Winter Anime 2018 Part 6: we know clichees
I got tardy again, but on purpose, I swear. See, now I can start this post with Trigger and end it with KyoAni!
See also:
• Part 4: the kids are alright
Darling in the FranXX
So here’s a hot mecha collaboration by Trigger and A-1. You’d might expect this to be a mix of Gurren Lagann and Aldnoah, i.e. extreme super robot vs extreme real robot. You would be right about this if you realize that the Venn diagram spells out “extreme Eva” then. Yes, Darling in the FranXX is an Eva-ass Eva clone straight out of 1997, and to top it off Trigger also brought in the experience with incredibly on the nose writing they got from Kiznaiver. I have nothing against Eva and even competent Eva clones, but it can’t be denied that this show consists of nothing but well-worn mecha clichées, and if they’re not from Eva they’re from something else (such as the robot having to be piloted by a male-female pair, which is of course all sorts of deeply meaningful and the show sure wants you to know about it). Oh, and Asuka and Rei are combined in one character now, so you don’t have to choose. Efficiency, I love it! It’s not a surprise it looks pretty good (like a Trigger show, in fact), but I’m not sure if I want to watch someone’s “how to fix Shinji” fanfic in 2018. Good thing Rebuild 4 isn’t coming out this year then.
Dame x Prince Anime Caravan
As the title implies, this is based on an otome dating sim. Rustic princess gets to interact with/date handsome princes, complete with onscreen decision prompts and flowchart in the OP. The good thing about it is that it obviously doesn’t take itself very seriously. Not only the meta nonsense, but also how the princess is less than impressed with those ostentatious, ridiculous dreamboats. Having the main girl not being a complete wet blanket is the first hurdle a show like this has to clear for me, and it does. It reminds me of The Royal Tutor from a few seasons back in that regard, only now it’s more obvious what it’s supposed to be. But even if it’s pretty watchable, it still doesn’t reach the insane heights of a Dance with Devils. It gets a star for effort but I gotta move on.
Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku
NO NO NO LET ME GO BACK TO DAME x PRINCE. Death March is an isekai light novel, subsection B: Stuck in MMO. And it’s a really bad one even for that legendary subgenre. It’s really, really into pointing out that what this hapless programmer is stuck in is indeed a vidya gaem, so about half of the runtime is spent in the menu (which he has in his head, somehow) while the guy explains what he’s clicking. So not only is it the shit of shits, it’s also an insanely boring and wordy way to establish that yes, this guy got hax and is going to impress all the fantasy chicks. Looks like garbage too, btw, in case you’re still interested. I really want to say that this is the worst isekai I’ve seen in a while, but Isekai Smartphone is still far worse. No star for you, Death March!
Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens
Kakata Tokotsu Ramens seems to be a complicated drama about a city with an attitude so bad that hitman is one of the most common professions. This leads to a few problems: For one, it introduces a gigantic cast of characters right away, so nobody gets enough attention and the whole plot setup is pretty incomprehensible. I admit that that is not necessarily a bad thing in the long run, but there’s a second problem: Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens wants to be Sin City or any given Suda51 script, but unlike those, it has no style whatsoever. It’s just this bland, pastel-colored, overly brightly lit low-budget anime that looks more like a sitcom than the moody bad dudes saga it needs to be to make it worthwhile. This is one show I can’t honestly call bad but that I can’t honestly call interesting either.
Hakumei to Mikochi
Hakumei and Mikochi are two tiny gnome girls that live in a tiny house in the forest and get up to tiny magical adventures. So the obvious question is: Children’s television for preschoolers or iyashikei for stressed adults? Well, I really like it, so that would point to the latter. The tone reminds me a lot of Flying Witch – not quite as relaxing as Yuru Camp at its peak, but since it doesn’t have a school club comedy bolted on, more relaxing overall. It looks real nice too, probably the first time I really liked the watercolor & ink lines look. Not so sure if I like the picture-in-picture overlays it frequently does, but they seem to work well enough as long as the manga panels they’re pulling actually benefit from having a different aspect ratio. Oh, and the two smols appear to be recently married, which is all sorts of cute, even if that probably won’t matter a lot. I’m in.
Hakyuu Houshin Engi
Oh boy. This is based on a Jump shounen from the mid-90s and man was that a bad era for character design. It also has gotten an anime before (1999 DEEN, so it surely was an eyesore in its own right), and I have to wonder if this beginning is someone’s weak attempt at rushing though the beginning, FMA Brotherhood-style: The episode feels like someone edited a crappy movie based on a crappy manga down to 20 minutes, and very haphazardly so. It jumps from scene to scene with such reckless abandon that nobody that doesn’t know the manga could possibly keep up. But those folks probably also don’t need the actual content, which is introducing a million characters and concepts with increasingly complicated Chinese names. Watching this is just miserable and I doubt that it can be significantly better even if it gets its storytelling shit together.
