this season sucks!

Chihayafuru

Watched: 90 seconds

The first twenty seconds are wasted on a background-less monologue, and then it cuts to a group of guys talking about a beautiful girl.  I thought something was up when the show didn’t even bother to show the guys’ faces, but I stuck with it because it sounded like a stereotypical horrible shounen show.  And then the camera shows this hairy-butt-crack-ugly bishoujo, flowers and everything!  And then the guys complain that she’s wearing sweatpants and a belt.

I don’t understand girls quite well, but if this is the norm for female beauty, you’ve got it all wrong.  Take that one movie that was out some time ago for example.  I had to see enough trailers to know that the basic premise of the movie was “hot guy turns ugly and gets girl because his inner beauty blah blah chick flick shit.”  But the thing is, he doesn’t actually turn ugly.  Instead, he shaves his head and gets some tattoos.

The same is true here.  In my brief, 90 experience with this show, I discovered that girls believe that sweatpants and a belt make somebody ugly and socially unacceptable to be around.

Well, that’s just not true!  A pretty woman will be pretty no matter what she wears (unless she covers herself in trash and feces and proceeds to blow chunks on you), whereas an ugly woman will remain ugly no matter what she wears.

And to add a corollary to that: a fat woman will look all the fatter if she wears tight jeans and low underwear that reveal her butt crack.  It will annoy everybody around her, especially the asian aniblogger guy in her japanese class.  Maybe she should put on some real clothes.  Or work out to fit in those clothes.  Or stop showing me her butt crack.  I don’t want to see that.

Community opinions (plus Shoujo rant)

It’s love at first sight.
Guardian Enzo

I read 7 “first impression” posts on this show, and 6 of them were “this show greatly exceeded my expectations in every way possible,” etc.  E Minor said it was above average.  Youngsters these days have really low expectations for anime!  Back in my day, we had to walk ten miles in the snow to the nearest black and white television to get our fill of good anime, like Lucky Star.  Nowadays, there’s neither work nor reward.  You should’ve seen it back then.  Back in ‘Nam.

I’ve never liked shoujo.  Ever.  The highest score I’ve given to a shoujo anime is 5/10, and that was me watching Fruits Basket in 2008, before I even knew anime blogs existed.  I’ve tried junk like Ouran High School Host Club, Kare Kano, Special A, Kimi ni Todoke, you name it.  They all suck.

It’s just way too stereotypical – everything follows the same model.  The guy is perfect, the girl is perfect, and they fall in love and nothing happens along the way.  Each episode is a repeat of the last.  You could make the same case for shounen, but at least I can stomach guys beating the shit out of each other.  This flowery romance stuff is terrible.

If the couple in Kare Kano had fallen in love, dropped out of school, started a motorcycle gang, and attacked the Diet building, then I might’ve dubbed it worth watching.  But the drama came from dropping a couple ranks in school and the guy not being totally perfect and blah blah blah.  The “character flaws” in shoujo are barely flaws.  By the end of the anime, the flaws are all patched up and you have a model citizen.  Kind of like the valedictorian at my high school.  She was also the prom queen.  Everybody liked her, she was half-Asian (>> implying something about looks and grades), and she was really friendly.  But OH WAIT, she secretly likes attention!  GOODNESS, HOW SCANDALOUS!  LET’S IGNORE HER AND MAKE HER FEEL BAD.  Also she has the perfect boyfriend and a lot of friends.

I don’t see the point of this weak storyline.  It’s too exaggerated to be realistic (unless the female half of society functions at such a petty level) and too boring to generate any semblance of interest in my thick male skull.

Tamayura ~hitotose~

Watched: 33 seconds

I watched the first episode of the OVA, but for some reason I still downloaded this crap.  It’s probably because I forgot the name of this show.  I thought it was called standard 4-girl 4-koma anime #45.

Usually, I give these things a chance.  Yuru Yuri was pretty terrible, but I still watched half of the first episode because there was a bit of decent humor buried under the all the look-alike/clone moe characters.  My Tamayuramamahuragagababahuhurara (rhymes with “Crab” Hitagi’s first name, I believe) experience went like this:

0:03 oh boy, I downloaded a terrible version of this

0:10 I spy some serious necrosis!

0:19 oh, this is one of those anime

0:25 We have the whole cast already…

0:33 Her name is POTTE?  Haha oh man

What really got me was the instant posing, though.  One second, the character in the camera frame is drinking a carton of juice, and the next, she’s posing and winking and kawaii.  Why do these companies even try?  K-ON! was a lucky shot, okay?  Get over it and make some good anime!  (KyoAni certainly did!)

I have no friends

Watched: 6 minutes, 28 seconds

I thought this was going to be a show about social rejects.  Instead, I got a bunch of harem fanservice.

The main character is a Ryuuji ripoff.  People get scared of him, but he looks like your average J.C. Staff RomCom male lead.  Except he has bleached hair.

