Rate the Last Anime You Watched Out of 10

Napping Princess: 5/10

Napping Princess is a rather unfortunate film which ended up being ruined by Kenji Kamiyama's complete inability to structure his original works. (f*** you, Eden of the East)

As an interview highlighted, only during production did it dawn on ol' Ken that a film about a tablet containing car production secrets would not be 'magical', or anime enough to earn it mainstream appeal... or be at all interesting, really. So, he did what any ANIME creator would by inserting a loli, a dream kingdom called 'Heartland', a transforming robo-bike and mecha combat; just for the hell of it. I mean, obviously!

You see, the heroine, Kokone, likes her naps nearly as much as myself. And whenever she has a nap, the focus switches over to an alternate dreamworld that does not connect to the main narrative in any way, shape or form besides being a metaphorical shitshow. It took me THREE attempts to finish the film, simply because every once in awhile dream nonsense would take over and disrupt the narrative flow. And as an added bonus, the grand finale was confusing due to it blending dream and reality pointlessly. Also, the CG often looked atrocious--the low frames-per-second flying bike part, in particular. It was like traveling back in time and watching Bokurano again!

It truly is a pity the film turned out this way. Overlooking the basic premise being much too dull to hold the interest of most, Kamiyama's attempt at bridging family generational gaps via an endearingly cheerful/stupid/simple-minded heroine worked well... to an extent. The humour made it entertaining and it looked absolutely gorgeous at times, with the basic-yet-charming art style holding great appeal; especially the lip indent when faces are seen side-on. There was also some really nice running animation sequences, and the edited/painted in real life backgrounds blended superbly with the 2D animation. It even had a quite lovely piano theme to go with the eye candy.

My feelings were best captured by the end credits: for the first time (in a two-hour film, no-less!), the backstory of Kokone's parents was shown at the very end - when it no longer mattered - after however many minutes were wasted in Heartland... OKAY THEN~
 
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Anthem of the Heart

Had this one sitting on my shelf since release, and I finally got around to watching it. Can't say I was too impressed, frankly. It's one of these films that's clearly supposed to be 'feelsy' but fails to have any decent emotional resonance. I feel most of this stems from the attempts at romance that fall entirely flat. They feel almost entirely unnecessary and overall detract from the main story, adding to a run time that overstays its welcome. The love triangle just felt like needless melodrama. If they instead opted for a tighter focus on Narase's guilt and her overcoming that and her relationship with her mother, it'd have been way better. Said romance only seems to exist in order to contrive a reason for the big 'emotional' scene to happen, when it didn't even need that scene to begin with. The play at the end, with a bit more of a time allowance, would have served as a far better means of catharsis for the heroine, which we still somewhat get, albeit heavily kneecapped.

It also didn't help that the protagonist Taku was stunningly bland either. Perhaps if he had an issue that Nanase could have helped him deal with, helping to heal each others wounds, it would have worked better. You only have to look at A Silent Voice to see that concept done right.

One thing I will say, I did honestly like and appreciate the outcome of the romances in the film. It's pretty ballsy and you don't see it often, opting for a logical ending based on the characters interactions throughout the film as opposed to having everything work out fine just for the sake of a crowd pleasing ending. It's a hell of a lot more realistic than this sort of fair tends to be in the anime sphere.

Going by theatrical standards, the animation was also very poor. A1 Animation have had TV shows that look better than this, which is baffling considering films generally have a higher budget and only ~2 hours worth of animation compared to the ~5+ of a standard length TV anime.

Anthem isn't a bad movie by any stretch, I'd go so far as to say there is a great work buried in here somewhere, it is just in dire need of some tightening up.
 
Double Decker: Doug & Kirill

A jolly buddy-cop comedy that I thought at times cryingly funny in its first half, but wavered a bit towards the end as it tackled the more serious parts of its plot. It was always likable throughout, but when it isn't playing it purely for laughs, I think it's easier to see the show's shortcomings. The climactic action set piece is pretty average, for example, and, despite having their names in the title, the central duo are often less engaging as characters than some of the people around them. It's been announced that a further three episodes will be released down the line, so as the main plot line is pretty well wrapped up, I just hope they'll go back to the funny.

All credit to whatever studio worked on the CGI though; CGI elements are used quite a bit in the show, but they're well integrated and don't seem to suffer the usual herky-jerky frame-rate reduction nearly as much as many other series out there.

