Tag: critique

Drifters – 12[Staring at Shinsengumi ~The Song of the Fervid Kyushu Man~]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

I know I am late with this and I am sure I disappointed those of you still reading though I doubt my Drifters reviews have been all that interesting. It is nice that Drifters managed to get a climatic battle in before the finale though what really saved it was the announcement of a second season. This series is far from an end goal and perhaps a second season can give it the time it needs to bring an endgame. This episode did manage to make the Drifters sweat a bit which was a good thing as we really need these guys to work for a victory for once. But Hannibal made that small moment of tension disappear by once again giving Oda an idea through his eccentric mannerisms.

I think Hannibal is really just putting on this senile act as the man seems to always intervene when he is needed. The battle between Toyohisa and Toshizou was clearly the highlight of the episode but was somewhat undercut by my not really knowing the history of these two. Drifters doesn’t really make an effort to explain the background of the characters which is fine for those whom have a decent mainstream recognition. But for the more obscure characters I could really use a blurb giving a brief rundown and save me looking up a wikipedia article. Even the Fate series makes the effort to acquaint the audience with the history of the characters.

Overall Drifters set out to capture the same ridiculous nature and badassery of Hellsing Ultimate  and I think it succeeded at that sometimes. The series never did stop getting hampered by Kouta’s rather jarring sense of comedic timing but it had it’s fair share of good moments. I do wish the animation could have been as impressive as the opening episodes as later down the line I noticed that the camera ratherly moved back to let you soak in the action. Often pulling out a large amount of close ups and still frames to save on the budget. On a show like this you really need to go all out on the action as it is the main selling point.

Having the character all be famous historical figures was novel but there is a problem that a lot of this are far too similar personality wise. The majority of the series so far has been a one sided match between the Drifters and the Orte so with little to make the Drifters sweat it’s been a consequence free slaughter fest. Now the Drifters have a standing with a worthy opponent to face. One of the most important things the next season can do is up the stakes, make the Drifters work for victory and get enough of a budget to make those action scenes really shine.

Occultic;Nine Review – 0/100

by AidanAK47, posted in Anime Reviews, Occultic:Nine, Reviews by AidanAK47

I am certain this may seem like an extreme rating for some but the number scale always has been something I only carried over as part of psgels format. But this rating exemplifies my feelings about this show in its entirety. This show is awful, terrible, rage inducing, illogical, nonsensical garbage. Watching this show was one of my most unpleasant experiences watching anything. When I started this show I at least thought it couldn’t be as bad as Robotics;Notes, for that show was truly something else when it came to bad writing. But I was flabbergasted to see that this show was so much worse. To the point where I may swear off watching any colon series from this point forward.

The plot of this show is a complete mess and looking at it in it’s entirely it not only makes no sense but the only points where the story goes anywhere is at the every beginning and the very end. The middle portion of this story is nothing but a giant waste of time as the characters only work to try to figure out a mystery that would eventually be explained to them and side plots which are introduced but have not plot relevance whatsoever. The main middle part of this story involves a murderer who not only has little or nothing to do with the main mystery but is dropped and never mentioned again once his little arc is through. The characters are all either unlikable or stereotypical and it’s important to note that they do mostly nothing besides motormouth exposition. Design wise they are not very interesting and need I mention the girl with a chest so astronomically huge that it is incredibly distracting? I do not mean that this is attractive, I mean that this girl’s anatomy is so utterly ridiculous that it’s like having a giant elephant in the room that no one seems to address. I will say as well that his character does nothing but try to figure out every motion she can make to move her breasts as much as possible and make me question how her back hasn’t snapped into splinters. She plays a stereotypical dumb blond joke until the last two episodes. Where she is pretty much lobotomized and replaced with a completely different character.

