The Otome Repore (Insert the Silent T here), Rant, Bar, and Grill.
Posted by twhFirst, you mix three stringy and unlikable characters, bring back a few useless lesbians from the previous series for some serious wank, add about a cup of plot holes, half a tablespoon of stupid, a dash of credibility to keep the show afloat, put in a blender and set to ‘who dies first for shock value’, poor into a bowl, and then set it in an oven at about 450 degrees. Make sure to leave it alone JUST long enough before it explodes to bring in the title character as a Deus Ex Machina to somehow save the series, but still creating a mess which leaves you empty and wanting the writers to never put pen on paper until the mountains crumble into the sea.
I was moderately entertained with episodes 15 and 16, but nothing was happening really. Then, when episode 17 rolled around, Sunrise’s writers attempted to bring about the same sense of urgency and doubt that Akane’s sacrifice in HiME brought. It didn’t work. Granted, as surprising and entertaining as the Theater of Pain was in episode 17, Sunrise does the idiotic and instead of intensifying the hate between two of the princicples, changes our focus on one of the most unsympathetic main characters ever. In short, episode 18 can only be descrined in two words: BOR-ING!
Which leads me to my biggest grievence of all with this show.
Dear Sunrise:
Why did you bother even calling it MAI Otome, if MAI is barely even around?! You place all this subtext and backstory for her, and yet, you’re wasting all this time on the Princess Brat, Antsy, and Emo Girl?! Though I understand the vicious backlash for Gundam SEED Destiny, Mai Tokiha is NOT Kira Yamato. Let’s discuss the differences, shall we?
1. Mai’s not the invincible God Mode-er that Kira has repeatedly been shown as. That belongs to Shizuru and Miyu the Butt Ugly Robo.
2. Mai’s not under the whip and spiked heel of a pink haired pseudo-saint. She had to do almost everything herself for her brother’s sake.
3. Mai didn’t have the time for emo and angst that Kira had, who had around fifty episodes and used about twenty of them to do so. Mai did angst, but it was handled well and promptly, while I’m assuming Kira’s had to be filmed every second since he’s such a sensitive little fem.
4. Mai’s not the ultimate anything. Had Sunrise set her against Psycho Shizuru, she would have lost. Kira, on the other hand, pretty much ultimately won every battle he got in because he was ‘The Ultimate Coordinator’. Oh eM Gee, HAXOR!!
Finally; the writing pace of the series is starting to show how badly the writers botched this series. Twenty-six episodes is not a lot of time with a cast as large as HiME had. The same should have been said for Otome, but instead they wasted precious time with the tentacle pool episode. They could have downplayed Akane’s episode more too, since it was possible to tell that as a side story with out having to sacrifice an entire twenty two minutes on it. In addition, the latest ‘death’ in the series was suffered by a minor character that hardly had any real development at all. And yet, the writers expect us to think that we should sympathize more? I think not. And I’ll bet there was plenty more they could have cut for the sake of furthering the story, but no, Sunrise had to make the wank fodder.
With each and every passing episode, I’m liking where the series is heading less and less. Things they COULD have been doing, like, oh, I dunno, bring back Mai since they gave the same treatment to Natsuki, give Antsy a brain, maybe let Mashiro start over since we all know by now who the REAL princess is, whack Shizuru for real, get rid of Nina’s daddy complex, oh, and of course, lotsa boomies and fighting! Sunrise, j00 r teh SuXoRs!
I still intend to continue with my Pseudo Reviews of the series, since I have no intention of letting Sunrise get away with ruining ANOTHER franchise.
Now then, would you like a side salad or the soup of the day? We have Potato Cheese, Pasta Vejole, Hamburger Cassorole, or Shepherd’s Pie. And will this be cash, check, or charge? Thank you for stopping by, enjoy your meal.
Categories: Anime, Blog'd, My Otome.
February 11th, 2006 at 10:51 am
“First, you mix three stringy and unlikable characters, bring back a few useless lesbians from the previous series for some serious wank, add about a cup of plot holes, half a tablespoon of stupid, a dash of credibility to keep the show afloat, put in a blender and set to ‘who dies first for shock value’, poor into a bowl, and then set it in an oven at about 450 degrees. Make sure to leave it alone JUST long enough before it explodes to bring in the title character as a Deus Ex Machina to somehow save the series, but still creating a mess which leaves you empty and wanting the writers to never put pen on paper until the mountains crumble into the sea.”
Amen to that.
But I envy you. Your biggest grievance is Mai’s absence, mine’s Arika’s presence and while the former might and surely will change, the latter will not.
And yes, continue writing Otome reviews. The more ranting, the merrier.:)
February 11th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
I stopped liking Mai as a character somewhere in the middle of Hime, due to her ignoring what was going on around here, and trying to pretend everything was normal. Then she goes and saves the day, as the super heroine and everything is back where it started. My favorite character in hime was Natsuki - cool calm collected and bad ass ;D
In my mind there is a worse crime that otome is guilty of, but before i say that, I’ll mention a few lesser (but still absolute) evils.
