Writing it up normally is boring though, so I’m going to present the story through an abridged roleplay between myself and my wallet on each day.

DAY 1 – IT BEGINS

Riyoga: “Man, everything important started at 2pm, I’m an hour late!”
Wallet: “Don’t worry about it, there’s no way anything could be sold out already within an hour, and I’m good to go!”
Riyoga: “True, I guess there’s no need to worry. I wish they didn’t have Artist Alley in a separate building behind the convention center this year, but not much you can do about construction.

A few minutes later…

Riyoga: “WOAH THIS BUILDING IS HUGE! Look at all of the booths! There’s sooooooooo many of them!”
Wallet: “Don’t you dare…”

$150 later…

Riyoga: “Man, there was so much great art this year! I’ll probably get even more tomorrow!”
Wallet: *Cries*

DAY 2 – IT CONTINUES

Riyoga: “A brand new day, which means this time it’s time to head to the Dealer’s Hall!”
Wallet: “Just… just don’t go crazy like yesterday. Please.”
Riyoga: “Most stuff in the Dealer’s Hall is overpriced like crazy, so I doubt I’ll buy anything unless I really want it.”
Wallet: “Fair enough.”

At the Dealer’s Hall…

Riyoga: “Oh man, THREE different Noizi Ito artbooks?! Oooh, this one is really nice! I NEED IT.”
Wallet: “It’s decently pricey, but it also gives you something to get signed by Noizi Ito at Anime Expo that you are totally going to find a way to attend and will be wandering around (Author’s Note: This is definitely not a shameless plug about my future presence at Anime Expo).
Riyoga: “Exactly! So I’m buying it!”

30 minutes later…

Riyoga: “Well, there doesn’t seem to be much else that I want. That was easy.”
Wallet: “That’s fine by me, I prefer it this way.”
Riyoga: “I guess. Oh well, time to lea… wait, what is that?!”
Wallet: “Oh god, what did you just see?”

Riyoga: “It’s so neat! I have to get it!”
Wallet: “W… well I suppose that’s not unreasonable. It’s nice to have something tangible you can use on a daily basis and… oh god what does that price tag say? Well, as long as it’s just that…”
Riyoga: “Wait, what’s THAT?!“

Wallet: *Dies*

TO BE CONTINUED?…

P.S. This is what happens when I’m too lazy to write a normal post. You’re welcome for those pictures, though. I’m gonna go pass out now in preparation for tomorrow.

Oh well.

If there’s one show this season that was going to cause a stir, it… well actually, that ended up being Aku no Hana, but the second show that people can’t seem to ignore is the second season of OreImo. To be fair, it makes sense that people are talking about it: the first season caused quite the explosion after the first few episodes. The series even started a trend in anime, for crying out loud.

So in commemoration (or fear) of this second season airing, let us chat a bit about the why this thing is such a complex existence. And by “let us chat”, I mean I’m going to go over my thoughts on the series and also explain in detail why Kirino is basically the incarnation of Satan.

The most common opinion I see on the show is that it’s a “guilty pleasure”. Obviously this typically means that it’s something you’re enjoying more than you actually should be. I normally don’t like the phrase, but I think it’s actually the perfect description for OreImo. The author shows at various points throughout the show that he actually does know how to write, such as the first three episodes of the first season.

It’s actually a pretty nice setup: Kirino has her secret that she can’t let anyone know, yet at the same time it makes her feel unconsciously guilty about it because she doesn’t have anybody to talk to that understands her hobby. She probably thinks that there isn’t even anyone relatively normal who would understand her hobby, which is why when Kyousuke finds out about it, she asks him so many times what he thinks about it. It’s not so much about confirming what he said as it is about Kirino getting a massive feeling of relief from finally being able to hear from someone that it’s okay to have the hobby she does.

After that you have Kirino becoming more accepting of her own interests, and being able to go out to meet people and make friends due to it, and you have Kyousuke also growing more accepting of it in the process. Then just as it seems like everything is going to be all hunky dory, the father finds out and Kyousuke has to finalize his acceptance of Kirino’s hobby by confronting him for her. It’s a nice – if a bit standard – setup, and I kind of wish the entire show just stretched this plot segment to be the entire show.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

I have no idea if the novel got popular for the wrong reasons, the author ran out of ideas, or if it was just so popular that the author felt like seeing what he could get away with, but everything went to hell after the first three episodes. I actually think the most likely explanation is that – assuming the first three episodes cover the first volume – the guy wrote the first one but then realized he had absolutely no idea where to take the story.

So he did what everyone else does in that situation and turned it into harem shenanigans.

To be fair, it manages to actually be somewhat subtle about it since unlike most harem shows the girls aren’t exactly drooling over Kyousuke, but it’s hard to find any real motive behind the rest of the episodes except shipping material or making Kirino look like more and more of a bitch. Actually, if it was just shipping material, I’d actually like the show. It’d be extremely shallow, but at least it’d be decently-written shallowness, if that makes sense. A majority of the side characters are likeable, after all.

But the problem is that Kirino is not likeable. At all. It would be one thing if you were supposed to hate her, but seeing as how any drama in the show revolves around her, that’s obviously not the case. You know, it makes it kind of hard to sympathize with a character when you can’t stand their very presence.

She went from a decent enough female lead into one of the most despicable characters of all time. I mean, she was occasionally violent or antagonistic in the first three episodes, but at those times there was actually a reason for her behavior. She was either afraid her secret was going to be found out, she was nervous about something, or it was just a slapstick comedy moment. Maybe those moments were still supposed to be funny after the first three episodes, but since it becomes so one-sided and completely unwarranted it times, it’s basically unbearable to watch.

I doubt it was supposed to still be funny though, more likely than not the author fully intended to turn her into this violent and evil entity. It’s not exactly farfetched to assume that he gave up Kirino’s status as a character in order to turn her into wish fulfillment for various otaku fetishes.

Think about it: Kirino plays a ton of eroge and drools over the characters, which is something that otaku would do. For all intents and purposes, they just made Kirino a little sister version of your typical otaku. I’m pretty sure one of the major things an otaku would want out of a girl is someone who understands their obsessions, and Kirino fits that role perfectly. Plus, she’s even a little sister, so she’ll always be around to love (or pester) you. Yet apparently that wasn’t enough, so they also made her horrendously antagonistic in order to appeal to the masochistic crowd.

But don’t get me wrong, Kirino’s character being reduced to walking otaku festishes is only one of the many issues with her. She’s also one of the biggest Mary Sue characters to ever exist. She gets straight A’s, she’s the star of the track team, she’s a model, and apparently everyone in the universe adores her. And every time Kirino doesn’t get something that she wants, she gets all depressed and mopes around until eventually someone else (usually Kyousuke) solves the problem for her. Then of course she shows no appreciation at all.

It certainly doesn’t help that all of the drama Kirino causes are some of the biggest first-world problems ever. “Oh no, my cell phone novel got turned into a book and is getting an anime adaptation, BUT THEY WON’T TAKE MY SUGGESTIONS.” Fucking seriously? I’m supposed to feel sorry for her? I’m supposed to feel tense when she gets struck with ‘magical anime sickness’ due to this? You know what I was actually feeling? Amusement. And mass hilarity when the whole ‘magical anime sickness’ came out of absolutely nowhere.

Oh, but even that’s not all of the problems with Kirino. The first episode of the second season tried to explain why she acts the way she does, which was not only quite possibly the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard, but it even managed to create a gaping contradiction as far as her behavior goes. So apparently the reason she started acting so bitter towards Kyousuke is because when they were young, he hit his “this is totally what it means to be a man” phase and basically told her that he didn’t want to do anything with her anymore. She retaliates by creating the persona we all know her to have now. This doesn’t make sense for multiple reasons.

First of all, kids are dumb. After a while Kirino would have simmered down and stopped being so crazy, since it was just a burst of anger. Kyousuke even started freaking out immediately upon seeing her behavior, so realistically speaking, she would have at least toned it down not long afterwards.

Though that’s not a contradiction. What is a contradiction is the fact that Kirino wants to be closer to her brother, yet at the same time SHE is the one causing that rift between them. At their current age, Kyousuke is fine with having a normal brother-sister relationship with her. It’s Kirino’s horrendous behavior that’s causing this rift between them, so her insistence on having life counseling is absolutely stupid when she can just stop being a total BITCH and they’d be perfectly fine.

You know, it just amazes me that a show that focuses so much on such a despicable character can be watched as a “guilty pleasure” while a show with characters that you’re entirely supposed to hate is vehemently  disliked and the brunt of an untold number of jokes (*ahem*, School Days). It doesn’t help that I’ve seen people give the absolute dumbest arguments in defense of OreImo.

