Tag: heavy fanservice

Horizon on the Middle of Nowhere (Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon)

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Er… Let’s be honest, the show itself relegates the exposition about the setting to a super-speed summary over the ending credits, so I feel confident in thinking it’s a lot of clutter that doesn’t matter too much. (Some stuff about god-kingdoms re-enacting history with terrible accuracy, with the current period being an techno-fantasy version of the Warring Kingdoms ? Whatever…)

What matters for the purposes of this first episode : this is a floating city (the surface isn’t habitable anymore) with fantasy inhabitants (from normal humans to incubus & blobs). We’re following a class of elite fighter and/or mage students, most of whom are heirs to bigwigs in their respective countries/ethnic groups.

Characters

The titular Horizon is a girl who died 10 years ago in an unfathomable pre-opening-credits sequence. The local ruler built her a tombstone in the middle of the floating city, so she must have been important.

Ms. Oriotorai, the class’s teacher, decided that the best way to spice PE up was to have all 30-ish of her students try and tag her while they cross the city. (The inhabitants on the way wisely decide to barricade themselves to avoid most of the crossfire.) Oh, and she’s also using it as a way to beat up some thugs that recently annoyed her. I like her style.

Tora, the student council president and son of the local bigwig, arrives fashionably late after the whole thing’s over (he was standing in line to buy an ero-game). He’s, of course, the only one who even manages to touch their teacher (groping her by surprise, sigh). It takes all of Jun Fukuyama’s charisma not to make me want to throttle him (he has enough charm for a punch in the face to be sufficient).

Most of the other students don’t get enough screentime to get more than one-note characterizations, although they do manage to pull some stunts that look impressive even with the teacher no-selling them. There’s a wide range of talents in the class, from fighters to mages and including some outlandish fantasy races (there’s a blob, an incubus, etc.). They also do show some team spirit, with effective combinations and several of them taking the time to collect the wounded and apologize to the neighbours.

There’s a girl in a bakery who does nothing whatsoever, but is presumably some sort of reincarnation of Horizon to get this much screentime in so busy an episode.

Production Values

Impressive action sequences that flow quite well despite the general chaos. There’s also a good sense of worldbuilding, with nice panoramas and a world that feels completely alien.

What did I think of it ?

This is another episode-long fight scene that leaves me clueless about the general direction the series is going to take, but unlike Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai! this feels way more coherent. It’s a thoroughly dense setting, but the writers have the good sense of barely bothering to explain it and to focus on how fun it is to adventure there. It’s an enthralling watch, with enough charm to get over the more cliché aspects or the overwhelming expospeak.

I could live without the more ecchi aspects of Tora’s personality, but so far it works.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011 – Page 4.

C³ (Cube x Cursed x Curious)

What’s it about ?

Generic harem show where the male lead receives a big box with a weird girl in it.

Characters

Haruaki, said male lead. As generic as you could expect. His (offscreen) father is a collector of weird stuff and apparently built the house so that it’d be flooded with positive vibes. I’m not quite seeing it.

Fear, the girl in the box. Completely unfamiliar with modern civilization, she claims to be the personification of negative emotions or whatever. In practice, think the destructive potential of Squid-Girl, but without any of the charm. She’s really, really annoying, and the corny ending to the episode where Haruaki learns she’s not that bad rings horribly false to me.

Konoha, Haruaki’s childhood friend who happens to live in another part of the house (it’s more than hinted that she used to be somewhat like Fear way back when they first met). She fits the archetype perfectly.

The ED (or the OP played at the end, who knows) suggests that there’s a third girl involved (of course !), but she’s yet to show up.

Production Values

This is a Silver Link production, aka the people who did BakaTest. It certainly shows, with tons of little showy effects to liven things up visually in a SHAFT-lite style. It doesn’t help, especially given how much they focus on Fear’s panties (to say nothing of her way too long nude scene).

What did I think of it ?

This is rubbish. I’m not entirely averse to harem shows, but they live and die on their charm (see Asobi ni Iku yo! for a good example). This has no charm whatsoever, and is just painful to watch (especially any scene with Fear… which is about 90% of the episode).

Avoid like the plague.

via [In which I review] New anime, Fall 2011.

