Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 12 – A Wreck

I don’t think it’s any great secret that I think Asobi ni Iku Yo! is a crap show with about three good episodes. But the one thing it has managed to do is have a ton of different story threads going on at once, usually to the detriment of every other story thread.

As the show comes to a close, though, it becomes obvious just how few of those it’s going to tie up. Like so many other shows based on long-running series, this is a show content to finish nothing in order to leave the hope of a sequel alive.

Summer 2010 Season in Review – Dealing with the Dregs

For those of you who didn’t come to this as your first post, you probably know that neither of us (particularly bear) were all that pleased with the crop of shows that ran over the last season. That’s not to say that there weren’t good ones airing here and there, but the best (Katanagatari and Shiki, to name just two) are still airing, and thus aren’t up for this run of awards. Which leaves us with … not all that much.

In some ways it’s not quite fair to make these sorts of comparisons, as last season saw the end of some of the best shows, not of the year, but of the decade. Even on its own terms, however, this season failed to offer a particularly strong field. The shows covered here may be good. But none of them are great. Keep that in mind.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 11 – The Mind’s Eye

Kio Kakazu sat in what used to be his bedroom, next to what used to be his futon. It was the Cathian Embassy now, and Captain Coone was lying in the futon he had slept in for years now, utterly motionless. Her tail was tucked under the futon—if not for the two cat ears poking out of her purple hair, you could easily imagine her as a normal human woman. He hadn’t understood the explanation Eris had given for why she was unconcious—although he thought he had heard the word ‘nanomachines’–but he knew it was somehow related to the dog robots that had just attacked his house and injected her with a syringe.

Six months ago, he would have been unable to even imagine any of this, despite all the Star Trek he had watched in elementary school, or the novels and anime he currently devoured in what little spare time wasn’t occupied by school, club duties and escorting the Cathians on “cultural exchange” missions that seemed like a flimsy excuse to have fun. Dan Simmons and Vernor Vinge had left him completely unprepared for the reality of hovering spaceships, holograms and catgirls. Sometimes, he found himself wishing he had rented “All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku” last summer, instead of watching Evangelion for the fourth time.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 10 – I Don’t Care Anymore

If there’s one downside to writing (however loosely) about each individual episode in a series, it’s weeks like this one. This is very clearly part 1 of what promises to be at least a two part story arc, and as such doesn’t stand very well on its own. It also sticks straight to the plot, with few digressions for advancing the side plots or expository conversation to ham-fistedly grow its world. In that respect, it’s quite a divergence from the norm.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 9 (part 2) – Youth Culture Killed My Dog(girl)

Like I said before, this episode of Asobi ni Iku Yo! is good. But it’s also completely insane. This is unquestionably the best episode since the first two and, while it lacks the manic pace of either, it more than makes up for it by being simultaneously thoughtful and completely bonkers.

I talked about the thoughtfulness earlier, so now all I have left is to explain are this episode’s eccentricities, which are legion, but boil down to one thing: the show’s constant reference to pop culture.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 9 – Do Assistaroids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I’ve been rather harsh with the show lately, mostly because it’s been pretty terrible. But because of its run of dud, fan service-heavy episodes, I’d forgotten how good this show can be when it wants to.

The basic premise of this episode is that one of the first generation of assistaroids, Lawry (that’s probably a scifi reference I’m missing), is visiting Earth for the first time. She was on a voyage that was supposed to be the first to visit Earth, 1000 catgirl planet-years previous, but the ship was lost in hyperspace and only rescued 800 years later.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 8 – Grab Bag

Well, I can’t fault this show for being boring, or repetitive.

There’s always something new happening and, given that the show has three or four plotlines running simultaneously, plenty going on in any given episode. The problem is, none of it is all that interesting.

This episode begins with the catgirl-obsessed girl holding yet another weird religious meeting in a massive stadium. But here, it’s to turn their religion from a catgirl-worshipping religion into some kind of catgirl-worshipping fan club.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 7 – Hollow Men

So, Asobi ni Iku Yo! had a good episode last week; not a great one, but free of most of the things that have made it annoying of late. The eccentric teenage orphan otaku millionaire heiress wasn’t in it, there wasn’t a whole lot of fan service, and it actually advanced what passes for a story in this show.

Given this show’s habit of changing pace and tone at the drop of a hat, I’m not sure it will stay on this same tone for long, but I have hopes that we’ll at least get one more episode without the gratuitous nudity, cliched characters and oh no beach episode.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 6 – Virtual Lie

I’ll say this about Asobi ni Iku Yo!: every episode is something different. So after ending the decidedly mediocre catgirl religion arc with explosive action scenes, this episode is mostly a fairly normal slice of life episode, or what passes for everyday life when you’re a fugitive living in your crush’s home, which has been converted into an embassy for alien catgirls.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 4 – Conspicuous Consumption

Okay, people making Asobi ni Iku Yo!: if you can’t make something interesting happen in 20 minutes, you don’t deserve the job. Wow, is this episode really only 20 minutes long without the opening and ending credits? That’s actually not that long at all.

Still, I know you’re competing directly with moe shows, and the bottom-feeding softcore porn shows that your show is frequently in danger of becoming, where nothing happens in 20 episodes, much less 20 minutes, but you’ve got so much to work with. I mean, your show has already blown through two national spy agencies and a group of militant scifi nerds, all in the third episode. You’ve got a race of sinister dog-girls controlling global politics from the shadows, crazy magical/psychic powers and more military hardware than a Michael Bay movie.