12 Moments of Anime #5: Series of Disappointment

One of the disappointments (apparently) that I didn't watch myself.

Every now and then we get a highly-anticipated series that turns out to be a flop. It could be due to its studio, original work (for adaptations) and/or crew that we gave it so much attention, but when we finally got to the show itself, it's terrible. Shit happens, I know, but it seems like it happens way too often with 2011 titles. Titles like:

12 Moments of Anime #4: Charlotte!

Sometimes explaining why you love a character is just silly, but what the heck.

Not to be confused with Charlotte from Puella Magi Madoka Magica who is apparently way more famous.

Infinite Stratos might not be a very good anime, but it certainly knows how to treat the ladies right. In the character designs, at least. That's the reason the series scored 7/10 from despite having a shitty storyline, direction and animation quality. That might sound unreasonable high, but midway through the series I shifted my expectations to their primary selling point. After all, when you watch an anime, you're trying to enjoy it, not to simply scrutinize it.

Charlotte is a cheap blend of common moé archetypes, but it's also a perfect blend of moé archetypes. Her individual traits does not stand out, but combined with the unusually close relationship with the protagonist, it makes her something special. A character is shaped not by her given traits but by her scripted events, and I think that has a lot to do with why Charlotte become the most popular character in IS (according to MAL, anyway).

Charlotte is my anime bishoujo of the year. I don't usually claim characters as "waifus", but I might just make an exception for her =D

Series Review: Infinite Stratos

So... Infinite Stratos. I dunno how so many people could tell that's it's bound to suck before it actually aired, but I've actually anticipated the anime due to its character designs, seiyuu cast and crew that worked on Macross Frontier. I loved Macross Frontier, so I won't say no to anything that's even remotely similar.

Well, I won't say that I'm disappointed in the show, but I'm disappointed in choices the studio makes, especially in how they ended it. I've wrote a few posts that tries to justify that IS is more than what people gave credit for, but I had to eat my words when the story took a (laughable) serious turn which resulted in a humiliating conclusion to the series.

Lets be honest here, the only thing that sells IS are the characters. And by characters, I mean 50% Charlotte (see above) and 0% Ichika (also above), because his character is as shallow as a bird bath. I don't think you need me to explain Charlotte, but you can check out here and here. The IS (as in the mechs) itself, well, are a little more than eye candy.

I figured that, thankfully, studio 8bit realizes that as well and the bulk of the series (8 or 9 episodes) remains focused on the character development. Or to put it in another way, milking as much moe out of them as possible. Each character is progressively more awesome than the next (Laura might have been a bit too extreme...), and I think that we're all fanboys of a certain character at some point. They aren't exactly original, but they took the best from each moe category, assign them a country with no purpose whatsoever, and somehow managed to make it work. I guess the nonsensical story style forced our standards to drop somewhat.

The rest of the story is, well, utter bullshit. I won't go too deeply into it, but I'll just say that I don't appreciate how irritating Tabane is, how they created an enemy for the sake of an action-packed ending, and how they try to link it all back to Tabane in the end. It all just screams CHEAP PLOT DEVICE to me.

"Super Stream" and "Straight Jet" are both pretty good songs, but the animation barely hits average. This is 8bit's first TV series, after all.

The series as a whole isn't really worth anybody's time, after all. But if you're looking for a bit of mindless fun in a harem genre, IS might be a good pick... and as a bonus, you might find a new favorite character while you're at it.

Plot/Concept: Fair
Story Style: Good (Very good up to Ep9)
Audio/Visual: Fairly Good
Value: 7

How every Winter 2010 shows I watch becomes shiiiitttttt

Two season ago, it was Otome Youkai Zakuro and Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru. That was 50% of the shows I was following that season. And these two shows isn't that bad, it's just that they got off a great start but didn't manage to carry on the momentum all the way to the end.

Last season, it was every damn show I watched. They got off a great start and had generally positive reviews over the span of the season, on the blogosphere and amongst the Japanese audience as well. To me, endings makes a lot of difference in the overall experience of the show, but somehow none of these show delivered what I wanted.

Ranked from bad to worst are:

5. Fractale

Two of the main characters are in the pic. What do you mean you can only see one?

