IRUn's House of Whatever

*WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS THAT ENCOMPASS THE ENTIRE SERIES. READ AT OWN RISK.*

Over the past month and a half or so of on and off viewing I did something I had been meaning to do for a while now and waded through all three seasons of this famed series. Thought I'd share my thoughts because hey, blog.

So, succinctly put:

Pros-

• Compelling setting and worldbuilding. Mysteries and truths worth pursuing.
• The magic battles are generally exciting affairs, and certainly one of the series' big draws.
• Actual, honest-to-God character development for virtually all of the cast, save for the static characters. Much of the romance is done well, including the protagonist and the main heroine's relationship. Which ties into...
• ...Goldie was right. The other Shana clones ought to take a hint from the original. :V.
• ...meaning this is Rie Kugimiya's best role.
• Alastor's voice. Subbed or dubbed.
• More often than not "love", in some shape or form, and the way it is relished in or pursued is a recurring thematic element among the antagonists.
• MARGAREY DAW for like best character. By extension this includes the Silver, and Marco. Her purple werebearwolverine form is pretty silly looking, though. UberCerberus was cool, though.
• The Shana-tan parodies.
• Yoshida Kazumi as she appears in the Shana-tan parodies.
• Alastor getting taken by random animals in the Shana-tan parodies.
• Yuji's family dynamic.
• The movie.
• Friagne in the movie is a BAMF. Still as much of a creeper as he ever is, but now he's got the toys and tricks to back himself up and be a legitimate threat.
• YOAKE UMARE KURU MONO WOOOOOO. First Mami Kawada OP is also catchy as heck. Most of the music is above decent and makes for good listening, actually.
• Though the second season is the weakest link in the trilogy, it does have its moments when the plot finally does hit the fan. Like when Yuji casts a Fuzetsu for the first time and we get to see just what color his flame is - shimmering, sinister silver. I won't lie, my eyes bulged when I saw this. The ramifications from that were good, if ultimately inconclusive and not elaborated upon as fully as I'd have liked.
• Everthing Pheles is ;_;.
• The Crimson Denizens in FINAL had many neat designs for the named, important characters. Decarabia is an oversized barracuda/ribbon fish (RIP...), Ribesal (my personal favorite) is an anthropomorphic beetle who is best buds with a little boy demon, and Haborym is a two-headed gasmask wearing being. Tell me that's not cool and I'll say you're a liar. I was on Team Tomogara all the way through the last season and was pleased with the results, just so you know.
• Dr. Dantalion is a lovable loudmouthed ham. You can tell the voice actor had a ton of fun voicing him.
• While not on the level of SHAFT mindscrewery, the Rift and Bal Masque's journey through the rift was wonderfully surreal and wholly atmospheric.
• FINAL's many twists, by and large.
• Party Snake. I like my protags with a side of cunning and badass. Not that Yuji wasn't on his way to becoming cunning and badass already, but still. This was one of those twists I liked.
• Conclusion was by no means perfect, but it did a fitting job of bringing the series to a close. Surprisingly hopeful. It ended with a kickass kaiju battle with the first theme song playing *insert fangasm here*, so that makes up for any flaws it had up to that point.

Cons-

• I can only speak of what I've seen, but with this being a light novel adaptation, I know for a fact that a few things got lost in the transition between mediums. This can be picked up on just by watching the show, particularly in the concluding season. Some parts felt disconnected, or did not have the impact that they might have intended to have, or are skipped over or not explained well enough for even an attentive viewer - albeit unfamiliar with the original source material - to catch.
• Yoshida Kazumi outside of the Shana-tan specials. A dull girl who is only as important as the plot wants her to be.
• Prone to instances of QUALITY and talking heads. Mostly in Season II. Way to budget cash all subtle-like, JC Staff.
• Season II was overall the weakest season, what with dragging its heels through a mire of dull slice of life, clunky romance involving a love triangle/quadrangle, and topping the shit sundae with the aforementioned QUALITY and talking heads.
• Bal Masque's goals seemed awfully...unhomogeneous. Hardly any connection or unity between their plans, even though they show some impressive (ridiculous?) forward thinking in FINAL when it comes to scheming and planning. First, the desire to turn Yuji into a living battery for them courtesy of his magical perpetual motion machine. Yeah, I can see how that could be related to how they as a group follow Party Snake. But what was the point of making the giant living statue? What did that have to do with their goals in FINAL?
• ~DE ARIMASUSHOMASUNAGASAMANASDFGTREWQ.
• FINAL suffered from Loads and Loads of Characters almost on the level of Nanoha StrikerS, so it can be easy to lose track of what went on/be apathetic. If you asked me I couldn't tell you the names of the green elephant or the purple leopard because they were never introduced in the first place! Big no-no for a show. Nor do I have the capability to remember the name of every last new Flame Haze AND their Contracted.
• Wasted opportunities for further badassery in FINAL. Blame the author.
• Anime viewers still have no idea how Yuji became a torch in the first place. Not that that's required knowledge or anything, but the details behind that would have at least made for a more intriguing, in-depth watch. For that matter, what were the exact circumstance behind Yuji joining up with Bal Masque? It just sort of happened.
• FINAL's conclusion was undeniably a rush-job, in spite of its many boons.

