Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

ClassicaLoid

Well, that was cute in a “drunk freshmen try to re-enact I, Claudius” way. So coming off the heels of Osomatsu-san, director Yoichi Fujita gives us a silly anime about classical musicians. It’s like Vocaloids, except they’re not. I don’t even know what they have in common with Vocaloids to warrant the title, but moving on. It’s one of those ideas that you crack as a bad joke when you’re bored, but then somebody decides that should be an actual show. And whether that should be cause for celebration really depends on your tolerance for dull, meandering character drama in the middle of your goofy Beethoven antics.

When they’re not showing footage of Beethoven failing to make dumplings, the show focuses on these two kids named Kanae and Sosuke who come off as bombastic, but not in an endearing way. More of a “Please use an indoor voice or get out” way. Just their mere presence makes a scene irritable, and you just wish they could go die so the Classicaloids get the full stage to themselves. I don’t care about Kanae’s grandma, or Sosuke’s iPad, or how they’ll eventually get together despite how they’re assholes to each other at this point, just give me what happened in the first minute but stretched to an entire show, okay? It’s like ordering dessert at a restaurant, but having your waiter talk about their banal life troubles to you while your dish is being made, and then going on even when you’re eating.

No love for their character designs too. they all look like first draft drawings of Pokemon trainers. Everyone’s so wide-eyed and colorful, but not to the levels like other cutesy shows so it’s all uncanny. They remind me of the shark girl from Orange. For every mark this show hits, it misses two more. Maybe it’ll get more exciting with Bach-sama, or with Tchaikovsky-chan, or with Liszt-san, or with Debussy-sensei, or with Kotzwara-kun, or… – BloodyMarquis

Second Opinion!

In this year’s installment of Fujita taking the piss, we have a guy who thinks he’s Mozart and dresses like he’s Miku, and a looney who thinks he’s Beethoven but is really just Gintoki on steroids. The two have invaded some average girl’s house and now refuse to leave much like Edward Gorey’s penguin thing. But that’s ok, her wacky whimsical house with a piano roof and tuba chimney is slated for immediate demoliton. But then Beethoven uses his magic life fiber conductor’s baton to create a poor man’s Manheim Steamroller version of Symphony No. 6 and it all stops making sense altogether.

Well this show is….something. Not really anything worth watching but it is…something. I think the problem is that unlike Osomatsu, Fujita is basically working here without a net. With Osomatsu he had a really, really bad old anime from the 60s to make fun of. Here its just people’s opinions about how stuffy classical music and the people who enjoy it (PS: HI HATERS!) are as opposed to the Vocaloid craze that just doesn’t seem to want to go away (much like the unwanted houseguests of this series). And honestly if I wanted to hear Sugita scream bloody murder about his futility to cook Gyoza, I’d just watch… you know… Gintama.

8/10, too many notes. – Lord Dalek

Drifters

Drifters is based on a manga by Kouta Hirano of Hellsing fame, where a bunch of historical figures from various era’s do battle in a fantasy world filled with Elves and Dwarves.

It’s as awesome as it sounds

Immediately the anime throws you into the action with a delightfully bloody battle where Toyohisa Shimazu makes his last stand in Sekigahara, gleefully slaughtering Tokugawa Ieyasu’s forces and even managing to wound one of his generals. A dying Toyohisa wanders into a mysterious corridor with an enigmatic man doing paperwork before going into a door that leads to the fantasy world where he is led by a couple of elves to a small fortress occupied by Oda Nobunaga Nasu Yoichi, who subsequently nurse him back to health . The rest of the episode is devoted to exposition and character introductions, but done in such a way that the result is amusing rather than boring. Right away, Drifters has the violent over the top action and zany characters that made Hellsing a success. The anime’s artstyle faithfully replicates Hirano’s distinct artstyle, and combined with the surprisingly stellar animation by Hoods, and this results in quite the visual treat. Violence has also been surprisingly kept for the TV airing, allowing for the audience to focus on the fights and showing off the gore in spectacular fashion. Music also deserves a special mention, being composed by both Yasushi Ishii (whose score for the original Gonzo Hellsing anime is not only the one thing still remembered from that project, but is one of the best anime OST’s period) and Hayato Matsu (composer of Hellsing Ultimate) leads to a soundtrack that is equal parts jazz, rock, and funk with a cinematic flair. As expected, the characters each are very entertaining, if a bit stereotypical so far. Toyohisa is characterized as a hot-blooded, bloodshed-loving warrior, but done in such a hammy and over-the-top way that I couldn’t help but enjoy his antics. Though not having as much screentime in the first episode, Nobunaga and Yoichi both promise to be entertaining characters, and I can’t wait to see them in action. Like Hellsing before, there is plenty of humour to go along with all the violence, some may be put off by the sudden transitions to SD characters and typical exaggerated facial reactions, but considering how over-the-top the rest of the show and its very premise is, it works in its favor, it certainly helps that Drifters is quite open about what it and its target audience is. Above all us, Drifters, much like Hellsing before it, is fun and promises to be a wild ride, and I couldn’t help but have a grin on my face the entire time watching it.

