04.20
23 Slaves and Me
Hitler would lose so badly.
A man walks into a studio. He asks to see the manager because he has a series to pitch. The manager comes out of his domain and asks, “What are you offerin’?”
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” the man says. “You can’t believe the kind of anime I have for you!”
“Another one of them isekai whatchamacallits?” the manager inquires.
“Don’t you shut the door in front of me, because my anime will shatter your mind! You know those revenge shows where a girl gets personally wronged mentally and physically, and she has to put the law in her own hands to seek some good old Japanese vengeance?”
“Like a hentai?”
“No, not a hentai! Because, you see, there’s a never before seen technology in this show, a set of retainers you put in your mouth,
“Retainers?”
“Yes! And if you put another retainer in somebody else’s mouth, they can become your slave, you see, if you beat them in a game!”
“This sounds suspiciously like a hentai.”
“No, no, no! You think I’m sort of smut peddler? I am a purveyor of art, and my work will be beloved by critics and casuals alike!”
“What’s the name of your proposed anime?”
“23 Slaves and Me.”
“That sounds like a hentai title.”
“It’s not hentai, good sir!”
“Then how is it not hentai?”
“Because it has retainers! What hentai would use retainers as their slave tech? That would be pretty disgusting, am I right?”
The manager grabs his chin and rubs his beard. “There are a lot of disgusting hentai though. Like that one with the ‘Kaihou!’ guy.”
“But do they have retainers?!”
“And then there was that one where a girl as young as my daughter put a tube up her butt and shit in it.”
“Do they have retainers, good sir?!”
“Then there are all those where the girl screams ‘Onii-chan! Onii-chan!’ even though the guy isn’t really her brother. And the guy looks like a fat frog, so your chub gets soft the moment your eyes wander onto him. Like I’m not gay or anything, but more hentais need pretty boys instead of ugly frog people. And all these modern hentais have shitty flash animation, so even the ladies look ugly, making it so you’re basically watching an ogre fuck a dead animal. And fuck that, if I want that, I’d watch real people fuck. That shit makes NTR look nice, because I swear–”
“Please, sir! Do any of these pornographical films have any retainers?!”
“…no, can’t recall any. Guess you have me stumped.”
“So do we have a deal? Can my show manifest into reality?”
“Fine, fuck, whatever. But now I have hentai on the brain, so I gotta go back to my office and… uh, unbuckle these urges. Don’t disturb me.”
– A lapsed follower of Kaihou
FLCL Alternative
The cast of K-On watch as a cougar prepares to feast upon her prey.
Not sure how we missed this one. Part of me feels like we should save it for the Fall write-ups, since that’s when the rest of the season airs, but hey; if the folks at [adult swim] felt like this year’s April Fools’ Day prank should be handing over a subbed version of FLCL 3’s first episode to American audiences, then why not get my thoughts about it out of the way now? Besides, Marquis or Dalek can write about it again in September/October.
My first experience with FLCL came in high school, when I started getting into anime more earnestly. It was on the list of anime to watch for a podcast project, where a bunch of my Twitter friends submitted some of their favourite anime for me and a few others to watch over the course of a year. Some of these shows managed to become some of my favourites as well, such as Kino’s Journey and Paranoia Agent. Others I came to roll my eyes at, like AiR. (If only my younger self knew anime could get much, much worse than that.) FLCL immediately joined that first list, and still ranks as one of my favourite anime of all-time: a coming-of-age story about learning to be comfortable in your own skin and to not grow up too quickly mixed with off-the-wall allegory and symbolism, hilariously kinetic animation and jokes, and small whispers of space opera in the background. It’s a fun six-episode romp that I loved back in high school and still love today as an unemployed twenty-something trying to figure out what to do with his liberal arts degrees. So when [adult swim] announced that they’ve ordered two more seasons of the show, I was hesitantly optimistic. Things can go dreadfully wrong when bringing something back, especially if it’s a postscript season made years after the original production wrapped up. The creatives behind it, even if it’s the same team that gave us that first work, can forget or misunderstand what fans enjoyed about what they made. They can double-down too much on elements that fans liked sparingly or in moderation, or forget some beloved aspect all together. The new ideas or stories brought to the table could run opposed to the ones that fans have imagined and built-up in their heads in the years since the last new episode. It could be a fantastic return to form, a disappointing trainwreck, or an unsatisfying whimper. From this first episode, I can safely say that FLCL Alternative isn’t a trainwreck or a whimper. It remains to be seen if it is truly great, but I’m certainly staying on the ride.
