Sasami-san@Ganbaranai: Episode 3 - Why Should I Care?

Now that I’ve aired out my basic complaints about the show with my last post, let’s talk about some more specific things regarding the third episode, shall we? Well, I would talk about it except for the fact that I didn’t understand a goddamn thing regarding what went on. Seriously, did I make the right choice choosing the nonsensical Shaft show to blog? Oh well, I made my decision, so I have to stick with it. So I’ll have to give it my best.

From what I gather, Sasami and all her powers are basically explained to us right off the bat. She basically has Haruhi powers thanks to having Amaterasu within her. Her incestuous brother helps control that power. The three sisters also aid in their own way (boob missiles and all). Okay, that’s fine. Sounds to me that Sasami-san is now going the LN route of having one good self-contained story and then not knowing what to do afterwards, but we’ll see with the next arc.

There’s just one problem though. Why the hell should I care about anything that’s happening?

Well in order to see where I’m coming from, let’s compare this show to another nonsensical show that’s generated a bit of controversy, Psycho-Pass. You see, both shows have casts that don’t really have any personality aside from their assigned roles. The cast of Psycho-Pass mostly consists of a bunch of stoic badasses with only Akane and her optimism to contrast with them. The cast of Sasami-san are a bunch of stereotypes that look like they came out of a fetish book. I generally don’t like either sort of cast, but Psycho-Pass does have Akane. Sasami-san has nobody. Oh, Sasami? Hate her. She’s a twisted individual that I’ve heard people say represents them accurately, but she seems more like a wish-fulfillment character meant to appeal to shut-ins. If I wanted a female to represent me accurately, I’d watch Daria. But more than that, it’s what they’re given to say that’s the deciding factor on which I prefer.

I’ve already stated before that Sasami’s dialogue is smug, idiotic, bullshit, and that hasn’t changed at all with this episode. That fucking brother touching Sasami on the chest was just painful by itself, but the dialogue he was given didn’t help either. For all of the Shaft tricks being given to emphasize meaning to the words, the subs I saw were painfully bland when it wasn’t being annoying. There’s no real attempt at wit and it just comes off like Katanagatari rather than Bakemonogatari. Which also goes to show that if Katanagatari had been adapted by Shaft, it still would have been pretty dull.

Psycho-Pass’s dialogue has been hounded on for being too Urobuchi-esque, but honestly it hasn’t bothered me as much as it did in the first episode. Whilst it’s still pretty obtuse at times, it comes off more like Ghost in the Shell or Inglorious Basterds rather than something written by Nasu. Basically, it feels very procedural. There are a few times where it gets pretentious (anything to do with Makishima for one), but rather than the pretentious of One: Kagayaku Kigetsu e, it feels more like the pretentiousness of A Clockwork Orange. Given how I love A Clockwork Orange…okay, I think you can see where this going.

Considering that both shows have characters that run on dialogue for most of their time, the only way I would favor Sasami-san is if the characters’ actions entertained me. Putting aside the fact that Sasami-san has a sick tendency towards incest and moe, surely they must win when they’re given something creative to do like fight, right? Well, I didn’t give a crap about that action sequence near the end of this episode. It looks beautiful, but I just didn’t get, nor care, about the context of it and reading about why it happened on other blogs failed to changed that. This mostly comes down to the fact that it’s just too cartoony and too random to entertain me (rubbery violence doesn’t just kill slapstick you know).

Psycho-Pass’s violence on the other hand…oh my god. I LOVE it. That scene of the woman getting beaten to death with that hammer. Akane being mindraped last week. You could show me those scenes on Youtube without any context and I’d love it, because it looks and actually feels brutal rather than Scott-Pilgrimish. I loved seeing the Enforcers using their guns, especially when it causes people to EXPLODE! Ultraviolence baby! And not in a way that sickens me like Apocalypse Zero (yeah, despite my love of violence, I have a weaker stomach than most). Yeah, how can you guys not see why I love this anime? Have you ever seen an anime be so needlessly, yet awesomely, violent? I know I haven’t in recent times. So to me, Psycho-Pass is a godsend.

I totally understand where people are coming from when they say Butch Gen is unsubtle and he can’t write characters (which is true). But the same can be said of Sasami-san, can’t it? Seriously, although I understood a bit about what happened, I still can’t fathom what I just watched. What was the point of the hand growing out of Sasami’s chest? What was up with that opening scene with the brother getting abused and being incestuous? Why is a lot of the episode shown in distance shots? Was it worth sitting through all that tedious talkiness in order to get to that cool action scene that I didn’t get the context of? Yeah, at least I understood that with Psycho-Pass, helmet users can deceive inspectors, enforcers must defeat helmet users, and inspectors must control enforcers. And that was without reading other blogs or Twitter.

And that, my friends, is why I think Psycho-Pass rules and Sasami-san drools.

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Stingers

• I really fail to see how you can relate to Sasami. I really do.
• I know Sasami-san does some things better than Psycho-Pass, but this isn’t a real comparison post, so fuck it if I’m going to bother writing what they are.

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