Shameful Otaku Secret!

We are often give up!

Ah, summer. It’s a very special time in a boys’ life, that magical time when breasts are school is out and spring anime shows begin to show up in DVD editions. Some are there just because they’re popular shows, some entice buyers based on the fact that their TV counterparts were shoddily animated commercials for the discs, and some… Some add the more “complete” fanservice (nipples) they always intended.

Some of you may recall my “Ecchi Deathmatch,” that lightly-perverted panty-fest of doom; still others may have noticed that it just kind of petered out. Sadly, it was just too one-sided: The Tenchi retread To Love-Ru really didn’t stand a chance against Kanokon’s onslaught of panties, handjobs, spankings, and anilingus. Even that sentence shocked me a little.

You and me both, kid. Try just not watching, it really has been great.

So in the name of faux journalism (boobs), showing my dedication to everyone out there, I grabbed a couple DVD versions of To Love-Ru’s first couple episodes, hoping that it might be able to redeem itself at least in the “tee-hee, boobies” department.

What’s different

First thing you’ll notice is the widescreen (boobs). If you’ve been following the TV episodes (which I stopped doing quite a ways back), those are 4:3. That can’t hurt.

Well, it could, I guess — because now there’s more TLR to see.

And how. The real reason for bringing out a shitty show like this to DVD is to make real cash showing the nipples you couldn’t get onto the TV. TLR did a “great” job utilizing the rays of the sun and shower steam, along with “creatively placed” soap foam and lens flares, to obscure the tits and ass naughty bits. This allowed for more nudity than Kanokon, but in essence provided more coverage. Example? In Kanokon, there were Chizuru’s heart-shaped pasties. Those things looked like nipples, and while Lala may have actually been nude in the corresponding episode, it’s obvious whose viewers got the better jugs deal.

So now, we get those same nipples, in those same scenes, neither obscured nor encumbered by anything other than their own horrid art quality. And, actually, there’s still a lot of fog and sunbeams, too, now that you mention it. So, you deserve a cookie for actually spotting the nipples. Well, I’m so pleased. Fucking banzai.

No really. Own peril. But the cookie awaits.

What’s exactly the same

To Love-Ru’s first couple episodes are just as mind-numbingly stupid the second or third time around as the first. Everything you’ve ever hated about a fanservice-laden quasi-harem show — the failed confessions by a wet blanket lead, the bad slapstick, the clichéd faceplants into crotches and the Nude Misunderstandings — these are TLR’s stock in trade.

No, not another crotch-plant! No, not another weak-ass harem lead! No, not — you get the idea.

The OP is still the hottest and most stylish (and thus, least characteristic) part of the series, no change there. But, what am I trying to say…

Basically, the show still sucks.

That makes one of us.

What you might have missed before

• Nipples. I think this is obvious.
• Haruna’s name is apparently spelled with “Spring and Canola.” Canola’s other name in English is rape, which will of course prove more relevant in a few episodes when the tentacle beasts start showing up.
• For at least a billion episodes, the only naked character is Lala, so if you’re in it for the fanservice, I hope you like her. That’s probably why she’s so generically appealing: cute face, pink hair, bold personality mixed with naïvete (stacked).
• Chichi means “father,” as in, that guy you call otou-san. It also means “boobs.” I’ve heard that Japanese is highly context-dependent, but I seriously do not understand this.

The tit-tacular conclusion

In spite of the fact that we often tout our animated entertainment as not being kids’ stuff, that applies to some anime and not others. 3×3 Eyes, for instance, will never be for kids, nor will Kaiba. But the whole fanservice thing really makes me think of a pre-pubescent, immature view on sex. In most cases, panties are the end goal, and in this particular case, it’s a few short seconds of nipples. Sex is something that never gets past the too-embarrassed-to-talk-about-it stage. Remember the nipples in School Days? No, you don’t, because there weren’t any. Instead, sex.

I suppose this could probably be chalked up to a target audience of immature Japanese otaku, or just plain cultural differences. But to me it seems more like Kids’ Stuff than say, Cardcaptor Sakura, which I can still pop in and enjoy to this day. But just watching these first couple episodes again turned me into a 12-year-old.

mmmhhhmmm. right. shore you do.

Tits.

Wait, who am I? Are you my mommy?

I think that can tell you a lot about an anime fan from what they consider to be their influences — at least in the terms that we here on the anime-internets tend to related to one another. Also, I’m waiting on my Chiko to get subbed and I’m short on original ideas at the moment. So I stole one from Riex.

My most influential anime!

1. Neon Genesis Evangelion. What did they call it, the Series that Launched A Million Fanboys? You’re looking at one. The angst, the action, the symbolism, the pretentiousness, and the all-out mindfuck couldn’t be topped. I liked anime before, but all of a sudden this insatiable appetite to consume episode after episode of marginally believable animated nonsense starring underage protagonists took over — to the point where Pokémon briefly became an somewhat-acceptable form of entertainment. Plus, it was only the second time I’d seen such blatant contempt for humanity. The first?

2. Urotsukidoji. Yeah. That one. I’m not kidding. To this day, I don’t watch hentai, but I can still appreciate the horror of this flick. Make no mistake — it’s full of sex, violence, violent sex, and sexualized violence. That makes it appropriate for almost nobody, but it’s also got a well-written story that foreshadows plots like Evangelion and Blassreiter, except with huge demonic cocks. I was taken aback by the shocking nature of Japan’s original tentacle vehicle, but also by just how surprisingly good it was.

