The best thing I can say about Tsukasa’s arc is that at least it was the best one next to Sae’s. Tsukasa was a far more complex character than any other heroine in Amagami SS, which made for some entertaining drama at the first half. However, as this show has done time and again, it failed to follow through on its potential, and the arc ended all too conveniently. The final episode, a separate story dedicated to a 7th girl Risa, was a fitting end to the series that brought forward everything that was wrong with this show.

It started off with promise, to be sure. The cliffhanger ending to episode 21 was well done (and really hot, by the way), giving us a glimpse of the selfish side of Tsukasa for the first time. And though her coming clean almost immediately at the start of episode 22 was a bit disappointing, it didn’t change the fact that there was still something dark, something interesting within her. Plus, that episode also had more of Tsukasa’s odd sister. The mystery of their relationship was actually intriguing.

But as has been the case so many times already with this show, all the potential from the first couple episodes was wasted and never amounted to anything. The notebook wasn’t brought up again until it was burned, without giving us much of a clue as to its contents. Tsukasa’s apparently strained relationship with her sister wasn’t explored further.

What was explored a bit in the 2nd half of the arc was Tsukasa’s bullheadedness and hubris when it came to preparing the Founder’s Festival. Her getting bullied was another plot point that had potential. But this was solved all too simply by Tsukasa seemingly flipping a switch and becoming a different person in episode 3. There was more potential with Junichi confronting her about this, saying that that wasn’t the Tsukasa he liked, but things just fizzled at the end with a good hug and crying about a bad Santa memory from her childhood.

Where was the real identity crisis? Where was the struggle to find out who she truly was? And, most importantly, where was the romance? At least in some of the other arcs, we got to see the romance between the couples develop organically. In this one, Tsukasa just ups and decides that she likes Junichi. And, of course, Junichi accepts. Who could say no to the hot class president?

This arc’s ending wasn’t downright offensive like Haruka’s, but it also featured a “10 years later” ending, which means that the series has been bookended with arcs featuring such endings. And just like with Haruka’s ending, this one served as a reminder that we missed out on all the interesting parts of the romance, the struggles and conflicts sure to arise between the two after they become lovers. Instead, we get to see them already with a family, happily ever after, etc.

So this was yet another unsatisfying, uninteresting arc. That’s 5/6 for those keeping score at home. To its credit, Tsukasa’s arc remained potentially interesting for the longest time with potentially the most complex and juicy character developments compared to the other failed arcs. But it couldn’t escape its seemingly inevitable fate as an Amagami SS story of hastily wrapping things up with no facing of the real issues and no exploring of meaningful plot or character threads.

Series End and Risa episode

If you’ve read this far down, it should be abundantly clear that I did not enjoy Amagami SS. The final episode really epitomized the attributes that made the show fail as a piece of romantic fiction. Risa’s stalking behavior was mysteriously successful, merely for the convenience of the show. Seriously, if girls were that easily swayed by one doctored photo shown to them by someone they didn’t know, the entire genre of drama would cease to exist. Furthermore, Risa’s disturbing and borderline insane behavior was accepted by Junichi without a blink of an eye because, well, she’s the heroine this time, which means he had to accept her. This also meant that this actually interesting aspect of Risa’s personality, one that could have been fodder for character development, was glossed over. And finally, everything got resolved easily by a few simple apologies.

I’m not even sure “wish fulfillment” would the proper way to describe this piece of work. Because, generally, works of that sort have people going through interesting lives, having interesting interactions with interesting people, reaching a resolution in some interesting way. Amagami SS gives just hints of those before skipping all that right to the “resolution” part. The only times when this show was actually entertaining was when it was actively making fun of itself – as was the case with Sae’s arc, the only good one of the lot – or presented some insane or absurd situation, such as the ramen eating scene from Ai’s arc. Everything else was sterile, devoid of humor, emotion, or drama. It was, in a word, boring.

As much as I hate the forced drama of a lot of anime – Key’s works such as Kanon or Clannad in particular – I think I prefer that to the complete lack of it in this show. Amagami SS isn’t just a show that underdelivers; it’s legitimately a bad show, void of what makes shows entertaining. Even Sae’s arc was only decent, made great by the fact that it followed – and was followed by – the very horrible arcs that it was parodying. Seen by itself, it was a slightly humorous self-referencing piece of comedy with a bad and borderline offensive romance story underneath. It may be too late for you or me, but please, tell your friends, tell your family, time spent watching this show would be better spent taking a nap. At least then, you have a chance of dreaming something with actual entertainment value.

Like Kaoru way back a few months ago, Rihoko was someone who already shared a friendship with Junichi, though, in her case, it went way back to childhood, not just a few years. At points while watching this arc and Kaoru’s, the same thought occurred to me several times: what if Junichi doesn’t “win” this time around? What if these girls who start out as friends, end up as friends as well? I thought it would be a great idea, the ultimate FU to the viewers expecting the couple to end up together as expected.

Well, be careful what you wish for.

The arc started off giving me hope, especially with Rihoko’s narration stating outright that she had an unrequited love for Junichi. The problem was that things never went further than that. Instead of focusing on the relationship between Junichi and Rihoko, the show focused on the succession of the tea ceremony club. With the ice skating and Christmas festival, the show showed sparks of impending romance at times, but in the end, Rihoko explicitly gave up – though I don’t know that she even tried – and remained “happy” remaining still with her unrequited love.

Rihoko’s arc was even more similar to Kaoru’s arc in that way – sterile and devoid of emotion, which is why they didn’t end up together in this arc and why everything felt so forced and artificial in Kaoru’s. Except Rihoko’s arc suffered in all 4 episodes instead of just the last 2. Also like the Kaoru arc, this one didn’t exploit the preexisting friendship between the 2 enough. Since Rihoko was a childhood friend, there was a lot more material there to use, but besides a few amusing flashbacks in the first half of the arc, the fact proved to be inconsequential. Really, for these 2 heroines, the “friends” thing was more of a feature to be checked off than a genuinely meaningful character trait.

It’s telling that the climactic moment of the arc and the final scene was about Junichi and Rihoko running the tea club. Where was the charged emotional content? Where was the romance? When I envisioned Junichi “losing,” I pictured it as a true loss, a separation of two people who have feelings for each other but who can’t be together for whatever reason. I was foolish to hope for such complexity and drama from Amagami SS, I suppose.

