The Laws of Selecting

Well this season is slowly coming to a close, thank god, but for all of that, we did get a few okay runs from some shows, I guess. Reviewing tonight is Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou, Hitaugi no Chaika, Mekaku City Actors, No Game No Life, Seikoku no Dragonar, and WIXOSS. In no particular order.

No Game No Life
“Losers always do their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”
I inevitably have to default to Jinx’s better explanation of how this show works:

Every event and action is always part of Sora’s ultimate multi-storied plot, and his few limitations are covered by his sister, whose character might as well be a tumor attached to his left shoulder. It’s not a question of if Sora wins, but how, and only because the show is able to provide a decent answer is why it avoids the trash tier. Furthermore, this gives birth to a related issue which also happens to be in parallel with SAO: Because NGNL is entirely a gospel orchestrated in the glory of Sora, no other character or entity on the show possesses real agency or is an active player. The entire world of NGNL is passive and vapid, and every enemy exists solely for Blank to defeat. Every act by whatever character is ultimately tied to Sora and his eventual victory, and their own motivations or powers are largely irrelevant.

Despite the fact that it was fanfiction on wheels, NGNL was surprisingly interesting to watch in the middle-to-last-half of the run, because despite the shameless self-pandering of Sora and Shiro, it came the closest to God-tier Mondaji than anything else that isn’t Log Horizon could. It did not seem to care that its plot was as obvious as the losers of Blank’s challenges and their facial reactions after they explain why they lost. We knew they were going to win, we just needed to know how, and once we knew how, it really didn’t matter. Character-wise though, Stephanie Dola tits, along with shameless little Jibril was worth the price of admission, and the cat and dog girls were also a nice touch. Would I watch more? Maybe. Certainly looks like there might be. At least it is not SAO.

Title: No Game No Life
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 7

Mekaku City Actors
“What?”
Give SHAFT credit where credit is due, Mekaku was visually impressive. But we knew this. We knew that they would employ Madokagatari abstract visuals to reel in the pretentious hipsters who believe they’re watching a FUCKING MASTERPIECE. What we got instead was twelve episodes of some kind of plot I hardly understand. I mean, let me get this straight, Marry is the daughter of the daughter of this snake queen, she comes into contact with… someone, ends up in the city, guy’s wife dies, and he somehow is possessed by another snake looking to make his wish come true by… something… and then these kids have powers… but they’re snakes… yeah, I’m lost. No, don’t comment and tell me what happened or how shitty I am for not understanding the FUCKING MASTERPIECE, the point is the source material for this show isn’t even there, it was based on some musical bullshit or something. We tried that before. It was shit. I’ll give you the point that Mekaku’s characters were pretty good, I did actually enjoy most of those aspects of the show, but when you skip past the fluff and abstraction, you get about four episodes of actual show to watch, and it’s over without any real reason for telling you it started in the first place.

E for effort though, I guess.

Title: Mekaku City Actors
Sub Group I Watched: Commie, Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 6

Seikoku no Dragonar
“A Gentleman’s Tuesday.”
It’s no Highschool DxD, but Dragonar really put its best foot forward on everything from suggestive tentacle-based softcore hentai, to back-breaking absence-of-physics breasts. Sadly, it did not give you a Issei, and instead gave you a mostly useless Ash Blake. I don’t think I counted any time in this show where he actually did something without either someone else doing it for him, Eco giving him a suit to finish the job, or him just hopping on a dragon and telling it to sit. No, you can’t watch this show for Ash, because you are watching it for the many huge-tits women running around and being felt up by tentacles.

Sadly, that is really all you can get from this show. It’s fanservice and borderline pornography disguised as a medieval fantasy involving dragons. I won’t even label it a harem, because it doesn’t manage to do that right in any regard. Sure, they send girls after Ash, but they don’t ratchet that shit up to eleven like they should, so it just sort of pools below at the base.

But fucking Lautreamonts man. Fuck.

Title: Seikoku no Dragonar
Sub Group I Watched: FFF
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 8

Selector Infected WIXOSS
“Magic: The Fuck This I Am Just Going to Bounce”
So what happens when JC STAFF thinks they can merge their brand of sci-fi-like fantasy with Magic: The Gathering and throw a little CLAMP-like characterization into the mix without making them noodle people? You get WIXOSS, an awful lump of a show that is trying to remind you that when you die in the game, you die for real, or you turn into a card, I dunno, LOL?

Honestly, I almost dropped it, and then I got second wind during the Aki-lucky mini-arc, watching her collapse into a ball of fucking batshit insanity, and then learning that winning the game traps you in a card a-la Myst style. So I finished it out to see if it would end on a decent note, knowing there was a second season. Fortunately it ended on no note at all, and the second season doesn’t drop until the fall I believe.

Suffice to say, it never really had me at hello. If it was a card game where the shit just got serious and losing meant they walked around in a stupor with a bottle of cheap vodka in their backpack looking for a new match, then I’d say sure, but when you involve this magical bullshit playing field only some girls can see, a game that is never really explained at all for us to even understand how it works, and minimal character interaction beyond some false feels for whatever is happening, it’s a show that promises nothing and delivers a bucket of mayonnaise and a spoon. JC STAFF, I know you can at least come up with fancy bullshit math a-la Railgun that can at least hit above trash-tier. Probably not going to bother with the second season.

Title: Selector Infected WIXOSS
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 6

Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou
“Boy Meets Girl Meets World”
Thankfully, this is no nineties sitcom, or a blatant attempt at pandering to such. Kawaisou does exactly what it is supposed to do, it delivers an even-keel situational rom-com without a shitty lame male protag, or a useless airheaded female protag. The supporting cast helps regulate their behavior throughout the show, and it doesn’t try to sell us on the harem outcome either. My guess as to why this works is probably because most of it stays outside of the school building. It’s such a generic setting that I feel moving it to the halfway house makes it more interesting because as situations go, more interesting things happen when you’re in a home full of idiots.

I’m not actually sure if this show is over, it just sort of ended. Either way, I enjoyed the ride for what it was worth, and would enjoy another.

Title: Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou
Sub Group I Watched: Commie
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 8

Hitaugi no Chaika
“Many Chaikas. Much Magic. Wow.”
Honestly, Chaika started out a little slow for me, because at first it just seemed like they were going for the Yuushibu or Hagure Yuusha no Estetica routes, with demon daughters and whatnot, but what you get is actually a fairly well-constructed show for a light novel adaptation, where your main male isn’t a complete wimp, and his counterpart balances being a creepy yandere with being badass support. Chaika herself isn’t a slouch either when it counts, but she isn’t as relied upon as others. Throw in an eccentric band of do-goods trying to prevent a war, some other characters and mid-bosses, and the standard fantasy world landscape, and you have a show.

Sadly, it did not end as well as it could have. I know they’re getting a second season, but what bothers me, as usual, is that they cop these shitty mid-point endings that make everything sound like they didn’t have a green light for S2 until the last minute, and were fully prepared to just go “Okay… so, mid-boss is dead, fortresses crash, everyone survives, except that guy, the end. Ship it!”. Annoying as fuck. If you knew you had a S2 at least five episodes before the end, set it up to transition so that watched as a whole, it’s not going to be some half-assed story that has a potential ending in the middle. I swear, ever since Code Geass, you fucks have been getting lazy.

Title: Hitaugi no Chaika
Sub Group I Watched: Horrible
Episodes: 12
Rating (1-10): 7

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A few more reviews soon, and then I will try to put together next season ASAP. Housewarming party is tomorrow, so I will be expected to socialize. I know, inconvenient, right?