Again, I cover some of the less interesting shows of the season, but this time around, I would really like you guys to answer the poll at the very bottom of the post. Thanks ahead of time!
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Golden Time Ep. 23
Every time Banri recovers his lost memories, he ends up forgetting everything about the life he’s made for himself after the accident. Most of the time, he’ll act as if nothing has changed and everything is normal. Once in a while, however, he’ll suddenly and completely forget where he is or who his friends even are. Even worse, he suffers from a complete breakdown in a public area as he cries out pathetically for Linda. And he does this all in front of Koko! I can’t believe people actually argued with me that his romantic relationship with Koko was a good thing. Someone this mentally ill should not be in any sort of relationship whatsoever. To have the audacity to even suggest that some poor girl should have to endure Banri’s sickness really makes me wonder how selfish or deluded you would have to be to entertain such a ridiculous notion. Relationships aren’t reserved for perfect people, but they aren’t for broken people either.
I’ll give Banri credit returning home. He’s put his friends through enough pain. His utmost priority is to heal himself first. Any other action is just pure selfishness.
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Hamatora Finale
Whoops, I take back everything I’ve said about the anime having the guts to kill off a major character. Not only that, Art then puts his gun to Nice’s head, and you hear a shot ring out as the anime fades to black. Really? It’s one thing to have a cliffhanger ending to an episode, but to an entire series? Obviously, I doubt the main character of the story will die, but that’s such a lame way to wrap up a series. I’m always wary when shows feel compelled to constantly rely upon cliffhangers. It tells me that the writing is subpar, and as a result, the creators have to resort to cheap parlor tricks to get by. In any case, the only sense of finality we get out of this “finale” episode is that Moral is now dead. But since Art is somehow still alive, oddly enough, no death is truly safe. Plus, I guess you could argue that none of the other characters were really important or well-developed enough to warrant any need for closure in the narrative. Ah Hamatora, Hamatora, Hamatora… there are certainly worse shows out there, but didn’t everything about it just feel so incredibly by the books?
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Nobunagun Ep. 12
So for some reason, this little bit of gratuitousness is still going on:
But don’t worry. Nobunagun is eventually freed from the grasp of the tentacles…
…’cause Jack swoops in to save our damsel-in-distress. That’s right, he has wings now. Why? Because he’s not just Jack the Ripper. He’s also Florence Nightingale! Anyway, other than the creepily sexual way Nobunagun keeps getting assaulted by the Invasion Objects, there’s not much to say about this episode. It’s just twenty-four minutes of people fighting faceless squids and bugs.
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pupa Ep. 11
Utsutsu: “I just love the way Yume looks after she’s finished feeding. Her flushed face, her unusually grown-up expression…
Fucking your sisterisn’t so bad.”
That about says it all, doesn’t it? Well, even if you think it doesn’t, it’ll have to suffice because these episodes are literally just four minutes long (including the OP and the ED). You don’t have the time to say anything else.
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Silver Spoon S2 Ep. 10
Ahhh, the episode makes me sit through twelve minutes of boring fluff just to get to the juicy family discussion that I have been waiting to see. I’m not going to bother talking about Hachiken’s attempts to tutor Mikage, because I don’t really care about that part of the episode whatsoever. Those scenes are as dull as they are unfunny. As for the Mikage family discussion, it is pretty much everything I expected it to be. Adults directly insulting a young person even though he or she is sitting right in front of them? Yep. Adults assuming a young person will just do whatever they expected he or she to do? Yep. Throw in a dash of gender role policing, and it’s just your average Asian family discussion!
Luckily for Mikage, she talks her way into a pretty solid compromise: she may follow her dream, but she’d better go to college first. Yeah, I think that’s pretty much a win-win for her. In the real world, however, there are plenty of kids in a similar position as Mikage’s, but they’re not quite as lucky as she is. I mean, you can voice your desires all you want, but you might just get browbeaten until you relent and give up your dreams. At the very worst, however, you might literally get beaten for speaking out. Oh, don’t tell me it doesn’t happen. It definitely does. I could even speak personally on the matter if I really wanted to. So yeah, the anime gives you a small glimpse of a discussion you might find in an Asian household, but it’s important to keep in mind that it’s also a very charitable one.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing Silver Spoon of being unrealistic or anything like that. It’s a slice-of-life anime, so naturally, it has an optimistic, heart-warming take on a very common family problem. Yes, there are a lot of patient, understanding Asian parents out there, so Mikage’s situation isn’t necessarily uncommon. But there are also a lot of single-minded, hopelessly prideful parents out there too. And they’re not going to simply compromise and allow their kids to give up the family business just because of a dream. For instance, take a look at Tokyo Sonata if you want a different perspective on how things might play out. The situation is not exactly analogous to the one in Silver Spoon, but nevertheless, all the kid in the movie wanted to do was to take piano lessons!
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As you probably already know, the end of the winter season is coming up, and that usually means we get about a week of downtime before the spring season truly begins. I could take the entire week off, but I think I’d rather continue blogging as if nothing has changed. So as a result, I have a poll. Let me know what I should write about by voting for three of the shows below.