Another source of hope at the beginning that was quickly dashed was that Rihoko was narrating at the start. Could the arc switch around the main character, have it follow her instead of him? Unfortunately, no. That particular narrative trick was abandoned quickly. Shame, because it could have made entertaining what was otherwise rather boring, much like how the sarcastic narration made Sae’s arc not only good but great. This arc began and ended following Rihoko as the main character, but everything was same old run of the mill in between. Or rather, it was less than run of the mill.

And what of our heroine? Rihoko was great as a side character in the other arcs, but as a protagonist proper, she was just boring. Her spinelessness with respect to Junichi’s ignorance of her feelings – even in the face of constant encouragement from her friends – was what really took down this arc. With the parties lacking the desire or the initiative, no chemistry could develop. At least she always looked cute while eating. Speaking of which, her complex about her weight stopped being funny or endearing a long time before the arc even began. And like everything else about this arc, this trait of hers didn’t develop at all and remained nothing more than a running joke.

The ED was decent, nothing to write home about. Not as good as Ai’s, which remains the best. But the cutesy animation went well with Rihoko’s innocent aura. And as I learned just recently from watching Kurenai, in which she sings the EDs, Ryoko Shintani has a fine singing voice. Ironic that the one “real” singer of the lot – Haruka’s voice actor Shizuka Itou – has had the worst singing in her ED so far, excepting Sae’s squeakfest (though everything in Sae’s arc gets a free pass thanks to the fact that the whole arc was meant to be ironic).

So this one was just a whole lot of nothing. I do give credit to the writers for having one arc end in “failure.” And I did like how it twisted the now standard format of ending things on Christmas Eve, instead placing the festival in the 2nd episode, not even halfway through the arc. But high concept alone isn’t enough to make a work good; what really matters is execution, and the execution just wasn’t there.

We’ve got one arc left, Tsukasa’s. I’m looking forward to finding out if there really is something dark behind her perfect image, but I’m certainly not looking forward to seeing how the story will fail once again. At this point, it’s safe to say that Amagami SS has been a huge disappointment. In order to redeem itself, Tsukasa’s arc will have to be the perfectly told high school love story in 4 episodes. It can be done, but I for one am not holding my breath.

Really not a whole lot to write about this one. After the wonderfully self aware and ironic Sae arc, Amagami SS returned to its normal storytelling style, with a result that was all too predictable.

I’m having a hard time getting up the energy to write this post. Amagami SS’s story formula is a known commodity now, and the Ai Nanasaki arc followed the formula pretty much straight up. Junichi meets the heroine. Through a series of ridiculous and unbelievable events, the two grow closer. Some wacky, off the wall thing happens that makes you question what you just saw. The two have a perfect date on Christmas Eve. The End.

To its credit, this was the best arc next to Sae’s, which just stands on its own. Ai’s arc managed to have the crazy entertainment value of Haruka’s arc without all the misogyny that made the latter one so unbearable. Instead of knee pit kissing, we got the hallucinogenic haunted house with Ai turning into a bowl of ramen. That was actually pretty funny. And the events of episode 16 paralleled those of episode 4, with Ai leading Junichi up a mountain and to a hot spring instead of Haruka leading him up a hotel and to a bath. But what Ai didn’t do was get upset when Junichi didn’t try to jump her. Instead, we got a scene that was appropriately awkward and became genuinely emotional and, at times, downright erotic.

Also, I was a big fan of both Ai’s ED and the new OP. The ED was energetic and didn’t suffer from poor singing like Haruka’s or Sae’s, or from Engrish like Sex Hair’s. And speaking of Engrish, the new OP had none, while still having the soft, lighthearted romantic feeling of the first OP.

Of course, Ai’s arc had plenty of failings. The ending of episode 15 when Junichi inexplicably jumped into the pool, with the insert song? Terrible. Laughable, and not in the good way. To be fair, the whole story of romantic development involving Ai’s little brother was pretty laughable. It was somewhat similar to how the story in Sae’s arc developed, except meant to be taken seriously instead of laughed at. Sex Hair’s arc is the only one so far that had a halfway believable romantic story. A shame that one became a snoozefest in the second half.

What seems clear that the fantasy that I wrote 5 weeks ago about how Amagami SS could end up being a great show remains a fantasy. Tomorrow, with Rihoko’s arc starting, it gets another shot at the friends-into-lovers story. At the very least, I’ve enjoyed her aloof personality so far, and Ryoko Shintani‘s voice is always pleasant to listen to. I’ve never heard her sing, at least not by herself (she sang as Normal-tan in the OPs and EDs for the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei series and as Sae in the OP to the Hidamari Sketch series), so we’ll see how that goes.

Also known as Ore no Imouto, Oreimo, and My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute.

Quietly AIC has been putting a string of hits together over the last year and a half that has pushed them from an all-right anime studio to one of the top-tier studios. It was this new found credibility and good-looking character designs that convinced me to try this show out since the premise actively turned me off. How’d it do? The answer could be shocking or maybe it’s not.

Rating for episode 1 – 8/12 B+
Anticipation Level: 2.5/5 Average

The Story

A normal high school boy, Kyousuke Kousaka, has what’s apparently a normal life until he discovers his middle school aged younger sister, Kirino Kousaka, has a secret. She likes playing little sister (imouto) themed adult visual novels and watch little sister themed anime and uses money she earns from modeling in fashion magazines to pay for her hobby. The older brother is only slightly weirded-out by this secret because she pays for her fix herself and she proclaims that she only likes it because the she wants to protect and care for these digital little sisters and doesn’t harbor any romantic feelings for him.

He promises to help her, thinking in keeping her secret from their parents but she decides to get him to play these games to get an unbiased opinion about them. Hilarity and comedy is promised to follow (but we’ll see).

 

 

The Fine Print

Color me surprised that I didn’t hate the first episode; it has potential but there’s so many ways for Ore no Imouto to still fail.

The most obvious is that the younger sister really does like her older brother in “that way” and all the events in the first episode was part of a devious plan of hers to get her brother to reciprocate her feelings. This was the route I thought the show was going to take but either the younger sister deserves an Oscar for her acting ability in episode 1 or she really is truthful about why she likes imouto games and anime. I’m guessing on the latter because her confession and emotions and words seemed too authentic to be anything less then real. Of course, this could be the direction the show goes in the future but, for right now, it doesn’t seem to be a concern.

