bauch.myrtie - 2016-01-14 04:30:36

Ifgdgd Fairies was a stroke of genius, then Straight Title Robot Anime was a genius having a stroke. Straight Title Robot Anime, or Chokkyuu Hyoudai Robot Anime: Straight Title shares much ofthe staff from gdgd Fairies, and embodies the same ethos too; comically lowquality Miku Miku Dance (MMD) animation, offbeat and surreal humor, distinctsegments, and the usage of improvisational dialogue. Despite the two beingplainly similar in craft, gdgd Fairies works while Straight Title Robot Anime(STRA) does not. Given the similarities of the two, and how they differ frommost anime in terms of content and style, some parts of this review will beframed as a comparison between the two shows. However there are no spoilers andthe comparisons are understandable without knowledge of either show.

Manyof Straight Title Robot Anime’s problems boil down to the self-demonstratingfact that the characters are robots. The show is focused on three robotsattempting to understand “the emotion of laughter” and comedy in general inorder to bring an end to a humorously vague, world-engulfing robot war that haslasted far too long. These attempts are carried out through your morestandard-to-anime “cute girls talking about things” segments, except these arecute ROBOT girls, and their conversations consist of their failure tounderstand mechanics of comedy rather than how delicious cake is or who hasbigger boobs.

Failingto understand comedy is not STRA’s shortcoming however, as it is whollyintentional. The girls are robots trying to discover laughter by partaking invarious comedic techniques (puns, jokes, storytelling, etc.), but given thelimited emotional and cognitive capacities of robots, they only findunintentional success, or more commonly fail to successfully execute whateverfacet of comedy is focused on, and THAT is where the anime’s comedy is supposedto be derived from. It is an elaborate premise for a short comedy anime, butunfortunately STRA shoots itself in the foot right away. Making every characteran emotionally limited robot in turn makes most of the show’s humor verydeadpan.

Deadpanhumor is no stranger to anime: the Haruhi Suzumiya franchise, Cromartie HighSchool, parts of Gintama, and beyond those show-wide examples, many otherwisenormal comedy anime have specific characters to dish out the occasionally bitsdeadpan humor. What makes the deadpan humor work in the above examples, but notin STRA, is the above examples are generally crazy shows, and the contrastbetween what is happening and how the characters are reacting heightens theexperience. Cromartie High School has aliens, gorillas, robots, and more. TheHaruhi franchise is just as much a sci-fi show as it is a slice of life show.Gintama and its world are patently absurd from the ground up. Or in the case ofmore typical comedy anime that have deadpan characters, they provide contrastbetween the more traditionally comical characters of the show. Straight TitleRobot Anime suffers because its primary segment is the characters standingtogether and talking, aka not crazy, and ALL of its characters are deadpan. Thegirls move slightly throughout their conversations, but never venture beyondtheir ugly brown crater when these robot comedy workshops are taking place. Anyanime runs the risk of boring its audience if it primarily consists of talkingand the writing is not good. STRA’s bizarre and clunky setup translates to different humorthan most anime, but not necessarily good humor, and the oftensubdued delivery due to the character's being robots only serves to make thingsdrier.

While the similarly structured gdgd Fairiesalso had a main segment that consisted of the main characters havingconversations and not moving much, their discussions were much weirder,unpredictable, and passionate. Perhaps because the premise of Straight TitleRobot anime is so specific, its conversational parts all follow the same exactformula from episode to episode. One robot suggests an aspect of comedy for thetrio to explore, another gives it a go, usually somehow relating it to weather,then the robot who suggested the theme tries, followed by the third robotgiving it a shot. None of them are satisfied by each other's attempts, and inthe process of discussing why their attempts did not succeed, the third robotinadvertently ends up successfully using the comedic technique without anyonerealizing it. Wash, rinse, repeat. While these bits do improve as the show goeson (the first three episodes are quite frankly terrible), by the end of theanime you can guess how each conversation will play out, and even at itsstrongest, these comedic contemplations offer little in laugh out loud humor.The segment's shortcomings are only amplified seeing as how this was often gdgdFairies's strongest segment in an episode. I guess Straight Title Robot animeleaves its audience also trying to discover the emotion of laughter.

The 2nd segment can be summed up as the triopicking some sort of act, gag, or action considered funny and applying it tothe opening animation of the anime. Despite this part not lasting more than afew minutes, this usually turned out to be my favorite segment per episode. Theplain opening is an impressively rendered MMD animation of battling robots thatpay stylistically sucky homages to better known mecha anime, all set to thetune of something not by JAM Project, no really it isn't!Moderately amusing the first time, it does not offer much in replay viewings.However, make all the robots crossdress, or cover the ground in oil, andsuddenly the opening turns into hilarious and musically dissonant circus act ofabsurdity. Straight Title Robot Anime does not take advantage of Miku MikuDance as expertly as gdgd Fairies does. gdgd Fairies utilizes many human andanimal models, off kilter scenarios, and alternate locations, all rendered inloving Gamecube-era quality. Straight Title Robot Anime is mostly devoid ofsuch luxuries. However, the mess-with-the-OP segment does its best to make upfor that, and it is genuinely impressive how reactive the opening becomes towhatever gimmick is used for an episode.

