Desu ex Machina

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)

It took all of 30 seconds for me to start enjoying Seitokai no Ichizon. Studio DEEN, known for their previous works like the Higurashi franchise and Umineko, steps into new frontiers with a slice of life comedy parody anime. And it’s awesome.

Seitokai no Ichizon starts off with a broken fourth wall and immediately hurls torrents of anime references at its viewers. The first few minutes of the show have references, visual and explicit, one after another strung together with fast dialogue. While this kind of pacing is fine for a while, many a comedy die because they rely on it. Not Seitokai no Ichizon, as again and again, as they move on to another scene or discussion seemingly as soon as a joke starts to get old. In fact, the timing of the first episode was near perfect. They managed to get the maximum volume of pointless parody squeezed in without the gig going stale.

DEEN’s typical desaturated watercolor-esque color palate is quite visible, and the character designs clash slightly with the colors. I would imagine this anime would be a tad more pleasing to look at if they used some OxiClean to make the whites whiter and the brights brighter. Still, Sakurano Kurimu (cv. Honda Mariko) is cute and mine. Stay away.

The male and female leads are excellent. The rest of the cast needs a bit of developing, but that’s what the rest of the show is for. seitokai no Ichizon masterfully crafts Sugisaki Ken (cv. Kondo Takashi), an antithesis of generic male leads. Boisterous, assertive, and perverted, at the end of the episode we get to see another side of him. At the end of the first episode, Studio DEEN declares that it intends to cast caution into the wind and have touchy feeling romance into the series. The chemistry between Ken and Kurimu will hopefully be the crux of the show and keep its various structures together. I expect the emotional, romantic side of this show to augment the quality of the plot and humor, not become Jekyll and Hyde to it. Regardless, I have very high hopes for Seitokai no Ichizon. After a great pilot episode, the series has enormous potential. The structure of the the episodes have yet to be determined but with good pacing, disciplined writing, and smart production decisions, Seitokai no Ichizon will turn out very well. Plus, any show that makes fun off Kyoto Animation that much is bound to be good right?