Is Subaru wor—I mean Is Houkago no Pleiades Worth Watching?

Product placement and subtlety get along like Tibetan Maque in a Spain shop or however than goes. Personally, therefore, I feel that if, for example, Gainax made a deal with the Subaru to make a magical girl anime where the main character is literally named Subaru, the girls fly on broom like 'drive shafts' complete with Subaru hood ornaments, grilles, and engine noises, and the title of the anime is either Wish Upon the Subaru or Afterschool Subaru—at least I can say they're being upfront about it.

Subaru is a young girl whom, after stumbling into an extra-dimensional club room and subsequently, an extra dimensional botanical garden, becomes part of an effort to gather engine fragments to restore a space octopus' ship while foiling a mysterious young boy from the same fragments for some unknown reason. So in all honesty not only did massive amounts of product placement fail to hinder my experience—it enhanced it.

Houkago no Pleiades feels less like a car ad that Gainax wrote a script around and more like an idea that Gainax tailored to fit a car ad. See if there was one thing that surprised me coming out of this it was that this show was good. The characters fit into familiar archetypes without feeling like cut and paste jobs, they aren't defined by singular character traits and development occurs internally rather than as a result of an external force. As a result any character development feels natural, not forced down our throats. No characters change fundamentally, but important internal conflicts are resolved as the plot progresses. 

While the blend of CG and 2-D artwork can be jarring (especially earlier on, where there are a lot more closeups of characters in their CG form), in general the animation looks stellar and plays well with the over-the-top style Gainax is going for. Make no mistake, while the plot may seem simple on paper (and to an extent is in practice) the anime really builds to a satisfying climax. I don't wish to say more because to over-hype leads to insurmountable expectations, which always ruins a series for me. 

The other thing I found refreshing about the series was a lack of fight scenes. There is action, but it's kind of more like watching that one game with the flying balls from Harry Potter (except a hundred times larger in scale) than a traditional fight scene. It's more like a series of races; where the opponent takes the form of the aforementioned mysterious boy and some natural obstacle. It allows the anime to succeed at keeping a lighthearted tone throughout the series without ever breaking immersion. 

Lastly the characters are all well acted, despite having little to no star power present. The soundtrack, while not having that one track, managed to keep me engaged, and after listening to it a bit more I'd be lying if I said it wasn't damn good. 

So is Houkago no Pleiades worth watching? Yeah I'd say so. If you've made it all the way through this, I doubt you can be as pleasantly surprised as I was, but I do think that it does enough to separate it from the crowd and make for one hell of a ride—pun intended. 

Thanks for reading, favorite, share, I'll be you best friend, g'night.

Is Strike the Blood Worth Watching?

 Okay let's not bat around the bush; Strike The Blood is stupid. Better than your average stupid, but stupid nonetheless. Don't come here for any kind of philosophical game of badminton, or to see Akatsuki-kun's journey of self discovery and life-changing epiphanies. It's an action harem in almost every sense of the word. However I think that there are a few key distinctions that set it apart from its counterparts.

Okay, honestly I could not spice the premise up with anything less than a ghost pepper. So anything on my part is going to be a reiteration of the wiki article on the thing...here's the link though...

To start with the show really de-emphasizes the school-life aspect of the main characters lives. Instead the anime creates a series of stories that strike a balance between the more episodic style one commonly finds in western series and the more arc based style that many shonnen are based around. The result is a series that has a feeling more akin to the likes of A Certain Magical Index than to other school-based action harems.

Unlike A Certain Magical Index, though, the anime initially makes us think that, as the Fourth Progenitor (Super-vampire of sorts?), Akatsuki is the vampirical paper-weight that will tip the supernatural scale of power, no-one really gives a shit. Therefore there are a grab bag of different arcs included. These can range from battle with ancient mech spider tanks to time traveling dragons.

Honestly it really is the plot arcs that drive the show, the animation is fine, but never jaw-dropping—likewise for the music. Everything has this really weird multi-colored outline around it during fight scenes, which either adds or detracts from the visuals. Y'know honestly I was leaning more towards this show being worth watching than not, but it really is a bog-standard show. The only thing it really has going for is its plot structure. Even then, something like Raildex does the same, but with better characters and fight sequences. It does have a nice OP though.

                                      
 Is Strike The Blood worth watching? I'm going to leave this on a maybe because it is better than a lot of other action harem shows and its attempt to focus on plot-lines rather than harem hijinks is admirable. Admittedly it does follow the beaten path readily on the fan-service side of things... On the whole there are better ways to spend your time with this. Thanks for reading! Likes, favs and follows are nice. Hope to see you next week! 

Note--Sorry for this not going up on time. I'm away on vacation and thought I had scheduled this to be published automatically last Saturday.   

Nisekoi Anime Review

Now that a couple weeks have past, and everyone has finished it, I feel that I'm obligated to give you an idea of what the latest art gallery from Shaft is all about.

