The Fierce War of 2008: Casualties of War
Posted On January 4, 2009
With the dead arts, the forgotten ones, and the old 2007 shows behind us, it is now time to move onto the shows that both began life and ended life in 2008. As usual, I start from the bottom and work my way up…
While we all love anime (we all do, right?) often times we must admit that there is a fair amount of crap amongst all the good stuff. Smart people drop these shows. I don’t. Here’s a rundown of shows that I should have dropped, or shows that just didn’t do it for me, but I finished them against my better judgment.
D Rank
- Rosario + Vampire, D+: GONZO should be given a medal for being the first studio to ever screw up a fanservice show. I don’t expect much out of my fanservice shows, but at the very least I expect entertainment. Rosario + Vampire can’t even deliver that between its terrible animation and horrid, un-funny writing. The only thing that kept me through this shitfest was the really good character designs.
C Rank
- ef – a tale of melodies, C+: Anything touched by SHAFT’s Art-with-a-capital-A hands is sure to at least look interesting, and the first ef series certainly did look nice. The writing was boring half of the time, but all said the show was decent. I went into series two with low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. Sadly, it all falls apart after three episodes. Both the original and the adaptation are to blame–the writing is terrible, and Oonuma’s direction makes the show way too difficult to follow. The production values are slightly better this time around, but otherwise this sequel is a boring mess of poor writing and direction.
- Kemeko Deluxe, C+: Kemeko Deluxe is a really solid comedy, but its humour and mine are never on the same wavelength. I really liked the character designs and the production values, but in the end I wondered why I even watched this show. I guess the only thing Mizushima and I agree on is Dokuro-chan.
- Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de, C-: I watched this show just for Yuuko Gotou. She does her character alright, but I prefer her Kaede/Mikuru/Hiro range. There are a few good G-Gundam references, but other than that don’t watch this show, just fap to the HCGs from the game.
- Kyouran Kazoku Nikki, C+: Kyouran Kazoku Nikki had a lot of promise. It could have been a great, random, ADHD comedy, but instead it wanted to be… drama. There are smatterings of top comedy here and there, but on the whole the show totally sucks. The only reason it has a C+ is for its character designs, and one really great episode.
- Rosario + Vampire Capu 2, C-: With a show like Rosario + Vampire there’s no where to go but up! Some how, out of all the fanservice shows out there, this was greenlit for a sequel. Strangely enough, Capu 2 is slightly better than its predecessor. The humour works some of the time, the animation is slightly more competent, and the fanservice is quite good. The show shoots itself in the foot with a horrible finale that is too shallow for words, but the opening sequence almost makes up for that.
Next Time: THOSE WHO LAUGH AT THE FACE OF DEATH
9 Comments
I’d have to disagree with you on Capu2.
I think that it’s waaaay worse than Rosario + Vampire. At least R+V kinda had a plot with the monster-of-the-week formula and other stuff going on. Capu2 was a big fat disappointment, seriously.
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Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de id say it was atleast a B minus, it was a really fun fanservice show and it did have a all star Seiyu cast.
The show had everytype of fetish going for it and for a fanservice show thats perfect and the fact that all the male charecters were hotblooded males it just made this show pretty good from me.
Also being a huge G gundam fan and shuffle fan just made this show really fun.
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki i thought was pretty bad, i watched the whole thing always expecting it to turn good. The show seemed to have had alot of promise.
ef – a tale of melodies only thing i really liked was the Art stlye i do love SHAFT.
Rosario + Vampire Capu 2 had one good episode(yankee one) and a horrible ending.
Changing yourself for others, what the fuck gonzo.
Kemeko Deluxe was fun nothing really special, MM is moe though
I still think ef is a damn good anime(though I have yet to finish melodies). And how exactly is it hard to follow?
I liked Kyouran Kazoku Nikki much more than it probably deserved, mostly beacause drama with THAT set of characters was… amusing.
And in case of Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de I agree with Sheentaku. Instantly forgetable, but rather fun. And Shinra is totally my type.
G Gundam references?! I am there!!
A super robot wars with a patch? FINALLY!
but I want my OGs to have a patch to, not read a script while I play, damn me and not getting any Japaneses studies :P
I myself didn’t mind the focus more on the “Family” then on the “Frenzy”, so I enjoyed the show. \o\
Capu2 kind of busted most of its animation budget on the OP. I noticed lots and lots of horrible animation in it, but the worst instance was the animation for Kokoa’s tirade in the cave during the “let’s go to Mizore’s home town” episode.
Looping animation? It’s an unfortunate fact of life. Looping animation of character’s head moving from point A to point B and then skipping back to point A, repeating this three times? Unforgivable.
For a while, I thought I was looking at some /f/ loop and was expecting random hip hop or techno music to start playing.
Another problem with Capu2 was that it spent waaaaay too much time plugging the character singles by having at least one singing sequence for the last few episodes.
Still, yeah, the OP’s really nicely done. With some luck, maybe we’ll get one with full animation throughout instead of interspesed with funky disco Stargate wormhole travel sequences.
Oh, come on. Kemeko Deluxe is a B-, at least.