Shangri-La #01 — CARBON! CARBON!

April 4th, 2009

 

Gonzo through and through.

New Season Disclaimer:

I prefer to give every show a chance. You never know when your dream-eating insect wielding Mai HiME knockoff will turn out to be a psychological romantic thriller, or the strange moeblob show will be full of wit and urine jokes. However, my preferences are still my preferences, and while I’ll endevor to at least convey why I do or do not like things, there are genres of shows that I just plain don’t particularly enjoy. My opinions are based on nothing more than a gut reaction to what I watched literally 10-15 minutes prior and should be construed as nothing more and nothing less than that.

Impressions:

There was seriously a segment where people argued over carbon emissions (CAHBON! CAHBON!). One side was some business man, he was arguing with a giant pink sutffed animal containing a little girl putting a teddy bear in her viewscreen and prodding what appeared to be a baby Lapras. Gonzo really needs somebody to reign their writers in, although I suppose that unemployment will probably do a pretty good job of that. You’ve already got the soulless heterochromatic little girl, the protagonist superhuman little girl, and the fat little girl, you don’t also need the last boss pokemon trainer little girl… to say nothing of the needlessly unclothed woman with an army of butlers or the crossdressing whip wielding momdad.

I’m not even sure what they’re really trying to do. Part of the ‘serious’ gunfight involved armed soldiers dropping their weapons and running from a transvestite trying to kiss them. If you want to make a serious story with a bunch of weird characters, fine. That all goes out the window when you decide that a dramatic scene is the perfect time for homophobia jokes and/or stopping the fight to apply makeup to other people. All the chatter about carbon emission and the environment could not have been more boring. Sorry trees, you suck. I’m not even sure why they’re trying to pound this enviromental nonsense home so hard. There’s the poor city and the oppressive elite keeping them poor. There. Covered that in about 1/75th the time it took the show.

That leaves us with Gonzo being their stereotypical selves by throwing in everything but the kitchen sink to try to make a unique concept instead of a good one, and a bunch of little girls with magic knives. Thrilling. At least there weren’t any panty shots. Yet.

Shangri-La OP

   

Posted in Anime | 14 Comments »

14 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • digitalboy says:

    maybe I don’t know because I’m new to your site, but how are you able to watch this show? Doesn’t it air late tomorrow? Anyway, I’m glad you’ve significantly lowered my expectations. They were a little too high, so maybe now I won’t be disappointed.

  • serenade_beta says:

    Uwaaaaaah! So this was how the anime was like! Uee… Incredibly not my taste, these character designs. Gotta quickly remove this from my list for tomorrow…

    @Above

    This came out early.

  • P-dash says:

    So by gonzo being stereotypical, you mean they’re throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks?

  • Aroduc says:

    Pretty much.

    Between the magic boomerang, magic knives, tanks, jungle, pokemon, robo-lolis, and environmental message, it feels like they just gathered up Final Fantasy castoffs and threw them all into a pot.

  • Ravage says:

    Meh, I’d rather go with Saki for my dose of CGonzo; at least that show has Nodoka. *heart*

  • Taki says:

    Looks intresting

  • EX-Keine says:

    Can’t we wait and see? I mean, the one notable person on the staff is Range Murata, and who can forget Last Exile, his previous work with Gonzo, so I’m not ready to cast any sort of judgement on this one yet for a long while

  • Mendou says:

    Murata Range designed about three or four of the characters; the rest is Gonzo on autopilot. At least it’s better than Blassreiter; I made it to the end credits this time……

  • TJ says:

    Watched it. Didn’t get it.

  • cyruspowers says:

    I really don’t get what’s up with all the Gonzo hate. Over the past few years, they’ve been one of the studios putting out work I’ve been consistently pleased with. Sure they’ve had a lot of shows I wasn’t very interested in, but usually when Aroduc drops his Gonzo hate on a new show, it’s usually a sign for me that it’ll be quality. =P

    To be fair, they haven’t done an ending I’ve liked aside from Samurai 7.

  • Heterocrania says:

    Had Gonzo produced Toshokan Sensou, it would have turned out EXACTLY like this.

  • DP says:

    Actually, silly Gonzo hate aside, it was a lot better than most of the stuff out this year.

    It had a good sense of pacing and story telling (except for one infodump) and hey, the environmentalists are the baddies for a change…

    The show was not realistic, of course, but then again, 90% of anime isn’t… But it told a reasonable story, and the lead character was engaging rather than the usual flat non-entity.

  • Craig says:

    Someday we’re going to look back at this review and laugh so hard.