Aku no Hana

[purplepolecat]

After the episode 5 credits, the wavy-haired director's speech bubble says, "Does this remind you of your adolescence?"

I have to admit that it does. I was totally The Awkward Kid at school. I was also targeted by The Crazy Girl. I'm glad I'm far enough removed from that situation now, that I can watch a show like this and just revel in the unbearable anxiety.

It's so much worse because you know that if Kasuga had any guts he could extricate himself, but he's not quite strong enough.

I notice it's still following the pattern of subverting common rom-com anime tropes. I watched ep5 directly after the OreImo date episode.

[pieetrr]

I can't watch more than one episode each time i sit down to watch it,i will die from sweat.Such an intense conveyance of anxiety in this anime.

[Shinzui IT]

This is really good! I got hooked into it

[ReggieSmalls]

I love how he had his way out but he shits on it at the last min lol

[ZephyrStar]

This latest episode, that last scene in the classroom, holy shit that looked like fun

[Chiikaboom]

id bet money on this that if this series had ughuu moeblob designs and was animated by SHAFT, the series would be a hit.

a lot of people who adore this series like it because its "dark" and "edgy", but you're actually kinda missing the point of the series. The series is designed to look like a typical harem romcom but thats just a disguise. its very much like eva in the way that the creators are mocking the shit out of the fanbase.

and hoooly shit theres a whole lot of sexual politics going on in this show. for example Kasuga idolizes Saeki. To him, she's a goddess who is perfect in every way. but he never makes any real attempt to communicate with her on his own because he doesn't want to shatter that image of her. again, for example, when Nakamura tells Kasuga that she really wants to have sex, Kasuga is in complete denial that its even possible. because to him Saeki is this perfect amazing angel who'd never be into something so filthy, right? and the manga shows how thats an absolute bullshit attitude towards women, and Saeki is forced to hold up this fake image of herself on display because its how everyone else views her. and later on in the manga she shows her true colors and she is far, far from perfect. almost despicable, in fact. and then theres Nakamura and Kasuga's whole "we're so edgy!111" thing, which is simply poking fun at the fact that a lot of things you view as ~deep~ and conformist as a teenager is actually a load of shit.

which is actually why i love they animated it the way they did. because it shows how brilliantly ugly all the characters are. if this series had the moe moe designs, fanboys would be all over it. and to conclude, a quote from a friend who words it a lot better than I ever could:

In its own way the very existence of the anime even further lays bare the otaku psyche, when the reaction of the fanbase reveals just how shallow, limited, and divorced-from-reality the typical otaku ideal of a “pretty girl" really is.

bless

[mirkosp]

the reaction of the fanbase reveals just how shallow, limited, and divorced-from-reality the typical otaku ideal of a “pretty girl" really is.

If the "pretty girl" in that line refers just to the looks like I think, then that's fundamentally wrong. The real actresses that acted the scenes before they were rotoscoped are nice in looks to boot, I'd say (all the episodes are available to be watched with the real actors if you want, but the static shots get incredibly out of place with live action, so I don't suggest it). They just fucked it up with the improper rotoscope execution, really.

There's a difference between minimal, realistic, and plain bad chades. For instance, Yuasa's chades works really well in his works, even the borderline ugly chades in Kemonozume, because it is made to work out.
In the Aku no Hana anime, though, I'd just call it shoddy execution.
Rotoscope by itself is good: just watch the opening of the Cowboy Bebop movie. In Aku no Hana it's just lacking in quality, imho.

Also moe per se is widely considered cancer by anybody who's actually openmindedly watched their fair share of animation (both western and eastern). It's fine if it's limited as a fan-pandering device in a bigger picture, but when it becomes the point per se, it's just shallow and pointless.
I mean, the first big moe icon I can think of is Clarisse from Castle of Cagliostro, and I'm positive that's widely recognized as a top grade movie worldwide, despite the tropes it employed (a moe damsel in distress... actually now that I think about it, I'm not sure how well the movie fares under a feminist point of view?).
But then we have stuff like most of the KyoAni production of the latest years and it's just sad. That is a serious problem with anime nowadays (and if they get away with Free we are truly fucked up, because it means that moe works out and prints money both with male and female audiences and you just need to swap the sex of your characters, which means we'll be stuck with it for a long time still).

I like how Aku no Hana pokes fun on the average moetard anime viewer and related tropes, and thematically it's spot on. I also think rotoscope was a fitting choice for the show. I still think it was poorly executed, though, and that's the big gripe I have with it.
They overly simplified the linearts and coloring, so it's just bad. A hyperrealistic usage of rotoscope instead would have REALLY been better, since it would have added to the creepy feel of the show. It would have single handedly raised the show's value. Unfortunately it looks like they needed to cut on budget so they went with what they did; and I'd say it didn't work out as it should have.

[purplepolecat]

The series is designed to look like a typical harem romcom but thats just a disguise. its very much like eva in the way that the creators are mocking the shit out of the fanbase.

Yes, one of the things I love about this show is how they eviscerate romcom tropes.

and then theres Nakamura and Kasuga's whole "we're so edgy!111" thing, which is simply poking fun at the fact that a lot of things you view as ~deep~ and conformist as a teenager is actually a load of shit.

This finally crystallized when Kasuga meets Nakamura's dad, and you think that he's going to be some abusive alcoholic, but he turns out to be a normal, caring guy who just wants to be able to communicate with his daughter. N and K's angst and sense of alienation have no real cause or purpose, it's just boring teenager stuff.

Anyway, I loved this show and I'll be disappointed if they don't make part 2. I guess I could go read the manga.

[Emong]

I'm a bit torn on the rotoscope since, like mirkosp, I think it's a good idea but I'm not so sure whether it really looks all that great here. And by "good idea" I mean that I appreciate the realistic look of the characters. IN YOUR FACE otaku fanbase!

a lot of people who adore this series like it because its "dark" and "edgy", but you're actually kinda missing the point of the series. The series is designed to look like a typical harem romcom but thats just a disguise. its very much like eva in the way that the creators are mocking the shit out of the fanbase.

and hoooly shit theres a whole lot of sexual politics going on in this show. for example Kasuga idolizes Saeki. To him, she's a goddess who is perfect in every way. but he never makes any real attempt to communicate with her on his own because he doesn't want to shatter that image of her. again, for example, when Nakamura tells Kasuga that she really wants to have sex, Kasuga is in complete denial that its even possible. because to him Saeki is this perfect amazing angel who'd never be into something so filthy, right? and the manga shows how thats an absolute bullshit attitude towards women, and Saeki is forced to hold up this fake image of herself on display because its how everyone else views her. and later on in the manga she shows her true colors and she is far, far from perfect. almost despicable, in fact.

It's precisely because of this that Saeki is possibly my favorite character from the manga. It's really too bad the anime cut it off really early because later in the manga the story also shreds off the typical harem fantasy of distressed girls rescued by the protagonist. In the anime Saeki is still the usual fragile girl easily impressed by Kasuga - typical of harem anime, which allows the protagonist a very comfortable position of being idolized by the distressed girls around him. But later in the manga Saeki breaks down and when the story skips two years ahead she feels like a different person who has already moved on.