Continuing from the last post, some more things I dropped recently:
Soul Eater: Not my cup of tea. I think I’ve outgrown shounen action shows or something, because the violent action in the first few minutes didn’t thrill me in the least, and then the attempts at… humor? with Maka’s dad or whoever just made me roll my eyes. I turned it off before the halfway mark. I’m not going to bother reading the manga or any summaries either. Tsugi!
Rokka no Yuusha: Meh. Not interested. I made through the whole of episode 1, which is more than I can say for the other two shows in this post, but that’s about it. The fast pace of the first episode was good – demon revives instantly, party starts to come together, all good, but the dense rash main character and the coy (but really strong, honest!) princess didn’t interest me enough to make me want to continue. One episode is enough.
Ping Pong: The main character’s voice and attitude turned me off completely. I know he’s supposed to sound bored and lifeless, and I’m sure hundred of voice actors were auditioned and several takes were made in order to get him to sound like a dead fish, but he just rubs me the wrong way 100%. I’ve heard good things about Ping Pong so I might read the manga where I don’t have to deal with any annoying voices and the super slow pacing. The anime, though, is not for me.
No need to waste time on stuff I know I won’t like. I gave Nanatsu no Taizai two whole episodes to redeem itself because I’d heard so much about it. The other two shows I just flipped through quite quickly. Not my thing, not my thing, *delete* and we’re done.
Nanatsu no Taizai – It seems to be one of the top shounen anime out right now, and I was all set to like it because of the fantasy setting, but ultimately it was undone by the main character’s sheer vulgarity. Perhaps it’s supposed to be funny, having a baby-faced protagonist constantly sexually harassing the hapless female under his protection, but I just found it creepy and disgusting to watch. Also granted I only gave it to two episodes, but the story didn’t really draw me in. Of course the Seven Deadly Sins are going to be found innocent and there’s some plotting afoot and in the end the princess will be on the throne, but it looked like something that would take a hundred episodes or more to happen, and I’m not ready for another Naruto. Done and dusted.
Houkago no Pleiades – Silly, childish schoolgirl romance kind of series. I have yet to encounter a magical girl show I enjoyed and this didn’t look set to be the one. And instead of embracing their magical girl-ness they tried to go all philosophical with gazing on the stars tonight, mingling with this or that *yaaaawn* Next.
Akagami no Shirayukihime – Lazy animation, lazy writing, infuriating show. I don’t like those shoujos where everything works out for the heroine despite her stupidity and her poor decision-making. If your red hair is attracting the wrong kind of attention, DYE IT YOU FOOL. And if you’re fleeing the prince of a kingdom, don’t get to the border and stop, LEAVE THE COUNTRY. And don’t randomly trust strange guys you meet in a forest. And don’t injure yourself trying to get random strangers to trust you. AAARGH. The first episode alone had me tearing my hair out, so I thought I’d quit while my blood pressure was still at normal levels.
I didn’t even finish Dragon Sister volume 1, but I’m going to “review” it anyway. It’s the only way to get relief from my suffering. I know near the end Tokyopop was licensing anything that looked even slightly like a manga, but I didn’t know the problem was this bad. When I think of all the delightful little series, maybe a little average but certainly not as bad as Dragon Sister, that could have been licensed instead, well it brings a little tear to my eye.
As usual, the blurb:
The classic Chinese tale of The Three Kingdoms–with all your favorite historical figures cast as cute girls! As the Han Dynasty collapses, two mighty warriors–Zhang Fei and Guan Yu–stand strong against the tide of rebellion. But because these fighters are female, their dreams of fighting in the Imperial army are nothing but dreams… until they find a patron and like-minded brother in Liu Bei, an idealistic descendant of royalty with dreams of his own. Forging a pact, the three form a volunteer army dedicated to restoring peace, which means first defeating three deceptively adorable sisters who oppose them, and who have their own, definitely cuter, plan for China’s future… One thing’s for sure–history’s about to get a makeover!
The first line is the beginning of my troubles – I have never been able to keep all the characters and plot twists of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms straight. Dragon Sister is probably the closest I’ve come to understanding all the different factions and which character belongs where, which they manage by keeping the main cast down to 6, 9 if you count a few extras. That’s a good start.
