Someone fucking shoot me. Right now.
I just watched the whole of OreImo in the space of 24 hours. Well, I fast-forwarded through the last four, but can you blame me? OreImo is one of those series which start out good and then go to hell. It begins with in-jokes, comedy and the whole shebang, and actually manages to be genuinely funny.
Then it starts to go into drama, but no one cares, since it's well-done, well-distributed and meshes with the concept of the series instead of being stupidly obtrusive.
And then it all goes to hell.
Why the Master Sparking fuck does every single otaku rom-com have to go like this? I could Apollo 13 the corporate goober that came up with the idea that every single promising series concerning itself with otaku culture has to get assraped by romance and drama after the second half. It ruined Haganai and Genshiken, and now this?
I started watching OreImo armed in my +5 Righteous Riot Gear of Furious Angry Rage, expecting it to be a steaming pile of Sora no Otoshimono with all the inane fanservice, otaku-pandering and wish-fulfillment that entails.
While that might seem to apply to many series, please recall that yours truly is a cranky, unwashed cheeto-beard who spends most of his time in a basement scratching his ass, crunching chips and watching anime meant for little girls. I'm the kind of hopeless loser that kind of series panders to, and even I'm disgusted.
Well, back on track.
What pants-on-head consumer-pandering nineball got the bright idea of pushing to make all these series take a screeching U-turn right after the middle of the season, I ask? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it besides milking money out of emotionally stunted otaku manchildren who weep tears of canned oden every time their shriveled little hearts are confronted with something "oh so zaad".
(Sorry, LK.)
This pointless genre change is a long-standing thorn in the side of otaku-humor series. It's not a standalone problem as much as a persistent symptom of series decay. On my list of badness levels, this goes just below anime adaptations of eroge by Type-Moon.
(Of which there were only Fate/stay night and Fate/zero. Nothing else. Nothing else.)
Seitokai no Ichizon was bottled 1ups and time orbs to begin with. It overflowed with awesone from its every pore. Then came the second half of the series. Badly done, soul-achingly cliché second-rate single-heroine eroge romance/drama. I never watched the series through. I skimmed the last five episodes, and then I went into a dark corner and was zaad.
Haganai was genuinely funny for the first half, though it wore its nature as a wish-fulfillment series a bit more openly than most. That's fine; I'm no stranger to wish-fulfillment, though most of it takes place within my own head after witnessing Fate and Nanoha in a particularly intimate moment, heh heh. But just like everything else, it came to an end when the second half flipped straight into weepy drama. FUCK.
Genshiken stayed halfway good, but that's because it's Genshiken. However, it still suffered immensely from the genre flip-flop, going from a godly series to a Claymore-level one. (Not genre-wise; I'd love to see that, though.) Just like Claymore, I found myself skipping through episodes I didn't like. (And just like Claymore, it had a half-assed cop-out as an ending, though nowhere nearly as bad.)
I am angry. Holy inverted astrofuck, am I angry. Given the necessary sudden change in the laws of physics, I would launch a Starlight Breaker from my mouth towards those who slighted me so. The Excelion kind.
mandag den 25. juni 2012
tirsdag den 12. juni 2012
I Am, Once Again, A Cabbage.
So, I am back.
Many things have changed. For example, I now go by Doctor Hello. (Following a recent chain of events involving a misread katakana and a hairy Japanese heavy-metal guitarist in crossplay, I am now also looking for opportunities to cement the handle "Pain Tree".)
Also, a new season has started. It is arguable whether it is good or not, let's leave it at that, shall we?
Many things, then, have also not changed. For example, my healthy and balanced lifestyle. Several thousand times a day, I move my fingers to type. Several dozen times a day, too, I move my arm to lift a can of energy drink. If that's not a high-tension lifestyle, I don't know what is. I still watch too much anime, drink too much soda and have bad hygiene problems. Why wash, shave or brush one's teeth when one can enjoy an exciting lifestyle grumbling in front of the laptop, sorting through RP notes, drinking flat discount Coke, eat Doritos and scratch one's ass? I have truly found the answer.
So, let's have a quick recap of the series I haven't reviewed yet this season. I'll keep it short and sweet, since I am in no way too lazy to write much more. Of course, I could keep it in my head, but...
Don't misunderstand me, okay? I'm not doing this for you or anything! I just happened to really want to write, so it's not like I really want you to read this.
