Assault Lily: Bouquet Review

Overall Rating 5.7 out of 10 - Flawed waifu show that barely works as intended

I can recommend watching if you have no better anime to watch

Even a talentless studio that has little idea what they are doing can sometimes produce something half-decent. 

Assault Lily is one such example. It is based on a series of anime figurines, featuring cute dress in sexy clothes with overengineered weapons, called charms. This alone carries the show. Figurine designers knew what they were doing and their girl design is indeed sexy and likable: black dresses with white frills, small puffy skirts, stockings - near maid outfits. This design is what carries the show. This show is about staring at cute girls on screen and little more.

The bad parts clearly came from the scriptwriters. Personalities of must girls are rather unlikable, too much jealousy, toughness and wickedness, too little moe. Waifu shows are all about moe, take K-On! for example, girls there so innocent, cute, silly and stupid in a cute way. Kyoani clearly knows how it's done. Here instead most girls exhibit rather unlikable personally traits instead.

They also tried to tap into lesbian dynamic too, but they did it like real lesbians where one girl plays the guy's part in a relationship. That is how yaoi is written for female audiences, lesbians written for male audiences are instead written by making both girls equally sweet and innocent.

The story in theory revolves around fighting huge, but most of the time is dedicated to girls' drama instead. It's the kind of girl's drama that is nor entertaining in any way.

The only thing that carries the show is uniform design. This barely pushes this show to above average overall. Because of that I can recommend this show for times when there are few good anime and there is nothing better to watch, like post 2012.

Toji no Miko Review

Overall Rating 6.3 out of 10 - Decent show that begins really well and ends rather lackluster.

I recommend watching.

Cute girls, Japanese culture and aesthetics, pleated skirts, stockings and swordfights. A formula of near guaranteed success. That is why I was very enthusiastic about this show. Finally, something not feminist, subverting working formulas with unworking ones and such. Pure female exploitation for male enjoyment.

Beginning did not disappoint. Several episodes in plot made such an original and creative twist, it definitely looked like a success story that can earn something around 8 out of 10. For the first quarter to 1/3 of the show, Toji no Miko kept delivering more twists and turns of this rather compelling narrative. I deliberately avoid giving details here as experiencing this as its progress is the best this show has to offer. 

Then came the big reveal that explained all that happened and why it happened. It was not only too long, as they talked several episodes straight, but also rather disappointing. It's not that core plot idea was bad it was rather creative actually. The problem is the role older generations characters played in all that.

Closer to the middle focus shifted from cute young girls to their parents and grandparents. These older people were settling scores with each other, and younger people were merely pawns in their schemes. This older generation teaches younger who is eager to learn never sit well with me and it did not so here as well. Alas, creators of the show like it far too much and spent too much time on that.

The show is officially a one double season, but in practice first 12 episodes get its own conclusion and final battle, followed by full second season that goes from there and offers an interesting boost to the story. Once again core story is solid a be it less dramatic. It's the same old generation problem that got even worse in second season as now old women directly boss young girls to do heavy lifting as they sit in comfy office chairs. 

Older generations are former sword maidens, who screwed up when they were on duty. Now managers they essentially send their kids to fix their mistakes and fight not only aradamas but also rival fraction of sword maidens who disagree on methods and principles, typical boomers. To make matter worse a number of older generation women are really detestable. Younger girls have nicer personalities on average but that too varies. Sayaka is best girl at least according to my taste.

Overall ideological bend of the show also does not sit well with me. It's all about preserving ancient ways and honoring old stuff while opposing modernity.

That said aside from the problems outlined above, it's a decent show. Diverse cast of girls will allow anyone to find one to their liking. Fights are nice with occasional surprise twists. Main antagonists are complex, compelling and interesting. On summary it floats above waterline, even if barely.

Overall, I can recommend watching it. This show has its flaws that are several episodes long at times, but it also has strong points. Middle episodes are worst as well as epilogue.

Arknights: Enshin Shomei

Overall Rating 3.0 out of 10 - Season that betrays and retcons nearly everything from the original

I do not recommend watching.

Me complaining that 2nd and 3rd seasons do not live up to the original is nothing new. Sometimes it's just a minor issues and other times it's a completely deal breaking. 

