We’re looking at an entire new decade of anime here. Finally, even though these numbers won’t actually change the quality of anything, I’ll pretend that it does in order to feel some level of excitement for upcoming anime. Even though I haven’t been keeping up with too many of the latest shows, I believe it’s about time to come back. It seemed impossible to truly miss the modern era of anime filled with isekais (plus CG cars), and it is. But I do miss keeping up with anime in general, so let’s see what the new year has to offer.
Well… At least it’s not another isekai. Ishuzoku Reviewers will question the need to call films such as Fight Club the ultimate ‘male gaze’ form of media. I mean, how could you when this exists? Acclaimed director of such classic hits such as Miru Tights and FLCL Progressive brings us his bottom low where three guys come together to review… you guessed it… Prostitutes. Our trio that consists of some regular human male named Stunk, an angel (who proudly rocks a bulge on top of their vagina) and an elf named Zel. By bottom low I do mean in its concept of course, in terms of execution I might give it a little more credit then it probably deserves. Director Yuuki Ogawa steps his game up by not giving a single fuck anymore and simply providing everything that the degenerate anime fans want to watch. The tags may fool you with the ‘ecchi’ lie; this is straight up hentai in every way. The trio goes to different kinds of places where prostitutes are sold (self-sold?) in order to review their experience to inform those interested in knowing if the fairies are worth banging.
What’s interesting about this show is that the amount of species and magical forms keeps it fresh. They review demons, fairies, slime and bird girls, etc. and each of them being a different species as well makes for each review to be unique (in its own twisted form). In a way, by having so many different species, it highlights the subjectivity that comes from writing reviews. We’re all unique; different backgrounds, different tastes, even if we all try the exact same dish, we could all come out with something new to say if we use the beautiful power that is subjectivity. One of the first examples of this is that the human, Stunk, is attracted to any girl as long as she looks young (and whatever his standard of good may be). The elf, Zel, on the other hand doesn’t care for looks, but instead cares for their age (and their mana). This makes for a scenario where Stunk gets laid with a regular looking woman to us humans, but apparently looks like rotten flesh because of her old age to those that are her species. Then we get to experience that perspective when Zel gets laid with a middle aged woman who of course looks like an expired bag of milk to us, but looks quite well to Zel.
Ishuzoku Reviewers keeps its tone light, juggling its comedy and its characters quite well. Characterization is important when it comes to the type of show that’s episodic. You don’t want to be following three dicks with no personality, and this show certainly keeps that in mind. It feels grounded in its own world; some details such as the angel reviewer refusing to have sex with a demon girl or even their perspective as a bisexual is enough to spin each episode in a new direction, but it’s never satisfied with stopping there. From gender swaps, to forced political talk that everyone ignores to even prostitute shops that are straight up scammers, this show doesn’t seem to be running out of steam any time soon. If hedonism in itself makes you feel uncomfortable and find its implications and portrayal of women to be harmful then you’re better off looking elsewhere; personally I would never want to validate these ideas on to the real world, but there’s no harm when it comes to art, especially this low bar degenerate show aimed at the worst type of otaku culture. The type that Hideaki Anno himself would want to spit on for ruining how Asuka and Rei are now seen. Even though it’s trashy, self-serving hentai, it’s a lot of fun; I’d recommend it with a hint of caution.
Did I mention that it’s in MAL’s top 5 of all time right now? Technically it’s #2 as well. Legendary and truly pathetic all at the same time.
Take Neon Genesis Evangelion and Twin Peaks, mix both of them together and then drop it on the ground. Several times if necessary. And that’s how you end up with Id:Invaded. NGE and TP are my top favorite shows of all time, so it’s truly strange to see something that’s so similar to both, yet lacks what makes those shows good. Id: Invaded is an anime about a detective who is thrown into a simulation where he has to track down serial killers (I’m not sure either, don’t ask). While this is happening in the simulation, out in the real world there’s an operation table filled with nameless heads shouting scientific mumbo jumbo, while also explaining every single detail of what’s happening in the simulation. Detective? The dead body of a girl? Nameless board room with people shouting shit? Existential themes? Too much of a coincidence! But as I implied before, this show fails to be anything other than wasted potential.
