Welcome to the Fantasy Zone

This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.

What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?

You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!

Otaku Insight - Damsels Not Really Distressed

Damsels haven't really been a thing for some time, the most prominent one still being used today albeit less and less is Princess Peach, but when you really break it down, the damsel in distress trope really doesn't have as many entrants as you think.

Starting with the obvious example is Princess Peach.

By extension, all but Rosalina of the Mario franchises leading ladies have been in that role at some point, it only happened once with Pauline and Daisy both being kidnapped by other enemies.
With Pauline it's Donkey Kong the first and current, (It's complicated) in her defence it's very much a King Kong scenario, Daisy had to deal with Tatanga an alien invader with more than enough tech and army to take over Daisy's Kingdom of Sarasaland.
Going back to Peach, she's been shown at many points in her career as early as her 1986 ova appearance that she'll always try and escape herself, sometimes rescuing Mario instead, Bowser has an army, access to magic, very dangerous fortresses and is the strongest amongst a wider range of Nintendo villains, Peach just has an army of Toadstool people who are practically all pacifists, to spell it all out, her kidnapper is much better prepared than most.
Zelda is another one but there are more than enough moments in her canon where she directly or indirectly helps Link as well as shown to be pulling the strings in Link's quest, very rare that any Zelda is a damsel.

Despite her design and a role as many different princesses, Barbie has never been a damsel once as far as I can tell, an interesting fact is that Barbie is never depicted as married, this is because Mattel wanted those who bought the doll to decide themselves what Barbie should be. You actually have to kill a Disney Princess to make her a damsel as done with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella is excused as hers is more abusive parent/guardian.

On to some examples of damsels who really shouldn't be damsels.
My favourite punching bag Fuko of Flame of Recca has been brought up more than enough times, she's gullible, has a bad habit of wandering off and getting trapped and wastes her powers leaving her even more helpless and she's supposed to be a fighter, Yanagi who does get kidnapped in the second half as she's only a healer amongst some really powerful people does a better job of being strong as she willingly allowed herself to be the offering in the tournament, has risked herself plenty of times to heal others and resisted Mori Koran for as long as she could before being sealed as a healing battery, she was even the catalyst for his defeat.

Bleach has both Rukia and Orihime, Rukia is excused as she had most her powers drained and was being sentenced to death, less damsel more prisoner.
Orihime has no excuse as her powers are often said to be more potent than most yet she proved useless with them on many occasions, she also barely does anything about her own kidnapping just accepting that Ichigo will rescue her.

A brief mention of Flute from Violinist of Hameln who often declares herself the most pathetic heroine in anime; Flute is practically She-Hulk compared to how useless Isanami is from Brave 10, Isanami will need her own entry to explain, if you thought I was too harsh about Fuko and Orihime, you ain't seen nothing yet.

On the surface of it, those who are often called out for being useless damsels are actually more than capable women who are up against opponents with better preparation and overwhelming strength.
Those who would slot into that role subvert it.
Those who shouldn't be a damsel in the first place are the characters that really should be criticised for this trope.

Otaku Insight - How Effective is the 3 Episode Rule

The three-episode rule is intended to gauge whether a specific anime series will be to a viewer's liking within the span of three episodes, I mentioned previously that I've been known to drop series after less time and these days, the first episode has to grab you otherwise the internet will soon let you know if the series is bad or not by word of mouth, but how effective is it next to much longer form series?
I picked ten anime known to be longer than 50 episodes and popular enough to have an audience and applied the 3 episode formula to each one, I will not be including Dragonballz as it's a sequel series and well over half it's world viewers were already aware of this fact.
So let's begin.

Inuyasha
In three episodes, the basic plot is established but there's enough going on to warrant a closer look, not so much from Kagome but certainly from Inuyasha considering what he already displayed in a short time.
Passed.

Digimon
In three episodes, the Digi-destined are summoned, they meet their partners and we meet Greymon and Garurumon, you already want to see how everyone else turns out and the enemies are creative enough to keep your attention.
Passed.

Sailor Moon
In three episodes, Usagi gets her powers and it's already looking formulaic and Usagi has shown her entire hand by the third episode, luckily it's saved by the Luna pen giving an extra layer of intrigue in how far Usagi's powers will go.
Passed.