Mentioning the younger sister’s desire to play these types of games works into the second major way this show could fail – that Ore no Imouto will requires the viewer to accept a prohibitively large number of improbabilities and impossibilities for the show to “work”. There’s always some level of accommodation the viewers have to give to a fictional work for that fictional work to succeed. For example, if a viewer decides that a high school girl by the name of Haruhi can’t be a powerful god (or the possibility of some other explanation for the appearance of aliens, ESPers, and time travelers) then it’ll be impossible for that person to like The Melancholy of Haruhi. If, however, the viewer decides for the purposes of enjoying The Melancholy of Haruhi that he/she will allow the possibility of Haruhi and her powers then that viewer will find it possible to like the show.

Different people have different levels of accommodation that they’re willing to give a fictional work and that includes when in the work the viewer is asked to accept something. Not many people are receptive to the Deus Ex Machina ending but these same people are willing to give the show some slack at the beginning. My memories of the first Avatar animated series are starting to fade but I remember really getting bugged by the magical turtle that shows up at the very end that imparts a “secret” teaching that allows the heroes to win but I was okay at the beginning of the series about the idea of people “bending” different “elements” and harnessing the power of water, fire, wind, and earth.

In the case of Ore no Imouto, the first episode asks the viewer to accept that:

1. The younger sister likes to play imouto games and watch imouto anime.
2. The younger sister doesn’t harbor any deeper feelings for her older brother.
3. The younger sister pays for her hobby by using money she gets from modeling in fashion magazines.
4. The younger sister gets really good grades and is a star athlete in track (while still finding time to model and do homework).
5. The brother is not aware that his younger sister models.
6. The parents either don’t know about the modeling as well or allows their daughter to blow all the money she earns (instead of saving it for college, her first house, etc.) on stuff  even though it’s not readily apparent on what this stuff is.
7. The younger sister found it very difficult to understand why the older brother was uncomfortable about playing these games with his younger sister.

This is quite a lot of items the makers behind this anime are asking potential viewers to accept. I can understand if other people found it too much and dropped it after this episode; I was very close myself but I am willing to watch a few more episodes to see where it goes from here.

A side-effect of all these seemingly impossibilities connected to the younger sister is that right now she doesn’t feel like a real person; it’s like the role the creators needed to fill contrived to create the younger sister instead of having the younger sister create the show around her odd hobby. To their credit, the creators did get the younger sister’s mannerisms toward her older brother pretty close to perfect judging from my personal experience of having 4 younger sisters but they will need to develop the character of the younger sister if the show is going to be successful in the long run.

If Ore no Imouto can avoid these pitfalls I do see the possibility that it’ll become a fun show to watch. I love anime built around exploiting the inherit comedy found exclusively between family members. It helped push Minami-ke into my top comedy spot and helped me enjoy Mitsudomoe as much as I did and Ore no Imouto looks like it’ll include this familial comedy as well. Also, AIC has shown in the past that they’re willing to radically alter the source material to improve the quality of the show and also they’ve shown a willingness to develop the show’s characters into something deeper then cardboard clichés. Therefore, I expect Ore no Imouto to become a character-driven light comedy show and I definitely think this the direction the show needs to go.

Throw in fairly high production values, attractive character designs, and great voice work (the younger sister is done by Azunyan from K-On! and the brother is done by Tomoya from Clannad) and I liked the first episode well enough to give it a 8/12 B+ and to suggest to those that haven’t watched it yet to give Ore no Imouto a chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: anime, first impressions

The third parallel story arc, featuring the shy and quiet first year Sae Nakata as the heroine, finished up last week. True to form, the story was not compelling in the slightest, the characters were typical to a fault, and everything came together far too easily. But by twisting the storytelling formula just slightly, AIC turned the entire ship around and produced what is easily the best arc of the anime yet. In fact, the success I saw in this arc leaves me with hope that AIC is fully aware of how to handle Amagami SS, and it could end up being one of the best high school romance series in recent years. Do I sound crazy? Read on.

What a difference 4 episodes can make! After Haruka’s arc to start the show, my outlook on this show couldn’t have been more negative. Yet Kaoru’s arc had left me even more in despair by providing a story that started with promise before it fizzled out at about the halfway point. To quote myself from the previous post: “I do intend to stick with this show all the way to the bloody end.” I was not optimistic, to say the least.

But Sae’s arc was a complete turnaround, a great chapter of this anime that had been notable only for its extraordinary failings. In fact, the execution in this arc leaves me hopeful about the direction of this show in general, something I never would have predicted just a month ago.

Let’s start with the story: there was nothing about these past 4 episodes that were any better than the previous 4 or the 4 before that. Junichi was as uncharismatic as ever, and a little creepy if anything in how he dominated Sae from the very beginning. I did like how the story started out in the summer, showing just how malleable the formula could be, even if the core elements – Junichi’s rejection from 2 years ago, his star-decorated closet, the finale on Christmas – have to remain the same.

And our heroine Sae was somehow even more boring than our hero, with a personality defined solely by the one characteristic: shy. Especially compared to the relatively powerful figures of Haruka and Kaoru of the first two arcs, Sae’s meek and unobtrusive personality was frustrating at times. Seriously, the girl spent 3 weeks training for an interview to get a job as a waitress because she couldn’t talk to people normally.

Also, her squeaky, high pitched, so-soft-that-it’s-barely-there voice was hard to bear at times (alas, there is but one Mamiko Noto in this world). Her voice was about the same in her ED song, though the animation and art, sometimes reminiscent of Bakemonogatari’s Nadeko OP (Renai Circulation), made the sequence overall better than the first 2.

But none of the story’s glaring flaws ended up mattering in the slightest, thanks to the new approach to the storytelling taken by the show. Perhaps the simplest way of putting it is, the show “got it.” It came in on its own joke and successfully turned into a parody of itself. After Haruka’s awesomely miserable arc, I had decided to keep watching the show out of a macabre fascination, just to see how much it could fall. Perhaps the producers at AIC shared my macabre fascination and decided to make fun of the ridiculousness of the source material instead of simply accepting it and running with it.

“What if Amagami SS turns out to be good?”