“It’s a great/accurate depiction of otaku culture!”

…Yeah, okay.

“It’s an honest portrayal of siblinghood!”

…Yeah, okay.

As a side note, as someone with an older sister myself, this is not how siblings act towards each other. It’s never this one-sided. Either you’re both mad at each other for something, you’re getting along, or you’re completely ignoring each other’s existence. Though even if there are a pair of siblings out there that have it this one-sided, it wouldn’t make it any less irritating to watch in a show that’s supposed to be entertainment.

Honestly, the only thing saving the show – and the only reason I’m watching it – would be the side characters. It’s kind of a given that any character would be better than Kirino, but most of the side characters are actually nicely-written characters.

Kuroneko is basically the beacon of light in the show: if anything because she’s the only character that actually calls Kirino out on her bullshit. Of course it also helps that she’s an infinitely better sibling than Kirino. One of my favourite scenes is when she’s on the phone with Kyousuke, and she takes various precautions in order to not wake her little sister who’s asleep on her lap. She also covers her with a blanket and watches that Meruru show with her despite hating it. As icing on the cake, this was during the episode where Kirino was busy drooling over her new eroge game, as if the entire point of the episode was to show how shitty of a character Kirino is compared to Kuroneko.

Manami is also a great character. Her interactions with Kyousuke are always nice to watch, especially when they start getting flirtatious with each other. The episode where he spends the day and night at her house was absolutely hilarious; and just like the episode that showed off how awesome Kuroneko is, this one also managed to simultaneously show how irritating Kirino is. You know, you’d think the show might just be sending subliminal messages…

Anyways, other than the side characters there’s no real reason to watch this show. It’s hard to just kind of wave away a character like Kirino, and she seriously drags the show down immensely. Though turning the whole thing into a vaguely-disguised harem didn’t exactly help. Besides the side characters, the only reason I’m watching it is to see how much worse it could possibly get. It’s kind of the same reasoning behind why you would watch a dumb teenager pull off dangerous stunts: not because you’re entertained by what they’re currently doing, but because of a morbid fascination to watch how far they’ll go before they end up falling right on their face.

Now, even though I say major things, I’m willing to bet at least one person is going to think, “Wait, these points are actually pretty minor.” First of all, I’d disagree with that entirely, but more importantly, you’d be surprised how often it’s the little stuff in shows that can make or break it. They typically play a huge part in whether I’ll like the show or not. It’s also one of the reasons I often argue that execution is what’s most important in a show. Two shows with similar plots or even themes can be drastically different in quality thanks to the little touches, since those often add to the larger aspects of the show.

But don’t just take my word for it, I’ll point out what I mean with those two examples in Magi I mentioned.

The first thing that Magi did that caught my attention was actually in the very first episode. When Morgiana and the kid fall into that man-eating plant… thing, Alibaba looks down in terror at what’s going to happen to them. As he sees them desperately trying to fend it off for as long as they can, he cries out in his head for someone to save them. He does this repeatedly as he watches them for the next couple of seconds. This is typically when the main hero will use their power to swoop down, save the day, and possibly give that asshole merchant guy an earful.

Aladdin doesn’t do this. Instead he just stares at Alibaba, wondering what he’ll do in this situation.

You see, this is a crucial moment for Alibaba. He previously held back from helping others and went against his own beliefs in order to protect his employment under the merchant and to not get arrested and such. He said all he cared about was money and materialistic goods. So now that there were lives on the line, this was his chance to stop standing on the sidelines and actually do some good. Aladdin was aware of this, and knew that saving them would take away this important moment for Alibaba, which was why he waited until after Alibaba had socked the merchant and went down to save them before also lending a hand.

This simple action – or, lack of action, to be more precise – gives both their characters more depth. Aladdin shows that despite being a good guy, there are times where he knows when to let other people make important decisions; while Alibaba is able to finally bring himself to take action for something he believes in. If Aladdin had just played the part of the typical hero, his character wouldn’t have been hit too hard, but it would have drastically weakened Alibaba’s. It falls in line with the classic conundrum where helping people can actually weaken them. Rather than learning to find strength in themselves, they just rely on others.

Though Aladdin has only shown this inaction twice so far in the show, both times were when it involved a very important decision that affected not only Alibaba, but other people as well.

As for the second thing that caught my eye, that was during the eighth episode, when Alibaba was explaining his past. He talks about how he was raised in the slums  along with Kassim and his sister, and that he lived with his mother who worked as a prostitute in those slums.

Actually, as a quick side thing to point out really quick, I’m also proud of the show for painting someone who works as a prostitute in a positive light. Alibaba’s mother is very kind, caring, and attractive. I dunno, I’m just personally tired of nearly all types of media painting prostitutes as these dirty, sleazy women who don’t care about themselves in the least.

Getting back on track though, Alibaba later finds out from the king that he’s actually his son. However, whenever it shows the king, his face, arms, and pretty much any exposed skin are just blacked out. All you can see is the king’s facial hair, and his clothes. The reason they do this is because that’s all Alibaba sees him as: the king. He identifies him by the clothes he wears, which are royal garbs, rather than as an actual human being.

Later, when the king is sick and is telling Alibaba that he wants him to take over as the ruler of the country, Alibaba instead takes the time to ask him what he thought of his mother. Did he really care about her? Or was she just some kind of fling that he tossed away when he was done? The king says that they couldn’t be together due to their personal obligations, but that nonetheless, he did love her. It’s that moment that the king’s face and his body are shown. Because the king  loved Alibaba’s mother, one of the most important people in Alibaba’s life while she was alive, he’s then able to see the king as he is: a human being. And perhaps, maybe even as a father.

This isn’t the only time that Magi uses visuals to enhance a scene either. I bet you didn’t even notice in episode 12 that Kassim and Alibaba both argued on opposite sides of a crack in the wall that was in the background. When the argument got the most heated was when they were both closest to this crack, too.

Those were the two I personally noticed, though I’m sure there were even more that I didn’t. What’s cool is that your brain may have picked up on these scenes even if you didn’t consciously notice yourself. That’s what’s so great about this technique: it enhances a scene if you or even just your brain notice it, but if you don’t the scene can still stand on its own just fine.

A lot of people nowadays seem to think that the ultimate way to do shows is through the style of “show, don’t tell”. I couldn’t disagree with this mindset more. For one, there are situations where you just can’t show something instead of telling it. What about a character’s state of mind? How are you going to show what emotion they’re thinking? Maybe they’re constantly replaying a scene from their past in their head, how would you show that? There’s nothing wrong with using words. That’s not to say you can’t use words badly, because you absolutely can. But if you’re competent enough at writing dialogue or narration, there’s no reason you shouldn’t.

The second problem with it is that often it can be used in a way that the audience will write the story for you. What I mean is, “show, don’t tell” is usually extremely blunt in how it’s being visual message of some kind, but the problem is that if the message isn’t hinted at enough, you’re going to have people getting different interpretations from the scene. That’s okay if it’s what you’re going for (though this usually only works for the most part with endings), but if it isn’t what you’re going for, then the audience is going to essentially be writing the story of the show for you. Then the line between whether the scene was purposely vague or if it’s just visual randomness and hoping the audience will interpret something from it gets quite thin.

Rather, I’d say the ultimate way to do a show is similar to the way Magi handled Alibaba’s thoughts about the king. Rather than “show, don’t tell”, it’s more of a… “visual enhancement” kind of thing. As I said, it used visuals to further expand on a scene without sacrificing the scene itself.

Of course, as I said when I started this whole thing, there are more than just these two reasons that I like Magi, but these were the only two I wanted to cover. I could have mentioned the good pacing, the fact that Morgiana is one of the few female main characters in shounen that isn’t overly-sexualized in some way, plenty of stuff. But hey, isn’t that what a review is for?

Wandering Son is one of those rare shows where anime decides to tackle a complicated subject in a mature way. It’s always interesting when most of the shows out are about action or drama or romance, then suddenly a show comes along that says, “Alright, now let’s discuss TRANSSEXUALISM.” Now, before starting, I have to address some things in regards to society and such; if you’ve already watched the show, you probably already know these things. Even if you haven’t seen it, you might still know this stuff. But I’m going to say it all anyway.

First off, transsexual does not literally mean “people who’ve had a sex change”, nor does it imply people who are gay and just get sex changes so they can hook up with other people of the sex that they used to be. No, it just identifies people that aren’t really comfortable as whatever sex they were born as, it has nothing to do with attraction. This can either be a biological thing, or it can be in regards to gender, and not agreeing with the roles males and females are assigned in society. However, now that sex change operations are possible, we automatically associate the word with people who’ve had the operation. The more common terminology that’s used now is “gender identity disorder”. In fact, there’s even a subcategory called “gender identity disorder in children”. It’s when kids get discomfort because they feel that their bodies are “wrong” or meant to be different.

