Saturday, October 24, 2009

Why?

Now as you may or may not know, I have been following shugo chara since the beginning of civilized culture (see: since code geass finished). Over the course of shugo chara's run, it's gone through a good deal of ups and downs which force me to liken it to sailor moon a good deal more than other magical girl anime.

The first season really sold me on the show. I was astounded at the fast pacing that took a long time to slow down. I seemed like this show was really trying earnestly to get me to watch it. Ultimately, I didn't find myself liking any of the characters as much as some other anime, but they had an alright amount of depth. As well as that, it introduced a few new ideas to a genre that hasn't really got much light shone on it as of late.
When I think back on the first season, I feel like it was really trying to be something new, big, exciting and quite possibly one of those cultural fads that make us in north America (or baka westerners, if you speak weaboonian) look upon the crazy antics of Asia and avert the eyes of our children with hopes that they will not get involved in this strange cult stuff like "anie-may" and "poky-mawn"

The second season was no real issue with me either. It was not near as good as the first season, concentrating much more on style over substance, but it served it's purpose. The one thing that I have to say about season 2 is that it really hearkened back to a rather "old school" approach - A happy go lucky maiden solving problems by defeating a monster of the week that shows up quite often for no apparent reason other then to have lots and lots of sparkles and use up the colossal animation budget. On the plus side, the second season did bring with it a fair amount of refinements to the show. In terms of a plot, it was slightly darker, more coherent, more involved, more emotional and all around more mature. It's just a shame that it was paced in a typical monster of the week fashion: Nothing happens ever, then in the last 4 episodes, EVERYTHING happens. This trend towards a more mature style of storytelling was greatly appreciated by me, the unintended target audience. I was hoping (and expecting) this trend to continue, as it mostly does. However what came next was something of a shock.


If season 1 was a square enix game, it'd be final fantasy 8; with a well done story, it tried new things, had some definite flaws and could have been the next big thing. Keeping on that train of thought, season 2 would be final fantasy 9: It went back to the basics of what makes the genre great and just based itself around those, while taking the good parts of the previous installment. However, season 3 is not like final fantasy 10. In fact, season 3 is not like a final fantasy in general. The only simile that I can use to describe it would be like your 17 year old douchebag brother who just entered collage. Now that he's in and thinks he's hot shit, he's hanging out with the coolest people and has experimented with plenty of new things. Most of this isn't for the better either.



If you can read that subtitle without thinking
anything dirty, then you have the sex drive of a snail.
No, not the normal kind of snail, the kinds that live
in a box and never see light or the outside world.


This is Season 3. Enter Shugo Chara Party! (exclamation mark being a part of the official title)
Now don't get me wrong, there's still a show to be seen here, but it's obscured by an equal amount of what's clearly filler.
For each episode, there is two or three short skits about the shugo chara doing some asinine things that look like they were drawn with windows 7 crayon style, and animated in flash. In addition to the skits, they also have plenty of live action footage, which contrary to what the name implies, does not include a great deal of action....
And nor is it live ...
I wonder why they call it "live action" in the first place?
In these live action skits, we get to see some Japanese girls walk, talk and in general act overly cute.
Yes, I'M calling something overly cute, you know it has to be over the edge for that.

After the fillers, we finally start up a real episode, which lasts about 13 minutes.

My main irk with this is simply because it's lazy writing. I realize that the manga needs time to get ahead, but come on, there DOES exist a group of people who tend to write tv shows for a living.
I'd know, they're quite vocal about it on places like tv shows. Anyway, I'm at least hoping that they will revert back to the 23 minutes of stuff model when the manga gets ahead a fair bit.


Now you may have seen the title of my post and been puzzled by it. "Why?", why indeed. Why could mean plenty of things, why is, why isn't, and why will often never be.
What I'm asking "why" for is partially why they decided to take two seasons of a good running show and completely reverse the attitude, but another "why" is "Why do I still WATCH this!?"
You see- despite my complaining, I still religiously watch the show. The anime sequences are decent, I just wish they were longer.

I think the real reason "Why?" deals with my desire as a male

Not that desire, you dirty fuckwit!

My other masculine desires... To WIN!

I've been watching Shugo Chara on schedule, practically without fail for more than a year now. I've invested a serious amount of time in this. I can't just GIVE UP!
This happened with sailor moon too, which just made me ride it out till it got good again (stars)
I'm either going to watch till it ends or till I can't watch any more. If I stop now then the show wins and has gotten the better of me. My sweet and subtle masochistic desires may also shine through as well. In that respect, the show has got me hooked, but it`s cheating.
Nice job Shugo Chara, and the third season isn`t AS bad as I make it out to be.
Ciao