Usually, when I start up a harem/ecchi anime, I prepare myself for the onslaught of nonsensical breasts, sporadic panty shots, illogical physics and random facesitting. These are the basics, and anyone who has watched more than one ecchi knows that this is a common theme in all of them.
And of course, naturally, these people don't go too hard on the show because "it comes with the genre," and "you have to look at it as a harem/ecchi."
I disagree.
There is a fundamental problem with ecchi anime that goes overboard. For an anime to be considered a good work, it needs to accomplish things such
...
as thematic development and effective symbolism, amongst other things, although there are a few exceptions. There are, for sure, aspects such as art and sound that come into play when judging an anime, but when we consider the big picture, that is, the overall score, art and sound comprise 40% of it, while another 40% goes to story and characters, and 20% to enjoyment. Ecchi comes short when trying to develop the story and characters because of its various sexual moments. When an anime uses up screen-time to show these scenes, it loses time to develop the story and characters. In moderate amounts, you could argue for character development, for example, by demonstrating a certain character to be attractive, which may be an integral part to his/her character, but in most cases, you do not need her to jiggle her breasts ten times within the first five minutes to get that point across. When you constantly do this, you lose out in certain areas, which inevitably makes the anime lose points overall.
That being said, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is a stellar example of this phenomenon. The show is, and although I have no hard data to really prove this, half ecchi (and you might as well call some of that "ecchi," hentai). I mean, quite literally, if the show is twelve episodes, and we do the math, that's 4.6 hours. I would go as far as saying that a good 2.3 hours of that time is devoted to some sort of ecchi. When half of your show is ecchi, you will inevitably lose out on the story and character sections. Thus, my ratings for those sections are considerably low. The art and sound are not impacted by this, and that would explain my rather high score for the show's art (I'll explain my sound rating later). Enjoyment is entirely dependent on the individual, and I care quite a bit about story and characters so my score for that is quite low too.
Now for the specifics.
(I MAY HAVE SLIGHT SPOILERS)
STORY
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou's story is nothing to praise. To provide a light synopsis for use in this review, the protagonist is supposedly a demon king and the show attempts to produce some sort of message about free thought and goodness through some morally gray situations. However, it is clear that the writers did not understand what the color gray looks like, because what I saw was pure black and pure white. The story is plagued by a lot of typical shounen moments and decisions that have had clear "right," answers. I was not for a second challenged with a question that I found to be considerably controversial. Not to mention, the way the story ends so idyllically ends up toppling whatever the writers accomplished, so even giving points for their attempt is difficult.
The story also suffers from a lightweight feeling. For example, a lot of things in the story do not have much of a backstory to provide support. Why is the protagonist a demon lord again? Was there any meaning in his status as one? Or what about his rival? What about him? Where did his powers come from? And what is with the convenient arrival thereof? A lot of unexplained questions lead to a lack of weight and the story loses a lot of points in this regard. What about the mystical magic all-powerful sword? It is given, (along with a little trope-tag of "it'll work when you need it to) yet the weight of this particular weapon weighs more than the entire story.
The inclusion of random characters is also everpresent in Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, although it is to be expected from a typical harem that tries to squeeze in the entire world's population's C cup and above girls into a one mile radius within one day. However, compared to a show like Clannad, where the girls are actually people and not toys for the main character, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou prefers to toss all sorts of spices in hoping one of them tastes well to the viewer. The fanservice involving these randomly tossed in characters inundates the viewer. It seemed to me that if there was an explosion, it was ingeniously rigged to blow up in just the perfect manner so as to rip the girls' clothes to shreds but leave their perfect skin and breasts untouched. Can't have bad complexion, now can we?
There are also some aspects of the story that just seem absolutely childish and idiotic. And for a show like this, where it goes as far as showing off some of the characters nipples (and this is why some may consider this almost a hentai), it clearly is not aimed at children. An ancient slumbering dragon is actually a robotic machination that shoots missiles and hacks computers that the God(s) use to interact with reality is a blasphemous concept. A girl who likes to masturbate in front of her brother's still-alive, preserved head and fantasizing about an evil demon lord? Did they originally attempt for a hentai plot but then forget about it? This sort of consistent foolishness would be acceptable if the show was some sort parody but it is not, and it is simply unnecessary and takes away too much attention from the story's attempts at thematic development (of which there is so little I will not even expand).
The story is also plagued with a lot of outrageous ecchi elements and tools that become almost intrusive, and at best, laughable. Our little Meena can go invisible, but somehow she hasn't studied magic enough to apply it to her clothing, so she has to go naked. Junko has a habit of only ripping her torso clean off. And Korone has a cute little tail that you need to pull to turn her off. Make sure to get a firm grip boys!
Overall, combined with generic and overused characters, the story is one of the more unoriginal things I've seen. Especially speaking of the backstory elements.
There is a few merits though that I must give to the story. The attempt is something I consider to be worthy of some points, since I think it is something that isn't found very often in the show's genre. The story is also pretty decent at building up some sort of tension, which is also nice to have. But the merits here are few, and are overwhelmed by the many blemishes.
I give the story a 3.
ART
The art, which also includes animation for me, was actually pretty rock solid. The fighting scenes were well drawn and had great and flashy physics. The scenes also seemed to be running at a great frame rate or had some apt motion blur, or both. A lot of times I could really get into the fight scenes since they looked captivating. They were smooth, cool and sometimes just simply awesome. The characters were for the most part also well drawn (with the exclusion of Hiroshi, who I thought just looked ridiculous). And I'll even go far as saying that those breasts looked great. Really though, the few men there were in this show (as it is a harem) were pretty well drawn and the artists put apt attention to important details and aspects of them, like the protagonist's unique eyes and toned body, or the cocky hair of Bouichirou, the man who challenged the Gods. I would have given it something closer to a 9 if it weren't for some bad inconsistency and coarseness with casual scenes, and the usage of pretty generic and crazy anime hair (although this part is mostly a preference).
