Onii-chan no Koto 09

Onii-chan no Koto,

At this point, I’m just continuing to lose interest in this show every week. It began ok, but it’s just become bogged down in using the same jokes over and over again with little to no variance. This week saw the addition of a competition in pervertedness between Nao and Iroha, which was even more painful to watch than the jokes they keep retelling.

As usual, the highlights were the ten second cameo by Nao’s friends and the AGE’s activities. I will admit though, this episode was better than much of the long stretch where Nao and Iroha were getting along for no apparent reason.

Also, I’m completely confused about Kondou. I thought she was going abroad for a while, but she’s back already? Her brief scene at the end was one of the best parts (relatively speaking), but that’s probably only her nipple fetish is their latest joke, only introduced one episode ago. I’m sure that in an episode or two I will be tired of it already.

Star Driver 22

Star Driver,

Star Driver’s build up is starting to pay off in droves and we’re on track for a fantastic finale. School plays do not exactly have the best track record for transferring well to anime episodes, but the way they did it here really worked as a microcosm of the entire show and a retelling of Sakana-chan’s version. The creators’ approach reminded me of the school play from Gunparade March, which also was one of the better episodes of that show.

This episode was chock-full of revelations, but also a proportional amount of new questions. As I speculated last week, one of the last characters to be developed  is the drama club president, Sarina Endo. And she or the vice president or both appear to be aliens who watch over the Cybodies. I wonder if the vice president is a cousin of our other furry little alien friend (that was the happiest picture I had of him).

The big question remaining seems to be what is the role of the maidens in all of this. With Keito being caught in her naked nighttime excursions, it appears that we should be getting some answers regarding this shortly. The fact that Wako and Sugata are in the same club as the President, and Sakana-chan told the same story to Head indicates that they know something about what’s going on. Are the maidens also aliens, or collaborators? Wako’s ephemeral role in the play seems to suggest that they may be, but the president’s statement in the play about not using magic would seem to distance the maidens from herself.

The actual story was great and all, but this episode was completely stolen by Sugata’s maid. Apparently her name is Tiger Sugatame (the other one is Jaguar Yamasugata, and yes, I had to look this up). Very creative on the last names there…. Some phenomenal voice acting, as well as an actual good and interesting use of fanservice.

Hourou Musuko 07

Hourou Musuko,

I was looking forward to this episode from having read the manga- the beginning of Shuusuke and Ana’s relationship was one of the best parts of the manga as well. It really came completely out of left field, which made it all the more surprising how well it turned out. But Shuusuke, dating your sister’s friends is still in bad taste.

The confession scene was particularly excellent, with Ana’s resposne of “so”? A great contrast to the dramatic, teary-eyed confession scenes we’ve come to expect. The creators have been doing a good job at generally making the relationships between the characters believable for how people of their age would actually act – immature, hyperactive, selfish, etc. Probably the one with the least believable personality is Shuusuke. Really, going on a date to the zoo? I thought that was uncool even for ten year olds.  Maybe zoos are more popular in Japan.

The fallout from Ana and Shuusuke’s relationship was enjoyable as well. The creators have done a great job portraying the complex interwove relationships between everyone by putting nearly all of the characters in every episode. It’s particularly impressive that they do this without the plot seeming to suffer from any issues with a lack of focus. But we get to see more deeply into Mako, Maho, Chiiba and Takatsuki from this event. The characters all have a lot of depth given how little screentime they get.

The only issue is, I would imagine that this show would be extremely confusing for those who haven’t read the manga. I would probably have trouble remembering all the characters who were introduced in such a short period of time. But it was probably a good decision, since with a larger introduction they wouldn’t have gotten very far within the brief timeline of the TV series.

Now for the obligatory Chiiba shots!

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Matsuri 01

OVA,

This OVA was a worthy entry in the series, returning to the fast-paced humor of the first half which unfortunately dragged out in the second. We had the same levels of ridiculousness that made the first season hilarious.

Flat-chest jokes generally make me cringe, but this background text was hilarious.

Comedy, it seems to me, is something that’s very personal. From trying to write this blog, I’ve realized that I don’t really have much in the way of explanation as to why something is funny. For example, I’ve been complaining for a while now about how Iroha’s stalking in Onii-chan no Koto just isn’t funny anymore since it’s been overused so much. But is that really the reason? Baka to Test reuses the same jokes over and over again – Himeji’s deadly cooking, Minami’s chest, Yoshii’s cross dressing, Voyeur’s peeping, and Hideyoshi’s… existence. Yet it’s still funny every time. It must be something to do with the delivery – when the two punks claimed they had kidnapped the most popular waitress, it was patently obvious they were referring to Hideyoshi in spite of Yoshii’s belief to the contrary. And yet when they arrived to find him, playing the game of Life with his captors, I just cracked up. They go the extra mile with their jokes to put extra layers on them. Plus, the pace is too fast for you to lose interest.

I’m looking forward to the second season of Baka to Test, especially if it can keep up this pace, as well as the second OVA which is due in a month. In completely unrelated news, I figured out how to include subtitles in mplayer! (for the curious, use mplayer -ass -vf ass,screenshot)  We also learned this episode that Voyeur-kun uses *nix and python. Finally an anime character who doesn’t use Windows and silly GUIs.

This was great too - the same as usual but with a twist.

 

Fractale 07

Fractale,

Fractale still has way too many “Clain is a pervert” jokes. Who thought it would be a good idea to make this the only joke in the entire show? It was painful enough to watch the first time. This show has the perfect setup for a fun adventure story – a fantastic setting, larger than life characters and a sense of childish wonder, but the “Clain is a pervert” jokes completely ruin this momentum.

Also, way too many things in this episode just came out of nowhere. I didn’t even know that the world of Fractale had cities – my impression was that most people were mobile and lived in mobile homes. And hear we find ourselves in a city. They could have at least mentioned that cities existed earlier… It’s the same thing with the villain of the week. He somehow went from being a peaceful, enlightened shepherd to a rapist and drug-dealer from out of absolutely nowhere. It wasn’t even surprising, either- we hadn’t even seen the shepherd enough to remember what he looked like. It was just completely random. The setting of Fractale is interesting, but not really consistent – the places they visit in the different episodes just seem so different from each other.

This is where I should pretend to be concerned and wonder what will happen in regards to Clain’s apparent death, but honestly, the show would be better off without him. I know we won’t be so lucky though. It would be kind of cool if he dies and is resurrected as a dopple, but this would give the creators unlimited fodder for “pervert” jokes by walking through walls, hacking cameras, etc.