c) Crapyard

'Kay, so. This fuckin' show, right here.

This is one of the few animes that legitimately pissed me off. For starters, I stumbled upon its existence while looking up anime OSTs on YouTube. (Here, have a link!) Just going off that, it seemed like a smart series with colorful robots, cute girls, and a sci-fi bent. What more could I ask for?

The premise wasn't what I expected: In the modern world, VR has become commonplace; in addition, there's a strange program called "Brain Burst" that allows one to spend points to pause their perception of time in the real world; to gain more points, a "Burst Linker" fights other players, and should their points deplete the program permanently uninstalls itself and the player is cast out of the game for good. But I soldiered on, intrigued by the concept of a secret online society, as well as the enigmatic character of Kuroyukihime. And it all went downhill from there...

The main character was a wuss. Like, an exceptional wuss. And the rest of the characters aren't much better: The initial antagonist is a school bully that partakes in the same VR game that our protagonist is inducted into, and following a decent fight scene is subsequently banned from ever competing again. Okay, not the best of resolutions, but whatever. But then he comes back an episode later, I shit you not, and tries to run over the MC (in reality) with a car! And then he's never heard from for the rest of the series. What. The. Fuck.

Oh, but it gets worse. It gets way, way worse. See, the VR game assigns a color to everyone based on their affinity (which has the unintended side-effect of making everyone resemble mechs made of rock candy); red for long-range, blue for melee, et cetera. As well, these colors serve as the basis for what are essentially guilds within the game. Naturally, none of these guilds are ever explored or expanded upon, with the exception of the red one, which is led by the single most annoying character in any anime I've ever seen.

Introduced mid-season, this fool pretty much torpedoes the listing show. For one, her voice has all the grace of a vuvuzuela played through a cheese-grater. She initially had some hope in that she infiltrated the MC's apartment and masqueraded as his distant cousin. But the true affront to logic comes when she's found out as the leader of the red guild. Rather than getting off his ass and giving her the boot, our MC actually keeps her around. And when Kuroyukihime finds out, she actually moves in with him too! Honestly it felt like a really cheap ploy to throw in some harem elements towards the third quarter of the series, but what's especially egregious is that we've established both of these girls as ruthless connivers acting ultimately for their own gain. In essence, that's two main characters playing completely against type, and one milquetoast of an MC who does pretty much nothing the entire time.

The ending was garbage. It didn't resolve anything, over half of the characters we met over the course of the series were absent, the two female leads turned against each other (Ooh, interesting!) only to suddenly reconcile (Fuck!), and as the credits finally rolled, it took every fiber of my being not to hurl the jewel case across the room.

And, well, that's Accel World. Long story short: Avoid this show like the fucking plague. You deserve better.

30755
To be perfectly honest, I watched it weekly when it aired back in January. Finished it. And yet here I am half a year later not remembering shit about it. Already a sign of how interesting this show is, or not is. All I can vaguely remember is how uninteresting the characters were really. And I think everyone can tell from looking at the cover that the art-style is uninteresting af and very uninspiring.

Nanashi wrote

^ now that's called a quality post. Thanks a lot Revon, had an entertaining read.

Thanks. It means a lot.

On a related note, I actually enjoyed the first season of Infinite Stratos immensely. That show had it all: It was funny, lots of color, great art and animation, and of course, memorable characters. Sure it was a harem, but that just meant it excelled within its genre.

I don't know anything about Fafnir, but just skimming the screencaps seems like enough to turn me off. Everything looks so... flavorless, really. The colors aren't too saturated, and the character designs are uninspired to say the least. Sadly, it's even more pronounced in the official art. And my, what amazing CGI they used for the monsters!

Compare that to an official promo for IS: The characters have way more detail by way of their hairstyles and ornaments, and in their normal uniforms are distinguishable from one another via subtle differences (some detached sleeves here, some military boots there...) As well, the series as a whole uses plenty of movement and vibrant colors, which is a big plus in anyone's book.

Ever felt a sense of fatigue when watching a mediocre anime? I'm not talking about works that are obviously appalling, but rather those series which aren't good enough to generate a continuous and genuine interest, but not quite bad enough to warrant a bile fascination; from their mediocrity, apathy arises. And that's precisely how I feel about MM!.

Usually I try and reserve judgement till the end of the series, but I can say with surety that this dozen-or-so episode long travesty has some of the laziest art I've ever seen. The backgrounds are plain. Glaringly plain. The walls and floors lack texture, often to the point of being a literal gradient. Some scenes literally look like they were slapped together in a 3D modeling program. There's little to no shading, and even at its height, with lighting and all, it still manages to create a sharp contrast between the characters and the background. Rather than create a natural frame for the characters and their interactions, the backgrounds seem flat and unnatural, and as a result the characters seem out of sync with their surroundings.

The characters themselves fare much better, though it's painfully obvious the execs were phoning this one in. A few shots have a character's eyes set at two different levels, and the animators used plenty of subtle tricks to cut costs. For example, in the gifv embedded above, there are only three objects in motion: Taro's head, and Mio's mouth and upper torso. Everything else, from Taro's dress shirt to her outfit to her right arm is completely still. Heck, even her hair is frozen in place!

