blog好き

Nov 03 2012

Categories: chuunibyou demo koi ga shitai, episodic review
Tagged: chu-2 byou demo koi ga shitai

9 Comments »

“In Smash terms, something like 300% damage?”

“It’s warm, sticks to my throat, and tastes so raw– how can people enjoy drinking this?”

The last anime I would suspect this season to have a cum on face joke, intentional or not. Look, tropes are constantly repeated in anime over and over again (how many harem shows about some loser lucky male lead variations can there be?), but this season has been heavy on the rapes and the cum on face jokes. I don’t know. Sometimes, I wonder if anime writers only get their inspiration from other anime or from pr0n. I can tell that they’re not reading Collapse, A Wild Sheep Chase, or Les Miserables, that’s for sure.

(Though you could make an argument that Guilty Crown is like Les Miserables… haha gotcha.)

Tsuyuri is adorable. Maybe a poor man’s Chitanda… that sheep pillow… that yawn… that fetal position… she looks like a puppycat.

“It’s like a diseased patch of life! It’s a tumor full of shame and suffering!”
“I agree with that completely!”
“You really think so?”

Adorable still. I like how she’s the most reasonable one of them all: she doesn’t care what their middle school years were like, and there’s nothing wrong with having fun with friends as long as they can have fun together. And she is a big advocate of naps. She’s a sage. A sage with a sheep pillow.

(For anyone going to college or started college, my advice to you is to sleep. You’re going to make mistakes working late at night, and concept retention is poor in the dark, dark night. Go to sleep, get up earlier, and do the work/studying then. Too bad it wasn’t until grad school before I realized this…)

“Mori Summer is chubbier than she looks.”

Rrreooooowwww! Cat fight! Dat pillow… I hope every episode features a new pillow. Though I don’t know about sleeping on the floor thing. It seems dusty.

This scene is a bit heart-breaking. If you slow down the playback speed, you can see frame-by-frame Yuuta realizing how lonely Rikka is and how much the fellowship of the club means to her. There’s been a lot of slice-of-life anime about growing up, but I feel like Chu-2 actually puts the most important aspects of it front and center. (1) There’s the whole tragic latching on that I’ve discussed before. (B) Then there is also the whole longing to belong, a pursuit that also usually ends tragically for teenagers. (III) The loneliness of being a teenager in that one thinks on one else can help you or understand you. This show captures them all.

(It’s a bit different from Little Busters. That franchise is more like any other coming-of-age show (Haganai, Haruhi, Clannad, Toradora)… it’s more of a traditional (read: Japanese old timey-approved) message of growing up whereas Chu-2 is kinda saying, “Look, just because you’re older, it doesn’t mean being Dark Flame Master is a bad thing… in fact, it may be a good thing.”)

This show is just full of great screenshot moments.

Oh gosh. Jun Fukuyama is awesome. Him going into Dark Flame Master mode is such a treat… it just sounds so much like a parody of Lulu where he knows it’s a parody. It’s exactly the voice I wanted for Keima (sigh). In fact, wouldn’t a contest to win Jun Fukuyama narrating everything you do for a day be a great idea? Let’s say he gave you the nickname of “Dark Kitten Master.” “Hahaha, Dark Kitten Master defied the traffic gods and went through the sunset demon eye!” “All powerful deity of the kittens of darkness demands a greater sacrifice than school cafeteria mystery meat.”

If you slow down the playback speed, you can see frame-by-frame Rikka becoming as terrified as: (A) Mikuru seeing Haruhi with yet another skimpy costume (II) Wataru seeing Chikage with a smirk (3) Milt Romney being asked about tax returns. They way she procrastinates because she doesn’t want to do something… well… she obviously wants Yuuta to help her. There’s no way she’s passing by herself, so instead of facing reality, she is escaping– as much as possible– further into her own world. Of course, this is probably the dumbest thing she could do, but, then again, humans are self-destructive, and teenagers lack common sense. A deadly combo. It’s a wonder our species made it to the moon, let alone discover the wheel.

Rikka doesn’t look like a sperm that is going to fertilize an egg at all. Not at all. Though I do like every episode’s use of her delusional Tyrant Eye. It almost makes me wonder if everytime after Usagi calls forth her moon power, is she having a delusional fantasy? Could she be like Rikka in that, in reality, she’s just holding onto a toilet brush, just that show doesn’t show the concurrent reality now like how Chu-2 does it? Mmmm…

(Would I watch a version of Sailor Moon that was really about Usagi and her delusions? Mmm… maybe, if it were done as a harem anime, and Jun Fukuyama voiced Tuxe– err– Dark Tuxedo Master.)

Their homeroom teacher is awesome. She’s like the exact polar opposite of Onizuka in demeanor, style, and methods, but she gets the same results. Impressive. And it’s refreshing to get a young female teacher in anime who isn’t constantly whining about her Christmas cake status, a dimwit, or a sex symbol. Good grief. What next? An old female teacher?

DFC fanservice this episode. Kyoto is spreading around the love this season. And either Good Guy Kyoto covered up Nibutani so one wouldn’t be distracted by her melonpan while one admired the DFC, or Bad Guy Kyoto for covering up Nibutani but not anyone else. See, the Old Kyoto would give us both Yuki and Mikuru or Tess and Chidori fanservice in the same episode. And I feel old– really, really old– for remembering when Kyoto used to be a powerhouse of fanservice.

“Kininarimasu!”

Is there an official trope term for when the kid is more mature than the parent? How often does this happen in real life? Rarely? Once in a blue moon? Never?

(I loved this Halloween clip between Colbert and Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks had two killer runs. The one we remember is probably 1992 to 2002 when he did A League of Their Own, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Toy Story, That Thing You Do, Saving Private Ryan (probably the worst movie in this group), Toy Story 2, Cast Away (his finest work, bar none– he was talking to a volleyball for half the movie!!!), and Catch Me If You Can. But he had a killer run before that in 1984 through 1989: Splash, Bachelor Party, Big (second finest work?), and Turner and Hooch. The funniest thing about that time was he was going head-to-head with Michael Keaton for Best. Actor. Alive… and… well… yeah.)

The best part of this scene was how serious Yumeha looked.

Just like Houkago Tea Time, every girl has their own preferred sock type. Tyrant Eye prefers thigh highs, Mjollnir Hammer likes longer crew socks, Naptime has the most basic socks, and Mori Summer has loose socks. I guess for personality type, Hammer’s choice of socks is shorter and plainer than her Master’s. Naptime has the most normal ones. And you know what they say about girls who wear loose socks. This is the type of hard hitting analysis that you expect from blog好き.

More studios should copy Kyoto and do more realistic lighting. I feel like this is the next frontier of animation. Yes, it only took half a decade for studios to come up with multiple outfits per characters. Hopefully, it won’t be that long for lighting to catch on. (Though Shaft does do this when they feel like it.)

Final thought: What if Rikka, Nibutani, Dekomori, and Yuuta are all just figments of a dream Tsuyuri is having?