I had to scale back my expectations for Guilty Crown after episode 1. Instead of anticipating the greatest anime ever, I now had to hope that it would add some depth to the already impressive presentation. Episode 2 looked at these new levels of expectation and decided the best method was to destroy all hope of quality whatsoever. Good job Guilty Crown!

Episode 2 kicks off in the same fashion as episode 1. Boy single-handedly destroying multiple giant robots with his awesome sword with lots of flashy effects. Except this time we get some added fanservice in the shape of, well, all three female characters in the entire anime. Inori’s outfit was always revealing, but we got ourselves a facefull of ass in this episode. Our software princess here had her enthusiastic bum button push while wearing the test plug suit from Evangelion 2.0. Even the wheelchair bound character got herself a customary boob jiggle after she slumped from the non-cockpit. Isn’t the whole point of plugsuits is so stuff won’t jiggle around so much? Fanservice is hardly something worth complaining about though. It does feel a bit out-of-place in something as straight-faced as Guilty Crown usually is, but I like boobs and bums, even in cartoon form, so I don’t have much of an issue here.

We get introduced to a new character on the side of the antibodies. He seems like a pretty nice fellow. Maybe we’ll see some of the opposing sides views on the state of affairs. A more balanced approach to the conflict in this series by giving us the idealist within the opposing factio–

Maybe not then. He’s just a complete psycho murdering machine with a scary personality twist. OK cool, we get it Guilty Crown. The antibodies forces are evil. Really evil. They hire psychos like this blondie to fight for them. Maybe that means the other commander will appear in a better light next to him…oh wait, never mind. Murder everyone, women and children included? Well, at least someone thinks of the children in this country. Well, maybe the rank and file military soldiers within their army aren’t so keen on murdering innocent civilians and are just following orders… oh wait, never mind. Holding guns up to people and pulling more psychotic faces, even the rank and file people? OK great, we get it. They’re evil. You can stop now Guilty Crow-oh what’s this? Another survival of the fittest speech? The downtrodden should stay down there and die like the scum they are? I think Guilty Crown wants us to think they’re evil, don’t you?

Speaking of that Darwinian speech delivered by the baldy guy, didn’t that sound vaguely similar to the exact same booming speech given by Fluffy from Code Geass? At least Geass established from the start that the main conflict here was not whether overthrowing the Brittanian Empire was the right thing to do, but what was the ideal method. Guilty Crown’s main conflict is whether the main character can overcome his crippling inability to do absolutely anything. Thrilling conflict indeed. But wait, what’s this? A King’s Power? Or a Power of a King? Or Kings in general? You know, a Power of Kings? At least ‘Undertaker’ is a sufficient enough deviation from ‘Black Knights’ I guess. Please stop producing a lame Geass knock off Mr.Writer. I loved you work on Geass more than most people, but I can assure you that the political setting was not the thing that drew in such a massive audience.

Apparently Gai was able to predict, amongst other things, exactly where the psycho robot pilot would be when they attacked so Shu being nearby when the time called for it. And Shu would have enough time to charge over there, smash open the container and pull the weapon out of his chest. I was under the impression that the character had to open up to Shu for him to pull the weapon out. What was the point of his interactions with Inori in the first place then? Oh, and you know what else Gai was able to predict? That the very weapon Shu would pull out would be a gun that could deflect lasers. And that he would shoot this gun at the exact right moment to defend him from a heap of giant lasers. If just one person shot a metal bullet then the whole plan would have failed. Or if Shu had gone for the wrong trailer and picked a person who instead produced an awesome electric guitar. Gai would be dead, but there would be some more exciting music instead of the bloody jpop that keeps playing.

Use me Shu, and draw the phallic symbol out of my bare chest. This is a metaphor for consensual sex. In which case, the scene straight after this one where you pull the weapon from the psycho pilots chest is a metaphor for gay rape while someone in unconscious.

Future Diary’s second episode had a lot of stupid, logic-defying plot holes too, but I have much less of a problem with that because it has this campy sense of self-awareness to it all. Apart from the occasional fanservice nods, Guilty Crown plays it all straight-faced. When a character somehow sets up a schoolyard full of anti-personal mines in Future Diary, its feels like the show is just trying to up the crazy ante, logic be damned. When an entire platoon of giant robots set off after one truck, leaving the rest of their force exposed, and yet not firing a single bullet towards this truck, it just stinks of Guilty Crown being stupid. Future Diary at least sticks to its themes. What minimal depth I had gotten from the first episode of Guilty Crown has already been thrown out the window.

OMG MYSTERIOUS TRANSFER STUDENT!!!

At least Guilty Crown still looks pretty.

*cough* OK, anime ratings time.

A Grade

A– Steins;Gate

Episodes 9–13

It’s not necessarily that Steins;Gate has gotten better. People are too susceptible to going crazy when big plot twists go down, to the point that they don’t notice that these latest episodes haven’t been quite as well directed and paced as some of the earlier ones. Well, maybe that’s unfair. Episodes 12–13 were about the same level of quality as most of the rest of the series. The A– grade is for the realisation why Steins;Gate did all that development in the first half of the series. Talk about the careful build up of tension throughout the series, Steins;Gate has been fucking marvellous at that. Let’s see if the second half can deliver on its promises.

A– The Borrower Arrietty

Whether I enjoy a Ghibli or not comes down to where I am, what time it is, am I in the right mood, are the stars aligned correctly, did I have a bowel of cereal this morning, and so on. Basically, my enjoyment of a Ghibli is so erratic that trying to pin down why I like Arrietty that much more compared to other Ghibli flicks is difficult. Arrietty is my new second favourite Ghibli flick, after Porco Rosso. Sure I laughed at all the standard Ghibli tropes, like the perfect female lead, the rising hairdos when the characters get shocked, and the strong environmental message. But at least this time they realised that writing isn’t the strong point of Ghibli flicks, so they kept the plot as simple as possible, focusing mainly on giving us a wonderfully directed film that is so easy to sink into. Also having a simple plot means it doesn’t have the usual sucky Ghibli ending. Boy, I’ve sure said the word ‘Ghibli’ a lot in this paragraph.

