Post by aka Cthulhu on Aug 4, 2009 22:36:09 GMT -5
Ladies! and Gentlemen! and to all the other weirdos out there... It's time, people, it's time for the first ever episode of Cthulhu's A is for Anime, A is for AniCrap reviews! Anime is what I review, and AniCrap is... well, crappy anime. Yes. I'm here to find and review the anime-ted equals to Katie Vick and Disaster Movie, at the risk of my health and sanity. A noble sacrifice, one that requires a person that has too much time in his hands.
Before I start, methinks I need to make something clear first in order to avoid confusion in the near future. Most of time, I'll review anime that would normally be considered weird and unusual, but that does not mean that all of them would be considered AniCrap. I'll review things in my own happy way, and I'll decide in the end if the series is okay, or good... or that it's a pile of crap that needs to be decorated with the ribbon called AniCrap. Okay? Okay.
Now... it's been a year since I've been planning this bastard, and it's time to really start this. First Episode time!
A is Anime, A is AniCrap, Episode 01: Strike Witches
No Pants! But I'll get to that bit later on.
The Year 1939. If you go to Wikipedia and type in those 4 numbers, you'll find out, among other things that Batman made his first appearance in a comic book, Siam re-names itself as Thailand, and World War 2. Now, these three things have no relation to each other, and their importance is nil to the story. In fact, I'd like to point out now that this story is set in an alternate universe, which means no World War 2, and Hitler. A happy thought, I think.
So... no Nazis, but the world is still in danger. The universe has a way of kicking things like peace in the nuts in order to gather ratings, so we get an alien(?) threat to threaten love and peace, and people. Neuroi, as they are called, which kinda look like black CG airships with a honeycomb-like surface. They fire lasers. At people. Which means that the world is in danger. Again.
The Neuroi are introduced during the first few minutes of the first episode, and all I could think of was "Huh..." which is an alternate version of "Meh". A mediocre design, slightly uncreative, boring. Gonzo made Vandread a few years ago, and the design for the Neuroi are almost similar to the mooks of Vandread. Kinda lame.
Anyway, Humanity's answer to the Neuroi threat is the Striker Unit: an anti-Neuroi weapon that "augments magical power, the only means of combating the Neuroi. It's a new type of magical broom that makes flight possible through this power".
Okay, a bit strange, but not bad. Way better design compared to the Neuroi. I give it extra points for the detail (not shown in the pic above -- can't find good screenshots) -- later on I find out that the characters, and their Striker Units are based on real people, the pilots of WW2, and this is where it gets weird.
So... powered by magic and stuff. Strike Witches. The characters, the main cast, are all female. So we get female characters based on WW2 pilots flying around using leg attachments that help them fight what may or may not be aliens. Oh, and when they fight, they grow animal ears and a tail. Weird? Not yet, people.
Take a deep breath, normal person. If you're confused, I'll say it again. No pants. None. They do not exist. What you see above is a bunch of girls whose ages are between 12-20, almost all of them wearing nothing underneath except their unmentionables.
NSFW? Probably. Loli anime? Not so much, to be honest. Sure, you see a bunch of girls without pants -- no pants at all, even during the times when they're not fighting, but that alone couldn't be called a loli anime. Kodomo no Jikan is a loli anime, and a headache. Strike Witches is a bit more iffy -- only one character is 12 years old, which is already a bit old to be a loli. If you want to call it names, then, Jailbait would be a bit more accurate. In any case, fanservice is light, with the exception of one or two episodes.
Wait. Light on fanservice? Even though they're not wearing pants? Am I sane? I'm probably not, but think of it like this: they, the female characters have no pants, but later on you discover that the other female characters, the older ones, most of them are not wearing any pants. Which means that it's kind of like the fashion in that era, for women. In fact, no one in their universe is questioning their pants-less-ness, which means that it is the norm there. So it's normal, and we move on.
At times like this, twisting logic around feels nice.
So now, we re-cap a bit. Repeat after me. Young girls fighting aliens using large guns and jet-pack legs powered by magic while not wearing pants. That is the basic premise of Strike Witches, and we now cut to the opening credits!
Hmm, it's cute. What you'd expect from light-hearted series, while adding some cool-looking guts and less pants. Think Gunslinger Girl, adding lots of sugar, less darkness, and no pants.
After the opening credits, we head into an action scene as the Strike Witches go after the Neuroi. Above average, lots of gunfire and laser-dodging, but quick. Of course, plenty of panty shots to satisfy the main audience watching.
Sanya V. Litvyak.
Lynette Bishop.
Francesca Lucchini.
Gertrud Barkhorn.
