Anime-BAWklog #5: Spotlightning Round
So, I screwed up the whole "300th Post Celebration" thing by scheduling some of my posts for future dates. I announced on Facebook that the occasion was coming up, and received a non-reception for it that brought memories of a certain post of mine to bear on my soul. After giving my Facebook community a piece of my mind, I stopped blogging in mostly unnoticed protest and shifted focus back to college and WattPad, letting the Anime-BAWklog pile up and not keeping up with Streaming Saturday as I had planned to do before Search Engine Optimization and human attention spans did me dirty.
Meanwhile, my future-scheduled posts brought the issue count to 300 without me realizing it, rendering my childish self-boycotting moot.
Wonderful, isn't it?
But like a landscaper spray-painting the visiting team's logo onto a football field, I digress. I also apologize because that was the stretchiest, most groan-worthy grass-dying pun in history (and probably the only such pun in history). It's time for an anime lightning round!
Akudama Drive--in a fictionalized, post-nuclear, dystopian utopia version of Japan, a robot cat hires a team of shonen criminals--the Akudama of the title, whose sentence lengths rival the highest Berry bounties in One Piece--and two unsuspecting tag-alongs to steal something from the Ocean's Eleven vault of bullet trains. Unfortunately, the city is protected by Executioners, equally shonen officers who dress like YuGiOh GX students from The Matrix and have the authority to kill Akudama (which underwhelmingly translates to "bad guys" in English) on sight with their tuning fork lightsabers. What ensues is a gripping, twelve-episode thrill ride that comments on the sinister impact of money on society (albeit in an overly Snowball-meets-Slippery Slope-meets-Butterfly Effect fashion), human worth, morality, and the recently re-addressed issues of excessive force and police brutality (again, with a hyper-demonstrative, emotion-focused delivery). The journey is a fast-paced one, but it just sort of ends--and not happily--as if to say, "OK, we've made our point, mic drop!" As with most mic drops, though, the intent and action are overshadowed by the muted thud and squealing feedback of the impact itself.
The Day I Became A God--A family of mere mortals with names inspired by Japanese deities take in a girl dressed as a nun who claims to be the Norse god, Odin. She seemingly possesses omniscient knowledge and claims that the world will end in a month. What ensues is your typical boy-meets-weird-girl story (where he is a teenager in high school and she is a child!!!) that becomes a "fun, crazy shit I did over Summer Break" story somewhere in the middle and devolves into The Notebook by the end. The twist behind the girl's supposed godhood made for an interesting journey while it lasted, and the comedy was pretty solid, but the formula was overly derivative and underly aged.
Warlords of Sigrdrifa--I'm not sure if I spelled that right or even how to pronounce it if I had, but here's more Norse mythology! In a world under attack by otherworldly CGI...things that can't be defeated with conventional weaponry, Odin decides to appear to leaders of the world's governments in the guise of a chillingly voiced young boy, and grants his divine power to select young girls, turning them into Valkyries who fight the creatures with old-timey planes for some reason. It started off as a potentially decent "cute magical girl" team bonding-type series, and went into surprising technical detail about fuel vs. weapon payloads, aircraft types, and the like. But there came a point when I realized that the five leads (all children!!!) were going to spend the series staving off the catcalls and grabassery of grown men!!!, and I stopped watching.
Gleipnir--I have no idea why this series is named after the chain that was forged to restrain Fenrir (the superwolf from Norse mythology that served as one of the signals of Ragnarok), or why anime and manga insist on shoving Norse mythology into every other IP that comes out of the industry, but this is as good as it is weird, as long as it keeps going beyond its twelve-episode first season. In Gleipnir, giving a gold coin to an alien and making a Monkey's Paw wish on his vending machine gives the (un)lucky wisher superpowers, turns them into a monster, or both. A high school boy discovers one day that someone else made a wish that turned him into a walking furry costume with a giant revolver, and he crosses paths with a sociopathic female student (voiced by Brittany Karbowski in the dub, so automatic positive start there) who...wears him when he's transformed. Gleipnir expands its cast and turns into a MacGuffin hunt/battle royale series (see Darwin's Game, Magical Girl Raising Project, etc.) from there, getting stranger and tackling darker subject matter as it progresses, without getting into...statutory levels of discomfort. It's not for everyone, but it's worth watching if it is for you. Just be prepared for a "read the manga" ending, because there hasn't been any announcement of a second season.
The Misfit of Demon King Academy--Hero defeats Demon King, Demon King reincarnates thousands of years later to a world that thinks he's a fake, Demon King's human parents are too stupid, kind-hearted, and plot-convenient to...you know...exorcise their demonic child!?, Demon King enrolls at school for Demon King candidates, Demon King promptly and spectacularly owns all cynics and gains a small harem of cute descendants (because underage incest doesn't exist if you're a demon, or something), Demon King academy has intramural contest with Hero academy next door, Demon King unmasks false Demon King who altered history in the Hero's favor, everyone are friends now, the end. The false Demon King subplot was interesting until it wasn't, the magic effects were spectacular and ludicrous, and the ownage was satisfying. But the formula was formulaic, the stakes were epically non-existent (the "hero" could always ass-pull a way to win because magic), and the characters left little to consider in terms of characterization. Still, go for it if you need some mindless wish-fulfilment fun.
Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun!--Even though it looks like something 4kids would have butchered for mass consumption twenty years ago, Iruma-kun is a pleasantly surprising comedy juggernaut that takes a dash of every "demon school" anime and a pinch of Rosario+Vampire, and actually does something good with them. When Iruma's shitty parents sell his soul to a demon to pay their gambling debts or something, he finds himself in the care of an overly doting elder demon who also happens to be the superintendent of the Demon World's best (and presumably only) grade school. Through his new "grandfather"'s connections and his own innate ability to dodge anything (because of his abusive upbringing, Iruma is basically Hubie Halloween meets Ultra Instinct Shaggy by the time the series starts), our titular hero manages to survive his scholastic day-to-day without letting on that he is a magicless human--because demons eat humans (it's even the school fight song). The art style is simple and balances its cute and horrifying aesthetics perfectly, the comedy is solidly paced and hits hard, the characters are well-defined, and the series is a joy to watch. A second season was teased, but there isn't a hard release date yet. Damn you, COVIDDDDD!!!!!!!!!
Well, that's all for the Spotlightning Round. If you enjoyed this post, leave a like and comment below, and seek an affordable subscription from the list below if you want to get caught up on any of these series.
As always, here's the list of links:
* Tower Of God, God Of High School, and Noblesse
* DanMachi/Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? franchise (Anime Spotlight)
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