1) Shiho
If she wasn’t and god damn #%#^#& annoying in Hime, she is (how is this even possible) eons worse in otome. The writers decided to gut everything that gave her character and her reasons for why she acted so bitchy in the first place - the reason some people had sympathy for her character - and churned out this pigtailed clone who’s only purpose is to be mean to the protagonists - who aren’t even in her league and pose no plausible threat to her. Shiho is supposed to be one of the top 3 girls of the school, and she spends most of her time (and risks expulsion) just to screw around with a few juniors ??
2) Moses AKA Akira
Her introduction to the audience is ludicrous. She is a typical anime orphan who’s parents were killed, somehow she is smuggled out to the desert as a baby, where she emerges 14 years later as a perfectly healthy teenager, who speaks the same language and accent as the people in Toilet Academy and finds her way to be enrolled at said toilet. THEN she proves to be completely annoying, by WINGEING EVERY SINGLE BLOODY EPISODE and having absolutely no redeemable qualities and being stupid and clumsy. She then gets a part time job as a POCKING CONSTRUCTION WORKER…. This is all a major headf***.
3) This story is set at a girls school.
A girls school named Gaurdrobe, which is another name for a toilet. This school supposedly trains girls to be maids AND fighters and defenders of the kingdom.. Yes, thats right, MAIDS and SOILDERS… makes perfect sense. Now, moving right along, These girls who are training to be the maid defense force have access to special powers ! They are Maid Mahou Girls with ‘guns’ and mecha, they are also loli (have i missed a fetish?). Now these girls will lose their powers and position, if they mix it up with male dna…
So basically our Toilet school of Magical Maid Solider girls must never have sex (with guys) or they will get expelled/fired/outcast whatever…
Oh, I almost forgot to mention the name of one of the teacher/advisors… It’s Sergay (pronounced Sir) Wang… say it to yourrself… yes, thats right.
PRESENTING THE KINGDOM NATION DEFENSE FORCE: MAGICAL LOLI MAID SOLIDER LESBIANS !!!!11111
Aaaad finally i am going to reveal what is truly the worst part of Mai Otome - are you ready?
The worst, absolutely most evil thing Otome has ever done is blacken the name of Mai Hime and rape and butcher it’s characters. They have taken a semi decent show about tortured it until it resembles the piece of junk you see before you.
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, I GIVE YOU MAI OTOME !!!
February 11th, 2006 at 7:14 pm
It is so nice to see one is not alone in one’s complete disappointment in Mai-Otome.
Ep 18 was another step back. I mean ep 17 gave me some very minute amount of hope, that this series might stand a chanse and as if not to torture me with impossible hopes, the writer decided to make it final and they made ep 18.
Ok *character* died, so what, is made me feel exactly what I felt when Ers-chan died - nothing. RIP, my hopes, and expectation of Mai-Otome.
February 12th, 2006 at 2:12 am
I would have to disagree about Shiho. In Otome she is no more than comic relief while in HiME she was one of the few annoying characters, os in my book that’s an improvement. I am much more annoying by the writers decisions to portray Haruka as a total retard and a silly comic relief which since episode jas been anything but funny. As for Arika - I totally agree she is no more than an embodiment of every annoying cliche known to human kind. The nickname Moses is brilliant, I msut say.
Agreed about the school, too. I still don’t see what’s the big idea of teaching the students to be so submissive to their Masters. The only explanation is that the scriptwriters are heavily into BDSM.
February 12th, 2006 at 8:04 am
Well with Shiho, there were acutally a lot of Shiho fans (even for hime) 0_o yeah i know… Apparently the felt sorry for her and accused Tate of leading her on and all that - thats what i meant by her at least having motives in hime. In otome shes a non-character as such…
BTW, We called her moses because at the begining she’s abandoned as a baby blah blah blah, somehow its just too funy to change ;D
With regard to the S&M thing im not surprised… there a very few fetishes that the writers HAVENT used.
February 13th, 2006 at 5:35 am
You see, you people see it as a sequel to hime.. and in that since, it sucks.. I see it as free loliyuri with some explosions and hime characters mixed in and *some*comedy.. If you look at it like that.. it’s a straight success.. Really, just because it has “mai” and reuses alot of the characters, don’t expect otome to live up as a sequel, the writers are going for the loli yuri with comedy and explosions angle.. not a sequel to hime..
February 13th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Will: It’s not that the Otome will be expelled if they play the humpty-dumpty with a man. They just lose their powers because the nano machines in their bloodstream that grants their powers are exploded/killed off/made useless by the Y chromosome in some unmentioned manner. Not that THAT makes any more goddamn sense. But that’s what they stated in one of the episodes.
Outside of that, you people are dead on.
February 13th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
and another thing.. OTome aren’t Mahou shoujo.. they don’t actually cast spells.. they just nuke things..so they are more like… loli maid cybernetic supersolider lesbians.. (nothing wrong with yuri..>_>)
February 13th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Well sure technically they arent mahou, but they still have a doinky mahou style transformation scene, and i cant be bothered going into the ‘cybernetic’ crap.
Oh and btw, i don’t see it as a sequal, i didnt watch it thinking it would be a sequal, and thats not the main thing that upsets me. For small look at what upsets me, take a look at examples 1-3 and then trust me when i say there are many more. I dont give a damm that its not a sequal or that the characters have nothing to do with hime. What i do give a damm about is the appaling characters (similar faces or no) and rediculous plot.
North> Uh, They’re in a school for being an otome, if they stop being able to be otome, then its prettly likely that they would leave the school.