What’s not so good is that the mangaka (nini?) assumes that everyone is completely familiar with the plot, so s/he just jumps straight from important event to important event without any explanation. First the heroes/heroines meet up and decide to fight together. Next chapter they’re already in the middle of a battle, then suddenly the battle is over. Suddenly they meet Cao Cao, then just as suddenly he disappears. Next battle they’re already in the loyalist camp kicking up a fuss over something inconsequential. Is that how the original story went? I don’t know, but it’s hard enough to follow all the different factions without any smooth transitions from Point A to B to help keep things straight.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst was the waste of the premise. The idea is that due to a curse, all the heroes of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have been reborn as women. It’s not the first time a writer has recast historical characters as different genders and it won’t be the last. In Dragon Sister though, the problems are threefold.
If all heroes are women, why are Liu Bei and Cao Cao still male? Aren’t they heroes? Or will there be a reveal later that they were women all along?
Zhang Fei and Guan Yu spend time kvetching because being women keeps them from fighting for the loyalist army. Then it turns out Dong Zhuo, leader of said army, is a woman as well. So being a woman isn’t the barrier it was set up to be, Why bother having that gimmick in the first place?
Turns out the gimmick exists for the sake of cheap titillation, nothing more. I should have known as much when I saw that cover. Dong Zhuo almost always comes across poorly in RotK adaptations, and this time she’s a sneaky lesbian who lusts after the heroines and dresses them in revealing clothing (that’s actually less revealing than Guan Yu’s standard outfit) so they can trip and show off body parts. What happened to telling a story?
It’s a shame the series is so sub-part because I quite liked the clean art style. It just screams “modern shounen,” like Naruto meets Full Metal Alchemist kind of art. Still good art will only take you so far without good writing. No wonder even Tokyopop dropped it after two volumes. If you’re that hung up on seeing your favorite RotK heroes redrawn as women, or if you’re such a big fan that you’ll buy anything set in that era, then I guess you might get something out of Dragon Sister. Otherwise it’s not something to go out of your way to read.
All right, I’m sure we can all agree that Dungeon de Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteru darou ka (Is it Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon?) is a ridiculously long title that no anime reviewer should be expected to type out more than once in her lifetime, so I’m going to abbreviate it as Danmachi for the rest of this review. Any objections? I thought not.
On to business. Danmachi is set in a fantasy RPG world where everyone lives in a town with a massive dungeon in it and spend most of their time dungeon-crawling or taking part in related activities. If you’ve watched Tower of Druaga (highly recommended) it’s pretty much the same thing except instead of going up the characters are always heading down. And unlike in Druaga no one knows exactly what’s at the bottom or what they’re heading there for. They’re just exploring the dungeon because it’s there. Typical human nature.
Bell and Hestia. I don’t see the chemistry at all.
Into this show comes an ordinary seeming boy named Bell Cranel, who forms a contract with a busty loli goddess called Hestia. She gets to form her own clan and he gets the power and protection of a goddess, win-win. Except super-win for him, because somehow he manages to get an EXPx2 passive and some other passive haxes that make him a super-duper rookie in no time at all… which robs the series of all fun pretty quickly.
I watched most of the show pretty faithfully but by episode 13 I’d had enough. “Yeah, yeah, Bell’s just going to kill the boss and save the day again.” Skip to the last few minutes of the episode and yup, just as I expected. Oh, but it’s worse than that. It turns out that the reason why Bell is so super-special and all the gods are interested in him isn’t because he was lucky enough to get that Double EXP passive. Nope, luck had nothing to do with it. He’s actually the grandson of Zeus, king of the gods. Waaaooow. Color me surprised. And a little bit angry.
I really hate it when the main character starts out prattling about “working hard” and “determination” and “wanting to get stronger” and then it turns out the secret was in their genes all along. If you’re not lucky enough to be born to the right parents or into the right family from the start then you might as well not bother, is the message of shows like that. Dragonball (love that show but maaaan…), Naruto, Bleach where we thought Ichigo was some random human then it turned out his parents were reapers, now Danmachi as well. Like, I don’t mind at all if the character is a super-elite because of their families. No, really. But I like to be told that upfront instead of being fed a load of dung about hard work and determination blahdiblah when in the end it’s who you know that matters.
Bell-sama sugoooi!
