Tag: light novel adaptation

A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet. (Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a mystery light novel series.

Characters

Sakurako is a woman obsessed with bones. It comes from family, but she’s taken it to a whole new level, taking a hobby of digging them out wherever it takes her fancy. She’s certainly affluent enough to do it just about all the time. She has no people skill ; but what she lacks in common sense she makes up for with a very keen detective mind (especially if the mysteries involve skeletons). But while she’s delightful to see barge in and annoy people, she’s saddled with…

Shoutarou, a generic high school dude. Who’s not so much boring as an complete buzzkill. His only purpose is to be annoyed or creeped out when Sakurako does interesting stuff. Well, that and presumably as an audience-standin figure, but he’s such an ass about disabling the heroine that I end up rensenting him being there. There’s no explanation whatsoever for why the two of them hang out together (it’s a story left for later), and there’s a relative lack of chemistry between them. Heck, they don’t seem to be romantically involved at all… Which, given the age difference, I’m thankful for at least.

Production Values

Very, very pretty, with tons of scenery porn. TROYCA are a very new studio (their only other series of note is the co-production of Aldnoah.Zero), but they certainly aren’t lacking budget here.

Overall Impression

Oh, dear. I love mystery shows, and Sakurako’s excentricities are a lot of fun to watch. So why partner her with the worst Watson figure ever ? I get that some degree of contrast between them is required, but he’s so persistently annoying that he nearly entirely kills the show for me by his lonesome.

I’m giving this a second episode against my better judgement because of the genre, but it’d better shape up soon.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015 – Page 4

Chivalry of a Failed Knight – A Tale of Worst One (Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Oh, just shoot me.

This is the second light novel adaptation about teenagers in magical high school, with tons of gratuitous fighting and technobabble, airing this season. At least the third one’s not out until next week.

Characters

Ikki, our male lead, is known as the Worst One in his magical academy, as his magical abilities are way below par. He overcompensates by training his physical abilities and swordsmanship, but those aren’t counted by the official grading system, so he’s still “F Rank”. His only hope of graduating resides in winning the inter-academy tournament, of course. One day, as he comes back to his dorm room, he walks into…

Stella, our tsundere female lead, in her underwear. She… has got fire powers and is an actual princess from somewhere in Europe. I swear I’m not making up how ridiculously same-y all those shows are. Anyway, the reason she’s half-naked in Ikki’s room is because the Headmistress trolled them by not telling her she’d have a roommate. Because of course this is a co-ed academy !

Cue mock duel between the two of them, which Ikki wins against all odds, of course. He’s a nice enough dude not to really take her up on her wager that the loser’d serve the winner like a dog.

There are a couple of characters with designs distinctive enough to suggest they’ll join the supporting cast, but proper introductions will have to wait.

Production Values

Decent enough ; the duel in particularly is nicely paced. I also note that there’s a degree of equal-opportunity fanservice, as we get to see Ikki’s abs quite a bit.

Overall Impression

Er… it’s better than the other one ? It does manage to get out some nice character moments along the way, and the Principal’s trolling has good comedic timing. On the other hand, it’s still a generic tournament battle show which oozes blandness and features awkward romantic comedy hijinks which should have been retired ages ago, so it’d be a stretch to actually call it good.

Yeah, no, I have better things to watch.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015 – Page 2

Asterisk War – The Academy City on the Water (Gakusen Toshi Asterisk)

(12 episodes + another season already announced for Spring 2016)

What’s it about ?

You may have noticed over the years I’ve been doing this that there’s a specific subgenre I can’t stand and will take a lot of work to make me care about : the light novel adaptation about teenagers in magical high school, with tons of gratuitous fighting and technobabble.

Well, lucky me : there’s three of them this season, and this is the first one.

Characters

Ayato, our boring male lead, is a new transfer into this magical academy, and thus everyone happily exposits to him how everything works here and in the world. Not that he really cares ; and I can’t really blame him, since I don’t either. He’s vaguely following the footsteps of his older sister, whose stay at the academy 5 years ago was apparently so tumultuous that records have been expunged (and the action prologue certainly seems to concur with this)… Wait, that sounds way more interesting than anything else in the current timeframe. Why are we following HIM instead of HER ? It’s not even like he’s passionate about finding out what happened to her !