Crying Freeman

(6 52-minute OVA, 1988 to 1994)

My previous exposure :
I stumbled on the first three episodes while channel-surfing on late-night TV as a young’un (despite being somewhat under the advised age). It left quite an impression, to the point that I’m now revisiting it properly despite it being quite outside my advertised preferred time period. Oh, well.

What’s it about ?

The assassin codenamed Crying Freeman used to be an ordinary Japanese potter until he stumbled onto proof of the Chinese Mafia’s bad deeds, and was foolish enough to take them on. The organization (called “the 108 dragons”) in retaliation brainwashes him into the ultimate assassin, leaving him the only freedom of crying in despair after he kills someone. (The “Freeman” part is obviously ironic.) Years later, history repeats itself as a young woman called Emu stumbles onto one of his assassinations, and as a crucial witness becomes a hostage between the ambitions of the police, the 108 Dragons and the Japanese mafia. When Freeman goes and tries to assassinate her, she just has one wish : she doesn’t want to die a virgin…

At least, that’s the initial plot of the first OVA. You’d normally expect some standard “having sex breaks Freeman’s conditioning and he rebels against the 108 Dragons” plot… but that’s not what happens next at all. The 108 dragons are a surprisingly accepting bunch, see no problem in sparing Emu, and even promote the two of them to being the new leaders of the group at the beginning of Episode #2. To say that it’s a jarring change of gears is a grand understatement ; and it’s not for the better, as much of the ambiguity and tragedy of the original premise goes right out of the window as Freeman basically becomes a generic 90s antihero.

… Who likes to fight in the buff. Not only is it a very bloody series with tons of graphic violence, but there’s also a lot of nudity and it often veers into softcore porn. Not exactly the kind of stuff young!me was supposed to be watching at that age…

What did I think of it ?

There’s no two ways about it : it’s a trainwreck. But at least it’s an (unintentionally) hilarious one, so I didn’t mind spending a few hours revisiting it.

As stated above, it has the germs of an interesting (if somewhat well-troden) premise, but it then chooses to completely disregard it in favour of something much more bizarre. Shifting Freeman into a position of leadership is just a baffling move (especially since he’s a Japanese outsider in a Chinese organization), and it’s thus no surprise that one of the major leaders balks and betrays the 108 Dragons immediately. (Of course, the dude then allies with the Camora, who immediately backstabs him, but that’s the kind of things that happen.) Even more surprising is the introduction of Bayasan, the obese adult womanchild and black sheep of the 108 Dragons who tries to wrestle the organization’s control. She fails, obviously, but there’s something endearing about her incompetent enthusiasm. And she sticks around as comic relief, which contributes to make some of the latter episodes less boring (if not actually funny – this series can’t really do humour).

The most bizarre episode is probably the third, because of its weird pacing : at its heart, it tries to transition Emu into less of a damsel in distress, by giving her some training and having her pick up a magic evil sword… but then in the middle we get 35 minutes of Freeman fighting a random African crime syndicate (who tries to hijack a plane he just happened to be on), and in the process sleeping with two other women (one of whom permanently joins his harem). And it’s not even the most sexist episode (it’s a toss-up between rape-tastic #4 and evil!self-made-woman-who-spends-all-her-screentime-masturbating-at-Freeman #5).

Another weird thing about the series is that the 108 Dragons are suddenly whitewashed into being a somewhat honourable group, despite all the assassinating going around in the first episode (and the leader of the Japanese Mafia pointing out that they don’t deal drugs, unlike that Chinese scum !). From then on, it’s just a series of rival groups trying to take them over. Episode #6 is the only other one where the 108 are depicted like an actual criminal group (although that’s mostly slander by the bad guys of the day). Mostly, they’ve become passive and reactive, with an incredibly high internal body count for an organisation that was supposed to be so frightening in the first episode. This isn’t a ringing endorsement for Freeman’s leadership… (Although, conveniently, most of the old guard dies quite early on, so who’ll complain ?)