It goes without saying that Drifters is not only the anime of the season, but potentially of the year as well. If you watch any anime this season that doesn’t have to do with fictional sports centering around boobs and butts, make it this one. – CrimsonRynnec

Gi(a)rlish number

So apparently anime industry cringe-com is a genre now. Oh sure there had been examples over the past couple decades but it wasn’t until Shirobako (aka that show everyone bawwwws over that I could never get that far into) hit big that this became a thing. Which brings us to Gi(a)rlish number (yes that’s the real title) AKA Shirobako written by the SNAFU guy. That’s a strike already because I can’t stand SNAFU, so it comes as bit of a surprise to me that Gi(a)rlish number is not only pretty good but surprisingly acidic for what looked like a bubbly girl power com from the promotional art.

Whereas Shirobako was about the tireless underpaid animation department heads, this show centers around three women at various stages of their voice acting careers (don’t worry, they’re just as miserable as the SB girls). Chitose is the noob always lurking around the edges of frames and waiting for a role where she’ll get more than two lines. Momoka is slightly more seasoned enough to know which light novel writer is a lech or just calm and sensitive. And finally there’s Kazuha, the grumpy veteran whose become disinterested/annoyed in both the industry and losers like Chitose who are following in her footsteps. All three of these girls have the same problem, anime is of course dead as the man said, and production higher ups are currently infatuated with endless adaptations of light novels by greasy pervs who only got sales through their books’ illustrators or glorfied advertisements for idol groups. So naturally Chitose finally gets her big break in a show that combines the worst of both worlds…winning!

This is one of the saltiest animes I have seen in many a moon and I gotta wonder who pissed the SNAFU guy off so much that he’s essentially throwing gasoline on a fire to burn it all down. Maybe we’ve finally reached a point in the anime industry where self-reflective contrition is the only way of making sense of it. Even the next episode preview involving the two execs chortling over their success over images of a bored table read that gets more heated as it goes along is both subtle brutal in its irony. A complete surprise winner in a season that gave us the kind of horrible dreck greenlit by the real guys. – Lord Dalek

Flip Flappers

At one point early on in Flip Flappers, I actually felt like this was Japan’s answer to Stranger Things. A blatantly retro aesthetic, crazy science experiment girls, jet black voids, parallel worlds that exist on top of ours, a hole in a tree, and even a very large demogorgon. If it wasn’t for the lack of Tangerine Dream-knockoff music and Eggo waffles you couldn’t tell the difference.

…oh I kid… this has nothing to do with Stranger Things at all, but since I didn’t bother to do a write-up for Mahou Shoujo Juuichi-chan last July I had to get my quota in somehow this season.

So yeah, Flip Flappers, a quasi-magical girl show in the vein of way too many Hayao Miyazaki movies from those guys who made the abysmal Dimension W earlier this year. Happily though this show feels more like their first effort, Celestial Method, and not that crap. Basically a crazy girl, who looks like the love child of Haruko Haruhara and Birdy the Mighty and owns a flying surfboard and cheesy early 80’s bible animu robot, kidnaps a perfectly normal school girl in the name of ADDDDVEEEENSHA! Said adventure involves scary frozen wastelands, scary frozen monsters, and scary violation of personal space, because cringeness for the sake of cringe?

