Goddamned weak sauce season summer 2010

Why oh why am I writing like this again? Because my life sucks right now! XD Why is it when I know some smartass kid out there is going to use some internet term and patronize me and tell me that get the fuck over it? Because writing rant is fun and this century has managed to suck hairy balls EVERY SINGLE MOTHERFUCKING YEAR. Not anime-wise, thank ye gods, but life-wise and worldwise…

Ya, ya, back to summer 2010 season it is. All right, with a claymore in one hand and a can of Kirin in another, here we go.

High School of the Dead.

…Boobs! And violence! Boobs! And violence! Boobs and violence, chichan! boobs and violence, chichan! While I’m totally channeling the Voice Actresses’ Puncolle, I’m also playing pocket pool, thinking: “Hey! This shit ain’t bad!”

Of course not. I’ve come to tolerate nearly every show every season and I always manage to finish most of them, unless I’m really ticked off about something.

But good god damn! Whatever merit this show had about surviving a zombie apocolypse, fighting for friends or just surviving while being slowly transformed out of normal humanity totally went down the drain once they started staying at the same place and the girls are getting naked left and right without a reason.

Now, for the fan service god in me, I say: “DYNAMITE!” But for the critics in me, I say: “ATROCIOUS!”

Mitsudomoe.

These kids are totally fucked up. The worse part is that they’re super gross but they’re girls. They take on the traditional gross-out role that teenage males in anime and manga take and blow it up (including someone’s nose) to the highest extremes and then leap off the top. No redeeming points whatsoever. The funny stuff quickly turns to grotesque (GROTESQUE) stretches that refuse to stop and the girls go down a notch lower in humanity. When it’s mild, it’s simply bizzare with total abandonment of common sense.

But shit, this can be pissing in your pants funny. Sometimes.


Seitokai no Yakuindomo.

I’m going to submit my record of facepalms during this show to the Guiness Records right after I finish everything because I remember most of the time, my face was buried in my palms. Oh and my forehead is quite puffy from me smacking my palms onto it. Non-stop teenage girl hygene stuff coupled (ugh) with mechanically timed laughing cue. True, it does work sometimes, but only because it’s shocking enough that I can’t help but laugh. It’s not exactly a good shock when the student president says: “Napkin.” I guess in Japanese, that means tampons.

I haven’t used a napkin (paper) to wipe my mouth since that episode. I now use PAPER TOWELS. Wait a minute, I went to a steakhouse last week and I used…OH FUCK.

By the way, who the hell actually thinks about beer when she/he sees piss in a toilet bowl?

Oh, it can be funny alright, but the low grade humor tazzes the critics in me like nobody else’s business.

Amagami SS.

Absolutely no plots and no redeemable characters. The guy is supposed to be eccentric enough to make the audience care but at the end of the day, he’s got every harem male lead’s character in a can, which adds up to a big, fat zero.

I do watch harem shows for the girls and maybe a little bit of the male-pleasing, heart pumping accidental “plots”. Well, in this case, I feel that I’m supposed to be getting some, but I can’t help but be bored every 5 seconds. Oh that’s right, I’m pretty much not a harem guy anymore but a yuri-lover! Not the fault of the show, mind you. But what is wrong with the show is that IT’S TOO GODDAMNED boring! It’s a predictable my waifu fulfillment fantasy (hey, if Kugimiya Rie or Tamura Yukarin is in there I’d love it more) without any real emotional impact. No real struggles and not even one pitiful ounce of drama. There are harem shows with at least one pitiful ounce of drama, this one has absolutely none.

On the other hand, if you just want to be the lead male and enjoy the type of girl that you want to enjoy, then it’s a fine show. My inner fanservice demon says eh, my inner critic says shit!

Ookami-san to shichinin no nakama tachi.

Sigh…yeah, I finished the whole thing, Like I said, Unless the title doesn’t grab me at all or unless it’s a BL show, I don’t skip much of anything. Hey, I got no life and no job! It’s easier to catch everything!

It’s…really not good or bad, it’s just plain. Somehow, Itou Shizuka’s Ookami Ryoko doesn’t make a good lead and her supporting characters or 7 friends don’t really make things interesting enough to follow. The tension level is low, the dramatic level is subpar and the suspence is yawn-worthy. I don’t have a strong dislike for the friends fight for each other until one saves all shtick, but I’m not impressed either.

Oh and by the way, RYOSHI TOTALLY SUCKS ASS! He’s like an otaku gone chicken shit most of the time and his ssssss sentence endings is quite annoying. Maybe it sounds perfectly normal for the average Japanese person? But sssssssshitsssssss, it certainly annoyssss the ssshitssss out of me.

Other than that, yeah, it’s actually a decent watch.

Occult Academy.

You think my hellfire rant was waning, didn’t ya? Well, not quite! Here’s a perfect example of all the Captain Obviouses from every dimension come to the rescue. Because all of them screamed their lungs out about 10 episodes back that “MIKAZE IS THE LAST BOSS! MIKAZE IS THE LAST BOSS!”

Good god, can there anything more obvious? And here I was hoping all the Captain Obviouses wouldn’t be able to save the day. But I was wrong. The writers of the show never bothered to device one clever twist to defuse that. Not even one.