The 3rd segment is the improvisational humorsession, similar to gdgd Fairies where it is generally considered the highlightof each episode. However, there are some changes in how it is done from gdgdFairies to STRA, and these changes are for the worse. Essentially, in gdgdFaires, they would show a scene without sound once, and then let each characterimprovise dialogue for the scene, often breaking character to get a voice justright or out of laughter towards whatever their costars decided to do. In STRA,a vague theme is given, then a scene of sorts is shown and the charactersimprovise as the audience is seeing the setup for the first time. Part of theenjoyment of gdgd Fairies's improv was seeing the template scene untouchedfirst, and then seeing whatever insanity the voice actresses came up with onthe spot. It exemplified the humor of the improvisation because the audiencewould establish a general idea of what may be improvised during the firstsilent run, and then they would either see their ideas reaffirmed, subverted, orcompletely avoided. With STRA, it's more of just "here's a broadtheme" and then "now here's something funny about it". Not seeinga dry run of whatever is going to be adlibbed makes it more difficult to enjoythe spontaneity of it all and makes the whole thing seem less on the spot.

The improvisational abilities of the voiceactresses still shine despite these problems, but ultimately the trio is not asskilled as the one that blessed gdgd Fairies, and there is a noticeablereliance on more standard otaku and crude humor. While the characters and inturn the voices of gdgd Fairies were archetypal, there was little restrainingthe voice actresses from being as passionate and spastic as possible in theirdelivery, regardless of the segment. STRA also has archetypal characters andvoices, but due to the aforementioned problems stemming from everyone beingrobots, the show relies more on visual archetypes, and none of the cast getsthe chance to vocally impress. Straight Title Robot Anime's voice actresses aretalented, but sound more similar to one another than the gdgd Fairies trio, anddon't distinguish themselves enough across the course of the series. Thecharacter breaking and adlibbing is still there, but lacks the foundation ofgood performances in the rest of the show.

How does Straight Title Robot Anime's finaleturn out? Adhering to much of this review, similar but inferior to gdgdFairies. Regardless of all of STRA's comedic shortcomings throughout its run,its first 11 episodes are not remotely serious. The show is a comedy at heart,but has trouble demonstrating it. However, the finale chooses to go for a leftfield, bittersweet route that completely goes against the tone of the rest ofthe series. I cannot say much without going into spoilers, but it is undeniablya downer ending. It is not funny, but it's too unexpected to elicit anemotional response either. It's not rushed, it's not lazy, it’s just the wrongkind of ending, like there was a shipping mix up at the anime ending factory. Imentioned that gdgd Fairies took a similar direction; yes, season 1 of gdgdFairies has an emotional and heartfelt final episode that is uncharacteristicof the rest of the anime, however said final episode is entirely farcical,parodical, and ridiculous. While the characters themselves take it seriously,the audience is most certainly laughing throughout the finale due to theabsurdity of it all and the high quality voice acting, and despite itsoverwhelming silliness it still manages to tug at the viewers's heartstringsin the end. STRA is several degrees removed from being able to pull such a featoff, and the signs are evident from the first episode. 

Although STRA makes significant improvementsfrom its straight up awful first few episodes, it ends leaving an awkward auraof untapped potential and muddled execution. It is amazing how similargdgd Fairies and Straight Title Robot Anime are to one another, yet they squarelyend up on different ends of the quality spectrum. It is worth noting thatSTRA's first eight episodes premiered while and aired concurrently to the 2ndseason of gdgd Fairies in early 2013. Given the much smaller staff size thatthese shows have compared to regular anime, it is quite possible that thestaff's talent was stretched too thin between two series and they ended upusing their best jokes and visuals on gdgd Fairies S2. It is understandablethat they would not want to use the same exact formula between two shows thatalready utilize the same exact segments, so while changes may have beennecessary, all of Straight Title Robot Anime's changes feel for the worse.

OVERALL: 4/10

PROS: 2nd segment, other segments can besomewhat funny, a continuation of the gdgd Fairies ethos (which would receivefurther continuations in Hi-sCool! Seha Girls and Narihero www), may leadpeople to watch gdgd Fairies

CONS: Inferior to gdgd Fairies in basicallyevery aspect, humor is often overwrought and unsuccessful, visually restrained,unmemorable characters and performances, ending is disappointing and baffling.

RECOMMENDATION: Watch gdgd Fairies