Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

Another anime season, another light novel adaptation. Here’s to another smorgasbord season of crappy LN titles, now adapted for a visual format! We got your isekais, we got your imoutoshit, we got your fantasy harems, we got your crappy vanilla SAO in case you thought the alternative flavor was too tasty, but perhaps the one that has everyone talking is a fantasy anime based on a little novel called Goblin Slayer. Goblin Slayer, the latest “dark” fantasy light novel to get an anime follows the titular character on a quest to slay the green menace known as Goblins. A dude decked out in badass armor on a one-man war that kills his targets in increasingly violent and creative ways. Sounds like a fun, if juvenile, time right? Well, maybe a bit too juvenile. I’ve been cautiously optimistic for the anime almost all year, the metal-sounding title combined with the simple premise, badass looking protagonist, frequent comparisons to DOOM, and promise of a splatterfest of goblin gore got me somewhat interested when I saw it pop up on certain boards. Unfortunately one of the first things I heard about Goblin Slayer was the amount of rape and sexualized violence in the manga adaptation (almost all towards female characters, of course), so already my interest took a plummet, it wasn’t until I learned that most of those elements were only on-page in the manga that my interest slowly climbed back up, this combined with the staff later revealed for the anime, including writer Yosuke Kuroda, whom has worked on some of my favorite such as Gungrave, S-CRY-Ed, Jormungand, and this year’s Gun Gale Online, and had worked alongside co-writer Hideyuki Kurata on Drifters and Hellsing Ultimate. Director Takaharu Ozaki also made a name for himself with last year’s critically acclaimed Girls Last Tour, so with a solid staff combined with White Fox being in charge of animation my anticipation grew, albeit, rather cautiously. Unfortunately my caution was not unfounded.

By the time you read this, you should already be well aware that the Goblin Slayer anime kept in the infamous rape scene from the manga. Somewhat censored, but still enough was shown to make it obvious as to what was happening. As expected, the outrage was insane. Dozens upon dozens of articles twitter threads, youtube videos, and forum posts were made detailing how Goblin Slayer is a terrible anime and you should be ashamed for liking it. While not all criticism was valid (the ones saying its fascist are particularly eye-rolling) but a lot of them made valid points, especially regarding its depiction of rape. Likewise, the pushback against this was also something to behold. Fans, both of the source material and newcomers alike where telling these people that they were overreacting, that this isn’t the only anime to have rape, that manga/manga like Berserk and hundreds of others have had rape depicted in the past, that the rape in those shows were worse than the rape in Goblin Slayer, that the rape was there to show that the Goblins were “really bad guys”, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

To which I have to say to the defense force: “so what”? So what if other anime have shown this in the past? Just because some show had rape in the past, usually more graphic or extreme, does not excuse tasteless depiction in the present, especially when it ends handling the topic even worse than its predecessors did. I myself am a fan of such works like Berserk or most of Yoshiaki Kawajiri or Hideyuki Kikuchi’s early input, and they’re easily my least favorite things about those works, but I can look past them as a relic of their era and the fact that they’re ultimately better written and more engaging works in spite of those elements, not because of them. The “it’s to show how bad the goblins are!” argument is also laughable due to how overused variations of that argument are to justify why rape needs to happen in a given work. If a writer is good enough, they wouldn’t need to shove rape in the first chapter of their work to “show how evil and irredeemable” the villains are, as there are millions of other ways to prove someone’s villainy than to rape a character that will soon be discarded. Just look at DC’s Identity Crisis from last decade; do you really think people took Dr. Light seriously as a villain again after he raped Sue Dibny? No, he just became the butt of even more jokes in the fandom and future writers had no idea what to do with such a character with that on his rap sheet, they very well couldn’t have him in lighthearted stories again, yet they couldn’t successfully write him as a competent villain again without having to address such a heavy issue or ignoring it entirely, and given a choice to write a rapist, or a similarly evil character that doesn’t have such baggage attached to him yet still allowing for more flexible stories like the Joker, it’s easy to see why Dr. Light remains forgotten to this day.

That’s how I feel about the goblins in Goblin Slayer, too vile and despicable to be in lighthearted stories, yet too one dimensionally evil to be part of a nuanced narrative, and if the story just treats them as a typical dangerous threat from now on, then what was the point of them being rapists in the first place? You can spout in-universe justifications as much as you want, but before the rape scene happened the anime honestly did a really good job building them up as a credible threat, it was a staple of a good horror scene; lots of tense build up coupled with false reassurance that things will go well, then the rug is pulled when they show up on screen, the poor cgi actually adding to their unsettling, erratic nature, which only becomes more effective when they start slaughtering the characters we’ve been following up ‘til now…and then the monk’s clothes get ripped off and it all turns into a really bad, low-budget hentai, and the anime loses me. I wasn’t terrified, disgusted sure, in the same way you’d be disgusted if your neighbor went on the street, de-pantsed themselves, and defecated in public. It was like if in the new Halloween movie, they successfully did everything to make Michael scary again with master directing work…but then suddenly he stops and rapes his victim for no real reason. It just comes off as trying too hard and ends up clashing with the tone as a result. And that’s the problem with rape scenes, not just in Goblin Slayer, but with “dark” fiction in general. Too often they resort to on-screen sexual violence (almost exclusively against women) as a means for bad writers to show how “realistic” or “mature” they are without actually saying anything meaningful about the issue, often ignoring the actual repercussions inherent in the act.