The themes are immediately present from the get-go; identity, finding yourself through the puzzles of life. The first challenge that our main character is presented with is simply getting out of bed, which I’m sure every single person can relate to. Why get up to face the complicated reality that we are born into? No one knows, but we do it anyway. These ideas are by themselves interesting enough to make you feel like you watched a fairly well crafted episode, which is why I had to go ahead and look into episode two, needing to know if it was simply just a bluff. Ideas are still present during episode two, but its execution is even wonkier than before; sit back and truly think about what you’ve watched and you’ll notice that it is a mess. The pacing ranges from slow (which is good) to a sudden burst of actions, cutting from scene to scene, and solving things so quickly that it doesn’t even try to get you involved. By the time they’re spouting another made up sci-fi element, you’ve checked out, tapping your foot rapidly, hoping that it stops opening its mouth.
And that’s all without mention its art, which is downright ugly. The postures are straight up wrong at times, which I wouldn’t mind if it was going for that sort of style (similar to Ping Pong: The Animation), but it’s going for a very basic, grounded art style that shouldn’t have a bent arm looking like it was chewed up by a dog. It’s most certainly low budget, but to a level that I haven’t seen in a long time. If your budget is low, then aiming this high is only going to hurt your presentation. Most of the time here is spent on characters standing as their mouths move, which looks more like you’re playing a visual novel. It relies on 3D objects when it comes to cars, extra characters, walls, and some backgrounds. The writing isn’t even good enough to help these smaller issues out, which simply makes for a tedious experience. If you’re interested in those themes enough and don’t think the issues I mention would bother your own experience, then you should check this out. If you’re not hooked by the end of episode one, then I wouldn’t recommend trying episode 2, as it simply gets worse as it goes.
Yuasa has been intensely busy in the past two years, going from The Night is Short, Walk On Girl, to Devilman: Crybaby, two other movies and now this. And even then, he still pulls a unique slice of life show that’s really creative despite remaining much more grounded than a lot of his other work. This is definitely one of his most laid back projects where you still feel his touch, but it’s not like he’s trying to tell something to the level of Tatami Galaxy or Ping Pong: The Animation. If what I just described sounds like laziness to you, then by all means go ahead and think so, but perhaps it has to do more with the fact that he’s been overworking on projects. Eizouken isn’t as lazy as I’m describing it to be, but I’d be lying if I said that I’m not mixed on this one. The show focuses on three girls that want to make anime; two of them are passionate and can combine their skills to make something new and interesting, while the taller girl that talks through her teeth is more or less their manager, controlling all the money and schedules.
Eizouken serves as a passionate love letter to animation, but it ultimately doesn’t feel like there’s much beyond that. And maybe there doesn’t need to be anything else, because its focus is clear and it’s pulled off damn well. The tone is comedic, yet relaxing; at times, it uses slapstick humor, which you don’t normally type that you don’t normally get to see in many shows nowadays. Its grounded story feels rather strange when it’s mixed in with slapstick humor, though. For example, in episode one, there’s a man in black that falls down a hole; with most cartoons I would assume that he’s fine, or I wouldn’t even worry about it due to the atmosphere that it sets up where it allows you to disconnect the logic. Here, the presentation is pretty realistic except for the moments where they explain their progress in animating, which is mostly there to give you something that’s visually exciting (or perhaps you’d rather watch them actually draw models instead of their visual trip, but I’m sure most would instantly leave if that was the case). The point I’m trying to make is that seeing that guy fall to his death doesn’t get a chuckle out of me, it instead makes me wonder about the consequences (which are nonexistent).
For a show that’s so passionate about animation, you’d expect its own animation to be pleasant to look at. At times it is; the art style is cute, the character designs are memorable and the backgrounds/locations have their details to make for an immersive world. The animation itself feels rather lackluster for the most part despite its efforts. Many scenes of characters standing around and talking, little to no movement, and at times it’s even a bit choppy. Later on, they do recognize a bit of this by mentioning time restraints and highlighting how hard it is to fully animate a project. It’s honest enough to tell you the shortcuts to not go through so much work and save time if you’re in due of a schedule. Unfortunately the type of anime that they create looks much better than the one that we end up with.