Partway into the second episode of the arc, that truly shocking thought occurred to me. It was one of those things that seemed so patently ridiculous that I felt I should be committed for merely entertaining the thought, but somehow, it all made sense, and it still does.

Bear with me, if you will, and listen to the musings of someone who is likely insanely optimistic in the most literal way possible. What would you do if you were a creative, ambitious director handed the responsibility of adapting Amagami into an anime (remember, Amagami SS is directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike, the same guy who directed last season’s excellent Working!!)? A work that is so horrendously derivative, whose characters are insultingly flat, whose attempt at romance is so filled with cliche and misogyny that, well, it makes normal anime look positively feminist by comparison? What would you do?

Wouldn’t you want to make a big “fuck you!” to the original work and its fans? Wouldn’t you want to use this opportunity, to use this adaptation as a platform to criticize the very source material you are adapting? Get a bit of attention by announcing that each of the six stories will get its own adaptation. Then use the first 2 to show everyone just how disastrous straight up adaptations of these typical wish fulfillment dating sim romance stories would be. Next, you turn the tables on the audience. You use the 3rd adaptation to show everyone that you’ve been in on the joke all along. The 4th through 6th? We’ll see.

Anyway, as I wrote above, on its own merits, the story was bad. It was exactly what I’ve come to expect out of Amagami SS. There were times when I genuinely felt like cringing, when I really thought that there was no way that the show could bounce back from such a horrible turn of events (some scenes that pop to mind: ro sham bo game at the end of episode 9, speed changing in episode 10, public tentacoo wape in episode 11, gothic lolita + Engrish director in episode 12, I could go on). But each time, the narrator graciously guided us back up from whatever hole the show looked to be digging for itself.

Ah yes, the narrator. He was not just the most influential factor in turning this terrible romantic comedy into a satire, he was the one and only factor. From the very beginning of the first episode, when he made a small dig at Junichi (to which Junichi actually responded) he showed us that this arc wasn’t going to be like the others. He was there to provide balance to the ridiculous things that would go down, to laugh at them along with us, to affirm our disbelief and awe.

Yet he was not a cynic. His voice was always warm, and he spoke of the destined love story between our two protagonists without irony. He successfully portrayed the wise old man looking at kids experiencing the follies and adventures of youth, appreciating it for what it was, but also fully aware of how silly it was. He rooted for Junichi and Sae, but he wasn’t above making fun of them. In short, he was the proper companion with whom to watch this story unfold.

And again, he kept turning up at just the right times. He wasn’t overbearing or omnipresent like the narrator of Ookami-san and Seven Companions. He didn’t overstay his welcome. There were times when he would disappear for perhaps a bit too long, letting the tension build as the show started to go south. But that made the release during his return all the more satisfying. Prime example being the climax at episode 12, when Junichi and Sae were at the movie theater. The gothic lolita costume, combined with the movie director’s appearance and the tipping chair cliche threatened to put a cringe-inducing cap to the whole thing, but the narrator came back to describe in detail how the cuteness overload “killed” Junichi, putting a decidedly comedic spin on things.

And that really was all that was needed. Tragedy and comedy are two concepts separated by a hair’s breadth. Whereas first two arcs of Amagami SS were tragically bad – the first one was comedically so – Sae’s arc took that tragedy and spun it around to create a full-on self aware comedy. That is why it was successful.

Going forward, can AIC replicate this success with the second half of the show? There is the worry that this self deprecating approach to the storytelling may have been just a one-off thing, and we’ll go right back to the facepalm of Haruka’s and Kaoru’s arcs again. The cynic in me says to expect that. But the optimist in me says to hope for AIC to build on what they’ve done with Sae’s arc. Throw us a narrator who is more cynical, more ironic, more critical. Do that for the next arc, and then use the final 1/3 of the arcs to really throw the fans in for a loop by presenting complete deconstructions of the stories. In other words, instead of merely transferring the source material to a new medium, adapt it while also injecting its own criticisms of the original work. I know I’m hoping for too much. But it’s nice to want things. And the mere fact that I’m entertaining these thoughts is a testament to AIC’s cleverness and nimbleness when it comes to creating Amagami SS.

I approached the second heroine’s arc of Amagami SS with both apprehension and excitement. If you’ve read my post on the first arc, it should be obvious why. The identity of the new heroine was actually not really on my mind, but she proved to be the one interesting bit in a story that felt almost sterile at times. Indeed, this arc was bad, but not spectacularly so like Haruka’s. And it was actually kind of good at times, which made it all the more painful to see it fall.

The Good: Sex Hair

Let’s start with the positives. Kaoru was a much better character than Haruka. She was energetic and playful without feeling forced. Her relationship as a friend with Junichi was fun to watch, as was the beginning transition into a romantic one, at least in the first couple episodes. Plus, she’s not called “Sex Hair” for nothing. That wavy hair was one of the things that drove me to this series in the first place, and it didn’t disappoint.

Having the path diverge immediately following Junichi’s failed Christmas Eve date 2 years ago to have Kaoru cheer him up was a pleasant surprise. If they were so bold as to change what was such a central element in the first arc, perhaps the stories would diverge so much as to leave the first arc but a bitter memory? Plus, it was much easier to cheer for someone who wasn’t still hiding in his closet from a singular event 2 years ago. Even if the star lined closet made a return in the final episode, not having the entire pretext of the story be of Junichi trying to get over that date by finding a new love made the story significantly easier to swallow.

In fact, the whole high level story of friends becoming lovers was handled pretty well for the first two episodes. The self doubts and struggles of emotions they went through seemed genuine, even if exaggerated. The second episode was kicked off by a refreshingly open and honest conversation between the two regarding the nature of their relationship (it’s a sad commentary on the medium that having a mature conversation about romance and friendship in anime stands out as exceptional). A shame that scene ended with the classic accidental kiss then embarrassment trope.

Even the fetish of the month – belly button this time – was handled much better. Under the context of these curious teenage friends and with Junichi basing it on the first thing he saw, I might even go as far as to say it was done tastefully. At the very least, it didn’t linger any longer than necessary and certainly wasn’t a key building block to their relationship as was the case with Haruka’s arc.

The Bad: The Entire Second Half

So that was the first two episodes. While nothing amazing, they were entertaining and provided a pair of protagonists we could really root for. It’s too bad that it all fell apart in the last half, where pretty much nothing happened.