This series is a mess on so many levels it’s laughable. The plot makes no sense (and is inconsistent from one instalment to the other) ; Freeman as a character is stripped of all drama very early on, leaving the “Crying” gimmick as an artefact of a forgotten plotline. The artwork is very much a product of its time, stiff and emotionless. The fight scenes are okay, but hardly worth watching (and they progressively lose in creativity as the series goes on). The sex scenes aren’t as gratuitous as they could be, but they’re not of much interest either (and the sexism of the whole thing makes them all the less palatable).

If you’re ever planning to watch this for a laugh, stick with the first three episodes. The last three are distinctively more boring, as the writers were clearly struggling to find new plots.

via [LTTP/WIW] Various anime from the 00s and beyond – Page 3.

Summer 2011 capsules

Two quick reviews, because those 3/4-minute shorts don’t warrant a full writeup :

Morita-san wa Mukuchi (“Morita is taciturn”)

This revolves around Morita, a high school girl who barely ever talks (although she’s got some interior monologue, which kills the effect a bit). And that’s it, that’s the entire joke. It was already outstaying its welcome at 3 minutes long, I can’t imagine watching anymore of this.

Nyanpire

Speaking of one-shot jokes that can’t be sustainable, even in 4-minute shorts : this stars a cat that’s been bitten by a vampire (as a way to save its life). This is even less entertaining than the previous series : it tries way too hard to hit the “cute cat doing cute things cutely” button, and fails spectacularly at being even a single bit endearing. It’s way too artificial to work, and the high concept wasn’t even promising to begin with.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 4.

I usually don’t say much about OVA or sequels, but I figured I’d say a few words about Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira, the first episode of which was recently released.

Now, the thing with Higurashi is that, while it’s a very good story, the plot got conclusively resolved at the end of the second season, in a way that leaves no room whatsoever for straight sequels. The first OVA series, Rei, got around it by featuring an interesting story hook that brings a new light over the wider picture, trying to tie it a bit more to the overall When they Cry franchise (probably as an tie-in to the then-debuting Umineko anime)… but in a way that’s self-canceling, and again leaves no room for further elaboration. Also, Rei was padded up with a couple of random comedy episodes that were kinda cute but didn’t bring anything new to table.

Well, the first episode of Kira makes it look like it’s going for the “random comedy” episodes route, except with even more fanservice. The first half of the episode is literally the male cast (Keiichi, Ooishi, Tomitake & Irie) fantasizing about “punishments” they could inflict to the whole female cast as part of the “penalty games”. Not only doesn’t it do much for me, but it gets quite uncomfortable when it reaches the younger members of the cast (Rika rubbing the windows with her ass ? Really ?). The second half is slightly more fun, not really because the female cast gets to retaliate (that’s nearly as tedious as the opposite), but because it actually makes an effort to tie the whole thing into the wider plot (however ridiculous that may sound). It doesn’t quite succeed in canceling out the bad taste left by the first half, but at least I don’t feel like I completely wasted my time.

Is this worth watching ? Well, no. It doesn’t look like Kira is going to add anything to the plot ; it feels like a cash-grab exercise, or at best an opportunity for the creators to have fun with the most lighthearted aspects of the premise. (The preview for the second episode certainly looks like it’s going to be entertainingly bonkers.) You can’t really put a clearer sign for “out-of-continuity zaniness” than featuring the Soul Brothers in a major role. I’m a die-hard fanatic of the franchise, so I’ll probably keep watching this, however pointless it is, just out of affection for the characters ; but you probably shouldn’t bother.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 11.

Manyuu Hikenchou

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Ninjas with light-emitting bodies… wait, no, that’s just the censorship.

Ninjas who steal breasts from each other (and from the common people). No, seriously, that’s the plot. Despite being feudal Japan, they’ve somehow got access to advanced enough surgery to do that.

Characters

Chifusa Manyuu, second daughter of the breast-stealing Manyuu clan, and Daddy’s favourite, is our protagonist. For reasons that aren’t quite clear to me, she starts the episode by running away from the village. So OF COURSE she runs into…

Ouka, the poor woman whose breasts were stolen by Daddy Manyuu to give to Chifusa. Before she recognizes our “hero”, she nurses her back to health… and in the end she easily forgives Chifusa for no good reason.

