Week 3, a new girl, and a little less glomping going on. But then, the show was never really about the glomping, was it? For those that have somehow missed the point, this is what R+V is all about: (NSFW!)
Pantsu!
Pantsu, and…
…More pantsu!
I haven’t seen a pantsu assault this relentless since Najica Blitz Tactics. I think I’ve said that before, but it’s worth saying again. They’re not letting up; this show is all about panties. Oh, and one other thing this show is about (also NSFW):
Breasts!
More breasts!
Huge breasts!
It’s a very hands-on subject at Youkai Acadamy, as you can see.
This week’s new girl is the physical opposite of Kurumu: Sendo Yukari, the loli genius and cute magical girl (right down to the heart-shaped wand). She’s developed a crush on Moka from afar, and Tskune is in the way. It doesn’t help that she’s, er, over-enthusiastic, pushy, and pretty much alienated from everyone else at the school. That’s because she’s a witch, (therefore a half-breed), smug, self-centered, and has a bit of a vindictive streak if someone crosses her. Which, given her general un-likeability, is pretty much everyone at the school.
It’s NSFW below the fold to, so don’t take risks in our all-too-PC world.
Frankly, I don’t like her either. Shes a brat in the worst sense of the word, and it doesn’t help that the only reason she’s in this show is that she was too old to star in Kodomo no Jikan .* She’s probably not as bad as the girls in that show (as if I were going to watch it to find out!), but she’s still trying to be precocious in more than just book knowledge. Yukari has a severe fixation with Moka’s breasts. “Mine are as flat as a washboard!” Well, yeah, you’re 11, you twit. Although the school-teacher wife of my friend Dread Pirate Pintiteaux remarked that they were having to give the “bra talk” in third grade now. I doubt they have to do that in Japan.
See, it’s all that healthy eating and exercise; that’s what’s wrong with Japanese teens, and why they don’t really look like most girls in animé, let alone Kurumu. Those things are made of fat, girls. Start chowing down on french fries and restricting your exercise to strolls around the mall; you’ll make C-cup in no time; at least B-cup by 13.
Wait a minute, seriously, am I blogging about the tit size of pre-teens? Thanks for nothing Yukari; I need a brain-scrub now. I ain’t that pervvy. Time for a change of subject. (That’s another reason I don’t like her. Eleven is too damn young to doing panty-flashes, and enjoying a show shouldn’t make me question my psychological makeup.)
This isn’t helping. Anyway, what are you lookin’ at bub? She’s too young, get it?
I won’t bore you with a detailed rundown of the episode; just the high points, which is the comedy between the various girls and Tskune. Suffice to say that Yukari starts out as antagonistic towards her love rival, and magics all the buckets, mops and brooms in a janitor’s locker to assault Tskune, which results in his ending up in the infirmary. Somehow, the nurse is absent, which means Kurumu has to substitute–not that she’s got a problem with that. She doesn’t even seem to have much of a problem when Yukari voodoo-doll’s Tskune into fondling her. (Voodoo-doll is a verb? Well, it is now! I love the English language…)
Clearly some level of fondling was on her agenda, even if getting her panties yanked off wasn’t.
Of course there’s a breeze in the completely enclosed room at that point. It’s required.
She does have a problem with a lack of screen time, and breaks the fourth wall to complain about it. Until now, only Chuu, (the bat) has done that. I don’t know if it’s going to be commonplace, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all the girls except Moka (and Tskune) end up talking to the audience. One of the show’s conceits is that the characters sort of “know” they’re in a story, as when Yukari yells at Tskune, “You’re like one of those half-assed males in a manga!” Later, the lizard men complain of Moka and Yukari, “How did they change the mood so quickly!” when their attempt to eat Yukari is interrupted by the two girls altering their menacing scene into a sappy-friendship one through a soliloquy.
This week, the glompire becomes the glompee, at least for one of only two four glomps in the episode.
The second one occurs at the end. After Tskune and Moka save her from being eaten by the lizardmen, Yukari decides she’s in love with Tskune too.
This leads directly to the glomping, and you know where that goes…
Chuuuuuuuuuuuu~!
As much blood as Tskune was loosing from nosebleeds this episode, she should have just been able to mouth-glomp his nose and drink her fill. Then again, maybe that makes her go as “ewwww!” as it makes me. ‘Snot a good idea. (Don’t hurt me, please!) Anyway, Tskuke didn’t quite rival Karin during the “pantyless breeze” scene, but it was a respectable puddle. Now on to some more mundane and less sexually-charged subjects.
I really get a kick out of Kurumu’s expression here, just after Moka’s transformation. “I am so not responsible for what happens to you now.”
Tskune apparently placed low on the mid-terms, but I can’t read Japanese and don’t know how low. For comparison, the lizard guys are talking about making into the top 200, and Tskune wonders what’s up with their standards. Moka placed 4th, and Yukari was first. However, this brings me to question how much time has passed. Mid-terms? How long is that in Japan Weeks or months? Has the bus come back yet, or not? There is apparently a break of a week or two before we get the snow fairy character; next week’s episode is supposed to be “a farewell,” which suggests that Tskune may try to leave the academy. I hope we don’t start developing huge logic holes, ala’ Goshuusho-sama. Bad enough that we have this crappy animation.
