN could probably outdo all makes for a rather dreadful experience. If it counts, the soundtrack was all right to listen to. But that would be like saying, “Oh, Alone In The Dark was a shit movie, but I liked to listen to the songs in it.”

I should also probably be concerned about the constant ass shots of a girl that looks like her age is on the clock, but at this point, it’s par for the course.

1/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Phi Brain – Kami no Puzzle

You know, I would probably like this show if the puzzles weren’t just simple Sudoku or maze games. The characters act as if finishing a crossword is some task that only Einstein can accomplish. A good show that involves these elements would have the viewers immerse themselves into seeing what’s the solution and how it can be resolved. But in here, the answers are told instead of shown, with the show essentially just trying to shove it in our faces how smart the main character is for finishing little sliding games instead of trying to get the audience to use their own mind to spot the clues. Really, the viewing experience was kind of like a bland Let’s Play.

And didn’t like how the puzzle at the climax was solved through a plot device instead of actual sleuthing.

That said, it definitely has tighter plotting in comparison to other stuff this season, and it doesn’t render you bored. And I enjoyed the soundtrack, which has a nice mix of salsa and some drums. Still, if you want puzzles, it’d probably be worth more of your time to play some Professor Layton instead of watching this.

5/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Kimi to Boku

You ever wondered what Ouran would be like without Haruhi? Well, here you go. I’m not even exaggerating, the cast has the tagalong kid, the logical guy with glasses, the twins, and all that’s missing is a Tamaki or a Mori to go along for the ride. What sucks even more is that it didn’t bother to rip off what made Ouran interesting or funny, it just took the characters and turned them into milquetoast. It also took out the ludicrousness, personality, plot, and art.
The character designer made the cast as bored and uncaring as the audience probably will be after the first few minutes. I can’t help but think the twins are trying to make a guy’s head explode with their mind. Seriously, whose idea was it to draw them like this, especially the audience surrogate who looks like a girl? He doesn’t just have naturally long hair; it’s fucking stripper-ready-to-be-housewife hair. What’s sad is that that’s the most distinctive thing he has among the cast.

This show is about absolutely nothing, at least K-On! had the goal to start a band. What does this have, high school clubs and awkward pillow talk? Yeah, that reminds me. At least a quarter of the episode is spent on a flashback where the guys bitch about sleeping in the middle of everyone else. Since this is a very common topic for boys to be talking about, it’s the closest we actually get to a plot this week. Argh.

Also, there are cats, which are probably there to remind the fangirls where they’re supposed to touch while ogling at the boys.

1/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Tamayura-Hitotose

Alright, before anything else I’ll admit this much: I have a strong pre-conceived bias against the unofficially titled anime genre known as moe, and even any variations of that (basically anything with a focus on “cutesy” things, usually being young girls doing what are supposed to be cute things). To be fair, while this show has that appearance on the outset its not actually one of those shows. It does try to play off its characters as being cute, but to its credit it at least doesn’t try to resort to any form of fan service (which you should be thankful for considering just how young the 2 main girls in this episode are) like too many other series sporting this type of look seem to love to do. The series instead tries to evoke an “uplifting” feeling from its viewers, which is an emotional response that is certainly very difficult to achieve.

To briefly explain the plot of this first episode: A young girl named Fu Sawatari is someone who was once quite bright and cheerful and loved photography which she was inspired to do by her father, who himself was a professional photographer. Due to certain circumstances he unfortunately passed away and Fu ended up losing her motivation to follow in his foot-steps due to the sad memories taking up his old camera (or any other for that matter) would bring to her. Her best friend Chihiro, a very sensitive girl who pretty much cries at the drop of a hat, also sympathizes with her but tries to support her through her tough times. Eventually upon seeing old photos of her family taken by her father which she had tried to burry away from herself to shun her old memories, she ends up remembering how cheerful she and her family used to be and realizes how much happiness photography brings to her. While it’s a hard decision for both her and Chihiro, she finally decides to move back to her old home town and possibly try and follow in her father’s foot-steps like she always wanted to.

