Medaka Box – 03
We are the 2%!
 |
Have you been keeping up with Metanorn’s coverage of the Aniblog Tourney? Well, maybe you should go and vote now for your favorite blogs, and hey, if you could vote for us, I guess that’d be pretty cool. Meanwhile, I’ve got another episode of Medaka Box to cover. Can it deliver on the sparkles it promised us last week? |
Unfortunately not a lot of Shiranui, but we got to see her getting her required 5l daily dose of ramen.
This is another episode of 2 parts, though they’re connected this time in that they focus on Zenkichi’s past and his history with some enemies.
To start, Zenkichi has started to get a reputation due to joining all the martial arts clubs for a day at a time, though he skips the judo club as Shiranui notices. This is when Kanoya, the loser in the election that saw Medaka win 98% of the votes, approaches him with a proposition to take Medaka down. He’s under the impression that Zenkichi doesn’t enjoy being lapdog to this “monstrous girl” and is going to different clubs to blow off stress. Unfortunately for him, Zenkichi is loyal to Medaka, and when pushed comes to shove, he easily defeats Kanoya and his posse without Medaka even having to intervene.
Zenkichi shows everyone who’s the boss… which is Medaka. And he’s her (proud, ferocious) lapdog.
The 2nd half gets kicked off by a request in the box to help the judo club pick a new leader to replace the one who’s leaving. We get introduced to yet another character with AB blood, Kouki, who was the reason Zenkichi avoided the club in the first place. Apparently they went to the same middle school, where he idolized Medaka – much like everyone else. While Medaka takes on all challengers from the judo club as a way of filtering out who’s fit to be the leader, he and Zenkichi go at it with words. Zenkichi does his tsundere shtick about just getting unwillingly dragged around by Medaka, and Kouki pounces on it, offering to replace him in the student council. Obviously Zenkichi doesn’t want that, but Kouki also has the support of the judo club president who has taken quite a liking to Zenkichi and his loyalty. She proposes a judo match to determine whether or not Zenkichi and Kouki have/get to switch places.
Not the best of friends, these 2.
But that works out perfectly for the retiring judo club prez.
Sparkles!
Medaka sparkling is kind of old hat by now, I guess.
But this week we got introduced to this fine looking gentleman.
Who’s pretty sparkly to begin with, but gets even moreso when Medaka is with him.
And there’s that gag again. Only one this week, though.
Well, Medaka Box continues to trudge along. The positive thing I could say about this episode is that it had focus this time, connecting both halves and using them to tell us more about Zenkichi and his feelings for Medaka.
Unfortunately, he and Medaka are kind of boring. I’ve seen Zenkichi’s protective and loyal act a thousand times before. And he looked to be just as overpowered as Medaka too, of which we had seen a hint in the 1st episode when he ended the fight with Hyuga in one blow. At least he got a rival now, as well as an admirer, who can hopefully add some flavor to this bland show. What little spice it had with Medaka’s lectures about goodness of humanity and all that seems to have been dropped for standard high school punk cliches.
Based on the fact that Kouki got a character card but judo club president Nekomi didn’t (and the fact that he’s in the ending sequence), I’m guessing the former will be the one sticking around. A shame, because the latter seemed a more fun character to watch, similar to Shiranui in her mischief. And if she formed a genuine love quadrilateral – how fun would that be to see?
I feel like I’m supposed to be hyped up for the duel that will go down next week, but I’m just… not. The animation this episode certainly didn’t help. The show was pretty mediocre looking from the start, and it seems only to have gotten worse by the episode. So many speed lines, unnecessary slow motion and stills, as well as off-screen action. Gainax, is this really you? If this show is going to have an action focus, this level of presentation just won’t cut it.
Preview
Rebel 1… Action!
About lvlln
A math/science geek and a self-dubbed cynical optimist. I don't care if it's deep, if it can make me feel something or laugh, it's fine in my book. @lvlln
POWUH: Occasional (51-75) with 71 comments
Not really anything to write home about, quality-wise for sure. Then again, as a manga reader, I KNOW that the SOL portion of the series is hard to go through.
Hmm, it seems to me they’re setting up Unzen to close out the season.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
What this show needs is someone who isn’t overpowered by Medaka or falls under her spell. Not someone who beats her at anything since it’s central to her character and the show that she’s better than anybody else at everything. Just someone who’s immune/indifferent to her for the first time in her life. Then we might get to see Medaka with some interesting reactions to that.
I visualize some book-loving, quiet, glasses girl who’s a member of the go home club and seemingly without any friends at school and Medaka tries to make friends with her. Not that that’s likely to happen in this show.
POWUH: iLurker with 17 comments
There are lots of people who aren’t instantly overpowered by Medaka. Hell, there are other characters from Chapter 50+ on-wards that approach her Brokenness, and exceed it.
