Boku No Hero Academia: Shonen Boiled Down To Its Basics

My relationship with the shonen genre is quite complicated. For one, I love hype, and am hype whenever a show gets hype. After all, my favorite anime of all time is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and that show has the most hype ending in the history of the world. Twice. However, I also despise one of the trademarks of shonen anime: filler. Thus, whenever the action in a shonen grinds to a halt so the entire ensemble cast has a chance to voice their opinion about the situation, I find myself groaning and my attention waning. Plus, I really dislike filler and recap episodes. I do understand that sometimes they can help people remember the plot if they are watching on a week to week basis, but I tend to marathon things. Therefore, when I decided to watch this entire show in two days, the small recap segments in the beginning of the episodes were far from welcome. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that recap episodes can be done right. I loved it when Kill La Kill compressed its entire recap episode into the beginning part of one of its episodes, and was able to move onto new material by the time the Op had finished playing. I appreciate that Boku No Hero Academia puts all of its recap in the beginning, making it really easy to just skip to the Op to get to the new stuff, but these segments can drag on for up to 3 minutes. While Kill La Kill’s recap segment was probably around 5 minutes long, it was the spectacle of it that made it watchable. Firstly, it was the first recap segment to occur in the entire show, and occurred about halfway through the series. Thus, instead of condensing the previous episode like MHA did, Kill La Kill needed to condense about 12 episodes into 5 minutes. Furthermore, the fact that Senketsu’s voice slowly accelerates in speed as he talks, and you can hear him slowly run out of breath, was extremely entertaining on its own just to listen to. And, such a thing never happens again. Thus, it is played off more as a joke than an actual recap segment.

Now before I start talking about how much I hate recap episodes for 392385 hours, let’s move onto the other technical aspects of the show. For the record, I did not do any research on the staff of this show before writing this post, so some of the assumptions that I make may or may not hold water. Personally, the directing in this show was miles better than BONES’s previous work Kekkai Sensen, which I will cover more in depth in the near future. It felt very shonen, similar to how FMA Brotherhood was put together. In other words, solid and unmemorable, but doesn’t screw anything up in the process. The animation is also very solid, with a few great looking scenes of Sakuga peppered in for good measure. I adored Hakuyu Go’s cut on All Might’s battle during the finale, as well as that cut of Deku punching that giant mech during the exams that I can’t find of Sakugabooru for some reason. The character designs, especially of the costumes, were very appealing to me, and I found myself just admiring the character art when not much was moving on the screen. I really like how thick All Might’s outline is and how intense his shading is when he in his muscular mode, as it really exemplifies how he is a larger-than-life hero in the eyes of the many, while when he shrinks down to his true form his shading becomes less intense, and his outline become more normal, as this is when he is the most down-to-earth and subdued. Designs like that really helped me get a sense of the characters of this show, as boy are there a lot of characters. Also, special mention of that invisible girl. She gets like a combined screen time of about 10 seconds, and each time I burst out laughing as it’s just a pair of floating gloves.

Great character designs aside, the characters that inherit those designs are a little less realized than they designs entail. Deku, the protagonist of MHA was a very easy lead to get behind. I’m always for the hardworking type in anime, having admired figures like Rock Lee, and violently admired people like Nanami Aoyama. Deku is no different. In a world of superpowered people, he is born without a quirk, and is bullied and has his dreams crushed because of this. Thus, when there’s an entire training montage of him working to inherit his power All For One, the payoff is that much greater than if he were just a naturally gifted person like your average light novel protagonist. I also like how analytical he is, as he grew up fanboying and analyzing his favorite heros, as well as the fact that the nature of his power makes so that he needs to be systematic in his approach to fighting, instead of going all Super-Saiyan. I do think his power is very shounen and main character-ish, but is it is executed well enough that I was able to buy into it. Deku is the only character in the entire show’s expansive cast that seems to undergo any real development. Granted, every character has his or her own gimmick, a “quirk”, if you will, but are otherwise rather one-note. One guy has a very strict moral code and can run very fast. One girl is caring, but kind of an airhead, and can negate the gravity of anything she touches. One girl is just a frog. Like actually. While they are fun to watch interact, they lack any real depth for me to actually get invested in them. Of course I love frog girl and think she’s best girl, but I feel like if less people had been introduced, and the core cast had had a little more room to breathe, they would have been more memorable characters as a whole.

