Fighting, Flying, and Post Mortem Affairs

September 20, 2012

Warning: I will watch anything and have no real quality filter. Ratings are relative to other (not anime) shows. Spoilers ahead. I wont tell you that Verbal Kint is a ghost who kills Dumbledore with Rosebud, but be ready.

Anime of the Week Before Last Week

Lets start at the beginning: Accel World. What would you use an ultra advanced brain acceleration program that allowed a human to surpass all of their physical limits for? Would you broaden scientific boundaries, enhance the quality of life for all of humanity, work for world peace. Well welcome to anime club, where the one of the greatest advancements in human history is used to pit tech integrated teenagers against each other in virtual battle. The rules are simple, once a member is infected with the Brain Burst program they have 100 points and can be called into battle by whoever. The winner takes points from the loser; if you lose all your points you DIE, in accel world, and can never rejoin ever. Why have points, so you can activate Brain Burst to do awesome things that shouldn’t be possible.

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the best use of revolutionary nuerotechnology

With the rules laid out lets start. Enter Haru Arita, as Dean Wormer famously said, “Fat, Depressed, and always playing squash alone is no way to go through life, son.” Arita has one thing in life, the high score at squash, which is broken by, wait for it, the school beauty, Kuroyukihime. She infects him with Brain Burst and Haru enters the exciting world of virtual fighting, overcoming personal issues, friendship, and other protagonist behaviors. After learning to fight, exchange ambiguous feelings with girls out of his league, and finding confidence the Accel World adventure is underway. Bonus props awarded for having a realistic wimpy protag.

Rating: Better than the crap on before American Idol restarts

Next is Natsuiro Kiseki. What happens when the omnipotent deity within a boulder decides to troll four young girls? In Natsuiro Kiseki you’ll find out. We start with four friends Natsumi: the standard leader, Saki: the blonde, Yuko: the free spirit, and Rinko: the chill/high as f***. These girls are real BFFs and decide to make a wish on the rock. The rules are simple if four friends, hands on the Rock, make the same wish it WILL be granted. The girls wish to be idols, and friends forever adhering to the rules, but the Rock doesn’t do anything. The Rock, sits, waits, bides his time. Soon Natsumi and Saki fight they make up and all friends wish together, nothing happens, wish again, nothing, disagreement, more wishing, angsty girl fight, then finally all the girls notice the blue sky and pleasant breeze and BOOM 400 FEET UP. No warning, just big air, and the game is

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yeah I don't play idolmaster anymore

afoot. While the girls deal with standard friendship issues the almighty Rock does whatever it wants. Yuko and Rinko make a vague semi-wish, boom Natsumi and Saki glued together, N and S working together finally boom, unstuck. Natsumi and Saki make a wish purely for revenge, boom Yuko and Rinko glued together. All four girls get together and fervently wish to fly again for the sole purpose of saving the friendship of two kids, Hell No. A great combination of friendship, middle school non-problems, and most important the invincible omnipotent troll anyone can root for. If you like mild humor, and indirect fanservice, you’ll like Natsuiro Kiseki.

Rating: I’ll take it over another rerun of growing pains

Finally we come to Natsuyuki Rendezvous. How do make an Anime like this, a simple recipe. Take two cups of grated Ghost, one cup of Sleepless in Seattle, two teaspoons of Paranormal Activity, a pinch of The 6th Sense,and add some Father of the Bride to taste; Mix in a blender on low until smooth, add 3 cups of ice, one bad haircut, blend on high for one minute, and garnish with flowers. A bittersweet romance about boy meets girl, meets ghost/emotional baggage, meets suspense. Hazuki, a shy man, decides to work in a flower shop after falling in love with the cute owner, Rokka. Despite her terrible haircut and his initial shyness Hazuki begins to get closer to her. The plan of slowly getting closer is thrown out the window after a fateful meeting with Rokka’s ex-husband , the ghost Atsushi, throws Hazuki’s plan of seduction into overdrive. Hazuki manages to overcome his initial silence and puts some decent moves on his target, a few intimate conversations and hasty romantic one-liners puts Atsushi on the defensive. Torn Atsushi wants, Rokka to be happy, but like all of us, can’t stand some smug bastard hitting on his girl in front of him. Atsushi fights back the best way an incorporeal, but visible entity can, by superimposing himself over Rokka. Thus with one blow he has

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oh, am I in your way?

made all intimate interaction impossibly awkward. In the end it is a losing battle. Hazuki using the incredible advantage of actually being able to interact with Rokka begins to win her affections, and Atsushi switches from lawful neutral to evil in order to use dark magic techniques forbidden to benign spirits. Here we come to the true start of this tale. A woman caught between a human lover and poltergeist. Prepare for love, ghosts, and flowers in Natsuyuki Rendezvous. P.S. Why is there a z in rendezvous?