People like to argue that everyone acts like rape is a bigger deal than violence in regards to fiction, but in many ways that’s true. There’s a stark difference between seeing a guy brutally slaughter a horde of nameless minions and seeing a character get raped on-screen. The former is usually impersonal, a cathartic spectacle used to excite and entertain a usually fantastic scenario, while the latter is always incredibly personal and all too real as there are victims of the crime that are traumatized by the experience to this day. Such an argument is also disingenuous as it ignores the controversy over fictionalized violence that still happens today, with one of the most recent examples being the backlash against the Death Wish remake earlier this year.

I’ve also noticed that many people that defend Goblin Slayer’s rape scenes also criticize SAO or Akame ga Kill for their use of rape and other edgy elements despite Goblin Slayer not being any better in its use of it. To say that this reeks of hypocrisy would be an understatement. Goblin Slayer is just as guilty of using rape as a shorthand for making its antagonists irredeemable and killing off characters violently for shock value as SAO and AgK are, yet somehow this is the one that has people leap to its defense and praise it as a genuinely good story while other shows remain the butt of jokes on the internet? If anything Goblin Slayer handles its edgy elements worse than its contemporaries as it horribly clashes with what is inherently a silly, fun premise. People like to compare this to Berserk, but for all its faults Berserk has a consistent tone to it, and its unsavory elements, while not expertly handled still have actual repercussions for both the characters and the world, even in the early volumes it was apparent that it was more than just a manga about a lone badass fighting demons and would become more of character drama with the stakes of an epic fantasy novel, whereas Goblin Slayer, by the authors own admission, is a low level fantasy adventure more focused on a specific niche than anything really deep or heavy. Maybe I’ll change my mind if the monk fighter comes back and turns her traumatic experience in the goblin cave into a drive to prevent other women from suffering what she suffered and becomes a fellow goblin hunter, but that sounds a bit too smart for a show such as this.

I know by now that fans are more than sick of hearing everyone talk about the rape in Goblin Slayer, but if you are tired of hearing this discussion over and over, then the blame lies in the series itself for including it in the first place. When you introduce heavy subjects in your work, then be prepared for your portrayal of said subjects to be discussed and your work to be judged according to how you handle those subjects, especially when handled poorly and brought to a new, more visible medium. And really, the fact that so many people are still discussing the subject matter two weeks later is an indicator that there’s unfortunately not much else to Goblin Slayer for the uninitiated.

Now, I’m not saying anything like Goblin Slayer shouldn’t exist or nobody can put rape and other controversial subject matter in their work, or other such nonsense. Every work has the right to exist, everyone has the right to create, and creators have the right to put whatever concept or subject matter they so desire in their work. However, with that also comes the right for that creator, work, and use of that subject matter to be criticized whether they like it or not. Keep in mind that I have no ill will towards the author of the original Light Novel himself; Kumo Kagyu. The guy just wanted to make a cool, dark fantasy book inspired by fantasy books and anime he consumed while growing up, and I can respect and relate to that. It’s clear that his depiction of goblins as evil, depraved rapists was more of a desire to emulate other dark fiction but doing it poorly in typical amateur writer fashion and ignorance, rather than any deep-seated malice, and while he is to blame for including and (presumably) approving it in the first place, the addition of graphic rape in most of Goblin Slayer’s adaptation also lies in the hands of the ones in charge of said adaptations. Ultimately, Goblin Slayer won’t be a commentary and critique on rape culture, and the society lets those evils slip away because that’s not the story Kagyu had in mind nor is it his vision, but just yet another misstep of a young writer not understanding the topics his own work perpetuates. Unfortunately, the vision Kagyu does have leaves a lot to be desired, as Goblin Slayer is still plagued with a ton of issues that hinder its enjoyment and verisimilitude.

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To be continued.

La Bizzare Aventura di GioGio Cinco Parte: Vento Aureo

Its the Giorno show! Hoooray! The bastard son of Dio Brando/Jonathan Joestar is alive and well and driving cabs in Naples. But most importantly… he tastes like A LIAR! Of course when you’re being tongued by by a man in white Gucci pretty much anything tastes like a liar. In other news, Koichi is back!…because Josuke was obviously too busy beating up delinquents who disssed his haircut, and Yukako still wants his precious fluids. Also Jotaro shows up for 3 minutes before hopping on a plane to pay Jolyne’s child support. Oh those wacky Joestars! HAHAHAHAHA…nothing happened in this episode.