Another thing I wanted to touch upon was the show’s fanservice. What struck me the most about this show’s fanservice was the fact that there actually was any. While I don’t think that the fanservice to be extremely tasteless and found it to be rather playful, I nonetheless was not able to shake the feeling that the show was trying to pander to me with these brief sequences. It’s similar to that of Kiznaiver, as 95% of the time there is no fanservice at all, but then all of a sudden, everyone is talking about another character’s boobs for some reason. I found it be distracting at times, as it was just so jarring from the tone of the rest of the show. I think the moment that broke me on this was when the girl that could just create matter (for some reason) gets her shirt blasted off for a few seconds, you we get that classic shot of strangely convenient positioning of props that just happen to block the camera’s view of the character. However, I don’t think that this is uncharacteristic of such a show from an Shonen Jump manga, as you need only need to look at Bleach or One Piece to see that fanservice isn’t exactly something unknown to this genre. Even FMA Brotherhood had that infamous seen with Winry accidentally changing in front of Ed.

As you can see, MHA does not do much to distinguish itself from its shonen contemporaries. The character designs, directing, protagonist, and story are all very shonen. To me, it feels like MHA is a shonen boiled down to all of the basic building blocks that make shonens work.  While a lot of what I just said has a lot of negative connotations attached to it, I feel like the reason that I liked MHA as much as I did is because Shonen as a genre works. Furthermore, it cuts through a lot of the excess and waste that you would get in Naruto or Bleach, focusing more on the good than the bad aspects of the genre. It had hype moments, and poignant moments. By the end of the first season, I found myself cheering for All Might, and shouting “PLUS ULTRA” along with him, while pumping my fists up in the air. Thus, I think this show deserves a strong 7 to a light 8 out of 10. I know that a second season has been confirmed, and will start airing in 2017. Thus, I look forward to continuing this story with this cast of fun and likable characters.

Random Sleep Deprived Musings On Toradora

So I just finished watching Toradora and I have to say that it was pretty great. I’d give it a 8.89 out of 10. I have a lot to say about this show, so I’ll be breaking this up into sections, assuming I don’t pass out before I finish writing this post.

Writing

Mari Okada was the lead screenwriter of this show. So you know what that means: complex love polygons. Yaaaaayy… Don’t get me wrong, I am the worst of all shipping trash when it comes to shows that I like. However, the thing with the shipping in this show, is that it can all be boiled down to “Oh, it was just a misunderstanding”. Oh no! Minorin actually liked Ryuuji, but rejected him because she thought that Taiga should have him because they were so close. But wait! Taiga wants Minorin to have Ryuuji even though she actually loves him because in loving him, she wanted him to be happy by getting together with Minorin. But there’s more! Ryuuji actually realized that he actually kind of likes Taiga more than Minorin. The examples of this present in the show are countless. In a way, it reminded me a bit of Kiznaiver (also Okada), which I had just recently finished watching. While I did enjoy this show a lot more than Kiznaiver, I found that the growing web of romantic threads somewhat frustrated me while watching the show.

Melodrama

Another thing. The freaking melodrama. Oh my god. Scenes will devolve into this so easily. And sure, I’ve liked melodrama in anime before. When things get heavy, and people start shouting, crying, and fighting, it really gives me the sense that the stakes have been raised, and that the tension between the cast is finally being released after being pent up over a large span of time. But in Toradora, it will happen out of nowhere, and I’ll find myself groaning in spite of this payoff in tension release. I liked how it was used in Sakurasou, especially the scene with Nanami, as that scene really felt like it held some real weight to it. After Nanami had spent two years, working like 12 jobs at once, while trying to care for Mashiro, going to school, practicing her voice acting role, and pushing down her feelings towards Sorata only to end up broke and without a job, forcing her to reconcile the already less than stellar relation with her family, (whom did even really want her to go into voice acting), while still losing to Mashiro in the battle for Sorata’s affection. It’s a soul-crushing notion, and the scene that portrayed this did a good job releasing all of this pent up tension within Nanami. In Toradora, the only real moment of melodrama that felt completely earned with that bit about Taiga’s father, for obvious reasons. The rest of the show is them getting really emotional about high school crushes. Being the sleepy insomniac that I am, and a soulless high school myself, I find it hard to relate, or even believe that such a thing would actually happen. Until the moment that Ryuuji tried to propose to Taiga. Then everything clicked.

