Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – Episode 5

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Man! Last week I was very busy writing a sloppy-kiss love letter to both Lovecraft and myself, so I didn’t actually comment on any of the things I actually liked. But rest assured, they were there! I liked the episode just descending into that lovely piano part for a full minute or so – most shows are too frenetic about their pacing to let a moment simply breathe, and I thought that song was honestly a much more natural fit for this show’s lighting and color choices than the usual histrionic Greek choir and death-organs. I liked the (admittedly unintentional) parodies of classic high school reconciliation scenes with the fish-woman (am I allowed to keep calling her that OOC?). And mainly, as always, I liked how goddamn weird everything was.

Admittedly, I spend the vast majority of my time laughing at how ridiculous everything is. But it’s… well, it’s sincere, at least. It really does want to tell its alternately bizarre and maudlin little story. Sure, most of the characters are simplistic devices, and the scenario couldn’t make less sense, and the writer’s grasp of storytelling cliches is so inept they almost universally turn into unintentional comedy, and it occasionally seems more of a vehicle for the writer’s sexual hangups than anything else… but I think there’s definitely a kind of honesty there, and I feel the original writer really did care about his endearingly weird little world. And that’s something I can appreciate.

Let’s tear it the fuck apart.

Episode 5

1:23 – I love how for once these standard absurd OP lyrics actually seem literally appropriate. She physically couldn’t move? Sure. His creaking heart could be heard for miles? Yeah, I’ll buy that. No problem.

2:47 – The joke is… boobs? Is… is that a joke? Or is it just boobs because boobs

3:47 – I guess this is fishgirl’s moe impression. Pretty good, I barely noticed her crack-addict eyes

4:45 – Oh man, this is actually great. Remember all that weird adolescent sex stuff that I find so strangely fascinating? Here’s another awesomely resonant parallel – teenagers sneaking off from camp to get all PG-13 together, except here’s it’s to cut her hair because lewd

5:17 – “I can’t wait for tomorrow.” “For the stargazing, or when we *murder the Hair Queen?!?” “The stargazing, of course. The visibility up here is just lovely.”

5:46 – A riding crop?!? Wait, the PIG MASTER?! Damnit Crime Edge, you’re stealing all the best ideas!

6:02 – “Fell victim to the Pig Master.” Welp, I know what my epitaph’s gonna be.

7:02 – Uhh… guuuys… is this… is this even a metaphor any… nope, this is just sex.

8:20 – “Don’t you girls like stars and shit?” Ever the romantic, Kiri-kun

So I’m still unsure what, if anything, this show actually has to say. I joked about it last episode, but it’s just so weird how the main pair use the hair as a metaphor for young love/sex, but everyone else is… well, just actually fucking each other. It’ll be kind of disappointing if there’s never any point aside from, “yay kinky sexy times.” But I guess this is the kinky sexy ride I signed up for…

9:31 – The Hair Queen is thinking about playing the field?!?! So what, Kiri-kun’s her, her manservant? Her hair paramour? Hairamour? Sorry.

11:37 – This actually is a pretty weird choice. Deliberately separating the sex metaphor from their actual relationship… hm. On the one hand, this does open up the door for more hilarious hair-courtship metaphors. On the other, it probably actually implies we’re in for a whole bushel of love triangle bullshit. My excitement is palpable

21:02 – “I was just… wondering what… he was doing tonight.” Time from prediction of cliched plot device to actual appearance of said plot device: 12 seconds. New record!

12:59 – I was about to ask, “Does the absurd nature of this show make me more or less entertained by these high school rival mundanities?” and then the red-headed upperclassman with a predilection for whips and swinery was introduced to the sound of screeching ridiculous organs and I got my answer

14:09 – “How do we explain their relationship?” “Fuck it, childhood friend ’em.” “But didn’t we just use…” “CHILDHOOD FRIENDS.”

14:51 – Class Pres’s diabolical plan hurtles into action as he callously scolds Kiri for oversleeping

15:20 – Okay, here’s a good way they can use this relationship development. Kiri going in mental circles about their varying expectations about the relationship, and chastising himself for assuming too much? Classic young, tentative relationship material. More of this and I’m totally down with Hair Queen’s fickle, tempestuous ways

16:20 – “They all want the same thing.” I hear that. Real talk with pig-girl.

