All posts by draggle

Hourou Musuko 11

Hourou Musuko,

“Honest” is one way to put it, but Shuusuke could really use some scolding from Akira. His re-confession scene was embarrassing enough for me, and I was only watching. He and Ana have a great relationship, which I feel is quite realistic for middle schoolers just entering puberty. When I was that age, I remember it seeming like everyone was swapping boyfriends and girlfriends every week or two. They aren’t really sure about their feelings either- Ana is confused about whether she sees Shuusuke as a boyfriend or a little brother, and Nittori isn’t sure whether he sees Ana as his girlfriend or a girlfriend he goes clothes shopping with. Most anime dealing with romance tend to make the main conflict a “he loves me / he loves me not” rather than anything this nuanced.

Shuusuke also experiences an awkward moment with Chiba smelling his hair, reminiscent of her first attempted rape, but Takatsuki makes the save. Poor Chiba.

The creators couldn’t fit everything in the manga into eleven episodes, but they still did a great job at having a conclusion of sorts. Shuusuke and Doi work on the script together, planting the seeds of forgiveness, Mako confesses his jealousy of Shuusuke and is forgiven, Ana begins to respect Shuusuke’s cross-dressing, and Shuusuke accepts the changes to his body and his voice. Shuusuke begins to be accepted for who he is by his friends and classmates, and begins to accept himself and his male body, making for an uplifting and optimistic ending.

My favorite thing about this show is still how unique the characters are: in their reactions to events, how they view the world, in everything. And their reactions aren’t surprises at all. The characters have been explored so thoroughly that they feel like real people you would know, who act exactly as you would expect them to. I mean look at everyone’s reaction to Takatsuki’s class’ “Wish Upon a Star” event, shown above. Sasa smiles happily and, a few seconds later, tries to draw out Chiba. Chiba complains about how idiotic it is. Nittori stares with his mouth open, dumbfounded. Chi is excited and begins wishing fervently. And Momo tries not to break down laughing. All of these reactions are exactly what we’d expect, and it’s because of scenes like this that we know so many characters so well in the span of only eleven episodes. Not a second is wasted, as in the space of a few seconds, the creators flesh out five characters in unique ways simultaneously.

Last, we got some bonus cross-dressing. (Also, I’m confused… I thought the last episode was a combination of 10 and 11, but now this is 11?)

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?! Review – B-

Reviews, ,

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?! follows the recently deceased Ayumu as he begins life as a zombie, living with Eu, the necromancer who revived him, Haruna, a magical girl, and Sera, a vampire ninja. Ayumu soon absorbs Haruna’s powers and becomes a magical girl himself. Our hero’s party battles fleets of flying whales, crazy women, giant stuffed animals and golems using the power of a magical girl’s chainsaw, leaves, and ramen.

I’ll be the first to admit that most of this show doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. But who cares? Making sense is boring. And Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka is certainly not boring. There were a few episodes in the middle where the show attempted to be serious and make sense (it actually didn’t do too bad, either) but fortunately the creators abandoned this endeavor and went back to the ridiculousness that made the show so much fun to watch in the first place.

One thing which I found that the show does particularly well at is combining the plot (such as it is) with comedy. Anime often have a tendency to focus only on comedy or only on the plot exclusively, and they’ll often end with a “climax” of sorts which is entirely serious and drains all the fun out of the show. Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?! does an excellent job avoiding this: they even have the main antagonist tell a completely non-sensical joke and relive all the tension right at the peak of the climax.

The characters start out seeming annoying: Haruna has a cheerful, genius-level idiocy and refuses to wear pants; Sera is only capable of cussing; and Tomonori takes the role of the young “wife”. But all of them eventually grew on me as they played more of a role in the show. Harun’s genius became more idiotic, Sera’s disses improved from the initially generic insults to ones more specific to Ayumu and the situation, and Tomonori was sat on by a humongous stuffed animal and transformed into a golem.

Overall, I recommend giving this show a watch if you’re looking for some brainless humor.