B Grade

B Break Blade

Episode 5

There’s a part at the back of my mind, clamouring for attention when I think about Break Blade. It tries to point out the awful plot, the randomly introduced characters that we are given no time to care about before they are lopped off, and the war’s politics are so vague that I barely know who’s fighting who. However, this more critical part of my mind is generally silenced by the other, much larger part of my brain that shouts “GIANT ROBOTS, GLORIOUS BATTLES, QUEEN SIGYN’S RADIANT ASS” so generally my other half of my brain just skulks off to rewatch Berserk or Mushishi or something.

B Fireball Charming

Episodes 8–13

As much as I like the improved animation and Drossels new character design, I’m going to have to admit that Fireball Season 1 > Fireball Charming. Yes, Fireball Charming did try to mix things up a bit, but it seemed to forget to make jokes at times. Plus there were no stand out moments of comedic brilliance. Fireball had the invisible maids and the canned laughter. The best moment in Fireball Charming was Drossels monocycle spinning jump over Gedachtnis, and that was the animation that was brilliant, not the joke. Still a fantastic series, but season 1 was better.

B– Kaiji Season 2

Episodes 9–12

Not the best Kaiji has been, mainly because it’s not focusing on Kaiji being awesome. It’s not Kaiji doing the gambling. It’s been the other guy he’s settled in with, trying to take down The Bog. But ultimately, it’s still Kaiji. Noses still are massive. Men are still crying everywhere. The narrator still can’t keep it in his pants. And the background is still filled with nonstop zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa zawa.

B– [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Episodes 8–11

You know, I think I’ll just copypaste my final lines from my episode 11 episodic post

Char­ac­ters with well-developed motiv­a­tions but near non-existent per­son­al­it­ies. Great anim­a­tion quirks but with hor­rible CGI char­ac­ters that don’t mesh well with the scenery. Fant­astic ideas with it’s set­ting, but pulling meth­ods of solv­ing issues out of nowhere. Intense fight scenes that make not an ounce of sense. [C] was far from a waste of time to watch. But it had sev­eral glar­ing flaws that pre­vent it from ever being held up as an example of an anime that Did It Right.

B– Tiger and Bunny

Episodes 10–13

On one hand, I was glad to see Tiger and Bunny ramp up the tension and bring the plot to the fore. More importantly, the buddy cop relationship between Tiger and Bunny actually feels natural now (‘natural’ in this instance meaning OMG BL VIBES EVERYWHERE). Unfortunately this improvement was balanced out in equal measures by introducing a sucky villain. Nope, didn’t like Jake. Never liked Jake. Don’t like that sort of character. They’re not fun, nor scheming, nor frightening. He was just a bit of a jackass really. The kind of person who, if you knew them in real life, you’d simply ignore them and not give them the time of day to inflate their ego. He’s a brat, and brats aren’t fun to watch.

B– Hanasaku Iroha

Episodes 10–13

The ‘Ohana to Tokyo’ arc was the best Hanasaku Iroha has ever been. It brought to head her pouting and indecisiveness over Kou, serving to actually develop her character instead of being a goofy, happy-go-lucky genki girl. It also answered the question of why Kou and her mummy issues weren’t as important to her as they once were (without spoiling, it’s a change in her own priorities). Most importantly though, it brought back Ohana’s mum, who is far and away the best character in the show. Imagine if every abandoned children in anime had parents as awesome as this, yet they were kept off screen for the entirety of the show? Think of all the anime could have been saved by an Ohana’s mum character.

C Grade

C+ Blue Exorcist

Episodes 8–11

Look Blue Exorcist. I like that you don’t do what some other shounens do. That you don’t have incredibly long, drawn out fights where both characters stare at each other across the room, explaining their powers and having internal monologues before finally having 30 seconds of intense action before going back to explaining the moves they have just done and having even more internal monologues. I like that you’ve centred in on and emphasised the relationship between the two brothers (OMG MORE BL VIBES). But for christ sake, that beach episode was retarded. I’d like to see the plot appear sometimes soon.

D Grade

D+ Nichijou

Episodes 10–11

Dropped. Beautifully animated with fantastic music and ingenious ways of shooting each scene, but for what? Jokes that make not an ounce of sense. In fact, I refuse to call them jokes. Jokes have meaning. They have a punchline. They make some sort of sense instead of being random for the sake of random. I give up on you Nichijou. I wanted to like you. I wanted a moe Cromartie High School. And yes, you had the occasional moment of brilliance. But nope, KyoAni strikes again. Enjoy your shitty sales.

D Katte ni Kaizou

Episode 1

whut

D– Ano Hana

Episodes 8–11

I was willing to give Ano Hana a pass. I’d throw it into the Toradora category of “decent show, not really my thing”. But that lulzy final episode soiled the entire experience. It stopped being funny and started to be actually a bit depressing how much they overblew everything. It was like watching Hellsing Ultimate again, except this time they overkilled on melodrama instead of overkilling…well, overkilling overkill. It destroyed what goodwill I had towards the series. Oh well, at least there will always be Anaru’s nice bum to remember.

E Grade

E Deadman Wonderland

Episodes 8–11

With every episode it slowly clicks into realisation exactly how dreadful Deadman Wonderland is. Asides from the old ‘making it up as we go along’ syndrome that infects every part of this series, it’s how it revels in its own grotesqueness that is a major turn off. It’s exactly like those hyper violent OVA’s of old. The ones that, if they were a kid in the playground, they would be the one you’d laugh at until they killed a dog to show how badass they were. This is the series that listens to Linken Park and buys flick knives, but, and here’s the best part, still lives with their parents. For all the revelling in its own gory nature, Deadman Wonderland doesn’t actually have the balls to kill off an actual important character. Fun to laugh at sometimes, but otherwise a truly dreadful show.

