The Daily Grind

You know, in this day and age of epic stories and trashy harems, sometimes it’s easy to forget about the regular people.  These are the average Joe’s that have no special stories, but they are still entertaining enough to deserve our respect.  This review is for you, the everyman, and your daily life.

Recorder to Randoseru (Recorder and Randsell)

The series is mainly about the Miyagawa siblings: Atsushi—an elementary student whose build and appearance is the same as a typical adult man; and Atsumi—his sister and a high school girl whose appearance is like an elementary student.  They live everyday encountering misunderstandings and misadventures, mostly due to their ironic age/looks.

For whatever the reason, this season many studios were left with absurdly little budget for series.  As such, a wave of cheap 4-koma shows have arisen to try and fill the gap.  Unfortunately, Recorder and Randsell is merely the latest in a long line of experimental failures.  Aside from the usual problems with music and animation, Recorder suffers from sub-par storyline and timing.  The entire series revolves around exactly 2 jokes, and they become old almost as soon as they are delivered.

That’s an especially poor idea for something 13 episodes long.  So the producers try to minimize the viewer’s pain by making them 3 minutes each.  Well, while that may be enough time set up exactly one joke per week, it means that the joke is almost guaranteed to be shallow and forgettable.  The fat lady has permission to play her recorder.

Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki

Moe Sato is a young lady who finds a cat and starts taking care of him. Named Poyo due to his round shape, he quickly becomes a dear member of the Sato family.

Yup, more 4-koma adaptation.  It’s also 3 minutes long.  While the animation is made with actual crayon, and the music is utterly forgettable, the show is significantly less tired than Recorder (though that’s not saying much).  Although it is a show that lives and breathes on gags, they are usually clever and even witty at times.  This 4-koma is particularly interesting because not only is it directed by Akitarou Daichi (whose most notable work is Now and Then, Here and There), but because it somehow got seiyuu Ikue Ootani (aka Pikachu) to play Poyo.  Also, it’s produced by Studio DEEN (DEEEEEEN!).  If you have 3 minutes to kill and you don’t like YouTube, try it out.

Daily Lives of High School Boys

AKA Derpy Lives of High School Boys

AKA High School Lives of Derpy Girls

AKA The Touhou Bro Show

Tadakuni, Hidenori, and Yoshitake are students at the all-boys academy, Sanada North High School. This is the story about them, their classmates, their younger sisters, and other odd acquaintances.  Whether it’s sparking random arguments while hanging out with friends, meeting that one weird co-worker at a part-time job, or even letting imaginations run wild on a windy afternoon, we’ve all experienced the show’s ordinary but true-to-life themes at one point or another.

Whether or not you have personally acted stupid or been friends with those who acted stupid in their teenage years is utterly irrelevant.  You can easily picture regular teenagers having these sorts of mundane but decidedly weird interactions.  Produced as a collaboration between Sunrise and Square Enix (aka Gundam and Final Fantasy), Daily Lives of High School Boys seems like an extreme departure from the companies’ obvious strengths.  However, recent stories such as Code Geass and Sacred Seven show that Sunrise’s directors obviously know what is and isn’t funny.  When one considers how very far the characters in High School Boys go out of their way to even slightly advance the other’s agenda, it becomes pretty clear that Sunrise is up to the task.  In fact, the casual and credible silliness of it all is what makes the series so consistently entertaining.  Of course, what is absolutely essential are interesting stories and proper comedic timing, and Daily Lives is painfully good at both.  This is part of what makes the show rise up from the cesspool of the surrounding 4-koma series.

The artwork is typical of most slice-of-life series.  The animation is very simplistic, the backgrounds blend into one another, and everything has a light tint to it.  The show exudes the very feeling of Summer (despite being released in Spring).  The sound is where High School Boys truly shines.  Although the background music is simplistic, it often gives that slow and steady beat that helps keep the skits in line.  When special scenes like the festival fight or those with River Girl pop up, the music takes the forefront.  While said music is ultimately as forgettable as you’d expect from slice-of-life, it does amplify the feeling of the moment, which is the most you’d ever really want from such as series anyway.  Remember that part about Sunrise and Square Enix producing this series?  Well, between the two of them, they hold the majority of the best voice actors in the industry, and the series shows it.  You can’t find a bad voice-over if you tried.  When someone wants to sound caring, they do.  When they want to sound snarky or silly, they do.