I was going sour on Danmachi before that revelation came up though. I’m not sure why. I like JRPGs quite a bit, so I like animes set in game-like worlds, but this show just didn’t do it for me. It was all over the place. Maybe they spent too much time on the Lily part early on so the rest felt rushed. The last few episodes were just one random boss fight after another after another. Oh Bell-sama is so sugoi! Bell-sama! Bell this, Bell that. *sigh*
And then all these characters just showed up and took center stage in the last few eps like this Hermes guy and his girl and Welf who should have gotten some more development but was just kinda there, and some other familias and then some random baddies who were eventually forced to recognize the wonderfulness of Bell-sama and it was all just one huge mess. Anyway Bell saves the day and everyone thinks he’s sooo wonderful, the end. At least I’ve saved myself the effort of watching Danmachi Season 2 if they ever have the nerve to release it.
Give us a kiss, Bell-sama!
That said, it’s not a entirely terrible series. I wouldn’t have made it all the way to the end if it was. I liked the setting and the premise, as I mentioned before. I like that people have stats and level up and go around shopping for armor and buy better weapons, all the things you would expect from an RPG series. In the beginning I was also interested in seeing how the relationship between Aiz and Bell would develop, but now I know he’s the grandson of a god, the Bell x Hestia ending is all but confirmed now, so that’s that.
The fight with the minotaur was a good one too, since at that point I still thought it was possible for Bell to lose at anything. He used a bit of strategy and dexterity as well, culminating in seizing the beast’s weapon and using it against him. The Firebolt in the wound plan was a good one too. Too bad the other battles in the show didn’t live up to that. Just people hopping up and down and flying left and right, slash, slash, magic spell, I can’t even see what they’re trying to do, oh the monster is dead. Too many battles packed in the last quarter too. Quality over quantity please.
So there are some good things about Dungeon de Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteru ni kimatteru darou, just not enough to overlook the endless fawning over Marty Stu Bell Cranel the hardworking born with a silver spoon in his mouth rookie and his very annoying “goddess” Hestia whose sole raison d’etre is to stick her boobs in the viewer’s faces. Watch if you like faux-humble overpowered protagonists, game world settings or loud, busty lolis. Give it a pass otherwise.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)
I am far behind in my anime-watching and I don’t want to fall behind even further, so I like to at least try the first episode of each anime in each season so I know what to come back to later and what to drop. The season before the last was a bit of a wash, since I only found Saekano worth pursuing (even though I didn’t actually pursue it and it’s still on my “to watch” list). The last season I didn’t try that many shows, and of those I tried only Dungeon de Deai wo Motomeru showed much promise, and even that was nothing special.
This weekend I started grabbing episodes of both this and last season, and I’ve come up with some promising series to try a little more of later. I came up with others that I wasn’t too hot on, but might check out another episode of in the near future. And then there were the disappointments, Shokugeki no Soma and ISUCA.
Shokugeki no Soma – I like hot-blooded shounen comedy series as much as the next person, so I was rather looking forward to this one. First the scene where the girl had a “foodgasm” or whatever they call it after eating the fried rice was like Umm… seriously? =_= Then after that there’s a scene that shows her being sexually violated by peanut butter-covered squid tentacles, I was like DELETE! DELETE! DELETE! Disgusting and unfunny. I don’t watch anime to have my mind and eyeballs polluted.
ISUCA – Dropped even faster than Shokugeki no Soma. If you’ve watched it, you probably know why. The first 5 seconds show a naked woman latching on to a young man on the street. Then I dunno, some ribs come out of her and she turns into a monster or something bizarre like that DELETE! DELETE! The nudity is bad enough, but I really hate horror series. Really, really. If I’d bothered to read the description I probably wouldn’t have bothered to try it in the first place.
So those two shows are definitely out of the running. I’ll watch a second episode of the shows that seemed interesting and then line up those I want to watch later on. Obviously I’m going to wait till they’re complete because I hate following shows on a weekly basis, but at least I’ll have some good things to look forward to in the near future.
Ping Pong: The main character’s voice and attitude turned me off completely. I know he’s supposed to sound bored and lifeless, and I’m sure hundred of voice actors were auditioned and several takes were made in order to get him to sound like a dead fish, but he just rubs me the wrong way 100%. I’ve heard good things about Ping Pong so I might read the manga where I don’t have to deal with any annoying voices and the super slow pacing. The anime, though, is not for me.
