The Fall 2010 Anime Preview Guide

Hope Chapman

Sora no Otoshimono Forte

Rating: 2

We open on our protagonist having a mysterious, possibly prophetic dream. As the ephemeral vision slides away, he is greeted with a faceful of boobies from his housemate, a quiet girl who has no idea what she's doing to the kid is cruel and unusual. (Why do people envy these guys with harems? They have perpetual blue balls, isn't that a bit hellish?) Another spunkier housemate then bursts in to drag him out of bed and stare dumbfoundedly at…well, he just woke up, I don't have to finish the joke.

How many anime series have I just described? Go ahead and tabulate ‘em, I'll wait.

No, I won't. You all have better things to do, I'm sure. I was trying to describe Sora no Otoshimono's second season, but with that, there's nothing more to be said. This is not a bad show. It's not really funny but it's not an ugly experiment gone awry like that other title I could mention, either. It's like any other gleefully bawdy harem show out there; it knows its audience and plays out exactly the way they expect. Fans of the first series—and the show has enough energy and spunk to merit a good number of fans—will probably enjoy this. It has a healthy range of ladies and goofy perverse jokes and within the first episode, appears to be furthering a nice little mystery plot. Not any good, but not bad. Not boring yet, but probably will be quickly. I'm not sure it will get any love, but at least it can't be hated for just being inoffensively what we all expected it was…even if that meant we thought it'd be offensive. (The OP theme is ¾ close-ups of boners. That'll get your female audience watching, I'm sure.)

The only thing that even stuck out about the series was the lead character's seiyuu: his acting is atrocious. Kept having flashbacks to the Love Hina dub all over again!

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Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

Rating: 2 (of 5)

GREAT VICTORIA'S SECRET, THIS SERIES IS OVERFLOWING WITH POO!

That is not any assessment of quality, mind you, it is full of literal crap. The titular superheroines’ first great challenge is defeating a fecal monster, the ghost of a plumber who died an unfortunate death and must now be put to rest. The girls are “angels” of sorts working under a humorless priest named Garter Belt to turn ghosts into “Heaven Coins” and earn their entrance back into paradise. Not that they care much about that: Panty and Stocking are a vulgar pair more excited about sex and sugar respectively then earning their wings. You know, that combined with the oft-cited Butch Hartman/Rob Renzetti in a blender style gives this some serious promise. After all, it may be crude, stupid and garish, but it doesn't commit that cardinal anime sin of being boring, right?

All the same, I can see that ghostly plumber now, examining this show's underbelly and shaking his head before these bitchy and thoroughly unlikable ladies beat him to death for pointing out the obvious. His final words? “Well there's your problem, girls! This just isn't funny.” Edgy? Nasty? Sure, but like Mitsudomoe, I feel like I'm being entertained by a middle schooler who still thinks a script based entirely around the same dick joke is comedy gold…except Mitsudomoe was trying to be creative and varied. This is gross, repetitive and downright painful.

Director Imaishi should have taken more than visual cues from famous Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network flagships and learned a little comedy writing from them too. Even the most unbearable shows created by Steve Ressel and others are more creative and well-written than this. (I mention Ressel particularly because Invader Zim is the most blatantly parodied show present in P&S.) Every joke in Powerpuff Girls All Grown Up here is poorly timed, base, and dare I say it: angry! It's not a fun raunchy romp, there's an air of desperation, like the show is spiting us for trying to laugh at it and it wants to be too edgy to handle just by virtue of repeating a lot of foul words.

The screenshots elicit more smiles than the show itself. I can't identify it, but there's a poisonous air hanging around this mess that just makes it unpleasant to sit through even if all the gags weren't all just seeing how many times the girls can talk about shit and jizz with no punchline.