Gnostic Lone Wolf Poetry

It apparently got better right after (episode 7) I had quit watching it (episode 6).

After I quit watching it, apparently the show became all about EXUBERANT YOUTH leading to things like SUDDEN GOTHLOLI COMING-OUT, which was great, as was all of the characters related reactions including the old man who is just like “ahh, to be young again”, and the bondage doctorette who responded to “EWW MAN KISSING MAN IS GROSS YOU ARE DIRTY!” by ambush-kissing the poor girl and telling her “WELL GUESS WHAT NOW YOU ARE DIRTY TOO”

And any flaws this show might have had were negated by the scene in the last episode, where after being ambush-hugged by the bondage doctorette, Sawaki is encouraged thusly by his microbe-pals:

“Hey, hey! You shy boy!”
“You just gonna go home?”
“Stttteamy….”
“If you’re a man, you should have gone down on her!”
“Yeah, really…”
“Normally, most would go for it.”
“Go back laughing and get on her!”
“Push her down! Push her down! Push her down!”

Even though I am a big fan of the Mai [Z]HiME franchise, I had not read any of the manga before, because I heard it was basically just really bad softcore pr0n.

This is a blatant lie.

It is not just softcore pr0n.

The Mai Otome manga is the manga incarnation of the world’s most massive BONER.

It breaks down basically likes this:

30% softcore pr0n
20% pr0n-related jokes (”two small breasts pressed into my back…my element…it’s about to…MATERIALIZE”)
50% action scenes that made my head explode

This manga is like a genre-connoisseur’s dream-come-true.

This is the plot of Mai Otome (manga):

Part One - It’s basically OtoBoku, but with better art.
Part Two - Schwarz attempts a revolution. And not, like, a revolution in efficient housecleaning. Like they have a slave named “Robespierre” and say things like “I WILL GLADLY SACRIFICE MYSELF FOR THE SAKE OF THE REVOLUTION.”
Chapter 17 - Midori appears. Everyone feels a rekindled passion for JUSTICE.
Part Three - Everyone does their best, deshou. And they fight evil clones of their HiME versions. And Natsuki makes fun of her clone for padding her breasts. Everyone reveals their TRUE FORM and they use courage and friendship to execute combination attacks which protect the ones they care about. Also, at some point they re-enact the plot from Empire Strikes Back.

Here is a very small sample of hissatsu:
GENOCIDE SUNSHINE
MIDORI DYNAMIC
LA MARSEILLAISE

The Mai HiME manga is also pretty readable, but the earlier parts are less good; the later parts are pretty great. Particularly when you reach chapters with titles such as “Justice Doesn’t Die”.

One thing that stays constant throughout every anime and manga iteration of this concept is that Haruka is full of win. Sometimes she has magic powers, sometimes she just has DISCIPLINE.

Also, all things said, the manga stories are a lot more cohesive than the anime stories, particularly Otome, but they’re also not trying so hard to be all “OMG IS THIS A CLUE?!”

(EDITORIAL NOTE: This blog is not dead. I’m still watching a few shows a season, but not much has felt worth writing about lately. Also, busy with full time job. Expect a post roughly once a month.)

Shion no Ou, if you’re not watching it, is the show about the mute girl playing shougi. It’s also ostensibly a murder mystery. Incidentally this post is full of spoilers, if for some reason you actually wanted to watch the show.

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I do like subcultural in-jokes and send-ups, but I am not very keen on using them as the primary meat of a comedy, which is probably why I quit watching Pani Poni Dash, and why Welcome to Eltingville was never actually produced. They can also get really irritating, like how people in the circles I travel have this tendency to drastically over-quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I thought Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei had enough humor from other sources that I didn’t really care about it being replete with anime/manga references. I ignored most of them and snickered at the ones I got. Except for this one, which imbued me with BIG LULZ:

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This post is full of lulz spoilers.

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So, forgetting all the fall anime for the moment, I’ve been watching the Gokusen dorama. Somebody recommended it to me a long time ago, but I forget who; and then one of the new kids at the university anime club brought some of it to an event, and I’m like “Oh yeah!” but without the bursting through a wall to give everyone Kool-Aid.

Comparisons to GTO are unavoidable, because there are huge huge story similarities, but Gokusen is awesome in an entirely different way from GTO.

With GTO, I cry manly tears every time I watch an episode of it. It is full of manliness, and extreme dedication.

Gokusen has only had one ep that made me cry manly tears (8, with the nurse’s little kid), however it is much more full of JUSTICE and FRIENDSHIP.

For example:

If a biker gang were harassing one of Onizuka’s students, he would footrace down the bicycles, kick the gangsters off a bridge, take their bikes, tie the student to the front of the bicycles and simultaneously drive all of them down a busy highway to teach the student not to have fear, the student would cry (terrified), the bikers would cry (from intense physical pain), and Onizuka would laugh (maniacally) while egging on the student, and then he would make a lame-ass excuse when he accidentally flashes a high-school girl he has the hots for.

If a biker gang were harassing one of Yankumi’s students, she would interrupt them when they tried to corner the student, throw them off their bikes, give them a lecture about how ganging up on one person is cowardly and real men fight one on one to protect the things they care about, the gangsters would cry (inspired by her speech), the student would cry (inspired by her speech), Yankumi would cry (inspired by her speech) while ruffling the student’s hair, and then she would make a lame-ass excuse when she accidentally bumps into the upstanding policeman she has the hots for.

Night Wizard - Watchable.

Gundam 00 - My computer is apparently not awesome enough to play this.

Rental Magica - meh

Ninomiya - pr0n

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth - boring. nice background art though

Dragonaut - maybe

ef - NO U.

Ghost Hound - that…sure is from the dudes who made Lain.

Bamboo Blade - does not make me want to stab out my eyes with steak knives. Has sentai jokes and justice.

So I also have looked at Clannad, KimiKiss, Genshiken 2 (which I can’t get excited about =\), and Minami-ke.

I still have that Nougami Neuro thing in my queue. Oh and Shion no Ou.

Did I miss anything?

but I dunno. Episode 2 was discouraging. It was full of the kind of dialogue that makes these renai adaptations stupid. Mao is like “HEY MR. STOIC LET’S MAKE A DEAL WHERE YOU TALK TO ME SO I CAN ADD YOU TO MY SHIPPING LIST.” Now, I may not have grown up in a Japanese high school, but I cannot imagine anyone actually having a conversation like that. Most of the time it doesn’t matter, but since this is supposed to be a drama that emotionally attaches you to the characters (I guess?) I’d tend to hope for something less…inane. But then I remember this isn’t a normal drama, it’s a renai adaptation, and it has its own genre conventions, which I am supposed to be chuckling at (OMG LOL BENTO) because that is how we roll around here.

Is it already out of style to make “TURN YOU INTO JUNK” jokes about any character voiced by Rie Tanaka? It’s great in renai anime, since then you can be like “Well, she’ll do something with his junk anyway.” Or alternatively you can get extra-nerdy and be like “by which I mean SEXUALLY OBJECTIFY YOU”

Oh, also, thanks to Shinichiro Watanabe, hearing saxaphone music in my anime made me expect rogue space samurai breakdancers to suddenly crash into the school and give chase to the main characters, which, all things said, probably would have been more entertaining.

I was trying to watch Clannad and KimiKiss, but I kept getting them confused, on account of them being full of stock renai characters, so I had to pick one to watch first.

I used to get really confused when people talked about Clannad, because I assumed they were talking about the band.