It’s Fight Night (Morning, Afternoon, etc.) at M3 as we finally begin the attack on the spring season!

Ironically enough the first three shows I watched were the three I expected most to make me want to go Oedipus and stab my eyes out, the fanservicey pair of To-Love-Ru and Kanokon, and the BL (Boys’ Love) show Junjou Romantica.

It was an experiment of sorts, a stretching of boundaries to see whether perhaps there was good in these two genres after all, but more than an experiment, it was a chance to satirize the hell out of these three shows…

(Surprisingly, the post is relatively safe for work after the jump, as all images are in spoiler tags so you can choose to view them or not, in case LOOK OUT SHE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU CLOSE IT!

But seriously, no actual nudity, just some very close or - depending on your orientation - very awkward content.)

Round 1: Rocking OP Challenge
Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Advantage: To-Love-Ru’s OP takes it easily with some clever animation and a song that will leave you bobbing your head for hours to come. Junjou takes second with a rock song which, while also fundamentally good, doesn’t have the same creativity, with the animation taking a couple cues from the garden center of a Wal-Mart. Kanokon’s is relatively forgettable. What’s with that generic logo?

Round 2: First Blood Facepalm
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Humiliating the Others: Ironically I had the longest holdout on Kanokon before wondering just what I had gotten myself into. In terms of “amount of websites I decided to check while letting the show run its course” Kanokon probably racked up the score count, followed by Junjou. To-Love-Ru had an early out with some random jiggling after a Star Wars parody, while Junjou pulled off a whopping six seconds of sanity before throwing in random BL.

Round 3: Halo Character Award Presented by Mountain Dew
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

src=”http://m3.dasaku.net/images/fanserviceFight/halo_tlr.png” alt=”" />

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Winner: To-Love-Ru’s Haruna is probably the most horribly stereotypical shonen romance lead ever, being oh-so-perfect, yet reserved, and secretly harboring a crush on the protagonist. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s cute and she doesn’t have a tail, unlike many other characters in the three shows combined. Kanokon’s twins are adorable in sync as well, although they don’t seem like main characters. Junjou, don’t call me a homophobe for picking the one straight guy; I enjoy characters with permanently pleasant demeanors like his, plus in the flashback he seemed like a mature, protective guy too. Ooh, that last one put me over the edge into BL land, that’s not good.

Round 4: The “This Isn’t What It Looks Like!” Trophy Sponsored by Every Harem Male … Ever
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Champion: Junjou Romantica has undoubtedly the closest to a sex scene that the three of these dirty-minded shows had in the first 25 minutes, however, since it probably was a sex scene, I will have to disqualify it, and reach for the eye bleach. Kanokon came dangerously close as well, leaving many contemplating when Chizuru will release her direct-to-DVD special, and To-Love-Ru was relatively tame, although much more sound-effect-minded with its magical erojiji transformation.

Round 5: Most Magically Delicious Premise
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Uh… there has to be some magic between the main guy and Usagi…or something…
Victor: Although To-Love-Ru’s premise is arguably more rooted in the supernatural compared to Kanokon’s ‘foxes-with-ballistic-bosoms’, I’m giving the edge to Kanokon because Lala didn’t prance around and say “kon kon, nyan nyan”. Junjou is remarkably down to earth, something that I still find respectable in a show … although it certainly makes up for its technical sanity in its plotwise insanity. “So I heard you have a deep and traumatic past, eh? Haha, yeah right.” “Actually, I do.” oshi~ instant characterization!

Round 6: The Facial Contortion Pantheon Challenge
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Chosen One: To-Love-Ru will be recieving a call from a certain J**** M*** very soon, no doubt, as Rito is really getting some exercise in his face - not to mention all the blood he’s been rushing to it. Kanokon and Junjou are more tame, although Junjou tends to have chibi contortion action. Also, do note that this Kanokon screencap is entirely different from the Kanokon halo character screencap.

Round 7: The “Don’t Shoot Your Eye Out” Award
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Thankfully, no.
And The Award Goes To…: Kanokon, by a foot. Which, in this case, is a lot. To-Love-Ru gets second by default.

Round 8: Most Likely To Drive Sales of DVDs
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Paying the Bills: Oddly enough, Kanokon would seem to be a lock for this segment as overall it is much more ecchi than To-Love-Ru, but it seems to play the strategy of ‘putting all the cards on the table at the start’, instead of TLR, which brought in the fog machine and spent endless hours working Lala’s hair and the laws of physics over just right. Junjou has mysterious darkness which doesn’t look to cover much but it’d be easy to expand the scene.

Round 9: Most Annoying Shoujo Flowers
Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Kanokon: Nope.
To-Love-Ru: Nuh-uh.
Winner (Loser): I don’t understand this trend at all, and it reminds me of the 6th or 7th volume of the Kare Kano manga where it took me a full five pages to realize “Oh, they were doing it” because the pages looked more like a nursery than the throes of passion. Also, Junjou earns an ‘ironic lyric bonus’ here.