E Ore no Imouto True Route OVA

Episode 15

Quick Kirino! Ignore this great opportunity that stands before you. Throw away this scholarship that was given to you, abandoning your new friends you met in Mericaw and fly back with me! Your incestuous brother, who totally ignores the advances of my underclassman who I clearly have the hots for because I am an incestuous idiotic twat. What a happy ending! Truly the rightful balance in nature had been restored. So much for a True Route alternate ending that actually made sense when we’ve got imouto lovers to pander to! Bleargh

F Grade

F+ Spelunker Sensei

Oh wow. The list of things wrong with this is quite extraordinary, especially considering the length of it. A comedy that couldn’t have been less funny if it tried. Animation that I could have done better if I drew it with a pencil clenched between my arse cheeks. I mean, it’s such a simple concept, yet to fuck it up this badly is phenomenal. I’m almost speechless. This might just require a terribad video review.

Instead, I’d like to say sorry to those people I met at London Expo. Sorry for not wearing my fancy hat for those who complained about my lack of noticability without it. Sorry to those who I met for a grand total of 2 minutes before running off because I heard someone say ‘free stuff’. Sorry to those I dragged over to look at the Code Geass yaoi doujin I mistook for a official artbook (and the official Code Geass artbook I mistook for a yaoi doujin). And finally, sorry to my reader’s little sister who I scared away, being the big and frightening anime blogger that I am.

Also, VOTE FOR EVA UNIT 01!

A Grade

Lalala blank space

B Grade

B+ Steins;Gate

Episodes 4–8

The longer Steins;Gate goes on, the more confident I am that it won’t somehow crap its pants and render all its hard work for nothing. Actually, even if it does fall apart, it won’t have been a wasted experience. A soiled experience sure, but Steins;Gate’s appeal doesn’t solely lie in the plot. The characters are such a diverse and fun group, simply watching them piss about makes up a huge part of what this series enjoyable. Even a nonsensical plot collapse can’t take that away from the experience.

B Fireball Charming

Episodes 4–7

Do you really need to listen to me fanboy over Fireball Charming yet again? Do you not yet know how much I love this show? Honestly speaking, I’d say the first season had marginally better jokes than Charming, but Charming has such amazing animation quality that it manages to drag itself to equal levels with the first season. Anyone who says they prefer Drossel’s original design simply have the glasses of ‘the original is always better’ tattooed around their eyes. This design has the hip swings of a goddess. Nay, of an Empress. Bow down to your Empress!

B Kaiji Season 2

Episodes 4–8

I’m still trying to crack why it is I’m enjoying this season so much more than the first. Why am I so enthralled and giddy watching this arc of Kaiji compared to anything from last season? The formula is exactly the same. The animation has gone up slightly, but nothing significant. The only real difference is I’m watching it weekly rather than marathoning, and it’s that exact forced wait that makes this so entertaining. Cliffhangers rather lose their effect when you can just open up the next episode straight away. But when you don’t know if they’ll finish the game in this episode, the events take on that much more significance.

B– Blue Exorcist

Episodes 3–7

Perhaps to call Blue Exorcist ‘a shounen I can get excited about again’ is giving it too much credit. It’s hardly riveting nor ground-breaking stuff. But Japan really were not bringing out shounens I cared about. The only shounen in the past 4 years I liked was when they were forced to cart out our favourite petite alchemist with the iron limbs, barely 5 years after his previous stint in the spotlight. But would you look at what we have here! Good characterisation, building relationships, no dragged out fight sequences. It’s rather by the books, but it has enough craft to make me care about what’s going on. For that, I can’t praise this show enough.

B– [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Episodes 4–7

C’s Financial District comparisons to real life economics might be strained at times, but it’s a fascinating world nevertheless. Better yet, C embrace exploring this world they created. It presents different characters and gives us their interpretation of how this game should be played and their theories on how the world works. They’re as baffled to this world’s intention as we are, but join in with the audience in trying to make sense of it all. That is where C excels above everything else. It gives us a world and actually intelligently explores its possibilities. For me, that makes up for some of the rather clunky storytelling somewhat.

B– Norageki

The second of Sunrises two fully CGI OVA’s, the first one being Koisento last month. I really enjoyed Koisento. It was goofy, endearing fun. Norageki is a hell of a lot different. It’s more Sci-Fi mystery series, but I ended up enjoying it just as much. It does a better job at characterisation in its 30 minute period than most anime can achieve in several hours. The CGI still hasn’t quite been cracked yet. In going to CGI, they seem to be almost too keen to make the characters move about to the point that it becomes unnatural. Also the 2D faces painted onto 3D models didn’t work in Koisento and it doesn’t work here either. But hey, the actual writing and directing is great, so if you can get over your CGI bias, both Norageki and Koisento are great ways to spend 30 minutes.

B– Tiger and Bunny

Episodes 5–9

They spent an entire episode devoted to hosting a birthday party for Bunny where they hold a mock robbery, but then *SPOILER* a real robber appears! Hilarity ensues. That episode plot description should tell you all you really need to know about the tone Tiger and Bunny is going for. In that sense, it’s similar to Hanasaku Iroha, in being far more light-hearted than the first episodes suggested it would be. I place T&B above Hanasaku Iroha for two reasons. Firstly,the main characters in both are well meaning but slightly dim-witted, but for Tiger it’s better explained rather than Ohana “just cause” reasoning. Also, the more serious moments don’t make my eyes roll as they do in Hansaku Iroha.

C Grade

C+ Hanasaku Iroha

Episodes 5–9

Look, forget the first two episodes. Forget that tone it had. The cleverly written, self-reflective tone that challenged the viewer to consider what it was that Ohana really thought about her surroundings. Ohana has since been relegated to well-meaning dimwit. Hanasaku Iroha has since been relegated to the light-hearted tales of the growing pains the teenage girls in Kissasou inn. Which is fun in it’s own way. But it doesn’t hold much weight. Ultimately, a fun but rather forgettable series.