Plotwise its kinda slight, but man does this show look good. Not quite moe, not quite Studio Trigger levels of overtly cartoony, the visual style works really well for the kind of Europan look they’re going for here. If the storytelling improves now that the initial sense of bewilderment has worn off, we may have a winner here. Then again, Studio 3Hz doesn’t fill me with much confidence over consistancy. – Lord Dalek

Second Opiums

Flip Flappers is…weird, to say the least. It’s about the adventures of an ordinary girl named Cocona and her energetic newfound friend Papika having strange, surreal adventures in a parallel world. Papika is from a mysterious, oddly named organization called FlipFlap, her mission being to collect mysterious stone shards that can grant any wish, thanks to her energetic and nosey nature, Papika ends up dragging Cocona (whom she somehow knows, despite Cocona not having any recollections of having met her before) along for the ride, much to the latters chagrin. That premise doesn’t really do the show any justice, but rest assured, the execution is strange, bizarre, and above all else, just plain fun and whimsical. The show gives off a suitably surreal, nostalgic vibe that can only be described as “mid-00’s Gainax meets a Ghibli film made during an acid trip” and with a lead like Papika, it’s hard not to make such a comparison. All of this is accentuated with an endearing cast of characters, Papika herself takes the role of the energetic manic-pixie dream girl type character, and her antics manage to come off as innocent and genuinely good natured rather than irritating. Cocona is the typical straight-laced foil with a fairly believable reaction to the events surrounding her, serious about her school and studies and initially wants nothing to do with Papika or her strange world, but eventually warms up to her and accepts the energetic girl’s friendship and promises to go on more adventures with her when she feels like it. Rounding out the initial cast is Papika’s robot sidekick, Cocona’s pet rabbit Uxekull, and her childhood friend Yayaka, who seems to have feelings for Cocona of her own and may end up playing a bigger role in the future.

Really though, Flip Flappers is a show that has to be seen to be belived, go watch it for yourself, and hopefully you’ll be as entertained as I was. Also, the OP and ED were catchy as fuck. – CrimsonRynnec

HEYBOT!

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

This is apparently a kids show. It airs on Sunday mornings on TV Asahi. It is a comedy about a robot akin to Burn Moerocon! and Kabutack/Robotack. In fact I was expecting to make this writeup nothing but a series of Kabutack jokes because Kabutack is nightmare fuel.

But then, the first five minutes….buttships….so many screws…what did I do…is this actually real?

…so many sexual refferences…

…so many screw puns…

…so much awkward….

PASS. – Lord Dalek

Lostorage incited WIXOSS

BATERU! BATERU! BATE-nah we’re done with that shit. Okada and her Gen Urobutchi obsessions are out as writer of WIXOSS. Instead we have the writer of PriPara and his Jun Maeda obsessions. Great going Takara Tomy, I feel we’ve reallllly traded up here (/sarc).

So what’s different about Weak Sauce this time around? Quite a lot actually. With Madoka ripoffs on the way out, we no longer have Lrigs that represent Faustian deals with the devil or at least not the kind that blatantly ripped off Madoka. Instead they’re some sort of abstract construct of people’s memories given physical form and allowed to speak complete sentences (no more Tama! YAAAAAAY!) And instead of trying to make their “wishes” come true, Selectors now bet their memories in a mandatory death game for reasons that are as yet unexplained. The punishment is probably amnesia or something as there is no indication that these Lrigs “won” the game at any point in the past. Which makes sense as this season has brought a second big change to the WIXOSS mythos…

Now we have Selectors with dicks!

Yes the first jerkface our heroine (FTR her name is Homura, which is the closest this is going to get to Madoka) faces is basically Winston Payne Jr. A rookie killer/possible rapist who prays on insecure teenage girls with an Lrig even more insecure than said victims. And unlike the crazy fashion plate girl who got her face mangled in the previous series, he still manages to get away with it even after losing. But hey, anything to shake up the status quo with this show.