18:00 – So their plan to kill her involves taking her out into the middle of a lake, pushing her out of the boat,rescuing her, bringing her back to the lodge, and leaving a hurtful note on her door?

Devious

21:20 – This section is playing in some super weird and very sensitive sexual assault space, but it’s definitely heartening that this conflict is currently being entirely handled by Iwai. There’s nothing actually offensive here, she’s actually kicking ass and taking names… and it’s kind of amazing to me that Crime Edge of all shows is providing a positive example of female agency and her right to control her own body. Full of surprises!

And Done

Well, shit! I’m legitimately excited to see what happens next. So I guess we kinda know the structure now – it’s basically a series of shonen battles against various Author/Insteads and their sexy, sexy Goods. I can’t believe no one thought of this completely batshit insane idea before now!

By the way, to anyone disappointed I didn’t try some new bizarre formatting experiment this week, I offer my sincerest apologies.

See you next week.

On Katawa Shoujo as a Theoretical Anime

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Question:

Which work from another medium would you like to see animated?

Bobduh:

People ask this question pretty regularly, enough so that I eventually decided to do a little thought experiment for whenever it came up again. So here’s my unrealistic, fantasy-world proposal. I guess there’s light spoilers regarding dramatic structure? Anyway.

Design Proposal for a Katawa Shoujo Adaptation by Kyoto Animation

Pitch:

Katawa Shoujo, the recent English-language visual novel, has managed to develop a substantial and passionate fan base in the Western world. It’s distinctive in the thoughtful treatment of its concept, the acuity of its writing, and the diverse and relevant themes presented throughout. Though there are significant hurdles presented in successfully adapting this work, I believe an adaptation which captures the spirit of the visual novel would further bolster KyoAni’s reputation as a creator of emotionally resonant and deeply personal young adult stories.

Immediate thoughts:

The title would obviously have to be changed, as it’s by its nature offensive in the original Japanese. More critically, I believe an adaptation of this title would have to address the fundamental narrative failing of most visual novel adaptations – the consolidation of multiple storylines into a single linear narrative. In order to maintain romantic pacing and integrity of character writing, I propose a new solution – separate the central protagonist, Hisao, into five separate characters to reflect the five separate routes, and reorganize the five narratives so they interweave with each other while all progressing as separate love stories.

I believe there are generally two hurdles that prevent this approach. First, the tendency to characterize visual novel protagonists as blank slates, in order to aid audience surrogacy. I believe Katawa Shoujo lacks this problem – in fact, in my experience, the five routes each make use of a substantially different Hisao, with different desires, hangups, and personalities.

Secondly, it requires substantial rewriting and reorganizing of the visual novel content. This cannot be avoided – I believe it is the necessary price to pay if we wish to make a show that will stand the test of time.

One last thought – the broadening of the story into one larger narrative presents a few opportunities of perspective, with the largest being the potential to shift the Shizune narrative closer to Misha’s perspective. Considering her emotional arc is already the key conflict of the route, I believe holding closer to her perspective would improve the dramatic consistency of that line, along with offering the opportunity for a more meaningful exploration of gender identity. Something to consider.

Further planning:

As a strict adaptation is not advisable for this work, further thought must be put into the successful transfer of the original’s strength to the animated medium. A brief outline of those strengths might contain:

Organic Writing: Perhaps more than anything else, the core emotional resonance of Katawa Shoujo is derived from the utterly believable and naturalistic dialogue of the protagonists. Not all this writing can be conserved, nor should it – but the need for subtle and naturalistic pacing to match this dialogue’s emotional rhythm necessitates adapting this work as a two-season show. Consider the pace as slightly more propulsive than Hyouka, but applied to a work that’s attempting to fully execute five separate love stories.

Thematic Resonance and Acuity: The deft treatment of disabilities, as well as the way the source moves beyond that to actually be more concerned with themes of human connection, power structures in relationships, our various ways of dealing with our pasts, and emotional honesty, is another remarkable strength of the source. Here, we simply should adapt the best we can – these strengths underline the core conflicts of the narrative, and are virtually impossible to lose in translation.

