Category Archives: Franchises

December 4, 2017

The Hardest Things to Animate, Fall 2017

By omo

…Are cute girls cooking.

Before my mental gear switches into “all retrospectives, all the time” for the rest of the month, let me just talk about this season’s slate and other related things. As a bonus for each episode I will give it two ranks, how much I want to watch the episode as it airs, followed by how often I do end up watching the episode as soon as a new one is available. For both values, 1 is the highest/soonest and 5 is the lowest/slowest. The goal is to give a numerical representation on how competing time and interest factor in how I view these shows. Some week/weekends I’m out all day and have to prioritize my down time, you know!

THE IDOLM@STER SideM – When I returned from Japan after attending IDOLM@STER 10th anniversary event, I felt that the franchise has become a “home” where my “heart” returns to. SideM’s Jupiter-focused episodes are a great summary of this concept, this past week and from the start. In some ways this show is exceedingly watchable for a male-idol franchise, for a more general audience. Watchability rating: 1, 2 – Because I want to be in a good state of mind when I watch it, so I don’t always do so ASAP.

Wake Up Girls Shinso – The franchise reboot without Yamakan now gains Yamakan as the most annoying cheerleader. I think the series does feel different without his involvement, and it unfortunately suffers from some severe production issues. The focus on MayuC is okay, as with the introduction of RGR (Ranga…neo ranga…) and looping in the large I-1 cast and all the spinoffs. It’s still WUG and it’s still something channeling the ideas presented from the original, but more tightly written because it doesn’t have to couch itself with depicting a post-311 Tohoku. As a fan I have a lot to say about this show but nothing is really important? LOL.Watchability rating: 2, 2 – Too many live action episodes that don’t get streamed on CR, because of production issues, throws off my timing on these.

Imouto Sae ga Iire ba - I know it’s written by the Haganai guy, and I found Haganai generally disturbing and at times offensive. ImoutoSae is like the same pivot the Oreimo guy did to bring us Eromanga Sensei, and I am really enjoying it. It feels like instead of debating politics of shooting people and blowing up things, it’s much more interesting to debate video games where players shoot people and blow up things, as an analogy? This is the meta level take on an already really meta thing, which is “that database” I occasionally refer to. It deserves its own post later. Watchability rating: 1, 1 – My favorite this season.

Kino’s Journey is good for just being something very easy to watch, can’t say the content is good or bad…probably because it’s a mixed bag. Watchability rating: 3, 2 – Easy to watch does mean I end up watching it sooner rather than later.

Food Wars is always a delight, a modern shonen battle story. Not much to say besides this new turn of event is kind of meh.Watchability rating: 2, 1 – Not top of my list but such a page turner, plus I can watch this with company.

Netjuu no Susume is a ton of fun in a good J-drama kind of way. I call it the soul food anime this season.Watchability rating: 2, 1 – What happens next? LOL.

Just Because is good on a technical level, but a little hard to watch. It’s great once you can get into it though, and I like how it manages around the typical pitfalls of adolescent romances. And that animation…Watchability rating: 2, 2.

12 Taisen is a fun, filtered Nisioisin thing. The upside is people die, the downside is that it becomes a guessing game, and not a story? The high production value makes it not that annoying, with somewhat a toned down Nisioisin-ness? Watchability rating: 3,2 – I kind of dread watching it, but once I start it goes down easy.

Blend-S fanservice is top notch, but I hope they lean into that shipping stuff which made Working compelling. It’s doing it so very slowly… Watchability rating: 2,1- Mostly compelled due to social networks.

Girls’ Last Tour – I picked up this show from SNS word of mouth. I am slightly biased against this seiyuu cast, but the story is a little compelling and it’s a good show to relax to. Also, I’m not up to date on it, LOL. Watchability rating: 3,5 – 5 because I’m behind by like a month plus.

Urahara – Another show high on concept and I like it for that, but execution is lacking–not in the way you think. It’s just the fully lack of tension makes it a little hard to follow. And it isn’t because nothing drastic happens in this show…well, maybe nothing is really that drastic. Like when aliens invade earth in Kekkai Sensen versus when aliens invade earth in a Barbie movie? I don’t know. Watchability rating: 3,4 – I’m a little behind.

Kekkai Sensen – It’s going into “same o same o” territory which means it’s great for fans but so so for everyone else. Still fun animation, as TV anime go. Watchability rating: 3,3 – I just don’t feel the compulsion to watch this, and at the same time you can pick up or drop this series at any time in any fashion, it’s so easy to get in and out.

