Princess Connect #15 — Idols! Idols! Idols! Idols!

January 17th, 2022

 

…No.

Impressions:

One step forward, three steps back. Compared to last week's episode, it at least remembered that it did introduce some kind of story in the previous season with some heavier elements than "let's do laundry!" or "let's montage with an insert song!" But that makes that the other 75% of the episode was Yet More Goddamned Idol Stuff With Another Montage and Bubble Gum Pop Insert Song all the goddamned worse. Why? For no other point than putting them in frilly costumes so they can do a concert. Didn't even bother to come up with any reason or excuse for it. It's idol dumbassery. That's all the reason we need.

Only the terribleness of this season is keeping this even on the thin ice with me that it's on now. Another episode like the last two and I'm pulling the plug. If you're not going to advance the story, you're not going to be coming up with any new jokes, and not going to be fighting anything, then what are you even doing here? Advertising your abhorrent microtransaction gambling game, obviously, but christ, can we at least slightly pretend otherwise?

Posted in Princess Connect | 2 Comments »

2 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • Joshua says:
    January 17, 2022 at 11:21 am

    The horrifying realization that this is little more than CyGames’ glorified investor call for their plans for Japanese industry domination is growing more and more founded with each episode. This is little more than a flex aimed at competing anime studios boasting about how they’re better in every way, and seeking to “save” this struggling anime industry through promoting an unsettling Disney/Marvel-like brand synergy where they effectively have a monopolistic stranglehold. Only while capeshit is just 2.5 hours long, I have no fucking clue what this corporate synergy is aimed at apart from the sakugatards who’ll watch anything as long as it looks really shiny and moves well regardless of quality, and existing fans of the game who’ll buy the merch and Blu-Rays anyways for the codes, since this is still a 13 episode long season with inevitably more to come.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiV-bOulZl8 This Youtube video essay just brings to mind how the anime industry is just as fucked as Hollywood if CyGames gets their way. Aniplex does deserve equal blame too imo for how Demon Slayer and Fate are also carrying the industry and propelling it into this synergistic nightmare. Just imagine how much worse it could get if these corpos get into domestic mergers and acquisitions so we truly have a Disney-like oligopoly on our hands?

    Don’t watch this please. You’re only feeding this monster if you do. Just watch something earlier, or something you really like from years ago. Or translate a new visual novel. Anything but this.

  • Joshua says:
    January 17, 2022 at 12:07 pm

    Addendum to what I had said above: Sure, a lot of us aren’t aware of this outside of Japan, since CyGames is hardly known over here apart from that Nintendo mobile game Dragalia Lost, that Granblue fighter and their attempts at breaking into eSports through their sponsorships (Genshin is way more popular worldwide than any CyGames game ever is), but they pretty much dominate the conversation in Japan.

    That horse girl idol game made $1 billion in a single year alone over there. Season 2 of its anime is the best-selling anime home release of all time. Both of these are going to, or have, won some high accolades from numerous circulations, sites and award shows. This thing literally made a billion dollars off of merchandise just for their gacha codes. It’s a MCU-sized cult that they’ve built up for years and unleashed, and they alone are reaping the rewards from it with this barrage of expensive brand extensions designed for the lowest common denominator like the aforementioned capeshit infecting film. And now they have plans to fully consolidate their power in the anime industry, all while other competitors try and fail to compete with them. That’s what makes me so worried about their current dominance.