Kurokami Medaka, a perfect person, becomes the student council president. Together with her friends she solves problems put before the student council in the suggestion box.
I actually like the manga that this show is based on. But that only made me despise the show all the more when it utterly failed to live up to my expectations.
First of all, the voice acting is terrible. All of the characters sound so fake. And Medaka is the worst. She’s supposed to be some super-GAR, passionate beast. Instead she sounds like an indifferent, whiny little girl. And three quarters of the show is devoted to worshiping this utterly unlikable character.
Second, the small part they animated is the worst, most boring part of the manga. But that doesn’t give the creators of the anime an excuse. It’s just arc after arc of helping random clubs and is utterly pointless. Why didn’t they take some artistic license and breeze through these earlier arcs instead of wasting everyone’s time?
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. — Revelation 3:15-16
With all that said, Medaka Box isn’t necessarily bad per se. It has dull characters and it tells a rather simple story, but the story is executed competently.
But that makes Medaka Box all the worse. It doesn’t even try to be a good show. The creators of Medaka Box set out to produce a lukewarm school life anime and succeeded. If it set out to do something different I would have enjoyed it more, even if it turned out horribly. But Medaka Box was designed to be Generic School Life Shounen #1623. What a waste of everyone’s time.
- Storytelling – F – I don’t care about any of these people or their school.
- Voice – F – The voice is that of a poorly produced generic shounen show.
- Characters – F – Medaka is a terrible character, and no one else even has a semblance of a personality. Unless “money-grubbing” is a personality.
- Attention Grab – F – Can’t believe I finished this.
- Production – F – Awful casting for the voice actors (and I usually don’t even notice these things). I didn’t like the color scheme either.
- Overall – F
Recommendations – Read the manga instead (but skip the first part).
I’d have to agree that it’s one of the poorest thought out manga to anime adaptation, perhaps since Negima.
And like Negima, if S2 proves just as bad, we’d never going to see the most awesome characters and arcs of Medaka Box, Kumagawa and Ajimu most especially.
Agreed. S2 is going to be the battle arc with the flask plan, which, although an improvement over this first helping people arc, is not all that great either. And with this continued adaptation team it will be terrible.
I’d think even if they were given the Minus Arc or the pinnacles of the Not Equal Arc, they’d butcher the high points of Medaka Box. Somehow.
Honestly, I’d think that Medaka box would have been better adapted had Unzen’s arc commence by Episode 3 or 4. Episode 9 was just insanity, and a recipe for a flop.
Compared to all those more creative and well thought out adaptations this season, and Medaka Box straight, blind adaptation looks even worst.
Now, if Medaka Box is up against a Weak field, in Fall 2012, it might stand a chance of doing well (though I suspect much of it’s potential audience might have been already driven away by the first three quarters of the First Cour). But if it’s even up against an average field, with the current staff adapting it, I think it’d fail badly in sales.
True, even if they did the good parts of the manga, the adaptation would likely have failed. Their straight up adaptation did not work well for television. The series just has no personality.
I don’t think Medaka Box has much of a chance to do any better in the fall, considering how everyone has already been turned off by this season. If they get a different staff it could have a chance to turn out okay though. They’d need to replace the voice actor for Medaka as well, though…