In a word, our little glimpse of FLCL Alternative was satisfying. It doesn’t feel out of place when watched immediately after FLCL, which is the first thing you’d want from it. After all, what’s the point of bringing something back as a continuation if you don’t retain the same feel? That said, while this still feels like the world of FLCL, there something about it that feels more subdued, from character actions down to the music that’s once again courtesy of The Pillows. There’s a clear method to the madness that’s immediately evident here, with said madness feeling awfully brief, whereas the first episode of the original OVA threw so much at the viewer that you were in a daze afterwards, trying to process it all. What we have here is something more slow and relaxed, having more in common with KyoAni slice-of-life than Gainax/Trigger insanity. New protagonist Kana’s days are spent hanging out with her friends in a club room and working a part-time job, not dealing with an older sibling’s ex-girlfriend/admirer and an immature father. Haruko’s first interaction with her is ordering lukewarm ramen, not running her over with a Vespa SS 180. Until the monster attack, Haruko is quietly hanging back and scoping Kana from the sidelines, while the Department of Interstellar Immigration wonders what she’s doing with equal reservation. Contrast with her inserting herself into Naota’s life with gusto, badgering him at every turn to see if banging him in the head with a Rickenbacker did what she wanted. Of course, I would be foolish not to acknowledge that all this is the point and that this season isn’t named “alternative” just for flavor. FLCL was a story about a preteen boy trying to grow up too quickly and learning to slow down and be a kid. Alternative flips that script with a teenage girl learning to accept that her childhood is coming to an end and that the responsibilities of adulthood aren’t just going to wait until she’s ready. And for that, the calmer vibe does its job; setting up a cute slice-of-life feel for an opening chapter that will give way to more serious events on a journey that will be more restrained this time around, though we’ll undoubtedly still see some ridiculous stuff happen along the way. This is still FLCL, after all. It may be a good four-and-a-half months before we see Kana and her friends again, but this first taste has me believing that bringing FLCL back wasn’t a mistake. For now, anyway. (Still bitter about Ashi in Samurai Jack Season 5. Don’t pull an Ashi, FLCL.) – RacattackForce
Magical Girl Site
The Magical Girl Site writer hard at work.
Magical Girl Site is the latest anime to hop onboard the “Dark Magical Girl” bandwagon in an attempt to ride off the coat tails of shows such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna. Adapted from a manga published in Akita Shoten’s “Weekly Shounen Champion” (that’s right, shounen!) This magical girl/horror anime wastes no time in diving headfirst into edgefest. Now, as someone who loves the concepts of magical girls but hates the aesthetics and overall moralistic nature of most, the idea of a horror-focused magical girl series should be right up my alley, so what could go wrong? Unfortunately, much like 2016’s Magical Girl Raising Project, Site decides to wallow in gratuitous torture porn and suffering of its main characters and pointless cruelty for its antagonists, all while keeping an artstyle typical of common magical girls with little in the way of levity. This results in the worst kind of edge in a show and genre mashup that should be so much more.
As already mentioned in last week’s write-up, Site’s premier had the most disgusting tropes and bullying cliché’s ever written, all with little to no payoff for it. While I am, unfortunately, aware that the bullying seen there aren’t so disconnected from reality as we might wish it was, but I can only imagine what an actual middle school bullying victim must feel like coming from a crappy day and reading a manga where that exact same shit happens with almost no real catharsis. Indeed when main character Asagiri’s school bullies are finally dealt with neither she nor the audience is granted even a temporarily relieve as the circumstances just result in more angst and trauma for our protagonist, in spite of said tormentors being so one-dimensional and antagonistic they barely even qualify as human. This, more than anything, is Site’s greatest flaw; while a good dark story would allow moments of temporarily relieve in between the darkness, Site just pours misery on top of misery as if that alone builds good character. It’s a problem that’s plagued quite a bit of “grimdark” media, and very few have what it takes to pull it off in any satisfactory way.
Episode 2 is a vast improvement, though to be honest, that honestly just makes Site’s flaws more apparent (in addition to being the faintest praise you can get). We’re properly introduced to second protagonist and Asagiri’s potential love interest Yatsuhara, a veteran magical girl that can stop time (sound familiar?) and get more world building as well as hints of an overarching plot, and our first real antagonist, there was even some moments of levity that could plausibly be read as intentional black comedy! If you had condensed the first episode into ten minutes and add the first half of this episode to that, you would have had a much stronger, if flawed, narrative. Helping the case here was the episode’s antagonist actually being fun and enjoyable to watch, having the energy and mental instability of a typical enemy Stand user from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and though you could guess the plot twist about her coming from a mile away, the attempted intrigue with her identity was a nice effort, if future antagonists are more like her, then there may be hope for this show yet.
