#BUT...i will say.....i hated the isekai aspects it was so lame

[mahoutenshiko]

Between 2022’s Super Robotnik and the narrative return of Super Sonic in the mainline games; to 2023’s Super/Hyper Amy in Origins/Superstars, Super Sonic 2 and now another Super Eggman in Isekai Ogiri, I can’t help but feel that transformations are becoming a theme as of recently. To me, this is a good enough excuse to complain, to take something out of my chest. I've been thinking for a long while now: Super Sonic is a boring and lame transformation that makes me drowsy just thinking about it.

Okay, let me address a very important aspect of Super Sonic: It’s a copy of Super Saiyan, we all know that. I have no problem with it… in theory. Nothing is fully original, and with so many stories out there, yours is always going to have something that’s similar to something else that already exists. Taking inspiration is actually a really good way to avoid making your story too similar to something else, since you can consciously take inspiration from things you already know, and then put your own spin on it.

The problem with Super Sonic is that… They just didn't do that? Super forms aren’t an exact copy of Super Saiyan, don’t get me wrong, but outside of one needing magical artifacts to be activated, I can’t really think of any substantial difference between the two that doesn’t boils down to “Super Sonic is Super Saiyan, but without anything that makes Super Saiyan works”.

If I had to summarize Super Saiyan to a non-Dragon Ball fan, I’d say that this transformation represents Son Goku’s worthiness as a martial artist and the reason why he’s a better fighter than even a genius like Vegeta. This can be seen from the debut of the form, with Vegeta assuming that he, as the violent and battle-hungry Prince of the Saiyans, was the one and only Legendary Super Saiyan, only to be proven wrong when Goku’s pure heart was awakened by the rage of seeing his best friend murdered; all the way to the end of the series.

Halfway through the Cell arc, Goku and Vegeta both reach the same conclusion: They need to go beyond Super Saiyan!

Once again, this is used to prove Goku as the better fighter. While Vegeta reaches a new transformation that gives him tremendous power at the cost of a huge waste of Ki, Goku, after achieving the form himself, chooses to get used to the Super Saiyan he already has instead. The story is using the concept of transforming to highlight the differences these two characters have as martial artists.

You can say whatever you want about the increasing number of characters who can transform, but I argue that the series still works because there's usually a story that necessitates these, even if the number ends up becoming excessive in retrospect.

As for Super Sonic… well… I can’t think of anything that actually requires a transformation in this series. Thematically speaking, Super Sonic is completely useless, and has nothing working on its side other than style, the transformation simply lacks substance.

Don’t get me wrong, they have tried to do something substantial with Super Sonic before. Adventure 1’s ideas of breaking cycles of hate with positive feelings was the best attempt so far, but even that didn’t work that well in my opinion, I’d argue that Super Sonic actually makes the ending of Adventure 1 worse, raising the stakes higher for an epic battle, while also contradictory telling us “Violence is bad, don’t be violent guys!”.

Maybe I’ll make a dedicated post for other transformations, but for now, I’ll briefly mention the others while I’m here:

Hyper Sonic/Super Sonic 2: They’re essentially the same thing, and the latter wouldn’t even exist if the former was allowed to return, so I’ll just lump them together. They suck balls! Hyper worked for the story progression of Sonic 3, because it allowed the second half of the game to not feel too bland compared to the first half, but other than that, I have nothing to talk about these losers.

Werehog/Darkspine: I like these two equally, so I’ll talk about them together. They are just really interesting and have a lot of potential to explore Sonic’s character, even if the games they appeared in didn’t take full advantage of them

Excalibur Sonic: Okay, this one is actually good. Caliburn becoming Excalibur is a natural conclusion for Sonic’s demonstrations of character throughout the game, with him being the real King Arthur and stuff, it’s also a smart reference to how the name “Excalibur” is actually a corrupted spelling of “Caliburn”. It all fits pretty nicely

Oh, also, I actually like Super Eggman from the Ogiri because of how ridiculous the idea is, but I do think it says a lot that one of the best uses of Super in the entire series is a parody of it

[bmpmp3]

ikemen sengoku might be an isekai. it might not be by modern definitions, but it could be if you go by 80s and 90s historical shoujo manga tropes being grandfathered into the genre. it could be an isekai.

princess debut is absolutely an isekai.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2019 Part 4: That’s all, folks.

