C³

C3 centers around a boy named Haruaki Yachi who one day recieves a black cube from his father. His father sends him cursed intruments to try and make him break the it because he is resistant to curses. However the black cube is actually a girl named "Fear" and she is a type of intrument, a "Fear in Cube". She suddenly starts living with him, much to the dismay of Haruaki's childhood friend Konoha.

However as the story progresses on, it develops into something much darker. Turns out that there are other people who wants the " Fear in Cube", and they come after Fear. Fear's dark past is revealed to the others, and by this time if you still think Fear is just a cute ordinary girl, then you are wrong. As her past is revealed, she starts to lose control of herself just by seeing blood, turning a cute girl into something more of a monster. That fight was one of the scariest ones ever, with Fear having a twisted expresssion of a smile on her face while killing. Also when Fear started to question her own existence, that was probably one of the most moving scenes in this anime which actually made me feel really sad.

Childhood friend Konoha is also not your ordinary childhood friend. Her real form is of something much more badass. Haruaki is also not useless, as he is shown that he has a badass side where he can fight against other people who want to destroy Fear. As for the class prez Kirika, I have to say that she is not normal too, as she is connected to a mysterious organization whose objective involves cursed tools.

Art is of BakaTest, and I'm really pleased with the character designs. But what I really love about this show is the wonderful OP song and animation. OP is probably one of the best of seiyuus, sung by Tamura Yukari. Along with it are beautiful animations with cherry blossoms flying everywhere. OP2 is also very nice, sung by Kitamura Eri, as the story focuses more on Kirika.

I have to say I'm very impressed with Tamura Yukari's voice. Finally we had a cute loli not voiced by Rie, and Yukarin does not fail my expectations. She can do a cute high pitched voice while also doing a lower, scarier voice for the transformed Fear. Kaji Yuuki is also a great seiyuu with a nice gentle voice which I think is perfect for Haruaki. Along with Chihara Minori as Konoha and Kitamura Eri as Kirika, it definitely sounds like a harmony to me :)

Overall, C3 was a nice anime to watch and enjoyable. If there is a 2nd season I would definitely watch it!

Feedback is greatly appreciated, thanks! :) read more

Why didn’t I drop this?

[Contains vague spoilers, then again, it's so predictable a caveman could do it, also contains some offensive language]

C³ is best described as an atrocity then again, that might be considered a generous title. This would be the “ideal troll” series to give somebody to watch. It’s not very good in storyline, and the characters are the aggravating type of cliché. It follows the generic harem law of everybody falling in love with the average dude, and it offers incessant and redundant fan service. The series basically follows this extremely unique and innovative storyline:

Boy meets unique and strange girl, strange girl is suffering from a curse, boy wants to help girl, girl denies boy’s kindness and runs away after accidentally hurting boy, boy finds girl and basically accepts girl, then girl learns the meaning of friendship. Innovative and original right? Normally, the storyline wouldn’t be aggravating on its own but it’s just portrayed and executed in such an obnoxious way.

The majority of the episodes are generally composed of 60% school/fan service, then 30% actual plot, with the 10% being the OP and ED. The series basically started off as excessive moe fan service followed by an episode or two of melodrama. Then it led into some action, which was surprisingly pretty cool. Then it fell into the inevitable plight of more melodrama, love triangles; then from episode eight onwards, it’s visited by sporadic random tentacles[perhaps, slightly exaggerated].

Surprisingly, the actual plot does actually exist, albeit rushed and poorly told. The small plot is littered with mediocre storytelling and incessant fan service. C³ basically tries to develop a seemingly serious plot, but the plot is about as creative and unpredictable as Bleach’s. The plot basically revolves around trying to alleviate the girl’s curse, but it does it in such a bad way. Numerous questions are raised with each episode, and they are answered, but are done so in such a mediocre way. C3 is titled a harem, ecchi comedy with action elements; if it actually stayed with those genres, rather than attempt an asinine, darker one [which it fails to do], then this review wouldn't exist [It would be like being irritated at the fan service in a series labeled as an ecchi romance; I don't like C3 because it tries to incorporate more genres than it can handle.]

