A Series That Embraces The Crazy
“Asobi ni Iku Yo” is one of a certain style of recent anime that embraces all manner of cliche “anime content” – in this case, we have an a) alien b) catgirl c) with vivid proportions, and she’s just the start of it – and taking things several steps further to create something zany, but entertaining.
Production values for this show, well… extremely high is the best way to put it. The opening theme’s CG water effects look like they belong in a movie, not on television. They’re flaunted in the show itself a bit but, someone’s being paid some really good money for that.
Oh, the characters are quite amusing too, in most cases. Honestly I don’t go for the catgirl thing nearly as much as the “real girls” in the show, aside from maybe the title character because she has a nice personality to go with it, but fortunately, we get to see a lot of the other girls, particularly in this episode.
It’s a bit tough to just start with the first episode to catch people up, so instead, I want to put behind a spoiler space something that is particularly crazy in this episode: totally silly, laughable, and to this viewer and writer, really entertaining. Also a bit ecchi, frankly. It’s amazing how close to the line they can walk things and still air it on TV.
Spoilers Here: show
So here’s the thing.
This show has the curvy alien girl shown above, Elis, and her “AssistDroids” (mute, cuddly plushy-like robots that are one of the main reasons to watch this show – they communicate with signs with writing on them like Genma back in the old Ranma 1/2 days), are capable of using “Catian” race weaponry that disintegrates inorganic matter while leaving organic matter, i.e. people, alone. This had been displayed by the use of hammers that worked really well on an offending tank in a previous episode, leaving a quartet of naked men covering their private parts and huddling after the engagement was finished. The hammer part – and the “turning into light” part – well, it’s a GaoGaiGar rip, I think. This show rips stuff. It just does.
So, the two major girl characters that rather want our leading, glasses-wearing semi-geekish male Kio rather badly, Aoi and Manami, are leading very frustrated lives right now, being stuck in “the friend zone” with Kio and being rather annoyed with each other in general. Aoi may be the introvert of the pair, but she’s a weapons girl too and very methodical. Manami’s been moping heavily rather than her usual volcanic self.
So, the episode culminates in a mock battle between the two, the sort of thing that is done with military fatigues and paintball guns, except they’re not paintball guns, they’re real guns firing Catian non-lethal bullets with properties similar to those hammers before.
In other words…
CLOTHING DISINTEGRATION BULLETS.
…Now is that silly, or what?
Actually, the two girls manage to get a lot out of their systems, with luck intervening to give Manami the edge (Aoi tries to bluff out of it but Manami knows she’s out of bullets), but a pair of female assassins (long story, but they’re working for “dog people” who want the “cat people” to get off Earth for good) put a red dot on Manami’s head. Aoi saves her, but the two are pretty stuck with open ground separating them from the sniping position, even as they have some forest to hide in initially (where most of the war game was).
The resolution isn’t quite shooting a bullet with a bullet, but it’s close, using the matter-disintegrating properties of their own bullets as Aoi essentially shoots Manami in the left shoulder blade to wipe out the bullet coming at her while Manami charges the enemy, playing both decoy and the real attacker. This disintegrates the incoming bullet as well as much of the fabric covering Manami’s breasts. It’s that kind of show…
Actually, once Manami gets in the face of the sniper team, pow, pow, and we suddenly have a couple of completely naked, well formed female assassins running for it, covering their breasts as strategically placed foliage prevents the viewers from seeing anything that would get the show banned from television, while Aoi (who is very fast) cuts them off from behind with a couple of AssistDroids.
So yes. Very, very silly stuff.
Anyway, if you want to know whether to watch this show or not, I think that pretty much sums the pros and cons up both ways.
Ja ne! (Later!) (Japanese: じゃね!)
About J Sensei
Blogger, writer, linguist, former Japanese> English translator, rusty in French, experienced in Japanese, fluent English native. Writing for Technorati.com and various blogs. Skype: jeremiah.bourque (messages always welcome). E-mail:
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