So is Lostorage an improvement over the incredibly frustrating Selector saga? At this point, I don’t really care. Its still a DARK PERVERSION of Yu-Gi-Oh and its ilk and that means no matter how messed up this timeline is you’re still getting the same show. – Lord Dalek

March comes in like a lion

Well well well, its time for the ol’ Shinbo! Head tilts! Random gusts of wind! On-screen text! Artsy fartsy ambitions that go nowhere! Oh have I lusted for it for so long this year. Annoy me SHAFT! Fill me with aggravation and dismay! Incite me with another year of failing to live up to the standard set by Madoka Magica. TAKE ALL MY ANGRY AND MY SORROW AND FLUSH IT UPON THE WORLD! YESS YESSS YESSSSSSSSSSSSZZZZZZZZZZZZ….

!…

…Actually this show is pretty damn normal for some reason. Never mind the fact that the lead character Rei looks more like an amphibian than the kid from Your Lie in April (but not Eden of the East since it has the same character designer). Now I know what you’re thinking : yes this show has got SHAFT Tilts and SHAFT Wind up the wazoo, but there’s a big difference… silence, moody moody silence. Remember how you always got annoyed by all the nonstop talking from annoying characters in Monogatari and Kagero Daze? Well, here’s a show where nobody talks for like 10 minutes. How…not…SHAFT.

You know what else is normal? The fact that this show is sol and has no space battles, hot sisters, or scary monsters. Rei plays shogi. Rei hates himself, some fat fuck breaks into his mailbox. To Be Continued. That’s not much of a plot but, honestly, this is not about the small stuff, its about soulcrushing depression, and its better done than say… Depression Quest. To borrow a phrase from a boring over written Doctor Who episode, in lion, to lose is to win and he who shall win shall lose, and Rei may be the only person whose victory at shogi makes him more miserable with each passing moment. How will it all end? How should I know? At least this is on NHK so it won’t fall into some fan service trap at the very least. Thank god, I can now brush my teeth again. – Lord Dalek

Occultic;Nine

Fast;Pacing
Too;Fast
Speed;Talking
Vroom;Vroom
Speed;Animation
Too;Speedy
Car;Crash
Need;Breath
Shameful;Pacing
Other;Hand
Mutated;Breasts
Yuuki;Kaji
In;Everything
Seems;Like
Persona;Again
Boobs;Though
She’s;Annoying
Why;Raygun?
Hate;Her
Required;Rewatches?
Fuck;That
Wait;Until
Half;Cour
When;People
Who;Sticked
With;Show
Suddenly;Praise
It;As
The;Next
Steins;Gate
But;As
Of;Now
I’m;Scared
Of;This
Show;And
Of;Boob
Girl;Especially
Of;Her
She;Could
Choke;Yuuki
Kaji’s;Character
With;Her
Inflated;Bazongas
I;Like
Kanako;Ito
Though;She’s
Cool;At
Singing;Openings

– Bloody;Marquis

Second Opinion!

Ever had the feeling you’ve watched an anime with the fast forward button stuck in the on position? Well that’s Occultic;Nine in a nutshell. This show literally moves so breathlessly that simply taking your eye off it for more than two seconds will leave you completely confused due to the rapid fire stream of exposition and technobabble. Honestly I have never experienced this before and I’ve watched Monogatari!

So what’s this show about? Well as far as I can tell it involves paranormal investigators and women with gigantic cleavage. One guy is a jobless loser who translates news for shut ins, another is a grouchy academic who’s too cool for school, and there’s a lady who plays the part of the journalism team from Ultra Q. In fact, I think that’s what this is trying to be…Ultra Q if it was Steins;Gate and with more dialogue than your average Shinbo show.

The problem is cramming so much content into your product makes its absolutely incoherent. I started this episode bewildered and I ended it confused and rather annoyed about the whole process. But hey it does look nice as A-1 didn’t half ass the animation this time around. Dem boobz so sakuga. – Lord Dalek

Show By Rock!!#

Ah Show By Rock!!, the anime that proves no matter how stupid Symphogear gets every season there’s always going to be something even stupider the next year. And lord was this as stupid as stupid gets.