Zombieland Saga

Similar to Double Decker, this is an entertaining, lightweight zombie idol comedy that comes off the boil a little when it tries to be more serious in its second half. It fares a little better with its character beats and builds to a rousing finale (liked the 'and the band played on' vibe in the final concert), but I found the seemingly last minute attempt to trail a few plot threads for the next cour to pick up rather distracting. While the end result is perfectly fine, I was also slightly disappointed that they didn't pursue the seemingly darker comedy hinted at by the first ten minutes or so - the scenes of Sakura's 'death' and subsequent reawakening suggest a much blacker tone than what the show ultimately becomes.
 
Cyborg 009: 4/10

No matter how comically deep Kenji Kamiyama attempts to go as he tries - and fails - to imitate 'Ghost in the Shell', he will never, EVER be Mamoru Oshii. 'Tis a a sad but very true fact~

The very existence of Cyborg and that it somehow qualified as a movie, with its PS2-esque cutscene CG, is a rather damning indictment of how far the anime medium has fallen since the 80's and 90's. Long gone are the days of large budgets being given to creative geniuses like Kawajiri and Oshii. Today, all we get are knock-off imitators and imitations.

Now, that is not to say Cyborg is ALL bad: during some of the action, such as when the sexy female cyborg dives from the sky like Motoko in GitS and the protagonist Joe is either hopping between rockets or outrunning a nuclear blast in accelerated slow-mo, you can almost forgive how basic and stiff it all looks. The action sequence direction + Kenji Kawai's forever nostalgically epic music temporarily raises the film above itself. But 85% of the time all you get to see is static CG talking heads that look absolutely atrocious. I cringed even at the start when buildings fell into each other like lego. There was also an attempt at very awkward lingerie sexy tiem foreplay...

Making matters far, far worse is the pretentious nonsense-wtf that is the mess this film has as its plot. It is confusing initially since it throws around a dozen characters at you and explains next to sod all, but whatever: it is basically a Stand Alone Complex rip-off with a police team battling political unrest/terrorism... or so I thought, anyway.

As it turned out, rather than, say, those evil Americans being the big bad, it was God and the Americans being in cahoots with God. Or something. And fossils of giant angels are possessing people. No, really! You see, every human brain is a 'God', able to a hear a voice, and some decide that skyscraper buildings go against Allah's wishes... so they suicide bomb them and/or fire missiles from military ships. My mouth was agape during the 10min static 'explanation' of this, in case anyone is curious.

Perhaps fittingly, the film ends in space, with Joe riding a nuclear missile because... logic? I actually laughed out loud when he stood on the rocket, despairing, and shouted "GAAAAAAWD!!!11!" as if the dub voice actor had been cast in the Devilman OVA. He flies off into the distance, arms outstretched, it explodes... and the film ends with everyone magically alive because God used his Deus ex machina powers. Seemingly, God was not quite as concerned for Dubai during the earlier events of the movie. There are just no words other than 'WHAT!?'

...WHY GAAAAAAAAAWD!? YYYYYYYYYYYYYY
 
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Am I really gonna 'fess up to this, rather than just making oblique references? I guess I might as well. Spoilered due to NSFW (but not particularly explicit) discussion of an 18+ anime (mainly the word "boobs") but people can talk about Perfect Blue, Berserk and Nisemonogatari here right? Right.

Taimanin Asagi

*sigh*

This is what I get for falling in love with a character design at first sight. A PVA drenched monster rape-fest. Why isn't hentai more interesting? I guess for the same reason porn isn't more interesting, but if the main attraction is the action, they could at least have spent all the animation budget on doing that well. Taimanin Asagi does not do that well. It does not do anything well. This is not Cream Lemon, with fun little stories and comparatively innocent sexytimes. Nor is it Mezzo Forte or Kite, utterly stylish and making you feel kind of bad about being aroused, but not really enough to stop you either. It's not even Urotsukidoji, enjoyable for its quality animation and pure exploitation. No, Taimanin Asagi is a hentai for the new century that does make you feel like you need a shower, but for all the wrong reasons.

