Battle Programmer Shirase

Story: Unfortunately, the story was cut off after 15 episodes, and although the 15 episodes do tend to stick out on their own, the story quickly falls into a routine of Shirase being in his house, through some accident ends up in an uncomfortable position, and his next employer(always an Akizuki) walks in and sees him like this. The story quickly progresses through the various cybercrime cases Shirase takes, this routine repeating itself across each one.

Art: Standard anime artwork, nothing new or innovative

Sound: The voice actors for this anime are spot-on. No men with girly voices, rather, they all have the voices corresponding to their ... characters. The sounds of everyday life such as that of Shirase's fingers clicking on a keyboard add a small sense of realism.

The characters: If you looked up Shirase on a dictionary, you'd find him associated with ecchi and other such words. He is an easygoing rouge programmer who only cares about his programming and Misao-chan. Shirase is great-uncle or something like that to Misao, and she is just barely finishing elementary school, which might feel very improper to mainstream audiences who aren't accustomed to this aspect of japanese culture (lolicon).

Enjoyment: I personally enjoyed this short series, although the rather abrupt end was a source of disappointment to me. When you see the ending, you just know they could have kept this series going a bit longer. All in all, it leaves you wanting more, even if you feel it gets repetitive after a while, it does add a certain light-heartedness to this genre of hacker anime, typically dominated by anime similar to Ghost in the Shell. The inclusion of a possible love interest in the last 2 episodes is something I enjoyed, but again, due to the abrupt end, you are left wondering what might happen after, especially with the subtle hint at Shirase's future in that last image they show.

Overall: A decent anime, considering it is only 15 minutes long. Don't expect much, the abrupt end will leave you feeling cheated, even though the episodes are only 15 at 12 minutes each. Recommended to the hard-core programmer crowd for a few laughs, and to everyone else, this is rather a parody of programmers.

First, saying this anime has 15 episodes isn't really correct. Even though there were 15 airings, it took 3 or 4 airings to complete an episode. So there are really only 4-5 episodes. So don't expect a fully developed plot line. In fact, the anime ends when you feel like it should begin.

With that said, it is extremely funny. The main character is hilariously apathetic to everything except antique computer parts and his hormones.

The situations he is put in are equally entertaining, and his superhuman feats of programming to solve them make the concept have a tremendous amount of potential which battle programmer Shirase ... doesn't quite reach.

Definitely worth watching though, because it's so short. The biggest shortcoming is not having more time to have a real plot.

I expected to like this show. An ecchi comedy about a programmer who doesn't work for money seems like just the kind of trash that I love. But now I can say with confidence that this is the worst anime I've ever watched. It's a masterclass on how not to make a good show.

Sexualisation of minors and incestuous relationships. Short episodes with long and unnecessary recaps at the start of half of them. Offensive treatment of a trans character. Lazy animation, with lots of scenes being obviously re-used. Characters being introduced, set up as if they are going to be significant, and then never seen ... again. A female character moaning orgasmically and uncontrollably from having her hip groped.

And then there's the "hacking", which requires a paragraph of its own. Many shows portray hacking with terrible tropes, and you would be hard pressed to find a sin on /r/itsaunixsystem that this show DOESN'T commit. But, not satisfied there, the show comes up with some new and original awful hacking tropes. Such as, instead of typing frantically, the main character executing an immensely implausible hack by just pressing one key, the "return" key. Talk about making it look easy. Using a computer without looking at it is nothing new and is possible in real life, but the main character in this show is somehow able to read a report without being able to see the screen.

None of these things are enough to break a show. The issue with BPS is that it has nothing except these things. The storylines are boring. The characters are boring. The show has exactly one joke, and it knows it because it re-uses it 5-6 times throughout the series and follows it up with canned laughter each time. And the joke isn't even very funny.

All of this makes me wonder if perhaps BPS is a parody. If so, it fails on that level too, because parodies are meant to critique and make fun of stupid tropes, not just to emulate them. Instead the kindest thing I could say about this show is that maybe the staff's goal was to make the worst anime ever, and in that case I believe they succeeded.