Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsunomanika Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken Review

 Overall Rating 4.0 out of 10 - Good idea but poor implementation.

I recommend watching Gourmet Girl Graffiti instead. I dropped after 3 episodes.

This "angel" comes with more asterisks than fee schedule of the greediest bank. Meanwhile around the corner in Koufuku Graffiti, Ryo cooks for free for lazy and problematic Kumin and does not complain about it. Ryo >>> Shina

I had quite a history with this show. First, I enthusiastically downloaded the whole thing, expecting a really awesome thing. Then watched first episode and dropped it in disappointment. A year later, after finishing Gourmet Girl Graffiti, I decided to give it another go. However, after 3 episodes in total, that only confirmed my original assessment. This show could have been great, but poor direction run it into ground.

After all what could have been easier. Take sweet, cooking and caring gf material Ryo from Gourmet Girl Graffiti, replace Kirin with a guy, add some sweet romantic scenes and you get a 9.5 out of 10 anime. That is why I had high expectations of this show.

However, this anime was given to a very feminist misandrist studio who went on to fuck it up. 

Instead of being sweet gf material, Shiina complains on various things about Amane. Show keeps rubbing it in our faces in an unpleasant way, how much she is better than him and how much she "spoils" him. That is not spoil, that is what being a gf is about. Amane too seems to agree and spoil Shiina with gifts and what not.

Side characters are not much better, be that Amane's mom or his friends. They just tease Amane and fill the screentime.

Shiina herself is somewhat alright half of the time when she does not complain, disagree or criticize Amane for anything.

Overall, however it's a wasted opportunity to make a 9.5 awesome show. Cooking makes girls closer to being a gf material. Too bad the studio ruined such as awesome opportunity to show us just that.

So, watch Gourmet Girl Graffiti and imagine Ryo is cooking for you instead.

Gun x Sword Review

Overall Rating 7.0 out of 10 - Great at times and lacking at others.

I recommend watching.

This show is rather unusual experience stitched together from very different elements rarely found in a single show. I liked some things and not so much other things.

The best character is Van himself. He and cynical view of the world is very relatable. He lives his life on his own terms, often doing strange things that only make sense for him and puzzle other people. He does not try to help people and in general just stays out of trouble. However, he is also skillful and willful. If he feels like it, he is able to solve various issues and beat even strong opponents. There is one thing that motivates him and that is taking revenge against Claw for killing his wife. Issue of his wife, Helena, almost the only thing that turns apathetic guy into an angry and forceful one.

I find Van very relatable. In many ways he resembles me. Even in small details such as preference for black colored attire and putting a lot of sauces on my dishes. I too live my life on my own terms. I am often apathetic about a lot of things and there are few things that can truly interest me.

Claw is probably the most unconventional antagonist in history of anime. Despite killing wifes of Van and Rey, he is some kind of strange hippy pacifist who cultivates plants, breeds dogs, feeds birds and so on. He does however kill people even on screen, extensively on accident. That perhaps hints that he is not entirely honest with us.

Claw has dream of making world a happy place and uniting people, something a winner of Miss Universe would typically say. He also has an organization of very dedicated zealots who are willing to even sacrifice their lives for the dream of their comrade. 

However not everything is sunshine in Claw's cult. His followers are closer to brainwashed cultists then to free people, but they are not depicted as mindless zombies, but rather as people who believe this is for the best. 

Some of Claw's followers grew to question if his plan would indeed make world a better place and not just destroy it. Many of these were mercilessly eliminated by those who remained loyal to him. Claw killed one himself after he attempted to hug him, claiming to wish to make peace.

In characters of Van and Claw authors contrasts two fundamentally different approaches to live. 

Van narrow-mindedly sticks to his own wishes, desires and self-interest without considering any greater good or such. However, as Van continues, he ends up attracting many different people to his group, who either grew to like him or just happen to have their aims aligned with his at any given time.

In contrast Claw claims his plan is best for everyone. All his supporters fanatically believe that most of them suffer from some inferiority complex and near worship Claw. In pursue of this plan they ignore needs and feelings of pretty much everyone who is not part of their hivemind like community.

This contrast between individualism with free association on one side and hive mind community on the other is the most interesting part of this anime. As a staunch individualist, I am fully on Van's side.