First off, it's directed as though the whole thing was being filmed by someone running around after the characters with a handheld camera they keep shoving in their faces and pointlessly shifting in and out of focus. In fact, simply imagining this unseen cameraman actually exists in-universe does wonders for the show's entertainment value. This effect is also sometimes constantly used to cover up the fact there is limited or no animation happening on screen. Of that limited animation, a great deal of it is shamelessly looped even in the sex scenes, which are the main draw of the show. Yes, let's cheap out on the very scenes everybody is watching this for. Genius. You might as well watch looping gifs, and in fact rather than sitting through an hour and a half of Taimanin Asagi, that's exactly what I'd recommend any interested parties do.

The heroine of this sh*tshow is Asagi, some kind of ninja who looks like every bland female protagonist of a forgettable '90s anime (this was made in 2008) and wears a permanent expression of quivering shocked surprise both in and out of her clothes. Asagi hunts demons. She is bad at her job, which is the plot's excuse for demon rape. Lots and lots of demon rape.

So while we watch looping gifs through a shakycam for the two and a half episodes (of four in total) it takes to return to what little semblance of plot there is, it becomes quickly apparent that this is a rapid-fire showcase of Japan's Most Ridiculous Fetishes™ few of which, sadly, are on my own list, ymmv. Fetishes that made me laugh. Fetishes that made me slightly nauseous. Fetishes I didn't even know were fetishes (there's the box quote). At one point a blonde girl with even more daft looking boobs than Asagi shows up, I can't even remember her name (I did watch this with subtitles, but I didn't really pay much attention to them) but she's there for people who like daft looking boobs having daft things done to them.

Thankfully, Taimanin Asagi didn't completely destroy what little faith I have remaining in humanity. And it even managed to go one better and make the girl who'd caught my eye the show's single saving grace. Sometimes I'll see a character design I like and be disappointed with what the character is actually like. Not this time. Oboro is a gleefully sadistic antagonist and has both what I think was the show's best and only consensual sex scene and the only one where a woman is the uh, aggressor. That's more like it. Sadly she doesn't look quite as good as her designs for the game of the same title, but she does have the least ridiculous looking boobs. And most importantly she didn't disappoint me and make me commit seppuku with the free Greggs pen on my desk for having watched this show for nothing.

2/10, one for Oboro and one for the couple of my fetishes it did manage to include.

So now I suppose I have to watch Taimanin Asagi 2 and Taimanin Asagi 3 just for more Oboro. Oh well, the designs do kinda look better...

*sigh*

This works on so many levels.
 
This is what I get for trying to entertain you people, silence?

What on earth happened to this thread anyway? It's hardly used any more and when it is, it provokes no discussion. I feel my disdain for the viewing journal thread rising up again. In that spirit, let me drag up something old and try and jump-start this one.
Professor Irony said:
I would also give them credit for doing a successful comedy anime without any reliance on fanservice, but I haven't seen any of the parts with Naga yet...
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Did you ever get round to this Prof? The OVAs and movies are my favourite part of Slayers because I love how Naga and Lina play off each other. Hopefully you were/would be pleasantly surprised.
 
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Well i'm new here so i'm spending most of my time trying to get up to speed on what's actually going on and what the abbreviations mean but i'm going to put my hand up and say I did read your review and was highly entertained. Probably much more so than I would be if I watched the show! I'm not really much of an authority on the subject though, my only foray into this area being brief and quite frankly tame ( Welcome to Pia Carrot II ). This is going back a few years and I was mostly shocked by the pixellation of certain parts. I mean, why would you even want a censored version?

Anyway, I was wondering the same thing, i'd like to see a bit of discussion now and then. I don't always go with the crowd, I actually enjoyed Fireworks which I watched the other day despite being very ready not to as I read it was awful. My OH insisted he really wanted to watch it though, so we bought it anyway (he just picks based on the cover art sometimes). I didn't like the flight of fantasy into idol singing part because it was just so out of place, but other than that I enjoyed it so i'd rate it a 6/10. I don't know if I read into it the same way as anyone else but I have this theory that Nazuna Oikawa knew what the firework shell actually did because she'd tried it herself but wasn't able to change anything. I think she hoped the boys would be able to do it for her and that's why they were all half in love with her and why she acted so strangely. I thought the explanation was in the shards shattered off the firework shell as they each saw a different version of 'ifs'. In the end though she accepted she couldn't change that she was going to move away so she made do with what she could. It could also explain Norimichi's friend's actions, though I genuinely think you do get people like that that that just aren't very nice. I also think it's supposed to imply that her father also failed to change his future and ultimately failed, which is the only reason I could think of for the water scene. Also did he woo her mother using the 'if' ball? either that or my imagination gets way ahead of me and that's why I enjoyed it so much.
 
