Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
I really hate having to talk about controversy but this needs addressing.
When it comes to success in the realm of geekdom, it comes with a few scenarios where 1% of said fanbase decide to make controversy about something stupid; this is fairly common in gaming, movies and comics with GamerGate and pretty much any film or franchise that experiments with trying different audiences to make sure everyone is included being prime examples. In anime it tends to spam around shows in the last couple of years being brought over for licensing in the States and not reading the current trends very well.
Here are a few examples.
Keijo was criticised for it's portrayals of women engaging in a game that revolves around using breasts and butts to knock each other into swimming pools.
Except there are practically no male characters and no one is forcing these girls to do this and the reviewer who called this out was already on their back foot when they said they haven't watched Free, another swimming themed anime with constant near naked men and the fact that no one ever brings up the harem genre in any sexism argument.
Then there was Goblin Slayer who received utter contempt for it's violence in the opening episode, except there have been far more violent anime and the writers made it clear that Goblins are assholes that all need killing, some even called it tame.
Getting stupider now and we now have Rising of the Shield Hero and the false rape claim, except it's made perfectly clear that Malty is a prolific liar who even tried to over throw her own family and when the creators heard about how the west saw it they replied, "It's not an issue over here"
Then there's the king of controversy Dragonball Super, I'm not going to talk about the Vic Mignogna case because if you can't be bothered to turn up to your own defamation court case then you deserve to have your career ruined but the aftermath meant that there are people going out their way to try and find controversy for pretty much any little thing they can get their hands on with one of the stupidest ones being the leaked gag reel in which the voice actors decided to record their characters acting out sex scenes; first of all this is nothing new, ADVFilms did it all the time and Ghost Stories was dubbed as a gag series on purpose, second it's no different to fans drawing pornography of characters and least we forget Japan has a Doujinshi market for pretty much any franchise and any taste, and finally most people don't really care to begin with.
To get to the point you are never going to find much controversy in any anime licensed in the west because it wasn't made in America and even if you hold all the voice actors accountable for their behaviour then they'll just not bother dubbing anime which in this day and age is a dying art as more and more people would rather watch the next best anime now than wait several months for a company to dub it into English.
I pray this is the last time I bring up one of these topics but in an age where people forget how to human, I won't get my hopes up.
First of the Super Saturday specials is Flame of Recca character ranking, my aim today is to post of much content as possible by midnight British time so lets get started.
Flame of Recca has been a personal favourite for many years but how do the leads rank?
Recca looking back suffers from chronic shonen hero syndrome and takes most of the series to really develop, he has moments where he can show devious moments and some of his more noble acts do earn him the hero title but yeah, I've still seen this all before.
Yanagi suffers from chronic wilting waifu syndrome at times but her bravery really pulls her through the story and you find she's braver than the rest of the team.
Domon suffers from chronic big dumb heavy character syndrome but has often displayed some of the more surprising victories in the series showing that his will power is often more powerful than any form of intelligence.
Fuko suffers fron chronic bad girl syndrome, my biggest complaint about Fuko is that she never seems to learn, getting herself trapped, mind controlled, being gullible enough to be tricked into getting defeated, forgetting that her power has limits and despite being the most capable female of the series, she gets rescued more times than Yanagi!
Tokiya suffers from chronic edgy rival syndrome, his start as the walking pretty boy of revenge I didn't like too much, when he started to let down his barrier and come to terms with the truth he developed into one of the best characters of the series.
Koganei suffers from chronic tag-a-long kid syndrome, his early naivety made him difficult to like and you get the sense that he would back stab the team but he does grow on you and he has the most interesting weapon ever created in an anime.
Recca Hanabishi - 7.0/10
Yanagi Sakoshita - 7.9/10
Domon Ishijima - 8.2/10
Fuko Kirisawa - 5.3/10
Tokiya Mikagami - 8.6/10
Kaoru Koganei - 7.9/10
I've gone on record for saying that the core cast of Soul Eater consists of rejects from other anime and my opinion is still very much the same but can this work?
Maka Albarn is basically by the books a straight A student, she's not a bad character per say but she never really left an impact.
Soul Eater Evans dresses like a 90s shonen protagonist, trying to keep a cool persona, but every so often he can pull it off without feeling forced.
Black Star is early Naruto taken to it's logical extreme and pulls it off with flying colours.
Tsubaki surprisingly works as an audience surrogate, she's often the one who keeps everyone in check especially Black Star
Death the Kid is argubly my favourite character, the way the anime handles a character destined to be overpowered is a stroke of genius and gives him a personality worthy of his design.
Liz feels like Death the Kid's babysitter while Patty is the free spirited child channelling the energy of Ed from Cowboy Bebop, both characters don't really standout as their design is generic, but I generally remember Patty more than Liz.
Maka Albarn - 6.7/10
Soul Eater Evans - 8.1/10
Blackstar - 8.5/10
Tsubaki Nakatsukasa - 7.5/10
Death the Kid - 9.2/10
Liz Thompson - 6.3/10
Patty Thompson - 7.3/10
Drifters is a unique series in the sense that it uses a number of real life historical characters to make up it's cast, starting with the Drifters themselves, who are these people in real life?
Shimazu Toyohisa: A member of the Shimazu clan who participated and died in the battle of Sekigahara
Oda Nobunaga: A Sengoku period general known as one of three men who unified Japan
Nasu no Yoichi: A famous samurai of the Genpei War in the late 1100s, early 1200s
Hannibal Barca and Scipio Africanus: Two underrated Roman War Generals
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Notorious train robbers from the old West as part of the Wild Bunch Gang, Drifters chose to use a later depiction which shows them in their last days in Bolivia
Naoshi Kanno: A Japanese World War II fighter pilot
Tamon Yamaguchi: A Japanese World War II Naval Vice Admiral, sank in the Battle of Midway
So that's the Drifters, if they come round again we'll cover their enemies.
I have to thank Kita Mikichi for recommending this title, it's one of the funniest I've seen for a while.
So let's look at the characters, all the mains plus three side characters.
Starting with Nozaki, he's the complete opposite of how you would picture a shojo mangaka, completely deadpan with a clueless streak yet somehow manages to pull off a romance title.
Chiyo I wasn't expecting to be top tier shojo protagonist but at least she's interesting.
Mikoshiba reminds me a little too much of some of my friends but I like my friends and I like him, strangely relatable as well.
Seo is basically a guy, I know she isn't but she has the head strong attitude of most male protagonists, the nice singing voice is a nice touch.
Kashima's dub voice is horribly miscast, I'm trying to wonder what she's trying to achieve by acting the prince, I'm guessing she wants Senpai to notice.
Speaking of Senpai, Hori is basically Kashima's Dad, it's a dynamic that can only really work for those two characters.
Wakamatsu is probably the point where there shouldn't have been anymore main characters, while the others have good chemistry with at least one or two characters, Wakamatsu's design seems a little lethargic and his interaction with Seo while funny, is really cringy.
Miyamae is the reliable one to Maeno's incompetence, not much else.
Maeno I sadly know a few like him, the type that takes all the credit despite contributing nothing yet acts like he's doing nothing wrong.
Miyako is just oblivious to what Maeno is like, there be nothing but air in her head.
Umetarou Nozaki - 9.2/10
Chiyo Sakura - 7.7/10
Mikoto Mikoshiba - 9.4/10
Yuzuki Seo - 8.4/10
Yuu Kashima - 7.7/10
Masayuki Hori - 8.2/10
Hirotaka Wakamatsu - 5.6/10
Ken Miyamae - 6.0/10
Mitsuya Maeno - 4.5/10
Yukari Miyako - 4.5/10