As for less than interesting parts, then many side characters, especially in early episodes are not likable. Originally, I even dropped it after watching first 5 episodes. That gets better over time. Claw himself is only introduced in the middle of the show (episodes 12-13), he is mentioned in the first episode but only by name.

Setting is more often unpleasant than not. Some episodes are set in nice locations, such as that tropical island with mansion (episode 7). However, most episodes are in some lawless towns with thugs, crazy or unsavory characters.

Van's crew is overall OK. Wendy is nice and funny, so is her turtle, especially because of all the efforts she puts in taking care for Van. Priscilla and Rey are also likable. I did not like the El Dora old guys in their own episode but felt better about them when they joined Van in second half of the show. Of course, Yukiko is the best as I like maids.

Some people from Claw's crew are likable, for example Fasalina. Gadved is OK as well.

Overall, it's a show worthy of your time. I can recommend watching.

Girls und Panzer Series

Overall Ratings vary from 7.1 to 8.0 out of 10

I recommend watching.

In general Girls und Panzer is one of my favorite shows. I made couple of reviews of the original series.

Girls und Panzer is simple and does not have any deep ideas or such. However, its gentle and friendly. For the most part it shows the kind of beautiful world I like to inhabit and certainly enjoy watching. It's all nice friendly and cozy.

The original anime became very popular very fast and then went on to produce sequels, spinoffs and theater movies and so on. Most of them are of very good quality. Even short special episode can hold on their own.

Real Anzio Battle is as good as the original series or even better. I like Italy so I can be biased here.

Der Film had a few scenes I did not liked, but it compensated for it well enough with action that went even further beyond.

Special episodes are nice in their own way. I particularly liked the one where they went to pick swimsuits.

I tend to rate Das Finale episodes somewhat worse than predecessors. They do have some minor flaws and take franchise to some dubious detours. However, these detours are minor, and these series are still fun to watch 80% of the time. They are still much better than most other shows out there.

Shark team have some unlikable character, even if not all of them are bad, I like their autistic bartender for example. Momo's household of starving children is not as nice as history themed dwelling of team Hippo. Also, I am not fan of the French. Chihatan battle was too dark and messy due to it being in jungle.

In their last movie (4th) they decided to play it safe and replicated the famous scene from Der Film, where BT-42 tried to stop 3 Pershings. It was fun, even if taking these antics full 54 minutes was somewhat overboard. 

I am looking forward for next two installments of Das Finale and then hopefully we can have some more. May be a second season.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear G Review

Overall Rating 6.4 out of 10 - Good sequel that somewhat improves over the original.

I recommend watching.

I was rather critical of the original Symphogear as it began really promising and interesting, but then managed to fall flat with distasteful plot twists and monologues. I disliked how they treated Yukine in first season and a number of other things.

Second season managed to fix most of the issues I had with the original. Aside from few moments here and there is a very solid and entertaining experience.

Here we have three new gear users and somewhat expanded support cast. Shirabe and Kirika are likable enough to watch and Maria does not get too much screen time.

Plot manages to stay interesting without too much questionable behavior from most characters. Occasional WTFs do occur. They also justify some actions after the fact, but the way they do it does not sound completely illogical.

We also got Miku squid. They could have made her cuter and sweeter too, but alas.

Overall, it's solid experience. I recommend watching.

Sora no Otoshimono Final: Eien no Watashi no Torikago

Overall Rating 5.7 out of 10 - More Ikaros screentime, but all the same issue

This movie has some redeeming qualities compare to the rest of Sora no Otoshimono, but I would rather recommend DearS or Hand Maid May for a better master and his harem experience.

This movie made me think that part of the problem with Sora no Otoshimono series is from how Tomoki's character is written. Sure Sohara, Mikako and Nymph add to the problem. However, Tomoki is contradictory and poorly fits the role of harem master. 

Tomoki is not that relatable either. Takeya from DearS or Kazuya from Hand Maid May are easier to understand and much more relatable to me personally. Takeya and Kazuya are just more realistically written, they do not want to make girls smile and make them free like Tomoki. Both Takeya and Kazuya pursue their own dreams and desires, especially Takeya.

In fact, Ren from DearS somewhat resemble Ikaros, she is just as quiet, aloof and clueless about various common-sense issues, but very loyal and obedient to her master. However, if Sora no Otoshimono then adds more characters who steal all the screen time, then DearS keeps its focus on Ren and actually goes and builds relationship between Takeya and Ren in somewhat meaningful way.