ayase said:
This is what I get for trying to entertain you people, silence?
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I did think about asking if it was better or worse than La Blue Girl, but I felt it was a conversation I might later regret.

ayase said:
Did you ever get round to this Prof? The OVAs and movies are my favourite part of Slayers because I love how Naga and Lina play off each other. Hopefully you were/would be pleasantly surprised.
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I haven't yet, but this is a good idea and I will make Slayers the next thing I start on; it's definitely better than a lot of the things I've been watching lately. On that note:

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

As someone generally indifferent to the SAO franchise, I don’t think I’d have paid much attention to this stand alone shoot-em-up spinoff, had someone not sold it to me on the grounds that the main character has a pink sub-machine gun that talks to her. As a lightweight action series, it’s watchable and at times genuinely exciting, particularly towards the end of the second virtual game, I just wish I didn’t hate the story that wraps around it quite so much.

With mainline SAO’s ‘die in the game and you die in real life’ gambit long gone, GGO’s stakes are considerably lower (at least for its first half) so the show instead tries to show a little bit of main character LLENN developing as a person through playing the game. When it tries to up the ante around the middle of the show however, I thought the whole thing was ready to collapse - the story feels painfully contrived and the obvious, leaden character developments in the real world are an absolute chore to get through. The strange thing though is that, as long as GGO remains in the virtual world, it kind of gets away with it. LLENN's plot armour would occasionally embarass a tank, but the whole thing clips along with such pace and nutty determination that it's all rather fun. I'd almost recommend stopping the show on a high after the penultimate episode, and avoiding the final round of character revelations (was that part supposed to be funny? I don't even know).

It doesn't help that GGO follows hard on the heels of Recovery of an MMO Junkie, which covered similar story material in a far more interesting and compelling way. Perhaps GGO was determined to follow a different path, but it really frustrated me that the show frequently seems to be on the cusp of saying something interesting about online FPS games and the people who play them, but never engages with any of that on more than the most superficial level. Some of this, I think is down to the adaptation which presumably prioritised the action, but there is a definite feeling of wasted potential.

Ultimately, I'd liken my experience with this one to the Girls Und Panzer film. The shooty bangs are quite good, just don't come looking for a good story to go with them.
 
bangle said:
I was mostly shocked by the pixellation of certain parts. I mean, why would you even want a censored version?
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As I understand it, censorship of any depiction of genitals is the (genuinely bizarre) law in Japan - Even real live porn has to be pixelated and hilarious tiny black bars drawn on pornographic manga, so I'm not sure how some anime manages to get away with not doing so - Perhaps the uncensored versions are only released in the west, or this law was rescinded recently? Certainly there's no such release for Taimanin Asagi, which for all of its debauchery remains genitally blurred.

Professor Irony said:
I did think about asking if it was better or worse than La Blue Girl, but I felt it was a conversation I might later regret.
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For all its (in)fame, that's one series I have never actually seen, so you get to avoid the conversation altogether Prof.
 
Night is Short Walk on Girl
Walked in eager to see the same stype of Tatami Galaxy again. (Same Author, same director, same character designer.) Was confronted with that instantly and what's more with Higuchi and Ryouko being characters in there it actually became a full fledged Tatami Galaxy Spin Off and not just a spiritual successor. It looked even more generally promising, because the girl is not as stern-icy as Akashi and Senpai did not seem as pathethic as Watashi (Until he lost his pants at least).
Until they started the singing...
Granted, it's not so weird, given that they started to drink their minds off before that, but all the jolly "fun" from being drunk completely escapes me, so I have my troubles to relate to that. And being in love is apparantely as bad as being drunk (not changing your underwear because of love for a year, seriously?) Furthermore confusing was Ozu, who joined in as a boy, which totally threw me off in term of situating that in any Tatamii timeline, but in the end that one was some book god?
Things got pretty weird after that and the plot appered to dowright derail itself, which might have been the point with all the drinking and it's drunk effects (?), but I found myself just waiting for Akashi and Watashi to make a came. They didn't make it in, but Watashi's signature phrases "rose colored campus life" and "When I realized it" did, and I even mistook Senpai for Watashi (who certainly looks very similiar to him) for a full minute. Talk about Senpai's presence as his own individual...