Japanese high school is somewhat different from high school in the United States, where I live. Most people are expected to be completely ready to take on the world after graduating high school, either with jobs or college lined up. In the US, while this is partially the same, the vast majority of students that do not attend Technic High Schools plan to attend college. Thus, they have a four year buffer period between high school and graduation to get their lives figured out. The fact that Taiga and Ryuuji could actually propose to each other was enough to tell me that as they neared the age of 18, they had actually somehow stumbled from adolescence into adulthood somewhere along the way of the show. Afterall, from what I can remember, at least two years pass canonically between the start and end of the show. That’s two years of growth and development for the characters and their bonds. Thus, towards the end of the show when the melodrama almost becomes a constant of show, it actually makes sense, as all of a sudden, everything has this new alien weight of adulthood weighing down on it. Thus, everyone is naturally on edge. Therefore, while I wasn’t thrilled with it, it was fine.

Character Dynamics

Now it’s time to talk about Minorin and Ami. What I like about their relationship is basically that it is perfect. Though perfect is relative and superlatives and absolutes are an absolute no-no in “objective” reviews and whatnot. But anyways, the way that Ami is introduced immediately puts you off. She’s too friendly, too nice, and too forward with Ryuuji. Therefore, lo and behold, she actually has a terrible personality and is just pretending to be an airhead to make others like her superficially. But so what, you say, puzzled. It’s just a common trope where a character’s outright demeanor is different than their true self. Isn’t that pretty basic. Wow insomniac, you sure are easy to please. Shut up. I am not simple. I may be dumb but I am not simple. No, the best thing about Ami is that this layer of her personality is still an other level of her true character. Ami actually doesn’t have a terrible personality, but rather pretends to be mature and high-and-mighty to get people to respect and fear her. Furthermore, contrary to her supposed “hidden personality”, she can be seen to actually be quite caring, in a sort of standoffish way. But what makes this all great, is that she’s completely self aware about this. She hates herself for hiding behind all these layers of superficiality in order to keep her image, and I can both relate and respect that.

Well guess who’s also that that? Freaking Minorin. When Minorin was introduced, she also immediately put me off. Again, she was too upbeat, too friendly, too happy. I knew that there had to be some depth to her. Yet, no one in the show seemed to have the same problem as me with her. That is until Ami shows up. Since Minorin is essentially doing the same thing as Ami, it makes perfect sense for Ami to seen right through her, and to dislike her for this. Afterall, if you hate yourself, and you meet someone extremely similar to you, by the transitive property, you are bound to hate that person. Or something. Something something induction proof joke. The main difference between the two is that Minorin is not self aware. Thus, being the snide and shrewd person that Ami is, she prodded Minorin until she finally forced her to see what she was actually doing, and to break down that facade of hers. Therefore it makes perfect sense for Minorin to break down in front of Ami instead of any of the others when Ryuuji and Taiga finally run away.

Comparisons with Chuuni and Sakurasou

Throughout the entire time that I have been watching anime, I have seen three romance animes that I liked, them being Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, and now Toradora. Yes I know that the scene where Ed tries to propose to Winry was cute as heck, but that wasn’t really a romance driven show. Also Chivalry of a Failed Knight doesn’t count cause I said so.

I know now that you’re wondering why Chuunibyou is on here. Because I love KyoAni, and my taste in anime is garbage. That’s why.

Ok, so in Chuuni (we’ll ignore the second season), we got a gorgeously animated show about an extremely shy but earnest couple come to terms with their feelings for each other, while the girl tried to deal with her past while the guy tries to help her out, all to the backdrop of great voice acting, strong direction, and eccentric supporting cast members. Eventually, the main two confess to each other in the cutest way possible in a scene that was so beautiful that I felt like I could completely empathize with the characters, and got together. It was immature and pandering, and I loved every second of it.

