Medaka Box

Perhaps one of the most hyped up anime of this Spring Season. Based off the popular manga Medaka Box, the shonen manga written by Nisio Isin (author of the Monogatari series including that oh yes, infamous toothbrush scene from the who can we forget, Nisemonogatari), has officially became an anime. Now, is that a good or bad thing? Hmm..with roughly half the series airing already, let's put our heads together and find out. First of all, there seems to be a trend of strong and unusual female leads this season. Koko from Jormungand, Yuuko from Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, Rea from Sankarea, just to name afew. Then, we have Medaka Kurokami, the beautiful and well-endowed student council president who has in her mind, no problem showing of that voluptuous body of hers which is right now, one of the main reasons some of us may be watching the show. Beyond that, she is nearly perfect and achieves what we can see as inhuman feats. But most curiously, she wishes to help the helpless and does so by creating a suggestion box. You can probably figure out where the title of the series comes by this point. Then, we have the other characters starting with her lucky or maybe not so lucky childhood friend Zenkichi Hitoyoshi. He reluctantly joins the council for the sake of his childhood friend despite the strange put-ups he has to endure daily. (such as Medaka stripping in front of him with little care) Then, we have the other characters. The student secretary Kouki Akune who became an instant fan boy of Medaka and the blue loli Hansode Shiranui who seems to have an eating habit that surpasses the hunger levels of a saiyan. Although these characters are all appealing and makes us anime fans watch further and learn more about them, what are their backgrounds? From here and out, I definitely wants to see more of that than what they do in the council everyday. Lately, another character by the name of Mogana Kikaijima is introduced and so far, we know that she is obsessed with money. To her, it's all about the money, money, and money. Now, the art and music seems to be alright from what's seen so far. However, I do realize that Gainax is NOT putting their effort into it as much as I originally hoped. The characters are blend, not original and not cutting edge. The absurd amount of fan-service seems to also seems to be thrown into our faces every 5 minutes. To me, that shows lack of effort on their behalf. I honestly expected more. Some of the music does mix in during the scenes but let's face it, it's not worth a Grammy Award. The OP for this series is somewhat catchy especially those Medaka cameos in nearly every scene. It makes sense after all to have our starring president in it as she's also the title character. However, "Happy Box"? The title of this seems a bit ambiguous. That suggestion box is filled with notes that expresses concerns that I highly doubt would be something "happy" for the council to read. But beyond that, there are also those little stitches we pay attention in every episode such as the blue loli Hansode Shiranui eating 24/7, Medaka's random symmetrical poses with the other characters, and Kouki Akune's narcissism. Strangely enough, I found these little things to be quite amusing from time to time even though they are served as comic reliefs (or maybe not later?). I mean, after all so far, this series is mostly amusing and entertaining and not one of these deep emotional series like Clannad: Afterstory where we cry tears that will fill the Grand Canyon. However, in later episodes, Medaka Box lies the smackdown and delivers some unexpected action that some of us may have not expected. Yes, it still falls under the common cliches and fan-service but at this point, who really cares? This is one of those series where you expect the unexpected from our cast, ours truly the Student Council. This series is something to keep an eye on (especially if you're into the comedy, shounen type genre) but NOT to hype over (especially for those who've read the manga beyond this point). It has its good but also the bad points. If you're a fan of comedy and entertainment, then this series is definitely for you. If not, then just sit back and watch this for the lulz. Later on though, you can expect Medaka lay some smackdown on those she sees as troublemakers to the academy. All in all, this is a busy series. Its first six episodes of half-stories may shun away viewers and make some hit that "drop" button. But if you can survive that, then you might be worth in for a little treat beyond the fan-service and cliches. If it's anything, this show does bring some entertainment especially in the middle of the week where you work your ass off at work or school. But hey, that's why we have anime like Medaka Box to kill reality.

Oh the things this could have been. When one of my favorite manga became slated for an anime adaptation you can bet your ass I was jumping for joy, however the initial ecstasy was soon power-slammed into the ground and pissed on as time flew by. Penned by phenomenon known as Nisioisn, the Medaka Box manga started mediocre but eventually established itself as a wonderful clusterfuck combination of every genre known to man. The problem with the anime is that it didn't get past the mediocre part. Story - 6 Gainax produced a 1:1 adaptation of Medaka Box's first arc, but this faithfulness is one of theanime's fatal flaws. By choosing to animate the series with only 13 episodes Gainax trapped the show in its slice of life phase. The problem here is that Medaka Box wasn't meant to be slice of life, it was meant to be a jumbled mess of battle, romance, fourth wall breaking, screwed up villains, and character interaction. The series pretty much focuses on the introduction of the story, and introductions aren't really that stimulating. Art - 5 The inconsistency in quality is quite apparent, you can clearly tell the budget was saved to animate the last few episodes. One might mistake Medaka Box for an anime made in the early 2000's as the quality is far below the average series produced today. Rejoice though, for the budget can be found hiding in the final arc of the series! Unfortunately the first part was done so bad that I doubt many people even made it to the final arc, which is quite a shame really. In contrast to the questionable animation plaguing the opening sequences, the latter half of the series is animated quite nicely. It displays the vibrancy of Medaka, the immense power she wields, the emotion filled faces of her enemies, and all her splendor when what little sanity she has is substituted for the primal fury of a wild dog. Sound - 3 There is no better way to start off a series than with a vapid J-pop song that doesn't compliment or tie into the story in any way, right? Thank god Medaka Box has one of these opening sequences to distract us from the generic ending song. All jokes aside though, the only thing memorable in Medaka Box's soundtrack is how unfitting the music is with some scenes. Characters - 8 Enough with the negativity! The characters of the series are depicted as well as I could have hoped, showing each persons unique traits in a flavorful way. Akune's aura of superiority, Kikaijima's aloofness, and Medaka's overbearing superiority are fleshed out skillfully in the narrative. If you enjoy watching overpowered characters accomplishing a myriad of insane tasks then I definitely recommend this series. Characters are the driving force of Medaka Box, and while there are many who dislike overpowered characters, for those who do this anime is a special treat. Enjoyment - 6 My views may be biased as a manga reader as I know the series should have been longer and had a quicker pace but I still enjoyed the show, if only for the ending. While the slice of life portion may have drudged on and on, the battle arc at the end nearly redeemed the series. Nearly. Overall - 6 Many, many things could have done better but if you enjoy school life anime with a twist of battle shounen then I would recommend you at least try Medaka Box. Even if you're only a fighting anime fan then it may be worth it to marathon this series in preparation for season two which I predict will be MUCH better. Manga readers may be disappointed with the anime, but for a first time audience of the series this show may be quite the treat. All I have done is pointed out the major flaws afflicting the series, if you can deal with these gripes then by all means try a few episodes.After all it IS written by Nisioisin, the man who brought us beautiful works of fiction such as Katanagatari and the Monogatari series.