From the stills, you can only tell that it’s cheap, but the actual animé is sometimes a bit painful to watch. There are too many cases of just lip-flaps being animated, panning over stills, and animating only part of the screen. It can get bad, as when we see one guy laugh…. instead of animating his jaw, his whole face moves (up and down, a bit) — but his teeth don’t. The entire time that the post-change lizard men are talking, their jaws never move. Moka’s transformation sequence is also stock footage, saving them the trouble of drawing whatever background or other characters might be around. From the names in the credits, I can tell that this has been outsourced to Korea, but I have no idea what art house. Some of the money saved is being put to making the girls look good, but it’s hardly Kyoto-esque; this is a low-budget show all the way.
Still, it probably won’t keep me from jonesin’ for my glompire fix next week. The comedy has been pretty good, and I think I would watch this show without all the fanservice. The animation may be poor, but the writing isn’t half-bad thus far. It’s in a bit of a rut, in that each week has been “girl gets introduced, Tskune ends up in danger and releases alt-Moka; alt-Moka kicks ass” but that’s the fault of the manga-ka, not the animé studio. As oddball harems go, it’s not as great as Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Nor is it as painful as Goshuusho-sama Ninomiya-kun by far. Tskune isn’t up to Kyon’s level as a leading man confronted by women he can’t control, but then, who is? He’s not a Shungo, in that he definitely likes girls; nor is he half-assed as Yukari says. Maybe quarter-assed. He is a bit of a neutral/nebbish, and I’d like to see him assert himself a bit more, before he’s completely overshadowed. Thus far, Tskune’s in danger of becoming a macguffin; just a plot device for the girls to fight about.
At least it’s the women and their their interactions with him and each other that drives the humor. One of the most over-used tricks in harem shows is the “accidental ecchi” where the guy ends up doing something dirty to the girl and then gets the crap beaten out of him for it. There’s none of that here; usually the girls are the ones starting it, although Yukari’s antics in this episode raised the bar quite a bit. Or lowered it, depending on your point of view. Three episodes in, and I can’t tell if the show’s going to be worth watching for a full season, but it’s been good so far. The source material hints at some possible challenges ahead — I have no idea if there’s a long-term plot hiding behind all the pantsu shots, as yet. We’ll see.
*Yes, I know she was in the manga. Work with me here, ok?
Tsukune placed 128th on the test. 一 = ichi = 1, 二 = ni = 2, å…« = hachi = 8. Your screencap includes a complete set of digits, so you now have enough information to learn to decipher prices on a Japanese menu. This is a handy skill when deciding what restaurants to stay out of in Japan (“they charge what for the breakfast buffet?!?”).
On a breast note, Japanese teens are definitely getting bigger. The school measurement days that are a cliché in fan-service anime really happen, and as a result they know that the current generation of girls is taller, bustier, and smaller in the waist than their mothers. Boys are taller, too, but apparently aren’t getting much broader (good thing, given the size of the seats on buses and trains). On a crowded train, you can definitely see the influence of the Western diet; they’re getting bigger but not fatter, thanks to all the walking associated with public transportation (I lost 7 pounds in 9 days myself…).
And, yes, young girls in Japan are becoming more developed. Or at least the “junior idol” industry is good at finding and promoting the ones who are. A few years ago, an 11-year-old named Saaya Irie became very popular for her D-cup bust. [that’s in Japanese cup sizes, which are a bit inflated compared to the US standard, but she still had a mighty big pair for a skinny little girl]
As for the animation quality, a lot of series get cleaned up for DVD release, so things should get better by the time we (well, some of “we”) get to see the show. I’m sure they can fund the work by producing lovingly-detailed action figures of the girls. One for each Moka, regular and transformed Kurumu, etc.
Oh, and if the school nurse shows up, tell her I said “never mind”.
-j
One more girl, and then that cycle ends. (Maybe.) Wasn’t the fourth a snow fairy?
J: I am in full agreement. Kurumi can be my nurse anytime. (My original phrasing of that sentence was somewhat… ambiguous as to the exact meaning.)
Steven: Yes, but as I say, there’s going to be a break before she’s introduced. That’s per folks who have read the manga and also based on the episode title “A Farewell and a Vampire”
Ok, I was curious, so I googled Saaya Irie. That’s just….wrong. I think she was 12 when the video I saw was made.
The fourth was Mizore Shirayuki, a snow fairy (yuki onna). in the manga, she appears in ch. 18, so she might show up later after the newspaper club episode. The manga-ka did get out of the rut a little bit with her first appearance (it ties in with the plot developments involving Tsukune).
Apart from Britney’s mom, I have trouble imagining the sort of parent who’d sign a contract to put a girl that young into that situation. Sadly, I’ve met a few photographers like the ones who cheerfully set her up in costumes and poses that she clearly didn’t understand the implications of.
Back to R+V, I fully support Kurumu’s decision to provide first aid to Tsukune, and think she has a real future in… (okay, it really is hard to avoid that innuendo). He definitely doesn’t want first aid from the nurse in volume 7, although the pony-tailed mummy doctor looked cute.
-j