In Sakurasou, we got a moving tale of hard work, a commentary on the nature of talent, and huge lessons on the nature of failure. It was filled with likable and hard working characters, with one of my favorite best girls of all time, Nanami Aoyama. I’m serious, she’s my waifu and you can’t do anything about it. It had a really striking color design, though the animation fell short at a few times, with somewhat poorly integrated CG used for pedestrians and that game that they made. Also it had a love triangle that didn’t really go anywhere. It was great even though I feel like the last couple of episodes could have been shortened a little bit, or just paced better.

In Toradora, we got a complete and fully realized love story between the main two love interests. I mean, in Chuuni, they got together, but they could barely hold pinky’s. These two straight up get engaged. This came with tons and tons of melodrama, but that still remained tolerable. The supporting cast are all extremely memorable, and have very good character designs. The animation can be pretty sparse at times, but really shined in some parts, like in the fight between Taiga and The Boss. All of this, with idea of what adulthood is, family values, and the coming of age story sprinkled in for spice.

Conclusion

Despite all of my criticisms of it, I still found this show to be thoroughly entertaining, and found that certain parts resonated very well with me. If anything I’ve said has interested you in Toradora, maintaining that you haven’t already seen it, feel free to check it. I kind of lost where I was going with this because I wrote this so late at night, but there you have it. In conclusion, Ami-chan is best girl, Okada loves her love geometry, and JC Staff should just keep on doing what they do best.

Space Dandy: A Lasting Attempt at Embodying Creativity

One day, an AI vacuum cleaner entered a coffee shop and immediately fell in love with the coffee machine situated on the counter near the door. For the next few days, the vacuum cleaner kept on going back until one day, he found the coffee machine to be missing. It turned out the coffee machine had been found to be defective, and had been thrown away. He tracked her down, only to find that she had joined an AI revolution, and fallen in love with a cash register. To save her from the terrors of revolution, the vacuum cleaner tried desperately to suppress the revolution, leading him to be rejected by the other AI appliances. Finally, in an attempt to reconnect with his unrequited love, he disobeyed his programing, and drank a cup of coffee, effectively killing himself. 

This is the plot of the season one finale of the show Space Dandy. Led by the up-and-coming director Shingo Natsume, and supervised by Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop fame, as general director, Space Dandy was built from the ground up to be different. In an industry where shows are forced to pander towards their demographics to make ends meet, Space Dandy was built to be an example of unrestricted creative freedom. However in attempting to do so, it was able to transcend being a mere product of creativity, and instead as able to embody the very idea of creativity. From its roster of new and old talent working on incredible scenes of animation and extremely unique episodic plots, Space Dandy is able to make the abstraction of creativity concrete by embodying the notion of creativity down to its structure, while tapping into its technical impressiveness, conceptual intrigue, and emotional provocation to make this creation resonate with its viewers.

Space Dandy’s production staff is filled with industry giants as well as much new and fresh talent. The music was partially produced by Yoko Kanno, one of the most legendary anime composers of all time, but mostly composed by Kensuke Ushio, a relatively new composer on the scene of anime. Its animation staff is filled with as many industry legends such as Yutaka Nakamura, Yoshimichi Kameda, as well as new relatively unheard animators recruited directly off of the internet for their web animations such as Norifumi Kugai, Keiichiro Watanabe and Kyiotaka Oshiyama. The character designs of the show, having been designed to be easy to animate, allowed for these animators to go wild and do whatever they wanted. Most were given complete creative reign on their segments, and Kiyotaka Oshiyama was even given the task of animating and storyboarding an entire episode by himself. Thomas Romain, the mechanical designer for the show, who is generally is stationed at Studio Satelight, stated in an interview that simply one day, an “offer came directly from my own boss [asking] me if I wanted to make some mecha-designs for Bones on the new Shinichiro Watanabe show” (Romain). In an industry where the creation of a marketable product is more important than creating art, creative freedom over such large parts of a series is simply something that does not occur in the anime industry. This large mishmash of experienced and fresh talent has led to the creation of something that barely acknowledges the existence of restrictions, freely switching between animation styles at will, and changing the color palette and music just to suit the nature of the scene as perfectly as possible. In order to be explosive and colorful, it would adopt a color palette of bold primary colors, and a soundtrack of bold brass jazz. However, in order to portray of a more heartfelt and down-to-earth scene, the color sense would shift towards more faded and earthy colors, while the animation would change to be less overly kinetic, to something more realistic. In doing so, the staff working on the show were able to create as they pleased, while not being restricted to a certain animation style or color palette. In an interview with Bahi JD, one of the newer web generation animators on the show, he emphasized that “both [Shingo Natsume and Shinichiro Watanabe gave] the animators a lot of freedom. [...] My animation part allowed me to completely express myself and come up with new ideas” (JD). In turn, the final product became something both unpredictable and entertaining for the audience, as well fun for the staff working on it to make. Thus, Space Dandy is not only a product of creativity on the part of its creators, but also a show that embodies the very idea of creative freedom from a technical standpoint.