Moe Sucks 
It was a tough choice between Angel Beats and School Days, but in the end, I went for School Days, based on how entertaining Harem Hill is, and how tightly School Days fit into the Harem hill paradigm – until it departs from formula in that manner that made it infamous and stand out from dozens of identical Harem stories out there.
In any case, Angel Beats has quite alot of the dumb comedy that I get the impression you have a distaste of.
Harem Hill is mostly a bunch of beat-by-beat, episode-to-episode reactions. I’ll mostly write two or three posts at most on any of these shows, so if School Days wins, I’m not sure you’ll get the Harem Hill treatment out of the show that you’re looking for.
I voted following the criteria of good shows, not entertainingly bad ones, so my choice is Paranoia Agent (my no. 1 anime ever), Revolutionary Girl Utena (my no. 2 anime ever) and Planetes (still mighty good, wins my personal prize for best written characters). I did watch Angel Beats in a time when I was less experienced and I still found it rather confusing. It’s definitely not as great as some make it to be, but it’s not so bad it would be much fun either. It’s forgettably average-to-good-ish imho.
Shrug, tossed Angel Beats! on the list because people kept saying what a tearjerker it was.
Sort of, but in that field, AnoHana is definitely even more tearful and manipulative. Especially that last episode, oh God that last episode.
Yeah, I know all about how bad AnoHana is.
Voted Texhnolyze, Planetes, and Lain. As fun as bashing School Days sounds in theory, it’s kind of a dead horse by this point. Plus, I don’t see a lot of good Texhnolyze posts around and all.
Well, if it’s any consolation, even if Texhnolyze doesn’t win, I’ll eventually write about it one day.
School Days
Because I want to see you rage.
I don’t really rage. If I sound angry in my posts, it’s just played up for effect.
“Texhnolyze” THIS SHIT
I had to vote for it, though my personal bias with it aside I am somewhat interested in what you’d think of this shit. If you end up liking it, I would like to see why. Might make me hate it less.
School Days would be fun more if you were doing a blind run via the visual novel (just one route), that way you don’t know what ending you might get or where the story is going. As for the anime, it’s actually pretty bland until the infamous ending which I’m sure you know about already.
I voted for Paranoia Agent because God bless Satoshi Kon and while it’s fun to read you mock shitty anime, you deserve a good, or at least thoughtful, anime to sink your teeth into. If you haven’t seen the show by now, please do this one.
And finally I voted for Angel Beats! because this seems like very good fodder. Never saw it myself, but it has all the trappings of typical anime with bland, familiar character designs.
Fun Fact: The lead girl in Angel Beats was heavily compared to Haruhi when the show was first announced. Everyone claimed she’d be another Haruhi character in personality.
You can be the judge, if you choose.
So in conclusion: Paranoia Agent for a good anime, Angel Beats! for a mock-worthy anime, and Texhnolyze for the wild card.
All these shows are interesting enough to give you material, though, and as always I’ll be reading regardless.
Well, no, you’re doing the choosing.
No I meant that if you do Angel Beats! you can see if the lead is like Haruhi or not.
She’s very reminiscent of Haruhi in that she’s kind of genki and bossy, but the real deal is Tenshi, who’s basically long-haired Yuki Nagato. Also the lead is very Kyon-ish.
On behalf of Masaaki Yuasa, I am deeply wounded that The Tatami Galaxy was so low on the list. On an unrelated note, are you planning on reviewing Kaze Tachinu? I think Miyazaki’s last movie deserves the brilliant writing and analysis of moesucks.
Has it been subbed?
I can’t find it anywhere online as of yet, but the official Disney release (which always includes the subbed version) comes out sometime within the month. It’ll feel weird actually buying an anime, I usually always stream them online. I’d kind of feel bad gypping Ghibli of money though.
I’d really like to see you blog Utena and Kyousougiga: few sites do them justice with the high standard of analysis you have here. Plus, Utena’s so old that blogs for it are just hard to find. Whatever you end up doing, though, I look forward to reading it.
I’m glad you put School Days on the poll, because I’ve been curious of what you might think about it.
Voted for Texhnolyze, Tatami Galaxy and Lain. The first is my favorite anime ever, and everything that I’ve read about it it’s just some reviews con MAL (and… well). Tatami Galaxy was a really entertaining experience, I’m sure you would write interesting things about it. So many people have already written about Lain, but it was so good that I couldn’t help but vote it.
Planetes is just as good, as a slice-of-life romance, and School Days would crack me up.
I haven’t watch neither Utena, Kyousogiga or Uchouten, but I have heard really nice things about them.
Damn, two very diverging opinions on Texhnolyze so far. I haven’t seen more than an episode of it, and regardless of whether it wins this poll or not, I’ll write about it one day.
lol angel beats sucks
voted melody of oblivion because someone else needs to suffer through that, may as well be you =D!
But it’s losing pretty big. So I don’t think I will have to suffer anything.
the yume never dies