nothost's Blog

Anime Relations: Rosario to Vampire, Rosario to Vampire Capu2

*Sighs* I really didn't want to go back to this, I really didn't want to. But this show effected me personally on a very deep and profound matter, and I have to come clean and get this off my chest. I tried to review this series twice, but it just turned into a series of rants both times. I'm just going to come right out and say it: in my eyes, this is the worst anime series I have ever watched. I know from a technical and voice acting standpoint it's way better then series such as Mars of Destruction, Garzey's Wing, and Psychic Wars, which are all synonymously acknowledged as being among the worst anime that have ever been made. Rosario + Vampire is personal for me though. I have a lot to say about it, so I might as well get started.

First off, I should point out that if you went into the series without reading the manga, you'd probably give the show a 4, 5, or if you're feeling generous, 6. Some people give the series a rating a 7 or higher, and those people either don't know that it's butchered from a product, or they weren't as invested in it as I and other fans of the manga were. I actually kind of admire reviewers like Salo-Heika for reviewing the anime rationally and looking at it solely as such, without comparing it to the manga. I disagree with the ratings they give it, but I respect their opinions all the same. Does that mean that they're better reviewers then I am? *Shrugs* I don't know. Although they definitely aren't as invested in the manga as I and other fans of it are.

But you know what, I would give it a 2 (I would give it a 1, but I can't because technically it's watchable.) Let me tell you why I'd give it this rating, the reason why I hate everything about the anime series. I read the manga, and while wasn't the best thing ever, but I liked it for what it was. It got dark, it had some interesting characters, and it was really good at switching between from being comedic to serious (for the most part). It is a Shonen, so in the end the good guys are almost guaranteed to win, but it's really good at creating hopeless situations: just as something goes right for the protagonists, something horribly wrong happens soon afterwards. I like it, even though it is standard Shonen stuff.

And then the anime comes along, and takes the whole concept into the ground and brings it to the lowest common denominator: it focuses entirely on the comedy and the harem aspect of the show entirely. Now while I’m a little annoyed at the vast amount of series that focus primarily on ecchi exist, I just shrug most of it off. Fanservice exists, and a little bit of fanservice can be a good thing. If someone makes an entire show based on fanservice, well then good for them. I'm indifferent to most of those kind of anime, which is probably why I will never review a series entirely about fanservice, because once you review one like that, you've pretty much reviewed every other ecchi anime out there. I'd eventually run out of things to say. Well, I do make exceptions if the ecchi anime in question does something ridiculously stupid or really amazing. I'll get that eventually, but that's a tale for another day.

Rosario + Vampire is a different story entirely though. It kicked the fans of the manga right in the balls, and then gave them the finger for good measure. You see, in the process of turning it into one of the ecchi anime that have been made popular by Love Hina, and they stripped it of everything that made the series its own identity. The characters become stereotypes that don’t get any character development whatsoever, the main villains are either nowhere to be seen, or are entirely insignificant now. One of them appears as the villain in one episode and gives the Yukari (the loli of the series), the body of a teenage girl, complete with enormous breasts of course. And in the end, she is defeated off screen. What a cheap cop-out that turned out to be.

And speaking of the villains in general, the ones that ones that do appear in the series are the minor ones, and their fight scenes generally last under a minute. Do you want to know why I know exactly how many seconds it took? I know this because at the end of every battle a cartoon "bat" appears and tells the audience exactly how many seconds it is. Yes, they literally turned the shortness of the minor battles and made it a joke, thus sucking out all the seriousness out of it. And this is how it is for every "fight" in this adaptation. Oh, and before you ask, yes this bat does appear in the manga. No, it never pops up at the end of a fight and tell you how long it was.

The art annoys me too. The manga is pretty ecchi, don't get me wrong (the female heroines end up fighting a villain while wearing bikini's after all). However, the manga's art is a little more reserved. That's the best way to put it I suppose. I mean it isn't the darkest or grittiest thing ever, but it was good enough. The anime on the other hand, goes full on Moe. The art becomes bright and colorful, the girl's eyes are huge and sparkly, most of the character's boobs are bigger. Seriously, if you compare the art of the manga with how the anime is drawn there's a noticeable difference in style. It's infuriating to say the least.

You know what, not everything about it is bad. The voice acting is decent most of the time, and the ending themes for both of the seasons are awesome. It turns out Moka's voice actor is a really good singer. I'm indifferent to both of the opening themes and most of the tracks in the anime. There are a few that are just god awful though. There's this one scene where the two main protagonists are fawning over each other. "Tsukune! Moka-san! Tsukune!... Moka-san!" Now as mind numbingly painful that already is, the music that plays during it makes it unbearable. And that's not the only time that particular track plays either. The music is all over the place for me on this anime.

I honestly cannot believe how much they butchered the entire story. You know, I went into this expecting at least a decent adaptation of the manga to watch you know. I watched it, and I got smacked in the face the moment I started watching it. So I ended watching both seasons like an idiot, and it was one of the most insulting, painful things that I've ever had to endure. Any fan.... or for that matter anyone who really cared about the manga and its story line who ended up watching this got kicked in the balls, tied to a chair, pissed on, and got the Clockwork Orange treatment.