What the mystery becomes in it’s final episode is something you could swear was parody but the show itself is clear that it wants you to take it completely seriously. It tries to tug at your heartstrings when the characters are talking at a speed of bullet trains. Out of the nine characters mentioned in the title, only two are actually relevant. The rest are just throwaway side characters whose absence wouldn’t hurt the show, if anything it would shorten the runtime and make it more focused. It becomes impossible to take even an iota of this story seriously when it pulls out deus ex machina like those angel wings you happen to see in the screenshots up there. Isn’t that utterly ridiculous for a story that want wants to be an intelligent mystery series? Well if you find that hard to swallow I assure you that it’s the tip of the iceberg. This story has twists and turns that just make you wish to yell at the top of your lungs “WHAT?!”

The direction is a nightmare. Want to know how bad? You need not take my word for it, just watch the first thirty seconds of the very first episode. I assure you that by the time you get back to this review you will be very confused. I have no idea what the director of this show was thinking as screenshots have no logical cohesion with what is being represented. A large number of times our protagonists will suddenly start talking rapid fire like a bakemonogatari series before reverting back into normal speech. There is an episode filled with so many dutch angles you will feel physically ill just from watching it. There is a scene where the camera spins 360 degrees in place for three straight minutes. There are camera shots flipped upside down or 90 degrees for no apparent reason. Sometimes spacial awareness is just thrown out the window and you have a giant girl speaking to a small boy in a close up shot when they are supposed to be on opposite sides of the room. I must ask if they director went to film school because it was almost as if he wanted to make this show as painful to watch as possible. For that I truly pity the animators who do a stand out job despite what they have to work with.

There are some who say that at least this tried something different but I say no. Magical Girl Raising Project tried something different and while it didn’t succeed, at least the end result doesn’t make me want to claw my eyes out. You can say that someone tried something different by making a coffee mug out of monkey feces but it’s still shit no one wants. This writer has passed the point of being applauded for experimentation so it’s an insult to give him kudos for fan fiction level writing. So without surprise I am sure, I recommend you avoid this anime at all cost. Pay no heed to those claiming it’s good, they are clearly blind. Save your brain cells, don’t even watch it as a joke because I assure you that this series will go out of it’s way to make sure you can’t get any fun out of it. I declare Occultic;Nine to be the worst anime I have ever seen and if you are wise you would heed my words. Don’t waste your life on this flaming trashcan of a show. I have wasted far too much of my time on it already.

Occultic:Nine – 12[We’re Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

Well, it’s over. It’s finally over. You know, when I finish an anime series it can make me feel a variety of things. Sometimes I feel a gaping hole in my heart after tuning in and looking forward to a episode every week only to know that won’t happen anymore. Sometimes I feel satisfied with how it tied everything up and I want to start from the beginning to experience it all again. Sometimes I feel ambivalent as I thought a series was serviceable and at least wasn’t a waste of time. Sometimes I lament what a anime could have been had they just made different choices. Occultic;Nine made me feel none of these things as the credits rolled one last time. No, as Ryo-tas confirmed with her last words that I had indeed wasted four or five hours on this series I only had one word on my mind. Why?

Why was this anime made? To advertise a game, but even if you give this a full HBO series you couldn’t salvage this trainwreck of a plot. Why did underpaid animators have to work on this? Why is it that someone looked at this script and thought it acceptable? Why does this get an anime adaption when much greater works like Utsuro no hako to Zero no Maria, Lucifer and biscuit hammer, Sharin no Kuni, Rakuin no Monshou and the remainder of the Spice and Wolf novels remain unanimated? Why did the director want to make people throw up with his presentation and think that fast forwarding exposition was appropriate? Why was someone paid to write this? Why does Ryo-Tas have basketballs for a chest? Why? Why? Just why? I guess the only emotion I could call this is despair. Despair that I had indeed finished watching the worst anime I have ever seen.

I would not be surprised if you dismiss that above statement as hyperbolic but I assure you that it is not. There are certainly anime which are objectively worse than Occultic;Nine. Worse animated, presentation, acted and even written. But even something bad can be enjoyed and made fun of. This show can’t, it’s primarily exposition and while the plot is absurd it leaves little room to get any real enjoyment out of it. For me, I genuinely dreaded watching this excuse that dared call itself anime. Any time I finished it I felt drained or annoyed or sick or hateful or all of the above. You name any bad anime you can think of and I would gladly watch that over watching Occultic;Nine again. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word ‘hate’ was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for this show at this micro-instant. For it. Hate. Hate.