Frank and Empathetic Depictions of Relationships in All Stages: Here we run into a more difficult question. Can the adult content be excised from the text without diminishing it? My response is a resounding no – not only are the game’s frank treatments of sexuality one of its greatest strengths, but the ways these events are woven into the narrative make them virtually unavoidable in the majority of the storylines. Only Shizune’s route contains adult content that seems to veer into titillation – all other such scenes further our understanding of the characters, provide crucial narrative turns, and exist as some of the most honest and touching moments of the narrative. They will be handled tastefully, and with much greater restraint than the game, but they will stay.

Regarding “depictions of relationships in all stages,” the game’s narrative actually provides some assistance here. Not all the stories operate on the same timeline – for instance, the narrative arc of Hanako’s route concludes in the interim between acts two and three of Lilly’s, and the scattered events of Shizune’s route could be rearranged virtually at will to better enable a steady rise and fall of the various dramas throughout. The various narrative experiments of the text (the even-handed positivity and maturity of Lilly’s route that is only rarely interrupted by narrative conflict, the continuous rise of narrative tension in Hanako’s route to one single emotional peak) will hopefully lend themselves well to the intermingling of narrative arcs this adaptation will require.

As a brief initial proposal, Emi and Hanako’s storylines might possibly hit more of their narrative beats in the first season, with Lilly’s and Shizune’s stretching from this period throughout the second season (though obviously not removing Emi and Hanako’s arcs – as I said, a positive portrayal of already-existing relationships is one of the great strengths of this work, and the anime adaptation offers further opportunity to explore a romantically healthy slice-of-life emotional space), with Rin’s progressing the slowest and her art exhibition and the aftermath perhaps offering a final gathering of the characters and last dramatic resolution.

Final Thoughts:

Obviously, successfully adapting such a sensitive text is always a risky proposition, and both the changes necessary and the changes that can’t be made further complicate this adaptation. However, I believe that in light of the source material, the final result could easily stand as an artistic pillar of both our studio and the medium itself. This challenge is a risk worth taking.

Suisei no Gargantia – Episode 4

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Dat Gargantia. Well, the last episode was quite interesting – I feel it was maybe the first episode that shifted the show from “this has a ton of potential” to actually revealing what kind of show it will be. And the kind of show it turned out to be was a bit less serious than I expected from Urobuchi, but still an excellent slice of entertainment with great pacing, wonderful characterization and dialogue, a beautiful visual aesthetic, and a light smattering of interesting ideas beneath the surface. I described it as “entertainment done right,” and I’m honestly looking forward to more of it – but this is Urobuchi we’re talking about. He could very well kill half the cast at any given moment and it wouldn’t really surprise me. Who knows what will happen.

So now that I’ve established I have no idea what I’m talking about or expect to happen, please enjoy the rest of my very insightful post.

Episode 4

0:45 – This vivid color scheme never fails to blow me away. Someone’s earned a raise.

I also like this system of a city based on an accumulation of distinct mini-societies and work crews with very little centralization. I guess I’m just a socialist like that

3:05 – Oh, that’s awesome. So it looks like our suspicions about Chamber’s propulsion system were right – he generates some kind of gravity hole in the direction he wants to go, and is dragged along behind it, along with anything else in the area.

8:30 – Not much to say. I love Ledo’s attempts to place this society’s customs in his own terms, but obviously that’s what everyone else is watching too. This show is just really good

9:57 – His necklace is the same color as her eyes and the sea. Meaning he’s another key in Ledo’s entrance into understanding this new world

12:35 – I don’t know why people think Urobuchi is a cynical writer. I find shows where characters maintain or discovery empathy and hope despite the presence of realistic pain and hardship far less cynical than shows which simply present untouched happy worlds that have no relationship to our own

16:20 – “What would you do in the absence of orders?” “I would stand by for further orders.” Heavy shades of Psycho-Pass and Madoka once again. Making independent choices, achieving your singular potential, breaking free of the cycles which govern our lives. I like how directly he’s addressing this here, though. I also like that he’s finally presenting a positive alternative to the problems of government and society, instead of Psycho-Pass’s 1984-esque exploration of the opposite direction

18:45 – “Given your current situation, worrying about the war effort is meaningless.” Man, when even Chamber is telling you to chill out, you know you’ve got a problem

