Spring 2011 Anime Opinions – 30-Sai/A-Channel/Battle Girls

30-Sai

30-Sai is a 12-minute comedy that revolves around a Japanese salaryman who is both 30 years old and a virgin. A god comes down from the heavens to help him lose his virginity. If you see people talking about the show, it will be cuz “ohoho it’s so random and crazy and therefore it’s funny”. There are portions of it that are so stupid, people will immediately latch onto it, for example…

is the first image that greets viewers. But other than a conversational piece for its random moments, 30-sai struggles to provide anything interesting. The comedy is quite forced, and the number of times the main character kicks the god out of his house (after the god does something stupid in an attempt to help out) gets old. I envision the manga source was just a four-panel comic where the progression is “God comes up with whacky idea to help, god sets plan in motion, plan gets screwed up, salaryman kicks god out of the house”. Har-dee-har-har.

 

A-Channel

A-Channel is, like most animes, a slice-of-life comedy with a cast of females set in a Japanese school. There are only two things you might find unique about the show:

The ditzy, clueless type is presented as the main character.

There is a somewhat-yandere, quiet-type character named Tooru (think Yuki Nagato from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and you’ll have the look just right)

She is unique because she carries a bat around and is overprotective of her friend. Also, her sleeves are long, so she looks cute when walking. And she’s extremely quiet.

 

If this kind of character does it for you (she intrigues me, so I’ll keep watching the show), then by all means, check the anime out. But if Tooru isn’t exactly your cup of tea, there is nothing that makes this show stand out from the myriad of other school-based, slice-of-life comedies.

 

Battle Girls

Battle Girls was a disappointment to me. I was hoping for a Queen’s Blade/Sengoku Basara cross, but what I got was a pretty clean show. Regardless of my misplaced expectations, the anime isn’t exactly terrible. If you know what you’re getting into, it could be just fine. A high school girl gets sent back in time and meets up with Nobunaga Oda, except Nobunaga Oda is a girl.

It appears that the gimmick here is that all the characters in the show are girls, even the historical figures. From the opening, I guess the gist is that the show goes through Nobunaga’s conquering of Japan, but takes it from the view that Nobunaga was a nice person. Based on the opening again, the high school girl joins Nobunaga’s army and helps conquer Japan for the good of everyone. Hooray.

 

The good-looking characters are enough for me to watch the show, but if you’re hoping for anything more than a cute romp through warring states-era Japan, you will likely be as disappointed as I was when I found out that Nobunaga wouldn’t be tearing through Japan with an army of tentacle monsters and a barely-clad, all-female harem.