Yuruyuri #15 — Chocolate Penises

July 16th, 2012

 

I just assume that’s what was in the box since they go well with scarves.

Impressions:

A very Sakurako episode. She’s far from the worst character in the show though so there have certainly been worse episodes, but the opening gag with Whose-Her-Face and her failed attempt to stop the aliens from invading was still probably the best joke. I suppose that’s nothing new though. Would that they could keep up that kind of humor for the entire episode. Anywho, the whole lunch talking segment had a few decent moments, but, and not to harp on it, probably could’ve used more dango bazookas and/or alien attacks.

The second half was a little worse than the first. I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more if Sakurako had gone completely bonkers in her attempts to treat Whose-Her-Face as Himawari instead of just a couple weak jokes on it before dropping that angle entirely. Come on, it works so perfectly with Whose-Her-Face’s entire schtick. Get her in a blue wig with some water balloons draped over her chest and just go from there. Cutting away to the other characters in the middle of it was also rather… well… dumb. The Himawari/Sakurako plot was going off on its own just fine, not the greatest plot, but hitting the pause button 75% through it for 5 minutes before thre predictible end without even trying to work the separate bits together was just inept.

 

Preview:

 

Student council affairs.

Posted in Yuruyuri | 15 Comments »

15 Shouts From the Peanut Gallery

  • david says:
    July 16, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    Her name is AKARI

  • anise_punter says:
    July 16, 2012 at 5:48 pm

    Not sure penises exist in this universe, let alone chocolate ones.

  • KLAC_OF_PERSONALITY says:
    July 17, 2012 at 5:21 am

    so this ep mostly about Sakurako & Himawari with give yea so Sakurako need her Himawari life.

    also chocolate give yui’s choco got WHAT by chinatsu but one give to Toshinou Kyouko all fine?!

    choco chitose here we go again.

    & FINALLY we get the FACE of who we finally get of what her name again?

  • Benigmatica says:
    July 17, 2012 at 6:16 am

    And we finally saw Akarin’s big sister… Although it would be better if she has a line on this episode.

    Also, I’m glad that there’s twincest on this same episode!

  • redpanther says:
    July 17, 2012 at 6:23 am

    Twincest-glasses right in yo face bit!!

  • ZakuAbumi says:
    July 17, 2012 at 8:17 am

    Aroduc, I want you to sing some Love Songs for me!

  • Raikitsune says:
    July 18, 2012 at 1:02 pm

    So much Yaoi up in here. Do not want.

    • ZakuAbumi says:
      July 18, 2012 at 1:18 pm

      Too bad I didn’t get to see an outright rejection. I would have responded with “And that’s why I can’t have sex. Humanity has declined.” or something of the likes. Now there’s no punchline and people will get a dangerously wrong impression of me for all eternity. Tch.

      • Aroduc says:
        July 18, 2012 at 3:09 pm

        It’s noitaminA. Almost all of their shows are so generic that I can write not only my own thoughts on them but other people’s as well. For the entire seasons. Without even watching or knowing what they’re about. First episode hailed as being totally mature and adult with realistic characters facing realistic coming of age problems that audience can identify with but with X as a ‘unique’ twist and/or being quirky. Ending with ‘good’ melodrama that failed to live up to its potential, and then completely forgotten for the newest noitaminA melodrama that’s totally adult and mature and etc. Wash, rinse, repeat.

        Those kinds of melodramas wrap themselves in being ‘adult’ as an excuse for being utterly bland and generic instead of ambitious. They’re like the mass-produced hospital dramas of American TV only with 17-20 year olds and absolutely nothing happening because god help us if characters ever evolve.

        Also, I don’t pay a great deal of attention to the blog on off-days and was fighting the good fight with other projects which mostly ended in my victory.

        • ZakuAbumi says:
          July 18, 2012 at 4:48 pm

          Heh, I do know about your noitaminA antibodies and I can understand your line of reasoning (though I don’t go along with it, I’m a noitaminA fetishist), just wanted to have some fun with hilarious titles. Yes, most noitaminA shows are rather unambitious, slow-paced and focus on their characters. However, staying on safe grounds with a premise isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

          Besides, most anime are ridiculously generic anyway and by far worse written than the noitaminA shows. I guess you prefer them to noitaminA shows/more serious shows in general since they don’t lack “energy” as much or are more entertaining to you for all the right – or, most of the time, wrong – reasons? From what I’ve seen so far, you’re more into the action/comedy/bad shows anyway. If it was just about good/creative writing, then you would have given up on anime a long time ago and devoted your time to… I dunno, shows like Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones (slow-paced dramas – but nevertheless, well-written).

          Out of interest, since you seem to dismiss most “serious” anime as soon as you can: Which serious anime do you consider as good (except for the Kenshin T&B OVAs)? To me, it looks like you consider anime as a sole means of fast food entertainment as far as you yourself are concerned, but you certainly DO have standards when it comes to how well written a show is (more so than most other bloggers), so this is one hell of an interesting question.

  • Aroduc says:
    July 18, 2012 at 11:05 pm

    Sigh. I just wrote a long reply, then accidentally clicked outside the box and hit backspace and there went everything.

    Ahem! Yeah, I know I give noitaminA more crap than it deserves for being generic. I’m honestly less annoyed by it than the utterly cloying wish fulfillment things like Amagami/Haganai that put on overtures of “Hey lonely antisocial guys, this could totally happen to you!,” but I’m naturally argumentative and it’s tiring to see the mature adult melodramatic stuff hailed over and over again in exactly the same way with the exact same comments season in and season out. I have a much better stomach for shows that are openly trashy and honest with what they are. Also, it’s more fun to write about them and nobody gets pissy when I start ranting aimlessly about problems with them, which is a major plus in the blogging world. The energy, or motivation to be more exact, of characters is a big part too, but proactive characters are rare everywhere, not just noitaminA. Conflict and drama should come from the characters, not from some nebulous plot or sudden arbitrary outside event.