Erica Hartmann.
All of them are based on real pilots. Guess, or go to wiki.
Anyway, the battle is quickly over as Mio moves in for the kill using her sword. A bit impractical, but slightly cool. Screen fades to black before we see the finishing blow, and we see the title of the First Episode. Magical Girl.
We go to the Fuso Empire, which is Japan in this crazy pants-less world, Yokosuka Fourth Girls Junior High School. Time to introduce the main character: Yoshika Miyafuji. Currently very busy rescuing a cat in a tree. As you can see below, no one in school is wearing pants. (man, I think I need to stop mentioning the lack of pants)
A Cat.
Anyway, the cat is resued nice and easy-ish. Not quite as action packed as the scene before, but the pacing of the story so far has been good. No explosions, no Neuroi to decimate small villages and other stuff that might happen. We then find out, through a flashback scene laced with sepia, that Yoshika's father left home several years ago due to him aiding the army in the fight against the Neuroi, and that he dies three years later, and the facts surrounding his death are a mystery to Yoshika.
And so the plot thickens, or at least the surface of the metaphorical peanut butter of plot hardens a little when we see, from a distance, Mio Sakamoto spying on Yoshika. With a guy that shall be named "the Stalker" during the few seconds that we see him, since he's the one doing the watching.
s*** happens. Yoshika and her friend get into a car accident, and s*** happens.
With Yoshika using her powers, and with a bit of help from Mio, Yoshika's friend is saved, and she faints after using her powers.
Later on we find out that Mio has been scouting Yoshika to get her to join the Strike Witches, due to the powers she had displayed earlier which would help in the fight against the Neuroi. I'm sure it's every girls dream to go into battle against a world-destroying alien force, but to the surprise of Mio our 13-year old heroine refuses her offer, since her father died due to his involvement in the war, among other things. After this, Yoshika grows up to be a fine, pants-less, young woman; eventually taking over her family's clinic. Meanwhile, the Strike Witches defeat the Neuroi without her, and everyone lives happily ever after, except the Neuroi. Those bastards.
Okay, the last few sentences were obviously lies. Mio leaves, but Yoshika that she won't be giving up and will be waiting for her to join the Witches. The very next day, Yoshika receives a letter from her father. Since dead people usually don't write letters to people, this is a very shocking moment. It gets even more vague when there's only two pictures inside the letter, and no sign of any message.
We also see a young Mio on the second pic, as well as the Striker Unit used against the Neuroi. Connect the dots and Yoshika now has one person that knows her father.
Eyecatch~ We've reached the first half of the first episode~!
I think they meant "Gonzo" below. Gonzo aired the show in youtube and crunchyroll, with subs, for free during it's original run.
Time for the second half! Let's get this over with so I can have a nice hat-less lunch.
Yoshika meets up with Mio to ask question, and she discovers that her father had been involved in the development of the Striker Unit, and that Mio is not so sure if Yoshika's father is alive or dead. Of course, this gives Yoshika enough reason to ask the eyepatch-lady to take her to Britannia (remember, alternate universe. All hail Britannia!) to find out about his father's fate. I'd like to stop a few seconds and say that I really like Mio's voice. Compared to most of the female cast, her voice is a bit more masculine and deep, which fits her direct personality a lot. Plus she has a very nice "Ha ha ha!" laugh.
Anyway, despite tagging alone with Mio to Britannia, Yoshika states that she has no desire join the Strike Witches and fly around while shooting at stuff with a big-ass gun. Which is okay with Mio, who does another "Ha ha ha!" as we move on to the next scene.
Aboard the battleship Akagi, Yoshika learns a bit more about the current situation in Britannia. The alternate-world UK has become the frontlines for the war against the Neuroi, which also means that it's where the Strike Witches are. It's very subtle, but this is based on World War 2, after all. The subtle-ness gets more extra good points from me.
Anyway, next up is I guess a montage of Yoshika volunteering to do chores in the battleship, and one fanservice shot. Since most of them are generally unimportant, we skip that and move on to the more important bit -- the Striker Unit.
No action in this scene. All of it is just Mio flying around the ships and nothing else. Plain, but the background orchestra music used while she's flying is noteworthy, plus the sound of the Striker Unit's propeller-things as it flies in the air compliments the scene well. A slightly above average scene, brought down by a lack of things to shoot.
Yoshika is impressed, but not impressed enough to join her in the skies. Nothing else to comment here, so let's move on. Hey, fanservice!
At Strike Witches HQ, we see a few members do a bit of R&R, to the delight of our anime-watching audience. Fanservice, yes, but let's not dwell and mope on things, shall we?