C+ Colorful

I’m rather torn on this one. On one hand, Colorful gives me exactly what I’ve been demanding for a while now. A cast of genuine pricks. Each one of these characters are dislikeable in their own, unique ways. I particularly liked the nasty streak ParaPara, the ‘angel’, had. On the other hand, I’ve never liked this sort of low key, laid back presentation. I believe the term is pathos? Probably got that all wrong, but that’s a word I’ve seen thrown about to describe stuff like Makoto Shinkai films. This is faaaar better than any Shinkai rubbish mwahahaha go my biased views go, and there are parts to it I rather liked. But ultimately, it’s rather dreary and requires the viewer to care about rather minor changes in characters through very small pieces of dialogue. You’ll probably like this more than I did.

C Ano Hana

Episodes 4–7

After the first episode, I figured the reason I didn’t like Ano Hana was because it was trying to get me to feel sorry for these characters without doing any characterisation first. Then, in the next 2 episodes, it took a step back and did exactly that, so I thought all my problems had been solved. That is, until it went back to the melodrama and I was back to eyerolling all over again. Back to the drawing board again Scamp! Why don’t I like melodrama anyway? At a wild stab, I’d say because it feels forced. It’s trying to get the viewer to feel sad rather than just letting the characters do the whole being sad stuff. But that’s still pretty flimsy reasoning on my part. Ah well, at least this show has Anaru.

C– Nichijou

Episodes 5–9

Here’s a challenge for all you Nichijou fans out there. After every gag, ask yourself “what is the joke here?”. I’ve been playing this game for the past few episodes now, and about 1 out of every 5 jokes have a point beyond being purely random. Take the above gag. It’s funny because classrooms often celebrate finishing exams rather over-enthusiastically, so Nichijou pushes that to hilarious extremes. That’s funny. Sticking a Shogi piece on a piece of Strawberry Shortcake. The jokes there is…well? I certainly don’t get it. Maybe I’m missing a pun? Although that wouldn’t explain all the other pointless randomness in this show. I suppose it’s worth watching for the occasional gag that does hit though.

C– Deadman Wonderland

Episodes 3–7

Deadman Wonderland is stupid. Well, no, that’s doing a disservice to stupid anime. Deadman Wonderland reaches Terribad levels of stupidity at times. What’s worse, it doesn’t even realise how stupid it is. It could be camp if it wanted to, but it instead tries to pull stuff off seriously that breaks the camp barrier and plunges to the depths of “did they seriously think that was a good idea?”. I am still watching it, but it’s fallen into the same category as Umineko. It’s entertaining, but for none of the reasons it thinks it’s entertaining for.

D Grade

D Denpa Onna

Episodes 4–6

I’d say I made my reasoning pretty clear on why I’ve dropped this already. People are trying to argue the case that it’s about a recluse trying to integrate back into society, and on some level that’s what the story has become about. Yeah, for all of 1 minute per episode, that’s what it’s about. The rest has turned into stupid harem antics. Granted, the various haremmetes have slightly more personality than your typical harem, but the story has lost all focus and meaning. Denpa Onna is just pissing about until it can finally call it a day.

D– Supernatural

Episodes 19–22

Well that petered out pretty lamely. Supernatural was that it was at its best when it focused on various episodic stories. Problem is, Supernatural didn’t want to be an episodic show. It wanted to cram in this dumb plot about Sam having super powers. Whenever that plotline took over, it dragged the entire show down and became stupidly cheesy and melodramatic. Worse still, the plot was resolved using a Dad ex Machina, rendering the entire thing anticlimactic and stupid. In the end, I’m giving Supernatural a thumbs down. It was marginally above average for anime I guess, but it still ended up feeling like a waste of time.

E Grade

No awful OVA’s to mock this month

F Grade

You do realise you’re reading the accounts of a man in his early 20’s as he embarks on a quest to watch a franchise of foreign cartoons aimed at 4–8 year old girls, right? Just so we got that clear, let’s move on to Yes Precure 5, and see how far I get this time.

I lasted 6 episodes.

Yes Precure 5 is not as lazy as Splash Star, although an 18 year old cat on Ketamine can’t even reach the pinnacle of laziness the production staff on Splash Star achieved. At the very least, Yes Precure 5 at least tries to something mildly different from the original. The main character has a different personality at the very least (even if orange-haired friend in this version is pretty much a carbon copy of the same girl from the original Precure). There’s also 5 Precures instead of 2. Even the magical pet looks slightly different, and is really a transforming bishie, Fruits Basket style. They’ve kept most of the rest of the scenario. Precures have to stop evil organisation of dreadful villains from an alternate world, using the powah of friendship, all while collecting these magical sausages or whatever random artefact it is they have to travel across the country to find. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because powah of friendship to defeat baddies is a decent formula. However, it appears that’s about the point the production staff decided to call it a day.

We’ve changed the formula enough from the original, now lets use the rest of our budget to hire some strippers! Animation? Script writing? Fuck that, give it to the intern. Actually no, scratch that, give it to the monkeys in Toei’s basement.

The writing in this is horrendous to quite extraordinary levels. What particularly bugged me was how stupid it assumed its audience was. Yes, I know the audience are girls with only one digit in their age, but the original Precure didn’t talk down to them this much. If we see a shot with a bunch of super excited girls hoarding around the student council president, it’s pretty obvious that’s she’s popular. We don’t need our braindead main character and her carbon-copy-from-original-Precure-friend pointing out to the audience how popular she is.

There are other instances where they simply stop trying to give characters reasons for what they do. I know a regular occurrence in Precure is how shit the villains are, but it’s something I’m going to rag on yet again. When someone fires a weak beam at you that totally misses, what sort of excuse is that to then run away? Or the villain catching one of the magical muffins the Precures are trying to hoard, then giving it back to them for no adequately explored reason. And this guy was apparently the leader of the villainous group. I’m guessing the aptitude test for entering this villainous group involves a high-hanging banana and a stick, and if they get the banana in under a minute then they’re not allowed join the group.