So what happened this episode? Well we had five Deus ex machina’s, that’s what. Maybe even six. Besides the mountain of sped up exposition we have a moment where Aveline says she’s going to sacrifice herself to make the key by God knows how and everyone’s getting all choked up about it because they knew her for like a day. But this is made into a complete waste of time as Gamotans just goddamn teleports the bloody key into his hand straight out of nowhere. Oh and the evil organisation detected the key teleportation because when you build a giant lightning pole designed for ghosts you make sure it can detect teleportation as well. Just right on the standard procedure specifications just right below the Santa Claus tracker. Then we have everyone saying another heartfelt goodbye as Gamotan is the one to sacrifice himself now. Oh how they claim that Gamotan changed their life when I say, what did he even do? All this stuff is just handed to him because he’s the “chosen one”. He has literally done nothing. In fact what did any of you do? Both glasses characters character arcs are a straight goddamn line. You have no arc to conclude! All you guys did was figure out the mystery that Aveline was going to tell you anyway! Glasses here even figured out that they can travel back in time but again the detective kid was coming to tell them that anyway. And yes, they actually went with it, they negated the deaths of most of the cast. Still left the other 251 people to die though. Our heroes everyone.

We soon find out that doujin girl sees the future by out of body experiences and she suddenly disappears proving that Occultic;Nine has yet another completely pointless character. Wow, nine main cast members and only two are actually goddamn relevant. Isn’t that swell. Oh I don’t care, not as if the show cares, so why should I care…Why should..You know what. Sure. Oh evil organisation only sends their leader to go deal with a problem? Sure, why not. Oh Gamotan got revived after a fatal blow because Ryo-Tas kissed him? Sure, why not. Oh he grows angel wings out of goddamn nowhere? Sure, why not. Oh Gamotans dead dad comes back to fix Gamotan arriving too late? Sure, why not. Guess he didn’t give a crap about his mother. And now Gamotan is a ghost blogger and everyone cheers that he blew up Odd Eye by screaming at it. Oh what a happy ending this must be for our heroes right before I assume the evil organisation comes to slaughter them all for ruining their plans. So do they actually still think people are going to buy the blu-rays of this?

Magical Girl Raising Project Review – 65/100

by AidanAK47, posted in Anime Reviews, Magical Girl Raising Project, Reviews by AidanAK47

In the success of Madoka there have been plenty who have tried to capitalize on turning the Magical girl genre dark. Few have actually succeeded and while Magical Girl Raising Project doesn’t quite succeed, it is still a much more competent attempt than many others. The story is about a phone app which promises to turn people into magical girls. However when the number of magical girls in a city goes too high, an elimination contest is held to cut their numbers in half. The end result is akin to a magical girl battle royale.

This show does play with some interesting ideas and throws some nice curve balls within it’s run. It can certainly get the viewer brainstorming on what is coming next and has nice little twists to the magical girl concept though not often explored to the degree which it could be. It’s at it’s best when the body count rises and sparks fly between the cast of sixteen magical girls. While not all shine there are a few within the cast which are highly likeable and the story does have an excellent antagonist in the form of the cold calculating Swim Swim as well as some standout moments from unexpected characters. When you can’t see what’s coming this show can grip you and have you wondering just who is going to fall next as well as how.

However the problem with Magical Girl Raising Project is that it’s large cast of characters remain undeveloped until the point where they are about to be killed off. The development is primarily through flashbacks but does shed interesting light on the characters. However as the flashbacks often appear right before the character’s demise it often telegraphs that character’s death. Ultimately killing the unpredictability of a battle royale and making the death of a character not all that shocking. Though the show does have a few surprises, more often than not you will see the death coming. The animation as well seems to never quite convey the intensity of the battles making they feel rather plain. While there is a high diversity of character designs and abilities, the fights in this show rarely feel all that exhilarating which could be attributed to the lacking character development or simply the fight animation just being average.