In any case, Perrine complains to the two about their overly relaxed attitudes. I mean, there is a war involving aliens, after all. The not-dark-at-all nature of the series is shown here, and while fanservice is a bit iffy to some people, I have to say that it's well done and not done in excess.
Anyway, this peaceful fanservice comes to a halt when the sirens start their job of making some noise to indicate that, yes, some s*** is going to happen. The girls relaxing are confused -- and we discover that the Neuroi usually follow a certain schedule of attacking. Quite conveinient unless you're taken by surprise, from the looks of it.
So, as the Strike Witches rush into battle, you ask: where are the Neuroi? Of course! They're going after the battleship Akagi, where Mio and Yoshika are in!
Time for battle. Yay~ Mio tells Yoshika to go inside the ship, since she's a noncombatant while Mio's going to get busy doing some Neuroi ass-kicking. And, of course, there's no time left, and we get the Ending Credits!
Liked the OP better, but this is okay too, I guess. Extra trivia: each episode the ED is sung by the different VAs of Strike Witches. Knowing this is half the battle.
First Episode, AniCrap? Hm, not really. The introduction is one-half iffy and one-half boring, but it does get better somewhere before the first half of the episode. Character designs are good, the Neuroi and most of the background is average at best, and the music is above average. As for the fact that it's several female characters running around without any pants on, I have to say that it really didn't offend me. It's just a part of the whole weird-ness, I think (animal ears, tail, the Striker Unit, no pants).
For now, Episode 1 gets a decent 7/10.
And we're done for the First Episode review! Later on I'll do the overall review for the series, and will decide if the series would be called AniCrap!
Anyway... wow, I finally finished writing it. If there are any mistakes, my apologies and stuff. I won't be eating hats today, yay.
Before I start, methinks I need to make something clear first in order to avoid confusion in the near future. Most of time, I'll review anime that would normally be considered weird and unusual, but that does not mean that all of them would be considered AniCrap. I'll review things in my own happy way, and I'll decide in the end if the series is okay, or good... or that it's a pile of crap that needs to be decorated with the ribbon called AniCrap. Okay? Okay.
Now... it's been a year since I've been planning this bastard, and it's time to really start this. First Episode time!
A is Anime, A is AniCrap, Episode 01: Strike Witches
No Pants! But I'll get to that bit later on.
The Year 1939. If you go to Wikipedia and type in those 4 numbers, you'll find out, among other things that Batman made his first appearance in a comic book, Siam re-names itself as Thailand, and World War 2. Now, these three things have no relation to each other, and their importance is nil to the story. In fact, I'd like to point out now that this story is set in an alternate universe, which means no World War 2, and Hitler. A happy thought, I think.
So... no Nazis, but the world is still in danger. The universe has a way of kicking things like peace in the nuts in order to gather ratings, so we get an alien(?) threat to threaten love and peace, and people. Neuroi, as they are called, which kinda look like black CG airships with a honeycomb-like surface. They fire lasers. At people. Which means that the world is in danger. Again.
What you see: Not Hitler.
The Neuroi are introduced during the first few minutes of the first episode, and all I could think of was "Huh..." which is an alternate version of "Meh". A mediocre design, slightly uncreative, boring. Gonzo made Vandread a few years ago, and the design for the Neuroi are almost similar to the mooks of Vandread. Kinda lame.
Anyway, Humanity's answer to the Neuroi threat is the Striker Unit: an anti-Neuroi weapon that "augments magical power, the only means of combating the Neuroi. It's a new type of magical broom that makes flight possible through this power".
Okay, a bit strange, but not bad. Way better design compared to the Neuroi. I give it extra points for the detail (not shown in the pic above -- can't find good screenshots) -- later on I find out that the characters, and their Striker Units are based on real people, the pilots of WW2, and this is where it gets weird.
So... powered by magic and stuff. Strike Witches. The characters, the main cast, are all female. So we get female characters based on WW2 pilots flying around using leg attachments that help them fight what may or may not be aliens. Oh, and when they fight, they grow animal ears and a tail. Weird? Not yet, people.
They're not wearing any pants.
No pants. For the record, two of them are wearing stockings, and only one of them is wearing a skirt.
Take a deep breath, normal person. If you're confused, I'll say it again. No pants. None. They do not exist. What you see above is a bunch of girls whose ages are between 12-20, almost all of them wearing nothing underneath except their unmentionables.