OK, so if that was meant to be “So be it, we knew that you’d realize that soon enough”, then what happened to the rest of the plot? Well, the plot dragged on and on and on until the last two episodes, where everything took a dive off the deep end, and all of the sudden, we’re supposed to care about Nostradomous and the superduper shit-dipped cell phone as well as finding out the key to world destruction again.

“Oh, she’ll attempt to open the hell dimension and that’s why the world ends.” REALLY? So all that goose chase gives us no eggs but a single mothman drop.

I like Maya and I’m beginning to think Hikasa Youko, her seiyuu, is something special, but the show totally buries her talent and Bunmei/Fumiaki utter destroys any possible chemistry there, not to mention making it a little creepy (she’s in her teens and he’s presumably in his mid 20’s).

Look, the Mikaze fanservice can only smear the mistake away for so long before it becomes overused.

Other than that, yeah, it’s charming and interesting. Just a little wacky.

The Legend of Legendary Heroes.

It drags on. It drags on some more. It tries on the Slayers outfit for a little bit and then it toed the poor man’s Berserk outfit but scampered away. Nope, not hitting the spot.

It’s obvious to me that Sion and his politcal machinations are the things to watch here. The plot about Ryner and Phylis trying to find some hero’s artifact doesn’t seem to have any special meaning and in some episodes, they become pedestrians A and B, whom try to imitate Lina and Gourry in their shennenigans but fail poorly.

I had high hopes for this one, I really did. But at the end of the day, no one fulfills their potential and it’s been rather boring so far. However, I’m withholding my final judgment (desu no) on this one until the show is done. It’s trying to add some interesting mixes and twists but I fear it’s just another distractor the author put in trying to make the story interesting.

This one could’ve been a contender.

Shiki.

Oh yes. The obvious vampire show that discusses “even if you know all the legend about it, what happens if it happens in real life?” Nothing, stupid! This isn’t real life, it’s a show on TV! Therefore, in the name of all that doesn’t suck, give us real excitement! Give us interesting drama! And stop with the crazy-ass hairdos that cracks me up every time!

Have you seen the village doctor’s mom’s hairdo? I have the urge of cranking her head like a hand bike. I do. Or whatever it is that can be cranked with. That aside, I guess there’s supposed to be great drama and a deep reflection of the close-knit community’s rifts and tensions, but at the end of the day, as soon as I see puncture marks, it was all over for me. The plot about blood sucking vampires becomes too distracting and there’s nothing that grabs me.

Of course, if you like to watch it at 12 AM at night, I suppose it could have a lot of merit for being a horror show. But really, Yuuki Aoi can’t save it and the crazy-ass hair styles can’t save it, either.

That’s all the rant from me. As for the rest of the shows, I feel that most of them are good enough or pleasing enough for me. Capanella really doesn’t do much but it doesn’t falter either. I’m a huge fan of Sekirei so I’m not going to pick on it. But when Strike Witches 2 (see Crunchyroll) presents more drama than the rest, you know this season has been fucked.

What about Aso bi ni Ikuyo? Oh, it’s fine. It’s clearly marked as a summer service show for guys with references thrown in. It doesn’t try too hard and it delivers within its little premise. And you know what? It works.

Author: Ray

I'm a hardcore Anime Fan and I'm proud of it. I know so many things and I've acquired so much knowledge you wouldn't believe. But my love is anime. I've been drifting in this world for so long that I don't even know what an anchor means. I've seen so many shows that I've lost count. The only thing I'm sure of myself is that I care for the lowly and disenfranchised. I hate the rich and powerful and I love what I do, or what I can do. I like anime and I don't mind watching different types of shows. I have experience in different types of Japanese animation. I would be called an "expert" in a bizzaro world. One day, I'd like to start a revolution. I love the US, pizza, beer, sashimi, Chinese food, and steak. But I love freshly baked bread more than a well-aged steak. In reality, if I were born Japanese I'd be a real, hardcore Otaku. I love to love and I can hate strongly. I'm passionate in nature and I don't mind shedding tears. I can be reached at rayyhum777 at animediet. My Twitter is rayyhum777 at twitter.

3 thoughts on “Goddamned weak sauce season summer 2010

  1. > making it a little creepy (she’s in her teens and he’s presumably in his mid 20′s).

    That’s creepy by your standards? An age difference of less than 10 years?

    But in all seriousness this certainly has been a bland season. I can’t think of anything memorable enough to re-watch in the future.

  2. Too too true. We had a good thinking fan’s spring, with Tatami Galaxy and its ilk, and then an ‘industry-driven anime’ summer. Here’s to a better fall –

  3. Reading this article made me sit back and re-examine my views on that season’s shows. The conclusion I have reached is thus. I have enjoyed virtually each of these shows because of certain comedic moments in them alone. I have just realized that I remembered pretty much nobody’s name and that says something right there. Its been a constant stream of, “Hahaha, the SYD Prez just said something totally inappropriate!” and, “Bwahaha, look at where the Ringu triplet just appeared from!” I think its Futaba, and I only remember that because it means “first” or something. I will most likely forget every single character I met this summer. (With the exception of the girls from Amagami… yes, send me hate and scorn!) But I laughed throughout the thing, so I guess it’s OK. For having some stomach-troubling series this season, there was at least enough of “the best medicine” to keep me going.

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