Might this convenient terminology and description have anything to do with Wandering Son? I’ll give you a hint: YES.

You see, the reason kids get their own category is because they can get the roughest cases. When you’re growing up is when you get bombarded the most by family, friends, society, and mass media about what each gender should act, look, and even think like. If you grow up feeling differently from what you’re being taught to be biological facts, and how not falling in line with them makes you “weird” and “different”, it can seriously mess with your head, and potentially even traumatise you.

But anyways, hopefully I’ve addressed the topic enough, because I want to start the actual review.

As the intro made obvious, the story is about two kids that have gender identity disorder, Nitori and Takatsuki. …That’s about it. There’s no real overarching story or anything, it just sets up those two, along with some other characters, and follows them around as they do stuff. Considering the themes of the work, it makes sense that the story is character-driven rather than story-driven.

As for these other characters in the show, they cover pretty much every different kind of reaction and opinion on their gender identity disorder there is. Some of them are okay with it, some of them aren’t, some are indifferent, some think it’s cool, some think it’s disgusting, some may have personal experience with gender identity disorder themselves, etc. Having all of these perspectives gives the show more depth. Just like in real life, nothing is really black and white, especially when it comes to opinions on a topic. Sure for some people it can be a matter of liking it or disliking it, and there are characters like that in the show, but for most people it’s not that simple, and there are a ton of other factors at work.

Something else that added depth to the show that people may not have even realized was the animation. Now, I normally don’t talk about animation when I review things because of how basic it usually is. There’s different styles of animation, sure, but for the most part it’s a case of, “How do we show this character going from Point A to Point B?” “Well, just have him walk there.” And that’s about it. The animation just gets the job done. Everything else about it is just personal taste.
For example, most people say Kyoto Animation are the kings of animation, but there are times where I can’t stand how large they make the eyes on the characters sometimes. That and the few times they really slip up with their animation it tends to be pretty bad and pulls me out of my immersion. Another example is how most people – even those who don’t like the show – say that Sword Art Online‘s fight animations are really good, but I don’t really like that kind of gooey, blobby animation style during fight scenes where limbs will stretch or shorten and such during their actions. I prefer the character models to stay in normal ranges during fights.

Where am I going with this? Well the animation style in Wandering Son actually serves a purpose. It was drawn very lightly, uses almost only light colours, and they sometimes didn’t even completely draw some of the people and objects in the show. It gives the show a look of fragility, and looks a lot like drawings you’d see in a children’s book, which helps remind you that these are just kids that are dealing with these issues. It reminds you of the innocence that these kids have, and how they can’t understand why some things are seen as wrong and others right. The animation actually adds to the atmosphere, which is really the only time you can factually say that the animation is good.

But the best part of the show actually has nothing to do with the main characters or the themes. It’s the character, Anna.

The first few times you see her, she seems to just be this emotionless, boring girl. She even does two actions that might make you wary of her, those being when she teases Nitori for a bit by taking his script before realizing he’s getting genuinely upset, and later when she gives him the weird phone strap. But a little more than halfway through the show, you find out this isn’t the case. Anna’s just someone who doesn’t open up easily. She just goes through life, doing what she deems she needs to do, and not much more than that. But when she does open up, she’s actually one of the most talkative, nicest people you could meet. She was easily my favourite character in the show, and maybe even one of my favourites in all of anime.

However, the show also has the character, Chiba, who’s quite possibly one of the most annoying characters ever. She’s okay at first, because I can understand where her bitterness is coming from; I mean, she was close friends with both Nitori and Takatsuki, fell in love with Nitori, but he rejected her and confessed to Takatsuki. It’s your classic one-sided love, and when you’re that young, it can be pretty rough on your emotions. My problem with Chiba is that she never develops, even when it seems like she should. She’s constantly butting heads with people and causes a good chunk of the drama in the show, but she never seems to grow from any of it. There are a few occasions where she seems to be learning right after some of the drama has ended or when it’s near its end, but an episode or two later and she’s right back at it. She pretty much passed my tolerance line after one part where she acts like a total bitch to Anna for no good reason since it’s something she should have been over by that point in the story. My guess is that the author just couldn’t decide on many other ways to create drama between the characters without using Chiba.

The show also kind of loses focus on its main themes around the middle of the show. That’s not to say it’s completely abandoned, there’s still parts dealing with gender identity disorder and judging people and such, but it seems to take a backseat and the show focuses on “normal” drama instead. At least half the show deals with the characters writing a gender-bender play for the festival, and instead of focusing on that itself, it chooses to just have normal drama develop between the classmates. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was bad, but it felt like the show was pushing its main messages to the sideline a bit too much.

Only one other thing about the show rubbed me the wrong way, and that was its excessive use of overdramatising what the characters say. I don’t mean that in a general sense, though, I mean there’s a visual technique that they abused the living hell out of for the entire show. That technique is when the characters will be talking to someone or saying something in their head, but right when they’re about to finish, the visuals cut to a black screen and all the other audio disappears while the character says the last word or words. This is something that’s done to put emphasis on the last bit of what they’re saying, usually because that means there’s a double or hidden meaning for it, or because it foreshadows things to come. It’s a fine technique to make use of, but the show loves using it way too much. In episode eight or nine, I counted them using it about five times. Five times in just one episode! That’s when it stops being useful, and starts being pretentious.

But those are honestly the only problems I had with the show. The show even managed to get back on track with its themes by the end of the gender-bender play, and it had a strong ending. Most of the open plot threads got wrapped up, with a hint of things to come in the future for the story. There was one plot thread they left open, which was the class’ thoughts on Nitori, but I feel like that was intentionally left open regarding the messages of the show. No real resolution came because it’s not something that even exists. What happened happened, and nothing will change that.

What makes a show like Wandering Son so strong is how it uses children as the lens through which you see these societal issues. For one, gender identity disorder is something that children get, but more importantly, it takes a child’s innocence to highlight the hypocrisy and double standards in society. It takes someone that hasn’t been completely assimilated into society yet to be able to look at it and say, “…Wait, why is this wrong?”

The rules for this list are simple: the show needed to end at some point during 2012. Actually, that’s the only rule, but this means that shows could start in late 2011 as long as they continued into 2012. Oh, and only shows I actually watched can make the list, obviously.

So basically this is the ballot I sent in for the APR Best of 2012 voting. I just flipped the order they’re listed in and expanded a bit more on some of the reasons for picking a few of the shows. However, this is still ultimately just a list, so I’m still only giving about a sentence or two to explain why I picked each one.

#10 – Jormungand

I watched it for Koko. That’s honestly about it. Some of the shootouts were cool, especially in the second half, but the first half didn’t really seem to have any direction in regards to plot. It didn’t matter so much since Koko was a fun character to watch, but it’s still disappointing it took half the show for a solid narrative to kick in.

Also, I’ve heard the ending sucks, but I haven’t watched the last two episodes yet. Even if they do, this would still win tenth place because no other show I watched feels like it deserves a spot. Plus even with a bad ending, there’s still Koko, and she’s still loco.

#9 – Gakkatsu

A show that absolutely nobody watched except a few. While it was just a bunch of 5-minute shorts, they always debated the weirdest topics, often coming up with very strange conclusions. Just watching the leaps in logic was greatly entertaining, and the 5-minute length stopped each episode, and the show overall, from overstaying its welcome.

#8 – Inu x Boku SS

Most people who watched Inu x Boku SS didn’t like it because it introduced the whole “fantasy creatures” setting, but then never used it. It didn’t bother me, because I just enjoyed watching the characters themselves. Each character had just the right personality to bounce off each other in an entertaining and amusing way. The conversations were just fun to watch, and the humour was damn good at times. Especially whenever Kagerou showed up; he always stole the show.

#7 – Tsuritama

I enjoyed Tsuritama more than I expected to, which is probably because I didn’t have massive expectations for it to begin with. So I went in not expecting anything and got a story about fishing and friendship that was told surprisingly well. The show managed to mix together silly elements and tense, serious elements without feeling strange at all, which was really impressive. I mean come on, the finale is a bunch of guys trying to fish an alien out of the ocean so that they can stop the entire population of the island from breaking into dance. That sounds ridiculous just reading it, but the music combined with the characters and the directing managed to make the scene extremely intense.

But most of all, Tsuritama was charming, and honestly, that’s something a lot of shows seem to lack nowadays.