Of course, this points to pacing – something that was also very problematic in the first arc – as the culprit. I could go on about its failures, stacking all the interesting parts at the front and leaving a pair of content free episodes to limp to the finish line. I could explain what a waste of time the third episode was and how the show lacked any sense of urgency given its unique time constraints and squandered what little time it had. I could get down to specifics, like how the entire set-up sequence at the start of the final episode was a complete waste of time.

But I think it would be most effective to sum it up concisely: All the interesting stuff happens either before or after the events shown in the anime.

Kaoru and Junichi have known each other for three years. The show is not shy about this fact and often references past events from their friendship, usually to hit on some sort of emotional note. The problem is that we never saw these moments. We caught the tail end of the friendship at the beginning of the arc, and it was fun. Hearing about these memories isn’t fun. Furthermore, since we weren’t a part of their history together, the impact on Junichi or Kaoru from being reminded of a past event is lost on us. You can’t shove years of character and relationship development into a few flashbacks.

But at least we got to see their friendship, with some ear biting and imaginary German suplexing and belly button licking. As I wrote above, the start to this arc was fine. The opposite end, on the other hand, called in sick. All the fun stuff regarding their romantic relationship happens only after the arc is over.

The last two episodes – the entire last half of the arc – were aimless. I wrote about the first arc that I felt that the show suffered from its lineage i.e. that it emulated the storytelling of a dating sim visual novel to a fault. This could not have been more true in these 2 episodes. It is common to go through the mundane in visual novels. Most of the time, it is trying to insert you into the life of the protagonist, after all, and most of life is mundane.

Unfortunately, this translated to episode 7 being able to be summarized by, Junichi looks for Kaoru and eventually finds her, and episode 8 by, Junichi and Kaoru go on a date on Christmas Eve.

OK, there are some details I’m missing, but they were entirely superfluous. Kaoru’s problem with her mother proved to be a red herring. Its purpose seemingly was to have Junichi look for Kaoru and be reminded of her on the way, and then help her through this little conflict, but those things failed in having any impact. I already wrote above about how the flashbacks and reminders to past events were not effective due to us, the viewers, lacking a connection to those scenes. But having Junichi show up and solve everything by saying a few cliche lines was borderline insulting.

And, of course, episode 8 had a very heartfelt conversation between Junichi and Kaoru as they stood on the glass at the top of the tower (psych protip: people tend to become more easily attracted when in situations that cause stress, such as being at a great height). Or rather, it would have been very heartfelt and sweet had it not been on their first date. When people on their first date declare that they want to spend the rest of their lives together, it’s more comedic than romantic.

And then, how did the episode (and by extension the story arc) end? When the day ended. Hey, that’s kind of like in a dating sim! There was no ending, no conclusion. The closest thing to a climax was the aforementioned humorous confessions of love atop the tower. Literally, the arc ended right after Kaoru teased Junichi with a climax before falling asleep. There was nothing of significance other than their first date. It was the start of something, and then, oh, The End. Kaoru deserved better.

The story of Junichi and Kaoru doesn’t end there. It’s just that our view of it does. We know that the two will go through the same things any romantic couple goes through. There will be fun times, sad times, angry times, happy times. Maybe they won’t make it past a second date. Maybe they’ll grow old together. Maybe they’ll marry each other, madly in love, at 20, then get divorced by the time they’re 30. These are the interesting stories that we are not privy to. Instead, we were served just the things leading up to it. And not even the good stuff like when they used to be just friends, but that magical, most boring moment in between, when nothing of interest happened.

In Conclusion: Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

While watching the aforementioned conversation atop the tower in the final episode, I thought back to the first 2 episodes and regretted the potential that had been wasted. Already, with so little time remaining, I knew that things couldn’t end well (I was hoping for a 10-years-later segment like in the first arc, at least, but we didn’t even get that). There was content in here to make a genuinely entertaining romance story. One that was both funny and emotional. The rooftop conversation at the start of episode 6 was a breath of fresh air in its mature handling of romantic emotions in anime. Kaoru was fun without being fake. That conversation at the top of the tower would have made for a very good climax to any other story about middle/high school friends becoming lovers. There just needed to be more leading up to it. They needed to have been together a bit longer. Junichi and Kaoru were afraid of getting together. It’s telling that the final episode was titled Development and started with their friends forcing them together. All that’s fine and natural, especially given their preexisting relationship, but when that takes over the entire story, you end up with one very boring story. Or rather, a very boring portion of a story. And that’s the portion we got to see.

We’ve had 2 full story arcs now, enough to get a semblance of a feel for what to expect. I’m most surprised by how different the two arcs were. Haruka’s was back-heavy with almost all the content dumped into the last 1.5 episodes. Kaoru’s suffered from the exact opposite problem. Haruka’s fetish kiss was a hilarious disaster that proved to be a core part of the arc’s downfall, while Kaoru’s was barely a speed bump and actually kind of fun. What both stories had in common were that they both ended abruptly with a first date on Christmas Eve (though Haruka’s was kind enough to provide us with an epilogue), with all the good stuff of a romantic relationship left to our imagination.

Going forward – and I do intend to stick with this show all the way to the bloody end – I fear that that is exactly how every story will end. That this show will be all about the build up with no release. The first date is aptly named because it is the first of something. It is the start of something interesting. Certainly, the lead up to that can be entertaining – countless harem anime are proof of this – but when the curtain falls just as things get good, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Amagami SS has nothing up its sleeve besides the core romance story between Junichi and whichever heroine it is focusing on at the time. The comedy is banal and passable at best. The 4 episode limit per heroine leaves no time for other developments. It is with that romance story that this show lives and dies, and the show simply can’t afford to keep messing it up. A continuation of this ending pattern is a surefire way to guarantee failure.

Last week’s episode prompted me to post and to wonder (or perhaps to predict) if this show was going to be, as they call it, a train wreck. To be fair to the show, it’s only 1/6 of the way through, but that does mean that the first story arc is complete, and I can at least say that this story arc was an unqualified train wreck. That being said, I can’t help but grin from ear to ear as I write this. I have to give it credit. Plenty of shows have sucked and been unwatchable, but it’s rare for one to still make you want to keep watching.