Julis, our token tsundere love interest. With fire-related powers, of course. And even a literal princess from some random European country, because of course monarchy has made a resurgence in the future somehow. Cue avalanche of terrible romantic comedy clichés : him walking on her while she’s in her underwear, the token magic duel where he ends up cradling her and grabbing her boobs by total accident, them being forced to sit next to one another in class…

Claudia, the scheming student council president. She’s intent on getting on board for the inter-academy magical tournaments (for reasons that escape me, since he looks like nothing special so far), and she goes about this through a fix of friendliness, helpful exposition, and downright sexual assault and trolling.

In case you’re wondering, the mandatory pervert best friend does show up in due time, just in time for more clunky exposition.

Production Values

Decent enough, I guess ? The camera is firmly stuck into pervert mode, though.

Overall Impression

Have I mentioned why I heavily dislike this subgenre ? Well, it’s because most of them are crap like this : uninspired, tedious, heavily derivative, and relying on clichés to make up for the lack of creativity. All of the characters are annoying (aside from Claudia, who’s just creepy), the jokes should have been retired decades ago, and the plot seems to be heading nowhere but towards a generic tournament arc. This show has absolutely nothing to it beyond the wish-fulfilment value, but that’s completely lost on me.

And this has already been greenlit for two seasons ? Dear gods. Well, I’m not sticking around, that’s for sure.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015 – Page 2

Heavy Object

(24 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Exposition, the anime ! Adapted from a light novel series, of course.

Okay, here’s a quick summary of the premise : in the future, conventional weapons (and even nuclear missiles) have been rendered obsolete by the titular “Heavy Objects”, ball-shaped mechas with impressive firepower and even more impressive shielding. So now wars have become skirmishes between Heavy Objects. This first episode goes into much more extraneous detail than that, but that’s the gist of it.

Characters

Qwenthur (sic), our protagonist, is a mechanic student who’s enlisted into a military outpost in the middle of nowhere, so as to study the Heavy Object stationed there. It’s an old, non-specialized model, which is all the best for him to learn as much about the tech as possible. And then, PROFIT ! (He’s very vague about how merely knowing how those things work will allow him to easily become an engineering tycoon. Surely the field is already crowded as heck ?)

The thing you quickly notice about Qwenthur is that he. never. shuts. up. Which is doubly bad, as he’s also our narrator : even with his mouth closed, his inner monologue will drown the audience with tedious and clumsy exposition. I usually don’t mind Natsuki Hanae, but by 3/4ths of the way through this episode I was yelling at the screen to just shut the — up.

“The Princess” (who may have an actual name) is the Heavy Object’s actual pilot. Supposedly super-elite and stuff, but she spends most of the episode idling around on standby, or taking a gratuitous shower to liven up Qwenthur’s droning narration. (And of course additional material states she’s 14. Urgh.)

Major Capistrano is the local commanding officer, at the grizzled old age of 18. She’s actually coordinationg the operations of at least 4 other Heavy Objects, if her tablet display is any indication. Or maybe it’s just a casual game/training program she plays ; she certainly looks horribly bored doing so.

The show makes it look like there are only five people total on the base (with Qwenthur’s hardass boss at the mecha maintenance shop, and his best pal/rookie radio operator), despite the vague suggestion more soldiers are around.

Production Values

Well, the direction makes it darnedest to liven things up, with decent battle visuals for the Heavy Objects and some desperate fanservice scenes, and even the music swelling around to try and make it epic, but nothing can overcome the dreary exposition.

Overall Impression

Oh, dear. I came into this cautiously optimistic, as the same author’s Index series led to a decently entertaining anime series… but gods, this is unengaging on every level. I’m used to screenwriter Hiroyuki Yoshino being widely inconsistent in his adaptations, but this is an unfortunate failure to weed down the inherent wordiness of the source material. The already rather flat characters become mere vessels for the exposition, what little humour filters through isn’t particularly funny, and the script even goes out of its way to state that Heavy Object warfare just isn’t very interesting period. Why should we care, then ?

Very disappointing, and I won’t be bothering with any more episodes.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015

Lance N’ Masques

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Dashing knights ! (Adapted from a light novel series.)

Characters

Yotaro, our teenage protagonist, has been trained since childhood to become a knight, as part of the order of the Knights of the World, a peacekeeping organization who have their own island country. He’d actually like to live a normal life, but that’s not easy when his body feels compelled to white-knighting whenever girls around him are in any kind of trouble. Girls his own age find this a bit creepy, really. (The goofy mask and the huge lance he carries around don’t help.)

