Infinite Stratos Review — D

Reviews,

Infinite Stratos : Generic Harem #237 (plus mecha). Ichika goes to an all-girls school for IS (mecha) pilots and becomes a pimp. Infinite Stratos has quite literally the most generic harem plot you can imagine. In the first episode, Ichika moves to an all girls school. He meets his long-lost childhood friend, Houki. And what a surprise, Ichika discovers that they are roommates when he walks in on Houki in the shower! The first episode was so terrible that I thought it was a parody. Unfortunately, I was being much too generous.

Basically everything that Hourou Musuko did right, Infinite Stratos did wrong. The characters were boring, cliched and inconsistent. We have a straight-laced Japanese childhood friend who practices Kendo, a snobby British girl, a Chinese girl whose family runs a ramen shop and who is also a childhood friend, a cross-dressing French girl (this character was actually decent), and a militaristic German girl who makes a sudden and unexplained transformation into a defenseless moeblob.

But even worse than the vapid characters is the fact that the creators focus on one character for a couple episodes, and then proceed to push them into the background and forget about them. Houki showed up for the first episode and the last two but basically didn’t do anything in the middle. The same can be said of all the other characters as well: they have their two episodes in the spotlight and are discarded, hidden in the recesses of Ichika’s harem.

The creators also decided to go for a dramatic, meaningful and deep psychological ending with everyone joining their power to protect their comrades. With the desire to protect their comrades, the inherent powers of their IS awaken and they power up to defeat the enemy! (my explanation isn’t quite all there is to the ending… for one thing, it makes much more sense than the actual show) This was seriously one of the cheesiest endings I’ve seen in a while. I wish that the creators of shows like this could accept that they don’t have any deep meaning, and trying to make it look otherwise isn’t fooling anyone, only inducing pain and suffering for the viewers. The only reason anyone watches this show is for the stupid harem hijinks, and it’s better to just continue with that than to try to make the final episodes of the show into something it’s not and fail miserably.

There were some good points to this show though. For one, the arc with the French girl, Charles, was actually pretty decent. But my standards may have been set pretty low because of the rest of the show. Also, the animation and choreography of the battles was generally well done, but it would have been more effective had I actually cared about the characters in the fights…

  • Plot / Script – 5 / 10 – About as generic as it gets.
  • Characters – 5 / 10 – Poorly developed and quickly discarded.
  • Production – 7 / 10 – Good fight scenes and consistent animation, but otherwise does nothing to stand out.
  • Overall – D

Recommendations – Isekai no Seikish Monogatari, Love Hina, Zero no Tsukaima, etc…. if you like this kind of thing, there are a million ones that are better.

Hourou Musuko Review — A

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Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son) tells the story of Nittori Shuusuke as he begins the difficult transition through puberty. Shuusuke and his friend Takatsuki are both uncomfortable with their assigned gender, and prefer to adapt the mannerisms and clothing of the opposite sex. Horou Musuko explores the growth of them, their friends and their classmates.

Chiba is awesome.

The strongest aspect of Hourou Musuko is the cast – for a show of only eleven episodes, the number of characters is astronomical, and all of them are well-developed. The creators did an amazing job at utilizing the limited time to the fullest extent for character development. One very effective technique which I haven’t seen to such an extent anywhere else is quite simple in principle: in a scene with multiple characters, one character will say or do something, and the rest will react simultaneously. Nearly every show has scenes like this. But usually all the characters have the same reaction. This is where Hourou Musuko stands out: instead of reacting the same, the scene is set up so that the characters can, no, must, react differently based on their personalities (see the image below: count five completely different reactions). From casual interactions in scenes like this, we can, in a short amount of times, glimpse deeply into multiple characters simultaneously. This technique helped Hourou Musuko to develop such a large and strong cast in a short amount of time.

The other thing which makes the characters stand out is that they treat different people differently. This is obviously true in real life, but anime often neglect this, having characters interact with their close friends, family and complete strangers in the same way. But consider Maho, Shuusuke’s sister: she treats her brother like a creepy little brat to his face, tries to get her friends to cheer him up behind his back, acts like a fashionable teenager with her modelling friends, and is shy and demure with her boyfriend. Maho’s relationships make her feel like a real person instead of a cardboard character cutout.


The script flows extremely well, which, for a show that jumps around between scenes and characters as much as Hourou Musuko, is quite an accomplishment. The decision to skip over the beginning of the manga turned out well, since it allowed the show to use its limited time to cover the more interesting parts. This may have the effect of leaving first-time viewers of the series a bit lost trying to figure out who all the characters are, but stick with it, you’ll figure it out in a few episodes and be grateful for the choice in the end.

  • Plot / Script – 9 / 10 – Smooth, timely scripting, particularly in the many scene changes, which are nearly unnoticeable in how little the flow is interrupted.
  • Characters – 10 / 10 – A large, strongly-developed cast: approaches Simoun in ambition as a character study.
  • Production – 9 / 10 – Unique, beautiful style – I especially love the faces and the shininess of the hair.
  • Overall – A

Recommendations – Simoun, Aoi Hana

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-

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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!