Not sure what exactly the core theme even was, except the get drunk and have fun idea. It says at some point, those of are alone have to be active themselves to the guy, but then the guy has done this in his roundabout way already all the time and he ends up with his girl because she reached out to him in the end.

6.5, will have to digest it a little more whether to upround or downround.
 
ayase said:
As I understand it, censorship of any depiction of genitals is the (genuinely bizarre) law in Japan - Even real live porn has to be pixelated and hilarious tiny black bars drawn on pornographic manga, so I'm not sure how some anime manages to get away with not doing so - Perhaps the uncensored versions are only released in the west, or this law was rescinded recently? Certainly there's no such release for Taimanin Asagi, which for all of its debauchery remains genitally blurred.


For all its (in)fame, that's one series I have never actually seen, so you get to avoid the conversation altogether Prof.
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Ah that explains it, in that case i'm surprised they don't just avoid certain angles. It does seem a little ironic considering what i've heard of certain infamous types which always seem to get mentioned by the uninitiated. For some reason people who have no idea seem to presume you're either watching Pokemon or porn. It's a shame as i've found so many people I talk to just won't give anime the chance it deserves.
 
Slayers: The Motion Picture (1995)

A prequel to the first Slayers series, this cinema outing, that sees Lina Inverse beckoned to a small island country by a mage who appears in her dreams, is a slight affair, but the usual formula actually fits the feature film format rather well. I always thought the shorter arcs were the most effective part of the tv version, so a one hour self-contained adventure suits me perfectly, and the film really makes the most of its additional budget. It no doubt helps that I was watching the most recent rescanned version, but it looks absolutely sumptuous, giving the film a real sense of occasion beyond its previous Pokemon-level production values.

The film is also much enlivened by the presence of Naga, Lina’s fellow travelling sorcerer, whose scantily clad design is probably one of the most iconic of the 1990s. Although I was initially surprised by her cleavage heavy presence (that first tv season had no fan service I can remember), she proves to be an excellent foil for Lina and the fun buddy-cop like dynamic between the two of them more than makes up for the usual squad being understandably absent. If I were given to numerical scoring, I’d also add a point for the amazing, Olympic level ojousama laugh that Maria Kawamura brings to the role on its own.

With the bulk of its very lean running time given over to Lina and Naga wandering the island and confronting various comedy goons, it’s perhaps not surprising that the real villain’s role feels a little undernourished, with little characterisation to him beyond ‘monster, bad’, but I feel this is a minor complaint in what was otherwise a very enjoyable experience. It certainly won’t change anyone’s opinion of the franchise (did you like the series? You’ll like this), but this is a handsomely mounted, knockabout adventure that makes a fine addition to it.

Naga/10
 
Very pleased you came to the correct conclusion Prof.
Professor Irony said:
The film is also much enlivened by the presence of Naga, Lina’s fellow travelling sorcerer, whose scantily clad design is probably one of the most iconic of the 1990s. Although I was initially surprised by her cleavage heavy presence (that first tv season had no fan service I can remember), she proves to be an excellent foil for Lina and the fun buddy-cop like dynamic between the two of them more than makes up for the usual squad being understandably absent.
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The film was my first exposure to Slayers, and I think it definitely coloured my subsequent judgement of the TV series. To my mind, Lina & Naga >>> Lina & the TV gang. They just work so well together - Lina's grating at someone who despite her protestations to the contrary is actually a lot like her in many ways, Naga's gleeful zero ****s given attitude* set against Lina's irritability and their sibling like friendship/rivalry are worth a thousand Gourrys.

