R-15 04: This could have been such a great episode

Notice how the power of lens glare cannot be confined within the photograph.

You know what word’s dirtier than ‘oshiri’, ‘hentai’, or ‘pantsu-sniffing-deviant’?

Censorship.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought that some careless artist had spilled correction fluid and it seeped through the whole stack.

Then I’d hit myself, since animators no longer flip pages old-school-Disney-style, and correction fluid couldn’t possibly have spilled onto digital art.

The lightsaber is actually censoring Taketo's massive erection. Fact.

I’m not looking for fanservice. But I am looking for comedy. Which is why a comedic episode that focuses on pantsu-shots that has practically no pantsu shots whatsoever is fail.

Watching this was like watching Gabriel Iglesias not being fluffy. Or Dave Chapelle not being brutally honest. Or Al Murray not being drunk, or nationalistic, or misogynistic, or xenophobic.

(Suffice to say I was sufficiently distracted by Youtube such that this post was delayed for two hours.)

Taketo loves the smell of freshly laundered (C6H10O5)n in the evening.

But really there is no point in censoring an ero-comedy.

I’m definitely incapable of being simultaneously aroused and amused. The closest I could theoretically get would be rapid mood swinging between the two, and I’d need an incredibly short attention span and an exceptionally responsive circulatory system.

All I know is, when I see a girl with her pantsu exposed and overreacting, I’m more likely to start laughing than to start fantasizing. And I’d be laughing more if not for those accursed white lightsticks ruining my anime.

This is pretty much the only uncensored pantsu that I could find (or bothered to find, I’m certainly not going through the whole episode frame by frame for uncensored pantsu).

I do have to say that I would have found it arousing if it wasn’t in the middle of another amusing Ran overreaction scene.

STARK-CHAN. WHY DO YOU TEASE ME SO.

I’ve been complaining quite a bit, haven’t I? Quite a change from my usual writing.

I suspect it’s because I expected a whole lot of Tsukuru, watched all the way through to the break in vain, and when she finally appeared she only got 2 minutes at most.

I don’t care what defrayal says, Stark-chan’s voice is memorable and unique and cute and awesome.

Plus that is the cutest expression I’ve ever seen of her. I can only hope that there’ll be a Tsukuru episode soon.

Too sweet for this anime.

This is the other bit of the episode that really irked me. Utae, all suger and spice and all things nice, defends Taketo and believes in him as only a friend can.

And what does Taketo do? He fantasizes about her in a particularly degrading situation. Porno Sight be damned, she’s a friend. You don’t think about your friends that way dude.

I seem to be making this sort of screencap rather frequently.

Ultimately though, I didn’t really like Raika, and since the episode was about her, I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy it much anyway.

This is probably the most ecchi scene outside of Taketo’s imagination.

I must say that AIC tried very, very hard. Perhaps too hard. Raika’s character feels extremely forced, and of all the girls she’s actually got the least personality (short of Genius Cheerleader, which is sad).

Abrupt personality change is abrupt. And startling. And came out of absolutely nowhere.

This episode’s failings was greater than the sum of its parts.

Individually, the censorship, Utae’s demeaning imagine spot, the emphasis on Raika, the appalling minimal amount of Stark-chan screentime, I could have lived with them one at a time, but not all at once.

“The female camerman realised a million eyes were on her and that her everything was being revealed. She could hide nothing. because that was what she wanted. She wished to be seen. She was waiting to be displayed. Displayed in all her shamefulness. What she wanted to photograph, more than anything, was right before her. show them. show them, how ugly you are. show yourself!”

Even the erotic passage of the episode isn’t exactly erotic. Or funny. It feels a lot like a rip off of Utae’s own ‘capture’.

If nothing else, the Raika episode is over and done with. That’s something good, at least.