Makio, on the other hand, is 6 years old, and thus finds “Knight Lancer” awesome. She hasn’t twigged that her hero is the same person as the more ordinary-looking Yotaro, but that doesn’t prevent her from inviting the latter home when she learns he’s hungry. Said home is super-huge, has a number of maids on the payroll, and is inhabited exclusively by Makio. (Mom is dead, Dad rarely comes.)

Yuifa, the maid closest to Makio (despite strict orders from Dad not to get too close), is of course suspicious of this boy more than twice her age she’s brought back home. You can’t blame her for being a bit overprotective, especially as gangsters barge in later on to try and kidnap her charge. (They’re defeated by the Knight Lancer, of course.)

Looking for Yotaro are his quirky entourage : a cranky girl, a snarky horse-girl, and a stern maid. Sure, whatever. They find him at the end of the episode.

Production Values

I’m not fond of the character designs, who all look very same-y and generic combined with the super-pastel colour palette, but there’s a lot to like in the actual camera work. The proportions go wildly out of control in the action sequences (and Yotaro’s lance in particular keeps changing sizes), but I’m pretty sure that’s a stylistic choice. Especially with the nice sight gag of the huge third thug unfolding from behind the two others despite having no room to hide before that ; the direction knows how to play with this for maximum effect.

There’s no notable fanservice, which is a relief given the lolicon potential. Even Makio being nude for a chunk of the OP sequence looks rather tasteful.

Overall Impression

Wait, that’s it ? I kinda expected some hook to come in at some point, but nope. It’s all about white-knighting, with one-note characters that range from the okay to the unbearable (Yotaro’s entourage, urgh…). While it does have some self-awareness, it’s still rather shallow, and I just can’t bring myself to care. It’s got style, I’ll give it that, but not enough to overcome its innate blandness.

I’ll pass.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Fall 2015

Summer 2015 capsules

Out first show of the season is My Wife is the Student Council President (Okusama ga Seitokaichou!), a series of 8-minute shorts adapted from an erotic comedy manga series. I have to say I feared the worst from the title. An underage wife ?

The good news is that the premise doesn’t involve any actual marriage yet and merely involves the student council president being, er, very “sex-liberated” (condoms for everyone !), and aggressively pursuing her vice-president. So far, he’s not receptive at all to her stalker ways ; which anyone would be even without the huge stick in his ass.

The bad news is that it isn’t really funny. I just can’t laugh with the show, as I find the title character more horrific than cute. And the boring, by-the-numbers point-of-view character doesn’t help matters.

Don’t bother with looking this one up.

 

Wakaba Girl is a typical adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga as a series of 8-minute-long shorts (extended OP sequence included). It’s basically a “cute girls being cute” affair, with the central gimmick of its heroine Wakaba coming from a very high-class family and being delighted to attend a normal high school where she can make normal friends. Cue many jokes from her being more than a bit sheltered.

It’s cute, reasonably well-paced and funny, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. That’s plenty enough reasons for me to keep watching.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015

 

Wakako-zake is a series of 2-minute (OP included) shorts about a woman who eats out at restaurants, with the constant in her menu being alcohol. And, er, that’s it. Not much in the way of jokes or story (aside from a couple of dudes trying to pick her up), just some food porn. Pass along, nothing to see here.

 

Sequel Watch !
– Dragonball Super picks up a few months after the Majin Buu arc, which means we’re ignoring Z’s epilogue with Uub and its timeskip. (To say nothing of GT.) The good news is that no knowledge from the recent movies seems to be required ; the new antagonists are introduced properly and seem to be heading towards their first meetings with the heroes. The bad news is that it’s a very slow start, reintroducing the dozens of members of the supporting cast and what they’re up to now. Even then, I think we missed Krillin & family, as well as most of the minor useless members of the Z-fighters ; we’re mostly focused on the extended Son/Briefs/Satan households for now. There’s little in the way of actual plot right now, aside from the Supreme Kais worrying about new villains showing up anytime now. But then they always do. Since I actually like the more slice-of-life comedy segments of Dragonball, I’m not complaining. (Although less Goten/Trunks screentime would be a relief.)

– Speaking of reintroducing dozens of supporting characters, Durarara!!x2 (Middle Part) feels it was the time to introduce more new characters. And hey, it does makes who comes to try and finish Izaya off in his hospital room a genuine surprise. A nice callback to his introduction, but still unexpected. Aside from that, it’s mostly a matter of positioning all the pieces back in place.

