Komugi, Kadokawa and Zetsubou Sensei

Posted On February 20, 2008

I figure I’ll bunch all this stuff into one entry, just because.

Thanks to an overseas DVD trade between Shiro and myself, I was finally able to secure the first volume of Nurse Witch Komugi. Having finished SoulTaker a few months back, naturally the next course of action was to dig into these wonderfully fluffy and sugary OVAs, hilariously completely different from the work which they are derived. As of right now, I’ve seen three episodes– 1, 2 and 2.5. In other words, the whole first volume.

A long while back, some fool told me that the jokes would be quite difficult to get, given they referenced seemingly obscure things. As such I was ready for a Pani Poni Dash! styled barrage of weirdness, but almost thankfully, I got something slightly more sane. The show really is your typical otaku moe-fest, with its share of reused gags and routines. It’s very entertaining, well animated, and easy to watch. The only parts where people may get thrown off are at the ends of each of the episodes, which usually feature a reference to something uniquely Japanese. For instance, the first episode had Komugi fighting against a giant Mona (complete with kopipe-beam and other associated 2ch madness) and the second episode had Komugi (all five of her, for some reason) done up as your favourite Science Ninja Team. I suppose if one doesn’t know anything at all about anime, then such things may come off as alien, but for the most part, this shit is basics. Perhaps it gets wackier later on– I don’t know. In the meantime however, I’ll just conclude that the guy who was on about this show being impossible to crack is an idiot, because, well, he is.

The funniest part about this DVD is that you can really see its age in the translation, mostly due to the fact that “moe” is translated as “charming.” I can just imagine the translator wracking his brains over this word which, for the most part, was pretty unknown to US fandom at the time. The image of him trying to define the word for himself and then finding an appropriate English equivalent simply sends me into fits of uncontrollable laughter. “Charming” Medical Shower, lol.

Well, I suppose it makes more sense than “turn ons”

Apparently Kadokawa is cracking down on fanworks for some asinine reason. I can kind of understand the logic behind knocking openings and endings off video sites (even if doing so is incredibly stupid) but cracking down on fanworks is tantamount to shooting any love for your product in the fucking face, especially when it comes to properties such as Haruhi. Haruhi is driven by its fandom– the reason so much attention is still focused around it almost two years later is due to its insane fandom. Telling fans to stop making works of love based on your property is basically the same as telling them to not like it. Is it so hard to see that fanworks are pure and unadulterated works of love? Why squash that creative spirit? It doesn’t hurt the company at all– in fact it only helps them, given it’s fucking free advertising. Doujin sales ain’t gonna hurt you Kadokawa, so chill. Neither will MAD movies, for that matter.

Shinbo is motherfucking holding out on us all for not revealing where he gets his drugs. I’d go as far as to say that the last third of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode 7 is a landmark in Japanese animation for just how fucking out there shit can get. They don’t just switch between different animation styles in one segment, they go through different techniques, even brining flipbooks and claymation into the mix. It’s fucking bizarre. I’ll supply for your the tip of the iceberg of madness in the form of a screencap right now.

Yes, that is Bob Ross painting Konata. And it only gets weirder from there.