My reaction too.
When 8dayswithout me started recruiting people to blog an episode each of Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon on her blog, Gar Gar Stegosaurus, I signed up to see what fun I could have with it. I’ve previously only watched approximately the first three minutes of the first season of the show before I dropped it faster than Zeta Gundam dropped bodies. And now I’ve watched the fifth episode of the show’s second season, for your (I hope) entertainment and because I felt that I needed a little more confusion in my life. I have not read any posts, MAL synopses, Wikipedia articles, or otherwise obtained any information about this show beyond those three minutes. So, without further ado, enjoy my review interpretation of episode 05.
So this is Yugioh, right?
The episode opens with these two on what seems like a normal day out, or maybe a date. Which seemed to give me some ground to stand on as I emerged into watching the show, knees weak and head spinning like someone who’s just woken up in another reality. Or after a night of heavy drinking. But then the room started spinning again when we left these two in a normal-ish world to see the Queen of Drill Hair engaging an opponent in some other dimension. I think. Then back to somewhere else, where two girls were hiding in a mechanized suit of armor as a group of men intently listened in to a bug planted in the room. And then an English skeleton fought a girl, not really sure what that was about because that was it for those characters. And then yet another scene where people fought, this time a sentient mecha vs a shota. Yep.
The Khaleesi of the Drill Hair Khalasar. They only cut their drills after a loss in battle, and none have yet defeated her.
That’s one dedicated group of stalkers. But what was up with them? The girls seemed to know they were coming, and had to hide in a suit of armor because the guys just burst into the room. That’s kinda scary.
This guy was supposed to be a 17th century English noble and favorite of Queen Elizabeth. So I take it England are the bad guys. They unfortunately are not anywhere near as cool as Britannia.
Yeah, I don’t care for Adele’s songs either.
With one more event, all the players would seem to be assembled. There was a sort of witch girl with a transformation sequence fighting a guy underwater, and then a (for this show) relatively less well-endowed girl having tea and milk with SIR FRANCIS DRAKE THE WEREWOLF. Oh, and there was a girl and a guy fighting at Oxford, but that didn’t really seem to go anywhere so it’s best forgotten. So I stopped again to try and find my footing. The first two characters must be in another dimension that controls or is controlled by the fighting dimension. I think all the fighting going on was something happening behind the scenes, and the date with Horizon and that guy was dependent upon how people did in the duels. Horizon-tan seemed to be an android, so perhaps the battles were done by characters in her computer brain, like the people in Reboot, fighting the old programming to give her emotions and thus fall in love with MC-kun. Truly, a romance for the ages.
I wonder why Day calls this Horizon On Tits?
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4. Oh, right.
Well, it’s not all breast fanservice.
This just proves that she was a witch! The summoned werewolves to save her! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!
Keep fighting! MC-kun’s sex life depends on you!
Horizon-tan and MC-kun aren’t the only people in the dating dimension, it seems. Two more appeared, a guy who I’m calling Masked Pokemaster for his Kamen Rider-esque scarf and hat that, despite its moving eyes, reminded me of a Pokemon trainer’s hat. He was presumably out on a date with a girl who had no discernible personality, so I’ll just call her B-ko. The Pokemaster and B-ko are at a very Japanese-looking festival that for some reason was being held in a 17th century London that was impossibly clean. People used to dump their chamberpots out into the street back then! Horses walked and shit wherever they pleased, and the streets were usually choked with dust or clogged with mud. But in their sanitized Elizabethan London, they walked around, seemingly unconnected to the plot like Horizon-tan and MC-kun. They thus must also be in another reality from the fighting, and perhaps the fight is further along in B-ko’s mind, since she exhibited just a hair more human-like behavior than Horizon-tan. Back in the battle realm, the sentient mecha squared off against the hammer shota in a battle of might and wit. I couldn’t really say that I liked any of the characters, but at least sentient mecha is a bro and fellow member of the Church of the Divine Onee-san. After the shota went into SEED mode naked mode, it was revealed via a kick to the crotch that he was a fairy and thus was immune to sentient mecha’s junk-fu. The fight ended in a draw while the witch girl managed to best the swim club guy by using THE POWER OF BREASTS! She had seemingly stored air between her vast tracts of land and released it enough for her to cast her incredibly complex-looking-though-very-plain spells. Sir Francis Dickwolf meanwhile was beating the crap out of Your-boobs-are-obviously-too-small-for-this-show until a new challenger appeared. I’m catching onto the logic of this show now, as the new girl had much bigger breasts and was thus more powerful and able to pose a threat to the furry sea pirate. So two draws and a win for computer programming of Horizon-tan’s brain. MEANWHILE, back with Perv Squad, the guys had cornered the suit of armor that the two girls had crawled into, and interpreted the yuri-bait comments over rhythm games just as the author so unsubtlely intended. Still not sure how they fit into this, but by the end of it things were looking up for Horizon-tan X MC-kun and the Masked Pokemaster X B-ko.
Word.
About the only thing faithful to the period in this show. Sack-kicking was also a big part of realistic swordfighting.
*giggles*
You are no match for my breasts.
Yuri-service, because why not?
