My 2017 Fall Anime Season is free falling (Part 3)

Hello again and welcome back to the third round of my impressions for selected shows of 2017 Fall Anime Season!

In this part I will be talking about shows that have left me with no hard feelings–just mixed feelings. They obviously do not qualify for hate-watch but are questionable. Hopefully I will be able to fully vent my anxieties before I go insane.

 

---

Save the school or save me–choose one!

 

Love Live! Sunshine!! 2nd Season

 

To be really honest, by the time Sunshine!! started airing I had already forgotten most of the original. Though, some of my fond memories of it forever remain, such as characters with extremely strong personality (Eli, Nico and Maki) and act three of the finale with Happy Maker! playing (I’ll never stop bugging Alfredo about this lol).

Since the first episode did not impress me a tiny bit, I got curious and went back to watch the Love Live! School Idol 2nd Season, specifically the second episode, to see if the second episode of Sunshine!! manages to pull something different that is worth praising. There is one thing I can say for sure regarding Love Live! as a franchise; it’s always cheeky with the characters, especially the leads Honoka and now Chika, screaming inspirational one liners!

Zero…

…in cheekiness real quick!

I can guarantee you that if you ever try to reenact ANY part of the characters’ “exciting-moment” acting in Love Live! Sunshine!!, you will have absolutely no trouble in gathering stares of “I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

 

I still find it difficult to accept that the writers for Love Live! Sunshine!! are all in for riding the OG’s dick for the most part. Both episodes feature the training camp plot but I do think that Sunshine!! is gunning for a slower progress. Basically this is where the fanbase of the franchise may be split apart. Are you in for the story and plot? Or just the characters–best girl (Yousorou or fight me), their quirks and meme-worthy cheesy moments?

Now that I think about it, Nico is pretty much a one meme army against all of Aqours!

 

Now this is where I’m all for talking positives.

I could have sworn that I have worn a face of someone who had been cynically trolled by the second episode…

 

….but it was really this episode which helped me understand as to why Aqours really didn’t deserve to win the Love Live!

Unlike the OG, where μ’s managed to work their way into actual progress with three members of the unit being functional, in Sunshine!!, after goofing around (in reality they are trying to actually work as a team) the members of Aqours finally find out that they are in for a worse ride than the unit they truly look up to have been.

Not only that the members of Aqours cannot work as a team, they practically lack any real connections between others within the unit as individuals. Both shows do display a case of how it is practically impossible to singlehandedly manage a large unit without having to resort to dictatorship (which neither did and that is a good thing), though there are leaders who are only figureheads.

Now I’m looking forward to seeing how they will overcome the individuals’ issue–they ALL stand out too much on their own (even Ruby who is practically the least relevant). When grouped together I only got to see a bunch of idol-wannabes. Hopefully the time is now, the time they transition from wannabes to actual idols.

You know what else I’m looking forward to?
Right. So, I have been borrowing Irina‘s drinking game specifically for Sunshine!! 2nd Season.
I would suggest the drink to be no other than Irina, down a whole glass every damn time you see Ruby without both of her empty hands at or above her chest level.

At the rate this is going, you really cannot get yourself drunk unless you are not much of a drinker like myself.

And that’s a glass down the throat.

 

---

The only recovery I would like to see is my insecurity.

 

As I’m slowly realizing that the show is literally poking right at my past gaming experiences.

Net-juu no Susume

 

Let me get the first thing out of the way.

The opening theme is damn catchy. Done!

Now onto the show. I can understand how it is simply cutting to the chase and showcases ‘more meat than bones’ of MMORPG. If you are wondering what I mean by the bones, please refer to the very first moment of Kirito entering Sword Art Online; they are the indigestible parts and in relation to RPG, they are arguably the most boring parts of the game for anyone familiar with such games.

While I am not a NEET (as is the protagonist), have never been and never plan on being one, I have spent good nine years in World of Warcraft and all this show is doing for me right now is bringing up my past memories of the game–good and bad. It double downs that by showing me the real-life side as well! Ah!
I really to say that the show is creepy but I cannot. I am still taken by how simple but realistic it is.