Round 10: “I can’t believe it’s actually funny!” Kodak Moment
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Side-Splitter: Kanokon, oddly, had the most moments that legitimately put a smile on my face, such as the twins’ antics, the whole ‘pata pon pata pon kon kon nyan nyan’ cosplay segment, Kouta’s “Dear goldfish in heaven I’m going to become a real man!”, and you know, the whole hilarity of Chizuru suddenly deciding to throw herself all over someone just over half her size … although that one wasn’t intentional. Junjou had some cute moments, such as how the main guy pulled a good Kagamin impression when reading the ero-manga, or Usagi’s “You said yourself any man would do”. To-Love-Ru’s shining moment was watching Rito get increasingly involved in ridiculous circumstances while trying to confess.

Round 11: Wall of Text Discussion About How Much The Main Character Sucks
To-Love-Ru: Rito is pretty much the stock stereotype for every shonen romance hero ever. He’s brash and enthusastic when it comes to love, but he’s always failed and his dream girl is more out of reach than an Ivy League to a 2.0 GPA student. He’s easily flustered and doesn’t know how to handle an actual woman coming into his life, yet he can step up to the plate with his back against the wall. There’s certainly been worse, but Rito isn’t memorable enough for me.
Kanokon: Kouta’s like three feet tall. That’s freaky, although I don’t blame him for his actions around Chizuru.
Junjou Romantica: Well, I still don’t know his name, that’s one for a start. Plus, the character archetype of “Gee why is my face red and why am I thinking of HIM? It couldn’t be love never not in a million years because that would be too obvious” I find really annoying, male or female.
After Much Discussion, The Committee Has convened And Through A Unanimous Decision Has Decided To Award the 2008 Wall of Text Discussion About How Much The Main Character Sucks Award To: As typical, I give the highest accolades to the one I write the most about, whether in a good way or a bad way. Rito’s a nice guy deep down, or something, so I’d support him. Kouta, size and ero-king status aside, I’m pretty neutral for, and Junjou Guy is just kind of awkward at the moment. I really hope that’s not my bias talking.

Round 12: The Jiggle Counter/em>
To-Love-Ru: Six
Kanokon: Eight, plus eleven additional sound effects
Junjou Romantica: None, thankfully
Most Made of Jell-O: Kanokon is unsurprisingly the king here, although I thought the numbers would have risen higher for the female-laden shows. Over 24 episodes at this rate, it does add up to more than the amount of “uguu~”s in Kanon 2006, though. I prefer To-Love-Ru’s subtlety, at least; I don’t understand why animators have to draw our attention to a shot that’s already filling the screen anyway. Junjou, unsurprisingly, scored a blank here, at least, and I respect it for that.

Round 13: Most Inconvenient Truth to The Human Race
To-Love-Ru: Show ▼

Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

Won The Swing Vote: To-Love-Ru states that if you sit in your bathtub long enough, hot naked girls will appear. Kanokon tells you that foxy girls like to jump and rub their breasts all over midgets. And Junjou tells you that ‘no means yes.’ Who wins? To-Love-Ru and Kanokon have a fair amount of pandering in having random characters just insert themself into the male lead’s life, although the circumstances in Junjou add up to be pretty silly as well. I’d give Junjou the nod here for having some actual sweet moments, while Kanokon was just silly. To-Love-Ru could go either way.

Round 14: All That Matters is Megane
Kanokon: Show ▼

Junjou Romantica: Show ▼

To-Love-Ru:
MOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~\(^.^.)/: Kanokon takes this one easy here, with the class rep girl who has a cute look, personality, and a strange resemblance to Kafuka from Zetsubou Sensei. It and Junjou have two megane people, and Junjou’s … uh … main guy’s brother sports a nice look with glasses, but I found the glasses service of Usagi rather strange yet amusing in a fourth-wall sense. It’s not like I haven’t enjoyed the same thing in female characters, though. To-Love-Ru falls painfully short here, although I heard it has a big enough cast to probably have at least one later on.

Overall:
In summary:
In Junjou Romantica, plot happens and buttsex ensues.
In Kanokon, plot happens and sex attempts to ensue.
In To-Love-Ru, plot happens and failed confessions ensue.

I wouldn’t pick any one of them as a long-term show for myself, to be honest. The fanservice level of all of them is enough to scare me off of it, as I tend to prefer emotional pandering over physical pandering at the least. None of them are really horrible as I was hoping one of them would be at the least, but instead they’re more of a “not my thing” deal.

It does worry me that this type of show is wasting space that another, perhaps better show can fill, but it’s all relative. If it pays the bills - and it does - maybe it’ll pay the way to a better, higher budget show in the future.

If I had to pick one - comical judging criteria notwithstanding - it would probably be To-Love-Ru, because as much as shonen romance is repetitive, slow-paced (failed confession after failed confession) and fanservice-filled, it is still sort of sweet and appeals to a more base side of me. Kanokon has potential (well, if I didn’t read ahead on summaries) to have an interesting supernatural side if Chizuru gets her foxy hormones in check, and Junjou is a question mark to me. I don’t think I can fairly evaluate it as BL is not at all my thing (shocking, yes). There were a few sweet moments near the end of the show where the Brother Guy announced his marriage, but other moments, such as where Usagi just randomly takes Main Guy into his house and when Plot Ensues spontaneously, turned me off the show.

An interesting experiment in any case, although next time I’ll stick to honey, mayonnaise, and potato chips.

-CCY

(Well, not as much of a humor slant as I has hoped, but still an entertaining post to write. I’ve got to try more of these categorical comparisons.)

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Season Review, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.