Thus, end result is that Sora no Otoshimono is 80% silly comedy that just trolls viewers. Other characters do create chaos and mess with their conflicting actions, then go and blame it on Tomoki. Sometimes Tomoki adds to the mess himself. The resulting chaos takes away from good elements of the show and make it harder to enjoy is as a romance. Too much violence against Tomoki makes it impossible to enjoy it as comedy.

DearS too has comedy elements to is, as well as some violence. However, there is better focus on a relationship between Takeya and Ren. A lot of screentime is devoted towards Ren trying to please Takeya. Miyu and others mostly work to help her, rather than compete with her.

As for this movie, then Ikaros indeed got more screentime. However, directors once again pulled an annoying trick: they made Ikaros more assertive, but that is not what I wanted. I like her precisely because she is passive and obedient. In the end, she sacrificed herself to save Tomoki or something despite him yelling at her not to do it. Somehow here not even sacrifice in this context feels right. It's like creators of Sora no Otoshimono do not want to give us the happy ending we want out of spite and malice. 

There was one time during ending song of the very first episode of the first season of Sora no Otoshimono, where creators got it right. Then it just went some downhill. Unfortunately, only the song and not the full sequence from the anime.

On what you can do with different Geasses

All three of Lelouch, Mao and Charles are viable options. Lelouch is the easiest to use and the most surefire. We saw many examples of how far he could take it.

Theoretically with Charles geass you can reshape people very extensively. Take for example a fervent separatist who fights against the government because government soldiers killed his family of something like that. Change his memories so that was terrorists rather than government that killed his family, and he might become an anti-terrorists' government agent instead. We saw how far Charles could take this ability with Julius Kingsley: that is Charles geass can turn Lelouch into Julius.

However, no matter how far you tinker their memories, you cannot change them completely. They would still not do things that is way out of their character. If they are arrogant cunning and selfish they will stay this way no matter the memory alterations. Julius did exhibit many of Lelouch's qualities even before his memories have returned. Also, there is a risk real memory will return.

Mao's geass seem weak at first. However, there is a rather simple way of using it: to blackmail people into doing what you want. After all you instantly know everything, they know, including the kind of secrets they do not want to be found out. People like Putin and Yanukovych even build their entire loyalty pyramid in their parties with blackmail.

Once again some will not be swayed by having their secrets exposed so it's not as surefire as that of Lelouch.

CC's geass is also relatively good if you live by 'all you need is love' slogan or something. However, love alone is not enough for me, I need many more things for happiness so that would not be sufficient.

Rolo and Marianne's geasses are hardly that good to write too much about.

Sora no Otoshimono: Tokeijikake no Angeloid

Overall Rating 5.5 out of 10 - Somewhat better than mainline Sora no Otoshimono

I am not certain it its worth watching.

I do not remember if I wrote about it on this blog or not, but Sora no Otoshimono has an equal mixture of things that I love and hate in anime. On the positive side is Ikaros herself and on the negative are Sohara and Mikako. Then I wished for a spin off with just Ikaros and Sakurai and none of the rest of the cast. Much how Rem fans wished for a spin off with Subaru and Rem together.

Since movies sometimes greatly depart from the mainline of the show, they are always a gamble to watch. They could ruin everything you liked about the original. However theoretically they could also enhance the experience.

Tokeijikake no Angeloid however for the most part stayed true to the original and had all the same issues as the first two seasons.

The new character, Hiyori, is very likable indeed. In her original form she is worthy of a place in my harem. However, show did not give us enough time to experience a lot of her.

The first half of the movie were simply recap episodes that occasionally insert Hiyori as a shy stalker who likes Sakurai but too shy to admit it. Lazy effort but perhaps they wished to build up to the main event and flesh out the new character.

Then finally she joins the New World Discovery Club. Sakurai used that as an opportunity to make her do various weird stuff. Hiyori is so obedient and willing to do anything he says. Such an awesome girl, just how I like them.

However, Sakurai himself would cut her short before she could do the thing. That is so anticlimactic. Director of the series must be as mean of a person as Mikako is.

Then in accident she gets killed by a track, sent to Synapce but wishes to return. The boss of Synapse lets her, but with erased memories and personality. Her final appearance is just a vengeance puppet of final boss for the movie. The crew defeats her, she remembers and cries as she disappears. Sad and anticlimactic ending. Why it's the best characters that had to disappear like that.

