Weekly Anime Review – More Than Meets the Eye

Many millions of years ago, on the planet Cybertron, life existed. But not life as we know it today. Intelligent robots that could think and feel inhabited the cities. They were called Autobots and Decepticons. But the brutal Decepticons were driven by a single goal: total domination. They set out to destroy the peace-loving Autobots. And a war between the forces of good and evil raged across Cybertron, devastating everything in its path, draining its once-rich sources of energy. The Autobots, on the verge of extinction, battled to survive.

Countless eons later, Gainax made a parody of it. And it was awesome.

Note: The reviews written by the Decepticons do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Project Haruhi or its staff. In fact, the only reason we’re publishing them here is that Megatron threatened to vaporize us if we didn’t.

Megatron

Panty & Stocking 7

This episode of your so-called “anime” is the most vile excuse for entertainment ever produced by you putrid fleshbags. I suppose your tiny brains see this Transformers parody as “clever,” “imaginative” or possibly even “entertaining.” This is, of course, a delusion that could only come from your inferior intellects.

We Decepticons are noble warriors, fighting for our freedom against the tyrannical Autobots. To make light of our struggle with such juvenile mockery is beyond offensive. The implication that I, the mighty Megatron, could ever become “Gothic Empress Stocking” would be laughable were it not so moronic. And the suggestion that a feared warrior such as myself would go to such pains to occupy a simple human kitchen or bathroom? I won’t even dignify that with a response. But perhaps most ludicrously offensive of all was the scene which involved two Transformers having sex, using none other than a simple flathead screwdriver. Putting aside the fact that superior robotic beings such as ourselves do not reproduce sexually, I find it telling that humans must sexualize virtually everything they lay their eyes on. You have already created pornography featuring insects, animal-human hybrids and unspeakable tentacled horrors. It seems now you wish to copulate with robots as well. Truly, you are a vulgar, base species. It will make destroying you all the more enjoyable, yesss…

The second half of this episode was equally brainless, serving only to demonstrate your species odd fascination with collecting small metal discs you refer to as “money.” You live on a world filled with untapped sources of Energon, but you are too busy distracting yourself with meaningless games to exploit it. Is the acquisition of wealth more important that your very survival? You are unworthy of this rich world, so we will take it from you. Believe me, we are doing you a favor by wiping your pathetic species from the face of the cosmos.

Suffice to say, this episode was a putrid, vile, utterly repellent pool of human excrement. Show me the warped sentients that created this abomination, and I will crush their laser cores into dust myself.

Rating: 0 Energon Cubes out of 5

Starscream

Squid Girl 6

Squid Girl, you and I are kindred spirits. Like you, I am an invader who seeks to destroy the human species. Like you, I have far superior intellect and abilities than these foolish humans. Like you, I am destined for greatness.

And, like you, I am surrounded by insufferable fools who cannot recognize that greatness. Instead treating me as the genius I am, Megatron sees me as a mere pawn.

You also suffer at the hands of your peers, Squid Girl. In the first part of this week’s episode, you challenged one of the foolish humans’ folk heroes, the insufferable Noh Mask Rider. The humans saw your superiority, and cheered for your victory over this justice-minded simpleton. But your actions were once again thwarted by the insufferable Chizuru. I know your pain, Squid Girl, as I have endured similar humiliation at the hands of Megatron. The second part revealed that you have advanced mathematics skills, easily solving problems that the humans find impossibly hard. Yet, despite another demonstration of clear superiority, they still fail to acknowledge you as their leader, and instead subject you to their ridicule! My own tactical genius is similarly unrecognized by my moronic Decepticon counterparts. Do you begin to see how alike we are?

The third part of this episode, however, puzzles me a bit. Why are you so concerned with the psychological state of Nagisa? Why do you continually strive to make her fear you? What purpose does it serve if she thinks you’ve brainwashed all her comrades? I can understand your desire to recruit human allies; after all, I have done the same in the past. But Nagisa does not seem to possess any special abilities or talents. Perhaps you should choose someone more useful to brainwash? Chizuru seems like an ideal choice, as she could destroy the other foolish humans with ease.

Squid Girl, I have a proposition. Ally with me, and together we will destroy Megatron! Then, once I have seized control of Cybertron, I will return to Earth and vaporise those troublesome humans with my null-rays. Do we have a deal?

