Anime Impressions- Sasami-San@Ganbaranai - Why Do I Bother Criticizing This?

It’s hard to review Shaft shows at time. At least when they’re like the Monogatari series where people don’t really care too much about the story and just want to see head-tilts, pointless dialogue, and fan service. That’s part of the reason why I didn’t review the Nekomonogatari movie, as I’d just be complaining about stuff like cat puns, story ending anticlimactically, and Hanekawa being boring. That’s stuff people like about the Monogatari series. It’s not like I haven’t used things people liked as complaints against an anime, but the stuff I complain about can’t be (what I see as) the core reason people like the series. Imagine if a critic complained about the recent Tamako Market because the girls looked so much like the ones from K-On and were moe as fuck. Well no shit sherlock! That’s part of the fucking appeal! Use something else, like saying the character’s voice is too high-pitched or that they could be less subtle about it. Or say it’s not funny. That’s a fine complaint.

Anyways, the point I’m trying to say is that if I complained about the first episode of Sasami-san being a pointless meandering snorefest that just so happens to have the Shaft style, I’d have hate comments up the hoo-hah. Especially since the Shaft style is done really well in Sasami-san. Shinbou managed to control himself a lot more with this anime and I actually really dug the visuals. They’re great. Timed perfectly and mixed in well with the dialogue, which incidentally is a lot like the Monogatari series only with less pretension and more straightforward “meh”.

The story is about some shut-in girl who has a brother that never shows his face and is basically her slave because he’s such a douchebag and the sister is a bigger douchebag that takes advantage of him. That includes him dressing her, bathing her, cooking for her, catering to her every need like the spoiled princess she is. Oh, and he meets some other girls that I hope don’t have the hots for him, but when you don’t have any other male characters in the show, one can only wonder. As you’d probably guess by now, I was kind of bored for the first half as aside from the presentation, nothing interesting happened. Because the entire story was mostly just about the girl (whose name is Sasami in case you guys didn’t guess by the title) treating her brother like shit and then realizing she didn’t give him chocolate for Valentines Day. That’s not an inherently bad plot, but I don’t know these characters, so why should I care when three other more interesting girls I don’t know give him chocolate first?

It was only around the second half when things started to become fun. Sasami somehow turns the whole world into chocolate and the other girls suddenly fight back with weapons and boob missiles that we don’t get an explanation for other than Shaft being Shaft. Whatever, it was fun to watch, so I’ll let it slide. The end had some decent perverted jokes as well. They didn’t do much for me because they were still perverted jokes, but they didn’t make me groan, which is quite an accomplishment.

Yeah, not really much to criticize. Especially since I see any criticism I make as pointless the same way I see criticisms against KyoAni’s “non-Key, non-Hyouka, non-Haruhi” works pointless. Chances are that you already know you’re going to like this anime by now and nothing I say is going to dissuade you. I mean let’s face it. When you first heard about this show and saw that Shaft’s name was on it, did you say “This is going to be the best thing ever”? If so, you’re going to enjoy this anime no matter what its faults, and that’s part of the reason why I decided I’m not going to blog this thing weekly.

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Stingers

• For what it’s worth, Nekomonogatari was alright.
• Edit: Okay, so I was a little off when I said people would like this just because it’s Shaft.

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