So last time, Plasmagica saved the universe from the black pudding thing Dagger and Cyan went home, slightly more assertive but still stuck with her real life moe anime girl Rivers Cuomo chic. And that was a pretty definitive denouement there so what kind of assbackwards creative bankruptness are we supposed to do this season? Simple… rip off the Cell Saga! Dagger’s back and allied himself with a grouchy band of emorockers named Victorious (you know… like Victoria Justice!), the leader of which will eventually become the Dark Empress of Evil or Something and destroy the universe or something (you know… like Victoria Justice!). However a team of time traveling ninjas have pulled a Trunks and warned Plasmagica, Shingan Crimson, and Cristicrista of their impending demises in the oncoming armageddon. All that sounds and fine and dandy and all but what about the real burning question…

WHAT ABOUT CYAN?!?!?

Well a giant robot breaks into her house and shoots her with lasers because anime. ‘k.

Show By Rock!!Hashtag is just more Show By Rock!! in all its derpy dimwitted cgi nendoroid glory. Not a shred of originality, not a ounce of subtlety, not a care in the world. The only problem being that feels more like a ton of backstory infodump episode with Cyan being shoved into a corner at the very end. But then suddenly a leftover Kataphrakt from Aldnoah.Zero shows up and all is right with the world. Consider my brain melted. – Lord Dalek

Yuri!!! On Ice

Who knew that a show with “Yuri” in the name could make male viewers go gay? Because this is really pretty. The main character is an obese blob, and they somehow made him pretty. I’ve seldom been one to discuss animation in anime (yes, I know how much of a flaw that is when writing about cartoons), but this show’s work is gorgeous. Something expected from film directors like Hosoda all jam-packed into a single episode, hard to believe I wasn’t watching one of those Young Animator Training Project short films but an actual show I’ll be getting on a weekly basis. It’s so… exquisite. “Exquisite” is a word people should rarely use in anime because very few actual shows can truly be that adjective, like calling an anime elegant or debonair or some other English word you use because you don’t want to say “sakuga”, but Yuri!!! On Ice managed to be absolutely exquisite. It’s like watching Michelle Kwan perform in the 1998 Olympics, every detail and stitch sewn in with care. Sayo Yamamoto and Studio Mappa, they’re cool people for doing this.

Just every frame unleashed a warm smile on my face, like getting Christmas presents at December 24th. I know it’s going to be the typical monomyth, about a kid down on his luck, bullied and living like a bumpkin, getting help from his childhood hero and attaining success and blah blah, but that’s for the critical eye long after the show’s over. When the divorce has long since proceeded, and you’re stuck with only fleeting memories as nourishing as cup noodles. But right now, this mind is still engaged. The eye when watching is full of astonishment and wonder, longing for Yuri to become a famous ice skater as much as he secretly wants to. Yeah, aspirational tales are a dime a dozen, but it doesn’t make this show and its characters any less endearing. – BloodyMarquis

Greetings, readers, breeders, and those who mentally peaked at the age of 16. Welcome to this season’s preview guide.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride

In what must be the setup for the strangest BBC 4 sitcom yet, there lives somewhere in rural England la talking goat litch named Ainsworth, a talking dog/guy named Ruth, some Rozen Maiden cosplayer named Silky who says nothing, and a random normal Japanese girl named Chise. Chise is there to apparently learn the wizarding ways from goat guy after a series of traumatic childhood experiences involving her mother’s suicide and various disturbing monst–

oh this is one of THOSE shows isn’t it?

Ancient Magus’ Bride is a show with a split personality. It starts out as a gentle sort of Miyazaki clone with lots of quirky characters and cute familiars running around, but then… as if a switch was flipped the show turns into straight up nightmare fuel. Something along the lines of Elfen Lied if it wasn’t so ridiculously over the top to the point of being comedic. Its also a really top notch production which is not a big surprise considering its from WIT and they’re still rolling around in Titan moneyez.

Those sitting through Magus’ first 12 minutes and expecting Flying Witch 2.0 are probably in for a shock. Whether not that’s a good or bad thing is in the eye of the beholder. – Lord Dalek

World Witches Series The 501^st Joint Fighter Wing: Brave Witches

Oh…its this…again.

