Thursday 15 January 2009

Don't fuck with the Cornish.


Yeah, I finished Ichigo Mashimaro today, so I'm gonna make this my first anime review.


What do you get when you cross Lucky Star, Azumanga Daioh, Fawlty Towers and Beavis and Butt-head?
Lolis and fake lolis mocking foreigners and laughing at sexual references. And fuck me that's entertaining.

Characters

Well, they're cute, I'll give them that, but some things are slightly irritating.



Ito Nobue could be referred to as the main character, as she gets slightly more screen time than the others. Not by much though. She's basically a 20 year-old perverted lazy smoker who hangs around with 12 year-old kids to kill time. The animators decided to make her look even younger than she does in the manga (in which she is 16) to make sure that even the oldest main character is potential fapping material. Having said that, some of the stuff she says is pretty lulzy, and she relates to most of the target audience.


Ito Chika was probably meant to have more screen time, as she's the most normal looking character, but unfortunately if they actually made her more important most of the audience would probably get bored. She's the "voice of reason", or as I like to call it, the Kyou, but in her case, she seems more like a Light, since there is undeniable proof that SHE IS KIRA~desu.


Matsuoka Miu..... Hmm... I suppose she's this show's Haruhi. She does extremely stupid things for no apparent reason yet her friends continue to hang out with her and lend her money, Example: Everyone has to meet Nobue on the other side of the town/city/world, so the two fanservice girls take the bus, and Miu and Chika set off on foot, Chika has her bike, and Miu has Chika's scooter. Chika discovers that her bike is flat, so Miu fucks off with the scooter and gets on the bus, leaving Chika to ride THE WHOLE FUCKING WAY ON HER OWN. Seriously, they should punch her harder. On the other hand, she is LOL, and she says some pretty epic stuff whilst pointing out the unfairness in today's IRL society.


Sakuragi Matsuri, or TsukasaMiyukiMikuruYunoChii is a helpless girl who relies on everyone else for stuff. She reads Harry Potter, and she has a cellphone for the soul reason of texting Nobue. It's kinda cool how she goes from fail to win when she either falls over or says something serious. Oh and she has a ferret named John, and she's probably a mahou shoujo.


Ana Coppola is an exchange student who was born in a wall of corn. OH I'M SORRY I MEANT CORNWALL HEHEHE~
...
......

CORNWALL
...

^Actual joke used in the anime, I'm sorry.
So yeah, she's from England, and she's basically FORGOTTEN ENGLISH.

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU FORGET A LANGUAGE?

Her character is made even less convincing by her Seiyuu, who is JAPANESE, and ACTUALLY HAS A LEGITIMATE REASON FOR NOT KNOWING ENGLISH.
Her accent is horrible, just like every other English-speaking anime character, but hey, AT LEAST THEY TRIED, RIGHT??

...
OK, now on to her character. She's pretty badass for a generic loli, and I can't actually think of a similar character to compare her to, so she's pretty win in my books.


I've actually been to Cornwall quite a few times, and I'm going again in summer. I'll have to remember to post pix.


Other than the five main characters, there's this old dude who probably spends all his time playing WoW, since he's extremely antisocial and gets pissed off at anything but total silence.
The Sensei is generic, except it's kinda cool how he repeatedly punishes this one kid...Matsuoka, I think, in an attempt to get him to commit suicide. The kid eventually said no, and Sensei went back to trolling Youtube.
There was also a foreigner who only spoke English. I lol'd. If someone spoke to me with that accent, I think I'd pretend I was French or something.


Storyline
I kinda anticipated this bit being the longest, but in actual fact, there's not much to talk about. Ep1 Chika, Miu and Matsuri prepare something for Nobue's birthday, Ep2 Ana appears and Gununus, Ep3-Ep11 I forgot. Ep12 everyone celebrates Christmas, and all of them except Matsuri seems to think Santa doesn't exist, so they dress up as Santa and Reindeer to try to trick her into sticking to the Santa thing, inadvertently securing one-way tickets to hell.

That's where I'd like to leave it, but unfortunately I found every single episode extremely entertaining and original, with unique takes on the aspects of modern life.
I guess I'm just a faggot for loli anime.

To be honest, I was kinda disappointed when it ended, and I would have gladly put up with about fifty more episodes, good thing there's two OVA sequels.

Humor
This is the best bit, IMO.
The show remained incredibly lulzy without re-using old jokes. There were almost no references to other anime, making it incredibly n00b-friendly.
Ana failing at hiding the fact she knows Japanese was epic, especially the three chances she had to avoid confrontation.
Once when Nobue was sleeping, they all decided to communicate with notebooks/whiteboards. EVERY SINGLE TIME Miu did anything, I rofld.


FEEM TOON
Generic. I skipped it most times, but it was above average. The ED didn't do anything for me, so I only watched it once.

Verdict
Good for new viewers or those who enjoy this type of anime, but could be found annoying by those who enjoy such shows as Shakugan no Shana, or Code Geass.
Rewatch value is there, with about as much as Family Guy or The Simpsons.

Awards:
By the power invested in me by no one in particular, I hereby approve of this anime.




I suggest rape.

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