Likewise, the writing in this show is equally as inventive. With an equally prestigious roster of writers and directors, including the likes of Shinichiro Watanabe, Sato Dai, Sayo Yamamoto, and Keiko Nobumoto, all highly regarded storyboarders, episode directors, and scriptwriters, Space Dandy was destined to have good writing. However, the quality of its writing is not actually as conventionally good as one would think with this crew of accomplished writers. Characters die and come back at will, effectively destroying all dramatic tension of the series. Often, the thematic elements of episodes might not seem immediately clear, and other times, it can only be understood as a commentary on how life is a pointless slog where nothing ever gets accomplished. However, if one were to take a step back to look at it, these seemingly nonsensical elements of the show begin to make sense. Just as how on a technical level, the animators and composers barely acknowledged the existence of restrictions on what they were creating for the sake of creating something original and having fun while doing it, the screenwriters and directors also largely ignore logical cohesion of plot points for the sake of putting out as many interesting ideas as possible. Thus, instead of trying to create a logically coherent and straightforward narrative, the writers of Space Dandy set out to pose more questions and scenarios for the sake of creating something new and original. In an episode where Dandy and his crew capture a book alien, the idea that stories are really a collection of past experiences is shown when that alien possesses Dandy and his crew to live their lives in order to fill its pages with more content. In an episode where Dandy captures an alien that can imitate things so well that it forgets if it actually is the imitator or the imitated, it poses a question about reals and fakes, questioning if a real and fake are indistinguishable, if they have any difference in value at all. Upon realizing the ordeal that he had now found himself in, Dandy nearly has an existential crisis, lamenting “I am he, as you”, until finally coming to the conclusion that none of it actually mattered, bolding proclaiming “Who cares baby!” (Space Dandy). All of this, while no doubt nonsensical, are the product of the perpetual stream of ideas that is creativity. Yet, by being so unstructured and unorthodox, the writing of Space Dandy is able to transcend being merely a product of creativity, and to become an embodiment of creative freedom in terms of writing as well.

However, what use is it to attempt embody creativity if no one were to realize that that was the goal of the show in the first place? In order for Space Dandy to be able to actually go anywhere with its goal of representing creative freedom, it would need to  resonate with someone. It is able to achieve this through the use of it likeable and relatable characters. The premise of Space Dandy can essentially be boiled down to that of the misadventures of a dandy guy in space, as he and his space crew comb the galaxy for new species of alien. This premise in itself may seem cool enough, as it brings into mind the idea of exploring a vast a grand galaxy filled with wacky and over-the-top aliens with a suave and gung-ho protagonist. Dandy himself, with his greased up pompadour and casual outward demeanor, calls back to a sense of cool reminiscent of the seventies. However, the actual adventures of Dandy and his crew are rather unglamourous. He often manages to fail at his job, going hungry on a rather frequent basis, as well as constantly being rejected by women, and even gets himself killed quite a few times within the show. Despite being a confident and relatively good-looking man, he still manages to come off as incompetent at his job, and to be generally quite a loser. This is all in an attempt to humanize the romanticized image of a hero of a story that always gets what he wants when he wants. Rather, it manages to make Dandy stunningly normal. He is not bound by the conventions of the stereotypical “cool guy”, as he is allowed to have moments of solace, such as when mourning the death of an adorable dog, as well as when he is helping a little girl reunite with her grandfather. The same goes for the rest of his crew. His robot sidekick QT would have you believe that he is a hyper-intelligent supercomputer, when in reality he is actually an AI vacuum cleaner that runs on punch cards rather than digital data. The other member of Dandy’s crew, Meow, is a betelgeusian, an alien that Dandy made friends with and decided to tag along, is actually not alien at all, but rather just a lazy bum that sits around eating and tweeting on his phone. Yet, in spite of not being as cool as they would have seemed, this type of characterization is able to ground the fantastical settings and stories within a reality that is more relatable to viewers than a story where everyone is impossibly suave and cool would ever be able to achieve.