Kagefusa Manyuu, Chifusa’s older sister, leads the hunt against her (she’s a bit bitter about the “Daddy’s favourite” part). For added villainy points, she was the one who captured Ouka for the breast-stealing. Not that she needs that, as she spends the whole episode being gratuitously evil while fondling and/or raping anything female in sight. Somehow nearly every shot of her is censored, which suggests she’s a walking wardrobe malfunction.

Kaede, Chifusa’s sidekick which she abandoned “for her own safety”… Well, if you count “having your breasts stolen by Kagefusa as punishment” as “safety”, I guess. Again, despite having every reason to be bitter against our “hero”, she eventually rejoins her without resentment.

There’s a couple of other characters who get a scene of foreshadowing that leaves me none the wiser about what their deal is. Oh, and Daddy only ever appears in flashback, so I doubt he’s still among the living.

Production Values

It’s a bit hard to judge, considering that there’s heavy censorship in nearly every shot. And we’re talking about “big rays of light obscuring half the screen” censorship at best (there are some shots where we only see one person’s head against a white background).

Then again, it’s very obvious that this is softcore porn, with bondage and on-screen rape every other scene (Kagefusa’s usually the one who inflicts it, of course). Even with the censorship, the fanservice level is already through the roof.

Overall Impression

I’ve had trouble summing up above the full stupidity of the premise. Did I mention that one’s social status depends entirely on the size of their breasts ? That Chifusa’s inherited a secret scroll with a special sword technique allowing to magically steal someone else’s breasts ? (I swear I’m not making this up.) That Chifusa’s big objective is to “transmit the Manyuu techniques to the public”, whatever that means ? (So it’ll be a free-for-all between everyone to steal each other’s breasts ? How would that improve the situation ?) It’s just astounding how bizarrely inane the plot is.

You might consider watching this for the lulz. This would be a mistake : the plot is an incoherent mess that took me a while to decypher, Kagefusa’s RAPE RAPE RAPE behaviour is tremendously unpleasant, and most of the action is rendered impenetrable by the censorship. There’s just nothing to enjoy here.

Well done, show, you’ve managed to be worse than R-15. I knew you had the potential, but that was far worse than my (already low) expectations.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 8.

R-15

What’s it about ?

The Academy of Inspiration, where teenage geniuses from every possible field are gathered to cultivate their talent. Also, smut.

Characters

Taketo, our protagonist. He’s the best at what he does, and what he does is… writing porn novels. Since middle school. No, really, that’s the plot. Obviously, all his female classmates tend to view him with disgust… which isn’t unwarranted, considering how whenever he looks at one of them, he starts imagining them in porn scenarios and writing it in his notebook (when he’s not dreaming aloud). From what we can see of it, his output is cliché-ridden purple prose that sounds more laughable than arousing.

Ritsu, genius mathematician, his best friend, aka the Gay Option. He’s very defensive of Taketo, despite the guy not deserving it at all.

Raika, genius photographer, seems to be the only girl who genuinely likes Taketo and his perversion. They’re both in the Newspaper Club, and as such are tasked with interviewing…

Fukune, genius clarinette player. You’d think she’d be perfect fodder Taketo’s writing, but he’s actually somehow unable to write anything smutty about her (although he can still write cliché-ridden magical girl stories about her). Of course, his attempts at getting close to her are a complete disaster, given his (well-deserved) reputation.

The campus is filled with geniuses in every possible field. We’ve got a genius inventor (whose rockets coincidentally always seem to target Taketo…), a genius idol singer… and even a genius narrator who delivers a complete summary of Taketo’s life story. Which is admittedly the one genuinely funny joke in the whole episode.

Production Values

Average, and of course with tons of fanservice. We get to see a good number of Taketo’s fantasies, and it’s no wonder some of them are heavily censored.

Overall Impression

Dear gods, that was painful. Setting aside the repulsive premise and the bland characters, it commits the worst sin possible for a comedy : it’s not funny in the slightest.

I’d say this was easily the worst show in the season (yes, worse than pedo-bait Ro-Kyu-Bu), but there’s still three to go and at least one of them looks like a strong contender. But it’s certainly down there with the worst things I’ve ever watched.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 7.