Over already? This is a pretty thin season with not a lot of shows, so it’s not that surprising that there’s not many good ones either. Still, a weak showing. Oh well, let’s get it over with. There were a few decent ones in the last batch.

Circlet Princess

What: Dimwitted schoolgirl is good at some vaguely defined virtual fighting sport, changes school based on it, finds out relevant club has been abolished. Forecast says: 5 member plot incoming.

❌ I think it’s already clear this show isn’t very ambitious, and not very well written either. A game adaptation at its laziest.

❌❌ Man, this girl is STUPID. What the hell.

❌ The rest of the cast are less stupid (which isn’t hard), but that just means they’re so forgettable they might as well not exist.

❌❌ It looks cheap, and by that I mean really really cheap. The character design is ISO standard anime and it’s mostly on model, but that’s as good as it gets. The animation just sucks. That’s a death sentence for an action/sports show with terrible characters.

Bermuda Triangle - Colorful Pastrale

What: Japanese Spongebob, as in cute mermaids. Doing things optional.

❌ To make this quick, this is almost exactly Pastel Memories, only every problem is just a little less extreme. It has fewer characters, it’s looking slightly better, there’s a tiny bit more going on, the setting is mildly more interesting. That still means it is:

❌❌ 1. A boring mess in which a handful of samey girls do nothing of much interest in a location that should be unique, but isn’t.

❌❌ 2. Conspicuously cheap. It even has the same sightline problems.

❌❌ 3. Featuring a character model sheet that is “off” even under the best circumstances. This time due to the very offputting decision to give everyone blobby triangular irises.

❌❌ Unlike Pastel Memories (which was an ad for a mobile game) this is an anime original, so it really has no excuse being this lame.

♎ I find it amusing that Pastel Palettes are providing the OP for an anime, and it’s not the one currently airing that they’re actually characters in.

Endro~!

What: Kiraralike comedy thing in a generic JRPG setting.

♎ Namori character designs, so it’s like Spyce in that it just seems like the Yuru Yuri cast cosplaying a genre. But hey, Namori character designs do look good.

❌ I’m not as done with generic JRPG settings as with generic isekai settings, but it’s still a real problem since the former is now a subset of the latter. Mildly making fun of it does not improve things much either.

✅ The tone is cutesy and pleasant. I find this much preferable to something like Mahoujin Guru Guru, which is pretty much the same thing but with abrasive, high-intensity slapstick instead.

✅ It’s backing that up with generally high-quality, agreeable pastel looks.

❌ Not being annoying is a start, but beyond that this seems very middle of the road and predictable. I don’t get much out of the genre “parody” and simply being cute is still not an unique selling point in anime.

Grimms Notes The Animation

What: Did someone say JRPG? This is a mobile one, vaguely based on fairy tales as the title implies.

✅ This universe runs on the idea that every NPC’s fate is controlled by a preset story they’re aware of. You could make a good story about that if you took it seriously. It even does that somewhat, but only to the degree that you’d expect from a throwaway sidequest in a moderately well-written JRPG.

❌ And the reason for that is that it has to make room for being a JRPG, of course. Read: It’s irritatingly mechanics- and combat-focused. Stuff like the characters changing form when in fights just seems overly complicated and adds nothing.

❌ Said combat looks competent, but not good enough to make up for detracting from what could have been an interesting setting. Merc Storia did this aspect far better (by usually not doing it at all).

❌ So it ends up being better than expected, but then that only amounts to a disappointment.

Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai / Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

What: Kaguya and Miyuki are in the student council of a prestigious school and HATE HATE HATE each other. Specifically, they hate the part where the other one won’t just finally admit their love.

✅ The joke here is that it’s operating on full intensity at all times, over the most simple matters. It’s pretty much Kaiji, only about dating - complete with hammy narrator. This is another one of those shows where I can’t say with certainty that it’s solid, but I had a blast during the first episode.

