Killing Time

Last batch of reviews for the season, minus Gin no Saji, because I still haven’t even started it,, and Saki because I am still lazy. Those will come eventually. For now, we have Seitokai Yakuindomo S2, Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta, Tonari no Seki-kun, and Onee-chan ga Kita. Three of these belong, and one… not so much. I’m sure you can tell who is what.

Tonari no Seki-kun
“The Yokoi Power Hour”
I got exactly what I wanted out of this show. My fourth-through-sixth grades trying to distract myself from studying in every way possible. Only Seki takes it to awesome levels, in ways that only people like me who put painstaking detail into campgounds created in the dirt ground during a camping trip as a kid. But Yokoi reaction faces really made the seven-minute episodes worth watching. It’s subtle tsundere, short and sweet. Much like Onee-chan ga Kita, sometimes you just need a quick-fix of something good.

Title: Tonari no Seki-kun
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 13
Rating (1-10): 8

Seitokai Yakuindomo S2
“Good things come from dirty jokes”
SYD isn’t winning awards for animation, story, or characters, but it does well in all three without trying to coat itself in buttercream frosting and inflate its price. It’s sex jokes anime told from a largely teen student perspective. It’s the kind of shock-jock humor men in their thirties who still hang out with their high school buddies still talk about because when you were given every opportunity to move on with your life and be something, you renew the lease on your one-bedroom apartment in the town you graduated high school with and hang out at the local bar with the others you knew who did the same. SYD instead sort of plays out like the Saturday Night Live of anime, converting its manga format into short-skit segments, always ending in a punchline. I guess that makes it more classic MAD TV than SNL, and considerably less Bobby Moynihan. For me, it’s Hata, Suzu head, and just random fun.

Title: Seitokai Yakuindomo S2
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 13
Rating (1-10): 8

Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta
“I’ll take Shows with Shitty Characters for 400, Alex”
The Pilot’s Love Song had all of the components there to be a fairly decent show, and none of them were constructed in any meaningful manner. The show that came to mind as I was thinking about the words to type here was Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. There, we’re given characters who we’re supposed to regard as a tightly-knit unit, but really they’re just some random characters with random pasts put into a room and told to face forward and do their jobs. Koiuta pretty much does that, it gives us a bunch of kids, tells us they’re going to the “End of the World”, and they’re taught how to fly planes. Then there is Kael and his fallen prince routine. He is the show’s Coulsen, risen from the grave, leading the charge, only he is unknown to everyone around him except Airi. The rest of the show flops back and forth between LEARNING PLANES, the outside world, and establishing a relationship between Claire and Kael. Then it just jumps into the air battles, kids dying, and the edge of the world, before doubling back, some other noise, and end. Who are all of these people again?

In the end, it was a show with a lot of promise, and maybe if they had a full season and some better writing, more screen time devoted to exploring the pasts of the various characters, especially the ones they killed and wanted you to feel, then it might’ve been something the Last Exile fanbase wanted to see. As it stands, Arpeggio did it better at sea, and with 99.8% more Hyuga.

Title: Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 13
Rating (1-10): 6

Onee-chan ga Kita
“A three-minute tour.”
There is little left to be said about the show we wish we had more than thirty-nine minutes of. It feels like being robbed of everything just in this world. I’ve already minced words, but suffice to say, I would not mind seeing more of this show in the future, as in a full-episode half-season or more. I think there is certainly enough there. We’ve had our day in the sun with little sisters. We most definitely need older sisters. Either that, or more Minami-ke.

Title: Onee-chan ga Kita
Sub Group I Watched: Asenshi
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 8

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New season of shit starts soon. Hopefully it won’t bore me like the collective median of this season.