Pokemon
In three episodes, Ash has an eventful opening getting just to Viridian City meeting Misty and Team Rocket along the way, on the actual third episode he catches two Pokemon and evolves one, Ash has achieved enough to see how far he can go on his journey.
Passed.

Fairy Tail
In three episodes, we've met Lucy, Natsu, Happy and enough of the Guild to see how crazy it can get.
Passed.

Yu-Gi-Oh
In three episodes, Yugi has battled two major players and is on his way to a tournament to meet more crazy duelists, being honest I was already sold on episode one.
Passed.

Card Captor Sakura
In three episodes, Sakura has setup the quest, got her friend to join her and dress her up and Sakura has acquired some pretty good cards, the battle costumes alone made you stay.
Passed.

Bleach
In three episodes, Ichigo has his powers and is already taking down his first major hollow in Orihime's brother, the increased violence would've been enough to begin with.
Passed.

One Piece
In three episodes, Luffy has taken out two villains and Zoro has joined his crew, we even have Zoro's back story and Nami in the background doing her own thing and being pleased that Koby won't be joining them, there's enough there to see where it goes.
Passed.

Naruto
In three episodes, Naruto graduates to the Ninja Academy by defeating a villain, he then babysits Konohamaru for episode two and then team 7 is formed with Sasuke and Sakura, the problem here is that it makes the series look like a school anime and there's so little ninja content, you're lucky to stay invested after episode 2 let alone episode 3.
Failed.

Conclusion
I'm fascinated at how well all these series held up in regards to the three episode rule with only Naruto failing, so there is some merit in what you can learn in only 70ish minutes of content as to whether these shows will be for you.
Most fans of Naruto didn't really get into the series until either halfway through the Zabusa arc or when the Chuunin Exam was at it's best, I'll go as far as saying Naruto is the poorest starting anime of all time and it's popularity was by luck that enough people watched it to give it a chance, if aired today, it would fail after one season.

Hot Take Review - Episode 5

If you do have any hot takes, I'll be happy to take a look at them.

"The idea of putting such a level of detail on the eyes of the characters is the only very real reason why anime is so good at being anime"
It's true that the eyes are a major part of it but that's also true with all animation and it's not a unique trait that anime has, expressions and body language also goes a long way in establishing a good first impression.

"Doraemon, Sazae-San and Shin Chan will always be a part of our lives even when we turn 100 years old"

Huh, didn't know Shin Chan was still going.
Real talk, the staying power of those three anime is no different to Americans keeping around the Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo and Mickey Mouse, no doubt there's an audience that still exists for them, case in point, Crayon Shin Chan's autor has been dead for 14 years now and his work still lives on, so it really won't surprise me if they are still around long after I go.

"Bleach is the first anime to treat black people with any decency"
One of Bleach's stronger qualities is having a very well diverse cast, it's certainly welcome but the statement itself assumes that Anime has this issue to begin with, Japan doesn't have the West's history of racism but it's hardly innocent in how it depicts foreigners, in most cases, it's pure ignorance or just like poking fun at Americans. When anime does depict a black character even before Bleach aired, it's not the same as what Warner Bros did back in the 1940s.

"Yu-Gi-Oh is the best in the shonen genre and has some of the best monster/creature designs in anime and has the #1 waifu in all of anime Mai Valentine"
The person who wrote this one has clearly never seen another anime, while it did run in Shonen Jump it was never setup for the kind of popularity it was going to get nor was it expected to change the world of card games, it's narrative was directed by the product, so it's more a toy anime than a true shonen.
The monster designs are great but so are Pokemon and Digimon's efforts.
Mai Valentine is a trash waifu, her personality is terrible and she's not even a good duelist.

"The three episode rule is kinda stupid since shows can get better"
All depends which anime you apply it to, I've been known to stop anime after 1 episode in the past but I also realise the same wouldn't apply to all anime, but it's got me thinking, I'll take ten popular anime and see if the three episode formula works on them. That'll be my next post.

Hot Take Review - Episode 3

Welcome back to the show that looks at some Hot Takes and see where I stand on them.