In summary Magical Girl Raising Project is a show with good concepts not executed well. I do see potential in this writer and if a second season does come to be then whn not restricted to the battle royale format he may have a chance to really shine. However as the series is currently it is a serviceable and enjoyable watch. If you have an interest in a dark take of the magical girl genre and have checked out the notables like Madoka or Princess Tutu then Magical Girl Raising Project isn’t a bad recommendation. Even fans of Danganronpa could get a kick out of it as it does take some inspiration from it. A show that sadly didn’t live up to it’s potential but remains a decent watch regardless.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 12[File Not Found]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

The day is saved thanks to Ripple and, well just Ripple. Snow White did help near the end by bringing the rabbit’s foot but other than that she pretty much won the battle royale by doing absolutely nothing. The final battle was somewhat anticlimactic and I do think that maybe with a higher animation budget and better fight animation this could have been a real great battle. However as is the battle is serviceable but I do admire Swim Swim’s ingenuity in choosing a battlefield suited to her abilities. She planned well all things considered and was only caught off guard by a sudden thunderstorm and Ripples flash grenades taken from Calamity Mary. Fav wasn’t foolish for thinking that Swim Swim would win, by all accounts she really should have.

Despite the main fan consensus of her being hated because of her tendency of killing off the more likeable characters, I at least will miss Swim Swim. I do think that she was a great villain that sadly didn’t get the development or opportunity to really shine. I have heard that the author makes a character like her later in the story whom might prove to fulfill the potential Swim Swim had. Sadly the show skimmed over what would be the big shock moment where Ripple would find out she killed a little girl by having her vision be obscured during the act and her reaction just briefly flashed on. I really thought that would be a much bigger deal that it turned out being and quite frankly the author missed a good opportunity there to make the final part of the fight a real punch to the gut.

It was somewhat satisfying to see Fav undone by the very things he gave the magical girls in the first place but his ending is rather anticlimactic. I don’t really get his reasoning for bringing Snow White to his side as revealing that the battle royale was essentially his and Cranberry’s idea only serves to get her all the more reason to not be his master. For the most part I think Fav didn’t actually think Cranberry would die and his efforts after were just his attempts at weaseling himself out of a bad situation. Like how he was doing when he realized that Ripple got hold of a weapon that could actually destroy him. Fav like more or less every other character in this series, only really started to get interesting just right before he’s going to get killed off. Seeing Fav panic really showed that he’s not quite as cool and in control as he pretends to be and Snow White could see right through him. In fact Snow and Ripple also only really started to get interesting just right before the show ended. Still there are talks of a Magical Girl Raise Project sequel and while this series isn’t perfect i do think there is potential for the writer to turn it into something great. Even the idea of continuing Snow White’s transformation from stereotypical magical girl to magical girl superhero could make for an interesting second season.

Drifters -11[The Adventure of the Pistol Daimyo ~Bullet Counting Song~]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Drifters

I really must have given the Orte far more credit than they were due as their end truly is more pathetic than I could have imagined. I at least thought they would put up somewhat of a fight and make it that the Drifters would have to earn their domain. But what quite literally happened here was that they just walked in and declared Orte finished. In my last post I complained at how the  Orte never truly posed much of a threat against the the Drifters and I suppose it is rather appropriate that they get pushed to the sidelines quickly to let the real antagonists jump in. So with this the stage is set for the last battle of the series and admittedly it is a much more interesting one than the Orte could have been. However I fear that the Ends may be falling into the same trap the Ortc fell into, namely that they simply aren’t all that much of a threat to the Drifters. Gils did give the Drifters trouble but it looks like their forces and even Rasputin are being undermined.

I think a good conflict such have both sides on even footing and not show one side as too overpowered for too long. I did get a kick out of how Rasputin was doing the usual criminal mastermind play before having Toyohisa destroy his plan and outright ignore him. But I don’t really get what the original plan was. Clearly the Orte would never surrender to the Black King because the Black King has made it clear that he intends to kill all humanity. So how exactly would Rasputin convince them to surrender, even if he had troops within the city? Well knowing the Orte they might have been dumb enough to actually take his spiel about begging the Black King for mercy and letting them be his vanguard. I do enjoy seeing Rasputin get a good kick to his pride but the problem with this show is that the Drifters don’t have good enough opposition. If the Ends are just going to take the place of the Orte as the Drifters personal punching bags then that just defeats the purpose of getting rid of the Orte in the first place.