A Dark Rabbit has Seven Lives (Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Teenage vampires. Or something.

Characters

Taito, our average high school male protagonist. Nine years ago he got bitten and enslaved by his childhood sweetheart, but somehow he’s all forgot about that now, aside from random dreams about it. But that changes when a getting ran over by a truck makes it clear he’s immortal (decapitation’s involved) and jumps up his memories. He then sets out to find her back.

Himea, said sweetheart. She’s been imprisoned in limbo for 9 years, and is thus a bit disappointed he’s taken this long to save her. His “awekening” allows her to escape, though. She then magically ages her body up from 6 to 15, because her reunion scene with Taito would have been creepy otherwise. (Not that this isn’t creepy, but…) They barely manage to get together when she’s stabbed by…

Gekkou, presumably our antagonist. The idol student at Taito’s high school, he’s quite the jerk beneath the “perfect” façade. His superpowers include opening portals and the like, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one to trap Himea. He’s followed around by a devoted groupie who mainly helps provide exposition.

There’s also Haruka, Taito’s current not-girlfriend (although she’d obviously like it to be more), who hovers around him to help with exposition delivery and then suddenly disappears from the story once Taito goes around looking for Himea.

Production Values

This looks like a horrible style clash. The basic linework is the kind of bright and shiny stuff, with everyone having wild and technicolor hair, that you’d expect from a much brighter show ; but it seems to have been processed through a brown filter, jerked around to produce unending Dutch angles, and peppered with random post-production embellishments (way-too-elaborate CG runes ! weird CG stylings on the screen borders that look completely out of place !) in a desperate effort to make it look darker and edgier. It’s a complete failure, and just looks hideous.

It doesn’t help that this show is marred by absolutely inane censorship. Whatever you may think about a gratuitous upskirt shot of dozens of Gekkou’s groupies, it’s just stupid to add a big white ray of light in the middle that completely fails to hide most of the panties. And that’s far from an isolated occurrence (either for the censorship or the tons of gratuitous panty shots).

Overall Impression

Oh, dear. This sure went to hell fast.

There’s a wonderful pre-OP sequence where Himea bites Taito (in a dream/flashback) that is deliciously creepy and contains some genuinely good dialogue. But after that it’s a disjointed mess that barely makes any sense or has any logical flow. We also get some abysmal dialogue, such as when Taito stops dead in his tracks to deliver a mightily awkward six-line “As You Know” description of Gekkou to Haruka. There are a couple of good scenes here and there (such as Taito’s body wandering headless for a full minute, or most of Gekkou’s groupie’s banter), but even those are marred by the terrible artstyle.

Damn, there’s a decent nugget of a story somewhere in there. But the execution is far too bad for me to even consider watching another episode.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 7.

Mayo Chiki!

What’s it about ?

Ordinary high school dude discovers that the butler of his very rich classmate is actually a girl in drag. Hilarity ensues.

Characters

Jirou, our protagonist. His mother has left the country in search of something that’d challenge her in a fight, and his little sister’s routine to wake him up involves beating him to a pulp, so he has no problem taking a punch ; an ability that is sure to come handy. He’s afflicted with a bizarre allergy that makes him nosebleed when touched by a girl (and pass out on prolonged contact), so of course his repeated avoidance of anything female makes everyone think he’s gay.

Kanade, the super-rich girl whose Daddy owns the school. She looks like the perfect girl, but her demure exterior hides a grade-A sadist with no shame whatsoever.

Subaru, Kanade’s butler. Who’s secretly a girl, as part of those weird contrived family traditions that come up all the time in anime. Jirou stumbles on her in the male bathroom and accidentally learns his secret, which is only the beginning of his troubles. She wants to “get rid of the evidence”, of course, but Kanade eventually makes a deal between the three of them to keep all this a secret.

We catch a glimpse of various other side-characters, such as the mandatory lecherous best friend or the random cat-eared girl, but they don’t matter much yet.

Production Values

Average, and with a hefty dose of fanservice through convenient clothing damage. Nothing to write home about, although I quite like the soundtrack.