To be fair, most series raise questions, but they answer them. Now how do they answer them? Well, most of them would answer them through subtle hints, actions, and perhaps even some dialogue. How does C³ do it? Well, they do it through dialogue. Not intelligent dialogue, but in blatant “Why did this happen”s and “What was that”s. Now imagine the end of a mystery anime, where everything is resolved, there’s been a few subtle, yet significant clues, and the main detective puts it all together, in blatant monologue. Now, if C³ was a mystery anime, that wouldn’t be so bad, but it does this without any clues. They literally just commune a meeting and go, “What was that?” and well, that’s how the majority of the questions were answered, in Q and A format, intelligent right?

Now C³ isn’t an entirely bad series. It does have a few redeeming “good” points. The art and animation is simple, yet in some scenes it’s done really well. Both openings look great[it's simple, but they actually do look good], and the ending theme fits. The action scenes are also pretty cool, the history behind the torture weapons, and the actual fighting isn’t bad. It’s entertaining when it comes to that, but besides that, it doesn’t have much going for it. Basically, imagine Bleach with more melodrama, and much more boobs, tentacles, and panty shots.

Objective Score: 3/10. It’s the irritating type of below average, it’s not good, and it’s not enjoyable. This show was actually one of the few that I fell behind on due to the incessant bullshit I put through while watching it.

Subjective Score: 3/10: It’s still shit. If you’re into tentacles, panty shots, incessant fan service, and boobs, you’ll probably like this. If you want a decent storyline, or even decent characters, you probably wouldn’t like this. The show is mostly fan service, and the plot itself is mostly ridiculous and only used to further develop the fan service read more

[b]C³[/b]
C cube was really rushed in the story, is like if they knew they were not going to make a 2nd season, and they wanted to throw a lot of content in just 12 episodes.

[b][u]Story[/u][/b]
The story at first is really great, but it goes down every episode, because it's not consistent, it's like there are three different stories on just 12 episodes, the first story was great, was dark and violent and the action was the best in that story, the 2nd one was fine but it wasn't what i expected, like, it slowed down the things and less violent and less dark and the third one was ok, violent like the fisrt one and kind of dark but not shown like the first one, the ending was like if they are going to continue with a 2nd season because of the end, so if you put all of that together the overall is good.

[b][u]Art & Animation[/u][/b]
It really was very good, at first looked normal but then as the episode continues it has a dark tone and dark feel on the atmosphere, i liked the characters design.

[b][u]Sound[/u][/b]
The sound was very good, the VA and the music was good and the different OP and ED were just great, i really liked them a lot.

[b][u]Character[/u][/b]
The dark past of Fear wasn't expected for me, i really didn't expected that and started to think if i was going to like her or not, but you will find out for yourself, Haruaki was normal but powerful with the help of his childhood friend Konoha, who happens to have her own abilities to help Haruaki, Kirika was great and i felt for what she was going,Kuroe was really adorable and funny and i felt sorry for the loli Amanda, overall was very good.

[b][u]Enjoyment[/u][/b]
What i enjoyed the most were the first and last episodes, the middle ones were ok but not like the others level, the ending was unsatisfying but overall i had a very good enjoyment. read more

