Genshiken Second Season [eps. 1-3: The Other Side of the Path. The Promised Place, Cross Over My Legs! & Daydream Believer]
That’s an interesting choice of title, seeing as this is the
third season and all, but maybe it’s
supposed to refer to how this is an almost-complete overhaul of Genshiken’s
membership, a ‘second’ version, so to speak. It’s good to see the old cast have
cameos, but since time does pass and people do
graduate in this show, they couldn’t stay forever, so it’s nice to get a
bunch of new characters, and to see that they’re focusing more on otaku women
this time around. Then again, Madarame’s gotten an awful lot of screentime in
the second and third episodes, and his crush on Kasukabe looks like it’s about
to become a major plotline, but I doubt it’ll overtake the new faces and their
stories. I also like how Hato’s cross-dressing, and resultant things like
Yajima being uncomfortable with it, are treated seriously. The humor comes at
the expense of gender expectations, not Hato himself. I really liked episode 3,
where he has dinner at Madarame’s house as a guy and manages to identify traits
of the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ in a yaoi relationship in both of them. He’s thinking
in terms of a same-sex dynamic, but since one is supposed to be dominant and
the other submissive, you can extrapolate it to traditional gender roles, where
men are expected to be the former and women the latter. That Hato can’t neatly
pin himself or Madarame into either category is a nice commentary on the
arbitrariness of assigned gender traits – there really are no binaries other
than reproductive bits.
Even though I thought there’d be nothing to watch this
season, that wasn’t strictly true since I was always going to watch this. I
liked the first two seasons, so it was a safe bet I’d like this too, and so far
I am. I figured there’d be nothing else,
which is a little unfortunate after last season, where I was practically
spoiled by having three whole shows worth watching. Well, there would’ve been
four, but since I don’t live in the U.S., there’s no legal way for me to watch Railgun S. At least barring Funimation putting the subs up for free on its YouTube
channel. But those numbers probably says more about me and my tastes than the
actual lineup.
Stella Women’s
Academy, High School Division Class C3 [eps. 1-3: Any Volunteers to Enlist!?, I
am Charged With Guarding the Lady & Does the Enemy Fire Pierce Even the
Soul?]
I wasn’t planning to watch this. I’ve enjoyed ‘cute girls +
[something else]’ shows before, but I don’t go out of my way to watch them. But
when this got such a good reception in the ANN preview guide, I decided to
check it out. I do find it weird, though, that it was getting praise for its
lack of sexual fanservice (a point in its favor, in my book), and then I start
watching and there’s a shot of Yura’s butt within the first three minutes. I
guess they missed that? It is the ‘blink-and-you-miss-it’ kind. And to be fair,
they were only going by the first episode, so they didn’t see the second open
with Sono walking out of the bathroom naked.
But enough about that. There’s still very little fanservice, which I definitely appreciate. The rest of
the show is a lot of fun so far. There’s some silly stuff, like the inclusion
of tea and cake (because K-On! I
guess), or the club pulling transparent stunts to try and get Yura to join, but
the actual matches are great to watch.
I’ve said so before, with Mei from Another, but I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly with a ton of
friends when I was a teenager, so I can sympathize with Yura’s desire to come
out of her shell. She also seems to have a great imagination when she’s on her
own but is at a loss around others and has a self-doubting streak, so in a lot
of ways she reminds me of myself. There’s times I found myself wishing she’d do
things differently than she is, but I wouldn’t necessarily have done different
when I was her age, so I can’t project myself as I am now onto her. And I guess
when you wish a character would do something else, while also agreeing that
their actions make sense for them as they are, it’s probably a sign that you’re
rooting for them. I also had an experience similar to what she’s getting by
joining an anime club in university, so I understand what it’s like to find
something that clicks with you (I’d watched anime before, but the club is what
introduced me to how much there is beyond what’s shown on TV and cemented my
interest) and introduces you to people with similar interests.
I’ll definitely keep watching this. I didn’t expect to, but
I’m glad I gave it a shot. I’m wondering whether I’ll be able to blog about it
much, though. It seems, so far, like much the rest of the show will be more of
the same. Having them play different types of matches against different
opponents is a way to keep the show interesting, but what can you really say about
that week-to-week? But I probably shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There clearly
is other stuff, like how Sono has a history with the leader of the team they
lost to, and character development, like the fallout from Yura panicking and
costing them the match. I guess I’ll see.
The Eccentric Family
[eps. 1-3: Goddess of the Noryoyuka, Mom and Raijin, God of Thunder &
Yakushibo’s Inner Parlor]
I’m not really sure what to say about this one. Even three
episodes in, I’m still not sure what the plot is supposed to be. All I can
gather is that there’s these feuding tanuki and tengu families living in modern
Kyoto, a mysterious woman named Benten, this group called the Friday Fellows
she hangs out with, and the reason Yasaburo’s father was cooked in a hot-pot is
somehow key to everything. Nobody is even really that eccentric, unless being
supernatural, or having supernatural powers, counts. I suppose Yasaburo’s
cross-gender shapeshifting could fit, but a guy with the power to change shape
becoming a cute girl (because of course) isn’t anything new. Maybe still
eccentric, but not new. Most of the humor, though, comes from how he still has
a masculine voice and male body language, which I haven’t seen before, so at
least that’s different. Maybe I’m just missing something – I still plan on
watching it, so maybe things will get more interesting shortly.
There was that one part, though, where Yasaburo and his
little brother go into the shop to see Benten. And come out the other side at a
dock by a lake with a sunken clocktower in the middle (are they outside?
Somewhere supernatural?). And then Benten dives into the lake and pulls the
tail of whale that’s in a (freshwater?) lake, for some reason. That was weird.
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