  • Plot / Script – 8 / 10 – Not so much in the way of a plot, but consistent and fresh jokes.
  • Characters – 8 / 10 – Start out seeming annoying but quickly gain traction.
  • Production – 7 / 10 – About average in animation.
  • Overall – B-

Recommendations – Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka?! 12

Kore wa Zombie Desu Ka,

This episode has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It was also hilarious. I had low expectations for a trip to the pool, and we got about the level of fanservice I expected. But what I didn’t expect was the four way idol battle. It wasn’t quite as epic as Hingaiku’s Cruel Angel’s Thesis and Hayate’s maid dash, but we’re getting there.

Even Haruna joined in, complete with flamethrower and punk outfit. Then we got Eu too, singing a slower-paced song that was well-offset by Sera and Saraswati’s stupid dancing and Ayumu’s outfit. This is how a fanservice episode should be done: put in some fanservice, fine, but also make it funny (they could have done with less fanservice, but whatever). An episode of nothing but fanservice is merely cringe-worthy, not entertaining. When used occasionally in combination with everything else that makes a show enjoyable, I don’t mind some fanservice.

Best dance ever. A perfect fit for the song.

Ayumu, did anyone ever tell you how disgusting you are?

But the best part of the episode was at the very end, when the King of the Night made his return!

Onii-chan no Koto nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne!! Review — D

Reviews, ,

Onii-chan no Koto… shows the life of Shuusuke and his harem of three girls: his (adopted) sister Nao, his childhood friend and freakish stalker Iroha, and class president / closet BL-lover Kondou. The show got off to a strong start in the first few episodes, but managed to lose most of its momentum in the middle by repeating the same jokes over and over again. It was funny the first time Iroha spied on Shuusuke through her telescope and they formed a chain of five people stalking each other. It was less funny six episodes later when Nao and Iroha had done nothing the entire time except follow Shuusuke from the shadows.

The characters could have been interesting, and were when they were first introduced, but quickly lost steam when the creators had them do the same jokes over and over. Nao especially is a fun character to watch as she plots ways to seduce her unwitting brother and loves him for how disgusting and pathetic he is: but in the second half of the series she was basically relegated to a background stalker. Nao’s two friends make an excellent counterweight to her obsessiveness, but they disappeared about halfway through the series. Iroha was amusing for the first episode… but again, after ten episodes of doing nothing but stalking, it can get a bit stale. Her unexplained unholy alliance with Nao throughout the middle of the series didn’t help, as one of the more amusing aspects of her character was giving Nao someone to fight with. Kondou was entertaining when she was having Shuusuke buy her BL books, but after she discovered Shuusuke’s nipples the creators pushed her into the background as well. So all in all, the characters were interesting but poorly utilized.

  • Plot / Script – 3 / 10 – Most of the jokes are used up in the first episode. Six episodes of Nao and Iroha stalking Shuusuke from the shadows are not funny.
  • Characters – 7 / 10 – The characters themselves have potential to be entertaining (particularly Nao and Shuusuke, when he actually does something) but they’re used poorly.
  • Production – 8 / 10 – The animation is definitely unique and enjoyable, particularly the distorted faces. The music and voice acting was not so great.
  • Overall – D

Recommendations – Ore no Imouto…, B Gata H Kei

Onii-chan no Koto… 12

Onii-chan no Koto,

So this was a wrap-up episode, where Shuusuke stays home alone with Nao, goes on a trash-digging trip with the A.G.E., gets sick, and Iroha and Kondou come over. Certainly not the weakest episode of the series, but still fairly boring. We’ve seen all these jokes so many times already… can’t they think up something new? Looking on the bright side, Iroha finally did something other than stalking Shuusuke, although there was still plenty of stalking too.

A milestone of sorts: this is the first series I’ve finished blogging, and I’m quite pleased that I’ve managed to keep going this long. Initially I thought I would write for about a week and then get bored of it, but so far I’m still enjoying it. The lesson does seem to be to choose carefully when picking series to blog, though. It really is a crapshoot picking a show based on only the first episode. The first episode of Onii-chan no Koto was hilarious (although in retrospect, it seemed so bad I assumed it was a parody but was sadly mistaken) but from there on it was all downhill. Probably should have done Level-E instead, which had the opposite trend. But everything else turned out to be a pretty good choice. I’ll probably try to blog five series next year – I’m thinking about doing C : The Possibility of Soul and Probability Control in iambic tetrameter assuming the first episode is any good.