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Dec 21 2012

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

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“Reality, be rent. Synapse, break. Vanishment, dis waruldo!!!”

(Oh fuck yeah.)

I think if you’ve been paying attention to this show, you’ll realize that it could only end one way: the Pretty Woman ending because, you know, the story paralleled Pretty Woman. 8th grade syndrome is Rikka’s undesirable train (as is Julia Robert’s whoring), she gets attached to Yuuta (in the Richard Gere role, going from hard ass to softie because of Julia Roberts), and then Rikka decides to reform her life, but it means cutting Yuuta out of it (like when Julia Roberts gives up whoring and leaves Richard Gere). Of course, the beach episode might be the equivalent of the sex on the piano scene, and, obviously, that damn bento is George Costanza. So at the end, at the behest of some well-meaning friends slash secondary characters, Yuuta hops into his bike and professes his love for Rikka at her second story window. Hell, Julia Roberts makes Richard Gere climb up the stairs to meet him, and she falls into his arms. Yuuta showing Rikka the Unseen Horizon would definitely be the equivalent of the Extended BD release of Pretty Woman featuring that extra ten minutes of re-uniting sex.

That wasn’t even the best part of the episode. It’s immediately shown up by the cute montage of Rikka and Yuuta running from the cops. I could make a Bonnie and Clyde analogy here, but I think I’m good with one terribly stretched analogy for this post. It’s an awesome scene and shows why Chu2 has been worth all 6.91 A-WAR. It has a story with a beginning, middle, and end that progressed as the characters grew. It’s not easy to do with only 12 episodes, but they did it. Not only that, Kyoto tossed in a little bit of fanservice, some humor, and great vignette scenes like this one. I would have loved another two episodes just to flesh out Dekomori (who was finally getting interesting) and Tsuyuri (who finally did something besides look adorable), but a cour is a cour. Structurally, because it has actual story-like substance and does it well, I would place it in Kyoto’s second tier. It’s good but not Clannad good nor is it Hyouka disappointing.

“Rikka-chan is a girl who was saved by 8th-grade syndrome: A girl who saw your case and admired your strength. A girl who was drawn to your power and tried to imitate it. That’s why she chose you. It had to be you. Rikka-chan always, always, always, always…”

But wait, there’s more! Kyoto seems to really nail character innerlogues, and they did a pretty good job with Kyon at the end of Disappearance (though I’m still not a fan of Eva syndrome art direction), did pretty well with the goodbye for Azu-nyan, did well with Professor’s fears of being alone (dawww) and Nano’s fears of not being human, and Chitanda’s innerlogue to Houtarou was the best part of Hyouka… but this one is excellent. It had to be you.

(Rikka-chan has an all-powerful Tyrant’s Eye because she witnessed Yuuta playing. Yuuta is voiced by Jun Fukuyama, who performed as a delusional character who had an all-powerful Geass Eye in another anime. Mmm…)

Yuuta doesn’t confess in a normal way, I guess, but rather in a Dark Flaming Way. Wow. “Do you want to stay in this boring reality?! Or do you want to come with me and change reality?!” Jun Fukuyama just totally nails the role. Excellent work.

(I like the cute subplot of the grandfather trying to shoot poor Yuuta. I liked how he went for his shotgun, didn’t care if he hit Rikka by accident, and how he got foiled by the Scooby Gang. I am 120% sure her grandfather voted for Milt Romney or at least the Japanese version of Milt, 四十七-san.)

Updated the A-WAR ratings for Chu2, Psycho-Pass, From the New World, and Robotics;Notes. As I predicted, Chu2 had the most upside potential: the story is solid, and Kyoto does not disappoint with their adaptation prowess. Almost all the other shows in the rankings either stayed the same or increased slightly. For example, the shows above and even Little Busters which went from 1.09 to 1.29. As impressive as Chu2‘s 1.13 point jump is, the biggest jump was Jojo from 3.91 to 5.25. Girls and Panzer had the other 1 point jump, from -1.17 to -0.14, so, congrats, it is the Delmon Young of anime. The only anime I tracked that went down was Magi, from 4.97 to 4.87.

(I am probably most disappointed with From the New World this season. It started out quite well, and then it suddenly seemed like it had a ten different directors for each episode. It needed to decide on just two art styles– one for normal life and one for cantu time– but they had like an art style shift every other scene. Horrible. And then the episodes kept ending on cliffhangers but they don’t resolve them… it just jumps forward in time in the next episode and kinda hand-wavy explain the cliffhanger with dialogue or make us infer what happened. Just a poor adaptation. Blame it on A-1 for this one.)