Rating: 5 Energon Cubes out of 5

Optimus Prime

Samurai Girls 6

I’m not going to pretend to understand the various aesthetics and rituals concerning human copulation. As you know, we Transformers do not reproduce sexually. However, Spike has assured me that the females in Samurai Girls are considered quite attractive by human standards, and I believe him. Why human females must be so scantily clad to elicit these sensual emotions is beyond me.

This episode seemed to have three focuses. The first was on the ongoing squabble between Tokugawa Sen and Yukimura Sanada, which is eventually resolved when they learn that the evil Shogun must be stopped, no matter the cost. I found this particular arc to be entertaining and somewhat relatable, as I have had to deal with similar squabbles among my Autobot forces. However, the resolution seemed a bit rushed. Can a bitter rivalry really be settled with such ease? These seems to be a common theme with Samurai Girl’s more character-driven elements; they rush through development and skimp on the important details.

The second focus revolved around the action and battle scenes. Although I have been impressed by this aspect of the show in the past, the animation was somewhat underwhelming in this episode. It wasn’t technically flawed, but it still used an inordinate amount of still frames and long-angle shots, seemingly designed to hide the limited animation budget. Perhaps I’m being nitpicky here, but I do know a thing or two about animation errors.

The final focus was on the aforementioned “fan service,” as you humans call it. Although it was usually integrated into the narrative well, there were several shots of the female characters walking around shirtless for no good reason. It seems as if the animators were desperate to include as many bare breasts as possible, and subsequently shoehorned them in the most inappropriate places. Perhaps that is why they didn’t have time to properly animate the battle scene?

Despite my relative unfamiliarity with human culture, it was easy to see this episode had several flaws. The story was rushed, the fanservice crammed in the most inappropriate places, and the animation subpar when compared with previous episodes. Nevertheless, I still found it enjoyable. Perhaps there is more to this show than meets the eye.

Rating: 3 Energon Cubes out of 5

We now return you to your regularly scheduled reviews.


Dustin

Star Driver 7

Well, this episode settles it: Star Driver has finally decided to bring its main plotline to the forefront. While this is good from a storytelling perspective—the Glittering Star can send only so many Cybodies to their predictable doom before it gets absurd—it’s still not particularly fun. While episode seven doesn’t suffer from an abundance of exposition, it does have an overwrought friendship speech, bizarre pacing and nonsensical resolutions.

We start off with Takuto feeling depressed. Sugata is in a coma, Wako is hearbroken and our pretty boy feels powerless to fix it. Considering Tauburn is only good at beating the crap out of other robots, his concern seems pretty reasonable. So how does he break out of his funk? By having a conversation with the red-haired club member where she assures him that he was a good friend and should believe in himself and blah blah blah. Her words are, of course, accompanied by flashbacks of important scenes with Takuto, Sugata and Wako.

This doesn’t make sense. At all.

Her solution to Takuto’s perceived impotence is to tell him he can be a good friend. Well, yes, he can, and that might help him and Wako deal with the loss of their friend; but friendship isn’t going to wake Sugata up. She’s telling him how to cope when he’s asking how to fix things.

But, to be fair, that’s a minor problem compared to the two huge facepalms in this episode, the first being the rushed conclusion to the fight scene. It’s even worse than the episode where Tauburn uses dual swords for the first time. The enemy Cybody beats up on Takuto for the entire battle, and then he simply slices really fast when she goes in for the kill and cuts her robot in half. It’s a resolution so forced I audibly groaned when it happened.

And then I groaned even louder when Sugata randomly woke up. I mean, I knew he would most likely wake up eventually. He’s a main character and part of a love triangle. However, I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly and without any explanation. The new complication of Sugata’s altered personality is interesting, but I fear it’ll be resolved just as fast as every other conflict in this series. It’s as if the writers are allergic to disrupting the status quo for more than one episode. That style is fine for a comedy, but most episodes of Star Driver emphasize the drama.

So, as usual, I’m left with an episode of a series I desperately want to like, only to be frustrated by its constant failure to follow the basic guidelines of dramatic storytelling.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Iron Man 6 and 7

Oh, Iron Man. Why do you hurt me so?

Your main character is a rich genius with a robot suit, and you thought that making an episode where Stark spends most of his time typing on a keyboard would be a good thing? And to make matters worse, you don’t even try to portray the virus as somewhat plausible. It’s just the generic “He’s destroying the world by HACKING!” that we’ve seen countless times in stupid action movies.