– Symphogear GX – Determination to Fist has a positively metal opening action sequence that’s going to be hard to top. It does unfortunately show again that Aoi Yuuki is miles behind Nana Mizuki & Ayahi Takagaki in singing talent, but them’s the breaks. At least we get another Nana Mizuki/Yoko Hikasa duet. Not feeling the new antagonists yet, but I’ll give them time.

– Gatchaman CROWDS Insight… I have no clue where they’re going with this new team member and the alien. But it’s certainly very energetic and colourful as usual, and Hajime is still very fun. (“Berg, shut up-su!”)

– As for Working!!!, I’m fearing the ship may have sailed. I quite enjoyed the first two seasons, but this reintroduction episode left me quite cold. Maybe it’ll pick up steam later on, but this wasn’t a good start.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 3

 

I’m sure that, like me, you rolled your eyes when Bikini Warriors showed up on the schedule, especially as an adaptation of a line of “sexy” figurines. The good news is that this series of comedy shorts makes its tired cliché of a premise the central joke. Yes, those bikini-style armours are ridiculous and can’t protect much ; let’s have fun with that ! And frankly, the few chuckles it raises are enough to overcome the rudimentary animation and the obnoxious fanservice. It just about gets away with it, and that’s the best it could have ever hoped for.

Million Doll is an adaptation of a web manga series as 8-minute shorts. It’s an exploration of idol fandom culture that just rubs me the wrong way. I think that’s because it seems to lionize its shut-in protagonist and agree with her contempt of the more dilettante fans who are quick to move on from an idol group to the next… never mind that she’s already much creepier and unhealthy than all of them combined. It’s a show that requires you to adhere unconditionally to the glamour of the idol subculture (and dismisses its unpleasantness as coming from a few icky fans), and that’s not something I can get into. It doesn’t help that it’s barely animated, and suffers from a downright ugly CG-animated dancing opening sequence. Avoid like the plague.
SuzakiNishi the Animation is a weird beast. It’s notionally an adaptation of voice-actresses Aya Suzaki & Asuka Nishi’s radio program, where they discuss business models. In practive, this is a series of “comedy” shorts depicting them as new transfer students in high school. The gags are trite and there’s just nothing here that builds upon its name characters or the original premise. Really don’t bother with this.
Kurayami Santa is a bizarre oddity : a series of horror shorts set in the 60s that’s half animation looking like it came from that period, and half actual vintage live-action footage from then. It features a demon looking like a creepy child who punishes evidoers, but in cruel and circuitous ways that make you shudder more than applaud. While I’m intrigued at how this came into being, there’s a gap between that and actually finding it entertaining ; it’s just too weird for me.
Danchigai is an adaptation of a 4-panel gag manga about five siblings rough-housing each other. (Well, they mostly all gang up against the one boy, second oldest of the lot.) It’s very mildly funny, but nothing to go out of your way for.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5

Sky Wizards Academy (Kuusen Madoushi Kouhosei no Kyoukan)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a series of fantasy light novels in my kryptonite subgenre : the wish-fulfilment fantasy where super-powered teens are enrolled into a vaguely military magic high-school, and somehow the male lead gets a harem of girls around him. At least we’ve only got one of those this season.

Characters

Kanata is our protagonist. The opening action sequence sees him holding off hundreds of insect-like enemies to allow his teammates to escape, so it’s very confusing that for the rest of the episode nearly everyone in his floating city labels him a traitor. This is probably supposed to be an intriguing mystery, but it just comes off as annoying. Anyway, he’s an overachiever nice guy.

The student council appoints him as the new teacher for the Loser Class, because of course it would be silly to involve actual faculty in this decision. And of course he’s just run into all three members of this class before, and they all believe he’s a pervert because of these terrible first impressions.

They are :
– Misora, the very angry girl who will make it your fault if she bumps into you. Doesn’t seem to work well for her, as she’s lost every single training fight so far. And dear gods, she arrives late to school with a piece of bread in her mouth ? Seriously ?
– Lecty, the wallflower who can barely get a word out.
– Rico, the egomaniac who’s in love with herself and spends most of her time admiring her reflection. She’s the only one whose gimmick is actually mildly funny, as her self-absorbed rants are at least awful by design, instead of accident like the rest of the show.

Production Values

Ouch. The CG insect enemies looks awful, mostly due to bad compositing and effects. This also affects the flying combat scenes, although there’s not much of them beyond the prologue.

