What does it mean to "save anime?"
For years, humans and otaku alike have presented the concept that an upcoming or airing series can rescue the medium of Japanese animation from its own self-wrought destruction. I've viewed this line of thinking with a grain of salt, for the obvious reason that, well, anime can't be saved, it's irredeemable at this point.
But what if it could be saved?
What if we could end this cycle of bad karma?
But what could do it? What could save anime?
A new Trigger romp with experimental animation and another iteration on Gunbuster's coming of age story? Noble effort, Imaishi, but you can only go so far. Panty&Stocking was but a deflated life vest lost in the sea of moe-colored urine. Luluco, despite being anime of the year, also failed to resonate and return these Chinese cartoons to their original purity.
A fresh romp from acclaimed director Cowboy "Watanabe" Bebop? Sadly no, Terror in Resonance offered less hope than Obama, while Space Dandy offered as much substance as our future emperor Donald J. Trump. (Editor's note: nailed it. )
Maybe one of the murderers who killed anime could do it. Could Geass' Taniguchi come back and deliver us something as good as his magnum opus, Scryed? No, we got Active Raid instead. Sunrise's Cross Ange was definitely saving anime for a while, but petered out in the end.
All hope appeared to be lost. But. What if... What if a series went the opposite route? What if it took everything that killed anime, and went so far into it that it looped around on itself and became the cure? What if derivative, pandering trash like Angel Beats pandered so hard that it smashed right through its target audience of lowlifes and became High Art?
Well, we're going to find out. You're 1000 words into this review (for the second fucking time thanks MAL) and now you're going to learn about
~ * ~ KEIJO!!!!!!!! ~ * ~
KEIJO!!!!!!!! is an action series about dedication and fighting spirit, but it's more than that: it's a story about one girl's dream to get fuckin' paid. Yeah, the series is about this Blue Hair girl who graduated high school and wants to get paid by beating other girls' faces in with her ass. She has a friend, White Hair, who is a judo master that can attack with her ass at supersonic speed. Another friend, Udders, has an ass so soft that it deflects oncoming trains, and the last friend, Hairtail, can judge an opponent's power level by feeling their ass.
Also, the series is about some kind of sport where young martial artists and gymnasts fight with their hips or something. It's more or less just a device to push the narrative of "hard works gets you mad dollars", much like all those other sports anime out there.
The show delivers this soft-hitting (editor's note: LOL) premise with great production values. Character animation and fight choreography are right out of goddamn Hajime no Ippo or Gurren Lagann. The animation uses varying line thicknesses for foreground and background during fights, giving the series a very hand-animated look at points, and the cinematography is phresh. The shots are dynamic and interesting to look at, along with great use of ON-SCREEN WORDS popularized by Panty&Stocking/Kill la Kill, JoJo, etc. KEIJO!!!!!!!! carries great energy and timing into almost every scene, making it both not-boring, and funny.
HOWEVER after the first 7-8 episodes the art and animation kind of falls off a cliff, which is a damn shame, since that's right around when the climactic final tournament starts. It's most evident in the final episode, which is easily the worst-looking in the series. Luckily, the usual absurdity of what's happening still saves the show and keeps it very compelling.
The characters' abilities and fighting styles are about as fleshed out (editor's note: LOL) as any fighting shounen series, but it's all presented with an amazing sense of facetiousness. You can tell the team behind this show was having a lot of fun putting a nearly uncalled for level of thought into the reasoning and presentation of the action sequences. Special techniques all have fabulous names with accompanying ~extreme on-screen text~ - it's very cool and creative. The source material was ridiculous, but more grounded, whereas is the anime goes full ham.
The pacing is great. The anime skips the first half of the manga or so and settles right in on the meaty competition portion of the story, and moves along at great speed. Characters and concepts are introduced quickly, and even though you technically miss 40 chapter of content, you don't actually notice because the writers for the show were competent enough to know how to adapt the material to best fit the medium.
I've grown to really like the OST for this show. Opening is catchy, and the accompanying animation is very much amusing enough. There are some very hammy emotional/background tracks that stand out during climactic scenes. The sound design though: That's where this show shines. KEIJO!!!!!!!! uses sound in some pretty unique ways that are genuinely hilarious. You'll hear mechanical sounds, explosions, energy pulses and everything in between when various ass-centric attacks are used, and during combat every fight in this series is full of other varied and exaggerated impact sounds.
So, is this how one saves anime?
Does this series do what none before it could?
Yes.