Magus’s Bride – Sleigh Beggy? More like Slight Boring. When people hyped this up in the early goings of this season I was interested. Now I’m just letting out some giant yawns. It’s not even a let down, I expected this too self-important of a show to miss the mark, if the 3-episode OVAs are any indication of the story. So far it hasn’t really deviated much, if anything, it was better when the story came and went without all this magic-setting pretension. Maybe the manga is better. Maybe people should have just not hyped this show. Watchability rating: 2,2 – For healing type anime it works pretty okay, a little more upbeat than your usual variety.

Konohana Kitan – I like it but more for seiyuu and for cute being cute, otherwise this story of otherworldly hotspring hotel run by foxgirls is sort of just okay. Tho if it can produce episodes like episode 8, consistently, it would get promoted. Watchability rating: 2,2 – Maybe 1.5, 1.5 rather?

Houseki no Kuni would be higher tier if not for the most uzai Kurosawa Tomoyo ever. This is one of those cases where while I appreciate the acting, having pre-animation dubs removed some limits on how annoying she is. Also the story is just kind of silly even half way through? Like, yeah I know Phos is different later I still cannot take this show seriously. It’s not even a matter of the visual language (eg., oh noes she’s gonna go Kizuna Ai on us), but just the attempt at tonal shifts in the show is not something I can take seriously. Watchability rating: 2,3 – I end up getting to this later because it’s not on CR so I have to pirate it the old fashion way, sigh.

Anime-gataris – Big bang theory the anime. It’s full of really peak jokes, so just for those I can say I am glad Anime-gataris exists. But it’s got a taste of what I remember from the late 90s when Japan makes anime with a western audience in mind. Now it’s China, I guess. Watchability rating: 3, 2 – I end up watching it because it’s on CR and I tend to have more free time on Sundays, after all.

Two-car is by no means bad, but yeah who would watch this show? Other than me? Or yuri fanatics? Or people actually into the sport? It could be more of a comedy I think, and that would really make this show ring. As is, it’s got a mandatory low-conflict tension every episode and I’m not sure if anyone should care. It’s kind of an elaborate exposé, maybe. Watchability rating: 4, 4 – It’s not bad, just hard.

Ousama Game: LOL what is this trash. I guess it’s fun but it sits at the bottom of the “I have no time to watch anime” ladder of shows to cut. Watchability rating: 3, 5 – I’m a month behind I think.

Fate Apocrypha – A bigger yawn than slight yawn. To be fair I’m only halfway through and haven’t watched any in a couple months. Watchability rating: 3, 5 – This is an Anime Strike show, and you know how that is.

Mahoujin Guruguru – I’m still like, just 1/3 of the way into the series. Probably because I want to marathon this and have not had the time. Watchability rating: 2, 5.

Some other random stuff this season:

Pri Pri Chi-chan still delivers. The Rietion anime is really fun and even not totally stupid always, just sometimes. I don’t think I would watch this show not for seiyuu purposes, but I can see myself doing so if it’s something I end up watching on regular TV for some reason. Watchability rating: 1,3. – It’s short.

Cingeki S2 is fun. More of the same from the first set of episodes but I like how it gets awfully meta. Watchability rating: 1,1. – It’s super short.

Osomatsu-san S2 – When I saw that first episode I knew it was time to call it quits, and the subsequent episodes played out my expectations. You can’t go over the top the same way twice. Open to coming back to this show if it gets better though… No rating for shows I’m dropping.

Welcome to the Ballroom – It’s a good show but I think I’m going to drop it, despite the delicious interaction between the dancers. I’m not opposed to catching up but I don’t like this particular angle they’re going with in terms of the sports and character development. No rating for shows I am dropping.

I watched that Blade Runner anime. I would not dissuade anyone from watching it but it’s just okay. No rating for movies and one-shots.

Man I wanted to watch Heaven’s Feel but missed the local show dates. It’s still going to be in theaters when I go to Japan though, so lol. I guess the new Garupan movie series will start this month as well, so that’s something to look forward to. No rating for movies and one-shots.

I finally got to watch Genocidal Organ, despite missing it earlier this year (twice?). It looked good. It is a bit neutered compared to the book, not for graphic violence but for the implication it makes at the end. Also, the effect of the plot device doesn’t really come across to me that well, which is unfortunate. Otherwise it’s a solid action vehicle for animation? For all the fun we make of the verbose expositions you see in Type-Moon works, sometimes that is exactly what’s good about the thing and it’s nice to have a heavy dose of it as long as it doesn’t ruin the film. No rating for movies and one-shots.