Yeah Golden Wind’s first episode is probably the weakest we’ve had since Dio The Invader way back in Season 1. The problem being that it simply introduces a bunch of characters we don’t really like out of the gate with some less interesting returning ones to give/receive infodumps about why Araki STILL has a hard on for Dio. It’ll get better, I know that. This isn’t the second most popular JoJo arc in Japan for nothing. But for a first episode, I was somewhat underwhelmed. So how many months before King Crimson/Epitaph/whatever shows up again? – Lord Dalek

Boarding School Juliet

Oh boy howdy, just what we needed! Yet another Romeo and Juliet thing, and one set in a fancy high school too so you can squint and pretend Ouran or Utena are back on TV again! Look at all these wacky high schoolers fighting each other without any adult supervision! Oh look! It’s blacks versus whites, and by that I mean the colors of their uniforms! Look at this rich high school student act wacky! Isn’t that wacky?! But wait, the main characters are called Romio and Juliet! Why is Romeo’s name spelled like that?! I don’t know! See, Juliet’s the leader of her team of whites! But get this, it’s shocking because she’s… a woman?! Oh no, a woman leading a high school dorm?! Silly Japanese animes! Wondering if this will have anything to do with Shakespeare?! Gosh! Isn’t that a mystery?! Mercutio? More like Mercuckio!

But the biggest surprise of all is that… Juliet almost gets gang-raped by a bunch of blacks! Guys in black school uniforms, I mean! Tee-hee-hee! But in the nick of time, Romio saves her vagina from getting filled with gooey vanilla extract! And instead of thanking him, she’s pissed! She thinks getting saved from rape is just as bad as getting raped… because she explains it would hurt her reputation if people found out she needed to get saved… and I’d like to reiterate the alternative to getting saved would have been getting gang-raped harder than a girl from Goblin Slayer! And the fight goes on and the fights goes on and the fight g—wait, did Romeo, I mean, Romio say he loved Juliet!? Color my shock! So after more arguing, Romio and Juliet becomes boyfriend and girlfriend! But only in public because of Juliet’s reputation! It’s funny because she’s a fucking tsundere! Man! I loved this anime! It was so fucking gnarly! Almost as gnarly as fucking my girlfriend while hooking Capri Sun right into my veins! – !!!!!!!!!!!!

Conception

You know…when I was looking over this season’s Anichart, one show in particular stood out amongst the rest of the pack. One show dared to go above and beyond the call of duty to provide a concept that spelled exactly what it meant on the box. And it lived up exactly to my expectations. That show was Conception, and it is… by far… the worst show of the season.

So what’s the deal here? Well its another isekai!…strike one…its based off a game by Spike Chunsoft!…strike two…and its made by Gonz—YOU’RE OUT! Oh all right what else could possibly be wrong with this? Oh just the plot. Two high schoolers find themselves warped into a fantasy land when our lead normal guy’s girlfriend suddenly admits she’s pregnant…despite being a virgin. Well actually she’s not, its all part of a dastardly plan to save the universe by having normal dude impregnate several other fantasy world girls to defeat the impurities or something. Because apparently he can’t do it alone but the product of his hot member can. Also because this was based off a game by the Danganronpa guys, Monokuma is in this except he’s now an annoying perverted tanooki instead of an annoying perverted Panda. Terrific!

…no its not terrific, its disgusting. I feel morally appauled by the display here. This show is nothing but disgusting trash. Let us never speak of it again. – Lord Dalek

Second Opinion Once Removed

They’re not just boyfriend and girlfriend, Dalek. They’re cousins. They’re cousins, and they had sex in the first episode. – BloodyMarquis

Third Verse Same As The First

Oh dear god you’re right. See this is what happens when my mind is still boggled over that one cat girl and her ridiculous spinal column doing a squat thrust. I mean really…

How the fuck is this supposed to work Marquis? You’re supposed to be the genius. I just work here! — Lord Dalek

DOUBLE DECKER! DOUG & KIRILL

Well here it is… Tiger & Bunny 2! …sorta. For many, Double Decker! was a complete surprise when it was originally revealed and a complete disappointment to T&B’s army of fujoshi, who demanded more Kotetsu and Barnaby and instead got Not-Kotetsu and Not-Barnaby, when it was finally announced. I honestly didn’t care. While I enjoyed the first half of Tiger & Bunny, the second was a complete buzzkill of increasingly uninteresting plotlines that I still can’t be bothered to actually finish. Yeah. Its been 6 years and I don’t care anymore. However this is a brand new show! Surely they couldn’t possibly make the same mistakes again!

Well good news! They haven’t! …they’ve made it so that I don’t give a fuck about anything!