20:30 – “My sister needs me… and I need myself.” After last episode, I didn’t expect this one to tackle Urobuchi’s philosophical obsessions so directly. Awesome

And Done

Wow. That ending was beautiful. This episode was beautiful. Definitely my favorite one yet. For once, Urobuchi isn’t raging against the way the world is – he’s creating a love letter to the way the world could be, to our better nature, to the potential for a society that rewards our human connections and the creativity of our spirit. I’m sure he’ll complicate these themes eventually, but…

Ugh. Goddamnit, Urobuchi. This one’s gonna get to me.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha – Episode 12 plus Final Review

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Final episode of my favorite show of the season. It’s had resoundingly mediocre art direction, fairly spotty humor, and dashes of incredibly misguided fanservice. It’s also by far the most ambitious show of the season, and at its best it grapples with themes of human nature, the course of human progress, and the indomitable spirit of enlightenment and self-improvement. It grapples with them and wrestles them to the fucking ground. Now let’s hope some fantasy bullshit ending doesn’t wipe all these ideas away.

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Maoyuu Maou Yuusha – Episode 10/11

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Episode 10

This was a solid episode with great parts for Merchant and Hero, but primarily a setup episode (which makes sense, since 9 knocked down most of the dominoes set up so far). I can’t wait for Demon Kings reaction to the mess her allies have made. I’m kind of assuming it’ll take a united Demon/Southern Nations alliance to bail them out of this one.

Also, Merchant and Dragon Princess work well together. They’re both ambitious, goal-oriented, and vain, but their specialties are both opposing and complementary, Dragon’s bluntness is a good counter to Merchant’s scheming, and their conversations show their mutual respect. Hero made a good call introducing these two.

I’d talk more about details and themes, but I’ve been watching/writing on a freaking bus. Next time!

Episode 11

This show always manages to use the fewest possible words to get a point across. “I have no troops to spare. Can you deal with them?” “Yes. But would it anger you if I said I did not want to fight the demons?” “…we cannot afford a fight on two fronts.”

Bam, there we go. Hero’s motivation, the king’s pride, his ultimate ceding to the needs of the moment, which allows Hero to further his goal of integrating the two cultures by allowing for straight diplomacy – all covered in three brief lines of dialogue. Plus, neither of these characters have a particularly great way with words, yet this dialogue is a perfectly believable, snappy argument between the two of them that never oversteps into open hostility – this is how Hero has learned to negotiate. It really continuously amazes me that this story wasn’t written by a professional… although obviously this adapation was, and has succeeded in distilling the essence of these characters into the snappiest possible exchanges. Such sharp work.

8:45 – It’s not the characters. It’s the dream. Our world, the real world, is so far away from passing the hill – and we’re not even trying. Our very systems of economy prevent justice, prevent equality, prevent true freedom… we live as wage slaves distracted by our shiny 21st-century toys. But seeing these characters fighting so hard against the forces that shape our world, against our weak, human nature… it’s pretty goddamn inspiring.

15:42 – Spells spells explosions explosions bleh. This show is no good at this kind of stuff, and I kind of wonder why they even bother – like, they just introduced that army as a conflict this episode, did they really exist just to inject a little false tension and then be teleported away with a massive dose of magicy bullshit? I’ve said before that my least favorite parts of this show are when it tries to work as an actual fantasy story, and that’s still true – whenever it veers into total fantasy-land nonsense, it both counteracts the ways this story actually reflects reality, and just doesn’t come off as very distinctive or engaging. Hopefully this is all going somewhere.

16:38 – A really, really tidy bit of storytelling here. Normally, these large-scale fantasy battles are just a clusterfuck of things happening with no real stakes – all sound and fury, basically. Here, they cut back for a moment, using two lines of dialogue to establish the student soldier as an intelligent man (well, a good student, at least), and then letting his message to the troops quickly lay out both the terms and stakes of this battle. That way, the audience is actually invested in the events as they happen, because they understand something of the strengths of each side, as well as the stakes. Beautiful economy of scene-setting – action scenes only really work if the audience can actually tell who’s winning or losing.

18:58 – SEE?!?!? “She’s nearly become the King of Evil.” OH NO, NOT THE KING OF EVIL! Isn’t that EXACTLY the kind of BULLSHIT SIMPLISTIC STORYTELLING this show is ENTIRELY A REACTION TO?!?!? GAH that makes me mad.

