Sengoku Otome – Can they screen the quality of time travellers better?

why indeed
WHY INDEED

Sengoku OtomeBattle Girls is a double whammy in terms of not only being a pachinko adaptation like Rio, but also yet another entrant in the never-ending run of gender-swapped alternative history treatments, so it doesn’t take a genius to guess the level of quality on display. About the kindest thing I can say about this show is that it’s not as bad as Samurai Girls, which didn’t have one single redeeming value (besides the art style and that got old within a few episodes) and is one of the reasons why people are ashamed to admit they watch anime. As the market constantly narrows to cater to otaku scum, this is simply to get worse in the future. S.O is probably more like a more plot-focused version of Koihime Musou, but with blander character designs, so although it might not be panned that much, it’s simply not distinctive enough to grab eyeballs.

Now, if the industry wants to turn Oda Nobunaga into Red Sonja, I won’t say I’m automatically going to grab a pitchfork. The thing about the gender-swapping is that it never results in anything remotely interesting that relates to it, it’s just an excuse to heap on the fanservice. In this case it’s not even particularly inspired fanservice, so it’s doubtful the otakus will bite. Even worse, when someone tries to spice up the plot up, such as with a Connecticut Yankee spin in this instance, we just don’t get anything momentous and/or clever from that kind of treatment. In fact, I can’t recall a single case of a time travel plotline anime has ever produced being anything inspired (except perhaps in the case of Psyren)……resurrection/reincarnation themes seems to produce better work in traditional Japan. The jokes are also restricted to bog-standard “fish out of temporal waters” efforts, and the only absurdist gag that drew a chuckle was right at the end, so this series has its work cut out for it to attract any casual viewers at all.

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