#6 – Joshiraku

It seems like most people don’t like dialogue in their shows for some reason. I’m not one of those people. Dialogue is a way to understand characters more. The way someone says something, their choice of words, all these factors and more let you get into the minds of the characters. Now, Joshiraku doesn’t necessarily do that, but it shows how dialogue is not something stiff, but rather organic. The conversations start in one place, and five minutes later, are in a completely different place. Like how one of their conversations start off being about the Tokyo Tower, but by the end they’re talking about the physical qualities of a fork. Yet the process of getting to that point was seamless. Now, Joshiraku may not be a total master of dialogue, but I still respect what it managed to do with it.

#5 – Kokoro Connect

As much crap as Kokoro Connect gets from people (which isn’t all that much actually, if you don’t count the whole scandal thing), it was really enjoyable to watch. I’m a sucker when it comes to philosophy, so even just briefly going over philosophical concepts is enough to hook me in. I also appreciated the clever choice of ability Heartseed put on them each time which helped them get over whatever their current problem was. Or perhaps what I should appreciate was how the show managed to work this supernatural problem into solving their normal ones? Either way, Kokoro Connect was still a very interesting show.

#4 – Fate/Zero

Despite an ending that left plenty to be desired, the show overall managed to live up to the epic that it was written to be. Heroes of history clashing with each other over a holy artifact of great power. A plot synopsis like that is honestly pretty hard to screw up. That’s why even with some characters that could stand to be more interesting, the execution of the plot itself is enough to carry the show the whole way through. And the movie-sized budget along with Yuki Kajiura’s music certainly helped, too.

#3 – Future Diary

Future Diary is just pure insanity for the sake of entertainment. Everything in the show is for the purpose of building excitement, and even manages to have some legitimately interesting character psychology and arcs. The show is just pure, unbridled fun. It’s psychological thriller at its best. Well, maybe not best, but still really damn good.

#2 – Haiyore! Nyaruko-san

I’ve always found Nyaruko-san so be a greatly entertaining show, even back when it was just flash shorts by DLE. It’s hard to pin down why I love the series so much. The references are certainly entertaining, but it’s probably mostly because of Nyaruko herself. She’s just so off-the-wall that it’s fun to watch. Combined with Mahiro not taking any of her shit, it makes for a fun twist on the usual RomCom cutout characters (mainly because the show gives the romance portion the middle finger).

#1 – Shakugan no Shana III (Final)

Haters gonna hate, etc. etc. Anybody who knows me by now also knows of my endless love for the Shana series. I used to preface all my praising for the series by saying I might be biased since it’s what got me in to anime, but screw that, Shana is a great series. I could rant how most complaints against it are dumb, but instead I’ll say that this final season was everything the series had been building up to. High stakes, large battles, a tough decision to figure out which side was in the right, it was all here. Characters put everything they had on the line in order to achieve what they deemed most important to them. Some failed and some succeeded, some succeeded but at a price, but everyone fought with strong ambition. It was not the fights themselves that were phenomenal, but how through the fights you could see the wills and mental conflicts of each character at work.

Plus, it’s not often a series can wrap up so many plot threads in a neat bow without feeling forced, which is exactly what Shana Final did.

Sword Art Online is pretty sweet. The art design is cool, with each each floor being vast and varied as far as setting goes; the concept of having to climb a 100-story tower with a boss at the end of each one is neat; and the combat and skill systems look like they are programmed very well!

…Oh wait, I’m supposed to review the show, not the game.

The show is a piece of shi- actually, the Sword Art Online arc isn’t that shabby. It has its share of faults and occasionally tries too hard and trips over its own ideas, but for the most part it’s still at least entertaining.

The problem is that the ALO arc is quite possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. I’m not even exaggerating when I say this; it’s almost as bad as Dragonball Evolution. The whole thing plays out like really bad fanfiction of Sword Art Online.

But enough of that for now, I should discuss SAO before getting into the problems of ALO. I’ll just go over a few positive and negative points. Probably more negative ones than positive ones, because it’s a lot easier to explain what something does wrong than things it does well.

And don’t expect the same analytical depth that I gave for Clannad. Only special shows are going to get that treatment.

I think it’d be amusing to start with a solution I found for the Sword Art Online problem of not being able to get out of the game. As a greatly influential figure once said,

“The grander a human scheme is, the simpler it is for unforeseen factors to thwart it.”

…Okay, so maybe that was just Dio Brando from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but I feel like a quote from an anime is more fitting than a random literary figure.

Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that the more points you have to use to explain something’s logic, the easier you make it for holes to be found. This is basically what happens with the explanation in SAO about not being able to log out.

So they can’t turn off or forcibly remove the helmet, or it’ll activate. They also can’t unplug it because it has an internal battery. But here’s the thing: why not just unplug it and let the battery drain? The first thought to that is obviously, “Well, the point of the battery is to fry their brains if it gets unplugged.” However, that doesn’t work because all of these players were moved to hospitals. They needed to unplug the helmets at some point to do this. That means unplugging the helmets doesn’t activate them. So just unplug the suckers and let those batteries drain away! If they’re anything like my Nintendo 3DS’ battery, the damn thing will drain in under a day.

I guess the people on the outside just never thought about it. They probably aren’t gamers, after all.

As for an actual point in regards to the SAO arc, the plot is all over the place. First it’s about the conflict between normal players and the beta testers, then it’s about groups of people dealing with friends’ deaths when Kirito joins that one guild, then it’s some story with that small girl that I can’t even remember the name of, then it’s a murder mystery, etc. etc.

A lot of the ideas SAO brings up are indeed interesting, but they just don’t get the treatment they deserve. There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but there’s a problem with throwing out so many plot points, themes, and characters that the story can’t handle them all. Most of these will get focused on for a very short time before moving on to the next due to it wanting to cover so many.

For example, the second episode ends on the big message the Kirito is a solo player and is prepared to do everything on his own, but at the very start of the next episode, he joins a guild. Uhm, what’s up with that? Or how about the fact that the girl in that episode opens herself to Kirito, then dies very shortly after? I timed it myself, it was only about five minutes. Not that I’d say it was handled badly, but that was an incredibly short amount of time, and they could have developed it further by making it last longer.
There’s also the fact that Kirito spends the entire second half of that episode being depressed, but then at the start of the next episode he’s all fine and dandy again, as if it had never happened. Then they only bring up that episode’s events again a few times when it’s convenient for the plot.
How about that revival item that Kirito gave to Klein since it only works if used within ten seconds of someone dying? That had the potential to play a great part in something later, but you never see the item again after that episode.
Or hey, does anyone remember that PK guild from the murder mystery arc? Laughing Coffin? They never show up again, even though there was slight hinting that the guy leading that group and Kirito would eventually duke it out. The guild itself gets brought up extremely briefly during the thing with Kuradeel, but that’s it.

With so many ideas, the show either hastily throws them out, or just completely forgets about them after using them. Sometimes it’s even both.

At least the romance between Kirito and Asuna was handled decently well. It definitely could have been done better, but if that’s the best complaint you have for something, then it hardly even qualifies as one. Plus, I’ve heard the show actually cut out some of their romance scenes from the novel, so the material for it to be better at least existed.  I’m just mainly glad that Asuna has an actual personality, and she didn’t lose it after they got married. Far too many females in romance shows become empty shells of what they used to be personality-wise when they get with the male character.

Though speaking of marriage, that was something that was handled like ass in SAO. While everything takes place in a game, it’s also supposed to be shown as realistic, because it has become reality for these players. That means incorporating real life situations and concepts into a game world, but not focusing as much on the game aspect so that everything also feels real for the audience. They botch this with the marriage by not shutting up about how people who get married share inventories. Not only is this dumb in its own right and mentioned way too many times, but Asuna even calls it romantic. What.
It probably won’t be all that romantic when you see he has eight various animal brains in his inventory for some random quest.

And don’t even get me fucking started on Yui.

Oh, I was also going to talk about how the whole thing with Kuradeel was another aspect handled terribly, but I’ll just let this speak for itself.

All the subtlety of a horde of stampeding bulls.

Seriously, why do people think these psychotic facial expressions make scenes more dramatic? They’re unrealistic as all hell and just make you laugh at how dumb they look.

The only show to ever pull off psychotic facial expressions correctly was Higurashi, and those weren’t even all that psychotic. They had the token cat eyes which yes, were unrealistic, but the whole point was to make them look unnatural. It was creepy because it was inhuman. The only times they went crazy were when they got pissed off or laughed, and their faces for both were normal anger and normal psychotic laughter. I know “normal” psychotic laughter sounds weird, but the main point is that their faces didn’t distort to ridiculous levels. That’s where the line lies, and SAO crossed it.