Now, what’s here is honestly a good “concept” for a good set-up for a heartwarming story. Unfortunately, while the writers for this series had the concept down, they failed to deliver on the actual writing part for this particular series, and thus the set-up turns out extremely weak. The first problem is that we learn early on that Fu’s father dies, but we learn nothing about his character or his interactions with Fu and the rest of her family except for the fact that he loved photography and seemed to be a pretty cheerful guy. So right away, there’s no way that we as viewers can be expected to feel sorry for him, and he just becomes a mere figure of the past in this story. What about Fu, can we sympathize with her? Well, unfortunately the writers of this series make the common mistake of assuming that all it takes for viewers to sympathize with a character is for something tragic to have happened to them. I have seen countless cases in which characters in stories have troubled pasts with very close and influential loved ones of theirs having died, and while it may sound sinister I’ve grown a bit too desensitized to that. That is to say, just seeing that isn’t enough to get my sympathy. I actually need to connect with the characters to feel bad, good, or any sort of emotion for them.

Fu isn’t necessarily unlikeable, and her semi-depressed state in the 1st episode is certainly understandable, but her problem is that she’s just far too bland as a character. I felt more like falling asleep listening to her talk and narrate the story in her monotone voice (it didn’t even feel convincingly sad), rather than sorry for her. Her best friend Chihiro on the other hand is a complete mess of a character. I can’t tell if the writers were trying to make her funny or seriously sympathetic when they decided to make one of her defining characteristics being too sensitive to the point of tears at anything even remotely sad, but her character doesn’t work in either regard. She merely comes off as more of an annoyance than any proper support for Fu as her best friend, and once again, we have a character with no real personality to her aside from that one gimmick. Fu’s mother and younger sibling get even less time and characterization in the episode so as far as I’m concerned they are just as 1-dimensional as the rest of the background.

To me, Tamayura-Hitotose’s problem is that it’s just flat-out boring. It’s not offensive or disturbing like other cutesy series try to be, and it doesn’t try to go the humorous route with this type of story either, and to be fair it doesn’t feel like it was a completely effortless series to make (the art design is actually quite nice for the genre, and the animation is at least decent), but it gives the viewer absolutely nothing to be invested in or entertained by. While there are certainly much worse series’ premieres out this season, it doesn’t really excuse the extremely lackluster execution of a series like this, which essentially leaves no real reason for you to come back to this series after the first episode, unless you are REALLY into series with these sorts of character designs. So, yeah, if this series doesn’t look like something that you would normally enjoy, that’s because you won’t enjoy it, so I really can’t find any audience that I would actually recommend this to. – Ensatsu-ken

Persona 4: The Animation

Persona 4 is a very popular RPG in Japan due to its incredible sense of style and the unique world of Personas (magical beings powered from the soul) and social elements in it. Naturally, being one of Atlus’ biggest games, they’d take it to anime. And that’s exactly what you’ve got here. Since Persona 4 itself was made with many different anime staples in it, the transition to anime is almost unsettlingly natural. The premiere episode even opens with the same theme song the game opens with, and it doesn’t even feel jarring at all.

The biggest issues come with the fact that it’s pretty much ripped wholesale from the game. If you’ve played the game already, then you have very little to look forward to here as you’ll most likely be seeing things you had already seen, including some of the main character’s dialogue options from it. Speaking of the main character, I know him being a self-insert was the most probable way to keep it true to the games, but it doesn’t really make him an interesting protagonist in the anime and it might grow to become a real problem down the line.

Basically, if you’re a Persona fan, just play the game. If you have no intention of playing the game itself and want to watch something a bit different than the onslaught of moe shows this season, give this a shot. It might be for you.

7/10 – Desensitized

Mashiro-Iro Symphony

Alright, now this is just the type of show that easily perplexes me as to why it was even made? Actually, scratch that, these pointless “cutesy” shows must have some audience if they are popular enough to keep getting made in abundant quantities each and every new anime season. So then the real question becomes WHY do they even have an audience? Well, whatever the reason, I had to sit though an episode of this shit and believe me when I say that even doing that has become a huge chore in an of itself.