Yeah this show is about emotionally fullfilling as that cheap ham sandwich I had for lunch the other day. Apparently the team at Sunrise decided that the most important feature of Tiger & Bunny was the visual look and have gone all in on it. So now we have more rediculous architecture, weird cars, and bad haircuts. And what did they lose in return? Oh…just likable characters…a plot that makes sense…something that isn’t immediately annoying. Remember how you were really into Kotetsu and Barnaby’s early squabblings? How it made you emotionally invested in the Jake Martinez fight (whichthesecondhalfjustspatonitfuckTiger&BunnyThanksForRemindingMe)? Well that’s gone now. Doug is your typical (ie: BORING) cool professional detective of few words and Kirill is just a plain annoying version of Riggs from Lethal Weapon. And the plot, what little there is, is just The Wire…but camp. There is no real development here. The show is too infatuated with its lore and fictional universe to care. And if the show doesn’t care than neither do I.

But there is one thing that makes me laugh…if this makes it onto Toonami in three weeks (the dub is already out) then the salt of the bros who were begging for Tiger & Bunny 6 years ago will be even greater and more delicious than anything those fujoshi could dish out. And this is clearly all I have to live for now. Salt. – Lord Dalek

The Girl in Twilight

Seriously? This season couldn’t go one day without another Isekai show? Wait…scratch that, couldn’t go one day without TWO isekai shows??? I thought we were supposed to be finally getting rid of this crappy genre when Kadokawa banned ’em from their submission contests. And then I realize that that Slime show is actually from a LN from several years ago and the one with the Aikatsu rejects and their silly radio is an original pile o’ poo. This is where we are now people. Japan’s major publishing houses may be giving isekai the boot but animu will always be eternally pandering.

Whelp… guess I can’t put this off for much longer. Settle it with a coin flip. Heads its Sparkle Vampire Precure, tails its off-brand moe dragon quest.

*flip*

The choice is made.

So in this show a bunch of girls who all look kinda dead inside use a cheap offbrand walkman to cross over into an alternate world that can’t tell if its Clannad’s Illusionary World or the Drifting Classroom. However they get more than they bargained for when the magical girl doppleganger of the series’ lead protagonist hitches a ride back to our world for no apparent reason because she owns a REAL Walkman. And then…she leaves!…’k

So what was the point of Girl in Twilight? Lord if I know. There’s no setup, no payoff, and no return value. It does have yellow snow and rabbit snake monsters though. Yay? – Lord Dalek

Irozuku: The World in Colors

Why is every PA Works anime about some wistful young adult girl trying to find her role in life as she moves to a new land? I don’t get this formula they keep holding on to. Sometimes it can work wonders like in Shirobako, but that’s the rare time it actually works instead of producing yet another dull anime. You think anybody still gives a shit about Red Data Girl? Show after show of coming of age tales produced by a text generator powered with Mari Okada’s blood. Sure, PA Works shows are shiny, and have pretty backgrounds. But KyoAni’s also shiny with pretty backgrounds, and they don’t get a pass for producing bad shows either. And while KyoAni moved on and started producing different kinds of schlock, PA Works has still been producing works that appeal to people who still think Your Name is the deepest anime ever. Or if you read that chapter of Elfen Lied where it turned out that one girl wore diapers, and you were emotionally moved by that instead of laughing. Because if that appeals to you, Iroduku will be your favorite anime this season.

Here, we have a girl in the year 2078 who’s sad because she’s colorblind. In sixty years of future technology, they somehow lost the ability to make glasses for the colorblind. So instead of trying to help her, her grandma sends her back to 2018 without her consent, any guides, or any money. And we’re treated to this utterly heartbreaking story where a teenage girl has no idea how windows or band-aids work. Instead of asking questions to these past people or getting angry at her grandmother for doing this, she just walks around confused like every other wistful girl in PA Works shows. And instead of playing this for comedy, we’re supposed to think this is sad. This kind of shit could make people feel like middle-aged dads concerned of their out of touch with their teenage daughters, when they themselves are actually daughterless teenagers. Maybe if you’re the kind of person who thinks watching a teenage girl spin in a circle with her arms in the air while people are watching is heartwarming instead of silly, you can get something out of this. – BloodyMarquis

My Sister, My Writer

Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja nai is a real gemstone among this sea of anime. While i am a huge fan of goblin slayer (do not judge me) i cannot help but feel my true emotions may be swayed by this underrated darling. The socalled critics might say this show is bad because they think incest is bad, but that is a fallacy. Those people are SJW shills paid by crunchyroll and i do not accept false agendas. i think incest as fiction is perfect as an escapist fantasy for masculine men such as myself (do not judge me). Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja nai is about the darling Suzuka Nagami, a beauty with wonderful lavender hair who does everything for her brother Yu. She is the best person Yu could have and in a twist she writes a light novel all about how she wants to do sexy things with him but denies she wants to do sexy things with him so she keeps everything under wraps as her brother meets up with light novel editors with big boobs. i really liked the scene where the editor makes Yu grab her boob because i thought that was funny and a little bit hot (please do not judge me). Twenty years ago in middle school my chinese classmate Sofia Vu said i touched her cunt in a bad place and my teacher Mrs. Lincolnshire said i would go to detention. Well jokes on you two fat roasties because i am still here. i hope you in particular Mrs. Lincolnshire have alzheimer right now and i hope Sofia does not know i look at her twitter every day and tweet gore pictures and rape threats to her on burner accounts.

