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 – 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 5 – You’re a Rich Girl, and You’ve Gone Too Far

The best and worst thing about Asobi ni Iku Yo! is that it’s content to be nothing but mindless entertainment. That’s great, because we get the constant Bond movie meets space opera fan-service anime absurdity of its world and plenty of gunfights drawn by gun fetishists and directed by action movie nerds. And the odd moment of humor, but that’s as rare as most anime.

The bad part is, well, the rest. Asobi ni Iku Yo! is a sprawling mess of narrative dead ends, pointless and derivative one-off characters and strange pop culture references. Nowhere is that more evident than this episode.

Asobi ni Iku Yo! Episode 2 – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

So, the first episode established a fairly good setup for the rest of the series: there are three secret organizations trying to get their hands on Eris, and key members of all three have an interest in Kio, the boy she’s living with, who remains ignorant of their secret identities. In most shows, that would be enough for 13 episode of conspiracy, hijinks, and light romantic comedy action, as the organizations scheme to get their hands on Eris, the girls try to keep their identities hidden from Kio, and Eris tries to be as bouncy and cheerful as possible while possibly developing some sort of romantic connection with Kio.

That might even make for good anime: it’s a solid enough premise that a team of good writers and animators could turn into something special. But Asobi isn’t content to be so simple. Instead, the show goes in a wildly different direction, complicating the girls’ relationship with their respective organizations and generally making things more complicated in two episodes than I ever thought it would be.

Mayoi Neko Overrun Episode 3 – … And Now For Something Completely Different

I had some pretty harsh things to say about the previous episode of Mayoi Neko Overrun. I took issue with the exploitative way it treated its character; I implied that it was really dull pornography. But I still found it charming. I felt like there was some depth, as yet unexplored, that was waiting to surface.

It turns out my instincts were spot on, because the third episode of the show is easily the best so far. Most anime romantic comedies are starting to slip into repetition by this point, sliding into a dull rhythm until about the midway point, when things start to heat up between the main characters. Maybe that will happen next episode, but right now Mayoi Neko Overrun is still going strong.

Last episode ended with main character Takumi spending the night in the middle of a typhoon with exploited catgirl Nozomi, much the chagrin of tsundere childhood friend Fumino. And that’s where this one begins, except it opens with so much atmosphere it seems like a different series.

If you’ve ever been stuck in the house during a hurricane, tornado or really bad thunderstorm, you’ll notice that animation studio AIC has completely nailed the feeling of oppressive loneliness that hangs over those kinds of situations. There’s a thick wall of rain coming down in every shot of the outside, and the muffled sound of rain beating down on the ceiling and walls is perfectly captured.

Mayoi Neko Overrun Episode 2 – Why Must There Be Catgirls?

Most TV shows and movies take place in worlds that, although they may look or sound like real life, really bear very little resemblance to it. The world doesn’t have a lot of good-looking 20-somethings who have crazy adventures, suave advertising executives with troubled pasts, secret agents with superhuman abilities or sinister ancient conspiracies in service of alien horrors beyond our ken. It’s part of what makes television so entertaining: the escape from everyday reality.

I think one of the things that makes anime hard for people to get into is the sheer unreality of it. Even for a population born and raised on unreality, there’s still something uncomfortably alien about the medium. I know most anime apologists get really defensive about calling them ‘cartoons’, but they really are. They may be free of anvils and painted doors, but they still operate according to the alien logic of an unreal world. There’s something very foreign about a lot of anime. And, although Japan produces a lot of weird, foreign stuff, I don’t think it’s because it’s Japanese, per se. I think it’s the fact that a lot of anime is made by people in a close-knit subculture for people in a close-knit subculture, or another, equally close-knit subculture across the ocean.

You see, you can learn a lot about people from the kinds of escapism they prefer. And, I’ll be honest, the kind most anime has on display is strange and perverse. It’s not like there aren’t exceptions—ones that I hope I can write about here—but your typical anime targeted at otaku is a constant, nonstop barrage of bewildering or crudely exploitative conventions that make no sense out of context, and very little in it.

And the core of it, the part I’m most interested in talking about now, is a warped sexuality that celebrates and glorifies its disconnection from actual sexual intimacy.