OHHH, how WEIRD!!  Why aren’t people scared of the blonde girl, then?  Or the white-haired Index ripoff?  Or the blonde maid?  Or the orangeish haired maid?  This is sexism!

I got up to the part where the main character meets this girl talking about air friends.  The boring dialogue reminded me of Bakemonogatari, except it was even more boring.  At least SHAFT put in all sorts of fancy animation to keep the audience occupied.  Here, there’s just some fang-tan loli-nun double-maid tsundere rich girl lab coat scientist girl every stereotype imaginable.

I’m surprised at the sheer number of stereotypes they managed to cram into this sorry excuse for an anime.  So first they lure in the dumb otaku with a title they can relate to, and then they take all their money by shoving so many cliches at them that everybody will eventually buy a figure of one character.

Ways to improve:

  • Add twins
  • Trap
  • Fujoshi mangaka girl
  • Yandere
  • Yuki ripoff

just hangin’ out

Persona 4: The Shitimation

Watched: One whole episode (~20 minutes of torture)

P4A is the perfect example of how not to adapt a Visual Novel.  I hacked into the animation company’s database and stole some voice recordings they made.  Names are replaced by A, B, and C to protect their identities.

On the main character

A: I think we shouldn’t give the main character much of a personality.

B: Yeah, or else the fangirls would get mad.

A: Definitely.  Just to be safe, give him a couple of lines in the first episode.

C: And if we get any complaints, we could switch out the voice actor and nobody would know!

B: Awesome!

On the animation quality

A: Since I’m the laziest person alive, I don’t want to animate this visual novel.

B: Me neither.

C: My cousin’s pretty good at animation.  He’s used Microsoft Paint before.

B: Wow!  And you said he was in middle school, right?  It took me a couple of years in the field to get that far!

A: Hell, let’s just dump it all on him.

C: I’m sure he’d be glad to do it for 100 yen an hour.

A: Wow, that’s cheap.

B: Yeah, it’s only half my rate!

On peeing

A: *snicker* H-Hey, B – check out this hilarious script I wrote for the first episode.

B: Hahaha, oh man.  You’re really good at this “humor” stuff.

C: What’s going on?

B: Look at this, A wrote about pee here!

C: Hahaha kekekekeke gagagagaga this is pure genius!

A: I am a dumbass

On glasses

A: Hey, do either of you know what the mascot character hands the male lead?

B: You mean in the beginning?  I have no clue.

C: Me neither – it’s not like I played the game or anything.

A: I thought about playing it, but visual novels are boring.

B: Editorialists suck!

On music, scenes, and the whole shebang

A: Let’s make this seem as visual novel-like as possible.

B: Yeah, don’t add anything extra in.  Keep the original music.

A: We should stop the script boys from writing anything that doesn’t show up in the VN.

C: Pass the bong, please.

On emotions

A: Here boss, I made it 100% bigger just like you said!

B: No, no, no, I said 1000% bigger!  Make it cover the entire screen!

C: Yeah, A!  We already talked about the main character having no lines!  We need something to convey the extreme emotions hiding behind his calm facade!

A: All right, how’s this?  I bumped up the size on the other things floating around the characters’ heads too.

B: Fantastic!  Good job, A!  At this rate, you’ll make best blogger ’11 in no time!

Anime sucks.


29 Comments on “this season sucks!”

  1. @fkeroge says:

    You know what? Maybe you should just stop watching anime altogether. It seems that the medium is too bad and insulting for your superior tastes. I don’t mean to be offensive, but you should at least respect the people who work to bring you these stuff to watch. There’s a difference between criticism and outright insult. I figure that you’re older than me, and maybe you should let that show.

    But hey, it’s not like those stupid producers, editors, animators, voice actors and other staff members can read English, right? It’s fine to insult them.

    • flomu says:

      Persona 4 is a bad show. No redeeming aspects at all. This is coming from a mega-Persona 3 fan who’s never played P4.

      To the staff: good job for making this anime, you’ve pleased a lot of fanboys. For the rest of us, you’ve added one more show to our dropped lists.

      yeah, I hate anime! I’m going to stop watching anime and get a life!

  2. Seinime says:

    Nah, last season was good, this season seems lackluster (so far…) and flomu’s just being flomu. This season makes me wonder what to blog…

    • flomu says:

      Actually, I didn’t like many things from last season. Nichijou and Steins;Gate carried over from Spring, so…

      Blog Ben-to! I watched it today. An entire episode.

      Why do I subject myself to such torture?

  3. inushinde says:

    This has been a mediocre season so far. While I enjoyed Chihayafuru and Persona 4, most of the other shows have left me wanting, which is less than I can say for last season.

    • flomu says:

      I never like shoujo, so Chihayafuru was a lost cause from the beginning. Persona 4 should have (and more importantly, could have) been better. I wasn’t expecting much, but at least appease the inner fanboy within me who wants P4P because he doesn’t have a PS2/PS3, damn it!