Yu reminds me very much of myself when i was his age. i was taunted by the small boobed girls too and i want to pay them back. i read books too just like Yu like the books of jordan peterson. It is a shame that there was not a scene where Yu was attacked by several black men (like jason dahmer I SWEAR to god jason dahmer I will doxx you and tell you that you are a BAD person one day) because that would have made my life quite similar to Yu. If i had a sister i would be very nice to her i would tell her her hair is nice and that she has nice boobs. If she wanted me to pet her cunt i would. i know that petting your sisters cunt is a no-no but i do not care (DO NOT JUDGE ME YOU FUCKS!!!). If gay men and gay women can be allowed to exist why not incest? i think wanting to pet your sisters cunt fur is normal and anybody who says it is not normal is a bad person. i am not the degenerate. You are. i am not a rapist. i am not a stalker. i am a healthy young man who just wants a girl to play with. Please go on my tinder profile (ID withheld for this guy’s personal safety. – Foggle) and let me know if you want to play with me. i am very nice and do not hurt women unlike black people like jason dahmer. (I WILL STARE AT YOUR TWITTER EVERY DAY AND MAKE YOU KNOW YOU ARE WATCHED JASON DAHMER I WILL MAKE YOU KNOW YOU ARE A BAD PERSON) – SwampRationalist222

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

You know that “spot the main character in a crowd” meme, where the poster shows pictures of various anime where almost everybody in the shot has brown/black hair and regular clothes while the main character has weird colored hair and clothes out of a fashion catalog or Final Fantasy game? The show could use that, because the main character disappears into the crowd several times through this episode. He makes no impression as a person for the entire first half, visually or emotionally. He even blurs into the crowd, as everybody in this show has brown/gray/black hair with drab clothing on. And one could say that’s the point when the main girl shows up in a bunny girl costume to contrast with the rest of the background. As the plot unfolds, her goal is revealed: She used to be famous, but after her fame waned, she became invisible and unseen by anyone except the main character. Maybe that’s the point. About how fame is fleeting, yet it’s the only thing that can allow us to become more than just background extras.

Except the cast are boring. Aside from the main girl dressing up in a bunny girl costume at a library, none of the characters deliver a striking first impression at all. And even after the costume, she doesn’t have much to say about herself as a person. Just that she used to be a celebrity and now she’s no longer acknowledged due to the magic in this show’s universe. Yeah, the series could be making a point over how celebrities and idols become something akin to ghosts after they make so much as a single decision, but this message would have worked more if the show’s world and people were more interesting. For now, I feel like I’m watching no-name characters scared of becoming no-names. If anything, it was like watching Monogatari without all of Shinbo’s stylistic choices. The girl even acted like Senjougahara while having a similar plight as her and Hachikuji. And while the Monogatari series became tiring, at least the direction kept my eyes focused. With that all gone in Bunny Girl Senpai, all you have is a snore. – BloodyMarquis

Release The Spyce

Ok, stop me yf you’ve heard thys one before. A group of ioung gyr—no yts not K-On, god what ys wyth iou people and K-On? That show was 10 iears ago.

Startyng agayn, a group of ioung girls are trayned nyn–no no no, yts not Senran Kagura. Please never mentyon that show agayn.

Now, a group of ioung gyrls are trayned nynjas and assassyns yn a futur–Pryncess Pryncyple? No. That was STEAMPUNK not the future, man get your scyfy genres strayght.

Once agayn. a group of ioung gyrls are trayned nynjas and assassyns yn a futurystyc world where they represent the reyncarnatyons of–no Kantay Collectyon was a show about gyrls who were boats! There’s a byg dyfference between boats and samurays.

No more ynterruptyons. A group of ioung gyrls are trayned nynjas and assassyns yn a futurystyc world where they represent the reyncarnatyons of hystorycal Edo peryod samuray and warlords and eat spyci foods to become lethal kyllyng machynes.

Wow, Y just realized Y lyteralli just descrybed the plotlynes of 75% of anyme released yn the last fyve iears. Whi didn’t iou warn me? Whi?

So aniwai, Release The Spice? More like, Release The Generic, myryte? Aye iay iay iay iay iay! – ??????

RErideD – Derrida, who leaps through time.

In the words of Sir Alec Guinness: Yoshitoshi ABe-san, ABe-san, now that’s a name I haven’t heard since…oh…before you were born. Once upon a time he was at the forefront of TV anime’s seinen rennaisance, co-creating Serial Experiments Lain and Texhnolyze with Chiaki Konaka and developing NieA_7 and Haibane Renmei on his own time, all seminal titles in that era when Pioneer LDC was king of the anime mountain before Dentsu’s incompetence turned ’em into the dumpster fire that was Geneon. Yeah ABe was a real rising star in the anime world, and then…(poof) he just disappeared into a puff of smoke.

But now, he’s back! And its like he never went away too because RerideD looks like a show from 2005!

