Category: Ongoing Investigations

Ongoing Investigations: Case #223

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hisui_icon_4040 Recently the Binbougami ga! manga came to an end. It was just a series we randomly decided to watch during the SWAT reviews on the off-chance it might be enjoyable. But since then it has become a staple of my comedy manga diet along with Hayate and Yamada and the 7 Witches. But it seems just as quickly as I found the series I discovered it was coming to an end. Overall 15 volumes is hardly a series cut short. But when you enjoy something like this it seems to come and go in the blink of an eye.

But in the end that might be for the best. 15 volumes distinctly lets the plot play out nicely with some mystery involving why Sakura has all the fortune energy she does. The pace let each story arc have a big reveal towards slowly but  surely building up Ikari and Kana’s story and then how it fits in the present. When Ikari is finally revealed he does not seem to be teased for too long but at the same time he does not just pop up out of nowhere.

The final storyline is fairly conclusive. All the major plot lines are tied up strongly while still leaving some things moving in the background. I was a little surprised that the ending had a distinct bittersweet quality to it but it is a wonderful send off to Sakura and Momiji’s awkward but delightful friendship. It was probably the best way for those characters to say goodbye to each other.

It is interesting that the story did become a bit of a fighting series by the end. When Ranmaru and Nadeshiko are really integrated into the storyline they tended to get an opponents they needed to fight at the end of every major story arc.  That really started with the Tanpopo story arc but in many ways the Tanpopo arc is not just a major turning point it is the official start of the middle of the manga.

I still think chapter 23, the photo booth story, was my favorite chapter. It was a simple one chapter story that perfectly encapsulates the main characters personalities and what makes them great.

If anything Sakura’s mother probably gets glossed over the most. Her father gets a whole storyline devoted to him so I assumed the same would happen for Sakura’s mother. But the closer to the end of the series I got the more I realized it was just not coming. Sakura’s mother clearly appears at the end of the manga but overall she just never got a chance to be in the series.

Just an odd observation.

Man. Binbougami ga! was a really fun ride. Sadly when the anime ended they never even got up to the point where Nadeshiko formally became a cast member and was not just some odd rich ninja girl who appeared in side segments. I really hope that now that the series is over they will go back and animate the rest of the series. Some of the later stories are just begging to be adapted. Also nothing else I am sure that Narutaki wants this and this. And we can all agree that is a good thing.

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narutaki_icon_4040 Limit vols. 4-5 made me say both “AHA! I knew it!” and “OHO! I didn’t think it happened that way!”

The intensity really ratcheted up once one of the survivors died because everyone was already on edge and suspicious. The added new death just tore the already precarious truce apart. I of course enjoyed the added mystery element of this part of the story as well.

The next volume is the last. I’m very curious what kind of ending Limit will give us, will it get a tragedy or will rays of hope pierce through the gloom?

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #222

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narutaki_icon_4040 I enjoyed reading up through volume 4 of Dengeki Daisy but it does have me questioning the ability of the story to continue for so much longer. It is still running.

At this point, Teru has discovered that Kurosaki and Daisy are in fact the same person (which we the audience knew all along). But she doesn’t confront him with this knowledge nor does Kurosaki realize Teru has figured out the truth. Each has admitted their growing feelings to confidants, with Kurosaki failing miserably to push his aside. Their closeness and the precipice of love is very obvious now.

I found the growing friendships, especially in vol. 4, to be particularly satisfying. Especially that of haughty Rena who is quite hilarious in her feigned indifference to Teru’s life and problems. Kiyoshi having the upper hand (since he knows Daisy’s identity as well as Kurosaki’s affections for Teru) when it comes to Kurosaki is also quite entertaining.

As I’d hoped, more haunts from Teru’s brother (and maybe Kurosaki’s) past turn up at the end of the volume. I am also starting to suspect Teru’s brother may not be dead after all.