    Anime in general has problems of amateurish writing. The audience should never be FORCED to think, but a really strong story should lend itself to further analysis. There’s a constant conflation of complexity for depth and melodrama for emotion. More simplistic, focused stories tend to have much better impact. Compare the structure of anime episodes to a western sitcom or drama. They almost all have A, B, and frequently C plots, that may or may not touch upon each other and only marginally (if at all) advance the main overall plot(s). But they get away with it because each one is kept easy to understand and digest without undue importance placed on any of them. In anime though, there’s usually just a singular plot thread that suddenly becomes the focus for every single character, whether they have anything to actually do with it or not. That hurts both characterization by reducing them to orbitting around a single character/thread as well as shows the weakness of the writing by overinflating the importance of minor events and forcing the audience to take a very long look at them.

    It certainly can be done well, but the general structure is much closer to a western cartoon than what’s generally held as adult entertainment. There are ways to competently handle those too and still move at the glacial pace anime loves (the DCAU quickly comes to mind), but they use ensemble casts so main character focus shifts literally weekly with extended focus when a longer plot requires it, including but not limited to a huge amount of focus on the villains and antagonists. Batman TAS, for example, was more about the villains than Batman and allowed him to remain a relatively static and unevolving character because they didn’t shine the camera in his face for 20 minutes every single episode.

    I do confess that I’m not a huge fan of overly serious shows in general. I accept Game of Thrones as well-written and very well structured, but if not for friends to watch it with, I probably wouldn’t watch it. Same with Sopranos back in the day. As far as anime goes, the first two that come to mind are ef (first season only) and Mushi Uta, although both do have other issues and there are a number of other shows that had moments or arcs that were well written. The former had each of its own stories and didn’t try to overcomplicate them, although the excellent direction helped a ton there too. MU had a really well crafted and actually good moral conflict as the backdrop for a simple love triangle. And I’m a sucker for bittersweet endings.

    And of course, nothing is hard and fast (nor did I read over it for clarity or consistency) and many things, such as misunderstandings as an excessively common thing (hooray for subject omitting languages) are cultural, but eh. All too often, it boils down to the story being told competently in the first arc/volume but then the extension begins with more and more piled onto the existing characters while at the same time, being too afraid to change anything. Hell, I could write a small treatise on how anime has been raping the “connection to the normal world” character archetype with its refusal to abandon or evolve it. Ugh.

    And this went on for way WAY longer than I meant too. Right after talking about simplicity as a virtue. Good work, Aroduc. Go back to translating now.

  • ZakuAbumi says:
    July 19, 2012 at 3:09 am

    I think the amazement of some people towards noitaminA is due to the fact that they only watch anime. A lot of anime fans don’t watch western shows at all, heck, they keep saying stuff like “I only watch anime because there’s nothing good on TV.”. Once they get sick of your average fanservice show, they start looking for something different and that’s when many people stumble upon noitaminA. Sure, character-centric noitaminA shows are generic, but they still add variety to this medium.
    Therefore, an anime only viewer might consider the noitaminA shows as the most amazing things ever, whereas someone who’s familiar with such shows due to American television would beg to differ.

    As for the aspect of (faked) maturity: Well, anime fandom is easy to manipulate, that’s for sure. Deliver anime fans an appealing first episode and they are all the more forgiving towards the rest of the show. As far as maturity is concerned, some shows just get away with having mature overtones and get easily labeled as mature or thought-provoking. Kids on the Slope, for instance, does have a rather “mature” style, however, content-wise, it’s very cliched and a lot of cliches are actually well-known and used in a lot of “immature” otaku/shoujo shows. Nevertheless, most people seem to deny this. Every time I get to see some Apollon fans say “This show was so mature and original!”, I can only shake my head in utter disbelief.
    But I wouldn’t go as far as to say that noitaminA shows are “dishonest”. Keep in mind that those shows aren’t targeted at some easy to impress anime bloggers who are sick of otaku shows and therefore hail anything remotely different. Most of them are targeted at a Japanese audience, to get the common folks to watch anime (which is why most noitaminA shows have worse sales but better ratings than otaku shows). Therefore, uh… hate the bloggers, not noitaminA! (Though I’m not any better: The more people praise shows like Steins;Gate or Madoka for being “well-written” (HAH!), the more I feel like throwing snarky remarks at these two)

    Thanks a lot for the comparison to western shows, I haven’t given that any thought so far. It’s certainly true. Several plotlines, as slow-paced as they may be, ensure that there’s always something going on and are a better for the writing.

    However, I disagree with this one:
    “The audience should never be FORCED to think, but a really strong story should lend itself to further analysis.”
    I don’t think that thought-provoking/complex shows are a bad thing. Pale Cocoon, for instance, is all about world building/exposition (something both you and I love so much!) and has a rather complicated structure without explaining things. The audience has to think about what was going in order to get the message of the show. As long as a show makes sense and is not needlessly complicated, that’s not really a bad thing.
    The problem is, sometimes you get utterly inane writing like with GUILTY CROWN with hundreds of plotholes. Fans then proceed to “explain” things which should have been the writers’ job and that’s basically writing some unfounded fanfictions. Viewers should never be forced to add stuff on their own to make sense of things.