23:13 – Oh no, she’s manifested the KING OF EVIL’S EVIL SCYTHE OF EVIL. Fuuuuuck you.

Okay, seriously, the last thing, like literally, absolutely, positively last thing this show needed was a dramatic showdown between the representative of all good and the representative of all evil. Like, what’s the point of all this other stuff if, in the end, humanity is saved not through negotiation, compromise, science, and education, but through the guy with the biggest sword? What does that actually say about anything? Hell, maybe next episode love will save the day, and we’ll all learn a valuable lesson about the importance of sharing.

Still, everything outside of this aggravating high fantasy bullshit was excellent. The merchant and students in particular had some really choice material, and there was a lot of sharp, efficient storytelling throughout. But man, this “spirits of the ancient kings” stuff just couldn’t be less warranted. And honestly, it’s so far beneath this show that I have to assume next episode is going to subvert it. Positive thinking!

Regarding My System of Scoring/Evaluation

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Question:

In discussing Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, you talk a lot about whether a show’s ideas or themes are well-articulated. However, I consider myself a person who watches shows for characters, and want my media to be worth empathizing with on a human level. Is there room for this instinct in your cold, blackened critic’s heart?

Bobduh:

Haha, I actually consider myself the same way – most of the stories that effortlessly connect to me are the ones primarily interested in characters and relationships. For instance, Toradora and Chuunibyou are two of my very favorite shows, and they’re far more thematically simplistic than Maoyuu or Penguindrum – they’re just character stories told well. And Evangelion is my actual favorite show, because I think it explores characters more fully than anything else I’ve seen.

But I also find both the craft of storytelling and human nature in general fascinating, and this show is just very unique in its purpose and methods. For instance, in episode 8 of Maoyuu, I loved that the characters’ response to the church condemning the scholar wasn’t something like, “damn the church! How could we have foreseen this?!” or “we have to fight them,” it was: “Unfortunate. If we fight the church, we lose the people. How can we minimize the fallout of this attack?” It’s willing to make a lot of smart assumptions about human nature, and then build on those assumptions to find some really compelling truths.

Question:

Can you explain your scoring/evaluation system a bit? The numbers as they stand just don’t make sense to me – Chuunibyou a 10, CLANNAD a 3, After Story an 8, Nisemonogatari a 9, Nozo no Kanojo X a 4. What’s the system here?

Bobduh:

I actually recently changed my scoring system to make use of the numbers more effectively – anything six and up is “solid” for me, and it’s only 3 and down that I consider “bad”. You can see my current grading system in the About[1]section.

The three main things I look for in a show are: Does this show convey what it wants to in an effective way? Is what it is trying to convey meaningful or distinctive? Does the experience of this show resonate with me emotionally?

So, regarding the shows you listed…

I think Chuunibyou is not terribly ambitious, but it is very, very close to perfect in conveying its characters and story, and it struck me very strongly emotionally. It is, outside of exactly one scene in the first 11 episodes and some extremely slight pacing issues in the finale, what I’d consider a “Perfect Romantic Comedy.”

Clannad, on the other hand, I felt was incredibly ineffective as a comedy, slice of life, or romance – the side arcs murdered the pacing, the characters on the whole were thinly developed, and Jun Maeda has no subtlety in his writing, making the show veer constantly between repetitive slapstick and unearned melodrama. Plus, I found characters like Fuko and Kotomi extraordinarily problematic in their design – perhaps the VN developed them as people, but in anime format they came across as vehicles for viewer’s broken bird fantasies, which I consider one of the very worst things about anime.

In contrast to this, once After Story escapes from the side arcs, it becomes an incredibly effective and very unique look at life after education, something that is both woefully underrepresented in anime and very resonant for me personally. The episode where Tomoya is first forced to semi-interact with his abandoned daughter is honestly one of the most distinctive, effectively directed, and powerful episodes of television I’ve ever seen. But because that is just a subsection of the show (and because I feel the ending undercuts most of the drama the show has earned), it only averages out to an 8.

Nise I already posted that huge-ass analysis of[2] , but in short I think it approaches issues of perspective, self-representation, and the male gaze with incredible intelligence, and while uneven, is such a necessary art experiment that I have to strongly respect it.