I admit I don’t have much to comment about this week. I think nearing the shows end I find that having things to say about a show that is essentially style over substance is getting a bit sparse. I don’t think Drifters can escape the curse that befalls most anime adaptions in that they wait for a sequel to conclude what they start in one season. A sequel often never to come.Though in Drifters case I am not really sure I would be all that sad if it never got a sequel. As an anime it was a serviceable show and enjoyable, but lacked something to make it really great. Perhaps the problem is in that it tried to emulate Hellsing on a grander scale but style can only carry the show so far. The comedy is certainly it’s weakest element and the characters have interesting points but really it’s their historical backgrounds that give them character. Otherwise they come off as the same type of character, that being the stone cold badass. And if everyone is the badass, no one is. So for last minute impressions  before the finale, Drifters was a good watch but I doubt I will ever want to check it out again. Well maybe to watch it dubbed but that’s more to see if it has a different feel in English. After all Hellisng Ultimate dubbed is just marvelous.

Occultic:Nine – 11[We Want the Airwaves]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

My mind is made of mush when watching this episode. I think there should be some rule forbidding such excessive exposition in one episode because I started zoning out five minutes in. Had to pause the episode four times just to let the information sink in. The good news is that watching this didn’t make me want to throw up. The bad news is that the more this plot tries to wrap itself up, the more utterly moronic it becomes. If you are a poor unfortunate soul like myself still watching this show then allow me to break down this jibber jabber into something meant to be understood. The first three minutes essentially are just Gamotan explaining to the others about information Ryo-tas/Aveline told him. A smart show would just skip over the explanation and show only the characters reactions. For the viewers already know all this and going over it again is just useless padding. Something this show definitely does not need seeing how you have to fast forward the exposition so much. What follows is a giant explanation over the nature of ghosts and the spirit realm. Now to the normal watcher they would just take the explanation as is and not think too much about it.

The show certainly wants you to do that because while the explanations are overtly complex, the conclusions are simple and really stupid. You see what this whole thing is, is that this shows logic makes a giant leap and to obscure that it hides it under a large amount of gobbledygook. It’s like this for example: physics have yet to explain how a bee flies, therefore humans can fly without propulsion. Disregarding that the bee thing is a complete myth, the writing puts immense effort into explaining the former so that you don’t take the time to question the latter. I am working with bare minimum science education here so don’t take my word on matters of that but this show is essentially stating that the human world and the spirit world are like separate radio frequencies. Basically while alive you are attuned to the living frequency and when you die it is adjusted to the dead frequency. Now I originally thought this was just a metaphor but it seems the story of Occultic;Nine takes this quite literally as apparently radio towers were used to adjust the individuals dead’s frequency to the living frequency. So essentially it’s saying that human souls are basically sound waves which can be attuned to both living and dead worlds.

That is quite dumb as sound is essentially vibrations in the air and I believe radio waves are essentially electromagnetic radiation. Claiming that human souls are somehow contained in this is like claiming that air is sentient or that water can feel. It’s ridiculous. After this we have the manager enter and reveal that he was the weird masked man going around disappearing spirits. Also he’s the leader of the cult and the murderer of both Gamotans father and the professor. We have foreshadowing for only one of those things Occultic;Nine, not the other two. Hell that foreshadowing was only last episode so in the span of one paragraph of exposition this man turned from being a small background character to one of the main antagonists. He works for the villains, he killed Gamotans father and he killed and scalped the professor…and delivered the scalp to the curse girl. Wait, why did you do that last part again? Actually why did you open up a store that was closed for two years and get Gamotan to come to it and did nothing but feed him crap drinks and why is he the sole person in charge of getting rid of ghosts when he’s in charge of a whole cult and….(BANG!)…Sorry I was overcome with the urge to hit my head off the desk. What was I on about again?

