First Impression – Hundred
Claire Harvey, the best part of Hundred so far (and 60% legs)
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Just about every show tries to come up with something original. An original setting, an original power, an original character group, even an original song. Hundred is not one of those shows. It’s taken a famous quote to heart, but will it prove its writers great? |
Good Writers Borrow, Great Writers Steal. This Writer?
Note: Not Sanya V. Litvyak
It took about 5 minutes into Hundred before I had the thought “So ‘Hundred’ is the number of other stories that the writer is ripping off parts from, right?” And in looking up the writer of the light novel, Jun Misaki, I see that he’s written some other LNs as well, and I have to say that Hundred is probably the most original idea of the bunch: The Loli Princess’s Country Founding Diary, Kanojo wa Hi-maid (rhymes with “Hime”) (“She was a Princess Maid), Yandere Kanojo wa Ippai Sugiru (“My Life is full of crazy jealous girls”). Now, noone’s going to really complain if hentai Light Novels aren’t exactly the most original things, but I think we see a pattern in this. Take a little of this, a little of that, and a little of something else, file off the serial numbers, round off the edges, fit it together like puzzle pieces and write enough to fill in the gaps, and you’ve got a new story.
“It’s the Beatles!!!! I mean Hayato!!!”
But I’m not going to sit here and say that just because something borrows, imitates, or straight up steals ideas it’s going to be bad. The movie that has the biggest mindshare in the history of humanity, Star Wars, was exactly this: westerns, samurai, romance, everything was on the table for that. Now, I’ll clarify right off the bat: Hundred is no Star Wars (not only because it limits itself to a single genre for the most part). But my point is that just pointing out that “That came from X, This came from Y, and that third thing came from Z” isn’t an argument for the idea that a show is bad. Each show has to be evaluated on the things it does itself, not on what other stories it’s like.
“Just point somewhere at this fancy-looking map thing.”
With all that out of the way, let’s actually talk about Hundred. I talked about filing off the serial numbers? Well, Hundred only does that in the most cursory way, and you can still see the indentations where they were. Influences from other stories are so in your face as to make it almost impossible to ignore them. Giant school ships from Girls und Panzer. Immediate fight with a powerful person in the school, such as Shokugeki no Souma. Infinite Stratos everywhere, from an obvious cross-dressing girl with a crush on the main character trying to be his roommate and best friend to powered mech suits that you can summon from a thing you have. Monsters you can only defeat by breaking a crystal inside them from Strike Witches. A disabled sister. A disabled sister who has a crush on her big brother. A disabled sister who has a crush on her big brother who is the reason he went to this school because then he can get medical treatment for her, and that STILL doesn’t narrow it down enough to say it’s from just one show. Lackeys to the powerful seitokaichou who are in love with her. It’s almost that if you see anything in this show that’s pointed out specifically, it’s lifted, stolen, ripped off, or otherwise exported from another show.
“Autobots, Transform!”
OK, But How About THIS Show?
Yar, it’s a big monster with a two-color scheme and a crystal you have to break to beat it…
So I’m sure you’ve gotten the point about that. The question is how is this show? And to be honest, it’s not that terrible, at least through three episodes. It’s certainly better than IS, a show where the only redeeming factor was arguing about which girl (Houki) was the best girl (yes, Houki) while complaining about Ichika. From the beginning, Hayato, the main guy, is the “most compatible” candidate ever for a Hundred, which are fighting apparatus which allow people to go up against the “Savages”, otherworldly monsters of so far indeterminate origin.
He walks in on her like this, but STILL thinks she’s a guy
So even though Hayato is just getting to the school, he’s already a celebrity, in that people are trying to welcome him at the airport. Somehow he gets together with Emile, perhaps the most obvious cross-dressing girl EVER, who actually slips a couple times in her disguise, but Hayato doesn’t figure it out until her shirt gets ripped and her boobs pop out. Meanwhile, Hayato and Emile have managed to start a feud with the Student Council, and the current strongest student, Claire Harvey. This show loves to have people state whole names when addressing others, and honestly it gets a bit tedious to hear conversations that are just shouted recitations of names and little other content. An example:
“Hayato Kisaragi! I, Claire Harvey, challenge you to a duel!”
“Claire Harvey, you are abusing your position as seitokaichou!”
“I don’t remember addressing you, Emile Crossfode!”
“How dare you interrupt Claire Harvey, Emile Crossfode! Perhaps you’d like to face me, Liddy Steinberg?”
The beginner move: One hand, during a fight, basic “oops!” boob grope
This felt like pretty much every conversation in the first two episodes. They did start to drop some last names eventually, but sheesh. There are two other notable characteristics to our main character Hayato. First, he is a “variant”, like Emilia, or someone who has the virus that creates Savages. In fact, he became one by trying to “suck the poison out” of Emilia years ago. This mean’s he’s in danger of becoming a Savage if he gets too injured or red misty during battles.
A different definition of “air kiss”
The other characteristic of Hayato is that he has apparently learned the art of the grope-fall from Rito Yuuki. Claire Harvey (now they’ve got me doing it, too) is the most frequent victim of this ability, so far, but I’m thinking that with so many more harem members to go, she’s gonna get shuffled to the side of the stage as new people step up. Meanwhile, Emilia, having been outed as a girl, is trying to put the moves on Hayato, more than we usually see in this kind of show, especially this early, and they were actually going to have a non-fall kiss, but of course were interrupted, leading to the pro-level Double-Boob Kiss-Fall (note: Not the name of a vampire from Monogatari) on Claire Harvey.