I don't really know if I'd class Naga's appearance as fanservice or not, if anything I'd say it's more a parody - Her outfit (and boobs) are obviously intentionally over the top, but at the same time any look at her is not delivered with the usual nod and wink that makes me cringe at a lot of fanservice. You get the sense this is just who Naga is, she's not a modest character who we're getting a chance to see in some skimpy clothing at the beach or a glimpse up her skirt. She goes around dressed like this every single day and after a little while, I found I stopped even noticing the fact she's basically wearing a thong bikini at all times. It just becomes normal because that is her normal. Plus the fact she never particularly acts sexy and is subjected to a lot of quite unsexy physical comedy - I still can't make it through the scene in Slayers Gorgeous (potential comedy spoilers) where she goes over the waterfall as rigid as a cardboard cutout without cracking up. I still bought the artbooks I suppose, which to be fair are a lot more fanservicey (example now included at left) but I dunno. On screen the way she's portrayed feels very different to regular fanservice.

I tend to prefer the tone of the films and OVAs too - Where the TV series can get a bit jarringly serious at times, the Naga instalments (almost) always play drama up for laughs or use it as the set-up to getting a laugh. And a couple of them are just downright farcical even for Slayers (I'm looking at you, Great) but that just had the effect of making me crack up even more the first time I watched them because I wasn't expecting things to get quite this stupid.

Professor Irony said:
the film really makes the most of its additional budget. It no doubt helps that I was watching the most recent rescanned version, but it looks absolutely sumptuous, giving the film a real sense of occasion beyond its previous Pokemon-level production values.
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I think this fact had a similar effect of raising the bar of my expectations for the TV series too high. It really is a gorgeous (heh) example of hand drawn animation, we shall not see its like again, etc. I would totally import the Blu-ray box if I had a spare £200, especially since the DVDs are very shoddy picture quality wise.

All criticisms of Slayers aside, my feelings towards the franchise as a whole have improved a lot with time. I can forgive its shortcomings, as (along with a lot of media I find myself returning to) I simply enjoy spending time in the world, with the characters. Another thing that adds to my enjoyment of the Lina & Naga Slayers outings is the music - There's always a new Megumi Hayashibara song or two (indeed there was enough to fill a triple album by the end) and the film and OVA songs imho tend to be the cream of an admittedly all-round excellent crop.

I actually extracted the audio of (potential comedy spoiler again for Slayers Special episode 1) all the clones of Naga laughing and cut it down into a looping audio clip. I'm saving it for a special occasion when I want to be really, really condescending. Would probably have made for a good YTMND page back in the day. It probably was one.

*I tend to hugely enjoy characters who annoy the hell out of people both in universe and occasionally among the audience by having no filter or shame anyway - See also Takino, Tomo; Matsuoka, Miu
 
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HWR said:
Well after reading all that I might have to locate and watch the film.
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Just don't pay over the odds for the OOP ADV DVDs (that's a lot of acronyms... and it almost rhymes, or at least has a pleasing sound to it). The picture quality is pretty bad, and several were presented letterboxed widescreen in a 4:3 frame which leaves the image windowboxed in the centre of a 16:9 TV (if you watch it in the correct aspect ratio... Which is the wrong aspect ratio. But also the right aspect ratio... I'll come in again).
 
ayase said:
Just don't pay over the odds for the OOP ADV DVDs (that's a lot of acronyms... and it almost rhymes, or at least has a pleasing sound to it). The picture quality is pretty bad, and several were presented letterboxed widescreen in a 4:3 frame which leaves the image windowboxed in the centre of a 16:9 TV (if you watch it in the correct aspect ratio... Which is the wrong aspect ratio. But also the right aspect ratio... I'll come in again).
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Aye the picture quality on the season DVD’s was pretty poor as well, if needs be I’ll don my eyepatch.
 
ayase said:
To my mind, Lina & Naga >>> Lina & the TV gang.
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It was on the tip of my tongue to say that too (can written words even be on your tongue?), but on the strength of having seen only one season of the series, I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt.

Would also agree about Naga's design not really being played for titilation. My 'ooh, matron!' reaction was just an initial impression - the film really isn't interested in ogling her, even on the 'we're being clever about this, but also doing the thing we're being clever about' level I've seen in a few more recent series.
 