The problem is, you’d never see them, and judging by the problems of a one Cour Medaka Box, you’d never see that.
The fact that you are proposing a solution of the Slice of Life genre shows just how errenous an impression the adaptation is making on Anime only watchers.
The solution(s) to the problem you’ve raised comes not from the World of Harem Rom-Com Echii or Slice of Life, but from another genre altogether.
Think for a moment though. Just how on Earth can Medaka Box go on for 140 Chapters (and still counting), not get cancelled, and still retain the premises of it’s first few chapters?
POWUH: 700-799 and Parkouring Fanboy with 776 comments
All this talk about the first 40-odd chapters being boring makes me think that Gainax should’ve done something like what AIC did with Wandering Son and started the adaptation off in the middle of the manga. Adapting to anime doesn’t mean translating the source material directly, and we could’ve gotten a much more fun and exciting anime if we had been dumped right in the middle of things.
Of course, given the animation so far, maybe they wanted to avoid starting off when there was a lot of action…
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 243 comments
I can’t be bothered to watch this anime but I have got about 20-odd chapters into the manga now. I actually quite like it but it’s definitely the kind of series that’s too much of a pain to try and watch in anime form.
POWUH: iLurker with 3 comments
Plenty of people ignore her. For example, everyone she’s never met. I’m pretty sure she just doesn’t care if they aren’t having problems. People without problems are happy people, right? Keep up the good work and all that. That’s an over-simplication, but she’s a simple person. She’s not obsessed with attention if that’s how you’re interpreting her character.
Although, as demonstrated several times already, Medaka dislikes being put on a pedestal (only Zen worries about her in episode 1, she dislikes Akune bowing to her in 3, etc). So she’d probably love someone who treated her like a normal person. It’s kind of hard to do that when she acts like that though.
POWUH: Meta Team and Ringleader Extraordinaire~ with 6433 comments
I heard this is getting worse by the episode. Any chances of it redeeming itself?
POWUH: 700-799 and Parkouring Fanboy with 776 comments
I wouldn’t say it’s getting WORSE, but it’s certainly not getting BETTER, and that’s a major problem given the baseline. Dunno I it’s redeemable in 1 season, but the trajectory doesn’t look good.
POWUH: iLurker with 17 comments
Only a genre shift, because Medaka Box is not reedemable in the Slice of Life Genre, or Romantic Comedy. Fully acknowledged in the Manga itself, in one of the most meta lines ever drawn in a speech bubbles- after more than a 100 chapters in. Which does happen, though we’d probably only be hitting the edges of it in the First Cour. Which is why alot of manga readers wanted either Two Cours, or a adaptation that better grasped the essence of Medaka Box.
Keep in mind that Medaka Box is a long story 140 Chapters long and still ongoing, and manga wise, I think we are only about 5 or so chapters in, max. We are right now in the build up phase, which is very unindicative of what lies ahead, and is much closer in tenor to the first two episodes of Madoka Magica than an ordinary Echii Fest Romantic Comedy or Harem or Slice of Life.
Then it does get better. Perhaps- depending on your taste and preferences. How do you like seemingly innocent plots that transition into a full blown fighting show, a unique take and discourse of Shounen Cliches, mocking them through the plot, and being very Meta?
Just a little while down, the plot starts becoming just slightly more cynical. My fear though, is that the Adapters will spike the genre shift by making it sound comedic, instead of serious. Read the first 20 chapters of the manga and you’d get what I mean by that.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 144 comments
Would you mind sharing that panel you reference in the first paragraph? I’d like to see it. 🙂
POWUH: iLurker with 17 comments
Medaka Box Chapter 126, Page 20. I’m not sure how to put up panels. It’s probably more amusing in context. Of course, it’s slightly spoilertatisc, since it involves major characters that haven’t appeared in the manga yet. It’s also the point where the action of the past 100 chapters undergo a slump of sorts.
And these are the three pages which I think where the genre shift irrevocably occurred.
Chapter 18, Page 18-20.
Which I have an ugly suspicion will be construed in a comedic light instead in the anime adaptation.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 144 comments
Haha, I found it. It’s plenty funny even without context from the rest of the chapter. If anyone else is interested, here’s the panel. Outside of the character saying it, who I have no idea who it is anyway, it’s not very spoiler-y:
http://i44.tinypic.com/3506kqt.jpg
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 144 comments
This will come off as perverted, but… Gainax couldn’t even draw Medaka’s breasts well in this episode. We’re talking about the studio who produced The Bounce. They’re cutting corners and having trouble with it. What does that say about the rest of the production? Are they saving a ton of money for something, or did they just stop caring about this show? :/
POWUH: iLurker with 1 comments
hahaha, I just had to post this:
that picture….
RYUK IS THAT YOU!? (deathnote reference)