So manager now turned into antagonist is defeated by Gamotan because he has some special power of some sort which boosts his synchronistic with the human world allowing him to been seen and touch…wait can’t all the ghosts interact with the human world?! They have been doing it the entire series and not just Gamotan, the reporter girl opened the moai statue, they pulled out books so why is it being put down that Gamotan can only interact with the world after being shot with the raygun? Also based on the next line of exposition are you really telling me that Gamotan just so happened to coincidentally have this special absorption of electromagnetic energy and coincidentally Nikola Telsa’s descendant was giving the task of monitoring him who coincidentally is taken over by the ghost of Telsa’s daughter who planned for him to coincidentally come across the professor’s murder and take the key to the gun and then using a combination of her raygun and a special power Gamotan can use because his father coincidentally modified his transistor radio with a tesla coil and…(BANG! BANG!)…sorry got that urge again. This show isn’t good for my head.

Lets just wrap this up before a split my skull open. So I mentioned that the direction wasn’t bad as last episode but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still bad. For one, there was a part of this episode where Ryo-tas/Aveline was explaining how it was totally logical that Tesla went to Japan and had a half Japanese daughter that was never mentioned in history. At the point when she mentions Japan it just flashes up the Japanese flag for a second. You know just in case you didn’t know what Japan was while watching a Japanese animation, with a story set in a Japanese city which is currently broadcast in the nation of Japan. We have a conclusion to the curse girl and her demon fellows arc as it turned out he’s not her brother but inherited his memories from a transplant…it’s was pretty stupid when Grisaia did that thing and yep, it’s still stupid. But we have verified that both these characters have no worth to the plot whatsoever making them completely pointless and all their screen time for naught. Must…resist…urge…well I supposed brother demon dearest did give the detective and writer the get out of jail free card by stating that time in out of body experiences moves faster than real time. Meaning that this story is likely going to end with the characters awakening before drowning in the lake and hereby negating the entire plot. Which is just going to be…real super. So we got a villain headquarters and our bunch of misfits are going to assault it despite none of them having any real combat experience. Have fun storming the castle!

2017 Winter Anime Season Preview

by AidanAK47, posted in Seasonal Previews

It’s that time of the year again. With snow on the ground and Christmas lights about but that’s not what we are here for. Anime be my bread and my wine, and my presents if luck be true. I am lamenting over not being able to get the Spice and Wolf Collector’s edition book. Living in Europe can be quite troublesome sometimes but hey at least I got a Fullmetal Alchemist Collector’s edition that has a replica of the gate which just looks beautiful. Who knows, maybe I might even get around to watching that stockpile of Blu-ray anime i have sitting in my room. After the steam backlog is done i will have time…hopefully. Moving on to what really matters, a new anime season is coming up and forgive me if this sounds uncharacteristic of me but this season is looking very promising. We got second seasons of great shows along with Trigger saving anime again and even some pretty interesting shows in the lineup. I got my eye of a few here and while we got the usual lineup of straight to trashcan anime, there’s quite a lot of good to make up for potential bad tidings to come. 2016 certainly ended on a ominous note.

Same rules apply as before. The poll below will be used to gauge what you readers want us writers to cover this season. Vote for as many shows as you like. In regards to opinions on most sequels, if you liked the previous season then by all means continue. As usual I have checked out every source I can find, read manga, light novels, played video games…If I can get my hands on it then I will look at it to get a better idea of what the anime can offer.

This poll is no longer accepting votes

What will you be watching this spring?
VoteResults

Once again thanks to Mario for gathering the images. With that let’s get this show on the road.

 

The sequels/prequels I don’t care about

Gintama(2017)

Reikenzan: Eichi e no Shikaku

Rewrite / 2nd Season Moon-Hen/Terra-Hen

SUPER LOVERS 2

Yowamushi Pedal: NEW GENERATION

Tales of Zestiria the X 2

 

Series I don’t look forward to

 

AKIBA’ S TRIP: THE ANIMATION

Studio: Gonzo

Director: Hiroshi Ikehata

Script/Series composer: Kazuho Hyodo

Akihabara, a broad-minded neighborhood where everyone from beginners to masters are welcomed. Even when you’re alone, if you go to Akiba, you’ll find someone who understands you. It’s a neighborhood where anything is possible, where anyone can do seemingly anything; a place where you can lay bare your body and soul. In this neighborhood of Akiba, which has everything including anime, games, maids, idols, secondhand parts, and cheap food, battles are fought against the “Bagurimono,” and a steadfast “boy meets girl” story begins!