3. Akira/Ninja Scroll/Ghost in the Shell. Why put them together? There was a day when you couldn’t mention them separately. If someone had seen one, you forced them to watch the other two because that person was an otaku on the verge. Thanks partially to frequent commenter Jason (specifically for Ninja Scroll), I hit the whole triumverate of violence, story, atmosphere and quality and that’s all she wrote. Like so many American fans, if I hadn’t seen these, I wouldn’t be here yammering on about this shit.

4. Tie: Cardcaptor Sakura/Love Hina. Weird tie, no? But I watched these two series around the same time, and they served similar purposes in my degeneration into otakudom. I had mostly seen full series on VHS and of course VHS tapes were almost all dubs. We started watching CCS to find out only the first part of it was dubbed (the parts they took out back behind the shed and beat until it became the horrific American Cardcaptors). So I saw my first profesionally subtitled anime in a perfect scenario to learn just how much better it was than the dub. Love Hina was about a week after, and it wasn’t even out in the US yet (thanks, crack dealer anime-lender friend from Hong Kong), so no dub there either.

The second reason these are here: my first marathons. You bet your sweet ass I plowed the entirety of Cardcaptor Sakura. Wow. Still my longest record. Thankfully, my (now-)wife was there, and so was booze.

Maybe more important than either of those things, both of these shows proved without a doubt that an anime didn’t need to have a heavy story, or robots, or heaps of violence to entertain the shit out of me. A screwball romantic comedy and a kids’ adventure, if done well enough, can get the job done and then some. To this day, you can’t show me a harem or a childhood friend without it all looking suspiciously like Love Hina. Also, I have a coffee mug with Kero-chan on it. Judge me, go ahead.

5. Macross aka Robotech. OGT probably puts it best: The original reason anyone loves Macross is that damnable transforming airplane, the Valkyrie. When I was a kid I could give two shits about Lynn Minmay or Shao Pai Lon (which I also think is a great song, probably a shit movie though) but I did have a Valkyrie toy. And it was somehow cooler even than the transfomers because it had three forms — I still can’t get my mind around why the Gerwalk form is needed, but watching the show as a kid you knew that even that form had a point. Anyway, regardless of how bastardized it may have been, Robotech made a mecha fan out of me early in life so I have to thank it.

6. Haruhi. Easy, right? For me, yes. After Evangelion I went berserk for a while, then tapered off after a while in favor of things like Takashi Miike and David Lynch. But Haruhi made everything better again. It doesn’t matter that Haruhi is the product of a scientific formula that’s guaranteed to be loved by otaku everywhere, it’s a great show, a time-traveling treat with a pile of laughs. I also came to the mistaken conclusion that television anime had turned a corner quality-wise. Turned out that was just one studio.

So what got you going? Inquiring minds want to know, what made you the fanboy/girl you are today?

Goodbye sister PSYCHE!

This week I’m bothered by Macross F’s constant fan-pandering. Again. And I’m a fan. Why am I so bothered? Let me put it in bullet points since I’ve been working on PowerPoint all day.

1. The OP. I get it, Ranka’s fucking cute. I think so too. It must make Shin’s day (how many trackbacks have you gotten so far on this, Shin?), since it prominently features the ol’ (ﾉゝ∀･)~キラ☆, which looks a lot like a dolled-up version of Ronnie James Dio’s metal horns to me (or is it Spiderman?). I ain’t sold. I hear this is a temporary OP though. And I guess the dancing iSlug was pretty great.
2. Pineapple cake. This was really heavy-handed. GET IT, GUYS? PINEAPPLES! So I was supposed to be surprised or whatever when Ozma didn’t bite it, despite his re-confession to Cathy, his noble deeds, constant flashbacks, and the overbearing presence of a pineapple-based dessert. But really I was just glad the whole nonsense was over. Gotta hand it to him though, motherfucker is about as bulletproof as Twenty Faces covered in kevlar.
3. Fire Bomber. Macross 7 is fine for some people. To this day I have to confess I’ve still never finished it, despite claiming to be some huge Macross fan. I get a little further each time, but dear God why does Basara have to suck so much? And why does he have to keep getting invoked? I get a mental image of his John Lennon glasses in my head when that music plays and I want to smash.

I guess three bullets aren’t too bad, though. But let’s balance it out with what I liked.

1. Ozma trying to fuck up Brera. That kid is fast becoming the Lynn Kaifun of the series, and makes me root for Ozma’s old-school manliness even more.
2. The Grace and Leon plot thickens. What’s Luca gonna do? What are they planning with that fold quartz? And what will happen to Ozma and Cathy when they catch on?
3. Ai-kun destroys Alto’s paper airplane. Genius. Such an ominous thing in a cute package.

There you have it. Lots of intrigue and goings-on, concealed under a thick wall of syrupy pineapple. I won’t bitch about the lack of Sheryl because that’s for a reason, and we have every indication that she’s going to bust this Grace thing wide open, even if inadvertently. Hopefully this thing is all coming to a head soon, and hopefully poor Klan gets her day too.