Winter 2018 Anime Impressions - The "Meh"

Not every show can be a masterpiece. There are plenty of shows that are good and at least fun to watch. Of course, that also means that there are plenty of stinkers too. At the very least, those can be enjoyed for their awfulness.

Really, the worst shows are the run-of-the-mill, the dull and boring. The kinds of shows that have the potential to be good or even great, then end up settling in the mire of mediocrity. Winter 2018 did have its fair share of mediocre, but these are the shows that I would call Meh.

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Katana Maidens

I wasn't expecting much of Katana Maidens to be honest. Nothing about it stood out as egregious, but it seemed that it would occupy the same space as Schoolgirl Strikers and Frame Arms Girls. Still, you know what? I was exactly right.

The strongest part Katana Maidens has going for it is sword combat. The use of actual stances and the short, rapid-fire nature of the sword fights in the first episode tournament was at least interesting. But then there's everything else around it.

Animation is stiff and boring, with some strange inconsistencies in the art. This is most notable with one girl's katana switching from dual-edged Western blade to curved Eastern blade between shots. Smaller, quick action scenes are animated traditionally, but the more intensive ones are handled (sometimes poorly) in 3D.

Really though, the worst part of Katana Maidens is its story and characters. While boring through most of it, the last minute of the show left me high and dry. Why would this one participant attack this obvious boss character? Why would the main girl we've been following suddenly decide to help her? Why are these character that were seen as heroes fighting a monster in the opening scene now attacking these two?

As an original anime, it does a poor job of establishing anything, let alone a coherent plot. This final minute of the show was what really cemented it for me as a Meh. I love seeing and supporting more original work, but I'm not going to do so if I don't enjoy the show.

Beatless

Promise seems to be a premise for most of the shows I ended up not enjoying this season. For the most part it's the execution that causes them to falter, but this is one show that has a slightly different take on it. Whether it is due to the source material or to the production, Beatless can't support its own ambitions. Unfortunately, its not HandShakers levels of throwing budget to the wind. At least that is spectacular.

Beatless is set in a near-future Japan-like world where advanced AI has been introduced into human-like shells and coexist alongside humans, not unlike Blade Runner and its inspirations. Main Character-san Arato has a mysterious past shown in the first scene of the show and has irrational compassion towards these AI called hIEs. In contrast, his friends view them as tools; hIEs were designed to convey emotions for artificial empathy and don't actually have them. Again, this takes the square "what it means to be human" inspired themes and tries to hammer it through a round anime hole.

Besides the few other nitpicks I have about the show I already know the answer to (because it's an anime), the biggest problem with Beatless is Lacia. From the moment Arato and Lacia meet, the show takes a turn for the worse.

Arato's decision to take ownership of Lacia (because anime) to have her protect them from an attacker highlights Arato's shortsightedness and the lack of scope of the show. Lacia warns that using her EMP blast to knock out the attacker could also cause life-support systems in the vicinity to fail. With virtually no hesitation, he agrees. The ramifications of this isn't even hinted at. Beatless just handwaves it away as a placeholder for future "stakes" and "responsibilities".

Thankfully the process of registering Arato as an owner isn't as cringeworthy as Clockwork Planet's finger sucking (even if she's barely clothed because anime), but don't worry! Lacia makes up for this apparent lack of creepy waifu garbage. As she is connected to a cloud network (which doesn't seem to be allowing the government to track her for some reason), she's able to learn how too cook and make tea for Arato and his sister.

At that point, I was convinced that this show wouldn't go anywhere meaningful. I mean how could it? There's only one of two ways it could go; "It turns out, hIEs are human after all!" or "These beings without heart or empathy will eradicate mankind, the must be stopped!". And honestly, with how Lacia is presented and the fact that it's a light novel adaptation, I expect Beatless to stick firmly to the former route.

But hey! At least the ED is good! No, not the animation or actual content (God no). I mean the music.

I'm a sucker for ClariS.

Record of Grancrest War

High Fantasy anime is not my forte. Sure, World's End edges close but I wouldn't consider that in the same category as Grimgar: Of Fire and Ash or Granblue Fantasy the Animation. Heck, Granblue was the closest I got to enjoying this type of show and I've still only watched one episode.

I'm eager for a show to make me interested in a genre, and Record of Grancrest War had the potential to do that.

Well, as you can see...

Record of Grancrest War didn't ignite a passion in me for high fantasy anime. If anything, it choked the wick.

The basic setup is a royal wedding to unite two warring nations is interrupted by a demon killing the fathers of husband and bride. This ends any chance of peace between the nations. Now a mage that was unable to stop the demon from attacking is on her way to form a contract with a Lord in order to...

It's not really clear what the end goal is here. Besides building a Fire Emblem-esque band to do...something?

Record of Grancrest War clearly has ambitions beyond the first episode, but it seems to like to throw you in assuming you have some knowledge of the source material. It could also have something to do with the setup being so boring!