The final battle at the end was pretty cool though. I actually liked the reveal that Heathcliff was Kayaba. There was enough hinting throughout the show that there was something odd about him, so the twist worked.

What didn’t work was Asuna breaking out of the paralysis for absolutely no reason. Kayaba’s reaction to it just made it worse. What he essentially said was, “Huh, that was weird. Oh well, these things happen.” What a terrible game creator.

Then it proceeds to give Asuna even more plot armor by not making her die in the real world when she gets killed in the game. What’s the point of having rules if you’re not going to follow through with them on your main characters? You could at least come up with some excuse for it.

They also kind of screwed Kayaba over as a character at the end. His desire to create a world of his own to observe how people lived makes enough sense, but when asked why he went as far as to have people die in real life when they died in the game, his response is, “I forget”. That’s such lazy writing and removes so much potential depth from his character. Here, I’m going to rewrite that part of the ending.

When confronted about the people who died, Kayaba reveals that in actuality, nobody died. People who died in-game were logged out and not able to get back in, but that’s it. He lied to everyone in the game about the dying aspect in order to make people treat SAO like it was reality, rather than just a game. Sure he’d still be a psychopath for doing what he did, but at least he wouldn’t also be an asshole and a murderer. And this actually also makes his reappearance at the end of the ALO arc fit better, but I’ll get more into that later.

Oh, and if you’re one of those people who think that not having them actually die “totally ruins everything”, you’re wrong. The whole point is that there’s a consequence for their actions. Whether it’s an actual threat or not doesn’t matter as long as the character’s themselves see it as such. Of course it also helps if the audience is also led to believe the same thing, which is why Kayaba revealing it at the end would be brilliant.

But despite the faults I listed, the SAO arc is still entertaining. The setting and concept (despite not actually being original) definitely help carry the show. But most of these complaints are just about the show not doing enough. The basics are still there, despite it occasionally tripping over its own feet at times. It’s just more charming than it is pathetic.

The ALO arc, however, is an abomination.

The only positive thing I can say about it is that it didn’t introduce a ton of ideas like SAO did. Nearly every episode focused on the main plot, which kept it clear and straightforward.

So the plot for ALO is that somehow Asuna and around 300 other people from SAO got mentally kidnapped and put in to ALO. It’s just as ridiculous as it sounds. Honestly, the whole story plays out like some kind of filler arc. I wouldn’t be surprised if later novels never mention the events that happened in it. It seems like the arc purely exists just so that the author could make Kirito look even more like Cloud.

Anyways, Asuna’s personality gets downgraded to “damsel in distress” and Kirito has to be the elf in shining armor and go rescue her. Also, tentacles.

However, the biggest problem with ALO is something I was just talking about: consequence. Death in ALO doesn’t kill you in real life. Now, this isn’t inherently a problem, because there’s infinitely more consequences than just “death”. The problem is that they treat every fight like it’s a massive deal. “I can’t die here! If I die, I’ll… respawn!” The horror.

This just further draws focus on to the fact that they’re just playing a video game. It causes conflicts such as that diplomatic meeting between the two factions being in danger to be seen as stupid. It’s just a video game, so who cares? Why should Kirito abandon his rescue mission, something with actual real-world motivation, to help them out? It doesn’t help that later on he mentions that he “wasted too much time” on his way to save Asuna. Dude, you’re the one that chose to help out that diplomatic meeting.

Yet even the main plot is dumb because it has one of the most one-dimensional villains in the history of one-dimensional villains. Sugou is just evil for the sake of being evil. He’s not even one of those villains that’s evil because he thinks it’s fun, he’s just evil because the plot demands it. All he ever does is be a dick or explain what his evil plan is about five bloody times. Now, you’re not necessarily supposed to like the villains usually, but you should always make them interesting. It makes the conflict between them and the hero more than just “hurr durr you are evil and must be vanquished”.

The final confrontation is just fucking abysmal. Subtlety is jettisoned out the window at maximum velocity as Sugou licks Asuna everywhere and touches her boobies a bit. And don’t forget a few crazily happy faces here and there! This is the laziest writing imaginable. You need to have the audience hate the villain, so what should he do? I know! How about we have him assault the protagonist’s girl? Yes, this makes you mad at Sugou, but only due to base instinct. They may as well have just shown him shooting a puppy. Or perhaps he could eat some babies? How about just putting up a black screen with some text that says “Sugou is a jerkface, hate him”? Those are just as lazy and blunt as what they had Sugou do.

Then for some reason Kirito says how Kayaba was a lot better of a guy than Sugou would ever be. He tells Sugou he’s an asshole and how apparently Kayaba is a good guy, despite the fact that one of those guys touched some girl’s boobies a bit and the other killed about 4000 people. Hmm.

Then there’s the whole pain slider thing, which came out of absolutely nowhere first of all, but then Kirito uses it to essentially torture Sugou. What Kirito did to him was not heroic or anything of the sort, it was just sadistic. Kirito set the pain slider to zero, so he was essentially doing the same thing as slicing him up in real life with a knife. All because he licked the virtual form of a girl a bit? First he slices his hand off, then he cuts him in half, then he tosses his head up and stabs him through the eye as he falls, in a way that suggests the show is saying “this is where you cheer!” No, fuck you SAO, you just wrecked a dude’s real life body in a slow and torturous way, and I’m supposed to cheer about that? They even had a ton of red code stuff fly out with each slice, as if saying “man, isn’t violence awesome retribution?” The dude is even more bark than bite.

It changed a scene that was supposed to be where the villain gets whats coming to him, and instead turns it into violence porn. Just finish him with one strike, Kirito, don’t play with him. Or just don’t turn off the pain absorber when doing it. It makes it really hard to see you as the bigger person when you act like a big tough guy in a video game.

When Sugou shows up at the hospital with a knife, and you see how screwed up his body is, I was almost proud of the show because I thought it would point out how screwed up Kirito’s actions were. It would show how Kirito went too far and…

…Oh.

…Oh.

Goddamnit SAO.

Yes, he doesn’t do it in the end, but the show wanted you to cheer for him at the beginning before he comes to his senses. Because obviously everything the main character thinks is right is automatically right universally.

So to sum this up, the SAO arc is decently enjoyable, and the ALO arc is a blight upon this universe. Normally this would mean the show balances out to be just mediocre overall, but ALO was just so bad and left me with a bad taste in my mouth that I can’t even say the show was anything but bad overall. Perhaps it’s unprofessional to let one half of the show overpower the other, but ALO was a lot more terrible than SAO was good, so it works for me.

Honestly, just watch SAO and don’t even bother with the ALO arc. It’s that bad.

I rewatched it for the sake of writing this post, and it was a lot easier to enjoy it when my expectations were it being absolutely terrible.

Of course, there’s still plenty of faults with the show, but there was also a decent amount I enjoyed. Though what I find absolutely hilarious is that my biggest complaint against the show could have been fixed with a very simple executive decision. Well, that and the fact that for a lot of the things the show did wrong, it also had an example of how to do that exact thing correctly. You’ll see what I mean.

Oh, and this only covers the first season, because seasons are required to stand on their own merits. Also because I’ve heard all the things I liked about Clannad got toned down in After Story, and all the things I hated got cranked up. Yay.

Jumping straight into one of the biggest issues, most of the female cast are about as interesting as wet toilet paper. They either have no discernible personality (Nagisa), seem to have no actual reason for liking Tomoya (Kyou), or both (Ryou). Well, okay, to be fair to Nagisa, she does have somewhat of a personality, it’s just an extremely obnoxious one.

The whole “cares about others more than herself” deal is an alright personality trait, but the only other one she has is stupid. No, I mean as in it is literally a stupid personality. And it’s the incredibly annoying kind of stupid, where they say “desu~” at the end of nearly every sentence. The thing is almost a cheat code to make any character seem twice as dumb.

Now I could spend minutes just pointing at each character randomly and detailing them, but I should be a bit more orderly about this. I’m going to go through each character arc chronologically (as dictated by the show) and address my complaints and compliments for each one and the character the arc is for.

First up is Fuko’s arc, and there’s only one thing to say right off the bat when it comes to this one: what in the hell is Fuko?

You see, for any story there’s an important line to set decently early on: the boundary of realism. Stories aren’t as simple as “realistic” or “unrealistic”, there’s millions of lines between those two. Some stories will have magic be a common occurrence, while the idea of ghosts is preposterous, and others will be vice versa. With Fuko, it’s impossible to establish that line because you’re never told what the bloody hell she is.

