There is just one comment I want to make:
How do you deal with an audience who is going to point out that those girls are working in zero-gravity with skirts? In a show where they’ve tried to, well, avoid showing anything underneath skirts? Tried to, because it seems that they did in Mouretsu Pirates anyway.
How do you deal with an audience who is going to ask themselves “Wait, how do you get cellular reception underwater?”
I guess this is where I grin and nod to your typical Tatsuo Sato anime.
I think that is one of the continuing challenges to make content for an increasingly fanatic and jaded crowd; like a sea of Simpson’s Comic Book Guys. But some people just have the touch.
Two girls, one cup.
The forbidden uniform. The forbidden line. What is next?!
Wait… Disney will never license this show, right? Just like Ocean Waves, right? LOL.
January 17th, 2012 at 12:26 am
Personally, I would not mind a few more pantyshots in my miniskirt pirates anime. Just sayin’
And the cellphone joke was hilarious, fantastic setup and payoff.
January 17th, 2012 at 6:27 am
I find it unfortunate that people get their panties in a bunch about if there is any/none/a lot/some panty shots in any anime. I understand the issues surrounding it, but overall it isn’t something that can make or destroy a show.
January 17th, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Criticizing a show for its fanservice is an intellectual shortcut. Its a way for someone to bash a show without having to put any actual thought into it, but get a lot of agreement anyway.
January 17th, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Given how thought out everything’s been so far, I assume that the skirts in 0G is being done as a joke.
Criticizing something for too much fanservice/titilation/t&a/whathaveyou is perfectly fine. Everyone has a different confort level with the stuff and I don’t see anything wrong with voiceing dislike for it. Saying that everyone who criticizes it is being disingenuous sounds like a classic case of the pot and kettle.
January 17th, 2012 at 6:08 pm
See, I don’t think “joke” cuts it. It’s more like “let’s give them something to think about.”
January 17th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Saying that everyone who criticizes it is being disingenuous sounds like a classic case of the pot and kettle.
There is a difference between “I don’t like fanservice” and “OH MY GOD FANSERVICE KILLING ANIME”
Also, it is trotted out highly selectively. I was told, in all seriousness by a blogger on a pretty big group blog that Suruga writhing around naked in Nisemonogatari 2 was tasteful and appropriate, while the onsen scene in Last Exile: Ginkyoku no Fam 12 (in which all participants were wearing shifts) was the height of pandering and was ruining the show.
So yeah.
January 18th, 2012 at 8:53 am
Part of the problem is that there are a lot of fans that aren’t served—they have to look past the locker-room stuff before they can get to the real flesh of the series.
Horizon in the middle of nowhere has this problem by the bucket-full as did Divergence Eve. Yes, dismissing a show because of character-designs or voyeurism is superficial, but partly that’s an effective strategy because so often that’s all the substance that is there. It’s the iconography of idiocy.
For a series that used the panty-shot as joke, look to Shangri-la. Its miniskirted heroine was constantly turning cartwheels and tumbling across the screen, but there was always “convenient censorship”. It was great.
January 18th, 2012 at 9:31 am
You guys are a bunch of unfortunate people you know that? Take your misfortunes about underwear somewhere else.
And I think the convenient censorship in Shangri-la is hardly a plus, at least in that dark pit of minuses. It probably would have garnered more interests if it had more panty shots, in retrospect.
To me, that says the problem are those fans, not the show.
January 18th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Well, it’s a problem for me, too, because I’d like to share some of these titles (Horizon, especially), perhaps even with non-fans. But first I have to apologize to them for the vulgar character designs (and, in the case of Horizon, some of the vulgar behavior).
January 18th, 2012 at 10:25 pm
That’s too bad. Not that I disagree with you, but I would do it slightly differently. Because, after all, you probably should apologize for a lot of other things, pointing out the character designs only would just make things worse :)
January 18th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
(and, in the case of Horizon, some of the vulgar behavior).
What? I mean, seriously. What?
I’m really curious, what precisely was in Horizon that was “vulgar”?
I mean, when I think “vulgar behaviour” in anime, like…maybe Haganai would come to mind.
but there was always “convenient censorshipâ€. It was great.
Yeah, heaven forbid we ever see that most horrible of objects, the panty!
Man people are so fucking uptight.
January 19th, 2012 at 11:36 am
Tori’s boob grabbing is vulgar. Sad, because the series is brilliant.