Overall, Tokeijikake no Angeloid is slightly better than two main seasons of Sora no Otoshimono, but still short of what this show could have been. I wonder how the other movie will fair. 

Why Airs Blue was a Better Leader than Ikumi (Infinite Ryvius)

In my review of Shinseikai Yori I mentioned that selfish and unscrupulous Airs Blue was a better leader than paragon of virtue Ikumi. If you watch attentively enough you can see it yourself. However, some would miss the idea. So, I will elaborate on this actual reasons why Airs was better. in detail here.

The most important principle here is that good intentions often do not result in good outcomes. You might wish to do good, but cause problems instead due to lack of ability or poor understanding of the problem. In contrast bad intentions sometimes lead to unexpectedly good outcomes. Infinite Ryvius shows you one such example.

Airs Blue

It's not Airs intentions that made him a good leader. He is selfish and unscrupulous social outcast that leads the gang of similar people. Of all of them, Airs is the quietest and introverted. He is not only strong but also smart. That is why gang respects and obeys him. Airs also has strong sense of self-preservation, even when he was overthrown and the entire ship and his former gang went to hunt him down, he managed to hide in places and survived. 

Airs took power in a coup. One of Airs minions, Criff, seduced one of Zwei members, Charlie, and used him to sneak to the bridge of Ryvius. On the bridge Airs and his gang announced that they are in charge and will not hesitate to use violence to get their way. Zwei were not happy with that turn of events but did not dare to oppose intimidating Airs.

In power evil dictator Airs ended up not so evil. He kicked out incompetent former Capitan Luscon Houjou from the bridge for panicking loudly and preventing everyone from thinking out solutions. However, Airs was smart enough to keep the rest of the personnel with navigation skills on their jobs. In fact, he also promoted Aiba and Faina to the bridge to have some alternative opinion from someone who represents average person on board. Despite being intimidating he, did not fight anyone with exception of Yuki, who deliberately picked a fight with Airs on his own accord. In fact, violence was low on the ship.

Unlike Luscon who just panicked under pressure, Airs managed to make good rational decisions, that allow Ryvius and its crew to survive in challenging situations. He listened to technical advice from qualified personnel of Zwei but made final decisions himself. As much as Zwei knew how to pilot the ship, they lacked decisiveness to use weapons against enemies. Airs compensated for that.

Finally, being relatively selfish and self-protective, Airs did not mess with life of people on the ship. For the most time people were free to do what they want. Airs also spoiled personal on the bridge with special perks to keep them loyal. That did not work in the end. 

Overall Airs time at the helm was the freest and safest for most ordinary people on board. Hedonistic social outcast and outlaw with strong self-preservation skills became the most adequate leader the ship has known. His leadership managed to save the ship from many near-death situations.

Ikumi

Ikumi is a very virtuous persons who always does the right thing. He is willing to work for the sake of the ship and people on board.

However, he is also very protective of women. That became his downfall. After his girlfriend, Kozue became pregnant, he became obsesses with caring and protecting her. After some incident where someone on the ship attacked Kozue, Ikumi completely lost it. Even though Kozue was alright, he became obsessed with making sure it will never happen again.

Eventually Ikumi seized power but threatening to destroy the ship with the Vital Guarder if he does not get his way. In power he went on to enforce security with mad zeal. Ironically enough he employed former members of the Air's gang to do it. However, if Airs more or less kept them quiet, unless there was some emergency, Ikumi send them out to patrol the ship and enforce security.

The gang turned security force harassed people for with the sense of entitlement and undue zeal. They often picked at people who hardly did anything wrong. The ship became as illiberal as 1984. Ikumi and Heiger were proud of their Orwellian accomplishments.

As the final nail of Ikumi regime, Heiger compiled a list of undesirable people on board and decided to exterminate them. While Ikumi was partly oblivious to this plan, he did enable it by trusting Heiger implicitly and eliminating all checks and balances as well as trimming down number of people on the bridge. Ikumi demoted Aiba and Faina, despite being friends with Aiba. Heiger condemned Aiba to death.

A good guy Ikumi became an enabler of a genocide. Despite being nice and protective person, he showed no remorse or sympathy towards victims of his totalitarianism, believing it was them who are at fault for being a security threat.

Conclusion

Good intentions often do not result in good outcomes. In general, Infinite Ryvius is good and realistic show, that showcases how leadership works in society.

