Friday’s Feature: Fuuka – Fiction Filled with Faults

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As many of you know, at episode 5 I decided to cut Fuuka from my watch list. It hadn’t reached the bottom of my watch list and it wasn’t even in the ‘they made this’ category meaning functionally the show works just fine and yet this is the first show that I’ve gotten any number of episodes into that I decided to throw in the towel on. Which made me really think about why, of all the shows I started this season, I first chose to watch Fuuka and then decided to drop it.

The problem with that line of reflection was that there are just too many reasons that could be the main reason I dropped it. I featured this anime in my line up of bland romances in an earlier feature and while this was the best of the bunch that I looked at, I wasn’t exactly complimentary. In my  5 episode reviews I note both good and bad things about the series, though I noticed myself becoming increasingly tired of the show even during episode 4 so it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I was over it at episode 5 but that doesn’t tell me what went wrong at least for me as a viewer.

Just to be clear, as I didn’t finish the show I’m not reviewing it. For all I know, it could turn out to be a sleeping masterpiece. However, if that is the case, I just haven’t seen any evidence of it in these episodes. So this is a discussion just to look at why this show did not end up working for me.

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So I made a list. I went through each of my reviews and noted every negative thing or comment I made that might have contributed to my overall impression of Fuuka.

From episodes 1 and 2:

01. Fairly generic high school set up.

02. At times animation seems off when characters are walking.

03. Character does not learn from previous mistakes (though this was a positive in episodes 1 and 2 for humour value it quickly wore thin).

04. Fuuka is an overly energetic character who might annoy me (scratch that, she did annoy me).

05. Standard story.

06. Panty shots and totally unnecessary bathroom scenes.

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Episode 3:

07. Pep-talk from Fuuka totally changes Yuu’s character in space of 1 minute.

08. Near character drowning used for cheap plot contrivance (honestly, if you have to nearly drown someone at least do it for something for meaningful than teens thinking about a kiss when it is mouth to mouth and given he’d be hacking up sea water after that there’s almost no romance involved in this actual process).

09. Writers seem to not understand normal human interactions and only present characters through the lens of how other characters have acted.

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Episode 4:

10. I don’t care about these characters and their possible romance.

11. Teens fighting and not speaking to each other for most of an episode is boring.

12. Characters lack any sense of self-awareness about their own actions.

13. Yet another plot contrivance, now all the characters are a band.

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Episode 5:

Yeah, I didn’t even bother because between rehashes of the mouth to mouth sequence being viewed as something embarrassing and romantic. a main character tripping and landing face first in a girls breasts, and a band attempting to play a song when they don’t have music or actually all know how to play their instruments this was done.

Despite all of that though, I will admit I have watched worse anime through to the end. I’m watching worse anime that if I were to list every flaw would probably reach beyond the 13 points in 4 episodes I reached here. So while listing was fun and I very nearly wrote a break-up letter to this show just because I was annoyed, it didn’t get to the core of what is actually wrong with Fuuka.

And then it hit me.

I’ve described Fuuka as a romantic comedy most of the time but when I really thought about it, is Fuuka a romantic comedy? Certainly we have a main guy and a girl and early on they met under poor circumstances (generic and contrived though they might have been) and formed a false impression of each other. But that was cleared up nearly immediately and soon after they went on a kind of date and then they went to the concert together. The fight between them in episode 4 wasn’t used for comedic effect and didn’t advance their relationship so is this story actually a romantic comedy? Or do the romantic comedy elements just kind of give this anime some vague shaping and framework upon which it is…

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Well, what is Fuuka trying to do?

Is it about Fuuka finding herself through this starting a band idea? It might be. That may be where it goes given after the fight in episode 4 it has given every indication it wants to head down the club/band route. But where does that leave Yuu?

See, while the anime is called Fuuka, Yuu was the one we were seeing events through the eyes of. And if the story is about Fuuka finding herself through the band what is Yuu doing other than learning to play bass?

And why did we need a random beach episode at all if the story was going to focus on the band? There seems no reason for this episode to exist because we could have got to much the same point by staying at school and just having idol girl come visit Yuu on her day off. According to MAL there’s 12 episodes so at episode 5 shouldn’t we know what the point of the show is and should they really waste large chunks of episodes?

As far as I can tell, Fuuka is following Yuu (the anime, not the girl but she’s doing a bit of following too). That could make this a slice of life but if so I’m not really sure what the point of any of what we’ve seen might be.

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So my conclusion from all of this is that my issue with Fuuka is that it lacks identity and direction. Stories can get away without a clear path if they are interesting and novel in their approach and give the audience something else to divert their attention away from a plot that might not be altogether there. In the first episode, Fuuka was kind of borderline too generic but episode 2 kind of hinted that we were going to follow these characters and watch them grow and maybe fall in love. That was enough to make it worth giving a go. But that aspect of the plot, while there, is pretty sparse when you actually look at what the characters spend their time doing.

Fuuka can’t get away with it’s murky plot path because there is nothing else to hold our interest. Any romantic elements of this show are far too emotionless to hold our interest. The ‘comedy’, if you could call it that, is entirely focussed on clichés and overused tropes, the characters lack depth or consistency so their daily lives and dilemmas can’t fill the void, and there’s just no reason for me to keep watching this show.