The plot itself is pretty lame, but a few of the characters are interesting enough. Had they put more effort into art and animation, I'd have given this show a solid 6/10.

At this point, the only reason I'm still watching is because I actually dropped money on this thing. Yeah, f'real. Even considering I got it on sale, that's still twenty bucks I'm never getting back.

If one bad review is enough to damage a show's reputation, a string of YouTube videos just might be enough to kill it.

... And nothing of value was lost.

This here is Sekai Seifuku: Bouryaku no Zvezda.

Zvezda aired as part as a part of the Winter 2014 lineup. It had splendid character designs, art direction and animation, as well as great opening and ending themes. It also featured some promising VAs who, at the time, didn't have much big roles to their names (specifically Ichimichi Mao, some of whose latter notable roles would include Vorona in Durarara , Hikari in Digimon Tri and Aoko in Magic Kaito 1412, and Natsuki Hanae, who would later voice Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul and Taichi in Digimon Tri). However, that's all the good I have to say about the series. While it had an interesting premise focusing on the terrorist organization Zvezda and a very promising first episode, the rest of the show flounders and flops about with an off-beat tone that wasn't particularly pulled off well. It seemed to be setting up some cool things down the line, but half the time it was prancing about with juvenile humor and slice of life shenanigans in a setting that always seemed to have much more to it than it looked.

Now, if it had just been that, I wouldn't have minded the show too much. I can enjoy slice of life stuff well enough, and the characters were nice enough for me to just shut my brain down and watch their antics without further complaints. However, when the over-arching plot kicks in, the show's tone takes a hard turn for the inconsistent. A gloomy mood descends upon some of the characters' interactions, there are lots of heavy reveals about the full extent of the setting's secrets, and yet while it takes a turn for the darker, it never goes far enough for the show to be above their lolsowacky antics. The turn for the dark almost feels unnecessary since it never goes far enough with it, with the end result that the tone for the last few episodes felt like this half-assed blend of gloomy and wacky.

And my biggest complaint is still that they didn't make use of Renge nearly as much as they should have had.

I mean, she's just such a cutie, guys. I felt she was the most charming out of the cast, and even though she was initially advertised as one of the major characters, she ended up mostly delegated to the sidelines. Hell, my favorite part of the show is a next episode preview featuring her and the MC. ( , I'm just gonna link it because the image is too big) It's not much in and of itself, but in the context of the show, it came at a time when the plot was proceeding in an iffy manner and was throwing stupid reveals like there was no tomorrow. The preview was just a small, cute moment that, for just a minute, made the both of them relatable characters instead of lolsofunny caricatures, as the show was wont to portraying everyone as.

And really, butthurt complaining about muh best girl aside, I feel that it was one of the show's biggest failings. The characters feel like caricatures at times, the plot reveals feel contrived, the conflict is underwhelming and the ending is unsatisfying. I won't call the show terrible, but at best I can only call it mediocre. It could have been so much more, it showed a lot of promise. Given more time, maybe they could have developed the characters better, maybe they could have done the reveals one at a time so it wasn't a barrage of contrived plot points, maybe they could have shifted the tone more gently so that it wasn't as jarring. But they didn't have that time, and they didn't make good enough use of what time they did have. For all the promise it showed, it never delivered on anything, and that makes Zvezda an incredibly disappointing show as far as I'm concerned.

Kekko Kamen has got to be one of the dumbest shows I have ever seen, and coming from a guy who sat through the entirety of Accel World and MM!, that's saying something. I suppose it's my own fault for checking out a show mentioned on the CWCiki, but that doesn't excuse it from being the miserable pile that it is.

The plot is nonsensical, to put it lightly: Mayumi Takahashi is a first-year student at Sparta Academy, a large and rather poorly-drawn junior high school in the middle of god-knows-where. The Academy lives up to its namesake, imposing cruel and oftentimes perverted punishments for students who happen to slip up; Mayumi included.

Not all is lost, however: After a healthy amount of whipping and clothing damage (Seriously, are school uniforms in Japan made of tissue paper?) a mysterious nude heroine arrives to rescue Mayumi from the throes of humiliation! None know her face, yet everyone knows her body. Her name: Kekko Kamen.

As you can tell, this ain't exactly the sorta show you'd do a Lit term paper on. Indeed, every aspect of this show appears to have been made with the express purpose of linking together fanservice shots. I mean, say what you want about High School DxD, but at least it made some effort at action. At least Queen's Blade put some effort into developing the characters. Fuck, even Valkyrie Drive made some effort at comedy, ham-fisted as it may have been. This show has literally NOTHING to offer past the fanservice.

To their credit, the animation does get a significant bump in the action scenes, but it's invariably done to highlight Kekko Kamen as she twirls around stark naked. Any other time, the art becomes incredibly sloppy, exhibiting everything from subtle mistakes to slapdash aberrations in need of a total re-draw. Of course, this wouldn't be so bad had the animators not opted to take so many shortcuts, but alas; the show feels the need pan over a static frame for as long as it can get away with, which ultimately makes these mistakes all the more noticeable. In some cases, it even dips into the Uncanny Valley, such as when we've seen a character hold this exact expression for over twenty seconds.