Finally, I just thought Nozo no Kanojo was incredibly uneven, and while it had some very interesting ideas (particularly the rare and noteworthy focus on how weird and uncomfortable adolescent intimacy can be), it too often fell into the routines of its genre to be considered a solid work.

I’d actually love to keep talking about any of those shows, since you picked a set of examples that I find extremely interesting as artistic works, even though I personally enjoyed or respected some more than others. There’s something interesting in virtually every show – I pretty much never regret having watched something.

Question:

In that case, would you agree that there’s a fair amount of personal passion in your rating system? Also, would you say the quite harsh scores you give to certain shows (Another, OreImo) is more reflective on your selective process of watching anime than their objective quality?

Bobduh:

I actually do try to keep the passion to a minimum, and restrict it to corner cases like the one you mentioned. For instance, I really do think Chuunibyou is more or less a flawless execution of a classic concept, but I’d have to admit that my own preference for romance and character-based shows might knock that one to a 10 over something like, say, Baccano. But I don’t think it’s all that unfair to say shows that strive for deeper meanings or strong emotional resonance are “aiming higher” than pure adventures or comedies – and normally, adventures and comedies are largely improved by the addition of these elements.

I also sometimes use my emotional reaction as a counterweight to my critical assessment of a show – for instance, logically I considered Ano Hana emotionally manipulative and awkwardly constructed, but because I actually did have an emotional reaction to the finale, I figured it was at least partially effective. Obviously the distance between my personal preferences/emotional touchstones and my critical assessments will always result in disconnects, but I try to be aware of it and only use the emotional response as a tool and sounding board, not a general metric.

My previous scoring system was a lot closer to the classic “5 is a failing grade” system – almost everything on my list was 7 or higher, and my grading system was basically 7 = decently flawed but I enjoyed it more than I didn’t, 8 and up are things I’d actively recommend. But I figured copying the classic grading system wasn’t really that valuable – if everything below 6 is just “so bad it’s not worth watching,” why shouldn’t I condense that category? It seemed more useful to stratify degrees of flawed but interesting shows than degrees of terribleness – for the lower shows, I figure “Just plain bad,” “Tooth-grindingly terrible,” and “Literally offensive to my values as a human being” should suffice.

The shows you mentioned kind of betray my own view of the anime medium – that is, I appreciate it and critique it primarily as a narrative, message-based, or character-focused art form, and not a visual one. I mean, I do love great visuals, and when they work in service of a show it’s incredible (Madoka and Hyouka represent two ways visuals can really contribute to themes, characters, and narrative, for example, and Redline works so well because all the narrative elements work in service of the fantastic visuals), but I won’t have mercy on a show just because it has polished production. OreImo might be very competent in its design and animation, but because I find its messages actually offensive and likely developmentally hurtful to its intended audience, I probably couldn’t personally like or critically respect it any less even if it were less competently produced.

What’s so Great about Maoyuu Maou Yuusha?

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Question:

I’ve been following along with the show up until now (episode 9), but I don’t understand why some people seem to like this show so much. I’m having trouble keeping track of the characters, the pacing is weird, I still don’t know what’s up with the lack of names – what are you getting out of this show? Does it only make sense if you read the manga?

Bobduh:

Nope! I read a few chapters of the manga, but stopped well before the point the story has currently reached.

I think it’s understandable that many people have dropped this show or don’t really get why others like it so much, because not only is it really mainly about the thematic and real-world implications of its events (as opposed to those events themselves), it also kind of hides that by occasionally focusing on its fantasy elements or characters.

What is awesome about this show is that it is taking a default fantasy world and using the story of that world’s conflicts, religions, and technologies to make universal points about human nature and human history. The characters not having names is actually really crucial – it’s one of the most overt ways that this show is declaring it is more interested in talking about People than talking about these specific people. It is also very frequently interested in talking about Storytelling, as opposed to this specific story, and Worldbuilding, as opposed to this specific world – so things like the hero’s teleportation are not really of interest to the writer, because they are just convenient devices, and getting into the specifics of this world’s magic jargon would dilute the larger points.

