So Anime News Network is previewing the new season of anime, as they always do. Some shows get positive ratings, some get negative, it’s the same old game. However, it’s gotten me thinking about just how often we go back to something even though it’s resulted in agony and torment in the past.
Among the new shows this season is Ikkitousen: Xtreme Xecutor, about Three Kingdoms-era figures reincarnated as fighting high school students where panty shots and exploding shirts are as plentiful as the air we breathe. The series is completely vapid fanservice and an exercise in selling lewd PVC figures. As expected, a number of ANN’s reviewers are rating the show pretty poorly. I don’t find anything wrong with that. What I do find wrong is that Xtreme Xecutor is the fourth season of Ikkitousen. By this point, the content of the series should be surprising to no one. Was it really that necessary to review?
I understand giving something a second chance and being burned twice over. I thought the first live-action Transformers movie could have been good if only a few tweaks were made, so I expected the sequel to be better. Boy was I wrong. I’ve also tried again and again to watch high level Warcraft III matches, thinking that this time I’ll be able to follow it! No such luck. And I’m not the only one who’s fallen into the shounen trap of waiting for a series to get “good again” while still following it regularly. This Ikkitousen thing however seems more like an exercise in futility.
I know it’s important for an operation like ANN to be thorough, and I can appreciate it on that level. Everyone’s putting on their best critic hats and trying to push something of value out. They’re talking about how the animation has changed, to what extent the series can draw in new fans, injecting song and dance and razzmatazz to their reviews, like the challenge is to write anything of value at all.
Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds like a pretty fun writing exercise.
OGIUE MANIAX 
I thought this was going to be a post about vainly reading each season preview expecting that ANN might have finally gotten better LMAO.
Yeah, it’s pretty silly to not know what you’re getting into with Ikkitouen at this point. I for one am not even slightly forgiving – there’s a reason I’ve dropped shows after or even during the first episode, and why I’ve only ever finished about 3 shows that I didn’t like. I have an incredibly low threshold for bullshit.
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As someone else who just doesn’t see the point of watching shows you plain don’t like, I have to admit that I’m not sure that I could see what ANN is trying to do as a “fun writing exercise”. Maybe fun for a while, I guess, but that has to grate on your sanity and appreciation for the hobby, as is rather evident by the increasingly irate and almost belligerent tone of some of their writers. Many of the posts, especially in certain genres, end up as “I don’t understand this genre, nor understand the values of those who enjoy this genre, so watch me rant about how the show and all those who like it are stupid”. What does this actually tell us of the show? Very little. What it does tell us a lot about is the tastes of the various writers, so I suppose in that sense it could produce something of value if you’re astute enough to contrast their tastes to your own.
I still find it vaguely troubling to picture people crossing this threshold where they somehow believe themselves “qualified” to judge all things anime just because it’s from Japan and animated. But then again, I think entertainment is a lot more subjective than it is objective, so I suppose I was never cut out to be a “critic”.
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Who reads ANN anyway ?
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A surprising number of people. I’d say “troubling,” but it isn’t really. People should do as they please.
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If you’re talking about how to be jawsome like HUGH JACKMAN, then yes, it’ll be a fun writing exercise.
However, it’s ANN. If I wanted my daily dose of militant assholism, I’d read Colony Drop.
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