You may have noticed that I excluded names from 3 paragraphs ago when describing the setup. Let's try that again with names included and see if that make it any more interesting;

The basic setup is a royal wedding between Alex Deux and Marrine Kreische to unite the warring Fantasy Alliance and Factory Federation is interrupted by a Chaos Demon killing the couple's fathers, Archdukes of Deux and Kreische. This ends any chance of peace between the nations. Now Siluca, a mage that was unable to stop the Chaos Demon from attacking, is on her way to form a contract with a Lord in order to...

Did that make it anymore interesting? No?

The final nail in the coffin is Siluca removing her cloak in the first episode to reveal her highly detailed and shaded midriff to the lewd gaze of a group of male bandits. This is followed by her saying, "You can have your way with me." So...yeah. That's the level of Meh we're dealing with here.

citrus

Oh, man... I think I'm gonna get some blowback for this one.

Don't get me wrong; I think citrus has an interesting premise for a show and I like how the first episode sets up that premise with its plot.

Gal-girl Yuzu and her mom move to her new stepfather's home, only to discover that her new younger stepsister is the strict student council president Mei. Through an accidentally run-in involving Mei making out with a teacher behind the school, we find out she's not so prim and proper.

Whenever this show comes up, there's always a wave of people who talk about how the manga "isn't just shallow yuri fanservice." "It's actually really good and goes places!" I can't argue with that, and I may even give the manga a shot in the future.

However, nothing about this show is appealing to me.

Let's start with the technical; citrus isn't that great of a production. It isn't so much a lack of talent or resources. It's the appearance of such due to the prioritization of art and animation in certain scenes.

Which scenes do you think got the most time and effort put into them? You guessed it! The ecchi scenes. Namely three; Mei groping Yuzu as part of a stop-and-search, Mei making out with her betrothed teacher, and Mei making out with Yuzu.

What about the rest of the show? Well, it's pretty middling at best. Besides a couple decent visual gags, there's not much else to write home about. In addition, one scene takes a turn for the worse with some noticeably wonky perspective at the dinner table towards the end of episode 1.

These little gripes aren't really why I'd make this a Meh show though. citrus is Meh because I have a direct (if potentially unfair) point of reference for this subject matter; Scum's Wish.

Granted, a show whose core theme is people using other people as body doubles to fulfill their own selfish desires doesn't quite line up with citrus tonally. However, citrus' perceived seriousness does match up well with the Scum's Wish yuri equivalent; Hanabi and Sanae.

Their scenes are given a similar weight and gravitas as Yuzu and Mei with the music and visuals. The difference lies in the predisposition that Hanabi and Sanae are selfish jerks that can't come to terms with their own feelings and are dragging down those around them. This takes titillating scenes and gives them a tinge of disgust deep down in your gut.

That is inherently more interesting to me than citrus doing the same thing without that setup. I was actually on board for citrus right until that last makeout scene. In reality, that scene set the tone for me as to what this show is going to be. My opinion may change after reading the manga, but I honestly don't see anything particular special about citrus. I guess that makes it a Meh for me.

Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody

Isekai is not a genre I actively seek out to watch, but I was intrigued by the title of this one. Using the term "death march" and having a parallel world as escape from the tolls of everyday corporate life made me interested enough to give this a try. And to its credit, it does a good job... at first.

Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody starts out with the protagonist Ichiro Suzuki, a 29-year old programmer in the middle of his death march. Working on debugging and programming for several different games, the real-world segment does a great job of establishing Suzuki as a character.

He's confident in his abilities as a programmer. He gets irritated by having to make up for people quitting right before deadlines. He can be a little vindictive and talk about people under his breath. He even has a funny moment when he helps a young girl find her mother and thinks, "That kid's mom is pretty hot."

All of this actually does a great job of getting me into his headspace. It made me excited to see how this character would interact in the parallel world that was bound to kickstart anytime soon.

And then...

He gets transported to a parallel world based off of War World and FFL, two games he's working on as his alias Satou. "Great!" I exclaim, "Now we get to see how this older guy handl-"

Satou is aged down to 15.

"Oh..."

Shortly after Satou is transported to the world, a batallion of 100 or so Lv. 50 lizardmen head towards him. "Ok, cool! His HUD and some game elements are messing up. Even the meteor boost his team implemented to help low-level players is bugged out and doesn-"

The low-level meteor attack works and wipes out all the lizardmen.

"Oh..."

"Well, even if it was a fluke, at least Satou isn't overpower-"

In what seems like a glitch, killing 100 or so Lv. 50 lizardmen skyrockets Satou from Lv. 1 to Lv. 310.

"Oh..."

Now what are we left with? A young, high-school-age, overpowered protagonist who knows the ins and outs of the world he's stuck in after working on the games it's based on for so long.

I'd love to be wrong and discover that Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody is actually an excellent anime, but honestly? First impressions don't paint it that way. Besides, there are plenty of shows to watch this season that aren't Mehs, so I'll watch those instead.

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And there we have it. Like my favorites (so far), these are subject to change. Still, for the moment I can't see myself coming back to them unless I'm bored out of mind.

That said, at least I'm willing to entertain giving these anime a second chance. That can't be said for the last show I'll highlight in my Winter 2018 Anime Impressions. That would be my Worst Anime of the season. Stay tuned!