Advanced move: Two-handed + Surprise First Kiss
Sometimes shows like this do a lot with the world and the story in the beginning, getting to the harem stuff later. Hundred is going for the harem stuff right away, with at least 3 harem members so far (Emilia, Claire, and Hayato’s sister Karen) and more to come next week with the requisite idol. As far as how this show is, at the moment, through three episodes, it’s really not that bad. I’m enjoying it more than some shows, like ISn’t (our name for last season’s Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut) and especially shows like Blade Dance, Absolute Duo, or Fafnir.
Best thing about Blade Dance
Also a warning: if you’re going to watch this show, just watch it. Don’t pause it, or look at screenshots, or analyze the composition of shots. There’s nothing there. It took me 3 episodes to come up with 13 screenshots. I take 20 screenshots of one episode of Anne Happy. Every shot in Hundred is either a contextless close up of one or two people, or a low detail long shot of ‘action’. As an overall work, it gets the point across fine, but don’t look too deeply, you will be disappointed.
Ah, well, I’m finally exposed…
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
A story is all about content, context, intent, and execution. And it’s not easy lining those four properties up.
For Hundred, the content is exactly as you spell out. The context is only mildly turned this way or that from shows like. The intent is there; to entertain (it is not to be totally original). The execution is pretty much Production IMS; which is a sweet sort of clumsiness, it doesn’t do much, so it can’t really offend, can it?
But, I do like it. It’s easy in it’s gamefication approach to it’s adversarial/antagonistic part of the story; big monster, hit crystal with your supersuit that you keep in the thing.
I’ll be on the lookout for the Claire Harvey (I’ll respect both her names) and Emilia part of the triangle.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Indeed, I was kinda wondering how they didn’t turn that into a threesome when Claire Harvey walked in on Hayato and Emilia about to non-accidentally, non-emergency kiss. And maybe that happened after the end of the show, but I doubt it. I’m sure Hayato’s “No, we weren’t doing anything!!!” denial didn’t help Emilia’s mood, tho.
I was actually surprised at how limited the production was when I went to take screenshots, because the overall feel of the show isn’t cheap like that.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…the devil is in the details…
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Considering there’s 10 volumes out now, I’m guessing the author must be doing something right to meet his readers’ expectations.
Pity we couldn’t get a Rakudai S2 to square it off against Asterisk and Hundred.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I haven’t bothered to watch Asterisk after the first episode this season. If it does something besides Tournament Fight of the Week, maybe I’ll give it another chance, but “Fight this next person you’ve never heard of who we’ve arbitrarily made a bit stronger!” doesn’t really work for me.
The way it is now, Hundred is better than Asterisk.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 163 comments
…. -_-
Where the hell do you even find stuff like that Blade Dance “knee sock” rap?
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
It’s the B-side to the Blade Dance ED. I say ‘B-side’, but there are actually 6 versions of the Blade Dance ED:
Everyone singing
Claire solo
Rinslet solo
Est solo
Fianna solo
Ellis solo
And then there’s the KN3350XXX song, which I think is hilarious. The actual version is slightly slower than the one in that video.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
It does rather feature one of my favorite bits, right in this vid at the very beginning…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
All according to plan…
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
it’s because Mashiro believes in the power of panties
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Quote: Est is Best.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Has this show missed any high school battle trope? I dropped it right after the big fight that led off Ep. 2. There are enough better shows this season not to waste my time with this hackneyed rehashing of shows that did it much better.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I still find both Emilia and Clair charming in their own rights…the rest is pretty miss-able…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I don’t think it’s missed any, but I don’t know if I agree that the other shows did better. Most of the shows that use these tropes find a way to be pretty bad. We *are* talking about shows like IS, Blade Dance, Absolute Duo, Juuou Mujin no Fafnir, here. And other shows it rips from do other things, like Strike Witches.
And like zztop says, this LN series has 10 volumes, which is a LOT. It’s possible for it to be put together and made into an anime in such a way that it’s still entertaining (besides playing “spot the larceny”).
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Maybe they didn’t do it better. Maybe they just did it first before the tropes became worn out (for me anyway). Kind of amounts to the same thing since I didn’t spot anything original.
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
there’s only 3 good things in this show, the enemy’s, the weapons and Claire with her council(no, not the girls who walk with her, it’ something closer to the chest). it seems to me that someone got freezing and mixed with Seirei Tsukai, but took away the personality of those shows
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
I think I dropped this 5 seconds in (I watched it after dropping Seisen Cerberus so maybe I wasn’t in the right mindset).
You’ve convinced me to try this out (why not, considering I’ve been dropping shows left and right this season so far).
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
This is WAY better than Cerberus. I don’t know if it’s particularly good, but I don’t think it’s actually bad. The only real writing fail it has is all of the Full Name Shouting!!!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
Best. Compilation. Ever!
POWUH: 500-599 with 540 comments
Ah damn I was almost convinced to pick this show up against my better judgement but I might just wait for the BD instead. 🙂