Back to Plasmatize's Profile Plasmatize's Profile

In a brightly colored, sunlit hall of soft cotton, filled with uplifting music, gentle breezes and ambient nature sounds, comfort figures of the world have gathered around a plush throne, ready to be claimed by the supreme monarch of cuteness! The time for re-election has come, and amidst successful veterans including cat videos, laughing babies and “moe” anime, a new challenger has appeared by the name Pui Pui Molcar, humbly campaigning for the title with its adorable handcrafted stop-motion animation, wholesome mini-tales, and loads of squeaking, veggie-fueled guinea pig cars!

Every facet of these “molcar” designs adds to their cuteness, from their fuzzy arts-and-crafts appearance, rounded ... body shapes, button eyes, malleable sewn-on mouths and stubby wheel-feet, to their squeaky vocalizations sampled from real guinea pigs. Many situational touches also enhance the effect, whether the molcars' exaggerated bulged cheeks while munching on lettuce and carrots, visual effects animated with home materials, or the emphatic use of sound effects such as tiny bell dings for surprise or shock. Time and care was also taken to give distinct colour palettes and accessories not only to every molcar, but also each of the various locales, buildings, and most of the humans, lending personality and credibility to its strange setting. Thanks to these effective designs and the inherent cuteness of small fluffy pets, merely watching molcars going about their adventures can easily stir smiles in troubled souls!

But Molcar is not only excellent as an animation equivalent of comfort food, but a genuinely well-made and inspired series of shorts. Having a world filled with giant, fluffy guinea pigs doubling as sentient cars with actual human passengers is an outrageous yet ingenious premise that gets concisely explored in under 40 minutes. Each short episode features a new unique scenario and tells a simple self-contained story purely through its expressive stylized animation, with hardly a moment wasted.

Some episodes explore wacky scenarios arising from the logistics of having self-aware cars with their own free will and desires, imagining how familiar problems like traffic jams, bank robberies and cars parked in the hot sun might play out in the Molcar universe. Others borrow concepts from pop culture and put insane new spins on them. There’s even a guinea pig dance sequence or two. Whether cute, funny, heartwarming or just plain ridiculous, each episode is its own unique delight. I could give more examples, but I’d just be spoiling the fun, and if there’s any series where the phrase “knows how to have fun with itself” applies, Molcar is it!

Beyond its expressive visuals and high density of memorable concepts and gags, Molcar’s greatest strength is its consistent mix of cute absurdity with simplicity and earnestness. With it, the series has created something that can appeal to almost anyone. As a teeny-tiny time investment, I highly recommend it!

A woman aims a sniper rifle towards the roaming undead army, steadies, and pulls the trigger. With a deafening bang, a distant zombie is shot square in the head; its corpse slowly falls to the ground. She remains steadfast, and fires several more ear-busting rounds.

Five seconds later:
*rub* *rub* “I’ve been laying on my boobs all morning. They feel almost numb.” *rub*
--------------------------------------
If this snippet doesn’t describe Highschool of the Dead, I don’t know what else does. Well, except maybe the famous “Matrix Boobs” scene, but that would imply a level of reckless abandon which is rarely present in the show as a whole.

Highschool of the Dead ... is a teenage zombie survival show that has essentially zero substance, is a narrative and tonal mess, but still attempts to carry itself solely on rip-roaring zombie killing set pieces, serious survival conundrums, and a whole lot of random fanservice shots which only end up sinking the whole enterprise.

The use of fanservice, specifically of the sex appeal variety, doesn’t have to be a problem in and of itself. I’m overall neutral on its inclusion unless it distracts or detracts from other aspects of a title. Unfortunately, Highschool of the Dead is a classic example of this issue. Every other scene that wants to be emotional or tense is interrupted by either anatomical dialogue, sexually charged scenarios, or shameless shots of “the goods” of its female cast. The show wants its characters and their struggle for survival to be taken seriously, but it’s hard to do so when the camera is constantly concentrated on plump panty perspectives and bouncing beach ball breasts.

These moments repeatedly break one's immersion in what the characters are saying, their emotions, their zombie confrontations, or anything else the show attempts, simply because it can’t help but toss in more money shots every 2 minutes. It’s a constant source of tonal dissonance; in that regard, even a random mid-series beach episode would have been a far superior option, and that’s saying something.

Well, there is a random hotel bathtub harem hijinx episode. I suppose that’s not all that different.

I’d also mention how such brazen fanservice just emphasizes characters’ anatomy instead of their personalities, but in this case, there’s not much personality to emphasize in the first place. Among the main cast, only a few have any notable traits which goes even slightly beyond stock archetypes. One of these is a sinister teacher who is weirdly fond of this whole zombie mess, and possibly involved in starting it (we never find out). He appreciates the new “survival of the fittest” way of the world to the point of happily discarding those who are weak, yet proudly takes on a leadership role in a bus of those students who were strong or cunning enough to escape a zombie-infested highschool without being biten. He’s cold, manipulative, and honestly a little creepy. It’s very heavy on the “wicked” and lacking in the “human”, but at least it’s an attempt at giving an antagonist a worldview to justify his inherently hateable actions.

The next and probably “best” attempt at a developed character comes in the form of a girl who is legitimately fairly smart and knowledgeable, but also very arrogant about it and completely lacking in self awareness or agreeability. She also hates being seen relying on others, and, somewhat ironically, despises others who can’t admit their own faults. At face value this is a solid template to work from, but in practice, these traits go nowhere interesting. Outside of a few useful observations about the zombies’ senses and about other people’s intentions, it mostly just leads to a the occasional bickering and acting like a jerk.

Said jerk behavior is directed mainly at our next character: a stereotypical otaku shut-in who also happens to be obsessed with guns and can use this to build a makeshift ranged weapon. That’s about it - his character never evolves beyond this basic starting point. There’s a woman wielding a katana who looks composed but secretly seems to enjoy the power rush that comes with killing, but isn’t proud of this feeling; this also gets little further exploration. There’s the somewhat headstrong protagonist who likes his childhood friend... and that’s the end of that sentence. There’s a childhood friend who likes the protagonist... and that’s the end of that sentence. There’s an innocent child character who lost her dad... and that’s the end of that sentence. There’s a blonde ditz with big boobs... and that’s the end of that sentence.

At the very least, the chemistry between these characters isn't the worst, and most of them, blonde ditz aside, do take agency and act reasonably given the circumstances... if we disregard some of the "sexy time" at least. But as a whole, they still offer little of interest, and unfortunately, neither does the wholly unfocused story they find themselves a part of. Various potential directions are brought up - questions about the zombie origins, police corruption, civil unrest, budding romances - but sadly all of these possible paths ultimately develop little within the confines of the series.

In fairness, I can somewhat forgive a first season of an ongoing adaptation for having a few loose plot threads, provided there is an intent to continue the adaptation, a clear purpose and direction for those unresolved threads, and a satisfactory amount of story content and exploration outside those threads within the season. After all, an adaptation, incomplete or not, should still be able to stand on its own merits. However, in this case, not only is there no sign of continuation at the time of writing, but more importantly, almost nothing that gets introduced is tied up or significantly developed by the series’ end; this leaves little to gain from the narrative present beyond the initial highschool escape. Any momentum built is further stunted when the show decides it needs to start stuffing itself with harem hijinx and other downtime moments for character “revealing” and “examination”, quadrupling the fanservice quotient beyond what it already was. The end result is a story of little value. It merely amounts to a long sequence of set pieces interspersed with “sexy time” and a whole lot of baited hooks, but no catches.

Fortunately, if there’s any redeeming quality here, it’s those very set pieces, specifically, how they are presented if you ignore the random fanservice. Director Tetsurou Araki brings his A-game with lots of well-paced cuts, dramatic theatrics and skilled kinetic camerawork, giving scenes plenty of dynamism and excitement without ever straying into incoherent territory. His work is so effective that one might not even notice the fact that the action choreography is often pretty basic. There are even moments of quiet dread or anticipation which are genuine successes, provided they aren’t interrupted by random panty flashing. Satoshi Hashimoto also deserves recognition for the series’ saturated, high-contrast color design, which is pleasing, striking, and pairs well with the content on display. Takafumi Wada’s soundtrack also contributes to creating rousing action sequences; it’s no “Sawano drop”, but it does its job as intended. Finally, Kazuya Tanaka’s sound direction gave plenty of “oomph” to the carnage without ever being obnoxious about it.

It’s a case of a few skilled hands almost single-handedly carrying an otherwise completely disposable project. But when Araki designed this show as “something his middle school self would be running out to buy”, perhaps that should have stopped at teenagers extravagantly murdering zombies, rather than also throwing in so much out of place fanservice. Either that, or stop being so serious and just commit to matrix boobs levels of ridiculous fun, rather than trying to have it both ways. I'd have been completely on board with that.

It’s not surprising that this show became so popular. It’s easy to watch and at times succeeds as mindless, cinematic zombie-killing entertainment. It’s just a shame it falls short in every other regard.

“.........................................................” - ??????

This unnamed main character never utters a single word, nor does any other presence in House of Small Cubes’ short 12-minute runtime. And yet, through the power of strong, detailed visual storytelling, it tells a tale as rich and captivating as many titles 25 times its length.

In a world of continually rising water levels, a widowed elderly man must continue building layer upon layer onto his house peeking above the surrounding sea, while migrating all his belongings up to remain afloat, each layer growing more cramped than the last. He spends his remaining days alone, his past losses weighing him down, until one ... day, an event drives him to reminisce on what led him to that point, and find his perspective changing in the process.

House of Small Cubes makes marvelous use of the medium of animation, with visible thought, care and purpose put into the composition of every drawing. It excels at conveying information through both background and foreground details; the inward-angled walls of the man’s shrinking home, the singular choice items - abandoned timestamps - in otherwise-empty spaces, a large collection of framed photos, the somewhat crowded space of his room, filled with all the items he holds most dear, and other details lend us a well-rounded glimpse of the man’s life; his slumped, unenthused demeanor, sighs of smoke, bursts of air bubbles, scene pauses to emphasize items of interest, and smooth fades or instant jumps between past and present tell us his state of mind at any moment. Throughout the film, we’re offered an ever-expanding understanding of him as his story unfolds onscreen. We’re also given a picture of the world he inhabits; passing boats, the surrounding homes of varying heights, two youth running around a grass-bedded tree and many other design elements, when put into context, each convey something of note about its function and history, often with ties back to the man's life - and all this hardly dips below the surface.