The idea of a dark and edgy magical girl series truly intrigues me, but I have yet to see it truly done well barring Madoka, so many have been plagued with the same problems that Magical Girl Site has, from needless angst and suffering to incredibly lame magic systems and clashing art designs. To give credit where credit is due, Site doesn’t give any pretenses it’ll be anything other than an magical girl edgefest and forgoes any form of bait and switch unlike the aforementioned Yuki Yuna or Raising Project, but when that’s the highest praise that can be given to it, then something’s certainly wrong with the execution of this sub-genre. Who knows? Maybe we will get a dark magical girl series that successfully blends action horror elements like how Lyrical Nanoha did for mecha and magical girls, or how Garo did for Tokusatsu and horror. Maybe we will get a magical girl show with stylish, gory action and set pieces that doesn’t feel like it’s catering to ryona fetishists. And maybe we will get another dark magical girl franchise that truly does live up to its potential and successfully attracts fans that would normally never touch a magical girl anime but with an art style that actually reflects its tone and subject matter. Whenever that may be, Magical Girl Site is not and will not be that show. – CrimsonRynnec
Megalo Box
“The one with the fastest jab wins. That’s what Megalo Box is.”
My experience watching the debut of Megalo Box with Marquis and Rynnec consisted of me gushing over its fantastic animation for the duration of the episode, to the point of obnoxiousness. Later, I proceed to watch it again and privately faun over how much this anime pulled me into its world with a banging soundtrack and interesting characters. I expected to gain little enjoyment from this show, not because I thought it would be awful, but because I generally have little interest in sports anime. To this day, the only sports anime that I’ve watched more than two episodes of would have to be Aim for the Ace and Ping Pong: The Animation. Which means, yes, the fact that this is a science-fiction reimagining of Ashita no Joe meant absolutely nothing to me. The only thing in my mind was how misplaced this thing felt in the current anime landscape: a show with the gritty visual stylings of a 1980s/90s OVA smack dab in the middle of a modern anime season that’s once again 90% mindless schlock that I’d never revisit unless you paid me. And it was done by a first-time director? Megalo Box is just pure witchcraft. Nothing else this season comes close to touching it.
From the very start, I was invested in Junk Dog’s story. An illegal alien with only a motorcycle and a duffel bag filled with boxing gear to his name, throwing fights in the underground just to appease gamblers when he fully believes that he can sweep the floor with anyone if given the chance. Maybe that’s nothing more but a slight variant on the classic “kid rising from the slums/ghetto and proving themselves” idea that’s the foundation of a great number of sport stories. But does that really matter when, by the end of the first episode, you’re just as excited as Junk Dog is when the opportunity to let loose is finally granted to him? Even if he finds himself the victim of a one-round KO at the hands of a champion boxer in the next one. Junk Dog is cocky as hell, but make no mistake, he’s that confident because he knows exactly what his potential is. And he isn’t going to stop until he finally reaches it and gets what he desires: a challenging fight with a man who may very well be capable to knocking him out for good. I have nothing but excitement to see him work towards becoming the boxer he wants to be in the episodes to come and can only hope the show never falters from the promise made in the first two episodes. Megalo Box was sublime from moment our protagonist’s motorcycle raced past the camera. I can only hope it stays that way until the very end. – RacattackForce
Uma Musume Pretty Derby
“Oh. My. Quads. Look at those legs!”
(to the tune of CatDog)
One fine day with a whinny and neigh/
A baby was born with an odd taste for hay/
Possessed by equine (I didn’t misspeak)/
Her bewildered moms named her Special Week!
Special Week!
Special Week!
Idol racing horse-girl Special Week!
This moe young gal aims to be the best/
Her pervy new owner will put that to the test/
Runnin’ down the track/
Prancing all day long/
Everypony gather round n’ sing this song
Special Week!
Special Week!
Idol racing horse-girl Special Week!
Special Week!
Special Week!
Idol racing horse-girl Special Week!
…Wait, what? I was supposed to write this entry to the tune of the My Little Pony theme song? And I still have to actually review it? Okay, I’ll review the show, but I’m not rewriting the song.
Pretty Derby is an anime about horse-girls learning how to best horse-girls they can be. They’re cute, I guess. My favourite one is the American exchange student who dresses up like a luchador. But if I have to be serious, then the whole concept strikes me as odd. Humans who are possessed by deceased racehorses? That’s what we’re doing this season? Do horse-girls have equal human rights in this world or are they second-class citizens? Can young When Lightning Strikes or Mango Madness endeavor to be architects or chiropractors, or are they doomed to race for money? Am I going to hell for chuckling every time the main character is called Spe-chan? I don’t know, guys. Once the novelty of “lol, Japan did another silly weird thing” wears off, all you’ve got is your run-of-the-mill CGDCT cartoon. You could certainly do worse than this, but unless you’re really into horse racing, there isn’t much here for you. The show did remind me that I should charge my 3DS and play some more Pocket Card Jockey, though. So that’s cool of it. – RacattackForce