Okay, unlike many people out there, I don't think Fractale is a total crap. But it's no doubt a disappointment and definitely doesn't deliver what it has promised, or what it could have achieved with the story settings. Too many questions had been left unanswered until the last episode, too much needless drama at the end, and the twists at the end feels like it's being pulled out of Yamakan's ass at the last moment. The writing wasn't there, too many pointless stuff happens and any build-up towards the finale didn't work with all these distractions. The animation could have been a LOT better to, seeing how much Yamakan gambled with this project. I wanted to see a Last Exile.  I got a Allison & Lillia.




4. Kore wa Zombie desu ka?

Best thing in the ending.

I'll touch my heart and say that despite the pretty awesome first episode, I'm expecting this series to suck anyway, because of the people involved (read: DEEN). When I first got into the show, I liked the way they do things, like giving a dead guy magical girl powers, and making a chainsaw their primary weapon. That was fun in being random. But they went overboard with it, to the point where things doesn't even make sense anymore. Their attempt at serious storytelling is a joke. Anti-demonic music out of nowhere? And how did Eu suddenly decide that it's ok to kill off the bad guy in the end after all? And, well, I love epilogue episodes like ep12, but it turns out to be a pain to sit through. The 15 minute of concert stuff was beyond randomness... it was bullshit. And the ability to drain Eu's magical powers become a giant plot hole if you think about it.




3. Infinite Stratos

Getting in touch with inner Ichika.

Everything was going alright until they're done with the character introductions and started getting an actual plot at ep10. Ichika suddenly becames retarded and reduced himself way below a typical harem lead stereotype. The dialogue was so bad I feel like I'm watching a high-school orientation skit. Ichika's dream sequence and Gundam-styled nekkid talk was so hilariously bad, I feel that they weren't trying anymore. With the amount of CG and suit designs they had, the fight was nowhere was awesome as it could have been. And where did that rogue IS come from? Was Tabane behind everything after all? I could hire my niece to write something better. I expected it to be the next Macross Frontier, but all I got is a good harem.




2. Yumekui Merry

CHECK OUT MY HAX TRUMPET SKILLZ

I ranted in the recent post so I won't be explaining it here. But when I got the feeling that the other series are going down south, I expected this to be the most enjoyable show this season. I was wrong.




1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Homerun traveled one and a half month into the future, bringing the last two episodes with her.

Well, it wasn't the show that sucked, it was the viewing experience. What's more, I can only blame mother nature to put a one-month break right before the (supposedly) epic ending of the greatest show for a long long time. I'm not even anticipating the last two episode airing this Thursday anymore, I'm just dreading that I might forget critical parts of the show.

Infinite Stratos Ep10: I want Tabane dead

Ugh. The strongest impression I have of this episode is how much I hated the new character Tabane. Not only that her character is completely one-dimensional, but her hyperactive personality and annoying voice makes her scenes unbearable. God, if we need a sacrifice for some melodrama, please put this woman to sleep forever.

Other than that, I guess I was wrong about the series after all, as the problems with the plot has finally got to me. I don't mind them spending two-thirds of the series building on the characters, but it seems like they have nothing planned from that onwards.

It won't be so bad if they kept the characters interesting, but show moved on from selling the characters to selling the mediocre story. Which is a bad decision. And there just isn't enough Charlotte in the episode to tide me over this episode since Cecilia took most of the scenes in this episode. I dunno, Cecilia seems to be the least popular character out of the five, why did they chose to feature her in this episode anyway?

Ichika's stupidity seems to have has upped a couple of notches this week. And there's the crappy animation we see outside of scenes with the IS(s). Did they dump all their budget into the CG?...

Well, Houki's new suit looked pretty good, and everyone is amazed with her 4th Generation specs but I assure you, it will all become irrelevant soon enough.

Infinite Stratos Ep9: Blatant Fanservice (and nothing else)

Laura had been reduced as a character more than I though. Here's a common wake-up-with-a-naked-girl scenario she got into.

It didn't occur to me that Laura was a loli character until this episode, lol.

Sadly, Charlotte has became nothing more than a harem member as well. After revealing her gender to the school, she suffers the fate of receiving Ichika's blockhead treatment.

Britain and China, still the bench warmers in the game. Now they've got another opponent in the form of Germany. At least they're forming a temporary alliance against France who appears to be the current leader in the game.

And... that's about it. The rest of the episode goes like this:

Charlotte get naked in the same changing room as Ichika, while Laura seeks professional help to choose a swimsuit.



Rin gets a ride, Cecilia gets a rub.



Rin molests Cecilia and gets a cramp, prompting hero-mode Ichika to the rescue.

