Mahou Meido Meganekko

Otome wa Boku is simply unbelievable. I mean that in the sense that it’s not credible or believable. Even in To Wong Fu, it was impossible to look at any of the three main characters and completely forget that they were really men. Granted, John Leguizamo did a damn good job as a drag queen, but still, there’s one very notable piece of equipment that men have (and women don’t) that should give the show’s premise away instantly.

No, I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about an adam’s apple. That little knot at the front of the throat that all men have–and women don’t. But as long as we’re on the subject, I don’t think Mizuho has a penis and balls either. Nor any testosterone, since he evidently doesn’t have to shave any facial hair.

Just how impossibly absurd is this show? Mizuho is so pretty, he has become the most popular girl in the school. And he develops a crush on last year’s most popular girl, who as it happens, reciprocates — and figures out he’s a guy. Even more impossible, Mizuho changes into his PE outfit in the same locker-room with all the girls, but doesn’t get outed! Ok, so Mariya and Shion were standing next to her, uh, him, to block everyone else’s view, but come on! A whole class of girls are in the locker room, stripping to their underwear and getting into gym wear. You mean to say the most popular new girl in the school isn’t going to draw any attention from other girls the first time she, uh, he undresses? Nobody’s going to want to, you know, compare busts, maybe? Be serious! The boy’s got an incredible set of falsies, no testosterone, no balls, and no dick. Lost’em like Van Gogh’s ear, in a shaving accident, probably while trying to learn how to shave his legs. (more…)

Well, the first of several reviews for this week is done. I picked the stupidest of the lot to start; it can only go uphill from here. Right? Right? Don’t ask me why I only subtitle them with numbers sometimes. I don’t know either.

	Crescent Love has now officially turned the corner… and fallen into the pit of total ineptitude. The writers finally remembered to bring the parody up, but they totally forgot to bring the funny with it. Oh, I laughed my fundament off, but it wasn’t with the show — or alongside it either. No, the first laugh out loud experience this show gave me had to be reserved for Feena: Warrior Princess! And no, that’s not a screwup in the aspect ratio. That’s really what it looks like, which means any screwup is occuring betwixt file and screen.
	Feena: Eight meters. Seven. Six.  Ripley: It can’t be. That’s inside the room! Yes, that’s right. She’s on a bug hunt. Some insect or another in Dad’s study resembles something she fears, that is so bizarrely out of left field I don’t know if it’s serious or the writers just made it up for a one-shot series of bad parodies. Anyway, Mia the meido faints, Tatsuya is knocked unconcious in a fall down the stairs, and so it’s up to Feena to save the day.
	But as you see, Feena may be doing the Aliens thing, but we also get to learn more about Tatsuya’s dad… turns out he is Indiana Jones. He’s off on another grand adventure right now, but he’s infamous for having sneaked up to the moon as a youngster and posed as a student at a Lunar university. He was promptly deported, showing the good taste of the Lunar Immigration Service.

Good grief. I mean, really! Well, before she’s finished, Xena, uh, I mean Ripley–dammit, Feena, has managed to rescue her meido, lay waste to the house and royally (!) tick off Sayuki. And I’m not even going to go into the whole drowning puppy, drowning Feena, “omigod I have to do CPR/first kiss on her!” stupidity. All these cliches were mine, for the low, low cost of an internet connection, bittorent software, and the utter waste of a half-hour of my life.

But wait! There’s less! (more…)

Actually, I’ve been staying busy all week.  I’ve been sparring and deck tweaking all week in preparation for the State Championship in Magic: The Gathering.  Saturday morning, early, I, Master Plan, Cousin Redneck, and his 12 year old  son, Redneck Boy, all traipsed down to Strike Zone to give our best.  (Mack of Steel showed up late, as he had a wedding to go to. Fortunately, not his own, which made him the luckiest person of the day in our group.)  Sadly, our best sucked.  Badly.

