Is this a Zombie?
There are two schools of moe. One is to be as perverted as humanly possible, the other is to compensate for the disgustingness of the niche fetish by showing off truly bizarre humor and random J-WTFs. I suspect that the latter will have more longevity, as otaku without moe tendencies (that includes me) have enjoyed these series in the past (need I mention Haruhi Suzumiya?), and the otaku-fetish-of-the-month could easily be swapped out for another. Zombie is of this latter class, and despite not being half as awesome as the title suggests, there is plenty to love here.
This show has a plot, but rather than explain it, I will instead transcribe the the engrish from the opening credits. Aikawa Ayumu. He is... Zombie. She is... Masou Shoujo (untranslated pun on mahou shoujo, "Magical Girl"). She is.... Necromancer. She is... Vampire Ninja. She is... ????. I think you get the picture. However, the first episode was actually hilarious, with lots of great magical-girl parody, chainsaws, and a Mutant Lobster. However, like many zany-moe series (including the fantasic Haruhi), a good number of the jokes fall flat, with the silly potential of a ninja that is also a vampire being criminally unexplored. However, the lobster was more than enough to get me hooked, so this may very well be a fun ride. Now, here's what the commenters on Crunchyroll had to say:
OH MY GAWD I WILL NEVER TAKE A GUY WITH A CHAIN SAW SERIOUSLY EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE!!!! XD
Epic. Killer. Lobster.
a sudden hunger for seafood...
Dragon Crisis
Eeeeeeeeeew!!!!!
Okay, for a single moment I thought this could turn out decent. The show's opening credits were great, and the beginning, things looked like it would be a big dumb action show, which is not necessarily a bad thing when it's free. But then the show revealed it's true nature, a class one moe of insidious nature. Okay, so viewer fill-in high school dude Ryuji gets recruted by his busty second cousin (shades of incest?) Eriko to get something-or-other from evil mafia (okay, I know this is a Japanese show so they're yakuza but WHAAAATEVER), which is cool I guess. Then it turns out that the thingie is actually a little girl-oh sorry, a dragon that LOOKS like a little girl, which is even worse- that spends the entire rest of the episode screaming "RYUUUUUJI!!!" and clinging to him, with and without clothes. Do I even need to say how awful that is? Oh well, I guess it's nice that this is the only show like this this year. Now, here's what the commenters on Crunchyroll had to say:
um lmao a girl comes out of a case
So her big plan was too rob a bunch of mob like guys with a cane that produced butterflies?
i can't tell the difference between anybody
Freezing
Kill 'em all. No, wait! Don't ACTUALLY kill 'em all!
OK, let me be the first to create an acronym for otaku product featuring sexy women dying. Let's see... how about... kawaii-guro? Or maybe moe-guro? GUMOE! Now then, I know that this is formatted as a formal review of Freezing, but I don't wan't to write that. It's too upsetting. So instead I'm going to intellectualize on a point that this show has made me want to talk about. After moe, what's next? Don't think that moe is a unique thing. The otaku market has romanticized watered-down versions of niche fetishes for a long time now; before moe it was maids, and before maids it was furrys. Freezing, with it's panty-shots of corpses and blood-splattered magical girls, suggests that the future is in darkness, a huge departure from the protective feelings and warm fuzzies of moe. However, a more likely replacement would likely be the pseudo-incest siscon, as the concept has, like moe, already been buzzing around in otaku communities for a while, and many of last season's moe shows (Oreimo, anyone?) had siscon elements as well. Fortunately, as nobody with actual siblings like siscon, if that is the new trend, it will be a lot smaller than moe, and besides, publishers have wised up about the dangerous side effects of such trends. I hope.
OK THAT'S IT NO MORE I DON'T CARE IF THERE'S ONE SHOW I LEFT OUT I'M SICK OF THIS
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