SubscribeTue 27 Oct 2009
Dear Seitokai no Ichizon, You’re Overdoing It.
Posted by kevo' under Anime, Episodes
[4] Comments
Slice of Life Sign - Border Between Funny and Trying Too Hard
Our fourth episode of Seitokai no Ichizon was finally released earlier today. I had a midterm in a few hours, so what better way to get in the mood than some anime? Sankaku Complex’s article spoiled it for me that there would be epic Strike Witches parody, so you can imagine how upset I was when Eclipse released a day after they usually do.
In my first post about this show, I said that I was impressed that there was decent pacing and room for this show to grow. As of episode 4, the latter has not really been taken advantage of. It seems that this show is just going to constantly just parody anime. If people are going to start complaining on episode 4, might want to sound some kind of alarm in the animation studio. Lucky Star worked because characters were constantly doing stuff like going to restaurants and the manga shop and stuff. Also the inane smalltalk in the show actually bore some surprising depth occasionally. Seitokai no Ichizon, while entertaining regardless, seems to pander to us, like some kind of ADD child who wants its mommy to pay attention to what they are doing. Parody this, parody that, talk fast this, talk fast there, hey look Kurimu is moe. While entertaining, I am starting to feel the occasional pangs of *groan* as I watch this show. The first half of each episode is always fun and enjoyable, but then I crave some kind of change in pace. I know I am not alone in this sentiment. I want this show to be good. You can’t have cake without sugar, but adding too much sugar makes it nasty. You can’t have fun slice of life without parody and jokes, and it works the same way. There needs to be some kind of reasoning behind the madness. The characters are overcooked and the dialogue is underdone. I’ve been making cooking metaphors for a while but note I still find the show rather enjoyable. I just think so much more can be done with Seitokai no Ichizon and DEEN is letting a potentially game-breaking show go to waste.
Oh by the way, I’ve started using my Twitter account again and I’m going to dedicate it to this blog instead of real life (I’ll have another account for that). So yeah links to it are abound if you feel like stalking your favorite anime blogger, me.
Image source: Fukanaga Kazuhiro (pixiv)
Yukarin is the best part of this post.
Agree with above.
Also, nice call on the twitter thing. ‘Tis very convenient for many people (including me) so we don’t have to go through so much effort to stalk you.
Not yet, as far as I’m concerned. Ep4 may have been the best episode so far. I don’t think that what pleases me is the references to specific anime so much as the loopy self-referentiality of it all. We watch the show watching us watch it watching itself…and so on. We are being gathered up and made part of the show. And I do feel the characters evolving somehow. But this is certainly a high-wire act, and the whole thing could fall any time. Just not yet.
just the fact that you can make exact copies of some other show, just swap the characters AND HAVE PEOPLE ACTUALLY ENJOY IT just shows what a bunch of fucking sheep the industry is