Even worse than the writing is the animation. This is a friggen Precure series! These things rely on a combination of advertising toys and pretty visuals. This series got the advertising toys aspect down, for better or for worse. Well, no, just for worse. But the visuals are awful. An large amount of this series is incredibly lazy panning shots. You know, the ones where the characters don’t actually do any movement of their body. They’re just held up on a stick and waved about by one of the basement monkeys at Toei just below the bottom of the screen. The backgrounds were probably going for that watercolour look from the likes of Honey and Clover and Nodame Cantabile, but instead just looks like childish scribbles.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But you know what’s the worst part of all? The very reason I decided to watch these blasted Precure series in the first place? The bitchin’ transformation sequences, that even Splash Star managed to get off their backsides and producing something visually spectacular for. Yes Precure 5’s transformation sequences aren’t bitchin’ in the slightest. I was looking forward to the prospect of 5 different transformation sequences for each Precure. What normally characterises a Precure bitchin’ transformation sequence is how the costume billows out ins some sort of crazy way, combines with epic music and swooping camera angles.

Yes Precure 5’s didn’t bother with something as cool as swooping cameras, instead simply opting to pan down to the next segment of the characters body that would spout new clothing. Worse still, each Precure would go through this same process with little variation. The one interesting bit of transforming was Cure Lemonade’s swirly hair-pieces, but even that transformation sequence has the same uninspired music the rest of them had. Plus, it cycles through each and every transformation sequence in the episode, so by the time we had all 5 Precures, we had to sit through that same lame transformation sequence 5 fucking times. You think it’s all over BUT NO! Then they all have to go through their signature moves, all of which look the same and have the same damn music all over again.

You know you’re a shit Precure if you don’t even have good transformation sequences.

That was shit.

Can I go home now?

All right, I’ll do a full review of the series.

Before Fractale aired, the director Yamakan declared that moe was the cancer that was killing the anime industry and that he would create a show that stepped outside that and appeal to a wider audience (not quite in those words, but that was the general gist of his ramblings). He even managed to get himself a slot in the famous Noitamina timeslot, a place dedicated to hosting anime that don’t suck, for his upcoming personal original anime production Fractale. This is all pretty ironic to look back on, because Fractale proved to be:

1. Moe
2. Bearing a whole lot of other standard anime tropes
3. Shit

Fractale sets itself out as a sci-fi show set in a post-scarcity world where nobody interacts with each other because they can create doppels to do that for them. Therefore everyone lives in complete luxury in whatever setting with whatever types of people they choose to live with. It’s an interesting setting and one that Fractale occasionally explores but never attacks, almost as if they brought up that plot point by accident and it has nothing to do with the overlying theme of the anime. Occasionally the show will come across a character who uses the Fractale system in certain ways that seem like a fascinating exploration of that character’s psyche, but then abandons said character pretty quickly.

One of the points brought up early on by the Fractale system is that people living in it don’t experience proper human contact. The whole point of the first episode is showing the main character, Clain, and his bafflement and embarrassment with meeting a real live in the flesh human girl, who proceeds to strip in front of him. You would think this would therefore be a running theme throughout the show, but that was ignored pretty quickly. The closest it got was having another female character call Clain a pervert in about 5 times per episode. I’m guessing the show thought it was being funny by saying this? I dunno, it’s not like Clain was doing anything perverted anyway, was that the joke?

It did try to cover basic human interactions as part of the plot, but this was even more laughably tackled. Over the course of the show, Clain sees these people he has joined up with, the Lost Millennium group, who are against the Fractale system, mow down old grannies. It offered the viewer two sides of the story, the Fractale System and the Lost Millennium group that opposed it. But that one good scene was instantly devalued by ignoring it from there on in and introducing another eviler group of the Lost Millennium, making the massacre of grannies from the group Clain were with seem like a totally cool thing in comparison. This comes to a head towards the end where Clain joins in the granny genocide campaign, telling the Good Lost Millennium group that it’s OK that you kill people because you’re my friends!

That’s just the themes seem to appear more often, but other parts of the plot make far less sense. The plot’s finishes up on a revelation that God is not 16 years old, but actually 10 and therefore pure. What this had to do with anything I have no idea, but Fractale seemed to like telling us this in a very dramatic fashion. The Fractale System bad guys were equally baffling, also obsessed with purity for whatever reason and generally being a deranged bunch of lunatics who filled their armies with suicidal grannies. For a show that seemed to be presenting both sides of the arguments, surely you shouldn’t have the Fractale guys be such a bunch of lunatics who like licking the face of our brave heroine?

Now this could all be fine in another series. You can be silly but still have a lot of fun. First off, Fractale isn’t fun, unless 10 references to Clain being a pervert per episode is your idea of a good time. But mainly, Fractale pretends it’s deep. It’s all about Themes and Issues and is Like Totally Serious. But it brings up these points with no idea what it’s doing with them. It’s like it has taken ideas and scenes from other anime it’s seen, realised that these scenes make this anime great and stuck them into Fractale without realising why these scenes make that other anime great. You can have psychotic villains who lick their pure heroines, but not in a show where your also trying to present a balanced view of those sides of the conflict.

The reason I hate Fractale is because it offends the story-telling lover part of me. This is not something that is apparent in the early episodes. This is something that only rears its true ugly head in the later episodes where it tries to bring its plot to some sort of nonsensical conclusion. It has taken a lot of different plot points but has never considered how they tie in together. It’s thrown out scene with Deep Meaning without realising that the meaning that scene protrays has nothing to do with whatever previous scenes the show has had, or even contradicts previous plot points. I’m guessing the Fractale Production Committee meeting went something like this.

— OK guys, this anime Fractale is going to be so awesome! It will have a girl who you can only touch if you like her. That means Love is important and stuff

–And his parents will be a water cooler and a pink lampshade

–And then the rest of the team will betray him, but he was actually working for the priestess all along

–The big-breasted girl will actually be an old man

–But then it will turn out it was his dad all along

–She was talking to the Cart Driver, who turns out was actually the main character!

Yamakan: –Great Ideas! We’ll put them all in!