NSFW? Probably. Loli anime? Not so much, to be honest. Sure, you see a bunch of girls without pants -- no pants at all, even during the times when they're not fighting, but that alone couldn't be called a loli anime. Kodomo no Jikan is a loli anime, and a headache. Strike Witches is a bit more iffy -- only one character is 12 years old, which is already a bit old to be a loli. If you want to call it names, then, Jailbait would be a bit more accurate. In any case, fanservice is light, with the exception of one or two episodes.
Rest easy. She's 20. No loli fanservice in this pic.
Wait. Light on fanservice? Even though they're not wearing pants? Am I sane? I'm probably not, but think of it like this: they, the female characters have no pants, but later on you discover that the other female characters, the older ones, most of them are not wearing any pants. Which means that it's kind of like the fashion in that era, for women. In fact, no one in their universe is questioning their pants-less-ness, which means that it is the norm there. So it's normal, and we move on.
At times like this, twisting logic around feels nice.
So now, we re-cap a bit. Repeat after me. Young girls fighting aliens using large guns and jet-pack legs powered by magic while not wearing pants. That is the basic premise of Strike Witches, and we now cut to the opening credits!
Hmm, it's cute. What you'd expect from light-hearted series, while adding some cool-looking guts and less pants. Think Gunslinger Girl, adding lots of sugar, less darkness, and no pants.
Sakamoto Mio, Squadron Leader of the Strike Witches. She has the Geass ability to see the core of the Neuroi with her right eye.
After the opening credits, we head into an action scene as the Strike Witches go after the Neuroi. Above average, lots of gunfire and laser-dodging, but quick. Of course, plenty of panty shots to satisfy the main audience watching.
Sanya V. Litvyak.
Lynette Bishop.
Francesca Lucchini.
Gertrud Barkhorn.
Erica Hartmann.
All of them are based on real pilots. Guess, or go to wiki.
Mio Sakamoto, 19 years old. Aku Zoku Zan~
Anyway, the battle is quickly over as Mio moves in for the kill using her sword. A bit impractical, but slightly cool. Screen fades to black before we see the finishing blow, and we see the title of the First Episode. Magical Girl.
We go to the Fuso Empire, which is Japan in this crazy pants-less world, Yokosuka Fourth Girls Junior High School. Time to introduce the main character: Yoshika Miyafuji. Currently very busy rescuing a cat in a tree. As you can see below, no one in school is wearing pants. (man, I think I need to stop mentioning the lack of pants)
A Cat.
No Pants. Actually a school swimsuit, not underwear.
Anyway, the cat is resued nice and easy-ish. Not quite as action packed as the scene before, but the pacing of the story so far has been good. No explosions, no Neuroi to decimate small villages and other stuff that might happen. We then find out, through a flashback scene laced with sepia, that Yoshika's father left home several years ago due to him aiding the army in the fight against the Neuroi, and that he dies three years later, and the facts surrounding his death are a mystery to Yoshika.
Sepia Tone. No better way to say "flashback scene" than this.
And so the plot thickens, or at least the surface of the metaphorical peanut butter of plot hardens a little when we see, from a distance, Mio Sakamoto spying on Yoshika. With a guy that shall be named "the Stalker" during the few seconds that we see him, since he's the one doing the watching.
Right; Mio Sakamoto, not wearing pants. Left; a Stalker, wearing shorts that kinda make him look like a pedo.
Yeah, we're not totally not stalking you.
s*** happens. Yoshika and her friend get into a car accident, and s*** happens.
You don't get to see blood like this on WWE Raw nowadays...
Yoshika, healing people with the power of LOVE! Okay, so she's just healing people.
With Yoshika using her powers, and with a bit of help from Mio, Yoshika's friend is saved, and she faints after using her powers.
Later on we find out that Mio has been scouting Yoshika to get her to join the Strike Witches, due to the powers she had displayed earlier which would help in the fight against the Neuroi. I'm sure it's every girls dream to go into battle against a world-destroying alien force, but to the surprise of Mio our 13-year old heroine refuses her offer, since her father died due to his involvement in the war, among other things. After this, Yoshika grows up to be a fine, pants-less, young woman; eventually taking over her family's clinic. Meanwhile, the Strike Witches defeat the Neuroi without her, and everyone lives happily ever after, except the Neuroi. Those bastards.
Okay, the last few sentences were obviously lies. Mio leaves, but Yoshika that she won't be giving up and will be waiting for her to join the Witches. The very next day, Yoshika receives a letter from her father. Since dead people usually don't write letters to people, this is a very shocking moment. It gets even more vague when there's only two pictures inside the letter, and no sign of any message.
As you can see, even the adult females are not wearing any pants as well.
Is it just me, or does Yoshika's father have the same expression on his face most of the time? I smell photoshop!
