[Cute High Earth Defense Club Love!]: 1 - 5
So what is Cute High Earth Defese Club Love!? First and foremost, it's an excellent comedy but more specifically it's: a magical girl show, a magical girl parody, a sentai parody show parody all wrapped into one.
Now, I know what you're thinking based off the title, they key art and any exposure to the marketing: this looks like trash. The premise sounds, frankly, terrible and the apparent DTL overtones aren't particularly appealing to me either. That's why I was stupid enough to completely sleep on this series until I'd heard enough people heap enough praise on the series that I had to check it out.
I didn't really think that, of all the shows airing this season, I'd end up trying to sell people on this one but really, I should have at least given the first episode a shot. A look at the key people behind this show should be enough to make you at least give it a change - the director is Shinji Takamatsu who has worked on a number of comedies including School Rumble, Gintama and The Daily Lives of High School Boys and the writer is of similar pedigree.
So, what's the series actually like? Probably the most surprising thing about the endeavour, apart from the really sharp writing, is how faithfully it replicated the tenants of a legitimate magical girl series. All the elements you've come to expect are faithfully recreated albeit with a male spin on them leading to obviously humorous results. While it seems like the 'joke' would wear rather thin after a few minutes the series manages to be extremely watchable because of how wholeheartedly the series embraces it's Magical Girl roots. In that regard it manages to be a legitimate magical girl show and a legitimate parody at the same time - an impressive feat all things considered.
Thankfully, the jokes aren't just centred around obvious low hanging fruit. I'll have to spoil one really great gag just to give you an impression of how the show handles it's humour. As with all these Magical Girl shows, the heroes learn of their powers via a cute talking animal. In this case, said animal is a Pink Wombat. When Mr. Wombat arrived on Earth he accidentally killed the boys teacher and now he has to re-animate the Teachers corpse to create the impression that he wasn't brutally killed. This leads to some Weekend at Burnie's shenanigans involving the teacher's corpse:
To top it all of, the show looks great. The character designs, especially for the monsters are pretty fun. The colours look great and the animation for the action scenes is surprisingly good. It's a really pleasant show to look at.
I can't guarantee that this is a show for everyone, as comedy is always hugely subjective, but I feel that if you didn't pay any attention to this title because of it's premise or art you should really but aside your preconceptions and give the first episode a shot. It's probably my favourite show airing this season.
I can safely say that if you didn't like the first episode you shouldn't continue. It's pretty consistent.
Shirobako 16
As a left-handed person Gothloli-sama is the best
left-handed people need more representation in media in general(((
All this sports anime, and filler, discussion reminds me of a really fascinating section I was reading in Anime A History about arguably the very first sports series Star of the Giants (1968). The problem the creators of this series faced and they way that they 'solved it' was arguably one of the most important creative choices within the history of TV anime.
Now, Star of the Giants was facing a problem that would become all to familiar to anime directors today - they were adapting the manga so quickly that they were running out of material to adapt. I'll just quote from the source material here [the bolded is my emphasis]:
Now, that really does sound remarkably modern, doesn't it? I imagine we've all experienced episodes of a series where time seems to slow to a crawl or where nothing of consequence happens over the course of minutes and minutes of time. Think of well, nearly any sports anime or more specifically the interminable pacing of Attack on Titan which was packed with incredibly vapid monologues and pointless flashbacks. I was certainly aware that these attempts at blatant padding followed a certain mould bit it's fascinating to see that they came from one particular source and one particular creator.
So, just in case you were looking for someone to blame for the state of modern shounen and sport manga adaptations remember to blame Yamazaki Haruya.
Well that was an interesting read. Awesome to learn who started those techniques for drawing things out.
All this sports anime, and filler, discussion reminds me of a really fascinating section I was reading in Anime A History about arguably the very first sports series Star of the Giants (1968). The problem the creators of this series faced and they way that they 'solved it' was arguably one of the most important creative choices within the history of TV anime.
Now, Star of the Giants was facing a problem that would become all to familiar to anime directors today - they were adapting the manga so quickly that they were running out of material to adapt. I'll just quote from the source material here [the bolded is my emphasis]:
Now, that really does sound remarkably modern, doesn't it? I imagine we've all experienced episodes of a series where time seems to slow to a crawl or where nothing of consequence happens over the course of minutes and minutes of time. Think of well, nearly any sports anime or more specifically the interminable pacing of Attack on Titan which was packed with incredibly vapid monologues and pointless flashbacks. I was certainly aware that these attempts at blatant padding followed a certain mould bit it's fascinating to see that they came from one particular source and one particular creator.
So, just in case you were looking for someone to blame for the state of modern shounen and sport manga adaptations remember to blame Yamazaki Haruya.
Recently, My Sister is Unusual 12
Thank God for that. Well, hopefully a God that doesn't demand incest to get into heaven.
Well... The music wasn't too bad and the OP and ED was decent. The Metal Gear Solid joke was funny and Moa looks a bit like one of the Wake Up Girls.
Other than that:
It could have been worse of course... But not by much, so 1/5 heartlocks:
I feel bad for her..hahaha but Ling Tosite Sigure are making a song for it