It's not just the use of these techniques, but the extent, success and significance of them achieved in only 12 minutes that makes House of Small Cubes stand out. Each aspect works to build an ever-deeper attachment between the viewer and the main character, making the film exceptional not only on a visual level, but also a human one, despite the time constraint and absence of spoken dialogue. And with more than can possibly be absorbed on a first viewing, each successive one can be as emotionally effective as the last. It’s cohesive, layered and often heavily symbolic or metaphorical, the full details of which are worth discovering firsthand.

All of this is portrayed through a loose, grainy, thoughtfully-shaded and softly-coloured sketch aesthetic that’s simultaneously distant and personal, accompanied by a somber score of tender piano melodies, gentle harp plucks and warm strings that’s simultaneously unobtrusive and inviting. These elements smoothly converge to construct a story simple in concept, yet touching on ideas of lost love, loneliness, memory, mortality, meaningful existence and the passage of time, and all in an interesting, effective manner.

It’s a bittersweet snippet that reaches heights and depths which few other short films manage. It makes the most of its limited timespan to leave an impact that lingers long after, and the degree of detail present coupled with the minimal time investment make it worth revisiting time and again. It’s tasteful, artful, moving and memorable. For some it may be comforting; for others, harrowing. But without a doubt, it’s worth diving in to find out.

*This review will mention a number of jokes from the series, mostly in vague terms to minimize spoilers while still offering a point of reference to those who have already seen it*

As soon as I committed to watching Poputepipikku (Pop Team Epic), I knew immediately that I wanted to talk about it, whether by discussing it with others or, as I have now done, writing a full review of this strange beast. It was clear that my opinion on it was different from the prevailing thoughts of the community. Of course that’s not a bad thing; differences of opinion or perspective make such discussions far ... more interesting, as opposed to a circle of like-minded cult members all chanting “Yes, man! Yes, man!” in rhythmic turn.

Of course, in the case of Pop Team Epic, the scenario looks more as if half the members in the circle suddenly turned to demons, the song of the ring an increasingly loud and aggressive “No, idiot!” with both sides on the verge of slaughtering each other. Pop Team Epic is an unbelievably, viciously polarizing show, with outcries of love and hatred struggling for dominance. What could possibly make something so divisive? It's hard to say for sure, outside of the old saying that comedy is subjective, but it may have something to do with the show’s unorthodox nature and format. Put simply, there’s little else quite like Pop Team Epic, for better or worse. The closest reference point I can imagine would be parody sketch comedies like Robot Chicken, but even this fails to truly capture the format-stretching, meme-generating, self-aware surrealism on display here.

So, with little comparison to go on, and a product which in many ways defies traditional metrics, it’s easy to become dismissive - to take your first, most basic impression of a title like Pop Team Epic and jump to conclusions about the work as a whole, whether positive or negative. I'll openly admit I did exactly this when I first saw the premiere episode, believing it to exist primarily to troll its audience (which it certainly does at times, but I'd hardly call it the show's sole purpose). Other stances span the full range from "hilarious collection of memes about pop culture" to "insufferable unfunny barrage of nonsensical randomness to amuse the bottom-feeders of the internet" among others - and to be clear, I'm not saying these specific stances are invalid or necessarily arise from quick dismissal. But if we're not careful, there's the risk of getting swept up in our immediate reactions and forgetting about the craft behind them - of losing perspective of the elements that go into the work as a whole to make it what it is. Pop Team Epic may come off as strange at times, but I believe like all media, it still deserves acknowledgement as an art piece, regardless of one's overall experience with it or eventual stance reached regarding its quality.

So here we are, as I make a serious attempt at understanding this show’s vision and the tools it uses to pursue it, and then deciding whether or not I liked what I saw and why. All this, because I don't think a work like this should see its weird, experimental nature become an excuse to immediately write off its craft before at least giving an honest and open look at the content on display.

With that in mind, there IS still the question of whether I personally liked it, so without further ado, I present my honest thoughts on this little oddity:

Pop Team Epic is an absurdist sketch comedy starring Popuko and Pipimi, two recurring avatars who go around making all variety of over-the-top events happen, all while screwing with as many characters as possible, including the viewer watching it. It sets itself apart from other such comedies by embracing the concept of meta-humour, but in ways that are far more creative and interesting than the often-seen approach of simply breaking the fourth wall and calling attention to its tropes (some may know this as “lampshading”). It also consistently gets creative with its formatting, whether subverting the standard 4-panel setup in various ways to enhance the element of surprise in its jokes, or making use of many alternative formats and styles to keep the variety up. Perhaps most critically, while wildly inconsistent in terms of quality, it shows an ability to tell its jokes without falling into common pitfalls of non sequitur and referential comedies… most of the time.

That last point is one I’d like to emphasize. Personally, I see more in this show's sense of humour than just arbitrary references for arbitrary references’ sake, and this is coming from someone who typically isn’t fond of non sequitur comedies. To explain why I feel this way, I feel it is helpful to try and break down why exactly I find randomness played for laughs to be ineffectual, as well as a bit about “humour” in general - hopefully, without coming off as conceited; it’s no secret that comedy is a highly subjective affair, so take everything I'm about to say not as any sorts of "rules" for comedy, but rather, as an elaboration for why I find Pop Team Epic to work where so many others fail, leveraging my understanding of my personal sense of humour while still respecting the skill displayed by the content at hand.

There are many theories out there which attempt to explain what makes something funny, but one that generally seems to align with my own sense of humour, and a useful starting point here, is Peter McGraw’s Benign Violation Theory. Those interested in the study of humour are free to explore this and other theories, but to avoid needlessly padding this review, I’ll stick to what’s relevant here: it suggests that something will be funny if it simultaneously a) acts as a violation of what a person believes an aspect of the world “ought to be”, and b) be presented in a benign (safe/non-threatening) manner. That's rather abstract, so to make a somewhat more concrete extension of this in the context of anime, one could theoretically achieve this by in some way surprising a viewer - such as by setting up expectations for the show or its universe and then defy them with some kind of “punchline”, joke, whatever - but in a way such that the result is something the viewer won’t find offensive, annoying, upsetting and so forth. Of course, this will vary from viewer to viewer. This is only one approach and not a perfect explanation by any stretch, nor are these anything close the only variables which may be involved. But it's a helpful springboard for diving into this show's content.

Applying this idea to non sequitur humour, if something incredibly out of place suddenly shows up in a show’s universe, then you’ve defied the viewer’s expectations for that universe, so you might get a laugh once or twice. But by repeating this joke, once it’s been established that weird or arbitrary things can and will happen in this universe, you lose that element of surprise for any future irregular occurrences, and the effect is lost. Worse still, if everything is completely random, without some thread of logic or flow to latch onto, viewers may stop expecting anything aside from this randomness. And, if you keep showing non sequitur after non sequitur, and the viewer interprets that as the joke, it could get incredibly obnoxious.

One could also say similar things for referential humour; the first reference is an unexpected intrusion on the show’s universe originating from another, but if you keep throwing out bare references, then the viewer begins to expect them.

Given this predicament, how exactly does Pop Team Epic seem to avoid this pitfall? The answer, I believe, is that Pop Team Epic is not truly random; it would be more accurate to say that the specific subject matter of any one of its mini-skits is seemingly random. By this, I mean that any given skit can have literally any topic of focus, regardless of what the previous one focused on, but on the other hand, most of the individual skits themselves do have their own sense of continuity and strange yet self-consistent logic. What this means is that so long as Pop Team Epic is able to set up and deliver actual punchlines through these self-consistent skits, it can function as an effective comedy despite its apparent randomness of subject matter and the prevalence of pop culture references. Does Pop Team Epic do any of this, with any degree of success?

Yes, it definitely does!

Starting with the basics, Pop Team Epic makes use of many commonly-cited forms of humour in amongst all its madness. These include, among many others, comedic shifts in tone (certain “Hoshiiro Girldrop” interjections), ironic character actions (the cigarette joke in an idol skit), situations being taken 4 steps further than expected to the point of absurdity (the same idol skit’s conclusion), escalatory repetition (episode 2’s manga speech bubble skit), some puns and wordplay I’m not qualified to evaluate, and, alas, a few instances of seemingly barebones references that don’t seem to have any strings attached. However, those latter types are thankfully a much smaller minority than one might expect. In most cases, there’s a concerted effort to at least add something of substance the the reference in question, even if it’s not always immediately apparent.

Of course, simply having punchlines present isn’t enough on its own. The fact that most of these “traditional” styles of jokes are condensed into extremely short skits (setting aside some longer-form exceptions with multiple punchlines like the aforementioned idol skit) does pose a challenge for the show in terms of having the time to instill expectations or ideas in a viewer, and then deliver a joke that isn’t completely obvious from the brief setup given. However, I personally found Pop Team Epic’s success rate to be higher than anticipated, perhaps because its variety of material and approaches gave it plenty of options for what direction to take any given skit in, while still maintaining that critical sense of flow to avoid a nosedive into true randomness. It’s a precarious approach - a constant balancing act which didn’t hold every single time - but as far as I’m concerned, it worked well enough.

So yes, this show does make use of some tried and true approaches to telling jokes, and frequently succeeds at maintaining the elements of surprise, buildup and payoff. However, Pop Team Epic is no ordinary comedy, and in addition to these more conventional approaches, it also carries a number of less-common tricks in its grab bag.

For instance, Pop Team Epic will often subvert the standard 4-panel format in order to further enhance its element of surprise, or add even more variety to how its jokes are delivered. 4-panel comedy strips will often spend three panels setting the stage, and then deliver their punchline on the fourth panel. This, of course, also applies to their adaptations, whether or not the boundaries between skits, sections or scenarios remain clear after the transition. In the case of Pop Team Epic, this transition is marked clear as polished glass by voiced-over title cards.

