Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

Prepare to see this image reused... a lot.

Whenever I think of Studio Gonzo, positive reviews do not come to mind. They have an amazing ability to take great source material, animate it, and, without fail, fuck it up. For example, Hellsing and Chrono Crusade were great series ruined by horrible endings. Of course, Gonzo also creates terrible series that are unsalvageable messes from episode one, like Gantz or Strike Witches. Once in a while they create unintentional comedy gold like they did with Speed Grapher. The lesson from all this is that Studio Gonzo is trash. They have terrible writers, shoddy animation, and use extremely outdated CGI. To date, the only Gonzo series that could even remotely be considered good are Last Exile and Welcome to the NHK. Then I watched Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a sprawling, epic adventure, a tale of heartbreak and revenge. It is a novel so intricate it requires multiple readings to appreciate it to its fullest. It stars one of literature’s most complex and intriguing (anti) heroes, Edmond Dantes. I’ve read the book and seen a number of Hollywood adaptations. To me, it is one of the greatest stories ever told. And since Gonzo is known for making non-sensical shit, I figured there was no chance in hell this would be any good.

Lucky Star – What Hath God Wrought?

Die.

April 8, 2007 is a date which will live in infamy. It’s the date that good anime started to die. Until this point in time, anime creators were toying with moe, weak plots, lazy humor, crappy animation, slice-of-life stories, and pandering to the pedophile set. Despite tinkering, they had yet to fully commit. It wasn’t until that fateful day in early spring that they said, “FUCK IT” and went all-out with taking a giant shit on anime as we know it. This is the date that Lucky Star premiered. What was seemingly an unassuming, generic “comedy” series turned into a monstrosity that would be copied and mimicked ad nauseum until the entire anime industry was churning out nothing but moe pieces of shit.

Lucky Star was heaped with praise as being one of the funniest and most original anime series in ages. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued. Of course I wanted to watched something funny and original. Who wouldn’t? But it was a trap. It was a trap against my better sensibilities. What I found upon watching this abomination was the most vile, wretched amalgamation of every moe and slice-of-life cliche imaginable. It was the culmination of years of shitty tropes finally combined to create the ultimate marketing beast designed to sell merchandise, with the anime as an extended commercial for otaku fanboys to jerk off to.

Genshiken Sucks

Even the Genshiken characters can't believe how shitty this series is.

A letter to Saki Kasukabe:

Dear Giant Twat,

The following is a list of grievances I hold against you:

• 1.) You cling to a relationship that is purely physical in nature, regardless of how wrong you are for the other person.
• 2.) You are vapid, selfish, elitist, and contribute nothing of value to the club.
• 3.) You are an egotistical hypocrite who thinks she knows what’s best for everyone else.
• 4.) You deceived your current boyfriend by intentionally concealing the fact that you were still in contact with an ex-boyfriend.
• 5.) You intentionally tried to shut down the Genshiken club.
• 6.) You intentionally sabotaged the club’s recruitment of new members.
• 7.) You forced a group of people to throw away prized memorabilia because you are a clutz.
• 8.) You destroyed said memorabilia in a fire, and carelessly destroyed a model kit that another member spent hours building.
• 9.) In both aforementioned instances you agreed to cosplay in order to make up for it, but bailed out both times, seemingly having no regard for the promises you broke.
• 10.) You are a huge bitch.

In summary, please die a horrible death. Try one of the following: seppeku, walking into oncoming traffic, or eating the gun. Your death would doubtlessly bring happiness to the world of self-respecting human beings, and it would vastly improve the quality of the television series Genshiken. Please consider my recommendation.

Sincerely,

BrikHaus

The real life Genshiken club.

Genshiken seems like it would be cool at first glance, but as it turns out, it’s a steaming piece of shit. I previously ranked it as number 9 in my 20 Shittiest Anime of the Decade (2000-2009) article, and I thought it would be fun to revisit my hatred for it.

This series claims to be centered around otaku lifestyle, so the choice to make the main character, Saki, an otaku-hater was a very poor decision. The main character should have been Kanji. He is an otaku, but with far more mainstream interests than the other characters. It would make more sense to bring the viewers into the otaku realm through someone a little more identifiable to the audience. Sure, he’s otaku, but he’s not hardcore like the other club members. Quickly, it becomes apparent that his girlfriend Saki is the main character. Everything is shown through her vapid, narcissistic, bitchy eyes. 75% of the show is from her perspective. Otaku are shown as vile, slimy, disgusting creatures. This makes it very difficult to enjoy the series when most of it features Saki’s inability to form healthy relationships with other human beings. It’s a good study of a psychiatric personality disorder, but it doesn’t feature the otaku lifestyle very well.

This is why Welcome to the NHK is a vastly superior anime. It manages to show the oddities of otaku lifestyle in equal amounts of positive and negative light. All at once we get to identify with, be repulsed by, laugh at, root for, and empathize with otaku. They are shown as real human beings with flaws and redeeming qualities. Welcome to the NHK got everything right. Genshiken, on the other hand, is a piece of shit that gets everything wrong. It trashes the culture it claims to love, and attempts to make anime-viewers feel like outsiders. I don’t need to feel ostracized while watching anime. I can get that by simply telling a cute girl or a random passer-by that I watch cartoons from Japan. Besides, it just feels lazy when the entire series is written as LOL OTAKU SURE ARE GROSS AND WEIRD LOL instead of coming up with a storyline and creating characters that show actual growth.