Unfortunately, 3rd season of Arknights manage to do the worst disservice to the original, changing nearly everything. It's a worse fall that even Kaiji's second season. What makes it worse is the fact that with Kaiji or Gochiusa one could have a benefit of the doubt that new creative team simply misunderstood the original work and fucked up unintentionally. With 3rd season of Arknights its clearly not the case. It was a fully intentional retcon to reframe the entire story as something altogether different.

First season of Arknights was a simple but likable waifu show, much in the mold of Kancolle or Dolls Frontline. 

In addition to a collection of many cute women for every taste out there it had a simple but compelling and relatable plot. An infection called Oripathy infect certain people, giving them special abilities called arts. Common uninfected people fear the infected and discriminate against them. 

Reunion wants revenge for the mistreatment they suffered. Rhodes instead wants to find ways for everyone live in peace somehow. Very on the zeitgeist as boomers and Gen W (early Gen X) ruined economy, betrayed Millennials and stole our future. Because of that one can relate to a Reunion's cause.

In contrast Rhodes, who is a protagonist, offers a number of nice, kind, accepting and forgiving females, something real life women clearly lacking nowadays. Rhodes is clearly a waifu garden for a discerning man. 

Amiya clearly represents (or represented) all these qualities well enough. Her presence made half of the show. Rooting for Reunion to deal with all the uninfected the other.

First season was the truest to the cause, second season had some questionable parts but was on the level. Things really went south in the third one. To begin with most of the season are flashbacks. First, we see a Rhodes past. It was transformed into a fraction that fought for power in Ursus but lost, Theresia was killed and Rhodes went on to fight Reunion instead. That was followed by flashback about Talulah, who was retconned into an altruistic idealist who was helping poor and wanted to transform Ursus until loss of her best friend made her insane. All of it became inside Ursus conspiracy.

Characters and their motivations changed too. Amiya was transformed from kind and accepting girl into an enforcer of some abstract moral; creators try so hard to sell to viewers. Other characters changed too. I already explained Talulah, but doctor, Kalt'sit and Mephisto all have changed too. Patriot got a big role with his weird and contradictory ideals about who has right to speak or fight or whatnot. He is but another vehicle for authors to sell their views to public.

Until last episode I was willing to give it somewhere between 50 and 60 but conclusion was the worst possible. It was almost as if it deliberately tried to cover the bingo card of every single trope, I hate modern fiction for: justifying abuse, suffering and hardship, absurd levels of guilt, self-punishment, self-sacrifice, false justice, illogical arguments, stopping fight instead of resolving issue, avoiding the real problems and more. Causing people suffering is not making them stronger, it's a heinous crime whose perpetrators need to be stopped, by killing them if necessary.

All in all, this is unapologetic propaganda piece that tries hard to sell viewers its views and values. The question is whom these values benefit so much they would be willing to go out of their way to hamfist them into this story. The answer is old, rich and privileged. 

Story deliberately tries to blame the victim by shifting blame from society to infected themselves. Allegedly it's not the world that treats infected unfairly but rather infected themselves who supposed to live to some higher standard none around them even bother to adhere.

Who benefit from this victim blaming message this season pushes so heavily. Obviously, the crooks themselves, people who steal your money and future now telling you to learn forgiveness and acceptance, blame yourself instead of those who wronged you.

Once again, the fiction hit close to the real life. Older generations who stole wealth of the younger ones in a Financial Crisis of 2008. Now they sit in their luxurious retirement homes paid by stolen wealth and fear consequences. Reunion reminds them of these consequences. They fear Millennials will organise like Reunion and pry back that stolen wealth from boomer's cold dead hands. 

That is why older people sponsor this blatant rewriting of the story into propaganda. It is to preserve their stolen wealth and status that wealth allows them. That is why this season is not focused on changed but on preserving status quo. They might call it de-radicalisation but it's just another lie, a hypocrisy designed to protect the stolen wealth from those from whom it was stolen. Justice is not protecting status quo. Justice is taking this wealth back, not in letting the thieves keep it. 

Our lives and our futures were stolen by boomers and Gen W (early Gen X), it's time we pry that back from their cold dead hands. They did not earn any of it, its paid for by the ever-increasing rents and ever decreasing salaries. Justice demands boomers pay for their theft, lies and other crimes.

Arknights: Enshin Shomei is a sequel that betrays the original cause of the show and twists it into toxic and unlikable tale. I do not recommend watching.