Credit goes to

Nisekoi is the next incarnation of Shaft's line of fanservice filled anime that try to pass off the panty shots and obligatory swimsuit and hotspring episodes as 'art'. But as you lift that shroud of head tilts and cameraman on speed you see it for what it truly is.

...art

 Animation---- Well let's not get of ourselves, how is the animation? Now for those of you who are expecting me to move on after a brief 'it's shaft' let me just dash your expectations the way Watch Dogs has done to me. For those of you who don't know Shaft, allow me to give you a rundown

 With that settled, I have to say I was a little surprised. I was expecting an anime with architecture that defied the laws of physics so hard that I fact expect Escher to leap out and scream 'boo!' Along with an artstyle so trippy that it would make the Sgt Pepper feel like wasn't just living a day in the life. What I got was a little less. The camera's attention span seems to have improved, now being slightly longer than that of the average American. The architecture for the most part looks sound enough that if the building inspector was having a really good day, and at the same time cared nothing about future lawsuits, he would still fail it...however he might give them a medal for trying to follow the laws of physics!

Now that I've donned my obligatory red scarf and Fedora (that is apparently not a fedora but a tribly)
Time to jump into controversy like an atheist in Vatican city. I like Nisekoi's art direction more than I do the monogatari series. To be serious for a second, let me just explain why this would be. I'm pretty new to the whole Shaft thing, but after marathoning the monogatari series, I've kind of gotten a bit...used to the whole Shaft art style. It's starting to feel a little bit too much. I think this sums up my opinion; "Everyone's special...Which is another way of saying no one is." In other words if every scene is artsy than nothing really stands out. Nisekoi has enough abstract art going for it so that it feels artistic and looks nice, while having enough normal stuff so that the artistic elements can really stand out.

And now to make up for all that serious talk, that here's Tieria crossdressing

Waifu material right there

 Plot----Now here's where in any other harem anime I'd put Nicholas Cage laughing his ass off, but instead I have to say; I was kinda surprised. Now if I were to tell you that the story revolved around boy trying to find a girl whose key fit into his lock, you'd probably look at me as if I were trying come on to you. Let me assure you that first I'm not. Second, it's a lot more interesting than it sounds. Third, yes it totally sounds like something you would find on fanfiction.net.

Yes, while at first the whole plot concept seemed as boring as the enzyme substrate lock and key model, (which will not get out of my head as much as I tell it that biology MCAS is over) it turns out to be a lot more interesting only to end in such an unresolved way it makes Knights of the Old Republic look like Fight Club.

Sound---The soundtrack sounds different, and in that way matches the insane characters and artstyle.

As for the voice actors, well they're fantastic, what else can I say? Well I could tell you exactly why, but I'm rushing, so screw that!


Characters---Expecting good character development from harem anime these days is a bit like having the silly idea that the next Transformers movie is ever going to have a hint of Unicron. With that being said Nisekoi...doesn't break this trend at all. After finishing , I tried to think back to something---anything that showed a case of good character development, and I really can't. There's nothing that really breaks ground here.

That being said, none of the characters feel like they've been shoved into the 'ms fanservice state'. They all get enough development to not feel completely like cardboard cut-outs, and are likeable and developed enough so that by the time I got through I didn't feel guilty enough to have to watch a documentary on feminism for an hour. There wasn't a time where I wanted a character offscreen, and even the main character, while again not breaking ground, is slightly less dense than cement.

Also the fantastic animation, offbeat soundtrack and amazing voice-acting help make even to most unoriginal scenes feel like absolute gold.

Romance--- Soooooo...remember when I said that romance in a harem anime could never measure up to a pure romance anime? Yeah...well...I was right...at least objectively. 

With minimal character development, and nothing truly groundbreaking, I can't say that the romance is anything special, at least as a reviewer. Everything bit of the romance in this anime has been done before, and done better. It's not bad, but I don't think it's for everyone. Now, hypothetically, if I were to tell you what I as an anime fan really thought well...

It was really good. F*ck it, I love this anime. It's yet another example of why I love anime. The trippy art style, off beat soundtrack, characters so unrealistic they make Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge look like...no it's still bullshit, but you get my point! Someone once said that the two things that an audience are going to remember most are the beginning and the ending. And the romantic development toward the end of the series...is so damn good!

I don't want to spoil it, but it gave enough drama to make me care about the characters, while still keeping consistent with their personalities. It made me feel something for the characters and their relationship. Most of all it provided the best ending I have ever seen to a harem anime. Actually I'm going to go out on my already tenuous limb and say that this was the best ending of the season.

Wow that really showcased my critical ability, didn't it? I gave you no information about why it was so good, didn't even try to be objective, and overall massacred the romance section. Guess you'll just have to take my word from here...


So kind of spoiled it, but I love this anime. Which means that the following recommendation is from a completely objective perspective that doesn't contain a bias.

For anyone who is looking for an art deco, likeable, if re-used, characters, an interesting soundtrack, a decent script and hands down the best ending to any anime of the spring season, give it a shot.

Thanks for Reading! Following me, liking my stuff and spreading the word are all thing you could do that would really help me, and that I would appreciate!