      Addendum to this post: I watched Ben-to today. I heard it was about ridiculous concepts and absolute territory. Instead, I got shit-tier animation, even in the OP, and 20 minutes of absolute terror. Why do I ever think that ecchi shows can be somewhat decent?

  4. Marow says:

    Wonder if Noitamina will save the season or not.

    • flomu says:

      I hope so!

      (Wait, Nichijou wasn’t a noitaminA show! Nevermind.)

      I usually don’t like noitaminA shows. They reek of josei and shoujo more than AWESOME MECHA YEAH YEAH, but Guilty Crown might be good!

  5. hn elly says:

    >if the couple in Kare Kano had fallen in love, dropped out of school, started a motorcycle gang, and attacked the Diet building

    Oh man, I wish. Anyway, what you said actually sums up being a girl in high school. You spend it trying to be as perfect as possible. Then there comes a point in college where you don’t give a fuck anymore and start being a normal human.

  6. glothelegend says:

    Ways to improve:

    Add twins
    Trap
    Fujoshi mangaka girl
    Yandere
    Yuki ripoff

    Well. Would you look at that?

    • flomu says:

      I don’t get it.

      In other news, I’ve discovered that there actually is, in fact, a trap. I was wondering why they decided to stuff two maid characters into the show, but one of them is a male!

      • Mushyrulez says:

        And there’s a fujoshi mangaka girl, the person in the lab coat.

        Watched P4A today in anime club, walked out saying a cool line but nobody listened. “When in danger, put on glasses.” MAN THAT WAS SUCH A COOL LINE I THOUGHT ABOUT IT FOR LIKE TWENTY-THREE MINUTES and nobody listened. Anime club is stupid.

        Uh, otherwise, not much more to YOU SUCK YURU YURI WAS FUCKING AWESOME

        YOU HAVE NO TASTE IN ANIME

      • flomu says:

        Oh, boy. I was going to label her a fujoshi mangaka science girl, but I assumed that even “Boku no Tomodachi are all anime female archetypes” wouldn’t go that far. I guess the sky’s the limit… and then some!

        You have to shout. And don’t look back. And knock over a few chairs and rip the door off the hinges as you walk out of the room. That’s what I’ve done at every anime club meeting this year. (I have yet to attend aniclub)

        >yuru yuri
        >awesome
        what

      • Mushyrulez says:

        You don’t understand the true power of yuru yuri

        there’s tomatoes

        TOMATOES

      • glothelegend says:

        Yes, there is a trap. That’s one of 5…..so far…

        but there is also a. fujoshi mangaka….well……okay, not a mangaka…..but a girl who loves yaoi (though it’s yaoi between robots [she’s odd and horny always {and therefore awesome}]).

        I’m assuming that the rest of the items on the list will soon come to fruition, and I base this on absolutely nothing.

  7. ahelo says:

    Besides judging an anime for a few seconds, at least you’re still an awesome blogger. . . I think. You like Nichijou so that makes you awesome.

    • flomu says:

      I have argued against the “it gets better, I swear” defense several times, and I’ve come to accept that if a show seems bad, it is. Why suffer for 20 minutes when you can suffer for 20 seconds and go on to suffer from some other crappy anime?

  8. Maserbeam says:

    Persona 4 was a visual novel? Someone please troll me so hard that I think this is true. Because I’d probably play that before I touch the game on my PS2/3.

  9. Taka says:

    1. Chihayafuru isn’t shoujo it’s Josei. Targeted at older women and generally have more realistic love plots. So the shoujo argument falls apart when directed at Chihayafuru.
    2. They never say Chihaya is ugly, just weird. Though she’s not that weird, they call her a waste of beauty partly because her sister is a model.
    3. The show is more about Karuta the card game I think. I’m sure there will be some romance thrown in though. The manga has actually made karuta more popular in Japan.
    4. One of the (i assume) male leads has a girlfriend already. The other Chihaya hasn’t seen since elementary school.
    5. younger Chihaya is awesome

    Way to be ignant brah.

    • flomu says:

      I hate josei 0.01% less than I hate shoujo. Since my hate for shoujo is infinity, you can round that up to infinite hate for josei as well.

      case in point: honey and clover was terrible.

      1. Above
      2. Yeah, but it seems to imply that she’s somehow a lot less desirable and attractive.
      3. Possibly. I didn’t get that far.
      4. Wait, those are male leads? I thought they were comedic background characters!
      5. okay i gues

      thaksn

      • Taka says:

        no they aren’t the leads. I had assumed you gleaned some content beyond what you watched from the other reviews you read. One of the (I think) male leads is introduced a few minutes later.

        you should watch Nodame Cantabile. It’s josei but with more emphasis on the music than the romance.

      • flomu says:

        I don’t read the summary bits, because I find them pointless. If I really wanted to know what went on in the episode, I wouldn’t have dropped it!

        I’ve heard good things about that show. But then again, I’ve heard more good things about H+C, but..

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