Is she a ghost or an apparition? No, because the characters are able to touch her. Is she just a figment of everyone’s imaginations, seeing as how she gets forgotten over time? No, that can’t be it since apparently she’s still wandering around even when people can’t see her.

Without this line, you don’t know where to set your expectations in regards to phenomena happening. For all you know, a magical unicorn that grants wishes will show up to solve everyone’s problems.  And yes, there’s the whole “other world” deal going on with the girl and junk robot, but it’s made very obvious that it’s disconnected from the main story. Oh, and the whole hit counter thing when Tomoyo kicks Sunohara, but that’s done for comedic effect, so it’s obvious that it’s also disconnected from the legitimate events that happen in the main story.

Now you may say, “Well, it’s not important what she is!”, but it is. You see, since the main drama is revolving around her disappearing from people’s sight and memories, it’s important to know the context behind it. Why? Because if the audience starts to question the concept, the immersion is completely broken.

Take for example the scene where Sunohara has forgotten her, but she’s standing there with a starfish carving. So… can he not see the starfish carving too? Is there not just some random wooden carving floating in the air? When Fuko puts it in his hands, he looks down and wonders where it came from. Okay, so I guess things Fuko is touching also can’t be seen. But wait, that doesn’t make any sense because there’s a few times where Tomoya tries to show her to people, and he puts his hands on her shoulders. He doesn’t suddenly disappear from their sight, so I guess it’s just Fuko they can’t see. But then that doesn’t make sense because people would see floating starfish carvings and a party hat going all over school. Speaking of which, why does nobody ever trip over Fuko? I mean if she’s always walking around school when people can’t see her and she can be extremely airheaded so then wouldn’t that mean people would walk into her and- AAAAAAAAARGH.

My mind is trying to make sense of what Fuko is even when her arc is at it’s end, so I’m not able to appreciate anything. It certainly doesn’t help that they break their own pre-established rules at the end by having her magically float down to her sister who can for some reason now see her.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just not a romanticist, but I feel like if you’re going to bring fantasy elements into an otherwise very grounded story, you’d better have a damn good explanation for it all.

Though it wouldn’t even matter if I was able to enjoy the arc, because the show proceeds to shit all over the struggles and drama that was in it in later episodes by having Fuko randomly show up for comedic relief. I’ll admit, those sections are pretty funny, but it completely destroys the themes and such from her arc, essentially making it seem like a humongous waste of time. The one thing saving it is that Fuko’s arc isn’t actually just about her, but I’ll save that for later.

Oh, and there’s also the fact that the arc is funny. I mean, the show in general is funny when it wants to be, but Fuko and Tomoya bounced well off each other as far as both actions and dialogue goes. Even when it was one-sided, like when Fuko spaces out, it’s still funny to watch Tomoya troll her.

The next arc is Kotomi’s, and there isn’t much to say about it actually. Honestly, the only purpose to the arc seemed to be to introduce the topic of the “microscopic world”, which never even ends up playing a part in this season. I’m guessing it’s a set up for After Story or something.

There’s an overall aspect to the series that becomes prominent starting in this arc that I’m going to talk about, however, I first want to address the blatant plot hole in the ending to the arc before I get to that.

Kotomi’s story ends with her parents’ suitcase being found and it being delivered to her. This is due to a letter that was found in it with writing on the envelope that said to deliver the suitcase to their daughter if it was found.

Uhm. When and why did they write that?

The story says her parents died when they went down with a plane due to it breaking or something along those lines. Did they write it as the plane was plummeting to its doom? The writing was pretty neat and they were even able to put their signatures or whatever, so that seems unlikely. Besides, why would they just happen to have some paper and an envelope handy for the situation? So does this mean that they wrote that letter ahead of time? But then why would they need to write a letter like that ahead of time? Weren’t they just going to give her the gift when they got back from their business trip?

Considering the resolution to this arc is how her parents loved her so much and got her the stuffed bear, this kind of plot hole completely disintegrates the whole dramatic tone the show is going for once you notice it.

And speaking of dramatic tones…

This is the arc where Key shows their usual methods of generating drama, which is by making people cry, and being overdramatic to the point of being unrealistic. The scene I’m talking about (at least it was the one for me), was where Child-Kotomi goes into her father’s study and burns what she thinks is a copy of the thesis.

First of all, the idea of burning it rather than just shredding it up doesn’t seem like something a child would do, but it’s somewhat passable since if I recall, the matches were right nearby so that could have put the idea in her head. However, a kid would not then proceed to sit in a corner and cry their eyes out while the room starts to catch fire. It also irked me that Child-Tomoya was able to grab the doorknob and open the door when a good portion of the room was on fire. Realistically, that doorknob would have been pretty hot at that point. Perhaps not boiling hot, but he wouldn’t have been able to calmly grab it for a few seconds before thrusting the door open. Then Child-Kotomi is still sitting in the corner and crying. At this point a child would have gotten the hell out of that room due to the heat, and she should have started suffocating or maybe even died from the smoke the fire would have caused.

This is why drama is a tricky subject to write. You want to be as dramatic as possible for maximum effect, but if you go just slightly too far, the audience’s immersion and suspension of disbelief will be broken. This can be different for each person, sure, but there’s usually still a general line you do not want to cross. For example, the scene in episode 22 where Akio yells at Nagisa on stage to not worry about him or Sanae is just stupid. The message itself was not, but it was ruined with incredibly overdramatic motions on Akio’s part, and a ridiculous amount of “dramatic” camera angles on part of the show itself. If they hadn’t don’t those two things, it honestly would have been more dramatic.

This is also an example of something the show also manages to do right, though. This being the tension between Tomoya and his father. It never does anything overdramatic between the two, or even completely explain the story behind it. You just see Tomoya looking disappointingly at his father, or sometimes when his dad tries to do something, Tomoya gets this seriously pissed-off look on his face and leaves. Those interactions are miles more dramatic then shoving the camera into people’s crying faces or having them do over-the-top hand and arm motions when talking.

But getting back to Child-Kotomi, there’s another point I want to address: why do Key works always revolve the drama and tragic backstories around little girls?

I mean, it’s your choice what characters you want to do, it’s your work after all, but the fact that it’s always girls – usually young ones at that – makes me a bit wary of Key. Are they not confident enough to write drama for male characters or just adults? Are they scared that they won’t be able to force tears from people unless they have these bad things happen to young girls? As I said, it’s up to writer what they want to write, but it just seems slightly suspicious, like they aren’t confident enough in their writing so they feel like making little girls cry is a good fallback to make the audience sad.

Which reminds me of the last point in regards to drama I wanted to mention: the massive focus on characters crying.

Now, having characters cry is not inherently a bad thing, after all, it’s natural to cry when bad things happen, but when you focus way too much on the characters crying, it’s almost like the show doesn’t feel like you’ll feel genuinely sad for what’s happening, so they try to make you cry by showing other people crying. This is stupid and exploitative, because it unfortunately works on some people. Nothing against those people, all my blame goes on the writers and/or director of the show.

“Wait, why is that a bad technique?” I hear you ask. Well, other than it being shallow as all hell, it’s basically the equivalent of a laugh track. If writers or directors don’t feel like the audience will know when to laugh or think the jokes aren’t funny, they’ll have a laugh track so that audience is subconsciously told, “this is where you’re supposed to laugh”. After all, laughing is contagious, and people want to treat crying in the same manner. Now, some shows are more guilty of this than Clannad (*cough* Ano Hana *cough*), but they still do it.

The next few episodes aren’t really an arc, but I like to consider them to be Ryou’s, Kyou’s, and Tomoyo’s arcs, since they’re featured pretty prominently in them. There isn’t much going on as far as plot goes for these episodes, so I guess I’ll just talk about the characters.

I said before most of the female cast wasn’t very good, and the Fujibayashi sisters are a good example. Ryou is honestly a completely worthless character. First of all, she has no personality. You might say she has a shy personality, but that’s really only occasionally with Tomoya. She holds plenty of normal conversations with him, other people, she seems to have plenty of friends, and she’s the class representative or whatever. Those don’t sound like things a shy person would do.

The show also never shows why Ryou likes Tomoya. She just does, and that’s it. Ryou may as well have been replaced with a piece of cardboard. They’re about the same in regards to feeling like an actual person.

They also never explain why Kyou likes Tomoya, but at least she has enough of a personality to make you actually care about her. Though the show tries to push that she has an aggressive personality, it’s not consistent. She has just as many normal conversations with people as she does aggressive encounters. It’d be more correct to say that she’s volatile, or she has a short fuse. That and she’s got enthusiasm and confidence.