Overall Impression

I was all set to hate this, as the premise is unoriginal crap replete with clichés. But it surprised me by being actually quite funny : the jokes are well-timed, Kanade gets all the best lines (“The nurse left after I slapped her repeatedly with a bundle of cash”), and Jirou gets some decent sarcastic one-liners. Even Subaru’s not as irritating as her archetype (“supposedly strong girl who melts when the protagonist touches her”) would suggest.

Don’t mistake me, this is still crap. But it’s entertaining crap, and I’m perfectly willing to give it at least one other episode (although the next-episode-preview seems designed to make me reconsider by foreshadowing even more contrived stupidity).

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011 – Page 5.

Ro-Kyu-Bu

What’s it about ?

Standard sports series about an elementary school’s female basketball club. Also, lolicon.

Characters

Subaru, our protagonist. He’s a high school student roped by his elder sister (who’s an elementary teacher) into coaching the club for three days. He was part of the high-school basketball club until it got dissolved a month or so ago due to a “lolicon incident” (I’m not sure about the details, and I can’t bring myself to rewatch this), and his middle school club got quite high in tournaments, so at least he’s competent, but he’s not particularly enthusiastic (his sister being a complete troll doesn’t help).

The five members of the club are the usual stereotypes : the talented and competent one, the loud idiot, the brainy one, the tall and way-too-well-endowed-for-an-elementary-student moeblob, and the kid.

We also get a glimpse of Subaru’s potential love interest, as well as the male elementary basketball club walking angrily towards Subaru as a weak cliffhanger.

Production Values

There’s absolutely no way to mistake what kind of audience this is pandering to : way too many ass shots, an emphasis on the glistening hotpants the girls wear, a gratuitous shower scene where they actually start fondling each other…

Well, at least they spent part of the animation budget into making the basketball look somewhat good. But that’s what, 4 minutes of screentime in total ?

Overall Impression

I knew what kind of show I was in for when I saw that the first post-OP action of the girls was to dress as maids in an effort to “make a good impression” on their new coach (and their dialogue gets more explicit after that). I braced myself for quite a painful watch.

It’s… actually not that bad : the lolicon stuff gets more subdued as the episode goes, and it’s hard to mess with the standard sports show formula. Still, that doesn’t actually make the show any good : the not-brain-bleach-inducing parts are merely mediocre instead of plain awful. There’s nothing at all to recommend to this show.

via [In which I review] New anime, Summer 2011.

Aria the Scarlet Ammo (Hidan no Aria)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

In the near future, random terrorism has become such a problem that there’s now an academy devoted to training mercenaries from elementary school onwards.

Characters

Kinji, our high school boy protagonist. While he spends most of the episode whining about wanting to quit the mercenary school, he suffers from a bizarre medical condition that alters his behaviour to one of a cliché action hero when he gets to excited. Anyway, on his way to school he discovers someone planted a bomb on his bicycle, and he’s stalked by killer Segways. He’s saved at the last minute by…

Aria, aka the standard Rie Kugimiya-voiced tsundere loli. The variation here is that, like nearly every character in this setting, she’s armed to the teeth. (How does she hide those katanas behind her back ? They’re taller than her torso !) She makes her entrance by parachuting off a skyscraper in a scene that was probably meant to look cool but just ends up making no sense whatsoever.

Shirayuki, Kinji’s “friend” who does all his domestic chores for him, in the hopes he’ll take the hint. (He doesn’t.)

We get to see a few more characters at school, but none of them rise above the usual stereotypes for now. There’s even a teacher who spends all his screentime delivering a lecture describing the setting to students who presumably already know all this stuff.

Production Values

Some decent action sequences, but the most striking thing here is the rampant fanservice, with every single girl being heavily sexualized and our protagonist landing into more chests than reasonable.

Also, gun porn. Lots of gun porn.

Overall Impression

What the heck is this shit ?

The writers probably find it clever to have the protagonist complain at length about the premise. It’s not ; it’s just bloody irritating and makes me loathe him. His plot-convenient MPD and the harem hijinks don’t help one bit.

Some people might get some entertainment from crazy shit such as the killer Segways, but this kind of manufactured zaniness just rubs me the wrong way. Avoid.

via [In which I review] New anime, Spring 2011 – Page 12.