Unbreakable Machine Doll #12 — Assault of the Mecha-Dachshund

December 23rd, 2013

 

There’s no situation where a dachshund should be your go-to option.

Impressions:

No surprises here unless you count how much of a complete non-ending and anticlimax this was. Yaya powers up, OP plays, she powers up more and grows a horn, antagonist flies away on his butler, transforms into a girl, and then the status quo is restored because apparently that counts as resolution, the end. Yes, I realize it comes from a light novel and as such, the source is terrified of ever having any kind of ending, resolution, or change to anything, but ye lords. At least put together something to pretend otherwise instead of just shrugging your shoulders and going “Welp, too bad!” You’re making an adaptation. If you’re never going to use certain characters, plot points, etc, then don’t include them. And resolve what you do want to include. Don’t send them flying off on magical butlers to fight another day.

I appreciated how it was suddenly dawn in between cuts of the butler flying around. It was very useful in letting me know that the action was over and we were just going to be listening to them drone on about their feelings or go back into comic relief/breasts bounce mode. The whole episode had a lot more droning on than it needed, especially over the action which seemed like it had a constant stream of narration running over it, much more than usual.

 

Final Thoughts:

The main issue with the show is that it never had a good idea what it was doing with the characters. Well, that and the rather poor pacing stretching everything out. One feeds into the other though. Yaya was probably the biggest offender in that regard, serving little purpose other than to be chirpy, comic relief, and a more eye-candy friendly avatar for the action. There are plenty of other characters whose purposes were difficult to discern though, especially the ones who unceremoniously simply disappeared completely after being introduced. If there was a strong central cast to anchor things, it might have worked, but most of what Raishin did was simply move from point A to point B and have another expository dump unloaded on his chest. At least he didn’t whine as much as most of these LN protagonists are wont to do.

There was probably some decently done action here and there in the show if you could see it under the constant darkness, speedlines, and weird/inconsistent mix of regular animation and CG, but with its approach to everything being shrill female noises and/or exposition, it was never built up to well, hamstringing any of the tension or excitement it might have had.

It wasn’t too bad overall, but it won’t be remembered a month from now for anything either. Semi-competent besides the endless info dumping, but very unambitious. Maybe a slightly above average fantasy action LN adaptation, but only because the average is so abysmal.

Posted in Machine Doll | 3 Comments »

3 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Fate says:

    Yeah, not sad it is gone.

  • Atmo says:

    A very good anime that never happened.

  • algorithm says:

    I only see asinine harem antics taking precedence over whatever plot and potential this show had in the beginning.

    “It wasn’t too bad overall”

    This speaks volumes about the average quality of the shows you managed to complete.