I think these two are the sportscasters for the fights. They seem to have windows with video feeds of all the fights, and offer commentary in-between rounds.
Final Thoughts: - I’m somewhat more rooting for B-ko X Pokemon Master (well, as much as I can bring myself to care) since at least the guy has a cool hat and the girl isn’t the generic android-esper-childhood friend-fox spirit-from the future-maid-bandaged girl-underclassman otaku bait from Welcome to the NHK. So, I, uh, hope that the people fighting for them win?
- What’s with all the Elizabethan historical figure names? They don’t seem to bear any thematic or visual similarity to their namesakes. I get that this is a crappy show and all, but even To Aru Majutsu no Index made more sense with its religions on the magic side of that show. You don’t have to answer that, it’s not like I’m going to give this show a second thought afterwards.
- Watching this episode, I think it’s probably what everyone who doesn’t watch anime thinks anime is. Girls with big boobs in skimpy outfits, fighting with ridiculous weapons, nonsensical plots, robots, monsters, and fanservice. It’s not the worst show I’ve seen, but it does achieve a level of stereotypical-ness that’s hard to rival, in addition to not making much intuitive sense. I would think that you could watch a random episode of most shows and come away with some idea of what it’s about, but I’d be really surprised if my theories about this are anywhere close to right.
13 Comments
I dropped this show as fast as I dropped Strike Witches.
They are a total opposite when it comes to boobs fan service, though.
Yes, Strike Witches was all about the petanko and crotch shots, whereas this looks to be more for fans of big breasts. Reminds me of the first shot of this: http://executiveotaku.tumblr.com/post/27295572220/padnote-optimisticduelist-cosmicotton
and yet the the first 4 episode of this season had ‘MC-Kun’ butt naked most of the time
If you ever have the time, I’d suggest you read these two posts if you want some help in understanding the story in Horizon.
http://randomc.net/2012/06/30/kyoukai-senjou-no-horizon-retrospective-part-1-the-premise-the-world-episodes-01-06/
http://randomc.net/2012/07/04/kyoukai-senjou-no-horizon-retrospective-part-2-episodes-07-13-final-impressions/
On its surface, it looks like a typical anime with a nonsensical plot, and the obligatory fanservice as its main draw. But if you put in the effort to carefully watch each episode and take note of every little detail, you would discover just how detailed and complex the story is in this anime.
The weird thing is that a lot of people complained that the context of the story was too complex to follow, in the first season. It really didn’t take much to catch on to what was happening & why. They explained enough, though you had to accept that there was a fully realized world and you were only getting as much as they could shove in per 22 minutes.
Of course, Kimi is probably the most powerful character in the series. The double HH-breasted, ribbon dressed erotic dancer probably has god-like powers. It’s still a Japanese series, after all.
Taking a look at that first link, it certainly has some effort put into the novels. But with that said, it still seems very odd, convoluted, and silly. And why would they adapt this to anime if you need to (have someone read all the book and then compile, and then have you) read a massive post on it just to have, maybe, the slightest idea of what’s going on in it? Given the time constraints of anime, you’d think that this would be something a studio would just turn down unless they had a guaranteed run of 100+ episodes so as to properly explain all that. Or else they knew they could just make money with all the fanservice, as well as tapping in to whatever size the novels’ fanbase is.
About Stilts post in randomc, you could read it only if you’d like to read in-depth analysis for each episodes. You don’t have to read that massive post to understand the story, just watch S1 episode 1-13 in one go and pay attention to every little details. The story is actually very simple, but the setting is huge and complex (this is where the confusion starts). But hey, the official site always lists all jargons, glossary, characters, and luckily there’s a kind guy who translated them all in http://kyoukaisen.tumblr.com/
Finally.. i never read the novel, but this show has become one of my all time favorite animes.
If you’d like to watch season 1, just use a good sub and ignore the boobs.
I don’t think you have to read Stilts’ in-depth reviews to appreciate the show — I didn’t come across them until long after I’d fallen in love with the show. I think it does a good job at filling in what’s going on in its short 12-episode seasons, but it does demand a fair amount from its audience (and those who are willing to put in the effort get amply rewarded). There’s a lot of art like that, but it’s not to everyone’s taste.
I’m not sure if there’s a deep story beneath all the layers of puns and visual jokes and shear playfulness of the series, there might not be. But I think the show is the most intriguing and creative thing to come along in years — right up there with Penguindrum, Kaiba, and Tatami Galaxy.
All the snarky interpretations, yet no Spanish Inquisition joke?
The Inquisition, what a show! The Inquisition, here we go!
Oh wait, the other Spanish Inquisition reference. I actually didn’t see it, unless there was a ‘Spanish’ character that I didn’t notice during the episode.
Tachibana Gin, the one who showed up to save Malga, is Spanish. Well, Tres Espanan. Which is basically Spanish.
(can’t be assed to look up the code for the tilde over the n!)
Well, if you insist
One thing the episode doesn’t mention, but helps a bit with context, is that the two winged girls are lovers, and in the first season, the black-winged flat-chested one got her magical girl equipment blowed up. Which is why she kinda sucks at fighting at the moment.
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