Fractale has no idea what it’s doing. It has taken a look at other popular anime, decided to take cues from them and copy it without understanding what it is they’re copying. The various scenes from this episode look like moments you would see in a great anime with well developed characters and a coherent plot and tone. But Fractale doesn’t realise that these things are required and simply throws them in because it thinks that makes it good. Take the creepy villains and the ‘old’ lady who chokes Phryne. Why? What does this have to do with the plot? Why is she choking her? What part of the story does her getting angry at Phryne does this fit into? Why is this relevant to the Fractale system that they were discussing a few seconds before this scene? Fractale doesn’t know why. Fractale has just seen mentally unstable villains elsewhere and thinks that’s what all good anime should have (hello there Hamdo yet again).

Things are happening in the plot, but they’re just that. Things. With no apparent connection to what has occured previously or what the characters motivations are. Characters become idealistic when the plot feels like it should and realistic when Fractale remembers that one time Good Anime #43 had a character being realistic in a battlefield and felt it needed that too. So Clain now shoots grannies too, eh? Why exactly would that be? Have you forgotten every single thing that happens before this episode Fractale? Why is the entire world apparently at the beck and call of a mentally stunted hologram?

There’s no theme, no point, no purpose, no direction, no clarity and no continuity to Fractale. It hasn’t even thought about such things. It saw other stories had a post-materialistic world and thought it wanted to do something similar to that by putting in scenes where characters spout such lines. But these lines are in no connection to anything else that happens in the story, or who the character are or how they act. It’s just a massive fucking mess. You fucking suck Fractale. Up until now I genuinely thought people were being too harsh on you. Yeah, you weren’t very good, but you were mildly entertaining and brought up some interesting points, albeit extremely clumsily. Now you just plain suck.

This post is 2000 words of pure and endless rage in which I poured my soul into and came out the other side shaking and totally spent. I put more sheer energy into this post than any before and it was all channeled into producing pure hatred. You have been warned.

12: Keima is just another boring harem lead

The World God Only Knows was hyped up before its airing. Now generally I like the hype. Yes it can come back to bite you in the ass when it’s unjustified, but the fantastic feeling when something lives up to the hype is worth sitting through the disappointments. But what a disappointment this was. It was just another shitty harem anime. The girls were more generic than the ones in the games Keima plays. The humour revolved around yelling loudly and turning chibi. But the biggest disappointment of all was Keima. All the hype suggested he was Lelouch in high school and oblivious to women. Rubbish. He blushed when confronted with women. His fancy uniform was no different to what anyone else was wearing, just leaving him as a generic loser in school uniform. Girls fall into his lap. Damnit guys, he’s just another generic harem lead. Urgh, I fucking hate this anime –_–

11: Favourite character turning into a crow

Thanks to No Anime is Dropped Forever, I had to watch quite a bit of anime I really didn’t enjoy this year. One of these was Air. The first half of the series wasn’t that bad. It was kinda dull, but at least it had a mildly interesting male lead in the true style of sarcastic KyoAni leads. He doesn’t hold a candle to Tomoya or Kyon, but he made Air fairly tolerable. Although not tolerable enough to finish the anime, as it turned out. But, spurned on by this new project of mine, I picked the anime back up again and what happens? Within the second new episode, they turn the one good character in this series into a crow. A fucking crow! What, why? Why kill the one good thing this anime had going for it? I generally disliked the last few episodes of that anime, but turning your good character into a crow annoyed me more than anything.

10: Bakemonogatari Delayed Again and Again and Again

lolShaft

9: Groping Little Sisters

Ore no Imouto. My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute. Of course I expected it to be terrible. But the first two episodes were good! Like, really good. Enough for me to call it the second best anime of the season, behind Jellyfish Princess. It was clever, witty and so tightly produced but, most importantly, it looked like it was deliberately pointing out how it wasn’t a siscon otaku pandering fest. But that started to change pretty darn quickly. Episode 3 sent off warning signs, but it wasn’t until this blasted scene did it finally reveal its true colours. No you idiots, you can’t pass this off as fanservice. This is what the anime wants to be, what it always wanted to be. It was the defining moment that shaped how the entire rest of the series wanted to be seen as.

8: Crappy Durarara villain

Durarara was one of the best anime of the year. It’s probably the only one from this year that really spread its influence across the various corners of anime fandom. Nothing had as big an impact as Durarara did. That’s why it’s all the more depressing when it mucks up. Which is exactly what it did in its the final arc. Why Durarara? Why did you decide to end your anime run by picking this guy as the villain? How many of you can even remember this idiots name? Think of the fantastic cast of characters you could have picked for your final villain. Even Izaya said it himself in the anime. He should have picked a better villain. Damnit Durarara, you need another season. Not just because the story is unfinished, but to wash the taste of this arc out of fandoms collective memory.

7: Silent Mobius 2

Silent Mobius 1 was far from the greatest anime movie of all time, but it was serviceable. It was about a girl who moves to the Big City but is chased by horrid, otherworldly demon things. It’s quite a good metaphor for someones fear when they move into a new city and how they don’t understand anything. It also has a seriously creepy near-tentacle rape shower scene. So yeah, pretty decent movie. Silent Mobius 2 is fucking terrible. I can’t stress how bad this movie is. A girl takes the main character home who she found collapsed on the ground. She then insists that she’s the main character’s friend for no reason whatsoever, follows her around obsessively until, when she’s attacked by monsters, the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP saves them. No really, this movie is just dreadful. Truly and utterly dreadful.

6: Makoto Shinkai

2010 was the year I was finally exposed to Satoshi Kon’s fantastic movies. It was also the year I was introduced to the movies of another heralded anime director: Makoto Shinkai. And I hated them. Lots of pictures of people standing in trains or floating in midair or walking in snow while the entire story is told through monologues. ‘Show, not tell’ you stupid director! Just a parade of pretty pictures with some uninteresting love stories involving 2 people with no personality whatsoever. Jesus Christ, I hate his movies. Hate, hate, hate them. Worse, I even saw 5cm per Second in the bloody cinema because it was screening at the same venue as Summer Wars and EVA 2.0. I was laughing at how bored I was. The final scene was a boring song and more pretty scenes of sakura petals floating. Why the hell do people like this guy?