Sadly, badly, madly…I’d gladly have done better!  Not one of us cracked the top 100.  So today was the first day of retooling. I’ve been surfing Ebay, picking up new cards and hanging out at the game shop dueling and talking shop.  Hopefully, my deck will emerge somewhat stronger.  Unlike the top decks, it isn’t built around a deck design that’s been published on the net.  Also unlike top decks, it doesn’t win, hence the retooling…

However, if you’re here for anime, don’t despair.  To unwind from the unsuccessful tourney, I have started a series of reviews; there are enough to keep me in new material for several days.  Each is partly done, and I’ll start posting them as soon as I finish the first, then let the rest leak out over the next few days.  All are based on recent fansubs; I still haven’t gotten around to doing that review on Dual!  It just doesn’t feel as immediate, seeing as it’s several years old, but I’ll get to it eventually.

Oh well, more cards to sort, doesn’t look like I’ll finish any of those write-ups tonight.

Steven denBeste is looking for some brainless fanservice to pass the time.  Damifino what to suggest, since he doesn’t do fansubs.  Digging through my collection, there’s always Godannar, but it’s a robot series with most of the robot series clichés.  The dub is surprisingly tolerable, and I like Shizuru’s American VA better than her Japanese seiyuu.  Not so for Anna’s, unfortunately. I need to do the final series review for it.
Then of course, there’s DearS, which is probably my guiltiest pleasure.  (And I haven’t restored the pictures in either write up, dangit. Got more work to do soon.)  Miss Mitsuki (the teacher) is just too much and painful to watch, but the fanservice is otherwise excellent.  The reason I like it, though, is that it actually made an effort to explain the quirks of the major characters.  Takeya is phobic about the aliens and thinks Ren will turn out to be a lizard and enslave him, but there’s actually a reason he thinks like that. Nenneko is a tomboy and more likely to dress in fatigues than a dress — and before the show is over, you see why.  The DearS are almost patheticly eager to please people — and terrified that folks will find out too much about them, and you discover what it is that motivates them by the end also.  There are mysteries revealed and others hinted at; I get the feeling that the writers were actually going somewhere, but there was never a second season made.  And as I noted in the review, there’s character growth; whether or not there’s a happy ending is dependant on whether it happens in time.
Dual! is pretty cool, but it’s not a fanservice vehicle, even if the character designs for the ladies are attractive, and skintight suits for the ladies are…skintight. Gah. That’s another series I need to do a review of.  Not to mention a review of my current favorite fansub series, The Third.   And then there’s the long delayed DART vs. MetroRail comparison for Houblog.  Too much to write, too little time to do it in!  Right now, I’m trying to get ready for a Magic the Gathering tourney this weekend.  Tonight’s the first night I wasn’t sparring and deck tweaking.

Bah.  Let’s add five more hours to the day, not just one, come Saturday night….

Literally.

So, today* the whole gang headed northwest from Houston to the Texas RenFaire — except of course, for those of us who headed southeast from Austin. Myself, DrHeinous, the Stainless Steel Brat (aka Katie the Stampede), The Mack of Steel, and Master Plan headed up there to meet with (p)Resident Evil and Mrs. Evil, who drove down from Austin. While Mrs. Evil ran off to do some shopping with her Evil Henchladies, the rest of us walked about, eventually ending up at some show that I don’t remember the name of, but the gist of it was you paid the performer to insult someone, generally a friend. (Well, a friend prior to the insults anyway.) The more you tipped him ($10 minimum) the better the quality of the insults and and the longer he’d spend insulting your soon-to-be ex-friend. At the end of the show, he would pick one poor sap out, and the whole audience would be invited to tip for a grand series of insults to be delievered to the hapless “winner.”

