Shameful Otaku Secret!

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.

Every anime season has its girls. Bishoujo shows give you gluttonous heaps of cuteness, harems pump crotch-face misunderstandings into the hallways of animated schools, and every once in a while some badass chick with cutoffs and guns ass-kicks her way to your heart. I was going to write something interesting about Hatsukoi Limited this week, because the wide-reaching strands of the story are starting to weave into a web, but I got slightly turned off-course by that girl for the spring season: Misaki Yamamoto.

You see, she’s the source of the interesting things that are happening. Long the “girl next door” in every sense of the word to poor personality-deprived Zaitsu, now this stone-cold fox with supposedly no desire for dudes has another lame-ass suitor, Koyoi’s beloved onii-chan. Now, let’s not get too hung up on the whole brocon/siscon thing and how it, like boobless girls, is on the surface made to be the freaky but undesirable fetish but of course its very presence in modern anime constitutes a ringing endorsement and custom fetish delivery to stinky otaku. I digress like fuck.

The elder Besshou is no more interesting than the younger Zaitsu, and has just as little concept of where his league is and when he’s out of it. To top it off for this poor sap, Misaki’s ditched her sexual disinterest in favor of his tactless, uncaring, lollipop-wielding best friend (who happens to be Kei’s older brother). And, tell me you ronery fuckers that you’ve never been here — she calls him to the restaurant to find out what she should do about her crush on crass-a-nova. FFFFFFFFFFF.

All of this matters because it’s the harbinger of the change of tone that every romantically focused anime must make before it becomes part of its genre. In love, everything isn’t breasts and roses, and tragedy is the name of the game. Here, we have both Besshou and Zaitsu, hopelessly hung up on the mesmerizing Misaki, and we’re already treated to the earliest tragic truth of the series: One of them — perhaps neither of them — will have her. Bummer.

Because let’s face it kids, Misaki’s pretty bangin. And she’d have to be. In an anime where the 14-year-olds cause lelangir confusing feelings (and cause pan-ups to be pasted together into pinups, apparently), the 16 or 17-year-old (maximum age in anime, deshou?) can’t just be bomb, she’s gotta be nuclear.

I’m starting to wonder now, how much Misaki will be a character, how much we’ll see into her head (like the unprecedented tsundere-POV of Kei) or whether she’ll just continue to be an object of desire, a veritable walking nosebleed for the male characters of the show. Regardless, this is animation, so I think we can all rest assured she’ll stay sexful. How her courtship fares, well that might not be as positive but a rosy outlook for love doesn’t make for good TV so let’s see what kind of damage she can do.

Not sure what made me think Hatsukoi Limited would be a good idea to watch. Maybe it was the constant nagging mental failure upon seeing its name that made me think of Futakoi Alternative.

Yep.

Anyway, seeing as how we’re not getting another Futakoi Alternative, I grabbed a couple episodes of Hatsukoi (”First Love”) Limited. I guess I kinda thought it was a shoujo, but the sort of pervy vibe that permeates the whole thing tells me otherwise. Now, I’ve never read the manga, and I suppose the writer, along with JC Staff’s director, might be going the Girls’ High route — i.e., kids are pretty fucked up balls of hormones so let’s reflect on their lives with low-ass camera angles and tight pink shorts. Fortunately, the first two episodes were far more entertaining than Girls’ High’s entire retarded run. Granted, that’s not saying much, but still.

Not what you think.

That said, what you have is a cute story of interconnecting first loves — so far, middle schooler Ayumi has a crush on charming Mamoru, who carried her fireman-style to the nurse after she fainted from the fear of being courted/stalked by Mamoru’s own high school-age beast of a brother Misao. Further exascerbating the convolution is Mamoru’s own crush: he and Misao’s childhood friend Misaki, who’s two years older, sees him as a little brother, and isn’t interested in gettng mixed up with boys right now. But wears tight pink shorts and crawls through his window. Good God, poor kid.

why, exactly?

Misao is a funny character (if not that original), a giant stubbly Ikki Tousen extra who can pound any kid in Japan but folds his laundry neatly, feeds the birds, and has an inescapable crush on a middle schooler. Yeah, it’s a tiny touch creepy but is painted as just pathetic enough to work. And when he nobly comes to her rescue, well, it’s a little touching.

touching.

Ayumi-chan is a little heap of moe who’s not so defenseless as to be annoying or even too typical, but her shimapan (which are usually symbolic of immaturity) give away her underlying personality. Misaki is the typical mature-girl archetype who of course will find out she’s not as adult as she thought, etc. I’m not sure how much any of the rest of the large cast will fit into this; are their stories going to be involved in the web of panties and love as well?

and I'll love her and hug her and squeeze her and call her George

At any rate, this was a bit dumb but a decent watch. I was sufficiently entertained by the light humor, cute story of poor Misao, and of course the tight pink shorts. The age of some characters is a little scandalous for my taste, but the show has some real production values so the pantyshots seem a little less gratuitous than if they were just thrown into a cheap-ass show to keep people watching (Gonzo, I love you still, but I’m looking right at you). Also, the thugs’ argument about taking a poop was gold. I’ll keep watching for now.