All sorts of strange things happened IRL for me in the previous week, and so this post will be covering anime from last week as well. The first thing on my mind is something that has bothered me, and it is rather polarizing.
I have decided to drop Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight, and here is why:
There are some anime shows that I begin to watch that end up making me so livid inside. It’s an inexplicable rage that I find hard to even describe, so I don’t blame you for thinking this is all much ado about nothing. I had this same feeling when I started watching Flip Flappers. I love magical girl shows, and I love yuri shows, and I love magical girl shows with yuri in them even more. So why did Flip Flappers annoy me so much? Maybe it was a mixture of the character design, script and animation direction that threw me off. I know that many people praise the show for the characteristics mentioned, but there was just something about Flip Flappers that I couldn’t find enjoyable in any way and watching the first couple of episodes of Revue Starlight has made me feel the same way and made me think back to that show I disliked so much (and yet did not have a tangible answer why).
I am unable to connect with any of the characters. Karen is just a simple-minded airhead that really doesn’t give off any real spark, despite the focus being on her. Hikari is just so cold and emotionless, and in a show about theatrics and competing to be the center of the stage, she gives off no real air of passion. Junna is the person I dislike the least, however. I admire her passion for theater, and her determination to be ‘Top Girl’ regardless of the cost. It’s a passion that I don’t see in any of the other characters (both main and secondary), and it’s also a passion I would have thought any music/theater academy student would have, but this just feels like any other high school…just with a secret basement with flashy sets, a big machine making costumes, and a talking giraffe. So out of everyone in the show, Junna is the one who I believe deserves the title the most. This competition to be ‘Top Girl’ in this theater fight club that no one is allowed to talk about is a novel idea, but I just can’t find enjoyment in its execution. What has also annoyed me is how this show has been subbed. HIDIVE have not done a great job here, with translated song lyrics overlapping conversation among several other little errors.
I know that Revue Starlight is the kind of show that will end up having a loyal fanbase, with both Twitter and Tumblr going insane over it every week, just as they did when Flip Flappers came out, and I totally respect that. It’s just that…I had high hopes for this show, and to see these hopes of mine crushed like this is very disheartening. I really ought to think harder when I choose shows…but then again, don’t I say that for like every season?
I also know that, if I stick with the show despite disliking it, I’ll end up saying some things I’ll regret, like I probably did when I did that op-ed on Darling in the Franxx back in February, which made more than a few Darlifra stans upset (why I am still not completely sure).
In the end, 4 shows are now 3. Bets are on for which show I’ll drop next…haha, not happening, as I love the other three shows I’m watching for this season (as well as Serial Experiments Lain). This is actually a rare thing to happen, and so I might as well enjoy it while I still have this feeling.
Harukana Receive is a show I am still loving a lot due to its enjoyable plot. This kind of simple show is the kind of thing I really need, as I know I look too deeply into shows (see above) and I now understand why Anichart.net would list this as an ecchi show:
Episode 3 introduces Claire and Emily Thomas, twin sisters who moved to Okinawa from the West. They have a good history with Kanata, and are a part of the school’s beach volleyball club. While Claire is more hyper and reckless, Emily is more earnest and reserved. Emily becomes concerned in practice that, even though she’s happy to see Kanata coming back to the game, she isn’t playing like she used to. Noticing this, Haruka encourages her to do a classic beach volleyball technique: the pokey (better explained here).
We also learn more about Kanata’s history with Narumi in episode 3, and how they used to be partners and very close friends when they were younger. I think Harukana Receive is the kind of show that won’t have anyone that one could call an antagonist; not even anyone that you could categorize as a bad person in the show. Narumi has grown colder than when she was younger, but we see that she has become remorseful on how she has treated Kanata in recent times, while Ayasa is just someone who desperately wants to protect her current volleyball partner/probable girlfriend. I already said that the yuri is starting to grow strong in this show; not so much of that this week, but I’m sure it’ll be something that will become more evident in future episodes. As for the aforementioned ecchi…well…twin sisters slapping each other on the behind and more close-up bikini shots than the past two episodes combined might just answer that question.
The more we watch Kanata struggle to do the things she used to do as a younger girl, the more we want her cousin and the people around her to egg her on. Episode 4 has more innocent sweetness, as we learn that Kanata is still acting rather cold towards her cousin, which the others notice straightaway. While we learn a little more about beach volleyball strategies and tactics players make, attempts to get the two cousins to connect better range from getting matching swimsuits (the process of which is actually rather amusing), to Haruka receiving secret training on her own by Claire.
Comparing this show’s simplicity (and its increasing number of ecchi moments) with how I have been…not enjoying Revue Starlight is very easy. Harukana Receive is the kind of no-nonsense show with an enjoyable plot and lovable characters that we need in the summer months. I know some anime fans like to get absorbed in their franchises (so many of them have new seasons airing this season, or are halfway through). Considering that so many of us have been having some truly unbearable weather this July, we need a show like Harukana Receive to just switch off and unwind…and I thought us Brits were complaining about our own heatwave; I feel terrible about what Japan has been going through in this last week.
Hinamatsuri gave us a lot of hilarious reaction faces, but this summer’s Asobi Asobase might just beat them at their own game.
Episode 3 introduces the English teacher, who is ultimately blackmailed by the girls into being their supervisor when they learn she is single and is tricked into making a unflattering photo as her new Twitter profile picture. Later, the Pastimes Club learn that the Shogi Club actually got permission to use their room; turns out that Kasumi forgot to submit their application form.