Yeah I don’t know who Studio Geektoys is, but RErideD is an embarrassing debut for them. Character designs are flat and bland. CGI is about on par with a low budget toy commercial anime of the era. And the animation itself is just plain lifeless. This is completely unacceptable now and it was only borderline acceptible back in the day. Guess ABe really needed the Pioneer money and studios like the long dead Triangle Staff to fulfill his purposes.

As for the first episode…well…remember Blue Gender? Well that’s what RErideD is. Blue Gender but with robots instead of cabbages. And the only reason I know this is because they shove it all into the last 3 minutes of the episode. The rest is just bulidup and exposition about why our cutrate Steins;Gate knock off scientist guy protagonist literally just stumbles into a cryogenic container right as the robopocalypse is about to occur. Also time travel is involved, because you can’t have a good robopocalypse story with time travel. Ain’t that right James Cameron?

God what a waste. ‘scuse me while I go back to watching Lain. – Lord Dalek

SSSS.GRIDMAN

If there was ever a studio that was the clinical definition of bipolar as of late, it must be Studio Trigger. Swinging from the dizzying highs of Kill La Kill, Space Patrol Luluco (well for some people), and Little Witch Academia to the soul crushing lows of Inou Battle, Ninja Slayer, Kiznaiver, and the dumpster fire that was Darling in the FranXX. This is a studio that hangs on a trapeze suspended over a vat of angry crocodiles constantly snapping at its legs and occasionally biting its feet clean off. And no show of theirs that I have seen could be viewed as a better metaphor for this than the first episode of SSSS.GRIDMAN.

A sequel of sorts to the early 90s Ultra-Series spinoff Hyper Agent Gridman, which got a surprisingly faithful US adaptation as Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad (the show title makes references to both), SSSS.GRIDMAN is about as entertaining as watching paint dry for its first 12 minutes. The animation is to put it mildly…limited, going from no frames, to recycled frames, to awkward pauses and actual stills. There is no background music of any sort. And the character designs, while more appealing on a surface level than Trigger’s usual scratch style, are of the “stare blandly into the camera variety.” And when the most dramatic moment of the entire episode pre-commercial break is that of a hot dog getting hit with a volleyball you get the feeling that they don’t have as much material on this script as you would like.

And then…the Kaiju attack occurs…and it is glorious.

Where once there was no animation to be seen, now there is too much. The episode’s musical score kicks in at about 15 minutes and it is stirring orchestral stuff from mah man Shiro Sagisu. Fitting considering all the blatant nods to Evangelion. And the injokes to other Tsuburaya products just coming. This…this is what I paid my monthly Crunchyroll dues to see, shame then that it only lasts 5 minutes, just like your average live action kaiju of the week show.

This then brings up the question…Is SSSS.GRIDMAN worth your time? From this episode alone? I’m not sure. While it does eventually hit a grand slam home run in its second half, by that point the away team was already up 15-2. Give it three weeks? Yeah sure, but Trigger really needs to work on their pacing if they want me to approve that opening slog.

But most importantly…where the hell is Baby Don Don? I was promised Baby Don Don in that concept short they did two years ago. Unacceptable, Trigger! 40 whacks with a wet noodle for ye! – Lord Dalek

Sword Art Online: Alicization

…

We meet again.

…

(sigh)

Yup its been almost five years since the last series of Shit Art! A hiatus brought on by everyone’s favorite light novel adaptation momentum killing brickwall: running out of stuff to adapt. You see kids, when the first anime season arrived in 2012, Reki Kawahara had a lot of material already published in the form of his original web serialization. However, midway through this arc, SAO was picked up for publication by ASCII Mediaworks Dengeki Bunko, and Kawahara abandoned the webnovel all together for proper light novel releases. This meant that Alicization which was already twice as long as Phantom Bullet would ultimately take SIX years to finish and the anime caught up, leading to this long dry spell broken up by the semi-canon anime only filler movie Ordinal Scale….which I still have not seen.

But now, here we are, Alicization, for all intent and purposes the FINAL SERIES OF SWORD ART ONLINE BECAUSE HE HASN’T WRITTEN A COMPLETELY NEW ARC SINCE IT NO MOON CRADLE DOESN’T COUNT. There have been casualties though. Long time director Tomohiko Ito and character designer Shingo Adachi are GONE. You can tell from the radically different look to the season with softer lines and lighter pastel pallet choices. It resembles abec/bunbun/whatever’s original llustrations far more than the previous series ever did. It actually looks really good. I’m shocked.

But really, visuals don’t matter. This is SAO of course! Its problems are far beneath the surface. And Alicization’s problem is that its “good SAO”. In other words…its boring. Alicization was a horribly overwritten arc which wasted 50 pages on Kirito and his new pal Eugeo cutting down a tree with a ripoff of the first quest from Lunar The Silver Star thrown in for zest. The kind of shit that gives editors coronaries.

…Guess what! Its all here! They actually made this episode twice as long to fit it in! And this is already a 52 episode adaptation because the arc was 9 volumes long! Oh god.

