Year In Review: N-Squared List
Just like last year, I guess some things have not changed. This could be a reference.
On Liking Crappy Anime
I’m one of those weirdos who makes a conscious break between what I like and what I recognize as quality.
Take, for example, Linebarrels of Iron. This particular show looks and feels like an average giant robot show, and for the most part it fits that genre stereotype to a tee. It’s full of play–fanservice for the genre fans, if you will–on the common genre concepts. Death flags; “people die when they are killed”; brofists of all kinds; giant robots; giant robots of all sizes; giant robots that goes into space; compromising situation involving locker rooms, baths, beaches, rooms with beds in it; a primary school and primary school students; beamspam; guns; robot on robot action; robot on man action; man on robot action; tentacles (naturally); over 9000; bros of all kinds; betrayals; reunions; remembering from the past; slowly-revealing conspiracies; smart computers; spaceship headquarters; the word “justice”; bad jokes; screaming attacks; limited-time attacks; attacks that are tied to the pilot’s health; family members on opposite sides; different mecha upgrades; just as keikaku; bridge bunnies; winners and losers; “I want moar powah”; tsundere; oblivious male protagonist; taking one for the team; … I can go on for a while longer.
But like most modern otaku-targeting anime, what makes a show tick, in my mind, is how these common tropes are executed and arranged.
Sadly, when we go into this framework, automatically we’re talking about a show that panders and targets the otaku segment. People looking for the next epic thing should flag up and buzz off. However it’s also important to recognize this is the intent, from a fundamental perspective, of the show. I don’t expect Xam’d-level quality from Linebarrels, obviously, it’s unreasonable.
Nonetheless, Linebarrels offers something new and unique and it’d be a sin to not recognize or talk about them if you work within its framework. For one, it evokes the Japanese game show trope in the context of the undead. And it doesn’t involve zombies (although it does involve nudity). It’s also full of unexpected (in a tongue-in-cheek way) reversals that are just credible enough that you can buy into its ultimate cheeseball, captain-planet-esqe finale. While these are not new in the genre alone, their uses definitely were. It’s like a fake train wreck.
It’s like the Code Geass formula but done with integrity and none of the seriousness it takes with itself. Not that it’s a bad thing; those things worked with Geass, and I don’t think they would with Linebarrels.
And in a way this is the problem Omisyth detailed in a comment in an earlier post. If I looked deep enough I can find something worthwhile in a lot of mediocre fare out there. Silver linings, right? It’s just a question of the mode or modes of consumption I take on when I watch something. It’s no longer about standards–there’s no reason to talk about standards in this kind of context; keep it personal. For example, if your teacher refuses to grade your paper because it’s below his standard for enjoyable paper-grading and he only grades papers that deserve A+’s, how would you feel? How is it educational or productive? It’s not pro, bro.
Of course, we are not teachers of commercial animation and these anime are not submitted like coursework, but why are we grading them? I suppose it’s fun, but it isn’t without consequences. We can talk about the shows that didn’t make it from our personalized context, but what makes those discussions interesting is the clashing of our personalized contexts with a familiar thing your readers know because they’ve watched the same show you have, even when they may or may not know your tastes in anime.
So when it comes to the people who slam Linebarrels, it’s good to see it happen when they talk about it from an internal perspective. Because it’s a silly lol-Gonzo anime, there is little risk of retribution from others when you do slam it, and people slam it freely.
Only if this is the case for every show out there.
As for me, I thought Linebarrels was fun when it lasted. Like a grain of wheat, it will shed its excesses and die in the sea of past memories. What remains are the seeds of its unique and memorable elements, soon to spurs forth fruits of fandom and strange memes and more jokes about nudity, 4chan, and the otaku fandom dialog.
I didn’t even list most of the things I liked about the show. It’s that STRONG.