Leave a comment | posted in Animegatari, Blend-S, Fate, Genocidal Organ, Houseki no Kuni, Idolmaster, Imouto Sae ga Ireba Ii, Just Because, Kekkai Sensen, Kino no Tabi, Konohana Kitan, Mahou Tsukai no Yome, Modern Visual Culture, Netjuu no susume, Shokugeki no Soma, Two-Car, Urahara, Wake Up Girls!

November 8, 2017

Hometown Tax, Buppan Bros

By omo

Two more ideas for this blog post. First, ImotoSae’s tax accountant.

https://twitter.com/MilesExpress999/status/927761333310779394

I’m all for sadistic Nunu whispering “Oniichan” to my ears. That aside, the Hometown Tax or Furusato Tax or whatever, the idea is piggy-backing on the rural revival ideas partly described via these lines of thoughts, but without the actual tourism. The tax-deductible donation system is originally intended for people who moved to the big cities from the countryside, so that they can financially contribute to their hometown’s municipality. What’s more, the beneficiary can, in return, gift the person who designated part of their income tax to the municipality. This has become a weird scheme in which people are basically buying things via their hometown tax, because you don’t actually have to designate the money to your literal home town. You can donate to just about any Japanese municipality, even an urban one. You can read about the full situation here. I mean, just go and look at the home page of Furusato tax, it’s like a full blown shopping site.

Here are some things that was available for “purchase” with the donation (tax deductible!):

It’s not to say it isn’t already cool to get wagyu beef or snow crab legs from a humble donation (well, some of the gifts are quite expensive in order to get, but they are tax deductible). What’s kind of fearsome is that some of these goods are simply things you can’t buy, however, and are worth a lot if they are fungible. If you ever wonder how the hometown tax ends up relevant in a super otaku anime, now you know.

As for filing income tax as a freelancer or consultant in Japan, yeah it’s more about figuring out the deductions, but also knowing how much you have to pay to cover for insurance and various fees. That stuff is just administrative though.

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The BBT of anime, Anime-Gataris, has a moment in this past week’s episode where the Gataris meet Beibei (baby is the pun in the title, right?), a Chinese otaku braving Summer Ket along with our youthful protagonists. This is something kind of endearing to me as an experience, because it’s like a special bond you form with other folks in your same predicament, may it be a hostage situation or braving summer of Japan outdoors from 3am to 1pm, in a line. And you think Comiket lines are bad? LOL.

It’s kind of weird in that, not only I’ve had similar experiences (minus the Japanese speaking part), I’ve seen/been a part of it enough times that I don’t even bother anymore. I mean, usually I want to sleep, you know? Also, too bad Beibei and the Gataris are not Producers, because we would exchange IM@S business cards as part of the ritual. It’s pretty cool how you actually end up keeping in touch with some of these folks over the years because you got their contact info at an offkai or in the goods line. It’s one of those funny fandom quirks that ends up being really useful and a neat part of the fandom. It’s not a unique part of the fandom, I guess, because it’s pretty common for cosplay and art circles to have vanity/business cards, but it’s something to think about.

Leave a comment | posted in Animegatari, Imouto Sae ga Ireba Ii

November 6, 2017

Letting Yourself Go: Netjuu Is Neat / Sakura Quest In a Nutshell

By omo

“Lets herself go” is exactly what I’d say is happening to Morimori. I’ve been watching Netjuu and while it’s not my favorite of the season (ImoSae is by far my favorite) I think there’s a lot to be said about this show.

This reminds me a lot of another anime I watched recently: Re:LIfe. There is an element of fancy that largely sets on a mundane configuration that makes more sense as J-drama material than anime would. In this case, it’s probably easier to do a MMORPG look in anime than it would with live actors, and on a certain level anime and voice acting do a better job than, say, showing the same deadpan shock face of Aragaki or something.

I think what makes Netjuu work is not just the delightful voice acting that Evirus pointed out (and it’s not just Noto and Ueda, much of the cast is good as well, but man are those two great like this), but it’s a nice headtrick compared to the other video games relationship stories of recent. Gamers is the one that sticks out to me, and along those lines there are others you can think of, probably. It’s cliche to have a romance budding from MMORPG buddies–10 years too late I’d say–but in some ways the deal of having an ikemen becoming interested in you to begin with out of a chance encounter, and then having to overcome that l33t NEET barrier is what drives, well, mainstream hits like Densha Otoko. It’s a makeover. It’s just nice that gaming is so in nowadays!