(The whole rescue thing didn't even last a minute)



Laura suffers from bishoujo blushing syndrome after Ichika called her cute in her swimsuit.



L: NICE ANGLE
R: IN YOUR FACE

Wonder where Houki disappeared to the whole episode? She's ruminating about her new Gundam she will be getting when her sister Reisen Inaba arrives

Seriously, despite the plentiful fanservice, the episode was pretty bad. It's like they're not even trying to make something original anymore, and just stuck to the bread-and-butter scenarios for crappy eroge adaptations. I've been supporting IS but this episode has neither story nor character development... And I don't think it's a good idea to have a 90% filler episode this late in the series, when they're sorely lacking in the story department.

Infinite Stratos Ep7: Screw the plot, give me more Charlotte

I don't plan on doing episodics, so this post will be all about France-chan =D

Yep.

Why sometimes a slow reaction is good; that bastard Ichika got a good FIVE seconds while Charlotte's processing the fact that she's sticking out her ass for him to get a good look.

I guess only Ichika has the kind of 1337 skill of taking off a girl's pantsu after falling down. The random shot of the room prevent us from knowing how he did it exactly or... is it some kind of bonus in the blu-rays? O.O

Times like this you REALLY gotta love Hanazawa Kana's voice acting.

More awkward cuts here in this scene. Which means, more bonus in the BDs! (Hopefully)

Some people are still talking about problems with the story but you know what, fuck the story. Sometimes a series is simply win with the characters and you don't need the creamer to make the coffee taste good.

Although we've yet to see much story beyond the harem even until now, lets just cross the bridge when it comes.

How I watched Infinite Stratos Ep6

I'm sorry Rin, France-chan has taken the title of the BESTEST girl in IS by miles with this episode. Being voiced by Hanazawa Kana and the skirt bonus pretty much cemented it.

So moe I died.

It's okay, you're still way ahead of Houki and Cecilia in my heart, but it's your fault for not getting Ichika any dinner and now you've been relegated to the last placing T.T

Skirt = WIN but why is Rin last?!

Bonus:

An overview of Winter 2011 (and rankings)

A summary of what I've came to watch, what I've dropped and what I might catch in the near future.

The Keepers

1. Puella Magi Madoka Magica (5 episodes)
It's the most searched and most discussed topic on the blogosphere for  a while now so I do not think I have to discuss this much further, so I will just say this: Puella Magi Madoka Magica totally changed the way one would look at the Magical Girl genre that includes big names like Nanoha, PreCure, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor, etc because beyond its cute and fluffy appearance and designs, there is the very real element of death, trauma and tragedy affecting the main characters, that was non-existent in this genre until now. Combined with great writing and story direction, you can tell they weren't kidding then they said this anime would be a breakthrough.

Outlook: Awesome!

2. Fractale (4 episodes)
Despite Yamakan's ramblings, Fractale is a pretty decent piece of work. I do not know why everyone keeps talking about the adventure that did not happen, but I think they are making headway now that all the main cast is gathered... well except Nessa, but I guess her exact location is not an issue.

I must admit Nessa's the core reason I came to really enjoy Fractale, because her unlimited energy and cheerful character with a mysterious tinge makes her extremely likable. Besides Nessa's overwhelming cuteness, the other thing that really draws me in is the setting the story of Fractale is set in. It is not the most original and it might feel too Ghibli for it's own good, but I am waiting to see how the Fractale system allows the series as a whole to stand out.
Outlook: Fantastic!

3. Infinite Stratos (5 episodes)
From the looks of it, I guess I was wrong after all (and everyone else is right). It does seems like it would turn out to be a pretty mindless harem. But that doesn't mean I cannot enjoy the anime, I just need to adjust my expectations a little. The little rooftop lunch thing in episode five was pretty cliche, but I cannot wipe away the stupid smile on my face, which usually only happens with stuff like K-ON. I do not quite appreciate how fast they tried to squeeze in the last two supporting characters into the story, and how they seem to dumb down Rin's presence (RAGE!!), but if it's done to push forward the story I think its better to at least inject the series with more substance than carry on with more of the character relationship development. While I think that the core of the story will have to be the relationship among the key figures of the battle (Macross Frontier) rather than a chimerical battle (Strike Witches? Gundam?), I do not think many will appreciate it unless it has the kind of potential Macross Frontier has.