All that said, moments like this episode’s speech can come across as both personal and universal – just because the show is not solely focused on the narrow world of its characters doesn’t mean they aren’t well-illustrated and respected by the text. This emotional resolution has been building for almost the entire show, and the way her personal life story mirrors the larger theme of education being the cornerstone of freedom and civilization makes that point hit home much harder. I’d say this show still functions pretty well as a story taken at face value, but you’re missing a lot if you’re not viewing it as a critique of both traditional fantasy storytelling and human nature.

Regarding characters, I think the only incredibly critical secondary characters are the Winter King, the Merchant, the Female Knight, and the Older Maid – all of these pieces represent crucial sides of humanity in the picture this show is trying to draw.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha – Episode 9

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Management: This episode was one of those rare moments that remind me of the power of artistic expression.

Episode 9

Some nice little details here that hint at the way the average citizen perceives the momentous events of the past few years – first with them referring to the scholar as a “Goddess” (something I’m sure she’d have mixed feelings about, considering her views on education and the church), as well as commoners mistaking the messenger for their king. To these people, the political machinations of church and state are obviously far removed from their lives, and it’s nice that the show can so subtly and offhandedly acknowledge the esoteric nature of our heroes’ game of thrones.

…and then I watched straight through to the end. And forgot to breathe. And I think I even cried a little bit.

That was incredible. A perfect thesis statement for the show, drawing in the ideas of freedom and servitude, the importance of education, critical thinking, and self-improvement, the tyranny of assumed righteousness, the resonance of a personal god… I see now that the older maid’s personal journey is the true victory the show is attempting to portray: the freedom to imagine a better tomorrow, a freedom so many forces wish to take away. That vicious attack by the guards, by far the most violent thing the show has portrayed, a card the show has held until this exact, crucial moment… her final resolution that her dignity as a human being is worth more than her life. This was one of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever watched.

I’d argue there have been pacing issues and occasional missteps along the way, but if it led to this… this is riveting, inspiring stuff. This is why we make art.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha – Episodes 7-8

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Episode 7

Thoughts as I go…

I’ve just finished burning through Nisemonogatari (which I really need to start a discussion on the brilliance of), so when they showed that super-gratuitous full body shot of Female Knight in her soaked shirt, my first thought was, “jesus, I thought Hero considered her something like a sister, is that really his perspective on her?” Then the camera shifted to Hero, who was showing no embarrassment or reaction of any kind, and I realized that was just good old-fashioned exploitative fanservice from a director who doesn’t really care about respecting his story or characters. Bleh.

The true sign of a civilized society: Orange Soda.

The scene with the crusade counsel is interesting to me. On the one hand, it’s nice that up till now, the show has been careful to portray most characters not as villains, but merely as people with differing goals, since a truly “evil” person has no inherent motivation and is normally just a symptom of bad writing. However, there have certainly been characters with no nuance in their portrayal – the man being sentenced to death here, as well as the commander that led the sea forces to a rout, come to mind. Meanwhile, I can’t think of a character with substantially different goals from the protagonists who hasn’t been convinced to join their side with relative ease (the merchant is the best example here). This seems kind of troubling to me as far as the future of the show’s conflict is concerned, but I could see the crusade continuing to act as a character/force similar to Heath Ledger’s Joker – a force so unreasonable and unconcerned with the protagonist’s value system that only extreme measures by the protagonists can counter them. I had a conversation in last week’s thread regarding whether the intentional setting of the crusaders against the island demons was an example of those “extreme measures,” and my personal takeaway from that was that it was quite possibly the intent, but if so, should have been more directly addressed in the show itself. If the crusade continues to be extremely relevant, it’ll give the show an opportunity to do just that.

Kinda depressing that the issues Demon King raises about the nature of education still undermine the progression of human knowledge, culture, and equality today.

Hm, love triangle stuff. I mean, it’s pretty silly to have this stuff taking up so much space… after all, anyone who was only watching this show to see a generic romance has probably long since left at this point. But this scene at least was pretty funny to me – Knight and Demon King have a great rapport, and Demon King uses her very mediocre negotiating skills to get the bed is a good gag. Eh, whatever.

Oh my god, could that ending have been any worse. The last fucking thing this show needs is a cartoonish cabal of one-note villains cackling madly. ANTAGONISTS DO NOT NEED TO BE DISNEY VILLAINS. WHYYYYY.