For those out there who have happily ignored the godawful Strike Witches franchise, a brief recap: in an alternate 1940 so stupid it would make Harry Turtledove choke on his own vomit, space aliens called Neuroi have arrived and taken the form of giant planes (not boats, that was Arpeggio of Blue Steel Ars Nova). With their own millitary might completely incapable to fight the space aliens, the former Axis and Allied Powers have said “hey no hard feelings!” and developed a secret weapon to combat the extraterrestrial threat: teenage girls and young women strapped to very tiny propeller engines to turn THEM into airplanes! (not boats, that was Kantai Collection) Also there’s something about magic powers and animal ears and oh who cares, it only looks good when stacked up against IS and its own ilk.

Soooooo that brings us to Brave Witches…which is just Strike Witches…if it was brave….yaaaaaaaaay.

Really what is there to be said about this? Its the stame old stock cute girl joins the military story this franchise pretty much invented. In far off exotic Not-Japan (again… alternate WWII so all the names have been changed to protect the innocent), young Hikari pines to be like her sister, the legendary “Hero of Sasebo”. Unfortunately Hikari is kinda shit at the whole magic thing and always drowning in the local bay as a result. However the European front against the Neuroi has taken a turn for the worse and student witches are now being deployed to the front. This provides an opportunity for our heroine to show what she can do through that “sheer determination under duress” animes like this always have because….cliches.

Long and short of it, if you like Strike Witches, good for you. You’ll probably enjoy this show because its fans only more or less. If you’re like me and can’t stand it, this is just par for the course. Harmless but ultimately redundant and still an excuse at oggling pantsu….dammit I was trying to see how long I could go without mentioning Strike Witches’ pantsu obsesssion. I blame this on you whoever you are, I blame it on you >=(. – Lord Dalek

BBK/BRNK: The Gentle Giants of the Galaxy

Oh noes its the Bubukiburankibrabrabraburabrabra! At this point does anyone care about Sanzigen’s CGI regurgitation of early-2000s animu? Well after last season, or more precisely after 15 minutes of the first episode, not I. Nevertheless, here we are again with 12 more episodes of water balloon people, downright incoherrent writing and story structure, and general sense that this is only being made because Sanzigen and Arc Performance can’t get along long enough to make season 2 of Vocaloid Boat Anime. Well might as well suck it up as I’ve got nothing else better to do.

First the good news! Azuma’s gone!…unfortunately he’s coming back…frowny face!

Now the bad news! Instead we have his sister! Whose ten times more annoying and blatantly autistic!

Yes introuducing crazy Kaoruku, Azuma’s 12 eggs short of a dozen sister who dresses like a cross between Trucy Wright and Huggy Bear, wont shut the hell up, and just generally makes me wanna die. She’s leading her own band of rediculous God Eater rejects to fight the ongoing Buranki menace in far off exotic Chinese Taipei which only leads to tons of infodumping and breast size equivalency because this show has no ideas and you know that, I know that, and of course… Rac knows that ;-).

BBK/BRNK/Electric Boogaloogie is just a lot of time wasting and panty chasing. Why on Earth did anybody think this was a good way to celebrate their tenth anniversary I’ll never know. Then again anime is clearly dead so I shouldn’t be surprised that somebody did. Just ask Yamakan! – Lord Dalek

Bloodivores

Wow………………what a title. Shame that’s all its got. Bloodivores comes to us from el-cheapo Chinese syndicate TENCENT and never has a name lived up to what is on display for me to see. No effort was put into this, no QC, no interest, nothing. Watching it only made me nostalgic for Polyphonica and its quality van. A disgrace.

…and the main character is named Mi Yu. We’re done here. – Lord Dalek

Izetta, Die Letze Hexe

Its 1940 and the world is at war!…except this is one of those crappy faux-World War II animus and all the names have been changed because who’s Hitler? As the evil Germanian empire starts to invade every country in central Europe, Princess Fine of El Kabong (you think of a better name) has fled her country for the safety of the Britannian Empire in the west (yest this is apparently a prequel to Code Geass). Things don’t go her way though and Fine ends up stranded with a mysterious red haired girl who apparently has the ability to summon Rukh like Aladdin and, because this is allegedly not a yuri, get your mind out of the gutter.