Now, an opportunity like this just could not be allowed to pass by. Not by our group! Even before the performer had finished explaining how the show worked, we had our heads together determining who was going to be the target. We quickly settled on (p)Resident Evil, each of us kicked in $$ (except the Brat, of course). Yep, Mr.Evil kicked in too; y’see, after we had all the money in hand, we told him we’d change the target to DrHeinous if he paid in also. DrH objected but since Master Plan was holding the money, he was out of luck. So once MP has the last of the money, he turns to me and the Mack and suggests an entirely different change of target: Katie, the Stainless Steel Brat! I’m going “Wha-?” and the Mack is cracking up, “Do it! Do it!” Katie thought it was funny too, so I said, “oh what the hell, go for it.”

Yes, folks, that’s right. I (and my friends) paid $40 to have a grown man insult a thirteen-year-old 8th grader. What can I say? We’re rat bastards.

There were an awful lot of $10 insults being bandied about and a few $20 tips as well; the performer was delightfully sarcastic and the show was quite funny. (I’ll never think of the words “crusty sheets” without snickering again.) One poor sport got up and walked off when his friends singled him out, but he was the exception. Finally it was Katie’s turn. The performer was a little surprised, but had probably seen a bit of everything over the years. The crowd (about 150 or so at that point) didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or wince. The exchange went something like this:

Performer: “Katie, how old are you?”

Katie: “Thirteen.”

Performer: “I see — Katie, where are your parents?”

Katie [points at her father]

Us: “HE CONTRIBUTED!”

DrH: “They told me it was going to be him!” [indignantly points at p(R)esident Evil.]

Us: “Suuuuuuuuuuure we did! Uh-huh!”

Perfomer: “Your own father?” (something to the effect of DrH not winning any good parenting awards.)

Mack of Steel (to performer): “This is also about messing with you!”

Performer (good-naturedly): “Like I give a damn! This is my job, and I’m damned well going to do it!”

Well, unsurprisingly, he went easy on her; while a number of his other jokes had been rather bawdy, he simply did an extended riff on fart jokes, with Katie laughing through the whole thing. Of course, geting her insulted was only the first part of Master Plan’s master plan…. Once the end of the show rolled around, he announced to the crowd, “Normally, I would select three candidates and let the audience pick which one would be the target for whom they would get to contribute for me to me insult. HOWEVER, I feel that this time, one candidate would surely run away with the vote — so, without further ado, I shall select the target, and ask you to donate generously; remember, the more you give, the more I insult him…..”

“Katie, dear, what’s your father’s name?”

Heheheheheh. Ah, yes. We’re evil, yes we are. Although the crowd had thinned considerably by this time, it raised $228 towards having DrH insulted, in return for contributing to his own daughter’s insulting! And although I was somewhat disappointed when I later realized that I had missed an opportunity to make a “Hey, are you asking a little girl ‘who’s yer daddy?’” joke at the performer’s expense, I had a chance to make up for it when we were departing the festival.

Master Plan: “Are you guys going to stop and eat anywhere?”

DrH. “We’re definately going to have to do something about supper.”

Me: “Why? We already roasted you!”

Ba-da-boomp! Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here until Tuesday….

*(”Today” true only for certain values of today found in time zones well to the west of here….)

I’m probably going to be out of circulation until sometime Sunday, so updates will be slow to non-existant. Some offhand and nearly-random notes, and some bad Siskel & Ebert (or Roper, whatever) imitations though:

• Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu has a review of Crescent Love. Summarized: “Terribly average.” As I’ve pointed out earlier, that might be generous. Two thumbs sideways. (Stuck in my ears, in fact)
• Don’s found a rumor that there may be an OVA spin-off of Coyote Ragtime that focuses on Marciano’s Twelve Sisters. Steven approves reducing the number of sisters to six, as long as they keep August. Considering that’s her in the banner above, I think my opinion is obvious. One thumb provisionally up.
• Watched Sumomo Momomo, ep.1. Wow. We may have a contender for stupidest anime of 2006 here. It’s over the top, but once you get past the joke of a young (damn near loli) kick-ass martial artist of a girl chasing after a handsome-but-wimpy guy to have his babies, it’s just not that funny. Two thumbs down.
• Nabeshin returns! Well, ok, he hasn’t made a cameo yet, but it’s bound to happen in Perfect Girl Revolution, whereupon four generic lazy bishie-boys have to turn an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan so they can get free rent at a rich lady’s swankienda. Again, Basu Gasu has the low-down on ep. 1. I have to say they did throw me a curve when we finally see the girl… One thumb down, sucking on the other.
• Also saw the first episode of the new Negima!? (What is this, a Basu Gasu lovefest? Well, can I help it if Hung is on the ball with his reviews, and I’m pretty lazy?) Anyway, I’m not sure I agree with Hung on the art style. It bothers me, and I can’t put my finger on it, although I think it’s because the colors are too strong. Something about this show just rubs me the wrong way, but what? I feel like should like it, but I don’t. Maybe it’s the overly large “harem.” Maybe it’s the logic (or lack thereof). I mean, what’s the bright idea of sending Evangeline the vampire the one thing she needs to escape her imprisonment? I’m not familar with the storyline, but I suspect the backstory will explain it. Still, if I were Negi Springfield, I’d be asking “who set me up for this?” about now. One thumb up.
• Ok, one more from Basu Gasu: Asatte no Houkou. How the hell did Hung stay awake long enough to reach the end of the episode? I gave up on it the first time after 15 of the most boring minutes in animé history. Later I went back and had to fast-forward through it. Come on, you’re trying to set a mood here, but “sleeping” is a mode, not a mood… One thumb out, hitchhiking to another city.
• Code Geass ep.1: Jason seemed to think it was interesting, so I downloaded it to see. Halfway through it, I was going, “oh yeah, one of those stupid mecha shows, where the high school kid finds the brand-new experimental mecha that can pwn everyone else’s butts, and somehow the inventors never build another one.” Only that turned out to be a deft head-fake, as it blew me out of my Reeboks going by for the slam-dunk. And what a dunk it was–I thought Daryl Dawkins was back to smashing backboards again. “What the HELL was that? More! More!” I’ll be looking for ep. 2, oh yes. If it can keep up the pace and tone, it’s going to be a serious contender for the best-of-season. (I’d say more, but it would be spoilers.) Very glad to have found this one, and I hope it carries through at the same level. Otherwise, the fall 2006 season is looking pretty grim, IMHO. Two thumbs way up so far, but the fingers are crossed.
• Still haven’t watched Pumpkin Scissors.

Anyway, chow baby. The good DrHeinous is coming to town and ve haf planz, yes ve do. (Not involving anime though.)

Steven remarked yesterday that I’m stupid.  I really think he meant Wonderduck, based on his preceeding paragraph, but it might as well be me, as I’m guilty of the same thing.  A while back, despite fair and adequate warning, I watched Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan.  It was an 8 episode (@15 min each) gruesome comedy series involving an angel equipped with a spiked bat.  The story is that God decided that there was at least one sinner that deserved to die, and die young–still in high school. The point was to keep him from inventing an immortality treatment that would, due to his lolicon preferences, stop women’s aging at the physical appearance of 12-year olds.  Except Dokuro-chan had rebelled against God and decided to keep him alive. By distracting him with games, temper tantrums, and the occasional striptease, she planned to prevent the invention of such a terrible thing. (I mean 16-year-olds, maybe, but twelve?  That’s just excessive.)

Unfortunately for her plan, she kept killing him anyway, because as angels go, she was rather tempermental.  So she’d ressurect him, at least until she lost her temper again. Then it was another bloody death.  The first episode was actually funny, the second one less so, and by the fifth one, it was a clear case of, “ARGH! Don’t kill him, kill ME!!!!!”  Seriously, if there is a silver lining to the blood-red cloud of gore that this series produces, it’s that it gives me a yardstick to measure truly bad anime against.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s so bad it’s good.  That’s where I went wrong.  This show is so bad it’s horrible.

Now I just need to find someone I won’t mind making a lifetime enemy out of, so I can inflict it on them.  Misery loves company…