Though, I still do have some questions that will never be answered…
What’s benefit system like in Japan? Moriko literally just dropped out of the job and went Elite NEET by her own choice! Realistically speaking, since she has absolutely nothing hindering her from being able to work, she shouldn’t be eligible for any kind of benefit and she would have found herself homeless soon after. But screw it, she’s an elite.
Though I cannot deny that I have a very strong feeling about this part of her life coming much later into the series.

I do like how she switched her gears into a real ‘gamer’ type; RGB EVERYTHING.

My proud Logitech set: RGB baby!

 

I still have to wonder, this is if ‘annual leave hours’ system exists in Japanese employment. Had she been paid out all of it, did she seriously spend a hell lot of the money on new PC system?
All of my what.

Last but not least is regarding how gamers are perceived in MMORPG world. I will agree that meeting a female player who actually plays a male character is akin to meeting a unicorn; it is precisely why the premise of this show garners popularity, if it does at all. On the other hand, the female character Lily being played by a dude is at the far end of common-meter. While that is the biggest contribution to gamers thinking that girls do not exist in MMORPG, I cannot say that there is absolutely no hope out there as I have been mistaken for being a female regardless to the gender of character I play. The bottom line truly is your personality, at least for the minority of gamers out there.

The show has a moment where acknowledging the player’s age to be at or above thirty is something guaranteeing shame. While it is true that within our society we are expected to have at least accomplished something more than graduating high school at the age of 30, I do have to remind you that not everyone inside a game is an idiot and hopeless. There really are times when knowing someone’s age can come handy as they can be genuine, caring and are more than willing to give out life advice to you.

Ah. Actually I think that I will save an entire post regarding this show since it’s a perfect opportunity for me to talk about it in relation to my times in World of Warcraft. It will be fun, I can promise you that much. 🙂

 

---

Irina, is that you?!

 

Osake wa Fuufu ni Natte kara

 

Three minutes of watching her being lovely and getting drunk, what could go wrong?

The story is most straightforward; you have a young lady who loves to unwind herself with drinks after hard day’s work. Luckily for her, she has the man of her dreams to make those drinks for her. Yay for not having to do the errands herself!

We had Foodgasm and all that jazz, now we have a Yoidere going Drinkgasm, even if she was tricked into drinking a non-alcoholic one.

 

It’s okay to fake it…

 

Seriously. Lay off the porn and watch this instead.

 

---

Two Girls, One Kettenkrad

 

Destination Unknown

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou

 

Say hello to the 2017 Loli Survival Simulator!

Now this is an anime that gives me the wonders! You know how anime shows would have a starting point, character introductions, story/settings and plot build-ups towards an end (the finish line)?

I think this show is going reverse from the finish line to the starting point. Two girls are left in the middle of a possibly post-war environment as they try to find the meaning of life, especially Yuuri who literally questioned this…

We’ve all have asked this question once when we were growing up.

 

Given how settings and attributes of the two main leads are, I feel like this is yet another attempt to relay a message about what a war can lead to. As you can see, at least for the first two episodes these two have been travelling a long way but they are still finding no other signs of human life. The show is cheaply approaching the theme of post-war civilization in a rather positive way, using loli designs and having a company of two girls instead of a loner, because scientific experiment has already been conducted to see what would really happen to a human shall they truly be left alone.

That said, this is not reality; this is anime. And I am cheering Chito and Yuuri on as they find things worth living for in an empty world. There is absolutely no limit to how far this show can take us which is the beauty of it by default. If anything, I’d urge all Isekai shows to take note from this work of art and apply those to themselves instead of relying on MMORPG tropes such as, “Hey, there’s a guild house. Let’s go there to really start our journey!”

---

 

And that’s easily (cough) the third part done and dusted. Please look forward to the final part where I will try to hold in my cringe.

<< Part 2 | Part 4 >>

• Anime
• Wonder