And the villain you really want to make sympathetic by showing us his life story in awkwardly-placed flashbacks? It’s kind of difficult to feel sorry for him when you realize that a dude who created a neural link to computers can’t be bothered to do a simple Google search to find out if the guy he’s supposed to kill is actually as evil as his employer says. It certainly doesn’t help that the resolution is about as dumb and lazy as they come. So, the villain is perfectly okay about screwing up the lives of innocent bystanders, but he gets cold feet when he learns Stark makes promises to people? SERIOUSLY?!

Congratulations, Madhouse. You’ve made one of the dumbest and most pointless episodes I’ve seen in this season. Sadly, episode seven isn’t much better.

The only good things I can say about seven are that it advances the plot, Nanami and her partner are shown doing actual reporter stuff instead of just driving around aimlessly, and the fight scene with Scorpio (who I guess didn’t die when he got a face full of repulsor beam in the first episode) was pretty good. Unfortunately, the main plot doesn’t make much sense. Apparently, Yinsen planted a trigger in Stark’s mind that would make him go back to his war-profiteering ways if he uses violence against an enemy that’s trying to kill him? Okay, I can see how that would be a good plan, since it’s a little difficult to use nonviolent problem-solving skills on murderous robots. But I can’t see the difference between Stark defeating the robot himself and signaling someone else to do it for him. It’s a violent solution either way; he’s just adding an extra step.

And that’s not the only bizarre logic Stark uses. Despite living in a universe where Wolverine (and presumably every other Marvel super hero) exists, he never considers the possibility that the Yinsen he’s fighting isn’t the same Yinsen he met in the cave. Cloning technology exists in the Marvel universe, and it’s actually one of the simplest explanations! Yet Stark never thinks of it while he’s checking in with his cardboard cut-out—er…I mean assistant, Pepper Potts. And when he and Tanaka are stuck on the trash island, he’s only able to connect to the Internet by hooking up a busted laptop to a smartphone.

Wait, what?

You already have the smartphone! Connecting to the Internet is WHAT THEY DO! And if you can’t connect with the phone, hooking it up to a computer won’t fix the problem, especially since the writers didn’t even have Stark spout some technobabble about how he boosted the signal. It’s literally just a refurbished laptop running off a smartphone.

AAARGH!

Rating: Both episodes get 2 out 5 for being incredibly stupid.

Chris

OreImo 6 and 7

Episode six was an absolute cracker, and in my opinion the funniest we have had so far. Manami’s grandparents stole the show, and were completely at odds to the typical elder Japanese anime stereotype, which was refreshing. Also welcome was the absence of Kirino, with the episode instead centering on Kyousuke and his relationship with Manami Tamura. Being a childhood friend and a girl, naturally she has a crush on him (there’s hope for him yet).

Kyousuke is a true brick for not realizing Manami’s feelings, despite how blatantly obvious they are. Actually, I think Kyousuke isn’t that stupid at all; he’s just unwilling to risk his own hide and ruin the only real friendship he has. He doesn’t know if he can return Manami’s feelings, and as such hides behind his calm demeanor. He openly tells Manami that he would turn down any invitation to go on a date because he likes leading a peaceful life. This is despite being highly willing to step into a confrontational situation to protect Kirino for no mutual gain. This is a pretty immature side to Kyousuke to which we haven’t been exposed to yet, so it’s a surprising development. Manami, being the timid girl she is, accepts this without question, meaning either she thinks that she is going to need to work harder to capture Kazuku’s heart, or keep their friendship at its current level. Personally, I find her character really endearing, especially her laugh.

I mentioned how episode six wasn’t centered on Kirino, who despite being absurdly cute, is rapidly wearing out her welcome with her constant pretentious bitch attitude. Now that she and Kyousuke are on reasonable terms in their sibling relationship, Kirino is under the impression he is obligated to help her. She still has a fair bit of growing up to do, but at least there are a few more funny moments, such as when she confronts Kyousuke for looking up porn on her laptop (no mention of what type though, so for now I am assuming Kyousuke is not a lolicon).

Kirino, for her part, is sending pretty strong signals to her older brother as well. Episode seven switches back to the sibling sparring we’ve gotten used to, with Kyousuke having to act as a mediator in another heated moment between Kirino and Kuroneko. Also, as punishment for the previously mentioned porn incident, more life counseling is prescribed in the form of research for a novel Kirino wants to write. This turns into a self-gratifying shopping trip for Kirino, with Kyousuke having to repeatedly empty his wallet on expensive gifts. His constant negativity about having to fund this expedition to Shibuya betrays Kirino’s true intent and they end up at a love hotel.