These particular voice actors are important for the show’s numerous “simulation skits,” where the guys act out a dating sim, a live dub, or Dragon Quest (because Square Enix needs recognition, too).  Here, the voice acting is ridiculously over the top, just like you’d expect from a video game, and as such, many of the “characters’” are played by the exact same people.

Of course, the core of the show is the characters themselves.  They all have unique personalities, and their quirks and stupid actions all contribute to the overall entertainment of the show.  More than all that, though, they’re bros.  Bros have this intrinsic (often telepathic) connection that makes their seemingly random silliness absolutely justified, and it plays out to great comedic effect.  If anything, the show tries (and often succeeds) in creating gender stereotypes.  Guys all know how to read a mood and how to make each other look better to girls, while girls are all chaotic and selfishly bent on spreading misery while simultaneously pining for a meaningful relationship with boys (who could often not give a damn).  Since most times the punchlines rely completely on the characters, the humor is very character-driven on most scenes.  Something very good about this series is the fact that the main characters don’t monopolize every scene, and in fact it’s just the opposite.  They sometimes don’t even appear for 2 or 3 scenes.  In a 5-skit per episode series, that’s a pretty significant chunk of time to spend on just secondary characters, but then again, no one in this series is particularly special – they’re all just entertaining people.

By being absolutely realistic in its goals, characters, voice acting, and material, Daily Lives of High School Boys rises to the height of comedic prominence.  If you value slice-of-life comedy at all, you should definitely spend your free time watching this show.

Black Rock Shooter 5 – 6

Episode 5 begins once again in the Other World, as Black Rock Shooter begins her assault against the spooky Mook armies of Dead Master.  She begins to have an especially difficult time when the Mooks all combine forces into a giant two-headed monster.  In the distance, the Red being simply smirks and performs her famous disappearing act.

Yuu and Mato head to Yomi’s house to try finding out what’s wrong, but when they arrive, Yomi’s mother comes on the intercom and very promptly tells Mato to leave.  Yomi suddenly exits the house acting fine.  She notices Mato wearing her most recent bracelet, and Yomi gives Yuu one as well.  This time even Mato and Yuu can see the something is still very wrong with her, but then Yuu notices to her horror that the bracelet is partially woven with Yomi’s own hair.  During art period, Yomi decides to cut off more of her hair in the creepiest manner possible.  Meanwhile, Yomi’s mother actually takes the time to enter her own daughter’s room, and notices that she’s redecorated.

After Yomi’s mother takes her home early, everyone at school gossips about her, which makes Mato particularly edgy.  Then Kagari comes by with another trademark tactless comment, which earns her a slap across the face from Mato, who promptly storms out.  Meanwhile, Yuu confronts Saya, having suspected that she is the cause of Yomi’s collapse.  Saya cheerfully admits it and defends her actions.

While Yuu leaves the school with a determined look in her eyes, Mato takes some time to read more of her favorite children’s story, and it seems there’s a very interesting part that she’s been overlooking.  It turns out that the Little Bird of Many Colors eventually takes on so many colors that they all begin to blend, growing duller and darker, until finally the bird becomes completely black AND DIES.  In her sudden depression, Mato falls asleep and dreams of the Other World, where the fight between Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master is coming to a head.  Mato fears for the girls’ lives and suddenly awakens.  She stares at her book’s twisted ending and begins to frantically write across the pages, refusing to accept that somehow BOTH her and Yomi could be obsessed about the same story and yet both not know the ending.

Later that day, Mato notices that Yomi isn’t at school.  While passing through the halls, Saya invites Mato to talk over some black TEA.  Saya actually hates coffee, but she offers it to everyone because it doesn’t take a lot of care to make, which makes it an obvious choice (given her personality and job performance).  She asks Mato if she wants to save Yomi.  When Mato replies that she does, Saya implies that the source of Yomi’s suffering is Mato herself.  So logically, Mato should simply die.  Saya proceeds to strangle her on the couch, but stops suddenly, playing it off as a joke.