Pop Team Epic, however, often defies this conventional setup by placing an unexpected punchline near the beginning of the skit - what would be equivalent to the first or second panel in its original form - with the remaining panels adding onto it in some way, such as by taking the joke to further extremes or making humorous comments. This further adds to the element of surprise by varying the timing at which a punchline can hit.

In other cases, Pop Team Epic will flip the idea of the non sequitur card on its head, taking its normally-unrelated skits which the viewer expects to be unrelated in subject matter, and adds unexpected continuity between them to catch the viewer off guard. A good example of this (***brief spoiler for episode 3) is in a skit about Pipimi trying out a car, another person making disclaimers about its red colour and quietness, and Pipimi being satisfied, commenting that they can “kill in silence” and hide the blood on the car’s crimson hue. The skit ends, and the viewer expects the joke to end with it. Then the next skit is about Popuko looking for a job, and Pipimi handing her a suitcase full of cash, a gun, and a hitlist for assassination.

(***end of spoiler)

At another point, a skit makes reference to a certain piece of media, and then the next skit starts exactly the same way as the first, because the circumstances the first skit ended on would trigger a time reset in the universe being referenced. As a brief aside, this displays what I look for in referential humour. There should be some kind of punchline to go with the reference, and if the reference is necessary to understand the joke, its source should be something fairly recognizable to whatever audience is viewing it. In this instance, these conditions were met, showing that, at least some of the time, Pop Team Epic seems to understand that its frequent references cannot carry the comedy on its own.

On a more straightforward level, Pop Team Epic will change up the styles and even mediums in which it presents a given skit. Later episodes in particular got especially creative with exploring new formats, including alternate animation styles, various live-action/animation mixtures, and an enthralling segment involving two live-action performers manipulating pages of a sketchbook. This variety alone added a certain degree of entertainment value simply in seeing what the show would come up with next, even setting aside some of the jokes that were told by leveraging these new formats.

But that’s enough about formatting. It’s time to graduate to talking about the show’s attempts at full-on meta-humour that I’ve been building up.

To be honest, I’m usually not the biggest fan of meta-humour, but this has less to do with the concept than it does with the execution. As I mentioned before, I very often see attempts at meta-humour amount to little more than breaking the fourth wall, or a show plainly pointing out what tvtropes.org entry it’s using at that particular moment. My gripes with this type of humour are similar to those of the non sequitur and referencial varieties: in isolation, as a one-off joke or small aside, it can work. However, doing it repeatedly ceases to surprise and can become increasingly annoying when overused. Furthermore, it simply lacks creativity; it takes next to no effort to do it and is far too common an approach. In short: it’s a lazy, done-to-death gimmick.

But once again, Pop Team Epic steps beyond these trappings! It doesn’t stop at trivial self-awareness or fourth wall breaks. Instead, the fourth wall ceases to exist here, and the show makes use of the viewer's acceptance of its self-aware nature to tell jokes that simply wouldn’t have been the same otherwise.

A character proclaims an action they'll perform in 30 minutes; the show shows them standing there waiting in real time as the ending sequence plays in the background. Viewer comments complaining about an animation quirk in certain segments are read; the show fixes this quirk and lets you witness the humorous results for yourself. Later episodes make sudden, unexpected yet seemingly obvious additions to the opening theme to comedic effect. Even the necessary censorship of copyrighted words leads to a pun that translated shockingly well into English, with the incredibly stupid yet earnest results leaving me rolling! These are just a few of many examples of Pop Team Epic reaching beyond usual approaches to meta-humour. These gags are novel, creative, and often surprisingly witty, leading to arguably some of the show’s best and most unique material.

What I’m saying, in essence, is that for all this show's madness, I do see a method behind it. It has far more tricks to offer than simply throwing snot, superglue, tree sap, maple syrup, sticky notes and other trinkets at the viewer in hopes that something will stick. Furthermore, these tricks are often interesting and creative in their own right, and the show displays a clear ability to make use of them for uniquely comedic effect. Well, most of the time, anyway.

And on that note, here is where I must address my main gripe with the series: its inconsistency.

While I found many of Pop Team Epic’s skits to be a hit, and for others could at the very least see what the joke was, there were also quite a few segments which I simply didn’t understand. Whether it was because I didn’t know a reference, the joke was poorly presented, or because there simply wasn’t a joke at all, I can’t say for sure. Regardless, many of them just seemed to truly be random, have no point, or in rarer cases, simply exist as a reference with no apparent joke attached. Of course, some such segments turned out to simply be setting up for punchlines in later skits (“Are you upset?”, though this one arguably had a punchline to begin with), while others could be seen as planting expectations for a later variation with something in common (the first knitted musical number), continuing the trend of playing with the 4-panel format. Others, however, seemed to lack even this purpose.

For some of these segments, one could make a case for anti-humour - intentionally skipping the expectation of a punchline as a punchline in and of itself, or perhaps having the punchline be that what’s happening should, in fact, be taken at face value. However, I found that these segments seemingly devoid of a punchline happened a bit too frequently for this to work. As such, they had little impact and forced me to simply give up on trying to figure them out. Congratulations, Pop Team Epic, you've stumped me!

I’ll say this, though: I’d much rather a joke fly over my head completely than have it bashed into my head and get brain damage. But a quick smack to the face is perfectly okay!

In other words, I’m fine with blunt and over-the-top presentation (which can be found aplenty here), but I tend to dislike it when such presentation is combined with repeating or over-explaining trivial and obvious punchlines in a way that feels unnatural or forced. It comes across as the show being afraid the viewer might be too stupid to get it otherwise, or as some desperate attempt to draw additional laughs from something that’s clearly run dry of them. Thankfully, Pop Team Epic definitively avoids this particular pet peeve of mine. I can think of very few instances of a joke lingering beyond its allotted laugh-span - maybe some of the “Hoshiiro Girldrop” material overstayed its welcome. But even in those cases, it didn’t feel like it was forcibly dragged out, but rather, it simply went on as long as one might expect - which happened to be a bit longer than I found it funny - so this generally didn’t bother me much.

In all other cases, Pop Team Epic, leveraging its 4-panel format, moves at a quick pace, with quick setup, quick delivery of its jokes, and quickly moving on from it, whether you “got it” or not. This sense of pacing also means that even though many jokes or skits may fail to hit their target, their rate of fire is high enough to minimize long stretches of barren content. There are still some weaker episodes, mainly early on, but I found the series as a whole to fare quite well in holding my interest and keeping me amused.

And with that, I’ve just about covered my reasons for enjoying this show for what it is. For those brave or curious enough to give it a shot, a few things are worth noting in deciding how to watch it. First, if using official subtitles, I recommend going for Hidive’s over Crunchyroll’s. Many of the jokes contain nuances present in the former but lost in the latter. Funimation's English dub may also be a worthy alternative, but I can't speak on this personally. Secondly, Pop Team Epic has an unusual albeit suitable quirk in which every 12-minute episode is broadcast twice in a row, with the second adding extra context or substance to many of the jokes while giving Popuko and Pipimi different voice actors (usually a gruff male set for the second, adding to the surrealism). I myself usually preferred to skip to the 11:50 mark of each episode and just watch the more detailed second version, but how one chooses to respond to this quirk is up to them.

Of course, most of us watch comedies primarily for laughter, and no matter how many types or theories of humour we may discuss to explain our enjoyment or lack thereof, in the end, laughter is personal, which all but guarantees that titles with wildly diverging opinions like this one will show up from time to time. So for those who enjoy the show as a collection of memes for forum boards, or simply as “Shitpost: The Anime”, that’s fine; keep doing so. Likewise, if you find the show insufferable to watch, there’s no need to force yourself into thinking otherwise. But by the same token, whether watching it casually or going for further analysis, love or hate it, appreciate or despise it, let's not sit here and pretend that our own viewpoint or experience is the only legitimate one, that everyone in the circle who disagrees must be idiots, or that the work sitting in the middle is somehow beneath us.

As for my opinion, I enjoyed Pop Team Epic, both as a novelty act and as its own standalone product. Despite being more than a bit inconsistent, it still has its share of funny and memorable moments thanks to its straight-to-the-point attitude, creative use of meta-humour and blunt delivery of surreal gags, while mostly avoiding potential pitfalls of abusing non sequitur and referential humour. While it certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, the show is also wholly committed to its unusual vision and shows a degree of skill in using its varied material, structuring and formatting to sell its unique brand of absurdity, For that, I respect it.

A fierce orange candle glow shatters the cold darkness of the night. Near a forest chapel, a group of strange hooded figures circle around the Ouija board, put forth their hands and begin their chant. Suddenly, a guard picks up on the sight, boldly confronting them with a blinding blue flashlight as they run off. “Damn brats! Playing demon rituals again, huh?” The guard continues his work. Craving a drink, he enters the large, creaky door of the nearby chapel.

He gasps.

DRAMATIC MUSIC rings out as he stands at the entrance gawking at something-or-other?! Several awkward seconds pass before the cameraman remembers to show what on ... earth is so shocking!! INTENSE CLOSE-UPS ensue of... majestic, sparkling blonde hair? Buckets of deep red blood... gracefully drift down from some man’s hands like soft rose petals? In light of the HORRIFIC sight, the guard utters the first thing that comes to mind:

“They’re floating in the air!!” …I mean…huh? Oh, yes, that is what he says, because that’s what the script demands that he point out to the audience. Never mind the blood; that apparently doesn’t faze a guard like him.

This first minute hints at what the more enjoyable parts of Vatican Miracle Examiner are all about: campy mystery-horror shenanigans from a show trying its hardest to be dark, intriguing and dramatic, but more often coming off as plain silly; posing as if it knows what it’s doing when it clearly hasn’t a clue; sloppily trying to be well-directed and dramatically presented, while cutting corners wherever possible; masquerading as gripping mystery brilliance, while viewers just laugh at how absurd it all is. At its best, Vatican Miracle Examiner is enjoyable for almost entirely the wrong reasons… and I love it! Or at least, I love the first third of it. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed all of it, nor do I consider it to be a well-made show... by any stretch.

