***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Maken-ki Two. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
If you can believe it, we’ve returned to Tenbi Academy. Here battles and combat are expected.
Many students have the ability to control Elements. As well as wield weapons known as Maken. The destructive nature of this energy makes them dangerous in the wrong hands. That's why it is up to Tenbi’s elite Maken-ki to keep the peace.
The Maken-ki have a lot on their hands. The next crisis could come from anywhere. There's not any shortage of people who wish to abuse their power. Or raid the girl’s locker room. Whichever.
Amongst this exclusive group is Takeru Oyama (voiced by Tomoaki Maneno). Due to circumstances, he lives with three of his fellow, female, Maken-ki members. His childhood friend Haruko Amaya (voiced by Noriko Shitaya). His supposed fiancée, Inaho Kushiya (voiced by Iori Nomizu). And the short-tempered, Kodama Himegami (voiced by Sayuri Yahagi).
Though these four get the job done, it’s never easy. Not so much due to the danger involved. It has more to do with this group’s eccentric nature. This often means one, if not everyone, is going to get naked at some point.
Series Positives
I’ve seen plenty of second seasons to shows I’ve not like. Yet something happened with Maken-ki that’s never happened before. I didn’t watch the first season all that long ago. It was only four months before this review. There have been longer gaps.After reading my original Maken-ki review, I noticed a few things. One, it’s a blatant sign of my disdain for this series. Two, it would appear as if I went a little overboard with the hyperbole. Or so one would think.
My experience with the first season was in one ear out the other. Nothing stuck. It was amazing how forgettable it was. I’ve written things like this in past. While this kind of phrasing does apply to series I legitimately don't care for, they’ve only ever been meant as emphasis.
Yeah, that wasn’t the case with Maken-ki. I don’t remember anything about that first season. Not any of the characters. Not anything that happened. The one thing I can recall, it was dumb and I hated it.
Season two did nothing to alleviate this by the way. I still don’t remember jack. I might as well have never seen the original. Which I’m fine with. And I suspect the same thing will befall this season too.
That said, Maken-ki Two was better. Still awful, but better. I deduce as such because there are a few, emphasis on few, good things I can say about this season.
Season two did nothing to alleviate this by the way. I still don’t remember jack. I might as well have never seen the original. Which I’m fine with. And I suspect the same thing will befall this season too.
That said, Maken-ki Two was better. Still awful, but better. I deduce as such because there are a few, emphasis on few, good things I can say about this season.
As a comedy, this was a colossal failure. The jokes were predictable. Many of them got reused. Almost all of them relied on you not taking notice of the huge number of inconstancies. Not to mention the sheer stupidity of it all.
Plus, there was a surprising amount of male masturbation jokes for some reason. Which, okay, can work if the innuendo’s clever enough. The problem, Maken-ki often didn’t use innuendos. Enjoy that image in your head.
Amongst that though, every now and then, a passable line would sneak through. A well-timed reaction would appear. A set up wouldn’t be that bad. I’m shocked I’m saying this, but Maken-ki Two did make me chuckle here and there.
It made me facepalm a lot more. But hey, credit where it’s due.
It made me facepalm a lot more. But hey, credit where it’s due.
Another point, the main male lead, Takeru, wasn’t awful. At times. Sometimes. On a few occasions.
I still don’t like him. He’s forgettable as much as anyone else. It also didn’t help he reverted to a one note pervert with no redeeming qualities. But before that happened, the makings of an alright harem center were there.
I felt compelled to defend Takeru. Some of the most lecherous situations he found himself in, weren’t his fault. In fact, he was trying his hardest to be a decent human being. So, whenever he got yelled at, or his nuts kicked in, I couldn’t help to get a little upset.
Many of the female characters had a bad habit of not looking at what was taking place. How do you not see the big breasted Amazon woman throwing Takeru across the room? He was breaking his fall and in the process grabbed someone’s boobs. A cliche, I get it, yet no one saw that play out?That’s not funny. It’s aggravating. This made some of the female characters unlikable on top of how uninteresting they were.