So the plot, or lack thereof, starts off with a boy (Boy A) and his younger sister (Girl A) who is lost. I would refer to these characters by their names but since they are too shallow to even establish any actual “characteristics” about them, I can’t see them as characters and can’t be bothered to remember or even care what the fuck they are called, so instead I will refer to the characters by gender and assigned letters based on the order that they appear. Apparently his sister gets lost easily so she calls him to come and pick her up. He asks her to text him a picture of her location so he can determine where she is (why he doesn’t just ask her to read a nearby streeth sign or something is beyond me), in which case she takes a picture of herself making a cutesy smile (with some sign being obscured in the back corner) and her older brother fondly smiles at it and then notices her location, and tells her that he’ll be there soon and informs her not to move.

Of course, what should be a simple enough task turns into a problem because Girl A finds a stupid cat-like thing that I suppose is supposed to seem cute and then does exactly what her brother told her not to do just 10 seconds ago (I’m not even exaggerating the time elapse here) and moves from her location to follow this random creature thing. I should point out that all that I was thinking about at this point would be how cool it was that the creature turned out to be some extraturrestrial alien life-form that takes on a cute appearance and then lures its annoying victims to dark corners to devour them as punishment for their incompetence, and thus a series of more interesting characters are brought into investigate such instances. Now that would be a fucking awesome series!….But, unfortunately this series is as boring and predictable as you’d expect and after a few moments Girl A realizes that she’s lost (again) and calls her brother (again) informing him that she’s more lost, describing that in her new location she sees a mountain (because, you know, something all the way in the background on the horizon is a brilliant location marker for someone who is probably less than a mile away and has the exact same fucking view as you of such large and distant objects).

After this Girl A’s cell phone runs out of batteries (gee, maybe if she wasn’t wasting time texting pointless pictures of herself and following some unidentified cat-like animal she could have avoided this problem), and then shortly after that it starts raining which worries Boy A (because….that’s the most threatening and serious problem that a show like this can come up with….are you really surprised as this point?). Luckily for Girl A a passerby with an umbrella (Girl B) comes to her aid and allows her to use her cell phone to call her brother again. Then she gives the phone back to Girl B who has a pointless conversation with Boy A which I guess is supposed to start the set up for some sort of romantic relationship between them or some shit like that. After that he FINALLY finds them (and BTW, this stupid problem that could easily have been avoided takes up more than half of the episode, alone) and then the rain just suddenly stops, and he also has some more pointless dialogue with Girl B and apologizes for Girl A’s stupidity (literally the only smart thing said in this entire episode, and probably this entire series by the time its done airing).

Later on Boy A is taking a bath and letting his wet clothes dry (despite the fact that he looked perfectly dry from head to toe, even when it was raining), and then his sister, Girl A steps into the bathroom and says that she will bathe with him and then he makes awkward faces and says that its unnatural but Girl A uses her monotone voice and says its just brother and sister bathing, and then he repeats that its unnatural putting on his awkward face again. I think the writers of this series consider this to be comedy or something….

So, to wrap things up it turns out that 90% of what happened in that episode has absolutely no relevance to the main plot. And yeah, apparently this show DOES have a main plot, but just what is that main plot?….Well, let’s see: You find out that Boy A goes to an all boys school and Girl B goes to an all girls school and both of those schools happen to be doing some sort of exchange program for whatever reason. Boy A and his friend (Boy B) are both assigned to attend that school for the semester, and upon entering they find that all of the girls are dressed like maids. In my experiences in this genre this shit is pretty standard so I’m not even going to bother questioning it this time because its pointless either way? Anyways, the girl they meet (Girl C, I guess), leads them to the main hall where they are supposed to be welcomed by some student representatives and then Girl B stumbles out and both her and Boy A immediately recognize each other, but Girl B’s kinder experession turns into one full of content and she exclaims that just because the schools approve of this exchange doesn’t mean that the students do, and she says that she will not accept boys in the school, and then the episode ends.

Yeah, that’s basically supposed to be the premire episode’s attempt at a cliffhanger that will keep you coming back for more. Will Girl B come to accept Boy A and other boys attending this school? But the real question should be: Do you really give a shit?

So, yeah, fuck this show. – Ensatsu-ken

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE

Another season passes, and it’s time for the legendary Gundam series to make its reappearance! Gundam has been a bit shaky in recent years (aside from the extremely well received Unicorn OVA), but Gundam AGE has billed itself as sort of a new start of sorts…. Again. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t been told this before with Gundam Seed or even way back when G Gundam aired, but this time the aim really is a bit different.

