Written by Ugh… don’t look at me like that. I didn’t plan on doing First Impressions at all this season, mainly because I like the two main shows I’m watching and thought I’d probably just do actual reviews later down the line. But for what it’s worth, Kokoro Connect is really interesting, and Sword Art Online will most likely be my favorite anime of the season, although a lot of manga readers tell me it sucks as an adaptation. Believe me, I can relate to that *cough* Sora no Otoshimono Movie *cough*.
But yes, “Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai”, or “So I Can’t Play H!”. My First Impression of this anime may come as a surprise to some loyal readers, seeing as I didn’t even mention it on my The BEST First Impression Of “The Summer 2012 Anime Season” but I was waiting for a game to download when I saw the first episode sitting on the front page of Crunchyroll, and to heck with it, it’s better than going outside or doing something productive.
Ryosuke Kaga is a perverted high school boy. SIT BACK DOWN. One day, he meets a girl named Lisara Restall, an elite Grim Reaper, who visited the human world in order to find “The Singular Man”. Ryosuke makes a contract with Lisara and she sucks energy required for her activity in the human world from Ryosuke. The source of his energy is his perverted spirit. To recover the sexual desire, Ryosuke has no choice but to help Lisara’s search.
Now I didn’t go into this anime thinking it will be good; in fact I never go into an ecchi anime thinking it will be good, but hey Sora no Otoshimono surprised me, so might as well give another anime a chance every now and then right? But my overall feeling towards this anime isn’t hatred, disgust, or even revulsion, but rather loathing. It’s not a terrible anime, but it’s by no means good either. It’s just bad. Now most of the time when I write a review it’s because I either really liked a show, or really hated it. Being passionate about something is what fuels my writing. But it’s not the anime that makes me passionate enough to write a review, it’s that I’m fed up with these kinds of shows.
This anime in a nutshell
Let’s start off with the characters. Every single one of them reminds me of a better anime, and not one of them is in any way original. The obligatory childhood friend with big boobs is yet another moe blob, and makes me think of Mikuru from Haruhi. The supernatural Tsundere grim reaper girl reminds me of Shana, from Shakugan no Shana. (The red hair doesn’t help.) And the main protagonist reminds me of every protagonist from every terrible anime ever made, ever. Wait a minute… who is that voicing him? Is it…? Hiro Shimono? NOOOOOOO. You were the voice of Keima from The World God Only Knows, my favorite comedy anime, what are you playing this part for? Well fantastic, one of my favorite voice actors has been reduced to voicing anime like this.
I can speak slightly higher of the animation, but not by much. It’s O.K. at best, but one weird thing I noticed is that wherever there’s an action scene, the pictures looses focus and becomes blurry until the action is over. Sword Art Online, this show is not.
Also, where did this thing come from, and what purpose did it serve?
The fanservice in this show is also a right arse (pun intended), with your vision constantly being blocked off by giant black censors from nowhere. Here’s an idea anime creators, if you have to put giant censors around the screen to hide perverted stuff that obscures EVERYTHING else, just don’t draw perverted stuff, or save it for the DVD. This is not that hard of a concept to grasp. It’s tacky, tasteless, and makes it hard to see the rest of the animation.
WHAT? We don't need to try!
O.K., I think that’s enough things about the anime to justify calling this a First Impression instead of just a rant. Now back to the ranting.
You know how in shows like The World God Only Knows or Student Council Discretion they’ll spoof how stupid the idea of someone falling out of the sky and fulfilling all your wishes is? The more I watch shows were that unironically happens, the more I agree with it. And it’s getting to the point where I can look at just about any anime season in the last 5-10 or so years and pull out 10-15 of them a year. If there was one genre of anime I wish would die more than moe, it’s “Supernatural person comes out of nowhere and tells an ordinary guy or girl LIKE YOU that they’re the last hope for the universe blah blah blah.”. And I realize I could just not watch these shows, but seriously anime publishers, make it stop!
In late 2009, the anime adaptation of Sora no Otoshimono aired on T.V. and forever changed the way we watch this kind of anime. I’m sorry, did I say it did? I meant to say it should have, but no one watched it. SnO was and still is a very perverted show. The difference is that when SnO did something perverted, it was over the top and funny, even hysterical at times. But SnO also had an engaging story-line, interesting characters, intense action, and fantastic animation, all of which would only continue on and evolve throughout Forte. You could tell people had put actual work and effort into the show. Heck the first episode of Forte had a completely different Op just for that episode on the basis of a through-away gag. Not enough for you? How about a completely different Ed for EVERY EPISODE. Do you know how much money that costs for the extra animation by itself, let alone the licensing costs for all the songs. And for what? Spiffing up the stuff that people skip? Well here I am with every single version of the Op’s and Ed’s on my phone 3 years after its original release, constantly appreciating how much time and effort was afforded to something seemingly so trivial.
To date I haven’t seen one ecchi anime that put in even 1/10 of the effort put in to SnO, and Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai is just another in a long line, its creators just making it to fulfill some kind of hypothetical “Crappy Anime Quote”. Maybe SnO was the proverbial “Dimond In The Rough” and the standards bar it set for me is way above what any other ecchi anime can hope to achieve. I don’t see why it would be so hard to have characters that are more complex than a first grade math problem, or have a plot with twists or intrigue. But in conclusion I’m not asking every anime to spark off a revolution, but they can at least let off one measly firework.
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