Review:
When you start something expecting to not like it and it surprises you, there’s always still the underlying caution that maybe they just had a good week or two. Akiba’s Trip is apparently that show. I kind of thought they’d get to episode 4 before the shiny started to fade but they haven’t even made it past the first three episodes for those who do a three episode rule.
This episode is not good. We spend 8 minutes of the episode focussed on Tomotsu as he pursues his new hobby as an idol fan and audio enthusiast in the lamest kind of parody that is actually kind of insulting to the viewer. The end result is its boring and predictable to watch and with none of the action or humour of the first two episodes it falls completely flat. By the time his credit card debt arrives and he’s forced to get another part time job (which then leads us to the second half of the episode and remembers that there is supposed to be something resembling a story happening) you just don’t care. The second half embraces the sleazy fan service that the synopsis of this show suggests should have been here from the start, putting the three main female characters through idol training before getting them into swim suits. Again, the vast majority of the jokes don’t work and with an over reliance on bust shots visually its pretty ordinary.
This far in I’ll give it another episode but if this is what is in store for the rest of the season, I am going to put this one in the dropped list.
Akiba’s Trip is available on Crunchyroll
I’m kinda surprised it took this long for it to get to this point. I figured it would have happened by episode 2.
Which is a weird sort of praise to give.
I know. It is weird to praise a show because it defied expectations or took two episodes before it felt like it got sloppy and lazy. Yet, with a premise like this one, my expectations were so low going in that episodes 1 and 2 genuinely surprised me with how watchable and entertaining they were. It wasn’t amazing but certainly entertaining. Then we got this and it was like, ‘ah, that’s what I thought this was going to be’. I don’t know how much longer this one has on my watch list at this point.
Guess it’ll depend on if this episode was a one off or not. I’ll wait to see your review for episode four before I decide to jump in and give it a watch,
I’ll just wait for the glorious day where you drop this one
It’s coming. I can feel it.
That’s too bad to hear. I’ve always meant to get around the game which I bought during a PS4 sale over a year ago but maybe this series isn’t the best place to start.
It’s possible it will pick up again. And it’s also possible that since this was never a series that was really going to appeal to me, maybe the novelty just wore off and this episode isn’t any worse I just didn’t like it. I don’t think so. I genuinely think this episode dropped the ball.
Honestly it’s not necessarily a series that would appeal to me either, I really just don’t know. This review wasn’t too encouraging though.