"Bleach gets too much hate"
This take is a bit dated as Bleach was out of the spotlight for quite some time, in fact the idea that we have anime fans now who haven't seen the first Bleach anime is plausible while old fans don't really care anymore; back in Bleach's prime it was a narrative mess and the hate was mostly justified but it wasn't as overhated as Naruto was.

"I'm getting tired of 12 episode slice of life anime"
I'm probably more sick of the 12 episode seasonal format rather than any genre specifically, there are way too many mediocre anime that out stay their welcome by episode 6 but it's not usually the Slice of Life ones that fail.

"The anime industry overuses fan service"

Funny how most people when they bring this up never mention Free when it's more fan service than quite a high number of tamer shows.
Real talk, fan service shows have been more clever in recent years in how they flaunt the goods, normally using the one gender rule to avoid any pitfalls of being sexist, Keijo and Free popularised that, it's not gone completely and the 00s were particularly bad for fan service, it really isn't as big as it used to be, in fact the audience for it are all Gacha gamers now.

"The longer the title the more likely the anime is going to be bad"
I don't think the length of the title has anything to do with quality, but having titles that literally tell you the plot of the show is off putting, so I can see the grievance in that.

"The anime industry wouldn't be where it is today without 4Kids Entertainment"
Bull shit! 4Kids were fortunate as they were the ones who had licensed Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh for the States but they mishandled both properties and were left bankrupt as a result. The western side owes more to Akira for taking a chance on the States and succeeding followed by ADVFilms and Central Park Media taking a risk on other early anime. If we include Japan, Osamu Tezuka, Go Nagai, Yoshiyuki Tomino and Monkey Punch were the true Elite Four of anime that made modern anime what it is.

10 Characters Who Are Trying Too Hard Villains Edition

Little back story, have you ever seen a character act in such a way that you could feel the cringe a mile away, that's a character clearly trying too hard by design or personality, these characters are villains and seem to follow a pattern, no order for this and a separate list for heroes will follow.

1. Alois Trancy and Claude from Black Butler
I'll get the worst offenders out the way first, Alois and Claude were the worst substitutes for Ciel and Sebastian period, it just hurts watching them trying to be characters let alone poor imitations.

2. Seiji Noumi from Accel World
Considering that the bullies in Accel World are usually the typical bruts several times the size of lead character Haruyuki, the fact that Noumi is doing pretty much the same thing but could just as easily be beaten up by same bruts is just laughable.

3. Garou from One Punch Man
I'm pretty certain Garou has improved recently but he's the wrong villain for a show like One Punch Man especially when he's already been defeated by Saitama and I doubt Garou could defeat Boros anyway.

4. Infinite from Sonic Forces
Cheating a bit with a video game but my god! Say what you like about Shadow, he at least had the right amount of edge and can laugh about it these days but Infinite in a 2017 Sonic game is the most cringe character ever created in Sonic media and that's a well contested spot.

5. Ulquiorra from Bleach
Look at the picture, he looks like Sephiroth after being forced to listen to My Chemical Romance for a week non stop, he's the most emo looking character in anime history.

6. Pain from Naruto
This was a hotly contested spot, I was looking at Kabuto for a while but then I remembered the character who is literally called Pain, painful looks, painful dialogue, painful actions, you picked to lead the Akatsuki, every obsessed fan of the Akatsuki, the Naruto era was a testing one.

7. Mello from Death Note
Look at me, I'm as smart as L and Near, I eat chocolate as well but I'm actually a colossal prick with an inferiority complex, when Near is looking like a better character you know you've failed.

8. Gladion from Pokemon
Thankfully toned down in the anime, Gladion with those stupid arm poses was so off brand for Pokemon it gave me bad 00s flashbacks.

9. Tomura Shigaraki from My Hero Academia
If Gladion had more hands he'd happily copy the most ridiculous looking villain in anime history, why the disembodied hands? You already look intimidating without them.

10. Zeo Zagart and Brooklyn from Beyblade
Beyblade really struggles with villains, the only successful one has been Tala who looks genuinely terrifying in battle.
Brooklyn is trying too hard to be Kai.
Zeo is just trying too hard to be anything, he didn't work as a Pinocchio like character nor does he work as a cyber newtype mind controlled puppet, it's a toy anime I guess.