There is never a flat chested teenage girl in a zombie movie. It’s a rule.

HotD doesn’t break any new ground when it comes to the zombie genre. The most unique aspect of the show is that it is probably the first “classic” zombie themed anime I’ve seen, ever. The basics are all normal. Some unknown pathogen is turning everyone into a mindless flesh eating killing machine. It is contracted through a bite. Everyone and their mother is being turned into a zombie. The whole world has gone to hell.

If you look closely, there is a bullet dodging some boobs

HotD is blazing new ground in the field of boob-physics, though. I’ve never seen breast move, in an anime, as they do in HotD. It isn’t just bouncing. These things have minds of their own. There is (literally) a scene where boobs dodge a bullet, individually. Yeah, you read that right. One boob moves out of the way. Then the other boob moves out of the way.

The scene where we see shock wave dissipation through boobs is very interesting. I think they could have done better. Obviously, they decided to animate that scene though simple assumptions about how boobies would react to short high-frequency shocks. Personally, I would have started with a computer simulation, followed by some experiments with high-speed digital cameras and ballistics gel, then animated based on the available modeling.

But, that’s just me. Nobody cares about what I think, anyway.

Also, little girls supplying ammo seems to be another level of adorable.

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Why didn’t I use “breast” instead of “boobs.” Well, “breast” is too mature of a word and “titties” is too immature. I decided on a happy medium.

Oddly enough, it was the lack of pants that originally turned me off of this show. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were.  Strike Witches has so many gimmicky aspects that I figured there was no way an interesting story lay underneath.

Let’s list them out, shall we:

1. No pants – girls don’t wear pants or dresses. Sometimes, they go commando (I’ve noted, that I approve of this).
2. All girl/witch defense force
3. Mysterious non-human invincible enemy, kinda’
4. Girls with guns, big guns
5. Girls with magical powers
6. Girls with magical animal ears/tails
7. Striker units

I mean, really?

I wasn’t all that wrong, either. While the plot is fun and the characters are entertaining, the story isn’t very interesting. It’s fairly predictable.

Oddly enough, it was the lack of pants that brought me back to this show. It was intriguing. Where are the pants? What did they do with them? Is it a war-time conservation effort? I imagined that it may be necessary to use the fabric for army uniforms.

If the answers to my questions were presented in the show, I can only surmise that the reason I didn’t take that in was because I was preoccupied with fluffy tails and big guns.

Angel Beats has shown itself to be adept at being funny, with plenty of physical (absurd) humor. In many ways Angel Beats is more humorous than our Best Show Ever pick. My only issue with Angel Beats: it does not show the same skill in conveying the emotion in its characters as it does with comedy.

Take Kanade, for instance. She is a fairly standard “silent character” following in the footsteps of others like her (Haruhi’s Yuki, NEG’s Rei, etc). There is only so much that can be conveyed through physical expressiveness, especially with such a blank expression. This means that the viewer is left to fill in the missing pieces, due to the lack of story-emotional context.  It’s a relatively simply ploy and an easy way to draw the viewer into the plot and characters (are anime fans self centered?). It means the character is limited by the viewer, as long as the character refrains from talking.

Otonashi is another story. His emotions are given in extremes with short bursts. Take compassion. It’s not unusual for a protagonist to show great compassion. The prevailing trait of the typical anime’s hero is compassion. It’s another matter for the viewer to keep up with the fluctuation in intensity.

Although, the manic nature of his compassion may be more natural to the younger audience. Maybe, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be a teenager. On the other hand, I don’t really know what it would be like to die and then find myself back in high school with a cute silent girl trying to kill me. Hell, I’d rather have the cute silent girl trying to kill me than go back to high school.

The truth of the matter is that I feel it could be done better. Still, there is enjoyment in seeing the characters experience some form of deep feeling, even if it is a bit overplayed.

I’ve been out of the blogging game for a few months, now. It isn’t that I haven’t wanted to blog. Time is simply not on my side. That beast eats so much of my life, ya’ know.

At any rate, to the point of this post. I’ve still been watching the anime. There were some good shows last season: Ladies x Butlers, The Book of Bantorra, Omamori Himari, Chu-bra (kinda). Of course, the last Best Show Ever winner, A Certain Scientific Railgun. BTW, Uiharu won the Best Hair Accessory That May Not Be a Hair Accessory award.

First Up: Angel Beats!

Okay, so this guy apparently dies and awakes in a strange world with a cute girl named Haruhi who is god. Umm…that’s not right. Her name is Yuri, she isn’t god, and she’s dead too. The basic story, follows the SOS brigade group of main characters in the “Afterlife Battlefront” while they try to destroy a mysterious organization, Angel, that may or may not be a single girl who happens to be the student council president.

Oh yeah, that guy I mentioned earlier, he lost his memory so he doesn’t know anything about anything at all. Also, he dies a few more times after waking up (Beat to Death Angel Dokuro-chan style).

Second: B Gata H Kei

Okay, so there is this really cute girl who every boy in school wants to go out with. The only problem is that she is a neurotic mess fixated on losing her virginity. She hides it well. Only her closest friends and family know about her secret obsession with sex. Despite her willingness, she has unfounded body image issues centered around her, for lack of better words, happy place. So, she decides to target a plain looking guy who couldn’t possibly see her in any other light than perfection, because he’s a virgin like her.

Normally, the ecchi factor of this show would make it a hard sell to the Best Show Ever committee. However, the first episode was more funny than ecchi, and it looks to be pushing a romantic aspect of the storyline, which garnered it points.

We will see.

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Edit:  Holy crap, I just found out Angel Beats! has an exclamation point in the name! You know how I feel about shows with exclamation points! They’re totally awesome and not overused at all!

Also, corrected the name…

It took a while for me to place To Aru Kagaku no Railgun into the coveted “Best Show Ever” award slot. The thought had crossed my mind earlier, but I was reluctant to make the assignment (read: to lazy to write this post). Readers that haven’t thought me dead and moved onto bigger and better blogs might recall that another show, Toradora!, held the title previously. I feel it is important to note that this new awarding does not reflect badly on Toradora! or any future/previous holders of the “Best Show Ever” award.

One might wonder what would make this show stand apart from other noteworthy offerings. This season has offered another Kiddy Grade, Kempfer, 11eyes, among others. Why Railgun…aside from the fact that one of the characters is a cutie who can totally smash sh** with coins? Was it because another character is a perverted love obsessed lesbian with a pantsu fetish? Believe it or not, these were on the lower end of the reasoning behind why Railgun achieved this ranking, the “Best Show Ever” award.

No, the reasoning was far more distinct to this show. It made this show stand out. It was the defining quality argument for this series. In one word “hair accessories.” I know that’s two words, but it should be one word, like “hairaccessories” or “hairccessories.”

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Interestingly, Valkyria Chronicles would have taken this award last season for the same reason, if it were not for my reluctance to upset Toradora’s standing (read: too lazy again).