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Well, it’s been a long time since I posted anything. Or talked to Shaun for that matter. Yet, here I am, posting after all these long months, possibly years. Yes, I still care about anime. Yes, I feel bad about not posting more often. Yet, I wrote something long ago about several series which, I felt, needed my commentary. Here’s my post, written many months previously, hopefully will mean something to y’all:
My Life in Anime Purgatory
Been a long time since I last posted. It was a hectic semester, and things didn’t really slow down when I got back and started working again. But here I am, and I will now account for my semester of silence.
You see, my school, in all of its infinite wisdom, decided to throttle down my internet usage, which resulted in pathetic download rates. (I was REALLY lucky to get a download rate of 2.0 kilobytes a minute, if you’re curious.) So yeah, I was virtually unable to download the massive amounts of anime necessary to give any meaningful input on this kind of blog. Furthermore, I couldn’t just join the anime club because it conflicted with other obligations. (Also, last time I went to one of their session there was an… unpleasantness… I can never go back.) So, my anime watching became strictly limited to the kinds of fare that I would describe as anime purgatory; not hell, that’s too strong a word, and in all honesty, there were some highlights that I will discuss. But for the most part, it was all somewhat lukewarm and not really the kind of thing worth writing about.
Nevertheless, since I promised Brent that I would post along with him on his blog, and since descriptions of mediocre anime are better than none, I will now describe what I experienced on this somewhat ho-hum semester of anime viewing. Again, for safety’s sake I will put up MILD SPOILER warnings, but it should be unnecessary. I don’t really reveal anything major, and I imagine that many of you have seen these animes already.
Outlaw Star
I alluded to this one in my last post, and I was rather underwhelmed. Maybe my standards are a bit too high for an anime of this caliber, but even so, this one ranged from barely piquing my interest to outright annoying the crap out of me. What annoyed me so much? It wasn’t the silly space battles where the ultimate carte blanche is for a ship to attack another with grappler arms or the somewhat underdeveloped setting and characters; it had its moments, and I somewhat admired its occasional attempts to realistically depict how life on space stations or other planets might be. No, it was the series’ slavish dedication to fan service.
Granted, it’s customary in this medium to expect the occasional pantyshot, shower scene, or trip to the hot springs, and it’s all become nearly unnoticeable to me by this point. But come on! There is no reason why the following things should even exist:
- A ship piloted by a girl who can only do so when naked.
- A planet that is one giant hot spring.
- An entire race of alien cat-people.
- Geisha assassins.
A little fan service goes a long way, and this level of it makes it impossible for me to really enjoy the series. It just seems that the creators were trying too hard to pull in every otaku fetish known to man. Now I’m not prudishly donning a monocle and turning up my nose at such things, and I’m not made of stone. (I can’t really deny the appeal Aisha Clan-Clan petulantly whining “Nyyaaa-ni?” in her catgirl accent.) But this constant barrage of pandering not only insults my intelligence, it prevents me from suspending reality to immerse myself in the universe.
Grade: C-
2. Trinity Blood
A casual reader of this blog will note that I am something of a sucker for vampires, or any kind of undead in general. (MUST… AVOID… WRITING… ABOUT… HELLSING OVA 3…) So I went into this one with relatively high expectations. I had partially downloaded it in February, and wanted to rant about its first few episodes, but I wanted to be fair to the series and watch it full before I did so. It took me three months to get it, hence the long wait. Had I written about it back then, I would have denounced it (and the manga it was based off of) as a blatant ripoff of Hellsing. Trinity Blood has many similar elements; a war between vampires and humans, a powerful super-vampire fighting for the good guys, a somewhat dim view of the Catholic Church (though perhaps not so hostile a view as in Hellsing), and a long-haired, steel-willed female superior who commands the super-vampire. Hell, it even had the super-vampire (or as they call him, a Crusnik, as if that makes a difference) rattle off an activation code for his powers before he strikes, similar to how Alucard and his “control art release” activation.
But had I made that claim, and then finished the series, I would have had to retract that statement immediately. It’s not a blatant ripoff of Hellsing…
It’s a blatant ripoff of Hellsing AND Trigun.
Not convinced? Let’s look at the evidence.