There is an abundance of people in the world considered enigmas. Un-explainable, insane and completely out on the outer rim. Their persona ultimately comes to be accepted or completely rejected, most cases swinging either way. Medaka Box or "Suggestion Box" sparked my interest by means of such an enigma known as Kurokami, Medaka but ended up just being another anime I couldn't really appreciate. I can't really say anything let me find a groove of enjoyment. Being another school based setting this rather failed to bring much of anything called "New" to the table, its outright out done and gets boring after dozens of morbid failures. Ijust keep running flaws after flaws in my head but picking a few out of a handful is hard. First off, the art style just down right turned me off. I can't really say it was done very well at all, it felt almost low budget. The level of detail in anything was non existent and the thing that annoyed me the most were the character drawings. As we all know anything anime related is hardly comparable to real world applications, especially on the character sides. What I really want to touch on are the facial features, everything is low detail, everything overlaps and it just feels like a thrown together slop job. Unless you're into fan service I assume you were staring at "Jugs" a majority of the time. Now I felt that Medaka's character was out of place all over the map. Going from looking like the innocent school girl to a DragonBall Z parody was just appalling. I for one want to see more of the "Character of interest and power" show less empathy for the students or people around them. I can't really appreciate an overpowered character try and bring out the inner goodness of people then eliminate anything or anyone threatening the peace. Its just been done too much already, and in a school setting it just feels out of place. I really put this entire series off on weekly basis because it had it lacked substance. It was slow paced and put me off. I can't really say I enjoyed it at all. Maybe one day originality will be norm. Don't let me make you pass this though, if you're a fan of club based shows with a cute main lead you might give this a watch.

Medaka Box is an anime about Medaka Kurokami, a flawless girl and her childhood friend Hitoyoshi Zenkichi, who works hard to follow her, the story follows the two and more in the joining of high school while these two make up the Student Council, but one twist the president Medaka promised to solve everyone problems by the use of the Medaka Box. Note: This review contains light spoilers. Disclaimer: This is my own opinion. They are not facts. Perfection, this subject hasn't been touched a lot in the anime franchise, this anime: Medaka Box is not a real battle shounen and the action is very one sided, butit is neither a fail of a shounen, rather it could be called an anime which mocks these kind of anime. In a lot of shounen the good guy/girl overcomes hardships and in a life or death battle the bad guy gets transformed to the good side by seeing the light or something. Medaka doesn't have this life or death situation or the problems, well because the main character is perfect and flawless and a big physiological factor plays with this: Can we stand someone who is completely better than anyone in everything? No, obviously we can't. We are humans who have pride, so we dislike the people who do everything right while being modest about it. This is called pride in a positive way and arrogance in a negative way. The story itself consists of Medaka and Zenkichi solving problems around school, the latter episodes revolves around a fight between the Student Council and the Disciplinary Committee. I think this anime stopped at the point where it becomes somewhat more of a shounen and where the other characters actually get to do something. Art-wise it does differ a lot from recently aired anime, instead of going for a more realistic look it has a pretty shounen like look. The animation isn't anything special, nothing too be amazed over. Maybe even a bit skippy if you ask me. The opening song "Happy Crazy Box" fits the anime well and the ending theme is a character song by Medaka's seiyuu. Which is good, again this anything really good, it is decent and that is it all. Since I already talked a lot about the character Medaka, you might notice that I think this is the anime's strongest point and I do think that. A character doesn't always need to be likeable to be a well done. Medaka's personality and actions might be disliked by a lot of people, but they probably made it so you would not like her and that is the point. On the other Zenkichi is a real typical shounen like protagonist, hard-working self-sacrificing and surprisingly a bit of a tsundere. Akune is more of a supporting character than a main, but still contributes to the story, Kikaijima, one of the many "reformed" enemies is a shy girl who only has money on her mind. Overall I though this was a very unique anime, which opened some people's eyes about the term "perfect". Best thing in this anime: - The various range of characters and their personalities and the view it gave me on "perfect". Worst thing in this anime: - The art, animation and sound part were very lacking. The series might also have been a bit too episodic, but with only 12 episodes this probably could not have been helped. Life lesson learnt: People rather have a hard-working failure, than a talented, flawless person.

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