===

Related to my last post, check out ChaosT’s post on Sakura Quest, as if you didn’t watch the show. There are a few other notes I want to drop, mainly on immigration and population growth.

Using USA as an anecdote, population growth by demo generally slant towards immigrant sectors. I think the trend globally has been that towards established economies, population growth via natural birth have slowed when breaking into demographics and ignoring immigrants.

From an outsider point of view, it’s a no brainer as to what’s happening to Japan. Maybe nobody really knows why some people stop having so many kids or whatever, and this is something that could be caused by varying things differently for different people groups. And maybe it’s not satisfactory to just call Japan’s isolationist and xenophobic tendencies as “racism.” It’s a lot deeper than that term now has come to mean things. I can only speak for myself, but the feeling has long been that some of the people of Japan would rather perish than to change their ways, and now they are getting their wish. It’s a form of racism, I suppose, but it’s not really about discrimination, and it’s not even an unwillingness to compromise–it’s more like they’re unable to seek alternatives. It’s like a form of racial segregation gone wrong, or in evolutionary terms, when a society or set of cultural customs become unable to change in a way to continue its existence, it will eventually goes away and become extinct.

It’s not insidious per se. It’s like in a hypothetical world where everyone rides buses, only white people can sit in front of buses. Unfortunately for the hypothetical bus riders, it turns out sitting in the back of the bus drastically improves your survival rate in bus accidents, and these buses have accidents all the time. And the hypothetical people deciding who gets to sit where on the bus aren’t evil about discriminating against non-whites, compared to their greater desires to have white people sit in front of the bus for some other reasons not connected to continuous survival of white people in this example. Hopefully the people in this hypothetical can take a lesson from Sakura Quest and get bus-on-demand via their iOS apps; the racism can be dealt with later when people stop dying.

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Netjuu no susume, Sakura Quest

October 23, 2017

Anime-Gataris Is BBT

By omo

I watched 3 episodes of Anime-Gataris. It reminds me of anitwitter in that it has all these really low level takes. Unlike anitwitter it wasn’t funny or even occasionally insightful, or all that updated–tons of old takes. What I find more troubling in Anime-Gataris is that it lacks the double layer of awareness that I am coming to expect of my meta anime in 2017. Imoto Sae is a good example of what Anime-Gataris is not, for a recent example.

The result, I don’t know if it’s fair to say, is that Anime-Gataris reminds me a lot of the Big Bang Theory. A character and situational driven comedy poised to drop bombs on nerdy references…is exactly what both are. The problem is the jokes and references are fine and well and good in Anime-Gataris, but I’m not sure if it’s for an audience that really wants to get all the jokes. To use an example, it’s like how Garnidelia’s Aikotoba has a space in it on ANN’s listing of Anime-Gataris, and not a no-space or even a dash. (Do you get what I’m trying to say by this meta joke?) If it was proper anitwitter, “A~I~Ko~To~Ba” or something just a little more ~woke~.

The problem at a glance with Anime-Gataris, and other shows like it, is that they are the sort of despised creatures of the 00s in that mid-Azuma, database creation space. I think on a certain level I’m intrigued to see that “character X is supernerd into [vertical Y] and character Z plays the outsider getting in” template is applied to actual anime and not as a derivative work, because that’s how everyone outside of Japan sees things. [Which leads to a bunch of thoughts in my head about oversea fan-catering-isms, but that’s besides the point.] We’ve had enough of this with games, cosplay, Akiba culture, idols, whatever. Finally one on actually anime as disposable entertainment.

Anime otaku is really an underground and hardcore breed of otaku in Japan, ultimately. There are a lot of “poser-likes” who are aware of the meta but don’t play, to use a CCG metaphor. The type of people who watches 10+ shows a season over the span of a few years (minimum) is what makes up real anime otaku I think. Except I think there are more people who don’t watch that many anime and know what’s up, than those who do.

Maybe in 2017 it’s time to have another show like this (yes, it’s novel), in this way (no, it’s tried and tired). Like at this point I don’t even care for its curious, gloves-on references to other properties (such as..Dub Tones? Or whatever Love Live is). It just feels like a by-the-committee effort to milk actual anime otaku, in that flat kind of way that I know oversea nerds like. Of course, this is also counting on Anime-Gataris to carry out its plan to develop its characters as usual and provide some compelling hijinks, but until it makes an IDOLM@STER reference, all it’s doing is saying the things I’ve been hearing people say for the last 20 years.