Of course, if you want me to write, I guess I'll do it for you... *blush*
Well, now that the obligatory gag is over, let's go.
Haiyore! Nyaruko-san:
Well, since I'm basically in love with the concept and most of the gags, I'll start flaw-finding here.
While the show is entertaining, novel and often delectably unpredictable, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san has a few glaring flaws.
First off, the tendency to fall on its face. The long buildup to gags often leads to situations where the studio obviously thought the gag would come through better. There's a pervasive sense of "So, yeah, and now...?" going through many of the longer gags, which leads me to the next issue.
Bad pacing. I mean, really, really bad. The series has a tendency to inexplicably veer out of the territory it works best in - rapid-fire Cthulhu gags and jarring snaps into slightly creepy absurdity - to slow down for half an episode and fill the time with "plot". The reason I'm digging into the mass media bunker and dragging out the scare quotes is simple: These plot shifts, while probably meant to be absurd in their clichéd atrocity, instead come off as overacted, hammy and unneeded. If you're going to make a parody, be heavy-handed. You don't parody GaoGaiGar by just playing out a scene from the series. No, you lay it on thick and point out the absurdities (of which there are plenty) in order to make it rewarding for the people who get it and funny anyway for those who don't.
Well, when it keeps to its territory, Nyaruko-san is a good show.
Now then, just why the Master Sparking astrofuck couldn't it do that a bit more often? The "plot" is as unwelcome as Minatsuki would be in Hamtaro (though I'd actually like to see that, just for the fuck of it), and there's absolutely no reason why it should go there.
Many things have changed. For example, I now go by Doctor Hello. (Following a recent chain of events involving a misread katakana and a hairy Japanese heavy-metal guitarist in crossplay, I am now also looking for opportunities to cement the handle "Pain Tree".)
Also, a new season has started. It is arguable whether it is good or not, let's leave it at that, shall we?
Many things, then, have also not changed. For example, my healthy and balanced lifestyle. Several thousand times a day, I move my fingers to type. Several dozen times a day, too, I move my arm to lift a can of energy drink. If that's not a high-tension lifestyle, I don't know what is. I still watch too much anime, drink too much soda and have bad hygiene problems. Why wash, shave or brush one's teeth when one can enjoy an exciting lifestyle grumbling in front of the laptop, sorting through RP notes, drinking flat discount Coke, eat Doritos and scratch one's ass? I have truly found the answer.
So, let's have a quick recap of the series I haven't reviewed yet this season. I'll keep it short and sweet, since I am in no way too lazy to write much more. Of course, I could keep it in my head, but...
Don't misunderstand me, okay? I'm not doing this for you or anything! I just happened to really want to write, so it's not like I really want you to read this.
Of course, if you want me to write, I guess I'll do it for you... *blush*
Well, now that the obligatory gag is over, let's go.
Haiyore! Nyaruko-san:
Well, since I'm basically in love with the concept and most of the gags, I'll start flaw-finding here.
While the show is entertaining, novel and often delectably unpredictable, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san has a few glaring flaws.
First off, the tendency to fall on its face. The long buildup to gags often leads to situations where the studio obviously thought the gag would come through better. There's a pervasive sense of "So, yeah, and now...?" going through many of the longer gags, which leads me to the next issue.
Bad pacing. I mean, really, really bad. The series has a tendency to inexplicably veer out of the territory it works best in - rapid-fire Cthulhu gags and jarring snaps into slightly creepy absurdity - to slow down for half an episode and fill the time with "plot". The reason I'm digging into the mass media bunker and dragging out the scare quotes is simple: These plot shifts, while probably meant to be absurd in their clichéd atrocity, instead come off as overacted, hammy and unneeded. If you're going to make a parody, be heavy-handed. You don't parody GaoGaiGar by just playing out a scene from the series. No, you lay it on thick and point out the absurdities (of which there are plenty) in order to make it rewarding for the people who get it and funny anyway for those who don't.
Well, when it keeps to its territory, Nyaruko-san is a good show.
Now then, just why the Master Sparking astrofuck couldn't it do that a bit more often? The "plot" is as unwelcome as Minatsuki would be in Hamtaro (though I'd actually like to see that, just for the fuck of it), and there's absolutely no reason why it should go there.
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