Of course, far not every social outcast is as capable as Airs Blue. Most of them are idiots.

However, I am wary of people who profess doing the "right thing". Some of them will not hesitate to punish people they perceive as wrong. I am not a paragon of virtue myself and I do not want to be hurt for not being one. Also, some of them are hypocrites and liars.

Shinseikai Yori is a good example how good intentions end up creating totalitarianism.

Shinsekai Yori Review

Overall Rating 7.0 out of 10 - Somewhat deep literary fiction type of show with important flaws.

I still recommend watching for people who understand literary fiction.

Good intentions when forced on others are no better than evil intentions - Lelouch vi Britannia

Country that will sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither and will lose both - Thomas Jefferson

Cantus is wasted on these idiots - Me

Communism of USSR, the Animation - Also me

In Infinite Ryvius you can see how paragon of virtue who wished to protect everyone, Ikumi, ended up creating a much worse, inhuman and oppressive society compared to selfish, unscrupulous, outlaw who just took power because he could, Airs Blue. I guess I will write a separate article about it later.

However, if Ryvius allows you to compare the two, then this show is about society created by people like Ikumi. Also, unlike Ryvius, where that situation was created in ad-hoc manner, here these idiots deliberately created these conditions.

Kamisu 66 is virtuous on the surface, but cruel and inhuman if you dig a little deeper. They are so afraid of so-called fiends and karma demons; they use various monsters to exterminate everyone whom they perceive remotely dangerous. People just disappear and everyone's memory is tampered with so that they forget they even existed. That is just like USSR in 30s. 

Ironically enough this security drive produced a society paralyzed by fear, suspicion and lies. People in this society live in fear of their relatives and they themselves disappearing. Everyone suspects that spies are everywhere.

Just like USSR Kamisu 66 is a tyranny of Ethics Commitee and Board of Education. Even titles sound much like governing bodies of USSR: Political Bureau is like a board; Secretariat is like a committee.

In case of Saki, most of her friends have disappeared over the course of the show. I suspect that is because leader of Ethics Committee, Tomiko, loved Saki and was jealous of Shun and Maria, whom Saki liked. Envy of the powerful assholes ruined lives of poor children.

In general, this society is basically gerontocracy. Ruled by the old, again like USSR, who prune children so that they would not be danger to those in power and do not hesitate to kill those whom they do not like. In a system like this, only sheepish idiots could survive and live into adulthood. Indeed, the whole society is sheepish and illiberal. They all hold great reverence for various dignitaries in important positions, most likely conditioned by fear.

Their ideology is communist too. They claim to wish to create a "society of love", similar to bonobo, a species of apes. However, that would be a de-evolution as humans are more advanced than apes.

In reality it is a society of hate, where they demonize and dehumanize those whom, they fear as fiends and karma demons. Much like communism and radical left calls everyone they do not like Nazi.

Finally, despite having cantus, a power to manipulate matter and create things out of thin air, they somehow managed to go back in technological development. Ethics committee banned various technologies, classified a lot of knowledge and information. The end result was a backward society that lived in wooden houses, work fields, have temples and monks and such.

They had powers of near literal gods, instead they became senile primitivist idiots, who hate technology. The anti-technological primitivism is staggering.

A smart enough person with these powers could have created spaceships and huge towers of glass, steel and concrete. As well as an army of cyborgs to exterminate these bonobo-like idiots.

In fact, even a person without cantus, Squealer, nearly managed to wipe them out. It was Kamisu 66 and Tomiko themselves who gave him chance to do so by driving Maria and Mamoru out of society. I almost wished Squealer would win this one.

Their own fear of everyone made them unable to kill a kid, raised by queerats. Death feedback from killing a human would have killed them if they killed her, but not doing it would have just led to them dying by her hand instead. Desire to protect one's life made them lose their lives.

In fact, it was these cantus wielding "scientists" who turned humans without cantus into queerats in the first place, reshaping them into some ugly beasts. 

This show shows that science can lead to regress instead of progress in wielded by idiots would try to push their disgusting ideas on the rest of society, using science. That reminds me of feminism and ecologism, two disgusting ideologies, modern idiots try to push on the rest of society.

Finally, women should treat men, like queerats treat humans. More like men should treat women like humans treat queerats. 

Men are gods, women are just beasts, that only look human.