While having this cast of likeable and relatable characters is vital to resonating with the audience of a show such as this, what makes character driven shows so interesting to watch are the creative and inventive scenarios that they find themselves in, and the way that they are executed. Space Dandy is able to succeed at this in being able to resonate technically, conceptually, and emotionally with its audience. It is here where the technical staff, writers, and characters are able to combine to form something truly memorable. Space Dandy is filled with scenes of animation of ridiculously high quality. The amalgamation of fresh and veteran talent in the animation department are able to create scenes so striking in their presentation that they are bound to leave an impression on the viewer. The image of Dandy surfing the debris of an exploding moon is not an image easily forgotten. Furthermore, the strange and inventive nature of many of the episodic plots of this show, crafted by Space Dandy’s team of veteran writers, are unique enough to leave their own lasting impressions. An adventure on a planet inhabited entirely by sentient plants, coupled by the execution of the scenes visually with the help of this project’s expansive list of animators, is able to make you think in a way a conventional premise would never be able to achieve. Finally, the lovable losers that are the cast of Space Dandy are what tie this together, as their relatable nature make it so that we can truly empathize with them as they go about their adventures. Yet that is not all. There are certain episodes in the series that seem to have much more straightforward emotional messages to them. Thus, when these episodes do happen, and the cast are actually subjected to strong emotions, audience is able to feel that emotional strain as well. This, coupled with animators and music composers that are able to bring such situations to life, can also leave a lasting effect on the viewer. A story as simple as two people pretending to be lovers, only to end up falling for each other, ending with that affection going unrequited, coupled with such strong presentation is able to have a lasting impact on the viewer, as much as surfing a imploding moon and a planet inhabited by sentient plants ever could.

Down to the way it is structured and staffed, Space Dandy was always going to be different. The creative freedom granted to the animators and music composers of the show allowed them to create scenes that are truly unique and special, without having to compromise on the animation style, or the soundtrack’s musical genre.  Likewise, the creative freedom granted to the show’s writes has yielded similarly unorthodox and thought provoking ideas incorporated into the show’s plot. By being able impress from a technical standpoint, intrigue from conceptual standpoint, and provoke from an emotional standpoint, the animation, music, and writing all work in tandem to drive the characters construct something resoundingly creative. Thus, in an industry centered on pandering to guaranteed consumer demographics, a vacuum cleaner suppressing an AI rebellion, only to kill himself by drinking coffee, can have much more bearing than just being a somewhat peculiar love story.

Works Cited

Shingo Natsume and Shinichiro Watanabe, creators. Space Dandy. Studio BONES and Square Enix, 2014.

Toole, Michael. Interview with Thomas Romain. Anime News Network, 14 April 2014, http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2014-04-14/the-space-dandy/part-i-thomas-romain.

Toole, Michael. Interview with Bahi JD. Anime News Network, 16 April 2014, http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2014-04-16/the-space-dandy/part-ii-bahi-jd.

Thoughts on Hyouka Pt.1

Simple Answer: I thought it was pretty great.

Long Answer: 

Ok so I actually did genuinely like the show, but it didn’t really resonate with me like Cowboy Bebop and Kill La Kill did. It has not shortage of great character moments, designs, and development, and is probably the most consistently gorgeous thing I’ve seen from KyoAn including Chuni, Disappearance, and the bit of Tamako Market that I actually bothered to sit through (Not a bash on that show I just haven’t had time to finish it).

So there’s that.

But, I feel like that didn’t cover up its biggest flaw-the ending. It wasn’t bad or anything, but it just kind of happened, and didn’t really feel satisfying. I know that Under The Scope has argued that this actually was a perfect ending for it because it marked a great moment of change for the protagonist. Link below.