Shows dubbed “so bad, they're good” hold a rather niche appeal. Many viewers simply aren’t interested or amused by watching shows because they’re laughably bad, and even among those who are, what one finds hilarious may induce groans of annoyance or soul-numbing agony in others. But for those who do get a kick out of this sort of thing, I recommend trying out the first 4 episodes and then skipping the rest. I say first 4 because they, by far, best encapsulate what makes this show such a riot at times, while I found the rest far less consistently enjoyable. For now, let’s focus on the opening arc, and how it manages to be so extraordinarily good at being entertainingly bad!

The premise of a mystery show where Josef and Robert, two miracle examiners for the Vatican, investigate reports of seemingly divine or supernatural incidents to uncover the truth, was a workable one. In the right hands, this could have made for a truly intriguing watch, but the series stumbles at just about every step, the first such step being its visual presentation. The animation and shot composition give off a constant sense that they're trying way too hard, while paradoxically being as lazy as possible… or just not knowing any better. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.

Imagine a teen who just started using a new curse word, whether to feel grownup or just to add emphasis to everything. But the person gets too excited and overuses it, throwing the word into every sentence multiple times, trying so hard to use it everywhere whether appropriate or not, without realizing that they’ve effectively destroyed its emphatic nature. The result just becomes silly. The word loses all its power when the person uses it all the time without rest.

Apparently, the director’s new curse word was the Dutch angle, a cinematic technique in which the camera is positioned at an angle on its roll axis. This is often used to give a sense of psychological unease or tension… when used properly, anyway! Vatican uses so many Dutch angles, even in mundane situations, that it becomes downright ridiculous, like it wants to add as MUCH UNEASE AS POSSIBLE, failing to realize the importance of moderation!

Sometimes it even ends up disorienting the viewer… or perhaps that’s just because in all the excitement about showing off this new skill, fundamentals like establishing shots or proper timing and lighting are often neglected. It also uses a lot of very noticeable cheap tricks to save on animation, chief among them being an excessive number of extreme slow-panning close-ups so only characters’ lips ever have to move. This excess of slow-panning Dutch tilt close-ups often leaves little sense of spatial awareness for the audience.

At times this leads to hilarious failed attempts at a shocking or dramatic scene. I mentioned the intro scene above. In another episode, the show tried to pull off a SHOCKING CLIFFHANGER where… well, I think it was trying to make us believe one or more major characters had suddenly been killed by some Dagger Ex Machina figure in the woods (with absolutely no buildup). Beyond being a cheap suspense tactic to begin with, it was also so badly shot with disorienting tilted-sideways-panning-ultra-close-ups, that I genuinely couldn’t tell what on earth these yelling characters were doing until the scene ended on a vague slow-motion blood splatter that may or may not have been from one of the established characters. It was only then, that I realized, “wait, that was supposed to be a cliffhanger?” It’s safe to say it was a failed one.

Adding to this sense of silly presentation is the soundtrack, which in fairness, almost manages to be good; it's pleasing to the ears with lots of mood-setting themes and safe but suitable instrument choices. The issue is that, like most things in the show, it tends to try a little too hard, frequently becoming overbearing or unsuitably dramatic without rest, and adding to the overall sense of pseudo-dark silliness.

But beyond the presentation, the real riot comes from the show’s content, and in particular, how it handles its mystery elements!

Throughout its first arc, Vatican Miracle Examiner reads like the mystery-horror equivalent of how an inexperienced student of Michael Bay might try to plot a series; it goes for spectacle and plot twists above anything else at the expense of integrity or non-superficial viewer interest. Vatican is far from the only anime or even mystery anime to do this, though the degree to which it does so in its first arc (almost) commands respect for its sheer, bullheaded commitment!

The show’s modus operandi is to simply spout as much exposition in as short a time as possible, and act like it’s supposed to be intrigue. Then when it comes time to reveal the unbelievably over-the-top and ludicrous “answers”, you only occasionally get some semblance of proper buildup and deduction. More often than not, the show just asspulls extra information that somehow never made it into the expository typhoon for the viewer to be aware of, or be able to in any way reasonably deduce it for themselves. Usually it’s too out-there and stupid to cross the viewer’s mind anyway, yet still, the show acts like our main characters Josef and Robert are oh-so-clever for figuring it out!

In addition, even in the more “fair-play” micro-mysteries, the solutions tend to either leave unanswered questions, or rely on real-world knowledge of physics or history, while fudging the details to the degree that it no longer makes sense. The weeping statue incident is a good example of this; it was seemingly an attempt to incorporate real-world miracle reports from the Vatican, but went with a scientifically not-quite-accurate explanation that ended up being hard to buy into.

Other times, it will seem to contradict its own premise, with apparent “miracles”, which would normally be investigated to determine their validity, being either accepted or denied by its main characters without a second thought, just for the sake of the plot. One egregious instance of this was when one of the main miracle examiners had a dream about a hooded figure, then later accepted that dream as a premonition just because someone happened to say he might have seen a hooded figure in the distance one night, and apparently a person who happens to have a hood is just that unusual of a sight.

Tying all this miss-tery together is a cast consisting entirely of sticks and mouthpieces, or, in more technical terms, walking plot devices and expository figures! They display minimal personality, minimal development, and minimal reason to exist other than to move the plot along, pull solutions to mysteries out of thin air, or become another *gasp* SHOCKING DEAD BODY COVERED IN BLOOD! Typically I’d complain about how this reduces its cast to shock puppets instead of emotional anchors, but here, it just made things funnier! Not only because the runaway plot train was part of the appeal, but because of the amusingly clumsy ways these expository fountains get used!

The only thing to come out of any character’s mouth in a typical scene is a shotgun spray of expository verbal diarrhea on topics that often come up without any provocation! Character A will simply ask about someone’s name, and then Character B will go on an extended ramble about how much of a fantastic war hero and caretaker of children he was, among other backstory details that would never naturally come up in context. People randomly change subjects or go on unprompted tangents, with little attempt to maintain proper conversational flow. Everything in this show has to be spelled out in blood, no matter how inorganic it comes off; there’s no restraint to be found.

This applies even to the most mundane topics of discussion, which are usually treated with the gravity expected of big, decisive evidence kick-starting a hot pursuit of a serial killer! The show’s unrestrained brand of dramatic music shines through to amplify this effect, and it fits right into the silliness of everything else!

Making all this even better is the absolutely breakneck pacing of the first story arc! With no boring handcuffs like characterization or proper regard for logic to worry about, its barrage of ironic entertainment is nonstop! A crazy highlight reel of all the best-worst parts of the story, because who cares about expanding on the world or the cast? May as well just keep things insane and escalating constantly! Normally I’d say this was a problem, but in this case I think it was the right choice, as it helped eliminate even short moments of boredom that would otherwise exist in such an incompetently-written arc. It even adds to the otherwise limited non-ironic fun factor a fair bit. This show barrels through its early material blisteringly fast, bouncing between set pieces and piling on bad mystery after bad mystery that I knew by episode 2 would lead to some hilarious attempt to tie it all together, and likely a spectacular failure to do so with any sense of tact.

Gosh, was I ever happy to be right!

Episode 4 is the real goldmine; it was the pinnacle of my experience with this show, and one of the greatest “jump the shark” moments in anime! A series of reveals and resolutions so baffling, it’s absolutely amazing! All those insane mysteries, and all the forced exposition, get shoddily smashed together into an explosion of sex cults, faux-history, voodoo magic, physics-busting explanations, deranged psychopaths, ridiculous plot armor, and self-contradictions! Exorbitant amounts of information pulled from a zeppelin-sized ass to create a perfect storm of laughter and disbelief! It boisterously puffs out its mystery-writing chest, thinking it’s so amazingly clever for bringing all this together in a way its audience never could have seen coming! It proudly shows off answers more far-fetched than simply throwing one’s hands up and saying, “It was indeed a miracle after all!” I dare not spoil those answers here. They’re worth experiencing firsthand! Hypothetically, if Santa were to fly off to the moon with a giant cannon to fire moon dust at the earth, suffocating its population in lunar ash because climate change made him run out of snow, that would be a sensible story by comparison! This episode's story managed to set new standards for what I look for in ironically-enjoyable bad anime! One that could be summed up in 2 words: “Holy Crap!”

The degree of ineptitude and absurdity were so high at times that I seriously questioned if the show was actually presenting and scripting itself this way on purpose – intentionally being as stupid and hilarious as possible while taking itself seriously as some sort of twisted satire of the mystery/horror genres, or just for the fun of it. I simply couldn’t fathom the idea that the show was somehow blissfully unaware of it all. Alas, nothing further emerged to support this theory, and I was forced to accept that it appeared to be genuine. It was actually meant to be taken seriously while handling such plainly outlandish concepts so poorly. Despite this, I was still on board with it, both for comedic reasons and just to see what lunacy it would come up with next! But alas, even on this front, the final result disappoints.

The show never quite recaptures the side-splitting insanity of its first arc, becoming more hit-or-miss in its entertainment value. Ironically, this seemingly resulted from efforts to make something somewhat closer to being within sniffing range of competent. The pace drastically slows to something more conventional, but less fun. The dialogue is, at the very least, closer to believable, but less hilarious, and still almost entirely composed of exposition dumps. There's still no meaningful characterization or character development in sight, which just leaves little reason to remain invested.

The series does come up with a few interesting ideas, like the psychological effects of having all of one’s wishes immediately granted against one’s control, but instead of leveraging them to create a more fleshed-out cast, it just explores these ideas in the same exaggerated, barely-thought-out fashion all the way through. The result is that little of it is able to resonate properly. The show had a glimmer of a chance to pull off its own miracle and obtain genuinely decent qualities, but ultimately fell short.

Meanwhile, the questionable direction, hilariously stupid concepts, and bad mystery habits all remain, but are more sporadic in their appeal. The show still overuses Dutch angles and dark close-up pans even in the most mundane of discussions; still spouts nonsense desperately trying to be intrigue; still addresses the nonsense by pulling crucial information out of a hat when it decides to “solve” the mystery; still acts as though these implausible solutions are clever. And as always, the show still takes the idea of a golden life-size Jesus statue making weird horn sounds, glowing, and erupting in sparkles and rainbows each morning, just a little too seriously! That one's real, by the way, and the "explanation" is as dumb as ever! But this only makes up a fraction of the remainder of the show, with the rest being disappointingly dull.