Let me tell you all right now, the only way you'll understand how I feel about it is if you've had something that you were a really big fan of turned to crap. It's how most fans of Star Wars feel about the prequels. Imagine if Naruto was turned into almost entirely filler and focused entirely on fanservice, with little to no fights. Needless to say, the Naruto fanbase would cry out in outrage. Most people wouldn't put this on their "worst anime ever list" but if they do, most likely they're a really big fan of the manga.

I watched the entire 1st season, suffering through the stupid butchered abomination. And then second season came out, and I hoped that they would have learned their lesson and made the adaptation I wanted. It was a stupid, vain hope, and I knew it. But I watched it anyway. And while it was better from a technical standpoint, it somehow managed to be even more painful then watching the first season. Somehow they managed to make the 10 episodes of the 13 episode season filler. Yeah, for all you people complaining about how much filler episodes shows like Naruto have, imagine if the entire anime were like that. And when it gets back to the plot on episodes 12 and 13, it's the stupidest, insulting, middle-finger to any fan of the manga.

Alright, so the great barrier that keeps the school of monsters hidden from the human world starts to collapse. The only problem is that in the manga, a villain was responsible for the collapse of the barrier. Here, there's no reason. Maybe a Trojan virus caused it, IDK. Imagine if in "Return of the Jedi" The Death Star was firing away, and Darth Vader and The Emperor were nowhere to be seen. Not only that, but this event happened near the end of the first manga, not the second, so characters who weren't supposed to be there were present. And the finale kept on getting dumber and dumber as it progressed. I'd tell you about it, but you know what? I don't want to talk about it. It's that insultingly stupid and I try to avoid giving out spoilers. If you want to know, look it up on the Rosario Vampire wiki

The Rosario Vampire anime is everything I hate about the mainstream anime market today: it's another cash-in manga series that relies entirely on fanservice, and it completely disrespects the source material and the fans of the manga in the process. They could have made a great adaptation, but they decided to try to get as much money as possible while being as lazy as possible. They definitely read the manga, or at least glanced over it: since a lot of the events that take place in the anime happen in the manga. That means they made the conscious decision to make the changes they did. Gonzo was the animation studio who made it, and while they're known for making some bad adaptations and mediocre anime, I know for a fact that they can make a good adaptation if they really want to. Welcome to the NHK was adapted by Gonzo, and that turned out great. Sadly this turned out to be one of their stupider adaptations.

I hate because everything it represents. All the stupid, greedy trends and cliches designed to cash in as much as possible. And this sold for two seasons, and it was pretty successful. Which infuriates me ever further. These guys got rewarded for butchering a series I liked. The second season took it a step further by censoring most of the breasts and then selling the uncensored version on DVD. "Hey, do you want to see the girls naked? Pay $15 to buy our product!" They just had to suck everyone dry for as much as they could. It's all entirely pointless too, since it's easy to get access to free porn on the internet. Yet somehow this boosted the DVD sales. Bite me.

There are way worst things out there, but this anime is a personal hatred of mine. I sat through Mars of Destruction, arguably the worst anime ever made, and it didn't piss me off nearly as much as Rosario Vampire did. God I hope I don't find something I hate more then this. Maybe one day I'll go back and review this anime without comparing it to its manga counterpart, but at the moment my feeling are too strong for me to give it a fair review. For now, I'm just going to continue reading the manga, which is just as enjoyable as it was when I started reading it. And it's sad that the adaptation turned out the way it did, but that's the way it is sometimes.

Anime Relations: Pokemon

For every reviewer who's ever existed, there will or has come a time where the rating you gave something was largely influenced by your personal feelings about the thing you're reviewing, whether it be Anime, a T.V. show, or some other form of media. Most of the time we reviewers are able to step back, and rate the Anime/Manga based on the characters, story, art, sound, and the production in general. However there is always at least 1 thing that any reviewer will have a personal connection with something that will ultimately affect the review, whether it's because you love the series or loathe it with a passion.

To give you one example of this, many, many people grew up watching the first incarnation of the Pokemon series. Now while it probably deserves a 4 or maybe a 5. However a lot of people give it really high ratings, and most of the people who do give it high ratings because they grew up with the show. They have a personal connection to it, which inevitably leads to their review being rather bias. Hell, in some of the reviews, they actually flat-out say in their review that it was their life as a kid or that they hold the series very dear to their hearts because they grew up with it. Is it possible to review a show you have a connection with? Yes, but it's really hard to do so. It's why I'll probably never do a review of the original series, although everything after that is fair game.

I really love the reviewers who can review things with little to no bias, and give really intelligent, thoughtful reviews. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say, but I respect them for being able to do that. We all have to try to review things without being biased: sometimes it’s really hard to do this, but it’s fair to judge it fairy, most of the time. There is one series that I despise that I may come back to eventually, but I'll deal with that when the time is right.