The phrase “so bad it’s good” comes to mind. This is a phrase used appropriately to describe movies moreso than TV shows. When you’re spending a 90 minute stretch to watch something, the phrase makes a lot of sense. But when you’re watching something week in and week out, if something is bad, it’s just bad. It’s a rare breed that can still entertain for such a long period of time, not despite, but because of how bad it is. Amagami SS is one of those special shows.

So why was it so bad? I could point to the extremely poor pacing, which saw almost nothing happen the 1st 2 episodes, followed by a bizarre 3rd and then a 4th that hit us with more shit than the 1st 3 combined. I’ve already written on the awfulness of the 3rd episode and its misogyny, on which the final episode of this arc happily builds. Then there is the 4th episode by itself, which was crammed so full of cliches – not the good kind – that I’m still in awe and wonderment at the enormity of the feat.

Really, if I were to write about every little thing, this post would go far too long. Suffice it to say, I got a good laugh out of the revelation that Junichi and Haruka had met before, at an important moment of both of their pasts, which was also intricately tied to Haruka’s actual dog. And the laughs just kept coming, from somehow sticking a swimsuit scene into a Christmas Eve setting to having Haruka surprise Junichi with the dream date, hotel room and all.

But the moment that sticks in my mind, that offended my sensibilities too much for its own good is just when Haruka came out of the bath, upset that Junichi didn’t try to peek at her. This is, to quote @8C from Twitter, “misogynistic idealism.” The same can be said about the 10-years-later gag that they pulled immediately after. We are never shown the actual difficulties of the romance – the parts that are interesting – and are told that, as soon as you get the girl – or rather, as soon as the girl gets you – everything will be hunky dory from then on. Your “work” is finished.

Anime in general and especially visual novels such as the one on which this show is based are known for their misogyny. Visual novels get away with this because most of them are wish fulfillment porn anyway. Anime shows get away with this because they tend to be pretty absurd comedies, where multi-dimensional characters and realistic relationships aren’t needed.

But those things are needed in a somewhat serious romance story like Amagami SS. It just doesn’t work when the climactic, super dramatic moment is dependent on the girl acting like what a “misogynistic idealist” believes she should act like. Or if the build up to that involves the girl fulfilling the guy’s weird fetish of being a dog. Let me quote chaostangent from an astute post he made after only the first 3 episodes had aired:

These are not even char­ac­ters but amal­gam­a­tions of the most tired, staid and all-round tedi­ous aspects of arche­types that have mutated into a hideous, cringe­worthy diorama of what sociopaths believe real­istic or dra­mat­ic­ally enga­ging human inter­ac­tion is.

And yet, I must laud Amagami SS for being so bold in its adaptation of a visual novel. Most anime adaptations of visual novels tone down the obviously misogynist and wish fulfillment fantasy aspects in favor of creating a story better suited for the medium. Not Amagami SS. I have not played or read any of the source material, but I’m confident that this anime has embraced its heritage fully.

That’s why, despite the show’s insurmountable flaws, I enjoyed this first story arc of Amagami SS. Most anime shows tread that misogynistic line shyly, afraid to reference the fact that it’s an overarching theme in so many works in the medium – there’s an entire genre devoted to it – all the while partaking in it. Amagami SS outright celebrates it, and, most importantly, it does it without a hint of irony. In a way, it is a reflection of the expectations of the current otaku community at large.

This is a show that is fully aware of the path to failure that it’s marching down. And far from despairing it, it revels in it, inviting us, the viewers, to join in as well. I won’t be joining it, but I’ll happily look from afar at what other droplets of idealistic misogyny lies in its path.

I know in my Ookami-san episode 2 post I wrote that I would be posting only every 4 episodes of this series, but I’m sure if you’ve seen episode 3, you can sympathize with me for having some thoughts on it. I just… I’m finding it hard to put into words my reactions to this episode.

Junichi is understandably happy about the kiss he got from Haruka last time. On the eyebrow – he made sure to be that specific, just “on the forehead” wouldn’t do. That’s nice enough.  Then one thing leads to another, and before you know it, they’re alone in a shed, Junichi getting to be the one to give the kiss this time. All well and good, as they say.

Then things took a weird turn. I’m not going to go into the gory details. Plus, pictures do a much better job telling the whole story. So enjoy:

What can’t be properly communicated with pictures is the scene later on in which Junichi and Haruka do some kidnapper/kidnappee role playing… in the school cafeteria. I get that Haruka is supposed to have an impulsive, carefree personality, but come on! And that behind the knee kiss? Again, I understand that it’s an extension of the Junichi as Haruka’s dog metaphor – something which I found problematic to begin with – but what girl wouldn’t be running for the hills if someone tried to pull that kind of shit?

Before, I was worried that Amagami SS was too plain and boring. My concerns were entirely misguided. No, just 3 episodes in, it’s well on its way to being a certified train wreck.

And just like one, everything feels like it’s going in slow motion, there are pieces landing awkwardly at places they shouldn’t, and I can’t look away. I admit that I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Not as a guilty pleasure, but as a spectacle. To be sure, this episode was a sucker punch after being such a mellow, boring show the 1st two episodes. So kudos for that, I guess.

Whatever hopes I had of this being the telling of 6 different good romance stories have been dashed. Instead, what I’ve ended up with is a neat amalgamation of things that can create a horrible a romance story: start with an uninteresting premise and a protagonist without an ounce of charisma, have him do practically nothing for the first half, then overcompensate by suddenly presenting situations that are so ridiculous that the only proper response is just to shake your head.

If this is what the writers of Amagami SS are capable of, I am very much looking forward to seeing just how low this show can go before all is said and done.

So I’ll be blogging Amagami SS this season. For the uninitiated, this is a high school romance series based on a dating sim for the PS2 called just Amagami. A trailer for the show is available on YouTube. This is normally the type of show I avoid, as it’s very rare that something interesting comes out of a high school harem show. What caught my attention, though, was that the show will actually not be a harem, but rather feature separate stories for all the heroines, ala Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. So instead of one crappy harem story, I see the potential for 6 decent romance stories. We’ll see how that pans out. This episode didn’t do much for me, but it’s too early to tell.

So this first episode set everything up, but it still managed to fit in some plot development. To begin with, Junichi Tachibana is a 2nd year high schooler who got stood up on Christmas 2 years ago (presumably between his 3rd year of middle school 1st year of high school) by some girl who never appeared again. He is still affected by this, being afraid of having his heart broken again. I find his method of protecting himself – sleeping in his closet that he’s lined with glow in the dark stars like a planetarium – to be rather odd, but, well, the premise of a kid his age being so heartbroken is pretty odd to begin with.

