So, last week I dropped all the mecha anime. That doesn’t mean they were all bad, but they all were not interesting to me. There were a number of shows that survived the first pass, but ultimately didn’t come through.
Second thing to go — Tokyo!
Tokyo? 東京 Tokyo? Really? There’s enough Tokyo-themed shows to make a bad-show category? Read and see:
Tokyo Ghoul — Tokyo is beset by ghouls. They’re like a cross between vampires and zombies. You can become a ghoul if you’re attacked by one, and you have to eat one person per month. In between times, you’re a normal person, except you can’t stand personfood. Protagonist Highschoolstudent Iforgethisname becomes a ghoul after he accidentally gets some body parts transplanted — he was in the same accident that killed the ghoul and the parts were handy, so why not. Lots of gratuitous blood. Lots of tiresome angst. Very little common sense.
Tokyo ESP — Tokyo is beset by ESPers. They levitate the Diet building, with all the Dietitians inside it, while declaring themselves the new rulers of Japan. They teleport, they throw fireballs, they do all the tiresome things that superbeings do, and they have the same boastful superiority that bad guy superbeings have, along with a large dose of “I’m doing evil things for no purpose, just because I can”. They also smoke unfiltered cigarettes, and that can’t set a good example for the children. Daring counteresper-esper group of high school students takes them on.
Tokyo Terror* — Tokyo is beset by terrorists. Well, two high school age boys who are terrorists. They steal nuclear material from a power plant. They blow up the two towers of Tokyo City Hall.
Was this too soon, America?
Should we not have done this?
They are evidently part of a group that was experimented on in a lab (refer to each other with numbers, talk about the ones who didn’t get out), and so have some authority issues. Unlike last season’s lab rat anime, Brynhilder in Darkness, they don’t seem to have any superpowers. I mean, other than the ability to infiltrate a nuclear lab, run carrying a nuclear shipping container like it was an Australian Rules football, drive a motorcycle like Clément Desalle, and infiltrate enough explosive-laden stuffed toys into the Tokyo City Hall to blow up the building without being noticed or missing class.
Tokyo Ravens — I do love a good baseball anime. Unfortunately, TR isn’t about baseball. It’s about power struggles between two magical families in Tokyo. Heir apparent to the head of the most important family is a girl. But heads of families aren’t supposed to be girls, this being traditionalist Japan, so she dresses like a boy, says ぼく (boku, masculine I), instead of わたし (watashi, gender neutral I, but normally used by women), lives in the boy’s dorm, etc…. and nobody notices. The rest of the action involves magical duels between students, between their shikigami familars, between students and shikigami, between students and various juggernauts and ogres and demons (oh, my). Think Zero no Tsukaima, with a competent Louise de La Vallière. This is another holdover from Spring that I just started, and stopped, watching.
*OK, the real title on Crunchyroll is Terror in Resonance, but it’s called Terror in Tokyo in Japan.
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