Shameful Otaku Secret!

Ah, springtime. When youth gets all crazy and hormonal and foists its most “ecchi” visions into your unwitting eyes holes like some kind of televisual skullfucking.

Except it’s fall, and anime is made by dirty old men. Case in point, Sora No Otoshimono, which is (choose one):

• One of the many high caliber titles available this season from Crunchyroll’s online stream, along with season 67 of Shugo Chara
• Standard wish-fulfillment anime crossed with a standard comedic anime
• Obsessed with panties
• Something something cancer

If you answered “uuuuuuugh,” you’re right!

I know I said I wasn’t watching anything new this season, but I thought I’d give this a shot for no really good reason. Sora No Otoshimono is, in all likelihood, a steaming pile of crap, an underpants-obsessed shounen comedy romp with the typical 9-year-old’s giggle-giggle view on sex. And it will likely turn into a harem.

But then again, perhaps it’s a deep meditation on the nature of desire, the effects of indulging your basest fantasies, and the dangerous consequences of getting what you wished for — you know, like The Monkey’s Paw with drawers.

I suppose the only way to objectively discover which of these is true is to lay out the good and bad.

Sora No Otoshimono: The Cons (also known as: the cliches and tropes used)

1. A pervert no-good Tenchi of a lead character
2. An obsession with breasts
3. A girl falling from the sky who warrants her own sub-list
   1. An alien
   2. An angel
   3. A robot
   4. who grants wishes
   5. on a leash
4. Oh-so-tsundere Karate chops from a cute childhood friend who takes good care of good-for-nothing lead (see #1)
5. Naked and/or “on top of” misunderstandings (I never would have imagined she’d walk into the room right then)
6. “[character name] no baka”
7. Wacky extras
8. “Kiddy” panties with animal mascot, worn by lead girl (This one’s for you, Akamatsu-sensei!)
9. Sweet moments of wonderful cuteness after an episode-long debacle, re-ruined by baka character just as things get lovely

The pros

Called attacks. These were all magical crotch coverups as lead character (whose name was… hmmmm it’ll come to me) tried to save the modesty of lead girl (ah, shit, her name was…), whose modesty he had of course compromised himself. I’m not going to say we’ve never seen a comedy that parodies the dirt-old concept of the called out attack, but maybe this one just hasn’t gotten quite old enough to me yet.

Flying panties. Let’s reiterate. Flying. Panties. I mean, seriously, majestically flapping their way across the landscape, migrating in formation, being observed by the masses, briefly lighting on a tree before moving on, shining in the sun. The idea is stupid, as is the whole panty-obsessed episode 2, but the execution of this one idea is colossal. Perhaps it’s even enough to justify the existence of the whole series. Doubtful.

Use of the best phrase in the world. Whether this is a subtitling coup or an actual line of dialog, it matters little.

The verdict

Obviously the balance is not in favor of Sorta Not Entirely Unwatchable, but as its name implies, it’s not entirely unwatchable. It’s certainly less awful than To Love-Ru’s anime adaptation so far, and it brought a few laughs that weren’t just boneheaded physical comedy, tit-groping, or cheap references. Not many, but a man dying in the desert doesn’t scoff at tap water.

I mentioned my viewing to ghostlightning and he seemed to think that watching, or at least starting, a truly awful show just for the sake of doing so was actually an SOS tradition. Do I? Really? Do that?

Does anyone else ever do this to themselves, or is masochism a unique character flaw? And more importantly…

I’m not sure what first gave me the idea to watch it, but it became apparent almost immediately that it was a good idea. Everyone I talked to seemed suddenly seized by a compulsion to rewatch at least some episodes (in ghostlightning’s case, the whole damn thing in 2 days). No one seemed to have so much as a caveat for me, let alone actual misgivings.

I’m not going to go too much into why it’s made of awesome and win — many have seen it, plenty of blogs praise it even if they don’t agree on the methods, and most people already know lots about JC Staff’s occasionally brilliant skills of execution that can make something as rote as Hatsukoi Limited into a winner and something well written into animated gold. The true strength of Honey & Clover is not its humor, underplayed dramatic moments, or unwillingness to insultingly explain key points to you out loud; it’s the writing, plain and simple. As a fan you’ve probably spent at least a little time justifying why anime isn’t kids’ stuff, but you’re often repaid by archetyped characters bouncing around a high school and crying a lot. Honey & Clover is your true reward. Even the theme that I most wanted to talk about is a little more “mature” than what you normally see: That’s letting go, one of the series’ many central threads that runs throughout. I’m picking ONE because apparently I can write almost 2,000 words about it, so to take on the whole thing would be extreme fucking insanity.

Something atypical for me: I try to leave them out normally, but there will probably be big spoilers.

(more…)

It’s been a while since I wrote a watching report, but in truth it’s been a while since I was watching enough to justify one. Here’s my current tub o’ fun:

Shin Mazinger Z

A couple seasons ago, Madhouse breathed new life into an old franchise as well with Casshern Sins. That one was done in a very western-comic-book fashion though: He’s back, and this time he’s dark! Go Nagai’s Shin Mazinger, however, directly channels the spirit of the original and consequently transports you back to childhood — to a time when a Rocket Punch was a supremely cool thing. Hot-blooded pilot Kouji’s angst is a little overplayed in the past couple episodes, but retro robots maintain. The brick-shitting may be over, but the adrenaline rush that brought it on is still in effect.

Haruhi

What hasn’t been said? Despite my last post, this is at least partially true: For most people who enjoyed the first show, it’s requisite viewing. For the rest, it’s not.

Eden of the East

I’ve fallen really far behind on this one. It remains strong in my head, and it’s the kind of show that when I do get back to it (probably this week) I won’t be able to stop until I’m caught up. Sci-fi, mystery, a hint of romance — it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t come along every season.

FMA:Brotherhood

Funimation has not made it easy to watch (their streaming site is sorely unable to handle the traffic that FMA brought), but I’m officially caught up. The waifu and I both agree that the hyper-ramped-up pace is a lot of fun to watch. The sense of scope in the Elric Brothers’ quest is lost almost completely, but that sacrifice is made in the name of pure watchability. I might not have a lot of company in this, but I’m a fan.

Hatsukoi Limited

Talk about your dark horses. A JC-Staff-animated romance series just after the very good Toradora seemed too soon, but this one has delivered. You might even say it’s got a little something for everyone. Kei’s internal monologues give fascinating insight into the mind of the tsundere, Misaki provides cool and spicy, and the whole thing is just exploding with cute, engaging romantic story threads. And panties. Which helps.

Unlike the best shows of its genre, Hatsukoi doesn’t look like it’ll transcend the anime medium, but the series is doing a fantastic job within it. What I’m most thankful for is consistent payoffs. I think 12-26 episodes without a hand-hold or a kiss is a lazy trick employed by anime writers to keep people watching their poorly-conceived romantic series in anticipation of something happening; Hatsukoi keeps rewarding its characters and viewers with romantic payoff while still stringing us along brilliantly.

Noein

This isn’t current, but I recently started it, in dub, from the iTunes store. Sadly, I’m not very pumped about it. The animation is an example of Satelight’s worst offenses: a beautifully crisp, modern, computer-aided look marred by horrible anatomy and a near-perfect lack of character consistency. These are really distracting to me, but if the story picks up soon I’ll be happy to ignore them. One thing I probably won’t be able to, though: American dubs’ tendency to pronounce character names with second syllable accents, e.g., hah-ROO-ka.

Anything I’m missing? I fell off the Saki and Shangri-La wagons a while back, might try the latter again though. And I never did pick up Sengoku Basara, but I hear it’s pretty manly.