Well anyway, the second half of the episode is basically catching up with the SAO gang durring their long hiatus..of sorts. Sinon’s found a new Brew Crew in the Moar Deban gang of Kline, Lizbeth, and Silica (and Kirito is still playing as pretty girl for no apparent reason). There’s some guy named Subtilzer (an American asshole who’s probably Kawahara’s version of that Player Unknown guy) whom Sinon wants to smash a shovel over. Asuna now has a silly cellphone app that monitors poor Kazuto’s heartbeat like any creepy doting e-waifu would (oh just fuck for real and make Kuroyukihime already). And then Kazuto GETS MURDERED! YAAAAAAAY

…alas no. Its just the setup for the first ½ of this episode involving Kirito’s new day job beta testing a new fulldive machine and its pseudo-Westworld simulation of real life moving at 5000x. An “Accel World” if you will…goddammit.

Also long discussions of pipes and electrons and how they tie into the human soul. Yeah this is just SAO again Fuck you Kawahara! – Lord Dalek

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

Isekai shows are like Mad Libs at this point. (BLANK) gets killed by a (BLANK) and reincarnates as a (BLANK) in a fantasy world that suspiciously resembles a standard JRPG where he hooks up with a (BLANK) girl, a (BLANK) girl, and an underage (BLANK). It’s been more copied and standardized than anything from Joseph Campbell’s books. The only difference in this subject in particular is the main character turns into a little blob of slime. Something that sounds like a funny subversion of the tired cliché at first, but then I read some chapters ahead and see he becomes overpowered and gains his own harem anyway just like many, many shows these past years. This past year. This past season. Seeing our lead play around as a slime ball is only a distraction for what’s going to come after, and in fact what we get in this very episode.

Instead of letting the main character figure out things for himself, we get this obnoxious narration that explains all of his bodily functions and abilities like this was meant to be a video game instead of a show. The first episode feels exactly like watching a game tutorial, with all the handholding that goes along with such a bizarre and unhelpful creative decision. If I wanted to watch a guy play a tutorial of some bog-standard game for twenty minutes, I would watch some guy on Youtube fuck up for half an hour. Or maybe that will be the point. Maybe it will be like Re:Zero and show all the horrors of a person getting trapped in a video game-like fantasy, but nothing implies that will be the case.

Like when the slime ball meets a giant elder dragon who further explains to him parts of the worldbuilding, while acting standoffish to him at the same time. And just to hammer home how much of an anime this anime is, the slime actually says the word “tsundere”. Just so we can go “Ahahaha! This anime’s referencing tropes! The tropes it’s using at this very moment! It’s so meta!” It’s not dialogue that sounds like something from real people. It’s dialogue which sounds like the creator’s only idea of dialogue came from other anime, games and light novels. And because this anime apparently has some hype to it judging from reception on other sites, future creators are going to look up to this anime, and pattern their dialogue after this, whose works will influence creators of their future, and so on and so on until dialogue in anime sounds like an imitation of an imitation. Devolving and simplifying with each incarnation until even a random text generator could come up with more human-like speech patterns. And if that were to occur, anime years from now will be as detailed and as fully formed as… well, a blob of slime. – BloodyMarquis

ZOMBIE LAND SAGA

It starts like any other idol show. In 2008, a bubbly middle schooler, who looks like she missed the casting call for Aikatsu, wants to be a member of her favorite idol group. She lives her life in a care free world where everything is sunshine and rainbows. Yup, for this girl, NOTHING POSSIBLY COULD GO WR—oh wait she just got run over by a passing truck (probably the same one that was supposed to hit that bitch Fuuka last year if it was actually an adaptation of the manga)! And then everything goes straight to hell! That charming bubbly soundtrack gets replace by DEATH SCREAM METAL!!!(TM) The title credits are covered in BLOOOOD SPLAAAAAATERS! And it all ends with a bone crushing THUD!!! as her lifeless corpse smacks the pavement!

….congratulations Zombie Land Saga you’ve already won the season and I’m only three minutes in!

What follows is almost as amazing. In the present day, an unhinged man with delusions of grandure and a copy of the Necronomicon says to himself… “Hey! Just trying to bring the dead back to life to cause the end of civilization is too passe! What we should really do is play Idolm@ster with zombies!” In order to carry out his devious plan, he gathers up the corpses of several famous idols from the early 80s to the present who all died premature deaths, including Ai-not-su from the opening teaser for some reason. Why? Who cares! This show is a laugh riot! Also because only main girl zombie is capable of speech at the moment (most of the rest start talking by the end), our idol group can only do one kind of music…scream metal…WONDERFUL!

Zombie Land Saga is this year’s sleeper, a show that I had little to no interest in that immediately starts winning and winning and doesn’t stop winning. It almost makes this season worth living for–*sees SAO: Alicization and Raildex 5 coming up on Saturday* …almost. – Lord Dalek

A Certain Scientalogical Accleraildex V

La comedia e finita!

