アニ・ノート

She’s fed spoilers by other bloggers, even while this blog is turned into a real Kampfer-nouto for the season. A medicine for modesty!

This post is a reasonably harmless spoiler about ep.4 of Kampfer, which I delayed on purpose because I wanted to see what Natsuru does in the end of the series (a bigger spoiler: he found his testicles).

Anime situations like the karaoke scene invite thoughts how much better I would have done in the circumstances. I would make a short speech, starting with: “Before I decide, I would like to explain something.” They will have to listen to the end, because they want to know the decision. Then, speak to the three, in turns:

1. Sakura – confess, however say that I have a (terrible) secret
2. Prezident – reject her bullying, vow unyielding, see #1
3. Akane – swear to be best partners, yet reject due to #1

And then… Sing with Shizuku, because the selection is based on merit in signing. And I think it would’ve worked (plus the inevitable dust-up with Sakura later, for which I have a rough plan and contingencies too). The biggest danger is that Akane might transform, Sakura – faint, and the rest follow a predictable path. So, it’s a tricky extemporaneous speech.

But as early as the competion was proposed, I knew that Natsuru would vote “present”. Why? Because when I was his age, I would’ve done the same. It takes experience to know what must not be let to fester, and it takes resolve to do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. I did not have any of it. He has taken a natural path.

I saw bloggers berating Natsuru for not making jumping on someone specific (especially Shizuku’s partizans tended to do it), but I honestly wonder just how they imagine that going down?

BTW, I think that chosing Shizuku outright would’ve been an instant death by a dual-wielding Moderator. Of course, this hunch is based on what we learn about Kaede’s ruthlessness later and thus the information was not available to Natsuru at the time, but seriously: he (well, she) would not even have time to reach around Shizuku’s waist. Thank goodness for the faithful love, in this case.

An e-mail from Zyl reminded me about the lesbian danger in Precure. I was rather nonchalant about it, since Evirus did not post anything, and he is sensitive like a radio. However, based on one episode, there’s a significant, possibly meaningful asymmetry built into the character set of Precure: Nagisa is popular with girls, Honoka is popular with boys. It would not surprise me at all if one of the three unread letters that Nagisa discarded before being decked by her “phone” in fact came from Honoka (as Naruko Hanaharu was intimating). For now I continue to think that it is nothing but fan shipping, a-la Aria, but we shall see.

Not seen anything quite as robust since possibly ever. Outdoes Mac F and Arashi 01. Speaking of which, need to see more to be sure before thanking Moogy.

I also wanted to name this post “DTO at Crunchyroll” and “A better Sailor Moon”. It sure was a fun whirlwind of pleasurable corniness.

First of all, the DTO. I was pleasantly surprised to find it and immediately downloaded a 400 MB file… Which turned out to be a 480-tall XviD ripped from a VHS tape, I guess. I don’t know how that is possible. When I was younger, fansubbers packed better quality into 170MB files easily. The audio is especially bad: it sounds like something transmitted over an analog cellphone, albeit in stereo. This is very difficult to commensurate with the release date of 2004, well inside the epoch of DVD.

In fact, not just audio, but everything about the anime hails from 1996: the designs, the music, the magical girl played straight… It’s an amazing throwback to the pinnacle of the pre-digital animation.

BTW, thanks to Evirus and his endless postings about Precure that wore down my resolve to procrastinate on this. Curiously, his old impression was not all that enthusiastic: he called the initial series “generally pretty mediocre” back then. That it went to dominate his blogging in years ahead may mean that it was a timeless classic. Also, he said that Max Heart was “better than he remembered”. I think I see a trend. Anyhow, the $2 were well spent. I don’t know if I want to plop $96 on the remaining 48 episodes yet, but this is a start.

UPDATE: My previous post and the DB were in error: the initial impetus to see Precure came from an illustration at Hanahalu, not Neorosi (do not click on index at work).

Akazukin 36 goes beyond Star Wars by demonstrating convincingly that George Lucas thought small when he made Luke to reject the Dark Side. Also, all that in a show for children? Good times.

It may be just me, but Kuro appears to be excercising a false choice in his series-end post about Seitokai no Ichizon.

Seitokai is really one of those shows that people either love it or hate it to bits, depending on how much of the jokes they can get. Overall I’d say if you have more than 3 years experience of watching anime, you would love it since it pokes fun at a lot of shows, conventions and tropes in Japanese modern visual culture in a extremely fresh and, more importantly, not self-depreciating manner.

I watched anime since 1971 in abstract and since 2002 in post-Azumanga era. Either way, I qualify for Kuro’s “more than 3 years” criterion. Nonetheless I feel no great love for this anime, as documented previously. I don’t hate it “to bits” either. Ichizon fails to move me either way, since it’s so weakly made. I remember burning hate for Dokuro-chan, “the vilest show I ever watched, made with impeccable professionalism”. This is not like that at all.

In a way, Kuro’s editorial is a good illustration of the fallacious “getting the jokes” discourse. I thought Lucky Star was made pretty well, despite not recognizing Initial D and other references. And Ichizon is no different. References alone cannot make a success, as far as I am concerned.

Of course, Kuro liked Ichizon very much, so more power to the creators. I am only wondering if we’re witnessing an anime digging further into the niche, as critics started saying recently.

Steven reminded me about this point with the summary: “Reports are that [Kampfer] starts semi-serious but rapidly descends into farce and fan service, and ends with an incomprehensible trainwreck.”

At first, I wanted to rise in disagreement, because I thought that he misunderstood how 11+1=12 scheme worked in 08th MS Team and Kampfer. In both cases, the first 11 episodes tell a story and end with an epic climax, and then 12th episode is a holiday extra (in case of 08th it was utter garbage, so much so that I suggest not to watch it at all). But then I remembered that there was a noticeable slippage in the way Kampfer treats its own setting.

The fighting is affected most noticeably. In the first episodes, characters actually put some effort into it, and the viewers are made to think if Akane is a good shot or not. But by ep.11 Natsuru is hit with 3 weapons at once, while in human form, and nothing bad happens to him beyond a light concussion. This is just ludicrous.

So, SDB heard right. I would not say “trainwreck”, since the show was a pretty fun romp to the end, and in exchange for realistic fights we received the entrails animals doing the epic thing you need to see. But yes, the tone of the series changes into a farce along the way.

UPDATE: Steven mentioned that Macademi Wasshoi implemented 11+1.

Hontou ni:

It’s almost the studio was anticipating the response to the ending of Ep 11: “Senseless!? THIS IS KAMPFEEEEEER!!!!! Have some kimochi warui for everyone to chew on for the holidays! wwwwww”

In onther words, much better than 08th MS Team 12. I only wish Natsurus had twins.

Reviewing my Kampfer stash, I felt that I miss the captions that made screenshots livelier. Certainly, I can try to compensate with the in-text explanations, but it’s just not the same. Here’s a couple of pictures to illustrate the thesis further, try to imagine them raw:

Good times. But oh well.