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Battle Programmer Shirase is an anime about a whiny, incestuous, pedophile loser who's good at coding but bad at everything else. It's hard to say if he's supposed to be the most vicious caricature of an otaku your average suit could come up with, or if he's the end product of some bizarre, unflattering power fantasy. beginning with the story, it should, theoretically, be a fun show- a programmer who's so good at countering hackers that he's regularly recruited by government agencies and secret organizations. However, the execution just falls flat on its face. Shirase is fundamentally unlikable, and the characters surrounding him are so dry and one-note that it becomes a real chore to watch. Its worst sin is how hard it tries to be funny, failing miserably in the process. Furthermore, their portrayal of his interest in his grand-niece Misao, and little girls in general, feels as though it transgresses usual loli fare and takes on a distinctly unsettling atmosphere, as though their intention was not to capture a loli element, but instead to communicate something else entirely. It's hard to nail down exactly why, but Shirase's whole thing just doesn't feel 'lolicon' in the commonly understood sense.
The art is this anime's strongest point, but that's relative. It simply meets all standards of quality for the time, though even here it falls a bit short, as some of the characters are outlandishly ugly.
The sound is fine, once again, meeting the basic standards of quality for the time, though the techno-themed OST gives it a unique atmosphere.
The characters are all pretty poorly written, and feel as though they're just there to give Shirase something to do, or otherwise to fawn over him for no discernible reason. Overall, it's pretty easy to infer what Battle Programmer Shirase was going for, but to say it fell short of that is an understatement. This is a real piece of shit, and once all of its flaws are taken into consideration, there's very little left to make it worth your time.