Wait, what? Don’t worry, it’s a false alarm. Misleading situations aside, OreImo has become the highlight of my week. The fantastic art style, complex character development, and witty humour makes for a pleasant and charming watch. Kirino’s attitude is starting to grate on my nerves, but with the developments in the latest episode I can see she is starting to wear her heart on her sleeve a bit more. Yup, it’s interesting to see how the tables have turned with the main characters. At first it was Kyousuke seeking to mend the relationship between himself and Kirino; now she is the one who wants to spend more time with him. As I said, character development is continuing to be the highlight of this series, and with the awesome art style I cannot wait for more.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Kyle

A Certain Magical Index 6

Well, Orsola Acquinas’ story arc came to a monumentous end in episode five (proving to us all that Index has still got the goods to deliver when it wants to) so now it’s time to enter another arc. It’s an interesting way to tell a story by segmenting it like this, as it allows focus on key points and eases the audience into overall myth arc. Each arc has little-to-no direct relationship with each other yet still manages to fit cohesively together. The only problem is that it can cause pacing issues, as each arc can be slow to start because of heavy exposition. Eventually we get a spectacular finale where all of the built-up tension is released. So, in short, I’m expecting this arc to be much of the same. Wishing for pacing issues to be resolved is a waste of breath, as it’s inherent in the storytelling; so I’m not going to even go there this time around. If it’s any consolation, episode six is heavy on everyone’s favorite waifu: Misaka Mikoto. So it’s not all bad.

And when I say “heavy on the Mikoto” I mean it. Toma and Index get thirty seconds of screentime in total; the entire episode focuses on Mikoto and my favorite lesbian, Shirai Kuroko. And this is no bad thing, as we are now getting to see even more skeletons from Mikoto’s closet, not to mention some exquisite deredere moments when Kuroko presses Mikoto about her feelings for “that ape” Toma. Those moments lead to some hilarious reactions from Kuroko, ones which her seiyuu, Satomi Arai, does a fantastic job at bringing to life. When Kuroko is with Misaka it’s a laugh a minute. The humor may be a little lewd at times but, hell, if it makes me laugh I’m not complaining. This episode also reveals to us a new esper ability, “Move Point,” used by Musujime Awaki. It’s more like a refined version of Kuroko’s teleportation but makes for a great initial encounter when both teleporters collide. I expect some creative use of this new ability to appear later on, as is standard for Index.

This episode has that classic Railgun feel to it. It explains the events whilst progressing forward (not stagnating like episode two) and we see a healthy amount of get-up-and-go with Kuroko’s showdown with Awaki. Also any scene where Mikoto blushes is priceless. Toma does not know how lucky he has it.

What can I say? I love Mikoto, and Kuroko comes a close second.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Glen

Otome Youkai Zakuro 7

I complained a lot about the last episode of Otome Youkai Zakuro for being loaded with exposition and a little boring. This episode woke up early just to make it onto the first express flight to Boringland. It’s so boring that I can’t even be bothered to come up with a decent metaphor about how boring it is. There was very little character development and absolutely no contribution to the overarcing plot, and even the little cultural overtones that were so interesting in the earlier episodes were barely present.

Unlike the previous episode, which–although poorly set up–provided a lot of necessary information and a little character development, this episode is just about Zakuro meeting Agemaki’s family and the origin of Agemaki’s fear of spirits. Zakuro meeting Agemaki’s bigot father sounds like it has potential for all kinds of things, but they only have roughly two minutes of screentime together. He doesn’t even realize she’s a spirit because Agemaki has her do her hair up in buns and stuff her ears under them. Even the twist at the end of the episode regarding the cat Agemaki had when he was little isn’t hard to predict if you have a decent working knowledge of Japanese folklore, although it’s still heartwarming to someone who’s had pets from an early age.

This episode also ruined the pacing that was faltering a bit after the last episode. Up to the fifth episode, the plot progression had been solidly executed, and even the sixth episode was tolerable because it seemed like everything was going to kick into high gear the week after. Unfortunately, what we got instead was an episode which could have easily been just about anywhere in the series after the third episode. The tension and suspense the series had been gradually building up until this point all but completely evaporated.

I’ve really enjoyed Otome Youkai Zakuro and I want to continue enjoying it, but it’s been tough the last two weeks. I really hope this show gets back on track soon. Like I said last time, I know it’s better than this.

Rating: 2 out of 5