Rating: I watched this till 1AM; What was I thinking?


Responses to Fighting, Flying, and Post Mortem Affairs


dante · September 20, 2012 at 3:10 pm

The hell? This site has reviewers now? Where’s that other guy with the insightfully long-winded commentary? You know….Chris.

Accel World –

There’s not enough speed lines in the world to illustrate how fast these people should be going out and doing something useful with this power. That said, while an extra 15 minutes at a moment’s notice sounds terribly abusive, the counterbalance is that you can’t physically DO anything during that “time.” Burst Mode is great for when you need time to overly think a difficult situation or formulate a plan, but you won’t be able to learn anything, or research anything, or develop anything tangible, not to mention this power means nothing if you lack effective short-term memory.

So with the rewards being limited, so are the risks. No physical injuries are sustained in Accel World, and once you run out of Burst Points, you can’t think faster anymore. Awww, I guess they’ll just have to go back to the designer neuro-drugs that will surely exist by 2046. The idea of levels also seems absolutely contrived, since you basically have to 1-shot every other strongest player IN A ROW, just to “win” and meet the game creator. So in the end, yes it’s just a game, but it’s an anime game, so it’s melodramatic.

Now let’s talk about Haruyuki. This guy is more otaku than most of the anime industry cares to admit, and of all things, it exposes a weakness in the industry as a whole. Yes, he’s fat, and he’s short, and he’s awkward as hell, and he looks like an even-more-deformed chibi Simon. In fact, his character is so unusual that he doesn’t even share the same animation style with anything else in the show. It’s literally as if animators just cannot draw “fat.” Though that does raise an interesting question. Is a “boku wa” protagonist any less annoying with an attractive character design? The widespread belief is that main characters should never be fat because that would imply that viewers would aspire to emulate them (and apparently their character designs). However, I submit that one’s character is largely independent of their form (regardless of nature vs nurture arguments). As such, I doubt many people would mind a character with a non-idealized design, but the execution and animation has to be well-done and consistent. However, here Haruyuki’s stark animation difference is just too jarring, and until industry animators can figure out how to draw atypical characters, this will remain a rare oddity in an ever growing CG cell-based world.

Natsuiro Kiseki

If you liked what Sengoku Collection did to Japanese history, then you’ll love what Natsuiro Kiseki has done to the Asshole Row of CSM Anime Club. All of the tropes are there: Daniel, Chaeha, Chris, and Gene. Even I play a cameo as a fucking rock (this show is deep). Most of the shenanigans are character driven, but the rock obviously augments this to a far more entertaining level. I also love how the girls are more-or-less at the mercy of the whims of a boulder, yet they keep using it, and often to drive an otherwise angsty middle school story. You may not be able to squeeze blood from a rock, but you can apparently squeeze quite a few laughs out of a troll stone.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Setting aside the obvious questions that arise while watching Josei anime, Natsuyuki Rendezvous asks a truly rare question for the genre: what should the main love interest do when both choices are petty jerks? The answer is a bit surprising. The series also takes Josei’s trademark aspects of unrequited love to the utmost extreme: spouses who love one another long after “till death do us part.” This is where Ryosuke steps in. He deeply loves Rokka, and she’s technically single. Yet fate decides to troll Ryosuke by letting him see her dead husband, who has until now been completely amicable and pleasant. As soon as Ryosuke decides to claim Rokka for himself, however, Atsushi becomes a meddling ass. Ryosuke, who himself bears a thin, flexible membrane of a personality, is obliged to respond in kind. Throw in some shameless manipulation and Atushi’s oft-appearing older sister, and you have another 6-hour marathon of pure angst…and the weirdest 3-way you’ve ever seen.

Can’t wait to hear what you have to say about last week next week – wow, you’ve even more behind than I was when I started this job.

c0mpl3x1ty · September 21, 2012 at 2:12 pm

You would be the fucking rock.

Fuck that rock. Shadow-governing the anime club was one thing but had go for my day-to-day loli middle school adventures too.

c0mpl3x1ty · September 21, 2012 at 2:12 pm

@dante

You would be the fucking rock.

Fuck that rock. Shadow-governing the anime club was one thing but had go for my day-to-day loli middle school adventures too.