Let it never be said that I am not through and to get an idea for what we are in for I bought Akibas’trip Undead and undressed on steam and played through it. Admittedly the story of this anime isn’t related to the story of this game as it’s the second game of the series and I see none of the characters in the promo art. But it does give me an idea of what we are in for. I was really surprised by how much the story of the game took itself seriously. The characters treat the whole idea of stripping vampires to expose them to the sun with a surprising amount of righteousness. However unlike Keijo which shines in not recognising the utter ridiculousness of it’s concept, Akibas’trip just becomes another supernatural battle story when it disregards the whole stripping aspect. It also feels like a tourism ad for Akihabara at times. In fact that description up there is more endorsement of Akihabara than saying anything meaningful about the show. I truly don’t expect much for this and having Gonzo at the helm doesn’t make me think this is going to change my expectations. Director is a newbie and the series composer worked on Relife and that’s about it.
Continue reading “2017 Winter Anime Season Preview” →

Occultic;Nine – 10[Another Girl, Another Planet]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Occultic:Nine

“As to her purpose, I am going to make a random guess that she’s the descendant of Nikola Tesla or something.”

I wrote this about Ryo-tas in the comments of the 04-06 review and now I say I goddamn called it. So now Ryo-tas has a point, in fact she is now the centerpoint of the entire story. For that all the writer needed to do was transplant another character on top of her and make it that her toy ray gun is…it’s the entire key to the…oh god it’s the entire key to the evil organisation guys plot. Oh for f*cks sake! My brain hurts from the complete stupidity of this show. I mean you go to so much trouble inventing some puzzle that the professor left behind which needed to be solved using Baudot code and whatever bloody stuff you googled for five minutes on the internet, yet when it comes to your main plot it’s just this utter wreck of nonsense. I know it’s likely obvious by now but allow me to be blunt with you. I hate this show. I hate everything about it. I have long stopped caring about anything that happens in it and at this point it has become truly painful to watch.

The plot twists just make me want to shake me head and this show may have the worst direction I have ever seen. Other shows could be faulted for having direction which was dull and uninteresting but the direction of this show makes watching it a arduous task. This entire episode was filled with dutch angles which are normally supposed to instil discomfort on the viewer for a particular scene. But this episode was filled with them regardless of what was even on screen. There are shots where the screen is flipped 90 degrees for no reason. This episode went even further with the utterly outrageous shots were all spatial awareness is thrown out the window and they just put the two characters in the same shot regardless of their positioning in the scene. If I showed this to a film student I am certain he would start hitting his head off a wall at the seer incomprehensible incompetence on display. It’s one thing for a show to be bad but for a show to quite literally make the viewer physically ill from disorientation while watching it is a new low.

So what happened? Well Ryo-tas is now possessed by the spirit of Nikola Tesla’s daughter which he never really was supposed to have. How? We get a big old infodump which essentially says that ghosts can do this because shut up and deal with it. This is found out because the professor’s son happened to open a book that spelled out that Ryo-tas was a descendant of Tesla. That’s good but why is the psychometric girl also landing on the same conclusion despite her having no real reason to look into it? Then we have the curse girl and her “demon” which may actually be her brother now I think. There’s a guy in a creepy mask going around erasing the ghosts made by the mass drowning and it’s being suspected that he is the manager of the restaurant everyone goes to. He also kills two people somehow…moving on.  Apparently professor guy not only listed the names  of the people that drowned but also the medical data from the hospital they went to for various different ailments. This seems to be the reason they were picked out to drown because the hospital was testing if they were compatibility with magic ghost maker pixie dust. Also Doujin girl somehow faked her death and I surely look forward to how the writer is going to crowbar her into this whole mess too.