Izetta The Last Witch is, like last year’s already forgotten Maria The Virgin Witch, just kinda ok. It doesn’t really do anything interesting and the characters are the same stock we’ve seen from other faux historicals like Last Exile and Valkyria Chronicles. The big difference being that these ones are designed by abe-I MEAN BUNBUN! Actually the Sword Art connection doesn’t end there as Michiru Yamane has been drafted to do the soundtrack and already this show sounds like Madoka leftovers. And that’s the main problem with Izetta, it just feels like leftover story ideas, characters, and production values, from other more successful product. Does that mean its bad? Not really. Does it make me watch it again? Nope no way.

But hey! It ends with Izetta using an anti-tank rifle as a witches broom! That’s gotta be cool enough for me to come back ri-no. – Lord Dalek

Keijo!!!!!!!!

Ok Keijo aka Hip Whip Girl, a show about an aquatic sport with tons of fan service. How bad could it possibly b–

NO. — Lord Dalek

Nanbaka

This is Prison School but shinier and with less ecchi, and less Kana Hanazawa. And less funny. After a few surprises like Osomatsu-san and Sakamoto, the “pretty guys doing odd things” genre is now back to this. Watching ten minutes of Nanbaka just makes me want to go back to said few surprises. Just hollow jokes and so many attempts to go for funny stupid but ended up being annoying stupid instead. Most of the humor I’m getting is from some of the occasional nods to other, better shows. And when I’m referring to shit like Kiznaiver as “better”, this show isn’t bringing out any A-game.

Especially disappointing when coming from the director of Nichibros, Gintama, and Gundam 0080 (?). It’s just bleep jokes, crossdressing jokes, and the green-haired one being a twat. I could spend twenty minutes blowing my nose until blood comes out, and that would have been a better waste of time. Watching a teenage girl ranting about the Zionist conspiracy would have been more stimulating. Banging my head against the wall and having horrible Nutshack-themed coma nightmares would have been more endearing. I was watching Nanbaka and writing this while in a late-night stupor, when everything makes me giggle. The time of the night when just looking at a picture of Aidan Gillen makes me guffaw. Nanbaka didn’t make me guffaw. It didn’t even make me chortle, or snigger, or titter, or cackle.

Also, Nan Baka sounds like the Japanese remake of The Golden Girls. Just a bunch of nans being stupid for twenty minutes. I want that now. Make a Golden Girls anime, get some veteran seiyus like Masako Nozawa to play Blanche, and we’ll be square. Ish. – BloodyMarquis

Time Bokan 24

Usually I avoid doing anime for small children on these clusterfucks. For one I’m not the target demographic for this kind of show and find that their frequently repetitive and rather simplistic plots get tiresome real fast.

HOWEVER…this is not just any kids anime, this is Time Bokan and therefore exceptions need to be made.

For those who do not know of Tatsunoko’s semi-long running (give or take decades long hiatuses) franchise or any of the slew of children’s and 70s throwback programing it clearly inspired (ie: Pokemon), here follows a brief description. A pair of kids clad in garish costumes and a variety of robots/mecha do battle with a lady with big tits and her two goonish sidekicks either round the world or across time and space depending on what the theme is that season. Although it is technically a metaseries, the characters are all stock and in the case of the villains even share the same voice actors. Basically if you’ve seen the most famous installment of the franchise, Yatterman, you’ve seen Time Bokan, and TB24, being the first proper new installment since Kaito Kiramekiman in 2000, is no different. Hell, its practically a reboot of the very first series with its horned beetle mecha and time travel theme.

The concept here is that history as we know it is wrong, wrong, wrong and a 24^th century organization called the JKK has been formed to set the record straight…or rather unstraight as it turns out Earth’s history was much, much sillier then we were initially led to believe. Opposing them is the latest version of the Doronbo Gang known as the Akudarma Trio, employees of the world’s leading publisher of history textbooks which is none too pleased that their main source of revenue is getting defaced by the rather embarrassing “truth” and “facts”. Caught in the middle is young Tokio, a poor teenage schlub from the present who got shanghaied to the future by a JKK researcher named Calen and somehow managed to survive the process without proper protection. It doesn’t take long for our hero to drafted into the JKK, strapped to a table on a speeding roller coaster, and flung back to ancient Egypt to discover that Cleopatra wasn’t so much the queen of the Nile as she was half of a bokke-tuskomi act named Cleo and Patra. Why? Because this is Time Bokan and who gives a fuck about being educational.