On a random note, they did get the characters Ohno and Tanaka together. It’s pretty rare for an anime to seal the deal in terms of relationships. Usually everything is just left up to your imagination, and you can classify as that as good or bad. Personally, all the characters are weak stereotypes, so I could care less. I can, however, imagine what kind of gross otaku sex they had. Sweaty, unwashed flab must have bounced everywhere. Ugh.

I found it difficult to care about anything in Genshiken. The entire show just felt weak, cliche, frustrating, and kind of creepy. Every character is a huge, worthless loser, and Saki is the most repugnant of all. There was more stuff about this series that I hated, but it’s too big a piece of shit to waste any more time on. Fuck this series.

Verdict: Shitty

Metroid Prime – Why Won’t the Goddamn Door Open?

OK, seriously, why won’t the goddamn doors in Metroid Prime 3 open? I had the exact same problem in the first two Metroid Prime games. This is one of the few flaws in an otherwise great series. In previous Metroid games, entering/exiting rooms was a piece of cake. You shot the blue-bubble door, it vanished, and you passed through. Why is it so much harder in the Metroid Prime series? Considering that the technology has advanced, you would think it would be much easier. But oh no. With greater technology comes greater opportunities to fuck up. In Metroid Prime, you shoot the blue bubble and it vanishes, leaving behind a solid gray door. When you get in close enough proximity to it, that door opens up, allowing you to pass through. The only problem is that HALF THE TIME THE FUCKING DOOR DOESN’T OPEN! I end up walking right into the door, back away, walk into it again, and repeat 5-6 times before it finally opens. With all that back and forth, I feel like I’m making the character bash her head against the door.

That door is an evil bastard.

I swear to god, I’ve tried everything. I shot the blue bubble up close, I shot the blue bubble from far away, I shot the blue bubble from medium range, I cleared the room of enemies, I approached the door from various angles, I tried bombs and missiles, I tried everything short of giving the door a blowjob in an attempt to get it to open. I can’t be the only person to have this problem. And it has to be a problem, because I had this same issue when I played the previous games on the Nintendo Gamecube. Was this a game design flaw? Was this some programmer’s sick joke? I bet the fucker who came up with this was the same asshole who created the trash-bombing mini-games in Super Mario Galaxy. I can imagine him now, laughing his ass off while frustrated gamers around the world try 10 times to get through every closed door in the game. And believe me, there are a shitload of closed doors. It becomes really annoying, really fast, especially if you are low on energy and trying to outrun an army of bad guys.

Oh, hello there Samus cosplayer.

Eventually, the door does open, but only after it fucks with you a few times. Now that I think about it, this had to be intentional. Why else would they change the simple blue-bubble doors of the older Metroid games to the blue bubble plus solid gray door? I bet it was a conspiracy perpetrated by the NHK. Either that, or it was a plot to make gamers think their controller/game wasn’t working correctly, so they’d go out and buy a new one. Or maybe it was a plot by the alcohol companies to get people so frustrated they would start drinking heavily. One of those has got to be the reason. I’m sure of it.

Gantz

Hurrrrr Durrrrr

Ah, Studio Gonzo. I see you are up to your old tricks again. While you certainly did a nice job with Last Exile and Welcome to the NHK, you decided to return to form with Gantz. And by return to form I mean, produce really shitty anime. So, what is Gantz, you ask? That’s kind of a tough question. Let me see if I can answer it for you.

Gantz is about two guys who try to outrun a subway train. Last time I checked, subway trains can go a lot faster than a person. Why they got in front of the train is not important. In fact, any thinking at all while watching Gantz is probably a bad idea. You might wind up giving yourself an aneurysm or something. So, anyway, the two guys get splattered by the train and die. Next thing we know, they are revived in some sort of quasi-afterlife. The afterlife has them participating in a game where they compete against other dead people to hunt down and kill aliens. If they can score 100 points, then they get to live a normal life again. Now that sounds all nice and good, but the whole aesthetic of the series takes on a creepy, S&M vibe.  The players dress up in black, skin-tight bondage gear. This fetish gear comes with lots of guns, further emphasizing the pain aspect of S&M. There is a gigantic black ball gag (which, sadly, is too large to fit in anyone’s mouth) that doles out the guns and names of the targets to be killed.

20 Shittiest Anime of the Decade (2000-2009)

I’ve seen me lots of animu in the last decade. I started watching this stuff in late 2001, and it’s ruined my life ever since. That being said, I felt it was my obligation to impart upon you the fact that there are terrible anime out there. Sometimes it seems like it’s all moeblobs and slice of life bullshit. I’m not sure if anyone else has done this yet, so I’m giving you my list of the 20 Most Shittiest Anime of 2000’s. Keep in mind that even though I have ranked these, they are all equally shitty. My list probably won’t sit well with the slice of life fans or the moe-loving fapboys, but rest assured these anime all need to be sent directly to hell.

