Month: February 2014

The “Normal Protagonist”

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Sometimes, we see tropes over and over again and gloss right over them, barely even noticing that we’ve seen the same archetype a hundred times before. Other times, something is just enough the same or just enough different that we sit up and take notice.

The particular trope I want to take a look at today is that of the “normal protagonist.”

While the normal protagonist archetype takes various forms, such as the much decried blandly nice guy, the “ordinary high school student” monologue, the clueless harem lead or the personality-less main character (or the “generic brown-haired/blue-haired MC), this particular pattern appears in numerous anime, sometimes explicitly, sometimes not. Examples follow:

Kajimo Touma

Kajimo Touma, A Certain Magical Index

Shu Ouma

Shu Ouma, Guilty Crown

Screen Shot 2014-01-15 at 7.56.50 PM

Honoka Takamiya, Witchcraft Works

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Likable Characters Save Bad Anime

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I recently picked up (and finished within two days), the first season of Seitokai Yakuindomo, a highly crude, irreverent and sex-obsessed anime about the student council of the recently turned co-ed high school, Ousai High.

First off, why did I pick up the show? I honestly couldn’t tell you. The second season is currently simulcasting on Crunchyroll and I had wandered into the show thread, just to see what people were saying and, although I didn’t really think the show would be to my tastes, thought I would at least give it a look. The first episode was just about as bad as I thought it would be (excepting the stellar animation from GoHands), and I didn’t really think about going back to the show until the other day, when I for, as I said, inexplicable reasons went and watched the whole show.

I gave Seitokai Yakuindomo a 4/10 (ranking here), and my opinion of the show didn’t really change from the first episode of the first season to the last. So why did I continue watching it?

Because of these guys.

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The Top 5 Most Fun Anime

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We all watch anime for different purposes, but probably the most prominent reason is for entertainment. Not every anime is a 10/10 or even a 9/10. But if we tried to watch only anime in the 8/10 to 10/10 range, we’d miss out on a whole host of other wonderful shows and we’d miss out on a lot of fun.

I’ve been wanting to a post on this subject for a while. The title may say “The Top 10 Most Fun Anime,” but it could maybe also say “Lower Tier Anime with High Entertainment Value” or even “Guilty Pleasure Anime.” Guilty pleasure isn’t the right name for all the anime on this list, but it certainly appropriate for at least a few. Probably the most appropriate title would be, “Anime I Really Like That Aren’t Substantial Enough to Really Be Considered Excellent,” but that’s a mouthful. So, without further audieu: the top 5 most fun anime.

1. Medaka Box & Medaka Box Abnormal

Boasting one of the most overpowered heroines ever, Medaka Kurokami,Medaka Kurokami Medaka Box takes the high school fantasy genre and inflates it with absurd characters and even stranger powers. Medaka, the newly elected freshman student council president, sets up a suggestion box for students of the school. None of this should be unfamiliar, but when Medaka decides to tackle a request, it’s go big or go home. And Medaka doesn’t go home. She just goes big. While the supporting characters, even the male tsundere Zenkichi, are fun to watch as a cast, Medaka is the undisputed star of this show. She’s pretty clearly a Mary Sue type, but it’s completely intentional and it works. Like another strong female character in different show on this list, Medaka dominates the show when she’s on screen. At the end of the day, Medaka Box is just fun shounen action with an incredibly earnest and idealistic protagonist. Sure, there’s a lot of ecchi stuff going on, but Medaka Box is fun enough that it’s (sometimes) not totally in your face.

Read on to see the other 4 shows on the list! Continue reading →

Winter 2014 Midseason Report

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While I’ve only been watching simulcasted anime for three seasons, the Winter 2014 season is probably the weakest I’ve seen. This is mostly due to a number of very inconsistent shows. I’ve seen batches of shows that were consistently excellent or consistently mediocre or consistently bad, but Winter 2014 has brought many shows that just can’t make up their mind if they want to be good, bad or just run-of-the-mill. It’s a frustrating phenomenon, which makes those shows that are consistently good much more valuable to us viewers. So, which shows are falling more on the good side than on the bad? Read on to find out. Here’s a hint:

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Love Lab Review

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Hello, hello, I’m back again with another cheery anime review, the oddball middle school comedy Love Lab. Allow me to sum it up in a picture:

Love Lab Everliving Hell

And that’s the crazy, clean fun that represents Love Lab. See see where it ended up in my rankings, click here. Love Lab gets a 7/10 from me, missing out on a higher rating because it is fairly shallow (although not in a bad way). However, the comedy is excellent and the themes are wholesome, ensuring that Love Lab deserves to be in the company of big hitters like Attack on Titan. Continue reading →

Black★Rock Shooter Review

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Perhaps no series has ever grown on me in such a short amount of time as Black★Rock Shooter did. A sadly, but appropriately short series of just 8 episodes, Black★Rock Shooter evolved from a simple illustration created back in 2007, which then inspired a song by ryo of Supercell, which then lead to a 50-minute OVA, which then lead to an expansion of the character into numerous other media, including video games, manga and the subject of this review: anime.

At the time of this writing, I still had not fully settled on a ranking for Black★Rock Shooter. I really liked, maybe even loved the series. After a lot of deliberation, I have decided to give Black★Rock Shooter a 9/10 and a place in my personal top 10 anime. The ranking can be found, as always, on the Ongoing Rankings Page.

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Tari Tari Review

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There are a lot of things that could be said about Tari Tari, almost all of them good. A simple series, it knows itself well and is comfortable being just short of spectacular. For a viewer such as myself, who has had intimate experiences with music, Tari Tari speaks a little more deeply and touches just a few more emotions than it would for someone who’s never done music before. This isn’t to say that Tari Tari can’t be enjoyed by someone who isn’t hugely into music; it certainly can be. But as someone who spent his high school years happily singing in multiple choirs, the events that the characters of this anime go through ring very true to my own experience.

For Tari Tari‘s ranking, check out my ongoing rankings. Tari Tari  gets a very solid 7/10 from me. Read on for the full review!

Tari Tari Title

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