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Jun 6, 2016
I first heard of this show by accidentally coming across its opening somewhere on the internet. From what I saw, it looked like this show was going to be about a healthy, consensual, small-age-gap relationship, which is a relationship I still have yet to see in yaoi. I find it a lot more in yuri, but hardly in yaoi. The two boys were holding hands, looking into each others eyes and had smiles on their faces. They both looked happy rather than one looking sexually pleased while the other wishes he was somewhere else. I really wanted to see if Japan can actually make a
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show about a HEALTHY guy-on-guy relationship, and I thought this was going to be the one. I was wrong.
The first couple episodes were highly entertaining. One of the main characters, Ryouma is coming to the realization that he has feelings for another guy, Izumi and is going through a bunch of conflicting emotions, considering he thought he was straight before hand and he, at first, thought that Izumi was a girl.
One day, Ryouma goes over to Izumi's house. They start off with the usual awkward greeting. Then, Ryouma ends up chasing Izumi around the house and tackling him. Ryouma pulls his pants down and puts his mouth all over Izumi's lower half while Izumi is crying praying that this stops soon. Luckily, soon enough, Ryouma was caught in the act by Izumi's parents' manager and was forced to stop.
At first, I was glad that this scene was taken by the characters in a negative way. In the crunchyroll subs I was reading, the manager even referred to it as assault when reporting what happened to Izumi's brother, which I was really impressed with. In fact, Izumi's brother was ready to beat up Ryouma the next time he saw him as punishment for what he did to his little brother. I was even more pleased to find that Ryouma shortly thereafter revealed how guilty he feels about what he has done to a person he cares so much for and even apologizes to Izumi in the most sincerest of ways. I thought, "Thank God Japan knows that rape is a terrible thing!!" A couple episodes later, there was a scene that made me completely change my mind about that.
Izumi went on for days without sleeping because he was trying to finish up a manga in time to enter it into a contest. As a way of strengthening their "friendship", Ryouma volunteered to help Izumi finish the manga in the last couple days before the contest. Just after the manga is finished, Izumi collapses to sleep and Ryouma carries him to his bed. Just before leaving Izumi's room, Ryouma couldn't resist, but take the opportunity to kiss Izumi while he is out cold. He planted a short one and then was ready to walk out, then thought, "well, one more wouldn't hurt". He kisses him again, and then thinks, "Nah, maybe one more. Now one more. I swear, this will be the last one. No another wouldn't hurt." He ends up kissing Izumi all over his body and apparently it's alright because Izumi's unconscious. If I were in Izumi's situation, especially if I woke up in the middle of that, I would be furious. I stopped the episode in the middle of that scene and swore to never continue. I came out of it feeling extremely disappointed and in utter disbelief.
After they showed one rape scene where they acknowledge that what Ryouma did to Izumi was terrible, they show another scene where he gets away with doing something not that much different. I never found out what happened after that scene, but I knew that it was either going to result in Ryouma getting away with what he did because no one was watching and Izumi was unconscious, which is not something I was going to like in the slightest, or that Ryouma does get caught, in which case, I can hardly imagine Izumi wanting to stay friends with him, let alone start a romantic relationship with him.
Let me ask, do any of you know of any queer anime (especially yaoi) where the two main characters are in a healthy, consensual, relationship? I really want to find something out there that does. It would make me feel really happy to know that Japan realizes that gay relationships are not that different from straight ones. The only one I've come across that has come to that realization is Aoi Hana (highly recommend you watch that show instead).
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 6, 2016
This was one of many animes that came out winter 2016 that I enjoyed at first, but then ended up dropping.
The first episode got me really excited. It introduced a girl named Chika who is sick and tired of being thought of as this tough ass-kicking tomboy. She decides that, when she starts high school, she wants to rebuild her image into a "cute girl" ("kyuuto gaaru") by learning to play the flute and joining the school band. Then, on her first day of band, she's reunited with a childhood friend named Haruta who remembers her in no way other than the ass-kicking tomboy she
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used to be. On top of that, both of them have crushes on their band teacher and are fighting over him. After watching this episode, I knew that this situation would lead to some interesting character development. Boy was I wrong.
Instead, I get to episode 6, and the characters haven't changed a bit. The only thing that happens in every episode is a mystery that Haruta solves by the end of the day. Granted I love a good mystery and many of those mysteries were really excellently thought out. However, I was sitting there, waiting for character development to happen, and it never does. Where's the character development the show led me to expect? Why introduce this as a classic shoujo and then make it something that's the total opposite? Seriously.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 6, 2016
I have only seen two episodes of this anime. Here's the story of how I got into this anime and why I decided to drop it.
I first got into this anime after hearing that it makes a lot of anime references. I thought, "This could be fun!" and had fun watching the first episode. Then, I get to episode two and there was a particular scene I did not approve of.
Here's what happens, Nyaruko, the female protagonist runs into an old enemy of hers (who's name I can't remember) whom she hasn't seen in quite a while. Just when Nyaruko is ready to
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fight her, she unexpectedly confesses that she has a very large sexual crush on Nyaruko. She ties her up to her bed and start's kissing Nyaruko's crotch while she is screaming at her to stop. In other words, it's a rape scene.