I'm not even gonna bother writing a full review for this one. As far as I'm concerned, one lack of effort only ought to beget another. The animation is, as I've explained, shit. The story is nonexistent, the soundtrack forgettable, the action soporific; and as for the characters themselves, I've seen puddles of my own piss deeper than this lot. Truly, an awful anime, through and through. 

Final Verdict: 1/10 - Pretty fuckin' terrible.

Sidenote: If I was surprised that this drek had an English dub, I was downright floored by the level effort the voice cast put into their roles. It's hardly the best dub, don't get me wrong, but it's surprisingly decent, which isn't something often said about early-nineties anime. Seeing as I'm too lazy to look them up on MAL at the moment, I can only hope they found success voicing other (hopefully better) projects.

So I watched the first episode of Umaru-chan a few days back... Sweet fortune, was that infuriating. All our main character does is laze around, play vidya, eat snacks, and throw tantrums to get what she wants. And when she's in public, she literally shames her older brother into buying her shit.

Tumblr and the rest of the internet have taken this show and ran with it, but me, I'd have given my right arm to deliver a roundhouse kick to this girl's face. Truly, the absolute worst kind of person.

Backlash wrote

Ever felt a sense of fatigue when watching a mediocre anime? I'm not talking about works that are obviously appalling, but rather those series which aren't good enough to generate a continuous and genuine interest, but not quite bad enough to warrant a bile fascination; from their mediocrity, apathy arises. And that's precisely how I feel about MM!.

Usually I try and reserve judgement till the end of the series, but I can say with surety that this dozen-or-so episode long travesty has some of the laziest art I've ever seen. The backgrounds are plain. Glaringly plain. The walls and floors lack texture, often to the point of being a literal gradient. Some scenes literally look like they were slapped together in a 3D modeling program. There's little to no shading, and even at its height, with lighting and all, it still manages to create a sharp contrast between the characters and the background. Rather than create a natural frame for the characters and their interactions, the backgrounds seem flat and unnatural, and as a result the characters seem out of sync with their surroundings.

The characters themselves fare much better, though it's painfully obvious the execs were phoning this one in. A few shots have a character's eyes set at two different levels, and the animators used plenty of subtle tricks to cut costs. For example, in the gifv embedded above, there are only three objects in motion: Taro's head, and Mio's mouth and upper torso. Everything else, from Taro's dress shirt to her outfit to her right arm is completely still. Heck, even her hair is frozen in place!

The plot itself is pretty lame, but a few of the characters are interesting enough. Had they put more effort into art and animation, I'd have given this show a solid 6/10.

At this point, the only reason I'm still watching is because I actually dropped money on this thing. Yeah, f'real. Even considering I got it on sale, that's still twenty bucks I'm never getting back.

Yea, I get you. I kind of wanted to know how it'd have continued though, especially since I liked some of the cast...the author died in a tsunami/an earthquake 2011.

llik3 wrote

Backlash wrote

Ever felt a sense of fatigue when watching a mediocre anime? I'm not talking about works that are obviously appalling, but rather those series which aren't good enough to generate a continuous and genuine interest, but not quite bad enough to warrant a bile fascination; from their mediocrity, apathy arises. And that's precisely how I feel about MM!.

Usually I try and reserve judgement till the end of the series, but I can say with surety that this dozen-or-so episode long travesty has some of the laziest art I've ever seen. The backgrounds are plain. Glaringly plain. The walls and floors lack texture, often to the point of being a literal gradient. Some scenes literally look like they were slapped together in a 3D modeling program. There's little to no shading, and even at its height, with lighting and all, it still manages to create a sharp contrast between the characters and the background. Rather than create a natural frame for the characters and their interactions, the backgrounds seem flat and unnatural, and as a result the characters seem out of sync with their surroundings.

The characters themselves fare much better, though it's painfully obvious the execs were phoning this one in. A few shots have a character's eyes set at two different levels, and the animators used plenty of subtle tricks to cut costs. For example, in the gifv embedded above, there are only three objects in motion: Taro's head, and Mio's mouth and upper torso. Everything else, from Taro's dress shirt to her outfit to her right arm is completely still. Heck, even her hair is frozen in place!

The plot itself is pretty lame, but a few of the characters are interesting enough. Had they put more effort into art and animation, I'd have given this show a solid 6/10.

At this point, the only reason I'm still watching is because I actually dropped money on this thing. Yeah, f'real. Even considering I got it on sale, that's still twenty bucks I'm never getting back.

Yea, I get you. I kind of wanted to know how it'd have continued though, especially since I liked some of the cast...the author died in a tsunami/an earthquake 2011.

I'd heard he committed suicide. Either way, it's hard not to feel something for the poor sod.

Personally, I blame the studio. For some reason or another, Xebec seems to have this natural affinity for making painfully mediocre anime at bottom-of-the-barrel prices, saved only by gratuitous helpings of ham-fisted fanservice. Aside from Love Hina (which I watched when I was fourteen), I've yet to stumble upon a single series in their portfolio that doesn't make me consider the merits of offing myself.