As a Canadian rapper once said, “I’m upset”. We gotta have a talk. We all love anime, okay? I mean, if you frequently browse a doujins site it would be weird if you didn’t. But even though we love anime, it’s important to remember when constructing a story what kind of place you’re attempting to carve out. You see, a lot of anime interest me because they break a lot of anime stereotypes and conventions. Consider Banana Fish. When I say anime, does a story about two gay guys (but not actually gay) from different parts of the world teaming up with likeable gangs to take down unlikeable mafia members that are attempting to corrupt the U.S. government in New York come to mind? Probably not, but that’s what Banana Fish gave me. It was something different than your typical anime premise of “young boy goes and fights stuff real hard”.

Keep all that in the back of your mind. Anyway, since I enjoy unique premises, I watched O Maidens in Your Savage Season as part of my seasonal anime this, well, season. And I must say it had a damn strong start. The anime focuses on a group of five high school girls who are trying to understand love and sex, each in their own way. For the first few episodes we mainly spent time learning what kind of specific problems the characters are facing. One girl wants to be a writer and tap into the intense emotions that writing about love and sex can invoke, but doesn’t know how to write about what she hasn’t experienced. Another appears to be a closet lesbian. These early episodes were great because each girl was facing a pretty realistic problem and the situations were ones that I could relate to even without being a girl. But then… everything changed… in the Blood Moon Arc.

Viewers beware, you're in for a scare.

Oh yeah bitch. We’re getting crazy. Realistic? Fuck you. The lesbian is now a psycho girl who screams at the mere touch of a boy’s hand on her arm. One girl in the group starts trying to seduce another’s boyfriend despite there being less chemistry than a mathematics classroom. Ehh, but those could still happen, they’re not that bad. So let’s have all five team up and perform a fucking KIDNAPPING and take their sensei as a hostage! Aw hell yeah, now we’re talking. So they make up about the whole boyfriend thing over kidnapping the teacher to change the school’s policies on dating and the psycho issue is never addressed at all. Huh? What the fuck happened? Also, don’t forget that the pedophile guy from the cover image of this article has been interacting with one of the girls this whole time, but don’t worry cause she punches him in the face once and that whole relationship is resolved. Oh, and then the last episode is this really abstract portrayal of how everyone is white in high school because you don’t know what color you are until you become your own person blah blah blah... boiling down to “when you grow up, you become yourself.” Damn, really?

Judging from her reaction you would think he grabbed her boobs or some shit instead of that arm.

The reason I brought this up is because it’s not like this was an issue pertaining to THIS particular anime. Banana Fish cucked me the same way. For the majority of episodes it’s a realistic anime about Ashe and Eiji, two dudes partnering up to escape the mafia whom which Ashe is a slave of. Eiji is an athlete outsider from Japan who knows nothing about the world of gangs, drugs, and violence. You spend a lot of time analyzing the emotional toll that those elements take on Ashe, and contrast him to Eiji. Questions are asked like would two people from completely different worlds even be compatible for friendship, let alone romance? There are a few scenes where Ashe sort of has anime powers (winning shootouts 1vAMillionDumbGoons flawlessly,) in the beginning, but overall it’s down-to-earth. What’s that? We’re nearing the end? YO okay fuck all that weak shit. Civilian characters that we’ve met along the journey? They can fight and use guns now. Ashe can now take down a squad of private army soldiers practically by himself. *SPOILERS* Thank god he could do that, he escapes the mafia because of it! Oh but then he gets stabbed once and dies...even though he was in the middle of a library and just needed to ask for help from literally anyone. Some say its because he hated himself, but that’s not made clear enough for me at all considering he had finally escaped the mafia and would be in a position to move to Japan with Eiji.

So then I said, why not fuck up the ending?

So why does this shit happen? Personally I think writers get scared. They want to tell a grounded story set in the real world, and they start out that way for the first few acts. But then when it gets near the end, they fear that without some crazy shit happening their story won’t hold up to the ridiculous, over-the-top, climaxes found in a lot of anime. So they quickly throw in a bunch of random anime bullshit to make their climax seem crazy hype, only to lead to an ending that feels disconnected from the rest of the show and fails to make a clear point as to what the story was even about.

Did you watch either of the mentioned anime? Have you loved a unique anime that went full anime? *Teleports behind you* Choose your words carefully in the comments below, kid.