Gokusen and Lupin (A)

[thistlechaser]

At mithas's orders instructions :) , I downloaded and watched all six eps of Gokusen. It was an interesting series and was full of funny bits, but while I liked it, I had a couple of things that kept me from fall-down loving it.

Superficial person that I am, the artwork and style of an anime series is really important to me. Gokusen's tended to make me twitch. Lips! Lips! Arg! They look like someone tossed rubberbands onto their faces:

. .

The female teacher's lips always reminded me of a blow-up woman's mouth (which is sort of fitting, as she was a little sexpot) :


luminata mentioned the dog who thinks out loud, but the tail that bothered me way (way way way) more than the thinking out loud... and more than him wearing a jacket and walking on two legs. :p Why does he have a horse's tail? With a pink bow in it?

The adult male characters (her mob family) reminded me a whole lot of Rock Lee and Gai (of Naruto) -- dramatic crying all the time over every emotional scene, posing, sobbing, all that. It was amusing, but after six eps of it it was a little much. (Probably my fault for watching it all in a row! Spread out it might have been better.)

I had a somewhat bigger issue with her students... or rather, all of the characters who were dumber than used kitty litter (which seemed like most of them...). It's a little hard to identify with characters who are just so stupid they miss things that are happening right in front of them...

One last little point: Why would the leader of the Japanese mob want to be a highschool teacher? (Yes, I heard her reason in ep 6, but it ... well, wasn't very believable to me). This was a very amusing series, but if I couldn't believe that basic fact of it, it made it hard to fall in love with it. :}

Eps five and six got a tiny bit more serious than the first four eps, and because of that I liked them a whole lot more. If the whole series had been totally serious, I think I could have maybe fallen in love with it. (A woman leading a Japanese mob/gang! That'd be a great story on its own! And her underlings so attached and loyal to her, that'd be perfect as a *serious* plot element!) I'm assuming the series is going to go on longer than six eps? Which would be a little odd, since the... um, spoilerish thing that happened in ep six seemed like it'd be a good ending point for the series...

Oh well, I'll download and watch any other eps, so thanks to mithas for the recommendation! (And sorry I couldn't love it as much as you did.)

---

Punch: Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro finally became available, and I'm grabbing it now. I'll be checking it out either tomorrow or the weekend. ...ugh, though it's an .ogg file, which are really hard to make work. Well, if I can get it to play I'll check it out.

Comments

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

Punch: Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro finally became available, and I'm grabbing it now. I'll be checking it out either tomorrow or the weekend. ...ugh, though it's an .ogg file, which are really hard to make work. Well, if I can get it to play I'll check it out.

Woo! Victory! :) I'm not saying it'll make you a fan, but I think you'll find it's at least a fun little flick.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep! So long as I can make it play, I'll give it a chance to win me over!

[beckymarie.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, yay! Someone else who's seen Gokusen! (Though, I've only just downloaded episode six today and have not watched.) You summed up my feelings pretty well--the art is really difficult to get used and keeps me from absolutely loving the series (though, Shin is pretty enough *_*) and... well, it's too silly to take 'seriously' enough to fangirl over.

I really like Yankumi as a main character, she makes the series (well, and her and the pretty boy Shin) and is genuinely likable and engaging, but... yeah, there's that certain something missing that keeps it from being something I could fall all over myself to fall in love with.

But it's good enough that I'll stick with it for however long it is. <3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yankumi's great, yeah. I especially like the few scenes of her when she was younger and just learning things. And yeah! Shun is really pretty... not exactly my type, but I can easily see how people would like him.

I wonder why they decided to do the art like that... I wonder if it's accepted/liked more in Japan or something.

[morinotokei.livejournal.com]

>They look like someone tossed rubberbands onto their faces<

Omg, cannot stop laughing. XDDD I haven't watched more eps yet, as they're still downloading, so I've only just seen the two, but yeah, I think I like it much more than you do. I've got a high tolerance for weirdness and silliness, plus my whole mob obsession helps too. :3

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think this is an example of a larger issue with me... I like what I like, and that's what I want to see. :p I think I need to work on expanding my horizons or something. I'm probably missing some good stuff just because I'm rejecting it based on art style and things like that...

[morinotokei.livejournal.com]

Well, but if that's not your type of thing, then it's just not. There are too many series out there to get bogged down by stuff you don't really like, you know? And who knows? Maybe your tastes will change as you watch more and more anime. =)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Hm, that's a good point. I'm just worried I'm going to miss something good because I don't give it a fair chance. (Do you know how many years I hated anime because I made wrong judgements about it? Insanity! :) )

[mithas.livejournal.com]

Aaaw. :( I'd admit to the art/character designs being rather shoddy, but I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing, so I guess it explains why I tend to overlook it.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the dog however. I just went WTF?! when he first came on screen. He's not in the manga though, which is a bit of a relief, as his presence was really weirding me out.