Year: 2011

Gosick Mid-Season Update

not manly
manly

CONTRADICTION,  YOUR HONOUR!!@

So, at episode 12 of Gosick, has this show gotten any better? The answer, manifestly, is a big honking NO. In fact, the verdict is now DOA. Turns out that the first arc was the height of deduction for this series so far, which is staggering for a whodunnit. We’re talking elementary school reasoning capabilities at work and Victorique continues with her staggering leaps of poor logic that gets worse and worse as the cases come along.

Now, I understand (adopts otaku-browbeating condescending tone) that the focus of the show is really the gothic lolita, which is all it takes to sell it the show to the scum that will actually fork out cash for it. But even they have to admit she never gets any better in characterization and makes a mockery of the “old wise crone” act she always loves putting on in terms of maturity. The humour quotient also takes a huge plunge and is just made more insulting by Kujo (who is really one of a kind for Victorique) being the densest, most annoying Watson ever in the history of whodunnit literature in all forms of media. In fact, I would suspect him of being a Watson parody if the writing had shown the slightest bit of cleverness with his character, but instead he’s simply just your dumb harem lead transplanted into a different genre, as shown by his rejection of Avril to settle for the daily dose of ritualistic abusement at the hands of the not so brilliant Sherlock rip-off.

The sheer ineptitude of our muscle help here is demonstrated in the third arc (Golden Wolves) in which not only is he of zero use subduing the killer, but he had to be improbably saved from falling to his death by Victorique (the most laughable case of physics ever). If the aim of the character was to annoy me into a blinding rage, I congratulate the writing team, because they’ve succeeded splendidly. Not only are his lines pure drivel (I dare anyone not to grit his teeth at the constant VICTORIKA?^2) but the voice actor also plays his part in making Kujo pure plot poison every time he opens the mouth. My personal theory is that the character was written in this fashion because of the need to contrast the two archetypes, and Victorique is such a poor sleuth that Kujo HAS to be written in this fashion to make her sound brilliant. Any cliché attempts to beef up his character with the third son of soldier backstory is completely laughable, as shown in the pics. Of course, if the show had been clever it would have tried to equalize the dynamic by fusing the Inspector with his sister and having a more level-headed Watson give acerbic one-liners on the soundness of her deduction.

All in all, this show is a huge dud. About all I can recommend is the art direction for the architecture and background sets, which is generally far more inspired than the work for the character designs. Still it’s clearly not enough to save the train wreck.

von Trier Destructo-Psyche attack, roll vs -8 to save

unlimited powah
Unlimited Powah, tak skal du have?

Melancholia is von Trier’s new film, and looks to follow Monsters back in 2010 in taking a mainstream Hollywood concept and relegating it to a basic background plot premise in order to focus on the characters. Of course, this is a v.Trier film, which means it’s going to veer hard right into demented territory. I don’t expect it to have the raw impact of Dogville and/or Antichrist though, unless that whole trailer throws us for a loop. This is the man who claimed that all of his films till now have had happy endings. He’s either a supreme troll, a subversive genius or a complete nut. Perhaps a little bit of all three. Still, if he’s bonkers, it’s the good kind of bonkery.

“Dear Mother in Heaven, I am a raging dyke…”

master of liverwurst knife ryuuOperation Toast In Mouth to begin at 0800 hrs

Oh look, Maria†Holic is back. With the nosebleeding business as usual and Sugita’s hilarious OP, thumbs up in my book. In more Shaft news, Madoka will reach its (depressing?) ending on 4/21, with both episodes 11 and 12 aired back to back. I guess they have to take out all the water amirite, Shinbo?

Hanasaku Iroha, Or The Memoirs Of A Child Labourer

Evil unca strikes
The sins of the mother come home to roost

This is only the first episode, but it’s obvious the show boasts some really amazing art direction, and Ohana is a great lead, with a genuine personality that doesn’t feel forced into the tsundere/genki/bancho mould. Judging from appearances, this will be a coming-of-age drama that’s going to be almost entirely character-driven, which makes it probably unique in this spring stable of shows. Hopefully it continues to deliver, because the world needs less Working! and more hot spring forced labour.

Level E – Final Thoughts

Oh Craft, I'm going to miss your Koyasu antics

Oh Craft I'm going to miss your Koyasu antics
Look at this scary, SCARY man hating on the….

....poor little thing. Why does the cruel world hate Genius(tm)?
….poor little thing. Why does the cruel world hate Genius(tm)?

While Level E didn’t actually reach the heights it promised, it’s still a stellar effort, especially compared to Occult Academy, which had a fatally flawed central plot that wandered all over the place like a drunken sailor. In fact, it’s quite the reverse for Level E, the series tends to suffer in quality if at least 2 of Yukitaka, Craft and/or the Prince aren’t involved in the short arcs. Kudos must be given to Teh Koyasu for chewing scenery like it’s going out of season as Craft. Their comedy gold interaction just meshes well with the surreal atmosphere that Level E is fond of using, and the arcs they’re in tend to be the most surprising in terms of hilarious twists. The show also starts well and ends well, which is not really the forte of most anime we see these days. They’re either open-ended for sequels, or the writing simply goes downhill for whatever reason. Level E is clearly atypical in this regard, since the bookend arcs are the best of the lot, and plays delightfully on the characterization of the Prince we’ve seen so far. His delicious comeuppance and the fate of the Earth both end on a good note, so the sense of closure is as well executed as anyone could expect.

People have lamented the short length of the original manga, but either Togashi thought it wasn’t suitable for the shounen-specific nature of his portfolio and wanted to keep it short, or he didn’t want to ruin the series integrity by continuing once the ideas ran dry. In any case, it’s more than 10 years since the manga ended, and since Togashi can’t even be arsed to work on a regular schedule with HunterXHunter, that ship has not only sailed, it’s halfway across the ocean.

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.