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No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys' Fault I’m Not
Popular! (Watamote)
This is one
of the rare times that the short Japanese version is preferable, but that is
only because the title's length is supposed to be a joke. This is one of those rare comedy anime in
which most of the humor works even on American audiences because it is mostly
about the extreme awkwardness of the main protagonist, a teenage girl who gets
all of her ideas about social interaction from dating (porn) video games she
plays. It successfully juxtaposes her
dark antisocial personality, the sadness of that, and the fact that what she
wants (friends and a boyfriend specifically) are totally at odds with how she
sees the world (referring to socializing people as "sluts" and
envisions them having orgies at karaoke clubs, though nothing explicit is shown
the implication is that a girl is masturbating with a microphone).
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| Since her normal appearance is just like any other sulky anime character design, they often go out of the way to super detail animate her when she tries to make herself look pretty or ugly, either way she ends up looking awful. |
Complaints:
a lot of people were laughing really hard at different parts that I didn't find
funny, I found them pathetic and sad.
Being unable to talk to people and then begging a sibling for help to
form some kind of social interaction is not funny, it is sad. Her brother then lamenting having to help her
deal with this (just through the simple act of listening) is also sad, if your
sibling talks about suicide and then begs you to help them find a voice to talk
to people you shouldn't then try to ignore them, that isn't a joke, that is not
a punch line. If anything that should be
a turning point in the show.
In sum: a
funny dark comedy about an unlikable protagonist that approaches moments of
being a little too mean spirited for my taste, but then brings it back a
bit. Could stand to have a little more
heart in my opinion. This was also voted
a keeper.
I swear to
god this show has the best opening teaser I have seen in a long time (that links to the whole first episode), a woman
with a camera takes pictures of political intrigue, as she walks away to
document the evidence she is run down by a car, the driver then destroys the
memory card to the camera and drives off leaving her to die in the rain. That is gangbuster television. It then cuts to an anime opening about a
school club based around trying out various candy and snack food and the wacky
shenanigans the club members get up to.
I swear to god it is like they spliced five minutes of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" into the opening of "Bring it On". There are also moments of politics and big
pretentious speeches about school financing that have too much overture and
take the series from goofy fun to grim serious in a half second.
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| Okay, this show has 7 female characters and made the color coded hair thing work. |
Complaints:
the tone of this show is totally fucked and completely jarring. The scenes of humor start off as relatable
and fun, real friends interacting with one another, like an episode of
"Boy Meets World", then it gets odd with more and more surreal humor
like a guy with a propeller sprouting out of his head just spinning for no
reason, and a guy with a mask that no one but the main character notices
(Metaphor?). The political intrigue
stuff is from another show and is stupidly framed around student council
politics (Commentary?) and just seems out of place next to the stupid goofy
comedy.
In sum: I
actually was willing to give this strange blending of genres another go but it
was voted down. Maybe the political
intrigue would make the comedy parts less zany, and the comedy would make the
politics less pretentious, I don't know, and I guess it doesn't matter.
This show
is competently drawn boredom centering around little girls growing up. There are four characters, the retard, the
retard's stalker, the butt monkey, and the one in glasses.
Even More Complaints: This show is shit and I can explain why. When you have a show that centers on Magic,
Aliens invading, or other non-normal things you typically like to set the stage
by having the normalcy of the main characters lives played up, each has some
simple characteristics and backstory that people can easily grasp so that when
the odd stuff shows up they will not get hung up on characters they can't
connect with. It is like how
"Sailor Moon" and "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" had very
typical teenagers as their protagonists but each had their own role in the
team. "A Channel!" has no
supernatural element, it is just boring easy to identify teen clichés. It is padded to all hell and there is no plot
to notice. Maybe it is supposed to be
funny, but it is mostly just NOTHING.
In sum: I
don't want to watch it, and neither did anyone else, it had the fewest votes
for continued watching.
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| Does anybody know what the hell we are even doing here? |
Free! (Iwatobi Swim Club)
This show
kind of confounds me. It is a fanservice show. It is about a group of
childhood friends (all guys) who grew apart when one moved away. They are all swimmers and the show seems to
have them get dressed only so they can disrobe to bathing suits dramatically
and often. Lots of abdominals, lots of
ass and crotch shots. The whole thing
seems to have been created backwards, a 30 second commercial for the show was
created by an upstart animation team to showcase their talent, the commercial
for a show that doesn't exist went viral, a lot of fan-fiction was written, and
to capitalize on a market that they created the team then made a series.
Complaints:
the characters are kind of boring. They
are a boy band: the cute one, the loner, the jerk, and the big softy. I am not a fan of fan service, I kind of grew
away from sexualizing cartoons and have a hard time getting into boobs that are
drawn. Now I have a show that is showing
off illustrated male bodies, so before I was 'meh' now I am at whatever level
of caring that is below 'meh'. My
biggest complaint will sound insane though: it was not voted to be a regular.
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| There is a shocking amount of pornography related to this show... Maybe not that shocking. |
There were
more women at the JACT meeting last night than I have ever seen at a meeting,
and much like a ladies night out to see "Magic Mike" they were
hooting and woo-ing at "Free!"
They came to watch "Free!"
Since it isn't a regular, not a lot of them will come back, so the club
will revert to a much more mono-gender setting and that is bad. I don't necessarily want to hit on all 20-40
women there, that is lecherous even for me, but I like having people to talk
with about what we all are watching that are not the same people every week and
not all of them should be the same gender.
Instead the club just didn't vote for it, and I imagine more than a few
of them looked at the show as "gay" and wrote it off for that
reason. Now I will admit, the show isn't
good, but I like the idea of another group coming to JACT for the show they
want to watch and then getting some other stuff with it. Broadening the appeal without necessarily
deluding the content.
In sum: it
is fine, I am not who it is aimed at and there is a place for this type of
show.
If you are a fan of Anime and are inexplicably still reading this I recommend JesuOtaku as an anime reviewer over on her own site and ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.
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