✅ Regarding Quintuplets, I made it clear that I love me some sparks in my romantic comedies. It doesn’t get much more explosive than this.

✅ The characters are comparable to Quints too: Smart scheming upstart vs. rich scheming ojou, with a simpleminded girl in the middle that ends up winning more often than not simply by not overdoing it.

✅ The visuals are just as over the top as the proceedings depicted. Occasionally a filter massacre, but mostly cool.

♎ The long-term viability of this show depend entirely on whether they can consistently come up with scenarios that work, which isn’t a given. Also, this is so intense it might become tiresome - I already felt some fatigue towards the end of the first episode. We’ll see, I guess.

Kakegurui ××

What: Some weirdos think they can crash the party at Hyakkaou with an intent to scare the daylights out of Yumeko and Midari, of all people. Let’s just say they were not as prepared as they thought.

✅ As you might have guessed by me watching the sequel, I liked Kakegurui. It has its problems, but if you’re down for some crazypants madness, this show delivers.

✅ This is one of the better episodes of it too, because it gets right into it and the game they play is dead simple. Kakegurui was never about smart moves or strong characters, so not having anything detract from our girls deriving the entirely wrong sort of pleasure from danger is a plus.

♎ Sadly, the OP is a step down (though still great) and the ED is simply an inferior, overcomplicated version of the magnificent original one. They seem to know this too, because they play the OP cut of Deal with the Devil in its entirety for a montage. The rest of the production is on par with the original though, so it’s fiiiine. Oh well.

❌ It got Netflix’d again and the subs situation is dire. Since this is one I actually like, I might have to wait for the official release.

Kouya no Kotobuki Hikoutai / The Magnificent Kotobuki

What: Piston-engined fighter plane pornography.

✅ This delivers where Girly Air Force failed: Close to zero exposition, the majority of the episode is just planes dogfighting with barely any talking either. And that part is executed really well. I think the plane startup sequence alone is as long as the total of Girly’s airtime.

✅ Guess what, it’s Tsutomu Mizushima, previously known for unbridled panzer (und girls) pornography, and boy can you tell. However, this cuts out a lot of GuP’s bullshit: A plane doesn’t have the cast of K-ON in it, it’s not over-the-top zany, and whatever this universe is, it can’t be as insipid as GuP’s. The classy milwank exists you guys, we found it.

✅✅ The music really helps here, sky pirates vs zeppelins just wouldn’t work without some classic swashbuckling orchestra background. Fat sound mixing on the dakka too. It’s great.

♎ Can’t really say much about the narrative because we kinda skipped that in this episode aside from the obvious, but Mizushima’s Shirobako collaborator Michiko Yokote is writing it, and that’s a good sign.

❌ Now we’re getting to the elephant in the room though: There’s no way the planes wouldn’t be CG in 2019, but the characters are CG too, and their animation is mediocre. Also, they did the KADO thing where they 2D-animated the side characters that aren’t important enough to model. This has the funny side effect that you can tell who’s going to die real soon by them looking better. It’s far from great, but probably a worthy tradeoff if the mechanical side is this extensive and also delivers.

✅ This is definitely not for everyone, since you have to have more than a casual appreciation for those magnificent girls in their flying machines. I do, though.

revisions

What: A chunk of Shibuya gets teleported to the dystopian future, local doomsday prepper gets handed a large robot because he’s special.

❌ A Goro Taniguchi joint being a poorly conceived scifi mess? Say it ain’t so! I especially dig the tryhard English jargon (mecha: “String Puppet”, monsters faction: “Revisions”, particular monster, I think?: “Civilian”, tacticool operetah: “Balancer”).

❌ Works very hard to characterize the main character, to the detriment of everyone else. A for effort, but you made an unlikeable asshole though.

❌ This is another full CG show, with the quality of the animation being curiously variable. Sometimes it’s well above average and sometimes it’s painful. There doesn’t seem to be much method to it.

✅ Tries to establish stakes by being mondo edgy and graphically murderizing some poor bystanders. It’s adorable.

❌ If you’re really jonesing for some mecha, you can watch all of this on Netflix right now. It’s not like you have any alte- wait, Egao no Daika has mecha too. Well there you go then. That’s a better show.