Given the show’s parallel world structure, and the fact that each heroine has only 4 episodes dedicated to her, I was a little surprised that every single major character was introduced in this episode, but I guess it’s just getting that out of the way early. The lead in this arc is Haruka Morishima, the 3rd year school idol character. Unbefitting of her status as school idol, she’s very tomboyish and matter of fact. She takes a liking to Junichi right away after seeing him help a 1st year, and she doesn’t make any effort to hide this, literally jumping on him and humping him at one point.

Haruka is portrayed by Shizuka Itou, who’s probably best known for playing Hinagiku in Hayate the Combat Butler, though my favorite role of hers was Akiha in Lunar Legend Tsukihime. With the long dark hair and the hairband, her character design actually reminds me a bit of Akiha, though their personalities couldn’t be more different. She’s also playing the title character in this season’s Ookami-san and the Seven Friends.

All the flirting Haruka does with Junichi eventually leads to him confessing to her at the end, which Haruka brushes off rather lightheartedly. I guess we can’t have the protagonist “winning” in the very first episode. Well, Junichi still has 3 more episodes to win her heart.

I find Haruka’s character to be a bit refreshing. Even if she fits the straightforward, unflappable character archetype a little too well, that’s still an unusual character to see in anime. So at least that makes me more invested in seeing how her story goes.

Junichi, on the other hand, doesn’t have enough charisma to fill a thimble. He really is the dating sim protagonist and pretty much nothing else. The “trauma” of his past seems rather mild compared to what some other harem leads had to go through. Like Shiki from the aforementioned Tsukihime, who was stabbed nearly to death, or Kakeru of 11eyes, who watched his sister die in front of him. Being stood up on your first date on Christmas really must be rough, especially on a middle schooler, but it’s been 2 years – it’s time to move on. His little internal pep talk halfway through the episode in which he decides to give love another shot just didn’t have any impact because of this.

The OP and ED were relaxing, soft pieces, befitting a show like this. But also not memorable in the slightest. Shizuka Itou sang the ED, which I knew coming in, because one of the gimmicks of this show is that each heroine’s arc will have the ED sung by that heroine’s voice actor. I like what I’ve heard before from Itou who does have some CDs out, but her singing felt strained and off to me.

So nothing to write home about this first episode. Really, besides Haruka’s character, it felt entirely generic. Hiraike Yoshimasa, the director of last season’s excellent (and my personal favorite show for that period) Working!! is also directing this, so I do have hopes for this show. Of course, this is a very different type of show from Working!!, and it’s going to have to pull off some serious drama in order to succeed, but here’s to hoping.

Note

• If you’d like to know more about all the other characters who will be featured in this series – particularly the 5 other heroines I didn’t mention – there’s a post on Hashihime that shows each of the characters and their voice actors.
• One voice actor whom I thought was spot on in this episode was Kana Asumi, who played Junichi’s little sister Miya. Last season, she had voiced the adorable Poplar in Working, though she’s probably most well known for playing Yuno in the Hidamari Sketch series. Her high-pitched, almost-but-not-quite squeaky voice fits well for a little sister character. And no, she’s not one of the 6 heroines. This isn’t that kind of show, for better or for worse.

AIC is one of those animation studios that really puzzle me. Most larger animation studios have multiple animation teams that can work concurrently but AIC seems like the only animation studio that so formerly breaks it down; there’s AIC, AIC Plus+, AIC Spirits, and AIC A.S.T.A.. Each sub-studio has done good work, for example, AIC A.S.T.A. was responsible for the excellent comedies Tenshi Senshi Sunred, Sora no Otoshimono (which is getting a second season and was just licensed ) and Bamboo Blade. AIC Plus+ with the slice-of-life/comedy G.A. Art Design Class and AIC Spirits with Ga-Rei: Zero. Of these studios AIC A.S.T.A. has been the most consistently good studio and the most inconsistent has been AIC. They did very well with Sasameki Koto, Asu no Yoichi!, but only  slightly good work with Nyan Koi and yawn-inducing work with Ookami Kakushi. With Mayoi Neko Overrun being produced by AIC, this makes prognosticating the quality extremely difficult but it was worth a look.

Rating for episodes 1 to 7 – 5/12  C+
Anticipation Level: 1.5/5  Below Average – Low

The Story

The owner of a rundown bakery known as the Stray Cats likes to take in strays, be them orphans, cat-girls, or an occasional rich girl with a lack of friends. She also likes to travel the world, helping those less fortunate then herself, leaving the strays to struggle together to keep the bakery open (the bakery’s main selling point is the beauty of the owner which only brings in so much money).

The Fine Print

Perhaps the strangest thing about Mayoi Neko Overrun is the lack of an overall director; each episode is directed by a different person. The results of this production decision – being wildly uneven (genuinely good/hilarious one episode and a real snoozer the next) and the story feeling very disjointed – seem obvious to me and leaves me scratching my head, trying to figure out why an animation studio would want two completely unnecessary strikes against it’s own show.

Another problem with a setup such as this is the tone of the show is off. It is possible for a show to be both comedic and emotional/drama-esque, Key shows for example, but it takes a fair degree of talent and mastery to do it right. And, apparently, it takes a single overseeing director that can weave the various threads together and get them to work because Mayoi Neko Overrun has failed to successfully pull this off. When the show is in comedic mode it’s to the detriment of developing the characters and story and when it’s in serious mode it’s to the detriment of the comedy and keeping the show entertaining. An overloaded semi-tractor trailer has more agility then Mayoi Neko Overrun.

The show is further hindered by it’s characters, or, more exactly, the lack of development of the characters beyond their initial stereotypical character-types. At the start of the show we had the clueless, kinda loserish, male main character; the violent, easily angered female childhood friend to the male main character that harbors deeper feelings for him but doesn’t realize she has these feeling but for some reason gets angry when other girls pay attention to him; the mean and haughty rich girl who’s unconsciously unhappy with life and just needs a friend; the perverted male sidekick who’s just interested in 2-D girls and being an otaku. And seven episodes in we still have these stock characters.

If Mayoi Neko Overrun was a full-tilt comedy then developing the characters would not have been so important but it’s not and so developing these 1-D characters into at least 2-D characters would be much appreciated.