Personally, I get really annoyed whenever I see rape in anime, not only because I think it will put a bad influence on whoever watches it, but also because, to me, rape is seriously the worst possible thing you could do to a person, even worse than killing. If you are killed by someone, then unless ghosts are real, you only have that pain (physical and emotional) for a little bit. If you are raped, i.e. forced to be touched and kiss by someone you don't like, you are walking around with that pain for the rest of your life. Somehow, the Japanese find suffering like this to be entertaining, and I cannot understand why.
I get especially annoyed whenever I see homosexual rape in anime, like this one. It has been mythologized for a very long time in western culture (I do not know if it's the same in Japanese culture. If someone can clarify that for me, it would be very much appreciated.) that gay people are rapists. All they live for is to have sex with people of their gender, even if that person isn't queer. Whenever I see rape in anime between two boys or two girls, that's the first thing that comes to mind, which is why I can't stand most yaoi like Junjou Romantica.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 24, 2016
This could have been a fantastic series. Much of the story was cleverly thought out. However, I felt that the ending/big reveal at the end left too many plot holes.
The first half of the show left me on the edge of my seat. I couldn't wait to find out what happens next, who that mysterious girl was, what is this secret that Kouichi's classmates are keeping from him about Class 3-3, and what does the story about the ghost of Misaki have to do with the story in the present. The episodes left off on some really big cliffhangers that left me thinking "WHAT?" "YOU
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HAD TO END THE EPISODE THERE?!" There was also some really cleverly thought out puzzles and coincidences that the author of the original novel was using such as his playing around with names. Also, the soundtrack is pretty good, I've got to admit.
However, in the halfway point of the show, I gradually started to loose more and more interest because the plot points were surprising me less and less. I'm not going to give away the ending, but I will tell you that you eventually find out that everything leading up to episode 6 is part of a curse where, every month, one or more students or members of their immediate family die of some kind of natural cause. There is death which everyone refers to as the most brutal death in the show, but I was watching it not at all being disturbed and instead thinking, "Wait a minute, this is a suicide. I thought these deaths were supposed to be NATURAL CAUSES OUTSIDE THE CONTROL OF THE VICTIM! How is this SUICIDE suppose to contribute to that?!" There was also a kid who died because he didn't fill up his inhaler before going on a camping trip to a shrine in the middle of nowhere. How could you be so stupid to not refill your inhaler before going somewhere where you won't have access to a refill?! If I were him knowing that I'm in a situation where I could die of any natural cause against my own will because of a curse, I would be more conscious of things like that.
Again, not going to give away the ending, but after having the plot elements that came before that make me less and less invested in this anime, seeing the ending with a lot of plot holes really put in my mind that this was not a great mind-fuck anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 24, 2016
Being a homosexual female, I have always been searching for a queer anime that didn't exist only for the purpose of fan service. I wanted an actual love story between a queer couple. One day, I was searching online for some more shoujo ai to watch and I came across this one. When I started watching this show and all the way to the end of the season, I thought, "Finally! This is exactly the queer love story I have been looking for in an anime."
They don't use queerness as an excuse for fan service. The lesbians in this show are just human, and not
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treated as objects for the audience to enjoy for entertainment. Strawberry Panic was a cheezy soap opera. YuruYuri pretty much uses offensive humor that is sometimes sexual. The characters in Sakura Trick are really stupid and you can tell that the only purpose for the show was to show a bunch of girls making out. The story made a good excuse for the kissing, but the whole show was more about the kissing than the actual story or characters themselves.
I also appreciated that they feature bisexual and polyamorous characters. Again, not for the soul purpose of fan service. There's actually a couple in this show who are in a cannon open relationship. Also, they actually use the words "bisexual" and "lesbian". There are only two animes I have seen that actually use words like "gay", "straight", "bisexual", "lesbian", etc. I don't know if that's a cultural thing, but that always struck me as odd considering how often those words are used in western culture.
What I especially love about this show is that the primary focus is on the romance and character development. If you are also an anime watcher looking for a queer love story that is actually reflective of real life, this is the show for you.
I also love the opening. It's short, it's minimal, it only focuses on our two main characters. What blows me away every time I watch it is the last shot showing Fumi and Akira, looking into each other's eyes, nude. What amazes me about it is, yes it's a nude shot, but there is actually a legit reason for that nude shot. If that shot wasn't there, anyone watching the opening would assume that this is a story about a totally platonic friendship because the opening up until that point, all we see is Fumi and Akira being innocent together and playing around in a friendly way. The nude shot tells the audience that this is, in fact, not just a platonic relationship, this is a legit lesbian relationship.
I also recommend picking up in the manga where the anime left off. Akira and Fumi's relationship actually starts shortly after the point where the anime left of and they actually become really serious. Also, the manga (at least in the latter chapters) focus on what it's like to be a queer woman in a still pretty heteronormative society like Japan. It actually becomes a social commentary in that regard. It's actually quite a shame that this anime didn't go on for more than one season.
In any case, I highly recommend Aoi Hana. I recommend the anime and I also recommend reading the manga after finishing the anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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