While Fuuka is most definitely not the worst show this season has to offer, it represents my least favourite of all anime types. The type that it isn’t really worth criticising because its just walking over ground other anime have before and it isn’t doing it in a particularly terrible manner, but neither is it doing it well.

Fuuka Episode 5

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Review:

I’m officially dropping Fuuka at episode 5. To be fair to this episode, it isn’t any worse than anything we’ve watched before but I’m tired of this show and these characters and the contrived situations they find themselves in and the inanity that stretches between the contrivances. There are plenty of other reasons to drop this show and I’m thinking I might write these into a feature but for now, Fuuka and I are going our separate ways.

By the way – learn instrument first, then attempt to play song. Don’t attempt to play, then try to learn.

Fuuka is available on Crunchyroll.


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Fuuka Episode 4

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Review:

It’s hard to really care about Fuuka and Yuu’s romantic plight in this story (and we kind of need to given how little else is happening) when they manage to drag out the not speaking to each other/fighting for most of the episode because Yuu happens to have been seen with his childhood friend (admittedly, the childhood friend went out of her way to create a misunderstanding). What’s even sillier is both that either of the characters could resolve the situation but choose to take offence and be prickly about what is essentially a non-issue.

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Given they are the ones continuing the conflict the fact that both characters ask ‘why’ just irritated me. Why did it turn out like this? Because you chose to make an assumption and get annoyed and then you chose not to talk to them about it, and then you chose to not accept an apology, before choosing to continue to ignore them. That’s why it turned out like that.

On a brighter note, we kind of have a band by the end of this episode. Too bad only one member is actually willing.

Fuuka is available on Crunchyroll.


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Fuuka Episode 3

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Before I get into my episode review I am going to admit that I didn’t watch the entirety of this episode. The fourteen minute mark features yet another anime near drowning and I stopped watching. Going back I skipped forward a few minutes when the characters were back at the beach house. Given it is unlikely that there will be any future drowning incidents in this show, I’m sticking with it for now.

Review:

The first nine minutes of this episode actually did a very good job of making me like Yuu Huruna and seeing him as an actual person (which is something the previous two episodes failed to do). Part of this is because I could totally relate to not being good at dealing with people and really not being able to stand the  kind that ask you to endlessly repeat things louder or casually slap you on the back.

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So, that really helped this show work to win me over. Then of course, he get’s a pep talk from Fuuka and suddenly trying hard can help you overcome your inner anxiety and social issues in an instant so there goes any chance of this show actually intending to take the personalities of the characters seriously. We then have the cheap plot contrivance of nearly drowning a character (which I would have had issues with regardless) that only serves to force Fuuka and Yuu’s relationship to a point where it might actually matter that she later sees him with his childhood friend now idol. I’m not dropping this show, but honestly, the cliché laden opening with the characters running into each other was definitely a sign that the writers of this have learned about human interactions from watching other anime and not from reality.

On the bright side, other than a couple of close-ups of Fuuka’s bikini the amount of fan service in the episode was way down on episodes 1 and 2.

Fuuka is available on Crunchyroll.


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Friday’s Feature: March of the Bland Romances

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As the first episodes of the Winter anime march before us pretty much every ani-blogger has been giving their first impressions and a lot of these have been negative. While there are a couple of shows winning people over for the most part people who watch a lot of anime have been universally eye-rolling at some of the shows coming out this season. A small number of people will take this as a sign that the anime industry is dead argument has some grounds whereas the rest of us will simply rearrange our schedules, dig out some titles from our watch lists, and wait for the next season because there is always another season coming.

Rather than look at the state of the industry, or all of the titles that I’ve had the dubious pleasure of sampling this week, I want to look just at the romantic comedies. Specifically I want to look at Seiren, Fuuka and Masamune-Kun’s Revenge (and yes, Masamune-Kun’s revenge is described as a romance and a comedy on MAL).

While the three shows are quite different, they all have one thing in common and that is that they aren’t particularly exciting or at least their first episode wasn’t particularly good. Okay, that and for some reason they all seem to follow the male protagonist rather than the female lead.

Seiren is perhaps the worst offender of the three in regard to having a fairly dull first episode. Admittedly MAL simple says it’s genre is ‘school’ and by that they’ve nailed it. We follow a high schooler about as her goes to school and interacts with people. However, that isn’t really exciting. The high school students in question don’t have a great deal of personality and aren’t really memorable in their own right. Other than his friend, who I only remember because he seemed like the only character with sense in his head, none of the other characters really had any kind of impact.

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This show has no particular gimmick unveiled in its first episode (though the Crunchyroll write up would says that “this campus romantic comedy…depicts his pure relationship with three different heroines” leading us to believe that they are hoping that the multiple heroines will be the gimmick). But if that is the cast then surely during the first episode we should have at least met three strong contenders for a romantic lead role and unfortunately we haven’t. The one girl in the class who sits on his desk is probably going to be one but really, other than being a little bit bossy, she hasn’t demonstrated much of a memorable personality and she has zero romantic chemistry with the lead so that possibility doesn’t really entice.