I guess I judge this kind of things on actual merits, not on superficial performances. So while I will observe Anime-Gataris from afar, I’d suggest people actually go watch all the shows referenced in Anime-Gataris first before watching Anime-Gataris. You are guaranteed to spend your time better that way.

Leave a comment | posted in Animegatari

October 23, 2017

Some Thoughts on the “FairyTale Ja Irarenai” Event

By omo

I went on Reddit looking for a fight and caught a fish who didn’t know any better. So let me summarize the finding in more precise terms. And also some thoughts.

  1. The new ranking event forces everyone to play the same way, with some options:
    1. You can pick your Stamina use, 2M, 4M, 6M, MM. (15/20/25/30)
    2. On the next page you can pick from two songs (one is “recommended” and gives slightly more points, see below), or a job;
      • And also, alternatively, the event song. Which uses no Stamina but song tokens and doesn’t count as one of the 5-things.
  2. You do 5 non-event-song things with Stamina and you get 1 event song token (max 99 stored)
    • Each of those things also give some amount of event points.
    • The amount of event score those 5 things give you correlates to Stamina used. More Stamina you use, more points you get per type of thing.
      • Job gets you about half the points as the recommended song for the same Stamina tier.
  3. The lower Stamina you spend to get finish those 5 things, the less Stamina per token you can get.
  4. Since event songs give the most score for the event, it is most efficient to do the lowest Stamina things over doing higher Stamina things, because you end up with more event song tokens with the same Stamina spend.
    • But of course, it also means playing for longer to get the same amount of points as someone spending more Stamina.
  5. People who don’t spend money on stamina or has a cap and need to maximize mileage, should play with minimal Stamina per 5 things.
    • Because you get more points overall since playing the event song gives you a lot of points
  6. People who have unlimited spend or limited time to play that they can’t use up their budget/Stamina store and need to maximize score at all cost, should play with max Stamina per 5-things.
    • The event song also rewards players who do the higher stamina 5-things, but not enough to cancel out just grinding with the lowest stamina and then play the event song.

I basically spelled out point #6 on Reddit and one person refuses to get it, because the realization that you get more points with the lowest setting stops them from realizing that this event is about max event score, not max efficiency. In other words, time is a limited resource for everyone, Stamina is not limited in the same way for rankers and whales.

Ultimately a hybrid strategy is ideal for people who want to achieve a high rank in this event; the score scale has changed from a standard “play songs normally, or crunch gems to P2W, whoever does the one or the other thing the most time wins” to “play songs normally…and optionally spend gems to get more points per period of time, and somehow someone wins?” The scaling swings towards people who can play the event song the most number of times, rather than the limits of the event token that you can get. It opens two doors for whales; you can grind 75 stamina or 150 stamina, the latter gives a modest advantage only (maybe 50% more points for 100% stamina), but it closes the door on them in that the overall time it takes is not drastically reduced unlike the jewel crunch method for the other type of ranking event.

There’s a calculus problem hiding in here.

My gut feeling is that much like the pay-to-lose style of grind that characterizes Greemas Million Live battle ranking events, pay-to-win jewel crunch for the typical PST event is too easy. You can grind in a couple hours enough points for the 5000th place tier, and that’s probably impossible for this event given how things are working out 2 days in.

The meta models is pretty easy to understand. Instead of calculating the best efficiency, it’s about predicting player behavior and figuring out how to one-up other players, in a competitive ranking event. So you do still need to understand efficiency, but the psychological barrier preventing people from spending or taking a less efficient route necessary means the group of players who do not have that Greemas 1200th place ranking mentality will have narrow score groupings, because you would do the max efficiency model. People who want to tier 2 will figure things out early and abandon that to go full throttle, or try to see if they can extend that efficiency to higher scoring tiers.

I sort of like this particular change they’ve done to the meta, but at the same time, it’s an outright nerf to P2W so it’s more P2L–in that the trap is both you could be spending your time grinding 2M and getting fewer points than your ranking competition, or you could be blowing cash and achieving fewer points than someone who has more time and is steadfast. Pegging the amount of play you do with the final score by requiring the # of tokens to be fixed and unattached to the ticket system is both good and painful, I guess.

At least, if anything, there are more options to victory in this event, and equally options to screwing yourself over. That is an overall improvement, I guess.

Leave a comment | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, Idolmaster