I’ve been going on an interesting, almost existential-type tangent in my anime fandom of recently. Perhaps it’s a slow time waiting week-to-week on all the latest shows, or an over-saturation in pink happy-happy fluffiness, but I’ve been challenging my mentality (and perhaps sanity) recently with some new material.

Those who recognize the two works (or at least one) in the title should already know the common link bonding them and that is that they take realistic, sometimes disturbing close shots at the lifestyle of the manic anime fan.

It’s an eye-opener in the sense that they are mirrors into your own life – if you’re reading this blog, you probably have, or have felt at one point, at least some degree of similarity with the characters in these works. You might not be as grossly distanced from reality, or as disillusioned with real people, but certainly it’s a thought that has crossed your mind. “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice for life to be like anime.” “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if real girls were like that.”

Well, think again.

The tones of these two shows are markedly different so far, at least with just one episode of NHK under the belt versus 25 chapters of Ressentiment, but both of them do have at least some power to inspire inner reflection, with a almost black-humor tone coating them a la a Zetsubou Sensei with less random imagery and comedy and more close-to-home hits.

I’ve enjoyed them a lot, for the same reason I enjoyed an anime like Kaiji or a visual novel conversion like H2O, and that is because they are unmistakably different from whatever you’ve seen before. And ironically, this concept of ‘being different’ is what they are all about.

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