11.12
Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon
"Random Gundam Wing picture to show how much I care about Antimagic..." -- Bloody Marquis, 2015
I looked at the Japanese title for this show and thought this was another season of Health and Physical Fitness for 35 Year Olds, so I’m both pleasantly surprised and disappointed to see this is only moderately sexual. Instead, it’s just another one of the LN shows about a guy and his quest for the regular mix of magic and poon. There’s really no structural difference between this and the other two, Asterisk War and I-Forgot-And-Am-Too-Lazy-To-Look-Up-On-MyAnimeList, so the same criticisms of those two apply. Seriously, just reread those pieces and pretend it’s the one for AntiMagic. The only difference is that they wear green. That’s it. That’s literally it. You could have just watched the first episode of Mahouka or that show about the unbreakable siscon show and gotten the same experience. Honestly, we should have just copy pasted our stuff from that here and none of you would have noticed. I’m too tired to rewatch the episode to write about it. There are better things in life than to watch another one of these animes, even being addicted to prescription painkillers while glared at by your old George W Bush poster. George W Bush loves you and doesn’t want you to watch bad anime. Buushu ga daisuki desu. — Bloody Marquis
Brave Beats
Brave Beat It!
This is the replacement/pseudosequel to Tribe Cool Crew, that pointless fugly dance anime that Sunrise spat out before the production unit got “kicked upstairs” and became BN Pictures. But its also the surprise (perhaps unofficial) return of the old Brave Saga franchise that nobody gives two shits about outside of Japan except for Gaogaigar. Yes friends, Tri-Cool was actually Brave Saga! True it didn’t have any giant robots or hotblooded heroes or long spiky hair that wouldn’t be out of place in a Togashi manga, but all that’s passe now. This show is by Sunrise (you’re not fooling anyone BN!), it has the word “Brave” in the title, and hair does get pretty damn spiky. Its Brave Saga.
Or is it?
Surprise again! Brave Beats is actually a ripoff of that other show that airs an hour later on its very same network, Precure! Namely Suite because the main kid is named Hibiki and I swear to god that was probably intentional. No seriously, replace the main kid’s robot for a cute animal fairy mascot (and there IS a cute animal fairy mascot in this show to boot) and you’ve literally got Precure. Fantasy creatures banished from fantasy lands, multiple objects that adversely effect people and have to be collected by the main characters, FRICKEN CGI TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCES WITH HAIR COLOR CHANGES, they’re not even trying to hide it!
My guess as to why this show exists is because it was designed to make you feel less guilty when you hit the streets of Akihabara. Hey Mistah Figma-shop man! I’ll take a Flash Beat!!!!andalimitededitionmanachan. Guilt? What guilt?!? This is a show for little BOYS not little girls! But that’s just a placebo really because you’re just gonna watch that week’s Go!Princess anyway. C’est la vie — Lord Dalek
The Perfect Insider
One?
Noitamina broadcasters gonna Noitamina. Let’s get this out of the bag since every blog discussing the show will say it: This anime is pretty damn pretentious. Before you say I’m exaggerating or too simpleminded to get The Perfect Insider, I can understand the plot just fine. It’s another murder mystery where the main character can’t trust the sleuth because he could potentially be a suspect. Also, someone or their doll killed their own parents. Take all the pondering out of the way, and that was basically it. And that’s where the pretentious part comes in, because there is much more contemplating than is warranted for a first episode. Characters blurt out monologues about how the value of living life every day is as superficial as booting up your computer, and I just sit there thinking, “Gee, that sucks. But I don’t know you.”
Though I think the anime expects you to know fully well what’s going on given how unexpectedly big its mother franchise is. The story first came from a book that was subsequently adapted into a manga, a visual novel, a J-Drama, and now an animated series. This will be the fifth go-around for long-time fans, and I’m not sure how faithful this is to any of the previous adaptations, but I think more than a few viewers will be out of the loop when watching this. They’re expected to know what kind of show this is from the get-go, and instead of any explanation or necessary exposition, there’s lectures about why the number seven is the loneliest number and other meandering nonsense. These characters care so much about hearing themselves talk that they don’t even care where their topic even goes a minute into a conversation.
I guess you could say it’s existential, and Saikawa and Nishinosono’s endless dialogues with each other are meant to be a blind chase to discover their own identities. Every moment of them talking is filled with philosophical filibustering about why freedom is lost due to knowledge or why life is hard due to failure to answer three basic questions. But Mersault they are not. Not one moment in their speeches am I ever convinced they are worth listening to. The only action happening consisted of eating bean cakes, driving, and taking eyedrops. Any real development through their talking is absent, leading them to go in circles as to what their thoughts are meant to ultimately become. I fear this might become another Terror in Resonance, where lots of intrigue ultimately has little to no payoff. — Bloody Marquis
Second Opinion!