I’ll say that despite frequently leaving loose ends and forgetting plot threads, the later episodes were overall a technical improvement over the early ones. But even with these small improvements, it’s definitely not worth watching Vatican Miracle Examiner for its own merits, since it never manages to grasp the fundamentals of proper intrigue, presentation, or anything else. Instead, its first arc is best watched for a good laugh. Perhaps the show as a whole could also be examined to see how not to write a good mystery horror. But frankly, it’s a bore at points coming off the first arc, and it’s up for debate whether it’s worth sitting through its lows just for highs that don’t come close to episode 4’s gambits. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed.

Enjoyment: 6/10 (8.5/10 for the first arc)

At the end of the day, unintentional comedic gold is still comedic gold. Even when Vatican’s breakneck pace slowed down a bit after the first arc, there were still a few moments of entertainment, though still for the wrong reasons, and with many lackluster moments in between. As for the first arc, it’s a nonstop hilarious brand of stupid, and I had a blast with it! I encourage those interested to give the first 4 episodes a go for this very reason, though the rest is definitely skippable.

Overall: 2/10

Vatican Miracle Examiner loses steam fast after its first third, but that initial third is either the spawn of Satan, or a glorious gift from above, depending on one’s perspective! Between its clueless presentation, forced exposition, rushed and sloppy direction, mishandled cast, impressively clumsy script, and revelations too bafflingly ridiculous to articulate with words alone, Vatican Miracle Examiner’s first arc is the most spectacular mess I’ve seen all summer! And that’s exactly why I loved it! It tries SO hard to be dark and serious, but its inept absurdity and complete lack of subtlety just make it a campy 50-pound cheeseball, with tons of potential comedic value! The rest of the show, on the other hand can be safely discarded.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine dared me to embark on a dangerous mission - one which could subject me to emotional turmoil even if I emerged alive. Turns out a bunch of no-name idiots were waltzing off to Mars to gather samples and research a cure for some lethal virus, while trying not to be ripped apart by giant mutant body builders with cockroach heads.

My mission? To sit around watching these idiots pretend to actually be doing something for 13 episodes while my senses are senselessly abused! I accepted, on the condition that this unnamed friend watch “Btooom!” in exchange. After completing ... my mission, I can safely say I’d rather re-watch that twice over than tune in to this clueless “performance” again.

Said performance is Terra Formars; the “action” survival “horror” anime that doesn’t care about either itself or its viewers; the show that feebly pretends to offer everything while offering absolutely nothing. Well, nothing except a few ridiculous, laughably edgy “death and gore” scenes in the first few episodes, which are so over the top at times that they transcend being horrifying and become plain silly. A certain head-severing spinal cord whip comes to mind.

If you really must watch this show (and I strongly advise against it), at least make it the uncensored version, otherwise you’re stripping out what little enjoyment there is to be gained from this animated fecal matter, be it for s(c)h(l)ock factor or simply laughing at the show’s tryhard nature. But I’m sorry to say that even such ironic enjoyment from the biology-defying bloodbaths is in short supply here, since both the comical absurdity and the actual shock value quickly dissipate as such scenes get toned down after the first several episodes. This leaves the show to rely on its actual substance and merit.

Hah, I wish. Terrible Formars goes to great lengths to muck up everything it tries to accomplish (...well, “tries” is pushing it), and to even greater lengths to ensure it’s as crushingly devoid of ANY substance whatsoever as a 5-hour season can be.

Don’t be fooled by its promises of a sci-fi survival story. There isn’t one. It literally sets up the basic premise, sticks the idiots on mars and then a bunch of said idiots and some roaches drop dead with no meaningful progress in sight. Plot threads vanish as quickly as they appear to never be brought up again. None of it leads anywhere and none of it ends up mattering as far as the viewer is concerned. Even if I wanted to make this a spoiler review, I’m not even sure there’s anything I could say about the plot that could spoil the viewing… “experience”. It’s like dangling a fish hook, waiting for a bite, then immediately cutting the line - on purpose.

Rinse and repeat until the writers get bored of it and stop casting out any hooks to begin with, and you’re just left with bugs and stick figures gawking at each other, occasionally interjected by a narrator gushing long-windedly about insects, lightning, the stages of suffocation and so forth. Honestly, these science lessons to pad out the episode or try to make some one-time bug transformation ability seem meaningful were the closest things to interesting material in the entire show.

So, without any notable plot progression the show is left to leverage another strength, like a sharp script or a solid cast of characters. To be honest, the latter quality is the one single area where Terra Formars succeeds most.

Succeeds at what? Being entirely incompetent on every level!

The majority of the cast have NO defining personality. They barely qualify as one-dimensional. You could have any two of them swap places and nothing of note would change. Several of them get some lengthy, drawn-out “sad backstories”, but evidently the show forgot to make the backstories even remotely define the character, explain their personality or tie meaningfully into current events, so you’re still left with non-characters with either one or no defining personality traits!

The protagonist is driven by the loss of a loved one to fight off the roaches and gather the virus samples, which is an acceptable motivation, but like most things in the show, NOTHING comes out of this - it’s just explaining why this caricature is on the mission and leaving it at that! There’s NOTHING else that defines him. He’s so bland and unremarkable that in any other show he would feel like a one-off side character, but there’s no competition here.

There’s also a woman who’s a jerk to her lover! What a complex character! And another was a famous boxer and - whoa, look! His bug transformation involves punching things! LOOK, IT WAS RELEVANT! What a miracle. Too bad that’s about all we know. These are some of the show's "better" attempts at making a character. With most, you’d be lucky to remember any of their names.

These aren’t characters; they’re just cutouts made from tree bark! And no matter how gratuitously violent the show tries to make some of their deaths, I don’t care, because why would I? It’s just tree bark!

Even the dialogue fails to add any flavour to them. In fact, it’s all quite dull. Its serves only to either blurt out exposition, fill time in a scene, or occasionally force in some awful comic relief. Are you tired of boob or perversion jokes? Well, these are just about the least-creative, most lifeless perversion jokes I’ve ever seen, or even comedy as a whole that isn’t set in a high school club room. Not to mention that in a supposedly serious story of survival, this forced style of humour comes across as out-of-place.

Without anything of interest in the dialogue, characters, their backstories, and no plot threads that go anywhere, all of the above just comes off like awful filler in practice. Yes, the plot and characters themselves are on the level of bad filler, dragging out the show, going nowhere, lacking direction, and existing only to waste the viewer’s time between any semblance of action. For a show whose first selling point was over-the-top violence, it seems intent on diluting it as much as possible, and this problem only gets progressively worse as the show goes on. Frankly, the pacing of everything after the first third is unacceptable, and what was already at best mildly ironically amusing becomes a downright agonizing viewing experience as episode after episode goes by without an interesting moment in sight.

Unfortunately, the production also tends to fall short, so these moments of “action” that should be something to look forward to are more like drops of dirty water in a desert. But I was so dehydrated that I was willing to take anything. I cheered out loud when, after several episodes of NOTHING, there was a brief sort-of-edgy scene with some character whose name I’ve all but erased from my memory. Then it was straight back to the desert trek.

But before I veer off-course, let’s talk about the action. It’s abysmal.

Whatever definition you may have for “choreography”, it’s near-nonexistent here. Your typical “action” scene might have 10 seconds of something even within reach of being called “dynamism” (usually it’s just the "death and carnage" scenes, which, granted, tend to be well-animated when they actually happen). The rest consists of some disappointingly sluggish direct face-offs between a human and an abnormally non-intimidating (just goofy) giant CGI cockroach. Remember that boxing character? Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t buy tickets to watch him fight these roaches. The rest is a combination of more bland dialogue pretending to be discussions of strategy, some science lessons from Mr. Narrator, shounen-style filler monologues, lengthy scenes of everyone just sitting around crying or gawking (as the roaches stand around doing nothing), or frustrating interjections from yet another woe-was-me backstory to waste another two-thirds of an episode on.

And the production weaknesses don’t end there. Visually, there’s the obvious issue with the armies of CGI body-builder roaches being of poor quality. Yet somehow even when half of them are off-putting CGI, their designs just don’t look frightening enough to feel like a threat (oh, wait, that would require some decent characters to be threatened by them in the first place). Honestly, the awkward human character designs manage to be more uncanny than the dumb, goofy-looking muscle-roaches could ever hope to be. When combined with bland colour and background design, static direction, a repetitive aesthetic and unremarkable animation, there’s little left to carry the show visually.

The audio doesn’t fare any better. Aside from a passable opening, the actual soundtrack of the series is pretty poor. Not one song is either worth listening to on its own or effective in the context of the scene. At best, they add nothing, and at worst, they’re actively ill-fitting, not to mention the repetition of the few (memorable is too much credit) “recognizable” ones just serves to make the increasingly soul-numbing viewing experience even more bland. Also, the sound design is atrocious at times, with some sounds quite literally clipping whatever audio channel it was recorded on. I thought it was my headphones, but nope, it was just an oversight that the most inexperienced hobbyist sound editor could recognize and fix in seconds. Production is more complicated than that, of course, but it seems there was some "production hell" going on behind the scenes and/or a rushed schedule failing to warrant the time or money to fix all such mistakes.

With this lack of even a serviceable level of production, and with so little in the way of substance or entertainment value combined with increasingly awful pacing, Terrible Formars is a landfill's worth of garbage in almost every conceivable way. The only thing it has to define itself is a few comical death scenes with brief spikes in animation quality, but the show couldn’t even commit to that one-trick gimmick as a selling point. While there are plenty of technically “worse” pieces of media out there, those were at least memorable horror shows. The only memorable thing about this is how little it even seems to care about anything it does, and if the show doesn’t care, it's hard to care as a general viewer. It feels like an ill-informed product, and a failed one on every level.