5: Angel Beats makes no sense

I liked Angel Beats. Still do, as a matter of fact, even if it has become an unpopular viewpoint to have. It was a hell of a lot of fun, watching TK boogying off in the background as it mocked itself and the characters. One of the things I did like to do was throw out wild theories as to what was going on. They were in purgatory. They were in a game, all on life machines as they simulated living. It was as much fun theorising what was going on as what was actually going on. But then came the final episodes and it became clear Angel Beats was an utter mess. I realised that it hadn’t a clue what it was doing and was constructing a plot not knowing what it really meant. Please don’t suggest more episodes would have made it work, nor that it needed a better director or anything. The very structure of this series made no bloody sense. A guy sitting in a room with a bunch of computers, Yuri shooting them down to ‘win’, NPC’s turning into blobby monsters NO STOP ANGEL BEATS! STOP STOP STOP BEING SO FUCKING STUPID!!! I preferred it when I could kid myself you knew what you were doing =(

4: Welcome to my Nightmare

I’m going to have to hold back a bit on this point because this deserves a post of its own. I simply can’t explain why I had such a negative reaction to this anime in a single paragraph. To put it as simply as I can, it was Lucky Star all over again, except better. As in, it was better at causing me pain. Better at thrusting me into my nightmare. A nightmare where nothing happens, nothing happened and nothing ever will happen.

3: Magical Flying Panther

Occult Academy didn’t jump the shark in episode 12. It jumped on a Magical Flying Panther and flew far over the sharks head and off over the horizon, never to be seen again. Apart from me, who had to watch that stupid episode. By god this episode was beyond stupid. I’m finding it difficult to write about this episode in general because I keep remembering each stupid detail of the episode. It’s hard to type when your palms are glued to your face. The Magical Flying Panther takes the plaudits though. The bodyguard who never talked was actually a Magical Flying Panther all this time (not one clue given to us btw) who took care of Maya and then died tragically in a highly touching scene, with Maya apparently being distraught by this beast she met barely 5 minutes ago josdkmdcsmjnsd ARGH THIS EPISODE ARGH SO STUPID ARGH!!!

2: Princess Tutu never got better

No anime is dropped forever. When I use the term ‘dropped’ that does not mean that’s the last I’ll see of that anime in my life. Drop­ping a show means that I don’t have the enthu­si­asm to watch this show cur­rently and at a later date I’ll return to that anime. One of these anime was Princess Tutu. I was assured that IT GETS BETTER I SWEAR!!! It’s the hope that killed me. The hope I had sitting through the entire series that something would change. That it would get better. But deep down I knew. Tutu would never get better. It was going to be like this throughout the entire series. I would never like Princess Tutu. Every other moment of this list makes me rage. Tutu doesn’t. Tutu was soul-crushing.

1: Var Var Var

But nothing I watched this year beats Hellsing Ultimate episode 4. I loved the original Hellsing. Sure, the plot was a mess, but it was the style in which it was done that was the important part. But people assured me that Hellsing Ultimate was a bazillion times better, putting the original to shame. First two episodes of Ultimate were the same ground covered by the original Hellsing series, much like Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood. Hence they were a bit rushed as it strived to reach the new material. This new Hellsing, this Ultimate Hellsing, was endless sadism and overkill. This is what people were calling out for? To watch Alucard maim people for half an hour at a time and nothing else? That’s all episode 3 and 4 boiled down to. This doesn’t even have a purpose anymore. This has gone beyond even self-parody and simply looks stupid.

Then came the speech. I mean, I get that Hellsing is trying to convey that these people love violence for the sake of violence. But it had thus far managed to do was overkill depicting overkill, a highly difficult task that Ultimate managed phenomenally well. But that speech went on and on and on and on and fucking on and on. Even the dub, which was part of what made me love the original Hellsing, this time made the silly German accent of the speech even more painful to sit through. I like var. Var Var Var. Do you know what I like? Var! It was that for 20 solid minutes. 20 minutes of a speech about how much he liked war. There was nothing more to it. I was a wreck after this. This is Hellsing Ultimate? This is what everyone was crying out for? Why? Why? Why why why why why why why why why *curls into fetal position* why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why *sobs uncontrollably* why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why…

However, since this is the last episode, I feel I should explain my reason why I’m declaring it so in more detail.

Look out Chihiro! There’s a giant magical flying panther behind you!

To say ‘where did it all go wrong’ is to overstate how good the show was at any point during its airing. The episode formats themselves rarely made much sense, but it used to have an extremely sharp sense of humour. Occult Academy was self-aware without pointing out that it was so. It had wit that seemed to entirely dissapear at the end because the ‘plot’ appeared once again, not that the wit was exactly in great shape in the earlier episodes. It had been steadily dropping as the series went on.

Oh Maya. Your endless array of facial expressions, from tsundere to shocked to repulsed to absolute angel, were the highlight of the anime. Beyond that, you weren’t really that interesting of a character but I’m more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt with that face of yours. Oh, and your one-piece, figure hugging, zettai ryokai outfit that you modeled for the majority of the show.

Anyway, where Occult Academy went wrong was the total disconnect between episodes throughout the series. This last episode wasn’t actually that bad and had a quite cool twist to it that I probably should have seen coming, except I was too baffled and annoyed at how stupid the series had gotten. But the whole inter dimensional alien thing was one plot and the magical witches was something else entirely. It was as though the entire middle arc had nothing to do with the rest of the show. I can sorta forgive that though. In fact, it’s kinda cool the way they worked them together in the end. Argh what am I doing? I’m trying to meticulously critisize this show and I keep coming back to things it did well.

But again, each episode felt so disconnected from each other. One episode would have a certain tone, whether it be witty or self-aware humour, only for it to jump to totally serious flying magical panthers and the POWAH OF LOVE. It feels like the creators thought that the end would justify the means. That they could put in whatever nonsense in the middle so long as they stick in a few key points that connects the plot. It doesn’t work like that goddamit! That’s not how you construct a story! You don’t stick in a few key points and then fill the rest with whatever director you decided to hire today felt like filling the space with.