Did Takeru deserve some of the retaliation? Yes, because he was still a prude. Yet he did that enough times on his own. The show didn’t need to force in reasons.
Wow, even the positive section of this review is nothing except thing wrong with this series? Did nothing happen that was worthwhile?
Episode 10
The last episode of Maken-ki Two was good. I don’t if I’m saying that since both this season and the previous one were pure garbage. But I’ll take it.
This was a flashback episode which showed the origins of the Maken-ki organization. The founding members being the current faculty of the school. Why weren't they the focus? Of everything?
This was, no lie, a functional group. One, it was only five members. Not the army of hacks we’ve had to deal with for two seasons. Two, they worked well together. They were friends. They knew each other. They didn’t rely on out of nowhere fiancées. A plot line, by the way, which was abandoned this season. And three, the ecchi wasn’t the focus.
Sure, it was sexualized. This remained a rather hardcore ecchi. Except the Makens and Elements drove the action. As they always should have been.
This episode gave reasons why characters fought. It gave them goals to achieve. There was something to get invested in. Not to mention there was a final fight that was rather intense. At least compared to what the show had been doing. Which was nothing.
This episode gave reasons why characters fought. It gave them goals to achieve. There was something to get invested in. Not to mention there was a final fight that was rather intense. At least compared to what the show had been doing. Which was nothing.
This should’ve been Maken-ki. Would it have made the series good? Probably not. But it would have been worlds better.
Series Negatives
This was the second season to Maken-ki. So, that’s already a problem.
Copy and paste what I said in the last review here. This was more of the same. And what there was before wasn’t anything. Why does this exist?
Before you even say it, I won’t accept the obvious fan service argument. There are better ecchi anime out there. Ones with stronger stories. More interesting characters. And if we’re getting straight to the point, more alluring.
Maken-ki Two didn’t start bad. Like I said, this was better than season one. The first half of Two was watchable.
Then it stopped being that.
The Show Stopped Trying
Someone somewhere flipped a switch that should never have been touched.
I haven’t mentioned this yet since it hasn’t and doesn’t matter, Maken-ki Two was episodic. There was no underlying story connecting this season together. This allowed some episodes to be passable. Except there was a downside.
You no longer risk one garbage story. You risk several.
There’s a lot to choose from. So why don’t we go with the absolute worst? Episode eight.
The set up was, the school’s principle was feeling underappreciated. In a bout of “brilliance”, she came up with a plan to show her worth. She would temporarily give up authority as the principle to the first person she saw. That person was not Takeru. But rather the second male student character whose name I don’t care to look up.
All you need to know is this guy was a bigger pervert than Takeru. And considering this was Maken-ki, I’ll let your imagination do the rest.
He was a dick. Of course, he was. That wasn’t the thing which annoyed me. It was the fact that the girls accepted it. For the longest time. There was nothing stopping them from saying “piss off”. And this show can take that “principal’s absolute authority” crap it wouldn’t shut up about and shove it so far up its ass.
To make things even more of a headache, at the start of this nonsense, there were some who challenged this guy. Once. And then never again until the school broke out into a full revolt. The tipping point, by the way, wasn’t even close to the worse thing this prick demanded.
Oh, and you know that whole original principal proving her worth thing? That never came back.
Maken-ki Two wanted an excuse to get these girls naked. Don’t know why it needed such an elaborate setup. It never needed it before.
For example, there was a moment when all the girls were showering with the stall doors closed. I thought it weird the series even bothered to draw in the doors and not show us everything. No sooner had that crossed my mind, BOOM, boobs everywhere. That was more of what I expect.
I’m so happy to be done with this series.
Final Thoughts
There better not be a season three.
Do not watch this show. You’ll get more use out of your time by simply watching porn. At least then you’ll be watching something that’s not trying to be anything else.
Forget this series even existed. I know I’m hoping that happens to me. And considering the track record, those odds are pretty good.
No comments:
Post a Comment