Let me be clear that I hold no resentment to the creators of this, nor do I think this show "owes" me anything - I myself chose to sit through it on a dare after all. But I'm going to call it like it is, and with that disclaimer made, Terrible Formars is the worst kind of bad anime. There may be other more shockingly incompetent shows out there, but the experience of watching this is awful. It’s not an ironically enjoyable “so-bad-it’s-good” series, not intriguingly or bafflingly insane or stupid, not uniquely or memorably inept, lacks value as a learning experience, and isn’t even insulting or offensively terrible; at least that would be SOMETHING! This is nothing. It’s empty; pointless; a creative void in animated form. It’s atrociously-executed and amateurly-produced across the board; utterly devoid of substance, integrity, plot, proper characterization, heart, effort, or literally anything worth caring about. Even the over-the-top deaths wear off fast. I can only recommend this to masochists. Everyone else, AVOID!

Most of us have at one point questioned our own existence. After all, knowing our reason for being can be among our most valuable assets. We desire meaning from our lives, so pondering questions like “who am I, really?” and “what is my purpose?” is only natural.

I bring this up not to go into some deep, pretentious analysis of this topic within the show, though there is some material there. Rather, I bring this up because Alice to Zouroku could have really benefited from taking a good, long look at itself in the mirror and seriously asking these questions.

Hereafter referred to as “AtoZ”, Alice to ... Zouroku seems to face a bit of an existential crisis. The issue here is twofold: one pertaining to its focus as a whole - in other words, what it is - and the other to its appeal or value to viewers; its purpose for existing in the first place.

Genre-wise, AtoZ mainly functions in two sharply-contrasting halves. One half of it (technically closer to two-thirds) is mainly slice of life with some interesting fantasy elements incorporated, while the other is more focused on action and drama. It does eventually stick to the former, but much of its runtime is spent stubbornly refusing to commit to one or the other, which comes at the detriment of both halves not being as well-realized as they could have been.

This kind of balancing of vastly different genres isn’t the easiest thing to pull off, but here is one area where I’ll give AtoZ credit. While its choice to hedge its bets does limit its greater potential, the show actually does an okay job selling the shift between them. The show spends long enough between genre shifts (usually a full episode or two) to allow its desired tone to properly settle in. This means that when it’s in slice of life mode, it actually manages to feel like slice of life, as opposed to just “down time” between action set pieces. Meanwhile, the more dramatic points still feel like more than just diversions. The series manages better than most to have two personalities at once; one for exciting times and one for laid-back moments.

Even with only a 12-episode lifespan to work with, I’m glad it at least managed to explore the slice of life portion to a satisfactory degree, because that half is actually quite decent. The dramatic elements, on the other hand… well, to put it bluntly, they kind of suck. I’ll get back to that.

Unfortunately, for AtoZ, contrasting genres isn’t the real issue here. A more notable issue is a lack of any substantial standout qualities – something to make it appealing over any other story of its type, particularly with how many of its wildly varied ideas are commonly seen in other series. Pretty much every individual element – every idea and its exploration - in AtoZ ranges from decent enough to outright bad, and none of it comes together to create something greater.

Starting with the presentation, how are the visuals? They’re okay, I suppose. Color-wise? It’s fine. Character designs? They’re distinct-ish. Animation? Average to stiff. Level of detail? Not bad. Character expressions? Functional, but nothing more. There’s plenty of CGI, but it isn’t integrated very well into 2D scenes. There’s also an extended action sequence featuring some full 3D shots, and while it is decently dynamic, it simply doesn’t look that great (and that’s not even counting one hilarious animation error involving a moving background outside the parked car). What about the rest of the action? It’s nothing special. There’s no impressive choreography or impact, nor much emotional buildup, and little to no tension (as I’ll expand on later). There’s one exception that was actually solid, but the action as a whole isn’t much of a selling point.

So if the visuals can’t impress, then what about the sound? Well, the voice work is competent (subbed; haven’t seen the English dub), including vocal expression and delivery, but it’s not outstanding. Sound design? It works, I guess. Music? Actually, the soundtrack, while not that memorable in its own right, is often quite evocative in context, and I quite like the opening and ending themes. But does a modestly above-average OST do enough to make otherwise mediocre presentation great? It does not.

“But so what?” one might ask. After all, almost every aspect I’ve listed so far, while typically unremarkable, is still acceptable, including the show’s handling of multiple genres. At the end of the day, the presentation is nothing ruinous, and it doesn’t have to be great if there’s strength of substance being presented.

Sadly, this is where the show runs into a serious fundamental problem: AtoZ, at least during its non-slice of life moments, is straight-up poorly-written. Those dramatic elements I mentioned earlier are seriously squandered by persistently low quality of writing.

The series tries very hard during these dramatic scenes especially to keep things flexible and varied. On one hand, the show poses all sorts of questions about Sana, her existence, the facility she escapes from, and several characters, among other things. The show leverages these questions and finds a degree of success here in initially hooking viewers. Alright, seems fine so far.

But on the other hand, there are all the different powers that Sana possesses, and they pose a real problem: they’re too powerful. Their versatility is taken way too far to give the show any hope of telling a compelling dramatic story; creating matter to summon pretty much anything, mind-reading, flying, manipulating objects, teleporting with some control over the destination, and that’s just from episode 1. Later points introduce some other equally if not more broken powers. Sana can pretty much do whatever the plot demands, and that includes pulling new abilities out of thin air whenever convenient. Normally, the established powers are already enough to prevent the main characters getting into truly tight situations, but even in rare exceptions, Sana possesses so many convenient powers that there’s usually nothing stopping the series from just coming up with a new way out for her or others on the spot.

The only semblance of a limitation on Sana’s powers is her current energy level, which in practice ends up almost a non-issue for her. When it does come up, it can easily be fixed as soon as Sana gets a hold of some food. How does the series compensate? Simple: make Sana conveniently not have eaten enough since last using her powers.

This lack of sufficient limitations also creates all sorts of loopholes that quickly result in things falling apart. For instance, why can’t Sana just teleport out of every problem? The show only bothers to contrive an excuse about half of the time, usually something to do with food again, and even those aren’t always very well conveyed or thought out. Any other time, it’s like everyone just outright forgets. That’s a real tension-killer, and it’s far from the only tension-killer this series falls victim to.

There are other writing issues present, which include plot holes, other loopholes, inconsistencies, contrivances and so on that bring the whole thing down anytime it attempts something dramatic. I’m going to get into some plot/event spoilers for the first 5 episodes here to go over some of them; scroll past to skip them. Now, I want to be fair to this show, so only things I feel have at least a noticeable effect on either the show’s integrity or the viewer’s experience are included.

With that said, let’s begin!

*****SPOILERS FOR EPISODES 1-5*****
*********************************
*********************************

- The show tries to make Sana’s recapture seem like a huge threat, but her teleportation ability undermines this. Even if, somehow, she gets kidnapped, attempts to rescue her fail, AND she gets taken back to the lab… so what? As soon as she isn’t actively being pinned down, unable to use her powers (and they have to let her use her powers eventually or they can’t do tests with them), she could just teleport away! That is, assuming she isn’t “conveniently” too low on energy at the time for that to happen, but this was only the case on her initial escape. There’s just not enough sense of finality or decisiveness to the threat of Sana’s capture, which only serves to dampen the suspense even more than it already was.

- Furthermore, Sana gets a tracking device put on her for safety before her kidnapping in episode 3. Setting aside the fact that this leads to even less tension, even Sana’s successful capture would just serve to easily reveal where she and the research lab are located. And the show tries really hard to make this whole sequence dramatic. It doesn’t work.

- Episode 1&2: Sana, while a few normal pancakes away from fainting, was easily able to teleport both herself and Sanae to many random places in quick succession. This includes Antarctica, tens of thousands of miles away, and then she brings back a swarm of pigs along with them. This only serves to make the brokenness of her teleportation more obvious, while seemingly contradicting the “conservation of energy” rule established. (Apparently all those pigs combined have less energy value than a few normal pancakes.)

- Episode 1: in the car chase, there was no apparent reason why Sana and Zouroku couldn’t just teleport themselves away and use Sana’s powers to replace the car on the other end. She had enough energy to easily lift the entire car, drive it around, and detach her opponents’ giant chain - a quick short-distance teleport at least to a nearby hiding place should have been no trouble. But nope, got to keep the poorly-rendered car chase going!

- During the kidnap in episodes 3-5, instead of using her powers to teleport Zouroku to her, Sana could have just teleported away herself. Clearly neither a lack of energy nor her being pinned down was preventing her from using her powers, seeing as she manages to summon Zouroku, heal herself completely and then literally rewrite her situation mere minutes later to get rid of the hands pinning her down, all with no extra food. (And as mentioned before, this whole time we know Sana has a tracking device on her, so everyone is obviously going to have no trouble getting to her. The lack of tension continues!) At least the sequence led to some decent, if rather forced, character development.

- Sana can instantly and easily look into anyone’s head and find out everything about them and their background, including what their relatives are doing (episode 1; she finds out about Zouroku’s granddaughter). This makes the mysteries surrounding who characters are, the facility she came from, where that facility is, what their motives are, and who Sana herself is, become completely trivial matters. Sana should have figured all this stuff out, either while she was at the lab or after her escape, but the issue is never brought up.

- This anime’s plays for sympathy typically fall flat. The lab just does vaguely (very vaguely) “horrible things” to its subjects for energy experiments for which we’re given no context as to why they should ever have involve horrible things, because they’re the show’s generic evil organization figure which exists for the sake of weak drama and making us feel sorry for Sana. Minnie C immediately blows her clichéd “dead partner” backstory in an attempt to make her a sympathetic villain, except that we don’t even know her enough to feel any kind of attachment or sympathy. But hey, got to have an excuse to make her a menacing and villainous woman who is mean to children and shoots one in the leg without remorse to stop her from acting out of line.