Tails? Who does he think he is, Two Face? The best part of this scene is that he is kinda like Two Face… he immediately snaps into Dark Flame Master mode and goes, “Souganai na.” like a bad-ass about to whip out a huge buster blade. Kyoto also did a good job in changing the perspective that the camera was on to make Yuuta look more Dark Flame Mastery.

Tsuyuri just proves that even though she doesn’t do much, she is awesome. I loved her transformation into Tyrant’s Eye, and her role in the story finally made sense. She’s like Hector Elizondo’s role in Pretty Woman where she just observes and gently prods everyone to do what they should do… and then gives Yuuta the final hint or motivation to keep going. (If you recall, Hector tells Richard Gere who drove Julia Roberts home.) Anyway, an OVA featuring Tsuyuri would be awesome.

“Who’s the babe?”

And Dekomori… showing some character depth for one. The best part is her 180 degree character transformation that seems even more abrupt than Rikka’s. The fact that she acts so cutesy and like a troptastic anime little sister character is just the DFC cherry on top.

(We could use a Dekomori OVA as well that could be modeled as a straightforward magical girl show. Wait, two OVAs for Tsuyuri and Dekomori… didn’t I just say earlier that this series needed two more episodes to flesh out these characters? If Isshiki can have his own episode. why can’t Tsuyuri? Hopefully as a sleeping meido.)

I’m glad that they explained how the Scooby Gang got there so fast in that Dekomori’s mom drove them, but I like how everyone changed so quickly. Tsuyuri was wearing her school outfit and Isshiki was in pajamas. Then there’s the fact that they drove here while they made Yuuta bike all the way here. I would be pretty pissed… “Wait, guys, you could have gotten me here faster and with less energy?!” Then he bikes back using Rikka’s old school city cruiser bike but leaves Isshiki’s carbon fiber road bike behind? I don’t get the bike switch either I guess.

“Something sad and embarrassing, yet charming. A disease called ‘self-consciousness.’ An unavoidable part of life called ‘being true to yourself.’ Indeed, everyone has 8th-grade syndrome all their lives.”

Where did this narrator come from? Why was he necessary? Couldn’t just a character sum shit up in the end instead? I felt what he is saying isn’t bad but maybe could have been more meaningful if an actual character said it. This is why we have a character like Tsuyuri for if you don’t want Jun Fukuyama doing the voice-over.

“I don’t want to remember my past. I’d erase it if I could.”

I think 8th-grade syndrome and Facebook Timeline have a lot in common.

Dekomori going Mjolnir hammer on a police officer? I only wished it was the crazy traffic cop from Fumoffu.

“From Dark Flame Master.”

I’m not a big fan of how a letter he wrote many years ago finds its way to him today and thus spurs him to action. It seems a bit unnecessary and artificial. He should have longed for Rikka after realizing she moved without telling him, and that should have set him off biking.

In the end, this show had a huge overriding theme that “Hey, you should just be you,” and Chu2 stuck with it. Nibutani tried being the popular girl, and she decided it wasn’t her. Dekomori and Rikka are both comfortable in their delusion skins because someone they care about is comfortable with them in their delusional skins. Yuuta realizes that there are worse things than Peter Pan syndrome. And Isshiki… well… he is learning that his hair will grow back. And more than that, it goes on that the most important people in your life are those who accept you for who you are.

That message is one thing I liked about this show. Yeah, anime about growing up or rebelling are a dime a dozen, but not many puts it into perspective or avoid being lost in itself. This show doesn’t assume more than what it is, and it completes it task. The plot is whole, the characters all grew, and one feels good after watching the series. Win-win. One of the better shows of the year and not a bad way to end the year. Finally, thanks to all my readers, who are my biggest inspiration to keep writing. While I may not write as much as I used to (damn old age catching up to me), I still enjoy every minute of it, and a big reason is you guys. I’m going to be taking a break until the new season. Until them, happy holidays and have a happy new year!

(Since today is the end of the world, maybe it’s not a bad idea to say “Sup” to your future self. And let me by the 1,000,000th person to joke that while we did survive the end of the world, Twinkies did not.)

Final thought: “Do you want to see my eye?”