I read this and I’m like, no. Some spoilers ahead for Japan Sinks 2020.

I watched Japan Sinks 2020. The “dumpster fire” problem is because Japan Sinks 2020 is a story about the Japanese identity in light of pain and suffering on a national level, and maybe make some lemonade when life gives you a lot of lemons. I liked the lemonade ending when Ayumu and Go got their lives back while living in Russia, because Japan literally sank and there was nothing they can do about that.

The leading up to it is the suffering in which paints the turning point of the varying amount of overcometh that Go and Ayumu had to, well, overcome. Her bionic leg is literally trivial when the circle of nearly everyone who she knew died in the tragedy. I think bateszi makes the point that by “foddering” them characters that perished along the way make the psychological points for Ayumu and Go, but unlike fictional characters, human beings behave in very unpredictable ways in light of tragedy. It’s not unexpected to hear very negative takes from actual human beings who had to suffer through Japan Sinks 2020. Empathy is the organ we experience this kind of fiction, characters may or may not be Gods but humans have emotional ties to them. So that much is expected going into this series.

Here is where Japan Sinks 2020 gets the dumpster fire complaint. If you are a homeless person seeking warmth in the winter, a dumpster fire is not the worst place to be. But most people watching Japan Sinks 2020 are not homeless, or emotionally in need of cheap death porn, to find the mere fact that the Yuasa anime kills them off for effects as a per se positive. This is the kind of “benefit of doubt” we give to a genius filmmaker, perhaps, but for people who won’t even give 2c about that, it plainly did not work. It never works when Dad gets offed like that–and the moment it turns into comedy is the moment the emotional tethering to the not-very-humorous Ayumu loses its dramatic pull. When viewers care enough about your characters to entrust you with our emotions, it is a double-edge sword to pull a stunt like this, because it shows us you don’t actually care about our emotions, and it’s only used for effects.

In other words, unless Ayumu and Go suit up and dive into the tectonic fault akimbo with laser blasters, trying to fight the bad guys, the comedy take just isn’t going to work as criticism for Japan Sinks.

This is pretty much the opposite recipe to masterpieces like Graves and This Corner. This is why Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 didn’t work either. You want magical realism? Graves and This Corners are like 100 times better at it. The realism complaint also made sense given how it tries so hard to incorporate IT in it, how the climax has to deal with fetching a SSD from some bunker? Or that the way Senpai took a dive? LMAO. It’s only entertainment if you are emotionally detached, but then it fails at the main job of the story. If we want this sort of thing, there is the entirety of Korean TV drama for your picking. Or the B-rated horror genre. Japan Sinks 2020 is limp, lukewarm all considered.

Sure, you can roast marshmallows (Sup KITE) with a dumpster fire too, and maybe have a fresh lemonade to go with, but it doesn’t make Japan Sinks less of a dumpster fire. Pretty much everything after the lost-at-sea arc was detached from any sense of realism. If anything that has been the trend of the series as it went on. It became less and less realistic–which makes you think about the ending. Each story arc is increasingly unlikely to happen. Maybe that is the secret to Japan Sinks 2020. Everyone basically will die, but they decided to not give you that ending. That would be an improvement too.

One real criticism for bateszi: “That doesn’t make it [bad]. It’s trying to make you laugh!” He said, in the year 2020. Basically, this is why we can’t have nice things in the past 7 years.

Oh, the animation isn’t even good. This is easily the least impressive looking Science Saru work even including all the pre-Science Saru stuff. So there’s also that. I mean, maybe this is on par with Yuasa’s episodes of Photo Kano, if not worse.

For one night only, on August 1st, the three dead IDOLM@STER 765Pro AS radio shows will make a comeback. It’ll be streamed on Nico, and the first actual IDOLM@STER official youtube channel (about…time?) will also host it. Nico gets an omake as usual I guess.

Not that there’s anything wrong with MOR–it’s a perfectly great weekly internet show, it showcases content that direly needs more exposure and covers all the branches of the franchise, even .KR and 876Pro. In the big picture, we lost 3 to get 3 more? There’s now a Shiny radio, there is another CG weekly(?) and there is MOR. I sort of lost track really. But yes, Aimachu and IM@S Studio are also back with Aisute for one night only.

There is just a bit over a day left to send in some fan mail–all the usual corners are available. The info for Aisute is here. There is also a form to send in general letters for the August 2nd live stream, which features the full cast. Again all the info is on this page, include the other corners from the other shows. The deadline to submit a letter is 7/21 midnight JP time, so you have about a day and change to do so!

It’s hard to explain, but the IM@S radio shows played a big part of P culture from back in the days, and that culture carried into the first Deremas and Million weekly shows. At some point those shows became one of the pillars of the series, even if it was kind of its own thing. It’s easy to get attached to them back when it was a big outlet for the series for people looking at the 2.5D content. In retrospect the three shows didn’t even go away for that long, but it’s nice to say the least.