- On that note, Sana getting shot in the leg by Minnie C is probably the show’s most egregious example of a failed sympathy card. “*gasp* NO! SHE SHOT THE CHILD!” the audience cries, only for it to barely matter 2 minutes later because it was instantly healed with Sana’s usual overpowered magic abilities while she simultaneously rewrites her situation so she isn’t even pinned down. Really? Neither one of these abilities was established beforehand, and 2 minutes later it’s like Sana forgets she ever got shot, with no effect on her personality or outlook. All that came out of it was brief shock value and another excuse for Sana to have low energy and require a delicious Snickers® bar to later recharge. It just ends up feeling like cheap plays for emotions because this poor, poor child is captured and pinned and scared and wetting herself and is in pain for a few moments. All this, while we know she’ll just be rescued shortly because of the tracking device. It’s overblown, ineffective in context, and too shamelessly manipulative. Yes, drama is technically manipulative by nature, but this show makes its manipulation mechanisms way too obvious to the viewer to be effective. It’s clear when the show is just playing for cheap sympathy points, and in many cases, it comes across as desperate.

AtoZ’s dramatic elements aim for flexibility, but ends up creating loopholes and relying on half-assed excuses. It tries to create suspense, and mostly fails because of said loopholes. When it goes for sympathetic, shocking or dark elements, they feel cheap, and there are overall hardly any successful dramatic scenes. As a whole, the quality of writing just isn’t up to standards, and at times, it gets plain annoying.

*********************************
*********************************
*********END OF SPOILERS**********

But with all those issues out of the way, is Alice to Zouroku an irredeemable show? Well, maybe not.

There’s a certain major development and shift that comes up in the middle of the series, almost out of nowhere. Some might call that another instance of poor writing. I’m going to call it a miracle, because it kicks of the “second half” of the story, where, at last, the series actually focuses on one thing! No more poorly-written pseudo-dramatic nonsense; just slice of life albeit more whimsical than average with some wonderland-fantasy elements. And the show definitely benefited from this transition, going from something I generally disliked to at least finding passable for the rest of it.

Despite all of the writing problems present in the dramatic portions of the show, the slice of life components fare significantly better. When the series opts to focus on the more down-to-earth relationship between Sana, Zouroku and Sanae, most of the writing issues don’t apply. Granted, the occasional questionable element still pops up; these are mainly smaller details like Sana using her energy-demanding powers to fly because she’s supposedly too tired to walk, or her saying she hadn’t eaten in 3 days even though she clearly ate a rice ball earlier that afternoon, but none of it is stuff that cripples the antics as a whole; at worst, it might affect a brief interaction that is quickly moved on from.

As for the antics themselves, they’re not going to blow anyone away, but they do offer a few decisive strengths.

While the supporting characters of Alice to Zouroku are straightforward and unremarkable, the chemistry among the main duo is actually fairly strong. Zouroku’s staunch no-nonsense attitude makes him stand out from your typical guardian-figure lead. For Sana, whenever she’s not reduced to a plot device (something thankfully exclusive to the dramatic elements), watching her try to understand the world around her can be interesting.

Ultimately, though, it’s the way these attitudes contrast and bounce off each other that make things endearing, and it also leads to the occasional bit of genuinely solid comedy. Most of the gags revolve around Sana getting confused or making a naïve comment because she’s still learning and/or Zouroku’s stubborn nature. While comedic subject matter itself is highly subjective, the show does fairly well in terms of setup and delivery. The jokes are fairly infrequent (I wouldn’t call this a comedy-focused series), but the ones it has are rarely predictable, well-timed, and never overbearing, nor do they get hammered in and outstay their welcome as if viewers are too stupid to “get it” otherwise (that last issue is a particular pet peeve of mine, so well played, AtoZ).

“Don’t stand on the chair!” will go down as a favourite of mine with the context in which it was said.

So, are these slice of life portions enough to save the show?

Ehhhhhh…

Like I said, they may be the more decent parts, but I wouldn’t call them exceptional. The show’s one real strength – its comedy – is sorely underutilized, and about a third of the show still consists mainly of poorly-written and almost entirely failed attempts at drama, action and suspense, so by the time it finally gets comfortable, its integrity is already compromised.

Still, passable is passable, and the show deserves some credit for managing to recover from its extended weak beginnings, albeit having to do so with near-complete abandonment of its original direction. By the end, it just barely manages to find itself, but the two halves and even ideas within each half are a bit disconnected. As for convincing reasons to recommend it, or strong justification for its existence, I’m a bit iffy on both accounts. This is one of those cases where I think the show genuinely improves over its runtime, and the show’s last few episodes were easily its strongest; it just does so by so frequently changing face that it often struggles to have a real face at all. It never quite reaches the point where I’m comfortable saying, “Yes, this is worth watching!” Your mileage may vary.

First half: 4/10 – Second half: 6/10 – Overall: 5/10

A large enough portion of Alice to Zouroku’s runtime is spent on its functional fantasy-slice of life antics that there is still some value in the final product, despite it having very weak dramatic writing in the first half. That said, the product as a whole is decidedly lacking in focus and cohesion, ultimately resembling a haphazard hodgepodge of theoretically workable ideas, forced into an oddly-shaped blender that couldn’t properly handle them all. When the resulting pulp gives off a murky, unremarkable appearance, fails to acquire any consistent standout elements, and clutters up what could have been its main draw, I have to question what it really offers over many other series in any of its veins.

In an increasingly vast world of storytelling, filled with near-endless libraries of film and literature, TV and video games, live action and animation among other mediums, standing out is a goal that continues to be sought after, either through new ideas, or simply exploring old ideas in new ways. As such ideas self-replicate, with successes spawning successors and plenty of rip-offs, the thought of something novel grows ever more enticing, to the point that many (myself included) are already drawn to certain mediums like anime simply by their continued willingness to take risks and try new things in their endeavours.

Of course, while such ambitions can ... result in some of the greatest and most valuable works of art around, they just as frequently fall short. Quite often, the issue is in conceptualization, with familiar and formula-bound setups that aren’t tweaked to allow any “new” elements to mesh well. In other cases, a remarkable concept brings forth genuine potential for a grand and fresh tale, but due to insufficient elaboration, what seems like a showcase of a marvelous new world ultimately produces only a tiny glimpse of what could have been.

This brings us to Blame!, a film with a great premise, based on a manga which has already had two prior (and from what I’ve heard, not very successful) attempts to realize it into an anime. This third attempt in film format, on a surface level, actually seems to succeed in taking advantage of the premise through its use of CGI (yes, I’m serious), but it leaves the deeper layers and core mostly untouched.

The setting of Blame! is certainly an intriguing one; a rather uncommon take on post-apocalyptic sci-fi despite, on the surface, using familiar elements of machine takeover and isolated humans struggling to survive in a world no longer run by them. It gains its colour through not only the detail of the setting, but the way it literally and figuratively surrounds the entire narrative to a degree seldom seen in this story type. Blame! is not the type to appeal with the usual promise of big explosions and sci-fi lasers and deadly battles between humans and robots both struggling for domination of a setting that amounts to decoration or flavour - an excuse for even more explosions; on the contrary, Blame! thrives on intricacy more than grandeur. It is carried by the appeal of the details of the world, the remaining humans, and the ways in which they interact, or try their best not to interact, all for the sake of control or survival. It’s not a loud spectacle, but a quiet plea for continued existence, within a world teeming with endless danger, yet also endless possibility.

In short, Blame is in many ways an atmosphere flick, and here, it finds success. Rendered in full CGI – a typically derided aspect of anime, often for good reason – it strives to put the detailed yet gloomy and intimidating world on full display. Consistently dim or reddish lighting, occasional but strong effects, a dark grey-to-black colour scheme of the world contrasting with the pale suits of humans and exterminators, and an abundance of close and near-claustrophobic shots with only the occasional glimpse of the vast scale of the surrounding semi-darkness, are just some of the elements that combine with the detailed CGI to craft some consistently excellent aesthetics. The film almost never feels dry, despite its frequently dreary tone.

Even the character animation – the bane of CGI anime – is much more acceptable here than most TV series, be they full 3D or 2D with some awkward integration. The animation itself could at times stand to be a bit more fluid, but it’s weighty enough and never janky, nor destroyed by overly-stiff movements frequently seen in anime CGI. The model quality is good, and the expressions are acceptable, if minimal, and never uncanny with the exception of certain threats where it actually works in the film’s favour. Never did the CGI break my immersion or ruin the atmosphere it was going for. In fact, the things the CGI enabled were a big part of what initially created the aforementioned atmosphere. With this kind of tone, plus a unique and detailed world, there’s a ton of potential for a great experience and an even greater story.

It’s such a shame, then, that this wonder-inducing world only got the luxury of a feature film, and not a full series.

In fairness, I can understand why. For creators, the world of anime is already a risky one; an ever-increasing number of studios that seem to self-replicate and spread their influence all gunning for survival in a highly competitive industry. Blame! is the type of project that would require great human and financial resource investment to fully realize – resources growing increasingly scarce with no guarantee of return. But without taking such a risk, by not reaching outside of the safe zone, the product can only get so far.

For all the strengths of the movie’s premise, and all its success in creating a detailed setting, suitable tone and atmosphere, as a film, Blame! is pretty average. It offers many tidbits on how the world works, but no deeper exploration of it. References are made to its immense scope, but the film is confined to a tiny fragment. Characters' ways of life are put on display, only for the characters themselves to never be delved into; they show minimal individuality, and lack detail compared to the world around them.

In some ways, the cast members feel downplayed to little more than mere resources. To a degree, this still sells the main clan’s sense of desperation and the threat of them dying off, but not why a viewer should care about a particular clan member over any other. Almost nothing separates squad member C from member D, and the only thing standing out about B and A is an impersonal dynamic that amounts to a whole lot of nothing much in particular. There’s just not enough time to really take advantage of everything that gets set up. Any attempt would likely lead to an incredibly rushed and convoluted mess, and while what we got is much better than that, it still feels a bit barebones and superficial. The film creates an atmosphere, shows some characters on a general level, builds the world on a general level, lets an average post-apocalyptic plot of sorts unfold (with some fairly but not unacceptably convenient revelations sprinkled in), and then ends without ever diving into things.