This show was as chuuni as all get out. Lots of powers and long, impressive archaic titles and terms and contracts with gods and demons and parallel worlds and wars. I'm pretty sure it definitely served as inspiration for the Chuunibyou anime in more ways than one, along with others in the same genre. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. It's an urban fantasy battle romance through and through. It takes itself seriously enough for you to take it seriously, except when the apropos comic relief moments happen, then you can laugh at its absurdity.

Silver was at its best when it was Alucard Lite. Eyes everywhere, with spider legs sticking out from its visor for good measure.

At first, Yuji seems like he won the goddamn superpower lottery. Him being a Mystes with a permanent Power of Existence generator nestled inside him that lets him channel enough power on the level of a Crimson King, has a bazillion other people living inside his body at any given time (Johan/the Silver/avatar of the Party Snake), and has access to their skillsets? This would be like Ichigo level of swissarmyknifing if it weren't for the fact that even the cast in-universe call his luck (good or otherwise) to attention. Meta humor is forgivable in my book.

FINAL was basically magical Code Geass R2. Big ol' war, shifting allegiances, lots of new characters, and grey and gray morality going on here. And since I too liked Code Geass R2 enough to seriously overlook its flaws and enjoy the series I basically did the same thing here.

Flame Haze = NO FUN ALLOWED, CRIMSON DENIZENS. Much bloodshed could have been avoided if they decided to seriously sit down and discuss their objectives amongst themselve, but since there's so much bad blood that has been millennially ingrained into their social psyches I'm not surprised that they continued to kill each other even when for all intents and purposes the fighting should have stopped. Rebecca and Khamsin are bro, though. They're cool.

Eastedge and or Southvalle need a good Touma punch right to the face in order to break their illusions (SnSxToAru cross where? Really, how awesome would this be, a human standing up for those that eat humans for the sake of their beliefs as a supplement to Party Snake's grand plan.). "Good" is not nice, indeed. All that arrogance and talk of genocide and instilling into Crimson Denizens the feelings of fear and pain of death because of their tendency to eat humans is a dick move no matter how you slice it. When someone goes on about that, it's virtually a guarantee that they'll get some sort of comeuppance from that. I know that not everyone gets their just desserts, but this is fiction and unless someone does get that in a satisfying or vindicating manner, or even Pyrrhically so, I feel cheated.

But nope - neither Riebsal + Persoyn nor Haborym nor whomever went beastmode and took down these not very nice guys. Wasted opportunity, folks.

Westshore is a'ight, though. She has killer water dolphins. Know what else is a'ight? Marco wearing a seatbelt. That's hilarious.

Conclusion: All in all, I'd say it was mos def worth it. SnS as an anime has its flaws but is solid enough that if you are of an open mind and patient then it ought to be an enjoyable experience. If I were to rewatch the series (for the record I usually don't rewatch things unless I have a reason for doing so, like research) I wouldn't mind going through the first or third season again. Not the second one, unless I'm watching specific favorite parts of mine. When the going is slow in II the going gets really slow.

Anyway, further research shows that I have some OVAs to watch. As well as catch up on some side story mangas. And maybe get into what there is of the novels proper if I have time to spare.

Final note: out of curiosity, does anyone know of any good fanfiction they'd like to recommend? I've got an itch for it but I'd prefer to not trawl the abyss that is fanfiction.net for stories, especially not of a certainly popular and well known series as this.