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hisui_icon_4040 Never say that I won’t listen to a decent recommendation. Recently I had several people directly and indirectly recommend that I watch Girls und Panzer. I’m not exactly sure what exactly about me says, “This guy would love Girls und Panzer.” Is it that I come off as a person with an open mind and broad tastes? It is because I’m half German and therefore must love Blitzkrieging? Or do people just think I’m some sort of horrible icky moe fanatic?

Then again I’m not sure I want to know what about me says that to my friends. It might just be a secret that is best unexplored.

Girls und Panzer exists in an alternate timeline where tanks warfare is VERY different from what we know. For one thing it is a competitive sport descended from a military science like fencing or jousting. Tanks fire nonlethal shells which set off sensors that gauge hits. The major difference is that tankery is almost exclusively considered a pastime for women.

The shy Miho Nishizumi comes from a long line of tank commanders but goes specifically to a school without a tank program to escape her panzer related fate. Despite her timid nature she makes two fast friends on their first day.  But the student council president blackmails Miho and her two companions into join the tank club under the threat of making their lives horrible otherwise. Can Miho love to love the roar of an M1 Abrams? Can she lead the school tankery team to victory?

Girls und Panzer is a better show that I thought it would be. I’m hardly amazing but it is far better than it has any right to be. That is both a mixture of faint and legitimate praise. Overall the cute girls doing things genre can be pretty awful or just plain tedious so a show that is neither is an accomplishment. But “It is not complete torture” is hardly a ringing endorsement. Beyond that Girls und Panzer has some actually parts that are enjoyable and fun.

Miho is your fairly standard shy but warmhearted female protagonist. She has trouble making friends but is a good person who supports her friends when the chips are down. She is likeable if a bit bland and most of her character beyond that comes from her checked past with tanks and family. Hana Isuzu is a very Yamato Nadeshiko styled character to the point where she comes form a family known for flower arrangement. She is actually be a rebel by being in the tank club. And the main trio is round out by the best member of the team, Saori Takebe. She thinks she is a Gentlemen Killer that is a mixture of Mine Fujiko and Lum Invader that all the men can’t help but fall in love with. In the end she is mostly just a cheerful dork.

Later on the team is rounded out with Yukari Akiyama who is a crazy tank otaku which makes her insanely popular with the show’s target demographic-. If anyone is an audience surrogate character it is her. Mako Reizei is the last to join the team and she is brilliant but lazy.

The girls mainly stick to broad archetypes which is sort of the broad personalities the genre is known for. If you’re looking for innovate characters the closest your going to get is Saori with her odd delusion of being this hyper sex goddess despite being horribly naive. But if you’re sick of the standard cute girl tropes you are mostly going the be massaging your head the whole time.

There are four other groups that make up the other teams at school. They mostly seem to be there to get hit and show how formidable the other teams are. Since there are a lot of them they generally have a group personality with each member having a strong quirk more than distinct characters. The Student council team is there to move the plot and have the President be a manipulative bastard especially to her two underlings. The former volleyball team is filled with girls with “Hard Work and Guts” emblazoned on their souls. The Reki-jo team has to be the oddest bunch of them all. They are obsessive history fan girls who cosplay historical figures. Narutaki put it best when she said it was like they were what would happen if a group of Hetalia fangirls got a hold of a tank. And the six freshmen girls mostly seems to exist to be the absolute worst. At everything. They are distinctly NOT the team made up of Strong Female Women™.

A question I know that will be asked about any of these shows is how bad is the fan-service. While it is not omnipresent it is distinctly present. While there are no major panty shots or lingering cleavage shots there is usually one piece of distinct eye candy every episode. They will go a whole episode without anything major and then the busty member of the student council will be washing their tank in a bikini or they will recruit Mako in the bath. It’s hardly oppressive but it is still very clearly there when it wants to be.