I give the art an 8.
SOUND
There's not much to say here since the sound didn't really catch me whatsoever. I was never really captured by moving music in highly emotional parts of the show, or drawn to the screen during a bass filled drum-crazy fight theme, nor was I ever relaxed as I watched characters being casual with a smooth walking theme playing in the background. I do not, for the life of me, actually remember anything slightly noteworthy about the sound. If anything, I remember the OP having awkward and nonsensical lyrics. Overall, nothing amazing here, and since the soundtrack of a show is designed to heighten moments and keep it alive, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou fails terribly.
I give the sound a 4.
CHARACTER
I have probably already developed on my critique of the characters in my story section, but regardless, there's much to say here.
Now, granted, since Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is a harem, the character quality would decline, and just because it is a harem does not mean all of a sudden you should give it a 6 (Fair). Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou suffers from what I already described as the harem-character problem, where an interminable stream of characters (usually very attractive and sexualized girls) are shot into the show with little to no justification whatsoever, and this already destroys the score for the show. The characters become lifeless eye candy. You don't remember these characters by their names or by their achievements or by their struggles or their personality, but you remember them by their cup size, hip-waist ratio, and hair color. Oh, and I guess the sexually relevant traits are included too (I like the one who's all shy and doesn't want to have sex but clearly does!!!, etc.).
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou also has some of the most heavy trope-elements in it, regarding characters, that I've ever seen. Every character in the show is some clear manifestation of some trope. Here are some examples (mind the spoilers, or skip):
Korone: Silent and smart hot girl that doesn't understand the meaning of sexual tact. Also has a conveniently placed off switch in the form of a fuzzy bunny-ball tail.
Junko: Active, tough and independent woman with a soft side for protagonist.
Keena: Onii-chan!!!
Mitsuko: Hot teacher with a deep compassion for her students. You can interpret compassion in whatever way you want. Wink.
Hiroshi: Dependent young brother that fights for his big bro and becomes powerful. For the yaoi fans out there.
(By the way, I read somewhere that when they were auditioning for the characters, they demanded a cup size of C or above from the ladies.)
I don't particularly hate tropes, they will always be present and you could argue that without tropes there would be no such thing as genres. But tropes can become intrusive when used to such great extent and absolutely demolishes the originality factor. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou's cast is a chaotic blend of all sorts of harem/ecchi-suited tropes that provide no sort of unique or refreshing feel whatsoever.
The characters also are very two dimensional. Fujiko's little back-story for example is an overused vengeance plot and she overcomes this predicament with such ease and expediency that you really wonder if there was even a point of using that episode for that "development," when they could have just thrown more bare chested Junko at us. At least then, I could have used my imagination, and thus my brain, a bit more. Their back-stories are also, just like their character models, tropes.
Well, at least they look hot. Kind of.
I give the characters a 2.
ENJOYMENT
The enjoyment value for this show, for me was pretty low, but is subject to change depending on who is watching it, since I know some people who love ecchi, and others who despise it.
I personally am quite impartial with ecchi, and I am confident that my score for this area is unbiased, or at least, as unbiased as a score for a category named "enjoyment," can be. The enjoyment was low because of the low scores the show receives in all other areas. Simply speaking, I personally do not enjoy bad shows very much.
A lot of the enjoyment points were torn off due to ridiculous and outrageous scenes and unexplained and unanswered questions, all resulting in a slight bit of frustration and definitely a lack of joy. Such as the awkward and unjustified ecchi/almost hentai scenes that usually just made me uncomfortable and not enticed whatsoever. The characters were also too shallow for me to develop real connections and love for any of them, and the sound never heightened my feelings or emotions when watching so as to imprint a positive impression.
Also, the show is given the genre of "comedy," but it wasn't often that I laughed. There was one or two times where I did smile at a well written dialogue, but it wasn't nearly as often as I should have for my enjoyment factor to rise at all. The show also is classified under a handful of other genres that it all smashed into twelve episodes, leaving me unsatisfied and overstuffed.
However, the art did help the enjoyment factor a bit (and as expected, I gave it a very high score). The fight scenes, like I have said before, were well detailed and smooth, and I highly enjoyed watching a good punch in the antagonist's face or a vibrant ball of mana/energy being flung across the battlefield, or a dragon flying through the stratosphere.
OVERALL
4.4 --> 4.
LAST WORDS
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is, well, a harem ecchi and you really shouldn't expect any more than just that, and this mentality should be used for essentially every harem/ecchi you run into. You shouldn't run into this show expecting glory, but you shouldn't raise its score just because it chose to give up 40% of the overall score's value.
Seeing my score, I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone unless someone was specifically asking for ecchi, in which case, this cool show shows you a girl masturbating, some fine breasts in their full glory at high resolution and many other unsavory/pleasurable (you decide) things.
As I like to say:
"Only in anime."
All (25)FriendsAlso Available atRSS Feeds |
Aug 1, 2013
Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou
(Anime)
add
Usually, when I start up a harem/ecchi anime, I prepare myself for the onslaught of nonsensical breasts, sporadic panty shots, illogical physics and random facesitting. These are the basics, and anyone who has watched more than one ecchi knows that this is a common theme in all of them.
And of course, naturally, these people don't go too hard on the show because "it comes with the genre," and "you have to look at it as a harem/ecchi." I disagree. There is a fundamental problem with ecchi anime that goes overboard. For an anime to be considered a good work, it needs to accomplish things such ... |