This time instead of going for a more modern approach like Seed or hot blooded shonen craziness with G, they decided to aim for the kids with this one. Essentially imagine Beyblade or Bakugan or similar shows only with their respective battle gimmicks replaced with Gundam battles and you’ll be pretty close. I can understand their reasoning for making this show, the problem is that there is really nothing here for either Gundam fans that they haven’t seen before, or sci-fi/action fans as it does little they also haven’t also seen a million times. In other words, they turned Gundam -the seminal mecha series, into a generic giant mech show giving it pretty much no flavor whatsoever.

Basically, if you’re looking for new Gundam, check out Unicorn which is probably what you want out of the franchise. But on the flip side, if you have kids or younger siblings, then this might be a good entry title.

5/10 – Desensitized

Mirai Nikki

The almighty god of time and space, otherwise known as Norio Wakamoto, bestows upon an antisocial kid the power to predict the future with his cell phone. Initially using it for trivial matters like scoring on tests or avoiding bullies, he stumbles upon a plot to kill him in order to ascend godhood. On top of this, he gets a psycho girlfriend to boot. Ladies and gentlemen, FML: The Anime.

In a change of pace, I actually liked a first episode. Sure, it plods and only gets good around the second half, but compared to the rest of the season, that makes it a success. The plot and setting feels very akin to Death Note and Eden of the East, with the main character definitely an apple’s throw away from the Shinji Ikari archetype. The idea of a kid having to play chessmaster with predictions in order to save his own ass surely shows great potential. And while I already knew her reputation through visiting the odd site or two, Yuno had a unique flair to her. There are a few times where she makes Rena or Mion look sane. I would definitely make sure to watch this show, or at least read the manga.

It could’ve done without some of the Deus Ex Machina parts though. They felt more like exposition moments instead of elements that could have moved and opened the plot for viewers.

7/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Guilty Crown

Some high school kid laments on how he has to reside in a pseudo-futuristic Japan; ruled with an iron fist by its international overlords. But on one day, he finds a mysterious girl in odd wear that must be rescued from the aforementioned iron fist and its evil, one-note army. As these men decide to destroy a city with their mechs and kill bystanders for shits and giggles, the girl offers the kid a superpower, symbolized with a mark on his body, which gives him the ability to slaughter his foes without breaking a sweat. With these powers in hand, our protagonist has started the surge against totalitarianism with him and a bunch of resistance fighters.

No, this isn’t Code Geass. It really isn’t. See, the girl on this show has pink hair instead of green hair. That makes it absolutely different.

Oh, who am I kidding? This show is derivative and pandering as all hell. The lead looks like the one from High School of the Dead, who looks like the one from Busou Renkin. It all starts with a song whose purpose is to get fanboys into buying the OST. We get a half-naked, high-pitched girl sure to have her image printed on dozens of body pillows. Everything about this show is calculated to get the most sales and attention, not to see how far it can go in terms of quality.

And since it decided to copy Code Geass, it also decided to rip off its antagonists wholesale with trigger-happy bastards that we’re expected to hiss at. If you’re going to have sociopathic soldiers that will unanimously kill civilians with absolutely no motive behind the attack other than mere orders and generic bloodlust, then why not just have robots with elementary AI as the henchmen? Having them commit atrocities just so we know to side with the protagonists just speaks poorly for both sides. So I’m supposed to sympathize with the main cast because they don’t shoot innocent people, not due to their attributes or personalities?

Even if the villains have to be unlikable bastards, at least make them interesting beyond “generic Reich knockoff”. Give them a face, a name, a personality, and some charm like Gauron and Ladd Russo. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m ranting about it too much, but I just think it hurts a show like this if the antagonists end up being poorly thought-out bastards for the sake of being poorly thought-out bastards.

That said, the protagonist certainly isn’t a Lelouch clone, and not seeing a Kallen knockoff anywhere around, so the show could possibly branch out from being a copy in favor of being something better. And the striking direction and vibrant soundtrack prove that to be quite possible. It’s just the first impression of this show is disappointing at best, scoff-worthy at worst.

So TL;DR: Superb production values, crappy story.

4/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Un-Go

Seto Kaiba and a creepy tranny dressed as a panda are out to solve mysteries. Yeah, that pretty much sums up the show.