Yeah, heaven forbid we ever see that most horrible of objects, the cliche!
Fixed that for you.
Shangri-la made fun of the cliche in some wonderfully clever ways. I find cleverness more entertaining than cliche (which is one of the reasons I like Horizon so much).
January 19th, 2012 at 11:41 am
But really, having to apologize for things like this seems like, well, putting the carriage before the horse. You should probably apologize that Japan is still a very backwards society when it comes to racism, women’s right and sexual harassment norms and what not. And that you’re a dirty otaku who likes shows like Yamibou. Among other things first.
January 19th, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Tori’s boob grabbing is vulgar. Sad, because the series is brilliant.
That stick in your ass.
Remove it.
(alternatively, have you watched an american comedy recently?)
January 19th, 2012 at 4:32 pm
OK you can stop picking on him now :p It’s not so much just a problem but the reality of the situation. It’s more sad than something you can really rectify, sticks or no sticks.
January 19th, 2012 at 8:14 pm
@Fencedude: no, I haven’t watched an American comedy in probably 35 years, since I haven’t owned a TV in about that length of time. Oh, some American movie comedies, sure, but apparently not the vulgar crap you’re thinking of. I don’t really have time to spend on that stuff.
But seriously: you can’t possibly think that boob-grabbing is a vital part of Tori’s personality and furthers the story (well, his suggestion to how Suzu confront Nate in their battle was funny, so maybe)?
No, Omo, I don’t have to apologize for enjoying Yamibou, nor for enjoying Hagenai. None of those are shows that I’d consider sharing with someone who hasn’t consumed the otakoolaid, because they just aren’t good enough/are too embedded in Japan’s backwardness w.r.t. race and the treatment of women/are targeted at an audience that’s maybe fifteen years old (and dirty otaku like me). I’m on the fence about Ben-tou.
The point I’m trying to make (and which is apparently eluding Fencedude) is that shows like Horizon and Divergence Eve suffer from poor choices in character design: they’re both excellent shows, shows that could have a broader appeal, even among anime fans, but only if the fan is willing to climb over certain over-sized hurdles. Divergence Eve is one of the better SF series of the past ten years or so, but it’s relegated unseen to the drooling-fan-boy ghetto because it wears drooling-fan-boy iconography. Horizon has both the drooling-fan-boy aesthetic and the requirement that you wait a long time for it all to make sense (which probably turns off the drooling fan-boys). Too bad.
January 19th, 2012 at 9:56 pm
I think the point eluding you, dm, is that the character designs isn’t so much a poor choice as much as just a matter of your preference. The saying goes one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
But most importantly I don’t believe for a split second that somehow having broader appeal is a good thing. That is not the point to the story in Horizon, or as I see it, one of the driving motivation behind its creation. So while you might feel you have to apologize for whatever the reason, please note that that is a matter of your taste and it is purely your choice in thinking so and doing so (or in Fencedude’s terms, of having a quality (by no means permanent) of having a stick up one’s rear). You can’t possibly be serious about judgement about breast sizes as a final word. At least until we get to Eiken territory anyway.
As for Divergence Eve, I’m almost almost certain it has bigger problems than Horizon, in more ways than one, that contributed to its obscurity. Or probably I should say, Horizon has bigger problems, some so large that they require the original material to explain.
January 19th, 2012 at 10:08 pm
You can’t possibly be serious about judgement about breast sizes as a final word.
Of course not. Haven’t I made that obvious? I’ve praised these series. The breast size issue is just an unfortunate obstacle that a lot of people have to overcome before they get to the chewy nugget of wonderfulness (or share it with others), not “a final word”.
January 19th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Ok, and if people are that shallow, fuck ’em.
I agree, by the way, that Divergence Eve is a great show let down by (among other things) mediocre at best character designs (the boobs don’t help, but the designs in general are just so…so…generic) and really, really atrocious CG. I have no problem looking beyond those, and I encourage others to do so as well, but I’m not going to wring my hands over them.
As for Toori’s boob grabbing, it sorta is a big part of his character, and hell, Horizon is one of the only shows I can think of where a character getting Pants’d (not to be confused with Pantsu’d!) is a major dramatic plotpoint, and it works.
January 20th, 2012 at 6:41 am
@dm
No, you didn’t make it obvious in that the breast sizes are part of that chewy nuggest of wonderfulness (I’m sure some might have used those words to describe them for some other show).