It’s just too bad that it seems like she doesn’t have a life outside of Tomoya. Think about it, what is Kyou doing when she’s either not with Tomoya, or at home with her sister? You never know because the show never says. There’s even a scene where she says she can’t do something because she’ll be busy “doing stuff”. What stuff? Skiing? Rollerblading? The world will never know.

Now, I hope I don’t have to explain why it’s important for a character to have a personality, so I won’t. Rather, I’ll explain why it’s important to show that the girls like Tomoya.  You see, due to the fact that these various girls like him, there’s supposed to be some very small tension going on, so that at the least, you’ll feel bad for the girls that don’t win his affections. If you’re simply told that a girl likes him, it becomes a plot point rather than something genuine about the character. So when they don’t end up winning his affections, you couldn’t care less. They even try and make it all dramatic, and they cry, but you don’t feel sad because the characters lost something they don’t even seem to need. At best they were simply physically attracted to Tomoya, but that just makes the fact that they didn’t end up with him a good thing; now they can actually find someone they genuinely like.

At least the two male characters are well-written. Tomoya is the delinquent and troll with a heart of gold, and Sunohara is the delinquent, idiot, and clown with a heart of gold. They honestly carry the show since most of the female cast is so lacklustre.

However, if you noticed, I said most of the female cast. That’s because there’s one character that’s actually handled well. Yep, that’d be Tomoyo. She has a personality, has a life outside of Tomoya, and we’re actually shown how she falls for him.

Tomoyo’s a vigilante, she’s confident, tries to help out people where she can (like how she patrols during the Founder’s Festival for troublemakers), but at the same time, she’s trying to be seen as more feminine. It’s not the most complex character personality or struggle ever, but it’s very solid.

As for life outside of Tomoya, you know that she’s working towards become the student council president, so you can assume whenever she’s not on screen, she’s doing work to make that happen. You even get to find out later that she wants to join in order to save some cherry/sakura trees, and why she cares about them. Again, nothing overly complex, but still very solid and hits all the check marks.

The way she falls for Tomoya is actually decently subtle, a word I didn’t think Key had in their dictionary. They occasionally chatted for a bit whenever Sunohara was being stupid, but later on Tomoya actually saves her from being recruited by the Judo Club captains. Tomoyo is impressed that he stood up to them, and while talking with him, realizes that he’s a pretty nice guy. At this point, she basically considers them to be friends; Tomoya is most likely thinking the same thing. The next episode, she tries to be helpful by waking him up to get to school on time. When she goes to talk to him about being tardy during lunch, Kyou shows up and takes him away due to a previous promise. Sunohara then asks Tomoyo if she’s interested in Tomoya. She says that’s not the case, but then after thinking for a second considers that it actually might be a possibility. From there, she continues to hang out with him and wake him up, and her feelings for him grow along the way.

If Sunohara hadn’t asked her what he did at that one lunch, she may very well not have developed feelings for Tomoya. She just saw their relationship as being friends, and Sunohara’s the one that planted the idea of romance in her head. Due to that, it actually happens. Honestly, I think that was extremely clever. It’s just too bad the rest of the female cast couldn’t have gotten the same level of development and such.

And now we finally reach the last arc – Nagisa’s. Oh boy is there a lot to say about her character and the way she was handled in regards to the plot.

I hate Nagisa. She’s annoying. I said way back at the beginning that I have a bias towards characters that end their sentences with “desu~”, but Nagisa is annoying for more reasons than just that. Her personality is just the annoying kind of stupid. She’s not fun to watch, she makes me sigh with almost everything she says. Though it’s weird that they managed to make Nagisa stupid in an annoying way considering her parents are basically the prime example of how to do stupid in an endearing way. This is probably because half the time you can’t decide whether they’re genuinely stupid, or if they’re just playing around. But it’s done extremely well, and they’re two of the funniest characters in the show. Every show should look towards those characters as an example of how to do dumb characters in a funny and entertaining way.

Also, Nagisa can’t do anything on her own. She accomplishes absolutely nothing in the show without Tomoya’s help. He helps her start the club, he helps her study for the play, he admonishes her when she does something wrong, etc. etc. She does nearly nothing of merit. The only positive about her is that other than being stupid, her personality is that of someone who cares more about others than herself.

Perhaps I’d like Nagisa more if the show hadn’t handled her progression with Tomoya in a completely stupid way. Remember before when I said that Fuko’s arc wasn’t just about Fuko? Well the arc was also to give progression for Tomoya and Nagisa’s relationship, since they basically acted as parents to Fuko, something Nagisa herself says in one of the episodes which makes them both blush. There’s also the occasional slight flirt in the arc, such as during the maid café part for the Founder’s Festival, where Tomoya tells her she looks the part.

However, then the show starts the Kotomi arc, where Nagisa gets all but abandoned so Tomoya can follow Kotomi around everywhere. That’s a good five or six episodes where Nagisa is hardly ever seen. Then the next four or so episodes focus on Kyou, Ryou, and Tomoyo, especially when Nagisa falls sick again. Then finally after she recovers, it’s made obvious that Tomoya has chosen Nagisa.

So basically there’s a giant chunk in the middle that completely disregards Nagisa, despite the fact she’s the main girl we’re supposed to like the most because she ends up with Tomoya.

I said way back at the beginning that this could have been fixed with one simple executive decision, and that’s to swap the Fuko and Kotomi arcs. Sure, there would’ve been a slight disconnect in regards to Nagisa from the intro episodes, but having Fuko’s arc lead into the fact that Tomoya chooses her makes infinitely more sense than abandoning the focus on her right in the middle of the show. Of course a few of the minor events that happen in each arc would have to be shuffled around a bit in order to fit the continuity, but it would have been worth it. Or you know what? They could have just removed Kotomi’s arc entirely. It was just overdramatic ridiculousness that introduced the plot point that Tomoya knew her as a kid which is information that never ever got used after her arc. It’s like the director just liked Kotomi, so they decided to animate her route without any actual confession at the end.

Anyways, my point is that it’s important to care about the relationship between the two people who actually get together, and putting a giant chunk of time where they hardly spend any time together right in the middle of the show is kind of a detriment to that.

You know who should have gotten a legitimate arc instead of Kotomi? Tomoyo! …Okay that’s just personal bias speaking, but she’s far and above the more interesting character! In fact, the show should have ended with them getting together. There’s a reason that when Key decided to do a spin-off, they chose Tomoyo.

Anyways, the only big positive I can give Clannad is that it was really funny when it wanted to be. It’s not too big of a surprise, Kyoto Animation has always been good at comedy when they aren’t so focused on moe. It almost makes me wish Clannad was a comedy rather than a romantic drama or whatever genre people like to call it nowadays.

Fun fact: this is the longest post I’ve ever written. It’s just over 4000 words, which makes it even longer than my post on why there’s no such thing as objectivity. I’m not sure whether this is something to be proud or sad about.

Anyways, this took absolutely forever to write up, but I kinda of like this ultra-analysis style of reviewing. Perhaps I’ll do this on more shows from now on. Or at least shows that somewhat deserve it, because I’m not going to spend days analyzing a completely mediocre show.

I know, I know, but I just finished Virtue’s Last Reward and I have to talk about how fucking awesome the Zero Escape series is. Because I have nothing better to do with my life.

Also, to somewhat save my ass, here’s the promotional OVA that was animated by Studio Gonzo for the game.

English dub version because the cast did a FUCKING AWESOME job on the game.

First of all, 999 is for the DS, and Virtue’s Last Reward is for the 3DS (and PS Vita, but screw the PS Vita). Just letting you know so you guys can buy the games and play them the second you’re done reading this.

So here’s the deal, a few years ago, some fans of the Umineko visual/sound novel were on the Aksys forum trying to get them to localize it. It went for a few months, but seemed as though it wasn’t going to happen. Suddenly, one of the staff at Aksys posted that they were going to release another visual novel called 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.

This was pretty ballsy, considering the very limited visual novel audience here in America. But that’s why I’ve always liked Aksys. They have balls. Massive balls.

The people in the forum decided Umineko had a better chance of being localized if another visual novel did well, so nearly everyone decided on buying it. I was one of those people. I figured I’d give it a go, and if I didn’t like it, I’d just be content knowing I helped the cause.

I played the game for three days straight.

Okay so maybe I slept for a few hours each day, but often I’d play from the point of waking up, until the sun was rising again. I was just that engrossed, which is what happens when you have a great story.

I’m listening to various Pokémon songs while writing this, like Viridian City and Double Trouble. They’re so damn catchy.