Episode 8

This wasn’t an “I like the little things” style of episode – this was just a damn fine half hour of television. It pushed all the major plots forward, developed several major characters, bounced personalities off each other in new and believable ways, and was entertaining throughout. A few more episodes like this, and Maoyuu could become one of my favorite shows period.

I was particularly happy to see the silly love triangle resolved almost immediately in a way that really fit for the Knight’s character. Not only that, but her sadness and desperation about being left behind mirrored the Hero’s own early fears about his place in the new world – and these fears are far from unfounded. The dwindling importance and prestige of a dedicated warrior class is a truth of the post-feudal world that has inspired countless great stories, including my personal favorite film Seven Samurai. Tying that evocative fear to Knight’s personal story is a mark of great storytelling.

I loved the last scene; I think this might have been the moment when Hero fully came into his own as a character. He’s not supposed to be dynamic – he’s the rock who holds everyone together. I loved the song as well, and the fact that their immediate instinct was to minimize the collateral damage of the church’s actions, not directly fight against them. The foreshadowing of Older Maid’s distrust of their new stability also made her immediate resolve both believable and poignant.

I think they’re using the church fairly well, and am relieved the maniacal laughter of last episode didn’t result in any absurd supervillain shenanigans. Though the church in this world is less insidious of an institution than the actual medieval church (which mixed its scriptures with cannibalization of native stories and real, demonstrable technological advances to help the medicine go down), its actions are still understandable, and will still present huge obstacles for our heroes.

This show is getting really, really good.

Maoyuu Maou Yusha – Episodes 5-6

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Management: Same disclaimer – I still haven’t formalized my style here. Hopefully getting less ranty though, and also totally falling in love with this show.

Episode 5

It’s always the little things that make this show for me. This time, Hero’s quiet frustration at how he can deal with the issues of the occupied cities, ending with “What would Demon King say… follow the money” just felt like such a great moment to me. I thought he was too undeveloped at first, but now I see they’re playing the long game with his characterization and growth, and it’s paying off in scattered treasures like that one.

Another nice moment – the two younger maids surprising Demon King and Head Maid with presents for a festival the audience was never informed of. It works well to further the contrast of the dedicated, goal-oriented lives our main characters are living against the ephemeral celebrations that make up a normal character (or person)’s life.

And finally the entire last third was fantastic once again. From Demon King’s monologue on the bed onward, the writing was perfect and the VAs once again proved their ridiculous chemistry and talent. In a show that has a romantic subplot but isn’t really about romance, it’s even more important to make the most of each romance-focused scene, so they don’t drag the show down or feel out of place. This one raised the bar.

Episode 6

A solid episode.

There were a couple nice touches in the depiction of the battle: throughout, it was depicted as a messy and stilted affair, with numbers and positioning being the most relevant factors. Very nice, and one of the thousand ways this show takes an ax to the unrealistic and frankly tedious conventions of fantasy stories. Then at the end, I loved the moment when a few soldiers uncertainly shout “we won?” before it devolves into cheering – this very nicely sums up the delirious and scattershot nature of what I assume larger medieval battles must be like.

I loved the song used during the Knight’s battle. I enjoyed the battle itself as well, but the song lent it more of a feeling of a dance than a duel, which nicely contrasted against the brutish, mechanical nature of war as waged by the non-OP characters.

Still loving the backgrounds all around.

Demon King’s boobs are still ridiculous. Yes, they’re referenced as big in the source material too, but come on. It’s frustrating having to look past something like that design in a show that does so many other things so well.

So their plan was really to scare the crusaders into falling back into a flanking position? That seems kind of sketchy to me. It also seemed like they set up the two forces for maximum casualties on both sides (by forcing the demons to retreat through an exhausted army). While this may well help defuse the war effort, it seems pretty out of character for at least Hero, if not Demon King as well. Am I misinterpreting something here?

Overall I very much enjoyed it though, as my complaints were minor elements and most of the episode was strong stuff. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying the technical elements of this show; I figured it would be one I enjoyed in spite of the direction/animation just based on the themes and story, but the music, direction, and background art are all stellar, and really help to sell the world of the show. I’ll miss this one when it’s over.