Some of the interim parts were good, mainly the parts where they flaunted their wit or had a barrage of Maya reaction faces. But for most of the rest of the series it was jarring. It was a mess. But most of all, it was stupid. Because of the lack of connections between these parts, stuff would happen that made no fucking sense whatsoever. You can’t just call everything the occult and leave it at that. You set your own universe rules and you live by those rules. Stuff happened here just for the hell of things. These two are actually magical girls all along. Oh, and her bodyguard is a flying magical panther. Or maybe Chihiro is going to summon a spirit and then have no idea why she did that, which may or may not have had any connection with her being a white mage or not. It was as though the writing staff didn’t talk to one another. I read here that the original concept to Occult Academy involved Maya being framed for something and being on the run. Not sure how much you can read into that but it gives yet another sign how little the show was able to stick to the same theme throughout.

And so the show ends off with Bumnei being able to fly and his psychic powers being powerful enough to destroy an inter-dimensional invading fleet, despite the fact all he’s done so far is bend friggen spoons. Whatever.

Disconnect is the buzz word for this series. Disconnect between episodes, between scenes and apparently between the writers too. There was a underlying plot. The anime was really all about Bumnei manning up. But the way it was done was a mess, so much so that any predicting you could have done throughout the series was an impossible task, as I tried to prove many times with my episodic posts. It was an absolute mess. Fun at times, I’ll certainly give it that. But my patience dissipated with this series at episode 12. If this had been a 24 episode-long production, I probably would have dropped it around now.

Anime no Chikara ends for now. Power of Anime? Surely these guys could have made a better effort to produce more solid series. I wonder if this is down to anime often being created by a commitee. One man’s story is what anime companies usually adapt, but are often left with no room to express themselves creatively, lest they draw the wrath of the original fans. But when you finally hand them the reigns, what anime producers throw up are total messes. Solid concepts at heart maybe. Sora no Woto was a damn fine series when you got to the heart of the anime. Senkou no Night Raid had an interesting concept. But when it comes to writing the actual series itself, you end up with commitee created messes.

This is all some guesswork on my part, but it looks to me that they’ve gone totally the wrong way about making these original anime productions. The greatest original productions you can generally place down to one mans dream and everything else stems from there. Become a committee and you get disconnects. It’s still a while before we see whether Anime no Chikara makes a comeback, but I don’t think any of the three series were well-received. If they do return, I hope they put their faith in one man to create the anime. But that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get there. For now, it’s bu-bye to Occult Academy.

009–1 — I vaguely remember a lesbian cyborg and bullet tits. Oh, and an absolutely terrible dub. That probably put me off more than the bullet tits

Amagami SS — If we kiss random body parts it should make us stand apart from other crappy dating sim adaptations, right?

Aoi Bungaku Series — I know, how dare I! All I remember is lifelessness and a worryingly Kurozuka-esque vibe without the fight scenes to distract from the dullness.

Asura Cryin’ — Let’s throw in as many things into the first episode to see if the viewer doesn’t notice how lacking this anime is and continue watching out of sheer confusion.

Basquash! - Has a fantastic ending song. However it’s been taken down off Youtube, which totally destroyed any interest I might have had in picking it up again.

Black Jack (2004) — For a guy known as the God of Manga, this was awfully uninspired.

Chu-Bra!! — Hey guys, I swear this is a touching story about teenage girls going through growing pains. It’s about love and friendship and the pains of youth. No really!

Hakuouki — You watched this just because it had hot guys, even though the lead girl was the most ineffectual and personality-less character in existence? You disappoint me girls.

Heroman — I can’t watch kids shows anymore. Even my old favourites back in the days of Cartoon Network. I doubt I could even watch Pokemon anymore.

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou — Loincloth flashes are the new panty flashes

Kaichou wa Maid-sama! — I hate shoujo

Kämpfer — If we reference the seiyuu then people will laugh. It’s like referencing other anime, except even less imaginative.

Kimi ga Nozomu Eien — Apparantly I watched the first episode of this. I remember a blue-haired girl swimming. I think there were cicadas, but then again there’s always fucking cicadas.

Kimi ni Todoke - I hate shojo mark 2

Ladies versus Butlers! — It is a point of increasing bafflement at how these things work as light novels. Do people get turned on by reading that the main character could see her undies?

Legend of Basara — Wasn’t actually that bad. But I decided to watch Berserk instead. No contest there unfortunately.

Martian Successor Nadesico — I’m pretty sure I watched the first episode of this waaaay back. I remember reading the comments on the youtube video it was on and people were laughing about a Sailor Moon reference. Obviously I missed it.

Mayoi Neko Overrun! — I hate this show. It made me realise how shallow the tsundere character can be made.

Needless — I’ve actually watched this first episode twice. It somehow managed to get even dumber on second viewing.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu — I remember the two main characters cracking jokes at each other and then giggling. I remained unamused. It was like having canned laughter in an unfunny American sitcom.

Omamori Himari — Booooooooobs

Ristorante Paradiso — So laid back I fell off my chair. I had to play the Black Lagoon opening song on repeat to wake myself up from this snore-fest

Saki — Wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. But still, this is what Gonzo started making? And was later followed by Strike Witches? You used to be great Gonzo *sobs*

Seikon no Qwaser — I watched the censored version the first time around. It was rather…misleading

Sengoku Basara — Not entirely sure why I had a negative reaction to burly guys beating each other up with added homoerotic tension. I usually love that sort of stuff

Skip Beat — I hate shojo mark 3

Taishou Yakyuu Musume — The show stopped being watchable when she stopped doing the musical.

Tears to Tiara — Generic fantasy blah blah

Tenjou Tenge — I think I’ll just watch the opening song a few hundred times more instead of watching the actual anime

Toaru Majutsu no Index — It had an average first episode in a season packed full of awesomeness. It didn’t stand a chance

Trinity Blood — To misquote MAL ‘if you liked Hellsing, then you will be thoroughly underwhelmed by Trinity Blood’.

Uraboku — Gaaaaay. They’re not even proper men. They’re a punch of prancy sissy boys.

White Album — I remember nothing. Wasn’t there singing in this or something?

Working!! — I hate lazy 4-koma adaptations

A poll? Oh sure, why not.