That was the most boring, meandering, pretentious, shallow, soulless, self-serious, square-enix bullshit 20 minutes I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing.
I’m not gonna give you a synopisis because that would imply I gave two shits about the characters, their well-being, the world, or its setting. Yeah, I suppose the plot would be simple to follow if one payed attention, but by the time the characters went on their dozenth or so diatribe about coffee or whatever I just zoned out. Not one character made an impression outside of the protagonist, and that’s just because she looks sorta like Mako from Kill la Kill. All of them exist solely to spout out gibberish nonsense and dialogue that reads like it was written by some 17-year old emo cunt. Hell, I hesitate to even call them characters because none of them have any memorable traits to speak of, they’re more like mouthpieces than anything, and like most bad writers, they expect people to care about what they have to say when we know nothing about them. When all is said and done why should anyone care what happens to these people? I certainly don’t, nor do I want to learn more about them, and I’m certaintly not interested in the larger franchise this show is apparently part of. Perfect Insider fails to entertain in any conceivable way, do yourself a favor and don’t waste any time on this bull.
Cool OP and ED though. — Crimson Rynnec
Testament of Sister New Devil BURST
THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT.
Shows like this are why I really don’t like this new trend in Anime of doing so-called “split cour” shows. There was absolutely no reason to bring Testament back whatsoever other than the makers already had a 24 episode commitment and wanted to stretch the agony as far out as possible. Did anybody like season 1? No of course not! But that doesn’t matter, we’re still stuck with the sequel anyway.
Watching the episode is just a reaffirmation of that uselessness. When one of your first shots is that of Mio subconciously engaging her erogenous zones over Oneesan, you immediately can tell there’s nothing good coming out of this. When your climax consists of dressing your two primary female characters like dogs to lick “master’s” feet in order to become stronger, that pretty much confirms that ecchi has hit an all-time low/critical mass. This show is no longer about battles against various demons (although we still get that…for 30 seconds), nope its about rolling on the floor to prove how “mature” you are. Going back to the ending of last season, I guess that’s kind of a fitting trend since that’s where the show was going anyway (ie: no place decent).
Last January we at least had ISUCA around to make Testament “look good”. This season, that’s simply not the ca-OH WAIT THERE’S VALKYRIE DRIVE WELL LETS PRETEND I HAVEN’T WATCHED IT YET. As such, the urge to flunk it even more exists. There’s nothing here that wouldn’t be out of place in a crappy old 90’s OVA. Hell there’s nothing here that wouldn’t be out of place in a legitmate hentai save for the fact it simply doesn’t go “all the way”. Well I know of a place where Testament can go all the way to. The garbage bin. — Lord Dalek
Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid
It hurts me more than you.
To borrow a phrase from one of our era’s great philosophers, a mister Thomas A. Servo, every time I feel like I’ve watched the worst anime ever made along comes the worst anime ever made. Its Diabolik Lovers, then its Dragonar, then its Mahouka, then its ISUCA, then its The Labyrinth of Grisaia, and so on and so forth and now its this….this…..
THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid is the anime component of a multimedia event franchise concocted by the people who brought you the oh so delightful (he lied) Senran Kagura. That statement alone should make you stop reading my little write up and never speak of it again. Watching the show in its uncut uncensored “glory” as I did might make you never speak about anything again due to the desire to end it all from the pain of having to watch Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid.
That is no overreacation, this shit is literally that bad and frankly I shouldn’t be surprised. Its by Arms, the Russ Meyer Productions of the anime world, only not funny and subversive like actual Russ Meyer. These are the cretins who gave us Elfen Lied, Words Worth, Vanquished Queens, and (shudder) Master of Martial Hearts. Truly all disasterpieces, and yet… this one… this might be the worst yet.
The only way I could describe Valkyrie Drive is to say its Soul Eater meets DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball meets a cantaloupe ranch. It has no plot, it has no characters, its just weird shitty yuri (so weird and shitty I don’t even think legitimate yuri fans would go for it) with more boobs than Momokyun. Its also sakuga as fuck and that makes me wonder about the mentality of the kinds of person who make shows like this.
Its funny that the last thing I have to do for this Clusterfuck is the equivalent of hitting rock bottom as if we were in a constant death spiral to reach this point. And the REAL funny part is Funimation has to censor it themselves! Way to waste a bundle on this shit Gen. — Lord Dalek