Hidan no Aria AA – 05
If you’re a big fan of bikes getting shot, then this is going to be the episode you’ve always wanted!
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What we have here is a hot load of “meh”. I was going to put this one off and do a two-part post when the next episode came out. But, it will stink then as much, if not more, than it does now. So let’s just put this thing in the bag and move on. |
…the only poison was in the viewing…
…couldn’t Urara like sharp-shoot the attack flag? Or run over and kick it?
First, this episode made me wonder if Doga Kobo is incapable of doing action. When I think of them, I usually keep in mind, first and foremost, their slice-of-light dramady shows like Love Lab, GJ-bu!, and the first two seasons of Yuru Yuri. But then, I recall they did wonderfully fun actiony shows like Majestic Prince and Mikagura. So why couldn’t the same studio recreate the same sort of score here? Bottom line is, I don’t know. Maybe they were going for something that had a more realistic weight to it. That’s only a hypothesis, and not a good one now that I type it out. One, the show had little to any realistic weight in it’s end product, and two, that’s not what Aria is all about anyway….
Things fall, sniper shoots, day saved..meh…
I’m a fan of the original, because it was very aware that it was a derpy action show. Because really, the super-spy genre is nothing but pure corn, so why not grab that with both hands. I enjoyed the fact that it was mildly unhinged from reality. Yeah, clothes that can change to a parachute- damage resistant clothes at that, weird genetic powers, fight a werewolf at the end, that sort of thing. This episode wan’t that in the slightest. Upon trying to watch it a second time, I still cannot get to why it went down like this. If I had to venture a guess, I would say that the set piece just didn’t have the necessary feel to it. The original played around with the background, the foreground, and pulled time and space apart in a more actiony way. The original actually underscored how ridiculous it was by making it even more so. This one felt like it played it way to safe. It’s a shame, as they were really nailing some good characterization going in, and they rather needed some good Aria-like action to complete the set. It’s also a shame that the first evidence of Akari’s super-power had to be some goofy dues-ex…
Suspicious eyes narrow suspiciously…
That really is why this one felt so weightless. We didn’t get a sense of scale, we didn’t know where the players were in relation to one another. We got this silly Rube Goldberg device that just felt tacked on. This was part of the Aria-Riko-Mysterious Girl in Black in active observation. That could have been some interesting glue holding it all together. Instead if felt like a distraction on top of a nuisance. They managed to make Capture the Flag even more insipid than it already is…
Yeah, I’ll keep it short and sweet this week. I could have gone with the Good/Bad/Ugly treatment I gave Chaos Dragon, but let’s face it, it was pretty much all ugly this week. I’m hoping they get back into the right grove by the time the next episode swings around. They’ve got something of a sneaky sub-plot going on, and I find I’m more interested in that than lulzy fight scenes like this.
Next Time
Just make a show about these characters’ unique skill set….
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
This zoomed past idiotic all the way to imbecilic. Perhaps the worst fighting episode of anime I’ve ever seen. The action here made Isuca look good. It was on par with Mars of Destruction. Plodding, stupid, moronic. Urara showed how awesome her gun’s aim is by constantly missing Akari? Akari doesn’t even climb up the hill to hit the flag herself? Know what happens if you jump off a scooter, especially going up a hill? It falls over, right away. I told you last week that something she’d have to ride without falling off would be stupid and derpy, and that part certainly was. It just didn’t stand out because the whole thing was terrible. From the beginning where Team Yay Us! was standing around a map with the twins from Team Boo Them! *right above them spying*, to Shino somehow beating both of the twins, and Raika holding off Hina, in the smoke. And then Aria thanking Reki… for what? Almost killing both Akari and Urara? That’s what would have happened had Akari not run them out of there. For a second I thought she was summoning her broom like in Witch Craft Works, but that would have been less stupid than electrical superpower.
This was just awful.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…summoning her broom? I mean, I get the reference, but just don’t see it here.
Indeed, I stand reminded of the silly riding horse as silly plot device. That’s what they get for using it outside of hentai! Silly producers, know yer props!
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Ayaka was trying to teach Honoka how to summon his broom, and went on about using a twist of her wrist to do so. Honoka was not good at it.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Ah….
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
This was… disappointing. The tactics used by the leaders of both teams were just horrible. The fights were mostly not that good looking, either. The twins taking down Akari looked horribly slow and stilted, and really made Akari feel incompetant (plenty of other stuff throughout the episode contributes to that as well). Shino taking down the twins was… ok. Fuuma vs Raika was… ok, again. Could have been worse, I guess, although it made a lot more use of slow-mo and stills than I think it should have.
Akari vs whatshername was just horrible. Tactics sucked, animation sucked, believability sucked. For a climactic showdown, that was just horrible. They could have done a number of things to show off whatshername being sadistic and evil without requiring Akari to make herself a target by standing around at 30 feet out (give or take) and just huddle out there while her enemy shoots all around her, dumps the empty shells, slowly reloads, shoots all around her again, dumps the empty shells, slowly reloads, shoots all around her again, dumps the empty shells, slowly reloads…
Reki vs falling scaffolding was ok, except I would think, from what I’ve heard of her, that she would have been able to find a way to stop even that heavy piece with some sort of trick shot, so that felt contrived (along with almost everything else in that scene) to force Akari to use her power.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I was really wanting the scaffold shooting scene (and that’s a phrase I never thought I would ever get the chance to speak/type) to go the whole hog. Nearly every other time Reki was on the scene they engaged in the camera following the bullet or doing something creative with how redonkulous that type of fictional sniper really is.
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
If you haven’t read the Hidan no Aria AA manga yet, you really should. In Kirin’s intro story (I’ve mentioned that that story was good and they shouldn’t have cut it, haven’t I? 😉 ) Reki got to show off a bit. At first it just seems like an “ordinary” super-sniper sort of thing, until you start to think about when she would have had to fire in order for her bullet to be where it was when it was to hit the thing it hit, and all the factors involved…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I’ve only read the Hidan no Aria LN, which was about as bad as the first anime series, and worse than the IS LNs.