Of Swords and Parasols

...

...

WTF, ANIME???

I'm not sure what's worse.  The cows, Pee(yes, that is a characters name) or the climax of the final battle.  (In another anime, that wouldn't have been as bad, and probably would have had the desired affect, but here?  No way.)

Buried somewhere in here was a pretty decent shounen plot with an interesting take on the idea that the "bad guys" maintained world peace, but the "good guys" can't accept one aspect of that, but it's pretty much lost amongst the misogyny and overuse of surrealism.

Also, even for shounen anime, I find it really hard to accept that three teenagers, two of whom have under a year's experience, one of whom has nothing vaguely resembling proper training, are the most important and powerful Meros warriors, and the biggest threats?  And that the least trained, least experienced one with canonically inferior equipment is the only real threat?

Also, the end?  Doesn't remotely go with what came before it.


Here, have screencaps.  I refuse to give you any context at all.  Possibly because I don't understand half the context, anyway.


I now need to cleanse my brain with something.  I was going to read the first volume of RG Veda or Magic Knights Rayearth, but I don't think that's the kind of thing to use to cleanse the brain.

ETA:  Also, I left out the most disturbing part about the cows.  No one deserves that.

I no longer understand what is going on.  Possibly, they are starting to explain things.  I do not know.  I did catch the explanation of the first Meros warrior and the origin of the Monster King, as well as the reveal about Koko's identity, but then I watched ep 21 and all semblance of thought and abilty to process was chased from my brain.  And I know telophaseis going to comment and say that I haven't reached the worst part yet.

I am not even going to try to explain, I will just post screencaps.  They say it better than I ever could.  If you click the cut and are eternally scarred by what you see, you are not allowed to never speak to me again, as I'm warning you now.  Also, no one is allowed to hold this anime against me in any context!

I no longer understand what is going on.  Except that Sayoko needs to reapply for a life with better people in it.  And I have seen the so-not-phallic-banana in the sea of so-not-symbolic cherries.  Or are they apples?  Also, must question Koko's taste.  Why go for Bocca when I'm sure any of her little harem would be happy to accomodate her?  (Actually, I kinda like Koko and her little harem, though I'd much prefer the non-pervy version of that group...)

I think the main point of the plot now is whether or not Bocca and Sayoko will have sex.  (Between the crate scene and the fact that he left a girl waiting for him back home, and the fact that she just seems to be replacing Kurofune with the next Meros to come along, I have to wonder what they're thinking weith that pairing.)

Whatever.  I bring pics.  Potentially NSFW.

 

Here, a few worksafe pics:


ETA:  Accidentally posted it before I was through.  Now with more caps.

 First of all.  There are fowl of DOOM!  They show up in all the stories to jabber at people.  As I am not the only one here obsessed with Japan's obsession with fowl of DOOM!, here are caps of an entire army of them:


So, most of these episodes had Bocca and Kurofune running around in a maze.  I did not quite understand what was going on.  Apparently, a Meros warrior has to stay there to keep Ban Midou's evil twin Holu in the maze, but it seems he can leave whenever he wants, so there doesn't seem to be much point to it.  There was, howeverm the BULLJEEP that, along with it's master, Ban Midou's evil twin Holu, played conquistador games with Kurofune and Bocca.  I have caps.  Oh yes, I have caps.

I have to say, the normal shounen girl tropes stand out a lot more here.  Toune practices to perfect a move.  It works.  Koko tries the same move, also apparently having experience with it.  It fails.  Her (male) sidekicks take out her opponents in nothing flat.  Bocca tries it for the first time and it takes out an army of automatons.  Bocca goes on solo missions with no training.  He always comes out on top.  Toune has been training herself for years, goes on a solo mission.  Gets caught.  Currently waiting to be rescued.  Sayoko is given the ability to be the only one who can track Kurofune, but it's eventually revealed that she can give the shackles to whoever she wants, and it'll work for them.

I always notice these things, but I'm typically less bothered by it because they're given some purpose in the plot and allowed to maintain some sense of dignity.  Not so much here.  Sayoko has a role fairly central to the plot, but every time it starts to move past being the object of affections/lust, it gets yanked away.  I wouldn't mind the objectification nearly as much is the girls got to kick ass, or if Sayoko got to actually DO anything with the info she figures out.  (There are several females in a position of power, but, well...they're  evil femme fatales...)

Also, I'm trying, but I'm really not getting why all the girls are falling all over Bocca.  Elle(classmate/first love) I got.  I kinda got Sayoko, because Bocca stuck with her, but that lost my support as soon as he showed he was willing to leave her behind while he went off and fought.  (Girl, if you're going to be gaga over a guy who leaves you behind while he runs off to play hero, make it the hot one.  I wouldn't really want either of them myself, and think you should go find some guy who isn't more interested in chasing monmsters across the world than you, but...)  But all these other girls?  Do not get.

ANYWAY!

BULLJEEP!

YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO SEE IT!

These episodes toned down the other stuff enough that I could appreciate the plot.  Kind of.  (By "toned down," I mean they reduced the misogyny to the 5 eps combined having about what one other episode had, and about 5-10 times as much as the average other anime I watch has.)  It helps me look past that stuff and appreciate the pretty decent shounen action plot, though.