Killing Bites
As this season turns out to be incredibly strong on cute and incredibly weak on anything else, who’s down for some ULTRASCHLOCK? Killing Bites is a completely shameless edgy action show that starts with Rape Attempt Gone Wrong [HILARIOUS] and kind of devolves from there. Long story short, generic male protagonist gets roped into underground monstergirl fighting and lucks into a ton of money and a cute honeybadger bodyguard. Now, there’s no doubt that all of this is complete trash, but it’s trash in a pretty fun way (which us in the shitwatch biz call the Cross Ange way): It’s rapidly paced so it’s not boring, it’s halfway decently made, it doesn’t hold back with the insanity at all and Ratel, the crazy nastyass honeybadger, is wacky enough to keep the lame main dude from mattering much. Shitwatches can always go either way so I’m not sure about this one at all, but it’s a candidate and we’ll have to see how it plays out.
Koi wa Ameagari no You ni
“Love is like After the Rain” is the noitaminA show of the season, so it has a higher chance of being classy than most (it’s not a sure thing since noitaminA will also happily feature gutter trash like Saekano as long as it’s pretty). And it actually is rather classy, a slow moving and emotional romance between a high schooler and the middle aged manager of the family restaurant she works at. Classy isn’t everything though, because I’m not feeling the characters in this one. The main girl in particular is reserved and (probably) well-conceived, but that makes watching her pretty dull – and I just got done watching a competent, heartfelt romance about the most boring people in the world with Just Because, which wasn’t a good time. This is probably decent for people who are absolutely into this kind of romance, but it’s just a tad too sluggish and unexciting for me.
Marchen Madchen
Main character gets transported to a parallel world where their hobby is the raddest power, and then they enrol in a magical school that’s all about magical battles. So this is isekai and battle harem, the light novel double whammy, which would instantly secure it a spot on the shortlist for worst of the season. Except this show does a few things right, like the main character being a girl, which is a rarity at least in this particular brand of bullshit. And her hobby/special power is reading, which is less offensive than the usual otaku shittery. Of course her being a girl means she runs around naked a lot, and her reading means that she’s reading light novels, but baby steps, okay? It’s not great and I wouldn’t watch it, but it’s passable for what it is.
Miira no Kaikata
Here’s an amime about a guy adopting a tiny mummy. Very wacky indeed! But nonsense nature of the beast aside, effectively it’s just a cute anime pet and this is a cute pet anime. Kind of like that Amanchu episode where they adopted a kitten. And while it is indeed cute, it’s not anything else besides that. This is another show that’s simply too long, because even if the tiny creature is adorable, watching it be adorable for 24 minutes gets old. Again, this season is not low on shows that bring the cute, so I don’t really need one that has no other benefits at all.
Takunomi
And finally, a grim drama about stressed Tokyoites drowning their sorrows in alcohol. Oh, did I say drama? No, this is a comedy about cute girls drinking cute drinks, what else could it be. I didn’t really expect it to go there, but here we are. In any case, as far as comedies about cute girls drinking go, this is a pretty mediocre one. It’s not entirely without charm but absolutely nothing special either. Since I’ve had a good run with drinking/eating anime, I might give this another chance but I already wouldn’t recommend it to a general audience.
Violet Evergarden
So here’s the big one, the KyoAni banger that everyone has been talking about for half a year. What is a Violet Evergarden? Turns out it’s just the name of the main character, who is a traumatized elite soldier that has to come to terms with living in a post-war world, a lightly steampunkish fantasy world inspired by post-WW1 Europe. Since episode 1 is just the setup, there’s not much to report on the story, but this definitely feels like it has potential – probably the most promising source material KyoAni has touched in ages, at least for a TV show. As typical for KyoAni, it’s as subtle as a brick to the face – there’s frequent “meaningful” film school shots like the one above, the music seems to be trying way too hard way too often, and for those not fluent in German, this show takes place in the city of “Suffering” that is the capital of a country called “Passionate”. Oh you. But all of that is not necessarily a huge problem if it can back it up. The animation’s ace and the looks are as luxurious and detailed as a cinematic movie, even if it leans too much on postprocessing - in short, it’s a KyoAni production, only somehow even more so. In any case it’s extremely pretty even if not exactly to my tastes. Yeah, I’ve been griping about how KyoAni should finally use their powers for good, and this seems like a step in the right direction that could possibly even be legitimately great if it delivers. Good one, KyoAni, please don’t fuck this up.