Dishonorable Mention) Most Pointless Award – Rebuild of Evangelion – Why Hideaki Anno, why? You impressed us with Gunbuster, you further solidified your directing talent with Nadia, and you amazed us with your opus Evangelion. After that you did… well, not really anything. You went on to make a bunch of really shitty live action movies. You failed and failed and failed. You weren’t able to succeed in the mainstream, and that’s OK. But when you returned to the world of anime, what did you do? You decided to make A MOTHERFUCKING REMAKE of your biggest cash cow. Hmmm. Out of ideas already? Apparently so. Either that, or you wasted all of your money on full body Asuka pillows and mosaic screened Japanese porn. Now, I will agree that Rebuild of Evangelion was extremely well made, but it was also extremely pointless. Evangelion was by far one of the most incredible anime of all time. And remaking it is retarded at best.

Dishonorable Mention) Worst Director Award – Mamoru Oshii – To all the fans of Oshii… fuck you. This guy is terrible. He’s a horrible director. He has no concept of pacing or intriguing storytelling. There is an old writer’s guideline that says, “Show, don’t tell.” Basically, it means you should describe what’s going on, and not just say that it happened. It provides for a much richer experience for the reader. Oshii’s work is all flawed by the same problem. He “tells” and doesn’t “show.” He wants to bring up philosophical ideas, and his method of doing that is by having two talking heads spout off paragraphs of dialogue at each other for huge chunks of time. This could potentially work in a book format, but in film, which is a visual medium, it fails miserably. Immediately, this becomes boring to all but the most insane Oshii-loving otaku. I swear to god, Oshii fans are practically a cult. To them, Oshii is like Jesus and he can do no wrong. He could film himself taking a shit, and his fans would call it the greatest piece of cinema to ever grace the earth. The truth is, 99% of everything he has put to the screen is garbage. Oh, and Oshii, nobody gives a fuck about Basset Hounds, so stop putting them in all your goddamn movies.

20 Awesomest Anime of the Decade (2000-2009)

I’ve seen me lots of animu in the last decade. I started watching this stuff in late 2001, and it’s ruined my life ever since. That being said, I felt it was my obligation to impart upon you the fact that there are good anime out there. It’s not all moeblobs and slice of life bullshit. So, as it’s so trendy to do right now, I’m giving you my list of the 20 Most Awesomest Anime of 2000’s. Keep in mind that even though I have ranked these, they are all equally awesome. My list probably won’t sit well with the pretentious arthouse goons or the moe-loving fapboys, but rest assured these anime are actually good shows.

20.) Boogiepop Phantom (2000) – This is one of those series where the fun comes in figuring out what the hell is going on. It’s a supernatural thriller, with each episode taking place from the point of view of a different character. I love the washed out color palette, the haunting music, the “realistic” look of the characters (i.e. no crazy hair colors), and the non-linear story. Instead of spoon feeding the viewer, it allows you to deduce what really happened on your own, although this may require multiple viewings. As the “angel of death,” Boogiepop doesn’t really have a name that would inspire fear in anybody, but if you watch this series late at night with the lights off, you might get a little freaked out.

19.) Paprika (2006) – A film from a true master, Satoshi Kon. While Millenium Actress is probably his most praised work, I find that there is something intangibly better about this movie. Kon continually plays with themes of identity and reality, and he does so to perfection here. In a future world where people can use technology to enter dreams, a doctor is attempting to use it to help psychiatric patients. She uses a persona known as Paprika. As the movie progresses, the line between what is real and what is the dream world blurs. Eventually, things spiral out of control, and climax in one of the weirdest and most incredible finales ever put to film.

Welcome to the NHK – It’s a Conspiracy!

Welcome to the boobs.

It seems like every time I check out any anime produced in the last five years, all I encounter is a bunch of unwatchable moe shit. In fact, I had pretty much given up on anime altogether. The last new show that I finished and enjoyed was Gurren Lagann. Everything else was so godawfully bad, I would rather blow my brains out than finish it. Fortunately, I stumbled upon an interesting series titled Welcome to the NHK, and it rejuvenated my interest in anime.

My initial reaction was that this had something to do with the Japanese TV corporation, NHK. However, that isn’t the case. NHK stands for the Nihon Hikikomori Kyoukai, or in non-weaboo-English, Japanese Recluse Association. The show features the exploits of Sato, a 20-something recluse who is so afraid of the myriad conspiracies plaguing the world, he refuses to leave the safety and comfort of his cramped apartment.

Obviously, there are no conspiracies, but he is certain they exist. Everything is a conspiracy. The noisy neighbor who plays anime theme songs, the people that laugh at him if he ventures out, and pretty much everything else, is a conspiracy. In that case, why not just stay in and avoid them? Sounds good to me. I wish more otaku would follow Sato’s lead and never go out in public. Actually, I would like them to take it a step further and not get on the internet either. The world would be a better place if fat, sweaty, pedophilic otaku would not contact the outside world in any way, shape, or form.