We also see a young Mio on the second pic, as well as the Striker Unit used against the Neuroi. Connect the dots and Yoshika now has one person that knows her father.
Eyecatch~ We've reached the first half of the first episode~!
I think they meant "Gonzo" below. Gonzo aired the show in youtube and crunchyroll, with subs, for free during it's original run.
Time for the second half! Let's get this over with so I can have a nice hat-less lunch.
Long hair, eye-patch, katana, no pants.
Yoshika meets up with Mio to ask question, and she discovers that her father had been involved in the development of the Striker Unit, and that Mio is not so sure if Yoshika's father is alive or dead. Of course, this gives Yoshika enough reason to ask the eyepatch-lady to take her to Britannia (remember, alternate universe. All hail Britannia!) to find out about his father's fate. I'd like to stop a few seconds and say that I really like Mio's voice. Compared to most of the female cast, her voice is a bit more masculine and deep, which fits her direct personality a lot. Plus she has a very nice "Ha ha ha!" laugh.
Ha ha ha!
[/i][/right]Anyway, despite tagging alone with Mio to Britannia, Yoshika states that she has no desire join the Strike Witches and fly around while shooting at stuff with a big-ass gun. Which is okay with Mio, who does another "Ha ha ha!" as we move on to the next scene.
Aboard the battleship Akagi, Yoshika learns a bit more about the current situation in Britannia. The alternate-world UK has become the frontlines for the war against the Neuroi, which also means that it's where the Strike Witches are. It's very subtle, but this is based on World War 2, after all. The subtle-ness gets more extra good points from me.
Anyway, next up is I guess a montage of Yoshika volunteering to do chores in the battleship, and one fanservice shot. Since most of them are generally unimportant, we skip that and move on to the more important bit -- the Striker Unit.
Let's say this again: girls with large guns with animal ears and tail using jet-pack-things attached to their legs powered by magic to fight against aliens, while not wearing pants!
No action in this scene. All of it is just Mio flying around the ships and nothing else. Plain, but the background orchestra music used while she's flying is noteworthy, plus the sound of the Striker Unit's propeller-things as it flies in the air compliments the scene well. A slightly above average scene, brought down by a lack of things to shoot.
Yoshika is impressed, but not impressed enough to join her in the skies. Nothing else to comment here, so let's move on. Hey, fanservice!
Charlotte E. Yeager, second pic, based on real-life person Chuck Yeager. Someday, this information might save your life.
At Strike Witches HQ, we see a few members do a bit of R&R, to the delight of our anime-watching audience. Fanservice, yes, but let's not dwell and mope on things, shall we?
Perrine H. Clostermann. One of the few characters who wear something to cover up their undies. It's not pants, but I guess it's okay -- definitely fills in the gap for stocking-fetishists.
In any case, Perrine complains to the two about their overly relaxed attitudes. I mean, there is a war involving aliens, after all. The not-dark-at-all nature of the series is shown here, and while fanservice is a bit iffy to some people, I have to say that it's well done and not done in excess.
Flat-chested. Often used for comedy, or a kick in the nuts.
Anyway, this peaceful fanservice comes to a halt when the sirens start their job of making some noise to indicate that, yes, some s*** is going to happen. The girls relaxing are confused -- and we discover that the Neuroi usually follow a certain schedule of attacking. Quite conveinient unless you're taken by surprise, from the looks of it.
They see pedos.
So, as the Strike Witches rush into battle, you ask: where are the Neuroi? Of course! They're going after the battleship Akagi, where Mio and Yoshika are in!
Firing mah lazer! Can't find a pic where the beam hits the ship...
Time for battle. Yay~ Mio tells Yoshika to go inside the ship, since she's a noncombatant while Mio's going to get busy doing some Neuroi ass-kicking. And, of course, there's no time left, and we get the Ending Credits!
Liked the OP better, but this is okay too, I guess. Extra trivia: each episode the ED is sung by the different VAs of Strike Witches. Knowing this is half the battle.
First Episode, AniCrap? Hm, not really. The introduction is one-half iffy and one-half boring, but it does get better somewhere before the first half of the episode. Character designs are good, the Neuroi and most of the background is average at best, and the music is above average. As for the fact that it's several female characters running around without any pants on, I have to say that it really didn't offend me. It's just a part of the whole weird-ness, I think (animal ears, tail, the Striker Unit, no pants).
For now, Episode 1 gets a decent 7/10.
------------------------------------------
And we're done for the First Episode review! Later on I'll do the overall review for the series, and will decide if the series would be called AniCrap!
Anyway... wow, I finally finished writing it. If there are any mistakes, my apologies and stuff. I won't be eating hats today, yay.