* CONTAINS SPOILERS*

C3... Ah, what to say. This show had a lot of potential, I must say. It's problem? It wanted to be too many things. First, it wanted to be a fun ecchi comedy about a girl who happens to be a magical box living with a boy who is immune to the "curses" these magical objects give off. Add the big breasted neighbor (who is also a magical object by the way), add some romance, and you've got a typical ecchi harem. Right?
Wrong.
That's exactly what I thought the show was going into it, but I soon found out that it was much more. The show could get VERY dark at times, and when it did, I had nothing but praise. Episode three in particular, for example. It was extremely heavy with action and dark themes. We find out about Fear's struggle with being a device of torture and how hard her life has been. We see that Konoha is more than just fanservice and that she really loves Haruaki and wants him to help Fear like he helped her. This was absolutely brilliant, in my opinion. Now, if the show had stayed constant with this, it could've lived up to it's potential. Before episode three, it was a fanservice filled, funny, harem like anime that I really enjoyed watching. Then episode three strolled in and I was completely entranced. It seemed like the show would just go on with this dark side and I was really excited. But I never really fully saw the same deepness again that I did. After this episode, the plot was flimsy and poorly put together. The "antagonist" we were given (who I must admit, I did get attached to) was gone within a mere episodes, and replaced with new ones. The beef of the plot that might've been half decent if not having been lathered with unnecessary fanservice and romance that, not going to lie, made me very angry.

An extremely irrelevant arc including another cursed object was also added to the show. It just directed the show EVEN MORE away from the plot and distracted everything. It didn't make much sense and it didn't really have a clear conclusion. WERE THEY TOGETHER OR NOT????

Now this has to have its own paragraph. Kirika. I have to talk about Kirika. She is the friend of our protagonist Haruaki, and she seems like a basic tsundere. Which, in my opinion, she is. The show tries to make her look like a devastating girl who has an utterly terrible life. I suppose she does, but it seemed a little unrealistic to me.Her character made unrealistic and stupid choices, and wasn't as strong as they made her out to be. She was also added into the show as YET ANOTHER love interest for Haruaki. This realllly annoyed me, I must say. Halfway through the show she just becomes plot relevant (AFTER THE WHOLE SHOW UP TO THAT POINT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FOCUSED ON FEAR AND HER STRUGGLES AS A CURSED TOOL) and the opening changes to focus on her. The show tries to make Kirika a big part of the plot, but honestly, she didn't have to be as important as they made her out to be.

Oh god I'm gonna get a lot of hate for that Kirika paragraph, aren't I?

Art was very nice. Baka and Test- like. Sound was also nice, although nothing was really memorable.
EXCEPT, I must say, I really loved the openings. The first opening was an interesting dance preformed by our own Fear Kubrick. It was wonderfully animated, especially the cherry blossoms as the background. Second opening focused more on the "struggles" of Kirika.

CHARACTERS. WELL.

Haruaki was the norm male anime protagonist. Quite boring, ALWAYS PUTS OTHERS BEFORE HIMSELF EVEN WHEN IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL, and caring. He was also the central point of a love square(?).

I already went on a rant about Kirika, so, up there.

COW TITS! I mean, Konoha. Long time friend of Haruaki, very nice, also, a cursed tool. I very much liked her character despite the below average amount of characterization she got. We got bits and pieces of her past, but never enough to satisfy me. But she was always there for Fear when she was struggling with her problems, because she experienced them too. For that, I commend her character.

Fear. Fear Kubrick. I don't know what to feel. I loved her character at times, I hated her character at times. She's flat chested, angry all the time, short tempered, and QUITE annoying a lot of the time. Seems like the anime norm, yes, but you can't help but love her. She had a very decent amount of character development, and yet, I still felt robbed. She had SO much potential. Like I said, episode three comes and we find out a lot of her tragic past and how hard she has to work to go through life like a normal person. I LOVED this and my greatest pick with the show is that they didn't let Fear live up to her potential. In some parts of the show, they even treat her struggles as a cursed tool like a joke, which was extremely uncool. Still, Fear was a great character, and I'm happy to have gotten as much as I did from her.

This show was confused. It honestly didn't know what it wanted to be. Ecchi comedy? Action filled shounen? Or maybe a tragic, drama filled story about living with your struggles? WHO KNOWS! They did each of these things fairly well I must say, but having just ONE of those genres as the primary genre would've done many good things for the show.
Fear carried the show on her back, and when a show has one character doing that, you know it's probably not worth it.
If you like ecchi kind of comedy shows, watch it, sure. The plot and fighting might get in the way and annoy you though. If you're looking for dramatic or action shows, I absolutely do not recommend this, you'll just end up disappointed.

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