Mato flees the scene immediately, and Saya shouts after her to try looking in the art room.  There, she sees the painting Yomi had been working on, and it’s become as brutal as ever.  Mato finally realizes that she’s the one who has broken Yomi.

During practice, Mato reflects on what a terribly neglectful person she is, only to neglect the basketball hurtling toward her face.  The ball just barely grazes her, but she should still be checked out.  Mato notices that Yuu isn’t there, so she asks what happened to her.  Yet no one, not even Kohata, seems to remember Yuu’s existence at all.  This upsets Mato more than anything else, and she runs frantically towards Yuu’s house, haunted by the fact she can no longer remember what Yuu looks like.  When she reaches Yuu’s house, it turns out to be a walkway overlooking a riverbank.  Suddenly, Yuu appears next to her, explaining that the Other World and the fights therein are real.  She also tells Mato that if a person’s counterpart dies, they are freed of their grief.  As such, if Dead Master is killed, then Yomi will no longer suffer because of Mato.  Of course, Mato finds this method to happiness to be utter bullshit, instead opting for the more orthodox path, i.e. resolving your differences.  Yuu ironically feels the same way, so she offers to help her save Yomi’s counterpart.  Yuu walks up to her, they touch foreheads, and Mato’s body goes ragdoll.  Her spirit, meanwhile, floats in a blue limbo while Yuu gives Mato one final warning about entering the Other World.  Mato accepts, and conveniently enough, she appears in the body of Black Rock Shooter just after she has stabbed Dead Master through the heart.  One blood-curdling scream later, and Dead Master’s realm violently disintegrates.  Meanwhile, Mato’s lifeless body starts weeping uncontrollably, while Yuu apologizes for showing her that this was the only way.  Yet in the Other World, the death of Dead Master causes her killer to become highly unstable.

Episode 6 begins inside the body of Black Rock Shooter, where Mato has a mental breakdown after having inadvertently killed Yomi’s counterpart.  This causes her own double to violently react, as the red being witnesses her transform into Insane Black Rock Shooter.  As their fight begins, Mato is driven unconscious by her immense pain, while the 5th being silently drags away Dead Master’s corpse.

That night, Yomi wakes up at her dresser mirror to discover that she’s lost a lot of hair.  Still on the riverbank, Yuu tries to wake up Mato, but to no avail.  Having nowhere else to turn (since no one remembers that she even exists), Yuu heads to Saya’s apartment.  This earns her a prompt slap in the face from Saya, who is furious that Yuu has tried to undermine her valuable work.  Placing extraordinary mental stress on people apparently causes their counterparts to lose what little humanity they had, thus awakening their true power.  As such, Yomi had to receive copious amounts of trolling and an IV of black coffee.  However, awakening Black Rock Shooter is especially dangerous, since she’s obviously powerful enough to kill everyone in the Other World.  Yuu can’t stand to see everyone in such pain, so like everyone else in this show, she tried using Black Rock Shooter as a means to stab the pain away.  Saya decides that it’s far easier to kill one person than everyone, so she reaches out to strangle an already lifeless Mato.

In the Other World, the fight intensifies as Mato and Saya’s counterparts change the stage to Saya’s realm.  However, not even Saya has the nerve to snatch the life from a comatose girl, so she instead tries to reach Mato (and restrain Insane Black Rock Shooter) in order to stop the fight.

In an ill-timed flashback, Saya recalls meeting, of all people, Yuu in middle school.  Yuu had just randomly walked out of school while drenched in her school swimsuit, so Saya demanded that Yuu come to her house.  It turns out that Yuu has had a pretty rough life, being constantly harassed at school and having to live with her derelict parents in a garbage dump of a house.  Yet little Yuu has endured it all with stoic silence.  When Saya praises her for being so strong, Yuu shrugs it off and responds that another girl emerges to assume that pain for her, and since all she’s ever known is pain, she doesn’t really feel much at all.  Upon hearing this, Saya internally vows to become Yuu’s friend, wherever that may lead.  Later that night, Saya hears that Yuu’s house caught on fire.  After running out to try and find Yuu, Saya sees Yuu standing right in front of the burning building.  Given all the pain that Yuu suffered at the hands of her parents, Saya came to the conclusion that Yuu had set the fire as revenge.  Just before Yuu is dragged off to the hospital, she says with a pained smile, “You think I did this, don’t you?”  As it turns out, the fire was started by an errant cigarette lit by Yuu’s stepfather, and Saya is devastated that she assumed the worst from her friend.

