Before you march on the forums with pitchforks and yell about Avatar and Thunderbolt Fantasy, let me explain this. For some reason, based on the success of her single “I Like It”, someone at Warner Music Japan decided to create an ‘anime edition’ of the music video.
It’s not the worst idea, but it’s a dangerous one if not handled by the right people. Unfortunately, I don’t think the right people were involved with this one. In fact, I believe that the right people may have been strapped to a missile and shot into the Sun before they could voice their concerns about the release of this...thing.
This is really bad.
After viewing this, I'm absolutely certain that neither Cardi B, nor anyone involved with the production of this, have seen an anime in their life. (I guess Cardi B was busy with the whole stripping and raping dudes thing, but whoever was in charge of producing a "Japan Anime Edition" of this should’ve done their homework.) The director of the video, Ruka Noguchi, is a nobody in the anime industry...and he doesn’t seem like he’s trying to be involved with it at all. He’s an artist with no other anime projects that, with what I can find, is focused on creating illustrations in his own unique style that doesn’t quite match the expectations for an anime music video.
Before the pitchforks come out in my profile comments, I know there’s not one unique anime style. However, when you’re designing something that is specifically designed to be the ‘Japan Anime Edition’ - I dunno, to catch the eyes of worldwide weebs or something? - you can’t make it look like MovieStarPlanet.
Now to the meat of the thing. Or, more specifically, why my meat attempted to retract from my body.
Three seconds into the video, we get a close-up of cartoon Cardi B's bazookas. It might be outrageous to fill the screen with overinflated beach balls that lactate in an animated music video...if this were 1972, this is. I imagine the producers of this video having some sort of ‘anime checkmark’ list, which included ‘big ol’ honkers’ and every other Japanese stereotype featured in here (more on that later). This isn't tagged as 'ecchi' because it has this ridiculous cartoon style, and there's no chance of it titillating even the most depraved souls.
After that, Cardi B's solo section of "I Like It" plays, as she's accompanied by cartoon versions of every Japanese and/or anime stereotype under the sun - sumo wrestlers, animal mascots, big eyes, a weird moe mascot that's drawn better than anything else in the video, sushi and ramen...at one point she even appears to turn into a CGI sex doll.
Despite how many hip Japanese things were thrown at the screen, Cardi B manages to embarrass Japanese culture more than Avril Lavigne. This short video fails to justify its own existence, with off-putting animation, laughable flashy visuals, an overall cheap production sense...and despite this special-made video, “I Like It” failed to reach any Billboard chart in Japan.
Whoever approved this should be in jail. Please watch Britney Spears' "Break the Ice" video instead, and then scream at MAL with me for not considering it an anime but allowing Cardi B to drop a hot steaming turd on the database.