Time Bokan 24 is pretty much just Time Bokan in its most basic form. Shallow as hell and candy colored to the core. If you were expecting some sort of philosophical deconstruction like Yatterman Night, you’re not gonna get it. Instead just check your brain at the door as its likely to be in throbbing pain by the end. – Lord Dalek

Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru

So, Kantai Collection with Swords? Because that’s what I got from the twenty and so minutes of the first episode. And like Kantai Collection, I don’t remember shit from this after first exposure. Just a snowball fight, one of the characters taking a bath, and the pretty blue one named Yasusada acting like a dope in front of everybody. Also, they do a dumb dance in the opening. It was one of several anime I watched that night where people broke into dance out of nowhere. They could make an anime about quadruple amputees in this day and age, and the characters would still somehow wiggle their bodies for the opening like they owe money to their big daddies.

I had a discussion the other day as to how Touken Ranbu’s appeal was supposed to work. There’s clearly some research delved in to get as many swords as you can, yet I’m not sure how much of that effort really matters in the grand scheme. Sort of like Hetalia. I’ve seen very few Hetalia fans go out of their way to praise the detail in geopolitical relations. I’m most likely missing some, but most fans I see just want England to do dirty sex things to America. And that’s the case here, where I just sit in the haze during any exposition and wonder when someone is going to screw Yasusada’s sword-boypussy until his sword-brain is in pieces. Not sword-pieces though. Mental pieces.

And I’m sure somebody will be mentally broken by the end of this, because it’s written by Pierre Sugiura of Kuma Miko infamy. Remember that cute, but odd bear show that became horrifying in its last breaths? I fully expect to forget about this show for a few months until reading on Twitter how much of a horrorshow the finale was, and how it’s so bad it’s putting them off the second Touken Ranbu anime made by ufotable. Yes, I forgot to mention that. This anime is one of many for the franchise. We’re probably going to get more Touken Ranbus than we can count, even more than there are Prisma Illya seasons. – BloodyMarquis

Yuri!!! on ICE

All right, lets get the obvious joke out of the way… For the uninformed basement dwelling otaku still high on Cheetos and Mountain Dew, Yuri!!! on ICE is possibly the biggest cocktease since Friday the 13^th The Series. It is not a yuri, it stars a guy named Yuuri (just check the katakana!), it is about figure skating and not some girls love relationship that goes sour, and to make matters worse…its actually a yaoi. HA!

Phew now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let’s talk about the best show of the season so far.

First thing you notice about Yuri is the animation. Its good. Its REALLY good. MAPPA’s done some impressive work in the past (say what you will about Terror in Resonance at least it looked snazzy) but even from the op, its clearly we’re approaching KyoAni levels of borderline feature film quality key work here. But its more then just that, there’s actually personality to the animation here and in a week that also gave us the bland soulless CGI work of BBK/BRNK and Bloodivores, to see some genuine emotion come out of an anime is downright refreshing.

Then you notice its actually pretty funny. Not in sort of a funny hahaha, but more of a “oh that’s clever!” chuckle. The show’s got great timing and isn’t trying to beat you to death with forced humor like some other quote-unquote “comedy” anime (including MAPPA’s last venture, the godawful Punch-Line). What is here works because it works. Not because its trying and ultimately failing to work like those other shows.

And then there’s the story. That of a guy who wanted to be his own idol yet failed at it, before coming home to his dismal dump of a hometown unsure of his own personal future. Its sounds really, really traditional on paper but again, the execution is the difference maker here. Yuri is embarrassed about what happened ever since his downward spiral started at Sochi. His family and friends, while meaning well, are only making it worse. And then, when our fairy tale ending kicks in and Yuri’s idol/professional rival Viktor shows up to be his new coach (and unintentionally wag his dick in Yuri’s face), its less of a triumph and more of a “you have got to be fucking kidding me!” moment. Its just… genuine.

Yuri!!! on ICE is this season’s Showa Genroku. A series without much fanfare (well…more than Showa Genroku, natch) that manages to blow the competition away. Even this East German judge liked it. – Lord Dalek