Without a doubt this is the most brutal cut-down day I’ve had in an anime season in years – a real “Black Saturday”. Two shows gone for sure, maybe as many as 4. It’s a product of the schedule being bunched up on one or two days of the week, and a season full of middling bubble series – not to mention that I’ve been putting off these decisions because of how many series were teetering on the edge. As is usually the case when you put off unpleasant things, they’re that much more unpleasant when you finally address them.
I may very well end up keeping a series in the rotation just because I don’t want to completely blow out half my blogging schedule, but I don’t think it’s going to be Enen no Shouboutai. You know my rule of thumb – once I start fast-forwarding through episodes, there’s almost never any recovering from that. The tipping point here has been Hibana and the 5th Company, who are truly awful, but there’s a larger general trend with Fire Force and that gives me little hope that this show can ever recover from its current death spiral.
In the end it comes down to weighing the good vs. the bad, and at the moment the scales are tipped against Enen no Shouboutai. It is interesting visually, no question – though generally speaking its twitchy, Shaft-NisioIsin visual style isn’t my favorite. The battle sequences are mostly 2D, and quite well-produced. Most important it has a modestly interesting premise and central mystery surrounding the main character, even if it is mostly pretty derivative shounen fodder.
But the negatives are a greater mass for me at this point. The objectified and cliched female cast first of all, Hibana being the worst. Okubo’s generally infantile and vaguely misogynistic sense of humor. And none of the cast really has enough gravitas to overcome that. Shinra is OK as a protagonist, but not especially interesting or complicated as a person. I like Oubi and Joker the best, but at this point neither are involved enough for it to matter. The rest of the cast ranges from standard shounen tropes to abjectly annoying (Arthur). It’s just not enough – maybe Enen gets better later, as some have suggested, and if I’m still watching maybe it’ll even convince me to cover it again. But for now, it’s clearly time to pull the rip cord.
TheYepMan
August 10, 2019 at 11:41 amFrom what I recall of this manga, the “it gets better later” is not really an exceptional case. If you’ve read Soul Eater, you know how “good” this one’s gonna get.
I don’t know if I’ve said my opinion elsewhere about this. I know it’s gonna sound overdone, and I know it’d be unfair for David Production and the SHAFT escapees if this show got pulled, but considering the recent event and considering that this is not a groundbreaking, nigh-irreplaceable work of fiction, IMO that “delay” should’ve been a full cancellation. I can’t think of a single thing that would make me say “I’d so love watching *this* animated though…” after watching what these 5 episodes have to offer. If Japan ain’t dropping it, I am.
Kurik
August 10, 2019 at 10:14 pmHmmm….I get your reasoning for dropping Enzo…unfortunately there isn’t much anime around to watch right now so this one will have to remain for now even though they annoy me to some extent. Vinland is currently THE must watch anime of the season and I have been telling anime and non-anime lovers about it. Everything else is meh. This trend is getting more worrying every year. I will be sticking with this one as I am telling myself a drip of water is better than no water.
Guardian Enzo
August 10, 2019 at 10:29 pmIt’s one thing for that to be enough to watch it. Quite another to be enough to write about it every week.
Obviously, Vinland dwarfs everything else. But I like Kanata no Astra a lot, and Given is quite good. And we have GGGnK and Mix carrying over. It’s not totally a one-series calendar for me.
leongsh
August 11, 2019 at 6:08 amConsidering that this episode removed quute a bit of gratuitous puerile stuff, particularly the frequent shows of Hibana stepping on the backs of her men, it’s a darn sight better than expected adaptation. The manga was about average with some interesting plot developments but the anime adaptation has improved on it. The fight sequences in the anime continue to be nice to watch. The anime is the equivalent of a nicely executed double cheeseburger with plain common ingredients and some different trimmings but it’s still a double cheeseburger. Expecting more from it is not realistic. That said, there seems to be enough interest for such a double cheeseburger.
I have space for such along with that wonderfully done grass-fed beef tomahawk steak (slow grown, meaty, juicy with good sturdy bone/structure i.e. Vinland Saga).