I can almost hear the voices that will be out there reading this post and thinking – this show sounds bad, how did it get a C+ and not something lower? I’d respond by saying that it’s amazing how a smallish percentage of a show being legitimately good brings it’s overall score up when the rest of it is doesn’t out-right stink. Two episodes have stood out so far, eps. 4 and 6; if the whole series could have been as good as episode 4, Mayoi Neko Overrun would be a solid B show and if the whole series could have been as good as episode 6 then Mayoi Neko Overrun would have been a solid A show. What made these two episodes good was the show pushed itself into 100% full-tilt comedy mode with a heaping helping of absurdity. It was deliciously good; much better then the slice-of-life/drama/comedy show Mayoi Neko Overrun is trying to be and not succeeding at.

At this point, I can’t recommend this show to anyone; even the most devoted cat ears fans would be wasting their time with Mayoi Neko Overrun. Part of me wishes I could just drop this show but the occasional flashes of competence makes another part of me worry that I might miss something good and, since the latter takes precedence, I’m left watching this mediocre title.  The upside to this is that I will be able to definitely say if Mayoi Neko Overrun is worth a watch or not – keeping others away from it, if it’s not and getting people to watch it, if it is.

Filed under: anime, first impressions

The final set of awards before going to my top shows of the season cover the music, vocal actors, and animation aspects of this season’s anime. Or the three parts to anime that are heavily dependent on the preferences of the individual viewer.

Best Male Seiyuu

Winner: Souichiro Hoshi as Tomoki from Sora no Otoshimono
Runner-up: Masato Sakai as many roles from Blue Literature

I often wonder how much does a great character improve how I think of a seiyuu’s performance and, conversely, how much does a great job by the seiyuu go into improving that character. One way to separate the two is to look at other roles that the seiyuu has done and see if they’re consistent. In the case of Souichiro Hoshi, I adored his voice in Sengoku Basara when he played Sanada Yukimura (the hot-headed red guy) and in Phantom when he played the scheming brother Toru Shiga and I still remember another role he did as K1 from Higurashi. So, I have some confidence to say that Souichiro Hoshi does a great job injecting the right level of manliness into Tomoki’s character and thus earns the fall season Best Male Seiyuu award. Here’s a video of him singing from episode 10:

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Best Female Seiyuu

Winner: Saori Hayami as Ikaros from Sora no Otoshimono
Runner-up: Satomi Arai as Kuroko from To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

If I apply the same test to Saori Hayami, I find that I loved her voice as Kou, the shrine maiden, from Wagaya no Oinarisama and Saki from Eden of the East. And more importantly, for the purposes of this award, her work as Ikaros impressed me. Which I found odd at first because Ikaros comes off as very emotionally flat but thinking about it more, that might be the reason why I’m impressed with her work so much. Namely, Saori Hayami does such a good job making Ikaros feel emotionally detached and then does an equally great job voicing Ikaros as she tries to learn what it means to be human. So Saori Hayami wins this award and here’s a video of her singing from episode 10.

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Best OP

Winner: Astro Fighter Sunred
Runner-up: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, Sasameki Koto

A good crop of openings this season which made it hard to pick just one. Sunred squeaked past everyone else based on the superior use of the animation to channel the humor of the series and distill it down into a minute and half of hilarity.

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Best ED

Winner: Sora No Otoshimono
Runner-up: Kemono no Souja Erin, Hetalia Axis Powers – America version

Sora no Otoshimono had a different ending song and completely different animation to accompany that song for each of it’s thirteen episodes. My favorite was the one that ran a blooper reel of “mistakes” made during the filming of the show. So for going well above-and-beyond what one expects for even the best anime, Sora no Otoshiomono easily wins this award.

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Best Background Music

Winner: Blue Literature

Blue Literature holds the special place as the only anime that my sister has ever wanted the soundtrack album for. Of course, I can’t seem to find any information if one is going to released which is just my luck because I had the very same reaction to the background music as I watched this show the first time. My favorite piece was the one that the woman played at the beginning of Kokoro and elsewhere.

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Best Dressed Characters

Winner: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

It was obvious that J.C. Staff received a large enough budget for Railgun that they could attend to all the small points. And a large wardrobe for it’s characters is definitely a small thing but it correlates well with high-quality anime. I also think it’s a great non-time consuming way to let the viewers know more about a character’s personality.

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Best Animation Style

Winner: Kimi ni Todoke
Runner-up: Blue Literature

The lovely animation style to Kimi ni Todoke made it a difficult show to drop but eye-candy does not automatically make a show a high quality one. So, eventually, I just couldn’t stand watching more of Kimi ni Todoke but that does not mean I would deny it an award that it deserves. And Kimi ni Todoke’s lovely, lush watercolor style does deserve this award.

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Best Animation

Winner: Blue Literature
Runner-up: To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

While each story of Blue Literature displayed a varying amount of animation style which made it difficult to pick it for Best Animation Style, each and every story displayed a high level on animation quality. I’m not surprised by this because, after all, Madhouse animated Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, all of Satoshi Kon’s works, and a bevy of other high quality animated shows. It inched past Railgun mainly because Madhouse was able to make all the varied animation styles work.

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Top Animation Studio

Winner: AIC

AIC is not one of the anime studios that get talked about often; they lack the star power that a Gainax, J.C. Staff, or Kyoto Animation has and at the same time they lack the negative attention that a Sunrise, Studio Deen, or Gonzo has. They’re probably best known for the Oh My Goddess franchise to most people though maybe some know them from animating Bamboo Blade, Asu no Yoichi, or Ga-Rei: Zero. This season they released four shows: Sora No Otoshimono, Sasameki Koto, Nyan Koi, Astro Fighter Sunred; and a glance at the awards I’ve given out so far sees all four getting mentioned and winning a fair number of them. The weakest show of the four, Nyan Koi, was still a pretty good show and better than much of the rest of this season’s shows. Therefore, they were the easy pick this season with Madhouse a very distant second.

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That’s it for part 3 of my summer 2009 anime awards. Stay tuned for my top overall picks of the season.

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Links to the other parts of my Fall 2009 Season Awards
Part 1 – Cast and Character Awards
Part 2 – Genre and Misfit Awards
Part 4 – Top 8 Shows of the Fall Season

Posted in anime, awards, youtube