Rather odd to see an episodic anime in a time where even the most trite shows have vague plotlines going on throughout. And while it’s welcoming, it also leaves the series with little impact to offer. The sleuth-solving this episode just seemed to finish before I could actually get involved in it. Nothing from the episode grated me in anyway, but neither did any of it excite me. It did confuse me though (the tranny turning into a sultry woman that reads minds through butterfly-vision, what?). But that doesn’t mean it was mediocre.

I mean, if you like a good mystery story and have been sick of Detective Conan never ending, here’s an alternative. The animation doesn’t seem like BONES’s style, but not in a bad way. The characters, aside from the tranny of course, naturally develop while not coming off as bland. And the direction was all right. For those wanting an anime that tries not to insult your intelligence,

7/10 – Dr. Insomniac

Ben-To:

Normally I’d got into a good amount of detail about the plot of a show before I get down to my thoughts about it. However Ben-To is one of those intentionally ludicrous anime that go to bizarre levels to play out for laughs. As far as story goes in this first episode, it basically just revolves around Yo- Sato-, a high school student who wakes up in the middle of a grocery store to find that he has been beaten unconcious and can’t remember how it happened. One of those annoying girls that you see in other anime of this sort (the hyper-active ones who never shut the fuck up) tags along with him for some reason. Nothing of any signficance really happens until he later finds out that he got beat up by some blue-haired girl (one again, I couldn’t be bothered to remember any actual names in this anime besides the main character’s, but hey, even that’s something coming from me) and presumably various other consumers at the store fighting over half-price ben-to (basically a pre-packaged meal). And….yeah, that’s your plot. Well, there is some crap about him joining some club that the girl is in that I guess has to do with fighting over half-priced ben-to, but its obvious that taking the story seriously in a show like this is irrelivant since its primarily about getting laughs out of its viewers.

Alright, so we have a silly show with over-the-top action and gags and predictably quirky characters. Having to judge it as a comedy, I have to be fair and try to level with it since I understand that comedy is an extremely subjective thing, and I have to admit that I’m REALLY not into these over-the-top nonsensical comedy anime, especially since most of them in recent years have just disguised themselves under that sort of concept when really they just rely on a sleuth of unfunny perverted sexual-themed gags. To be honest I was expecting something similar from this but to its credit it doesn’t rely on these things very much at all for its jokes (this is of course, only going by the first episode). Instead, to my surprise, we do actually get what looks to be some genuine effort into making a wacky show that actually comes off as so ridiculous its funny and entertaining, but the question then becomes whether or not it succeeds at doing this.

Well, like I said, comedy being as subjective as it is, I can’t really speak for anyone but myself in this case. I will actually admit to having chuckled maybe 1 or 2 times through the course of this episode (which, once again, is intself saying a lot coming from me in regards to this sort of show), though I get an odd feeling that one of those times was unintentionally funny for me. As for the episode at a whole, the best thing I can really say about it is that it never sunk to any extreme lows that made me want to stop watching immediately, but at the same time it failed to keep me engaged in its humor, so I didn’t really feel compelled to keep watching either. Its not that I don’t “get” the jokes, as there isn’t a whole lot to get, but rather I just find them to be too tame or predictable for my liking, which is not a good sign for a series with a set-up as ridiculous as this one. The characters aren’t so badly designed like in other series of this type that it makes me want to gag, but at the same time they don’t come off as being all that silly either (once again, relative to how ludicrous the set-up is).

I must confess that I don’t watch a lot of shows of this type in the first place due to my general distaste for the genre (the closest thing to it that I’ve completely seen is Excel Saga, and that’s almost nothing like this show, so it makes for a bad comparison), so I don’t even have a good basis to compare it to. If I were to recommend it to anyone, I suppose anyone who actually is a fan of anime comedies with silly plots and characters would be entertained by this, so in that regard its at least worth a shot for that audience, and to its credit it seems to be doing a fine job already of entertaining people with such tastes. However, while its certainly a good deal more entertaining than its piers in this genre, anyone who does not taking a liking to these sorts of comedies most likely won’t find too much here that will keep them interested, even if it is far more tolerable than many other recent series of this type. – Ensatsu-ken

Originally posted on Saturday, October 15, 2011.