Cross Ange - Rondo of Angels and Dragons
What was expected beforehand: Code Geass stripped of its Lulu-Fabulousness and Spinzaku-ness, filled with a bunch of high-fantasy elements (there is angels and dragons in the titel and dragons on the key promotion images) instead and havings its trash stats ramped up through the roof. And a very good soundtrack, by Hitomi Kuraishi.
What it ended up being: Hitomi Kuraishi turned out not to be the composer but Akiko Shikata, but they somehow it felt still on the same waveline. The Code Geass vibes and esthetics were definitely present there and in fact more or less exactly what I assumed it would be, just even more through the roof trashy than expected. That and that much of high fantasy elements were less mythical thanactually more Science Fiction than Code Geass. In top of it it wasn't just being a rip off of Code Geass with its own name, it's more also a cynical perversion of several other Sunrise shows (Gundam Seed, Mai Hime, Mai Otome, Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, Zegapain,... ) while it was almost a blatantly copycatting Symphogear/Nanoha/(Macross?) on top.
It's baffling how many of it's elements and tropes of other shows I saw before it has cramped inside (some scenes were even reminscent of Attack on Titan and Gurren Lagan.) And its main plotline even starts with what almost feels like a rip off of Shinsekai Yori and Please Save My Earth (of all things), though a lot of that exploitation-focused pandering or all the yuri threesomes surely makes it a good deal remote from it.
This sure is one strange show that manages this weird tightrope of taking itself very serious while totally not. And it's one of those shows that manages to incoperate whatever and it doesn't blatantly break its world building (it seriously had a "Mu la Flaga Hotel" in there), while going totally overboard with just about everything it takes on.
It was kind of entertaining to see all the parts I didn't like about Gundam Seed, Mai Otome and Code Geass being played for "serious comedy" like that. Even the obligatory sunrising happens (of course), though, surprisingly, it wasn't even played that much. Not sure how it would be like without getting all the jabs. Sylvie's only reason for existance is to be a troll on Nunally and I also can't help but think that Momoka's head decoration kind of looks like she's wearing panties on her head with a giant ribbon.
But buttom line, some of that exploitation does turn out to not just be some questionable fanservice pandeing, but turned out to have purpose in plot and characterization, but it's still not too nice to watch.

6/10


Armed Girl's Machiavellism
This on the other hand... It having a CE release suggests it probably was somewhat popular, but the reasons why it would quite escape me. It's generic from beginning to end, it's completely absurd, but not absurd enough to be funnily absurd (Ben-tou definitely had a nicer absurd reason as an excuse for fighting) and just about nothing memorable about it. It doesn't haven have the blatant frankenstein-generic tropes-textbook-checklist-ticking generic-ness of the Asterisk War.

4/10
 
Ai City (1986)

Tagged as 'cyberpunk' by ANN, this tale of a young psychic trying to keep his daughter from the clutches of nefarious government types in not-New York actually skews much closer to the pulp sf psychedelia of the 1970s. By which I mean the plot hoves in and out of coherence, as the film bombards the viewer with strange imagery and weird visual devices from beginning to end.

Although adapted from a manga, I think you'd also be forgiven for thinking they were making the story up as they went along. For the most part, it functions perfectly well as a simple chase story, save for a few character beats that come out of nowhere, but when things change significantly towards the end, it's a real struggle to match this new part of the puzzle against the ones already on the table.

Nevertheless, its earnestly weird aesthetic is consistently impressive in both animation and sheer spectacle. The faintly camp, early 1980s trappings of the film will likely put some folk off (art design is very clearly the work of Chuuichi Iguchi, previously of Urashiman), but there's clearly been a signficant budget behind the film and it's never boring to look at. The scene where the main characters are attacked by Zardoz style flying heads emerging from the ground being a particular highlight.

Ai City is frequently dumb, a bit self-indulgently horny and lacks much of an ending, but it's so utterly barking mad that I found it all rather charming.
 
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Planet With

A solid enough mecha/alien invasion series, but ultimately, I was a little disappointed in it. The first half was strong and the relative moral complexity seemed to give the show a distinct identity, as it felt like none of the different groups involved in the conflict were actually evil - everyone believed they had a moral justification for what they were doing. The plot had mostly resolved itself by the ninth episode, however, and, as the story reverted more to type, I wasn't sufficiently invested in the characters to feel excited for the eventual conclusion.

While I appreciated the series brevity, part of me wonders if I'd have liked it more as a two-cour show with more time given over to fleshing out the side characters. It felt like there was mileage to be had there, but many of them never really rose above the level of broad archetypes.

Still, it has Norio Wakamoto playing an alien general who is also a big white labrador, and I am okay with that.
 
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