It does also firmly exist in the pink zone. Anyone who is a main cast member is female. Men exist. We see them in the town around the school, watching matches, and interacting with the girls on occasion. But so far nothing close to a supporting character has been male. That said the yuri bait has been fairly minimal. When you have a cast like this the fans are going to make it but the show itself does not overtly cater to it too much. Binbogami ga! had far more in a single chapter than the first 4 episodes I saw combined.

So the real question is should YOU watch Girls und Panzer? The answer comes down to a simple question of “What is my opinion of the “Cute Girls Doing Stuff genre?” If you a sick of it then this is not the show to change your mind. While it executes the formula well it does not particularly innovate  other than the fact that the subject mater is hardly the standard girl joins sport team X and learns the power of friendship (and perhaps sapphic love.)  On the other hand if you still enjoy the formula then this is a nice variation of the theme.

Will fans of fans of tanks like this series? I have no idea. Those people are just weird and hard to please. But so could be said of any military hardware fanatic.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #221

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hisui_icon_4040 This week’s Ongoing Investigation theme is the first episode of shows that Narutaki would not watch unless you put a gun to her head. Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya is mostly not here because it is getting a whole episode review of its own tomorrow.

No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! is here because she found out it was popular on 4chan. Therefore she refuses to watch it out of principle. I can’t really blame her.

I’m Not Popular can be summed up simply. It is a magnum opus of schadenfreude. Tomoko Kuroki is a loser. A sad pathetic loser. A socially awkward plain-looking girl who revels in putting a positive spin on her stunted existence. She mostly winds up digging herself deeper into a world of isolation and delusion while feebly attempting to change her life.

And you are to revel in this fact. Like Charlie Brown running towards the football you know that it will be pulled away at the last second. The thrill is seeing how despite common sense the scene is set up and then the cathartic release of her misery being the end cap that ties it all together.

Clearly the audience is supposed to view Tomoko with empathy on one hand as most of the audience understand on a certain level what it is like to be shy, neurotic, paranoid, bitter, and delusional. Those are all common feelings and situations to anyone who has embraced a geeky lifestyle at some point or another. But on the other hand your mostly supposed to be laughing at Tomoko. So it is not like the Big Bang Theory that claims to be about nerds but clearly has no idea what their actual lives are like. But it is clearly laughing at the misery of someone who can’t change their life while grokking what that feels like.

I’m not going to claim to totally understand the female geek experience. I don’t want to mansplain this. It is just something about the show feels like a geeky guy trying to extrapolate what a girl’s experience would be like using their own memories more than a female author exploring her social pariahdom. Nico Tanigawa is a pen name for two authors so I don’t have any definitive proof of what either of their genders are. But maybe I’m just assuming that the genders are more separate experiences than they actually are.  If anyone is actually a female fan who has experience with this I would actually like to know what they think.

I will say that with that all laid it is obvious why this series is so popular with places like 4chan. It is the exact mixture of self-loathing and perverse self-congratulation that would hit their sweet spot. It simultaneously loves and hates its protagonist in equal measure. But in the end shakes its head at its failure of a lead and laughs at her. If that is what interest you then I suppose you know what you’re watching this season.

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narutaki_icon_4040 I read Mixed Vegetables vol. 4. Now that Hana has actually started on the path to her dream by working in a sushi place, she is finding herself more and more concerned about Hayato’s plans. Unlike Hana, Hayato hasn’t owned up to his parents about his dreams. He doesn’t want to take over the sushi shop and desperately wants to be a pastry chef, but this volume of the manga calls that into question a bit.

I do kind of miss their relationship from the first volume, even if they were just pretending to be into each other, it had a fresh vibe to it. Still, they are slowly falling which is sweet and there doesn’t seem to be any artificially obstacles as yet.

I also enjoyed Hayato and Hana’s mini-adventure of trying to help out one of the sushi chefs who happens to be in love with their teacher. Seeing them team up for this purpose was sweet and funny.

P.S. this volume highlights the hot dads a bit.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

Continue reading →