Meanwhile this week’s episode has…umm…welp…creepy butlers who are capable of shooting lasers from their behinds, Harry Potter BL doujinshi, and the proclaimed Lord of Pastimes, who turns out to be a ganguro gal from a nearby well-to-do school. I swear this show is actually getting better by the episode, and does the same thing that Harukana Receive does: make me switch off of life and not be weighed down by some complex story.
I know I found it very hard to connect with Hinamatsuri, and I sometimes wonder if I’m some kind of hypocrite or something, since while I couldn’t find much in the reaction faces there, I find a lot to laugh at here in Asobi Asobase. Is it because of the show’s unpredictability and absurdness? I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that. Hell, it could very well be down to the fact that I enjoy the character design far more than in Hinamatsuri. That show tried to build some story, espcially when it came to Anzu and her story of becoming homeless and finding a new home and family, or Hitomi’s struggles at saying ‘no’ to people. Here in Asobi Asobase, it is all short gags and no real story. Maybe that’s my draw to the show: that it has nothing in the way to hold it back, and can do whatever it wants without little consequences. I guess that’s why it’s become so popular.
Oh, but it truly does have one of the best ED themes this year. As someone who enjoys the ‘djent’ genre of metal, this works for me:
Onto that other sports show: Hanebado!
Episode 4 shows Ayano trying to see the idea of being a part of a team in a good light; it seems that, in all this time of her playing the game before, she has gone solo. When the team head out to a training camp, they encounter another school team training there, who is far larger and more organized. Also in the team is a mysterious Danish girl named Connie, who is later revealed to be the girl in the photo that sends Ayano into PTSD. Episodes 4 and 5 sees her decide to play against Ayano and Riko, with Connie pushing her own doubles partner aside, believing she can take on the entire badminton world all by herself. While she manages to win, Connie ends up limping away with an injury and Ayano trying to find excuses on why she lost, showing that she is still trying to find a way to be a little angel to her mother.
This show seems to have some underlying message of “do what you love because you love it, not for anyone else”. Nagisa has gone through this when she lost to Ayano all that time ago and had to beat her slump in past episodes, taking out her frustrations on the people around her. Ayano is going through this now; she seems to have rediscovered her love for badminton, but still cannot find herself. By the end of episode 5, we see a lot of things happening: not only has the anime adaptation decided to turn the more jovial manga into something much darker and more psychological, but when Ayano’s mother does eventually make her appearance in the show, Anitwitter will go absolutely insane. More insane than they already have so far.
While I am enjoying it, I am concerned that the studio have added this drama for no real reason. Hanebado! has been like the total opposite of Harukana Receive so far; while the saccharine sort-of ecchi beach volleyball show is very simple and entertaining, this psychological badminton drama is deep, meaningful and also unnecessarily dark, giving us many theories on what really happened to Ayano when she was younger, and why her relationship with her mother and badminton is so fractured…and why so many people seem so eager to bully her over it. Connie’s introduction in the manga, for example, presents her as a much more amiable and approachable person, who is willing to befriend Ayano when training camp is over, but in the anime she comes across as an antagonist with a serious vendetta, and just as much a horrible person as Ayano’s mother. This has become another show by this studio that has really surprised me, in a pleasant way (the other being last year’s Love & Lies).
I have been able to catch up with Serial Experiments Lain as well. Episode 3 is the sort-of aftermath of Lain and co’s trip to the Cyberia nightclub. When she is taken home by a police officer, Lain discovers the house totally empty, as if no-one had ever lived there. The next day at school, she finds a computer chip in her shoe locker. After some digging around, she discovers that it is a Psyche chip, which can enable almost unlimited access to the Wired. Episode 4 begins to talk more about the fine line between the Wired and the real world, as the online action game PHANTOMa becomes more popular and in turn, more high-school students end up committing suicide. At this point, we assume that Lain has managed to install the Psyche chip into her Navi, which is increasing in size at an alarming rate, since she has no problem in finding out about the game and getting a copy of it herself.
It emerges that the suicides are a result of the PHANTOMa game being glitched with a tag game for kindergartners, in which little girls scare players to death. And not just this either; Lain learns that this glitch may have been the work of an elusive hacking group calling themselves the Knights of the Eastern Calculus.
Although I am familiar with the characters and sort of know how the show ends, remember that this is my first time actually watching this in full. So far, I am really liking the surreal atmosphere in this show, and how plot points are given subtly, and not thrust in your face. While I applaud the weird artwork that frequents the show, its use of sound (both music and silence) is something I also find interesting, as it sets the uneasy tone in the show. At this point, we have no idea on who the real Lain is, and something tells me that we won’t until right at the end.
Sadly, as I was finishing episode 4, I had this awful vision in my head…that some American studio might actually want to do a live-action remake of this. And not like The Matrix or anything…with all the matching characters, plot and ending. Just like Netflix went and did a live-action version of Death Note, and look how that went down with the fans…
As I end this very long catch-up post, I leave with one thing: I tried with Revue Starlight. But that same annoyance I got from watching Flip Flappers came back. You are more than welcome to reply and tell me I’m being an idiot…
In the meantime, are you among those who are enjoying Revue Starlight? Did I miss something from it? Do you think I’m being too dramatic in my reasons for dropping it? Do you enjoy Harukana Receive’s simplicity, Asobi Asobase’s insanity, or Hanebado’s psychological drama stories? Should I have chosen one of the big franchises this season? Feel free to air your opinions in the comments below.