Anime-WTF? #4: Uhh...No Hope

Welcome to another #AniMonday, weebotaks! Today's anime selections are two series that showed great promise in many aspects of their production early on, but ultimately wasted or neglected every possible hope they might have once had.

Darling In the FRANXX--Yes, the title has two consecutive X’s in it. Even worse, it’s about children called Parasites (also termed Pistils and Stamens by gender) who pilot cute, magical girl-looking mecha (the FRANXX from the title) in male-female pairs by “connecting” doggy-style in the cockpit. The purpose of the FRANXX waifu-bots is to defend the world’s giant, mobile plantations from Klaxosaurs: kaiju-sized, blue, shapeshifting robo-monsters who are attracted to the plantations by a theoretical steampunk-inspired power source called “magma energy.” The plantations share this resource with one another by “kissing” (a docking sequence). In addition to all of this sexual innuendo, the adults in the series look like chicken-themed chess pieces that were designed by the KKK. The protagonist is your basic dark-haired underdog who, for reasons that take awhile to be revealed but have a great payoff, is incompatible with every female partner he’s paired with but wants more than anything to be a FRANXX pilot…until he attracts the attention of a half-Klaxosaur girl who inadvertently kills all of her partners (and dubs the hero, whose name is Hiro, her “Darling…” in the FRANXX. So, now the title makes sense, right?), and the two of them become their plantation’s secret weapon. It isn’t all sex references and giant robot battles, though. The series is packed with all manner of subtle but impactful world-building, plenty of relationship drama, cliffhanger-driven serialization, and commentary on religion, free will, self-reliance, coming of age struggles, humanity's impact on the environment, and the extreme bounds of science. The explanation for the series’ world being built as it is turns out to be by turns simplistically underwhelming, lazily predictable, and illogically stupid, as laid out in the series’ nineteenth episode, which also ends with an origin of sorts for the half-Klaxo female protagonist Zero-Two. Unfortunately, FRANXX managed to shit and vomit all over its earlier brilliance through the five remaining episodes, including the sudden and predictable appearance of a second villain, Zero-Two merging with Hiro and their FRANXX to become a planet-sized, cyborg centaur because reasons, the least likable characters making sudden, shallow, uncharacteristic redemption sacrifices, an ultimately meaningless “power of friendship” victory, and generally inconsistent writing. Given that this was put together by the same people who did FLCL and Kill La Kill, FRANXX’s themes (specifically the coming-of-age character development, scientific and religious absurdity, the power of the mind, evil aliens, and progress as the enemy of nature) lend a (small) measure of credence to some of its more questionable production choices, especially where sending a message is concerned. However, ambitious projects that aim to be about something are seldom, if ever, good. And by the end--some would say much sooner than that, even--it’s clear that FRANXX was not the Darling it started out as.

Freezing (Vibration)--Yet another series where a genetically overpowered male student enrolls at a school for genetically modified female warriors (called Pandora in this series), two of whom fall in love with him between saving the world from the NOVA (extradimensional monsters of the week) and trying to kill each other. The series' title comes from a paralyzing ability used by the NOVA and male characters called “Limiters,” the latter of whom gain freezing, as well as the ability to use sympathetic orgasms to psychically and physically enhance their Pandora partners, following a “baptism ritual” (read: sex. That’s right; in Freezing, baptism is sex). Sexual innuendo, harem mechanics, and the “reverse-engineer the world-killing monsters to make human weapons out of schoolgirl waifu” premise have been done to death in anime, but among the predictability, innuendo-based terminology, and fanservice-heavy battle damage, there are an abundance of badass fights, a decent romance plot, and a passable attempt at addressing the topic of sexual abuse in a not-entirely socially oblivious way. Hooray, Japan!...? In the Vibration season, however, resolution for the sexual abuse angle gets a plot-convenient glossing over that involves an out-of-nowhere, bullshit redemption for the series’ most hateworthy character (yes, worse than a mad scientist who almost wipes out the planet by trying to synthesize a Pandora from a mentally unstable test subject and clone the mother Pandora--SPOILER: a.k.a. Basically God--to mass-produce and weaponize her against the NOVA). There is no real, satisfying explanation as to why the male protagonist is as powerful as he is, nor do he and his Pandora partner get to save the day at the very end. Instead, that honor goes to a bland, over-powered background character who reveals that she was basically a sentient NOVA in human form the entire time. Or something. Another potentially great anime with a shit ending.


Until I watch a greater variety of anime, I fully intend to end my acknowledgement of the shitty series I have seen by wiping my ass with Anime-WTF? (as is customary following one's processing of one's own shit), and moving in a more positive direction. I don't know what I'm going to call this pending upside series as of yet, but when I figure that out, the pending will become impending, so stay tuned. Anime-BAW will also make a return at some point after I watch more anime. Meanwhile, I intend to focus my efforts on releasing more TicketVerse Trades content, working on fleshing out my novel, and securing the funds to go back to college.