Outlook: Very Good

4. Kore wa Zombie desu ka? (4 episodes)
The series is pushing the boundaries of being random and extreme, using absurd combos that you do not people dared to use: A magical girl that is actually a guy? And a zombie at the same time? That uses chainsaw as its main weapon? A ninja that is also a vampire? A flying whale wearing a school uniform? It's like a harem version of Cromatie High School, plus fighting scenes.

But what makes Kore wa Zombie desu ka really shines beyond its comedic elements... is the unexpected touching scenes in episode four. Eu's own back story changes the way you look at this series, but not in a bad way; you will see it more than just a comedy action series. I may be expecting a lot, but I am hoping that the series might outshine something like Seto no Hanayome.
Outlook: Very Good

5. Yumekui Merry (5 episodes)
Yumekui Merry never did impress me as much as it did for others, because putting it bluntly, I just do not see much beyond a girl from another dimension fighting fantasy monsters. The animation in the dream world does make it pretty unique, but not enough to make it stand out. Still, it was watchable enough and I hoped the story would take a more drastic turn to spice things up a little... Luckily for me, the latest episode (5) did just that. With the revealment of a difficult truth for Merry and the critical injury of Yumeji, it looks like we will see a lot progress in the storyline and character development of Merry for the coming episodes.

Outlook: It feels like things are getting a lot more interesting.






Dropped

6. GOSICK (2 episodes)
The main selling point (and only one for me) of the series is Victorica and not detective work that is going on in the story. And the show seems to want to keep it that way. I find it hard to follow the series when a seemingly simple plot can only be solved chibi girl who would otherwise only make snide remarks. It would have been more realistic if she is been drugged by APTX 4869, which might have explained why would such a young girl possesses the kind of knowledge needed to solve "complex" crimes. Despite some of the good stuff I heard about the series, I cannot see how GOSICK would sell without the Victorica moe and I should not consider giving it another chance... though pics like that above makes a lot of room for consideration =P

Another chance?: If any other part of the series besides Victorica receives enough praises and can convince me that it's worth it.

7. FREEZING (2 episodes)
I am sure a lot would like an all-girl shounen-style action series with plenty of fanservice, but aside from the crappy animation, the show has plenty of issues. First, the show suffers from the Queen's Blade disease; the clothing around the important parts always gets ripped off for no good reason, and the girls never seems to mind. Second, by following closely to the manga (which should deserve some praise), the series is battle after battle and that leaves little room for any story; which is also a problem for the manga. Thirdly, the story suffers from the typical shouen symdrome where the main character never loses. She just need to be wounded thoroughly and angry enough to hax her power level to 9001. There is a few other issues (i.e. the male lead is a pussy) but I will not go there...

Another chance?: If the characters actually develops more (which I don't think would).

8. Dragon Crisis (4 episodes)
I don't care how good Kugimiya Rie is supposed to be voicing underdeveloped flat-chested tsundere lolis, but Rose is the main reason why the series is as irritating as hell. And it's largely due to her limited vocabulary and devotion to main character Ryuji. Eriko and Hocchan allowed me to last as far as the 4th episode but even they could not soothe the pain in my ears that is Rose.

Another chance?: Only if the heterochromia girl becomes interesting enough, Eriko become irresistible or I become desperate for more Hocchan.

9. Onii-chan wa something something (half episode)
It did not occur to me that watching an incest comedy could be so... disturbing until the first minute of the first episode of this series. The manga was ok; but when it translates into the anime medium, I just cannot ignore the incest sexual innuendo that was implied so strongly throughout the series. I cannot ignore that fact that they are pretty much real siblings even if in fact they are not blood-related; they've been knowing and treating each other like so since young whether or not they actually share the same blood now doesn't really comes into question. Though I must say I am not giving this a fair review because I am not giving it a fair chance; it's just something that I just cannot find interesting.

Another chance?: Only if I'm stuck in a nuclear bunker for a week and this is the only form of entertainment I've got.




What I might catch in the near future

#1. Level E
Due to the sore lacking of females in this series I've never thought of giving this a chance, until psgels hailed it as the best show this season. It wasn't just him (or her), but a couple of bloggers at Random Curiosity also thought so. I wasn't ready for a character like Prince but... who knows? Maybe one day...

#2. Hourou Musuko
I've already expected it from the preview, but the super light colors used in the show stopped me from even seeing the first episode. Look at the picture up there; I've darken half the image, doesn't that make it a lot livelier? Sure, it might lose the feel of the show but cannot help but me bothered by their style of animation.