Overall Impression

Cards on the table : I don’t like this genre of shows, and they face an uphill struggle with me at the best of times. It’s often an excuse for the writers to be lazy, avoiding having to write an actual plot when they can instead fall back on cliché highschool and harem hijinks to fill up pages and screentime. The rushed and truncated anime adaptations don’t do what little depth the novels may have had any favours.

This one still manages to be way worse than average, somehow. All the characters are annoying and one-dimensional. It looks awful. The plotting is a mess. The world-building makes no sense. And there’s an hilariously nonsensical bit where Kanata broods and monologues about his fallen comrades in arms being forgotten by the Normals, as only Wizards don’t suddenly get there memories erased or something (for whatever reason)… only for a further scene to reveal that there’s like 10% Normals and 90% Wizards in the flying city, so why the heck was he getting all worked up for ?

Even if this show didn’t take itself so seriously at times, it still wouldn’t be funny. It’s a trainwreck in motion, and I have no wish to stick around.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5

OverLord

(13 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a light novel series with the novel premise of “player stuck into a MMORPG that became real”. Never seen that one before.
From what I can gather, it has nothing to do with the various videogames of the same name.

Characters

So, Yggdrasil. One of the big full-immersion MMORPG of its time. But it’s been 12 years, the player base had been dwindling down considerably for a while, so its editor has decided to call it a day and shut the servers down tonight.

Momonga, our protagonist, was the leader of one the biggest and strongest “monster” guilds of the game. Max level, tons of stuff and unique items (including his super-wand that can wish nearly anything and even bypass some programming), their own giant demon castle lair, dozens of custom NPC servants, the works. By now, of course, most of the guild members have left, with barely a few of them making an appearance on this last day. But Momonga has decided he’s going to stick around until the end, reminisce, and let the system log him out when the servers shut down.

When he wakes up after midnight, he notices with shock that he’s still in the throne room. The HUD and menus are gone, and he can’t raise anyone (be them other players or GMs) through voice chats. On the other hand, the NPCs now act a lot more real than their previous AI-constrained selves, and obey to all his casually-phrased orders (instead of needing specific commands).

And well, there’s Albedo, his NPC demon secretary, whom he had just rescripted to be in love with him, on a whim. This might have been a poor decision…

What’s going on here ? Has he slided into another world that’s identical to Yggdrasil somehow ? Can he get back to the real world ? Does he even want to ? Will the NPCs keep obeying their very confused master ?

Production Values

Quite good ; there’s some obvious CG work on some undead battle sequences, but it looks okay. And the animators have really managed to make Momonga expressive, with a body language belying clearly a benign middle manager disguised as an over-the-top overlord.

Overall Impression

Well, there’s a reason the cliché premises are still being recycled : they caught on our imagination and offer numerous variants. And hey, I don’t think I’ve seen any of these stories take the point of view of “the bad guys” (who are actually punch-clock villains more than anything else), so that’s something new for this show to explore. And it does so quite well ; Momonga truly feels like a MMORPG guild leader, and a very sympathetic protagonist. The NPC supporting cast also feel like they could grow into interesting characters (or at least entertaining ones).

If there’s one thing that’s lacking here, it’s a clear notion of where the story is going ; we don’t even know whether there’s anyone outside the lair at this point. But hey, that’s something for future episodes to explore ; this one has accomplished its job of selling me on the premise, at least for now.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 5

Rokka – Braves of the Six Flowers (Rokka no Yuusha)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a heroic-fantasy (with slightly Atzec flavour) light novel series.

Characters

The titular Braves of the Six Flowers are the chosen heroes of the world to fight the Demon Lord resurfacing every few hundred years. Since its agents have been resurfacing as of late and assassinating potential Braves, it’s high time to gather a new set. So the most major kingdom has organized a big ceremonial tournament to select some of them. The semi-finals are what really matters, since whoever wins is bound to lose against…

Nashetania, First Princess of the Kingdom, who’s so badass she got seeded directly to the finals. She’s an obvious lock for being one of the new Braves ; her powers involve something not too dissimilar to Unlimited Blade Works. And for some reason she’s wearing bunny ears.

Adlet, “Strongest Man in the World” (or so he claims) crashes the semifinals from nowhere and easily takes out dozens of guards, as well as both semifinalists. While he is strong, he mostly wins because he cheats like a mad bastard, using neat little gadgets to take out his opponents by surprise. Eh, whatever works, really.