And so, as the movie concluded, I became almost saddened, wanting to see more of this huge, detailed but mostly unexplored world along with its similarly unexplored remnants of civilization. If anything, this film’s greatest success was how it made me interested in the source, and in a possible full adaptation. It is my hope that someday, a wandering animation studio with a giant las- err, budget, will stumble upon the world of “Blame!” and decide fully realize its immense potential onscreen. What the film does already is alright as a standalone work, and also a definitive step towards a truly successful adaptation through some fairly strong aesthetics; it just doesn’t do much with its excellent premise. Thus, for now, we’ll have to make do with what feels like a little isolated piece of a much larger story. Or just read the manga.

Don’t be fooled by appearances! Onara Gorou is high art; a masterful, deeply deconstructive analysis of a long-held social taboo! It alters one’s perspective on its cultural significance, exploring such themes as fart romance and the meaning of life for digestive gases, and using these themes to demonstrate poignant, thought-provoking truths…

…What’s that? You think I’m talking out of my ass? Pffffft!

From the creator of such marvels as “Mr. Andou of the Forest” and “Salaryman Man” comes anime’s latest avant-garde classic! It follows the adventures of troubled individuals, who see their lives turned around as they get lectured by an old fart and his heroic inanimate ... smiling sidekick – the true unsung hero, perhaps, for enabling such great deeds to happen while asking for no praise or even name recognition in return! This character is so deep, he contains another entire character that still seems like hot air by comparison! To top it all off, there's even a farewell catchphrase to go with it all!

“Defart!” (“Sayo-onara!”)

I’ll admit, I got some chuckles out of this one, and one or two were legitimate, un-ironic laughs. Regretful, dumb and embarrassed laughs, maybe, but then I came to realize this only amplifies the show’s greatest message. Perhaps our obsession with insisting on higher-than-thou highbrow-over-lowbrow entertainment is all missing the point; why treat our silly little human senses of humour as somehow subhuman? Why downplay the easy comedic options simply because they aren't "refined” or “sophisticated” enough? If one finds them amusing, then maybe there’s no sense feeling embarrassed, or holding it in.

If I really must criticize anything, the only issues I can come up with are pacing problems and slow points, repetition, predictable punchlines, lazy writing, lazier presentation, overly-deadpan delivery to ever-diminishing effect, a soundtrack that's either cheesy or nonexistent, unremarkable sound design, ridiculous logic, and one-dimensional characters with instant and artificial development.

Go watch it, seriously. Experiencing this modern classic requires mere minutes of your time!

When keeping up with 2016 anime, I would often watch a title with a nagging sense that something was missing - something I wasn't seeing that was keeping a show with a workable or seemingly exciting premise from being truly engaging. And yet, for the longest time I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what that something was.

Then, as the year approached its end, I was shown a world almost entirely unlike anything I knew from that year. Suddenly, it all made sense! What was missing was surprisingly simple: a sense of passion - ambition! A willingness to take risks - to try something ... bold, run with it confidently, and, perhaps most importantly, to have fun along the way!

This key ingredient sums up exactly what Flip Flappers sets out to do, and for the most part, it delivers in style! It’s not a show that’s interested in playing it safe, running with the pack, or following the norm. It does its own thing in its own world. It remains committed to this and never looks back. Not only does it feel novel, but as it runs, it succeeds in providing something many of its contemporaries struggle with: pure, unapologetic fun.

The show immediately pops with a striking presentation style that is excellent for the experience it attempts to create. Anytime the setting enters the whimsical world of Pure Illusion (which it very frequently does), a vibrant and impressionistic colour palette combines with sketchbook character designs to create worlds which immediately pop out at viewers; smears and flashes of colour - the worlds themselves - comes alive onscreen through highly expressive and fluid animation, all backed by a suitably fantastical score. Whenever this show wants to sell a big set piece, bombastic moment or climactic sequence, it does so with ease, energy and expression filling every frame! These moments are exciting; often breathtaking, and they combine with a general livelihood and an ever-present sense of wonder and novelty to immediately make Flip Flappers a fun watch!

But such moments aren’t the only things contributing to this anime's flair. The very nature of Pure Illusion - an abstract world which seems loosely representative of characters' inner states of mind - is a perfect fit for this style of entertainment. Flip Flappers can effortlessly realize just about any setting it wants without it ever feeling out of place, nor completely random. This is great for keeping the level of variety and creativity consistently high. With this, and since much of the show runs on a cohesive semi-episodic structure, pretty much any crazy idea the show comes up with can be successfully built up to, and then executed with gusto!

And so, when the main pair of magical girls suddenly finds itself in an epic high-speed flying surfboard chase to escape from a crazy torture factory, or a DBZ-style fight involving a mind-altering mask culminating in a meteoric final smash, it works like a charm!

All of this crazy not-quite-randomness is thankfully held together by a controlled yet dynamic sense of tone and pacing. Each episode offers something new - something fresh - and each one makes an effort to go all-out with itself. In addition, it all ties into a core theme of the show: that of identity. Pure illusion itself is an expression of this, and in terms of story, each episode for most of the series tackles aspects of the theme in a different and interesting manner. One particular highlight of this (and of the show’s writing as a whole) came in episode 6. I won’t say any more on the matter, but it remains one of my favourite anime episodes of 2016. Point being, the show has a sense of cohesion that keeps most of it from feeling too unhinged, and allows viewers to build up expectations that it can subsequently defy in any number of ways.

Just a few episodes in, I was already preparing to crown this my favourite anime of fall 2016 by far! And... in the end, I definitely think this is a show worth watching, but unfortunately, it hits a few stumbles.

For all the strengths of the show’s presentation and structure, the characterization is often lackluster. While the main characters aren’t one-dimensional, per se, they tend to lack in depth or detail that could really make them interesting to invest in. The main duo of Cocona and Papika can certainly be fun to watch as they contrast with and bounce off each other, but this dynamic relies heavily on moment-to-moment chemistry and less on meaningful conflict or development. That’s not to say it isn’t present. Cocona in particular does go through several instances of personal conflict and development - disagreements with Papika’s adventurous ideologies being one example - but little of it, for Cocona or any other character, is presented with the kind of weight, importance or urgency to get a viewer eager to see them grow or overcome any difficulty. Similar things can be said for the rest of the main cast. As for the supporting characters, they’re pretty forgettable, with maybe one or two exceptions (Again, I refer to episode 6). As a whole, the characters don’t actively harm the show, but rarely do much for it either.

One may also notice many of my aforementioned praises apply to "most" of Flip Flappers. Alas, it admittedly falters a bit later on, and in ways that prevents it from ultimately reaching its full potential. Sometime around the halfway point, Flip Flappers had a change of writers, and it shows. I suspect the general direction of the story was either changed or left on the sidelines for too long, because when things finally start unravel, they REALLY unravel. And so does the quality of storytelling. As if from nowhere, the show decides it has a ton of plot to reveal, and is going to pick up the pace as much as it deems necessary to get through it all.

How much is that, exactly? Enough that all the viewer's attention is suddenly fixated on following this mass of new information and development, instead of actually enjoying the ride. Flip Flappers, which relies so heavily on its apparent simplicity and well-paced structure to remain grounded - to create its special brand of charm - loses itself to a degree when it comes unhinged. In its strives for progression, it sacrifices any chance to be reflective or create a sense of wonder and fascination, and it doesn't leave the audience much time to catch their breath either.

The result resembles a rollercoaster whose design was unexpectedly and radically altered partway through assembly. What was once a carefully-paced ride quickly becomes a tornado of loops and corkscrews and twists and turns one after another, and another, and another, and another, while the track suddenly becomes bumpier and more hastily-thrown together at the expense of rider comfort!

It’s almost as though they got two-thirds of the way through construction and realized the track was too straightforward, so they decided to build THREE TIMES AS MANY CRAZY TURNS into the last third to compensate! “What’s that?! We’ll make our riders dizzy?! No worries! We’ve got them in the cart already!” I admire the ambition, but Flip Flappers may have tried to tackle just a tad TOO much. Attempting to cram all the resulting plot development into 4-5 episodes was always going to be nigh impossible without the pacing suffering to a degree. If it had been granted a longer construction time and was a 2-cour series, then likely none of this would have been a problem, but regardless, what we got was, at times, a bit of a mess.

Thankfully, Flip Flappers doesn’t completely lose its way during this segment. Even at its clumsiest of times, it never completely loses direction, and if one can keep up with its frenetic pace, the story can still be followed to a degree. In addition, its sense of expressiveness and energy remains mostly intact throughout, while the visual quality stays impressively consistent. And fortunately, this jerky ride still eventually reaches a fairly satisfying and conclusive stopping point (ending) so riders can steady themselves.

One final silver lining to the comparatively weaker third act actually emerges from the previous ones, and that is the show’s knack for effective foreshadowing. For all the twists, turns and unexpected bits of information Flip Flappers eventually blasts through, many of them are actually built up to quite well. While a few things still feel a bit spontaneous, Flip Flappers as a whole rarely seems to haphazardly throw out its plot twists without some level of setup. I won't be giving anything away here, as even with the chaotic structure near the end, discovering these things can be fun to an extent. Amidst all of them, though, there was one revelation in particular that really impressed me with its unusual yet brilliant method of foreshadowing. Without giving too much information, one of the ways it hints at itself is through the very structure of certain episodes themselves, and the effect that structure has on the viewer. If that sounds rather meta, you’d be right, but if it sounds like I’m overthinking things, I can affirm I’m not.

If only the viewer was a bit more invested in the character(s) involved. Then, perhaps, this revelation would have had more impact - beyond its novel execution - and indeed, the same can be said for the show as a whole.

Ultimately, Flip Flappers concludes itself as an imperfect but valuable marvel. It strides forth unexpectedly, as if from another other world, seemingly out of nowhere, to show what it can achieve! As a thematically varied audiovisual treat, full of creative energy, it possesses a rare, passionate desire to do what many series forgot how to do: to just have fun for once. In today’s period of frequent anime monotony, Flip Flappers stands out as a welcome modern breath of fresh air; one that knows its strengths, and plays to them well. Even if it didn’t quite reach the highs I was initially hoping for, it has enough standout qualities to make it worth watching for anyone interested. One small warning, though: the ending theme won't be leaving your head for a while.