blog好き

Jul 14 2004

Categories: anime

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Alien chix0r appearing from nowhere? CHECK.

Said chix0r has three dots on her head? CHECK.

Seduction of loser high school male protagonist? (Possible very short as well.) CHECK.

She then clings onto the male protagonist enough to make female childhood friend jealous? CHECK.

Older chix0r (possibly a teacher-type) who enjoys seducing younger males? CHECK.

Unimpressive art? CHECK.

Title consists of nonsensical Engrish? CHECK.

Possibly soul-less romantic comedy that won’t have Love Hina‘s pacing, Ai Yori Aoshi‘s softness, Aa! Megami-sama‘s character, Mahoromatic‘s heart, Super Gal‘s humor, or La Verite‘s triplets? CHECK DOUBLE CHECK TRIPLE CHECK.

(This post has been approved by Yotsuba…)

Sadly, I’m not talking about an anime series. I’m talking about two. DearS and Girls Bravo are two fairly unoriginal attempts at being romantic comedies. They’re both highly similar to each other, let alone better shows that preceded them. Both deal with some loser who lucks out and comes to live with some hot alien. This ain’t new. Lum anyone? Narue? Onegai Hussy?

They both try to throw in some twist. For DearS, Ren appears to be discarded and has her memory wiped. (Chii!) So she wakes up and kisses Takeya and starts calling him “master”. (Kurumi!) Of course, Takeya starts collecting a harem after this… including his teacher, another DearS alien chix0r, and so on. At best, I can see DearS being a Chobits clone. At worst, maybe a Happy Lesson clone.

Girls Bravo features some naive alien chix0r named Miharu who hardly deals with men (since her world is pretty much devoid of them) but won’t hesitate to jump in the bath with them. All she needs is a pig named “tonkatsu.”

While romantic comedies, especially the shounen harem variety, are very similar– you can only do so much with “guy meets mysterious chix0r”– the successful ones carve their own niche into the genre. Even though robots have been done many, many times before, Clamp made Chobits successful (and partially watchable) by making Chii and company beyond adorable. I sure didn’t watch it for the three recap episodes or the philosophical dialogue. Even though Chii is highly naive, she’s at least partially likable as a heroine. I just don’t see that with either Miharu or Ren.

Then there’s one I’m very partial to: Belldandy and Aa! Megami-sama which really came into its own after deciding to stop pretending to be a shounen romantic comedy and start being a Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou-type slice-of-life series with a touch of almost shoujo-like substance in there. While A!MS did start like DearS and Girls Bravo, it strayed from the path, and by doing so, it became a much more enjoyable series. I mean, do you really want to see Urd and Belldandy fight with forks and turkeys for 28 volumes?

Love Hina almost single-handedly brought back the shounen romantic comedy genre back in 99-00 by actually advancing the characters relationship. By 123 chapters, there’s actual growth between Naru and Keitaro. I can’t say the same about Ichigo 100% or I”s where they just ramble on and on without really developing anyone’s relationship in the same span of chapters. I can’t really picture any character development in either DearS or Girls Bravo.

When romantic comedies are done right, they’re really enjoyable. They mix the best elements of humor, heart, fanservice, action, and more fanservice. Hopefully, DearS and Girls Bravo will prove my initial predictions wrong since one can never get enough good fanservice.