They seem to have finally got a grip on Bocca's character, which is good, though I continue to not find him very interesting.  Sympathetic, at this point, but not really interesting.  He seems a bit slow on the uptake, but  at least Sayoko, for all that the series tends to portray her as brainless fanservice, seems to catch on to things.  The first arc(in these episodes)  seems to be trying for a story like Kino's Journey or Mushishi, with travellers encountering a town  with odd little things going on.  Uhm...I suspect I would have appreciated ehat they were doing there more  if I hadn't kept getting distracted by the boy who spent the whole time plugging the hole in the dam with his hand.

See?



See?  He does that for three whole episodes.  It's actually an important plot point.  (An interesting one, too, but I can't begin to think of how to describe it.)

We also meet 2 more Meros warriors, both female.  Toune, who dislikes Meros warriors (it's connected to the boy with his hand stuck in the dam) and wears a school uniform even though the story makes it clear she's well past school age, and Koto, and actress and bibliophile who seems to be actively investigating and opposing the monsters union is an organized way(with help) instead of randomly running around, looking for monsters.  Part of me is glad to have more Meros warriors(as tends to happen, Bocca, while ok enough, is less interesting than the other 3 warriors we've met) but part of me is focused on the fact that
Though, aside from that and the fact that the monster's underlings (well, the female ones) go through bondage sequences when they get in their mecha, there's a lot less to fuss over aside from
These episodes more made me sigh with annoyance but still be entertained, as opposed to be entertained but uncomfortable, like the first 5 episodes.

But telophaseis determined to taunt me with promises of misogyny that will break my brain, so I'm sure it's just an evil ploy to lure me into feeling safe.

These episodes featured Bocca and Sayoko in a resort-type town where the citizens know about the monster, but quietly let it take their children as long as it lets them live in peace, aside from the occasional lynch mob.  
Essentially, the whole part of anime where Our Heroes go around checking out how other parts of their society and seeing how they deal with The Evil.

I feel compelled to point out that, mixed in with the misogyny and the WTF-ery, there are some interesting bits.  The world mythology, while common for anime, is interesting, it has some nice "heroic coming of age" vibes, and there are some fun send-ups to westerns.  For all that she's deliberately a brainless fanservice girl, Sayoko has a fair bit of common sense.  If a monster attacks, she doesn't stand around screaming, waiting to be rescued, but instead takes off running.  If someone else is screaming and waiting to be rescued, she grabs them and keeps going, and she seems to glom on to what people are really like fairly well.  I like her, and would probably like Bocca, if they could decide whether he's a stoic, an idealist, or a pervert.

But the misogyny...oh, the misogyny.  How can I sum it up to get the point across in the simplest way possible...

Let's try this:

The main female  character (who is essentially a walking fetish) has manacles on her wrists with chain links attached.  When the object of her affections (as yet, it's unclear whether or not he returns her affections, or has any interest in her beyond not wanting her to get killed off chasing after him) uses his powers, the chain links perk up and point her in his direction, and he goes running.


You know, I can't help but think that if this anime weren't so caught up in trying to be abstract and clever, it'd actually be pretty good.  It has the rudiments of a good action anime with deeper meaning behind the action, but that gets lost in the dressing.  It's kind of like how I loved the first arc of Revolutionary Girl Utena, but after that, the animators started trying to see how abstract and symbolic they could be, to the point where all I could really process at the end was that someone was driving around in his car and seducing people with it and the guys were lounging on the car with their shirts spontaneously springing open, and people were having sex in the backseat of the car and I did not understand and could not tell what I was supposed to be getting from that except that the car had somer serious mojo going for it.

MoO is about...uhm...ok, I think this is what it's about:  In a near future Japan, monsters who look like humans rule the world, but most people don't realize it.  The monsters leave the humans alone as long as they're regularly offered sacrifices in the form of children.  There are warriors known as Meros who want to overthrow them, and they ride what appear to be sentient motorcycles and shoot magic arrows.  Apparently, the world will be saved if everyone can hear a melody they've forgotten, which seems to be a girl with red hair.  Our hero is Bocca, a boy with strange hair and eyes who wants to be a Meros(I think) and whose childhood friend disappeared one day, having been made a sacrifice.  When he learns a mechanic he's friends with knows the Meros, he meets a Meros named Kurofune, and watches Kurofune fight a monster, who is also the local mayor.  Leter, the mechanic makes Bocca a Meros, just in time for him and Kurofune to rescue Bocca's friend/girlfriend from becoming the monster's victim.  Later, Kurofune gives him the "you aren't cut out for this" speech and takes off, and bocca and Sayoko, a young runaway with some connection to Kurofune set off to find him, leaving best friend/girlfriend pining for him.

This, as near as I can tell, is the plot.  But between the crack and the "WTF?  Did you just do what I think you just did?" I kinda kept forgetting to pay attention to it.


I have caps, but no time to upload them.

This has the potential to surpass Gundam Wing in certain regards.