EDIT: Yeah, don't think I'll be following this one. We're ten minutes in and already we have the protagonist unwittingly take photos of a naked 15-year-old girl, and then they get into some argument, and et cetera. It's samurais and katanas and feuds and shit - with so much potential for epicness, why do we need this tired ecchi device?
Ah well.
So, uh, I just caught this post from a while back, and decided to speak my thoughts on the issue. That is, regarding fanservice as a whole, and whether it
really spoils anime from an objective perspective. I speak as someone at a young age who has delved heavily into the NSFW anime/manga culture as a whole - someone you may or may not have seen~. It's one thing to dislike an anime because of its gratuitous usage of the device. I don't see anything wrong with that. However, to demerit completely a show because of its massive fanservice is... Well, something one should only do on a case-to-case basis. This means, fanservice is
bad if it is the only thing PERIOD the anime in question is driving on. Let's talk about cases to illustrate my point.
EXHIBIT A - Queen's Blade series
Now, Queen's Blade was originally a set of Roleplaying Books made by some company that eludes my name at the moment, it's kinda like a roundabout version of D&D except weird-as-shit and very wonky. It also has some accompanying flavor and fluff novel to go with it. This seems innocent at first -
until the anime adaptation came out. Note this was after all the artbooks/manga/games and crap. Now, the content in the Queen's Blade anime is generally seen as shameful, ridiculous, and over the top. Most sane people would call it distasteful. I call it strange. There
are people who get off to this stuff, believe me. There are people who like this stuff. But the anime itself objectively is a strange oddity because most of its devices run on blatant borderline-/d/ stuff... Again, people LIKE this stuff. But does that make the series good in itself? Not necessarily - because it doesn't have any other elements to distract other audiences from the strange content of this anime. Well, maybe it does. I don't know, because I didn't bother watching the second season, and I hear they're putting out a 3rd season. Christ, Japan, what's wrong with you.
EXHIBIT B - Kiss x Sis
This anime is what some people would call the anime that stepped into the border of hentai while still being considered as ecchi. It is basically so ecchi that it might as well just be called hentai. It freely skirts the border between the two like Yukari would freely do some "fooling around." It puts forward a lot of deviant ideas and basically uses the medium of "half-sisters/female cousins who are extremely horny and a poor guy who gets caught up in shenanigans" and completely twists it into something... Like Kiss x Sis. Now, the fact that this is being shown to a wider audience, albeit at late nights (as far as I can remember of the Japanese TV stations) means it has to keep the nudity et. al to a low. Yet this show manages to carry itself through while NARROWLY EVADING ALL THESE LIMITATIONS. It's very apt to wonder just how they pull this off. It is because the anime uses an actual humane medium - not necessarily that such a scenario will be enacted in real life, but the fact it uses HUMANS, we can immediately see and imagine what the heck's going on. And people who watch this stuff past the first episode usually means they
enjoy it. Does that make it good, necessarily? Probably not. This ties in heavily with the next case, which is a small group.
EXHIBIT C - Ikki Tousen/Battle Vixens and the rest of its ilk
Here's a commonly referenced example when people bring up "bad anime with lotsa fanservice." Ikki Tousen is one of the pioneering anime of the "Sengoku/Sangoku Adaptation" concept. That is, drawing characters up from Chinese and/or Japanese history and turning them into contemporary counterparts. This is an ambitious concept. Ikki Tousen has action in it too, and it's actually not THAT badly done. But yet, people still hate on it! Why? People usually attribute it to the massive amount of boobage, random bath/shower scenes and gratuitous panty shots. However, the real reason why it sucks, despite having decent fight scenes and having a shitton of eye candy, is because
the writing sucks balls and makes absolutely zero sense. The same can be said for anime like Koihime Musou and the 2nd season Shin Koihime Musou (which, for the record, I really,
really like) because it has really weak writing and plot direction. And their only excuse to save it is massive boobage and maybe alluded-to-sexings. And then some. Now, really, people are just using the fanservice as an excuse because there are people who actually SAY they like the story. Which is bullshit. They just like it because of boobs. I know I like Koihime Musou because of the massive yuri overtones and sexings, I mean, no point being ashamed about it.
NOW WHAT?Now comes along anime like Hyakka Ryouran. I have seen the first episode and I have to agree that the art animation on this thing is excellent. And I'm usually not a stickler for animation because my eyes
suck hardcore. But then I hear this comment saying "Hmm, well, I'm not going to give this thing a chance anymore because of a vaguely ecchi thing that happend really early into the episode." Well, you see, I haven't seen any future episodes of the show yet
because I am a lazy fgt but I think it's a bit too early to be making decisions like that. I mean, again, if this were a tired running thing that happened often, I'd be more lenient and I wouldn't have given the comment some thoughts. But this is kinda iffy for me to see. I guess I'm just ranting on about nothing really, but it's like me dealing with people saying I read hentai publically because I bring an issue of a Nipponese giant booc on manga. Oh, and there's also what AF said - I suppose whoever's doing the animation/direction and shit on this thing is really aiming it at a seinen audience. And geez, people in Japan who are into this stuff
are into this stuff. The studios over there really gotta pander to them.
You want badass tasteful crap? Go watch something like Sengoku Basara anime, but not like the art direction there is as great and beautiful as Hyakka Ryouran >_>