So I was seeing all the hype for that Crossover Nexus short on Cartoon Network, and saw an interesting amount of fan attention to the titular character from Whatever Happened to Robot Jones pop up. And it was weird, because compared to the other Cartoon Network shows that aired in the early 00s, Robot Jones was like the stepchild. Only airing 13 half-hour episodes before disappearing into the void, as any fans the show could find desperately scrounged through their tape recordings to see if they can find one where he has his original synthetic voice or the Bobby Block version. Unlike other short-lived shows like Time Squad or Sheep in the Big City, fans had to find the ones with the original voice or overlay the original voice on copies with the altered one. Like a much tinier equivalent to what occurred with the Star Wars Despecialized Editions. It’s a cult fandom within a cult fandom, one too tiny for Cartoon Network to acknowledge but big enough for Ian Jones-Quartey to use the original voice all these years later. And after watching some of these episodes for the first time in over a decade, it’s not hard to see why.

I find it funny to compare Robot Jones with the other Cartoon Network show that came out in 2002: Kids Next Door. KND was a show where kids could build weapons, go on adventures, and fight back against their adults. That show portrays a universe where any child can become a spy who goes on fun missions and larger-than-life thrillers. Robot Jones was a show where the kid has an intelligence and abilities that no other human in their prime could ever possess, yet Robot’s treated like a second-class citizen. He doesn’t live an extraordinary life. He doesn’t even live an equal life. For all his talents, Robot Jones is a misfit in his society. Even when he tried to show off, he failed either due to lack of tact or outside elements like his bullies the Yogmans.

And there’s a cynicism to that which other Cartoon Network shows lacked. As much as Johnny Bravo or the Ed boys were attacked, they often started the trouble. The Ed boys were schemers. Johnny was a hopeless flirt. But Robot Jones didn’t have that. He was just a robot who wanted to go to school and make friends. He only wanted to do well and be seen as good. And for that, he was often dealt the short side of the rod. Imagine if Rolf were the main character of Ed, Edd, n’ Eddy, and he was treated as badly as the Eds were even though his personality, behavior, and actions were completely unchanged. That’s what Robot Jones is, a first-generation immigrant leaving his sheltered existence only to find out society is nothing like he assumed it would be. Every time he tries to do his best, there are rules or principles he’s never previously heard of getting in his way and throwing him right back into the ground again.

Not only that, but the show itself lacked that polish other CN series had. The Schoolhouse Rock style has been harped on for ages, but the comparison still rings true. The show doesn’t reference the 80s, but embodies the decade to the point where Robot Jones feels like a series out of time. One developed, then forgotten, only to be unearthed by archivists and aired for novelty’s sake. And as a series that got so little attention from its network, that lack of supervision allowed the show to delve into topics like politics, puberty, and even gender fluidity. Not quite to the level of later CN shows, but definitely a building block. A prototype, if you will. With all that unclean artstyle, and a setting where bad things happen to good people, the work almost feels like a G-rated Bakshi movie. And I don’t mean Bakshi’s actual G-rated material, but his grungier work such as Heavy Traffic, with all the nudity and swearing cut out but the bittersweet rumination of life and failure still kept in tact. Take the Finkman episode or the Rubix Cube one. Robot Jones attempts to win his crush over, or tries to show to the kids that he has a talent. But thanks to another robot who has a better ability to befriend and manipulate humans, or two kids who just want to ruin Robot’s life, he fails. And those episodes end with him unable to do anything about the bad hand he’s given.

Yet when you look at the show superficially, it’s all rather by the books. Here’s a boy. Here are his nerd friends. Here are his bullies. Here’s the girl he has a crush on. Here’s his clueless teacher. Here’s his angry principal. Here’s his embarrassing parents. A similar structure that you can apply to so many other cartoons like all the variations of Doug. In fact, during the second season, the series loses grasp of its original voice in more than one way. In the first season, the series creator Greg Miller has a solo writing credit on half the episodes and directed them all with Rob Renzetti helping him on the fifth. But in the second, he doesn’t direct any of the episodes and only has a solo writing credit on one. As a result, the show loses that personal touch and produces typical episodes about Robot Jones playing hookey or having a house party. Typical school plots were also aplenty in the first season, but this lack of development was far from Greg Miller’s original idea of where the show should go. Like his planned ending involving a robot apocalypse.

But while Robot Jones was swept under the rug almost as soon as it started, the series could still be said to be ahead of its time. The smorgasbord of 80s references were later refined in Regular Show. The garage band soundtrack reminds greatly of FLCL’s The Pillows which would swoon the hearts of Adult Swim executives not too long after Robot Jones was cancelled. The Macintalk voices which Cartoon Network despised would eventually be used in Wall-E to great effect. Perhaps if Robot Jones were made years later, the series would have found greater appreciation. A period piece cartoon that paradoxically aired too early. And thanks to this mistiming, you have viewers genuinely asking to themselves “Whatever happened to Robot Jones?”