Exhibit A: A similar backstory of the main character, Abel Nightroad, and his brother and nemesis Cain (i.e. superhuman brother-creatures who turned against each other when one pitted himself against humans and the other swore to protect them. Their parting was even marked by the death of their mother-figure, much like the parting of Vash and Knives.)
Exhibit B: Abel’s similar personality to Vash the Stampede. While Alucard, with his big gun and red cloak, was occasionally accused of being a knock-off the lovable gun-toting peacenik, Abel’s personality (when not in freaky super-vampire) is quirky, peace-loving, and slow to use his talents to harm others. Sound familiar?
While I would be lying to say that this series that I didn’t enjoy the series, I just felt the need to constantly rant about this fairly blatant theft of the ideas of others. Now, I know the author of the manga is dead or something, so I guess I should respect his memory and all that. But seriously, what happened to originality?
Grade: B- (Oh c’mon, howcan I stay mad at a series with vampires?)
3. Ghost in the Shell
This one was supposed to be some manner of classic, and I felt that it would be appropriate to go back and watch cornerstone works of the anime sub-culture… oh who am I kidding? It was the only anime they were showing on Adult Swim at the time. ADULT SWIM!! Do you people see what I was reduced to? If I had a katana, I’d be committing seppuku right now!
But I don’t, so here it goes. I was generally just bored with this one. It’s basically about a special-ops unit in futuristic Tokyo, where cybernetic implants are common. The unit is led by some chick named Motoko, a 100% synthetic person trying to hold onto her humanity, etc. Also, I think she might be a lesbian. But that’s incidental. Anyway, they stop anti-cyberization terrorists, the standard evil corporations, corrupt government officials, blah-blah-blah. It was on kinda late, and I wasn’t always paying attention. Pretty much the only thing in it that interested me was the Laughing-Man plotline, which led to some decent suspense and action sequences. But overall, I could barely muster up enough interest to keep watching. If I hadn’t been so starved for anime at the time, I probably would have given up on it.
One more note: This may be blasphemous to fans of the series, but I hated those goddamn Tachikomas. I was laughing maniacally when they all got destroyed. But then, when I saw a clip from the second season on Youtube, I saw they were back, and my agonized howls echoed far and wide into the void that was the Anime folder on my computer.
Grade: C+ (I give the + for Laughing-Man. You gotta love a hacker who hacks into people’s cyborg eyes and superimposes a demented smiley-face over his head.)
4. Ouran High School Host Club
Actually, this series was one of the highlights of this semester. The agonizing part of it was the scrounging around on Youtube to find full episodes, since downloading was at a virtual standstill. Granted, it wasn’t the kind of anime I usually watched, but I hadn’t really watched any good high school humor/drama animes since Fruits Basket (and I almost swore them off altogether after watching Onegai Teacher.) Nevertheless, I went ahead and watched.
The plot takes place at Ouran Academy, a fancy private school for Japan’s elite. The main characters consist of a group of guys who run a Host Club (i.e. male geishas) for the ladies of the school. They take under their wing a bookworm named Fujioka Haruhi (the school’s only “commoner,”) and make a big fuss about turning Haruhi into a popular host at the club.
The catch? Haruhi’s actually a gender-indifferent chick, but they don’t find that out until her debut as a host. The plot pretty much snowballs from there, revolving greatly around protecting the secret of Haruhi’s true gender, exploring Haruhi’s exotic commoner lifestyles (they really go nuts over instant coffee) and surviving the occasional assault from demented female otakus. It’s a quite an entertaining series, and if you feel like a humorous diversion, I recommend it. Just don’t let the intro weird you out too much; my brother watched it and immediately came to the irreversible conclusion that it was a yaoi anime. It’s not though, although they do constantly poke fun at yaoi stereotypes and fangirls/fanboys.
Grade: B+
That’s pretty much it. Next on my list is Blood+, which I really should have seen before now. Then maybe I’ll work to expand my non-vampire related anime and find something lighter.
(Writer’s note: Blood+ sucked. I’ll write about it when I care. Goodnight, all.)
Steve
(P.S. I wrote this two years ago, but never posted. I figured you deserved to read what I wrote years ago. Enjoy. See you all in otaku hell.)
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