Saya could never forget that look on Yuu’s face, and she wants to make it up to her.  Suddenly, she spots Yuu sitting at the nearby riverfront and runs after her.  Saya pleads for forgiveness, saying that she’ll do anything for Yuu.  So Yuu replies that she wants Saya to always protect her.  With that, they touch foreheads, and Yuu demands that Saya call out her counterpart’s name: Black Gold Saw.

As soon as Saya’s origin story ends, Insane Black Rock Shooter breaks free and immediately tries to stab Black Gold Saw in the throat.  However, the 5th being steps in and saves her.  Immediately, they are all transported to the 5th being’s world: a multi-dimensional Rubik’s cube enclosed in a giant spiral of jagged spikes.  With Black Gold Saw unconscious, the two remaining fighters get ready to face off.

Meanwhile, Saya’s consciousness has returned to the Real World, yet she cannot understand why the girl in the Other World protected her.  Yuu then embraces Saya, saying that the other girl has forgiven her.  Yuu then apologizes to Saya and to Mato, who is also grappling with the reality that she has been subconsciously dumping her troubles onto Black Rock Shooter.  Since the purpose of Mato’s counterpart is to take away Mato’s suffering, which is generated because of the suffering of those around her, Black Rock Shooter has no choice but to relieve everyone else’s pain by killing their counterparts.  However, Mato realizes that this is wrong.

Later that morning, Yomi cheerfully returns to school, having no recollection of what has transpired.  Kagari notes that something may be wrong because Yomi seems so thoroughly happy, even though she is absolutely alone.  The episode closes as Yomi pulls out her phone and deletes any and all record of her friend Mato Kuroi.

The third act of Black Rock Shooter answers almost all of your burning questions, including “When are Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master going to fight?” and “Why should we care about Yuu?”  While the fallout with Yomi was all but expected, it has become surprisingly clear that Yuu is the center of this entire story.  Besides the Other World being real (which would have made for a pretty weak extended metaphor otherwise), the 2nd big surprise is that Saya believes she’s a good guy.  For someone who has gone so so very far out of her way to bring misery to those she is supposed to be helping, her “tough love” defense seems really strange, especially considering that if the counterparts die in the process, then the girls in the real world have only themselves to rely on when additional hardships strike.  Of course, the bigger question is, if Yuu and Saya were friends years ago, then how has Yuu “grown up” with Mato?

All that aside, Mato’s role has been sidelined for both episodes, and that’s only fair, considering that the audience has sorely needed some reason to care about Yuu and Psycho Saya.  However, some glaring aspects of this show simply don’t sit well.  Firstly, Saya’s demeanor has become borderline homicidal, in school, in broad daylight.  Why has NO ONE said a single thing about this to any sort of outside authority?  Is it she’s just that good of a bully that everyone simply fears for their lives if they tell anyone?  If so, why do they keep coming back to see her?  Nothing about this situation seems plausible in any sensible fashion, so this should all just be explained away by inferring that Saya’s patients are all too self-centered to reflect upon their counselor’s obviously warped mentality.  Then there’s that book.  For all of the cute and pleasant imagery and obsession both Mato and Yomi have concerning this single story, neither one of them, including Yomi with her 1st edition, ever bothered to read the last 2 pages of a 12-page book.  This isn’t just some once-off ending where MC-kun flies off into the rainbow sunset, the bird suffers terminal color-overload and dies a horrible and painful death at the bottom of the pitch-black abyss.  Is the viewer just supposed to believe that Mato and Yomi have always been so messed up that they simply repressed one sixth of the book and still loved it?

The only other positive part to note about this act is that the vast majority of the animation budget was spent on these two episodes.  The action is intense, and the fights are nothing if not epic in scope.  The fight with Dead Master has, by far, the best visuals of the entire series.

Since there’s not much left to explain in this story, the final act will likely form some sort of conclusion.

Join me next time, as I review the thrilling conclusion to Black Rock Shooter, as well as detail why Jack is a bastard.