While he’s immediately thrown in jail afterwards (and then into an oubliette), he’s convinced he’ll be selected as a Brave down the line. So he’s just bidding his time and keeping in shape. He also gets a visit from a “maid” (with the cunning disguise of not wearing bunny ears), which is the occasion to provide much background about the setting and the origins of the Braves. Frankly, I’m amazed he’s got no clue who he’s talking to.

Eventually the Demon Lord starts manifesting openly, and both Nashetania & Adlet mystically get their Brave tattoos. She immediately frees him from his oubliette (ignoring the objections from her entourage), and they both head to the legendary rendezvous point to meet the 4 other Braves. Whom I’m presume we’ll meet in the next few episodes ; we’re shown glimpses of them from the OP & ED.

Production Values

Quite good, although there’s some obvious CG graphics for the landscape long shots. I quite like the different artstyle for the mythical flashbacks.

On the other hand, there’s no escaping that Nashetania’s outfit is bizarrely fanservicey and looks completely out of place, even considering the very PC-esque designs for the other Braves. Oh, well ; at least the camera isn’t stuck in pervert mode.

Overall Impression

This was actually quite entertaining ; it’s a generic heroic-fantasy premise, but executed well-enough (especially the Atzec-like stylings) to feel somewhat fresh. Adlet & Nashetania are quite charismatic, although I’m slightly worried by the way she lets him take the lead at the end. (Surely she has more experience and knowledge about all this ?)

It depends a bit on whether the other Braves are entertaining or annoying, but I’m at least giving it a second episode.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 3

A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist (Shimoneta to Iu Gainen ga Sonzai Shinai Taikutsu na Sekai)

(12 episodes)

What’s it about ?

Adaptation of a light novel series going for political satire.

Characters

This is set in an impossibly sanitized Japan where have been outlawed dirty words and any public display of obscenity ; every citizen wears a collar detecting forbidden words and calling the Public Morals shock-troops on them. It goes without saying that it’s a very oppressive dystopia.

Okuma, our protagonist, is mostly trying to lay low (what with his father being an indecent terrorist), wishing to lead a normal life and attend the purest high-school in the country. Okay, his motives may not be entirely pure ; he’s very admirative of…

Anna, the student council president of said school, who makes big speeches about upholding morals and stuff. She’s a charismatic figurehead, I’ll give her that. And she does invite him to help out ; since he comes from a low-morals background, he could be better at identifying terrorist acts. Because yeah, she’s so sheltered that she has little clue what obscenity actually looks like. Which makes it hard to fight the likes of…

Blue Snow, a major indecent woman, who wanders around half-naked while giving out tons of naughty pictures and spouting out dirty jokes. Also, she’s obviously Ayame, the quiet vice-president, avenging her falsely-accused father with the help of a device jamming the cuss-word-detectors for three minutes a day that he gave her.

She outs herself to Okuma, thinking he infiltrated the student council like her. When he refuses to help, she just blackmails him to do it anyway. (And hey, it’d be a massive scandal that could damage Anna’s reputation if the truth became known, eh ?)

Blue Rose’s point, beside the free speech argument, is that education (and entertainment) has become so sanitized that the current generation of teenagers (who’ve lived their whole life under the law) have no clue how sex and reproduction even work anymore. They still think and gossip madly about it ; they’ve just lost the vocabulary and practical knowledge. And that’s how she wants to help them, despite lacking actual picture references herself.

Other characters include Fuwa, a very obsessed biology student who searches madly for any clue of how reproduction works (even Ayame finds her creepy), and Gouriki, the treasurer, whom Okuma saves from being falsely accused as a train molester (and is heavily hinted to be gay).

Production Values

Decent enough. And given the subject matter, the fanservice level is quite moderate.

Overall Impression

Wow, someone has a bone to pick with the Tokyo Youth Ordinance. And, well, there are less deserving targets of ridicule, so why not.

The big question if whether the writer has managed to channel his outrage and contempt into satire that’s actually funny. And, er, I’m not sure it works. It’s got some interesting ideas and clearly something to say, but the hit-or-miss ratio of the jokes is lower than I’d like. (It doesn’t help that most of the dirty jokes don’t carry well from Japanese, however valiantly the translators are trying to convey them.)

Still, it’s not often you see actual political satire in anime, so I’m willing to give it some rope to find its legs.

Source: [In Which I Review] New anime, Summer 2015 – Page 2