Uh, anyways, the plot is that you’re one of nine people kidnapped by someone in a gas mask named “Zero”, and are placed on a ship out in the ocean, where you have to play the “Nonary Game”. You have nine hours to escape, or the ship will sink into the water, killing you all. You need to work together to find a door marked with a “9″, which is the door to freedom.

There’s also puzzles in addition to the actual novel section, but it doesn’t really matter because the story is where it’s at. As you go through the game, you decide which door to go through three different times, which decides which of the characters you learn more about, and also what ending you get. There’s six or so endings, and most of them are bad ends. There’s the true route, and what I like to call the “secondary” route. I call it that because you have to go down that route FIRST, otherwise the true route ends in a “To Be Continued…”

The reason for why you have to do this is the biggest plot twist in the game which there’s no way in hell I’d spoil. Yes, the reason for it is actually a plot point in the game, and makes perfect sense given all the information you see over the course of playing.

That’s not all though. The reason for that is also in perfect unison with why you’re all playing the Nonary Game in the first place. It’s one of those stories where all the small pieces of information that you thought were interesting, but not very important all come into play at the end and completely mindfuck you. The good kind of mindfuck, mind you.

The final scene that the game built up to is one of the most emotionally provocative scenes ever, and the puzzle you do for it is just something that most people play on a daily basis for fun. It didn’t even matter, the game had my fucking heart in a vice as I did my best not to fuck up. I’ve never been more invested in a plot and characters in my life, and I regularly tell people if there was a way I could erase my memories of the game’s plot so I could experience the true route again, I’d do whatever it was in a heartbeat.

Now, on to Virtue’s Last Reward.

Well actually, almost all the reasons the first game was awesome is the same for this one, so I guess I’ll point out the few faults I saw, along with some good differences.

So since the first game had the big twist regarding the different routes, the sequel couldn’t exactly pull the same trick, so it’s just incorporated into the gameplay/story from the get-go. It does get expanded upon though. Also, since this one’s a 3DS game, it has a pretty nice 3D effect should you choose to play with that. The characters also aren’t static drawings this time around, they’re 3D blobby people. Though they look a lot better than that description implies. The story is also more character-centric in this one. Each character has their own route you’ll need to do, with one of the character’s routes being the true route.
Also, one of the character’s routes had me bawling manly tears. Goddamnit, Chunsoft and Aksys, STOP GIVING ME SO MANY FEELS.

As for some faults, the story isn’t as tightly-knit as the first one, so it doesn’t have quite the same emotional impact as the first one did at the end (but they’re also setting the game up for a third game to act as a part 2 for Virtue, so it’s somewhat understandable). The animations for the characters are also kind of limited, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but sometimes you’ll have characters looking at you quizzically with a smile on their face while talking about someone who just got horribly murdered. The jokes also suffer from this. While usually amusing, they can be pretty misplaced. “Someone just died! Better make a pun.” I understand wanting to lighten the mood, but it didn’t really fit sometimes.

Despite that joke problem in Virtue, Aksys did an amazing job with translating and such. Massive kudos, guys.

So yeah, this series is fucking awesome and the wait for the third (and probably final) one will be extremely painful. But if you haven’t played either, go buy them right now and play them.

Anyways, I’m writing this as a post because I didn’t want to just jam it into one sentence and post it on Twitter. There’s still not a whole lot to say, but I think it deserves a few short paragraphs rather than 140 characters.

Also, sorry for taking so long to actually write something. School has been school, but I’ve also been looking into other things that could result in actually gaining some income, so that obviously also takes priority over writing stuff.

I have a couple of problems with Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, and I also have a couple of compliments for it. The lead male’s actions were questionable, and the first episode felt like a show of its own, but the character’s actions being questionable were what the show was going for, and the show was funny when it wanted to be.
So for the first two episodes, everything balanced out mostly, so I was left with a show that could swing either way for me, or just remain stuck in limbo forever.

Then the third episode happened.

Well, actually, lets back up for a second. I was actually annoyed by the end of the second episode, when Shizuku confessed to Haru, because there was absolutely nothing to warrant it. “Oh hey, my world is kinda different now that I actually hang out with people. I THINK I LOVE YOU.” No, dammit, that’s not how it works. I would’ve been okay with it if the message being conveyed was how two antisocial people were so secluded to the point of mistaking friendship for love, but that’s obviously not what the show was going for. However, it’s my policy to give a show three episodes before dropping it, so I thought maybe it could turn itself around.

NOW the third episode happens.

The first warning sign was at the very start, with a generic scene of Shizuku becoming tsundere and taking back her confession. I was actually somewhat okay with this, because it gave the show a chance to label her confession as a spur of the moment thing, and on reflection she didn’t actually feel that way. Of course, that’s not actually the case.

Near the end of the episode, Shizuka confesses again, and means it this time. Haru says he doesn’t think his feeling of love is the same of hers, and then we get this gem:

This is fucking bullshit.

For one, this is a shameless gimmick used by authors to artificially extend their series until the sales get too bad to keep going. They’ll just be stuck in their current position while going through a bunch of stuff until the author eventually has to make a final arc where the feelings are reciprocated. Essentially, you could watch this episode, and then watch what I’m assuming will be in the last episode, and you won’t have missed a damn thing. Everything from now until the end is basically filler.

The other, bigger reason is because… well actually I’m not sure if misogynist is the correct word, but Japan has found yet another way to make the plot about a girl waiting on all fours for the man to come around. The show even started as being about the unsocial guy learning how to feel things and interact with people, which honestly makes this switch look even worse.

It doesn’t help that all of these confessions feel completely shallow. The one exception is Haru confessing the first time, because he’s never been exposed to these kinds of emotions at all, so it’s overwhelming to him. As I said before, Haru hasn’t even done anything to warrant Shizuka’s affections. If anything, he’s done things that should prevent her from liking him.

“But it was an accident!” Fuck you, no it wasn’t. He let his aggression get the better of him to the point of not even wanting to listen to her and resorting to the one thing he knows: violence. It’s not even like he immediately felt remorse for what he did and apologized, like that one scene in Kokoro Connect (by the way, did I mention Kokoro Connect is a pretty damn good show?), instead he continued going forward and beat up the guys in the room.

And what happens after Shizuka tells him off, and she studies for her midterm and gets first?

YOU FUCKING SHOULD.

This is one of those shows where what the characters say they feel completely contradicts what it seems like they should feel given the actions that take place. Now, I’ve said before that dialogue is important for understanding a character to the fullest, but that’s only when it matches up with their actions. If what a character says or chooses to do is in contradiction to what they should logically feel considering what takes place, that’s called shitty writing. It means the author can’t portray a message correctly in a way other than blatantly saying it to the reader’s or watcher’s face.

But you know the worst part? This actually fucking works on people.

Look at Twilight, for crying out loud. Try reading the book without automatically trusting what the characters say and you’ll see how full of shit their choices and words are and how bad a writer the author actually is.

…Oh god, did I seriously just bring up Twilight?

Anyways, the way these kinds of authors make up for this is by having SUPER WITTY FUN TIME EXTRAVAGANZA one-liners that inevitably make it into GIFs on Tumblr and get spread around like the fucking plague. Usually because the quotes “omg so relate to me <3333333″, except only when they’re taken out of context of the show. Because if they were taken in context of the show, it wouldn’t relate to anyone, because their choices and what they say make no fucking sense considering what actually happens.

So that’s why I dropped Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun.

Good to be back!

…Well, sort of back.

It might be pointless to include these title screenshots since I can’t capture the translation along with it, but I’m going to keep doing it anyways because I feel like it.

In other news, I was thinking of participating in the blog carnival, but I probably won’t. I’m kind of a loner in the aniblogosphere, so it’s not like anyone cares for my opinions on aniblogging at all. I should probably comment around on other sites more (or at least tweet other bloggers more) instead of just lurking everywhere.

This episode was a bit more exciting, if anything because there was a lot less scientific jargon. The microbes did their little talk near the beginning, but the only other scene that barely qualifies as a scientific lecture was Yuuki talking about his changes to the liquor store.

The current plot the show had of the underground dungeon got wrapped up this episode, too. As expected, it was an anticlimactic reveal, but this show isn’t exactly about to give us human experimentation or zombies or the like. It’s cool that they finally talked about beer instead of sake, too.

I’m hoping another plot is brought up soon, because as of right now the show doesn’t really stand on its own without one. I don’t really know enough about any of the characters to care about them just doing things.

It is cool to see that Sawaki is finally going to tell Oikawa about his ability to see microbes though. Although there’s always the chance that the next episode will pull something dumb, making some reason for him to not actually tell her after all.

Two episodes to go.