And while a show lacking a gimmick isn’t exactly a death sentence, what else could this story do? Romantic comedies are generally formulaic in design so they either need a clever setting, a gimmick of some sort, or really strong and memorable characters with excellent chemistry to sell their story. Seiren has none of these things. This doesn’t make this story bad but it does make it excessively bland.

Moving on to Fuuka we see this show attempt the comedy aspect of the romantic comedy by delving into some of the worst clichés anime has to offer. Girl runs into guy, guy sees her pants, girl smacks him into the middle of next week (in this case after breaking his phone), this sequence is repeated only the next time the phone goes off the roof, guy attempts to save girl (though in this case she doesn’t need it), boy has only sisters who meddle in his life or dominate him, etc, etc. Some of it is kind of amusing when they play the cliché and then change out the ending but mostly it kind of misses the mark. But, at least it is making some sort of effort.

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After establishing the two characters and literally running them into one another, what develops over the first two episodes is a kind of friendship that might be able to develop into a romance (though the guy really needs to make her pay for the damage to his phone). The two characters actually do play off each other quite well. We then also have the other girl, the childhood friend who is now an idol and is clearly holding a torch for Yuu. This definitely gives us hints of conflict or some sort of emotional decision that will need to be made later on though it is impossible to know whether anything will come of this.

Despite having characters who are slightly more memorable and actual chemistry, this show is still fairly bland and this point. It’s checking off the clichés and while it is putting its own spin on some others are just played as they always are and the characters aren’t quite strong enough to make up for the deficit in original story-telling. So yes, more interesting than Seiren, but that show didn’t set the bar all that high.

Lastly we have Masamune-Kun’s Revenge. While I have an issue with even considering anything romantic could evolve from these mean spirited characters, I’ll overlook that and just assume that after pretending to like the girl to win her affections, Masamune-Kun may develop something of a conscience. Otherwise, this show has no business claiming romance as a genre.

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Masamune-Kun’s Revenge has a gimmick. The guy was rejected by the girl when they were young and now he is out to get even. That’s memorable and it allows clear establishment of character for the protagonist (even if that character is horrible). So why did this first episode feel so bland?

I know from reading the impressions of others, that some people really enjoyed this. They found there to be some genuinely clever moments and I’ll admit that when the story focussed on Masamune-Kun and his actively seeking revenge (information gathering, plotting, spying) there were some interesting moments. However everything else is more or less forgettable. The loli-mother and the younger sister barely have enough personality between them to make a whole character. I kind of felt the only reason the sister was there at all was so the mother had someone to comment to and so that someone could voice the audience’s disgust at the main character preening in front of the mirror. The classmates all seem like they are desperately trying to have individual personalities but none have quite succeeded. Essentially the school has guys who are desperate to be rejected by a complete cow of a female lead, and girls who are either non-entitites or are followers of the female lead. It doesn’t really draw you into the world of these characters nor does it feel like a fairly believable setting.

While I’m not a die-hard romance fan I do enjoy a good romance story or romantic comedy. However, Winter 2017 has currently served up these three bland contenders and to be honest I’m kind of sad that not one of them is really grabbing me. I’ll probably watch Fuuka through (unless the panty-shots do me in, which is a possibility) but I’m not holding my breath that it will amaze.

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Anyway, if I really get stuck for romance I can always marathon Kimi ni Todoke. That has enough sickly sweet in it to forget about any of these shows.


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Fuuka Episodes 1 + 2

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Overview:

Yuu has just moved to Tokyo when he has a chance encounter with Fuuka Akitsuki (who just happens to be in the class he transfers into). She loves music but doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life.

Review:

I’m just reviewing episodes 1 and 2 together here but so far this has seemed like a fairly generic high school set-up and we’re still kind of meeting the characters and learning about them. Though it is very generic in the events that have so far occurred it is enjoyable. At times the animation is a bit off (when the characters are walking and we’re just seeing their heads and shoulders it just looks kind of strange) but mostly it is pretty enough.

Yuu works as a protagonist. He hasn’t got a lot of personality but he has enough and I loved this sequence after he butted into an argument that he should have left alone.

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I think we should mail that information out to most anime protagonists. What makes it particularly funny is that he pretty much ignores his own advice almost immediately.

Fuuka is okay as a character. She’s certainly vibrant and energetic but I get the feeling she might end up annoying me if she doesn’t settle a bit. I particularly disliked that she didn’t even pay to repair his phone after she broke it. Finding the loaner phone really isn’t enough given you first crashed into him, then falsely accused him of photographing you, then broke his phone and slapped him. Anyway, after the initial violent moments she gets a bit more tolerable as a character and hopefully she will settle.

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Otherwise, there’s some good music going on here and that’s about it. The story is pretty standard. We’ve had at least a half dozen panty shots, a bathroom sequence, and three sisters who seem to take any excuse to not be dressed, and none of these other than the initial panty shot which was the catalyst for Fuuka and Yuu meeting has seemed necessary.

So far, entertaining enough but not amazing. Will keep watching for now.

Fuuka is available on Crunchyroll.