This show may be well on it’s way to being my worst anime of 2016 but it surprises me that it seems to be still getting a positive reception from some people. I normally would at least take others views on a show into account but if anyone tries to tell me this show is well written I would accuse them of being blind. The plot has long since stopped making any logical sense and the characters either infodump about a ludicrous mystery or throw some token angst. Mister blogger kids reaction to the ghost of Christmas Tesla could very well sum up my reaction to the series as a whole but regardless I still don’t get why he is even involved with all this. In fact why are any of these people involved with this? By my estimate over half the cast has nothing to do with the core mystery but perhaps they are there to remind us that even though no character bonding happened on screen that it did happen off screen. By now I just want this show to end, please just end. The time to stop has come and i don’t care if it means not airing the last episode. Just stop…before I strangle the director.

Magical Girl Raising Project – 11[Server Down for Maintenance]

by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Magical Girl Raising Project

I will give Mahou keikaku credit in that I knew that after getting a flashback of Cranberry’s past that she was up on the chopping block. But how she died still took me by surprise. It was a pleasant surprise though as there is just something so satisfying about the smug ever so confident Cranberry being one hit killed by Tama. Essentially someone who was considered weak and incompetent moments before by Cranberry. So it is that Cranberry joined this battle to fight strong magical girls and is promptly killed by someone she considered weak. I have a certain love for such poetic justice and it isn’t the only example in this episode. It is also rather funny how both Cranberry and Fav set up this Battle Royale to get strong magical girls and yet Snow White is on the verge of coming out the victor. Despite being not only the weakest but also the only one who didn’t fight or participate. All things considered, Snow Whites beliefs managed to keep her alive the longest albit with some sacrifices on her behalf. While thematically it does have value, it doesn’t really fix that she is still a rather bland character that did pretty much nothing the entire series. It’s clear that this is supposed to be the beginning of her character arc, but I doubt we will be around long enough to see her develop into someone more interesting.

So at this point Swim Swim is the only character left that I actually care about and she killed the last character I started caring about. I still think Swim is a great antagonist and as the final enemy of the battle royale she’s a better option than the rather one dimensional Cranberry. I am a little annoyed that right after Tama’s big moment she killed her over an arbitrary rule. However it does fall in line with her mindset as she follows a rulebook she doesn’t quite understand. Not to mention Ruler likely changed that rulebook based on her emotional state though speaking of Ruler this episode went and showed that she did care on some level about her underlings. Going so far to write a rulebook and then teach Tama when she admitted she didn’t know some of the kanji she used showed that while she was stuck up about herself, she at least cared about them. Other than that though, showing Tama’s backstory after she had been decapitated by Swim only served to develop a character you just killed off. I also happen to notice that this show relies a bit too heavily on flashbacks to develop its characters. All things considered Tama’s flashback didn’t really give much insight into her character that we didn’t already know. Unlike the attack against Cranberry which showed that if Tama had been more merciless than she could have been one of the strongest magical girls in the running. After all her digging holes ability is essentially a one hit kill move and with some training she could be one hell of a powerhouse. Hardgore might have even had trouble with her but well now she’s gone and I am rather annoyed about that.

So that leaves Swim, Ripple and Snow White. Ripple is out for revenge against Swim so Fav has essentially let the game continue so she can get it. But it’s clear that Fav has another agenda as now that Swim is his master he finds her rather uncooperative. I would like to think that Swim actually recognises Fav as completely evil and that’s the reason she refuses to work with him. There are also moments where she regrets killing Tama. One detail is that the kanji she is practicing stands for “Friend”. So seeing as Swim isn’t playing along he has pushed her into accepting meeting RIpple and thrown some hints to Ripple on how to defeat her. It’s a pity but I don’t think that Swim Swim is going to make it out of this arc and it’s possible that these two will kill each other leaving Snow White as the victor. A strange detail is that on going to fight Swim Swim after renouncing her identity as a magical girl, RIpple gets a transformation sequence. This could be the shows way of saying that Ripple is the magical girl this show needs and the kind that Snow White needs to grow into.  Next episode is the finale of the series so I wonder just how this whole thing will wrap up. I can’t say it’s the most memorable show but it did try at least to do something different.