It’s not bad, though. I think it’s fairly comfy, especially when it focuses on the main girls going against other people in their school. Them making the anime can be a bit of a slog at times, and I found myself spacing out whenever an explanation begins. Having a model being explained as to how it’ll work and what goes beyond the image could be interesting, but having it infodumped is a lazy way to express this passion. Those who are already very into animation and are passionate dreamers will get a lot out of this, as they should. I’ll watch from the side, but I’m not 100% sold so far. Perhaps Yuasa’s weakest anime that I’ve watched so far.
I’ll keep this brief, mostly cause I got not a single drop of engagement out of this first episode. Doroehdoro is another 3D anime that adapts a violent manga which I’ve not read, but you can tell that it’s violent because this adaption is as gory as manga usually is, and anime isn’t. It seems like violence and world building is all Doroehdoro sets up for you to have any sense of interest to continue watching. Unfortunately, I’m not 13 (but I once was, though I don’t think I would’ve been interested back then either), and it doesn’t help that its story is a little too mysterious at the moment to make you care. Judging if you want to continue this will be solely based on its aesthetic, and on that front it fails, coming off as another edgy manga adaption, though the main character being a huge lizard guy is cool enough to almost keep me on board. There’s some shots of him having his mouth wide open for no reason that got a chuckle out of me at least. Maybe the story is actually kind of interesting and it simply takes time to unfold, but I don’t want to force myself to find out what’s to come in this mundane world with a boring cast of characters. A chore.
Here we are again, standing in front of the same monolith, watching the same ol’ fantasy crap fed to us every other season. Only gave this a watch because my good friend Lethargic thinks that the main girl in this, Kotoko, is waifu material. I was then virtually forced to download an episode and see if there’s anything else worth noting. Kotoko herself is a literal Goddess in a story that’s reminiscent of Mushishi. Imagine if the mushi worshipped a goddess who turns out to be a crippled loli. She’s in love with a guy who’s in a relationship already. Kotoko remains persistent; she waits two years for them to break up to finally make her move in trying to date this guy. As they spout mythological nonsense at each other for a few uninterrupted minutes, they slowly bond to fight evil Mushi together. Or something like that, yeah? It’s fine, the mythological aspect is entertaining and automatically gives this show an extra comfy point, but I can’t say I’m intrigued. Plus its presentation is a little poor at times; nothing bad, mind you, but also not a show that I’d want to look at much at all. Crippled loli that can talk to creatures is a reasonable waifu choice; she will wait two years to have who she wants, but she’s not enough to carry an entire show. Remember guys, plot before hoes.
Madoka Magica was one of the first anime shows I ever got to watch, and even though I wasn’t the biggest fan, I do remember it fondly. The opening song itself is enough to give me a sense of nostalgia. Now Madoka is back with a spin-off series that kind of plays off as a sequel side-quest. I felt some of that old nostalgia due to its art and music, which hasn’t changed much at all. In fact, the way the show looks is almost 100% the same as the old series. Bit of a mixed feeling towards this being presented practically the same way, though. First off, it’s great that it feels just like before, almost as if it was made only a year after Madoka ended, but it’s almost baffling how it didn’t really improve upon its animation. I already forgot its story, which is a problem when it’s all this series is bringing that’s new to the table. Don’t really care to see much of this continuation, but I’d definitely recommend any Madoka fan to watch it if they haven’t, considering that it doesn’t fall short compared to the original.
And that’s it! I’m not really impressed with this season overall, but to be fair I didn’t give everything a shot (and some may say that I didn’t give these a fair shot anyway). Unfortunately Interspecies Reviewers dropped from the top 5 on MAL as of late; we all know it’s the perfect representation of the anime community. I’m willing to give these and other shows a try if I hear more about it, but usually my initial impressions are rather accurate to how I’ll feel about a show overall. The main presentation is extremely important to me, so having some cool plot event happen later on isn’t enough to have me running back. That’s it for the winter.
Jumpy's Boat 