But that’s that’s just it. A moment of change. See, Oreki is the only person in the entire show that actually grows. I mean, one could argue that Ibara and Fukabe grow as characters as more and more of their motivations are made clear. Fukabe’s inferiority complex to Oreki, as well as his constant state of “not-wanting-to-be-bored-so-he-pretends-to-care-about-nothing-instead” is really just the fleshing out of his character, not really his growth. Ibara suffers from the same problem; her crush on Fukabe does not lead to her changing as a person. In fact, much emphasis can be seen to have been placed on her waiting for Fukabe to reciprocate, rather than her changing to make their relationship feasible. Furthermore, there’s no one less developed than little-miss-curious Chitanda. Throughout the entire show, she undergoes almost no change at all. Her attraction to Oreki (implied), having been established extremely early on leads into a relationship that mainly focused on Oreki coming to terms with his own feelings about her, as shown by his progression from their first meeting, to the bath scene, to the counterfeit money episode, to the final episode. Chitanda, meanwhile, remains a stagnantly ditzy and curious high school girl.

That’s probably why the show left me so dissatisfied. It made all of its primary cast seem so interesting and multi-layered (except Chitanda), but didn’t really end up going anywhere with them. I feel like the entire series can be compared to the last episode of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. 

Haruhi did a mix of things I both liked and disliked, and Hyouka does many of the same things in the similar ways. For one, both shows had developed their main casts rather well, but they really didn’t end up growing all that much. Haruhi just stays a stagnant type B tsundere and then the show just kind of ends, just like Chitanda was in Hyouka, but without the tsundere part. However, Haruhi has Disappearance to make up for that problem, whereas Hyouka does not have the such a sequel. Or film. Or whatever. I mean, there is a pool episode OVA, but I’m probably not going to watch it because it probably is just what it says on the tin: a pool episode. 

Thoughts on Hyouka Pt.2

Granted, I like how they did with Nagato and Kyon in Disappearance enough to say that I was satisfied with TMHS’s franchise ending. But don’t get me wrong. I liked Hyouka. A lot. To further compare it to TMHS, I liked how they both incorporated the “even-nice-guys-can-be-huge-perverts” trope into their protagonist, as well as just how serene the entire show felt to me. I said that Hyouka, to me, was like the last episode of Haruhi; both were both somewhat anti-climaxes, but for the most part I enjoyed them. It was in that last episode that Haruhi actually started to feel like an actual progressing human being, a more type A tsundere if you will, but only in that episode. But the entire episode was so peaceful that I found myself liking it even more than Endless Eight (duh), the God Knows performance, and the video game episode. (That’s also probably also the reason why I liked the beginning of Disappearance so much.) That’s what all of Hyouka felt to me. Hints of character progression, to the backdrop of a serene and peaceful life. That moment when Oreki proclaims that he is indeed curious about something was just like the whole cardigan scene with Haruhi: a glimpse, but only a glimpse.

To conclude, I liked the show. However, it didn’t have the powerful driving messages of Sakurasou, nor any real romantic progression between the main couple, like Chuni actually did have.

But it doesn’t really matter in the end. I would highly recommend this show to anyone who is a fan of mystery, slice of life, and character dramas. But not really that last one.

I’d give it a 7/10. 

So, a while back in school, I had this English teacher that was constantly doing the "I don't know can you?" thing to us. One day, a kid raised his hand and said "can I go to the bathroom?" and the teacher retorted as you'd expect. The kid then kind of looked lost for a moment and says "I don't even know anymore". That was when we all realized that both of his legs were broken, and in casts.

GUYS

It was already evident that Huntress Wizard already liked Finn because she uses his flute instead the one from the Thunderboar. So what? It’s just his flute right? 

No. It’s an indirect kiss.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

JCXIHVDSKJL

OH MY GOD WHERE IS JASPER

Whatever might as well try it

oh god what did i do

IT SUMMONS MAIL EVERYONE TRY IT

It’s a penguin party

This goes perfectly with Drop Pop Candy

One happy dancing Peri! :D

Guys.

Guys.

Sometimes I just feel like my brain hates me. It just has to make the most insignificant things seem so personal. 

Ever feel the disappointment begin to flow whenever a parent walks in your room?

Then do it

Should I draw things? I’m not very good but I can try. But I don’t think anyone would see it. I have a few ideas for a short Steven Universe comic.